Orphan of Angel Street

by Annie Murray

  The boy looked up at her. ‘Mother says, and Dorothy says that you’re my sister. Well, half-sister at any rate.’

  Mercy felt her head had been filled with smoke, thicker than that billowing from any factory chimney. She couldn’t see through it who the boy was, make sense of what he was saying, or why Dorothy was here with him. She felt dizzy and hot. The fog grew darker and darker, until only a few lights were flashing somewhere at the side of her vision, confusing her further, until the darkness began to fold in round her.

  ‘Mercy? Mercy! ’Ere, get your head between your knees and you’ll feel better.’

  Dorothy’s hands were pressing on her shoulders. The darkness cleared and she could hear blood pounding in her ears until the pressure of it was too much, her belly felt cramped and she had to sit up. She was sick and groggy.

  ‘Stay here with ’er,’ Dorothy instructed Robert, patting Mercy’s shoulder. ‘I’ll go and ask up there for a drink of water.’

  Mercy closed her eyes. This was all too much. She wanted to sleep, not hear any more. Go back to how things were. But she could never go back, she knew. Her life was tumbling round her and she was powerless to stop it.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Robert asked courteously.

  She opened her eyes. ‘I’m OK now. Thank you.’ She examined his face as she might have done a mirror, looking for traces of herself, but she found nothing. Robert sensed this, had seen the same look in his mother’s eyes.

  ‘She says I’m the image of my father.’

  Mercy noted that he didn’t say ‘Daddy’. Nothing that sounded affectionate.

  ‘What’s your mother’s name?’ she asked faintly.

  He had to think for a second. ‘Grace Elizabeth Weston.’

  ‘Grace Weston.’ Hearing her name, Mercy did recognize it, faintly. Dorothy had named her before. She turned the name round in her churning mind. Grace. Grace. What did this Grace have to do with her? Of course she had considered that her mother, a real flesh and blood person, might exist somewhere. But in her heart she had never believed it fully. No! Not a living, breathing person, who did ordinary, everyday things like anyone else.

  Dorothy came back with a jam jar full of water and handed it to Mercy. ‘They said we don’t need to take it back. Big of ’em, eh?’ Her dark eyes were full of anxiety. Mercy drank, then sat gripping the glass jar, head bowed.

  ‘Tell me, Dorothy.’ Her hands, legs, every part of her was still quivering.

  Dorothy sank down on the bench.

  ‘When your mother had you she wasn’t wed. She comes from a respectable family. Religious, God-fearing sort of people. Her father was a lay preacher – Methodist – very strict man, he was. Any road, when she was forced to tell him he as good as washed his hands of her. Said she was to come home when she’d got rid of it, one way or other. He didn’t want to know nothing about it. He’d’ve packed her off there and then if her mother hadn’t persuaded him to let her stop at home ’til nearer the time it was due. They kept her in like, so no one’d know. Hid her.’ Dorothy told the story in a flat voice as if she could hardly bear it.

  ‘I was her maid then. We’re of an age, see. When the time came near she went out and didn’t come back. None of us knew where ’til after. It was her way of punishing herself, I think. Otherwise I might’ve gone with her.

  ‘She went off, somewhere no one’d know her and soon after she had . . . you. She knew if she kept you she’d have no roof over her head. Her mother, Mrs Bringley, had given her a bit of money to help her get by. There wasn’t a lot else she could do. Mr Bringley was a stern man, had her right under his thumb. Grace would’ve been on the streets else, or in the workhouse. No home, soon no money, no way of earning a crust – nowt.

  ‘She’d seen the Hanley Home. You were born somewhere around there. It was the only thing she could think of – you’d be taken care of. They might’ve sent you to Canada – they started that soon after you was taken in there.’

  ‘Amy . . .’ Mercy said faintly.

  ‘Yes, like Amy. She thought it was the only way the both of you could survive. After two or three months she sent me over there asking for work. When a job came up they gave it to me as I wouldn’t leave ’em alone. So there was always someone there, someone watching over you . . .’

  The smoke cleared out of Mercy’s mind as suddenly as if a tornado had swept through it. Her fists clenched tight.

  ‘You mean . . . you’re saying . . . all this time, ever since before I can even remember anything, I’ve had a mother? And you’ve always known who she was and where she was?’ She gasped, memories flooding through her. ‘And you brought me clothes – from her? And those jobs you got me – all her, and you?’

  Dorothy nodded, her expression full of pain.

  Mercy stood up as if propelled by an electric shock. Rage seemed to crackle through her, making her limbs turn rigid, her jaws stiff. She turned on Dorothy, eyes ablaze with outrage and fury.

  ‘All this time, the pair of you kept it from me, my own beginnings, my family! All these years I’ve felt like . . . like nothing – thrown in the gutter because no one wanted me, and all the time . . .’ She could barely speak, reeling under the violence of her hurt and anger.

  ‘You and she have dressed me in the clothes she thought right, you nearly forced me to take that job and leave Susan, who was the only person who ever showed me any real love. You both treated me like a – a puppet, organizing my life, pushing me here and there as if you owned me . . . And she hid behind you and never had the guts to come out and own me as her child . . .’

  She stopped abruptly, feeling she might be sick. She swallowed, panted. Robert stared at her, frightened.

  ‘She abandoned me,’ she said in a hard, quiet voice. ‘And then she still wanted to run my life, giving me nothing of the things a mother should give a child. I had nothing. I was starving from lack of love and protection, and when did I ever see her eyes looking at me with worry or love—’

  ‘But I saw them—’ Dorothy interrupted, pleading.

  ‘When did I ever feel her arms round me? Knowing this is worse . . .’ She began to weep suddenly, weak and overwrought. ‘It’s far worse than thinking she might have been too poor or sick to keep me, or thinking she might be dead . . .’

  Dorothy stood up, her face full of anguish, and reached her arms out, ‘Oh, bab . . .’

  Mercy backed away. ‘Leave me, you deceiver,’ she spat. ‘You hid her. Why did you do that, all this time? What did you owe her that you don’t owe me? You could have told me. You’re just her servant, aren’t you?’

  Dorothy made as if to speak, then helplessly closed her mouth.

  ‘I’m going,’ Mercy said, holding out her hand as if to stop Dorothy in her tracks. ‘I’m sorry, Robert.’ She was suddenly aware of the child. ‘I don’t know what you thought – that I’d just come running? Leave me, Dorothy. I’m going home. I don’t want to see you again. I may have a mother, but she’s left it too late by a long way. I’ve got my own child to bring up now.’ She started walking away.

  ‘It’s going to cost me, like being a mother should,’ she said, turning, walking backwards for a moment. ‘Never cost her much, did it?’

  ‘Oh, it did,’ Dorothy implored her. ‘Believe me – it did.’

  But she was gone, a bright-haired, solitary figure, striding across the park.

  Mercy cried all the way back to Angel Street. She couldn’t help it. Loud, racking sobs she couldn’t have prevented even if she’d wanted to. Her emotions were so mixed, so overwhelming, that she had not even the strength to fight for control. Anger, humiliation, a sense of betrayal, of huge loss and sadness were all mingled together. And the old, deep emptiness inside her. It felt as if her grief was bottomless and she would never be able to stop its flood. It was as if all her unshed tears of childhood were pouring from her now.

  At home she couldn’t stop either. Couldn’t hide it. She had to tell them. Jack was off somewhere, but Alf, Mabel and Rosalie were
all home. She had their absolute and rapt attention as she sat gulping out her story, and after, there was silence for a moment, all of them standing round.

  ‘I always thought there was summat queer about that Dorothy Finch keeping on coming round, that I did,’ Mabel said in a tone which suggested she’d known the truth all the time. ‘In fact, it crossed my mind to wonder at times whether she wasn’t yer mother ’erself – ’cept there was nothing in the looks, of course.’

  Just what Paul had said, Mercy remembered.

  ‘So you’ve got a little brother?’ Rosalie said timidly.

  Mercy’s eyes welled again. ‘Two. They said two . . . How could she – all these years – deny I ever existed?’

  ‘It’s a disgrace,’ Mabel said, arms folded self-righteously over bosoms. ‘Abandoning a child like that.’

  Alf cast her a look which plainly said, ‘Shut yer great big trap, wench,’ and Mabel subsided.

  ‘You’re not going away, are yer?’ Rosalie asked.

  ‘No, ’course not,’ Mercy said fiercely. ‘Why would I be?’

  ‘But it does mean—’ – Alf leant forward and Mercy could see the white stubble on his cheeks close up, the red veins in the curves of each nostril – ‘somewhere you’ve got a family, Mercy. Blood ties of your own. That means summat, don’t it? You can’t just forget that.’

  Mercy’s eyes widened with dismay. ‘D’you want me out – is that it?’

  ‘No – no, wench.’ Alf closed his hand awkwardly over hers for a second. ‘It’s just – well, she must’ve had ’er reasons like, for doing what she did. No one gives a babby up easy. And one day, when you’ve ’ad time for it all to sink in, you might want to know more about her and where you come from, that’s all.’

  ‘Where does she live, this mother o’ yours?’ Mabel asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mercy’s brow wrinkled. ‘Handsworth, I suppose – that’s where Dorothy works – if she works for her now. I s’pose she does. I never asked.’

  A week passed. Mercy gave up her job at the Futurist for something which didn’t mean working evenings. She looked for work in a shop, and went back to Wrigley’s Bakery to see if they might take her on again as she remembered it fondly. Mrs Wrigley recognized her at once but said she had a regular girl in now and couldn’t let her go.

  So she went from shop to shop along the Moseley Road, Ladypool Road. In the end she found a job with a Miss Martin who owned a draper’s at the end of Camp Hill. Miss Martin’s health wasn’t any too bright and she needed help. Mercy was tempted to say, ‘That makes two of us,’ but wisely buttoned her lip. It’d be a nice quiet job, regular, with a half day on Mondays. And not hard: cutting from the bolts of cloth in the dimly-lit little shop, selling cottons, spools, zip fasteners, pins, buttons and all the other little cards of things Miss Martin had on her racks. Seeing them reminded her of all the evenings she and Susan had spent carding.

  All that week as she walked the streets, her head was full of Dorothy’s disclosures. Over and over, round and round it all went like the clothes in a maiding tub. The truth. Her truth. At first all she could feel was the raw hurt and an enormous, violent anger. She’d been treated like something of no worth, like a clockwork toy, expected to live her life according to her mother’s desires and ideas. She wondered exactly what this woman had had planned for her before Mabel came along and mucked it all up, taking her off where they couldn’t find her. Served her right!

  As the week passed her anger gradually calmed and began to seep away. She found herself thinking as much about Dorothy as her mother. Maybe she’d been wrong to be so angry with Dorothy. After all, who else had ever shown her such devotion and care? Paul might have done – but she tried to push the thought of him away, the pain of it. She hadn’t answered his last letter, felt completely unable to. Dorothy had been the one who protected her as a child, had displayed genuine emotion when she found her again, and genuinely cared for her.

  The more Mercy thought of this, the more baffling it was. Who was she, in the end, that Dorothy should bother with her? And what about this shadowy mother Dorothy was protecting? Grace Weston. Mother. She found herself repeating it over and over. Mother. My mother.

  Gradually mingled with the hurt and bitterness came a surging curiosity which at first she could barely admit. When once she did voice it at home, ‘I wonder what she’s like . . .?’, Rosalie said, ‘Well aren’t you going to go and see ’er? Swallow yer pride. I would. I miss my mom like anything. It’s not too late for you, is it?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Mercy’s voice was adamant. ‘I’m not going barging into her posh little life. Not after all this time. She’s never wanted me before, has she? Why should she now? I’m not giving her the chance to throw me out again. Oh no. Never.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  Mabel and Alf’s wedding was a fortnight off and a woman down the street was making Mabel’s trousseau. It wasn’t being kept any great secret though.

  ‘I had all that caper the first time,’ Mabel said. ‘All of them superstitions and none of them brought me much luck.’

  ‘I should keep it plain and simple,’ Alf had said, obviously worried how much she might be thinking of forking out.

  ‘Don’t fret, I will. But we’ll make a good day of it all the same.’

  Rosalie was to be her bridesmaid, and the same needlewoman was stitching a frock in pretty pink sateen for her.

  The other women in the court, knowing there was a wedding afoot, were in and out of the house discussing, offering help. Mary Jones was out at work now her children had reached school age but she was round as soon as she’d fed them enough to keep them quiet.

  Mercy, so many causes of distress tugging at her heart that she could scarcely think clearly about any of them, kept out of the way. Not that everyone wasn’t kind. Her news spread round the yard like a blaze and there was no one who didn’t know what had happened. All of them had soft, sympathetic words for her and questions. But she couldn’t stand talking about it, not to anyone. It was still all too raw.

  She went to see Tom again. He was outside, as before. Always as before, she thought. Nothing changing or moving on. That was the awfulness of it. She sat holding his hand and just once he gripped hers in return.

  ‘I’ve got such a lot to tell you.’ She spoke very quietly, pouring out everything that had happened. It surprised her how much better she felt after talking to him. He couldn’t respond, but knowing he’d loved her once, that he likely still would if he were able, warmed her burdened heart.

  After a time she saw Mr Hanley shuffle across the grass on his thin, bowed legs. He noticed her immediately and raised his hat, giving her a sweet, wistful smile. She waved back, full of unexpected excitement at seeing him. Her mind was still trying to marry this stooped old man with the fat fellow she’d felt so much aggression towards at the age of seven.

  Mr Hanley drew himself up a chair beside that of another inmate about Tom’s age. He had light brown hair and a round face. Mercy saw him turn his head for a second and thought ah, he’s all right, he can recognize his grandfather. But the head lurched round again to face the other way, then back and forth in a convulsive motion and she could see the blankness in his eyes. She saw Mr Hanley take his hand as she had done Tom’s, and begin gently to talk to him.

  When later she got up to leave Tom, kissing him goodbye, Mr Hanley rose as well.

  ‘Hello my dear.’ His voice was thinner than she remembered. ‘How nice to see you again.’

  ‘How are you, Mr Hanley?’

  ‘Oh – bars of iron, bars of iron.’ But his eyes were sad and watery. ‘May I have the privilege of transporting you home again?’

  They walked down to the gate together.

  ‘It’s so hard coming here, isn’t it?’ Mercy said.

  ‘Hardest thing I’ve ever done I think,’ Mr Hanley agreed.

  ‘Does anyone else come to see your grandson?’

  ‘Oh yes, on other days. His mother, of course, and his si
sters. I do Sundays – it’s become a sort of routine. Now – just a moment, dear.’ He stopped, fumbling in his jacket for a pipe and a pouch of tobacco and spent a little while obliging it to light. Eventually he managed and the sweet smell of the smoke reached Mercy. ‘Ah, good. Now – how are you, my dear? Life treating you well?’

  His Austin was parked not far from the gate and he opened the door for her. Mercy turned to him, feeling a great need to tell him. After all, he wasn’t just anyone. He’d seen her as a child, too, and he was kind.

  ‘Mr Hanley, d’you know what? I found out I’ve got a mother after all.’

  Joseph Hanley nodded gently. ‘Well, of course, my dear. Many of our unfortunate children aren’t orphans in the strict sense of the word.’

  ‘No, but I was,’ she said fiercely. ‘I was the one left on the doorstep. The one who didn’t even have a name so they gave me yours. I had no one in the world . . .’

  She poured the story out to him as they slowly made their way into Birmingham, and he listened intently. However many times she told the story it came out raw, angry, bewildered so that it seemed to her that she would always feel the same.

  Mr Hanley stopped in the same spot on the Moseley Road. He reached over and took one of her young hands in his gnarled ones, turning to look into her eyes.

  ‘I can see you’re in distress, Mercy. Shocking for you, of course. Perhaps you’ll be able to forgive your mother eventually for her difficulties. You know what they say, my dear, to know all is to forgive all. Whatever happens, I wish you all the luck and good fortune possible.’

  He squeezed her hand for a second, then released it.

  Another week passed. On Sunday afternoon Grace caught a bus into Birmingham, resolved to walk the rest of the distance. She had thought carefully about what to wear. So unimportant in one sense, yet it seemed vital for her first appearance. She was presenting – offering – herself. She dressed simply: the white mid-pleated skirt – white, to go to such a place! Yet she wanted to show her confidence, not arrive in some murky-coloured garment looking as if she were afraid of dirtying herself. On top, a white, lacy blouse covered by a soft wool cardigan in her favourite colour: cornflower blue. Her shoes were two-tone – white and navy, with an elegant heel.