The Miner’s Girl

by Maggie Hope

  Miles watched for a moment then went on his way. She was probably younger than he was, he reflected. These miners’ wives looked old at forty, it must be the life they led. He forgot about Peggy as he turned his horse and trotted off along the path by the line. He would go to Winton Colliery, he decided. He might as well while he was near. Besides, he wanted a word with the manager there.

  She had one customer, Peggy thought as she milked the goat that evening. She leaned her head into Nannie’s rough hide squeezing rhythmically and the warm milk squirted into the pan. Thank God for it, she thought. It provided a lifeline until she managed to get more work. When she had finished she pegged the goat out on a fresh patch of weeds and grass and carried the milk into the house.

  Merry was still asleep in her drawer, her thumb stuck firmly in her mouth. Peggy gazed at her for a moment. There was a furrow between the baby’s eyebrows and she smoothed it with her forefinger. Poor little mite, she mused. Poor little orphan. Peggy prayed she would be spared long enough to raise her. God save her from the workhouse.

  Moving away, she stirred the fire and put on a small shovelful of coal. Tomorrow she would have to find time to scour the pit heap for pieces. She broke up a crust of bread into a bowl and added a sprinkling of sugar. There was the end of a cinnamon stick in the pantry, she remembered, left over from last Christmas. She would grate a bit on the broily as a treat. Warming a little of the milk she poured it over the bread and the smell of cinnamon rose from it. Peggy closed her eyes for a moment, dwelling on the memories the aroma evoked.

  Christmas last, when the family had been all around her, Tommy had brought in holly and ivy and they had garlanded the house. She had made a plum pudding and they had eaten it after the chicken she had got from the farmer up by Coundon in exchange for a day’s turnip snagging. They had potatoes from the garden and sprouts, and a turnip from the farmer’s field; Vera had confided that she had fallen for another baby after all this time.

  Suddenly her memories were interrupted by the sound of the baby crying and Peggy was brought back to the present. Her face was wet, she realised, as she put the bowl of broily to keep warm on the hearth and went to attend to Vera’s baby.

  ‘Aye, well,’ she told the child as she lifted her out of the drawer. ‘You’ll learn, pet. Crying gets you nowt in this life.’ She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron and brought a clean clout to change the baby’s dripping nappy. Merry had stopped crying almost as though she understood her and was gazing at her grandmother with eyes that were already turning brown.

  Peggy rocked her gently. ‘Aye, you’re a bonny bairn,’ she sang softly and with the baby on one arm warmed more milk for her feed. Tomorrow she would have to go to a chemist’s and see if she could get a rubber teat – she already had a medicine bottle that would do. She’d scoured it well under the pump, but for now she would have to spoon the milk into the baby’s mouth.

  Three

  Peggy opened the door of the little house on the end of the row and the wind howled in. Snow had piled against the door in a solid block but now bits fell inside. She would have to dig a path to where she had Nannie stabled in an empty house opposite. Well, she might as well get started. Bringing the fire shovel from the back kitchen she set to shovelling snow, closing the door behind her as soon as she had enough room. Methodically she worked her way past the frozen pump to the house and finally was able to open the door.

  Nannie was lying on the thin pile of straw she had managed to get the animal for bedding. She didn’t move as Peggy went in. Bending, she felt the goat – she was cold, very cold but she was alive. Peggy brought some wisps of hay for her to eat and Nannie chomped on them weakly.

  She had to face the fact that she could no longer feed the old goat, Peggy realised. Besides, Nannie had stopped giving milk. The blizzards that had raged for the last few days had cut off the tiny village from the world. In the old days there had been other people and they had helped each other. The boys and young men had made rough snow shoes and clambered up the hill to Coundon or along the line to Winton Colliery. But Peggy and Merry were on their own now, their last neighbours having gone in the autumn.

  ‘To Auckland, Mrs Trent,’ John Blackburn had told her. ‘I’ve work at Toronto pit. The promise of a house soon an’ all.’ The Blackburns had been the last to go, so now all the houses were empty except for hers.

  Well, thank goodness she had bought a stone of flour the last time she had earned two shillings for working as a washerwoman. And she had a little yeast growing in the pantry. She looked at Nannie now, and the old goat looked back at her with trusting eyes before nuzzling in her bedding straw, looking for bits she could eat.

  Peggy went back into the house. Merry was sitting up on the bed Peggy had brought into the living room so they could take full advantage of the fire. Not that the fire was very big, she had to use the coal sparingly to spin it out. There was no picking on the slag heap in this weather. The heap was covered in hard snow and the coal beneath was frozen solid too.

  ‘I’ll get you a bite of breakfast, pet,’ said Peggy. She went into the pantry and inspected the food shelf. There was a small quantity of oatmeal and a tin of condensed milk, already opened and half gone. No meat, no cheese. Of course she knew there wasn’t, but still she stared at the shelves in the forlorn hope she had overlooked something. Peggy’s shoulders sagged and for a moment she felt complete and utter despair. Dear God, the two of them could starve alone in this deserted village. Behind her, she could hear Merry talking and singing to herself as she played with her peg dolly.

  Peggy came to a decision. She broke the ice in the water bucket and dipped a small pan in, taking enough water to make gruel for the child. She cooked it on the smoky fire and added condensed milk until it was at least sweet and more palatable. Then she put some on a plate and picked up Merry to feed her. The rest she put back on the hob to keep warm. She would have a spoonful or two herself and the rest would feed the baby later on.

  When she had finished feeding the child she made a sort of playpen on the clippie mat with the aid of chairs and the washing line. ‘Sit there, petal,’ she said. ‘Be a good bairn now.’ Merry played happily, banging a spoon on a pan. Thank the Lord she’s a contented bairn, thought Peggy as she took the carving knife from the kitchen drawer and went outside.

  Twenty minutes later and she was back. There was blood on her apron and in her hair and on her face but she had done it. Merry had fallen asleep, lying face downwards on the mat with her bottom stuck in the air. Gently, Peggy lifted her and laid her on the bed, careful not to get any blood on the baby. Then she took off her apron, boiled a pan of water and washed her face and hair.

  Next door Nannie’s carcase dripped blood from its gaping throat into a battered tin dish.

  Miles Gallagher stood at the dining-room window and watched the snow as it came floating down onto the trees and bushes outside. He was restless; fed up with the weather which had kept him from his work for the last three days. He drained his coffee cup and turned to where Edna, the housemaid, was clearing the breakfast table.

  ‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘Tell Cook I won’t be in to lunch.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Edna, glancing involuntarily at the snow through the window and looking surprised.

  Miles was soon riding his horse down the drive and out on to the Durham road before taking a small farm road that lay in the lee of a stand of trees and so was sheltered. The farmer had been along here during the morning and some of the snow was trampled down making progress easier. As he went he looked down into the valley, seeing the pithead of Winton Colliery a hazy dark grey through the snow.

  The chimney was smoking and a row of coal trucks were going along the waggon way. The work went on unaffected by the weather, he thought. On impulse he turned aside and urged his horse through a field gate and down in the lee of the hedge to Winton.

  The fore shift were coming up, the wheel buzzing round as the cage disgorged miners into the yard,
their eyes showing white on their black eyes. They shivered as the cold air hit them after the warm temperatures underground and hurried along not speaking for the main part in their rush to get home.

  Miles went into the office where the manager sat with a roaring fire behind him. He got to his feet hastily.

  ‘By, Mr Gallagher, I didn’t expect to see you,’ he said. ‘Were you wanting anything in particular? I sent the figures up—’

  ‘Morning to you, Watson,’ Miles replied. ‘Sit down, man, I’ve just called in for a minute.’

  They discussed a few items of the business over cups of strong tea the manager’s secretary kept hot on the hearth, but Miles soon rose to his feet for he couldn’t leave Marcus too long in this weather, even though he was partially under cover in the overhang of the engine house.

  On another impulse he took the path along by the waggon way that led along to Jane Pit, which was already being called Old Pit, thinking he might as well visit Eden Hope while he was about it. Near Winton the path was sparsely covered with snow as it was protected by the huge slag heap to one side, but as he approached Jane Pit Marcus had to stumble through huge drifts that stretched down from the exposed hillside, and on past the waggon way. In the end Miles had to dismount and lead the horse.

  He almost turned round and went back but he was close to the deserted village by this time and the snow had begun to come down thick and fast. Marcus could do with a rest, he reckoned. There would be shelter in one of the houses, for the men had not yet begun to strip the roofs of slates, though some of the doors had been removed.

  Grateful to get out of the weather, he led Marcus into what had once been a kitchen. It had an iron range that was now red with rust, while the flagged floor was wet and struck cold even through the stout leather of his boots.

  ‘Godforsaken place,’ he muttered. What on earth had possessed him to ride here anyway? In the back of his mind there had been the thought he could strike out up the field for the Coundon road but that was bloody stupid. And in any case, the ride hadn’t settled the restlessness that bestirred him lately. He carried it with him.

  Miles went to the doorway and watched the snow. He glanced back along the line – the trail he and the horse had made was almost obliterated; they would have to go soon. He’d just give Marcus a few more minutes. The horse had found a straggle of weed that had pushed its way up between the flags by the window and was nibbling delicately.

  He glanced the other way to where the top of the old water pump stuck out of the snow, the tap with a long icicle hanging from it. It was all a bit eerie he thought, the empty houses with their blank windows looking out onto the snow, some of them with glass in them and some without.

  Then he noticed the thin wisp of smoke coming from the end house on the opposite side. Someone was there, someone still living in the house. Even as he realised it, a baby’s cry echoed above the soughing of the wind. Good God, how could anyone survive here?

  Miles glanced back at Marcus. He wasn’t going anywhere, he decided, there was nowhere for the horse to go. Pulling his collar up around his ears he set off, picking his way along the track, stumbling through snow that was almost to the top of his knee-high boots. As he approached the door he could hear a woman’s voice singing.

  ‘Clap your hands for daddy coming down the waggon way, a pocket full of money and a cart load of hay.’

  Looking through the window he could see the woman with a child on her knee and the little one was laughing now and clapping her hands to the old tune.

  * * *

  Peggy’s hair hung down her back. It had taken all morning to dry for there was a fairly small fire in the grate and that was covered by a large iron pan in which stew was cooking. There was a rich smell filling the house, which Peggy reckoned smelled like mutton, old ewe in fact. She had found an onion to flavour the stew and added salt.

  Poor old Nannie, she thought. ‘But needs must when the devil drives,’ she said aloud. She often found herself talking aloud to herself these days – after all, there was no one else to talk to except the babby.

  The knock on the door made her jump, her heart beating wildly. How could anyone be out there when everyone had left and the place was snowed in? For a second or two superstitious fears filled her but then common sense prevailed and she put the baby in the makeshift pen and went to the door. Nevertheless she shouted through it before lifting the sneck.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Let me in, woman! I’m not going to hurt you!’

  Peggy opened the door and peered out, amazed to see the gaffer standing there. She stood and gaped. Had he come to throw her out of the house? He had the right but oh, where would she go, she and the bairn?

  Miles moved impatiently. ‘Let me in, woman, I said. The weather’s enough to freeze a man to death, standing here.’

  Peggy stood back and he strode past her to the fire. Without asking he raked coal down from the back shelf into the grate; coal that Peggy had reckoned would last all day.

  ‘Can’t you keep a decent fire?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’ve no more coal,’ said Peggy evenly. She was seething and didn’t add ‘sir’ or ‘Mr Gallagher’. Who the hell did he think he was? But of course he was the mining agent, the gaffer, and he could do what he wanted. The roof over her head was his to take away.

  Miles looked at the baby in the makeshift playpen. Merry had pulled herself to her feet and was holding on to the back of a chair, staring solemnly at him. Suddenly her face puckered and she looked at Peggy.

  ‘Ganma!’

  ‘It’s all right, flower, the man won’t hurt you,’ said Peggy. She bent and picked the child up again and held her close.

  ‘Her grandmother, are you? Where’s her mother and father?’

  ‘Dead. Her father and her grandfather and her brother, killed in the disaster. And her mother from childbirth.’

  Peggy said it so prosaically that Miles was speechless for a moment. He had been going to ask what the woman was doing, still living here – it was stupid when everyone else had gone. If she had nowhere to go there was the workhouse, wasn’t there? He himself was on the Board of Guardians, and the inmates were treated as fairly as in any other workhouse – he knew that for a fact.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said looking down into the fire.

  Peggy sat down heavily on the rocking chair by the range. Oh God, he was going to hoy her out, the rotten sod.

  ‘We have nowhere else to go,’ she said. ‘Me and the bairn, we’re all that’s left. Besides, our men are here, in the pit.’

  ‘It’s no good talking like that!’ said Miles. ‘You’ve to look to the future. You’re not so old, you know.’ Uncharacteristically, he didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘The food’s ready,’ said Peggy after a pause. ‘Will you have some?’ The tradition of hospitality was too hard to go against, though she was full of resentment towards him. Resentment and despair.

  Miles glanced at the window; outside it was a whiteout, the snow piling up on the window ledge as great flakes came down from a slate-grey sky. He should refuse, his better instincts told him, but he was hungry. Anyway, he could always pay her.

  ‘I’ll have a little,’ he said. After all, she couldn’t be in such financial straits if she could afford lamb stew.

  He watched as she ladled out two plates of stew and they sat down to the table. The day had darkened until the main light was coming from the fire now that the pan had been removed. It was true, she wasn’t so old, he realised, no older than he was himself, even if she was the baby’s grandmother, and in the half-light she looked almost pretty, with her hair hanging down her back like that – dark hair, almost black and with only the occasional glint of silver. Her mouth was soft and a good shape and her teeth good, unusually good for a woman of her class.

  Peggy looked up and saw him watching her. ‘Eat,’ she said. She picked up the baby and began spooning gravy into her mouth. The baby dribbled and Peggy went back to th
e range and took a cloth from the rail above the grate. She had to reach for it and he watched surreptitiously as her breast strained against the thin stuff of her dress. Damn it, it was a long time since he’d had a woman, he thought. Not since long before his wife died and after all, he was only thirty-eight, a young man, wasn’t he?

  ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘The lamb stew I mean.’ It was too, though probably lamb was a misnomer. The meat was a bit stringy and strong tasting, but satisfying nevertheless.

  Peggy put the baby down and began to eat her own meal before she replied.

  ‘It’s not lamb,’ she said.

  ‘No, well I know it’s mutton really.’

  Peggy took another spoonful into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. ‘It’s not mutton,’ she said.

  ‘No? What is it then?’

  ‘It’s the old nanny goat. She stopped giving milk and I had nothing else.’

  Miles gagged. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at his lips.

  ‘The first time you’ve eaten goat, is it?’ Peggy asked and smiled, her eyes twinkling in amusement. ‘You’re not going to waste that, are you?’ For Miles had put down his spoon.

  ‘I’m damn well not going to eat it!’

  ‘No? Well, isn’t it nice that you have a choice? You can go back to your own grand house an’ no doubt you will have chicken for dinner an’ . . . strawberries an’ . . . fresh cream an’—’

  ‘For God’s sake, woman, shut up!’

  Miles had risen from his chair and Peggy did too, though she still had to look up at him.

  ‘Meantime you are turning us out of our home; what I want to know is how can you sleep at nights?’

  Suddenly she lifted her arms, bunched her fists and began to hit him on the chest for that was as far as she could reach. Miles took a step backwards before catching hold of her wrists and holding them tight. Unable to hit him Peggy started to kick out and succeeded in catching him a hefty blow on the shin. Miles swore and pulled her closer, pinioning her arms. She still struggled so he flung her down on the clippie mat and fell on top of her – suddenly his anger turned to something else, he could feel his desire rising.