Angel Meadow (46 page)

Nancy stared into Hetty’s eyes, hypnotised by the bewitchment of it, her mind scurrying from one brilliant possibility to another, then back to the first, turning over this idea and that, discarding this notion and scrutinising another, poring over the wonder of it, her thoughts like a flock of swooping starlings at dusk, unable to settle into anything that might be described as coherency.

Hetty watched her for several long minutes then laughed, breaking the spell.

“It really is a delight to watch your brain ticking away like an overwound clock, my dear. It could not be more plain if your head were made of glass and, of course, you must be aware that I would not have put forward the idea if, first, you were to be in direct competition to myself since I am a businesswoman too, and, second, if I had not heard of the very premises in St Ann’s Square that would be perfect for you. The lease on—”

“Good God, Hetty, let me draw breath.”

“Certainly not. You have no time for such a thing. Come with me right now and we will inspect the place. Miss Jenkins can take charge of the shop,” and with a nod to Miss Jenkins she had handed Nancy her bonnet, put on her own and led her imperiously into Market Street, telling Miss Jenkins that they would be back “presently”.

The shop was not large and the previous occupier had left it in a state of some disrepair. It had a single frontage, three floors, the top one having direct daylight from the tall windows at the back and the front and from skylights set in the roof. It was perfect.

A small army of women – women being readily available to perform even the most servile of tasks in this era of desperate unemployment – had scrubbed it from its deep cellars to its lofty attics. As they moved out, a small army of painters moved in, transforming the drab, bottle green walls, in what had once been a bootmaker’s, to a pale peach picked out on the mouldings and cornices in white. In the main showroom, on the stairs and in the rooms where her ladies were to be fitted into their gowns, a pale carpet the colour of the sand at Lytham was laid. Pretty gilt chairs upholstered in velvet of the same colour were scattered about on which her clients might sit and drink a cup of her best orange pekoe tea, her finest Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee, her sweet sherry or even a glass of chilled white wine should they care for it. There were small, glass-topped gilt-legged tables on which she casually, but tastefully, displayed exotic fans of lace and ivory, plaster heads on which the bonnets made by her clever milliner were set out. There were embroidered gloves, lace caps and collars, parasols and exquisitely draped shawls, ermine muffs – for winter was coming – sashes of velvet sewn with pearls, gold hairnets, Spanish mantillas and dashing military caps with gold tassels. Not all at the same time, naturally, but with such taste it would be a strong-willed lady who could resist them. They came once to see what was on show, and then a second and a third time when it was discovered her displays were changed every single day. The same with her window, for in it she displayed a “ready to wear” gown of cream silk with a high-crowned straw hat to match or a plain, pastel-tinted afternoon gown contrasting exotically with a richly patterned crimson shawl, all tastefully put on show by the young woman, introduced to her by Hetty, whose sole job it was to show Miss Brody’s goods so irresistibly not one lady could resist them.

And on the top floor in her workroom she introduced high tables so as to avoid the twisting of her seamstresses’ spines, a condition that was endured, so Hetty told her, in every other workroom in Manchester. She provided footstools to give additional comfort to her embroideresses. Her ironing-room was set behind a partition, thus isolating the heat and steam of goffering and pressing which was the cause of the many headaches suffered.

She had pale peach hatboxes on which the name “Miss Brody, dressmaker and milliner” was printed in gold letters, since she was aware that her father-in-law would not care to have his illustrious name connected with an establishment such as hers, respectable as it was.

Eventually they began to come. First Mrs Edmund Hayes – though not her daughter – accompanied by her dearest friend, Mrs Jonathan Lambert, the latter only because dear Emma had begged her to, for society’s views on the new Mrs Hayes, the Miss Nancy Brody in question, were still somewhat ambiguous. They had stepped across Nancy’s threshold as nervously as two elderly tabby cats expecting heaven knows what debauchery, peering about them at the display Josh’s wife had thought fit to set out to tempt them, knowing they were to come. They were both the wives of wealthy mill owners but they had neither of them ever had a female relative in “trade”. Agnes Lambert’s grandmother had “minded” a pair of spinning frames decades ago and Emma Hayes’s grandfather had made his fortune in Yorkshire in the woollen trade, but both considered themselves to be ladies and had never mixed with the lower orders. Not that the new Mrs Hayes looked or acted other than a lady, her background completely erased by her ladylike manner, the way she spoke and dressed and, as Agnes Lambert said to her Jonathan, if Emma was prepared to accept her, how could she, Agnes, whose own antecedents were nothing to write home about, object? Give the girl a chance, despite that unexplained child in the Riverside nurseries.

In the weeks that followed, Mrs William Rivers, another friend of Emma Hayes, was prevailed upon to visit the “salon” owned by Emma’s daughter-in-law, having been quite enchanted with the exquisite lace cap and elegant cashmere shawl Emma had purchased there. Mrs Algernon Pickup and her twin daughters, Sophie and Lottie, their horse-drawn carriage almost blocking St Ann’s Square, came and bought generously. Sophie, who was to be married the following spring, begged her mama to allow “Miss Brody” to design and make her wedding gown and trousseau. Well, had Mama ever seen anything so lovely, so stylish as that walking dress of coffee-coloured – what was it, Miss Brody? – ah, yes, foulard des Indes, trimmed with black velvet. She simply must have it for the winter season. Her mama, quite horrified at the notion of her daughter wearing a
ready
-
made
dress, had been mollified by Nancy’s calm assurance that the dress, should it not fit the perfect measurements of her daughter could soon be made to do so, had been quickly persuaded. And yes, Lottie might have that sweet little beaded reticule and the lace-edged Spanish parasol, totally ignoring, as she drank a glass of Miss Brody’s excellent Madeira, her coachman’s imploring face at the window.

They seemed to find no incongruity in the strangeness of frequenting Miss Brody’s little dress shop during the afternoon and at night sitting down to dine with Mrs Joshua Hayes, or if they did they hid it for dear Emma’s sake. They acted as though Miss Brody and Mrs Hayes were two entirely different women. They were all so fond of Emma who was the sweetest, most kind-hearted and generous woman they knew, perhaps easily led, or taken in, by a stronger character than her own. Not that Josh’s wife had attempted to mislead her, indeed seemed to hold her in great affection, treating her with respect and good humour. And Emma responded like a flower turning its head to the sun, since her own daughter was a cold-hearted creature with none of her new sister-in-law’s warmth. Edmund, being a man, was more reserved with what he allowed his wife’s friends to see of his feelings but even he seemed to find his daughter-in-law acceptable. Her brother-in-law, Arthur, was obviously bewitched by her charm and beauty, it seemed, now that he was at home and working full time under Josh’s supervision and was therefore no longer a schoolboy. She treated him with cheerful consideration, inclined to tease him as one would a brother, and he revelled in it. Sometimes her own sister was a guest, her demure shyness causing Josh’s brother a good deal of torment, since it seemed he was torn between her innocent loveliness and Mrs Josh Hayes’s more mature beauty.

As for her husband, Josh, his eyes followed her whenever he allowed her to stray from his side and, it was said, since servants will gossip to other servants, that he carried her off to their bedroom the moment dinner was over. In fact Longman, who was the Hayes’ gardener, had told the Lambert gardener with whom he drank a glass of ale on a Friday night that he had come across the pair of them in the arbour beyond the rose garden one moonlit night – he having gone to check that he’d closed the vegetable-garden gate – in what he considered to be an indecent state of undress and oblivious to all but each other. The Higher Broughton Brass Band could have marched through and they’d not have noticed, he’d told the Lambert gardener, who’d passed it on, naturally. One of the footmen in the Lamberts’ servants hall had unwisely remarked that he personally didn’t blame Mr Josh Hayes and just give him half a chance and had almost been fired on the spot!

Mary had settled down, after a nervous start, to running the workshop where six machinists turned out baby clothes, shirts and working men’s trousers of varying quality, the better stuff to go to Hetty Underwood and several drapers in Deansgate and King Street, the poorer, cheaper variety, which was all they could afford, to working-class women on the market stall where a sensible girl of Nancy’s choosing stood for four days a week.

Jennet supervised the sewing-room in St Ann’s Square, working over the girls she herself had employed, seeing to the fine embroidery. And in the little house in Grove Place Annie sat for hours on end complaining she’d “nowt” to do and wondering how that little mite was getting on without her up at the big house. But, true to her word, Nancy brought her over on a Sunday morning, and the lad Freddy, from whom Kitty would not be parted, but it was not the same. The child made more fuss of the damned dog than she did of Annie, begging her mother to be allowed to take the thing “home” with her, which she did in the end. She and the lad raced round the house with the two animals, for he had brought his an’ all and it was bloody pandemonium when all Annie had wanted was to sit for an hour with the blessed child on her knee. And it wasn’t the lad’s fault, neither. Kitty was always the leader, always the motivator, the instigator in any wild game, a tomboy, a hoyden, despite the pretty flounced dresses that their nanny put her in. And when they had gone the house was like a bloody tomb, she said out loud morosely. Annie Wilson, though she wished her no harm for she was fond of the lass, rued the day Nancy Brody had caught the eye of Joshua Hayes!

26

Before she could catch her breath, or so it seemed to Nancy in her busy life, she had been married for almost three years and in April 1865, the war between the northern and southern states of America was over. Deprived for over four years of the main supply, manufacturers in Lancashire such as Josh Hayes had scoured the world for raw cotton. They had found a good new supply in Egypt where the long-stapled cotton had compared favourably with the American “Sea-Island” and with this, and the return of cotton from across the Atlantic, all the mills and weaving sheds of Lanchashire, those that had survived what was known as the “cotton famine”, were in full production again.

To Josh’s teeth-gritting annoyance, his father, who seemed to have recovered his health with the coming of the fine weather, began once again to accompany his two sons to the mill.

“He can’t quite bring himself to believe that Arthur and I are capable of running the business without him. As if we haven’t been doing it for years now. At least I have and Arthur is shaping up well. Father goes tramping round the spinning-rooms, peering under the frames, frightening the piecers to death. ‘I can do that,’ he tells them, to their astonishment, which he can, and which I know he has done when he was a lad, as I have, as Arthur has, for Father believed that if the spinner or the weaver was aware that his master was as capable as he, or she, no attempt would be made to ‘cod’ him. He
will
interfere, countermanding orders I myself have given and sending Arthur running from here to there as though he were an errand boy. For God’s sake, Arthur’s a man of twenty-one and I’m not far short of thirty so why can’t he trust us? Business has never been so good. Why does he keep coming to the mill at his age and in his state of health, which I know has improved but is still poor. One morning my door opens, or I walk into a shed, or the counting house and there he is, going through the ledgers, checking up on me. God, I hate to say this but things were a damn sight better when he was confined to his bed.”

“Sweetheart, he needs to feel useful, as we all do.”

“I know that and I appreciate how he must feel, but it is bloody annoying just the same.”

“Be patient, my love, and don’t pout like that. You look just like Freddy when Nanny Dee has forbidden him something he has set his heart on.”

“Pout! Me pout? I’ll have you know, woman, I haven’t a pout in me. Now come here and kiss your husband. You’ve been home at least five minutes and that peck on the cheek you gave me will just not do. In fact, I’m after more than a kiss so come upstairs and let me show you what it is.”

“Can I take my hat off first?”

“I can’t wait that long, Mrs Hayes.”

“Oh, yes, you can, Mr Hayes, and look at you, you’re wet through. Why do you insist on riding that animal in the rain when you could come with me in the carriage? Now let’s have you out of those wet things before you catch cold.”

“Do it for me, darling. I’ve always fancied having a slave girl.”

“You’re a wicked man.”

“Be a wicked woman for me, my pet.”

So even before they dined with the rest of the family, which they did most evenings, they spent a satisfying half-hour in their deep-scented feather bed to the pink-cheeked embarrassment of young Maddy, the chambermaid who had the job of making it all over again.

It was a week later. She was observing with the meticulous attention she gave to all her customers as her head seamstress skilfully pinned Mrs Dolly Baker, wife of the banker, Mr Alfred Baker, into a dark blue silk dinner gown when Summers, the Hayes’ coachman, flung open the door of the shop, his face crimson and quivering with what was obviously not good news.