Workhouse Orphans by Holly Green

Author:Holly Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Nine

Freeman’s Wishes All Our Customers Health, Happiness and Prosperity in 1865

The notices were in all the windows of the shop. May hugged the idea to herself, feeling that it applied to her as well. A new life had opened up for her and she intended to grab the opportunities it offered with both hands.

From her first day working for Nan Driscoll she had known that she had found her proper place. Nan was an expert at her trade and seemed to enjoy imparting her skills, and, for May, the chance to spend her days surrounded by beautiful things was more than compensation for long hours and little pay. The shop opened at eight o’clock and she was expected to be there to prepare the equipment and materials for the day’s work.

Nan usually arrived about nine, and they worked together until six, except for an hour’s break for the midday meal. Then May had to stay and tidy up and sweep the scraps of fabric and threads of cotton off the floor before she went back to the house. But that was a vast improvement on what she had been used to. No more rising at the crack of dawn to scrub and dust; no more making up fires and pounding clothes in the copper and turning the mangle; no more being ordered about by Mrs Wilkins.

Nan owned a little terraced house ten minutes’ walk from the shop and May had a room on the top floor. It was not large, but there was a comfortable bed and a cupboard for her things, and on the floor below there was one of the new water closets, so no more emptying chamber pots. The only thing that bothered her was the fact that Nan was far from house-proud. The sitting room, which May was welcome to share, was strewn with bits and pieces left over from her trade, together with old newspapers and knick-knacks of various sorts; no one ever swept the stairs and the kitchen needed a thorough clean. Coming from a household where a speck of dust or a dirty dish would be seen as a crime against the natural order of things, May found this initially disturbing, and then wonderfully liberating.

She soon understood why Nan spent little time in the kitchen. The shop had a canteen, where all the workers took their main meal of the day at twelve o’clock, and in the evening Nan’s habit was to buy a pie or some fish and chips from a local shop. Cooking did not figure in her daily routine. May was happy to settle for that. She had spent long enough in a kitchen.

Usually, after they had eaten in the evening, Nan would declare that she was popping out for a ‘constitutional’. May at first assumed that this meant a walk, and offered to accompany her; but the offer was politely refused. ‘I’ll be meeting up with some old friends. It wouldn’t interest you.’ She returned with a smell on her breath that May could not at first identify.

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