The Girl From Seaforth Sands (10 page)

‘Oh! Oh, I’m sorry,’ Amy stammered, feeling the hot blood rush to her cheeks. ‘I . . . I thought I heard a baby cry. I thought it’d come already and I wanted to help.’ She glanced nervously from face to face. ‘Where’s my dad? Is there anything I can do?’

At the sound of her voice Isobel had heaved the covers up over her stomach and breasts, and now she gave what Amy imagined was meant to be a reassuring smile. ‘It’s all right, queen,’ she said huskily. ‘The baby won’t be here for a while yet, but as soon as it arrives, nurse here will let you know. As for your dad, he’s downstairs making Mrs Scott and me a cup of tea. If you’d like to go down and give him a hand, I’m sure he’d be grateful. Unless you think you might be able to go back to sleep?’

‘I’ll go and give Dad a hand.’ Amy, ignored the last question as not worthy of comment. How could she possibly sleep when such momentous events were taking place? Albert, Gus and Charlie, of course, would be sleeping straight through all the excitement, but that was fellers for you. No soul, Amy thought disgustedly, assuring her mother that she would bring her and Mrs Scott a cup of tea as soon as it had brewed.

Isobel was beginning to thank her when there was a movement beneath the sheet and her face became contorted with pain. She bent forward and grasped her own knees with both hands, and Amy left the
room, hastily closing the door behind her. She realised that the mewing noise she had heard must have been small cries of pain and found she had no desire whatever to see her mother suffer. Instead, she decided to go down to the kitchen and do whatever her father bade her, so that the time would pass quickly until the baby’s birth.

The baby was born almost forty-eight hours later, after what the nurse described as a really difficult labour, and was a tiny but perfect girl, with lint-white hair and big, dreamy blue eyes. Amy saw her for the first time before breakfast, only a few hours after her birth, and was delighted with her, though she thought her mother looked drained and exhausted, and quite twenty years older than she really was. Despite her hopes, the baby had not been called Alexandra but was to rejoice in the name of Jane. And she isn’t a plain Jane, Amy thought to herself, timidly stroking the baby’s cheek. Still, it’s Mam’s choice when you come down to it. Liverpool folk always add a bit to a short little name and chop off a bit from a long one, so if she had been named Alexandra she would have ended up being called Allie, which isn’t all that special.

Mary had come home as soon as their father had got a message to her telling her that Isobel was in labour. She had been a tower of strength both to Amy and to their mother, and seemed to know by instinct what best to do for the baby. Like Amy, she was disappointed by the plain name Isobel had chosen and had managed to persuade her mother to give the child a second name. She and Amy put their heads together and it was finally agreed that their
new little sister would be christened Jane Rebecca when the time was ripe.

To Amy’s disappointment, Mary was only able to stay for two days, helping to look after her mother and the baby, but at the end of that time she had to return to the family who employed her. They lived at too great a distance from Seaforth to allow Mary to spend her day off with them, so having her home for two whole days was a real treat. The two girls gossiped endlessly during the day while they were working, for Amy was being kept off school while her mother was still in childbed, and at night, lying close together in the bed they had shared for so many years, Mary told Amy all about life as a housemaid. She had done her best to explain how she felt. ‘I thought I’d hate being in service and so I did at first,’ she told her sister. ‘But it’s a bit like school – ordered, sensible, so you know just what you should be doing all the time. You brush and polish, wait on the family, lay tables, clear away. You don’t have to cook your own meals, answer doors, clean fish, or sell shrimps, because your tasks are laid down and once they’re done you’re free. It’s wonderful to have time to yourself, your own little room, and friends who work beside you. And best of all, no smell of fish, no icy hands and feet, no . . . no responsibility for anything but your own work and your own pleasure. So I wouldn’t want to leave Manchester to come back to . . . to
this
.’ Her gesture encompassed the little house, the family – their entire life Amy thought, rather dismayed. Mary had indeed changed, grown away from them.

It did not sound much fun to Amy, but Mary clearly enjoyed the life. She had made a great many friends, both among the staff at the Cottlestones’
house and the neighbours, and was much in demand as a dancing partner when she and her friends had an evening off. She seemed to be doing well in her work, too. She was a good seamstress, clever with her needle, and actually enjoyed polishing the silver until it shone like a mirror, and dusting in every nook and cranny until the rooms she had been set to look after were spotless. She did not seem to miss the small house in Seafield Grove, nor to hanker after the beach and the park where the girls had spent what little time off they had had. Mary was expected to serve the family wholeheartedly, to attend church with them on a Sunday and to obey the wishes of the upper servants who could, and did, order her about. She told Amy that when she wrote a letter home she couldn’t even take it down the road to the nearest postbox without getting permission from one of the upper servants to leave the estate house. This would have irked Amy terribly, but the placid and sweet-tempered Mary actually seemed to prefer what she termed ‘an ordered existence’ to the rather more haphazard life of the family in Seafield Grove.

‘But you’re enjoying helping with the baby and with our mam,’ Amy pointed out, as she and Mary prepared for bed one night, ‘and you seem to like cooking and cleaning up after the boys well enough. How will you feel, Mary, when you have to go back to being bossed around all the time? Won’t you miss being able to walk down to the shore when you want to? And visiting your pals now and then?’

‘It’s grand being home all right,’ Mary agreed, ‘but how often have I had a moment to myself after I got back, eh, queen? And although I’ve met a pal or two when I’ve been doing the messages, I’ve never had
time to stop for a jangle. In fact, there’s not a lot of time for anything, the way we live. At the Cottlestone house things are more ordered, more tidy, like. When you’re free you really are free. No one asks you to run messages or clean fish or bake a pie. But at home there’s only us to do everything. Can you understand that?’

‘Ye-es, I know what you mean,’ Amy said grudgingly, after some thought, ‘but I’d still rather have my life than yours, Mary. It’s because I’m untidy by nature and you’re the opposite. What about marrying, though? You’d like to do that one day, wouldn’t you?’

‘I might,’ Mary said guardedly. ‘And then again I might not; I do have a particular friend, but folk don’t get married when they are barely fifteen, chuck. I wouldn’t want to be a housemaid for the rest of my life, but marriage changes everything. What about you, Amy? I know you’re still in school, though it’s a bit off and on, isn’t it? Mam was saying what a help you’d been to her, and that must mean you’re missing school every now and then I suppose. And of course, if you’re missing school you’ll miss playing out as well. So your freedom isn’t what it was, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes, I’ve been missing school on a Friday,’ Amy acknowledged. ‘But the rest of the week Mam manages pretty well. I help after school, of course, and I do miss seeing my pals in the long summer evenings, but I’m getting on ever so much better with our mam, Mary. Now you aren’t here, she relies on me, you see, and I like that. I never thought I would, but I do. Dad says it’s all part of growing up and I dare say he’s right. And Mam says once she’s up and about she’ll be able to do a good deal
more. She’ll take the baby with her when she goes door-to-door selling.’

Mary pulled a face. ‘Well, it might work out,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But it’ll come hard on you, Amy. Mam’s never expected the boys to do anything she thinks of as woman’s work and there’s a deal of that in this house, with potting the shrimps and all. It’d be fairer on you if Mam were to pay a woman to come in and give a hand three or four times a week. After all, if you go on sagging off school there’ll be trouble.’

Amy sighed. ‘I dare say you’re right.’ She climbed into bed. ‘I might as well blow the candle out; we can talk just as well in the dark.’ She suited action to words and cuddled down. It was so nice to feel Mary’s familiar warmth beside her in the bed. It was odd, she thought, how she had not really missed Mary until she returned home; only now did she recognise the gap that the loss of her sister’s company had left in her life. Mary was due to return to the Cottlestones next morning and Amy knew she would miss her terribly. But at least I’ll know she’s truly happy being a housemaid and living away from home, she told herself drowsily, as sleep began to claim her. We would neither of us want the other’s life, as we’re very different people. It’s a good thing that Mary is the older, though. Imagine how awful it would’ve been if I’d ended up in service and Mary had had to stay at home. On this horrid thought she fell asleep.

Two days after Mary and Amy had kissed each other goodbye under the clock on Lime Street Station Isobel woke, feeling hot and feverish, and aching in every limb. Bill roused Amy and told her to give an
eye to the baby and to fetch her mother a cup of tea. He was off to have a word with Mrs Scott. The old woman still came in twice each day and would continue to do so until Jane Rebecca was three weeks old, but she had told Bill to call her at once if either his wife or the baby ailed. ‘Your missus ain’t exactly a chicken,’ she had said bluntly. ‘Better to be safe than sorry.’

Amy got out of bed, dragged her jumper over her nightdress and padded down the stairs to the kitchen. The room was empty, apart from the baby in her cradle – Bill must have brought her down before he had woken his daughter. A glance at the back door showed Albert’s cap and coat were missing, so Amy guessed that her brother had been sent to fetch Mrs Scott, while Bill himself had gone back upstairs to Isobel. Amy shivered a little, for the kitchen was chilly, but she knew it would soon warm up once she had stirred up the fire, which had sunk to a bed of ashes with only a red glow in its centre to show that it had not done the dirty on her and gone out.

Amy got the poker, stirred up the fire, riddled the ashes and then put fresh fuel on to the embers. In a moment it was blazing and quite hot enough for Amy to pull the kettle over the flame. While she waited for it to boil she got the loaf from the bread bin and cut a couple of thick slices. It was nowhere near breakfast time, but she found she was hungry and guessed that Albert, when he returned from his errand, would be hungry, too. She would toast the bread in front of the fire while waiting for the kettle, then she and her brother could have a snack as soon as he came back with the midwife.

The toast was made and the tea poured when the
back door opened to admit Mrs Scott, with Albert close on her heels. ‘Mornin’, young ‘un,’ Mrs Scott said breezily. ‘My, that toast smells good. I’m that clemmed I swear I could eat a horse.’

Silently Amy handed her a round of buttered toast and watched, enviously, as the older woman devoured it in three enormous bites. Then, without being asked, she handed one of the mugs of tea over, but Mrs Scott, though she gazed at it wistfully, shook her neat grey head. ‘Not now, chuck,’ she said, heading for the stairs. ‘Just you bring up an extry cup when you bring your mam’s. I wouldn’t let a patient wait above stairs whiles I drank tea in the kitchen.’

‘She’s norra bad old stick,’ Albert remarked, taking the remaining slice of toast and beginning to eat. ‘Some of them old women what call themselves nurses drink gin and leave your mam to gerron with it, the fellers at school say. Was that your bit of toast, gal? If so, I’ll make you another while you take up the tea.’

But in fact, Amy did not get a chance to take the tea to the bedroom. Halfway up the stairs, carefully balancing two mugs of well-sugared tea, she met Mrs Scott thundering down. ‘Thanks, chuck, I’ll take that,’ Mrs Scott said briskly. ‘But I want you to go straight downstairs and tell young Albert to fetch Doctor Payne. Tell Albert to say Mrs Scott says as it’s urgent and he’s to come right away, if he pleases.’

Amy, thoroughly frightened, pushed the mugs of tea into the nurse’s hands and fled down the stairs again, entering the kitchen with the message already on her lips. Albert was sitting in front of the fire with a round of bread on a stick held out to the flames, but to do him credit, he wasted no more time than
Amy had. ‘Take this,’ he said brusquely, thrusting the stick into her hands and grabbing his coat and cap. He jammed the cap down over his unbrushed hair and headed for the back door, saying over his shoulder, ‘Where’s me dad? What’s happenin’ up there?’

‘I dunno,’ Amy said with equal brevity. ‘I only got halfway up when I met old Ma Scott coming down. Oh, Albert, do hurry! I think our mam must be awfully bad.’

The rest of that day and all the next were a nightmare, which Amy knew she would remember for the rest of her life. She longed for Mary’s comforting presence, but knew better than to suggest her sister might be fetched; things were too desperately bad for that. It would’ve been a comfort to her had Bill been able to explain what was happening, but on the only occasion when he left Isobel’s side for a moment to come downstairs and take a drink of tea he looked so grey and ill that Amy hadn’t the heart to cross-question him. ‘It’s milk fever, only some specially bad sort,’ he said in answer to Amy’s one timid question. ‘She’s mortal bad, chuck.’ He got to his feet and headed across the kitchen. ‘Nurse will be down in a minute,’ he added over his shoulder. ‘She’ll tell you what to do about the baby.’

Mrs Scott did indeed tell Amy what to do about the baby, though it was not welcome advice. ‘Is there anyone hereabouts nursin’ their own young ’un?’ she enquired, busily making a brew of some description in a small pan on the stove. She tutted. ‘Why am I asking you when I know better than anyone who’s had a baby recently? You tek young Jane Rebecca
along to Mrs O’Hara, on Holly Grove, an’ ask her to give it suck for you.’