1927
Annie was eighteen years old when she went to work in Fletcher’s Mill; not something, even in her wildest imaginings, that she had ever thought she might be doing. Her dreams had been of stage and screen stardom. She had assumed she would be living the life of a lady, once she had secured a good marriage to some rich eligible young man, someone who matched the standing of her own prestigious background, and she had never thought beyond that. But then their family fortunes had changed dramatically and their status and upper-middle- class life style had disappeared overnight.
When she saw her parents being unceremoniously dumped out of the back of their erstwhile gardener’s old wagon and left at the front door of the two-up, two-down terraced cottage on the poorest side of Clitheroe, Annie rushed out of the house to greet them. She could see at once how hard this was going to be for them to grasp that this was, for the foreseeable future, to be their new home.
‘They can’t expect us to live here!’ Edward Beaumont stood, shoulders hunched, amid the straggling weeds on the moss-ridden flagstones. The bowler hat he was clutching seemed so out of place he didn’t try to put it back on and he scratched his almost bald head in puzzlement.
‘Who’s “they”? Annie asked wearily. She knew what her father would say, but she thought that hearing him put voice to the words might help all of them to make sense of their plight.
‘The authorities … the mill owners … Oh, I don’t know. Whoever owns these kinds of places.’ He gestured towards the front door in exasperation.
Annie shrugged. ‘Why shouldn’t we have to live here? It’s no worse a house than lots of people live in.’ She was feeling wretched and deflated but was determined not to show it in her parents’ presence.
Having arrived first and already explored what she could only describe as a doll-sized house, she felt helpless and knew they would too. She had never been to this part of the town before and now she was here she knew why. Inside herself she was feeling as lost as her parents were. They were all still trying to make sense of what they had been reduced to, to work out how their fortunes had turned so completely around, but Annie thought it politic to try to put on a brave face.
‘I’ve had a little time to have a look around before you came,’ she said, ‘and from what I’ve seen and heard from the neighbours I think this one’s a step up from what some people have to put up with round here.’
‘What do you mean by a step up? We would never have let one of our tenants live in a hovel like this, never mind us. This is nothing but a working-class slum that should have been cleared years ago,’ her father blustered.
‘I suppose even the working classes have to live somewhere, and if they don’t have enough money to do them up—’ Annie began.
‘But we’re not like those lower sort of people,’ Florence cut in, ‘and we can’t live in a place like this.’ She sounded most indignant. ‘We can’t be expected to live amongst them.’ Now she was openly dismissive. ‘Just because we have no money doesn’t bring us down to their level, you know.’ She flapped her arms vaguely, as if to dismiss the whole neighbourhood. ‘It doesn’t matter what our financial situation is, we could never be considered to be the same as the labouring classes. They are of a completely lower order. That is just the way it is.’
There was an old lady sitting on the doorstep of one of the terraced houses opposite, with some tired-looking knitting in her lap. She must have thought Florence was waving and she waved back.
Florence tossed her head in disgust and turned away. But Annie waved to their new neighbour and gave her a tired smile. ‘That’s Mrs Brockett, that old lady over there,’ Annie said. ‘She’s lived here all her married life. She’s actually very nice.’
Florence peered down her nose and looked at Annie as if she was mad. ‘How on earth did you come to that conclusion? The poor old thing looks like she’s a permanent fixture in that chair.’
Annie laughed, trying to lighten the mood. ‘You’re right there, Mother. I think she sits out on the doorstep every day unless it’s raining, but I had a chance to chat to her before you arrived.’
‘Did you, indeed?’ Florence didn’t look impressed and she actually shuddered.
‘As long as we’re stuck here she might turn out to be a very useful lady to know. She seems to know most of what goes on in the street,’ Annie said.
‘I hope you didn’t tell her any of our affairs?’ Florence’s reprimand was as swift as it was sharp. ‘I know I certainly shan’t be giving her the time of day.’
Annie ignored her mother. ‘She thinks we’re very fortunate that we have our own lavatory and she says we should be grateful we have a tap for water actually in the kitchen.’
‘Grateful? For a lavatory and running water? Are you mad, girl?’ Now her father spoke up. ‘This is the end of the 1920s. Surely everyone has water and water closets these days?’
‘It seems not,’ Annie said carefully. ‘Not round here at any rate. But, apparently, it’s a real bonus having our own lavatory, just for the family’s use. Although …’ She hesitated, thinking of their old home. ‘It is outside.’ She tried not to pull a face as she said this for she didn’t want to tell them just yet that it would need a jolly good clean before any of them could think of using it. ‘Apparently,’ she thought she’d better add, ‘many of the houses in these terraces have to share a toilet with half the street. And there are several who have to carry their water indoors in buckets that they fill from some kind of communal standing pipe in the yard.’
Annie thought her mother was going to faint when she said this, so she quickly pushed open the front door and ushered them inside. But that didn’t improve either of her parents’ demeanours. Florence looked so lost and bewildered standing in the middle of the single downstairs room that was to serve as a living room-cum-kitchen for the three of them that Annie almost felt sorry for her. But when Florence wailed, ‘We can’t possibly live here! There’s no room for anything,’ Annie thought she would lose patience. She watched Edward and Florence as they stood regarding the few meagre items they had begged to salvage from the bailiffs, while the rest were ignominiously sold, together with the bedding they had been allowed to keep. The few selected items of clothing they had clung on to had been bundled up like rags and lay discarded by the front door.
‘At least there’s two separate bedrooms upstairs,’ Annie said quickly, hoping to distract them. ‘They’re off a small landing.’ She indicated the stairs at the back of the room.
‘And where will the servant sleep?’ Florence enquired.
Then Annie’s patience snapped. She felt so exasperated at her mother’s inability to grasp the magnitude of the tragedy that had befallen them that she thought she was going to scream out loud. She herself was struggling to understand what had happened to them, but how could she get it into her mother’s head that life was never going to be the same as it had once been? When Florence began to cry, it was all Annie could do not to strike out and hit her. Surely she, as the child, was the one who needed her parents’ support?
‘Shall I show you the bedrooms?’ Annie said, gritting her teeth. ‘Then you can see for yourself exactly how much room there is.’
Florence shook her head. ‘Not just yet, dear. I haven’t the strength.’
There was a wooden table and a bench and two chairs that had been left by the previous tenants by the window in the front room. Florence wiped the seat of one of the chairs with her white lawn handkerchief and sat down. She also tried to wipe away the powdery film of dust that covered the scratched wood of the table, but when she leaned against it the table wobbled back and forth, so she pulled back, sitting up as straight as she could. Edward sat in the other chair without paying heed to the dust that was being transferred from the splintered wooden seat to his best Crombie overcoat. Annie kept her back as erect as possible when she took a place on the bench.
They all stared in the direction of the window, though it was too grimy to see out of it. Suddenly, there was a wailing sound that made Annie jump.
‘What’s going to become of us?’ It was Florence who had cried out. ‘And what’s going to happen to our lovely home? Who’s going to look after it until we’re ready to go back?’ She prodded her husband who was sitting beside her, looking bemused. ‘We can’t desert it now, Edward. It’s been in your family for generations.’ She shook her head from side to side as though in disbelief. ‘The beautiful summerhouse and the old oak tree down by the lake … I know how much you love it all, Edward. Will the gardener really look after it while we’re away? How much will he do if you’re not there to prod him and remind him?’ She covered her face with her hands for a moment.
‘You can ask my father about the house and the estate when you next see him,’ Edward growled angrily. Scowling, he kicked a piece of garden rubble from where it had stuck to his shoe to the other side of the stone floor.
‘Don’t be disrespectful of the dead.’ Florence sounded horrified.
‘What respect did he show me when he left me the legacy of all his debts? Don’t call me disrespectful, madam, when it’s me who’s had to sacrifice the family inheritance to pay off his creditors. When it’s me and my family who’ve been reduced to this.’ He looked round the room in disgust. ‘How can you respect someone who, despite his years, still had no idea what made for a good business deal and what made for a bad investment?’
‘I always thought Grandpa was rich,’ Annie intervened, for she recognized the expression on her father’s face as one that meant they were in for a long harangue.
‘He was when I was a young lad. But I was too young to understand that money was leaking out of the estate faster than it was coming in. As I grew older, if ever I questioned anything, he always found ways to cover up his incompetence.’ Edward closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I can’t say I blame the family entirely for turning their backs on us. I suppose we must look like a piteous lot.’
At this Florence had a fresh outburst of tears. ‘Not one of them put out a hand to help. I wouldn’t have expected the bailiffs to show much sympathy, but Edward, your own brothers? I ask you.’
‘I know.’ Edward sounded resigned. ‘Charity begins at home, I told him. But that meant nothing to him. He was too busy feeling smug about how he had managed to hang on to his own fortune that, fortunately for him, had nothing to do with the family’s money.’
‘Uncle William was in the same position but at least he did find you a job,’ Annie chipped in.
‘Doing what?’ Edward was scornful. ‘As a clerk at a mill?’
‘A senior clerk,’ Florence corrected him.
‘A clerk nevertheless,’ he repeated. ‘At Fletcher’s Mill. In the worst part of Clitheroe I’ve ever seen.’
‘At least Uncle William was true to his word,’ Annie said as patiently as she could. ‘You said the mill does have a job for you?’
Edward nodded. ‘I suppose that’s something. I understand there’s not much work about these days.’
‘I know,’ Annie said. ‘The country is still struggling from the disastrous financial effects of the war and it’s affecting everyone.’
‘But what do I know about cotton mills?’ Edward was still grumbling. ‘I’ve never done a day’s work outside of the estate in my life. All I know is about managing smallholdings and woodlands, supervising the gardeners, and collecting the rents from the tenants’ cottages. That’s my line of work. Not cotton mills.’ He got up and stomped round the room.
‘At least it’s a clean job and it’s honest work,’ Annie said.
‘Well, Daddy certainly couldn’t have entertained getting a manual job like those dreadful men we passed on the way here. They looked so rough.’ Florence was trembling as she spoke. ‘Really low, working-class men they looked. They probably spend half their lives in a pub,’ she added contemptuously. ‘You must never forget, Annie, that regardless of what has happened to us we are not like the common people of the lower orders.’
‘At least whatever wages you get will put some food on the table,’ Annie said to her father who seemed to be preoccupied peering into cupboards.
He stood up. ‘As I see it, most of whatever pittance of a wage I earn will be going in rent. Imagine, we have to pay rent for this … this hovel.’
‘Don’t worry, Daddy,’ Annie said encouragingly. ‘I’ll go to work too. Just as soon as I can find a job.’
She thought that would please him, but instead of looking happy her father shook his head. ‘That’s wonderful. We are descendants of the line of the great Beaumonts of Clitheroe; we can trace our roots back to William the Conqueror and we’re used to having nothing but the best. We should be enjoying servants to make our lives comfortable as we get older and instead my only daughter is talking about going out to work.’
‘Not just me. Mummy, you will have to work too,’ Annie said, though she was not sure how that would be received.
Her father raised his eyebrows and Florence looked aghast. But Annie sounded determined. ‘Don’t you agree, Mummy? I suggest you make it known among the neighbours that you’re an extremely able needlewoman. It would help enormously if you could begin to take in some sewing.’
Florence looked shocked. ‘You seem to have an answer for everything, young lady,’ she admonished. ‘So tell me, who’s going to do all the cooking and cleaning, not to mention the shopping? We’ll need to get someone in to see to all of that. Small as it is, the house will still need to be looked after, not to mention that we’ll need someone to look after us. You’ve already told us there are only two bedrooms, so I imagine the servant will somehow have to sleep down here.’
Annie looked at her mother with pity now, but Florence was following a new train of thought as she looked round the dismal room.
‘Those wretched bailiffs have allowed us to keep so few possessions that I don’t know where to begin, but I need to start making a list of what we’ll need to buy and what the servant will need to do.’ She sniffed. ‘Not that there’s sufficient space to bring in much in the way of furniture.’ There was barely enough room for the few bits they had been allowed to salvage from their old house. Annie thought back to the morning of the previous day when she’d watched helplessly as the bailiffs piled their few bags onto a wagon that the horses then drove away. By some miracle, the boxes were waiting for them when Annie had first arrived, but they didn’t actually amount to much. Annie stood up. She couldn’t sit here and listen to more of her mother’s delusional ramblings. There were things to be done – and even if it hadn’t dawned on Florence yet, Annie understood that she and her mother were the ones who would have to do them.
She looked at the ashes in the grate that must have heated the range at the back of the room near the stairs. Perhaps the first thing she needed to do was to learn how light a fire. Not that it was cold, fortunately, but as long as there was no fire, she now realized, there wouldn’t be any hot water for tea. She went into the back yard and then into the alleyway beyond to look for some kindling and old scraps of paper which she had seen their kitchenmaid turn into a fire at home. She collected what she could and went back inside.
‘And who’s going to do the shopping and the cooking? You haven’t answered me that one.’ Florence was trailing round after her now, following her into the scullery where Annie was searching for any usable pots. ‘We’ve lost cook and the butler and all the servants,’ her mother was wailing. ‘I don’t know how we shall begin to replace them.’
To Annie’s disgust she thought her mother was going to cry again. Instead, Florence whined, ‘Who’s going to feed us?’ And she sat down again by the table once more, only this time with her head in her hands.
‘Sadly, we need to wake up to the fact that nobody but us is going to feed us, Mother.’ Annie had tried to be gentle but now she spoke more sharply. ‘We’ll have to learn how to feed ourselves.’
At that, Florence jerked up her head but before she could say anything Annie jumped in. ‘The fact of the matter is that you and I will have to learn some new housekeeping skills. I’ve already spoken to Mrs Brockett, the old lady we saw before, across the road.’ She held up her hands before her mother could respond. ‘Not that I’ve told her much about our exact position but she has agreed to try to help us. In exchange for the odd loaf of bread, she’ll give me some cooking lessons.’
Florence looked bemused. ‘Where will we buy the bread from to give her?’
‘Oh, Mother!’ Annie became exasperated. ‘That’s the whole point. We won’t buy it. We’ll make it ourselves. She’ll show me how to do it and how to cook a few simple meals. She’d help you too if only you’d agree. She has very kindly said she’ll tell me what ingredients we have to buy and where to get them and then she’ll show me how to cook them over the fire.’
Then Florence did begin to cry in earnest. She had barely been inside the kitchen in the grand house in Clitheroe except first thing in the morning when she used to check in with the housekeeper and issue orders for the day’s meals to the cook. But Annie had no time for her.
‘Oh, really, Mother, do pull yourself together.’ She could no longer hide her exasperation. ‘Here, have a look at this.’ She threw the Clitheroe Echo down onto the table. ‘Maybe you can find yourself a job this way. I know there’s not much around at the moment, particularly for women. These are depressing times, as Daddy said. The men claimed back all their jobs after the Great War so there’s precious little available for ladies right now. But you never know.’ The front page was filled with classified ads and she had ringed a few items. ‘I’m hoping I might have something lined up pretty soon. I shall be going into town this very afternoon to at least one shop where I believe there’s a vacancy.’
Florence looked up. ‘Really, darling! Some of the things you say. The very idea of it. Are you trying to shock me or something?’
Annie stared at her mother in disbelief. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, how can you say such a thing? A daughter of mine even thinking of going out to work in a shop. You can’t seriously want to do that – what on earth would people say?’
Annie shook her head and gave a disdainful laugh. ‘It’s not a question of wanting to, Mother, but it’s needs must when the devil drives, you have to know that.’
‘Annie, for goodness sake. I do hope you’re not implying that it’s the devil that’s driving you.’
Annie held her breath for a moment before replying. She was afraid her mother really didn’t understand the seriousness of their situation. ‘I fear I am, Mother,’ she said eventually. ‘But the trick is: we can’t allow the devil to win.’
‘But what will you do in this “job” of yours? Where have you decided to work?’ Florence made no attempt to look at the paper. ‘I can’t read in this light without my glasses.’
Annie sighed. ‘It may not be a question of choice.’ Annie was trying to be practical and realistic, though she had no doubt about her ability to carry out any one of the first few jobs she had marked. ‘Obviously, I shall look for as good a position as possible but I may have to take whatever I am offered.’
Florence looked horrified, so Annie went on, ‘My preferred position would be as a saleslady in one of the fashionable hat shops in town. See, I’ve noted the first one here.’ They were brave words, spoken with more confidence than she felt, but Annie was frustrated that neither of her parents seemed to understand the gravity of their predicament. If her father’s wages would only cover the rent and she and her mother didn’t find a job quickly they might well be in danger of starving.
Upstairs, in the tiny bedroom under the roof, the one with the single bed, Annie crouched over the laundry bag of clothes she had managed to bring with her. Most of them she now realized would be completely unsuitable for the kind of life she would be leading in the future, but maybe she could persuade her mother to put her skill with a needle to good use in her own home first.
She picked out the smartest of the dresses she had been able to keep. It was in a soft blue wool and she thought it would be very suitable for working in a milliner’s shop. It had three-quarter-length sleeves and a nipped-in waist and she knew it was very stylish. Fortunately, only a few weeks before the bailiffs had come, she’d bought a pert little felt hat from her own milliner’s that matched the blue of the dress perfectly. She might as well wear it for the interview before she had to go through the whole shaming process once more of selling her clothes, or worse still, having to pawn them. The blue hat was really cute with a sideways-tilting brim and a small ostrich feather slotted into the petersham ribbon that ran around the base; it sat on top of her blonde sausage-curls in the most flattering way. She was glad she had thought to keep it when she had had to sell all her other lovely clothes. She didn’t know how long she would be able to hang on to it but for now at least it seemed like the perfect outfit for a job interview.
Annie set off into town where the shop was located. She didn’t have enough money for the bus fare both ways so decided she would walk back and took the bus to her destination, not wanting to appear hot and flustered even though that was how she was feeling. The sign above the door said Elliott’s Fine Millinery in gold script lettering. As she pushed open the door a bell tinkled in the distance and an older lady popped out immediately from a room behind the shop.
‘Good afternoon and how may I help you? I’m Mrs Elliott.’ The woman beamed at her as if she were a customer and looked prepared to show her an array of hats.
Annie thought she should come right to the point. ‘Good afternoon. I am here about the vacancy,’ she said. ‘I saw from your advertisement in the Clitheroe Echo that you have a retail position available. I hope I am not too late to apply?’
‘Not at all,’ Mrs Elliott said affably, although her smile faded a little, but her eyes examined Annie from top to toe. Annie met her gaze; she felt equal to any such scrutiny.
‘May I ask how old you are?’
‘I’m eighteen.’
‘That’s perfect,’ the older woman agreed.
Annie began to feel more confident. The job would be hers, she was sure of it. ‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to fill out this form.’ Mrs Elliott produced an official-looking piece of paper from under the counter. ‘It’s so that we may have your details on file.’
Annie thought this sounded promising until she actually began to write. No sooner had she written her name than she hesitated on the next line. She was tempted to give the more impressive Clitheroe address of her former home, but what if they tried to contact her and found out she no longer lived there? She took a deep breath and, with a flourish, wrote 16 Alderley Street, Norwesterly Clitheroe, before handing it back across the counter.
Mrs Elliott looked at it, the smile never wavering from her face, but when she posed her next question the eagerness had gone from her voice.
‘And what previous retail experience do you have, Miss Beaumont?’ she asked. ‘Is it in millinery or in some other commodity of ladies’ fashion wear?’
Annie felt her own smile begin to fade. ‘I-I don’t have any such experience, I’m afraid. But I’m an extremely quick learner,’ she added eagerly.
‘I don’t doubt it. But perhaps you have some other working experience that may be relevant?’
Annie realized, with dismay, that saying she had no experience of work of any kind would not be to her advantage. She wracked her brains but could think of nothing she had done in the past, other than being a valued client, that would prepare her for working in a hat shop. It hadn’t occurred to her that just being Annie Beaumont late of Clitheroe Town might not be sufficient recommendation, as it had been in the past, for whatever she decided to turn her hand to.
As the silence lengthened, Mrs Elliott said, ‘I’m afraid we must insist on taking on someone with prior ex-perience and impeccable references as I’m sure you understand. The job calls for a trained saleslady who would be able to step in and pick up the reins immediately. We don’t have the time to train someone up.’
‘May I ask how I’m supposed to gain this experience if you won’t give me a job where I could learn?’ Annie could hear the desperation in her voice and hated herself for it. It sounded almost like begging.
Now Mrs Elliott’s smile was positively condescending as she said, ‘I’m sure there are plenty of small local shops where you could gain an invaluable apprenticeship. Although not, perhaps, ones in the immediate vicinity of Alderley Street. They may not offer the kind of experience we would be looking for. I mean you could hardly expect a—’
Annie didn’t wait to hear the rest. ‘Thank you for your time,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. And she turned on her heel and walked out, trying to hide the burning tears of humiliation that stung behind her lids.
She had been so convinced she would be offered the job at Elliott’s Fine Millinery she hadn’t bothered to write down the addresses of the other retail positions she had seen advertised in the local paper, though she had noted they were all within walking distance of each other. So, after her initial disappointment, she set off scouring the neighbourhood to see if she recognized the names of any of the shops and if they matched the shops that had advertised they had positions available. She found two more milliners’ shops and a retail dress shop that had placed ads in the paper and at first her hopes soared when she found them. But when the shopkeepers’ reactions were similar to Mrs Elliott’s, she soon began to feel deflated. Even if they didn’t balk visibly when she gave her address as Alderley Street, Norwesterly Clitheroe, in what she now realized was the slum heart of the working-class neighbourhood, they were not prepared to overlook the fact that she had no retail experience, or indeed, experience of work of any kind. After each interview, she began to feel so disheartened it was difficult to pick herself up again ready for another one. Even when she found two more shops, one selling ladies’ underwear and one selling ballgowns, that had not been advertised in the Echo, but which had discreet postcards propped up in the window, the result was the same. After the initial question and response routine exposed her lack of experience, she turned on her heel and walked away. By the time she had visited all the retail shops that she could find that required staff, it was getting dark and she thought about the long walk home. As she turned in the direction of Norwesterly, she accepted there was no point in trying for any more similar jobs. It was time to admit defeat and look for something else.
There had been one other job in the Clitheroe Echo which had caught her attention but she had initially discounted it as not the kind of work she wanted. However, after such a fruitless day, she now realized that unskilled labour might be the only kind of work she was fit for. She knew where Fletcher’s Mill was, even though she hadn’t actually been there, for it was where her father worked in the administration offices. Not that their paths would cross if she did get the work, for the job on offer was for a loom operator, to work in the loom sheds which involved longer hours than any clerical job. The ad had said there would be training available and that, despite the long hours, she would be earning a pittance of a wage. She knew her mother would not find it palatable that any daughter of hers should have to be nothing better than a mill girl, and in this instance she wondered what her father would have to say about it too. Not that it mattered; she had tried her hardest to find more genteel work but it seemed obvious to her now that no matter how hard she tried there would be nothing forthcoming on the retail front.
The following morning, when Annie first set eyes on the sprawling complex that was Fletcher’s cotton mill, she was appalled. The only word she could think of to describe it was ‘Victorian’, but it was a far cry from the wealthy Clitheroe kind of Victorian buildings she was used to. This was a forbidding-looking compound surrounded by high walls that looked more like a prison. It was old-fashioned and out of date, a relic of the industrial revolution. As she approached the grimy, red brick buildings with the tall chimneys belching foul-coloured smoke she didn’t change her opinion. It was like taking a step back in time and she couldn’t believe she was about to put herself forward for a job in such a place. What was she thinking of? If only Mrs Elliott had been able to see beyond her lack of experience.
Fletcher’s Mill was quite some way out of the town centre in Norwesterly and the only thing in its favour, if she could get the job, was that she wouldn’t have to spend precious pennies, or too much time, travelling to and from work each day. No longer so confident that she would even be offered a job, she approached the man at the gate cautiously and asked to see the manager.
The first thing that hit her as soon as she entered the building was the hot, steamy atmosphere. There seemed to be no ventilation and, as she inhaled the dense, foggy air of the main looming shed, she knew she was making a mistake. She wanted to turn and run away while she still could, back to the fresh air and sunshine outside, but she had no choice. She desperately needed this job, any job, and for a moment she was rooted to the spot. It was like entering an alien world. The air was dense with cotton dust so that it was hard to see through the haze, and the heat and humidity made it very difficult to breathe. The fibres caught the back of her throat and made her cough.
The other thing that struck her was the noise, for what assailed her ears even before the doorman let her into the shed was the din, the like of which she had never heard before. The clatter and racket of the machinery, pounding down hundreds of times a minute, was compounded by the ceaseless whirring of a million hissing wheels rendering any kind of conversation almost impossible. As the sore, bloodshot eyes of the loom operators turned towards her momentarily, she fancied she could hear wolf-whistles even above all the cacophony. At least, she could see many lips pursed into whistle shapes as men and women alike eyed her up and down, eyebrows raised.
She was wearing what she thought of as her interview outfit and suddenly felt foolish. It might have been suitable for impressing Mrs Elliott, but it certainly wasn’t appropriate for the interview she was about to have. She wished she had thought to wear something more appropriate. But then she straightened her back and stood as tall as she could when she saw the manager coming towards her. As he negotiated his way down the narrow passageway between the looms she could see him chastising the floor workers with a flick of his finger, indicating they should be watching their machines rather than watching her. Then he directed her to the glass booth at the end of the shed that served as his office. When he closed the door, she was aware that it only shut out the highest decibel level of noise and she still had to strain to hear what he said.
Annie sat down and fanned her face with a cotton handkerchief she kept in her pocket now that she had relinquished all her leather handbags. It was unevenly embroidered in red silk with her initials. ‘Is it always so hot in here?’ she asked.
‘It’s got to be, unless you want the thread to keep breaking,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ Annie felt dismayed, but what could she say?
‘How do you like the racket?’ Mr Mattison asked, grinning as he shouted louder than necessary.
‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘But I suppose you get used to it.’ Annie’s throat already felt sore from shouting.
He shrugged. ‘There are five hundred sodding looms out there thumping down two hundred times a minute, so it’s no wonder they make such a bloody racket. And that in’t going to change either.’ He laughed a mirthless laugh, then he began to bark some basic questions at her. Annie shouted back her answers, hoping he could hear them. Then after only a few moments, she thought he said she could have the job. Under the circumstances, she wasn’t sure whether she’d heard him correctly.
‘Are you offering me the job?’ She thought she’d better ask for clarification.
‘Yes!’ he shouted, nodding his head. ‘As you’re here, you can have it. When can you start?’ He answered his own question before she had a chance to consider. ‘Right this minute couldn’t be soon enough for me, though I can see you’re perhaps not quite prepared …’ His eyes appraised her from top to toe. ‘But that’s the bugger of it. The job that were advertised int’ Echo were filled yesterday night. That were to replace the stupid bitch that’s got herself pregnant like she seems to do every other bloody year.’ His face registered disgust. ‘She’s away more than she’s here. She’s like a bleeding bitch on heat that one, I’m telling you. Not a thought for anyone else, I don’t know why we keep having her back. But then, would you believe, one of our best girls suddenly went off sick this morning, without any warning. So we’re another one down and I’m having to cover while that poor old sod Marjorie out there,’ he pointed towards the other end of the shed, ‘is having to watch two frigging areas at once.’
Annie was horrified to hear such language. She’d never heard the likes of it addressed to her before, and the words he used were getting cruder each time he opened his mouth. It was all she could do not to reprimand him. She had half a mind to remind him she was a lady who was not used to hearing such vulgar words, but when she remembered the looks of disdain she had received as she’d walked down to his office she thought better of it. This was a new world she was descending into, rather like Orpheus had descended into Hell. And as Rudyard Kipling had once said, she must learn to bite the bullet. If this was the price she had to pay to save her family, then so be it. She would somehow have to close her ears to the foulness that seemed to flow so readily out of this man’s mouth and do whatever it was she had to do. At least she wouldn’t be able to hear him while she was on the shop floor.
‘I could start tomorrow if you like,’ Annie said, ‘although you are aware that I’ve had no experience with any machinery like this?’ She had no wish to be caught out and humiliated again.
‘Pay no mind to that, you needn’t sweat over it cos we’ll train you. The work’s not hard. If them buggers out there can do it, then sure as hell you can.’
Annie looked out at the tired-looking women who were etching grease and grime into their faces each time they swiped their glowing foreheads. Some of them looked as if they could hardly lift their arms to adjust the looms or load fresh yarn. Their legs were no longer straight and looked as though they wouldn’t support their meagre bodies much longer. The poor souls looked about ready to drop. Annie sighed. She wanted to ask him what he meant by ‘not hard’ but thought he might interpret her query as sarcasm.
‘It’s six days a week, one week off when the place closes down for wakes week in summer.’ Annie bit her tongue as she accepted his offer of a pittance for wages. It was demeaning, but she knew she had no other choice. No doubt the pay would be in line with all the others out there, only hers would reflect her novice status. Annie stood up and prepared to leave. She decided not to offer her hand in a farewell greeting but she felt impelled to shake his calloused fingers when he shot his hand out in her direction.
‘See you tomorrow then,’ he said. ‘Sharp at seven, mind. You clock on by the main gate as you come in. Your time starts ticking from there. Time wasted for whatever reason is time docked off your pay. So if you arrive late, knock off a minute early, take too long a dinner break or go to the lav too many times, you can expect a smaller pay packet. You don’t get to clock off till six.’
Annie wished she could at least have taken her hat off as she once more ran the gauntlet and dodged between the huge machines. But it was too late for that now. She would no doubt be recognized by all those who had watched her coming in. It was difficult to imagine that by tomorrow she would be one of them and she would have preferred not to leave herself open to even more ridicule. She noticed many of the women were wearing trousers and she wondered how quickly her mother might be able to run up a pair from an old skirt for her. Maybe Mrs Brockett would be able to give her some advice on how she could knit a cardigan or a warm shawl if she unpicked one of the jumpers that she had salvaged, and turn it into something more fitting for getting to and from a loom shed. She drew herself to her full height so that she could leave with some dignity, but as she walked out of his office she felt his hand spanking her so hard across her bottom she knew his fingers must have left print marks. She spun round to find he was laughing.
‘Like that, did you? Play your cards right, there could be plenty more. Pretty girl like you.’ He winked at her. Astonished and appalled, Annie didn’t know how to respond, so she turned on her heel and walked away as fast as she could, relieved to realize that he hadn’t followed her out.
Things went badly from the first moment she started working at the mill. On the first morning she arrived in good time at the front gate but she put her card in the wrong way round and caused an angry queue to form behind her as the overseer tried to sort it out. She knew, without being told, that she and everyone in the line behind her would see less of their wages come Friday night for not clocking on, on time, even though it hadn’t been their fault.
‘God, it’s bloody her,’ she heard someone in the crowd say. ‘The frigging goddess in the crazy hat. She was bloody looking down her nose at us yesterday night. Yer might have guessed she’d cause trouble soon as she got here today. What idiot thought she was up to the job?’
Annie knew immediately they were talking about her but she didn’t make eye contact with anyone and tried to keep her face neutral, as if she hadn’t heard. She had been hoping she wouldn’t stand out from the crowd today and had deliberately worn an old skirt and blouse covered with a sort of overall that her mother had quickly fashioned out of an old sheet. She’d covered her hair with a headscarf she herself had cut and hemmed from the same sheet, as she’d been advised to keep it out of the way of the machinery. She knew that dreadful, sometimes fatal, accidents were all too frequent in mills such as this and she’d rolled it in the mud patch in front of the house then rinsed it through several times to make it look old and worn, hoping she would look no different from the others, but she was perturbed to find they quickly found other ways to single her out.
‘D’you mean the one that was sat like a stuffed dummy in old Henry’s office?’ someone else chimed in.
‘My dear, do you mean Mr Mattison?’ another one queried, trying to make her voice sound terribly posh.
‘Don’t tell me she’s bloody well going to work here?’
‘As what? That’s what I’d like to know?’
‘Not a bleeding supervisor?’
‘Don’t be so sodding daft. How could she supervise? She doesn’t look like she’s ever done an honest day’s work in her life,’ someone else said and everyone round her guffawed.
‘Aye,’ others agreed. ‘She looks sodding useless.’
‘I don’t know,’ a young man’s reedy voice piped up. ‘I wouldn’t mind having her picture on my bedroom wall. Reckon I could get off on that of a night.’
Raucous laughter broke out as he said that but what hurt most was that they were speaking as if she wasn’t there.
‘Do you fancy she’d be up for a bit of you know what, then? A bit of how’s your father?’
Annie saw him make a pumping gesture with his arm. She wondered what on earth that was about and didn’t really want to guess. Neither did she want to hang around to find out. As soon as the supervisor indicated the machine was working again and her card was satisfactorily punched, she walked purposefully down the long corridors, hoping she would find the right shed without having to ask. She saw – or rather smelled – the lavatories on the way in and hurried past as fast as she could, determining then that, no matter what, she would never use them. She had just about got used to the outside privy at home that she shared with her parents after she’d spent hours scrubbing it clean, but she drew the line at having to share such facilities with a bunch of women, most of whom she was sure rarely washed. She pulled open the door marked Shed One and was relieved to find it was the one she had been in yesterday. She hurried to Henry Mattison’s office as he had told her to do to receive her first instructions.
By the time Annie went for her well-earned dinner break she was aching all over. She didn’t know how she was going to get through the remainder of the day, and then do it all again for the rest of the week. But ten hours each day was what she had had to agree to. It was the length of shift most of the girls did, from what she’d heard, and one way or another she would have to get used to it. On her way to the dinner room she passed girls clustered in small groups, leaning against the wall with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths. Fortunately, she didn’t smoke and she didn’t know how they could either. She had only been in the shed for a few hours and already her throat felt so sore she could hardly speak. But if the women’s conditions were bad, she wondered how the men fared, for she had seen some of them stripped to the waist, struggling with the same hot and damp conditions, and with cotton dust flying everywhere. They were stoking the boilers, heaving hefty boxes from one shed to another and, worst of all, were sorting the raw cotton which made most of them sneeze and cough till she was sure they must bring up their lungs. She didn’t know exactly how much they earned, but it couldn’t be much more than the women. Worst of all was the children. No longer the very young ones, thank goodness, like the pictures she had seen of them going down the mines or up chimneys. But some of the boys and girls who dodged between the looms and crawled around the floor to correct a foot pedal or pick up a dropped spindle could only have been a few days over the statutory school leaving age of fourteen.
Once she began working, after her so-called training, she also understood why the women had looked so pale and red-eyed in the scene she had witnessed yesterday and would no doubt witness every day she worked there. For her arms were aching from the constant stretching and reaching across the looms and, as the morning wore on, she found it became harder and harder to lift the bales of yarn. Her legs ached too and she began to understand how they could become deformed from all the standing, not to mention the walking, that they did all day long, back and forth, following the machine carriages. She was sure she must have walked several miles already that morning. How many miles would she walk if she stayed in the job for any length of time?
At dinnertime she sat alone in a corner of the canteen. She was starving, but she tried not to look at what anyone else was eating for all she had was a piece of dry bread. She had given what little cheese there was to her father and instructed her mother to see what she could scrounge from the butcher for their tea and tomorrow’s dinner; she said not to mind even if it was old, so long as it wasn’t on the turn. And she prayed Florence would use some initiative and go looking for some sewing work as Annie had begged her to do, so that they could afford to buy more food for the next few days.
All Annie wanted to do now was to keep her head down so that she wouldn’t be noticed by the others, several of whom had been staring and pulling funny faces at her during the course of the morning. She had managed to ignore them most of the time, feeling thankful that in the noisy shed no normal conversation was possible. There were three young girls, however, who were the worst culprits. Two, who looked like they might be twins, had carroty red hair straying out from under grubby-looking headscarves that were tied up at the front, turban-style. They both had extremely pale skin that was almost yellow and they looked as if they were severely undernourished. The third one was possibly their older sister because she looked a lot like them, except that she had dark hair. She was even thinner than the younger two and never seemed to stop coughing. All three of them had red-rimmed, watery eyes so that they looked as if they were permanently crying.
Annie had been aware that they had been mouthing and pulling weird faces at her, like children, for most of the morning. They had also been signing to each other in such a way that even she, as a new girl, was in no doubt what they were saying. Although she had to admit she didn’t understand all of what she assumed to be rude gestures. When the dinner break was signalled, she had followed them out as they made their way to the dining area and when she saw them sitting together under the window she went to sit at a table far away in a dark recess on the other side. But it was not possible to escape them entirely. As soon as they saw her, they left their table and made a beeline for where she was sitting. They sat down and huddled close to her until they were almost touching. They then proceeded to talk about her as if she wasn’t there.
‘I wonder if she speaks as la-di-da as she looks?’ one of the twins said, looking directly at Annie.
‘I know what’s wrong with her,’ the other twin said. ‘She’s got a poker up her arse.’
They collapsed into paroxysms of laughter.
‘That must be what Mattison the octopus, that bleeding excuse for a man, likes about her bum. I couldn’t understand what he thought was so special about it and why he couldn’t keep his hands off it yesterday.’
Annie wanted to protest that she had hardly invited his unwanted attentions, but she thought it more prudent to remain silent and play them at their own game, pretending they weren’t there.
‘Do you think she’s dead?’ one of them said. ‘Maybe if I give her a poke …’ Without warning, the speaker reached across and prodded Annie’s hand with her fork.
Annie gave a squeal of pain. ‘Do you mind!’ She spoke without thinking. ‘That hurts.’
Once more, the girls seemed to find this hilariously funny and laughed out loud for some moments as Annie stared at them questioningly.
‘Do you mind?’ each of the girls imitated in turn; responding to each other, ‘Yes, I do bloody mind as a matter of bleeding fact, don’t you?’
That set them off into fits of more giggles. They then proceeded to pinch Annie’s already aching arm and went through the same ridiculous routine several times. Were they mad? Annie thought. Or was it her fault for coming to work among such common girls in such a dreadful place? Annie, trapped now into the corner at the end of the table, was unable to move.
‘Do you think we should tell someone about this poker? After all, it could be fatal?’ They had hold of something they couldn’t bear to let go now.
‘Maybe we should tell Mister fucking Mattison.’ The older one feigned a posh voice as she said this, despite the coarseness of her language. She exaggerated what might have been a fair imitation of Annie’s voice even though Annie had barely spoken half a dozen words.
Annie looked around the room desperately, but no offer of help was forthcoming. It was a dimly lit room but if anyone had seen what was going on they were choosing to ignore it for no one met her gaze. Either they didn’t see or no one was prepared to make eye contact. Annie felt helpless. She had seen girls teased and bullied at school in Clitheroe but she had never before been the butt of such cruel jokes.
‘Where’s that cute little hat, I wonder?’ The trio were off again but she didn’t even look to see who had spoken as they pretended to look around for the missing item.
‘Oh bugger, it’s disappeared.’ As she said this, the older one with the dark hair whipped off Annie’s headscarf. She rolled it into a tight ball and knotted it before she threw it to one of the twins. It was then tossed around the table like a snowball until it eventually unfurled and fell into a mug of cold tea that had been left by a previous diner. This caused endless mirth with the girls falling about with helpless laughter. But then suddenly one of them stood up. She looked at the clock that was above the serving hatch.
‘Bloody hell!’ she said. ‘We’d best be getting back if we don’t want the old ogre on our backs.’ The twins stood up quickly and, turning to Annie, belched loudly in her face while the older one actually spat at her. Then they fled the room as quickly as they could. Annie was so relieved to be left alone she would have been pleased to sit there for several more minutes. But a voice in her ear made her jump and brought her back into the room.
‘If you don’t get back this instant I shall be docking your wages.’ It was Henry Mattison. She looked up.
‘Yes, of course, Mr Mattison,’ she said, and she hurried back to the shed, not sorry that dinnertime was over. It had been the longest half hour she had ever known.
When the hooter sounded for the end of the shift Annie didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. She was glad that she now had a whole evening in which to rest her throbbingly painful limbs, and she was delighted that the stretching and bending and endless walking was over, at least for today. But what she dreaded was the fact that, before she could set off home, she would have to run the gauntlet of those dreadful girls again. She could see they were gathering their few belongings and abandoning their looms as quickly as they could, and she worried that they would be lying in wait for her. She had no chance of leaving the shed before them.
Annie was jostled and pushed as she made her way out to the clocking-off area. She was trying to keep a lookout for her tormentors so that she wouldn’t be caught unawares, when she felt someone pulling at her arm and she reacted instinctively, slapping the offending hand away. Feeling emboldened that the day was done and she was no longer on mill time, she turned to address her attacker. To her surprise, it wasn’t one of the bullies from this morning. It was a fair young girl with her hair knotted into two plaits that were piled up on either side of her head.
‘Hello,’ the stranger said. Her lips parted in a huge grin, though her grey eyes looked too tired to join in. ‘My name’s Lilian Vickers. Me and my friend here, Nancy, thought you might like an escort.’
To Annie’s astonishment a pretty, young-looking girl suddenly popped up beside her on the other side and grasped hold of Annie’s other arm. She had short dark hair that had been cut into a straight bob with a fringe that threatened her eyebrows. Despite just having finished a long day shift the blueness of her eyes sparkled from within the red frames of their lids. She nodded her head. ‘Nancy Warburton,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you. We saw what them dreadful Bradshaw girls were doing at dinnertime and thought you might need some ’elp.’
‘You sound like you know them,’ Annie said, re-assured by the warmth of the girls’ linked arms.
‘Aye, we do,’ Nancy said. ‘They’re sisters and they’re well known round here. Them’s troublemakers.’
‘Someone tried to get the older one sacked once,’ Lilian joined in, ‘but she managed to worm her way back in. If you haven’t already guessed, the carrot tops are twins. When they’re all together they’re shockers. And they’re always like that with new girls. See them as easy game.’
‘They come from a very large family. They’re very poor and they live in one of them old Victorian slum houses, the ones that share a privy and have no inside taps,’ Nancy said. ‘They seemed ’armless when we first met ’em but they’ve got huge chips on their shoulders ’bout anyone as they thinks might be better’n them.’
‘It’s not just that they call yer names, but they say loads of ’urtful things too.’ Lilian joined in again. ‘Sticks and stones and all that. But they can get real nasty.’
‘We saw what went on in the dinner room but we didn’t like to interfere because you were pretty well hemmed in and they’d ’ve made ’ell for us an’ all,’ Nancy said. ‘But we thought we could at least see you ’ome safe. Show ’em we mean business. There’s safety in numbers out here.’
‘Where do you live?’ Lilian asked.
‘Alderley Street,’ Annie said without thinking. She was surprised to realize she was beginning to accept that Norwesterly Clitheroe was her home now. ‘My name’s Annie. Annie Beaumont. And thank you very much. It would be really good to feel there was someone on my side.’
The next morning Annie was surprised and pleased to find Lilian and Nancy standing at the corner of the street. They looked as if they were propping up the corner shop as they leaned against the wall, smoking.
‘Are you waiting for me, by any chance?’ Annie asked.
They both grinned.
‘How do you manage to smoke?’ Annie wanted to know. ‘I see most of the mill girls do it. But what with all that dreadful heat and the cotton fluff and the dust it just makes me want to cough all the time.’
‘I suppose you get used to it,’ Lilian said. ‘It’s summat I’ve always done, since I were at school. You know, there’s nothing quite like that first drag of the day.’ She took a long puff as if to prove her point then stubbed out the butt on the dusty paving stones.
Annie wondered what her new friends had been doing since they’d last met, for they looked much perkier and brighter than she felt, but she didn’t like to ask. Maybe they’d just eaten better than she had. When she got home she had expected her mother to have prepared a meal for the three of them. But all Florence had said when Annie challenged her was, ‘I’ve had a bad day and I’ve not been able to stir out of the house.’
Annie exploded when Florence said that. ‘All the more reason why you should have had a hot meal ready for Daddy and me when we’ve both been out working all day,’ she shouted. ‘Do you honestly expect us to have to come home and cook as well?’
But at that Florence had merely run upstairs and the next thing Annie heard was the bedroom door slamming shut. Thankfully her father had managed to buy some sausages on his way home and the two of them had cooked them together on a toasting a fork over the fire when they had finally managed to get it going.
‘I didn’t have a very good night,’ was as much as Annie felt able to confess to her new friends. ‘It’s funny, when you left me I thought I was tired enough to sleep for a month. But I hardly slept at all.’
‘It ’appens. You can get overly tired,’ Nancy said, ‘that ’appens to me, often like.’
‘The problem is, I’m tired now, before we even start,’ Annie said. ‘Goodness knows how I’m going to get through the day.’
‘Mebbe the Bradshaw sisters’ll keep you entertained,’ Nancy said. ‘Some of their miming antics can be quite funny once you get used to their language.’
‘I’m not sure I want to,’ Annie said. ‘Some of it looked very crude to me.’
‘Oh, but it is. That’s what can make it so funny.’
‘We’ll ’ave to give yer some translation lessons,’ Lilian said and at that they all laughed.
Annie was glad to have the support of Nancy and Lilian, for the Bradshaws refused to leave her alone. Her new friends picked her up in the mornings and escorted her home in the evenings and every dinnertime they made sure they sat together. But the terrible sisters still took every opportunity to bully her. They tried to steal Annie’s food, meagre though it was, and they would slash her coat or cardigan or any other item of clothing she wasn’t wearing if she made the mistake of hanging it up in the cloakroom. Annie learned to keep all her possessions with her as much as she could, once even wearing her coat despite the heat in the shed rather than risk having it trashed.
Annie’s health had begun to suffer as a result of working in the mill. Her cough grew worse and she lost a significant amount of weight. She had learned from their neighbour Mrs Brockett to cook a few simple dishes but her father had had some time off recently as he’d been sick, so that his pittance of a wage packet was seriously reduced. They still couldn’t afford much in the way of decent food and her skin took on an unhealthy pallor. Her blonde hair, which once used to bounce and shine, looked dull and hardly seemed to grow at all. Her eyes were permanently red-rimmed and watery, the way she had noticed in others, and when she looked in the mirror she was horrified by the skeletal mask that stared back at her.
‘You should at least put a little make-up on. If you haven’t any left I can give you some of mine,’ her mother offered generously. ‘You mustn’t let yourself go, you know. We might not have any servants at the moment, but imagine what they would say if we did.’
Annie couldn’t help giggling. Somehow her mother still managed to come out with the most ridiculous remarks. Annie was working like a slave and all her mother could think about was how it would look to the servants! As if they were ever likely to have any ever again.
‘No, don’t laugh,’ Florence admonished and she was obviously serious. ‘Every morning I think: what would cook have said if I’d gone into her kitchen looking like a ghost? It’s very important to take care how we appear to the outside world. It’s all too easy to let things slide. If there’s one thing I’ve come to understand it’s how important it is to put a good face on things and to keep up standards.’
Annie wasn’t sure her mother always adhered to the ideals she espoused, but she admired the maxim nevertheless and resolved to try to live by it, even though she found it hard to motivate herself sometimes. It was more difficult in the winter, once the cold weather set in. When the wind whipped the snow into high banks under the front windowsill and she had to scratch with her fingernails at the rime of frost that had collected on the inside of the glass in order to be able to see out, Annie didn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings to go to work. She dreamed that the factory was closed and at the end of the week someone magically appeared with her wage packet. But that never happened. The snow covered the cobbles, making walking hazardous, but the three girls still had to pick their way over the treacherous pavements each day.
The Bradshaw sisters delighted in the heavy falls of snow that blanketed the neighbourhood. They would lie in wait for Annie even when she was with Nancy and Lilian. Then, as the three friends turned the final corner before they reached the mill gates, they pelted them with small hard snowballs that were packed so tight they stung painfully on impact. When they split open, large stones or lumps of coal were revealed that had been tucked inside.
These days Annie never seemed to be free of pain. She permanently ached all over from the hard physical labour of working the looms, the soreness being deeply embedded in her bones. If the pain wore off a little one day it was only so that it could come back with a vengeance the next. She hated her life and wondered if there would ever be any reprieve.
The only day she enjoyed was Sunday, when she and her mother went to church. It was old Mrs Brockett who had first introduced them to the Baptist church in the village and Annie had to admit the singing, particularly before the sermon, did lift her spirits if she was feeling down. Her mother must have felt the same way, although they didn’t speak of it.
For Annie, going to church was a welcome diversion. Weekdays were hard, particularly as she felt that Florence still wasn’t taking it seriously that she was in charge of their greatly diminished household. Many a time Annie came in exhausted and hungry from work to find no meal prepared, far less cooked. Each morning she would leave Florence a list of food to buy and she was grateful when her mother completed the shopping. But it was frustrating when Florence found some excuse for why she hadn’t felt able to cook a meal as well. It was the same with the washing. Annie lost count of the number of times she found the blouse or the underwear she needed for the morning still rolled up in the laundry bag so that, tired as she was, she had to wash it and iron it herself. And there had been numerous occasions when she had found Florence curled up in bed, saying she hadn’t felt well enough to clean the house that day, small as it was. It was as if Florence lost touch with the world around her sometimes, and as if she couldn’t appreciate that her effort was required just as much as Edward’s and Annie’s if the household was to run efficiently. But however many lapses she had, on a Sunday Florence seemed to rally and begin to take an interest in things once more. Annie, in her attempt to forgive her mother, began to attend church with her regularly. They got to know a few members of the congregation who were their neighbours and the vicar always stopped to have a few words each week. Sundays became a real day of rest to Annie, a symbol of freedom; a time when, if only for a few hours, she could make believe life was as it used to be.
She would begin the day lying in bed, pretending she was back in their old home in Clitheroe Town. Then she would dress in what she still called her best dress, though in fact now, having sold or pawned most of her other clothes, it was her only dress and it was showing signs of wear and tear. She still had the hat that had given her so much grief when she had worn it at the mill and this also became a ritual part of her Sunday outfit. When the service was over and they greeted their neighbours she would allow herself the indulgence of remembering the old days and how she had smiled and nodded to the servants who used to line up in the spacious mansion hallway and bob a curtsy as she and her parents swept by.
Annie tried to persuade her new friends from the mill to join her in church but Lilian was adamant she wanted nothing to do with anything religious.
‘I don’t bother God and I don’t expect him to bother me,’ she said when Annie asked her one Saturday night if she would join them the following day.
‘It’s just that it’s Mothering Sunday tomorrow, so I thought you might like to come. Maybe you could bring your mother?’ Annie said.
Lilian spluttered. ‘Not bloody likely. Over ’er dead body, like as not as she’d be telling me.’ She could always be counted on to express her opinions in a forthright manner. ‘The only time she set foot inside a church was when she got wed and then, apparently, she didn’t stop grumbling about it. Only did it cos o’ my gran. She insisted. I like my bed on a Sunday morning and that’s where you’ll find me tomorrow an’ all.’
‘It will be a special service with flowers all over the place. And there’ll be lots of singing; there are some really nice hymns,’ Annie tried to tempt her.
‘I might like to come, if you’d be ’aving me.’ Nancy spoke softly. She was by far the most diffident of the three. ‘Though I’m not so sure about my mam, either. Not because she’s agin church but she’s alus run off her feet of a Sunday morning, trying to organize the kids for Sunday dinner. What with all my brothers and sisters running around, they drive her potty; and there’s little enough room for her to cook, any road.’
‘That would be lovely if you’d like to come, Nancy.’ Annie was genuinely delighted. ‘We can go together. Why don’t you pick us up? It’s on your way. And you’ve already met my mother.’
They reached the church well before the time scheduled for the service and were surprised to find the vicar standing at the arched oak door, anxiously checking the congregants as they arrived.
‘Good morning, Mrs Beaumont, Miss Beaumont, and Miss …?’ He hesitated politely. ‘Warburton,’ Nancy supplied and the vicar nodded his head and smiled a welcome. ‘Forgive me if I don’t stop to chat right now,’ he addressed Florence, ‘but I’m looking for Mrs Bland. She’s promised to play the organ today in the absence of Mrs Denham our usual organist who’s gone to spend Mothering Sunday with her daughter in Manchester. But her next door neighbour fears Mrs Bland may be ill and unable to come today. As you may imagine, I am most concerned that we may not have an organist for our special celebratory service.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, vicar,’ Annie was surprised to hear her mother say. ‘I can always play the organ for you. I’m more used to a piano, of course, but I have been known to manage the organ if pushed. Though at such short notice I’m afraid I’d need a copy of the music.’
The vicar’s eyes opened wide. ‘I had no idea, Mrs Beaumont.’
Florence laughed in a way Annie hadn’t heard her laugh in a long time.
‘Hidden talents, my dear man,’ she said. ‘Hidden talents.’ And she swept inside as if she were a maestro going to play a concert recital.
Annie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the brilliance of her mother’s virtuoso performance. It wasn’t just about the way Florence had come alive and played the instrument as if she had practised every day; it was the way, as Annie listened to Florence playing with confidence and finesse, that her original, accomplished mother, the mother she remembered from her childhood, had appeared once more in front of her eyes. It was a very different Florence from the one who so often now, since their life had changed, flapped ineffectually around the house. And the more Annie thought about it the more she realized that there was no point in getting upset about Florence’s behaviour in the house, for no amount of nagging was going to change it. There were many times when her mother appeared uncaring, inadequate and incapable of carrying out even the most mundane of tasks, but it was futile for Annie to expect her to take on the role of holding the family together like she once had. Annie realized now that since their move, that role had more naturally fallen on her own shoulders. Sometimes her father was able to help her out but at times he became depressed too and abrogated his responsibilities. As she listened to her mother pulling out all the stops and filling the little church with the swelling music, Annie finally understood it was time to forgive Florence her shortcomings. Annie had taken on the mantle of homemaker ever since disaster had struck the family and now she must continue to wear it.
‘That was amazing, I’d no idea your mother could play the organ like that,’ Nancy said to Annie as they waited outside the church for Florence to appear. It seemed she was being stopped by each congregant in turn to congratulate her on stepping into the breach.
‘Neither had I,’ Annie confessed. ‘I’m more used to hearing her on the piano. She used to play a lot at home. She was very good at that. She loved her piano so much.’ Annie spoke without thinking and realized Nancy was staring at her.
‘She played at home? Where on earth did you put it?’ Nancy laughed. ‘You don’t ’ave it now? I imagine there’s not much space even for any kind of musical instrument,’ she teased, ‘except mebbe a flute.’
Annie felt the blood rush to her face. ‘Actually … I didn’t mean this home. I meant the house we used to live in in Clitheroe before we …’ She paused, not sure how to go on. ‘It was … it was much bigger than where we live now.’
‘It’d need to be,’ Nancy said, then stopped. ‘I’m sorry. Is it summat you’d rather not talk about?’
Annie was grateful for Nancy’s sensitivity, and for a moment she was sorry she had mentioned it. It brought back so many painful memories: of Clitheroe, of their former life, of very different ways of spending Sundays. She looked at her friend whose face was showing concern. Maybe it was time she talked to someone about it, to someone she considered to be one of her closest friends. Nancy and Lilian were surely the two people in this world that she could trust with her story. Without pausing to think any more about it, Annie told Nancy about her early life, the dramatic downturn in the family’s fortunes and their migration to Norwesterly Clitheroe. She couldn’t look at her while she was talking and she fiddled with her hands, taking them in and out of the pockets of her dress.
When she had finished, Nancy didn’t say anything for what felt like the longest time. Then she said, ‘I’m so sorry, I’d no idea. Though it does explain lots o’ things. It must’ve been very hard for you all.’
Annie looked at her friend now, finally meeting her gaze. ‘It still is, in some ways. But it always amazes me how adaptable human beings are. How we’re all learning to cope with it, even my father.’
At that moment Florence appeared in the church doorway. She waved at the girls as she descended the steps like she was waving to a fan club. ‘Well, I think that went very well indeed, for my debut appearance, don’t you?’ She was beaming and her eyes sparkled as she linked arms with her daughter and they set off walking home.
‘Mrs Beaumont!’
Annie stopped when she heard the vicar calling after them. ‘Mrs Beaumont, I meant to give you these.’
He looked so flustered as he thrust a huge bouquet of fresh spring flowers into Florence’s arms that Annie felt sorry for him. ‘They were intended for Mrs Bland, but under the circumstances you must have these and I shall send her some other flowers to wish her well.’ Florence looked delighted as he gave a little bow. ‘I am only too pleased to be able to present them to you to thank you so much for saving the day. I don’t know what we would have done without you.’
‘It was a real pleasure. Really. Any time, vicar,’ Florence enthused.
‘You may regret saying that, dear lady.’ He wagged his finger in a jocular manner. ‘But for now, I hope you have a beautiful Mother’s Day.’