The Dressmaker’s Daughter
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‘I’ll just goo and tek the dog a walk afore I have me dinner, Nora,’ Percy suggested.
‘No, leave her be,’ Nora replied curtly, prodding cabbage leaves into a pan of boiling water. ‘Her’s on heat. You’ll have every dog for miles sniffin’ after her and piddlin’ up the front door. Carve the joint instead.’
So Percy took the carving knife, sharpened it and strove manfully to cut the meat. But it was so tough the knife would barely cut through it. He took the knife outside and sharpened it again on the front door step. When he returned and tried once more, he imagined the beer had sapped his strength, so didn’t complain as he hacked half the joint into small bits. The remainder he left intact, having too little patience to continue. Soon Nora served up their Sunday dinners. Again Percy had difficulty cutting through his first slice of beef, and so vigorously did he try that the said slice slid off the plate and ended up in his lap, along with a potato, some cabbage and a goodly dollop of thick, brown gravy.
‘Oh, Perce! For Christ’s sake, what the hell yer doin’?’ Nora scolded. It was another mess for her to clear up. ‘You’m wuss than a babby.’
Percy scraped his errant dinner back onto his plate with his knife and mopped his trousers with a dishcloth, fetched from the scullery. Undaunted, he sat down and attempted to cut the beef again.
‘Look at the state o’ this meat, Nora. I defy anybody to cut it.’
‘It is a bit ’ard, I agree, Father,’ Alf mumbled, chewing determinedly, encountering similar, though less spectacular, difficulty.
‘Hard? I should say it’s bloody hard. The damn cow as this lot come off must’ve been fed on sand and cement.’
‘I noticed yo’ had a bit o’ trouble carvin’ it,’ Nora commented wryly, ‘but I reckoned as it was the drink. The price it was it ought to be as tender as a bit o’ chicken.’
‘How much did he charge you for it?’
‘Two an’ nine.’
‘How much? My God, it was dearer than bloody gold. He ought to be ashamed, that Jack bloody ’Ardwick.’
So the Collins family ate what they could and, afterwards, Percy fell asleep in his chair. He awoke some two hours later, still troubled by the irreconcilable difference between what Nora had paid for their joint and its quality. Then an idea started to take shape and Percy smiled to himself. Yes, he would do it. He would show up that Jack Hardwick for what he was – a robbing charlatan. Tomorrow dinnertime would be the perfect time, just as the workers from the brass foundries were turning out. In the scullery, he found the meat, cool now, hidden under a muslin cloth to keep the flies off, and set about carving two thick slices.
Monday dinnertime seemed a long time coming. But just before the ‘bull’ whistle was due to blow at the brass foundry at the top end of Cromwell Street, he donned his working boots, tied the laces and strutted down the steps of his shop, carrying the remains of the offending joint wrapped in newspaper under his arm. A black and white mongrel, which had been rooting round the allotments opposite, instantly caught a whiff of meat and trotted over to investigate, sniffing eagerly at the footpath.
At that moment, the hooter blew and, in just a few seconds, a throng of people were released from the three brass foundries and sundry other establishments into Cromwell Street. Some headed towards The Junction, some in the other direction towards The Dog and Partridge and The Sailor’s Return.
Another dog, a cross between a Jack Russell and a Scots terrier, picked up the same scent and joined the first animal sniffing at Percy’s feet. Yet another emerged, panting, from Granny Wassall’s entry in Cromwell Street. Soon there was a whole pack of dogs yapping at Percy’s heels, and his own labrador bitch escaped by jumping up onto the ledge of the lower half of the stable door and over the back wall, to join the hunt.
Most of the workers bid Percy good day, and some asked why he was accompanied by so many excited dogs. Percy was happy to tell them, so it was with great anticipation that those walking in his direction lingered at Jack Hardwick’s little butcher’s shop to watch the sport, gathering more dogs as they went, all crazed at the scent of the beef.
As Percy mounted the steps to the shop, the dogs tried to gain entrance with him. He kicked out to fend them off, but they interpreted it as a sort of game and were greatly encouraged to try harder. Jack Hardwick rushed round his counter to shut the door, but two of them got in and were up at the sides of bacon and the sheets of lights hanging from the walls.
Jack hated dogs. Relishing the sudden opportunity to inflict some harm on the first, the Jack Russell cross, he seized it by the scruff of its neck and hurled it outside with a kick between its back legs to help it on its way. Percy tackled a bigger animal that bore a faint resemblance to a sheep dog, but was bitten for his trouble. While this commotion was going on, Jack’s mother, Amy, alerted by the barking, whining and shouting, came in from the brewhouse where she was rinsing out her bloomers, wielding a wooden maiding dolly. She had the presence of mind to grab a couple of bones, which she threw out to the dogs in the street to create a diversion.
By now, a sizeable crowd had gathered outside Jack’s shop, watching with amusement as the dogs fought and snarled over the bones. Jack Hardwick, still unsettled, and fearful that they would invade his shop again, bounced out with his mother’s maiding dolly and began flailing at the dogs, but it had no effect.
‘This is all your bloody fault, Percy Collins,’ Jack yelled angrily. ‘Fancy bringin’ a pack o’ dogs into a butcher’s shop. Yo’ must want your head lookin’.’
Percy laughed. ‘It ai’ me what’s attracted ’em, it’s the mate yo’ sell, Jack.’
‘Well, it’s good mate. It’s the best.’
‘It’s the bloody dearest. Though these dogs mightn’t know the difference.’ The animal that had some sheep dog ancestry decided that squabbling over a couple of bones was a lost cause and headed again for Percy’s boots. ‘See what I mean?’ he said, kicking out at it.
‘I doh know what yo’m on about, Percy Collins, but I wish to God as yo’ and the bleedin’ dogs would sling your ’ooks.’
‘Listen, you. I’m on about the mate yo’ sold my missus.’
‘What about it?’
‘What about it? I should’ve thought it bloody obvious.’ He raised his boot, showing the sole to Jack. ‘That’s it, there, on the sole o’ me shoe. It was that damned ’ard it was good for nothin’ else.’ He handed Jack the parcel he carried under his arm. ‘And if yo’ doh believe me, here’s the rest of it. Yo’ try it, and if yo’ can eat it, I’ll gi’ yer a sack o’ taters for your trouble. But yo’ll need a wairter-cooled jaw.’
‘There’s nothin’ wrong with my meat. It’s the way it’s roasted.’
‘Then you’d best tell Walter Wilson, Jack, ’cause he roasted it in his bread oven, same as he does for a lot of folk.’
Suddenly, there was a loud collective guffaw from the workmen gathered round, but the butcher and the greengrocer, engrossed in their impassioned dispute, ignored it.
‘Fancy askin’ a baker to roast a joint o’ beef. What the ’ell’s he know about roasting beef?’
‘Whether or no, I want me money back,’ Percy countered. ‘Yo’ ought a be ashamed chargin’ what yo’ charged for this rubbish.’
Another cheer went up and hoots of encouragement, inciting Percy to greater things. He was evidently doing well in this argument; better than he’d anticipated.
Then someone called out from the crowd. ‘Is this your dog here, Percy?’
Percy turned. The man who called him pointed to the group of baying and panting animals. The sheep dog derivative had mounted another animal and was thrusting into her wholeheartedly, his eyes glazed with determination, hell-bent on relief of some sort, if not his hunger. Percy’s labrador bitch was on the receiving end of all this canine passion, and it suddenly dawned on Percy that this was why they were all cheering.
‘Oh, Jesus Christ. That’s all I need. Jack, lend me the dolly to part ’em, afore it’s too late.’
‘You must be joking,’ Jack replied vindictively. ‘Mother’s gorra do the washin’ with that.’
‘Fetch us a bucket o’ water, then, so’s I can chuck it over ’em.’
Jack shook his head, walked back into his shop, smiling, and closed the door behind him.
Next morning, workers noticed that the sign over Jack’s shop, which the day before bore the legend ‘J. F. Hardwick, High Class Butcher’, had been whitened out, and altered to: ‘J. F. Hardmeat, Purveyor of Shoe Leather’.
Chapter 4
Old customs prevailed. Eve’s abiding routine of looking after a family continued unaltered. Nothing changed, even though there was no longer a house full to worry about. Saturday night remained the start of the week, when she mixed the Sunday fruit cake after tea and put it in the oven at the side of the grate, so there was something to offer any visitor who might drop by. That in its turn meant a roaring fire, which would get the room nice and warm for bath time. They would fill the tin bath with hot water carried from the boiler in the brewhouse and top it up as required. The back door bolted, Lizzie would be first to bathe, but her thick hair seemed to take ages to dry after Eve washed it for her.
On Sunday, it was best clothes, and friends or family often invited round for tea; then church in the evening. Years ago, for convenience, Eve would fry up vegetables left from Sunday dinner for when the children came home from school on a Monday, which was washing day. Nowadays she was satisfied with a cheese sandwich, by herself, and there was no need to hurry because what little there was to launder was usually finished by dinnertime. Eve always used to do her ironing on a Tuesday, but often now she could manage it on Monday afternoons if it had been a good drying day.
She had a day for cleaning the bedrooms and scrubbing the stairs, for polishing the best furniture and the linoleum in the front room, for cleaning the windows and the front door step. On Wednesdays, the fire wasn’t lit till late because that was the day the grate was blackleaded. To her credit, May still called round and did the job for her on her Wednesday afternoon off, assisted by Lizzie of late.
Eve was feeling her years and, though she was by no means old, all this housework was getting harder. The joints in her hands were becoming lumpy; when she walked any distance her legs ached, and she found herself out of breath doing tasks she would have found easy just a year or two ago. Because of a persistent thirst, she was drinking noticeably more water than she used to and visiting the privy umpteen times a day in consequence. Once or twice, too, she found herself wobbly at the knees well before mealtimes. She put it down to hunger, since eating seemed always to alleviate it.
While Eve felt she was withering, she only had to look at Lizzie to see that she was blooming. She said nothing, but regretted that Lizzie should reach this state of optimum physical womanhood when she was in no position to make the most of it, for the finest looks faded over the years. The girl needed good, fashionable clothes to show herself off to best advantage; to enhance her self-esteem; as did every young woman. But financial constraints precluded it. Her other daughters, Maude and Lucy, had blossomed when the family was comparatively well off; when Isaac was earning good money and Ted and Grenville were bringing home a wage.
Yet the lack of money never stopped Lizzie looking her best. Although many of her clothes were old, they were always spotlessly clean and immaculately ironed. Eve made some admirable creations from old garments, and Lizzie took pleasure in wearing them. She only wished that she, too, had a similar talent, rather than none at all.
Eve silently worried about Lizzie. The girl was sensitive and easily hurt, and she wanted so much for her to meet the right man; not necessarily a rich man, but a kind and loving one. If he turned out to be comfortably off as well, then so much the better. But no Jack-the-lad who fancied his chances with other women, like Isaac. A decent, honest, ordinary sort of chap who was prepared to do an honest day’s work would do nicely, so long as he would cherish Lizzie. As yet, though, there was no sign of any young man in her life; but she was young yet. Oh, Lizzie was sweet on Stanley Dando and no two ways, but his joining the army had thwarted that.
Eve could also see that her youngest daughter was not without admirers. She was most aware of it when they walked to church on a Sunday evening in summer. Not only men’s heads would turn but women’s, too, and Eve would feel so proud. There were one or two eligible young men at church every week who went out of their way to speak to Lizzie, but they must surely be tongue-tied or over-awed when it came to asking her out.
Not least of the admirers, Eve could see, was Jesse Clancey. Even though he was courting Sylvia Dando he still had eyes for Lizzie. But Eve did not wish to encourage that. She did not wish to encourage it at all. It would not do for Lizzie to get mixed up with him. It would not do for Lizzie to be upset by Ezme’s evil tongue. Not at any price. Sylvia Dando was fine for Jesse. Perfect, in fact. She hoped they would stay together and get married.
*
It was in September that Lizzie renewed her friendship with Daisy Foster, the girl she used to work with when she first left school. They met again when Lizzie went out with May and Joe one sunny, Sunday afternoon to hear the Cradley Heath Prize Band playing in Buffery Park. Seats had been specially laid out around the bandstand and they were early enough to find three together near the front. At the interval, Lizzie stood up to stretch her legs and smooth the creases out of her best skirt, when, on the opposite side, facing her, she espied Daisy with another girl and two lads, aged about nineteen. She went across to say hello.
‘You look ever so well, Daisy.’
Daisy was slender and nicely dressed in a loose-fitting green dress and a wide, straw hat adorned with flowers. Her ready smile was marred only by two slightly crossed teeth, which somehow seemed more noticeable now, but which didn’t detract from her prettiness; rather they were the imperfection that added to it.
‘And so do you, Lizzie. You look lovely.’
‘It’s been ages.’
‘I know. We should get together and have a rattle. Are you working in Dudley now?’
‘At Theedhams.’
‘Theedhams? Fancy. And I only work in the Market Place. Why don’t you meet me one dinnertime?’
‘How about Wednesday? I have Wednesday afternoons off.’
‘That’s my afternoon off as well. I could meet you at the Midland Café, if you like.’
Lizzie smiled, a broad smile of pleasure at re-establishing contact with her old friend. ‘Yes. About ten past one? I couldn’t get there before then.’
‘I’ll keep us a table.’
Meanwhile, the lads occupied themselves in conversation with the other girl, though Lizzie couldn’t help noticing one of them. He was wickedly handsome, with sparkling blue eyes and almost black hair that was immaculately trimmed. And he kept looking up at her, trying to catch her eye with an interested smile when the other girl wasn’t aware.
On the appointed day, the two girls turned up for their reunion under umbrellas, for the weather had turned. A steady drizzle all morning had been drenching everything. Market stall holders were packing away, loading their carts with unsold merchandise ready for the next day; for there would be few, if any, customers this dreary afternoon.
When Lizzie and Daisy had let down their brollies and shook them they entered the café and took a vacant table in the window. They ordered a pot of tea, with tongue and cucumber sandwiches.
‘It was such a shock to see you on Sunday,’ Lizzie said, beaming, tucking a strand of hair under her hat. ‘You were the last person in the world I expected to meet.’
Daisy shuffled and leaned forward expectantly. ‘I know, but it was a lovely surprise. Did you say you’re working at Theedhams now?’
Lizzie nodded.
‘I was in Theedham’s just last week. It’s a wonder I didn’t see you. It must’ve been your dinner time or somethin’. I work in the Public Benefit Boot shop. I left Chambers’s Saddlery ages ago. Pullin’ on the leather and stitchin’ and that played havoc with me hands, I couldn’t stand it. Then I found this job, and I like it. Besides, I get me shoes cheap.’
‘That’s handy.’
‘Oh, anytime you want some new shoes cheap come and see me, Lizzie.’
‘I’m desperate for some new shoes, Daisy. I’ll have to come and see you … Are you courting now, then?’
‘Oh, nothin’ serious.’ Self-consciously she wiped condensation from the window with one of her gloves.
‘Oh, I bet! Is it one of those chaps you were with on Sunday?’
‘Yes, the fair-haired one.’ Daisy peered through the patch she had cleared at passers-by trying to avoid stepping into puddles on the uneven pavement outside. ‘His name’s Jimmy Powell. I’ve been goin’ with him six months now. But it’s nothin’ serious, honest. He’s nice, but …’
‘Where’s he live?’
‘Tividale. That was his mate, Ben, who was with us. He’s a nice chap, an’ all.’
‘Mmm, I noticed him. He looked ever so nice, Daisy. I could’ve taken to him myself. He kept smiling at me, but I pretended not to notice.’
The two girls laughed easily.
Daisy said, ‘Fern – that’s his sweetheart – she noticed. She was ever so funny with him after you’d gone. I think she was jealous.’
‘Oops! But I did nothing to egg him on.’
‘You didn’t have to. Looking the way you did was enough. I thought you looked smashin’ in that outfit with your hair done up, an’ all.’
Lizzie smiled, acknowledging the compliment. ‘I’ve had that outfit ages. It’s due to be made into dusters.’
A rickety, old waitress brought their tea and sandwiches. They thanked her and continued talking, comparing their lives since last they worked together; laughing over the meetings they had with two lads they used to see after work, and wondering what had become of them. They talked about the other girls they worked with, and chuckled when they recounted the escapades with men they’d bragged about. They wanted to know about each other’s families; about births, deaths, marriages. There was such a lot to catch up on. It was two pots of tea later that the girls emerged from the Midland Café, still laughing.
‘You’ll have to come to tea one Sunday, Daisy. Mother would love to see you.’
‘That’d be nice.’
‘What about a week on Sunday? You could bring your sweetheart, if you wanted to. Mother wouldn’t mind. She wouldn’t mind at all.’
Daisy smiled. ‘All right then.’
*
Eve was indeed pleased to learn that Daisy Foster and her young man were coming to tea. It would be a nice change to entertain somebody different.
‘I wish I could have a new frock,’ Lizzie said. ‘I can never wear that outfit again.’
‘I wish you could, as well,’ Eve replied, having caught every word and understanding Lizzie’s frustration. ‘I’ll see if I can make you something new for then. Perhaps May’s got something as I can alter.’
‘There’s a frock in me wardrobe I never wear, Lizzie,’ May said, stirring her tea as she sat at the scrubbed table. ‘Have it with pleasure if you want it.’
Lizzie smiled. ‘Ooh, May, thanks. Can I see it after?’
‘’Course. If you like it, bring it back with you.’
‘I could do with a new coat, as well, Mother,’ she said with a plea in her eyes. ‘I’ve got some money saved. Enough to buy a new coat. Can I?’
Eve agreed. Tomorrow, in her dinnertime, Lizzie would happily scour the town for a new coat. Meanwhile, there was May’s discarded frock to inspect.
It turned out to be less than a year old and quite fashionable. May was a size bigger than Lizzie, especially around the bust, but with a couple of darts in the waist, some remodelling of the bodice and turning the hem up a couple of inches, it would be ideal. Lizzie thanked May and the two girls took it back to show Eve. At once they had to have a fitting, so Lizzie divested herself of her working clothes and put on the new dress. Eve reached up and took her pincushion from the mantelpiece and started putting a few pins in here and there, where she needed to alter it.
‘This is a beautiful frock, May,’ Eve commented. ‘How come you’ve never worn it?’
‘After I’d bought it Joe said he didn’t like it,’ May replied.
‘Our Lizzie, it’ll look a treat on you.’
‘Good. I can hardly wait for next Sunday to wear it.’
*
The dairy house, where the Clanceys lived, was a large detached house with no foregarden, but set well back from the footpath. A cobbled yard lay at the rear, accessed from the street by an entry broad enough to drive a horse and cart through with ease. On one side of the yard was a row of brick-built outbuildings, one of which was a stillroom for making butter, the rest for stabling the horses and garaging the carts. On the other side was the door to the scullery. Behind the brewhouse stood the privy, the ‘miskin’ where they deposited all their rubbish and a hen coop. When Jack Clancey first started up his business he kept cows in the field at the back of the house to provide the milk for his business. A picket fence and gate separated it from the yard. These days, because home-produced milk was unreliable, only the two horses grazed it now, accompanied occasionally by an odd vagrant hen in search of extra food.
In the front room, standing in the square bay window looking out over Cromwell Street, was Jesse Clancey. An hour earlier he’d watched Lizzie Bishop, in all her Sunday finery, walk towards Hill Street with another girl and a young man, no doubt heading for Oakham Road and a stroll through the meadows beyond. He was hoping they would return by the same route so he could catch sight of her again. Every time he saw the girl she looked more and more bewitching. Today she wore a cream dress with pale green trimmings, narrow skirted, with a high neck collar, under a cream three-quarter length coat. She looked so beautiful, her hair swept up on top of her head in the pompadour style and crowned with a fashionable cream wide-brimmed hat topped with pink roses.
If only there were some way of making Lizzie interested in him he would give up Sylvia Dando. Oh, Sylvia was a nice enough girl, and she’d make somebody a good wife, but not him. Sylvia was the same as all the others; somehow she failed to spark off any excitement in him, physical or mental. For him to even consider marriage there had to be some glimmer of passion, of yearning for her, of yearning to be with her. But he did not yearn for Sylvia. He’d courted her for many months now and they’d progressed beyond canoodling, and still he didn’t yearn for her. But he did yearn for this little Lizzie Bishop, Sylvia’s second cousin. Perhaps it was because she was unattainable; because she might think he was too old at twenty-six and because their respective mothers had always been at odds. At least, that was what he assumed; he did not know it for certain.
But in any case, what would her mother think if he were to suddenly start walking out with her, little more than a child at seventeen? Like everyone else, she would no doubt consider the age gap unseemly; she would accuse him of cradle-snatching. Yet all he wanted was to love her and for her to return his love. He wanted to marry her, to be the father of her children, and provide her with a decent standard of living; a standard of living befitting a girl so worthy.
Lizzie Bishop was becoming an obsession. She was the only reason he still went to church, albeit accompanied these days by Sylvia. And who would credit it? Who would believe that he could be longing for this Lizzie Bishop, whom he had watched grow up from a skinny little kid to this vision of femininity? Who would believe it, when he had a pretty girl like Sylvia on his arm, who evidently thought the world of him?
The problem was that there was never an occasion when he might meet Lizzie Bishop to tell her how he felt, or to ask her if she would like to step out with him. Even if there were, would she listen? If only he could find some way of making his feelings known before somebody else claimed her, for somebody surely would, and soon. Otherwise, how could she ever know how he felt? And, knowing, she might even respond positively …