The Tinker's Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  They searched until they were forced to stop and to wait for daylight. But not so my Bruce; he went on because there's nobody knows holes and corners like he does, and he knows them as well in the dark as in the light. Once, when he was four years old he was lost in the hills for hours before he came toddling in and, as cool as you like, said he was hungry. Anyway, to cut a long story much shorter, as far as I can gather Master Richard must have ridden well up before being thrown by his horse, and this was into a gully, a deceiving gully full of nooks and crannies. And it was here my Bruce found him on the freezing ground. Well, Bet wasn't with Bruce this time; that was Flossie's mother; she had worn her legs off with running all day and was lying up, although I bet she was wide awake, as she always was for him till the day she died. Anyway, what did he do? As he said himself, he hugged Master Richard to try to make him melt and to bring him round, and then he pulled him up and on to his back and, crawling and slithering and stumbling in the dark, he brought him home. If he hadn't known the path so well they both would have died. When they reached the courtyard he collapsed an' all, and he lay in The House for four days before we could bring him back here. His hands and knees had been torn, but I am telling you he was very lucky to get off with his life that time; but Master Richard, he developed rheumatic fever and he was in bed for nearly a year.'

  'Nearly a year?'

  'Yes, lass, nearly a year; and they thought he would never walk again. His legs were like spindles and his body not much thicker, but our Bruce told him he'd soon be running. You see, the young lad had demanded to see--' here she paused before, her tone full of bitterness, she went on, 'Pug Shaleman's son. You see, Pug weren't thought much of in those days, 'cos this place was a pigsty all right, then. Pug's people were bone lazy, both of them, and I was brought into this house because I had nowhere else to go.' She now turned her face fully on Jinnie and said, 'I got drunk one day at the fair, like the rest. When I was let out for my full day off, half-year time, I always went mad. I'd worked in the kitchen from when I was eight in that very house, the very house in which my son was later to be openly welcomed by their son, but at that time, lass, I was considered something lower than you'd find under a stone. Oh yes, lower than that. On that fair day, I was just on sixteen and I met, one Pug Shaleman, and when I came to my senses some months later and found myself going to have a bairn, me own people from near Bardon Mill pointed the way, and not with a finger but with me dad's boot, and its direction was to the workhouse. But there was Pug waiting, 'cos he had guessed what would happen; and him the size he was and not presentable in many ways, he saw that my predicament was going to stand him in good stead: he'd have a wife and someone who would skivvy for him and his people. And that's how it happened; that's how I came into this pigsty. And it must look like that to you now, but imagine what it looked like to me in those days, almost twenty-seven years ago.' She paused and pressed her head back into the pillow, and Jinnie stood staring at her.

  She could find nothing to say; it was such a strange story. Everybody's life had a story, that's what Miss Caplin had said, but this was a strange, sad story, and she felt further saddened when her mistress spoke again, saying, 'My elder son Hal is twenty-six. He's like his father in many ways, but not in looks and size, and I tell you, girl, before you meet him, you won't like him.

  He's a rough character. He's a heavy drinker and woman chaser. I say this to put you on your guard; and yet I have no fear for you in that direction.' She turned her head on the pillow now and smiled at Jinnie as she added, 'No; no fear for you, for I can see you dying before you'd let the wrong man lay hands on you.'

  Jinnie felt a great heat sweep over her, like a sweat she used to experience during a day of stone-flagged corridor scrubbing back in the workhouse. Then her own words surprised her when she said, 'Bruce is not like that, missis; he's different . . . Why? How?'

  'You ask why, girl . . . you ask how ..." and Rose Shaleman looked away again from Jinnie, saying, 'Yes,

  he is different, and thank God for it. Oh yes, thank God for it. I've got little to thank God for in this life but I do for my Bruce, and you know why I called him Bruce?' She turned her head again to look at Jinnie, whose own head was shaking.

  'Because I'd once heard a parson preaching. You see, we were taken to church every Sunday on the wagon, so I learned something about the Bible. Anyway, I don't suppose this fella belonged to the Bible, but they called him Bruce. He was a king, I think, and was running away from his enemies and he had little chance of escaping.

  But then he saw a spider and as he watched it, twice it failed to stick its silken thread to the wall, but off it went for a third time, and this time the thread stuck. I think that's where the saying comes from: if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. Have you heard that one?'

  'No, missis.'

  'Oh well, that's what Cook used to say in the kitchen down there when she would take the rolling-pin and bring it across my knuckles for not being able to swivel a big pie dish on one hand and trim the pastry edges with a knife on the other. I always made a mess of it, and she always made a mess of me afterwards. I suppose I wasn't such a quick learner as you are, girl. You're a very quick learner. You know that?'

  'Thank you, missis.'

  'Well now, don't you think we've gossiped enough for one day? The mister will come in for his meal all right tonight, so we'll have it no later than seven. Bruce's will keep, as it's a stew, and dumplings don't rot. But let me tell you first that tomorrow you must get your hand into real work and get down to the washing. It's always a heavy day, the washing here, but you might be lucky; the weather might hold and a wind might come up. That's what I used to pray for every week; the sun and the wind together, to bring the clothes-line alive.'

  The sun and the wind to bring the clothes-line alive.

  A strange saying, thought Jinnie; but nice.

  She was about to turn away when a thought struck her, and she gave voice to it by asking, 'Does the gentleman still run with Mister Bruce?'

  'Oh yes, whenever he's home. They've run together for years; but . . .' and now she turned her head completely away and looked towards the rough wall to the right side of her, and muttered, 'People change; they forget what they owe you. The lad doesn't, I'm sure.

  He's one of them that doesn't see the gulf as his people do. That's why the baskets haven't come regular since he went away on his holidays. No. You'll see, they'll start again. Oh yes, they'll start again.'

  She didn't go on to explain about the baskets, so Jinnie, thinking ahead as she was wont to do, went into the scullery and sorted out the heap of dirty washing

  ., that spoke to her of immense neglect and proffered an explanation for the chest of drawers being practically

  empty. She sorted the clothing into heaps: rough sheets and towels; an assortment of men's shirts and small

  clothes; and the woman's undergarments, badly stained and just as rough. And when the sorting was finished she stood looking down at the piles of washing and sighed as she, too, hoped for sun and wind on the morrow.

  Every article here was like its surroundings, rough and coarse. If it hadn't already been discoloured or stiff when it was bought, it had gained this characteristic with wear and tear over the years.

  No; there was no refinement here.

  Her mind sprang back to the workhouse. In comparison, in a way, that place had been sort of genteel, for there had always been the voice and mannerisms of Miss Caplin that spoke of an air of refinement, of another world from that in which she worked; that which emanated from her made everything in her vicinity appear pleasant. And then there was Max.

  Could she use the word 'refinement' when thinking of Max? She had questioned the word 'gentleman' in connection with him some time back, yet now, in some way, she knew he was a gentleman; and yes, there was something different about him. He was big and ugly and gangly, yet at the same time these three things merged into love and kindness, and surely love and kindness should be coupl
ed with refinement. Oh, she wished she had someone to talk to and to explain things to her.

  Suddenly she pulled open the door leading from the scullery to outside, and stood looking up into the sky; and there came over her a longing to see Miss Caplin and Max again. She could hear herself talking to them and telling them all about the strangeness, the mixture, and the lowliness of this place. Yet this lowliness had been touched by the presence of the gentry.

  She had been here for ten days; yet it could have been ten weeks, ten months, even ten years, for the pattern of the evenings had stayed the same. At times she couldn't recall how she had spent the evenings in the workhouse.

  Except for that particular evening when the sow had littered, here the routine was unvaried: the last meal of the day was usually around seven o'clock. If Bruce was late getting back from the hills, she kept his meal warm in the oven, but should he sit down with his father and her, after they had eaten, the table would be cleared and she would wash the crocks. Afterwards she would clean the oilcloth with a damp rag, then dry it off; the mister would then go to the chest of drawers, take out a pack of cards and proceed to spread half of them in decreasing rows on the table. Bruce had told her it was a game that required patience and that was why it was called Patience, but that there were many variations of it. Yet his father had always played this particular form. Some evenings he would sit for two hours and play his cards but not open his mouth, the while his wife and son would carry on a desultory conversation about the happenings of the day or the titbits he had picked up from Peter Locke the drover.

  She herself never attempted to join in the conversation.

  She would sit by the fire, but was never idle. There were sheets to patch and stockings to darn. She was quite a good sewer but not so proficient at darning, and the stockings she found she was expected to darn had soles on them almost as tough as leather.

  But this particular evening the routine changed. In fact, the whole day had been different. It had started at breakfast time when Bruce said to his father, 'You'll have to see to those lower fields, I can't be in three places at once, and until those walls are mended on the high bank there's no way of stopping the sheep straying, and you know that, and you know where they'll stray to.'

  At this his father had replied, 'Well, you would have them marked, wouldn't you?' and Bruce had answered,

  'Aye, yes; and that works both ways. I'd rather be ordered to come and retrieve our scum from The House grounds than have Stevens swear black was white that they were his: Look there! with his mark on them. Well, it's our mark that's on them. And by the way, when you next see Arthur Stead you'd better see what he wants for that young collie; Flossie's getting on; she's not as fast as she was.'

  'You're telling your granny how to suck eggs.'

  'I wouldn't have to tell you how to suck eggs if there wasn't such a thing as market day and you were wanting to show off,' and at this Bruce had turned and stalked out.

  But this evening all was peaceful in the kitchen. The mistress was sitting up in bed looking at the illustrations in an old magazine that Bruce had brought in. It was the kind of magazine that he would never have bought and she guessed its source. She looked a different woman to the one Jinnie had first seen lying in that bed: now she was wearing a clean nightie, her hair had been brushed and combed, and what is more, only that morning Jinnie had washed her down, after having explained to her that she used to help bath the newcomers into the workhouse, in some cases introducing their bodies to water for the first time. Moreover, she had found a patchwork quilt in the corner of the bedroom loft above the kitchen, and had washed this and replaced the soiled one on the wall bed.

  The silence that had settled on the room for some minutes was broken by Pug Shaleman saying, as if to no-one in particular, 'I'd prepare for a bedmate if I was you the night, well, if not the night, soon then.'

  It was almost thirty seconds before his son said, 'How did you come by that?'

  'Oh, from Peter Locke. He was passing up the stile road and he hailed me in the top field. He'd just come back from Newcastle; been on the road the last couple of days. Happened to mention The Admiral was due in last night, in fact he said it was just stuck outside Shields waiting for the high tide. There's still sandbanks there after all that dredging. I'll go down to Shields and have a look round one of these days. Yes . . . yes, I will.' And he picked a card up from one end of the pile on the table and placed it at the other end.

  'What time did you see Peter?'

  'What?' Pug Shaleman raised his head with a jerk as if he hadn't heard what his son had said, and repeated,

  'What?'

  Bruce's reply was slow-worded: 'I asked you what time you saw Peter.'

  'Oh. Oh, well, it was early on, nineish, I should say.

  Yes, that's what I said, nineish.'

  Bruce was on his feet now and standing at the other side of the table and looking down on his father's bent head: 'You never thought, I suppose, of getting word to Hal at the mine?' he said.

  'Why should I think about getting word to Hal at the mine?'

  Jinnie almost jumped in her chair at the sound of Bruce's voice. It vibrated round the room in something between a shout and a scream as he yelled,' Because you bloody well might have stopped your son from being murdered. Sammy Valasquey would be quite capable of it if he found him in the house; and God knows what would happen if he found them together.'

  'My God! Listen to who's talking.' The small man had pushed back the chair now and was standing supporting himself by his two clenched fists pressing on the table.

  'You'd think, to hear you, you were bosom pals, best friends, when you hate the bloody sight of him; and what he thinks about you would get another man hung.

  Yet you go for me for not getting word to him to look out for his whore's man popping in. But let me tell you that Valasquey will get him one day, in the daylight or dark, and for my part, I hope he does.

  He's spent more money on his whoring than would have kept the wolf from this door many a time. He only comes here when there's not a bed open to him in one village or the other, or when things get too hot for him, and a lot of the beds will have cooled to him while Valasquey's been away.'

  'He's always tipped up at the weekends he's come back,' Bruce reminded his father. 'And don't forget there were years before he went rowdy that he tipped up his wages every week to Ma, there, and, if you remember, you slept it off more often in the barn in those days. Anyway, when he turns up why don't you tell him to get the hell out of it, to go and find lodgings somewhere, or to pick up with one of his other bed warmers? There are a few widows about down there who'd welcome him with open arms, I know that, so why does he come back here? You wouldn't know, would you? But I'll tell you why he comes back, because you, who's never given a thought to anybody in your life but yourself, happen to be his father, and that woman on the bed from which she's hardly been able to move for the past three years, is his mother, and me, as much as he hates the sight of me, I happen to be his brother, and this mean, uncomfortable stone spot, stuck out here in the wilds, is what is called his home, and it's the word "home" that has the pull. Well, that's my version of why he comes back here; but you, until the day you die, will never understand a word of what I'm saying - you never have - because if you dislike anybody more than you do him, it's me. But let me tell you, I only stay here because of her,' and he stabbed his finger towards the bed. 'If she wasn't here you could go to hell, or to where that child has recently come from, the workhouse, because you've never in your life worked to keep yourself and you never will.'

  'You finished?' The small man was again on his feet, and his voice was ominously quiet now as he said, 'I'll remember all you've said, lad, and I won't forget this night. Oh aye, I'll remember this night; and there'll come another night when I'll tell you something.' He now turned and looked towards the bed and said, 'It'll keep.' And with this, he went slowly from the room, leaving Bruce with his head bent deeply on his chest and his
hands gripping the back of a chair.

  'You shouldn't have said all that, lad.' His mother's voice was just above a whisper. 'He knows what he is without it being rammed home.'

  At this Bruce swung round to her and hissed, 'What if Valasquey had found him there? There would've been murder done, and he could've prevented it.

  He's walked the three miles to the mine many a time before when looking to crib a sub, the times when he was craving for a drink. He could've got to him today but he wants him bashed up, as he does me too. He can't do it himself but he'd enjoy seeing somebody else having a go.'

  'Life must be galling for him.'

  'Ma, after what he's put you through all the years I can look back upon, it amazes me that you can lie there and take his part.'

  'I'm not taking his part, lad, I never have. I've got me own thoughts about him, and only God knows what they are, and I hope I may be forgiven for them some day, but that doesn't stop me from understanding how he feels.' Her voice rose now as she added, 'Just look at you both. You are as different from him as chalk from cheese in all ways. Yes, yes; and thank God for that,' she now muttered. Then nodding her head, she went on, 'And look at Hal, the size of him, the breadth of him, he hates Hal more than he hates you. And that's strange. Oh yes, that's strange. It's because he knows that Hal is like himself inside, so they know each other for what they are.'