The Favourite Child (2 page)

‘Night’s drawing in. I wouldn’t linger. Tara chuck.’ His voice drifted back to her as he hurried on home to his supper through the gathering evening mist that clung wraith-like around the gas lamps.

‘Tara Joe.’ She tugged the collar of her coat closer about her neck, feeling the bite of a cold November day that, as he said, was rapidly fading into a damp evening. But Bella didn’t even slow her pace as she hurried on through the gathering gloom. Somewhere in the direction of the cattle market she heard a clock start to chime. She lifted her chin, which her brother Edward claimed jutted with a stubborn forcefulness like all Ashton chins, and tilted her head to one side to listen.

Six o’clock. She was going to be dreadfully late. Mother was already annoyed, having been abandoned outside the Midland Hotel following their afternoon tea party with Mrs Prudy and her whining daughter. If Bella were not back in time to bathe and change for her brother’s birthday dinner which had taken weeks of careful planning, hours of preparation by Mrs Dyson their overworked cook, and a large slice of Pa’s hard won income, she would be utterly furious.

‘Why do you always have to be so perverse?’ she had raged earlier as, mumbling excuses, Bella had leapt onto a passing tram car.
‘
I will not have you visiting your dreadful friends today of all days
!’ Emily Ashton had personally hand-picked several delightful young ladies, selected from the twin cities of Salford and Manchester and miles beyond, to present to her darling son. If a would-be wife were not secured for him this evening, it would be no fault of hers.

Bella felt simply relief that she had long since given up hope of finding a husband for a recalcitrant daughter who, at very nearly twenty-four and with a most radical outlook on life, was quite beyond the pale. Riddled with self pity after trying to start a family for nearly twelve years before finally getting pregnant, her mother had become crippled by the bitterness of her many disappointments, made worse when all she’d got for her efforts was a tomboy of a daughter and a son with no more spunk than limp lettuce - Simeon’s description, which Emily furiously refuted. Edward had been given every advantage, including an expensive education quite unsuited to his nature, all because it had been considered the right and proper thing to do. Bella, as a mere girl, had been condemned to spend her formative years at Miss Springfield’s Academy for Young Ladies where she learned to speak bad French and do dreadful embroidery. A complete waste of money on both counts.

In truth, Edward’s one passion had been to learn carpentry but his mother threw three fits if she ever saw him with a tool of any kind in his hand; while Bella had been forced to devour whatever books she could find, in secret under the bedclothes, yearning for knowledge and information with an unquenchable thirst. All these frustrated educational ambitions, Bella thought with a wry smile, had caused her to put all her to direct her energies into radical issues considered quite inappropriate in a young lady of her standing.

‘I’ll be no more than half an hour,’ she’d shouted back above the rattle of wheels on tramlines, grinning broadly before galloping up the curving staircase to the top deck. But the image of her mother’s ashen faced fury had remained with her as she’d collapsed, gasping for breath onto the hard wooden slatted seat, a shaming guilt stifling her rebellious giggles at she remembered her mother’s vehemence. The mere fact that Emily had so far forgotten herself to raise her voice in public, spoke volumes.

Now Bella bent her head into the wind and hurried on. No matter what the outcome of this particular show of rebellion, she intended to make sure that the Stobbs’ children were on the road to recovery. She could not begin to enjoy Edward’s party until she was certain they were taken care of. Her fingers curled around the pot of calf’s foot jelly in her pocket. Small but rich in nourishment, Mrs Dyson had assured her, and you couldn’t take risks with influenza. What if it developed into pneumonia or worse? What if she’d misdiagnosed the sickness and it were really the start of TB or pleurisy, or one of the other dread diseases that stalked these mean streets.

Bella shivered. Beneath the fine tweed coat she wore a warm jumper and a bright green skirt, and on her feet smart Russian boots to keep out the wet. There would be salmon for supper, and a large rib of beef succulent with gravy, followed by Mrs Dyson’s apple turnovers that melted in the mouth. The Stobbs’ family, like many another, were not so fortunate. Guilt ate into her soul as Isabella thought of this other life she led, one which seemed far removed from any true sense of reality.

‘’Alfpenny for a shrive o’bread missus.’ The thin, childish voice penetrated her thoughts and Isabella paused to rummage through pockets and purse. There must surely be a halfpenny somewhere. She can’t have used it all on the tram fare. It was at that moment she heard the screams.

Jinnie had never felt so bad in all her short life, and she was no stranger to pain. She knew what it was to be cold and have nowhere to sleep but the hard pavement, wrapped in a newspaper like a piece of haddock. And she was certainly on close speaking terms with hunger. Who wasn’t in these streets? Jinnie knew what it felt like to be desperate for food and yet have her stomach heave and refuse to digest it. Once, she’d been told that milk was the thing for a stomach shrivelled by starvation and had set off to walk to the country, Brindleheath way, meaning to try and find some. As if she would have the first idea how to catch a cow, let alone milk one. She’d only got as far as the ‘Rec’ ground, and there were no cows there, before coming over all queer and passing out.

That was the day she’d met Billy Quinn. And hadn’t she been glad? He’d seemed like her salvation at the time. She’d learned different since, of course. Lord but she was feeling proper queer now. ‘It must be working, Sadie. Is it working?’

‘Hush up luv. I’ll fill the kettle. Clean you up a bit afore his lordship gets in.’

Dear lord yes. She had to get up and off this bed before he got home. For all his nasty ways, Billy Quinn was a Catholic and he’d kill her for sure if he ever found out what she’d done.

He’d carried her back here that day she’d gone to look for the cows; brought her to his home, or hovel more like, being one room without benefit of running water save for what seeped through the walls. But he’d given her sips of warm milk. Jinnie had been no more than twelve at the time and had been with him ever since; nearly four long years and she really shouldn’t complain. He’d fed her, hadn’t he? Except when his Irish luck failed him. Helped her find employment of sorts, charring, doing washing, or running errands for him. He’d provided a bed for her to sleep in, even if it was his own. And if sometimes she wanted to object to the things he demanded of her in the dark hours of the night, at least he’d never required her to warm anyone else’s bed, which was saying a good deal.

But then, so far as Billy Quinn was concerned, she was his own private property and he could do with her as he willed.

‘Don’t you owe yer life to me? Me being the one what saved you,’ he’d remind her in his soft Irish brogue, whenever she showed signs of wanting to move on. ‘You do what I sez, girl, and ye’ll be right as ninepence. Isn’t that the truth?’

‘Whatever you say, Quinn.’ It was always safer to agree, using the name he liked to be known by. She’d not go so far as to call Billy Quinn her friend. Few, if any, could lay claim to such a state of affairs. But it was no bad thing to have him on your side. She’d learned the art of acceptance quite early in their relationship. To keep her trap shut. Tell no tales or she’d be sorry. Jinnie certainly hadn’t told him that she’d fallen.

Now, clutching her stomach she watched Sadie move to the fire, lift the blackened kettle with her skinny arms and then drop it in shock as a scream ricocheted around the tiny room. From some far distant place Jinnie became aware it must have been she who’d screamed. And no wonder! It was as if a knife had sliced through her groin. The pain ground into her, seeming to go on forever, filling her with terror and panic. A warm wetness ran down the inside of her leg and she struggled to get up off the bed so she would avoid messing it up. Quinn hated mess of any sort.

‘Stay still. Stay still child.’

The pain came again, dragging her down. So did the scream. Hammering in her head. Beating her to a bloody pulp. This time when it finally subsided Jinnie lay exhausted, drenched in a cold sweat of fear. ‘Dear lord, what have we done!’

‘Nowt you won’t be glad of come morning,’ Sadie briskly remarked in her no-nonsense fashion and, snatching up the kettle once more, hooked it back over the fire. ‘Just lie still and rest.’

Every month since her courses had started, Jinnie had taken a weekly dose of Beecham’s Pills, a sure way of preventing any ‘accidents’. Or so she’d been assured by her neighbour here. Sadie lived in the rooms below and though it had seemed a bit odd that the wonder pills hadn’t stopped her from having eight childer with another on the way, Jinnie had obediently swallowed them, regular as clockwork. When her monthlies had stopped, it hadn’t taken long for her to realise what the matter was. Her small breasts had gone all sore and swollen, and she’d been sick every morning the minute she put her feet to the floor. A sure sign, Sadie had told her.

So the Beecham’s Pills hadn’t worked for her either. Nor had the Penny Royal, the turpentine balls, hot mustard baths or the jumping off the eighth step. But since Jinnie was only just turned sixteen and could barely manage to feed herself let alone a child, never mind endure the shame of bearing a bastard, she’d determined to get rid of it. Besides, who would want Billy Quinn’s child, or to feel tied to him forever? Not she. It had needed Sadie’s skills with a crochet hook to put her right. Now she lay in a pool of her own blood, writhing with agony.

Though the grimy window she could see the comforting glow of lamplight in the street below, hear the long pole clinking against glass and metal. She glanced across at her friend whose putty pale face swam towards her in the gloom, wet dishcloth in hand as if that could staunch the flow of life from her.

‘
We have to get out of here!
’ Jinnie felt certain she had screamed these words out loud and wondered why Sadie didn’t respond, why she just kept on dabbing at her with the now soaking dishcloth, making those worrying little sounds in her throat.

Jinnie doubled up on a fresh whimper of terror as yet another bolt of hot pain struck her. Heaven help her, would it never end? She struggled to sit up, thinking this might ease the pain but fell back gasping on to the filthy sheets and, as she did so, spotted her friend hurrying out through the door.

‘Don’t leave me!
Sadie
!’ When
the scream came again, the sound of it seemed to echo through the waves of rosy fog that swam before her eyes.

She was dying. Jinnie was sure of it now. Thanks to Billy Quinn.

Would her soul go to hell? Jinnie had little truck with religion, believing God had given up on her many years ago when he’d taken her mother and two younger brothers with TB, but she wondered if she should try and say a prayer now, just in case.

‘Sweet Jesus! What’s happening here?’

She thought for a moment that she had indeed uttered a prayer, but then a face swam before her eyes, bright hazel eyes, a halo of red-gold hair that must surely belong to an angel.

Then arms were lifting her, half carrying, half dragging her to the door and the world shifted and moved beneath her. Jinnie wondered if she was on a merry-go-round, the sort she’d heard of at Belle Vue. Not that she’d ever seen one, she thought inconsequentially, but it must feel like this. Swirling, whirling, dizzying. She gave herself up to the giddiness of it, welcoming the sensation as almost pleasurable.

All that long night as Jinnie hovered on the brink between life and death, Bella stayed by her bedside, waiting. Waiting, watching and praying that this lovely young girl, who was barely old enough to have experienced anything of life’s joys, would recover. As the hours of darkness dragged by, she watched anxiously as nurses came and went, silently lifting the frail wrist, counting the thready pulse, sighing softly as they gently tucked the bone-thin arm back beneath the covers.

‘Don’t let her die,’ Bella cried, seeing one nurse shake her head in despair.

‘We’re doing our best to see that she doesn’t, Miss Ashton, but these young lasses do daft things.’ She clicked her tongue with disapproval, tugged the sheet reprovingly into place as if the very fact of Jinnie lying there made the place look untidy. ‘They should know better than to interfere with God’s work and let nature take its course.’