A Daughter's Shame

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘Second? Don’t be a fool. Give the porter half a crown.’

  ‘Not strictly fair …’ Magnus protested.

  Ray butted in with, ‘Come on! If you never take a chance …’

  ‘Four bob? How’s that?’ Magnus said, and chided himself for being a two-faced coward even as he hailed a porter. He had not wanted to travel with Ray because he couldn’t think how to act.

  Ten minutes later, in a plush first-class compartment, Magnus leaned against the upholstery in relief. Since he had done all the dirty work, he felt he had the right to question Ray, though it was best to pretend he knew nothing. ‘What have you been up to? You’re in trouble at school.’

  ‘Fuck the school!’ Ray said.

  Magnus was not shocked by Ray’s language. In a way he admired his nerve. He kept a composed expression but, seeing scorn on Ray’s face, said, ‘Swearing’s no help. You are in trouble at school.’

  ‘Nothing to what’s waiting for me at home.’

  Magnus said, ‘What’s that?’

  Ray had a defiant expression. ‘The parents of some girl – a girl I’ve never seen, are claiming that I gave her one.’

  Magnus had not heard the expression. ‘One? One of what?’

  ‘Gave her a baby. She died. The girl.’

  The little hairs on Magnus’s arms were rising. He was shocked by Ray’s heartless talk and now could not hide it. Ray was being accused of a callous crime. If it had been he, Magnus, who had to face them, he would have been a wreck. ‘But she’s dead! And the baby!’

  ‘It could be anyone’s baby. Bloody girl asks for it. Every man in Macclesfield’s had his shilling’s worth of Mollie Leadbetter. She was a whore. The Leadbetters were on to a good thing, naming me.’

  ‘Hell’s bells!’ said Magnus.

  Ray continued, ‘I’ve denied all knowledge, of course.’

  Ray was in trouble in both Edinburgh and Macclesfield. He deserved to be in trouble at school, no question about that. But he had not done anything despicable. Could not have. Magnus and Sylvia had known him all their lives. Ray must be going through absolute hell. It took guts to stand up for yourself when you were being done a gross injustice. Magnus said, ‘Is that why you’re going home? To tell them to their faces?’

  ‘I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction! If anyone wants to think …’ Ray said no more but turned his face to the window.

  Magnus watched him. Ray was worn out, despite the bravado. He was unshaven and dishevelled, as if he had not slept for a week with worry. Magnus was sorry for him. He would not be able to face his own dear father if he were in Ray’s shoes.

  Ray glanced back, shrugged and held out his hands, palms upward. ‘I hope to God my folks don’t think I am responsible,’ he said. ‘Father’s going to be Mayor. I’d never let Mother down.’

  ‘They’re on your side,’ Magnus said. ‘My family says you’ve been maligned.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I spoke to Mother and Father on the telephone,’ Magnus said. ‘They told me. Last night.’

  ‘What did they say!’

  ‘Father said, “It’s scandalous. The good name of Chancellor is being besmirched. This vilifying gossip must stop. Ray will come back and put an end to it.” Mother said, “It’s preposterous, blaming Ray for this girl’s death.”’

  Ray was clearly relieved, and Magnus went on, ‘Mother said, “Tell Ray to come home. We are all behind him. Nobody in Macclesfield blames Ray. We’ll defend him to the end …”’

  Magnus was getting carried away. What his mother had actually said was, ‘No one thinks he’s to blame. Tell him not to be afraid to face his accusers.’

  Ray said, ‘How about Sylvia?’

  ‘Sylvia thinks the same as Mother.’ Magnus had not spoken to Sylvia but Sylvia always thought the same as Mother. Ray smiled, and Magnus now came straight to the point. ‘When you didn’t go to rugby practice, where were you?’ he said. ‘We should have the same story when we get home.’

  Ray said, ‘I have a friend in Edinburgh. My friend was taken ill. So I went to see … Good Samaritan!’ Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the school?’ Magnus said.

  ‘Fuck the school!’ were Ray’s last words.

  Chapter Eleven

  Shandy met Lily at the Central Station when she arrived back in Macclesfield on Sunday afternoon. Since they became friends they had hardly ever been apart.

  ‘Have you heard?’ Shandy came running and shouting along the platform, one hand on the door to open it.

  Lily was the only passenger. She jumped down and slammed the carriage door. ‘Mrs Chancellor?’ She had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  Shandy said, ‘Everyone’s talking about it. Mrs Chancellor wandering down the platform in the dark, falling on to the line.’

  At the thought of all the talk, a wave of disgust washed over Lily. What sort of town was it where rumour circulated faster than the wind? It must be nigh on impossible to keep a secret here. But Mam had kept hers and she herself had told Nanna that gossiping was disgraceful, but she always repeated to Shandy everything Doreen said. They were in the cobbled area of Waters Green. ‘Which way? Hundred and Eight steps? Brunswick Hill? Or the long way, up Churchwallgate?’

  ‘The long way.’ Shandy tugged at Lily’s arm, pulling her through the deserted bottom market and up the hill that wound steeply to the Market Place.

  Lily gazed up at the sheer high wall and the tower of St Michael‘s, and made up her mind to go to church tonight. It was Palm Sunday and they would sing ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’, one of her favourite hymns. She would sit at the side under the Burne-Jones window of the steely, kneeling knight in armour, and pray for Mrs Chancellor who would not get to heaven if she had meant to kill herself. God could read everyone’s thoughts. The church clock said five past five. Evensong was at half past six.

  The square was quiet and they made their way round the back of the church to Sparrow Park. Tragedy had no place here, for spring had returned and the daffodils were tumbled, muddy and higgledy-piggledy, but still in bloom about the patch of grass and the steep, grassy hill under the wall they leaned upon. There was a soft, heather-scented breeze blowing from the hills, warming the earth again, drying cobbles and flagstones in the Waters below.

  Lily said, ‘What do you think? Do you think Mrs Chancellor killed herself because Ray didn’t come?’ She waited a moment, then, ‘Doreen said Ray Chancellor was under the bridge with Mollie. She said she saw them.’

  Shandy said, ‘I don’t believe a word Doreen Grimshaw says. Ray was on the next train. He came in an hour after his mother had fallen. He was heartbroken. The station lads told our Cyril that Ray was in a terrible state.’ She said. ‘Doreen’s got a wicked tongue. Mollie had to name somebody to her mother and dad, didn’t she?’

  Impulsively Lily hugged Shandy and kissed her cheek. Of course! Mollie couldn’t say it was any old lad. She wouldn’t want her parents to think she was a trollop, doing it all over the place. She said, ‘I am glad you’re my friend, Shandy. You always think the best of everyone.’

  ‘I don’t. Not of Doreen Grimshaw.’

  ‘What are you doing later?’ Lily asked. ‘I’m going to church.’

  ‘You’re very religious, Lily. That’s what everyone says.’

  Lily said, ‘It’s not only God and praying that I go for. It’s the beautiful words and music. I love the boy choristers’ singing and chanting and the organ playing.’ It was only part of the reason she was going tonight. There was a bit in the Bible that kept coming to mind: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.’

  When she reached home Lily saw that Mam was excited, wrought up, standing by the range in the kitchen, one hand on the mantel shelf above the fire. Mam never had a good word to say about
Mrs Chancellor and Lily had been worried that she might be stricken with remorse. She said, ‘Oh, Mam! What a terrible thing!’

  Mam stamped her cigarette out into the glass ashtray, said nothing but reached for another Craven ‘A’ and held a paper spill out to the flames.

  ‘Sylvia told me. She thought that Mrs Chancellor had lost her mind because Ray didn’t come.’

  ‘Did she?’ Mam sent a stream of smoke upwards towards the clothes rack. ‘I expect everyone has their own ideas.’ Mam took a quick, nervous draw on the cigarette. ‘It’s the finish for Frank. He’ll never be Mayor now.’

  ‘Because people think Mrs Chancellor took her own life?’ Lily was shocked by Mam’s hardness. ‘She didn’t know what she was doing.’

  ‘Sarah Chancellor always knew what she was doing. And why. It’s going to make a big difference. Not just to the Leadbetters. John Hammond was here an hour ago,’ she said. ‘He’s an executor of her will. Sarah Chancellor has left a lot of money.’

  ‘I suppose she has,’ Lily said.

  ‘She’s left money to over a hundred people, John said.’ Mam threw this second cigarette into the fire. ‘She’ll have spread money about so Frank gets as little as possible. She was a clever woman.’

  ‘Mam! Don’t speak ill of the dead.’

  Mam wasn’t listening. ‘We are mentioned. She’s left something.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘To you and me.’ Mam ran her fingers through her hair, making it go straggly. ‘It’s the will-reading after the funeral on Wednesday afternoon. John says that all the beneficiaries have to be there. Frank will have to close the mill for the day so the workers can go.’

  ‘I’m too young, aren’t I?’ she said.

  ‘John says everyone mentioned must go, even infants and minors.’

  ‘I am not an infant …’

  ‘In the eyes of the law you are. Until you’re twenty-one.’

  Mam did not sound sure. Lately Mam asked what Lily thought about people and why they said or did things; she looked to Lily for a lead. Lily wanted Mam to rely on her, so she squared her shoulders and said firmly, ‘We’ll go to the funeral and will-reading.’

  Mam shifted things about on the mantel shelf and Lily held her breath in case she noticed that Tommy Stanway’s picture had gone. When she removed it she’d wanted Mam to ask why. This was not the time to speak. But Mam had only said, ‘If you’re going to church you‘d best get off.’

  Mollie Leadbetter was buried in consecrated ground on the Tuesday. It was a quiet family affair, which few attended. But the following day hundreds of people packed into St Michael’s for Mrs Chancellor’s funeral service. Ushers guided people to their seats until there was standing room only in the side aisles. People crowded round the font in the baptistery and packed into the little side chapel inside the church.

  Mam and Lily arrived early. Mam was pale but she cut a smart figure in her black velvet hat and velour coat. Lily wore navy blue. They were shown to seats a couple of rows from the carved pulpit. The Chancellor family, Mr Chancellor‘s brothers and their wives and old Mrs Chancellor, were seated at the front.

  Lily was quaking. Mam’s nerves were all a-jangle; a little pulse was beating fast in her throat and the tiny lines at the corners of her mouth tightened as the church filled with so many well-known people. The air was filled with that familiar, dusty, candlewax-and-old-paper scent of ancient churches that charged Lily up like a wireless battery, making her aware of her own heartbeat and every movement around her.

  Lily dropped to her knees on the hassock and tried to pray, but for the first time in her life she could not concentrate so, kneeling, she took the Book of Common Prayer from the little wooden box holder on the seat in front. It was the first funeral she had been to and she searched through until she came to the order of service for the Burial of the Dead. Then the colour drained from her face. The first words, in italics, were notes for the clergy: Here is to be noted that the office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptised, or excommunicate or have laid violent hands upon themselves.

  Lily clutched the back of the rush-seated chair in front.

  ‘Sh! Don’t make a noise!’ Mam whispered, elbowing and frowning. ‘Stand up. They are coming in.’

  Everyone fell silent as the vicar at the back of the church, said in loud singsong intonation, I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord …

  Mam nudged Lily so she’d keep her eyes straight ahead but Lily could not. White as death herself, she watched the clergy go slowly ahead of the brass-bound oak coffin. Behind, pale with grief, walked Mr Chancellor, leaning on the arm of his taller son. Ray was ashen-faced and tight-lipped, staring straight ahead, expressionless as the men put his mother’s coffin down on the trestles that stood before the chancel steps.

  Mr Chancellor’s eyes were shiny with tears all through the chanting of the words of the thirty-ninth psalm, and Lily was overcome with pity, seeing the solemn faces about her. She couldn’t chant the psalm but could only whisper, For man walketh in a vain shadow. He heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them …

  Such beautiful words, whose rhythms were music and whose meaning was hidden. When the psalm was over, Mr Chancellor had collected himself. He stood without support, eyes closed.

  ‘Oh God Our Help in Ages Past’ was next – a simple tune but a powerful hymn for raising a lump in the throat. The organist drew out the male voices, filling the church to the high vaulted roof with resounding song: … A thousand ages in thy sight, Are like an evening gone. Short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.

  Those very same words were repeated in the ninetieth psalm they chanted after: … Seeing that is past as a watch in the night … and a few verses on, Thou hast set our misdeeds before Thee, and our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. The days of our age are threescore years and ten. So soon it passeth away and we are gone …

  But, under the influence of the ritual power of words, Lily was asking God all the questions that the service was putting into her mind, knowing that if she prayed hard enough God would give her the answers. She prayed, and the words came to her as if from another place: ‘Are our lives, which are all we have, to you, Heavenly Father, as short as a watch in the night? And if we are sinners and born in sin, dear God, please let me see the face of my own true father, dear Lord. And if I have no earthly father … ?’

  Perhaps she had part of her answer, for wave upon wave of relief flooded through her when the service was over and she walked down Chestergate with Mam. They processed in sunshine up Prestbury Road to the cemetery among the other mourners, who spoke in whispers. Mam said not a word. The cortege passed and all the people stopped at the kerbside. First came the hearse, pulled by four black horses, black-plumed. Then followed a carriage carrying Mr Chancellor with Ray at his side. Behind came seven motor cars carrying the chief mourners and the Hammonds.

  Lily said, ‘It was a moving service, wasn’t it, Mam?’ as the cortege passed and they moved on again. ‘What does it mean at the end of the lesson when St Paul says, “Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.” What does that mean, Mam – about the strength of sin being the law?’

  Mam looked at her, aghast. ‘Where did you learn all that?’

  ‘Out of the prayer book. I just read it.’

  ‘And you memorised it? Just by reading it over?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mam held her hand tighter and quickened her pace. ‘You are a funny girl, our Lil. Learning things off by heart. You’ll have to watch out. Watch you don’t overtax your brain.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ Lily persisted.

  ‘I don’t know. Ask Grandpa.’

  Mr Chancellor broke down at the graveside. He slumped against Ray, who stood ramrod straight, staring into space as if he couldn’t take it all in. Lily took it all in. She took in Mam’s strained face. Mam had never taken her eyes
off the Hammonds and the Chancellors. She was craning her neck to see the coffin and the raw earth heaped up beside the grave. But in the fresh spring air in the vast park of Macclesfield Cemetery, with the scents of newly dug earth, cut grass and blossom, Lily had lost her sense of doom. The words were being carried away from those who stood at the back. As the vicar said, ‘Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust …’ Lily looked around. She saw Mrs Hammond’s fixed expression and Magnus, just like his father, pale and shocked by it all. Sylvia was stately, standing tall and fair and above all display of emotion.

  They walked for twenty minutes from the graveside to the house in Park Lane, where everyone crowded into a wide hall with double doors opening on to a long dining room, making one enormous room. The big table had been taken out and through the whole length little tables were set with plates of sandwiches and cakes, tea cups and saucers. Mam didn’t join in the hand-touching and murmuring condolences but slid out of the line and sat at a table near the dividing door, as far as she could be from a long, narrow table at the far end of the dining room that was set as for a speaker, with a carafe and glass and a sloped book rest.

  ‘Are all these people mentioned in the will?’ Lily asked Mam. They were piling into the house – all sorts, from grand people like the Hammonds right down to mill hands in tight jackets with their cloth caps rolled into tubes and stuffed into pockets.

  ‘It looks like it.’ Mam sounded more like herself now they were seated and inconspicuous. ‘Look over there!’ She dipped her head in the direction of the other end of the hall, making the black eye-veil in her hat quiver. ‘Nellie Plant and the Leadbetters.’

  ‘Do you think Mrs Chancellor has left all these people something?’ ‘Sh!’ Mam dug her elbow into her. ‘Someone’s going to speak.’

  Mr Chancellor was standing right next to Mam in the open doorway, and when everyone was silent he said, ‘Thank you all for being with us on this day of deep grief for my son and myself.’

  There was no trace of the grieving man Lily had seen earlier. He spoke of grief but he gave a confident nod in the direction of the far end of the hall, where maids entered carrying trays laden with tea pots, sugar and milk. He stepped back a little to let them pass, and said loudly over the clatter, ‘You will be served with tea, and afterwards our lawyer …’, here he nodded towards the long table, where a morning-suited man had seated himself, ‘… will read the will.’