A Woman Undefeated (24 page)

She was amused to see a big cage-like thing, hanging on the door of the clients’ changing room, when she got there.

“That’s for underneath the crinoline gown that Miss Madeline has asked me to make her,” Betty explained, as she saw the girl raising her eyebrows at the absurdity of it.

“Depending on how wide you want the skirt to be, you can add as many petticoats to make it stick out. Miss Madeline doesn’t want more than three, or she would never get through the Brown Horse’s front door. So she has asked me to make a wheel of thick plaited horsehair, which will go around her waist, two plain muslin petticoats and another with flounces. The sleeves of the bodice have to be what she called a pagoda style, and the over skirt must be four tiered, with a fringe sewn on every hem! I’m glad you called by, Maggie, because you can help me with the stitching of all the flounces and frills she wants on it. Do you know how much material will be used for all this? The bottom of the skirt alone will take ten yards!”

Her voice was raised in disbelief, as she gave Maggie a run down of all the work that was involved. She considered it an
unattractive change in modern fashion, she preferred the Empire line, with its high waist and simple leg of mutton sleeves. Made in silk, satin or crepe, not these new materials that she was going to have to get in, organdie, tulle and tarlatan.

“At least your dress is ready, Maggie, it’s hanging behind the kitchen door,” she said, wondering why the girl wasn’t working at the farm that day.

“Oh, thank you, Miss Rosemary. I’ve bin frightened of burstin’ out of this one, there’s nothing left to take out anymore in the seams. So where does the woman get her fancy ideas from? What is she doing in Neston? Has she told yer any more?”

“Only that she has been used to shopping in the big stores in Liverpool and her uncle took her down to London for a few days. She says that the crinoline is what everyone is wearing there. She brought me a likeness to copy, but I hope it doesn’t catch on in this neck of the woods, the stitching that goes into it is a nightmare. Do you think you would be able to help me out over the next few days?”

“I’ve got all the time in the world, Miss Rosemary,” Maggie answered, feeling delighted that she would have somewhere to come each day.“The farmer’s wife has told me to start me time of resting, which I’ll gladly do. See, her daughter, Peggy, has knitted these baby things for me.”

Maggie proudly produced the crocheted shawl, containing a few little items from under her cloak.

“Oh, they are beautiful,” sighed Betty, as she examined the perfect white bootees, matching mittens, bonnet and little matinee coat. “The pattern of the shawl is the same throughout the whole layette. She’s a clever girl, is Peggy Briggs.”

“Peggy Phipps now. I did hear a whisper that she was expecting, but I haven’t heard anymore, so perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps she made this lot fer her own little babby, thinkin’ she was. I was very surprised when the mistress gave them to me.”

“We should be thinking of making a few baby clothes together, Maggie, and you will need to buy some towelling, so that we can
cut the material into squares. If you don’t mind me saying it, this is the time in your life when you really need your mother. I wouldn’t know the first thing of how to change a baby, or how to feed it, or what to do when it cries.”

“Yes, I still miss me mother and me sister, Molly,” Maggie replied sadly, “but I know how to change a baby when its cloths are dirty, because I used to help Mammy. I think I’ll need to make at least a dozen little dresses for him, so I’d be glad if you could search out any remnants for me, Miss Rosemary. Plain and simple will do fer Michael Patrick, no smockin’ on the top. Accordin’ to Alice, I’ve still got three months to go, so I’ll have plenty to keep me busy, you see. It has to be said, the farm work was getting’ too much fer me, havin’ to lug this big lump around.”

“That’s what I like about you, Maggie. You have me smiling on the darkest of days. Now, I have a little proposition, which I have been mulling over since you entrusted your money to me. But we’ll have a cup of tea first before we discuss it. I am sure you will like what I have in mind.”

“But why would yer be doin’ this for me, Miss Rosemary?,” Maggie exclaimed, as the dressmaker outlined her plan later.

“It isn’t as though I’m related to yer or yer’ve known me very long. I must say I’m grateful, but I might not be here more than a month or two. Jack has come up with grand ideas about his future and I suppose I’ll have to foller him.”

“Well, my dear, to answer your question before we discuss the why’s and wherefores, my father left me fairly well off, as the result of many of the investments he made. Being a sea captain gave him access to items that you would never see on a local shop’s shelves. He brought back bolts of cloth from the Orient, spices, wood carvings, china, furniture, tobacco and spirit from Jamaica, and made a lot of money selling the goods on to willing purchasers in Liverpool and the cities around.

My mother and I had a comfortable life from the proceeds, enough for me to give up my job as a semptress with the gentry, and eventually I was in a position to buy some property. I’ve always
felt a little entrepreneurial, must be the blood of my father flowing through me. If I were a man there would have been nothing to stop me forging ahead and creating great riches, but it is always difficult being a woman in a man’s world. However I see a need in this community for a money lending service, as I have just explained to you. Your seventeen pounds could be put to good use while you have no need of it. And hiding behind the name of Sheldon Loan Company, no one will know that it is a woman behind it all. I will say that I am the company’s agent and all transactions will be conducted from here. Then when the company grows, and I am convinced it will, you can take over. Especially when the little one has gone to school.”

“It all sounds wonderful, so it does Miss Rosemary, and whatever yer say I’ll go along with, but yer still haven’t said why you’ve chosen me. Yer could use yer own money to set up a new company.”

“Let’s say it’s because I’m going soft in my dotage, Maggie. I’ve lived a lot of years on this earth and one thing I have learnt, is that you’ve got to grasp the opportunities as they are given to you. I admire the way you’ve stood up in the face of adversity. You were not a willing participant in Jack’s flight from your home country, but you’ve made the best of it. You’re a young girl of, what, nearly seventeen years, without parental guidance in a strange and foreign land. When you handed me the money that you found in that mattress, I thought this is a girl to whom the fates are going to be kind and I would like to be part of it as well. So, here’s the ledger, “Mrs Proprietor of the Sheldon Loan Company” and we’ll have a shop bought cake to celebrate.”

Maggie came out of the shop later with her head buzzing. Betty had shown her how the ledger would be kept. The customer’s name at the top of the sheet, with columns for loan given, payments made, interest and loan repaid. There was a declaration at the foot of each page that the loan would be repaid in a certain time or extra interest would be added. Then a place underneath where the customer made his mark or signed their name. Betty had even worked out the interest to be charged on each amount
borrowed, and was going to speak to Ezra Williams, who moaned about running a slate for his customers, and was sure to be willing to send any would-be borrowers to the dressmaker’s shop next door.

Betty had expressed the opinion that the people most likely to become Maggie’s customers would be the wives of the colliery workers and possibly those of the quarrymen too. The men of both these employments seemed to frequent the many taverns there were in the village, leaving their families short of money for clothing and food. It was a traditional thing, to piss your earnings down the open drain at the end of a hard week’s graft on a Friday.

There was something wrong with a man who wanted to do anything different. He must have got religion or become a member of the Temperance Society, and had no business to be working alongside working men. So, the taverns and inns were full to overflowing at the weekends and the wives needed just a bit extra to tide them over for food and other things.

Maggie loved the name that Betty had chosen and had asked her why she had given it that name? Sheldon, it transpired, was connected to the family.

“It was my mother’s maiden name, Maggie, and it is in memory of her that I hand it on to you.

She would have made an excellent business woman had she been born into this century, but, unfortunately for her, it was not to be. Even now, single ladies such as myself are made to feel inadequate somehow, because we are not married and producing babies. But God gave women brains as he gave them to men. We just need opportunities, and that is what I am giving to you.”

Maggie stood for a while studying Miss Rosemary’s window display. She wasn’t really seeing it, because her mind was in such a whirl. The Sheldon Loan Company. She was the proprietor of a loan company! Not just lowly Maggie Haines, married to Jack and a with baby on the way, but someone with seventeen pounds to cast like bread upon the water, and one day that figure would be even more!

She hugged her secret to her, reluctant to return to the four walls of the cottage, when she should be dancing, shouting, telling the world of her good fortune. Telling everyone she met that today hadn’t been an ordinary day! That Miss Rosemary, tailoress to the community, had just handed her a golden future and that life would be very different now than how she had imagined it to be. But who would believe her and who could she trust with the knowledge? There was no one around her that would wish her well.

Maggie strolled down Parkgate Road, trying to make her mind dwell on something else and trying to keep the absurd smile from bursting all over her face. A walk to her favourite place might serve to encourage it, as the view from the hills alone always seemed to calm her soul. Her thoughts flickered back to when she had last sat on the sea wall, when Jimmy, the pot man, had got a letter from his lover back home. Did he still miss his beloved Eileen or had he gone to Liverpool to be with his folks, or was he waiting for the cattle boat to take him back to his roots? Of course, Johnny! He had said he would be returning to this sea port the following spring and how amazing was it, that Killala and her old life was only being remembered at this time. It had been weeks since she yearned for the hamlet, weeks since she yearned to go home. Her fear now was that the life she had made in Neston could also be easily snatched away.

Betty had pooh-poohed the idea when Maggie had spoken of Jack’s plans.

“I can’t see him throwing up a perfectly good job for an uncertain future in the world of the pugilist,” she had said reassuringly, “especially as he has the added responsibility of you and the child.”

She had a lovely way with words, Maggie thought, feeling a little more comforted. But Betty didn’t know Jack as she did. If he’d made his mind up on something, then he wouldn’t be shifted at all.

It was a beautiful May afternoon, the kind of day that started badly
with mist over the river, but the sun had come bursting through the clouds by midday. Maggie wasn’t the only one who sat on the sea wall, whilst she contemplated the latest developments in her life. Ruthie Tibbs’s girl, Annie, had come wandering along. She looked lost and uncared for, passing Maggie unseeingly, so deep in her thoughts was she.

She gave a jump of surprise when Maggie laid a kindly hand upon her shoulder. Annie hadn’t wanted anyone she knew to see her in the place she liked the best. Away from her dominant mother, her pig of a father and the demands that her siblings made upon her too .

“Why, Annie, what’s the matter with ye?” Maggie asked, startled at the miserable face that the girl was showing.

“Nuthin’,” she replied, turning away dejectedly.

“I like to come here too, when I’ve a lot to think on,” Maggie confided. “Why don’t we sit together and look out over the wonderful sea?”

“I want to sit on my own,” came back her quick reply.

“That’s fine with me, Annie, but if yer change yer mind I’ll be just a little bit away. Perhaps we could go to the shop over there later. I believe they make the best ice-cream and I could treat yer to some before we go home.”

But the girl just sat there, staring morosely out across the sea, so Maggie decided to leave her alone. The girl had made it obvious she wanted it that way.

She had always pitied Annie. It couldn’t have been an easy life, living as she did in poor surroundings, with loud mouthed Ruthie and Solly, the little weasel. She had nearly always looked subdued, with none of the excitement of childhood during the times that Maggie had come across her. She was still wearing the faded dress she had been wearing at Christmas, but now the bodice was straining across her chest and the hem was up around her knees.

Maggie looked across to where a fishing boat was tying up, the skipper shouting to his mate to be careful with the rope he was putting around the capstan, as he had nearly upended a passerby.
Unbidden thoughts of Johnny came rushing back to her. His curly black hair, his cornflower blue eyes, the way he walked and smiled. All of these things paraded themselves in front of her. Irrelevant, pointless thoughts and she couldn’t understand why they had come to her. Johnny had made it plain that he didn’t want to know her. Had abandoned her to Jack and Neston, as far as she was concerned. Come to think of it, after the immigrant settlement had been disbanded, she had not heard another voice that had held the Irish brogue. Perhaps Johnny took his cattle boat now to Liverpool. Certainly there had been no more new stock in the farmer’s fields.

She felt a touch pressing on her elbow. It put an end to her musings when she saw it was Annie standing by her side.

“I’d like that ice cream now, if yer don’t mind, Missis. I’ve never had one, but that Florrie at the farm says she’s had many, so I think I would like you to get me one to try.”

Dear God, Maggie thought, the child was willing to be friendly for the sake of tasting an ice cream. A lump came to her throat and she dashed away the tear that came into her eye.