Down Weaver's Lane (8 page)

The lass underneath her had managed to pick up a small stone and she immediately clouted her attacker on the head with it, but she was too small to throw the bigger girl off.

With a howl of fury as well as pain, Lal tried to scratch the other girl’s eyes out.

Jack hauled her off, then ranged himself in front of the victim, who scrambled to her feet. ‘Stay there a minute and I’ll see you home,’ he tossed over his shoulder, then gave Lal a shake and said, ‘Stop that screeching, you!’

‘She hit me!’

‘Well, you hit her first.’ Cautiously he let go of her.

For a moment everyone stood still, the only sounds being the faint noise of other people in the distance. Lal was panting from her exertions as she glared first at him then at her victim.

Dinah tugged at her sister’s arm and whispered, ‘Come away now, do.’

Lal tossed her head. ‘I’ll get her next time,’ she promised. ‘You won’t always be around to save her, Jack Staley.’

He grabbed Lal’s arm as she turned to walk away. ‘Why are you doing this? Whatever would your father say to such behaviour?’ Everyone in town was well aware that Dinah always did as her elder sister said, so he ignored the younger girl.

‘She’s
got into me!’ Lal gestured scornfully towards the stranger, who was trying to wipe the dirt off her face.

‘Why? What’s she done to you?’

‘Come to live in Northby, that’s what. Our mother’s furious about it and so am I.’

‘She’s our cousin,’ Dinah explained in her quiet, whispery voice, earning herself an immediate punch in the ribs from her older sister.

‘What did you have to say that for?’ Lal demanded. ‘Now he’ll tell everyone and they’ll all scorn us for being related to someone like
her.
’

Jack looked down in puzzlement at the girl he was protecting. He could see nothing terrible about her. Indeed, she was a pretty little thing, or would have been had she not been splattered with muck. ‘You’d better tell me the whole tale now,’ he ordered Lal. ‘I won’t pass it on to anyone else, I promise.’

She glared at him, her broad face screwed up into ugliness and her coarse, curly hair bouncing with the vehemence of her words. ‘You’d better not. We don’t want anyone to know she’s our cousin. Her mother’s a harlot,’ she didn’t know exactly what that meant but it was clearly bad, ‘and
my
mother says people won’t speak to us any more because of her. So we don’t want them staying in this town, either of them. My mother says
she
is probably just as bad as her mother.’

He studied the stranger again. She had a very sweet face and he didn’t believe this pretty child could possibly be a whore. Faces and eyes didn’t lie as tongues often did. ‘You’re making it all up.’

‘I am not! She lives in that house,’ Lal pointed dramatically, ‘and calls herself Emmy Carter.’

Jack tried to deflect future trouble, something he was becoming adept at with his own brothers and sisters now that he was the man of the house. ‘Well, if you attack the girl every time you see her, you’ll draw attention to yourselves and people will start to wonder why. You’d be better ignoring her and pretending you’ve never even heard of her.’

Lal considered this, scowling.
‘She
might tell people.’

Jack looked at the girl. ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’

Emmy looked up at him, such a strong young man and yet with a kind face and gentle eyes. Other people had hurried past while she was being attacked, making no attempt to help her, but he had stopped to protect her. ‘Why should I say anything? I don’t want people to know I’m related to someone as nasty as
her
.’

Lal glared at her.

‘There you are,’ said Jack. ‘You didn’t need to worry at all, let alone attack this poor lass. There’s usually a better way to sort out problems. If people fought all the time, they’d get nowt done.’ Or get themselves killed like his father.

Lal stuck her tongue out at Emmy and walked away, pausing to shout over her shoulder, ‘You’d better not tell or I’ll come back and kill you next time!’

Dinah hurried after her.

When they’d vanished from sight, Emmy let out a shuddering sigh. Jack smiled down at her and she gave him a wobbly smile before trying to straighten her clothes.

‘You’ll not get it off till it’s dried, love. You’d better go home and put something else on.’ He saw she was trying to hold back tears and asked, ‘What’s up?’

‘I haven’t got anything else decent to wear and I’m supposed to be starting work for Mrs Oswald this morning at nine o’clock. What will she say when I turn up like this?’ She indicated herself with a despairing sweep of the hand.

‘If you tell her what happened, she’ll understand, I’m sure.’

‘But I wanted to make a good impression!’ Emmy tried to brush the mud off, but it only made smears on the worn cloth of her bodice.

He enjoyed watching the play of sunlight on her hair, the sweep of her long lashes, the gentle curve of her lips. No wonder Lal Butterfield was angry at her. Lal was as plain as they came and her bad temper and bullying ways were legendary among the children of the town. It’d do her good to go and work in the mill, where the high-spirited lasses and hard work would soon knock the rough corners off her, only she wouldn’t need to do that. Her father might not be rich like the Rishmores, but he earned good wages and lived in a big, comfortable house.

Realising suddenly how time was passing Jack said hastily, ‘I have to get back to work now. Will you be all right?’

‘Yes. And thank you for your help.’ Emmy stood watching him as he hurried off towards the town centre.
Jack Staley.
That’s what the horrid Lal girl had called him. She repeated his name so she wouldn’t forget it, then with a sigh she walked on, opened the gate of Mrs Oswald’s little cottage and knocked on the front door. She had no choice but to go to work as she was.

 

When Tibby saw the state Emmy was in, she exclaimed in shock, ‘Whatever’s happened to you, child?’

Emmy tried to control herself but couldn’t and burst into tears, sure she was going to be turned away before she even started her lovely new job.

Tibby could not bear to see the child weeping so despairingly and took her in her arms, drawing her inside the house. Cuddling her close, she murmured meaningless comforting phrases and waited for the storm of tears to pass.

Emmy soon calmed down. ‘I sh-shouldn’t be doing this, ma’am.’ She tried to pull away. Her mother had told her to call her new mistress ‘ma’am’ and had given her advice about how to behave. Emmy still couldn’t believe that Madge had really had a maid once, because she always did embroider the truth, but perhaps she had been one herself because the advice made sense for once.

Tibby debated for a moment then lost the battle with propriety. When had she ever been one to stand on her dignity? ‘Ah, child, it’s been a year since I’ve had anyone to cuddle. Don’t push me away.’ She led the girl towards the sofa and made her sit down on it, dirty dress and all. Putting her arm round the thin shoulders, she said gently, ‘Tell me what happened.’

With some prompting Emmy told the story of her encounter with the two girls who had pelted her with mud and stones.

‘Did you know you had relatives in town?’ Tibby asked when the tale came to an end.

‘Yes, ma’am, but not who they were. The young man who helped me called one of them Lal Butterfield.’

Tibby knew that name and was surprised by it. ‘Was she a big, strapping girl with light brown hair a similar colour to yours?’

‘Yes, she was.’

‘Then her father is Isaac Butterfield, head clerk at Rishmore’s. Did your mother say how you’re related to them?’

‘You won’t tell?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘I think Mr Butterfield is my mother’s brother.’

Tibby tried to remember what she knew about the Butterfields, but her family had lived ten miles away and she had not known Northby and its inhabitants very well before she and her husband moved to the town, by which time there had been no sign of Isaac Butterfield having a sister. ‘Well, you don’t have much choice about your relatives, I’m afraid. My family didn’t want me to marry my dear James, said he wasn’t good enough for me, but we were happy together right until the day he died.’

Her voice became husky as she added, ‘The only sadness was when we lost our beloved daughter to a putrid sore throat, and then we were sad together, which helped a little.’ She sat for a moment lost in her own memories, then stood up and pulled the child with her. ‘Come through into the back and we’ll have a nice cup of tea. We’ll have to wash those clothes of yours to get the mud off and you’ve bled all over your bodice.’ She smoothed back the soft hair and clicked her tongue at the bruise already showing blue against Emmy’s forehead and the trickle of dried blood coming from it.

‘I’m sorry to cause you such trouble, Mrs Tibby. I’d have gone home for clean clothes, but I’ve been growing lately and -and I haven’t got any others, not really.’ She had asked her mother to buy her some more, but Madge never seemed to have any money left lately. Still, perhaps Emmy could save her own money now.

‘Then it’s lucky that I’ve got some old clothes you can use.’ Until now Tibby hadn’t been able to bear the thought of giving her daughter’s clothes away, but somehow she didn’t mind Emmy having them. There were a couple of simple dresses, high-necked and plain, which would suit the child, though the hems would have to be taken up because Charlotte had been tall for her age, taking after her father’s family, not Tibby’s, for the Armisteads were usually quite small in stature.

It had been a long time since a morning had passed so quickly. Tibby found herself humming as she hemmed one of the dresses, then sent Emmy upstairs with a jug of warm water to wash and change. Afterwards she showed her helper what needed doing, but by noon she was tired, so easily did she run out of energy nowadays, and had to rest quietly on the sofa while the child bustled around the house, working steadily and only needing to be told once how to do a task.

As the afternoon wore on and the shadows lengthened across the street, Tibby said reluctantly, ‘I think you’d better go home now, dear. You can keep the dress. I’ll finish shortening the hem of the other one for you tomorrow.’

Emmy hesitated, looking down at herself. She had never owned clothing that was not stained and torn before and was tempted. But she knew what would happen if she took the dress home, so she shook her head. ‘I can change into it when I come in the mornings, ma’am. I’d rather not take anything home.’ She saw her new mistress looking puzzled and confessed, ‘I’m afraid my mother might pawn it if she needed money. She just takes the first thing that comes into her mind when she’s short.’ With a blush she added, because she knew already that this kind lady would not scorn her for it, ‘She drinks gin sometimes, you see, and then she can behave very foolishly.’

‘That must be hard for you, dear.’

Emmy nodded. She hated even the smell of gin.

‘Very well. We’ll keep your things in the little bedroom at the back of the house and you can change into them every morning.’

At the door Emmy hesitated then said in a rush, ‘I did enjoy myself today, Mrs Tibby. I hope I’ve given satisfaction.’

‘You have given me great satisfaction with your work and I’ve enjoyed your company, too.’

In fact, the place felt quite empty when the door closed behind Emmy. And far too quiet. Tibby didn’t know who was doing the other the bigger favour, she or Emmy, just that she had felt happy and useful today for the first time since her husband’s death.

 

Two weeks later, George came round to see Madge late one night. He hammered on the door of their room and when Madge recognised his voice, she staggered across to open the door to him, still fuddled by the gin she’d drunk after her last visitor had left.

Emmy rolled out of bed at the first sound of his voice and slipped on her dress, grabbing a shawl and blanket ready to go and sit on the stairs, It had been a cold wet day, for all it was June, and she could not help shivering. She tried to slip past George, but he laughed and caught her, pawing at her.

‘She’s young and firm, Madge, and her titties are starting to grow,’ he taunted, and found himself suddenly attacked by feet, fists, nails, anything Madge could hit him with.

For a moment he stood there in shock, then his expression turned nasty. But as Madge swung even more wildly, missed and sat down on the floor with a thump, his mood changed again and he threw back his head to roar with laughter. He went on for so long that someone in the room next door banged on the wall and yelled at them to shut up.

‘You look after your own, at least,’ he said, hauling Madge to her feet and pulling her into his arms. ‘I like that in a woman. No need to defend your cub against me, though. I have better things planned for her when she’s old enough, as I’ve told you.’

Outside on the landing Emmy heard what he had said and shuddered, wrapping the blanket more closely around herself and leaning her head against the wall. She wished the stairs were not so draughty. And she’d rather tramp the roads than do
that,
especially now she’d experienced another sort of life.

It seemed a very long time until he came out again, his clothing in some disarray now. He stared at her, frowning. ‘Have you nowhere better to go when your mother’s working?’

Emmy shook her head, holding the blanket more tightly around herself.

‘What about that old woman you work for?’ he asked, swaying on his feet, his face on a level with hers, since he was lower down the stairs.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Has that Mrs Oswald got a spare bedroom?’

Emmy nodded.

‘Ask her if you can live in. Tell her you’ll work for less money.’

‘There’ll be no one to look after my mother if I do that. She needs me. She can’t bear to be alone.’