by Maggie Hope
‘She’s nowt but a bairn, so she’ll do as she’s told,’ Robbie asserted. ‘Howay, Davey, give us a hand here.’
Davey opened his mouth to say something – he was tired and wet and wanted his supper and had had quite enough of tonight’s adventure.
‘It’s a working day the morn,’ he muttered.
‘What? Did you say summat?’ asked Robbie, giving his friend a hard stare.
‘Nay. I said nowt,’ said Davey and held out his hands to make a cradle with Robbie’s.
‘You understand, Dr Macready, the lad was caught out in the snowstorm last night. I’m a little worried about him; this morning he seems to have a fever. He should have had more sense than to go out on call to a panel patient in such atrocious weather. There was probably nothing much the matter with her anyway. You know what they’re like.’
Dr Macready grunted, a sound that could have meant anything. He thought of the family he had just left – four children down with whooping cough, two of them frail and unlikely to survive. But there was no point in fighting the prejudices of men like the mine agent who seemed to be permanently at war with the workforce.
‘I tell you plainly, I wanted Tom to take a private practice in the town,’ Miles went on. ‘What future is there in practising in a place like Winton Colliery?’
‘There is the satisfaction of helping people who need it,’ said Dr Macready, who had never been in a position to buy into a private practice and didn’t want to in any case.
‘If I could see my young colleague?’ The doctor grasped his black leather bag and turned to the stairs. ‘I have a surgery in half an hour.’
‘They’ll wait,’ said Miles but he led the way up the staircase to Tom’s room. Polly had been sitting by the bed but now she rose to her feet hurriedly and bobbed a curtsey.
Tom appeared to have been dozing but when the two men came into the room he came awake. His face was flushed and his eyes bright; a pulse beat at his temple, fluttering.
‘Perhaps you will help me, my dear,’ the doctor said to Polly and she stepped forward to unbutton Tom’s nightshirt so that Dr Macready could examine him. He took his time, making a thorough examination, then he smiled at Polly. ‘Cover him up, my dear,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘You don’t have to tell me, Doctor,’ Tom said in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘I can feel it.’
‘Rest easy, Doctor,’ Macready replied. ‘You have nothing to do but get well. You know the importance of rest as well as I do.’ He motioned to Miles who had been standing silently by, almost as shocked by the deteriorisation he saw in Tom as he had been by the appearance of his son late the evening before. He followed the doctor out of the room.
‘How do you find him, Doctor? You should have been here sooner! But the weather, we couldn’t get hold of you—’
‘I don’t think a few hours delay would make a great deal of difference,’ Macready interrupted. ‘You did the right thing, putting him straight to bed and keeping him warm. I got here as soon as I could.’ In fact he had been up all night, first with a difficult birth and then the children with whooping cough. These he hoped to get into Oaklands today if the roads were clear enough for the horse ambulance – then, perhaps, he would be able to snatch a few hours sleep this afternoon. Except that Tom’s surgery would have to be attended now as well as his own.
‘He has acute double pneumonia and will have to have professional nursing,’ the doctor said now. ‘I can arrange for that if you wish; a day and a night nurse is essential. I won’t hide the fact that the crisis could go either way when it comes.’ Miles paled and Dr Macready looked at him keenly. ‘Sit down man, you’ve had a shock. I assure you I’ll do my best for him, apart from his being a friend of mine he is a very good doctor and we can’t afford to lose anyone of his calibre. But with poulticing and the right treatment . . .’ He let the sentence trail off.
Miles had recovered himself and now rose to his feet.
‘Thank you Doctor, I’m sure you will. I’ll let you go now, I’m sure you need to get on with it.’ He led the way to the door, his attitude plainly saying waste no more time. After Macready had gone, he stood in the hall for a moment, biting his lip. Briefly he thought of the other one – was he being paid back for his treatment of him? Miles shook his head, dismissing the thought. It was stupid; he didn’t believe in such things. He climbed the stairs to Tom’s room. The lad would recover – why shouldn’t he? He would have the best treatment he could possibly get.
Merry was laid on the horsehair settee in the corner of the Wrights’ kitchen. Apart from the fact that her ankle throbbed and the horsehair pricked her legs through her thin skirt, she was desperately uncomfortable.
Mrs Wright didn’t want her there; she made that fact obvious having said hardly anything to her since Robbie and Davey brought her in.
‘Merry lives at Oaklands,’ Robbie had explained to his mother. ‘She can’t get home tonight, not when she can’t walk. I knew you wouldn’t mind if I brought her here, Mam.’
Mrs Wright didn’t answer, nor did she smile a welcome. She simply stared at the girl so that embarrassment filled Merry. She considered asking Robbie to take her to the Hawthornes, for surely they wouldn’t turn her out. But Robbie was taking off his pit boots and stretching his legs out on the fender towards the fire. She couldn’t ask him to go out again.
Doris Wright lifted the heavy iron kettle from the fire and mashed the tea in her large brown pot with the cracked lid. When it was brewed she poured tea into a pint pot and added three sugars before handing it to Robbie. Robbie glanced up at her.
‘Give Merry a cup of tea, Mam,’ he said mildly. He winked at Merry and said by way of excusing his mother, ‘She always thinks of me and Da first, like.’
His mother poured a cup of tea and added a spoonful of condensed milk and took it over to the girl. ‘What sort of a name is Merry, then?’ she asked as she held it out.
‘It’s short for Miranda. My gran said it was her mother’s name,’ said Merry. ‘Thank you for the tea.’ She took a sip of the dark-brown liquid, which was hot and sickly sweet.
‘It sounds daft to me,’ said Doris. She looked at her son and back at the girl. Merry could almost see what was going through her mind. Mrs Wright thought Merry was setting her cap at her only son and she didn’t like it.
‘We can’t help our names, Mam,’ said Robbie. He smiled at Merry. ‘How does your ankle feel now, lass?’
‘Not so bad,’ said Merry, though in truth the pain from it was making her feel sick. She was beginning to think a bone was broken and if it was, what would she do? Already Sister thought she wasn’t reliable, coming on to the ward tired and late because she had been out looking for Ben.
The thought of Ben brought it all back – finding the piece of cloth yesterday in the entrance of that ancient drift mine.
‘What’s up?’
Robbie had been watching her and noticed immediately when her expression changed to one of distress. ‘Is it worse? Should I go and get the doctor?’
‘Don’t be so bloody daft, man,’ said his mother. ‘Dr Gallagher would be spitting blood if you called him out on a night like this just ’cause a lass has sprained her ankle.’
Something stopped Merry from saying the doctor had already seen her ankle. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I was just remembering –’ how could it ever have slipped from her mind? ‘– I was up in the woods looking to see if I could see any sign of where Ben had gone and I found this.’ She pulled the square of cloth from her pocket.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a patch from Ben’s trousers.’
‘Where did you find it?’ Robbie leaned forward to get a good look at the piece of cloth. ‘We were all over there when we were looking for the lad.’
‘In the entrance of an old drift mine.’
‘Eeh, I didn’t know there was one there.’
‘Yes. Up by that rock overhang, behind the bushes. The entrance is all overgrown but if you look ha
rd enough you can see it. It was covered with wooden planks at one time but they’ve rotted away. And so has one or two pit props from just inside. There’s been a fall of stone there, where the pit props have fallen.’
Merry began to cry, suddenly overwhelmed by everything – the realisation that Ben was probably under the rubble in that forsaken mine entrance; that she had forgotten him because she herself had a bit of pain from a sprained ankle. She had even acted like a loose woman with Dr Gallagher, letting him do what he liked. The inside of her thighs and her knickers still felt wet with it. And Ben lying there under the rubble unheeded. She was bitterly ashamed of herself.
Robbie walked over to her and knelt beside her. ‘Never mind, lass, I’ll get the doctor the morn when I get back from the pit. I have to go in a minute, I’m on fore shift, but I’ll go for him, I promise. And me mam will look after you, won’t you, Mam?’
He patted her head clumsily and offered her a grimy handkerchief. ‘You’ll be all right, Merry, I’ll look after you. See if I don’t.’
Robbie was absorbed in her and so didn’t see his mother’s expression as she stood behind him, but Merry did. Doris Wright was spitting fire, and looked as though she was ready to consign Merry to the flames of hell or at least throw her out of the house into the snow. But she said nothing, at least, not in words, though her gaze at the girl was full of hate and spoke volumes.
Fourteen
The Guardians have decided that in view of your poor work record they have no alternative but to rescind their offer of financial support for you to train as a nurse at Newcastle General Hospital. We are reluctantly making this decision, especially as you showed such promise when you first applied.
Reliability and dedication to the work is essential in nursing staff and we feel these are qualities of which you do not show sufficient evidence. Dedication especially is essential and nothing must interfere with your duty.
We have to tell you therefore that your employment at this hospital is now terminated.
The letter was addressed to Merry at the house on the end of Middle Row, the Wrights’ house, for she was still there. It was signed by the Clerk to the Guardians and it was from the Wrights’ house that she had written to the Board two days before, explaining her absence from the wards.
She stared at it in disbelief. It just couldn’t be true; it must be some nasty prank being played on her. How could she help it if she had broken her ankle? For that was what was wrong with it, Dr Macready had told her, when he put it in a splint of gutta-percha bound with a flannel bandage.
‘It should heal quickly if you don’t put any weight on it, lassie,’ he had told her. ‘Come to see me in a month’s time at the surgery. It’s not a bad break, I’m sure.’ In fact he was not entirely sure it was broken at all but in such cases he considered it best to treat a suspected break like an obvious one.
Merry hardly believed it was broken, preferring to believe Dr Gallagher who had said the night it happened that he didn’t think it was broken at all, but was merely sprained. Tom Gallagher – the thought of him made her tingle. She couldn’t think of him, not now.
‘Are you sure it’s broken, Doctor?’ she had asked Dr Macready anxiously. He had frowned blackly and Merry had blushed – it was an impertinence to question a doctor’s judgement. Yet her time working at the workhouse hospital had taught her that doctors did not always know as much as ordinary people thought . . . though she trusted Dr Gallagher.
Hurriedly Merry got to her feet with the aid of a sweeping brush with a clean duster over the bristles; it made a reasonable crutch. She limped over to the table and began to clear the dirty crockery left there since breakfast into an enamel bowl. Every time she saw the frowning disapproval of Robbie’s mother she felt she ought to be trying to find somewhere else to live – anywhere – a spare corner out of everyone’s way where she could wait until she could walk on her damaged ankle.
Now she hopped to the fireplace, lifted the kettle and poured hot water over the pots. She added soda and a grating of coarse yellow soap, and began to wash up, standing on one foot and bending the other leg so that she was supporting it on a chair.
Doris Wright came in from the yard where she had been dashing pit clothes against the coalhouse wall to get rid of the caking of coal dust which covered them after every shift underground. She deposited them in the corner by the fire where they would be ready for Robbie to wear. He was on night shift this week and would be going out at three o’clock. She spoke in a low voice because he was in bed.
‘Haven’t you done those pots yet? Oh, get out of the way, I haven’t time to wait all day for you.’ She shoved Merry aside, almost causing her to topple to the floor. As it was, Merry saved herself by grabbing hold of the table. Doris didn’t appear to notice. Feeling utterly defeated, Merry sat down.
‘I’ve got the sack from the hospital,’ she said.
Doris looked at her, her thin lips tightening. She turned away and walked to the door as though going out, then turned back.
‘And what are you going to live on, miss? ’Cause it’s bloody certain you cannot live on us, nor our Robbie neither. It’s time you found somewhere else an’ if the only place is the workhouse you’ll have to go there, won’t you?’ She glared at Merry, her hands on her hips.
‘I’ll keep meself, thank you!’ said Merry.
‘Oh aye. And how are you going to do that exactly? Live on fresh air, can you?’ Doris taunted. ‘You had a good job an’ a better chance than most other lasses around here and what did you do wi’ it? Chucked it away, that’s what. No, you’re angling to trap my lad so you’ll have a meal ticket for life, that’s what. Don’t think I haven’t seen you making eyes at him ’cause I have!’
‘I haven’t, no, I haven’t,’ cried Merry, feeling sick, but Doris Wright was past listening. All the pent-up resentment she had been harbouring since Robbie brought the girl into her house was pouring out now.
‘My Robbie’s a good lad; he’s going to take his under manager’s ticket. He could marry a lass wi’ a bit behind her. He doesn’t have to marry a nowt like you that’s been living up in Old Pit among falling down houses ’cause she couldn’t get anything better. An’ that’s another thing, all this tale about a lost brother, why man, nobody believes a word you say about him. Ben Trent? There never was a lad called Ben Trent. If there was he never went to school here. He wasn’t baptised at the chapel neither.’
‘There was, of course there was.’ Merry was amazed that anyone should say such a thing. It was as though Ben was of no account, had never been of any account. It was true that Gran had kept them away from Winton Colliery, and Eden Hope an’ all for that matter, and Ben had gone to school in Shildon. But he had gone to school, she could prove it.
Suddenly she remembered that the policeman at Bishop had been sceptical when he discovered she didn’t have a birth certificate for Ben, after which he hadn’t bothered looking for him much.
‘Ben was my brother! No, I mean, he is my brother, I’m telling you.’ He was alive, she was sure Ben was still alive. Robbie and his marras hadn’t found a thing when they moved the pitfall in the old mine. Though of course they hadn’t been able to move it all. But Doris was speaking again, cruelly and sarcastically.
‘Oh aye? Then mebbe you can tell me how it is your mam died when you were born? I know she did ’cause Etty Morrison told us before she went off yon side of Durham. So what was it, a miracle birth? Or did your gran pinch him from the gypsies?’
Doris laughed, a hard, amused, cruel laugh. That was a good joke she’d made.
Merry looked at her, fighting back the tears, for she wasn’t going to let this spiteful biddy know just how much she had been hurt. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘I’ll go as soon as I can.’
‘Aye well, you haven’t got much to pack,’ Doris jeered.
‘Don’t worry about that. I have plenty of clothes in my room at the hospital.’ She had a spare shift and pair of knickers and petticoat, much patched. And
of course, her Sunday best dress.
‘Aye well, you won’t have far to move them, will you? Just to the workhouse next door.’
Merry opened her mouth to retort but both women were stopped in their tracks by the roar from upstairs.
‘What the hell is all the racket? Can a man not have his sleep in peace without being woken up in the middle of it?’
Robbie came thumping down the stairs in his bare feet, his trousers pulled on anyhow over his nightshirt and his braces hanging down by his sides.
‘Did she wake you up, son? Eeh, I’m sorry, she just wouldn’t shut her gob,’ cried Doris.
‘Aw, Mam, you were shouting an’ all. How a man is supposed to go to work when he cannot sleep—’ Robbie stopped as he saw Merry pulling on her coat and wrapping her head and neck in a shawl. ‘Where are you going? You’re not fit, man, you cannot walk yet!’
‘She’s going back to the workhouse where she belongs,’ his mother said calmly and Robbie shot her a venomous look.
‘I have to go, Robbie,’ said Merry quietly. ‘I have to get my things, anyway. I’ve lost me job.’
‘But where are you going? You’ve nowhere to go, have you?’
‘I can always go back to Old Pit,’ said Merry.
‘Aye, go on. I heard there was a gang of tinkers there any road, and like goes to like,’ Doris jeered. Robbie ignored her.
‘You can stay here, never mind what she says,’ he said and his mother gasped.
‘Robbie!’
‘No, I have to go, Robbie,’ said Merry. ‘Thank you both for having me,’ she said formally. ‘I hope I can borrow the broom. I’ll bring it back when I can.’ She slipped out of the door.
‘Wait! I’ll get me boots on—’
But Merry was away, hastening down the yard as fast as she could considering her splinted ankle, and set off down the row to the corner where she hoped to get the ten o’clock horse bus that went into Bishop Auckland. The cobbles were slippy with ice where the sun had not yet reached them, so her progress was slow and she was panting by the time she got to the end of the row, but luckily the bus was standing there with only a few people sitting on it.