Mary's Child

by Irene Carr

  She glanced at him sidewise, demure. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Ballantyne.’

  He grinned. ‘Oh, yes, you do.’

  She was aware of him close, dared not look at him, felt the heat in her face – from the oven? She looked to escape but there was no way past his broad shoulders. Then Florence Morgan hurried into the room and saw him, calling, ‘There you are! They’re looking for you, Mr Ballantyne!’

  ‘I’m just leaving.’ Jack paused at the door to give Florence – or both of them? – a bow. ‘Goodbye.’

  Chrissie looked his way at last, a quick glance, and laughed. ‘Ta-ra, Mr Ballantyne.’

  He went out to the cab, pulling his cap on to his black head, and that laughter went with him for the rest of the day. He, too, was well satisfied, had made a comfortable commission on the transaction.

  He told his father and grandfather about it that night and they laughed. Old George Ballantyne, who had stated his position and would not hold a grudge, said, ‘Well, you have another string to your bow if ever they don’t want ships any more.’

  Jack grinned. ‘They’ll always want ships. Besides, this just fell into my lap.’

  Richard Ballantyne said, ‘But you saw the opportunity and seized it. That was a smart bit of work. You’ll make a businessman yet.’

  It was only later that Jack wondered if he had been smart – or had someone else?

  Lance Morgan took a drink to celebrate and then faced the future with more confidence than he had for months. ‘The only problem now is to find a house to rent until I can buy another pub.’

  Chrissie said meekly, ‘That reminds me, Mr Morgan . . .’

  Chapter 15

  May 1911

  ‘Forty-six thousand ton! And three times the length of a football field! That’s a hell of a size, man.’ The riveter shook his head in admiration and lifted his pint from the bar of the Bells. He drank deeply and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘She’s titanic all right.’

  Lance Morgan came into the public bar from serving an old woman in the snug and asked, ‘What’re they talking about?’

  Chrissie, dexterously pulling more pints, told him, ‘They’ve just launched a ship over in Belfast, the Titanic.’

  ‘We cannae build them that big in this river,’ grumbled a plater.

  A boilermaker capped that: ‘No, but we can build them better.’

  That brought laughter, cheers and a chorus of ‘Aye!’

  It was not a loud chorus. This was Saturday night but the public bar was less than half-full. Lance looked along the scattering of men standing at the bar or sitting on the horsehair stuffed leather benches around the walls. He muttered morosely, ‘No more than a dozen, and just one auld lass with a gill o’ beer in the snug. It looks like we’ve jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire.’

  The public bar and the sitting-room were each twice the size of those in the Frigate, and then there was the little snug where there was room for half a dozen old women to sit and gossip. Tonight the sitting-room, with its gleaming, polished tables and bright fire, was empty.

  They had moved into the Bells just a month ago. Chrissie had led Lance to it and at the time he was eager. He needed to find another pub and was relieved to be shot of the Halfway House. But now he was having second thoughts.

  Chrissie tried to cheer him. ‘It always takes time to build up trade. We’ll fill the place yet, you’ll see.’

  Lance shook his head. ‘I doubt it.’ His gaze moved along the bar to where Millie stood polishing glasses. He said, low voiced, ‘I’m going to have to give that lass the sack.’ He had taken on Millie when he bought the Bells.

  Chrissie pleaded, ‘Oh, no! She’s all on her own, no family and living in just the one room.’

  ‘I know that and I’m not liking the idea of getting shot of her.’ Lance sighed. ‘But I’m running a business here, there’s scarcely enough trade to keep us two busy and I can’t pay her for doing nothing.’

  Chrissie hesitated. She knew very well that there was not enough work for the three of them. She had her qualification in bookkeeping, and was determined to use it and not spend the rest of her life working behind a bar. But at the same time, she felt reponsible for Lance Morgan being in the Bells. He had been good to her, she believed she was in his debt, so she did not want to leave him.

  She tried again. ‘Wait another week on two and see if things pick up. Once the football season starts—’

  Lance lifted one hand to stop her. ‘All right! I know about that; you’ve told me often enough. But you only think we’ll get some extra business then, you don’t know. And as it is, we can manage here with just the two of us.’ He paused then, her soft brown eyes on him, the corners of her mouth drooping, and he yielded: ‘Well, I’ll give her to the end of next month but not a day longer.’

  Chrissie smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Mr Morgan!’

  ‘You’ve got your own way of getting what you want.’ He pretended to scowl but the grin showed through. Then he added, ‘But here’s another customer and he’s one o’ yours.’

  Ted Ward, in scarlet coat with glittering buttons, strode up to the bar. His grin was evident and broad and Lance murmured, ‘I think he’s glad to see you.’

  Chrissie laughed, pink cheeked, but could not deny the charge. Ted had only visited her once while she was at the Halfway House. The journey from the town was too far when added to the travelling from the barracks in Newcastle. Now he came to the Bells every Saturday and caught a train back to Newcastle from nearby Monkwearmouth Station.

  He smiled shyly. ‘Hello, Chrissie.’

  He was a tall, handsome young man and Chrissie had known him a long time, was fond of him. They talked, Chrissie standing just across the bar from him when she was not serving, or throwing the odd word to him as she hurried past. She was pleased to see him and his presence helped the evening to pass quickly. And she was conscious all the time of his admiring gaze that brought the blood to her cheeks again.

  When he left to catch his train back to barracks she squeezed his hand. Then remembered: ‘I had a letter from Frank.’ He wrote to her every week. ‘He’s at some place called Sheerness, at the gunnery school there. He says he gets a few extra coppers for playing the bugle.’

  Ted asked, ‘How is he?’

  ‘He sounds cheerful. And he says the boxing instructor is pleased with him and says he might be picked to box for the Navy.’

  In fact the instructor, a hard-eyed petty officer, had told a panting, sweating Frank after one particularly skilful bout, ‘You’ve got the talent, son. You’ll box for the Navy and you could go on and fight professional if you were harder on your opponents. But you hold back when you could be hammering them into the ground. You need to be full o’ hate in the ring.’

  Now Ted said wistfully, ‘I’d like to see him again.’ Then he grinned, ‘I’ll have to learn to play the bugle and save the fare to – Sheerness? That’s down by London, isn’t it?’

  ‘That way. But you get on or you’ll miss your train.’ Chrissie shoved him on his way.

  On a bright summer morning Frank Ward fell in with the rest of the band at the head of the long column of bluejackets. They were ranked on the barrack square of the gunnery school. The commander bellowed an order and the column moved off, the band struck up. They wound out of the barracks and along the road that led to the gunnery sheds. There they would spend the day under instruction on the guns. There was a salt wind from off the sea, the bugles blared and the drums rattled.

  Frank stepped out, free arm swinging, his heart big in his chest. There was a magic in being part of that disciplined body, at one with the men around him, comrades, all moving as one. He could play his bugle and let his mind drift away while his body kept its place in the marching column. He could think of Chrissie and her last letter.

  ‘What cheer, Lance!’ Walter Ferguson hung his bowler hat on a peg in the sitting-room next to the bar in the Bells and smoothed down the well-cut jacket that fitted h
is ample frame like a glove. A gold watch-chain looped from pocket to pocket across the front of his waistcoat. He sat down at one of the tables, the gleam of the dark oak matched by the shine on his boots.

  ‘Now then, Walter!’ Lance answered him. Ferguson was an old friend and manager of the Palace Hotel in the centre of the town. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Scotch and a drop o’ water will go down very nicely, please.’ Walter dropped his copy of The Times on the table.

  As Lance turned back to the bar, Chrissie said brightly, ‘I’ll get it, Mr Morgan. Would you like something? I can look after the bar.’ This was a Tuesday morning, shortly before noon. There were only two customers in the public bar and one old woman in the snug.

  ‘Aye, all right, I’ll have the same.’ So Lance settled down in a chair opposite Walter and asked, ‘How’s business?’

  Walter answered, ‘Business is good. But . . .’

  Chrissie heard snatches of their talk as she poured the whiskies, put the glasses on a tray with a jug of water and carried them through.

  ‘. . . Said he’d got the offer of this better job in Birmingham and he was taking it. Gave no notice. Put on his coat and walked out . . . been with me ten years . . . so I’m left to do the books and the rest of the paperwork myself and I don’t—’ Walter broke off to say, ‘Thank you, lass.’

  Lance Morgan nodded. ‘Thanks, Chrissie. This is on me.’

  ‘Right you are, Mr Morgan.’ Chrissie’s skirt swirled as she spun on her heel to go back behind the bar. And Lance went on, ‘You’ll have to get somebody else then.’

  Walter dripped water into his whisky and grumbled, ‘Easier said than done. I need somebody that knows the trade and I can’t find one . . .’

  Chrissie was busy for a while after that as a few men drifted in, the first of the lunchtime trade. They talked loudly after coming from the din in the yards but Chrissie was used to that and still caught a word or two of the conversation in the sitting-room. It soon turned to Lance’s problems.

  ‘I’m just about making a living; that’s all I can say. The Frigate was nearer the yards and I got a lot of custom from them. This place is too far off the beaten track. I’m hoping trade will pick up but if it doesn’t improve by the end of the month I’ll have to lay off one of the girls.’

  And then, some time later, she heard the scrape of chairs and Lance bidding farewell, ‘Cheerio, then, Walter. I hope you find somebody soon. You’ve enough to do with a place that size without having to handle the paperwork and books.’

  Walter laughed, cheered by the whisky. ‘We’re a right pair! I’ve got too much work and you’re wanting more . . .’ His voice drifted away as he went off down the passage to the street, Lance going with him.

  Chrissie stood still for a full minute until Lance returned. Then she jerked back to life and gasped, ‘Sorry!’ to the old woman now rapping impatiently on the bar of the snug with her threepenny bit. Chrissie gave her another glass of beer, closing her ears to the muttered ‘Young lasses standing about dreaming . . .’

  Then she turned back into the public bar and said, ‘He’s right, Mr Morgan.’

  Lance looked at her. ‘Walter? What about?’

  ‘I couldn’t help hearing, with it being quiet in here this morning.’

  Lance replied gloomily, ‘It’s quiet every morning – and the rest of the time. But what are you on about? You say Walter was right?’

  ‘When he said he had too much work and you didn’t have enough.’

  ‘Oh, aye. He hit the nail on the head then.’

  ‘Well, I thought, suppose you kept on Millie – she could look after the bairns and the housekeeping like I do – and let me go and work for Mr Ferguson. I could do his books and I know the trade.’

  Lance blinked at her, shocked. ‘I couldn’t sack you. You’re my right hand.’

  Chrissie urged, ‘I could still work for you at weekends and in the evenings.’

  ‘Ah. Well’ – Lance put in craftily – ‘suppose things pick up like you say they will? Suppose we start getting full during the day? Where will I be then?’

  ‘You could always get somebody else to help in the bar.’

  Lance was silent a moment, then sighed. ‘’Course, you don’t need to ask me. You could just ha’ given your notice and walked out.’

  Chrissie shook her head, ‘No, I couldn’t. You’ve always been good to me, Mr Morgan.’

  ‘And you’ve deserved it.’ Lance sighed again, accepting the inevitable this time. ‘Well, you’ve got your heart set on it. I’m not surprised. I’ve thought for a while that you’d go further than just being a barmaid. All right, I’ll write you a reference, then you put your coat on and go round and see Walter. If he has any sense he’ll give you a try at the job, anyway. And if you find that—’ he paused to pick his words, discarding ‘It’s beyond you’ – ‘you don’t like it, then you come back to me.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Morgan.’ Chrissie ran upstairs to fetch her coat.

  That afternoon she started work at the Palace.

  By the end of the week she had settled in. At the end of the month the receptionist left to marry a seaman. His ship sailed out of the Tyne so she moved to Newcastle. Chrissie took on her duties as well for a rise in pay. Walter Ferguson told Lance Morgan, ‘That’s a right good lass you sent me.’

  Lance replied drily, ‘Aye, I know that.’

  ‘She does a marvellous job wi’ the books, and she looks after all the other office work. She does twice as much as the lazy bugger I had before.’ Walter lowered his voice. ‘And she’s sharp. She spotted the head barman was dipping his fingers in the till. He’s gone, with a flea in his ear and knowing he’s lucky not to be in jail. He would ha’ been if it had been left to me.’

  ‘Didn’t you charge him?’

  ‘Well, your lass pleaded with me, said he had a wife and little bairns and they would suffer. So at the finish I gave him a week’s money and showed him the door.’ Walter shook his head, ‘She has a way o’ getting round you.’

  Lance answered, drily again, ‘I know that an’ all.’

  The Palace Hotel was a big, bustling place, the grandest in the town. At first Chrissie was overawed by the sheer size and opulence of it, the forty bedrooms, the huge dining-room and the numerous bars, all hushed with thick pile carpets. The foyer was spacious, with a long reception desk, and Chrissie worked behind it at a desk of her own. There she kept the books, had her typewriter and dealt with the hotel’s correspondence.

  The forty bedrooms were usually full, often occupied by ‘theatricals’, the artistes appearing that week at the Empire Theatre in the town. Monied and professional people lunched and dined there at the big, white-clothed tables under the chandeliers hung from the high ceiling of the dining-room. It boasted a French chef and claimed to serve the best meals in the town.

  Jack Ballantyne was a frequent visitor. He stared when he first saw Chrissie at her desk in the foyer. ‘Hello, Chrissie!’

  Walter was passing and paused, disconcerted. He asked, ‘You know Miss Carter, Mr Ballantyne?’

  Jack nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, Miss Carter and I have met in the way of business.’ So it’s Miss Carter now, he thought.

  This girl was not wearing a well-worn dress with a white apron over it. Her dark frock was businesslike but smart, showing off her small waist and high bosom. It looked new. It was, and had cost Chrissie nineteen shillings and sixpence. She blushed under the men’s gaze and looked down at the work on her desk.

  Jack Ballantyne strode on, pausing for a moment to exchange a few words with a group of local businessmen, his dark thatch showing above the heads of the others. Then he went on to the dining-room and out of Chrissie’s sight.

  He paused then, looking for Hector Milligan and his wife, then saw them at a table by a window and crossed to join them. Hector was chairman of a ship-owning firm and had come to visit the Ballantyne yard. He and his wife had dined with the Ballantynes the previous evening and this morning
Richard had ordered Jack, ‘I want you to entertain the Milligans. I can’t get away from the yard at present. Stand them lunch and I’ll send the Rolls round at two to bring Hector down to the yard. You stay on at the Palace and escort Mrs Milligan if she wants to visit the shops or go for a stroll. And don’t look like that! Selling the ships is just as important as building them and we want an order out of Milligan.’

  Jack had grinned. ‘Sorry! Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to butter them up.’ Now he joined them with a wide smile and a bow for Rhoda Milligan.

  Meanwhile Walter Ferguson asked of Chrissie, ‘So what business have you been doing with the gentry?’

  Chrissie laughed. ‘He was joking. He did the business with Mr Morgan when he sold the Halfway House – I was just there at the time.’ Then she went on, trying to shrug off her acquaintance with Jack Ballantyne, ‘One of the maids on the first floor says the light in her cupboard doesn’t work and she needs more sheets and pillowcases.’

  Walter said, ‘I’ll get an electrician to see to the light. Tell the housekeeper about the linen.’

  Chrissie reminded him, ‘Mrs Cassidy has gone home poorly.’

  ‘Damn!’ Walter chewed his lip then asked, ‘Will you deal with it?’

  ‘As soon as I’ve finished typing these letters and sorting these invoices.’

  ‘Good lass.’ Walter was still thinking of Jack and there was a note of wary respect in his regard for Chrissie now. She seemed to be in the good books of one of his valued patrons – the Ballantynes, father, son and grandfather, frequently lunched at the Palace Hotel and engaged rooms for businessmen visiting the yard.

  Another regular was Max Forthrop. He had an oily smile for the manager as he walked through the foyer but he looked through the girl behind the desk as of no importance, not recognising her. It was not surprising, since this young woman was much changed from the fifteen-year-old skivvy of two years before. But she knew him at once and stayed bent over her work as he passed.