Harriet sighed deeply, grateful to have protected her secret life for a little longer.
Chapter Five
14th February 1827, The Priory Ground, outside Hastings, Sussex
The parlour in the Lovekins’ dwelling-house was, like most on the Priory Ground, small and sparsely furnished; it comprised a fire, sofa, decorative dresser, looking glass, clock, four chairs and a square chestnut table, at which the three Lovekin girls now sat in their colourless frocks. They were quietly eating their breakfast of herring, eggs and bread. That the table only seated four people necessitated that the family ate at separate times; the children would always eat first, followed by Joseph and Eliza, a fact which much rankled Harriet, who believed that she was now of an age to be dining with her parents and not with her younger sisters. She looked at the pair of them incredulously. Little Ann, timid and frightened of her own reflection, pushed her egg around the plate not having eaten a single morsel and Keziah—she was fifteen now—attacking her herring like some wild beast devouring a carcass: the pair of them, in their own peculiar ways, dismayed her.
‘Keziah,’ Harriet whispered angrily across the table. ‘Eat proper.’
Keziah looked up and ran a greasy hand through her fringe, removing the hair that covered her eyes. ‘What be your problem, Hattie?’
Sitting with his back to them beside the fire skinning a rabbit, their father turned, his eyes flitting between the girls.
‘Pa, at what age can I be eating with you and Ma?’ Harriet ventured, tucking into her breakfast. She didn’t dare cast a look in his direction; he was a splintered and unpredictable man with a volcanic temperament.
Joseph, in his forty-third year, had retained the good looks of his youth; the scars and a few emerging wrinkles, each with their own story to tell, rested around eyes with irises so dark as to appear almost black. ‘You be wanting to be treated more of an adult, Hattie?’ he asked.
Harriet stole a quick glance at him, but could not determine how he had taken her question. ‘That be right, Pa.’
Joseph tugged on his short beard solemnly. ‘What say you earn it? Your Ma is completely worn out by all the work here, in the Horse and now with ole Widow Elphick to mind. You could be taking on more of that?’
‘Yes, Pa,’ she answered. Already helping around the house, she hoped that her father was about to put her to use in the Black Horse. The very idea that she might get to meet—and speak to—the eclectic mixture of clientele attracted to the gin palace (even those of dubious character) sent a thrill through her body. She sat up sharply, unable to contain a small smile.
An earnest nod from her father, then, ‘Good, you can start today with Widow Elphick. You be doing good there, then we see what comes about.’
Harriet forced herself to maintain the smile, despite her initial excitement evaporating before her eyes. Working for Widow Elphick was a dreadful prospect; she was the same age as her mother but was a hard, shrivelled woman who since her husband’s death many years ago had been marinating in the juices of bitterness and spitefulness.
A thin, mocking smile spread across Keziah’s face and Harriet sent her foot sharply into her shin. Keziah winced but knew better than to vocalise her pain. She glowered at Harriet, then returned to stripping herring flesh from the bones.
‘Go to the Horse and tell your Ma,’ her father directed.
Harriet, under the watchful gaze of her two sisters and father, stood from the table, wordlessly pulled on her black and red shawl and stepped outside.
Spirals of grey, white and black pirouetted from every chimney on the Priory Ground, as the last vestiges of night and all of the foul and flagitious happenings that had accompanied it ebbed away; shutters clattered open and chamber pots were discarded into the alleyways below. A ripe sun, which sat tentatively on the horizon, coated the rooftops in a warm amber hue. Herring gulls and black-headed gulls squawked and cawed noisily from the shore, as they picked among the stones.
It took Harriet a moment to adjust to the brightness after the gloom from within the house. She took a long breath of air and instantly wished that she hadn’t; the stench from the piggeries and the streams of filthy water were especially pungent first thing in the morning.
She found her mother vigorously sweeping the sand from the bare wooden floor of the saloon, a haze of dust whipping around the room like a small hurricane.
‘Hello,’ her mother greeted, a hint of surprise in her voice. She stopped sweeping and ran her sleeve across the small buds of sweat on her forehead. ‘What you be doing in here?’
Harriet cleared her throat, placed her hands behind her back and chose her words carefully. ‘Well, I be talking to Pa and we think—since I be growing up and all—that I be doing more about the place…’
Eliza eyed Harriet suspiciously. ‘Come on, don’t beat the devil round the gooseberry bush, I’ve work to be done.’
‘So, I be helping Widow Elphick out about the house so you don’t be having to,’ Harriet explained.
Eliza sniffed and wiped more sweat from her face. ‘I see. And what do you be getting in return, I wonder?’
Harriet shrugged. ‘Not to be looked upon as a little girl no more.’
A simple nod came from her mother. ‘Fetch two pails of water—one for here and one for Widow Elphick. Off you go,’ her mother ordered, smacking the birch broom into the floor and sending a great eruption of sand into the air.
Collecting
