by Maggie Hope
Peggy could too and she lay for a moment in disbelief before renewing her struggles. But he had her arms pinned down as with the other he flung her skirt over her head and forced one leg between hers. Peggy screamed but of course there was no one to hear her. Except the baby.
Behind her barrier of chairs, Merry began to wail, as Peggy stopped screaming and lay still.
Four
1893
Peggy emptied her bucket down the sluice and stayed for a moment, leaning against the cold ironstone slab. She had the pain in her chest again, the tight, gripping pain. She leaned forward and surrendered to it, closing her eyes. Gradually the pain lessened, faded into the distance where it remained threatening.
She was getting too old for this job, she told herself. The laundry was hot and steamy so that sometimes she was hard put to breathe and the buckets of water and baskets of dirty bedding were heavier by the week. But if she could just hang on for a few more months she could keep Ben at school until he was fourteen at least. A lad who was lettered could get a job at the Co-operative Society, the store, maybe even work in the office. By, it would be grand! And Ben was a clever lad, everyone said so. Didn’t he bring in a bob or two now, doing odd jobs and working as a delivery boy on Saturdays?
By, she thought, his beginnings had been terrible. She had tried all she could think of to get rid of him when he was in the womb. Once she had stood on the edge of the quarry and jumped, but the bairn had been a strong ’un, and had held on. All she had done was twist her ankle and bang her elbow so that walking had been painful for a fortnight.
It had been pretty gormless of her, she knew that now. Suppose she’d killed herself? What would Merry have done? She was nobbut a babby at the time. And how could she have done without her lovely Ben? He was a grand lad, whatever his beginnings.
‘What’s the matter, Granma?’
Merry had come into the sluice and seen her leaning over the brownstone slab. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘You look as white as a sheet. Is it the pain in your chest again? Will I get something from the doctor?’
‘No, don’t tell . . .’
But Peggy was too late, Merry had already gone into the ward where Dr Gallagher was doing a round with Sister Harrison. Seconds later she was back, followed by both the sister and doctor.
‘What’s all this then, Mrs Trent?’ Sister Harrison asked. If there was one thing she couldn’t abide it was the cleaning staff or indeed, any junior staff, interrupting a ward round for whatever reason. But Peggy didn’t care what Sister thought by this time. The pain was gripping her chest like a vice and was getting worse. She was slipping down onto the floor when Dr Gallagher caught her and picked her up as though she was a bairn. He strode into the ward and laid her – horror of horrors – on the clean bedspread of an empty bed.
‘Nurse!’ Sister called up the ward and a junior nurse came running. ‘Help me remove the bedspread at least,’ she ordered.
‘And make Mrs Trent comfortable,’ the doctor said quietly. He gazed searchingly at Peggy. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Better, Doctor, thank you.’ Peggy looked up at him anxiously. ‘I’d best get on with my work.’
‘Now then, I think you’d better stay where you are for today.’ He replied. ‘Even if you are feeling better.’
‘Merry shouldn’t have got you, I’m fine,’ said Peggy. And even Merry could see she was looking better. ‘It was just a turn, I’m over it now.’
‘There you are, no need to waste the doctor’s time then, is there?’ said Sister Harrison. She had one eye on the ward door for she was expecting Matron’s round and Matron was a stickler for the rules which stated that the beds were for the pauper inmates. Of course, if the woman was really ill it would be different but she said herself she was all right now.
‘My granddaughter can take me home, sir,’ said Peggy. Merry was standing at the bottom of the bed, watching anxiously. Dr Gallagher glanced at her – she was little more than a child, he thought. But he knew the rules as well as they did. He was well aware too that if the old woman lost her job she could easily be replaced by one of the workhouse inmates, some of whom were able-bodied.
Sister looked at the wall clock hanging over the entrance to the ward. It was close to finishing time for both Peggy and her granddaughter.
‘Go then, I’ll tell Matron you were unwell,’ she said. She pulled a face at the young doctor, which was intended to convey her dissatisfaction with the help brought in from outside Oaklands, the workhouse. But Dr Gallagher wasn’t looking at her, he was watching as Peggy climbed slowly off the bed. She stood up straight and had got a little colour back in her cheeks so perhaps she would be all right, he thought.
The ward door opened and Matron sailed in. She stared unsmiling at the group then looked to Sister Harrison who explained the situation.
‘You will have to come in half an hour early to make up the time tomorrow, Miranda Trent,’ said Matron. ‘As for you, Mrs Trent, we have no room for anyone who is not able to do the work. Merry can collect what is owing to you tomorrow. Goodbye.’
Dr Gallagher left the ward before he said anything he might regret. After all, it was the way of it, it was true that the Board of Guardians were hard pressed lately with some of the pits working short time. The men should move away and get jobs in a more prosperous part of the country but they were attached to the area. Goodness only knew why. He found it very depressing. His years in Edinburgh training had been very different.
He walked down the stairs and round to where his pony and trap were waiting, the pony chewing contentedly inside his nosebag. He gave the pauper lad watching it a ha’penny, even though it was strictly against the rules, but hell, he’d had enough of the rules.
He was just going out of the gates when he came across Mrs Trent and her granddaughter again – they were standing by the gates, looking lost and unsure. Both appeared to have been crying; the little girl, for that was all she was – she couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen – was supporting her grandmother with an arm around her and the old lady was leaning heavily on her.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Tom, pulling the pony to a halt. ‘Perhaps I can give you a lift.’
Peggy would have refused if she had only had the breath to do so. He was the son of that man; she hated the lot of them. But Merry looked suddenly hopeful.
‘We’re going to Old Jane Pit,’ she said. ‘If you can give us a lift as far as the end of the lane where the path goes down that would be grand. I don’t know what to do else.’
Tom jumped down from the cart. ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll help you up.’ He lifted them both on to the cart then clucked at the pony and set off.
‘Bless you, sir,’ said Merry. Peggy said nothing.
‘I didn’t know anyone still lived down there,’ said Tom over his shoulder.
‘No, Doctor. Not many do,’ said Merry. She glanced at Peggy. Her grandmother was so quiet she was beginning to worry again. But Peggy was all right, holding her head high and gazing out at the fields as they left the town and headed along the country road.
‘We will manage from here,’ said Merry as they reached the stile on the back road from Coundon. ‘I’m sorry we’ve brought you out of your way.’
‘I’ll help you down to old pit,’ said Tom. He had jumped down from the cart to help them alight and now he was tying the reins to the fence.
‘No!’ said Peggy and the two younger ones looked at her in surprise.
‘Granma?’
It just wasn’t like her grandmother to be so rude, especially when someone had done them a favour. Merry was embarrassed.
‘I . . . I can walk from here, it’s all downhill,’ said Peggy. ‘But thank you, Doctor.’ She set off down the field path.
‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘I have to be getting home in any case.’ Sometimes these heart cases were excitable, he told himself. In fact there was some medical opinion to the effect that it was their nature t
hat caused the problem. And the woman seemed to be walking all right now.
‘Thank you anyway,’ said Merry. ‘I’d better go after her. Thank you, Doctor.’ She hurried after her grandmother.
Well, the little girl seemed to have been taught her manners at least, thought Tom as he turned the cart and went back to the main road. She was a pretty little thing too, even if her hands were already rough and red and the nails broken down to the quick. He forgot about the odd couple as he drove the pony home, for he was hungry as a hunter and hoped Cook had made something tasty for dinner tonight.
Peggy always felt the same pain as she entered the deserted village. It was so full of memories for her. How the women used to talk to each other as they strung their washing across the street or gathered by the pump to fill their water buckets. The blowing of the pit hooter that used to warn them when the men were coming up to bank – coming off shift. The thought always came as she turned the corner and walked down the street with the grass coming up between the stones because no matter how they tried they couldn’t keep it down. Her men weren’t coming up in the cage ever again. They were going to lie in the pit forever.
Then Peggy would dismiss the thought as morbid, but somehow she couldn’t stop it coming. She did not look round to where the pit head buildings had stood, now just heaps of rubble. She never walked past them, taking a short cut to Winton Colliery, instead she took the field path.
‘I’ll go ahead and put the kettle on,’ said Merry, interrupting her dark thoughts. ‘Ben will have the fire lit, that’s one thing.’
A goat bleated a welcome as they approached, the third successor to Nannie. They had needed a goat when Ben was born and besides, it was nice to have fresh milk instead of the eternal condensed stuff; moreover it was cheaper and better for the bairns.
Ben came round the end of the house grinning a welcome. By, she thought, as she always did, she wished he had looked like her Lance. But he didn’t, he was tall and fair haired, with bones that were straight and strong, something the goat’s milk had done for him. So many of the miners’ children suffered from rickets, especially in the bad times. Now, he gazed at her with his blue eyes fringed with fair lashes.
‘I’ve lit the fire, Granma,’ he said. ‘An’ I’ve milked Betsy an’ all. Look though, I helped Mr Parkin in the hay field and he gave me a dozen eggs. Can we have them for our tea? He said I can help with the tatie picking an’ all, later on. Isn’t it grand?’
‘Have you finished your bookwork? You shouldn’t have been helping the farmer if you haven’t.’
‘I did, Granma, I did. I’ve done it all!’ Ben protested and she softened.
‘Aye, well, we’ll have boiled eggs for our tea,’ she said. ‘That’s a lovely treat you’ve got for us.’
Aye, he was a good lad, she thought as she went into the kitchen and sat down on the rocking chair. Only for a minute until she got her breath back.
She hadn’t wanted the lad, by no, she had not. When she stopped having her curses, she had thought it was the change and she had welcomed it. But time had proved her wrong, though it took her weeks to believe the evidence of her own body. She had been that shamed she wouldn’t go into Winton or Eden Hope for fear of meeting anyone she knew. That had been the worst time. Well, it was no good going over it now.
‘Are you all right, Granma?’ asked Merry.
‘I’m fine, lass. Howay now, let’s have our teas. Boil two eggs for Ben, he’s a growing lad, there’s a good lass.’
‘I will, Granma.’
It wasn’t until Merry and Ben were in bed that Peggy allowed herself to think about what she was going to do now she’d lost her job. She wasn’t going to get another one, she realised. No one was going to take on an old woman like her. She looked at herself in the small, square mirror in the door of the press. She looked nearer seventy-five than fifty-five, she thought dismally. She was past hard work. Well then, she would try to get something else. Sewing maybe, she could do plain sewing, couldn’t she? Mend sheets and that, patch clothes, she could do that. The problem was, who would give her work like that?
Anybody who wanted patching done wouldn’t be able to pay her. Anyone who had the money to pay her wouldn’t want mending done. Though mebbe they would, some of the folk in Winton were earning better money at the pit at the minute. And some of them were frugal enough.
The problem was she shrank from going into Winton. Of course they knew there was a young lad living with them now, for it had had to come out when he went to school. But they were unsure who he belonged to and he called her ‘Granma’, not ‘Mam’. There was one thing, few of them would think he was really hers. They would think she was too old. Though the women did have children in their forties, but usually they already had a large family.
Any road, she was tired. She would get ready for bed, she told herself. Yet she sat on in the light of the dying fire and in the end fell asleep with her head against the cushion Merry had made her for Christmas a year or two back. Her feet were propped up on the steel fender in front of her and she dreamed of the old days, when Tommy was alive.
‘Now then, lass,’ he said in her dreams. ‘No use sitting there like you can’t help yourself. Get theesel’ bestirred.’
Five
1880
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that,’ said Miles. ‘You made me mad.’
Peggy stared at him, a bitter, level stare. ‘Get out of my house,’ she said. He sounded as though he was apologising for standing on her toe or something like that. She was pulling her dress together with shaking fingers. A button had been pulled off in the struggle and she held the gaping place together with tight fingers.
‘You’re nowt!’ she said. ‘You’re not a man, no man would do that. Force a woman.’
The baby, who was sitting inside the makeshift pen, was watching them, tears rolling down her cheeks, her bottom lip jutting out. She had been screaming the whole time of the assault – loud, terrified screams – but her grandma had not come to comfort her and now she simply sobbed quietly. She pulled herself up by the back of a chair and hiccuped softly.
Peggy pulled her hair behind her head and twisted it deftly into a tight bun, tucking the ends in and sticking in a hairpin. Miles watched her. He was unsure what to do having never raped a woman in his life before, and he couldn’t believe he had done so now. And a miner’s widow, for God’s sake?
He cleared his throat. ‘You can stay here if you like,’ he said. ‘I won’t put you out.’
‘Very good of you, I’m sure,’ said Peggy. ‘Being as the place is derelict any road.’
She went over to Merry and took her out of the pen, holding her close, kissing her and wiping her wet cheeks with the corner of her apron. Outside, the snow had stopped falling and the sky was lightening.
‘You won’t tell—’
‘Of course I bloody won’t! Do you think I want to be shamed in Winton and Eden Hope?’
‘Can I get you anything? I can help.’
‘I reckon you’ve done enough helping for one day. Coming in here and eating my food and then …’
She couldn’t go on. She buried her face in the nape of little Merry’s neck.
‘I’ll go then.’
‘What are you waiting for?’
Standing with her back to the room she felt the cold draught as he opened the back door and went out. She sat and rocked the baby.
‘Whisht babby, whisht,’ she crooned and Merry, worn out with crying, dropped off to sleep. Peggy laid her on the old sofa and covered her with a piece of worn blanket. Then she drew the curtains tight shut; something she had not done for a long while. Once again she brought in the tin bath and boiled water, and added clean snow to cool it. Taking the bar of lye soap she scrubbed at herself in an effort to be clean again. But she didn’t feel really satisfied when she was finished, even though the skin of her thighs and belly looked red and angry and stung like fire.
Next day there was a thaw. Water dripped fro
m the broken guttering on the roof and the pump at the end of the street dripped both from the tap and the split in the pipe caused by the ice. A tiny river began to form in the middle of the street, black with coal dust against the white snow.
Peggy decided to try to get to Winton along the old line to bring in some oatmeal and condensed milk. She was wrapping the baby in her old shawl, tying it over her head and across her chest on top of the coat she had bought for her from the second-hand clothes stall on the market in the autumn, when there was a knock at the door.
Peggy stiffened. No one came to Old Pit these days. Indeed hardly anyone realised she was still there. Surely he hadn’t had the cheek to come back?
‘Hey, missus, are you all right?’
It was Bob, the colliery joiner. Though what he was doing there was a mystery. Peggy went to the door still carrying Merry.
‘The gaffer told us to come and fix the pump,’ he said. ‘An’ I brought a few bits of things an’ all.’
‘I don’t want them if they’ve come from—’ Peggy stopped herself in time before mentioning the agent. Bob was not noted for his close mouth and he would wonder aloud why she was talking about the man who even told the manager gaffer what to do. Folk would draw their own conclusions.
‘Eeh, thanks, Bob,’ she said. ‘I was just going into Winton to the store.’ She looked into the brown paper bag. There was a quarter of tea and a pound of oatmeal and two tins of milk. ‘Come on in,’ she said. ‘I’ll soon boil a drop of water and make a cup of tea. I’ll give you the money for the groceries.’
‘A cup will be welcome, missus,’ said Bob. ‘But I don’t want anything for the bits from the store, I didn’t buy them meself, like.’