by Maggie Hope
‘I tried to warn them, you know, but folk’ll never listen to good advice, will they? An’ there’s no one to put a bridle on him at the Hall now, not now his da’s gone. Not like when it was with your poor Nell.’
‘It would have been better if his da hadn’t made him marry Nell,’ put in Jack.
‘Eeh, but Jack, the bairn would have been born out of wedlock then,’ Phoebe said, before reflecting, ‘aye, well, mebbe it would have been better. Some things are worse than being an orphan an’ all.’ She paused to catch her breath before launching into the story of Ralph’s latest iniquity, the one she had been leading up to. ‘I didn’t tell you about the little lad, did I? Your nephew he’ll be, an’ didn’t you nurse him when he was a babby an’ your Nell died, poor thing? What’s his name now?’
‘Jonty? What about Jonty?’ Hannah sat up straight in her chair, anxiety coursing through her veins. ‘Has something happened to Jonty?’
‘Well, man, it depends on what you mean by happened,’ Phoebe said judiciously, and picked up her tea cup and drained it. She didn’t go on until she had placed the cup back in its saucer and she had sat back again. Hannah could have screamed at her.
‘It’s like this, Hannah. Grizedale’s Master of the Hunt now – oh, aye, he’s proper in with the County set. Or some of them, I should say – the wild young ones. By, things have changed since old Grizedale’s day! They don’t usually come over here, like, but there they were that day, riding all over the place. The farmers round about were up in arms. Last February it was, aye, and fences got broken down, and stock got out. Why, that farmer on the Auckland road out had a gander killed by a horse. You know what ganders are like for defending their own. An’ then they even went through the pit yard and the fore shift just turning out! I tell you, there was war on, there was.’
‘But what about our Jonty?’ Hannah said softly, evenly, her nerves at screaming pitch, holding her temper on a tight rein.
‘Oh, aye, Jonty.’ Phoebe reluctantly shortened her story and came to what Hannah wanted to know. ‘Well, they rode through the village, the hounds baying and the horses galloping after them with no thought for the folks running out of the road.’ Indignantly, she shook her head from side to side. ‘They can’t get away with that sort of thing nowadays, you know. Not in 1884, they can’t. They might have done once upon a time . . .’
‘Aye, but what about Jonty?’
Phoebe halted abruptly as she saw the impatience in Hannah’s face. ‘Eeh, sorry. But I get so flaming . . .’ She composed herself and leaned over the table before going on.
‘Well, as I was saying, along come little Jonty. I looked for him most particular, him being kin, like. Riding a proper horse he was, an’ all, not a little galloway. Eeh, he looked ever so little perched up there but he trotted on grand, he wasn’t a bit frightened of the horse nor nowt. But he was being careful, you know? Didn’t want to hurt anybody, I reckon. But, by, his da, he turned and yelled at the bairn to get on, an’ then he came back himself and slashed at him with his whip, and what with that and Jonty’s horse getting upset, like—’ Phoebe paused and cast a pitying glance at her cousin. ‘Jonty fell off.’
‘Was he all right?’
It was Jack who asked the question for Hannah found herself unable to.
‘Well . . . he would have been, but his da’s horse kicked him on the thigh. The bairn’s right leg was broken. I don’t think there was much else, though he was stunned and bruised. They took him to Doctor Brown’s surgery an’ he set the leg. But they shouldn’t have moved him, the doctor said. We tried to tell them that. Why, us pit folk know what to do about broken bones, if we don’t we ought to, we see plenty. But no, they were gentry and they don’t take any notice of us. The lad cried out when they took him up, it was a bad break like. He’ll always have a limp now, Doctor Brown says.’ Phoebe shrugged. ‘Could have been worse, like. That Ralph Grizedale, though, callous sod.’
Hannah was weeping tears inside for her dead sister’s son. Hadn’t she promised Nell she would look out for him when her sister was dying, her face all bruised from a blow from Ralph, and the baby coming early through it? Oh, it was all her fault, it was. She should have realised what was going on before Nell fell wrong with Jonty. And if she hadn’t told Ralph’s father when Nell told her, and if Mr Grizedale hadn’t . . .
If. There had been so many ifs and might have beens. She had promised Nell she would watch over Jonty, but what could she have done? She and Jack had had to move away, they’d had to live, hadn’t they? At least, she had told herself, Jonty wouldn’t starve, not as the heir to Grizedale Hall.
Conversation at the table flagged, even Phoebe’s tongue quietened as she saw how stricken Hannah was. She cast about in her mind for something cheerful to say, something to lighten the atmosphere. She wished she hadn’t mentioned Jonty. In the end, she simply stood up and began collecting the dishes together.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Hannah dully, but Phoebe shook her head vigorously.
‘Nay, nay, you go your bed. You must be fair worn out what with the new babby coming an’ all. No, I’ll stack the dishes in the pantry an’ have them washed in a couple of shakes come the morn. I’ll just leave a place for Tot when he comes in. He’s fond of a bit of ham an’ pease pudding an’ all.’
‘I can wash up . . .’ began Hannah, but Phoebe shooed her and Jack out of the door.
‘Away to your bed, the pair of you. I won’t wash the pots up tonight. Tot’ll need the hot water that’s in the set pot, he’ll be coming in black. I’ll soon get a bucket in from the pump in the street come the morning.’
‘We’ll say goodnight then,’ said Jack, and taking Hannah’s arm he led her out and into the house next-door. He and the carrier had erected the brass bed earlier so it wasn’t long before Jack was drifting off to sleep in it, the silence disturbed only by the carrier’s snores coming up the stairs from his shakey-down in the kitchen.
‘I’ll have to go and see him, Jack,’ Hannah whispered. ‘Eeh, I’m not sure we did right now. Coming here, I mean. I wasn’t thinking it was so near to Grizedale Hall.’
Jack turned over and slipped his arm around the swollen body of his wife, feeling the kick of new life within her. ‘It’s not so close,’ he said, ‘he’ll never think of us being here, pet. But I don’t think you should try to see Jonty. What if Ralph catches you?’
Hannah didn’t answer. If she went to see Jonty and Ralph saw her, would he make trouble for Jack at the pit? They had their own bairns to consider and the new one coming, one more to feed. She lay awake long after Jack fell asleep. She heard the night shift come out, the colliery whistle calling the fore shift in. And later she head the soft, ‘Goodnight, then,’ as Tot left his workmate to walk up the short garden path, and the soft scuffling noises as he opened the door of his house and pushed the bolt in after him. Then at last she slept.
Meg was up at six o’clock next day. She rushed into her dress and went outside into the street to fetch water from the pump for her wash. At least it wasn’t far, she thought, right outside Auntie Phoebe’s house. She considered getting Jack Boy up to carry water in to Mam’s house, but he was still fast asleep, along with Alice and Miles. There was no sign of Auntie Phoebe and Uncle Tot, either, but then Uncle Tot wasn’t going to work until after dinner, she knew, they would be having a lie in. Softly, Meg closed the door behind her and went next-door where she found Hannah and Jack already up. They were breakfasting on bread and jam washed down by hot black tea, for Jack had to be at the colliery offices by eight o’clock, and before then he was going to put up the children’s bed. The carrier had taken his fifteen shillings promised for the job and was already on his way back to the coast.
‘Morning, pet.’ Hannah looked up as she lifted the sneck of the door and Meg was struck by how pale and wan she was, with great dark circles under her eyes.
‘Morning, Mam, Da.’
She gave them both a peck on the cheek and helped herself to a cup of tea
from the large brown pot with its mismatched lid. The lid was willow-patterned and pretty against the brown. Meg couldn’t remember when the true lid of the tea pot had been broken or where the pot of the willow-patterned lid had got to. The lid had been with the pot for so long they seemed like a pair to her.
Sitting down at the table, she added a dollop of condensed milk and took a long swallow. By! It was lovely after that wishy-washy stuff of Auntie Phoebe’s.
‘You mam’s a bit tired,’ Jack said to her. ‘Try to do your best for her today, will you, lass? An’ keep the bairns out of her way.’
‘Aye, Da, I will.’
Meg spread plum jam over a thick slice of bread and took a bite, savouring the sweetness of the jam against the nutty flavour of bread made from unbleached flour.
‘Aye. I know you will, lass.’ Jack rose and patted her head. ‘I’ll away and get the bed up then.’
The day was filled with putting the house to rights. The floors had been scrubbed the day before, but the doors and windows had to be scrubbed too with washing soda to remove the greasy finger marks. Then there were the curtains to hang at the front window and the furniture to be pushed into position. The bricked yard had to be swilled and the steps scrubbed with sandstone. After all, they couldn’t let the neighbours think it was a family of tinkers come to live alongside them.
They were just about done when it happened. Hannah was unrolling the clippie mat before the fireplace in the kitchen, bending down to straighten a corner, when she suddenly gave a cry and fell full-length on the mat.
‘Mam!’
Meg practically tumbled from the chair where she had been fixing the heavy cotton-net half-curtain to the window, and the chair fell over with her unheeded. Dropping the curtain, she ran to her mother and turned her over on to her back, screaming as she saw the deathly pallor of Hannah’s face.
‘Mam, Mam!’ she cried, picking up one cold hand and holding it to her own warm face. Was her mam dead?
‘What’s the matter, our Meg?’
Jack Boy came in from the yard where he had been told to keep the little ones amused until the house was ready. He stood in the doorway uncertainly, little Miles peeping round the leg of his raggy-edged short trousers. His hand went to his mouth and he stared, horror-stricken, at the sight of Hannah on the floor, lying so still.
‘Go and get Auntie Phoebe!’ Meg shouted at him, and still he stood, as though rooted to the ground. ‘Go on, now!’
But there was no need to go for Auntie Phoebe. She had heard the commotion through the thin wall which connected the houses and was already bustling up the garden path to the front door. She fairly ran through the front room to the kitchen, and at the sight of Meg kneeling on the floor beside her prostrate mother, she took charge at once.
‘Jack Boy, go on, lad, take the bairns out somewhere.’ Jack Boy hesitated and she took him by the shoulder and turned him round bodily. ‘Hadaway, lad, this is no place for you. Take them down to the pit head and wait for your da. He won’t be long now, back shift must be coming out. Don’t fret, son, you mam’ll be fine, you’ll see.’ Firmly, Auntie Phoebe closed the back door on him and only then did she turn her attention to Hannah.
‘Is she dead?’ whispered Meg.
‘Nay, lass, of course she isn’t. It’ll be the babby, I should think. Look, she’s coming round already.’
And indeed Hannah was moaning slightly and turning her head from side to side. Suddenly her eyes flew open and she looked about her, at Meg’s tear-stained face and from there to Auntie Phoebe’s kindly one. She struggled to sit up, mumbling incoherently, but Phoebe took hold of her shoulders and prevented her.
‘Lie still a minute, pet, pull yourself together, that’ll be best. Then me and Meg will get you up to bed. I’ll put the kettle on and make you a nice cup of tea. You’ve been doing over much, that’s what. Is the babby coming, do you think?’
‘Eeh, no, it can’t be the babby coming yet. I reckoned another month or six weeks.’ But even as she spoke, a spasm of pain crossed her back, radiated round her side and gripped her. She cried out with the shock of it and Phoebe pursed her lips.
‘Aye, well, another month or not, we’ll be better off with you upstairs and abed. Then Meg can run for the midwife.’
Hannah had no option but to agree. Slowly the older woman and the young girl managed to get Hannah up the bare wooden staircase to the bed, though not without a few stops on the way while she gasped at the severity of the pains gripping her. Meg was frantic with the worry of it. Her mother’s hair was sticking to her forehead and the sweat was running down her neck in tiny rivulets. For Meg it was the longest journey of her life.
‘Hadaway then, Meg,’ Phoebe said as soon as they had rolled Hannah into the bed.
‘But I don’t know where—’
‘Oh, aye, you don’t know where to go, do you?’ Quickly, she gave Meg directions to the midwife’s house before turning back to her patient. ‘Where’s your clean nightie?’ she was asking when Hannah gave an involuntary scream and Meg stared at her, horrified. Her mother’s teeth were clenched over her lower lip where a droplet of blood was slowly forming; her eyelids were closed, their blue veins standing out against the stark white of her face. Meg paused long enough to take out the clean nightie from a drawer and drop it on the upturned tea chest which, covered by a cloth, did duty for a bedside table. Then she fled down the stairs.
‘Turn left at the other end of the street, along the top of the colliery rows, left up Simpson Street, to Short Street, and the second house along.’
Meg was repeating the directions aloud as she ran for the midwife, fairly sprinting in her anxiety to get there. It seemed an age before her frantic knocking and crying were answered. Then it was the midwife’s husband who opened the door, an unshaven individual in dangling braces and collarless shirt. He listened to her appeal and scratched his head as he stood aside of her, unspeaking.
The midwife was sitting by the kitchen fire drinking tea from a pint pot, stretching bootless feet along the length of the steel fender. She sighed impatiently when she saw the girl, her face all blotched and crying.
‘Please!’ sobbed Meg, hardly able to get her words out in her urgency. ‘You’ll have to come now. Mam’s awful bad, and the babby’s too soon.’
‘Eeh, I can’t even get a sip of tea now an’ I’ve been up all night. What’s your name, lass, any road? I don’t think I know you. Incomers, are you? You’re supposed to book me, you know.’ She took another sip of tea, making no effort to respond to Meg’s plea.
‘We’ve just come, yesterday. I’m called Meg Maddison.’
‘Maddison? I haven’t got a Maddison booked. Where do you live?’
Meg was frantic now as the midwife showed no inclination to hurry and put on her boots but simply sat, calmly drinking tea from the pot.
‘We live in the rows, Pasture Row, the end one, next to Phoebe Lowther. Auntie Phoebe said to hurry.’ Meg’s nerves were stretched to breaking. Why didn’t she come, the silly woman?
‘Why, man, there can’t be that much of a hurry. I’d think she’s just a bit shook up if she was journeying yesterday. But I’d better have a look for myself. Phoebe Lowther’s had none of her own, she won’t know. When did she start the pains?’
‘She swooned half an hour since. Then she was bad, she’s awful bad.’
The woman took a long swallow of tea and put the pot down on the fender before reaching for her boots. ‘So you’re kin to Phoebe Lowther, are you? Aye, well, she’s a nice body. A bit of a gossip though.’ She stood up and smoothed down her black serge skirt before picking up her capacious black holdall from the table.
‘Eeh, who would have my job, I ask you? I’m at it night and day the way people around this place breed.’
The midwife walked at such a leisurely pace that Meg felt like getting behind her and pushing her. But at last they were there.
‘You took your time!’ Auntie Phoebe was at the front door when they came up the p
ath. ‘Didn’t the lass tell you it was a rush job, Mrs Hall?’ All Phoebe’s self-assurance had deserted her, she was white and strained-looking. Catching hold of Meg before she entered the house, she drew her aside.
‘You go down to the other bairns, pet. This is no place for you, not now. And when your da comes out of the pit tell him to take the bairns next-door to our house. That’ll be the best.’
Turning swiftly, Phoebe shut the door in Meg’s face and the girl was left staring at the wooden boards, an unnamed dread rising in her.
Meg could hear Mrs Hall’s voice as she climbed the stairs to the bedroom. ‘Now, Phoebe, I know it’s because you’ve had none of your own, but don’t panic, lass . . .’ The voice broke off abruptly, the only other sound a muffled exclamation. Meg turned and ran off blindly. Suddenly she didn’t want to be told that the midwife had found anything wrong. Mam was just having a bairn, a babby. She’d had a babby before, hadn’t she? Why should it be different this time?
There was the day little Alice was born. She’d thought Mam was dying then but she didn’t, it was all right. It would be all right this time an’ all, Meg said to herself. Deliberately she slowed to a walk and wiped her face with the corner of her apron. She would go down to the pit yard. Da would be coming up now and it was best if she was there to warn him before he went home. Besides there was Jack Boy and the little ’uns to think about. Miles was likely crying for his mam by now.
The mine hooter was blowing as Meg reached the yard. Men were already streaming from it, brushing past the children standing by the gates, the boy holding Miles against his hip. Miles had his face buried in Jack Boy’s neck. He seemed to have cried himself to sleep. Alice was huddling close to him and watching the men, black with coal dust, some of them stopping to light the first cigarette in nine or ten hours. They drew the smoke into their lungs and it made them cough and gather up the phlegm in their mouths so they could spit out the coal and the stone dust, clearing their tubes. Meg watched too, anxious now about Da. Had he managed not to panic in the cage?