The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby

Author:Carolyn Kirby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oldcastle Books
Published: 2018-12-02T09:23:23+00:00

Eighteen

1881

the cut

Mrs Catch said the asylum wasn’t far from the Union house. You could just about see it from the gatehouse. Cora followed her along the big corridor from the dormitory, past the women’s receiving ward and into the porters’ lodge. There, they told Cora to write her name on a piece of paper. As she wrote, her eyes flickered over a list of all the clothes that she was wearing and the others in her bundle right down to the hanky.

Then Mrs Catch held out a brown envelope. ‘Cora Burns’ was written on it in spidery faded ink.

‘Here are your own things.’

Cora blinked. ‘What things?’

‘From when you were admitted.’

Cora shook her head. ‘I’ve always been here.’

‘No. You came as a babe in arms.’ Mrs Catch glanced down at the ledger. ‘Twenty-third of June 1865. Brought by a wardress.’

Cora had no notion of what a wardress might be but would not give Mrs Catch the satisfaction of asking. The flap on the envelope was not sealed and she lifted it to see a piece of stiff paper furred along the folds. Mrs Catch tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Come now, don’t dither. Put it safely in your bundle.’

They went outside into the gatehouse archway where whitewashed columns separated the covered pavement from the cartway. Even though it was Sunday, a line of vagrants, men and women, stood patiently by the receiving door. Cora had only ever seen the casuals in their workhouse clothes. She couldn’t help staring at the filthy rags they wore on this side of the gatehouse. One old man’s white belly flashed through a rip in the greasy blanket he had wrapped around himself. Cora looked away in case she saw more.

Mrs Catch walked briskly into the swirl of crisp air then stopped by the railings and pointed towards the cut. In the distance, pointed brick gables jutted out of bare trees.

‘Follow the canal until you see an entranceway. The sign is quite clear. It will not take you long.’ The railing gate squeaked open. ‘Off you go then. And don’t speak to anyone until you get there.’

Mrs Catch had already turned her back. The black frill on her tall bonnet quivered as she strode back to the archway.

Weak sunlight silvered the puddles on the empty road. Cora began to walk, her feet in time with a muffled banging somewhere inside the boiler-works across the way. She tried to feel hopeful. When Mrs Catch had come to the dormitory after chapel and told her to gather her things, Cora had done her best to make out that she didn’t care one way or another. But she knew that this meant that she was going, finally, to a situation. She seemed to have waited for this day longer than any of the other girls and should have been giddy to get away at long last, but the notion of walking alone out of the gatehouse scrambled her stomach.

She’d hardly ever been out. Some years ago, the workhouse foundlings

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