‘Dead, woman!’ John cried.
Rose fell in the room, choking with panic. She knew it was true before she touched the cooling body on the bed. She recognised the smell of death all too well. But it did not stop her denying it, shaking Elizabeth hard as if she could bully her back to life.
‘She’s not dead,’ Rose screamed. ‘Wake up! You’re not dead. I just left you for a few minutes, you little beggar!’
It was John who finally pulled her off the dead girl. ‘Don’t, Rose Ann,’ he pleaded. ‘She can’t hear you. I’ll gan and fetch the priest.’
She rounded on him in shock and bewilderment. ‘You and your bloody priests! What good are they to me now? My lass is dead! What can the priest say? Can he tell me why God keeps taking away me bairns - me husband - all that I ever cared for? Can he?’ she raged at him.
John shrank away from her as if she whipped him with her words. ‘Don’t blame me!’ he protested.
The words stung her. She had heard them so recently from the cowardly McQuarrie. Men were all the same, forever shirking responsibility.
She lashed out. ‘I do blame you! You were the one forced my lass to gan into service. You let her go slaving for those terrible people. She should have stayed on at school and got her education. Look what you’ve done to her!’ Rose yanked at the girl’s lifeless arm.
John stumbled from the room with its guttering candlelight, fleeing from the raw smell of fear and grief. Alone, Rose collapsed sobbing on the bed, pulling Elizabeth to her for comfort. She did not think she could ever let go.
Chapter 36
To pay for Elizabeth’s coffin and burial, Rose had to pawn her wedding ring from William. It had hung under her clothing, a warm nugget of metal next to her heart, the only material possession left to prove she had once been the wife of a skilled workman, a brethren of St Bede’s, a respectable man. It had hung there like a talisman warding off evil, an insurance against destitution, a charm that would bring her good luck in time. It would only be sold, she had promised herself, for something special like a daughter’s wedding.
She had not discussed it with John, for she knew he had no money to give her. It was the only thing that had spurred her to leave Elizabeth’s room where she had shut herself away to mourn. The bed still smelt of her, the imprint of her head was still on the pillow. Neither Maggie nor John’s mother had succeeded in getting her to come out. But worry over a decent burial made Rose emerge from the cold, dark bedroom, wrap herself in her cape and set off alone to Slater’s. She spoke to no one save the pawnbroker.
After her outburst against John the night her daughter died, she had hardly spoken a word to anyone. Rose’s speech had dried up like a parched stream. At first, shock had left her lost for words. Then it became easier to say nothing, almost a relief not to have to speak. All around her she heard idle chatter or softly spoken platitudes, each as meaningless and empty as the next. She listened, but it was as if she was not really there. She was walled in by silence, cocooned from the world by her refusal to communicate. Rose could understand why some nuns took a vow of silence. John could plead, coax, rant or rail at her and it made no difference. For the first time, she was immune to his sharp tongue and swearing.
So she did not tell him she was going to sell her wedding ring, the one John had hated to see kept close to her breast because it provoked his jealousy of her first husband. Instead she went straight round to a local joiner who also did a sideline in coffins and paid for one. Then she went home to prepare Elizabeth’s body. It still lay where John had left it the day before, on a board over the china sink where the fluids dripped through.
‘We didn’t like to touch her till you came,’ Mrs McMullen murmured. From the smell of barley stew on the range, Rose realised her mother-in-law must have been left in charge.
She nodded at the bent old woman and together they bathed Elizabeth’s body and wrapped her in a sheet ready to place in the coffin. She went about the other preparations for the funeral with the same methodical detachment, still hardly able to believe that she was burying yet another sweet daughter. Inside she felt as numb and cold as death itself.
A week after Elizabeth was buried, notices appeared around the town to say the infants’ schools were opening again. The measles epidemic was over. Somehow Rose galvanised herself into starching clean pinafores for Sarah and Kate, and finding coats and boots to fit. For the last month they had taken it in turns to wear the same pair of boots, as Kate’s own had become too small.
Without a word, Rose handed out Elizabeth’s clothing. Sarah got her work dress, worsted jacket and shoes. The sleeves and hem had to be taken up three inches and the shoes lined with newspaper to make them fit. Kate got her dead sister’s woollen stockings, chemise and hat. The Sunday dress was pawned to pay for the funeral meats and the girls returning to school. Rose resented her younger daughters’ suppressed excitement at receiving the clothes and anticipation at going back to school. Yet she envied them the callousness of youth that accepted tragedy and recovered from it quickly. Life for them went on.
She knew they missed their sister, but she was also aware that they helped themselves to more at meal times, as if they expected there would now be a little bit more to go round. One extra portion to share. One less to clothe. More room in the bed. Rose saw it in their faces. This was how Elizabeth’s death really affected them.
‘Don’t cry, Mam,’ Kate kept repeating, ‘our Lizzie’s with Margaret and me da and the angels now. Father O’Brien said she couldn’t be in a better place.’
But Rose would not be comforted. She found no solace in the priest’s words or Kate’s attempts to cheer her. Instead she found herself almost hating her daughter for being able to laugh with Sarah, for humming to herself when she helped around the kitchen, for the way she swung Jack on to her hip and tickled him like Elizabeth used to do.
Perversely, Rose fostered this resentment in her heart. It made it easier to bear the future. If she stopped loving her other children so much, then it would not hurt when they too were taken from her. For Rose was certain that they would be. That seemed the only certainty in life now - that her children would be taken away from her. One by one. Little by little. Until she was left like a barren husk with nothing to look forward to except her own oblivion.
The only consolation in those bleak spring days was that Pat moved out. Where before he had delighted in her angry words and arguments with him and John, now he could not bear her ghoulish silence. It unnerved him. Rose did not know if it was John who told him to go or whether he went of his own free will, but at long last she was rid of him.
‘That should give you some’at to smile about,’ John grunted. But Rose said nothing. She did not think she could make the effort to smile about anything ever again.
John continued to pick up casual work at the docks and did his best to resist the temptation of a thirst-quenching beer at one of the numerous pubs along his route home. For a while he managed to stay clear of his brother Pat and those who would inveigle him in for a drink or a game of cards. Although he would never admit it, he knew that they could ill afford for him to spend half his meagre wages before he reached Jarrow and the safety of Albion Street.
John worried about Rose and her strange silent depression that hung over them all like a funeral pall. He could not accuse her of neglecting the other children, for they were always as cleanly and smartly turned out as they could afford. But she had taken Elizabeth’s death very badly. Her expression was set in stone. He looked into her dark eyes and they were like deep empty pits. Her mouth was permanently drawn in a tight, bitter line as if her lips had been sewn together. Sarah and Kate were more subdued around her, but she did not seem to notice. It was as if she were not there at all.
At times it drove him mad. He shouted at her for petty misdemeanours such as not putting the dripping away in the pantry so that it melted in the growing s
ummer heat. But it made no difference. She ignored his criticisms and bursts of temper as if he were of no more consequence than an annoying bluebottle buzzing around the kitchen. In the bedroom it was worse. Rose would not let him touch her. She lay with her back to him and if he tried to shake her awake, she would fling off his hold.
One night she cried, ‘Leave me be! How can you even think of it?’
The disdain in her voice made him shrink back. ‘You can’t deny me for ever,’ he complained. ‘It’s your duty as me wife. The priest’ll have some’at to say.’ He knew that would rile her, but he preferred her to argue with him than the dreadful silence she imposed between them.
‘The priest can say what he likes,’ she hissed. ‘But I’m bearing no more bairns for him to bury!’
‘I have needs,’ John growled.
She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Needs? Oh, aye, I know all about your needs. Most of them lie at the bottom of the bottle.’
‘Don’t laugh at me,’ John warned, ‘or I’ll gan back to the bottle sharp enough if that’s the only place I’ll find some comfort round here!’
‘Aye, you drink away the roof over our heads,’ Rose mocked, ‘and the food out of the bairns’ mouths. That’s why Elizabeth had to gan out to work, wasn’t it? Because you couldn’t provide for us like a man. You preferred to gan drinking and meddling in politics with that good-for-nothing brother of yours.’
In fury, he hit her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘I do provide for you, you ungrateful bitch! If it weren’t for me you’d be dead from the puddling mill or thrown in the workhouse by now - you and all Fawcett’s brats! No one else would have taken you on. So don’t you blame me for the lass’s death. You should’ve managed the housekeeping better. You were quick enough to spend her wages an’ all. And you never bothered to gan with her and find out what sort of folk she was working for. Just because that precious teacher of yours had spoken up for her and got her a place, you didn’t think to ask. Isn’t that the truth of it, Rose? It wasn’t my fault, it was yours.’
She crumpled into a protective ball, nursing the cheek that stung from his knuckles. Oh God, he was right! She did blame herself. She tortured herself every waking minute with the thought that she had not had the guts to confront the McQuarries earlier. Had she done so, Elizabeth might still be alive. But John was hateful to say such things! She despised him for his accusations and his cowardly punch. She was disgusted that while she mourned all he could think about was his own bodily satisfaction. Well, he would not get it from her! She’d fight him off with every last inch of her strength, for she swore her body would never again carry another life within it. That was one way at least in which she could stand up to him.
‘Aye, it’s my fault,’ she admitted in distress. ‘She’s dead because of us both. But we’ll not do any more damage, the pair of us. I’ll burn in Hell rather than bear any more bairns, do you hear? No more babies, John, no more!’
John was horrified. He had never heard her so venomous. He did not know from where such hate came. How could she blame him for her daughter’s death? He had not given Elizabeth the measles or mistreated her. But deep down he knew he had failed Rose. He had wanted to provide for her and the girls and yet he had not been able to give them what they wanted - constant security and meals on the table.
But then they were no worse off than half of Jarrow. People like them never did have the luxury of security. That was the preserve of the well-off, like the Fawcetts, who thought themselves above the rest. Well, Rose and her lasses had been ruined by her marriage to Fawcett, not to him! They had come to expect too much in life - a posh house, money for new clothes and fancy education for lasses. It was Fawcett who had let her down, not he!
John fuelled his hurt pride and indignation with such thoughts. It made him feel less guilty for the way he had struck out at her. He had not liked the glimpse of the man he was becoming under the goading influence of Pat, too ready with his fists and his temper against his wife. But Rose better not push him too far. He wanted things to be the same between them as they had been before Pat had moved in and spread his poison. John had seen too late that his brother had done so out of jealousy. Pat envied him for having a wife like Rose and pretty stepdaughters and a son to call after himself.
John knew he must make Rose respect him again before it was too late. If only he could find a way of filling the void that Elizabeth had left. He longed for Rose to smile on him again, to allow him back in her arms, to be close once more. Husband and wife.
Chapter 37
That summer, old McConnell died. As Maggie said, he had left them in spirit long before. Many years ago, his mind had passed back across the water to Ireland where he lived among the ghosts of his past. Many of the Irish community came to the smallholding at Simonside to pay their respects and take a swig of whisky.
John drank long and deep, for there had been precious little to break the monotony of dock work and a drab, penny-pinching existence these past months. He had a wife who hardly spoke to him and stepdaughters who were growing up with too many fancy ideas and opinions in their heads. They were far too quick to answer him back rather than do as he ordered, and their mother never checked them. Even young Jack paid him little attention when he came in from work. He was tied to his mother’s apron strings and fussed to death by his sisters. As John tossed back yet another dram, he determined that Jack would not be turned into a sissy. He would teach him to fight and stand up for himself like a McMullen, by God he would!
Rose watched her husband getting drunk with the men. Soon he would be singing. At least her father would have approved, she thought drily. She looked around the low-ceilinged room, with its smoke-blackened walls and dowdy furniture, and was reminded of happier days. She could imagine her mother sitting by the fading light of the small window, weaving a basket out of twigs for her to carry vegetables in. Her sisters were sprawled by the hearth, their fingers entwined with string in some game of their own making. The acrid smell of her father’s pipe would mingle with the reek of fire smoke. And what was she doing? Rose saw herself sitting by the open door looking at an orange ball of sun setting in the west, the smell of honeysuckle and hay on the stiffening evening breeze. She was gouging the black grit from under her nails with a paring knife to try to make them pretty for Sunday when she might see William ...
‘Rose?’ It was Maggie who broke into this reverie. ‘Fancy a walk outside?’
Rose nodded and followed. It was a cold dank August night, not like the summer of her imaginings. She could hear Kate’s loud voice over by the hazel tree where she and Sarah were trying to show Jack how to swing. Margaret was gazing up in delight, but Mary was protesting tearfully that it was her tree and her go. The older girls were ignoring her.
‘Careful with him,’ Rose called out. ‘Don’t drop—’
Jack slipped from Kate’s arms and landed on top of Mary. Both of them howled in protest. Both women began to hurry over, but before they were halfway across the field, Maggie stopped Rose.
‘They’re all right,’ she panted. ‘See how the lasses take care of them.’
Rose watched, undecided, as Kate swiftly picked up Jack and cuddled him. Sarah was doing the same with Mary, raising her up in brawny arms and pacifying the wailing child. As they stood, Lizzie came waddling out behind them, heavy with her first unborn, to see where they had got to.
‘That’s a bonny sight,’ she greeted her sisters. ‘They look a right little family together, don’t they? No one would know by looking that Jack’s just a half-brother.’
Rose gazed and saw that it was true. Her three remaining daughters had her darker colouring, with their thick brown hair. Gone were the two fair-haired girls who had taken after their father. The dark-haired Jack had a look of his half-sisters, the same small nose and oval curve of his jaw.
‘Mam would have liked to see the grandbairns
playing under the tree,’ Lizzie mused, slipping her arms through her sisters’.
‘Aye, but Da would’ve been chasing them off for trampling across the cabbages,’ Maggie laughed.
‘What’ll happen to the place now?’ Rose asked quietly. She had overheard Danny talking about moving down into the town.
Maggie sighed. ‘Landlord wants us out. We can’t make a living here any more. Danny’s never been much of a gardener - I’m that glad he kept on his job at the steel mill. And it’s hard work on me own, since Da’s been housebound.’
Rose was dismayed. ‘You should’ve said. Me and the lasses could come up here more and help out.’
Lizzie nudged Maggie. ‘Have you told our Rose?’
‘Told me what?’
Maggie hesitated.
‘Haway, Maggie,’ Lizzie urged. ‘You might as well tell her all in one go.’ Lizzie did not give her sister time to hesitate and blurted out, ‘She’s expectin’ again. Danny doesn’t want her slaving up here through the winter over a few tatties and turnips. They’re looking for somewhere in the town. It’ll mean you’ll have to take Mary back.’
Maggie slid Rose a cautious look. ‘We can move in with Danny’s sister for a bit - but there won’t be much room. And you did say you’d take her back when she started school. It’s just with another bairn on the way—’
Rose’s heart was leaden. They were hardly managing as it was. Try as she might, she could only look on Mary as an extra burden. But she hid her disappointment at the news.
‘Of course I’ll take her back,’ she assured. ‘I should’ve done so long before now. You’ve been that good to our Mary.’
‘See!’ Lizzie exclaimed. ‘I told you she’d not mind. And if you’re living nearer each other you can still see plenty of the bairn. Can’t she, Rose?’
‘Aye,’ Rose agreed. ‘I’ll probably have to tie her up like a goat to stop her trotting off to see her Aunt Maggie all the time.’
The Jarrow Lass Page 33
