The Buffer Girls

by Margaret Dickinson

‘Don’t care,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s all her fault anyway.’

  He fell onto his bed and almost at once, he was snoring, his mouth slack.

  ‘You can just stay as you are,’ Emily hissed at him, though he was beyond hearing her. She returned to her own bed, shivering as she pulled the covers up. She hardly slept for the rest of the night, kept awake worrying about her brother and disturbed by his loud snoring.

  Twenty

  Arthur Trippet sat in the study of his grand country house drumming his fingers on the leather-topped oak desk. His mouth was tight, his eyes flashing with anger; a look that told all the members of his household to keep out of his way. But for once, his bile was directed at himself. He had been too hasty, he knew that now, but the fury he had felt on seeing Josh Ryan employed in his factory had overwhelmed him. The red mist had enveloped him and before he had stopped to think, he had dismissed the young man and bellowed at his foreman for being foolish enough to take Josh on in the first place.

  ‘But – sir – it was your own son who recommended him. And he’s a good worker, he’s already—’ George Bayes had been allowed to say no more. Arthur had prodded his finger into the foreman’s chest and spat, ‘Get rid of him this instant, Bayes, or you will be the next to go.’

  Now, as he sat in the quietness of his study, Arthur realized that he had been rash and had played his hand openly instead of working deviously. And usually, Arthur was very good at scheming. Whatever he had wanted in life he had got by wiliness. His marriage to Constance Vincent had been a calculated act. He had courted her – and the promise of inherited wealth from her father – with pretty words, lavish gifts and gestures of affection.

  His own father, from whom Arthur had undoubtedly learned his conniving ways, had nodded his approval and remarked bluntly, ‘She’s a plain-looking wench but she has a good figure and it’s all the same when the light’s turned off. Child-bearing hips, she’s got, and that’s all you need to give you an heir and possibly a spare.’ He’d laughed sarcastically and winked knowingly as he’d added, ‘And there’s nowt to stop you taking your pleasure in the city, lad.’

  Of course, inheriting the cutlery business from his father had been a foregone conclusion. He was an only son – an only child, as it happened – and there had been no competition. He had learned the trade from the bottom up, just as now he was obliging young Thomas to do. His mouth stretched into a grim line, bringing his thoughts back to his son.

  Despite his efforts to dissuade the wretched Martha Ryan from removing her whole family to the city to enable her son, as she thought, to progress in the world, they had gone anyway. Now, he was in no doubt that the girl – Emily – had sought out his son and in so doing had engineered employment for her brother. That had now been dealt with but Arthur was afraid his rashness had shown his hand too early. He had yet to find out if Thomas and the girl were meeting regularly and now that might prove more difficult to do, but from what he had seen on the night of the ball, it was probable that there was a growing affection between them. And that must be stopped. Bayes could have found out for him from Josh, but now that route was closed to Arthur through his own impetuosity.

  But perhaps there was a way. His mouth now curved in a small smile as he thought about Belle, the voluptuous and accommodating woman he kept in a small terraced house in a modest street not too far from his factory and whom he visited once or twice a week. Mornings were for work, afternoons were for pleasure. At the thought, he felt a stirring of longing and knew that tomorrow he would first visit the works and then . . .

  ‘Arthur, my dear. What a lovely surprise. I wasn’t expecting you today.’ Belle came towards him as he entered the house with his own key, her arms outstretched to enfold him to her ample bosom. He buried his face against her sweet-smelling hair. For an hour or so, his problems ceased to exist.

  Arthur had first seen Belle on the music-hall stage. Constance had just suffered her second miscarriage and the doctor had warned that there should be no more pregnancies. Although he had one healthy son – Thomas – who was at that time two years old, Arthur was resentful at being told that they should have no more children. He was agitated and restless and looking for an outlet for his frustration. And then, on an impromptu visit to the theatre as a diversion, he had watched the dancing girls and his gaze had alighted upon one in particular; the brunette at the end of the line with a shapely figure that set his pulses racing and a pretty, lively face with eyes that sparked mischief.

  After the show, he had persuaded the stage doorman to let him in as far as the door of the girls’ dressing room. There he’d waited – not exactly patiently – for the girl to emerge. At last, she had come out, dressed in the fashion of the day: a long maroon-coloured dress, slim fitting, but which flared out from the knee to the floor and a broad-brimmed hat decorated with pink roses.

  Arthur had raised his top hat courteously.

  ‘May I introduce myself? My name is Arthur Trippet.’ He saw no reason to disguise his real identity. ‘I would deem it a great honour if you would have supper with me.’

  Before the girl could reply, two other dancers came out of the dressing room and squeezed past Arthur in the narrow passageway.

  ‘By heck, Belle, you’ve landed yourself a toff there. Say “yes” to whatever he’s offering.’ The girl who’d spoken winked and fluttered her long eyelashes suggestively at Arthur. ‘’Cos if you don’t, luv, I certainly will.’ Though pretty enough on stage, she was not so desirable close to. Thick stage make-up caked her face and her clothes, once glamorous, were fraying at the seams and grubby around the neckline. But the girl called Belle was still as lovely as she’d first appeared. More so, he thought, as he caught the scent of her alluring perfume and saw that her face was discreetly made up, her dress clean and neat.

  When she spoke at last, her voice was soft and husky. ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Crystal was only teasing.’

  ‘Quite,’ Arthur had said tightly, hiding his disappointment. ‘So, you won’t let me take you to supper?’

  Belle had smiled at him impishly. ‘I didn’t say that. I just didn’t want you thinking I was some kind of street girl, that’s all. Men come to the stage door all the time, hoping . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Well, you know. Bert – the doorman – is supposed to sift them, but he must have thought you looked quite respectable.’

  That or the handsome bribe he’d given him, Arthur had thought, but he’d said nothing, only smiled and inclined his head as if agreeing with her. ‘So,’ Belle had said, linking her arm through his, ‘I’d be delighted. Thank you.’

  Arthur’s heart lifted. Although there was perhaps no hope of anything more that night, perhaps a kind of courtship with flowers and chocolate and champagne would very soon get him what he wanted.

  But Belle Beauman was wily and not about to give way until she, too, had exactly what she wanted. Belle’s early life had been tough. Born in the workhouse to a woman of the streets and left there once her mother had recovered, she had never known either of her parents. At thirteen she’d left the workhouse and found work behind the scenes in a theatre, sleeping in one of the dressing rooms and fed only by the generosity of the dancing girls. But she was warm and dry and she loved the backstage life – the laughter, the tears, even the quarrels – and when she grew to womanhood she, too, had become a dancer. Over the years, she’d watched the older girls, whose costumes she cared for and for whom she fetched and carried, and she’d learned from their mistakes. She saw them fall in love with stage-door Johnnies, whose motives were anything but honourable. She was a shoulder to cry on when a love affair went wrong, or a girl was pregnant and deserted. But now and again, there were the girls who found a ‘sugar daddy’ who set them up in an apartment or a little house and looked after them. But only once, during the seven years she’d lived at the theatre, had there been a marriage between a dancer and a handsome young man from a middle-class family. The girl had been lucky; even the young man’s family had accepte
d her.

  Belle had no illusions as to exactly what Arthur Trippet wanted from her and she knew there was not the remotest chance of marriage. Arthur was married and he had no intention of upsetting his very full apple cart.

  ‘My wife is a cold woman. She shows me no affection,’ Arthur told Belle. ‘She has done her duty by me, I will admit, and given me a son and heir, but there are to be no more.’

  And so Arthur had secured a small house for his mistress in a discreet neighbourhood. For a while, Belle had continued as a dancer but when Arthur demurred, she happily gave up the life and devoted herself solely to his needs. There was only one sadness for Belle; Arthur said there must be no children. ‘If you fall pregnant,’ he’d warned her, ‘I shall walk away.’

  Belle had no pretensions about who or what she was. She was a kept woman, a mistress who could, she knew, be discarded at any moment if she grew too old to be desirable to her lover or if his wife found out or . . . The list was probably endless, but Belle preferred not to dwell on the ‘what ifs’ of life. She lived – and loved – for the moment and, for the past seventeen years, she had kept herself only for Arthur. He had been generous and she lived well and amongst people who, strangely to her mind, asked no questions. They were pleasant enough towards her when she ventured out, although she did not cultivate friendships. Arthur, when he could visit, was enough for her. During all that time they had parted only once. About two years into their relationship, Belle had had the misfortune to fall pregnant and Arthur, true to his word, had thrown money at her and ordered her to ‘get rid of it’.

  And then, he had walked out.

  It had been a difficult time for Belle. She had left the house and turned to the only friends she had: the theatre people. They did not fail her. They took her in and nursed her back to health. Her dancing days were over, but she worked as a dresser for all the music-hall performers.

  She had thought she would never see Arthur again, but, after a lapse of several months, uncomfortable thoughts of the lovely young woman had drawn him, almost against his will and certainly against his better judgement, back to her again. He had found her eventually. Through discreet enquiries, he heard that she was once again working back at the same theatre where he had first met her. It was a lowly paid job she was now obliged to do and the young woman he had once so desired looked thin and ill. But back in the house he had bought for her and still owned, he told himself, and with good food, she would soon regain her beauty and the voluptuous curves he found so irresistible. He had no wish to find himself another woman; Belle was discreet. To his knowledge, no rumours had ever reached the factory and certainly not his home. He could trust Belle and that meant a great deal to a man like Arthur Trippet, for he guarded his reputation jealously. Installing her once more in her own home, with a generous allowance to enable her to buy new clothes, Arthur began to visit her again twice, sometimes three times a week. This time, however, he was more careful to take on the responsibility himself and prevent any further ‘accidents’. They had never spoken of that dreadful time since.

  Now, as they sat together on the sofa, his arm around her and her head against his shoulder, he said, ‘My dear, will you do something for me?’

  She snuggled closer. ‘Of course. You should know that.’

  His arm tightened about her as he explained. ‘I believe my son is meeting with an undesirable girl.’

  As he spoke of his son, Belle was careful to keep her head nestled against his shoulder and not to allow him to look into her eyes, which, despite her forced laughter, held a look of sadness.

  ‘What is it you want me to do? Lure him away? I think I’m rather too old to appeal to a young man of nineteen or so, don’t you?’

  Her magnetism for him had never lessened, but he was obliged now to look at her through the eyes of a much younger man. He saw a well-dressed woman in her mid-forties, with luxuriant brown hair piled high on her head. Not for her the modern chic look of short, straight hair, though she dressed fashionably in modern styles, which certainly did not suit her curvaceous figure. Her face, to him, was as lovely as ever with smooth, cared-for skin, gentle brown eyes, a small, neat nose and well-shaped lips. If she’d been born into a different world, she might well have graced the drawing rooms of the wealthy, but Fate had decreed that she be born in the poor city back streets. Her only chance in life had been to use her looks and her talents as a dancer. But Arthur could see that his son would think her old and, besides, he didn’t want Thomas finding out anything about his father’s paramour.

  ‘No, no, nothing like that.’ He smiled at the thought. ‘But I believe he is meeting a girl called Emily Ryan and the most likely time and place they might meet is in one of the city’s parks on a Sunday afternoon. It’s where the youngsters meet, I understand.’

  Arthur was never with her on a Sunday, so her time was her own. ‘And you want me to see if I can find them?’

  He nodded. ‘I need to know if he is meeting her. If he is, then I have to stop it.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked him bluntly.

  ‘She is not suitable as a wife for the future owner of Trippets’.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked again, greatly daring. ‘If they love each other—’

  ‘Pah!’ Suddenly, Arthur withdrew his arm from around her shoulders and stood up abruptly. His hands behind his back, he strode up and down in front of the hearth, whilst she remained seated, staring up at him with wide, shocked eyes.

  ‘He must marry a suitable girl, preferably someone who will bring money into the family, who will bear him sons – heirs to our business. Don’t you realize,’ he rounded on her suddenly and leaned over her, almost threateningly, ‘he will be the fourth generation of Trippets? My grandfather arrived in this city from the wilds of the Yorkshire moors and worked his way up in the trade to begin his own small factory. My father enlarged it and it has been my life’s work to continue that progress. Thomas will inherit a vast fortune but with it will come huge responsibilities too. He must be worthy of them. And a girl like Emily Ryan –’ he almost spat out her name – ‘would not help him. She would be a hindrance, not a helpmate.’

  ‘And your wife is a helpmate?’ Belle asked in a small voice. She rarely asked questions about his wife; she would rather not think about her.

  ‘Constance has her own life,’ he snapped. ‘She is happy with her needlework and her good works in the village.’ He resumed his restless pacing. ‘I need to know. I need to know,’ he muttered more to himself than to Belle.

  Belle hesitated for a moment. He couldn’t – mustn’t – know just what her Sunday afternoons meant to her. It would be a great sacrifice for her to give up the only time of the week that she could truly call her own. Arthur never, ever, visited her on Sundays. Occasionally, he arrived unexpectedly on a Saturday afternoon, but Sunday was the only day of the week that she could be sure he would never call. With an inward sigh, she rose and went to stand in front of him, placing her hands on his shoulders and looking up into his face. ‘I’ll do my best to find out for you, I promise, but it might not be so easy this time of the year. It’s a little cold for walking in the park, but I suppose, perhaps, they’ve nowhere else to go.’

  Arthur had the sudden vision of Thomas taking his paramour back to his lodgings and he resolved to speak to his son’s landlady. After all, he paid for Thomas’s board. The woman would do as he instructed her.

  ‘So, what do your son and this girl look like?’

  ‘He’s tall and thin, good-looking and, on a Sunday, he will be smartly dressed. Whilst she,’ his mouth curled, ‘is just a country slut. They won’t be hard to pick out, even in a crowd.’

  Twenty-One

  The morning following Josh’s night out with Mick and his friends, he would have been late for work if Emily hadn’t physically dragged him out of bed. As it was, he had to skip his breakfast and walk to work beside his sister and Lizzie as if he were in a dream.

  ‘I told you not to go with our Mick and his mates, Jos
h,’ Lizzie said, putting her arm through his. ‘They’re trouble. You’d do best to keep away from him – and them.’

  But Josh wasn’t listening to Lizzie. ‘I’ve lost all me money, Em. I’ve nothing to give Mam this week. She’ll go berserk.’

  ‘Spent it, more like. Playing the big man in the pub, were you? Buying drinks all round?’

  Josh shook his head, like a dog emerging from a river. ‘I – I can’t remember what happened, Em. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’ll talk to our Mick. He’ll leave you alone, if I ask him.’

  ‘Oh, don’t do that, Lizzie. I wouldn’t want him to think I’m stuck up. He’s got a grand bunch of mates.’

  Lizzie glanced at him sideways. ‘You think so,’ she murmured. ‘Oh well, if that’s what you want.’

  Somehow, Josh got through his Saturday-morning’s work, but when one o’clock came, he was only too pleased to lay down his tools.

  ‘Don’t come into work like that again, lad,’ Mr Crossland said as Josh clocked out, ‘else I’ll have to sack you. Unemployment’s rocketing in this city – all over the country, if truth be known – so there’re plenty willing to step into your shoes and some of ’em, I might add, are a lot more skilled than you. So think on.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Crossland, it won’t happen again, I promise.’

  ‘Keep your drinking till Saturday night, lad, and if you’ll take a tip from me, you’ll steer clear of ’Dugdale gang. They’re trouble.’

  Josh stared at him. ‘What – what do you mean? A gang?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard about the gangs we’ve got in Sheffield?’

  Bemused, Josh shook his head.

  ‘While the war were on,’ Eddie Crossland explained, ‘things were OK. A lot of the menfolk were in the services, of course, and, for those that were left, there was plenty of work in munitions and suchlike. But because they had plenty of money to throw around, gambling became rife in the city. So gangs formed to run all sorts of scams. Bare-knuckle boxing, betting on anything and everything – which is illegal anywhere but on a racecourse. You name it, someone would start a book on it. And they’d operate outside factory gates with runners inside collecting bets for them. But their favourite was pitch and toss, where they have three or five coins, toss ’em in the air and bet on what number of heads or tails comes down. They’d go up to Sky Edge – a patch of wasteland high above the city – where they could post lookouts. You’d get hundreds of fellers up there some nights. But after the war ended, the men came home and – those that did –’ he paused a moment, as if paying silent tribute to all those who had not returned – ‘couldn’t find work. We were promised a land fit for heroes. Pah!’ He made an explosive noise of bitterness. ‘And, of course, with production for the war effort gone, there wasn’t so much money around to spend on gambling, and so the gangs’ income was drastically reduced, an’ all. So, now they’ve turned to other forms of crime. They wait outside the factories on payday and just rob folks of their wages. They go into pubs and threaten the landlords. There’s many a pub landlord lost all his profits in one night just because Mick Dugdale or Steve Henderson – they’re the main two gang leaders in the city – paid them a visit and demanded free drinks and cigarettes. An’ woe betides anyone if they flashed their money about in a pub. They’d find themselves beaten up in a dark alley and their wallet gone. And then there’s the extortion racket—’