With a quivering hand, Eliza picked up a vellum indenture from his desk.
‘It’s a seven-year lease, then the whole Priory Ground will be cleared,’ he sneered. ‘You’ll be only the third person to sign it.’
Eliza threw it back. ‘I don’t be wanting seven years; I be wanting full rights to that land forever.’
Another laugh from Mr Honeysett. ‘Even if I wanted to comply with your wicked extortion, I simply do not have that authority. The land belongs to the Crown. Perhaps you should try King George,’ he sneered.
Eliza stood. ‘Thank you for your time, Alderman.’ She turned and waltzed confidently to the door, pulling it wide and turned into the corridor.
‘Alderman Wise,’ she yelled, rapping hard on the adjacent door. ‘Alderman Wise!’
The door swung open and a rotund man in his late fifties with a bald head and droopy eyes peered out. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s all right, Alderman Wise, I’ll sort this one out,’ Mr Honeysett called from his office door. ‘Madam, kindly step into my office and we’ll get your paperwork sorted out.’
Eliza smiled and followed Mr Honeysett back into this office.
Chapter Twenty
4th July 1803, Union Workhouse, Westwell, Kent
The Union Workhouse contained seventy inmates from Westwell and its surrounding parishes. Among their number were Eliza and her two friends, Lydia and Amelia. They, along with the other able-bodied women there, were tasked by the governor each day with the unattainable job of keeping the entire workhouse clean. The official working hours were from five a.m. to seven p.m. from Lady Day to Michaelmas and from daylight to dusk from Michaelmas to Lady Day. In reparation they received a hard bed in a cold dormitory and the monotonous diet of bread, milk, tea and cheese. Eliza received the additional reward of collecting firewood for the ovens.
It was in the woods behind the workhouse that Eliza was lying on her back on a thin wooden footbridge, her arms splayed out either side of her, her fingers fluttering softly on the surface of the languid river. She caught flashes of the late afternoon sun through the gently swaying hazel and sweet chestnut canopy above her. Today she was the wife of a wealthy landowner, taking a deserved pause from her busy life running her household. The last time that she had been here, she fancied herself as Queen Charlotte, taking a break from her botanical interests. Over time, she had imagined herself a baroness, an explorer’s wife, a governess and a host of other women who held some degree of control over their lives. Whenever she came here, she was anyone other than Eliza Winter, the girl from the workhouse. These few moments of peace, not often granted, were her only times of true salvation and solace, where she was alone and surrounded by nature. She had learned quickly where to find supplies of suitable firewood for the ovens, and so would hastily fill her baskets then pass the remaining time sitting quietly beside the river.
Eliza closed her eyes and rolled onto her front, knowing that she had just a few precious minutes left before she needed to return. It was as though time and the river were one entity, coursing through her fingers, unstoppably.
In the distance, a shrill cry that Eliza knew to belong to a skylark penetrated the stuffy air.
She suddenly flinched, sure that she heard something unusual.
Sitting up, she listened carefully.
There it was again, the unmistakable crunch of twigs snapping beneath heavy feet. She knew that it had to be him—Mr Beresford, who ran the workhouse and who, after what she had done, had made her already desperate life insufferable.
Eliza sprang to her feet and grabbed the two baskets. Why was he out here? she wondered. Was she late?
She held her breath as she waited for Mr Beresford to appear through the thicket of rhododendrons.
Then he came into view: a dashing young man with dark eyes and olive skin, stripped bare to the waist. He looked startled and took a step back, his eyes wide with fear.
‘Hello,’ Eliza said tentatively. ‘Who do you be? I ain’t seen you around these parts before.’
‘It don’t matter who I am, I just be passing through. I’ll not be bothering you, don’t worry, Miss,’ he said uncertainly, glancing around him.
Eliza noticed then the canvas bag that was slung over his back. ‘Where do you be going?’
‘Home,’ he answered.
‘And where be that?’ Eliza asked.
‘Sussex.’
‘You be a long way away.’
‘I know. Can you be a-helping me get back to the main road?’ he asked.
Eliza thought for a moment. She had already stayed here longer than she should have done. If she guided this man to the main road there was no way she would make it back to the workhouse before dark. And yet she found herself nodding, as if bedevilled by the women of her own imaginings, prodding her towards adventure. ‘Follow me,’ she said, taking the path over the bridge in the direction away from the workhouse.
‘What be your name?’ she asked, as they began to cross the woods.
‘Joe,’ he answered.
She waited for him to reciprocate the question but, when it wasn’t forthcoming, she said, ‘Mine be Eliza.’
‘How long until we reach the road, Eliza?’ he asked. ‘I been a-walking for days now.’
‘It still be another couple of mile, yet,’ she said, glancing at the sun slowly disappearing into the horizon.
Eliza’s fabricated confidence began to wane with the fading light and she realised the foolhardiness of her decision to guide
