Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  Chapter One

  Hannah crouched in the kitchen, her younger brother and sister clutched tightly to her.

  ‘Aah, aah, aah, Nora, Nora – ’

  The tortured voice coming from the front room rose higher and higher and Jane and Harry buried their faces in Hannah’s skirts, their hands covering their ears and their bodies racked with sobbing. Hannah stared unseeingly out of the window, desperate to get away from the sound of Da’s pain. But Betty had told her to keep the young ones in the kitchen, ‘out of the way’, she had said. Betty was twelve and she was in the front room with Mam, in case she was needed for anything when the doctor came.

  There was another voice in the front room now – the doctor, that was whose voice it was, Hannah realised, and she looked down at the heads in her lap.

  ‘Whisht now,’ she said softly. ‘Whisht. The doctor’s here, he’ll make Da better, he will, you’ll see.’ But suddenly there was a scream from the front room worse than anything that had gone before and Harry wrenched himself away from Hannah’s grasp and ran to the back door and out of the yard.

  ‘Harry, Harry!’ she called, releasing Jane and racing after him, and even though he was only four years old and she was ten, she didn’t manage to catch him until he was halfway down the row.

  ‘Harry! I told you you had to stay with me!’ she cried, pulling him roughly to her and then Jane was there, hanging on to her skirt and shrieking with terror. ‘You left me, you left me!’ Jane cried and she and Harry set up such a bawling they could be heard all along the pit rows.

  ‘Howay in along of me, hinnies.’

  The calm, sympathetic voice caused all three children to look up. It was Mrs Holmes who lived in the end house, the official’s house; she was picking Harry up in her arms and cuddling him into her, not caring that his tears were staining her white pinafore.

  ‘That’s right, Phoebe, take them in. Just until the ambulance goes, anyroad.’

  Hannah looked round and saw that a cluster of women had gathered round them, all clucking in sympathy.

  ‘Your da will be all right, you’ll see,’ said one. ‘Go on along of Mrs Holmes now, Hannah, take the bairns inside, that’ll be best.’

  In the distance there was the clanging of a bell, getting nearer and nearer. Hannah knew what it was: the Union ambulance, coming to take Da. She watched the end of the back alley and sure enough the green-painted ambulance went by, slowing as it turned into the front row.

  ‘Howay, pet,’ she said to Jane, and, taking the smaller girl’s hand, she followed Mrs Holmes and Harry into the kitchen of the end house.

  Mr Holmes was sitting in front of the fire, still black from the pit. The sight of him made Hannah close her eyes tightly but she couldn’t cut out the vivid picture she had of her da, lying on a board on a flat cart as his marras, as miners called their workmates, brought him home from the pit, with Mr Holmes, the shift overman, walking in front of the pony as he tried to pick out a path which avoided any potholes.

  ‘Now then,’ said Mrs Holmes, ‘sit ye down. I’d wager you haven’t had your dinners yet, have you? Now I have a nice pan of broth on the bar keeping hot, you shall have a bowlful each.’

  The children looked at her with round eyes, even Hannah. The broth smelled really meaty and they hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Harry’s stomach rumbled; he glanced up at Hannah anxiously and Mrs Holmes noticed it.

  ‘Howay, Harry, your mam won’t mind you having something to eat in our house,’ she encouraged him. ‘I’ll put a cushion on this chair so you can reach the table comfortably. Now, lasses, sit on the form at that side. Don’t worry, I tell you, your mam won’t mind. And after, I’ll give you a can of broth to take home for the others. That’ll help your mam out, like.’

  The children sat round the table, Harry balanced on a fat, round cushion filched from Mr Holmes’s chair, and soon they were tucking into bowls of Mrs Holmes’s broth. At least, Harry and Jane were tucking in; Hannah’s throat had closed in, she found she couldn’t swallow after the first mouthful. She stared at the yellow globules of fat floating on the top but she wasn’t really seeing them. Instead she was listening for the ambulance bell starting up again, taking Da away.

  ‘It looks badly,’ Mr Holmes said quietly to his wife but not so quietly that Hannah’s sharp ears didn’t hear. ‘Poor lad’s back’s broke, I doubt.’

  ‘A fall of stone, was it?’ asked Mrs Holmes.

  ‘Aye. The deputy had fired the shot all right, none could fault him; he’d got the men back out of the road first and the coalface came down. It was after the black dust thinned and settled and the men were returning to the face that it happened. Jake was the first back. He was always the first, always eager to get back to work. You know the name he had for hard work. Well, the shot must have disturbed a fault in the roof, loosened the stone, for suddenly there was a rumble and the men jumped back, away from the danger, they all knew what it meant, but Jake was caught when the stone came down. There wasn’t a lot, the others soon got it off him, but the damage was done.’

  Hannah stared at her broth, feeling sick. She looked up at the wooden beams of the kitchen ceiling, imagining them falling on her and Jane and Harry, and shuddered. Suddenly, she knew she was definitely going to be sick and she mumbled something to Mrs Holmes, and rushed out to the drain in the yard and retched and retched.

  Mrs Holmes glanced at her husband, biting her lip. ‘There, now, we shouldn’t have said anything in front of the bairns,’ she said. ‘That Hannah’s a sensitive lass.’

  Jane and Harry had stopped eating and were gazing through the window at their sister who was crouched over the drain.

  ‘Don’t worry, now, she’ll be all right,’ Mrs Holmes reassured them. ‘I’ll fetch her back, poor lass.’

  Hannah’s eyes were watering and she was trembling violently when Mrs Holmes took hold of her shoulders and drew her back to the kitchen door.

  ‘Howay, lass,’ Mrs Holmes said, ‘it’s the shock, that’s what. You have to be strong now, you big ones, for the sake of little Jane and Harry.’ She offered Hannah a large handkerchief, a real one, not a piece of rag, which was what the Armstrong children usually used for a hanky, and Hannah wiped her face. They paused in the doorway as they heard a motor starting up, followed by the loud clanging of the bell on top of the union ambulance and Hannah’s trembling increased until she was shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘They’ll be taking him to the County Hospital,’ said Mr Holmes. ‘Eeh, lass, you’re shivering, come away in by the fire and have a warm.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Holmes,’ Hannah said, surprising herself at how normal her voice sounded, ‘but we’ll have to get back. Betty said we had to stay in the kitchen, she’ll be mad if she can’t find us.’

  ‘All right, lass, if you want to,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘Wait on a minute, though, I’ll give you that broth. It’ll likely do for your mam and Alfred.’

  Hannah stood quietly, with Jane and Harry hanging on to her skirt, as Mrs Holmes went into the pantry and brought out a large tin can with a lid in the form of a cup. Picking up the pan, she filled the can with what was left of the broth.

  ‘Poor bairns,’ Mrs Holmes said to her husband as she watched the children go down the yard and out into the back lane. ‘Whatever’s going to happen to them now?’

  ‘Jake’ll get compensation,’ said Mr Holmes.

  ‘Hmm!’ His wife’s expression showed plainly what she thought of the compensation rates for hewers who were injured in the mine.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ demanded Betty as the children trooped into the kitchen of the Armstrong house. ‘Mam’s gone in the ambulance with me da and I have to get some dinner ready for Alf when he comes in from work. An’ you let the fire get down, it’ll be ages before it’s hot enough to cook anything.’

  Betty had one of her mother’s aprons tied round her thin twelve-year-old body and drooping almost to her ankles. She was a tall girl, with fair hair and brown eyes, now red and st
rained-looking.

  ‘Mrs Holmes took us in her house,’ volunteered Jane. ‘She gave us some grand broth, Betty, we’ve brought you some an’ all.’

  ‘You shouldn’t take food off folk!’ snapped Betty. ‘You know Mam says we haven’t to.’

  Jane looked crestfallen and Hannah put the can of steaming broth on the table. ‘Mrs Holmes said Mam wouldn’t mind, not when we’ve trouble in the house,’ she said. ‘Didn’t we take some to Mrs Gittens when Mr Gittens was hurt in the pit? Anyroad, it’ll do nicely for Alf’s dinner. Mam just made the bread this morning, it’ll be grand and fresh for him with the broth.’

  Betty looked undecided, she was very conscious of the fact that she was in charge of the household, if only temporarily, but she glanced at the smouldering fire and back at the can of broth on the table and made up her mind.

  ‘Don’t leave it on the table to get cold, our Hannah,’ she said. ‘Get the pan from the pantry and put it on the bar to keep warm. Alf won’t eat it if it’s cold, will he?’

  Hannah rushed to do Betty’s bidding.

  It seemed to Hannah in the next few weeks that she was always rushing to do Betty’s bidding. The moment she came in from school, even as she walked down the yard, Betty was issuing her instructions. ‘Fetch a bucket of coal in’, ‘Peel the taties’, ‘Go to the shop’ – even little Jane had to do her share. For Mam was busy with Da, who had been sent home from the hospital in a boxlike bed on wheels, unable to sit up or move his body from the chest down. He lived in the front room now and it was Alf who came in black from his work on the screens where he cleaned the coal of stone. Alf sat in Da’s chair by the fire though he was only fourteen years old, and waited for Hannah to fill the tin bath with hot water from the boiler by the fire and demanded his dinner on time. For Alf was the only one bringing in a wage now, even if it was only four shillings a week.

  ‘Seventeen and tuppence,’ said Mam the first time Alf brought home Da’s weekly compensation. ‘It’ll be fourteen and ninepence when they take off the war money an’ they’ll be doing that, sure as shot, now the war’s over and done with. An’ we can’t live on that, there’s only one thing for it, we need another wage coming in.’

  ‘Mam! I can’t go to work, I’m not thirteen yet,’ said Betty, suddenly looking very young and vulnerable.

  ‘Not you, pet,’ answered her mother. ‘Our Robert’ll have to come home.’

  Hannah sat beside Jane and Harry on the horsehair sofa and all three gazed at Mam. What was she talking about? thought Hannah. Robert wouldn’t want to come home, he didn’t like it in Winton. Why, the last time he’d come he’d told her that he was going to work on the carriers with his uncle Billy when he left school. Robert lived with Grandma Armstrong, miles away in Consett; they hadn’t even seen him for almost a year.

  ‘Robert’s only thirteen, Mam,’ said Betty.

  ‘Aye. Well, he can take the leaving exam like Alf did. If he knows his letters and his figuring, the gaffer will take him on, he’s sure to when his father broke his back in the pit. You and Alf will have to look to your da on Saturday, Betty, while I go to Consett and tell your grandma. Best not put it in a letter. I’ll away up to see the manager now, see about getting him a job.’

  Nora Armstrong looked the three younger children over critically.

  ‘Hannah, wash Harry’s face, you three are coming along of me. It won’t hurt to show the manager I’ve got bairns to feed an’ all,’ she said as she looked in the mahogany-framed mirror which hung over the high mantelpiece. She smoothed her dark hair away from her forehead, then, satisfied with her appearance, went to the middle door which led into the front room.

  ‘I’m going up to the colliery office, Jake,’ she said. ‘You’ll be all right for a while, will you?’

  ‘Aye, I’m fine. I’m enjoying the rest, lying here,’ came the sardonic reply.

  ‘I’ll only be half an hour,’ Nora said. ‘I’m taking the little ones; Betty will be here, though, if you want her.’

  ‘Well, get away, woman, if you’re going,’ Jake answered irritably.

  Nora took her shawl from the hook on the back door and wrapped it round her.

  ‘Are you not going to wear your Sunday coat?’ asked Betty, sounding surprised.

  ‘No. It’s better not to let them think I’m well off, a shawl’s the best thing,’ said Nora.

  They walked up the row, Nora holding Harry’s hand and Hannah behind with Jane. The children were quiet; even Hannah was nervous of meeting the colliery manager, while Jane and Harry looked white and strained. It wasn’t far to the pit yard and the colliery office was just inside the gates, a red brick building with steps leading up to the entrance. Parked beside the steps was a motorcar and sitting in the passenger seat was a boy of about fifteen, a boy in a suit with a Norfolk jacket and a proper collar and tie and his dark hair slicked back over his ears.

  ‘Look, Hannah, a motorcar,’ cried Harry, grinning with delight. ‘By; isn’t it grand? What does it say, Hannah? Those letters on the front, I mean.’ Harry was fairly dancing round the car; he touched the gleaming coachwork and the bright silver of the headlights. ‘When I grow up I’m going to have a motorcar just like this,’ he declared.

  ‘Sunbeam, that’s what it says,’ said Hannah. She was almost as entranced by the machine as Harry was.

  ‘Sunbeam coupé,’ said the boy and he climbed out of the car. All three children quietened and Harry drew close to his mother.

  ‘He talks funny,’ Harry said in a whisper which nevertheless was heard by them all. The boy smiled.

  ‘Would you like to sit in my seat for a minute?’ he asked Harry.

  ‘Eeh, no,’ said Mrs Armstrong, pulling the child to her.

  ‘Mam!’ said Harry, his eyes bright with hope, and she gave in.

  ‘All right, but just for a minute. We have to see the manager before he goes home,’ she decreed.

  ‘Oh, my father’s with him now, he won’t be going home yet,’ said the boy. He held the door open for Harry, who clambered on to the padded leather seat and sat quietly, gazing at the dashboard with its knobs and dials, happiness oozing out of him.

  The boy looked down at Hannah, smiling, and she smiled back shyly. By, he was a grand lad, she thought, letting Harry have a go in his car. She reckoned he was about the same age as Alf, but he was so tall and good-looking and his clothes were so clean. Even his hands were clean, she saw, there were no scars or black bits under the skin, his hands were soft and white. He didn’t work on the screens, she decided. He had kind eyes, though. Was he a prince? A prince like in Cinderella?

  Hannah looked up, startled, as the office window opened and a man stuck his head out.

  ‘Timothy! Get that boy out of there at once. At once, do you hear? God knows what dirt and disease he might be carrying, not to mention fleas. I told you to sit in the car until I was ready, did I not, sir?’

  ‘Come on, Harry, we have to go in now,’ said Nora. She had turned a fiery red and kept her head bent as she lifted Harry out of the car. Hannah was mortified, she burned with the shame of it. Her family didn’t have fleas, nor nits either. Everybody in the rows knew Mam was spitting clean – why, didn’t she rake their heads every night with the small-tooth comb? Just in case they picked anything up at school, that was.

  ‘We haven’t got fleas, Mam, have we not?’ she said as Jane and Harry began to whimper.

  ‘No, we have not!’ snapped Nora. ‘We’re as clean as anybody, we are.’

  Hannah stoke a glance at the boy, who was sheepishly climbing into the car.

  ‘Dust the seat before you sit down, Timothy,’ roared the man at the window.

  ‘Yes, Father,’ the boy mumbled. He took a blue duster from the tray under the dashboard and rubbed it over the seat.

  ‘There’ll be no dirt on it,’ hissed Hannah and Timothy looked at her, his eyes shamed.

  ‘Howay, Hannah,’ snapped her mother and Hannah followed her up the steps and into the office.

 
There was a desk just inside with a clerk sitting behind it. Through the partition window behind him, Hannah could see the man, Timothy’s father, talking to the manager.

  ‘Yes, what do you want?’ demanded the clerk. ‘It’s almost closing time, you’ve left it a bit late, whatever it is.’

  ‘I’m Mrs Armstrong,’ said Nora, holding her head high. Two bright spots of colour still burned in her cheeks. ‘I’ve come to see the manager.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it was your man who was hurt by that last fall of stone, wasn’t it? Well, you can’t see the manager now, he has Lord Akers’s agent, Mr Durkin, with him. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.’

  The clerk gave a dismissive nod and shuffled the papers together on his desk, but Nora was not about to go.

  ‘I’ll wait until I can see him,’ she insisted, her voice rising. ‘Surely he’ll see me, when my Jake’s had his back broke in the pit?’ The incident with Harry and the car had filled her with resentment, stiffening her resolve.

  ‘My good woman – ’ the clerk began, but he was interrupted by the manager, who opened the door to the inner office and poked his head out.

  ‘What’s the commotion, Robinson?’ he asked testily.

  ‘It’s Mrs Armstrong, sir, the wife of the hewer who was injured in that last roof fall. I told her you were busy.’

  ‘Get her to come in, Hudson, I might as well hear what she has to say while I’m here,’ a voice called from behind the manager. Harry shrank into Hannah’s skirt, whimpering once more.

  Hannah patted his head. ‘It’s all right, Harry,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, of course, Mr Durkin,’ said the manager and held the door open for Nora and her children.

  They stood before the desk, Nora, Hannah and the two little ones between them. They were not offered seats though there were a couple of chairs by the wall besides the comfortable armchair occupied by Timothy’s father.

  Hannah gazed at him in awe. It was bad enough having to come to see the manager, but Mr Durkin was like no one she had ever seen before. She looked at the smooth black cloth of his suit, his highly polished shoes and white spats. He held a shiny walking stick with a silver top in one hand and was tapping it idly against one leg of his chair. He was tall and elegant and his shirt collar was snowy white against the pale skin of his neck. She watched him as he looked the children over, his face expressionless.