The White Apron (e-book) (used book) | Christine Eyres | bookbook.eu

Description

The White Apron by Christine Eyres is a powerful novel of that tells the story of Agnes and her life as a working-class woman in Vuctorian Scotland. Young Aggie's life is secure with her family in a village on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She thrives at school and has ambitions above her station but her hopes crumple when she is forced to leave school to work as a maid. Although Agnes has vowed never to marry, she becomes enchanted by a young soldier. William, newly returned from defending Queen Victoria's Indian Empire is garrisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Agnes's protestant family disapprove of her match to the catholic son of an Irish tinker.

After their marriage, William pensioned off by the army with an eye disease contracted in India, reluctantly returns to his familly's trade of shoemaking. He sinks into depression and the dram shops. The death of a child prompts the family to move to central Scotland where life improves. But tragedy strikes again. It is the height of the Industrial Revolution when children are born but often die in an age known as the slaughter of the innocents. Rescillience is tested when they move to the squalor of Glasgow, and Agnes fights fot the survival of her family. The friendship of other women and her faith in education sustain her, despite widowhood and the threat of the poorhouse.

Agnes discovers the mystery of the disappearance of her daughter's best friend. She finds young women with consuption, banished from their slum homes to protect the breadwinners from infection. She knows she must help these young women whose fate is prostitution or starvation - but how?