Pauper's Gold Read Online Free Page B

on,’ Hannah said briskly at last. ‘We’d better go and find this Mrs Bramwell.’ She smiled down at the younger girl and gave her cold hand a comforting
squeeze. Jane dragged her feet, and glanced apprehensively over her shoulder. ‘I don’t like it,’ she whispered. ‘It’s so big. I want to go home. I want to go back to
the workhouse.’
    ‘We can’t,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s no one to take us back. Besides, we’ve been sent here. At least let’s give it a try. It might be better than the
workhouse.’
    ‘Anything’s got to be better—’ Luke began.
    ‘Than the workhouse,’ Daniel finished.
    They climbed the steep hill to the first row of houses perched just above the mill.
    ‘This end one looks like a school,’ Luke said excitedly. He grasped hold of the high window ledge and hauled himself up to peer in the window. ‘There’s boys and girls
sitting at desks.’
    ‘At this time of night?’ Hannah stood on tiptoe, trying to see in, but she was too low down, and she had no intention of scrambling up the side of the rough wall and tearing her
clean dress.
    ‘It’ll be after they’ve worked at the mill,’ Luke said. ‘There’s a boy asleep at his desk. Oh!’
    Suddenly, he let himself drop to the ground.
    ‘What? What is it?’
    Luke was laughing. ‘The master saw him sleeping and cracked his cane on the desk. The lad didn’t half jump. He thought he’d been shot.’
    ‘Do you think we’ll go to school?’ Jane asked quietly.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said. ‘Maybe for a few hours a week.’ She sighed. ‘But what I do know is – we’ve been sent here to work.’
    They moved on, dragging their feet now that they had seen the other children. Suddenly, however strict school life might be under a cane-wielding teacher, they yearned to join those children
instead of entering a new and frightening world. At least a classroom – even a different classroom with strange children – was a familiar world to them. There had been a schoolroom at
the workhouse with a master for the boys and a school-marm for the girls. Of the four of them, only Jane couldn’t read or write. She’d been a sickly child, and her schooling, even in
the workhouse, had been spasmodic.
    They knocked on the door of the white house, next door but one to the school, and waited. A girl, not much older than they were, opened it.
    ‘Come in, the missis is waiting for you.’
    They trooped after her, through the large kitchen and a hallway, and were shown into a small, stuffy room where a woman was sitting at a desk going through some papers.
    The girl bobbed a curtsy. ‘The new ones have arrived, Mrs Bramwell.’
    ‘Thank you, Mary.’
    The girl left the room, closing the door quietly behind her, leaving the four new arrivals standing nervously just inside the door. The woman didn’t even look up but continued to write
notes at the edge of one of the sheets of paper. They waited for what seemed an age, until Jane tugged at Hannah’s hand and whispered urgently, ‘I need the privy, Hannah. I need it
now.’
    ‘Hush,’ Hannah whispered. ‘You’ll have to wait.’
    ‘I can’t.’ Jane’s voice rose in a wail. ‘I’ll do it. Oh – oh, I am . . .’
    The woman looked up. ‘Take her out this minute. It’s out the back.’
    Hannah pulled open the door, dragging Jane with her. She rushed back the way they had come, startling the young girl, Mary, as they hurried through the kitchen. Hannah paused briefly.
‘Where is it? Where’s the privy?’
    Mary pointed. ‘Out the door and down the path to the left. It’s the—’
    Hannah waited to hear no more but hustled the unfortunate Jane out of the door and along the path. ‘There it is. Hurry up.’
    Moments later, Jane emerged from the wooden hut. She was calmer now, but tears ran down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah.’
    ‘Yes, well, you should’ve said you wanted to go before we went in.’
    Jane sniffed loudly. ‘Sorry.’
    Hannah took