Ironmonger's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

around the signs of industrial strife were growing. The humiliation of accepting starvation wages, the desperate scramble for a day’s work in the local docks and wharves, accidents in the saw mills and in the factories inspired the activists to organise their fellow workers into trade unions. Industrial diseases in the tanneries, lead mills and skin factories outraged the health workers, and questions were raised in Parliament. There were calls for proper hygiene and safeguards in workplaces, and when little was done the atmosphere of resentment and anger grew stronger.
    In the backstreets of Bermondsey very little changed. Women sat in the corner-street pubs drinking ‘Lizzie Wine’ while they shelled their peas into containers resting on their aproned laps. The men drank pints of porter and slipped out of the pub to place their dog bets with the street bookmaker – keeping one eye open for the local bobbie. Children played in the gutters and paddled in the muddy River Thames, and the more daring climbed the barges and dived into murky water beside the huge iron buoys, or scrambled down into the empty holds and scooped up nut kernels and coconut husks. In Ironmonger Street the children spoke in whispers about a strange old lady who pushed a pram covered with washing to the local laundry every Monday morning. Legends had grown up around Widow Pacey and, as she slowly walked along pushing her contraption, some of the younger children would hide in doorways, unable to take their eyes from the long white hairs on the end of her chin. The older children said she was a witch who cooked babies for her supper and carried the bones down to the river hidden in her pram. When their parents heard the stories and smacked them for talking nonsense, they knew that the legends must be true.
    Connie and her cousin Molly were too young to have understood such stories, but Molly cowed whenever the bagwash lady passed by, frightened by the mere presence of the woman. Connie reacted in a different way, however; her large eyes stared out solemnly at Widow Pacey’s bristling chin and at the laden, squeaking pram, and her small round face remained impassive. A contest of wills developed. The widow would smile or wink at the inseparable young children, but she got little response, except for Molly’s frightened look and Connie’s wide-eyed glance. When looks, smiles and gesticulations failed, the Widow Pacey tried to win the children over with toffee bars as she left for the laundry one morning. On her return trip the bagwash lady saw that the two children were halfway through the toffee sticks, faces smudged and hands stuck to the sweets. But still there was no smile forthcoming, and Widow Pacey gave up trying. One or two of the older lads who had seen the toffee bars being handed out spread the word that Widow Pacey had taken to poisoning children.
    One person in the street was sure he had found a way to keep the local children in order. And one dismal morning he took delivery of a large brown paper parcel. Misery Martin’s normally dead-pan features changed into an expression of pleasure as he quickly secreted the parcel under the counter for the time being. At the end of the day, after he had put up the only shutter he had bothered to take down that morning, he slipped the bolts on the front door and went back behind the counter. He placed the large parcel on the linoleum-covered surface, slit the string with a sharp knife and opened the bundle. There in front of him were two dozen thin canes. Misery picked up one by its curved handle and brought it down on the counter sharply. The swish and smack sounded loudly in the quiet shop and a wide grin creased the shop owner’s face. That’s just what the little brats around here need! he thought, considering how to display the canes in the most threatening manner. The parents in the street are always going on about giving their kids a good hiding. Let them buy these canes, they should do the