The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  Annie spotted the smile playing on Lily’s lips. ‘See the look on her face!’ she crowed. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? Lily may not go in crash, bang, wallop the way I do, but it comes to the same thing in the end – her resolution is to have a ring on her finger before the year’s out.’

  ‘No,’ Lily objected as the dressmaking session came to an end and she placed the wooden hood over the sewing machine. She had to be sensible about her ambitions and look at the realities. ‘Do you really want to know what I’m thinking when I look ahead?’

  ‘Yes,’ the others assured her. ‘Come on, Lily, out with it.’

  Lily took a deep breath before she spoke and pulled herself back down to earth. ‘Well then,’ she said, pained by the need to plant both feet firmly back on the ground, ‘my New Year’s resolution, which I honestly and truly hope I can keep, is to carry on looking after Arthur, watch out for Evie at work and most of all, help Margie through this pregnancy as best I can.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Not that there wasn’t fun to be had in amongst the tasks that Lily had set for herself. That same night, for instance, she and Harry had arranged to go to the Assembly Rooms together, where they met up with Billy, Ernie, Robert, Annie, Sybil and the rest of the gang.

  ‘Nice to see everyone’s here,’ was Annie’s comment as they entered the hall together. The place was still festooned with Christmas decorations – paper chains and lanterns, balloons and shrivelled bunches of mistletoe – and the centre of the room was packed to the gunnels with brightly dressed girls while the men lined the edges, pint mugs and cigarettes in hand, watching and picking out prospective partners for the evening.

  ‘Including Tommy,’ Sybil warned Lily under her breath. ‘There he is propping up the bar with Frank as usual.’

  Lily put a finger to her lips – a warning for Sybil not to draw Harry’s attention to the fact. Better by far if Harry didn’t realize that Tommy and Frank were here.

  ‘Righty-ho,’ Sybil murmured, taking Ernie in a waltz hold to dance on the spot.

  ‘The long and the short!’ Harry smiled at the ill-matched pair while on the stage at the far end of the hall, the band – complete with pianist, string section and saxophonist – seemed eager to introduce a jazz flavour into a brand-new Cole Porter tune.

  The words were to do with the beat of a tom-tom and jungle shadows falling, the crooner’s light voice soaring above the noise of the crowd.

  ‘Listen – I haven’t heard this before!’ Annie seized Robert’s hand and drew him on to the dance floor.

  ‘Poor Robert!’ Sybil and Lily mouthed at one another, to the mystification of Harry, Ernie and Billy.

  The singer went on, convincing his true love in the song that she was the only one who mattered, night or day.

  ‘Dance?’ Harry asked Lily, confidently holding out a hand then steering her between couples to a quiet spot close to the stage.

  ‘Slow waltz,’ she whispered in his ear as he took her in hold. She counted him in then gave him the signal to start.

  He smiled down at her and she noticed that he was no longer self-conscious now that the cuts on his face had healed over, the swelling had gone down and the bruises were beginning to fade. They danced and the music soared to the climax of the chorus.

  Moved beyond words by the lyrics of the song and by Lily’s sweet, trusting gaze, Harry’s smile faltered. He felt he wanted to sweep her up in his arms and away from the Assembly Rooms, away from these cold and sooty streets, these forbidding mill walls, to a sunny, warm place with blue skies and green fields, trees in fresh new leaf and a wind rustling through silvery grass.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered, thinking perhaps that he was finding it hard to follow the music or that his body was still stiff and aching from the fight. If only she had a magic wand she would put everything right and smooth away the frown from his brow.

  ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he murmured. ‘Everything’s tickety-boo.’

  The words of the song wound themselves around Lily’s heart and stayed there long after the band had finished and broken up for the interval.

  ‘I’m off up to the bar,’ Robert announced as Harry led Lily off the dance floor. ‘What’ll it be, Harry?’

  Ordering a pint of bitter, Harry reluctantly let go of Lily’s hand and watched her nod and smile at Annie before both girls squeezed their way towards the cloakroom.

  ‘Watch out!’ Annie complained when Hilda Crabtree, just ahead of them, tripped and fell against a bystander’s elbow. The warning came too late – beer slopped out of his glass, just missing Annie. It caught Lily instead and when Annie looked round she saw Lily’s dismayed face so she quickly rounded on the offending beer drinker – none other than the fly-by-night commercial traveller who had once romanced Sybil around the dance floor. ‘Couldn’t you watch what you were doing?’

  ‘Keep your hair on – I didn’t do it on purpose. Anyway, your friend there should watch where she’s going,’ the salesman muttered ungraciously. Being older and wearing a pale grey suit instead of the regulation blue pinstripe, he already stood out from the crowd and now that he spoke it was easy to tell from his accent that he wasn’t local. Casting a belatedly approving eye over Lily, he decided to soften his tone. ‘I’m Kenneth, by the way, Kenneth Hetton,’ he said with an ingratiating smile. ‘I’m sorry you got splashed.’

  ‘Never mind, no harm done,’ Lily said, rapidly brushing her fingers over the wet stain on the bodice of her best lilac dress.

  ‘Need a hand with that?’ Hetton offered with a sly wink. It prompted Annie to step smartly on his toe with the heel of her shoe then apologize profusely and insincerely, after which she hurried behind Lily en route for the cloakroom.

  ‘Have you got a hankie?’ Lily asked Annie as she surveyed the damage to her dress in the mirror above the row of sinks. ‘I need to dab some water on this to stop it from staining.’

  ‘Here’s one,’ Hilda Crabtree offered, delving into her bag as she emerged from a cubicle. She handed Lily a lace-edged handkerchief.

  ‘Ta.’ Lily ran the hankie under the tap and started to dab at the dark stain on her chest.

  ‘This was that clumsy Kenneth Hetton not minding what he was doing,’ Annie huffed.

  ‘Is that right? From what I hear, a lot of the girls go hot under the collar for Kenneth,’ Hilda smirked. ‘Not that I’d touch him with a barge pole, if you must know.’

  ‘Yes and I’m sure Sybil would have a few choice things to say about the way he danced with her and whispered sweet nothings then moved on without a by-your-leave,’ Lily agreed. Satisfied that she’d done all she could to rectify the damage, she felt ready to get back to Harry and their next dance.

  Sensing a scandal, Annie jumped back into the conversation with both feet. ‘What do you know about Hetton that we don’t, Hilda?’ she demanded, barring the door to prevent Hilda from leaving.

  Hilda gave a tut of disapproval then dished out the gossip anyway. ‘He’s only a married man, that’s all.’

  ‘No!’ Annie and Lily gasped, wide eyed.

  ‘Yes. He’s got a wife and two kids living in Liverpool. They say he moves around a lot for his job selling typewriter ribbons and carbon paper and such like. As a matter of fact, it gets worse. Rumour has it he’s like a sailor with a wife in every port.’

  ‘Never!’ Lily’s mouth fell open.

  Pleased that she had created the desired effect, Hilda wanted to be on her way, but she paused at the door with a final, barbed warning. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t want my worst enemy getting involved with Kenneth Hetton, which is why I’m letting you two in on his nasty little secret …’

  ‘Now hold your horses,’ Annie began as Lily put a restraining hand on her arm.

  ‘Out of the goodness of my heart, I’m telling you to steer well clear.’ Hilda winked, pushing open the door at last and letting it swing back in the faces of a dumbfounded Lily and Annie.

  While Lily and the gang danced the nigh
t away, Margie sat alone in her bedroom on Ada Street. She was in a state of indecision, knowing full well that the New Year would soon be seen in everywhere in the land by the linking of hands and the singing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, yet she was still umming and ahing over whether or not to pay her mother a visit on Albion Lane. The idea had come to her out of the blue early that morning and had taken a hold over her as the day rolled on.

  ‘Are you not going out?’ her granddad had asked as he wrapped his scarf around his neck and put on his cap in readiness for the short walk to the New Inn for his evening pint.

  ‘No, Granddad, I can’t face it,’ an apathetic Margie had replied.

  ‘Can’t face what, love?’

  ‘People staring and whispering behind my back – you know.’

  ‘You have to learn to live with what other folks say,’ had been his advice. The old man secretly wished that Margie would show a bit more backbone, not hide away on Ada Street day in, day out. But he couldn’t make her stand up to her detractors, any more than he could force her to name the baby’s father. ‘Anyway, who cares when all’s said and done?’

  ‘Me. I do, Granddad.’ She found she cared more than she’d expected about the bad opinions of Dorothy, Hilda and the other Kingsley’s girls and, truth be told, her old self-confidence had oozed away over the last few weeks to the point where she hardly recognized herself.

  For instance, these days she didn’t take much care over her appearance, scarcely washing her hair that she was once so vain about, allowing it to grow dull and lank. Neither did she bother with changing her clothes, sticking to a dowdy navy-blue dress and always avoiding looking in the small shaving mirror above the sink in the kitchen at Ada Street.

  ‘Please yourself,’ the old man had said gruffly as he made his exit. He’d tried for days to chivvy his granddaughter out of her low mood without success. What more could he do?

  So should she go and see Rhoda or not? Margie gazed at the clock as it ticked on from seven to eight. Who would be in if she did? Arthur, of course, but probably not Lily or Evie, unless one of them had stayed in to look after their brother and so take the burden off their mother. Definitely not her father, who was bound to be at the Cross or at the working men’s club where there was always a bit of music and a raffle on New Year’s Eve.

  That decided it – if Margie could be sure that she could sneak into the house while her father was out, she thought she would risk a visit. So she put on her hat and coat then walked the short distance to the tram stop where she was soon chilled to the bone.

  ‘Is that Margie Briggs?’ a woman’s voice asked uncertainly from inside the shelter. ‘It is. Well, I never did!’

  As Margie’s eyes grew accustomed to the shadowy interior of the shelter, she made out the warmly wrapped figure of Billy’s married sister, Ethel Thornton, and said hello.

  ‘I hardly recognized you,’ Ethel remarked as Margie joined her, chatting on easily as if unaware of any rumours about Margie that might be circulating in the neighbourhood. ‘Long time, no see, eh? Billy told me you’d lost your job at Kingsley’s, worse luck. I told him I blamed Sam Earby. He’s got no heart, that man. Doesn’t he know most of us can’t afford to be out of work, especially not coming up to Christmas?’

  Margie nodded and shook her head without saying much. She liked Ethel, who was a couple of years older than Billy, with a strong family resemblance thanks to her tall, slim figure and blue eyes. Ethel had been training to be a nurse until she’d met and married Jimmy Thornton, a warehouse manager at Kingsley’s, and now she gave the impression of being happily settled.

  ‘You poor thing, you’re shivering,’ Ethel noticed as a tram approached. She stood back to let Margie get on before her then sat down next to her, chattering on about joining Jimmy in time for midnight. ‘And how’s your mother?’ she asked Margie as the tram approached the top of Raglan Road. ‘I hear she’s not so well.’

  ‘That’s right, she’s not.’ Margie felt awkward entering into conversation after her weeks of self-imposed isolation but she was grateful to Ethel for taking an interest in her and her family. ‘She can’t get out of the house much so that’s where I’m headed – to pay a visit and see how she is.’

  ‘Well, tell her I was asking after her,’ Ethel said as she made room for Margie to stand up and squeeze by. ‘And tell her Happy New Year from me, won’t you?’

  ‘I will,’ Margie agreed, swaying in the aisle as the tram ground to a halt. The conductor steadied her and gave her plenty of time to alight before pressing the bell that signalled to the driver that he could safely move on.

  Down on the pavement, Margie drew a deep breath of cold air. Ethel mentioning Rhoda’s illness had had the effect of increasing her anxiety and she wasted no time crossing the street and hurrying on down Albion Lane. But when she reached the door of number 5 and heard noises from inside, she hesitated, bending down and putting her ear to the letter box to see if she could make out who was there.

  ‘Lucky you,’ Evie was telling Peggy. ‘A job as a shop girl at the Army and Navy Stores means you can steer clear of mill work.’

  The two girls sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fire, speaking in low voices while Arthur slept soundly on his pull-down bed in a corner of the room. Evie’s fair hair was loose from its plait and spread across her shoulders while Peggy’s was still neatly bound by a red ribbon at the nape of her neck.

  Peggy nodded. ‘It’s a stroke of luck that Mother knows the manageress there. They want me to start straight after my birthday at the end of the month. Harry says he’ll be able to drive me over there every now and then, or else I can always catch the tram.’

  Evie sighed enviously. ‘There’ll be no noisy, dirty machines for you when you start work, Peggy Bainbridge, just lovely, shiny glass counters and shelves piled high with scarves and gloves and hats, and people coming in and asking for things they need and you smiling and saying, “Is there anything else you need, sir?” and, “Can I help you, madam?” You’ll be handing out change and listening to the shop bell ringing all day long.’

  ‘But I hope Miss Arthington takes a liking to me and decides to keep me on,’ Peggy cautioned. ‘I’m only there on a week’s trial, for her to make up her mind.’

  ‘She’ll like you!’ Evie promised, for what was there not to like about shy, conscientious, pretty Peggy?

  Margie let the flap of the letter box click shut and moments later, having heard the noise, Evie eased open the front door to find her middle sister standing uncertainly on the step.

  ‘Margie!’ It was the last person Evie had been expecting and her face registered a mixture of surprise and pleasure.

  ‘Sshh!’ Margie had been looking for a hug from her sister, but none came. ‘Who’ve you got in there with you?’

  ‘Only Peggy. Arthur’s fast asleep. Margie, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to see Mother. Is she still up?’

  Evie shook her head as she stood to one side and let Margie into the kitchen, standing with her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘No, Mother doesn’t get out of bed for more than a couple of hours each day, not since Christmas. She’s probably already asleep.’

  ‘So it looks as if I’ve had a wasted journey,’ Margie mumbled, self-conscious under Peggy and Evie’s concerted gaze and unable to stop herself from wondering what they were thinking. She wished now that she’d spruced herself up by at least combing her hair and putting on some lipstick.

  But as she prepared to back out of the house and retrace her steps to Ada Street, they heard a voice from upstairs.

  ‘Evie, is that Margie’s voice I can hear?’ Rhoda asked through her open bedroom door, sounding alert and something like her old self. ‘If it is, tell her to come up.’

  So Evie nodded and made way for her sister who went quickly upstairs and into her mother’s bedroom.

  Rhoda lay on the bed, bolstered into a sitting position by pillows and rolled blankets. Her thin face was bloodless, her worn ha
nds resting on the outside of the fawn coverlet while a shawl kept her shoulders warm and her hair was combed back off her forehead.

  The sight brought Margie up short. She hovered in the doorway, registering once again the ways in which the illness had altered her mother – dark circles under her sunken eyes, lips pressed together and thinned by constant pain, the knot of her drawn brows. Margie’s throat constricted and a look of alarm flashed across her features.

  ‘Don’t just stand there – come in and sit down,’ Rhoda instructed in the old way; it was strange that her voice remained the same while her body faltered and faded away.

  Margie took a deep breath and did as she was told, perching on the edge of the bed. ‘I came to say Happy New Year,’ she murmured, aware that she could have chosen a more suitable opening gambit.

  ‘Yes – 1932,’ Rhoda reflected. ‘Ring out the old, bring in the new, eh? I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight of all nights, Margie. Why aren’t you out enjoying yourself, pray tell?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother, it’s late. I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘You’re not hiding yourself away, are you?’ Treating Margie to a penetrating stare, Rhoda reached out to take her hand and hold it tight. ‘That’s not like you to stay in, not on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘The way things are, what else can I do? Anyway, who wants a killjoy like me spoiling their fun?’

  ‘Lily, for a start,’ Rhoda interrupted. ‘She’d have looked out for you – you can count on that.’

  Margie hung her head and stayed silent for a while, valiantly trying to overcome the onrush of self-pity she felt. ‘Anyway, what about you, Mother? How have you been feeling? That’s really what I came to find out.’

  ‘There are days when I’ve felt better,’ Rhoda admitted, still looking closely at Margie and making up her mind to take what might be her last chance to have a heart-to-heart with the daughter she felt she’d failed the most.