The Favourite Child
1927
Chapter One
Isabella Ashton alighted from the tram car at the corner of Cross lane and strode out along Liverpool Street, her boots ringing on setts polished by generations of clog irons; thick woollen skirt swinging against her long legs. The slanting rays of a weak winter sun glinted momentarily upon wet slate roofs before being blotted out by a belch of smoke from a forest of broken chimney pots. Two children passed her, one a girl of about seven or eight pushing an old pram loaded with a pitiful quantity of coal. Seated in the midst of it sat a grey-faced toddler chewing on a piece of it, dribbles of black soot running down its chin. In front, pulling with all his puny strength was a child of no more than four or five years. A boy judging by his ragged britches. The pair had evidently been visiting the coal yard on the corner of Denbigh Street and were returning home with their meagre prize which would barely keep a family warm for more than a day. Isabella’s heart went out to them. How was it that small children must bear such onerous responsibilities?
As she paused to watch them go by, she took off the hated cloche hat and shook out her bobbed red-gold hair. Wildly curling it seemed, like its owner, utterly beyond control, refusing to be either confined or tidy, despite all the valiant efforts of her esteemed parents.
She wished she could have bought the children a wagon full of coal, had done her best to do so on numerous occasions, not to mention countless loaves of bread, pairs of boots and whatever else she could think to supply. But Isabella knew that even she, daughter of Simeon Ashton, the well-to-do manager of a thriving cotton mill, couldn’t afford to provide the whole of Salford with heat for their hearths and food for their kitchens. Not that it was easy to get them to accept anything at all. She’d learned to tread carefully with her well-meant offers of help, for fear of causing offence.
Tucking the hat into her pocket she picked her way around puddles, and children skipping or playing hop scotch. Women shrouded in thick woollen shawls hurried by, many with yet more children clinging to their skirts. The lamplighter was just completing his round, setting his long pole against each gas lamp and bringing a warming glow to the cold street.
A man stepped out from the lighted doorway of a tripe shop, a stone jar of hot soup cradled in his hand. ‘Ow do Miss Bella.’ A friendly voice, cap neb touched in deference. ‘Tha’s a sight for sore eyes on a raw neet like this.’
‘And yourself Joe.’ Bella returned the greeting, hazel eyes bright with good humour. All her friends called her by the shortened form of her name in these parts, and she rather liked it.
‘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 like wraiths 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 from 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?’ her mother had raged 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 bitterness through 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 valiantly defended. Edward had been given every advantage, including an expensive education in the classics and mathematics, 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. The result of these frustrated educational ambitions, Bella thought with a wry smile, had caused her to put all her energies into radical issues considered not quite appropriate for 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 the sound of appalled shock in her voice. The very fact that Emily had forgotten good manners sufficient to shriek at her in public, spoke volumes.
Now she bent her head into the wind and hurried on. No matter what the outcome of this particular show of rebellion, Bella intended to make sure that the Stobbs’ children were on the road to recovery. How could she begin to enjoy Edward’s party until she was certain they were taken care of. In her pocket her fingers curled around the pot of calf’s foot jelly. 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.
She shivered. Beneath the fine tweed coat she wore a warm jumper with the 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.
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