The Factory Girl

by Maggie Ford

  Finally she told Tony, it coming out by accident. That Saturday in May was wet and for something to do they’d gone to a lovely restaurant, going there in his car. The meal over, coffee and brandy having arrived, they were talking of the numbers out of work which promoted a comment from her on her own father’s plight, how his sort of work was always so erratic and how if he did have to go into hospital her mother didn’t know how they would manage. Immediately after it came out she wanted to bite her tongue off as he asked what was wrong with her father. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to him and told the truth but he didn’t laugh or even grin. He shook his head sadly, not lifting his eyes from the brandy glass he was toying with.

  ‘It’s unfair that a man must be afraid of losing his job because his health is in jeopardy. This country is so ungrateful. We were all led to believe we’d return to a better country after beating the Hun. Instead it seems the world has been turned topsy-turvy. I wish I could help your father.’

  She tilted her head in silent agreement to the sad inevitability of what he’d been saying, and for a while they sat on without speaking, each taking sips of their brandy to help fill the hiatus.

  He looked up suddenly. ‘Geraldine, I do have the means to help your father over this difficult period so that if he is told he must go into hospital, he can do so without any worries.’

  She looked at him aghast. What he was referring to was money. She hadn’t meant for him to offer money and squirmed in embarrassment at having virtually brought the subject up. ‘Tony, I was never asking you for—’

  ‘I know that. This is my own idea. I’d like to help. After all, I intend to marry you. He’ll be my father-in-law eventually. Who else better to help?’

  She remained feeling awkward. They’d spoken of an autumn wedding and Tony had already taken it that he would pay for it all – a fact that had immediately annoyed her father when told. ‘Who do ’e think ’e is? If I can’t afford ter sort out me own daughter’s weddin’, what sort of man am I? I ain’t ’aving us looked down on like we was paupers, someone else offerin’ ter pay and slinging their money about like they was better’n us.’

  Tony had gone very quiet when she told him her father’s sentiments, though not in those exact words of course – she knew better than that. Even so, he was upset.

  ‘I want my future wife to have the wedding she deserves, several wedding cars, a decent reception, plenty of high-class food, a big three-tiered bridal cake, a lovely bridal gown, all the trimmings. Why should you have to put up with second best to please your father, with him having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to pay for it when I can afford better for you? I don’t want to be disrespectful to him but it is our wedding. You’re going to be my wife. I ought to have a say in it.’

  From then on there’d been friction between him and her family which struck her as very unfair being that all Tony had been trying to do was his best by her. Now having unintentionally let slip her father’s present state of health, it seemed he’d seen a way to heal the wound, but offering to pay for Dad to stay in hospital if it came to that was only rubbing salt into it, or worse, opening the cut even more, knowing how Dad felt about being helped out by someone else. Being made to eat humble pie, as he’d see it.

  ‘I don’t think you should say anything to him,’ she said hastily. ‘For one thing he’ll know I’ve been blabbing about him and it’s something he’d rather people didn’t know about. Understandable when you come to think of it – a sort of delicate subject. For another, it’ll give his pride a knock having someone assume he’s too hard up for money to take care of himself, and us. That’s how he’ll see it.’

  After a while, Tony shrugged although rather reluctantly, and she was glad that he didn’t return to the subject again. Had he done so it would have put her back up and maybe started an argument.

  Whereas their engagement in January should have made her utterly certain of him, she was growing anxious of it all falling apart. He seemed to sense it and did all he could to avoid any cross words that might cause that to happen. She sometimes wondered if he wasn’t as terrified as she of their breaking up – they being from different backgrounds, the slightest jolt might so easily cause it to happen. It made them both edgy and she could hardly wait for autumn when they would be husband and wife with no more need to fear such things.

  Geraldine had no idea if their courting was the same as other couples. She only had Mavis and even then felt embarrassed when asking her what she and Tom got up to in those days.

  ‘What yer mean, did anything?’

  ‘Well, you know, getting lovey-dovey. What did you do?’

  ‘Kissed and cuddled, I suppose. What do you want ter know for?’

  ‘It’s just that, well, me and Tony kiss and cuddle, but we don’t … Did you go any further?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘I just … need to know. So I know what me and Tony do is what courting couples usually do.’

  Mavis had eyed her with suspicious alarm. ‘You two ain’t been up ter tricks, ’ave yer? You ain’t got yerself in trouble?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ She’d become angry. ‘What d’you take me for?’

  ‘Because if you ’ave—’

  ‘I ain’t! Because I’ve never ’ad the chance.’ In anger and confusion she’d lapsed back into her old speech. ‘We don’t do enough fer that sort of thing to ’appen to me.’

  For a second Mavis had looked pityingly at her. ‘You mean he ain’t never tried it on?’ she said in a way that intimated Tony couldn’t truly be in love with her. ‘Don’t he ever get all worked up an’ trembly when he’s wiv yer?’

  He had tried it on, as Mavis put it, last summer a month or two after they’d started going out together. They’d been strolling in Hyde Park on a cool evening, having listened with a good audience to music being played by soldiers of a Guards regiment in the bandstand. They’d finally come away as the band finished and the audience dispersed and sought a more secluded place as all lovers do.

  After the music all had been quiet. The soft shadows of that summer night had spread themselves across the park to enfold leafy copses in darkness. It was to one of these that Anthony had led her, the two of them sinking down onto a small, dry, grassy patch well hidden from any passer-by and filled with the warm dank breath of last year’s undergrowth. He’d gently kissed her and as she returned his kisses, something inside her responded in a way she didn’t understand and which frightened her a little. He began to tremble and it occurred to her that he might be taking ill, the evening not so cool as to make him shiver. Then his kiss hardened against her lips as he began to ease her back until she was lying beneath him. Thinking about the damp from the grass penetrating her blouse, she became aware that his hand was cupping her breast, the other easing her skirt up above her knees.

  Alarm had driven away the strange sensation inside her and she tried to push him away but his body had been so heavy on hers that it refused to move at first. Her hands on his shoulders, she had beat at him in mounting panic, consumed with suspicion that all he’d wanted her for was for that sort of thing. She’d been enraged too, seeing herself taken for a girl of easy virtue and it had made her feel sick knowing how she had so fallen in love with him, had felt so happy being chosen by him.

  Disappointment in him had churned even though he lifted himself off her, his hand leaving her breast as though it had become searing hot to the touch, he rolling away from her as she burst into tears of humiliation.

  He’d apologised abjectly, asking her not to cry, had pleaded forgiveness as profusely as a burglar caught red-handed, had promised never to do such a thing again if she didn’t wish. Nor had he.

  Her respect for him had slowly rebuilt itself but lately she had begun to wonder if the reason for such self-control didn’t spring from a cooling towards her, for all he professed to love her and wanted her to be his wife. You can’t have it both ways, common sense told her, but it didn’t help diminis
h the feeling that, engagement or no, he could be tiring of her.

  ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ she asked as they left the restaurant.

  His response was to guide her hurriedly to his car and having helped her in, run round to his side, slip into the seat to put an arm around her, pulling her to him. His kiss was ardent and lingering, without concern of anyone who, in passing, might see them.

  ‘Does that answer your question, my dearest?’ he asked gruffly, but she couldn’t reply and in the dim light of a nearby gas lamp saw him frown.

  ‘What must I do to make you believe how much I love you?’ he asked. ‘I’ve done my level best all these months to respect your wishes, refrain from doing what should be a natural thing between a couple in love. It’s killing me, Geraldine, but you don’t seem to understand I love you and I want you. How do you think I feel? You won’t let me show you how much I do. Why? It almost makes me think it’s you who doesn’t love me and wants to back out of your promise.’

  ‘No!’ She clung to him. ‘I do love you, my dearest. But if I let you do what you say is natural to people in love, you’ll begin to think I’m not the sort of girl a man can respect.’

  ‘I’d never think that,’ he said. ‘Never.’

  She remained silent, head down, but detecting relief in his tone, she peeped at him from beneath the brim of her hat that all but covered her eyebrows, a lovely hat he himself had bought for her from Dickins & Jones in Regent Street. That he was always buying her presents, however, did not mean that he was sincere. Hastily she brushed away the cruel thought. He did love her, else he wouldn’t have abstained all this time from overstepping himself.

  ‘It’s still wrong,’ she said finally. ‘Before marriage.’

  ‘It’s not.’ And when again she didn’t reply, he held her even closer, his voice a whisper in her ear. ‘It will never stop me loving you, longing for you. I shall love you, Geraldine, until the day I die. It doesn’t take a marriage to tell you that.’

  And she wanted him too. Now she wanted him to, more than anything else in the world. She realised she’d lowered her head in the briefest of nods and, sitting very quietly, was aware of feeling an unusual breathlessness, of a heavy, steady pulsing somewhere below her heart as he took his arm away to tug on the starter button, coaxing the engine into life, and she knew then that she would let him take her back to his darkened shop and that when he kissed her goodnight she would be someone no longer virginal.

  Chapter Eight

  Life for the Glover family had taken a moderate turn for the better. Mavis had had her baby, a bonny, eight-pound boy whom she christened Simon Thomas in their local church a month later. Fred was given a small rise in wage by the News Chronicle and according to his dad, didn’t know where his arse was now, seeing himself one day as a full-blown sub-editor. Wally had found himself a girl and was going steady with her, and Evie, settled down to her job and ceasing to complain about it, was learning to tango, going with friends to every dance she could, wearing the shorter fashions; Geraldine made her dresses to save money, her hair bobbed and lips rouged, though not when Dad was around, who would have told her to ‘Wipe it orf, yer look like a trollop!’ – the totally emancipated young woman. ‘Well before her time,’ said Mum, though not too severely.

  The only member of the family not to be looking up was Dad. His condition was steadily worsening and still he refused to go back to the doctor even though his gloomy prediction of strikes and being laid off hadn’t materialised that summer.

  Geraldine again confided in Tony knowing there was little anyone could do to help or advise her stubborn, proud father. But it did help release the tension she felt – those moments visualising her father no longer around.

  Their wedding day was fast approaching and Tony thought long and hard about Jack Glover. The man didn’t like him as first he had and it plagued him. If he could get him to accept his help to get better, Geraldine would be so happy. The only one who might persuade him to see sense would be the man’s wife.

  Against all odds Tony was determined to help the father of his fiancée. Besides, he’d recently had a bit of luck, a back door caller furtively displaying ‘Somefink I just come by, guv.’ Of course, no questions were asked and it proved to be a handful of jewellery no doubt come by from some loaded residence in the West End area. He’d found himself a good contact and had made a good bit out of the deal. It was easy money and if he couldn’t help his own fiancée’s family with part of it, who else could he help?

  Feeling generous, he popped into No.27 for a social chat and an afternoon cup of tea with his future mother-in-law, this without Geraldine’s knowledge; she was at work, no doubt her mind full of her wedding-day plans with only seven weeks to go.

  He’d already paid for her dress to be made for her, a luxurious white creation in the shorter fashion but with a long veil, all enough to knock any other wedding in the area into a cocked hat, as they say. Her mother hadn’t been too pleased when Geraldine had described it to her.

  ‘They’ll say yer showin’ off,’ was her emphatic comment. ‘We ain’t used ter society-like weddings round ’ere. You’ll show yerself up proper.’

  Geraldine was so excited she’d taken no notice. ‘It’s my wedding,’ she’d said to him and he had agreed. But whatever thoughts her mother had on the wedding, she was still nice to him.

  She was nice to him now as she let him in. Showing him into her best front room she set about making a cup of tea for him using her best china tea set, one or two rims of which he noticed bore tiny, age-darkened chips and made a mental note to buy her a fine, bone china tea set for Christmas.

  ‘Nice of you ter call in,’ she said, sipping too fast. ‘Nice, you makin’ yerself sociable like this.’ As if it were royalty who’d condescended to visit.

  ‘How’s Geraldine’s father keeping these days?’ he ventured casually, setting down his empty cup and saucer on the somewhat scratched side table next to the armchair she had asked him to sit down in.

  She’d chosen a hard seat, perhaps not wanting to get too comfortable in front of her daughter’s well-to-do husband-to-be. Had Geraldine been there the woman might have been more relaxed and natural. The trouble was, with him sunk into this well-used, sagging seat and she on a hard chair, it brought her head just a fraction above his, putting him at a disadvantage. He moved forward onto the firmer edge of the armchair so that his face was now more or less level with hers. ‘She tells me he’s been rather poorly all summer,’ he went on.

  ‘She did, did she?’ Mrs Glover’s voice went on the defensive, guarded and annoyed. ‘She’s got no right ter discuss ’er dad’s problems with …’ She paused and he had the distinct feeling she’d been about to say strangers.

  ‘It’s because she’s deeply worried about him. She was bound to tell me as her future husband.’ Best to make that point.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she conceded. ‘Even so …’ and again she tailed off.

  Now perhaps was the time to lay his cards on the table. Tony leaned forward in his seat, adopting a confidential attitude. ‘I do understand. My own father had the same affliction but he’s fine now. Completely recovered. Of course, he did have the money to be able to put himself into the hands of a Harley Street specialist, but you see I’ve money as well and if I can’t put it to decent use, like helping Geraldine’s father get better, I wouldn’t be much of a man, would I?’

  He had expected her to capitulate, to gnaw at her lip in indecision and to finally nod her head. To his astonishment she did nothing of the kind.

  Her back became straight, bringing her head above his again, her face grown stiff. Seconds later she was telling him his fortune in no uncertain terms, that no matter what else he thought they had never stooped to borrowing from anyone in all their lives and didn’t propose to start now. His protests that this wouldn’t be a loan fell on deaf ears as she stood up, the proud matriarch in worn, old-fashioned skirt and blouse – her apron had been hastily discarded when he’d a
ppeared at her door – and work-reddened hands.

  Even as he came away thwarted, he had to admire the woman’s dignity, her refusal to be diminished by poverty or enticed by promises of money. He could see Geraldine in every inch of her mother. Pride without arrogance, determination without forcefulness, a quiet optimism in the face of adversity. He was so lucky to have found Geraldine. She might come from a slum area but she had the capacity to better herself and he not only admired her for that, he adored her. If only her family liked him better.

  Even so, he was annoyed, hurt. How dare they treat him as if he were some interloper poking his nose into where it wasn’t wanted.

  ‘It’s the last thing I’ll ever try to do for your family,’ he told Geraldine, and she got angry too.

  ‘No one asked you to do it. I told you in confidence. I didn’t expect you to go blabbing to Mum.’

  ‘I wanted to help.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t, and you’ve made me look a fool too. What if she tells me dad about you going to see her? I won’t be able ter look ’im in the eye.’ In her anger she reverted in part to the way she usually spoke and he cringed inwardly, noticing it. ‘I just ’ope she don’t tell ’im, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t think she will,’ he replied slowly and was gratified to see her temper abate. It served to moderate his temper as well, his tone becoming soothing. ‘I know I was a fool. I promise not to interfere again.’

  He saw her face go through several changes: understanding, sympathy, mollification, finally breaking down altogether as she moved nearer to him to end up in his arms, saying that she loved him for his kind intentions however misguided. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn about people like us,’ she whispered, and as he held her tightly to him the thought went through his head, Not if I can help it.