by Maggie Hope
Sadly, Jonty stabled his pony and rubbed him down. There was no sign of his father’s horse. Ralph Grizedale must be off on one of his jaunts to Darlington. Well, at least Jonty didn’t have to deal with him for a while. He had enough to think about as it was, and was desperately aware that if things went on the way they were doing, the estate would be lost altogether. His trust money, when he got it, would come too late to do any good.
Sadly, he went indoors and climbed the stairs to his grandmother’s room. He had to see that the old woman was comfortable. She was failing now, her joints crippled with arthritis so that she rarely left her room. She was dependent on him for everything.
Fifteen
It was autumn and the wind was blowing from the north and straight down the colliery rows as Meg walked slowly along to the end and turned right. She passed three rows, turning in when she came to the last but one. Pausing, she stared down the street, noting the washing strung across from one side to the other, for these rows had no gardens to string washing in. Only Pasture Row where she lived had gardens. Her inner turmoil was eased slightly by thinking of such inconsequential things.
She shivered. The wind was bitterly cold. It was only October but the north-easters were already bringing the taste of winter from the Arctic.
Meg’s deep-down thoughts were as bitter as the wind. It took all her will-power to stop herself from turning round and going back home. But she could not. She pulled her shawl tighter round her shoulders and walked on down the row to number eleven. Here lived the Cornish family, Wesley and his widowed mother. Mrs Cornish had been widowed last year when her husband was killed in a fall of stone at the pit but they had kept the tenancy of the house by virtue of Wesley’s position as a coal-hewer.
Her feet slowed as she approached number eleven and halted at the door. Meg was ready to turn and run; she was ready to face her father and brothers first and confess the pickle she had got herself into. They wouldn’t turn her out, why no, they wouldn’t, not like happened to some girls in the same position. They were a close family, even Da for all his withdrawn silences. But Auntie Phoebe’s voice came back to her, ringing in her ears.
‘There’s only one thing you can do,’ her aunt had said when she caught Meg being sick over the drain in the back yard, only yesterday morning. ‘You’ll have to tell the lad. Them that makes their bed has to lie on it. It’ll be that Wesley Cornish, is it?’
Meg had nodded miserably.
‘Aye, well, you wouldn’t be told. You would go with him.’
Meg had leaned against the wall and wiped her mouth with a rag, the bitter taste of bile fresh in her mouth. She must have looked woebegone for Phoebe’s tone softened.
‘Never mind, lass, you’re not the first this has happened to. It’s the way of the world. He’ll have to do the right thing by you. An’ I know you haven’t been seeing him lately. Was it just the once, like?’
Meg had nodded again, wordless.
‘Hmm. Them that gets the puddin’ doesn’t always get the most gravy,’ Phoebe commented sagely, though the remark was incomprehensible to Meg.
And now here she was, standing by the door of the Cornish house, not daring to knock. She glanced up and down the street but there was no one about, the doors tight closed against the wind which made the clothes flap and snap and wind themselves around the lines. Dully, she thought they would take a lot of ironing if someone didn’t come out and see to them.
Meg hadn’t seen Wesley Cornish since that fateful Sunday afternoon. She had returned home, feeling grubbily used, sure he would be boasting about his conquests to all the lads in the village and she would be named for a whore. Every day when Jack Boy or Miles came in from the pit, she met them with a sick feeling rising in her gut, expecting them to show anger and contempt for her for bringing this shame on the family.
But it hadn’t happened, everything was as normal. Evidently Wesley was not bandying her name about at all. Her heart had grown lighter with each passing day. She was going to get the chance to put it behind her. And then suddenly she had another worry, a bigger one, a much bigger one. What was she going to do?
Meg brought her thoughts back to the present. She had to lift her hand and knock on the door of number eleven. She had to, as Auntie Phoebe said. It was too late now to say she didn’t want to marry Wesley Cornish. Bairns with no fathers just didn’t happen in the closed society of the pit village. Or not often, they didn’t, and when they did it was a blight on the whole family, not just the woman and her bairn.
Hadn’t she heard a woman in Marsden once comment on it, when an unmarried girl and her child were laughing together on the beach?
‘You’d think she’d keep him in the house, not make a show of him like that,’ the woman had said. And Meg had looked at the child in surprise. He was an ordinary enough bairn, why should his mother have to keep him out of the way? She’d asked Mam, and Mam had told her some people thought like that because he had no da. But Meg still hadn’t understood. Lots of children had no fathers. Men were killed in the pit or died of the cholera or their lungs rotted with the dust. Why was that one bairn different? But Mam would say no more.
The wind blew her hair in wisps about her face and Meg’s hand dropped to her side almost of its own volition. She stared at the fading paint of the green batten door, the same green paint which adorned every door in the rows. She was just noting dully that the brass sneck could do with a bit of polish when it lifted and there, in the doorway was Wesley’s mam.
‘Er, good morning, Mrs Cornish.’
‘Morning.’
Jane Cornish stared in astonishment at the girl standing on her doorstep which was newly scoured this morning with sandstone. She stood with the Brasso in one hand and a polishing cloth in the other, an enquiring expression on her face, obviously waiting for Meg to explain what she was doing there. Meg bit her lip.
‘Did you want something, lass?’ prompted Mrs Cornish. ‘You’re not tongue-tied, are you?’
Meg shook her head and smiled shyly. For some reason she had expected to see Wesley. After all, she knew he was off shift, that was why she was here. She didn’t know what to say to his mother.
‘Is your Wesley in?’ she managed to utter at last.
Jane Cornish compressed her lips. She was a small, scraggy woman, everything about her meagre. Her thin hair was scraped back from her face and her narrow body dressed in a cheap black overall dress. From her five foot nothing she looked up at Meg, her gaze anything but friendly. This girl was a threat to her security and she knew it. Why else would a young lass come looking for a lad this early in the morning, before the jobs were done?
‘He’s in bed,’ she snapped, and her tone implied she had no intention of disturbing him either.
‘Oh.’ Meg hadn’t thought of that. She berated herself for not thinking of it. After all, he’d been on night shift, why wouldn’t he still be in bed? ‘Will you tell him I want to see him? Margaret Maddison, I am.’
‘Indeed I will not,’ snapped Mrs Cornish, openly aggressive now. ‘Why should I disturb the lad? Why can’t you wait?’
Meg faced her desperately. Oh, she didn’t want to go back home and have to come looking all over again, she didn’t.
‘Who’s that, Mam?’
The annoyance on Jane’s face deepened as Wesley came through from the back of the house, yawning widely, his feet bare and his braces hanging down by his sides. Obviously he had not been in bed, he came out of the kitchen.
‘Meg!’ he exclaimed.
Wesley’s surprise was total. Since that summer day when they had taken their last walk in the fields he hadn’t seen her. She had made it very plain then that she didn’t want him yet here she was on his doorstep.
‘Can I come in?’
Meg sounded tentative. Jane still held on to the door as though guarding the house against an enemy. Wesley simply stared. After a moment he spoke.
‘Let her in, Mam.’
Reluctantly, Jane stood back from
the door and allowed Meg to pass her, anything but welcoming.
Meg followed Wesley into a spotless kitchen. The table was scrubbed white and the brass rail below the mantelshelf gleamed in the light from the range. She felt that not a cinder would dare to fall on the white-washed hearth. The only concession to comfort in the room was a thin cushion on the wooden armchair pulled up before the fire.
Jane followed them into the room and stood on the clippie mat by the fender, arms folded over her skinny breast.
‘Can I have a word with you, Wesley, on your own?’
Meg heard the tremor in her own voice and clamped her teeth together in an effort to get over her fit of nerves.
‘There’s nothing you can have to say to our Wesley that I don’t have a right to know,’ declared Jane.
‘Mam!’
Wesley’s exclamation seemed to have an effect on her for she nodded towards the passage.
‘Go on then. You know where the front room is.’
Meg followed Wesley along to the front room. Once there and with the door firmly closed, she turned to face him. Wesley was smiling confidently and she could see he was thinking that if she’d sought him out, she must want to see him again.
‘I knew you still liked me,’ he said, ‘lasses always have a soft spot for the first lad to take them.’ He cocked his head on one side, a teasing light in his eyes. ‘Well, I might think about it . . .’
‘It’s not that, not that at all. I had to come,’ Meg said flatly.
‘Oh?’
‘I’m going to have a bairn.’
The confident grin was wiped from Wesley’s face and his jaw dropped.
‘A bairn?’
The door to the front room burst open and Jane Cornish catapulted into the room like a miniature whirlwind.
‘A bairn, is it? An’ you’re trying to make out it’s our Wesley’s? Well, you can be ganning. Hadaway out of my house, you impittent little hussy.’ She glared her contempt at Meg, her hands on her hips and her chin thrust forward aggressively. ‘You don’t think I’m going to let him be taken in by the oldest trick in the world, do you? Go on, I said, out of it, before I take my broom to you.’
‘Mam. Stop it. You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Wesley protested, but his voice sounded unconvincing and Meg’s heart sank within her.
‘I won’t, will I not? I’ll damn’ well do what I like in my own house.’ Jane’s voice was rising. She advanced on Meg, eyes flashing and her thin nose quivering with rage. For a minute Meg thought the older woman was going to hit her.
‘How do we know who you’ve been with?’ Jane went on. ‘If you went with our Wesley you’ve likely been with a dozen more. I bet if I was to ask around the village I’d hear some right tales about you and your goings-on, you dirty little madam. I’m not one to gossip or I’d mebbe have—’
‘Mam!’ Wesley stepped forward and grabbed his mother’s arm, propelling her towards the door. ‘I think this is for me and Meg to talk about.’
‘Why, man, you’re a great soft ha’pporth. You know nowt, you’ll believe anything she says. She’ll take you in proper all right, that sort always does.’
Meg had had enough. If she had to listen to that woman screeching at her a minute longer she would knock her down herself, and where would that get her? She pushed past them and ran down the passage and out of the front door.
‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Cornish,’ she flung over her shoulder, ‘I’m all right, I don’t need you or your precious son. We’ll manage on our own, me and the bairn, you wait and see.’
Once outside in the cold fresh air, she set off at a run, quite oblivious of the neighbours who had suddenly found it necessary to test the dryness of the clothes hanging on their lines. The raised voices had been heard, of course, all across the street, the walls of the cottages in the row being only a single brick’s thickness.
Vaguely, Meg heard Wesley calling after her as she turned into Pasture Row, but she took no notice. All she could think of was getting home and closing the door against the rest of the world. She had never been so ashamed in her life before.
‘Meg!’
Wesley caught up with her before she reached her own gate. He took hold of her elbow and swung her round to face him.
‘Meg, Meg, don’t run away from me. Don’t, pet. I’ll marry you, I will. I just got a bit of a shock, that’s all.’
Meg raised her face to his, flushed and tear-stained. She was ready to protest hotly, she wanted to tell him to go to hell, she didn’t want him to marry her as a favour. No, she didn’t.
Wesley saw the protest coming and forestalled it. ‘Meg, I mean it, I want to marry you,’ he said quickly.
‘What about your mam?’ she asked bitterly. ‘You’re underage. If she wants she can stop you.’
‘Aye, but she won’t. Any road, I’m twenty-one next month, she couldn’t stop me then. But I’ll speak to her, I’ll tell her. Listen, Meg, I’ll come back with you now and we’ll make plans, eh? What do you say?’
‘Da’s off shift, he’s in bed. A strange voice always wakes him up, we can’t go there.’
‘Well, we have to go somewhere. It’s no good going back to our house, not with the mood Mam’s in. Better take a chance on waking your da. I’ll tell Mam when she’s calmed down a bit.’
Wesley gazed earnestly at Meg. There was no hint of teasing or male arrogance in his face now. He just wanted to do right by her, she could see.
‘Yes,’ she conceded. ‘We’ll have to be quiet, though. We’ll go through to the front room, Da sleeps over the kitchen.’
She led the way into the house and the front room, thankful that she had already put up the chiffonier bed and tidied the room so that there was no hint that it was also her bedroom. There was no fire in here and the air struck chill, icy draughts coming in through the ill-fitting door which led directly to the outside.
Meg didn’t feel the cold now as she pulled up a chair for Wesley and sat down opposite him. No, she felt all of a lather, hot and embarrassed now she actually had to talk about her trouble to him. She pondered where to begin.
‘How far do you think you’re on?’ asked Wesley, and he too seemed awkward and shy. He leaned forward on his chair, looking at the floor and with his hands clasped before him. Then he sat back and looked out of the window, anywhere but at Meg.
‘You know how far I’m on,’ she said. What was he talking about?
‘Oh, aye, you’re right. It must be three or four months.’
They sat quietly and, through the wall, Meg could hear Bella, chattering on to Auntie Phoebe in her high, shrill voice. Wesley cleared his throat loudly and Meg looked apprehensively at the ceiling, listening for any signs of Da waking up.
‘Whisht,’ she whispered.
The silence lengthened until at last Wesley broke it, speaking in a low voice. ‘We’ll get married.’
‘Aye,’ said Meg, realising he couldn’t plan any further than that, it was up to her to see to arrangements. Wesley was of that breed of miners who had everything done for them by their mothers.
‘When?’ she prompted him.
‘We shall have to book the chapel and the minister,’ he said, pleased that he had thought of it.
‘No, we will not!’ Meg said in her normal voice, and this time it was Wesley who looked up at the ceiling and raised his hand warningly.
‘No, we won’t,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to be wed in our chapel, not with a thick waist and everybody sniggering at me.’
‘I’d soon stop anybody sniggering,’ he snapped.
Meg glared at him. That was just like him, she thought, a bully-boy. He thought everything could be settled with his fists.
‘I’m not getting wed in chapel,’ she reiterated. ‘We’ll have to go to the register office in Auckland.’
‘The register office?’ Wesley sat back, shocked. ‘That’s not a proper wedding, not in the register office.’
‘Aye, it is.’ Meg nodded her head. ‘We’ll b
e wed just as much as if we were wed in chapel.’
‘Me Mam won’t like it,’ he said gloomily.
‘She’s not going to like it any road. Now, we have to decide when.’
‘As soon as we can, I suppose.’
‘Don’t be soft, Wesley,’ said Meg, surprising herself at the way she was taking charge now he had agreed to the marriage. ‘We haven’t got anywhere to live, have we? We can’t get wed till we know what we’re going to do after, can we?’
‘We’ll live with me mam,’ he said. ‘I can only have the one house from the colliery, we’ll have to live with me mam.’
Meg’s heart sank. Oh, no, she didn’t want to live with Wesley’s mam, she didn’t! ‘We can live here, we can have this room.’ She looked around the front room. It would do for a start and then she would be handy to see to the place for her da.
It was Wesley’s turn to look impatient. ‘What about me mam? If I’m not living there they might take the house off her. Why, man, we have to live with me mam.’
‘What are you doing here?’
Both Wesley and Meg started guiltily. They hadn’t heard anyone come in and when the door opened and there stood Jack Boy, still in his pitclothes, they were at a loss what to say.
‘Our Meg?’
‘Eeh, Jack Boy, is it that time? You’ll have to have a bit of bacon for your dinner, I haven’t done anything else.’
‘Never mind me dinner. I said, what’s he doing here? An’ in here an’ all, where your bed is?’ Jack Boy was glaring at her, his voice tight with rage.
‘The bed’s up!’ she cried. ‘It’s not like that at all. We just had to talk about something, that’s why he’s here.’
‘I can speak for meself, Meg,’ said Wesley. Now he was over his initial surprise at Jack Boy’s sudden appearance, he faced the younger boy squarely.
‘Me and your Meg, we’re going to get wed.’
‘Aye? And who says so?’ Jack Boy demanded, thrusting his chin forward aggressively. ‘Meg’s only eighteen, me da might have something to say about that.’