Workhouse Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘You stick close to me, mind,’ Betty admonished. ‘I don’t want you dancing off on your own like you do.’

  Betty was more bossy every day, Hannah reflected as she moved her fingers about inside her mitts in an attempt to warm them up. The mitts were really a pair of Da’s socks but they were nice and warm, each sock folded over on itself to make a double layer of wool. There was a burst of male laughter and she looked over to where Alf was standing with a group of men and boys. He was holding his hand in a funny way, she thought; staring hard, she saw the tiny red glow and realised he was holding a cigarette, turned back into his cupped hand to hide it. Quickly, she moved to stand between him and Betty. If Betty saw Alf smoking she would be sure to tell Da.

  When Mr Hodgson came out with Laurie, his son, who was the organ player, they were carrying the tiny harmonium between them. At last the singers were off.

  ‘By, it’s grand, isn’t it, Betty?’ Hannah cried as they trudged away from the rows of miners’ cottages to the village. They had sung two carols at each end of each row. Alf and his friends had rattled their collecting boxes labelled ‘METHODIST MISSION TO THE POOR’ and almost every household in the rows had contributed a penny; Mr Holmes had put in sixpence. Hannah crunched the thin, icy layer of snow beneath her boots, fairly dancing along as she wondered what it would be like to be ‘the Poor’ and not have any money at all, not even the compensation, nor a house to live in. She gazed up at the clear starry sky and wondered which one was the Star of Bethlehem.

  ‘It’ll be grand when we get back home,’ said Betty dourly. Hannah’s excitement dimmed a little, but only for a minute. They had just reached old Winton and Mr Hodgson halted before the Black Boy. The choir gathered round the harmonium under the swinging sign with its picture of a little pit lad with a candle in his hat.

  ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ rang through the air and men tumbled out of the inn, some with tankards of beer in their hands. Hannah knew a lot of them, for they were neighbours and friends of her father’s. There were some disapproving looks among the choir but the collecting boxes were satisfactorily heavier by the time Alf and his friends had done the rounds of the drinkers and she was glad for the sake of the Poor.

  However, farther along the street the choir met with the opposition. The vicar and his party of waits from St Martin’s, the village church, were out carol singing too. After the first clash of hymns, Mr Hodgson decided the best thing to do was take his choir elsewhere.

  ‘We only show them up with our singing, anyroad,’ he said. ‘Howay, lads and lasses, we’ll away up to Durham Road to the agent’s place.’

  ‘Mebbe you’d better go home, our Hannah, it’s a long way to Durham Road,’ said Betty.

  Hannah gasped with dismay. ‘I want to come,’ she cried. ‘I can walk, I’m not tired.’

  ‘Let her come, Betty,’ said Alf, ‘lest we never hear the last of it.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ Betty conceded, ‘but you’d better keep up, mind.’

  Durham Road was really nearer to Bishop Auckland than Winton and the party set off on the short cut across the fields. It was quite a climb in places but Hannah forced herself to keep well to the front of the party, just to show Betty she could manage.

  At last they reached the house and trooped up the drive. The laughing and talking quietened as they approached the house, most of them walking more slowly as they got near to the imposing stone pillars before the front door.

  ‘Now then,’ said Mr Hodgson, ‘light your candles now. Don’t step on the grass, mind, keep to the gravel.’

  Guilty feet shuffled off the grass and the choir clustered round the harmonium, their uplifted faces lit by the glow of the candles. Hannah gazed at the light shining through a chink in the curtains and her heart began to beat rapidly. She was frightened of Mr Durkin – would he chase them away? Mr Durkin didn’t like pit folk, he’d said so that day at the colliery office.

  The harmonium started up and the choir sang ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’. Suddenly they were bathed in a light which put the candles to shame as the curtains were drawn back.

  ‘Electric,’ breathed Hannah. She’d seen electric light before, but only in the shops in Newgate Street. She forgot to sing as she gazed into the room, at the red plush armchairs and the huge Christmas tree in the corner, twinkling with gold and silver ornaments and topped by a big fairy with shining silver wings. And then she forgot about the Christmas tree as she saw Timothy, the boy who had been in the car, standing by the window, smiling straight at her.

  The choir finished their carol and the door opened. Hannah shrank back against her sister but it was not Mr Durkin who came to the door, it was a stranger, tall and haughty, dressed in a funny sort of black jacket and striped trousers.

  ‘The master says you’re to come into the hall, and mind you wipe your feet,’ he announced grandly, looking over the heads of the choir as though he was speaking to the trees at the end of the drive. Hannah looked uncertainly at Mr Hodgson but he was moving forwards quite unperturbed and the choir was following him.

  They were ushered into a large hall, all gleaming, polished wood and with a red carpet in the middle. At one end there was a wide staircase and there was even carpet going up the stairs, not a strip of linoleum like they had at home.

  Mr Durkin and Timothy came through a door at the side and Hannah was thankful to see that the agent was smiling.

  ‘Good evening to you all,’ he said and they all mumbled a reply. Hannah smiled shyly at Timothy and he smiled back.

  ‘Can you sing “Still the Night”, do you think?’ asked Mr Durkin.

  ‘Yes, sir, of course.’ The choirmaster beamed. He glanced down at Hannah and hesitated. ‘I wonder, sir … our little Hannah here, she has a lovely voice and she’s been rehearsing it for the Sunday-school party. Would you like to hear her sing the first verse, sir? Then we’ll all join in the second.’

  Hannah’s throat closed up and she stared up at Mr Hodgson, her dark eyes filled with fright. Surely he wasn’t going to make her sing for Mr Durkin! But Mr Hodgson chose not to see the appeal on her face; instead, he took hold of her shoulder and drew her to the front of the choir.

  ‘Now then, pet,’ he encouraged her, ‘just pretend you’re singing in the chapel. Sing it just like we practised.’ Drawing a tuning fork from his waistcoat pocket, he struck the note, and Hannah opened her mouth obediently, though she was sure she wasn’t going to be able to sing at all.

  But sing she did, faltering a little over the first few notes but then losing herself in the lovely old carol. Her pure tones gained strength and rang out over the choir and the well of the staircase lent resonance to the music. The choir joined in the second verse and after a while Hannah was conscious of a new voice. Looking across at Timothy, she realised it was his baritone she could hear.

  There was a moment’s silence after the hymn before Mr Durkin finally broke it. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Timothy, fetch some mince pies from the kitchen.’ He took a gold watch out of his waistcoat pocket and peered at the dial pointedly. ‘Well, good night to you all and a merry Christmas.’ He turned and went back through a door at the side of the hall, not even noticing the collection box held up by Alf. Mr Hodgson sighed.

  Timothy came back and handed round a plate of mince pies and the choir ate them quietly. Seeing the collection box, he fumbled in his pocket and put in a sixpence.

  ‘You have a lovely voice,’ he said to Hannah, and she smiled shyly.

  ‘You an’ all,’ she answered.

  ‘Well, we’d better be going, we still have to go to the manager’s house,’ said Mr Hodgson and he ushered the choir out of the hall and down the drive.

  Hannah looked round just before they got to the gates and saw Timothy standing at the window, watching them. On impulse, she gave a little wave and he must have seen her for he lifted his arm and waved back. Hannah felt a tiny glow of happiness. Was he lonely in that big house with his father and the snooty man, she wondered. />
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  Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,

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  Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © Una Horne writing as Maggie Hope, 2008

  Extract from The Coal Miner’s Daughter © Una Horne writing as Maggie Hope, 1994, 2017

  Maggie Hope has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published by Ebury Press (Fiction) in 2015

  www.eburypublishing.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780091956257