The Girl From Pit Lane

by Gracie Hart

  Eliza leaned back in her chair and looked into the fire. ‘I miss my Tom. I wish he’d listen to me, but his mother hates me and he thinks I’ve been disloyal to him, when I wasn’t at all. I suppose next door won’t have helped; they are bound to have heard the baby by now and added fuel to the gossip. I bet they think that Victoria is mine, as you have always been sweeter to them. I’m quite surprised they haven’t shown their faces by now, especially old bag Ada. She’ll be having a great time spreading her venom. Before you know it she’ll have turned our house into a brothel, with men coming evening, noon and night.’ Eliza looked at her sister who looked pasty and drawn. ‘We are a right pair, aren’t we? At least we’ve money in the pot and a roof over our heads. All we have to do is to look to the future for all three of us.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Mary-Anne said. ‘I’m glad next door are keeping away. I just couldn’t face the look of disgust that she would give me. At least this way I’m not yet condemned in her eyes as a fallen woman.’

  ‘No, but I know I am and always will be.’ Eliza sighed, looking quickly across at Mary-Anne as she heard a knock on the front door. ‘Who’s that, do you think? Speak of the devil, it might be them next door. I knew that they wouldn’t be able to keep away.’ Eliza got up from her chair and went to answer the late-evening caller.

  Mary-Anne looked at her baby fast asleep and sighed. She could do without visitors; she knew she didn’t look at her best and she hoped that they would not disturb the sleeping infant. She listened as Eliza opened the door and gasped as she heard a voice she all too well recognised. The soft lilting Irish drawl made her heart beat fast as she hurried to the small mirror near the back door to tidy her hair and pinch her cheeks before he entered the kitchen.

  ‘You’ve a visitor, Mary-Anne, one I know you’ll be glad to see.’ Eliza smiled as she opened the kitchen door and revealed John Vasey standing behind her.

  John took off his cap and looked across at the woman he loved and had missed so much in his time in Liverpool. He’d regretted every day that he had left her behind and then when Patsy had told him how the baby had been conceived, and the reality of it all had gradually sunk in, he had made his mind up to return and tell her just how he felt. He’d been hurt and hurt badly, but he had mulled the news over and over again in his head and knew that he had to return to his Mary-Anne. He glanced quickly at the sleeping baby in the drawer before stepping forward.

  ‘Mary-Anne, I hope you and the baby are well?’ he asked nervously. ‘You look a bit pale. Are you eating all right?’ John saw the how tired she looked and thought that she needed his care and attention.

  ‘I’m fine, it’s just the baby. She’s not been sleeping. I thought you’d be long gone by now, across the seas to your brother.’ Mary-Anne bowed her head and fought back a tear.

  ‘To be sure, I should have been, but something dragged me back here, or, should I say, someone.’ John stood there awkwardly, not wanting to say what he’d been building up to on his journey back into Leeds.

  Eliza looked at the two and knew that they needed their privacy. ‘I’ll take the baby and give you room to talk without me in the way. Mary-Anne, she’ll be in my bedroom with me, so she’s all right. Besides, she’ll sleep for an hour or two now with a full belly.’ Eliza went and picked the cot drawer up and carried it past John.

  ‘Here, let me help, I’ll carry her upstairs for you. It’s a girl that you’ve had then, Mary-Anne … a bonny one and all.’ John looked down on the baby as he took it from the arms of Eliza.

  ‘Yes, I’ve called her Victoria, after the queen,’ Mary-Anne said quickly, regretting her last few words, knowing that John had no great love of the monarch.

  ‘Ah, well, I’ll not hold that against the poor wee mite. And I can understand why, seeing she will be in Leeds in a week’s time.’ John lifted the drawer and baby through the kitchen doorway and followed Eliza up the stairs talking to Eliza as he placed the baby and cot next to her bedside.

  Mary-Anne pulled the kettle on to the fire and laid out some cups and waited, heart pounding, as she listened to John’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

  ‘Eliza seems smitten with the lil’ thing. Quite a mother hen … you’d think it was hers.’ John came back into the kitchen and sat down in what used to be his favourite chair.

  ‘Yes, she makes up for me. I don’t seem to be able to bond to her at all.’ Mary-Anne sighed as she poured the tea.

  ‘Well, maybe that’s because of the way she came into the world. I admire you for carrying her and giving birth. To be sure I’d no idea, else I’d have knocked that Ellershaw man’s head off his bloody shoulders. Still will if you want me to.’ John screwed his cap up in his hands and then looked up at Mary-Anne.

  ‘You know, then. I guess Aunt Patsy told you? You know what I did and yet you still come back to me? I’d have thought that you would be thankful for your narrow escape. I lead you on and deceived you … I’m not worth a lot.’ Mary-Anne sobbed.

  ‘Oh, Mary-Anne, that’s where you are wrong. There’s not been a day gone by that I’ve not thought about you. I went away angry at first, thinking that you had tricked me and that you were carrying a baby by someone you once loved. And then, you are right, Patsy wrote and told me how it had come about. I should have known, because when I held you I knew you felt the same way as I do. I love you, Mary-Anne, and always will. The truth is, I can’t live without you.’ John got up from his chair and bent down on his knees besides her. He held her hand and softly kissed her lips as she swept away the tears.

  ‘I thought that I’d lost you,’ she cried, ‘that I’d never see you again. And then the baby came and I’ve been miserable ever since and I just couldn’t see any happiness in my world.’

  ‘You’ve not lost me. In fact, I’m here to ask you to join me. Come to America with me? I’ve enough money and tickets for us both. There’s a ship sailing next Saturday and it’s got our names down for it.’ John squeezed her hand tightly and smiled. ‘A new life, Mary-Anne, just you and me in a new country away from all this.’

  Mary-Ann reached for her handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘I don’t know, I just can’t up and leave. What about Eliza and what about the baby …? Can I bring her with me?’ Thoughts were rushing through her head: she’d never been outside of Leeds and now she was being asked to travel halfway around the world with a baby in her arms.

  ‘Eliza will be fine – she will always make her own way in the world – and when it comes to baby Victoria, I don’t think that it’s a good thing that she travels with us, not yet, she’s too young. But sure, I’ve been thinking about this. If you take her to the orphanage and leave her there, just for a year or two until we come back for her, she’d be that young she’d never remember it and need be no wiser once she joins us in America.’ John looked worried. He didn’t mind having a wife that could work with him for the first two or three years but he didn’t want to start his new life with a mouth already to feed and one that most of all was not his.

  ‘I couldn’t, I couldn’t leave her, not now! I know I said we hadn’t bonded, but she’s still my flesh and blood. The orphanage is a terrible place, she deserves better than that and what if I never returned? She’d be lost without any family.’ Mary-Anne looked at John and cried. ‘But I love you and don’t want you to go without me. Do you have to go?’

  ‘I have to, my love, my only brother is waiting for me. I need to make myself a better life before it’s too late. I promise, we would return for her, once we had set up home and she was a little older. I need you, Mary-Anne, and you need me. Please don’t say no.’ John kissed her on the cheek and held her face in his hands, seeing the hurt in her eyes. ‘I promise, she would be back with us once we have made roots. It’s no good dragging a child half across the world for it to live in a slum and squalor. This way at least you know she will be fed and dressed.’

  ‘I know, but she’s my daughter! I can’t abandon her,’ Mary-Anne cried.

  ‘I go back to L
iverpool day after tomorrow. As I say, the ship sails on Saturday. Think about it tonight and tomorrow, and I’ll return tomorrow evening and then you can give me your answer. Either way, I know your decision will be made out of love and I know this sounds hard on the child, but I hope you will be joining me. It will mean a good life for both of us, something we both deserve.’ John hugged Mary-Anne next to his chest and whispered, ‘Come with me, I’ll always love you,’ before standing up and making for the kitchen door. ‘Tomorrow night I’ll need an answer.’ Then he quickly turned with Mary-Anne looking after him as he opened the door and left her with one the worst decisions she had ever to make.

  Thirty Four

  Mary-Anne sat on the edge of Eliza’s bed and looked down on her baby daughter fast asleep.

  ‘I can’t leave her behind. Especially not in the orphanage or workhouse, no matter how young she is. It’s not the best start to life and I just can’t do it. What if I never return, what would become of her?’ Mary-Anne wiped away the tears. ‘But I love John, I don’t want him to leave without me. I will never see him again if I say no. That will be it; he will be gone over the seas, forever lost to me.’ She sobbed and wrung her hands. ‘I don’t know what to do. I can’t do right for doing wrong.’

  ‘Oh, Mary-Anne, I knew as soon as I opened the door to him that he was up to something. It would have been better if he had stopped out of your life. You were just beginning to forget him.’ Eliza looked down at the baby that unknowingly was making all the worry for her sister. She knew Mary-Anne had deep feelings for John Vasey and, unlike her Tom, he must love her with a passion.

  Eliza sighed and breathed in deeply. She had to do right by both her sister and her niece. ‘You’ll only get one chance to make yourself a new life, our Mary-Anne. You take it – go with the man you love. Don’t worry about baby Victoria, I’ll look after her until you return. I’ll manage; you’ve said it yourself that I’ve more patience with her than you.’ Eliza couldn’t let her niece be abandoned.

  ‘I can’t, I can’t let you do that. It is far too much to ask of you, my dear sister. You’d be on your own with a child, and still have to make a living. I couldn’t leave and see you in such a position.’ Mary-Anne looked at her sister and tried to make sense of the offer that she had made. But at the same time she couldn’t help but feel her sister had given her a lifeline, to be with the man she loved.

  ‘I can’t stand by and watch you turn into a bitter old maid because of losing John Vasey and staying for a baby that was not born out of love. You go with him. Victoria will not want for anything. I’ll bring her up in the knowledge that you are her mother but that I equally love her. Perhaps when the right time comes we can tell her about her father, but not until she is old enough to understand.’ Eliza understood that the commitment she was showing to the child was to change her life, but she couldn’t see her own kith and kin in a place where no love would be shown her.

  ‘Eliza, are you sure? I would be forever in your debt.’ Mary-Anne looked at her sister. She was answering all her prayers but was sacrificing her own life.

  ‘I’m sure. Perhaps you could send me some money occasionally to help me bring her up. Besides, it isn’t forever. John said you could take her over with you once you were settled. Two or three years will soon fly by. I love her, Mary-Anne. Ever since I saw her come into the world, I knew you did the right thing by keeping her.’ Eliza ran her hand over the baby’s dark curls and smiled. It was a huge commitment but the right one, everyone had some degree of happiness and she would make sure baby Victoria was loved.

  ‘You’ve got everything that you need?’ Eliza looked at Mary-Anne and fought back the tears as she watched Mary-Anne lift her filled carpetbag up from the kitchen floor and smile at John Vasey.

  ‘Yes, I think I’ve packed everything. I left a lot of my things as I’ll be returning once we are settled.’ Mary-Anne looked around the kitchen that she’d grown up in for most of her adult life. This was the house she had saved and what for, as she was now deserting it? ‘You’ll not let Edmund Ellershaw touch you, no matter what. You keep him at arm’s-length and pawn any of my things that I’ve left behind if you need to. Once we are settled, I’ll send some cash over to help you.’ Mary-Anne looked worriedly at her young sister. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘I’ll cut his pudding off along with his balls if he comes near me, don’t you worry,’ Eliza tried to bluster. ‘And you don’t worry about baby Victoria here, me and her will get on fine. She’s been as quiet as a mouse since her belly’s been full of cow’s milk.’ Eliza looked down at her new ward and smiled. ‘Here, you take this.’ She reached up to the mantelpiece and opened the cash box, handing over three guineas to her sister. ‘You’ll need this and it’s only fair you have it; it’s part of the wedding dress money. Besides I’ll be making more shortly. Grace and her friends will not be able to stay away.’ Eliza squeezed Mary-Anne’s hand tight around the coins. ‘Now, get yourselves gone before I start blubbing.’ Eliza breathed in deeply and kissed her sister on the cheek. ‘You take care of her, John Vasey; you make her a decent woman and get a ring on her finger once you are over there.’ Eliza held back the tears.

  ‘To be sure, I will. I love her, Eliza. For the first time in my life, I’ve found a woman that understands me. She’ll be looked after, don’t you worry.’ John placed his cap on his head and reached over to take Mary-Anne’s carpetbag. ‘I’ll wait outside … let you say your goodbyes.’

  Eliza watched as the quiet man left her sister, her baby and herself alone in the kitchen. ‘You’ll write, won’t you, and you’ll take care of yourself.’ She hugged Mary-Anne close to her.

  ‘I will, and you take care of yourself and my Victoria. I love you, Eliza, and I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me. I’ll always be in your debt,’ Mary-Anne sobbed. Then she bent down and gently pulled away the blanket from around Victoria’s head and kissed her tenderly. ‘God take care of you, my little one, I will return for you as soon as I can.’ Mary-Anne gazed around her home for the last time and walked down the passage and out of the front door to join her man on their new adventure together. She daren’t turn back; she’d decided what to do and now she’d to get on with it. Tears welled up in her throat and her legs shook as John linked his arm through hers and smiled. Was she doing the right thing? Please let it be so, she prayed as she stepped out towards the canal.

  ‘Well, that’s it, my little one. It’s me and you against the world.’ Eliza sat down in her chair and sobbed. She was on her own with a baby that wasn’t hers and no man in her life. ‘We’ll manage … come hell or high water we will manage, and your mother will return a wealthy lady and take you back with her, if I know Mary-Anne. John Vasey, you had better not let her down, or it will be the worse for you,’ she whispered underneath her breath. ‘And God protect us from the likes of Edmund Ellershaw, because I think we will need a little of his help to keep us safe.’

  Baby Victoria slept on, oblivious to all the commotion that involved her and her birth, content in her own world.

  Thirty Five

  Mary-Anne had never seen so many people has she climbed out of the barge that had taken them the full length of the Leeds–Liverpool canal. They had passed through numerous locks and docks, calling at wharfs and quays along the way to load and unload goods and now they were finally passing into what John had called the Mann Island Lock in the centre of Liverpool’s docklands. It had been a few days gruelling journey, roughing it aboard the small cabined barge with its burly owner, eating at the side of the canal whatever John had poached along its banks, but now she knew it was worth it, as she gazed at the busy dockside and looked with wonder at the tall masts and fully rigged vessels that stood tall and elegant in the water.

  ‘Watch your bags, else the runners will have them,’ John said as he helped her off the barge onto the quayside.

  ‘Runners?’ Mary-Anne asked.

  ‘Aye, the bastards. They watch for unsuspecting folk, lookin
g for their ship, pinch their bags and then charge a fortune to return them to you. Scum of the earth, they are. Have pinched many a poor man’s last possessions and left him on the quayside with nowt.’ John grabbed Mary-Anne’s arm and hauled her onto the cobbled quay.

  ‘I’ve never seen as busier place … is it always like this? There’s so many people and everyone in such a hurry.’ Mary-Anne looked around her: there was people shouting orders, women with babies crying, men hauling goods, prick-pinchers tallying their trades and the smell of the sea and the goods being unloaded mingled in the air, making her feel quite heady.

  ‘Aye, it’s never quiet. Liverpool’s one of the main ports in England. You can find anything here: cotton from the Americas; timber from Canada; fruits from the Caribbean; sugar from Jamaica. Anything you want, Liverpool will have it.’ John watched as Mary-Anne stared at a dark-skinned gentleman that walked past. ‘Aye and not too long ago, it should not have been proud of its past, dealing in slaves from Africa. That’s what made the port so wealthy … money made on the backs of the poor buggers that were sold into slavery, as a rich man’s worker to do what he liked with. But enough, we are to make our way to Waterloo Dock. Our ship is called the Speedwell and is owned by the Cunard line. It sails at six this evening, so we will just have time to find ourselves a bunk down in steerage and grab something decent to eat before we set sail.’ John put his arm through Mary-Anne’s and set off at a pace through the crowds.

  ‘What’s steerage?’ Mary-Anne asked as she tried to keep up with him.

  ‘It’s where us poor folk travel. It’s two floors down from the top deck, where all the toffs are. We are all in it together, bunks on either side of the boat and a communal table along the middle for us to sit and eat at. Not that you’ll be doing much of that on the first day or two, until you get used to the roll of the ship, and by the time we are halfway across the Atlantic, our rations will be cut, fearing that they won’t have enough to feed us on before we get to land again.’ John pushed his way along the causeway, dragging Mary-Anne behind him.