The Favourite Child (19 page)

‘Not at our chapel, it isn’t,’ Violet sniffed her disapproval and Bella hastily apologised. She’d forgotten what a strong Methodist her friend was.

‘He let Harold Cunliffe languish in t’clink fer three months because he were too mean to pay his fine. Nasty piece of work is Billy Quinn.’

‘Perhaps he wasn’t allowed to pay his fine, or it would’ve implicated himself, if he had,’ Bella reasonably pointed out, trying not to pull her face as she took another sip of the stout.

‘You can be sure,’ Dan studiously informed her, that any favours Billy Quinn does, help Billy Quinn more’n anyone else. You’d best stay clear of him in future.’

‘I see. Well, I’ll remember that. Thank you.’

Bella wasn’t blind to the fact that Dan was fond of her, and that he must have turned up this evening because he thought he might be needed. Nor did she mind. She liked Dan Howarth, liked him a lot. She enjoyed his attention and greatly valued his friendship but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He always seemed to hold back and still hadn’t even kissed her. Bella’s disappointment over this was such that at times she wondered if he ever would. Certainly she wasn’t going to make the running. Their walks recently had often been at her suggestion and she’d pretty well pushed him into taking her fishing that time, now she wondered if perhaps he’d sensed the tension between herself and this Billy Quinn and was a little jealous of it. She certainly had no wish for Dan Howarth to set himself up as her protector, and decided it was best to make that clear. ‘I doubt that I shall need defending, glad though I was of your help this evening. I’m sure that was an isolated incident.’

‘Just as you like,’ he said, frowning into his mug.

Bella paid no heed to Dan’s opinions on a possible rival, and Violet’s comments she dismissed as quite natural, if somewhat bigoted, religious rivalry.

When she went to the clinic the following Thursday morning it was to find a very anxious Mrs Heap standing behind her counter, wringing her hands and declaring that she’d been unable to do anything to prevent it.

‘Prevent what ? What are you trying to tell me?’

‘They just marched in here, bold as brass and took every last stick.’

‘Every stick of what? I’m afraid I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Edie.’

‘All the stuff in the clinic - desk, chairs, the whole caboodle. Them chaps come in here and took the whole lot away. Then they sent all the women home, tell’d them, and me, that the clinic’d been shut down.’

‘Shut down?’

‘Aye. Closed. Finished. Kapput!’

Bella’s first thought was that this had been done by the protesters, and then it occurred to her to look closer to home. Storming through the mahogany front door and confronting her father in his study, she demanded to know if he was the one responsible. Simeon readily confessed to having sent some of the men from the mill to close the clinic down. ‘I made my views on the matter perfectly clear. There’s nowt more to be said.’

‘Indeed, then I’ll not waste my breath on you.’ Bella stormed just as quickly out, leaving every door open to the four winds as she went. Simeon roared his rage as papers swirled from his desk and flew all over the floor.

‘Come back here this minute, miss!’

She paid him no heed. Bella did not stop until she’d regained the sanctity of the clinic’s now empty rooms above Edith Heap’s cook shop. Dr Syd and Nurse Shaw were already fully occupied picking up whatever packets and boxes were salvageable, and attempting to sort loose papers and patient notes back into their proper files.

Bella grabbed a piece of cardboard and penned a large notice which clearly stated that the Mothers’ Clinic would be open tonight as usual, for consultations and treatment. ‘We’ll show them.’

Thankfully the word got round and the usual queue of women were soon plodding up the stairs. There was a slight delay before they could open the doors, not only because of all the clearing up they had to do but because they were inundated with offers of help. Curtains were provided in place of the screens which had been removed, in order to create the necessary privacy for the women to be examined. The greengrocer brought some orange boxes to hold the boxes and packets which had been so carelessly tossed about. Mrs Solomon supplied a small wooden table and two chairs which she insisted she’d no real need of. Mrs Heap, anxious to do her bit, provided a hot supper of pie and peas for the willing workers. And all of this from people who had nothing.

‘The folk of Salford might have less than nowt, as they say round here but they’re ready enough to share it,’ Mrs Blundell agreed, wielding a hammer with gusto as she tacked up curtains, stomach bulging ripely beneath her pendulous breasts.

Bella could only weep with gratitude, humbled by their generosity and didn’t in the least mind walking home later than usual that night.

On finding herself once more confronting an irate father who stood waiting for her in the hall, she might well have wept out of sheer frustration had she not been so consumed by anger herself. Dr Nathaniel Lisle hovered close by and Bella knew, without even asking, that the little doctor had come specifically to inform Simeon that she’d disobeyed him. She was proved entirely correct.

‘So you’ve opened it again.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Against my wishes.’

‘It isn’t your wishes I have to consider, Father. It’s what is right and proper for the women of Salford.’

She might well have found further argument to press her case but was given no opportunity to do so. At that precise moment the leaded window shattered as a brick flew into the hall, missing her by inches. Glass flew everywhere, lodging in her hair and sticking into her clothes, one shard piercing her cheek so that Bella cried out with the shocked pain of it as blood ran. Dr Lisle, she noticed, hastily backed into a corner of the hall, thereby avoiding the worst of the damage while her father was as equally covered in flecks of broken glass as herself.

‘Hell’s teeth! What ignoramus has done this? See what you’ve brought upon us. As if I haven’t enough on my plate with your dear mother sick.’

Jinnie ran down the stairs to comfort Bella, dark eyes wide with fear, swiftly followed by Edward but Bella waved their concerned attentions away. ‘These ignoramuses, as you call them, are merely registering the same blind prejudice as yourself, Father.’

‘Utter rubbish! Well, I’ll not have it. I’ll not be attacked in my own home because of a daughter who has lost all her morals. Out.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘
Out!
I want you out of this house this minute.’

Bella gave a half laugh, more from disbelief than amusement. ‘Out where? It’s nearly eleven o’clock at night.’

‘You should’ve thought of that before you reopened that damned clinic, before you started this caper in the first place.’ So saying, he flung open the door, grasped Bella by the arm and flung her out into the street. Her foot skidded on the wet pavement and she fell awkwardly, twisting her ankle. She heard Jinnie’s cry of horror, Edward’s protest but when she lifted her head on a cry of agony, it was to find that the door had slammed shut. Even as she called out to her father, she heard the lock turn and the bolts being drawn.

Bella sat in Violet’s kitchen with her head in her hands, closer to despair than she’d ever been in her life. What was to become of her? Everything had gone wrong. If it weren’t for her dear friends she’d be sleeping rough on the streets with not a penny to her name. She felt fortunate to have them. When she’d picked herself up from that pavement, all Bella could think of to do was to come here, to Violet, and her dear friend had opened up her arms and gathered her close to her ample bosom.

‘We’re not used to visitors from your end of town,’ Violet had drily commented. ‘You’ll happen find us a bit lacking in the social graces department.’

‘I find the atmosphere here warm and comforting after the frigid one in Seedley Park Road.’

Violet had tended her wounds and welcomed Bella into the heart of the family as if she had every right to be there. As if she belonged.

‘That’s our Vi,’ her husband calmly remarked when he’d encountered a stranger at his breakfast table the following morning, and heard Bella’s explanation and apology for the intrusion. Cyril Howarth calmly asked for a second slice of bread and dripping and told Bella she was welcome to stay as long as she needed. ‘One more’s neither here nor there, though where thee’ll sleep is a mystery. Vi’ll sort that out.’

As she did most things, Bella guessed. A mild mannered little man who all his working life had tipped up his weekly wage packet without protest in return for a bit of baccy money. Now that he was unemployed, Cyril happily continued to refer all major decisions to his wife as the normal way of going about things. ‘Take us as you finds us,’ was his only other comment, evidently referring to the mayhem of children milling around, all seemingly half dressed as they searched for socks, shoes or snap tin, yelling for a jam butty or rushing off saying they hadn’t time even for a slurp of tea.

He didn’t look in the least like the sex fiend Violet had so graphically described, though his eyes certainly filled with love every time he glanced in his wife’s direction. Rather as Dan’s did when he looked into hers.

Bella couldn’t help wondering how that particular friendship might survive, living at such close quarters. Would Dan quickly grow disillusioned, once he saw her on a daily basis, or would it develop into something deeper? Bella couldn’t even make up her mind what she wanted to happen, her mind being too caught up with the near disaster over her clinic to even consider personal feelings at the moment.

Those first few days were difficult, however, despite the warm welcome she received. As she sat down to her first meal with the Howarth family she was presented with a dish of tripe, lightly simmered in milk with onions, a delicacy few Lancastrians could resist but Bella felt her stomach lurch. She’d never developed a fancy for it despite Simeon’s efforts to persuade her to eat it over the years.

‘I’m sorry but I don’t care for tripe.’ She sensed Dan’s curious gaze upon her and avoided meeting it. Violet looked stricken, as well she might since, being cheap, the family largely lived on offal, pig’s trotters or a sheep’s head. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not very hungry, a little bread and butter will do well enough instead. Even so, seeing the small size of the remaining loaf placed before her, Bella’s sense of guilt quadrupled.

‘She can have a slice of mine,’ Dan said, handing one over. ‘We can’t expect a young lady of Miss Isabella’s standing to eat tripe Mother, what were you thinking of.’

At which comment, Bella lost her appetite altogether.

No one, it seemed, had the first idea where Bella had gone, or where she was now. She had apparently vanished off the face of the earth and Edward vowed to do everything in his power to resolve the problem, find his sister, bring her home and effect a reconciliation.

He made several valiant attempts to persuade Simeon to allow Bella back into the house. He’d tried and failed on the night in question and, despite further efforts since, had been given short shrift. After his fourth plea for some sign of forgiveness, if not repentance for his father’s action against her, he recognised the futility of his efforts. The very mention of her name was banned and Edward judiciously decided that in order to maintain peace in the household he must wait a while. For the moment, Simeon remained obdurate.

‘It’s a terrible thing to disown a daughter but she’s gone beyond the pale this time, lad.’ He had cast her off and was done with her.

For all that the cause Bella was involved with was quite radical, even shocking in its way, Edward found this attitude of his father’s hard to understand. For Simeon to find fault with his favourite child, let alone reject her, was unheard of. Hadn’t he always protected Bella - overprotected at times? But then every known facet of Edward’s world had been turned upside down.

Over the years he’d grown accustomed to being in constant conflict with his father but had never been in the habit of criticising his mother. Now he did so, privately at least. Not only had she objected to his wish to marry Jinnie but she neither noticed nor cared that her only daughter was missing from home. Emily was always cloyingly grateful for his rare visits to the sick room and he did his best on these occasions to keep the conversation light, never discussing his future plans. More often than not, however, his mother would suggest that it was time Jinnie went home, back to wherever she belonged, at which point he would beat a hasty retreat.