Maria's Long Walk To Deptford

They all stared into the dark strong tea that the Governess had just poured for each of them; hardly daring to raise their heads they avoided staring at Maria’s dreadfully swollen black eye. The Governess rose and walked towards the dark wooden shelf at the back of kitchen, and pulled the rosewater tonic from the mixtures, ‘take two spoonfuls!’ ‘It should calm your nerves, dear’, she said, and she then assertively pushed the bottle and a tablespoon across the table in Maria’s direction.
Maria could hardly contain her nervousness; the stress of not crying publicly had resulted in an all over shake, which was earmarked by a jittery hand that could hardly pour the tonic from the small bottle onto the spoon. Even the Moor kept his head down to prevent himself from gawking. His longing for Maria had been a perpetual nudge-and-wink from everyone, which had amused Maria in the past, but this was hardly a time for any jokes.
They must have all come to their own conclusions and Maria knew it! The constant vomiting and the apparent greyness in her appearance, her breasts were swollen and sore, and she had not bled for the last three months. The older maids said little, in fact no one spoke ever of these things, but with the morning sickness most every day, Maria had noticed that a fearful silence had come over the staff, as each day they increasingly noticed her need to dive through the kitchen, out the door and to the privy at the back of the yard. Now sitting amongst them, her humiliation was complete, she struggled to push back the tears. This terrible chocking emotion could not be strangled, and her body convulsed as she tried to suppress it. She took to staring hard into the tea in front of her, and gasped as she told herself not to look up, as she felt sure the staff were watching.

That her mother told her father the previous night was typical. In fact, it was inevitable as it happened to all the girls in her situation. ‘You slag, you whore, you bring shame on the family’, the punches were punctuated by pleading and screaming for mercy; not least by Maria’s mother, who could be heard down the Deptford street, and into the tiny terraced houses. There was no question of the fact that Maria’s entire family and all the neighbours would be listening to the commotion. The bruising to her eye that following morning was crusty, weeping, she hardly had sight, but she forced herself to work, and now like the others, she was seated at breakfast in the basement.
‘Time!’ barked the Governess, ‘Maria stay behind!’ and the staff rose, briskly emptying the kitchen and scurried to their tasks. The Moor deliberately brushed past her, squeezing her shoulder with his disgusting gardening glove as he passed. Maria shrugged, pulled away, and shouted ‘LEAVE ME!’ so loudly that everyone stopped what he or she was doing to take a good look. Suddenly again, she had drawn further unwanted attention to herself. She dropped her head in disbelief, now she could hardly contain herself and was suddenly wracked with sobbing, as one is with true grief. And having been pulled over by the Governess, she nuzzled into the woman’s breast for comfort.

The tenderness of the Governess was always apparent; although of course, that is no to say that she was not orderly and could not keep a strict house; but there was always time for extra tea poured with affection, and a soft tone of encouragement. Pook was now twenty-three, and it was not the first time that his loins had fertilised the gardens of scandal in Cedric House. ‘My dear Maria, you are not the first, and I expect in my time you will not be the last. It was Pook, not the Moor, wasn’t it?’ Maria lifted her throbbing blond head, tightened her maids-cap, and whispered, ‘He says he loves me, he says he loves me, and the… the child is his. I have never even thought about the Moor’, and she lay her head again into the softness of her new friend.

Maria felt like the Governess was the answer to that moment when after that terrible beating she had kneeled before the bed. ‘Dearest Heavenly Father’, she attempted to pray although she knew nothing of prayer, ‘please I ask of thee, protect me, give me someone! Just someone that I can talk to! Someone who can help me!’ Maria’s frailty spoke against her, and really she knew nothing of the sort of salvation that she was going to be in need of. There were after all few friends that she could confide in, her Aunt Sarah Potts was at the most, the only person with whom she could even mention her attractions. But only they had giggled together at the idea of love between an Aunties gentle cautions and light mocking. The Governess was sure to be a better friend, she would help, Maria knew she could, and for a moment, she felt slightly reassured.

Upstairs, on the second floor, something unusual occurred just after morning tea. Pook stood from his bureau, reached behind the curtains and pressed the bell; whilst he waited, he wondered what cheek they – the staff- would give him this time. He seated himself and biting his lip he slid deep into angry demonic thought. His whole countenance hardened as he contemplated Maria, and he wracked his mind as how best to distance himself from this mess he had created. As had become the norm and as Pook had predicted, Sarah, one of the older maids, hammered the door. ‘Has everybody forgotten manners and decorum’ he muttered arrogantly as Sarah, deliberately entered the room with an heir of insolence and defiance, that Pook knew and detested. “I wish to have some tea”, and with that, Sarah turned heels leaving the room without a word. Pook, reaching for his pen, dipped the ink and sat motionlessly biting his lip again. ‘They are only behaving like this because of Maria’, he told himself. ‘Damn girl!’  And he mulled over his arrangement to meet with her that evening. ‘If Maria has told any of the staff of my affiliations with her, the situation with father will be grave indeed’ he said to himself, and he fretted and worried as he looked at his gold pocket watch and ruminated over the ‘wretched girl’ and ‘what to do’. 'It is not really a dammn problem', he told himself,  ' I will threaten that fool with his job if he doesn’t comply' he told himself and he toyed with the ideas he had for the Moor.

By sundown that evening, Maria had scrubbed her hands to death all day long in the hot soapy water and she was exhausted by a long hard days work. As always, it was about a few minutes past nine o’clock when she readied herself for the walk home. This evening it was important to her that no-one try to accompany her for safety, as it sometimes happened. In particular, Maria had to fight off the interest of the Moor for the job. Regardless of how much she made it clear that she was not interested, he fancied himself as the kitchen Romeo and the ritual of this little drama had occurred every night since Maria had started working at Cedrick House. Of course the Moor was only encouraged by the staff who found the young Maria as a match for the Moor delightfully amusing because of it’s total disregard of all Victorian chaste. It was scornfully attractive, her with her beautiful blonde hair, womanhood in its earliest years, and huge blue eyes that normally shone like jewels framed in a pale white face. There was little jealousy amongst the women, how could there be! Maria, with the innocence of a young scullery maid in her first ever job, she gently touched everyone’s heart with an energetic, perhaps even zealous enthusiasm for helping all the maids with their duties. Unusually, and very much to Maria’s surprise, the Moor didn’t appear, and in spite of the consciousness she had of her bruised appearance, she prepared a few odd things for the walk ahead of her.

Deptford New Town was still relatively new! But it stank that night as it always did, it was grimy, and the likes of Pook would never be found dead on Nicholas Street day or night. The young flowers of New Town were more than easy picking for the likes of Pook, their offspring played marbles on the streets with dirty faces and no shoes, and they reached out to passers and begged for as much as they could get. Regardless of the weather, Maria had to walk the path to New Town every night. She would jump the little muddy brook and stagger exhausted as always, along the dark lanes, across the field and then finally along Nicholas street where she entered the dank passage to her father's tiny overcrowded rooms.
The gas lighting on Kidbrook lane stopped at Baker's, and Maria brushed this dark Kent night through the thickets, hardly able to see if Pook had turned up to keep his promise. He always liked to jump her, frighten the life out of her, and pull her to himself in a cruel grip of merciless severity. Her stomach tightened in agony at the anticipated event, as she walked one step after the other, carefully negotiating the mud puddles expecting to be scared senseless at any given moment.
Pook whispered, "Miss Cloudsen!" and moved from the brush into the way, his outline was distinguishable, and the voice was all too familiar. Maria jumped this time, as she always did, and her stomach twisted a convulsion that made her shrieked not from terror but from agony, nearly falling to the ground Maria was battling excruciating contractions.
"Eddy!! Help me, I am in the most terrible pain", and she bent over doubled-up with her hand out towards the dark figure to help her gain her balance. Pook broke her fall and she stood breathing deeply, supported by his arm.
In this moment there was no tenderness, no embrace, no passionate kiss, no force. Pook stood motionless and waited until she caught her breath. "What on earth is wrong with you, that you should be so unwell Maria?" Pook whispered in a voice of slight irritation, it betrayed his lack of enthusiasm for anything that she might say though Maria could barely focus on what was being said. 
"Eddy!, I don't know but.." Maria breathed heavily "I can hardly walk", and Pook withdrew his hand and moved back a step, his eyes narrowed as though to assess the authenticity of the girl's condition from a greater distance.
"They tell me, you are pregnant to the Moor! I want nothing more to do with you!" he said sharply, and turning his back he walked into the night, briskly, determined, refusing to look over his shoulder at the girls desperate despair.
"EDDY  thats not so! EDDY! EDDY!!" she shouted, and the sound fell not just on deaf ears, but also on the black bushes, the path and into the dark night! The sound of uncontrolled sobbing echoed  until New Town in Deptford, but nobody came, nobody came!

That same darkness that had embraced the thickets, the path, had overcome Maria's body, it was working up a shock, and looming death. Breathless sobs gave way to waves of physical rejection, searing pain wracked Maria’s midriff, and every illusion of emotional support was stripped and discarded  on Kidbrook lane. There was no mother beside her, no Governess, no Pook! One last push, and Maria felt something very painful, and then something move down, something warm, and she knew it was blood. She composed herself! It was over!

It was hardly surprising that the Moor stared into his tea at breakfast; he was worried about Maria.
"The man's a dog", said Sarah venemously.
The Governess nodded and ladled herself a second spoon of sugar. "He pays for Charlotte's Tommy, I know it for a fact.” “But it’s always the girls from Deptford that he takes, the ones that live in town! The young man never learns, and that poor girl! Well!! She’s becoming nothing but a bundle of nerves! I mean I never saw a shiner like it! Really! Shame on her father! Really! Shame on all of them!" and the Governess looked at the Moor, and the Moor caught her eye.
"Aye, her uz very thun, an a b'utt nerrvy, but her uz gorrgus! Eh! Wot dyou say Moory",  and the Gardener laughed heartily, picked up his yellow tin beaker with his dusty gardeners hand, and gulped tea.
The Moor sat motionless, his long dark hair shone from the light of the basement window, the  red neck scarf poked out from what should have been a white collar – the scarf was the Moor’s attempt to be fashionable. He didn’t say a word, and he hoped to blank the Gardener altogether.
The Gardener and the Moor never really got along; a country bumpkin from Devon knew only about grass and apples, of course he knew nothing of oriental plants in the greenhouse. Nevertheless, he bossed the Moor with all the hatred mustered by ignorant folk who thought they knew all about overseas, and Woolwich, and African dockworkers, and English scullery maids of course. 'Moor' was a nick-name instituted in the house by Ebenezer Pook- the Master of the house, who after reading Othello had decided that Sebastian his gardener's hand, looked like the Moor. It stuck like whitefly to cabbage, and Sebastian never said a word against it. Being the type of man who loathed silently he resigned himself to be ridiculed mercilessly for the immutable difference of the colour of his skin. Sebastian knew nothing of anything but gardening and he was clever when it came to the orchids. He himself, had never seen a Moor, never read a book. Ignoring the jibes of the Gardener lead him to stare long and hard, into his tea, he was bothered by Pook and his plans to stitch him up with Maria. 

That Maria took a day off work came as no surprise to any of the staff, though it did worry some. But the next day, her sudden return back after only one day sick staggered everyone, not least because of her lifted spirits and her application for her work. Mrs Pook had demanded to enquire of the absence, leaving the Governess to implore that Maria's health was terrible at the beginning of the week, despite it's sudden upturn. Living out in Deptford was precarious, living-in was definitely better, chastity it seemed could  be assured by Mrs Pook's harsh moral eye! There was no 'abscontions to illness' amongst those that lived in. Living in was better with the Pooks, with whom sickness and absence was considered almost treason. Yet the fact of the matter was, that those in New Town could hardly afford to loose a days pay; it was tragic and simple, what was a miscarriage of child, was now a miscarriage of justice.  When it came to Pook family, there was never a question of restitution and fairness for this absence. And yet Maria was suddenly happier. She wasn't having Pook's child, or the Moor's child, she wasn't having any child - and she could keep both her job and her reputation. ‘Pook of course is now free to love me again’, she thought to herself, and she momentarily she drifted off into melancholy, as she thought about a child, Pooks child. She began to wonder  how nice it could have been if he.. "its not going to happen Maria" she said to herself and she tried to push the ridiculous thought from her mind. But she could not help but think about the path to Deptford and the many times that they hid in the bushes amongst the thickets; he always gave her money, and he always told her that he loved her.  Always there, without fail! She loved the feeling of kissing and those caresses on her neck, and she thought to herself about her love for him, so handsome and rich. ‘How I love him!’ They loved one another she was sure, and of course, if truth were known she always wanted to one day be Mrs Edmond Pook and run Cedrick House. 
 
There was absolutely no way on earth that Sebastian could pay the parish for another child; it was the type of thing that made people mad he thought, and he dug slowly with his trowel into the sand, he was filled with hate for Mary Preston. That's what he did these days, he kept his mouth shut and he just thought! He really liked Maria she was beautiful, and bright, and bubbly, and ... "Coman Moory - why so slow man!" The Gardener had interrupted his thoughts, and he shook himself to attention for the hasty turning of sand whilst the Gardener picked the dead orchid flowers and pumped the mist. Suddenly Sebastian’s thought made him panicky, ‘if I don't say it's mine then I looses my job and no kid gets bread’. ‘That pig, Pook, he is screwing me, he’s screwing me! I know he is!’
"The childs mine" Sebastian shouted and he looked over at the Gardener for his response."The childs mine! - Maria's its mine!” and he  turned the trowel whilst waiting for the reaction.
"Wo arre you sayin Moory, tha poorr maydz gunna ave a darrky bastard! Ehrr faverr'll kill ehrr man, an ehrr wain, eh'll kill ehrr. Tha poorr girrl", the Gardener tutted and shook his head and tutted and picked dead flowers. Sebastian gave the comment some time, he thought about Mary Preston and his boys. Those boys were his alright, no getting away from it, they were his!
 
Pook was in one of his moods again, shut away in his middle class castle of books, Greek, Latin, Botany, and Philosophy, when Sarah pounded on the door. "What the hell do you want now!" He tore the door open giving Sarah the fright of her life.  "The Moor wants to show you something of interest in the glasshouse sir", her mood was altogether altered, polite, and one of regular decorum. Pook stared at her, frowned and sat down at the bureau. He took his pen, waved with his hand in a flippant gesture and began to write whilst Sarah stood at the door. "I'll see him when I'm ready, about an hour - good God these people".
"Yes Sir, I'll tell him", and Sarah closed the door gently as she glided to the kitchen in her long fawn cotton smock, and she wondered what on earth could be  going on. 
 
That Pook needed to speak to anybody was highly irritating. He could not believe that he was going to have to contrive a situation whereby he had to speak privately with the Moor. Unfortunately no excuse was coming to mind, and he felt this whole thing was absurd. He opened the glasshouse door and told the Gardener to leave. "What in God's name do you want Moor!" he was on the verge of shouting, "I thought this was all sorted out” he snarled, “your not getting any more money if that's what you want!" and he began to gaze at the flowers whilst clenching his jaw, he made out that Sebastian was neither really present or of any interest to him.
"Sir, uhhrm Sir, it's about my boys Sir, uhhrm I can't say that Maria's baby is mine sir, cos, cos, my boys are dark Sir, dark-hair, curly hair, they are mine Sir, and every one knows it! They have brown skin and everything! Please Sir believe me, your baby’s will be like,….like milk Sir!"
Pook suddenly swung round and gazed at this dark  man before him as though he had just seen a ghost! He breathed a gasp of sudden realised exasperation, "Ehhrm I see what you mean, yes ehhrm, well ehhrm, I will need my money back ehhrm!" Pook took now to fiddling with the delicate flowers, fingering each petal slowly so that each crushed between his fingers in an attempt to relieve his exasperation. Before long Pook was destroying everything, moving from one petal to the next, and then the next whilst Sebastian just watched in mute despair..
"The, the, the, money sir,  I can't give it back right now Sir", and  Sebastian grimaced as he sought favour in  Pooks face, when he feared really only the worst.
Pook, coughed and cleared his throat, "look here Moor" he grabbed Sebastian by the throat and whispered, "get me my money and keep your mouth shut! Right! Keep your mouth shut!". He let go of Sebastian, who nodded, and nodded again. 
"Yes sir!", "Yes sir!" 
Pook momentarily collected himself, and calmly walked to the door of the Greenhouse, but then suddenly he threw the doors open, bursting out into the garden he walked up to the house like a scalded child. He could hardly contain the pressure of this mess. Eyes down, he brushed past the Gardener and slammed his way through to his books on the second floor.
 
At that moment, there in the greenhouse, Sebastian hated women, he hated especially Maria Cloudsen and Mary Preston. He hated every woman that he knew for what they had done to him, his mother, his aunt, his sister and all of them. He cut the flower heads off and threw them on the floor, he trod on them, deliberately crushing them, he hated women. There was no way known that Mary Preston would give him that money, she will have drunk it, hidden it, spent it!  And anyway he owed her money, plenty of it! As for Maria, what a whore! How could she go with Pook, look at him, a pig of a man, a rageful pig of a man, and what was wrong with him. Was it because of his colour, the words of the Gardener were snapping his mind "That poor girl," What about her father" I would kill her if it was my daughter". “Do they really think I have not heard all of this before?” he thought. He returned to his hate of Mary Preston, and then to his hate of Maria. "Who does she think she is, that spooked, nervous, frail bitch, how dare she go with Pook!" 
Sebastian took the trowel and worked the sand. "Give the money back!" He hated Maria Cloudsen and he dug the sand over and over again.
Early the following morning and a Mrs Branston dreaded going to the apothecary before it was light, but she was going to do it, because it had to be done because there was no one to call on. Besides which she had already considered that she was not prepared to watch her daughter suffer another day of influenza without some sort of tincture. If it was to be any good it had to be from Mr Mannerheim’s dispensary regardless of the distance, that sort of thing was common knowledge. In Eltham the man had a good reputation for his concoctions, and though she knew of the  exorbitant prices, Mrs Branston decided to button her heavy coat and leave.
Carefully, so as not to wake her children, she slipped out into the dark alley, into the cold April morning; she hoped to be back before they awoke. Moving briskly in the half-light through New Town and into the darkness of the woods that shrouded the dirt path of Kidbrook lane. Mrs Branston was not nearly the brave woman she pretended to be, but she was stout and walked with a no nonsense gait that described the toughness of a woman who reared her own children, and who cared little for the unsophisticated drunkards that lined up at the docks to receive her stews each day. Plodding forward she thought about Arthur, and his magnanimous fight for the workers; ‘if he was here’ she thought to herself, ‘if only he was here’, and her mind wandered off onto the conditions in the gaols, and the cold he must be feeling.
Kidbrook lane was muddy and twisted as it neared the crossing where in summer one hardly needed to jump. But at this time of year there were planks that steadied the foot from submerging completely into the mud on the sides of the book. It was no doubt, the worst part of the coarse and it required concentration, because although the jump was not difficult, the mud was perilously thick and one could easily create layers of laundry she did not manage the spring correctly. Mrs Branston marched along and walked the gauntlet, she loathed this brook, and despite her size and multiple skirts and thick coat, she cleared Kid Brook when she stopped in her tracks. ‘What on earth!’ she muttered to herself, ‘ Good Lord have mercy!’, she moved cautiously as she neared what at first looked like a pile of blankets, ‘Oh my dear Jesus!’, she saw immediately that her initial perceptions were wrong, and her heart pounded with apprehension of what this bundle would reveal. As she neared she became terrified, and seeing that this form had legs and boots, and that there was…  ‘Oh my God, it’s a woman!’ and Mrs Branston on seeing the black, blue stains of dried blood on white linen and what now clearly was long blonde hair, she took no time for a closer inspection. Breaking out into a run, she flew like clappers as though the Devil himself was chasing after her.
At about quarter past eight that morning, Mrs Potts comforted Mrs Cloudsen, but there was nothing that cold be said. It wasn’t too late, but there was not much to hold onto, Maria lay on the bed in front of them breathing, yes, but unconscious.
‘What has happened to her’, said the nurse, ‘ is indescribable’, and she started shaking her head ruefully. ‘The doctor says that it is likely she was beaten with a brick or a hammer’, and the nurse moved slowly towards Maria and stroked the one pale hand that could be seen. ‘She’s cold,’ said the nurse at the touch, and she moved the arm under the blankets out of sight. Demonstrating her attendance to detail the nurse then went on to straighten a few objects on the table before she left.
‘A hammer! How could anybody beat her with a hammer!’, Mrs Cloudsen sobbed as they the two grief stricken women looked pitifully over at Maria and winced with the imagination of a hammer striking the crown of this blonde young love. Maria was not recognisable, she now could scarcely be seen under layers of bloodied white bandages. Every now and then there were some brief vague sign of survival. A moan, a tiny movement; but then very suddenly there seemed a bit more, a gurgling cough, and then a whisper!
‘Yes, Maria lovely, it’s Mum, its Mum, what Darling, what?’, Mrs Cloudsen’s sobs abated momentarily, ‘Can you hear me Maria? Darling, what?’, and both women rushed closer to listen for any sound of Maria’s spirit.
‘Ph’… ‘phhh…..phhoook’ was whispered as a breathy, exhausted pule, just loud enough that the women looked at one another in amazement.
‘Pook’, said Mrs Potts, ‘she just said Pook,’ and both frowned with horror of the implication, ‘say it again Maria; say it again!’
But there would be no more utterances from Maria! Her life expired that evening. At 6pm she gasped a final breath and faded.
Jane Maria Cloudsen is said to haunt in apparitions of a young woman ‘crying for help’ at Kidbrook lane.
Pook was never convicted.