Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘He’s over at the Robsons’ on Durham Road,’ Hilda told Isobel, who had been out all day. ‘One of the bairns has whooping cough.’

  ‘Take my bicycle, Hilda,’ Isobel determined swiftly. ‘Tell Dr Joice to go straight to Gladstone Terrace when he’s finished his call.’

  ‘Thanks, miss,’ Hilda answered gratefully and tore at her apron, discarding it thoughtlessly on a hall chair.

  ‘You have a glass of milk, Sadie,’ her teacher took her by the hand, ‘and when you’ve got your breath back you can run home and tell your aunt that the doctor’s on his way.’ The girl allowed herself to be led into the large, airy kitchen and took the refreshment without protest.

  Evening drew on and Louie was aware of her mother’s quiet presence hovering by her bedside. They both knew without speaking that she had gone into labour and the baby was coming early, too early. Louie tried to co-operate with her mother’s gentle encouragement, but she felt weak and feverish and could not control her ragged breathing.

  Later, she was aware of Hilda being in the room and wondered vaguely where Sadie could be. At some time during the evening, Dr Joice appeared at her bedside and she felt her unspoken fears for the baby intensify. He tried to reassure her in his kindly fashion, but an air of foreboding hung in the sweltering room and none of the usual expectant chatter lightened the heavy silence to ease her worry.

  When it grew dark, Dr Joice ordered a lamp to be fetched from the neighbours next door, an elderly couple called Stephenson. Old man Stephenson, whose allotment adjoined Eb’s, brought a pail of hot water which his wife had boiled up on their stove. Word leaked anxiously down the street that Louie’s baby was on its way. Once Minnie heard, she left Jack sleeping in his cot and came to help.

  ‘Everything’ll be fine,’ she told her friend with false brightness and took a spell at wiping her brow.

  At two in the morning, Louie gave birth to a tiny girl.

  ‘Let me see her,’ Louie panted, trying to sit up. ‘Is she all right?’

  There was a moment of bustling and hushed words between the doctor and Fanny. The baby was wrapped in a sheet and taken over to the kitchen table. The doctor appeared to be examining the bundle. There was no sound. Still Louie waited to hold her daughter.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered, the taste in her dry mouth bitter.

  ‘Best not to see it now,’ her mother answered inexplicably.

  Dr Joice stepped back to the bed and leaned over Louie. ‘I’m very sorry, my dear, the baby’s stillborn. It came before its time.’

  Louie lay back, her closed eyes flooding with scalding tears, disbelief fighting with shock. The unthinkable had happened; her baby had died before it was born. What a cruel paradox.

  ‘I want to see her.’ Louie struggled to make herself coherent. Fanny looked uncertainly at the doctor. He seemed at a loss as to what to advise. Minnie stepped forward, picked up the lifeless bundle from the kitchen table and took it to her friend. Louie raised herself up and, with Minnie’s help, took the baby awkwardly in her arms.

  She saw a small, shiny face with perfectly formed lips and nose, the eyes closed in peaceful repose, as if the baby merely slept. This was the moment she had longed for and, now that it had come, she was overwhelmed with grief that these innocent eyes would never open.

  ‘My bonny lass,’ Louie whispered and, bending, kissed her baby goodbye. ‘Oh, my bonny, bonny lass.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Louie refused to be moved from her home the next day, despite the urgings of her parents and Dr Joice. She said she would remain in her house until the bailiffs came and threw her on to the street. Only Hilda seemed to understand her desire to hold on to the crude roomful of possessions that was her home; the place where she had been happy with Sam, where her daughter had been conceived and born. But no one else wanted to mention the baby in her presence; she had been removed swiftly while Louie was still in a daze of exhaustion, and never referred to again, as if the small scrap of humanity had never been.

  At dawn, Eb took the baby away wrapped in a strip of old sheet and went alone to the allotment. Finding a discarded wooden box, he laid the bundle in its makeshift coffin and trudged on up the hill. Against the wishes of the doctor and his mother, Eb was determined to bury the babe himself. He knew if Louie had been well enough to choose, this was what she would have wished.

  ‘She’ll only dwell on it.’ Fanny had criticised his decision. ‘It’s best that she tries to forget.’ Yet Eb had resisted their warnings, not knowing why it mattered to him so much.

  He chose a sheltered spot beside a wall at the top of the Common and began the grim task of carving a miniature grave in the springy turf. He hurried to complete the distasteful job, lowering in the box without ceremony and shovelling the earth back into place. He did not like to think about the contents of the grave as anything he should care about, let alone a part of his own family. He had not even set eyes on Louie’s baby.

  But as the sun rose higher and streamed into the valley from the east, and the countryside about came awake, Eb was filled with regret for the niece he would never know. Silently, he crouched over the tiny mound of fresh earth for several minutes and prayed for the soul of the dead babe. He prayed for Louie and Sam. Then, with a heavy heart, he turned for home.

  Hilda stayed with Louie over the weekend, relieved of her duties from Greenbrae, and Eb brought cinders round from Hawthorn Street to coax the stove into life once more. ‘He went and buried the baby up on the Common,’ Hilda told her sister, when Eb had gone. ‘He said he’d make a cross to mark the place.’

  Louie’s eyes filled with tears; her brother had never said anything to her and she was overwhelmed by his caring action. Eb had saved her baby from being tossed into an unmarked grave on the edge of the cemetery. She would be able to visit the spot where her baby rested.

  ‘That’s good,’ she whispered and leaned back on her pillow.

  ‘What was she to be called?’ Hilda asked suddenly. Louie looked at her in surprise.

  ‘We hadn’t decided.’

  ‘She ought to have a name, Louie,’ Hilda insisted.

  ‘Aye.’ Louie nodded reflectively. ‘I’ll give her my name, Louisa. At least I can give her that.’

  Her sister smiled approvingly. ‘That’s nice.’

  Louie watched Hilda carry on sewing, unable to express the gratitude she felt towards her thoughtful sister. She had never felt closer to Hilda than at that moment.

  ‘Will you tell Sam what’s happened before he gets out?’ Hilda asked, glancing up. Louie shook her head weakly.

  ‘He’ll learn soon enough,’ she answered, and closed her eyes to sleep.

  On the Sunday afternoon, Mrs Ritson and her daughters Bel and Mary called to see Louie. Her mother-in-law’s ample figure filled the brown horsehair chair as she sniffed into her handkerchief and commiserated.

  ‘I’m that disappointed, Louie,’ she told the young woman lying fully dressed on the high bed. ‘I was so looking forward—’ She broke off and blew her nose vigorously.

  ‘Don’t, Mam.’ Bel put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. She smiled awkwardly at Louie. ‘There’ll be others, Louie. You’ll have better luck next time. This one was just not meant to be. Just think of Johnny’s sister - she lost her first baby and now she’s got two healthy bairns.’

  Louie tried to smile back, but Bel’s reassurances stabbed her like clippy hooks. She could not imagine a time when this aching void inside her would close up, or when she would be able to hear the sound of a small child again without it tearing at her heart. Moreover, it pained her to think her daughter would never feel the warmth of Mrs Ritson’s bosom or bask in her doting words and cuddles. She would have been such a wonderful grandmother to Louisa.

  Hilda moved between them. ‘Our Louie’s still very tired.’ She smiled apologetically at the Ritson women. ‘I think we should let her rest now, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mrs Ritson looked at her daughter-in-law
with concern, then heaved herself up.

  At that moment, Minnie and Margaret came clattering in the back door with their young offspring. Louie froze as she caught sight of baby Joe’s round, sun-kissed face and Jack’s fluffy red hair.

  ‘We’ve come to cheer you up,’ Minnie called breezily and then stopped at the sight of the Ritson women. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you had company.’

  ‘We’re just going.’ Mrs Ritson sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Louie doesn’t want visitors just now - especially young ones,’ she added pointedly.

  ‘Will you be moving back to Hawthorn Street tomorrow?’ Mary asked quickly, having sat mutely for the whole of the visit. ‘I think it’s a scandal taking your house off you after all that’s happened; it’s unchristian.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Louie answered tensely, trying not to look at the babies clamped to their mothers’ hips. ‘Mam said Sam and I could sleep in the kitchen once he returns.’

  ‘You know you could come and stay with us,’ Mrs Ritson offered. ‘We’ve got more room than your parents - and there’s less of us than all you Kirkups. I think you should get away from this bad street - come and live with us until Sam finds you somewhere else. Don’t you agree, Bel?’

  ‘Aye,’ Bel smiled, ‘that would be grand, and Betty would love it. She’s wanting to see you, but I didn’t think …’ Her voice trailed off as she looked uncomfortably at her sister-in-law.

  Louie glanced at Hilda for help, unable to argue against the might of the Ritsons. All she knew was that she could not bear to live at such close quarters with baby Betty, a constant reminder of the daughter she could not have. Neither would she be able to revel in their everyday conversations about other people’s babies any more; she was excluded from them as if from a club to which she had been denied membership. How could she begin to explain her sensitivity to careless talk? They could not guess at her private agony.

  ‘That’s kind of you to offer, Mrs Ritson,’ Hilda intervened, ‘but it’s all been arranged. I’m to move into the servant’s room at Greenbrae - and John and Davie are away on the farm just now - so it won’t be such a tight squeeze.’

  ‘Very well.’ Sam’s mother sounded dubious. ‘We’ll call again soon at your mother’s house, Louie,’ she assured the girl. Louie summoned up a smile and a croaky ‘thank you’.

  Mrs Ritson squeezed past the Slattery girls as if they carried something contagious and beckoned her daughters after her. Jack had started to cry fretfully and Minnie was bouncing him up and down to distract him.

  ‘Perhaps we should call in later?’ Margaret suggested, aware of Louie’s strained expression.

  ‘Aye,’ Hilda agreed swiftly, ‘Louie needs to sleep now.’

  ‘Ta-ra then, Louie,’ Minnie said uncertainly. Louie could hardly reply.

  Hilda bustled them out of the room after the Ritsons.

  When they had gone Louie burst into uncontrollable tears. Hilda went to her sister and put her arms around her comfortingly and they clung together wordlessly as Louie’s grief rang round the small room.

  Eb decided to forgo caution and after morning chapel went to seek the help of Isobel Joice.

  ‘I need to speak with Mrs Seward-Scott,’ he told her, unable to meet the questioning gaze of the schoolteacher’s hazel eyes. ‘It’s about Louie. The pit management have told her to clear out by tomorrow. And after all she’s been through - it’s not right. I know she would rather stay in Gladstone Terrace than have to move back in with the family. It’s a matter of pride.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Isobel spoke with quiet concern, horrified at the callousness of the impending eviction. ‘I’ll get a message to Eleanor. Would you like to meet her here?’

  Eb glanced at her gratefully and scratched his head. ‘That would be grand.’

  Eleanor came the moment she received the message. In the quiet of the doctor’s garden, she listened to Eb’s story.

  ‘Of course something must be done,’ she said at last, snapping off a long-stemmed marguerite in her anger. They stood under the far garden wall, hidden from the house by trailing roses in full bloom around the weathered pergola. ‘I had no idea this was going to happen. It’s outrageous!’

  ‘Do you think you can stop them?’ Eb asked hopefully.

  Eleanor looked uncertain. ‘I have little influence with my husband now, Eb.’ She fixed him with her dark eyes. ‘He is furious at what he calls my interfering in his business matters. Reginald won’t easily forgive me for helping the Distress Committee - he sees it as siding with the enemy.’

  ‘I’m sorry if things are difficult for you,’ Eb replied in a low voice.

  ‘Oh, I don’t care what Reginald thinks of me any more,’ Eleanor answered stoutly. ‘I’m just afraid it weakens my hand when it comes to asking him favours.’

  Eb looked glum. ‘I don’t want you begging to that man on our behalf,’ he said with annoyance, ‘and I don’t want you belittling yourself to him either. I hate the way he treats you.’

  Eleanor smiled suddenly and slipped an arm through his. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you sound jealous over me,’ she teased. ‘I do believe you care for me after all, Eb Kirkup.’ He turned and looked into her eyes.

  ‘Aye, I do care for you,’ he mumbled almost incoherently. ‘I thought of little else while I was stuck in Durham gaol.’ She reached up to him and kissed him on the lips. His arms went around her in an answering embrace. It was the first time they had been intimate since his release from prison, and they kissed each other with a fierce hunger.

  Finally pulling apart, Eleanor whispered hoarsely, ‘I wish we could have more than just these stolen moments, Eb.’ He sighed in reply but said nothing, resting his chin on her soft, short hair. Their arms remained linked about each other, reluctant to relinquish possession.

  ‘Will you go and visit Louie?’ he asked her, changing the subject. ‘She’s so unhappy; it might take her mind off her sorrow to see you. Even if you can’t do anything about the house, go and see her,’ he urged. Eleanor was touched by his belief that her friendship meant that much to his sister.

  ‘Of course I will,’ Eleanor promised him, ‘but first I must tackle Reginald.’

  It was late on the Sunday evening before Reginald returned from his weekend at Waterloo Bridge. Eleanor waited up for him in the drawing room after her father had retired to bed. By the time her husband had poured himself a nightcap, she had decided what to say.

  Stubbing out a scented cigarette, Eleanor turned to confront him. She wore an evening dress of jade and black, the vast gilded mirror above the fireplace reflecting her neat black bob of hair and the bandeau of green satin studded with jet. Around her neck she deliberately wore the Seward family emeralds in their gold setting; she wanted Reginald to be aware of the gesture.

  ‘I heard today that Louie Ritson is to be evicted from her home tomorrow.’ Eleanor stared at him frostily. ‘Is this true, Reginald?’

  He took a gulp of his whisky and crossed his legs in the large armchair. ‘I really wouldn’t know about such everyday details. It’s something Hopkinson never bothers me with.’

  ‘Don’t treat me like an idiot, Reggie,’ she retorted. ‘The order to evict Sam Ritson came from you, didn’t it? You’ve decided to persecute the man, and his wife - my friend - is to be made to suffer too.’ Reginald peered into his glass of golden liquid and did not reply. Eleanor’s indignation rose. ‘Have you any idea how much she has already suffered, Reggie? Did you know that your henchmen’s threats precipitated Louie going into labour? Her baby was stillborn just hours after their visit.’

  Reginald looked at her in shock. He had forgotten that Ritson’s wife was with child. And this sudden attack from his wife after weeks of bored indifference made him nervous. He was overawed by Eleanor’s cold beauty in her shimmering black and green attire.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear it,’ Reginald went on the defensive, ‘but this strike has forced us to make some hard decisions. It’s most unfortunate that Louisa Kirku
p is caught up in the middle of this dispute with Ritson. But I tell you, my dear, he is the author of his own misfortune - the man thinks he is above the law in his vendetta against the coalowners.’

  ‘And you’ve acted totally within the law, haven’t you?’ Eleanor mocked. ‘Some people say you orchestrated that picket violence in order to throw men like Sam Ritson behind bars.’

  ‘You shouldn’t listen to such damn lies about your own husband,’ Reginald reproved, feeling on safer ground. ‘Can I not expect an ounce of loyalty from you, Eleanor?’ He sounded hurt.

  ‘This is what you can expect from me, Reginald.’ She came towards him, her black eyes fierce with resolution, and her voice steady. ‘You will tell Hopkinson and his men that the Ritsons will not be evicted, nor any of the other families whose men have been in prison. Or you can expect me to denounce you as the adulterer that you are.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Reginald gasped in genuine shock, his handsome face visibly paling at her threat.

  ‘Oh, I dare, Reginald.’ Eleanor did not take her eyes from his face. ‘Think what the papers will make of such a scandal - a sticky divorce case, reporters flocking to The Grange, to Waterloo Bridge - how utterly shocking for you and your dear friends the Fishers. Because, make no mistake, if you continue to hound the Ritsons I will divorce you, Reggie. And remember, it is through me that you will inherit The Grange and my father’s business interests. The law that you so eagerly uphold now protects my inheritance, even though I’m a mere woman.’ She smiled at him with unconcealed disdain. ‘So if I decide to divorce you for adultery, Reginald, you will lose everything - except the delightful Miss Fisher - though I suspect, if put to the test, your heart is really wedded to The Grange and its money.’