by Leah Fleming
‘Where’s your husband? How can he let you travel alone in such a condition?’ answered the teacher, aware that she now was expected to deal with the situation.
‘My fella’s tramped ahead to get a hut and sign on. You’ll have to give us a hand. Aah! I can’t stop the pains.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you can, but why did you not get out at Batty Green? There’s a doctor there, I’m sure,’ replied the schoolmistress tartly.
‘What do I want a doctor for? I’m only having a babby.’
Miss Herbert prayed for a miracle. There was nothing in her manual of instructions about delivering babies. In fact she had no idea how human offspring actually made their way into the world. She had seen kittens suckling and a lamb slithering out of a sheep’s backside but surely the Creator had designed womankind some more dignified exit hole. Surely the belly button must be the place but she did not relish having to open up the girl’s stomach. That was definitely a doctor’s job. She turned to give her orders to the driver to fetch a knife and some clean linen, rushing to her own bag to find some lace-edged hand towels to prepare the bed for the coming baby. She watched in horror as Mr Cleghorn dipped a sharp knife in a bottle of spirits but now was not the time to protest. She was going to need all the support she could get if she was to perform major surgery.
Her first task was to demand some screening to keep these delicate proceedings private. Someone produced a moth-eaten patchwork quilt which they strung across as a curtain. An oil lamp was lit by the makeshift straw bedding.
‘That’s just the ticket!’ She prayed heavenward for some guidance and the navvies fell silent at the sight of the little woman in a Bible-black hooped skirt and poky bonnet standing with her head bowed over the girl who moaned, ‘Hurry, I can’t hold it in much longer . . .’
Isaac Cleghorn smiled to himself for as a father of seven he had seen enough rough-and-ready birthings to do it blindfold. This poor soul hadn’t a clue but wouldn’t take kindly to being told, so he popped his head around the screen and whispered, ‘My wife likes to sit up a bit near the end, get herself into a good dropping position, ma’am, to get the best purchase, if you don’t mind me saying so . . .’ He smiled and the women were treated to a waft of dreadful breath and the sight of two broken teeth glinting in the soft light.
‘Thank you, Mr Cleghorn, I’m sure the girl will find that useful. This is my first confinement, as you’ve guessed.’
‘But not your last, Miss Herbert, perhaps one day you’ll be blessed, you being nobbut a lass yourself,’ came the cautious response.
‘No, no, I’m married to the Lord’s service. I had no idea she was . . .’ Miss Herbert could not say the words ‘with child’ in front of a man.
‘Having a bairn? Why should you? Ladies do not talk of such things and now you will bring a new soul into this dreary world. A baby born in a shippon just like it says in the Bible.’ They all smiled.
‘Oh yes! How good of you to remind us. What a strange coincidence. Where do I put the knife?’ She decided perhaps she might show her ignorance a bit.
‘Only to the birthing cord, miss, after it’s born, to separate them. She could bite it off herself if she had to though, like any animal.’
The teacher looked at the driver with new respect and then realised with horror he was telling her that humans were animals after all and the nether regions were where she would have to concentrate her efforts. For the first time in her life she questioned her Maker’s modus operandi. Out of the bottom indeed! How humiliating, and how vulnerable was this girl, lying prostrate in pain at the mercy of gravity to deliver her child.
‘What’s your name?’ She smiled encouragingly, softening her crackly voice.
‘Mary Ann, miss, just Mary will do,’ gasped the girl. She looked no more than twenty, with tired eyes and damp sandy hair, and smelt of stale sweaty armpits and boiled onions on her clothing. The girl lifted up her skirt with her eyes closed, embarrassed to show that she wore no dividing drawers with a slit in the gusset. There was only a chemise, more holy than godly and horror of horrors two holes appeared, the front one swollen red, oozing water and blood with a dark dome of wet hair pulsating with each contraction.
Miss Herbert gulped, winged a silent prayer to the ceiling, removed her kid gloves, carefully rolled up her sleeves and got to work. ‘I think the baby’s head is coming down! Is that right, Mr Cleghorn?’ she whispered through the curtain to her instructor. Mary struggled up, trying to lean over her bump to see for herself, but then fell back as the next contraction swept over her.
The silent audience behind the quilt strained to catch any progress; then the girl started to push hard with grunts and the head moved.
‘Yes! Yes. That’s the stuff to give the troops! It moved, it really did!’ shouted Miss Herbert, beginning to enjoy her task.
The audience cheered them on. ‘Come on, Mary, give a push for Brummagem Bill and Salty Sam.’ The girl took another deep breath and almost burst her eyeballs to shift the football out of her groin. The head was sticking tight.
‘Turn it a bit if you can . . .’ came the next set of instructions from the quilt and the pupil did as she was told with her eyes shut.
‘Keep going, Mary. One more big push and . . .’
The girl yelled out, ‘Maammy!’ The baby shot out with a slither into a pool of liquid, purple with rage, screwing up its wrinkled face to give a roar of indignation at this undignified entrance into the world. At the sound of the baby the navvies cheered and banged their tin plates, Mary cried and Miss Herbert found tears rolling down her cheeks. Tears of relief and thanksgiving that she had not made an utter fool of herself, tears of amazement as she watched the purple baby flesh turn to a warm pink. She raised the baby for the mother to see.
‘Is it all right? Let’s see. What is it? Boy or girl?’ As Miss Herbert had never seen bare flesh before, she wasn’t too sure.
‘Give it here. It’s a girl, a little cunt. What the hell, she’s a bonny, bonny babe. Thank you, miss!’
‘Praise the Lord for Mr Isaac Cleghorn and his nous!’ came the weary reply as she wondered what a cunt was.
‘Nowt to it, miss, and do call me Cleggy. You must clear up the rest of the gubbins when it comes away and we’ll bury it later.’ She cut the cord, amazed that the baby was untroubled, swaddled the child tightly in one of her own linen towels and passed it to the mother.
‘Here, miss, what’s yer name? I’d like to name her after you, what’s yer Christian name?’ asked Mary, opening her shirt and pushing the baby to her breast.
‘Miss Zillah Herbert,’ answered the missionary. ‘From the Bible. It means a shady place.’ There was a pause and the girl asked, ‘Just the one then?’
‘Zillah Jane, actually.’ There was a sigh of relief.
‘That’s better, that’ll do. Jane . . . I can call her Janey. Ta very much. Here, Janey, meet yer auntie Zillah.’
‘We must get her baptised when we reach Scarsbeck village. Nothing like getting them off to a good start,’ said Zillah Herbert, not one to miss an opportunity.
‘We ain’t churchy folk. Us navvies have our own ways.’ Mary was unimpressed at such a fancy notion.
‘But Janey is my responsibility too. If I brought her into the world, I want to see things done properly. I’m sure the vicar will love to dip her in holy water and welcome her into his flock. Aren’t you?’
‘I suppose so,’ sighed tired Mary as she suckled the baby. Watching the creature nuzzle into the breast and forage for the nipple with hungry lips like a starving animal was strangely disturbing for Zillah. It was as if her own breasts felt tweaked in response and her body flooded with a yearning. For a second she was transfixed, wishing the baby hers and that she could have her own child someday.
‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ she prayed. Her life was now dedicated to one thing only: saving souls for Christ. There was no place for distractions. The decision was made. Zillah rose and went over to the fireside where someone
handed her a warm cup. She sniffed it suspiciously. Was it the cup that cheers but does not inebriate? A welcome mash of tea or Satan’s brew? She was almost too exhausted to care. What a start to her Mission work, and Janey would be her first convert.
Chapter Eight
In the days before the storm blew over Scarsdale, the ewes guzzled greedily on the meagre pasture of the top moor, cotton grass, heather, bilberry shoots and grass. Later they trooped down the fells sensing change in the weather, instinct making them beat a familiar path down towards the lower slopes. The flock was caught by the blinding ferocity of gale and ice, taking shelter where it could in hidden clefts or bunched together behind a wall, frozen, climbing on each other’s backs; lambs numb and weak, bleating in vain for succour.
The storm lashed over their heads, gathering up the dale in a blanket of suffocating whiteness, bending the branches of the trees under the weight of leaves and snow.
From the vicarage window, frosted with icy ferns, Ralph Hardy peered down at his parish which floated like a misty island in a sea of snow. Far out on the crossroads, Beth Wildman was fast in, knitting bump-wool stockings with her knitting stick sheathed into her belt, scarcely bothering to leave the fireside, with Lad the sheepdog, allowed into the warmth, wrapping himself over her feet like a rug. The navvies would pay for warmth in their boots and she needed some silver in her purse.
At Paradise camp a relief kitchen was hastily organised, with copper boilers heating vats of mutton stew and dumplings. Mally Widdup found herself peeling potatoes and Tizzy carried bowls of broth to Granda Fettle and his cronies holed up in a living wagon, with a stove burning anything which was not tied down.
Up the lane, the newest resident of Scarsdale nestled warm as toast at her mother’s breast, unaware of the wilderness trapping them firmly in the byre with only snow water to boil and loaves and fishes sort of sharing; oatmeal porridge, treacle and stale bread which Miss Herbert cooked over the fire like a demon possessed, spurred on by reading ‘Feed my lambs’: the text for the day she had plucked at random from her Bible.
Across the valley at Middle Butts, the Birkett women had so much spare milk it was only sensible to make butter. The work camps would no doubt place orders for local produce and their butter was renowned for its flavour. Ellie churned and churned all day but the blessed butter tub had gone to sleep. Not a lump! Then Mother in exasperation popped in some warm milk and at last she could feel progress. Ellie leant dreamily on the handle, smiling at a vision of that red-haired Scotsman, hoping Mother would not guess the secret burning inside her bosom. It was her fault the butter wouldn’t come.
A mile above them at High Butts Farm, the Lunds stared gloomily out onto the fell with sinking hearts. It was all they could manage to dig out their porch to see to the stock in the by-land and byres, dragging out precious fodder on a wooden sled to the stricken beasts. For two days and nights the blizzard raged on, relentlessly, unforgiving like a plague trapping everything fast in.
On the third day came the thaw, shrinking the snowline, making rooftops steam, flooding the cellars of Scarsbeck with the overflowing torrent of a quick meltdown. For days afterwards, the sun blazed in an ink-blue sky as if to apologise for the fickleness of climate which made fools and bankrupts of many a small farmer up the dale.
The Lund men were out at break of day. Lawson, the grandfather, plagued with his ‘skiatics’, could only manage light work; Warwick, the son, went out prodding with poles into the remaining drifts to find their flock.
Sunter, the heir, took their best sheepdog, an instinctive ‘setter’ which could search out his flock even on top of the snowdrifts while Sunter beat a rescue path through the snow with a sled of fodder to save the lambs. The dog sat on a drift patiently and the lad dug furiously, only to find a pile of bodies and a weak old ewe which could not even stand. The stupid animals had piled up on top of each other and there were no survivors.
Sunter stood grim-faced, his mouth in a tight thin line of rage, his heart sickened at the loss of their harvest of spring lambs. Everything was going wrong in his life. He felt as trapped as the bloody sheep. The hills were his prison. There was no beauty in this barren country for him, only loathing and fear. His plan to escape was floundering because of old Bulstrode and never taking that stupid exam all those years ago. How he hated the man for setting him up to fail just to satisfy his own need for glory. He felt sick at the thought of him. Now he would be fit only for farm work.
His second plan, to woo Ellie Birkett and take over Middle Butts, was hindered by her obvious dislike of him and his appearance. Not that he really wanted her. All human flesh made him creep and he despised her love of animals. They were all stupid. Was it any wonder he needed to beat them into submission?
Now they were ruined by a freak storm and it was all the fault of that navvy brat from the camp. Had she put the evil eye on him as she promised? His heart was thumping with fear, indignation and humiliation that a slip of a child had power over his plans. As for that navvy Jock who had shamed him before the village, he would be getting even with him as well. There must be a way to destroy all of them. ‘Bide yer time, revenge is best eaten cold. I’ll get even with them if it’s the last thing I do!’
Clipping
Summer 1871
Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low:
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough places plain.
Isaiah, chapter 40, v. 4
Chapter Nine
‘You will go to school, Tizzy Widdup, or I’ll tell Fancy yer a lass, not a tea masher! I’m cheesed off with you tagging on to my shirt when work’s slack. I’ve got a round of huts to do for up the posh end. If they take one look at your scruffy clothes they’ll not think my laundry up to much, so buzz off. School’ll pull yer down a peg or two. Yer getting too big for yer boots since you got yerself fixed up with Fancy’s gang. If I hear you say Fancy says this . . . Fancy did that . . . He’s only a shovel man, not God Almighty, and he’s too big for his boots as well, swaggering across this camp as if he’s cock of the dock. Our dad would soon sort him out,’ sighed Mally as she pounded the dolly tub with the stick, twisting it from side to side. ‘Here, be useful and put these through the mangle. Not a word in the camps. I reckon Ironfist’s sloped off with another woman or changed his name.’
‘Never. We don’t know where all the tunnel tigers is working yet, wait on a while and we’ll find him. He wouldn’t just dump us. He still thinks we’re in Leeds, remember?’
‘Who’re you kidding? He ain’t bothered with us for months. Since our mam did a bunk with his best mate, he’s never looked the road we’re on. It’s just us three and Granda is going doolally. He don’t know the day of the week, he’s that betwaddled and pickled in ale. If I want to get a fella and my own hut I want you set up, not round my neck, so jolly well get yerself down to Miss Herbert’s new class. They’ve put on a cart to take you all down to Scarsbeck school.
‘I hear she did a good job with birthing Mary Ann’s babby and calls on her regular. No one can understand a word she says, mind, but the poor woman can’t help her lah-de-da ways. She’s even promised to set up a sewing class. Go on, get yerself cleaned up for this afternoon and give her the benefit of all your number work. Bore her to death with it but get out of my hair!’
‘Only if I can go as Billy Widdup,’ came the reply.
‘Oh Tizzy, this is getting out of hand. Didn’t your Fancy man biff yon farmer for you? It’s never going to bring back Tatty, is it, and now you’ve got that three-legged monstrosity . . .’
‘Stumper? I’m just minding him for Teaspoons, he’s not really mine. Tat was my dog.’
‘I know he was, love, but life goes on and you only get the one turn so take the chance of learning. I never did, we never stayed long enough for me to learn letters or owt. Please? Go as Billy if you must but yer tempting providence, lass, pretending to be what yer not. Go on b
efore you miss the cart,’ pleaded Mally in that soft special voice which seemed to get through to her peculiar sister.
As she turned the handle of the mangle Mally smiled to herself. God must have thrown away the mould when he made up Tizzy Widdup. She had too many brains in her head, her forehead bulged with veins and her eyes were rock-hard when she got a notion in her head. There was no stopping this game now. Like a wheelbarrow rolling down the slope of an embankment planking, weighed down, out of control, dangerous, that was what she was fearing for Tizzy. How could a washergirl stop this runaway wagon from going off the rails?
As she carried her baskets Mally surveyed the camp with a nod of satisfaction. It was filling up with workmen and the whitewashed huts were now surrounded by ditch soakways from out of which poked an array of hens and ducks. Some of the engineers had potted up tubs of marigolds and decorated their porchways with buckets of vegetable plants. Steps were scrubbed with sandstone edges and there were lace curtains draped neatly at the windows. She was thinking that Upper Paradise smelt fresher, more of homes and families, while Lower Paradise was rougher, cluttered with bits of machines, rusting metal, manky dogs and the smell of strong beer wafting out of the mud-splattered doorways, the uninviting, unappetising part of Paradise.
The Widdups had a wagon on wheels stuck at the back of the camp, just a place to doss down, but it would be bitterly cold in winter if they didn’t find solid walls and warmth in a hut. The wagon would have to do for now. It stood off the ground, dry enough, but mould was already staining their box of clothes and they had to cook outdoors on an open fire.
The view was grand and Mally loved to peg out washing, watching the cloud shadows creep across the fellsides. Thank God for the canteen on wet days and the tommy shop, where she could haggle for meat and vegetables or exchange her fur-trimmed waistcoats and caps for pots and lamp oil. The supply of rabbit skins was drying up with the demand and she would need to cadge round the camp for pelts or go poaching herself if they were to provide pennies for Tizzy to attend school.