by Annie Groves
Ellie could hardly bear to see the changes in her old home, and she deliberately shut out of her mind the last time she had been there, as she asked to be put through to the carter’s number.
‘Your trunk? No, miss, I can’t deliver it for you.’
‘What? What do you mean?’ Ellie demanded anxiously.
On the other end of the line she could hear the carter explaining to her that he had been refused permission to collect her trunk by Elizabeth, who had told him that Ellie had no right to remove anything from the house.
‘But the things in that trunk were mine,’ she protested shakily.
‘I’m right sorry, miss, but the missus wouldn’t let me take ’un,’ the carter repeated. ‘Said it would be thievery if I did. Very definite about it, she were. Said you was to have nothing but what you had already got. Aye, and Mr Charnock – he was there with her and said the same. Said the trunk belonged to his son and that everything that was in it was family stuff and to stay with him.’
Somewhere in the distance, Ellie heard someone moan – a wretched despairing sound like that of an animal. The room had gone numbingly cold, and yet she felt so dreadfully hot! She could hear Maggie’s screechy angry voice somewhere in the distance, and also her father’s – louder; urgent. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying but somehow she couldn’t. The world had become a whirling, rushing black whirligig of dizziness, sucking her down into its depths.
Reluctantly Ellie opened her eyes. She felt sick, the air around her was pungent with the smell of burned feathers.
She was lying on the floor in the parlour of the Friargate house and her father and Maggie were standing over her, the former looking harried and anxious, and the latter purse-lipped and angry.
‘Didn’t tell us you was in the family way, did you?’ Maggie announced accusingly.
‘Ellie, I don’t understand what’s going on. Surely in view of your condition your father-in-law…?’ her own father was asking.
‘Henry’s father isn’t to know,’ Ellie protested, sitting up – too quickly, she realised as nausea overwhelmed her.
The speculative look Maggie was giving her filled her with anxiety. ‘Mr Charnock has made it clear that he doesn’t…that is he feels Henry had a…a weakness that a child of his might well inherit.’
Her father, Ellie saw, was looking both shocked and uncomfortable.
‘So that’s five of you you was expecting us to house and feed,’ Maggie accused her sharply. ‘Well, don’t think this changes anything. It don’t. We’ve got more than enough mouths to feed with us own, without taking on someone who by rights ought to be the responsibility of someone else. How far gone are you, anyway?’ she demanded.
‘About four months,’ Ellie told her wearily.
‘It’s well and truly fixed there, then,’ Maggie informed her grimly. ‘No use hoping you’ll lose it!’
‘Maggie,’ Robert Pride interrupted grimly, ‘that’s enough. There’s no call for that kind of talk. Ellie, love, the best thing really would be for you to go back to Liverpool. I wish I could do more for thee, lass, but…’
Ellie hated to see him looking so unhappy.
‘I can’t go back,’ Ellie told him quietly, ‘but it’s all right, Father. Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage.’
Giddily she struggled to stand. She felt so ill and weak, and she longed to be offered a comfortable clean bed to lie on, but her pride wouldn’t let her betray as much in front of Maggie. As to her claim that she could manage, Ellie tried to suppress the panic bubbling inside her.
She had in her purse the five guineas her father had given her yesterday, that was all. She had been relying on the money she had tucked away in the trunk, and not just that but on her sewing machine and the fabrics she had put there as well. And what about her clothes? All she had – all any of them had – was what they had on. And the medicine that was to have rid her of the unwanted child she was carrying was also in the trunk. It was obviously too late for that now, even if she could have afforded to replace it. Maggie’s eyes were far too sharp.
The thought of another night in the boarding house down by the docks made Ellie feel sick. This morning they had all been scratching, and Ellie was sure she had seen something moving in the landlady’s hair when she had stood at the bottom of the stairs watching them leave.
The hallway had smelled of urine, and one of the two men who had come out of the privy whilst Ellie had been waiting her turn to go in had not bothered to button his flies.
In Liverpool the busy life of the dock area had seemed exciting and romantic when viewed from the safety of her own secure life, but here in Preston, living amongst the detritus washed up by the sluggish tide, Ellie had very quickly become aware that the reality of dockside life was very different: the sailors they had walked past this morning on their way to Friargate, still drunk from the night before, lying in their own vomit; the whorehouse at the end of the street, where in the daylight it was easy to see the running sores on the women’s faces, despite their youth.
They had walked past a sailors’ mission, with its sad huddle of derelicts standing outside, Ellie freezing in affront as a man had swaggered past her and then turned round and come back offering her half a crown – ‘Double that if I can have the both of you,’ he had added, nodding in Minaco’s direction.
The last thing she wanted was to have to return there, but she knew she had no alternative.
Collecting Maisie, Minaco and Henrietta, she walked them back via the town centre, pausing outside the offices of an employment agency. If she couldn’t earn any money from her sewing then she would have to find other employment, but prudently she recognised that turning up to be interviewed whilst she was accompanied by her dependants was not perhaps a wise idea. She paused a little longer outside the window of a house-letting agency. A little further down the street she could see the familiar pawnbroker’s sign. A bitter smile twisted her mouth. She didn’t even have anything she could pawn, other than her wedding ring. Blankly she looked at it.
‘Stay here,’ she commanded the others.
Inside the shop she tugged off her ring and put it down on the counter.
The man behind it was brisk. ‘Two guineas. And I’m being generous at that!’ he told her. Shrugging his shoulders: ‘Take it or leave it.’
‘I need more than that,’ Ellie told him. She felt as though she was choking on her own saliva as the despair welled inside her.
‘Well, it’s a decent enough gown you’re wearing,’ he began, ‘and the brooch is probably worth a crown. ‘Course, you could always sell your hair if it’s long and thick enough. There’s a place down off the market – allus on the lookout, she is, for good-quality hair. Use it for wigs, they do. I can give you a note for her.’
Her hair! Ellie looked at him in distress, hating the sudden memory she had of Gideon’s hands in her hair as he kissed her.
‘Thank you, but I’ll just take the two guineas,’ she told him numbly.
Once outside she wondered angrily why on earth she had not taken him up on his offer. The way she felt about Gideon surely she should have wanted to be rid of her hair, and with it her memory of him touching it!
She took her charges back via the alleys that led past a bakery, remembering that they sold off misshaped teacakes at the back door as well as the previous day’s stale unsold bread.
She could remember how scornfully her mother had described those so poor that they had to stand in line waiting to buy up such offerings. Now, like them, she was standing there, her face averted as she hoped that she wouldn’t be recognised.
The way in which Maisie and Henrietta fell on the hard pieces of bread, tearing into it, filled her with shame and guilt. Ellie broke one of them open and shuddered as she saw the weevil inside it, her gorge rising. Minaco hadn’t eaten anything all day. Ellie had woken up in the night to find her sitting on the floor rocking back and forth, holding onto her photograph of Henry.
The smell of urine
, stronger than ever, hit her as soon as they walked into the boarding house. Maisie wrinkled up her nose and exclaimed, ‘Stinks!’ Mixed with it was another smell, sharp and more acrid, and Ellie’s body tensed as she recognised it. The whorehouse might officially be at the end of the street, but that smell!
Quickly she bundled the others up the stairs, reaching for the key to unlock their room.
Instinctively she knew that someone had been in it, and obviously not to change the bedding or do any cleaning. Even the chamber pot was still full!
Well, if they had been looking for something to steal they would have been out of luck. All she had in the world was with her!
Henrietta had begun to grizzle. Ellie waited for Minaco to go to her and comfort her, but the Japanese girl was ignoring her. Gently, Ellie went over to her and bent down so that they were on a similar level. There was a solemnness and wariness about the little girl that made Ellie’s heart ache for her. When she picked her up she felt as frail as a small bird, her bones tiny and fragile. Beneath her clothes she was frighteningly thin with none of the soft plumpness Ellie remembered from her own siblings and her relatives’ small children.
She should not be living here like this, Ellie acknowledged despairingly. She needed food and warmth, and a proper decent home. Giving her a quick cuddle, Ellie put her down again.
Minaco was curled up on the bed, clutching Henry’s photograph and staring into space. It was as though she had somehow gone somewhere else.
‘Don’t like it here,’ Maisie was sobbing, her bottom lip jutting out.
‘Well, we won’t be here much longer,’ Ellie promised.
‘Are we going back to Liverpool?’ Maisie asked eagerly.
Ellie shook her head. It was impossible to explain to her why they could not return to the Charnock house.
Half an hour after they had returned to the house, a fight broke out in the street below. Maisie rushed excitedly to the window to watch, despite Ellie’s instructions to her to come away.
Yells and curses filled the air, and some of the girls from the whorehouse had come to watch the proceedings, Ellie saw, as she went to the window to tug Maisie back.
She had planned to walk up to the marketplace as the stallholders were packing up for the day to see what she could scavenge for them all to eat, but there was no way she dared risk going out now!
Her stomach had started to rumble. Putting her hand on it she wondered bitterly if the unwanted life she was carrying inside her might be extinguished through starvation. Her body started to shake but Ellie gritted her teeth against giving in to the temptation to think about the full horror of what was to come. She couldn’t afford to!
Ellie woke abruptly, wondering at first where on earth she was. And then she remembered!
The noise that had woken her was someone trying the locked door to their room. She lay frozen with fear beneath the bedclothes as she watched the handle twist to and fro as whoever was outside turned it impatiently. Her heart was thumping as though it was going to break through her chest wall. She felt more alone and afraid than she had ever imagined it was possible to feel.
At Ellie’s insistence they had visited the privy together, Ellie insisting that they all stood guard for one another, and then she had ushered them back upstairs to wash as best they could in the bowl of cold and soon scummy water their landlady had reluctantly provided.
Breakfast had been the last of the now very stale bread, and some watery milk Ellie had bought from the landlady.
Ellie wished that she could have left Minaco in charge of Maisie and Henrietta whilst she went alone to find them new lodgings, but the Japanese girl had retreated even further into herself and, pathetically, little Henrietta was now turning to Ellie with her arms held out for help instead of her mother, snuggling contently onto Ellie’s lap when she dressed her, babbling away in a mixture of Japanese and English.
The thought of trudging the streets all day in the damp December air, searching for somewhere to rent, sent Ellie’s spirits plummeting, but she knew she could not stay another night in this house.
She had just finished buttoning Henrietta’s shoes when she heard someone rattling the doorknob.
‘No!’ she called out fiercely to Maisie, who was running towards the door obviously intending to open it, but as Maisie’s face started to pucker in distress Ellie suddenly heard a voice calling out to her from the other side of the door.
‘Ellie, are you in there? It’s me, John!’
John! Relief flooded her. Quickly she went to unlock the door.
It had been some time since she had last seen her brother and she was bemused to see how tall he had grown – taller than their father, but still thin and awkward with his new height in the way that very young men were.
‘Dad told me you were here. I know all about what’s been happening,’ John explained as he came into the room, his nose wrinkling in disgust. ‘This whole place stinks, Ellie. It isn’t fitting that you should be living here. The whole area’s got the worst kind of reputation,’ he added reprovingly.
Ellie grimaced.
‘I’m not here by choice, John,’ she pointed out. ‘I had hoped that Dad would let me have a couple of the attic rooms until I got myself sorted out.’
‘Oh, Maggie would never allow that! Mind, things aren’t going very well with the shop, by all accounts – at least not according to Uncle Will.
‘Dad asked me to have a word with Mrs Kershaw about you finding somewhere to live and about getting you some sewing work,’ he told her awkwardly. ‘She’s the wife of Mr Kershaw, the photographer I work for. She says that there’s some decent houses to be rented up near Horrocks’ mill. She’s had a word with a friend of hers who rents one, and she’s given her the address of the agent who lets them out. They aren’t much,’ John warned her, ‘nothing like what you’ll be used to, Ellie, but she says if you like she’ll pass the word around amongst her friends that you’re looking for sewing work. You know, you might be better off getting a job in one of the mills.’ John avoided meeting her eyes. ‘Horrocks pays pretty well. Of course, there’s always office work,’ he continued in a rush when she didn’t respond, ‘but you’d need to get some training on one of those typewriting machines first. Look,’ he added when Ellie still made no response, ‘I know it’s not much, but Dad has sent you this…and…and there’s a couple of guineas there from me as well, Ellie.’
Hot tears burned Ellie’s eyes as he handed her the money: another five guineas from her father, and two guineas from John. Along with what she had, at least she would be able to rent somewhere to live.
‘What’s the matter with her?’ he asked, nodding his head in Minaco’s direction. Throughout his visit she had simply sat on the bed, staring into space, clutching Henry’s photograph.
‘I think it must be her way of grieving,’ Ellie told him quietly.
‘You know, Ellie, you’d do much better if you only had yourself to support. I mean…’ he looked uncomfortable again, ‘that is, Maggie said there was to be a child!’
Ellie’s heart was beating fast, and she could feel the angry panic building up inside her. The more people who knew about her pregnancy, the harder it was getting for her to ignore it and pretend that it wasn’t happening. Didn’t she already have enough problems?
‘Henrietta is Henry’s child,’ she told John sharply, trying to hide her own sense of despair and dread. ‘If I don’t take responsibility for her you know what will happen to her? She’ll end up in the workhouse orphanage. She’s not much older than Philip. How is he, John? No matter how often I have written to ask her, our aunt will never tell me how he does.’
John’s expression hardened. ‘He’s a champion little lad, Ellie, bright as a button! I’ve told him all about you – aye, and our Connie and Dad as well, and all about Friargate, but I dare say he’ll forget it all now. They’re bringing him up as if he were their own. He’s our brother, Ellie, not their son. I wish Ma had never died, Ellie!’
> ‘So do I, John,’ Ellie said sadly.
‘Mr Kershaw has given me the day off to give you a hand,’ John told her. ‘I’ll go round to the agents with you, if you like. They’ll pay a bit more mind to you when they see you’ve got a man with you,’ he told her, puffing out his chest.
‘Oh John!’ He was only thirteen, yet here he was for all the world acting as though he was already a man!
Again Ellie felt tears pricking her eyes as she accepted his offer gratefully, and gave him a fierce hug.
Ellie heaved a sigh of relief. The house in Newall Street was hers! It had been touch and go whether or not the agent would rent the house out to her at first, and in the end she had had to pay a full three months’ rent up front before he had reluctantly given in.
‘And there’s to be no subletting of rooms, unless you consult us about it first,’ he warned her grimly. ‘We’ve had tenants before who’ve thought they could take advantage in that way! And no gentlemen callers staying overnight or calling after dark! It’s all here in the lease,’ he added.
Like the house they had just left, the one they were to rent on Newall Street had no indoor sanitation. There was a privy in the back yard, and the house was apparently equipped with a tin bath in the kitchen.
‘A full check will be made at the end of your tenancy, and if anything is missing you will be held responsible and will have to pay for it,’ the agent told her warningly. ‘The rent collector will call round every Friday night for the rent, starting from this week.’
‘But I’ve just paid three months’ rent,’ Ellie protested.
‘That’s our surety that you’ll be a good tenant. Any losses for breakages will be taken out of that at the end of your tenancy and the remainder handed back to you.’
Wearily, Ellie gave in. Her situation was too desperate for her to be able to argue.
It was mid-December; the shops were filled with Christmas cheer of every sort. Grimly, Ellie hurried past their tempting displays, trying not to think about past Christmases or to compare them with the life that now lay ahead of her!
