The Miller's Daughter

by Margaret Dickinson

  Twenty-Eight

  Each day Emma grew stronger and was able to do a little more housework, but by the time she had tucked Charles into bed at night, she was thankful to crawl into the big bed in the corner and snatch an hour or two’s sleep before the baby awoke, crying to be fed. Each time it happened during the night, she would hear a scuffle from Charles as the child pulled the covers over his head, trying to block out the sound of the squalling infant.

  It was after midnight and Emma had just fed the baby and lay down again, listening to the peace in the big room, the snuffling breathing of the baby and the gentle deep breathing of the older boy, when she heard the front door of the house bang and feet pounding up the three flights of stairs. The door was flung open, crashing back against the rickety wardrobe that stood behind it, waking both children at once and startling Emma so that her heart began to pound and sweat bathed her body.

  ‘Come on, look lively. We’re moving.’

  ‘Leonard, for Heaven’s sake! Do you have to wake the children? I’ve only just got the baby . . . Leonard, what on earth are you doing?’

  He was turning up the oil lamp and moving about the room, picking up clothes and heaping them together on the table. ‘I told you, we’re moving. Now. Come on.’

  ‘Now?’ she repeated stupidly. ‘In the middle of the night? Don’t be ridiculous.’

  He came and stood over the bed, bending down towards her, suddenly a huge, menacing figure.

  ‘Do as I say, else I’ll leave you to fend for yourself.’

  She gasped and her violet eyes widened. ‘What – what do you mean?’

  He straightened. ‘Ever heard of a moonlight flit, Emma? Well, this is it. We’re getting out of here. Fast.’

  She didn’t know what he was talking about. She didn’t know what a ‘moonlight flit’ was, but his sense of urgency communicated itself to her and she swung her feet out of the bed, her mouth set in a determined line. Ever since she had set foot in this awful room, these dreadful lodgings, she had wanted to leave. Well, whatever the reason, they were leaving and she wasn’t going to stand here and argue the toss with Leonard, she told herself. Not even if it was the middle of the night.

  ‘Where are we going?’ was all she asked as she pulled on her clothes and began to bundle clothes and bedding into a heap.

  ‘Other side of town,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ve a cart downstairs. It’ll hold all our stuff and you and the bairn. The boy’ll have to walk with me.’

  Her busy hands were stilled for a moment as in the low light from the lamp she stared at him. ‘Cart? Where’s your van? Why can’t we use that?’

  ‘Because I had to sell it weeks ago,’ Leonard snapped, pulling out a trunk from under the bed and flinging back the lid. He pulled open the doors of the wardrobe, clutched all the clothes hanging there between his arms, tore them from the hangers and threw them into the open trunk.

  Charles was sitting up in his bed, his eyes wide and fearful. ‘Mam . . .’ he began, but his father caught hold of his shoulder roughly and dragged him from beneath the warm covers. ‘Come on, boy, get dressed and help. You’re big enough now.’

  Emma saw her son tremble, but he hurried to obey his father.

  Within an hour they were all dressed and in the dark street, loading their possessions on to the handcart. Emma climbed up on to the cart holding the baby who was howling now, his cries echoing through the silent street, bouncing back from the row of houses, the windows all in darkness.

  ‘Shut that brat up, for God’s sake, else you’ll have everyone knowing what we’re about,’ Leonard snarled as he grasped the handles of the cart and began to push it along the street. Emma opened the front of her coat and dress and pushed the baby’s head against her bosom and was rewarded by silence as the child found her nipple and began to suck greedily. The wheels rattled on the wet street and Charles walked beside his father. After what seemed hours of discomfort for Emma and every bone in her body seemed bruised by the jolting of the handcart, they turned into a long narrow street of terraced houses stretching as far as she could see through the darkness.

  ‘Now, let’s see,’ she heard Leonard mutter. ‘Number twenty-three, we want. Ah, here we are, twenty-one, so it must be the next one.’

  Suddenly, his good humour seemed restored. ‘It’s a house, Emma. You’ll like it here,’ he said as he helped her down from the cart. Her legs were stiff and cold. ‘And all to ourselves too,’ he went on as he produced a key from his pocket and opened the door leading into the house directly from the street. ‘No sharing with anyone else. How about that, then?’

  Emma stepped into the front room with Charles clutching at her skirts. By the light of the street lamp outside, Emma could dimly make out the empty room, with a door leading further into the house. As she moved forward, her foot kicked a bottle which rolled across the floorboards making a loud rattling noise in the darkness.

  ‘There’s a bit of litter about. Scruffy beggars who had it before,’ Leonard told her. ‘But we’ll soon get it cleaned up.’

  I like the ‘we’ Emma thought wryly, but she said nothing. She moved carefully across the room and through the door opposite and saw that stairs went up on her right-hand side and another door led into the kitchen at the back. The house was cold, but not, she felt, as damp as the lodgings they had just left so hurriedly.

  ‘There’s no furniture, Leonard,’ she said as her husband carried in the oil lamp from the cart, lit it and set it on the mantelpiece above the cold fireplace in the back room.

  He rubbed his hands together and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll soon pick up some bits and pieces from the market. We’ll have it spick and span in no time.’

  Emma was not so sure, but she said nothing as she spread out their bedding on the floor of the kitchen and urged a weary Charles to lie down, fully clothed, promising him that in the morning things would be better, even though in her heart she doubted the truth of her own words. The baby, replete from nuzzling and guzzling for the whole of the journey to this place, lay asleep in the cradle.

  When he had unloaded the cart, Leonard took off his jacket, shirt and trousers and lay down beside her in his underwear. ‘We’ll be all right here, Emma,’ he said, putting his arms about her. ‘I had to get you out of that place. It was no good there for you or the youngsters.’

  Long after Leonard lay snoring beside her, Emma stared into the darkness. What Leonard said had been true, she acknowledged, but she also knew that it was not the whole truth. They had already been at the lodgings several months, so why the sudden urgency? Why had they stolen away in the night, so secretly, so quickly? Oh yes, she thought grimly, don’t take me for a fool, Leonard Smith. There’s more to all this than you’re telling me.

  By daylight the house was even worse than it had seemed in the darkness. The upstairs rooms were virtually uninhabitable; the floorboards were rotten and damp patches covered the walls and ceilings. Spiders’ webs hung in festoons from the corners and even the staircase leading to the upstairs was dangerous. In the kitchen, the sink was stained brown, the stove had the door hanging drunkenly off its hinges and everywhere was thick with dusty grease. Emma opened the back door and stepped out into the narrow yard. The wash-house and the lavatory were worse than the house, if that were possible, and in the lane that ran between the backs of these houses and those of the next street, a communal tap was the only running water supply. Three bare-bottomed children, no older than Charles, played in the dirt.

  Emma fumed and went swiftly back into the house.

  ‘Well, it’s hardly what I would call an improvement on the last place. But at least we’re self-contained now and we’ve an extra room.’ She nodded towards the front room. ‘That’ll do as the bedroom. In the meantime,’ she looked meaningfully at her husband, ‘you can keep looking for something better.’

  ‘So that’s all the thanks I get, is it?’ His frown deepened and he growled, ‘We could live in a palace if you weren’t so stubborn. What’s the good
of hanging on—’

  Emma held up her hand. ‘Don’t start all that again, Leonard. Just take Charles to school, will you?’

  ‘I’ve people to see. I can’t be playing nursemaid to him.’

  Emma looked down at the quiet little boy who stood solemnly waiting to be told where he was to go that morning. Suddenly, she was filled with maternal love for him and swept him against her. ‘Don’t look like that, Charles. It’s the same school you’ve been going to and we’re even a little nearer to it. You’ll still have all the same playmates. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Can’t we go back home?’ he said, his mouth muffled against her bosom.

  ‘Oh, darling, it’ll be much better here once I get it all cleaned up. Besides, you didn’t like it in that one stuffy room, did you?’ she asked in surprise.

  He pulled back his head and looked up into her face. ‘I don’t mean there. I mean home – back to the mill.’

  Behind them Leonard swore and moved towards the back door and out into the back yard. They heard the gate flung open and feet marching down the passage between theirs and the neighbouring house.

  Swiftly Emma smoothed the lock of hair from the boy’s forehead and said quickly, ‘We’ll talk about it later. I’ll try to explain it all to you. But now you must hurry after your dad for him to show you the way to school. I’ll meet you this afternoon.’

  She hustled him out of the front door and watched whilst he scampered down the street after the tall figure of his father striding angrily away. Satisfied that he had caught up with Leonard. Emma pushed the door shut and turned to survey the work that awaited her.

  At that moment young Billy began to wail.

  After she had fed and settled the baby, Emma felt exhausted again. She had thought she felt stronger, but now the sudden upheaval in the middle of the night, their arrival in a cold, empty house and the thought that all her possessions, such as they were, were just dumped amongst the debris in the front room, overwhelmed her. She sat down on the floor on the bedding where they had slept for what had been left of the night and dropped her head into her hands. She felt lost and so lonely. Here in a strange city, removed from all her friends, still weak from childbirth, and with a husband who at one moment seemed good tempered and generous, the next moody, irritable and short of cash.

  She heard a scuffle in the far corner and raised her head. What she saw made her mouth drop open in horror. Snuffling amongst the rubbish littering the corner, was a huge rat and only a couple of feet away lay her infant son in his cradle. Emma was by no means afraid of the creature – wherever there was grain and animal feed there would always be rats and mice – but the sight of a mangy sewer rat inside her home angered her. She scrambled to her feet and the creature scampered across the floor, running round her in a wide arc, seeking a way out. Emma threw her broom at it, but missed and the animal scuttled out of the open door into the scullery. Following, Emma opened the back door into the yard and then banged the broom against the sink until the rat appeared and ran for the open door. She tried once more to hit it, to kill it, but again she missed and the rat escaped.

  Breathing hard she went back into the living room and looked about her. The place was filthy, worse than the accommodation they had just left and that had been bad enough.

  ‘We’re not staying here, Billy Boy,’ Emma said and picked him out of the cradle. At his sleep being disturbed, the child whimpered. ‘And you needn’t start making that noise. I’m not in the mood.’

  She wrapped him warmly in a blanket and carrying him in the crook of her arm, she stepped outside the front door and looked up and down the street. ‘Come on,’ she said firmly. ‘You and me are going house-hunting.’

  Her temper carried her for two miles, down first one street and back up another. Up and down until fatigue overcame her again and she leant against a wall feeling sick and faint. Then she was angry with herself for allowing her stubbornness to make her act so foolishly. Her fury with Leonard for bringing his young family to such a place had spurred her out to walk the streets in search of a To Let sign. So far she had seen two, but the houses looked no better than the one they had come to the previous night.

  ‘You all right, dear?’ said a friendly voice beside her and Emma opened her eyes to see a woman, laden with shopping bags, obviously making her way home from the city centre, standing in front of her.

  Emma smiled weakly. ‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’

  The woman nodded and made as if to move on, but Emma stopped her by asking, ‘I don’t suppose, by any chance, you know of any decent houses to let round here, do you?’

  The woman looked her up and down, as if assessing her, and, presumably liking what she saw, said, ‘Sorry, I don’t, but you could try the shop on the corner of the next street,’ she accompanied her words with a nod of her head indicating the direction. ‘Folks often put adverts in his window. Y’know, things they want to sell and that, and things they want. They often have rooms, or houses, to let an’ all. You could try there.’

  Emma smiled. ‘Thank you, I will. You’ve been very kind.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, dear.’ She nodded again. ‘Mister Keenes’ll make you a cuppa. He does sometimes for his customers. He’s got a little table and chairs in one corner.’ She grinned. ‘Go in and sit there and mebbe he’ll ask you, seein’ as you look a bit peaky. He’s a nice feller.’

  Right at this moment, a sit down and a cup of tea sounded like heaven to the weary Emma. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, earnestly. ‘Thank you very much.’

  The shop door bell clanged as she entered. Inside it was a typical general store, a real corner shop serving the cluster of streets nearby. The shelves lining the walls were filled to overflowing with all manner of groceries and provisions to the point where they bowed in the centre under the weight. On the floor stood sacks of potatoes and carrots. There were two women in the shop, one being served by the huge, rotund man behind the counter, a copious white apron stretched over his paunch, the strings tied twice around his middle. His bald pate shone in the morning sunlight that slanted through his shop window and he beamed at her, his jowls creasing in welcome. The other woman waited for her turn and Emma, seeing the table in the corner near the window, squeezed past her and sat down thankfully on one of the chairs. As the rocking movement of being carried stopped, the baby began to whimper and the two women turned to look at Emma and her child. The one still waiting for attention moved closer and bent to look inside the folds of the shawl.

  ‘Ah, poor little mite. Not very old, is he?’

  ‘Four weeks,’ Emma said.

  The woman scrutinized the shadows beneath Emma’s eyes and, straightening up, said, ‘Mister Keenes, could this lady have a cup of tea, d’you think? She looks fair done in.’

  ‘Right away, Mrs Porter. Whatever you say.’ Emma saw the big man touch his forehead, as if touching a nonexistent forelock. He winked good-naturedly at Emma and then disappeared through a curtain into the back of the shop. The bell clanged and the first customer, who had now been served, nodded goodbye and left.

  Mrs Porter, still standing before Emma and obviously not in any rush to be served said, ‘Not from round here, are you? I haven’t seen you before.’

  Emma shook her head. ‘I’m house-hunting. I seem to have walked miles this morning. And the only places I’ve seen are as bad as the one I’m trying to leave.’

  Suddenly she found herself pouring out her story to this stranger. ‘We were in one room in a big house, you see, and it really wasn’t suitable with another child. My husband found this house and we moved last—’ she paused and altered her wording slightly, ‘yesterday. But it’s awful, worse than the room we left, and that was bad enough. A woman I met in the street,’ Emma nodded her head through the window, ‘said people often put advertisements in this shop window, but I had a look as I came in. I couldn’t see any.’

  Emma could no longer keep the weariness from her voice, nor stop the tears of fatigue and disap
pointment from welling in her fine eyes. Mr Keenes appeared from behind the brown curtain bearing a mug of tea and a freshly baked buttered scone. Emma couldn’t remember ever having seen a more welcome sight.

  ‘How – how much?’ she stammered, realizing she had very little money in her pocket.

  ‘Have this on me, lass,’ the big man boomed with hearty kindness. ‘Likely you’ll be a good customer, eh?’

  Emma smiled her gratitude. ‘I’d like to be, Mr Keenes. Really I would, and thank you. You don’t know how welcome this is.’ She sipped the tea and took a bite from the scone and the baby began to wriggle in her arms. She glanced down at him, knowing he would be getting hungry again soon.

  Mrs Porter sat in a chair opposite and beamed. ‘Well, m’duck, this must be your lucky day. The advert’s not gone in the window yet, ’cos it only happened yesterday,’ Emma stared at her, holding her breath as the woman finished triumphantly, ‘the house next door to me is empty. The beggars did a moonlight last night.’

  Emma said nothing. She knew, now, what a ‘moonlight’ was and the scathing way in which Mrs Porter was describing her neighbour’s hurried departure, made Emma shudder inwardly.

  ‘So Mr Rabinski will be looking for new tenants. He’s a good landlord. I can vouch for that ’cos he’s ours an’ all. I don’t know how they’ll have left the place though ’cos they were mucky beggars. I didn’t have anything to do with ’em. Kids were rowdy and little devils, I wouldn’t let our Joey play with ’em, even, and he’s no angel.’ She smiled fondly and Emma guessed she was referring to her own son. ‘But he’ll put it to rights for you, will Mr Rabinski. Lovely little man, he is. Poor soul. His wife died only a few months ago and he’s no family. He owns three or four houses in our street and runs a bakery. Mr Keenes gets all his bread and cakes from Rabinski’s, don’t you, Mr Keenes?’