Angel Meadow (15 page)

It had been a strange experience and even now, at times, just before he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep he saw behind his closed lids the golden-lit eyes and soft, parted lips, as though in surprise, of the girl who worked in his father’s mill. He didn’t know why. She was remarkably lovely, refined-looking, he could remember that, and he could also remember the strange feeling that had come over him at the sight of her lover; he supposed it was her lover, putting his arm possessively about her shoulders. He had not liked it. It was as though he were disappointed in her. She had been so brave and fearless in the mill yard, and, yes, different from the usual girls who were employed at the machines, and to see her with that big, coarse chap with the bold strut of a prize fighter seemed to have demeaned her. Still, it was not his concern, was it, he had told himself and after that he had other things to think of.

It had been the following week that Evie had been coaxed and kissed into finally giving way, allowing him to take her into an abandoned workman’s hut on the other side of the river and remove her clothes.

God, what a moment that had been. She had been shy, distressed almost, but the love she spoke of continuously as though that made what they did acceptable had so overpowered her she had not stayed his hands as they began their leisurely exploring of her virgin body.

“Will I have a bairn, sir?” she had whispered, for her mother did, every year, the result of the regular coupling with Evie’s father. “I’m afeared of havin’ a bairn.” The words were anguished, pleading, but what man can think of that when his male body is totally aroused and will not be denied its natural conclusion. He thought of it at other times, naturally, but not at that precise moment and when she reassured him a week or two later, her face crimson with embarrassment, that she had not “fallen”, he had drawn her tenderly into his arms, his kisses persuading her that if she had escaped the consequences she dreaded once, then she would do so again.

That was nearly four months ago.

“D’you love me, Josh?” She sighed, burrowing her face into the curve under his chin. She looked quite glorious, flushed and dishevelled and at that moment, as he looked down at her, he did.

“Of course I do, sweetheart,” he murmured, bending his head to kiss her parted lips. “In fact, if I wasn’t pushed for time I could start all over again.”

“I didn’t mean that, Josh.” And at once he felt the familiar spurt of irritation. She always asked him the same question whenever they lay in the aftermath of lovemaking and it always made him feel resentful and, yes, he supposed, guilty because he knew just what she meant and just what she wanted him to say, and, of course, he couldn’t. Surely she knew what she was and what he was. Surely she could not truly believe that something could come of this liaison of theirs. He was the son of one of the most influential and wealthy men in Manchester and she was his mother’s laundry-maid. He wished it could be different but it wasn’t. One day, he supposed, he would be expected to marry some suitable young lady of his own station in life who would be just like his mother. One day he, and, he imagined, when the time came, his younger brother who was fourteen and still at school, would own and run the business his grandfather and father had built up, and this delectable young girl had no part, could have no part, in his future life. She was not simple-minded so why did she ask the same question of him as though she hoped that one day he might say, “Yes, I love you and want you to be my wife.”

His mare, who was tethered to a tree a few yards away, lifted her head and blew through her nostrils and they both turned to look at her. It was as though it were a reminder of their separate duties, he as the son of a great house, she as its servant. A familiar story and one Josh himself would have smiled over if it had not concerned him.

The autumn sun as it dropped lower in the sky was turning to flame, lighting a few drifting clouds to gold-rimmed apricot. An owl, hunting early, swooped through the branches of a tree, its startled cry at the sight of the human creatures carried away into the approaching dusk. Birdsong, which had piped up in the ensuing silence, died away again to a soft, fitful murmur and with a muffled oath Josh stood up then leaned down to help Evie to her feet.

“We’d best be getting back, sweetheart. We can’t talk now. Mother’s got people coming to a dinner party and I’ll be in hot water if I’m not there to greet her guests.” He smiled as he fiddled with buttons and buckles, not looking at her; but though, as she always had done in the past, the girl wanted nothing more than to leave the subject alone, for could she really believe that his answer would be any different, something in her tightened and strengthened and made her sharp. She knew it would do her no good, that it would only make him truculent if she pushed him into a corner, but this time she could not stop herself.

“I asked you if you loved me, Josh. You didn’t answer.”

“I did. You know how much I think of you, Evie. Now, please, I must go or my—”

“Yes, I know, your mam is having a dinner party. I should know, I washed and ironed the tablecloth and napkins that’re to be used.”

“Well then, we should go.”

“So you say, but . . .” Suddenly she crumpled, putting her face in her hands. “Oh, please, Josh, please . . .”

He turned to her at once and took her into his arms, kissing her wet cheeks and smoothing her tumbled hair back from her forehead. This was how he loved her. When she was sweet and submissive, not making demands he could not possibly answer. He loved her when she trembled beneath the touch of his hands, when she moaned as he entered her, when she cried out as he brought her to a fluttering climax and when she clung to him afterwards, not asking him to love her but just to hold her in his arms. He loved her when she laughed with him, when she listened to him talk about what he meant to do, quite spellbound when he described the ships in the port of Liverpool, the shops there, his journey on the train, and his plans to visit America. Then he loved her, for she made him feel like a . . . like a what? He didn’t know, only that it was special, to him and to her.

“Come, lovely girl,” he said tenderly to her now. “We really must go or not only will my mother be searching for me but Mrs Harvey will be scouring the house for you.”

“Kiss me, Josh.”

Willingly he did so, sorry really that he had to go, ready to say the words to her she wanted to hear, for she was so sweet and docile under his hands, but somehow he couldn’t. They were words he had spoken to no woman and never would until it was the truth. Amazingly a flushed face glimmered across his vision and it was not the face of the girl beside him. Not blue eyes but a deep, golden brown. Hell and damnation, he groaned to himself, what was wrong with him, thinking about a girl he had seen only twice in his life and at a time like this as well. He must have lost his wits. He turned blindly towards his mare. It was nearly dark.

It was dark once she had left the gas-lit thoroughfare of St George’s Road and Angel Street, just like plunging into a gloomy tunnel. The candlelit windows, which were let into the scabby walls of the cottages on either side of the narrow length of Church Court, were barely visible. She could hear voices, some of them talking quite normally inside their one-up, one-down boxes along Church Court, others quarrelling, screaming even, as the usual family evening took shape. Mothers would be screeching at squabbling children; husbands and fathers lifting heavy fists in frustration, or flinging open flimsy front doors in their escape to the beer house at the corner: crashes and cries of pain, for they were poor and Irish with tempers to match in Church Court and they were not quiet, at play, at work or in the squalid sanctity of their own homes.

She had sent Mary and Rosie home, with Mr Earnshaw’s permission, of course, since they had finished their quota of shirts, as she had, but at the last minute Mr Earnshaw had offered her and Jennet a shilling if they would just put the buttonholes in half a dozen shirts between them. A last-minute order and they were the quickest and neatest sewers in the workshop and so, unable to turn down the chance of an extra shilling which, after all, was almost the price of the hire of a sewing-machine for one week, they had agreed.

They had sauntered out of Brown Street and into Chapel Street together, crossing the river at Old Bridge to Cateaton Street and on to the end of Fennel Street where they had bid one another an affectionate goodnight. They had talked all the way, telling one another it would not be long, perhaps the spring of next year, before they would start up the business they planned together because, of course, she would not dream of leaving Jennet behind in this new endeavour. Nancy found it quite glorious to have someone . . . well, sensible, practical, to discuss things with, for with the best will in the world, though they worked hard and willingly, her sisters did not have the sharp mind and shrewd intelligence Jennet had. Before the winter set in, though why that should matter they didn’t know, for the trains were very reliable, they meant to go over to Oldham and have a look at the sewing-machines they would hire, and there would be a workshop to find, for once they got under way the downstairs room at Church Court would not be big enough for them all. Jennet would move in with them, naturally, since it was not practical to pay the rent on two places. In fact, they had talked about her coming to Church Court soon for this very reason. Nancy’s secret hoard behind the loose brick in the bedroom continued to grow, penny by penny, helped by a surprising contribution from Jennet who had been left a tiny sum by her father. Andrew Williams had been a parson in a poor parish in Pendleton, Jennet had told Nancy, and, though she did not know how he had done it since they lived like church mice, he had passed on what he had saved, for an emergency, he had told her as he lay dying. She had not touched it yet, though God knew she had been tempted to do so many times in the hard days of working for Earnshaw’s Fine Shirts. Now, since she was to be partner in this enterprise it was at Nancy’s disposal and . . . Oh, dear Lord, as Jennet would say, for she did not care for swearing, they got so excited they could hardly speak, holding on to one another’s arm as they strode out towards their wonderful future. Nancy gave thanks every day for Jennet. Oh, she would have done it on her own. She’d come this far, hadn’t she, but without Jennet to encourage her, to give advice, to advocate caution, generally just to be there to listen it would not have been the same.

There was a ginnel between the Finnigans’ cottage and the Murphys’ which led on to Style Street and it was as she was hurrying past it, hoping that Mary had remembered to put the beef stew on to warm, her mind already winging on to her own place no more than a dozen yards away, that a pair of brawny arms came at her from nowhere, a hand was clasped over her mouth and she was dragged into the total darkness of the passage. She knew who it was, of course, because hadn’t these same arms done their best for the past three months to get themselves about her whenever they had a chance. She wasn’t even particularly alarmed, for she had always been able to evade Mick O’Rourke’s advances, to talk or laugh him out of the foolishness he directed at her every time he caught her in the street or knocked on her door and blustered his way inside. He had even spoken of marriage, for God’s sake, the last time, backing her up to the window of Ma Siddons’ gin-shop, from where he had just come, capturing her between his arms, his hands flat on the window, begging her to stop this bloody nonsense, which was how he saw her daft refusal to let him court her. Yes, that was what he had said. Court her! He had been drunk, of course, and it had been this that had allowed her to push him aside in disgust and run for her life to her cottage.

So what the devil he thought he was up to now she couldn’t imagine. He wasn’t drunk or she would have detected it on his breath. His big hand over her mouth smelled of onions which made her want to retch as she fought silently to escape him. She heaved and kicked against him, doing her best to get the heels of her boots into his shins, but he was strong and determined, dragging her backwards through the heaps of refuse that had piled up over the years in the passage, then, to her surprise, across Style Street, which was deserted, and into the narrow alleyway that led to the burial ground at the back of St Michael’s Church.

He let her go then, flinging her forward on to a stone-edged grave so that she fell against the headstone, putting out both hands to save her face and badly grazing her palms.

She turned and like a wildcat just let out of a bag and furious about it she flew at him, spitting out all the foul words she had learned through her childhood, reaching for his eyes, ready to draw blood, to feel his skin break beneath her nails, to blind him or cripple him in any way she could, but he merely reached out and grabbed her by the wrists and held her, saying nothing, the whites of his eyes and his teeth, which he seemed to be baring like a wild beast, the only things she could see in the darkness.

“I’ll have the bloody law on you for this, Mick O’Rourke,” she hissed, struggling to get her hands free, aiming at him with her feet but he was a large man with muscles built up in the prize-fighting ring, agile and quick on his feet and though she herself was not fragile she was no match for him. “Let me go, yer lousy, stinking bastard or I swear I’ll scream me bloody ’ead off.”

“Scream, is it? Go ahead, acushla,” he said quietly, the softness of his voice, where she would have expected bluff and bluster, surprising her. “Sure an’ there’s no one ter ’ear yer an’ if they did ’oo’d tekk any notice round ’ere?”

Which was true, for in this part of the city husbands frequently thrashed their wives, or children, there were set-tos outside the gin-shops and beer houses where not only men but drunken women took exception to one another, raising their voices to the skies. One more would scarcely be noticed and if it was, would be ignored.

“What in ’ell’s name d’yer want?” she screeched at him, knowing she sounded like a fishwife but unable to hang on to the calm, well-modulated voice Jennet was teaching her.