The Black Velvet Gown

by Catherine Cookson

  Riah smiled at her and nodded and once more ushered her crew before her, and they went on down the long street to the end.

  Mrs Carr turned out to be a young old woman. Riah guessed she must be as old as her mother, but was as spritely as someone half her age.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well now, four bairns and you. Well now. Well now. ’Twill be the floor for two of you, I’m afraid, ’cos our Harold will be back in the night after his keeling. But himself and Bob and Mickie started the London trip last night. God keep them safe and quiet the waters. Come in. Come in.’

  The little room was clean and packed with relics of the sea and foreign voyages. Cheap bric-a-brac was nailed to the walls side by side with ships’ brasses, and in one corner there actually hung, from close to the low ceiling, an anchor, its iron burnished like a piece of brass.

  ‘Now sit yourselves down if you can.’ She pointed to the children, then to a form that ran at an angle to the fireplace. ‘Throw your bundles in the corner. And you, missis, take this seat. It’s himself’s; he’s not here so you can sit in it, but he’d kick the backside out of anybody that went near it if he was about the house.’

  Thankfully Riah sat down and her whole body slumped in weariness as she looked at the vibrant old woman, and when this businesslike lady said, ‘’Tis sixpence a night I charge with a bowl of broth afore sleep and one to set you on the road; and the bairns we’ll say half price. What about it?’ Riah merely inclined her head in acceptance while she thought, My, this is the business to be in. She must have acquired a small fortune over the years. By! Should she stay here a week, that would take all of ten and sixpence, besides buying their food! And the rapid totalling in her head told her she wouldn’t see anything of a pound at the end of it. She also told herself that she must look sharp and find work, not only for herself but for them all.

  The old lady now said, ‘What’s brought you here, may I ask?’

  And so Riah told her, and as she did so, she watched the wrinkled face stretch until the lined lips formed an elongated, ‘Oh,’ before they emitted the word, ‘Riston. Oh, Dilly Riston’s a bitter pill. Always was, always will be. Oh’—she pointed now—‘I remember you. Yes I do. I remember you as a youngster, although I never had anything to do with anyone along that end. Fighting, drinking, bashin’ lot. But I’ll say this for them, they’re the crowd to have behind you when you’re in a tight jam, and there was some tight jams here last year. Oh aye. Our men made a stand. Three pounds, that’s all they got for a trip to London and back, and when they asked for four, God Almighty, all hell was let loose! By lass, you should have been here then. Do you know, a warship was sent here. That didn’t help; skull and hair flew. You should have seen it. Two blokes, blacklegs, signed on for less than the four pounds, and God, they nearly lynched them. Eeh! The things that go on in this town, nobody would believe. As our Hal said, he’s a joker you know, but he said, “Why shanghai the blokes for the navy to go across the sea and fight wars when there are ready-made ones here?”’

  She turned her attention on to the children now who were sitting wide-eyed staring at her, and she said, ‘You hungry, bairns?’ And it was Biddy who answered for them, saying, ‘Yes, please, missis, we’re all hungry.’ She glanced at her mother now but Riah didn’t chastise her. And the old woman said, ‘Well, it’s many a day since I lodged bairns so I’ll give you a treat. I’ll make some griddle, eh? Take off your coats and things. And look’—she turned to Riah—‘that’s your room’—she pointed—‘there’s two beds in there, one of them’s for our Hal.’

  ‘You mean…he’ll be sleepin’…?’

  ‘Aw, missis, Hal wouldn’t interfere with you. But…but if you feel so nickety-pickety about it, he’ll go up in the roof for the night. He’s been up there afore.’ She motioned with her head to a hatch set in the low ceiling, then added, ‘You can’t straighten up but as I’ve said to him, when you’re asleep you lie flat.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome, missis, you’re welcome.’

  In the room, Riah pushed the door closed for a moment and looked about her. There was scarcely room to move between the beds and they had to stack their bundles one on top of the other in the corner. The patched covers on the beds looked rumpled and she doubted if the bedding would be clean underneath. But anyway, it was a shelter.

  The children had all dropped on to the edge of the bed. They sat in a row all tired and dismal looking, and she, lowering herself down on to a wooden structure opposite, held out her hands to them, saying, ‘I know you’re tired but I want you to change your things: get into your working clothes. We’ll go out and look around; there’s a lot of daylight left.’

  ‘Ma.’

  ‘Yes, Davey?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to live here long.’

  ‘We’ll have to take what we can get for the time being, we can’t pick and choose. It’s not worse than what we’ve left.’

  ‘It’s the smell.’

  ‘Well, you had that an’ all back there.’

  ‘It was different somehow.’

  ‘Yes, Ma, it was different,’ Biddy put in now. And Johnny, as if taking his cue from his brother and sister, piped up, ‘I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘You’re not going to be sick. Now stop it, all of you.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘We’re going out, and we’re going to try and find work. And as soon as I get a job, even if you get nothing, I’ll get a house and we’ll settle down to a new life. It’s going to be all right, you’ll see. Now get up and get yourselves changed.’

  As they obeyed her, she thought: a new life of drudgery. It had been that for the last ten years, but then she had had a man behind her. A man was necessary. Without a man your life was like a ship without a captain: there was mutiny on all sides, and within you too, deep within you. She looked down on the two low wooden-base beds…The old woman had taken it for granted that her son would sleep in this room tonight with her. Of course the children would be here, but that wouldn’t matter to some men. Her thoughts swung back, but as if reluctantly now, and she almost muttered them aloud, ‘The family needs a man to steer it.’ But before the words had time to evaporate she was attacking them, ‘You going soft, Maria Millican, out of your mind? You’ve had one man and that’s enough for you. Get about it. Get outside and see what’s doing.’

  For a week she saw what was doing, and that was mostly nothing. She herself was offered three jobs during that period but they were all in bars, and her presence wasn’t required until seven o’clock at night; and she had recalled enough of the river front to know what happens to a woman, if not in the bars, then when she tried to leave and walk along the apparently deserted streets close to midnight.

  Biddy could have been set on in the blacking factory, but when Riah saw the conditions under which the children worked, the sight of them running around like little black imps, and when she caught here and there the gist of their conversation, she said, ‘You’re not going in there.’ And to this Biddy said in protest, ‘Ma, it’s three shillings a week.’ And Riah answered, ‘I wouldn’t care if it was thirty-three.’

  At the beginning of the second week Davey got work. It was on the waterfront, but he was paid in fish.

  Then there was the matter of a house. In the lower end they were asking two shillings a week for a rat-infested room. If the house had two or more rooms it was used as a lodging house with four to six sleepers in a room. Some of the beds were used both by day and by night. Further into the town, where the respectable quarter began, they were asking as much as four shillings a week for two rooms downstairs, and four and six for an upper apartment because this had a let into the roof. Still, houses were hard to come by here, and twice she was refused one because she hadn’t a man to support her: as the agent said, he understood their plight, but once in it was getting them out again if she couldn’t pay the rent. When she assured him she could, and for weeks ahead, he wanted to know how she intended to do this, as she had admitted s
he and the children were not in work. She was wise enough not to tell him of her little store, because she couldn’t trust anyone, and especially not this agent, who looked a mean man.

  They were now into June and the day was hot when, footsore, she led Biddy, Johnny, and Maggie back to the house. And there Mrs Carr greeted them with a friendliness that had been absent during the last few days. ‘You look hot,’ she said. ‘I’ve just got a bucket of water from the tap.’ She pointed to a bucket standing near the table. ‘Help yourselves. And I’ve got a bit of news that could be of help.’

  Uninvited, Riah sat down on a cracket and said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I was in the market this mornin’ an’ who should I run across but Steve Procket. He was with our Arthur at the pit way out beyond Gateshead. Well, what do you think? He’s left the pit and gone back to his old job in Jarrow as a chips.’

  ‘Chips?’

  ‘Aye, chips. Shipbuilding you know. Chips.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Well, I said to him, how was our Arthur, ’cos it’s months since I’ve seen hilt or hair of him, and what d’you think he told me?’ She waited a moment, but when Riah remained silent, she went on, ‘Winnie’s in a bad way, that’s his wife…our Arthur’s. A weakling she’s been for years; couldn’t carry bairns, you know. Well, Arthur got a woman to see to things, but she only stayed three days as it’s back of beyond, lonely as hell. It was the pit-keeper’s cottage, a good one, but way out, he said; that’s why he couldn’t stand it either. If you wanted a drink you had to take the cart into the town an’ shank it back at night. Anyway, the long and short of it is, our Arthur needs somebody there, an’ so when he told me that I thought of you. There’s four good rooms in the house, but what’s more there’s outbuildings and a barn almost twice the size of the house running alongside. Would you like to give it a try?’

  Riah stared at the old woman; then she looked at the children, her eyes resting on Biddy, and Biddy said, ‘It’ll be in the country, Ma.’

  Yes, it would be in the country. She was tired and weary to her inmost bone with walking and worrying, and Biddy’s words, ‘It’ll be in the country, Ma,’ brought a picture before her mind of a rural scene. She saw the cottage and the outhouses, she saw the children racing down the field to the river, she saw herself, white apron on, her blue striped blouse open at the neck, her hair combed back from her forehead and she was looking up into the sky and smiling.

  Mrs Carr’s voice blotted out the picture saying, ‘Well, there it is. I thought it would give you a chance.’

  She was on her feet now, her voice rapid: ‘Oh, it will, Mrs Carr, thank you. Where did you say it was?’

  ‘Fuller’s Moor, beyond Fellburn. Rowan Cottage.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know that way, at least yon side of Fellburn. We’ll start first thing in the morning. Oh, thank you, Mrs Carr. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.’

  The brightness going from her face and voice now, she said, ‘What if he’s already got somebody?’

  ‘I doubt it. Steve only came back two weeks ago. Anyway, that’s a risk you’ll have to take, but I’m sure it’ll be all right. And even if he has somebody, he’d put you up in the barn until you got settled. He’s a kind lad is our Arthur. And it’s in the country an’ the bairns’ll love it.’ She looked at the children. ‘They’ve never taken to the quayside, have they? Your lad doesn’t like the smell of the fish. Funny that; I can’t stand the sight of grass, not big clumps anyway. We’re all made different. Thanks be to God for it, I say.’

  Riah nodded to her, then went quickly towards the other room. And there she looked at her family who had preceded her. They were sitting in a tight row on the bed, their faces bright, and Biddy as usual was the spokesman. ‘Eeh! Ma, the country,’ she said. ‘Should I run and tell our Davey?’

  ‘Yes, do that, hinny.’

  Biddy was at the door and was about to open it when she turned and, looking at her mother, she said, ‘Shouldn’t wonder but he’ll tip the fish all back into the river when I tell him.’

  ‘Go on with you.’ Riah was laughing as her daughter ran out, pulling the door behind her. She often said, ‘Thank God for Biddy.’ She knew she was the brightest of the four, and being so she should have loved her more than the rest and she felt guilty when she knew that she didn’t. But there was one she loved the best, and that was her son David. He might not have the wit of Biddy, but for her there was a light that shone out of him. She only had to look at him and her throat became tight with emotion that went beyond maternal love.

  Three

  It was half past ten when they left the cart to the south of Gateshead Fell. She didn’t know the part at all, but Mrs Carr had said that Fuller’s Moor was nothing but a good walk from the top end of Gateshead Fell.

  When she stopped a couple of workmen and asked the way, the men looked at each other, and one of them said, ‘Fuller’s Moor? By, you’re a tidy step from there, missis.’

  ‘How far?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh!’ The men again exchanged glances; then the other man spoke, saying, ‘Well, go straight on and you’ll come to The Stag. Now turn off down there, and I should say…Oh’—he shook his head—‘it’s a good four miles from there.’

  Four miles could be nothing to her or perhaps Davey or Biddy, but the two youngsters tired easily. ‘Is there a carrier that way?’ she asked.

  The men seemed to think about it. ‘Aye, when I come to think of it,’ one said, ‘there’s one leaves round here eight in the mornin’ and goes by there in a roundabout way to Chester-le-Street and Durham, an’ comes back ’bout four in the afternoon.’ Then he added, ‘But that won’t be much help to you, missis. Still’—he smiled—‘it’s a fine day, doesn’t look like rain, in fact we’ve never had any for two weeks now so the roads should be nice and hard.’

  She thanked them and was about to turn away when she asked, ‘Are there any villages on the way?’

  ‘Well, no, not what you call villages,’ one of the men said. ‘Hamlets, two, Brookdip and Rowdip, a few houses and a blacksmith’s in Rowdip.’

  ‘Well, you ain’t got no horse, so you won’t need that.’ This caused both men to laugh and the children to titter but it found no answering mirth in herself. She nodded at them, thanked them again and went on…

  It was near noon when they reached the Stag Inn and Johnny and Maggie were already trailing their feet.

  Once they left the main road there was one thing that Riah noticed and Biddy exclaimed on. ‘It’s bonny country, Ma, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said as she looked from one side to the other of the bridle path on which they were walking, and it seemed to her that the gently rising ground dotted here and there with belts of woodland must go on forever.

  ‘My toes are hurting, Ma. They’re skinned.’

  She took off Johnny’s boot. Sure enough the middle joints of two of his toes were red raw. ‘Oh,’ she said softly, ‘you should have mentioned them afore. How long have they been like this?’

  ‘Some way, Ma.’

  She clicked her tongue. ‘Sit down, all of you and we’ll have something to eat.’

  ‘Ma’—Davey was pointing—‘there’s a beck down there.’

  ‘A beck?’

  They were all on their feet again and standing near Davey looking down to where a narrow stream could be seen through some low shrubland.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Riah sounded like a child herself, and she picked Johnny up in her arms and, calling to the others, ‘Bring the stuff,’ she scrambled down through the bushes to where the land levelled out into a green sward alongside the stream.

  Riah was to remember the next hour for a long, long time. It seemed like a foretaste of heaven. They made a fire and they fried bacon, and as it sizzled its aroma was like perfume to their nostrils, and Davey, with unusual humour, said dryly, ‘If only we had thought to bring some fish along, Ma, we could have fried them an’ all,’ whereupon th
ey all fell against each other with their laughing.

  After the meal, like the children she, too, took off her boots and stockings and plodged in the stream. They sprayed water on her and she sprayed water on them, and later, when she had to call a halt and they had to gather up their things again, Biddy, looking about her, said quietly, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice, Ma, if we could stay here forever?’ And she answered, ‘Well, we will be just further along the road…’

  They were all walking very slowly as they made their way up the slight incline out of the hamlet of Brookdip. There were five buildings in the dip; one was the church and the biggest house, which was next to it, looked like the vicarage. Who inhabited the other three she didn’t stop to enquire. Two miles back in the hamlet of Rowdip there had been about twelve houses altogether but they were scattered, two being farmhouses, and one a smaller manor. The few people they had encountered on the road, all had looked at them with interest but no-one had stopped and questioned them. It was, Riah thought, perhaps not an unusual sight to see a woman and four children hugging bundles along the highway. And that could be true, and folks didn’t want to become involved with people in her situation.

  They’d had two further stops since they’d played by the stream, but they hadn’t been so merry, not merry at all, for now Maggie’s heels were skinned and Biddy had stopped talking, which was a sure sign that she was very tired, and to Davey’s face had returned that apprehensive look which told her that he was worrying about something.

  They had to come to a small kind of crossroads and didn’t know which way to go when they saw a man driving a flat cart coming towards them. As he approached nearer, Riah noticed that he sat high above the horse. It was the way his seat was placed—the cart looked like a converted brake, but there were no seats in the back, just sacks of something. He pulled up the horse and looked down at them, and she was the first to speak. She said, ‘Could you tell me, please, the way to Rowan Cottage?’