by Diane Allen
Jim walked into the shop. The doorbell jangled as he opened the door and waited for Daisy to enter.
The air smelled of paint and fresh wood as Daisy walked across the threshold. A long counter stretched from one end of the shop to the other, and all the walls, except the window that was bare for a display, were covered with shelving. There were sets of drawers marked up with labels for tea, sugar, coffee, string, spices and dried fruit – anything and everything you could think of – and large bins for flour and oats, and delicate cake stands awaiting the cakes that would adorn them. Daisy gasped. It was going to be a beautiful shop, but so much work remained to be done – now she knew why she’d been employed. The Mattinson home would be run by the lady of the house, Angelina, and it was the business that needed her touch. The cakes, the jams, the pies and the cooked meats that would grace the shelves – that was what William Mattinson had taken her on for.
‘What else do you need for this lemon cheese then?’ Jim walked behind the counter and into a back room, his voice muffled as he produced four lemons from a straw-filled packing box.
Daisy followed him. ‘Butter, eggs and sugar.’ She watched as he opened the back door of the shop and crossed the yard to a little stone shed that obviously contained the perishable goods.
He came back carrying what she needed. ‘Sugar is over there – help yourself. And here’s a dozen eggs and a pound of butter. We keep everything like that over there in the shed, as it’s cooler than in here. William’s going to order the eggs and butter on his trips to Skipton, along with some of the milk, so we hope it’s always going to be fresh. He’s kept his farm contacts from when he worked as a delivery boy for his father-in-law. He’s not daft that way. I just wish he’d watch the pennies.’ Jim sighed as he passed Daisy a brown paper bag to put her sugar in.
‘Aye, well, it’s not for me to say, Jim, but I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. He seems to have his head screwed on – look at what you’ve got so far.’ Daisy filled her bag and looked at the worried man.
‘Aye, but it’s not all his money. Some of it is mine, and some of it is his father-in-law’s. William’s stopping me from living my life and doing what I want, and he’s going to be beholden to his wife’s family until he drops down dead. That’s no way to be!’
Daisy looked round the shop. It was a grand place. She was sure William would make money and was determined to help both brothers do so, if only to put Jim’s mind at rest.
‘Right, lass, go and make me this so-called lemon cheese. I’ll pick you up first thing in the morning, sample it for my breakfast and then take you to pick up our delivery on the canal wharf. Don’t listen to me twaddle on about my worries – it’s not your concern. Besides, our William won’t be suited with me telling you the affairs of the business, especially when he’s told you absolutely nowt.’ Jim’s mood lightened as he placed his bowler on his head. ‘Right now – bugger this place! I’m off to see a man about a dog.’ He nearly pushed Daisy out of the shop as he firmly locked the doors behind them both. ‘I’ll be at your door at eight on the dot, and I look forward to sampling your fare.’ He gave her a wicked wink and sauntered off, whistling his way down the street as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Daisy watched as Jim walked away. She couldn’t help but think what a complex man he was. But then again, she hadn’t really met his brother properly yet. Perhaps William would be even worse. It seemed that he definitely liked to spend other people’s money.
The autumn sunshine flickered through the kitchen window as Daisy lifted the warm bread out of the oven of the Yorkshire range. It looked lovely and crusty and made the kitchen smell warm and homely – there was something about the smell of freshly cooked bread that made you feel content. She’d pulled the kettle to one side to take it off the boil and had set the table ready for her guest. She’d succumbed to the flower seller on her way home and had bought a fragrant bunch of sweet-peas, which were now taking pride of place, along with a beautifully presented pot of lemon cheese. There, she was ready now.
She’d tossed and turned all night, thinking about her visitor and then the trip into the centre of Leeds. It was exciting, but more to the point, he was exciting! Jim was a different breed of man from the steady Dales men; he was sharp, witty and, most of all, he had elegant good looks. She stopped herself: how could she think like that, her a widow, with a husband barely cold in his grave? Perhaps Bob’s mother had been right – perhaps she was a whore! Her face blushed as she checked herself in the mirror. She fanned herself with a towel to cool herself down. How stupid to feel that way over a man she hardly knew.
‘Now then, Mrs Lambert, let’s be trying this lemon cheese you’ve talked so much about.’
Daisy heard Jim’s unforgettable voice coming down the stairs to the kitchen.
‘My horse and cart’s outside, ready for our trip, but before that I need something to eat. I’m bloody starving.’ Jim Mattinson entered the kitchen and made himself at home at the kitchen table.
Daisy didn’t turn round as she picked up the kettle, but asked him why he was using her formal name this morning.
‘I got told last night, by some bloody bloke, that I’d no manners and that I didn’t know my place, so I thought I’d better start afresh this morning.’
As Daisy turned round to look at Jim, she gasped. His face was battered, with a purple egg of a bruise over his left eye.
‘What in the Lord’s name have you been up to?’ Her hand shook as she poured out the boiling water into the teapot. ‘Have you seen anybody about them bruises? I hope the other fella came off worse?’
‘Let’s just say we had an argument over that dog I was telling you about. I didn’t like the way the owner was treating it. And that’s when I was told to know my place.’ Jim took a long sip of the tea that Daisy put in front of him.
‘Well, I hope it was worth it. I don’t think I’d take a beating for the sake of a dog.’ Daisy stood and looked at him. ‘Put some butter on your bruise above your eye – it takes the swelling down. My mother swore by it.’
Jim grinned. ‘Aye, the dog was terrible precious to me. Go on, Daisy, put some butter on the bruise for me. I’ve never heard that one before, but if you think it works, I’ll try it. Can’t go to the lad’s funeral looking like a thug.’
Daisy hesitated. Putting butter on his face felt a bit too close for comfort, but she picked up the butter dish, stood close to him and smeared his bruise with a covering of grease. His hand went round her waist as she gently pressed and patted the edge of the bruise with the towel she had slung over her shoulder. He looked up into her eyes, and Daisy could feel her heart flutter as she met his stare. There was something about Jim that made her lose her inhibitions. She could almost hear herself shouting: Hold me, love me. I don’t care who or what you are.
‘You make a good nurse, Daisy. I’ll let you know if it works.’ Jim loosened his grip of her and the moment was gone. ‘Now, let’s try this lemon cheese, because my mouth’s fair dribbling with the smell of that bread you’ve got there.’
‘I hope you like it, I’ve never had any complaints, and it’s easy to make. I don’t know why you haven’t had it before. All the farms up the Dales make it, and it costs nowt, because everyone has eggs and butter. When you are farmers, all you need to add are the lemons and sugar.’ Daisy cut two large slices of her bread and spread it with lashings of butter, followed by a good covering of lemon cheese. She passed it to Jim on a plate and then sat down firmly and awaited his reaction.
‘Bloody hell, lass, this is good. In fact I don’t think I’ve had anything as nice for a bloody long time.’ Jim wiped a dribble of escaped lemon cheese from his chin and tore another piece of bread off, before closing his eyes and eating it. ‘We’ve got to have this in the shop – folk will love it. You’ve hit a winner with this, Daisy petal, and it gets rid of the lemon pile that we are about to pick up.’
‘I’m glad you like it. It was always a favourite, along with my jams in the
summer.’ Daisy smiled.
‘Aye, if you can make jam and bread like this, it will sell. Folk like good-quality stuff, but it’s got to be priced right, and then we can attract everybody.’ He finished the last bit of crust on his plate and lifted the jar of lemon cheese up to examine it. ‘It needs to be packaged right, in jam jars with a little frilly top – like this one you’ve put on it – and a good label, something like: MATTINSON’S LEMON CHEESE. Aye, damn it, that’s what we’ll call it. Does it keep?’
Daisy liked being told she was good at her job, even though Jim would put his name on her work.
‘It keeps for a good while, if you seal the cheese from the air with some greaseproof paper. It will keep for weeks, if it’s kept cold in a pantry.’
‘Right, I’ll order some jam jars and then we’ll go into production. Bloody good job, lass. Now, come on, get your coat or shawl – or whatever you womenfolk wear – and join me up on the cart. I thought I might take you for a tour of the new town that’s growing up around us. Things are changing so fast in Leeds that I can’t keep up myself. Did you see that bloody great town hall they are building, and the Corn Exchange? That’s what I really want to have a look at. All the traders are interested in that. Buildings are going up left, right and centre. There’s some brass being spent in Leeds, lass, and it’s all thanks to the mill owners and the investors. If I have my way, William and I will be joining them shortly.’
Daisy wrapped a shawl around herself and followed Jim out of the house. He offered her his hand as she climbed up next to him on the delivery cart, which now displayed the same lettering as that seen over the shop.
Jim clicked his tongue and the team set off, trundling over the cobbles. The children at the bottom of the street yelled and ran after the horse and cart until they could no longer keep up with it, their mothers shouting at them to return home before they got a good hiding. Little was said as the couple swayed with the motion of the cart. Daisy was busy looking at the streets they were passing: hundreds and hundreds of back-to-back houses, built for the mill workers by the industrious mill owners.
‘You want nowt with working in a mill, Daisy. It’s long hours for bad pay, and you end with your lungs full of fluff or, even worse, lose a limb if your hand gets caught in the looms.’ Jim watched her looking at the mill workers’ houses and gazing up at the huge mills and their chimneys. ‘Nowt but slave labour. How else do you think the owners can build the houses they live in?’
‘I couldn’t work in a mill. I can hear the noise of the looms from here. Anyway, I’ve got to see the sky and be outside – can’t do with being cooped up like a bird. I’m already missing my fells and the wild winds that blow. I didn’t realize the noise and smells of a city, and the number of people . . . How does everyone live on top of one another?’
‘Well, they do, Daisy love. You just get used to it after a while, and it’s adapt or die. They call it progress. Speaking of which, look: that’s one of them new horse-drawn trams. It’s the first time I’ve seen one. It’s like a train that takes you around the streets on tracks, but it’s pulled by horses. You get a ticket and just say where you want to go. They think of everything nowadays. That’s the Corn Exchange. I see they’ve not quite finished it; they’ve built it round, so that the bidders and buyers can see everyone from the centre of it. Up there they are going to be building some fancy shopping arcades. I can just see you in another few years, Daisy, strolling around them with a man on your arm.’
‘I’m not going to ever have another man, Jim Mattinson. I’ve decided fate told me not to bother with them, when my husband died on our wedding night.’
‘Give over, Daisy. I saw you look at me when you put that butter on my bruise. If I’d kissed you, you wouldn’t have complained.’ Jim grinned at his passenger as they bumped down Water Street along the cobbles to the canal.
‘I blinking well would, and you’d have got a slap, whether you’re my employer or not,’ Daisy blustered, but in truth she knew he was right. She went silent as they passed the place that she now knew to be a brothel, hoping that no one would notice her going past.
‘A slap, eh! I’d have enjoyed that. I like my women feisty.’ Jim grinned at his determined passenger. Somehow he knew that Mrs Lambert was not as holy as she was making out to be.
The conversation went silent again as the horse and cart made their way down to one of the warehouses at the bottom of Water Street. The canal was buzzing with barges being loaded with goods, and with goods being offloaded. Horses waited patiently while carts were filled with coal, cotton, wool and all manner of items.
‘Just hold the reins for a minute, Daisy. I need to speak to Edgar from t’ Yorkshire Glass Company. We want some jars for your cheese to go in, and he’s reasonable with his bottles, so I might as well order them off him.’ Jim jumped down from the cart and made his way to the canalside, where he shook the hand of a man who was watching a crate being loaded onto a barge. Daisy held tight to the reins, hoping the horses wouldn’t be spooked by the noises all around them. She watched as Jim laughed and talked to the man. He certainly knew how to deal with people, and she smiled when they slapped one another on the back, obviously sharing a joke.
‘Now then, I didn’t expect to see you down here – bit out of your way for Newtown Terrace.’
Daisy nearly jumped out of her skin. She’d been so busy watching Jim that she hadn’t seen Susie walk up next to the cart.
‘I’m with that man. I’ve come to help him with some stuff for the new shop.’ Daisy didn’t want Jim to see her talking to Susie, who looked a little rough in the cold light of day.
‘Him – you are with him? That vagabond! How come an innocent Dales lass is involved in that load of trouble?’ Susie laughed and flung her hair back over her naked shoulders.
‘I work for him, and he’s not a vagabond, he’s a respectable businessman.’ Daisy was quick to defend her new employer.
‘Is that what he tells you? I don’t suppose he told you how he got that black eye last night?’ Susie watched as Jim started to make his way to the cart.
‘I think it was something to do with a dog – that’s all I know.’
‘Jim-fucking-Mattinson, you’re calling me a dog now! You nearly killed us both, and now you’re insulting me to this poor lass.’ Susie walked up to Jim, her face hard, and hit him firmly on the chest with both fists.
‘Wooh! I never called you a dog. I don’t know where Daisy gets that from. Anyway I was doing you a favour, sticking up to that dwarf Ebenezer Trotter – he takes most of your earnings.’
‘Aye, but he looks after me. I get fed and I’ve somewhere to go, rather than touting on a street corner. That is until you give your four penn’orth.’
Daisy listened to the two arguing, trying to butt in about her misunderstanding of ‘something to do with a dog’.
‘You can do better, Susie. You are a grand lass – you could get a good job, if you tidied yourself up a bit. You know I think the world of you. You’ve a heart as big as England. It’s time to come off this dockside and do better for yourself.’
‘So now I need to tidy myself up, do I? Funny how last night I was all right for you when I was flat on my back, thinking of England – because I need to, with the length of time you take to come. Funny that now, with Mrs Widow Weeds here, fresh from the country and all innocent, you’re preaching to me better than the Lord himself! Next time you want a quick shag, find someone else and don’t come looking for me, because unless you can keep your gob shut and realize that Ebenezer is part of the game and needs his cut, I don’t want to know.’
‘Susie, you know I love you. I just want something better for you. Susie, come on. Daisy didn’t know what I was on about; she knew nothing.’ Jim grabbed her arm as she picked up her skirts and stomped off.
She turned sharply. ‘Jim Mattinson, you are such a bastard, but one day you’ll be in real bother. You mix with the wrong sort, and you’re not hard enough. There are men out there that’d sl
it your throat if you tried to stick up for me like you did last night. Be thankful it was just a candlestick he hit you with a few times. If his son from Bradford had been there, you’d be dead.’ Her hand lingered in Jim’s for as long as she dared, before she smiled slightly and walked off.
‘By God, Daisy, that woman’s lovely when she’s angry. She makes the blood rise in my veins. It’s just a shame she’s a bloody tart.’ Jim shook his head and grabbed the horse’s reins, urging it on to the warehouse.
Daisy said nothing. She didn’t quite know what to say, but she’d learned one thing: she’d never forget about going to see a man about a dog.
‘Got woman trouble, Jim? It’s not like you.’ The warehouse man laughed and joked with Jim as they filled the cart with goods for the shop. Daisy listened, but didn’t get down from the cart. She’d be a lady and wait patiently, like a proper woman should. Jim Mattinson was obviously one for the women, and she was not going to amuse him any more.
9
Daisy started unpacking the many boxes that Jim had unloaded from the cart. She was on her own, as it was the day of the funeral, and there was little else to do. The house was tidy and clean, and until she got her instructions from William she couldn’t do much else. Her mind wandered to the scene that would be unfolding in the graveyard as the poor little lad was put to rest. His parents must be heartbroken; at least her son had never even breathed earthly air. To bring a child up to the age of two and then have his life snatched away must be one of the cruellest blows a parent could receive.