The Mersey Girls

by Sheila Riley

  ‘Of course not,’ Henry answered, ‘we would never hear the last.’ He would never betray young Danny’s confidences to that sour-faced cousin of his.

  For the next half an hour, they chatted and ate, and it was the best time of day for all of them.

  ‘Remember when you said someone needed to lick the office into shape?’ Danny said tentatively, wiping his bowl clean with a hunk of bread and studied concentration, ‘well, I mentioned it to Evie… She needs to be closer to home… And those files are in a terrible state… I just thought…’ Danny lifted his head, satiated.

  ‘Tell Evie to pop in when she’s ready, I’ll always need a good bookkeeper,’ Henry said.

  ‘Can I tempt you to another bowl of broth?’ Meggie asked.

  ‘We can’t have you wasting away, Danny,’ Henry laughed, knowing Ada could be frugal at the best of times, ‘not if you’ve got empires to build.’

  ‘There’s no danger of that with Aunt Meggie feeding me up,’ Danny said, ‘but I have to say, if there’s any more talk of this marriage lark, I will put me deaf ones on.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll give you a hand mending that fan belt on the truck.’

  ‘Thanks for peeling the spuds, Lucy,’ Evie said, trying to dodge awkward questions, but it was no use, Connie and Lucy looked on expectantly.

  ‘Well, how did you manage to get your stockings off without anybody seeing?’ Lucy asked and there was a mischievous glint in Connie’s eyes.

  ‘I told you both,’ Evie answered, feeling her face grow hot, ‘he put his jacket under the windscreen wiper, he was a complete gentleman. And you heard as much as me when he asked me if I wanted the job at Skinner’s,’ she said, not wanting to talk about Danny.

  ‘You’d be practically working on the doorstep,’ Connie said, and Lucy looked hopeful. ‘I wouldn’t let the likes of Susie Blackthorn put me off. You’ve got much more up top than she has.’ Connie tapped the side of her head.

  ‘You could run rings round her, our Evie.’ The hope in Lucy’s eyes told Evie she must put her younger sister’s needs before her own.

  ‘Taking the job would save on bus fare and dinner money, I suppose,’ Evie said listening to the chops sizzling in the pan in the back-kitchen. ‘Lower the gas down a little bit, otherwise the outside will be like charcoal and the inside raw,’

  ‘She’ll soon get the hang of cooking,’ Connie said, and Evie frowned.

  ‘That’s just it, Connie,’ Evie replied, ‘I don’t want her to get the hang of it. I want her to do more with her life than cook, clean and pop out babies every year.’ The sight of young women pushing prams was a common one. This area especially. Most of the inhabitants were descendants of Irish Catholics who came to Liverpool after the potato famine hit Ireland in 1845, looking for work on the docks and had stayed ever since.

  ‘Good for you,’ Connie said. She was proud of what Evie had achieved through hard work and determination.

  ‘I could even nip home in my dinner hour,’ Evie said knowing Skinner’s yard was only in Summer Settle at the back of Reckoner’s Row. She could roll out of bed and into work. Not that she would of course. ‘Well, we’ll soon find out because I’ve decided, I’m going to take the job if it’s offered.’

  The following evening Susie Blackthorn made her way to Auld Skinner’s house, separated from the yard by a low wall and a wooden gate, to return the office door keys as she did every night when she had finished her work.

  The outer door was open as usual, and as usual she went straight into the narrow hallway. She could hear voices and put her ear to the closed inner door, hoping to catch a bit of juicy gossip. Her hand, bunched ready to knock, stilled in mid-air…

  ‘Henry?’ Meggie’s gentle lilt held a tentative note as she and Henry sat at the kitchen table. ‘Remember that bit of land I bought from that poor chap at the meat market during the war?’

  Henry was cutting into the streaky bacon, which Meggie had somehow gained even though meat was still on ration, five years after the war had ended. He looked up from the newspaper propped against the sugar basin and his generous brows puckered at the interruption.

  ‘Aye, I remember,’ Henry said, wondering if he wanted to discuss his wife’s rebellious decision to use funds that led to her helping some poor bugger out of a penury hole. He knew most women around the dockside did not have the wherewithal to buy the deeds to plots of land on spec when they had only gone out to buy a loaf of bread.

  ‘You remember old Mr and Mrs Appleton, who I worked for in their enormous house on the Isle of Man?’

  ‘We don’t have to talk about that now…’ A slight cloud of concern crossed Henry’s face, ‘Not if it brings back painful memories.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Meggie said, stirring her tea, ‘not any more…’

  Henry patted her hand, ‘I understand that when the Appleton’s rotter of a son promised to marry you, my love, you believed him. And it still gets my back up when I think how he left you in the lurch. But then it was his loss, and my incredibly lucky gain.’

  ‘Appleton’s hush money gave me the chance to buy that land in the first place and there was no use letting the money rot in that old tea caddy at the back of the cupboard…’

  Henry waited for his wife to speak again, watching Meggie twist her wedding ring round the third finger of her left hand as if gathering her thoughts.

  For the second time, she opened her mouth, her words seeming to fall over themselves to be free. ‘As you know that land has just been sitting there, derelict.’ Meggie shuffled in her chair opposite and Henry’s bacon-laden fork stilled before reaching his lips. ‘And, as you also know, I had to put the deeds in your name.’

  ‘I seem to know an awful lot.’ Henry gazed across the table to his wife of nigh on twenty- five years. He had put Meggie’s impulsive transaction to the back of his mind, and never mentioned it. ‘If the truth be told, I’m proud of the fact you are your own woman.’ She did not suffer fools after that Appleton fella. Fortunately, he was not one of those. His Meggie had a keen mind – everybody knew that. If she saw an opportunity, she grabbed it with both hands. No shilly-shallying! Nevertheless… Had she done one deal too many in her quest to make sure they did not go without? It was fine to move a bit of this and a bit of that when it was going spare, he thought, and pass it on to some poor sod who had nothing. If only that were the case.

  The business was haemorrhaging money. And she knew nothing about it after giving up doing the accounts, but he also knew that blackmailers, once they had you on a hook, rarely set you free.

  In a way, he was glad Susie Blackthorn did not have a clue how to run the office like Meggie had. A spot of typing and nail filing was Susie’s speciality, she didn’t understand much else and seemed to be biding her time, hoping Danny would ask her out. She didn’t even open the post most days, so had no clue about the demands for money. More and more money every time.

  ‘What I mean is,’ Meggie said, lifting her cup and cradling it in both hands, ‘I know we’re not dirt-poor like some round here. You’ve made sure of that.’ She reached for his hand and his strong fingers curled round hers.

  They were not flush with spare cash either, Henry thought. Much less than they had been when she told him she had bought the land, suspecting the purchase was such a waste of good money. Although he said nothing.

  They’d had serviceable stables in the yard, along with horses and flat-backed carts. He employed men who delivered goods to and from the docks and warehouses. The business was doing well. He would even say they were well off in those days. But not any more. The business was limping along now.

  Henry sighed, for the first time in his life he felt helpless. He had to get someone who could manage the accounts and chase up the invoices, but he could do nothing to stop the demands for money. Meggie must not know. Blackmail was a dirty word and she would feel responsible. But she wasn’t the one to blame.

  ‘Are you listening?’ Meggie’s question jolted him back to attention. />
  ‘Sorry, love, I’m all ears, carry on.’ He smiled across the table, determined to give her the best of attention, besotted from the moment he saw her all those years ago.

  ‘Well, it’s like this…’ Meggie paused, not knowing how Henry would react. Looking down at her untouched meal of two rashers of juicy bacon and a new-laid egg from one of their own chickens, she prodded the delicate, frilly crisp just the way they both liked it and hoped that he would understand when she broke the news. ‘That plot of land is right on top of the docks. Prime estate, I’ve heard it called.’

  ‘Get on with it, love,’ he smiled, ‘my tea will soon be me supper.’ He made quick work of the now cold bacon on the end of his fork.

  ‘Well, that little hut in the middle of the…’

  ‘A little hut!’ he interrupted, wondering if he dare relax. ‘It’s bigger than Saint Paddy’s church hall.’

  ‘I was coming to that,’ Meggie sighed, laying her knife and fork either side of her plate; she had lost her appetite now. ‘I can’t eat this, you have it.’

  ‘You can’t leave a good meal; you’ll get fined for wastage.’ Henry reached across to scrape her tea onto his plate. ‘But I’ll save you, Meggie, love, you can rely on me to keep you out of bother.’

  ‘You’re so thoughtful, my love,’ Meggie said, giving him a strained smile before she rose from her chair and went over to the sideboard. Opening the drawer, she took out an official-looking envelope, and his fears that her dealings had gone wrong returned. Taking in her worried expression, he took a gulp of tea and got up from his chair.

  ‘Don’t worry, love. Whatever happens I’ll be beside you….’ Henry took the envelope she offered. ‘You’re not on your own here, whatever it is we can deal with it… I know people… I’ll have a word… Get some advice…’ His fingers fumbled with the envelope.

  ‘Read it.’ Meggie watched him open the letter. ‘I will be forever grateful of the fact that whatever I do, you will always be by my side. I love you so much for all you are, a fine upstanding, dependable man who took me on when I came to Liverpool from the Isle of Man – the unmarried mother of another man’s child!’

  Susie had to stuff her fist in her mouth to stop the gasp of shock leaping from her lips. This information was dynamite, not because Meggie was a landowner, or that she would soon roll in money, but because when she came back to Liverpool after working for a rich family on the Isle of Man, she was already a mother and not even married. Scandalous!

  The words, out in the open now, were the ones Meggie had never said aloud more than once, when Henry had encouraged her to confide in him about her predicament, all those years ago. Henry had helped her forget the heartache and promised to marry her if she would have him. He said those same words he was saying now.

  ‘We’ll stick together, Meggie, love, we’ll muddle through somehow.’

  ‘Look at the papers,’ Meggie said and watched Henry’s jaw drop.

  ‘All those zeros.’ Henry shook his head. ‘I’d say I’m in a fortunate state of shock! I thought you’d bought a white elephant during the war, with being so close to the docks and the air raids. No doubt the chap who sold it to you thought so too.’ He lifted his head to look at Meggie and then said, ‘This is official?’ Henry could not believe what he was reading as Meggie wiped happy tears from her face and she nodded. ‘The dock board want to pay you all this money for that bit of land by the dock?’

  Susie listened and her interest piqued when she heard the Skinners had come into a few bob. It was all right for some, she thought, money goes to money. But if the news got out that Meggie Skinner had a child out of wedlock, it would ruin them for sure. She moved closer to the door and held her breath.

  ‘They said it’s prime land,’ Meggie replied. ‘How can we refuse to cash in now the business is on its uppers.’

  ‘I never said things were that bad,’ Henry protested, but Meggie stopped him.

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ she whispered, ‘but you have looked so worried, what with the expense of keeping the wagon on the road and feeding the horses. You need an office manager to take everything in hand. We could buy a new wagon; business will pick up.’

  Henry’s heart flipped when he saw that twinkle in her eye and the strain left his limbs. ‘I’ve worked with the horses since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, love.’

  ‘But the money will make things easier. I’m going to help you out,’ Meggie said, ‘the same way you helped me all those years ago.’

  They were so engrossed in the enormity of their conversation, neither of them heard creaking floorboards in the next room.

  ‘Marrying you wasn’t a noble gesture, Meg. I’m no saint.’ He put his arm round her and kissed her. ‘I know a wonderful thing when I see it. You are the finest woman I know.’ His tender blue eyes were pools of love. ‘None better.’

  ‘In that case,’ Meggie said in that no-nonsense way she used when she was wavering under his persuasive charm, ‘you can do me one more kindness, say you’ll come with me to the Port of Liverpool building at the Pier Head?’

  ‘I will,’ Henry said, ‘but this money is not mine to spend.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that too, and being a stubborn old bugger, I believe you meant it, but so do I.’ Meggie wanted to wipe the worry lines from her beloved husband’s face, little realising it would take more than a new wagon to fix the mess he was in. ‘You have worried long enough,’ she said, ‘and now, if we at least get a proper bookkeeper, it will relieve you of the headache that is Susie.

  ‘I believe we said for better or worse,’ Henry smiled, ‘well, we’ve seen both. So, if I haven’t got the strain of an ailing business to worry about, all I need to concentrate on is winning that Netherford Cup.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Meggie was glad to see the deep-set lines on his forehead smooth a little, knowing the most prestigious trophy in the carting year would be a dream come true for her husband. The reward for years of toil in all weathers.

  Henry pushed his new National Health specs halfway up his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt relief seep through him for the first time in a long while. Meggie must never know how close they had come to destitution and how much her money would ease his burden. But when he was on his feet he would make it up to her.

  ‘Maybe it’s time for you to relax as well,’ Henry said as the spread of a still handsome smile stretched his rugged features. ‘You’ve worked so hard helping me all these years.’ He was quiet for a moment, thinking. ‘How different things could have been if, all those years ago I stood up for you against my mother.’

  The pain in Meggie’s eyes, the night he took her baby and gave it to another woman, would haunt him to the end of his days.

  ‘Remember when I made you a promise, Meggie, the night I gave away your child. I said I would always keep a roof over your head, and we would earn the money to rear your child.’ Meggie nodded again, too full to speak. ‘I also promised nobody would ever know your secret. And I meant it.’ He loved her more than life itself, and his heart swelled. Without Meggie, he had no life, that was why he must not tell her…

  The blackmail demands started years ago, and he believed they would not last. But they continued, and he had paid handsomely to hide Meggie’s shame. Henry would never allow his darling Meggie to become a cause for gossipmongers. But nothing, it seemed, could stop the relentless demands for money.

  ‘I suspect meladdo who sold me the land, walked away with a grin on his chops, thinking I was a right mug,’ Meggie said, breaking into his thoughts once more, ‘and then laughed all the way to the Tram Tavern to spend the money I gave him for the deeds.’

  Henry, taking her lead, laughed out loud. He would make things right. For Meggie’s sake. ‘I was thinking much the same thing myself, love. But serves us both right for doubting your eagle-eyed business acumen.’

  ‘My what?’ Meggie’s brow furrowed. ‘You don’t half say some fancy words sometimes.’

&nb
sp; ‘I thought you’d made a colossal mistake,’ he said, ‘I won’t deny it.’

  ‘I know,’ Meggie said, the letter ignored for the moment, ‘you doubted me.’

  ‘I have never doubted you, my sweet,’ he stroked her soft cheek. ‘You scare me witless with your madcap schemes sometimes, but how could I doubt you when you have such good taste in your choice of husband.’ He grinned and reached for her hand, which was always available, and they smiled to one another – each knowing the other so well. ‘So I am married to a wealthy woman,’ he said rereading the letter, and releasing a long low whistle, ‘and it all came about because of your legacy.’

  ‘Our legacy, my love – yours and mine,’ Meggie corrected him. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been walking the streets, and God alone knows what would have become of my boy.’ Then, to his utter surprise, Meggie burst into tears as all the pent-up emotions of their years of struggle came to the fore, and the enormity of the situation hit her.

  ‘Hey, we’ll have none of that, old girl.’ Henry put his strong, muscled arms round her slight frame, and she felt safe again. ‘If it makes you feel better, we will call it our legacy and leave it at that… Nobody need ever know, except us two.’

  ‘Oh Henry, it’s not only that. I love you. More than you will ever know. I am so sorry I could never give you the son you longed for.’

  ‘It was God’s Will, we had no say in the matter,’ he said, smoothing her silky hair, holding her to him, ‘I don’t blame you. It wasn’t your fault. To me, you will always be the nineteen-year-old girl who knocked on my ma’s lodging house door looking for a job and walked straight into my heart. I knew I could never let you go.’

  ‘Not even when I arrived with more than a reference for a place of work?’

  ‘You looked so frail, clinging to the babe in your arms, soaked to the skin, with your shawl dripping wet. You had my heart there and then, regardless of your past. I was the luckiest man alive that day.’