Read Online Orphan of Angel Street by Annie Murray - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Annie Murray
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self-righteous ways. Elsie, who everyone seemed to regard as the yard’s gaffer, handing out her opinions left, right and centre. ’Course, she’d got Mercy well under her thumb. And all her flaming kids. No one should have that many kids. There were the twins who Mercy adored, and more infuriating still, the Pepper family were so taken with her. And now thanks to that scheming, interfering Mercy, Susan was going to have a wheelchair and she’d be out, for everyone to see her as the cripple she was.
‘She’s mine!’ Mabel’s voice came out in a harsh, irrational outburst. ‘My baby. I won’t let you take her away. She’s mine, mine, mine.’
Unable to stand watching any more of this merriment outside she went to her own room. She loathed Mercy for her energy and guile, for her devotion to Susan and for being more than she herself would ever be. Yet now she couldn’t do without her. She wanted the very best money could buy for Susan, but she barely had any money and couldn’t bear anyone else to be the one to help her. She was above all these slummy people yet had to live among them.
She fell on the bed in a turmoil of self-hatred provoked by the crowd out there all bunched against her, Susan’s glowing hope, the wheelchair – yet another of the things she’d failed to provide. Failed. That’s what she was, in every way, and Susan, her one scrap of hope, the one who would always have to stay with her and depend on her, was pulling away now as well.
Mabel Smith was born in 1873 in the workhouse at Winson Green. Her mother, already in poor health, died of TB two years later never having left the workhouse, and Mabel and two older siblings, a boy and a girl, were orphaned. She never knew who her father had been.
At fourteen Mabel was put into service as a kitchen maid to a family in Handsworth. Over the next couple of years her thickset features, which had given her a skulking, toadlike appearance as a child, spread and thinned to an earthy sort of glamour with those gappy teeth, the hooded eyes and long black hair. Her body was generously curved and stayed lithe through housework.
Albert Gaskin – then seventeen, whirling along the streets on a baker’s delivery cycle – started shilly-shallying at this particular door in Broughton Road, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mabel’s broad hips and supple waist bending over a bucket, the breasts full of promise, strong arms wringing a cloth, sleeves rolled, muscles moving under the skin.
Mabel, whose head had been rammed full of the notion that as a workhouse orphan she’d never be of anything more than heavy domestic use to anyone, suddenly found a more generous slice of hope than she’d been expecting.
Albert, thin, gangly, with high cheekbones, shorn brown hair and a jauntily-angled cap, pursued her with cheerfulness, persistence and a seething eroticism that quite took her by surprise. The sounds of desire he let out even at their first kiss were something she’d never forget.
When eventually Albert said, ‘Will yer marry me, Mabel, my true love?’ she had long ago made up her mind.
Things started well. Albert moved into factory work and Mabel carried on in service as a ‘daily’. They rented a couple of rooms. After all the anticipation the wedding night in 1893 was a sad disappointment (Albert had had several too many pints of Butler’s Ale). But things improved on that front and others. Mabel fell pregnant. She bloomed. She had a home, or half a one, a sweet-natured husband in work and she was to be a mother. Workhouse-born she may have been, but look what she was making of herself now!
The baby, a girl who they named Victoria, was born dead. Albert stayed off work for a week and promptly got the sack. After, he came home with two finches in a cage who chirruped mournfully and pecked their ash-coloured breasts until Mabel screamed for him to take them away again.
By the time a second baby was on the way, Albert had long found another job,
‘She’s mine!’ Mabel’s voice came out in a harsh, irrational outburst. ‘My baby. I won’t let you take her away. She’s mine, mine, mine.’
Unable to stand watching any more of this merriment outside she went to her own room. She loathed Mercy for her energy and guile, for her devotion to Susan and for being more than she herself would ever be. Yet now she couldn’t do without her. She wanted the very best money could buy for Susan, but she barely had any money and couldn’t bear anyone else to be the one to help her. She was above all these slummy people yet had to live among them.
She fell on the bed in a turmoil of self-hatred provoked by the crowd out there all bunched against her, Susan’s glowing hope, the wheelchair – yet another of the things she’d failed to provide. Failed. That’s what she was, in every way, and Susan, her one scrap of hope, the one who would always have to stay with her and depend on her, was pulling away now as well.
Mabel Smith was born in 1873 in the workhouse at Winson Green. Her mother, already in poor health, died of TB two years later never having left the workhouse, and Mabel and two older siblings, a boy and a girl, were orphaned. She never knew who her father had been.
At fourteen Mabel was put into service as a kitchen maid to a family in Handsworth. Over the next couple of years her thickset features, which had given her a skulking, toadlike appearance as a child, spread and thinned to an earthy sort of glamour with those gappy teeth, the hooded eyes and long black hair. Her body was generously curved and stayed lithe through housework.
Albert Gaskin – then seventeen, whirling along the streets on a baker’s delivery cycle – started shilly-shallying at this particular door in Broughton Road, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mabel’s broad hips and supple waist bending over a bucket, the breasts full of promise, strong arms wringing a cloth, sleeves rolled, muscles moving under the skin.
Mabel, whose head had been rammed full of the notion that as a workhouse orphan she’d never be of anything more than heavy domestic use to anyone, suddenly found a more generous slice of hope than she’d been expecting.
Albert, thin, gangly, with high cheekbones, shorn brown hair and a jauntily-angled cap, pursued her with cheerfulness, persistence and a seething eroticism that quite took her by surprise. The sounds of desire he let out even at their first kiss were something she’d never forget.
When eventually Albert said, ‘Will yer marry me, Mabel, my true love?’ she had long ago made up her mind.
Things started well. Albert moved into factory work and Mabel carried on in service as a ‘daily’. They rented a couple of rooms. After all the anticipation the wedding night in 1893 was a sad disappointment (Albert had had several too many pints of Butler’s Ale). But things improved on that front and others. Mabel fell pregnant. She bloomed. She had a home, or half a one, a sweet-natured husband in work and she was to be a mother. Workhouse-born she may have been, but look what she was making of herself now!
The baby, a girl who they named Victoria, was born dead. Albert stayed off work for a week and promptly got the sack. After, he came home with two finches in a cage who chirruped mournfully and pecked their ash-coloured breasts until Mabel screamed for him to take them away again.
By the time a second baby was on the way, Albert had long found another job,
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