Angel Meadow (12 page)

“Never mind that, Emma,” his father said irritably. “Can we please get into the carriage now, that is if our fine gentleman is quite ready. See, Milly, sit by me, lass,” his tone softening, for he loved and was proud of his plain but well-brought-up daughter who, unlike her older brother, was not a scrap of trouble to him and it pleased him to have her on his arm.

It was Saturday and the exhibition, opened several weeks before in the presence of their good Prince Albert, was a seething, babbling, excited mass of folk who had come to be amazed. There would be a million and a half middle- and working-class folk who were to see it, come on special excursion trains from Chester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Crewe, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Leeds, in one day alone 13,664 of them. They could think of no reason why they shouldn’t see this wonderful spectacle which was being likened to the Crystal Palace, the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.

When it was being decided where to place the great building it was felt that its position would be of the utmost importance, the deciding factor being the desire to avoid the nuisance of smoke. The cricket and racing grounds at Old Trafford along the Irwell and two miles south-west of the city centre were finally chosen, for the executive committee noted that this was one of the few places where flowers would grow.

And so did the building, a wondrous thing completely constructed from glass, gracefully rearing out of an enormous garden filled with trees, shrubs, flowers and fountains surrounded by a smooth sward of velvet grass where benches were placed and where families could picnic.

Josh was so bored it was all he could do not to yawn directly into his father’s face but again, to please his mother, he did his best to appear interested. There were works by Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Gainsborough and Constable and many other well-known European and British painters, all tastefully arranged and exclaimed over by his mother and Milly. But not just paintings were on display, for there were engravings, glass and enamel, gold and silver, armour, fine clocks, watches, brasswork, bronzes, furniture and sculpture. He admired them dutifully, his eyes glazing over with the sheer tedium of it all but aware that if he was not once again to suffer his father’s wrath, which did not worry him but would distress his mother, he must not let it show.

“Is not the decor lovely, Millicent?” Mrs Hayes asked her daughter. “Such a warm shade of maroon and how well it goes with the green.”

“Indeed, Mother. Oh, do tell me that really is Alfred Tennyson strolling by. One never knows who one is to see next. Fanny Tompkinson told me that Lord Palmerston was here only last week.”

“How thrilling. And is it true, d’you think, that the Queen of Holland is to be a visitor?”

“So I have heard. What a wonder it all is.”

“But tiring, dearest. Let us persuade your father to take us to the lounge for refreshments.”

Josh caught his father’s eye, surprised by the gleam of amusement in it, realising that Edmund Hayes was as bored as he was. They smiled ruefully at one another, for once in total agreement. They were both aware, for despite his wild ways, Joshua Hayes was his father’s son and learning to be a businessman, that this sort of exhibition, like the one at the Crystal Palace in London, could only be good for trade. Though it displayed only art and not the new developments in science and technology that had been shown in London in 1851 it brought men of business to Manchester, put Manchester on the map, so to speak, which could harm no one. Most of the middle and lower classes eagerly attended to keep in step with the latest fashion, to educate themselves and simply to be amused. Men such as Edmund Hayes were keen to display their wealth and to boast of their achievements, for they were self-made men and proud of it.

They were not the only ones to be bored by the endless rows of paintings, room after room of them, by the crush of people among whom he kept losing Nancy, by the lack of anything lively with which to relieve the monotony of watching the cultured classes enjoying culture at its finest. Mick O’Rourke could see that Nancy was quite enchanted with it all which, instead of pleasing him, since to enchant her had been his aim, had begun seriously to offend him. The trouble was she seemed to be scarcely aware of him and the great sacrifice he had made on her behalf as she stood and gazed for what seemed hours on end at every bloody painting, most of which were, in his opinion, absolutely and monumentally dreary. She shook off his hand when he attempted to draw her on, turning away from him as though she hadn’t heard him when he made one of his witty Irish remarks which had always made her laugh before. She even “shushed” him at one point when he told her he’d seen better in the sporting prints, the pictures of which were the only ones he cared for. Boxers and horses and greyhounds and that sort of thing.

“Really, Mick, it’s all so lovely I can’t see why you should say such a thing. Look at those wonderful lions. D’you think they’re made of gold? And those fountains and trees and all flourishing so magnificently indoors. I’ve never seen such lovely things, and what about the painted figures on those columns. D’you think they’re Egyptian?”

“’Ow the ’ell would I know,” he answered irritably, telling himself he’d better get some reward for all this tomfoolery he was putting himself through. Thank the Blessed Virgin none of his mates were likely to see him or he’d be sneered at at every ring or public house he attended.

“I think they must be,” Nancy was saying. “I saw something like them in a book at the library.”

“Begorra, will yer be fergetting yer old books fer five minutes an’ let’s go an’ get a drink. D’yer reckon they sell ale in this God-forsaken place?”

Nancy turned to him in surprise. She had been so bewitched by the beauty that was all about her, by the cleverness and talent displayed, by the lovely swishing gowns of the “quality” and the aura of grace and good taste that surrounded her, she had been scarcely conscious of the growing moodiness and ill-humour of the man who had brought her.

“Aren’t you enjoying yourself, Mick?” she asked him, concern in her voice. “I thought when you asked me you wanted to see it as much as I did.”

But even as she spoke Nancy wondered at the foolishness of the remark, for what on earth would a down-to-earth, fun-loving, uneducated Irishman like Mick O’Rourke find to entertain him here; and even as the thought entered her head she knew she must not associate with him any longer. He was not for her and she must give him no reason to believe that she was. He had no place in her life which was aimed like an arrow from a bow to the point where one day these lovely things would be a part of her world, not exactly taken for granted, for who could take for granted such loveliness, but as much a part of her life as . . . her own hair, or skin. She knew it as positively as she knew the words in the books she read which had led her to this. She had seen this now, seen these lovely paintings, these glorious exhibits, these fashionable and even lovely women, the courteous way in which they were treated by their escorts. On her way in she had gloated over the spick and span carriages and polished, high-bred horses that pulled them and the smartly uniformed grooms who tended them. One day . . . one day . . . She could not finish the sentence, not even in her head, but it nestled there inside her, the knowledge that she was meant for something better than to be a cotton spinner at Monarch Mill.

It was then she saw him and it was then he saw her and for a fraction of a second, as it had done at their first meeting, time seemed to come to an abrupt halt. Again there was that flame of recognition, not the recognition of people who have met before and are meeting again but a strange
knowing
that had fleetingly touched them at their first encounter. And there was a moment of pleasure too, lighting velvet grey eyes and golden, and something that could only be described, if it was described at all, as a movement of the heart.

They both stopped and, behind them, as they came face to face, people tutted irritably and collisions seemed imminent.

“What is it, dear?” she heard an attractive, well-dressed lady ask him, turning both herself and the young woman on her arm in his direction. The thickset gentleman who had almost walked into his back glared about him as though to ask who dare hold up such an important man as himself, but not for a moment did he connect it with the poorly dressed couple, members of the labouring classes obviously, who in his opinion should not be allowed in at all and certainly not stand in the way of their betters.

“What’s up, acushla?” Mick asked, as belligerent in his own way as Edmund Hayes, and as determined no one should block the path of Mick O’Rourke who was cock of the north in his own small patch.

The wide doors to the refreshment lounges were directly opposite one another, standing open to allow the press of people who, having tramped round for hours admiring – most of them – the marvels on display, were determined on something to give them fresh energy for a further onslaught. One lounge, described as providing rest and refreshment for the upper classes and the other, a “second-class” facility for workers.

It was very evident to which one Joshua Hayes and, Nancy supposed, his family, were headed. Still she seemed unable to look away from him nor he from her, and at her side Mick was beginning to bristle belligerently, not really understanding what was going on, only knowing he didn’t like it. The toff, long, dandified thing he was, was staring at what Mick considered to be
his
property and if he kept it up Mick O’Rourke, no matter who the toff was, would deal with him as he dealt with bigger chaps than he was in the ring. Bloody nerve, standing there with his mouth open, and when he turned to say something to her he was dismayed to find that Nancy,
his
Nancy, was looking just as gormless.

“’Ere,” he said roughly, taking her arm and propelling her towards the working-class tearoom so that she was forced into tearing her eyes away from those of Joshua Hayes, “I’m not ’avin’ any bloody feller-me-lad eyein’ my girl, an’ more to’t point I’ll not ’ave my girl lookin’ at other chaps, so think on.”

If anything was needed, which it wasn’t, to make up Nancy Brody’s mind, it was those few words. She didn’t know what had happened back there between her and young Mr Hayes, really she didn’t, and she felt extremely foolish about the whole strange episode. The Hayes ladies, with Mr Hayes ushering them forcefully away from the curious little crowd that had gathered, had disappeared into the first-class refreshment room, but behind him his son turned for a moment just as Nancy did, and Joshua was in time to see the big, handsome chap she was with put his arm about her shoulders and was quite bewildered by the feeling of anger it aroused in him. Then they were out of sight and he did not see her shake the arm off, or hear her sharp words which were, though he did not know it at the time, the end of Mick O’Rourke’s “seduction” of Nancy Brody.

7

If she had not kept a tight hold on Mary’s hand she was convinced her sister would have turned tail and made a run for it. Even Rosie, who was of a stronger constitution than Mary, blanched and held her hand to her mouth as though she were about to be sick.

It was the smell that first assaulted their senses. They had come straight off the street which was by no means bright, even at six o’clock of a summer morning, not with the usual pall of dirty brown smoke that hung over it, and at first Nancy could see nothing beyond a few vague shapes moving about or sitting at tables. She had worked in a cotton mill since she was nine years old and, as Annie used to say cheerfully, that didn’t exactly smell of roses, but this was a mixture of the secretions of the human body, women’s bodies, which, at certain times of the month were particularly rank if unwashed, of overflowing privies and the accumulated years of a mass of humanity living and working together without the benefit of an open window. There was a strong odour of gas, of scorched cloth, of rotten food and some other indefinable aroma that reminded Nancy of the foetid stink caused by damp. The cellar was below ground with no windows except a skylight which she could now make out at the far end of the large, rectangular room. It was low-ceilinged inside the entrance at the bottom of the rotten steps which led from the street but expanding irregularly upwards and outwards to the skylight at the other end. The walls were lined with match-boarding which might have been a pleasing light shade when it was put up but now it was black and greasy with age. Placed at regular intervals along the room were hooks on which hung shawls and bonnets, and beside them, casting a flickering, evil-smelling light, were several gas lamps. In a prominent place, framed and under glass, hung the Factory and Workshops Regulations which, it seemed to Nancy, had never been adhered to in all the years they had been in force.

“You can’t mean us ter work here, our Nancy,” Rosie said in a loud voice, her horror making her aggressive, and a man whom they had not noticed hovering over a child at a table turned menacingly so that they all three shrank back.

“Nobody’s mekkin’ yer work ’ere, lass, so if yer not satisfied, sling yer ’ook. There’s plenty lookin’ fer decent jobs like these so ’op it if yer not suited.”

Nancy recognised the man as the one who had agreed to employ her and her sisters, very reluctantly with respect to Mary and Rosie since none of them was a trained machinist, he added, but he was prepared to take them on, looking her up and down with that particular gleam in his eye that she was beginning to recognise in men.

“We’re quick learners, Mr Earnshaw,” she’d pleaded with him. “We want to learn to be machinists but you can put the other two on as hand finishers to start with if that suits you better. They can both sew a decent seam.” Which was true, for they had helped her to alter many a garment gleaned at the market. “We’re willing to do anything, really we are, to get a decent job in your establishment.”

“Where you learn ter speak like that, lass?” he had asked her suspiciously, just as though she were trying to put one over on him.