A Woman Undefeated (35 page)

Dusk was falling as she came onto the promenade, whilst the birds, that the house was named after, sat on the roof above, flapping and squawking as they settled in a row.

She heard voices, as she lugged the pram’ into the hallway. Michael and Alice were back already, sitting at the kitchen table drinking cups of freshly brewed tea. Alice pushed past her in bad humour, muttering as she did so that she was going off to bed. Michael just shrugged and signalled quietly that she was to let her go.

“There’s no talkin’ to her, Maggie,” he explained, as she joined him at the table. “She’s been cryin’ on and off since the ship weighed anchor this mornin’. We got to the gate at Huskisson Dock, in time to see the clipper slip its moorings and sail off down the Mersey. It shattered her. All the way on the train she was tellin’ me what she was and wasn’t going to say ter our Jack. She kept askin’ the man on the dock gate after, “Are yer sure that was the ship that’s crossin’ the Atlantic? Me boy’s on that and I haven’t bin’ able to wave him away.” The man told me, it had bin an exceptional spring high tide and the captain probably took advantage of it. It seems there’s a lot of competition at the moment amongst the passenger ships, each trying to cut down the sailing time from here to the America’s.”

Michael paused to look at her kindly, then got up to look at Mikey in his pram’.

“Maybe yer could make a start on getting’ the lodger’s meal together. I’ll take Mikey into the parlour and keep an eye. Give her a few hours on her own. She’ll come round, yer can be sure of it, and we’ll all be at the receivin’ end of her tongue.”

Maggie couldn’t resist peeping into one of the boxes that Alice had left on the table after he had gone. There were two hat boxes and two brown paper parcels there. She was relieved to see a black coal scuttle shaped bonnet, not a hat with feathers and bows. Alice
had chosen well. She hoped that her mourning clothes would be just as simple, with no frills to the bodice, or flounces on the hem.

A tear stained Alice, all meek and humble, came down to the kitchen later. Her re-appearance timed for when the lodgers would be there. She had left all the explaining to a weary looking Michael, and graciously accepted their sympathy and condolences. If they wondered why Maggie, the new widow, sat silent and white faced, there was no comment made, except for a shuffling of embarrassment on their part. A lovely young woman bereaved, at only seventeen!

That evening a family meeting was called, after Mikey had been put to bed and the dishes cleared away. Alice, as usual, had something very important to discuss with the family. Not about Jack or the day’s events, no, it was their finances. Now Jack was gone, who was going to bring the money in? She and Michael could manage on what the lodgers paid them, but Maggie would have to ask Miss Rosemary for wages now.

She wasn’t an apprentice anymore. Alice could see that by the outfits Maggie had been making. Seamus was told he had to stop racketing about with that friend of his. He was nearly sixteen and most boys of his age were down the colliery shaft or in the quarry and certainly not spending their days fishing, unless they were fishermen.

Maggie thought of the interest she was earning from her money lending service. Should she begin to draw a weekly wage from that? At last count it had stood at thirty seven pounds and five shillings. More than double the original seventeen pounds she had given Betty, all those months ago.

She could see that Alice was waiting for an answer from her, fiddling with the strings of the parcels as she did so. Alice had brought them in from the scullery, where she had placed them out of sight of the lodgers’ prying eyes.

“Mam, I’ve bin’ meanin’ to tell yer something,” Seamus piped up. His voice sounded wobbly. From the upset of his brother leaving or being nervous of his mother, Maggie didn’t know.

“Me and Danny have decided we’re goin’ to try fer jobs on them clipper ships. We were talkin’ today about it and Danny wants to work as a galley boy. He likes helpin’ his dad with the cookin’ at the Ship and I could be a person who looks after the cabins. A cabin boy, or maybe someone who helps serve the dinners. Anyways, that’s what we want to do.”

He bowed his head after his hurried explanation, waiting for the tirade that would surely come. Or at least be ready for the blow that would probably land on his head. Michael and Maggie waited with bated breath for the raving that would surely follow, and were surprised when Alice put her head in her hands at the table and quietly said,

“Do as yer want son. Yer will do anyway.”

She lifted her head then, to glare in Maggie’s direction, accusingly.

“And I suppose you want to leave us too, Maggie? Take our grandson away from us, the only reminder we have of our Jack.”

“Not so, Alice, at least not yet,” Maggie replied, feeling put on the spot, but she had no indication from Betty when Selwyn Lodge would be ready for occupation. “I think it would be better if we all stayed together fer the time being. Present ourselves as an united family. Try to live as the bereaved would do. It will only be a nine day wonder anyway. I’ll speak to Miss Rosemary about a wage and give you something to pay fer food, at least fer Mikey and me. Now, do yer think we could try those dreary clothes on? If mine don’t fit, I’ll have to get crackin’ with me needle.”

It was hard to keep up appearances over those next few days. It was easy for Alice and Michael, who had only the lodgers in their lives and Alice decided that they were not to go to church that Sunday, anyway.

Maggie was out when the priest called down to Seagull Cottage, after he noticed the family were missing from Mass, but whatever was said he seemed satisfied, because he didn’t call around again. No, the hardest thing for Maggie was playing the bereaved widow in front of Miss Rosemary. Betty, her dearest
friend, who had listened, advised and sympathized and given her the chance to improve her life. Many a time she wanted to blurt out...... “It’s not true, it’s just a charade!” but she felt she couldn’t do that to Alice. So, she put up with being looked at with sympathy, or stared at nosily when she walked by. People even came in the shop, on the pretext of looking at material, though it was merely curiosity on their part.

Word got round quickly in Neston village.

“Jack Haines, the local fighter, yer know the one that won the match at the quarry? Well, he’s gone and died. A blow ter the head, it is believed. His wife works at the dressmaker in the High Street. You’d think she’d stay at home behind drawn curtains, but there she is flaunting herself, would yer believe?”

Whether it was the gossip surrounding the fighter’s wife, or a genuine desire to have a dress made, it brought Mrs Briggs into the dressmaker’s shop and renewed their acquaintance.

“I thought it must be you, when Solly told Briggs that Jack, the man who used to work for us, had died,” she said sympathetically. “And when he said his wife was working at Miss Rosemary’s, I said to the farmer, “I must go and comfort the poor creature and take her some of her favourite cakes”. Here, I baked them especially this morning for you.”

Maggie could only nod her head in gratitude, as she looked upon the Maid of Honours the farmer’s wife had brought her. It made her want to bow her head and cry. It had been the second time that day, that goodness in people had been shown to her.

Most touching of all had been when Ezra had stood in the shop doorway, smiling at her hesitantly. He had been clutching a small posy of violets in his big beefy hands.

The family kept away from the Easter Parade. It wasn’t done to indulge in frivolity in times of bereavement and Alice had heard the gossip regarding Maggie still going out to work. She decided that the family would lie low over that weekend. Though she did insist that they went to church on Good Sunday, where they sat quiet and sombre for all to see. Alice and Maggie wore black veils over their faces, though Maggie privately thought it was carrying things a bit too far. She was beginning to get rather impatient, counting the months when this play acting could be laid to rest.

The following week, Miss Madeline announced that her nuptials were to be on the second Saturday of May. It couldn’t be any earlier, because the church was tied up with Lent and there was also to be a celebration of the children’s first communion.

At the dressmaker’s shop, the needles had flown again, as Betty and Maggie worked on little plain white dresses and matching lacy veils. Betty had said it would do them good to watch Miss Madeline’s wedding, though they’d keep their distance in the churchyard. She would find it satisfactory, listening to the comments of the watchers, regarding the unusual dress and the bride’s ten foot train.

Maggie told her that she didn’t really feel like going. In her black dress, pelisse and sober bonnet, she felt she looked like a crow. Madeline, on the other hand, would be looking blissful in her wedding dress of starched white tulle, over many petticoats and covered with a looped creamy crepe, flounced with pale green
ribbons and peachy bows. A real eye catcher, not like the normal dress that local brides wore, of simple white satin and a demure floor-length veil.

Maggie was feeling really miserable with the life she was now leading. She and Alice had been rowing, because the lodger had asked for his bedroom back and Alice had said that it was his right to move back in, because Maggie was only paying money for her board. Then Mikey started crawling, sometimes hovering at the top of the steep stairs, uncertainly. She was so convinced that one day he was going to fall right down them, that she had demanded that Alice provide a gate. Alice only grumbled and asked her where Maggie thought she could get a gate from? It never was a problem when she was rearing her boys.

Maggie fired back angrily that it was because the dwellings at Killala never had stairs!

Maggie supposed that the happiness of the wedding might lift her spirits, so on a beautiful sunny afternoon, she and Betty found a place under some yew trees in the church yard and waited for the bridal vehicle to arrive. There must have been over fifty curious women waiting with them. The wedding of this outsider had been eagerly speculated upon, especially as this was the woman who fancied herself in a crinoline!

“I’ve got a secret to tell you,” Betty whispered, as they both looked at the wedding guests, who were disappearing into the church.

“The young lady is expecting. She told me when she came for her final fitting. Only because she knew I could tell. That’s why she wanted so much material in her underskirts. It appears that her father wouldn’t give his permission to marry, so she had to wait until she was twenty one. She was lucky that her birthday fell whilst she was only up to the five month period, or she would have given birth to an illegitimate child, and that wouldn’t have gone down well with the church.”

There was a hush amongst the chattering women, as the carriage
carrying Madeline and her beau arrived outside the church. It was an open topped barouche, pulled by two matching, garlanded white horses, with the driver all dressed up in a black top hat and matching tails.

The crowd looked on in amazement, as the bride began to step down. Her dress was so enormous that the man and his driver took several minutes to get her onto the first step along the pathway and then had to set about fixing her very long train. Her face was totally covered, but she radiated such happiness and sparkle that Maggie found she had a lump in her throat. This was the kind of wedding she would have wanted, had she not been so callously forced. A dream of a wedding with a handsome beau, that was never going to happen in her life, she thought sadly.

She looked over to the man who was walking beside Madeline, though it was hard to concentrate on his appearance, because Betty was worrying to her, over the threat of rips and plucks to the enormous trailing train.

He looked familiar. He was all dressed up in a dark blue frock coat, over a white frilled, high-collared shirt, with which he wore a matching blue stock. His trousers were narrow and black and strapped under the instep of his fine shiny shoes.

It was his dark curly hair and suntanned face that came crashing back into her senses. It was Johnny, looking tall and lean and grinning happily with Madeline on his arm. As he passed the two women by, he looked unseeingly into the crowd and Maggie saw those wonderful cornflower blue eyes that she remembered from before. Vaguely, at the back of her mind, she thought of her old friend,Widow Dockerty. Would she have managed to make the journey, all this way to see her son get married? Probably not. Last time she had seen her, the lady was beginning to look quite old.

“I want ter go now, Betty,” Maggie said, feeling despair wash over her. “I don’t want to watch anymore. I think I’m gettin’ a headache, it could be the glare of the sun in me eyes.”

“Oh, Maggie. What was I thinking of? Suggesting you came to watch the wedding when it’s not long since you lost your Jack.
This must be really upsetting for you! Come, we’ll go back to the shop and have some refreshment and, on the way, I’ll tell you where Mr Freeman, the builder, is up to with the renovation of Selwyn Lodge. This will cheer you up. He said that we can probably move in at the end of August. That is if the boiler he has ordered is fitted in the bathroom by then. I thought on Monday afternoon, we could finish our work early and go along to measure up.”