A Lancashire Lass

Libby Ashworth

A LANCASHIRE LASS

Contents

About the Author

Libby Ashworth was born and raised in Lancashire, where she can trace her family back to the Middle Ages. It was while researching her family history that she realised there were so many stories about ordinary working people that she wanted to tell. She has previously written historical novels – The de Lacy Inheritance and By Loyalty Bound – as well as local history books.

Libby currently lives in Lancashire with her son.

Also by Libby Ashworth

The Cotton Spinner

In memory of Susannah Smithson.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to both my editors – Cassandra Di Bello and Jennie Rothwell, for their tireless work on this book and their welcome advice. Thanks also to all the rest of the team at Arrow – my copy editor, for her attention to detail, the cover designer for the beautiful image, and everyone who has worked so hard to make this book a success.

Thanks to my agent, Felicity Trew, and to Caroline Sheldon and everyone at the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency for all their support.

Thanks once again to Blackburn Library for their Cotton Town website, which is an amazing resource for anyone who wants to study the history of Blackburn. And also to the Tuesday Reading Group for their interest and patience when I talk too much about my books.

Thanks to all my other friends, both readers and writers, who always offer encouragement. I hope you enjoy the story.

Chapter One

‘Gone? Gone where?’ asked Hannah.

Sally, the scullery maid, shrugged her shoulders. ‘I came down to set the fires and get the water on to boil, but Cook never showed up and when I knocked on her door there were nobody there. All the bedrooms are empty. Upstairs and down.’

Mary hurried in, pushing her hair into her cap. ‘What’s to do?’ she asked when she saw their faces.

‘Sal says everyone’s gone.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Mary, glancing at the row of bells high on the wall as if she expected them all to start tinkling at any moment. ‘We’d best get started on making some tea and toast before Mrs Slater gives us a telling off. I’ll scramble the eggs.’ She reached for a dish and the bowl of eggs and began to break them one by one, whisking as she went.

‘Sal says the family’s all disappeared as well,’ said Hannah, reaching out to stay Mary’s hand as she picked up another egg.

Mary hesitated and then gave Sally a fierce look. ‘Hast tha been to look?’

‘Aye. I crept in to lay the fires, but their beds weren’t slept in and their drawers were left open and nothing in ’em. And I can’t find Mr Cox or any of the footmen. I thought I were all alone until Hannah came down.’ A sob caught in her throat and she sat down on Cook’s chair and pulled a rag from her sleeve to wipe her nose. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

‘Let’s go to look,’ said Mary to Hannah, setting down the whisk. ‘There’s bound to be an explanation,’ she added as they hurried up the corridor past the housekeeper’s room and the butler’s pantry. Both were deserted. ‘Folk don’t just disappear in the middle of the night,’ Mary continued as they walked through the breakfast room, and glanced into the dining room where the table had been cleared and reset after last night’s supper. They went into the drawing room. The blue cushions were all plumped, but the blinds were still pulled down and Sal had neglected to clean out the hearth. All three rooms were empty.

‘Where can they be?’ asked Hannah as they crossed the main hall with its cabinet of stuffed exotic birds and looked into the billiard room where the only sign of life was the score from the last game still chalked up on the board. They went up the main staircase, normally forbidden to them except for the early-morning dusting, and tapped on the bedroom doors before opening them. No one was there. It was as Sal had said. Drawers and wardrobes were left open and the beds were untouched with the covers still folded back for bedtime.

‘Moonlight flit,’ said Mary.

‘No.’ Hannah knew of people who’d done that. But they were poor folk who couldn’t afford to pay their rent, who disappeared in the middle of the night with a few belongings piled on to the back of a cart, to avoid their debts. ‘People like the Sudells don’t do that.’

‘What other explanation is there?’ asked Mary and Hannah had to admit that she couldn’t think of one.

They went down the stairs and back to the kitchen to find Robert, the hall boy, sitting at the table with Sal drinking tea and eating buttered toast.

‘They’ve gone,’ he said.

‘We can see that,’ Mary told him. ‘Dost tha know why?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I woke in the night with all the kerfuffle from the yard and went to see what were afoot. Old Cox shoved me back inside and told me to keep my trap shut. He said Mr Sudell has lost all his money and wanted to leave afore he were found out because of the shame of it.’

‘Lost his money?’ said Hannah. ‘How could he lose his money?’ It wasn’t like a sixpence slipping out of his pocket, she thought. They said that he had a million pounds.

‘Bought too much cotton,’ said Rob. ‘He had it stockpiled, but now that the price has fallen he can’t make his money back. He’s bankrupt. There’s nowt left.’

‘But what about all this?’ asked Hannah. ‘The house alone must be worth a fortune.’

‘It’ll have to be sold to pay off his debts.’

‘What about us?’ said Hannah, suddenly realising that this was her problem too.

Rob shrugged. ‘They took some of the staff – them as had been with ’em for a long time. But the rest of us are out of a job. I suppose we’ll be expected to clear out afore the bailiffs come.’

Hannah sat down at the table and reached for a piece of the toast. It was unthinkable. This was her home now. She loved this place. She’d thought that leaving her job in the mill in Blackburn and coming to work for the Sudells was the best decision she’d ever made. The air was clear up here on the hill, away from the smog and the smoke and the grime. She’d had no intention of ever going back, but now she wondered what other option there was.

Mary went back to scrambling the eggs. ‘We may as well eat these,’ she said. ‘Who knows when we’ll get another meal? There’s bacon too. Get it on to fry.’

‘How long dost tha think we have before they throw us out?’ Hannah asked her friend. They’d gone to sit in the drawing room to pretend that they were gentry.

‘Not long,’ said Mary from her cushioned seat at the window. She nodded her head to where a cloud of dust in the distance betrayed the approach of horses up the long winding driveway. Hannah groaned. She was enjoying lying full length on the blue damask couch and she’d hoped that they would have longer before they were forced to leave.

‘It’s all right for thee,’ complained Mary. ‘Thy parents or sister will take thee back, but there’s no way I’m going back home. I’d rather starve.’

‘It won’t come to that. Lots of the mill owners are building themselves big houses. They must need staff.’

‘I doubt we’d stand much of a chance without a character reference. We were lucky here,’ Mary reminded her. ‘But things have changed. No one gets taken on now without a letter from their former employer. And it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting one.’

‘Or the wages we’re owed,’ said Hannah as she reluctantly swung her feet to the floor and bent to lace her boots. The horses had arrived outside the main door and men were surveying the front of the house. It seemed that they would barely have time to pack their belongings before the house was secured and they were sent on their way.

Half an hour later Hannah and Mary were walking down the long drive towards the road with their bags in their hands. It didn’t seem that long since they’d walked up it with such high hopes. Hannah had been so happy. She’d been overjoyed when the Sudells had agreed to employ her as a maid at their new country house, and after she’d been promoted from a scullery maid to a parlour maid she and Mary had talked excitedly about the possibility of becoming a lady’s maid, with all the excitement and glamour of looking after Mr Sudell’s daughters, being responsible for their lovely dresses, doing their hair, hearing their secrets and maybe even meeting someone special. Hannah longed to meet someone special. She’d seen such handsome men arriving at the Sudells’ door in their carriages for visits and parties. Men who wore silk cravats, and whose hands were soft and clean and who looked as though they’d never had to weave a length of cloth in their lives. How she’d wished that one of them would notice her as she crept about the house with her dustpan and brush. She knew that it was silly and that she ought to resent those who didn’t have to do a turn to earn their living. She knew she should set her cap at some hardworking lad, but it didn’t hurt to dream, she told herself. After a long day wasn’t she allowed at least a few minutes of imagining what her life could be like before she fell into an exhausted sleep?

Now a very different future beckoned. There was no point going home to her parents at Ramsgreave. There was no work for her there and she needed to earn her keep. So, if there was no chance of another position as a maid, she supposed that she would have to go to her sister, Jennet, and her brother-in-law, Titus, and ask if they would take her back as a boarder. Then she would have to go to the mill and try to get her job back. It wasn’t what she wanted, and she silently damned Henry Sudell for having ruined her life.

When they reached the end of the drive, the bailiff pulled the tall iron gates closed behind them and began to secure them with heavy chains.

‘That’s it then,’ said Mary. ‘I suppose we’d better start walking.’

‘Where will tha go?’ asked Hannah as they took the lane that led down the hill towards the Preston to Blackburn road. ‘I could ask our Jennet and Titus if they’d take thee in. They don’t live on Paradise Lane any more,’ she added, knowing that Mary wouldn’t want to live next door to her own family. ‘They moved on soon after I left.’

‘I don’t blame them,’ said Mary. ‘I wouldn’t want to live next door to my father either after what happened. Where are they now?’

‘On Water Street, next to the river. Come home with me for today at least,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m sure tha’ll be welcome to stay for a night or two until tha finds summat else.’

She tried to sound hopeful and positive, but the truth was that she wasn’t entirely sure of her own welcome. Things had been difficult before she left. When Titus was in prison and it had been just her and Jennet and little Peggy, things had been all right. They’d struggled, of course, but they’d managed. But when Titus had come home and found Jennet pregnant with another man’s child, he’d been upset and difficult and they’d done nothing but argue. In a way she couldn’t blame him. It must have been hard for him and it hadn’t been entirely his own fault that he’d been sent to the House of Correction in Preston – or so he said. His story was that he’d been to a Reform meeting on the moor and got caught up with some loom breakers afterwards and been arrested. He’d been lucky not to be transported and it was when Jennet thought she would never see him again that she’d slept with George. She was going to go to America with him, but when Titus got the prison sentence instead of being shipped off to Australia she’d decided to wait for him and George went on his own. It was only after George had gone that she found out she was having his child. She’d expected Titus to understand and forgive her, and he had in the end, but even Hannah could see that the love they’d once had for one another had taken a harsh blow. And so she’d left them to themselves, to try to mend their marriage, and now she had no idea what sort of reception she’d receive when she turned up unannounced on their doorstep.

They walked on, keeping to the side of the busy road as the traffic clattered past them, stirring up the dust. It was July and it had been dry since the beginning of June. Out in the countryside the dust had been bearable, but as they approached the town Hannah could see the low-lying haze clinging to the mills and the rows of terraced houses that lay in the valley. The noise increased as well. Birdsong was replaced by the thumping of the engines that drove the looms, the shouting of the carters as they unloaded the bales of raw cotton at the warehouses and took away the lengths of calico to the mills up at Darwen where they would be bleached and printed to make the pretty dresses that the daughters of the gentry wore – dresses that clung to their bodies in the breeze and showed every curve – dresses that Hannah had wished she could wear rather than the stiff black gown she’d been given to work in up at Woodfold. She’d left it behind on the bed. It wasn’t really hers and she had no intention of wearing it again. Although she could have cut it up to make something else. It could have been sewn into a little jacket, she thought as she regretted her hasty decision. Time was a luxury they’d not been granted that morning and she’d had no idea when she got up and dressed that she’d be back in Blackburn, with no job, before dinnertime.

The river Blakewater was low with the lack of rain and in the heat a stench rose from it that made her feel nauseous. She wondered why Jennet and Titus had come to live here. Such bad smells weren’t healthy and she knew that her sister worried about Peggy since she’d had the scarlatina as a baby.

Number six was the only house with the door ajar and Hannah knocked and called. ‘Jennet?’

There was no answer so Hannah stepped into the parlour to be met by a damp fug. Every rung of the airer was filled with drying underwear and more was arranged on a maiden set in front of the fire where a kettle boiled, adding steam to the already hot and damp atmosphere.

‘Jennet?’ she called again, going through to the back kitchen and out into the small walled yard where she found her sister, surrounded by bed sheets flapping on the clothes line.

‘Hannah! What’s tha doin’ here? What’s happened?’ she asked, glancing over Hannah’s shoulder at Mary.

‘We’ve been put out.’

‘Why? What’s tha done?’

‘Nowt!’ protested Hannah. ‘Sudell’s lost all his money and run off in the middle of the night.’

‘No!’ Jennet stared from one to the other, not able to believe what they were telling her. ‘Tha’s havin’ me on.’

‘We’re not, Mrs Eastwood,’ said Mary. ‘It’s true. Bailiffs have been. They’ve turned us out and chained up the gates.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Jennet. ‘How come he’s lost it? He were that rich. What’s he spent it all on?’