Mulligan's Yard (16 page)
Authors: Ruth Hamilton
Having recovered the items from the floor, James picked up the letter. ‘Shall I read it now?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Amy gathered up bag and gloves. ‘Had Mother wanted me to know the contents, she would have read it to me, I’m sure.’
‘Amy?’
‘Yes?’ She prepared to leave, fixing her hat at a straighter angle, adjusting a scarf.
‘Spend Christmas with me at the Grange – all of you.’ He waited for a reply, received none. ‘And if you need help with . . . with anything at all, you know where I
am.’
Amy nodded to convey that his message had been received. She didn’t know what to do about offers of help. Helen Smythe and Camilla were always calling at the farm, usually laden with
savoury tarts, casseroles and words of advice. James was here, eyes full of sorrow, mind brimming with thoughts he couldn’t bring himself to frame. ‘You can manage women only one at a
time,’ she commented, no judgement in her tone. ‘You win us round singly.’
James achieved a tight smile. ‘I had just the one mother,’ he replied softly. ‘And after her, I lived in an exclusively male environment.’
She gazed at him for a second or two. ‘Yes, that would fit the symptoms, I suppose.’
‘Symptoms?’
Amy walked to the door, turned. ‘Your awkwardness with company probably stems from being incarcerated with men and boys. As for the cellar – that is where you vent your anger. I
envisage a row of desks covered in pens and inks, all ready for you to attack.’
‘And to reach those conclusions about me, you had to think for a moment about something other than your loss.’
‘True.’
He joined her at the door. ‘You and yours are welcome at Christmas – or at any time. And open that business. Give yourself three months to see does it go well.’ He decided to
aim below the belt. ‘If you don’t, all your mother’s efforts will go to waste. Think of the designs she left, her cleverness in creating one basic style, then turning that into
ten different dresses just by careful choice of trimmings.’ He smiled, nodded at her. ‘Oh, yes, your mother explained to me about tucks and braiding and lace. In fact, she left me quite
educated in the fashion department.’
Amy thanked him, stepped outside, then walked out of the yard and up the alley towards A Cut Above. The windows needed cleaning. Ah, well. After Christmas, perhaps.
Caldwell Farm
19 August 1921
Dear Mr Mulligan,
I used to refer to you as the Irish upstart and I apologize most sincerely for voicing my uninformed opinion. Please forgive me and read the following with open mind
and heart.
I am dead. Were I living, you would not be reading these words. I cannot understand fully why I am writing to you, but a partial reason may lie in the fact that I have come to trust you
more than anyone else – with the exception of Amy, my oldest daughter. My death will have brought her a great deal of grief and responsibility, so I beg you to bear with me.
There is a sickness in me. When I grow tired, my whole body shakes and shivers. Sometimes, my head hurts so badly that it threatens to explode. In spite of this, I feel I should continue
to work towards opening a business for the girls. None of us envisaged a future in trade, but I must leave my daughters a degree of security.
I ask you to keep watch on all three. Help them to make a success of A Cut Above. Although you owe us nothing, I appreciate your need to make amends for the behaviour of your father. Do
bear in mind that my late husband played no small part in reducing us to our current state of embarrassment. The truth is that Pendleton Grange would probably have been sold by now, as poor
Alex was out of control after his return from France.
Amy is a pleasant, clever girl, with a good head for business. She has been a dutiful daughter and has worked extremely hard. However, she is rather too selfless and pays little heed to
her own wants and needs. She rarely smiles these days. It seems hard to believe that I had to chide her only six months ago for spending too much time with your horses. If only I could see her
now, draped across my furniture, her clothes covered in mud. My Amy needs encouragement and someone in whom she might confide. Of the three, she is the most sensible and, I believe, the easiest
to deal with. I pray that you will talk to her and make her aware of her own true value.
Eliza is not as ladylike and correct as she chooses to appear. She has a giddy side and might easily be led astray. While Eliza has tried to be the perfect daughter, she does not fool me.
She wants bright lights and music, bangles and beads. In Eliza, I have been truly blessed, since she has given up so much just to please me. Mr Mulligan, this girl wants settling before she is
much older. She requires a good man, a decent house and some children. I know that you cannot supply those needs, but if you would kindly try to keep her away from the theatres in Bolton and
Manchester, she may calm down and find a nice husband. I have heard her singing in the woods; the songs she performs are popular in variety theatre. I cannot bear the thought of her dashing off
to seek her fortune on the stage.
So now I come to Margot, apple of everyone’s eye, a treasure and a torment, a worry. She is headstrong and spoilt, a great sportswoman. There is an energy in Margot, which, if not
properly directed, will lead her to ruin. She does not belong in A Cut Above, so please, I beg you, use her in your stables. Margot is capable of mastering the most difficult of beasts, as she
is gifted in calming animals. She has recovered from her shallow passion for you and, of late, has thrown herself at Rupert Smythe. There is every chance that he will abuse and abandon her, as
he is not a man of good character.
Having just read through the above paragraphs, I realize the enormity of these tasks. There is no one else to whom I might turn. We have no relatives in the vicinity and most
acquaintances turned away after we came to Caldwell Farm. If, however, you cannot help my girls, do not blame yourself.
Finally, I want to thank you for the assistance you have already given. I was pleasantly surprised by your character, your wisdom and generosity, your unexpected warmth. These intimations
of mortality under which I currently labour may be nonsense; nevertheless, knowing that you will read this only if I have left the world, I shall be bold in telling you that you are quite the
handsomest man I have met for some time. Even your religion does not prevent me from declaring that you would make an excellent son-in-law. Now, that is bold!
I wish you good health and happiness for the future.
Yours sincerely,
Louisa Anne Burton-Massey
He folded the letter and sealed it in a new envelope. What next? he wondered. Turning towards the window, he watched the stonemason with hammer and chisel, the undertaker grooming a horse, two
women emerging from the wash-house. The clockmaker was struggling to carry a grandfather through a doorway too low for the task. A child dropped small stones into the horse trough.
It seemed that James Mulligan Esq had inherited more than the yard, the inn and the large house. Now, he was expected to supervise the lives of three young women. ‘I seem to have become a
father,’ he muttered under his breath.
He began to stride about the office, fingers combing through the tangled mass of dark hair, head shaking occasionally as he pondered the future and its difficulties. How on earth could he be
expected to orchestrate the lives of others when his own was such a mess? He already accepted that he had to stay in England until the estate was up and running properly. The inn was lost –
nothing he could do would save it. There was the mortgage on the big house, the hydro to think about, the yard, the clothing business . . .
‘Yes, the hydro is a good idea,’ he insisted aloud. Managed properly, a hydro could finance Pendleton Grange, thereby allowing the girls to move back into a part of the house, or to
remain at Caldwell if they so wished. What about the yard? Should he sell it as a job lot? Should he offer each business separately to its tenant? Should he leave things as they were? No matter
what had to be done, he remained resolved to return Pendleton Grange to its rightful owners.
It was time to go home, time to visit his own secret, the cellar about which everyone seemed to have an opinion. If they only knew. The space under Pendleton Grange contained something far
smaller, yet far bigger than most could imagine. In those underground rooms, James Mulligan kept the evidence of his sinful soul. But his own confusions were nothing compared to the weight of
Louisa Burton-Massey’s requests.
Sighing resignedly, he picked up his hat and cane. It was a hard life, and it promised to become no easier.
Sometimes, Sally was glad that she had no family to lose. Miss Amy had taken Mrs Burton-Massey’s death badly, as had Miss Margot. The former didn’t seem to want to
do anything about anything, while the latter, wild and headstrong, was running around trying to pin down a man called Rupert Smythe. If this was the result of a parent’s death, there was
something to be said for being an orphan.
Sally knew all this because of her secret. The secret’s name was Miss Eliza Burton-Massey, though the young lady insisted on being addressed as Eliza. ‘We all come into the world
naked and afraid,’ Eliza had said, continuing with, ‘and we breathe our last as equals in the sight of God. During the in-between years, we spoil all that. Let’s be different.
Let’s be the same.’
In Sally’s opinion, Eliza was unique. She looked and sang like an angel, made wonderful clothes, was kind, generous and forgiving. Of the three Burton-Masseys, Eliza had been the least
affected by her mother’s demise. She expressed some concern about Amy and Margot, but her own recovery from shock was unusually swift. She was quiet for two or three weeks, then she set about
the business of retrimming the contents of her wardrobe.
Several times each month, Eliza came to Pendleton Grange to practise on the grand piano. While there, she had started to converse with the sensitive little maid, thereby discovering quite by
accident that someone wanted to talk and listen to her. Margot was conspicuous by her absence, while Amy had retreated into a state where monosyllables seemed to be the order of the day. But little
Sally Hayes, an orphan tossed about on the cruel tide of life, was in want of a surrogate sister, an adopted relation who would listen, at least.
Mr Mulligan, by no means a snob, ignored the unusual liaison. Kate Kenny, the housekeeper, famous for her sharp, sarcastic tongue, did not question or rebuke Sally for stepping beyond the bounds
of her class. But Mary Whitworth was livid. Coal scuttles rattled, feet stamped, doors closed emphatically. Sally was the recipient of a thousand black looks, though she bore such treatment
stoically. She was special by association, because she was learning decent manners. In the privacy of her own room, Sally copied Eliza’s movements, facial expressions, and made a real effort
to improve her own speech.
‘Trying to talk proper?’ gibed Mary on the stairs, after listening at Sally’s door.
Too much a lady-by-proxy, Sally no longer heeded this feeble and oft-repeated remark.
‘My brothers’ll get you,’ came yet another warning.
‘Tablecloths,’ replied Sally sweetly. ‘Tablecloths, good shirts and a few ornaments. You’ve brought some back, but not all.’
‘At least I’ve got a mam and dad.’
‘Really? I thought you lived with two drunks and a few scarecrows.’
‘While you crawl up the bum of the so-called gentry.’
Such confrontations ended only when Sally stalked away to get on with her job.
Towards the end of November, Mary Whitworth’s brothers put in their first appearance. Wearing clothes that seemed to have come straight off the rag cart, the burly thirteen-year-old twins
came to offer their services as wood-choppers. Kate Kenny, who knew only too well that Mulligan’s farm labourers had not the time to perform this task, employed ‘our Jack and our
Harry’ for two days. As the pair of reprobates had travelled all the way from Bolton to beg for work, they were allowed to sleep on mattresses in the scullery for one night.
While carrying laundry to the wash-lines, Sally had to pass these two scruffy articles as they chopped logs. At first, they laughed when she walked by, but by the second day that special bravery
known only to cowards bubbled to the surface.
Normally, there would have been little washing on a Tuesday, but Mary Whitworth had ‘accidentally’ upturned a full pot of tea on the kitchen table. Sally pegged the cloth, heard them
approaching from the rear.
‘Hey, you,’ said one.
With her heart banging like a hammer, she turned. They were a matching pair, two great lumps with matted brown hair, watery brown eyes and broad shoulders. ‘What?’ she asked. Each
carried a wicked-looking axe.
‘Our Mary,’ said one.
‘What about your Mary?’ She was surprised to hear that her voice maintained its steadiness.
‘You know,’ spat the second boy.
Sally cocked her head to one side. ‘Do you mean the stealing? There’s linen gone, then some figurines and a china dish.’ She paused for effect. ‘Hey, your Mary
didn’t pinch anything, did she?’
Stunned due to lack of brain power, they stood open-mouthed for several seconds.
She lowered her head and shook it slowly, appeared to be deep in sad thoughts. ‘It’s always the one you’d never suspect, isn’t it? Well, thanks for letting me
know.’ She tutted softly. ‘Good job Mr Mulligan walks about without noticing much. He still doesn’t know the stuff’s gone for a holiday.’
Harry looked at Jack; Jack looked at Harry.
‘Has any of it been sold?’ asked Sally, her tone continuing light.
‘Eh?’
‘Ah, so it’s no longer at your house.’
‘The lady in the pink frock’s still at ours, her with the frilly umbrella.’
The speaker was awarded a hefty kick from his sibling. ‘Shut up, you daft bugger.’
The daft bugger bent down and rubbed his injured shin.