The Favourite Child

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Married Love. It caused quite a stir when it come out a few years back. Letters in the paper, in the House of Commons, various archbishops, the whole shebang accusing her of ‘pandering to depraved sexual instincts’, just because she’d told in a book how a woman can plan when she has childer, instead of them coming of their own free will like. But don’t ask me what it says the answer is. I’ve been a widow too long to care about such matters. She’s written another since, I believe, and opened a clinic in London to help in a more practical way, to teach women what to do.’

  ‘Clinic? Book? Mrs D, you are, as ever, a treasure store of fascinating information. What would I do without you?’

  ‘Go hungry?’ the cook said, passing her another slice of shortbread.

  But Bella refused a second piece. She found it hard to eat after one of her visiting afternoons. ‘I must go and see our patient. How is she?’

  ‘Aye well, you’ve got another miracle to perform upstairs. That young madam has slept the clock round but is asking for you good and loud now, and she’s not prepared to hang around waiting much longer. She’s been making her demands felt since dinner time, itching to be off back to wherever she come from. And in my view, it’d happen be no bad thing to let her.’

  ‘Oh Mrs D, don’t you join the opposition too. You’re my best mate.’ And Bella put her arms about the plump figure and gave the old cook an affectionate hug.

  ‘Go on with you, smarmy miss.’ Pink cheeked, Mrs Dyson pushed her gently away and started to ladle broth into a warmed dish. ‘She hasn’t eaten a thing in the whole twenty-four hours she’s been here, so happen you can persuade her to try a morsel of me best pea broth. It’ll set her up grand.’

  ‘Not eaten? But that’s appalling. How will she ever get well if she doesn’t eat?’

  ‘How indeed. You can explain all of that to her. A bath would do her no harm neither. I’ve tried to persuade her but given it up as a bad job. She’ll happen listen to you.’

  It was clear to Bella the moment she entered the room that Jinnie wasn’t in the mood to listen to anyone. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her stick-like limbs and lacklustre skin as white as the sheets yet her determination to leave only too evident. ‘Where are me clothes?’ she demanded, her voice high pitched, almost querulous with anxiety. ‘I don’t know where the ‘ell I am, but you’ve no right to kidnap me and fetch me here. ‘Who do you think you are?’

  The eyes, Bella noticed, were dark as chocolate with long curling lashes but there was still evidence of violet bruises beneath each. The soft, pale mouth trembled slightly, revealing that the girl wasn’t very far from tears despite the tendency of the top lip to curl upwards in derision. Certainly there was not a sign of the anticipated gratitude.

  Bella’s reply was gentle, couched in soothing tones. ‘I was only trying to help. You nearly died.’

  The girl tossed back thick skeins of brown hair as if she were proud of its greasy lankness. ‘Well, that would’ve been my choice, wouldn’t it? Happen it would’ve been no great loss.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that. No one should be left in the state you were in when I found you. It was me who took you to the hospital in the first place, so when they almost turned you out on the street the minute you woke up, I felt responsible.’

  ‘Well you needn’t. No one’s responsible for me. I can look after meself, ta very much.’ As if to prove this, she got to her feet, wobbling slightly as she glanced frantically about her. ‘Where’s me bleedin’ clothes?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve burnt them.’

  The expression of outrage on Jinnie’s face was terrible to behold. Tension vibrated through every weakened muscle and Bella almost flinched, thinking the girl was about to fly at her with claws outstretched like a frightened cat. ‘You’ve burnt them? How can you have burnt them? ‘Who give you the right?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can find you some fresh. You’re welcome to some of mine.’

  ‘I don’t need no charity.’

  If the poor child hadn’t looked so dreadfully woebegone and deadly serious, Bella would have laughed at the incongruity of such a brave statement. Instead she attempted to placate, gently reminding her that the clothes had been covered in blood, whereupon Jinnie bit her lip, shocked into silence at last by the appalling truth of what she had done.

  ‘Wait there,’ And Bella disappeared next door to her own bedroom, rummaging through her capacious wardrobe to return moments later with a good tweed skirt, blouse and jumper, plus various pieces of underwear, including a pair of warm woollen stockings and stout shoes.

  ‘I do hope they fit you but, if not, we can always make the odd adjustment here and there.’

  She held the bundle out and Jinnie scowled, looking almost as if she might refuse this generosity but then, seeing no alternative, turned her back, stripped off the flannel night-gown and began to hurriedly dress. The result was not encouraging. The clothes hung on the girl’s skeletal frame as if it were a coat hanger and not a living, breathing body at all.

  ‘Well that looks splendid,’ Bella brightly remarked, hiding her concern.

  ‘This don’t mean I’m stopping ‘ere. I’m off this very minute in fact.’ Jinnie set off for the door, not quite knowing where she was going, or why, but somehow mad as blazes to find matters taken out of her control and determined to make the point.

  Bella took a sideways step, blocking her way. ‘Where to exactly? Back to that stinking room, to whoever put you in that condition in the first place?’

  ‘It’s my choice, my ‘ome, stinking or not. I can do as I please’

  ‘Of course you can. And it could equally be your choice not to return, to take this opportunity to escape.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ A voice in the nether regions of Jinnie’s brain reminded her that she’d been trying to do exactly that for as long as she could remember but her obstinacy wouldn’t allow her to admit as much. ‘Toffee-nosed folk like you find it easy to look down on scum like me but you know nowt about it. Nowt!’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, but I would like to understand. Who was it who did this to you? A friend? Not what I’d call a sign of friendship.’

  Jinnie saw red. ‘Sadie only done what I asked her to.’

  ‘Yes but why did you ask her? You’re far too young to take such risks.’

  ‘I’ll do what I bleedin’ want!’ Jinnie was shouting now, feeling desperation close in. Again she made a move to the door, swiftly blocked.

  ‘Tell me, Jinnie. Who put you in this condition? Who was the father of your child?’

  Jinnie wanted to shout that there hadn’t been any child, not a proper one anyroad. Just a load of blood and gore. And there was certainly no father. But how could she deny it when this know-all of a woman had seen everything. Even so there were some matters best kept to herself. The fewer people who knew of Billy Quinn’s role in this affair, the safer it would be for her. From Quinn himself for one. Failed Catholic or no, he wouldn’t take kindly to what Sadie had done that day, either to Jinnie herself or the beginnings of what might’ve been, in the fullness of time, his son.

  ‘Don’t matter who he is, it’s none of your business.’

  ‘I think it is, since you nearly died and...’

  Rage soared through Jinnie’s veins and she wanted to smack the self satisfied, condescending smile right off that lovely face which looked down upon her so pityingly. ‘If you say that one more time there’ll be blue-murder done, I swear it. How d’you know I would’ve died? I might not have. Anyroad, I’ll thank you to keep your interfering, do-gooding nose out of what’s none of your bleedin’ business.’ Jinnie pushed her small face close up to Bella’s. ‘Have you got that into yer thick, middle-class skull?’

  Bella sighed. ‘Yes Jinnie. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Good! Then I’m off, and don’t try to stop me.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘It is.’

  Bella stepped back, indicating with a gesture that the
way was clear for her to leave and, after the smallest hesitation, Jinnie stuck her nose in the air and did just that, slamming the bedroom door behind her as if to prove her contempt.

  She stamped down the long, sweeping staircase, filled with a sudden terror that she might fall over, her pins were that wobbly. It took several attempts before she finally managed to pull open the heavy mahogany door and gain the sanctity of the pavement outside the double-fronted terraced house whereupon she fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Head bowed and stomach clenched in agony, Jinnie muttered furiously to herself between long, deep intakes of breath.

  ‘Just shows how much she cares, uppity madam. Picks me up and drops me off at her posh house without so much as a by-your-leave. Then lets me walk out without even a goodbye or a nice-to-have-met you.’

  ‘Hello! Were you speaking to me?’

  Jinnie almost fell over in shock at the sound of the deep voice so close by. It came from a man bending down beside her and she found herself gazing up into a pair of grey eyes regarding her not out of pity, but with open admiration. It wasn’t the handsomest face she’d ever seen, not by a long chalk, having pale freckled skin and a thin bony nose but it must surely have been the kindest. The mouth was wide and curled up at the corners, the eyes bright with curiosity. To Jinnie it seemed quite perfect, like the face of an overgrown choir boy. And somewhere deep inside, her stomach gave an odd little lurch.

  ‘You must be Jinnie, the one who clashed with a horse.’

  ‘Horse?’ Jinnie said, bemused.

  ‘Your accident with the runaway cart horse. Must’ve been quite a shaker.’ He straightened, held out one hand to assist her, smiling warmly. ‘Edward Ashton’s the name. I’m Isabella’s little brother, though not so little these days, I suppose.’

  Not daring to touch the hand, Jinnie scrabbled to her feet unaided and gazed up at him in wonder. ‘No. You’re not - not little at all.’ Now that they were both standing she could see how tall he was. Tall and thin, like a long drink of water as her mother would’ve said. But as it wouldn’t have been appropriate to make such a personal remark and no other sensible words came into her head, she remained silent.

  ‘I hope you aren’t off home just yet. I was looking forward to meeting you, once you’d recovered a little.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Why don’t you join me for a spot of tea and sticky buns. It must be nearly four.’ He held open the door for her to precede him into the house and if he guessed she’d been leaving in a huff when really she looked like death walking, he gave no sign of it. ‘Do say you’ll join me, Jinnie. Can’t resist sticky buns, can you?’ And he smiled at her in that little boy way.

  If he’d asked her to stand on her head and count to a hundred, she would have done so. Jinnie’s heart was hammering so fast against her breast bone she was sure he must hear it. With a shy smile, she smoothed down the borrowed tweed skirt and walked regally back inside.

  Despite the obvious antagonism from Emily, Jinnie and Edward quickly became firm friends. Each evening when he came home from the mill where he worked as a clerk in the office, he would tap on her door and ask how she was. Then he would sit by her bed and talk, about anything and everything under the sun. He told her how at some place called the New York Stock Exchange they were now trading in foreign shares, which must be good for Lancashire cotton; and how he’d seen a brilliant young actor called Lawrence Olivier in a new play.

  ‘Eeh, we come from different planets you and me,’ And he’d laugh and say he was glad that she’d landed on his.

  Edward liked to discuss politics and world affairs about which Jinnie knew nothing and she loved to sit and listen to his gentle voice. He explained how women would soon have the vote and that she’d then have a voice to which politicians would be forced to listen. And in the next breath how two hundred Welsh miners who’d marched to London to protest about unemployment had failed to persuade the Prime Minister, Mr Stanley Baldwin, to meet them.

  ‘Doesn’t that just prove no one listens,’ Jinnie said with vigour. ‘None of them Toffs wants to know about our problems.’

  ‘Quite right Jinnie,’ Edward firmly agreed. ‘Is it any wonder the miners sang “The Red Flag”. It’s a miracle to me that Bella didn’t march with them. She’s far more knowledgeable than I am on politics but I do my best to take an interest, don’t you know.’

  It made her go all wobbly in her stomach just to have him sitting there, so fresh faced and attentive, chatting to her as if she were his equal.

  In her turn Jinnie was happy enough to answer his questions about life on the streets of Salford, some of them anyway. She’d talk of the old women clattering about in their clogs and shawls, of the struggle to find a bit of coal or a shrive of bread to keep body and soul together, the difficulties of finding lasting employment and the shame of being on parish relief. She never mentioned Billy Quinn, nor gave any further details of her so-called accident with Bella’s imaginary horse, nor why she didn’t go home, having now recovered from it. She rather thought Edward assumed that simply returning to live in squalor again would make her ill. Jinnie even confided something of how she’d been forced to fend for herself since she was twelve, when her mam died.

  ‘Didn’t you have a father to take care of you?’ Edward asked, appalled, to which she admitted that she hadn’t the first idea who he might be, or even if she and her brothers had shared the same one.

  ‘Mam never said owt about him, and I never asked. I reckon he died long since.’

  Fortunately Edward was more interested in the present than the past, and he would assure her that she was safe now, need never go back to that grinding poverty. ‘I keep worrying that you might dash off again and then I wouldn’t know where to find you.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Jinnie had no intention of leaving, not now that she’d met Edward.

  Two weeks had gone by, let alone the two days she’d been allowed, and not once had she made a bolt for the door, not since she’d first clapped eyes on him. But for all Jinnie meant never to leave of her own accord, not for a minute did she believe herself to be safe. A part of her looked on this merely as an interlude, a well-earned rest in a bleak life. Each morning she expected Billy Quinn to turn up on the doorstep and march her home to beat the living daylights out of her for thinking she could escape. And if that happened, or rather when it happened, she’d deal with it as she always did, with fortitude. What did it matter so long as she could still have Edward to smile at her and make her heart race.

  Chapter Four

  Jinnie sensed that Mrs Ashton was sorely tempted on a number of occasions to throw her out, and would have done so were it not for the attentive presence of her son. Emily soon began to insist that Jinnie was well enough to be up and about every day, and not spend it malingering in bed. After that the pair would sit in the front parlour and play cards or backgammon in the evenings, though Jinnie was careful not to be caught loitering on the stairs or in the hall from which it was a short step to the other side of the polished front door. She was right to be cautious, for a sharp warning was swiftly received when Emily caught her on her own one day.

  ‘I’m not sure where you think all this fuss and attention will get you, but you should realise that I’m not so easily taken in as my children seem to be. I don’t give a jot for your opinion, a mere street urchin, but that of my son I hold in high esteem. No one can accuse me of being unkind to the poor, nevertheless I’ll not have him taken advantage of by some little money grabber. Do I make myself clear? I shall rid my house of your presence Jinnie Cook, though it may take time and must, of necessity, be done with complete discretion. I’m sure we understand each other.’

  Jinnie wisely made no response to this blunt statement. She confined herself to spending endless days amidst the shadows of the front parlour, waiting for Edward to return home from the mill each evening, hoping he would find time to talk to her.

>   ‘Why don’t you come out with me one afternoon, if you’re bored?’ Bella suggested. ‘I’m off to see one of my favourite people, Violet Howarth. Do you know her? She has a large and noisy, though surprisingly healthy family. They live in one of the small courts off Liverpool Street. Why don t you come? Violet is a tonic for anyone.’

  Jinnie shook her head. ‘Happen not. Best if I keep me head down, eh?’

  ‘Why? Who are you afraid of?’ But Jinnie wasn’t saying. Instead, since it was a Saturday, Edward offered to take her to a matinee and so Bella went out alone, as always.

  Edward took Jinnie to see Charlie Chaplin, and the following Wednesday they saw Douglas Fairbanks in a swashbuckling film called The Thief of Baghdad. Jinnie confessed that it was the first time she’d ever been to the pictures. After this, it became a favourite occupation. Once, he took her to the Picture House on Oxford Street to see The Jazz Singer. Jinnie had never been so amazed in all her life to hear Al Jolson say ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet’

  ‘And then he actually sang,’ she told Bella excitedly the next morning. ‘Clear as a bell it were. I would never have believed it, if I hadn’t heard it with me own ears.’

  ‘You and Edward seem to be best chums,’ Bella teased. ‘I think he’s rather sweet on you,’ and laughed out loud to see Jinnie blush.

  ‘Don’t talk soft. As if he’d look twice at a girl like me. He’s just being kind, that’s all, and I really should be off home, not hanging about here all day with nowt to do.’

  ‘You must get properly well first, then we’ll make decisions and find you somewhere decent to live. There’s no hurry.’ And Jinnie was happy to leave it that way for, much as she’d be sorry to lose this lovely posh life she was leading, she’d be sorrier still to lose Edward. Even the clean, soapy smell of him excited her, far different from the tobacco and beer which lingered upon Billy Quinn.