At the beginning of November forty-nine mills had closed and 119 were on short time, but the sad news the following month of the sudden death of the Prince Consort, Her Majesty the Queen’s beloved husband, overshadowed even the distress which the American war was causing in the Lancashire cotton towns. There had been rumours that the Prince was dangerously ill and he was sinking fast, then that he had rallied and that no serious alarm was felt.
When the bell of St Paul’s tolled at midnight on 13 December apprehension began to spread among the Queen’s loyal subjects and the following day, a Sunday, when those who attended church noticed the omission of the Prince’s name in the liturgy, the appalling truth was realised. Grief was universal, just as though each household had lost a dear and honoured relative; and on the day of his funeral every shop and factory and mill in the land was closed and every private residence drew its window blinds.
Annie wept inconsolably, much to the alarm of Kitty who sought sanctuary on the black-clad knee of her Aunty Jennet, who had felt it was only right to wear mourning, at least on this one day. She rounded fiercely on Nancy who, sitting restlessly in the darkened parlour which was now tastefully furnished, not with new stuff but with good second-hand pieces, was grumbling that she could well spend her time to better advantage in a trip to Liverpool and the Cotton Exchange.
“I know the Prince was a good man, respected and held in great affection by the people, but would he like to think that all over the north many thousands of his wife’s subjects are starving? Even a day wasted might mean the difference between life and death to—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Nancy. One day will change nothing. And besides, do you think the Liverpool Cotton Exchange is somehow miraculously to produce the cotton you need? I heard that Hayes of Monarch Manufacturing is to go on short time next week and that the only cotton available will be that brought over from India.”
The three women, Annie, Jennet and Mary, were so shocked by the tragedy that their Queen had suffered and by their own sense of sadness that they did not notice Nancy wince as the name of Hayes was mentioned. They
had
noticed, naturally, that she had been far from her usual brisk and confident self over the past few months but they had put that down to the slow dwindling of business, the need to put, first on short time and then no time at all, more than half of the machinists in her employ.
“And a fat lot of good that is to anyone,” she answered bitterly, referring to the Indian cotton, “unless you want to make sacking. It’s badly packed. It’s dirty, knotty and full of seeds and leaves and at best is suitable only for coarse cloth. Manchester is where fine spinning is done. There is very little fine-quality yarn to be had and you know full well that is the only sort that is any good to us.”
“I am aware of that, but there is little to be done about it, my dear.” Jennet’s voice softened and she leaned across the table to take Nancy’s feverishly plaiting fingers between her own. “Perhaps this war will not last long. It seems there is little happening at the moment and if the two sides can settle their differences peaceably the supply of cotton will begin again.”
“And in the meantime we do what? As soon as we are no longer able to get cotton yarn I shall have to let the machines go, since I can no longer afford to hire them. So, if what you say is true and the Hayes Mill is to go on short time there will be very little available and the chances of us getting any are very slim. We have a few pounds in the bank but that won’t last much longer and we have to eat and pay the rent on this house.”
“We’ll manage, dearest, we always do.”
Nancy could feel the irritation rise in her. It was all very well saying “we’ll manage” in that soothing tone of voice as though Jennet were talking to a child, but when it came right down to it did Jennet have any ideas as to how?
She asked her.
“How?”
“We . . . we will find work, the three of us.”
“There is no work, Jennet. Do you think that all those on poor relief, which will be us before long if we don’t find jobs, would not be working if there was work to be had. Manchester lives by cotton. Every trade there is, is allied to cotton. We owe money to Hetty Underwood. I know she said it was an investment but she expected a return for that investment and so far has had none because we have put our profits back into the business. She will be one of the first to go under unless she can make a living out of her fancy goods. But then she has private means so will survive, but there are thousands and thousands who won’t, us included. There were 583,950 operatives working full time at the beginning of this year. Do you know how many there are now?”
“No, but—”
“There are 121,129 and that is in the whole of Lancashire.”
There was a long, sad, drawn-out silence and the child on Jennet’s knee huddled closer, sensing the oppression of her elders. Mary, who was ready to go anywhere, do anything their Nancy told her, looked about her uncomprehendingly, her face anxious, wishing she could lift the spirits of the others but then it was a sad day anyway with poor Prince Albert passing away and all.
She lifted her head bravely. “I don’t mind going back to the mill, our Nancy, just until things get better.”
“Don’t talk daft, Mary Brody,” Nancy snapped. “There’s no bloody cotton, not in the spinning-rooms nor the weaving sheds so how are you to work a frame, tell me that?”
“Nay, don’t speak to’t child like that, Nancy Brody. She’s only a bit of a kid an’ don’t understand,” Annie remonstrated, forgetting that Nancy herself was only seventeen.
Nancy gritted her teeth and did her best to find the patience that was needed to deal with this family of hers who confidently believed that she could put it all to rights. They relied on her. They had implicit faith that she would find a way. Hadn’t she always? Even Jennet, who had more of a feel for business than Mary, who had none, believed that if they were patient, drew in their belts, cut back a little here and there, they would come through. A few months of hardship perhaps, and then, when the war in America was resolved and cotton began to flow once more into the port of Liverpool, they would regain the success they had known in the past eighteen months. But it would be longer than a few months. She and Mrs Underwood had discussed it. She had talked to men at the warehouse – the Hayes warehouse – and the opinion of most was that this crisis would not be resolved quickly.
Her voice was quiet but firm when she spoke. “We have to find a way to keep going until this war is over and cotton, good cotton, is available again. We’ve come so far . . .”
Nancy’s expression became introspective as she considered just how far they had travelled in the past eight years, her memory reaching back to the three little girls who had found themselves abandoned by the woman who, though she had hardly been the kind of mother a child would choose, had, nevertheless, done her best. She recalled that squalid hovel in Angel Meadow which had been the only home they had ever known. She returned in spirit to the spinning-room in the mill where she and her sisters, though still no more than children, had performed an adult’s job. Inch by slow inch they had dragged themselves, like small animals from a swamp, clawing and fighting for every fingerhold, out of the filth, out of the morass in which so many of those with whom they had lived side by side were trapped.
God, how had they done it? How had they found the strength, the will, the sheer bloody-minded determination, the nerve, to be somebody against such odds? To live decent, respectable, worthwhile lives. The hours, days, weeks, months, years they had spent learning to read and write, to find out from books how to better themselves, to feed themselves on nourishing food, to clothe themselves. They had lifted their heads and squared their shoulders and ignored the envious jeers of those about them who had not the gumption the Brody girls had. It was a bloody miracle, that’s what it was; and yet, was it? A miracle implies that some being, some quirk of fate had stepped in and bestowed a magic phenomenon on three little girls, giving them a chance not afforded to others. And it had not been like that at all.
They
had done it! They had made it happen. The Brody girls. No one else. They had slaved, coped, stirred themselves, planned, calculated, contrived, plotted, used cunning, resourcefulness, diplomacy – oh, yes, remember Mr Earnshaw of Earnshaw’s Fine Shirts – and it had led them to this small house in a respectable neighbourhood, to the success of the factory, to her association with Hetty Underwood, to all the shadowed fantasies she had dreamed of, worked for, connived at since the day she had understood that Mam was gone for ever and the Brody girls were on their own. Was she any worse off now than she had been then? Of course she wasn’t. Then she had been a child feeling her way instinctively through a maze of awesome hazards with no knowledge of how any move she might make would turn out. But she had done it. She had been lucky. She had found Jennet and Mrs Underwood and, of course, Annie and she had suceeded; her only sadness was that also on the way she had lost Rosie.
But now she was a woman. A woman of experience who, though it might take a while, would find her way back to where she had been at the beginning of the year. She would do it. She must not fall into a pit of despair. She, and the others, would do what had to be done, and she would succeed.
She sighed deeply and the others watched her, the dancing firelight playing across their anxious faces. It was dim and cosy in the small parlour with the curtains drawn. It was quiet too, for there was no traffic rattling up and down Bury New Road today. The people of Manchester, like the people in every town and city and hamlet up and down the country, were paying their last respects to the Queen’s husband and the streets were deserted.
On the rug in front of the fire Scrap stretched and yawned noisily then shuffled herself into a more comfortable position. The child began to nod against Jennet’s breast. A piece of coal fell into the embers of the fire with a small crash and sparks leaped up the chimney. The Dutch clock, which had been transferred from the kitchen, ticked musically and it seemed the company held its breath.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Nancy announced firmly and was faintly amused when each of them relaxed and leaned back in their chairs. It was all right after all, their attitude seemed to say. Nancy would solve it as she always did, and so she would, a small but confident voice inside her said, the one that had spoken to her just after Mam disappeared.
The man behind the bar counter of the Grove Inn eyed her suspiciously as she hesitated on his threshold, for she was not the sort of woman who usually frequented his public house. The Grove Inn was a respectable place where working men, and sometimes their women, came to drink a pint of ale. A country inn of good repute for country folk but it had been known for the sons of manufacturers and even the gentry to stop, tie their thoroughbred horses to his fence post and take a glass of brandy in his bar parlour. For a bit of fun! A lark, as they called it. To mix with the lower orders, which they seemed to find diverting, and as long as they behaved themselves Sid Ainsworth did not object. Their money was as good as anybody’s. They liked the food his Ginny cooked and served and he wasn’t surprised, for it was the best to be had in any inn within a fifty-mile radius. Plain and nourishing and well cooked with the best ingredients to be had at Smithfield Market.
Nancy had never before been inside a beer house. Waited outside one, oh yes, many a time, looking for her mam, and had seen the men – and women – who drank and fought in such a place. Navvies and whores and local bullies, men full of ale who would take exception to the colour of another man’s neckcloth, especially the Irish, or the cut of his waistcoat. Men like Mick O’Rourke who would take part in the bare-knuckle prize fights held in the yard. Places of ill-repute which the local constabulary steered well clear of.
She was pleasantly surprised by the low-ceilinged, oak-panelled bar-parlour which smelled acceptably of spirits and ale and tobacco. It was spotlessly clean, everything polished that could be polished, so that the pale winter sunshine filtering through the small, frosted, many-paned windows reflected, in brass pump handles, lamps, rows of pewter tankards, the glowing woodwork of the bar counter itself. There was a log fire of gigantic proportions roaring up the chimney like a lion on the attack and she felt a great desire to sidle up to it, for it was bitter outside. She had set off from the house cold, for already Annie had begun the stringent economies with which they were to beat this terrible time and the fire in the kitchen range had been meagre. A thick hoar frost was spread like crystals of sugar across every surface, roofs, gardens, cobblestones and even as she hurried up Bury New Road she had seen the pitiful sight of a horse drawing a hansom cab go down with a crash and a scream.
The man behind the counter was massive of shoulder though not tall. His bull neck, what there was of it, and bullet head, which was shaved almost to the bone, for what purpose she couldn’t imagine, seemed to sit directly in the centre of his shoulders. His hands, which he placed threateningly on the bar top, were enormous, the size of dinner plates at the end of arms that were like young tree-trunks.
She smiled cautiously, unaware that her oddly slanted mouth, which had been held rigidly in nervous anticipation, relaxed, became fuller, softer and more appealing.
“Yes, miss?” the man said, smiling back, not quite sure how to address her, since she was not his usual kind of customer.
“Good morning,” she said brightly. She had been in a quandary over what she should wear for this interview. She wished to appear decent, respectable but not
prim
. What did a barmaid wear in such circumstances? She didn’t know, having seen only the slatterns who served in the beer house at the corner of Church Court, so she had decided on a plain, poppy-coloured cotton gown with short sleeves and a not too full skirt, achieved by discarding three of her starched white petticoats. The dress had been run up for her in the factory at the beginning of the summer, intended for country walks of a sunny Sunday. Over it, she supposed, she would wear an apron, but the colour suited her, bringing colour to her cheeks and highlighting her golden eyes. Her hair she had tied loosely back with a poppy-coloured velvet ribbon, leaving long, curling tendrils to drift about her neck and ears and a tumble of corkscrew curls on her forehead. She looked quite glorious, even the deep scar on her cheek giving her an air of individuality, apart from her beauty, which would catch any man’s eye.