The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  Lily’s heart was heavy as she stood up to carry out her tasks. She paused, one hand on the door knob, then offered the only mite of reassurance she could scrape up from the very bottom of her heart. ‘Don’t worry, Mother, we’ll manage.’

  Rhoda nodded. ‘I know you will, Lily.’ She sighed. ‘That’s what it’s all about when it comes down to it. I’ve brought you up not to let anyone down and now’s your chance to show everyone that I didn’t do too bad a job.’

  When Walter took Lily’s place at Rhoda’s bedside he thought at first that his wife had fallen asleep. He felt as helpless as a bird with a broken wing, prey to all the nightmarish visions that years of mind-numbing drinking at the Green Cross had kept at bay.

  Now, though, he came face to face with those terrors that had first come over him in the front line trenches. He smelled again the stench of mud and rotting flesh, heard the whistle and thud of shells, the ack-ack of gunfire. He could see his pals going over the top into a hail of bullets, sliding back down into the mire with half their faces missing, limbs blown off or with gaping wounds in their chests. He remembered them now – Joe Taylor and Dick Waterhouse, Brian Lawson and William Todd – in all the gory detail of their dying, their hands clutching at him while their last breaths escaped in long sighs and groans.

  It might have been him, Walter Briggs, rotting there with the rest, and once it almost was when a shell had exploded nearby and a piece of shrapnel had torn into him, the rest of it showering him with mud, blood and much worse until he’d lost consciousness. He’d woken up in the field hospital, thinking of Rhoda and Lily and the new baby that was scarcely walking when he’d last set eyes on her.

  ‘Walter?’

  His wife’s faint voice brought him back to the present.

  ‘You know it’s no good thinking about the hospital?’ She reached out her hand and he took it, his own shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘But it’s worth a try,’ he objected.

  ‘No, Walter, it’s not.’

  He held her hand between his as if he were a condemned man, face to face with what in the end no one could avoid. And as his eyes met hers, he brought charges against himself: the endless counts of neglect and petty cruelty of his married years, his manifold failures as a husband and father. ‘Don’t leave me,’ he pleaded with his sick wife. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I have to, Walter,’ she whispered back, fixing him with her steady gaze, though her courage almost failed her. ‘I’m ready to go. Honestly, I am.’

  Sunday brought Harry knocking on the door of number 5 with the offer of a trip over to Ada Street in the car he’d borrowed from Wilf Fullerton down at the brewery.

  ‘It’s Harry,’ Evie told Lily, who was inserting a layer of jam into the middle of a sponge cake, the scent filling the room.

  Arthur perched on the window sill showing none of his usual lively enthusiasm for the arrival of a visitor. Instead, he concentrated on his game of cat’s cradle, looping and twisting a knotted piece of string around his fingers to make the outline of a see-saw, a mattress then a cradle.

  ‘Now then, Arthur,’ Harry said as he stepped inside. ‘What’s that you’re up to?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Arthur pulled the string loose from his fingers and chucked it down on the sill. ‘Mam’s poorly. I have to keep quiet.’

  ‘Then it’s a good job I’ve brought the car to give you and your sisters a spin out for a change. I thought we might drop in on Margie at Ada Street.’ Glancing apprehensively at Lily as he picked up the grim atmosphere, Harry tried to judge how bad Dr Moss’s verdict on Rhoda had been. He thought now that the notion of a jaunt out to Overcliffe might not be one of his brighter ideas.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ Evie said straight away, selflessly giving Lily the chance she needed to say yes to Harry. ‘I don’t mind staying in. There’s a pile of ironing to do before work tomorrow. I can get on with that.’ And it would give her time to settle her thoughts and get used to the nature of their mother’s illness. Lily had gently told her Dr Moss’s diagnosis in their attic bedroom while Arthur slept and Walter sat by Rhoda’s bed in the room below. Evie had absorbed the shock without crying, somehow rising to the occasion and steeling herself to be a help to Lily rather than a hindrance. ‘You go,’ she insisted now, while Harry hovered on the doormat and Arthur kicked his heels against the wooden panelling beneath the window.

  ‘Shall we?’ Lily left Arthur to decide, her face flushed partly from the heat of the oven and partly because Harry was giving her the look that seemed to see deep inside her. She glanced down at her floury apron and the old wooden clogs belonging to Rhoda which she wore around the house and thought how far away she was from looking her best.

  ‘It’s a Jowett Seven,’ Harry told him. ‘Look out of the window – see where it’s parked?’

  The shiny maroon car stationed directly outside number 5 persuaded Arthur to leave off kicking the wall and he jumped up to try to unhitch his coat from the high hook on the back of the door. Grinning, Harry helped him while Lily took off her apron and changed her shoes, packing the cake up carefully for the journey.

  Within five minutes they were out of the house and sitting on the grey leather seats of Wilf’s car, the engine choking, turning then spluttering into life on a cold, clear morning with the remains of yesterday’s light snowfall already dirty underfoot.

  ‘How’s your mother?’ Harry asked Lily as he approached the junction with Cliff Street.

  Sitting next to him in the passenger seat she rolled her eyes backwards towards Arthur, who was gazing eagerly out of the window at the great stretch of the Common rolling out on to the moors and the distant white horizon. ‘She has to stay in bed for a bit,’ was all she said.

  ‘How do you like the car, Arthur?’ Harry asked by way of diversion, his heart going out to Lily. She might not know it but she looked lovely sitting there next to him, her face still rosy from the oven, hair uncombed, holding her breath as she looked straight ahead, as if letting it out would be bound to end in a sigh and tears.

  ‘It’s grand,’ Arthur chirped, leaning forward and pointing to the instrument dial. ‘What’s that clock thing for?’

  ‘That tells you the speed we’re going in miles per hour. And you see that little chrome box perched at the front of the bonnet? That’s a temperature gauge to show how hot the engine gets.’

  Arthur’s small features lit up as he learned about the car. Lily meanwhile sat back and took in the open views. ‘This is nice of you, Harry,’ she said. ‘There must be a lot of other things you could find to do on a Sunday leading up to Christmas.’

  ‘Yes and all of them include me doing jobs for Mother,’ he countered with a wink. ‘She wants me to wallpaper Peggy’s attic bedroom and then get out the cobbler’s last and put new soles on three pairs of shoes – that’s just for starters.’

  ‘Ah, so this is an escape.’ Lily managed a smile. ‘Heaven knows it’s ten times better to be driving out with Arthur and me than mending shoes!’

  ‘A hundred times better, if you ask me.’ Harry noticed a smudge of white flour on Lily’s cheek and he breathed in the sweet smell of baking still lingering on her skin. ‘But listen, I can sit outside in the car and wait for you when we get there.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  ‘I was thinking you’d rather have Margie all to yourself, that’s all.’

  ‘No, come in and have a word with Granddad,’ she insisted as they came to Linton Park and met a tram coming towards them. Harry pulled into the kerb to give it plenty of room.

  ‘There’s a man sitting in that tram wearing a black patch over his eye.’ Arthur pointed out the curiosity, straight away imagining pirates. Suddenly the tram was a galleon sailing the white ocean and he was the ship’s cabin boy being made to walk the plank.

  ‘Harry,’ Lily said in a voice not much above a whisper and knowing that on the one hand it was a big decision to break her vow of silence yet on the other hand the burden of knowledge might be eas
ed by sharing it with the one person in the world she’d begun to trust above all others. ‘If I tell you something, can I rely on you not to pass it on?’

  Harry gave her a quick glance and a nod then turned his attention back to the road.

  ‘Then I have to warn you – Margie’s in the family way. I thought you should know.’

  He waited for the tram then eased the car on to Ada Street. ‘I realized something was up,’ he murmured.

  ‘You’ve been so good to us, Harry – I wanted to let you in on it before it … Well, before the whole world gets to know, as they will sooner or later. Don’t let on that I told you, though.’

  He concentrated on his driving and it was a while before he spoke. ‘This is a right going-on, eh? Who’s the father – do we know?’

  Lily shook her head. ‘She won’t say. It’ll come out eventually, I dare say.’

  ‘There’s Granddad!’ Arthur called out from the back seat, home from the land of Long John Silver. He leaned far out the window. ‘Look – he’s sweeping snow off his front steps. Hello, Granddad! It’s us! We’re in a Jowett Seven. I’ve just seen a man with a patch over his eye!’

  ‘She’s not taking it too badly, considering,’ Harry mentioned to Lily after he’d dropped Arthur back at home and she’d snatched the chance to drive back up to Chapel Street with him to drop off Wilf’s car. It was coming up to dinner time and she’d left Evie to dish up lamb chops with sprouts and potatoes for their father and hungry brother. Rhoda was in bed, accepting a warm drink but refusing food.

  ‘Who’s not taking what too badly?’ she asked in response to his tentative remark.

  ‘Margie. She seemed to be keeping her chin up at least.’

  It was true – the visit to Ada Street had gone off without incident. Granddad Preston had sat at the kitchen table and presided over his brown teapot with the usual inscrutable air, passing the time of day with Harry by chatting about the finer points of the internal combustion engine. Arthur had leaped at Margie, almost knocking her over and planting a big kiss on her cheek. Margie herself had seemed pleased to see everyone, including Harry to whom she’d offered the seat closest to the fire, together with home-baked ginger snaps from Granddad’s best biscuit barrel, the one made of oak with a silver rim and knob, which harked back to the early days of his marriage to Rhoda’s mother. ‘Made by my own fair hands!’ Margie had told him with a touch of her old brightness.

  ‘She puts on a good show,’ Lily told Harry as they pulled up outside Wilf’s house. She felt unsettled by the events of the morning – the way things had seemed so normal and calm as they’d sat in the kitchen at Ada Street while underneath were the dark undercurrents of Margie’s pregnancy and Rhoda’s illness ready to drag them down.

  Stepping out of the car and hurrying round to open her door, Harry offered Lily his hand. ‘Hang on while I hand these keys back then we’ll walk across the Common together.’

  Harry linked arms with Lily upon his return and walked her past the wide steps and imposing entrance of the Wesleyan chapel at the top of the street. The plain, solid building with its leaded, arched windows towered over the soot-blackened terraced houses to either side.

  ‘So what’s up?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you think Margie’s going along all right?’

  ‘It’s not so much Margie I’m worried about right now.’ Lily sighed, leaning in towards Harry as they crossed the street and stepped out on to a narrow footpath that crossed the Common. The sky was blue for once and the air unusually clear, with the chimneys of the small mill town of Hadley visible in the distance.

  ‘It’s your mother?’ Harry guessed. He felt proud to be walking with Lily so he puffed out his chest and threw back his shoulders. What, he wondered, would Ernie or Billy think if they could see him now, striding out and offering his arm to the best-looking girl in town?

  ‘I couldn’t tell you earlier,’ Lily confided. ‘Not with Arthur waggling his big ears, listening in to every word. But it’s bad news, Harry.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ he murmured, the right words failing him as they so often did. He unhooked his arm and put it around her shoulder as they carried on past a cast-iron bench, until they came to a halt on the crest of the hill.

  Feeling the full force of a biting wind, Lily nestled closer. ‘She has a tumour pressing against her stomach and Dr Moss says it’s been there a while. Mother thinks it’s too late for an operation.’

  ‘But is it?’ he asked. ‘Couldn’t they try?’

  ‘She says not.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  Lily nodded. ‘She’s had more to do with medical matters than the rest of us. She ought to know what she’s talking about.’

  There was a gap in the conversation before Harry took the bull by the horns. ‘Did the doc say how long she’s got?’

  ‘No. But Margie’s baby is due some time in July and Mother’s certain she won’t live to see it.’ Recounting the facts brought home to Lily the reality of what was happening and she felt tears well up. ‘I didn’t have the heart to tell Margie – best for her not to have to worry about Mother for the time being.’

  ‘It’s a bad job,’ Harry murmured, turning to face Lily and drawing her closer. ‘Here comes another trouble marching left-right, left-right straight towards you.’

  ‘It feels more like a steamroller,’ she admitted. ‘It’s funny, though – the news about Mother makes Margie’s problem take a back seat, at least for a while.’

  Harry watched the brimming tears overflow and felt his heart melt. ‘I’m a useless so-and-so,’ he muttered. ‘I never know what to say.’

  Lily looked up at him through a blur of tears. ‘You’re not useless, Harry. I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘I am,’ he insisted, his arms around her, his lips almost touching hers. ‘And I’m not going anywhere.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Still, when the next morning arrived and she was about to set off for work, it seemed to Lily that, despite Harry’s tender support, with her mother ill and her sister out of work and expecting a baby out of wedlock, her precious family was falling apart at the seams.

  ‘Where’s my school cap?’ Arthur wailed, reluctant to fasten his satchel and be dropped off at Peggy’s house.

  ‘On the stool by the sink,’ Evie told him, hovering by the door. ‘Hurry up and put it on. Lily and me are going to be late clocking on if we don’t watch out.’

  ‘I want to say goodbye to Mam,’ he whined, scooting off upstairs before Evie could stop him.

  ‘Be quick about it,’ Lily called after him. ‘Father, be sure to stay in until Dr Moss arrives.’

  Walter sat at the kitchen table, arms clasped and head hanging, staring into the unlit grate.

  ‘Did you hear me, Father? Dr Moss will be here later with news about a bed in the hospital for Mother. Even if she says she doesn’t want it, she might change her mind after she’s talked to the doctor again. Oh and have a shave, smarten yourself up.’

  ‘Lily, we have to go!’ Evie insisted as Arthur clattered back downstairs.

  ‘Right, we’re off.’ Walter hadn’t stirred but Lily had no more time to spare, herding Evie and Arthur out on to the front doorstep and closing the door smartly behind her.

  They joined a steady flow of glum, Monday-morning workers trudging down Albion Lane for the start of another week’s drudgery at combing and spinning machines – slaves, every one of them, to the Holden Comb, the Lister Comb, the Noble Comb and goodness knows what other kind of infernal invention. Or else they were tied to the relentless Cap Spinner and the Ring Spinner, great cast-iron machines that spun as many as sixty-four bobbins of yarn at any one time, on and on through the working day.

  ‘Good morning, Lily love,’ cried Sybil from the opposite side of the street, just before Lily turned off down the alleyway with Arthur.

  Lily waved briefly back. ‘You go on with Sybil,’ she urged Evie. ‘I’ll drop Arthur off and catch you up.’ Halfway down the alley she stooped t
o tie Arthur’s shoelace.

  ‘Hey up, you’re in the road!’ Billy called out as he wobbled towards them on his bike.

  ‘You’re not even meant to ride down here,’ Lily grumbled back. ‘The sign says “Cycling Prohibited”.’

  Billy winked and edged past. ‘Harry’s already left for work, in case you were wondering.’

  ‘Thanks, Billy, but I wasn’t.’ Blushing, Lily hurried on with Arthur, depositing him with Peggy then setting off at a run to catch up with Evie and Sybil. When they reached Calvert’s main entrance, several girls from the weaving shed stood together, moaning about the fact that Fred Lee’s motorbike and sidecar had been spotted in the yard by the engine shed.

  ‘Then he’s back, worse luck,’ Florence commented to Maureen, while an out-of-breath Annie rushed to join them.

  ‘Talk of the devil,’ Annie warned, pointing down the corridor to where the overlooker had stationed himself next to the clocking-on machine, his hair well oiled, tweed waistcoat stretched taut across his belly.

  Meanwhile, Lily said a hasty goodbye to Evie and climbed the stairs to the mending room.

  Positioning herself on the far side of Sybil, Evie avoided Fred’s eye and waited to clock on.

  ‘Come on now, ladies and gents, no time to hang about,’ the overlooker cajoled. If he was aware of the rumours of domestic discord that surrounded his absence, he gave no sign, standing with his legs wide apart and arms folded, ready to get every ounce of work possible out of his weft men and weavers, his bobbin liggers, loom cleaners and learners. ‘Get a move on, Sybil. And who’s that hiding behind you? Oh, if it isn’t little Miss Troublemaker. Don’t worry, Evie Briggs, I don’t bite – not as a general rule.’

  Blushing fiercely, Evie slid her card into the slot. Try as she might, she couldn’t get rid of the memory of Fred Lee’s clammy fingers pawing her or the fear of what might have happened next if Lily hadn’t interrupted him. Why does it have to bother me so much? she wondered. Why can’t I brush it off with a laugh and a joke the way Sybil or Annie would?