Trapped In She Town : A Romantic Novella (The Jute Mills Series) (8 page)

“Just leave me with
the bairn again. What you needing to go out gallivanting for. You’ve a husband
here” he moaned.

“John my love.” Mary
soothed. “ I’m not out looking for a husband. I’m just going out to let off a
bit of steam, and have a laugh with Tess.”

The public house was
full of customers and thick with smoke when they arrived. The noise was loud
but not as bad as the noise of the machines at the mill. It was dark inside and
Tess soon pushed her way to the bar and ordered two drinks, which they quickly
downed, and Mary swiftly bought another two. Soon Mary had a nice, fuzzy
feeling and she and Tess were having a laugh with a group of the girls from the
mill that they knew. Most of the other girls were overdressed with the tops of
their bosoms pushed up out of the bodice of their dresses. They were all
singing loudly and Mary began to feel a bit dizzy. Some men from the other side
of the bar had moved closer and were starting to leer at some of the girls, who
were definitely the worse for wear.

“Tess!” Mary shouted
above the din. “I’ve had enough. I’m going to head home now.”

“No way, Mary. The fun
is just beginning” shouted Tess and she turned to laugh at a large florid man
who had his arms flung around her ample waist.

Mary was feeling more
and more uncomfortable as one of the men started to edge closer to her, and so
she pushed her way out of the bar. Outside she gulped some air and felt better.
She still felt light headed though as she walked up the street towards home.
Luckily she didn’t have far to go and she soon pushed open the door to her
flat.

“John my love. What
you doin’ up sho late?” she slurred.

“I was worried about
you Mary. There are a lot of nasty people around here you know” he said, glad
she was home.

What did you think I’d
be up to. We jusht had a couple of shing a longs in the pub”. Mary was drunker
than she thought.

“Mary, I don’t think
you realise what a beautiful woman you are. I don’t want anyone taking
advantage of you ever again”.

Mary laughed “Oh yesh,
beautiful - with the grime of the mill machines everywhere. I can’t even get a
gloss to my hair anymore.” As she said this, she leaned over John and kissed
him. “Is the bairn asleep?”

John couldn’t believe
what was happening and he quickly grabbed Mary onto his laps and started to kiss
her urgently. Mary stumbled over to the bed, giggling all the way with John
quickly following, and they made passionate love. Mary, her inhibitions lost
with the alcohol, taking the lead and straddling John. However she soon passed
out and John was left wondering what had happened. He had certainly enjoyed the
attention Mary had given him, but he was also concerned that it had only been
through the alcohol.

John’s misgivings were
right, as the next night Mary was back to her usual wooden self. So they seemed
to fall into a routine of Mary working in the mill during the week and falling
into bed exhausted. Then at the weekends drinking, so she could perform her
wifely duties.

Mary was soon pregnant
again, and within the space of two years they had two baby girls, Jane and
Annie. They had managed to move into a two roomed flat in Kemback Street as
their family grew, with Mary returning to the mill a few days after each birth.

~~~

When Patrick was born,
Mary had written to her mother and let her know she was a grandmother and that
she was married. They had kept up a very infrequent correspondence as Mary had
never got over the sense of betrayal she felt for everyone there. So she was
surprised to see a letter one morning, with the Aberdeenshire postmark, but not
addressed in her mother’s usual scrawl.

After quickly reading
the letter from her father she looked up and said in a wooden voice “John dear.
I must go up home to Aberdeenshire. My mother and sister are both dead.”

The letter explained
that Beth had died in childbirth and her mother who had been sickly for many
years had passed away two days later of a broken heart at the news. Mary felt a
myriad of different emotions at the news.

She left immediately
for Aberdeenshire as the funeral was the next day, and John was left, this time
with 3 children to look after.

When Mary arrived back
at the family cottage, late that night, her father seemed very angry and
withdrawn, and so Mary went straight to bed. The funeral was the next morning
and Mary would have to leave straight after the service, to ensure she made it
back to Dundee that same evening, so she could start back to work the next
morning. She was not allowed any more time away from the mill.

Mary had mixed feelings
about being home. She thought again, how shabbily she had been treated by her
mother and her sister Beth. She had never got to ask her sister - why? Why did
she steal her sweetheart? As she lay in the darkened bedroom next to her sister
Lizzie, Mary felt anxious about attending the double funeral the next day.
However deep down she knew the real reason for her anxiety – the thought of
seeing George again.

Early, the next
morning her mother’s coffin was taken from the cottage and loaded onto the
undertakers cart and the family walked closely behind as it made its way to the
church and graveyard, where Beth’s coffin waited. The service was a blur to
Mary, and at the graveside she steeled herself to look across at George as the
coffins were being lowered. He was holding the hand of his daughter, his child
with Beth, and looked totally grief-stricken. He was still as handsome as ever
and Mary felt sadness so great that she moaned and a sob tore from her lips.

As soon as the service
was over, Mary kissed her father on the cheek and said goodbye. She didn’t know
when she would see him again and he grabbed her in a bear hug again, just like
he had some 6 years before at the train station in Aberdeen. “I’m sorry, so
sorry Mary” he cried.

As Mary hurried down
the path out of the graveyard she heard someone running after her.

“Mary, please wait”.
Mary froze on the spot. It was George.

He stood in front of
her and took her hands in his.

“Mary I know this is
not the time and place, but I have to tell you the truth. I was sworn to
secrecy by Beth and your mother, but now you need to know.” He told her
earnestly.

“Oh Mary you are still
so beautiful. I never stopped loving you for one day. You need to know that. I
was as good a husband as I could be to Beth, I cared for her. But there was
always that portion of my heart that was never hers, and always yours” he
poured out.

“Don’t be ridiculous, George”
Mary replied angrily. “You couldn’t wait to jump into Beth’s arms as soon as I
was sent away to Dundee. Your heart is fickle. Please leave me be, I need to
get back to my family in Dundee”

“Mary, I’ll let you go
now. But you need to know that my heart was never fickle; it was never steered
from its course of love for you.” And George went on to explain to Mary that
after she had left for Dundee Beth had got pregnant by a travelling farmhand,
who moved on after the harvest. Mary’s mother had begged George to help them
and make a legal union so the child would not be born out of wedlock.

“You know how it is
around here Mary” he pleaded. “Beth would have been ostracised. Your parents
told me that you had fallen in love with one of the valets in the house and
were to be wed”.

And so Mary came to
learn that George had sacrificed their love to help her sister.

“Oh George” she sobbed
into his chest. “How unfair life is. I’ve always loved you and was torn apart
when I got the letter from my mother about you and Beth.”

She went on to tell
him about Edward and how John had saved her by marrying her. She then pulled
herself together and steeling herself she told him that she must get back to
Dundee. “My family are waiting for me there.”

George nodded sadly
and let her go.

~~~

John had been worried
about Mary meeting George again, and he knew his fears were not unfounded when
Mary returned, very distant and lost in her thoughts most of the time.

However, John didn’t
have long to dwell on these fears, as a week after Mary had returned from
Aberdeenshire, she couldn’t rise from her bed. She had been coughing and
wheezing for a few months. This had seemed to get better at the weekends when
she didn’t work and worsen again during the week. Tess told her she had ‘Mill
Fever’, the dust and heat from the machines affecting her lungs.

This particular
morning Mary was having difficulty breathing and was coughing up mucus. John
called the doctor and he was told gravely that Mary had bronchitis. John tended
to her as her fever rose, and never left her side, except to get her some water
to sip and something to cool her fevered brow.

Tess took in the
children, and a week later Mary’s fever broke.

Mary recovered and
carried on working at the mill to ensure the children were fed, but over the
next two years she was constantly getting sick and having time away from work.
She now seemed to have a permanent hacking cough.

One afternoon around
three, Tess came running up the hill to batter on the front door of the little
flat. John came running out at the noise.

“John! John! It’s Mary
again” she cried out. “She collapsed in front of the machine at work. John,
it’s a miracle she wasn’t caught up in the machine and mangled. The supervisor
isnae happy.”

“Where is she now
Tess?”

“They took her to the
doctors”

When John got there,
the doctor took him to one side. “Your wife is seriously ill. Her lungs can’t
take any more of the dust in that factory. If she goes back to work there I
give her eight months. I’m sorry.”

When John saw Mary, he
thought she was already dead. “Oh Mary, my love.” he sobbed. “I’m sorry. Please
just get better and I will search and search until I get a job. There is no way
I’m letting you step foot back inside that mill.”

Mary was busy scrubbing the little flat from top to bottom. It
didn’t matter how hard, or how often she swept and scrubbed, she could never
seem to get rid of the layer of dust and grime that settled on everything.
There was nothing she could do but keep cleaning it every day as the mill
chimneys just kept pumping out their never-ending plumes of black smoke, up and
out over the town.

She couldn’t wait until they moved into their new home across the
water in Leuchars. She remembered John’s anguish when she had taken ill the
last time.

Once she recovered, he had told her again how much he loved her and
voiced his fears for her.

“You can’t keep working in that mill Mary. It will be the death of
you.” he had cried “Look how many of your friends have been injured or are too
sick to work with mill fever and bronchitis. We nearly lost you already. I’m
going to find a job right away and you will get better and look after the
bairns.”

John had been as good as his word and had found a position as head
groomsman at a large house over in Fife. The position came with a small house
for him and his family, which they were to be moving into as soon as the old,
outgoing groomsman had finished up. John had started two weeks before and was
learning the ropes from the old man. The older man was to be moving in with his
daughter in Tayport, and the house would be ready for them next week.

So, every morning John was away at 6 o’clock to head to the train
station and over on the train to Leuchars.

Mary thought back to Christmas Day, three days before. John had been
given the day off, and to see the smiles on the children’s wee pinched faces
had been a delight. They had managed to buy a little toy for each child; a
spinning top for Patrick and a doll each for Jane and Annie. Then they had all
walked up the road to the park where they had gone sledging in the snow. They
had carried on to the “Swannie” Ponds which was iced over and watched some
young people skating. There had been so much laughter, and for the first time
since she had left her home in Aberdeenshire, almost ten years before, Mary
felt contentment.

She had a husband who loved her and was now providing for her and
her family, even although the lovemaking for her was still a problem. She was
so happy that her children would soon be growing up in the fresh air and green
fields of Fife. She knew she couldn’t have survived much longer working in the
mill. The dust had take its toll on her health and lungs, and the wages were no
longer enough to feed her growing brood. Her biggest fear had been for her
beloved Patrick. He was now 7 years old and she had not wanted to see him
following in the footsteps of the other children living around here and
entering the mills to work at eight. The smiles soon wore off the faces of
these children as they trudged each day to the mill.

Once she had finished cleaning, she saw the large, black rain clouds
scudding over and she called the children in from the backies where they were
out playing with all the local children. She noticed that the windows had
started to rattle violently too as the wind started to get up.