The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  Margie clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘Do you think I don’t know the facts of life?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. But have you been to see Dr Moss?’

  ‘And tell him what? That I’m two weeks late and it’s all I can do to stop myself from being sick every morning?’

  ‘Oh, Margie, I didn’t realize.’ Looking back, Lily could see how her sister’s bad moods and reluctance to get up for work were warning signs that she shouldn’t have overlooked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because it’s to do with me, my business – not yours.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ It hurt Lily to think that Margie hadn’t trusted her enough to ask her for help. ‘We’re close, aren’t we – you and I? We tell each other everything. Surely you know that I won’t judge—’

  ‘Ah, but you do,’ Margie interrupted with a penetrating stare that unsettled Lily. ‘Deep down you do judge me for getting myself into this mess.’

  Lily felt another hot, awkward flush of guilt and her thoughts scattered in the face of Margie’s challenge. Then, when she was able to speak again, she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind. ‘Let me look for a place for you to stay – somewhere by the seaside perhaps.’

  ‘I’m all right here with Granddad. Why do you want to send me away?’ Margie’s face darkened. ‘Oh, I see what it is – you’ll be unhappy for me to stay here and for people to tittle-tattle!’

  Lily hesitated a second time – two pauses that later filled her with shame. Back at home and thinking it through, she wished with all her heart that she’d been braver and more loving, telling Margie no, she would stand by her wherever she chose to be, whatever people said. The impulse was there, but an old Chapel morality held her back – the knowledge that Methodist fingers would point and tongues would wag.

  ‘You are, you’re ashamed of me,’ Margie concluded and her mood shifted into a settled bitterness which she didn’t break out of, even after Lily had talked herself out and prepared to leave. ‘You’re not to say or do anything, you hear?’ Margie warned. ‘You’re not to tell anyone about this – not Sybil or Annie or Evie. And you’re not to bother me about it either.’

  ‘What do you mean, “bother” you?’

  ‘I mean you’re not to come back to Ada Street until I’m good and ready.’

  ‘Margie, you can’t cope with this all by yourself. It’s not right – I’m your sister and I want to help.’

  But Margie was adamant and hissed out her response as she took up position by the window. ‘No. I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided that I want to be left to work it out in my own way.’

  ‘Please, Margie …’

  Margie’s back was turned, her thoughts already elsewhere. ‘I want you to go now,’ she said with steely determination.

  Rebuffed, Lily knew there was no point continuing to hit her head against a brick wall so she said a reluctant goodbye and carried the heavy burden of Margie’s resentment out of the room and down the stairs, past Jesus with his lantern and Granddad Preston peering out of the kitchen without saying a word.

  ‘Look after her,’ Lily said, in tears and practically running from the house.

  The old man waited and listened. Five minutes after Lily had left, he heard Margie sobbing in the room above.

  Despite the cold, wet weather, Lily decided not to take the tram home. Instead, she would walk along Overcliffe Road in order to clear her head and reorder her thoughts before she reached Albion Lane, ignoring the rattle and spark of the trams as they overtook her laden with passengers hidden behind steamed-up windows. She paid no attention either to the occasional motor car and the steady stream of men on bicycles still coming up the hill from factories in the valley below.

  In fact, the hustle and bustle suited her since it allowed her to walk unnoticed along the high footpath overlooking the dark moor to one side and the glimmering town to the other. So much raw darkness, she thought, and so much wild, empty space beyond the maze of streets and factory chimneys, with the black canal snaking between tall woollen mills, all silent now that the workers had departed. Breathing in, Lily could smell smoke and soot and hear the faint rumble of town life, but she could glance to her left and see nothing but emptiness.

  And so she grew calm and walked steadily as the mist turned to heavy rain, until a familiar figure on a bicycle drew in towards the kerb and stopped under a lamp post a few yards ahead of her.

  ‘Hello, Lily. You look like a drowned rat,’ Harry observed, standing astride the bike in a pool of yellow light. He wore a dark grey raincoat over his chauffeur’s uniform, with the cap pulled well down over his face.

  ‘That’s not very nice.’ Pleased to see him, Lily defended herself against the cheeky remark. It was typical Harry and probably true, since her coat didn’t keep out the rain and she realized for the first time that she was soaked to the skin. ‘Anyway, what brings you this way? Are you on your way home from work?’

  He nodded. ‘Mr Calvert let me off early. Monday is his night to go to a council meeting at the Town Hall, but they called it off at the last minute. It meant he didn’t need me to drive the car.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Lily said, unable to suppress a shiver and surprised when Harry unbuttoned his coat, took it off and put it around her shoulders. His unlooked-for courteousness was new and quite a contrast to his old, teasing way with her.

  ‘Here you are, I’m your knight in shining armour,’ he joked.

  ‘Is that right? Where are the dragons?’

  ‘Breathing fire down in the valley. Can’t you see ’em?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’re tucked up in bed for the night then. Anyway, this’ll keep you dry, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘You’ll get your uniform wet,’ she pointed out. ‘But thanks a lot, Harry. I appreciate it. I’ll dry the coat off and bring it round to your house later.’

  ‘No, I’ll walk with you,’ he told her, continuing in the same gallant way. ‘I’d like to make sure you get home safe and sound.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ she argued.

  ‘But I want to,’ he countered, swinging his leg over the crossbar and beginning to walk alongside Lily on the side that shielded her from the worst of the wind and rain. A few minutes ago, when she’d passed under a street lamp and he’d seen her from a distance – a lonely figure wrapped in her own thoughts – he’d set his mind on catching her up then stopping to talk. ‘What brings you up this way? Let me guess – you called in to see Margie after work?’

  Lily nodded briefly, glad that the noise from a passing tram prevented her from having to give a fuller answer.

  ‘There’s no need to go into details if you don’t feel like it,’ Harry went on after the tram had gone by. ‘But just to let you know – Evie spilled the beans to Peggy that Margie had run off.’

  ‘She did?’ It was impossible to keep anything to yourself if you lived in this rabbit warren of terraced streets, Lily realized. She should have been cross and ready to scold Harry for gossiping, but somehow she didn’t mind the frankness with which he opened up the thorny topic of Margie.

  ‘Yes, but try not to worry – families are always squabbling. Mine is, at any rate.’

  ‘Not Peggy surely? She wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’ Glancing sideways, Lily saw that raindrops had darkened Harry’s uniform across the shoulders and down the front. He looked straight ahead and seemed not to notice, chatting easily as usual while she resisted an urge to draw near and slip a hand through the crook of his elbow.

  ‘No, not Peggy. Mind you, in our house it’s only ever money we argue about, or rather the fact that there’s nothing left in anybody’s purse by the end of the week.’

  ‘It’s the same for everyone these days, isn’t it? We haven’t got two pennies to rub together on Albion Lane, not after the bills are paid.’

  ‘But we all do a bit extra and we scrape by, eh?’

  ‘We do,’ she agreed. Though they’d lived cheek b
y jowl since they were small children, Harry kicking a ball up against outhouse walls, Lily chalking hopscotch squares on the stone-flagged pavements, she realized this was probably the longest talk she’d ever had with him and that she was relieved to have her mind taken off the recent heart-breaking exchange with her sister.

  ‘I’ll tell you another thing – I used to be sure that pounds, shillings and pence were the root of all problems but now I look at the likes of the Calverts and I see that it’s not true. It turns out that mill owners and their families squabble amongst themselves just as much as the man in the street, and over daft little things too.’

  Trying to match his long stride, Lily nodded. ‘I suppose the more money you have, the more you have to lose,’ she pointed out.

  ‘That’s true. Anyway, by all accounts the Calverts don’t have as much as they used to have, not by a long chalk.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re not on the breadline. They still have you driving them around for a start. And they have Billy to do their garden and someone to cook for them and clean up after them, I’d bet my week’s wages.’

  ‘You’re right about that.’ Looking over his shoulder and waiting for a motorbike and sidecar to pass, Harry got ready to wheel his bike across the road.

  Lily hadn’t realized that they’d walked so far so quickly. They’d already reached Pennington’s at the top of Albion Lane and she would soon have to say goodbye to Harry so she skipped ahead of him over puddles then stopped on the far pavement, ready to hand over his raincoat.

  ‘No, keep it on for a bit,’ he insisted, reaching out to readjust it on her shoulders. It brought them close together, looking into each other’s eyes. ‘Lily, you would tell me if something was worrying you?’ he said without lowering his gaze. ‘I could be a shoulder to cry on if need be.’

  ‘I know, Harry.’ She felt the weight of his hand on her back and sensed an unusual intensity behind his words.

  ‘Because we’re good pals,’ he reminded her, brushing raindrops from the coat then tilting her chin up with his wet fingertips. ‘And I don’t like to see you sad.’

  In that moment of gentle concern, all the pain of Lily’s conversation with Margie came surging up in the shape of tears, which she tried in vain to brush away.

  ‘I mean it, Lily. What’s up? Talk to me.’

  ‘Nothing. I can’t tell you, Harry. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s me who should be saying sorry – I’ve upset you and that’s the last thing I wanted to do.’ Wheeling his bike with one hand and keeping an arm around Lily’s shoulder, he walked her on down the hill in silence until they came to her house. ‘You’ll be all right now?’ he checked.

  ‘I’ll be fine, thanks.’ Lily kept her face turned towards him as she swung his coat from her shoulders but she wasn’t expecting the kiss when it came.

  Harry pushed back his cap and tilted his head to one side, leaning in and brushing her lips with his before taking the coat and slinging it over one shoulder. Then, as if nothing had happened, he walked on up the alley on to Raglan Road.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Surrounded by the day’s washing and with her head in a spin, Lily held the hot iron poised above Arthur’s school shirt and told herself that she must have imagined it, perhaps even dreamed it – the moment when Harry’s lips had touched hers. After all, it had lasted just a second and maybe if it had really happened, it had been a mistake – the accidental result of Harry leaning in to rescue his coat from her shoulders. Yes, that would be it, she told herself, preparing to press the iron down on to the shirt. As far as Harry was concerned, she, Lily, was just the girl next door – they’d lived in the same set of back-to-backs since they were small so how could it possibly be otherwise?

  And yet, his grey eyes had looked at her in a certain way that she’d never seen before and he’d been gentle and kind and told her that he didn’t like to see her sad.

  This memory offered Lily another solution to the conundrum of the kiss – Harry Bainbridge had felt sorry for her, sorry in a way that he would feel if he found an injured kitten or a rabbit in a trap. That was all it was – a moment of sympathy that had quickly passed. Lily nodded and thumped the iron down on to the starched cotton fabric. It was time to forget that doorstep moment with Harry and concentrate on the important thing: Margie.

  Meanwhile, Evie left off playing on the hearthrug with Arthur and his miniature army of tin soldiers to drag the zinc washing tub down into the cellar then take washed and ironed items of laundry upstairs to the attic bedroom.

  ‘High time to put away those toys, pull down the bed and get into your night things,’ Lily told Arthur when she caught him yawning. She took clean pyjamas from the pile and handed them to him.

  ‘I’m not tired,’ he complained, contrary to all the evidence. ‘I want to wait until Mam gets back.’

  ‘Mam won’t be home till late,’ Lily told him, having learned from Evie that Rhoda had been called to Grace Smith down on Westgate Street. Another baby was on the way, this time to a newlywed, who had caused a scandal by being a good six months gone when she married. Of course at that moment Lily’s mind had flown to Margie and her new situation and she’d had to resist a strong temptation to share the problem with Evie, which she’d managed to do. Now, almost at the end of her pile of ironing, Lily licked her fingertips and lightly tapped the smooth underside of the heavy iron to check its heat then insisted to Arthur that it was time for bed.

  ‘O-o-h, why can’t I wait?’ he whined.

  ‘Arthur!’ Lily was tired out and her voice was severe. ‘Bedtime.’

  Luckily Evie came down and rescued the situation by offering to read him a story while Lily left the iron to cool in the hearth and carried the rest of the sweet-smelling laundry upstairs. By the time she’d finished folding and putting things away, Arthur’s bed was in place and he was lying with his single thin blanket pulled half over his face, fast asleep.

  ‘You look done in,’ Evie told Lily. ‘Are you ready to come upstairs?’

  ‘I am,’ Lily conceded and together the sisters climbed the stairs for the last time that day and got ready for bed in the room with the faded, rose-patterned wallpaper and sloping ceilings. Evie was the first into bed – a narrow one pushed deep under the eaves – and while Lily was brushing her hair she asked the question that had been on her lips ever since Lily had come home. ‘I didn’t like to mention it while Arthur was around, but how was Margie?’

  Lily put down the brush and turned down the gas light, taking her time to frame a neutral answer as she put on her nightdress then climbed into the double bed she usually shared with Margie. ‘She was her normal self.’

  ‘Has she been out looking for work?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Lily replied, which was true so far as it went.

  ‘Perhaps tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t seem certain,’ Evie remarked. ‘But you know, Lily, Margie has to pull her socks up and try for a job, even if it means going back to square one in the scouring shed or working as a scavenger.’

  ‘I can’t see Margie scouring raw wool and preparing the slivers, can you?’

  ‘No, but beggars can’t be choosers.’

  Lily realized that Evie’s prim assessment would have been comical in the mouth of an inexperienced fourteen-year-old if circumstances had been different. ‘No, they can’t,’ she agreed, wearily turning over to face the wall. ‘Now go to sleep, Evie, there’s a good girl.’

  All through that week, Lily carried the heavy burden of Margie’s secret and got on with her daily routine, glad in a way that she scarcely had time to think about either Margie on the one hand or Harry on the other, what with getting Arthur ready for school each morning in order to allow her mother an extra hour in bed then making herself neat and tidy for the walk with Evie down to the mill. They always clocked on at half past seven on the dot and were ready to work as the overseers arrived.

  ‘How’s little Miss Briggs?’ Fred Lee would call out
as he patrolled the central aisle and the great machines began to clank and whir. ‘Pretty as a picture as usual, eh, Sybil? Annie, don’t you agree that Evie Briggs looks good enough to eat?’

  Evie would blush and do her best to ignore him, while the older girls took him on.

  ‘Now, now, Fred, don’t be getting any ideas about Evie,’ Annie warned as she settled down to her loom. ‘Or else you’ll have my young man to deal with.’

  ‘And who would your young man be?’ Fred scoffed, slicking back his hair as he glanced at his reflection in the nearest window.

  ‘It’s only Robert Drummond,’ Sybil sang out above the cranking engines. ‘You know him, Fred. He’s the one who mends your BSA motorbike up at Baines’s. He’s a local boxing champion, by the way.’

  ‘Righty-ho, then I’m on my best behaviour from now on,’ Fred vowed. He kidded along with Sybil and Annie until the machines drowned out their voices and Evie began to go up and down the weaving shed taking individual orders for dinner, getting each worker to write their request on a scrap of blue sugar paper.

  Upstairs in the mending room, Lily’s skill with the burling iron improved each day so that now she would lightly and expertly run her fingertips over the cloth and pick up the smallest fault, which she would mark then work on with her small metal hook, loosening the knot and straightening out and snipping the threads ready for mending.

  ‘Very good, Lily.’ Iris Valentine believed in giving praise where it was due but not before, so she waited until Friday, the end of Lily’s second week, to stop by her table and study her way of working. ‘I have high hopes that we’ll make a mender of you yet.’

  Lily smiled and blushed. ‘Thank you, Miss Valentine.’

  ‘You hear that, Vera?’ As soon as the little manageress had bustled on into her office, Jennie Shaw made a point of walking past Lily’s fellow learner with a piece of finished work ready for flipping. ‘Lily’s hot on your heels. If you don’t look out she’ll soon be overtaking you.’