She had been born in the workhouse. Her earliest memories were of seeing her ailing mother on her hands and knees scrubbing the floors, as her life had slowly ebbed away. At the age of ten, her mother had died, leaving Eliza with nothing to her name other than the clothes that she had stood in and her mother’s possessions, which amounted to a gridiron, warming pan and tea kettle. She was left entirely alone in the world until another destitute orphan, Amelia Odden, had arrived and taken the empty bed beside Eliza that had been her mother’s. The two girls had immediately gravitated towards each other and their friendship had helped them through the long and difficult days. The summer following Amelia’s arrival, Lydia Bloom had been dumped in the relieving room. Malnourished and barely clothed, Lydia was the daughter of a pair of vagrants who no longer wanted her.
Eliza recalled how unimaginably hard life had been for three girls until, at the age of fifteen, a new governor had been appointed. Mr Honeysett and his wife: kind, compassionate, God-fearing people who strived for the moral and physical betterment of their charges. Eliza had taken to them fondly and, after some time, had become aware that she and her two friends, Lydia and Amelia held elevated positions in the Honeysetts’ eyes. They had tried not to flaunt it in front of the other inmates, but the relationship between the three orphan girls and the childless couple had ripened. For the first time in their lives, Eliza, Amelia and Lydia had experienced happiness. Mrs Honeysett had begun to take them on walks through the surrounding woods, pointing out and naming the trees and flowers that they encountered. In the evenings, she had taught the girls to read and write and other skills that they would need when finally they left the workhouse—a proposition that for the first time had begun to seem less appealing. The girls had learned to stitch, make clothes and launder properly; by the time Eliza had reached her sixteenth year, she no longer considered herself to be an inmate. It was shortly after her birthday that everything had changed. Mrs Honeysett had died suddenly from tuberculosis and Eliza, Lydia and Amelia had found themselves in an unpleasant void between being a part of the grieving family and workhouse inmates. Mr Honeysett, a keen abstainer of alcohol, suddenly began to drink heavily. It was during one of his drunken stupors that he had first forced himself upon Eliza. The guilt and remorse that he had shown afterwards had not been sufficient to prevent it from happening to Lydia. Then to Amelia. Over and over again.
Eliza shivered, her thoughts pulled back to the present. She would not return to a workhouse, not all the while that she had breath left in her body.
She was approaching the High Street and slowed her step. The gloomy weather had rendered the streets all but empty, but still she kept her head down, keen to avoid being recognised.
She paced along the High Street until she reached the Town Hall. Taking a deep breath, she entered the lobby of the building. It was a simple room with two chairs, a table and an oil lamp. At the far end of the room was a door, which fed onto a long, narrow corridor. Eliza walked along it until she reached the brass plaque which read: ‘Alderman T. Honeysett’. She tapped the nameplate lightly with her knuckles.
‘Enter,’ a voice bellowed from inside.
Eliza took another long breath, then opened the door. She found it hard not to have an audible reaction to the sight before her. Sitting behind a large mahogany desk was Thomas Honeysett. He had aged considerably and was now a shrivelled cadaverous man with hollow rubicund cheeks. Tufts of white hair sprouted up at each side of his bald head. His watery eyes narrowed in disbelief.
Eliza closed the door behind her. ‘Hello, Mr Honeysett.’
‘Eliza Winter,’ he wheezed. ‘It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen each other’—his thick gnarled hands gestured towards the chair opposite his desk—‘I must say I’m surprised to see you here.’
Eliza sat. ‘Twenty-four years,’ she answered, recalling the last time that she had seen him up close, when the Kent Assizes had sentenced him to two years’ hard labour.
Thomas Honeysett chortled. ‘Is it really?’
‘But it ain’t, is it?’ Eliza retorted. ‘I be seeing you on the America Ground, ain’t I? And the inquest.’
A thin, devious smile spread across his lips. ‘I might have made a few visits to the Priory Ground, yes.’
‘What do you want?’ Eliza asked, clutching her hands together in her lap to prevent them from shaking.
‘I don’t think, Miss Winter, that asking me what I want is the reason for your visit,’ he asserted, straightening in his chair. ‘The more pertinent question is why you’re sitting at my desk. That, I think is the question that necessitates an answer.’
‘I want a lease for the Black Horse,’ she said, the quiver in her voice betraying her emotions.
Mr Honeysett laughed. ‘A lease?’ He sat forward and glowered heatedly at her. ‘And you thought that strolling in here and asking me, after what you did, that I would just hand one over?’ He shook his head, leant over the desk and snarled, ‘The sooner you ridiculous people crawl under a stone and die, the better. Now get out of my office!’
Eliza flinched, watching the saliva gather in the corners of his cracked lips. She sat up confidently. ‘No, Mr Honeysett. I ain’t be leaving here without a lease.’
Mr Honeysett laughed again, a hoarse, mocking laugh. ‘And why would I do that?’
‘Otherwise I be going along that corridor,’ she began, pointing to the door, ‘hammering on every alderman’s door a-telling them what you did.’
Mr Honeysett recoiled and Eliza knew only
