The Tide of Life by Catherine Cookson

Author:Catherine Cookson [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780360454
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Well! She’d better get up out of this; birthday or no birthday the work had to be done, and Mrs Riley came the day. Oh, she thanked God for Mrs Riley, oh she did indeed. But then it wasn’t God she should be thanking but her Aunt Mary. She giggled to herself as she brought her legs over the side of the bed. Eeh, the things she thought!

Mrs Riley was a widow with no family and she supported herself by going out washing. She could earn up to half a crown a day at it, at least so she had said; but that, Emily thought, was stretching it a bit, and more than a bit. However, stretching it or not, that’s what she got here, together with her food. The master picked her up in Fellburn market any time between three and four on a Monday, and the minute she arrived she got down to it, putting all the washing in soak, and on the Tuesday she scrubbed, boiled, possed and mangled the entire week’s wash, and if the mistress had been in one of her tantrums, or perhaps two or more of them, the bedding took on the form of a linen mountain. Then on the Wednesday she ironed, and if the weather had been good for drying and she was finished early, she scrubbed out the kitchen, blackleaded the stove, washed out the pantries and the meat store, and if time permitted scalded out the dairy. Then on the Thursday morning she walked to the crossroads outside the village and there caught the carrier cart back into Fellburn. And for her two days’ work, and a bit, she got six and sixpence, together with her meals and a bed, though the last wasn’t what she herself would have offered her, being but a straw shakedown in the barn loft. This was because the mistress wouldn’t have her bedded in one of the attic rooms.

But Emily couldn’t be too sorry for Mrs Riley, because whoever heard of anyone claiming a wage like that, six and sixpence for two days and a bit, and as much grub as she could push into herself; not that she begrudged her her good fortune and wasn’t thankful for her assistance, but being human she couldn’t but compare the wage for those two days’ work with the five shillings she now got for six and a half days’ work, which days began at six in the morning and if she was lucky finished at eight at night.

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