The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Good for you,’ Lily agreed, while Evie crossed her fingers.

  ‘When can I let Peggy know the good news?’ Evie asked, bringing the subject back to Mrs Calvert and Tommy.

  ‘After Father and I’ve been to the police station and they’ve had time to talk to Sam Earby,’ came the advice. ‘That should be the proof we need to get Harry out of Armley.’

  ‘How can you be so calm and steady about it?’ Margie asked. ‘If it was me, I’d be leaping around.’

  ‘Inside I am jumping for joy,’ she confessed, her face burning with hidden excitement. ‘But I try to think of what Mother would say.’

  ‘What?’ Evie wondered, sitting by the fire with her sisters, just as they used to do before the world stood on its head.

  Lily issued their mother’s warning words exactly as Rhoda would have spoken them. ‘She’d have said, Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’

  It was true that she could already picture Harry’s face when the good news broke and almost taste his relief as he walked free, but still she stifled her delight and instead rehearsed word for word what she would tell the police. The time for smiles and kisses was just around the corner, but still out of reach.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  At ten o’clock that night Margie and Evie left Albion Lane to catch the last tram to Ada Street. Evie was to help Margie pack Arthur’s belongings and bring them back home early the next morning so the girls, glad to be the bearers of good news for their little brother, hurried eagerly from the house.

  Lily stood on the doorstop to see them off, waiting and waving until they disappeared over the brow of the hill. She was about to step inside and turn the key in the lock for the night when she saw Tommy emerge from the alley and walk purposefully towards her. She stiffened at once to see that the street was otherwise silent and empty.

  If she moved inside and locked up, her cousin would come hammering on the door and wake her father. Indecision slowed her reactions, so she was still standing in the open doorway when Tommy broke into a run then leaped up the steps to block her way. Close up, he smelled strongly of beer and tobacco smoke.

  ‘Now then, Lily, I’m glad I caught you before you tucked yourself up in bed,’ he began, planting himself between her and the refuge of the warm kitchen.

  ‘Tommy, get out of my way, please.’

  ‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’ he taunted as he leaned against the door jamb and used one raised leg as a barrier, displaying the swagger of the habitual drinker who has learned how to hold himself without seeming the worse for wear despite his blunted senses.

  Lily knew she had to be very careful. ‘It’s late. I’m tired – I’ve had a long day.’

  ‘That’s what happens when you poke your nose in where it’s not wanted,’ he sneered. ‘It tires you out. I take it you got Uncle Walter back home all right?’

  ‘Tommy, please – it’s cold. I want to go inside.’

  The more Lily tried to push past him, the more deliberately and forcefully Tommy prevented her. ‘Knowing Uncle Walter when he’s had too much to drink, his tongue probably ran away with him.’

  ‘Why were you hiding in the alley?’ Lily demanded when she found that her efforts to get into the house were useless. Wearing only a blouse and skirt, she stepped down on to the pavement, slippery with black ice, and glanced edgily up and down the street. ‘Were you spying on us?’

  Tommy held his position on the top step and glared down at her. ‘Not that you’d believe a word the old man said,’ he went on, taking a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘Your head’s screwed on too tight for that.’

  The throwaway remark somehow made Lily realize the seriousness of her situation. Here she was, alone with Tommy in the dark street, holding information about him that would free Harry and get Tommy and Frank Summerskill put away in prison.

  ‘You realize no one else would believe him either,’ Tommy went on as he lit his cigarette. ‘It’s clear as day that Uncle Walter’s not what you’d call reliable.’

  As the tip of the cigarette glowed red in the dark, he lowered his head and directed a narrow plume of acrid smoke at her face. Lily’s temper suddenly snapped. ‘Says you,’ she retorted. ‘I’d trust Father’s word over yours any day of the week, Tommy Briggs, and so will Sergeant Magson!’

  Something changed in Tommy’s face at her mention of the police. He flicked his cigarette to one side in a flurry of sparks and jumped down on to the pavement, grabbing her arms and dragging her down the hill towards the alley. ‘What did the old man say?’ he demanded, his breath hot and acrid in her ear, thrusting her out of sight down the dark, foul-smelling tunnel. Tommy jammed his forearm up against her throat, forcing her head back against the cold, greasy wall. ‘Tell me, or I’ll throttle you, Lily. I swear I will.’

  ‘I know about Sam Earby’s bike,’ she whispered, her heart racing, her hands around his arm trying to ease the pressure.

  Tommy pressed harder. ‘Now see what you’ve done,’ he groaned with mock regret. ‘You’ve only gone and forced me to take the wind out of your sails.’

  Struggling for breath with his arm still blocking her windpipe, Lily decided that if these moments down the alley were to be her last, she wouldn’t give in without a struggle. With a sudden jerk, she turned her head and bit his hand hard.

  For a moment he recoiled – long enough for her to shout for help then wriggle out of his grasp and run back on to the street. She slipped on a patch of ice and pitched forward, going down hard. Suddenly he was upon her, one knee in her back, pinning her down. He seemed oblivious to the fact that they were now in full view.

  With her head twisted to one side and her cheek pressed against the stone pavement, Lily got a view of cracked slabs and black, shiny cobbles beyond. A light went on in a bedroom across the street.

  ‘It wasn’t even me,’ Tommy growled. Fuelled by drink and with all judgement long gone, he gave way to a cowardly urge to spout his version of events. ‘I was doing the job Mrs Calvert had paid me to do, teaching Billy not to step out of line, and that would have been that.’

  ‘Tommy, you’re hurting me!’ Lily protested. More lights went on. Somewhere, a door creaked open.

  Words poured out of Tommy’s mouth. ‘But no – Billy wouldn’t stay down. He came back at us, kicking and throwing punches, grabbing Sam’s bike and flinging it down in Frank’s way – red rag to a bull, that was.’

  ‘Tommy!’ His knee was crushing her ribs. Once more she struggled for breath.

  ‘After that there was no stopping Frank. He landed a punch that knocked Billy clean out, then he sprinted to the Bentley and jumped in behind the wheel. I was telling him no, Billy was down and out but that didn’t stop Frank. He kept on coming. It wasn’t me that ran Billy over, it was Frank.’

  Lily’s head whirled and she was on the point of blacking out when a shadowy figure hove into view.

  ‘You both killed the lad,’ Walter hissed as he knocked Tommy sideways with the thick sole of his boot and laid him flat. ‘You won’t worm your way out of this one, Tommy Briggs. Not after Lily’s talked to the coppers and not while there’s still breath left in this worn-out body of mine.’

  ‘They’ll have to catch me first!’ Squirming from under Walter’s boot, Tommy sprang to his feet and fled while Lily, weak from lack of air, was only able to prop herself on to her elbows.

  ‘Come on, lass.’ Carefully Walter helped her up. ‘Do you feel up to coming down the station with me now?’

  She nodded then swayed a little.

  Her father put his arm around her and supported her as they began to walk. ‘Lean on me,’ he said. ‘That’s it – good girl. Just you wait – between us we’ll cook Tommy’s goose once and for all.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘So it’s still a case of wait and see,’ Sybil said, ahead of Lily and Annie, as they marched along Canal Road on a clear, frosty morning.

  The three women had just emerged from the police stat
ion where Sybil and Annie had forcefully backed up what Lily and Walter had reported the night before – that Tommy and Frank were the men who had killed Billy and they should unlock Harry’s door and let him walk free.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Annie told Lily as she linked arms and they hurried to catch up with Sybil. ‘We won’t let you out of our sight until the coppers manage to nab the true culprits, which won’t be long, not after what we all told the nice sergeant.’

  On they went past Calvert’s memorial tower, oblivious to faces looking out of the long windows – Jennie and Vera from the calm of the first-floor mending room, Maureen, Florence and Flora from the clattering weaving shed.

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Lily!’ Jennie called through an open window. Then, asking hastily granted permission, she sped down the stairs to accost the passing trio by the main entrance. ‘Well?’ she asked, all agog.

  ‘We’ve come from the police station,’ Sybil explained. ‘Last night Lily and her dad dropped Tommy and Frank right in it and we’ve been to back them up.’

  ‘It turns out that Mrs Calvert paid them to teach Billy a lesson,’ Annie added with beaming satisfaction.

  ‘Blimey!’ Jennie gasped, retreating under the arch as quickly as she’d come.

  Word spread like wildfire around the mill – Lily’s cousin Tommy and his pal, Frank Summerskill, had done the dirty deed under orders from the boss’s wife. By dinner time, when the spinners and weavers, warpers and twisters, perchers and packers congregated in the canteen, Jennie and her cronies had all three culprits already strung up for murder.

  Out on Ghyll Road, the three women popped into Newby’s to reassure Evie that all would be well. ‘Even if Tommy and Frank try to scarper, they won’t get far,’ Lily told her sister. ‘Not with every copper in Yorkshire hot on their heels.’

  Behind her counter stacked with Turkish delight and mint humbugs, a worried Evie greeted the news with relief. ‘What now?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Now Sybil, Annie and I carry on with those orders for dresses and coats while we have the chance,’ the ever-practical Lily said with a smile.

  ‘And in the meantime we ask about the rent for Henshaw’s haberdashers-that-was,’ Annie added. ‘Come on, slowcoach, we have a pile of orders to be getting on with!’ she called over her shoulder, ting-a-linging the shop bell as she retreated through the door.

  ‘About that rent,’ Sybil began as they dashed on up Albion Lane, cheeks flushed by the wind, fingers nipped by the frost. ‘If the landlord asks for a deposit, it so happens I have a little nest egg saved up.’

  ‘And Robert’s sister Ethel has a Singer sewing machine going begging,’ Annie reported gaily. ‘Before you know it, we’ll be set up in our own little shop with so many orders we won’t know what to do.’

  ‘What was the nest egg for?’ Lily mentioned to Sybil as she unlocked the door to number 5.

  ‘For my bottom drawer, just in case. For silk stockings and satin petticoats and sheets and pillow cases made of Egyptian cotton.’ Sybil laughed at herself and winked. ‘But now I’ve decided that marriage isn’t for me, I’m free to spend the money on whatever I like.’

  Annie and Lily joined in her laughter as they went into the house and found Walter up and dressed, laying a fire then washing his hands at the sink.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll soon be out of your road,’ he told them.

  ‘Don’t go on our account, Mr Briggs,’ Annie told him with new respect.

  ‘No, don’t let us turf you out,’ Sybil agreed.

  Walter put on his cap and buttoned his jacket nevertheless. ‘I have to see a man about a dog,’ he muttered, eager to escape the women’s mysterious snipping and tacking, tucking and gathering. ‘I’ll be back later this afternoon, in plenty of time for Arthur coming home,’ he assured Lily. ‘It’ll be good to have the littl’un back where he belongs.’

  Arthur was home and his bag unpacked when a policeman knocked on the door. ‘It’s all right, you can relax – we’ve got ’em!’ he announced without preliminaries. ‘Frank Summerskill and Tommy Briggs – we cornered ’em in Hadley and brought them straight down to the local nick.’

  Lily took in the sight of the officer in his dark uniform with shiny buttons, helmet tucked under his arm. He was fresh faced, with the eager air of a recent recruit. ‘That’s good to hear,’ she said, feeling a wave of unspeakable relief wash over her.

  ‘They were lying low in Frank’s brother’s house on Westmoreland Street at the back of the Pavilion. We got a tip-off from a neighbour.’

  ‘And have they confessed?’ Lily’s one lingering worry was that her sneaky cousin and his sidekick would be allowed to weasel their way out, leaving Harry where he was in Armley.

  ‘I can’t tell you more than what I’ve already said,’ the young officer replied with almost comical formality that suddenly collapsed when he remembered another piece of vital information. ‘Oh, except that Sergeant Magson went up to Moor House to talk to Mrs Calvert but there was no one in.’

  ‘The house was empty?’ Lily wanted him to be clear about this.

  ‘Locked up back and front, no sign of life. So the sergeant telephoned the mill and heard there was talk of Mr and Mrs Calvert decamping to Scarborough for a while. The daughter, too.’

  ‘Did they give a reason?’

  Replacing his helmet on his head and giving it a firm tap, the policeman indicated that he’d done his duty and was ready to leave. ‘Not according to the manager. He said they just upped sticks and left. But, don’t worry – it won’t stop us from talking to Mrs Calvert about her part in Billy Robertshaw’s murder when we do eventually track her down.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lily said in a voice not much above a murmur before closing the door. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry—’ she started to say to her father, seated by the fire, cigarette in hand.

  ‘Don’t,’ he interrupted.

  ‘Not for Mrs Calvert. For Winifred.’

  ‘Spare me the violins,’ Walter warned. ‘If you feel sorry for anybody, let it be Billy’s mother, his sister and everyone else who’s been dragged in.’

  ‘I do, Father,’ she agreed, picking up Arthur’s aired pyjamas from the fender and handing them to him. ‘Believe me, I do.’

  ‘Margie’s a law unto herself,’ Bert Preston complained when, on the longed-for day of Harry’s release, he delivered Margie and her suitcase to Albion Lane. ‘All of a sudden she’s got it into her head that this is her home and she won’t stay away a day longer, not for love nor money.’

  Walter stood on the top step and glared down at his father-in-law then at Margie. Her chin was up, her brown eyes defiant, daring him to slam the door in her face.

  ‘Well, are you going to let her in or not?’ Bert asked, setting the suitcase down.

  Lily, who been up long before dawn, waited with Arthur in the kitchen. A glimpse of Margie on the doorstep boldly meeting Walter’s hostile gaze made her heart flutter, yet she knew better than to step in. It was up to her father to decide.

  Walter had been silent so long Margie was beginning to think that this visit was a waste of time. A lot of things had changed lately, but he hadn’t – when it came to forgiveness, it seemed he was still his unfeeling, unbending self. ‘Ah well,’ she said, ready to turn and flounce away, ‘if you’re that ashamed of me, I can always carry on living with Granddad like you said.’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Bert reminded her as he stooped to pick up the suitcase.

  They left and were a few yards up the street, returning the way they’d come when Walter finally spoke. ‘That Kenneth Hetton …’

  Margie’s heart was jolted by the abrupt and painful reminder and when she looked over her shoulder, her face was pale under her green velour hat. ‘What about him? He’s out of the picture now.’

  ‘Where’s he buggered off to?’

  ‘To Liverpool, the last I heard.’

  Walter frowned. ‘That’s not the ends of the earth. We can still track him down.’
/>   ‘He’ll be in clink there.’ Margie couldn’t see where this was leading or why her father should be raking it up now. She and her grandfather retraced their steps to find that Lily had joined Walter on the step.

  ‘In clink for doing what?’ he asked. ‘Not for what he did to you?’

  Margie shook her head. ‘No, for thieving from his bosses. Anyway, you tell him, Lily, you know why I’ve decided to let that lie.’

  ‘She has, Father, and with good reason. I agree with her and Mother – what Margie has to do now is move on from what happened and concentrate on getting ready for the baby.’

  Walter thought a while longer. ‘And you promise you’ll do as you’re told from now on?’ he asked Margie. ‘You won’t get up to your old tricks?’

  ‘Such as?’ Margie demanded, forgetting for a second that she was in no position to bargain.

  ‘Such as giving me cheek and looking down your nose at me.’

  Staring up at him, Margie saw an old man with a wheezy chest, lined face and untidy grey moustache. Everything about him seemed tired and worn out – his veined hands and blunt nails, the nicotine stains on his fingers, the loose skin of his neck and jutting brows. Her father. ‘Cross my heart,’ she murmured gently.

  ‘Then come on in out of the cold,’ he told her, holding open the door as he stood to one side.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Harry’s footsteps rang out along the metal landing for the last time. He stared straight ahead, following the warder down the steps, out across the perimeter walkway and through the small exit set into the double oak doors.

  ‘Good luck to you, son,’ the warder said sincerely as he shook his hand.

  Harry turned up his collar and looked for Ernie’s van. There it was, parked across the road, with Ernie sitting in it and beside him, in the passenger seat, was Lily.