Read Online Polly's Pride by Freda Lightfoot - Free Book Online

near the Hippodrome, if you must know. ‘It’s a decent enough pub. Better than most, I dare say. The actors call in during the interval, and the money is good so . . .’ Her voice tailed away as she watched his face darken. Even so, it was her mother-in-law whose outrage was the first to surface.
    ‘You’ve been working in a pub! Where hard liquor is served and lewd actresses with Red John on their cheeks parade themselves before men? Was it that slut next door what put you up to it?’
    ‘Eileen isn’t a slut. She had a bad start in life, that’s all. Anyway, I wasn’t serving at the bar,’ Polly protested. ‘Only cleaning up every afternoon while it was closed for an hour or two. What can be wrong with that, may I ask?’  
    She stood with arms folded as she faced her husband, but her eyes weren’t so much defiant as pleading with him to understand. ‘How could I buy our Lucy a frock to wear for the Whit Walks, or Benny the new coat and boots he needs, on what we have coming in? Would you have me children look like beggars?’
    Matthew was on his feet, anger making his face ashen. ‘So that’s what you think I achieve by grafting all hours on the canal? Making my children look like beggars.’
    ‘No, I didn’t mean it how it sounds . . .’ But it was too late. Matt thrust his feet back into his shining clogs, clipped the clasp on each, then picking up his jacket strode from the house, clog irons sparking on the stone floor. Polly knew he’d be back later, after he’d walked off the worst of his temper, but it pained her to see how she’d hurt him.
    Big Flo chose this moment to put in her twopennorth. ‘Now see what you’ve done! You shouldn’t show your husband up, not a fine proud man like our Matthew. You should be ashamed of yourself.’
    ‘I only wanted to help.’  
    ‘No brains, like all Irish.’
    Polly was so used to this accusation, she managed a tight smile. ‘But plenty of heart, Flo. You have to admit that.’
    The two women considered one another in silence. There’d been many times when her mother-in-law claimed to have given someone ‘a good talking to’ and Polly always felt great sympathy for the poor miscreant. But her silences could be worse. Matthew had once told her they could be so condemning as to bring his father, as strong a man as you could hope to meet in a long day’s march, to his knees, begging forgiveness for whatever misdemeanour he’d supposedly committed. After that poor man’s death, from exhaustion some said, Flo practised her well-honed skills on other unfortunates. Now Polly found herself on the receiving end of that forbidding gaze and saw exactly what Matthew meant.
    Whether she would have found the courage to break the silence she was not to discover as a sound of clattering feet and excited laughter intervened. A breathless Lucy stood before them in her new frock.  
    ‘Where’s Dad?’
    ‘He had to go out. Don’t worry, he’ll see you on the day. Oh, and don’t you look fine and dandy? A proper beauty.’ As indeed she did. So lovely with her fair hair curling softly on her shoulders and her grey-blue eyes bright with a youthfulness and innocence that quite took Polly’s breath away. The dress was lovely, too, a blaze of startling white in the shabby room.
    ‘It was worth every stitch, to be sure,’ said Polly, swelling with pride at the wonder of her own daughter’s beauty. The hours of labour on her knees scrubbing and cleaning had also been worth it, no matter what Matthew might say.
    ‘Aye,’ Big Flo softly agreed, equally bowled over by the transformation from ragged urchin to something very like a fairy princess. ‘Happen you’re right there.’

    Matthew came home late that evening, quietly undressed and slid beneath the blankets. He told his wife that her job at the Peveril of the Peak was over. He’d called in and informed the proprietor she’d not be returning. ‘You can keep the job at the temperance tavern, but nothing