The Tinker's Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  'They should've all been marked.' It was a mutter from Rose, and he said, 'Yes, Ma, they should've all been marked years ago; and if your husband had been any good they would've been marked. I've only one pair of legs and one pair of arms and I'll have to get help, for the time being anyway.'

  'And how d'you expect to pay them?' She was barking at him again. 'You heard what that sneaking little squirt said the last time he was up here; farm workers all over the place are asking for more.'

  'They're out, Ma, to get enough to eat, not for big money, just enough to eat. Anyway, we won't go into the condition of farm workers at this moment.'

  A small voice came to them from the far side of the room, saying, 'I ... I've saved me wages and you can have that. And I don't need to be paid until you're on your feet again.' Jinnie's voice trailed away into silence.

  The fire crackled and the lamp spluttered twice before Bruce, turning to his mother again, said, 'Well, Ma, what d'you make of that offer, eh?'

  On receiving no answer, he turned to Jinnie and said, 'Thank you, lass. Thank you, lass. I'll not forget your offer, ever. And if it should turn out we're hard pushed, I'll take you up on it. Now,' his voice dropping, he said, 'get yourself off to bed. There's another day tomorrow.'

  'Good-night, missis.'

  She was answered by a grunt from the bed.

  'Good-night, Mister Bruce.'

  'Good-night, Jinnie. Good night.'

  When the door had closed on her Bruce turned to the table again, picked up ten sovereigns and put them into the leather bag, which he then handed to his mother. She had watched the proceedings, and now she demanded,

  'And where d'you think you're going to store that?'

  'Where I can lay me hands on it at any minute and not have to ask for it.'

  'You're playing the big fellow all at once, aren't you?'

  'And not before time, Ma. Not before time. But if you want a different arrangement, just let me know.'

  He now gathered up the rest of the money and thrust it into his coat pocket and immediately felt the weight of it. As he made for the ladder leading to the loft she said, 'What if he was to come back?'

  'Then you'd have him all to yourself, Ma, because I would go.' His foot was on the bottom rung of the ladder when he stopped and, turning his head towards her again, he said, 'And I'd take the girl with me; at least as far as the bottom of the hill, because I wouldn't like to hear of her being imprisoned for stabbing your husband to death for, as you know, she doesn't like being handled.'

  Jinnie spent a very restless night. After she had climbed the steps to her pallet she had lain awake for hours, and as the night wore on she became more and more aware of the change in herself: she could understand very clearly why her mistress had, of late, shown evident dislike of her. It was because at one time she must have had all Mister Brace's attention: she had been his main interest, and she had played upon it; but since she herself had appeared on the scene and he had been so thoughtful towards her, the missis must have built up a resentment against her. And all that money in the bag. The only time she herself had turned the tick she hadn't seen it.

  The missis must have had it hidden in her nightdress.

  As sleep at last began to overtake her she made up her mind about one thing, if the missis kept on going for her when there was no need, she'd make a stand and point out to her that it wasn't a very nice job having to see to all her dirty bed needs, and so she should be grateful they were done for her. Yes, she would; that's what she'd say to her; and also that she thought that there were lots of things she could do for herself if she had the mind. Yes, she would dare to tell her that, too.

  The cock woke her up at half-past five, and as she lay struggling out of sleep she recalled her thoughts of the earlier hours with regard to her attitude towards her mistress, and sleep left her. She realised she was still of the same mind and also that she wasn't, as she put it to herself, like the person she had been yesterday morning at this time; for one thing she felt older . . .

  Her mind checked her thoughts here . . . perhaps not older, just different, because she realised she wasn't afraid any more, and she had been afraid of so many things; she had been afraid of having to return to the house, of men and their hands; but her main fear since coming here had been that of her mistress. Now she was afraid of her no longer. It was an odd feeling, the loss of that fear, for it was making her dress more slowly, not drag on all her clothes anyhow so as to get downstairs quickly and see to her mistress and her bed needs. Oh, those bed needs.

  When she arrived in the kitchen, a lighted candle in her hand, it was to see Bruce descending the ladder.

  He didn't speak to her on his way to the scullery, and the door had hardly closed on him when Rose said, 'See to me, girl, I'm wet.'

  She was about to jump round in her usual scamper, then stopped herself and, going to the fireside, she took up the bellows.

  'Girl! You heard me.'

  'Yes, missis.' She did not turn round, but kept applying the bellows to the damped-down fire as she said, 'I'll be with you in a minute, when I get the fire going and the kettle on.'

  'Girl!'

  From the tone of her mistress's voice, she knew that she was now sitting up, but she still took no heed until the flames were well spread over the top of the small coal, when, after brushing down her apron, she made for the bed, there to be greeted by an infuriated woman who did not speak but who raised a hand to strike her, only to be checked by a yell: 'You do, missis!

  Just you hit me once! that's all, and out I go and nobody'll stop me, nobody, Mister Bruce or nobody.

  I'd rather go back to the house this minute. Oh yes, I would.'

  Rose Shaleman was now lying back on her pillows gasping, her hands pressed tight against her breast. On the sight of her Jinnie omitted a smothered 'Oh my!'

  and dashed to the chest of drawers, grabbed the bottle of pills, shook one out, then dashed again to the water jug on the delph rack and spilled most of it as she tried to fill a mug. Then she was at the bedside again and hardly aware that Bruce was by her side.

  After a moment, he pressed her away, saying, 'Make some tea;' then to his mother he said, 'Just lie quiet.

  You're all right. You're all right.'

  He took hold of his mother's hands and held them until her breathing became easier; then he said, 'Go to sleep now. You'll be all right.'

  Jinnie had made the tea and as she handed him his mug, he said, 'Drink yours, go on. She'll be all right.'

  'I ... I shouldn't have yelled, but she was going to hit me.'

  'You did right there. Anyway, she was due for a turn. I expected it last night and was a bit amazed when it didn't come. When things happen up here they happen, don't they? and all at once.' He gave her a wry smile; but she couldn't answer it, she was still shaking, not only from the threat of being struck but from the realisation that if her mistress, had died she would have been to blame.

  After they'd had their breakfast together Bruce said,

  'I'll see to outside while you carry on as usual in here, and when she's ready for changing I'll give you a hand: the mattress will have to be turned. Now don't worry.'

  His voice was very low, and he put his hand up towards her but didn't touch her. 'The air has been cleared: we all know where we stand. Things'll be different from now on, I don't know how, but just different. Come on now; take that look off your face, and just remember you'll soon be going to see your Max and Miss Caplin.'

  Yes, yes; it wouldn't be long now before she would see her dear friends. She hadn't thought about them since last night . . .

  It was just turned seven in the morning. She had scrubbed the table, the chairs and the kitchen floor and, throughout, her mistress had slept. She was now about to pick up a very heavy clippy mat which lay on the grass, getting the wind through it, as she put it; but it would have taken a very strong wind to raise the matted rags that had gone to make it. She had just gathered it in her arms when Bruce's voice, from
some way behind her, said, 'What's that?' He was pointing ahead, and on the sight of two vehicles she dropped the mat, saying, 'It's the cart and Patsy.'

  Bruce said nothing; he just stood staring at the approaching vehicles. Presently he went forward and as he passed their old cart he said to its driver, 'Hello, Roy,' and the young Stevens boy answered, 'Hello, Bruce.'

  Mr Stevens himself was seated in the smart trap and he said briefly, "Morning, Bruce.'

  'Good-morning, Mr Stevens.' They looked at each other in silence for a moment before the farmer said,

  'Bad business, yesterday, real bad business. I thought there was something in the wind, but what could I do? He put about this tale about you being all set up and so on ... well, I know you're friends with Mister Richard, but as I know that family a bit I could never see him having enough of his own to set you up.

  He depends on his father, doesn't he? Anyway, when I heard Pug was going to sell the cart and horse I knew there really was something wrong: people don't get rid of their only means of transport. That was one thing that came to me mind. The other was, if you were going to have a new set-up you could always do with an extra old girl like that in front, 'cause there's quite a bit of work in her yet, and in your cart; and to let it go for eight pounds, well . . . Anyway, Bruce, you can have her back for what I paid for it. That's fair, isn't it?'

  'Indeed it is, Mr Stevens, and I'm more than obliged to you.'

  'How are you feeling?'

  It was a moment before Bruce answered, and then he said, 'Well, to tell you the truth, I'm still somewhat shaky. I would never have believed a cold like that could have taken it out of me as it has done.'

  'Oh, that couldn't have been just a cold. As I understood things at the time you were lucky you got through it. Pneumonia can finish off the strongest, and if you do pull through, it takes its toll on your pins for some time.

  Anyway, how are you going to manage?'

  ' Oh, we'll manage all right. Now I've got the cart back, half my troubles seem to be over.' He gave a short laugh as he added, 'The small half anyway.'

  'You'll need help of some kind because, as you know, your lot like to stray.'

  'Yes; that's what worries me. But I'll manage.'

  'Well, if you say so, Bruce, I'll take your word for it; but if I can be of any assistance in any way, you just have to say.'

  'Oh well,' Bruce came back quickly now, 'it's strange but I've been thinking it would be a help if we had a cow; not a spanking one, just an old one that would still give us enough milk to carry on and perhaps get a little butter and cheese from it.'

  'Well, that's a good idea, and it should happen I'll be sorting out shortly, and I'll think of you along those lines.'

  'Thank you, Mr Stevens; I'm more than obliged to you because the sky was very dark this morning, the clouds low, no break in them anywhere and I couldn't see how they were going to lift, but now the sun is almost shining.'

  During Bruce's last few words the farmer had looked up into the sky and was now saying, 'Bright enough down our way;' then, his brows shooting upwards, he laughed and said,' Oh. Oh yes; I see what you mean. I see what you mean, Bruce. My missis said you've always had two languages and I think she's right. Anyway, shall we get down to business?'

  'Of course. Of course.'

  Bruce now hurried into the house, went up the ladder quicker than he had done for some time, came down again, and when he handed the eight pounds to his benefactor he said, 'I would not have thought any less of you, Mr Stevens, if you had asked twice as much.'

  'Anybody else, man, and I might have. Oh yes, I might have. And if it had been your brother, or the old one himself, I still might have, but you yourself have always sold good stock, because you've looked after them, and you never haggle on a private deal.

  Of course' - he put his head back now and started to laugh - 'I remember once, when you were just a nipper, coming down with three chickens and saying to me, "We don't want for them turnips. Don't mind taties but not turnips."'

  'I said that?'

  'Aye, you did. And I can remember wanting to scud yer ears.'

  He pointed now to where his seventeen-year-old son Roy was talking to Jinnie and he said, 'He's not losing any time, is he? Never does where lasses are concerned.

  Can talk the hind leg off a donkey yet we can't get a word out of him when he's in the house. But she's grown into a bonny piece, that one. Lovely head of hair, at least . . . well, old Peter told me half of it had been chopped off. Something to do with Hal.'

  His eyes narrowed now as he looked down on Bruce and asked the question point blank, 'Was it Hal up to his tricks?'

  'Yes, Mr Stevens; you could say it was Hal up to his tricks, but he got more than he bargained for in the end.'

  'There were some funny tales going about after he left, very funny, and unbelievable really, and not all to do with big Sam. No, no.' He paused now as if waiting for Bruce to clarify matters, but he was saved from this by the horse suddenly throwing its head up and letting out a long neigh, and the farmer, pulling on the reins, shouted, 'Whoa! there. Whoa! there;' then he added,

  'She's very fresh and not used to the trap. Just got her a few weeks since. Feel she had been a bit of a racer.

  She came with a pack from over the border, so perhaps somebody found their stables had one horse fewer.' He laughed. But then, his voice rising to a shout, he cried,

  'You! Roy, come on. Stop your gossiping,' and, backing the horse away from the old cart, he turned her; then experienced quite a business holding her waiting for Roy to jump up beside him. His last words shouted to Bruce were, 'If we can give you a hand in any way, we're just down below. Don't forget, just down below.'

  Bruce caught up with Jinnie as she led Patsy towards her old stable, and he said, 'Take her on into the barn.

  There's more room there to unharness the cart.' Then he stroked the horse's muzzle, saying, 'Hello there, Patsy, old girl. Am I glad to see you back!' And as if the animal understood him, it replied with a gentle whinny.

  A short time later, as they walked back towards the cottage Bruce smiled at Jinnie, saying, 'Roy's a nice boy, isn't he?' to which she answered simply, 'He seems all right, but I wouldn't really know as that's the first time I've really spoken to him. He asked me if I go to the barn-dances, and I said no, because . . . well, I didn't know what a barn-dance was. What is a barn dance?'

  He stared at her. Of course she wouldn't know what a barn-dance was; they didn't talk about such things in the kitchen. He himself had only ever been to two. The first time he had sat on a bale of hay all evening and nobody had been able to get him off it. The second time, several people did get him up from a bale of hay and each of them, as he had pointed out, afterwards wished they hadn't. He had learnt over the years that some people danced in their cottages to tin whistles, one-string fiddles, melodions, accordions and the like, and, everything else being missing, a Jew's harp. But there never had been any dancing in their cottage. As for musical instruments, not even a Jew's harp: and so strange, when he had to think about it, his supposed father, who could whittle most shapes, had never made either Hal or him a little whistle or a flute.

  So he explained to her what a barn-dance was, and finished with, 'You must go one day. He'll take you.

  Oh yes, he'd be delighted to take you.'

  She looked ahead as she said dreamily, 'There was a girl in the house. She used to clog-dance. Once she wanted to show me, but I didn't like it. It was sort of ugly and noisy. But there was another girl, who slept in the end bed, who could play tunes on a comb, and I can an' all.' She turned a bright face towards him now and he said, 'You can?'

  'Oh yes; a bit of paper on a comb. And I can play hymn tunes.'

  'Then you must play for us some time.'

  The smile slid from her face as she muttered, 'No; I don't think I could; 'cos the missis wouldn't like it.'

  He did not contradict her and say, Oh yes, she would, but when she asked, 'Will it be all right for Sun
day for me? I mean, to go down and see Miss Caplin and Max?'

  he was quick to answer, 'Oh yes. Yes, of course. Rain, hail or shine, you must go down and see them.'

  She stopped with her hand on the sneck of the door and looked up at him. It was in her mind to say, I wouldn't stay here a minute if it wasn't for you, Mister Bruce, but she thought she'd better not. Yesterday, she could have said such words, and without thinking about their meaning, but yesterday was when she was very young.

  8

  It was six days later and Bruce had just harnessed up Patsy to the cart in readiness for driving in to Allendale to replenish stores for both the kitchen and the animals, when Jimmy Dixon's hired cab arrived at the door, having come all the way from Haydon Bridge, and out of it stepped a policeman and a man in plain clothes.

  On the sight of them Bruce brought Patsy to a standstill and hurried towards them. The policeman was a stranger to him, as was the other man.

  'You Mr Bruce Shaleman?'

  'Yes; yes, that's me.'

  'We . . . we understand your mother's alive but not well.'

  'That's right.'

  'And her husband . . . well, do I understand he left some days ago?'

  'Yes, six days gone.'

  It was now the man in the plain suit who asked,

  'Would it be possible to have a word with your mother?'

  'Yes; yes, come in.'

  Bruce pushed open the door and entered the room, calling loudly, 'Ma! There are two men here to see you.'

  Rose Shaleman pulled herself up on the pillows and peered down the room, and when she saw the policeman her hand went to her mouth.

  The two men stood by the side of the table and both looked around the room before the policeman said,