by Maggie Hope
‘It is not often I can use the trap,’ she said to Tom, though she was watching her husband coldly as she spoke. ‘Miles insists on living here and he needs the trap, he says. Though why we can’t have a carriage—’ She had shrugged. Miles did not rise to this.
‘How are you, really, Father?’ Tom asked when the pipe was going well and Bertha had gone off down the driveway.
Miles laughed shortly. ‘I’m well enough,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry about your stepmother and I. She talks a lot but I have learned to let it wash over me. She has her good points.’
After the tedious hour at lunch Tom had some difficulty in thinking what they might be but he did not comment.
‘It has been a bad summer of diphtheria and scarlet fever,’ he remarked. ‘I understand it has been the same in Winton and Eden Hope.’
‘Yes,’ his father said. ‘These people have no sense of hygiene, that’s the problem.’
‘How can you say that? What can you expect when the only water tap for a whole row is in the street; when there is no proper drainage or sanitation? This hot summer we were lucky to escape cholera. This is the twentieth century, surely we can do better.’
Miles took his pipe out to reply. ‘For God’s sake, Tom,’ he snapped. ‘Can’t you talk about anything else? I haven’t seen you for months. Haven’t you got a nice girl yet? When are you going to give me any grandchildren?’ He was going red in the face.
‘Calm down, Father,’ said Tom. ‘You’ll have an attack of apoplexy if you’re not careful. I’m sorry, you’re right, I shouldn’t talk about work.’
Miles grunted and drew on his pipe causing acrid fumes to swirl and rise to the glass roof of the conservatory.
‘I asked you a question.’
‘Yes, sorry,’ Tom said again. ‘No, I haven’t got a future wife in mind at the moment. I don’t have much spare time, you know, and women don’t like having to take second place to a job of work.’ For some reason his father’s question had brought to mind not Jane Hall but a picture of Old Pit in a snowstorm and the young girl who had wanted to be a nurse. She was married now, had been for years. She probably had half a dozen children and was middle-aged and careworn before her time, like some of the miners’ wives that were his patients at Burdon.
Miles talked a little about his work: how one seam in Winton was petering out; how they had decided to sink a shaft to try to reach Busty seam but their efforts were hampered by water which they were pumping out into a new reservoir. The chances of actually making a profit after all this capital expenditure were poor and they would likely have to reduce the men’s wages further. The chance of unrest if this was done was very real – the miners’ Union was becoming too powerful, that was the trouble.
Tom thought of the miners and their families and bit his lip. Since the end of the Boer War coal and steel were not in such high demand and the wages bill was the easiest thing to cut down in spite of the Union.
‘There will be hard times ahead for the families here then,’ he said.
‘Nonsense,’ Miles replied tersely. ‘If the men drank a bit less and stayed away from the pitch and toss schools behind the slag heaps, their families would do well enough.’
Tom didn’t answer, for there was no point. Sadly he felt he had grown even further away from his father than he had been. They would never think alike. Miles rose to his feet.
‘I have to reply to a letter from Bolton – the owner, you know. Best do it while Bertha is out of the house and it is quiet, I think. You can amuse yourself for a while, Tom?’
It was a crisp October afternoon and the sun still shone, though there was little heat in it. Tom fancied looking round his old haunts.
‘I might go for a short ride out if you don’t mind, Father,’ he said as Miles knocked out his pipe in a large plant pot containing a sorry looking spider plant and went back into the house.
It was good freewheeling down the bank to Winton Colliery. He cycled by the miners’ rows then took the road to Eden Hope. He considered calling in on Dr Macready then changed his mind as the house looked so peaceful and no one was in sight. It was a shame to disturb his colleague if he was having a rest. It was fairly quiet being Saturday afternoon. Bishop Auckland was playing a football match against Shildon and most of the men and boys who could afford tickets were probably there, he guessed. Most of the women were likely to be looking for bargains at the market in the town.
The place looked just the same apart from that. Two or three urchins playing ‘kicky off chock’ with an old tin can on the end of the rows. Tom turned on to the road leading up to Coundon, intending to do a circular tour that would bring him back to Canney Hill. At the top of the bank he paused to catch his breath and looked out over the valley with its mixture of green farms and woodland, and pockets of industry with pit winding wheels and chimneys sticking up against the hillside opposite. He glanced along the farm track that intersected the road. To the left, the track would bring him back to Canney Hill. To the right it led past the stile and path leading down past Parkin’s Farm to Old Pit. He climbed back on his bicycle and pedalled along the track. At the stile he lifted the machine over and freewheeled down the grass to the waggon way then the path that ran alongside.
It was slow going and he had to watch out for stones and patches of gravel or oil but eventually he came to where the waggon way divided. He took the branch that led to Old Pit, having to dismount and walk now for the way was neglected and overgrown. Great beds of nettles and rosebay willow herb and long strands of bramble stuck out from the side. The waggon rails were rusty and some of the sleepers displaced so that there were gaps between some joints.
The sun had gone in when he reached the houses of Old Pit. There was no wind and a chill silence hung over the place. Grass grew among the cobbles. Yet some of the cottages still had doors and there was the glint of glass from a few of the windows. Tom left his bicycle and walked up the road in the middle. There were patches of weeds growing there too, between the patches of stone and brick that the old miners had once formed into a surface that would not turn into mud every time it rained. The pump was still there and what’s more it seemed to be still in working order for there was a trickle of water from its spout.
Tom looked through the window of the end house and was surprised to see signs that someone had been there and not too long ago either – there was straw in the corner, straw that looked fresh. And there were ashes and cinders in the grate and an old chair by it. He went in and felt the bar; it was still warm. Probably some tramp, he thought. Or perhaps some children from round about played here, playing house. He smiled and went out, closing the rickety door after him. He turned, frowning and looked across at the houses opposite – for a moment he had thought someone was watching him. But there were only the blank holes where most of the windows had been and dirty glass in one or two, black now and reflecting nothing for the sun had gone.
Tom went to the pump and worked the handle a few times – sure enough water came out in a trickle at first and then a steady stream splashing out over the square of bricks beneath. He cupped his hand and took a drink; the water was cold and tasted faintly of minerals but seemed pure.
Standing up straight he looked again at the houses opposite, even considered going over to look closer but in the end changed his mind. His imagination was working overtime, he told himself, and walked up the length of the street to where he had left his bicycle.
He had to walk his machine up the bank to the track then cycle along its length to where it met the road just below Canney Hill. The day was darkening as the early October dusk came in. He could see patches of white fog swirling at the bottom of the valley and the air had turned bitterly cold.
‘Where have you been?’ Miles demanded as he entered the house and stood to take off the bicycle clamps around his trouser bottoms. ‘I’ve been waiting for my tea.’
‘Oh, just around,’ Tom answered.
‘Well, come on in now and I’ll ring for Poll
y,’ said Miles. ‘I’m surprised you stayed out so long when it has turned cold. Now we have hardly any time left to talk before you will have to go back.’
As Tom drank tea and ate toasted pikelets oozing with butter he was listening to his father with only half an ear. After a while Miles fell silent too. Tom was still thinking with regret of Merry. He should not have gone to Old Pit, it merely stirred up bittersweet memories. Yet he hadn’t known her well, he told himself. Apart from that one night all he saw of her was at the hospital, a small hard-working little girl being bossed around by Sister Harrison.
The telephone rang in the hall and after a moment Polly came in. ‘It’s the mistress, sir, she wants to speak to you,’ she told Miles and he got up with a heavy sigh and went out.
‘She’s staying at her father’s house,’ he reported when he came back. ‘She left it too late to come back. She doesn’t want to travel in the dark. She has more sense than you – you shouldn’t be travelling in the dark either.’
Tom reflected that his father seemed happy enough about his wife staying away for the night but merely remarked that it wasn’t far to the station and he did have lights.
‘I’ll have to go now to catch the train,’ he said and Miles grunted what could have been a goodbye. As he rode down the hill and up the other side into the market place Tom thought his father seemed to be thinking of something else. Perhaps he should have taken more interest when Miles was talking about his work; perhaps his father was worried about something there. He would have to come home more often, he thought.
Miles had been thinking of something else but not what Tom had supposed. A plan was forming in his mind, a plan that might achieve his ends. He spent the evening sitting before the fire working the plan out in his mind; he would have to be very careful and take plenty of time to work it out, for he couldn’t afford a mistake.
Twenty-Five
Christmas Eve 1902
‘Is it time to go to the carol service, Mam?’ asked Benjamin as he had already done half a dozen times in the last hour.
‘Not yet, pet, we’ll go at five o’clock,’ Merry answered. ‘That gives us half an hour to walk to Bondgate and half an hour for you to get ready. It’s only half-past four now, come and have something to eat. If you don’t you’ll get hungry halfway through and not be able to sing.’
‘I will,’ Benjamin asserted but he came to the table and picked up a sandwich. He ate a couple of bites and put it down. ‘I’m not hungry, Mam,’ he said.
‘You’re too excited to eat, that’s the trouble,’ said Merry. She gazed at him fondly. At seven years Benjamin was beginning to look more and more like his uncle Ben; although his hair was slightly darker his eyes were the same piercing blue. Sometimes she almost felt as though she had her brother back again when she saw him and her heart lurched. Sometimes she saw his father in him, for he had Tom’s gentle, kind smile, but it was Ben, the lost brother she had named him for, that he resembled the most.
The time she had had living over the surgery where she worked with Dr Macready was the happiest in her life. After that once, Doris Wright didn’t bother her and she understood the family had moved to Dr Moody’s panel. At first she had expected her husband to come looking for trouble but he had not and she hadn’t seen him since she left. Of course she tried her level best to keep out of his way, nevertheless she was surprised he left her in peace.
Benjamin was a changed boy, no longer nervous and clinging. There was colour in his cheeks, a few freckles across his nose and he smiled almost all the time. He had left the school at Eden Hope for the one in Coundon. It had been Merry’s idea really, for she was terrified Robbie would grab him and hurt him.
Benjamin had joined the Sunday school, and that was how they had discovered he could sing. Tonight all the chapels in the circuit were together in Bondgate for the carol service and Benjamin was singing a solo. As she gazed at him she was filled with pride and love.
The Wesleyan Chapel was full when they got there but Merry found a seat near the front, squeezed in on the end of a pew. The children were assembling at the front, all the boys dressed in their Sunday best suits and the girls with fancy white pinafores over their dresses, all looking like angels as they began to sing ‘In The Deep Mid-Winter’. When it came to Benjamin’s turn to sing and his true, treble rang out over the congregation, never faltering, never a sign of nervousness, she couldn’t help whispering to her neighbour that it was her son up there. Oh, it was indeed a night to remember and she thanked God for it.
Later, after the service, they all filed out of the chapel into Bondgate, she holding on to Benjamin’s hand for it was dark out on the street, apart from the light spilling out from the open doors and the lanterns some folk carried as they all hurried away. In a minute or two the street would be deserted, the only light from the public house further down towards the market place. Merry had intended to bring a candle lamp but somehow had forgotten. Still, she told herself, it wasn’t so far and she could keep to the main Durham Road.
Then they met the contingent from Eden Hope. Merry’s heart fell to her boots for Robbie was walking across the road to them, a woman on his arm. He must have come from one of the pubs on the other side for he was smiling broadly and fondling the woman as he came. Merry could see plainly for there was a pool of light there from lanterns in the group. She shrank back against the wall of the chapel, pulling Benjamin with her but it was no good, Robbie had seen her. He pushed the woman’s hand from his arm and strode towards her. She couldn’t actually see the expression on his face but his very stance was aggressive as he stood before her, legs astride.
Merry looked from left to right desperately. The people were beginning to disperse and there wasn’t a man she could see she could call upon for help. She glanced behind her, thinking she could appeal to the steward at the door but he was in the act of closing it and pushing the bolt in at the top, anxious to get home to the warm.
‘You have a nerve, do you know that? Going into a chapel with decent folk and letting your bastard make a show of himself? Call it singing? It was more like a cat screeching.’
‘Watch your language, man,’ someone said, a man’s voice. It was the steward.
‘Keep your neb out,’ Robbie snarled. ‘Any road, what are you going to do about it?’ He stepped into the gloom to confront the man who had spoken.
‘The police station is just over the road,’ the man answered. ‘I’ll call a polis.’ But he was backing away, drawn by his wife who was muttering about not interfering.
‘Robbie, howay, man, I want to go now,’ the woman he was with called.
‘I won’t be a minute, I’m just giving the whore a piece of my mind,’ Robbie growled. He leaned forward and grabbed her coat and blouse at the front and Benjamin jumped forward.
‘Leave me mam alone, you big bully!’ He put his small body between his mother and his stepfather, and Robbie laughed. He grabbed at the boy’s chest, catching a handful of shirt and jacket and lifting Benjamin to his toes.
‘Don’t you touch him!’ cried Merry and threw herself between them, trying to push Benjamin away. The woman with Robbie started forward as though to join in.
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ Without them noticing a pony and trap had pulled up on the road before the chapel and Dr Macready jumped down. ‘If you don’t stop that this instant I will put you in charge!’
Surprised at the authoritative tone, Robbie loosed his hold and took a step back before he realised it was the doctor, then he growled. ‘It’s you, is it? Well—’
‘Howay, Robbie, here’s the polis,’ the woman with him hissed and sure enough the door of the police station across the road had opened and a policeman was coming out and over to them. Robbie took hold of her arm and strode off into the dark of Fore Bondgate.
‘Is there some trouble here?’ the officer asked Dr Macready.
‘Not now, officer, thank you. I’m just picking up our friends. Come along, Mrs Wright, get in the trap and
we’ll be on our way.’
Merry had been standing with an arm around Benjamin. She could feel him trembling beneath her arm and she herself was trembling almost as badly. She hurried over to the trap and got in beside Kirsty who fussed over her and drew the rug over both their knees.
‘Goodnight, Constable,’ the doctor was saying. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.’ The sentiment echoed around them as they drove off into the market place and on towards home.
Kirsty chatted about the carol service they had had at St Anne’s, the Church of England, which stood next to the Town Hall.
‘We thought we would pick you up as we were so near,’ she said and asked how Benjamin had done and Merry answered normally, saying how beautiful he had sounded singing ‘Away In A Manger’. Kirsty said he should sing it tomorrow for them and she would play the piano for him and by the time they reached the house Benjamin had stopped trembling and was glowing with all the praise.
Merry realised properly then that she and Benjamin were not on their own against the world as she had always been. The Macreadys were so kind and caring and it was a lovely feeling. A feeling she could not remember having since she was small and there was Gran and Ben and her living in the deserted village of Old Pit.
The next day they were invited to the Macready’s house for Christmas dinner. Merry helped Maisie with the cooking and Kirsty wandered in and out of the kitchen getting in the way, but in the end the feast was prepared and was everything Merry had read about but had never been able to afford.
After the Christmas pudding had been flamed and ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ over, with Benjamin’s eyes as big as saucers before it was demolished, Kirsty insisted that they sit in the drawing room for a while before the dishes were attended too. There was a decorated Christmas tree such as Merry had never seen except in the magazines in Jos Turner’s shop, and crackers and paper hats. And for tea, there were mince pies and cake. But best of all, Kirsty had bought a proper sketchpad for Benjamin and a paint box. Not a small, children’s paint box but a large one, with squares of watercolour and a palette and little jars of brilliant colours and assorted brushes.
