The Lost Jewels - Kirsty Manning Page 0,34

in despair.

Gertie was about to be consigned to a factory corner, pinning collars to shirts. Her fine hands would become raw and bloody from constant pinpricks.

Essie would do anything to stop it … she determined to try to convince Ma to let Gertie do the entrance examinations for the school for clever girls Miss Barnes had mentioned. But how?

When they reached home, Essie entered their tiny kitchen and almost tripped on the tin tub they used for bathing. It sat full of dirty water slick with grey suds, cold in front of the unlit boiler. Ma had forgotten to empty it when she’d finally woken and bathed.

‘Girls,’ she said over her shoulder to Gertie and the twins as they piled into the kitchen, ‘can you carry this outside to the lav and tip it out, please?’

She heard them sigh in unison behind her, but didn’t dare turn to see their disappointed faces as they realised there was no Ma—and no supper—in the kitchen. Instead, she emptied lumps of coal into the boiler and struck a match so she could prepare supper and heat some water. Next, she lit the oil lamps, which bathed the floral wallpaper with warm light, but also highlighted the peeling, mouldy corners.

The spinning wheel sat in the corner of the kitchen, but the balls of wool lay in the basket untouched.

Essie walked over to the mantelpiece and picked up her late father’s tankard, giving it a shake to check for coins; this was where her mother’s daily spinning takings were deposited.

It was empty. Ma must have nipped down to the Merry Cobbler on the corner with the navvies and treated herself to a penn’orth of porter. Then kept treating herself until there were no more coins left.

Essie slipped out the back door to the garden and found her mother lying face up inside the chicken coop. Ma was cursing and half waving an arm in the air, trying to swat away the half-dozen filthy brown hens perched on her legs and running over her belly. The egg basket was tipped sideways and her dress was splattered with mud.

Essie sighed and her shoulders sank.

Returning to the kitchen she found Gertie scribbling away in her notebook when she was supposed to be emptying the tub.

‘Gertie, put that away and run next door and fetch Mrs Yarwood. Go!’ She turned her head so her sister wouldn’t see her tears.

Essie ran back outside, grabbed her mother under each arm and dragged her from the coop. It was like lifting a deadweight, and her mother’s head flopped from side to side.

‘Essie, love.’ Her mother’s words were slurred. ‘Sorry. I just came out to collect the eggs and I must have tripped.’

‘Ma …’ But there was no point being angry—her mother was too far gone to take any notice. Instead, Essie shooed away the chickens that followed them out of the coop. But the stubborn hen nesting in her mother’s wicker basket refused to budge.

‘Off! Out!’ Essie said as she tipped the basket to one side to be rid of the hen. She was dismayed to see that only one egg remained unbroken. They must have smashed when her mother tripped. These were the first eggs of the week and now there’d be no eggs for supper tonight.

Essie turned back to her mother and noticed that her dress had rucked up to reveal a bloody knee.

‘Does it hurt, Ma?’ she asked, kneeling quickly and wiping the wound with her sleeve. ‘Here, let’s see if we can get you to sit up.’

Her mother waved an arm in protest but Essie squatted behind her and gently lifted her by the shoulders. Her mother fell back against Essie, hiccupping.

When her spell had finished, Ma turned and stared at Essie before raising an unsteady hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear.

‘My Esther—you look so like him you know,’ she slurred in her thick Irish accent.

‘I know, Ma,’ said Essie sadly.

‘You’re kind like him, too. You could always rely on Conrad. He did the right thing by me. We sailed to London because my parents threw me—’

‘I know, Ma … I know,’ said Essie as she cradled her mother in her arms as if she were a baby. She brushed her mother’s thick dark hair away from her face and wiped the mud and chicken shit from her left cheek.

‘I miss Pa too,’ Essie whispered. ‘We all do.’

‘Seven bonnie bairns he gave me.’

Essie sighed. She sometimes wondered about the two little babies that