‘They’re here, Mam!’ Meg gave herself a quick check in the mirror, patting her long dark hair into place and then threw Sarah a quick glance as she sat in the corner of the room after being told to behave for the visitors who stood at the door.
‘Well, let them in then. We are as tidy as we will ever be and there’s tea in the pot.’
Agnes pulled her shawl around her shoulders and waited for the door to open. It was a rare event to have visitors in the house since she had finished taking in washing and she was all too aware that the house was not at its best. The tea service borrowed from Mrs McEvoy stuck out like a sore thumb, looking decadent and shining, decorated with ivy leaves on the cream porcelain as it sat on the scrubbed pine table. Meg had placed a plate of rock buns and home-made ginger snaps on a plate in the centre of the table and Sarah had looked at them and complained when she was told to wait for her share until the guests had arrived.
Meg opened the door and let her guests in, feeling humbled as she welcomed them into her home.
‘Afternoon, Meg, how lovely is this! Afternoon tea with a good friend and look at the lengths that you have gone to to make us welcome.’ Daisy kissed her friend on the cheek and looked around at John. ‘Don’t bother kissing him, he doesn’t taste that sweet,’ she joked as John followed her into the house, quietly said hello and passed Meg his bowler hat to hang up on the clothes peg behind the door before turning to Meg’s mother: ‘Afternoon, Mrs Fairfax, thank you so much for having us this afternoon.’
‘It will be good for Meg to have someone her own age to tea, she’s been working so hard of late. You must be John and you, my dear, must be Daisy. Now I have seen you, I can tell you are the spit of your mother. I remember her from working in the corner shop, she was always cheerful, just like you.’ Agnes gave a big smile.
‘That’s a long time ago, way before either of us two were born, although she often talks about it,’ Daisy replied and then turned to look at Sarah, who looked dark and surly sat in her chair watching all the fuss being given to the visitors. ‘And you must be Sarah? Let me see in my posy bag, I think I have a treat or two.’
Daisy pulled the strings of her red velvet posy bag open and passed a bag of sweets to Sarah, whose eyes lit up. She smiled as Meg prompted her to say thank you. ‘The barley sugar is from me and the liquorice is from John,’ Daisy went on, ‘but perhaps you had better save them for after your tea. Just look at the lovely china and the baking that I bet your big sister has done. She’s such a clever one.’
She couldn’t help but notice the cloud come back over Sarah’s face at the mention of Meg’s skills. The younger girl obviously had a little bit of jealousy eating at her when it came to Meg. It seemed that life had not quite been fair in handing out looks and skills. Meg was by far the bonnier sister and Meg had told Daisy that Sarah found schooling hard. She was also not as open as her sister and sat and scowled at the new company.
‘You’ll never guess, Daisy, Ted Lund is going on a trip to Ireland!’ Meg said excitedly. ‘I’m going to be left in charge of the bakery until he gets back. I’m going to take this chance to bake what I want. Surely he can’t say anything if I make him money like I did this last week.’ Meg poured the tea out and passed the filled teacups to everyone as they pulled a chair up to the table, except her mother who remained in her chair next to the fire.
‘He’s going to Ireland? I’ve never known him to go anywhere before. I suppose he’s picked a good time of year. Spring is here, and I just commented to John that the daffodils were starting to flower in the park.’ Daisy sipped her tea and took a biscuit as Meg offered her one. ‘Don’t you work yourself into the ground; he’ll not appreciate it and he doesn’t deserve it, the grumpy old devil,’ Daisy commented before licking her lips free of crumbs and smiling at the heat of the ginger within the biscuit.
‘I hope that you’ll be making these in the shop because I’ll be telling Daisy to buy some and bring them home. I could eat them by the dozen.’ John helped himself to another biscuit and got his hand slapped by his sister, who knew that the biscuits and rock buns had cost the family dearly as he looked at her but still ate it.
‘I don’t know if I will. They cook quickly and I’d have to keep my eye on them all the time. Perhaps when I get used to the temperature of the oven I will; you’ve not much control over it with being fired by wood and coal. The rock buns, I definitely will, and plenty more things once I have tried them out,’ Meg said and looked at her baking, the sugar sparkling on the small plain-tasting currant buns that tasted so good when fresh.
‘Ah, that’s where Frankie Pearson’s oven will make a difference to him,’ John said. ‘He was talking to me when I returned his new shop plans to him. He’s fitting his bakery on the Headrow with gas ovens. He says he can control the temperature and so make his baking easier.’
‘He’ll blow himself up,’ Agnes put in. ‘I don’t like gas. Even if we could afford it, I’d not have gas lighting in this house, it is so volatile and it smells. He’ll either gas himself or blow himself up. It’s a good job you’re not working there, our Meg.’ She shook her head.
‘It’s the way to go, Mam, a lot of the bakeries have it now. It isn’t half as mucky. I spend at least three-quarters of an hour just cleaning the ovens and getting them up to heat. Gas would be a godsend. I don’t blame him for installing gas ovens into his bakery,’ Meg said. ‘Is it really posh, John? I bet it is. And is he a good baker? I’m glad that he’s on the Headrow, he shouldn’t knock my trade.’
‘Listen to her! My trade. You’d think Ted’s bakery was your own already. He’s only gone on holiday and left you in charge,’ Daisy grinned.
‘Aye, but I can dream. One day I might be able to afford it, perhaps rent it from him if he gives me the chance.’ Meg’s eyes lit up with the thought of her own business. She’d really work her socks off for that dream.
Sarah had grabbed her bag of sweets and was now wriggling in her chair. She’d sat long enough listening to the conversation about her sister. The sun was shining outside and even though it was Sunday and it should have been a time of peace and contemplation, she could hear Harry and his siblings outside. She hadn’t been able to talk to him since he’d started work at the canal. ‘Can I be excused please, I’d like to go out and play,’ she said and looked all sheepish, knowing that Meg and her mother would not lecture her in front of their visitors.
‘I suppose the conversation is boring for someone your age,’ her mother replied. ‘Go on, but don’t leave the yard and don’t let that Harry lead you astray, I know it’s his voice that you can hear outside.’ That made Sarah glare at her as she pushed back her chair and quickly went out of the door, thankful she could escape the conversation around the tea-table.
‘She’s a wick one is that one, can’t sit still for one minute,’ Agnes said once her younger daughter was gone. ‘She says she wants to go on the stage; now where she gets that idea from I don’t know! As if we have that sort of money to spend on such frivolities.’ She gave a weary sigh. ‘I think if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to your conversation and I will have a lie on my bed, I’ve suddenly come over all tired.’
Agnes unsteadily pulled herself up onto her feet and smiled at the three eager to chat around the table. She’d noticed John looking at her Meg with a twinkle in his eye. She was only going to be in the way of a romance perhaps blossoming between them and that would give her more happiness than Meg would ever know. She would be comforted in the knowledge that Meg had someone to care for her when she was six feet under.
‘Are you all right, Mam? You don’t have to leave,’ Meg said as she watched her mother walk unsteadily to the stairs.
‘No stay, Mrs Fairfax, both John and I would like you to if you are up to it,’ Daisy said and smiled as Agnes stopped at the bottom of the stairs to get her breath.
‘Nay, I’m away to my bed for a while, you young ones enjoy yourselves. Life is gone all too fast but you don’t realize until it’s too late.’
Agnes climbed the stairs and lay on her bed listening to the three of them laughing and talking downstairs, and the sound of Sarah, Harry and the rest of the children from the row playing outside in the mild spring weather. She closed her eyes and thought about the look on John’s face when he’d been talking to Meg. He was obviously interested in her daughter, else he would not have accompanied his sister to tea at their house. He seemed all right – in fact, he’d be a good catch, with working in the planning offices. However, he’d perhaps be the first of many to court Meg. She hoped he would be, not like her who had married the first man that she had ever known instead of trying the other sweets in the jar.
That was until he’d come along and tempted her with his compliments and smooth talk. Bill Sharp his name had been; she could still see his dark brown eyes and his high cheekbones and dark hair with sideburns that were kept immaculate. She could still smell the cologne that he wore, unlike her husband Tom, who when at work smelt of the pit and when freshly washed, carbolic soap.
Bill had been a salesman for the furniture shop across the road on York Street and as soon as their eyes had met, she knew it was the start of something neither could control. She often thought of her hands running down his thick tweed jackets and unbuttoning his trousers as they got lost in one another’s arms and a passion that neither could control nor wanted to. So much so, that Agnes had found herself pregnant with Sarah who she knew was Bill’s, as she’d hardly let Tom come near her for weeks which he had accepted, not wanting to be responsible for another mouth to feed. Then, she would never forget the afternoon when the peelers knocked on her door, telling her that there had been an accident at Wheeland Pit and her Tom was one of the casualties.
Agnes sniffed and wiped a tear away both in memory of seeing her husband’s body laid out at the side of the pit and the pain of ending the affair with Bill. She’d thought it was her fault that she was the only one that had lost her husband that day. That God had looked down and taken vengeance on her as she enjoyed making love in another man’s arms while her husband hacked away in the earth’s bowels and her daughter was turned outside to play on the streets while she satisfied her carnal needs.
But how she had loved Bill. She’d loved him so much and still did. Sometimes she could see in Sarah her true father, his dark looks and his selfishness; he too had been married with children. She had a lot of his traits, completely different to Meg. Meg was her father’s daughter and Agnes only hoped that she would never learn that Sarah was only her half-sister. She aimed to take that secret with her to the grave. There was no need for either sister to know any other than that they were true sisters even though she knew that sometimes she was too lenient with Sarah because of guilt over her secret lover.
Her thoughts came back to the present as she heard more laughter coming from downstairs. It was good that Meg had made friends with someone her own age and that Daisy had a brother. Perhaps love would bloom between them and hopefully her heart would not be broken, she thought.
She closed her eyes and reached for the laudanum which Meg had bought for her with the extra money given to her by Ted Lund to help the pain. She was a good’en just like her father, she thought, as she closed her eyes and drifted off into a drug-enhanced sleep and into Bill’s arms.
‘Don’t flirt with Meg too much, John, you know you shouldn’t,’ Daisy lectured her brother as they walked home together arm in arm in the mild spring weather.
‘Why not? She enjoys the attention and she’s such a bonny lass, I can’t help myself,’ John grinned. ‘She’s got her head screwed on when it comes to business. Old Lund is going to come back to a ready-made empire if she isn’t careful.’
‘Yes, she knows baking and is good at it but perhaps she’s not as experienced with men, so behave yourself,’ Daisy said. ‘I feel sorry for her. Her mother’s that ill, and her sister is full of mischief – did you see her pulling her tongue out at us as we left the yard? She was with that lad that looked like a waif and stray.’
‘Aye, I saw her. She needs some lessons in manners given her; she wouldn’t have said thank you for the sweets if she hadn’t have been prompted. They’ve not got a penny to their names, have they? I hope that Meg makes money at the bakery and that Ted Lund rewards her. They could do with some money and luck by the looks of it.’
John started whistling as they rounded the bend into their street.
‘Stop it,’ Daisy said firmly. ‘You only whistle when you are up to something. Whatever you are thinking, don’t do it. I know you, and it will only end in tears.’ She tugged on her brother’s arm.
‘Ah, but you don’t know what I’m thinking and I’m not going to tell you, sister dear. It’s my secret!’
Meg cleared the kitchen table and carefully washed Mrs McEvoy’s best china in readiness for its return. Upstairs her mother lay asleep and through the window she could see Sarah sitting on the wall top with Harry.
All was done for the day, she thought, as she sat in front of the fire and recalled her visitors. Daisy was always full of life, a right chatterbox, and John was polite, although a tease. He was handsome and she was sure he kept looking at her with interest. He’d talked a lot about Frankie Pearson’s new bakery but she knew there had been more to interest him in her. She realized she was smiling, thinking of John and knew that she found him attractive. Although she had told her mother that she had no time for men in her life, she wouldn’t mind walking out with him on her arm. However, it was only a fancy – he probably had a sweetheart although he’d never mentioned one and neither had Daisy.
Meg sighed and closed her eyes. She’d enough change in her life with running the bakery. The last thing she needed was a man in her life to complicate it. Still, he was handsome, she thought, as she opened her eyes and looked into the fire. Perhaps if he asked her to walk with him she would.
There would be no harm in doing that, surely?