Constance Penrose

Ch 1: Workhouse

In a workhouse in London, there lived a girl. It was a dirty, dark brick structure, filled with the ends of frayed rope and cordage with a tarry smell. Also: dry, crowded, with hardly a place to rest and much less to eat. It was a Victorian poorhouse, and that meant work.

Constance Penrose was small for her age. Not that it was uncommon for the half-starved to be shriveled in stature. She was shorter than other girls in this wing of the building, at least those she suspected were her peers.

Her mother had registered her as 10 years of age in the smallest workhouse in Stepney, although she could then remember a full 12 summers on her own. In this, she was grateful because she only had to produce a pound of oakum from the desiccated but clingy, twisted hemp fibers. Her quota was not the pound-and-half older girls complained about, with their blistering fingers. Not that her own fared better, but at least she wasn't pressed into rushing quite as fast. And she was smart about it, making sure to not finish early enough to be forced into producing more.

A pound was demanded; a pound was all they'd get.

It was close to the end of the work day, and her nose itched fiercely. Constance knew from experience that the hemp and tar glued to her fingers was a guarantee of a far more dire reaction in torment. The rational choice was to let it be, suffering as she always did. Instead, she focused on her hopes and dreams, as they best distracted her from the annoyance.

Tomorrow would be the day of rest, where there would be more sermons and scriptures. Perhaps this was the week her mother would check them out of the workhouse and put them back in later that Sunday night.

Or perhaps her father would return from the sea and reclaim his wife and child.

That thought alone tipped a smile on the small girl's face. It was a bittersweet fantasy she had held for nearly 2 years. There was fierce competition to bring tea in from China at a faster clip, so a man not home for over a year was often assumed to be lost to his cruel mistress.

But she spoke of nothing as her workmates talked of men and hopes of escaping the workhouse clutches through matrimony. Sometimes it was about the latest one to meet worse fates than caring for her own household. The workhouse was better than selling body and soul to men who didn't provide a thing. Rampant diseases of fornication were the greatest fear preached at diligent young women who were tired of forced labor.

Besides, the ones thought to be her age wouldn't speak of things she wanted to hear. The older ones she should talk with didn't care for a child who wanted to converse with them. Better to listen and not disrupt the flow of stories.

Soon, the day was done. The meal was sparse and silent; scripture was read. Then came the quick rush of preparing for bed before they shut down the newfangled gas lights and settled into the abyss of feminine snoring.

Like rainfall on tin, Constance found the sound soothing—the only true joy she had in that miserable place. She sailed off to sleep, dreaming of a future escape, one strangled breath at a time.

~~~

The morning brought the bitter truth that she was stuck in the workhouse without work, as God must be served with idle hands.

A young itinerant and fiery pastor without a flock would shout of hellfire and brimstone, practicing his theater in piety.

The grueling yet tedious week came again, bringing its dreams of a free Sunday, only to be held prisoner yet again, and another cycle followed that one, too.

It was endlessly hopeless. Yet she knew that as long as the board of directors never called her in to announce Mother's death, there was hope that she would come.

Until then, she wore her fingers out on make-work and dreamed her dreams, as they weren't big ones—not like other girls had. There would be no lover, family, or benefactor other than the walls she stared at, mind unseeing.

~~~

One more fortnight later, Mother came.

They started with a walk to a church that was low enough to not notice their shamed uniforms—certainly not one they'd sit in with Father. Their path meandered between Stepney and the East India Docks to reach it.

Afterwards, they strolled the safer stretches near the port while eating a street vendor's meal. The money was earned off the factory work mother did when they sold her outside the workhouse. Constance knew it involved dye, as the green was hard to wash off her mother's hands.

After so many tries to see his face in a crowd of strangers, they spent no time trying to find Father but spoke more of their days, as they were once very close.

"What have you learned this time, Constance?"

She nibbled on the meat pie, knowing she would be in the infirmary with a weak stomach not used to such rich food. It was worth it to eat freely for once. "The poor sod they brought in to teach us, this time? Fancied himself an artist and tried to teach us geography before the boys a building over ran him out. Since the law only requires we be taught and not much more than an X be signed? It's a uselessly dull way to pass an hour each time they replace a teacher."

Her mother sighed. "You should have been taught more formally, as your father's daughter..."

Sensing the end game of this cycle of lament, Constance asked about something adults rarely spoke to children about. "Mother, is it true that pushing schools carry diseases?"

"They are brothels, dear. Nearly any alleyway has people buying and selling their bodies, hiding enough to avoid the stroll of the watch, so place is not necessary for the act any more than being a brothel makes it a workhouse." For a moment, Mother stepped into the woman Father said she was—a scholar that he stole from her studies. Though why she went to a workhouse with such an education confused Constance.

"You know your father was... is a seaman. I doubt even he has been faithful in faraway lands." Mother's sigh hunched her in a little further, not liking this turn of their conversation. "If every prostitute was dirty, he would have brought it home to me. And then, where would I be? A disease of carnality, claiming to be the innocent I am? I might have had no choice but to be them if there were concerns about me spreading such illness in a workhouse."

"So you see yourself out here?"

"I don't." They passed by one such young lady laughing flirtatiously with a dock-hand, not much older than Constance. "I fear I see you."

That thought was more than enough to silence a timid girl. Constance instead recited all the stories that led her to ask if prostitution was better than the workhouse. Her hands only itched and burned from hemp and tar. Mother confirmed there were worse fates than itchy hands.

The only way ahead that Mother knew was if she became a governess or some other educated position. No one wanted a potential widow with a young daughter teaching their sons. And the workhouse couldn't do all it wanted with Constance because Mother had custody of her, though that wasn't much safety.

It was harsh, but if they survived a little longer, they could perhaps both work in the same homes.

After a few hours strolling, moving onto subjects far lighter than their living hell, it was time to find a park and sit on a bench to watch crowds stroll by. They turned their backs to the piers.

That's when a man in fine clothes forcibly turned Mother around to stare deep in the harsh lines etched on her face and softly ask her if she was "Mary?"

Mother burst into tears as Mary Penrose was not a name she answered to often.

Constance squinted at this stranger before she realized his voice was a match for her father's. He had too much hair on his face to be certain, but the sound was enough to rest hope on.

"I have been looking for you for two whole months!" Father's voice was ragged but firm as he drew his wife closer.

Constance then remembered the promise given to Mother: that Uncle would tell Father which workhouse they went into. Papa had never been told. She lived two more months of hell because of secrets, lies, denials, and fiends. Why didn't he tell Father?

The poor child threw up in distress on this stranger's shoes to the cat call of "The Admiral of the Narrow Seas!"

She couldn't even trust those who loved her to save her from a nightmare because of the wicked. This last harsh twist of fate was something that would forge her decisions for years to come.