A Dream to Share Read online

  ‘What time have we got to be there?’ asked Alice, getting to her feet.

  ‘We must be in Birkenhead by ten o’clock. I’ve not visited Mrs Abraham’s house before and I’m hoping that a good number of the Ladies’ Liberal Party will be attending. We really need more of them involved in the Movement.’ Victoria placed a penny under her saucer, picked up her large, crocodile skin handbag and stood up.

  ‘I hope you enjoy your meeting,’ said Emma boldly.

  Victoria smiled and hurried towards the exit.

  Alice looked at Emma and winked. ‘It’ll be all talk and little action,’ she whispered. ‘They’re all so ladylike, you see. Bye!’ She followed her mistress out.

  Emma knew what she meant. She had attended a couple of meetings in support of the Women’s Suffrage Movement with Mrs Stone. Thinking of her previous employer caused her spirits to plummet. Soon she would have to leave the warmth of the cocoa house, not only to face Mrs Roberts at the Servants’ Registry Office, but also her mother. She could expect a scolding from both of them about the foolishness of leaving a job without a reference. It meant that she couldn’t pick and choose. Emma’s first job when her schooling had finished five years ago had been with a childless widow. The situation had suited her down to the ground. Unfortunately the job had ended with her employer’s sud­den death and no one to provide a reference. The only piece of paper Emma possessed was the character reference written by her teacher, stating that she was honest, hardworking and would benefit from train­ing, as she had an excellent memory.

  Emma rubbed the tip of her nose absently, thinking of the house­hold that she had just left. To run through several all-purpose maids so swiftly must surely mean Difficult was written in large black letters in the margin against the Stones’ name. Emma’s eyes darkened and her mouth set determinedly. What she wanted was another position with a childless widow or a nice rich spinster. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that she might walk into such a job right away. She drained her cup and left.

  Melting hailstones crunched beneath Emma’s feet as she passed the Glynne Arms on the corner of Francis Street. Within minutes she arrived at a red-brick building with small paned windows, displaying a board with the words Servants’ Registry Office painted on it. There was another such office nearer the river Dee, but this one was only a short walk from her parents’ house.

  Emma wiped her feet on the mat in the vestibule, opened the door and entered Mrs Roberts’ sanctum. To her surprise, a flaxen-haired giant of a man stood the other side of the counter, resting a shoulder against a shelf and reading the Chester Chronicle. He wore working overalls over a shirt and looked out of place in the office. ‘Take a seat. She’ll be back shortly,’ he said, without looking up.

  ‘Does that mean five minutes or half-an-hour?’

  He glanced up and Emma watched with a fascinated eye, as a tide of colour ran up from the open neck of his grey flannelette shirt to the roots of his hair. He cleared his throat and answered in a deep baritone voice with more than a hint of a Welsh accent. ‘She didn’t say. She just had news that a friend’s husband has died and felt she had to go and see her.’

  ‘She could be some time then?’

  ‘You think so?’ He sounded dismayed and glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘She did say she’d be back in a jiffy.’

  Emma placed her bag on the counter and said mildly, ‘Are you a client or are yer related to her?’

  He folded his newspaper and smiled faintly. ‘My mother was a cousin twice removed. Now there’s only Dad and me. We moved to Chester just a year ago. Is there anything I can do for you?’ He rested his elbows on the counter and brought his head down so that his face was now on a level with hers.

  The expression in his grey eyes was slightly unnerving but her voice was steady enough when she spoke. ‘Well, unless you can give me a job, then all yer can do is write a message from me to Mrs Roberts. There’s a pen and inkstand right next to yer elbow.’

  He hesitated but then straightened up and reached for the pen. She dictated to him what kind of employment she wanted. Despite the largeness of his hand, he wrote in a neat copperplate style. She was impressed. Her handwriting was terrible because she could never get the words down quickly enough. They ended up looking like she’d dipped a spider in ink and used that for a nib.

  He blotted the sentences before lifting his head. His cheeks dimpled in a smile. ‘It’s a pity you stipulate not wanting to work where there’s a man in the house. My dad and I could do with a live-in housekeeper. We’ve been muddling through on our own since we’ve been here.’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry. But my experience of male employers is the reason for me dictating to yer that I don’t want to work where there’s men. I’m sure, though, Mrs Roberts will find yer somebody, Mr … ?’

  ‘Davies. David Davies.’ His dimples came and went. ‘I can assure you, Miss Griffiths, my father and I are perfectly respectable.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘You’d think a doctor would be respectable, wouldn’t you? I tell you, he wasn’t.’ She twiddled her fin­gers at the Welshman and left.

  Emma crossed Brook Street, avoiding a coal cart pulled by a tired­ looking horse. Eventually she came to a street of Victorian terraced houses and, reaching in through the letterbox, she pulled out a key on a string. She opened the door onto a narrow lobby at the end of which was a flight of stairs that led up to two bedrooms and a box room. She went through a door on her left into a small front room, furnished with a shabby sofa and a couple of armchairs. A rag rug covered the torn linoleum in front of the fireplace but there was no fire in the grate and wouldn’t be until her father arrived home from work.

  She went through into the kitchen and could hear her mother Olive’s voice, and found her in the tiny washhouse to the rear. The iron set-pot stood on bricks over a fire, sending out billows of steam. The grimy whitewashed walls were dripping with condensation. Emma groaned. Where was her mother’s commonsense? Surely when she had seen the weather that morning she should have known to put off the task of washing blankets until another day. Just because her mother had always washed blankets in May, Olive felt she had to do the same.

  ‘Hello, Mam.’

  Olive had not heard her daughter enter the house and whirled round with her youngest on her hip and a wooden spoon in her right hand. ‘What the hell are you doing here at this time of day?’

  With her heart hammering and a defiant tilt to her chin, Emma said, ‘I’ve quit!’

  ‘What! How the hell d’you think I’m going to manage?’ With its patches of scurvy and dried blood, Olive’s hollow-cheeked face was ugly in her fury.

  It took all of Emma’s nerve to defend herself. ’! couldn’t stand him p-pawing me any longer. Dirty old man!’

  ‘And who made you so fussy?’ snapped Olive, placing a lid on top of the steaming pot and dropping the wooden spoon on top of it. ‘If you had my life, yer’d have something to complain about.’

  ‘I thought yer’d want me to have a better life than yours,’ countered Emma defiantly. She was swamped with guilt, noticing how bony the wrists were that showed beneath the shrunken mutton sleeves of her mother’s blouse and the thinness of her chest. A navy blue skirt clung to Olive’s skinny legs and her feet were shod in a pair of boots, which she had found in the entry, with the soles coming away. She had boiled them before having one of the twins tack the soles back into place.

  Olive thrust her youngest son at her daughter. ‘Yer a dreamer just like our Aggie! Beggars can’t be choosers. Yer should have put up with things just like I have to.’

  ‘I’ll get another job,’ said Emma.

  ‘Too right yer will.’

  Emma held her little brother tightly as he wrapped scrawny arms about her neck and rested his head on her shoulder. He wore no nappy and his nightgown smelt of wee, his feet were bare and stone cold. She clasped them in one of her hands in an attempt to warm them. ‘I will. I’ll take anything if it makes you feel
happier.’

  Olive’s expression hardened. ‘If you’d played your cards right yer could have got money out of him or little gifts we could have pawned.’

  Emma flinched. ‘You can’t mean that, Mam.’

  ‘I do!’ she retorted fiercely. ‘Yer don’t appreciate your good fortune in escaping this house. God, I wish I was your age again. I’d be off to Liverpool. Plenty of sailors there with money to spend. I was good looking once and could have raked it in. With your looks yer could make a fair amount, I bet.’

  Emma could scarcely believe her ears. ‘What’s up with yer, Mam, talking like this? I could get the pox!’

  ‘Yer know about such things then,’ said Olive sharply, dragging her blouse more tightly about her thin body and hugging herself.

  Emma blurted out, ‘I’ve flicked through some of the doctor’s med­ical books. Yer’d be surprised how many diseases there are in the world and the kind of thing you can catch from doing what yer oughtn’t. You’re talking stupid, Mam.’

  Olive looked shamefaced. ‘OK, Em, keep your hair on. Perhaps I should have thought twice before saying that but I get desperate at times. I need the money you earn, duck.’

  ‘I know, Mam, I know.’ Emma hesitated before adding, ‘I’ve a cou­ple of shillings saved. I’ll give them to yer.’

  Immediately Olive’s expression changed and she said angrily, ‘I never knew yer had any savings. Wait’ll your dad hears that yer’ve been keeping money from us while living in the lap of luxury.’

  Emma gasped. ‘Living in luxury! I worked bloody hard for every penny I earned, cleaning out grates, scrubbing floors, fetching and car­rying coal and water up flights of stairs from dawn to dusk. What’s stopping you from making some cash? You could take in washing. It’s something yer good at after all.’

  Olive exploded, swearing and calling her daughter all the names she could think of, adding that she already worked her socks off. Emma was almost blown over by the force of her words. Then her mother stopped and into that well of silence fell the patter of wee on the stone floor as little Johnny lost control of his bladder. Emma thrust him away from her skirt, already damp, and into her mother’s arms. ‘I’ll go back to the registry office right now and I won’t return until I’ve another job.’

  She walked out of the house, wishing life wasn’t so hard, not only for herself but her mother and so many working class women like them. She thought of Mrs Stone and that Miss Victoria in the cocoa room with the time to attend meetings and felt even angrier than ever. She pushed open the door of the Servants’ Registry Office and only then did she remember the fair giant of a man with the deep musical voice, who wanted a housekeeper. Would he be there still?

  No. A vague disappointment made itself felt, surprising her. She hadn’t wanted the job, so what was wrong with her? Taking a deep breath and crossing her fingers, she pinned a woebegone expression on her face as she approached the woman behind the counter. ‘You remem­ber me, Mrs Roberts? Emma Griffiths. I left you a message.’

  The grey-haired woman in the black dress fixed her with a stare. ‘I hope you have references with you this time, Miss Griffiths.’

  Emma’s bottom lip quivered and, in a trembling voice, she explained her lack of them. The woman sighed. ‘I’m afraid there are no women on my books at the moment that would take you into their homes with­out references. I suggest you give up the idea of living in and seek daily cleaning work. I know of one such job if you are interested. I will write a note putting in a good word for you with the employer.’

  Emma’s heart sank but as her mother had said Beggars can’t be choosers. She asked where the job was and was told it was in a furniture shop. That didn’t sound too bad, she thought, waiting while Mrs Roberts scribbled a quick note.

  Emma left the Servants’ Registry Office telling herself that things could be much worse. At least she no longer had to put up with being pawed by Dr Stone. She thought of Aggie, remembering how her father had laid all the blame for her condition on her sister’s shoulders. He hadn’t even asked the name of the swine who had got her into trouble. He was the kind of man who always blamed the victims of suffering and hardship, saying that they had brought it on themselves. For the umpteenth time she wondered about the identity of the man responsi­ble for her sister’s pregnancy. Oh, why hadn’t Aggie confided in her? All she had ever said was that she’d found herself a smashing fella, but, otherwise, she had been very secretive about him.

  After the first flush of grief had passed, Emma had tried to discov­er the man’s name by visiting Bannister’s Bakery where her sister had worked. She remembered Aggie mentioning a workmate called Annie. But when Emma had called at the shop to ask for her, she had been told that she had left. When asked where Annie lived, the crabby ol’ spinster in charge had shown her the door, reminding Emma that Agnes had been sacked for stealing.

  Emma sighed, remembering how her sister had taken buns for their younger brothers and sisters. Sooner or later she would have to make another attempt to track down the swine and see that he paid for what he had done. But she was damned if she could work out how to trace him without finding Annie first.

  Chapter Two

  June, 1907

  Hannah Kirk hoisted her damson-coloured, imitation silk gown and starched cotton underskirts above her ankles and headed for the front door. It was a beautiful summer day and her wedding was due to take place in an hour but already things were going wrong. Alice had not yet arrived and…

  ‘Hanny, where are you going?’ Joy, her younger sister, swivelled her dark head in her direction.

  ‘To find Freddie and Tilly,’ replied Hannah. ‘I don’t know how they managed to sneak out without us seeing them but they have. If they’ve mucked themselves up they’re for it.’

  ‘Should you be going out dressed like that?’ Joy had spent hours helping to tidy up and prepare the wedding breakfast. She was still in the throes of getting herself ready for the big occasion; otherwise she would have gone in search of her younger brother and Tilly, herself.

  Hannah shrugged slender shoulders. ‘As long as Kenny doesn’t see me what does it matter? The neighbours should be used to our comings and goings by now. You know what Bert threatened in May, so I can’t take any chances. Although, I think Freddie would have been back here by now if Bert’d turned up.’

  Joy agreed. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what Mother’s hoping for.’

  With a sigh, Hannah paused with a hand on the front door. ‘I still think Mother believes I led him on.’

  ‘Surely she can’t,’ said Joy in disbelief.

  ‘He’s always been her blue-eye,’ said Hannah grimly. ‘You’d think after what she knows about him now, she’d realise he’s no angel. She just doesn’t want to believe him capable of ungentlemanly behaviour…despite walking in on him beating up Alice, too.’

  ‘Alice isn’t here yet.’

  ‘I have noticed. It could be that Miss Victoria needed her for some­thing at the last minute and that’s made her late.’

  ‘I’d make a better job of being chief bridesmaid, you know,’ stated Joy, buttoning up her bridesmaid gown that was blush pink cotton. ‘Honestly, the kids’ll do what I tell them. Alice has no idea how to han­dle them for all she says she wants lots of children one day.’

  Hannah, a warm smile in her blue eyes as she gazed at this well­ loved sister, said, ‘I know, but she is my best friend, as well as being Kenny’s half-sister. Now I’d best scram in case Mother comes down and delays me even further. I have to go.’ She managed at last to leave the kitchen and get out of the house.

  Already the neighbours were gathering. They wanted a good view of the bride, and not only because she was a popular young woman but also because the shock waves from the last minute cancellation of the wedding of the Kirks’ eldest son Bert to Alice Moran had not died down. Even the most persistent gossipmongers believed handsome and charming Bert Kirk was a real catch, with a good job in engineer­ing. Most thought Ali
ce crazy not to want to move with him to a bet­ter paid job in Liverpool. A few weeks later had come the surprise announcement of Hannah’s engagement to Kenny Moran, who had­n’t been on the scene for ages. A mute, as long as they had known him, he had suddenly re-appeared from Scotland of all places able to talk. It had been rumoured that his dumbness had been all in the mind. All this after his father, Malcolm Moran, had been arrested for beating up a policeman and had ended up being committed to the lunatic asylum.

  Hannah had no trouble gleaning from the neighbours that Freddie, clad in kilt, frilled white shirt and black velvet doublet for his role of page boy, was playing in Chesham Street, a cul-de-sac, a few minutes’ walk away.

  ‘Tilly?’ she asked, trying not to sound too anxious.

  ‘Was with him last time we saw her, skipping along as merry as a sand-boy, Hanny dear,’ said one woman, smiling. ‘Will Bert be at the wedding?’

  Hannah shook her head and lied smoothly, ‘He’s much too busy.’ The neighbour looked at her disbelievingly but was silent.

  ‘You’d best be careful not to spoil that lovely dress,’ called another woman.

  Hannah thanked them with a smile and went on her way. She found Freddie playing marbles with several boys, and was reminded of a pea­cock amongst a huddle of sparrows. He was kneeling in the dust, the han­dle of a small dirk jutting out of the top of his right stocking. The outfit had been sent from Scotland by Kenny’s maternal grandmother, who, unfortunately, couldn’t attend the wedding. Hannah tapped Freddie on the shoulder and he glanced up at her. ‘Where’s Tilly?’ she asked.

  ‘Isn’t she here?’ Absentmindedly, he attempted to put his marbles in a pocket that was not there and so resorted to the sporran.

  ‘I wouldn’t be asking if she was,’ said Hannah, shaking her head at him in exasperation. A twist of fear was forming in her tummy. ‘I told you to keep your eye on her. The wedding’s in less than an hour.’

  Freddie pulled a face. ‘She was supposed to stay put, but you know what she’s like for wandering off.’