A Woman Undefeated (34 page)

She stalked off with Michael trailing behind her, looking so miserable that Maggie’s heart went out to him. Michael would take the brunt of Jack’s foolishness, though somehow she felt she would be getting it in the neck as well.

She took her time seeing to Mikey, bathing his squirming bottom in the bowl full of water that she kept on a small table in
the bedroom. She dressed him in clean clothes, then brushed her hair until it shone.

Alice and Michael were sitting at the table with Seamus. It seemed that the poor young man had been told the sorry tale, as he looked as if he’d been getting the sharp edge of his mother’s tongue as well.

“Here yer are, Maggie,” Alice said, sounding quite friendly. “Come, little Mikey, come and sit on Grandma’s knee. There’s a bit of porridge left in the ‘pan, Maggie. Give him that and then we’ll talk about what we’re goin’ to do about all these shenanigans.”

Maggie did as she was told and made herself a cup of tea, then brought the child’s bowl of porridge to the table, where she set about feeding the little fellow. Alice didn’t exchange a glance with her once, whilst she spooned the mixture into Mikey’s mouth. There was an uneasy silence in the kitchen, as the three concerned members of the family waited for Alice to speak.

“Well, I have to put the blame firmly at Maggie’s door,” she started in an accusing tone. “If you had been a good wife to me son, we wouldn’t be sittin’ here with this problem. You’ve made no effort to keep him by yer side and now yer’ve let him go off with some little whore.”

“Alice, that’s enough,” reproached Michael gently, whilst looking at Maggie apologetically. “Kitty May is not a whore, she’s goin’ to be the mother of yer grandchild. And as fer Maggie not bein’ a good wife to our Jack, how do we know what goes on behind closed doors? No, the blame has to be laid firmly on our Jack. He’s never been content with livin’ the simple life like we do. He’s always bin chasing rainbows. After the crock of gold!”

Alice sniffed and said. “Yer always taking the side of the underdog, aren’t yer? Where would she be if she had insisted on staying in Killala? Yer should have bin grateful, Maggie, fer what we’ve done fer yer and worked harder at yer marriage. Anyway, it’s done now. We’ve got ter think of a way of making sure there will be no scandal. I mean, if the priest and me friends were ter
find out what our Jack’s done, I couldn’t go to St. Winefred’s again. I would be hangin’ me head in shame!”

There was a silence while everyone took in the importance of her words. Maggie sipped her tea, feeling aggrieved. As far as she was concerned, she had been a good wife to Jack. Especially as the marriage had been forced on her anyway.

“I’ve got it! We’ll pretend he’s dead! Read the letter again to me, Maggie. What day is that ship he’s goin’ on, sailin’ from Liverpool?”

Alice threw Lord Belsham’s letter over to Maggie, who now, having finished feeding Mikey still on Alice’s knee, had moved to Seamus’s side.

“We’ll all go over on that day and come back wearing funeral clothes. And when I’ve finished with the pair of them, Jack will be wishin’ that he was dead.”

“Yer can’t do that!” they all said in unison. Even the baby looked up in surprise, as if he had understood his grandma’s words.

“Why can’t we? He’ll be dead to us,” she retorted dramatically.“We’ll get up really early and creep out of the house before the lodgers get up. Michael, you can see if Sam Cottrell, the cabbie, will do a special journey fer us. Yer can tell him we’ll pay double if he helps us catch the first train. There’s no time, fer you to make us any outfits, Maggie, and it would draw attention if Michael and Seamus went to the tailor for their funeral wear. After we’ve waved off the ship, we’ll go into the city, to one of those big department stores, and we’ll get shop bought clothing. Then we’ll come back and say that Jack has dropped dead in his lodgings and his landlady went ahead and had him buried in a Liverpool cemetery. We’ll all have to walk around miserable and wearing dreary clothes fer the next six months or so and you, Maggie, can’t breathe a word of it to that Miss Rosemary. Nor Seamus, either to Danny or his parents, do yer hear? The lodgers will believe us, ‘cos I was always saying that I worried about Jack, that he might get his headaches back again. Now, what was the date again, Maggie? Oh yes, the 21st.”

“But Alice,” she began to say, because she thought her mother-in-law was carrying everything a bit too far.

“Can yer think of any other way to stop a scandal?” Alice challenged. They all shook their heads at her, numbly. Nobody could.

The following afternoon, Maggie returned to Miss Rosemary’s. She was tired, as she had slept fitfully. Mikey had been restless in the night and Alice’s plan kept creeping into her mind. Not even the beautiful view out of her bedroom window could lift her spirits, or the snowdrops that she had seen in someone’s garden, as she walked along.

Betty remarked, when she saw her, that she was looking peaky. If Maggie didn’t mind her asking, was it because the separation hadn’t been resolved with Jack? Or was it because Maggie had changed her mind about the move to Selwyn Lodge?

“No, we’re still havin’ a separation,” she answered truthfully, “because he still wants to carry on with the fighting. I told him that me and Mikey might be movin’ out”

She had to keep her head down over her sewing, so that Betty couldn’t see her face. Betty would know that she was lying, because she was apt to colour slightly with a sense of guilt. It was only a little lie that Maggie was telling, as it had been Jack who had decided to go his separate way.

“I thought you looked so happy together, when you called in to see me the other afternoon,” Betty continued, as she sat opposite tacking the seam of a jacket.

“Jack likes to appear that he is playing happy families. Mainly fer his mother’s sake, who would like nothing better than for us to give it another go. I kept telling him that he should give up the fightin’, if he wanted to spend more time with me and Mikey”. She got up quickly to make a cup of tea for them both, as she felt she hadn’t been telling the truth again.

“Work will be starting after Easter on Selwyn Lodge, or so I’ve been told by Mr Freeman, “Master Builder”, Betty called through, as Maggie filled the kettle with water from the rain barrel outside
the kitchen door. “And we are to have piped water. Imagine that! Such an innovation. Piped water to the kitchen and the new bathroom!”

Maggie wandered back into listen, as what Betty was saying was very interesting.

“My tenants have found a place to rent on Chester Street. A smaller dwelling, but infinitely more suitable to their needs. Now, Maggie, we will probably be inundated over the next few weeks with commissions. This is the time of the year when local farmers dig in their cash boxes and treat their wives to a flowery bonnet or new gown. There is an Easter Parade from Neston Cross on Good Sunday and the best bonnet is chosen by the Crow man. I’ll tell you all about him later, he’s just a bit of fun. I don’t know where the tradition of the Crow man comes from.”

The day drew near when Alice’s plan was going to be put into action. Sometimes Alice would be full of excitement, because she was having a day out in Liverpool. Sometimes she sat staring vacantly into space, as if she was practicing for the day of doom. Seamus kept saying that he didn’t want to go, he would rather be spending the day with Danny.

Maggie didn’t want to go either. As far as she was concerned, Jack and her had already said goodbye. What was the point of hanging around the dockside, just so she could have the chance of seeing Jack and Kitty, off on their voyage across the Atlantic? It would only bring tears before midnight for all concerned. Then there was her child to consider. He could be cold, hungry and crying while highly strung adults waited around.

In trepidation, she mentioned her feelings to Michael. He was sympathetic as usual, but asked her to see Alice’s side of things as well.

“Let her have her day, Maggie. It will help her to get over the loss of Jack quicker. ‘Tis saying goodbye to her son, who she will probably never see again. In her way, she’s tying up all the loose
ends before she embarks on becomin’ a grieving mother. I see what yer sayin’. You’ve probably already said goodbye ter Jack and can shut the door on his memory and move on.”

Maggie kissed him on the cheek for being so understanding. Nobody would wonder about Michael’s feelings, he was losing his son as well.

“Yer’ve always got te have yer own way, Maggie,” was Alice’s reaction after supper the night before the journey, when she had made her mind up finally that she wasn’t going to go. No one could make her. Even Alice would be loathe to try to drag her there.

“I knew yer didn’t want to come with us and see Jack off. You thought you’d wait ‘til the last minute, when all me plans were made.”

“I don’t want to go either.” That came from Seamus, who had planned to go fishing with Danny, as they could see from the sunset that evening that the following day was going to be a good one.

“Well, fiddlesticks te the both of yer,” Alice said, sounding aggravated. “But, don’t ferget, when I come back with those mourning clothes, yer goin’ te have to wear them. If they don’t fit, it won’t be my fault, because yer refused to come with me and try them on. Now, this is the story that you’ve got to stick by. Me and Michael went to visit Jack at his lodgings before his big fight, planned for next Saturday. We got to his lodgings and we were given a big shock. It seemed that Jack had bin gettin’ headaches again and when the landlady knocked on his door one morning, to see why there had bin no noise from his room, she found him lying on the floor and he was dead. There was no papers in his room to say if he had any relatives and if there had bin’ she couldn’t read them anyway. So, she searched through his pockets and found he had some money. Then she called a policeman, who was walking past her front door, and he went fer an undertaker. There was enough money on Jack to bury him and that’s where he is, in a Liverpool cemetery.”

“And I bet the landlady pocketed the rest of the money,” Seamus commented sourly.

“There was no landlady, yer daft eejit, that’s the story we want believin’. Now, you two, we’ll come back after we’ve seen Jack and his strumpet off and they’ve both had a piece of me mind, then we’ll go up to Lord Street to one of the big shops. Then, when we come back I’ll be cryin’. I will be anyway. If the lodgers are here, it will be even more believable, ‘cos you, Maggie, will rush up the stairs in tears. Seamus, you’ll say, “Oh no, not me dear brother!” and then you’ll run out of the house, saying yer’ve got to tell Danny. Then me and Michael will sit down and tell the lodgers the made up tale. Got it? Now we’ll all go to bed, we’ve got to get up early in the mornin’.”

Maggie made the lodgers their breakfast next morning, fielding questions on the whereabouts of Alice, making beds and doing the cleaning, and getting the vegetables ready for the evening meal. Everything was done from habit. Her mind was far away. She saw a clipper ship loosening its moorings, sailing off with the wind gusting and the sails unfurled, taking Jack and Kitty off to a new world. Would she have liked to have been in Kitty’s shoes, she wondered? Put her life into Jack’s hands? A man who had probably taken advantage of his housemaid anyway. An innocent young lady as she had once been. The answer was “no,” and Maggie felt an overwhelming sense of pity for the girl well up inside her. At least, though, his actions had made her a free woman. She was glad of it, but stopped her work just for a moment to whisper, “God speed.”

Maggie couldn’t face working at the dressmaker’s later. There were more lies to be told and she felt wretched. Mikey had been so fretful that her head was aching from his cries. She pushed the pram up to the village, intending to make her excuses, then go for a long walk in the weak February sun.

Betty understood and said it could also be all the sewing that Maggie had been doing. Perhaps she should be resting her eyes instead, though she was glad Maggie had called in anyway, as Miss
Madeline had been in for a fitting for her wedding dress and, would Maggie believe it, her client appeared to have put on weight!

Maggie walked slowly out of the village, intending to walk past Selwyn Lodge on Burton Road. She wanted to see it for herself again, the house where she would be living soon. Though, first she must visit St. Winefred’s. She hated the deceit that was to be forced upon her by her mother-in-law and heartily wished she could be rid of the sin.

But, how to do that without getting the priest involved, was beyond her. Though he was bound by a vow of silence to keep confessions confidential, it wouldn’t stop Father O’Brien from knocking on the sinner’s door! She decided to tell all to God in front of the altar and was thankful that she was alone in the church.

Feeling better, she wheeled the sleeping baby across the lane and stood in front of Betty’s house, to remind herself of her good fortune and where her future lay. The garden was enormous and full of early daffodils, and the lawns looked well tended, with shrub-filled flower beds. Tall trees shaded the large sandstone house, though it had an air of neglect about it, as if it was waiting to be loved. There was no smoke coming out from the tall, narrow chimneys, the windows were dirty, and wooden guttering broken off.

She walked down the lane at the side of the house and whistled with amazement at what she could see. Attached to the back of the house was a narrow glass building, which appeared to run horizontally. It seemed as if there was a garden inside it also, as she could see green foliage and small bushy trees. The hedged off garden stretched down to a screen of sycamore and elder, beyond which were fields of meadow land. In the garden was an arbour, a splash of yellow from a forsythia and a little gurgling brook, with a small paved area for sitting out. Maggie’s spirits soared as she gazed in wonder, feeling that she couldn’t wait to start her new life!

A chilly wind blew up from the estuary, so she decided that she would walk back slowly along the main village street. She
planned to look into the window of the bonnet maker’s shop, in case Alice brought her back a hideous hat, then back to Seagull Cottage to await the return of her eccentric in-laws.