Eliza's Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘No, Da, no, I haven’t, he was just trying to make trouble,’ said Eliza. ‘I’m a married woman, Da, I wouldn’t.’ Eliza trembled with the need to assure him she hadn’t done anything.

  ‘Aye well,’ said Tommy grudgingly. ‘I expect you haven’t.’

  ‘I’ll be away then,’ said the stranger. ‘I have a bit more visiting to do.’

  ‘Won’t you have a bite first?’ asked Tommy and glanced at his wife who looked alarmed.

  ‘Well, there’s some eggs,’ she began.

  ‘Nay, lass, thanks for the offer,’ Peter Collier said swiftly. ‘I have bread and a nice bit of Cotherstone cheese, I can eat as I go along.’

  He made his goodbyes and chucked little Thomas under the chin before going to the door. ‘Remember, Saturday, four o’clock,’ he said to Tommy. ‘The old quarry, you know where.’

  It had been an interesting day, all right, Eliza thought to herself while she was walking back to Hazelrigg Farm cottage by the path across the fields. The weather had changed and rain threatened while a cold wind blew from the north-east. She carried Thomas on her hip inside her shawl and he leaned against her, his eyelids drooping. She bent her head and kissed him on his hair, now turning as dark as her own.

  ‘Mind, you are a bonny lad,’ she sang softly to him and his eyes closed properly. A few drops of rain began to fall and she put her head down and hurried into Haswell. She would shelter in Benson’s doorway until it passed. It was probably only a shower.

  ‘Come inside, lass.’ Mr Benson opened the door behind her and motioned her in. ‘The rain won’t last long, then you can be in your way.’ He was a pleasant enough chap, thought Eliza as she followed him into the warm interior of the shop-cum-workroom. A middle-aged man with grizzled grey hair going thin on top and a kindly smile, he chatted to her as he took up his plane to continue smoothing the piece he was working on.

  ‘Your man’s away delivering the day,’ he said between strokes. ‘I bless the day I set him on, I do that. A good workman is Jack, you should be proud of him.’

  ‘Well, I am,’ said Eliza, but in her own mind she thought, with a few reservations.

  ‘Used to work on the Duke of Northumberland’s estate, so I understand.’ He looked up from his work and stayed his hands for a moment. His eyes were bright and enquiring, as though he wasn’t quite believing of that.

  ‘Aye, he did,’ said Eliza. ‘Him and his da.’

  ‘A good position that. I wonder he would come south to work in a colliery village.’

  Eliza didn’t know what to say to that so she simply smiled and nodded.

  ‘I suppose you wanted to be near your family,’ he went on. ‘Women are like that.’ He shook his head in disapproval. ‘It’s a pity, though. I’m glad to have him, you understand, but he was better off up in Alnwick, wasn’t he?’

  Eliza was angry. What had Jack been saying to him? That everything that had happened to them was her fault? She opened her mouth to tell him the truth but then closed it again. How could she say anything against Jack to his employer? Mr Benson was looking at her kindly. No doubt he thought he had given her a gentle reprimand and she should not have influenced her man. Mr Benson was a pillar of the chapel in Haswell and a lay preacher who sometimes came to Blue House to preach.

  He returned to his rhythmic planing of the chest he was working on. Evidently he felt he had done his duty and made his point. She turned and gazed out of the window. The sky was clearing and the rain had stopped. She’d best go before she said something she would regret.

  Negotiating the lane to the cottage was difficult. The rain had turned the dried mud into a quagmire and she slipped and slid her way along, clutching Thomas to her. He struggled and cried in protest and she was glad when she got to her front door without actually falling. Her boots and the hem of her dress were thick with mud and streaked with coal dust and she was thoroughly out of humour, in contrast with how she was in the bright beginnings of the day.

  Later though, looking pensively out of the window, she noticed that the climbing rose she had planted under the window was starting to bud and she smiled to herself. No one, not even Jack, would think of looking underneath the rose to where she had hidden the necklace wrapped in oiled canvas among its roots. Next time, and she was sure there would be a next time, she would not be left destitute when Jack got the gambling fever.

  Jack came in very late in the evening after his trip around the countryside. Eliza had not bothered with a candle, for not only did the fire show a good light but moonlight was streaming through the window to where she sat in the rocking chair he had made for her. Thomas had been in bed and asleep long since and there was an appetising smell from the pot of stew simmering on the bar of the fire.

  ‘By, it’s good to be home,’ Jack said as he came in. ‘Don’t get up, hinny, you look a picture sitting there in the moonlight.’

  Eliza laughed and stood up anyway. ‘Who’s to give you your supper if I don’t get up?’ she asked. ‘You’re fond as a gate.’ But she was pleased all the same. For by, he was a grand lad. If only he didn’t gamble, she couldn’t help thinking. There was always a part of her now that stood aside coldly and watched even in their most intimate moments.

  Over supper she told him about Peter Collier and the meeting the men had had in broad daylight outside her parents’ house. ‘It frightens me, Jack,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what they would do if they were thrown out of the house.’

  ‘Hovel, more like,’ said Jack, spooning meat into his mouth before mopping the gravy with a heel of bread. ‘Some of the pit houses have ash closets nowadays instead of a stinking midden at the end of the row. Mebbe your da would be better off finding himself a more modern pit. Mind, I don’t hold with agitation. The men and the gaffers should be able to come to an agreement about their differences, settle them, like.’

  ‘Sometimes the men have to band together to get their just rights,’ Eliza declared, which was a bit strange for she had been against just that earlier in the day.

  ‘Rights? They don’t have any rights,’ said Jack. He sat back in his chair and took the clay pipe he had taken to smoking lately out of his pocket. ‘Any road, get us a light, pet.’

  Jack didn’t really understand, she thought. But then Jack was not a miner.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘I’M GOING UP to Alnwick to see me mam,’ said Jack, one Saturday morning in July. He had just walked in the door of the cottage though he had only been gone about two hours. Eliza looked up from scouring the hearthstone in surprise and was even more shaken to see Henry, his brother, behind him.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ She rose to her feet, still holding the piece of wet sandstone she had been using.

  ‘Da, Da,’ chirruped Thomas in delight, and waddled towards him from under the table where he had been playing with a peg dollie. For once, Jack ignored him even though Thomas clung to his gaitered legs. The baby howled and Eliza picked him up automatically. She gazed anxiously at Jack then Henry. Her brother-in-law nodded curtly.

  ‘Me da’s dead,’ said Jack. ‘Henry came to tell me. He’s had a job finding us and the funeral is at four o’clock. We shall have go into Durham for the train.’

  ‘Haven’t you got your trap, Henry?’ Eliza asked.

  ‘It’ll take too long,’ said Henry. ‘We must get back. Mother wanted Jack there, she’s fallen to bits, like.’

  Eliza thought of the hard-faced woman she knew. She couldn’t imagine Annie falling to bits over anything but still, John Henry was her husband and despite everything that had happened she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the woman.

  ‘Do you want me to tell Mr Benson, Jack?’ she asked. ‘I can go into Haswell if you like.’

  ‘He knows. It was there I met Henry. Make us up a bite to take with us, pet.’

  Within ten minutes the two men were on their way, taking Henry’s trap to the station and leaving it at the stables there. She watched them drive down the track to the road, their
shoulders touching in the small vehicle. She had not seen them so close together since she had known them. Then she went into the cottage, quiet now but for Thomas mumbling to himself as he played with his dollie.

  What was going to happen now? she wondered. Would Jack be able to go home to Northumberland for good? Would Annie forgive him and welcome him home? Eliza looked at little Thomas, oh it would be a good thing for the bairn if they all went to live in Northumberland again. He would be a cabinet maker like his father and grandfather and he definitely would not have to go down the pit. Her heart lightened at the thought of it.

  Late on Sunday evening Eliza discovered how John Henry’s death was going to affect her little family and it was not at all. Jack came staggering in the door, dirty and dishevelled and stinking of ale and the honeyed sweetness of mead. He leaned over the table and hiccupped.

  ‘What? What’s happening Jack?’ she cried.

  ‘Happening? Nowt’s happening,’ he replied, his words slurring into each other. ‘My gracious mother, my lovely, forgiving mother welcomed me back with open arms, oh aye, she did. Then as soon as the last funeral guest had gone she turfed me out, her and that thieving reiving brother of mine.’

  ‘Jack, you knew you were going to be disinherited,’ said Eliza but in truth she herself was bitterly disappointed. She had been weaving daydreams about life in Alnwick for her little family all day. ‘Did you get nothing?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Henry said I could have the old pony and the tub trap he left in the stables at the railway station. Only it will cost twelve shillings to pay the stabling charges. Have you got twelve shillings?’

  ‘Jack, you know I haven’t. It will have to wait until you’ve earned the money.’

  ‘Or we could sell something.’

  Jack sat down on the settee and Thomas stood at his knee, looking up at him with adoring eyes. ‘If we wait till the weekend and I get my dues from Benson it’ll have gone up a couple of shillings.’ He sniffed and looked up at Eliza. ‘I’ll sell the necklace.’

  ‘You will not!’ Eliza burst out. ‘You said you would never take it again, you promised me, you did.’

  ‘Aye, but it’s just to get the pony and trap out, it’s not for gambling. I’m not going to gamble, I told you I wouldn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll pawn it then. I can get it back at the weekend if I pawn it. Where is it, any road?’

  ‘I’m not telling you. Not even if you bray me.’

  ‘I’m not going to hit you,’ said Jack in disgust. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘You’ve done it before.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, woman!’ Jack suddenly lost his temper. He jumped to his feet and went over to a small chest of drawers he had made for her only the week before. It was built of oak and he had put on brass handles, which twinkled in the firelight against the dull sheen of the polished oak. He pulled out the drawers and threw out the cloths and other things he found in them.

  ‘You’re not taking them!’ Eliza ran over and tried to pull him away but he shoved her aside roughly and Thomas began to scream in terror. The baby sat down on the clipped rag mat and howled and Eliza couldn’t bear to hear it. She went to him and picked him up and hugged him to her. His sobs lessened and he quietened down and buried his head in her shoulder. She heard the door bang behind Jack and when she looked up he was striding away with the chest humped on his shoulder.

  After a while Eliza took Thomas up the ladder to bed with her. She lay with the sleeping child cuddled against her breast but she couldn’t sleep herself. Every noise from outside the cottage alerted her: the hoot of an owl, the screech of a vixen in the covert over the field at the back.

  If she hadn’t taken food to help out her mam she would have had enough to pay the stabling bill, she thought as she tossed and turned restlessly. As it was, she had only a few shillings to last the week, 2/5d in fact. Though mebbe she could have got something on the slate in Haswell. She could have given Jack what she had. Now he might get three or four pounds for the chest and have money left to gamble with when he had paid to get the horse and trap out of the stable. He might lose and then borrow again and not come home at all. He might – but what was the good of thinking like this? As the night wore on she became less and less hopeful. By, it had been a flaming rotten day, it had an’ all.

  In the grey dawn, Eliza was wakened by the sound of someone fumbling at the door downstairs. She was filled with relief; thank God, Jack had come home. Everything would be all right now for she would make it up to him. Carefully she picked up Thomas so as not to wake him and laid him in his own little cot. She waited for Jack to come to her bed, she waited and waited and in the end she got out of bed herself, pulled on her shawl, for it was chilly in the early morning air, and went down to find Jack slumped in the chair by the cold grate. He still stank of drink.

  ‘Did you sell it?’ Eliza asked. ‘Did you get the pony and trap?’

  He looked at her blearily. ‘Pony and trap? Eeh, I forgot.’

  ‘Jack, did you sell the chest of drawers?’

  He nodded and closed his eyes. ‘Let me alone, woman, I’m worn out.’

  ‘Come to bed, Jack, please. Come to bed.’ It was a waste of time talking to him, the state he was in, she thought.

  He snored loudly and stretched out his legs before him. His head lolled against the back of the chair. There would be no waking him for an hour or two at least. Eliza raked out the grate with some difficulty for she had to step over and round his legs and feet all the time. Eventually, though, she managed it and lit the fire with twigs and bits of rag, blowing carefully on a cinder that was still showing a little red. She added a few lumps of the coal she had garnered from the black road on her return from her mother’s house a day or two ago and brought home in the basket she had used to take the food.

  The room began to warm up. She looked doubtfully at Jack’s boots and gaiters. She should try to take them off, for they must be uncomfortable for him. But when she tried he moved and muttered something unintelligible. Best leave him alone. If he had a couple of hours sleep he might go to work at Mr Benson’s. Even if he were late he would be able to make it up at the end of the day.

  Eliza went through the day in the way she usually did. She brought in water and searched beneath the trees and hedgerows for kindling to bring in and dry on the hearthstone. She made porridge for Thomas and herself and swept and tidied the room, though working all the time round Jack, spread out before the fire.

  He stirred at last and sat up and stretched himself and groaned at how stiff he was. He did not speak to Eliza, though he frowned at her when she offered him porridge and instead took a piece of cheese and bread and wrapped them in a handkerchief. Then he rinsed his mouth with a dipper of water from the pail and went out, she hoped to work.

  It was another fine day and Eliza couldn’t bear just waiting to see whether he would return or not. She took Thomas out and they wandered slowly into Haswell as they had done the previous day. The little boy toddled about happily enough, decapitating daisies and bringing them to her. The breeze in her face was warm and her natural optimism began to return.

  What did it matter that they couldn’t go back to live in Alnwick? John Henry had said he would cut Jack and his family off without a penny so why should she or Jack think he might have changed his mind? They were young and healthy and Jack would get over his disappointment and his ill temper with her. He was a good carpenter and he would make his own way. Just so long as he didn’t get into bad company and start gambling again.

  Eliza bent down to Thomas, who was holding up a squashed handful of daisy heads for her, pleased with himself. ‘Thank you, Thomas, they’re lovely,’ she said. ‘We’ll put them in a saucer of water and show them to Daddy when he gets home.’

  ‘Dada,’ said Thomas and hurried off to garner more.

  Soon they were entering Haswell. Eliza didn’t go near Mr Benson’s shop just in case Jack should think she was checking up on him. But she did go r
ound to the stables to see if Jack had got the pony and tub trap out. He had not, at least not yet; she could see the animal tethered and grazing on a patch of grass bordering the track outside the building. Well, she thought, it was early yet. She bought a sheep’s head at the butcher’s and a pound of lentils and a stick of barley sugar for Thomas and set off home again with a halfpenny left in her purse.

  Jack did not come home at the usual time and Eliza told herself he must be making up for his late start that morning so she wasn’t unduly worried. Around tea time, Farmer Dean came past, herding cows back to the milking parlour. He called, ‘Cush! Cush!’ softly to them and Eliza took little Thomas out to watch, and he called, ‘Cush! Cush!’ in imitation of the farmer and his arms waved about in excitement.

  Farmer Dean smiled at him. ‘If you come up to the farm the wife’ll give you a few cracked eggs,’ he called to Eliza. ‘They’ll be good for the lad. We have some to spare this time of the year.’ His old dog, Jessie, wagged her tail at Eliza, panting and sticking her tongue out. Thomas pointed and said ‘Bow,’ and Eliza didn’t know whether he was trying to say bow-wow for the dog or moo for the cows.

  She got her shawl from behind the door and followed the farmer up the lane. Their progress was necessarily slow for the cows ambled at their own pace, turning curious eyes to the woman and child, their full udders swinging slightly.

  ‘I heard there was trouble over by Blue House.’ said Farmer Dean.

  ‘Trouble? I was there a few days ago, it was quiet enough,’ said Eliza. But she thought of the stranger and the group of laid-off miners listening to him and she was anxious. Had something happened after she left with Thomas?

  ‘The men are agitating for an end to the yearly bond,’ said Farmer Dean. Eliza waited as he guided the cows through the gate into the farmyard and the leader headed for the byre. The herd was hurrying now, lowing gently as they found their stalls. Farmer Dean paused and looked at Eliza. He had known her since she was a child and raiding the clover in his meadow with other children from the miners’ rows to suck the sweet nectar from the flower shoots. They were sometimes in trouble for climbing his haystacks and loosening the hay or crawling on hands and knees through the ripe barley, playing hide and seek. Still, he liked to see them for he and Alice had no children of their own.