At the end of November Annie sat feeding her son and talking to her husband, who still fussed over her a lot. “I’m better now, you know, Charlie.”
“Yes. A lot better.” He was only half-listening, his eyes glued to the child he considered to be his son.
“Dr Lewis won’t stop coming round, though.”
“He says he’s keepin’ an eye on you,” Charlie pointed out.
“Yes.”
“He likes coming. Likes your scones.”
“So do you. I don’t know who’s greedier, you or him.”
He just grinned. He was looking a lot better, now that she had the feeding of him. Mind, they’d had to spend some money on cooking equipment, but she hadn’t grudged that. She enjoyed cooking and was quite skilled, thanks to Mrs Cosden. For Number Eight, she had bought herself a new spring jack to turn a roast, so that she wasn’t for ever tending it, and a lovely dutch oven, so that she could bake properly. And only last week, Tom had found her a proper chimney crane to hold her new cooking pots, and her dad had fixed it up for her. That beat trying to raise and lower the chains holding the hot cookware. How Charlie had managed with only an old black frying-pan and a pan for boil-ups, she didn’t know. But then, Emily had much the same equipment.
Even with her improved utensils, Annie still found cooking at Number Eight very limited and the constant need to boil hot water was very wearing. Oh, for a decent closed stove! Mrs Cosden had had one of the first in town, thanks to the doctor’s fascination with what he called ‘progress’.
“I think the doctor’s lonely,” she said thoughtfully. She patted William and when he had burped, passed him over to Charlie to cuddle, enjoying the beaming smile on her husband’s face. As she cleared up and put William’s dirty clouts to soak, her thoughts dwelled on Jeremy Lewis. “He’s not a happy man, the doctor isn’t, Charlie. Ellie says he and Mrs Lewis don’t even eat their meals together unless they have guests. She says he only smiles when he’s with Miss Marianne.”
“Well, he likes coming here,” Charlie repeated, cradling his son in his arms. “He comes a lot.”
“Yes.” She frowned. “But I’m not sure I like him coming so often. People will talk.” But Charlie wasn’t even pretending to listen, and anyway, she thought sadly, the subtleties of the situation were really beyond his understanding.
By mid-December, business matters had reached crisis point in Number Eight. Annie had more folk knocking at the door, wanting to buy her second-hand clothes than she could produce clothes, and she had started doing alterations for people as well. It gave her great pleasure each week to drop the shillings she earned into the black tin box, for they could live adequately on what Charlie made. In with her earnings went the rent from the cottages, which seemed a marvel every time Tom brought it back, money that had earned itself, money that just kept coming in, without you having to lift a finger.
The crisis was caused by other factors, as well as Annie’s skill with a needle. Helped by Tom and spurred on by his desire to do his best for William, Charlie had extended his rounds over the past few months and was now bringing home more and more stuff. Some of it was so good that Annie couldn’t bear to send it away for rags. It was a marvel to her how careless and wasteful some people were. They threw away things with years of wear still in them, just because of a few little holes or a worn hem. But she hadn’t the time to mend and alter them all herself, so the bundles began to mount up along her bedroom wall.
“I don’t know where I’m going to put this lot!” she exclaimed one day, as Tom helped Charlie carry in some more stuff. “I haven’t started on the last lot yet. I can’t keep up with you two lately!”
“Why don’t you set someone on to help you, then?” suggested Tom. “You could get a young girl to sew the easy bits. You’d not have to pay ’er much.”
There was a pause. “Hire somebody? Me!” said Annie faintly. “Don’t talk daft! I couldn’t! Do I look like an employer?”
Tom grinned. “No, but if you’ve got the money to pay ’em, people won’t care what you look like. What matters to us is, would you make more money out of it?”
Annie sat there, her brain working furiously as she got over her first shock at the idea. Would she make more money? Yes, of course she would! The clothes she made from the stuff Charlie brought in were becoming popular for ‘best’ among the more affluent inhabitants of the Rows, and returned a good profit on Charlie’s original outlay of paying a few pence by weight for people’s clean rags. The women who bought Annie’s things were those with a bit of money to spare, even in these hard times, the young unmarried girls and the older women with several children working. And she knew her clothes were more than just body coverings to them. She had an eye for colour and could ‘do up’ an old dress till you’d think it was new-bought that year. A couple of young women had already got wed in her simple creations. Oh, yes, she thought, she could definitely make more money if she had some extra help.
She looked at Tom. “Do you really think I could do it?” she asked hesitantly. It seemed such a big step to take. “Dare I?”
Tom had no doubts. Even at seventeen, he had an entrepreneur’s soul and could spot talent in others a mile off. “Why not, our Annie! Any road, it wouldn’t cost much to try, just a few shillin’ a week till you see how it goes. You could always get rid of her if it didn’t pay.”
“Ooh, I don’t know. We’ll leave it be for the moment. I’ll have to think about it.” She refused to discuss the subject any further. She could not just dive into something. She had to be sure that it would work, that she wouldn’t lose from it. Security was just as important as making a profit.
She was still thinking about the matter when Mrs Hinchcliffe dropped in to see her. Annie screwed up her courage and asked if Pauline thought it would be a good idea to expand her business and take on another woman to help her with the sewing.
“Why not?” Pauline echoed Tom’s words. “It’ll only cost you a few weeks’ wages and you’re not telling me you can’t afford that! You have to spend money sometimes to make it.”
“Yes, I suppose so. It’s just – everything’s happened so quickly.”
“It’s happened quickly, Annie, because you’ve filled a need, and because your clothes are nice to look at as well as practical.”
“So you think I could cope?”
“Of course you could!”
“The thing is, if I do get someone, I’d not want an untrained girl.” She looked at Mrs Hinchcliffe apprehensively, fearing her scorn. “I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t need someone who just knows how to do straight seams. It’s alterations and awkward bits I mainly have to do with my re-makes. Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Think it over. You don’t have to do things immediately, do you? It’s nearly Christmas. You are allowed to relax and enjoy yourself occasionally.”
Annie, who even worked on Sundays, shuddered at the thought. She looked round at the bundles. “I’ll have to do something, that’s for sure. There won’t be any room in the house for people, at this rate.”
In the event she found someone sooner than she had expected. She mentioned her plans casually to Sally the next day and Sally began to look thoughtful.
“I know a woman who’d like a place,” she told Annie after a few moments’ hesitation, “only – well – you might not want to set her on.”
“Oh? Who is she and why not?”
“She’s a friend of mine. I’ve known her for years. She trained as a seamstress in Manchester, but then she – well, no use tryin’ to dress it up – she went on the streets. That’s how I met her. But she’s had enough of that now, love. She wants a change. If she could get a respectable place again, she’d leave that other business tomorrow. But it’s hard to get a respectable place without references, specially for someone like her. She’s not been as lucky as I have.”
Annie was dubious. “I don’t know. Folks talk. I wouldn’t want customers put off coming to me.”
“You’d be surprised how things get round,” said Annie darkly.
“Oh, well, it was just an idea.”
“No, wait! I wouldn’t mind seeing her. At least she wouldn’t turn her nose up at working in Salem Street. Could you ask her to come and see me? But tell her to dress quietly. And I’m not promising anything, mind. What’s she called?”
“Alice is her real name, Alice Turner. She’s been callin’ herself Marie, because it’s better for business, an’ she’s been dyein’ her hair blond. I don’t think folk would recognise her so easy if she changed it back to brown, though, an’ stopped curling it.”
When Sally brought her friend round the next day, Annie recognised her at once. It was the woman who had set her free from Fred Coxton. She saw by the woman’s face that she, too, had been recognised.
When Annie shook hands, she kept hold of Alice’s for a moment or two longer. “I never thanked you properly for helping me last January. If you can sew, the job’s yours.” Sally looked puzzled, but Annie didn’t explain just then.
Alice shrugged. “I was glad to help. That Fred Coxton was a pig. I heard tell that he died in a fight, over Liverpool way. I hope he did!”
Annie shuddered. She still had nightmares about that evening. Or about Fred returning to Bilsden. “What about your sewing?”
“Well, I made this dress I’m wearing,” Alice pirouetted in front of them. “It’s not bad, is it? I call it my go-to-church dress, because it’s dark and respectable.” She grinned at them. “I made it from some flawed pieces I got at the market.”
Annie examined the stitching, then looked at the fit and style. The stitches were neat and even, and the only fault she could find was that there was too much trimming.
“If I take you on, you must give up the other,” she warned. “I run a respectable business.”
“Just give me the chance! I hate it! Most men are bastards!”
“Why did you start, then?”
“I was workin’ for an old bitch in Manchester. She treated us like slaves. Didn’t even feed us properly. Then I met this fellow. He said he’d marry me. I wouldn’t have gone off with him else. Only he didn’t marry me. Turned out he was already wed. We made me work for him instead. What could I do? She wouldn’t have taken me back, an’ I’ve no family left that I know of! An’ anyway, George treated me all right at first. We had a bit of fun together.” She looked at them defiantly. “I’d never had much fun. My parents were old and strict with me.”
“So what went wrong?” asked Annie.
“I fell for a kid. He didn’t like it when I wouldn’t get rid of it an’ he turned me out of my room when I got too big to work. Things was never so good after that. I went from one place to another. In the end I wound up with Fred Coxton. Dunno how. A right bastard, he turned out to be! I were glad when he left, but I had to go on workin’ or I’d have starved.”
Sally nodded. “That’s how a lot of the girls get started, Annie, love. They’ll believe anything a man tells ’em, young girls will. You’re just lucky you haven’t got no kids, Alice.”
“I had two,” Alice blinked her eyes rapidly, “but they died. Fever, it was, with Billy, an’ Jane just never thrived. Only two months old, she was, when she went. Fred said good riddance, but I were upset. They were nice babies. I tried to look after ’em, but you know what it’s like. You have to give ’em Godfrey’s Cordial to keep ’em quiet. An’ then they’re not so hungry. An’ so things go from bad to worse.”
Annie’s eyes turned to her own baby, who lay in his cradle waving his chubby arms about. How lucky she was that Charlie had married her! Who knows what she might have been driven to do otherwise? She’d heard Jeremy Lewis’s views on Godfrey’s Cordial, which he called ‘an iniquitous brew’, for it contained laudanum and babies given a lot of it were often slow to learn and mature.
She patted Alice’s arm. “All right. I’ll take you on. I’ll pay you eight shillings a week, your clothes found and two meals a day. That’s to start. If business goes all right and you work well, I’ll pay you more later, but I can’t afford it yet. You’ll start here at seven in the morning till seven at night. Saturdays we’ll finish a bit earlier. You’ll sew mostly, but you’ll have to help with the baby or do the cooking or whatever else needs doing.” She cut short Alice’s stammered thanks, embarrassed by the tears in the older woman’s eyes and the warm expression on Sally’s face. “Where do you live? Still down in Claters End?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you can’t stay there. It’s not respectable. An’ it’s dirty. You’ll have to find a lodging nearer. And Sally said you could maybe change your hair, stop dyeing it, wear it differently. We don’t want anyone recognising you.”
“Yes, I’ll do that. Be a relief not to have to keep bleachin’ an’ curlin’ it, to tell you the truth.”
“You could stay with me most of the time, Alice,” Sally volunteered. “Except on the nights when my Harry comes.” She winked. “He likes us to be private then.”
“You could sleep here in the kitchen on those nights, if you don’t mind a mattress on the floor,” offered Annie. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought to herself. Besides, she owed this woman a lot.
Tears were running down Alice’s face. “You won’t be sorry,” she promised huskily.
When she’d gone to get her things, Sally looked at Annie. “I must be goin’ soft in me old age. I don’t know what my Harry will say.”
“If you’re getting soft, so am I,” answered Annie.
“You’d no need to do all that. Why did you, love?”
“She’s the one who helped me to get away from Fred Coxton that time. I owe her the same chance.”
“Eh, she’s never said anythin’ about it, an’ I’ve known her for years. She’s a nice lass. Reminds me of meself a few years ago. But I were lucky. I met my Harry.”
Years later, when Annie looked back on those early days, she felt that she must have had a guardian angel watching over her, because she had a few pieces of luck. Alice Turner was the first. Alice worked enthusiastically right from the start, taking as much interest and trouble as if the business were her own. Her face soon lost its pallor, her body filled out and she became a plump vivacious woman with a bounce to her step. The blond hair was dyed a dirty brown before she ever joined Annie, and gradually grew into her own soft brown, which suited her complexion, to Annie’s mind, much more than blond.
It was Alice who took charge of selling the clothes at the market. The first time they tried it, Annie was almost too nervous to think straight. She paid the market fees and then she and Alice stood behind Charlie’s handcart, loaded with remade or mended second-hand clothes. It was Alice who called out their wares, and Alice who bantered with the customers and passers-by. By the end of the day, they’d sold nearly half of the things they took along, especially the dark, serviceable garments. They couldn’t make enough clothes to fill the cart every week, but from then onwards they went to market about once a month. Or at least, Alice did. Annie soon left the selling to her.
On the second visit to the market, they had a bit of trouble from some bullies, who tried to make Annie pay protection money. When she mentioned their threats indignantly to Tom, he grinned. “Leave it to me, Sis.”
She was troubled no more.
“How did you do it?” Annie was worried at his familiarity with the rougher element in the town. “Won’t they come back next time, if they see Alice there on her own?”
“No. I know their boss. He won’t trouble my sister, or anyone doin’ business for her. He owes me a favour.”
“You know some funny people, Tom. I don’t like it.”
“It’s useful. Why do you think no one’s bothered your Charlie lately? Did you know he used to have to pay the bullies twopence every time he came back home?”
“No! But still, Tom …”
He shook her arm. “Leave it be, our Annie. That’s how things are done in the Rows, whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it!”
“Well, you’ve got no choice, have you? You’re stuck here now yourself. Like the rest of us.”
She watched him go. Yes, she was stuck here – but not for ever!
Annie’s first Christmas back in the street passed almost unnoticed so busy were they. The mills had been on full time for the past few weeks and people had a little money to spare, so she’d sold a lot of her clothes. She did make the effort to put on a specially nice meal after chapel on Christmas Day, to which her family, Sally and Alice were invited. John had squashed Emily’s protests about Sally’s presence and made sure she was not left out of things on the day.
Annie gave everyone a present, little things she had sewed herself. She watched her little stepsister, Becky, playing with a rag doll, loving it in her arms and staring around her wide-eyed and protective. Poor child! She looked half-starved and that dress was a disgrace. Emily was a rotten mother.
Her eyes caught her father’s and he shrugged, taking Becky and her dolly on his knee. Annie smiled as she watched them. Just so had John bounced her when she was little. He was as good a father as life allowed. And he was looking pretty tired himself lately. Seeing how poorly dressed her stepbrothers and sisters were made her resolve even more fiercely that William should do better than that, that she would get the two of them out of Salem Street one day, if she had to work her fingers to the bone to do it.
Charlie, sitting in state at the head of the table, never stopped beaming all day and the good food and small presents kept even Lizzie and May on their best behaviour. William gurgled his way through the day with his usual sunny nature. A better baby, Annie thought that evening, looking at him lying kicking in the cradle, was never born. Almost worth the trouble he’d caused her, she realised with a shock. He beamed up at her and caught her finger in his little pink hand and she amended that. “You’re well worth the trouble, my lad,” she said aloud. It was strange how her feelings had changed towards him.
One day in February Annie was walking back from the shops when a small body catapulted into her just before the turn into Salem Street. The child cried out and went sprawling in the half-frozen mud. Annie bent to pull her up, recognising that it was one of the Dykes children. She exclaimed in horror at a fresh burn mark on the bony arm. Just at that moment, Polly Dykes came puffing round the corner, a smoking poker in her hand.
“There y’are, y’little bastard!” she screeched, brandishing the poker. “I’ll give it you! Run away from me, will you!”
Annie put the trembling child behind her and confronted Polly, now a draggled, blowsy woman, ageing rapidly. Polly spent as much of her time as she could afford drunk, and the rest beating her children and quarrelling with her husband. It was a minor miracle that George Dykes was still in employment, because he was as fond of the drink as his wife. It was a wonder, too, that any of the Dykes children had survived infancy, so irregularly were they fed. Neighbours slipped them a crust, when they had a bit to spare, but they were a sickly, undersized bunch and two of the younger ones had died in the last outbreak of fever.
“What’s the matter, Polly?” Annie asked quietly.
“What’s the matter?” Polly mimicked Annie’s accent and flounced her hips. “What the ’ell’s it got to do with you? Ain’t you got enough on yore plate with yore barmy ’usband?”
“You watch what you say about my Charlie, or I’ll make you sorry.”
Polly shrieked with laughter and brandished the poker, but Annie easily avoided her wild swings and pushed her over, wrenching the poker contemptuously out of her hand as she fell.
She thumped the poker on the ground, making Polly whimper and jerk backwards. “If I ever hear you calling my Charlie barmy again, I’ll pay someone to fix you, Polly Dykes.” She tossed the poker aside and bent to pick up the basket she had dropped, becoming aware that the little girl was still clinging to her skirt and shivering uncontrollably, though whether from cold or fear it was hard to tell.
“What’s the matter, love – Kathy, isn’t it?” she asked gently.
The child shuddered and said nothing, but her eyes flickered towards her mother in a tell-tale way.
Annie sighed. She shouldn’t really get involved. What a parent did to a child was nobody else’s business. But since she’d had William, she was looking at the children around her differently.
“What’s your Kathy done wrong?” she asked Polly, who was struggling to her feet.
“Her! Lazy bleedin’ sod, she is! They won’t set her on at t’mill, because she looks too weak. She will be weak, I told ’em, if she don’t get a job soon! Albert Thomas tried her on rag-pickin’ an’ she couldn’t keep up with the others. It’s more than time she were bringin’ summat in, more’n time! I’ll learn her to do as she’s told! Couldn’t keep up, indeed! We’ll see ’oo can’t keep up!” She waved a threatening fist at the child, who shivered and pressed closer to Annie.
“I didn’t know you were wanting her set on,” Annie said casually. “Why didn’t you come to me, instead of insulting my Charlie?”
“Huh?” Polly stood there, swaying a little, already reeking of gin, though it wasn’t yet noon.
“I’ve been thinking of taking a girl on,” went on Annie, “an apprentice, to learn the trade.”
Polly hooted with laughter. “Well, we’ve got sod all to pay for her to go as a bleedin’ apprentice, so y’wastin’ y’time talkin’ to me.”
“I know you couldn’t pay, but I could give you special terms for old times’ sake, because you knew my mother.”
“Ah, Lucy was a fine woman,” said Polly, with a sudden switch of mood. A maudlin tear wound its way down her grey, dirt-encrusted cheek. “Many’s the cup of tea we supped together, y’poor mother an’ me.” She seemed to have completely forgotten her animosity. “I often think of Lucy, that I do.”
Liar! thought Annie, but she didn’t say so aloud. “Well,” she said, in the tones of one making a huge concession, “just for you, just because you knew my mother, Polly, I’ll set Kathy on without charging you the usual apprenticeship fees. Just for old times’ sake. And – because I know you’ve a hard time feeding them all – I’ll give Kathy all her meals. Now, how about that?”
Polly’s brow creased in laborious thought. “That won’t help us,” she said at last. “She won’t be bringin’ no money in.”
“She’s not bringing anything in now, and you still have to feed her. I can’t do any better than that, Polly. I’m only just starting up in business. I haven’t got any money to spare. I’m only doing this as a favour to you.”
The older woman wavered.
“She’ll be able to make you a new dress when she’s been with me for a few months,” added Annie persuasively, wondering why she was even bothering. “Just think of it, a nice new dress.”
There was a moment’s pause, then, “A new one?” Polly fingered the filthy grey skirt she was wearing and her eyes were briefly young again. “I haven’t had a new dress for years.”
“Well?”
“All right, then.”
Annie became her usual brisk business self. “I’ll bring round the papers for you to sign tomorrow.”
“Papers! Sign!”
Annie feigned surprise. “Well, of course! You’ve got to do these things legally. One day your Kathy will be earning a good wage, if she sticks with me for the five years. But you and George have to sign. You’re the parents.”
“George’ll not sign no papers. How will we know what’s writ in ’em?”
“I’ll tell you what’s in them.”
“Yes, but we won’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Well, if you don’t trust me, that’s that, then.” Annie shrugged her shoulders and turned away. The child gasped in dismay.
Polly grabbed Annie’s sleeve. “No, wait … What do these soddin’ papers say?”
“They say that you agree to leave Kathy with me for five years.” Inspiration struck. “And that you agree to pay me twenty pounds if you try to take Kathy away from me.”
“Twenty pound! Twenty pound! We’ve not got no twenty pound! Never will ’ave, neither!”
“That’s only if you try to take her away.” Annie’s patience was wearing thin. “Make up your mind! I can’t stand around here talking all day. I have a baby to feed and a business to run.”
“Well, I dunno. I’ll ’ave to ask my George.”
Annie smiled. George Dykes was an amiable bear of a man, who would do anything to keep the peace. “Your George won’t say no to me. He’s known me since I was a child. Look, I’ll take your Kathy with me now and start her off, eh?”
“Well – Oh, all right.”
Annie strode away, followed by a patter of footsteps. She stopped and the child was so close behind, she trod on Annie’s skirt, then flinched back, as if expecting a slap.
When they went into Number Eight, Kathy remained gaping by the door. Neighbours were not encouraged to run in and out of Number Eight, and most of the people in the street had not been inside the house. To Kathy, the place seemed a palace. There were coloured rag rugs on the floor, soft to the feet, and beautiful curtains at the windows, none of whose panes were broken, and as for the furniture, well, she’d never seen anything like it in her life, with its polished wood and bright-coloured cushions. The Dykes children sat and slept on sacks on the floor, and their parents had rickety stools. Kathy had heard people say that the Ashworths were rich and now she knew that all the stories were true.
Annie explained to Alice in an undertone how she’d acquired Kathy’s services and they both looked at the child, who was still standing patiently by the door, waiting to be disposed of.
“Poor little devil!” said Alice softly. “How old did you say she was?”
“Twelve, I think.”
“Some people shouldn’t have kids,” said Alice scornfully. “Why, she’s nothin’ but skin and bone! And she’ll be lousy, you know. She’ll have to be washed and combed clean. An’ what about her goin’ back at nights? She’ll pick things up again if she does.”
“Ugh! I never thought of that,” said Annie. “I just felt sorry for her. You know what that Polly’s like.”
They both looked at Kathy again. She was standing as patiently as ever by the front door, waiting for her rescuer to tell her what to do.
Annie sighed. “I can’t send her back, Alice, I just can’t! Look at the burn on her arm. Polly had just hit her with a red-hot poker. On purpose! She’ll have to live in, that’s all. She can sleep down here. I’m not sharing my bedroom with anyone. You won’t mind having her around on Mondays and Thursdays, will you?”
“Not if she’s clean!”
They burst out laughing. “Come on, then,” said Annie. “Let’s get it over with!”
Kathy made no protest at the stripping and cleansing of her person. Indeed, she almost fell asleep in the tin bath. Never in all her short life had anything felt so warm and soothing! The two women were appalled at the bruises and scars on her emaciated body, but they kept their thoughts to themselves, merely exchanging expressive glances from time to time.
Once the bathing was over, they wrapped the child in a blanket and settled her in a chair by the fire. When they gave her some bread and ham, and a cup of tea, she wolfed it down as if she expected someone to snatch it away again. Then her eyes closed and her head rolled backwards against the chair. Annie left her to sleep. There was no question of work just yet.
“I never thought I’d say this,” muttered Alice, “but she’d have done better in the union workhouse.”
“I don’t know about that.” Annie shivered. “My mam was put on the parish and she wouldn’t ever talk about what had happened to her.”
“But look at what’s happened to Kathy!”
“Yes.” They both fell silent again.
Charlie, when he came in, just smiled at the idea of having Kathy live with them. “It’ll be nice, havin’ you here, lass.” He loved children, as long as they weren’t rough and noisy. He always shrank away from May and Lizzie, but this thin little creature instantly aroused his compassion.
Kathy stared at him as if he were the man in the moon.
“I’ll make you a bed chair,” he promised her. “Saw one once. Not hard. Get some wood tomorrow. The bottom pulls out to sleep on. It does. Neat as anythin’.”
Annie intervened. “Let her get used to you.” She kissed her husband’s cheek. “You’re a kind man, Charlie Ashworth. And don’t worry. She’ll earn her keep. She can learn to sew and help me with William when she’s stronger. She’ll need feeding up first, though, poor thing. You wouldn’t think she was nearly twelve, would you? She’s only a year younger than Lizzie.”
He scowled at the name. “I don’t like Lizzie. No, “I don’t like her.”
“I don’t either, but she’s my sister, so we’ll have to put up with her. The only one who does like her is May. The two of them are as thick as thieves, and welcome to each other, as far as I’m concerned.”
When Tom came round, as he did most nights, he was less pleased. “You’re gettin’ soft, our Annie,” he said scornfully. “There’s plenty of kids as’d come an’ work for their food. Smart kids. Why did you have to pick this one? Everyone knows that Kathy Dykes is slow. That’s why no one’ll take her on. She’ll be no use at all.” He took a very proprietorial interest in Annie’s business and often turned up at the market once the mill had closed on Saturdays, to try his hand at selling.
In spite of his disapproval of the transaction, however, he agreed to go round to Number Two with his sister, “if only to stop them tryin’ to get any money out of you.”
“I’m not that daft, our Tom!” retorted Annie. “If they thought there was money to be got from me, they’d never be off my doorstep.”
They took a big piece of paper with them, to impress Kathy’s parents. Annie giggled as she wrote it out, using all the long words she could think of and her very best handwriting. She even drew flourishes on the top.
“That looks good,” said Tom. “I didn’t know you could draw so well.”
“Oh, I used to have a go sometimes at Park House. Miss Richards taught me and Ellie a few things. I like drawing. I only wish I had time to do it properly.”
As Tom had predicted, George tried to get Annie to pay him a shilling or two a week for Kathy’s services. Tom took over the bargaining at that point. When George started threatening Annie, Tom marched over to him and grabbed him by the shirt. George made a feeble attempt to fight him off, but then subsided on to a stool. Like Polly, he was drunk most evenings. Several filthy, half-clothed children watched wide-eyed from the back of the room till George shook his fist and roared at them to get into the back kitchen.
“Now, George Dykes,” said Tom, “either you sign an’ let Annie take your Kathy an’ train her to sew, or I’ll go an’ bring her back right now, this very minute. I don’t mind. I think Annie’s soft to take her on at all. I wouldn’t! She don’t know how to sew or do anything else much. She’s not worth a farthing scrape of dripping, that one!”
Grandpa Jack spoke up then. “You do as he says, our George. Tom’s right. The little lass is good for naught else. She’s not strong enough. You said so yourself only yesterday. Let ’em take her off your hands.” Jack Dykes was beginning to show his age and now that he could no longer beat his son in a fight, tended to sit quietly in his corner after work. He was terrified they’d put him in the union workhouse once he grew too old to work. But he had a soft spot for little Kathy and enough wit to see that here was her big chance in life.
Reluctantly George Dykes agreed to sign his cross.
“Go an’ fetch our dad, Annie,” said Tom, who’d now taken complete charge. “We need a witness to this. That lawyer chap said it was to be done proper.” They had consulted no lawyer, but the word impressed Polly and George into complete silence.
John Gibson came round and solemnly signed his name after George and Polly’s crosses, then they all left. Before he went back into Number Three, John patted Annie’s shoulder. “You’re a nice lass doin’ this. Your mam would’ve been proud of you.” Then he whisked inside, his eyes suspiciously bright.
At the door to Number Eight, Annie stopped and looked at Tom. “You handled that well.”
He grinned. “Told you I could take care of meself. Wait till your business is goin’ proper! I’ll come in full-time, then. We’ll make money, you an’ me, one way or another. Lots of money. You’ll see.”
“Yes. I hope so. But not till times get better. Charlie can cope with things himself for now. I want to make money as much as you do, Tom, but I’m going to be very careful how I do it.”