One Snowy Night

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘The Gilbert crew.’ The deputy smiled mockingly. ‘Nice to see you, lads.’ Both the look on his face and the tone of his voice told Adam they were in for a rough ride. And so it proved. His father had been a thorn in this man’s side for years and now Boyce wasn’t satisfied in his victory over him; he intended to kick all the Gilberts’ backsides.

  Walt was as skilled a hewer as their father and all four of them had been doing face work before the strike; it was where the money was and every miner knew it. Now Boyce had set the four of them doing labouring work at seventeen shillings and fourpence a week. He knew they couldn’t refuse and what was more they had to appear grateful for being taken back in any capacity.

  It was a long day. The four of them fetched and carried, passed stuff to the skilled men working at the face and tidied up after them. They shovelled the pit ponies’ dung, cleaned things, and generally did the work they’d done as green young lads fresh from the schoolyard. Each one of them knew they were being punished for being their father’s sons, but if they were ever going to be set on at the face again and earn real money they had to keep their mouths shut and bide their time.

  Adam’s shoulders were bowed as he walked home later that day. The earlier sleet had turned into snow and a keen north-east wind whipped the flakes into his face, but his physical discomfort was nothing to what he was feeling inside. He felt like nowt, less than nowt after kowtowing to that scum Boyce all day. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to stand it but he’d have to, there was no other option.

  When he opened the back door and walked into the kitchen the warmth and the smell of cooking hit him at the same time. They’d had no coal that morning and no money to buy any with, and the only food in the house had been a pan of two-day old broth made with scrag ends and vegetables that had been on the turn. They’d had it cold the night before and it had tasted like something you wouldn’t expect a dog to eat.

  He looked at Olive who came to him and helped him take off his coat without saying a word. It wasn’t until he’d sat down and unlaced his hobnailed boots that she said, ‘Alice is in bed. She’s worn herself out playing with your Fred’s two when I popped round your mam’s this afternoon. Your mam’s looking after them in the day now while Bess works at the pickling factory.’

  When he made no response to this, she said quietly, ‘Your da was there.’

  ‘Aye, he would be.’

  ‘He said you and the others got taken on.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ He was suddenly so tired he could barely speak. ‘Boyce has got us labouring.’

  ‘Labouring?’

  ‘Aye, he’s enjoying showing us who’s boss. He’s treated us as less than the muck under his boots and loved every minute.’

  Olive stared at him, compassion and anger in equal measure in her eyes, and the3n she amazed Adam and surprised herself by using language a sailor would think twice about. He would have sworn on oath that his wife, his quiet, proper and somewhat prim wife, had never heard such profanities, and for a moment the indignities and ignominy of the day, the shame of which had been compounded by knowing that yet again they’d had to accept a handout from Ruby, were swept away. Olive had clapped her hand to her mouth, shock widening her eyes, and this as much as anything else brought the laughter bubbling up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a belly laugh but he was having one now, and when after a few moments Olive joined him, plumping down on the chair next to his, it further tickled him.

  Quite when the laughter turned to something else he didn’t know, but he suddenly became aware that he was crying and not quietly but with great choking sobs that were torn up from the depths of him. His head was deep on his chest and his shoulders were hunched, and even as he cried, he thought, This is the final humiliation, crying like a bairn in front of her. A man was the head of the family; his wife was supposed to look up to him, respect him, and not only couldn’t he provide for her and Alice, but here he was blubbing like a baby.

  He felt her arms go round him and realized she was kneeling in front of him, pressing him fiercely to her as she murmured more words he hadn’t expected to hear, but these were passionate, ardent, fiery declarations of how wonderful he was, how Boyce and the rest of them weren’t worthy to lick his boots, how strong he had been for her and Alice throughout the last months and how he was everything a husband and father should be.

  He had lived with this woman for over four years, bitter years at first which had then mellowed and become bearable in the last months, and he had admitted to himself that he’d come to admire her, like her even, and pity her a lot once he’d understood how she felt about him because he knew he could never feel the same about her. The way she had supported him through the strike with never a word of complaint or self-pity had further impressed him, and there had been moments of late, especially when he was with Alice listening to the child’s chatter and laughter and knowing how much the bairn loved him, that he could have said he was content. He didn’t know about happy; happy had always been linked in his mind with Ruby and consisted of a wild joy and elation that bordered on ecstasy, but maybe Olive and the bairn made up a different sort of happiness? He hadn’t examined his feelings too often because he always ended up more confused when he did, but as his respect and regard for Olive had grown, so had his determination not to use her for the relief of his body’s needs. He had taken her in anger in the past, but now that anger and resentment had gone he’d felt he needed to give her peace, besides which he knew she had suffered when she had lost the babies. But in all his deliberations, even when he’d realized how she felt about him, he hadn’t understood that her feelings for him were so strong.

  He raised his head, wiping his face with the back of his hand as he muttered, ‘What the hell must you think of me?’

  ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

  He looked into the thin plain face that of late hadn’t appeared so plain to him. ‘Olive—’

  ‘No, please don’t. Don’t say anything. I can’t help how I feel any more than you can, and it’s all right. I – I don’t mind you don’t—’ Her voice broke and as she swallowed, she lowered her head, but not before he had seen her eyes fill with tears.

  Again he said her name, but now the deep tender tone brought her head lifting. This woman loved him in a way Ruby never had. The realization was part shock, part pain. She needed and wanted him and she would never have walked away from him.

  Their hands were joined and she was still kneeling when she stammered, ‘I – I don’t expect anything from you, not – not in that way.’

  Slowly and firmly he drew her up with him, and when they were both standing he lowered his head, bringing her hands to his mouth and feeling her fingers tremble as his lips touched them.

  ‘Can the dinner wait a while?’ he asked softly, and when she nodded, her eyes wide as she stared at him, he put his arm round her and led her out of the kitchen and up the stairs to their bedroom.

  PART FOUR

  A Woman of Substance

  1928

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ruby stood blinking in Foreburn’s beautiful ballroom, her arm in Edward’s. The glass chandeliers shone a brilliant light on the dancers in the middle of the vast room and she could see an orchestra on a raised balcony at the end of the endless space, couches and seats and small tables arranged against the walls where some women were sitting talking and looking about them and others were conversing with their menfolk standing to the side of them. A huge fire was burning in the magnificent fireplace, which took up half of one wall, and an army of maids and footmen were flitting here and there with trays of drinks and canapés. The extravaganza, the people, the sheer noise was overwhelming and she took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Edward had picked her up a little while before to bring her to Clarissa’s party and although she had been expecting something grand – Clarissa never did anything by halves – she hadn’t prepared herself for the dazzling vista in front of her.<
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  But this was one invitation she couldn’t have refused, she knew that, and she hadn’t wanted to. Three days ago the suffragettes’ long campaign had finally come to a victorious end when the House of Commons had passed the Equal Franchise Bill giving the vote to all women aged twenty-one or over, and Clarissa was throwing the party for all her friends to celebrate, including the local branches of the suffrage movement in Newcastle and Gateshead. March had been a trying month – blizzards had swept Britain and the north in particular had suffered as temperatures had plummeted to record lows – but tonight the bitter cold and freezing winds outside the ballroom were forgotten. All was light and gaiety.

  ‘Would you like to dance?’ Edward’s husky voice was deep and soft as he gazed down into the face of the woman whom he thought about constantly in his waking hours and who tormented his dreams. He didn’t think she had ever looked more lovely; her long coffee-coloured dress sewn with hundreds of tiny crystals sparkling like a galaxy of stars and bringing out the deep brown of her eyes, and her hair arranged in shining blonde curls on top of her head. He was glad Ruby hadn’t succumbed to the new craze of shorter and shorter hair for women; not that it wouldn’t suit her – she was so beautiful nothing could detract from her loveliness – but it would be such a shame to see that silky mass cropped.

  Ruby felt an inward shiver as she looked up into his face. They had never danced – he had never even held her in his arms, she had made sure of that – and she had been anticipating this moment with equal longing and apprehension. Sooner or later Edward would tire of the platonic friendship between them, she knew that. He was a man, wasn’t he, and men had needs; she was amazed he hadn’t forced the issue long ago, but she knew he had bowed to her demands that they remain just friends because he cared for her. How much she wasn’t sure – they’d never spoken of their feelings – but whether his intention would be to ask her to become his mistress or to actually want to marry her, her answer would be the same. She could no more inhabit his world happily than he could hers, whatever hers was, these days.

  ‘So, Miss Morgan, may I have the pleasure?’ Edward said, laughter in his voice now.

  The orchestra had started a waltz, and forcing herself to nod and smile she placed her left hand tentatively on his shoulder and the fingers of her right in his extended palm and they were off into the moving throng. He was a wonderful dancer, but then of course he’d had a lot of practice since he was a youth; balls and fancy occasions would be commonplace to him, she thought, her feet hardly seeming to touch the floor as they flowed as one with the music. She was vitally aware of every single thing about him as they circled the room, and for a moment she panicked.

  ‘Play with fire,’ her mam used to say, ‘and you’ll get burned.’

  Telling herself to forget everything but the fact that she was in Edward’s arms and to live in the moment, Ruby felt as though she was floating as they danced dance after dance. Clarissa came up and chatted with them at one point when they stopped for refreshments, and the chairwoman of the local suffrage group made herself known to Ruby along with several other of the members, but only one or two of Edward’s acquaintances engaged him in conversation although Ruby noticed Clarissa’s friends were craning their heads to observe them on more than one occasion.

  At ten o’clock the orchestra stopped playing and Clarissa stood on the balcony in front of them and made a rousing speech with Godfrey at her side. Ruby had met Clarissa’s husband a few times on her Sunday visits to Foreburn, although he was away more than he was at home, and had found him to be a genuinely nice man with a great sense of humour who was clearly deeply in love with his much younger wife. After giving due homage to Emmeline Pankhurst and other stalwarts of the movement, some of whom had suffered shocking maltreatment in Parliament Square on Black Friday eighteen years before and never recovered, Clarissa went on to say that it was impossible to list all the women who had died or been injured for life in the course of the suffrage agitation in England.

  ‘But the horrors of prison, of beatings, of hunger strikes and force-feeding did not deter them from fighting for the rights of citizenship,’ Clarissa said passionately.

  There was a round of ‘hear, hear’s and some clapping before she continued, ‘On the subject of laws made by men, without the assistance of women but supposedly for their protection and that of children, I’m sure many of us here today appreciate the need for continuing drastic change. Horrors like the “Children’s Charter” of 1906, an Act filled with mistakes and cruelty that put the responsibility for neglect of children on the backs of their mothers who, incidentally, under the laws of England at that time had no rights as parents, meant that even if a mother living in a miserable hovel starved herself in order to feed her children, she was still in danger of being incarcerated in prison for violating the terms of the Charter, with the result that her children would be sent to the workhouse. This Act caused untold misery. Throughout history, governments have devised ways of punishing those they see as “rebellious” women, but now we see real hope of a new age being ushered in. We have two women MPs in Parliament and I believe more will join Nancy Astor and Margaret Wintringham, perhaps even among this present company. As Lady Astor herself is fond of saying, women are braver and more unorthodox than men – we’ve had to be to get where we are now – and we are not afraid to step out of line and flout harsh man-made rules where necessary. So, may I finish by inviting you all to raise your glasses to those women of the past, those of the present and those of the future who will take the cause ever forward, after which do feel free to make your way into the dining room across the hall where a buffet dinner will be served.’

  ‘Well said, Clarissa,’ Edward murmured as they drank the toast. ‘And to think she was once a disobedient little scrap with permanently scabbed knees and torn clothes who my parents despaired of.’

  ‘They are not here tonight, your parents?’

  ‘Good grief, no.’ Edward shook his head. ‘Our dear Mama and Papa are pure establishment, my dear, and thoroughly disapprove of their only daughter’s views and activities, and of course Cuthbert and Leonard do exactly as they are told.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘No, not me.’ He smiled. ‘In our family there are two black sheep, not one.’

  In spite of his air of casualness she felt that the split in the family bothered him, and now she said quietly as people began to walk to the dining room, ‘I’m sure your parents love you and Clarissa as much as your brothers.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  The tone of his voice brought her eyes to his face. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Ruby—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. Come on, let’s get some food.’

  ‘Tell me.’ She resisted moving as he put his hand under her elbow to usher her towards the door.

  ‘It’s nothing – just that as you know our childhood was different to the one you experienced. Our parents had children to carry on the family name as was expected of them, but neither my father nor my mother was interested in us as people. We were given into the care of the servants from the day we were born and brought down from the nursery for a few minutes each evening, and even that was too much for them in Clarissa’s case. They had expected a daughter who would be sweet and malleable and not say boo to a goose, and they got Clarissa.’ He smiled.

  ‘But they still love you, all of you.’

  ‘Cuthbert and Leonard have fulfilled their obligations and therefore remained in favour, but I don’t think my parents love them in the sense you mean any more than they love Clarissa and me. It’s simply not like that, Ruby. The two of them live their lives exactly as they please – my father has his hunting and fishing and mistress, and my mother enjoys the social scene and her friends and trips to Paris and Italy.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t look so shocked, they’re products of their class. Their parents behaved in the same way and their parents before them.’

  She wanted to ask, ‘And you? Is that how
you see love and marriage and family life?’ but instead she said, ‘Is that what Cuthbert and Leonard want?’

  ‘I have no real relationship with either of them so I have no idea of their feelings, but Cuthbert married a lady of my parents’ choice some years ago and no doubt Leonard will do the same at some point. They are dutiful sons,’ he added mockingly.

  ‘It’s all very cold-blooded.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ Edward stared down into the troubled face raised to his. She had no idea of the impact she had made on his life, he thought wryly. Before he had met Ruby he had been going along in his own sweet way and had never really thought deeply about life and love. True, he had decided to break the mould and go into commerce, a vulgarity he knew his parents still hadn’t forgiven him for despite his success, but his social life as a bachelor with mistresses from the top drawer who would present no complications when he decided to end the liaison had seemed natural enough. And then this changeling-like creature had burst onto his horizon, a woman who looked so fragile and ethereal on the outside but who was made of pure granite on the inside, certainly where he was concerned, that was. She had kept him at arm’s length for over three years – three years – and he had been patient, heaven knew he had been patient, but he’d had enough. He didn’t know if it was the amount of champagne he’d imbibed tonight that had brought things to a head, but he knew he couldn’t carry on for much longer playing the friend, not and remain sane.

  He opened his mouth to speak, intending to ask Ruby to accompany him into Godfrey’s morning room where they could have some privacy for what he was about to say, but as he did so his arm was jostled, and when the woman who had bumped into them turned to apologize, he inwardly groaned. Belinda Ferne-Rice. Of all the people here tonight, it had to be one of his old mistresses and this one in particular with her airs and graces. Their affair had been over for years now but she still persisted in adopting an over-familiar attitude with him when they met socially. He had let their association go on too long at the time in spite of losing interest quite quickly, but he had found her to be a jealous and vindictive harpy of a woman once they had got together and it had seemed easier to jolly her along until she became bored with him. But she never had. And so he had taken the coward’s way out and disappeared off to the States for a month or two, writing from there to end their association. It hadn’t been his finest moment and even now he was ashamed of how he had behaved towards her.