‘Perhaps it was imagination.’
Luke’s derisive sniff only added to Saran’s feeling of self-scorn that followed on the heels of her words.
‘Two folk don’t usually imagine the same thing at the same moment!’ he answered quietly, his gaze probing the velvet gloom. ‘We both woke to the same noise so I says that noise were real and if the mekin’ of it were no cause of creature nor of workmen, then what did mek it?’
‘Could it be one of those shafts falling in on itself?’
For a moment Luke stood silent, musing on the question, then with the knowledge inherent in every child born into the grind of coal-mining that formed the lifeblood of the world he had known, he replied, ‘A crownin’ in? Could be, they occurs regular enough but they gives off no scream . . . not less there be men workin’ when the slide begins!’
‘But you said they did not begin mining until it was light and there isn’t a sign of dawn.’
‘Miners don’t be the only folk crosses the heath, travellers does the same thing. Granted they don’t journey at night lessen they has to but there be times when there be no choice.’
He was saying he thought the sound that had awakened them had been made by people! Saran’s blood slowed in her veins. People . . . a scream . . . an accident!
Already stepped on to the track they had settled beside, Luke turned and in the moonlight Saran saw the look of concern on his face. ‘Wait you here,’ he said, ‘don’t move from this spot. I’ll go along the track a ways—’
‘No!’ Clutching his sleeve, Saran held on. ‘If you go, I go with you.’
The silence was thick, settled like a blanket over the darkened world, yet the sound of that scream remained fixed in Saran’s brain – a scream of pain, desperation and fear all mingled into one. Her hand closed in the boy’s, Saran shivered as they walked on. Let it all have been a delusion, the deception of a tired brain, a misconstruction arising out of cold and hunger, let it be any or all of those things. But deep within herself she knew it would be none of them!
‘Over there!’
Stopping so abruptly she walked into him, Saran stared the way Luke pointed. Peering into space dancing with moon shadows she could see nothing but, as she stared, one spot became more solid, an ebony patch silhouetted against the sky. Not an animal – screwing her eyes she strained to identify the unmoving shape – and no collapsing shaft heaped mounds on the surface of the ground . . .
‘It be a wagon . . . Lord above, it be a wagon!’
Even as the boy gasped the words, recognition of what she was seeing flooded over Saran and without a thought of safety she began to run. A wagon meant a man, maybe a woman, children, and that scream . . . could be they were hurt!
‘What d’you reckon this were doin’ on the heath this time o’ night?’
Having reached the vehicle Luke stared for a moment at the horse fastened to the shafts, shaking his head when the animal gave no response to his touch.
‘It be no wagon,’ he went on, ‘this here be a carriage. The horse don’t be movin’ . . .’
‘The driver . . . what of the driver?’
Responding to the urgency of her question, Luke moved to where the driver would have sat, but in the gloom she saw the shake of his head.
‘There has to be someone!’ Saran almost shouted. ‘Carriages don’t drive themselves.’
‘Well, I can’t see . . . Oh God!’
The exclamation lending reality to what she had prayed would not be, Saran moved to the boy’s side, catching her breath as a sudden burst of brilliant moonlight bathed the scene. Trapped beneath the carriage which rested on its side, only his head and shoulders showing among the tangle of wreckage, a man lay. Unconscious or dead! Dropping to her knees Saran held her face close to the stricken man’s, releasing her pent-up breath as she felt the light fan of his own against her cheek.
‘He’s alive.’ She looked up at the boy watching her. ‘Can we get him free?’
Bending beside her Luke looked closer. ‘If we tries to drag him clear we could cause him more hurt, I says leave it ’til it be light enough to see better.’
Dawn could be hours away . . . the man could die!
‘William!’
It was a thin frightened cry followed almost at once by one of pain.
The carriage! Saran was on her feet and moving. They had not thought to look inside.
‘Let me.’ Shoving her aside as she made to climb on to the wheel, Luke sprang, agile as a monkey, holding with one hand while the other wrenched open the door.
The cry, it had sounded like a child! Below him Saran waited, anxiety working her nerves like puppet strings.
‘William!’
‘It be a woman.’ With moonlight streaming on his face, Luke looked at the girl stood staring up at him. ‘I . . . I think her be . . .’
‘Not dead!’ Clasping her hands together, Saran felt her throat close. That last cry had been faint. That last cry! Defying the thought she scrambled into the carriage. Light barely filtered inside and she could at first see nothing, then as her eyes adjusted she made out a figure lying slumped at the far side.
‘William . . . the baby . . .’
Baby! Was there a child here with the woman, was it crushed beneath her body?
‘It be as I thought?’ Luke’s voice trailed in the darkness. ‘Her’s pregnant?’
Pregnant! Was that the child the half-unconscious figure had meant . . . and the cry of pain . . . had the shock of the accident sent her into labour?
Thoughts swirled in her brain but one stood out from the rest: the woman needed to be got out of the carriage.
‘That be easier said than done, we be a yard or so from the ground and it don’t be like we can ask her to jump.’
Ignoring the boy’s blunt reply to her suggestion they try to move the woman, Saran leant towards her.
‘Can you move?’ She eased the slight shoulders carefully forward, comforting the groaning with a quiet assurance she herself did not feel, managing inch by slow inch to manoeuvre the woman to the door of the carriage.
Glancing towards the ground where Luke had jumped, she saw him raise his hands. This was something she had not thought of, how to lower the woman she now knew was in the throes of labour; yet it must be done.
‘Please, I know you are in pain but to help you we have to get you to the ground. Do you understand?’
At a whispered ‘Yes’, Saran placed the woman’s legs over the sill of the carriage; they reached halfway to the ground, surely they could lift her from there.
Touching a hand to the woman’s arm, she gave a shake, she mustn’t lose consciousness now! ‘I’m going to climb down,’ she told her. ‘When I call, let yourself slide forward . . . do you hear? Let yourself slide forward.
‘I don’t know whether she can do what I ask but it is the only way.’
Nodding at the breathless explanation, Luke lifted his hands once more. ‘Then we best get it done afore her falls out.’
But it took a sharp slap to the woman’s face. Getting no response from her calls, afraid the woman would slip into a dead faint, Saran clambered again on to the carriage wheel and from there delivered the stinging smack. It revived the flagging senses and, jumping quickly back to Luke’s side, she helped catch the figure as it tumbled forward.
Breath returning to her lungs she covered the shaking figure with the rug Luke had recovered from the carriage; but that was not enough. The ground was damp with dew.
‘We need a fire.’ She glanced at Luke returning from checking the unconscious driver. ‘She must be kept warm.’
‘I have matches I took from the storeroom along of the workhouse but that be all. I can’t mek a fire wi’ just matches.’
Knelt beside the woman beginning to writhe with pain, Saran flung a hand towards the empty carriage. ‘The seats, tear the stuffing from the seats.’
‘What! I can’t, I’ll be—’
‘Luke!’ It was brusque, snapping from the t
ongue like icicles. ‘Do it . . . now!’
She would take the blame for the damage. The boy had been afraid of what would happen once it was discovered; a long term of imprisonment and likely several strokes with a cat o’ nine tails. But that would not happen. Saran watched the flare of firelight leap into the gloom. She would see Luke was gone from here the moment the first light of day peeped above the horizon.
‘The coachman, he be breathing stronger and from what I can mek out it be mostly the tangle of reins lyin’ across his stomach, but his legs . . . I fears for them.’ Heaping sticks on the burning stuffing he caught Saran’s glance. ‘The box o’ that carriage be smashed already so I thought we might as well use it to keep that woman warm. Be there anything more I can do?’
‘How far are we from a town . . . do you know the way?’
‘I got no knowledge as to where we be,’ Luke shook his head, ‘as for the way, that be puzzlin’. I ain’t never been more’n a spit from Rutter Street ’cept to be took to the work’ouse and the only time I got to see beyond that wall were when I done a runner, that were the night I met you.’
The woman needed a doctor. Maybe she could leave her long enough to find the town Harriet Dowen had spoken of, to find a house or someone who knew where a doctor could be found. Looking again at the woman, firelight showing a face contorted with pain, a body arching with agony, Saran remembered her own mother and knew the time for leaving was past . . . the child was already entering the world.
6
The child had not cried.
Picking up handfuls of wadding Luke was throwing down from the overturned carriage and carrying them to where the woman lay, Saran packed it tightly around her; exhausted as she was she had to have warmth if pneumonia was to be kept away.
‘That be the lot.’ Luke jumped to the ground. ‘D’you think her’ll be all right . . . I mean . . . her don’t be going to die, do her?’
Saran glanced at the lad she knew had tried his best to help, feeding pieces of shattered coachwork to the fire before wiping perspiration from the woman’s brow with cloth torn from one of her fine lawn petticoats.
‘No.’ Saran smiled, the shake of her head visible in the pearling dawn. ‘She won’t die.’
‘And . . . and the babby . . . what of the babby?’
Tucking a corner of the rug more closely about the tired figure Saran seemed to live again those brief dark hours. It had not been as long as it had been with her mother but the agonised cries had testified to the pain being no less. She had tried to remember all her mother had told her that night, of how to help the child into the world, how to care for it. Her hands had trembled as she supported that tiny head, then the fragile body. But it had not moved! She had given way then, allowing the fears that had steadily mounted in her to turn to panic . . . it was her fault, two babies born dead . . . two tiny lives sacrificed to her ineptitude . . . she had done something wrong and because of it two innocent children had died before they lived! She had tried so hard . . . prayed so hard! The feeling of hopelessness and despair that had swept her had been so strong she had screamed heaven’s injustice . . . why take infants who had been given no time in the world? Where was the mercy in that?
Her cries had brought Luke running. She had sent him away earlier, when she knew the final moments were near, trying her best to allow the woman privacy. He had stumbled across from the far side of the capsized vehicle, almost throwing himself beside her as he called her name. But she could make no reply, only stare at the child’s still little body. It was in that same moment Luke had once more shed his youthful years. Taking the tiny form from her he had turned it on its head with one hand, bringing the other in a loud-sounding smack to its bottom.
Touching a hand gently to the tiny bundle wrapped against its mother’s chest, Saran smiled. Heaven had shown its mercy.
‘You did right not to move ’im, lad, the man ’as a broken leg as we can see, an’ could be more we don’t; it’ll need a doctor for to tell that.’
The miners they had heard crossing the heath in the early hours of morning smiled approvingly at the lad who had run to ask their help.
‘We’ve freed ’im from ’neath the shaft but there be no doubt you did a damn sight more forrim than we, burrowing into that wreckage to strap his leg; if ’n you ’adn’t ’ad the sense o’ mind to light a fire close beside ’im then I reckons cold on top o’ shock would ’ave done for the bloke. And you, wench . . .’ he turned to Saran, ‘you should be gied a medal for your night’s work, that there babby owes its life to you, ar, an’ the mother an’ all!’
‘It was Luke saved the baby . . .’
‘Well, don’t go presenting me with no medal!’ Luke took his jacket as another of the men wrapped his own about the wounded man.
Holding her baby close the woman reached a hand from the makeshift stretcher the miners had made from the seat of the carriage, her eyes warm with gratitude. ‘I have no medal,’ she murmured, ‘but please take this, it is not valuable except in the thanks it carries.’
The workman brusquely interrupted Saran’s attempts to return the brooch that had been dropped into her hand. ‘Talk about it later, wench. The sooner we ’as these folk to a warm bed the better off they’ll be; an’ the pair of you come wi’ we . . . I’ve a feelin’ it’s more’n a bauble you’ll be gettin’ for what you’ve done.’
‘It could be as that fella said . . . could be as we’ll be given more’n a medal for ’elping them folks.’ Luke watched the figures walking quickly in front, the gap between them widening with every step.
She had urged him to run when the sun had risen, begged him to go, to leave her with the woman and the man who gained consciousness only to drift down almost at once into his silent world of darkness. But the lad had refused. ‘We’re in this together,’ he had said, ‘and we’ll ride it out together . . . only not in that carriage!’ He had grinned, jerking his head towards the broken vehicle, but she had not smiled; she had felt only the worry she was feeling now, a worry that gnawed deep inside her. Once recovered, the man Luke had covered with his own worn jacket might well want to give them more than a medal, he might prefer to reward them with prosecution for damage to his carriage!
‘I thinks we should keep up wi’ them miners, seems they recognises the folk they be carryin’ but we don’t; if we loses sight . . .’
‘We could be doing ourselves a good turn!’ Coming to a halt Saran watched the receding men. ‘Think about it, Luke, for all we know there might be no gratitude in that man; despite what we did for them he might only see the damage we did to his carriage.’
‘But we only done it for their own good, ain’t as though we done it aimless!’
No, what they did had not been done senselessly, Saran acknowledged silently, but would a magistrate see it that way?
‘But the woman, ’er seemed grateful, mebbe ’er’ll part wi’ a bob or two cheerful enough.’
Was that really what the lad wanted . . . had he cared for those people only for what he might get out of it . . . did money mean so much to him? Almost as soon as the thought entered her mind, Saran swept it away. Luke was unworthy of such an idea, had he helped her, stayed with her in the hope of a reward! No, he had done those things out of the goodness of his heart, and his actions of the night barely passed had been born of that same kindness, it was shameful of her to harbour any thought which said different! Guilt at what had risen in her mind touching her cheeks with a colour that matched the rosy hue of the new day, she said quietly, ‘Maybe we should go along to find out.’
‘’Old up!’ Luke’s hand was on her arm as she made to walk on. ‘That carriage . . . the damage we done to it, that be only one stick in your craw, only one o’ the bones you be chokin’ on, the other’n be thought o’ tekin’ money for summat you feels anybody who don’t ’ave a stone for a ’eart would do glad . . . wi’ no askin’ o’ payment . . . a body kinder than me.’
‘There is nobody kinder than you, Luke, and no one
more deserving of a reward.’ Touching a hand to the fingers clutching her sleeve she pressed gently. ‘Let’s go before they are out of sight.’
‘No.’ Luke shook his head, his hand dropping from her sleeve. ‘The reward I spoke of, that bob or two, it weren’t for meself I wanted it . . . it were for you. I can manage wi’ what can be got from a hedge or a brook but you . . . you needs a proper meal and a bed.’
She had been so very wrong! With guilt rising fresh inside her, Saran blinked against quick tears. How could she ever have had such dreadful thoughts! How could she have reasoned Luke capable of an act of callousness or greed?
‘You don’t want no payment, Saran, you thinks to tek it would be wrong and it would! But I’d ’ave done it . . . I’d ’ave done it for you.’
‘Luke . . .’ Her eyes bright with emotion, Saran looked into the face turned towards her. ‘There is only one thing I want you to do for me, that is to make me a promise, vow to me now that you will never act against what your heart tells you is right, that you will not turn away from what you know to be true no matter who the person or what the reason. Promise me, Luke, promise you will stay true to yourself.’
He had made his choice. Lying face down Luke Hipton stared into the clear water of a stream, his fingers gently tickling a fish. They had paused at the crossroads Harriet Dowen had said they would reach, they had watched the miners out of sight before following the track in the opposite direction.
. . . one whose future be locked with your own should you follow the same path from the crossroads . . .
That was the gist of the words the woman had mumbled, words said to Saran Chandler but were meant as much for him. But how long would her life circle his? Flicking the fish on the bank he sat up, letting his glance wander to the girl adding sticks to the fire. Light brown hair gleamed in the daylight and though her face was hidden from him he saw it clear in his mind’s eye. Her was pretty . . . pretty as Emmie’s doll, the one that had been snatched away as they had been entered into the workhouse. But Saran Chandler were no doll, her were a wench an’ pretty wenches wed soonest. Catching a smile as she turned towards him, Luke felt a weight press heavy on his heart. Saran Chandler would be sure to wed soon and when that ’appened her would no longer want the company o’ Luke Hipton.
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