Inheritance Feud

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

After that things went from bad to worse, and old Ransome grew increasingly addled and rheumatic, so that his married daughter moved in. The child Livia had meantime been neglected, and by the time they persuaded Ransome to let her go to Emmett's orphanage-it was only for a while, they told him, till things got straight-her hair was matted so thickly they had to cut it, for no comb would go through, and

they picked her scalp and body free of lice. If the old man had had his wits about him, Livia knew, he wouldn't have parted with her. He died that same year, and the parish buried him.

Emmett's foundation, where Livia spent the next nine years of her life, had been brought into being by two brothers of that name not hitherto renowned for their piety; they had been burgesses of the town in the time of James the Sixth. By then, it was no longer possible to shrive one's soul by leaving mass-silver, and as an alternative the brothers left a certain sum for the education and maintenance of twelve young women who were, the titles stated, to be indigent and without other means of support. They were to be taught, and thor oughly instructed in, those arts which go to make up a good housewife or domestic servant; they were to be brought up in the fear of the Lord; and on departure to a paid assignment or to marriage were to be given-and this was one of the few tenets still adhered to by present-day authority-twelve pence as dowry, to be paid, on their departure, out of the fund.

By now, certain modifications had crept into Emmett's. The instruction in housewifery mostly covered public laundry, which the orphan children took in and did with great benefit to the fund, which absorbed the payments. A provident clause in the contract ensured that, when work was found for them and with the shortage of domestics everywhere this was not likely to cause inconvenience-the first three years' pay ment should be sent direct to Emmett's, who would deduct one-third against the back costs of the orphan's food and board from the age of seven. In this manner a nice balance was ensured for the municipal authority, who had some time since absorbed Emmett's original foundation and had more over, providently for these times, added the initial town cor rection-house to the earlier endowment financed by the brothers' trust. With suitable physical barriers erected, there was no reason for the inmates of the two buildings ever to meet. Processions to church were an exception; but as they were not permitted to speak on that occasion, no harm was done to the orphans' morals. On such a day, Theon Doon had already glimpsed Livia.

Livia remembered the correction-house walls, of yellow brick, rising beyond the high windows of the communal dor mitory in which she had slept, with eleven others, since the farm-folk delivered her to Emmett's. On asking what that building was she had been told not to ask questions; and after a few days had no leisure or energy to ask more.

The orphans were kept hard at work, and fed badly. Clap pers came round at five in the morning, wielded with a certain enjoyment-it was her only one-by Ada Park, the second-in command of Mrs. Priddy, the governor's wife and orphanage matron. Ada had herself been an orphan and could remember nothing before Emmett's. She had long had individuality and the milk of human kindness flogged and probably laundered out of her; it had proved impossible to find her a situation despite her hard-working capacity; she stank. The stink, which Ada could not help or remove, pervaded the dormintory, the privy, and any other place where Ada was known to have been. After a time one grew used to it. She was a thin bitter carping creature who disliked the orphans and could never be free of them: even her bed was in the common row. They assumed Ada as a necessary evil; they were long since beyond hate.

The dormitory was not private, any more than most other parts of Emmett's except the privy and the governor's office. It was not permitted to talk there, and even whispering be tween one bed and the next was overheard by Ada, zealously reported by her, and the culprit flogged. No doubt this helped to account for the singular state of innocence in which Livia herself grew up, despite her child's memory of farm animals and nature. By the age of twelve she had still no idea what men were for, except to thunder prayers and read the Bible. Governor Priddy, the only man in sight except at church-due to what lapse in the lifetime of the long-dead Emmett brothers no one knew, there was no provision made for anything but young women Governor Priddy was there at all by virtue of his wife, who was own sister to the Provost of the burgh. He was a tall, lean, cold-eyed, mean-faced creature, who on Sundays added terror to his appearance by putting on a black beaver and stock. At church he would sit among the elders; at meals at Emmett's, in so far as the twice daily issue of thin cooling gruel could be called by this courtesy, he excelled himself: from the table-head, where his own served viands differed enough to bring hungry sniffing to the twelve poor little creatures placed below him, he would emit a lengthy grace, Early in the morning, and before retiring at night, there were more prayers, and a Bíble-reading; the minor pro phets were favoured, as they gave Governor Priddy an oppor tunity to render the adverse thunderings of Jeremiah about 3 situation the orphans could but doubtfully understand. They were visited also by the town-minister, his wife, the kirk ses sion who were hereditary governors of Emmett's and now and again by prospective employers. A close relationship was maintained between these good ladies and the authorities of Emmett's, who could always be relied upon to relieve the shortage or, at worst, to put them for a consideration on the waiting list. They would also assist in the not infrequent escapes or lapses of the employed from found situations: at worst, they would take back these unfortunates for a variable period of correction. It was a service not freely available in other towns, and the authorities prided themselves on the maintenance of so fine a tradition of public service in the burgh.

The spectacle of Governor Priddy, lofty, black-clad, and infallible, confused itself with the probable image of God in Livia's earliest thoughts on the subject; she was, in accordance with the rules of the foundation, thoroughly instructed in Holy Writ and in the fear of the Lord. The latter emotion was taken for granted more than would, perhaps, have been the case had the children not been so tired out physically. Instruction in laundry-practice exceeded even instruction in the prophecies of Jeremiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk. From the time the little girls were nine years old they would participate in the full rota of housework at Emmett's; the encouragement of a fine national tradition of independence was an expressed clause in the contract for acceptance. The rota involved sweeping-duties, cooking and washing up the crockery bowls; scrubbing the long wooden tables, their very knots worn flat with such toil over the years, with lye; sanding the cleaned floors, and a break from monotony-drawing chalk patterns afterwards, according to one's fancy, on the still damp red stone tiles of the governor's newly-washed corridor. Livia liked this exercise, except that the stones were cold and in winter, one's hands and feet grew chilblained at the task. There was no protection from cold or respite from heat; the girls wore hodden grey, in summer as in winter. In former days they had spun and woven it into gowns themselves; now it was supplied by a weaver in town at low cost, to allow more time to be spent in the laundry. The purchase of hodden did not happen often; one gown would be handed down from the last owner, well patched, to the girl coming up. When a girl grew too big for the largest size available it was time for her to move out of Emmett's.

The twelve pence had been intended as dowry, but this was seldom needed as such; Emmett's allowed few opportunities for meeting bridegrooms, and citizens' wives were constantly in need of maids. A small, meek, underfed orphan, who could launder and had no great opinion of herself, was worth keep ing from an employer's point of view; girls from outside were flighty nowadays. Besides, the compulsion to repay a life time's board out of wages, which were low enough at three pounds a year, would discourage the most ardent suitor on an ordinary wage: whether a girl married or not, she still had to go on working to repay the debt till this was clear, and could bring little to a husband and family. Otherwise, there was the correction-house. Certain enterprising young women had in fact married, then fled elsewhere, or reared so many children in so short a time that it became impractical to pur sue them for full gain. But these were the lucky exceptions, not in any case spoken of by anyone left behind.

The public wash came in each working day; it was the task

of the smallest girls to carry it down to the laundry. In those

days there was not yet a boiler at Emmett's, and all the water

had to be carried up from the river by hand, or else the girls

took the wash down to the banks in summer and trod it

repeatedly in the shallow water. Certain fine linen, however,

needed indoor treatment. One orphan-in Livia's time it was a rickety child named Alice Greer, whose bow legs toddled manfully back and forth between the irons and the lye pot would stoke the fire, while one or two others trod the linen tub. This last job was the favourite, as it somehow gave rise to a dance, skirts hitched high out of the water, bare legs flying, it was the only approach to levity the orphans had. By the day's end, however, the joy had mostly been taken out of them; everything must be finished, the wash hung out or ironed, the fire cleaned for next day and its surface rubbed with sand, all buckets emptied and put back where they came from. Mrs. Priddy, who never showed herself while there were tasks to be done, would make an inspection, at the day's close, to ensure propriety and thoroughness; Ada Park was not allowed near the clean linen. If anything was found to be undone, or badly done, matron's gimlet eye would spot it; then the miscreant would go without supper. Supper wasn't much, being no more than thin gruel and a manchet as usual, except on Sundays when there was broth; but on Sunday there was of course no laundry.

Livia was a good worker; something in her rejoiced in the fact of tasks to be done, thankless and grim though these often were. Besides, she had a fund of health accounted for by the early rearing on Ransome's farm, ewe's milk and curd had set her good teeth and straight bones, not like poor Alice who'd never known anything but Emmett's from a baby. Because Livia grew tall and strong, she was given the heaviest tasks to do: generally, when there was extra laundry-work, it was she who was set to it often in solitude,