by Maggie Hope
‘I’ll just have to put it int’lost property,’ the man mumbled.
Elizabeth sat in a corner seat in the carriage, her box on the rack above her head. Slowly she began to thaw out. The carriage was warm, heated by the steam of the engine. There were a couple of women sitting opposite her, deep in conversation and ignoring their fellow passengers, and a man in working clothes obviously on his way back from work, sitting slumped in the seat with exhaustion plain to see on his face. She glared out of the window at her pale reflection in the glass.
Maybe she should have gone to Morton Main, asked Mrs Wearmouth for shelter? But the shame of what had happened burned deep; she couldn’t explain to Jimmy or his landlady, not yet. Maybe if she had a job she could say she’d moved because she didn’t like nursing … But that was silly. Jimmy knew she loved it and was looking forward to training at Durham. Not any more, though, she thought, that chance was gone forever.
She had thought, when she had so impulsively caught the train, that she could at least be near Jenny, and was filled with an uncontrollable instinct to hide from everyone she knew at home. Stanhope was as good as any other place to work; maybe she could get a job in the workhouse hospital, though she didn’t have any references. Elizabeth closed her eyes in despair. Oh, Jack, Jack, she agonised. How had she been so completely wrong about his feelings? Was he really only being kind, even when he was making love to her? His mother had been so sure, she had been so emphatic.
Maybe he had been attracted to her, but mine owners didn’t marry miners’ daughters, she knew that, hadn’t she told herself so over and over? But she hadn’t really believed it, that was the problem. She had dreamed … What a flaming fool she was! Well, leaving Bishop was the best thing she could do for him, leave him alone. He had enough to put up with, what with his feet, poor man. Poor, lovely man.
Elizabeth fell into a troubled dozing and dreaming in which she was looking for somewhere to stay, something to eat. And cruel face after cruel face mocked her and closed doors on her and she was horribly afraid. What was to become of her? She awoke with a start as the train slowed and the guard shouted, ‘Wolsingham! This is Wolsingham!’ The workman was getting out of the carriage, someone else got in. Two more stops, Frosterley then Stanhope. Then what was she going to do when she got there? She felt empty, realised she had had nothing to eat since dinner at one o’clock and now it was almost ten.
In Stanhope, Elizabeth walked up the bank from the station to the deserted streets. Most of the houses were dark, the occupants early to bed. She would find a boarding house, she thought, just for tonight. She couldn’t possibly stay out in the open. The cold which she had felt in Bishop lower down the dale was here, a raw, penetrating, painful misery. She found a boarding house at last, a few yards along the main street, and there was, thank heaven, a light in the window. But before she went in she thought she had better check her money, though she knew to a farthing how much she had left. There were two shillings and four pence ha’penny and the brown paper envelope with her wages inside, folded up in one section of her purse.
Only she couldn’t find her purse. She put down her box and looked carefully through her pockets, not allowing herself to panic. Obviously she had put it somewhere safe. She opened up the box and looked through her things. It wasn’t there. Of course it wasn’t, she chided herself, she had bought a ticket at the railway station in the town, hadn’t she?
Elizabeth’s heart dropped to her boots. She’d lost her purse – somehow, she’d lost her purse. Oh, God, what was she going to do now? Her nose and ears were stinging with the cold, she felt she would never be warm again. What was she going to do? The questions ran through her head. She tucked her hands under her armpits and tried to think. She considered finding the workhouse; at least they would give her a bed for the night even if she had to scrub all day tomorrow to pay for it. Her whole mind and body rebelled against the idea, though. She remembered her mother, how terrified of the workhouse she had been and with good reason, according to all accounts of people who had been inside one.
‘Now then, what are you doing out on the streets at this hour?’
Elizabeth nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of the policeman’s voice. She hadn’t heard or seen him coming. Would he put her in jail for vagrancy?
‘Nothing! I’m not doing anything, sir,’ she said. ‘I was just having a rest after I got off the train. I’m visiting my uncle. That’s it, sir.’ She picked up her box and was backing away. ‘I’m all right, really, I know where I’m going,’ she said then turned up a side street.
The constable watched her, wondering whether he should follow her, make sure she really did have somewhere to go. But it was a bitterly cold night, enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, it was. His supper beckoned, the warm kitchen and his plump young wife waiting for him. And in his experience young women with nowhere to go didn’t come to Stanhope in Weardale, it would be the last place on earth they would choose. He pulled his cape up to his chin and went on his way to the police station to sign off.
Elizabeth came to the end of the houses and continued walking up the road because she couldn’t think what else to do. She thought she might find a shed, a hut, anywhere she could spend the rest of the night. But she wandered on until she realised she was on to Bollihope Common, recognised the junction where the track from Frosterley joined the road. There was a shepherd’s hut fairly close by, she remembered it suddenly and quickened her pace, looking about eagerly. A full moon was shining now, a moon surrounded by a thick white ring that meant frost. It seemed lighter than it had been down in the town; close by there was a rustling sound. Only sheep, she told herself, but she walked in the middle of the road just in case. At last the dark outline of the hut appeared over to the right of the road. There was no light from the pane of glass which served as a window so at least there was no shepherd in there. Elizabeth left the road, tried to thread her way through the heather, sank her foot through the thin covering of ice over a boggy patch, almost fell but at last reached the door of the hut and, she breathed a sigh of relief, it was not locked.
The door was stiff and she had to lean her weight on it to open it but she managed at last and fell into the musty-smelling room. It was dark but for a beam of moonlight through the window pane and she could make out an upturned box serving as a table, and on it a storm lantern with a box of lucifers beside it. Elizabeth put down her box and fumbled with frozen fingers at the lantern, willing them to work. At last she managed to open the lantern, strike a lucifer match and put it to the wick. Oh, please, God, please, she prayed as the wick browned and the lucifer burned down, please let it light. And then it did, the flame shooting up so that she had to turn down the wick. She closed the lantern and lifted it experimentally; thankfully it was almost full of fuel judging by the weight.
Looking around, she saw there was a pile of sacks in one corner, a stool and, oh, she could hardly believe it, a camp bed by the opposite wall with a pillow and a fleece. She held her hands around the lantern until the pain of them thawing out became too much, but already she was feeling warmer. It was shelter from the biting cold, she could manage here for tonight. She stumbled to the bed, lay down with her head on the pillow and pulled the fleece over her. Her mind just closed down as she dropped into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Elizabeth awoke with a start. She was cold again, deathly cold. The lantern had gone out, the hut was lit by a cold white light from the tiny window. She stumbled to her feet, teeth chattering, and opened her box, pulling on her only spare jumper on top of the one she was wearing and her coat back on top. She pulled open the door and groaned aloud. The ground was covered in snow, crisp-lying snow about two inches deep already, and it was falling thick and fast.
‘I have to get out of here,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll die if I don’t.’ Distractedly she looked about the hut. There was a cupboard on one wall, she had missed it in the dim light from the lantern the night before. It could hold something to eat, she th
ought, something, anything. She opened it. There was a tin of sardines, a rusty tin of something else she thought could be beans. And, oh, praise the Lord, there was a tin opener.
Half an hour later, feeling a little better at least with something inside her, Elizabeth closed the door of the hut behind her, put the belt of her box over her arm and stepped out into snow which came to the top of her boots. Bending her head in the face of the blizzard, she made her way back to where the outline of the road could be seen by the snow poles lining it. She trudged along by the poles, her box getting heavier and heavier on her arm as she went, the snow sucking on her boots like a bog. A wind was springing up. A bitter, cold northeaster, it was beginning to blow the fallen snow into drifts leaving bare patches on the road which were coated with ice. The journey seemed endless. In this white, barren world she feared she would miss the path which led down to Stand Alone Farm. Maybe she should have gone the other way, back to Stanhope and the comparative comfort of the workhouse.
She dared not take her eyes from the side of the road, the whiteness obscuring the heather and bracken, dazzling her despite the dark, leaden grey of the sky. At first she didn’t see the board with the faded lettering on it, the snow had swept up against it so that only the top half was visible. Elizabeth blinked rapidly, shaking the snowflakes from her lashes, and there it was. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you, God,’ she said aloud.
There was an immediate lessening of the wind as the path dropped away from the road, a blessing in itself. But she was sinking into the drifts up to her knees now, her skirt was sodden and when she lifted it up the snow on the hem was beginning to freeze in hard, icy lumps. She had to get there; she had to. All her mind was concentrated on reaching the farm. She didn’t want to die in this frozen world, she wanted to live. She dropped the box as she stumbled into a clump of heather. She couldn’t pick it up, she couldn’t. Every breath brought a terrible pain in her side and in her chest as the cold air hit her lungs.
At last she reached the gate to the farm yard though she would hardly have known it but for the rowan tree which thrust its bare branches upwards, laden with snow. But here she stumbled and fell, whether it was from the sudden easing of tension that she was there, was not lost after all, she didn’t know, but she fell and hadn’t the strength to get to her feet to walk the last few yards to the back door. Her eyes closed. Strangely she began to feel warmer. A close warm lethargy crept over her. Dimly, in some sort of dream she heard a dog bark.
‘Stop that yapping or I’ll stop it for you!’ Peart snarled at his dog. Snuff had risen from his place in the corner and was standing, facing the back door, his neck stretched out and teeth curled up over his lip. But he slunk back to the corner as he heard the menace in his master’s tone.
‘Fetch me another cup of tea, lass, and be quick about it an’ all.’
Jenny scurried to do his bidding, lifting the old brown pot from before the fire where a smouldering peat fire burned and filling the pint pot with the dark brown liquid. As she added thick spoonfuls of condensed milk from the tin, her stomach rumbled. She looked longingly at the heel of bread on the table, the jar of dripping. But she daren’t take any breakfast yet, never until Peart was out of the way. If she did he made nasty remarks about her eating him out of house and home, how she wasn’t worth it, he would get rid of her.
Today she would have to eat quickly. He would likely go no further than the sheep fold and the barn. There would be no shooting on the moor, no poaching. She shivered.
Snuff barked again, startling Jenny. If he went on Peart would throw him outside, no matter what the weather. She willed him to be silent. But he was at the door, nose down to the crack at the bottom where the wind came whistling through. He barked again, whined in excitement.
‘Bloody dog! There must be something there.’ Peart swallowed the last of his tea and took his coat from the row of hooks by the door. He buttoned it round him, pulled a cap down over his eyes and a muffler round his neck, and casually kicked Snuff out of the way, making the dog yelp. As Peart opened the door there was a great blast of wind which sent sparks up the chimney and a billow of soot-filled smoke out into the room. He lifted his twelve-bore from behind the door, broke it and put in a pair of cartridges. ‘Just in case there’s something in the yard we can eat,’ he explained, more to himself than to Jenny, and went out, Snuff squeezing past him to run up the yard. Peart closed the door behind him.
Jenny looked at it for a minute, as the sounds of barking and Peart shouting at the dog became fainter, then she went to the table and cut two slices from the loaf. One she spread with dripping, the other with the condensed milk. One in each hand, she took them to the chair by the fire and bit into the one with the beef dripping, concentrating all her attention on the food. This was the best time of the day for her.
Outside, the dog was up by the rowan tree, barking at something which lay there. Peart grinned. It was quite big, it might even be a sheep. Not one of his, a stray no doubt, maybe even a ewe lambing early. It must have strayed from the farmer’s flock further along the common. It certainly wasn’t one of his, they were well fastened up, he knew that. Too bad, folk should look after their flock, lazy beggars. Mutton tonight. He closed the gun and walked through the snow to the mound in the snow.
‘Get out the road, will you, you mangy cur?’ he shouted at Snuff, and the dog backed off, still excited, still whining and giving the occasional bark. Peart levelled his gun at where he judged the head of the mound to be. The snow was blinding now. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his sleeve to clear them. Bloody hell, it was no sheep! There was long black hair blowing about. It was a woman.
Chapter Sixteen
THERE WAS A sharp pain in her back. Elizabeth tried to ignore it; she didn’t want to wake up, she wanted to sleep on in this place where she could feel the heat from a fire soothing away the cold, the bitter cold which seeped through to her very bones, the aching cold that was still lurking there to catch her, envelop her. But the pain in her back was persistent, it was like a knife stuck in her ribs. Vaguely she began to worry about it. Was it a knife in her ribs? Did it matter, though? If only she could sleep on and on and never wake up.
‘Wake up! Howay, lass, wake up, will ye?’
She felt a slap on her face, and another. She moved her head in protest, tried to turn over but she couldn’t, it was too much effort.
‘Open your eyes, damn ye! Come on, you’re not dead yet.’
The voice was familiar. Now where had she heard it? Elizabeth opened her eyes reluctantly and right above her, only an inch or two from her nose, was that man, that awful man, Jenny’s foster father, Peart. Groaning, she closed her eyes again and felt him catch hold of her by the shoulders and lift her head from the pillow and shake her.
‘All right, all right, I’m awake,’ she shouted, or thought she had shouted, but what she heard was barely above a whisper. Then, magically, the pain in her back eased as she was lifted. It was not a knife then, she thought hazily.
‘An’ about time an’ all,’ said Peart. ‘Jen? Where the hell’s that hot tea you were making for her? Do you want a clout, girl?’
‘It’s here, Peart.’
Elizabeth moved her head and saw her little sister standing at her feet, a chipped cup in her hands.
‘Aye, well, come on, give it to her.’ Peart moved back to a chair on the opposite side of the fire and watched as Jenny helped Elizabeth to sit up and then held the cup to her lips. She sipped the hot syrupy tea, the smell of the condensed milk making her gag a little, but as soon as it was down she began to feel better.
‘Thanks, love,’ she said and even managed a tiny smile for her sister. She looked around. She was lying on the old battered settle by the side of the fire in Peart’s house. She couldn’t remember for a few minutes just how she had got there, only the snow, the cold and the branches of a tree above her as she slid into unconsciousness. She looked at Peart.
‘Did you find me?’ she asked.
; ‘I did. A good job an’ all. A bit longer and you’d have been a goner. Old Snuff I suppose it was really, he sniffed you out. I thought you were a sheep. I was going to shoot you. Pity, I could have eaten a nice shoulder of mutton.’
A tart reply sprang to Elizabeth’s lips but was not uttered. She was so tired, so terribly tired, and she just couldn’t be bothered. She slid down on the settle, felt the pain again and put a hand behind her. It was a broken spring that had been sticking in her back. For some reason she found that funny and laughed weakly.
‘I don’t know what’s so funny?’ snapped Peart. ‘You could have died out there anyroad. You wouldn’t have found that funny.’
‘No, I’m sorry. And thank you for saving my life,’ Elizabeth said meekly.
‘Aye, well. I couldn’t leave a dog out in that, could I?’ He looked from her to Jenny who was hovering nearby with that habitual anxious expression on her face. ‘What are you doing here, like? It’s not Sunday. And nobody but a crack-brained fool would venture on the moors on a day like today.’
‘I … I was coming to see Jenny. I thought I would get work in Stanhope, be able to see her more often. But I couldn’t find anywhere to stay …’ She didn’t feel up to telling him the whole story, not yet.
‘What bloody fools women are,’ said Peart. He wagged his head from side to side. ‘Well, I cannot stand gabbing here, I’ve the sheep to see to. I’m off. Mind you, lass.’ He nodded his head at Jenny. ‘You’d best get the dinner on. I’ll be ready for it when I get back.’
After the door closed behind him, Elizabeth looked at her sister, still hovering at the foot of the settle.
‘Come and sit down, pet,’ she said. ‘You can spare five minutes, can’t you? We can talk.’
Jenny nodded, still not speaking. She sat down on the end of the settle where Elizabeth moved her legs to make room for her.