Nancy Carson - The Dressmaker’s Daughter

‘Our Lizzie, it’ll look a treat on you.’

‘Good. I can hardly wait for next Sunday to wear it.’

*

The dairy house, where the Clanceys lived, was a large detached house with no foregarden, but set well back from the footpath. A cobbled yard lay at the rear, accessed from the street by an entry broad enough to drive a horse and cart through with ease. On one side of the yard was a row of brick-built outbuildings, one of which was a stillroom for making butter, the rest for stabling the horses and garaging the carts. On the other side was the door to the scullery. Behind the brewhouse stood the privy, the ‘miskin’ where they deposited all their rubbish and a hen coop. When Jack Clancey first started up his business he kept cows in the field at the back of the house to provide the milk for his business. A picket fence and gate separated it from the yard. These days, because home-produced milk was unreliable, only the two horses grazed it now, accompanied occasionally by an odd vagrant hen in search of extra food.

In the front room, standing in the square bay window looking out over Cromwell Street, was Jesse Clancey. An hour earlier he’d watched Lizzie Bishop, in all her Sunday finery, walk towards Hill Street with another girl and a young man, no doubt heading for Oakham Road and a stroll through the meadows beyond. He was hoping they would return by the same route so he could catch sight of her again. Every time he saw the girl she looked more and more bewitching. Today she wore a cream dress with pale green trimmings, narrow skirted, with a high neck collar, under a cream three-quarter length coat. She looked so beautiful, her hair swept up on top of her head in the pompadour style and crowned with a fashionable cream wide-brimmed hat topped with pink roses.

If only there were some way of making Lizzie interested in him he would give up Sylvia Dando. Oh, Sylvia was a nice enough girl, and she’d make somebody a good wife, but not him. Sylvia was the same as all the others; somehow she failed to spark off any excitement in him, physical or mental. For him to even consider marriage there had to be some glimmer of passion, of yearning for her, of yearning to be with her. But he did not yearn for Sylvia. He’d courted her for many months now and they’d progressed beyond canoodling, and still he didn’t yearn for her. But he did yearn for this little Lizzie Bishop, Sylvia’s second cousin. Perhaps it was because she was unattainable; because she might think he was too old at twenty-six and because their respective mothers had always been at odds. At least, that was what he assumed; he did not know it for certain.

But in any case, what would her mother think if he were to suddenly start walking out with her, little more than a child at seventeen? Like everyone else, she would no doubt consider the age gap unseemly; she would accuse him of cradle-snatching. Yet all he wanted was to love her and for her to return his love. He wanted to marry her, to be the father of her children, and provide her with a decent standard of living; a standard of living befitting a girl so worthy.

Lizzie Bishop was becoming an obsession. She was the only reason he still went to church, albeit accompanied these days by Sylvia. And who would credit it? Who would believe that he could be longing for this Lizzie Bishop, whom he had watched grow up from a skinny little kid to this vision of femininity? Who would believe it, when he had a pretty girl like Sylvia on his arm, who evidently thought the world of him?

The problem was that there was never an occasion when he might meet Lizzie Bishop to tell her how he felt, or to ask her if she would like to step out with him. Even if there were, would she listen? If only he could find some way of making his feelings known before somebody else claimed her, for somebody surely would, and soon. Otherwise, how could she ever know how he felt? And, knowing, she might even respond positively …

All at once his pulse rate quickened. Lizzie came into view again with her two companions, strolling leisurely towards the dairy house. The other girl was holding the lad’s arm proprietarily. Jesse stood back a step out of the bay to avoid being seen, and watched from behind the huge aspidistra as Lizzie conversed intently with her friends, her eyes lighting up her lovely face which was vibrant with expression. He could hardly fail to notice her feminine curves contrasted against the darker lining of her open coat, the gentle swell of her breasts giving way to her rib-cage, to her flat stomach. He could hardly fail to notice her small waist; the youthful slenderness of her hips; the way she held her head; the way she walked. This yearning was turning, irrevocably turning, into an intolerable ache.

Then, the very antithesis of Lizzie appeared from the opposite direction. It was Phyllis Fat. He watched as they met and talked.

‘… and the new vicar said as it’d have to be the Sunday after,’ Phyllis was saying. She was telling Lizzie that she was getting married because she’d missed three months in a row.

‘Who are you marrying then, Phyllis? Is it somebody we know?’

‘I don’t think so. It’s a chap as works with me, name Hartwell Dabbs.’

‘I haven’t heard the banns read out in church. But yours’ll be the second wedding I’ve heard about this week.’

‘Oh. Who was the first, then?’

‘Jack Hardmeat, the butcher, of all folks. He’s getting married next month. Nobody knew he was even courting.’

‘Jack ’Ardmate? And who’ll be the third, d’you think? They say as everything comes in threes.’

Daisy cast a hopeful glance at Jimmy.

But Lizzie nodded towards the dairy house and all eyes followed. ‘Jesse Clancey, for a guess. My Aunt Sarah says it won’t be long before him and our Sylvia are wed.’

Jesse Clancey knew enough of Lizzie Bishop’s comings and goings to know that most Wednesdays she finished work at one o’ clock. So, this last Wednesday of September he decided to do likewise. He’d delivered his empty milk churns, all rinsed out and clean, to the railway station for return to the farm that supplied them, and waited in the road known as Waddam’s Pool, hoping to catch her as she walked home. She should be passing him in ten or fifteen minutes, assuming she stopped to gaze into a few shop windows on the way.

The day was overcast and chilly. The best of the summer had long gone. All they had to look forward to was a dubious October, with more dense fogs to herald the bleak winter. While he waited, Jesse debated with Urchin, his big, dappled grey horse, yet again, the wisdom and the folly of this ploy. He’d been preoccupied with thoughts of how best to approach Lizzie these last few days, till he was sick of thinking about it and the only way to get some relief, and some sleep, was to actually tell her how he felt. She might turn him down flat but, at least, he’d have tried. If he never tried he would never know what his chances were.

‘I’m old enough to know better,’ he muttered dejectedly, confiding in the horse. ‘I could end up looking a proper fool – she’s little more than a child.’ Even if Lizzie fell over herself to accept him he could hardly expect the emotions of one so young to remain serious and constant. It was a major concern. ‘If some fresh-faced, handsome, young lad came along I doubt she’d be able to resist him; and where would that leave me?’