When the food was uncovered there were gasps of appreciation. It was actually simple fare, mostly home-made. A baron of beef, fresh-picked vegetables, including waxy new potatoes, great crusty loaves with dishes of pale-yellow butter; a round of cheese; jars of dark brown pickles; dishes of raspberries and thick farm cream. And to drink they had elderberry wine and lemonade, with slices of lemon floating in the jug. The musicians drank their beer in a corner; they had an energetic evening ahead.
Finally, long after the children had been taken home to bed and the moon was riding high, the party ended and William and Sarah retired to their first home, a cottage near both family farms.
William lit the lamp in the living room. It looked rather bare, with just a table and two chairs and a blanket chest by the window, which was as yet not curtained. The trees in the small garden beyond were silvered in the moonlight. ‘I’ll fetch Grandma’s chairs tomorrow,’ William said. These were the seats from the wedding feast, which came to Sarah on her marriage. They were low, spoon-back chairs covered in faded pink material and over a century old. Sarah planned to make cushions and embroider back covers.
Someone had pumped up water in a pair of buckets in the kitchen and lit the fire in the grate. The shiny kettle Sarah had bought from the travelling tinker was on the hob. She’d collected pots and pans, crockery and linen for her ‘bottom drawer’ for the past five years. ‘We have everything we need,’ she told William. ‘We can make a cup of tea before we go to bed.’
There were two bedrooms upstairs and they climbed the steep stairs where William placed his candle in its stand in the niche outside the first door. ‘Do give me the other candle and I’ll put it on the washstand, us won’t be quite in the dark.’
‘Us must get curtains up in here, too,’ she said, sitting on the side of the bed, the only other item of furniture in the room, and easing her feet out of her new boots. She rolled down her stockings and William averted his eyes. Unlike many of the local girls, Sarah was not pregnant on her wedding day. They did not presume to judge others in this respect, but they shared a dream which they were determined to fulfil. They must work hard now, but both hoped for a family in due course.
As Sarah reached for her nightgown, William nipped out the candle and said urgently, ‘Don’t bother with that, my dear gal, us do need to git into our bed.’
SIX
TF
Harbottle, 1846
Isabella and Irish Tom’s first daughter, Mary, was born in Harbottle in February 1846, when her brothers were nine and six years old respectively. The baby inherited her father’s bright hair and Irish eyes. Aunt Nesbit was propped up in her bed when little Mary was placed carefully in her arms for the first time. ‘Her eyes are the same colour as my lapis lazuli brooch – she shall have it when I’m gone,’ she said.
‘Aunt Nesbit, you aren’t going yet!’ Isabella told her, alarmed.
The old lady just smiled. She knew something they did not. She was aware she was dying, but she was content, for she had managed to hold on a little longer so as to see the baby.
When Eliza Nesbit passed peacefully away a few months later the young family, who had been as devoted to her as she was to them, discovered that although she had been well provided for during her lifetime, because she had no children, under the terms of her late husband’s will, drawn up long before they came to Harbottle, the estate was to pass to his younger brother and thence to his family. As the brother had also died in the meantime, his children would have equal shares.
All of this meant that the house they lived in would have to be sold, along with Eliza’s villa, and Isabella, Irish Tom and their three children would have to leave Harbottle, where they had been so happy. They were allowed a month’s grace before the move.
‘We’ll go back to Newcastle,’ Tom decided. ‘There should be plenty of work there,’ he added optimistically, remembering his days there in his early twenties.
Once more, they travelled by carrier’s cart with their personal possessions, which included Isabella’s precious trunk. They left behind their comfortable home and the furnishings, which had been provided by Aunt Nesbit, but they were allowed to roll up and take their feather mattress and the baby’s rush basket she had given them. Jane, a Nesbit niece, who inherited her aunt’s jewellery, gave Isabella the lapis lazuli brooch, wrapped in paper and marked by Aunt Nesbit: For my beloved Mary. The two boys each received a small crystal glass, the only ones left from her wedding set.
Tyne Street, 1847
The multi-tenanted house was in a mean street, one of many which led down to the River Tyne, where the docks and shipyards along its wide snake-like coils were besieged daily by the unemployed, desperately seeking work of any kind. The stench from the river was overpowering. In the city itself there was regeneration, with new buildings and restoration of old ones, but this area reeked of decay.
The family were living in one room and at night they would unroll their mattress and sleep top to toe on it – the boys at one end, Isabella and Irish Tom at the other. In the winter they sometimes slept in their clothes or spread them out on top of the thin blankets. Once Mary could crawl, she would climb out of her basket and join them, seeking the warmth and comfort of her mother. In the dark they were aware of scratching and scuttling, which Isabella tried to tell herself were mice, rather than rats. They had little food themselves, but they had to ensure nothing was left out on the table, with cockroaches around as well as vermin. There were only two rickety chairs, and Isabella’s trunk had to double as a seat for the children. They cooked on the fire, but soon ran out of coal and the boys would go scavenging for old wood to burn.
The house was never quiet. Wooden clogs pounded on the stairs day and night and there were screams and audible arguments from the other tenants. Ominous coughing came from some rooms of the damp and draughty building.
Outside there was a communal area with a tap where they had to queue for water each morning, and a hut containing a bucket, the only one provided. Slops were tipped down the single drain and effluent often overflowed into the street. This was also where the women hung dripping washing, hoping it would dry, and the men had to dodge as they made their way down to the docks to look for work. Irish Tom was one of these men, but his hopes were soon dashed: there was no work for painters, despite the number of rusting boats.
Isabella made her first friend in that awful place, a young woman called Dorrie who lived with her elderly, but still spry, grandmother in a nearby room. ‘When my father died, Ma took in a lodger. I had a little baby,’ the girl confided, ‘Ma turned me out – and him – but she kept the baby and passed it off as her bairn. I never saw them since . . .’
Dorrie had work of sorts – she was a barmaid in the local pub. Sometimes she wouldn’t come home until the following morning. She was good with Mary, though. ‘You could be a nursemaid,’ Isabella suggested.
‘Lookin’ like this?’ Dorrie asked. She glanced down at her ragged skirt. Isabella had no answer to that. She tried to keep clean and tidy herself, but it was hard. When she went out, she covered her head and shoulders with an old shawl, like the local women.
TF and Robbie were being educated at least. They were accepted by the local Catholic school, which took a percentage of boys from poor homes. Their teacher was a strict disciplinarian but could see they had been properly brought up in the past and was determined that they should do well in future life. The boys also received a free meal at midday. In return they attended Mass on Sunday mornings. Their father had long ago lapsed in this respect.
‘They are learning Latin,’ Isabella told Tom proudly.
He sighed heavily. ‘What good will that do them? I was working at TF’s age.’ Tom had given up early today, arriving home to sit around while Isabella busily tried to make a meal from scraps.
She bit back a bitter response: Look where it got you . . . saying instead, ‘You have to turn around, not follow the crowd – go into the city, and find work there!’
>
He had almost the same reply as Dorrie. ‘How can I, looking like this?’
She went to her trunk, lifted the lid and from the folds of the opera cloak she had worn on her twenty-first birthday, pulled out a small package.
‘It’s a shame you never get to wear any of your treasures,’ he said, then suddenly realised what this could mean. ‘You’re not going to sell your jewellery, are you?’ Have we come this low? he thought, distressed.
‘No, I’m going to pawn it. Dorrie will take me to the pawnbrokers and introduce me. You’ll be able to get a job once you’re wearing decent clothes and boots, and then we can redeem my pearls. Not that I’ll ever get a chance to wear them again!’ She’d never sounded bitter like that before.
Tom felt sad and ashamed. It’s all my fault, he thought, bringing her to this place – but where else could we go? She’s been so good about it, until now. God alone knows how we will survive.
‘What does your friend have to pawn, I wonder?’ he said, instantly regretting the remark.
Isabella flushed. ‘She receives gifts from grateful customers.’ Isabella was no longer naive and understood where Dorrie had got the gold watch dangling from a chain with which she had amused Mary earlier in the week.
*
Irish Tom did find employment in the city, although it was casual labour so he didn’t have a regular wage. The pearls remained at the pawnbrokers, but the boys had new boots as well. Isabella’s hopes of moving from Tyne Street were dashed once she found out that she was pregnant again. As normal married life was not possible when they shared their bed, she could only recall one occasion when they’d been undisturbed, when the boys were at school and Mary was with Dorrie.
At this worrying time, when she was often in tears over her predicament, another friend came into her life. This was one of the Sisters of Mercy, who went into the slum areas and visited the poor, bringing food, comfort, prayers and nursing skills. In years to come, some of these sisters would go out to the Crimea with Florence Nightingale. Sister Ursula had heard of the family through the boys’ school and the church. ‘I am not a Catholic,’ Isabella told her on her first visit, thinking this might make a difference.
‘We care for those in need, whatever their religion, Mrs Meehan. Now, tell me about yourself.’
The story of her life poured out, and at the end Isabella felt a great relief. Sister Ursula had listened patiently. Now she stood up. ‘I must go, but I will be back. You will receive a share of the food kind folk give us. Your daily bread and milk for the little one is assured! The market traders let us take what is left at the end of the day, you can find a good cabbage thrown in the gutter, the butcher saves soup bones, the fishmonger gives away odd bits, like cod cheeks and tails, and the ladies of the church bake cakes! We have bundles of clothes, second-hand but clean and good. Tell your husband that he and I come from the same place, though I haven’t been back in forty years.’
When Sister Ursula returned, as promised, pushing a box on wheels, with provisions piled high inside, the boys were there to unpack the contents in great excitement. Tom had discovered an old cupboard on the city dump, scrubbed and painted it, and so they had somewhere to store the food.
Sister Ursula had already deduced that Isabella was pregnant, and while the boys were outside kicking a ball with the neighbouring children, she waited discreetly to be told the news.
Isabella poured them both a cup of weak tea. Tea leaves were dried out and reused until they no longer coloured the hot water, but at least she now had milk to add, if no sugar. Sister Ursula sipped her tea. Then she said, ‘I must be getting on, but I believe you might wish to tell me something, my dear?’
Tears rolled down Isabella’s pale, drawn face. ‘Oh, Sister Ursula, there will soon be another mouth to feed – I am expecting a baby!’
‘I guessed that – do you know when?’
‘I must be six months. I don’t know how we will manage!’
‘We will help, as we have today. Would you like one of us to deliver your baby when the time comes? We make no charge for this. Again, we are helped by the good citizens of Newcastle. Would you permit me to examine you, while the children are not around, to see how things are? I will just need some hot water to wash my hands.’
‘Thank you,’ Isabella said gratefully. ‘Please don’t think we won’t love the baby when it comes, sister, and maybe it will be a little sister for Mary. She is with my friend Dorrie today, who helps me all she can.’
The examination was done discreetly, Isabella just lifted her skirt as it was not the time of day to be undressed. Sister Ursula straightened up and was smiling. ‘All appears to be normal; you must drink some of this milk yourself and I will bring more provisions soon. Goodbye for now.’
The boys came helter-skelter into the room after she had gone. ‘There’ll be a good supper for us all tonight,’ their mother said. ‘One of you, go and fetch Mary back to share the feast!’
*
Sister Ursula was in attendance when Isabella’s last child was born. It was another girl, whom they named in memory of dear Aunt Nesbit – Ann Eliza. She was a tiny baby and it seemed likely she might not survive, especially as Isabella was unable to feed her. She had been unwell for some time before the birth with a recurring fever and cough and Sister Ursula was worried, because her patient was developing the well-known symptoms of consumption. Dorrie, who had given birth herself a few weeks previously, offered to be a wet nurse. Dorrie’s baby, like her relationship, did not survive, but tiny Ann Eliza struggled to stay alive and brought comfort to the bereaved mother. Dorrie was already caring for Mary most days, too, and, thanks to her devotion to her friend’s children, she was now also a recipient of Sister Ursula’s food cart.
Tom was feeling desperate; he was torn between looking after his sick wife and earning money to keep them going. He felt guilty when he spent a few pence on a bottle of beer, but it stopped him from dwelling too much on their predicament.
The two boys were bewildered by events at home and were far more subdued than they used to be. Robbie confided to TF, ‘Mary doesn’t seem like our sister now, she’s with Dorrie most of the day.’
‘Mama is very ill, I think, though we are not told anything, are we?’ TF said.
‘Do you think the new baby caused this?’ Robbie asked. But his brother didn’t have an answer for that. He wished they were back in the days before they came here, and their Great Aunt Nesbit was still alive.
*
When Mary was four years old, Sister Ursula found a place for her in the infants’ class at a school run by the nuns. TF and Robbie gave her breakfast in their family room and made sure she was clean and tidy. Like them, she had a nourishing midday meal with her fellow pupils. Robbie, first out from the boys’ school, collected his sister and took her home to have supper and to see her mother, before she went next door to Dorrie.
The room had been rearranged to keep Isabella comfortable. The sick woman lay all day on her mattress close to the fire and slept alone at night. She could not hug her children close or kiss them, and Mary knew to keep her distance and sat at the table by the window when she was there. At bedtime the little girl would say goodnight and go to her foster mother whom she called Auntie, and to Granny, who looked after little Ann Eliza in the evenings, for Dorrie had returned to work. Granny had a proper bed and retired at the same time as Mary. The old lady told her stories until they fell asleep, with Ann Eliza in her cot beside the bed. They didn’t hear Dorrie tiptoe into the room in the early hours, but Mary was reassured to wake and find her in bed beside her. ‘Auntie,’ she whispered, for Granny was snoring. ‘The baby needs you.’
Sister Ursula called in twice a day to check on her patient. When she mentioned to Irish Tom that she thought it would be less stressful for them all if Isabella were taken to the infirmary, he refused. ‘We can’t be parted from her.’ She smelled the alcohol on his breath. Poor man, she thought, it is the only way he can cope. She suspected that altho
ugh he went out each day, he was not working much. In the colder weather, Sister Ursula brought them extra blankets, for the boys and their father had to sleep on the floor, rolled in their covers.
TF prepared the usual supper of bread and cheese and dipped a ladle in the cooking pot for a bowl of broth for his mother. He lifted her head from the pillow, supporting her with a strong arm round her shoulders, and gently spooned the broth into her mouth. The effort exhausted her, but she swallowed as much as she could to please him.
Later, after Mary departed, and his father was not yet back, he and Robbie spread their books on the table and began their evening studies. TF guessed that, at thirteen, he would soon have to leave school and go to work as his father’s apprentice. When he was younger, he had dreamed of joining the navy like his Uncle Charlie. They had not seen him for some time but were aware that he was intending to marry on his next leave. ‘He will have his own family then, not just us,’ Isabella said.
Anna, too, had moved to a new place. She and Isabella kept in touch, but she was not aware of how grave her sister’s condition was. In her last letter she had written cheerfully, I must visit soon – I haven’t met Ann Eliza yet!
Now, with Anna’s letter clutched in her hand, Isabella called huskily to TF, ‘Will you write to Anna for me? Dorrie got me a stamp.’
‘What shall I say?’ He dipped his pen in the ink bottle, took a sheet of paper, and waited. His mother’s voice was hoarse as she dictated what she wanted him to say. When he had finished writing she asked him to catch the evening post.
*
Cook invited Anna into her kitchen for a chat and a mid-morning cup of tea. The ‘lower orders’, as Cook referred to them, had already been in and returned to work. She considered Anna to be ‘a cut above’ – parlour maids were often young ladies in reduced circumstances and so they were deferred to. Cook noticed that Anna was not her usual cheerful self. ‘Anything wrong, my dear?’ she asked, sipping her tea, into which she had put her ‘secret ingredient’ – a spoonful of brandy to keep her going.
The Forget-Me-Not Girl Page 5