Eliza's Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Poor lass,’ Bertha said with feeling, and Eliza nodded her agreement.

  The evening passed away pleasantly enough. As Bertha was not going out the two women sat beside the fire after the boy had gone to bed and talked about the future. Yet at the back of Eliza’s mind there was a shadow hovering, the shadow that was Jonathan Moore. Years ago, he had seemed obsessed with her but then he just seemed to give up the idea he had of getting her to stay with him. She had seen very little of him for years. Today, however, out on the road so close to where she lived, she had the feeling that he had been waiting for her, and was still waiting for her. It made her flesh creep to remember that night when he had claimed her. Oh, she would never forget it.

  When she went to bed she dreamed vaguely threatening dreams and he was always there; not that he did anything to her, not specifically, but she felt he might.

  Bertha was away to the farm betimes next morning, for she had promised Mrs Carr that she would help with the early morning milking. The women she worked with in her cleaning business already had their duty list for the day. That was something she had learned working in the Infirmary: the importance of everyone knowing exactly what their duties were. So she could afford to take the morning off her own work. After all, milking couldn’t be so hard, could it? She would soon get into the way of it. She had to because it would all be her job when she was wed.

  ‘You’re late,’ her future mother-in-law greeted her as she opened the door of the cowshed. ‘It’s six o’clock already. I thought I told you to start at five-thirty?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I had some last minute—’

  ‘We don’t want excuses.’ Charlie’s voice came from the back of the shed. ‘You have to be reliable in farming, you know. The animals don’t like it if you’re not.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do better in future,’ Bertha said meekly. She had already learned that it did not pay to answer back to her future mother-in-law. Charlie wouldn’t like it.

  By the end of the first hour her back ached, her wrists ached and her fingers were as stiff as pencils. Mrs Carr disappeared into the farmhouse kitchen, muttering something about cooking breakfast for Charlie and his hind, Barney. Bertha was left with a list of instructions: carry the pails of milk into the dairy, skim it for foreign bodies and have it ready to take out on the streets of Gilesgate to sell.

  ‘I’m not going out selling the milk!’ she protested.

  ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,’ said Mrs Carr, pursing her lips. ‘I’m sure I’ve done it myself afore the day.’

  Well, I’m not, Bertha said to herself as she watched the older woman go in the kitchen door. She was not, she insisted to herself. She felt as though she had done a fair day’s work already and she was ready for her breakfast. Then there was dairy work to do after that.

  ‘How are you managing?’

  Charlie came round the corner and, glancing round to make sure no one saw, kissed her on the lips. Bertha immediately felt better, her lips tingled and she felt funny inside.

  ‘Grand, I like it,’ she said untruthfully.

  ‘I’ll just turn the cows out, then we’ll go in for something to eat,’ he said.

  ‘Good, I’m starving,’ Bertha replied.

  ‘Well, just take that dead kitten out and put it on the muck heap, will you? Can’t have it beginning to stink the place out, can we?’

  ‘Dead kitten?’

  Bertha hadn’t seen the dead kitten, being so busy with learning how to milk the cows properly, but now she went over to the corner of the cowshed where there was a pile of dirty straw and there it was, the stiff, emaciated body of the little animal she had been about to feed the night before.

  ‘It’s starved to death, Charlie,’ she said sadly and was amazed when he laughed.

  ‘Aye well, it should have learned to be a bit quicker on the hunt, shouldn’t it? A kitten’s no good if it doesn’t learn its job, is it? There’s no sentiment in farming, lass.’ He caught her downcast expression. ‘Give it here, lass, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to harden up, though, when we’re wed, I’m telling you.’

  By ten o’ clock, Bertha was on her way home to see to her little business. The image was firmly fixed in her mind, the image of Charlie picking the kitten up by the tail, striding to the door and throwing it on the muck heap. She did not tell Eliza about it. Eliza wasn’t all that fond of Charlie, she could see it, though of course Eliza tried to hide the fact.

  Eliza was on her way to see Peter Collier at the temporary offices the union had in the city. She sat in the tub trap and held Dolly’s reins, but it was a straight road to the offices and in truth she had little to do. The roads were fairly busy but Dolly knew them well and was wise in the ways of threading through traffic. So Eliza had time to think even though she was at the same time watching out for any sign of Jonathan Moore.

  Autumn was on the way and already some of the leaves on the trees were turning colour and there was a sharpness to the air. Though it was still only August it heralded a hard winter.

  She thought about the evening before when she had gone back out to see a couple of patients, one of them Billy, the miner with the bett hand and threatened blood poisoning. Billy had been asleep when she went in.

  ‘Oh, he seems better,’ said Eliza, laying a hand on his forehead to check his temperature. It was cooler than it had been that morning. She checked his bandages; they didn’t appear to have been removed so Betsy must not have touched them.

  ‘Aye well, he wasn’t better,’ said Betsy, her voice hard. ‘The poor lad was nearly weeping with the pain earlier on.’

  ‘Well,’ said Eliza, ‘it must have eased off.’

  ‘Aye, it would,’ replied Betsy. ‘I went in to the chemist and got some paregoric for him. That’s what’s given him a bit ease.’

  Eliza could see now that Billy was drugged; she could smell the camphor from the paregoric as well. She looked at his lower arm for the tell-tale red line running up to his armpit. It was still there but fainter.

  ‘I’ll leave the dressing until the morn,’ she said. ‘You won’t touch it?’

  ‘Billy wouldn’t let me,’ Betsy admitted.

  ‘Well, don’t try while he’s asleep,’ Eliza warned. ‘I’ll come back then.’

  If Billy recovered and his hand was saved Betsy would put it down to the paregoric, which was a camphorated derivative of opium that would make Billy sleep but would not have an effect on the infection in his hand.

  Eliza smiled as she drove along the narrow lanes of Durham. What did it matter so long as Billy got better and kept his hand? A one-handed miner was not much use to anyone. The family would be thrown on the parish and likely end up in the workhouse.

  She arrived at the union offices and dismounted from the tub trap. Though it was still fairly early in the morning she could see through the uncurtained window that Peter was already at his desk, working. But he put down his pen, rose to his feet and smiled at her.

  ‘Now then, bonny lass,’ he said in greeting. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes on a grey morning. Do you want to see me for something in particular or is this just a friendly visit?’

  ‘Both, really,’ replied Eliza. ‘I wanted to ask you about a high school for Tot.’

  ‘Ah.’ Peter looked thoughtful. ‘I tell you what, Eliza, sit down and I’ll see about some tea. It’s just about my time for a break, any road.’ He went to the inner door and called through it. ‘Fetch a pot of tea, please, Meg. And two cups.’

  Eliza sat down on a hard chair before the desk and Peter sat opposite. He leaned forward with his elbows on the blotting pad and his hands folded under his chin.

  ‘You want him to go to high school? Aye, of course you do, you want the lad to make something of himself. He’s got the brains an’ all. You mentioned it before, I know, and I have been thinking about it. Only I don’t know, I don’t think he can go through the union. We are going to sponsor some scholarships but Tot is not a miner’s son, that’s the trou
ble. Sugar?’

  Eliza nodded. She supposed that she had expected that Peter might be in a position to at least give Tot a chance to try for a scholarship. She sipped her tea and tried not to show her disappointment. Peter was an honourable man; he wouldn’t do such a thing. She watched as he rose to his feet and closed the door between his office and the other room. She was completely unprepared for what he said next.

  ‘There is one way it could be done,’ he said.

  Eliza sat up and gazed at him attentively. ‘Yes? I’d do anything, I would, only tell me.’

  ‘If Tot was my stepson he would be entitled to enter for a scholarship to a school.’

  Eliza was speechless. She just couldn’t believe she had heard him aright. Peter Collier was almost as old as her father, why, he must have been in his forties. His dark hair was speckled with grey and there were deep lines in his forehead and running down the sides of his mouth. But he had nice eyes, kind eyes and he had been a friend to her when she needed one.

  ‘You – you want to marry me?’

  ‘I think you would be a good wife, Eliza. Oh, I know I’m not as young as I was but we could be good together. We could work for the pitmen and their families, in our different ways.’ He looked at her face; she seemed astonished. His own confidence plunged. ‘See, Eliza, don’t give me your answer yet. Give yourself time. You have Tot to consider.’

  After Eliza had gone, Peter sat staring at his work, but he wasn’t seeing it. Why hadn’t he told her the truth? he asked himself. Why had he found it so impossible to tell her he had feelings for her, that he wanted to marry her for herself, not for practical reasons at all? Because she might reject him out of hand, he thought dismally. He was a middle-aged man with more grey in his hair than black and she was still a young woman. He couldn’t bear it if she rejected him. It was better to go on as they were, good friends.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ELIZA ACKNOWLEDGED TO herself that she was sorely tempted to marry Peter as she drove Dolly home. She couldn’t concentrate on her work, so she thought she would take an early dinner time as the morning was almost over. Then she would do the rounds of her patients in the afternoon. It was Saturday, and she usually tried to finish early on Saturdays but she had too much to do today.

  If she married Peter, Tot would have a chance to get into the grammar school on a scholarship sponsored by the miners’ union. If not he would have to take his chances in the public scholarship and there would be a great deal more competition for that. She didn’t think she could enlarge her practice to make more money to pay his school fees. She hadn’t enough time in the day to do what she needed to do now. Of one thing she was certain: one way or another he was going to have a higher education than that supplied by the national school, he was indeed.

  She and Peter were not in love, not as she and Jack had been, but look where that had got her. But she was fond of him, very fond. He had been there so often when she needed a friend.

  By, she thought, she could do with someone to talk it over with. She thought wistfilly of Bertha. They hadn’t been able to discuss things as they used to do, not lately. Bertha knew she wasn’t fond of Charlie and it caused some restraint between them. Besides, Bertha would be busy all day, what with her own work and farm work and later on she would be going to the choir concert at chapel with him.

  Eliza dropped in at the butcher’s to buy something for dinner. No doubt Tot had been running and playing football all morning and he would come in ravenously hungry.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Mam?’ Tot greeted her as she went into the kitchen with her bag of meat pies and pease pudding. ‘I’m famished. I scored a goal, Mam. You should have seen it, it was grand. I’m a good player, Mam, I am. Me and Albert are going to get a proper team together and we’ll play proper matches, we have it all planned—’

  ‘Go and wash your hands under the pump,’ said Eliza, ‘and then come back and sit down. Where’s Bertha?’

  ‘Eeh, I don’t know where she is. I scored a goal, Mam, did you hear me?’

  ‘I did, that’s lovely, pet,’ Eliza replied, looking at his face. He was filled with pride and enthusiasm and she had hardly noticed. ‘I think it’s grand,’ she said, to make amends for her seeming lack of interest.

  Tot trotted off, satisfied, to the water pump by the back door and washed his hands. He didn’t know why his mam was so insistent on him washing all the time, none of the other mothers were bothered. His mam was different. Maybe it had something to do with her being a nurse. It was when he came back and took a mouthful of pie and spoke through it that he dropped his bombshell. She had opened her mouth to tell him not to speak with his mouth full when she realised what he was saying.

  ‘I’m going to leave school and go down the pit, Mam. I’ll be making good money, Albert says—’

  ‘What? Leave school? Of course you’re not going to leave school.’

  ‘I am, everybody is. Some of the lads left when they were nine. I’m the oldest in the school, Mam. They only go there to learn how to read and write and figure some. I’m old enough to be fetching money in. Then you won’t have to be out so often.’

  Oh, she should not have let him go to the national school, she should not indeed. She should have tried to get him into a better school. But the national school was only threepence a week. The Methodist school was cheap an’ all but it was on the other side of Durham. The thoughts ran round and round in her mind. In building up her nursing practice she had neglected him, oh, she had. She should have been there for him more.

  ‘You’re leaving that school all right, Tot,’ she said. ‘But you are going to a high school and there will be no arguing about it.’

  Tot looked mulishly down at his plate. He stirred his pease pudding with his fork and stabbed at the pieces of pie, breaking them up into little bits. But he had been too well trained by his grandmother to argue any more about it, even now after a few years with his mother.

  ‘Are we going to Blue House tomorrow after chapel?’

  It sounded as though he had changed the subject and Eliza was glad of it. ‘We are,’ she replied. ‘Do you want to see your grandma and granda?’

  ‘Aye.’ Tot started to eat again, finishing off the food on his plate. He drank the dandelion and burdock pop that was always his treat at weekends and looked at Eliza. ‘Can I go out now?’

  ‘All right. Mind, I’ll be out this afternoon, working, but Bertha won’t be long, I shouldn’t think.’

  She watched as he pulled on his cap and jacket and went out of the back door and down the yard. The yard gate banged to after him. She cleared the table and got ready to go on her rounds. Not that there were many patients she had to see and those she did were mainly convalescent. Of course there was Billy and she had had a message from Dr Gray to visit the pit manager’s little girl at Shincliffe’s Banktop colliery. It was a way out on the other side of Durham, though. Still, as Dr Gray had asked for her, she would go.

  As she travelled in her tub trap, watching Dolly’s fat behind swaying from side to side as she plodded along, Eliza was coming to a decision. She would wed Peter Collier and get Tot away from the friends he had made at the school in Gilesgate. Maybe it wasn’t the best reason for marrying anybody but Peter had his own reasons for asking her and she didn’t think one of them was love. Peter Collier was in love with the union, he lived, ate and slept the union. He was a kind and caring man, though. He would do his best to get the lad into a decent school; most likely the high school. They would grow to love each other. All it took was effort and understanding. She smiled at herself in mockery. It was not as though she had such a great knowledge of marriage.

  It did not occur to her to think that the union was the mineworkers’ and Peter wouldn’t think Tot’s ambitions to be a miner were quite so bad as she did. Having made her decision, she put it out of her mind for the moment. She was approaching Shincliffe and the short drive of the manager’s house. It was well rutted by wheels but there had been an attempt
to fill in the ruts with gravel and small stones. Dolly picked her way delicately up it to the front of the house.

  The door was opened by a maid. Not a little workhouse skivvy such as Lottie or Bertha had been, but a woman of indeterminate age in a clean white apron and cap. She looked Eliza up and down, dressed as she was in her nurse’s cape and cap with the ribbons tied under her chin, and evidently decided this was an equal or even an inferior rather than a superior being.

  ‘You’re the nurse,’ she stated. In her experience nurses were widow women or others desperate to earn a living and some of them were no more than slatterns. This one might be dressed decently but she was still only a nurse. ‘You should go round to the back door.’

  ‘And you’re a servant and supposed to be polite to visitors,’ said Eliza pleasantly. ‘Dr Gray sent for me. Please take me to him and ask someone to see to my pony and trap.’

  The woman’s eyes flashed and she began to splutter, but from behind her came a man’s voice.

  ‘Is that Nurse Mitchell-Howe, Jane? Let her in, woman, let her in at once!’

  ‘Yes, sir, I was just about to,’ the woman replied hastily and stepped aside so Eliza could walk in to the hall. It was a square hall, not large, but the floor was paved with black and white tiles in a chequered pattern and there was a side table flanked by a couple of chairs. Advancing towards the door was a man of about forty with side whiskers and a frock coat of a good tweed material. He too looked Eliza up and down, but his face was expressionless.

  ‘I’ll take you to my daughter, Matilda,’ he said with no preamble. ‘Dr Gray is with her.’ He led the way up a flight of stairs with a bend in the middle. There was a carpet running down the middle and the sides were polished. It was as opulent as her father-in-law’s staircase up by Alnwick, Eliza thought. Coal was definitely profitable for some, if not for the men who worked it. She pushed the radical thought from her mind. There was a sick little lass here and that was what mattered.

  ‘Sister, I’m glad you could come.’ Dr Gray turned to the door of the bedroom. He smiled warmly; still the same as he had been years ago when she had worked with him in the Infirmary, although as she shook his hand she noticed tiny lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth and a few threads of silver in his hair she had somehow not noticed when she worked with him a few times recently. He drew her forward and introduced her to the woman sitting by the bed, a small woman in the full skirt that had succeeded the crinoline.