Justice is a Woman

by Catherine Cookson

  And she was equally astonished at the chauffeur’s answer, ‘Oh, that’s all right, J…sir. You know I don’t need an excuse to drive her at any time.’

  The man had been about to call him Joe again! Really! What next? Play it softly, he had said. And this house, this kind of house for a chauffeur was entirely out of his class. Why, it was as big as the house her cousin Kathryn lived in…had been reduced to living in, and she was a titled lady. The world had turned topsy-turvy; at least this quarter of it had.

  She had been here a week now and as yet she had met no-one of any note, either young or old, nor had she spoken to one intelligent human being. All people could talk about was the strike. Why did they take any notice of such people as miners? That’s what she would like to know. They were always causing trouble, and now they had brought the whole country to a standstill. They were barbarians, ignorant, uncouth barbarians, and Joe was seemingly taking great pleasure in the fact that he was intending to thrust her among them.

  Eleven people, this girl said, were in her family! That was likely why she had jumped at the chance to get away; and, of course, there had been the added incentive of occupying a house such as this, even though she’d had to risk social ostracism to get it. She didn’t like the girl. She looked cheap, and of course she must be to have taken the step she did, marrying a coloured man. Huh! Moreover, she was much too free, much too pert. She was another one like…Ella, or Jane, as she would be called if she got her way, and she would get her way.

  ‘It’s a lovely room, isn’t it?’ Joe brought her wandering mind back to him and she said, ‘Yes; yes, it is, most fascinating. It puts me in mind of my cousin’s house.’ She now turned to Hazel. ‘My cousin is Lady Kathryn Fowley; she lived at one time in Pelton Towers, but then because of reduced circumstances she had to take a smaller house, and it’s very like this one, but’—she smiled at Hazel now—‘nothing like as prettily furnished.’

  ‘Well, I can’t take credit for that,’ Hazel replied without smiling. ‘It was himself…I mean the master who had it all set out in the first place.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’

  ‘Well, are we going?’ Joe had risen to his feet, as also had David, and as David went to get his coat, he said, ‘What about you coming along, Hazel?’ He turned and glanced in Elaine’s direction before adding, ‘You might help to soften the blow for ma’am.’

  ‘No. If you don’t mind I’ll stay put; I’ve lots of things to see to. And anyway, I don’t think anything or anybody could soften the sight of our house on a Friday night; it’s something once seen never forgotten.’ And straightaway she added, ‘Goodbye, ma’am, and thank you for visiting me.’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure. Goodbye.’

  David opened the door, and Elaine stepped out onto the narrow brick terrace, but she turned her head quickly and looked back into the room and at Joe, who had taken hold of Hazel’s hand and was whispering something that she couldn’t catch. What she did hear was his last words which were, ‘Be seeing you, then.’

  As she turned about again and stepped on to the grass drive her thoughts were of how incredible the whole situation in the household was.

  It was certainly true what that girl had said; nothing could soften the sight of the Egan family on a Friday night. Elaine stood just inside the doorway of the small room, which was crowded with men, women, youths, and girls, and seemingly numerous children of all ages; however, the word she used to describe the scene to herself was not crowded but infested.

  Joe had said, ‘Hello, Mrs Egan. How are you? May I introduce my wife?’ and a small, undersized and aged woman had thrust herself forward through the throng of her family, wiping her hands on her apron and in a voice that hardly seemed possible could come from her mouth, so much was it like a man’s, loud and hearty, saying, ‘Well! this is a pleasure. A pleasure indeed! How do you do, ma’am?’

  Elaine took the hand that was now extended to her and forced herself to smile and say, ‘Very well, thank you. And you?’

  ‘Oh me. Well, I ask you, how could anyone be other than near death’s door with this crowd around them?’ She now swept her short thick arm in a wide circle, and when it came in contact with the shoulder of one of her sons he broke the silence that had fallen on the rest of the family by crying, ‘Watch it, Mam! No hittin’ below the neck,’ which caused a chorus of smothered splutters to spread through the room.

  ‘Listen to them, ma’am. Listen to them. No respect. That’s what it’s like the day. Can I offer you a seat?’ She was looking at Joe now.

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs Egan. We…we shan’t be staying; we’re due at a meeting at the Lodge.’

  ‘Oh aye, the Lodge.’ The little woman was now nodding towards Joe. ‘It’s Dan you’d have been wantin’ to see then. Well, he’s been gone this half hour or more. Couldn’t wait to get up on that platform an’ talk himself blue in the face. That’s Dan. But as I said to him, less talk with the tongue an’ let the pick and shovel speak for itself, an’ we’d all be better off. But there, I better not start ’cos they’re all in the same boat.’ She jerked her head to the men standing near a far door and two others seated at a table, one with a child on his lap, and she added, ‘They’re all in it. And after all, it is a bit thick, isn’t it, to ask them to go down for less. But what is less, ’cos me, I’ve never seen the inside of his pay packet since the day I married him. I get me due an’ that’s all. Two bairns or ten, ’twas the same amount.’ Then looking straight into Elaine’s face she said in a less strident tone, ‘I suppose you find this all very strange, ma’am, comin’ from London as you do? We’re a rough lot, ’tis well known we are, but it’s well known that our hearts are in the right place. One thing that can be said for us, an’ not only in this pit village but in every one the breadth of the country, we keep faith with them that keeps faith with us. Isn’t that right, Mr Joe?’

  ‘Yes, it’s right, Mrs Egan, quite right.’

  ‘If you know that’s quite right, why aren’t you on our side, then, Mr Remington?’ was the question immediately posed to Joe by one of the men standing near the door, and Joe drew in a long breath and remained quiet for a moment under the cold gaze of the young fellow’s eyes, before he replied, ‘Now you know as well as I do that most of my men are not affiliated to any union. Perhaps there’s a good reason for it, perhaps they haven’t had to struggle as hard as you fellows, and right back down the ages. But still, there it is, and that’s the way I want it. And that’s the way my father wanted it. We believe that men should be allowed to make up their own minds whether they want to be free or be led.’

  ‘Bugger that! we’re not sheep. ’Tisn’t a case of being led, it’s a case of gathering strength. Even the bloody Bible says that: where one or two are gathered in My name…an’ the name of our strength is the union. Individuals can do nowt…nowt.’

  Now the other three male adults took it up, saying, ‘Aye, that’s right, nowt, nowt.’

  Then the man who appeared to be the eldest among them, yet was the smallest, being thin and wiry and undersized, said, ‘Your lot, Mr Remington, is the only ones that are workin’ in the town. And we won’t forget it. We’ve got long memories, an’ some of ’em will have their canisters sorted afore this’s over, if I know owt. An’ who’s to blame them that does it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t advocate taking that line if I were you.’ Joe’s voice was grim now. ‘You might find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. I came here to see your father, to tell him that George Bailey has a proposal to put to his meeting from my lot of sheep, as you call them. I doubt very much, if the tables were turned and you were in their places, you would consider giving up a day’s pay each week for a month to help their cause. Alternatively, they propose to have a token strike for a week to show that they’re in sympathy with you. And I can tell you here and now that I’m dead against the latter.’

  The four men were silent; in fact, the only sound in the kitchen now was the crackling of the blazing fire and the di
scordant breathing of the occupants.

  Joe turned to Mrs Egan and said, ‘Goodnight, Mrs Egan,’ and nodded briefly at her; then taking Elaine by the arm, he added, ‘Come along.’

  They left the hot and now quiet kitchen and emerged into the cooler atmosphere of the street. They had left David with the car on some waste ground that bordered the rows of cottages. The street was cobbled, which Elaine found difficulty in negotiating with her high-heeled shoes. Joe still had hold of her arm and his grip was tight. He looked angry, and she considered he had every right to be angry. She hoped that the scene she had just witnessed in that appalling room, full of those uncouth, ignorant individuals, would have shown him finally that his sympathy was wasted.

  From the conversations she had overheard between Joe and his father, she had guessed that their sympathies lay, perhaps reluctantly, with the mining community. She might have been able to understand it more if the old man, as she had come to think of her father-in-law, had come from a mining family, but apparently four generations of them had been carpenters, and before that wheelwrights.

  Yet now, when their way of life was middle-class, they were in it but not of it, for they knew no-one of any importance whatever, not even in the business world. Their only friends, apparently, were a family called Levey. Marcus, the husband, had a wife, Lena, and a daughter, Doris. He was a solicitor in Fellburn, and at the present moment was in Devon attending the funeral of his father. But what was a solicitor? There was the doctor, too, of course; but he was just an ordinary practitioner after all.

  As they reached the end of the row of cottages, what seemed to her to be a horde of savages came at them and almost upset them both.

  Five boys were kicking a tin can, and when it landed at Joe’s feet he kicked it back to them, but there was no smile on his face as there would have been another time.

  There were a number of children around the car and they became silent on their approach, until David started up the engine. Then one of them yelled, ‘Stingy darkie, wouldn’t gi’ us a ride in the old tin can!’ As the car drew away, the rest of the children took up the chant, ‘Stingy darkie, wouldn’t gi’ us a ride in the old tin can!’

  As if he hadn’t heard them, David put his head back and asked, ‘Is it still the Lodge?’ He made no comment about their visit, having gauged enough from Joe’s expression to give him an idea of what had transpired in his father-in-law’s house.

  ‘Yes.’ The answer was brief…

  The Lodge was an ugly, brick building. It had originally been a chapel, but this had been allowed to go to ruin when a larger and even more ugly building had been erected in a suburb of the town itself.

  As the car drew up outside the Lodge, George Bailey ran down the steps towards it, and as he opened the car door, Joe said, ‘I’m sorry I’m late, Geordie.’

  ‘Aw, I think it’s just as well, sir.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  As Joe extended his hand to help Elaine from the car his manager said, ‘I wouldn’t let your lady come in if I were you, sir; things could get ugly. Egan’s on his feet now and he only wants a match to set him alight; he’s a firebrand, that man.’

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Aye, I did. I told him what was proposed and his response was: Why offer skimmed milk? As for comin’ out, we should come out now and stay out with all the rest, he says. To the offer of a day’s pay a week for a month, he said that was “Live like a horse and you’ll get grass”, and that we were betting on a cert, for they’d have won afore the month was up…And I heard another thing, sir. I was talkin’ to Bembow, district secretary, you know, of Hammond’s, and he says there’s talk of them all going back, transport, railway workers, heavy industry, the lot. You see, they never expected such a flood of volunteers: one-time officers driving milk trains, an’ university students on lorries; it’s as if the upper crust was out to prove that there was nothing in this business of work, the workin’ man’s work, and he says that given half a chance there’d be scores ready to go down the pits, such is the feeling against the miners.’

  ‘Has Egan put our proposal to the meeting yet?’

  ‘Aye, he did, sir, but in such a way that he got the answer from them that he wanted, the same as he gave to me; skimmed milk.’

  ‘Stay where you are.’ Joe now pressed Elaine back into the car then added, ‘Stay put, David. If they come flooding out of there and things look ugly, drive home; I’ll make my own way back.’

  ‘No, I’d rather come with you.’

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  It was an abrupt, curt order, and she sat back in the seat bristling with indignation and wondering what she could say to this dark-skinned individual sitting in front of her. Well, she would say nothing; she wasn’t obliged to hold a conversation with him…

  Joe entered the hall with his manager but could get no further than to the side of the door. The place was crowded and smelt of sweat and stale clothes. Dan Egan was standing at the front of the platform, his whole body looking as if each limb was separately being worked by springs, for as he talked he stepped first to the right, then to the left, then a little forward, then backwards, his arm and his head jerking all the while. His voice was thin but high and piercing and he was crying now, ‘Miners’ blood is cheap, man, ’cos it isn’t red like ordinary blood; no, when it comes out it’s black and blue, black from the dust and blue from all the bloody knocks its poor old veins have had.’

  The ripple of appreciation that swept over the hall at his cynicism sounded like a wave washing over a pebbled beach.

  ‘And you know what we should stand out for besides livin’ wage? We should make it a point that every man jack in the government an’ in the House of Lords should do a shift down below, an’ their wives should spend a day in wor kitchens, gettin’ up at three in the mornin’ like our missises do, washin’, cookin’, scrubbin’, bangin’ the pit clothes…scrubbin’ wor backs.’ He now thrust his hand down in the direction of a big miner sitting in a front seat and he yelled, ‘How would you like Lady Golightly wielding a flannel up and down your spine, Peter?’

  There was a great roar of laughter at this, but it died away when Dan Egan, raising his hand high, cried, ‘Aye, we can laugh, but, lads, it’s grim laughter and it’ll likely get grimmer as the days go on. And, lads, hear this, an’ I’m only repeatin’ what’s in the heart of every one of you, we’re seein’ this through, even if the skins of our bellies get stuck to our backbones.’

  ‘Hear! hear!’

  ‘Hear! hear! Hear! hear!’

  The hall rang to the sound.

  Again his hand was held up and now he was stubbing his finger forward: ‘An’ don’t let us delude ourselves at this stage, don’t let’s think that the others are going with us all the way. To my mind they’re makin’ a token show, although we’re grateful for it and we won’t forget them. Nor will we forget— ’ Now his voice sank deep in his throat and he repeated, ‘Nor will we forget them that stood on the sidelines. I have it in me heart to forgive the volunteers, and the pollis, and even the bloody army if they turn it on us, but never those workmen-like worsels who stayed in. Blackleg is a dirty word; to me it’s blacker than black, it’s pitch, and it stinks in the nostrils of every decent working man. When I pass one such individual I look him in the eye, I sniff hard, then I turn me head away and blow the snots out.’

  Joe turned abruptly and went from the hall, and George Bailey followed him, and they paused for a moment outside and looked at each other.

  ‘It was a wasted effort.’

  ‘Aye, Mr Joe, I think you’re right. To my way of thinking, men like Egan do more harm than good.’

  ‘Yes, and to mine too. But I suppose as he sees it he’s fighting for his life and that of all the others, and I fully understand that. But when I hear him rant on like that it makes me wild. And his sons are as bad; they’ve erected a barrier: they’re on one side and we’re on the other; everybody on their side is reasonable; on the oth
er, to their way of looking at it, there are only mine owners, politicians, and non-unionists.’

  They both turned and walked away from the Lodge. Neither of them mentioned the fact that the car had gone until they reached the end of the road, when George Bailey said, ‘You’re going to have a long walk ahead of you, sir.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind that; it’s a nice evening.’

  He looked up into the sky. The sun had long since set, and the soft greyness of the long twilight had fallen over the town. There was no sound at the moment: the whole town, its pits, factories and docks, all seemed to be sleeping. He was still gazing at the sky as he said, ‘You can feel everything has stopped, even at this time of night. Away up in the house of an evening I’ve often opened the windows of the observatory to hear the hum. It was, in a way, like pulling back the bed covers from over a face to make sure that the person was breathing; but now the breathing has stopped, the town’s dead. Ah well’—he sighed—‘I fear a lot of things are going to happen before that hum starts again. What do you say, Geordie?’

  ‘I fear it too, Mr Joe. I also fear for our chaps.’

  ‘Oh’—Joe’s face took on a grimness now—‘let them start anything in that quarter and they’ll find out their mistake, for I wouldn’t hesitate to ask for police protection for every man jack in the factory. Anyway, I hope it doesn’t come to that.’

  ‘Aye, I do an’ all, sir. And given a fair chance, man to man, our chaps can take care of themselves; only at times like this it’s often four to one or more.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right there. Well, we’ll have to hope it won’t happen. Now I must be off. See you in the morning, Geordie. Goodnight.’