The Doorstep Girls Read online

  About the Book

  Ruby and Grace had grown up in the slums of Middle Court, the poorest place in Hull. Friends since early childhood, they had supported each other in bad times and good. Ruby’s ma, Bess, addicted to the opium which dulled the pain of her miserable existence, tried hard to be a good mother, but without too much success, while Grace’s parents, Bob and Lizzie, looked after the girl – as well as their own family – as best they could. But the two families were bound together by more than friendship, and secrets from the past threatened to make their hard lives even more difficult.

  The local cotton mill had provided work for Ruby and Grace since they were nine years old, but with the decline of the industry they, like many others, were cast off. Both girls found themselves the object of attention from the mill owner’s sons, but as times grew harder and money became ever scarcer, Grace became involved in a militant campaign against poverty and injustice, while Ruby was tempted into prostitution. Both girls were searching for something which would take them far away from the slums they had always known.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  About the Author

  Also by Val Wood

  Copyright

  THE

  DOORSTEP GIRLS

  Val Wood

  To my family with love

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to Catherine for reading the manuscript and to Peter and Ruth for their support and encouragement.

  Books for general reading:

  Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas De Quincey, 1822.

  History of the Town and Port of Hull, James Joseph Sheehan, 1866.

  Victorian Women, Joan Perkin, 1993. John Murray Ltd.

  Living and Dying: a picture of Hull in the Nineteenth Century, Bernard Foster.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The two girls sat side by side on the doorstep, their knees drawn up and chins resting in their hands. They both stared vacantly into space without speaking. It was midsummer in 1848, and the dank and narrow court was humid and sticky. It stank of putrid decay, sewage, and of seed oil and blubber drifting in from the mills situated close by along the river Hull. The ground beneath their bare feet was unpaved and muddy yet they chose to sit outside on the stone slab, with their cotton skirts tucked under them, rather than be indoors; they had both been inside mill walls since six o’clock that morning and it was now seven o’clock in the evening.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Ruby muttered. ‘I’ve had nowt to eat since this morning and that was onny a bit o’ bread.’ Her face was pinched and white, and made more colourless by the contrast of her dark hair, which strayed from beneath her cotton cap and across her forehead.

  ‘Did you take no dinner to work?’ Grace asked, and when Ruby shook her head, said anxiously, ‘Shall I ask Ma if she’s got any broth to spare?’ She knew that although there was little food in her own house, there would be none at all at Ruby’s.

  They both looked up and turned their heads as they heard a rumble of cartwheels coming down the narrow alley into the court. ‘Who’s this then?’ Grace murmured.

  ‘Dunno, but they’ll have a job getting that cart down here,’ Ruby said as a wooden cart, piled high with odd pieces of furniture, came into view and scraped against the walls of the alley in an attempt to push itself through. ‘Watch out for that brickwork,’ she called out. ‘You’ll have ’landlord after you if you damage it.’

  They heard a snort of derision and they both laughed as, with a grinding and grating, the cart was sent with a violent shove into the court. A man and a youth of about eighteen manhandled the contents in a valiant attempt to keep the furniture, a table, three chairs and a pendulum clock, from crashing to the ground. A woman walking behind the cart screeched at them to be careful and although the man glared at Ruby and Grace as if it was their fault that the furniture was falling, the youth winked and smiled, and the two girls turned to each other and raised their eyebrows.

  ‘You moving in opposite?’ Ruby asked. ‘To Mrs Roger’s old place?’ The house across from where they were sitting had the door and both downstairs and upstairs windows boarded up.

  ‘Well, just look at that,’ the woman complained, ignoring Ruby’s question and staring at the boarded door. ‘They said it would be open! How are we supposed to get in?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Ma,’ the youth said. ‘I’ve got a crowbar about me somewhere.’

  ‘No need,’ Grace interrupted. ‘My ma’s got a key.’

  The woman turned to her. ‘Then let’s be having it. We can’t stand here all night!’

  ‘Landlord boarded it up,’ Ruby disclosed as Grace rose to her feet and went inside her door. ‘Vagrants kept moving in. Let down ’tone of neighbourhood, you know!’ but, as the woman didn’t smile or comment, added cheerfully, ‘Not that they stayed long. ’Place was overrun wi’ rats and mice.’

  The woman grimaced in distaste, but then turned as Lizzie Sheppard, Grace’s mother, came out holding an iron key in her hand. ‘Tek no notice of her,’ she said. ‘Sanitary men have been and put poison down. There’ll be none there now, onny dead ones anyway.’

  She pursed her lips as the woman shuddered and pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. Lizzie said sharply, ‘Been used to summat better, have you? Well, you’ll have to put up wi’ it till your fortune turns.’

  She handed over the key. The woman took it without a word and moved away, but the youth came towards them. ‘Thanks.’ He touched his cap. ‘I’m Daniel Hanson and they’re my ma and da. They’re a bit put out.’ He lowered his voice. ‘This is ’third move we’ve had in six months.’

  ‘How come? Didn’t you pay ’rent?’ Ruby asked, looking up at him from the doorstep, whilst Grace leaned in the doorway, her fair head on one side as she scrutinized the newcomer.

  He shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t that. But my da’s lost his job and Ma can’t settle.’ He grimaced. ‘He’s a joiner and he’s lost his fingers on his right hand.’

  ‘That was careless.’ Grace’s mother folded her arms across her thin chest. She wore a large sacking apron over her dark skirt and a man’s cap on her head. Like her daughter, s
he was fair, but her hair, scraped back into a bun, was intermingled with strands of white. ‘How did he manage that?’

  ‘He was showing an apprentice how to saw a piece of timber and was holding it steady for him. He was distracted for a minute and ’lad sawed right over his hand.’

  ‘Didn’t ’company pay him owt? If it wasn’t his fault?’ Ruby asked boldly. ‘Sometimes they do.’

  Daniel was interrupted in his answer by his mother calling to him. ‘Daniel! Don’t stand there gossiping like an old woman. Come and help your da with this furniture.’

  ‘Nosy beggars,’ she muttered as Daniel came across and lifted one end of the table. He and his father manoeuvred it through the door. ‘I hope you didn’t tell ’em all our business?’

  ‘Course I didn’t. Anyway, what’s there to tell? Everybody round here is down on their luck, we’re no different from anybody else!’

  ‘Huh! Don’t class me with ’likes of folk round here!’ His mother’s mouth turned down. ‘And if they get a whiff that your da got some benefit from his accident, we’ll have all ’beggars from Hull after us.’

  Daniel’s father spoke for the first time. ‘In another couple o’ months there’ll be nowt of it left anyway,’ he muttered. ‘So we shan’t have to worry about folks knowing owt.’

  ‘I’ll be earning soon, Da,’ Daniel assured him. ‘Then we’ll be all right. We’ll soon be set up again. We just have to hang on till then.’

  His mother looked around the small dark room. ‘What a comedown. I never thought I’d be brought to this. When I think of my nice little house!’

  ‘Shut up will you, woman,’ her husband bellowed in a sudden burst of frustration. ‘It wasn’t my fault, it was that stupid lad’s.’

  ‘I never said it was your fault!’ his wife retaliated. ‘But you should have been watching him.’

  ‘Think I did this on purpose?’ He shook his injured hand at her. Only his thumb and swollen stumps of fingers below the knuckles were left, and she turned away.

  ‘Can you get ’board off ’window?’ she muttered. ‘Let’s get some light in here.’

  ‘I’ll do it. Will you help me, Da?’ Daniel reached for his tool bag and crowbar inside it.

  ‘Aye.’ His father’s voice was low and despondent. ‘From craftsman to labourer in ten seconds. That’s all it teks.’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ Daniel again assured him as they forced the board off the window. ‘You teach me all you know and as soon as I’m out of my time I’ll be earning good money. Then,’ he wrenched at the board over the broken door, ‘as soon as I’ve made a bit o’ money, we’ll get set up in business. You can talk to ’customers and look after accounts and I’ll do ’woodwork.’

  He spoke with such confidence that his father was almost reassured, until he returned indoors and saw his wife staring out of the window with a look of horror on her face. ‘Just look! I don’t believe what I’m seeing!’

  Her husband and son gazed past her through the cracked and dirty glass.

  ‘It’s a pig,’ she croaked. ‘A filthy stinking pig.’

  ‘She’s let that blasted pig out again.’ Ruby scrambled to her feet as the snuffling sow came towards them. ‘I swear I’ll kill it and have it for breakfast.’

  ‘You can’t.’ Grace moved further back into the doorway. ‘It’s having piglets. Ma!’ she called urgently into the house. ‘Mrs Peck’s pig is out again.’

  Her mother appeared with a broom and brandishing it furiously she swept the grunting sow back to the high wall which enclosed the court, and towards a dilapidated wooden structure, barely big enough for a dog, let alone a pregnant sow. Against this wall and at one side of the pigpen was a water pump and at the other side was the privy which served the twelve houses in the court. The ground below the broken door of the privy seeped with foul and stagnant water and flies and mosquitoes hovered about it.

  ‘Well at least she’s not keeping it inside ’house any more,’ she muttered, though her face showed no distaste, either for the grunting sow or for the stench emanating from the privy, so inured was she to her surroundings.

  ‘No, but she’s got chickens inside,’ Ruby groused. ‘They scratch about under her table and there’s mess all over ’doorstep!’ Ruby lived with her mother and younger brother in an upstairs room above the ground-floor room which housed Mrs Peck and her husband, six children, a dog, chickens and the pregnant sow which had now been turned out to graze in the rubbish-strewn court.

  ‘She should get back to ’countryside where she belongs if she wants to keep pigs and chickens,’ Lizzie Sheppard grumbled. ‘It’s bad enough trying to keep ’place clean without ’mess of stinking livestock. And they attract vermin,’ she added. ‘I can hear rats scratching every night.’

  ‘Her husband can’t get work in ’country,’ Grace volunteered. ‘She told me so herself. You know, that day when she gave us an egg.’

  ‘Aye,’ her mother muttered as she went back indoors. ‘I remember the egg, but do I have to be grateful for ever?’

  ‘Hello, Jamie!’ Ruby called to a youth appearing out of a house at the top end of the court. He was yawning and in his hand he had a slice of pie.

  ‘Hello, Jamie,’ Grace said hesitantly.

  He came across to them, then sniffed at the aroma drifting from the Sheppards’ doorway. ‘Mm, your ma’s cooking summat good, Gracie.’

  ‘Fish stew. My da brought some fish heads from off ’dock.’

  Ruby swallowed and licked her lips. ‘What you eating, Jamie?’

  ‘Beef pie.’ He took a bite, then handed the remainder to her. ‘Do you want it?’

  ‘Thanks.’ She tried not to appear too eager, but she was salivating so hard, and the sight of food and the savoury smell of fish and onions from Grace’s house was almost too much to bear.

  ‘What’s happening over yonder?’ He nodded towards the house where the Hansons had moved in. ‘New folks?’

  ‘Their name’s Hanson.’ Grace offered the information. ‘Mr and Mrs, and their son Daniel. Mr Hanson’s lost his fingers in an accident. He was a joiner.’

  ‘Mm. How old is he? Daniel Hanson?’

  ‘About ’same as you.’ Ruby spoke with her mouth full. ‘Not as handsome though!’

  ‘Well, no. Of course not!’ Jamie laughed as he spoke, but he sounded confident that what Ruby said in jest was true. He was tall and slimly built, fair-haired with pale blue eyes. He didn’t have the pinched and hungry look of most people living in this area. These folk never had quite enough to eat and certainly wouldn’t be inclined to give away a slice of beef pie. He was also quite well dressed and although the frock coat he wore was large on him, having come from a bigger man, it wasn’t threadbare but only a little worn around the cuffs and collar.

  ‘He’s got a nice face, though,’ Grace said. ‘And he smiles a lot.’

  ‘Must be a bit simple then,’ Jamie said lazily. ‘There’s nowt much to smile about, is there?’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Grace agreed, downcast. ‘Not for most people.’

  ‘Except for them as is rich and not allus hungry.’ Ruby licked her lips to catch the last crumb. ‘Thanks for ’pie, Jamie.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You can pay me back when you get your wages.’

  Ruby’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you joking?’ she said huskily. ‘My wages are spoken for – I owe –’

  ‘He’s joking, Ruby. You are, aren’t you, Jamie?’ Grace pleaded. ‘Say that you are!’

  He gave a sudden laugh. ‘Aye.’ He slouched against the window sill and gazed at her in a way which made her feel vaguely uncomfortable, and then from her to Ruby. ‘Course I am. But I might call in ’debt one day.’

  Ruby let out a sigh of relief. ‘If ever you’re desperate for a piece o’ pie, Jamie,’ she grinned, ‘just you call on me.’

  ‘Supper’s ready, Grace. Come on in.’ Grace’s mother called from inside the house.

  ‘Is there enough to spare for Ruby, Ma?’ Tho
ugh Grace asked her mother, she glanced at her father, who was sitting by the low fire.

  Bob Sheppard looked up. ‘Lass is earning money, same as you. Can’t she buy her own food?’ He spoke brusquely but Grace knew very well that he wouldn’t turn Ruby away.

  ‘She pays ’rent out of her wages, Da, you know that she does. And she keeps young Freddie as well as her ma.’

  Her father grunted, but her mother called out through the open door. ‘See if you’ve a bit o’ bread at home, Ruby, and you can have a bowl o’ soup to dip it in.’

  Ruby appeared in the doorway. ‘I know we haven’t, Aunt Lizzie. I ate ’last piece this morning afore I went out.’

  ‘So what’s Freddie had to eat all day?’ Lizzie paused with the iron saucepan in her hand. The pan was heavy, but Lizzie, who hired herself out as a washerwoman to the people in the big houses in the town, was strong, with muscular arms.

  Ruby knew that Freddie wouldn’t have had anything to eat, but she didn’t answer and watched as Grace’s mother poured the thin soup into three bowls which were already on the table. Ruby eyed them. ‘I’m not tekking yours, am I?’

  ‘No.’ Lizzie shook her head. ‘I’ve had my dinner already. ’Cook at High Street where I’ve been today, she allus does plenty of food on washday. Now tomorow, when I go to ’house in Albion Street, ’cook there is that mean she onny gives enough to feed a sparrow. Go on, sit down. There’s not much but it’ll fill a corner.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you and Mr Sheppard,’ Ruby said gratefully. ‘Ma just can’t seem to manage.’

  Bob Sheppard slurped his soup and dipped a thick slice of bread into it. ‘If she didn’t spend money on ’poppy and her pipe, she’d be able to,’ he muttered, glancing at his wife who raised her eyebrows at him, and Ruby nodded in agreement. It was acknowledged by everyone who knew Ruby’s mother, Bessie, that she was totally dependent on the opium which she bought raw and grated, and then mixed with herbs or leaves if she had no money for tobacco. She was never seen without her short clay pipe in her mouth. If she couldn’t afford to buy the raw, she dosed herself with laudanum bought from the grocer which was ready mixed with wine or spirits.

 
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