Invited to speak at a women’s meeting being held at the Congregational School hall, Bella decided to put the case for her Mothers’ Clinic with vigour. Not for a moment would she allow the Dr Lisle’s of this world to damage her cause.
She went alone and on foot, untroubled as always at walking through the tangled web of narrow streets. They were never empty, there always being something going on. This evening was no exception. Overexcited dogs bounded after her while bowlegged children looked up from their game of marbles, or top and whip, to watch her walk by, giving them all a cheery wave. Bored men lounging on street corners fell momentarily silent, though one or two doffed their caps as they recognised the familiar sight of her firm young figure striding past.
The knife grinder was standing on one corner, a queue of women idly gossiping while they waited patiently to have their knives sharpened. Others, still wearing their mill aprons, known as ‘brats’, sat on their kitchen stools gossiping and crocheting at ever-open doors on this warm summer evening, their mouths moving while no sound came out as they conducted their conversations in complete privacy over the heads of unsuspecting children, a skill they’d acquired in the mill. Bella smiled and nodded as she passed by, stopping to exchange a word here and there with one or other of them.
One woman, Sally Clarke, ran after her, to grasp Bella by the arm. ‘Hey up, love, I’m right glad to see you. I’ve been wanting to come to that clinic, only I daren’t.’
Bella smiled encouragingly at her. She’d been a regular visitor to Mrs Clarke’s house ever since Aunt Edie had warned her that the woman needed help after her last confinement. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of Sally. Why don’t you pop in next Tuesday morning?’
‘Me husband’d kill me if he ever found out. Tha knows how high church he is for all he’s not a Catholic. Doctor says if I has any more childer I’m done for, so Reg asked our vicar if there were owt as he could do like, and he tell’d him that abstinence was bad for his health and contraception against the laws of decency, so Reg says we’re not to use owt. Goes against his scruples.’
‘Scruples?’ Bella was incensed. ‘What about your health? Doesn’t he care about that?’
‘Aye, well, there’s no answer to that one, is there?’ Sally glanced back over her shoulder, nervous that he might even now be listening and then hurried on with her explanation. ‘I wondered like, if I sent one of me older childer, if you’d happen give her summat fer me. In a plain packet.’
Bella sadly shook her head. ‘You have to be properly examined, Sally. You have to come yourself.’
‘
Sally
!’ A door banged somewhere in the nether regions of the house and an angry voice wafted out along with the sour-sweet aroma of unwashed sweat and urine. Panic lit Sally’s eyes as she peered fearfully into the gloom of the lobby. ‘I’ll send our Mavis,’ she hissed, then rushed back inside leaving Bella facing a half naked infant who sat bare-bottomed on the cold doorstep, sucking his thumb.
Bella arrived early at the hall but from the outset she could sense antagonism in the air. The audience was middle-class and hostile. They were there to air their own views, not listen to hers. Nevertheless, she managed to remain collected and patient throughout the ordeal of the next hour or more and, she hoped, give little sign of her inner nervousness. Spurred on by Sally’s plight, she did not shirk this golden opportunity to press home the failure of any Church - Catholic, Anglican or Nonconformist, to give sound advice to desperate women on the subject of family limitation.
One matron rose to her feet and announced that she herself had four children and agreed that childbirth was both agonising and highly dangerous. ‘Nevertheless, having lost two sons in the Great War, I’m grateful that I had a large family. And since the working classes lose even more offspring to disease and malnourishment, it is surely necessary for them to have numerous children.’ She sat down to rousing applause.
Bella responded by informing her audience that her battle was equally against poverty and ill health, both of which were caused as much by overpopulation as economic factors, and that it did the middle-classes no credit to simply sit back and do nothing to help prevent these evils. ‘Many would be glad to confine their families to four, if only they knew how. Why leave these poor women in ignorance of information that the better educated have known for some time? That’s nothing short of prejudice and neglect of the worst possible kind.’
The result was uproar.
People were on their feet shouting for her to leave. There were even cries for her to be arrested and put into prison. One overexcited woman screamed that she was guilty of murdering innocents.
‘I believe you are confusing contraceptives with abortion,’ Bella responded, lifting her voice as best she could above the din.
Throughout, Bella held her cool, even striding from the platform into their midst, ready to continue the discussion with all-comers. She stood, hatless, as was her wont, surrounded by a raucous and self-opinionated group of women, none of whom seemed prepared to hold silent long enough to listen to any reasoned argument.
Even when she finally emerged into the humid warmth of a summer night, it was to find the usual group of protesters on the doorstep of the hall. Their demonstration seemed even noisier than usual, joined as they were by the women from the meeting. Eggs and flour were hurled at her, splattering her costume and Bella felt suddenly bone weary. She hadn’t expected this to be easy but it disturbed her to be so treated by other women. Surely they should understand, even if everyone else, the government, the Church, ignorant husbands, even the medical profession refused to alter their obdurate attitude?
One particularly large missile hit the side of her head and she stumbled and half fell, would have done so had not a hand reached out to support her. ‘Oh, thank you.’ The arms that held her were young, male and taut with muscles beneath rolled up shirt sleeves. She could see a pair of corduroy trousers held fast by a wide leather belt, a canvas bag slung across his back, hob nailed boots, seeming to indicate that the man was on his way home from work. She glanced up to offer a smile of gratitude and met a pair of piercing blue eyes that regarded her with blatant approval from beneath a slouch cap tilted back at a rakish angle over floppy brown hair. High cheek bones, a long straight nose and a wide mouth, slightly lifted at one corner in a devil-may-care sort of smile all conspired to present the most handsome face Bella had ever encountered in her life.
Her mind seemed to go numb and for a moment she could think of nothing to say. She could only look deeply into those eyes which served to remind her, so forcibly, that pioneer of sorts she may be but Isabella Ashton was also a young woman. The power of the muscles beneath her hand, the strength of his hold upon her, even the warm and sweaty closeness of his body left her feeling slightly breathless. She attempted to release herself from his grip but only half succeeded for he kept an arm protectively about her as she began to brush herself down.
‘Thank you, I’m fine now. A slight accident, that’s all.’ Bella knew she should move away from that encircling arm but somehow felt reluctant to do so. It must be for reasons of safety, she told herself, for he was not her sort of man at all. Far too rough looking, the greyness of his chin indicating he was in dire need of a shave.
‘Accident my left foot. Those witches were out to get you.’
She let out a shrill laugh, hearing it ring high-pitched and hollow, fervently wishing he would remove his hand from where it now rested on her middle back. Bella could feel the heat of it burning through the thin cotton jacket she wore. ‘Don’t be too hard on them. They have every right to their opinion.’
‘But not to knock ye down when you express yer own. Will ye let me buy you a good Irish whiskey, to steady yer nerves?’
Bella could think of nothing she’d like better but politely declined. She thought it might not be quite appropriate to be seen entering a public house with this man, though she was sure he was probably entirely respectable. He was holding out one hand for her to take. It was perfectly clean, well shaped and with tidily trimmed finger nails. ‘Billy Quinn at yer service.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Quinn. Isabella Ashton,’ and she gave him her own hand which he held far too long before letting it go with reluctance. The impression of his fingers against hers remained with her for some moments afterwards.
‘Are ye any better now? I could feel ye shaking. Ach, they are indeed witches, the whole blame lot of ‘em. Come on, I’m taking you for a pick-me-up, no protests allowed.’
‘Thanks, Quinn, but I’ll see to Miss Ashton.’ Dan Howarth materialised out of the crowd before them. And Bella hadn’t even known that he was there.
She frowned in surprise while noticing how her rescuer bristled, how his hand clenched into a fist behind her back. ‘And who d’you think ye are? Her guardian angel?’
‘Something of the sort, Quinn. She certainly needs no help from the likes of you.’
Quinn fingered the buckle of his wide leather belt as he regarded Dan out of narrowed eyes. ‘And does she have any say in this, I wonder.’
Dan ignored him. ‘Come on, Bella. I’m taking you home.’
Quinn was tugging on the leather thong, as if threatening to loosen the belt. Heart in mouth, Bella recognised the aggression mounting between the two men, could feel the air almost crackle with it. She liked Dan a lot and was heartily relieved to see him now for all she’d already been safely rescued, yet for some reason the two men seemed to be seconds away from a brawl. If that buckle were ever swung in anger, as was commonly done in these parts, she was concerned that Dan might come off the worst, despite his impressive physique.
She smiled into those devastating eyes. ‘It’s all right Mr Quinn. Dan Howarth is a friend of mine. I’m quite happy to go with him.’ Allowing no opportunity for Bella to even thank her saviour for picking her up off the pavement, Dan commandeered her arm and began to thrust his way through the throng of curious onlookers.
In truth, Bella was grateful for his opportune arrival, unexpected as it was. There was something about Billy Quinn which she’d found strangely disturbing, almost an animal magnetism about him, though there’d undoubtedly been an undeniable chemistry between them. She glanced back to see that he still stood where they’d left him, thumbs hooked in the leather belt at his waist, cap pushed back on his head now and a smile she didn’t care to investigate too closely on his handsome face. But she couldn’t help hoping she might meet up with him again. In happier circumstances, of course.
‘Lord, Violet, I thought they were going to lynch me,’ Bella said later, as she sat in the comforting safety of her friend’s kitchen with a glass of stout in her hand. She would have preferred to share Violet’s pot of tea but Dan had bought a jug of it from the selling-out shop, on the basis that she was in dire need of its strength. Bella didn’t argue. She sipped the unfamiliar bitter liquid and hoped it would indeed calm her frayed nerves and stop her hands from shaking. ‘I’ve never been so petrified in all my life.’
‘Ignorant beggars,’ Violet announced, and took a long slurp from her own mug of hot, sweet tea in disgust. ‘You shouldn’t have gone on yer own, that’s the trouble. You should’ve tekken Dr Syd with you.’
‘Dr Syd has her own role to play. She has medical qualifications which I don’t have. This is my role: to educate, to inform, to raise funds. I can’t go crying to her for help every five minutes.’
‘I’ll come with you next time,’ Dan announced. ‘With the likes of Billy Quinn in the vicinity, God knows what might have happened if I hadn’t arrived on the scene.’
She was about to ask how Dan had chanced to be there at all that evening when Violet interrupted, her face a picture of outrage. ‘Billy Quinn? That good-fer-nothing young whippersnapper. He wants his nose knocking out of joint, does Billy Quinn.’
‘Why, what’s wrong with him? Who is Billy Quinn? He seemed a very helpful young man. I’d’ve fallen and been trampled underfoot had it not been for his help.’
‘He’s a bookmaker, that’s what Billy Quinn is. And a Roman Catholic.’ Which was almost as bad in Violet’s eyes. ‘He’s trouble. That’s what Billy Quinn is. Aye, nowt but trouble,’ she repeated, as if to emphasise the fact.
Bella smiled, having a sudden image of the handsome Quinn and feeling her cheeks grow warm as a result. ‘I thought everyone liked a bit of a flutter and, for all street betting is illegal, it’s common practice in these parts, isn’t it? Bit of a lark.’