Mary's Child

by Irene Carr

  Sylvia rang the bell and Chrissie came to show Della out. As they passed through the hall, Max Forthrop came home. He glanced at the two girls and they both bobbed. Chrissie saw Della wink. And wondered.

  At the end of the week, Chrissie worked her last day through until four in the afternoon. While she was changing quickly into her best dress, Frank came to the house pushing a barrow. As she arrived, breathless, in the kitchen, he said, ‘I got the loan of this from a feller down our street. He goes round with it selling taties.’

  Chrissie’s box was packed and Emily had helped her drag it downstairs. Frank heaved it up on to the barrow and said, ‘Right you are. We’re off, then.’

  Chrissie asked him, ‘Will you wait just a minute?’ She returned to the kitchen and the cook, who was working on the preparation of the dinner. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Garrity. Thank you for all your help.’

  ‘And the same to you. Keep an eye on this pan, Emily. I’m just seeing Chrissie off.’ So only she accompanied Chrissie to the door. Mrs Garrity halted there and said low voiced, ‘I’m not surprised you’re going. I’ve heard him on the landing of a night.’

  Chrissie glanced at her, startled, and Mrs Garrity sniffed. ‘Oh, aye. There’s not much I miss. I sleep light. Doesn’t worry me at my age o’ course, and that Emily, she’ll be safe enough. But you’re a bonny lass and well out of it. That Della will be more his kind. That’ll be why he fetched her.’

  ‘Fetched her?’ Chrissie stared open mouthed.

  The cook winked, ‘That’s what I reckon. I’ve asked a few cronies of mine, working in the trade, pubs and hotels, like. It seems that Della worked in the King’s Head for the past six months.’ The King’s Head was a better-class public house patronised by some of the professional men of the town. ‘I bet that’s where he found her.’

  Frank pushed the barrow down the drive as the early dusk closed around him and Chrissie. A drenching rain fell, blown in on the wind from the sea. As they came to the town the lamplighter was going on his rounds with his pole, switching on the streetlamps.

  Frank said, ‘It’s not a bad road from the Frigate to the College. A long way and across the bridge but it’s all lit, so you’ll be able to walk that on your own without any worry.’

  ‘That’s right, but—’

  Frank went on, ‘I got me da to sign the papers for the Navy. I’m off to the training ship on Monday.’

  ‘Oh!’ Chrissie forgot about the rain that was soaking her only coat and seeping into her boots to chill her feet. ‘I’ll miss you, Frank. You will take care of yourself, won’t you?’

  Frank shrugged that off. ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right. It’s you I was worrying about, having to walk on those dark roads of a night. I’m glad that’s off my mind.’

  They crossed the bridge to the north shore and went on, close to the river now. The din of the riveting hammers had ceased as the men finished work for the day. Now they came swarming out of Ballantyne’s yard and all the others, filling the surrounding streets from wall to wall. The drum of their boots on pavements and cobbles was as loud as the hammers had been.

  Frank halted the barrow outside the Frigate and carried Chrissie’s box upstairs. Then she bade him farewell, both of them standing in the rain that dripped from the eaves or blew in their faces so that they blinked it away like tears. Chrissie said, ‘I expect I’ll see you some time.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘I’m getting right away from me da. When I get any leave I’ll go to me uncle that lives down that way at Southsea. I’ll not come back here.’

  ‘Write us a line or two, then.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll do that.’ He jerked at the peak of his sodden cap then seized the shafts of the barrow and trundled it away. Chrissie watched him pass through a pool of yellow gaslight then merge like a shadow into the darkness and the crowds of hurrying men beyond.

  That night she lay in another attic room among strangers. She had lost one friend in Ruby, and now was losing another in Frank. She did not weep. She no longer lay tensed, listening to the stealthy, heavy footfall on the floor outside her door. That was cause for relief, not weeping. She had wept her fill as she watched Frank walk away from her.

  She wondered what lay ahead of her now?

  She thought that she had seen the last of Forthrop.

  Chapter 13

  November 1910

  ‘Is that grub ready yet, Chrissie?’ Lance Morgan’s wheezing bellow echoed up the stairwell. It was throttled back to low register because his wife and their two children were still asleep, but it still came clearly to Chrissie, working in the kitchen.

  ‘Coming now!’ she called in answer.

  Neither voice would wake the sleepers. The kitchen looked out on the yard at the back of the Frigate, and just beyond lifted the tall cranes of the shipyards, with their jibs thrust out parallel to the ground, standing black against the skyline like gibbets. This close to the yards the din of plating, hammering and riveting that started early every morning and went on all day, was like a ragged roll of drums. After learning to sleep through that, Florence Morgan and her children would not be woken by voices that did not concern them.

  Chrissie slid the razor-sharp blade of the big knife through the stack of sandwiches, turning thick, full slices packed with hot bacon into thick halves. She transferred the stack to an already full salver, picked this up and headed for the stairs.

  Winter, spring and summer had gone and now the end of another year was approaching. She had grown in the past twelve months and turned men’s heads now, though she was still slight and quick on her feet. The dress she wore was almost new because she had outgrown those she had brought with her from her ‘place’ at the Forthrop house. It was scarcely any different, however, being a plain, dark, serviceable cotton, with a white apron tied over it. She had made the dress herself, as she made most of her clothes now.

  She ran down the stairs with the salver balanced on one hand, used the other to seize the newel post at the bottom of the banisters and so swung round into the door to the bar. Lance Morgan and Arkley, the barman, broad faced and burly, were both busy there, pulling pints of beer for ‘menders’, ‘the hair of the dog’ for men who had gone home drunk the night before, and pouring mugs of coffee laced with rum to combat the cold of the morning.

  Chrissie slid the salver on to the bar with, ‘Here you are, Mr Morgan.’ The men packed along the bar cheered hoarsely. Hands, thick fingered, calloused, tattooed, reached out to seize sandwiches, tossed their pennies on to the bar.

  One or two shouted, ‘Bonny lass, Chrissie!’

  She laughed and ran back up the stairs. Another few minutes and the bar would empty as the men streamed out of the doors on their way to work as the hooters blared. Upstairs in the kitchen again she cooked breakfast for the household, including herself.

  In the bar, as the first blast of the hooters drowned conversation and the surge started towards the doors, one man shoved his empty coffee mug on to the counter and said, ‘That’s a bonny lass and a busy one you’ve got there, Lance.’

  Morgan grinned at him over the empty salver, glasses and mugs. ‘Best day’s work I ever did, taking Chrissie on. She runs the house like clockwork. Florence thinks she’s marvellous and the bairns worship her. She can do owt wi’ them.’

  As the man headed for the door he grumbled, ‘I could do wi’ one like that meself!’

  Chrissie served breakfast. Lance and Arkley took turns to come up from the bar for theirs, one serving any customers while the other ate. Florence Morgan, fluffy-blonde and vague, appeared. She fluttered about for a minute or two, moving crockery around and smiling brightly in the belief that she was helping. Chrissie patiently avoided her, then got her out of the way by setting her breakfast in front of her when Florence sat down.

  Arkley grinned, having seen it all before. Soon after Chrissie started work at the Frigate, Arkley had told her, ‘Call me Arkley. Me name’s Dinsdale Arkley but nobody calls me Dinsdale except me mother.’ />
  Chrissie had probed tactfully, ‘Mrs Morgan’s a lot younger than him, isn’t she?’ Florence was just turned thirty.

  Arkley had nodded. ‘His first wife died after they’d been married twenty years. They had no bairns. Then after about a year he met Florence and they were wed inside a couple o’ months.’ He laughed, but kindly. ‘Flo can’t manage a house to save her life. She runs around all day long and gets nowt done. Except her sewing. She’s a dab hand at that. But she keeps on at the bairns and they don’t take a bite o’ notice of her. It’s bedlam up there. Lance won’t have them in the bar, thank God.’

  He shook his head, grinning, then lowered his voice: ‘There’s some that says she married him for the money – and he’s got plenty, been coining it for nearly thirty years – but don’t you believe it. Him and her, they think the world of each other.’

  Chrissie found that was true. Florence Morgan always deferred to Lance and he never complained about any of her scatter-brained misdemeanours – the shirts burned with the iron, the potatoes boiled dry and black, welded to the bottom of the pan. The children, Harriet and little Reginald, basked in the love of both of them.

  Chrissie got them up now, washed and dressed them, both wriggling and yelping, bombarding her with questions: ‘Are we going to the shops today?’ ‘Is me mam taking us?’ ‘Will you take us to the park?’ Chrissie bounced them on their beds, chased them around the room, let them hide and be found. Finally she took them in to breakfast. She put little Reg, two years old and so still in dresses, into his high chair, then lifted Harriet on to hers. She promptly slid off the other side, giggling, trying to run. But Chrissie was too quick for her: ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ She grabbed Harriet, set her back on the chair and pointed a warning finger. Harriet took the warning: the game was over. She settled meekly in her place, took up her spoon and began eating porridge.

  An hour later Chrissie had washed up, cleaned through the house and made Lance Morgan’s books up to date. That was a job she had taken over from him soon after she joined him. She had offered, ‘If you let me have a couple of hours off one evening, I’ll do your books for you.’ She explained that she had taken classes in bookkeeping and qualified.

  He had answered hopefully, ‘If you could do it . . .? Flo had a go but she made a right pig’s ear of it.’ He let Chrissie try, saw her neat figures, her quicknes and accuracy and told her with relief, ‘That’s your job from now on, then.’

  Now as she reached the foot of the stairs, dressed for the street in her good coat, she called through the door into the bar, ‘I’m off now, Mr Morgan!’

  ‘Right you are, lass!’ Lance came to the door. ‘Can you look in at the Bells on your way back? Old Joe Hindley sent a message round this morning, asking if I could lend him some brown ales. The brewery doesn’t deliver to him till tomorrow but they’ll be here this morning. So tell him if he sends a lad round with a barrow later on, I’ll let him have six dozen.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  Lance added, ‘And I’ll be wanting some o’ them pies at dinner time.’

  Chrissie answered, ‘There’s four dozen I baked yesterday. They’re on the top shelf in the kitchen cupboard. But I expect I’ll be back in time to get them down and warmed up for you.’

  ‘What have we got for dinner?’

  ‘I made a big one for the house.’

  Arkley grinned over Lance’s shoulder. ‘That’s the ticket: look after us as well as the customers.’

  Chrissie laughed and went on her way. After an early, chill greyness the morning had turned bright and dry. Florence had taken her children for a walk by the sea. Chrissie stepped out briskly on her way into the town. At the bank she took Lance’s money from her bag and paid it into his account. She also paid some money into her own.

  Then she made a rapid round of the shops, buying what she needed to feed the household for the next twenty-four hours. On the way home she made a detour to the Bells, a pub in a quiet side street off Howick Street and between the Frigate and the bridge. She could not enter the male preserve of the bar but went in by the side door of the snug, a little room with a bench along one wall, a pair of small round tables that gleamed with polish, and a few chairs. It was empty at that time of day.

  She leaned over the counter and saw Millie Taylor standing behind the public bar, polishing glasses. Chrissie called, ‘Millie!’ The girl came hurrying over. ‘I’ve got a message for Joe.’

  Millie was a year older than Chrissie and an inch or two taller, a fair-haired, happy, smiling girl. They had met through interchanges like this, their respective employers helping each other out, and become friends. She said, ‘Joe’s out, gone to the doctor’s. Was it about the brown ales?’

  ‘That’s right. Lance says you’re to send a lad round with a barrow later on and he’ll let you have six dozen.’

  ‘Lovely. Tell him “Thanks”. I’ll see to it.’

  Chrissie asked, ‘So what’s the matter with Joe?’

  Millie sighed. ‘Poor old chap. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Joe that the doctor can cure. I believe he’s just missing his wife. He’s never been right since she died. He doesn’t look after the business like he did. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave up before too long and went to live with his son. I might be looking for another job then. Depends what the new boss is like.’

  Chrissie could just see through into the bar from where she stood, and saw only one man with a glass of beer in front of him, his head buried in a newspaper. She said, ‘You’re not very busy.’

  Millie shook her head. ‘No, we never are these days. Mind you, trade’s fallen off a bit over this past year. Like I said, Joe seems to have lost interest. But business never was good. We’re too much out of the way, stuck down this side street.’

  Chrissie mused, ‘And it’s a big house.’ Both bar and sitting-room were twice the size of those in the Frigate.

  Millie chuckled, ‘True enough. Lord knows how we’d manage if we ever filled the place. But that’s not likely.’ She went on, ‘When Joe sent me round to the Frigate on an errand the other night your back room was full o’ young toffs.’

  Chrissie nodded. ‘Oh, aye. They’re regulars. Get up to some daft tricks but they’re good lads really.’

  ‘Wasn’t one o’ them that Jack Ballantyne? Tall, good-looking lad.’

  Chrissie answered, carefully casual, ‘Probably. He gets in.’

  ‘There’s many a lass fancies him. And he’s been out with a few.’ That was common knowledge. Millie teased, ‘You might be next on the list. Mebbe that’s why he keeps looking in.’

  ‘No, I won’t!’ Chrissie was indignant and turned red. ‘He’s no different to the others as far as I’m concerned.’ That was said with force; she meant it.

  Millie touched her hand. ‘I was just joking. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Chrissie tried to shrug off her embarrassment, but she was glad when the door behind her opened.

  An old woman came in and said, ‘Give us a bottle o’ stout, Millie, lass.’ She peered at the two girls as Millie poured the drink into a glass and asked, ‘Heard the news, have you?’

  Millie set the glass on the counter. ‘What was that?’

  A hand, brown and lumpy with arthritis, put two pennies on the counter then curled around the glass. ‘They hung that Dr Crippen this morning.’

  Millie’s eyes widened. ‘Oh!’

  Chrissie shuddered.

  The old woman sucked at the Guinness, sighed and sat down at one of the little tables, glass in her hand. ‘Serves him right, I say. Murdering his missus like that and cutting her up. Deserves all he got.’

  Millie said, ‘It was marvellous how he was caught, him halfway to Canada when they sent a message by the wireless to the ship he was on and he was arrested.’

  The old woman agreed: ‘Ah! But, mind you, I don’t like that wireless. It’s not natural. Like them picture shows they have these days, not natural like the variet
y on the halls. There’ll be no good come of it.’ She sucked in the thick, black stout.

  Chrissie said, ‘I have to be going.’

  She hurried back to the Frigate, trying to push from her mind the thought of the body jerking at the end of the rope. Instead she wondered why the Bells did not have more trade.

  When she arrived, the brewers’ dray stood outside the Frigate, a big steam-powered lorry stacked with barrels and crates, with a tray hung under the engine to catch the grey and glowing ash from the fire. Chrissie preferred the drays pulled by horses, loved the big gentle shires with their soft noses.

  She was back in time to cook the midday meal and to heat up the pies for the bar. She slid them, piping hot, on to hot plates on the stroke of twelve and carried them downstairs to the bar on a tray. Five minutes later the bar filled up with men pouring out from the yards, and ten minutes later all the pies had gone.

  That was another of Chrissie’s ventures. She had persuaded Lance Morgan: ‘Let me make some bacon sandwiches of a morning for you to sell in the bar. And if they go, you pay me something for every dozen.’ And later: ‘All these chaps who come in at dinnertime, they want a pint to wash down the sandwiches they’ve brought with them. But suppose you had some hot pies, wouldn’t they go like the sandwiches once people got to know they were there?’ And he paid her for her work at the oven.

  Lance Morgan had been as good as his word, paying her the thirty shillings a month he had promised if she could do the job. Since then he had told Florence, marvelling, ‘I’m paying her nearly that much again for what she cooks for the bar,’ adding, ‘and I’m making a profit at it.’

  Chrissie knew that, knew to a penny how profitable his business was and respected him for his ability. Now, as she set the table for dinner, she reflected, smiling, that he might not have a lot of imagination but he ran a good house, as Frank had told her, clean, comfortable and honest. It was popular not only with the men who worked in the yards, but with some of the clerks and young professionals of the town, like Luke Arkenstall, the son of Ezra and now training to be a solicitor like his father. And Jack Ballantyne. Her smile faded.