by Val Wood
The day had only just begun as she’d entered the old city walls through the Walmgate Bar. The walls were still standing with their gates and posterns intact, and though decayed in parts because of their antiquity, they were not destroyed and broken like the walls of Hull which were being demolished to enlarge the town. She’d felt lost, unsure of which way to turn.
She’d seen the draper’s shop as she’d led the donkey through Fossgate and thought that the next day, after she had found lodgings and had had a good night’s sleep, she would call with one of the packs and see if she could sell some of her cloth. It was good quality, she was sure of it, for she had felt the difference in the samples that Mr Moses had shown her and had seen the approval in his eyes when she had chosen a particular weight and quality.
The lodgings were simple but clean and she had stabled the donkey in the yard and carried the packs up to her room. She had paid extra to have a room to herself, for she dare not risk losing any of her merchandise to any dubious fellow traveller.
Mr Sampson had raised a wary eyebrow as she entered his shop with a pack on her shoulder, but she spoke moderately and politely, not just for the sake of politeness but because she was also nervous, never having stepped within the threshold of such an imposing establishment as this, with its silken hangings, waxed oak counters and polished wood floors. Mr Sampson himself made her quake – for he looked every inch a gentleman with a fine waistcoat beneath his grey frock-coat, and knee breeches on his portly figure, and flat buckled shoes – though reason told her that he couldn’t possibly be.
She’d laid out some of her muslins for him to see when a lady had entered the door. Annie had stood back and tried to make herself invisible while Mr Sampson made his obsequious rites to the imperious client. She had spotted Annie’s samples on the counter and fingered them and asked if they were available in another pattern, and Annie had given a nod to Mr Sampson’s imperceptible silent query.
Annie shook her head reproachfully as she completed her display. She could hear Mrs Mortimer’s wittering voice carrying through from the back room and Mr Sampson’s weary inaudible reply. She folded away the unused material and placed it neatly on one of the shelves. It never ceased to amaze her that she had become so neat and tidy, but it gave her such pleasure to see the rows of shiny satins arranged in descending shades of colour, the pretty sprigged muslins, the warm shades of wool set to compliment each other.
She knocked on the open door of the rear room where Mrs Mortimer was finishing a cup of tea. ‘I do beg your pardon, Mrs Mortimer, but I just wanted to tell Mr Sampson that I’ve finished the display. I know you wanted to have a look at it before you went out, sir, – to put the finishing touches to it, and there’s just time before your appointment.’
Mr Sampson jumped up. ‘Bless my soul, I’d almost forgotten. Charlotte, my dear, do feel free to stay, Mrs Hope will look after you, but I really must dash.’
Mrs Mortimer rose pompously to her feet. ‘Why you should think that I have time to linger, I really can’t imagine, brother. I have a million things to do.’ She swept towards the door and nodded briefly to Annie. ‘Goodday, Aaron. Think about what I have suggested. Ralph is only too eager to join you.’
Mr Sampson mopped his brow as he closed the door behind his sister. ‘Phew. Thank you, Annie. You couldn’t have chosen a better time. I couldn’t think how I was going to get rid of her.’ His brow wrinkled. ‘Did I have an appointment? I can’t remember.’
Annie put her hand to her mouth in mock shame. ‘I made a mistake,’ she said grinning. ‘It must be another day.’
He sat down wearily on a chair in front of the counter, and gave a sigh. ‘I don’t know what excuse to make to her. I’ve tried them all but she won’t take no for an answer, and as for that odious son of hers!’
‘Ralph?’ Annie had met him infrequently, they had first passed in the shop doorway and he had given her a fawning bow, thinking that she was a client and not an assistant in his uncle’s shop. She had taken an instant dislike to his foppish, dandified appearance, and had since avoided him whenever possible. ‘What has he been up to?’
‘It’s what he wants to get up to that’s the trouble. His mother and he have hatched a plot; he wants, or at least his mother wants him to come into the business with me.’
‘But what is your objection, Mr Sampson? He’ll surely inherit it one day.’ Annie felt secure enough in her friendship with the draper to make so bold a statement. ‘Better to train him in the art of selling cloth now than risk him making a hash of it later.’
Aaron’s face grew scarlet. ‘I’d sooner give my shop to charity than let him get his hands on it. When I think how my poor dear wife gave all her time and money to this venture – why she’d turn in her grave if she thought that young dog was squandering it away, which is just what he would do if he could.’
Polly came downstairs carrying Henry dressed in his outdoor clothes and ready for his walk.
‘Now, Polly. Don’t under any circumstances let go of Henry’s hand,’ Aaron shook a finger at Polly. ‘Indeed I think that perhaps you should take him in his carriage.’
Polly raised her eyebrows in dismay and Annie interceded. ‘He’s far too big for his carriage now, Mr Sampson. Polly will take care of him, won’t you Polly?’
The girl nodded and smiled gratefully at Annie. Henry was growing into a strapping boy and had already lost his baby roundness. Annie had recently breeched him, taking him out of his wrapping-gown and putting him into trousers and buttoned-down jacket, and he was far too heavy to be pushed in the hand-carriage.
‘If you’d had children you would have spoilt them to death, Mr Sampson. Men don’t usually have an interest in children. My husband didn’t, they were just a nuisance and another mouth to feed.’
‘Not all men are the same, Annie, and Henry’s father might well have been happy to have a son.’
She nodded and sighed. She’d felt compelled to tell Mr Sampson of her circumstances when he’d been so generous to offer her a position with him, and had explained that though she was a widow, her husband wasn’t the father of the child she was carrying.
‘I suppose I’ve become fond of the boy because he was born here,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen a newborn baby before. Such a miracle,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘Such a miracle.’
He had been most anxious for her as her pregnancy progressed and instead of dismissing her as she expected him to, he’d insisted that she should rest whenever possible. But she had felt strong and healthy, and because she didn’t know when the birth was due, on the Saturday afternoon when she felt tired, she merely thought that she had been overdoing things. However, as Mr Sampson was preparing to leave that night, she had asked him casually if he would give a boy a copper to send a message to the midwife.
But the midwife was late, as the message given wasn’t considered urgent and by the time she arrived, the baby had been born. Squalling lustily he’d proclaimed his arrival as soon as he was free of her. She’d wiped his face with the bed sheet and moistened her fingers with her tongue and cleared his mucous-covered eyes and nose, then bit through the cord which bound them.
The door bell jangled and they both turned, a greeting ready for a client, but both their smiles faded when they saw Ralph Mortimer standing there, his white-gloved hand clasping a silver-topped cane and sporting a fashionable top hat.
‘Good Morning, Uncle – Mrs Hope. I understood that my mother was calling this morning—’
‘You’ve only just missed her,’ Aaron interrupted. ‘If you hurry you’ll catch her, she went—’
‘No, no. No matter. I’ll stay a while and chat to you. Are you well, Uncle? You’re looking a little strained. Not overdoing things are you?’
He turned to Annie and smirked confidentially. ‘We shall have to watch him, won’t we, Mrs Hope? Don’t want him to become ill. It’s a lot of responsibility running an establishment like this.’
What would you know? Annie thought. You’v
e never had responsibility in your life, you exist on your late father’s legacy and your mother’s indulgence.
‘I’ve run this business for twenty years,’ Aaron bristled. ‘I don’t think I have need of advice from you, young man.’
‘Oh, no – I didn’t mean – I was only concerned.’ He fingered his sideburns as he sought to placate his uncle. ‘Mother and I are both concerned, we think that you ought to be taking things easier now. You’re no longer young you know,’ he added waggishly.
‘I know perfectly well how old I am,’ Aaron said impatiently, ‘and I do take things easier. I have excellent help in Mrs Hope, ’couldn’t wish for better, so please don’t worry on my behalf.’
‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Sampson,’ Annie made her excuses. ‘I have to make up orders which are wanted for this afternoon. The maids will be coming for them and I promised they would be ready.’
‘Ah. Of course.’ Mr Sampson bustled round the other side of the counter and started sorting out fabrics. ‘I shall come and help you in one moment.’ He stared at his nephew. ‘Was there anything else, Ralph? You’ll understand of course, being familiar with the intricacies of business, that we don’t have time to chat, except of course to our clients.’
Ralph was lost for words for a moment as he was given his dismissal, but he smiled politely at his uncle and tipped his hat and said as he opened the door, ‘Perhaps you would allow me to give you some extra assistance as you are so busy, – my time is my own. I have a good head for figures, I could perhaps relieve you of the boredom of adding up your accounts. Do think of it, Uncle, I should be only too pleased.’
As he left the shop door he almost fell over Polly and Henry who were returning from their walk, rain had started to drizzle down and their faces were wet.
He looked down at Henry and then glanced back at Annie inside the shop and touched his hat with his cane. She felt, she knew not why, as if she had just been assaulted.
Aaron rubbed his chest with quick anxious movements and then adjusted his toupee forward onto his brow. ‘I’m going to have to do something soon, Annie. I don’t know how long I can fight them.’
29
Mrs Cook the drapery assistant came in to help in the shop on three days a week. She worked from ten o’clock until four, whereas Annie was on call all the day, as was Mr Sampson, from Monday to Saturday, nine o’clock in the morning until eight in the evening, and they took refreshment or rest whenever they could.
Polly also looked after Henry all day, feeding him and playing with him, which Annie preferred, rather than sending him out to a childminder. There were many respectable women who took on the task of looking after other people’s children, but Annie had a picture in her mind of some of the women she had met in Hull who had that same occupation and who dosed the children in their care with laudanum to keep them quiet, just as soon as their mothers had disappeared over the doorstep.
Annie had tried to teach Polly her numbers so that she could in turn teach Henry to count his bricks and beads, but the girl had no aptitude for it, so today while Mrs Cook was dusting shelves and there were no clients in the shop, Annie brought Henry down and sat him on the counter with his bricks and counted them out for him. She built a pyramid of red bricks and another of blue to teach him the colours and the child looked up at the shelves of cloth and pointed.
‘Well I never,’ Mr Sampson looked up from his tall desk in the corner. ‘What a bright child. He’s matching up the colours.’
‘He knows his colours already,’ Annie smiled indulgently, ‘and he can count up to ten.’ Her face saddened. Lizzie and Ted and Jimmy had never learnt to read or write, there had been no one to teach them, she thought. Alan could read a little but he never taught the bairns. This child will be different, she decided defiantly. He’ll have a better chance than they did.
‘He should go to school – when he’s old enough, I mean. There are excellent schools in York. We should put his name down.’
Annie laughed at the old man’s earnestness. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever have enough money for him to go to school,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t mean to grumble, sir,’ she added. ‘The wages you give me are fair.’ More than fair she thought, for where else would I get a room and coals included. She bought food for herself and Henry, and clothes were made by a dressmaker from the remnant ends of material which she bought cheap from the shop. And Mr Sampson paid for Polly’s pittance, giving the excuse that she was available for errands if he needed her.
She never had any money left over, but she didn’t mind; she felt secure in her occupation and comfortable in her room over the shop premises, and when the fire was lit and the shutters closed, a warm fragrance exuded from the old oak panels, and she felt almost happy; except at night when she was alone with her young son sleeping in his cot, and the darkness pressing heavily on her, and then she would think of Matt and imagine that this small room was his ship’s cabin and he was lying next to her with his arms around her, his warm breath on her face, the beating of his heart in unison with hers.
So real was her illusion that sometimes she would awake and reach out for him, and on finding him gone would be filled with desolation once more.
Mr Sampson was speaking to her. ‘I said, he’ll make a draper one day!’
‘Such dreams,’ she answered jokingly. ‘Perhaps we’ll make him an apprentice! We’ll dress him up in frock-coat and waistcoat.’ She picked up a piece of embroidered satin and held it against Henry’s chest. ‘And of course he must have silk stockings, just like those that Mr Ralph wears!’
Aaron Sampson put his chin in his hand and nodded thoughtfully. ‘He is already three, isn’t he?’
Annie nodded and lifted Henry down from the counter. ‘Yes, childhood almost gone, six more years and I must think of what he must do for a living.’
‘Too young.’ Mr Sampson declared. ‘Too young by far.’
Mrs Cook joined in the conversation. ‘My nephew went to work for a baker when he was nine, but the hours were too long for such a young child, he was always falling asleep and burning himself on the ovens. Now he works in the market running errands, but the wage is paltry; his poor mother is desperate for money and can’t wait for the time when the next one is old enough to go to work.’
The doorbell jangled and they became busy and Polly took Henry upstairs out of the way. Annie got out a pair of tall steps to reach to the top shelf for a length of red satin, the customer in the shop had seen the same material in the window and wanted to handle it, and Annie made a mental note to keep the stock from the window in a more accessible place.
Mr Sampson insisted on climbing up the steps and reached awkwardly to pull the material from the shelf. He grimaced as he reached and Annie watched anxiously in case he should drop it.
‘Are you all right, Mr Sampson?’ she whispered. ‘Did you jar yourself?’
‘No, no. I’m perfectly well. Just a bit of a stitch, that’s all.’
During a lull in the day he went into his back room and there Annie found him stretched out in a chair with his eyes closed. ‘Mr Sampson, are you not well? Can I get you something?’
‘I’m a little tired, Annie, and I get a pain down my arm when I stretch for the shelves, but it’s nothing much.’
‘I’ll get you a drop of brandy,’ she said and hurried upstairs. She’d brought a half anker of brandy with her three years ago and had used it only sparingly, now there was very little left, but without hesitation she poured a generous measure into a glass for Mr Sampson, and ran back downstairs with it.
Mrs Cook was putting on her shawl to leave and Annie asked her to wait for just another five minutes in case anyone came in, and hurried through to her employer. It often crossed her mind that if ever anything happened to Aaron Sampson, or if he should decide to retire, she would have to look for other employment, for she wouldn’t want to work for Mr Mortimer or his mother. But, she mused, I have experience, I’m known in the city. I could get other employment if I had
references.
She thought of this now as Aaron sipped the brandy. She really ought to ask him, though not just yet. It would perhaps seem rather unfeeling, particularly as he was now unwell. But don’t be soft, Annie, tha has to think of tha self.
She didn’t often lecture herself these days, life had fallen into a steady pattern, but occasionally if a small worry bothered her, then her thoughts would lapse into her native cant.
Aaron sat up and took a deep breath. ‘Tell Mrs Cook she can go, it’s past her time. I’m feeling fine now, Annie, don’t worry.’
Annie did as she was bid and when Mrs Cook had left she busied herself writing out the amounts the clients had spent, and entering them into the large ledger so that the accounts could be sent out at the end of the month. She noticed that some of the accounts had been outstanding for six months or more, some of them belonging to ladies of esteem and she wondered what was done to encourage the client to clear the account.
Mr Sampson came through into the shop, his round face a little pale. ‘Thank you, Annie, I was just going to finish those.’
‘Some of these clients owe you a lot of money,’ Annie said. ‘And yet they still come in buying more goods.’
‘I know.’ He shook his head. ‘I keep sending the accounts to their husbands, but they’re very slow to pay.’
‘And soon they’ll be ordering material for their ballgowns for the autumn season, how can you possibly give them credit for so long?’
‘If I don’t give them credit I lose their custom, and if I insist on them settling their bill, I lose their custom also. They’d go elsewhere, there’s no shortage of drapers in the city.’