‘Aye, I think so and all,’ Ginny agreed, face expressionless as she went to put on her coat. No offers of any rides this time, and she would gladly have accepted one, for there was a hole in the bottom of her boot that promised to let the water in. She cut a wad of newspaper from the scullery into a thick pad the shape of the sole, and stuffed it inside the boot, before squeezing her foot into it again. Lady Muck wasn’t going to have her baby brother wasting his time on a penniless hewer’s daughter with holes in her boots and nothing to offer but a bonny face and a strong back. She put on her coat and slipped out of the back door. She’d been dismissed as not good enough which was all she could expect, but still it rankled.
‘It’s not that I mind the work, I don’t,’ she said later, ensconced before Mam Smith’s fire having tea and a chat before walking on home. ‘What I mind is having somebody like her lording it over me, pampered halfwit that she is. She wouldn’t last two minutes as a pitman’s wife. I’d like to see how she’d manage with the life my mam’s had to face, or you. Sweep the leaves. That’s to keep me out of the way of that brother of hers. He’s taking too much notice of me for her liking.’ She stretched her damp feet towards the warmth of the fire, hoping that the state of the soles would be noticed.
Martin frowned. ‘If even half of what I hear about that feller’s true, she’s doing you a good turn. I hope she’ll stop him taking any notice of you at all, and don’t you take any notice of him. I’d pity any lass that tangled with him.’
‘Would you pity me if it was me?’ she asked, tilting her chin towards him.
‘I would hope you’ve got more sense.’
‘Why’s that then? What have you heard?’ Ginny asked, pleased at his seeming concern.
‘Enough to know it’s not likely he’ll ever make anybody a good husband, even if he ever gets to the point of getting married, and that’s all I’m prepared to say about it.’
‘I suppose his wife’ll hev a comfortable sitting down, though. He never seems to be short o’ tin but nobody knows where he gets it from.’
‘I’m told him and his sister had a tidy sum left ’em when their mother died. And he’s a bit of a capitalist, among other things,’ said Martin.
‘What’s a capitalist?’ asked Ginny.
‘It’s somebody that’s got a lot of money, enough to buy shares in going concerns, so he can have a cut of the profits and live well off other men’s labour. Like the owners of the pit, they’re shareholders. If there’s a fall in the price of coal, it’s our wages get cut, not their profits. If there’s a strike or a lock-out, they don’t do so well, but even then it’s other men’s families that starve and get evicted. If there’s an accident at the pit, it’s other men and their sons who’re killed or maimed, not them. They’re protected from everything by their money. Nothing touches them.’
‘Oh, well, it must be a grand life for that class of people.’
‘It is, for people who’ve got no conscience. Men like me and your dad produce the wealth, and men like Charlie enjoy it. It’s time there was an alteration, but I don’t see it happening.’ His tone was dispirited.
‘You look fed up, Martin.’
‘Fed up’s not the word for it, bonny lass. Since Maria died, I’ve had a lump in my chest like a ball of lead.’
‘Aye, I know that feeling well,’ said Mam Smith, easing herself back into an armchair and sipping her tea.
‘Why don’t you go down to the club, and have a bit crack with your marrers? It might make you feel better. There’s nothing to keep you in now. Or you could take me to the dancing at the Catholic Club,’ Ginny said, only half in jest. ‘You’re a good dancer, and so am I. I should have thought you’d be glad to get out, after months of stopping in looking after Maria.’
‘I wish I had her back to look after. I miss her bonny little face and her loving ways. I miss doing for her. I haven’t the heart to go out.’
‘I was only joking.’ She saw it was useless. Hoping for any mention of the shoes Maria’d wanted her to have was useless too; the hint wasn’t going to be taken, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask for them. She heaved a heavy sigh.
‘Aye, well, I suppose I’d better get on home. Mam’ll be wondering where I am.’
She put on her coat and stepped out into lashing rain again. Rivulets of water ran into her boots, but it wasn’t Martin or the shoes she was thinking about the rest of the way home. It was the solemn way Charlie Parkinson had carefully folded his snotty hanky and pressed it to his bosom. What a clown! She began to laugh to herself, and didn’t stop until she got in the door.
The following Sunday evening, Mam Smith called down with Philip to pass an hour whilst Ginny’s father was out. No sooner had she stepped inside than she spotted the quilting frame lying along the staircase.
‘I see you’ve got a one on the go, Mary Ann. Get the frame up, bonny lass, and I’ll give you a bit hand with it,’ she ordered their mother. ‘I can’t sit here and do nothing, and it’s that long since I did any quilting, I’d like the practice.’
‘Seeing that you’re the one that taught me everything I know about it, I doubt if you need any practice, but we’ll sit together for a while if you like,’ their mother agreed.
So the frame went up and both women settled to the work, with Emma threading the needles to supply them. Sally and Philip sat under the frame chattering to each other, and Ginny filled the kettle and put it to boil, then cut some slices from a stale loaf and took a seat by the fire. She raked the heart of it red hot, then impaled a slice of bread as thick as a doorstep on the brass toasting fork and held it in the fierce heat, leaning back as far as she could to keep her cheeks from burning.
‘The first one ready for bed gets the first slice,’ she said, looking at Lizzie and Arthur. Lizzie dashed upstairs, and was down again dressed in her nightie before Ginny had taken the bread off the fork. She handed it over, and Lizzie spread it liberally with dripping and sprinkled it with salt. Ginny began toasting the next thick slice.
‘Do you want this one, Emma?’ she asked, looking pointedly at Arthur, who scowled back at her, stubbornly refusing to take the hint.
‘No. Let’s get the bairns fed and ready for bed first. Come on, Sally and Arthur, let’s have you upstairs and undressed.’
After smoothing over a lot of argument from Arthur, Emma finally managed to get the pair of them upstairs.
‘By, that lad of yours is a handful, Mary Ann. But your Emma seems to be able to get him to do anything. She’s good with all the bairns,’ observed Mam Smith, as soon as Emma was out of earshot.
‘She is. She wants to be a teacher, did you know?’
‘No, but she’ll make a good one. She’s clever enough.’
Ginny listened intently, as her mother lowered her voice and murmured, ‘Yes she is, but it won’t come off. Arthur won’t let her. He says it’s a waste of money.’
‘Ah, no, so is the poor lass to miss the best chance she’ll ever have, then?’
Their mother nodded and, her voice even lower, said with a sigh, ‘She’s bitterly disappointed. I feel as if I’ve doomed her. I feel as if I’ve doomed all my children. I’ve cut them off from every chance in life, except slaving for other people.’ She sighed again. ‘I’ve begun to think my father was right. If I’d married somebody educated, somebody more like him, there’d have been no question about it. Emma could have been a teacher if she’d wanted. And John would have had the chance of something better than the sea, or the pits.’
‘If you’d married anybody like your father, you wouldn’t have had a John, or an Emma, or the rest of them. They’re healthy, bonny bairns, be grateful. And I suppose you married Arthur because you loved him.’
‘I did, although I think now that girls the age that I was then aren’t old enough to know their own minds.’
‘Maria knew hers at fifteen, and she chose well enough,’ Mam Smith said, and added with the faintest touch of asperity, ‘but I can’t deny that Martin’s not very educa
ted.’
‘But he’s trying to educate himself, down at the Institute. How is he?’ asked their mother quickly, fearful of having given offence.
The conversation was interrupted by Emma coming down again with Sally and Arthur. Excepting Sally, the children made short work of their supper, after which the three youngest Wildes were sent up to bed.
‘What a relief,’ said their mother, as peace descended on the kitchen.
‘You don’t know when you’re well off. Think yourself lucky you’ve still got them all round you.’ Mam Smith tucked in her needle, lifted her tired grandson and sat to nurse him.
Their mother bent her head lower over the work. ‘I do. I’m sorry, Mam, I’m not thinking.’
‘How’s Martin?’ Emma poured the tea, unconsciously echoing her mother’s question. Ginny put another slice of bread on the toasting fork.
‘Not much better, bonny lass, no better at all, really. He swore he’d seen her the other night, bending over Philip’s cot. Oh, and he looked that upset.’ Mam Smith hugged the tired child tighter.
Ginny’s eyes widened. ‘What, you mean he saw her ghost?’
She nodded.
‘That must have been terrible,’ Emma said.
‘No. No, it wasn’t seeing her that was terrible. The terrible thing was it wasn’t real.’ Mam Smith turned to Ginny. ‘I’m sorry about the shoes, bonny lass. I know she said they were yours. I felt that awkward the other day when you called by, and I could see the holes in your boots. But he can’t bear to part with any of her things.’
No one spoke. Mam Smith sighed. ‘When either of you lasses gets married, I hope you may get a man as good as Martin, except I doubt that there are any.’
‘Did you get a good husband?’ asked Ginny, previously never one to waste any time wondering about what was past, but now suddenly curious.
‘I did. He was a good friend of my oldest brother, and I remember him coming to our house on the Wednesday before Pay Friday, asking to take me out. I thought we would just be going for a walk, but he took me to the Co-op and bought me a cup of tea and a bun. He had five bob, and I thought, five bob on the Wednesday after Baff week! I’m having this one – he must be rich!’ She chuckled at the memory, and Ginny laughed loudly with her, hoping to keep the conversation going in this more cheerful direction. ‘Oh, yes, we courted a couple of years. He used to try his luck, like they all do,’ she confided, and held up her left hand towards Ginny, with the thumb touching the tip of the third finger, ‘but I’d say – not until I get that ring on my finger, you don’t – and he didn’t. That’s still a good principle for any young lass. Men are all the same, have their pleasure and away like the lamplighter, and leave some poor lass holding the baby.’ She glanced at Ginny. ‘Have nothing to do with that sort. Look for a good honest lad. My husband wasn’t rich, and he wasn’t lucky either, but he was my best friend, and now he’s gone, crushed in the pit along with my eldest lad.’ Her jaw tightened. ‘And if you’d seen how they brought them home to me, wheeled in an old handcart, and covered with a bit of filthy sacking.’
‘You’ve got us now,’ said Emma. ‘We’re your friends.’
‘I know that, bonny lass. It’s during the bad times that you get to know who your real friends are. I’ve learned that in life if nothing else.’
The contrast between a mournful evening spent with Mam Smith and the atmosphere at the manager’s house was marked. Ginny knew that a tidy little inheritance had compensated the manager’s wife for the death of her mother, and she had never heard a sigh of regret pass her lips, nor seen a tear escape her clear blue eyes over the loss of her. Life had dealt Mrs Vine no other blows – quite the contrary. Mrs Vine had risen in the world and made it plain that she intended to rise further.
She’s still nothing but an upstart though, thought Ginny, echoing in her mind the opinion of the village. Another weighty cake had been baked and laced with brandy, pounds of mincemeat prepared, a goose, hams and pork ordered from a local farmer, as Helen Vine prepared to make her name a byword for lavish hospitality. Hospitality that would be reserved for people milady thought worth her time and effort, and none of them likely to be in need of a free meal.
‘I doubt if any of this lot’s going to be blessing the poor, Ginny muttered to herself as she stuffed a tea-spoonful of mincemeat into her mouth to savour the rich, spicy flavour, ‘there’s no King Wenceslases living here.’
She knew very well that she herself was a person of utter insignificance in Mrs Vine’s eyes, except in the power she had to interest Charlie. Charlie was still absent, and Ginny detected a faint and supercilious smile on her mistress’s face whenever their eyes met. She burned to know what he was up to, but a consciousness of Helen’s pleasure in keeping the secret from her forced her to affect complete indifference, and the consummate actress in her played the part with conviction.
Then, as she was polishing the prized piano on the afternoon before the school Christmas concert, she heard him arrive.
Chapter 6
‘It’s full credit to Emma, Mrs Wilde. She’s really made quite a comedy of that little sketch. It seems so true to life. It gets the teetotal message across in a highly amusing way, don’t you think? Will you wait to see me? I would just like a word with you.’ Their mother nodded, a look of anxiety on her face.
‘Oh, the sketch was my doing more than our Emma’s, Miss Carr. I was the one that rehearsed Lizzie and Arthur,’ Ginny whispered, determined to claim her share of the credit.
‘Really, Ginny?’ Miss Carr’s eyebrows almost met her grey hair, and her lip curled in a sneer of disbelief. ‘Just walk on with Emma and the children, dear, I won’t keep your mother long.’
Ginny took Sally by the hand, and they went out with all the other concert-goers into the moonlight whilst their mother waited with Mam Smith in the schoolroom to hear what Miss Carr had to say.
‘I suppose she’s telling Mam what a good scholar you are. She’s hardly got a civil word for me,’ said Ginny. ‘I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for that time I found half a crown and spent it on beer and cigarettes, and sent the minister’s son off home as drunk as a lord. Do you remember? I think she had some explaining to do that night about how a model child from a teetotal home could get back from school reeking of ale and tobacco smoke and hardly able to stand.’ Ginny laughed at the memory, joined by Lizzie and Arthur, who loved tales of her scapegrace antics. ‘But she ought to have been satisfied with the revenge she got. Mind that bruise on my hand after the caning she gave me? And he never got touched. He was just as bad as I was, only his father was the minister.’
‘You’re not looking for sympathy, are you?’ Emma’s lips were pursed in disapproval. ‘Most of us would have handed that money in. A few might have spent it on sweets, but only you could have thought of spending money that didn’t belong to you on drink, and then rope the minister’s son into your mischief. I’ll never forget how shamed Mam was, and me and all.’
‘Neither will I. I was cacking mesel’ thinking I was going to get a belting off old Arthur, but do you remember, he did nothing but laugh! I couldn’t believe I got away with that.’
‘You want to be careful. One of these days you’ll go too far, and end up getting hanged.’
‘Wait, wait up! They’ve just come out,’ said Lizzie.
‘I wonder what they’ve been saying?’ said an agonized Emma.
‘Emma Wilde’s the best scholar on earth, and she ought to be a professor, is what they’ve been saying,’ said Ginny. The troubled look on her mother’s face as she joined them confirmed the guess.
They walked on home in silence after parting from Mam Smith. Their father was in. He must have heard them approach, because he opened the door before they were halfway down the path. They had hardly stepped into the house before he fixed Emma with a hard stare. ‘You can tell that teacher o’ yours you won’t be back at school in January. You’re thirteen now, and old enough to be earning your keep. I’ve got you a job
scrubbing at the Cock Inn. You start on Christmas Eve. And make sure you do the bugger clean, or you’ll know about it.’
Their father was on the backshift but left his own bed early on the morning of Christmas Eve to make sure Emma got to her new job on time. ‘You’d better straighten your bloody face, Madam, or I’ll straighten it for you.’ He lunged towards her and she flew out of the door without her coat into a dark, icy morning. He shouted after her, ‘I don’t want any complaints about you, either about your cleaning or about your bloody long face, so remember!’
The Cock Inn was outside the village on the Durham Road, and Emma would have a longish walk through the woods and over the beck to reach it. Ginny quietly put on her own coat and took Emma’s off the peg. ‘I’ll take this for her before I go to work.’
‘You won’t,’ said her father, ‘you’ll be lucky to get to work on time as it is. You get straight off there now, and get a move on.’
Ginny looked towards her mother, kneeling at the hearth raking out yesterday’s ashes. ‘It’s all right, Ginny. I’ll take it down later.’
‘Well, you won’t,’ said her father, landing her mother a vicious kick on her skinny behind. Ginny saw her eyes water suddenly as she turned to look at him, saw her nose redden and the corners of her mouth droop before she turned her face back to the ashes. Ginny’s jaw clenched, and her fingers curled into tight fists. Her father continued, giving emphasis to every word, ‘Neither of you will, and that’s the end on’t. She’s gone without it and she can come back without it, clever little madam that she is. She’s been getting a lot too big for her bloody boots lately, with her head stuffed full of big ideas, but I’ll soon cut her down to size, and I shan’t be long about it.’ He looked menacingly at them. ‘And you won’t interfere, if you know what’s good for you.’
Ginny heard her mother utter a strangled sob as she left. She slammed the door as hard as she dared then hotfooted it down the path in case he came after her. She flew through streets and park with wings on her heels, teeth grinding and blood boiling as she remembered that kick and her mother’s humiliation. If only she’d been born a man. Jaw still clenched, she arrived at the manager’s house and threw open the back door.
A Sovereign for a Song Page 6