Angel Meadow (47 page)

They were all greatly startled, the ladies who sat about her salon, which had become not only the place where Miss Brody dressed them but where they liked to congregate and indulge in gossip. The shop had been considerably extended last year when Nancy had purchased the lease on the shop next door as it fell empty. Her establishment had, at one stroke, been doubled, with two shop windows at the front, lined with midnight blue velvet, in each of which, with great simplicity, she displayed one gown or outfit, accompanied by suitable matching accessories: a stunning hat; shoes dyed to tone exactly with the colour of the garment; a parasol and gloves, a reticule, a choker of pearls, and there wasn’t a passer-by who did not stop to admire it. On the windows was her name,
MISS NANCY BRODY
, nothing more. Nothing more was needed, for she was known by now as the most stylish and clever dressmaker in Manchester. She did not, of course, put a single stitch in any garment herself, since she had a dozen clever young seamstresses to do that for her. With the help of her unobtrusive and efficient staff she could create the perfect outfit for any lady, for any occasion, turning them out in not only the very best quality, the height of fashion, but in what exactly and perfectly suited them and they trusted her implicitly. She was more than a dressmaker, or a milliner but an “outfitter” and had heard herself described by Mrs Freda Pickup, both of whose daughters had had their complete wedding trousseaux designed and made by her, as her
couturière
. It had made her smile!

The ladies reared back in alarm as the coachman almost fell across the threshold, for though they all knew Summers and the smart carriage he drove for the Hayes family, his sudden male appearance where a male never ventured, or at least not very often and then accompanied by a wife, filled them with trepidation.

“Summers! My goodness, what
is
the matter?” Nancy moved hurriedly towards the man in the doorway, at the same time managing to contrive an air of calm imperturbability though even as she did so she knew something dire must have happened. Not Josh; please, not Josh, her frantic mind jabbered. I couldn’t bear it if anything were to happen to . . . there are always accidents at the mill. God, she had seen enough herself when she had minded a spinning frame. Perhaps . . . perhaps his horse had stumbled . . . bolted, dragged him along behind it, his face, his beloved face, torn and bleeding, the jaunty elegance, the hard, arrow-straight lines of him that she loved so much smashed and broken . . . Not Josh . . . please, not Josh.

And all this in the time it took her to walk across her salon.

“Mrs Hayes, you’re to come at once, ma’am. The mistress is in a real taking and Miss Millicent’s no bloody good— Eeh, I beg your pardon, ma’am, ladies,” his blunt, North Country countenance turning aghast to face her customers, begging forgiveness for his lapse.

“What . . . what is it, Summers? Not my . . . my husband?”

“Please, ma’am, he says to come at once.”

“Who . . . ?” She began to lose her control and her voice rose wildly and only Jennet’s hand on her arm brought her back to the circle of shocked and curious faces, teacups and sherry glasses in well-manicured hands, who were watching her.

“What is it, Summers? Has someone been hurt?” Jennet asked crisply, her hand like a vice under Nancy’s elbow, since it seemed to her that if anything had befallen Josh Hayes, who was the sun and moon of Nancy’s world, it would be needed to stop her falling into the darkness.

“It’s the old gentleman, miss. He’s been took bad. He collapsed in the yard. We got him home, me and Mr Josh and Mr Arthur, and the doctor came but . . . oh, ma’am, they do say he’s dying.”

And poor helpless, frightened Emma Hayes would have fallen apart, Nancy was certain. The mother-in-law she had come to love would not be able to deal with this crisis and would need Nancy to get her through, since her own daughter, with her unfeeling lack of sympathy and abundant self-interest, would be no comfort to her at all. Emma would need someone, another woman, a woman who would understand what she was suffering as Nancy would understand, for had they not both loved a man.

For an hour she sat with Emma Hayes, holding her hand, not exactly begging her to believe that there was nothing to worry about but conveying to her the certainty that whatever happened Emma would be strong enough to survive it. That Nancy would hold her upright where necessary, that she would come through it bravely. She only left her when the draught the doctor had given Emma to “steady her nerves” took effect and she relaxed by her fireside with Ellen, who was head parlourmaid and could be trusted to be sympathetic, beside her.

Edmund Hayes was propped up in the centre of the vast canopied bed he and Emma had shared for nearly forty years. The familiar, scraping sound of air struggling to enter his diseased lungs filled the room, and Nancy, even without the strained expressions on the faces of Josh and Arthur, who hung over him, and the doctor, who hovered at the foot of the bed, knew there could be no doubt he was dying. The engine fumes, the factory smoke, the polluted air of the city was finally to kill him, as it had killed so many of his operatives, and for a moment Nancy knew an overwhelming terror, for was this how Josh would finish his days? Josh who breathed the same stinking air that his father did.

She stood by the door and waited. Edmund Hayes’s eyes were closed, those piercing, far-seeing eyes that had seemed to see something in herself, despite her background, that suited him. Then they flew open and, beckoning to his sons to come closer, his hoarse voice whispered into their ears as they bent over him.

“Look after your mother . . . she’ll not know what to do . . . you know what I mean,” she heard him say and was overcome with a gush of tears which flooded her eyes and coursed down her cheeks.

“Of course, Father, you know we will.” Josh’s voice, though he spoke quietly, seemed loud and intrusive after his father’s whisper.

“And . . . your sister. She’s . . . watch her . . .” And for reasons best known to himself his blurring eyes strayed to where Nancy stood waiting her turn to say goodbye. “She can be tricky . . .”

“Now, Father, don’t tire yourself.”

“Don’t be daft, son. What difference does it make now?” A faint smile curled the old man’s grey lips, then once more he managed to lift a weak hand, indicating that Nancy was to come forward.

She knelt by the bed, disregarding the doctor who was not at all sure his patient should be subjected to so many people at the same time. She took her father-in-law’s hand and held the back of it to her wet cheek.

“Nay, lass, don’t waste your tears on me. I’ve had my time and bloody good it’s been. See, come closer.”

Nancy leaned over him until his lips were almost against her ear and his feeble breath fanned her cheek.

“That lad of mine . . . you’ve done him a power of good. He was beginning to shape but you’ve . . . made a man of him . . . made him what he is. I’m proud of him, and of you. You’re a lovely woman . . .”

“Father-in-law . . .”

“Watch out for . . . Milly. She’ll do you a . . . mischief . . . if she can.”

“No, you’re wrong. In three years she’s—”

“Biding her time, my lass, so think on.”

Before she could reassure him or even barely stand up and get out of the way, the door opened and the subject of his words burst into the room, wide-eyed and dramatically tearful, seriously offending the doctor who liked his patients to die in peace. Nancy wondered where she had been.

“Father,” Millicent cried, throwing herself across her father’s body before Josh could prevent her and over her shoulder Edmund Hayes’s eyes looked into Nancy’s and one of his eyebrows lifted wryly as though to ask did she see what he’d been getting at!

He died as the doctor had wanted him to, peacefully and with his hand in that of his wife whose own was held firmly in Nancy’s. Emma’s doze had relaxed her, as had Nancy’s words and she was able to meet his passing with acceptance and quiet tears. She clung to Nancy as she was led from the room, totally disregarding her daughter who was ready bravely to receive her. As she was to cling to Nancy through the next painful days and during the funeral which was attended by many grand gentlemen of Manchester, including the mayor himself. Nancy stood beside her, always there just a hand away, which surprised the mourners since it seemed to them that her own daughter would have been the one the widow would naturally have turned to. Millicent Hayes was there, of course, tall in her black mourning gown and fine veil, her face beneath it quite expressionless, the look in her slate grey eyes hidden by her lowered eyelids. She stood beside her brothers at the graveside, making no move to comfort her mother, those who were there noticed, and it was left to Emma’s daughter-in-law, who wore no veil and whose face was soft with sadness, to put an arm about her. They were close, Emma’s sons and her daughter-in-law, ready to bind together in a circle of support which did not include Millicent, not because they withheld it but because she did not want it. At the house, where the mourners came to drink a glass of sherry and eat a slice of the rich fruit cake Mrs Cameron had made, she smiled icily at those who offered their condolences and took their gloved hands between reluctant fingers but again made no move to join the quiet groups who spoke kindly to Emma, to Josh and Arthur, and to Nancy who, despite her humble background and strange fixation with business, had proved her worth. They paid little attention to the strange situation in the nursery, if they thought of it at all, for by now it was accepted as some awkward eccentricity in the Hayes household, like a fancy to hobnob with one’s own servants, the whim some had to talk to a horse, or a favourite dog. The children were rarely seen, just now and again two small figures racing across a lawn with a couple of small dogs at their heels, or perhaps the high peal of childish laughter floating down from the nursery floor. It had all been handled very discreetly, in their opinion, though what was to happen as they grew was a matter of much speculation.

That night Josh, in the comfort of his wife’s loving arms, wept silent tears, the first she had ever seen him shed. At first she had been surprised and alarmed, though it was no shame to cry for a loved one who has gone.

“Darling, oh my darling, I know you were fond of your father . . .”

“Dammit, Nancy, I’m ashamed to tell you my tears are more for myself than the old man.”

“But why? Why should you . . . ?” She tried to look down into his anguished face but he hid it against her breast, straining her to him with desperate arms.

“Oh, I know it will pass, but don’t you see I feel so bloody guilty.”

“Guilty! Why should you?”

“Because of what I said, and felt, that it was easier for me when he was confined to his bed. I complained that he wouldn’t stay out of the mill and now . . . now he bloody well will because he’s dead!”

“Josh, sweetheart, that didn’t mean you
wanted
him dead.”

“Didn’t it?”

She was shocked. “Of course it didn’t. I won’t have this; it’s nonsense to talk like that. And not like you, for you are a man of common sense and rational thought.”

“I believed I was, Nancy, but this is hard.” He rolled away from her, shuddering, putting an arm across his eyes as though to hide his shame but she leaned over him, pushing it away, kissing his damp cheeks and tear-dewed eyes, murmuring endearments and small sounds of loving comfort until his body began to respond as she meant it to, as she mended him in the only way she could.

“Dear God, should we, today of all days?” he murmured, lying back and arching his throat.

“Your father would tell you to go ahead, my love. He was not a killjoy. I think it might even have amused him,” she whispered.

“Sweet Jesus, I want you, Nancy.”

“I know . . . hush . . .” and she slid down him, her body like silk against his, gathering him to her, giving herself and taking him, their bodies joining, fusing together as they had learned over the years so that no part of
her
, or of
him
, was entirely hers or his, no part of them where his body ended and hers began.

Breathing heavily, she sank back into the pillows and he turned, laying his arm across her, his face between her breasts, as breathless as she but beginning to laugh weakly.

“Good God above,” he said.

“Yes,” she gasped, and with their arms tightly about one another they fell together into a vast and healing sleep.

A week later it was as though the scene where Summers had burst into her shop to fetch her to Edmund Hayes’s deathbed was being played again, though this time it was not the coachman who flung himself through the shop doorway, but Annie Wilson.

Again her customers were taken aback, for one did not expect to see a woman of the caller’s class enter a shop of the quality of Miss Brody’s. She was decently dressed, neat and clean, her boots as well polished as her rounded apple cheeks, her hair smoothly drawn back beneath her old-fashioned bonnet. They waited, eyes alive with curiosity, for what was to happen next, their avid expressions asked.

Nancy was transfixed for the space of five seconds and again Jennet was there beside her, her hand steady on Nancy’s arm, but on her own face was a look of astonishment. She had left Annie no more than three hours ago, sitting placidly before her kitchen fire, a cup of the strong, sweet tea which she could not get enough of, having been denied it in earlier years, in her gnarled hand, murmuring that she was looking forward to Sunday and a sight of her little mite!

Though Annie had appeared to be relaxed her old eyes were as sharp as needles as she watched the girl she had employed, with Jennet’s approval, to help her with the heavy work. A good girl of thirteen, strong and healthy, despite where she came from, silent and obedient and who did her best to please her mistress, which was how she thought of Mrs Wilson since she gave the orders. Mrs Wilson was a tartar who missed neither a speck of dust on the mantelshelf or a smear on a window, but the girl, whose name was Bridget, or Bridie, knew that as long as she did her best to live up to the standards Mrs Wilson expected of her, her life would be smooth, warm, well fed and vastly better than the cramped, terraced cottage in Old Mount Street where she had lived with thirteen other members of her family. She was the eldest girl and had been at the beck and call of her mam and, indeed, being simple and good-natured, every one of her brothers and sisters so that Grove Place was like heaven to her. Her pa, an evil-tempered old bugger, spent most of his time and his wages at the Bull on the corner of Angel Street, but it was not until he began to pay marked attention to her when she was eleven, slipping his hand up her tattered skirt and frightening her to death, that her mam sent her to Mrs Wilson who they all knew had bettered herself and might have an answer for her mam’s dilemma. Bridie had never gone home again and for two years had striven to please Mrs Wilson whom she looked on as her saviour.