Without Sin (2 page)

‘All right, all right, but you leave my Arthur alone.’

‘I will.’ Then Meg would add ominously, ‘As long as he leaves our Bobbie alone, an’ all.’

When Meg was twelve, Reuben found work as head wagoner to George Smallwood and brought his family to the cottage that came with the job. Reuben was good with horses, loved them and understood
them. Meg loved them too, the way the huge shires shook their great heads, snorted and stamped their heavy hooves. She loved their power, their might.

‘You’d make a good wagoner, Meggie,’ her father told her proudly and then spoilt it by adding, ‘if only you were a lad.’

Meg did not go back to school. She was old enough now to be employed on the same farm and soon she was under Mrs Mabel Smallwood’s eagle eye in the dairy. But Meg had never known such
happiness and contentment. She worked hard, though she rarely earned even the most grudging praise from the farmer’s wife.

And at last she found a real friend in the Smallwoods’ daughter.

Although Alice – buxom, fair-haired, blue-eyed and pink-cheeked – was five years older than Meg, she was kind to the young girl. There were no girls of a similar age to Alice on the
neighbouring farms, so the two were thrown together even in their spare time. Though there was not much of that for either of them, Meg thought wryly. Alice took Meg to the big church in South
Monkford every Sunday morning. They knelt together demurely during the service, but on the walk home Meg watched as Alice smiled coyly at the youths gathered near the church wall, laughing and
talking whilst they watched the girls parading in their Sunday best.

‘Come for a walk with us, Alice.’ One spotty-faced youth was a particular admirer, but Alice only tossed her hair and stuck her nose in the air. ‘What? With you, Harry
Warner?’

The young man grinned. ‘I was all right to walk out with last Sunday.’

Alice laughed her tinkling laugh and dimpled her cheeks. ‘That was last week.’

‘Oho, someone else, is there?’ He pressed his hand to his chest. ‘My heart is broken.’

‘I’m sure Lizzie Lucas will help it mend.’

‘Lizzie Lucas means nothing to me.’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’ Tossing her hair, Alice linked her arm through Meg’s and, with a cheery wave to all the watching youths, walked down the lane,
swinging her hips. Meg, too, turned, grinned saucily at the lads and then tried to copy Alice’s provocative walk.

Middleditch Farm lay in the rolling countryside of east Nottinghamshire. The nearest town was South Monkford, with narrow streets of shops and a market held on Wednesdays and Saturdays. On the
outskirts was a racecourse that was becoming quite famous and it was George Smallwood’s ambition to own a racehorse one day.

‘You’ll look after it for me, Kirkland,’ the farmer would say, clapping Reuben on the back. ‘We’ll rear a winner, eh?’

And several times a year, when there was a big meeting on, George and his wagoner would disappear for a day at the races. On those days Meg would lie in her bed at night under the eaves and
listen to her father stumbling about in the room below when he arrived home late and much the worse for drink. Her mother would be tight-lipped for days afterwards, but there was little Sarah could
do about it when it was their employer who was the ringleader in such escapades.

The family’s three years at Middleditch Farm had been the longest they had stayed anywhere that Meg could remember. And they had certainly been the happiest years for her. But suddenly,
disastrously, that had all changed. And Meg was very much afraid that somehow it was all her fault.

Had Mabel Smallwood found out about last Sunday’s picnic, when she and Alice had taken sandwiches, cakes and beer into the recreation ground beyond the church? They had sat on the grass in
the sunshine, talking dreamily about the kind of man they’d like to marry, when they’d been startled by two youths from the town whom Alice knew vaguely.

‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the lovely Alice Smallwood. And who’s this?’ The taller of the two young men had turned his attention to Meg, but it had been Alice who had
invited the lads to join their picnic. The four youngsters had had a merry afternoon. There’d been a little flirting, a little horseplay and when they parted in the early evening, a chaste
kiss. Though it had all been innocent enough, Mrs Smallwood wouldn’t think so. And, Meg thought fearfully, she would not blame her own daughter. In her eyes, Alice could do no wrong. No, the
mistress would lay any blame squarely on Meg’s head. But without going back to Middleditch Farm, there was little Meg could do to find out if this was the reason for their sudden
dismissal.

One day
, the young girl vowed,
I will find out. And I’ll tell Mrs Mabel Smallwood exactly what I think of her – and her precious daughter
. For what hurt Meg more than
anything was the growing realization that, whatever had happened to cause this catastrophe, Alice – her dear friend and confidante – had not spoken up for her.

That hurt the young girl much more than the fact that she and her mother and brother had now to enter the much-feared workhouse.

Lifting her head with a show of defiance, Meg said, ‘Come on, Mam – Bobbie. We’d best go and knock at the door.’

She pushed open the heavy gate and marched up a long, straight path leading through an orchard and neatly cultivated vegetable gardens. Sarah, with Bobbie holding her hand, trailed listlessly
behind her. They passed between high walls surrounding yards on either side of the main entrance at the front of the building and then climbed wide, stone steps to the white pillared door. Meg rang
the bell. Somewhere deep inside they heard a faint clanging. It seemed an age until the door was thrown open and the biggest man whom Meg had ever seen stood there looking down on them.

Isaac Pendleton, master of South Monkford workhouse, was six feet tall with a girth that seemed almost the same measurement. A large, bulbous nose dominated his florid face. His lips were fleshy
and wet and heavy jowls bulged out over the starched white collar. His dark hair, greying at the temples, was thinning and smoothed over his crown in a vain attempt to cover advancing baldness. Yet
his eyes seemed kindly.

‘What’s this? What’s this? Ragamuffins knocking at my front door?’ His voice was as large as his frame, deep and resonant. He was dressed in a dark, sober suit, but a
multi-coloured waistcoat, stretched tightly over his ample chest, lightened his otherwise sombre appearance. Looped across it was a gold watch chain. It was as if his position demanded that he
dress with sobriety and authority, yet his waistcoat revealed a more flamboyant side to his nature.

Sarah quailed and Bobbie shrank against his mother’s skirts, but Meg stood her ground and gazed boldly up at him. She opened her mouth, but before she could speak the master boomed,
‘Round the back with you. You’ll find someone there to direct you.’ He seemed about to shut the door in their faces, but then he hesitated. His gaze roamed over Meg’s face
and hair.

‘By,’ he murmured, ‘but you’ll be a beauty one day an’ no mistake.’ Then his glance went beyond Meg to Sarah’s face.

Though at present she was pale with distress and heavy with child, Isaac Pendleton, who prided himself on being a veritable connoisseur of women, could see beyond Sarah’s temporary
weariness. She was undoubtedly feeling humiliated too, he thought, at having to present herself at his door, but she was a pretty, gentle-looking creature with lovely eyes.

Isaac smiled. ‘My dear lady, pray come in.’ He bent closer, as if sharing a confidence. ‘We’ll break the rules for once, shall we? This is the main door to the
guardians’ meeting room and to my apartments. It’s not normally used by the – er – inmates. But come in – come in.’ He extended a long arm and ushered the
reluctant little family inside.

Isaac Pendleton was not at all what Meg had expected the workhouse master to be like. From the imposing look of the building’s walls and windows from the outside, she’d expected the
man in charge to be as threatening, treating people down on their luck as idle, good-for-nothings. Yet this man was leading them down a room, past the long, polished table to a door at the far end
on the left-hand side. Reaching it, he paused and turned. Putting his finger to his lips, he chuckled, ‘Now, not a word to the others, mind, else they’ll all expect to use the front
door. Go through here and out of the door on the right into the yard and then to the buildings on the far side. That’s the way you should have come in.’ He beamed benevolently down at
them. ‘The porter’s lodge is at the end near the entrance gate. See old Albert Conroy. He’ll admit you and then arrange for someone to take you to the bath room and fit you out
with uniforms.’ He took Sarah’s hand and raised it to his lips. ‘Don’t fret, my dear lady. You’ll be well looked after here. You and your little ones.’

For the first time since Reuben had brought home the dreadful news, Sarah managed a weak smile. ‘You’re very kind,’ she murmured and a faint tinge of pink touched her pale
cheeks.

They crossed the yard towards a door in the high wall – the door by which they should have entered the workhouse. Near it, at the end of a row of buildings, was the
porter’s lodge. As they approached, an old man appeared. He was scowling at them, his bushy white eyebrows drawn together. Several days’ growth of grizzled beard gave him the look of an
unkempt tramp. His clothes, crumpled and threadbare, hung loosely on him.

‘And where might you three ’ave come from? I didn’t see you come in.’ His voice was gruff and accusing. He walked with a limp that gave him a curious rolling gait, like a
sailor who has just stepped ashore after weeks at sea.

Bobbie cowered behind Sarah, burying his face against her skirt. ‘Mam,’ he wailed. ‘Mammy!’

Surprised, the old man looked down him. ‘No need for that, little feller. I ain’t gonna hurt yer.’ His voice, though still growly, was now kindly.

Meg stepped forward, protective of her little brother as ever, protective now of her mother too. ‘We came to the wrong door,’ Meg explained and treated him to her most winning smile,
‘but we’ve been told to report to you. Are you Mr Conroy?’

The old man stared at her for a minute. White-haired, wizened and crippled with arthritis, Albert Conroy lived out his existence in the lodge near the workhouse’s back gate, by which the
inmates entered and left. Each night it was Albert who admitted the vagrants and directed them to the bath room. From there they went to the casual ward, where they were allowed a meal and to stay
overnight in return for several hours’ work the following day. And it was Albert who saw other folks enter the building, never to leave again until they were carried out in a plain, rough
pauper’s coffin.

Few stayed to talk to old Albert and even fewer gave him the courtesy of addressing him by name. And now here was this pretty little thing calling him ‘Mr Conroy’ just as if he were
some toff in fancy clothes. He rubbed the back of his hand across his nose and mouth and sniffed. He tried a toothless smile, but found he had almost forgotten how to summon one up.

‘Aye, I am.’ His voice quavered. ‘Long time since anyone called me “Mr Conroy”.’ He paused and then added wistfully, ‘Time was when I was
“Albert” to mi friends, but now it’s just “Conroy” or just “eh-up, you”.’

Meg put her head on one side. ‘Wouldn’t it sound cheeky of someone like me to call you by your Christian name?’

Albert’s eyes watered. ‘Nah. Not a bit. I’d – I’d like to be called Albert by a pretty young wench like you.’

Meg held out her hand. ‘Albert it is, then. I’m Meg Kirkland and this is my mam and my little brother, Bobbie.’

The smile, long unused, quivered on his mouth and his voice was unsteady as he said, ‘Pleased to meet yer, mi duck, though I’m sorry to see you in a place like this.’

‘We won’t be here long,’ Meg said, forcing a cheerfulness she didn’t feel for the sake of her mother and Bobbie. ‘But as you can see –’ she gestured
towards her mother’s obvious condition – ‘mi mam needs somewhere to stay.’ Then she added quickly, ‘Mi dad’s gone to look for work and then he’ll be coming
back to fetch us.’

For a moment the old man looked doubtful, but then he said, ‘Aye, course he will, mi duck, course he will.’ More briskly, he added, ‘Now, let’s get down to business . .
.’

They followed Albert into the porter’s lodge, a grand-sounding name for what turned out to be one small, square room where the old man obviously lived.

‘They let me sleep here and eat here,’ he said with a note of pride, as if to live in this cold, sparsely furnished room was a privilege. Perhaps it was, Meg thought, for him, though
she couldn’t imagine a harsher fate than to end her days in such a way.

Just inside the door of his lodge was a table and open upon it was a ledger. A list of names was neatly written in copperplate script on each page. Albert picked up a pen and, poised to write,
looked up at Meg. ‘Now, tell me your full names, starting with yer mam.’

He wrote down the information with painfully slow deliberation, yet he was justifiably proud of the finished result. He asked a few more questions and then stood back, looking down with
satisfaction at the neat rows of writing.

‘It’s beautiful handwriting,’ Meg said.

‘I allus did have a good hand,’ Albert murmured. ‘And I like to keep mi book nice. The guardians always ask to see it when they ’ave one of their meetings here. I teks it
across to the committee room and the master shows them it.’

‘I wish I could write like that,’ Meg said.

‘Oh, it’s just practice, that’s all,’ the old man said modestly, but Meg could tell he was gratified by her praise. ‘Right, now I’d better get her ladyship to
tek you to the bath room and so on.’

‘Who’s “her ladyship”?’

Albert guffawed wheezily. ‘Waters.’

‘Is she in charge?’

‘She’d like to think she is. Nah. She’s an inmate – just like me. Mind you, the silly woman ’ad the chance to leave years ago, but wouldn’t.’

‘Wouldn’t leave?’ Meg was incredulous. ‘Why ever not?’