Down Weaver's Lane (41 page)

Meg didn’t speak much, but spent a lot of time staring at the pale face in the coffin, sometimes closing her eyes and sighing. Jack had feared for her reason earlier, but the gaze she turned on him occasionally was not that of a madwoman, just one who was angry as well as ravaged by sorrow.

At one point he fell asleep and woke with a start to find Meg staring at him. ‘Sorry,’ he croaked, his mouth all dry.

‘Nay, you’ve stayed with me when I’ve needed you. I shall allus be grateful for that, love. Why don’t you go and make us both a cup of tea?’

It was a relief to have something to do.

After that they sat in silence again. It seemed a very long time until it grew light.

The others were subdued when they came downstairs.

‘I don’t think they’ll want me to take time off work to come to the funeral,’ Shad said. ‘I’d like to, but I don’t want to lose my job.’

‘There’s no need for you to do it. But go and say goodbye to Nelly.’ Meg didn’t even look at her mother, but when Netta would have followed the children into the front room, she barred the way. ‘Not you, Mam. You’ve done enough to her. I remember you slapping her face last week. It makes me want to slap yours now.’

Netta fell back a step, her mouth open in shock, then looked at Jack. When he jerked his head, she went back into the kitchen, muttering under her breath.

‘I don’t want her coming to the funeral, either,’ Meg said.

So he went out to tell his mother and when she began to speak angrily about ‘ingratitude’ and to weep, he told her sharply to be quiet. Her tears were for herself. They always were.

In the end there was only him to accompany his sister to the church because his mother refused to let Joey go. Jack came home from work to carry the coffin, which was so small it hurt him every time he looked at it.

Meg walked along the street beside him, her old faded woollen shawl pulled tightly round her. Once she bumped into an old woman, but didn’t seem to realise what she had done, let alone offer an apology.

The woman looked down at the tiny coffin and stepped back, her face shadowed by some grief of her own.

During the short service Parson spoke gently, using the kindest words he could find to comfort the young mother.

‘Thank you,’ Meg told him after the coffin had been laid to rest. ‘I’m grateful to you.’ Then she turned and walked away.

Jack threw him an apologetic glance and raced after his sister. ‘Hold on! What’s the rush?’

She reached up one hand to pat his cheek. ‘I know my own way home, lad. You get off to work now.’

‘You’ll be all right?’

‘Aye. Of course I will.’

 

When he got home from work, though, Meg had gone and so had some of Netta’s savings.

As his mother talked of ingratitude and theft, something snapped inside him. ‘Our Meg didn’t take it all, did she? She had a right to some of it. She’d earned it.’

‘That was
my
money!’ Netta yelled, slapping one hand down on the table. ‘An’ I could lay a charge of theft with the constable about her taking it.’

‘It’s not just yours, it’s our family’s money. I’ve earned my share of it, too, and Meg’s more than welcome to that. And if you so much as mention the constable again, I’ll take the children and move out, leave you to your nastiness.’

Her face was red with fury. ‘You’ve allus cared for her more than you do for me! It’s a shame when a poor widow woman can’t get a bit of love from the children she’s slaved for—’

Jack strode out, ending up at the local alehouse for want of anywhere else to go. He sat in a corner and gazed into his beer. He enjoyed one glass, but never fancied a second and today didn’t really fancy this one, except it gave him an excuse to sit here. His father had drunk heavily and stumbled home after the alehouses closed. Jack would think shame to make himself foolish with drink. He couldn’t see how it helped.

Some fellows from the mill greeted him, but they left him alone when he only nodded briefly in response. They’d know about little Nelly. Everyone knew your business in a small town.

It was a relief to be out of the house, though. It gave him time to think about how to start his search for Emmy. He was definitely going to look for her. And find her. However long it took.

And after that he was going to look for Meg.

 

Emmy settled in quickly at Carbury. She found her new mistress very different from Mrs Tibby but pleasant enough to work for and she thoroughly enjoyed the other maid’s company, though Babs lectured her a lot at first. Emmy had not realised how apologetic she had always been about herself. And, as Babs said, why? She was honest and a good worker.

Babs taught her to laugh, too, in spite of the way she was missing Jack. Babs even made Mrs Dalby laugh sometimes.

In early December, when Emmy had been there for a month, a letter arrived which threw the household into a great fuss. Mrs Dalby’s son, Edward, was coming to stay for a few days.

Babs rolled her eyes. ‘It’s all a lot of to-do about nothing.
Master Edward
never stays for long and spends half his time visiting old friends and relatives. She loves to see him, though, and it’ll put her in a good mood for days.’

‘What’s he like? And why do you call him “Master Edward” like that?’

Babs grimaced. ‘Because for all he’s over thirty, he’s spoiled and acts like a child half the time, wanting this, wanting that. He never seems like a grown man to me somehow. He’s not half as nice as his father was, that’s for sure, an’ he talks in a plummy way, looks down his nose at us servants. He’s not married and the mistress is always trying to find him a wife. Fair makes me laugh, that does. You’ll see. There’ll be lots of visitors while he’s here - ‘specially them with unmarried daughters - but I’ve heard him say he don’t intend to wed till he’s forty an’ too old to have a good time.’ She sniffed. ‘We all know what sort of a “good time” he means, don’t we?’ She winked at Emmy.

‘He doesn’t pester the maids, does he?’

‘Bless you, no. Just let him try. I’d soon give him what for.’

But Emmy looked at Babs’s plump face and frizzy hair, then across at Cook, solidly built and approaching fifty, and the old fear came creeping back. She wished she’d been born plain. It’d make life a lot easier.

Edward Dalby arrived the next day. He was tall and lean, with features that looked too wide for his face, so that he was all eyes and mouth. When he smiled he looked a bit better, Emmy thought, but it worried her that he kept staring at her.

‘I don’t want the mistress thinking I’m trying to encourage him,’ she muttered to Babs as they cleared up the kitchen together on the second evening of his stay.

‘He has been gawping at you,’ Babs agreed, frowning. ‘The mistress hasn’t had a maid as young and pretty as you before.’ She studied Emmy, head on one side. ‘You’re a right lovely lass, though you allus look a bit sad.’

Emmy shrugged. ‘I’m still missing my old friends.’

‘Or one old friend in particular?’ When Emmy’s colour deepened still further, Babs teased, ‘I don’t know why you don’t go back to that fellow of yours, I really don’t.’

Emmy hesitated, then asked in a voice that shook slightly, ‘You don’t think Mr Dalby will try anything on, do you? Only he makes me feel nervous the way he looks at me.’

Babs considered this, lips pursed. ‘I don’t know. Never seen him like this before, I must admit. Tell you what, though, you can come and sleep in my room while he’s here. We can put your mattress on the floor and the mistress need never know about it. Cook won’t say anything.’

The next night the maids were late going to bed because of all the extra work of a dinner party. As Emmy was about to get undressed, Babs said, ‘Psst! Listen.’

A moment later they heard footsteps creeping up the attic stairs.

Emmy froze. ‘Babs!’

Her friend made a shushing sound and they continued to listen as someone - it could only be Mr Edward - opened the door of Emmy’s room.

A minute later the same footsteps were heard going back down the stairs.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ Babs muttered. ‘The cheek of it. In his mother’s house, too. You’d better sleep in here till he goes, love.’

‘I shan’t feel safe while he’s in the house.’ Emmy could not believe this was happening to her again. What had she ever done to encourage these attentions? Who did these men think they were to pester her like this?

‘Oh, you’ll be all right in the kitchen during the daytime. He never comes back there.’

But after Cook had gone out for her morning constitutional, which only snowy weather ever prevented, the mistress sent Babs to buy some embroidery thread, then went out shortly afterwards herself to call on a friend who lived just down the road.

Realising she was alone in the house with
him
, Emmy began to worry.

Not long afterwards she heard footsteps coming along the passage towards the kitchen. Glancing wildly round for something to defend herself with, she saw the meat mallet and put it near her.

He came in whistling. ‘Ah, Emmy, how about making me a cup of tea?’

‘Certainly, sir. If you’d like to wait in the parlour, I’ll bring it through to you.’

His voice became softer. ‘But I’d rather wait here with you. You’re the prettiest thing I’ve seen in years. It’s a pleasure just to look at you.’

She swallowed hard. ‘I don’t like it when you talk that way, sir.’

‘Of course you do! All girls like to be told they’re pretty. And you’re wasted working as a maid. Haven’t you ever thought of doing something else?’ He took another step towards her, his voice low and persuasive. ‘I could set you up in a nice little house in Manchester and we could have some fun together. There’s lots to see and do there. I’d be generous with you.’

‘No, thank you. I’m a respectable girl.’ She moved back but he followed. When she bumped into the table and could go no further, she begged, ‘Don’t, sir.
Please!’

‘Why, Emmy, I do believe you’re nervous. I’d never hurt you, surely you realise that? I want to love you and—’

As he took yet another step, she snatched up the meat mallet and held it threateningly in front of her, shouting, ‘I’m
not
like that.’ But her hand was shaking because this had brought back the memory of the night when Marcus Armistead had her trapped in the bed.

Edward Dalby stopped moving and frowned at her. ‘You’re trembling,’ he said, sounding surprised.

She couldn’t move, felt panic-stricken and kept seeing Marcus’s face, not Mr Edward’s.

‘Emmy, it’s all right.
Emmy!’

His voice was so loud, she jumped in shock and saw with relief that he’d taken a couple of steps back.

‘Look, I didn’t mean to frighten you. You can’t blame a fellow for asking, but I’d never do anything you didn’t want. Come and sit down a minute, you’re as white as a sheet.’

She shook her head. She wasn’t going an inch closer to him and she wasn’t putting down the meat mallet till he’d left.

At that moment Babs breezed into the kitchen, carrying a small parcel and talking even before she got through the door. But her voice trailed away as she took in the scene in the kitchen and the terror on Emmy’s face. She rounded on Edward Dalby, crying, ‘Shame on you, Mr Edward! Look how you’ve frightened her. What have you been doing to her?’

‘I haven’t laid a finger on her, I only -’ he shrugged and tried to make a joke of it ‘—offered to set her up in a nice little house in Manchester.’

‘Your mother’s maid! Very gentlemanly behaviour, that is.’

‘There’s no harm done and no need to tell my mother. She’ll take it the wrong way. Just as Emmy did. It was
meant
as a compliment.’

‘That sort of offer isn’t a compliment to a decent girl,’ Babs told him roundly, going to stand between him and Emmy and glaring at him. ‘And now, sir, if you’ll leave the kitchen, we’ll get on with our work. And we’d be grateful if you didn’t climb the attic stairs tonight.’

He flushed and turned round, feeling annoyed to have been treated as if he’d done something wrong. It was a compliment to offer to set up a common girl like that. And if Carter had had any sense she’d have accepted and made some good money for herself. He was always generous with his mistresses.

His anger mounted as Babs treated him with icy disdain from then onwards and Emmy avoided going anywhere near him. In the end he decided to leave a day early.

 

Jack thought long and hard about how to find Emmy. In his lunch hour he went to see Parson, but Mr Bradley refused to tell him where she was, except to say she’d found a new position and was safe. He also added a lecture about it being for the best.

Jack said firmly, ‘It’s not for the best, sir, and I shall never get over her.’

Outside he paused to stroke the dog. Hercules got excited every time he saw Jack, but was still moping. Giving the dog a final pat, he made his way down Weavers Lane to the bank, utterly determined to find Emmy.

He looked so fierce as he insisted on seeing Mr Garrett that the teller gave in and took him straight through to his master.

‘I’m looking for Emmy Carter,’ Jack said without preamble. ‘I want to marry her. I think you know where she’s gone.’ He had found out that the banker had left town before dawn on the same morning as Emmy had vanished. Gentry never set off at such an early hour. It had to be connected.

‘Jack, believe me, I sympathise with you, but I can tell you nothing. I won’t break my promise to Emmy and besides, Parson and I feel she has done the right thing - the
only
thing - for everyone concerned.’

Jack glared at him. ‘I don’t happen to agree and I’ll find her with or without your help because I’ll not stop looking until I do.’ He turned and walked out, furious that they were conspiring to keep him from Emmy.

As he hurried back to the mill, he saw a carriage coming down the hill and in it Marcus Armistead. The man was looking so smug and self-satisfied that Jack stood and scowled at the vehicle. It wasn’t fair that a wicked fellow could get away with ruining honest folk’s lives, just because he was rich.