Trapped In She Town : A Romantic Novella (The Jute Mills Series)

by Serena MacKay

  “D’ye have the money to pay the rent?” Aggie asked, and Mary nodded her head in reply.

  “Then go ask fir Rab. The beds are clean enough. It’s whaur I stay and entertain” she smiled a toothless smile before heading over to a group of men at the bar. Mary finished her drink and as she left, she saw the woman heading towards the back door of the public house with one of the men following closely behind.

  The room Mary got was clean as Aggie had promised, however it cost Mary a fifth of the money she had left, so she knew she would have to get a job soon. In the morning she spoke with some of her neighbours, from the other rooms of the house, and soon discovered that most of them were prostitutes.

  “Ye’d make a lot o’ money Mary, wi that bonny chestnut hair o’ yours” they told her. “How else ye gonna support yersel and the bairn?”

  “Coorse ye’d hae tae wait til the bairn wiz oot. No many wud want ye while yer in the puddin’ club” one of them cackled.

  Mary knew she could never earn money that way; however she found that when she went to the jute mills to ask for a job, they told her to come back after her baby was born.

  So, later that week, Mary found herself huddled in a doorway to sleep, when she had finally run out of money. She had watched until the shopkeeper of the little bakery had shut up for the night, and then crouched down in the corner clutching her suitcase to her. She was absolutely terrified, but finally managed to drift off into sleep around midnight, as the noise from the street started to die down.

  Suddenly, she was awake again. A dirty tramp was fondling her and she bit his hand and jumped up as quickly as she could, and ran away with him shouting curses after her.

  Mary kept running and running until she could run no more, with her baby inside complaining and kicking. A painful stitch was hurting in her side, and she sat below a tree until she got her breath back. She was in a country lane on the outskirts of Dundee. She suddenly realised that she had left her case behind in her haste to get away from the filthy old man. She could still feel his hands on her breasts and smell his rancid odour.

  Mary started to sob for the first time since she left the house – she sobbed and sobbed. For her lost virginity; for her lost sweetheart; for her lost family; for her lost home and now for her lost possessions. Everything she owned was in that small battered suitcase and now all she had were the clothes she stood in. The little money she had left for food was gone too, wrapped in her thick stockings at the bottom of her case.

  Mary did not move until the dawn started to appear. She got to her feet once again and headed back towards the smog of Dundee. She had no choice now, she would have to go and take her chances at the poorhouse. Or else, she and her baby would starve.

  ~~~

  When she presented herself at the poorhouse in Mains Loan, she was asked to take a seat and wait. About an hour later the governor arrived and took Mary into an interview room. They sat on hard wooden benches. Mary explained her circumstances and she was told she would be placed in a probationary ward until a decision was made on whether she would be admitted to the workhouse or not.

  A severe-looking, older woman then told her to come with her, and Mary followed behind, along a stark corridor with bare walls and peeling, light blue paint. She was led into a bathroom where she was told to strip then bathe. After drying herself she put on a workhouse uniform. This consisted of a coarse shapeless woollen gown with a smock over, a cap, worsted stockings and woven slippers.

  Once dressed, she was led back along the corridor and up two flights of stairs to a long room with six beds running down the walls on either side. She was shown to a little single bed about halfway down the room on the left hand side. This was now her home she thought desolately. This little bed and the clothes she stood in was all she had in the world.

  Mary would rise at six, along with all the inmates, usually after a disturbed night listening to the wails and moans of the other residents. After a breakfast of bread and gruel, the residents would be forced to leave the workhouse. If they didn’t have a job to go to, then they would have to wander the streets until returning for dinner at 12 noon. Dinner consisted of pickled pork or bacon with potatoes and vegetables. A supper of bread, cheese and broth was served at six in the evening with inmates being ushered to bed at eight.

  Mary finds it hard to believe that she has fallen so far. She cannot fathom why this has happened to her. She moves around in a trance most of the time, as she tries to block out the realities of this world she is living in. She picks at her food at mealtimes and is so exhausted when turned into the streets each morning, that she barely manages to walk to the local park and sink under a tree. She stays there most of the day, if it’s not raining, watching mothers come with their children to play.

  About four weeks after she arrived at the poorhouse, Mary shuffles out one Sunday afternoon, after the midday dinner. It is a cold, misty and drizzly day and she starts to head down Mains Loan, wondering where she can find to rest and keep dry for a couple of hours. She hears her name being called and a familiar figure running down the hill towards her. She puts her head down and tries to scurry away. It can’t be anyone who knows me, she thinks.

  “Mary! Mary! Wait up!” the voice calls.

  It takes her a minute to recognise him - it’s John, her friend from the big house.

  “Goodness Mary, let me help you.” John is shocked at the sight of Mary. Her lifeless eyes look away from him and she is hunched over trying to keep warm.

  “Let’s go and grab a cup of tea down the road in Stobswell” he offers.

  Mary follows him dumbly, and John buys her a mug of strong tea and a chunk of bread. Mary sips at the tea but doesn’t touch the bread. “Go on Mary. You look like you are starving” he encourages her.

  “I’m not hungry” she said “I don’t need your charity. They do feed me up the road, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be pushy but you look like you haven’t eaten in a week, Mary. What about the baby?” he asked.

  “The baby’s fine” she snapped back.

  “Oh Mary! Tell me what happened.” he pleaded.

  But she is too embarrassed to explain the whole, sorry story to John.

  “I could kill that George bloke of yours. Why won’t he do the right thing and marry you?” he asked. “Can’t be a very decent bloke to do that. “

  Mary looked at John quizzically. “What was he talking about – George” she thought to herself.

  “They were all giving me funny looks at the house too.” John continued.

  “Have you seen George?” Mary asked her face lighting up.

  “No, of course I’ve not” John snapped. “But he should bloody well be here and looking after you, seeing as the mess he’s made. Not much of a gentleman leaving you in the lurch like this. Why don’t you go back up to Aberdeen Mary?”

  Mary couldn’t understand what John was talking about.

  “George is married to my sister Beth, and I can hardly turn up at my parents in this state can I.” she spluttered out.

  Mary had not contacted any of her family in Aberdeenshire since she had received the letter from her mother with the news of George and Beth. She felt a huge sense of betrayal and bitterness towards them all.

  “What the hell is going on Mary? George gets you pregnant and then marries your sister.” John looks horrified.

  “Oh John. George didn’t get me pregnant. Edward did.” Mary retorted with a look of disgust on her face.

  “Edward! Edward Muir. The master. Mary how could you have been so silly to sleep with him” he demanded?

  Mary was furious now.

  “How could I have been so silly” she spat out. All the hurts were coming together and she let rip at John.

  “How could I have been so silly! Oh yes, so silly of me to be torn from my family to work in this hell hole of a town. So silly of me to try to be a dutiful and faithful lady’s maid. So silly of me to be accosted by a monster, who threatened to
throw me out of the house if I did not comply with his depraved demands.” she shouted taking a deep breath and then letting it out again.

  “Yes” she now whispered, “so silly of me to worry that if I screamed and shouted rape – nobody would believe me and the mistress would throw me out anyway”, as she started to sob.

  Then suddenly she snarled again “Little did I know that I would be thrown out anyway” and she jumped out of her seat and ran out of the bakery door.

  She should have known John would turn against her too.

  She ran up the street and could hear John calling her name behind her, but there was no point turning around. Nobody understood anymore. As she hurried towards the park, she felt a sharp, tearing pain in her abdomen, and she fell to her knees in the street clutching her belly. Everything was swimming around her. As she lay down she heard voices calling her but they were too far away.

  When she came round, she saw she was still lying in the street with her head on John’s lap. “Oh Mary I thought I had lost you” He looked as if he had been crying. “We need to get you to a doctor. “

  At the surgery, the doctor told Mary she needed to rest until the baby was born, which should be, by his calculation, 4 weeks’ time. He told John that he needed to make sure his wife was eating more. John just nodded dumbly as he paid and the doctor showed them to the door.

  “Mary, you can’t go back to the poorhouse, you heard what the doctor said – bed rest for the next 4 weeks. They are obviously not giving you enough to eat there. Let me look after you?” pleaded John. “I’m going to get a wee one room flat for you to live in until the baby is born.”

  Mary felt so weak that she had no energy to argue, and so John found her a one roomed flat in Albert Street.

  One week later, Mary gave birth to a small but healthy, baby boy on June 1st 1872, and on John’s next afternoon off, he quietly married Mary at the local registry office, as well as registering Patrick’s birth. They went straight back to the flat where Mary made a meal of potatoes.

  At six in the evening, John left Mary and baby Patrick to head back to the big house in readiness for the family’s return from Forfar. He would need to unhitch the horses from the carriage, brush and feed them before stabling them for the night.

  Mary stayed at the flat looking after Patrick and John came rushing over at any opportunity he could get away from the big house. He never stayed overnight as he had to be at the house in case he was called to get the horses ready.

  Mary always made a fuss of him when he arrived, and made sure she had something to feed him, but she wasn’t ready yet to let John touch her. He was very patient and always spent plenty of time playing with Patrick.

  They carried on like this for 6 months, until one Tuesday morning in November. Mary had been up at four with Patrick and had just got him down for a morning sleep around ten. She was busy washing the dishes in the little kitchen when she heard a knock at the door. She knew John would never arrive at this time of the day so she called out warily “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Mary love. Open the door” called back John. She flung the door open to see John standing there with a small case at his feet. She gave him a peck on the cheek and moved aside to let him in. “Is something the matter John? This is a funny time for you to get away from the big house.”

  “Och, put the kettle on Mary my love and make us a cuppa. I’ve some news to tell you” he responded.

  When the two of them were seated, with a cup of tea each in front of them, and a slice of bread for John, he started to explain. He had been called in by Giles first thing that morning.

  “You know Mary, that when they asked you to leave, the rumour was that I was the father. When Giles asked me, I denied it, for I didn’t know the full circumstance at that time. Anyway, somehow they have found out we are now married and they’ve given me a week’s wages and sent me on my way.”

  And so began married life proper, for John and Mary.

  The Jute Mill

  John, losing his job at the big house, brought two major problems with him, that Mary could see.

  The first was the obvious money problem. Neither of them was earning and someone would have to find a job soon, to ensure the food stayed on the table.

  John had been asking around the mills to see if they needed anyone to work with the horses but there were no vacancies.

  “Tess next door works at the mill down the road” Mary said to John about a week later after he had failed in his search for work. “Perhaps I could go down to the mill tomorrow and see if I can get a job.”

  “No, I will not have you working there Mary” John cried.

  But after another week, with no money coming in and the bairn crying most days because of hunger, Mary once again approached John.

  “John, we can’t go on like this. We will all be dead or back in the poorhouse within the week if we don’t do something. Tomorrow morning I am going to the mill with Tess to see if they will clock me on for a shift” Mary said firmly. “You know most of the women go to work in the mill John, and the men stay home. It’s just the way it is here.”

  And John knew what she said was true. Dundee was nicknamed “She-Town”, as the mills employed the women and children so they could pay them a lower wage.

  The next morning at seven Mary was in the street moving along with hundreds of other women and children, all heading towards the mills for their days work. The women outnumbered the men by three to one, however what upset Mary the most was the number of children entering the factory gates.

  Tess showed Mary where the office was, before she scurried off to start her shift, waving and shouting to her friends.

  Mary was immediately offered work but the wages were extremely low. It would have to do she thought. She needed to get some food inside her bairn. So Mary started her work life in the jute mills. The work was nothing but drudgery and there was constant danger from the machines. She was exhausted at the end of each shift. She would shuffle out at the end of the day covered in dust. Her eyes, mouth and nostrils clogged with the stour.

  John looked after Patrick and had a meal ready for Mary at the end of her shift. Usually all this consisted of was potatoes or porridge, and bread meat – bread and boiling water for Patrick. This was all that they could afford on the wages Mary was given.

  The second major problem caused by John leaving the big house was the question of intimacy.

  Up to the point when John arrived with his case at the front door, Mary and John had not consummated the marriage. However now that they were living under the same roof as man and wife things would need to change.

  They lived in a one room tenement flat, which consisted of a small room where they lived and slept, with a small kitchen off this. So Mary quickly had to forget about modesty. John loved Mary and treated her with care but it almost became unbearable for him, sleeping in such close proximity to the woman of his dreams - who was also his legal wife.

  Mary wanted to please John too. She did love him, but more in a brotherly way, not with her whole heart yearning for him as she had done for George. However George had to be put away as this was now a forbidden love.

  Edward had obviously traumatised her, and she now had the feeling that the whole sex act was dirty and degrading.

  As time passed, John became slightly more insistent when the lights went out and Patrick was asleep in his little bed, which was really just a pile of clothes on the floor. He put his hand gently on Mary’s thigh, and when she didn’t push him away, he gently began to stroke her. Mary stiffened and held her breath. She knew she had to grin and bear it. She had agreed to marry John even if she did not have sexual feelings for him. He had saved her and had taken on her child as his own. So with a great strength of will she slowly shifted herself to face John. This was all the encouragement John needed and Mary closed her eyes and drifted away to a different place while John completed the act.

  Once it was over, Mary kissed John and turned over to go to slee
p. John looked down on Mary. She was so beautiful. Her chestnut hair spread out on the pillow and she looked so peaceful in her sleep. But he knew that something had been missing from the lovemaking. Something very important. There had been no passion and that made John very sad.

  Life carried on, with Mary working in the mill and John looking after Patrick. Working life in the mill was harsh and the workers made close knit communities together outside. Mary and Tess who lived next door, had become very close friends and would always help each other out with any household chores or looking after the children. Tess’s oldest son, who was nine, had started working in the mill alongside them.

  One way to relieve the drudgery of the jute workers’ lives, was to go out at night to the public house and get drunk. Tess was always on at Mary to come out with her, and at last one day after Mary had been at the mill for three months she agreed. As she was getting dressed to go out however John was in a grumpy mood.

  “Just leave me with the bairn again. What you needing to go out gallivanting for. You’ve a husband here” he moaned.

  “John my love.” Mary soothed. “ I’m not out looking for a husband. I’m just going out to let off a bit of steam, and have a laugh with Tess.”

  The public house was full of customers and thick with smoke when they arrived. The noise was loud but not as bad as the noise of the machines at the mill. It was dark inside and Tess soon pushed her way to the bar and ordered two drinks, which they quickly downed, and Mary swiftly bought another two. Soon Mary had a nice, fuzzy feeling and she and Tess were having a laugh with a group of the girls from the mill that they knew. Most of the other girls were overdressed with the tops of their bosoms pushed up out of the bodice of their dresses. They were all singing loudly and Mary began to feel a bit dizzy. Some men from the other side of the bar had moved closer and were starting to leer at some of the girls, who were definitely the worse for wear.

  “Tess!” Mary shouted above the din. “I’ve had enough. I’m going to head home now.”