The lively talk continued through the clearing away of the dishes and the setting of teacups. Mrs Smallwood even raised her voice, to be heard from the kitchen, if she wanted to say something. Whenever James was addressed with a ‘What do you have to say, James?’, he only managed to reply, ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’
‘Time you did, lad,’ Mr Smallwood said after a lengthy discourse on exploitation and low wages. ‘One day you’ll be in a position to improve the lot of the workers.’
‘No mill-owner’s going to pay out more than he has to do, is he?’ James ventured. ‘You are not going to get high wages until there is more demand for skilled workers than there is for cloth.’
‘Not unless we strike,’ Mr Smallwood said.
James knew that Mr Smallwood was a foreman at Wainwright and Billington’s. ‘And will you?’ he asked. He was becoming more confident now and talk of strikes and trouble interested him more than the talk about the failing Queen Victoria.
‘If we do, we’ll concert our efforts and shut the whole of Lancashire and Cheshire down.’ Mr Smallwood warmed to his subject.
James felt the excitement that a conflict roused began to stir. Here was a way he could get his own back against Father. Father had no sympathy with unions so James would join. If there was to be trouble he’d be right in the centre of it – and serve the old man right.
Oliver reached Middlefield at nine o’clock and hurried to the mill. Wainwright and Billington’s stood on the banks of the Hollin; still the original building but much increased in size over the years. They had four mills in the town but this was the only one that bore their name. After all the years it still gave him satisfaction seeing ‘Wainwright and Billington’ built into the front, high above the top storey.
On this morning, though, he was too angry to think of anything but the news he had received. He pounded up the stairs, not even glancing through the glass panels of the doors into the weaving sheds as he passed them on the three flights to the office.
Albert was giving instructions to one of the overlookers from the first floor and Oliver waited impatiently until the man was ready to leave.
‘Tell Sam Smallwood to come up here before you do anything else,’ he ordered as the overlooker reached the door.
‘What’s up?’ Albert asked. ‘Sam Smallwood’s not done anything, has he?’
‘Not him. No,’ Oliver replied. ‘But I heard this morning that he’s been taking James to the union meetings.’
Albert smiled. ‘You’re not afraid of the unions are you?’ he asked.
‘You know I’m not. But I know James. He’s not interested in it. He’s doing it to annoy me.’
‘He’s succeeding, by the look of it,’ Albert said as they heard Sam Smallwood’s knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ Oliver said.
Sam Smallwood was a big man, a reliable foreman and he had always been on good terms with him, but Oliver’s face was dark with annoyance and his speech was unceremonious. ‘How’s James’s work?’ he asked.
‘He’s doing grand, they tell me, sir,’ Sam Smallwood replied.
‘He’s learning all right?’
‘Aye.’
‘No complaints from the factory?’
‘No, sir.’
‘And yourselves? Is he fitting in? Making himself at home?’ Oliver asked.
Sam Smallwood seemed to hesitate before answering, then it seemed that he took a deep breath and summoned up the courage to speak out. ‘He’s a fine lad, Mr Wainwright. We like him very much. He’s come with me to a couple of union meetings.’
‘I didn’t know you were a member, Smallwood,’ Oliver said.
‘I’ve always been in it, Mr Wainwright. I’ve never hidden the fact,’ Sam Smallwood said gruffly.
‘All right! All right!’ Oliver banged the desk with the flat of his hand. ‘I’ve no reason to think you want to make trouble. But I’ll not have my son going against me. See he doesn’t go to any more meetings.’
He dismissed the foreman with a curt nod and when he heard the man’s feet on the stairs Oliver turned to Albert again.
‘I’ve heard from the investigator,’ he told him.
‘What does he say?’
Oliver took an envelope from his breast pocket and withdrew a sheet of paper. He went to the window and read:
Dear Mr Wainwright,
I have, after much searching, discovered the identity of your ‘correspondent’. When you are next in Manchester I will give you my latest report and hope that we find ourselves nearer to a resolution of your problem.
Archie Wilson
‘I’m seeing him this afternoon,’ Oliver said, putting the letter back in his pocket. ‘You don’t need me here do you?’
‘No.’ Albert gave him a worried look. ‘Is your little actress in Manchester this week?’ he asked.
Oliver sat down abruptly on the corner of the big oak desk and looked up at Albert, where he stood with his back to the roaring fire. ‘She means more to me than that,’ he said. ‘I am seeing her tonight – and the next.’ He began absent-mindedly to close and open the lid of the inkstand as he spoke.
‘I want her all the time now,’ he confided in a low voice. ‘The days when I can’t see her are torment. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything but the next time,’ he added. ‘I don’t even know what my feelings for Florence are any longer.’ He could see that this revelation had shocked Albert.
‘You’ve always overvalued them, haven’t you?’ Albert said.
‘Who?’
‘Women,’ Albert told him in an exasperated manner. ‘You still can’t gallivant. Can’t love ’em and leave ’em, can you?’
‘I’ve never been one for philandering, if that’s what you mean,’ Oliver answered.
‘Well. If you’re not … what the hell are you doing with an actress half your age?’ Albert asked. He was not smiling. ‘You know what you’re like. If you can’t keep ’em at arm’s length you shouldn’t be playing the game.’
Oliver was surprised at Albert’s taking this outraged attitude. Albert had never hidden from him his own propensity for dalliance and flirtation. ‘I don’t see why you’re so worried,’ he replied shortly. ‘You’ve never been a faithful husband.’
‘No,’ Albert answered. ‘But I love my wife. I’ve never thought of my other bits of nonsense as anything more than a game.’
‘Well then,’ Oliver said. ‘Perhaps I’ll start to see Celia in that light.’
‘You’re not that type, Oliver.’ Albert shook his head. ‘You never were. You’re bloody well obsessed with the woman. You’re useless for anything else.’
‘I know,’ Oliver agreed. ‘I know what you mean. But what you don’t understand is that Celia …’
‘Oh, come on!’ Albert interrupted him sharply. ‘Your little actress is not unique. They’re all the same. There’s hundreds like her. She’s probably just a bit more obvious than most.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Oliver asked. He’d be glad to believe that Celia was replaceable. His possessive need of her was worrying to him. He wanted to be back loving Florence and not troubled by this imagining of the girl, which never left him.
‘I know how you work, Oliver,’ Albert said dismissively.
‘How?’
Albert grinned at him. ‘I’ve known you since we were sixteen, don’t forget,’ he said. ‘I remember your efforts when we were lads …’
Oliver began to smile, remembering his clumsy attempts to charm the rough girls who frequented The Crown. ‘Well?’
‘You either do nothing – or fall on top of ’em,’ Albert said. ‘You don’t waste time courting them, do you? I bet you’ve never even tried.’
Oliver let him continue. Albert evidently saw no annoyance in his partner’s face for he added gleefully, ‘The only two occasions when you’ve had a woman outside marriage they’ve fallen into your arms as eager as yourself. I bet it was the actress who seduced you, if the truth was known.’
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Oliver could not keep the laughter back now. He held his sides as Albert went on, taunting him, so near to the truth that it was even funnier than his partner knew.
‘You’re a ruffian, Oliver. Where women are concerned you’ve about as much delicacy as a bloody rhinoceros. I don’t know how your poor wife has put up with you for twenty years.’
‘I’d like to think you’re right.’ Oliver was cheered by Albert’s analysis. ‘She’s not a shrinking violet. Not Celia. Not by a long way.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, then,’ Albert answered. ‘You’ll wear one another out before long.’
Oliver got to his feet and put his overcoat on. ‘I’ll go now. I’ll look over the new mill while I’m there,’ he said.
He left the factory and walked, behind the mills, along the river path to the cattle market. He could almost feel the throbbing machinery as he passed the immense brick back walls of the buildings. He saw the river water gushing from discharge pipes, back into the Hollin, warmed and foaming where it dropped back into the cold clean water that came from the hills. Further along the river was stained red from the used water of the dye works.
He reached the bridge that took him to the station and stood for a few minutes watching the busy town; the industrious northern people going about their business. He was a part of all this – he shared with them their plain-speaking manner, their solid, dependable strength of character and their innate distaste for being made fools of by outsiders. Was he making a fool of himself? Oliver believed he was and he pondered, as he did at every spare moment, on the predicament his obsession with this girl was leading him into.
He caught the train and sat, silent and thoughtful, looking out of the window, trying to put from his mind the exciting prospect of the evening ahead and to begin to wonder about his coming meeting with the investigator.
He went immediately to the address at the top of the letter from Archie Wilson. It was a small room in a long, monotonous back street and he had difficulty in finding it, having talked with Archie in a hotel on the first two occasions they’d met.
Archie invited him in. Archie looked like a clerk and a timid one at that. He was under average height and thin, with sleeked-back hair of an unnatural-looking black colour, centre-parted. His hooked nose was set below small, dark eyes, which were as observant as a bird’s, shiny and button black.
‘Your Mr King is one Gregory King, Mr Wainwright. He keeps a lodging house in Elison Road and is an altogether nasty piece of work. The lodgers are all women.’
He offered Oliver a mug of beer and carried on talking in his quiet, high-pitched voice. ‘They are not fast women or anything, just ordinary working women who have respectable jobs in London. They leave after a few weeks, when they find rooms nearer to their work and I think Mr King comes from the north of England since many of his lodgers are from this part of the country.’
Archie opened an attaché case and took out a newspaper. ‘He’s been in prison once. For blackmail. He was in the habit of going through the papers of his lodgers when they were at work and he uncovered something about the husband of one of them. The woman in question didn’t know that her landlord was blackmailing her husband. It all came out when the police arrested the husband. King was jailed for blackmail and for not disclosing information of criminal activity to the police.’
‘You’ve done well,’ Oliver told him. ‘Have you a list of names of his lodgers, going back a year, at least?’
‘I’ve got some, but none that tally with the ones you gave me. There have been no women from Middlefield or from Southport as far as I can tell. But I’ll keep on delving, Mr Wainwright. We’ll get there soon.’
Oliver left Archie and returned to his hotel. She’d be there by now, bathing and scenting herself for him. If he hurried then they would have a few hours before she left for the theatre. He ran.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was good to be home, to be with Mother and Lizzie for Christmas. Mother insisted on having the biggest Christmas tree the house would hold and yet she was too small to reach the top, even on a stepladder. Edward secured the tree, wedging bricks firmly around the trunk in the brass-banded oak barrel and set it in the bay window of the downstairs sitting room where Mother stood back to admire its shape.
‘The candle-holders are in the attic. I’ll buy new sets of candles when I’m out,’ she said as she pulled gloves over her plump, ringed fingers and tied her fur cape under her chin.
‘Did you know that the Queen lit her tree with electric lights last year?’ Dolly said. ‘You’d think the tree would go up in flames, wouldn’t you? Or make the ornaments electrified. It can give you a shock, can electricity.’
Edward roared with laughter. ‘You are funny, Mother. You have to have a negative and a positive – you have to send the current to earth – you have to …’
‘… And see if you can find the big Father Christmas. The one that goes on the table with presents in it. We’ll not go in for electrics. I don’t want to know all that.’
‘All right, Mother. Off you go. The shops will be full and you’ll tire yourself if you rush,’ Edward said at last.
He took Mother to the door and closed it behind her, then he turned to look at Lizzie who was standing in the hall.
She was wearing a sage-green velvet dress that reflected the colour of her eyes. It had tiny, covered buttons down the bodice, a cream collar of ruched lace and was held at the throat by a cameo brooch, giving her the air of a demure governess, were it not for the glorious warm bronze of her unruly hair. She seemed lovelier than when he had last seen her and he wanted to have her reassure him of her love.
He followed her into the sitting room. ‘Is Oliver coming today?’ he asked.
‘He was here yesterday,’ she answered him. ‘He brought me home but had to go back before your train got in. He says he’ll see you in London in January.’
‘Let’s ask Nellie to sweep this floor, shall we?’ Edward said, ‘and we’ll go up to the attic and find the stuff for the tree.’
‘All right. You go ahead. It’s in the tin trunk on top of the old toy cupboard,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ll speak to the maids.’
Edward ran up the two carpeted flights of stairs to the attic and lifted down the boxes and chests they would need, listening for her quick footfall on the stairs.
He found a box of silver tinsel and brightly painted fir cones, blown-glass decorations and candle-holders. Also in the trunk and on top of the cupboards were toys from their childhood: a forlorn-looking rocking horse, Lizzie’s dolls’ house and his boxes of soldiers.
Lizzie came into the room and he turned to her. ‘Look at this.’ He held up a tattered golliwog.
‘Look at this!’ She picked up his clockwork merry-go-round. ‘Do you remember this?’
‘Yes. Here’s your doll as well. We had these when Iris looked after us. This room brings it all back.’
He stooped to lift the lid of an old tin chest where the photographs were kept and they looked at stiff, old-fashioned portraits, remembering how they had had to sit still for them, without flinching or blinking.
‘Fancy you remembering Iris. She left when you were four, didn’t she? We were taken to see her a couple of times in Liverpool after she’d gone. You surely don’t remember her looking after us,’ Lizzie said as she stared at a photograph of herself, Edward and Iris.
‘I do. I can see her now, sitting at the nursery table, writing the endless letters she sent to her friend in Bradford. She chewed the end of the pencil when she was thinking hard,’ he said. ‘I remember Iris asking you how to spell and thinking that a big girl like Iris shouldn’t have to ask.’
Lizzie looked so lovely, so animated, that he was overcome with desire for her. ‘How do you like living at Suttonford,’ he said, ‘and who’s this farmer chap who chases you all over the county?’ He tried not to let his jealousy show but it was impossible to hide his feelings for her.
‘I’m not living there permanently,
but yes, I’m enjoying it. Florence is very kind and baby Maud is an angel.’
She had not answered his question about the farmer. ‘Are they trying to find a husband for you?’ he demanded.
She turned her face up to his and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Look, Edward,’ she said. ‘We can never, never let anyone know we love one another. It’s wrong. It’s against natural law and it’s against the church law. Don’t make it harder for us.’
But her eyes belied her words; they were alight and he felt the tremor in her hands. He had waited so long to see her. He pulled her towards him and held her hard against his chest.
‘I love you. It doesn’t feel wrong to me. I’ll never love another woman as long as I live.’ His eyes were closed and his voice sounded harsh in his ears as his lips brushed against her brow.
Lizzie began to cry. ‘I love you too. Too much. I’ve missed you, Edward.’
‘Come to London with me, then. There are students there who live with their families. Some of them live with brothers and sisters. You could keep house for me and nobody would think any wrong of it.’ His mouth was against her hair.
Lizzie looked up and he saw her tears.
‘Lizzie! Oh, God, Lizzie!’ His mouth found hers and she clung to him, answering his kisses with a fire that matched his own. There was no hesitation in her and he pulled her down on to the old nursery rug, his hands caressing her as she began to unbutton her dress. He could not stop now for he knew that she wanted him to love her.
Her eyes were liquid with longing for him as he gently took her, feeling her moving under his hands until he knew she was ready for him.
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