The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  Awash with grief, Lily was only dimly aware that Sybil and Annie sat in a pew towards the back of the chapel, along with Iris Valentine and Jennie Shaw from Calvert’s and half a dozen other neighbours from Albion Lane and Raglan Road, who sang the hymns heartily in the unadorned, high-roofed chapel. Afterwards everyone filed out on to Ada Street and waited on the cold pavement to express their condolences to the bereaved family.

  ‘To tell the truth, I hardly took it in,’ Lily confessed later that evening to her two friends, who had sacrificed an hour or two’s pay to be at the funeral and had just now knocked on the door of number 5 to check that she was coping with the aftermath. ‘I was so busy worrying about Arthur and Father.’

  ‘Yes, poor little lad,’ Annie sympathized, while Sybil glanced around the kitchen in vain for any sign that Walter had returned home with Lily after the service.

  ‘And poor Father,’ Lily added, her heart weighed down with sorrow, her eyes heavy with unshed tears. ‘What will he do without Mother?’

  ‘He’ll carry on as before, I expect,’ Sybil commented, making it plain that she hadn’t much sympathy to spare for ne’er-do-well Walter Briggs.

  Lily didn’t have the heart to say it wasn’t true, that her father had turned in on himself since Rhoda’s death and until now avoided his old haunts. Instead of frequenting the pub, he could be seen wandering the streets in an aimless manner, silent and ashen-faced, oblivious to wind, rain and snow. He’d been up as far as the Common and down along Canal Road past the public baths and on beyond the scrap yard until he’d been spotted spouting nonsense to himself and frogmarched back to Albion Lane by a passing neighbour.

  It was Annie who briskly moved the conversation on. ‘So now what shall we do for someone who does deserve our help? I mean Harry, of course.’

  ‘I’ll pay him another visit the day after tomorrow,’ Lily told her, privately doubting her ability to raise his spirits, given her sorrow over the loss of her mother. Still, she would do her best.

  ‘And have we got any more to work on – any fresh lines of enquiry?’ Annie asked, accepting a cup of tea from Lily and the seat closest to the fire.

  Lily glanced at Annie sitting in her mother’s chair and felt a sharp pang of loss, which she only just managed to overcome. ‘Well, Harry is sure that Winifred stuck her head around the door and spotted him waiting for Mrs Calvert’s shopping list, but it turns out she gave the police a different story.’

  ‘Hmm, we’ll soon see about that,’ Annie muttered.

  Sybil raised an eyebrow. ‘Tomorrow’s Friday,’ she reminded them. ‘What do you say we lie in wait for little Miss Snooty on her way into work?’

  Lily’s face lit up. ‘I must say you’re a bright spark, Sybil Dacre.’

  ‘If she’s a witness, she has to go to the police station and back up Harry’s version of events,’ Sybil added, pleased with their new plan. ‘We’ll collar her tomorrow then Lily, you can visit Harry on Saturday and put him in the picture. That’s bound to perk him up.’

  ‘You’re right. And I’ll ask Harry what happened to the shopping list from Mrs Calvert. If he’s still got hold of it, at least it shows the police that part of his story adds up,’ Lily agreed. She felt they were definitely on to something and she could hardly wait to set the wheels in motion. The trouble was that when the three women got set to execute their plan, arriving at the mill early next morning and loitering in the main entrance as long as possible on the lookout for the boss’s daughter, there was no sign of her or her taxi. Fred Lee soon spotted them, however, and ordered Sybil and Annie to clock on in the nick of time, leaving Lily to climb the stairs to the mending room without catching sight or sound of Winifred Calvert.

  ‘Never mind – we’ll nab her at dinner time,’ Annie promised as they parted ways.

  But again at half past twelve there was no sign of Winifred in the canteen and when Sybil asked Jean Carson why not, she received the surprising reply that Winifred’s absence was permanent.

  ‘She won’t be back.’ Jean’s explanation was short and pithy. ‘Mrs Calvert never wanted her precious daughter dirtying her hands with dusty files and inky typewriter ribbons in the first place. And we all know who really wears the trousers up at Moor House.’

  Lily went to visit Harry in prison next day armed with a motor magazine but with no fresh leads. Her cheerful front became genuine, however, when she learned that one of the first things Harry had done after his arrest was to rescue the crumpled shopping list from his trouser pocket and hand it over to the police. ‘That’s good, Harry. And you’ll never guess what else has happened,’ she went on.

  ‘You’re right about that – I won’t,’ he told her with a brief grin.

  Lily felt the familiar smile envelop her like a warm glow. ‘Miss Valentine told me this morning that she’s very satisfied with my work. She’s promised to see Mr Wilson on Monday to recommend me for the full mender’s wage from now on. That’s good news, isn’t it?’

  Harry’s smile broadened. ‘Yes and no one deserves it more than you.’ Like Lily, he skated cheerfully on thin ice, all too aware of the black waters underneath.

  ‘And Evie’s upped her hours at Newby’s,’ Lily prattled on. ‘Dr Moss has given strict instructions for Alice to take things easy and Harold finds Evie a willing worker and quick to learn, which we always knew, didn’t we? On top of which, Sybil, Annie and I can afford to pay her a few pennies for hemming work and such like.’

  ‘And how’s Margie doing?’ Harry wanted to know, storing in his head each little nugget of information that fell from Lily’s lips.

  Lily paused to think before she answered. ‘Margie is growing up fast,’ she reported. ‘She’s knitting a little matinée jacket for the baby and asking Evie to hem winceyette sheets for its cot. She’s even promising to drop in on us at a time when Father’s likely to be there.’

  ‘To talk him round?’ Harry asked.

  ‘That’s right. She wants him to know she’s looking forward, not back, and hopes she can persuade him to do the same.’

  Harry listened and held her hands, nodding and draining her of every scrap of news until she finally ran out. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, you know that?’ he told her tenderly. ‘The best-looking girl for miles around, so Lord knows what you see in me, especially now.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she protested.

  ‘I mean it. I have a lot of time on my hands in here and I spend most of it worrying how long it’ll be before you come to your senses and ditch me good and proper this time, or else there’ll soon be somebody coming along and offering you a handy shoulder to cry on.’

  ‘I never ditched you, Harry. Anyway, didn’t you hear me last time when I told you I’d marry you as fast as ever I can?’

  He longed to believe her, but wouldn’t let his doubts be so easily dismissed. ‘A girl can change her mind,’ he muttered.

  Lily leaned across the table and spoke softly. ‘Not this one. And if you really want to know what I see in you, Harry Bainbridge, I’ll tell you so long as you promise not to let it go to your head.’

  ‘There’s not much chance of that. Not here in this place.’

  ‘All right. I see a man who can make me smile even when I’m feeling low and who swept me off my feet the first time he kissed me.’

  ‘Is that right?’ he murmured more hopefully.

  ‘It is. And what’s more, I tell everyone who asks me that you’re someone I can rely on and trust because you’ll never let me down.’

  ‘Never in a month of Sundays,’ he agreed, slowly letting go of the fears that had built up during the lonely, empty days locked inside his cell.

  So they talked on, lightening the mood when Harry told Lily that his mother had visited him during the week and given him the same type of soap that she had brought – Wright’s Coal Tar – and had wept buckets when it came time for her to leave.

  On her own departure, marked by a soft brushing of lips and reluctant unclasping of hands, Lily ha
d managed to hold back her tears until she was outside the prison gates, where she let them flow freely.

  It broke her heart, it really did, to see Harry so cast down, but by the time she sat on the bus home from Leeds she’d dried her tears. I’ll keep my promise, she vowed silently, staring out at row upon row of back-to-back houses built into the steep hillsides on the outskirts of the city. I know for a fact that Harry won’t ever let me down and now it’s up to me to do the same for him – to push on and prove him innocent, whatever it takes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  January slid into February and winter’s back was almost broken as the days grew longer. The snow, when it fell, didn’t stick but melted under weak sunlight to allow small green snowdrop shoots to break through the black earth on the edge of the Common. Meanwhile, Lily, Annie and Sybil didn’t rest in their attempts to clear Harry’s name.

  It was the first Saturday in February and Annie had been at Cliff Street market buying reels of cotton when she spotted Winifred Calvert at the next stall, looking at leather gloves.

  ‘I pounced on her and backed her up against the sheepskin mittens,’ Annie reported to the others on Monday on their way to work. ‘I asked her how was it she refused to give Harry an alibi?’

  ‘And what was her answer?’ Lily was eager to know.

  ‘I thought at first she was about to fall into a dead faint from the shock of running into me, but I stuck to my guns and asked, Why not tell the coppers what happened? That she knew perfectly well that Harry had been inside the house when Billy was run over.’

  ‘And did you get her to admit she’d seen him inside the house?’ Sybil demanded.

  ‘No, I just got a lot of flannel about going straight upstairs to her room and having nothing to do with what went on,’ Annie replied in disgust. ‘Then Mrs Calvert came around the corner and saw little miss pressed up against the glove counter and that was the end of that. She whisked her away before you could say Jack Robinson.’

  Sybil frowned. ‘You know what this means?’

  ‘Yes, we’re more and more sure that Winifred is lying.’ Lily didn’t hesitate to point the finger at the boss’s daughter. ‘We were right all along – she does have more to do with what happened than she’s letting on.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ Annie and Sybil chorused.

  ‘So there’s only one thing to do,’ Lily declared. ‘We have to track Winifred down and corner her good and proper. And we have to do it sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Yes, because time’s ticking on,’ Annie agreed as they neared the mill.

  ‘There’s no need to remind us,’ Sybil said curtly. They all knew but tried not to think about the fact that a date for the trial had been set for the last day of February.

  ‘I’ll go up to the Calverts’ house tonight after tea,’ Lily decided. There was no time to lose.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ Ernie told Lily as he pulled up outside the open gates to Moor House. He’d requisitioned his father’s delivery van in order to give her a lift after work but this was as far as he was willing to go. ‘The Calverts are our best customers – they get all their meat from us. If they catch sight of our name on the side of this van and ask what I’m doing here, it could queer our pitch.’

  ‘There’s no need to wait,’ Lily assured him as she stepped out on to the road. ‘I can find my own way back.’

  ‘Yes and you think I’m going to let you walk five miles in the dark along these winding roads?’ he argued. ‘No. I’ll wait.’

  She smiled, glad of the back-up. ‘Thanks, Ernie. You’re a pal.’

  Lily trembled as she passed through the gates and set off down the long driveway to where the Calverts’ house nestled in a large hollow surrounded by fir trees. The steeply sloping drive was lit by electric lamps and the entrance to the house was illuminated by a brass carriage lamp hanging from a wrought-iron bracket that cast a strong light over the mosaic tiles of the porch and on to the solid oak door.

  This must be where Billy was knocked down, Lily thought with a shiver as she took in the scene – clipped evergreen shrubs bordering the drive as it curved around the side of the house, bare flower beds and a glimpse of stone outhouses beyond. Overhead the tall pines were buffeted by the wind and straight ahead at eye level was a lion-head knocker on the door. Her hand shook as she raised it and rapped hard.

  Lily waited for what seemed like an age. A downstairs light at the front of the house was flicked on then quickly off. She knocked again. No one came.

  But now that she’d plucked up courage, Lily wasn’t about to turn away. When her knock wasn’t answered, she stepped back on to the drive and followed it into a flagged yard at the side of the house. Once she’d got her bearings, she sidled between two zinc water butts to peer through a ground-floor window into a small ante-room containing rows of wellington boots and stout outdoor shoes. She got the shock of her life when she found a pair of yellow eyes staring back at her, starting backwards at the same time as the Calverts’ cat, which jumped from the window sill and vanished through an inner door. Simultaneously another door flew open and, poker in hand, Winifred rushed out into the yard.

  ‘For Heaven’s sakes, you frightened the life out of me. I thought you were a burglar!’ Winifred exclaimed when she recognized Lily.

  Wrong-footed but still able to notice the absurdity of Winifred in a cream lace dress earnestly brandishing a poker, Lily offered a faltering excuse. ‘I knocked on the front door. No one answered.’

  ‘We’re in the middle of dinner, that’s why.’ Winifred studied the visitor’s pale, determined face. ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ she said sullenly.

  ‘It’s about what happened to Billy.’

  ‘Well, what about it?’ Winifred snapped.

  ‘I know you saw Harry inside the house so there’s no use denying it. And now you have to set the record straight.’

  ‘Not if I don’t want to,’ Winifred said in the same sullen tone, her face pinched and lips pursed. ‘I’ve said all I have to say to that man – that Sergeant Magson.’

  Lily frowned and shook her head. ‘Miss Calvert, I know you don’t mean Harry any harm but you must realize that things are looking bad for him. If you could just—’

  She was cut off mid sentence. ‘I’ve already told you – I can’t help you.’

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’ Somehow she held her voice steady and managed to carry on. ‘Harry’s worked hard for you and never let you down. He needs—’

  ‘For goodness’ sake …’ Winifred’s stone-wall defence seemed suddenly to crumble and she left her sentence unfinished, letting the poker clatter to the ground.

  ‘Harry needs our help,’ Lily said more softly. ‘I know you’re not a bad person, Miss Calvert, because you tried to step in and help Evie. Your heart’s in the right place and I do believe you can make a difference to Harry’s defence.’

  Winifred shook her head. ‘That’s not true – I shouldn’t even be talking to you.’

  ‘But you know as well as I do that he didn’t do what they say he’s done – running Billy down in cold blood.’

  Winifred shuddered. Up shot her defences again, just as noises could be heard in the boot room behind her and Mrs Calvert appeared in the doorway.

  Lily saw that Winifred had inherited her mother’s looks – they shared the same high carriage of the head and well-defined cheek bones, the same thick, expensively cut hair and clearly the same love of fashion, for Mrs Calvert was dressed for their family dinner in a full-length, low-waisted black dress decorated around the neckline with intricate bead work and in dainty black shoes with high heels.

  ‘Winifred, go back inside this minute,’ she commanded, casting her eyes over Lily. As Winifred obeyed, the mill owner’s wife took immediate charge of the situation. ‘I heard raised voices,’ she told Lily haughtily. ‘And now I see we have a trespasser.’

  ‘Mrs Calvert, I only wanted to speak with your daughter about Billy’s … accident.’

 
; ‘Winifred has nothing to say on that score. The police sergeant who called here understands that she was upstairs in her room at the time and so she didn’t see what happened.’

  The fierce formality of Eleanor Calvert’s manner was almost too much for Lily but she held her nerve a little while longer. ‘You know that’s not true, Mrs Calvert. You and Winifred can both vouch for Harry being inside the house when Billy was knocked down.’

  The mill owner’s wife replied with cold, destructive anger. ‘We can do no such thing.’

  ‘But why not?’

  ‘Because, as I told the sergeant, I have no knowledge of what the chauffeur did whilst I was away – whether or not he was in the house as he claims he was, or if, in fact, he slipped outside and entered into an altercation with the gardener, which ended in one man dying and the other being accused of his murder.’

  Mrs Calvert’s icy reply pushed Lily over the edge. ‘But unless you and Winifred speak out, the wrong man will go to the gallows!’ she cried, wringing her hands.

  ‘And unless you leave immediately, I will have you forcibly removed,’ Eleanor Calvert told her unwelcome visitor, turning on her well-shod heel and closing the door without a backward glance.

  ‘All right – if the Calverts still refuse to help us out of the goodness of their hearts, we have to try a different tack,’ the indefatigable Annie decided as she, Sybil and Lily made their daily journey into work next morning. It seemed the more obstacles they met, the greater their determination to overcome them.

  Annie’s fighting talk buoyed Lily up and she racked her brains to work out what they should do next as they stepped under the arch and went to clock on.

  Her first port of call was to return the parcel containing the altered coat to Miss Valentine, who unwrapped the paper to examine the workmanship then promised her more work in future.

  ‘Times must be hard for you,’ she commented confidentially, giving Lily the benefit of her penetrating, birdlike stare. ‘I’m thinking of poor Rhoda and now this bad business with Harry Bainbridge.’