Eliza's Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘I think it will be best for me to go, Eliza,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. But I will call in regular like and ask around for Tot an’ all.’

  ‘If that’s what you want, Bertha,’ said Eliza. She watched as Bertha walked down the yard and turned the corner, but her thoughts were on the two in the other room. She could hear the voices from there for she had left the door ajar.

  ‘Did you hear Tommy and the lads were turned off?’ Mary Anne asked Peter. ‘After all these years at the same pit, Tommy was turned off. It’s off the map, man, isn’t it?’

  ‘I hadn’t heard, no, not till I got back to Durham,’ Peter replied. ‘Where’s Tommy now? I’d like to hear what happened exactly.’

  ‘The lads have been taken on at Stanley. Tommy can get work there an’ all but only datal. He takes it badly, Mr Collier.’

  ‘Aye, he would.’

  He was silent for a moment or two, thinking about it. Hewers reaching Tommy’s age were unusual; they often started on datal work. It meant that they had to take a fall in wages but usually they could stay on at the pit they had been working. Experienced men such as Tommy were sometimes promoted to deputy overman, but sometimes they were turned off; it was a fact of life.

  ‘It was that young Moore who did it, not the manager,’ said Mary Anne. ‘Tommy says he was one of the deputation there to see about their rights, but Moore took offence. He threw us out of the house, we had to be gone the next day, Tommy said.’

  Jonathan Moore, thought Peter. He hadn’t expected him to be so vindictive. To throw a whole family out because a daughter spurned his advances was vindictive indeed.

  Peter’s thoughts were racing. The problem was that Tommy’s life as a hewer was coming to an end, there was no denying it. He looked at Mary Anne’s face. She was obviously having trouble getting her breath and her skin had a very unhealthy hue.

  ‘I don’t know as I can manage another flit,’ said Mary Anne. ‘Say nowt to our Eliza, but it’s very hard, very hard. To lose my neighbours an’ all, they were always willing to give me a hand when I needed it. I miss Blue House.’

  ‘Mining folk are like that, they always help each other,’ said Peter gently. ‘But you know, you’ve got Eliza and the lads and Tommy and I’ll do everything to help I can think of. You’ll manage, you’ll see. Rest as much as you can while you have the chance and you’ll get your strength up.’

  As he left the room to go back to Eliza in the kitchen he doubted she ever would. Eliza was dressed, ready to go out on her rounds. She was very quiet for she had heard what her mother had said and her training told her that in this, Mary Anne was right. She had not up to this minute faced the fact that Mary Anne was not likely to live for much longer.

  ‘If you are going into the city I’ll ride along with you,’ said Peter. ‘We can call in at the police station and see if there is any news of Tot.’

  ‘Do you think there might be?’ asked Eliza.

  ‘Maybe,’ he replied. He helped her harness Dolly and they drove out along the road to the city. Eliza glanced at him as they went along, and he sensed it and turned to her and smiled. It was a comfort, she realised, having his support. The bad feeling there had been between them meant nothing now; it was unimportant compared with her other worries.

  The policeman behind the desk in the police station looked up from a paper he had been studying and gazed at them. Naturally, it was Peter, the man, he spoke to.

  ‘Oh, it’s the union man,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘We have come to report a missing young lad,’ said Peter. It was unfortunate that the man was one of those who had broken up a meeting being held in the market place at the behest of the owner, who was a magistrate, some time before. Peter had spent a night in the cells before being discharged with a caution. But that had been before the union was properly recognised.

  ‘A missing lad, eh?’ The policeman licked his pencil and prepared to take down details. ‘Name?’

  ‘Thomas Mitchell-Howe,’ said Eliza. ‘I’m his mother, Sister Mitchell-Howe.’ The policeman shot her an unbelieving glance.

  ‘Mitchell-Howe, eh. A fancy name that,’ he remarked.

  ‘Dr Gray of this city can verify it. I am a professional nurse.’ The policeman did not seem greatly impressed. In his experience nurses were often drunken and dirty. He had to admit that this one was dressed decently and was clean.

  ‘How old is the lad? How did he go missing?’ Best to fill the form in, he thought. The union man might cause trouble if he did not.

  ‘Ten, going on eleven,’ said Eliza. ‘He ran away to find work.’

  The constable looked impatient. ‘Going on eleven?’ he said. ‘Most lads are working at that age. It’s not as though he’s a little bairn.’

  ‘Constable, do your duty and look in the book and see if a lad that age has been found hurt or reported taken up from the streets, will you?’

  The constable bridled. ‘I expect you’re not saying I don’t know my duty, sir,’ he said, putting extra stress on the last word. He turned to Eliza. ‘How long has he been gone, er, Sister?’

  ‘Almost a week,’ Eliza replied.

  ‘A week? Well, that’s not long, is it? He’ll likely be turning up when he realises it’s none so easy to make a living out in the world,’ he said easily. He opened a large black ledger and glanced through it. ‘No, no lad of that description down here,’ he said and closed the book with a snap. ‘Now, I’m busy, like. There’s criminals and vagabonds about in the city, or hadn’t you heard?’

  Peter uttered an angry exclamation but the policeman was imperturbable so he took Eliza’s arm and led her outside. ‘It’s no good making a fuss about his attitude, not now,’ he said. ‘But I will report him, never fear.’

  ‘And what good will that do? It won’t get Tot back,’ said Eliza despairingly. ‘This is the second time I’ve lost him, remember. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘You haven’t lost him. We’ll get him back, you’ll see. I’ll search for him. Everywhere I go, I’ll ask about him.’

  When Eliza got home here was a letter waiting for her; it had come by the midday post. Her mother was sitting in the front room with the letter propped on the small table by her side and she was turned in her chair staring at it. Letters were very rare in Mary Anne’s experience as neither she nor Tommy could read or write. Usually they meant trouble and she reckoned they had enough trouble to be going on with, oh yes, she did.

  ‘What do you think it is, Eliza?’ she asked fearfully. ‘Is it about Tot, do you think?’

  Hope leaped in Eliza’s breast. Oh, if it was from someone answering one of the posters she had pasted around the area! She picked up the envelope and stared at the writing.

  ‘To the parents or guardian of Thomas Mitchell-Howe,’ it said. His full name, Thomas Mitchell-Howe; it must be from someone who had spoken to him, someone who knew his name. And he must have given them his mother’s address too. Oh, thank God, thank you, God, she thought and ripped open the seal. She read the contents and sat down abruptly,

  ‘Well? What does it say?’ asked Mary Anne. ‘Howay, man, Eliza, tell me? Is the bairn all right?’

  ‘It’s – it’s from a lawyer, Mam. It says Annie left our Tot five hundred and fifty pounds in her will.’

  ‘What? Five hundred pounds? It’s a fortune!’ Mary Anne looked a bit dazed; she couldn’t conceive of five hundred pounds. The amount had barely registered with Eliza. What did money matter?

  ‘It doesn’t tell us where he is, does it?’ she asked bitterly.

  ‘No, that’s true.’ Mary Anne bit her lip. ‘Look, Eliza, pull yourself together, lass, and stop looking on the dark side all the time. He’ll come back, man; you’ve not lost him, not like I lost our Miley.’

  Eliza stared at her mother. She had not, it was true; surely she would feel it if Tot was dead? She felt restless; it was already twilight outside but she wanted to go out again and search for him. She picked up her bonnet and tied it back on. She had a
new batch of posters fresh from the printers; she would hand them out.

  ‘You’re not going out again, our Eliza!’ said Mary Anne. ‘You’ve not had your tea, never mind supper. If you go on like this it’ll be you that’ll be badly.’

  ‘I’ll take bread and cheese with me,’ said Eliza. ‘I’ll be fine. Don’t take on, Mam.’

  Once again she harnessed Dolly to the tub trap and led her out and up the back street. As she turned the corner she noticed that Tot’s friends were having a game of quoits in the play field despite the fading light. When he saw her, Bert, his particular friend, the one who had begun the trouble by encouraging Tot to leave school and go down the pit with him, came over and spoke.

  ‘Did you hear from Tot, Mrs Mitchell?’ he asked. ‘Only I thought he would have sent me a letter by now. He promised he would when he got to Alnwick.’

  Eliza stopped the pony. ‘You knew he was going to Alnwick? You didn’t say when I asked you if you knew about his plans.’

  Bert hung his head. ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell. Only he did say he would write. Mebbe he couldn’t afford the penny post. But he was going to walk up the Great North Road to Newcastle and get the train from there. That would save him a bit of money.’

  Eliza closed her eyes for a moment then opened them and said, ‘You didn’t say that either, Bert. By, I’ll have to have a word with your mother, I will indeed. What else did he tell you that you haven’t told me?’

  ‘Nothing, Mrs Mitchell, honest,’ the boy replied. He gazed at her earnestly. His eyes were rimmed with coal dust for he had already started in the mine, and it gave him a look like one of the actresses she had once seen at the fair.

  ‘You’ll be in trouble if he did and you’re not telling me,’ she said and flicked the reins over Dolly’s broad back and set off for the Great North Road. She should be able to get so far of the way up and put out a few posters on trees and milestones on the way. She felt as though she was actually doing something constructive, something that might help. Thank goodness she had checked the oil lamps on the trap before she set off, she would need them on the way home. She thought of Tot as she pushed Dolly on. No wonder she had missed him. He would hardly have got to Newcastle station by the time she and Bertha had arrived there on the train that evening when he went missing. It must be all of eighteen to twenty miles; it would have taken him a few hours. What a fool she had been, not finding out what Bert knew about his plans before she set off after him.

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘LOOK HERE, BATES, the lad’s coming round,’ said Mrs Bates as the farmer came into the house for his breakfast. She did not look up from the boy; she was wrapped up in him. He looked sourly at the boy lying on the settle. Aye, he thought, his eyelids were fluttering and thank the Lord for that an’ all. He was fed up with coming in famished for his meals and finding neither sight nor smell of any food on the table nor yet being prepared. It wasn’t good enough. Aye, an’ he would be telling the woman making such a fuss over the bit lad on the settle, he would indeed.

  ‘Never mind him, where’s me bacon and black pudding? I’ve been looking forward to it this last hour. What’s a man supposed to live on, eh?’

  ‘I’ll not be a minute with it, I didn’t like to leave him. He’s moving, man, he might fall off the settle,’ said Mrs Bates. ‘But look now, you watch him, I’ll not be long getting the food on the table.’

  He’d been there nearly three days now, though he had turned over on the couch yesterday. Farmer Bates felt thoroughly neglected.

  Farmer Bates took off his boots and walked in his stockinged feet over the flagged floor of the kitchen to where the boy lay. ‘Hurry up then, I’m fair clemmed,’ he said. ‘Any road, didn’t we say last night we would send him to the workhouse? He’d be all right there, they’d put him in the hospital. He’d get a doctor looking at him for free an’ all.’ It still rankled with him that his wife was paying that Dr Jones from the egg money. Well, he’d told her straight, he wouldn’t make it up for her; last night he’d said so.

  He pulled a chair from the table and sat down beside the lad. ‘Get on with it,’ he instructed Mrs Bates. She had barely brought the bacon from the larder and cut a couple of thick slices before Tot’s eyelids opened wide, disclosing the deepest blue eyes he had ever seen. By, they were wasted on a lad, they were, he reckoned.

  ‘Now then,’ he said as the lad stared at him. ‘Who the heck are you, any road?’

  Mrs Bates forgot about the bacon and flew to his side. ‘Oh, poor lad,’ she said with fervour. ‘I’m that glad to see you come to yourself.’

  Tot transferred his gaze to her. He didn’t know who she was but her voice was familiar. It seemed to him he had heard it a lot and not long ago.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘You’re not my Aunt Amelia.’ Hadn’t he been going to Alnwick?

  ‘Nay, lad, I’m not,’ Mrs Bates replied. She smiled widely. ‘My name is Mrs Bates and this is Farmer Bates, my man. We’ve been looking after you since you were set on by tramps, on the road by the farm. You’ve been here nigh on three days. I’ve had the doctor to you.’

  Tot struggled to sit up properly before wincing and putting a hand to the back of his head. ‘Thank you,’ he said politely, ‘I have to go to Alnwick.’ He had no memory of being attacked by anyone, but if the lady said it had happened it must have done so.

  ‘Alnwick? By, that’s a long way to be walking, isn’t it?’

  ‘I was going to get the train from Newcastle,’ said Tot. It felt very odd to be sitting in this farm kitchen with a strange woman fussing over him and a man glowering at him. A man who was obviously a ruddy-faced farmer with his gaiters still on though he was in his stockinged feet. The woman was very nice but his head ached and he really wanted his mam. Maybe he wouldn’t go to Alnwick until next week, he decided. He stood up but the room whirled about him and he sat back down abruptly.

  ‘Nay, lad, take it slowly,’ Mrs Bates exclaimed. ‘I tell you what, I’ll do you a pot of porridge with some nice cream from the dairy. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Aye, I bet he would,’ said the farmer sourly. ‘But before you see to the little prince, mebbe you’ll do my breakfast? I have someone coming to hire the boar in half an hour and I’d like to be fed afore that.’

  ‘Eeh, I’m sorry, I’ll do it now,’ his wife replied. ‘Now, lad, what do folk call you?’

  ‘Tot. Tot Mitchell-Howe,’ he replied.

  ‘Well then, Tot, just stay still there for a minute. You had a bad blow to the head, you know.’ As she fried fat bacon and broke eggs into the pan she got him to tell her where he lived and how he had a mam but no father and why he was going to Alnwick.

  ‘But I think I’ll just go back to Durham now,’ he went on. ‘I’ll go to Northumberland next week.’

  Farmer Bates grunted and tucked into the food his wife put before him. At least it looked as though they would be rid of the lad in a few days and he would once more be the focus of his wife’s world. By, at times like these he was glad they didn’t have any bairns. He finished his meal in silence and pulled on his boots and went out of the back door only a few minutes before a trap turned into the gates of the farm, pulling a pig cart behind it. He cheered up as he usually did at the prospect of making a few bob.

  ‘Wot cheor,’ said Farmer Dean as he jumped down from the trap and twined the reins around the rail. ‘I’ve come for the boar; ready is he?’

  Though Chester-le-Street was only a few miles north of Durham the accent was slightly different and it reminded Farmer Bates of the lad, Tot. Not one for jumping in quickly, he thought about it as he and Dean and Dean’s dog, Jess, herded the boar into the pig cart and afterwards when the other man put his hand into his pocket.

  ‘Twelve shillings, you said? For a week? It’s a bit dear like, it’s gone up, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Look, seeing as you’ve used him afore, I’ll knock sixpence off.’

  ‘A deal,’ said Farmer Dean and the two men spat
on their hands and shook on it.

  ‘By the way,’ said Bates, ‘I picked up a young lad that was set on by a couple of tramps the other day. I have him in the house, he had a nasty blow to the head. I think he might be from round your way. Durham, he says; will you have a look at him?’

  ‘I don’t know, where did you say he’s from? Durham? Haswell is a way off Durham, like.’

  ‘Well, howay in and have a mug of tea. You can have a look at him any road.’

  ‘Stay, Jess,’ said Farmer Dean and followed the other man into the house. ‘I cannot be but a minute, I don’t want the animals to get restless,’ he warned.

  ‘This is the lad.’ Farmer Bates indicated Tot, who was sitting up and eating a bowl of porridge thick with cream from the dairy, he noted sourly.

  ‘Wot cheor, lad,’ said Farmer Dean. ‘Where did you say you hail from?’

  ‘Durham, sir,’ said Tot respectfully. ‘Gilesgate, it is.’

  The farmer studied him; there was a familiar look about him, especially about the eyes. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Tot. Thomas really, Thomas Mitchell-Howe,’ said Tot, sitting back and rubbing cream from his lips with the back of his hand. He felt pleasantly full and he gave the farmer all of his attention.

  ‘Mitchell-Howe, did you say? I knew some folk of that name once, a few years ago,’ the farmer exclaimed. ‘I come from Haswell, do you know it?’

  ‘My grandma lives at Blue House,’ said Tot.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Farmer Dean, grinning at Farmer Bates. ‘I can take him back to his grandma’s if you like.’

  ‘What now?’ asked Mrs Bates in dismay. ‘I don’t know if he’s fit—’

  ‘He’s fit, of course he is,’ snapped her husband. ‘I dare say he can’t wait to get home, can you, lad?’

  ‘I’d like to see me mam,’ admitted Tot, then remembered his manners. ‘Though I’m grateful, Mrs Bates, for all you’ve done for me. Mam will be an’ all.’