Perhaps Tomorrow

by Jean Fullerton

  She glanced down at the dirty cushion on the chair as she sat, knowing her gown would be ruined for the rest of the day. Her hand shook very slightly as she undid the drawstring bag on her wrist and took out Maguire’s weekly order. She handed it to Mr Morris who’d returned to his leather chair on the other side of the desk.

  ‘You didn’t have to bring next week’s order down so early,’ he said, placing it in a brown folder.

  ‘I thought I would bring it with me as I’ve come to talk to you about something else, Mr Morris.’ Mattie drew a deep breath, ‘I would like to ask you if I can have the same discount you give to the other yards you supply,’ she said in a rush.

  An irritated look replaced Mr Morris’s jolly smile and he folded his arms across his barrel chest. ‘I don’t negotiate this early in the day.’

  ‘I quite understand,’ Mattie replied, trying to maintain a level tone. ‘But I’m sure you’ll see that it is impossible for me to meet you in the Admiral with the other coal merchants.’

  ‘Mmm. I suppose it is.’

  ‘And that’s why I hoped, as Maguire’s is such a long-standing customer, that you would make an exception and discuss the matter with me now.’

  ‘Discount. Eh?’

  Mattie nodded and gave him an encouraging smile.

  The chair creaked as he shifted his position. ‘It’s not as easy as that . . . there are things to be considered.’

  ‘I always have my order in in good time and I settle my end-of-month account,’ Mattie said as her pulse galloped on. ‘You tell me, Mr Morris, when have you ever had to chase Maguire’s for money?’

  ‘I can’t think of—’

  ‘Never,’ Mattie cut in as her need overrode her caution. ‘Maguire’s always pay promptly.’

  Mr Morris nodded. ‘I know but, as I say, there are other things to take into account. Complications, you might say.’ The chair leg banged on the floor as he sat forward. ‘Can I be frank with you, Mrs Maguire?’

  Mattie nodded.

  ‘It’s you being a woman that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons. Some of the other merchants are uneasy having a woman competing with them. To them it don’t seem natural, somehow, to have a woman running a coal business.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have to if my husband were alive but, as I do, its only fair that I be given the same discount as my competitors.’

  Mr Morris’s jovial expression returned. ‘Mrs Maguire, I would like to but I can’t afford to upset my other customers.’ He shrugged and gave her a helpless look. ‘You understand, I’m sure. Now, if you’d excuse me, I am a busy man.’ He looked down at the papers on his desk.

  The column of figures from last week’s balance sheet flashed into Mattie’s mind. She could not afford for him to say no to giving her a discount.

  ‘Mr Morris.’ He looked up. ‘If the Chamber of Commerce were to hear that one merchant was denied the same trading terms as their competitors, they . . . they might consider it to be unfair practice.’

  Mr Morris’s cheeks mottled purple above his beard and Mattie wondered if she’d gone too far. She had come to negotiate with, not antagonise, her supplier, but what choice had she left? And it was only fair.

  ‘I do understand your position, Mr Morris, but you must understand mine. I have a coal yard employing four men and I support myself, my mother-in-law and, most importantly, my son.’

  Mr Morris chewed the inside of his mouth and studied her under his heavy eyebrows. The sound of blood rushing through her ears threatened to deafen her as she waited for him to reply.

  ‘Your husband was a good man, Mrs Maguire, and a sad loss.’ Mr Morris leant across his desk. ‘I’ll give you sixpence in the pound discount on all your bills if Maguire’s continues to pay promptly and if,’ he tapped the side of his nose, ‘we keep the matter hush.’

  A bubble of laughter rose up in Mattie. Sixpence in the pound! Just by a quick reckoning she knew that would give her at least an extra five shillings a week. The weight that she’d been carrying around for weeks suddenly lifted from her shoulders.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so very much, Mr Morris,’ she said, standing up and offering him her hand.

  Mr Morris regarded her for a few moments, then rose and took her hand. ‘Well then,’ he growled, with just a hint of a twinkle in his eyes. He walked her to the door and opened it for her. ‘But Mrs Maguire. This arrangement is strictly between us. Do you understand? Strictly!’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Morris, I do,’ Mattie replied, resisting the urge to hug him.

  Morris went back into his office and Mattie retraced her steps across the empty yard. The Highway would be packed by now so she turned into Butcher’s Row to take a short cut home. In front of St James’s Church she noticed that children had chalked out the squares of a hopscotch grid. She looked up and down the street and, seeing it deserted, grabbed her skirts in one hand and her bonnet in the other to hop and skip to the end of the game. Laughing, she smoothed her skirts back into place. Of course it was not the sort of behaviour a respectable widow should indulge in, but: sixpence in the pound!

  Chapter Two

  Nathaniel Tate clambered down from the Colchester ‘Thunder’ and put his hands in the small of his back. After a thirty-mile journey over unmade roads there wasn’t a part of his six-foot frame that didn’t ache. Outside the Golden Lion Inn at the east end of Romford High Street, two ostlers coaxed and cajoled the sweating horses out from between the shafts while another two brought a fresh team from the stables.

  Through the low, dimpled windows of the coaching inn, local farmers in their smocks and battered hats sat eating their midday meal and enjoying a tankard or two. As he couldn’t afford the first and thought it too early in the day for the second, Nathaniel turned and walked into Romford’s wide, cobbled market square. The old shops were still as he remembered but every now and then a brash new stone building thrust up between them like a gold tooth amongst old molars.

  As today was Wednesday, farmers from as far away as Orset and Brentwood had set up stall on either side of the central thoroughfare and leant on the temporary wooden pens which held the cattle offered for sale. A couple of dairy maids selling fresh milk from a brown-and-white cow looked Nathaniel’s way. They nudged each other and glanced at him shyly as he passed by.

  He stopped in front of St Edward’s church, then ducked his head to pass under the porch and walked down the line of gravestones. Just before he reached the end he spotted the upright stone he was searching for. Removing his hat, he stared down at the finely chiselled lettering on the granite tombstone.

  MARJORIE TATE

  14th September 1817 to 9th January 1843

  Beloved daughter and devoted mother

  Asleep with her daughters

  Lillian aged five and Rosina aged three

  Until the final trumpet call

  All he’d ever loved summed up in a few words on a cold stone.

  He’d mourned them for nigh on two years but now, standing by the neat plot with the sun warming his face, he felt the wound afresh.

  He raised his head and stared at the church’s oak doors, remembering how he had strolled between them with Marjorie on his arm and both their families laughing behind them. Nathaniel’s mind moved to the small cottage, not half a mile from where he stood, and how he’d scooped her into his arms and carried her over the threshold. He remembered how shy she had been on their wedding night and how careful he’d been not to hurt her. Then the image changed into Marjorie’s heart-shaped face the last time he’d seen it: across the courtroom, drained of colour and screaming his name as her father dragged her from the public gallery. Nathaniel had gripped the iron edge of the dock until his knuckles cracked, resisting the rough hands that pulled him back to the filth and cloying stench of a prison cell.

  The gravel on the path behind him crunched under a heavy foot. ‘May I be of assistance, sir?’

  Nathaniel turned. Behind him, curled up like a dry leaf in autumn and with a battered hat shad
ing his eyes stood the sexton, Toby Atrill.

  The aged attendant had been sexton for as long as most could remember. He would rest on his shovel as Nathaniel and his fellow pupils from St Edward’s school marched past every Wednesday for the midweek service. Nathaniel had been one of the few scholarship boys but his father had still had to scrimp and save to equip him with his books and pencils for what he called Nathaniel’s ‘chance of betterment’. He had been right, too. He’d walked out of the school gates at fourteen and straight into the town’s largest corn suppliers, Fairhead & Co, as a clerk, something almost unheard of for a farm-worker’s son.

  Nathaniel looked back at the headstone.

  Toby’s opaque eyes blinked in the bright spring sunlight. ‘I see this memorial has caught your attention. Did ’e know the family?’

  ‘Once,’ he replied.

  Toby shook his head. ‘The saw bones said poor Miss Marjorie and her daughters died of the influenza but there be many around these parts that do say she died of shame.’

  ‘Do they?’

  The old graveyard attendant sized up Nathaniel’s ill-fitting jacket. His second-hand clothes didn’t sit at all well and strained the stitching across the shoulders to their limits.

  Toby jabbed his pipe towards the stone. ‘Yes, sir, they do. Miss Marjorie married where her father, God rest him, wouldn’t have wanted her to, but she would have the lad and her father gave in.’ Toby’s face creased into a dozen crisscross lines. ‘You know how fathers are with their girls.’

  A lump formed itself in Nathaniel’s throat.

  ‘Anyhows, they were married in this very church. Happy they were, too, until greed reared its ugly head.’

  ‘How so?’

  The old man drew on the pipe again. ‘Now, the particulars escape me just at the moment but the lad she married got mixed up in some money business. They caught him though. The case went right up to the county judge at Chelmsford. The lad argued it was the senior clerk, one Amos Stebbins, who took the money but no one who knew Amos believed it. Not with him being a gospel churchgoer. When they found the evidence against Miss Marjorie’s young husband – black-and-white evidence at that – it were an open and shut case and he got himself a one way ticket to Botany Bay.’ Toby tilted his head and looked him over again. ‘Are you from the Old Church end of town, then?’

  ‘A long while back.’

  Old Toby studied his face. ‘You do have a familiar look about you.’

  ‘Do I?’ Nathaniel replied, looking down steadily at the old man.

  The sexton shrugged. ‘Ah, well, I must be mistaken. My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be,’ he raised the shovel. ‘I must get on. There was a young ’un fished out of the Rom three days ago. He’s set to be buried before the day’s end.’ He started to pick his way towards the back of the graveyard.

  ‘This Amos Stebbins,’ Nathaniel called after him. The sexton turned. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He moved to London.’

  ‘Do you happen to know where?’

  Toby lifted his hat and scratched his head. ‘Now let me think . . . Let me . . .’ His rheumy old eyes lit up. ‘Whitechapel! That’s where ’e went. Whitechapel. Just this side of the city.’

  Nathaniel fished in his pocket and gave the old man tuppence. ‘I’m obliged to you. I shouldn’t keep you from your task any longer.’ He turned up his collar then retraced his steps back to the lintel gate.

  ‘Hey there, fellow,’ Toby’s voice called after him. ‘Wait a moment! Aren’t you—’

  Nathaniel didn’t respond. He just pulled down the front of his hat and pressed himself into the thick of the market day crowd.

  Nathaniel waited until the night coach to Chelmsford disappeared around the corner and then stood and dusted the grass from his trousers. Pulling his hat low over his face he slipped out from the shadows and glanced down the dusty lane.

  He crossed the road, slipped behind the hedgerow then, keeping close to the bush, he made his way towards the small cottage at the far end of the field. Stepping quietly back into the lane, he went to a side door half hidden by a crab-apple tree.

  He knocked lightly and heard the inside bolt slide back.

  Nathaniel’s vision clouded for a second as his sister, Emma, opened the door. She was just shy of forty now and had thickened around the middle. Grey streaks cut through her dark-chestnut hair but the kindness in her hazel eyes remained unchanged.

  ‘I’m sorry we don’t give at the door,’ she said, starting to close it.

  ‘Emmy!’ he whispered.

  The colour drained from her face. ‘Nathaniel?’

  He glanced up and down the empty lane again then stepped inside, closing the door behind him. ‘Is Jacob here?’

  She shook her head. ‘Master’s best cow’s in calf and he’s playing midwife ’til it’s born. But . . .’ She looked him over again and tears welled up in her eyes.

  They stared at each other for a moment then she threw herself in to his arms.

  ‘Oh. Nat, thank God you’re alive!’ she sobbed.

  Nathaniel rested his chin on the top of her head and closed his eyes.

  He couldn’t remember his mother; she’d died in childbirth when he was only three. Emma, seven years his senior and the eldest girl in the family, had brought him up. It was she who had sewn his shirts, kissed him better when he grazed his knees and tucked him in each night.

  ‘Praise the Lord. I feared I’d never see you again in this life.’ She dabbed the corner of her eyes with her apron. ‘When were you pardoned? I knew them lawyer types would see senses and—’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  Emma clamped her hands over her mouth and her eyes widened with fear.

  Nathaniel went to the small window and glanced out again ‘I daren’t stay more than a moment or two but I couldn’t leave for London without seeing you.’

  She grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the fireside chair. ‘You’ll stay until I’ve fed you, that’s for sure. Before you goes up there to London or any other such fancy place.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s not safe.’

  Emma pushed him into the chair. ‘Well, that ain’t no mind to me, how you’re here; you’re still my sweet old Nat.’

  Nathaniel smiled. He doubted that, after four years as a convict in Botany Bay, there was any of the sweet old Nat left.

  ‘Now you rest your bones while I fetch you some vittels.’

  He was about to argue, but suddenly his limbs seemed to lose their strength and he slumped into the wheel-back chair by the warm chimney breast.

  A satisfied smile lit Emma’s rounded face. ‘That’s better,’ she said, getting a bowl from the wood dresser.

  Nathaniel let the peace of his sister’s cottage soothe his soul. The main room was no more than three spread arms’ length in both directions and with a beaten-earth floor. The open hearth was similar to the one he’d played beside as a child. On one side sat a kettle with a wisp of steam escaping from its spout and, on the other, flames licked around a blackened belly-pot. The smell of fresh bread and something meaty made his stomach rumble.

  ‘Look at you!’ Emma poured a ladle of stew into the bowl. ‘I’ll tell you straight, I hardly recognise you, what with that beard. And your hair! I remember how it used to curl around your ears. What in the Lord’s name happened to it?’

  Nathaniel brushed his hand over his closely cropped head. ‘I stopped shaving it about a month ago when I got to Hamburg. That’s why I look like a yard brush.’

  ‘But why did ’e shave your head?’ she asked, handing him the bowl and a chunk of bread.

  ‘To keep the lice from living in it.’

  Emma gave him a bleak look. ‘Do it be as terrible as them newspapers say?’

  Nathaniel studied her round face. How could he explain to Emma, who would never have travelled more than ten miles from her place of birth, what Botany Bay was truly like?

  ‘I can’t describe it,’ he replied, pressing his lips togeth
er firmly.

  She ran her work-worn hand down the side of his face. ‘My poor Nat,’ she said in her old loving tone. ‘I suppose you skipped off when you got the parson’s letter.’

  ‘I did.’

  She handed him a spoon. ‘I didn’t want you to learn about Marjorie and the girls like that but there was no other way. That’s why I asked him to pen it for me.’

  ‘I understand.’ Nathaniel swallowed the lump in his throat as the image of Marjorie and the children’s headstone flashed into his mind. ‘What exactly happened?’

  Emma drew up the stool and sat down. ‘Marjorie managed to support herself and the girls for a year but then the rents went up. So they moved to one of the East House cottages, them along by Mowbray’s Farm.’

  Cottages! Cowsheds more like. His lovely wife and precious daughters forced to live in one of those ramshackle hovels!

  ‘Why in God’s name didn’t her father offer her a home?’

  ‘He did, but on the condition that Marjorie stopped calling herself Mrs Tate,’ Emma’s face softened. ‘You know yourself what she would have said to that. He did pay for the headstone.’

  Well, that explains the omission of ‘much loved wife.’

  ‘I heard he paid over eight pounds for the stone,’ Emma continued. ‘Eight pounds! More than the likes of us sees in a year but, as folks said at the time, it would take more than eight pounds to ease his guilt at letting his only daughter and grandchildren perish for ’is pride.’

  Nathaniel used the bread to mop up the last of his stew and set his bowl down. ‘How did they die?’ Emma rested her hand on his arm. ‘There ’ad been a wet autumn that year and the influenza started in the bottom end of the town. A body would feel chilly in the morning then burn with the fever by nightfall. There wasn’t a day that passed without a man carrying a small coffin to the churchyard. Rosy caught it first, on the first Monday of the New Year, then Lilly came down with it four days later. I went up to help Marjorie. She was ill herself by then, coughing until she was red in the face and hot to the touch but she wouldn’t rest. We nursed the children day and night. For two weeks we tried to get barley water between their lips and sponged their little bodies to keep them from burning. The doctor gave us some syrup to ease their breathing but it were no good. Rosy died on the twenty-fourth and Lilly left us two days later. We buried them together the following Monday. After that Marjorie took to her bed and never left it again.’