He looked up from his papers, surprised. 'Ray? What can I…?’
'Nothing!' Her cheeks burned. 'It doesn't matter.' Why did she allow herself to react like this whenever he mentioned Ray? He had asked her, years ago, if he were Ray's father. She remembered how the question had affected her; how she'd seen in a flash that unless she denied the truth she would be betraying Ray. She had tried to put the truth from her mind there and then. She'd prayed for forgiveness and after giving herself a lengthy and arduous penance had received God's pardon, in private, as a sign.
God had told her, in the sign, that Ray must never be told the truth. All the same, she could not help her enormous pride in seeing Ray standing so high in John's eyes. For a reason she would never understand, she liked to think that John envied her her flawless son. And it was only right that his natural father should see that Ray was one of God's finest creations.
Ray was what the Bible called 'whole'. When Jesus cured the woman with the issue of blood, she who touched the hem of his garment, he said, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole'. Ray had not inherited the sickness that had affected John's son. Nor would he. Sarah had bought books on the inheritance of haemophilia when John's children were born. She made an amateur study of the disease. Haemophilia was never passed from father to son, it said in the books. Ray was healthy and clever and good. He was perfect.
John said. 'He has not done anything wrong, has he? Ray?'
'No,' Sarah replied. 'It's Father. He hasn't long to go.’
'I am sorry.'
'Don't be. He is being well cared for. He's not in pain. Father wants to secure Ray's inheritance. We need to spend what we hold on deposit. We must raise money if we can. We will expand the Printworks. We don't want it all going in death duties.'
'What does your husband think?'
'We haven't asked Frank's opinion.'
'Frank runs the printworks. Is he not to benefit from all his work?' 'It sounds underhanded. Put that way.' He was silent for a second then, lowering his voice, 'Your marriage did not tum out well?'
She found herself defending her marriage. 'Frank and I have an understanding. Frank has all he wants. He holds ten per cent of the shares. He is a director of the printworks. He has property. Frank and I are both devoted to our son and determined to see him provided for.'
'He's a grand young fellow, Sarah. Catriona and I have often said how we admire the boy. How very lucky you are to have…’
'It's Ray I want to talk about,' Sarah interrupted. She did not want to hear him say 'Catriona and I' again. He used to have a mind of his own. 'I want to ensure that everything poSsible goes to Ray. He will be the majority shareholder in the Printworks. Pilkington House belongs to him.' She made light of it, saying, 'Father put the deeds of the house in his name when he was born. We are living with Ray. Not he with us.'
John said, 'I'll make an appointment for you to meet the head of the bank's stocks and securities. You could raise funds by issuing bearer bonds.'
'Thank you.'
He said sadly, 'You are a lucky woman, Sarah. Magnus may not live to twenty-one. It is Sylvia who will inherit Hammond Silks. And Sylvia has no interest whatever in the mill.'
The door to the office flew open. Catriona, in a blue woollen costume and wearing one of the new dipped-brim hats, sailed into the office. Magnus, looking frail and thin followed her with his tall, older cousin behind him. Soon the room was filled with laughter and light-hearted chatter.
'Sarah,' Catriona said as she presented the tall boy to her. 'Do you remember Ian?'
'Of course I do.' She looked at the dark-haired young man who was taller by far than anyone else in the room. 'You were a little boy the last time I saw you. We sent Ray to your school, on your Uncle John's recommendation. Have you come down on the train with Ray? Has he arrived safely?'
Ian shook her hand. 'We were met at the station by Mr Chancellor. Ray is safe,' he said.
Magnus gave a loud snorting laugh. 'I expect Ray kept them all on their toes, did he, Ian? .He is a rogue, isn't he?'
Sarah was pleased that Ray was the centre of attraction outside the home as well as in. She did not like to hear Ray referred to as a 'rogue' -but Magnus liked to be one of the boys so she took their ragging in good part. 'Your turn will come, Magnus. When are you going to school?'
Catriona answered for him. 'Soon. We have applied for a place. Magnus has to get the go-ahead from the specialist first. Magnus and I are going to Edinburgh next week. We have found a good doctor.'
'Can't wait,' said Magnus confidently.
John said, 'Right then. Are we all going to look over the mill?' There was a chorus of agreement and he said, 'First, to the Throwsters.'
They followed him out, into the passageway and down a flight of steps to a big damp cellar room where skips of raw silk, which Chinese and Japanese women had wound from the cocoons by hand, had been packed, lumpy and jumbled in huge brown hanks of wiry thread.
'Magnus can tell you all about it,' John said. 'He's terribly keen on the mill. He knows more than I do.'
Magnus, flushed with pleasure at being asked to do the honours, indicated the hanks with an enthusiastic sweep of his arm and explained the processes. 'It's covered in a gummy substance. And it has to be softened in vats of oil for a long time, before it goes to the girls for winding. Shall we watch the winders?'
Obediently, Sarah and everyone followed Magnus's awkward tread up more steps to machines that had revolving winding arms, like umbrella frames over which the hanks were stretched. Girls fed fine silk that had had the gum removed, from the hanks onto bobbins. Magnus spoke to one of the girls -she could have been no older than Magnus -saying something in her ear that brought a shy look as she said, 'This is the best stuff. It's one continuous thread, see. It goes for men's ties and ladies' scarves, for underwear, knitted stockings and fine filters.'
The tall boy, Ian, who was Magnus's cousin asked, 'How long did it take to learn all this?'
The girls looked up at him, blushed and said, shyly, 'Not long. Wait till you see the skilled work.'
Sarah watched Magnus and Ian closely. Ray had a much easier way with the hands at the Printwords - a little casual like Frank, she some-times thought. But her boy was young and eager and fine and ... She tried to concentrate on what she was seeing and not think about Ray and how he would be looking for her.
She would drive him to Chester Cathedral, to the service there on Sunday. It would be a lovely treat for him. He was deeply religious, like herself.
They were at the huge whirring machines that doubled and twisted the yam. Magnus was shouting, 'Ringspinning!' They moved on to the high speed machines that spun two or more bobbins together to put a twist on the thread. 'Uptwisting,’Magnus said, 'I want to show you what we do with the rest of the silk.'
Sarah went from one great shed to another with Magnus instructing, like a teacher at every stage. 'You wouldn't recognise this as silk, would you?' He pointed to the bales of gummy silk that had come from the cocoons in such short lengths that they could not be reeled by hand.
Sarah saw men in a room as hot as the tropics with air that caught at the throat, boiling this silk waste in smelly soap vats until nearly all the impurities were gone and the men took from the vats a lustrous, tangled mass of silk which they wheeled on carts to the drying ovens. Then she followed Magnus on to where this silk was passed over spiked cylinders and rollers.
'Filling Machines!' he called as they watched the fibres being combed and straightened and sent to the 'Dressing Machines!'
It was an eye-opener to Sarah. All these processes and they had not reached the weaving stage yet. Small wonder silk manufacturing had its ups and downs. So many hands had to be paid. Dad was wise not to want to merge with this expensive business. It would not do to saddle Ray with such a big responsibility when her father died. Now, where were they going?
Men and girl operators were leaning over an iron guard as they spread masses of fibres over huge rollers. Magnus said, 'They are taking out the
first Drafts. They will go for spinning. First drafts go for the finest silk yams. Second drafts from shorter fibres will be blended or used for cheaper yarns.'
Sarah wanted to handle the lovely soft and shining hanks. She watched women spreading the drafts through another machine and then watched girls with sharp eyesight laying the silk hanks on an under-lighted glass table, picking off every tiny hair or thread that had got into the silk.
'Are you enjoying it all?' Magnus beamed with pride. 'Now, to the Spinning Sheds ...'
It was too much for Sarah. 'I think I've seen enough,' she said. 'My brain is spinning. I’ll have to leave. Ray will wonder where I am.'
Chapter Six
Lily had not found what she wanted: a best friend. Girls offered friendship but Doreen always ridiculed them for wanting 'Silly Lily' when they could have Doreen herself. A girl Lily particularly liked, Shirley Anderson - Shandy had no best friend either. Doreen tried to grab Shandy for herself, so Shandy kept her distance. And Doreen, off-hand with Lily, would suck up to Mam, flattering her, asking how she got the finger-waves into her hair, admiring Mam's clothes, Mam's ways. Mam thought Lily was being difficult, being rude to Doreen, whom she saw as a well-brought-up girl.
But Mam, .under the influence of sherry, let herself go a little and now it was getting worse for she had started telling risqué stories in front of Doreen. Seeing Mam's pleasure in Doreen's flattery made Lily jealous -and knowing how Mam was about Nellie Plant, she did not dare tell her that Doreen Grimshaw passed comments about Mam behind her back, saying, 'Elsie Stanway's a case. What a scream!' A clutch of girls gathered about Doreen at school, but outside she associated with much older girls, girls of thirteen and fourteen.
Occasionally Doreen would ask Lily to play at her house, but she never did so without inviting one of the older, more interesting girls as well. Doreen looked and acted much older than her ten years and had started making up to Mollie Leadbetter, who was fourteen, very pretty and what people called 'vacant'. Mollie could not even write her name, The Leadbetters were quiet, respectable people and Mollie was the only one out of the six children born to them who had survived. Even with Mollie there, and Mollie Leadbetter hadn't a wicked thought in her simple mind Doreen would set up one of those awful threesome games - the ones where two ganged up against the odd girl out, changing the rules until Lily would be reduced to tears and a shameful retreat home with Doreen's taunting ringing in her ears.
Soon she had worse to fear. She was afraid that Doreen would ftnd out about Mam's weakness for the bottle. Mam's drinking was getting worse. She could not stand upright after she'd been at the sherry, and Lily hated helping her to her feet when she fell flat on her face. It worried her more and more, because Mam said she was old enough to be left in the house alone when she went to the Angel every second Friday to a meeting of the Chamber of Trade, she said. Mam came home as drunk as a sailor.
Lily was always sent early to bed; a chamber pot under the bed in case she needed to 'go' and under Mam's strict orders never to come down at night. Mam said the bogeymen would jump out at her if she tried to get downstairs, and at first this was enough to keep her in her room. But she was more afraid of being left alone in the dark than she was of bogeymen, so if she couldn't sleep she forced herself on to the landing, straining to hear Mam in the kitchen.
Sometimes she was wakened by the sound of the back gate clicking to. It had to be their gate because they had no domestic neighbours, only shops and the Swan and Mr Chancellor's property office next door. Lily would tiptoe down to the landing and hear voices, a man's voice murmuring and Mam's muffled, tipsy laughter as if someone had covered her mouth. Once or twice Mam said, loud enough for Lily to hear, 'No! Down here! I don't want to wake our Lil.'
She felt guilty. She was spying. But she stayed there or crept nearer to the bottom flight to try to find out who was with Mam. She never heard the other person speak, but after a few minutes she'd hear the fire being poked and what sounded like the table being dragged back against the wall.
Then came a rustling and Mam going, 'M-m-m... Oh! Mm-m ' before the other sounds came: the bump, bump, bumping, steady and rhythmic, of the fender being pushed repeatedly into the fireplace wall.' This was followed after ages of thumping and bumping by a speeding-up of the sounds, faster and faster, until all at once Mam would cry out, 'Oh, love! Oh, love!' and a rapid 'Oh Oh! Oh!' before an abandoned wailing sound that subsided slowly into her last cries of 'My God! My God!'
When it went quiet Lily would leap back up the stairs fast, because Doreen had told her about people who got in touch with heavenly spirits who banged on the table, bringing messages from beyond the grave.
When she reached the top of the stairs she'd wait on the landtng until she heard the back gate close, then she'd go back to bed and say her prayers, just as she did when Mam went out to the Angel and Lily lay awake in bed in the dark, empty house.
'Oh God,' she prayed. 'Don't let anyone see her. Please God. She won't be in the public bar. She has to mind her reputation. She will be in that private room at the Angel. It's that big old pub in the Market Place, God. I’ll never tell another lie. I’ll never think bad things if you look after Mam. She has to have a bit of life. Send her home safe, God. Don't let her fall over in the street like a common drunk, will you?'
A common drunk, a woman, had been fined five pounds and her name put in the paper for being caught drunk in the street. There were terrible goings-on in Macclesfield; the real scandals almost as bad as the rumour and gossip everyone indulged in. Cases were reported about well-known men, some owned small factories, picking up women in alehouses or out on the street in broad daylight. They gave them drink and took them to the fields and lanes in motor cars and there, in the fields, intimacy took place.
When Lily asked Mam what intimacy was, she said. 'Have you been listening to common street gossip?'
'No, Mam. Honestly,' Lily said. 'I just want to know what it means.'
'Some women will do anything for a shilling or two,' Mam said. So Lily read the paper assiduously. There had been a long-running case in the Courier of a girl who claimed that the owner of one of the small mills was the father of her baby. He had picked her up in his motor car two Saturday evenings running and had taken her to the bluebell woods for intimacy. She was suing him for fifteen shillings a week for the baby's keep. The man denied it, saying that the girl had done this intimacy before, with other men. The judge said he hoped the day would soon come when paternity could be established by testing the blood, instead of having all this wrangling and waiting to see who the child looked like.
The girl got her fifteen shillings. The baby was his spitting image.
After all this reading Lily discovered that intimacy had something to do with babies, but she did not know what. She knew very well what 'drunk' was, though. Mam drunk was very different from Mam sober.
When Mam came home from the Angel she always stood at the foot of the stairs yelling, 'Our Lil. Come down here!' Lily would go downstairs to see to her and help her to bed, relieved that she was home safely but shamed at Mam's ramblings and grumblings as they struggled upstairs. Then, not content to sleep it off, Mam would stagger about her bedroom, dropping things in the darkness. She then slept for an hour before stumbling noisily downstairs to find something to eat.
Once, she came into Lily's bedroom and swayed against the, door jamb. Lily started to cry. 'Don't get drunk, Mam. Don't die.'
'Die?' Mam slurred. 'Die? Who said die?’
'I have no dad,' Lily cried. 'I would have nobody if you died, Mam.'
'If I did ...' Mam lurched nearer. 'If ever anything happens…
Lily was afraid Mam was going to fall. She jumped out of bed and slid an arm round Mam's waist. Mam leaned her weight against it and they both toppled on to the rug at the side of the bed. Mam gave her a skenny-eyed look and muttered, 'If ever ... If anything happened to me ... don't tell anyone. Except . .. except Mr Chancellor!'
'I will, Mam: Lily sai
d. 'I promise I won’t tell Grandpa or Nanna.' She heaved Mam to her feet and took her back to bed. She would never tell a soul about the state Mam got into. Least of all Mr Chancellor.
The next day Mam was pale and ill. Before Lily left to catch the motor bus up to Lindow Mam said, 'About last night. I am sorry. I'll make it up to you. Do you love your Mam?’
'You know I do. I'll always love you. No matter what you do.' Lily went off with a heavy heart that was not stilled until she had spent a few hours with Sylvia and Magnus.
Sylvia was a pupil at the Macclesfield Girls' High School but Magnus had a tutor for lessons and spent all his spare time at the mill with his father. He had not had any injuries for two years, none of the bleeding into his joints that came at the least knock and kept him confined to bed, the lower half of his body under a protective cage so that not even the sheets should touch the great purple areas of haemorrhage under his skin. It was believed that he had outgrown his haemophilia since going twice a year to Edinburgh, to receive treatment from a specialist there.
Lily told him that he was growing tall and slim and handsome, like his father. She loved to be with Sylvia and Magnus at Archerfield, but her life in Macclesfield had become one long round of fears. Doreen had begun to follow her about after school, spoiling every move she made towards friendship with anybody else, enticing the new friends away, making a big, showy fuss, giving them things, making Lily look foolish when she let them see how upset she was.
Lily waited until she got home before crying, to Mam, 'Why does Doreen hate me?'
Mam said, 'She's jealous.'
'She's not!'
'Listen, Lil,' Mam said. 'Doreen's a nice girl but she wants everything you have. When I make a new coat for you, within hours Minnie Grimshaw's round here asking me to make one the same for Doreen.' She took a handkerchief and wiped Lily's eyes but she had a faint smile on her face so Lily recoiled, cried harder and pushed Mam's hand away. Mam shrugged and stood back. 'I can only tell you, our Lil,' she said. 'She's jealous!’
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