The Miner’s Girl

by Maggie Hope

  The driver was untying a nosebag from his horse’s head. ‘’Ere lass, I’ll give you a hand up,’ he said and took hold of her arm.

  ‘Never you mind, I’ll do it.’

  Merry glanced round. Robbie had come after her, his jacket slung on anyhow and his pit boots unlaced. He was collarless and his shirt neck was open.

  ‘Robbie, you shouldn’t. I told you I could manage,’ she said. ‘You need your sleep, you’re on shift the night.’

  ‘I won’t sleep now, not a wink,’ Robbie said grimly. ‘I’ll follow you down. I’ll take the path through the woods and be there as soon as you, likely. I’ll just get me coat and scarf.’

  The women already on the bus watched the two with interest.

  ‘It looks like Robbie Wright is sweet on that lass,’ one observed to her friend.

  ‘I bet Doris Wright is spitting feathers about that an’ all,’ her friend replied.

  As the horse clopped its way down the road and around corners, stopping now and then to pick people up – it was Thursday and market day in Auckland and the town would be full of housewives from the surrounding pit villages – Merry allowed herself the luxury of thinking about everything that had happened.

  She had been so sure that Ben was under the rubble in the entrance to the ancient drift mine. Yet she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Desperately she wanted him to be alive, to be at sea, to be somewhere, anywhere on this earth. But she knew him too well – Ben would not have deserted her, she was certain he would not. She rubbed her forehead with her forefinger, felt the pulse that beat there. A fog of unhappiness clouded her mind.

  Merry allowed herself to think of Tom, remembering the feel of him beside her in the house in Old Pit. The warmth of him, the touch of his hands, how he made her feel safe and taken care of. He had aroused feelings in her she had never suspected she was capable of. In a way she felt guilty at the strength of those feelings for surely all her thoughts should have been concentrated on the fact that she thought she had found Ben, on her grief for Ben.

  The bus was approaching the market place in Bishop Auckland and the passengers were stirring, gathering together shawls and baskets. She could hear the fishwives from Shields, calling their wares.

  ‘Caller herring, fresh cod, drawn from the North Sea this very morning!’

  The horse stopped at the edge of the market, puffing and blowing with distended nostrils. Merry limped down the steps, the pain in her ankle excruciating for, of course, she hadn’t brought the makeshift crutch made from Doris Wright’s sweeping brush. Still, she had a small store of money, one pound eleven and twopence to be exact, and she could buy a cheap walking stick from the stall next to the fishwives. It cost one and threepence but it had a rubber tip so wouldn’t slip on the cobbles. It was a long walk up to Oaklands and all uphill. She hobbled along, stopping at times as the crowds surged around her up the road that was straight as a die, for it had been a Roman road.

  In spite of her predicament, Merry was feeling a little hopeful. Though Tom had not been to see her at all since that night, and must have known where she was, Dr Macready had said something about having to do two men’s work, so there could have been a good reason for it. But surely he would be at the hospital; this was his time to be there. She could bump into him at any time. She paused and gazed into Lipton’s window, not at the display of tinned goods and packets of tea but at her reflection against them. She wished she had had time to tidy herself better, but she could go to her room and wash and comb her hair – perhaps even put on her good dress now that she was no longer expected to wear a uniform apron. She did look a bit like a waif at the minute.

  There was his overcoat too, though it was still at the Wrights’ house. She had the coat to return to him; she could mention it. Her thoughts were interrupted as a shadow came behind her, blotting out her image in the glass.

  ‘Robbie! You shouldn’t have come, I can manage. You need your bed if you’re to work tonight.’

  ‘I’ll get a couple of hours later. I wanted to make sure you would be all right. Howay, you can lean on me to walk up to Cockton Hill.’

  Merry looked at him and sighed. He acted as though they were going together and they weren’t – she was nobody’s lass. And she didn’t want to meet Dr Gallagher while she was leaning on Robbie’s arm.

  ‘If any of the other lads see you they’ll have a laugh,’ she said and it was true. Men, proper men didn’t link arms with lasses, not pitmen didn’t. His marras would call him a Nancy-boy if they caught him doing that.

  Robbie wasn’t a bit bothered. ‘They wouldn’t dare, man,’ he said cheerfully. ‘If they did they might end up with a smashed nose or a broken head. Nay, they won’t mess wi’ me.’

  Merry had to admit it was a great relief to have his hard, well-muscled arm to lean on. It didn’t take long to reach the workhouse and the hospital wards behind.

  ‘Wait out here, please, Robbie,’ said Merry. ‘I won’t be long. I just have to see Matron and collect my things. Then you can help me find a lodging house.’

  ‘You can come away home wi’ me,’ said Robbie. ‘I’ll soon put me mam straight, she won’t bother you.’

  ‘I’d best be on my own,’ said Merry and he was silent. He might say what he would do but Merry knew Doris was the boss in their house.

  The interview with Matron was short. It was a waste of time appealing to her, the meeting of the Board of Guardians had made the decision and Matron could do nothing about it even if she wanted to, which evidently she did not.

  ‘You have proved yourself unreliable, Miss Trent,’ she said. ‘I would have thought you would be grateful for the chance to train properly that the Guardians were prepared to give you. You let them down badly, didn’t you?’

  ‘I couldn’t help hurting my ankle, Matron,’ Merry ventured.

  ‘No excuses, Miss Trent. I cannot abide excuses.’

  ‘No Matron, I’m sorry. But I hoped I would be able to use my room at least until my leg is better.’

  Matron looked affronted. ‘Use the room? Certainly not, Miss Trent. It will be needed for someone more deserving. You may go now and please ensure you clear your things and have the room clean and tidy within the hour. If you don’t mind, Miss Trent.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Miss Trent, if you are desperate for somewhere to stay perhaps you can satisfy the Guardians you are destitute and want to enter the workhouse?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t,’ Merry said quickly. ‘I can manage. I just thought . . . well, never mind. I will find somewhere, don’t worry about me.’ She lifted her chin in the air and limped to the door. Dare she ask about Dr Gallagher? She had nothing to lose, she told herself, and turned back to Matron.

  ‘I wonder if you could tell me if Dr Gallagher is in the hospital, Matron. He was kind to me and I want to say goodbye.’

  If it was possible, Matron looked more affronted than she had before. ‘No he is not, and if he were I shouldn’t think he’d want such as you bothering him.’

  ‘He’s not here?’ Merry was despairing and Matron’s expression became even more forbidding.

  ‘That’s what I said. Dr Gallagher does not work here any more.’

  Matron was not prepared to discuss a doctor with this girl any more. ‘I think you should go, Miss Trent,’ she said, rising to her feet and Merry went.

  He didn’t work at the hospital any more and he wasn’t working in his practice at Winton Colliery. Tom had disappeared, just as Ben had disappeared. Merry was defeated. It was obvious that Tom had left to get away from her, she thought. Otherwise he would have got in touch with her – he could surely have found her in a small place like Winton Colliery?

  Miserably she went to her tiny cubbyhole of a room where she packed her straw box and tied it round with her grandfather’s leather belt. Then she went out of the workhouse grounds to where Robbie was waiting, leaning against the high wall, watching the folk go by.

  Fifteen

  ‘I’d best stay in
a lodging house tonight,’ said Merry. She and Robbie were standing in the market place. They had been waiting for the horse bus to take them back to Winton Colliery, but thinking about it as she stood there waiting, she had decided not to go after all. She fingered the purse in her pocket, feeling the few coins through the thin fabric and wondering how much it cost to stay in a lodging house. Perhaps she had enough to last the week at any rate.

  ‘You’ll come away home with me,’ declared Robbie. ‘Me mam’s bark is worse than her bite, man, she won’t let you stay out in the cold.’

  ‘Will she not?’ Merry murmured. She thought Doris Wright would cheerfully let her stay out in the cold, would even chase her out with a broom, the one she herself had been using as a crutch. She put her bandaged foot on the ground experimentally, trying her full weight on it. ‘It feels a bit better, Robbie. I don’t think it is broken. If I find a place in the town this afternoon I can look for a job the morn.’

  Robbie snorted. ‘Don’t talk so daft, lass. You’d be much better coming home. There’s others would take you in any road.’

  Merry thought about it. Of course there were the Hawthornes, but she didn’t really know them that well, even though Jim Hawthorne had sold them the goat. No, she would not put herself back in the position where she was beholden to anyone as she had been at the Wrights’ house.

  ‘I’ll stay in the town,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow I’ll get a job, you’ll see.’

  ‘Oh aye, and what about your leg?’ asked Robbie. ‘Going to hop to work then?’

  ‘It’s getting better,’ said Merry. ‘I’ve got my things now an’ all. If I stay here I can start looking for work first thing in the morning.’ She lifted her bundle. ‘I won’t come back with you now, Robbie, I’ll find a place don’t bother about’ me.’

  ‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’

  Merry looked at him going red in the face, his temper rising in a way that reminded her of his mother. But he wasn’t going to stop her, not now she had made up her mind.

  ‘I’m off,’ she said. ‘Thanks any road.’ With a tremendous effort she managed to stop herself from limping as she made towards Bondgate.

  ‘Merry!’

  Robbie started after her and caught hold of her arm. ‘You’ll do as I say, or—’

  ‘No, Robbie, I won’t,’ she said determinedly. People were in the market place, waiting for horse buses or wandering round the stalls and they were beginning to take notice. One burly stallholder started towards them as though he was going to intervene.

  ‘Let the lass alone,’ he shouted and Merry took advantage of the fact that Robbie turned away to face the stallholder to slip away in the crowd, and was soon walking along the narrow street that was Bondgate. There were a couple of small lodging houses there; she had often seen the notices in the windows. Once she heard Robbie shout her name but she didn’t look back.

  He had helped her a lot and she should be grateful to him, she knew, and felt guilty. But she wasn’t about to let him tell her what to do. And she wasn’t going back to his mother’s house, not even if she starved. Besides, she had a plan. She wasn’t going to starve, she was going to make something of herself even if she had to start scrubbing floors or working on the coal screens at some pithead.

  * * *

  It was almost dark when Merry made her way up the drive of Miles Gallagher’s house. She hadn’t been thinking of it as the agent’s house at all, just as somewhere she might get news of Tom. Once she had got somewhere to live the worry about Tom came to the front of her thoughts, for something must have happened, she was sure of it. Tom would not just abandon his work at the workhouse hospital, nor his surgery in Winton. Nor was he the sort of man who would take a girl down then forget about her, no, he was not.

  She would just ask at the house if he were there, if he was all right. Her leg throbbed as she hobbled up the drive and she knew she should rest it – she would, just as soon as she found out about Tom.

  Merry had rented a tiny room in Back Bondgate. She had had to pay 3/6d in advance and she knew there was no way she could pay for a second week unless she got a job. She was walking now with the help of the stick but tomorrow she would have to walk without it, she knew that. No one would take on someone who needed a walking stick.

  A horse came trotting round the corner of the house and Merry shrank into the hedge for it was Mr Gallagher, Tom’s father, the man she had been dreading meeting. But of course he had seen her and pulled up his horse beside her and glared down.

  ‘What are you doing here? Get off my property or I’ll call the constable,’ he said, his tone as harsh as his expression.

  ‘I want to see Dr Gallagher,’ said Merry, standing her ground. She hadn’t done anything wrong, so he had no right to speak to her like that, she thought and lifted her chin, determined not to be browbeaten by him.

  ‘Do you indeed? And why did you want to see him?’

  ‘I have a message for him. I have his coat; he left it.’

  ‘Well, you won’t see him here,’ said Miles. ‘And if you have his coat why haven’t you brought it?’ He stared at Merry searchingly. ‘Aren’t you the girl I saw with him in his trap once? Pestering him, are you? Well, you won’t any more, my girl. Now be off with you before I do call the constable. Or take this to you!’

  He raised his whip threateningly and she shrank away instinctively.

  ‘Go on, you heard what I said.’

  Miles was grinning, now he’d seen the flash of fear in her eyes. Merry turned and went down the drive, forcing herself to walk rather than run. Behind her she heard the horse start to follow her but she did not look round. She had forgotten all about her ankle though her hand gripped the stick, ready to do battle if she had to. At the gate she turned for the market place, still not looking back, on edge, her pulse racing, her tense muscles aching. She did not relax until the sound of the horse’s hooves faded away as Miles Gallagher took the opposite direction. Suddenly her ankle throbbed painfully, though it was not as painful as her feeling of humiliation.

  Back in her attic room in Back Bondgate, Merry sat on the bed, for there was no chair, and munched the penny dip she had bought from the butcher down on the street. The bread bun contained no meat but it had been dipped in the juices and fat that had come out of the meat the butcher had roasted only that morning and it was tasty and satisfying. Then she drank the sweet tea she had brought up from the kitchen she shared with all the other tenants and lay back on the bed.

  She needed to rest her leg – had to if she was ever going to get work to pay for her room and food. She closed her eyes but sleep didn’t come, not at first. She thought about Tom and his father. She had been wrong about Tom; he must be keeping out of her way. He didn’t want to see her. Maybe he was just like his father and despised her. She saw his face in her imagination and she couldn’t really believe that. No, his eyes were kind; he worked hard for workhouse folk, didn’t he? And the people of Winton spoke well of him. Anyway, he looked more like Ben than his father, she thought drowsily. Even if all three had the same colour eyes, his father’s were cold and hard.

  Something niggled at her as she drifted into sleep – there was something about the Gallaghers, what was it? But the warmth of the bed and a full stomach lulled her and she slept.

  At nine o’clock the next morning Merry was walking down Newgate Street once again. She was thankful that the swelling in her ankle had almost gone, as had the pain, so at least that meant it wasn’t broken. She had even been able to leave her stick behind in the lodging house. She wore her black serge skirt, which she had sponged and cleaned only a day or two before when she was living at Winton Colliery, and her only decent blouse under her shawl.

  The sun shone and there was an air of coming spring about. Everyone she passed seemed to look cheerful at the change in the weather, and Merry’s natural optimism bubbled inside her. She would go up one side of Newgate Street and down the other, she decided, looking at all the notices in the windows for any tha
t advertised for help wanted. Surely someone would employ her? Of course they would, all she had to do was persevere. Hadn’t Sister Harrison once said that anyone could get work if they tried hard enough? Merry had wondered about that at the time but now she was going to put it to the test.

  She had walked all the way to Cockton Hill and back on the other side of Newgate Street, almost into the market place once again, when she saw a notice in Turner’s newsagent shop.

  ‘Boy wanted to sort and deliver newspapers and do odd jobs,’ it read. ‘Apply within.’

  She could do that, she thought and better than any boy.

  ‘I can do it,’ she insisted to Mr Turner. ‘As good as any boy and better.’

  ‘It’s not the job for a lass,’ said Mr Turner.

  ‘What’s the difference? I’m strong, let me try, please. I need a job, really, mister, I do.’

  Mr Turner hesitated and looked at her searchingly. She was a little under average height but she was young and strong – he could tell by her hands she had been used to hard work. And he was sick of training up boys who more often than not got up to tricks when they should have been doing their rounds and were less than useless in the shop.

  ‘I’ll work for nothing for two days and show you what I can do,’ said Merry. ‘Please, mister.’

  ‘It only pays seven shillings a week any road,’ said Mr Turner. He had reduced the amount by sixpence on the spur of the moment.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Merry though she had been hoping for more. She stared at the grizzled man with pepper and salt sideburns and stomach bulging slightly under the waistband of his trousers. Please say yes, she prayed.

  ‘Three days trial for nothing?’ he asked.

  ‘I . . . all right,’ Merry said, though she would have to do without her dinner for one of those days.

  ‘Can you start now? Mind though, today will just be a half day. It’s twelve o’clock already.’