Book I
Beginnings 1862–1872
Chapter 1
Friday, June 13, 1862
David Dickinson’s eyes were wide open. He was staring up at the single window in their one-room tenement flat, willing the light outside to grow brighter. He raised up on one elbow and peered across the darkened room to where a blanket hung from a rope, separating his parents’ sleeping room from the main room. Did he dare just rush in and wake them?
He sighed, falling back on the pillow. He had not been allowed to enter their sleeping room when the blanket was drawn since he was three, and—his head came up with a jerk.
“Annie?” It was his father’s voice, spoken in a bare whisper.
“I’m awake,” his mother whispered back.
There was a rustle of straw and the squeak of rope as someone got out of bed. More rustling, this time of clothing. David lay back and squeezed his eyes shut, heart thumping just a little.
“Is he . . . ?” His mother’s voice still sounded sleepy.
“Naw. ’E still be sleepin’. But Ah moost be goin’ soon.”1
“I know.”
David cracked an eye open when he heard her bare feet hit the floor, then a whisper of sound as she put on a housecoat. A moment later, the blanket separating their sleeping room from the rest of the flat pulled back, and John Dickinson appeared, pulling up the suspenders on his trousers. David closed his eye again as his father tiptoed across the room and lit a candle.
Softer footsteps moved toward him across the floor. “David?”
He stirred and mumbled something unintelligible.
“Happy birthday, David,” his mother said softly, laying a hand gently on his shoulder.
“What?” He stretched, then feigned a huge yawn.
But she knew him too well. “You cahn’t fool me, young man.” It was her finest London accent. Her hand shot out and found that spot beneath his armpit that she had discovered years before. In an instant he was writhing on the bed, screeching with laughter.
“’Appy bur’day, Laddee,” his father said, coming back to stand beside his wife. As David sat up, his father bent down and pulled him close. David felt the scratch of thick stubble and smelled the coal dust and candle smoke on his shirt.
“Tank ya, Dah.”
Over his father’s shoulder, he saw his mother frown. “Thank you, Dahdee,” he corrected himself quickly.
Anne Dickinson was slender and looked pale in the candlelight. The bone structure in her face was fine, almost fragile, and her skin was like the finest of Spode porcelain. She had blue-green eyes and soft, golden brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Her mouth was small and her lips pale, so when she frowned, it was like a shadow drifting across a sunlit meadow. But when she smiled, as she did once again now, it filled her eyes. She was so beautiful, David wanted to reach out and touch her face.
“Ya be most welcum, Son,” his father said, ignoring the brief interchange. He gave him another squeeze, then pulled back and stood, smiling down on him. “Noow then, Davee lad. This be yur sixth bur’day. So yur Mum an’ me, we ’ave a wee sooprize fur ya.”
“What, Dahd?”
“Yur muther be tekin’ ya ta Barnslee Town t’day.”
David leaped to his knees. “Barnslee? Trulee, Dah?” He turned to his mother, hardly daring to believe. “Ah’ve never bin ta Barnslee in me ’ole life.”
She sighed, wondering if he would ever be able to get past his Yorkshire accent, but decided to let it pass. His excitement was infectious. “You’ve actually been there two or three times,” she said, “but only when you were a wee boy.”
Reaching in his pocket, his father withdrew three coins. David peered in disbelief. Each coin was a tuppence, a two-pence piece. That made—he calculated quickly—six pence.
“’Ere be a little sumthin’ ta ’elp ya celebrate. Maybe yur Mum be tekin’ ya ta the sweet shop.” He winked. “Let ya buy sumthin’ ta give ya a real bellyache.”
“It be joost fur me, Dah?”
“Indeed. Ya can pick oot whate’er ya lek. Whaddya think of that, eh?”
“Oh, Dahdee!” His eyes were round and dancing with excitement. “Thare be nowt bettur in the ’ole wurld than that.”
His mother sighed. “Not nowt, David. Nothing. Say it properly.”
“Thare—” He stopped at her look, took a deep breath, and tried again, speaking more slowly now. “There be nothing better in the ’ole wurld than goin’ to Barnslee Town.”
She bent down and kissed the top of his head. “Very good.”
His father winked at him again. “Yur Mum, she be one fine woman from down near London Town, Davee boy. She teach ya ’ow ta spek joost reet. Use the Queen’s English reet proper.”
“I hardly speak the Queen’s English,” she demurred.
He went right on. “She naw murdur the muther tunge lek this old Tyke.”a
She started to protest, but he raised a hand, cutting her off. “Thare be no ’ope fur me, Davee boy.” Now he was actually exaggerating his accent. “The way Ah spek be burned inta me bones. But ya, Davee, if ya listen well, yur muther she mek ya inta one fine laddee. Reet, Annie?”
Her smile was filled with love as she leaned over and briefly touched his hand. “Reet, John.”
She turned again to her son, combing her fingers through the curls of his dark hair. “Ah, David,” she said, her voice warm with love, “you’re going to be as handsome as your father.”
“Aw, gwan!” her husband said.
“No, look at you, John Dickinson, with your brown eyes and dark, wavy hair—and that smile that can charm a pig up into a tree. No wonder this wee lass went weak in the knees that day you first came in the company store.”
David was watching this exchange happily. He ran over to the tiny mirror that hung over the kitchen sink and studied himself quickly. “Do you really think I’ll look like Dah, Mum?”
She moved beside him. “Look at that jawline—firm and square, just like your father’s. And you’ve got his brown eyes.” She smiled at him in the mirror. “I love your eyes, David. When you smile, the laughter ripples up into them as well. Your hair is a little lighter, but thankfully, you got a bit of your father’s waviness. Mine be straight as a stick.” She bent down and kissed the back of his head. “Aye, you’re going to be a handsome one indeed.”
“Aw, gwan,” he said, blushing, and sounding exactly like his father.
“Ah think ya be taller than me eventually,” his father said, moving up beside them.
“Really?” David exclaimed. At five foot seven—just a couple of inches taller than his wife—John Dickinson was one of the shorter men working the Cawthorne Pit, and David worried that he would be like that too.
“I think so too, John,” Anne said. “The way he be eating lately, I keep expecting him to sprout ears and turn into a mule.” Smiling, she turned away. “Get dressed, David. Your father needs his breakfast. We’ll leave right after he does so we can have the whole day together. Maybe there will even be time to trek down to the canal and watch them load the coal into the boats.”
His arm shot high in the air. “Yah!”
Eyes warm with affection, Anne rumpled his hair once more. “Go on, now. Get yourself dressed, then out to the loo with you. Be sure you put on some shoes.”
She moved to the table but continued to watch him out of the corner of her eye. He gave her an awkward glance, turned his back to her, then slid off his nightshirt. Now she watched him openly, feeling a sadness come upon her all of a sudden.
The baby chubbiness was completely gone. His vertebrae were visible along the center of his back, and when he reached for his trousers, she could also see his ribs. He was still a little boy to her, but once he started in the mines, his body would become as hard and muscular as her husband’s. She turned away, not wanting to embarrass him further.
Finished, he gave her a little wave as he went out the door.
She sighed, not wanting to think either about him growing up or abou
t his starting in the mines.
Her husband was gathering his things so he could leave as soon as breakfast was done. Anne moved to a shelf and took down a tin box about six inches square. “Here’s your snap, John.” She placed it in the pack he would carry over his shoulder into the mine. The packed lunch didn’t get its name from the meager fare—two boiled eggs, half a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese and two small pasties,b but from the way the tin lid snapped when it was closed. “John?”
“Yah, luv.” His mind was clearly elsewhere.
“I’m sorry for always trying to correct David. I don’t want to make you feel bad. I love the way you speak—” She smiled. “Or spek. ’Tis just that I want David to—”
“Ah know, Annie, luv, Ah know. An’ Ah dunna mind at awl.”
“And do you mind that I am teaching him to read and write?”
He turned in surprise. “Ah think it be grahnd what yur doin’.”
“I don’t know that much, but . . .” She let it trail off.
He forced a smile. “Annie, Ah know what ya be tryin’ ta do, an’ Ah think that it be gud.” How did he say what needed to be said? He was of the sixth generation of coal miners in his family. His wife had not been born in Yorkshire and so she found the life and traditions of the mining community difficult to embrace. Thirteen years had softened her to the point where she accepted the hard realities of their lives, but she would never fully embrace them.
John Dickinson loved his wife, totally and without reservation. He never criticized her, not to her face, not behind her back. He knew, as surely as he knew how to bring down a block of coal from the coal face, that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
With a start, he realized she was watching him, waiting. “Ah joost wurry a bit,” he admitted.
“Go on.”
“We be minin’ folk, Annie. Naw amoont of fancy talk gunna be changin’ that.” He rushed on before she could interrupt. “Ah’m not askin’ ya ta stop, mind ya. Joost tek care that ya dunna fill ’is mind with dreams that cahrn’t be. That’s awl Ah be sayin’, Annie.”
For a moment she wanted to flare out at him, grab his shoulders and shake him until he understood. But he was right. These were grand dreams she was having. Bloomin’ madness, some were saying. “Have you listened to him read lately, John?”
“Naw. Naw fur a bit.”
“I’m no teacher, John. I barely learned to read myself before—” She shook her head, not wanting to go where that thought would take her. “But he is so quick, John. He’s already reading better than me. And he knows his numbers, too.”
He was nodding, but she couldn’t tell if that was just John, never wanting to hurt her, or if he really agreed. “John, I do not know how long I shall be here with you.” One hand came up quickly. “No, John. I hope I’m wrong. But I fear that there were just too many years in the match factory, breathing in that white phosphorus dust.”2
One hand stole up unnoticed and began to gently massage her jaw, the jaw that now gave her pain every time she ate, though she had not told John that yet. “The doctor says I’ve got a few years yet, but ’tis not likely I’ll be here to see him become a man. And we have to get our heads ’round that. It will be you who is left to raise our son.”
“Annie, please . . .”
“I want something more for David, John. We lost our little Annie at birth. Another gift from the match factory, I’m sure. And I couldn’t carry any of those other babies for more than two or three months. But David was a fighter. He survived, and he’s all we’ve got. Helping him to learn to speak proper and to read and write—’tis the only way I know how to help him.”
He turned and took her in his arms. “Annie?”
“Aye?”
“Ah spek wit Mr. Rhodes, yes’day.”
Her eyes widened for a moment, then she quickly pulled away.
“Ah tole ’im that Davee be six t’day, an’—”
She put her fingers to his lips. “Dunna say it,” she said softly, perfectly imitating his Yorkshire drawl. “I know it moost be, John, but dunna say it. Naw t’day. Please.”
But it had to be said. “Thare be a place for a trapper in Shaft Three. That’s me pit, Annie. At least, ’e will be close by so Ah can watch ’im.”
She didn’t answer. “It be five pence a day,” he added softly. “Five p! We need it to buy more med’cine.” A long pause, then fervently, “Ah will naw lose ya, Annie. Ah will naw!”
She was close to tears. “How soon?”
“T’day be Freeday. Rhodes wants ’im ta start t’morrow, but I tole ’im Munday.”
Her head dropped. It was like there was a great stone in her stomach. Then something fierce flared up inside her. “I know it must be so,” she said, “but promise me one thing, John.”
His eyes were bleak, but he managed a smile. “Whate’er ya ask of me, luv. Ya know that.”
“Promise me that you will get him out of the mines. Not now. But sometime. Promise that you’ll take us to America, John.”
“Aw, Annie.” His voice was filled with pain. “America? Thare be naw way. The passage alone be twenty poonds or more.”
“Actually, steerage class is only fifteen pounds. But we need extra for the food. The crossing takes about three months, and the ticket includes only one meal a day.” She had been investigating this for some time. “So we need money for that, too.” Her eyes were suddenly angry. “Ridiculous! It costs less to go to America than to give us a proper burial here.”3
He wasn’t going to be drawn in with any of that. “We barely be scrapin’ by noow, Annie. Thare joost be naw way. It be only a dream.”
Her fingers dug into his arm. “No, John! It is our only hope for him. Promise me.”
“Aw . . .” He shook his head. “Most trappers be startin’ at age five, Annie. Davee awreddy be a year be’ind. Ah started the day after me fifth bur’day.”
“And the Colliers Act of Eighteen Forty-Two says that no child under ten shall be employed in the mines,” she shot back, eyes blazing.
There was a short, bitter laugh. “Parl’ment be passing laws lek that joost ta mek rich folks feel better aboot ’ow they treat us poor lugs. The mine owners pay the law naw mind, cuz they know Parl’ment pay it naw mind. Naw up ’ere in Yorkshire, they dunna.”
She wanted to scream. Not at him, but at life. No, at him, too. Because he was right. He was always so infuriatingly right. Which allowed no room for hope, or dreams, or . . .
He started to turn away, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back around. “John, I will agree to let David start work on Monday on one condition.”
“Annie—”
“Hear me well, John Dickinson.” Her eyes were implacable. “Promise me this, or else I’ll keep him home. I’ll teach him to be a clerk or a teamster or something.”
He sighed. When she was like this, there was no moving her. For someone so gentle, so fragile, sometimes she was more rock than cotton. “What it be that ya want me ta do?”
“I will agree to him becoming a trapper, then a hurrier and a spragger or whatever all the jobs are, and even eventually a miner, if you promise me—you must swear it!—that every penny, every shilling he ever makes, will go into the box.”
“Wha’?” he cried. “We need that fur yur med’cine, luv.”
“No, John. Every shilling, or he stays home.”
He looked stricken. Why did she think his family had been miners for six generations? Because there was no way out of the mines. None! But he finally nodded. “Ah mek ya that promise, Annie. Ya ’ave me wurd on it.” He blew out his breath. “Ya ’ave me wurd.”
She went up on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Would it surprise you, John, to know that I have already saved about twenty pounds?”
“Naw!”
“I have. I started right after David was born. It’s in a shoe box under the floorboards.”
He could only stare at her. What kind of dream fired that level of determination?
But it was still just that—a dream. “It tek ten more years ta save e’nuff ta git us awl thare. Davee be sixteen by then.”
“And how old will he be in ten years if we don’t save our money?” she snapped back at him. “I don’t want David to know anything about this. Or anyone else. But you must promise me.”
Hearing David’s footsteps on the stairs outside, she gave him a quick smile. “Come right home tonight, John. We’ll be having Yorkshire pudding and growler4 for supper.”
“We dunna ’ave muney fur growler, Annie.”
“’Tis your son’s birthday, John,” she cried. “And Monday, he goes into the mines. We will be having Yorkshire pudding and growler for supper.”
Cawthorne was a “pit town.”5 Located about midway between Leeds and Sheffield and three miles west of Barnsley, it was one of dozens of villages that helped sustain the vast coal-mining industry in South Yorkshire. Major seams of coal ran for miles through the area. Sometimes these seams were close enough to the surface to outcrop. Other places they dove hundreds of feet underground. Sheffield, one of the great mill towns in all of England, was just a dozen miles to the south, so Cawthorne was in the heart of one of the richest coalfields in the British Isles.
Cawthorne was home to about a hundred and fifty families, all of them mining families. All the businesses in town—the Cawthorne Dry Goods Store, the greengrocer, a butcher shop, and the Cold Thorne Pub—were owned by Cawthorne Coal Company, as were all of the row houses. Since rent and all transactions in the village used company scrip, the mine owners kept the prices inflated and the miners in perpetual debt, and therefore in perpetual servitude.
The row houses ran the full length of the single street in Cawthorne. They were joined together in one continuous structure, facing each other like wooden specters having a stare-down. They were dingy, dilapidated, and long ago blackened by soot and coal dust. Each flat or apartment was a single room no more than fifteen feet wide and twenty-five deep. A sleeping area for the parents was partitioned off by a rope and a blanket. Everything else took place in the main room. There was no inside loo, or toilet, only a basin for washing dishes. A large bucket for bringing water from the town pump and a galvanized washtub served as the rest of their “indoor plumbing.” The tub was used both for laundry and for bathing, though it was barely big enough to hold David’s father, and only if he folded his legs up into an impossible position.
The Undaunted Page 2