The Mill Girls of Albion Lane (39 page)

They arrived at St Luke's in the nick of time, just as the bells chimed the hour. The verger threw open the big oak doors of the splendid church built with wealthy mill owners' money some fifty years earlier, its fine stonework blackened by soot from factory chimneys and now struggling to attract a congregation large enough to fill its cavernous interior. The first worshippers filtered out into the porch, stopping to shake hands with the vicar and to exchange a few pleasantries with each other. Lily's heart, already racing from running uphill, quickened further as she searched for any sign of the Calverts.

‘They're not here after all,' a disappointed Evie said as the church disgorged its worshippers and the vicar stepped inside while the verger prepared to close the doors.

‘No – wait!' Sybil saw more figures emerging. As they'd approached the church, she'd made out the mill owner's Bentley parked in the entrance to the cemetery adjacent to the church so was certain they were present. ‘Here they come.'

‘What do we do now?' Evie wondered. ‘There's no point us marching up to them and demanding to know about Billy outright.'

‘Leave it to me,' Annie told them, noticing that Stanley and Eleanor Calvert had emerged on to the wide steps before their daughter who had stayed back to talk to the vicar. ‘I'll draw them down the steps and out of the way while you lot nip in and nab Winifred.'

‘How do you propose to do that?' Sybil demanded.

‘I'll let on there's something wrong with their precious car,' Annie decided on the spur of the moment. ‘I know – I'll say they've got a flat tyre. That'll put the wind up them.'

No sooner said than she sped up the steps and talked in an animated fashion to the Calverts, pointing towards the place where their car was parked and persuading them to hurry towards it without waiting for their daughter. Immediately, Lily and the others ran to waylay Winifred before she had a chance to follow.

Finding herself surrounded by Evie, Sybil and Lily, Winifred's first reaction was to seek help from the vicar, only to find that he'd already taken off his surplice and was disappearing into the vestry. ‘What's the matter now?' she asked, frowning and backing up against the stone wall.

‘It's Billy,' Lily answered. Now that the moment of truth had arrived she felt strangely calm so she came straight to the point. ‘You two were sweethearts, weren't you?'

‘Why won't you leave me alone, Lily Briggs?' Winifred protested weakly. ‘I'm sick and tired of being pestered.'

‘But you don't deny it.' With fingers crossed, Sybil went on to take a calculated risk. ‘Anyway, you and Billy were seen together. It got my goat because I was walking out with him myself at the time.'

Evie and Lily waited with bated breath as Sybil made the leap of logic. Had it really been Winifred standing with Billy outside the department store?

Winifred shook her head then started to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks. Lily offered her a handkerchief then led her gently inside and sat her down on the nearest pew in order to give her time to pull herself together. ‘Wait there a while,' she told the others.

‘Be quick then,' Sybil advised as she peered anxiously out of the door. ‘We don't have long before Mr and Mrs Calvert come looking for her.'

Lily nodded then sat down next to Winifred. There was a rich scent of pine resin and polish, combined with a musty smell emanating from the worn tapestry kneelers at their feet. ‘I know you're upset,' she began. ‘But I have to know the truth, for Harry's sake. Did you talk to Billy in the garden just before he died?'

Miserably drying her tears, Winifred shook her head.

‘But he had come to see you, hadn't he? That's what you'd arranged. He hoped to slip in without being noticed but the plan went wrong somehow.'

‘All right, all right.' Winifred sighed, her resistance crumbling. ‘It's true. I loved Billy and he loved me and now my heart is broken. There, is that enough?'

‘I'm sorry,' Lily breathed, genuinely moved by Winifred's pain. ‘What was the reason you couldn't go out to meet him?'

Winifred wrung the handkerchief between her hands and constantly shook her head as she spoke.

‘Mother had found us out on the day before. She came across me writing a billet-doux for Billy, which I meant to give to Harry to deliver. She read the letter out loud from start to finish, mocking me before she tore it into pieces. Then she said I was letting her and Father down and couldn't be trusted to go out of the house without a chaperone from now on – on and on she went.'

Billet-doux? The phrase betrayed a school-girl shallowness in Winifred and Lily felt a flash of anger. ‘And Harry was to be your go-between?'

‘Yes. Until then I'd made sure Harry knew nothing about me and Billy – we thought nobody did. It was only because Mother had arranged for me to go to tea at Mabel Kingsley's house the next day straight from work and I had to write and tell Billy not to come to the house because I wouldn't be there.'

‘But your mother tore up the note so Harry couldn't deliver the message and Billy didn't know about the change of plan. But then you didn't go to tea?'

‘No. The next day, I said I wasn't feeling well so I asked Harry to drive me home and he pulled up outside the front door. He went straight into the house but I made sure to take my time getting out of the car.'

‘Because you still needed to find Billy and warn him?' Lily asked.

‘Exactly. My plan was to sneak round the side of the house, only Mother came out and was angry with me for coming home. She dragged me inside and made me cry until Father came out of his study and then he began to argue with Mother and that almost gave me the chance to give Harry the message for Billy, except that Mother spotted me again and sent me upstairs.'

Lily pictured the scene – a battle royal between the imperious Eleanor and the beleaguered Stanley Calvert, going at it hammer and tongs within the confines of their grand mansion, with Winifred cowering in the background. ‘And then what?' she wanted to know, sensing by the continued nervous wringing of Winifred's hands that there was more to come.

‘Then I ran to my bedroom window, the one at the side of the house, and looked down on to the yard to see if I could spot Billy. I saw his bike resting against an outhouse door then I saw him with … with—'

‘He wasn't alone?' Lily interrupted.

‘No. He was arguing with two men.'

Lily heard this with clenched jaw and fists. She must stay calm – for Harry's sake she needed to glean every scrap of new information from the distraught Winifred. ‘Do you know who they were?'

‘I only saw their backs. Billy was facing me but he didn't look up. They seemed to be angry.'

‘You're sure you didn't see their faces?' Time was against Lily – the church door had been flung open and she could hear footsteps approaching.

‘No, hand on heart,' Winifred sobbed. ‘They were wearing caps so their faces were hidden even when they turned around. One was big and strong, a real brute. He threw a punch at Billy and the other one tried to kick him. Billy ducked out of their way and started to run round to the front of the house. That was the last time I saw him.'

‘And the men chased him?'

‘Yes. And the next thing I knew he'd been knocked over and killed. He's dead and now I shall never see him again!'

On Albion Lane, in the bedroom she shared with Evie, Lily's mind raced through what she'd learned in St Luke's, trying to come to terms with the one fact that stared her in the face – Billy had got into a fight and been run over all because of Winifred Calvert. She pictured him cheerily cycling up to Moor House, whistling maybe and looking forward to the thrill of a secret tryst with the boss's daughter. Typical, devil-may-care Billy to risk something like that, she thought. Did he really love Winifred, though? Or had he died for the sake of a cheap, celluloid romance, for a girl he would soon have thrown aside like he had so many others?

In any case, the two shadowy figures who had entered the picture were what Lily needed to focus on now, before she, Sybil and Annie were ready to go to the police with as many new pieces of information as they could muster. Who were they and how had they got there? she wondered over and over. Who were these two men wearing caps, one big and strong, the other using his feet to hurt their victim, the rough type who you would commonly see scrapping on street corners or outside the Green Cross? Whoever they were, they held the answers to Billy's death – of that Lily was sure.

She got up next morning before the knocker-up came down Albion Lane, rattling windows with his long pole, and was already dressed and in the kitchen when Evie came down. It was only then that she remembered to delay her departure to fit in with the new clocking-on time of nine o'clock so she kept herself busy with dusting and polishing before leaving the house with fifteen minutes to spare, joining the steady flow of workers down the hill towards the mills on Ghyll Road and beyond. When she arrived at Calvert's, she saw Sybil and Annie waiting under the archway with Fred Lee.

‘Fred says we've to go to the office with him,' Annie told Lily with a worried frown. ‘He won't say what it's about.'

‘Don't worry, you'll soon find out.' Enjoying the three women's unease, the smirking overlooker led the way. ‘Some people don't know when they're well off,' he remarked over his shoulder.

‘What do you mean by that?' Sybil wanted to know, trying to conceal the nervous knot that was forming in her stomach.

‘Having a regular job to come to, for a start. I'd have thought that was well worth toeing the line for.'

‘What makes you think we haven't?' Annie asked, similarly alarmed. Something had put Fred into a good mood this morning, but she couldn't tell what.

‘In you go.' He winked, using his foot to hold open Derek Wilson's door for them and all but rubbing his hands with glee.

‘That's all, thank you, Fred,' the manager told him. As the overlooker let the door swing to, Wilson gazed without expression at Sybil, Annie and Lily, hands resting on his desk with his fingers interlaced. ‘Jean.' He motioned to his secretary, who stood by with three envelopes at the ready.

Hastily Jean Carson came forward and placed the envelopes on the desk.

‘That'll be all, thank you, Jean.'

The secretary hurried out with downcast eyes, unable to meet anyone's gaze due to the rising tension in the room.

‘I expect you know what these are,' the manager went on drily.

‘They're our cards,' Sybil guessed, her heart thudding.

‘Correct. I've been instructed to hand them to you as soon as you got here, no ifs or buts.'

At first Lily stood dumbfounded, unable to let the words sink in. This couldn't be happening. How could they be sacked without at least being given a reason?

‘But you can't do that,' Annie objected. ‘It was only on Saturday that Mr Calvert told us that no one was to be laid off.'

‘That was true at the time but now circumstances have changed. Lily, this one is for you.' Wilson pushed the first envelope towards her.

She reached forward and took it from the desk with trembling fingers, staring at the envelope as if it might bite.

‘I suppose there's no point asking why?' Sybil muttered.

‘None at all. Believe me, I'm simply following orders.' The manager pushed the other two envelopes towards her and Annie.

‘But we
know
why,' Annie said, fiercely tearing hers open to check her employment card inside. ‘This is us being punished for what happened at the church yesterday – that's what this is.'

Wilson's face remained impassive. ‘You are no longer employed at Calvert's Mill. You must collect whatever tools and belongings you have here and be off the premises by half past nine.'

‘Don't worry, you won't see us for dust,' Sybil told him with angry determination. ‘Come on, Lily. Come on, Annie – we're off!'

‘I've never seen Fred look so pleased with himself,' Sybil remarked to Annie and Lily as the three women retreated to Nixon's corner café and commiserated over a cup of tea. ‘He was grinning like a Cheshire cat when we went in to collect our aprons and say our goodbyes.'

‘Ah, but he won't have the last laugh,' Annie vowed. ‘Wait until he sees our names above the door of that little shop of ours!'

Lily was still reeling from the shock and trying to get to grips with the fact that the one reliable wage in the Briggs household had suddenly vanished. She wondered what her mother would have thought and heard Rhoda's voice saying, ‘What are we to do now, pray tell? We can't live on fresh air.'

And it was true – Lily's wage from Calvert's Mill was what had kept the family afloat for six years and the traipse into work each morning, the never-altering view of black walls and grimy windows, the wide arch through which she shuffled had all seeped through her skin and into her bones so that suddenly being cast adrift by the mill owner made her feel very afraid, like a sailor thrown overboard into a vast, empty ocean and flailing his arms to attract rescue.

‘How about Miss Valentine?' Sybil drew Lily out of her daze, stirring sugar into her tea and taking note of the steamed-up windows and shabby interior of the once prosperous café. ‘How did she take the news?'

‘She was knocked for six, just like us,' Lily replied. It was only now as she took her first sip of tea that she was able to stop trembling. ‘She shook my hand and wished me well.'

‘She knows she's lost one of the best menders she's ever likely to have,' Sybil murmured. ‘There's no need to be modest, Lil – we all know it's true.'

There was another pause while they each let the bleak reality of their sacking sink in and the silence was only broken by the hiss of steam from a copper boiler behind the counter and the chink of crockery from a tiny kitchen beyond.