A Daughter's Gift

by Maggie Hope

  The shop bell rang, warning of a customer, and swiftly she dried her eyes and splashed cold water on her face. She called, ‘I won’t be a moment,’ then patted her face dry with a towel. Casting a swift glance in the mirror which hung by the door, she smoothed her hair behind her ears and went out into the shop.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’ she asked.

  ‘Eeh, I’m right pleased for you,’ said Laura when Elizabeth told her and Jenny the news as they sat round the table for supper. ‘You’ve worked hard for it, though.’ She nodded her head for emphasis.

  ‘A lot of people work hard and long in shops and never get to be the boss,’ Elizabeth pointed out. ‘I’ve been lucky, that’s all. It means one thing, though, I won’t be able to help you in the house now but I can pay you a proper rent.’

  ‘Aye, well, we’ll see,’ said Laura.

  On the first Sunday morning they could, the two sisters took the train for Bishop Auckland. As the engine puffed its way out of Shildon Tunnel, emerging into the bright sunshine of a spring morning, Elizabeth looked around her at the familiar vista of undulating hills and long rows of pit villages, with their attendant winding wheels, idling mostly as it was a Sunday, with the black waste heaps beside them. It was all so familiar: the ploughed fields with young barley, oats or wheat pushing up green shoots, the lambs frisking beside their mothers in the meadows, side by side with the signs of the coal industry; the town itself coming into view, the train slowing as it came into the station. Elizabeth’s thoughts were sombre as she alighted with Jenny. She was dreading going to Morton Main with its memories of Jimmy.

  ‘By, lass, I’m right glad to see you,’ said Mrs Wearmouth as she opened the door to the sisters. ‘Come away in, I’ve got the dinner just about ready, I thought you’d be here about now.’

  Elizabeth had written to tell her that she was coming. She’d thought they could go to the six o’clock service in the chapel as a small remembrance of Jimmy.

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have made dinner, Mrs Wearmouth,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t expecting it, it wouldn’t be fair.’ The smell of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding filled the kitchen and the girls’ mouths watered. It was a long time since breakfast in Darlington.

  ‘It’s nice to have someone to cook for,’ Mrs Wearmouth said mournfully. ‘I was going to live with my sister but I thought I’d miss Morton Main.’ She put her arms around each of them in turn and hugged them. ‘Your Jimmy was a good lad, a clever one an’ all. Sang like an angel in the choir, he did. He’d be missed when he went to the navy, I’m sure. I tell you, it’s a fact that only the good die young.’

  Elizabeth said nothing, she was too full of emotion. The lump at the back of her throat threatened to choke her. Her hunger had disappeared. When she sat down at the table she had to force herself to do justice to the older woman’s cooking. Afterwards, as she helped with the washing up and Jenny sat quietly on the sofa, she asked after Jimmy.

  ‘Did he write to you, Mrs Wearmouth? From Dartmouth, I mean?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he always wrote. He was a good lad, your Jimmy, as I said. Wrote every week, he did. He was that excited he was going to sea. Signed his letter Midshipman J. Nelson, he did. He was as pleased as Punch he was.’ Mrs Wearmouth wrung out the dishcloth and put it away in the pantry along with the enamel washing up basin and the drying tray. Then she spread a green chenille cloth over the scrubbed table and put an aspidistra plant in the centre. ‘There now, all tidy for Sunday afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘He didn’t write to me,’ said Elizabeth, a catch in her voice. ‘He was ashamed of me, I suppose?’

  Mrs Wearmouth looked at her, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think you’re wrong there. I expect he thought it was a waste of effort after all the times he wrote to you when you were up the dale. He even got the gaffer at the pit to take him up in his motor car once.

  ‘I told him, I did, “You wouldn’t catch me riding about in one of those contraptions, especially not on some of those steep banks up Weardale. If the Good Lord wanted us to ride about in such noisy, dirty things—”’

  ‘Jimmy went to Bollihope Common? To Stand Alone Farm?’

  ‘Well, aye, of course he did. He wanted to tell you he didn’t believe a word that Miss Rowland said, not one word. At first he just went up there on the off-chance, thought you might be there with little Jenny, but that man told him no—’

  ‘Peart said I wasn’t there?’

  ‘I think so.’ Mrs Wearmouth’s brow furrowed as she tried to remember. ‘Something like that.’

  Elizabeth felt like crying. Mr Dunne had actually taken Jimmy up to Weardale, he had been near them, and Peart hadn’t told her? He’d lied to Jimmy, too? Oh, it was too much! A slow, deep anger was beginning to burn in Elizabeth. She could have come back to Morton Main when life became so awful with Peart, she could have just run. She knew now that he would not have followed her; she had been naive to think he would just because she’d taken Jenny. He had used her, and had lied to her brother when he came in search of her.

  ‘Damn him, damn him!’ she whispered, half to herself. ‘The dirty rotten swine!’

  ‘Elizabeth! Such language!’ Mrs Wearmouth cried, shocked to the core. ‘On a Sunday an’ all.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s enough to make a saint swear,’ she replied. ‘I’ll go up there next week, I will, and find out what else Peart’s done. I’ll wring it out of his neck, I will! Oh, I wish you’d told me about this last time I was here.’

  ‘Well, I never got chance, did I? You were in and out of here that fast, with having to catch the Darlington train. We were thinking of the job, weren’t we, anyroad?’

  Jenny, who had been sitting quietly watching, came over to her and slipped her hand into Elizabeth’s. ‘We’re not going to Stand Alone Farm, are we, Elizabeth? Not when Peart’s there?’ Her voice was soft and fearful.

  ‘I am. I’ll—’ She suddenly felt the hand in hers tremble and looked down at Jenny. ‘No, petal, you don’t have to come. I’ll go myself, I will.’

  ‘Don’t go, Elizabeth, don’t!’ said Jenny. ‘What will I do if you don’t come back?’

  ‘I’ll come back.’ Elizabeth saw the depth of fear in her sister’s eyes and changed the subject abruptly. ‘Never mind now, Jenny. We’ll go for a walk, shall we? And maybe we’ll call on Auntie Betty and see our Kit. I bet he’s a big boy now, I won’t hardly know him.’

  Mrs Wearmouth looked tired, ready for her afternoon rest. Elizabeth promised to be back in good time for tea before they went to chapel, and the girls went out, leaving Mrs Wearmouth composing herself on the settee before the fire.

  Jenny was always glad to be out in the fresh air. Elizabeth walked along briskly, making for the pit yard and then Old Morton village, passing the Black Boy and the Pit Laddie public houses and walking to the end of the village before turning back and making for the row of houses where Auntie Betty lived.

  ‘I like it better on the moors, Elizabeth,’ said Jenny, wrinkling her nose as they walked past the slag heap and pit buildings, the winding wheel and engine house. There was the smell of coal dust over everything, though the yard was tidily swept and fresh pine pit props stacked in squares to one side.

  Elizabeth almost said, ‘What, even with Peart there?’ But she didn’t. Jenny had been brought up on the wide, windswept moors, it was natural she should feel like that. She remembered the day they had spent on Guisborough moor. How good it had been to breathe sweet, clean air.

  Auntie Betty was in the house with Kit, who was sitting at the kitchen table, colouring in a picture book. He looked up briefly but continued what he was doing.

  ‘Eeh, look who it is, Lizzie and … is it Jenny? Mrs Wearmouth said you were coming. I don’t know why you didn’t come here for your dinner, we are family after all.’ Betty bridled slightly.

  Elizabeth felt her tongue forming the words, ‘Elizabeth, not Lizzie,’ but she didn’t speak. After all, she thought wearily as she
gazed at Kit, what did it matter?

  ‘Mrs Wearmouth wrote to me about our Jimmy,’ she said instead. ‘I thought we’d go to the service at six o’clock, as a mark of respect. He sang in the choir, didn’t he?’

  ‘Like an angel,’ Auntie Betty agreed. She glanced at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know about Ben, but we’ll go, me and Christopher. He’s in bed, he was on the beer this dinnertime.’

  Elizabeth said nothing, hiding her relief that Ben Hoddle wasn’t going. He would only have disturbed her concentration, she thought. Jenny was standing beside Christopher, watching as he coloured in an outline drawing of Christ standing before a closed door, a lantern in his hand, knocking. The crayoned pink with which he had coloured in the face glistened crudely.

  ‘Can I do the flowers?’ asked Jenny.

  Christopher gazed levelly at her. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘Mind, it’s for my Sunday School class so don’t make a mess of it. Don’t go over the edges.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Jenny said solemnly. Elizabeth watched as their two heads bent over the book, the tip of Jenny’s tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. She has a light touch, Elizabeth mused, and a tidy nature. More so than I have. The edges of her leaves didn’t show any errant green.

  There was a thud from upstairs and both women looked up, Betty’s forehead knitting. After a moment Ben came clattering down, coming into the kitchen with his braces hanging, grey stubble on his chin. The lines of his face had slackened since Elizabeth saw him last; his eyes showed the effect of too much beer. He came and sat down in what was obviously his chair by the fire, first taking a half-smoked cigarette from the high mantelshelf and lighting it from the fire with a piece of paper torn from a newspaper.

  ‘Now then, Lizzie,’ he said when he had pulled on the cigarette until it glowed and burned down a half-inch. ‘What’s brought you here, then? It’s not like you to grace us with a visit.’

  She stared at him, the scene from a few years ago when he had molested her in this very pantry vivid in her mind.

  ‘Lost your tongue, have you?’ he went on, and grinned, fixing her with his bold eyes. ‘By, Lizzie, you’re just like your mam, you are an’ all.’

  ‘Leave her alone, Ben,’ Auntie Betty said sharply. ‘She’s come because our poor Jimmy died, we’re going to the chapel tonight.’

  ‘God preserve us from the Holy Joes!’ said Ben and spat in the fire before looking back at Elizabeth. It made her feel uncomfortable, the way he stared. Her skin itched.

  ‘I’ll be going back to Mrs Wearmouth’s now,’ she said. ‘Are you coming, Jenny?’

  Chapel that evening was full, for most of the miners and their families were Methodists. Quite often the service was conducted by a lay preacher but this time it was the Minister who, after the first hymn and prayers, looked around the congregation and saw the friends and relations of Midshipman James Nelson. He paused, added some thoughts to the notes in front of him and changed what he had been about to say.

  Elizabeth and Jenny sat with hands clasped as he spoke of the brief life of Jimmy, the great gift of his singing, how proud the choir had been when he’d gained a place at Naval College and how sad to hear of his death. Afterwards, they sang the Twenty-third Psalm to the tune of ‘Crimond’ and linked hands to say grace together. And Elizabeth walked out of the church with head high, her grief for her younger brother assuaged at least a little.

  ‘Come back for a bite to eat before you go,’ said Mrs Wearmouth.

  ‘I think we’d best be on our way,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Thank you all the same. And thank you for all you did for Jimmy.’ She said goodbye to Auntie Betty and Kit and, as the buses had stopped at six o’clock that afternoon, she and Jenny walked along the track which led along the top of the woods to Bishop Auckland. Now that the war was over, there was talk of a bus starting up from the villages to Darlington, but for now the train was the only way and the last one went at seven-thirty.

  They were about halfway through the wood when they heard the sound of rapid footsteps behind them. Jenny kept glancing back but Elizabeth hurried her on.

  ‘We don’t want to miss the train, do we?’ she asked. ‘Come on, it’s only someone else walking into the town, no one to hurt us.’

  ‘It’s Uncle Ben,’ said Jenny. ‘Look! There he is, cutting across by that oak tree.’

  Elizabeth’s heart quickened though she told herself not to be silly. He couldn’t hurt her, not now she was fully grown. She wouldn’t let him. He was a coward at bottom, of course he was.

  ‘You go on, Jenny, I’ll catch you up. Likely we left something behind, that’s all.’

  ‘Righto. I’ll wait at the stile,’ said Jenny and ran off. Elizabeth turned to face Ben Hoddle.

  ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.

  ‘Hey, now, don’t be like that, Lizzie,’ he said, panting a little after his rush after her.

  ‘Don’t call me Lizzie!’

  ‘Ooh, touchy, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Howay, lass, give me a bit of what you gave that soldier boy – Wilson, wasn’t it? He told us all about it, you know, in the Pit Laddie, the night before he got transferred out of here.’

  ‘Then he was telling lies,’ Elizabeth said, fighting to keep her voice even for Jenny would still be in earshot and she didn’t want to frighten her.

  ‘Aye, of course he was. They all say that don’t they? Aw, come on, lass, just behind this tree. No one will know. Just a feely, eh?’ He held out his hand to her, leaning forward to gaze at the white skin showing at the neck of her dress.

  Elizabeth stepped back and tripped, falling onto the grassy bank by the side of the track. She scrabbled at the earth to get leverage as he bent over her and her hand closed round a stone. As his head came close to hers, she lifted the stone and hit him on the temple. For a moment, surprise replaced the grin on Ben’s face and then he slumped, rolling on top of her and off through a patch of mud on to the stony track.

  Elizabeth scrambled to her feet and backed away from him, still holding the stone in her hand. Her breath came in heavy rasping bursts; her heart beat so hard she felt as though it would burst through her skin. Then she turned and ran, throwing the stone away from her as she went, round the bend to where Jenny stood waiting at the stile. At the bend she stopped suddenly as a horrible thought came to her. She hadn’t killed him, had she?

  She looked back and saw him getting to his feet. He swayed for a long moment and she thought he would fall again. But then he lurched off in the direction of Morton Main.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  THAT NIGHT ELIZABETH dreamed the old dream again for the first time in years. She was in the turnip field with her mother, only sometimes she changed abruptly and was in another turnip field with Jenny. She felt the pain, the dragging ache which became more and more agonising until she crawled into a copse – and there was her baby on the ground, a tiny, perfect baby, no bigger than her thumb. And it opened its mouth and cried.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she said to it, ‘I’m coming.’

  Abruptly she was a little girl again and sitting in the kitchen, on the settee in the corner, and Mrs Wearmouth was saying to Auntie Betty, ‘What I’d like to know is, who put the babby in her anyroad?’

  And Auntie Betty flushed and mumbled and said that it wasn’t her Ben, no, it wasn’t. Then she caught sight of Elizabeth and shouted at her to get out, she wasn’t wanted there, she was as bad as her mother and could get to the workhouse with the other brats. And Elizabeth woke, drenched with perspiration, and her heart thumping painfully against her chest.

  Turning on her back, she pushed off the bedclothes and allowed the cool air to wash over her heated face and neck. She remembered now. She’d been about nine years old, she reckoned, when Mrs Wearmouth had asked that; nine years old and her mother had died in just the same way as she had nearly died herself. Her poor mam. But how had she had a miscarriage when Da had gone away so many months before? For the first time, Elizabeth wondered about that
. Mrs Wearmouth’s question made sense now. And why had Da gone away? Her memories of him had been good ones. He had often played with them, given them piggy backs, played ball games. And then there was the awful night, the night when she had woken, terrified, and Jimmy and Alice had crept into her bed, huddling against her. And Da had bellowed and shouted and they’d pulled the bedclothes over their heads. She could hear him now, in her head.

  ‘Jane! Jane, I’ll swing for you, I will, you and your fancy man. I believed you once, I forgave you—’

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’

  ‘No? Then why is that bugger telling all the shift that Betty is barren. It’s not him that can’t have any, he’s got a kid: our Kit!’ His voice was rising. Suddenly the bedroom door burst open and Mam ran in. She ran to where they lay, all of a heap in Elizabeth’s narrow bed, and tried to climb in beside them.

  Her mind shied away from the memories which were surfacing after being so long suppressed. Oh, surely, they hadn’t happened? But she couldn’t stop her thoughts from running on. How Da had run into the room after her mother and he hadn’t looked a bit like their da then, no, he hadn’t. His face was contorted like the face of the Devil in a book she’d got from Sunday School as a prize. He had pulled Mam from the bed and turned her over and smacked her hard. And mam had cried out and Elizabeth jumped up and shouted at him.

  ‘Leave her alone! You’re a bully, our Da! A big bully.’ Da had looked at her then, seemed surprised to see her there. Slowly the mad light left his eyes and he let go of her mam, and Elizabeth put her arms around her and sobbed. Da had walked out of the bedroom, his head sunk on his chest.

  ‘Don’t worry, pet, it’s all right, I’m all right,’ Mam had whispered. ‘Howay now, don’t cry, you’ll upset the bairns. Go on, cuddle them in and I’ll go and see to Da. He’s not been well, you know, he didn’t mean to hit me.’

  But Elizabeth knew he had. She watched as her mother went out of the bedroom and into the one shared by her and Da. There was a murmur of voices, low now, the anger burned out. Jenny was sobbing quietly, curled into a ball between Elizabeth and Alice. Elizabeth cuddled her in.