*
After Amy had gone, Jude sat quietly picking at his thumbnail and letting that lovely smile and the gentle voice play inside his head. There was a scent in his nose, a clean fresh smell that reminded him of meadow flowers. His eyes were closed, but behind his lids he saw a large room filled with stacks of shelves and row upon row of books. A pretty girl with a mass of blonde curls came walking towards him. She was wearing a pin-tucked blouse and a smart skirt, and she was smiling. The scent sweetened.
5
Barnborough
Spring, 1912
In a rented room in a house in Barnborough, a darkly handsome young man was lying on his bed thinking about the girl in the library. She was something special. It wasn’t just her bouncing, blonde curls and bright blue eyes that attracted him, it was her lively mind and the way she talked that fascinated him. He was glad he’d come to Barnborough, even though he didn’t care for the job he had taken to earn a living.
He had left the sparsely furnished cottage in Bird’s Well six weeks ago, bringing with him nothing but a pack containing all his worldly goods, a pack that had sagged under the weight of Hardy, Stevenson, London and Conan Doyle. You’re heavy fellows, he had silently told them, but to leave them behind was unthinkable. He had yet to come to terms with how quickly his life had changed. Less than two weeks before, he had been working the smallholding with his father and mother, now both dead within days of each other, and despite offering Jude his condolences the landlord had repossessed the tenancy.
Jude had been sad to leave Bird’s Well, the only home he had ever known, and sadder still at losing the kindly couple that, having taken him in as a baby, had reared him with fondest love. He was twelve when Henry and Jenny Leas told him he was not their natural son, his birth mother dead and his father unknown. Rather than deterring him it had made him all the more grateful for his nurturing. Henry had been a quiet, thoughtful man with a wealthy knowledge of plants, birds and country matters. Jenny had been a reader of good literature, fond of poetry and storytelling. Education that had not been provided at home had been given at the nearest school, a tiny establishment with a dedicated teacher, and so, at twenty years of age, Jude had arrived in Barnborough looking for a place to stay and a job that involved using his brain rather than brawn.
He had no difficulty finding lodgings, but after a week of fruitless enquiry – no experience, no paper qualifications – he had walked across the pithead at Barnborough Colliery, his boots kicking up spurts of the black dust that coated everything in sight. He’d gazed up at the towering winding gear and the mighty slag heaps beyond it, ranged like mountains. It all looked black and ominous but it was the most likely place to find work and earn some much-needed money. As he had pushed open the door into the pit office, he had recalled the words his teacher had said on his last day in school. ‘You’re clever enough to work in business, start out as a clerk and work your way up.’ Jude had put her prediction to the test. Afterwards, he cringed whenever he thought of it.
‘I’d like to apply for a position in clerking,’ Jude had said to the two men behind the counter who, having curtailed their conversation were eyeing him expectantly. Then, thinking his capabilities needed embellishing he had told them, ‘I’m an able writer and good with numbers.’
The men had exchanged sardonic smiles, the taller of the two pushing his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose before asking his colleague, ‘Do we require a clerk, Mr Heslop?’
‘Not that I recall, Mr Clifford, not even one who can write and add up.’
Jude had flushed. They were making game of him. He’d turned on his heel.
‘Hold on, hold on,’ spectacles called out. ‘Do you want a job or don’t you?’
And so – as Jude contemplated future visits to the library, he was grateful for a job at the pit because with money in his pocket he could afford to ask the delightful Miss Elliot if she would accompany him to the theatre or anywhere else she might choose. He would have been even more pleased had he known that up at Intake Farm, Amy also was contemplating his next visit and wondering if she should wear her new white shirtwaist with the pin-tucked bodice later in the week on the off-chance that he read quickly and would return his books before the week was out.
*
On Thursday afternoon of that same week, Jude dashed from the pithead back to his lodgings. He bathed hastily and put on a clean shirt and trousers. ‘I’ll leave that brown stew for later,’ he told his landlady, Lily Tinker.
In the library, a stout, rather plain girl with a superior attitude checked his returned books. Disappointed, he went in search of replacements, and Amy. She was slotting a handful of returned books into their rightful places when she saw him at the far end of the aisle. Heedless of where the books really belonged, she shoved them onto the shelf and watched him approach.
How strong he looks, she thought, admiring his tall, muscular frame, pleased that she was wearing her new blouse and skirt.
She’s even lovelier than I remember, thought Jude, admiring her pert figure as he closed the distance between them. Their eyes met, the blue of hers sparkling and his darkly glittering. They smiled at one another, but before either of them had chance to say a word, Phoebe Littlewood came barging down the alley.
Amy saw her first. Her eyes widening, she gulped, ‘You’ll find it in the arts section, sir,’ and stepping around him, she hurried towards the head librarian. Surprised at being so suddenly and curtly abandoned Jude swung on his heel to follow her, but quick to assess the situation he stayed where he was. When he heard Phoebe ordering Amy to go and work in the storeroom until closing time, Jude trudged down the alley in search of a good book to salve his disappointment.
*
‘That’s the second time he’s been in this week. Is he pestering you or are you encouraging him, Amy? Miss Littlewood won’t like it, you know,’ Freda said, as they were putting their coats on at the end of the day.
Amy hid her reddening cheeks and her annoyance by picking up her bag and heading for the door. Freda hurried after her. She and Amy were old friends, but just lately Amy was beginning to find her irritating. Working in the library had turned Freda’s head. She had joined the staff less than a year ago, Amy having put in a good word for her, but the longer she worked there the more superior she considered herself. Demeaning and bossy, her know-all attitude had provoked Amy into telling her, ‘Just because you work in a place full of knowledge and culture doesn’t mean that you know the answer to everything.’ But what annoyed Amy most of all was Freda constantly telling her what she should think and do – that and the way she was all too keen to curry favour with the head librarian. And right now, she just wanted to get away from her.
‘Who is he, anyway?’ Freda continued, catching up with Amy on the library steps.
‘He’s a very pleasant young man, and I don’t need either your permission or Miss Littlewood’s to talk to him,’ Amy said tartly.
‘I’m just looking out for you, that’s all. You don’t know anything about him. He’s not from round here, and you need to be careful.’
‘Careful of what, Freda? Of making a friend without your approval? You don’t own me, but just lately you’re never done telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. And don’t think I don’t know it was you told Miss Littlewood I was talking to him.’
Freda shrugged. ‘Like I said, I thought he might be pestering you.’ She wouldn’t admit that she would have preferred it had Jude been pestering her. It was always the same. Amy always attracted the best-looking fellows.
*
Early the next morning, Jude was still thinking about Amy as the cage carrying a motley bunch of colliers began to rattle its way down the shaft. Up until now he had worked on the pit top; this was his first day underground. His stomach lurched painfully, and his nose clogged with the stink of human sweat and the acrid stench rising from below. He heaved a gusty sigh.
‘What makes a lad like you come to work in t’pit?’ ask
ed Bert, the hewer Jude had been assigned to that morning. It was his job to shovel the coal that Bert hewed into huge tubs, ready to be lifted to the surface.
‘It’s not by choice. It’s all I could get.’
‘None of us are ’ere by choice, lad, it’s cos we ’ave no bloody choice,’ said Bert caustically, ‘but never mind, you’ll get used to it.’ Jude wondered if that was true.
The cage clunked to a sickening halt, the doors scraping open. The miners stepped out into cold, damp, eerie gloom. Jude tagged along behind, dreadfully aware that above his head were tons of rock and soil. He shivered. Before him stretched a long, underground road hemmed in on both sides with slimy. Underfoot was rough and uneven and above his head the roof dipped then rose and dipped again.
‘What do you do when you’re not workin’?’ asked Bert. ‘I’ve not seen you in t’pub.’
‘I’m not much of a drinker. I spend most of my time reading.’
‘By, bloody hell, that’s not much fun; tha’ wants to get out an’ about,’ Bert exclaimed. They trudged onwards, the lights from their helmets casting elongated, menacing shadows against rugged walls.
About to disagree, and conscious of Bert’s advice to get out and about, Jude suddenly thought of the notice he had seen on a board outside the library. Instead he said, ‘I don’t know anybody in Barnborough to go out with, but I did see a notice advertising a dance in the Church Hall on Saturday night. Is it just for older folks or will there be young ’uns as well?’
‘Oh, aye, there’ll be a good crowd there. They don’t allow drink, mind, so you’ll not see me there, but you should go. You might be lucky an’ meet a nice lass.’
Jude knew exactly which nice lass he’d like to meet there. Lost in his imagination, he failed to react quickly enough to Bert’s ‘mind your head,’ and his helmet clanked resoundingly against low-hanging rock.
Jude plodded on, a sharp pain above both ears advising him to look where he was going. Gradually the procession of colliers grew fewer as, in twos and threes, they filed into stalls along the coal seam. Bert stopped at the next entrance and Jude followed him in. A short while later another coal hewer joined them. ‘How do, Seth?’ Bert said. ‘Has tha come to gi’ us a hand?’ Then stashing their tins that, like Jude’s, contained their dinners into a cleft in the stall’s wall they stripped off their jackets and shirts. Jude followed suit, his vest embarrassingly white and novice-like compared to Bert’s dingy grey. Laughing, Bert pointed a finger. ‘Tha’ll get that mucky afore t’shift’s over.’
He lifted a short-handled, double-edged pick that was leaning against the wall. ‘This is a nadger,’ he told Jude, swiping at the seam of coal running along one wall of the stall. ‘It’s a bloody good seam is this, it’s like hackin’ shite,’ he gasped, as glistening lumps of coal fell at his feet. Seth joined him. Jude shovelled coal into the nearest of the two huge metal tubs, Bert laughing raucously and shouting, ‘Keep up, lad! Put your back in it. We can’t do wi’ standin’ knee-deep in bloody coal.’ Jude laughed back, knowing that the good-natured Bert was only joking; he had been keeping up.
Midway through the shift they stopped to eat, squatting with their backs against the stall’s wall, Bert and Seth with their snap tins on their knees. Jude set his on the ground, opened it and took out a corned beef sandwich. Still munching, he reached for another. ‘Bloody hell,’ he roared, tossing the sandwich across the stall along with a writhing mass of shiny black beetles. Bert and Seth had laughed. ‘That’s summat else you’ll have to learn. Never leave your snap uncovered. Them buggers ’ud eat you given t’chance,’ said Seth. Hungry and embarrassed, Jude thought he would never get used to working down the pit.
By the end of that week every muscle and sinew in his body ached, but he’d kept pace with Bert and Seth and enjoyed their company. Bert droll and Seth placid, their ready humour and friendly advice made every day less onerous, and Jude had reached the conclusion that if he must work down the pit then he’d become a hewer; the men who cut coal earned three times that of a man shovelling it into tubs.
*
At Intake Farm a flurry of activity spilled from bedroom to kitchen as Amy and Freda prepared for the Easter dance in the Church Hall. Bessie smiled fondly, recalling the days when she had done much the same, anticipation of what the evening might hold always making her blood sing.
‘There,’ she said, fiddling with Amy’s lace collar, as Amy twitched impatiently.
‘Will you fasten my necklace?’ Freda dangled a string of gaudy beads under Amy’s nose. As Amy secured the clasp, she couldn’t help thinking that her pale blue tunic with its lace collar, worn over a long, straight skirt of deeper blue looked rather insignificant against Freda’s velvet dress. In a violent shade of emerald-green, it swathed Freda’s plump body in drapes and rolls. The necklace fastened, Freda performed a twirl, exclaiming, ‘I feel like a willow in this dress.’
Bessie held her tongue. Had she let it wag it would have said, ‘Aye, an’ look more like a Savoy cabbage.’
Silently and proudly, she noted that her daughter was by far the prettier of the two. Amy had pinned back her long, blonde tresses with tortoiseshell combs then let them fall into the nape of her slender neck, the whole effect enhancing her china-blue eyes and finely shaped brows. Far more attractive than Freda’s severely rolled, drab brown hair and eyes of a non-descript colour, thought Bessie, vainly attributing her daughter’s beauty to her own.
She watched Amy pirouette, and suddenly, from nowhere, she recalled the joy on Hadley’s face when she had presented him with a bonny, blue-eyed, blonde-haired daughter. It had been some seven months after she had left a motherless boy with her barren friend, Jenny Leas; a boy who was the image of Raffy Lovell. Had I known I was pregnant then I’d have most likely used it as a persuasive ploy, she thought, make Jenny jealous of my fertility had she refused to take the child. But Bessie didn’t want to remember that unsavoury incident so she shook her head vigorously to dispel the memory and cried, ‘You look a picture, our Amy; you remind me of when I was your age.’ Amy responded with a smile.
‘Are you ready for the off? The trap’s ready and waiting,’ barked Samuel, coming in from the yard, his best waistcoat and jacket straining at the seams. Used to seeing him dressed for work in a loose smock and corduroy britches, Amy thought he looked decidedly uncomfortable and even fatter. She had scant sympathy for the brother she considered to be a self-indulgent bully who, with his bulbous, blue eyes and fleshy bottom lip, was ugly inside and out. That he had no girlfriend didn’t surprise her in the least, although she suspected that Freda fancied him, goodness knew why.
Samuel glowered at Amy, and almost as if he had read her thoughts on his love life or the lack of it, he said, ‘And think on, our Amy, if Albert Sissons asks you to dance, don’t refuse him. He’s a good catch, is Albert. Don’t be dancing wi’ any colliers.’
‘We won’t,’ chirped Freda, ‘we don’t associate with mucky pit lads.’
Amy bristled. Who did Sammy and Freda think they were, telling her whom she could or could not dance with? She threw Samuel a disdainful glance. ‘Is that because you think Albert’s dad’ll sell you one of those new tractors cheaper?’ she asked sarcastically. Ernest Sissons owned a farm machinery business in Barnborough.
‘Just do as you’re told,’ growled Samuel, barging to the foot of the stairs. ‘Come on, Thomas. Get a move on. I’ll not wait all night.’
Thuds on the stairs heralded Thomas’s arrival. He blundered into the kitchen, a hint of fear on his gormless features at having kept his older brother waiting. ‘I can’t get this right,’ he moaned, indicating his clumsily knotted tie. Not dissimilar in appearance to Samuel, Thomas also carried too much weight but whereas his brother’s features were tightly supercilious his were flaccid, and his pale blue eyes held none of the malevolence that gleamed in Samuel’s. Indeed, for much of the time Thomas appeared utterly vacuous.
‘Come here, little lamb, let me do it for you.’ Thomas
hurried to his mother, glancing nervously at Samuel as Bessie fixed his tie. Another roar from Samuel had them all hastily making their way out of the house and piling into the trap. ‘Think on now, girls. Mind who you keep company with and don’t keep our Sammy waiting when he’s ready to come home,’ Bessie called out as she waved them off.
*
At the same time as the young folk at Intake Farm were preparing for the dance, a similar scene was being played out in a small terrace house in Barnborough.
‘There you are; that’ll do you.’ Lily Tinker handed Jude a freshly ironed, crisp white shirt. It was his one good shirt, worn only on special occasions, the last time being when he had applied for a clerk’s job at Barnborough Colliery. It hadn’t brought him much luck that day but tonight he hoped it might do the trick.
‘Thanks, Mrs Tinker,’ he said, thinking yet again that Lily was a smashing landlady and how fortunate he was to have made his home with her. A gregarious widow with a witty tongue and a warm heart, Lily mothered Jude just as she did her own son, Tommy.
‘Think on now, don’t be getting any lipstick on that collar – it’s a bugger to wash off,’ she said, her eyes twinkling.
Jude grinned. ‘Just on me lips then,’ he quipped, at the same time wondering if the girl whose lips he’d like to kiss would be at the dance. With her in mind he climbed the stairs to the bedroom he shared with Tommy. He hung the shirt on the same hanger that held his one good suit. Tailor-made from fine quality black worsted the suit was Jude’s pride and joy. He’d bought it from a secondhand stall in the market, its previous owner, no doubt deceased, having had good taste and a much larger income than his own. He didn’t object to wearing a dead man’s suit, not when it fitted him to perfection.
Tommy Tinker looked up from the shoe he was polishing. ‘I’m going to try for Mary Stockdale tonight, Jude. Do you think I’m in with a chance?’
The Collier’s Wife Page 4