An Orphan's Secret

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Here, give us the bairn.’ She leaned over and took the sleeping Miles, holding him up to her shoulder, cradling him in her arms.

  ‘Eeh, Meg, I can’t see me da at all.’ Jack Boy, relieved of his burden, looked anxiously at his elder sister. His eyes asked the question he was too shy to put into words.

  ‘Mam has the midwife,’ was all Meg said, and they turned to scan the men once again.

  ‘Da! I can see Da.’ Alice was diving between the men, running towards her father. ‘Da! Mam’s took bad,’ she cried, before Meg could stop her.

  How Alice could recognize Da, Meg couldn’t think. To her the man coming towards them, holding on to a grinning, skipping Alice, was like a stranger. He was covered in coal dust from head to toe, her fastidious da, who was always clean, no matter what. His hair was encrusted with it, his clothes stiff with it, only his eyes were the same, an intense blue staring out of a black, streaked face. The bait tin hanging by his side which had held his sandwiches clanked against the gate as he came through and his pit boots rang on the stones.

  ‘What is it, what’s the matter?’ he asked, ignoring the younger ones clamouring to be noticed and turning all his attention on Meg.

  ‘Mam. The bairn’s coming.’

  ‘Nay, it can’t be, there’s a while to go yet,’ Jack Maddison objected.

  ‘I know, I know, Da, but that’s what Auntie Phoebe says. And I had to go for the midwife, and when we get back we have to go in Auntie Phoebe’s house. That’s what she said, any road.’

  Jack Maddison grabbed the sleeping Miles from Meg, ignoring her protests about getting the bairn all black from the coal dust, and set off at a run for the colliery rows. He far outstripped his family so that when Meg got back to the house with her brothers and sister in tow, he had already disappeared inside. Slowly, she went up the garden path to number one. The kitchen was empty, the fire dying in the grate. Uncle Tot had gone to the pit.

  ‘Watch them for a minute, Jack,’ she commanded, deciding to brave whatever was going on next-door. At the very least she could bring little Miles out of the way. She could hear his fretful crying.

  ‘Aw, man, our Meg, I wanted to play cricket.’ Jack Boy was mutinous, hadn’t he minded the bairns all day? And it was lass’s work.

  Meg turned on him furiously, venting her worry and frustration.

  ‘You do as I tell you or I’ll tell Da! Then he’ll flatten you, an’ if he doesn’t, I will.’ She stopped as she saw the stricken look in his eyes. He was hardly seven, after all.

  ‘All right, all right, our Meg. I never said I wouldn’t,’ he muttered.

  She crept out of the back door. As she walked up their own yard, which was still glistening wetly from the swilling it had had earlier in the day, she could see through the kitchen window that there was no one about, only Miles sitting on the mat, newly wakened from sleep and sobbing as he looked round his unfamiliar surroundings. Meg rushed in and picked up the child, holding him against her shoulder and rocking gently.

  ‘There, there, me bairn. Meggie’s here, she’s got you now. Be a good lad and I’ll give you a nice buttered crust to suck. Whisht now, whisht, me pet.’

  Gradually, Miles’s sobs lessened and Meg strained to hear what was going on upstairs. She looked up at the brown boards which made up the ceiling of the kitchen and the floor of the bedroom above. There was much creaking of wood, the sound of footsteps going backwards and forwards, hushed whispers. A man’s voice, Scottish, said something and the midwife answered.

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  Doctor? They’d had to get the doctor! They never did that just for a baby coming. Mam had never had a doctor before. Meg’s heart thumped in her breast. She strained to hear more.

  But there was silence. Miles whimpered suddenly in her arms, sensing the anxious turmoil going on in Meg. And there came a sound Meg had never heard before in her life, great racking sobs in an unfamiliar voice which it took Meg a minute or two to realise was Da’s. And Auntie Phoebe began talking in a funny sort of voice too, softly, coaxing, as to a feverish child.

  ‘Howay, now, Jack, there’s nothing you can do now. Best go downstairs and let us get on here, this is no place for you now. You have to hold up for the sake of those poor bairns.’

  And a new sound was added, the weak wailing of a baby.

  Six

  Meg sat beside Alice and Jack Boy on the wooden form along the back wall in the kitchen. She was cradling the sleeping Miles in her arms. He’d cried and cried for his mam but in the end fallen asleep, exhausted. Alice was swinging her legs backwards and forwards, nursing her own baby, a peg dollie wrapped in a bit of clout for a shawl. Meg looked at her younger sister. Alice hadn’t cried when Auntie Phoebe told her that her mam had gone to heaven, she’d simply picked up her doll and hugged it. And now she was sitting quietly, still hugging it.

  Auntie Phoebe and Uncle Tot were sitting at the table with Da. They were talking earnestly together. At least, Auntie Phoebe and Uncle Tot were talking, Da gave no sign that he was even listening.

  ‘I asked the minister to come, Jack,’ said Auntie Phoebe. ‘It’d be best if we have the funeral on Wednesday morning, Tot’ll be able to come then.’ As she spoke, Auntie Phoebe was rocking the cradle with her foot, the wooden cradle which had been taken from Eldon to Marsden on the coast and back inland to Winton Colliery. Meg watched her. There wasn’t any need to rock the cradle, she was thinking. The baby, Bella, was sound asleep. In spite of the violence of her arrival, Bella slept most of the time.

  But Auntie Phoebe had taken over the new baby already. She couldn’t bear to be away from Bella at all. She even wanted to take the baby next-door the night, thought Meg, sudden resentment overlaying her numb misery. She knew she wasn’t old enough herself to have proper charge of Bella. But the baby was a Maddison, she thought, not a Lowther. Families had to stay together. Da would see that if he was more like himself.

  Jack Maddison was sitting quietly, giving no sign that he even heard Auntie Phoebe. Miles woke up and struggled to be down from Meg’s lap. He toddled over to his father and tried to climb on his knee, but Jack made no move to help him. A strained, white Jack Boy went to him without being told and picked him up in his skinny arms, leaning backwards to take the weight.

  ‘Howay, Miles,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll go and pick some daisies and cowslips, and mebbe Alice’ll give us a hand, eh?’

  The room was quiet after the younger children left. Meg glanced through the connecting door to the front room. Already the coffin was laid out on two trestles supplied by the undertaker. The top was left off until the actual ‘lifting’ so friends and kin could view Hannah for the last time. It was the custom, Meg knew, only there wouldn’t be any friends and relatives, not for her mam. There weren’t any left, just Auntie Phoebe and Uncle Tot. Meg looked at her uncle who was sitting in his shirtsleeves next to Da, his face solemn.

  ‘I shouldn’t have gone down the pit, I knew I shouldn’t,’ Jack said suddenly.

  ‘Eeh, Jack, man, you going down the pit didn’t do anything,’ protested Uncle Tot.

  ‘It was another worry for Hannah, it was, it upset her,’ said Jack.

  Meg watched him from her seat by the back wall, it was the first time she had heard Da say anything since Mam died.

  ‘I’m not going down any more,’ he added now.

  Uncle Tot started to argue but broke off in midsentence as he saw he was getting nowhere. ‘Aye then, Jack,’ he said. ‘I tell you what, I’ll see about a job on bank for you. It’ll be less money, but if you mean it . . .’

  ‘I do.’

  Auntie Phoebe looked at Meg and sighed. ‘Howay then, Meg, there’s a lot to be done if we’re to be ready for Wednesday. It’s up to thee and me now, lass.’ And somehow the awful day passed, full of work for Meg and her aunt.

  * * *

  The funeral was held on Wednesday at eleven in the morning. Auntie Phoebe and Meg had scrubbed the house out from top to bottom yet again, to make it dec
ent for the funeral meal afterwards. And Meg had bathed the little ones in the tin bath which hung on a nail in the back yard when not in use. But Auntie Phoebe bathed the baby.

  ‘You’re not big enough to do the babby, pet,’ she said to Meg, who was watching her and thinking that Mam had done it differently. Mam had held a baby easily, but Auntie Phoebe was awkward and she used too much soap an’ all. And Meg rebelled in her heart. Hadn’t she been big enough to do little Miles? But she said nothing, just got on with dressing Alice and Miles in the clothes normally reserved for Sunday School.

  The day was wet and dismal. Meg had been up early, helping Auntie Phoebe boil the ham and ox tongue and pease pudding and slice the pickled beetroot which was to go with it. And all the time they had to skirt round Da who was in the rocking chair by the kitchen range, just sitting there.

  ‘Well,’ said Auntie Phoebe, ‘no matter how hard up we are, we have to have a decent tea to offer anyone who comes back to the house after, we couldn’t not give Hannah a decent send off.’ And Meg knew she meant anything less was too much akin to that thing dreaded above all, a Parish burial.

  ‘Eeh, Auntie Phoebe!’ Meg exclaimed when she saw the size of the ham and beheld the tray of cakes which Phoebe had brought round from her own house. ‘Eeh, Auntie Phoebe, we can’t pay for all this.’ She cast a quick glance at Da to see if he knew anything about it. She knew all their meagre savings had gone on the move from Marsden. And Da hadn’t been to work since Mam died, he’d only been down the pit that one day.

  But Jack Maddison didn’t even look up.

  Auntie Phoebe looked guardedly at Da too before she answered. ‘Dinna worry, pet,’ she said. ‘Your Uncle Tot has seen to it. An’ mebbe your mam carried a bit of insurance?’

  Meg looked doubtful. Da might know but they couldn’t ask him now. She couldn’t remember the insurance man calling at all when he was on his weekly rounds, though.

  ‘Well, never mind, pet. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. Everything will get paid for, things turn up.’ With a touch of surprise, Meg realised that Auntie Phoebe was embarrassed about something. Her face was all red and she kept darting funny looks at Da.

  ‘There now, I think it’s all ready. Now, I’ll just go round and change into my black.’ Auntie Phoebe changed the subject with obvious relief. ‘They’ll be here in half an hour.’

  The hearse, when it came, was pulled by two black-plumed horses and the undertaker and his boy were wearing top hats in a shining black silk with trailing ribbons. That would all be extra, Meg knew. Worry niggled at her as she picked up Miles and followed the minister and Da out to the hearse, Jack Boy and Alice by her side and Auntie Phoebe carrying Bella.

  ‘I’ll take Miles,’ whispered Uncle Tot, and Meg gratefully released her burden to him. She couldn’t think about money now; she could still hear in her mind the sound of them nailing down the coffin lid.

  Mr Barton, the young minister barely out of his training, looked down on the family from his place in the pulpit, hardly knowing what to say to them. Distress surged through him as he saw the stooped shoulders of the husband, covered by a threadbare suit, and the group of children round him, the youngest girl looking bewildered by it all.

  His attention was drawn to the eldest girl who looked to be nine or ten years old. She had an air of vitality and strength with her springing fair hair and bright blue eyes, even though these were now red with weeping. Already she was acting as mother to the younger ones, a role he realised she would have to fill in earnest now. His heart filled with pity for her.

  The minister sighed. He had never met the family before the day the mother died, but there were so many others like this one. He thought about his own comfortable middle-class home in Surrey; how he had been fired with enthusiasm when he had heard about the surge of revivalism in the northern pit villages. And he remembered the shock it had been when he had seen for himself the dirt and poverty and downright human misery here. Though there was another side to life in the pit village, too, a side he found himself quite unable to do anything about. There was a wild side, a drinking, gambling fraternity as well as their more pious chapel neighbours. The drinkers and gamblers were catered for by the beer houses and inns like the Pit Laddie which stood right next-door to the chapel. And on a Sunday night at service they were sometimes put to it to hear themselves sing the hymns for the roistering and shouting going on. Abruptly the minister recollected himself and controlled his wandering thoughts, announcing the last hymn and bringing the service to a close.

  ‘You will take a bite of tea with us, won’t you, Mr Barton? You’d be welcome, I’m sure,’ said Auntie Phoebe as they left the graveside. She looked across at Jack for him to endorse the invitation. Jack was not listening.

  But nor was he sunk in the stupor which had affected him since the death of his wife. He was staring at a man standing apart from the other mourners. Meg followed his gaze. It was a gentleman who stood there, his top hat in his hand. She looked at his fine grey suit and the snowy linen showing at collar and cuffs. He was a proper toff with his silver-topped cane in one hand. Then Meg looked closer. What was it about him, did she know him?

  His cheeks were coarse with tiny red veins showing on the skin and deep lines around his eyes, but yes, she thought she knew him. And the knowledge filled her with a sickening terror.

  Candyman! That was who he was. She remembered him, oh, she did, she did. She remembered that day when she and her mam and the babby had run from the candymen, and he was on a great, grey horse, and he was the biggest bloody candyman of them all, Mrs Hart had said so. And hadn’t she seen him since, time and time again, in her nightmare?

  There was something else, an’ all, something her mind shied away from. What was it? But search her mind as she might, she couldn’t remember what it was. She only knew it was something to do with him.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Lowther,’ the minister was saying in that plummy, flat voice he had, ‘but really, I think I’d better not.’

  Auntie Phoebe bridled. The minister always came back for the funeral tea, it was expected. Mr Barton saw he’d offended her and began again.

  ‘Well, perhaps I can—’

  He was saved from his embarrassment by the sound of a low growl of anger. He and Phoebe both turned in surprise to see what it was.

  ‘You bloody, filthy cur!’ Jack had roused himself all right. The stream of oaths which he uttered startled everyone and shocked the minister to the core. He saw Jack fling himself headlong at the gentleman, Mr Grizedale, for that was who it was, everyone knew well. ‘You killed her,’ Jack yelled.

  The force of his rush and the suddenness of it took Ralph off balance and he stumbled and fell beneath the flailing onslaught, his cane rolling from his hand. It took the combined strength of all the men present, including the shocked minister, to drag Jack Maddison off his quarry. Tot had to hang on to his arms and Auntie Phoebe step between him and Ralph before Jack would stop straining to get at him.

  ‘Jack! Jack, man, remember where you are, lad. Think of the bairns, will you?’

  Meg watched, shrinking back into the hedge with Alice and Miles whimpering in terror as Uncle Tot held on to Da, remonstrating. She cast a fearful look at the candyman, Mr Grizedale. Eeh, what would he do to her da for this? Ralph was climbing to his feet, his face flushed to an angry hue of purple; he was shaking with rage, she could see, as he brushed the soil from his fine coat, leaving dark brown stains on the elbows.

  ‘It was all his fault! All his. My Hannah would be alive today but for him. I’ll—’ Jack began to choke and his words faded into incoherence. Tears coursed down his cheeks.

  ‘Come now, Mr Maddison, you are overwrought,’ put in the minister, trying to reason with Jack before turning to Mr Grizedale.

  ‘I’m sure you will forgive him, sir, he’s not himself. His wife, you know.’

  Ralph brushed Mr Barton aside contemptuously and strode up to Jack, towering over him, his face only inches away. Meg moan
ed and took a step forward, sure he was going to kill her da. Little Alice started to scream; a thin, high, terrified shrieking.

  ‘I killed her, did I?’ shouted Ralph. He laughed, a hard, mirthless sound. ‘Why, you bare-arsed animal, you excuse for a man! Was it me who filled her with babies until they killed her? Was it me who couldn’t even feed her right? Why, man, you couldn’t pay for a decent burial for Hannah. Who do you think paid for this lot? Certainly not any of this gaggle of paupers!’

  He turned on his heel and strode from the churchyard. Mounting his horse which had been left tied to a tree in the hedge, he rode off without a backward glance.

  Clumsily, hampered by the weight of Miles, Meg ran to her father. All she could see was that Da hadn’t been murdered and the candyman was gone. A glad thankfulness filled her heart and lighted her eyes.

  ‘Da! Eeh, Da, I was that worried,’ she cried.

  But Jack didn’t seem to hear her. He didn’t watch Ralph ride away either. He was staring at Auntie Phoebe and Uncle Tot, his face so white and set that Meg felt a terrible fear growing in her yet again and her arm trembled as she took hold of Alice’s hand and drew her back from the grown-ups.

  ‘Eeh Jack, what could I do?’ Auntie Phoebe quavered. Her voice was all different, subdued, her confidence gone. ‘He offered, man, an’ well, me an’ Tot thought . . .’ She floundered to a stop and looked at her husband for support.

  ‘Aye, Jack. After all’s said and done, he is your brother-in-law, man.’

  ‘How did he know? You told him?’

  ‘Eeh, no, we didn’t, Jack. He found out somehow,’ said Phoebe.