A Woman Undefeated (32 page)

Selwyn Lodge! She had passed that house often on Burton Road, when she used to take a shortcut through the farmer’s field. It was a grand building, in its own grounds, and the back of the house looked on to the sea. Maggie looked in awe at Miss Rosemary, but managed to ask, weakly,

“That house belongs to you?”

“Yes, it is our old family house. It is named Selwyn Lodge after my father’s mother’s family. Her ancestors came from Wales and my father did very well with his business interest. Not only did he leave me the family home, I also own some cottages on Parkgate Road.”

Maggie whistled through her teeth at that information. Who would have believed the dressmaker had her own shop and all those properties!

“And that is where you, Mikey and me are going to live?” she queried, still feeling stunned.

“That is if you want to, Maggie. It is in rather a dilapidated state inside at the moment. You tend to find that when people rent your house, they are not as careful in its treatment as they would their own. It also needs some modernization, as it needs a bathroom putting in. As regards refurbishment, you could help me make new curtains, bedspreads, and anything you think we need to make our lives more comfortable. It won’t be straight away, because I have to give notice to the couple who live there. The reason why I’ve decided to make some changes in my life is purely
selfish. I’m not getting any younger. No, no dear, I don’t mind telling you, I’m the wrong side of sixty. Sometimes at night when I’m on my own here, I get frightened. Being so close to all these inns and taverns makes me nervous, and what if I was coming down the stairs in the morning and fell?”

“So you want me to be like a companion and live in with yer?” Maggie said, thinking that the prospective job sounded very pleasant.

“Well, I suppose it would be something like that, but I would not call you my companion. You have become like a daughter to me. You seem to be the only person that I could say, hand on heart, cares for me. Except Ezra, I suppose...” she finished hastily.

“I don’t know what to say, Miss Rosemary. You’ve stunned me. Me, Maggie Mayo as was, livin’ in a grand house on Burton Road. All I can say fer now is that the good Lord looks after his own!”

“Yes, I heartily agree with those sentiments, though there might be a few problems achieving our aim. Firstly from the point of view of your marriage. You were telling me that Jack didn’t come over as expected. Do you know why that was?”

“Oh, they’d had a falling out over something, him and Alice,” she replied. It was best for now to keep Alice’s suspicions to herself.

“I did make some inquiries on your behalf, when I went to see my solicitor in Chester. He seemed to think that if your child’s welfare has been tantamount in your arrangements, then Jack has no call to litigation, should you take Mikey away from the family home. I thought perhaps we could find a nursery maid for the little fellow and leave you free to help with my next plan. I thought that maybe you would like to take over the running of my shop and my other interests too. Of course, I would not be sitting at home idle, but I would like to be a little more in the background. Put my feet up, as they say!”

Again, what could Maggie say? She was seventeen years old, had been in this new country just over one year, married with a baby, and here was this wonderful woman offering her things that if she had lived in Neston for fifty years, she would never have achieved on her own.

“Do you think you would be up to it, Maggie?” Betty broke in, as she saw that the girl was wearing a look that was pensive.

“Well, I’m sure with your backing and encouragement, I could do anything I put me mind to, Miss Rosemary. I just can’t take everything in that yer tellin’ me!”

“Maggie, I am sure you will rise up and overcome all adversities. Now we’ll have another sherry to put a seal on it, and in future you are to call me Betty, not Miss Rosemary!”

The shop was quiet over the first few weeks of January and Maggie was able to make a dress for Alice. It was similar to the ankle length skirt and figure hugging bodice, that she wore herself nowadays, but in a dark shade of green. Alice was very pleased with the result and thanked her profusely.

Her in-laws were on tenterhooks again, because Jack wasn’t really back to full fitness. The next match which was to take place in Southport, was nearly upon him, but he had been getting bad headaches again. Michael decided to ask for an interview with Lord Belsham, to speak on behalf of his son. The interview took place in the suite of rooms at the Adelphi Hotel, that His Lordship always reserved for himself when he had business in the city.

He was not an uncaring man and listened to Michael fairly sympathetically, but he was beginning to think that he had been unwise in his choice of protege.

“I think that we must send Jack to see my consultant,” he had said. “He has a practice in Rodney Street and if he pronounces your son as unfit, we will have to think again about my patronage. I could not be held responsible if Jack did not recover from this show in Southport. My father would be hopping mad and there would be an absolute stink. So, if my consultant says he isn’t up to it, we will pull out or get a stand in. I am toying with the idea of transferring my interest to the America’s anyway. Railroads maybe, or I might get back into the sport again. New York or Chicago. I’ve heard that the fighting is just as strongly supported over there.”

Michael had come back a few days later, to say that Jack would
be coming back home for further recuperation. The house was to be closed up for the time being in Toxteth and the cook and the housemaid would be going back to the agency.

His words threw Maggie into panic. What of her plans to move into the grand house with Betty and look after Betty’s business interests too? Just when the future was looking more rosy, Jack was moving back to his parents’ home again.

While she waited in trepidation for her husband’s return, Maggie still worked every afternoon at the dressmaker’s. As she was stitching away on the finishing touches to an evening gown, the front door opened and a client inched her way in. It was Miss Madeline. She had hoped that one day she would get to meet this young woman, to see the person for whom she had worked on her huge crinoline.

The first thing she noticed about Miss Madeline was her glorious red hair. It wasn’t carrot coloured, nor what an onlooker would call ginger, it was in between that, maybe titian. It was shiny and bright, tied up into a Roman style at the back of her head, which cascaded into bubbly curls, and was adorned with pale blue ribbons.

She had what could be called a heart shaped face, which sat upon a long neck, though the look was probably the effect of her hair being tied up. Her nose was pert and her brown eyes were fringed with curling lashes. Her skin was creamy white with a few freckles here and there.

She was only a little taller than Alice, which made her about five feet two. She had on the second crinoline that Maggie had worked on. This was the one with four layers, each with a fringe sewn on the hem. It was in two different shades, royal and azure blue.

“Hello, may I speak to Miss Rosemary?” she inquired, as she stood in the dressmaker’s doorway, leaving it open wide. “Oh, you must be Maggie, the girl, I am told, who spent all that time on my crinoline. Such fine needlework, I have to say.”

“Miss Rosemary has gone to Chester, to the fabric house. Can I be of any help to yer?”

“I have another dress in mind that I would like to commission. It’s for my forthcoming marriage. We have to see the priest, of course, before we can set a date, but maybe May or June, we thought. Apple blossom colours and in the style of a milkmaid.”

“A milkmaid?” Maggie replied faintly.

“You know, a low shouldered bodice, with lots of stiffened white petticoats and a creamy fabric pinned up into wide loops above it. On each side of the loops would be little green ribbons made into bows. If you have some paper I could sketch it for you. Or would you rather I called back when Miss Rosemary is around?”

“I think yer should call on her tomorrer. I’ll tell her of your intention when she gets back.”

“Very well. Perhaps I’ll see you again when I come for my fittings? I am pleased to have met you, Maggie. Good day.”

Maggie couldn’t help laughing when Miss Madeline had gone. A milkmaid outfit indeed. The crinoline was taking its time, thank goodness, to catch on in Neston. Would a milkmaid style gown ever become the fashion of the day?

When Betty came back, she was intrigued to hear that her young client from the Brown Horse was getting married.

“I didn’t know that she had a beau,” she said. “She has never mentioned one to me. Her conversation is usually about the fabrics I can get in Chester and fashionable styles. Sometimes she has brought in her sketches to show me. I believe she gets very bored in the quarters her uncle has given her. He won’t allow her to go into any of the public areas, so she must get very lonely, poor soul.”

“Has she told yer anymore about where she came from?” Maggie asked curiously. “It seems very strange, the way she suddenly popped up, as if out of nowhere.”

“All I can surmise from the little she has told me, is that her father had a position of importance on a landowner’s estate. She went to a private school and wanted to go to some place in Paris to study, but her father said enough was enough.”

“Oh well, if she’s going to be coming to see yer over this
milkmaid’s outfit she wants yer to make, she’ll probably say who she’s goin’ to marry to yerself.”

Jack came back to Seagull Cottage at the end of January. Maggie was half expecting that the single mattress would be brought down from the attic again.

Alice was in a flurry of excitement, dropping little hints that once Jack was back again with them, everything would be right again. She had made an enormous meal for his welcome dinner. A steak and kidney pie that oozed with gravy, cabbage and fluffy potatoes and a custard pie for dessert. She had put on her best outfit to show Jack how his wife, Maggie, had come on in leaps and bounds with her needlework.

Maggie put on her purple dress, the one that Jack should have seen the last time. Her nightdress was draped across the counterpane on the double bed, high necked and long sleeved. Enough to cool any man’s ardour, especially her husband’s, she had thought.

They all sat down around the table after their satisfying meal. Jack seemed a little on edge, but Maggie put it down to him feeling uneasy with his mother. Though Alice had chatted enough for all of them, she had, it seemed for the sake of her son, put the past away.

Maggie thought that Jack must have really suffered from his injuries in his last bout, as his nose was slightly crooked, one of his front teeth was cracked and he had a scar under his left eye from a deep cut that hadn’t healed very well. He was pale and he had lost all his healthy colour and she noticed that now and again the side of his mouth twitched. His attire, though, was still splendid, dressed as he was like a man who had made good.

“So have yer thought what yer’ll do now the fightin’ is behind yer, Jack?” asked Alice, shooing Maggie away, as she got up to take the plates to the scullery.

“No, you see to Mikey, Maggie. I’ll do the dishes later on. Would yer look at him, Jack? Hasn’t he grown? Six months old
now and can pull himself up to get a good look around him and Maggie doesn’t have to be on call so much, now that he can eat a bit of porridge and a biscuit mushed up with a little milk. So, have yer thought of goin’ back to see the farmer and see if he’ll take yer on again? Not that I’m wanting you and Maggie to move out to live in a cottage as before. I thought mebbe you could get work with him when he needs yer, or any farm if it comes to that.”

“Leave it, Mother,” put in Michael, seeing Jack was searching for an answer. His son had only been home an hour or so and already Alice was questioning him.

“I’m not sure what I’ll be doing yet, Mother,” Jack finally answered. “Maggie, I was wondering. The weather seems to be settled into a bit of sunshine this afternoon. Shall we put Mikey into his pram and walk along the promenade?”

“That would be lovely, Jack,” Alice spoke for her daughter-in-law, her face beaming with happiness.

“Maggie, go and change Mikey’s cloths, while I put this nice warm blanket in for him to lie on, and put that little coat and bonnet on him too. It may look a sunny afternoon, but it’ll be cold in the wind today.”

“She never changes does she?” remarked Jack, as the couple walked along the promenade towards the Boat House, with Maggie pushing the pram’ and Jack linking her arm companionably.

“It must have bin difficult fer yer these last few months, living here with Alice, but yer were given the opportunity to come and live with me.”

“It hasn’t been so bad and think on, it was me who decided to stay here, and now yer back anyway. Is it to be for good?”

“What makes yer ask that, Maggie,?” asked Jack, looking at her questioningly.

“I think I know yer quite well by now and yer won’t settle back ter farm work, will yer? A few more weeks when yer’ve forgotten all the pain and sufferin’ yer’ve just bin through, yer’ll be lookin’ for another match again. Whether it be here in Neston or elsewhere, I can’t see yer settling to scratchin’ a livin’ again.
You’ve tasted some of the high life and soon yer’ll want some more!”

“How very all seeing of yer,” her husband replied, cynically “As it happens, I wouldn’t be happy with goin’ back to where I started from and I have the feelin’ that you wouldn’t be happy sharin’ my life either.......”

“Don’t say that, Jack!” she cried hotly. “You’re the father of me son. I just didn’t want to leave where I was settled, where I was happy as well. And as it happens, I was right to stay here, because you’ve had to come back here again.”

Jack looked at her strangely, then started making cooing noises to Mikey. Whilst walking back to Seagull Cottage, he didn’t speak at all.

Maggie was busy the rest of the afternoon, helping Alice and seeing to the baby. In the evening, Jack and his father went to the Ship Inn, leaving her all jumpy and nervous and worrying about sharing the double bed. It was all very well for Jack, he could go to the inn and have few drinks to settle him. She wished that Alice had some sherry in the house, so that she could have a few glasses to settle her worries as well.