The Girl From Pit Lane

by Gracie Hart

  ‘Are you sure that’s why you are leaving? Perhaps there is no point in us continuing our relationship. After all, it will have to come to an end once you sail for America.’ Mary-Anne fought back the tears and secretly cursed her unborn child for not giving her the freedom of what she wanted to say.

  ‘Oh, Mary-Anne, if you only knew how I felt about you. It’s because of you that I’m going to Liverpool. I didn’t want to have to say this yet because I didn’t want to build your hopes up. But if I can earn enough money for us both to seek a passage, I was hoping that you’d join me in my new life. It’s time I took a wife, settled down and built a home. To be sure, I’m getting tired of being on my own of an evening, I could do with a good wife to look after me. I wouldn’t be looking for a family though, not until we are settled and have a good living. I’ve seen enough poverty in my life and don’t want any bairn of mine lying in its bed with a hungry belly of a night. That’s what I’m leaving behind … this is looking for a better life, hopefully for the both of us, if you’ll come with me?’ John held his breath; he had been thinking about his plans for both of them for some time and had known Mary-Anne was the girl from him the first day he had set eyes on her in her Aunt Patsy’s house.

  Mary-Anne looked down and then raised her head to look at him. ‘I can’t, John; I can’t come with you. I’m not what you think I am.’ She brushed a tear away and then cried, realising she couldn’t keep her secret any longer. ‘I am with child … another two months and it will be born. You won’t want me then and I don’t blame you. How could you, I’m nothing but a used woman.’

  ‘But you can’t be, I’ve not touched you. If it’s not mine, have you been seeing someone else behind my back?’ John ran his fingers through his long, black hair and glanced at Mary-Anne and the now-obvious stomach that she had hidden under her skirts. ‘How could you lead me on? I’ve lost my heart to you and you have deceived me.’ John grasped Mary-Anne arms and shook her. ‘Who’s the father? Because by the Lord, I will kill him.’

  ‘I can’t say, but the child’s not here through love,’ Mary-Anne sobbed. ‘I too feel the same about you, but it would not be fair for you to pin your hopes on me joining you in America, as I don’t know how I will feel once the child is born and you won’t want me anyway.’

  ‘Tell me who the father is! When you say you did not love him, why did you let him touch you?’ John shouted at Mary-Anne, realising his world with all his dreams for a better life had just fallen apart.

  ‘I thought that I had no option. It was after my mother had died and it was the only way to keep the roof over our heads.’ Mary-Anne looked at John and saw the anger on his face.

  ‘You sold yourself! You were no better than the prick-pinchers on the wharf side. My God, have I been blind? Just how long did you think you could hide it from me? And what was to become of the bastard baby that you are carrying?’ John shook her again.

  ‘I was going to take it to the poor house or the orphanage, but I’m beginning to realise that I can’t be that heartless. That the child is half mine and no matter how it was conceived, I have feelings for it.’

  ‘Well, at least that is to be admired in you. But as for us two, I can’t continue with our courtship. You have deceived me, Mary-Anne. You have tricked me into thinking you were someone pure and that I could love, when all the time you were with child. It’s best that I leave; this is the last that you will be seeing of me. There’s nothing here for me now.’ John let go of her arms and stared at her as she shook sobbing and crumpled in the middle of the path to her home. ‘I could have loved you, Mary-Anne – a new life waited for us both – but not now.’ John straightened his cap, gave her one last glance and then strode off back down the lane.

  ‘John … don’t go! I love you!’ Mary-Anne cried. But it was too late. His strides took him quickly down the lane, and he never gave her a backward glance. Tears ran down her face and her body shook as she hugged herself tightly, then she made her way home.

  Why had she told him? How had she thought he would take it? She should have said nothing. She should have let him go to Liverpool and by the time he had returned for her, the baby would have been born and a home found for it without his knowing.

  Deep down she knew why she’d told him; the life within her might not have been made in love, but it was part of her, her blood, and there was no way she could turn her back on it, no matter how it was conceived. It would be born, she’d raise it the best she could and John Vasey would have to be forgotten. There was nothing else to do.

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ Mick watched as his lodger of the last seven months ransacked his basement room, thrusting his few belongings into a bag, which he swung across his back.

  Patsy stood next to her husband and watched as John swore, dropping his watch onto the floor as he looked at the time.

  ‘I’m fecking well leaving, that’s what’s wrong with me. I know I said it would be next week and that I’d pay the rent up to then, but there’s nowt here in Leeds for me anymore. I’ll not be coming back.’ John looked wild-eyed at his old friend, and put his watch back into his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘What’s brought this on? Have you and our Mary-Anne had words, or is it the lads down at the quay? Sure they are always gobbing off.’ Mick laughed.

  ‘It’s bloody Mary-Anne, if you must know. And I’m sorry, Patsy, but your niece is nothing but a slut. She’s opened her legs to some bugger and is carrying their child. And I thought she was the one for me, and there she was hiding that growing belly and I just thought how content and well she looked.’ John growled at Patsy, and hated himself for telling her, but he wasn’t one for not saying it how it was.

  ‘She can’t be, she’s not like that! Now, young Eliza perhaps, she’s got the cheek of the devil, but not Mary-Anne. You are sure it’s not yours, John Vasey, and that you are leaving her in such a state?’ Patsy stood in the doorway and blocked his way.

  ‘I haven’t put a bloody hand on her, she wouldn’t let me, and now I know why. Besides, I’d more respect for her to do that, more fool me! I’m not your young buck that just looks at women for one thing.’ John cursed as he pushed Patsy aside and Mick caught his arm. ‘Let me go, Mick. I’m not stopping a minute longer. My new address and rent money is on the table over there, I was hoping I could leave without seeing you both.’

  ‘You’d better not have disgraced my family, John. If I find out it is yours, I’ll not be happy.’ Mick held John’s arm.

  ‘I’d not be leaving my address if it was mine, now would I? She’s broken my heart and shattered my dreams of a new life with her … now let me be. I’ve no gripe with you two.’ John looked at them both. They’d been good to him and he’d been happy staying with them while courting Mary-Anne.

  ‘Then get away, man. May God be with you and I’m sorry that she’s hurt you.’ Mick patted John on his back and watched as he went up the cellar steps, listening as he slammed the kitchen door behind him. ‘I think you’d better pay your nieces a visit, it sounds as if one of them might be in need of your services.’ Mick sat down on the chair next to the table with the rent money and John’s forwarding address. ‘I thought for the first time in John Vasey’s life he was going to be happy. He deserved a good woman in his life and I thought he’d found her in Mary-Anne.’

  ‘She is a good’en, and she wouldn’t lead him on. Someone’s taken advantage of her, of that I’m sure. I’ll go up there at the weekend, see what they are about. In the meantime, you keep in touch with John; he’ll need a friend, and, besides, if he turns out to be the father, we need to know where he is. He can’t expect to walk away from his responsibilities.’ Patsy sighed. ‘I owe it to her mother, God rest her soul, to look after Mary-Anne.’

  ‘It’ll not be his, else he wouldn’t have left her. I know John.’ Mick looked at the hurriedly written address in his hand.

  ‘Aye, well, we will see. Who ever it is, that lass needs help.’ Patsy shook her head and sighed as she went up i
nto her kitchen. Her niece needed her, that was for sure.

  ‘What the hell did you tell him for?’ Eliza looked at her sister in disbelief as she cried once again over her meagre supper. ‘The more I think about it the more I wonder why you opened your gob. Another two months, Mary-Anne … the baby would have been born, you could have left it in somebody else’s care and you could have had a new life with the man with whom there is no doubt you are in love.’ Eliza put her hands on her hips and sighed.

  ‘But it wouldn’t be cared for, would it? It would just exist, not have a mother or someone to love it … not like we had. I know I started off hating this baby, but now it’s growing I can feel it moving and it’s a part of me. It’s your kin too, Eliza; I can’t just abandon it, no matter how much I love John.’ Mary-Anne looked up from her still-full supper dish and across at Eliza. Her eyes were red and swollen and her long auburn hair, which she was so proud of, was tangled about her shoulders.

  ‘But it’s Edmund Ellershaw’s bastard, and even if you brought him up in front of the parish councillors for the Poor Law, you’d get no money out of him. They are all his cronies and are in league with him. They’ll not even listen to you. How are we going to manage to bring it up as well as keep a roof over our heads? The gossip will be fearful, her next door will revel in it for weeks.’ Eliza suddenly realised that the plans for the baby had changed, that it was going to be a part of her life as well as Mary-Anne’s … something she hadn’t seen coming. ‘What will Tom think? His mother will definitely not think much of us when she finds out.’ Eliza sighed.

  ‘Oh, Eliza, you of all people,’ Mary-Anne sobbed. ‘This baby could be yours. I’ve heard you and Tom whispering and carrying on. You are such a hypocrite. I’m in trouble and it was as much to save us both from the poor house as myself. The one time I ask for support and all you can think of is your precious Tom.’

  ‘I just didn’t think that you’d be keeping it,’ Eliza gasped. ‘I didn’t think you wanted it. Perhaps I should have taken you to Aunt Patsy’s that day and then you wouldn’t be here crying broken-hearted.’

  ‘No,’ Mary-Anne cried, ‘I might have joined my mother and that other lost soul that got buried with her. I’m not the first to have an illegitimate baby and I’ll not be the last. But I loved John and I wish I had told him from the start; it just got harder as the weeks went on and I didn’t realise how much he thought of me and me of him.’

  ‘Well, he’s gone now. We will have to make the best of it. It’s a pity because where am I going to get my material from? I was relying on him for future supplies. Did you manage to ask him for some cotton? Do you think he will have hoarded some away for me?’ Eliza asked, thinking of the dresses that were taking up most of her time and that would not be completed if she had no material to work with.

  ‘You are unbelievable, Eliza Wild! This dressmaking has gone to your head. I’m broken-hearted and all you can think about is your satins. I couldn’t give a damn about the stupid dress. I wish William Ellershaw, his father and his stupid giggling bride would go to hell because that’s where they belong. If I can’t be happy, why should they?’

  Mary-Anne thrust her chair back and ran up to her room, leaving Eliza shocked by her outburst. Perhaps she had been a bit uncaring but the wedding dress would pay for their bread and butter for weeks to come and would be needed, especially if there was to be three of them shortly.

  Eliza put her head in her hands and sighed. A baby … what the hell were they going to do with a baby, and how would she bring it into the world without any help?

  Twenty Seven

  ‘Well, this is a nice mess you’ve got yourself into, Mary-Anne. You, of all folk … I thought your mother had brought you up correctly and told you not to open your legs for any man.’ Patsy sat across the other side of the kitchen table from her niece and scowled at the pale-faced young woman who looked downcast. ‘When John Vasey told me, I could hardly believe it. And him there, thinking of wedding you. There isn’t a slim chance that it could be his, is there?’

  Mary-Anne shook her head.

  ‘Then who’s is it? Let’s be hearing. The fairies didn’t put it there overnight, somebody has had his way with you.’ Patsy took off her shawl and looked around the house – the house she hadn’t been in for some years as she was never made welcome by Bill Parker. The girls had kept it tidy, she thought, that was something their mother would be proud of.

  ‘I don’t want to say. Anyway, it’ll make no difference because he denies it being his and he’s married.’ Mary-Anne looked at Eliza, hoping that she’d keep quiet.

  ‘That’s always the way with men … they like their pleasure but never want to pay for it. But you should have thought, girl. A few minutes’ excitement and look what it’s done to you … ruined your life. You should have come to me early on and all this could have been avoided. It’s too late now, by the look of that belly that you are trying to hide.’ Patsy sighed.

  ‘It wasn’t excitement or pleasure, believe me,’ Mary-Anne whispered.

  ‘It never is the first time and then you grow to enjoy it and you know their ways. It’s a pity your mother isn’t here to tell you all this.’ Patsy tapped her fingers on the table.

  Eliza sprang to her sister’s defence.

  ‘She means she didn’t want it; she was forced. The dirty old bastard, he knew exactly what he was doing.’ How could her aunt think the worse of her sister? They both might be able to give cheek and hold their own, but neither of them were easy.

  ‘You are telling me Mary-Anne was raped? Speak up, child.’ Patsy looked at the two sisters exchanging glances at one another. ‘Well?’

  ‘Near as damn it, Aunt Patsy. Tell her, Mary-Anne, tell her why you are in this state,’ Eliza urged as Mary-Anne scowled and shook her head. ‘She did it because we couldn’t pay the rent. Edward Ellershaw might as well have raped her as he had his enjoyment, and he wanted it to become a regular understanding rather than find him the rent money. He took her to his club and she came back in the state you find her. And now he won’t pay for her trouble.’ Eliza wept and hugged her sister as Patsy took it all in.

  Mary-Anne hung her head and snivelled. ‘It was my fault; I shouldn’t have let him touch me. I should have had my pride, but things looked so bleak and we had no money.’

  ‘I should have known. That man will rot in hell one day. He preys on the weak and less fortunate than himself. He’s nothing more than a bully; your mother loathed the ground he walked on. I should have been there to warn you.’ Patsy wiped a tear from her eye. ‘You’ll not get any money out of him. It’s not the first time he’s done something like this; believe me, I know. ‘

  Mary-Anne wanted to say, I know he did it with my mother, but thought better of it.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell John all this? He might have understood then and looked differently at the situation. I do believe he loved you, Mary-Anne.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell him all of it,’ Mary-Anne whispered, ‘about what I’d been through. I was too embarrassed.’

  ‘Aye, lass, there’s you and Eliza walking about Leeds as if you own the place, and then when it comes to talking about natural things you daren’t speak. Sex is what makes the world turn, girls, it just isn’t spoken about. It’s brushed under the carpet in polite society. But everyone does it behind closed doors, else we wouldn’t all be here. Now, what are you going to do about this baby? You are too far gone by the looks of it to get rid of it. The mite will have to be born and that means you need me, because you won’t know the first thing about bringing a baby into the world, Eliza, but I’ll learn you when the time comes. Are you keeping it or is it to go onto the poorhouse steps? That would be the sensible thing to do. You don’t want a burden at your age.’ Patsy folded her arms and looked sternly at Mary-Anne.

  ‘I don’t know … one minute I want to keep it and then the next it’s like you say, it would just be a burden. A burden we could both do without.’ Mary-Anne looked at Eliza.

 
‘Well, we will cross that bridge if it’s born safely. Now Eliza, you make me a pot of tea while I have a look at Mary-Anne here, just to make sure all’s going to plan and see when we can expect this baby to be born.’ Patsy got up from the table and waited for Mary-Anne. ‘Go on lass, get yourself upstairs and let me have a look at you. It’s no good being coy now, I’ll see it all in another few weeks because this baby is not entering this world without me to help it. I owe that to your mother at least.’ Patsy watched as Mary-Anne hesitatingly walked past her.

  ‘She’ll be all right, won’t she? You won’t do anything to make her lose the baby, will you?’ Eliza said.

  ‘Heavens, child, do you think me a murderer? She’ll be safe in my hands, I’ve helped bring babies into the world one way or another all my life, depending on the circumstances. I will do my best for Mary-Anne.’ Patsy turned and followed Mary-Anne up the stairs and breathed in deeply. A baby in the family was all they needed, but that was what they were going to have and she would have to do her best by her nieces.

  ‘I think you’re right – you look to me as if you’ve got another two months, but it could come early or late, so be careful what you are doing. You’ll know when it’s due because you’ll feel as if you’ve peed yourself, Mary-Anne; that’ll be the water that protects the baby giving way, letting you know it’s coming. As soon as you see that or get any sharp pains send for me and I’ll come as fast as I can. It’s your first, so you’ll likely take a while.’ Patsy sipped her tea and looked across at the two young women. ‘Is there a young lad you can send to get me? You don’t want to be left on your own.’

  ‘Aye, there Henry Milburn at the end of the row, he can run like a whippet. We’ll send him,’ Eliza quickly said. ‘I’ve no intentions of leaving you on your own, Mary-Anne.’