‘I’m going to run away soon,’ Joe told her. ‘I think there is a way out of the cellar, a tunnel that leads to outside the walls. I stole a piece of candle from my dorm and I’m going to find the entrance and then, when I’m ready, we’ll both go – we’ll leave this place together and never come back.’
‘Oh, Joe!’ Eliza gave a little squeal of excitement. ‘You promise you’ll take me with you when you escape?’
‘I promise,’ Joe said and caught her hand, pressing it to his chest. ‘If they prevent us some way, I won’t forget you – and I’ll come back for you.’
‘I promise I’ll never forget you,’ Eliza said and sat snuggled up to his shoulder. They had no feast that night, nor in all the nights that followed that week and the next, but the warmth of friendship kept Eliza warm as no blanket ever had in this terrible place. Even her love for Ruth, the woman who had cared for her as a mother, did not make her feel like this. Joe was special, and she knew that nothing could ever make her forget him even if they were parted.
Sitting in the dark, hugging her precious ragged shawl about her, listening to Joe talk about his family and his travels from one country to another, took Eliza to the outside world, opening her mind to the idea that there was a different life – another place where it was possible to be happy and not to live in fear. Now that Joe was her friend, Eliza believed that it would not be long before she was free to leave the workhouse. She would go with Joe and they would find work somewhere while they waited for Joe’s father to be released from prison and then she would live with them in their caravan and go to wonderful places that she had never heard of.
‘I have a disobedient girl I want schooling,’ Joan said to the man who sat in her office drinking ale one morning, some twelve days after the gypsy boy arrived. Her visitor was a gentleman by birth, but his secret trade was not one he would ever wish his family to know of and he and Joan had done business more than once in the past. ‘What will you pay me for her? She is fresh and well-looking enough if she’s washed and clothed as your clients like.’
‘How old is she?’ the man asked, eyes narrowed. ‘Some interfering fool is making a fuss in the House of Lords about young girls being used for immoral purposes and if she was seen on the premises I might lose everything. Most of the time my clients turn a blind eye, but recently I’ve heard some of them question a girl’s age before they buy her services.’
Joan glared at him. In the past he’d been only too eager to take the younger girls. She knew he liked them himself and often used them first before passing them on to his rich clients. Only if the girl was virgin and very lovely did he keep her fresh for the highest bidder.
‘It is all very well for you, but we had an agreement. What am I to do with her? She defies me at every turn and beating her does no good – besides, the last time she nearly died and one of the governors told me if it happened again I should lose my place here.’
‘That would be Stoneham, I dare swear?’ her visitor said and nodded. He swore and spat on the floor, drawing a frown from Joan. She disliked his coarse manners, and would not have admitted him to her rooms had he not proved both useful and generous in the past. ‘He never visits my place nor any other brothel from what I can gather – sanctimonious fool! He has been stirring things in the background and one of his friends spoke in the Lords for half an hour concerning young girls – the white slave trade, he called it. What else is there for little guttersnipes but lying on their backs to earn their keep? Tell me that! They get food, clothes, a warm bed and a few shillings – left to themselves they’d sell their bodies for food and gin and sleep in the gutter, so where’s the harm? I swear they’re better off in my house. Damn the Honourable Toby Rattan and his friends! Such nonsense gets into the newssheets and it makes the clients edgy. They fear exposure for many of them have reputations to lose.’
‘And wives and children they would not wish to know of their guilty pleasures,’ Joan said, nodding in understanding. ‘I am disappointed, sir. I had hoped you would take her off my hands.’ It was inconvenient that he’d had an attack of conscience regarding young girls. Despite putting the girl on short rations and threatening her, Eliza still looked defiant and there was a smile in her eyes that irked Joan.
‘You should sell her to a master who would work her until she was too exhausted to defy him.’ Her visitor smiled unpleasantly. ‘He will use her in whatever way he chooses and no one will question him, for she will be his servant, and bought from the workhouse she has no rights – or none that she knows of. The law has double standards, for if it was known he took advantage of her in my house they would deem it unlawful, but in his own, none will know or care.’
‘Yes …’ She smiled cruelly. ‘I could not be blamed if she died at her master’s hands. I hired her to him in good faith – in the hope and belief she would have a new and useful life.’
‘Exactly.’ His eyes met hers in amused agreement. ‘Once all this fuss has died down I’ll take the girls again.’
‘I think I’ve found the way out,’ Joe told Eliza when she joined him that night. She’d managed to find a piece of soft bread in the kitchen, which she shared with him. ‘As I thought, it’s a tunnel of sorts. Once this cellar had a chute for coal outside the walls of the house. It has become neglected, covered by debris and filled in with earth and filth – but I can dig it out with my hands and a small digging tool I stole from the vegetable garden. Someone had left it lying on the ground and I took it.’ Eliza looked at him doubtfully in the darkness. ‘Well,’ Joe protested, ‘he should’ve taken more care of it!’
Eliza shook her head. Stealing food was punishable by restrictions and being shut up alone, but stealing a valuable tool from the vegetable plot was serious – Joe could be taken to the magistrate and sent to prison, which she’d heard from Ruth was much worse than being here. He might be birched, and he would be made to do hard work, perhaps even harder than he did now.
‘You must be careful, Joe.’
He laughed. ‘I shan’t get caught. I’ve hidden it with my clothes and the key to the cellar, and, as soon as we’re ready we’ll steal some food from the kitchen and then we’ll escape at night.’
‘Yes, I’m ready to go,’ Eliza said. ‘Can I help you clear away the debris?’
‘No, for it would make your clothes filthy. I work on the rope, so no one takes notice of me, but if you got your dress dirty they would be suspicious – and it would hurt your hands.’ Joe grinned at her. ‘It won’t be long, Eliza, I promise. Another week or so and we can leave this accursed place – and I’ll put a curse on that old witch too.’
Eliza giggled. It was fun to sit with her friend and plan their escape together. She nursed her secret inside as she went back to the dorm and snuggled up to Ruth, who was fast asleep. Eliza wasn’t sure if her friend knew she was meeting Joe, but if she did she wouldn’t tell anyone because Ruth would never do anything to hurt her. Eliza longed to escape from this place, but a part of her was reluctant to leave Ruth behind.
‘Mistress says you’re to wash yerself and put this on.’ Sadie thrust a dress at Eliza. It was old and worn but better than the uniform she was wearing, which had been mended so many times it had more patches than Eliza could count and marked her out as being refractory and therefore subject to punishment. ‘Be quick about it! She wants yer in her office sharpish or you’ll feel her stick.’
‘Am I going to church tomorrow? Is that why I’ve been given a different dress?’
‘How should I know?’ Sadie’s look was cunning and filled with malice. ‘Mistress never tells me what she’s goin’ ter do.’ Yet Eliza was sure she did know and was pleased.
Ruth looked at Eliza anxiously when Sadie had gone. ‘I wonder what mistress be up to now, my lovely,’ she said. ‘’Tis not Sunday tomorrow but Saturday so it cannot be church.’
‘Is she goin’ to send me away somewhere?’ Eliza felt a spurt of fear. There had been a time when she’d