They were lucky. In the moment before the three of them trooped downstairs, Eve turned and looked at their new home. If Caleb hadn’t offered them work, things would be very different tonight. And then she picked up the oil lamp and carefully led the way down the vertiginous staircase.
‘You’ve done what? Are you mad, boy?’
Caleb stared at the mountain of flesh that was his mother. He had always thought that fat people should be jolly, it went with the roundness and soft flesh somehow, but not so his mam.
‘Don’t call me boy,’ he said tonelessly. ‘I’ve told you before.’
‘Oh aye, you’ve told me.’ Mildred Travis glared at her only child, her pale, almost opaque eyes made more colourless by the redness of her complexion. ‘Told me lots of things, you have, like how you were going to Gateshead to bring back a woman to see to the cooking. And what do you do? Bring back three waif and strays and one of ’em a bairn. A bairn. I’d as soon have had that Cassie mooning about the kitchen than this.’
‘You said you’d have Cassie in the kitchen over your dead body when she offered to help out.’
Mildred snorted. ‘Help out! There’s only one person she wants to help out and it’s not by cooking neither. Brazen, she is. She’s got her eye on this inn when I’m gone, that’s the truth of it. If you were a miner with your backside hanging out she wouldn’t look the side you were on.’
Privately Caleb agreed with his mother but he would rather have cut out his tongue than admit it. ‘You didn’t want Cassie in the kitchen, you can’t have it all ways. The lassies might be on the young side but don’t forget there’s two of them and we’re paying for one.’
‘Aye, and feeding two of ’em an’ all, along with a bairn.’
‘They’re getting five shillings for a seven-day week and sixteen-hour days, half a crown each. By, Mam, you can’t begrudge them their grub. It’s nowt short of slave labour.’
Mildred had a blue woollen shawl crossed over her enormous breasts, and when she tucked the ends of it behind her, the long sleeves of her voluminous nightdress flapped. ‘Don’t talk to me like that. I’m your mother.’
‘None knows it better than me.’
‘And I’m bad.You heard the doctor, there’s something wrong with me heart and my back’s none too good an’ all.’
‘Aye, well, I’ve been telling you for years to cut down on the food and stout.’
‘It’s nowt to do with me weight.’ Mildred reared up in the bed like an angry whale. ‘Did Dr Stewart say that? Did he? No, you know damn well he didn’t.’
‘Nor is he likely to with the two shillings he gets every time you call him when you have a turn. He might be a quack but he’s not daft.’
‘Ooh, to call Dr Stewart a quack.’
Caleb had had enough. The blazing fire burning in the grate was making him feel hot and nauseous and reminding him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was now well past midnight. The inn was closed, all was quiet and he wanted nothing more than a plateful of cold meat, cheese and pickles and his bed. His tone harsh, he said, ‘Do you want to see the girls in the morning or not? They’re working here, Mam, whether you like it or not so let’s be straight about that.You can either get their backs up from day one or be civil, it’s up to you, but if you choose the former path it’ll be you that suffers, no one else, so please yourself because I’m past caring.’
‘Your father would turn in his grave if he could hear you speaking to me like this.’
He doubted it. He rather thought his da would buy him a drink and pat him on the back. ‘Be that as it may, you’ve got the choice. If Dr Stewart is right and you’re going to be in that bed awhile, we need someone to work the kitchen. Cassie and Shirley have still got to be paid and as you pointed out before I left for Gateshead, we’re not made of money. The lassies are the best I could get.’
Mildred stared at her son. The best he could get? She doubted it. More likely he had felt sorry for the lassies if they’d been turned out on their ear. She knew her Caleb, he was weak, like his da. A soft touch. And there was a certain type of woman that picked up on that a mile off. Cassie Palmer, for instance. She’d tumble him and get her belly full as soon as say Jack Robinson and then turn the screws so he walked her down the aisle. She knew lassies, oh aye. And Caleb was like any young man when the sap was rising. But she’d see these three he’d picked up. She’d do that. And if they didn’t suit she’d make their lives so miserable they’d be glad to leave. She had her ways. ‘I’ll see them.’ She stared fixedly at her son and felt a stab of fury when he refused to be intimidated. ‘But I’ll speak as I find, I always do.’
Caleb said nothing to this; he turned and left the room without speaking. On the landing he paused and pressed his first finger and thumb into the corners of his eye sockets, letting out his breath as he did so. Then he went slowly down the stairs to the kitchen.
‘So you’re the lassies me son’s been telling me about.’
Eve, Nell and Mary were standing at the bottom of the bed in Mildred’s room. They were all feeling surprise at the sight of the hugely fat woman in front of them, but mixed with Mary’s amazement was awe that anyone could have so much money that they could eat themselves so big. And the room, it was bonny. Her blue eyes took in the furnishings, the roaring fire and the open box of chocolates on the bed of Mr Travis’s mother.
‘How do you do, Mrs Travis.’ Eve spoke first and Nell and Mary followed suit.
‘Not too good, girl, but then you know that.’ Mildred glanced at Caleb who had positioned himself behind the girls. He stared back at his mother, his eyes betraying nothing of what he was feeling. ‘So introduce yourselves, one at a time.’
They did so, Eve speaking first and Mary last. Mildred watched them carefully as they spoke. So Eve was the thin one, as plain as a pikestaff but for her green eyes, and Nell was the plump one with blue eyes and a spotty face. But the little ’un, now she was a mite different to the other two. Bonny, she was. If the bairn’s blonde curls and dimples had been on one of the older two she might have had cause for concern. Fifteen and thirteen they said they were? Aye, and pigs fly. She’d bet her last farthing they were a couple of years younger. But that didn’t matter. Not if they worked hard and kept their noses clean. All things considered, this might not be so bad after all.
Leaning against her pillows, Mildred folded her hands over the mound of her stomach. ‘Me son tells me you were turned out of your place a few days ago. Is that right?’
‘Yes, we were. My da and brothers were killed down the pit and it was a tied house.’
‘Aye, I’ve heard the same before. It don’t pay to live in a tied house but then beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. So, it would likely have been the workhouse for you without my son here.’
‘Mam.’ Caleb glared at his mother.
‘What? I was only saying. The lassies know how fortunate they are you gave ’em a chance. Isn’t that right?’
The opaque eyes were as hard as glass as they demanded an answer, and Eve realised Mrs Travis was nothing like her son. ‘Yes, Mrs Travis.’
‘Aye, to be sure. Good food and a warm bed at night isn’t to be sneezed at. And you are used to cooking for a good number, I understand?’
Had they said that? Eve cleared her throat. ‘We’re good cooks, Mrs Travis. I’m sure we can satisfy.’
‘That remains to be seen.’
Eve didn’t know how to answer that and so she said nothing. It was Mary who broke the silence by saying, ‘This is a lovely room, bonny.’
Mildred’s eyes fastened on the young face. ‘You think so?’
Mary nodded enthusiastically, ignoring Eve’s warning glance to keep quiet. She was fed up with being told to say nothing lately. ‘Like a princess’s room.’
Mildred stared at her for a moment before bursting into a laugh that shook her rolls of fat and disclosed a set of uneven blackened teeth. ‘A princess’s room. Did you ever hear anything like it?’ She glanced at Caleb w
ho was smiling. ‘And what am I then, pray, if this is a princess’s room?’
Mary looked at the huge woman in the bed and Eve and Nell held their breath. ‘You’re too old to be a princess but you could be a queen and that’s even better.’
Mildred’s chest heaved with her laughter and she had to wipe her eyes before she said, ‘You’re a rum ’un and no mistake. A queen! You’ll go far, lass, with a tongue dripping in honey.’
‘Come on then, I’ll show you the ropes.’ Caleb decided now was a good time to leave. The meeting had gone far better than he could have hoped for, mainly because of the bairn’s ease with his mother which frankly amazed him. And his mam seemed to have taken to the child which amazed him still more. She wasn’t a one for bairns, his mam. She hadn’t even liked him.
Mildred was still smiling as Caleb ushered the girls out of the room and just before he shut the door, she said, ‘Caleb?’
‘Aye?’ He turned to look at her.
‘Give the little ’un a chocolate.’ She took one from the box and handed it to him. ‘Tell her the queen sent it.’ She was still laughing when he shut the door.
Chapter 6
It took Eve and Nell a week or so to feel they were beginning to keep their heads above water, and by the end of this time several things had become clear.
Caleb - as he insisted he be known, saying Mr Travis made him feel as ancient as the hills - had been right when he’d said they would earn their keep. They were on the go from dawn till dusk and then some, eventually falling into bed each night too tired to think. In spite of this they were agreed they had fallen on their feet. There was food in abundance, they were warm and dry and Caleb was not mean in his dealings with them. He wasn’t mean with anyone. He was, all three girls decided, a lovely man and they could understand why Cassie and Shirley were always giving him the eye.
Mrs Travis was a different kettle of fish. Early on Eve and Nell had agreed they didn’t think they could ever come to like Caleb’s mother.The more they had to do with her, the more this proved right. Mary, on the other hand, was often in Mildred’s room once she was home from school, an arrangement the old woman actively encouraged, much to her son’s continuing astonishment. The old woman clearly genuinely liked the child.
Eve suspected the attraction on Mary’s side could be down to the supply of chocolates and other sweets Mildred consumed in vast quantities, but, whatever it was, she was grateful for it. It kept Mary out of their hair when they were working and the relationship boded well for their being kept on at the inn, should Mrs Travis recover fully. Not that there seemed to be any sign of this. Caleb’s mother appeared to be enjoying her role as an invalid to the full. That, and rubbing Caleb up the wrong way. Every morning he took her a bowl of hot water so she could wash herself and change her nightdress. He emptied the slops and saw to any little jobs she wanted doing, but invariably returned to the kitchen with a grim face. Eve found it puzzling that a mother could treat a son like Caleb so badly, but Mildred was a funny kettle of fish in more ways than one.
Mary seemed to have adapted to her new life with ease. She no longer spoke of Stanley with longing and on the surface showed no ill effects from her mistreatment by Josiah Finnigan. She had reverted to being the somewhat aggravating and forward little madam she’d been before their father and brothers had died, and although this caused altercations with Nell whenever the two sisters were together for more than five minutes, it went some way to reassuring Eve that all was well.
As the weeks rolled by they settled into life at the inn as though they had always been there. Nell turned twelve at the end of November, and Eve fourteen the following month. The jollifications over the festive period made life hectic, but once the New Year was over, Eve and Nell found they were managing their days much better.And then towards the end of a bitterly cold January that had seen snow up to the window sills and drifts eight feet deep in places, violence erupted in the Durham coalfields as the miners went on strike. The men were angry their officials had agreed to eight-hour shifts and round-the-clock working.
Eve and Nell had experienced their father and brothers being on strike in the past. Inevitably it had meant a period of pulling their belts in even tighter and making do on scrag ends and spotted vegetables while they got further and further behind with the rent, but this time they saw things from a different angle. When the miners were making half a bitter last all night and the waggonway workers and keelmen were having their shifts cut, the pub’s takings took a nosedive.
It was this situation which played a part in turning Eve’s dislike of Mildred Travis into something far stronger. The incident came about one morning in the second week of February.The snow was still deep in places and there had been a hard frost during the night. When Eve looked out of the scullery window into the yard, the white world outside the warmth of the house held the glinting sparkle of diamond dust. She stood for a moment gazing out, her soul soothed by the beauty the normally ugly view held.There had been mornings like this at home when she had escaped the confines of the house for an hour and gone for a walk in the countryside surrounding Stanley, sometimes running and running for the sheer joy of it until she had to stop with the stitch. One time when William had been on night shift he hadn’t gone straight to bed on returning home but had offered to come with her.The world had been quiet and the air biting and he had talked as he never did at home. Of leaving the pit, of travelling for a while, seeing new places and meeting new people. He had been bright,William. Intelligent.All his teachers had said so, one even going so far as to say it was a crime he was going to follow his da down the pit. She remembered she had looked down at his hands as he had waved them expressively. They had still been boy’s hands, a trace of childhood dimples over his knuckles remaining . . .
‘Oh, William, William.’ She turned sharply from the window, a physical ache between her breasts. Pray God he was in the world of light and colour he had craved. She couldn’t bear to think he was lying under the ground in the dark, that that was all there was. Life couldn’t be so cruel.
‘You all right, lass?’ Nell turned from the porridge she was stirring on the hob as Eve came into the kitchen.
Eve nodded, fighting back tears.‘I’ll take Mrs Travis her water while you get her tray ready.’ Caleb was suffering with a heavy cold which had seen him retire the night before after several hot whisky toddies. She was not surprised he wasn’t downstairs yet. Occasionally, when he was particularly busy or had had words with his mother the day before, she would take Mildred her bowl and bring out the slops after stoking up the fire. It wasn’t a job she relished but she did it for Caleb.
When she reached the bedroom she knocked and waited a moment before entering, her voice determinedly bright and cheerful as she said, ‘Good morning, Mrs Travis. It’s a beautiful day.’
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ Mildred was sitting up in bed, a white linen cap on her head. ‘Where’s Caleb?’
‘He’s not well, he’ll be along later.’
‘And Mary?’
‘It’s a Saturday. I’ve let her sleep in for a while.’ She placed the bowl on a side table next to the bed with the bar of soap and towel she fetched from a drawer, and bent to retrieve the chamber pot from under the bed. The smell hit her and she had to swallow hard before she could say, ‘I’ll empty this before I see to the fire.’
‘Do it now. The room’s freezing.’
The room was as warm as toast. Admittedly it wasn’t at the furnace level Mildred usually insisted on but the fire had been well banked down the night before and sufficient heat had escaped to ensure that, unlike every other room in the inn, there was no ice coating the inside of the window. Eve didn’t argue with Caleb’s mother, though. Setting the pot down by the bedroom door she approached the grate and proceeded to rake out the glowing hot coals and add more wood and coal. The fire immediately began to blaze and crackle.
‘I’ll say one thing for you, you know how to make a good fire even if your pastry is wa
nting.’
Eve ignored this. Her pastry was fine, everyone said it melted in the mouth. Everyone apart from Mildred Travis. She dusted her hands on her apron but before she could leave the room, Mildred said, ‘I suppose there was never a shortage of coal in your house, not with it being free, but that’s not taken into consideration when they decide they’re going to strike.’
She was in one of her awkward moods. Eve looked into the red face in which all the features looked squashed by the flesh surrounding them. ‘They are striking because of round-the-clock working and—’
‘I know why they’re striking. I’m not stupid, girl. I’m saying it shouldn’t be. They do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay and they should be content with their lot in life. What would happen if those in the inn trade suddenly decided not to open their doors, eh? You answer me that? There’d be stones through the window and lynchings but we’re all expected to put up with the miners walking out whenever they feel like it.’
What a truly stupid woman she was. Knowing she should keep quiet, Eve couldn’t help saying, ‘The two things are not comparable.’
‘Not comparable?’ Mildred hitched herself further up her pillows, her chins wobbling. ‘And why is that, pray?’
Eve’s cheeks were burning but not because of the warm room. ‘Because they are very different occupations, ’ she said flatly.
‘Oh aye, I’ll give you that. One can be done by morons but the other takes some intelligence.’
Perhaps it was the earlier thoughts of William, William who had loved books and poetry and who had been thirsty for knowledge that made her lose restraint. Approaching the bed, Eve glared at the woman now looking at her with faint disquiet. ‘You don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘What? What did you say to me?’ Mildred spluttered.
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