by Annie Groves
If only she was not carrying the extra burden of this unwanted child. Ellie trembled at the thought of what lay ahead of her.
FORTY-ONE
Nervously, Ellie hurried down the street, shivering as she felt the cold wind against the back of her neck. Outside the shop she had been looking for, she hesitated, and then, taking a deep breath, went in.
‘Yes?’ the woman inside asked her.
‘I-I believe that you…that you buy hair,’ Ellie told her firmly, removing her hat as she did so.
Ten minutes later, standing in a small icy-cold back room, trying not to shiver whilst she endured the humiliation of having her hair inspected, Ellie reminded herself just why she was here.
It was nearly a month now since she had first returned to Preston, and she was constantly worrying about how little she was earning. She no longer had the kind of customers who were willing to pay a lot of money for hand-smocked baby dresses and the like. If she was to earn anything like enough to keep them all, she needed to have a sewing machine.
Ellie had scoured the town’s second-hand shops, looking for something suitable, and two days ago she found a machine in excellent condition, the only problem being she did not have the money to buy it. And then she had remembered being told she could sell her hair. She had lain awake each night since, remembering how her mother used to brush it for her, and how Gideon had said it was the most beautiful hair he had ever seen.
But beautiful hair didn’t put food in their mouths, she told herself now as the woman finally delivered an approving nod of her head.
Ellie shivered the whole time the woman was cutting the hair off, unable to bring herself to look at the swathes of corn-gold hair being carefully put on a clean piece of cloth, and she shivered even more when she left the shop!
She had asked John to meet her at the sewing machine shop so that he might help her get the machine home. The shop owner had promised her the loan of a small handcart providing she paid a deposit on it.
John was waiting for her when she reached the shop, blowing on his cold hands as she hurried up to him.
Inside the shop she dealt briskly with the owner, and watched whilst he and John carefully manhandled the machine into the cart.
Half an hour later, John was puffing with pride as he finally assembled the machine for her and stood back to admire his handiwork.
‘Ellie,’ he called out, ‘come and look. It’s working a treat!’
Hesitantly Ellie went into the parlour.
‘It’s running fine and I’ve checked –’ John began, and then broke off as he finally noticed Ellie’s hair.
‘Ellie…what’s happened to your hair?’
‘I sold it to pay for the sewing machine,’ Ellie told him simply.
The look on his face hurt her.
‘I need it so that I can earn more money, John,’ she added quickly. ‘My hair will grow again, but little Henrietta won’t, nor this baby, if there isn’t any food for us to eat!’
Ellie blinked her burning eyes as she tried to focus on her sewing. It was gone midnight and she had been working since two o’clock in the afternoon, only breaking off with a bite of something to eat at teatime.
The dress she was making had to be finished by tomorrow. The woman she was making it for had given her the work with that proviso. In Liverpool Ellie would have turned down such work, as much for the fact that she was being underpaid for it as for the ridiculously short time-limit, but the woman had hinted that if Ellie completed this work to her satisfaction she would provide her with more, and Ellie could not afford to turn down that kind of opportunity, no matter how tired her eyes were.
Her short hair tickled the back of her neck; there was nothing left for Gideon to run his fingers through now! Her eyes blurred again and the needle she was using to hand-sew the ruffles to the hem of the dress slipped and stabbed her finger.
Suddenly everything was too much for her. Dropping the dress, Ellie covered her face with her hands and wept with misery and despair.
A small sound caught her attention, and a small hand touched her knee. Uncovering her face, Ellie looked down. Little Henrietta was standing beside her, looking at her with solemn eyes.
Immediately, Ellie picked her up and settled her on her knee, ignoring the swift objecting kick she felt in her belly.
‘Don’t cry,’ Henrietta told her, patting her face.
‘Ellie!’
Ellie smiled gratefully as John hurried across the icy marketplace to where she was standing and took her heavy basket from her.
‘This basket is far too heavy for you in your condition,’ he told her sternly.
Ellie gave him a wry look. ‘It’s the end of the day and if I don’t take advantage of what materials the stallholders are selling off cheap then we don’t get to eat next week.’
She was just about managing to earn enough to pay the rent and feed them all – thanks to the work she was now receiving from the woman whose dress she had sat up all night to finish – although sometimes their diet was made up of little more than bread and soup – a soup cooked up out of cheap vegetables, with a handful of bones from her father’s shop thrown in to give it a bit of extra thickness.
It angered Ellie to know that Hilda Brewer, the woman she now sewed for, was selling on what Ellie made at a profit to herself, for which she did nothing, whilst paying Ellie a mere pittance, but she knew that she was not in a position to complain, because she needed the money.
Cecily had sent her several imploring letters to her father’s Friargate address, begging her to visit her, but Ellie had too much pride to allow Cecily to see what she had descended to. Cecily’s mother would never allow her daughter to ‘know’ her now, Ellie was aware.
‘You should get that girl of yours to do more,’ John told her forthrightly. He had assumed a protective manner towards her that both amused and touched Ellie. ‘Aye, an’ that Minaco as well.’
Ellie sighed. ‘You know that Maisie can’t be trusted to run errands unsupervised, John, and as for Minaco…’ She frowned.
The Japanese girl rarely spoke and barely ate, and sometimes Ellie felt that she was deliberately grieving herself to death; that without Henry she felt there was no purpose to her life. Of course, that made her feel guilty, since as Henry’s wife, in the eyes of the world she should be the one who was grieving.
‘Perhaps I should think about putting a notice in my window, saying, “Sailors’ washing taken in” like they do down by the dock,’ she sighed, as John took her arm to help her over the icy cobbles.
‘What!’ His face turned an embarrassed red. ‘Ellie, surely you know what that means?’ he protested, shaking his head when she looked enquiringly at him. ‘It’s a notice put in their windows by a…a certain class of female who…who offer their services to men and…’
‘Oh!’ Ellie’s own face crimsoned as she realised what he was trying to say.
‘It’s all wrong that you should be living like this,’ John told her angrily. ‘By rights you should be in Liverpool, in the Charnock house. This child you’re carrying –’
‘I’ve already told you, John, Mr Charnock has made it plain that…well, I know that neither I nor my child would be welcome or wanted.’
Her child. Ellie grimaced to herself. For weeks she had tried her best to ignore the fact that she was pregnant, hoping that somehow if she did not acknowledge it the life within her would magically wither away, but of course it had not done so. No, it had its father’s obstinacy, that was for sure!
Sometimes in the night she woke up streaming with sweat, terrified by her own nightmares of giving birth, but a new steely Ellie had metamorphosed from the old Ellie, forced into existence by necessity and the grim daily fight for survival. Her girlhood fear of giving birth was a luxury she could no longer indulge in! She had other, larger fears now, fears brought about by the heavy responsibilities she carried. If she should die, what would happen to those who were dependent upon her?
‘Have yo
u heard anything yet from Connie?’ Ellie asked her brother anxiously.
‘Nope. I reckon she’s too ashamed of herself to get in touch or to come back. She was full of wild talk at one stage about going to America.’
‘Oh, John, I wish so much that she would let us know where she is. I am so worried about her!’
They had reached Newall Street now, and Ellie’s pace quickened. She was always anxious about what might be waiting for her when she had been away. Minaco had retreated completely into herself now, and refused to have anything to do with any of them, including her own daughter; and Maisie, who had become jealous of Henrietta’s growing attachment to Ellie, often pinched and bullied the little girl behind Ellie’s back. As Ellie went inside she stamped the cold out of her feet, blowing on her almost numb fingers.
Maisie and Henrietta were in the kitchen, playing with a pair of rag dolls Ellie had made them.
‘Her ma’s gone,’ Maisie informed Ellie, jerking her head in Henrietta’s direction. ‘Took off, she did. Should ha’ taken her with her.’
Ellie frowned, pausing in the act of removing her outdoor clothes, thinking Maisie must be mistaken since Minaco never left the house, but after she had gone upstairs and checked the rooms she realised that Maisie was right.
‘Where has she gone, Maisie, did she say?’ Ellie questioned anxiously.
Maisie gave a dismissive shrug, frowning as Henrietta reached for the doll she had been playing with, then smacking the little girl’s hand with a petulant expression.
‘Maisie?’ Ellie pressed.
‘Never said nothing. Just gave a loud cry and picked up that picture she’s allus got and ran to the door.’
Ellie looked at her brother. ‘John, what on earth could have made her do such a thing? She never goes out,’ Ellie told him, her frown changing to a warm smile as Henrietta came and wrapped her arms around her legs. Since Ellie was unable to move, John obligingly unwrapped the little girl’s arms and picked her up, tickling her beneath her chin until she giggled.
She really was the prettiest child, Ellie reflected, as she took her from him, watching her eyes sparkle with delight at the attention she was getting. And bright too. Ellie was already starting to teach her her letters, much to Maisie’s annoyance.
‘She won’t have gone far,’ John comforted her. ‘After all, she doesn’t really know her way around Preston, does she? Perhaps she just fancied some fresh air.’
Ellie shook her head decisively. ‘No, she won’t have done that.’
Whenever she could, weather and her workload permitting, Ellie made a point of taking Maisie and Henrietta to Avenham Park, remembering how much she had enjoyed her own visits there as a child, but after the first visit Minaco had refused to go with them.
‘John, I feel really worried about her.’ Instinctively as she spoke, Ellie rubbed her side to soothe the small nagging ache there.
Automatically John’s attention was caught by her action. It was his opinion that Ellie had more than enough to worry about without the Japanese woman she had taken responsibility for adding to her problems.
‘Depend on it, Ellie, she will simply have slipped out on some errand or for some fresh air.’
‘But if she hasn’t, if something has befallen her…’ Ellie protested.
‘Well, let’s wait for now and see if she returns. With temperatures as low as the ones we are currently suffering, she is bound not to want to stay out too long.’
‘And if she doesn’t return?’ Ellie pressed him, unable to feel reassured. She was shivering herself, despite the many layers of clothing she was wearing. February was turning out to be as intensely cold as August had been unusually hot.
John shook his head. ‘You are worrying too much, Ellie. She will. After all, where else is there for her to go?’
But despite his attempts to reassure her, Ellie could not shake off her own sense of foreboding.
In truth she was feeling far more despairing than she wanted John to know. Mature as he had grown, he was still only a boy and her younger brother. She should be looking after him, she acknowledged ruefully, not the other way round! The coming birth of her baby loomed over her like an oppressive shadow, her fear of what might befall her streaking her dreams and filling her with acute dread that if she should die she would leave behind her not only her orphaned child, but also Henrietta, whom she had come to love very much, and Maisie, for whom she felt an admittedly sometimes irritated sense of responsibility. What would happen to them if she was not there to care for them?
The thought of the loss of her own life no longer haunted her in the way that it had once done, but the consequences of her death tormented her far more. She now had first-hand knowledge, after all, of just what could happen to a child wrenched from the loving comfort and security of its mother’s protection.
Somewhere at the back of her mind she knew that she had been holding onto the reassuring belief that Iris would return home to Liverpool and insist on seeking her out, and that having done so, she would somehow, in her no-nonsense way, wave her version of a magic wand and rescue them all from the life they were currently living. But earlier that week she had received a letter from Iris, sent to her father’s address, informing her that she and her companions were enjoying their travels so much that they had decided to extend them and that she now did not expect to be home for at least another three months.
She had also received a letter from Cecily in which she had mentioned the fact that she had seen Elizabeth Fazackerly in Liverpool, wearing what she was sure had been ‘our Aunt Parkes’ sables, Ellie, remember – the ones she gave to you? I must say that I was both shocked and surprised, and can only assume that you must have grown tired of them. I know my own sister would have dearly loved to have had them and I have to say I think they ought to have remained in the family instead of being passed onto someone who is of no real consequence to us, especially since we are having such a very cold winter. Aunt Parkes has complained that you do not write to her very often. She has become very reclusive, and Mr Parkes seems to spend a great deal of time away on business.’
Ellie had sighed as she had put Cecily’s letter down. There was such a gulf between them now.
‘Got to go,’ John announced, leaning down to kiss her cheek. ‘Mr Kershaw wants some photographs taking of the millworkers out on strike, and the ice on the Ribble.’
‘John, if Minaco doesn’t come back soon –’ Ellie persisted, unable to stop herself from expressing her illogical concern.
‘She will,’ he interrupted, ‘otherwise she is likely to freeze to death in this cold,’ he added carelessly. ‘But if it makes you feel any better I shall call round later tonight, just to make sure.’
‘If she hasn’t returned by then we shall have to inform the authorities,’ Ellie insisted.
‘I wish you would not upset yourself so, especially when…’ John told her gruffly, looking uncomfortably away from her.
As mature as he had become, Ellie reminded herself that he was still little more than a boy, and it was obvious at times that the sight of her swollen belly discomforted him a little.
‘Mrs Kershaw said I was to tell you that she knows of a good midwife, when…when the time comes, although I would have thought perhaps our Uncle Gibson –’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I couldn’t afford his fees,’ she told him simply, ‘and I very much doubt that our Aunt Gibson would want him to attend me anyway. I saw her in town the other day. She was going into Booths.’ Ellie’s mouth curled into a wry smile. Shopping at Booths, the town’s best grocers, was well beyond her meagre means. ‘I know she saw me but she pretended not to do so.’
John gave his sister a sympathetic look.
‘Gideon – by, but it’s been a fair old time since I’ve seen thee, lad. Ye look well enough. Mind, so ye should with all that money you’ve got now,’ Will Pride chuckled, nudging Gideon familiarly in the ribs.
Gideon suppressed his impatience to be gone out of the smoky beer-
stinking public house where he had gone to pay his men, and to be back in the comfort of his own home.
‘It ’ull be a late lambing this year, no doubt about that – aye, and many a flock cut back wi’ losses. I’ve never known it so cold. They say that t’ Ribble’s froze over up Penwortham way, and that folks are out skating on it! You’ve just missed our John. Bin taking photographs of t’ mills wi’ workers out. Bloody government. Criminal the way it’s treating the working man. I suppose you’ll have heard about our Ellie coming back to town.’
Gideon froze. He had been so busy these last few months attending to his own affairs that he had had no time to listen to gossip.
‘Can’t help but feel sorry for the lass really. Seems like she never wanted to leave Preston at all really, according to what she’s told our Rob,’ Will was continuing, beerily unaware of Gideon’s stiffening stance and lack of desire to hear what he was saying.
‘Aye, the lass is having a bit o’ a bad time. That father-in-law of hers has virtually thrown her out, and then Maggie refused to have her back wi’ them. O’ course, all Lyddy’s posh relatives are turning their noses up at Ellie on account of our Constance, and Ellie’s having to do the best she can for herself. Rented herself a little house down on Newall Street, and set herself up in a bit o’ a sewing business, but it’s a right rum do. There she is, going on for seven months gone, and that father-in-law of hers refusing to do anything for her, and her his son’s widow and the little ’un she’s carrying his grandchild. Must ha’ been about the last thing he did, getting her in the family way before he took off and hanged hissel’, poor sod. Doesn’t make any kind o’ sense to me what’s going on, but according to our Robert, our Ellie’s too proud to go a-begging to her father-in-law, and what with him tekin’ against his son on account o’ thinking he had summat mental wrong wi’ him…’ Will shook his head. ‘There, but these posh folk they have their own way o’ doing things.’
