The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘You know where she is.’ Evie carried the bucket to the fire and tipped a few coals into the glowing grate. There was a billow of black smoke up the chimney and then a crackle of yellow flames. ‘She’s up the street with Mrs Lister.’

  ‘What’s she doing there?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Done with the coal, Evie went to the stone sink and turned on the tap to wash her hands.

  Actually, she knew what their mother was doing at number 21 because Mr Lister had come running to their door at six that morning and frightened the living daylights out of them with his loud knock and urgent cry of, ‘Can you come, Rhoda? Baby’s on its way!’ Their mother had got dressed straight away and left the house with hurried instructions for Evie to mind Arthur while Lily and Margie went to work. ‘Your father’s not feeling too good so best leave him to sleep,’ she’d added on her way out. Now Evie didn’t fancy giving an answer to Arthur’s question that might lead him to pester her about how babies were born so she left it at three short, dismissive words.

  ‘Here comes our Margie!’ the spy at the window reported when he spotted his middle sister hurrying up the street. Margie entered the living room with a rush of cold air, bringing with her the smell of factory oil and untreated wool. ‘What a morning I’ve had,’ she complained, lifting her shawl from her head and throwing it on to a chair. ‘I only had Sam Earby on my back the whole time, telling me this was wrong and that was wrong and if I wasn’t careful I’d be put on short time and I don’t know what else.’ She removed her work apron, threw it down on top of the shawl then went to the sink, took up the block of carbolic and elbowed Evie aside. ‘Just you wait,’ she warned her. ‘You’ll soon find out.’

  ‘But I’m not at Kingsley’s with you, I’m at Calvert’s.’

  ‘Same thing.’ Margie lathered her hands and arms then ran them under the water. ‘Work’s work wherever you are, and it’s drudgery from seven thirty to five, five days a week, plus Saturday half days. It’s a rotten life, ask anyone around here.’

  ‘At last, here’s Lily!’ Arthur spotted his favourite sister at the bottom of the hill and jumped down from his perch. He ran to the door and flung it open, waiting on the top step for her to arrive. ‘Where’s my chocolate?’ he yelled down the street, his face falling at the absence of the usual brown paper bag clutched in her hand.

  ‘Oh, Arthur, I clean forgot!’ Reaching the house, Lily scooped him up and carried him indoors, skinny legs dangling. She deposited him on the rug then reached into her skirt pocket. ‘Never mind. Here’s tuppence and you can run down to Newby’s and buy some for yourself. How’s that?’

  Snatching the proffered coins and grinning, Arthur was out of the house like a shot – no coat or cap in his haste to be gone.

  ‘That’s not like you to forget Arthur’s sweeties,’ Margie commented, peering critically into the small square of mirror fixed to the wall above the sink. ‘My hair needs a good cut,’ she sighed.

  ‘Is Mother not back?’ Lily enquired, looking about her.

  ‘No, but Father’s up and getting dressed at last,’ Evie reported. ‘I expect he’ll be down in a minute.’

  ‘Why, what’s got into you?’ Margie asked as she turned from the mirror. ‘Evie, why is Lily grinning like a Cheshire cat?’

  ‘I am here, you know,’ Lily protested. She took off her shawl and hung it on the hook at the cellar head. ‘Go on, Margie – take a guess at why I’m so pleased with myself.’

  ‘Let me see – you’ve bagged yourself a sweetheart at last?’

  ‘Trust you. No – wrong. Guess again.’

  ‘Mother says you can go into town tonight with Annie and Sybil?’

  ‘Wrong. I haven’t asked her yet.’

  ‘I don’t know, I give up.’

  ‘The truth is – I’ve got a leg-up at work!’ The words were out and Lily could still hardly believe it. ‘I’m to go upstairs and work in the mending room, starting Monday.’

  ‘Never!’ Margie declared. She felt a pang of jealousy when she realized that Lily would now go to work in a nice hat and coat and would be looked up to by the girls in the weaving shed. With four years between her and her eldest sister, she knew it would be a long haul before she left the spinning section at Kingsley’s and reached the same dizzying heights.

  And yet they were similar, she and Lily – both quick learners, both smart and easy on the eye, with their mother’s dark hair and colouring, though their styles differed – Lily being less well groomed and fashionable in Margie’s opinion, and certainly less interested in finding herself a nice young man. Why this was so was a mystery to Margie, who had no trouble attracting the boys and revelled in their attention. ‘Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, Margie Briggs!’ they would call after her on the street. Or else they would whistle, get off their bikes and walk alongside to keep her company, and she would smile and lap up their compliments and their teasing, giving as good as she got.

  ‘Does that mean I’ll be by myself in the weaving shed?’ a nervous Evie asked. It had been a big week for her, turning fourteen and leaving school and then getting ready to start at Calvert’s before she had time to draw breath.

  ‘No, you’ll have Annie and Sybil to keep an eye on you,’ Lily promised. ‘I’ll make sure they do.’ Sadly, this wasn’t quite the reception she’d hoped for when she’d rushed home with her news. And now she could hear their father moving around on the bare boards upstairs, shuffling to the top of the stairs and making his slow way down.

  ‘Will you tell him or will you save it until Mother gets back?’ Margie shot Lily a quick question.

  ‘Save it,’ Lily whispered back. She thought she knew how her father would react – there’d be a blank look accompanied by a grunt or a shrug. His silence would take the shine off everything good and proper.

  Walter leaned on the banister, taking one bronchitic step at a time. He heard voices below. ‘What are you lot up to, whispering in a corner?’ he demanded as he opened the door into the kitchen, dressed in shirtsleeves and without a collar, his braces dangling over his broad leather belt. ‘Where’s Arthur? What have you done with him?’

  ‘What do you suppose we’ve done with him – waved a magic wand and made him vanish?’ was Margie’s risky reply.

  ‘He went down to Newby’s for chocolate.’ Evie stepped in with a sensible answer before their father could react.

  Walter sniffed then rubbed the back of his hand across his grey moustache. ‘Did you tell him to buy me my cigarettes while he’s about it?’

  ‘No, but let me go for you.’ Evie was halfway out of the door before she remembered she had no money. ‘Shall I get Mrs Newby to put it on the slate?’

  ‘No – ask your mother to give you a shilling.’

  ‘But she’s at—’

  ‘Just go!’ Walter wheezed before coughing then hawking into the sink. ‘And fetch the ciggies to me at the Cross.’

  Behind his back, Margie pulled a disgusted face, which Lily ignored. ‘How are you feeling, Father?’ she asked.

  Out came the usual complaints. ‘My chest’s bad and my leg’s giving me gyp,’ he informed her, pulling his braces over his shoulders. ‘Anyhow, I’m off to the pub. Has anyone seen my scarf and cap?’

  ‘Here on the hook.’ Lily lifted them down and handed them to him. ‘Don’t you want to eat your dinner before you go out?’

  ‘Keep it warm in the oven. I’ll have it later.’

  Then he was on with his patched, worn jacket and gone, following Evie out of the front door, head down against the wind, coughing his way to the Green Cross.

  Margie shuddered. ‘If he hasn’t any money for his Woodbines, who does he think will pay for his beer?’ she wondered out loud.

  Lily chose not to answer. ‘Dinner,’ she said firmly. She opened the oven door, took a thick cloth and lifted out a brown earthenware pot, which she put on a board on the deal table. By the time she fetched plates and knives and forks from the cupboard and laid them out, Arthur and Evie wou
ld be back from their errands.

  ‘And shall you take to the mending work, do you think?’ Margie asked as if she hadn’t felt jealous and there’d been no interruptions since Lily had announced her news. Sitting down at the table, she ladled out some thin stew and potatoes for herself.

  ‘I hope so,’ Lily answered. ‘And I hope Mother will be pleased too.’

  ‘She’ll like the extra money,’ Margie predicted then went on to the topic that really interested her. ‘This afternoon, Lil, will you cut my hair for me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve to sew Evie’s work pinafore – I might not have time.’

  ‘Before the pinafore?’ Ever-hopeful, Margie pulled out the drawer under the table and rummaged for scissors, handing them to Lily. ‘These are nice and sharp. It won’t take you long,’ she wheedled.

  Lily sighed. ‘Finish your dinner then bring your chair over to the window where I can see. Sit here next to the sewing machine. How short would you like it?’

  ‘Chop off three inches, up to chin length,’ Margie decided as she tugged at a lock of her shoulder-length hair. ‘And will you cut me a fringe? That would be smart and up to date.’

  Despite long practice on Evie and Arthur, Lily wasn’t confident of her hairdressing abilities when it came to creating a fashionable effect. Her hand shook as she took the scissors from Margie. ‘I don’t know about the fringe.’

  ‘Yes, make it like the film stars wear, smooth and glossy like Louise Brooks.’ For some reason Margie was prepared to trust Lily with her new style. ‘I think I’ll look very nice with it.’

  So Lily took the plunge, combing and cutting, feeling locks of Margie’s clipped hair tickle her legs as they fell to the floor. When Arthur and Evie returned to the house, she pointed to the food on the table and told them to dip in and help themselves. ‘And no sweets until after dinner,’ she warned Arthur.

  Too late – she saw that he’d gorged on chocolate on his way home from Newby’s and his lips were coated with the sticky remains.

  ‘Oh Arthur, you’ve only gone and ruined your appetite,’ she grumbled, putting down her scissors to dole out a decent helping of the stew.

  She should have known better. Chocolate or not, his stomach was a bottomless pit and he gobbled up the meat and potatoes and was soon asking for a second helping.

  ‘Leave enough for Father,’ Lily warned as she returned to the window to snip carefully at Margie’s new fringe.

  ‘And for Mother,’ Evie added.

  Then there was silence in the living room at 5 Albion Lane except for the snip of scissors, the settling of coals in the grate and the scrape of knives and forks on cracked, willow-pattern plates.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dinner was cleared away, the pots washed and Lily had sat down at the sewing machine in the alcove close to the window when Rhoda Briggs got back at last from delivering Myra Lister’s latest baby, her sixth in nine years. It was two thirty in the afternoon.

  ‘Another boy,’ she told Lily with an exhausted sigh. ‘It wasn’t easy either – in the end we had to call for Dr Moss and he’ll be to pay on top of what they eventually give me.’

  Lily looked up from her sewing. ‘But baby’s all right?’

  ‘I can’t say for sure. Myra will be wondering about that herself, probably for the rest of her life. The cord caught around his neck and he was slow to breathe, that was the problem.’

  ‘Poor little mite,’ Lily murmured. ‘You must be done in.’ Putting aside the work on Evie’s pinafore, she got up to make a pot of tea. She noticed how old her mother looked – only just past forty yet already worn out, her hands red raw from cold, her face pinched and shadowy under her brown felt hat.

  ‘Where are the others?’ Rhoda asked, taking off her coat but absent-mindedly leaving on the hat.

  ‘Up in the attic. Evie’s keeping Arthur amused and I suppose Margie’s busy dolling herself up for a night out.’

  ‘No she’s not, she’s here!’ Having heard the thud of the front door closing, Margie had rushed down two flights of stairs. Now she twirled on the spot to show off her new hairstyle. ‘Lily did it for me. What do you think, Mother?’

  ‘I think it makes you look common,’ was the blunt reply.

  The insult hit Margie hard. Her eager, pretty face fell then she quickly set her mouth in a firm line of defiance. ‘Anyway, I like it,’ she said as she flounced back upstairs.

  ‘Sixteen years old and not a scrap of common sense,’ Rhoda muttered with a shake of the head. She had no energy to follow her middle daughter up the stairs to remonstrate, and anyway what good would it do? Hair wouldn’t regrow overnight and what was done was done.

  ‘Here’s your tea, Mother,’ Lily said quietly.

  Rhoda took it without thanks and sat at the table, staring vacantly at the grain of the pale wood.

  ‘Something happened at work this morning,’ Lily began cautiously as she sat down opposite.

  ‘Not another accident?’ was the gloomy response.

  ‘No, not an accident.’

  ‘I remember there were always girls getting their hair caught up in the machines when I was there, little boys having fingers torn off, and they never stopped the production, not once that I can remember, however badly they were hurt. That went on a lot before the war.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Lily assured her. ‘They have proper guards on the machines now and big safety notices everywhere you look. Anyway, this is good news. Fred Lee took me into the main office after work today to see Miss Valentine.’

  ‘Iris Valentine – yes.’ The name took Rhoda back to the days when the two young women had worked the looms together. That was before her marriage to Walter, before the war, before everything. ‘There was nothing of her in those days, she was light as a feather. What’s she like now?’

  ‘Still tiny.’

  ‘Never married?’

  ‘No, Mother, she’s not got married.’

  ‘She always was a sensible sort,’ Rhoda said. ‘Cleverer than me, at any rate. And pray tell, why did “Miss” Valentine need to see you in the office?’

  Lily smiled. ‘Pray tell’ was one of her mother’s old-fashioned idiosyncrasies, said with pursed lips and a sceptical look. ‘Only to offer me work in the mending room!’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘But I do – it’s true. I’ve been offered a better job, more money and everything.’ Smile, please, Lily thought. Just take one look at me and give me a pleasant look, a word of praise – that’s all I ask.

  ‘My, my,’ Rhoda said, staring down at her work-worn hands.

  ‘Starting Monday,’ Lily added.

  ‘Which reminds me, Evie will need that pinafore.’

  Lily sighed and got up from the table. ‘Don’t worry – it’s half done. I just have the pocket and hem to finish.’

  ‘And I wish you hadn’t cut Margie’s hair that way.’

  ‘I know. It’s what she wanted, though. I didn’t have a say.’

  ‘She’s sixteen – you’re twenty, going on twenty-one. You should have had a say. Now look at her – anyone would think she’s one of those girls you see hanging around outside the Victory Picture House – you know the type I mean.’

  ‘Not our Margie,’ Lily assured her. ‘She’s a good girl. But Mother, just think – I’ll be bringing home twenty shillings each week, rising to thirty. How about that?’

  ‘Very good,’ Rhoda said, softening and meeting her daughter’s gaze at last. ‘Well done, Lily. I always knew you had it in you to get on in the world.’

  ‘I told you it would be all about the money,’ Margie said. ‘I bet she still didn’t crack a smile, though.’

  She and Lily were getting ready to go out in the attic bedroom they shared with Evie. Arthur slept in an alcove in the kitchen on a pull-down bed.

  ‘But I could tell she was pleased.’ After dabbing rouge on to her cheeks, Lily ran a wet comb through her wavy hair, hoping in vain that the dampness would smooth it down. ‘That’s the
main thing.’

  Margie finished buttoning up her soft cream blouse, the one that had a row of small bows down the front and clung to her curves. She checked her hair in the mirror one last time. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Like a film star, like Louise Brooks, just the way you wanted.’

  ‘Good – that’s me! Now I’m off to meet the girls.’ Margie left in high spirits, picking up her green coat, painstakingly sewn by Lily on the Singer machine in the kitchen, and clattering down the stairs, out of the front door without stopping to say goodbye.

  Ten minutes later, Lily was dressed in her best crêpe de Chine dress in a shade of lilac that she knew suited her dark complexion. It set off her almost jet-black hair and wide, heavily lashed brown eyes and for once she felt a small glow of satisfaction as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror above Margie’s bed, turning this way and that to check different angles. Then she flung on her slim-fitting grey coat and pushed her hair up under a matching velour hat.

  Her plan was to knock on Annie’s door and from there the two of them would go on to Sybil’s house on Overcliffe Road, taking in a trawl around the market before heading on to the Victory or to the dance at the Assembly Rooms on the edge of town – she didn’t know which. Before she left the house, she made the mistake of popping her head around the living-room door.

  The first person she saw was Arthur perched on the window sill – his lookout or his refuge, depending on the circumstances. The second was her father, much the worse for drink and slumped in his shirtsleeves over the table, his head resting on his arms. Third was her mother angrily stabbing the poker into the dying fire. When Rhoda turned and spotted Lily, she let the poker drop with a clatter on to the hearth then marched across the room and took Arthur by the arm, yanking him down from the sill. ‘Take him to Granddad Preston’s for the night,’ she instructed Lily. ‘He needs a good night’s sleep and he sure as eggs won’t get it here, not when his father wakes up.’

  ‘Mam!’ Arthur wriggled and twisted to escape her grip but Rhoda wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Stay with him,’ she said. ‘Take him to Sunday School at Overcliffe if you like. Don’t bring him back until tomorrow teatime.’