Angel Meadow Page 24

  She was seated in one of them now, her head resting on the chair back and in the one opposite Annie nursed the child who, like children do, had simply fallen asleep where she was playing, not waking when Annie lifted her into her lap. Mary and Jennet sat side by side on the old settle and in Mary’s lap the puppy slept and twitched and yipped. Mary’s hand rhythmically stroked her soft coat. She stared into the good fire that Annie had stoked up the chimney back, for though it was summer the evening had turned chilly, her face peaceful and dreaming, content in this new environment but with no real conception of what it had taken her sister to get them here. She worked hard and long and willingly but she was no leader, no innovator, happy to do as she was told without concerning herself with what she really didn’t understand. She knew her machine and could expertly sew a shirt or a baby’s little dress, or any plain seam, but that was the extent of her talent. She was a good girl, a girl without the complex mind of her sister, a girl better educated than any of her own age but totally unable to look after herself since, quite simply, she had never needed to. She depended utterly on Nancy and Jennet. She loved them and Kitty and Annie but until Nancy found her a good husband, which she meant to do one day, she knew Mary would be her child, her responsibility just as Kitty was. It drove her on, even beyond her own strength. She could not let down her guard for a second but must push those dependent on her, and herself, to the very limits. And even then would she be satisfied, would she feel secure, would she relax? she asked herself as she looked into the three concerned faces of the women who were her family.

  “Will you compromise?” Jennet begged, leaning forward into the firelight which painted a false and rosy hue on her tired face.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I suppose you are intending to set off tomorrow wherever it is you decide. Would you not wait until the end of the week?”

  Nancy frowned. “But it’s only Tuesday. I can’t possibly.”

  “What if Annie were to go and see Mrs Underwood and ask her to call here?”

  “Jennet, that is ridiculous.” Nancy’s eyes narrowed above the pad of her bandage, gleaming through the purple slits of her lids in a way they all recognised, for Nancy Brody had had no one to oppose her for nearly eight years and wasn’t about to start now, her expression said.

  “Why is it ridiculous? She has been asking me when she could speak to you for the past week. Apparently there are women queueing up in her shop for our goods.”

  “Really!” Nancy was delighted, smiling and wincing at the same time.

  “So it seems, but I am not used to that side of the business and apart from telling her you were . . . not well, I didn’t know what to say. She was not especially interested in what was on the stall since she wanted a better quality, something fancier with drawn threadwork, smocking and embroidery, perhaps in fine lawn or even silk and was prepared to pay for it. If Annie was to take a message to her shop . . . You know where it is on Market Street, don’t you, Annie?”

  “Oh, aye, I’ve passed it times an’—”

  “Now just a minute, I haven’t agreed yet.”

  “This house is perfectly decent for anyone to call so why—”

  “I know that.”

  “Then why are you—?”

  “Will you stop bullying me, Jennet Williams. I am perfectly capable.”

  “No, you are not. You are not yourself but you will insist on having your own way all the time. Beside the fractured cheekbone you were concussed, Doctor Whitehead told me. It would do you the world of good to sit in the garden and get some sun on you.”

  “I do not wish to sit in the sunshine in the garden while every man and his dog peers inquisitively over the wall at me. Anyway, I’m already recovered,” she told them testily, “and that is the end of the matter.”

  Yes, she agreed explanations of some kind would need to be given to the next-door neighbour – Mrs Denby, was that her name? – about her injuries and indeed to every other curious person with whom she came in contact over the next few days but that was not her concern, for they must make of it what they would. An accident, was all that needed to be said and they could like it or not as they pleased.

  But she was weakening, for even sitting in this comfortable chair with her head resting on its back was exhausting her. Her head ached, which Doctor Whitehead had warned her would happen for a few weeks, and her fractured cheekbone was on fire as it knit together so, having had her say to show them that she would not be bullied but would make up her own mind, perhaps she would do what the others begged, which was simply nothing for a day or two. She must get down to Shude Hill as another machinist must be found to replace Rosie, she went on, bending her head and biting her lip in anguish at the thought of what might have happened to her sister, while Jennet leaned across and took her hand and Mary and Annie looked on compassionately.

  It was perhaps this hurt, more than the physical one, that cut into her most deeply. Rosie had always been headstrong, more like herself really, she supposed, but the underhand and disloyal manner in which she had associated with Mick O’Rourke, knowing the way he had pursued Nancy, was pulling her to ribbons. Though Nancy had never told either of her sisters that it had been Mick who had raped her, she was pretty certain that they had both guessed who it was and yet Rosie had met him secretly, lying to them all, allowing herself to be seduced by his wit and charm and swaggering arrogance. Where had she gone, the sister for whom she had such hopes and plans, as she had for Mary? Probably living in some hovel dancing to Mick O’Rourke’s tune, for though Rosie was strong-willed she was no match for Mick O’Rourke. A child every year like the rest of the women in Angel Meadow, that’s if she was still there, for that would be the fate of a woman marrying him. If he married her! A black eye every Saturday night when he came home with drink in him, ground down like their mam had been ground down and just when the Brody girls were beginning to amount to something. It didn’t bear thinking about but she could not stop thinking and worrying about it.

  As though divining her thoughts the three women leaned towards her, Jennet patting her hand soothingly.

  Annie spoke sadly to her bent head. “There, there, lass, she’s medd ’er bed an’ she must lie in it. It don’t do ter brood over it since there’s nowt yer can do.”

  “I know that, Annie, but after all we’ve gone through; to get this far . . .”

  “P’raps if . . . p’raps if ’e were put in prison she’d come back.”

  “Dear God in heaven, Annie! She’ll probably be pregnant by now with his child. What relation will it be to Kitty? No! no! it doesn’t bear thinking about. Like you say, she has made her bed.”

  She choked on the tears she would not shed, then, standing up, she leaned forward to kiss Annie’s cheek in a rare show of affection. She was tired. She was longing to climb into the bed in the front bedroom, the one with the bay window, which she was to share with Mary and which she had been shown earlier. There was nothing else in the room except the bed but it was spotlessly clean with a deeply polished floor and was as peaceful as a summer meadow. The curtains were drawn and even a small fire glowed in the grate. There were candles on the mantelshelf: extravagant, Jennet admitted but just for this once in honour of her homecoming and her first night in her new home, let them be so. She knew that they must be careful with their money with all the extra outlay, she said resolutely. There was the rent which was six shillings more than they had paid at Church Court and six shillings was a week’s wage to some men. There was the additional food for Annie, who refused absolutely the wage they had offered her, no matter how they argued with her, saying they could pay her when their ship came in! There would be no more cabs, of course, which had been necessary now and again in the past, for they were only a mile from St Ann’s Square. They were all strong and healthy and well fed and would make nothing of such a short walk and was not the green of the open countryside right on their doorstep. They had only to wander down the lane at the side of the house for the
ir recreation, which would cost them nothing.

  Lodge’s Nursery Garden, a few yards along, was approached by a long, wide pathway. There was a small running brook inside its high walls and scattered about were summerhouses and arbours where visitors, if they wished, might sit and have tea and watercress sandwiches. A further saving was the fact that they could still eat economically, for Annie now had time to shop at the market where value for money might be had, and not last thing at night either, though knowing Annie she would make one penny do the work of two! Not a farthing wasted on anything inessential until Nancy felt that the tiny account in the bank on Piccadilly had grown large enough; that the work they had was to come in steadily enough for them to be able to let out their breaths on a sigh, knowing they were secure.

  The three young women went up the stairs together, Jennet carrying Kitty while Annie had a last potter round her miraculous kitchen. It seemed that Annie could not quite believe her good fortune and had to wander about touching her rolling pin or her skillet, wiping her pine table and her window bottoms for the hundredth time since they had moved in, ready to give the blessed pup a quick clean about her pretty face if she would let her. They could hear her telling Scrap to “be’ave yerself, fer if I find a mess in ’ere when I come down in’t mornin’ yer’ll get a leatherin’, so think on!”

  In the second bedroom at the back of the house was the bed Jennet was to share with Kitty.

  “I though it best for the moment,” Jennet had said hesitantly, for after all Kitty was Nancy’s child, not hers, “since Kitty might wake in the night and you need all the rest you can,” and Nancy knew that Jennet was telling her as diplomatically as she could that as they had not known how Nancy would be with her daughter they were leaving her with the woman who had practically brought her up in Nancy’s stead. “Annie will have the small front bedroom to herself. Is that all right? She is old,” she whispered, for she did not want to offend the woman without whom they could not have done this, “and she snores. Besides, we are used to sleeping together and I know Annie relishes the idea of having her own bedroom.”

  Nancy put her arms about Jennet and Kitty. She said nothing, merely held them both for a long moment, then turned to smile at Mary.

  “Come on, sweetheart, help me out of my clothes and into bed.” And they knew she was telling them that she really was not yet completely well and would let them have their way for a few days. Just a few days, mind.

  Mrs Denby next door had informed Annie that there was no need to walk into town as there was a horse-drawn omnibus that passed the house and ran regularly into Manchester centre. At the corner of Bury New Road and Knoll Street were stables for “Greenwoods” horses which was a stopping place for their omnibuses. If Mrs Wilson waited at the Grove Inn, a short walk from Grove Place, Mrs Denby told her, and was a favourite last “pull-up” before their journey’s end into town, she would find that there was a regular and convenient service.

  Annie did indeed find that the service was very efficient, and exciting too, for Annie had never been on an omnibus in her life. She and Kitty stood and stared at the mighty draught horses that pulled the vehicle, overcome with awe by their size and patience, the polish on their glossy coats and the chinking and gleaming of their harness.

  “Eh, dids’t ever see such beauties?” she asked Kitty, who studied the great beasts with admiration.

  “Is’t off ter town then, my lasses?” the driver asked them comfortably. “Then ’op up, fer we’re away now.”

  They hopped up and both enjoyed the ride enormously!

  Mrs Underwood, upon receiving Annie’s message, followed almost on her heels to the house in Grove Place. She had been impressed by the clean and tidy woman in the carefully darned shawl, highly polished clogs and snow white pinny who told her politely that she was Miss Brody’s housekeeper, a title Annie quietly relished.

  “And is this your . . . grandchild?” Mrs Underwood asked her, smiling and holding out her hand to Kitty who, on cue, took it, dimpling with the charm of Mick O’Rourke, whose true child she indeed was.

  “No, ma’am,” Annie told her, smiling herself but venturing nothing more, for it had always been Annie’s philosophy that folks’ business was nowt to do with anyone but themselves.

  Half an hour later she was opening the door to Mrs Underwood. A cab was just drawing away from the front gate, joining the stream of horse-drawn traffic that hurtled up and down the busy, tree-lined road from Manchester centre to Broughton and beyond. Bury New Road, as its name implied, was the main road to Bury and at certain times of the day, when the manufacturing gentlemen made their way to their offices, mills and warehouses, it was exceedingly busy. Because both Higher and Lower Broughton were totally unaffected by the explosion of what was to be called the Industrial Revolution, more and more families were moving there from inner Manchester. Higher Broughton had been chosen by the Manchester merchants, merchant princes who wished to be seen by other merchant princes as successful and therefore well able to afford their country homes. They joined the landed gentry by purchasing large estates and building spacious mansions in private parks, living among country meadows and yet within driving distance of their warehouses and factories. From the edge of Strangeways an extensive meadow spread as far as Broughton itself, covered with rich grass, the air scented with nothing more than the hawthorn’s scent from the hedges still bordering the new roads and the wild flowers whose spirited fragrance nothing could quench. If you stood on the high ground in Bury New Road in the springtime it was possible to see the magnificent orchards of pear, apple and plum trees laden with blossom so thick it looked as though it could be walked upon.

  And yet it was not just the middle-class families who began to move out of the urban sprawl, the dingy, uninviting hovels in the alleyways that cobwebbed the centre of the city. Neat terraced houses were being built at the lower end of Broughton, and the white-collar workers, who worked long hours for low wages but regarded their jobs as steadier than mill work, settled in them.

  It was to a house such as this that Mrs Underwood called.

  Mrs Underwood was a handsome woman of large proportions, with sleek black hair, a proud easy carriage, a clear skin and excellent teeth, for she came from a family who had never known want. She was dependent on no one since her husband, the one her father had married her to at the age of eighteen, was dead. He had left her well off but she was a woman who found no satisfaction in sitting at home doing her embroidery, so, since she had no children and was beholden to no one, she had bought herself a small business in the drapery trade. She was a woman of means and had no need to work but she did it just the same and her life was busy and satisfying. She had taken a liking to the beautiful girl who stood so proudly behind her stall on the market, knowing it was because she reminded her of herself, not in looks, for who could match the market girl in that, but in strength of character. But not only that she found her merchandise well made and good value, which proved itself by the way it walked out of the door of her shop. Everything she had bought from her sold at once and she was prepared to buy more. Indeed she had this in mind when she called at Grove Place that morning.

  She gave a gasp of horror when, as Annie, in her position as housekeeper, showed her into the shining kitchen, she caught her first glimpse of Nancy’s face.

  “We’ve only just moved in,” Annie was telling her in that way she had: take us or leave us, it’s all the same to us, “so yer’ll ’ave ter mekk do wi’t kitchen. Parlour’s got nowt in it just yet. Now mind that dratted animal. Thing’s allus under yer ruddy feet,” picking up the prancing puppy and depositing her on the step outside the scullery door. “I’ll put kettle on, shall I, my lass?” she said to Nancy, placing an affectionate hand on her shoulder. “Well, sit yer down.” This to Mrs Underwood who was still standing by the door, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and stunned.

  “Oh, my dear, whatever has happened to you? When your housekeeper said you weren’t well . . . I had no idea
what caused . . .”

  Suddenly from some back recess of her mind, where perhaps instincts are formed, Nancy became aware of a sureness, like a soft and drifting image, that told her this woman could be trusted. That she need not hide the truth of her previous life, for she would not be judged by it but by what she had done with it. What she had achieved. Mrs Underwood was a woman of the world who would not faint or shudder or scream at the appalling circumstances that had brought her to this moment. She had been raped and later beaten by a man, none of it her fault, as many so-called respectable women would believe of a girl such as herself. She should not have been out after dark on her own, since none of them would dream of it. She had asked for trouble, they would tell one another, having no regard for the fact that she was forced to support herself and her younger sisters, since she had no man to do it for her.

  She lifted her head, smashed, bruised but unbowed, and as they sipped the strong, hot tea Annie had brewed before she wandered off into the garden with Kitty she told Hetty Underwood how she had come from Angel Meadow to Grove Place. Mrs Underwood said nothing but her eyes, almost black in the amber smoothness of her face, never left Nancy’s and when she had finished speaking there was silence for several minutes. Nancy stared into the small fire. She would be sorry if this woman took offence and refused to have anything more to do with her. More than sorry, for a good deal of Nancy’s merchandise was sold in Mrs Underwood’s shop. She would find other buyers, she had made up her mind to that; indeed, when her face was healed she meant to walk the length of Deansgate, Market Street, St Ann’s Square, King Street and Exchange Street, in fact anywhere respectable shops were to be found, and look for other customers.

  Mrs Underwood took a deep breath, then placed her cup and saucer on the kitchen table. Nancy still kept her face averted, not from a misplaced sense of guilt or shame, far from it, but she felt that if she looked up and saw revulsion on Mrs Underwood’s face it would hurt her deeply. She didn’t know why, really, for the woman was nothing to her. And yet she was. There was a strange bond between them, of what sort she didn’t know, but it was there just the same. There were not many people in this world whom Nancy took a liking to, whom she held in respect. She loved her sisters, of course, and Jennet meant as much to her as they did. Annie was almost like a mother to her, fond, scolding, always ready to speak her mind, protective and sharp-tongued but Nancy knew Annie loved her and she loved Annie. Into this equation the baby face of her daughter glowed and something unfamiliar warmed her heart. She was a charmer, there was no doubt about it, like her father; but also in her childish character was a steadfast will, a resolute determination and strength which showed itself even at this tender age and Nancy found she liked it. And now there was this woman who seemed to have found a place in Nancy’s . . . should she say heart? No, that was too fanciful but she really liked her and would be distressed if she proved weak and false.