by Maggie Hope
Ben was a long time coming home. The broth was ready and a delicious smell of apples came from the oven. She pulled the pan away from the flames and placed it on the hearth. Outside the light was almost gone, so she lit a candle and placed it on the table. One would do for there was a good light from the fire.
It was soon black dark outside, for there was no moon tonight. There was a spatter of rain on the window, which meant it would probably be raining in upstairs as the roof had shed a few slates in the last gale. Merry picked up the candle and went upstairs to check. There was a new dark stain appearing above the foot of her bed. She put the candle on the tiny iron mantelpiece and heaved at the bedstead until she had moved it out of the way. In the tiny offshoot room, Ben’s bed looked to be safe from the rain.
Ben would not still be working, not at this time of night and not in this weather. Maybe he was sheltering in the farmer’s barn or somewhere? Merry was filled with foreboding. Something was wrong, Ben wouldn’t do this to her. He would have left a note saying where he was. She went downstairs and put on her coat, before wrapping a shawl around her head, crossing it over her chest and tying it at the back. She lit the storm lantern that hung behind the back door, thanking God that there was even a little paraffin oil in it. Then she went out, closing the door behind her to keep in the warmth and walked along to the path that led up the field to Farmer Parkin’s place.
The wind was rising and howling in the trees and her shawl was soon wet through. But she took little notice of it for she was used to carrying on as normal in good weather or bad.
‘Nay, lass, I’ve not seen your Ben, not since Saturday,’ said Vincent Parkin, staring at her. Merry looked like a sodden waif with water streaming down her face and her clothes clinging to her. He stood back from the door. ‘Howay in by the fire,’ he said. ‘The missus’ll give you something hot. You’ll be lucky not to catch your death.’
Merry went into the bright farmhouse kitchen, hesitating to go in further than a couple of yards as her clothes were literally dripping onto the terra cotta tiles of the floor.
‘Never you mind the mess,’ said Mrs Parkin who had bustled up behind her husband. ‘Howay lass, come to the fire. Do you fancy a cup of tea? There’s a fresh brew.’
‘No thanks, Mrs Parkin,’ Merry replied. ‘I’m looking for our Ben. I can’t understand where he’s got to.’
She looked worried an’ all, thought the farmer’s wife. There were dark smudges of tiredness beneath her eyes and her skin was tinged with pink only where it had been battered with the rain.
‘Take your things off and dry them out on the rail,’ she said. ‘You’ll catch your death if you don’t, lass.’
‘No, I’d best be getting back. Ben might be home by now and worried about me. If you could just let me have a drop of paraffin oil for the lamp? I’ve run out.’
In spite of their protestations Merry said goodbye and went to the door, pulling her already dripping shawl further over her head. Mr Parkin filled the lamp and held it out to her. ‘Ben’ll not be far,’ he said, trying to reassure her. ‘You know what lads are like, scamps the lot of them.’
Merry thanked them both and went out into the storm. She hurried down the path and along the waggon way to the house, but when she opened the door the kitchen was empty except for the smell of apples and burnt sugar. She took off her outdoor things and hung them by the fire to dry, then opened the oven door and took out the baked apples. The baking tin would need to be scrubbed for the sugar was burnt on, she noted with half her mind. The other half was ranging wildly from one possibility to another of what might have happened to Ben. He would not have left like this, he would not, no. He was a sensible, hard-working lad, not a scamp.
Merry didn’t know what to do. It was so dark outside, there was such a storm. She would never find Ben in this. She would have to wait for morning. The Morrisons were living in Winton Colliery now. As soon as it was first light she would go and ask them if he had seen Ben.
First she must have something to eat, try to sleep for a while at least. Merry spooned broth from the pan and forced herself to eat it. Then she ate one of the burnt baked apples; no sense in wasting food. It was too hard to come by. She lay down on the settle, stretched out and closed her eyes, but she found herself watching the flickering of the dying fire on the ceiling, imagining pictures of Ben in the shades of light and dark. Ben fallen and hurt, unable to get back home; out in this storm too, with no shelter.
At five o’clock she got up, brought in water from the pump and sluiced herself all over with it. She rubbed herself dry and put on her clothes. Her coat was still wet from the night before but it would have to do. She did have a dry shawl for her shoulders and head, though. Merry tied it on and went out.
The rain had stopped and a three-quarter moon shone down so there was some light to guide her steps as she picked her way to the waggon way and walked along it, treading from sleeper to sleeper. She stopped at intervals and called.
‘Ben? Ben, where are you?’
There was no reply apart from the cry of a vixen far off in the woods. Soon she saw the chimneys and engine house of Winton Colliery looming ahead with the slag heap rising dark alongside. She turned off before she got to the colliery yard and went on down to the miners’ rows.
It was still only half-past six and the only person about was the knocker-upper with his long pole to rattle against the bedroom windows of the back shift men.
‘Rise and shine!’ he called softly and again, ‘Rise and shine!’ He glanced curiously at Merry as he said, ‘Morning, lass, mind, you’re up early.’ But he didn’t pause in his stride as he had to get round all of the rows to rouse the whole shift.
Merry hesitated outside the door of the Morrison house. There was no light there so Mr Morrison must not be on back shift. Besides, she didn’t know the family very well. For some reason Gran had kept away from her former neighbours, those that had settled close, and she had not encouraged Merry to go into Winton either. She only knew them because they had had a daughter at school with her. Merry had become friendly with Ethel Morrison and been invited to the house, but her gran wouldn’t let her go there.
‘And don’t you talk to her neither,’ Gran had said, inexplicably. ‘Don’t go telling them all our business.’ Ben had been sent to school in Shildon; that was another strange thing. Gran said it was better for him, a bigger school in a thriving railway town.
‘What are you doing out on a morning like this, lass?’
The speaker was a miner who had come out of a door further along the street. He was in his pit clothes and his lamp swung at his belt. Even as he spoke others were coming out of the houses, meeting up and making their way to the pithead.
‘You’re that lass from Old Pit, aren’t you?’ he went on.
‘Yes, that’s right. I’m looking for my brother, he didn’t come home last night,’ said Merry. ‘He’s a lad of thirteen?’
‘Well, I’ve not seen anybody about,’ said the miner. ‘But I’ll ask the others.’ He turned to what was now a line of miners walking along in the middle of the road. ‘Nobody seen a young lad about, have they?’
There was a general shaking of heads and quiet nays, when suddenly the buzzer sounded at the pithead and the man moved away. ‘Go home, lass,’ he advised. ‘He’ll turn up, you’ll see.’
Merry thanked him and followed the back shift along to the pit yard, passed the lit-up engine house, skirted a row of coal trucks on the waggon way and set off on the walk back.
Ben was not at home when she got there. The fire was out, the kitchen cold and the goat bleating plaintively next door. Merry didn’t know what to do so she took refuge in routine. She milked the goat and put the jug in the cold pantry. She forced herself to eat a slice of bread with a smear of bramble jam on it and drank a cup of water from the pump. It tasted icy cold and slaty but she was thirsty and besides, she had had hardly any sleep and she needed to go to work. She couldn’t afford not to. At least it was her
fortnightly half day and she only had five hours to endure before she could look for Ben.
The morning seemed more like ten hours than five but at last she was walking, almost running down the drive and through the gates – and it was there that she nearly bumped into Dr Gallagher.
‘Oops!’ he cried, and caught hold of her upper arms. ‘What’s the big hurry to get away?’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ she said and suddenly she was overwhelmed with worry and lack of sleep, blurting out, ‘Our Ben’s lost, I can’t find him anywhere, he wasn’t at home when I got back last night and I looked for him everywhere and he wasn’t—’
‘Whoa there, take time to take a breath,’ advised Tom. ‘Your Ben?’
‘My brother Ben, he’s thirteen and—’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Tom, looking thoughtful. There was nothing urgent at the hospital – he just happened to have finished his rounds with a patient in town and had decided to give his workhouse patients a quick check before going home. But he could come back if necessary. ‘Look, the trap is just over the road, I’ll take you home. You’ll see, Ben will probably be there. He’ll have a perfectly good explanation for everything.’
Ben better have an explanation, Tom thought grimly, putting his sister through all this. He handed Merry into the trap and put the travelling rug over her knees for a cold wind had sprung up and she was shivering.
‘Soon be there,’ he said and they set off along Cockton Hill and into Newgate Street, then took the road out to Canney Hill. It was but a short ride from there to where the stile gave access to the path down the field to Old Pit.
‘Warm enough?’ he asked once and she nodded. She had struggled to regain her composure and now sat quietly, her folded hands under the cosy rug. When they arrived at the stile Tom tied the pony to the fence and handed her out of the trap.
‘I can manage myself now, thank you very much, Doctor,’ she said.
‘I’ll come with you, all the same. If Ben is still missing I will help you find him.’
Merry was too tired and miserable to argue. She allowed him to walk beside her to the bottom of the field and along the path to the deserted village.
At midday, in the light of the pale winter sun with frost glinting on the roof that remained, and blank windows looking out on the street, the place looked absolutely desolate to Tom. He hadn’t realised just how desolate it would look. They reached the end house, the only one with a scrubbed and yellow-stoned step and clean windows, and went in.
Somehow it seemed colder inside than out with no fire in the grate. Cold struck through his strong leather soles from the flagstones of the kitchen floor. The remains of a meal were on the scrubbed table, a pan on the fender by the fire.
‘Ben? Are you upstairs, Ben?’
Merry stood at the foot of the rickety staircase and called up it. There was no answer but she went up anyway and looked.
‘He’s not here,’ she said when she came down.
‘I’ll light the fire,’ said Tom. ‘Then we can decide what to do. Don’t worry, we’ll find him. In the meantime, I think a cup of tea would be in order, don’t you?’ There would be some tea, wouldn’t there? Though there seemed precious little else. He looked around the kitchen – efforts had been made to make it comfortable, with home-made proddy mats on the flags. A mat frame stood in the corner with a half-made mat on it; there was a rocking chair by the range with a bright cushion on it and a settle along one wall. But everything in the place spoke of poverty. He looked at Merry’s pale face, her red-rimmed eyes and concern and protectiveness strengthened within him.
Nine
‘Full name of the missing person,’ said the sergeant of police. He stood behind a high desk and looked at Merry over half spectacles. She was nobbut a lass herself, he thought, with those large brown eyes looking so anxiously at him.
‘Benjamin Trent,’ said Merry.
‘Age?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘Do you have his birth certificate?’
‘Oh! It must be in Granma’s tin box,’ Merry said to Tom.
‘Well, if he doesn’t turn up you can bring it in tomorrow,’ said the sergeant. ‘Just for the records, you understand.’
He looked from Dr Gallagher, whom he knew, to the young girl who evidently lived at Old Pit. He hadn’t thought anyone lived at Old Pit, not nowadays. The place was nothing but ruined and broken-down pitmen’s cottages.
‘That’s all,’ he said. ‘Let me know if the lad turns up.’
‘That’s all? Do you mean you don’t even want a description? This is a young boy we’re talking about, a lad of thirteen who’s gone missing,’ Tom said sharply.
‘Not missing. Not officially, Doctor,’ said the sergeant. ‘He’s only been gone for twenty-four hours. He can’t be considered missing until it’s a week at least.’
‘But this is a young boy!’
‘A young man, he is considered in law,’ said the sergeant. ‘Thirteen years old is old enough to work for your keep. He has probably run away to sea or somewhere. Lads do it all the time. It’s in their natures, you see, Doctor.’
‘But—’
Tom was interrupted by a young constable who came in holding a woman firmly by the arm. She was rolling drunk and he had to catch her once as she started to slide down to the floor. She was crying copiously, drunken tears which ran down her withered cheeks and stained wet the front of her dirty black dress.
‘Yes, Constable?’ The sergeant looked over to the pair with irritation.
‘Excuse me, Sergeant Brown,’ said the constable. ‘I’ll take her into the cells until you’re ready for her.’ As he took the woman through a door at the side the woman began wailing and when this had no effect she began cursing the constable, the sergeant and the police as a whole.
‘As I was saying,’ said Tom, ‘I think you should put out a general alert for this young boy.’
‘I can’t do that,’ said the sergeant. ‘It’s against regulations. No, come back in a week if he is still missing. Likely you’ll have heard from him by then.’ Why the doctor was so interested in the lad he didn’t know. Or was it the lass he was interested in? She was certainly something of a looker, thin and pale though she was.
‘But Ben would never go away without saying, without telling me,’ said Merry. ‘He wouldn’t. I’m sure something’s happened to him.’
Sergeant Brown was becoming impatient now. If it hadn’t been for the presence of the doctor he would have indulged in some plain speaking about the young hellions from the mining villages he had to deal with every day. They were quite capable of doing anything, anything at all. Anyway, if they lived at Old Pit they must have been living like gypsies, the pair of them. That was probably where the lad was when he thought of it, away with the gypsies.
‘I have work to do, sir, if you don’t mind?’ he said pointedly to Tom. So Tom and Merry had no option but to go.
Outside on the road of High Bondgate they stood for a moment. Tom took out his pocket watch and noted the time – he was already late for his afternoon surgery.
‘Try not to worry too much, Nurse Trent,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Ben will come home soon, you’ll see.’ Though he was not sure at all, really. ‘I have to go now, to my surgery. I’ll give you a lift as far as Winton if you like. You look tired.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Merry, taking her tone from him. ‘You’ve been very good.’
As the trap turned into the market place Miles was just emerging from the Queen’s Head Hotel with a woman, Miss Bertha Porritt. They had been taking tea in the lounge. Miles had met Miss Porritt, by design rather than accident, when she was looking at the latest winter fashions in Jones’s Department Store. She had happened to mention on the last occasion he had visited her father that she liked to see what was new in the shops and usually on a Friday afternoon. The town was not so busy on a Friday. Thursday was market day when the town was thronged with people from the pit villages and the farming villages up th
e dale, all after bargains. Fridays, the shopkeepers had more time to give to their better clientele, she had informed the two men in her not quite strident tone.
When Miles met her in the street on this particular Friday and offered to give her a cup of reviving tea at the Queen’s Head she had agreed instantly.
‘Was that Dr Gallagher?’ she asked, now leaning to one side to see round the corner where Tom’s trap was disappearing behind the town hall. ‘Surely he has someone in the trap with him?’
Miles smiled though his mood had turned black as thunder. ‘One of his patients I shouldn’t wonder. He has a practice in one of the colliery villages. He is a tenderhearted young man. No doubt he will learn as he gets older that it is impossible to help these people. I know, I’ve tried.’
‘I’m sure you are just as tender hearted as your son, Mr Gallagher,’ Miss Porritt gushed. ‘I’m sure you just pretend to be hard, but if there is a truly deserving case or with those close to you . . .’ She let the sentence trail off.
‘Do call me Miles, at least when we are alone,’ he said. ‘I think we know each other well enough now, don’t you?’
‘Indeed, Mr Gallagher – Miles. And you must call me Bertha.’
He was making progress, thought Miles triumphantly. It was all ridiculously easy. Really, she wasn’t so ugly. Her eyes were quite fine in fact. He handed Bertha into her carriage, holding her fingers in his a little longer than was strictly necessary.
‘Would it be convenient for me to call on you, Bertha, perhaps on Saturday afternoon? Say three o’clock?’
Bertha couldn’t conceal her delight. ‘Of course, Miles, I will look forward to it,’ she replied and Miles indicated to her coachman to drive on.
This evening he would have a serious word with Tom, he thought. Anyone could have seen him riding through the town with what looked like a girl who was little more than destitute. He wasn’t going to do his reputation any good, let alone his chances of building a practice among the decent people of the district.
