The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  That’s all very well in a fairy tale, Lily reflected as she lay in the icy silence on her flock mattress, tears rolling down her cheeks on to her pillow. But look again at the facts, consider how much her mother relied on her to take over where she left off once and for all. Lily knew her mother would never be strong again, not well enough to cook and mend, clean and bake, chivvy and knock Arthur into shape each morning ready for school. And think about Father – he’d never allow the wedding to go ahead, not the way things were. He wouldn’t let Lily’s wage go out of the house, for a start, not now it was the only money coming in.

  The more she thought about the family failing to make ends meet, the more misery descended over Lily like a cold shroud. Love didn’t put bread on the table, she realized – it didn’t fill empty stomachs. And even when – in fact, not ‘when’ but ‘if’ – if Miss Valentine eventually gave the go-ahead and Lily reached her full burler and mender’s wage of thirty shillings, that amount by itself wouldn’t pay the coalman, together with the milkman, the greengrocer and the butcher and she would still have to earn extra money by bits of dressmaking here and there, which would use up every spare minute of her day, with nowhere for her and Harry to fit in unless … unless she threw it all to one side and ran round this minute to Raglan Road to knock on his door in the middle of the night and tell him she did love him after all. Yes, she could do that, but then what? Then they got married and set up home together, her and Harry, leaving Margie, her new baby, Evie and Arthur to cope on their own without a penny coming in.

  See! she told herself. You were right to keep your feet on the ground, Lily Briggs – it’s plain as the nose on your face that you can’t marry Harry Bainbridge.

  But she lay awake all night, as though on her hands and knees in the dark, searching in vain for the lost fragments of her broken heart.

  When Lily went to work at Calvert’s as usual next morning, Evie took herself off to Kingsley’s mill around the corner. Ignoring the curious glances of workers like Hilda Crabtree who were clocking on, she scanned the ‘situations vacant’ noticeboard at the grimy entrance: they needed rovers, combers and twisters in the spinning shed – none of which she was qualified to do, she realized. A piecer was needed in the weaving shed to join together threads that were broken whilst the machines were in motion – another job that required experience so that was no good either. But right at the bottom of the list she noticed that Kingsley’s needed a scavenger, an unskilled job for a school-leaver, which was right up her street. So she screwed up her courage and went with the flow of the jostling crowd down a corridor until she came to a door marked Manager’s Office, where she drew a deep breath and knocked. There was no answer.

  ‘There’s nobody in there, I can tell you that,’ a passing worker informed Evie. ‘Mr Crossley doesn’t get in until gone eight o’clock. Anyway, what do you want him for?’

  ‘I came to ask about the scavenger’s job,’ Evie explained.

  The stout woman in a threadbare brown apron looked her up and down and seemed to take pity. ‘Try Sam Earby’s office at the end of the corridor,’ she suggested.

  Evie moved on along the corridor. Her rat-a-tat-tat on the overlooker’s door was followed by a shout for her to come in and she was faced by Earby’s sour, harassed expression.

  ‘What are you after?’ the overlooker barked, scarcely bothering to look up from a pile of paperwork.

  ‘Do you need a scavenger?’ she asked timidly.

  ‘Situation’s taken,’ came the rapid-fire response. A tick in a column, a scribbled signature, paper on the spike, move on.

  ‘Thank you,’ Evie said as she made a crestfallen retreat.

  She made her way on to the next mill on Canal Road – a giant structure with a colonnade of stone pillars along the front and an intricate Italianate tower – to scan the noticeboard with the same result, and on again throughout the morning, knocking on doors only to be disappointed and heading back home, passing Calvert’s as the workers stopped for dinner.

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Evie!’ Sybil cried, raising the first-floor canteen window and leaning out. She’d spotted the dejected figure of Lily’s youngest sister down in the street and, sympathizing with her situation, had immediately invented an errand for her. ‘Have you got time to pop into the remnant shop? If you do, can you pick up the couple of yards of brown velour they’ve set by for me? There’s a threepenny bit in it for you.’

  ‘Yes, and I need two reels of black buttonhole thread from Cliff Street,’ Annie added as she elbowed Sybil to one side. ‘Only if you’ve got time, mind you.’

  Soon Evie had a whole list of errands to run – a message about coal delivery to hand on from Ethel Newby to her mother at the sweet shop, a request for Reckitt’s blue dip from Jennie Shaw, and finally a mission to Market Row, to Jean Carson’s house, to fetch the reading glasses that she’d absent-mindedly left on the mantelpiece that morning.

  Evie took them on willingly, repeating them to herself under her breath as she made her way first to the remnant shop then on to Cliff Street market for the thread.

  ‘Ta for that.’ Lily winked at Sybil, who had set the ball rolling, but she was soon distracted by the familiar sight of Stanley Calvert’s Bentley turning in under the main archway. Her stomach churned as she saw Harry at the wheel, his face hidden by the peak of his cap.

  ‘What’s Calvert want?’ Jennie saw it too and pulled a face. ‘Who’s going to be handed their cards today, I wonder?’

  They waited on tenterhooks for a decree from on high, but in fact it was Harry who soon marched into the busy, steam-filled room with its clashing cutlery and smell of hot dinner, looking to neither right nor left and bending forward to speak only to Winifred who sat with Jean at a table near the counter. He was out again in a flash, determined not to let his gaze wander, then down into the yard below to sit in the car with his boss while Winifred collected her coat and hat from the office.

  ‘Hmm,’ Annie noted with a frown and a worried glance at Lily.

  ‘Not now,’ Sybil advised, giving Annie a nudge. Lily looked hot and bothered as it was.

  The week ground relentlessly on and it wasn’t until Friday that Lily felt able to share her situation with Sybil and Annie. ‘It’s all over between Harry and me,’ she told them as they clocked off and set off on the walk home. For four whole days she’d felt weary and hopeless, as if the bottom of her world had fallen out, but trying not to let it show. Only now that they’d all watched Harry collect Winifred, who they’d heard had gone to visit family in Scarborough – her smiling at him and hopping into the front passenger seat beside him – and Sybil and Annie had been witnesses to him ignoring Lily for the third or fourth time in as many days had it proved too hard for her to conceal the reason.

  Sybil’s eyes widened and she gasped. ‘Don’t tell me! I bet Winifred Calvert has been setting her cap in his direction and Harry’s been daft enough to let himself get sucked in.’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ Lily sighed. If only you knew, she thought. I promised Harry I wouldn’t say anything, but it’s me. I’m the one who’s to blame.

  Annie couldn’t believe Lily’s news either. Lily and Harry were made for each other – anybody could see that. ‘What then?’ she asked.

  ‘If you ask me, it’s not Winifred that Lily needs to worry about,’ Florence cut in before Lily could answer. The bobbin ligger had been walking slightly ahead of the three friends and she turned to them with the expression of a nosy-parker unable to hold back a juicy piece of gossip.

  ‘We’re not asking you,’ Annie informed her.

  But Florence chugged ahead like a train without brakes. ‘If I were her, I’d be looking closer to home.’

  Sybil strode ahead and blocked her way at the corner of Ghyll Road and Albion Lane. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yes, Florence. If you insist on putting in your halfpennyworth, best come straight out with it,’ Annie agreed.

  Lily could see colour rising to
Florence’s cheeks and recognized second thoughts flitting across her face. ‘Never mind, take no notice,’ she told the others, fearing the worst.

  ‘No, Lil. Florence had better come clean,’ Annie insisted fiercely. She disliked Florence’s sourpuss ways and was determined to stick up for Lily, backing Florence against a blackened stone wall. ‘What do you mean, Lily should look closer to home?’

  Pressed for an explanation, Florence quickly flew from defence to attack, letting her vicious streak emerge. ‘All right, I’m only saying what Hilda told me when I bumped into her outside the pictures on Tuesday night. And Hilda had it from Dorothy, who had it from Billy, which is practically the horse’s mouth, if you must know.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Florence, spit it out,’ Sybil implored.

  Shaking her head and overwhelmed by the clatter, rumble and chug of workers departing on foot, by bike and in buses, Lily backed away to the edge of the kerb.

  ‘Oh all right, all right,’ Florence snapped. ‘Lily has bigger fish to fry than Winifred’s silly bit of flirting with Harry, which no one takes any notice of if they’ve got any sense. No, Lily has to sort her troubles out with her own sister – that’s my opinion.’

  ‘With Evie?’ a nonplussed Annie asked, while Lily prayed for the traffic noise to fill her head so she couldn’t hear what Florence came out with next.

  ‘No, not Evie, silly. With Margie.’

  ‘Why – what’s Margie done now?’ Annie demanded.

  ‘It’s not what she’s done lately, it’s what she did earlier – with Harry,’ Florence said pointedly, rolling her eyes upwards. ‘That’s what lies at the bottom of Lily’s difficulty, I’ll bet.’

  Margie and Harry. Margie in the family way. Margie not telling anyone who the father was, and if you put two and two together and this latest bombshell was true, who could blame her?

  Annie and Sybil looked at one another aghast.

  Margie and Harry! Lily shook her head in disbelief. She stepped back from the pavement on to the road. Her head spun, a horn hooted, brakes screeched, and her friends’ hands rushed to grab her as her knees gave way and she fell to the ground.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ‘Good job I slammed on my brakes, otherwise Lily’d be a goner,’ Ernie told Sybil and Annie later when they took him into Nixon’s corner café opposite Newby’s for a mug of hot, strong tea, for it was Ernie at the wheel of his delivery van who had so nearly knocked Lily down.

  Lily had recovered quickly and reassured her friends she was fine, then shaken herself free and dashed off, lost in the crowd. Sybil and Annie had been left to deal with Ernie, who’d gone pale after the near miss.

  Lily still wasn’t thinking as she ran up Albion Lane on to Overcliffe Road and on to the first tram that would take her to Ada Street. But once installed in the back seat of the tramcar she found space to gather her thoughts. Harry couldn’t be Margie’s baby’s father – it was unthinkable. Right at the start, when Lily had considered the different possibilities, it was Billy’s name and at a stretch Ernie’s that had floated into her head – not Harry’s. Never Harry’s. Then later, when he’d tried to draw her out about it and understand how things stood, he’d listened steadily and attentively and not acted like a man with something to hide. ‘It’s a bad job,’ he’d said with a sympathetic shake of his head. He’d even had a fight with Tommy in the Cross, sticking up for Margie instead of brushing the whole thing off as many would.

  But what if Harry had been defending the family name not for Lily’s sake but for Margie’s? That might make more sense. Tommy had taunted Walter and dragged Margie’s name into the mud and Harry, the baby’s father, hadn’t been able to stomach the insults.

  As the tram rocked and swayed around slow bends, buffeted by the wind that always blew down from the moors, Lily was beside herself. One moment she told herself no, not Harry, and she despised herself for even believing it for one second. Then she swayed the other way, pressed against the cold window, with the darkness of the moors stretching for ever, feeling betrayed. Margie and Harry. Harry and Margie. Margie riding side-saddle on Harry’s crossbar, her skirt lifted above her knees, slim legs dangling.

  At last she stood up and fought her way to the platform between men in caps and jackets that smelled of wet tweed, down on to the greasy pavement and over the broad cobbled road ribbed with shiny steel rails to Ada Street. Before she knew it, her hand was on the knocker of number 10 and Margie was answering the door.

  ‘Lily!’ One hand on the door jamb, a shocked Margie blocked her sister’s way.

  ‘Let me in,’ Lily begged, stumbling over the threshold and pushing her way down the corridor. ‘Where’s Arthur?’

  ‘Out with Granddad. They went to buy fish and chips.’

  ‘I need to sit down.’ Otherwise her legs would buckle again and she would faint in earnest this time.

  ‘Here.’ Margie overtook her and rushed into the kitchen, fetching a stool for Lily and sitting her down. ‘What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Collapsing on to the stool, Lily leaned forward and lowered her head into her hands. ‘Who’s the baby’s father, Margie?’ she asked in a voice so low that she could scarcely be heard. Each word was torn out of her, but without an answer she was in agony. ‘Is it Harry? Tell me – is it?’

  Margie looked down at her in disbelief. For an instant she wanted to laugh then a second later she burst into tears, kneeling beside her sister and heaving loud sobs from deep in her chest.

  ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Florence was right – it is!’ Lily wailed.

  ‘No.’ Controlling herself, Margie grasped Lily’s hands and made her look at her. ‘Harry’s not the one who did this to me. Do you hear me, Lil? It’s nothing to do with him.’

  Slowly the words made sense and Lily nodded. In a while her head would stop spinning – it must, otherwise she would be flung apart into a thousand pieces.

  ‘What has Florence White been saying?’ Margie demanded, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘Who put that idea into her head?’

  And so, haltingly, Lily told her everything she’d heard and Margie’s temper flared, thinking about cruel girls spreading rumours, and then it cooled as she realized what a state it had left Lily in. ‘You mustn’t believe a word they say,’ she insisted, making Lily stand up from the stool and come to an easy chair by the fire. ‘Sit down there. I’ll put the kettle on. You and Harry didn’t fall out over it?’ she checked as she made the tea.

  Lily watched her through the tears that kept on falling – tears of relief now that Margie had set her straight. ‘No. If you must know, we’re not even walking out any more. But I just wanted to be sure he … he’d played no part.’

  Thank Heavens for that, she thought. Though there was no future for her and Harry, she couldn’t have lived with the knowledge that he’d taken advantage of her sister. That was how she phrased it in her own mind – ‘played no part’, ‘taken advantage of’ – to smooth over the brutality of the event, even to herself.

  Meanwhile, Margie stirred the tea leaves in the steaming brown pot and watched them whirl. This is what happened when a false rumour took hold, she realized. People got the wrong end of the stick, innocent names were bandied about and people were hurt. She was the only one who could put a stop to it. ‘Very well, Lily, I’ll let you in on what I told Mother,’ she decided as she poured the tea. ‘It’s to go no further, mind you. This is between us three – me, you and her.’

  Building up her courage, Margie set two cups in saucers and set teaspoons with a light tinkle on to each one. In the background the front door opened then clicked shut but neither she nor Margie took any notice.

  ‘Promise not to fly off the handle,’ Margie pleaded as she struggled to make her confession for the second time.

  ‘I won’t,’ Lily agreed, distracted by the knowledge that their mother had kept Margie’s secret close to her chest and not taken action against the culprit.

  ‘It’s no one y
ou know. I hardly even knew him myself.’

  ‘So it was a stranger who did this to you? That’s even worse than I thought.’

  ‘Not a total stranger.’ At last Margie brought herself to the point of naming the man. ‘It was Kenneth Hetton.’

  ‘The travelling salesman?’ Coming out of the blue, the truth took Lily’s breath away. ‘I do know him – Hilda told me all about him. He’s a thoroughly bad sort. Margie, we have to report him to the police!’

  ‘No, Lil, I can’t do that. I’ve thought about it a hundred times – of course I have – but I just can’t.’

  ‘Whyever not?’

  ‘Because I’d have to walk into the station and up to the sergeant’s desk and tell him all the awful things Hetton did to me. Then I’d have to stand up in court and say it all over again in front of a judge and jury. I haven’t got it in me to do that, I really haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ Slowly Lily nodded and she felt a surge of hot anger rise against her sister’s cruel attacker. ‘I have some more bad news for you, Margie,’ she went on. ‘The man is married. He has a wife and family.’

  Margie groaned and covered her face with both hands. ‘I can’t bear it, Lily. I feel so ashamed of myself!’

  ‘No, it’s Hetton who should be hanging his head. Honestly, I could kill him for what he’s done to you.’

  ‘And where is he now?’ Gathering herself together, Margie fixed her gaze on her sister. ‘I can’t get it out of my head – am I likely to meet him on the street? It keeps me awake at night. What will I do if I accidentally bump into him?’