Forgive and Forget Read online

  Margaret Dickinson

  Forgive and Forget

  PAN BOOKS

  For my beautiful granddaughter

  Zara Elizabeth Robena Jean

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  One

  LINCOLN, FEBRUARY 1905

  ‘Poll, get the doctor.’

  Polly turned to stare at her father, her green eyes widening.

  ‘The – the doctor?’ she stammered.

  Calling the doctor was unheard of in the Longdens’ terraced house. Doctors had to be paid for and money was short for the family of seven.

  ‘It’s yar mam. She’s badly.’

  ‘I know that,’ Polly countered. ‘She’s been badly ever since the babby was born. Can’t Mrs Halliday see to her?’

  William Longden ran his hand through his springy auburn hair. ‘This hasn’t owt to do wi’ having the babby. She’s got steadily worse these last two weeks. You know that.’

  ‘But . . .’ Polly began to argue, but her father’s next words cut her short and brought dread to her heart.

  ‘I reckon she’s got the fever.’

  The young girl gasped. ‘Typhoid? You mean the typhoid?’

  Rumour – like the disease itself – had been spreading through Lincoln since the beginning of December and now, in early February, word was that an epidemic was rife in the city.

  ‘But how?’ the girl asked, anxious yet puzzled. ‘Like they told us to in the Chronicle, we boil all our water. An’ I scrub the privy every day.’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust. The standpipe and the lavatory in the backyard were shared by three families and each household was supposed to take its share in the cleaning, but Sarah Longden, Polly’s mother, didn’t trust the slovenly standards of her neighbours and cleaned the wooden seat of the privy every day. Since she’d given birth to the latest addition to the family just before Christmas – a baby girl they’d named Miriam – the unenviable task had fallen upon Polly’s thirteen-year-old shoulders.

  ‘I know you do, love.’ Her father’s tone softened a little, yet the dreadful fear never left his eyes. ‘And,’ he was pleading now, ‘you’ll have to stay off work a bit longer.’

  ‘Stay off?’ Polly’s eyes blazed. ‘Again?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Poll, but—’

  ‘I’ll get the sack,’ she reminded him grimly. ‘Mr Spicer’s warned me once already when Mam had Miriam and I stayed off to look after her.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ William said distractedly. ‘But what else can I do, love? Yar mam’s sick and getting worse by the day. And now—’. He broke off and glanced away from Polly’s glare.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s got the rash.’

  Cold fear ran through the girl’s slim body. ‘Rash?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘Is it – is it pink?’

  The symptoms of typhoid were now the main topic of conversation in every street throughout the beleaguered city. They all recognized the first signs: headaches, stomach pains and a dry cough. As the days progressed, a pinkish rash appeared, then vomiting and severe diarrhoea confirmed their worst fears.

  ‘Aye.’ William nodded hopelessly. ‘So that’s why I say, lass, you’ll have to fetch the doctor. Best go to Mrs Halliday’s. She’ll know what we’ve to do.’

  Polly couldn’t remember them ever seeking the services of a doctor and so neither she nor her father knew where the nearest one lived. But Mrs Halliday would know.

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ Polly said meekly now and reached for her coat from the peg behind the door. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  As she ran down the street, her heart was thumping with fear for her mother – for all the family. Yet part of her railed against the unfairness of it all. She’d left school the previous summer to work in the glue factory. She’d wanted to stay on and become a teacher one day, like Miss Broughton, but her father had insisted she leave and find work. They needed the money, he’d said, and though her mother’s troubled eyes had sent her a silent apology, Sarah had made no attempt to side with her daughter. Only Polly, green eyes flashing with indignation, her wild auburn hair flying free, had faced her father.

  ‘I want to stay on. You said I could. I want to be a teacher, I want—’

  ‘Enough,’ her father had boomed. ‘It’s not about what you want. It’s about what this family needs.’

  William Longden, tall, thin and slightly stooping and with the red-hair colouring that Polly had inherited, was normally a reasonable man, but he was quick-tempered and when roused to anger he was fearsome. He raised his arm and for a brief moment Polly thought he was going to strike her. He’d never hit any of his children, not like the other fathers in the street, who took their belts to their kids at the slightest excuse. He’d never even leathered their Eddie, who, at eleven, was fast becoming a tearaway. At least, not yet. But as Polly had faced him, her determined little chin jutting out obstinately, her tangle of red hair framing a mutinous face, her small feet planted firmly on the floor and her arms folded across her chest, she’d trembled inwardly. For the first time in her young life she knew she’d driven her father too far with her answering back. To her surprise, William had let his arm fall, his hot anger dying as swiftly as it had come. But he was still not about to give way.

  ‘You’ve got your certificate from the school so you can leave. You’ll start at the factory on Monday,’ William had said heavily. ‘I’ve seen Spicer and it’s all arranged.’

  Now, as she sped along the street, Polly was wishing fervently that she’d not worked so hard at her lessons and become Miss Broughton’s star pupil. Maybe if she’d been lazy and messy in her work instead of being attentive and neat, she’d not have been given the certificate that said she’d reached the required standard in her education as set out by the local by-laws. She kicked herself mentally – that way she could have stayed on at school. She wouldn’t be working in the glue factory or be kept at home to nurse her mother and look after a tiny baby. She’d still be in class, sitt
ing in the front row, drinking in every word that the teacher said, revelling in the knowledge and the skills being imparted.

  And she wouldn’t have been kept off school because the one thing her father had feared was the arrival of the school attendance officer at his door.

  It had all been her own stupid fault, she reproached herself, for trying to be so clever, and now she was paying the price of sinful pride.

  Two

  The Longdens lived in a two-up, two-down terraced house in one of the streets set at right angles to the long High Street. The River Witham meandered past the bottom end of their street, but Sarah forbade her children to play near it, even though some folk swam there in warm weather or boated on it.

  It was a friendly street, though the youngsters would rough and tumble with one another, which usually resulted in scraped knees, bleeding noses and torn clothes. A shouting match between the mothers as to who had started the fight often followed, but a week or two of frostiness between the women involved would eventually thaw – until the next altercation. With the men, it was simple. They went off together to the football matches on a Saturday afternoon at Sincil Bank, ending up in the local pub after the game either to celebrate or to drown their sorrows. Either way, most of them came home drunk. Sometimes there were fisticuffs in the streets, but by next morning the cause was forgotten. The bruises and bloody noses took longer to heal than did the friendships. But visits to the racecourse, where the highlight of the year was the Lincoln Handicap, were what their wives feared the most. Strong-willed Sarah Longden dreaded that time, for even she could not stop William joining the other men in spending their week’s wages on the ‘gee-gees’.

  Polly banged on the door of the house at the end of the street near the river and shouted at the same time. ‘Mrs Halliday, Mrs Halliday. Come quick.’

  The house was just the same as her own home; the front door opening straight into the best front room, leading through a small area at the foot of the stairs into the kitchen, which was the main family living room where the range dominated one wall. Beyond that was the scullery with a shallow sink, where the washing of crockery and of clothes was done. All the family’s meals were prepared here and the copper bricked into the corner provided hot water on bath nights.

  ‘Now, now,’ came a voice from beyond the door in answer to Polly’s frantic knocking. ‘If ’tis a babby comin’, it’ll tek its time an’ if someone’s died, there’s no rush.’

  The door flew open and Polly looked up into the motherly round face of the local midwife and layer-out, the woman to whom everyone came in times of trouble for help and advice.

  ‘We need the doctor, Mrs Halliday,’ Polly panted. ‘Me mam’s real bad.’

  Mrs Halliday’s ready smile faded. ‘What’s ’er symptoms, lass?’ she asked and then, beneath her breath added, ‘As if I didn’t know.’

  ‘She’s bein’ sick.’

  ‘And the lax? Has she got the lax?’

  The girl shuddered as she thought of the foul-smelling diarrhoea in the chamber pot that she was obliged to empty several times a day. She nodded. ‘Ever so bad and now – ’ she pulled in a shuddering breath – ‘there’s a rash.’

  ‘Oh dear. Then you do need the doctor to see her. It’ll ’ave to be notified, love, won’t it?’ A ghost of a smile lit Bertha Halliday’s eyes briefly as she added, ‘We must abide by the law, specially now our Leo’s a policeman.’

  Bertha Halliday’s son, Leo, had joined the city police force a few months earlier at the age of eighteen. Fair-haired and blue-eyed with a cheeky grin that belied his chosen profession, Leo was the apple of his mother’s eye. And all the unattached young girls in the neighbourhood would make sure they were wearing a clean pinafore or their best coat when stepping out of their front doors just in case he should be striding up the street. Even at thirteen, Polly was unusually tongue-tied when she ran into him unexpectedly. But this morning the handsome young man was not occupying her thoughts.

  ‘Please, Mrs Halliday, will you—?’

  ‘’Course I will, lass. I’ll get the doctor to call. You leave it to me and get yarsen back home to look after yar mam and the bairns.’

  Polly retraced her steps more slowly. She paused briefly outside her own house, but then she ran swiftly to the end of the street where it joined the High Street. She stood on the corner and gazed up at the cathedral sitting proudly on the top of the hill. She loved the huge building, but she’d never had the chance to attend services there; in fact she’d never seen the inside. One day, she’d always promised herself, I’ll walk all the way up the High Street, up Steep Hill and I’ll go and see it for mesen. Their own church was smaller but much nearer – only a few hundred yards away. Polly bit her lip. Come Sunday, she thought, she’d really have something to pray about.

  By the time she returned home, her father had left for work, afraid too that he would lose his job on the nearby railway if he stayed away. The baby was howling, four-year-old Stevie was sitting wide-eyed beside the drawer that doubled as a cradle sucking his thumb anxiously and Sarah was calling weakly from the bedroom upstairs. Polly sighed, took off her coat and hung it behind the door. Then she patted Stevie’s dark curls, promising, ‘I’ll be down in a minute, love.’

  The boy removed his thumb and nodded towards the baby. ‘I fink she’s hungry.’

  ‘No doubt she is,’ Polly remarked dryly and could have added, ‘we all are.’ But she turned away and climbed the dark stairway to the bedrooms above feeling as if she carried the troubles of the whole city on her slight shoulders.

  She entered the front bedroom, the smell of vomit hitting her so forcibly that she retched. Her parents occupied this room, whilst the back bedroom had been partitioned by their father into two, so that Polly and her younger sister, Violet, slept on one side and the boys, Eddie and Stevie, on the other. The house was crowded enough now, Polly had thought resentfully when she’d first heard that there was to be yet another addition to the family. But Miriam was a sweet little thing, whom she’d adored at once. For the last few days since her mother had been taken worse, Polly had done everything for the tiny baby. She loved caring for the mite, but she didn’t want to do it for ever; she wanted to get back to work, to save enough money so that she could train to be a teacher. Despite being obliged to obey her father, she still hadn’t given up her dream, even though, so far, all her wages had been handed over to Sarah to help feed and clothe the family. Now, with all the missed days at work, she feared she’d even lose that job.

  ‘It’s typhoid right enough.’

  The doctor confirmed their worst fears.

  ‘Now,’ he went on, turning to Polly standing fearfully beside the bed, ‘keep her warm and give her only fluids. Nothing solid. And make sure you boil all drinking water because that’s where this disease is coming from. The supply’s been contaminated somehow. And you must boil milk, too. You understand, child?’

  Polly nodded, looking up into the man’s solemn face. Behind the round spectacles, his eyes were tired with a weariness caused by the weight of responsibility that rested on his shoulders. Dr Fenwick was in his early fifties, of portly build, with a balding pate and a bristling white moustache, which he stroked thoughtfully when considering his patients’ ailments. But there was no need to ponder today; sadly, the diagnosis was all too easy. Though highly respected, he was something of a figure of fun amongst his patients, for he always wore a black jacket and pinstriped trousers, with a brightly coloured waistcoat and bow tie. A gold chain attached to the watch hidden in his waistcoat pocket was looped across his broad chest.

  Dr Fenwick struggled down the narrow stairs. He paused in the kitchen, eyeing the young boy and the crying baby. He nodded towards them and raised his voice above the noise to say, ‘If they fall ill, child, send for me at once. You hear me? At once.’

  By nightfall Polly was exhausted. Though she was willing and capable, caring for a sick mother, a demanding baby and the rest of the family was a heavy burden. He
r father tried to help when he came home, but never having been used to household chores he was less than useless, as Bertha Halliday would have put it.

  At last, Polly got baby Miriam to sleep for the night and Stevie into bed. Violet argued with her sister that, at ten, she was old enough to help her and shouldn’t be sent to bed with the babies.

  ‘You’ll do as I say,’ Polly snapped, gripping the younger girl’s shoulder and marching her towards the stairs. ‘Till Mam’s better I’m in charge, so there.’

  Violet paused and looked up into her sister’s face. ‘Is she going to get better?’

  Polly blinked. ‘Course she is.’ But the slight hesitation had spoken volumes. Young as they both were, they knew that typhoid was a killer. Two people in their immediate neighbourhood had died and the funeral of a man further down their own street had taken place the previous day. And he hadn’t been old or infirm or already weakened by childbirth like their mam.

  Polly bent forward, her face close to Violet’s, as she whispered, ‘We’ve just all got to do what we can and be good.’

  Violet pursed her lips and glowered, but then she muttered, ‘All right. You win. This time.’

  Then she stomped up the stairs until Polly called after her, ‘Quietly, Vi. Mam might be asleep. And don’t wake Baby. She’s in with us tonight.’

  The footsteps quietened and Violet disappeared into the part of the bedroom they shared.

  Polly went back into the scullery to finish washing the pots and to make a warm, milky drink to take up to her mother. Now there was only Eddie to deal with when he came in. He was late already and the girl knew that her brother, only fifteen months younger than her, was taking advantage of their mother’s illness to stay out playing with his mates. And he was banking on his father, in his anxiety, not noticing.

  But Polly was not about to let Eddie get away with it. He might already be as tall as she was, and stronger, but she’d show him who was boss.

  Oh no, Eddie wasn’t going to get away with anything, not while she was in charge of the household.