by Anna Jacobs
Annie looked at him, a little puzzled, for there was an air of power and authority about him, for all his joking, that didn’t seem to fit with an ambition to settle down as a small farmer. As if he sensed her doubts, he rushed into speech, explaining volubly that a navvy’s life was no good for an older man and he had a bit of money put by already, so what safer place to keep it than in land? Banks could fail, houses could burn down, but the land was always there, waiting. Bridie nodded as he spoke.
Annie guessed suddenly that he had no intention of settling down on a farm; he was just doing this for his mother and father. And she remembered how Michael O’Connor would sometimes spend all Sunday tramping over the moors and how Bridie had told her of his early hatred of working indoors.
Warm admiration in her eyes, she seconded his words. “What a good idea! Make your money work for you, don’t leave it lying idle in a bank.”
He looked at her gratefully.
Bridie seized on her words. “Do ye think it’s a good idea then, Annie, love? I’d like your opinion, for we all know what a good businesswoman you are. She has dozens of women working for her, you know,” she said in an aside to her son.
He looked at Annie with surprise in his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Bridie’s exaggerating. It’s only two people full-time and casual outwork to about ten others.”
“That’s not bad, though.” She flushed under the admiration in his eyes.
“It’s all right, I suppose, but we were talking about you, Mr – er – Danny. Where do you plan to buy a farm?”
“Oh, I’ll have to have a little look round and see what’s going. Something over beyond Cloughside, maybe, or in Netherden way. But we’re wasting our time talking of that now. Let’s get back to the dresses, Annie.” He lingered over her name, as if savouring the sound of it.
“One dress!” protested Bridie.
“Dresses,” he said again. “You need two or three and a good one for best. And I’ve had enough arguin’ from you, Mam? Behave yourself, now, woman!”
“But …”
“Not another word! Can you fix her up, Annie?”
“It’ll be a pleasure. And I’ll do you a special price, so that Bridie can stop worrying about the cost. We’ll go over to Hardy’s this very afternoon and choose the materials, Bridie.”
But Bridie would not agree to go to the draper’s, knowing how they’d look down on her in her old faded clothes. “You go for me, Annie, love, you an’ our Danny. I’ll tell ye the colours I like an’ then leave it to you. Sure, I know I can trust your taste, for you always look a picture yourself.”
Strangely, Danny didn’t try to persuade his mother to go with them, but arranged to call for Annie that afternoon and escort her to the draper’s to look at materials. That settled, he excused himself, saying he had a bit of business to conduct and leaving the two women to finish their cups of tea at leisure. Bridie could talk of nothing but her son and his amazing success.
That afternoon, when Danny called for her as arranged, Annie felt a little strange at being out in the company of such a striking-looking man. But he was a pleasant and polite companion, and she gradually relaxed with him. They chose material for three dresses for Bridie and she dissuaded him from buying anything too grand.
“You might be able to afford it, but when would your mother wear it?”
“When she’s in her farm and able to take things a bit easier.”
Annie laughed. “Bridie take things easy! You must be joking. You’ll never stop her from working! It’s in her very bones. And what’s more, she’d pine away if you tried to make her sit around like a lady, with nothing to do.”
“I suppose you’re right there.”
“But – if you still have money to spend – she will need some better underclothes, some petticoats and things, not to mention some bedlinen and furniture for the new house.”
“What a good idea!” Unlike any other man she knew, he insisted on staying with her to choose the materials for the underclothing and seemed to know exactly what was needed.
“Are you sure you’ve never been married, Mr O’Connor?” Annie teased as they came out of the shop. “You seem to know so much about ladies’ needs.”
He grinned down at her. “I’m a man of wide experience, Annie, that’s all, wide enough to appreciate being seen with a lovely woman like you on my arm.”
She stiffened at once, pulling away from him. “I don’t care for such talk, thank you.”
But he wouldn’t let go of her arm and she didn’t like to struggle with him there in the main street, so she was obliged to carry on walking next to him.
He looked down at her, frowning slightly. “You talk as if I’m insulting you!”
“I’m a respectable married woman, and …”
He stopped, still keeping a firm hold of her arm. “We both know how ‘married’ you are, Annie Ashworth, and I for one am sorry for the waste of it, for you’re a woman after my own heart, one who’s not only pretty, but who’s got a bit of sense in her head. And its no use you pullin’ away from me, because I’m far stronger than you, an’ I’d suggest you smile and point to something in that shop window – unless you want those two old biddies gaping at us from across the road to think the worst.”
Seething, she did as he suggested. “How dare you?” she hissed at him, trying to smile.
“Oh, I’d dare a lot more, given a bit of encouragement, believe me!”
“Well, you won’t get any encouragement from me!”
“I know. You’re afraid of men now, more’s the pity!”
“I am not! But I’m a married woman and I’ve better things to do than waste my time flirting.”
“How you keep harping on that word married! Does it make you feel safe?” He smiled down at her, and he was so big and so exuberantly male that she caught her breath and her hand quivered in his. “It’s not flirting I’m after,” he went on. “Have you ever thought, Annie, lass, what it’d be like to be loved by a real man, one who cared for you body and soul?”
“No!” She was shaken to the core. It was something she deliberately didn’t think about. “Please, D-Danny, please don’t!”
He sighed. He could hear the real distress in her voice. “Oh, Annie, my love, I’m not such a brute that I’d force me attentions on a woman. I’ve never needed to do that. But I’d like to murder the bastard who hurt you so.” He patted her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you home now. But you’ll have to learn to accept a compliment once in a while, if you will look so lovely. Where’s the harm in telling a woman she looks pretty? Tell me that, now.”
She looked up at him, thankful that the conversation had taken on a lighter note. “I – I – there’s no harm, I suppose. I just – I’m just not used to it, that’s all.”
When they reached Number Eight, he again kept hold of her arm. “Just one thing more, Annie, me love.”
“Yes?” She tried to keep her voice and her expression cool, but didn’t succeed.
“If you were a free woman, I’d not give up so easily. One day you’ll have to come to life again, and I’d like to be the one to help you do that.”
She stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, you do, Annie, you do! You understand exactly what I mean. And one day, God willing, I’ll show you.” Only then did he release her arm. He stood there chuckling as she whisked inside the house and slammed the door.
Annie made the dresses for Bridie as quickly as she could, anxious to take away any excuse for Danny to call in at Number Eight. But while she was working on them, he very basely took advantage of every opportunity to visit her, appearing on her doorstep several times to inspect progress, mostly with Bridie in tow, so that she couldn’t refuse to see him. Each time she was aware of the way he looked at her and of the smile lurking in his eyes. She was furious with herself for stammering and blushing when she spoke to him.
She was glad, she told herself, when
he found a farm, completed the purchase in record time and went back to his railways. Then, after he’d gone, she was furious with herself for thinking about him and wondering what he was doing. She only hoped that Bridie hadn’t noticed anything.
The sad sequel to Danny’s visit was that within a few weeks Bridie, Michael and their remaining children left Salem Street. It seemed to Annie as if she’d lost an integral part of her life, for Bridie had always been there at Number Five, to greet her with a smile and a cheery word. She could hardly bring herself to be civil to the new tenants.
It now began to seem a good idea to Annie to think of moving out of Salem Street as well. She didn’t rush into things, because they had Charlie’s business to consider as well as hers, and, after all, their present house was rent-free. Still, it didn’t hurt to look around and to make a few tentative plans. Charlie had slowed up a lot lately. A change would be good for him. She let him buy himself a shiny new spade and chatter on happily about how good it would be for Sammy, now a very old dog, to have a nice garden to dig in.
He and William were making lots of plans for the garden their new house would have.
“Eh, lass,” he said to Annie one day, “you’ve made me that happy, you and our William.”
22
August 1844
One morning in August, Annie woke up very early, feeling restless. Outside, it was fine and sunny, with a blue sky still unmarked by the smoke from Hallam’s tall mill chimney. She had not yet come to any firm decision about the move – and she should do. Things could not hang on like this.
Charlie was late in coming down to breakfast, so she sent William up to wake him. Self-importantly the little boy ran up the narrow stairs. She watched him go, smiling tenderly. With his mop of deep auburn curls, he seemed to her all Gibson. Many a time she’d studied his childish features, fearing to see a resemblance to his real father, and had been relieved when she could trace none, either in face or character. William was slim, freckled and alert, not an overly aggressive boy and with no sign of slyness or any other bad trait he might have inherited from his father. She loved him dearly and could not now imagine life without him.
Kathy smiled at Annie across the table. “He gets more like you every day,” she said comfortably. The responsibility of handling the housekeeping had made Kathy grow in confidence, but she was still thin and undersized, in spite of all the good food she’d had since coming to live at Number Eight. She was totally devoted to Annie, for she knew how much she owed to her, and she was like a second mother to William.
Kathy’s parents, George and Polly Dykes, no longer lived in Salem Street. When Grandpa Jack had died, George had gone to pieces and had lost his job at Hallam’s. He was now making a precarious living in a string of casual labouring jobs, in between bouts of drunkenness. The Dykes family – mother, father and four surviving children – were living in filth and squalor in one room down at Claters End. When things got desperate, Polly would come and beg a few shillings from Annie, who gave them to her for old times’ sake. Kathy never went to see her family and would hide upstairs when Polly came round. Funnily enough, they had never tried to take their daughter away from her ‘apprenticeship’ and Polly would beam with pride when told how well Kathy was doing.
After a while William came back downstairs. “Dad won’t answer me,” he said, “but his eyes are open. He looks funny.”
Annie’s startled eyes met those of Kathy. Oh, no, she prayed, not that! “I’ll go up,” she said aloud. “You stay here, William, and get on with your breakfast.”
She found her husband lying in his bed, looking peaceful and happy, but most clearly dead. There was no sign of why he’d died or of any pain or struggle. No wonder William hadn’t realised what had happened.
“Oh, Charlie,” she said softly, tears trickling down her cheeks, “you never got your garden after all!” She closed his eyes and stood looking down at the man who’d given her so much. She was reluctant to call anyone or to disturb him. She would miss him greatly and what would William do without his dad?
It was only when Kathy came tiptoeing upstairs to see what was wrong that Annie came out of her reverie.
“Is everything all … Oh, no!” Kathy burst into noisy tears.
Annie put her arm round the girl and led her away from the bed. “Don’t cry like that. Charlie wouldn’t have wanted you to.”
“But we was just goin’ to move! He was makin’ plans for a garden. He polished up that spade of his every night!” Kathy’s sobs redoubled.
William showed unexpected maturity when Annie told him what had happened. After all, death was a normal part of life in the Rows, and Charlie, it seemed, had already prepared his little son for the possibility.
“Dad said if anything ever happened to him, I was to look after you,” William said, lips quivering, but head held high. “He said he was getting old an’ tired, an’ if he died, I was to be brave an’ to look after you.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she told him, holding his tense little body close for a moment.
When Kathy had calmed down somewhat, Annie sent her to fetch Dr Lewis. There was nothing he could do, but it seemed right to call him in. She also sent word to her family, but would not let them go upstairs to stare at the body. She had always thought that a ghoulish custom. William stayed by her side for most of the day, earnestly carrying out the little tasks she set him, fetching things for her or sometimes just sitting quietly next to her. She didn’t send him away, even when Jeremy Lewis arrived. She needed her son as much as he needed her.
The doctor came downstairs and accepted a cup of tea from Annie. “He just died in his sleep, as older people do sometimes,” he told her gently. “I don’t think it was anything to do with his injuries. If it’s any consolation to you, it must have happened very quickly and he would have felt no pain.”
“No. He looked very peaceful, didn’t he?”
“What shall you do now, Annie?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t had time to think about it. We – we were just going to move to somewhere better.”
“Annie – don’t do anything rash or irrevocable this time.” He tried to choose his words carefully, knowing that he had no right to say anything to her. “I’d be happy to help you, if you were ever in need. Think of yourself this time. You have a right to a normal happy life now.”
The little boy watched him in puzzlement, not understanding what the doctor was talking about and bewildered by the emotions he could sense behind the words.
“I’ve been happy,” Annie said firmly. “Charlie was a nice man. He was always so – so kind to me.” Her voice broke for a moment. “And I’ve got William. I’ve still got William, you know.”
Her arm tightened involuntarily around her son’s shoulders and he looked up at her, puzzled by this whole conversation.
“I wish,” said Jeremy, almost savage in his self-restraint, “I wish I were free to offer you my legal protection!” He clamped his mouth tightly shut on these words, afraid of offending her so soon after her husband’s death. He’d always been so careful not to cross the line of friendship that he wasn’t even sure if she knew how he felt about her.
Annie’s eyes flew open in surprise. There was no mistaking what he meant by those words. She half-opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, giving her head a little shake, though whether to clear it or to dismiss an unpalatable thought, he couldn’t tell.
In fact, Annie was confused about her own reactions to what Jeremy had said. She had long admired him, considered him a friend and looked forward to his visits, but even if he had been free, she would never have thought of him as a possible husband, somehow. An image of Danny O’Connor was swiftly banished and she shook her head again.
Her sad expression was too much for his self-restraint. “Would you just wait in the kitchen for a moment, William?” he asked and when the little boy had left them, he turned to Annie a face ravaged with sorrow. “I know I had no r
ight to say that,” his voice was harsh and his expression grim, “but I meant every word. If I were free, I would ask you to marry me tomorrow, Annie – but I’m not free and I probably never will be!” People like Annabelle lived for ever. He called to William to come back and look after his mother and left abruptly, not giving her the chance to answer him.
The day seemed to Annie to drag on interminably. Widow Clegg came to lay Charlie out and together they washed him and dressed him in his best clothes. Two men brought round a coffin and had trouble getting it up the stairs. They grumbled and cursed as they edged it into the back room and gloomily predicted that it’d be nigh on impossible to get it down again with a body in it. Annie hardly heard them; she seemed to be walking around in a daze. It was Kathy who moved William’s bed into their room, Kathy who attended to the household chores; Kathy who directed the men.
Mr Hinchcliffe popped in briefly to offer his and his wife’s condolences and he agreed to conduct a funeral service the next day. There were so many details to attend to and yet nothing seemed to get done. Annie felt numb and disoriented. She wished she could find release in tears, like Kathy, who had hardly stopped weeping all day, but somehow, after the first shock, Annie was unable to cry.
She was jolted out of her lethargy just before teatime. Jim Catterall, Mr Hallam’s rent agent, a man universally hated in the Rows, knocked on the door, then walked straight in, without waiting for an invitation to enter. Kathy and William were out on an errand at the time and Annie was alone in the house.
“Is it true?” Catterall demanded, standing at the bottom of the stairs and eyeing the house and its contents with an almost proprietorial air. He was a burly man, always scrubbed pinkly clean and neatly dressed. His presence always made her feel uneasy and she’d made sure that she was never on her own on the day when he called to pay Charlie’s money. She found the way he looked at her offensive and the man himself physically repulsive, because when he held his head in a certain way, he reminded her of Fred Coxton, about whom she still occasionally had nightmares. Jim Catterall’s thick pink neck bulged over his shirt collar and his small piggy eyes were never still, flicking here and there. She felt that he was calculating the value of everything he saw down to the last farthing. In his big scarred hands he always clasped a shiny black leather bag, into which he put the rent money he collected, snapping it shut with an air of daring anyone to try to wrest it from him. And such was the fear in which he was held, that no one ever had tried to steal it, not even in the worst of bad times.