The Jarrow Lass

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Watching the funeral,’ Kate sniffed.

  ‘What funeral?’

  ‘Mustang Jim and Violet’s daughter,’ Sarah explained. ‘Died a few days ago - just a young lass. The whole circus was there.’

  ‘That’s right, Mam,’ Elizabeth said breathlessly. ‘I’ve never seen such a sight. They were all on horses - Indians and cowboys and army lads - all following the hearse.’

  ‘Apache Indians,’ Kate added, her eyes wide and glistening. ‘And all for a young lass!’

  ‘Mustang Jim was crying.’ Sarah trembled as if she would cry too.

  ‘Poor man,’ Rose sighed, her anger dissipated at the thought of the circus couple losing their daughter. Then unease stirred. ‘What did the lass die of?’ She was ever alert to the scare of some epidemic breaking out.

  Elizabeth shrugged. The next day the newspaper had a picture of the strange funeral procession and revealed that the young girl had been killed in a riding accident.

  ‘To think they had just lost their lass, yet they still bothered about the families in the fire,’ Rose said in admiration. ‘What canny folk.’

  John said little about it and Rose wondered at his callousness in the face of such tragedy. But the next day he returned home with a brusque command, ‘Haway, we’re all ganin’ to the circus.’

  The girls yelped with delight and rushed to wash their faces and comb their hair. Rose smiled at her husband quizzically.

  ‘It’s like you said - canny folk,’ he mumbled. ‘They looked after strangers, didn’t they? Us ganin’ is like paying our respects to them and their lass.’

  Rose was moved by his words. So often when she felt angry with him or thought the worst of this mercurial man, he would surprise her with some kindness, some spontaneous generous gesture that gladdened her heart. Stepping forward, she put a hand up to his cheek in affection. ‘Aye, it is. You’re a good man, John.’

  He grunted impatiently and moved away, but she knew by the way he blushed that he was pleased.

  ‘It’s a wonder they can perform so soon after losing their bairn,’ Rose reflected.

  ‘They’ve a living to make,’ John said bluntly, ‘just like the rest of us.’

  That evening they walked through the gaslit town, arm in arm, while Elizabeth carried the sleeping Jack, and Sarah and Kate skipped ahead in excitement. In the large torchlit tent, Rose sat close to John as the noise of gunfire crackled around them, horses thundered over the cinder-covered ground and Indians whooped their war cries.

  ‘Sounds like your mam rounding up the sheep,’ John joked with the girls.

  All the way home, Kate never stopped chattering about the magical experience until finally, coaxed into bed, her sisters ordered her to be quiet. Rose had pushed from her mind that trip to the circus long ago with William and Margaret and the talkative Alexander. But hearing Kate’s bubbling enthusiasm reminded her of the small boy and she felt a pang of regret for that far-off time. What had become of the Liddells’ restless small cousin? She would probably never know. She did not even know where the kind Liddells were any more, let alone the hapless boy, passed from relative to relative.

  As she settled Jack in his cot, she pondered whether her dark-haired son might turn out as inquisitive and lively as Alexander. How well he and William had got on together! But she smothered such thoughts; it was dangerous to make comparisons or try to conjure up the past. It was John who waited for her now. She glanced at her husband watching her in the flickering candlelight and knew the look on his face well. For the past month, since John had saved Jack’s life, they had resumed lovemaking. Rose got into bed, blew out the candle and waited for him to reach for her, guiltily praying that she would not fall pregnant again.

  One day in April, Rose heard a strange piece of news from Maggie. Her sister had brought Mary down to the town for one of her infrequent visits to see her mother and the women were sitting at the open kitchen door, stitching scraps of cloth into a new clippy mat for the hearth. Mary was playing with the old wooden cage and lion that Rose had managed to keep when everything else she and William had once possessed had been pawned several times over. Beside her, on the old clippy mat, Jack kicked and gurgled contentedly. Out in the yard, one-year-old Margaret was sleeping in the bogie that Danny had made into a pram for his daughter.

  ‘Have you heard old Jobling’s widow died at last?’ Maggie asked as she prodded a hole in the hessian with a metal spike.

  Rose looked up nonplussed. ‘Jobling’s widow?’

  ‘Aye,’ Maggie said, pausing in her work. ‘Jobling that got hung on the gibbet down the Slacks for murdering that magistrate—’

  ‘I know who Jobling is,’ Rose said impatiently. He had haunted her life with his grisly image ever since her granny had filled her head full of tales of his ghost. But the gibbeting had been long before she was born, in the days when her grandmother had been young and before Queen Victoria had come to the throne. ‘Do you mean to say his missus has been alive all this time?’

  Maggie nodded. ‘Aye. Seemingly she’s been in the workhouse at Shields for years. Ninety-six she was - that’s a grand age, isn’t it?’

  Rose shuddered. ‘A long time to be widowed. Must’ve been nearly sixty years fending for hersel’.’ It made her couple of years of widowhood seem insignificant in comparison, gruelling though they were. She recalled her granny telling her how Jobling’s widow had lived so close to the Slake that every day she could not avoid seeing the horrific spectre of her husband’s tarred corpse swinging in the breeze. It must have sent her half crazed! She remembered uneasily how thoughts of Jobling had unhinged her after Margaret’s death and led her to throw herself into the treacherous Slake.

  Maggie looked thoughtful. ‘Aye, and to end up in the workhouse with no one else to look after her. .. She must’ve had a hard life, poor woman. But then that place is full of widows—’ She broke off abruptly, looking awkwardly at her sister.

  Rose put out her hand in reassurance. ‘You’re right - and I’d have been one of them if it hadn’t been for you and Danny. I’ll never forget what you did for me and the bairns - what you’re still doing.’

  She looked uneasily at Mary. The child had grown a good inch since she had last seen her. She was skinny and lithe with straight brown hair, a thin stubborn mouth and a guarded look in her nut-brown eyes. She still clung to the grubby peg doll that Maggie had made her and was busy giving it rides in the lion’s cage while the lion was discarded in the coal scuttle.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about her,’ Maggie said quietly. ‘You’ve four bairns to take care of- we’ve only Margaret. Mary’s canny company for me - specially when Da doesn’t know who I am any more.’

  Rose felt another wave of guilt. ‘Are you managing all right with him?’

  ‘Course,’ Maggie assured. ‘And Lizzie visits when she can. But I’ll be surprised if he lasts another winter,’ she sighed.

  ‘I’ll take Mary back when she has to start school,’ Rose promised, thinking that could still be two years away. Time enough for her to really settle with John and the baby first. By then Elizabeth and maybe Sarah would be working, and there would be more room and time for Mary.

  Just then, Mary looked up and glared as if she understood Rose’s reluctance to take her back. The girl stood up and tugged on Maggie’s arm. ‘I want to go home. Don’t like it here.’

  Maggie tried to hush her. ‘I’m talking to your mam. You play with your brother Jack.’

  ‘No,’ she shouted, kicking the chair in sudden temper. ‘He’s not me brother and he’s smelly.’

  ‘Watch your manners,’ Rose warned. ‘And you’ll stay to see your sisters after school.’

  Mary stuck her tongue out at Rose. ‘No! You’re not me mam so you can’t tell us what to do.’

  ‘Mind your tongue!’ Rose smacked her swiftly and Mary ho
wled in protest.

  Maggie stood and picked up Mary, pinning her under a strong arm and shouting to be heard. ‘Sorry, Rose, when she gets like this it’s best to take her away.’

  She left with the red-faced child screaming and struggling to be free. Maggie wheeled the bogie with her free hand and marched out of the yard. Rose stood at the back door cringing at the sound of her daughter bawling all the way down the lane.

  ‘Got a temper on her, that one,’ one of her neighbours commented, having come out to view the commotion.

  Rose nodded and flushed, unable to admit it was her own daughter. Besides, it was none of the woman’s business, she thought defensively.

  But the visit had an unsettling effect on Rose. Although the days grew warmer and lighter and the children were able to play out for longer, she could not stop thinking about the ancient Mrs Jobling, living all those years after her husband had been hanged, incarcerated in the workhouse in a twilight existence. How long had she been there? Maybe all Rose’s lifetime. And her only escape had been death. Whenever Rose thought of it, she shivered as if a chill river breeze blew at her back. Every day she prayed that she and John were kept in health and he in work so that they could support themselves and their children. It was all she asked.

  On Whit Monday they took the girls to see a huge procession of horses from all around the county, processing through the town. But the festival was marred by torrential rain and they retreated early, soaked through. John caught a cold and declared it was the last time he would waste a day’s holiday standing in crowds with her children when he could have been snug and dry in the public bar of The Railway.

  As the summer progressed, Rose noticed that John’s visits to the pub on his way home from work were growing more frequent. It puzzled her until she heard from her mother-in-law that John’s brother Pat was back after a couple of years in Ireland.

  ‘So that’s why he’s coming home spouting off about Ireland and Home Rule all of a sudden,’ Rose laughed shortly.

  Mrs McMullen nodded. ‘Pat’s a supporter. John’ll be trying to prove he’s a better patriot than his brother. They’re more Irish than the Irish, my boys, for all they speak like Jarrow men.’

  When Rose asked him about it, John was dismissive. ‘It doesn’t concern you, Rose. We talk politics - it’s men’s business.’

  Rose was annoyed. ‘I’ve a right to know the company me husband keeps. Are you drinking with your brothers again?’

  ‘I’ll not be questioned like a criminal by me wife,’ John blustered, which confirmed Rose’s suspicions.

  ‘We can’t afford it,’ she complained. ‘Why can’t you come home straight from work like you used to?’

  But John avoided her look. ‘I’ve got important business to see to, political business. There’s a chance we might even get Charles Parnell himself to come and speak.’

  ‘Parnell, the Irish leader?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Rose was dubious. ‘Wasn’t he mixed up in some divorce? Aye, I’m sure that’s the one. Father O’Brien preached against him last year. Not that you would have heard him,’ Rose added pointedly.

  John was quickly riled. He might not attend church regularly, but he was still a staunch Catholic. ‘Parnell’s still a nationalist and leader of the Home Rule movement and I’ll go and hear him whether the priest likes it or not!’

  ‘This is all Pat McMullen’s doing, I suppose?’ Rose scoffed. ‘All dreamed up in the front bar of The Railway.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft,’ John snapped. ‘I don’t need Pat to tell me what to do. There are lots of us supporters. We’re planning a rally in Newcastle and I intend to gan to it.’

  Rose was dismayed. She had thought this was all an excuse to go drinking, but he sounded serious about getting involved in politics - Irish politics at that. That was more worrying. John had always been passionate about his homeland, but it didn’t do to shout too loudly about being Irish when it came to finding work and getting on in life. She had witnessed enough discrimination to know that. Only the other week, the tick man from the Pru had refused to let them pay into a burial fund because of their surname. And hadn’t she herself hidden behind the name of Fawcett in order to secure a much-needed job with the Liddells all those years ago? Besides, nobody liked an agitator, least of all employers.

  ‘You’re not ganin’ to make trouble, are you?’ Rose asked in concern.

  ‘Stop frettin’,’ John said impatiently. ‘And don’t meddle in things that don’t concern you.’

  Rose could get no more out of him but as the summer wore on she had the suspicion that he was keeping something from her. She could tell by the way he avoided her look and lost his temper over trivial matters, snapping at her and the girls if the table was not set to his satisfaction or the fire poker was put back in the wrong place.

  Worry nagged at Rose like a bad tooth, but she could not discover what was wrong. At night, lying awake listening to his snoring after one of his ‘meetings’, she imagined him involved in some Fenian plot. She saw him being transported to the colonies for agitation or, worse still, hanged for treason. She would be like Jobling’s widow, left to fend for herself.

  Then Race Week came and John announced he was going through to Newcastle.

  ‘Will you take the lasses?’ Rose asked tentatively, remembering how last year’s trip had ended in fierce argument with the gypsy.

  ‘No,’ John was brusque. ‘We’re having a procession - the Home Rule supporters. There might be bother.’

  Rose’s insides felt leaden. ‘Don’t go, John,’ she pleaded quietly. ‘You’ve never had any truck with politicians and demonstratin’ before. Why start now when you’ve a family to support?’

  But this only incensed him the more and he barked at her, ‘Don’t tell me m’ business, woman! I’m doing this for Ireland and me people. The English have me sweatin’ and toilin’ for them six days a week. The British army had me pound of flesh for long enough, an’ all.’ He stuck his fists up aggressively. ‘Now these are ganin’ to be used for Ireland!’

  He strode to the door, jamming on his cap. Rose went after him, full of fear.

  ‘Don’t go fightin’, please, John, man!’ She held on to his arm.

  But he shook her off roughly. ‘It’s time we stood up for ourselves. Leave off me, Rose Ann!’

  Rose gulped back the panic in her throat. ‘It’s that useless brother of yours, put you up to this, isn’t it?’ she accused, following him outside. ‘It’s all right for Pat - he has no wife or bairns to think about. But you have.’ She ran after him as he marched out of the yard, not caring if all the neighbours heard. ‘Damn you, John McMullen!’ she bawled. ‘What use are you to me locked up in Newcastle gaol the night?’

  She could not believe she was behaving in such an unseemly way, screaming after him down the lane. But a familiar sickening terror was churning in her stomach: the terror of losing her husband, the roof over her children’s heads, her tenuous security once again.

  ‘Mam, Mam,’ Elizabeth pulled on her arm and tried to coax her back inside and out of view of disapproving neighbours. ‘It’s a day out at the races, that’s all. Just a bit march through Newcastle and then a few drinks, I wouldn’t doubt. He’ll not come to any harm.’

  As Rose looked at her daughter’s fair face, creased in concern for her, the anger in her subsided. How could a girl her age be so wise? Elizabeth had seen John’s protesting for what it was - an excuse for a day out drinking more than likely.

  ‘You’ve an old head on young shoulders,’ she said quietly, touching her daughter’s face affectionately.

  With an indignant stare at the neighbours who stood cross-armed on their back steps, Rose retreated into the house and slammed the door shut on the outside world.

  It was late by the time John came home, crashing in at the back door and curs
ing as he tripped over a pair of boots in the dark. Rose had sat up dozing on the settle, waiting for him. Her relief that he was safely home turned swiftly to annoyance at his drunken state.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ she demanded, rising from the seat and reaching for a spluttering candle. ‘It’s gone midnight.’ She held the dying candle higher. ‘Look at you! Your jacket’s torn - and where’s your cap?’

  He lurched at her, but banged into the table instead and swore loudly at her as if it were her fault.

  ‘I’ll not be blamed if you can hardly stand,’ Rose said in derision. ‘Or hardly speak except to take the saints’ names in vain.’

  He tried to focus on her with bloodshot eyes, his breath reeking of whisky. ‘Don’t speak to me like that, woman,’ he slurred.

  ‘I’ll speak how I want if you choose to come rolling in on all fours like an animal,’ Rose jeered. ‘What a fine specimen of an Irishman! Have you won Home Rule today?’

  ‘Don’t mock me,’ John raised his voice in aggression, pushing the table between them out of the way. ‘No one makes a fool out of a McMullen!’

  ‘No one’s making a fool out of you ‘cept yourself,’ Rose muttered, thinking how old and haggard he suddenly looked.

  John grabbed the stool with which he was steadying himself and raised it above his head. He waved it wildly. ‘You’ll not speak to me like that in me own home,’ he roared.

  ‘It won’t be our home if you carry on drinking all your wages like you have done this past month,’ Rose cried. ‘If we get put out on the street it’ll be from your drinking, not my bad housekeeping.’

  He gave a howl of fury and brought the stool crashing down on to the table. The legs cracked and splintered. Rose jumped back in fright, nearly dropping the candle in its tin holder. Hot wax splashed over her hand and she gasped in pain.

  John turned to her, clutching the remains of the stool. ‘Well, I’ve some’at to please you, you ungrateful bitch! You can make a bit extra out of our new lodger.’

  ‘What you talking about, you drunken fool?’