The Innkeeper's Daughter

by Val Wood

  ‘Perhaps you would allow me to help you?’ he said. ‘I am retired now from business and I have free time on my hands.’

  ‘Well,’ Sarah began, uncertainty clouding her voice, but Bella interrupted.

  ‘That’d be very kind of you, Mr Jacobs. We would appreciate it, if it’s not too much trouble to you. Do you think we should ask ’brewery about ’windows and door as you suggested?’

  ‘Indeed, ja. It is very remiss of them to charge you rent for a building without a front door or windows. How would you get out if there should be a fire?’

  Bella gasped and stared at him. ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Perhaps you would permit me to come with you when you visit the brewers?’

  ‘Oh, please!’ Bella said before her mother or Joe could intervene. ‘I’ll write straight away and ask for an appointment.’

  Newby and Allen, brewers and maltsters of Hull, owned several beer, ale, and public houses as well as the Maritime. Their premises were situated in a growing industrial area of Wincolmlee, close by the River Hull. Mr Jacobs had hired a cab to take them, saying he couldn’t possibly walk so far.

  The building was in the middle of a complex which smelled sweetly and strongly of warm malt and roasted barley. Bella, her mother and Reuben Jacobs climbed the stairs to the upstairs office to meet one of the directors, Mr Herbert Newby.

  Bella had insisted that her mother should come with them, even though she didn’t want to. ‘They’ll see I’m not old enough to be in charge, Ma. You’re the innkeeper, it’s you that’s been granted ’licence. You don’t have to say anything; I’ll say you’ve lost your voice if you like.’

  Reuben Jacobs smiled. ‘Dear lady,’ he said to Sarah, ‘please don’t trouble yourself too much. They will be happy that you are willing to take on this disused property and make them some money.’

  Sarah no longer dressed in her mourning clothes, but as a mature widowed woman she preferred to wear dark grey, and this she wore today with a large wool shawl which came almost to the top of her boots, and a grey and black bonnet. Bella, after much deliberation, and as she expected to be the spokesperson, was also dressed soberly in a light grey skirt and bodice, except that she wore several stiffened underskirts, and a warm paisley shawl. On her head she wore the only good bonnet she possessed, in light grey and white pleated poplin, which fastened beneath her chin with blue ribbon.

  Joe had said that he didn’t want to come with them but whilst they were out would buy some wood to make shelves for the kitchen. Alice said she and Nell would continue with the cleaning while keeping an eye on Henry.

  ‘We’d best not do anything yet with ’front taproom,’ Bella said to them both before she left for the meeting. ‘If ’brewers say we can put ’windows back there’s going to be a lot of dust and debris.’ She was delighted that Joe was knuckling down to get the place tidy without any haranguing from her or her mother, and because they hadn’t yet had delivery of beer or spirits he hadn’t had a drink either.

  Mr Newby rose from his desk when they were shown into his office and Bella and her mother both dipped a knee. He greeted them and asked them to take a seat, and then expressed surprise at seeing Reuben Jacobs.

  He held out his hand. ‘Jacobs! I didn’t expect to see you. Do you have an interest in the venture of …’ he looked down at the notepaper on his desk, ‘of Mrs Thorp?’

  Jacobs inclined his head. ‘In a manner of speaking, yes, I do. I shall be pleased to give Mrs Thorp the benefit of legal advice should she wish to take it.’

  Legal advice, Bella thought, and although her face remained impassive a tremor of anxiety ran through her. He didn’t say he was a lawyer. What fee will he charge and will we be able to afford it?

  Mr Newby also looked concerned. ‘Legal advice? With regard to—’

  Mr Jacobs indicated to Sarah and Bella that they should explain the reasoning behind their visit and sat down in a chair slightly behind Sarah.

  ‘Fact is, Mr Newby,’ Bella spoke up, ‘it’s come to our attention that dog fights and cock fights have taken place at ’Maritime, and it’s our concern that ’place has probably gained a shady reputation.’ She took a breath as she saw Newby open his mouth to reply and quickly resumed. ‘My mother is very uneasy about this, as our family have always kept a respectable house.’

  Newby glanced at Sarah, who nodded vehemently. Bella went on to mention the bricked-up windows and door and added that although the brewery had said they would pay something towards the cleaning up of the Maritime, they would like to open up the windows and front door and thus invite a different kind of customer from the previous clientele.

  Jacobs leaned forward and said confidentially, ‘I think you have an opportunity here, Newby, to make this into a profitable concern, given the enthusiasm of the family, especially Miss Thorp and her brother.’

  Newby began to bluster that the dog fights were done with long ago, until Sarah found her voice to interrupt him and say, ‘I think you’ll find, sir, that some folk have long memories and decent people won’t come into a hostelry with an unsavoury past unless they can see that it’s changed.’

  ‘So what is it that you suggest?’ Newby sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his ample stomach.

  Bella spoke up. ‘We’ll see to knocking out ’bricked-up windows and ’front door if ’brewery will pay for replacing them. Might I ask, sir, how long it is since you visited ’Maritime?’

  ‘Oh, erm, not for some time,’ he mumbled, and they knew then that he probably hadn’t seen it in several years.

  ‘Well, Mr Newby,’ Bella continued, ‘if you’ll come again we’ll show you what we plan to do, but,’ she said firmly, ‘we can’t do it alone. We’ll need some help wi’ finances. Otherwise, we’ll have to look at another better-maintained property.’

  It was a risk, she realized, and it wasn’t something she had discussed with her mother or Joe, but she guessed, rightly as it turned out, that the brewery wanted rid of the ugly and unprofitable Maritime and that no one else so far had offered to take it on. Maybe, she mused as they went back down the stairs, they thought we were a bunch of country bumpkins with no idea how to go about things, and would just accept it. Well, now they know that we’re not and we won’t.

  When they arrived back, both Bella and her mother thanked Mr Jacobs most sincerely. Bella was sure that it was his professional manner and demeanour that had convinced Mr Newby that the Thorps were not to be trifled with.

  Sarah called upstairs where they could hear the sound of knocking, presumably from sweeping brushes banging against skirting boards and window frames. ‘Nell,’ she shouted. ‘Come and mek us a pot o’ tea. I’m fair gasping.’

  Alice appeared at the top of the stairs; she looked hot and dishevelled and wiped her dirty face with her apron. ‘Nell’s gone out, Mrs Thorp. She went just after Joe did. She said she wouldn’t be long.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’ Bella asked. ‘There wasn’t anything we needed. And where’s Joe gone?’

  ‘Erm, don’t know. He went out wi’ Carter.’ Alice flushed and pressed her lips together. ‘Mebbe for some nails or summat.’

  Bella heaved a breath. And maybe not, she thought. Two men needing a drink and one vexatious young girl bent on doing just what she wants. She felt suddenly deflated, defeated as if she had been in a skirmish and all their problems were resting on her shoulders. She followed her mother into the kitchen. Someone, presumably Alice, had put the kettle on the range and it was gently steaming.

  Her mother looked at her. ‘You did well today, Bella,’ she said quietly. ‘We’d not have done so well without you. I know that Mr Jacobs’s presence helped a good deal, but without your ideas and ’way you talked to that gent from ’brewery, well, we’d not have got anywhere. I know this wasn’t ’life that you planned, that you’d other ideas in your head.’ She gave her daughter a little smile. ‘But I reckon that you’ll do better by far than any school teachering. You’ll mek summat of yours
elf, mark my words. You’ll see that I’m right.’

  Bella swallowed hard. She had been tense with anxiety and doubt about her ability before going to see Mr Newby and was now full of emotion and felt like weeping on hearing her mother’s reassuring words; but she also experienced an odd sensation of strength and confidence, as though if she wanted to she could pursue almost any challenge. Just as her young sister was bent on living her own life in the way she desired, so could she make a success of a life that she hadn’t chosen but as an obedient daughter had been expected to follow.

  I will make something of myself, she thought. I’ll make ’Maritime thrive and be successful, even if I have to do it alone. Why shouldn’t I?

  The outside door banged open and Joe walked into the kitchen carrying a sack of what were unmistakably tools, and behind him came Carter with a pair of wooden steps.

  ‘Hey up, Bella,’ Joe said, as sober as a judge. ‘How did you get on at ’brewery? Are we up for renovation?’ He frowned. ‘What’s up? What ’you crying for? Is it summat I said?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  JOE AND CARTER knocked out the front door and windows and then the ones upstairs. Mr Newby had visited and enthusiastically agreed that doing so would make an immense improvement. Bella had told him that her mother wanted plate-glass windows on either side of a wood and glass door to let in as much light as possible, the bottom third of the windows to be sandblasted for privacy from people passing by in the street, and the glass in the door to be etched with a design incorporating the sea.

  ‘Because it’s called ’Maritime,’ Bella emphasized, seeing the brewer’s astonishment.

  ‘Yes, yes, I realize why,’ Newby agreed. ‘I’m just thinking of the cost.’

  ‘You’ll onny have to pay once,’ Bella said calmly. ‘And think how grand it’ll look when it’s finished.’

  ‘This is a town establishment,’ she had said previously to Joe and her mother, ‘and we can make it into a place where men can bring their wives for an evening out.’

  Nell had butted in and said ‘or after going to ’theatre’ when they hadn’t realized she was listening; and it was Joe who had said that some men might prefer a room where they could drop in after work and have a couple of glasses of ale without their womenfolk. Bella then suggested to Mr Newby that the side door might be used as an entrance to the bar where customers who perhaps only wanted one or maybe two drinks could slip in and stand at the counter rather than going through the front, where there would be chairs and tables in what she described as the saloon.

  Mr Newby agreed and said he had heard that having a separate bar for single drinkers was catching on in London, and that in some of the saloons – he pronounced it salons – screens of wood and glass subdivided the room.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Bella said eagerly. ‘So that people can have a private conversation.’

  Sarah had sniffed at that. ‘I might onny be an innkeeper,’ she said, ‘but I’ll have no shenanigans in my house. And,’ she added, ‘the bar’ll be for men only. I’ll not have ladies of ’night popping in looking for custom.’

  Mr Newby had nodded vigorously and commented that he was quite sure that no one would possibly dare to try shenanigans or any other impudence with such a respectable lady in charge. He went away satisfied and ready to explain to his partner Mr Allen that their money was quite safe.

  Christmas came upon them a week after the windows were glazed, but the door was a temporary one until the etching of the glass was finished. Their plan was to get everything ready for the third week in January and have a grand opening.

  Sarah cooked a goose and invited Carter to eat Christmas dinner with them; he readily accepted. He’d told them that he had lodgings in the town but that the landlady wasn’t much of a cook; Bella had reason to doubt him for he often arrived in a morning looking as if he had slept out all night. Sarah also suggested to Bella that she might like to invite Reuben Jacobs, but she mildly replied that she was fairly sure he didn’t celebrate Christmas, so why didn’t they invite him to have a meal with them at the New Year.

  Alice usually ate heartily as if she must make the most of every little morsel, but on Christmas Day she looked and seemed rather sad and picked at her food. Bella asked her if she was thinking about her family in Holderness; Alice nodded and said she was worried that they wouldn’t have enough to eat.

  Bella’s glance caught her mother’s and Sarah said, ‘We’ll have a chat about wages after Christmas, Alice, seeing as you’ve worked so hard. You too, Carter,’ she added, ‘although there might not be so much for you to do once we’re finished wi’ renovations.’

  Carter looked disappointed. ‘I could mebbe help out in ’bar when you’re busy, weekends ’n’ that. I know how to serve beer and I’d soon learn how to work ’pumps.’

  ‘Do you, Carter?’ Bella asked, thinking about his confession that he was a drunk when he was near alcohol. ‘How come?’

  ‘My da kept a beer house down in High Street when I was a lad, but he died when I was twenty and Ma had to move out. We moved from place to place and then she married again and there was no room for me.’

  Sarah carved him another slice of goose and put it on his plate. ‘How long ago was that?’

  Carter shrugged. ‘Seven, eight years ago. I’m thirty now.’

  He looks much older, Bella thought. His skin was rough and pockmarked, and although he was much cleaner than when they had first met him, his clothes were shabby and he was badly in need of another haircut. It would be a risk taking him on, she considered, and he might encourage Joe in his drinking habits.

  Joe had not taken a drink since they’d moved here, probably because they hadn’t yet taken delivery from the brewery, but immediately after Christmas it would arrive. The casks would be put into the cellar, the inside entrance to which they had discovered disguised and hidden behind a wallpapered door in what was to become the saloon. On going down the stone steps they again found dog hair and something that looked like dried blood.

  Carter had volunteered to clean it, as Alice had shuddered at the mention of it, and it was now scrubbed and dry; Joe had made more shelves for the bottles of wine and spirits and put up brackets to hold oil lamps, for there was no gas light down here, unlike the rest of the building.

  They had asked the brewery to have gas lamps put up outside the front door and over the side entrance so that customers would find their way without hindrance and any troublemakers would be deterred.

  Everyone was getting excited at the prospect of the opening and the doubts they had initially had were beginning to fade. When Christmas was over, if the weather remained dry, the brewery had commissioned a decorator to paint the outside walls of the Maritime in a cream colour and the window and door frames in black. Joe, Carter and Bella wallpapered the inside walls in flocked paper, with the deep skirting and dado rails painted in dark mahogany. Alice polished the tables and chairs, washed and dusted the mirrors, blackleaded the fire grates and cleaned the brass. Even Henry offered to sweep the floors with a brush which was much bigger than himself, whilst Nell, supposedly helping her mother in the kitchen, disappeared from time to time, and because everyone was busy no one could be sure whether she was in or out.

  It was one evening the week after Christmas when Sarah glanced at Nell and asked, ‘Have you been up ’fireback, Nell? You’ve got soot on your face.’

  Nell put her hand to her cheek and rubbed, but her mother said, ‘No, not there, under your eyes. You look as if you’ve got two black eyes!’

  ‘Oh,’ Nell said, smoothing her eyelids. ‘It’s all these town chimneys belching out smoke. I was covered in it ’other day.’

  Bella said nothing, but she had inadvertently caught Nell slipping out of the side door one day, and had noticed that her lips and cheeks were rosy not from the heat of a fire but from powdered rouge and her eyes were outlined in black.

  Where’s she going, she wondered; is she meeting someone and should I tell Ma? She decided against
it, because they were all busy trying to get everything ready for the opening and preparing for Henry’s first day at school.

  Reuben Jacobs had suggested a dame school in Myton Street, which adjoined Anne Street. ‘Once he is used to being there, he will be able to go by himself,’ he said. ‘He will learn independence.’

  Bella was uncertain about that; she was very cautious about allowing Henry to go anywhere alone, but her mother said that was nonsense. ‘You all went to ’village school on your own. I onny ever took you on ’first day.’

  ‘That was different, Ma,’ Bella said. ‘We already knew ’village bairns, and when I first started I used to follow Joe and William into ’classroom. This will be a much bigger school, with more pupils, and Henry won’t know anybody. He can’t come home on his own.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ Sarah said impatiently. ‘It’s onny up ’street. Course he can go on his own, can’t you, Henry?’

  Henry nodded. ‘Yes, I can, but I don’t need to go to school. I can read already and write my name. Bella showed me.’

  Bella ruffled his hair. ‘But there’s a lot more to learn, Henry. You’ll learn about history and kings and queens and other countries. You’ll learn a lot more than I can teach you,’ and she thought a little wistfully about lost opportunities and what Jamie Lucan had once said about being a teacher at a dame school.

  ‘All right,’ Henry agreed. ‘And when I come home I’ll be able to teach you, Bella.’

  ‘You will.’ She smiled. ‘And when you become really clever perhaps you could go to ’Grammar School and then to university to be a – doctor or …’ Her voice trailed away as her mother interrupted.

  ‘Now then, Bella. Don’t be putting daft ideas into his head. We’ve got to accept what and who we are. We’re ordinary working folk. I don’t know a single person of my acquaintance who’s ever become a doctor.’

  But I do, Bella thought, and I know that he was a different class from us but why shouldn’t we be able to do ’same if we’re clever enough? Even if she couldn’t achieve what she desired for herself, she would strive to help her little brother to travel any path he wanted.