Mean anything?’
Annie looked at her, her expression blank. She didn’t know what to think. She shook her head slowly. Though she was still wracking her brains about what was so familiar about the girl’s face.
‘The box has a letter in it too, telling me to go look for Anne Beaumont. I haven’t had much time lately because I’ve started working after school and most weekends as a scullerymaid in Grant House on the edge of the big park in Cheshire.’
‘But that’s miles from here.’ Annie lifted her head and looked with pity at the young girl.
‘I know. But whenever I gets a day off I goes looking. And though I save what I earn to help pay fares, I usually have to walk most of the way so it takes me a while. But I do what I can. I really wanted to find you.’ She hesitated. ‘That’s supposing … you are Anne Beaumont?’ She peered directly into Annie’s face, as if she was hoping to recognize something, some specific feature.
Annie didn’t answer. She looked down into her lap and fingered the white lawn square. What was Annette reading into this, she wondered? She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, feeling agitated and unsure. How did Annette think she was related to AB?
‘Do you want to see the letter?’ Annette stood up and carefully unfolded the fragile piece of paper into Annie’s lap. Then she stood behind her so she could read it over Annie’s shoulder. ‘See?’ She pointed a red, swollen finger. ‘See there, it says I’m to contact Anne Beaumont from Clitheroe. That is you, init? I know I’m right.’
Annie picked up the delicate letter by the corner. It looked as if it had been torn from a notebook. She turned it over but there was nothing written on the back. The letter wasn’t signed and she didn’t recognize the tiny scrawl. Finally, she gave a little nod.
‘Yes, it is me,’ she said. ‘Beaumont was my maiden name. But … but I don’t know how my handkerchief ended up in your box. I … I don’t know anything about your mother,’ she said softly.
Annette stiffened.’
‘The trouble is …’ Annie hesitated. ‘I don’t know how you think I can help you.’
Annette didn’t reply.
‘Do you know who wrote the letter? You do realize it could have been written by anybody?’ Annie said.
Annette hung her head. She sighed and her shoulders dropped as she turned away and slumped back into the chair.
‘I’ve been looking for you for ages,’ was all she said then.
‘But the fact that your letter mentions me by name is no proof that I’ve any connection with your mother,’ Annie said, ‘or that I even know who she is. For all we know, it could be a different Anne Beaumont entirely.’
‘I suppose so.’ Annette sounded dejected. She leaned forward and put out her hands in a pleading gesture. ‘But I’ve got to find out about her. I’ve got to know where I come from and the letter says you could help …’ Her voice cracked and a tear plopped onto the carpet.
‘Are you sure you—’ the girl tried again, but Annie cut in sharply, ‘The letter is wrong.’ Her voice was firm, but then she saw the despondent look on the girl’s face and Annie had to look away. ‘I’m truly sorry, Annette,’ Annie said sadly, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
Gracie was pulling a pint of Shires for Albert Tatlock when the bedraggled young girl finally came out from Annie’s living quarters, the small wooden box still tucked under her arm. Gracie watched her make her way to the door, her shoulders slumped. Annie was only a few steps behind her, as if to make sure she didn’t turn to come back into the bar. Gracie thought Annie looked a lot paler now than she had before and somehow even more weary, though her jaw seemed set in a kind of grim determination. Neither she nor the girl spoke so Gracie was left to wonder who the stranger was and what she had wanted.
As soon as Annette had gone, Annie climbed the stairs as fast as her unsteady legs would carry her but she stood uncertainly on the landing for a few moments, remembering the feel of the handkerchief, seeing again the words of the letter. Her legs were trembling and she had to work hard to control her breathing as her mind was flooded with memories. She gripped hold of the bannister and opened her eyes wide, hoping the sight of the vase of silk flowers tucked into the recess on the landing would help to shut out the images that assailed her.
Annie felt sorry for Annette. How dreadful not to have any idea who your parents were. She had seemed a nice enough child, but Annie really hoped she would never have to meet her again. For Annette, even in her short visit, had managed to rake up so many painful memories of heat and lung-filling dust, memories of long, uncomfortable hours in a loom shed; memories Annie would rather forget.
1927
Annie was eighteen years old when she went to work in Fletcher’s Mill; not something, even in her wildest imaginings, that she had ever thought she might be doing. Her dreams had been of stage and screen stardom. She had assumed she would be living the life of a lady, once she had secured a good marriage to some rich eligible young man, someone who matched the standing of her own prestigious background, and she had never thought beyond that. But then their family fortunes had changed dramatically and their status and upper-middle- class life style had disappeared overnight.
When she saw her parents being unceremoniously dumped out of the back of their erstwhile gardener’s old wagon and left at the front door of the two-up, two-down terraced cottage on the poorest side of Clitheroe, Annie rushed out of the house to greet them. She could see at once how hard this was going to be for them to grasp that this was, for the foreseeable future, to be their new home.
‘They can’t expect us to live here!’ Edward Beaumont stood, shoulders hunched, amid the straggling weeds on the moss-ridden flagstones. The bowler hat he was clutching seemed so out of place he didn’t try to put it back on and he scratched his almost bald head in puzzlement.
‘Who’s “they”? Annie asked wearily. She knew what her father would say, but she thought that hearing him put voice to the words might help all of them to make sense of their plight.
‘The authorities … the mill owners … Oh, I don’t know. Whoever owns these kinds of places.’ He gestured towards the front door in exasperation.
Annie shrugged. ‘Why shouldn’t we have to live here? It’s no worse a house than lots of people live in.’ She was feeling wretched and deflated but was determined not to show it in her parents’ presence.
Having arrived first and already explored what she could only describe as a doll-sized house, she felt helpless and knew they would too. She had never been to this part of the town before and now she was here she knew why. Inside herself she was feeling as lost as her parents were. They were all still trying to make sense of what they had been reduced to, to work out how their fortunes had turned so completely around, but Annie thought it politic to try to put on a brave face.
‘I’ve had a little time to have a look around before you came,’ she said, ‘and from what I’ve seen and heard from the neighbours I think this one’s a step up from what some people have to put up with round here.’
‘What do you mean by a step up? We would never have let one of our tenants live in a hovel like this, never mind us. This is nothing but a working-class slum that should have been cleared years ago,’ her father blustered.
‘I suppose even the working classes have to live somewhere, and if they don’t have enough money to do them up—’ Annie began.
‘But we’re not like those lower sort of people,’ Florence cut in, ‘and we can’t live in a place like this.’ She sounded most indignant. ‘We can’t be expected to live amongst them.’ Now she was openly dismissive. ‘Just because we have