A True Love of Mine

by Margaret Thornton

The vision of loveliness turned and smiled at them, holding out a lace-gloved hand as they approached. ‘How do you do?’ she said. ‘I am so pleased to make your acquaintance, both of you. Our daughters have already become good friends. I am Faith Barraclough.’

  ‘And I’m William Moon and this is my wife, Clara,’ said William, shaking her hand very gently. Such an exquisite creature surely deserved the most careful handling. ‘How you do? I’m very pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ echoed his wife. ‘I’m glad you’ve come to see us. Like you say, our Maddy and your little girl seem to have hit it off at once. Sorry we weren’t here to greet you, but I see you have already met my father-in-law.’

  ‘Aye, we’ve said “how do” to one another,’ said Isaac. His grey eyes, still very sharp and perceptive, were gleaming with more than a spark of admiration. Although almost seventy years of age he still had an eye for a pretty face.

  ‘And the youngsters are all getting to know one another.’ He pointed towards the stable at the end of the yard where the two black horses, Jet and Ebony, were being fussed over by the group of children. ‘The little ’un, Tommy, was all for running into t’ workshop, but Patrick caught him just in time. So we avoided any awkward questions, you might say.’

  Tommy at that moment was offering a sugar lump to Jet on his outstretched palm. ‘Keep your hand real flat, there’s a good lad, Tommy,’ Patrick was saying, ‘and then Jet can get her lips round the sugar and not your fingers… No, she doesn’t bite, not as a rule, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.’

  Ebony had a white star on her forehead and that, to folk who did not know them, was the only way of distinguishing between the horses. Tilly was tentatively stroking her sleek mane, all the while looking anxiously at Maddy.

  ‘It’s my turn now,’ said Jessie. ‘Come on, Tommy; you’ve had your go. May I give Jet a sugar lump, please, Patrick?’

  ‘They are fine-looking animals,’ observed Faith Barraclough. ‘Have you had them very long?’

  ‘Getting on for two year now,’ replied Isaac. ‘We used to hire the horses before that.’

  ‘They’re both female,’ added William. ‘We felt they’d be easier to handle than stallions. And we’ve our own hearse now; we got it when business started picking up for us.’

  ‘And the shop as well,’ said Clara. ‘Would you like to come and see round the shop some time, Mrs Barraclough? We have a nice range of dresses and costumes, not just black mourning wear. I’ve been trying to get away from too sombre an image lately. We stock a lot of black, of course, but by no means is all of it funeral wear. We have dresses in different shades of purple and lavender, and that’s a colour that anyone can wear anytime. Maddy didn’t bring you through the shop, did she?’

  ‘No; we came round the side, but I would certainly like to see it when I have a little more time to spare.’ Faith Barraclough looked at her fob watch. ‘We really ought to be going now. I just wanted to meet you and to thank you for inviting Jessica to come to tea. I had to make sure the invitation had come from you; I know what children are like.’

  ‘Yes, indeed it did,’ Clara assured her. ‘Wednesday afternoon; that’s our half-day closing. And perhaps another time you all might like to visit us. Maddy says you are here for the whole month.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. This is our third summer here in Scarborough, but it is the first time we have stayed in the North Bay. Jessie, come along now, dear. And you as well, Tommy and Tilly. It’s time we were getting back. We mustn’t hold up Mr and Mrs Moon any longer; they are very busy people.’

  ‘She seems a very pleasant woman,’ said Clara to her husband when all the goodbyes had been said. Maddy had been bright-eyed with excitement at the visit of her new friend’s family and had insisted on accompanying them off the premises and onto the street, where she stood waving to them until they turned the corner.

  ‘Yes, I thought so too,’ replied William. ‘A very charming woman. You realise why she wanted to meet us, don’t you? To find out if we were suitable people for her daughter to mix with.’

  ‘Of course,’ smiled Clara. ‘But you can’t blame her, can you? We might well have done the same thing ourselves. Anyway, I think we met with her approval. A very beautiful woman, isn’t she? I know you must have noticed that, Will…’ She grinned at him. ‘But she doesn’t appear to have any airs and graces about her, does she? I thought she seemed a bit…well…not very sure of herself.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean. I thought so too. Aye, I noticed she’s a good-looking woman. Lovely blue eyes; you couldn’t help but notice ’em. But they looked a bit sad to me, as though there’s summat worrying her, deep down. Or maybe I’m being fanciful.’ William shook his head bemusedly.

  ‘But you can rest assured, luv, that there’s only one woman in the world for me, and you know who that is, don’t you?’ He put his arms around Clara, giving her a quick kiss on the lips as they stood together outside the back entrance to their home. ‘I can admire a pretty woman, wouldn’t be human if I didn’t, but there’s only one lass for me and don’t you ever forget it.’

  ‘I won’t, Will; I don’t,’ replied Clara, looking at him lovingly. ‘When have I ever had cause to doubt you? Never. Now, I’d best go and get the kettle on and see to our dinner. It’ll be a pot-luck meal today, I’m afraid; soup and sandwiches or something of the sort. What with going out on that job unexpectedly and then having visitors I’ve got a bit behind with meself. Tell your father and Patrick it’ll be about twenty minutes or so…

  ‘Oh, there you are, Maddy love. Come and help me to lay the table, there’s a good lass. We like your new friend; she seems a very nice polite girl. A lovely family they are; I’m very glad you’ve met them.’

  William was thoughtful after his wife had gone into the kitchen. What he had just told her was perfectly true; there would never ever be any other woman for him than his beloved Clara. He had grown to love her more and more deeply over the years of their marriage. She was a completely selfless person who saw the good in everyone and was slow to judge or to find fault. Admittedly, she was particular about the friends their children made, but that was because they meant the whole world to her and she wanted them to choose the right pathway through life.

  Clara was not a beautiful woman, not one that you would notice in a crowd or give a second glance; William guessed that Faith Barraclough would cause quite a few heads to turn. Clara’s face and features were unremarkable, her nose a little too snub, her chin a little too pointed and her forehead a little too high. Maddy had inherited her mother’s delicate looks and dainty figure and her golden hair as well, but both mother and daughter had a wiry strength which belied their seeming fragility. But when Clara smiled – and Maddy, too, for she resembled her mother in so many ways – then you might almost say that she was beautiful. Her smile transformed her face, lighting up her deep brown eyes which shone with a radiance, a goodness of spirit that came from deep within her.

  Her smile had been the first thing that William had noticed about her when he had first met her in the dressmaker’s shop in Eastborough, where she had worked. He had gone in to collect a skirt which his mother was having made and had been completely won over, not only by her smile, but by the pleasant manners and the gentleness of the young woman who was serving him. It wasn’t long before he paid a second visit to the shop to buy a pair of gloves for his mother’s birthday.

  There was good selection of accessories to be purchased there as well as the bespoke items for which the shop was best known. He had an ulterior motive, however: to become better acquainted with the personable young assistant. To his delight, the attraction that he had felt towards her on their first meeting seemed to be mutual. He learnt that her name was Clara Halliday and that she ‘lived in’ at the premises on Eastborough, working as assistant to Miss Montague, the middle-aged spinster lady who owned the establishment. She showed a little surprise, but was clearly delighted as well when he asked her if she would like t
o accompany him to a musical concert at the Spa Pavilion.

  Other outings followed, and both young people soon knew that they had found something special in their regard for one another. William at that time – some sixteen years ago – had been twenty-two years of age and Clara two years younger. Both her parents had died four years previously when a virulent form of influenza had swept through the neighbourhood where they lived: the little old streets behind Sandside, near to the harbour. Her father had been a fisherman and when he died, followed by her mother a few weeks later, Clara had been left almost penniless.

  It was then that she had been invited to share Miss Montague’s home; she was already a valued assistant in the dressmaking business and in the shop. The two of them had lived and worked together very companionably ever since. The advent of William Moon had made a difference, of course, but Louisa Montague had been very happy that such an agreeable and charming young man was courting the girl she had almost come to regard as her own daughter, the daughter she had never had.

  Louisa had never married and had never had any wish to do so. She lived for her work as a skilled dressmaker. Women of all levels of society, the rich as well as those who were less well-to-do, had over the years found their way to her little shop. Her leisure time, such as she allowed herself, was occupied largely in good works for her Methodist church, with occasional visits to a play or concert or – more frequently – to the library and lecture hall on St Nicholas Street.

  When William and Clara had married the following year Louisa had been as delighted as anyone. Those who did not know her, in fact, might have thought her to be the mother of the bride, seeing her in a large-brimmed hat, trimmed with flowers and sweeping ostrich feathers, which could have put even Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, to shame. She was losing her dear Clara, to be sure, both as assistant and as living companion, but she soon became a welcome visitor to the home they shared with William’s parents near to their undertaker’s yard. She made sure that she did not visit so often as to be considered a nuisance; but the friendship had continued and several of the gowns which were now sold in Moon’s Mourning Modes had been made by Louisa and the two young women who now worked for her.

  Patrick had been born the year after their marriage in 1886, and Madeleine – Maddy – four years later in 1890. William knew he was a very lucky man. Clara was not only a wonderful wife and mother but a willing business partner as well. She had never baulked at any of the tasks she had been called upon to do and had worked unstintingly alongside him and his father to help to make Isaac Moon and Son the highly respected business it was today.

  William’s only regret was that he had not been completely honest with his wife about his former relationship with Bella Randall, the woman who now worked in their shop…

  By the second half of the nineteenth century Scarborough had become known as the ‘Queen of Watering Places’. The town had prospered in no small way following the opening of the railway line from York in 1845, followed by further branch lines to Whitby, Bridlington, Pickering and Hull. People were finding it easier to travel to the coast and the fashion for day trips began, as well as the longer holidays which had always been popular.

  The building of the Spa Bridge near to the sea and, some thirty years later, the Valley Bridge, further inland, had led to easier access between the North and South Bays of the town. All types of accommodation could be found, both on the North and South Cliffs. They varied in quality and in price, too, ranging from the prestigious hotels such as the Crown, the Pavilion, the Prince of Wales and the Grand Hotel – which, at the time of its opening, was the largest hotel in Europe – to the more humble boarding and lodging houses.

  In 1880, when he was eighteen years old, William was enjoying himself, when he was not working, as a young man about town. The business was thriving and his father allowed him a decent wage, and so he was affluent enough to be able to patronise, occasionally, the fashionable shops – the hatters, gent’s outfitters, hosiers and shoemakers – which were springing up in Westborough, St Nicholas Street and Aberdeen Walk. But he was often to be found at the lower end of the town in the Remnant Warehouse which had been opened by an enterprising man named William Boyes. The six hundred feet of counters in the store were filled with factory remnants and much else besides. The periodical, the Remnant Warehouse Messenger, advertised everything one might need in the home or garden or for personal use. Many a Scarborough housewife, even from the Esplanade or the Crown Terrace, might be found having a rummage there. Yorkshire women as well as the men, even the most well heeled of them, would not say no to a bargain.

  There was a good deal of street selling too, although the opening of the new Market Hall in the middle of the century had replaced much of the outdoor trade. Prior to this and for many years afterwards – for the Scarborough Corporation was not altogether successful in limiting the street stalls – it was possible to buy poultry, butter and eggs in St Nicholas Street, hardware and pots in St Thomas Street, drapery and hats in Queen Street, and all sorts of items from the myriad stalls on Newborough.

  Not only was there street selling, but many other attractions as well; itinerant singers and musicians, hurdy-gurdy players and organ grinders, hawkers of towels and household linens, and girls selling apples and oranges. The streets echoed with the familiar cries of ‘Cockles alive-o’, ‘Any fish today?’, ‘Meat pies, all hot’, and on the sands the Italian ice-cream seller shouting ‘Hokey pokey penny a lump, that’s the stuff that makes you jump!’

  In the busy harbour stream trawlers and drifters arrived daily to land their catches, and the Sandside cockle and whelk stalls did a roaring trade. Dripping fish carts, passing through the town from the harbour to the railway station, were often to be seen on the roads, jostling with the cabs and carriages and horse-drawn omnibuses. All told it was a colourful scene adding to – or detracting from, according to your point of view – the atmosphere of fashionable Scarborough.

  It was down at the harbour, where he had been choosing a lobster for a teatime treat, that William had first set eyes on Bella Randall. There were six or eight of these girls all busily working at their task on a large stone slab near to the harbour wall. These ‘herring girls’, as they were called, were well known in the town and had been for many many years, though there were different girls, of course, each season. Sometimes they were known as ‘fisher lasses’; they originated mainly from Scotland and the north-east, and from other parts of the country, too, following the herring fleets as the fishermen gathered in from the North Sea the annual harvest of herrings. They worked long and tedious hours at their job, gutting the fish and preparing them for transport to the local shops and stalls or further afield. Skilled workers could gut a fish in a second, using a sharp-bladed tool called a gipping knife. The fish were then salted and packed head-to-tail in tightly sealed barrels with extra salt sprinkled between the layers. It was a method of preservation that had been used for centuries.

  These girls had become something of a novelty in the resort and folk often stopped to watch them, even, sometimes, to take their photograph. The fisher lasses, on the whole, grew quite used to the attention, though some were far more friendly than others towards the gawping spectators.

  It was one girl in particular whom William had been watching that afternoon, as she grabbed hold of one silver fish after another, slicing them open with a dexterity born of experience and scooping out the guts into a waste bin at the side. She was a rosy-complexioned lass with strong sunburnt arms. She was dressed in a similar way to the other young women, in a dark-hued blouse and a calico apron, the bib of which strained against her fulsome figure. Some of the girls wore white bonnets to shield their heads from the heat of the sun, but her hair was uncovered, a curly mass the colour and sheen of shining coal. When she glanced up, turning her head in his direction as though suddenly aware of his scrutiny, he saw that her eyes were the same shade as her hair, jet black and gleaming, as she regarded him with a brazen stare. He r
ealised that he must have been guilty of staring, although he had seen the girls many times before.

  ‘Got yer eye full, have yer?’ she called. Her mouth was wide with red lips, naturally red and not painted, and when she smiled, as she soon did, he could see that her teeth were white and even. She was a very striking young woman, bold to be sure, but William was not averse to a show of spirit in a girl. He was tempted to stop and talk with her.

  Chapter Six

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said William. ‘I didn’t mean to stare. I was just admiring your…er…your skill with that sharp-looking knife. You seem very experienced, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right.’ The girl grinned, her black eyes alight with humour and a hint of coquetry. ‘And I’ll tell you summat else an’ all, bonny lad. This ’ere blade not only looks sharp, it is bloomin’ sharp! One slip and before you can say “knife” the ends of your fingers could be joining the fish guts in the waste bin.’ William felt himself giving a shudder.

  ‘But I know what I’m doing,’ said the girl. ‘Like you say… I’m pretty experienced.’ She gave him a bold look, her eyes glancing from his straw boater down to his casual, but smart, jacket and grey flannel trousers and his highly polished black boots. ‘Anyways, what’s a toff like you doing round here? Ain’t you got nothing better to do than stare at us lasses?’

  ‘I’ve been choosing a nice lobster for our tea,’ he replied, indicating the brown-paper parcel in his hand. ‘There’s nothing like a freshly caught lobster from the North Sea.’

  ‘And you know what to do with it, do you?’

  ‘Aye…well, my mother does at any rate. We’re all of us partial to a bit of lobster, my mother and father and myself.’

  ‘You live here then, do you, in Scarborough? You’re not just here on yer holidays?’

  ‘Oh no…no; we’re a local family. Quite well known in the town, actually, though I say it myself.’