Linnet Bird

Chapter One Liverpool, 1823 I had been put to work for men by Da in the winter of my eleventh year. He was dissatisfied by the small wage I earned at the bookbindery and had recently been laid off his job at the rope makers for turning up tip one too many times and spoiling the hemp in spinning. It was a wet November night when he arrived home with Mr. Jacobs. I suppose he met him in one of the public houses; where else would he meet anyone? I heard Da say the man's name over and over, Mr. Jacobs this and Mr. Jacobs that. One or both of them were stumbling, and the knocking into the few pieces of furniture, as well as the loudness of their voices, woke me from my sleep in the blankets I laid down behind the coal box each evening. It was warmer there, close to the fireplace, and I felt I had at least a tiny degree of privacy in the one rented room on the second floor of a sagging dwelling off Vauxhall Road, in a court on Back Phoebe Anne Street. "She's here somewhere," I heard Da say, "like a wee mouse, she is, scurrying about," and then, before I had a chance to try to make sense of why he would be looking for me, I was dragged out of my blankets and into the middle of the low-ceilinged, candlelit room. "I thought you said she were eleven." Mr. Jacob's voice was hoarse, the words clipped with impatience. "I told you right, Mr. Jacobs. Past eleven, now. Had her birthday well before Michaelmas." "She's awfully small. Not even much of a shape to her yet." "But she has a quim, sir, that you'll find soon enough. It's just delicate she is, a delicate slip of a girl. And she's a right pretty lass, you can see that for yourself," Da said, pushing back my long hair with calloused hands and pulling me closer to the candle in the middle of the table. "Where have you last seen hair like this? Golden and rich as summer's sweetest pear. And like I told you, she's pure. You'll be the first, Mr. Jacobs, and a lucky man indeed." I pulled away from him, my mouth opening and closing in shock and horror. "Da! Da, what is it you're saying? No, Da." Mr. Jacob's thick bottom lip extended in a pout. "She's nothing special. And how do I know you haven't duped a hundred men before me, you and her?" "You'll know you're the first, Mr. Jacobs. Of course you'll know. Tight as a dead man's fist, you'll find her." I yanked my arm away from Da's grasp. "You can't make me," I said, backing toward the door. "You'll never" Mr. Jacobs stepped in front of me now. He had only a ring of graying hair and the top of his head shone greasily in the flickering light. There was a cut, crusted over with dried blood, on the bridge of his nose. "Quite the little actress, aren't you?" he asked. "You can stop all your bluster now. You'll not get a penny, you nor your father, if I find you're not what's been promised." In one stride, Da took my arm again, pulling me into a shadowy corner of the room. "Now, girl," he wheedled, "it's bound to happen sometime. And better here, in your own home, than somewheres out in the rain in a doorway. Many a lass does help out her family when they've fallen on hard times. And why should you be any different?" Of course I knew a number of the older girls from the bookbindersas well as those from the sugar refineries and the glassmakers and the potterieswho worked a few hours now and then on the twisting narrow streets down by the docks to bring in extra shillings when money was short at home. But I had always known I was different. I wasn't like them, I told myself. It was in my blood, this difference. "Come on now. He'll pay handsomely." Da put his mouth to my ear. I smelled the sourness ofHoleman, Linda is the author of 'Linnet Bird', published 0000 under ISBN 9781400097395 and ISBN 1400097398.