Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Take a seat by the fire, Hilda.’ Miss Joice steered her from the middle of the room. ‘We’ll have tea in a minute.’

  Soon they were in conversation about books and heroines from Jane Eyre to Joan of Arc. Eleanor was amazed by the girl’s knowledge of literature and the way her mouth full of crooked teeth chattered away animatedly about the realms of fiction as if she really believed in the characters.

  There was a pause while Margaret Slattery came in with the tea. Hilda pressed her lanky body into the back of her chair hoping Margaret would not notice her. She was the eldest of Mrs Slattery’s family and Hilda only knew her by sight, though her younger sister Minnie was a friend of Louie’s. But Margaret did not even glance at the visitors, leaving the tray on the octagonal table inlaid with mother-of-pearl and withdrawing with a nod from her mistress.

  Hilda helped herself with youthful relish to the plateful of drop scones and cream cakes. She had not tasted such rich pickings for ages. Louie was very frugal with the household budget it seemed to her, though she was aware that less money was coming into the house since Eb’s hours had been cut and her father and John were working in a difficult part of the pit.

  She noticed that Mrs Seward-Scott did not touch a mouthful of the delicious food, but sipped occasionally at her sugarless black tea. Hilda listened with rapt attention to the conversation of the older women, who seemed uninhibited by her presence. They began by discussing some French book about homosexuals and then a writer called D. H. Lawrence of whom they both appeared to approve.

  ‘And will Dr Stopes be coming to speak at the Cooperative Women’s Guild soon, Eleanor?’ Her teacher switched subjects again.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Isobel.’ Her friend stubbed out the cigarette in its long ivory holder. ‘Marie has discovered she is pregnant at long last, so the lecture tour has been postponed for a while. Nevertheless I’m determined she will come sooner or later.’

  Hilda was shocked but fascinated as the conversation about a birth control clinic developed. Her mother and her friends never talked about such things in front of their children, if at all. Sudden thoughts of her mother made her grow uneasy about the time. When they paused again she piped up, ‘Thank you very much for the tea, Miss Joice. I think I should be gettin’ home now.’

  ‘Of course, Hilda, it’s been nice having you.’ Her hostess stood up.

  Hilda turned to look at Mrs Seward-Scott who rose to her feet. Only then did the girl appreciate how incredibly thin she was, like a supple blade of grass that could blow away in the slightest breeze. But her voice was far from fragile.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to borrow some of my books, Hilda?’ she asked.

  The young girl was momentarily speechless.

  ‘Well, Hilda?’ Miss Joice smiled.

  ‘I’d love - I mean - if you really think - well - yes please!’ she stammered in reply.

  Eleanor smiled at her enthusiasm. She could identify with the thrill of discovering the rich world of books, but had not thought to find it in this gauche, lanky girl with the dull blonde hair who lived in one of the miserable cottages in the centre of Whitton Grange. It was an uncomfortable feeling to have her perspective on life altered so suddenly. Hilda had left the door ajar on another world just as much as she herself had done for this collier’s daughter.

  ‘Then I’ll leave some here at Miss Joice’s the next time I call,’ she promised.

  Hilda left with her small clutch of books and ran excitedly through the dene, skirting the woods above the village. She would have to be quick in hiding her store of knowledge in Eb’s allotment shed because she was sure she had stayed too long and would receive a scolding for being so late home. Today though, she did not care. Her visit and meeting with Mrs Eleanor Seward-Scott had been wonderful.

  ‘And she’s so tall and elegant,’ she panted at Eb in the seclusion of his vegetable garden, ‘and she smokes cigarettes that smell like an oriental bazaar and she reads books which the government has banned.’

  Eb smiled to himself, wondering how his sister, who had only travelled as far as Durham City, could possibly know how an eastern bazaar smelt. Still, it was obvious that the woman from the big house had impressed his sister; her eyes shone in adoration as she spoke of her.

  ‘Eb, you mustn’t tell, but Mrs Reginald is going to lend me her books. I bet they’ve got a few at the big house.’

  ‘A few hundred, more than likely,’ Eb grunted. He was surprised by the woman’s gesture. No one could fail to be impressed by the scale and grandeur of The Grange and the glamorous family who came and went in shiny black Bentleys. But Eb Kirkup was less impressed than most. Perhaps they did hold riotous cocktail parties for Miss Beatrice and rub shoulders with the Prince of Wales in West End nightclubs, or so the rumours went, but he had met their type during the war and found them hollow to the core. Maybe the best of them had died, like Captain Seward-Scott, all too eagerly spilling their vital blood into the soggy soil of Flanders and on the bleak ridges of Gallipoli. But the hollow ones like Reginald Seward-Scott, who had frittered away much of the war at regimental parties, were in control of things now. A land fit for heroes was their promise, Eb thought sadly, but conditions here in Whitton Grange were probably worse than before that hellish war. At least he had his pocket of land here, away from the soot of the village and the furnace underground, up here on the hillside where the earth could breathe.

  ‘Let’s see what you’re drawing, Eb.’ Hilda had finally run out of things to say about Eleanor and was leaning over his shoulder curiously.

  ‘Nothing really.’ Eb tried to cover his pencil sketch of the two fat chaffinches which had been sitting on the battered fence.

  ‘That’s really good,’ Hilda praised. ‘They look like they’re having a canny chat.’

  Eb chuckled. ‘They were.’ It pleased him that he had caught the mood of the moment and not just the image. ‘Anyway, what are you doing up here so late in the afternoon? Shouldn’t you be helping our Louie?’

  ‘Eee, what’s the time?’ Hilda’s hand flew to her mouth. Eb checked his pocket watch in the growing gloom.

  ‘Half past five,’ he announced.

  ‘I’ll be skinned alive.’ Hilda looked to be on the verge of tears, or the giggles, Eb could not tell which. ‘Will you cover for us, Eb, please? Say I’ve been up here helping you. I’ll carry some of the potatoes home, or the spring onions, or anything.’

  Eb grinned and tousled her hair playfully. ‘Long as you promise to read me some of your banned books,’ he bargained.

  ‘Aye, all of them.’ Hilda laughed with relief. Together they gathered up a few early broad beans and some thick stems of rhubarb that Eb had gardened and set off down the slope to the village.

  By the end of the week Louie and her mother had forgiven Hilda for neglecting her duties, but the younger sister realised she would have to forgo trips to tea at Greenbrae for a while. She made up for her transgressions on Saturday by spending the whole afternoon altering Louie’s Sunday dress to the new length and embroidering some doilies to sell in their shop. At least Louie called the modest enterprise a shop; it was really a few odds and ends that they sold from the window of their outhouse in the back yard. Louie made ginger beer and lemonade to sell and sometimes when their mother felt strong enough she made peppermint creams that brought in a few pennies too.

  This Saturday it was warm and sunny and they had done well selling pop to the children in Hawthorn Street and round the corner in Holly Street. They had sent Sadie round to tell everyone what was on offer and she had returned triumphant, like the pied piper, with a straggle of thirsty and inquisitive playmates behind her.

  ‘She’s coming out of her shell is Sadie,’ Louie told her mother with satisfaction when she had shut up shop. ‘Seems quite popular with the other bairns now. I gave her a toffee for helping out.’

  ‘Mind you don’t spoil her now, Louie,’ her mother warned, glancing up from her mending. ‘I know you can be soft inside like your father g
iven half the chance.’

  Louie smiled, pleased at the comparison and thankful that the heaviest of the week’s work was over. She was going to sit with her feet up for half an hour with a cup of tea, and read a magazine that Mary Ritson had lent her. She did not like to admit that she had gone out of her way to be nice to Mary when she saw her working in Armstrong’s the tobacconist’s on the corner of Mill Terrace. Since then she always bought John’s twist of tobacco for him at Armstrong’s, though only if she saw Mary behind the counter. Well, she had always got on with Mary at school and there was no reason why they should not carry on being friends, Louie reasoned.

  ‘Are you going to let me do it?’ Hilda broke the peace of the moment.

  ‘Maybe’s.’ Louie flicked over the pages. ‘Do you think I should, Mam?’ It was a question that had exercised the minds of the Kirkup women for the past fortnight; should or should not Louie have her hair bobbed?

  ‘I think you’d suit your hair shorter,’ her mother encouraged, ‘and it would be more practical - you wouldn’t have to boil up so much water to wash it.’

  ‘It’s all the fashion, Louie,’ Hilda assured her with an air of authority, ‘Mrs Reg—’ She managed to bite back her words in time. ‘Just look at the magazine you’re reading, all the women in there have their hair short.’

  ‘What do you think Da would say?’ Louie’s face wrinkled in doubt.

  Fanny Kirkup looked at her elder daughter’s tired face; it had slimmed down over the last year and her blue eyes had taken on the careworn look of a much older woman. She allowed herself to feel a pang of pity for Louie and the job she had taken upon herself; it would give her spirits a lift for her to have a new appearance.

  ‘Go ahead and have it done,’ her mother urged. ‘He can’t make you stick it back on, now can he?’ They all laughed at the conspiracy and Louie submitted her long, flyaway fair hair to Hilda’s dextrous scissors.

  Eleanor leaned back into plump cushions on the comfortable sofa in the library. She had dined alone with Reginald; her father was staying overnight in Newcastle, having had some business to complete. Since her return from London just before Christmas her relationship with her husband had improved. Eleanor was almost sure he had missed her - not that he had said so exactly - and she had tried her best to bring a new enthusiasm to their marriage. They were sleeping together again. Eleanor did not delude herself that this was because Reginald suddenly found her desirable; there was a new unspoken agreement between them that they would once more try to conceive a baby.

  ‘When does Beatrice arrive?’ Reginald looked up over his copy of The Times.

  Eleanor reached for another cigarette, but he did not admonish her. ‘She’s supposed to be here tonight. Bridget took a call to say she had reached York. Her new friend, Bill or someone, is driving her up here.’

  ‘What happened to Charlie?’ Reginald sounded disapproving. ‘I thought he was a damn good chap. Played a good game of rugger too, a Cambridge Blue. Why couldn’t your sister settle for him?’

  Eleanor laughed. ‘Really, Reggie, you know her as well as I do. Charlie may have been a good sport but he didn’t have enough money. Beatrice will have to marry a maharajah or something to keep her in the clothes she buys and take her to all those nightclubs she seems to live in.’

  ‘God forbid an Indian.’ Reginald shuddered and folded his paper vigorously. ‘It was bad enough her going about with that Jew from France last year.’

  ‘I thought Marcel was quite charming,’ Eleanor replied. Reginald could be so tediously narrow-minded at times.

  ‘Shifty, I’d say,’ Reginald said. ‘I meet these people in business, old girl, they muscle in and take over wherever they get the chance.’

  ‘And you don’t, I suppose?’ Eleanor mocked him from behind a haze of smoke.

  ‘It’s different for us British, we have a sense of fair play,’ Reginald snapped back. Eleanor thought that some of the Whitton Grange miners might think there was nothing fair in the conditions they had to settle for, but decided to let the subject drop. It was impossible to argue with Reginald about such matters as race or class; his mind was like a book whose pages had been left uncut. Anyway, if she thought too much about the miners she became racked with guilt, and why should she be? She had struggled for women’s suffrage and won, so they could fight their own battles for themselves.

  She watched as Reginald uncrossed his legs and stood up. ‘I think I’ll go upstairs now. I’ve got a meeting with the mine manager early tomorrow. Don’t wait up late for Beatrice and Bill what’s-his-name, darling; if they can’t turn up in time for dinner then Robertson can see to them. She’ll rustle up something cold from the kitchens, no doubt.’

  ‘Good night, Reggie,’ Eleanor answered evenly. Secretly she hoped Beatrice would be late and she could carry on sitting here by the log fire, reading her Scott Fitzgerald novel and sipping her father’s best malt whisky.

  But twenty minutes later Beatrice burst in on the arm of her new man, an American called Will Hector Bryce Junior; and there was no more peace.

  ‘Beatrice, when did you dye your hair blonde?’ Eleanor chuckled when Will had gone to ‘freshen up’.

  ‘Last month,’ her sister confessed. ‘Not a word to Will, he thinks I’m a Teutonic goddess and he’s madly in love with my flaxen image. He’s also fabulously rich. For God’s sake, tell Reggie not to put his big feet in it.’

  ‘I like it,’ Eleanor laughed. ‘At last my little sister is a real vamp.’

  Will returned. He said he was ‘doing’ Europe.

  ‘I’m just reading about people like you,’ Eleanor told him. ‘I thought the British were decadent until I read Scott Fitzgerald.’

  ‘Don’t be boring, Eleanor.’ Beatrice waved a decanter stopper at her then poured two enormous gins with Italian vermouth.

  ‘No, but your sister’s right, Bea honey.’ Will accepted the large aperitif. ‘We’ve perfected the art of doing nothing with as much expense and as little taste as possible. It’s called Capitalism with a capital C, yessir. Let’s drink to it!’

  Eleanor watched in amazement as he chinked glasses with Beatrice, downed his drink in one, grimaced and smiled. She began to laugh. The next week with her sister and Will Hector Bryce Junior was going to be fun.

  ‘What do you think?’ Hilda stood behind Louie who was inspecting her new hairstyle in the mirror above the sideboard in the parlour.

  ‘It’s different,’ Louie said uncertainly. ‘Does it suit me?’

  ‘You look all grown-up, Louie,’ Hilda said excitedly.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered back at her reflection. Hilda had cut it well. Released from the weight of long tresses, her hair even had a soft wave that wriggled over her ears. It made her narrow eyes somehow more noticeable. ‘I think I like it, Hildy, ta for cutting it.’

  Her father was horrified and warned her about the sin of vanity, but her brothers supported the change in their sister, especially Davie who told her she looked like a film star. Louie felt a new surge of energy as she changed into a clean blouse that evening and waited for her brothers to return from drinking at the club and her father from a game of billiards at the Institute.

  Sadie played by the hearth with two wooden farm animals Eb had carved for her, while Fanny and Hilda picked at some embroidery. Louie found she could not settle to anything and kept jumping up to inspect the array of food she had laid out on the parlour table, glancing surreptitiously in the mirror on the way.

  ‘Got ants in your pants, Louie?’ Hilda smirked. Sadie giggled.

  ‘That’s enough, Hilda,’ her mother reprimanded. ‘You could warm the teapot now, Louie, they’ll be here any minute.’

  ‘Aye,’ Louie smiled with relief. Just then the yard gate banged and they heard voices approaching. Louie flew to her task, pretending not to glance at the back door. Eb and John came in with Sam Ritson.

  ‘Where’s our Davie?’ his mother asked suspiciously.

  ‘Not with us,’ John answered,
unconcerned. He rubbed his hands and held them towards the blazing fire. ‘It’s clear tonight; there’ll be a frost, Eb.’

  ‘Aye,’ his brother agreed and winked at Louie as she gave them a sly glance.

  ‘Evening, Mrs Kirkup,’ Sam greeted the older woman.

  ‘Evening, Sam. Go on into the front room, lads,’ Fanny ordered. ‘Louie’s just making the tea. Take a bucket of coal with you, Ebenezer, and add it to the fire.’

  The men did as they were told. Louie scowled at their retreating backs.

  ‘He hasn’t even noticed!’ Louie hissed to her mother. ‘I might as well be part of the furniture.’

  ‘Hush, Louie, and make the tea,’ her mother answered calmly. Privately she felt like shaking Sam Ritson out of his political thoughts; he must be blind not to see how her daughter was trying to attract his attention.

  Eb struck up on the piano and Jacob Kirkup returned, bringing the blacksmith Ernie Parkin with him. Fanny sent Hilda next door to fetch Edie and Wilfred. Louie was tight-lipped, pouring tea, when the neighbours arrived. Sam was still ignoring her.

  ‘Eee, Louie! What in the wide world have you done to your hair?’ Edie Parkin screeched on seeing the girl’s shorn appearance. Louie blushed painfully at the silence this brought from the assembled company. Wilfred gawped at her in horror as if she had just declared she was a supporter of Sunderland FC, arch-rivals of his beloved Newcastle.

  ‘Why d’you do it, Louie?’ he asked.

  ‘I cut it.’ Hilda spoke up proudly. ‘Would you like me to do yours an’ all, Mrs Parkin?’

  ‘Hilda,’ her mother glared, ‘don’t be cheeky.’

  At this point Sam Ritson stepped forward from the piano and took his hands out of his pockets. He picked up one of the freshly poured cups of tea from the table and said, ‘Suits you, Louie.’

  She looked at him in astonishment, but his brown eyes returned her look with genuine liking. She was filled with a flood of warmth which had little to do with the heat of the fire or the packed room, but much to do with the acknowledgement from this stocky man before her with the vital eyes and the fighter’s arms.