Free The Mill Girls of Albion Lane by Jenny Holmes

her pocket what was left of her wages after deductions for the scissors and burling iron, et cetera, she knew that at the end of next week she would receive the full twenty shillings, rising as she’d told her mother to thirty when she’d learned her new trade.
    She was less confident that Evie had settled into her role in the weaving shed, though there’d been no complaints so far as she knew from the over-looker, and Sybil and Annie had kept their promise of keeping an eye out for her. ‘Evie’s doing all right,’ they had assured Lily at the end of each day. ‘We make sure she stays out of harm’s way.’
    â€˜You’re not saying much,’ Lily mentioned to her youngest sister as they turned off Ghyll Road on to Albion Lane and called into Newby’s for Arthur’s sweets. ‘What’s the matter – cat got your tongue?’
    â€˜I’m just tired.’ Evie sighed, waiting inside the shop door. ‘My fingers are sore, my back aches, sometimes I think I’m going to drop to the floor I’m so hot and bothered.’
    Lily was alarmed. ‘It’s not too much for you? You can manage the work?’
    Evie nodded. ‘I have to manage it, don’t I? What else is there?’
    Lily took her change from Alice Newby, an older version of her daughter Ethel with the same polite, smiling manner. She put the sweets in her pocket then walked on with Evie until they came to a stop by the alley connecting them to Raglan Road. Then haltingly she took up the conversation again. ‘You’re right – there is nothing else.’ It seemed harsh, but it was true – there was no other work for girls like them.
    Ten or twelve years earlier, soon after the Great War had ended, some school leavers in the area might have dreamed of office work or going into a bank, even of getting their own small grocery shop or working as a milliner, but not in these hard times. ‘We have to grin and bear it, hang on to what we’ve got.’
    â€˜I do realize that. Only I didn’t know it would be so hard.’
    Lily took her hand and squeezed it. ‘You’ll get used to it and then it’ll seem easier.’
    Evie’s eyes welled up with tears, which she quickly wiped away. ‘You won’t tell Mother I was upset? She has enough on her plate.’
    Lily knew what she meant – despite her efforts to talk her middle sister out of her bad moods, this past week had included more cheek and sullenness from Margie, which had built up on the Wednesday night to an open argument between mother and daughter and Rhoda’s deadly serious threat to make Margie pack her bag and leave. Only Lily’s calming influence had stopped this from happening. ‘I won’t say a word,’ she promised Evie as they climbed the hill to number 5 where they found Arthur sitting on the top step clutching a tin full of marbles. He looked hunched and miserable until he spotted his sisters then he jumped up and ran to meet them, marbles rattling inside the tin.
    â€˜Where’s my sweets?’ he demanded, dodging in between Lily and Evie, patting Lily’s pockets until he felt the paper bag then dipping in his hand to retrieve it.
    â€˜You mean, “Lily, please may I have my sweets?”’ she teased. She wondered how long he’d been sitting on the cold step. ‘Were you waiting for someone to have a game of marbles with?’
    â€˜Not really,’ Arthur said through teeth stuck together by a half-chewed lump of toffee. ‘I don’t care – I like playing by myself.’
    Evie smiled and ruffled his hair. ‘Who’s in the house? Is Mother in?’
    â€˜No, just Dad and now Margie. Oh, and Uncle George and Tommy.’
    â€˜That means they’re headed for the Green Cross,’ Evie predicted as, just then, their front door opened and their father came out followed by his brother. So far there was