The Miner’s Girl

by Maggie Hope

  A woman came out of the Store and pushed past them, her loaded shopping basket catching against Merry’s leg.

  ‘Hey, watch where you’re going, Mrs,’ said Robbie and pulled Merry aside. To Merry it felt novel to have someone look out for her, even in such a little thing. Her heart warmed a little.

  ‘Well?’ asked Robbie. ‘Look, if you like I’ll get taken on at Eden Hope; they have some empty houses along there, two bedrooms an’ all. I’ll ask the morn, go along and see the manager. What do you say?’

  ‘All right, I’ll wed you,’ said Merry. At least it would keep her out of the workhouse, though that wasn’t a great reason for getting married, she thought, as Robbie looked around to make sure no one was watching, then gave her a quick hug.

  Eighteen

  ‘Now then, Miranda, what’s wrong with the children today?’

  Dr Macready turned his swivel chair and looked keenly at Merry and the children over his glasses. She sat on the hard chair in front of his desk with Alice sucking her thumb on her knee and one arm around Benny who stood beside her, leaning against her side. Before she could say anything Dr Macready had seen how pale Benny looked, with great shadows under his eyes. He was holding his left arm awkwardly too and his head drooped.

  ‘It’s Benny, Doctor, he’s hurt his arm and I’m worried about it.’

  ‘Let’s have a look, son.’ The doctor got to his feet and came round the desk. Benny pushed harder at his mother but said nothing.

  ‘Go on, Benny, let the doctor see,’ said Merry. She held Alice with one hand and gave Benny a gentle push. ‘He’s a bit shy, Doctor,’ she excused him.

  ‘No, no, he knows me well enough, don’t you, laddie?’

  He drew the boy towards the pool of light coming in the window. ‘Now, let’s have a look.’

  The boy’s arm was bruised from shoulder to wrist, and the wrist swollen. ‘What happened, Benny? How did you do this?’

  ‘He fell down the stairs,’ Merry said quickly.

  Dr Macready glanced over to her; she looked anxiously back. There was something there, he thought, something she’s not telling me. ‘Can you turn your hand, laddie?’ he asked. Benny turned his hand, albeit slowly. He waggled his fingers in obedience to the doctor, wincing as he did so.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything broken,’ Dr Macready said to Merry. ‘But it is badly bruised. How did you say it happened?’

  Merry repeated that the boy had fallen down the stairs. The doctor sighed. This was not the first time Benny had hurt himself. He would have to watch him.

  ‘Is everything all right at home, Miranda?’ he asked.

  ‘What? Yes, yes of course,’ Merry answered, but he picked up the hesitancy in her voice.

  ‘And Alice, she’s well? She certainly looks it.’

  The little girl was struggling to get down from her mother’s arms; she was plump and rosy and determined, almost too strong for her mother to hold her.

  ‘Good, good. Well, I think I’ll put a sling on this young man’s arm. Keep it on for a few days and it should be fine. And you, laddie, be careful how you come downstairs in future.’

  Merry walked home with the children, passing the school on the way. The schoolchildren were in the yard, the boys at one end behind a fence and the girls at the other. They were shouting and laughing and chasing each other, deep in a game of tag and Benny paused to watch.

  ‘Can I go back to school, Mam?’ he asked. Benny was a quiet child, saying little but he was still quite popular with the other boys in his class. Now two of them noticed him, came towards the railings and as they began to chatter to him he seemed a different boy. But a teacher came out and rang the bell three times so they hurried over to join the lines ready to march into school.

  Merry looked down at Benny – the lively expression he had worn when talking to the boys had faded and his face had a closed-in look.

  ‘Can I, Mam?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll have to go in and see Miss High,’ Merry said doubtfully.

  ‘Me go! Me go!’ shouted Alice. She was at the age that whatever anyone else wanted she wanted.

  ‘Come on then, we’ll have to hurry.’

  If they weren’t back at the house before Robbie was back from fore shift there would be trouble, even though his dinner was in the oven and would be ready for him. But she went through the school gates with a child on each hand and into the school. The headmistress’s study was just to the left past the entrance. Merry knocked and went in.

  ‘We can’t be held responsible if anything happens to him,’ Miss High said, looking dubiously at Benny’s sling.

  ‘He wants to come, Miss High,’ said Merry. ‘Benny likes school.’

  ‘He’s doing well, Mrs Wright. He’s a good worker,’ Miss High replied. She tapped a pencil on her teeth then smiled. ‘All right, Mrs Wright, after all, it is his left arm so he can still write. But as I said, we can bear no responsibility for anything that might happen.’ She turned to the boy. ‘Go on, Benny, go to your class. Tell Miss Gunner I said it was all right. Go along now, and don’t run.’

  Benny’s face lit up and he hurried out, if not at a run at something very close to it. Only at the door did he remember and turn back, ‘Ta ra, Mam,’ he said and was off.

  Merry hurried home as fast as she could with Alice hanging back beside her; the interview with the headmistress had taken longer than she had thought. Benny had been glad to go; she could see that only too clearly. He was a changed little boy away from his home. Especially when Robbie was there.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Robbie greeted her as she went in the back door. ‘Is it too much for a man to ask for his wife to be home when he’s finished his shift? Where’s me dinner, any road?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll put it out now,’ Merry answered. She hurried to the range and got the dish of panackelty out of the oven and put it on the table. It smelled delicious; in fact it had smelled delicious when in the oven so he knew it was there. All he had to do was spoon it on to his plate. But he could only have been home ten minutes; he hadn’t had to wait long.

  ‘Daddy, daddy,’ said Alice and leaned against him. Robbie’s expression altered to one of fond indulgence as he bent down and swung her up in his arms.

  ‘Now then, me little lass,’ he said, ‘what have you been up to? Tell your old dad.’

  Alice babbled a long incomprehensible string of words; only she knew what she meant. She patted her father’s cheek and shiny bits of coal clung to her hand.

  ‘Put her down, Robbie, you’ll have her all black,’ said Merry. ‘Eat your dinner.’ She took Alice from him and the little girl started to wail until she was sat beside him on a cushion and a small plate of panackelty put before her. Merry put a bib under her chin, though there were black smudges on her dress from her contact with Robbie. Merry sighed. She would have to steep the dress before she washed it. For the thousandth time she wished Robbie would bath before eating but she knew that few miners did. They had eaten nothing but a snack in the pit, their bait as they called it, and it was a long time since he had had a meal.

  Robbie was tucking into his dinner, all his attention on it as he reached for a slice of bread with hands that gleamed white against the black of his wrists. At least he washed his hands under the pump before he ate, she thought. Some didn’t bother.

  ‘Coal dust isn’t dirty,’ she had heard many a time from them. ‘Just black.’

  Merry had just spooned out dinner for herself, and a plate to put in the oven for Benny when he came in from school, when Robbie pushed back his plate, took a long swig of tea from his pint pot and felt behind his ear for the dog end of a cigarette he had there. He went to his chair by the fire and lit it, inhaled deeply and leaned back, stretching his long legs out on the steel fender.

  ‘I’ll have me bath as soon as I’ve finished this,’ he said. ‘I want to go down to see the pigeons. There’s a race on Saturday. They’re to put on the train.’ Most of his spare time was spen
t down at his allotment with his pigeons. Merry hurriedly ate a few more mouthfuls then went outside to bring in the tin bath. With a bit of luck he would be out of the house before Benny came in for his dinner.

  ‘Don’t think I’ve forgot about it,’ Robbie growled as he went out of the door, his hair still wet and his pit clothes left in a heap on a newspaper by the side of the range. ‘I just haven’t time now. I want to know where you’ve been.’

  He hurried off down the yard and out of the gate. Merry picked up Alice and followed him to the end of the street to watch for Benny as he raced round the corner with his friend, Jimmy Morrison. Jimmy turned off into the next street and Merry watched as Benny’s pace slowed and he began to slouch, trailing his feet. But he looked up and saw his mother and sister there and gave them a small smile. Merry held out a hand to him and he took it, his other arm held close to his body in the sling.

  ‘Your dad’s gone down the allotments,’ she said as sadness washed over her. ‘And there’s panacklty for your dinner. I bet you’re hungry.’

  Benny smiled and nodded; he never wasted words. But he straightened and began to pick up his feet as he walked. Alice was yawning by the time they got back so Merry put her down for her nap. Then she poured herself a cup of tea from the pot on the hob, not caring that it was stewed by now and sat down at the scrubbed wooden table to watch Benny eat. He started well enough then seemed to flag, rested his elbows on the table and picked at the food with his fork.

  ‘Eat it up, Benny,’ Merry encouraged him. He was so thin and just at the minute he looked so small and vulnerable. Her heart ached. Benny put another forkful into his mouth and chewed slowly, though in fact the food was fairly soft and the pieces of bacon in it were the only bits to chew.

  ‘I’ve got you an apple for after your dinner,’ said Merry. ‘If you eat it all up, that is.’ Benny ate another forkful.

  Merry remembered the evening before; it was late, about seven o’clock when Robbie had come in from the allotments. His face darkened when he saw Benny, playing in the corner with a ‘wheelie’ made out of a cotton reel, elastic and a short stick of wood. The stick was used to wind up the elastic and then when the contraption was put on the floor it slowly rolled along the flags as the elastic unwound. Jimmy’s dad had shown him how to make one, helped him do it even, and Benny was proud of it.

  ‘What’s he doing up at this time of night?’ Robbie demanded.

  ‘I was getting him ready for bed in a minute,’ Merry replied. ‘Benny, it’s bedtime.’ Benny didn’t look up; he hadn’t even noticed his father had come in, being so absorbed in his game.

  Robbie bent and grabbed Benny by his arm, lifting him up off his feet. The boy began to scream at the shock of it and that further enraged Robbie. He picked up the ‘wheelie’ and threw it on the fire.

  ‘Robbie!’ Merry shouted and went to take the boy from him. Robbie pulled him away roughly but put him on his feet at least and the boy’s sobs subsided to a hopeless crying. The only sound he made was an occasional sniff.

  ‘There was no call for that,’ Merry said flatly. ‘Leave loose of him, you great bully or I’ll . . . I’ll bang you over the head with the frying pan. I’ll scream the place down and tell everyone how cruel you are to the bairn.’ The walls between the houses were single brick and any commotion could be heard two doors away at least. Robbie wouldn’t like that, she knew – he liked everyone to think he was a great fellow.

  Robbie sneered at her but he let loose of Benny and Merry breathed her relief. She rushed to the boy and gathered him up in her arms. Benny buried his face in her shoulder.

  ‘I wasn’t going to hurt him, woman,’ Robbie growled. ‘He’s as soft as muck. I was just trying to make a man of him.’

  ‘He’s only five years old,’ Merry reminded him. She could smell the beer on Robbie’s breath now; he must have been to the Club on his way home. Of course, the Pigeon Fanciers meetings were held at the Workingmen’s Club, and it was a good excuse for a drink.

  ‘You smell like a brewery,’ she went on, bitter about the way he had treated Benny. ‘I expect you’re fit for the pit tonight.’ She could feel Benny trembling in her arms. ‘Howay, son,’ she said to him. ‘I’ll make you another wheelie. I saw how it was done. Now it’s time for your bed.’

  Robbie scowled. ‘Aw, you have the lad like a little nancy boy. Why don’t you dress him in a skirt an’ be done with it?’

  Merry didn’t reply – she couldn’t. She felt if she did she would give him such a mouthful he would be sure to hit her, and it wouldn’t be the first time. Oh God, she thought, mebbe I should have gone to the workhouse as it couldn’t have been worse than this. She rushed upstairs with Benny, undressed him in the icy bedroom and put him to bed. At least he had stopped his silent sobbing and his fair eyelashes, beaded with tears, were beginning to fan his tear-stained cheeks.

  When he was asleep Merry checked on his sister, asleep on the other side of the room in a cot that had been Robbie’s when he was a boy. Then she went downstairs. Robbie was dressing in his pit clothes which she had dashed against the wall in the yard to get rid of the excess coal dust and then dried by the fire. He was about ready but for his boots when Benny began to scream.

  ‘That little sod, he’ll wake my bairn,’ Robbie shouted and pushed Merry out of the way as he ran upstairs. Merry followed full of dread.

  ‘Don’t touch him!’ she cried. ‘Don’t you dare touch him.’

  ‘Touch him? I’ll murder him,’ said Robbie.

  Benny was standing up in a bed drenched with urine, his night shirt wet at the front. ‘Mam, mammy!’ he was shouting.

  ‘You dirty little tyke, I’ll mammy you,’ said Robbie. In her cot, Alice stirred and sat up. ‘Look what you’ve done now.’ He advanced on the boy and Benny, his face full of fear, dodged him and ran for his mother. But Robbie grabbed him from her and pushed him ahead of him to the top of the stairs. Merry tried to get between them but he pushed her out of the way so violently she fell to the floor.

  ‘They’ll hear next door.’ She tried to stop him the way she had the last time.

  ‘Bugger the neighbours,’ he said savagely. Merry staggered to her feet, but even as she stepped towards the landing she heard Benny fall, bumping on each step, taking an eternity to get down to the bottom.

  ‘What have you done?’ she cried. ‘You pushed him, didn’t you?’

  Robbie was standing at the top of the stairs, quieter now, looking down at the huddled figure of Benny at the bottom.

  ‘I did not push him, he fell,’ Robbie said as she took the stairs two at a time and bent over the small figure.

  ‘He’s all right. He isn’t dead. Oh, God be thanked,’ Merry breathed.

  She relived that terrible moment when she thought he was dead as she gazed at him the following night. She was going to have to do something, she knew. For the sake of her son she must do something. But what could she do? She had no one to turn to, no one at all. Very well, then she would do something herself. She vowed it now as she laid her hand on her son’s head, smoothed his pale hair, so different from her’s or Robbie’s. If she didn’t, Robbie might kill Benny. She went back down into the kitchen. Robbie was putting on his pit boots.

  ‘I’d swing for you if it wasn’t for the bairns,’ she said quietly. ‘Make no mistake, one of these days I’ll take a knife to you if you don’t leave Benny alone.’

  Robbie laughed. ‘Oh aye? Then who’ll look after your precious lad? Me mam will take Alice but she won’t take that little bastard. I’ve told her the truth, you know, I told her last week.’

  Nineteen

  Miles gazed out of his study window in Winnipeg Colliery with profound dissatisfaction. It was just like his fool of a father-in-law to give the place such an idiotic name, he thought. Old Porritt and his wife had been on honeymoon in Canada when news had come through that the engineers sinking an experimental shaft on the north side of Bishop Auckland had struck coal, Busty seam in fact. So he had called it
Winnipeg, where they were actually staying at the time.

  Damn fool of a man. Old Porritt, as Miles was in the habit of calling his father-in-law though he was but ten years older than he was himself, was a fool. Far from turning over the reins of his business to Miles as any man of his advanced years and waning powers would normally do, he treated his daughter’s husband as an errand boy, or just about. He certainly never let Miles anywhere near decision making. In fact, anything Miles suggested was usually barely considered by him.

  At least he was still agent for the group of mines and the land surrounding to the south of the river. But he wanted more, he wanted his own mines, and he wanted to market his own coal from them too. He was sure he would make a success of it. The coal from Eden Hope and the rest belonged to his ironmaster boss and went straight to Teesside for it was good coking coal for making steel. Marketing didn’t come into it. But there were great possibilities to take the odd waggon load or two and add them to that of Winnipeg Colliery. Were it not for Porritt. Why, he was almost decrepit. He was past bothering about new markets.

  The door opened and Miles turned, irritation rising in him. Bertha came in, her long nose pink at the end for she had a perpetual cold. She was wearing a pink dress too and it was completely unsuitable for daytime wear with its ribbons of a deeper pink. He watched her critically as she came up to the desk. Her bodice was cut low but only showed up her lack of bosom. She was altogether too thin, all angles and hard bones, and uncomfortable to lie beside in bed. All this went through his mind but he still managed to smile at her.

  ‘Now then my love, I’m rather busy. You know I’m delighted to see you but if my work is interrupted—’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said his wife. ‘I’ll go anywhere I like in my own house. But I came to tell you that I want to go over to see Father this morning. So be good enough to harness the horse to the trap. You can take me and then you can go and do what you like.’

  ‘But I have to go to Winton today to see the manager—’