The Miner’s Girl

by Maggie Hope

  It was beautiful despite the fact that there was smoke from colliery stacks in two or three places, curling up into the blue of the sky. But from this height, even the slag heaps were distant and not out of place against the burgeoning green of the surrounding farms and woods. To the right, on the facing hill, lay the town, running along the ridge high over the Wear.

  Tom smiled to himself, at the feeling of coming home, even though he lived only a few miles away. He was determined that before the weekend was over he would have matters resolved with Merry – she had said he was Benjamin’s father, hadn’t she? He felt a pleasurable thrill of anticipation at the thought of seeing her again. Everything would work out fine – he knew it would. But first he had to have a serious talk with his father and this time he wanted the truth about everything that had happened.

  ‘Mr Gallagher is in the study, sir,’ Polly said formally. ‘Will I tell him you’re here?’

  ‘No, it’s all right, you get on, Polly,’ Tom replied and crossed the hall to the study door, opening and closing it behind him. Miles was sitting at his desk with a pile of papers in front of him. For a man in his sixties he was still erect, strong and alert, still ambitious.

  ‘Tom!’ he cried. ‘It’s good to see you, son.’ He rose to his feet and walked forward a couple of steps, his bad temper on the telephone apparently forgotten, but his welcoming smile slipped away when he saw Tom’s expression. ‘What have I done now?’ he asked.

  Tom jumped straight in. ‘Why did you not tell me Merry Trent was expecting my baby?’

  ‘What? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tom. I don’t even know anyone called Trent.’ Even as he said it the memory came to him of the broken-down old cottage in the deserted village of Jane Pit and the woman and little girl living there.

  ‘Of course you do. You turned her away when she came looking for me, didn’t you?’

  ‘I told you—’

  ‘Don’t bother. I know you’re lying.’

  Miles shrugged. ‘Oh, what the hell! So a miner’s brat who’d got herself into trouble came crying to me saying it was you. I sent her away, of course I did. Of course she wanted to claim the father was someone better than those ruffians she had probably been with. Anyway, I had my hands full with you, in bed with pneumonia and likely to die. I couldn’t be bothered with the lass, why should I? Even if you had been there it doesn’t mean it was you, it could have been any number—’

  ‘Shut your dirty mouth,’ said Tom. ‘I know the child is mine. I know Merry too – she was nursing at Oaklands when I was there. She is not promiscuous. And I intend to take responsibility for him. I will marry her and adopt the boy legally, that is if she’ll have me. And there is not a thing you can do about it.’

  ‘Tom! Think what you’re about; you can’t possibly know he’s yours.’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘Seen him? Of course I haven’t damn well seen him.’

  ‘If you did you would know he was mine. There is a strong family likeness.’

  ‘I don’t care who he looks like, she can’t prove a thing. Don’t be a bloody fool, Tom!’

  Tom walked to the door but before opening it he turned and gazed at his father. ‘I’m going now. I don’t want to hear another word from you. I will never forget you turned her away as you did. If it weren’t for you we—’

  Whatever Tom had been going to say he changed his mind abruptly and went out, ignoring Polly who was hovering in the hall and banging the front door behind him. Polly lost no time in running to the kitchen to regale the other servants with what she had heard from behind the closed door of the study.

  ‘Aye well,’ said Edna, nodding her head as though she had known all along, ‘that lad didn’t look like a Wright. I said so, didn’t I, Cook?’

  ‘It’s none of our business. Now, howay, get on with your work instead of gossiping.’

  Miles did not try to stop Tom from leaving, but sat down at his desk and stared unseeingly at the papers he had been studying before his son had interrupted him. He had other pressing things to see to, never mind Tom. He would come to his senses; he wasn’t the type to hold a grudge and he was bound to see that it wouldn’t do, anyway. The boy was too much like his mother; that was his problem. Soft he was, soft as clarts.

  He tried to concentrate on the papers before him. They were records of the amount of coal won from the collieries belonging to Arthur Bolton and Co in the past month. Production at Eden Hope was up, so the ironworks would not miss the amounts he intended to divert, he thought. He could easily falsify the documentation, but now was not the time – Tom had spoiled his concentration and he would need all of that to do what he intended to do. There could be no mistakes.

  Miles sat back in his chair. The boy bore a strong family likeness, he had said. Just as that other boy had. It was a bloody nuisance that it should come out so strongly, especially the colouring, the silvery-fair hair.

  Memories were crowding in on him, memories of that other boy. He could have been a full brother to Tom by the look of him, Miles reckoned. He was a fool for not putting an end to the brat instead of sending him to the colonies on that immigrant ship, but it had seemed a good idea at the time. The newspapers had been full of certain charities helping the boys to a new chance in life. The likelihood of him being able to return was practically nil. And yet, Miles could have sworn he had seen him or at least someone very like him, and not once but two or three times.

  Not that he cared now if Bertha found out he had an illegitimate son, even one by a pitman’s widow. She would do nothing about it, she couldn’t. Even Tom couldn’t say much; after all, he was in much the same position. But the lad himself, what would he do? He could create a hell of a fuss and spoil Miles’s standing in the town altogether.

  Miles sat back and threw his pen down on the desk. ‘I’m becoming fanciful,’ he said aloud. Of course it couldn’t be the lad back from the colonies he had seen either of those times he thought he had done. It was just his imagination. He was getting fanciful in his old age. He rose to his feet and strode to the door.

  ‘I’m going over to Winnipeg Colliery,’ he said to Polly who was back in the hall polishing the bottom of the banister rail. ‘Tell Cook I won’t be in to dinner.’ I might as well, he thought as he rode out of the drive on Marcus. The visit from Tom he had so looked forward to hadn’t lasted five minutes, and Tom had been angry, talked to him as if he was a small boy. He might as well go and see Bertha, keep her sweet. It wouldn’t do for her to become suspicious when he hadn’t yet worked out properly how to rid himself of her.

  Tom parked the car before the surgery and went in. The waiting room was empty for surgery was finished and Merry was filing the patients’ notes away in the cabinet in the corner. Dr Macready was sitting behind his desk writing a letter but he jumped to his feet when Tom knocked and walked in.

  ‘Tom!’ he cried. Merry dropped the notes she had in her hand and they spread across the linoleum by the filing cabinet.

  ‘Good morning, Ian,’ said Tom and they shook hands over the desk. ‘I have been visiting my father so I thought I would call in to see you.’ He smiled at Dr Macready but his eyes strayed to Merry who was kneeling in the corner picking up papers. She kept her head bent over to hide her flushed face but he could see the papers shake a little as she held them.

  ‘Good morning, Merry,’ he said softly.

  ‘Hello, Doctor,’ she replied as she stood up and turned to face him.

  ‘You two know each other?’ asked Dr Macready.

  ‘We worked together at Oaklands,’ said Tom. ‘How are you, Nurse?’

  ‘Well, thank you, Doctor,’ said Merry and almost managed to keep the tremor out of her voice. She opened a filing drawer and leafed through the contents, barely seeing what they were.

  Dr Macready looked from her to Tom. Tom was talking about the diphtheria epidemic, which, thankfully had not reached Winton this year and had not been quite so bad as last year at Borden.

>   ‘It’s still too soon to relax though,’ said Dr Macready. He was about to launch into an account of what he had told the Council and Board of Health regarding the need for a proper sewerage system in the mining villages. ‘Most have no provision at all,’ he was saying when he realised that Tom was only half listening. His voice trailed into silence for a moment.

  He’d been a bit dim, he thought, not to say slow. Things were beginning to click into place now, though, for there was something here he should have noticed much earlier. He looked again at Merry who was still leaning over the filing, though it should have been finished in a couple of minutes. Her face was hidden from him but he could see her agitation in the tremble of her fingers.

  ‘Well, look, I’ll leave you two to get re-acquainted,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Tom? Only I have things to do in the house. Do call in before you go, won’t you? Kirsty would be sorry to miss you.’

  ‘Yes of course,’ Tom replied. He wrenched his eyes away from Merry to smile at his colleague.

  ‘Yes. Well, I’ll see what Kirsty and Benjamin are up to,’ said Dr Macready as he moved towards the door at the back of the surgery that connected with the main house. He shook his head as he walked along the short corridor. It’s a tangle and no mistake, he thought. And he must have been blind not to see the resemblance between Benjamin and Tom. But there had been Merry’s brother – it was confusing to say the least. And then the girl was still married to that lout, Robbie Wright. He sighed. It was time it was all sorted out, he reckoned. Just as well her husband was after a divorce. The sooner the better, he would say.

  There was a short silence in the surgery after the door closed behind Dr Macready. In the end it was broken by Tom.

  ‘Aren’t you glad to see me, Merry?’

  ‘I thought you would have come to see me before now – I haven’t heard from you since that day we met in Auckland. Not even a note, never mind a letter.’

  Merry could hear the complaining in her voice – she hadn’t meant to do that, it just came out. She stopped talking. Tom reached her in a couple of strides and put a finger under her chin, lifting it to look straight into her eyes. He had to get things straight between them, he had to.

  ‘Aren’t you glad to see me, Merry?’ he asked again, softly.

  Merry nodded her head slowly, hesitantly. Her thoughts were in turmoil. She had thought she was gaining control of them but his presence here, so close to her was making her forget all her resolve. Oh God, all she wanted, all she had ever wanted was bound up in him. She struggled to think of her son. He would be expecting her.

  ‘Benjamin—’

  ‘The Macreadys will see to him and keep him with them in the house, I think. Can we go upstairs?’

  She led the way up to her flat and went into the kitchen where she checked the water in the kettle and put it on to boil. Anything to keep her hands busy and stop their trembling. As she turned round she found he had come up close behind her and his arms were around her.

  ‘Well?’

  She nodded. How could she deny it? He bent his head and as he kissed her his hunger grew. Both of them were carried away on the same surge of feeling. He lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom, even managing to kick the door shut before they were overwhelmed. The feel of his hands on her body, on her breasts, brought an even higher response and she was lost in it.

  Later – she didn’t know how much later – it was the telephone which brought them back to an awareness of the present. It rang once and then after a moment or so again, a longer peal this time. It was not the operator, she realised, but the connection with the house.

  Merry moved away from Tom and climbed out of bed, pulling a dress over her nakedness before going through to answer. Tom turned on his back and smiled. It was as though Dr Macready would be able to see her lack of clothes down the line.

  Dr Macready was saying that he and Kirsty would take Benjamin to visit his new school, if that was all right with her. ‘I take it you won’t be too disappointed to miss the outing? You still have Tom there? Well, tell him we’ll see him some other time. I know you have a lot to talk about.’

  Thirty-Three

  Ben Trent walked down the path which led through the field to the old, deserted village. He was dressed as a gentleman in a fine grey worsted suit and top hat. His jacket was single breasted with six buttons and the trousers were narrow above soft leather boots polished to a mirror shine. He swung a cane in his right hand, slashing automatically at the odd clump of nettles alongside the path.

  ‘Hu-up! Hu-up!’ The soft call of the farmer as he herded cows for milking caught his attention. ‘Cush up!’ the farmer called and the first cow trotted through the open gap from the field on Ben’s right, soon followed by others. Then Vince Parkin appeared, waving his stick. Ben halted and waited for the cows to cross the path and turn of their own accord for the farm buildings further up.

  ‘Now then,’ said Vince, nodding his head in greeting and added ‘sir,’ as he took in the stranger’s dress.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Parkin,’ Ben replied and slipped into the old greeting, ‘Wot cheor?’

  The farmer paused in his stride and stared hard. His mouth was already framing the question when he moved closer, incredulous.

  ‘It’s not, is it? Nay lad, you cannot be! Not Ben Trent? After all these years. We thought you were dead, man!’

  Ben nodded and held out his hand. ‘Yes, it’s me, Mr Parkin. I’m back from the other side of the world.’ They shook hands vigorously, both grinning broadly. ‘By lad, I’m that pleased to see you,’ Vince said. ‘An’ the wife will be an’ all. Are you coming in to see her then?’

  He was dying to ask a thousand questions about Ben’s disappearance, why he’d gone, why he had deserted Merry, why . . . but it was no good, the cows were crowding around the gate to the farmyard, lowing their complaints.

  ‘Look, I have to see to the milking but will you call back at the farm? Are you going down to look at the old village?’

  ‘I am, just for old time’s sake. And I’ll be pleased to call in. You were both so good to me when I was a lad.’

  The farmer nodded and went on up the field after his cows while Ben walked on down to the stile and along by the old line to the double row of houses. It was astonishing to him that it looked the same as it had all those years ago. Well, perhaps there were more wild flowers and dead grass in amongst the stones and dust of the road, and more doors hanging drunkenly from their hinges. But there was still glass in some of the windows and still a drip from the stand pump on the end of the row near to the house where he and Merry had grown up. The sun was shining through between the trees on the bankside and the water sparkled as a beam hit it. He went inside his grandmother’s house and up the ladder to the bedroom to where the few belongings he had left here were in a bundle in the corner. There was no reason for him to hide here at all now, for he was going to confront Miles Gallagher that very evening. But still Ben lingered. He walked to the window and looked out over the old road to the houses opposite, and felt a nostalgic sadness for the old days, hard though they had been.

  Ben picked up his bundle after a few minutes and went out onto the road, closing the door after him. On impulse he went to the edge of the village, to the remains of Jane Pit, which were still visible. The wooden cap that had covered the shaft was rotten and there were only two walls still showing of the building beside it. The memorial was across the road, almost invisible in the long, dank grass. He crossed over to it.

  The stone was well weathered, the writing almost illegible. In fact the date of the disaster was illegible because someone, children perhaps, had scratched at it. But it had been like that when he was a boy here, he thought to himself. Thoughts of the old days were crowding in on him. He had worked in the gardens, done odd jobs for Mr Parkin, anything to turn a penny. He had worked no harder than Gran or Merry and yet they had barely scraped a living.

  He was walking up the field to the farm when he f
inally admitted to himself that the woman he had thought his gran must have been his mother and it was a strong possibility that Miles Gallagher was his father. These last few weeks, even months, he had had the opportunity to watch both Miles Gallagher and his son Tom, and there was no escaping the fact that he bore a strong likeness to them both – to Tom in particular, but Tom was not so much older than he was himself.

  Ben had discovered the true date of the disaster at Jane Pit from the Durham Miners’ Union archives in Durham. He did not want to believe the conclusion the facts led him to but there was no escaping it. Could Farmer Parkin confirm some at least of this?

  ‘Nay lad, I don’t know anything about it,’ Vince said as they sat drinking tea in the large farm kitchen. ‘It’s true, I saw the mine agent about the place a lot a few years ago but I mind my own business, like.’ He did too, thought Ben. Vince never said anything about anyone, though he must have been surprised when he saw Gran with a baby. If he did, that is, for Vince and his wife rarely left the farm.

  ‘Have some teacake,’ she said now. ‘I made it this morning, so it’s nice and fresh.’

  Ben was little further forward as he said his goodbyes and left the farm. He walked back to the stile that led to the lane where he had left his motor car and was soon driving along to Canney Hill to visit Miles Gallagher. Or to confront him was more the term he should use. Bitterness welled up in him when he thought of the man who had treated him so badly, who had taken him away from Merry and who had almost killed him.