The Tinker's Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  The? too good to be true!'

  'Yes. Yes, you. Your consideration hurts me, it does really.'

  At this moment the door opened and Max, ignoring what he surmised had been going on, said,' Do you know there's p-p-plum-duff the night?'

  'Plum-duff? Oh, I'm partial to plum-duff; but I'm more partial to three pints of tea first.' And at this, Jinnie poured out two large mugs of tea and handed them both to Bruce, managing to smile as she said, 'These are equal to three pints,' at which Bruce laughed.

  At the beginning, she had managed to keep her sickness from the men; in any case, when it stopped after a few weeks, it had seemed it might be of short duration; but during this past month she had, at times, felt sick and not a little ill. Only this morning she had been up at five and had managed to get the bout over in the scullery.

  This done, she had returned to her bed because, these da;*, she did not rise before six.

  It should happen that Bruce slept in this morning and did not arrive in the kitchen until a quarter past six, being somewhat surprised not to find the fire glowing and the porridge on the boil.

  When, a few minutes later he was joined by Max, he remarked, 'She's not up. We've all slept in, I think.'

  'Oh, then I l-l-let her lie. I'll s-s-see to the porridge.'

  And he laughed gently as he said, 'It would be fffunny if we took her breakfast up to bed.'

  'It would that,' said Bruce. 'And she'd likely die of shock.'

  But some time later, after they had both washed in the scullery and had their breakfasts, Max said somewhat anxiously, 'Do you think I'd better look in on her?

  She's never slept in for this long.' Bruce replied, 'I was thinking the same,' only to add in a horrified tone,

  'Good God! She wouldn't have done anything silly, would she?'

  Almost as one now, they were in the scullery, there to be brought to a halt by the sight of her at the head of the steps, from where she muttered down to them, 'I'm sorry. I slept in.'

  Neither gave her an answer; they were staring at her clothes: she was wearing a blouse with the bodice tucked into her skirt, and it was on her waistline that their eyes were concentrated.

  Up till then her body had appeared to them to be as flat as a pancake; but here now, beneath the tight waistline, was an evident bulge. It was there one minute and gone the next, for she had flung her strapped apron over her head and was rapidly fastening it at the back.

  She had completed the process before she came down the steps and, without looking at them, had walked past them and into the kitchen.

  Neither of them had moved, but their gaze was linked by a knowledge that they didn't want to believe, made evident by Max grabbing his coat from the back of the scullery door and rushing out of the far door and into the morning, leaving Bruce standing there looking stunned.

  Then, as if he too were in a great hurry, he dashed into the kitchen, snatched his coat and hat from the back of the door and went out that way as if he were not aware of her presence.

  When Jinnie heard him calling the dog, she dropped into a chair and wondered how long it would be before the avalanche hit her . . .

  The weather had changed again. Although it was still very cold, it was a calm autumn morning. The sky was a clear blue, with no tufted white clouds spun across it; the grass had stopped its urgent upward striving; it was as if its growth had slowed down to meet the stillness; and the only noise from the pigsty was the slop of the food in the trough.

  Bruce had intended to make straight for the hills, where he might find comfort to ease the turmoil raging in him. But he realised that he must first talk this thing out with Max.

  Max was seated on a stool in the cowshed, his head leaning against the side of the cow, his large hands gently directing the jets of milk into a pail. Only when he was aware that Bruce was standing beside him did he turn his head, but he did not speak; instead, he continued to relieve the cow until he had emptied its udder. Then with a damp cloth he wiped the udders, before rising and, moving the stool with the toe of his boot to one side, he picked up the pail. As he passed Bruce he said, 'Come into the dairy.'

  A few minutes later they were facing each other, and it "was Max who asked the first question with a single word, 'Well?'

  'I can't believe it. I won't believe it; but it's--' Bruce swallowed and gulped before ending, 'it's been staring us in the face for weeks now, her being off colour.'

  'Yes, it's been staring us in the ffface.'

  Bruce now turned and beat a doubled fist against the wall and ground out, 'If he was here I would kill him. I would. I would.'

  'Best he's not here, else I would have k-killed him first. But then, thinking back, he's not all to blame.'

  'What do you mean, he's not to blame?'

  'Well, n-n-not fully. She was ripe; she was ready.'

  Bruce's tone was high now as he exclaimed, 'It must have been just before he married. We are in October.

  He was going to be married, and he takes her. He'd managed to hold out so long, why not a little longer?'

  ' Well, maybe, b-b-but she's older than her years. She's been with animals for long time, so she knew.'

  'How can you say that, Max, when you care for her so much?'

  'I can say it, Bruce, because I know her. From seven years old I know her. And she's warm inside, wants to give,'

  'Wants to give, be damned. Yet, my God! I could go in there now and punch her silly.' And he flung about again and punched the wall, spitting out the words:

  'In the main, as you know, Max, life is dirty, mucky, rotten, but here and there you find something shining on the muck heap, something that somebody's thrown away. That's how I used to see her, somebody who had been thrown away. But I saw her as a shining piece of purity, outspoken, wouldn't be handled.' Suddenly he snatched off his cap and flung it down the narrow room saying, 'Wouldn't be handled! She hated being handled! Look at the night when she first came here and she went for my father; look what happened with Hal because she was handled: you were on the point of murdering Hal for what he had done. No; no, she wouldn't be handled; she would fight anyone who dared to handle her in that way; but she won't have left any mark on him for handling her, I bet!'

  Of a sudden, it was as if all the fight, all the blood had drained from him. He leaned back against the stone wall, and so white and limp did he appear that Max went to him quickly and, putting an arm around his shoulder, drew him from the wall and thrust him on to the stool. Then he took a scoopful of milk from the basin standing on the shelf and said to Bruce, 'Drink that. I know how you f-f-feel. I'm s-s-sick to the heart of me at this minute.'

  Bruce sat staring ahead of him for some time before he said, 'What are we going to do?'

  'Think it will be better to l-l-leave first move to her. It won't be long. I feel she's back there waiting for us. But l-l-look at it this way: she's going to have a child and it

  will be born here ... I hope.'

  'Maybe, Max. Oh, just maybe. It's just come to mind who'll be given the name of fathering her fly-blow; who else but me? She won't give him away. Now have you thought about that? Be damned if I'm going to take it.'

  'Yes, I have. Everybody will c-c-come to it that it's you.'

  Max leant his back against the marble slab, folded his arms and stared up to the bare roof that showed the underside of the tiles, and as if he were asking for an answer from them he said, 'Well, who else cccould be named? There's only young Roy.' He now looked down at Bruce, adding, 'And you can 'magine what Mrs Stevens w-w-would say to that.' Then shaking his head, he added as an afterthought, ' 'Tis great pity it wasn't Roy, because Mrs Stevens w-w-would have had them into church before they knew wh-wh-what had kicked them.'

  'You know what?' Bruce had got to his feet. 'I've been a bloody fool: I could have put her in the family way time and again, the way I was feeling, but this "brother"

  business of hers put a check on me more than ten parents could have done, for she would have looked upon it as what
they call incest; and that, let me tell you, if you're not already aware of it, goes on all around us all the time.

  The church covers up a multitude of sins, and when one hears of men like Isaac Tuftacre going round with the

  plate on Sunday, well, I could vomit: he lives with his sister up on the top, but they've got a lodger as a cover.

  But it's public knowledge. So, Max' - his voice dropped a tone now - 'you can see how I react to the "brother"

  bit, can't you? I can understand her looking upon you as a father, but me as a brother . . . well, truth to tell, that annoyed me from the first time she mentioned it, 'cos if there was ever a barrier needed to be erected between us she did it with that word "brother".' Now his voice rose again: 'It's kept her safe, safe from me. I can tell you that. Father of her child indeed!' The last words were full of bitterness. 'If anybody should be father of her child it should be me, 'cos before you came, Max, I looked after her. Before her head became full of him, time and again I could have taken her.'

  'You didn't, Bruce, and I very much doubt if you would have, she was too y-young in all ways.'

  'Yes, yes. Well, she's learnt since, hasn't she? What are we going to do?' There was a note of appeal in the words, and Max said, 'As I s-s-said, l-leave it, let her come into the open, let her be f-f-first to speak of it.'

  They had to wait till suppertime. After placing a bowl of stew in front of each of them, she stood gripping the back of a chair and, looking from one to the other, she burst out, 'All right! So you know: I'm going to have a bairn. And before you say anything else' - her voice had risen now - 'I'm not sorry. D'you hear?'

  She stared from one to the other, holding their gaze, and she repeated, 'I'm not sorry. I wanted something of him, and I got it. Don't blame him: I want this child and I'm going to have it; whether it's here or in the workhouse, I'm having it. The young girls in the workhouse who came in like this would take doses of white mixture every day, line up for it, so as to skite the child out of them. Well, I don't want to skite it out of me, and I'm not taking any medicine or any advice on what to do; I'm having a child, and it's up to you'

  - she was addressing Bruce pointedly - 'whether I stay here or not.'

  Both men were slightly astounded, not only by her manner but at the words she used, such as 'skiting the child out of her'; these were common words used by the lowest of the low. She would have heard them often enough in the workhouse, but she had been out of the workhouse for some time now. She had left when she was fourteen, and she was now sixteen, and although she hadn't listened to any fine talk, there had been no coarse language to hurt her ears; perhaps a plain 'damn', or 'bloody' at times, but to stand there yelling at them about skiting the child out of her! If anything had taken the wind out of their sails, that had.

  Bruce was for walking out. He pushed back his chair, half rose, but then resumed his seat and said, 'There'll be questions asked as to who is the father of your child.

  Do you intend to name him?'

  For a moment she was stumped: she wetted her lips, her eyelids blinked, then she said, 'No, I don't. And if anyone did name him I would deny it.'

  'Then, who, may I ask, is going to have the honour of being its father?'

  She stared at him, then at Max, whose eyes were hard on her; then she turned back to Bruce and said, 'They'll likely name you, but I'll deny that an' all.'

  'Then that only leaves Max here.' Bruce stretched out a palm towards Max, and at this she cried vehemently,

  'Don't be nasty, you! Don't be nasty!'

  'Don't be nasty, you say, don't be nasty, when I'm getting the honour of giving you a bairn, because there's nobody up here in line for your suitor, is there? Are you going to try to hang it on Roy?'

  Her face hardened now, and her voice too, as she said, 'Don't try to be funny. I have never given Roy any encouragement, ever . . . ever!'

  'Well, that comes back to me then, doesn't it?' Bruce was yelling at her now. 'And let me tell you, miss, that I'm not going to take that honour. I haven't earned it, have I? So if anybody asks me who the father is I'll tell them to go down to the house and ask for Mr Richard BaxtonPowell.'

  They both watched as her body jerked now and, leaning for support against the chair, she muttered,

  'You wouldn't do that?'

  'Oh, but yes, I would, because, don't forget, long before he became your suitor he was my friend. He sought my friendship, not I his, and what does he do?

  He knows well how I feel about you but he still takes you like any of the other cheap cows he's been acquainted with. And that's what you've made yourself into: a cheap cow. He would never have married you. What I mean to do, Miss Howlett, is exactly what I've already said; you once name me, or let my name be mentioned without contradiction, and I go down to that house and blow the roof off it with my news that their son will soon be a father and have a bastard son or daughter!'

  She was still gripping the chair, but her body was rocking slightly as she said, 'You do that, you do that and I walk out of here and I go back into the workhouse. Oh, gladly; yes, I go back into the workhouse.' And at that she turned from them both and went into the scullery.

  During all this Max had not said one word, but had sat there with his head bent.

  'I tell you she's pregnant, three months gone, if a day; in fact, she brazenly owned up to it. I couldn't help but keep my eyes on the right button of that old coat she wears. It was just a slight bulge, but I kept saying to myself, no; no; no; and she saw where my eyes were.

  And then as brazen as brass, and as cool as a cucumber she said, "Yes, Mrs Stevens, I'm going to have a baby."

  Just like that. You could have knocked me down with a feather, I could have fallen to the floor; well, to tell you the truth I flopped on that chair. There she stood, that young piece, and butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth before, would it?'

  'Eeh! my!' The farmer pushed his cap further back on his head. 'Can't believe it. Yet at the same time' his tone changed - 'what d'you expect? She's been up there with Bruce all this time, and she's no girl; she's got a woman's figure on her, and she's only . . . what is she, sixteen? Well, anyway she was ready for it, I would say, and he's kept his hands at bay all this time. I've wondered about it, mind, I have; I've wondered about it because he seemed to care for her.'

  "Tisn't him.'

  'What d'you say, woman?'

  'I said, 'tisn't him; at least, that's what she says, and so emphatically that I can't help but believe her. I said to her, "When's Bruce and you going to be married?"

  and in that quiet, sort of different voice of hers, she said, "I'm not going to be married, Mrs Stevens; and Bruce isn't the father."'

  'Holy cows' udders! She said that?' The farmer's voice was high. 'Then who is it? 'Tisn't the big fellow. Oh no; he acts as her father. And he's a good bloke, that.

  Who then? . . . No ... oh no!' He put out his hand to her as if in protest, 'Our Roy?'

  She almost sprang from her chair and with a doubled fist she pushed him in the chest, saying, 'Don't talk so bloody soft! Our Roy . . . when would he ... I mean

  . . . well, she wouldn't go to the barn-dance with him, she wouldn't go out with him, and he isn't the kind of fellow to force himself on a lass, now is he? Fancy! you saying that!'

  'Well, woman' - he looked down at his wife - 'tell me who else there is in this neighbourhood that goes up there. There's only Mister Richard, and she would as soon be taken down by him as by God.'

  Mrs Stevens again sat down on the chair, her elbows on the table, her cheek resting on her knuckles, and looking at her husband, she said, 'I don't care what she says, it must be Bruce; it's got to be.'

  'Aye. Aye, I think with you, it has got to be; but the question is, why is she denying it?'

  They both turned and looked towards the kitchen door that led into the boot-room. After a slight clatter the door opened and their son appeared.

  'Dad,' he said, 'Maisie is right off colour; she's almost dry. I think we'd better
get Mr Abner to come up to see her.' He looked from one to the other and said,

  'What's up? What's the matter?'

  'We've had a shock,' Mrs Stevens said; and both she and her husband were immediately amazed when their son said, 'Aye, I suppose you would have, seeing who your visitor was.'

  His mother was on her feet now, her two hands close joined on her ample breasts, and she muttered low in her throat, 'Oh, our Roy, you didn't . . . you haven't, have you?'

  'No!' The shout Roy gave not only made her jump, it also jerked the big frame of his father. 'No! I didn't; and no! I haven't, but I wish to God I had. I wish it had been me. D'you hear that, both of you? And if I'd had the chance it would've been, 'cos I've been seeking her for years . . . well, since she's grown up.'

  'How did you know, lad?' His father's voice was soothing.

  'Because, Dad, I put two and two together; she hasn't been down here for some weeks, has she? and I happened to glimpse her once when I went up there for the eggs. Max saw to me. She was in the house and didn't come out, at least only to the clothes' line to whip something off it; and I saw her.'

  Mrs Stevens sat silently now, gazing at her son. This was the reason he had been odd of late, hardly opening his mouth. She had thought he was sickening for something; but thank God it wasn't him. Oh yes, thank God, because after all, what was she? A tinker's lass, and they are akin to gypsies. 'And she says it isn't Brace's?'

  'Yes; that's what she says.'

  'Why? How d'you know, lad?'

  Roy looked at his father. 'I talked to her,' he said.

  'About her condition?' There was a touch of disbelief in his father's voice, and he went on, 'Did she bring it up?'

  'No, Dad; I brought it up.'

  They both looked at their son as if they were seeing him for the first time, but they were shocked further, absolutely shocked, when he said, 'I asked her to marry me; but she's not going to marry anybody, she said.'

  'You what!' His mother's voice was a high squeak, and Roy's, when he answered her, was quite low and calm as he said, 'I asked her to marry me, Mam,' and she could hardly get the words out: 'And where do you think you would bring her, that piece?'