A Mother's Courage

by Maggie Hope

  ‘How well you look this morning, Miss Saint,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling so early?’

  ‘Not at all, Mr Tait, I am very pleased to see you,’ said Eleanor, smiling up into his eyes in a way that would have made Grandmother Wales snort in displeasure and order her to her room. And the attraction Francis had always felt for her grew into a powerful force.

  At Eleanor’s invitation, he accompanied her on her mission, walking with her and carrying her basket as she went to see Mrs Brown. Together they went through the pit rows, greeting the miners’ wives who came to their doors, curious at the sight of the young minister walking with the viewer’s niece. They were used to seeing Eleanor; she was in amongst them every day and not always as welcome as she thought she was by the miners, for they were suspicious of her as one of ‘them’.

  The wives were not always welcoming to her either, or her habit of coming and overturning customs that had served them for generations. There was her passion for fresh air, for example, when the cottage windows had been kept shut at all times to keep out the stink of the coke ovens and the middens. Why, she had even persuaded the colliery joiner to mend windows that had been nailed shut for years. The viewer had soon stopped that after a deputation of wives had gone to the colliery office to put their case.

  The minister, though, was welcome. It was true he was a Wesleyan and many of the pit folk were Primitive Methodists, but it could not be denied that in the hard times the Wesleyans put on a good soup kitchen and the chapel suppers were not to be missed. So the women nodded and murmured a greeting to Francis and Eleanor as they walked through the muddy streets and the children clung to their mothers’ skirts and stared.

  The Browns were a Wesleyan family and Jeremiah Brown, who had been sitting at the kitchen table about to start a meal of bread and a couple of boiled eggs, rose to his feet as Francis and Eleanor knocked at the open door and went in. He was black from the pit, except for where rivulets of sweat had run down his face, making channels through the coal dust. As he rose, coal dust jumped from his clothes, shimmering in the sunlight coming through the small window.

  ‘Minister!’ he cried. “By, we never expected to see you. I thought you would have been on your way to convert the heathens by now.’ A thought struck him and he faltered. ‘Are you collecting for the missions? Eeh, I don’t know, it’s not paynight till next Friday, but mebbe I can spare a copper.’ Turning to the fireplace, he started to reach up to the high mantelpiece but Francis stopped him.

  ‘Oh no, Mr Brown, indeed, I know you will have already given what you can spare. No, Miss Saint was coming to see your wife and baby and I decided to come with her, I hope you don’t mind. I am at leisure until I go away and it’s a good opportunity to meet and thank the people who have supported me.’

  You will forgive me, Lord, Francis prayed silently, fleetingly. I would have visited all the members before I left, of course I would, it is not really a lie.

  The miner turned back to the table, not bothering to hide his relief. Two little boys, dressed only in the flannel shirts they had worn for bed, came to his elbow.

  ‘Da, Da, can I have the top off the egg?’ they clamoured, staring fixedly at the boiled eggs on his plate.

  ‘The wife’s in the room,’ said their father, as he topped the eggs and gave a piece each to the boys, along with a piece of bread and dripping. ‘She’s not so good today.’

  ‘I’ll go straight in,’ said Eleanor briskly. ‘Perhaps you will wait for me here, Mr Tait?’ Taking an apron out of the basket, which Francis had placed on the table, she went into the sitting room and closed the door behind her. After all, Mrs Brown was in bed in the sitting room and it wouldn’t do for Francis to see her, him being a single man.

  Mrs Brown was pale and wan and lines of exhaustion on her face made her look nearer fifty than the thirty she actually was. When she spoke her voice drifted weakly on her shallow breath.

  ‘Good of you to come, Miss Saint.’

  ‘Are you feeling worse, Mrs Brown? Did you take the beef tea I left with you yesterday? You’ll never get your strength back unless you eat properly, you know.’ Eleanor was put out, quite irrationally she knew, but when she helped anyone she liked to see a result almost immediately. Mrs Brown nodded her head, not wasting any energy on talking. She watched as Eleanor went to the drawer standing on two chairs by the bed and looked down at the baby. The same drawer had been used as a crib for all thirteen of the Browns’ babies in their turn.

  The baby was asleep, a tiny drop of milk at the corner of his mouth. He was small, probably no more than five or six pounds in weight, Eleanor surmised, but he was a good colour.

  ‘I’ll bathe him,’ said Eleanor and Mrs Brown looked alarmed. Finding a little strength, she lifted her head from the pillow.

  ‘No, no, my neighbour has done it all, washed him and seen to me an’ all. Don’t wake him, he’s just got to sleep.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ Eleanor stepped towards the bed, leaving the baby reluctantly. She strongly suspected the baby had been wrapped in strips of rag ‘to keep his limbs nice and straight’, as she had heard so many old wives say, in spite of her explaining they were better left to nature. But there was a great deal of rickets in the village and every mother was worried about bow legs or knock knees. Swaddling was their remedy for it and it was no good arguing with the mother now; Mrs Brown wasn’t up to it.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said instead.

  ‘I was up with the two littlest ones, both of them are teething, that’s all,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I’m all right now Jeremiah’s in, I’ll be able to get some sleep. Like I said, my neighbour’s been in and done for me.’

  Eleanor realised she was being told to go away and for a moment she was hurt; hadn’t she done all she could for the family when they couldn’t afford a doctor at the birth and the old woman who usually ‘did’ for Mrs Brown was in bed with an ague?

  ‘I’ll leave you to sleep while you can then,’ was all she said and she stripped off her pinafore and rolled it up ready to put into her basket.

  Mrs Brown put out a hand and touched her lightly on the sleeve of her black dress. ‘I am grateful for what you’ve done, Miss Saint,’ she said softly, her eyes already closing. Mollified a little, Eleanor went out of the room.

  As she and Francis walked back to the viewer’s house, she was noticeably quiet, the sparkle in her eyes dimmed. They had called in on Mrs Simpson but that lady was busy washing clothes in the back yard. It seemed no one wanted Eleanor’s services this day and she had been so anxious to show Francis how good she was with the poor and sick.

  ‘It must be good to find your ministrations are no longer needed,’ said Francis as they left the colliery rows and turned into the lane.

  ‘Well, I—’ Eleanor began and stopped, not knowing how to carry on.

  ‘I mean, you must have been so very successful in what you did for them before that they needed little help today,’ he went on and smiled down at her. ‘And isn’t it a blessing? It means you and I can spend the afternoon together. I have some papers on Fiji I would like to show you, even some illustrations. Would you like that? With your grandmother’s permission, of course. I could bring them over after lunch if I may.’

  Eleanor’s heart lifted as she acquiesced eagerly. There now, she thought, she had made an impression on him, her plan was working and he was interested in her even though she was such a plain-looking girl. At last things were beginning to happen in her life.

  It was only a week later when Francis proposed to her as they were walking on the edge of the woods one Saturday afternoon. The brilliant colours of the changing leaves shone in the late autumn sunshine and the grime of the pit village seemed a world away. Eleanor’s hand was laid lightly on Francis’s arm and he was gravely silent so that she stole a glance at him, wondering what he was thinking.

  ‘The trees are so beautiful, aren’t they?’ she said at last, more to break the silence than anything else.

&
nbsp; Francis helped her over a stile before turning her to face him.

  ‘Will you marry me, Eleanor?’ he said and Eleanor beamed all over her face.

  ‘Oh yes, Francis, I will,’ she replied and waited for him to kiss her but Francis merely took her hand and replaced it on his arm.

  ‘You have made me so happy, my dear,’ he said. As they walked on she could feel the slight tremble in the arm under her fingers and his face was slightly flushed; whether with success or agitation she couldn’t say. Strangely, neither of them noticed that no word of love or even affection had passed between them.

  Chapter Five

  Eleanor stood beside Francis on the deck of the Liberator, watching the small group of black-clad people from the Missionary Society, their white handkerchiefs fluttering in the wind that was sweeping up the channel, dashing the waves against the quay and rocking the ship even as it weighed anchor and began to move away. Eleanor shivered, as much from the excitement of finally getting under way as from the icy December wind.

  The missionary party stood close together, quietly watching England slip away. The wives – all young women and all wrapped up in voluminous dark skirts and cloaks – stood closer to their husbands as the reality of the sailing sank in. The men smiled and nodded to each other, masking the fact that they were as uncertain as the women now that the time had come.

  Eleanor looked further along the deck to where Mary and Prue were standing, just the two of them, Mary with an arm around her young sister. She made an involuntary movement towards the girls and would have liked to have gone over to join them for this last glimpse of home but a glance at Francis stayed her. He was watching her, a slight frown appearing between his eyes as she stepped forward, and she stood still.

  Francis hadn’t wanted her to bring Mary and Prue. But what was she to do? Grandmother Wales had made it plain that when Eleanor went she had no use for Mary, let alone Prue.

  ‘Flibberty-gibbet, that girl Prue is, any road, mark my words,’ Grandmother had declared. ‘I won’t have her in the house, making eyes at the menfolk, it’s not decent.’

  In vain, Eleanor had protested that Prue was only thirteen and she didn’t realise the effect her bright curls and impish smiles had on the opposite sex; she was only a child.

  ‘Thirteen she may be, but she has the ways of a woman and a scarlet woman she’ll become, I’m sure. But she’ll not shame my house, she won’t get the chance.’

  Eleanor watched Prue now, the only one of them all who didn’t seem saddened by leaving England. In fact, she didn’t look at all sad. Prue was looking at the group of sailors working on deck as the sails unfurled and the ship gathered speed in the freshening wind. And more than one of the men spared time to glance down at the two sisters and especially at Prue who was smiling broadly now.

  The little by-play had not escaped the notice of the group of missionaries and their wives and disapproving looks were cast at the girls.

  ‘Go below at once, Mary, you too, Prue,’ said Francis harshly and Eleanor bit her lip. He was right, of course; it was a mistake to offend their companions right at the beginning of the journey, and heaven knew, the voyage would be long enough. Although she had paid for the girls’ steerage tickets herself out of the small legacy left by her father and which she had come into on her marriage, she was painfully aware that the money rightly belonged to Francis now and he had been against the idea.

  ‘Steerage passengers should not be on deck,’ said Miss Tookey, the schoolteacher of the group. She sniffed and stared down her thin nose at Eleanor while the Reverend White and his dumpy little wife nodded in agreement.

  ‘Perhaps we should all go below,’ said Reverend Gibson diplomatically. ‘The wind is blowing cold and we all need to conserve our health for the great task ahead.’

  ‘Prue is only a child, she meant nothing by smiling at the sailors,’ said Eleanor defensively as she and Francis entered the tiny cabin allocated to them and closed the door behind them. Of necessity she spoke in an undertone, for only a very thin board separated them from their neighbours on either side.

  Francis sighed as he removed his long woollen scarf and, for want of anywhere else to put it, laid it on the upper bunk bed.

  ‘I can’t help but think it was a mistake to bring Mary Buckle and most especially Prue. However, it’s too late now, we must make the best of it.’

  Eleanor took no notice. She had meant to bring Mary and she had got her way; women got precious little of their own way in this year of our Lord eighteen sixty. She wasn’t going to let the opinions of the other missionaries spoil this great adventure for her, no, not even Francis. She set about unpacking their belongings and laying them in the chest that was bolted to the wall by the beds.

  ‘Shouldn’t Mary be doing that, as she’s here?’

  ‘There’s hardly room for her when we are both present,’ Eleanor pointed out.

  ‘Well, while we’re here, perhaps we should give thanks to God that we have been granted the privilege of serving Him in the mission field,’ said Francis and sank to his knees by the beds and folded his hands in the attitude of prayer. He looked up at her expectantly and she was struck again by how incredibly fine his eyes were, how clear-cut his chin. He had looked at her just like this as they stood by the communion rail in the chapel at Houghton le Spring on the day of their wedding. Putting down the bundle of neck cloths she had unpacked, Eleanor knelt beside him.

  ‘Dearest Father,’ he began and Eleanor’s thoughts slipped away without her even realising, back to her wedding day, or rather, her wedding night. What a fool she had been, what an ignorant, foolish girl for all her twenty-six years. She had thought she knew it all, having worked in among the mining folk for so long, observing how husbands and wives were together, seeing men practically naked but for the half-trousers they wore in the pit as they bathed in tin baths before their kitchen fires. She had even seen a baby born, helped at the birth; she thought she knew everything all right.

  Eleanor opened her eyes briefly and peeped up at Francis. His forehead was smooth, his face untroubled as he communed with his God, so different from that night. She rested her chin on her hands and slipped away again, something she did more and more when Francis was praying though she was well aware he would be horrified if he knew.

  ‘Are you sure, Eleanor?’ Fanny had asked the week before the wedding. Fanny was staying with her sister to help her prepare and she was going to be Eleanor’s bridesmaid.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Eleanor had replied impatiently. ‘Am I sure about getting married, do you mean, or sure about going with Francis to minister to the heathen?’ She smiled at her younger sister. Fanny was such a timid little thing, Eleanor couldn’t imagine her ever having such an adventure.

  ‘No. Are you sure you are in love with Mr Tait?’

  ‘In love? Of course I am,’ said Eleanor. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just … I think you have to be very much in love with a man to live with him on such … such intimate terms.’ Fanny had stopped abruptly, blushing.

  ‘Oh that, I’m not at all worried about that,’ Eleanor had said, thinking of Francis and how he hadn’t even kissed her on the lips as yet. She wouldn’t mind at all if he did that when they were married. After all, it would be his right, wouldn’t it? And he was such a good-looking man, and his breath didn’t smell at all and his teeth were white and even.

  Eleanor smiled wryly as she knelt by Francis and remembered. What an ignorant fool she had been – if only she had thought the whole thing through. She had known how babies came out, she could have worked out how they got there in the first place. And it was all so … so embarrassing, such an invasion of her secret places; it wasn’t her fault she had felt so outraged when they had got into bed on their wedding night and Francis had turned to her and fumbled with the buttons on her nightie. He had begun to breathe heavily and impatiently pulled up the gown. When she realised what he was going to do, she could hardly believe i
t, and pressed her legs together, protesting in as loud a whisper as she dared without waking his uncle, who was in the next room. But Francis was deaf to her entreaties; his face was red and like that of a stranger as he pushed his long fingers between her legs and then invaded her body.

  Afterwards, when she had jumped out of bed and pulled a wrap haphazardly round her and fled the room, she had sat on the stairs and cried. For how could such an indecent practice be right? How could a man of God, a man who was so respectable, so upright during the day, behave like that during the night? Maybe if she were to tell someone she would be able to get an annulment – but who could she tell?

  ‘Eleanor?’ The door of the bedroom opened and Francis came out dressed only in his nightshirt. He reached out a hand to her and she shrank back against the banister. ‘Eleanor, I’m sorry if I hurt you, really I am, but you can’t sit out here all night, you’ll catch a chill. Come inside, I won’t hurt you again.’

  Eleanor looked doubtfully at him; he seemed so normal, not at all the excited red-faced man who had attacked her in bed.

  ‘Come now, Eleanor, you don’t want any of the family to find us out here in our nightclothes, do you?’

  Slowly, she got to her feet. The thought of his uncle coming out of his room and finding them there was a powerful incentive to return to the bedroom. Silently he held open the door and she walked past him, careful not to touch him, and sat down in the chair by the window.

  ‘You will be warmer in bed,’ said Francis.

  ‘I’m all right here, thank you.

  ‘In bed, Eleanor,’ repeated Francis. ‘You will remember your vows taken before God only this morning?’