Chapter Thirty
Hannah could tell Seth was in a bad mood as soon as she saw him striding down the row. She was beating a rug on the washing line. Billy ran around her, ducking back and forth under the line, flying an aeroplane he had made out of old newspaper.
He saw his father first and started towards him. ‘Dad, look what I’ve got! ‘
Seth barely glanced at his son as he pulled off his boots and dumped them on the stone step.
‘It’s a Sopwith Camel,’ Billy went on, undaunted. ‘Look, I can make it fly …’
Hannah caught him by the shoulder. ‘Why don’t you go and knock for one of your pals?’ she said. ‘I bet they’d like to see your aeroplane.’
‘But I want to show Dad.’ Billy’s face fell as Seth disappeared inside the house, slamming the door behind him.
‘He can look at it later. Go on, off with you.’
Hannah watched the boy go, his little shoulders slumped with disappointment. Then she went into the cottage.
Seth was standing by the range, peering into the teapot.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Hannah.
‘Who says owt’s happened?’
‘I know you, Seth Stanhope. What’s wrong?’ She went over and took the teapot from his hands and set it down, then put the kettle on. ‘Has there been more trouble on the picket line?’ Seth generally returned from picket duty in a sour mood.
‘Nay.’ He was silent for a moment, then said tightly, ‘Unless you call that bloody interfering nurse trouble!’
Hannah looked over her shoulder at him as she set the kettle to boil. ‘Miss Sheridan? What’s she done this time?’
‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Turned up at the pit gates, shouting the odds and making a fool of me.’
‘She never did?’
‘Oh, aye. Telling everyone my business, she was. Making out I don’t care about my bairns.’ His face darkened at the memory.
‘No! And she said it in front of the other men?’ Hannah could scarcely believe it. Even she would never have imagined Agnes Sheridan to be that foolish. ‘But she had no right to do that, Seth. No right at all.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ He looked furious. ‘That woman don’t know when to keep her nose out, that’s her problem.’
‘You’re right there.’ Hannah was still seething over Ruth Chadwick. She could scarcely believe how her friend had turned against her, telling her the nurse would be treating her wretched baby from now on. Hannah knew Ruth would never have found the courage to defy her if it hadn’t been for Agnes Sheridan. ‘What did she want anyway? Our Christopher hasn’t been playing up again, surely?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s Elsie. According to the nurse, she’s got hersen upset over that prize-giving business.’
Hannah frowned. ‘How did t’nurse know about that?’
‘Elsie told her. By all accounts, they’ve been getting quite thick together.’
‘Have they now?’ Hannah was thoughtful as she spooned tea into the pot.
‘Aye. She reckons our lass has been turning up at that clinic of hers, learning all about nursing.’
Hannah stiffened with annoyance. What a treacherous little sneak Elsie was! Hannah had always suspected the child didn’t like her. And after she had worked so hard, trying to be a mother to them all!
‘The nurse reckons I put my principles before my bairns’ happiness,’ Seth went on. His expression was still dark, but Hannah heard the note of doubt creeping into his voice.
‘She had no right to say such things! Everyone knows what a good father you are, Seth. Take no notice of her.’
He didn’t reply. Hannah watched him out of the corner of her eye as she made the tea.
‘The lass does work hard at her lessons,’ he said.
Hannah was silent. She was still furious that Elsie had been sneaking off to see Agnes Sheridan. She might have known that stuck-up madam would take a fancy to the girl. They were two of a kind, a pair of know-alls.
Elsie took after her mother, too. Hannah knew Sarah had looked down on her, just because she had never learned to read or write properly. As the eldest, Hannah had been the one to shoulder the responsibilities of looking after the farm and helping their mother carry out her healing duties in the village. Sarah had been the cosseted little pet, allowed to go to school and do as she pleased.
Not that her sister had ever thanked Hannah for the sacrifices she had made. Sarah had taken them all as her due, just as she had taken Seth Stanhope …
A wave of bitterness washed over Hannah. ‘I’ve always said too much book learning in’t good for a girl. It’ll give her ideas.’
‘That’s what Sarah would have wanted,’ Seth said. ‘She was always very keen that the bairns should get on and do better than us.’
Hannah looked round at him in surprise. It was the first time in months she had heard him willingly say that name.
‘They’re your children, and you must do as you think fit,’ she said, setting his teacup down in front of him. ‘But they’ll never learn any respect if they think they can get round you whenever they want summat,’ she warned.
Elsie sloped in an hour later, just as Hannah was putting the food on the table. She prickled with irritation at the sight of the little girl, a book tucked under her arm as usual.
‘Where have you been? There were errands to be done,’ Hannah scolded her.
‘Sorry, Aunt. What do you want me to do?’ Elsie didn’t look in the least bit repentant, staring back at her with those clear grey eyes. Hannah could feel irritation rising in her. If the girl had wanted to know about nursing, why couldn’t she come to her aunt?
‘You can fetch some more water from t’pump, for a start.’ Hannah snatched the big earthenware jug from the windowsill and thrust it into her hands. Even Elsie’s politeness got under her skin.
She told herself she shouldn’t feel spiteful towards a little girl, but she couldn’t help it. She hoped Seth wouldn’t give in and let Elsie collect that prize.
She noticed him watching his daughter thoughtfully down the length of the table as they settled for their meal. It was the first time Hannah could recall him paying his children any attention since Sarah died. Usually he kept his head down, shovelling in his food as quickly as he could, an island of solitude while the children argued and laughed and teased each other around him.
Hannah felt a stab of resentment. How many times had she tried to get him to show an interest in them? And yet that wretched nurse had turned up and suddenly he was sitting up and taking notice.
Finally he spoke. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘about this prize-giving of yours, Elsie.’
She kept her gaze fixed on her plate. ‘Yes, Father.’ She sounded resigned.
‘If it’s that important to you, then I reckon you should go.’
Elsie’s head shot up, disbelief written all over her face. ‘You mean it? I can have my prize?’
‘Aye, if that’s what tha want.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ The little girl’s face was suddenly radiant with happiness. She clung to the edge of the table, as if to stop herself from jumping up and throwing her arms around him.
Hannah glanced down the table at Seth. There was the faintest shadow of a smile on his face, too.
‘And will you come and watch me collect it?’ Elsie asked.
Seth’s smile disappeared like the sun vanishing behind cloud. ‘Nay,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask me to do that, lass. I couldn’t sit in the same room as them Haverstocks.’
Elsie’s shoulders slumped. Hannah stepped in quickly.
‘There’s no need to look like that,’ she said sharply. ‘You’ve already had more than you deserve. Don’t you dare pull a face because you can’t get things all your own way!’
‘No, Aunt. Sorry, Father,’ Elsie sighed.
Later on, Hannah managed to get Elsie alone while she was helping to clear the table.
‘What’s all this I hear about you sneaking off to se
e that nurse?’
Elsie looked startled. ‘I – I didn’t think I was doing any harm.’
‘Then why did you keep it a secret?’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Don’t lie to me, child!’ Hannah grabbed her arm, her fingers tightening. ‘You’ve been creeping off to that clinic behind my back, having cosy chats with that woman.’
Elsie found her voice. ‘I want to be a nurse when I’m older,’ she said. ‘Miss Sheridan has been teaching me.
‘And what do you think she can teach you that I can’t?’
Elsie stared back at her aunt defiantly. ‘I want to be a real nurse,’ she said. ‘I want to work in a hospital.’
Her insolence enraged Hannah, and it was all she could do not to shake her. ‘Do you really think someone like you could be a nurse?’
‘Miss Sheridan said—’
‘Never mind what Miss Sheridan said!’ Hannah cut her off. ‘She didn’t ought to be putting ideas in your head. Lasses like you don’t go to work in hospitals.’ She stood looking Elsie up and down scornfully. ‘Marrying a pitman is all you’re good for.’
‘That in’t true!’
‘Not good enough for you, eh? Think you’re meant for better things?’ Hannah curled her lip. ‘Let me tell you summat, lass. You can win all the school prizes you like, but you’ll still end up in a place like this, dashing your mester’s pit clothes and filling his bath when he comes home from a shift.’
Tears sprang to Elsie’s eyes. ‘You’re hurting me!’
Hannah looked down at the child’s arm. She hadn’t realised how tightly her fingers were biting into the flesh. She released her abruptly, and Elsie darted for the door.
‘I don’t want you hanging around that woman any more, d’you hear me? And no telling anyone our business, either!’ Hannah called after her, as the door slammed.
Chapter Thirty-One
It was a wet Wednesday afternoon, and Carrie had missed the last bus from Leeds.
She stood outside the draper’s shop on Wade Lane, watching the bus trundling away around the corner as the rain dripped off the brim of her hat and down her face. It was her own stupid fault for getting lost in the back streets. Now she was stuck with no other way of getting home, except to walk the eight miles back to Bowden.
Her mother would be worried about her. Carrie could imagine her standing at the window of her cottage, Henry in her arms, peering out into the driving rain and wondering where she was.
James probably wouldn’t even notice she was gone, since he spent all his waking hours at the pit these days.
Carrie set off determinedly up the road out of the city, head down against the pelting rain, cursing herself for not bringing her umbrella. She had been too preoccupied to pay attention to the threatening grey sky as she had left the village that morning. But by the time the bus pulled in to the city the heavens had opened and the downpour began. Now she shivered in her wet clothes, her calfskin shoes squelching with every step. They were almost new but Carrie knew they would be ruined by the time she got home.
As she left the busy centre of the city and took the road west, the shops gave way to straggling streets of houses, which in turn gave way to factories and then, finally, to open fields. There were fewer people this way too, so it was easy to spot the horse and cart lurching along ahead of her, going in the same direction she was heading.
Even from a couple of hundred yards away, she could make out Rob Chadwick in the driver’s seat, his burly shoulders hunched against the rain. Carrie’s heart sank. She hadn’t seen him in Bowden recently, but she’d heard he’d started working up at Barratt’s Farm just outside the village.
Anyone else and she might have run to catch them up and beg a lift to Bowden. But this time she hung back, deliberately slowing her steps.
The cart rounded a bend in the lane ahead of her and disappeared from view. Carrie was relieved, until she turned the corner herself a few minutes later and found the cart standing at the roadside, waiting for her.
Carrie stopped, wiping the rain from her wet face. She could only imagine what she looked like, in her mud-splashed stockings, her hair plastered to her face under her sodden, shapeless hat. She might not have been interested in catching Rob Chadwick’s eye any more, but she still had her pride, and she didn’t want him to see her looking like a drowned rat.
But the cart did not move, and finally Carrie had no choice but to catch it up. She walked on with as much dignity as she could muster, conscious of Rob looking down at her from his high perch.
‘Missed the bus, did you?’ he called out.
‘No,’ Carrie shot back. ‘It was such a pleasant day I thought I’d walk.’
He grinned. ‘If you give me cheek like that, I won’t give you a lift home.’
‘What makes you think I want one?’
‘So you’d rather walk back to Bowden in the pouring rain?’
Carrie hesitated, looking from the cart to her shoes and back again. The truth was, she would rather have walked all the way to York and back, than have to ride beside Rob Chadwick in awkward silence.
‘Come on, I promise I won’t bite,’ he said. ‘Although I can’t answer for old Jeremiah here.’ He nodded towards the horse. ‘Unless you don’t trust yourself alone with me?’ He sent her a taunting look from under the brim of his cap.
Carrie felt herself blushing furiously.
‘Don’t flatter thysen, Rob Chadwick!’ She hauled herself up on to the wooden slat beside him, ignoring the helping hand he offered her.
Rob laughed. ‘That’s just like you, Carrie Wardle. Always so independent.’ He jingled the reins and the horse lurched off, throwing her sideways so she collided awkwardly with Rob’s solid bulk.
She pulled herself upright, carefully straightening her damp hat.
They travelled in silence for a while, except for the sound of the rain and the steady clopping of the horse’s heavy hooves on the track.
‘So how come you missed the bus?’ Rob asked at last. ‘Forgot the time, did you?’
‘Summat like that,’ Carrie replied evasively. ‘How about you?’ she changed the subject. ‘What were you doing in Leeds? I didn’t think it was market day?’ She half turned to glance back at the empty cart. It gave off a faint whiff of pigs.
He shook his head. ‘It in’t. But it’s my day off, so old Barratt let me borrow the cart to go and visit Susan Toller.’
Carrie twisted in her seat to look at him. ‘You went all the way to Barnsley to see Susan? Why?’
‘I wanted to make sure she’d settled in all right. I were worried about her.’ Rob sent her an embarrassed glance. ‘I know, I must be going soft in my old age!’
Carrie looked at him for a moment. She certainly couldn’t imagine the brash young man she used to know sparing a thought for anyone else.
‘How is she?’
‘Seems to be doing all right, from what I could tell. Her aunt don’t seem a bad old stick, and she loves the bairns. Susan reckons they miss Bowden, but at least they’ve got a roof over their heads.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘I expect you’ll want to pass the good news on to your mester. I daresay he in’t been sleeping at night for worrying,’ Rob said dryly.
Carrie turned away to stare at the road ahead of them. ‘James does care,’ she said quietly.
‘Didn’t stop him turning ’em out on the street, did it?’
‘That wasn’t his fault.’
‘It’s all right, Carrie, you don’t have to defend him just because you’re his wife. I know you don’t agree with what he’s done.’
Carrie pressed her lips together to stop herself speaking. The truth was, she couldn’t defend James. She had tried to understand all the things he had done since the lockout began. But the business over the Tollers and Mrs Horsfall had driven a wedge between them. They had barely spoken since, and James had taken to sleeping in his study every night. She was in no mood to forgive him, and he hadn’t even tried to
apologise, either.
‘I mean, what kind of a man could do that to a helpless mother with children?’ Rob went on. ‘And as for poor old Mrs Horsfall …’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Carrie said.
‘He’s his father’s son, all right. Haverstock’s man through and through.’
‘I said, I don’t want to talk about it!’ She turned on him. ‘And if you carry on like this then you can let me down off this cart right now, Rob Chadwick!’
‘All right, I didn’t mean owt by it.’
They carried on in silence for a while. The lane ahead of them started to rise, following the line of the hill, but the horse plodded on easily.
‘So what were you really doing in Leeds?’ Rob’s voice broke the silence, startling her.
Carrie hesitated. ‘I went shopping.’
‘And yet you’ve come home empty-handed?’ His brows rose. ‘Come on, Carrie, you can’t fool me. You were up to summat, weren’t you?’ He nudged her. ‘Here, you in’t got a fancy man, have you?’
‘Certainly not!’ Carrie edged away from him.
‘But you’ve got a secret, though. I can tell.’
She was silent for a moment, weighing up her words. ‘If you must know … I went to the pawn shop.’
‘You? At the pop shop?’ Rob threw back his head and laughed. ‘Your old man keeping you short, is he?’
‘No! I wanted to sell some things for the Miners’ Welfare Fund.’
She had already given away as many of her old clothes as she could spare, but the nosy maid was beginning to ask questions about her empty wardrobe, and all the items missing from the pantry. The only thing Carrie had left to sell had been her jewellery.
‘Did you make anything?’
‘Enough.’ She had twenty pounds in her purse, enough to bolster the Miners’ Fund for a few more weeks at least.
‘Well, well.’ A smile played on Rob’s lips. ‘And I suppose Mr Shepherd knows nowt about it?’
Carrie was silent for a moment. ‘No,’ she admitted reluctantly.
Rob smirked. ‘Keeping secrets from your mester, eh? That don’t sound right to me.’
District Nurse on Call Page 24