Sixpenny Girl Page 2

  ‘Help me, Saran . . . help me, child!’

  Tears hot against her closed lids, Saran heard the cry again in her head. She had never seen a child birthed, how could she help? But without assistance her mother might die. That one thought had quieted the doubts, stilled the chaos in her brain. She had run to the room she shared with her sister and snatched a clean cotton nightgown from a drawer of the dresser, laying it across the foot of her mother’s bed; then she fetched the threadbare sheet they had washed and set aside for the purpose, and spread it beneath the panting figure. If only her mother had explained the process of childbirth as she had spoken of the need for the sheet . . . but she had not. Saran remembered the desperation that had swamped her. But somehow she had kept it a controlled desperation. Outwardly calm she had talked quietly to the heaving figure, soothing . . . quiet . . . holding an air of reassurance she herself had been far from feeling. Praying for guidance, asking heaven for the help she needed, she had placed her mother’s legs so the knees pointed to the ceiling, then, speaking with a new-found authority, had told her to breathe long and slowly, doing it with her while the pain-filled eyes had clung to her face. Then the child had come. Exhausted, her mother had sunk into the pillows and she, Saran, had washed the tiny dead body of her half-brother.

  It had been all over when, at one o’clock in the morning, Miriam and the midwife had returned, the older woman saying she had been at a birth on the far side of Shepwell Green.

  ‘There were naught you could ’ave done that you didn’t do.’

  Fanny Simkin had looked at the marble-cold body of the newborn baby.

  ‘At seven months they don’t stand a lot o’ chance o’ bein’ born alive. You need set no blame agen yourself for ’twas a deal o’ sense you showed and ’tis like enough you ’ave your mother’s life to show for it.’

  She had looked once more at the poor little body, marking the sign of the cross on forehead and chest before wrapping it again in the cotton nightdress.

  ‘Where be Enoch Jacobs?’

  Stunned as she had been by all that had happened, Saran had not failed to notice the woman did not afford him the usual courtesy of calling him ‘the man of the house’. Hearing he had not returned as yet she had simply looked at the tired figure in the bed then back to Saran.

  ‘When you hears the whistle along of Priestfield pit calling the miners to their shift you get yourself to Lizzie Beckett’s grocer shop along of Froysell Street; tell ’er Fanny Simkin sent you, ’er’ll gie you a soapbox to lay the child in, and for sixpence Joby Crump will see it laid in ’oly ground.’

  She had thanked the woman, moving with her to the bedroom door. There Fanny Simkin had paused, her voice lowering as she glanced back over her shoulder at the bed. ‘Your mother be worn out . . . ’er don’t be well enough for the kind o’ attention Enoch Jacobs be interested in, you understands me, wench? Your mother be too weak to carry more babbies, the next one be like to see the end of ’er.’

  The woman’s words had been more than kindly advice, they had been a warning, one Saran had done her utmost to heed. Beginning that same morning she had begun to sell everything which belonged to her personally; the locket her father had given her to mark her thirteenth birthday, saying proudly his little wench were now a young lady, the ivory bracelet that had been a gift on her Confirmation. One by one they had gone and after them had gone Miriam’s little treasures, the doll she cherished going last of all.

  Lifting her head Sarah gazed at the sky, the last of the sun’s scarlet setting spilling like blood on the horizon.

  Selling the doll had been the hardest task of all. Miriam had tried not to cry but tears had trembled in her soft eyes. It had all but broken her own heart and their mother had pleaded with her to give the toy back, yet Fanny Simkin’s warning had been stronger. While there was one item in the house, one thing that would bring money to pay for Enoch Jacobs’s beer and women, then it must be sold; only that way could she keep him from taking his pleasure from her mother, only that way could she keep her safe.

  2

  Shivering with cold, Saran jerked awake. Overhead the blackness of the sky was pierced with pale lemon silver ribbons of moonlight rippled on the dark waters of the canal. Enoch Jacobs had kept close to the waterway, shunning the villages, avoiding being seen with a girl he kept yoked and bound.

  He had first fastened them together after he had caught them running away. There had been nothing else to sell and, desperate for her mother and sister, she had talked them into leaving. But Enoch Jacobs had found them soon enough and roped them together, not even freeing them to make their toilet. It had been her fault; the indignity her mother had suffered had been her fault!

  A sob catching in her throat, she pulled at the rope holding her to a tall bush but all it did was bite into her flesh. If only she could sever that cord, get away from Jacobs, she could find her family.

  ‘I tells yer, if you wants it then yer must bid forrit along o’ the rest.’

  Hearing the raucous voice grating the quietness of the night, Saran glanced to where the canalside alehouse gleamed in the darkness.

  ‘My offer be a good ’un.’ A second voice, equally rough, answered the first.

  ‘I ain’t sayin’ it don’t be, what I do be sayin’ be this, mebbe somebody else’s offer’ll be better.’

  ‘Oh ar! An’ mebbe’s nobody else’ll bid at all!’

  The strident laugh Saran recognised as her stepfather’s echoed in the shadows.

  ‘Could be as yoh’ll be proved right, an’ then agen it could be as yoh won’t; we’ll ’ave to wait an’ see.’

  They had reached the bush he had left her tethered to, his hand releasing the rope and jerking her to her feet as he laughed again. Outlined against the moonlight, their faces hidden from its glow, two men of roughly the same stature stood over her but Saran had no need of light to know the face of one, heavy-jowled and by this time red and suffused with drink; but the other . . . why had he come?

  ‘I puts another shillin’ on my offer . . . that meks it five, ye’ll get no more from the men as teks their ale in the Navigation.’

  The words had come after a lull during which Saran felt herself scrutinised.

  ‘Five shillin’!’ Enoch Jacobs turned to the man stood beside him. ‘That be yer bid . . . but ye’ll mek it in that tavern where others ’ave the same chance.’

  His bid! Snatched along, Saran prised her fingers beneath the rope which was choking off her breath. Bids . . . auction! The awful truth hit like a sledgehammer. He had sold her mother and sister . . . auctioned them as you would an animal . . . and now it was her turn!

  Inside the low-ceilinged tap room, smoke from clay tobacco pipes curled thick on air warmed by the large open fire. Pulled to a table placed in the centre of the sawdust-covered floor, Saran was shoved on to it while Enoch Jacobs called to the tavern’s occupants to draw closer.

  Blinking against moisture the bank of smoke brought to her eyes, she kicked at a hand touching her ankle.

  ‘Yer don’t want to go biddin’ for that, Zeke. One night ridin’ a filly wi’ such blood’ll ’ave yer on yer back fer weeks!’

  The laughter following the taunt rang against blackened roof timbers but the calls came louder still.

  ‘It don’t be yer back yer should worry over, Zeke, it be yer front pervides the pleasure, an’ I reckons that wench’d wear yer’n out wi’ in a couple o’ nights.’

  ‘That be just like yoh, Jake Pedley, yer gives advice cos yer be past settin’ Zeke an example.’

  ‘Oh ar, if yoh knows so much about advice then act on it ’stead o’ talkin’ on it!’

  Cheers ringing around the room had Enoch Jacobs shouting for order. Stood on the table, Saran looked at the faces of a dozen or so men all staring at her, men whose eyes stroked her body. A shudder racing through her, she felt panic clog her throat. This was no play on Jacobs’s part, he would sell her as he had the others.

  ‘A man don’t buy goods
’e ain’t examined.’ Grey-whiskered, a muffler tied about his neck, a squat-looking man pushed closer to the table. ‘It be one thing lookin’ at a frock but what lies beneath . . . yer wants our money then I says yer shows what it is we be buyin’.’

  ‘Perkins be right.’ A voice rose at once to champion the grey-whiskered man. ‘No man buys a pig in a poke.’

  ‘Well, one thing be certin . . .’ Zeke grinned, showing black-rimed teeth, ‘yoh can’t lose wot ain’t in yer pocket, Jake Pedley, yer don’t ’ave tuppence to bless yerself wi’ let alone money enough to buy yerself that little bed warmer.’

  ‘An’ I supposes it be a full pocket meks yoh talk so cocksure!’

  ‘Be it an auction yer wants or a slangin’ match!’ Enoch’s closed fist came down hard on the table. ‘If it be the last then I’ll be tekin’ my sale further along the cut for—’

  ‘Five shillin’!’

  Eyes closed against the shame of standing on a table being ogled by those men, Saran recognised the voice she had heard outside.

  ‘Five shillin’ . . . that be my offer, tek it or not as yer pleases.’

  Several moments of silence passed, marked only by the puff of tobacco pipes and the occasional sizzle of saliva spat into the fire.

  ‘Five measly bloody shillin’!’ Jacobs found his tongue. ‘This ’ere don’t be no bawdy ’ouse wench . . .’

  ‘Nor do five shillin’ be the price yer would pay for one of ’em!’

  Cries of assent issuing from the gathered men told the offer was not likely to be bettered, not here in the Navigation. But like the half a crown got for her mother, the money would not last long and then how would his comfort be bought? Unless . . . Enoch Jacobs smiled to himself as the solution crept into his brain . . . unless instead of disposing of his asset in one final sale he sold it a little at a time . . . or rather he didn’t sell the wench at all but hired her out at every hostelry he cared to call at . . . Many a man would pay for a tumble and a few shillin’ a night would amount to a satisfactory living for Enoch Jacobs.

  ‘I pleases not to tek yer offer . . .’

  A wave of relief sweeping over her, Saran released the breath she had not realised was imprisoned in her chest. He was not going to submit her to such barbaric treatment!

  ‘. . . but to mek another one altogether.’ Enoch Jacobs’s voice was suddenly the only one in that murky, smoke-filled room. ‘I wishes to give every man ’ere a chance o’ a little pleasure. For a shillin’ yer gets to lie wi’ the wench . . . gets to strip off all ’er be wearin’ . . . do what yer’ve often dreamed, an’ all it’ll cost be one shillin’ . . .’

  ‘A shillin’! I can get an hour fer a tanner along o’ Willenhall town . . . there be many a floozie there be only too glad to tek it.’

  The smile breaking on to his mouth, Enoch looked in the direction of the shout. ‘Yer would be wastin’ yer money; judgin’ by what I sees o’ you I reckons what you got atwixt your legs would be spent an’ empty afore the woman ’ad ’er drawers off !’

  ‘I’ll pay yer a shillin’.’

  Tears of fright blinding her vision, Saran could only listen, her heart pounding with every word. Was this what had happened with her mother and sister, had they been stood on a table, had they been pawed and humiliated while men bid against each other, as she was? But Jacobs said he had sold them outright, she had seen another man lead them away, seen her mother’s tears, tears of sorrow at parting from a daughter . . . But was that all that lay behind her sobs? Every sense, every nerve in Saran’s body jarred as the next thought entered her mind: could her mother’s tears have been more for her younger daughter, for an eight-year-old girl bought for the purpose of prostitution? Not that! Her tears spilling, Saran lifted her shackled hands to her face. Dear God in Heaven, not that!

  ‘A shillin’ be the payment for entry after the amusement ’as bin opened.’ Jacobs grinned at the listening group. ‘But for the privilege of bein’ the first to go in, the one who opens it as yer might say, then the price be ’igher, an’ afore yer goes complainin’, let me remind yer it ain’t no carpet bag yer be layin’ yer money out for, it can’t go bein’ closed after tekin’ what yer wants, yer can only pick a flower from its stalk once an’ this ’ere wench be a bloom as ain’t never bin picked afore.’

  ‘I still says that when a man offers goods fer sale ’e should let the buyer see what ’e be offerin’ for.’ Jake Pedley sidled to stand beside the grey-whiskered man. ‘I says we should see fer us selves if what yoh ’ave on that there table be worth our money.’

  There were two ways to go. Jacobs’s brain struggled with his body’s clamour for drink. He could walk out of the door taking the girl with him. But that way he must wait for the sweet ambrosia, the ale that brought him so much pleasure, for he had not a penny remaining of that money and this landlord allowed no tankard to be filled until payment was in his pocket; that left only the selling of the wench and that was like to take some time, seeing the tight-fisted attitude of the men collected around her . . . unless he whetted their appetites!

  ‘Never say Enoch Jacobs was one to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes—’

  ‘Never mind the wool,’ a voice from the rear of the room cut through the smoke haze, ‘just lift that frock over ’er eyes.’

  Laughter ringing in her ears Saran dropped her hands, holding her skirts against her knees, but as a sharp blow from Jacobs sent her almost toppling from the table, she had to lift them to steady herself, and in that moment her skirts were thrown high.

  ‘A man buys ’isself a mare to ride only after he feels the flesh be sound.’

  As he spoke the grey-whiskered man ran a hand up along Saran’s leg, shoving it beneath her bloomers rubbing his fingers over the soft mound that topped her legs.

  ‘And the tits,’ Jake Pedley’s lips slavered, ‘gie we a peek at the tits!’

  What were these men doing to her . . . had they done the same things with her sister, a child who knew nothing of their sordid purpose? For a moment she saw the small face, fear robbing it of colour, confusion widening gentle blue eyes, and in that moment her own fears disappeared, leaving in their wake a raw, biting fury, an ice-cold repugnance, an abhorrence of the man who had plundered her life, robbed her of everything she loved in the world and now was robbing her of common decency. Loathing rising like an iceberg in her heart, she snatched her skirts from Jacob’s grasp, at the same time lashing a booted foot towards that grey-whiskered face.

  It had been bedlam, the smoke-filled room had erupted as her foot had sent that man falling backwards, fists flying as those at the edge of the crowd had surged forward to obtain a better view while others bayed for blood. And it was her blood they had called for: how dare a woman strike a man! How dare a woman do anything? Saran touched a cheek still swollen from Enoch Jacobs’s beating. It was 1837 and England was a civilised country, yet still a woman could not count her life her own.

  Enoch Jacobs had grasped the rope that held her, hauling her from the table as those cries had broken out, dragging her behind him out into the night; but not before he had snatched a pot that held the stake from a card table. The money had kept him in ale that following night and her with a slice of bread and cheese; Jacobs realised he must at least feed her his leavings if he was to reap the harvest he had set himself.

  He had not attempted that again as yet, but he would. Saran knew it was only a matter of time; once his stolen funds were exhausted it would begin all over, the taunts, the pawing, the humiliation!

  She prayed with every nightfall that he would fasten her hands and neck less securely, that just one time the ale he consumed in the daytime would have his brain so fuddled he would forget to tether her at all; but he never did. Always he checked her bonds before leaving her to enter some tavern, to ensure they were firm, just as he had checked them tonight.

  ‘Always say your prayers, trust the Lord and He will take care of you.’

  How many times had her mother murmured those words wh
en saying goodnight to Miriam and herself? Saran tasted the bitterness in her throat. Was this the care He gave, was allowing women and children to be sold like animals the care He gave! Were they lies they had been told during those long Sunday sermons in St John’s church, lies like those told by Enoch Jacobs when courting her mother? ‘Come to me and I will take care of you’. Was there no difference between God and man, were they both liars?

  Huddled into herself for warmth Saran tried to sleep, but the coolness of the night breeze coupled with her misery defied the effort. If only she were given the shelter of a doorway but, from the first day of leaving Clemson Street, Jacobs had avoided villages keeping strictly to the canal towpath, always forcing her to sit on the ground, ensuring her clothing covered the bonds set about her hands and throat, hiding them from view when any narrow boat passed.

  The sound of voices calling goodnight had her raise her head. Drunk as she knew he would be, Enoch Jacobs stumbled across the empty ground waving a bottle as he came towards her.

  ‘Shgone . . . sh’all gone.’ He sagged to the ground, swigging from the bottle. ‘Money’s all gone but Enoch Jacobs’ll get sh’more. He be sh’mart, do old Enoch, knows ’ow to get money ’e do.’

  The face was lost in shadow but Saran knew it would be heavy with drink, the eyes bleary and half closed, the words coming from wet lips slurred in their boasting.

  ‘’E’ll find ’ishelf another Zadok Minch.’

  The bottle lifted, wavering with every rise and fall as Jacobs tipped more and more of the contents into his mouth. What did he mean when he had said he would find another Zadok Minch? Had someone else been robbed of their money? Had he stolen another stake from a card table? But there had been no sounds of rumpus from the tavern, no angry shouts or crash of falling men and furniture; so what had he meant? Alert now, Saran listened closely but the mumbling ceased, drunken snores taking their place. Grateful for the few hours of peace his stupor would give she rested her head on her drawn-up knees. Perhaps tomorrow would see a change . . . perhaps tomorrow she would be given a chance to escape.