‘Leave her alone,’ said Emma suddenly. ‘She’s still our Ginny.’
‘How could she do it, though? I would never have thought any daughter of mine capable of it. I thought only bad girls carried on like that, ones who’ve never been taught right from wrong, but my own! I thought I’d given you better principles.’
‘You did, and I can’t explain how it happened, except I didn’t seem to have any choice.’
‘And you chose to make a right mess of yourself, didn’t you?’ her mother flashed, then added, ‘Still, I suppose I’m glad you’re all right, or as near to all right as you ever can be now.’
Emma poured boiling water on the tealeaves. ‘She doesn’t know the worst yet. When I was going to tell her, I got rudely interrupted. Then I thought it’d better keep until we got back.’
‘What can be worse?’ asked Ginny.
‘John,’ said her mother, every feature sagging and eyes dull. ‘We had a message to say he’s lost. Feared drowned.’
‘I blamed you when we heard,’ Emma admitted, handing her a cup of tea. ‘I thought, if it hadn’t been for our Ginny goading him on, he’d never have gone. But then the explosion happened and I thought he might just as easy have been killed in the pit. And I suppose there’s a bit of hope he’s still alive. Maybe he’s been cast ashore somewhere, or picked up by a ship.’
‘Was it John told you I was living with Charlie?’
‘No. That woman who cooks for the Vines heard him and the manager rowing about you, the manager saying he ought to be ashamed of himself for breaking his word, and Charlie Parkinson telling him you’d thrown yourself at him and you were more to blame than him. Of course, she couldn’t wait to blast the news all over the village. I can’t think about any of this any more. I feel more dead than alive. I’ll take my tea and lie in bed for a while. But I’m glad you’re home, Ginny. You look after her, Em.’
After their mother had gone, Emma said softly, ‘We heard about our John the day before me dad went down the pit. Of course, she blamed him, and she turned her back on him before he went, refused to give him a kiss, the first time she’s ever done that since they were married. Now we’ll probably never see him again. Not alive anyway, and maybe not at all. I think she’s heart-broken over that, as much as everything else.’
Emma started to cut bread and cheese, whilst an exhausted Ginny rested her head on the back of her father’s armchair and surveyed her old home. It looked strange yet familiar, smaller and shabbier than she remembered it, but still cosy and clean. She thought of her father trapped in pitch-blackness and shuddered. ‘Poor Mam. Husband trapped in the pit and probably dead, son lost at sea, and eldest daughter a whore who’s brought shame on everybody belonging to her. She must wonder what she’s done to deserve it.’
‘Can you keep a secret, Ginny?’ Emma whispered.
‘What?’
‘You might not be the only one who’s brought shame on everybody. I think I’m having a bairn.’
‘What?’ Ginny sat up straight, eyes wide open. Emma nodded.
‘Jimmy Hood’s sweet on me, and I’m sweet on him. He’s hewing now, and earning a good wage. He asked me mam and dad if he could marry us, and they said no, because he’s a Catholic and they didn’t want any Catholics in their family. Besides, they hadn’t forgotten that Jimmy lent our John money to run off. We could do nothing to change their minds, so Jimmy said if I was game, he’d make them let him marry me.’ She looked intently at Ginny as if willing her to understand, but fatigued from her journey and mind reeling from what she’d heard and seen so far, Ginny returned a blank stare.
‘Well, I was terrified, but I said, “All right.” So he set about it. He said, “They’ll not be able to get us married quick enough then.’ Only now I think I’m pregnant, and he’s trapped below ground. He’s probably dead already.’
Chapter 20
Lizzie and Sally lay asleep as Ginny watched Emma retching into the basin early the following morning.
‘I am, aren’t I?’ Emma asked. She described other telltale signs. Her breasts were engorged and so tender she could hardly bear her clothes against them. She had long missed her monthly period. She felt exhausted.
‘I was like that,’ Ginny commiserated. Emma looked sharply up at her and she nodded confirmation. ‘Stillborn. Over a year ago.’
Downstairs, their mother was awake but drained and enervated. They took her a cup of tea and left her, saying they would keep first watch and bring her any news.
Speeding towards the pithead, Ginny saw her village in the clear light of day with a stranger’s eye, taking in its dreary rows of soot-blackened cottages, its cobbled streets and unpaved alleys, the gaunt black framework at the pit mouth with the winding gear high in the air, the sombre hills of shale close by. It was rough, dirty and uncouth. Everybody she knew in London would have scorned to live there, although most might have thought it good enough for the pitmen because they too would have been despised. Outwardly as unprepossessing as the village, often blackened and smelling of lamp oil, their speech incomprehensible to outsiders, they were a race apart. It angered her to think that while their misdeeds were magnified and oft repeated, their daily heroism passed without comment, until something like this brought reporters to the scene to witness the courage and compassion of men worthy of the name. They were magnificent, and she felt a fierce pride in them.
The word on the lips of everyone they passed was that the shaft had been cleared and an exploring party had gone down, Martin among them. Ginny hurried along with Emma, determined to stay rooted to the place until he came to the surface. Beyond the boundary Ginny saw the two doctors and felt cheered, then she spotted a collection of makeshift coffins, and her heart sank. They joined the throng of other wives, parents, sweethearts, waiting as near as the police would allow. Many of their neighbours looked askance at Ginny, Enid Jackson and the Vines’ cook both turning away and exchanging whispered comments behind their hands. The old Ginny would have challenged them, would have demanded openly to know what they were saying, but now, self-condemned, she shrank from them. Few people spoke to her, but one who did exchange a few words was Mrs Vine’s discarded housemaid, Maudie, who was obviously with child.
‘We were married last year. He went down with the rest and I haven’t seen him since. He’s dead. It’s not my luck for him not to be.’ Maudie looked more of a sloven than ever, but the droop of her shoulders and her hollow-eyed, pasty face made Ginny wish she could take back every unkind comment she had ever made about her.
They waited for hours. At last they saw some men being brought to the bank and Martin was with them, looking aged and haggard under the dirt, but alive! Alive and on his feet. The breath Ginny had been holding escaped in one long sigh of relief and, feeling her knees buckle, she held onto Emma. She lost sight of him for a moment as reporters surrounded him and the others, full of questions, all eager for a sensational story. When the pressmen had gone and the rescuers approached, the crowd surged forward, clamouring for news. Had they seen anything of a father, a husband, a brother, a son, a sweetheart?
They had no comfort for anybody. They had passed bodies at every stride so burned and blasted by the explosion and the fire they were unrecognizable, but had brought none out because they’d been intent on finding survivors.
‘We couldn’t get far for the fire. In some places everything that’ll burn’s alight, pit props, tubs of coal, the lot. We’ll hev to work in relays to put it out as far as we can,’ said Martin. ‘The owners are saying nobody can be alive. They’re talking about blocking the pit up to cut the air off, so they can salvage as much of their property as they can.’ This last news drew angry and disbelieving protests from the crowd.
‘But what if some are alive?’ asked Ginny, when most of the rest had dispersed. ‘Don’t they care about them?’
Was it contempt or pity she saw in his eyes? More like reproach. ‘They care a lot more about their investment, Ginny. I would have thought you’d know th
at, now you’re keeping company with Mr Parkinson. He’s a shareholder, so you must know we’re nothing to them, nothing but bloody slaves.’
‘But Mr Vine’s one of the owners,’ Ginny said. ‘I can’t believe he doesn’t care about any of them.’
‘Aye, I admit he’s a different case to the other owners. He’s had to look too many of us in the eye. He’s down there now, with another exploring party, but we’ll see which way he jumps, when it comes to it. If his wife gets her own way, the pit’ll be blocked up. She’s interested in nothing but how much money can be squeezed out of it, from what I’ve heard. One thing’s certain, he knew the pit’s gassy. Everybody’s known the danger but there’s not many wanted to complain about it for fear of losing their jobs.’
‘You’ll lose yours if you’re not careful. I hope you didn’t say any of that to them,’ Emma nodded in the direction of the retreating reporters, ‘because if you did, you’ll be finished. Is there any chance there’s anybody left alive, Martin?’
He averted his eyes from the look of desperate, painful appeal in hers. ‘There’s a slim chance there might be a few alive in the remotest workings, but whether there’s any chance they’ll still be alive by the time we manage to get to them – not much, I wouldn’t think. A couple of the lads thought they heard somebody knocking, but it’s maybe wishful thinking.’ He looked at Ginny’s left hand. ‘He’s not married you yet, then?’
She flushed. ‘No, because I don’t want to marry him.’
He raised his eyebrows, and gave her a sharp, unreadable glance. ‘I’m surprised at that, under the circumstances.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Aye well,’ he grimaced, ‘time I went home, let Mam and the bairn know I’m all right, and snatch a few hours’ rest before we go down again. I wish I could tell you something good about your dad and Jimmy, Emma. If we don’t get them out, it won’t be for want of trying. I’m glad to see you looking so well, Ginny.’
The barb found its mark, and her lip quivered at the pain and shock of it. She understood him perfectly. That she, a pitman’s daughter, one of them, should consort with one of their oppressors, and not even as an honest wife but as his whore, was a betrayal of her own kind. Martin probably imagined that she was well fed and well dressed on the profits of this mine, the tomb of her father and other fathers, brothers and sons. She couldn’t bear to have him think so badly of her. With a boldness born of desperation, she caught him by the sleeve as he passed her, but when he stopped to look her full in her face she couldn’t hold his gaze and lowered her eyes.
‘Be fair to me, Martin. It’s not what you think. Not all of it anyway, and it wasn’t all my fault.’
He nodded and waited for a moment or two until she released him before walking on.
‘You seem to want his good opinion,’ said Emma.
‘I love him, Em. I don’t know when I first began to realize it, but I’ve hardly thought about anything else for the past year and a half. I was thinking about him before then, even. Probably before I left Annsdale. I can’t remember when I didn’t. Now I’ve seen him, I’m sure. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him, Em. I’m going to marry him.’
Emma’s derisory laugh hit her like a slap in the face. ‘After Charlie Parkinson? You must be insane. He didn’t seem to be entertaining any thoughts of marrying you just now.’
Ginny was immovable in spite of her sister’s scorn. ‘It’s meant to be. It’s like turning a place upside down looking for something, and then realizing it’s been under your nose all the time. He’s the one for me, and I’m for him.’
‘Well, he’s certainly never been a lucky man, so he’s not what you used to say you wanted. Even if he’s not killed or maimed, he’s likely to make himself a nuisance to a lot of powerful people. He’ll be finished round here as far as getting work goes, if he’s not careful.’
‘Martin’s his own worst enemy.’
‘Maybe, but he’s our best friend.’
Ginny pondered on the difference between the two men, and knew it was his ruthlessness that was Charlie’s luck. Principle, honesty, loyalty, pity, any sense of decency, none presented any obstacle to Charlie, but all impeded Martin. Martin’s bad luck was the result of his integrity, of his support for people who could never repay him, of his courage in demanding fair treatment for them all against the will of tyrants. The only person Martin had ever sacrificed was himself. Unless a capacity to inspire respect and love counted as luck, he was as unlucky as any man could be. But she well understood why Maria had wanted him, even while he lay in bed not knowing whether he would ever work, or even walk, again.
They went on home with the news. The three younger children were downstairs when they got back, to Ginny all grown almost beyond recognition. Thirteen-year-old Arthur, even more arrogant since starting work on the surface, turned his back on her when she walked in and refused to speak. Lizzie and Sally looked at her in awed silence until she held out her arms to them, and then they went to hug her. They ate a rough and ready meal together, and at the end of it young Arthur said, ‘She wouldn’t be here if me father was at home. She’s a bloody disgrace.’
‘Be quiet,’ said his mother, ‘and don’t talk about things you know nothing about.’
‘I’m not a bairn, and I know what she is,’ he glowered, ‘bloody whore.’
Ginny made no protest and was surprised when her mother did. ‘You know nothing, and you say nothing outside this family about anybody in it,’ she said sharply. ‘There’ll be plenty willing to cry her down without her own family helping them. I’m going to the pit. You’d better come with me and see if you can make yourself useful to the men. Who else will come?’
‘Me,’ said Emma.
‘I’ll fettle the kitchen and have a meal ready for you when you come back,’ said Ginny.
‘You won’t get much ready with what’s in the pantry,’ said their mother.
‘I’ve got some money. I’ll send Lizzie down to the Co-op.’
‘I won’t be eating anything she’s bought.’ Young Arthur jerked his head in Ginny’s direction.
‘I’ll get something ready for anybody that wants it,’ said Ginny, ‘and if you don’t, Arthur, you can starve for all I care.’
She made a shopping list and despatched Sally and Lizzie to fetch groceries, then washed pots and pans, and started a thorough cleaning of the kitchen. She saw young Arthur’s boots and remembered the day she would have died rather than clean them, but clean them she did, prompted by the thought that had he been a few months older, he too might be trapped. Just then she heard a knock at the front door, opened it, and found herself face to face with Martin. Her stomach tied itself in knots of apprehension.
‘Me mam’s out,’ she said, ‘they’ve gone back to the pit top.’
‘I know that. It’s you I’ve come to see.’
She couldn’t trust herself to say anything more than ‘Come in.’
He joined her in the kitchen. There was a brief pause before he looked her in the eye. ‘Was that true, then? Is that the end of it between you and Parkinson?’
The long-awaited, long-dreaded ordeal was upon her. She must undergo the torture of telling him everything, however humiliating, because Charlie would already be painting her in the blackest possible colours, would be making sure the whole village knew everything to her discredit. She must pre-empt him as far as she could. Stomach churning and heart beating so loudly she thought he must hear it, she held his gaze. ‘Yes, that’s the end of it. I don’t know what I’ll do but I’m not going back to him. I haven’t lived with him for over a year.’
‘How could you ever think o’ getting mixed up with him in the first place, Ginny?’
She saw the hurt in his eyes and shrugged helplessly. ‘You know what it was like here. You’ve not forgotten my father kneeing you in the face, I suppose? I wanted to stay, but how could I after that? The manager told me there were always plenty of good jobs in London for servants and he promised to give
me a reference. I can see you don’t believe me.’
‘I do believe you. The manager told me an’ all, and he was right, there always are plenty of jobs there for good servants. I’ve heard they can just about say what they like to their employers. They can leave one job in a morning and be in another one by the afternoon. So how did you end up living with Charlie Parkinson? How could you, Ginny? You couldn’t have picked a worse man if you’d dredged through all the dross of London. It nearly killed your mother when she got to know, and your father – well, if he lives to get a hold of him there’ll be a murder done, and I can’t say I blame him. So how did it happen? I know it’s not my business, and I’ve no right to ask you but – I want to know.’
But she wanted it to be his business, as she wanted everything to do with her to be his business. She gave him the right to ask her whatever he would, and admitted that wanting to try her luck on the music halls had led her to go with Charlie to see a proper one. She told about him taking her back to his house instead of to her lodgings and owned to everything that had happened as a consequence.
‘Afterwards he told me I’d gone there of my own free will because I knew he’d serve me, and I’d wanted him to, and I suppose that’s what you think an’ all,’ she concluded, flinching at the grim set of his jaw.
Martin nodded. ‘Aye, well, I can’t deny that’s what it looked like when we got to know.’
He sounded hard and unrelenting. Perhaps she had mistaken him, mistaken her own judgement in telling him her sordid history. Too late now. She turned away from him, cheeks as red as they’d been on that first night in Charlie’s house.
‘I suppose I did want to be served in the end. I wanted to be loved and cherished and all, but that never happened. I had the wrong man for that.’
He grasped her roughly by the shoulders and turned her towards him. His face was ashen. ‘Ginny, there’s something I’ve got to know. Did you go whoring for him?’
A Sovereign for a Song Page 20
