Free With Love From Ma Maguire by Ruth Hamilton

your workers starve. Isn’t that your hobby?’ She jumped to her feet. ‘Now, I’ll dress this and give you plenty of spare powder. Don’t get it wet at all . . .’
    He watched her walking across the small room, a room where she definitely did not belong. A gem like this deserved a better setting among further finery that might embellish it and bring out the true lustre. ‘I have the power to change your life completely, Mrs Maguire.’ His voice was no more than a whisper, almost a caress. ‘I can take you from this place and give you a beautiful home, a fitting place in which to bring up your son. Fields and flowers, fresh air and sunshine . . .’
    ‘I’ve had all those.’ She took bandage and powders from a drawer, heart in her mouth as she stared at her reflection in the dresser mirror. It wasn’t just him! It was herself as well, for didn’t she want to . . . ? Ah, she didn’t know what she wanted to do with this hateful man. Best to get the nursing seen to and have him on his way.
    Bracing herself, she knelt to dress his leg.
    ‘You have a gentle touch. It feels better already.’
    ‘Good. It’s glad I am of that.’
    ‘They call you Philly, is that right?’
    With her head bent to her task she replied, ‘I was baptized Philomena.’
    ‘I see. Then what do I call you?’
    ‘Mrs Maguire. Or Ma Maguire would be acceptable.’
    While he replaced his sock and boot, she washed her hands at the scullery sink. ‘Please make him go now,’ she prayed inwardly. ‘Dear God, let me not submit to this thing I don’t understand. Give me the strength to fight what I am feeling, remove the temptation you have sent to me . . .’
    Then she felt large fingers encircling her waist and moving up to cover her shaking body. ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘No!’ But expert hands turned her and she found his hard lips silencing the loud denial. For a second or two, she was overcome to the point where she almost began to respond in spite of shock and fear, then she pushed him fiercely away. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she snarled. ‘Whatever do you think I am . . . ?’ She was cold, so unbearably cold, angry too because her disobedient body was screaming to be warmed. By him?
    ‘Beautiful. And lonely too . . .’
    ‘But I’m not an animal!’
    He smoothed his dishevelled hair. ‘What’s wrong with animal instinct?’
    ‘Nothing. If you’re a dog or a horse. The thing that separates us from the beasts, Mr Swainbank, is that we live for the future, not for the present.’
    ‘Ah.’ He took a step closer. ‘A philosopher too, I see. Not content to be nurse and midwife?’
    She reached into the slopstone and picked out a large knife, the one she used to trim fat from meat for beef tea. ‘If it’s a toss-up between my virtue and your life, then there’s no contest, Sir.’ This last word was spat venomously. ‘You will go now from my house and you will never return.’
    ‘You talk of the future, Philly. I can give you one, all the money you need, clothes, an education for the boy . . .’
    ‘No!’ She brandished the knife before his face. ‘I don’t want anything from you.’ It was better to lie, that would be the smaller sin. Because she was lying. There was something here in this room, created by the two of them, uninvited, unwelcome, but compelling all the same.
    ‘Really?’ His lip curled. ‘That wasn’t the message I received a moment ago. Yes, like all women, you speak one thing while your body says another.’ He gazed around the scullery, apparently unimpressed by the six inches of steel she was waving so carelessly. ‘I can have you thrown out of here tomorrow. Your landlord’s a friend of mine . . .’
    ‘Oh yes? Well, see what do the neighbours say about that, Mr Swainbank. And not just in this street, but in many streets around. I’m useful here. I clean up the mess you make of their lives, treat cuts and bruises that should really be dealt with at the mill. All the