by Maggie Hope
‘I will.’
After he’d gone, May filled an enamel bowl with the water left in the kettle, and some cold from the bucket in the pantry. Then she laid the baby on her knee and washed her. Peggy had tied off the cord with cotton thread, which May inspected and it seemed all right. She dressed the baby in one of the flannelette nightgowns she had found in the drawer and tied a rag on for a nappy. The baby didn’t cry, just made sucking motions with her mouth. May mixed up a little sugar and water and tried to feed her but the baby would have nothing of it. In the end she carried her up the street to the yard of a woman who had birthed a baby only a few days before, Eliza Wearmouth. She didn’t go in, for it would bring bad luck on the house to take a baby inside before it had been christened. Eliza’s man was one of Albert’s marras so he must have escaped the explosion too, which meant that Eliza would not be among the women waiting at the pithead.
By this time, the baby was screaming and Eliza came straight out. Thank God, thought May, she had been right.
‘It’s Vera’s babby,’ she said and told Eliza what had happened.
‘Eeh, poor bairn,’ said Eliza, and thought for a minute. ‘I tell you what, you go back and I’ll come, give her a bit tittie.’ She banked the fire and wrapped her own sleeping infant, John Henry, in the corner of her shawl, then followed May down the street to the end house.
‘Eeh, man!’ she said when she saw Vera’s body lying on the settee covered in a thin, old sheet. ‘They’ve got their troubles in this house the day, haven’t they?’
‘They have that,’ May agreed. ‘Peggy’s away up to the pit yard now, waiting to see what’s happened. Aye, but I doubt it was a bad accident. My Albert’s up there an’ all. With the rescue workers I should think.’
‘Aye, Big John an’ all,’ said Eliza. She bent over the press drawer and clucked in sympathy at the baby who was sniffling quietly by now. Eliza laid her own John Henry at the other end of the drawer and picked the new baby up. The baby nuzzled at her bare arm, making sucking noises. Eliza opened her blouse and offered her the breast and the baby clung to it. ‘She seems strong enough, any road,’ Eliza commented as she settled herself in the rocking chair by the fire. ‘It’s a good job I have plenty of milk for the both of them.’
‘Aye. The first bit of luck in this house the day.’
May glanced over at the settee. ‘I don’t know whether to wash the lass or wait for the doctor. The authorities get funny these days, you know, if you do anything without a death certificate.’
‘Daft, I call it,’ said Eliza. ‘Doctor Brown will have enough on his hands up at the pit. And it doesn’t take a doctor to tell that one’s gone, poor soul.’ She lifted the baby and changed her to the other breast. ‘I tell you what though, you’d best let the fire die down. An’ pull the settee as far away from the range as it’ll go. It might be the night before he gets here.’ She looked down at the baby in her arms. Sated now, she had let go of the nipple and was dropping off to sleep. Her little fists were bunched up tight as a prize fighter’s and there was a furrow between her brows.
May came over and looked down at her, wiped a bubble of milk from the corner of her mouth. ‘Mind,’ she said softly, ‘she looks like a fighter, an’ she’ll need to be an’ all, poor motherless bairn. I reckon she’ll have a hard row to hoe, this one.’
She took the baby from Eliza and laid her back in the makeshift cradle. Then she sat down in the chair opposite her friend. ‘We’ll have two minutes while we can,’ she said. ‘By, they’re a long time at the pit. I doubt, I doubt.’ What she doubted she didn’t say.
Both women gazed into the dying fire as the burnt-out crust of it collapsed in a shower of ash, the red coals dying to grey.
Two
‘Will you stand up for the babby at chapel?’ asked Peggy. ‘I’m going to call her Miranda after me own mother. Merry for short.’
‘I’d love to be godmother,’ replied Eliza. ‘But what about May?’
‘Aye well,’ said Peggy, ‘May and Albert are away at the weekend. He’s got work at Thornley, over past Durham. I’m away to see the minister now.’
She wrapped Merry in the end of her shawl and held her close for the wind was biting as it was channelled down the row. Peggy had lost weight since the disaster, she just couldn’t eat any road, she told May when she tried to persuade her to.
Eliza watched as Peggy went out of the door and took the black path along the line. There was no chapel at Jane Pit, as the colliery was too small for that, so Peggy had to go up through the fields and along the path to the road and down to Winton Colliery, a distance of two miles.
‘Peggy looks blooming awful,’ Eliza told Big John when she went round to see to his tea. ‘She’s that thin.’
‘Well, what do you expect, woman?’ asked John. ‘She lost her man, her son and her grandson in the explosion, didn’t she? And then to lose the bairn’s mam an’ all . . .’
‘Aye, I know, John,’ Eliza replied. ‘That babby’s all she’s got in the world. But if she doesn’t look after herself Merry’ll have no one. Then it’ll be the workhouse for the poor mite, won’t it?’
‘Merry? Is that what she’s calling it? Bloody fancy names at a time like this an’ all.’
‘It’s after her own mother,’ said Eliza. ‘I like it. Any road, I’m going to stand up for her. Sunday likely.’
‘I expect so. If I get this job at East Howle we’ll be leaving. They reckon there’s some fine two-bedroomed houses an’ all, with a proper staircase.’
Eliza stared out of the window at the house opposite. It was empty now for already the people were beginning to go looking for work elsewhere. Some of them had only stayed for the funeral service that had taken place the week before. Oh God, she thought, I hope the young lads didn’t suffer. The men an’ all, of course. There was no way of telling for they were entombed in the pit. The gaffer had explained there was no way they could be reached, what with the shaft being blocked off at the bottom and water seeping through. So the pit was abandoned, the shaft capped with a wooden cover nailed over it. The whole of the village, those who were left, that is, had watched as it was done.
Eliza turned round and faced Big John. ‘I’m staying a few weeks more,’ she said. ‘I have to give that bairn a chance and it’s too early for her to have to suck pap.’
‘Eliza pet, your heart’s too big for your own good,’ said John. ‘What do you think we’re going to live on if we stay here? You have your own bairns to think about.’ He didn’t sound angry, just weary.
The whole community was weary and bitter. The company had just left them here. The gaffer didn’t even care if they stayed in the houses or not. They were no good to him now, houses or men. There had been no compensation for the widows and orphans, no extra for the men left when the pit closed down. Though the union were fighting for that now it was too late for the folk of Jane Pit. Aye well, thought Big John, bitterness got a man nowhere.
‘Just another week then?’ asked Eliza. She had picked up her own baby and now she began to change the clout on his bottom. She knew it was hopeless, they had to look after their own. And if she starved, her milk would go any road.
* * *
‘We’re moving in the morn,’ she said to Peggy a couple of days later as she held little Merry to the breast. ‘I’m that sorry, Peggy. How will you manage?’
‘The Lord only knows,’ said Peggy. She sat down heavily on the cracket that had belonged to Merry’s father. Lance had been so proud of the stool he had made when he first started at the pit. But she couldn’t think about Lance now, not now. She had the living to think of.
‘Eeh, Peggy, I don’t know what to say,’ said Eliza. ‘I’ve got fond of the little lass an’ all.’
‘You have to think of your own,’ said Peggy. She roused herself, forced herself to be pleasant. ‘There’s one thing for sure, we’re not going to the workhouse, not while I have breath in my body. I’ll find work, never you think I won’t. And at least we have a roof over our he
ads, me and the babby. I was just thinking, any road – I could take in washing couldn’t I? With all the empty houses there’s plenty of space to dry it here. No, no, I reckon I’ll go round the houses, see what I can pick up.’
As soon as Eliza had gone Peggy slung the baby in her shawl and went down to the other end of the rows where Jim Hawthorne had a nanny goat. It was tethered along the track and she’d seen it often – why hadn’t she thought of it before?
‘You just caught me, missus,’ Jim said. He was loading a handcart with his furniture, his young sons struggling to help. His wife sat at the door, looking bewildered, her baby in her arms. Poor Bessie Hawthorne had been a bit strange since the disaster when all of her five brothers had been killed.
‘Where are we going, Jim?’ she kept repeating, and when he patiently told her, ‘but why, Jim?’
Peggy’s heart dropped to her scuffed black boots. ‘I was hoping for goat’s milk for the bairn,’ she said. ‘But if you’re going—’
‘I tell you what missus,’ said Jim. ‘You can have the old nanny goat. I doubt she’ll have another kid and I can’t trek her halfway across the county. She’s nearly past it, man.’
‘I can’t pay for her,’ said Peggy. ‘I’m sorry, lad.’
‘No, you tak’ her, it’s all right. At least I have the family left to me. You need the milk any road. I’m off over to the east of the county, and like I said, old Nannie wouldn’t stand the journey. You’ll soon get the hang of milking her. Howay now, I’ll show you.’ He took a pan from a box on the handcart and strolled over to the goat, Peggy following him with Merry.
‘See now, she’s as gentle as a baby hersel’. Just grab her dugs firmly and squeeze gently like this, you’ll manage.’
Peggy laid the baby down on the grass and did as she was told. It took a few tries but in the end she had a satisfying half-full pan of warm, frothy milk. At the same time she had milk spattered all over her blouse and down her skirt but that was matterless, clothes would wash.
‘I’ll fetch her along to your end for you,’ said Jim. ‘I can spare a few minutes.’
‘Eeh, thanks, Jim, I’ll never forget you,’ said Peggy.
‘Getaway, it was nowt,’ he declared and strode off with a wave of the hand.
Peggy looked about her. Already half the folk had gone, she thought sadly. Whoever would have thought it – a few short weeks ago? She went in and changed the baby’s nappy and laid her in the drawer. The milk she took through to the pantry at the back of the house where it was cool. Outside she could hear the goat bleating so she went out and drew water in a bucket from the pump standing on the end of the rows. The agent had had the pump put in when the union had petitioned for one. After all it was a wet pit and the water, after percolating through the rocky ground, was pure and sweet as spring water.
Outside it was very quiet. A few more families had moved off and some of the windows already looked dark and desolate without their dolly-dyed net curtains, the doorsteps not yellow-stoned for more than a week.
‘I doubt I’ll be on me own,’ she said softly to herself. But where could she go? She put the bucket of water down where Nannie could reach it and watched as the animal drank. It was no good thinking like that, she thought. Any road, she wasn’t on her own, was she? She had Merry and now she had the animal, Nannie. She’d best try to gather some fodder for the beast with winter coming on. She could start that tonight and then tomorrow she would go about outside the village and see if she could get any washing to do.
The afternoon was turning cooler, so she’d best make herself a bite of dinner, she reckoned. Not that she felt hungry but she had to keep her strength up for the sake of the babby. There were carrots and turnips in the garden, Tommy had made sure of that. And she had the heel end of a bit of cheese to flavour them. And maybe, if she got enough milk from Nannie she’d be able to make some cottage cheese with what Merry didn’t want, and flavour it with some of the herbs that grew about the place. There were the gardens of the empty houses an’ all, she thought. There might be some foraging there.
Peggy sighed, she couldn’t fool herself. It was going to be a tight few years ’til the bairn got up a bit. But she couldn’t afford to look further than the winter that was coming on.
Miles Gallagher, agent for a number of collieries in the area, happened to be looking out of the drawing-room window when Peggy, with the baby slung in her shawl from her shoulders, trudged up the drive. She hesitated for a moment and hoisted her bundle a little higher against her breast, then turned to go around the house to the back.
He knew that woman, he thought idly, and racked his brains to remember where he had seen her. Of course, it was at the memorial service for those killed in the explosion at Jane Pit. She was the one who had turned her head and stared levelly at him as he took his place in the front row of the mean little chapel, alongside the manager, Jack Mackay. Jack had been a little uneasy about having the service only a fortnight after the disaster.
‘Supposing they’re not all dead yet?’ he had asked. ‘Supposing there’s an air getting in to them?’
‘Nonsense,’ Miles had replied robustly. ‘Of course they are all gone. An act of God it was.’
It was then he had felt the old woman’s eyes on him; he’d turned and met the direct stare. A feisty one that, he had thought. But his conscience was clear, he had persuaded the owner to give the widows and orphans an average week’s pay to help them get over the first few weeks. What more could anyone do? Mining was a business after all. And the enquiry, such as it was, had not put any blame at the door of the management.
The woman was walking back down the drive now, her head bent, whether over the child or in dejection it was difficult to see. The domestic staff had orders not to give charity to anybody – they couldn’t start that or the house would be besieged by mendicants. Still . . . on impulse, Miles rang for Polly, the parlour maid.
‘Who was that woman with the child, Polly?’ he asked when she answered the bell.
‘Mrs Trent, sir,’ said Polly. ‘She was the one—’
‘Yes, I know who she is,’ said Miles. The one who lost her husband, son and grandson in the accident, he thought. ‘Was she begging?’
‘No, sir. She’s a washerwoman now, sir,’ said Polly. ‘She wanted to know if we had any work for her.’ She kept her voice neutral though she was full of sympathy for Peggy Trent. She had felt terrible when Cook had explained that they did their own washing.
‘I’m good with fine linen, embroidery and such,’ Peggy had said. ‘I used to work in the bishop’s laundry.’
‘A long time ago though, Peggy,’ Cook had said. ‘Thirty years it must be.’
Peggy had nodded. ‘Well, thanks anyway. I’d best be on me way,’ she said and walked back round the house and down the drive.
‘Mrs Trent used to work in the bishop’s laundry,’ Polly said now. ‘She’s good with fine things.’
‘Thank you, that will be all,’ said Miles dismissively. Polly bobbed a curtsey and went back to the kitchen. She’d tried, she told herself, done her best for the woman. In the old days, when Mrs Gallagher was still alive, things had been different. She always did her best for destitute folk. Mr Gallagher was harder.
Normally Miles would have forgotten all about the incident. After all, miners’ widows were ten a penny, weren’t they. But it had put him in mind of Jane Pit. He really ought to go there, and check that the joiners had done their job properly in capping the pit; see if there was anything else that could be salvaged and perhaps used elsewhere. He would ride, he decided. There was no proper road anyway and his hunter, Marcus, could do with the exercise.
That woman, Mrs Trent, was climbing over the stile that led from the fields to the footpath alongside the old waggon way. She climbed stiffly, awkward because she was carrying a baby in her shawl. He pulled Marcus up and waited impatiently for her to get out of his way. Marcus snorted and she looked alarmed for a moment and then, safely over the stile, she stood
back. The baby cried suddenly, not loudly but a thin wail. Bittersweet memories rushed back at him – his son Thomas in Mary’s arms on the day he was born. It had been a difficult and prolonged labour and Mary was exhausted. She had lain back against the pillows, her dark hair spread out around her. Her face had been as white as her nightgown and she hadn’t lasted the night through.
‘Come on, woman, get out of my way!’ he barked and the old woman stumbled but managed to keep on her feet. Miles bent down and unfastened the gate by the stile and went through, turning off for Jane Pit, leaving Peggy gazing after him.
There was not much to salvage, he decided. Though there were slates on the roofs of the houses that could be used again, and doors. Most of the houses were empty but there were still one or two occupied. He would tell the colliery joiners to wait a week or two before stripping them – there was plenty of time, he thought. New rows would have to be built at Eden Hope where they were sinking a shaft to Busty seam, but it wouldn’t be working for months yet. Still, they could take the roof slates from the engine house and rip out the iron staircase. Owners liked to see evidence of thrift.
He was mounting his horse to return home, watched by a group of urchins who stared up at him with large eyes and their thumbs deep in their mouths as though they would eat them altogether, when he saw the old woman, Peggy Trent. She came round the top of the rows and trudged down to the end house. She looked careworn; weary to death. The baby had stopped crying and was looking out at its bleak world with large, solemn eyes.
On impulse he trotted up to them.
‘Come to the house tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There will be fine laundry for you to do.’
Now why did he do that? he asked himself as he trotted down the waggon way. He must be going soft. But after all, he hadn’t been satisfied with his dress shirts the last time they had been laundered. Poor Mary used to do them herself when she was alive. No one else could do them as she had.
‘Eeh, thank you, sir,’ said Peggy and her dark eyes lit up as she smiled, and suddenly he realised she wasn’t so old. Her hair had a white streak in it and there were lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth, but she stood upright with the baby in her arms and when she moved off she walked with a spring in her step that he hadn’t detected earlier.
