The Quality Street Girls. Penny Thorpe

       Chapter One

      It was late, and the Baxter’s store on the corner at Stump Cross was closed, but the lights in the main window illuminated a sparkling display of Mackintosh’s Quality Street; the latest success from the sprawling factory they called Toffee Town. As Reenie rode her nag closer she could see that someone had taken the coloured cellophane wrappers from the chocolates and taped them between black sugar paper to make little stained glass windows. Between the tins and tubs and cartons were homemade tree baubles; an ingenious mixture of ping-pong balls, cellophane wrappers, glue and thread.

      While there were plenty of other confectionery assortments that Baxter’s could have chosen to feature, Reenie couldn’t imagine they’d have had much luck making a stained glass window out of O’Neil’s wrappers. Besides, Quality Street was the best, everyone knew it; plenty of girls from Reenie’s school had left to work in Sharpe’s or O’Neil’s factories, but it was the really lucky ones that went to work at Mackintosh’s.

      Reenie’s enormous, ungainly old horse shuffled closer to try to nose the glass, the explosion of colour bursting forth from the opened tins on display had caught his eye and was drawing his curious nature to the window. Reenie didn’t blame him; it was a beautiful sight and he deserved a treat when he was being so good about coming out after putting in a day’s work in the top field. She had a great deal of affection for the old family horse, and she liked spoiling him when she got the chance, so she let him dawdle a while longer.

      Reenie gazed at the window display, and dreamed of growing up to be the kind of fine lady that bought Quality Street, and had a gardener, and got driven around in an automobile. For the moment she would have to be content with being a farmer’s daughter who had a vegetable patch and occasional use of her family’s peculiarly ugly horse. Fortunately for Reenie, she found it easy to be content with her lot, she was an easily contented girl. As long as she didn’t have to go into service she was happy.

      ‘Come on, Ruffian. We’ve got a way to go yet.’ Ruffian reluctantly allowed Reenie to steer him away from the bright lights, and continued up through the ever steeper streets of Halifax, over quiet cobbles she knew well. The night was cold for October, but she knew she had to ride out to get her father nonetheless.

      Reenie didn’t mind; Ruffian was technically her father’s horse, and most fathers would not allow their daughter freedom of the valley with it, so she supposed she ought to feel pretty grateful. And it wasn’t as though she had to come out to get her father very often, she thought to herself. He only got this blotto once a year when the Ale Taster’s Society hired out the old oak room and had their ‘do’, apart from that she thought he was pretty good really. He was very probably the best dad.

      Reenie’s thoughts kept drifting back to the sandwich that was waiting in her pocket, wrapped in waxed paper and bound up with a piece of twine. The sandwich contained a slice of tinned tongue and some mustard-pickled-cauliflower that her mother made for Reenie to give to her father to eat on his way back. Reenie’s stomach rumbled and she was tempted to take a bite out of it before she got to the pub, even though she’d had her tea. Her mother frequently told her that she was lucky to live on a farm where there was no shortage of food, but Reenie pointed out that there was no shortage of the same food: mutton, ewe’s milk cheese, ewe’s milk butter, ewe’s milk curd tart, and ewe’s milk. She rode in the dark past the Borough Market, there was a clamour outside The Old Cock and Oak. As she approached, Reenie didn’t like the look of what she saw. Ahead of her, she could see brass buttons glinting in the old-fashioned gaslight from the pub, and the tell-tale contours of Salvation Army hats and cloaks. It was going to be another one of those nights.

      Reenie knew before she’d even rounded the corner that this was not the regular Salvation Army, they would be off doing something useful somewhere involving soup and blankets. This was a Salvation Army splinter group, who the rest of the Salvation Army considered to be nothing but trouble. Reenie tried to feel friendly towards them as she wasn’t in a hurry, but she did wonder privately why they didn’t just go to the cinema when they got time off like everyone else.

      ‘Think of your wives! Think of your children!’ Reenie couldn’t tell where in the throng of ardent believers the call was coming from, but she knew that they wouldn’t be popular with the pub regulars. There were several other pubs along Market Street, but the faithful had chosen to cram into the courtyard of The Old Cock and Oak to protest against the annual meeting of the Worshipful Company of Ale Tasters. Reenie couldn’t see what they were so fussed about, but this wasn’t anything new.

      Reenie decided not to dismount this time and walked old Ruffian as close to the pub door as she could, keeping a loose, but expert grasp on the fraying rope that served as Ruffian’s bridle. ‘Comin’ through, ‘scuse me, if you’d let me pass, please.’ As the ramshackle old horse nosed its way through the faithful, the crowd parted, some out of courtesy but others to avoid being stamped on by a mud-caked hoof, or bitten by an almost toothless mouth. Ruffian may not have had the aristocratic pedigree, but like his rider, he encouraged good etiquette in his own way. Reenie was close enough now to see a few faces she knew guarding the doorway; exasperated men waiting for the do-gooders to move on, their arms folded. ‘Is me dad in there still?’

      ‘Now then, Queenie Reenie, what’s this you comin’ in on a noble steed with your uniformed retinue.’ Fred Rastrick gave her a wicked grin as they both ignored the small, rogue faction of the otherwise helpful Halifax branch of the Salvation Army.

      ‘Don’t be daft, Fred, you know full well they’re nowt to do wi’ me. Now fetch us me dad, would ya’? It’s too cold for him to walk home, he’ll end up dead in a ditch. Go tell him I’m here and I’m not stopping out half the night so he has to be quick.’

      ‘Young lady! Young lady, how old are you?’ Reenie recognised the castigating voice of Gwendoline Vance, self-appointed leader of this band of Salvation Army members who’d taken it upon themselves to object to most things that went on in Halifax, including the Ale Tasters annual ‘do’. Reenie could have mistaken the woman’s face in the dark, even this close up, but there was no mistaking the way she was harping on.

      ‘What’s it to you?’ Reenie was not in a mood to be cross-examined by strangers, especially those in thrall to teetotalism.

      ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’

      ‘Well, not just now as it’s half past ten at night.’

      ‘Well I meant in the morning, shouldn’t you be at home in bed by now so that you can go to school in the morning?’

      ‘No, and I’ll tell you for why. Firstly, I’m fifteen and I finished school at Easter; secondly, some of us would rather be spending our time helping our families than wasting it on enterprises that won’t get anyone anywhere; and thirdly (and forgive me if I think this is the most important), because today is a Friday, and when I were at school they taught me that the day that comes after Friday is Saturday, and that, madam, is