A Crimson Dawn

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

Emmie’s eyes stung with tears. ‘It was thinking of people - not places - that kept me sane,’ she answered, turning away from him. Neither of them spoke again.

  Peter left with the Kennedys the following week. By the end of the month, Emmie had packed up her few possessions. She and Philip were returning to Gateshead. A contact in the Women’s International League was offering temporary rooms in her house for a month. Laurie was staying with Rab until the estate was sold.

  On a raw November day, they all journeyed in the trap to Standale Station. Emmie felt numb with failure. All her passion for Rab, her striving for a better life, had come to nothing. She was a divorced woman with a bundle of clothes to her name. Two locks of dark curly hair pressed inside a book of poems was all she had to remind her she was a mother and had once had a life full of joy and richness of spirit.

  Everyone was subdued. Rab hardly looked at her as she climbed down from the cart and he handed over her bag. He sat holding the reins, his jaw tense, eyes empty of expression. Emmie felt a sudden urge to kiss his bearded face. All at once, she longed for him to put his arms about her. Why were they parting like strangers? Did they mean so very little to each other now? They had suffered so much together. If only he was coming with her, perhaps they could rekindle what they had lost. But he had made it plain he did not want to be with her and was no longer interested in their old radicalism.

  She gulped, her mouth dry. ‘Goodbye, Rab.’

  He flicked her a look. Were his eyes bright with tears? She could not tell under the shadow of his cap.

  ‘Bye, Emmie. Take care,’ he murmured.

  Philip returned from buying their tickets. He reached up and shook Rab by the hand. They nodded to each other. He clasped Laurie to him, then took Emmie by the arm and led her gently away. ‘The train’s in.’

  Emmie did not look back for fear of weeping openly. She stared out of the carriage window, watching the stone cottages of Standale disappear in a belch of smoke. With a huge effort, she concentrated on tomorrow. She would throw herself into real work once more and drive herself so hard that it would stifle the sadness that threatened to overwhelm her.

  Rab handed the reins over to Laurie and said he would walk back. Climbing above the village he peered for a final view of the train as it snaked its way down the valley. He thought his heart would burst with grief. How had he let Emmie go without even a proper goodbye? He had fought the impulse to grab her to him and embrace her in front of the others. Even at the last minute, if she had asked him to, he would have jumped on the train and gone with her. But she had not.

  Emmie had been eager to get away. She no longer loved him and he could hardly blame her. For the rest of his life he would live with the guilt that her children had been stolen from her, because she had dared to love him.

  On the empty fell, Rab cried out to the skylarks.

  ‘Please forgive me, Emmie! I love you. I’ll always love you!’

  Chapter 40

  1921

  Early the following year, Emmie secured a clerical position at the offices of the ILP across the river in Elswick and Philip helped out occasionally with printing jobs. They earned enough between them to rent an upstairs flat in Sutton Street. Relentlessly Emmie drove herself, working long hours to fill the gaping emptiness she felt inside. She avoided other people’s children and the agony of not seeing her own was often intolerable. Manys the time she set out for Crawdene, deluding herself that a glimpse of Barny and Mary would ease her pain. But she knew that it would be far worse to see them and not to hold them, than not see them at all. Tortured by such realisation, she stayed away.

  It was in Sutton Street that Emmie and Philip learned of the new clinic and mission recently opened in Lemington, the next-door neighbourhood.

  ‘They say it was started by conscientious objectors,’ Philip told Emmie. ‘But folk who are hungry and sick don’t trouble over such matters.’

  The next Sunday, Emmie and Philip attended the mission service out of curiosity. The service was under way by the time they got there. They peered in disbelief at the Anglican priest.

  ‘It’s Charles!’ Philip cried aloud. ‘Charles Oliphaint!’ Emmie gasped in delight too.

  A woman at the front turned around to stare. Her grey-red hair framed a familiar face. It was Dr Flora.

  ‘Emmie!’ she exclaimed, and ignoring the shooshings of those about her, rushed to greet her old friends. They sat together till the close of the service, Emmie and Flora arm in arm.

  Afterwards, Flora and Charles took them to their small terraced house. Over lunch, they each told of all that had happened in the intervening years. Charles had been moved from the camp in Wales to one in Devon, then to East Anglia. Flora had wanted to keep in touch, but feared drawing the authorities’ attention to the hideout at The Grove so had not written. They had tried to make a new life in East Anglia after the war, but both had been drawn back to Tyneside. The Gateshead Settlement had been sold and demolished for housing, so they had started the Lemington mission.

  ‘Charles’s dear mother left him a legacy in her will,’ Flora explained, ‘despite his father trying to withhold it. Sophie won him round. We used the money to come back here and start again. We tried to find you, but heard The Grove had been sold and everyone gone.’

  Charles talked with enthusiasm about their new work. ‘The clinic is often overwhelmed. Flora could do with more help. It benefits women and children the most. Would you be interested, Emmie?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Emmie considered.

  They did not press her, knowing how talk of other people’s children must pain her.

  When they made to leave, Flora took her aside.

  ‘And Rab - do you hear from him at all?’

  Emmie shook her head. ‘I hoped he might come back when The Grove was sold. His mother knows where I am, but he hasn’t been back to Crawdene either, as far as I know.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Emmie.’ Flora hugged her.

  It was the beginning of Emmie’s revival of spirits to be reunited with her old friends. They had been through so much together that the bonds between them were stronger than most. They spent many evenings that summer walking in Elswick Park discussing the issues of the day, or around Emmie’s kitchen table over late suppers. As well as her office job, Emmie braced herself to help out at the clinic at weekends. In time, to her surprise, she found working with the sickly children eased her own loss. She began to campaign for better child and health care.

  Flora and Charles persuaded her to stand in the local council elections as an ILP candidate and helped her campaign. To Emmie’s amazement she was almost elected, only narrowly beaten by the Liberal who had served the ward for eight years.

  That autumn, Emmie and Flora joined the League of Nations Union and helped in the early planning of a peace conference to be held the following year.

  ‘It’s concentrating on the suffering of women and children caused by war,’ Emmie told Philip, who was now housebound by arthritis. ‘You can help proofread this.’ She handed him a typeset copy of a pamphlet called ‘No More War’.

  Emmie filled up every minute of every day and worked late into the evenings. She gave herself no time to dwell on her lost children or think about Rab. Most of the time she managed to smother any thoughts of them, as if they belonged to another life that was dead and gone. Only at night, in dreams, did they appear to her vivid and alive. She held them and kissed them, then woke bereft as they vanished. Sometimes her children were disappearing on trains and she was running to catch up with them but never did. Other times they stood at the bottom of her bed, silent and solemn, and asked her who she was. When she dreamed of Rab he was always young, fit and laughing, with no gaunt looks or mental scars.

  Emmie would cry in desolation after such dreams; but to the outside world she never showed a trace of the loss she carried inside.

  In the spring of 1922, Emmie took leave from work and travelled with Flora down to London for the peace conference. At one of the fri
nge meetings, Emmie spoke. She appealed directly to women.

  ‘We need to organise for peace, the way the militarists organise for war. It takes years. We must start now. We have to teach our children that there is no such thing as a war to end all wars. War always leads to more war - more killing, more widows, more orphans. They make our children honour Empire Day at school. Why don’t we have a Peace Day? The warmongers have money and power and centuries of tradition behind them. What do we women have against all that? I’ll tell you what! We have our bodies, our minds, our courage, our nurturing spirit. We are life-givers, not life-takers. We demand peace. We demand no more war!’

  Afterwards, a balding man came up to her and shook her by the hand.

  ‘Ernie Tait. Well spoken, lass,’ he smiled. ‘I’ve heard you before - in Newcastle. Recognised the name. A lad I was in prison with used to talk of you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Emmie laughed. ‘That’s a strange recommendation.’

  ‘We were COs together in the war,’ he explained. ‘I’m from Chopwell, so we palled up, him being a County Durham lad an’ all.’

  Emmie’s heart missed a beat. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Rab MacRae. Canny lad. You used to run a radical newspaper with him, didn’t you? He told me all about it. Glad to see you’re still involved in politics. Too many dropped out after the war - gone back to their own lives till it all happens again. But like you said, you have to plan for peace.’

  Emmie nodded, flustered by the sudden mention of Rab. ‘I’m afraid Rab lost the stomach for it too. Prison crushed his spirit.’

  Ernie gave her a quizzical look. ‘Radical Rab? Didn’t look very crushed the last time I saw him.’

  Emmie gave a start. ‘You’ve seen Rab - recently?’

  Ernie nodded.

  ‘When? Where?’

  ‘He’s living in Chopwell - lot of radical lads like him round our way. Rab’s trying to start a Communist Party branch. Went to Moscow last year,’ he chuckled. ‘He’s blacklisted at the pit, mind.’

  ‘How’s he making a living?’ Emmie asked, her heart thumping at the revelation.

  ‘Doing a bit teaching. Lives like a gypsy in this old railway carriage in Chopwell Woods. Shall I tell him you were asking after him?’

  Emmie swallowed, her mouth dry. ‘Aye, tell him,’ she murmured.

  ‘Keep up the good work,’ he nodded, and left her staring after him.

  Flora found her sitting, shaking from the news.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter? You look pale as a ghost.’

  ‘Rab’s in Chopwell,’ Emmie gasped. ‘He’s been in the area all this time, yet none of us knew - not even his mam. He’s walking distance from Crawdene.’

  ‘Will you go and see him?’ Flora asked gently.

  Emmie shook her head. ‘He must want to be left alone - or he would have come to find me. Do you think Helen does know, but hasn’t told me?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Flora sighed, ‘if Rab asked her not to.’

  Emmie swallowed the tears in her throat. ‘He’s joined the CP. At least he’s found the fire in his belly again.’

  ‘Dear Rab!’ Flora exclaimed. She shook Emmie’s shoulder gently. ‘Go and see him. What’s the harm in it?’

  All the journey home, Emmie wrestled with the idea. She longed to see Rab again, yet feared his rejection. Why had he never tried to contact her? He must know where she was and what she was doing, for his friend Ernie Tait did. It must be because he did not want to. Rab had put that part of his life in the past, just as she was trying to do. If she turned up out of the blue, it might unleash painful memories that he preferred to keep deeply buried. She understood that. It was the same for her.

  By the time they reached Newcastle, Emmie had decided against contacting Rab. Yet the encounter with Ernie Tait had been deeply unsettling. She made her way home, still dwelling on it, unable to push it from her mind. She would discuss it with Philip and see what he thought.

  The old man greeted her in agitation.

  ‘We have a visitor,’ he gabbled. ‘She’s in your room. Came yesterday looking for you - insisted on coming back today. I’m sorry, Emmie, but it must be important and she wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Emmie asked in irritation, feeling exhausted.

  ‘Young Mrs MacRae,’ Mr Runcie said with an anxious look, ‘Tom’s sister.’

  Emmie’s insides lurched. Without taking off her hat or coat, she marched into the back room to confront Louise.

  ‘Why are you—?’

  ‘Oh, Emmie!’ Louise sprang from the bed, cutting off her indignant question. ‘I had to come. I didn’t know what else to do. It’s terrible what’s happening.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Emmie cried. ‘What’s terrible? Has something happened to one of the children?’ Her breath stopped in her throat.

  Louise stared in fear, a hand over her trembling lips.

  ‘Tell me!’ Emmie commanded. Louise dissolved into tears. Emmie steered her back to the bed. ‘Please, try and say what you came to say,’ she pleaded more gently.

  Louise took a deep gulp. ‘It’s Tom - he’s not right in the head. We’ve been looking after the bairns - honest we have, Emmie - I’ve tret them like me own.’

  Emmie felt a stab of jealousy, but said nothing, nodding for her to go on.

  ‘But then that woman came back,’ Louise said with distaste, ‘and now he won’t let us see Barny or Mary. Says he’s ganin’ to marry her and give them a proper mam. But she doesn’t care two pins for the bairns - just wants Tom’s wages and a roof over her head. Common as muck. And they drink like fish. I go round and she won’t let me in. She comes into the shop drunk and orders me around—’

  ‘Who, Louise?’ Emmie demanded in agitation. ‘Who is she?’

  Louise’s look was distraught. ‘Nell - your sister.’

  Emmie felt her legs turn to water. She groped for the bed and sat down.

  ‘Nelly’s got my bairns?’ Emmie whispered in disbelief.

  Louise nodded. ‘She’s turned Tom against his own family. Me father tried to reason with him - went round to fetch the children for chapel - but Tom attacked him - broke his jaw.’ Louise began to sob. ‘Tom’s always out drinking since he took up with Nell - neglects the bairns. The truanting officer’s been round twice for Barny - and there’s never any washing hanging out. They live in a pigsty.’

  Emmie felt leaden. ‘And what do you expect me to do about it?’ she asked bitterly. ‘You’ve kept me away from me own son and daughter for three years, remember?’

  ‘I know,’ Louise said in distress, ‘and I’m sorry, Emmie, truly I am. It was wrong of us - I see that now. I was that jealous of you having bairns - I wanted a bit of what you had. I’ve always wanted what you’ve had,’ Louise confessed, ‘ever since we were lasses. You seemed that happy with the MacRaes - always having a laugh.’

  ‘Oh, Louise!’ Emmie said in despair. Her deep resentment of her former friend turned to pity at her pathetic, tear-swollen face. How sad to think Louise had harboured such childish envy all these years.

  Louise sniffed. ‘Will you talk to Tom? You’re the only one he’s ever listened to. He might come to his senses. You could tell Nell to go.’

  ‘Tom stopped listening to me years ago,’ Emmie said, ‘and Nell will do exactly the opposite of anything I suggest.’

  ‘Then take the bairns!’ Louise urged. ‘Something has to be done.’

  Emmie stood up. ‘Aye, something does.’ She touched Louise’s shoulder and summoned up forgiving words. ‘You were right to come - it must have taken all your courage.’

  She took her sister-in-law through to the kitchen and made her eat before she left. It was mid-afternoon when Louise set off for the station.

  ‘Will you come back with me now?’ Louise asked.

  Emmie shook her head. ‘I have something I must do first.’

  She went to seek out Flora, explaining everything and asking her to look in on Philip that night.

  ‘Le
t Charles go with you,’ Flora urged.

  But Emmie refused, assuring her friend she would be careful. Then she set out for Chopwell.

  Chapter 41

  The sky was darkening and a squall hit as she entered the shelter of newly budding trees. A grocery van - a converted army ambulance - had given her a lift as far as the village, the driver pointing her east to the wagon way that cut through Chopwell Woods.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ he asked her anxiously.

  Emmie nodded. ‘I’m visiting an old comrade.’

  ‘Rab MacRae?’ he questioned.

  ‘Aye.’

  When she tried to pay for her lift, he waved her away. ‘A friend of MacRae’s is a friend of mine - he taught me mam to read.’

  In the gloom, she almost missed the green-painted carriage nestling under a large oak and half covered in briars. It was the smell of wood smoke that drew her to the hidden dwelling. She had a sudden vivid memory of the cottage at The Grove - the smell of the wood stove, Barny and Rab fixing a fishing line in the doorway to catch the last of the light.

  ‘Anybody there?’ Emmie called out. She knocked. All was silent. She hesitated then opened the door and called again. Still there was no answer. Emmie went in.

  It was surprisingly roomy: a stove, a bed, a table with a lamp unlit, a solitary chair and a wall of shelves full of books and cooking pots. With a pang, Emmie saw a volume of poetry on a pile of sheet music by the bed. A world of words and music set in a forest - Rab’s world. Feeling like an intruder, she turned to leave when she heard a twig snapping under a boot outside. Moments later, Rab was ducking through the door. He gasped in surprise at the shadowy figure.

  ‘Who— Emmie, is that you?’

  ‘Aye, it is,’ she gulped. ‘I’m sorry, the door was open.’

  They stared at each other, completely lost for words. Rab moved first. He pulled out matches and crossed to the table, carefully lighting the lamp. Its weak blue flame shed a ghostly light.

  ‘Sit down, please.’ He indicated the bed. ‘Don’t have a comfy chair, sorry.’

  Emmie perched on the edge, watching him pour them stewed tea from a pot on the stove. He handed her a tin mug. Her hands were shaking as she took it. She had planned to tell him straight away about the children, beg his help in freeing them; now she did not know how to begin. He would think she was just using him, and perhaps she was. She had not worked out what she would do beyond the rescue.