The Dressmaker’s Daughter. Nancy Carson
back-to-back, were built during the early part of the nineteenth century to house the influx of workers who came seeking jobs in the burgeoning foundries, forges, coal mines and ironworks. There were many other factories tucked away, small concerns, some squeezed between houses, some crammed at the back of them, or down alley-ways that the ever-present wind funnelled heedlessly through. Most were concerned with the shaping of metal. Furnaces still glowed in many streets after dark as workers toiled on, striving to earn a few pence extra to bring some comfort to their spartan lives. Three brass foundries and a forge all stood within shouting distance of each other, so there was always the sound of hard work within earshot; the ringing of metal; the steady, reassuring gasps of Boulton and Watt steam engines built practically next door in Handsworth. Everywhere a great confusion of chimney stacks volleyed columns of grey smoke up into the obliging sky.
The Bishops’ house was roughly in the middle of an unbroken terrace that ran the whole length of Cromwell Street on one side. It was not a regular terrace, though. Some houses, those inhabited by better off families, stood further back from the horse road than others, with iron railings at the front and long flights of stone steps up to the painted gates of their entries. The Bishops’, however, was none such; their front doorstep directly met the footpath with its criss-crossed, blue, paving bricks.
There were three bedrooms. Two were on the front, one of which was a box-room where Lizzie slept. At one time she and her sister Lucy used to share it, till Lucy found a job at the Station Hotel which meant her living-in. Her three brothers used to share the bed in the other little front bedroom, to raucous guffaws and irreverent cursing, especially at bed time in winter if they were arguing over who should warm his feet first on the wrapped fire brick. She could hear just about everything through the thin wall of wooden laths that separated her from them. But, nowadays, all was quiet. Ted and Grenville had wed and moved out, which meant that Joe had the bed to himself.
When she parted her curtains in a morning, Lizzie could see St. John’s church in the middle distance through the gap between The Sailor’s Return public house and the brass foundry opposite. Beyond the church was the castle keep, looming grey over the trees at the top of its steep, wooded hill.
To Lizzie, the castle seemed no higher than Cromwell Street. Indeed, tradition had it that Oliver Cromwell himself had supervised the castle’s destruction from that very spot, because of its elevation; hence the street’s name. Certainly, Cromwell’s forces besieged it from these heights.
The back bedroom, overlooking the yard, was where Eve slept in her big, brass bed. The scrubbed, wooden stairs rose directly from the scullery into that bedroom, so access to the others was through it. When Isaac, their father, was alive they all had to be home and in bed before it was time for him to retire. If any of them came home after he went to bed, they were condemned to sleep all night on a chair in the scullery, or face the verbal equivalent of a firing squad for disturbing him.
Downstairs, the scullery seemed all cupboards and doors, from floor to ceiling, of brown varnished wood; a door to the stairs with a single stair jutting out, and next to it the cellar door. There was the middle door as well, to the front room that seemed only ever to be used for weddings, for funerals, or at Christmas time. A chenille fringe adorned the edge of the mantel shelf, and Eve laid a matching cloth on the table every Sunday, without fail.
Isaac had always ruled the roost. Because he was the main breadwinner, his needs and desires came first, though none of the family ever wanted for anything. His job had always paid a steady wage, and with other sons working many neighbours envied their standard of living. Meals were regular and substantial, and they always had good clothes and stout shoes to wear, even if they were shared from time to time.
It was not until some time after her father’s funeral that Lizzie began to miss him and his death started to have any real meaning. The evenings at home in their small house were quiet as she and her mother sat companionably in front of the coal fire that burned agreeably. Joe, her youngest brother, was nineteen then and, whilst he had a steady job in a forge and handed over his money every Friday night, it was hard work, and to relax he was out drinking with his friends most evenings. Lizzie missed her father’s wit. She missed his presence; the little things, like his cursing if anyone accidentally nudged him while he was shaving with his cut-throat razor in front of the fire, and his mug on the mantelpiece. She missed the aroma of Turner’s Brass Foundry that used to linger on him when he came in from work. She missed him polishing her boots at night. She missed all sorts of things.
After the funeral she would daydream, reading by candle light in the prevailing silence but, when she glanced at her mother sitting quietly in her high-backed chair, she would sometimes see the firelight reflected in tears rolling down her cheeks. She would watch Eve lift her spectacles without a murmur and wipe her eyes with a dainty handkerchief, then return to her newspaper, which she always scoured from front to back, whispering every word she read. Lizzie began to understand even then that those tears were not just for her father; they were for all the other loved ones lost, perhaps for opportunities lost. Sometimes, she was moved to weep herself, but she would stifle the tears and put on a brave smile, then go over to her mother and give her a hug.
Lizzie had been confused by her mother’s reaction, though. She had grieved more at the loss of Major, the son who died of enteric fever in a field hospital in Bloemfontein during the Boer War.
*
On the Wednesday, May came to tea, as was lately her custom. She arrived with Lizzie during the afternoon, since every Wednesday they were both given a half day off. May liked to spend time with Eve, black-leading the fire grate for her before lighting the fire, and sitting out on the yard in the sunshine on chairs taken from the scullery, peeling potatoes. When Joe returned from his chainmaking, Eve served up liver faggots and grey peas with boiled potatoes. When they had finished eating and everything had been cleared away, they informed Eve that the Dowtys’ house might become vacant over the next week or two.
‘If the landlord agrees to rent us the house next door, we’ll do it up and get married. What d’you say to that, Mother?’
Eve smiled, a self-satisfied smile. ‘It’s about time, our Joe. And you won’t find e’er a nicer wench, either.’
He looked proudly at May. ‘So we’ve got your blessing?’
‘Yes, you’ve got me blessing. Be sure to look after her.’
Lizzie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was just after eight. If the Dandos were coming they should arrive at any minute.
‘Well, one thing about it – we shan’t be a million miles away so, if I don’t look after her, you can always come round and give me a good hiding.’
Eve caught every word. ‘And you can be sure as I would. There’s ne’er a chap living that’s too big for a good hiding off his mother, specially if he knows he deserves it. Anyroad, I’ll have a word with the landlord for you.’
‘You’ll be needing some furniture,’ Lizzie suggested.
‘Yes, and I’ve been thinkin’,’ May said, ‘our Travis has got a table and chairs he wants to get shut of. It’ll be all right to start off with.’
‘You’ll get a few things as wedding presents,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ll buy you something nice if you tell me what you want.’
Joe got up from his chair to poke the fire. ‘Don’t go spending your money on us, our Lizzie. You’ll need all you can get for yourselves, you and mother. We can fend for ourselves. We’ll pick up a bargain or two at any decent pawnshop.’
‘Pawn shop? I don’t want other folks’s left-offs, Joe. I’d rather have new.’
‘We’ll buy some new things, May. We’ll buy a new bed. But as regards the rest, we’ll have to see how we’m fixed for the old spondulicks.’ He peered into the coal scuttle as an afterthought. ‘Bugger me, this blasted thing’s empty again. Every time I look it’s soddin’ empty. Our Lizzie, fetch some coal up, my wench, and I’ll give yer a silver threepenny bit.’
‘Go yourself and keep your silver threepenny bit.’ There