The Girl From Pit Lane

by Gracie Hart

  She sat in front of the bedroom mirror and idly brushed her long auburn hair, re-arranging the ribbon that tied it, and looked at herself. What had she done to deserve to be in such a terrible position? No parents, no money and, worst of all, the threat of Edmund Ellershaw. What the coming year held for her, she didn’t dare think, but at the moment it looked like nothing but hardship and degradation in the hands of Ellershaw, but she had no option when it came to him – they had to survive.

  Eliza shouted up from the bottom of the stairs, bringing her back from her dark thoughts. ‘I’m just walking out with Tom to the end of the lane, Mary-Anne.’

  ‘All right, Eliza. Take your shawl, it’s cold out there,’ Mary-Anne shouted back, and looked again at her reflection as she heard the front door close. ‘Take care, my little sister, and enjoy life while you can,’ Mary-Anne whispered as she fought back the tears. At least one of them was happy.

  ‘It must be so cold and dark down there,’ Eliza said to Mary-Anne, as she looked down on the frost-covered grave of their mother and lost baby. ‘We don’t even know if the baby Mother lost was a girl or a boy, it was just bundled up in a sheet and put in with her.’

  ‘I try not to think about it. Mother clearly hadn’t known either. And that’s the baby that killed her.’ Mary-Anne looked down at the cold grave and shivered. ‘She was getting too old to be bothered with another child, and, besides, we struggled without having another mouth to feed.’

  ‘You think she got rid of it, don’t you? That she drunk the potion that Aunt Patsy sent her, in order to lose the baby.’ Eliza put her arm around her sister as they both looked down on the grave.

  ‘I do, but I can’t blame her. I just wish she was still with us. We’d have managed somehow. It might have done Bill good to have a child of his own, made him more responsible.’ Mary-Anne walked away across the graveyard to where her father lay. She crouched down, running her fingers over the frosted grass. ‘Happy Christmas, Father. We miss you,’ she whispered.

  ‘You were always close to Father. I was my mother’s child; you were Father’s. I was always jealous of the love he showed you.’ Eliza stood by her sister and watched as she lovingly stroked the simple headstone under which their father lay.

  ‘He loved us both, Eliza; he had no favourites. But most of all he loved our mother. He would have hated the way she was treated by Bill and for her to do away with the baby she was carrying.’ Mary-Anne held her hand out for her sister to take.

  ‘We’ve got one another, Mary-Anne. I’ll always be here for you. Don’t despair, you have been so sad and quiet over Christmas.’ Eliza linked her arm through her sister’s as they both left the graveyard. ‘Things will take a turn about, of that I’m sure.’ Eliza swallowed hard as they closed the iron gates of the cemetery behind them. She knew in her heart that things would not get better, that life was going to be a struggle and that she had to do the most to keep Mary-Anne’s spirits up and to help both of them survive.

  Thirteen

  The Boxing Day ball was in full swing at Eshald House. The gravelled driveway of the grand house was busy with guests arriving, alighting from their carriages. The servants were busy welcoming the visiting dignitaries and gentry of the district.

  The large, square-set Georgian house with its grand fluted columns sat in its own grounds with the brewery buildings set behind. Eshald Well Springs Brewery was one of the main employers in the area and the smell from the maltings filled the air of the surrounding district most days, while the gasometer that also stood in the grounds supplied light to most of Woodlesford and warmth to the only hot-house in the district, which was Timothy Bentley’s main indulgence. His money might be new but he had settled into the finer things of life very easily and he liked to supply flowers all year around to his house and the chapel in Woodlesford.

  Edmund Ellershaw and his family were guests of the Bentleys. Grace had especially looked forward to attending the ball, and she was smiling and laughing as the footman helped her down from the family’s carriage.

  ‘Oh, Father, just listen to the music and look at the people here!’ Grace turned around and smiled at both her parents and her brother William as they entered into the grand hall, the butler offering the family glasses of champagne.

  ‘Aye, Bentley knows how to put on a show all right.’ Edmund glowered at the young maid who took his cloak.

  ‘Remember, Grace, don’t drink too much, and William, you take heed too.’ Catherine Ellershaw looked at both her children and checked herself in the long hallway mirror before walking into the main ballroom by the side of her husband.

  ‘Well, that’s telling us.’ William lifted his glass and grinned at his sister. ‘I don’t know about you, but I aim to make the most of this night and I’m sure my father will. He always says, “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”, and this gift horse is going to be one I make the most of.’ William raised his glass and then walked to where a line of his friends were watching the frivolities of the evening.

  ‘Grace, how beautiful you look. Where did you get that dress; it looks absolutely divine!’ Jessica Bentley, the oldest daughter of the Bentleys, swanned over to Grace and glanced up and down at the green dress that had been bought from Eliza and Mary-Anne.

  ‘Well, Jessica, I don’t know if I should tell you this, but I bought it not a quarter of a mile away from here. In a little shop in the middle of Woodlesford. I knew when I saw it in the window, I just had to have it, regardless of the shop it was in.’ Grace sipped her drink.

  ‘Really! Did it not come from Leeds or Manchester? You must tell me more about this little shop, or even take me to it. I love the cut, the colour and the style just suits you to the ground.’ Jessica urged some more of her friends to come and admire Grace’s outfit, and soon the whole group was admiring the green dress that had started life on the back of Ma Fletcher’s rag-and-bone cart.

  ‘They are just starting out. They are two sisters who run the shop, and it was the youngest one who I think made this. I would recommend that you pay them a visit, once Christmas is over. At the moment they don’t have any material in as they have just lost their mother and I think they are perhaps not as wealthy as they make you believe. My father was extremely annoyed that I had given them my trade. But if they supply quality clothing like this, why shouldn’t I?’ Grace took a sip from her champagne flute and smiled at the group who all knew her as being a young woman who knew her own mind and they were all devout followers of where she led.

  ‘Indeed so, my darling Grace. The poor girls will need our support. I’m sure we can all pay them a visit once they are back upon their feet and Christmas is over.’ Jessica looked around at the group of young women who all nodded in agreement.

  ‘They would welcome that, I’m sure. I myself am going to go back shortly, to ask for another dress similar to this design but in a different colour, I would like a new dress for my birthday in March, probably in red. I look best in red, my mother says.’ Grace looked around her.

  ‘Then I will come with you when you do, Grace, and perhaps order a dress myself. Give them my support. Father always says we must support our community and that, as we are one of the largest employers in the area, people are reliant on our money.’

  Grace sat back with her friends around her and sipped her drink, confident that she had established customers for the small shop that had taken her eye and the two girls who she had felt so sorry for, especially after her father had not shown them an ounce of compassion. He was different altogether to Jessica’s father, who, though he came from similar humble beginnings, had the time of day for everyone and put his money back into the surrounding area. She would return to the little lean-to and she would not be alone.

  Sarah Marsden, meanwhile, sat back, looking perplexed at her friend’s new dress, and finally decided when Grace was left alone for a few minutes to comment upon it. ‘I think I’ve seen Winnie Oversby in a dress very much like that one, perhaps two seasons ago. It was at Temple Newsho
lme when it was her cousin’s wedding. I remember it because she had a white rose corsage around the neckline and I thought how stunning she looked.’

  ‘Oh, Sarah, you must be mistaken. I assure you this is brand new and the neckline would not look right with a corsage around it; it is too high. Perhaps it is of similar material?’ Grace smiled and carried on watching the gathering; her friend was surely mistaken.

  ‘Mmmm … perhaps you are right, but I could have sworn it was the same dress.’ Sarah decided not to pursue the conversation when their chattering friends returned, but she knew she was right, even if there was no longer a rose corsage in sight.

  Fourteen

  The new year had been ushered into Mary-Anne and Eliza’s home by Bert Simms being the traditional first footer as he crossed the threshold after the stroke of midnight with a piece of coal in one hand and a penny in the other, a tradition that had for centuries been upheld in northern England and Scotland. The coal symbolised warmth in the home, and the money symbolised wealth in the home for the coming new year. Bert had stood laughing on the doorstep and tried to assure the girls that once the grey hair that was now on the top of his head had been jet black, thus upholding the other part of the tradition that a dark-haired man was the most desired to bring good luck into the home.

  Now, on the second day of January, Mary-Anne stood outside the gates of Rose Pit and knew that, no matter how much good luck was wished on them both by their neighbours, it was up to her to make things happen and gain security for both her and Eliza.

  Her stomach churned over as she knew what she had to do and as she thought about Edmund Ellershaw waiting of her and what he would demand of her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Tom enter the pit’s cage and get lowered by the winding engine man, Joseph Jackson, down the two yards below to the main mine shaft.

  She had just time to slip unnoticed into the office and hopefully go about the unsavoury business transaction that she was dreading to undertake. She breathed in deeply, dreading the moment that Edmund Ellershaw’s hands were to touch her. She had no experience of such things; she was a good girl and was waiting for the man she had one day hoped to marry. Despite her being worldly-wise and able to give anyone a mouthful of cheek, she had kept herself pure and was proud of the fact. Now all was going to be lost to a dirty letch. She knocked quietly on the bleached wooden door and waited.

  ‘Enter.’ Edmund’s voice came from within, and Mary-Anne felt her legs turn to jelly as she stepped across the threshold and into the office of the man that now controlled her life.

  ‘Ah, you’ve returned. Have you given my suggestion some thought? Even though you seemed to be sure that you could live without my charity. Because, believe me, it is charity; I could get what I need anywhere along the docks and they’d be a lot more experienced than a slip of a lass.’ Edmund looked up at the ashen-faced girl.

  ‘Well, if you’ve changed your mind, I’ll go and leave you free to the prick-pinchers on Canal Street. Perhaps they are better suited to you with all the disease that they carry.’ Mary-Anne breathed in deeply, controlling her nerves and feeling angry at the man sat across from her for insulting her by asking her to degrade her body and being not even remotely thankful for what he was asking of her. ‘Can we just get on with it, and then we are straight for a month, and I don’t have to think of coming back here for a while?’ Mary-Anne stood in front of him and waited for the lustful Edmund to get up from his seat and carry out the act that she had lain awake thinking about and dreading ever since Christmas Eve.

  ‘What! You thought I’d take you in here, for all my workers to know what I’m getting up to?’ Edmund sat back and sniggered. ‘I’m not that common, my dear. Tonight, wait for me at the end of Pit Lane and my carriage will pick you up. Eight o’clock, and come in something decent; I’m taking you to my gentleman’s club at Holbeck, where I’ve got a private room. Now go, before anybody sees you.’ Edmund put his head down and watched as Mary-Anne sighed.

  Unlike her mother, he had decided that Mary-Anne was worth showing off on his arm at his club, and, besides, Tom and his other workers had let him know just how disgusted they were with his arrangement with her mother. Their mumbled words and dark stares had left him in no doubt after Sarah’s funeral that they had figured out just what his relationship with her had been. And who the father of Sarah’s dead baby was. They would be up in arms if they suspected him of taking advantage of the situation again with her daughter.

  ‘What if I don’t want to go to your club? I just can’t leave my sister without any explanation,’ Mary-Anne asked the disinterested Ellershaw.

  ‘Then our understanding is off, and I will serve notice on your cottage by the end of the month, my dear.’ Edmund leered.

  Mary-Anne stood for a moment and then made for the door. She closed it behind her and walked out of the pit yard. How was she going to explain her time away from home to Eliza? Holbeck was only a few miles down the road, it shouldn’t take that long to get there and back. But what would be expected of her once at the men’s club? How long would she be expected to stay there? Surely Edmund Ellershaw would have to return home to his wife? Mary-Anne worried about her plight all the way home and was thankful that the house was empty when she returned to her refuge. She sat down in the kitchen and hugged herself, rocking back and forth to give herself comfort, her mind racing, wondering what would be required of her at the club. What if Edmund Ellershaw invited some of his friends to join in his sport? She just couldn’t bear to think about it.

  ‘Eliza, I’ve decided to start sleeping in our mother’s room. I haven’t been sleeping of late and I know I disturb your sleep.’ Mary-Anne looked at her sister as she ate her potato hash that she had made for her sister’s return from the shop. ‘I’ve moved my things out of our room this afternoon, and I am airing it now with a copper bed warmer.’ She poked her dinner around the plate, and didn’t feel like eating anything, worried that she was lying to her sister and that the evening’s agenda with Edmund was not as clear as she would have liked it to be.

  ‘You’re not that bad, besides, we keep one another warm when we sleep together.’ Eliza did not raise her head and just kept eating her dinner.

  ‘I’ll not be in tonight either. I’ve decided to attend the talk on spiritualism in the village hall. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time and they always have a meeting once a week so I thought, with it being a new year, I’d show some interest.’ Mary-Anne couldn’t look at her sister as she lied through her teeth, making up her excuse for not being at home that evening.

  ‘Spiritualism! Isn’t that when folk talk to the dead? What’s made you want to do that? It won’t bring our mother back, you know. It’s all fake.’ Eliza couldn’t believe her ears and lifted her head to look at her sister.

  ‘I know, but it seems to be all the rage at the moment. I just wanted to see what it was all about.’ Mary-Anne cleared her plate away and breathed in deeply. ‘Have you sold anything at the shop today? I suppose it will have been quiet.’

  ‘Minnie came back for that skirt, she asked if I could add a piece into the waist so that it would fit her. I’ve started on it this afternoon and she’s coming back with the money tomorrow, so at least we will have a bit in the cash box.’ Eliza looked at her sister who seemed to be acting strangely to her. ‘What’s up, our Mary? You seem to be really unsettled with yourself.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, apart from missing Mother.’ Mary-Anne smiled at her sister wanly.

  ‘That’s what this spiritualist nonsense is about … I’m right, aren’t I? Well, you go if you think it will help you. But I’m not setting foot in the place, so don’t ask me to come with you.’ Eliza sat back in her chair and pushed away her empty plate.

  ‘No, you’re fine. I don’t expect you to. I’ll go on my own.’ Mary-Anne knew she was safe with lying about the meeting. Eliza had always made clear her thoughts about the afterlife and her disbelief in such like. ‘I don’t kn
ow how long it goes on for, so don’t lock the door on me if you go to bed.’

  ‘Get yourself back before the witching hour, else the bogeyman will get you.’ Eliza laughed and pulled a face at her sister.

  ‘You’ll stay like that if the wind changes.’ Mary-Anne grinned but in her head she was thinking that the bogeyman had already got her and she was to meet him that evening.

  Mary-Anne stood at the end of Pit Lane and shivered in the cold of the winter’s evening. Her stomach was churning as she hid in the shadows, not wanting anyone to see her loitering and waiting for the carriage of Edmund Ellershaw. She’d snuck out of the house, trying to avoid the questioning looks that she knew Eliza would have given her if she had caught her in her best clothes. She was sure to have questioned her dressing so fine, just for a spiritualist meeting. She hadn’t liked lying to her sister, but it had to be done.

  The night’s silence was broken by the sound of horse’s hooves and a carriage being pulled at speed along the rough surface of Abberford Road, and it pulled up for her to climb into the dark interior.

  ‘So, you’ve not changed your mind then.’ Edmund Ellershaw sat across from Mary-Anne as she hid herself in the darkness of the interior. He reached over and ran his hand up her leg under her skirts and breathed in heavily as she closed her legs together trapping his hand between her knees. ‘No matter, you won’t be doing that when I get you alone in my room,’ he whispered, and withdrew his hand from between her legs, aware that his groom could hear the conversation from within the carriage. ‘You’ll do as I want and you won’t complain, else it will be the worse for you,’ he snarled.

  Mary-Anne sat back and said nothing; if she could have left the carriage without harming herself she would have. But the carriage was moving at speed as they drove into the village of Holbeck on the very edge of the sprawling Leeds city, and all too soon they had arrived.