The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘How did Mother take the news?’ Evie wanted to know when they convinced themselves that Walter had gone back to sleep.

  ‘Badly,’ Lily whispered back, scarcely louder than the faint hiss of the gas light. Then she drew a sudden, sharp breath at the memory of Rhoda’s silence and frozen expression. ‘She didn’t stand up for Margie because she feels so let down. She let her pack her bag and leave.’

  ‘What do you mean, “leave”?’

  ‘Leave home.’ The two short words fell like pebbles into a deep pool, causing ripples that seemed to be reflected in Evie’s sensitive features.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ she murmured. ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘We don’t know. But she’ll send word as soon as she’s found somewhere to stay, with Granddad more likely than not, don’t you worry.’

  ‘And will Mother come round? Will she let Margie back into the house?’

  ‘Not for a good while.’ Again Lily chose not to sugar-coat the pill. ‘Things have been bad between Mother and Margie lately – I don’t need to tell you that.’

  ‘But it shouldn’t come to this,’ Evie protested. The sensation of family ties being stretched to breaking point affected her very badly and made her feel wearier than ever.

  Lily sighed then went on. ‘My feeling is that Mother is worn out. She hasn’t the strength to deal with Margie playing up and causing problems and that’s why I promised to help keep Margie on the straight and narrow in the first place.’ For the first time since her sister’s dramatic exit, Lily was stricken with guilt. Her shoulders slumped and she was glad when Evie came to sit beside her. ‘I should’ve told Margie straight out – it’s time to stop complaining and knuckle under because Mother’s tired out with your silly goings-on. Only I didn’t, and Margie ran headlong into a fight over nothing with Dorothy Brumfitt and quite rightly Sam Earby handed both of them their cards.’

  ‘It’s still not your fault,’ Evie insisted, gently pushing Lily’s hair back from her face. ‘Margie’s the selfish one, not you.’

  ‘Yes, but I should’ve made her see how much Mother relies on her money and how hard it is to hang on to a job these days. I didn’t do that, Evie, and now I’m sorry.’

  ‘So is Margie, I’m sure.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right.’ Lily looked up and managed to smile.

  She hoped that Margie would look back on events and tell their mother how sorry she was. She hoped that she would find work quickly. She hoped that Evie would grow stronger and get used to her work in the weaving shed. She hoped that she would succeed under Miss Valentine’s supervision. She wished for many things, but as she went to the window and looked out through a chink in the curtains at clouds drifting across the face of a full moon, she didn’t wholly believe that any of those wishes would come true.

  ‘What’s your Margie doing at Granddad Preston’s house?’ Annie came knocking on the door of 5 Albion Lane late on Sunday afternoon, exactly twenty-four hours after Margie’s sudden departure. Her coat was buttoned up and she wore a blue woollen scarf tied around her head, turban-style. ‘Is it to do with the fight between her and Dorothy?’

  ‘Keep your voice down.’ Lily stepped out on to the top step and quickly closed the door behind her, afraid that her mother would react badly to the tittle-tattle. ‘We don’t want the whole world to know.’

  ‘Too late – the cat’s out of the bag,’ Annie insisted. ‘Sybil and me, we were out last night without you and it was the talk of the town, how Margie and Dorothy had a set-to at work. I don’t know who started it, but from what I heard, there was yarn everywhere. Dorothy was chucking cones at Margie, who gave as good as she got. It was Bedlam, by all accounts.’

  Lily winced. ‘Mother will hate that people are gossiping. But you’re sure that Margie is with Granddad at Ada Street?’

  Annie nodded. ‘Flora Johnson went to chapel up there early this morning. She saw Margie standing at the window of number ten, staring out. Flora waved but Margie didn’t wave back.’

  ‘Well, it’s a relief to know where she is.’ For Lily, having the short conversation with Annie made recent events seem more real – Margie had run away but she was safe and well. After a sleepless night and a miserable day, Lily could begin to relax.

  Taking a closer look at her friend’s strained expression, Annie linked arms with her and walked her a short way down the street, avoiding puddles and a stray paper bag that flapped against the kerb. ‘Anyway, try not to worry too much. Margie will have to let a bit of time go by and then eat humble pie. She’ll be back home before you know it.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  ‘Of course I am. It seems bad at present but it’ll soon blow over – you know what they say: today’s newspaper is the wrapping for tomorrow’s fish and chips.’

  ‘Do they?’ Lily gave a faint smile and thanked Annie.

  ‘What for? I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Yes you have – you’ve brought us news that Margie is safe and you’ve done your best to cheer me up.’

  ‘But I haven’t though, have I?’ Annie’s normally cheerful face looked concerned as she turned Lily back towards number 5. ‘Listen, Lily, you’re catching your death of cold and I have to run. But remember, if there’s anything I can do, you only have to ask.’

  ‘Just carry on keeping an eye on Evie for me.’

  ‘It’s a promise.’ Annie nodded. ‘Go inside, Lil, before you catch your death.’

  ‘Righty-ho.’

  ‘And wait a day or two for things to settle down.’

  ‘I will.’ With her hand on the door knob, Lily ran through the possible courses of action that were open to her then came to a firm decision. ‘When the time’s right I’ll take the tram up to Overcliffe to see Margie. Maybe on Wednesday, after I’ve finished my shift.’

  ‘What did Annie want?’ Rhoda asked when Lily went back into the house. She stood peeling potatoes at the sink, her face strained, wisps of grey hair falling forward on to her forehead.

  Evie stood at the table with Arthur, showing him how to crack eggs into a bowl of flour then add milk and a pinch of salt. Then she handed him a whisk to mix batter for Yorkshire puddings.

  ‘I was right – Margie’s gone to stay with Granddad,’ Lily told them.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ Evie sighed, raising a floury hand to cover her mouth.

  Lily waited in vain for a reaction from Rhoda. ‘Did you hear me, Mother? Margie’s at Granddad’s house.’

  ‘Yes, I heard.’ Peeling and chopping then transferring the potatoes into a pan of water, Rhoda refused to stop what she was doing.

  ‘Has she come back from the seaside?’ a doubtful Arthur asked Evie, who smiled down at him and nodded.

  ‘It gives us all a bit of breathing space,’ Lily said.

  ‘Lift this pan on to the hob for me,’ Rhoda told her, standing back to let Lily perform the task. Her face looked tired, her eyes cold and blank.

  ‘Mother, I’m sure Margie is sorry as can be for losing her job,’ said Lily, ever the peacemaker.

  ‘Sorry doesn’t bring in a wage packet,’ Rhoda said stubbornly.

  ‘But she’s learned her lesson.’

  Rhoda ran the tap and swilled off her hands. ‘Aye, the hard way.’

  ‘And can’t you forgive and forget?’ The moment the question was out of her mouth, Lily realized it had been the wrong thing to say.

  ‘Forgive?’ Rhoda said in a tone of disgust. It was as if a dam had broken and a torrent had been released. ‘Do I forgive Margie for making me a laughing stock? Do I forgive her for throwing a perfectly good job down the drain? What do you think?’

  Lily shook her head.

  ‘No – you’re right, I don’t. Do I agree with her running to her granddad’s house and telling tales against your father?’

  ‘Mother, I’m sure she hasn’t—’

  ‘And I’m sure she has.’ With a trembling lip, Rhoda tore off her apron and flung it down on the table. ‘And I�
�m certain of one other thing – we haven’t got to the bottom of this. No, don’t interrupt me, Lily. Margie hasn’t told us the full story. She’s hiding something even worse.’

  ‘What?’ Lily cried, afraid of the venom in her mother’s voice and alarmed by the hectic red spots that had appeared on her cheeks.

  Rhoda had to lean on the table and draw breath. ‘Just stop and think about it,’ she said in a voice somewhere between a sigh and a groan.

  What did her mother mean? For a while Lily couldn’t see what could be worse than losing a job and throwing your family further down into poverty. Then it came to her – the memory of Rhoda insisting there was a boy involved in the argument between Margie and Dorothy. Lily’s mind spun off in a direction she didn’t want to go and she shook her head violently.

  ‘Now do you see what I’m getting at?’ Rhoda asked, the mask of indifference suddenly descending over her worn face again as she turned back to the sink.

  It was true – Lily recalled how Margie had clasped the suitcase like a shield, defending herself, keeping her secret. The memory of it sent a shudder down her spine. ‘But, Mother, you don’t know. You can’t be certain.’ She whispered the protests without believing them.

  ‘I know the signs,’ her mother said, cold and hard. ‘I’ve seen it often enough, believe you me.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  In the event, an overwrought Lily didn’t wait until Wednesday to take the tram up to Overcliffe. Instead, she hurried there straight after work on Monday, her mind fixed on everyday affairs such as searching in her purse for the right money to pay the fare and dreading the moment when she must alight from the tram then walk down Ada Street to Granddad Preston’s green door. She arrived still in a state of high anxiety and was about to raise her hand and knock when the door was flung open.

  ‘Come in, I was expecting you,’ Bert said, his voice thick with phlegm. ‘I knew it would be you, not your mother. Margie’s upstairs in the spare bedroom.’

  ‘Has she said anything to you?’ Lily asked in a low, anxious voice, as they hovered in the narrow hallway. She stood beneath a picture called The Light of the World, which had been hanging there for as long as she could remember – a black-and-white engraving of Jesus in his long robe, his crowned head surrounded by a halo and his raised hand holding up a lantern to show the way to benighted souls.

  ‘No, but then again I haven’t asked,’ Bert replied with a steady look that told Lily that he preferred not to know awkward truths about the goings-on of the modern world. Once a tall, strong man, the years of hauling coal from the mine out at Welby had stooped his shoulders and curved his spine so that now he wasn’t much taller than Lily, and it was as if the coal dust had worked its way under his skin into the deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.

  So Lily climbed the bare stairs, her light footsteps warning Margie that she was on her way, her heart beating fast as she thought of the conversation she must have. She opened the door into the cold back room with its iron bedstead, its bedside table with the clover-patterned ewer and basin, the faded quilt – everything the same as always except for the one vital difference that Lily had come to talk about.

  ‘Go away, Lily.’ Margie’s hostile greeting came from the window overlooking a small back yard with shared brick privy and ash pit. A clear sky allowed a full moon to shine its silver light into the room.

  ‘There’s a fine thing,’ Lily teased, taking off her hat and putting it on the bed. She’d decided to aim for a cheerful tone but even to her it rang false. ‘I’ve come all this way straight after work and that’s all the greeting I get.’

  ‘I never asked you to come,’ Margie said flatly without turning away from the window.

  ‘It’s dark in here. Shall I sort that out?’ An old-fashioned oil lamp was the only lighting in the room, as if time had stopped for Bert Preston thirty years earlier, before the advent of gas and electricity.

  ‘Please yourself.’ There was a long pause before Margie spoke again. ‘How did you guess I was here?’

  ‘Annie told me. Her friend Flora Johnson spotted you.’

  ‘And did Mother send you?’ Margie’s outline against the moonlight made her look small and young, almost childlike, and her question had a yearning quality that she soon repressed. ‘No, don’t answer that. I already know this was your idea.’

  Lily went to the window and stood beside her sister, looking down on the flat stone roof of the outhouse. ‘Will you try to find another job?’ she asked quietly. ‘If you do and Mother sees that you’re making the effort, she may come round.’

  Margie shook her head. ‘I’ve spent my life trying to please Mother, but the truth is I never will, not with you to measure up against.’

  Lily was startled by her sister’s rueful remark. ‘That’s not true, Margie. I’m not the apple of Mother’s eye, not by any means.’

  ‘Yes you are. You’re a good girl, Lily – you’re kind and clever and steady, all the things I’m not.’

  ‘If I am, then it’s not as easy as it looks,’ Lily argued. ‘It takes a lot of effort to be thought of as steady by the likes of Mother, believe me.’

  For the first time Margie turned her head to look at Lily.

  ‘You’re surprised?’ Lily quizzed. ‘Don’t you know that there’s a part of me that would love to hitch up my skirt and ride tandem on Harry’s bike like you, or to have my hair cut short if I had the courage? And wouldn’t I just love to go dancing whenever I felt like it and not have to slave away five and a half days a week at Calvert’s, week in, week out? Wouldn’t we all, deep down?’

  Another long silence developed as Lily and Margie followed two different trains of thought. Margie was the first to break it and when she did her tone was whimsical. ‘What would be your dream, Lily? If I could wave a magic wand, what would you wish for?’

  Lily gave a little sigh. ‘There’s no point even thinking about it.’

  ‘But if I could, what would it be?’

  ‘Promise me you won’t laugh?’ Lily squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. ‘All right then, if you could wave your magic wand I would leave Calvert’s and set up in my own dressmaking shop. I would have my sewing machine on a table by the shop window and a little bell on the door that tinkles whenever a customer comes in. There would be shelves with bolts of cloth of all colours – cotton, wool and silk – and I would make a beautiful dress for one and sixpence plus the cost of the material.’

  Margie’s slender frame shook with suppressed laughter.

  ‘What? You promised!’ Lily protested when Margie’s giggles broke through. ‘Oh, I suppose a shop on Market Row wouldn’t do for you, Margie Briggs. You’d be a princess wearing a ball gown and a tiara, or a Hollywood film star.’

  ‘Definitely not a dressmaker,’ Margie laughed, and for a few seconds, silhouetted against the moonlight, the sisters were back to their old, warm familiarity. ‘I do have a dream, though, and it’s to get away from mill work, just the same as you.’

  ‘And then what would you do?’ Lily asked gently.

  ‘Why, I’d do all the things I love to do. I’d go to the seaside but not just with a bucket and spade. No, instead I’d get on board a white ship, an ocean liner, and I’d sail away across a blue sea. Or I’d go dancing in a grand ballroom like the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool and the most handsome man in the world would sweep me off my feet and carry me around in a Bentley like the one Harry drives, and he’d take me to meet his family in a house with a big garden and two more cars in the driveway.’ With the smile fading from her lips, Margie paused to let Lily imagine the scene. ‘There.’ She sighed, blowing softly on the window pane, which grew foggy from the heat of her breath. ‘Now you know.’

  ‘And it could happen,’ Lily said, valiantly standing up for her sister’s fading, unreachable vision.

  ‘And pigs …’

  ‘… Might fly!’

  They stood side by side as their brief laughter turned to wistfulness again and then Lily hugge
d Margie and held her until Margie eventually drew away.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Margie murmured.

  ‘What is it?’ Though Lily dreaded the reply, she felt she owed it to her sister to meet the problem without flinching. ‘You know you can trust me not to let on.’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Yes. I only want to help.’

  ‘Very well.’ Taking a deep breath and summoning her courage to share the secret that would put paid to her pipe dreams once and for all, Margie took the plunge. ‘I’m in the family way,’ she sobbed. ‘Help me, Lily – I’m six weeks gone. I don’t know which way to turn!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Margie’s confession in the cold back bedroom at Ada Street confirmed Lily’s worst fears; the ones that lay deep below the surface and couldn’t be shared, that Lily felt had to be kept secret even from Annie and Sybil. But ever since Rhoda had made her dark prophecy, she had been building to this awful moment. For a while the shock of what she’d been told silenced her and she asked herself how Margie could have been so silly and reckless. After all, despite the trials and tribulations of their childhoods, she had been brought up to know better.

  ‘But who’s the father?’ Lily asked sternly after the news had sunk in. ‘Try to stop crying, Margie, and tell me.’

  Her sister wept regardless. Her shoulders shook and she bowed her head but said nothing.

  ‘Please say who it is,’ Lily begged, though she still felt weak at the knees with shock. ‘It’s bound to come out sooner or later.’

  ‘Not if I don’t want it to.’ Margie took a deep breath and stopped sobbing, roughly wiping away the tears as she raised her head. ‘I don’t. And that’s that.’

  Lily recognized Margie’s habit of quickly crying away her distress then putting a tight lid on her emotions – a trait she got from Rhoda, Lily realized when she thought about it later. ‘And you’re not to tell Mother,’ she insisted. ‘Promise me you won’t.’

  ‘All right, I promise,’ Lily said, almost choking over the words.

  Sworn to secrecy, she tried other avenues with Margie. ‘And you’re quite sure?’ she insisted.