Mill Town Girl

by Audrey Reimann

  Rose buttoned her blouse with shaking fingers, left the house and ran back to school, lurching sobs making her chest painful as she turned the corner of Wells Road and nearly knocked Dad off his feet.

  ‘What’s the matter with me darling?’ Dad lifted her high in the air, his merry eyes clouding when he saw her tear-streaked face.

  ‘It’s Aunt Carrie,’ Rose sobbed. ‘Burning my communion dress and shouting at Mum.’

  Dad’s face set into firm lines. ‘Is she?’ he said harshly. He put her down gently on the pavement and tapped her bottom. ‘Don’t you worry your sweet head about Aunt Carrie,’ he added to comfort her, but he was angry. ‘She knew you were going to take your first communion. I’ll put a stop to her nonsense.’

  Carrie had turned on Jane as soon as Rose had gone. ‘What’s all this?’ she said.

  ‘Who says she’s going to . . . to take your communion? All that heathen nonsense? I won’t have it.’

  Jane had a determined look on her face. ‘Sit down, Carrie,’ she said softly. ‘You must understand. She has to make her first confession. Take her first communion. You can’t let her belong to the faith and not be a member.’

  ‘I said – I said all along, that she’d be brought up with yours,’ Carrie answered quickly. ‘But I never said you could do what you wanted.’ Indignation filled her. How could they do this? She wanted to strike out. ‘I won’t have it. I won’t have the child decked out like – like a sacrifice. In white with flowers on her head. I’ve seen it, seen ’em parading up the street.’

  Jane was standing her ground, her back to the mantelshelf, the look of fright on her face giving the lie to her words. ‘You have to stop it, Carrie,’ she was saying in an appealing voice when Danny came bursting into the house.

  He seemed to take it all in, Carrie noted. He turned on her, one arm around Jane, white faced and furious. ‘You’ve done it again, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘You’ve come in here, telling us how to run our family, bullying your sister.’

  ‘I’ve just found out what you’re up to, Danny Kennedy,’ Carrie blazed. ‘You’ll not take my child and do what you want with her.’

  Danny took Jane by the arm and led her to the uncleared table where he made her sit. Then he turned on Carrie.

  ‘You will let Rose grow up a good Catholic girl,’ he said, as if every word was carefully thought out. He’d rehearsed it. ‘There is nothing you can do about it. Stop resenting our love for her.’

  How dare he speak to her like that? Anger swept through her and she raised her hand to hit him. He forestalled her. He caught her wrist in a grip of iron and twisted her arm until she cried out.

  ‘If you did your job properly,’ she said when he’d let her hand go, ‘you’d . . .’

  Now his voice was icy as he interrupted her. ‘Our job?’

  ‘Yes.’ She flung the words at him. ‘Your job! I pay you! I employ you. Both of you. You are bringing her up for me.’

  As soon as she heard Jane’s incredulous gasp she knew that she had gone too far. She knew it as soon as she saw the cold horror in Danny Kennedy’s eyes.

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked slowly.

  She couldn’t stop now. ‘Of course. It’s my house. I buy the food. I pay the bills. And she’s my daughter.’

  There was a pause when Danny looked into her face, dislike for her in every line of him. ‘Prove it!’ he said with contempt.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘You can’t prove it, Carrie.’ Danny went back to Jane’s side and placed an arm around her shoulder. ‘There’s proof incontrovertible, that she’s our child.’

  Jane was clutching his hand with both of hers. Tears were bright in her eyes. ‘Don’t, Danny. Don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t do that to her.’

  But Danny went on, in a voice of authority, as if he’d wanted to say it for years. ‘You have no claim. Forget you ever had her. And leave us in peace.’

  Carrie felt as if the floor were giving way under her. It wasn’t true. Were they turning against her? Were they going to turn her own child against her? Surely there was someone who knew that Rose was hers.

  She took a deep breath and hesitated for a moment. ‘There’s your brother,’ she said at last. ‘Patrick knows. He knows she’s mine.’

  ‘So!’ Danny said. ‘At last. You’ve spoken his name. You said you never wanted to hear it. You’d wiped him from your mind, you said.’ He looked triumphant. ‘Then, when it suits you, his name trips off your tongue.’

  It was true, she knew. She had never spoken about him. But never had a single day gone by when she had not had to struggle to forget.

  ‘We all lied to Patrick,’ Danny said. ‘He accepts that Rose is ours.’

  Carrie pulled herself together. ‘You write to him. You read his letters out to the children. You act as if he’s some kind of conquering hero,’ she flared. ‘You hold him up as an example to the children. You can’t tell me he thinks she’s yours.’

  ‘Patrick does not make special reference to Rose,’ Danny said, in a controlled tone that Carrie had never heard him use before. ‘And, let me tell you, from the day Jane and I held that baby – from the moment we stood in church and had her baptised – she was ours in the sight of the Lord. She became our child. Ours!’

  ‘You can’t do that.’ Carrie’s anger had gone. Now it was her turn to be frightened.

  ‘I think Patrick has forgotten his first doubts,’ Danny said. He looked at her coldly. ‘Do the same,’ he ordered. ‘Forget. From now on, we will pay our rent money into an account at the bank where it will be recorded in the proper manner. I’ll feed and clothe my own family. We don’t want your money. Or your interference.’

  Jane wiped her eyes on a corner of the tablecloth. ‘Don’t be hard on her, Danny,’ she said.

  ‘How can you . . . ?’ Carrie began.

  But he would not be stopped. He raised his hand as if calling for silence from Jane who sat there, letting him say it. ‘Oh, I can! I warned you. You’ve gone too far.’

  Carrie knew that she really had pushed Danny too far. She had better appeal to his decency. She let her shoulders slacken, she dropped her eyes from his and went to the chair at the fireside.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ she said at last, looking at Jane as she spoke. She had not meant to upset Jane. It was Danny and this whole religious business that maddened her. ‘I’m sorry, Jane. I’m sorry I made you cry. But you must know. You must know how I feel. You weren’t brought up to believe all this.’

  Danny was not content with an apology. His lip curled in a sneer as he added, rubbing salt into her wound, ‘So, if you want to see Rose – our daughter – you’ll have to behave yourself.’

  ‘Danny, Danny! Don’t!’ Jane said. ‘She’s my sister. I love her. Don’t hurt her, please.’

  He turned back to Jane and kissed her forehead. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. I’ll not be dictated to, that’s all.’ Then he looked at Carrie and, tight-lipped, said, ‘You are a tyrant. You’ve used us all for your own ends. You used Patrick to give you the child you wanted. You didn’t want him afterwards.’

  ‘That’s a lie, Danny Kennedy. May you be struck down!’ Carrie managed to say, breathless now with indignation.

  ‘You’ve used Jane and me, to bring up Rose for you, thinking us soft and eager. You didn’t want to lose face in the town. Oh, no! You must be looked up to. Be seen as the upright Miss Shrigley.’

  ‘Jane!’ Carrie appealed, ‘Tell him it’s not true.’

  Danny was standing over her, fury in his eyes. ‘I expect you’ve some grand idea that one day you’ll tell her, as if you were bestowing a favour, that you are the woman who gave birth to her. Well, let me tell you now – you’ll do her more of a favour by keeping it to yourself. I’ll not let my family go in fear of you. You’ve made an enemy of my brother. Don’t make any more.’

  Carrie didn’t know what he was talking about. Enemies? She hadn’t an enemy in the world. All she
tried to do was her Christian duty.

  The strangest thing, for Rose, was that on the day after she had burned the communion dress Aunt Carrie came to the house carrying a cardboard box as well as her brown shopping bag. She placed the box on the table and told Rose to look inside.

  Rose untied the knots in the string as she’d been taught to do. Her hands shook. She knew it would be something nice, for Aunt Carrie had the look on her face that came when she was pleased. Rose felt Aunt Carrie’s eyes on her as her small hands lifted the lid and moved aside the layers of tissue paper.

  ‘Oh! Oh, look!’ she whispered.

  It was the most beautiful dress Rose had ever seen, made of white satin, with tiny pearls around the edge of the little scalloped collar and more around the front of the waist. It had a wide sash attached at the sides and tied in a big bow at the back where satin-covered buttons were placed, close together in a long line nearly to the hem. The skirt was full, gathered into folds and at the hem was a band of satin-stitch embroidery. It wasn’t meant to be worn again and again because it would be impossible to let down such a hem. And underneath the satin skirt was a rustling taffeta petticoat.

  Rose was overcome. ‘For me?’ She looked at Aunt Carrie and saw the look on her aunt’s face.

  ‘Take it out of the box then. Try it on,’ Aunt Carrie said and Rose heard the eagerness, sensed the apology, in her aunt’s voice.

  Rose had a tight lump in her throat. She wanted to kiss and hug and thank Aunt Carrie yet she knew that Aunt Carrie hated to see people showing their feelings. Aunt Carrie used to clench her teeth and stiffen, holding herself back, pushing Rose gently away, when she was little.

  Now Rose dared not make a move towards her. There was a long silence before she flew upstairs and cried and cried. Then Mum came up and held her tight until she was calm and could put on the dress and show Aunt Carrie how lovely it looked.

  And after Aunt Carrie had gone Mum let her go round to Alan’s house, in the dress, with a coat over the top so that nobody else would see it.

  Nan Tansley let her in. ‘You’ve got something to show us, haven’t you, miss?’ she said, her happy face splitting into a smile. ‘I can see something pretty peeping out from under your coat.’

  Rose peeled off the coat carefully and watched Nan’s face as she opened her eyes wide and held her at arm’s length to admire the dress.

  ‘Eeh! I’ve never seen a prettier one,’ she said. ‘Go into the sitting room and show it to Alan and his dad.’

  Rose went as quietly as she could, holding her breath to give them a real surprise. At the door she stood for a moment, twisting her head to see that the bow was straight. She tried to hide her delight but, as she turned the handle of the sitting room door, a huge smile flashed over her face.

  Alan’s dad got to his feet. ‘My word,’ he said. ‘You look like a little fairy.’

  ‘I think I look like a bride,’ she said. ‘If I had a bunch of flowers I would. Wouldn’t I Alan?’

  Alan stood beside his dad. ‘Is it a wedding dress?’ he asked.

  ‘No, silly. It’s my first-communion dress.’

  ‘Will you wear one like that when you get married, then?’

  Alan was more concerned with the use of the lovely dress, than noticing how pretty she looked. Rose found it exasperating, having to explain everything to a boy who clearly didn’t know the difference between a wedding dress and a communion dress.

  ‘I’ve told you before,’ she said, shaking a finger at him, ‘that I’m going to marry YOU when I grow up. And wear A LONG DRESS.’

  Now Alan’s dad’s laughter was booming out. But Alan was being silly, he deserved to be laughed at.

  ‘So you’ll be Mrs McGregor when you’re a big girl, will you?’ Alan’s dad asked.

  ‘No. I won’t,’ Rose said. ‘Alan will be called Mr Kennedy.’

  ‘But,’ Alan’s dad explained, ‘the girl always takes the name of the boy when she marries.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t,’ Rose told him firmly. ‘The one who asks first is the one who chooses the name.’

  Then they were laughing and admiring the dress and promising to come to church on the day she’d wear it and Rose had never felt so important in her whole life. And Mum must have said something to Aunt Carrie, too, for there was no more mention of Alan. They must have told Aunt Carrie to stop being so possessive for Rose was allowed to see her friend as often as she liked.

  Danny’s outburst had been a shock, there was no denying it. How could he say that she had made an enemy of Patrick? She had no enemies. And she never, never spoke about Patrick. Carrie sat at her sitting room window. It was the best and biggest room in the house. It was the room that would have been the main parlour. She didn’t have a parlour in this Temperance Hotel. It only led to the lodgers taking liberties. They had a dining room and that was enough. She never spent time with the lodgers. Maggie Bettley and the girl saw to them.

  Her room had a good view, overlooking Waters Green. Outside, under her window and right up Churchwallgate, the May Fair was in full swing. The fair came twice a year, in May and at the October Wakes.

  The noise of the crowds almost drowned the hurdy-gurdy music that came, scratchy, twanging mechanical music, from under the coloured canvas roofs towards her. Over the other side, around the iron stalls of the cattle market, she saw the crowds jostling around the coconut shy and the rifle-shooting bays.

  It was years since she’d gone to the fair. She’d go down for an hour when she’d finished her cup of tea and decided what to do about Rose.

  Now she remembered the rest of the row she’d had with Danny and Jane. Danny had been laying down the law, telling her how it would be now, telling her that Rose would take her first communion, make her first confession.

  ‘And you’ll come and watch it, if you’ve any soul, Carrie,’ he’d said. ‘She’ll expect her aunt to be there.’

  Oh, God! Could she do it? She remembered, with sickening clarity, the day Patrick told her that he’d confessed to that same priest all about himself and her. For all she knew that very priest would know that Patrick Kennedy was Rose’s father. No. She couldn’t. She’d feel she was betraying all she’d stood by, if she went into that place.

  ‘And another thing,’ Danny had said. ‘You’ll allow her to have friends. What is it you dislike so much about her playing with young Alan McGregor?’

  ‘You know very well,’ she had answered. ‘Douglas McGregor keeps in touch with your brother. Your brother is Alan McGregor’s godfather. For all I know, your brother could have told him.’

  ‘Nonsense. Patrick knows that Rose is ours. He’ll abide by my wishes,’ he’d answered her, full of importance. ‘And so will you.’

  It had been the right decision, she was sure it had, letting Jane bring Rose up. She had kept her respectability. Nobody had questioned it. Rose was happy. And she would not have been happy, living here in Waters Green, the illegitimate daughter of a lodging-house keeper.

  It just wasn’t right for Danny to deny her, not to acknowledge her own right to her own child. She felt the quickening of anger against him. What had he said? That she was a tyrant? She tried to do her best for them, for Jane and Danny. They’d have a shock if she didn’t. If they had to manage on what Danny earned there’d be a few changes. Danny didn’t know that she gave money to Jane every week. She gave Jane two pounds a week, to buy food and clothe the children.

  She did her Christian duty to others as well. She helped the Gallimore family – the decent, respectable poor. She helped them quietly as well, without any show, like you were supposed to do. ‘To give and not to count the cost,’ her father used to say when he put half-a-crown in the poor box.

  It had given her a fright when Danny had said that she couldn’t prove she was Rose’s mother. There were at least two people outside the family who knew – Patrick and Martha Cooper. Martha had attended to her on the day the child was born. Martha Cooper had taken off her milk and bound her. Martha Cooper ha
d given her the stuff to take, the herbs and salts that she’d said would ‘send her milk back’. Martha Cooper wouldn’t have forgotten.

  Martha would be in Churchwall Street any day now, to deliver Brenda Gallimore’s seventh baby. Brenda, who was only a year or two younger than Carrie, was married to George Wright, but Carrie never thought of her as anything but Brenda Gallimore. Flo, Brenda’s eldest, was a few months older than Rose.

  Martha had never so much as mentioned Rose, never asked about the child. On the day she’d had Rose, Carrie remembered, she’d spoken sharply to Martha, saying that she never expected to hear mention of what had taken place. And good, cheerful Martha had turned on her, snapped out that she never betrayed a confidence and given her a look of grim disapproval. Martha had never said a word about it since that day. But surely she hadn’t forgotten?

  Carrie sipped her tea. She would make reference to it, discreetly, when she saw Martha at the birth. They still came for her, for Carrie, when there was a birth. She didn’t get excited and she didn’t panic at childbirth – not like she did for illness. No, they liked Carrie Shrigley there at a birthing. And she always took something with her; a fruit cake or a meat and potato pie for the family and a florin to put in the new-born’s hand.

  Carrie stood up. She would not need a coat. She put her cup and saucer on a tray, went to the door and, before locking it, looked around the room. There were some valuable miniatures over the fireplace. In the corner farthest from the window was a cabinet filled with Sevres and Meissen, Rockingham and a few Chinese pieces. Her inlaid sideboard was covered with solid silver and, in its bow-fronted drawers, there was enough Georgian cutlery to cater for a banquet. It was all good too. None of this modern art-deco rubbish. Rose’s future would be provided for, if anything happened to her. She’d put it in her will.

  She went down the stairs and out into the crowd. She’d have to get Danny to admit it. He couldn’t deny for ever that Rose was hers. He must make a will, too, and put her down as legal guardian of those girls, if anything happened to him and Jane.