The Ribbon Weaver

Chapter Four



1845

Grabbing the handles of the old perambulator salvaged from Bessie’s coalhouse, Amy gave it a mighty tug and dragged it across the step and into the kitchen. The rain was coming down in great blistering sheets and both she and Molly were soaked to the skin.

Molly looked totally worn out, so leading her to the old rocking chair at the side of the hearth, Amy took off her gran’s outer clothing and then pressed her down on to it. She then took up the bellows and blew life into the fading embers before throwing a log on to the weak flames. Once she was sure that the flames had caught, she pushed the kettle into the heart of the fire.

You know, Gran, you shouldn’t have gone out in this weather. I’m quite capable of pickin’ a few logs and a bit of coal by myself.’ She was undoing the laces of Molly’s well-worn boots as she spoke and Molly smiled at her gratefully as she pushed her frozen feet towards the warmth of the flames.

‘Stop frettin’. There’s nothing much wrong wi’ me, lass. I’m just tired, that’s all.’

Amy was not so sure, but she had no time to comment because just then Toby entered, slamming the door shut behind him.

‘By, it’s wicked out there!’ he exclaimed, shivering. ‘It’s raining cats an’ dogs.’ Then, as he noted Amy’s wet clothes, ‘You’ve never been out in this, have yer?’ he asked, eyeing the contents of the pram, then without waiting for an answer he said sternly, ‘There was no need for you to go out an’ get that. You know I’d have gone and got it for you.’

‘I know you would, Toby, but I’m quite able to pick coal meself. I just wish Gran hadn’t insisted on coming along, that’s all. Besides, you already do enough for us as it is.’

Toby sighed. ‘Stubborn as mules you both are, that’s your trouble,’ he grumbled, although he was smiling. He could never help but smile when he looked at Amy, for even with her hair soaked and flat to her head, she was beautiful. He still came as regular as clockwork every evening, and over the last months, Amy didn’t know what she would have done without him – or Molly, for that matter.

Of late, Molly’s hands had become twisted with arthritis and she was forced to sit longer and longer at her loom each day to make ends meet. It had happened gradually over the last two or three years, and Amy was gravely concerned about her. Even after she had finished the steaming hot tea that Amy placed in her hands, she still looked all in and the girl patted her arm lovingly.

‘Why don’t you turn in, Gran?’ she suggested. ‘I’ll fill that stone bottle with nice hot water and bring it up to you, eh?’

Molly nodded; if she were honest with herself she was feeling far from well and wishing that she hadn’t ventured out today. Amy had begged her not to go but she had been saving the money she usually gave to the coalman by coalpicking from the slagheaps. She had seen a lovely woollen coat in a pretty shade of burgundy in a shop in town and had been saving the money so that she could surprise Amy with the coat for a combined birthday and Christmas present.

‘I’ll warm that stew up before you go to bed so that you get something hot inside you, shall I?’ Amy offered, but Molly shook her head as she struggled from the chair.

‘No thanks, lass. To be honest I ain’t hungry. Just me bed’s all I need, you’ll see. I’ll be fit as a fiddle in the mornin’ after a good night’s sleep. I’ve just picked up a bit of a cold.’

Amy’s troubled eyes caught Toby’s as Molly hobbled off to the stairs. Her bed was upstairs in the tiny room next to the one that housed her loom.

‘See yer lock up now when Toby’s gone,’ Molly ordered as she climbed the wooden staircase. ‘Goodnight, me darlin’s.’ Every step was an effort. She felt as if she was climbing a mountain and ached in every bone in her body.

The two young people watched her slow progress, and when she was out of sight, Amy said worriedly, ‘She does too much.’ Pushing the plug into the large stone bottle she had just filled from the kettle, she wrapped it in an old pillowcase, saying, ‘I’ll just take this up to Gran and then I’ll show you the sketches I did last night.’

Toby nodded and his eyes followed her as she skipped lightly up the steps. Then, turning, he placed one hand on the mantelpiece and stared down into the flames, his thoughts racing.

Amy would be fifteen soon and old enough to marry, and he would have plucked up the courage and asked her in a second, if he’d thought she’d accept. But in his heart he knew that she wouldn’t, and it hurt him deeply. Oh, he had no doubt that she loved him, but as a brother, whilst his own feelings for her had been growing steadily with the years. Why else would he still be living at home at twenty-two years old with his mam and dad? Still, life had its consolations and as long as he could see her and be near her every day, then he was happy.

When Amy had tucked the stone bottle into the bottom of the bed she pulled the counterpane up to Molly’s chin and planted a gentle kiss on the old woman’s brow. The skin felt feverishly hot and Amy said, ‘Look, Gran, if you need me in the night just call, eh? I’ll be in straight away.’

Molly offered her a weak smile. ‘Will yer just stop fussin’? I’ve told yer all I need is a good night’s rest an’ I’ll be right as rain. Now be off with yer an’ let me get some sleep.’

Amy grinned and within seconds was back in the kitchen with Toby where the grin slid from her face. ‘I’m really worried about her,’ she confided fretfully. ‘Do you think I should fetch the doctor in?’

Toby shook his head. ‘No, Molly’s a tough old bird, happen she’s just caught a chill as she said,’ he reassured her, and soon they were sitting with their heads bent at the table, as Amy showed him her latest sketches.

Upstairs in her tiny room, Molly lay shivering beneath the heavy layers of blankets. She had on a warm flannel nightdress, a thick woollen shawl and knitted bedsocks. Yet even with all these and the hot stone bottle pressed to her feet she couldn’t seem to get warm, and sleep evaded her. She was thinking of the two young people whom she loved most in the whole world, who were at this minute sat together at the kitchen table, no doubt poring over some book or sketch.

This winter was taking its toll on Molly and it wasn’t even Christmas yet, which meant there were still months of cold weather to come. Lately it was becoming harder to get up in the mornings and even with Amy’s help she always felt tired.

She could sense restlessness in Amy now. All of the other girls from the cottages and hereabouts had been working for some time, and occasionally Amy complained with a smile that she was being ‘Molly’-coddled. In truth, she was right, but no job she had suggested as yet seemed good enough for her to Molly.

She had such high hopes for the girl. Amy could read and write, besides which she was also a very talented artist. All this, plus the fact that there was something about her that seemed to place her in a class far above the people hereabouts: some quality that seemed to shine from within. Placing her chilly feet on the stone bottle, Molly sighed. What opening was there around here for her granddaughter, as she always thought of her? The majority of girls of Amy’s age had gone into service in the big houses, or into the factories that dotted the town. But Molly wanted better than that for Amy, and although she had wracked her brains, as yet she had come up with no solution.

Just once, last New Year’s Eve, Molly had allowed her to go to the Forresters’ house to help prepare for a big party that they were holding. Mary had begged Molly to allow it, knowing that Amy would enjoy it. She had now moved on from the laundry and joined Lily in the house, and Mr Forrester himself had asked her if she could recommend anyone suitable as a temporary kitchen help. The first person she had thought of was Amy, and the girl’s eyes had shone with excitement when Lily asked her at the thought of being able to earn some money for her gran.

Molly had had grave reservations but Amy had pleaded so much that she eventually gave in and allowed her to go.

In actual fact, Amy had seen very little of Forrester’s Folly apart from the kitchen, but even that had greatly impressed her. For months afterwards, Amy had talked of little else, and ever since then she had constantly pleaded with Molly to be allowed to go out to work and earn her keep, especially since Beatrice was working now; she had taken Mary’s place at The Folly as a laundrymaid. Mary now held the enviable position of being the mistress’s personal maid and was loving her new role, which was a huge step up from working in the laundry.

Molly knew that she couldn’t hold out against the girl for much longer. But that at the moment wasn’t her biggest worry. She fretted about what would become of Amy, should anything happen to her – as eventually it surely would. She had always hoped that she would live to see Amy grown up and settled, but recently she had felt so low that she wondered if it would come about. Shivering again, she pulled the blankets more tightly about her.

‘Oh well,’ she muttered, ‘what will be, will be,’ and soon after she slipped into an exhausted sleep.

Back downstairs, Toby examined Amy’s latest sketches. They were all drawings of hats and dresses and all extremely good.

‘You know, you have all the makings of a first-class designer,’ he remarked.

Amy blushed at the compliment. ‘And you have all the makings of a first-class teacher,’ she teased, but then becoming serious she went on, ‘I’d really like to work at the hat factory. I didn’t mind missing the opportunity of becoming a laundrymaid at The Folly because I’d worry about leaving Gran on her own if I had to live in … But if I worked at the hat factory I could still come home each evening and look after her. But Gran won’t hear of me trying to get a job yet.’

She looked so downhearted that Toby patted her hand sympathetically, thinking how pretty she looked with the firelight shining on her hair.

‘It’s only ’cos she loves you and she worries about you,’ he pointed out gently.

Amy nodded in complete agreement. ‘I know that, Toby, but I’m the only one of my age around here who isn’t working yet, and I’d like to tip some wages up to Gran. She’s kept me long enough and now I want to make life a little easier for her.’

‘But you do make her life easier,’ he argued. ‘You wash, iron, cook and clean. In fact, you do more than your share.’

Sighing in exasperation, Amy started into the fire. ‘I know that – but it’s not enough, is it? Gran works far too hard for a woman of her age but unfortunately I’m nowhere near as good as she is at weaving. I just don’t seem to have the knack.‘

Her head wagged miserably. ‘I know lately, because she hasn’t been feeling so grand, that she’s been dipping into her savings jar to make ends meet and I just feel so useless.’

Toby sympathised. He could understand how Amy felt, but he could also see Molly’s point too. ‘Well, there’s no sense in fretting,’ he told her. ‘Things will come right in the end, you’ll see.’

But the very next morning Amy had cause to wonder, for when she took her gran a cup of tea, she found her burning up with fever and soaked to the skin with sweat. Even her blankets were damp and her eyes were unnaturally bright.

‘Gran, Gran, what’s wrong?’ Amy’s heart began to thud painfully against her ribs as she stared down at the woman she adored. Molly seemed incapable of answering and, panicking now, Amy put down the mug, slopping tea on to the chest of drawers at the side of the bed. She then flew down the stairs and along the row of cottages into Bessie’s kitchen.

‘Please come quickly,’ she begged as tears rained down her cheeks. ‘Gran’s really bad and I don’t know what to do!’

Bessie was in the act of clearing the breakfast pots from the table but she immediately dumped them unceremoniously into the deep sink and hitching up her skirts followed Amy back along the fronts of the cottages at a trot.

When she saw Molly looking very old and frail in the great brass bed she wasted no time at all.

‘Run for the doctor now,’ she ordered sharply. ‘And tell him to be quick about it, else he’ll have me to answer to.’

Amy needed no second bidding, and without waiting to even snatch up her shawl she flew to do as she was told.

Luckily she caught the doctor just as he was leaving his house in Swan Lane and he followed her back to the cottage immediately. Once inside the tiny bedroom he ushered both Amy and Bessie into the next room. Then quickly he began to examine the old woman in the spotlessly clean bed. When he called them back in some minutes later, his face was grave. ‘I’m afraid it’s pneumonia,’ he told them, and Amy began to cry. Molly was all she had in the world and the thought that she could lose her was terrifying. Bessie’s arm snaked about her slim waist comfortingly. She felt like crying herself but knew that if she was to be of any help at all, then she must hold herself together.

‘What can be done for her?’ she asked as calmly as she could.

‘Well, for a start-off I want her bed brought down into the kitchen; she must be kept warm. I want you to sponge her down regularly with cool water and you must get some fluids into her. Do you think you can manage that?’

Bessie nodded. ‘We’ll manage. Our Toby can come and carry her downstairs, and the bed, and then me and Amy can see to the rest. I know that Jim will help too as much as he can, when he gets back from the pit.’

Satisfied that his orders would be obeyed, the doctor nodded then after fumbling about in his seemingly bottomless bag he produced a bottle of dark brown medicine. ‘She must have one teaspoon of this four times a day,’ he told her. ‘And I’ll call back again this evening on my way home.’ Seeing their worried faces, he added kindly, ‘Don’t worry about payment tonight. We’ll work something out.’

Bessie nodded as she took the medicine. ‘Everything will be done just as you say,’ she assured him and he smiled.

Amy was still crying but as soon as the doctor had gone, Bessie rounded on her. There were times when you had to be cruel to be kind and Bessie felt that this was one of them.

‘Right then, Amy.’ Her voice was cool. ‘That’ll be quite enough snivellin’ fer now. If we’re going to get your gran through this, then we’ve got to keep our wits about us, ain’t we?’

Amy eyed her miserably, then slowly nodded.

‘Good. Now run back to my place and tell our Toby that we need him straight away. That’s if, God forbid, he ain’t already left for his shift. Go on now, off yer go!’

Amy clattered down the stairs two at a time to fetch Toby. In no time at all he had Molly’s bed set up in the kitchen at the side of a roaring fire, and had carried her in his arms down the narrow stairs. And then the really hard work began. All day long, Amy and Bessie took turns in sponging Molly down with cool water and dripping liquid down her parched throat. But by teatime when the doctor called back as promised, the fever showed no sign of breaking.

‘How long will she be like this?’ Amy asked him, fear in her voice.

He could only shake his head. ‘There’s no way of knowing,’ he admitted.

‘You’re doing all you can,’ he assured her kindly. ‘Just keep it up and I’ll be back first thing in the morning.’

Amy thanked him as Bessie showed him to the door, her heart as heavy as lead within her chest.

Dr Sorrell wished that there was more that he could do, but the old woman’s life hung in the balance now; it was just a matter of waiting. At eleven o’clock that night, Amy insisted that Bessie and Toby went home. Bessie protested, reluctant to leave them but Amy pointed out that Bessie had a husband and her own family to see to, and that she was quite capable of managing on her own till morning. Bessie eventually saw the sense of it and reluctantly slipped back to her own cottage, but Toby refused to go and nothing she said could persuade him otherwise.

‘I’ll sleep on the settee,’ he told her, and although Amy objected, secretly she was glad that he was staying.

It was a seemingly endless night. Molly lay in a deep fever, so still sometimes that Amy feared that she had already gone from her. Tirelessly she sponged her down, talking to her softly all the while, praying that Molly could hear her.

‘Don’t leave me, Gran,’ she begged a thousand times. ‘I love you so much; you’re all I’ve got.’

But through it all, Molly lay unmoving.

When Bessie arrived back at break of dawn, she found Amy red-eyed and exhausted. Toby was fast asleep on the settee and Molly was no better at all. As she scurried about making them all a bit of breakfast, a feeling of dread came on her. She was deeply fond of Molly and couldn’t imagine life without her. She begged Amy to go to bed for a while and try to get some sleep, as the girl looked fit to drop. But Amy flatly refused and instead pulled a hard-backed chair close to the side of her gran’s bed.

There eventually she slipped into an uneasy doze, her hand tightly clutching Molly’s, and it was the doctor on his next visit that woke her. He looked down on the young girl and the old woman sadly. The longer the fever raged, the less chance the sick woman had of coming out of it, as well he knew.

‘Is there nothing more we can do?’ asked Bessie.

He solemnly shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. But take heart, it can’t go on for much longer now. The fever should break soon and I’ll call back again this evening.’

As the morning progressed, Molly appeared, if anything, to get even worse. The sweat ran down her face and she began to thrash about wildly. It took both of them now to bathe her, but not once did they cease in their efforts. Amy’s face was the colour of bleached linen as she watched this beloved old woman slowly slipping away from her. Her eyes held such anguish that they tore at Bessie’s heart.

‘Please, please, Gran, don’t leave me,’ she begged over and over again, and suddenly – just when it seemed that things couldn’t get any worse – Molly’s eyes sprang open and rested on her face. Then, just as quickly, they fluttered shut again, her thrashing about ceased, and still now, she sank back into the pillows.

Amy was sobbing uncontrollably but to her amazement and disbelief she suddenly heard Bessie laugh.

‘Don’t cry, lass,’ she said, pulling Amy into her arms. ‘It’s over. The fever’s broken and she’s come through it. Look – she’s fast asleep!’

Hardly daring to look, Amy followed her gaze and saw Molly’s old chest rise and fall regularly beneath her nightgown. A huge wave of relief swept through her and now she was laughing and crying and hugging Bessie all at the same time.

‘She’s alive,’ she sobbed gleefully as Bessie beamed through her own tears.

‘Aye she is, lass,’ she agreed. ‘Mind you, I don’t know now why we was ever worried in the first place. She’s as tough as old boots, is our Molly.’

By the time Dr Sorrell arrived back that evening, although still very weak, Molly was awake.

‘What are you doin’ here?’ she demanded rudely, and they all began to laugh with delight.

‘Now we know she’s on the mend,’ grinned Bessie. ‘She’s got her bloody cheek back.’