Angel Meadow Read online

  She moved slowly towards the table, leaning over to peer sadly into the unnatural silence of the cardboard box and Nancy was surprised to see her eyes come to life and glow warmly, even in the dimness.

  She herself was rooted to the spot on Eileen O’Rourke’s mucky, broken floorboards where she had come to rest as the door thundered to behind her. She had been told that Rosie was in labour, was in great trouble and she was to go at once to Mrs O’Rourke’s, but nothing had prepared her for this. She had been busy in her mind as the cab flew along High Street and Shude Hill on its flight to Church Court with thoughts of removing Rose and the child, finding them decent lodgings, a woman to look after them until more permanent arrangements were made, but now, within the space of five minutes, life had twisted her about again, shattering her, leaving her, she was well aware, with no decision at all to make really. This was Rosie’s child, and presumably her own . . . what? niece, nephew; half-brother or -sister to her daughter. Dear God in heaven . . . but whatever its sex or relationship to herself and Kitty she could not abandon it to the life Eileen O’Rourke would give it, that’s if Eileen wanted it, which it appeared she didn’t, having enough children and grandchildren to last her a lifetime.

  Annie picked up what looked like a bundle of old rags which apparently contained Rosie’s child, none of them as clean as the ones with which Bridie wiped over the back yard step and Nancy’s face whitened even further, for she must have the answer from Eileen’s own lips to the question she dreaded asking.

  Painfully she cleared her throat. “The father . . . ?”

  Eileen looked surprised. “Our Mick, ’oo else? She’d bin wi’ ’im all this time, the bastard. She lost two others, she told me, but when ’e scarpered an’ she come knockin’ on my door I took ’er in. But that’s an end to it, Nancy Brody. I can’t keep no bairn.”

  “No, thank you, Mrs O’Rourke, and you will be suitably recompensed, believe me, for your kindness. Now, if I may see my sister.”

  “Well, it’s a bit of a mess up there.”

  “Nevertheless . . .”

  Eileen sighed. “Right, lass, up ’ere. Oh, an’t by’t way,” turning back to Nancy for a moment, “she wants it calling Ciara. Don’t ask me why.”

  27

  Rose Brody was laid to rest in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist Church where Nancy and Josh were married and where, only two weeks ago, Edmund Hayes had been interred. There was no one there but Nancy and Josh, Mary, Jennet and Annie and, surprisingly, Arthur. The parson, who had reverently conducted the same office for Josh’s father, rattled through the service as though he had a train to catch, Annie was to say later, but they were all in too much of a shocked muddle to complain, which you couldn’t anyway, could you? Poor Rosie, that lovely, lively young woman who Annie had prophesied would come to a bad end, not meaning it, of course, or at least not this. To be shovelled away like some shameful reminder of the past, though Nancy had done her best. Flowers, you never saw so many flowers, white roses and lily of the valley heaped on the coffin which lay behind the polished glass and silver of the hearse, drawn by four magnificent black horses with silver accoutrements and black plumes on their nodding heads. In very poor taste, those of the Hayes circle who saw it go by were inclined to think, since the girl was a nobody, the criticism led by Millicent Hayes who had been not only at home but passing through the hallway when the hansom cab which brought Nancy, Josh and Rose Brody’s daughter arrived at Riverside House.

  It was nearly five o’clock on an overcast spring day when they drew up at the front door, for it had taken Nancy the best part of the day to complete the arrangements. She was forced to walk from Eileen O’Rourke’s house to the nearest funeral undertaker’s, which happened to be in Bridge Street, handily placed for the workhouse, she noticed, and arrange for a coffin, plain and unvarnished, at least for now, and a suitable vehicle, since she’d not have her sister carried on a handcart, she insisted. It was to come to Church Court . . . No, she did not care to be told that since the street was too narrow it would be impossible, nor that they did not do business in Angel Meadow, they were to do it, and at once. Did they understand? She was Mrs Joshua Hayes. They had heard of her husband, had they not, and just in case they were in any doubt he owned the largest mill and warehouse in the city. She herself would walk back to Church Court and she expected them to be no more than half an hour behind her and they were to bring clean . . . well, did they call them shrouds, or was it winding sheets? She was not sure, she told them, but she wanted her sister wrapped decently after she had been laid out and prepared for burial. Did they understand?

  It seemed they did, her husband’s name, her white, frozen beauty, her unnatural calm silencing them to total obedience to her orders.

  She and Annie sat silently for ten minutes beside the appalling bed on which the tossed and bloody figure of Rose Brody lay, then Nancy sprang up, her face working with anguish, her eyes, normally such a lovely golden amber, turned to a thick, muddy brown.

  “I can’t stand this, Annie. I must get her clean. Look at her.” For besides the detritus of birth which stained the bed and Rosie herself, she was coated with the grey grime that was usual in Church Court.

  “Lass, I know, but where yer gonner get water?”

  “From the standpipe, where else?”

  “Dressed like that?” Annie, despite her compassion, was shocked, for Nancy’s black but very elegant day dress was made of silk with a full, lace-trimmed black skirt over her crinoline.

  “It’s only a dress, Annie. This is my sister and I will not have her coated with filth for a moment longer than necessary. I am taking her to Grove Place where she’ll . . . where she’ll stay until . . .”

  “Right, chuck, I’ll ’elp yer. You go an’ fetch water, though where yer’ll find a decent cloth . . .”

  “My petticoat will do.”

  “Eeh, lass.”

  “Annie, I can’t bear strangers to see her.”

  “I know, lass, I know. Come on then, let’s mekk ’er nice.”

  The whole street turned out to watch Nancy Brody lug bucket after bucket of water from the standpipe to Eileen O’Rourke’s front door but now there was no jeering, no catcalls, no abuse. Her speechless, white-faced determination, and not just today, to bring decency to her family against overwhelming odds had finally silenced them and they watched her quietly, respectful, not just of her, but for the death of the girl they had watched grow from a skinny, neglected child into the young beauty Mick O’Rourke had destroyed.

  They had stripped Rose, she and Annie, both of them weeping quietly, taking from her the tattered remnants in which she had given birth, in which she had died, washing her, even her hair which crawled with vermin, using the soap some woman in the street had silently handed in at Eileen’s front door. They wrapped her stick-like body with its folds of flabby flesh into the snow white, immaculate sheets the undertaker’s man passed up the stairs before he brought up the plain wooden coffin in which, temporarily, Rosie was to lie. She had to be carried from Eileen’s house along Church Court to the corner of Angel Street for, as the undertaker had told her, the plain hearse, the smallest one they had, would not fit down the narrow alleyway. It was almost like the funeral to come, with four men carrying the coffin on their shoulders, Nancy, head high, behind, followed by Annie with the infant who had also been bathed and put in the remains of Nancy’s petticoat. And in a respectful procession behind Annie came the inhabitants of Church Court, silent, the men with their caps removed, the women, some of them, crying quietly into their filthy pinnies. Even the noisy children were hushed, awed by the solemnity of the occasion, though they were not sure what it was all about.

  Bridie had turned out to be a tower of strength in that first frantic hour after they reached Grove Place, brewing endless cups of tea, letting in the neighbours who offered to help, though none, at first, knew who lay in the coffin. She held the baby, who had begun to squawk indignantly over her lack of sustenance, jiggi
ng her up and down and even getting her to suck on a scrap of clean cloth soaked in sugared milk. Later, she was to hold Mary in her comforting arms, letting her weep all over her one good dress since it was Mary’s sister who was dead, saying nothing, but there wherever and whenever she was needed. Annie was to say a dozen times what a find they had in the girl.

  The plain hearse containing the coffin had drawn up outside the house after its journey along Bury New Road where, down its length, to Nancy’s surprise, men stopped and stood with bared heads and women bent theirs reverently at the sight of the entourage. Strangely, their small mark of respect was a comfort to her in her pain, for it was as though their Rosie was finally receiving a small measure of the compassionate consideration she had not known for five years.

  A message was sent to Jennet and another to Mary, a third to Josh and within minutes of receiving them, they were all there. Nancy walked blindly into Josh’s open arms, glad suddenly of his strength, for hers, after so long, was gone.

  But, of course, there was worse to come.

  The hansom cab in which Nancy, with Rose Brody’s baby in her arms, and Josh, who held them both silently but protectively within the shelter of his, drove up the neatly raked gravel driveway to the porch of Riverside House. Lamps had been lit in many of the rooms, the curtains not yet drawn and squares of golden light lay across the beds of spring flowers and the smooth lawn which had been mown that day. The smell of cut grass lingered pleasingly in the air. It was all so welcoming, a haven of refuge as a smiling Dulcie opened the door to them but even so Nancy’s heart quailed, for she knew what would happen the moment she crossed the threshold.

  Millicent was just about to enter the drawing-room, her hand on the doorknob as she turned to them.

  “What’s this then?” she asked suspiciously, bustling across the hallway, brushing aside the parlourmaid and peering in the darkening porch at the bundle in Nancy’s arms.

  “What does it look like, Millicent?” Nancy asked, doing her best to stay calm in the face of Millicent’s obvious hostility. Her sister-in-law did not as yet know what was in Nancy’s arms but already she was willing to disapprove of it, whatever it was. As though to give her a clue the baby grunted and awoke from the sleep into which the movement of the hansom cab had lulled her, and began to wail.

  Millicent stepped back as though a cobra had emerged from the wrappings.

  “Dear God in heaven, not another one,” she shrieked, her voice so piercing it brought Emma Hayes to the drawing-room door.

  “What is it, dear?” she asked anxiously.

  “Mother, you can’t possibly allow this,” Millicent thundered. “I don’t care whose . . . whose whelp it is you cannot allow it.”

  “Milly, be quiet.”

  “No, Josh, I will not be quiet. I have been quiet for three years now while those two bastards upstairs have spoiled any chance I had of a decent marriage.”

  “What bloody rubbish,” Josh snapped. None knew better than he that it was his sister’s acid tongue, her disagreeable attitude, her old-maidish appearance, her icy belief that she was cut from better cloth than her contemporaries, her insistence on airing her contemptuous views on every subject from the education of the lower orders, which she believed to be ill-advised, to Her Majesty’s insistence in remaining in her widow’s grieving, which was surely unwholesome, that kept any suitable gentleman from courting her.

  Millicent Hayes was twenty-five years old and, without a doubt, would remain a spinster until the end of her days. She made no secret of her scorn for all men who, in her opinion, were hardly worth the air they breathed, but she wanted a husband. She wanted the status of a married woman, a household of her own to order, and servants to do her bidding. She did not like her role of “daughter at home” and its prolonged playing made her increasingly bitter, and it pleased her to believe that it was the bizarre situation in the Riverside nursery that was to blame for it. Two illegitimate children, one belonging to her brother, which she could just about accept since men were known for their depraved lust and could be forgiven for it, and the second to her brother’s wife, who could not. Now, it appeared a third squalling infant was to be foisted on them, God knew from where, and she was not having it. She knew her mother would dither and weep and be overruled by any stronger will than her own, and Josh, poor infatuated fool, would do anything to please the trollop he had married, so it was up to her to put a stop to it.

  “Whose brat is that and what is it doing here?” she hissed, doing her best to remain steady in the face of what she sensed would be a battle. She could see it on her sister-in-law’s grim, white face and in her eyes, which were as hard as a topaz.

  “This is my sister’s child, my niece, and she is to join the children in the—”

  “Oh, no, madam, she is not. I don’t know why your sister cannot care for the child herself but let me—”

  “She is dead. She died today giving birth.”

  “Oh, darling.” The black-clad figure of Emma Hayes hurried from the entrance to the drawing-room, her arms lifting to comfort her daughter-in-law, who was such a comfort to her. Her face was soft with compassion, but as she made to pass the icy figure of her daughter, Millicent grabbed her arm, preventing her from doing so, while at the back of the hall, where she still remained, herself frozen in shock, the parlourmaid, Dulcie, put her hand to her mouth as though to hold in a wail of sympathy.

  “Millicent, dear, please.” Emma struggled to get free of her daughter’s restraining hand and Josh took a step towards her.

  “No, Mother, no. Leave it,” Millicent went on furiously. “God knows where it has been. Probably in some lice-infested slag heap in Angel Meadow where its aunt came from. Heaven knows what disease might be on its breath. We cannot have it here and that is the end of it.”

  Emma, who had the softest heart in the world, was willing to accept any poor waif or stray, any beggar who knocked on her kitchen door for a hand-out, but at the mention of disease she blanched and sidled to a safer spot behind her daughter’s strong shoulder.

  Nancy’s voice was weary but resolute as, for the first time, she made claim to what was rightfully hers.

  “The child has been bathed and is perfectly clean and healthy. She is wrapped in my own petticoat which was laundered, with yours, only yesterday. And may I remind you, Millicent, that I am the mistress of this house. My husband, with the death of his father” – chancing a small smile of apology at her mother-in-law – “is master, and as his wife it is his word, and mine, that will be listened to, and obeyed. Now, if you will allow me to pass, the child needs—”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Millicent panted, crouched now, arms held in the manner of a wrestler about to “take hold”, hands curved into claws. “My mother is mistress of Riverside House and she will decide.”

  “Really, Milly, what Nancy says is correct,” Emma faltered.

  “No, I won’t have it.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Milly, get out of the way. This is no time for such histrionics. The baby needs attention.”

  “Not in this house, it doesn’t, Joshua Hayes.”

  “Milly, can’t you see you are upsetting Mother?”

  “I am upsetting Mother! God in heaven, first you fetch home this . . . this slut . . .”

  “That’s enough, Milly.” Josh’s voice was like the crack of a whip and his eyes, like his sister’s, became flat grey pools of ice, but Millicent would not be silenced.

  “. . . and her bastard to live with decent people and now we are expected to take in, not only her illegitimate child but her sister’s and I simply won’t have it. D’you hear?”

  The animosity of the past three years which had festered and grown inside Millicent Hayes was free at last. She had shown her dislike, her bitterness, her resentment in many ways since Josh and Nancy were married. Indeed it would be no lie to say that she had addressed barely a word, civil or otherwise, to her sister-in-law during that time and had done her best to turn everyone, frie
nds, acquaintances, relatives, even the servants, against the young Mrs Hayes. But during those three years she had known that, amazingly, at least to her, her father had taken a liking for his son’s new wife, had admired her strength, her resolution to succeed, her shrewd business sense, rare in a woman. And of course, despite the scar to her cheek didn’t all men appreciate her beauty. She herself, though she and her brothers were so alike, had no claim to good looks as they did and her sullen detestation for her sister-in-law had corroded within her.

  Josh sighed, then moved back to Nancy’s side. He placed his hands on her upper arms, holding her steady, smiling into her weary, grief-stricken face, then bent his head to place a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth. His whole attitude spoke of his own weariness with his sister, of his love and support for his wife in the face of what anyone might say, and his determination to ignore the former and stand by the latter.

  “You go up, sweetheart, and you’d better take Dulcie with you,” smiling over his sister’s shoulder at the maid. “Nanny Dee will need some help until another nursemaid can be found. You don’t mind for a few days, do you, Dulcie?”

  Although Dulcie wanted nothing more than to get back to the kitchen to impart the astonishing news to the other servants, she smiled tentatively, bobbed a curtsey and turned obediently towards the staircase.