Chapter 3
The room stank of sweat and cheap perfume. Its lone candle guttered against the cracked plaster. Winnifred pounded the door until her knuckles bled. No one came.
The latch never lifted. Footsteps passed. A laugh drifted near, then away. The candle burned down. She sat in darkness and silence.
They replaced the candle without a word. She did not see a face.
The food stopped.
A bowl of thin gruel appeared only when she could no longer stand. If she did not eat fast enough, it was taken. Her lips split. Her limbs grew leaden. Time thickened, lost its edges.
A girl whispered through the wall. Winnifred pressed her ear to the plaster, breath held. Two nights later, the wall fell silent.
When the door finally opened, she flinched so hard her teeth struck together.
Hands seized her arms. She clawed and bit and kicked. A blow caught her cheek and burst light across her vision. A man laughed.
After, she lay curled on the floor, fingertips coming away bloody where she touched what hurt most. The room tilted. Darkness closed in.
The next night, the door opened again.
And again.
Her throat raw, she learned screaming did nothing. Pain came as regular as breath. Nights ceased to separate themselves. She stopped trying to count.
Her wrists were only unbound when she was needed. Refusal meant the flat of a fist. Once, a man asked her name. She turned her face to the wall.
She was allowed to sit in a small, airless room with three other girls. She never spoke. Silence was safer. Whispers of escape curled and died the moment the closed door vibrated.
One girl tried the window. They took her away.
Her screams lasted an hour.
Winnifred was sold the following day.
* * *
St Jude’s Remains, August 1810
The cellar stank of mildew and old gin. Winnifred knelt by the bucket, rope biting at her wrists, cheek pressed to the damp board. A rat nosed at the crust near her foot. She let it take it.
She had been here long enough to know the order of things.
Bootsteps above. The trap groaned.
“On your feet.”
She climbed the ladder, legs trembling. Maud Hatcher stood at the top, switch in hand, bosom sweat-stained, mouth a hard line. She counted the girls once, aloud, then snapped the switch against her palm.
“Work first.”
They set her to the gin-room floor. Her knees slid on boards sticky with drink. The rag dragged like tar. Laughter followed her. A hand shot out, caught her by the hair.
“Leave her,” Maud barked from the bar.
The man let go, grinning, and Winnifred’s head struck the plank as she fell.
When the stools were stacked and the floor wiped nearly clean, she was given a heel of bread and a dram of gin. The crust cut her mouth. The gin burned.
At night she was sent to the corner with the other girls. The air was close, thick with smoke. When the latch lifted and boots thudded down the steps, she braced.
Hands caught her by the ankles.
“She’ll do.”
The straw pallet reeked of sweat and seed. She shut her eyes, bit her lip until it bled, stared at the beam overhead until the boots retreated.
Morning brought more labour: hauling casks and emptying slops. Dragging buckets that bruised her shins. When she faltered, the switch cracked her back. When she kept silent, Maud grunted approval.
Her nails split and bled. Her hair matted. The stink of herself clung until she no longer smelled it.
Then came the day they dragged her up early, stripped her, and dropped her in a tub that stank of lye. A hollow-eyed girl scrubbed until her skin flushed raw, combed her hair until it tore from the roots.
“Enough,” Maud said at last. “Mind she doesn’t bruise.”
Still dripping, Winnifred was shoved into the alley. A cart waited. It jolted forward, throwing her against the planks. She huddled in the corner, water pooling beneath her, shivering until her teeth struck together.
When the cart stopped, she was pulled into a burnt-out church: pews overturned, altar lay in shards, the name St Jude’s filthily displayed above the outline of a missing cross.
Fog seeped through the shattered windows. The altar rail had become a stage. Girls stood in a line, thin as fence posts.
No one spoke.
She stood in a line, stripped to her shift. The air was cold against her skin, clinging like wet muslin. Outside, fog rolled in from the Thames, curling through broken panes like ghostly fingers.
A girl sobbed behind her. A slap sounded so loud it made her teeth vibrate.
“Don’t touch her!” another girl cried out.
The thud of a fist. Something warm splattered her bare shoulder.
A moan.
“Not the face,” Maud’s voice rang across the nave. “Damaged goods fetch nothing. You want to beat on ’em, you pay for it.”
The man backed away.
A heavy-set woman, powder thick, silk straining, worked down the row, prising mouths, probing between legs.
When Winnifred’s turn came, she lifted her chin and fixed on the back wall.
Hands did their work. She made no sound.
“I don’t need dullards,” the woman muttered, moving on.
The tap of a cane echoed next—slow, deliberate. Violet and spice filled the air. The girls shrank back, leaving a clear path.
The woman stopped before her. Drew a handkerchief, wiped Winnifred’s collarbone, studied the linen.
“Dull? I think not.”
The slap came swift and hard. Pain bloomed bright across her cheek. Copper filled her mouth. She swallowed, held her gaze steady.
She remained silent, dared a glance at her attacker.
“There she is.” Fingers smoothed her hair back. “The last one we took in sobbed for days. But not you. You’ve learned, haven’t you?”
A small nod.
“Good.” The woman turned. “This one is mine.”
Her cheek throbbed where the hand had struck. She glanced at the broken cross above the altar. Christ had begged the Father’s pardon for his tormentors.
She would not.