some good reason and will return when he is ready.’
Ruth nodded and looked more cheerful. ‘Bless you, Miss Hetty, thank you for puttin’ my mind at ease. The master had seemed restless for a while and then, when Miss Ross agreed to wed him – well, I’d never seen him as happy. It was such a tragedy.’
‘Yes, it was,’ Hetty agreed, though privately she had her doubts that Arthur would have found lasting happiness with Katharine Ross. No doubt Katharine had felt some tenderness towards Arthur, perhaps loved him in her gentle way – but not with the wholehearted passion he deserved. But perhaps Hetty was biased, because she loved him herself, loved him with a passion she knew matched his own capability for love, though she would never have stood in his way. She cared only that he found peace and happiness for he had surely suffered enough remorse for any man.
At that moment a knock came at the door and Ruth went to answer it. Hetty looked for her to return, hopeful of some news concerning Arthur. Instead she was followed by a young girl Hetty had come to know well in recent weeks; she had, no doubt, brought medicine for one of their ladies.
‘Here’s Eliza come with herbs for our Sarah’s cough …’ Ruth announced. ‘I asked her to step in and take a glass of milk and a biscuit.’
Hetty nodded her approval. Eliza worked and cared for the apothecary, taking her cures to those in need and sometimes visited them at Hetty’s behest, for her ladies had often suffered and needed medicines to help them overcome their ills. A young, pretty girl, Eliza had both compassion and courage, for she had survived the cruellest upbringing in the workhouse.
Hetty knew that Arthur believed Eliza was his child, born of a young country gentlewoman, long dead now, and through misfortune given to a workhouse where she had suffered terribly before being rescued.
‘I am happy to see you, Eliza dear. Come, sit with us and tell us how you are – and Miss Edith, too.’
Eliza smiled. ‘I am well, ma’am, though I fear Miss Edith is not as strong as she might be.’
‘I am sorry for that,’ Hetty said looking at her with sympathy. ‘You know you may come to us if you are worried or distressed and we shall do our best to help you. My door is always open to you, Eliza.’
Eliza smiled at her sweetly and in that smile, Hetty saw something of the man she admired, and in her heart had always loved. Arthur only needed to see that smile to know for sure that she was his daughter, but Hetty knew that for the moment his grief had made him blind to anything but his memories of Katharine and her loss. He worried what to do for Eliza for the best, because she loved Miss Edith and to take her from the woman who had given her a home might distress her, and yet he wanted her to have the life she deserved. Once he’d managed to set his grief aside, he would undoubtedly put his mind to ensuring Eliza’s future happiness.
‘Miss Edith told me to make sure that Sarah knows the dose is once every six hours, Miss Hetty,’ Eliza said. ‘She should not take more.’
‘We’ll look after her, don’t you worry …’ Ruth said and smiled at her. In the workhouse she had looked after Eliza as if she were her own child for she had none to love and truly cared for the girl.
Hetty knew it was on Ruth’s mind that she needed to tell Eliza the secret she’d kept all these years, to give her the diamond trinket she’d discovered pinned inside her shawl – placed there, Ruth had no doubt, by the mother who had been forced to give her up. However, she agreed with Hetty that she needed to ask Arthur Stoneham’s permission before she did so and in all the distress of the past weeks she had not dared to ask.
‘Has Mr Stoneham returned from the country?’ Eliza asked suddenly.
‘Not yet – did you wish to speak to him?’
Eliza hesitated and then nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am but it is not important. I know Mr Stoneham is a busy man. I only wished to ask if he had found any record of who brought me to the workhouse. He did say he would help me if I asked …’
‘Arthur will return soon I am sure and you may ask him then. He has spent the weeks since Katharine’s death, at Christmas, searching for her sister, but I fear too many years have passed for him to succeed. Only a little miracle would bring that to pass.’
‘Her death was very sad, ma’am. We were sorry to hear of it …’
Hetty sighed. It would take a miracle and a persistence few could muster to find someone who had disappeared all those years ago. No one but Arthur Stoneham would have attempted it. She had calmed Ruth’s fears, but she too wondered where Arthur was, for she had expected his return before this. His cousin, Matthew Soames, who was also his secretary, was taking care of business in Arthur’s absence, but Hetty felt it keenly. Arthur Stoneham was never far from her thoughts or her prayers these days. Yet she believed that if he had not returned from his search there must be a good reason for his tardiness.
Bella sat on the stairs, hugging her thin arms about her body as the tears trickled down her cheeks. She hated this place – and most of all she hated Mistress Brent. Mistress Brent was the warden in charge of the female section of the workhouse but her husband was the master. He ruled the house with a rod of iron and even his wife had been seen with black eyes after he’d beaten her. It was after he’d taken his wrath out on Mistress Brent that she vented her spite on the women and girls in her charge – but most of all on Bella.
Bella had no idea why the mistress despised her and ill-used her so much more than the other children. A harsh, thin-faced woman, tall and skinny but very strong, when Mistress Brent gripped Bella’s arms, her fingers dug in so hard they bruised her and she had black and mauve marks all over them. The mistress had a long thin cane, which she used whenever she felt inclined, striking out at anyone she thought was being disobedient or impertinent. She made the children line up for everything – food, visits to church or the schoolroom, which was a privilege reserved only for those the mistress favoured, despite the law that said children must be educated between the ages of five to ten years. Bella had learned to write her name, but she could not read more than a few letters nor could she reckon numbers, even though some of the women inmates said that it was a disgrace she had been denied this right.
‘It’s the law that all the children should be taught their letters, numbers and to read, as well as sewing and other things and the child’s ripe to learn,’ they’d said amongst themselves, but no one dared to say it to the mistress’s face. All the women and girls obeyed their mistress almost by instinct, their spirits long subdued, and it was Bella alone who refused to march in time to her tune. She ran when she should walk and talked when she was ordered to be silent and took her punishment without tears. Something told Bella that, whatever she did, she would be beaten and ill-used and a fierce pride inside would not let her lie down and let the mistress wipe her feet on her.
Bella was good with a needle. Her eyes were sharp and her stitches were neat, and because of that she was given most of the mending to do. She was allowed to sit in the special room reserved for the seamstresses and help them in the afternoons, but in the mornings she was set tasks like scrubbing the floors or washing dishes. Yet she suspected that if her needlework had not been so neat, her life might have been harder. There were far worse jobs in the workhouse – the laundry, which was hot and damp and smelly; picking oakum, which made hands bleed, and slopping out the latrines. They stank, especially in summer, and they were cleared manually by the men, but children had to wash them down after the men had taken the stinking effluent away. Bella had been given that job once but since then she’d been fortunate enough to be sent to the sewing room.
Bella had learned about the woman who had given birth to a healthy child
