A Woman Undefeated (38 page)

“You can say that you are speaking to him on my behalf. We really do need a man to be our representative, especially as I’ve had another thought about combining my interests with yours. We could call it the Sheldon Loan and Property Company.”

“Oh and how would that work, Betty?”

“Well, I think we may have problems opening a business bank account for the Sheldon Loan Company, because of your youth. If we merged both of the businesses together, we could have it in both our names. We pay all the money earned into one account, but we can both draw on it. We will need it for household expenses and you could pay Alice for looking after Mikey. We’d need to pay our representative, and any incidentals that we think of could come from there. Meantime the larger bills, for example, our employee wages, both our salaries and any major refurbishment of the house, can come from the dressmaker account. And I do really think we should have a man to set up our voucher system. It would seem so much more professional, and eventually could become a bigger concern than here!”

“Whew! It all sounds very complicated, Betty. I can’t really get me head round it all, as yer takin’ me breath away. But I trust yer with everything, yer know that. Because if it wasn’t fer you, I wouldn’t be sittin’ here listenin’. I’d probably be like poor Annie, scrubbin’ fer me money, or somethin’ equally as unpleasant.”

“Oh, Maggie, you don’t have to keep saying that. My life took on a new meaning when you walked through my door. Yes, I could have started these projects on my own, but I needed someone to share it all with. As soon as I saw you, there was something about you, call it an affinity, that made me think we would get on well with one another. And we do, don’t we?”

Maggie just nodded. She was too overwhelmed to speak.

She walked down the hill to Seagull Cottage later, her head buzzing with all that Betty had to say. An affinity? She wished Betty wouldn’t use such big words. It was true, they got on very well with one another, but Betty, like Alice, was always in the driving seat. Ah well, decision making probably came with being older. She wasn’t always going to be nearly eighteen and she really was going to have the world at her feet.

She looked along to the Middle Slip, where three women were coming up from the shore, sitting on their basket laden donkeys.
At least she didn’t have to break her back, gathering cockles when the tide was out.

Alice greeted her at the door, with a wobbly Mikey clinging to her hand.

“Look, Mama, I can walk,” said Alice in a squeaky baby voice. “I’ve been practicing with Grand-mama every day!”

Mikey smiled proudly at her and lifted his arms for a “carry up”. Just seeing him looking at her so confidently brought a tear to her eye and a lump to her throat.

“So, how’s me little man then, have yer bin good fer yer granny?” she said, using the term “granny” because she knew it irritated Alice.

“Grand-mama, if yer don’t mind, and yes, he’s bin very good. He’s a little treasure, aren’t yer, son?”

She should have seen the signs then, Alice was binding her child to her tightly, but what options did Maggie have? The dressmaker’s shop was no place for an inquisitive toddler, with needles and scissors and other sharp things. Besides, she needed to go to work to earn the money to keep her and Mikey. Betty had, when asked, given her a weekly allowance of ten shillings.

“Is Mr Arlington home yet, Alice?”

“Yes, he’s sittin’ in the parlour with a cup of tea, before I call him in with the others for their meal. Why, what do yer want him for? Oh, and I’ve somethin’ to tell yer later, so after you’ve put Mikey to bed, come back down ter me.”

Maggie carried Mikey into the parlour and sat with him, making them both comfortable in one of the high back chairs opposite to where Mr Arlington sat. He was reading the local broadsheet. He had taken off the jacket from his business suit and was sitting with his waistcoat unbuttoned, over his wing-collared shirt.

“Good evening, Maggie. Have you had a pleasant day?” he inquired, over the top of the newspaper.

“Yes, thank you, very pleasant. Mr Arlington, may I ask yer somethin’ regarding a business aspect?”

“Business? Business?” he answered pompously.“What has business got to do with a young girl like you?”

“Miss Rosemary asked me.........”

“Ah, Miss Rosemary, the dressmaker. Doing what women are good at. Dressmaking and cooking.” He nodded wisely. “Business is best left to gentlemen.”

Maggie could feel the anger coming before her eyes in a red mist after he had said that which was something she had not experienced in a very long time. But she managed to blurt out, “Well she wants ter see ye,” before walking out with Mikey and her nose up in the air.

She had simmered down somewhat by the time she came downstairs later to the kitchen. She had avoided Mr Arlington’s eyes when she had helped Alice serve up the lodger’s meals. What a stuffed shirt he had turned out to be. Usually so polite and courteous, it must have been the mention of business, that had turned him into a prejudiced pig.

She knew that word “prejudiced”. Betty had used it quite often, when she said that men were against women in business. It seemed that men liked their women at home, cooking meals, keeping their house clean and making a baby every year. It was the man’s place to bring the money home and dole out the housekeeping to their wives. The housekeeping and the baby bit, Maggie remembered very well.

It was Seamus’s turn to be in the dog house. He had announced that he and Danny had been over to Liverpool and had signed on with the White Star Line. They were leaving home the following weekend, to stay in the company’s hostel, while they were shown the ropes, as it were. The pair would be given indentures, which would guarantee them work for the next three years.

Of course, Alice had been warned. Maggie remembered that fateful day, the 21st February, when Jack had sailed on the clipper ship. Seamus had said then he had wanted to be a cabin boy, but Alice had wrangled, shed a few tears, made the lad feel guilty for leaving, and he’d said that he would stay home after all.

“I’ve no one left, now,” she sobbed dramatically, as Michael put a comforting arm around her shoulders and Maggie stared unsympathetically at the ticking clock on the wall. Perhaps Alice was beginning to understand the way that Maggie had felt, when she had been taken away from Molly. At least Alice still had the gentle support of her husband. Her own husband was a thousand miles away!

Suddenly Alice changed her tack, dried her tears and told Seamus brightly, “We’ll come with ye, won’t we, Michael? We’ll take a packed lunch and make a day of it. I’d like to look around this hostel you and Danny will be stayin’ in. I’ll have to make sure it’s what you’re used to and that your bedroom is warm and clean.”

“Leave it, Mother,” warned Michael, seeing the horrified look on his son’s face. Maggie had to look away to stop them from seeing her smiling, Alice had only been bluffing, to see what the lad would say.

“Well, my dear, you sent me a diamond of a man,” said Betty, as Maggie arrived at the shop the next day.

“How do yer mean? Has Mr Arlington already bin in ter see ye? Did he know of someone who was about to retire?

“No, Maggie,” she exclaimed excitedly.“It is Mr Arlington who is going to work for us! He told me that his job with the estate management is far from secure, especially now the owner is selling off his leases and property. I told him that the job would only be from nine in the morning until one o’clock, but he said that would suit him fine, until he has built up the voucher business. He was very impressed with the whole idea and has even suggested that my tenants come here with their rents, although I have to admit I do like to go and have my little chats with them. Then, he said he knew of a sign writer in Birkenhead who will make a placard for the upstairs window and who will also be able to print the vouchers for us. Even the small amount of remuneration and expenses I offered him was acceptable, although I did say he would be paid more, if the bounty vouchers begin to succeed.”

“Oh, ” Maggie said, dispiritedly. “When does all this begin?”

“The first Monday in August, because he has to give a month’s notice to the estate office. Maggie!” she said in an exasperated voice. “Aren’t you pleased?”

Maggie explained how Mr Arlington had treated her the evening before and that she was worried that any of their business concerns would get back to Alice. Especially if Mr Arlington found out who owned the company.

“I think it could be difficult fer me to work and live with him.”

“Of course it won’t be. He will be here in the mornings and you will be here in the afternoons and when eventually we receive a company cheque book, only I will be able to sign it anyway. But in any case, the cheque book will only have the company name on it, not our names.”

“Oh,” Maggie said again, and for the first time felt piqued, illogically, as if she was being pushed out of something. She could not put her finger on it, but it felt uncomfortable somehow in her mind. She had the biggest investment in the Sheldon Loan Company, but she wouldn’t even be signing her name!

She boldly said as much to Betty, and in those next few minutes, Maggie found out what a hardheaded businesswoman, the dressmaker could be. Miss Rosemary stood back and regarded her coldly.

“You think that in some way I am trying to dupe you? Well let me tell you this, Maggie, you can take your seventy one pounds, one shilling investment and see how far it gets you. Buy yourself a little house in the village and work somewhere else if you wish. Money makes money and, remember it was my idea in the first place to start the loan company. Left to you, your money would have sat in that feather mattress you told me about, probably found by your husband and spent inconsequently. My way was to use your money and make more and it has. My voucher idea will bring in untold wealth to you eventually and I mean to you. When we go to Chester next week I was intending to arrange for the business papers to be drawn up in both our names, so at the time of my
demise, everything will come to you. The reason there was only going to be one name on the cheque book, is because I presumed, rightly or wrongly, that as you are under the age of twenty one, you will not be allowed to sign as well. No, let me finish....” She held a trembling hand up, as Maggie had gone red with embarrassment at Betty’s tirade and was trying to apologize.

“Maggie, you are either very stupid or I have not explained myself properly, but please never think that I am dishonest. Remember that all this was done in the first place, just to help you out!”

“I’m so sorry, Betty, I don’t know what ter say ter yer.”

Maggie stood there very flushed and unable to meet the dressmaker’s eyes.

“In me defence, all I can say is that, yes, I am very stupid, but I also don’t understand yer very well at times. You use words that I’ve never even heard before and yer seem ter expect me to know exactly what yer talkin’ about. Mr Arlington frightens me with his manner and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to deal with him. Betty, can I throw meself on yer mercy and ask fer forgiveness for doubting yer? You’ve done right by me from the start and I’m very grateful. Yer don’t know how much I owe to you.”

“Maggie, you don’t have to humble yourself to me,” she said, back to being Betty, her gentle friend again. “Just understand that everything has been done in your best interests. Yes, I found Mr Arlington patronizing, to say the least, but he is a gentleman and I know we need someone like him to make our company the success it is going to be. If he is pompous, or tries to belittle you once he starts working upstairs, tell yourself it doesn’t matter. Because you know something that he doesn’t know. That his employer is really you!”

That evening, Mr Arlington was his usual polite self, but made no mention at the table of his visit to Miss Rosemary. Though that was probably because Alice had banned all talk regarding business at meal times. Alice’s motto to her lodgers was, “never take your personal problems with you to your place of business and never bring your business problems home.”

Around eight o’clock Alice asked Maggie to take a tray of tea into the parlour. Mr Arlington and Mr Peel were at home that evening, both being avid tea-totallers, whereas Mr Dickinson liked to have a drink at the Ship.

As she pushed open the door of the front room with her foot, she could hear Mr Arlington telling his companion about the new job he was about to begin. He had quite a loud boom of a voice, which matched his heavy build and serious looking face, though at that moment he was looking delighted at the recent turn of events.

“She needs someone like me there, Mr Peel,” he was boasting, to the smallish, sandy haired young man, who was hanging on his every word.

“Put the tray down there, Maggie, if you would. I was just saying to Mr Peel here, of the good fortune you put my way.”

She looked at him in astonishment. Was he about to discuss the affairs of the Sheldon Loan Company with her? Suddenly she pricked up her ears!

“You can leave us now, Maggie, this is mens’ talk. Something you women know nothing at all about, but I would like to say thank you to you anyway.”

He made a dismissive gesture with his left hand, never taking his eyes off the other lodger. Being the polite young woman he expected her to be, she nodded and backed away.

Maggie felt a rush of jealousy and miff towards him, as she closed the door behind her quietly. How dare he treat her in this uppity manner? He had only just been offered the job, now she wished she had the power to take it away. How was she going to put up with this self-important boar of a man, who was going to be in her daily working life, as well as the place that she still called home!

She had left the parlour door ajar slightly and hovered around in the hallway, pretending to be smoothing down the covers in the pram.

“Of course, with my contacts at the estate office, I will be able to develop the property side of the business.”

She pushed the pram a little forward. This was interesting to hear.

“We will be able to pick up the leases cheap and buy some of the smaller houses outright. Miss Rosemary tells me that she has three properties already, which she rents out, and she owns a large dwelling on the Burton Road as well. You may have seen it. Selwyn Lodge, rather an impressive building, I thought. She intends to move in there in a couple of months, leaving the accommodation free for my office above the dressmaker’s shop. She’ll be sitting on a little gold mine, once she has the right person to guide her. And of course that person will be me. You know, Mr Peel, with my expertise and my development of these bounty vouchers, the concern will grow so quickly there might even be a position for you.”