House of Angels E-Book

Freda Lightfoot

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 520

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The Lake District, 1908. It seems as though Livia, Ella and Maggie Angel lead a charmed life on a large country estate. But since the death of their mother, their family home has been far from a quiet haven as their bullying father is determined to marry off the girls to his greatest advantage. When the sisters discover their father had an affair many years ago, which resulted in the birth of a baby girl, they determine to find their half-sister, and their search begins in the local workhouse. Mercy had been unaware of her connection to the rich Angel family until her mother's death-bed confession, and once she knows, she's not at all sure that she wants to be part of the family after all.

Leseprobe

House of Angels

FREDA LIGHTFOOT

Contents

Title PageChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixChapter Twenty-SevenChapter Twenty-EightChapter Twenty-NineChapter ThirtyChapter Thirty-OneChapter Thirty-TwoChapter Thirty-ThreeChapter Thirty-FourChapter Thirty-FiveChapter Thirty-SixChapter Thirty-SevenChapter Thirty-EightAbout the AuthorBy Freda LightfootCopyright

Chapter One

1908

There was barely sufficient light in the musty loft to judge the pallor of the woman lying on the filthy sheet, rank with blood and urine, but the young girl tending her could tell by the way her mother’s eyes had sunk deeper into their sockets that the end was not far off. Even so, she put the cup to her lips, urging her to drink.

‘Try a sip, Ma. It’s good beef tea and you need to keep up your strength.’

The woman attempted to obey but a fit of coughing took hold and she turned her dry mouth away from the succour offered to deposit yet more mucus and blood in the filthy rag she pressed to her lips.

When the spasm passed, she managed a smile and squeezed her daughter’s hand by way of thanks for her efforts. Despite the gloom in the airless loft, lit only by one tallow candle, she could see tears glimmering in the girl’s eyes, and the mother’s heart swelled with fear for this child she was about to leave alone and unprotected, in Fellside of all places.

This whole district of Kendal comprised a chaotic assortment of dingy cottages clinging drunkenly together on the western slopes of the town, their walls blackened by soot and peat smoke; a veritable warren of dwellings linked by a labyrinth of dark alleys, cobbled passages, and seemingly endless flights of stone steps that climbed the hillside in a haphazard fashion. An entire family with five or six children could occupy one room, and think themselves fortunate. Those streets worthy of the honour bore such names as Sebastopol, Sepulchre Lane, Hyena Row, or The Syke, and tucked behind many a hovel could be found the family pig sty or cess pit. The area was peppered with unsavoury taverns, dark corners for striking deals outside of the law, and foul workshops where shoes were cobbled, watches, chairs or saddles mended. And in many a grimy loft, woollen cloth was woven by weary men and women old before their time.

‘Listen to me, Mercy. There’s summat you needs to know, summat you must do.’

Again the woman was taken by a coughing fit and her daughter held the frail, bony shoulders until it eased. The girl herself was barely more robust, being small and skinny, her features sharp with hunger, the colour of her lank hair indeterminate beneath the grease and filth, scabs and sores marring young flesh that rarely saw the sun. In the gloom she appeared a pale, almost elf-like creature, with a face that rarely smiled, having seen far too much sadness in her short life of just sixteen years. Only the eyes hinted at the beauty that might have been present had poverty not done its utmost to destroy it before ever it bloomed. At certain times, such as in the rare brilliance of a summer’s day, they would be a bright translucent blue, at others the light in them would transfuse almost to aquamarine. Now they were dark with desperation and dread.

‘Hush, Ma, hush. Don’t try to talk. It’s rest you need, not chatter.’

Fear lay in the pit of the girl’s stomach like undigested cold porridge. She had no interest in anything her mother had to say at this juncture. She wanted only for her to sleep and wake refreshed and reborn, to see again her bonny smile, her cheeks flushed with sunshine and happiness rather than fever.

From somewhere behind the wainscot came the scuttle and scratch of a rat, but Mercy didn’t even turn her head, too used to such an occurrence to let it trouble her. They paid sixpence a week for the privilege of not sharing this verminous room with any other family, and the rats and cockroaches came free.

It hardly seemed possible that this ravaged skeleton was her own mother: Florrie Simpson, a hand-loom weaver who’d lived her entire life on Fellside, where she’d birthed four children with only herself, the youngest, having survived infancy. Since Mercy’s father had disappeared before ever she clapped eyes on him, her mother had devoted almost every waking hour to weaving the linsey cloth in the famous checks or stripes for gentlemen’s trousers in order to feed and clothe herself and her only child in little more than rags. Six days a week she’d worked her two-treadle loom, carried her bundles of cloth to the foreman to collect a pittance in payment, then made her weary way home again, weighed down by bundles of yarn for the next batch.

On Sundays, Ma always insisted that, humble though it might be, the room should be made spic and span for this special day. But by six o’clock on Monday morning she would be off weaving again and within hours the loft was once more filled with the pernicious, lung-choking dust from the weft.

Now Florrie lay in the last throes of consumption.

Where was the point of it all? Resentment burnt like bitter gall in the girl’s breast. Ma had never seemed to stop working, slaving from dawn to dusk for starvation wages with never a minute to rest or snatch a breath of fresh air. Weaving was notoriously badly paid in an industry that had been dying ever since the huge factories sprang up to produce cheap cotton. No one wanted soft linsey petticoats these days.

When weaving was hard to come by, like the other women of Fellside she would knit stockings, for which Kendal was famous, using her crooked pins or sticks, and a carved wooden knitting sheaf tucked into the belt around her waist to hold it.

Now Florrie’s work was done and this once pretty young woman would soon be dead and buried, though never forgotten, not if Mercy – the daughter who loved her, heart and soul – had any say.

It would be her responsibility now to mind the loom and go on without her, to carry on living in this rat-infested hell-hole, this hand-to-mouth existence, with barely a penny left over after rent and food had been paid for, and the woollen masters had taken their cut. There’d been much fearful talk lately among the tenants that the landlord, Josiah Angel, who owned these buildings, intended putting up the rents, though he did nothing to improve the condition of the place and justify that rise.

Not that her mother ever complained. What can’t be cured must be endured, was Florrie’s motto. Mercy was only too aware of the few options open to her, if she was to survive. She could either work herself to death in the unhealthy miasma of Fellside, as her mother had done, or earn a better living on her back. And even at sixteen she understood precisely what such a job entailed, and nearly vomited at the thought.

Florrie slept for a while, which was a relief. But much as Mercy longed for sleep herself, having not closed her eyes for a day and a night, not since Mrs Flint, her neighbour, had brought the beef tea, she remained alert, fearful her ma might slip away when she wasn’t looking.

It was late evening now, and she became aware that her mother was awake and speaking, in weak but insistent tones. Something of great importance, or so she claimed. Mercy leant close to listen, her eyes stretching wide as Florrie whispered the secret she’d carried in her heart for sixteen long years, choosing at last to speak because of fears for her beloved daughter’s future.

‘Your da didn’t run off to be a sailor like I telled ya. Truth is, I were never married, never had any other bairn but thee.’

The exertion of this confession brought the expected penance of another coughing fit, and in something of a state of shock Mercy persuaded her mother to take a sip or two of the tincture she’d bought from the herbalist with their last few coppers. It seemed to quieten Florrie, calmed her sufficiently for her to continue in soft, rasping tones.

‘No miscarriages. No still-born bairns afore you. No husband. It were all a lie. You were my one and only precious girl. I might never have had you ’ceptin I grew careless. Not that I regret having you, child, not for a moment.’

The warmth and love in her eyes as she looked at her daughter was unmistakable and Mercy’s own eyes filled with ready tears.

‘Don’t fret yourself, Ma. I don’t care if you weren’t never married. You don’t have to try to be respectable for me. Don’t I love the bones of you?’

Florrie smiled sadly and squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘There’s little more than bones left of me now, so I’m glad you do. And I love you too, my lovely girl.’

After a moment’s rest to gather her strength, she continued, ‘Your father were Mr Angel, the gent what owns the big department store in town.’

Mercy gasped. ‘What – the bleeding landlord? Him what owns these buildings?’

‘The very same. Him and me…we had a bit of a thing going once. Lasted for a year or two, s’matter of fact. He were right good to me, was Josiah.’

Little by little, and pausing between sentences to allow for coughing spasms, the story slowly emerged. Florrie Simpson had worked in the town’s department store, known as Angel’s, in the household linens department where she’d caught the eye of the owner, Josiah Angel. Against all odds the pair had fallen in love. Not that young Florrie had expected this great man of wealth and prestige in the town to abandon his wife and children for a mere slip of a girl such as herself.

‘Oh, but he made it very plain that he loved me,’ she whispered, her face going all soft, and her blue eyes glowing at the memory.

So why did he leave us to live in near starvation in this hell-hole all these years? Mercy longed to ask, but buttoned her lip as she’d no wish to distress her mother in her last hours. Seeming to guess her daughter’s troubled thoughts, Florrie strove to explain.

‘I was obliged to leave the store when I fell pregnant with you. Wouldn’t have been right for me to stay on, even had that been possible. None of the other girls would’ve been allowed, so it’d look odd if he made an exception in my case. But, like I say, he did what he could for a long while. Set me up nice and comfy in a lovely little cottage in the Shambles. Proper pretty it were, and handy for Josiah to pop in on his way to and from the store.’

A look of blissful contentment crept over her face and Florrie fell silent, reliving those sweet, precious encounters in her head; the loving hours they had spent together while the child quickened within her. It was as if she were losing her grasp on the present and slipping back into the past, where she much preferred to be. Mercy gently brought her back. ‘Why did he stop coming?’

Florrie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He just did. One day I was expecting him to call on his way home, as he always did, but for some reason he never arrived.’ A tear slid down the hollow cheek, and Florrie wiped it away. ‘I’m sure it weren’t his fault. He had his family to think of.’

‘Did he know about me?’

‘Oh, aye. Took quite a shine to you, he did, when you were a bairn.’

‘But then he just stopped coming, without any explanation?’

‘Aye, when you were about twelve months old.’

‘And sent no more money?’

Florrie sighed. ‘Not a penny. I thought at first it were because you’d been teething and making a row, as bairns do. But then I hadn’t been too good meself, suffering some sort of infection in me tubes. He saw to it that I had a proper doctor, fetched me a few tasty bits to eat and suchlike. He could be a kind man when it suited him, though I’ll admit he hasn’t a reputation as such. Eeh, but we had some good times together for a while…then he just stopped coming.’ Sadness cloaked her ravished face. ‘I never blamed him. I reckon it all came to be a bit too much for him, what with his other responsibilities. Or happen his wife found out. I don’t know.’

‘And you’ve not seen or heard from him since?’

‘Never.’

Anger, hot and raw, was building inside Mercy at the treatment her mother had suffered at this man’s hands. ‘Then he wasn’t the gent you thought he was.’

‘Nay, don’t say that!’

‘Didn’t you ever go and ask, at the store I mean?’

Florrie looked shocked. ‘I could never do that. Wouldn’t have been right. He were the boss, the owner. I were… I were nowt.’ The conversation had exhausted her and she closed her eyes, her breathing growing ever more laboured, her face crumpled with pain.

Mercy said, ‘Don’t ever say such a thing. You’re not nowt to me, you’re my ma, and I love you.’

‘I know, lass. I know.’

As Florrie stroked her daughter’s cheek, Mercy held on tight to her other hand, willing her mother to keep on fighting, not to give in to the exhaustion that was claiming her. She urged her to rest, not to talk any more, but Florrie was determined to somehow find the strength to finish what she had started.

When she spoke again, she spaced out her words, struggling to catch a painful breath between each. ‘I – want – you – to – ask – him – for – a – job. A future. He owes me that, and he could do so much for you, lass.’ She turned her head slightly to indicate the box they kept under the bed, the one in which they stored their few precious belongings. ‘Letter – give it to him. Tell Josiah I allus loved him – selfish old goat.’ A smile lit up Florrie’s face as she fought to breathe, her eyes locked with love on her daughter.

It was all over. Just as Mercy had glimpsed a lightening of the sky through the narrow loft window cut high in the sloping roof, her mother had breathed her last. Mercy thought she would remember that last rasping, rattling breath for as long as she lived. For some hours afterwards, the girl had lain unmoving, holding her mother close, intent on trying to warm the rapidly cooling body, praying she was mistaken and that the loving arms would come round her as they always did when she needed comfort. But it was Jessie Flint from the room below who did that, prising free Mercy’s tight grip.

‘She’s gone, lass. Her soul has already flown. Let her be,’ the old lady gently urged. Then she’d gathered the child close to her soft bosom, letting her sob while she murmured a few inadequate words of comfort and condolence before briskly fetching wash cloth and water to do what had to be done.

Now Florrie lay stiff and cold, as neat and clean and tidy as she’d liked to be in life. Mercy sat dry-eyed beside the bed, still waiting for her mother’s head to turn and her lovely face to break into a smile as it would do every morning when she woke.

‘We can make the sun shine in our hearts, even if it’s wet and cold outside,’ she would say.

But this morning there was no response from the shrunken, withered figure that lay unmoving on the ramshackle bed, a mere shadow of the lovely young woman she’d once been. Even now, in the hour of her death, she was but thirty-six. Far too young to be meeting her Maker.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the narrow stairs. Men coming to carry her precious mother away. With no money for a funeral, Florrie would be put in a pauper’s grave and Mercy felt her own small body begin to shake at the dreaded prospect.

‘Na then, don’t tek on, lass. Bear up, as yer ma would wish,’ old Jessie soothed.

But Mercy shook not with grief, of which she’d barely begun to comprehend, being still in shock, but with the degradation and humiliation of it all. She was outraged that her lovely, young, caring mother could be bundled up in a sheet and carried away like a roll of bad cloth to be dumped in some dark, musty hole in the ground; that her last resting place would be unmarked and uncared for. As if reading these thoughts, old Jessie clucked softly, patting and stroking the young girl, offering what comfort she could where none was available.

The men had no difficulty in lifting the woman, light as a child. They carried out the task with sombre respect, but it was all too much for Mercy. She could barely take in what was happening; unable to comprehend how it was that her quiet, orderly, albeit simple life could suddenly be turned upside down. How one day her mother had been happy and laughing and filled with her characteristic energy to work hard in order to get her daughter out of this place, and then within a few short months, be dead and buried.

All that stuff she’d told her at the end about who Mercy’s real father was. Not some common sailor after all, but a man of consequence, a man of class and position. And this gentleman, so-called, had cruelly deserted Florrie and her child. Having set her up in some pretty little cottage in town, no doubt only to assuage his guilt, he’d soon grown bored and abandoned her to cope alone as best she might. Probably found himself some other pretty maid who’d caught his eye, and forgot all about poor Florrie. A sad but familiar tale which made Mercy burn with shame and embarrassment on her mother’s behalf. Within months, Josiah Angel had forgotten his lover sufficiently to stop sending her money, or even paying the rent on their one-time love nest. Was it any wonder her mother had ended up living a life of penury, hard graft and near starvation?

Even then she couldn’t escape him entirely, but was compelled to pay the man an inflated rent for the privilege of living in this rat-ridden hole.

Now her poor mother was dead, and her daughter left to fend for herself.

Mercy was filled with a bitter resentment. Not for one moment did she imagine Josiah Angel treating his own precious family with such callous disregard. No doubt his three daughters were coddled, spoilt young misses possessing all they could ever desire. Mercy hated each and every one of them with a venom that burnt to her very soul.

Chapter Two

The sound of the strap singing through the air was the last thing she remembered, that and the hot searing pain before darkness enfolded her. How long she lay unconscious Livia had no way of knowing, but it couldn’t have been more than a second or two as she became aware of her father’s craggy face leering over her, the rancid smell of his cigar-tainted breath suffocating her, and his icy fingers pinching the soft flesh of her cheeks. He hated it when his victims were not sufficiently alert to savour his torture.

‘I’ll teach you who is master here if it’s the last thing I do.’

Josiah Angel grabbed his eldest daughter by the wrists and began to drag her across the floor. Livia let out a scream, knowing what awaited her, but even as the sound echoed around the dusty emptiness of this claustrophobic little room, she knew no one would come to her aid. Certainly not her mother, who had taken to her bed more than ten years ago as the only means available to evade a brutal husband, and quietly gone into a terminal decline, making as little fuss by her departure in death as she had done in life. The servants knew better than to interfere in family business, as well as which parts of the house were barred to them. This tower room, or torture chamber, as Livia and her sisters caustically referred to it, was the place they feared the most.

The House of Angels was what the locals called this fine Victorian mansion situated on Brigsteer Road, high above Kendal. With its crenulated towers, gothic arches and tall slender windows beneath frowning eaves it resembled a fortress more than a home.

But only the Angel sisters who lived within its dark walls knew that it was ruled by a devil.

Josiah Angel was a great bull of a man, his face as hard and unforgiving as the crags that formed the landscape of his birth, high cheekbones protruding sharply beneath folds of skin grown slack with age. His temper was as dark and brooding as the thick cloud that blanketed the tops of the distant mountains that dominated the skyline in this part of Westmorland. But then he was a man who demanded attention as did Great Gable or Scafell. He might attempt to soften his appearance with the silk cravats and silver cufflinks of the country gent going about his business, but beneath the fine worsted cloth of his expensively tailored suit lurked a heart as cold and rancid as the bogs beneath the lush green grass of the lower fells.

His three daughters had long since learnt to listen for the heavy tread of his highly polished boots so they could better judge his mood. The louder the creak on each stair, the more vile his temper. The sound of his menacing approach would allow them a few precious moments to take evasive action: to slip quickly down the servants’ stair and run helter-skelter to hide among the exotic leafy plants in the conservatory, or climb the hill to Serpentine Woods above the house, their hearts racing with giddy excitement at their daring escape.

He had never been the kind of father any daughter would run to for a hug and a kiss, but rather one to be avoided. A man without pity; a tyrant and a bully who would have his way at any cost simply to prove that he possessed the power to do so.

A stray shaft of spring sunshine from the long window that reached almost from floor to ceiling cast its dusty rays into the furthest corner of the room, where Livia’s two sisters huddled together, powerless to help her. Alike they may be in many ways, certainly with regard to their angelic fair hair and soft grey eyes, yet they were so very different in temperament. Romantic, spoilt Ella, so self-absorbed, so sure of her pale elegant beauty that she’d steadfastly believed herself to be immune to their father’s torment. Now her childlike grey-green eyes were rounded in disbelief beneath fine winged brows, revealing shocked outrage at finding herself in this predicament.

Practical, uncomplaining Maggie, the youngest of the three, was begging their father to desist his torment; her sweet, heart-shaped face turned pleadingly up to his, soft grey eyes pooled with tears. Not that he would pay heed to either of their pleas. Witnesses to his cleverly devised punishment were an essential feature of their father’s reign of terror, all part of his evil plan.

Josiah Angel maintained control over his three daughters by the cleverest, vilest form of cruelty. Too often he’d experienced their stubbornness over the years and had come to see that to bring one to heel, he must hurt one of the others. The trick never failed. On this occasion it was Livia who was being made to suffer for Ella’s obduracy. And, since the strap had failed to bring about the desired surrender, his second choice of punishment was the iron cage, small enough to accommodate one person and of sufficient height to keep his eldest daughter’s long legs from touching the floor.

But Livia had no intention of making it easy for him. She drummed her heels on the unyielding floorboards, wriggled and fought in a futile effort to free herself. Sadly, her strength was puny against her father’s iron grip. He held her by her long golden tresses, which she took such care to brush one hundred times every night, wrapping them tightly around his great fist. She could feel clumps of hair tearing from her scalp, splinters from the rough boards digging into her bare feet as she attempted to hinder his progress in any way available to her. In spite of her pain, Livia managed to raise her head sufficiently to look up, and wished at once that she hadn’t.

It was Ella who let out a half-strangled gasp, and Maggie who found the courage to defy him. ‘Not the cage! Please, Father, not the cage. Have pity.’

Ella began to weep and Maggie’s pleading went unacknowledged as Josiah tied Livia’s thin white wrists to the leather strap that hung from the central hook. He half smiled, revealing the handsome good looks he’d once enjoyed before ill temper, age, and overindulgence had taken their toll. ‘Only a bird in a gilded cage,’ he disdainfully trilled in his hoarse, grating voice as he closed the door of the cage and turned the great key in the lock, leaving his daughter hanging an inch from the floor.

Livia’s blue eyes welled up with tears as she courageously kept her gaze fixed on Ella, teeth gritted against the pain, arms stretched to breaking point as she gasped out her plea. ‘I’m all right, Ella. Please don’t give in. You…really…mustn’t!’ She saw how Maggie drew her sister close, which caused Livia to strive all the harder to hold on to her own courage. ‘Don’t let her, Maggie. Don’t let her agree!’

Livia could say no more, needing the last of her strength to deal with the agony.

Ella was watching her sister’s torment with growing despair, desperately striving to still her own trembling, knowing it would serve only to anger her father further. There seemed to be no escape for her now, let alone for poor Livia. No more secret meetings with Danny Gilpin in the shadow of the castle ruins, no more lovers’ trysts, heartfelt promises or sweet, stolen kisses. She was to be sold to the highest bidder, auctioned off like a heifer at Kendal Auction Mart to a cold-hearted farmer in need of a wife.

Pretty, scatter-brained Ella, at just turned twenty, had endured her own beating with remarkable fortitude, but quailed at witnessing the more brutal torture inflicted upon her beloved and brave sister. And she knew that if Livia, with her fierce rebellious nature, refused to concede defeat to their father’s tyranny, he would turn next on the softer Maggie, whose weak chest and nervous manner made her an easy victim.

She could not let this go on. She had to say something, anything. She had to save Livia, as well as herself.

Brushing aside Maggie’s restraining hands, Ella took a tentative step forward and faced her father with reckless defiance. ‘I would marry this man, this Amos Todd, but I doubt he would have me since I’m carrying Danny Gilpin’s child.’

Maggie pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling a cry of dismay, while Livia groaned, knowing all was lost. But Ella stood resolute, her chin held obstinately high even as her eyes brimmed with tears, her beauty and distress surely sufficient to melt even the coldest heart. Unfortunately, not Josiah’s.

Josiah drew a walnut from his pocket and cracked it in his palm while he considered his daughter in all seriousness. ‘Don’t lie to me, Eleanor. I’ve always been able to tell when you were lying. But just in case it’s true, we’d best look sharp, hadn’t we? If we marry you off quick, Amos will never know. At least, not till it’s too late.’ Tossing aside the shells, he turned on his heel and strode from the room, taking the key to Livia’s prison with him.

Josiah did not trouble to lock the door of the attic, knowing Maggie and Ella would not stir from their sister’s side while she hung like a joint of meat from a butcher’s hook. As ever, they would cling together, stubbornly united against him. Until he finally broke them, that is. Which he fully intended to do.

They accused him of being harsh but in Josiah’s eyes he’d been far too indulgent. It was long past time all three of his daughters were wed. Most women of twenty-two, as Lavinia now was, were married, yet she’d refused every suitor he’d found for her, resisted every attempt to do her duty. Now he’d turned to the next in line, deciding to deal with Ella first, and come to Livia next. Maggie, he would keep at home a while longer. He had other uses for his youngest daughter, and was in less of a hurry to dispose of her services.

Josiah proceeded at a leisurely pace to his study, showing no sign of haste as he dealt with several pressing matters of business, determined to allow his rebellious daughters ample time to fully appreciate Livia’s distress. He wanted them to share her agony and reflect upon the consequences of their disobedience.

He certainly had no intention of being sidetracked by Ella’s hysterical nonsense. A barefaced lie if ever he heard one. But just in case the tale was true, he’d make sure the nuptials took place promptly, before Amos Todd could get wind of it.

As ever, there was a great deal of business in need of his attention. In addition to the family department store, Josiah owned property around the town and was involved in a number of lucrative deals and land speculation. Kendal was expanding rapidly and he intended to share in its success. Then there was the town council, of which he was a member, with every hope of being elected as mayor in the next year or two. Later he might consider applying to become a Member of Parliament. And why not? In fact, he had his fingers in several interesting pies that would increase his wealth and standing in the community, so his patience with foolish, recalcitrant daughters was thin. Why did they persist in their obstinacy? Why were they not obedient and biddable, as girls were meant to be?

He’d been deeply displeased and disappointed when Roberta had failed to give him sons as a wife’s duty demanded, but where was the use in even having daughters if they couldn’t be married off to good purpose?

Josiah Angel was a self-made man who’d begun his working life apprenticed to a draper. It had soon become apparent to the young Josiah that other men did not appreciate the fact that although his employer’s daughter might be plain, her father was a man of means in poor health, clearly not long for this world. Josiah had made it his business to court and win the girl. In a very short space of time he’d married her and inherited the family’s draper’s shop, which he then set about successfully developing into a fine department store, using his father-in-law’s substantial savings, plus a few judicious loans over the years. But then Josiah was never afraid to take a gamble when there was a possible profit in sight.

Admittedly his fortune had suffered something of a beating in recent months, due to one or two ill-advised property speculations, and other, possibly unwise, commitments. But that would all be put right soon, if he had any say in the matter. His latest project was the acquisition of a plot of land along Sedbergh Road. He intended to make a tidy sum by building several fine villas for the aspiring middle classes: the merchants and thrusting young managers of the district, assuming he could lay his hands on the necessary funds.

All it would cost him was his daughter’s hand in marriage. A small price to pay.

The project, once completed, promised to make good his losses with a sizeable profit on top, thus ensuring a substantial increase in his fortune. He could see no reason for the plan to fail, so long as he could bring Ella to heel. Which he fully intended to do. But then Josiah generally found a way to curb the excesses of female histrionics and stubbornness which seemed perpetually to blight his life.

On his return to the attic, he took with him a towel, tightly knotted and wringing wet with ice cold water.

As he entered, Ella was on her feet in an instant. ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t hurt her any more. It’s not true. I lied! I lied! Dadda! I’ll do it! I will, I will. It was all lies about me being with child. Let Livia go and I’ll marry this farmer, I swear!’

Maggie sobbed while Livia cried out in dismayed protest. Josiah offered what might pass for a smile, twisting his mouth into a grimace. Nothing about his face was symmetrical, neither side quite matching the other. Even his nose was slightly crooked and off-centre. The eyes were a dark, chilling charcoal, hooded beneath heavy lids, one tilted slightly upwards while the other dragged down at one corner. His mouth, more often than not, was clenched in a firm tight line, the chin jutting strong and square, evidence of Josiah Angel’s iron resolve to bend the world to his will.

‘I am mightily relieved to hear it, and thankful you’ve come to your senses at last, Ella. You could have saved your dear sister a great deal of suffering if you hadn’t proved so stubborn. Clearly you are in dire need of a husband to control this wilfulness you’ve displayed of late, this emotional instability. A man of maturity and sobriety will steady you. Amos Todd, I believe, is perfectly suited to the task.’

Ella stared at her father, mute, drained of any further protest.

Had she possessed one jot of Livia’s courage, she might still have fiercely repudiated his argument. She longed to maintain her obdurate stand, to scream at her father that he’d only agreed to this match because it suited him financially to do so, all too bitterly aware that the marriage was nothing more than a business transaction. Yet she could not find the strength to resist.

Ella had once been considered her father’s favourite, the only one who called him by the pet name ‘Dadda’, and the one least likely to suffer from his unpredictable temper. Yet she knew that even she could not win this time. Her cause was lost. Everything had changed the day he’d discovered her in the conservatory with Danny Gilpin. Her young lover had been dismissed without a reference from his job as groom to the family, and arrangements were at once put in place for Ella’s hasty marriage.

She shuddered at the prospect of marrying a man she barely knew: apparently a religious fanatic with three young children already from a previous marriage. It was like something out of a cheap Victorian melodrama. They’d entered a new century, and already the emancipation of women was reaching new heights, with some daring ladies embarking upon golf and cycling, tennis and even wearing bloomers. Yet she was to be allowed no say even in a choice of husband.

Josiah strolled over to his two trembling daughters, and as Maggie instinctively shrank from his touch, he dropped the key in her lap.

‘When you’ve let your sister out of the cage, see that the key is put back on its hook in my study without delay, then return to your duties. I want no more histrionics. I trust this episode will serve to reinforce the importance of obedience, something you all seem to have forgotten. Ella, you come with me. We have arrangements to make.’

Ella cast her sisters one last anguished glance before trailing from the room in her father’s wake, shocked into silence as she contemplated her fate.

The moment the door closed, Maggie rushed to release Livia, tears rolling down her cheeks as she rubbed and massaged her sister’s numbed wrists and hands, fetched warm water to bathe the fresh wounds on her back made by the shining leather strap.

They did not engage in any discussion over what had just taken place. Nor did they allow themselves the luxury of bewailing their lot. Much as both girls loved their sister, they were only too bleakly aware that further resistance was fruitless. Their tyrant father had won, getting the better of them all as he had done so many times in the past. Livia might now be allowed out of the cage but there seemed to be no escape from the prison he’d erected around all three of his daughters.

Chapter Three

Nothing changed in Fellside in the weeks following her mother’s death, save for Mercy being faced with the day-to-day reality of living without her. She still rose every morning at five to riddle the clinker left in the stove and make herself a brew from the leftover tea leaves in the pot. She would empty the slop bucket down the privy out in the alley, then wash her hands and face using the bit of hot water left in the kettle, mixing it with a splash of cold from the pail she kept in the corner. There was no running water up here in the loft, a tap being a luxury enjoyed only by those who lived on the lower floors. If she was lucky, she’d nibble on a heel of bread, or Jessie might bring her up a bowl of porridge left over from her own family’s breakfast. She was generous that way.

Once she was dressed, Mercy made her bed every morning exactly as her mother had taught her, emptied the night soil bucket out in the yard, then got on with the weaving. The clack of the loom at least filled the deafening silence. How she missed her mother’s lively chatter, her laughter, and Florrie’s cheery certainty that tomorrow, or the day after that, things would get better.

But Mercy knew things could only get worse now that she was alone. And how she would find the rent each week, let alone food to fill her young belly, was still a mystery to her. She’d have starved already if it hadn’t been for Jessie and her family.

There was talk of change in the neighbourhood, of buildings being threatened with demolition. ‘Slum clearance’, they called it. A proud town like Kendal didn’t much care to have any part of it described in such a way, although finding the money to make the necessary improvements always took second place to the needs of the wealthy, to men like Josiah Angel, who ran this town. It could be years before they ever got round to the task.

Little, in fact, had altered in the district over the last two centuries beyond some necessary attention given to the sewers and water supply, which had originally come from the Tea Well at the top of Fountain Brow, and had been closed almost half a century ago because of the risk of typhoid. Overall there still hung the sweet-sour stink of mouldy decay, shared privies, household refuse, and the waste and sweat of too many bodies crowded into too few dwellings.

Old women still sat on stools at their doors while barefooted children played hoop-la or marbles in the filth of the gutters, if they were fortunate enough to own such treasures and not otherwise employed helping to work the hand-loom, or run errands for their mothers. Yet despite this evidence of a close-knit community where loyalties were strong and everyone knew the business of their neighbours, it was not a place to linger, nor one in which to risk taking short cuts unless you were sure of your bearings.

Mercy ventured out only to buy a few essentials. She kept herself very much to herself, wrapped in a private world of grief. She missed her mother desperately, and, despite her good intentions, would often waste hours each day just lying on her bed weeping. She might never have found the courage to carry on at all had it not been for Jessie. It was the older woman who had gently bullied her into working again by fetching her the yarn. She’d remind her to eat, insist she wash her face, even comb her tangled curls. And when the day’s shift was done, she’d fetch her up a bit of warm dinner on a plate.

Jessie Flint was a large woman with breasts like cushions that shook when she laughed, which she did surprisingly often. She had smooth white hair fastened in a knot at her nape, and dark watchful eyes, few teeth, but plenty of grit in her soul. She was the mother of nine children, all of whom seemed to have miraculously survived, no doubt due to the canny ingenuity their mother instilled in each and every one of them. They were all of them streetwise, never missing a chance to earn an easy penny, whether by holding a gentleman’s horse or sneaking off with his purse. Jessie’s view of right and wrong was tempered by the necessity to earn a crust, if not always an honest one – the needs of her precious brood coming well above any fancy law devised by the rich and the blessed.

The Flint family made their living out of weaving, and from knitting stockings, the younger ones knitting in the thumbs. Jessie had readily passed on all she knew to Florrie when she’d first come to Fellside. Like her mother before her, from whom Jessie had learnt these skills, she would stand at her door in her old coal-scuttle bonnet, swaying or ‘swaving’ as the knitters called it, moving gently with the rhythm of her knitting sticks. There were few knitters left in Kendal now, the trade almost gone, but Jessie clung on to the old ways because she loved the work, and needed every penny she could earn.

Mercy didn’t know how she would have coped without her friend, or Jessie’s eldest son, Jack, who was yet again urging her to carry out her mother’s last wishes.

‘Damn it, Mercy, just swallow your pride, go to the store and ask for work. It’s what your ma wanted for you. That bastard Josiah Angel owes you that much at least.’

‘I want nowt from him,’ Mercy said, her small voice tight with pain. ‘The man has ignored my existence for sixteen years, why should I go to him now with me begging bowl?’

‘Because he’s your da, and as much responsible for your well-being as your ma was.’

‘No he ain’t. I loved me ma, but I hate him.’

‘’Course you do, but who else do you have now that she’s gone?’

‘I have you and Jessie. Leastways, I thought I did.’

Jack patted her head in a rare show of affection. ‘’Course you do, lass. Always, you know that. But we’re stretched as it is, and this man could give you so much more. You deserve better than this.’

Mercy was accustomed to listening to her old friend, whom she admired and revered, turning to him whenever she was in trouble. Jack was older and wiser than herself, a man now at twenty-three, and with a growing reputation for toughness. He led a band of followers who lapped up his every word, ready to do his bidding with no questions asked. But Jack was no one’s fool, and not a man to cross. If power helped you to survive on Fellside, then Jack Flint ranked high in the pecking order; top of the tree in these buildings, although there were rival gangs down other yards and entries.

He could be as boisterous and rowdy as the rest; drink most of them under the table when he had coins in his pocket, but was also pig-headed, stiff-necked, and naturally perverse and argumentative. He was perhaps a mite too impulsive, and certainly never slow to take on a fight if challenged. But he was also a man of strong opinions with a mind of his own, the sort of person you could turn to when in trouble, always ready to take on the world if he sensed an injustice, albeit judged by a set of principles forged by the tough life he’d led. Jack Flint was impervious to danger and readily flouting all normal rules and conventions.

In Mercy’s eyes he could do no wrong. He was deeply caring, supportive and protective; not only her best friend but her hero, and she had adored him for as long as she could remember. Even the look of him delighted her. His hair, the colour of burnished mahogany, sprang back from a wide brow, reaching almost to his shoulders, as wild and untamed as Jack himself. His velvet brown eyes were dark and brooding beneath winged brows, the chin strong and square, the lower lip full and sensual beneath a straight, almost aquiline nose. A face that might have marked him out as an eighteenth-century gentleman, had not the set of those broad shoulders proved he was very much able to take care of himself in the tough world of Fellside.

Of late, Mercy had begun to see him in a rather different light from that of big brother, a role he’d readily adopted on her behalf, although not through any encouragement on his part. Much to her disappointment, Jack still saw her as a scrawny child in need of care and protection. But it had long been Mercy’s secret desire to alter this view he held of her, given time and opportunity. She dreamt he might one day see her as a young attractive woman. For this reason alone, if for no other, she paid heed to what he had to say.

‘You don’t have to give a toss about the greedy bastard. I’m not asking you to turn into Josiah Angel’s devoted daughter, or to love and respect him. Why should you, for pity’s sake? But you could use him, as he used your ma. Play him for all you’re worth and relieve him of some of his ill-gotten brass.’

Mercy gave a vigorous shake to the head. ‘Oh, I could never do that. I couldn’t just walk in and ask for money any more than I could ask him for a job. I just couldn’t.’

Jack let out a heavy sigh, and looking into the young girl’s pale face with bruises like thumb prints beneath those big turquoise-blue eyes, judged that she might be right. Mercy Simpson was not nearly as tough as she might pretend, which was something she’d need to change in the months ahead.

‘How about if I make the appeal on your behalf?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that for me, Jack. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘Why wouldn’t it? It’s no skin off my nose. He can only say no, can’t he? Though he’d have to give me a damn good reason why, if he refused to do owt for you. Here, give me that letter, and I’ll see what I can do, eh?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Mercy glanced at the letter, which lay between them as they sat cross-legged on the dusty wooden floor. She stared at the familiar handwriting penned in her mother’s carefully rounded script, and thought of walking into Josiah Angel’s fancy store, looking like the scarecrow she was. Mercy quailed at the thought. She’d be tongue-tied. Even if his minions allowed her in to see him, she very much doubted he’d listen to a word she said, let alone read any letter she held in her filthy paws. And yet…

‘No, Jack, it’s my responsibility. I’ll do it. I’ll make an extra effort and clean mesel up a bit. Happen ask your mam if she can find me summat decent to wear. Then I’ll go and see him. Beard the lion in his den, as it were. Anyroad, I’m curious to know what he looks like. He’s me da, after all.’

Jack felt a nudge of pride for her spirit, but he also felt very slightly cheated. There was nothing he’d have liked more than to find some excuse for challenging that man, anything to use against the bully who so pitilessly exploited folk in order to satisfy his own greed.

The cottages and lofts that Josiah Angel owned and which Jack’s entire family inhabited, along with several others, were naught but damp, rat-infested fleapits, with insufficient privies to serve all the poor souls who occupied them. People had taken to using the streets rather than face the stink of lavatories that often overflowed. Yet rents were going up time and again despite the fact that the amount of weaving work available, much of it provided by his friend and colleague Henry Hodson, was rapidly decreasing. The weaving trade was dying before their eyes, nothing was being done to save it, and yet the workers were still being screwed for every last penny.

Oh, aye, Jack had his own reasons for doing battle with the man, besides supporting Mercy.

He’d privately relished the prospect of giving him a punch on the nose for what he’d done to poor Florrie, and by default little Mercy here. Course, he could always make a few enquiries on his own account; sniff out the opposition, like, test the waters, check out the lie of the land. Jack trotted out all his favourite catchphrases in his head, savouring the thought of these investigations.

He resolved to keep a close eye on what went on, and if the man didn’t treat her right, he’d soon find that Mercy was not alone in her current difficulties. Josiah Angel might be able to fob off Florrie and her child, but the fellow would find that he, Jack Flint, was a very different kettle of fish. He’d soon discover that the lass now had friends capable of protecting her, ready to stand up to bullies like him. And by challenging the evil bastard, Jack would be doing all the occupants of these buildings a favour.

Chapter Four

Mercy hesitated as she reached Angel’s Department Store, desperately trying to summon up the courage to enter. She’d done the best she could with her appearance, scrubbing her face with Pear’s soap and water till it shone, and Jessie had washed her hair with lye soap, and combed the tangles out of it. Mercy had rarely done such a thing more than once a month in her life, and since Mam had been ill, hadn’t bothered at all, soap being something of a luxury. She’d been astonished to rediscover her own fairness, and how soft and slippy and clean her hair felt. Really quite wonderful. It had grown so long, Jessie had pinned it up for her into a sensible chignon at the back of her head. The new style made Mercy feel very grown-up.

Jessie had also insisted upon laundering her only blouse and good skirt, although it meant Mercy going about clad in nothing but her shawl until they were dry and ironed. Then her flannel petticoat and vest, worn next to her skin, which to her certain knowledge had never been washed, were dunked in the wash tub too. Mam had always considered it highly dangerous to remove underthings, particularly at night. Now the clean flannel felt all scratchy and stiff, and full of shaming holes as the shock of the hot water seemed to have made the fabric fall apart. Fortunately no one but herself would ever see these, and Jessie had assured her the flannel would go soft again, with wear.

Jack had managed to find some boot polish from somewhere, which he’d used to good effect on her one decent pair of boots. They pinched her toes a bit but Jessie said that were she to secure a job as a shop assistant, a uniform would be provided. Perhaps accommodation too, as many of the young women employed by Angel’s were housed either in large dormitories above the store or in various quarters around the town.

Standing before her friends Mercy had felt unexpectedly optimistic and excited, but now she was sick with anxiety. She felt insignificant and out of place, the stuffed mannequins with their knobs for heads in the shop windows looking far better dressed than she was. But then Mercy couldn’t recall the last time she’d worn anything new, if ever.

Giving a little gulp in a futile attempt to moisten her dry mouth, Mercy pushed open the shop door and walked in. She was as quickly marched out again with a stern reprimand from a man in a smart morning suit. Spruced up and clean she may be by Fellside standards, but not respectable enough to be seen shopping in Angel’s emporium.

Back out on the pavement, Mercy chewed on her lip, wondering what to do next. How was she ever to get a job if she wasn’t allowed to set foot in the store? It suddenly occurred to her that, like any grand house with a servant’s entrance, the store itself would no doubt have a back door for employees, who likewise mustn’t be seen cheek-by-jowl with the esteemed customers. She set off down a side alley in search of one and soon found what she was looking for. No one answered her timid knock so she turned the handle and crept inside.

The door Mercy had found opened onto a long corridor which, in turn, led to a labyrinth of similar passages. Mercy tiptoed along them, feeling very much like a mouse who might be pounced upon at any moment by the resident cat.

Finally, and to her great relief, she opened another door and found herself in a large room. Her first impression was that it was filled with boxes, stacked high on the floor, on tables, on every possible surface, but then she saw that people were engaged in unpacking them: young boys, and girls in black dresses with their sleeves rolled up.

There were shelves all around the perimeter of the room filled with bolts of fabric, lace curtains, blankets, mantles, shawls and even furs; a strange looking collection of brass stands that held an assortment of hats, muffs and umbrellas. One was completely decked out in feather boas. A group of the same mannequins she’d seen in the shop window leant drunkenly together in one corner, their knobbed heads close together as if gossiping over some naughty secret. And through a half-open door Mercy glimpsed a second room, which appeared to be filled with girls operating machines of some sort, perhaps sewing the fine garments that she’d seen on display.

Mercy was so overawed by the scene that she might have been content to stand transfixed for hours, drinking it all in, had she not been approached by a tall woman with a stern face and a spine that looked as if a steel rod had been inserted into it.

‘And what might you be doing in our stock room, young miss? If you’re seeking employment you should have rung the bell and waited.’ She cast a jaundiced eye over her shabby blouse and skirt, and the too-large coat she’d borrowed from Jessie.

‘I never saw no bell,’ Mercy murmured.

‘And I presume you have no experience either? Where was your last employment? Do you have any references? Can you even read? Standards are high for Angel assistants, and we don’t make a habit of taking in wastrels who drop in uninvited off the street.’ She folded her arms across her bony chest. ‘Well… I’m waiting.’

Mercy struggled to recall all the questions, and to remember the little speech she’d practised with Jessie and Jack before setting out. Sadly, her mind had gone completely blank and all she could do was to stare at the woman with her jaw hanging open.

‘Speak up, girl,’ the woman chided her. ‘I suppose you do have a tongue in your head? Come along, I don’t have all day.’

Only when she felt her collar being grasped in an iron-grip, which surely meant she was to be evicted yet again, did she spring to life and speak. ‘I want to speak to Mr Angel… If you please, ma’am’ she added, remembering her manners.

‘What did you say?’ The woman sucked in her thin mouth, looking very much as if Mercy had asked to be admitted to an audience with the King himself. ‘I – beg – your – pardon!’ punctuating her words loud and long, so that heads turned and noses twitched, sniffing trouble brewing.

But having got this far, Mercy wasn’t going to be easily put off. She shook herself free, smoothed down her skirt and said rather primly. ‘Please tell Mr Angel that his daughter is without, and would like a word if he could spare five minutes of his time.’ This little practised speech, finally remembered, was triumphantly offered and it gave Mercy great satisfaction to see how the shock of her words sent a dozen expressions flitting across the woman’s ashen face in quick succession, from disbelief, through outrage, to nervous uncertainty.

In the end discretion won and Mercy was indeed shown into the inner sanctum of Josiah Angel’s office. At last, she thought, excitement and trepidation warring within, I shall meet my father face to face.

Not for a moment had Mercy expected Josiah Angel to gather her to his bosom or weep with joy over being reunited with his long-lost daughter, but neither was she prepared for what did happen.

He was standing behind his desk when she entered the office, a large man dressed in a frock coat and trousers of unredeemed black, seeming to fill the small room by his dominating presence. He rocked back and forth on his polished heels as he studied her for a long moment, his silence making Mercy feel all hot and bothered about the collar. And she could see by the cold fury of his gaze and the tight curl of his upper lip, that he was not impressed by her ploy to gain entry. His opening salvo confirmed her worst suspicions.

‘It’s not often that I get to meet such a consummate liar. I’ve seen some nifty tricks played in my time in the fond hope of gaining employment, but this takes the biscuit. I assume it is work you’re after?’ He didn’t wait for Mercy to answer but hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and began to pace about the room, his gaze raking over her with critical disapproval as he calmly continued with his lecture.