{"product_id":"the-linnet-bird-isbn-9781400097401","title":"The Linnet Bird","description":"In the claustrophobic, mannered world of British India, Linny Ingram seems the perfect society wife: pretty, gracious, subservient. But appearances can be deceptive. Linny Ingram was born Linny Gow, an orphan raised in the gray slums of Liverpool. Sold into prostitution by her stepfather when she was only eleven, Linny clung to the belief that she was meant for something more, something better, than life on the cold, dangerous streets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA stroke of luck granted Linny the chance to re-create herself as a proper middle-class young lady, allowing her to join “the fishing fleet”—young women of good birth who sailed to India in search of husbands. India, with its exotic colors, sights, and smells, is a world away from the cold back alleys of Linny’s childhood. But even there, she is haunted by her past, and by the constant threat of discovery. Soon she finds that respectability and marriage bring a new kind of imprisonment. But having come so far, Linny is not about to surrender easily. In the lush tropics of India she finds not only the means of rebellion . . . she finds that she may be capable of feeling love and freedom after all.“Spellbinding . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Linnet Bird\u003c\/i\u003e is a highly satisfying story of the triumph of will over circumstances.” —\u003ci\u003eOrlando Sentinel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A once-in-a-lifetime read. Holeman is a master of dramatic tension and of seducing a reader’s attention.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Toronto Globe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003eLinda Holeman has been a writer-in-residence, editor, and teacher of creative writing. She lives in Winnipeg, Canada.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLiverpool, 1823\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I thought you said she were eleven.\" Mr. Jacob's voice was hoarse,  the words clipped with impatience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I told you right, Mr. Jacobs. Past eleven, now. Had her birthday  well before Michaelmas.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She's awfully small. Not even much of a shape to her yet.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI pulled away from him, my mouth opening and closing in shock and  horror. \"Da! Da, what is it you're saying? No, Da.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. 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?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI yanked my arm away from Da's grasp. \"You can't make me,\" I said,  backing toward the door. \"You'll never—\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. 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.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 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?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course I knew a number of the older girls from the bookbinders—as  well as those from the sugar refineries and the glassmakers and the  potteries—who 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Come on now. He'll pay handsomely.\" Da put his mouth to my ear. I  smelled the sourness of his breath. \"You know we've no other way,  what with me put out of the job. I've always looked after you; now  it's your turn to bring something in, something more than the few  pennies you earn. And it's no terrible thing. Weren't I buggered  meself, over and over on the ships, when I were not much older than  you? And it did me no harm, did it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI backed away again, arms wrapped over my chest. \"No, Da. Mum would never—\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDa grabbed my upper arms, giving me a rough shake. \"There'll be no  talk of your mother.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt an impatient snick from Mr. Jacobs, Da called over his shoulder,  \"Now, sir, sit yourself there, on the settle, and I'll talk some  sense into my lass here.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut of course there was no talk that made sense, only—when I  screamed \"You can't make me\" and tried to run for the door—a knock  across my jaw that sent me flying. I felt my cheek hit the damp cold  of the floor and then I knew nothing more until I was jarred back to  consciousness by hot, urgent breath on my face. My shift was pushed  up around my waist, and Mr. Jacobs's body was heavy on mine. His  rhythmic rutting scrubbed my bottom painfully against the splintered  wood of the settle and the top of my head banged against the wall  with each thrust. The searing inside of me was a fresh explosion that  matched his grunts, and I saw the corresponding throb of the blue  vein that ran down his forehead, thick and raised as a great worm.  Sweat gleamed on his upper lip, even though the fire was out and the  room cold as a tomb.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut almost worse than the pain and horror of what was happening at  the mercy of Mr. Jacobs was that Da—when I turned my head to look  for him, hoping he might somehow be moved to come to my  rescue—watched from his stool, his face fixed in a look I'd never  seen before, one hand busy under the table.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI turned away, squeezing my eyes tightly, and lay limp under Mr.  Jacobs. I knew I should fight but was strangely detached. My body  burned raw at its center and yet my mind tripped and ran, stumbling  away from Mr. Jacobs's pulsing vein and the image of Da staring with  that strange attentiveness. And then I heard my mother's voice, faint  but clear. She recited the second stanza of \u003ci\u003eThe Green Linnet\u003c\/i\u003e, the  Wordsworth poem that had been her favorite, and from which she drew  my name:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eOne have I marked, the happiest guest\u003cbr\u003eIn all this covert of the blest:\u003cbr\u003eHail to Thee, far above the rest\u003cbr\u003eIn joy of voice and pinion!\u003cbr\u003eThou Linnet! in thy green array,\u003cbr\u003ePresiding Spirit here today,\u003cbr\u003eDost lead the revels of the May;\u003cbr\u003eAnd this is thy dominion.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI heard it in its entirety three times, and just before the start of  its fourth repetition Mr. Jacobs gave a great shuddering groan and  lay still until I feared I would be smothered. I wanted my mother's  voice back, wanted to hear her again, for while I listened my body  had become numb, but now she was gone, and with the absence of her  voice I grew aware of everything with a terrible clarity. I felt the  position of my legs, splayed impossibly wide, torn wetness, pain I  had never known or imagined, Mr. Jacobs's unbearable weight. I heard  the fretful wail of the baby in the room next door and the rattly  breathing of Mr. Jacobs. I smelled the rankness of his flesh. I kept  my eyes closed so that I saw dark starbursts on my inner lids. It  seemed that time had stopped.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally he moved off and away but I stayed as I was, eyes shut,  unmoving through the rustle of clothing being fastened and the  exchange of a few words and then the rasp of the door scraping along  the floor as it opened and closed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore minutes passed, and I carefully pulled my knees together, my  fingers trembling as I pulled down my shift, and still, without  opening my eyes, lowered myself to the floor and crawled on hands and  knees back to my little nest behind the coal box. The only sounds in  the room then were my father's muttered counting and the clink of the  coins and the sputter of a dying candle. I lay on my side and twisted  my blanket around me, knees brought up to my chest and hands tucking  my shift into the bleeding, sticky mess between my legs, weeping for  my mother even though she'd been dead for a whole year, and for what  was forever lost.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLater that night, when I lit a candle and washed away the dried blood  and spunk from my thighs, I swore that I would never again cry over  what a man might do to me, for I knew it would do no good. No good at  all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter Two\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was born Linnet Gow, although known as Linny Munt. My Christian  name was given to me by my soft and dreamy mother, Frances Gow,  thinking of the songbird with its twenty-four variations of a note.  Munt was the surname of the man who took her in four months before my  birth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRam Munt, the man who sold me that first time—and through the next  two years—wasn't my real da, and not even my stepfather, for he and  my mother had never married. He was, however, the only father I'd  known, although I knew he never looked on me as his daughter. I was  simply Frances's child, a burden, someone who needed to be fed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRam Munt had two favorite stories. The first was about his years  aboard ship. He'd been little more than a boy, come alone to  Liverpool from a small village in the north. Looking for a better  life, he was caught by a press-gang and hauled aboard ship for an  eight-month voyage. There he was introduced to sea life in the  cruelest way. When the ship eventually returned to Liverpool and  dropped anchor, he tried to run but was caught by another press-gang  before he'd even left the docks. He sailed again but by this time he  was older and stronger and wouldn't be bullied. By the time his  second voyage was over the sea was in his blood and he worked on  board until he had been injured one too many times by rolling barrels  and the cruel, swinging hooks and the sudden mishaps on rising and  falling slippery decks, and there were younger and stronger and more  agile men than he to be taken on. He was hired as a spinner at the  ropewalk near Williamson Square after that, his thick, damaged  fingers still able to deftly wind the hemp fibers together and walk  them down to the end of the room to wrap them around the reel,  repeating the process all day. He retained his coarse shipboard  language and his back bore the scars of many lashings, and his hands  smelled of pine tar from dipping the ropes to make them stronger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis other story was about how he'd come to take in my mother and he  told it more often than his sailing tales, usually late on a Saturday  night after he'd spent all evening at the Flyhouse or Ma Fenny's.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe'd pull my mother and me out of our bed—she preferred to share a  pallet with me, although Ram still called her to him a few times a  week—and make us sit at the table and listen while he recounted his  tale of heroism, of how he'd found my mother one wet spring night.  With a bully's thrust of his chest he'd go on about how he'd  discovered her, drenched to the skin and wandering in the rain  without a penny to her name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMother kept her head lowered as he told his story. She was always  tired, exhausted after her fourteen-hour days at the sewing press in  the Pinnock Room at the bookbinders, surrounded by piles of  schoolbooks waiting to be covered: Goldsmith's England, Mangnall's  Questions, Carpenter's Spelling, and, of course, the towering stacks  of Pinnock's Catechisms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was never one to turn away a maid in distress,\" Ram would go on.  \"I took her in, didn't I, took her in and gave her a meal and a  strong fire to warm herself. She might have been proud at one point,  aye, but it didn't take long to persuade her that my roof and my bed  were a damn sight better than what waited for her out in the streets.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes he changed the details; in one version he stopped her as  she was about to throw herself off the miasmal banks of the River  Mersey into the cold gray water. In another he fought off a band of  longshoremen who were trying to force themselves on her in the shadow  of the old grave dock where the ships of the slave trade had once  been repaired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In due time I even let her use my name, so she didn't have to carry  the shame of a bastard child,\" he'd go on, looking into my face.  \"This is where you come from,\" he'd usually add at this point,  glaring at me now as if I were about to argue. \"And don't you forget  it. No matter what fancy tales your mother puts into your head, you  were born and raised on Back Phoebe Anne Street. You've the smell of  the Mersey in your nostrils and you've been marked by the fish; there  can be no mistake about the origins of one what bears the mark of the  fish. You're the daughter of a sailor. Any fool could figure that  out.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was referring to the birthmark on the soft skin on the underside  of my forearm, just above my wrist: a small, slightly raised  port-wine stain in an elongated oval with two small projections at  one end. It did have the shape of a tailed fish, I had to admit, but  I didn't believe it had anything to do with the blood that coursed  through me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile the man I then called Da ranted this old and tedious story  about his saving of my mother, I sat, like her, impassive, but only  because she kept her cool thin hand on my arm, her broken thumbnail,  rimmed with ink, absently stroking my birthmark. It was so much  harder for me to sit quietly than it was for her, and I don't believe  it had anything to do with my age. I saw then, young as I was, that  she had nothing left in her to stand up to him or anyone; she  accepted Ram Munt and his rude manners in a way I couldn't  understand. I burned with shame for her and with hatred for him for  as long as my memory went back.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305206698213,"sku":"NP9781400097401","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400097401.jpg?v=1767740246","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-linnet-bird-isbn-9781400097401","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}