by Jenny Holmes
‘You know the coppers will keep on coming after me, don’t you?’ he murmured.
‘No, Harry – don’t think like that!’
‘They will. They’ll say I ran Billy over and hid him in the store room, left him there to die.’
‘But you didn’t,’ she insisted, turning him towards her then resting her hands on his shoulders. ‘I know you, Harry. You would never do a thing like that.’
As she spoke, he encircled her wrists with his strong hands then leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers.
‘I do love you, and I always will,’ she breathed and the relief of her confession brought tears to her eyes.
‘Whatever happens?’ he murmured, hearing the words and letting them slowly sink in.
‘Yes.’
Harry’s kiss was slow and gentle, different from the others that they’d exchanged – deeper, sadder, more lingering. It set a seal on how they felt, for better or worse.
All Sunday Billy lay unconscious on his hospital bed until, late in the evening, word got out that he’d come round.
‘They say he’s cracked a few ribs, broken a leg and fractured his skull,’ Peggy told Evie and Lily at the door of number 5. She’d struggled through twelve inches of snow and up the deserted street to deliver the news. ‘They expect he’ll live though.’
‘What did I tell you!’ Sybil cried when Lily handed on the news to her and Annie during the morning trudge to work next day.
By now the snow had stopped and people had been out with hand-made snow shifters – sheets of plywood nailed to broom handles – clearing the footpaths and banking the heavy snow in rough heaps at the sides of the roads. A freezing wind pinched faces, fingers and toes and most people wore an extra pair of socks and thick mittens, knowing that chilblains and chapped skin would follow if they ignored the icy conditions.
‘Yes, it’s a big weight off everyone’s minds,’ Lily admitted – not least because Billy would now be able to give an account of what had happened and Harry would be off the hook. Whether or not Stanley Calvert would give him his job back was another matter.
At twenty-five minutes past seven, the relieved friends parted, each promising to find out as much information as they could about the improvement in Billy’s condition. At half past, Lily was at her station and opening her tin of tools, glancing out of the window to see Winifred arriving in a taxi and dodging quickly under the main archway out of sight.
‘Not so high and mighty now, is she?’ Jennie remarked with evident satisfaction until Miss Valentine caught her eye and made her carry on with a bolt of tweed cloth to Ethel’s station on the other side of the room.
Lily thought Winifred had looked upset – pale and drawn – which proved that the events at Moor House had affected everyone involved.
As she settled into work with her burling iron and needle, her thoughts turned to Harry and her heartfelt promise that she would always love him, no matter what.
She was still so absorbed in the memory that she didn’t notice the half-past-twelve buzzer sound and it wasn’t until the manageress approached her with a brown parcel that she looked up.
‘Now then, Lily, it’s not like you to be slow off the mark,’ Miss Valentine commented. The parcel contained her mother’s winter coat which Lily had promised to alter so she placed it under her table and quickly ran along to the canteen, where she joined Sybil and Annie at a table with Jennie and Mary. As expected, the talk was still all about Billy.
‘He’s come round but he’s not saying a lot,’ Mary reported. ‘I hear they’ve dosed him up to the eyeballs, that’s the reason.’
‘He’s not out of the woods yet, then,’ Jennie opined above the rattle of cutlery and the hiss of steam from the copper boiler behind the counter. ‘And guess what else I heard from one of the Kingsley girls.’
‘What?’ Annie prompted uneasily.
‘They’re saying that Billy and Harry got into a fight on Saturday.’
‘Before Billy’s accident?’ Sybil was the first to speak after a general gasp of disbelief.
‘So-called “accident”,’ a sceptical Jennie added sotto voce.
Lily, faced with her dinner order of pork pie and peas, froze in alarm. A moment later, she’d recovered enough to leap to Harry’s defence. ‘Harry never said a word to me about a fight,’ she told Annie and Sybil. ‘He would have mentioned it, wouldn’t he?’
‘If it had happened – yes he would,’ Annie agreed.
Jennie, though, was in full flow. ‘From what I heard, Winifred came out of the house and caught them scrapping on the front lawn. They stopped as soon as they saw her, but that’s definitely the way it was.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it past Winifred to make something out of nothing, or anyone else to make it up, come to that,’ Annie said before this new rumour got out of hand. ‘Let’s wait until Billy comes round properly, shall we?’
Her stern remark stemmed the tide of gossip and Lily cast a grateful glance in Annie’s direction. Still she felt too queasy to eat her dinner and returned to the mending room with a sense of dread that she couldn’t shake off. She worked all afternoon without glancing up once, afraid of risking a told-you-so look from her fellow menders that might eat away at her trust in Harry. At five o’clock she lingered, waiting until the others had gone before picking up the manageress’s brown parcel, clocking off and taking her hat and coat from the hook outside Miss Valentine’s office.
She was still buttoning up her coat when the click of the phone in its cradle and the turn of the door handle alerted her to the fact that the manageress was emerging into the mending room.
‘My dear,’ Miss Valentine said in a voice so full of emotion and unlike her own that Lily’s fingers stopped on the last-but-one button. ‘I’m glad I’ve caught you before you leave. You’d better come into my office and sit down. I have some bad news.’
It was true – the world slowed almost to a halt just at that moment when it fell apart. Lily heard the tick of the clock in the manageress’s office, had time to put down the parcel and rest her gaze on the intricate embossed pattern on Miss Valentine’s silver belt buckle. Then she let the question form on her lips: ‘Is it about Mother?’
‘No, it’s not Rhoda,’ the manageress said, deliberately sitting Lily in her own chair and waiting until she had her full attention. ‘It’s Billy.’
‘What about him?’ Lily stalled. She knew – of course, she knew.
‘Mr Calvert was speaking with Mr Wilson on the telephone. There’s news from the hospital, which Mr Wilson has just passed on to me. Billy’s injuries were worse than we thought. He died two hours ago.’
In a flash Lily recollected Billy’s lean, ruddy face the last time she’d seen him, she heard his voice teasing her about being in too much of a hurry, breaking into raucous song about the runaway train.
‘He can’t have,’ she faltered. He was too full of life, too strong and resilient. His young, broken bones would mend and he would soon be back under the lamp post with Harry and Ernie at the top of Albion Lane, kicking a ball around on the Common after the snow had melted, resting his elbows on the bar at the Green Cross on a Friday night, going to watch the match on Saturdays, launching out on to the dance floor with Gladys or Maureen or Sybil.
‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ Iris Valentine insisted gravely. ‘It was to do with the injury to his skull. There was bleeding the doctors couldn’t see or do anything about and he died without them being able to save him.’
Lily tilted her head back as if somehow this would stop her tears from falling. Poor Billy, with his whole life ahead of him.
‘I’m afraid there’s worse,’ Miss Valentine said as gently as she could. ‘I don’t go around with my eyes closed, Lily dear – I’ve noticed along with everyone else here at Calvert’s that you’ve developed a soft spot for Harry Bainbridge.’
The clock ticked. Through her tears Lily made out the cream-painted ceiling, the shelves stacked with ledgers, the manageress�
��s glasses glinting on her dainty face, the pattern on her buckle – everything out of focus, every fuzzy detail imprinted on her memory.
‘I think you should know that the police have arrested Harry and taken him to Canal Road police station.’
‘Whatever for?’ Lily cried. She tried to stand up but her legs were too weak so she sat unable to move, wishing for it all to go away like a bad dream.
‘They say it was Harry who killed Billy,’ came the apologetic reply. ‘Unless a miracle happens or some other evidence comes to light, Harry will have to go before the judge charged with murder.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
On Tuesday 14 January 1932, at eleven o’clock on the dot, the order was given to shut down the steam engines that drove the combs and looms in the spinning and weaving sheds at Calvert’s Mill. Stokers downed shovels and closed the furnace doors. A thousand bobbins stopped turning; weavers left off winding the warp on to their beams.
Every man, woman, boy and girl put on their coats and walked out under the main archway on to Ghyll Road and stood in silence to watch Billy Robertshaw’s funeral procession pass by. The coffin came round the corner from Canal Road inside a glass hearse pulled by two black horses, followed on foot by Billy’s solemn-faced mother and sister. Then came Stanley and Winifred Calvert, afforded pride of place after Billy’s nearest and dearest – the mill owner dressed in a wide-brimmed black trilby and black overcoat, his daughter in black too, from head to foot – a small hat with a delicate veil covering her eyes, a slim-fitting jacket with a black fur stole and a long, straight skirt. The sombre procession advanced at a slow march with Billy’s friends bringing up the rear, everyone walking with hands clasped in front and looking straight ahead towards Calvert’s people lining the street.
Hollowed out with grief and with eyes fixed on the flower-strewn coffin, Lily stood at the kerb between Sybil and Annie, all three in tears and only now able to fully comprehend that their old friend was dead and gone.
‘Where was Harry?’ Vera asked Elsie as they dried their eyes and went back to their stations. ‘I didn’t see him out there watching the funeral procession, did you?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ the older woman whispered back, casting a meaningful glance over her shoulder at Lily who followed them up the stairs. ‘The coppers didn’t waste any time – they came to Harry’s house and took him to the station in a van.’
‘Never!’ Vera gasped.
‘Yes, hand on my heart. They moved him sharpish from Canal Road to the remand wing at Armley until the time for the trial comes round.’
‘And when will that be?’ Vera wondered. Though she and Harry had only walked out to the flicks a couple of times before they’d both decided it was going nowhere, she had fond memories of her short-term beau and struggled with the idea of him being put in prison.
Elsie shrugged. ‘Soon, I shouldn’t wonder. They say it’s an open-and-shut case.’
‘Poor Harry,’ Vera breathed, casting an anxious look at Lily.
‘Poor Billy, more like,’ Elsie argued. ‘At least Harry’s still in the land of the living.’
‘Yes, but for how long?’ Jennie added her contribution as she laboured past Lily, Vera and Elsie.
‘Hush now. We don’t even know if Harry’s guilty. All we can do is wait and see.’
On the Saturday after Billy’s funeral Lily walked up on to Overcliffe Road to visit the cemetery next to Linton Park.
Billy’s grave wasn’t hard to find – it was freshly dug, under a copper-beech tree at the far side of the graveyard, with only a dry-stone wall separating it from the sweep of moorland beyond.
Lily read the inscription on the plain stone cross. Billy Robertshaw. 1909–1932. Safe in the arms of our Lord. There was a rough mound of heavy, black earth with a wreath of white chrysanthemums on top, the flowers already frost-bitten and shrivelled.
Lily stood for a long time looking at Mabel Robertshaw’s floral tribute to her son. Sorrow fixed her to the spot as she failed to find words for a prayer that would meet the occasion. Why wouldn’t they come? she wondered, looking up and beyond the grave to the dark brown expanse of heather and rock where snow drifts lingered on the tops and in the shaded valleys. Above her head, the bare branches of the old beech tree creaked in the wind and she didn’t notice the approach of Annie and Sybil, quietly threading their way between the graves.
‘Need some company?’ Annie murmured as they came to stand beside her.
Lily nodded.
‘We thought you might,’ Sybil said. ‘Evie told us where to find you.’
‘Have you said your goodbyes?’ Annie asked after she’d let the wind envelop them for a while and she felt it was time to leave Billy in peace.
Another nod from Lily was their signal to depart: the three women turned from the new grave and made their way out of the cemetery to walk arm in arm back to Albion Lane.
‘Tell me to keep my nose out if you like,’ Annie said as the wind continued to buffet them and they clutched their hats to their heads, ‘but I was wondering if you’d been to see Harry in Armley.’
‘I haven’t,’ Lily confessed, trying to stem the tide of emotion that Harry’s name evoked. Harry locked in a cell on a landing patrolled by wardens inside a prison built like a medieval castle, surrounded by a twenty-foot wall topped with barbed wire – it didn’t bear thinking about. Neither did the idea that he was charged with actual, cold-blooded murder. No, it just wasn’t right.
‘Why not?’ Annie persisted. ‘It’s not hard to arrange – you have to get a visiting order, that’s all.’
‘But you might not fancy doing that,’ Sybil realized. ‘I wouldn’t blame you – not if what they say turns out to be true.’
‘It isn’t.’ Lily’s denial came from deep within. It broke through the defences she’d erected the moment Miss Valentine had told her the news of Billy’s death and Harry’s arrest – a double blow to her hopes and dreams. The shock had hit her hard and returned her to that lonely, heart-broken state she’d been in after she’d turned down Harry’s proposal. ‘Harry told me he didn’t do it and I believe him.’
‘Anyway, let’s not talk any more about it if you don’t want to,’ Sybil said quickly.
‘Yes, let’s not,’ Annie agreed. ‘Shall we think about the sewing jobs we’ve got lined up instead? The list is as long as my arm.’
‘What do you say we make inroads into that for the rest of the afternoon?’ Sybil’s view coincided with Annie’s – that busy hands would help keep Lily’s worst fears at bay. ‘I have to make a jacket out of that brown velour your Evie picked up for me from the remnant shop. Jean Carson wants it finished by Monday, would you believe, and I haven’t even cut out the sleeves and collar for it yet.’
So it was agreed that the three of them should return to Albion Lane and sew, before Annie dashed on from there to Robert’s house for tea and Sybil spent a quiet evening at home with her mother.
Inside the house, Evie heard their approach and opened the door for them, taking in their pinched faces and windswept hair. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she offered quickly. ‘You all look like you could do with a cup of tea.’
‘Make it good and strong, love,’ Sybil requested, noticing how sad and worried Evie looked. ‘What’s up? Where’s your little pal today?’
‘If you mean Peggy, she’s gone away with her mother to her aunty’s house in Hadley,’ Evie reported briefly.
‘Quite right too.’ Annie saw the point of Peggy and Betty making themselves scarce until after the dust had settled. ‘Well, Evie, if you’re at a loose end, why not sew the hem on this dress for Ethel Newby? It’s already pinned to the right length. Do you think you can make a neat job of it?’
‘I’m sure I can.’ Gladly Evie took the almost finished garment, threaded a needle and started work.
‘It’ll need tacking first,’ Sybil reminded her as Lily sat at the machine to sew in the sleeves to Elsie’s daughter’s blue dress. The smocking had worke
d a treat and Lily hoped both mother and daughter would be pleased.
‘And I’ll help you with cutting out the lining for Jean’s jacket, since it’s a rush job,’ Annie told Sybil, and within five minutes all were settled at their tasks. The steady work was only interrupted an hour later by the sounds of movement from upstairs.
‘That’s Mother,’ Evie said with an anxious glance at Lily.
‘I’d better go up and see what she wants,’ Lily decided.
She found her mother sitting on the side of her bed, arms braced against the mattress to steady herself.
‘I thought I might try to get up for a while.’ Rhoda sighed and gave Lily a helpless, pathetic look so unlike her old, confident self. ‘But I find I don’t have the strength.’
Helping her to raise her legs back on to the bed, Lily consoled her as best she could. ‘Never mind, Mother, I can bring you up a nice cup of tea if you like.’
‘No, no, you sit here with me for a while,’ Rhoda decided. ‘Who’s downstairs with you, pray tell?’
Lily told her about the cottage industry she, Sybil, Annie and Evie had got going in the kitchen. ‘We’ve had ever such a lot of orders recently, Mother. I’d never have believed it.’
‘That’s grand.’ Resting back against her pillow, Rhoda reached for Lily’s hand and looked straight at her. ‘I see you’re wearing Harry’s necklace.’
Automatically Lily’s free hand flew to the silver locket as if to protect it from spying eyes. ‘I never take it off,’ she replied.
‘Except when you go to bed, I take it?’
‘No, Mother, I keep it on at night, too.’
‘Is there a picture of him inside?’
Reluctantly Lily undid the tiny fastener to take off the necklace then opened the hinge to reveal the head-and-shoulders photograph of Harry in uniform.
Rhoda took it and studied it carefully. ‘He’s a handsome lad,’ she commented before handing the locket back to Lily. ‘Harry never did what they say he did,’ she said after what felt like a very long time. ‘I don’t believe it, do you?’
The question took Lily by surprise and started up anew the whirlwind of panicky emotions that recent events had caused, but she gathered herself and gave a truthful answer. ‘No,’ she said quietly but firmly.