Nancy Carson - The Factory Girl

But prompt at half past seven she heard a motor car pull up outside the house. Her heart pounded with anticipation as she ran into the front room where the table was laid out for a meal. She peered through the lace curtains. It was him. It was Billy. She breathed a sigh of profound relief and smiled, rushing to the back door to greet him, keeping her fingers crossed that everything had gone the way she wanted.

‘Here, I’ve bought you some flowers,’ he said, producing a bouquet of roses from behind his back when she opened the door to him. He smiled at her expression and placed a kiss on her cheek, which made her blush since her mother witnessed it. But everything was all right. He had come to claim her after all.

‘Oh, Billy. Red roses. Oh, they’re beautiful. You shouldn’t have, but thank you ever so much. Aren’t they beautiful, Mom?’

‘You’d better put them in some water right away,’ Lizzie replied.

The evening went well, and Henzey was pleased to see that her mother seemed less tense than she had been for some time, more able to enjoy herself. Jesse, too, was bubbling with even more humour than normal. It was good to see them so happy.

Afterwards, in Billy’s arms, as they stood in the entry as he was about to leave, Henzey said, ‘It would mean a lot to me if my mother and Jesse got married. I’ve dreamed about it for ages now.’

‘They seem well suited.’

‘Oh, they are.’

‘That Jesse seems a genuine sort of chap. Is he anything like your dad was?’

‘In some ways. Except my dad used to get upset with people. He was so deep sometimes – very serious. Other times he was just the opposite – soft as a bottle of pop. Jesse never gets frustrated or upset like my dad used to. Good as gold he is with us, ‘specially considering he isn’t our dad. He thinks the world of our Herbert.’

‘It seems to me he thinks the world of all of you, Henzey. I think your mom’s lucky to find somebody like him.’

‘I think he’s lucky to get my mom.’

He gave her a hug. ‘That as well. She’s a lovely looking woman for her age, your mom. I can see who you get your good looks from.’

Henzey shrugged. ‘Everybody says I’m like my father. I loved him, Billy. He was a lovely man. I did some drawings of him when he was alive. I can show you them one of these days.’ She forced back a tear. This was not the time to weep after so pleasant an evening. ‘So what about Nellie?’ She had been dying to ask. ‘You finally broke it off with her?’

‘Last Monday night. I went round to their house, and we went for a drink at The Saracen’s Head. We talked things over and decided to part friends. She took it better than I thought she would. I think she was half expecting it.’

‘Any regrets?’

‘No regrets, Henzey. No regrets at all. I’m happy if you are.’

‘Oh, Billy, I’m happy,’ she breathed, and snuggled into his open coat like a kitten seeking warmth. ‘You’ll never know how happy.’

He gave her a hug. ‘I’ve been dying to see you all week. D’you know, most o’ the time I couldn’t even remember what you looked like. Daft ain’t it?’

‘So why didn’t you come and see me? I’d have been glad to see you. I was dying to see you.’

‘I dunno, really. It was a sort of punishment for me. A test, in a way, denying myself the pleasure of seeing you. I knew it’d be all the sweeter when I did. The waiting made me all the more anxious. I haven’t felt like that for years. It was a sort of perverse enjoyment.’

She wallowed luxuriously in his embrace. ‘Mmm. I know what you mean. It’s been the same for me, Billy.’

‘Anyway, I’m certain of one thing, after it all.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That I’m in love with you.’

She trembled inside at his unexpected confession of love, while he bent his head and kissed her on the lips, a long, lingering kiss.

At length, he said, ‘Shall I see you tomorrow? We could go for a ride out into the country like last Sunday. The weather’s due to pick up. What do you reckon?’

‘If you promise not to take me round any more churchyards.’

Henzey had never been so happy. At last she had the love of Billy Witts. Boys like Harold Deakin, Jack Harper and Andrew Dewsbury paled into insignificance. But she had known them to good advantage; even Andrew Dewsbury. They had given her the experience she needed, to know how to handle men. Everything had been in preparation for this love of her life at the ripe old age of seventeen, and she knew it. Now she could not imagine life without Billy. He was her life, all of a sudden.

But there was something else afoot.

‘Me and your mother are gettin’ married on the 28th of April,’ Jesse announced one evening, with Lizzie at his side.

Henzey, utterly surprised, embraced her mother and then Jesse. ‘All my wishes are coming true,’ she said, weeping tears of joy at the news. She had Billy Witts and soon her mother would be Mrs Lizzie Clancey. ‘Oh, wait till I tell Billy. He’ll be that pleased. How’s Ezme taken the news?’

Lizzie smiled. ‘Let’s just say she’s come round to accepting it. She didn’t at first, but she does now.’

The next time the rent man called, Lizzie gave notice that they wanted to vacate their house by the 4th of May, which would give them ample time to shift everything to the dairy house, their new home. Henzey suggested to her brother and sisters that for the first few days after the wedding they should continue to sleep in the old house, thus giving their mother and Jesse a brief honeymoon alone.

And so the ceremony took place at St John’s church, Kates Hill, at twelve o’ clock, after matins. It was conducted by the Reverend John Mainwaring who knew the bride and groom well. Lizzie looked significantly younger than her thirty-nine years and quite radiant in her short cream satin dress with its fashionable uneven hemline. Maxine was the only bridesmaid and Dr Donald Clark, Jesse’s lifelong friend, was best man. Henzey wore a new short straight dress in cinnabar red with the row of pearls Billy had given her, and Alice, a beige flouncey dress and a borrowed fox fur. They all looked exquisite, enhancing the reputation they were rapidly acquiring of being the best-looking girls in the parish. And that reputation also included Lizzie in the eyes of a great many.

Later that evening when the hangers-on had left and Alice, Maxine and Herbert had drifted back to number 48, Billy Witts announced he ought to leave, too. It was after midnight and he’d got to be up early next morning. Henzey duly fetched her best hat and coat from the hall and gave Jesse and her mother a goodnight kiss.

‘It’s been a happy day for me seeing you two married,’ she confessed. ‘I know you’ll be happy.’

Lizzie wrapped her arms around her. ‘Thanks, my flower. You don’t know how much that means to both of us.’

‘Goodnight, Mom. Goodnight, Jesse.’ Henzey took Billy’s hand. Billy raised his free arm in a gesture of goodnight and they left the newly-weds to their first night together.

As Henzey and Billy walked across the street, Lizzie watched them from the front room window of the dairy house. She watched as they stood by his car holding each other in a clinch for about five minutes, pecking at each other’s lips occasionally, looking into each other’s eyes and laughing.

‘Are you coming to bed, Lizzie, or are you gunna stand ganning on them pair all night?’ Jesse called from the bedroom, after settling his mother for the night.

Lizzie dragged herself away from the chink in the curtains and climbed the stairs. ‘I just wanted to make sure Billy hadn’t gone in the house with her at this time of night.’ She kicked off her new shoes with relief and slumped onto their new, supple bed. ‘If they do, I’ll know they’re up to no good. I just don’t trust that Billy, Jesse.’