The Pretty Girls Read online

  The Pretty Girls

  Hazel Aitken

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  The Pretty Girls

  About The Author

  Dedication

  Copyright Information ©

  Chapter OneManchester 1860

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  About The Author

  Hazel Aitken lives in Fife and has been publishing short stories, articles and poems for many years. She has three adult sons and four grandchildren, and enjoys trips to co Kildare, Ireland, where some of the family live. Involved in practical charity work, she also has a passion for social history, gardening and for the cats she has rescued.

  Dedication

  In memory of my late husband, IAN, who enjoyed reading The Pretty Girls chapter by chapter as I wrote them and who had always encouraged my writing.

  Copyright Information ©

  Hazel Aitken (2019)

  The right of Hazel Aitken to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781528902441 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781528957977 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2019)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Chapter One

  Manchester 1860

  “Polly killed a little baby.”

  Hannah, about to step from the footpath that ran beside the cobbled street and turn into the gateway leading to the house where she and her widowed mother had taken a room, stared down at her neighbour, a poorly clothed and undernourished little girl with dirt-encrusted nails and red-rimmed eyes.

  “She did, miss.” The child gazed up beseechingly. “I saw.”

  “Sal! Where is that wretched child?” A pudding faced woman, lips a tight line, appeared from behind a holly hedge that screened the house next door. “Oh, there you are, you varmint.” The child’s gaze slid away from Hannah but not before she had glimpsed real fear in their depths. Sal, if that was the child’s name, was terrified of this angry woman.

  “She wasn’t doing any harm,” Hannah said and held out a hand. “My mother and I are living next door. Mrs Wilson’s our landlady…” She broke off and her hand fell to her side as the woman grabbed the little girl and pulled her roughly to her side. With a swift jerky movement, the child was whisked from view, disappearing behind prickly hollies that lined a path leading to a glass panelled front door from which faded brown paint peeled.

  “Take that! What have I told you? You’re not to set foot outside that door, you little devil.” There was the sound of a sharp slap and then a high-pitched wail that was cut off quickly. Hannah had the mental vision of a hand placed over the child’s mouth.

  With fiery indignation and outrage, she turned towards the front door of number fourteen Blackfriar’s Lane and the house where she and her ailing parent now resided. No shrubs lined the path here although next door’s holly hedge was a divider. The front area was spartan and bleak but the house had known better days and possessed a glass-panelled front door and boasted a small brass hammer which Hannah lifted and let fall, summoning their impatient landlady.

  “Oh, it’s you. You’ve not been gone two minutes. Forgotten something, have you? I can’t spend time running to the door whenever you lift the knocker.”

  “I was at least half an hour, Mrs Wilson. I don’t know the area and had to find a pharmacy. My mother’s cough is troublesome.”

  Her landlady sniffed and straightened her black serge skirt. “She’s a burden is that one. Still, not long for this world if I’m any judge.”

  “Then I hope you are not. My mother has been through too much of late but she will pull through.” And no thanks to you, ran her thoughts. The place is as cold as a morgue and about as cheerful.

  “May I remind you, young lady, that the rent is due in two days’ time? If you can’t pay, the pair of you are out of here.”

  “We can pay.” Hannah held her head high as she passed Mrs Wilson and made her way towards the stairs that led to a well-sized landing onto which several doors opened. However, the attic room she and her mother could barely afford was accessed by narrow, uncarpeted stairs and the sound of Hannah’s boots echoed.

  “Is that you, Hannah?” Her mother’s thin voice called from within a room that was poorly furnished and through which spiteful draughts whistled. “I thought you’d got lost.”

  Daylight filtered through a small window that looked over the back of the house and peering at an angle Hannah could see a little of the next-door backyard. Not that she had any intention of doing so at the moment. Her mother was the priority as a bout of coughing drained her strength and left her gasping in the chair where she sat wrapped in a woollen blanket.

  “This may help.” Hannah poured cough tincture onto a spoon and handed it to Belle Morley. “The apothecary on the main street says it is their own concoction and most effective.”

  “You’re a good girl and I’d be lost without you,” Belle said, “but no twenty-year-old should be in your position.”

  “Nonsense.” Hannah shed her knee-length cloak and hung it on a hook on the back of the door. Then she smoothed her straight dark hair. “Plenty of girls are far worse off. But you realise I shall have to find work. Our money is running out. I have paid Mrs Wilson to supply some food but it won’t be enough. There’s a chophouse not far away but I’m not sure we can afford meat.”

  “I am a terrible burden, God knows. Oh, if only your dear father had not been killed in that dreadful accident and if only he had made better provision for us. Of course, he was too generous for his own good, or ours. Attending all those patients and never accepting a penny…”

  Hannah had heard it all before a hundred times. How her father, a doctor, had attended all and any in the area who required his skills whether or not the patient was in a position to pay. Twelve months earlier, a runaway horse and carriage had ended his life soon after he had attended an accouchement in a nearby village. For his sake Hannah was glad that he had not been left a helpless cripple but she mourned him deeply. A year was no time at all and she walked with grief although some doubted it because Hannah did not wear deep mourning.

  From early childhood her father, so often frequenting homes where death had visited, had informed her that he loathed the black clothes donned by the bereaved and considered it an affront to the dead. “If their lives were tolerably happy, we should celebrate them and if the reverse we should rejoice that they are in a be
tter place.”

  If she was entirely honest, she was not sure how deeply her mother grieved although the unrelieved black she wore, including a mourning veil when she stepped outside, might indicate a depth of suffering of which she was incapable. Belle could be very introspective and as her health was not robust, she had become more self-absorbed since her widowhood began. Much of her time had been spent in fretting about her physical condition, but to be fair she was probably consumed with anxiety about their future and the fact that she was in no position to alleviate their hardship. If they were to survive and stay out of the workhouse, it would be because Hannah took control.

  “I met the little girl who lives next door,” she told Belle in order to fasten the woman’s thoughts on something other than her current poor health. “I think she is called Sal. That’s what the woman called her.”

  “Tell me about her, dear. Is she pretty?”

  “I’m not sure. I mean, yes, but she was upset. She was also very dirty.” It occurred to her that to describe the scene might distress Belle. “I think she had escaped to play outside. Something like that, and the woman, maybe her mother, was very cross with her. I felt rather sorry for her. She seemed a lonely little thing.”

  “You were probably lonely too as an only child. Of course, I would have liked another one but it didn’t happen. Besides, it might have killed me. I was never very strong. Oh, isn’t it cold? And I swear I heard mice scrabbling in the walls. I hate this place.”

  “Me too, and I am perfectly sure you did hear mice. After all, we are in the attics but we can afford nothing else.”

  Sometimes Hannah felt impatient with her mother. After all, she was doing her best for them both and all too often Belle moaned and bewailed their circumstances. Of course, it was quite dreadful living in a smoke-filled city after breathing fresh country air all their lives, but things might have been worse. She had read and heard of families crowded into cellars, absorbed into a city that required labour but found itself bearing the burden of poverty and disease. She knew that cotton mill owners had invested in expensive machinery and although they paid relatively good wages, the workers were exhausted by long shifts; then there were the unemployable. Some poor souls always fell through the net.

  “Yes, I would have liked another baby. Babies are so sweet, so helpless…”

  But Hannah was not listening. Another voice, Sal’s, was echoing in her mind. “Polly killed a little baby.” Whatever had the child meant?

  “You’re new around here, aren’t you? Settling in, then?” The apothecary’s assistant was a cheerful young man not much older than Hannah. Pale blonde hair flopped over a wide forehead and he seemed to wear a permanent smile which brightened his somewhat gloomy surroundings. The shop’s interior was painted brown and dominated by a long counter of the same colour. Weighing scales and a pestle and mortar took up one end and behind it, shelves were crammed with bottles and jars, pots of salve, and overall hung the aromatic scent of herbs. If Hannah found it somewhat claustrophobic, she also found it of great interest. Owing to her late father’s profession, she was familiar with many of the medicinal products and aids, and during her growing years had often watched him at work in his own small dispensary.

  She had learned that the young man’s name was Samuel. “Sam to my friends,” he’d told her. “You may call me that if you wish. But I wouldn’t be so bold as to ask your Christian name Miss Morley.” She had not enlightened him on such brief acquaintance

  “Thank you, Sam.” She held out her hand for yet another bottle of cough mixture. Not that it was doing her mother much good but that was probably less to do with the medicine than the penetrating cold that drained her parent of strength. Too much energy was being used in a futile attempt to keep warm, but its contents, one of which was laudanum, made her mother drowsy and took the edge off her discomfort.

  “I should like some herbal tea too, nettle, I think. Well, we haven’t really settled. Our lodgings are…well, let’s say not what we were used to, but I expect you can guess how it is. Frankly, I need to find work.”

  “Samuel Webster, I don’t pay you to talk. Take the young lady’s money and get on with your job.”

  “That’s the boss, Mr Lawson. He’s in the back room stirring his poisons! Eyes in the back of his head, he has. Probably in a few other places as well, I shouldn’t wonder. Thank you,” he added as Hannah passed over a handful of small coins. “I’ll give the matter some thought. You don’t look as if you’re used to being in service.”

  Hannah shook her head and was about to reply when the boss emerged from behind a green curtain that shielded an inner door. Sharp eyes took in her appearance and his long aquiline nose seemed to quiver. “Good day,” she said quickly and stepped outside to find it was now raining so causing her to lift her skirts to avoid them being dragged along wet and dirty pavements. It seemed there was no end to misery and this was re-enforced when a passing carriage splashed filthy water and stained them. Then, on reaching their lodgings she had to bear the brunt of Mrs Wilson’s sharp tongue and after toiling upstairs found her mother in a state of agitation and despair.

  “It’s the mice again. Well, to be honest I think it is a rat. I heard such strange noises in the wall.”

  “Rats and mice squeak. Is that what you heard?” Hannah did not mean to sound impatient but it occurred to her that Belle lacked what one would call backbone. Sometimes she was as helpless and complaining as a small child. Papa had doted on her, his sympathetic nature responding to her real or imagined weaknesses, but Hannah would have admired a more sturdy spirit.

  You’re not a very nice person, Hannah Morley, she told herself and having shed her wet outer garments, set about boiling water on a small inefficient burner Mrs Wilson had supplied with many a grumble. “That’ll be two pence extra a week,” she had finished, “and if your mother requires broth at midday, that’ll be another three pence.” Yes, I shall have to find work, Hannah told herself for the umpteenth time.

  “Can you hear that?” Belle sat up a little and a thin hand cupped her ear. Hannah straightened to attention. There were indistinct sounds coming through the wall, echoing from the adjoining house. She supposed, but they were muffled and unclear.

  “Well, whatever or whoever is making a noise, it is not a mouse or rat, that’s certain,” Hannah said stoutly. “It sounds like…well. I’m not sure, someone crying maybe. Perhaps one of next door’s servants has received a reprimand and is distressed. Or…” she came to a halt as the thought crossed her mind that the child Sal might have been banished to the attics for some misdemeanour.

  “Someone is in pain,” Belle said firmly. “I should know. Quite definitely someone is calling out in pain.”

  “Here, drink your nettle tea. It’s full of goodness, so I believe, and try not to worry about mice, rats or goings-on next door.”

  Belle threw her a glance which indicated she thought her daughter was being hard-hearted. Far from it, thought Hannah whose ears were straining for the sounds of distress that were becoming more evident. Someone was wracked with pain and she longed to break down the dividing wall and offer assistance. Was it little Sal? She thought not. A long drawn out moan seemed decisive. No child, then, but who lay the other side of the attic wall?

  As she seated herself on the edge of the lumpy mattress she shared with her mother and lifted a cup of herbal tea to her own lips, one shriek of pure agony caused her to start with alarm.

  “Heavens above! Someone is dying, Mama.”

  “One does not make that noise when in extremis,” Belle remarked unfeelingly. “I should know.”

  “You’ve never been in extremis. Had you been, you’d not be here.” Hannah tried to make the remark light-hearted but knew her impatience showed. “I am sorry, Mama. It is just that I am anxious about our future. I am wondering how best to combine a working life with our lives here.”

  “What you mean is that if you were not burdened with me, you would be free to find employment furthe
r afield or take a live-in position.” Belle’s lips drooped self-pityingly. Then changing the subject she remarked, “It’s quiet now. Perhaps the person who made such a noise is now sleeping.”

  Hannah drained her cup. “Perhaps, Mama. But it seems no place for a child and the more I think of that awful woman who pulled Sal indoors, the more anxious I am about the child. I feel I should find out more about her.”

  “Leave well alone, my dear, is my advice. Even if the mite is beaten black and blue, there is nothing you can do about it. It’s a parent’s right to chastise their child and no constable would listen to you.”

  Hannah sighed. Her mother spoke the truth. Besides, she had enough troubles without looking for more.

  ****************************************

  Chapter Two

  Mrs Wilson appeared less approachable than usual when next Hannah descended the stairs and entered the big gloomy kitchen. The house, built a hundred years previously, whilst not obviously neglected, showed no signs of being tended with care, and this room in common with others Hannah had glimpsed, was grimly austere. Even the coals in the stove failed to glow. They spluttered and hissed as if damp.

  “Is it possible to have another blanket? My mother feels the cold most dreadfully and as you know there is no fireplace in the attic room so we cannot burn coals.”

  “It’ll cost you. Another two pence. This isn’t a charity, though it might as well be a doss house.”

  A movement in the scullery beyond caught Hannah’s eye and for the first time she noticed a young girl, possibly no more than ten years old, standing on a box at a low stone sink. Small hands grappled with large potatoes as the child peeled the vegetables with a knife that gleamed.

  “Of course I will pay you.” Hannah delved into a fabric purse she had with her and Mrs Wilson held out a thin hand.