Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘You bitch,’ Reginald cursed her as the seriousness of her words overtook his astonishment. How could she risk her own reputation for these brutish miners and their families? He was astounded by her reckless courage; it was a side of Eleanor he had not seen for years. She had succeeded in terrifying him with her vision of a life without The Grange. This was as much his home as hers; he had grown to manhood here and put all his energies into running its estates well. She would never take it from him; he would have to see to that. For the moment, though, his wife had snatched a surprise victory.

  ‘I shall see Hopkinson first thing tomorrow,’ Reginald grudgingly agreed, standing up and draining his drink quickly. He wanted to escape from her triumphant face, the haughty, sculptured Seward features that reminded him he would only ever be a lowly Scott in her eyes. ‘Given the unfortunate turn of events at Gladstone Terrace, I shall recommend that Louisa Ritson be allowed to remain there for the foreseeable future.’

  ‘Good,’ Eleanor answered, picking up her cigarette case and tapping a Turkish cigarette on the silver lid. Reginald strode from the room without another word and Eleanor sank into the flowered sofa, her heart still pounding nervously. She pulled on her cigarette until she felt calmer. The gold-encased clock on the mantelpiece struck twelve. Eleanor sighed with relief; she had saved Louie from her humiliation just in time. More soberingly, she realised she had made a lifelong enemy of Reginald. Once he might have turned a blind eye to her obsession with ‘causes’, but now he would never forgive her for threatening to snatch away what he held most dear, The Grange. As she sat in the quiet of the drawing room with only the rhythmic ticking of clocks to keep her company, Eleanor wondered why it was she had been prepared to gamble away her marriage and the security of the privileged society in which she moved, all for the sake of Red Sam Ritson and his young wife.

  Reginald kept his word and the following morning instructed his agent to forbid the management to go ahead with their eviction. Until further notice they were to cancel the other planned repossessions too. The coalowner also set Hopkinson on another task; he was to have Eleanor watched and the people she met noted. It was just a hunch, but something Beatrice had once let slip, about Eleanor acting like a lovesick girl, came back to him. He doubted his wife had a lover, but it might be useful to discover with whom she did spend so much of her time mysteriously absent from the house. With that done, he set his mind to the problem of pressing his miners back to work, and the opening of the pits at Whitton Grange.

  Louie was heartened by the sudden change in the decision of the pit management to oust her from her home. ‘Perhaps there’s a peck of goodness in that Naylor after all,’ she suggested to Eb when he came to tell her the news.

  ‘Maybes,’ Eb answered evasively, thinking it best not to tell his sister of Eleanor’s certain intervention in the matter. He wanted to protect Eleanor as much as possible from being the source of village gossip.

  ‘At least Sam can come home to his rightful place,’ Louie smiled wanly, ‘and not to sharing a crowded house with his in-laws.’

  ‘Aye,’ Eb grinned. ‘Imagine how pleased Sam would have been celebrating his return in lemonade.’ Louie laughed with her brother. It felt strange; she had not found anything to make her smile since losing her baby. The familiar emptiness engulfed her again.

  ‘Oh, poor Sam,’ she whispered tearfully, ‘coming home to all this.’ Eb swung his arm about his sister’s shoulders, noticing how thin and fragile her once healthy figure had become. She gave a small cry of pain at the hug and Eb released her quickly. ‘I like you cuddling me, Eb,’ Louie reassured him. ‘It’s just so painful - my milk’s come in, you see.’

  Eb looked at the floor in embarrassment, not knowing what to say. The injuries of mutilated soldiers he could deal with, but the womanly distress that his sister bore left him feeling helpless. ‘I’ll send Mam over,’ he suggested and left quickly.

  Later in the day, Fanny and Iris came over and bound up Louie’s swollen breasts with old pieces of sheet to give her relief.

  ‘Where’s Raymond?’ Louie forced herself to ask, knowing she could not avoid the babies of Whitton Grange for ever.

  ‘Sadie’s taken him out for a walk,’ Iris explained. ‘The last thing you want is a bairn crying about the place. When you’re ready I’ll bring him over to see you, but not before.’

  ‘Thanks, Iris.’ Louie squeezed her hand gratefully, surprised by the other woman’s sensitivity. The unexpected kindness made her weepy; she no longer seemed to have any control over her feelings.

  ‘I’ll stay with our Louie for a bit,’ Fanny told Iris. ‘You get off home and see what Sadie’s up to.’

  ‘Right, Mam.’ Iris nodded without protest, Ta-ra, Louie.’

  When she had gone, Fanny sat gingerly on the edge of the bed where her daughter lay. ‘Did I ever tell you about the bairns I lost?’ she began hesitantly. Louie’s head shot up in surprise; she shook her head. ‘After John was born,’ Fanny forced herself to go on, ‘I had two daughters in the following two years - one lived a few days, the other lived for three months and died of scarlet fever. That’s why there’s such a gap in age between our John and our Davie.’

  ‘You never said! Is that why Davie was always so special,’ Louie asked with interest, ‘you having lost the other two?’

  ‘Maybes.’ Her mother shrugged.

  ‘What were they called, Mam?’

  ‘Frances Jane and Jane Frances,’ her mother replied, her eyes glistening as she remembered.

  ‘Canny names,’ Louie whispered. She was suddenly filled with a desire to ask her mother a thousand questions about these sisters of whom she had never heard. It was so typical of her reserved mother to have kept her personal tragedies to herself. And had her father mourned silently for years too? But Louie did not know how to begin probing, without unearthing her mother’s grief, buried for almost as long as their John had been alive.

  ‘I just wanted you to know that I feel for you, Louie pet.’ Her mother covered her hand gently. ‘I do know what it’s like. There’re too many of us pitmen’s wives who know the pain of losing a bairn.’ Louie felt her insides lurch at the sympathetic words. It made such a difference knowing that others shared the same hurt.

  ‘Does it get any better, Mam?’ Louie asked desperately.

  Fanny remained silent for a moment, struggling with the words that would convey adequately what she felt.

  She turned to her daughter, her eyes shiny with tears. ‘The pain gets better eventually,’ she promised, ‘but the memory of the pain stays with you always.’

  A week later Louie’s milk dried up and she began to go out again, short walks to Hawthorn Street or up to the allotment. She felt drained after each excursion and avoided people she saw in the distance. She did not have the energy to engage in conversation and so skirted the crowded streets of the lower town where children played in their dozens. Until now it had never struck her how many babies there were being pushed around in prams or straddled over mothers’ hips. Everyone she knew seemed to have one; Iris, Bel, Margaret, Minnie. Another of Minnie’s sisters was expecting and even the minister’s wife, Amelia Pinkney, was rumoured to be pregnant with their fifth child.

  At times her arms physically ached with emptiness and she would hug them to her body and steel herself to pass an oncoming pram. She could not bear to look at another baby, let alone touch one. Strangely, only Raymond seemed exempt from this aversion. Perhaps it was because he reminded her so much of Davie, with his cheeky grin and spiky hair, that she allowed him to pull himself up on her legs and drew comfort from his brief hugs of affection.

  Minnie’s Jack was another matter. He was a sickly baby of barely seven months, who seemed to whinge and cry and be at odds with life. Minnie blamed his father’s complaining nature and bad temper and ignored his bleating. Louie bit back her comment that Minnie was lucky to hear her baby cry, yet the noise cut through her like a sharp needle.

  ‘It’s so boring round
here,’ Minnie declared one afternoon, sitting at Louie’s kitchen table. She was restlessly rocking Jack in his pram, and for once he appeared to be succumbing to the vigorous motion.

  Louie carried on peeling carrots for Sadie’s tea; simple, mindless household chores seemed the best therapy to occupy her empty hours.

  ‘We’ve got no money for anything - not even a bag of sweets,’ Minnie continued her dirge, ‘and Margaret goes on all day about her Joseph and where she thinks he is. It’s driving me potty.’

  ‘Bomber’ll be back in a couple of weeks,’ Louie reminded her.

  ‘Bomber!’ Minnie groaned. ‘He’ll go light when he finds out Margaret and Joe are stopping with us. It’ll all be my fault Joseph ran off and left them - he’ll probably blame me that the strike’s not already settled. I’m responsible for all the troubles of the world as far as Bomber’s concerned. And what’s he done for me since he got himself nicked? Been about as much use as a chocolate fender! It’s been all right for him - three square meals a day in gaol, I bet, while we live off potato stew at the chapel.’

  Louie could bear her complaints no longer. ‘Listen,’ she turned and spoke impatiently, ‘why don’t you go up to Stand High Farm and see if they’re still taking on pickers? It’ll get you out of Whitton Grange for a week or so and you’ll make a bit of money likely. It’ll be hard work, but the bairn could do with some country air.’ She jerked her head at the sleeping Jack. ‘He’s poorly bad staying around these streets - at least there’ll be plenty to eat on a farm.’

  Minnie’s pretty face lit up at the suggestion, her green eyes kindling with life as the idea took hold.

  ‘I don’t mind a spot of hard work,’ she replied with enthusiasm, ‘and I might be able to save a bit of money and put it by for the winter. Our Margaret wouldn’t miss us for a couple of weeks.’ She rushed and gave her friend a hug. ‘Louie, you always think of the answers.’

  ‘As long as you’re back when Bomber comes home,’ Louie warned.

  ‘Aye.’ Minnie shrugged that thought off quickly.

  ‘But will you manage on your own, Louie?’ she asked. ‘I don’t like the thought of leaving you.’

  ‘I’ll not be on my own,’ Louie pointed out. ‘I’ll have Sadie for company now that school’s nearly finished - and family nearby.’

  Minnie scrutinised her friend’s pale face, its deep-set blue eyes smudged with fatigue and sadness.

  ‘It might be for the best if Jack isn’t around for a bit,’ Minnie said quietly. ‘It isn’t easy for you, is it?’

  Louie stopped her chopping and glanced up. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘Things’ll be better when you come back. We’ll have Sam and Bomber with us then.’

  Shortly afterwards Minnie went home and packed a bagful of possessions for herself and Jack. The following day she set out for Stand High Farm, pushing Jack in his dented black pram.

  Four miles up the road, a milk cart stopped and gave her a lift for most of the way, wedging the pram between the heavy metal churns. It was only midday when she reached the farm buildings. The farmer was out, but his wife took Minnie and the baby in and gave them a drink of milk and Minnie a hunk of bread and cheese.

  When the farmer came home for his midday meal, he agreed to take Minnie on for a trial week.

  ‘You can sleep in one of the cottages with the other lasses,’ Mr Halliday told her. ‘There’s no running water but the pump’s just in the yard. The pay’s six shillings a week and your board free.’

  Minnie felt like arguing that six shillings was less than Bomber made in one shift, but she smothered her objections.

  ‘What about the bairn?’ Mrs Halliday’s weathered face crinkled in concern.

  ‘I’ll take him in the fields,’ Minnie said quickly. ‘He’ll just sleep in the pram, he’s no bother. I’ll start tomorrow.’ She smiled at the stern-faced farmer.

  ‘You’ll start this afternoon,’ he contradicted her.

  ‘Jack Kingston the foreman will show you where they’re working. You’ll find him down the road you came in.’

  As Mrs Halliday saw her to the door, Minnie smiled at the farmer’s wife, noticing her interest in the baby. ‘My bairn’s called Jack,’ she confided.

  ‘If it rains too hard, you bring him inside—he’s got a nasty cough,’ Mrs Halliday whispered with a wink. ‘My children are all grown up and my three grandbairns live over in Westmorland. You just leave your Jack with me, do you hear?’ She gave a short cackle of laughter at the conspiracy and nudged Minnie over the doorstep.

  ‘Ta, Mrs Halliday.’ Minnie grinned and went in search of the foreman.

  Jack Kingston, a lithe man with large red ears which he kept tugging as he spoke, turned out to be Louie’s uncle. As the cheerful man led her to the field gang, Minnie discovered that Davie and John were staying in his cottage with their Auntie Eva, Fanny Kirkup’s sister.

  ‘You come round tonight and have a bite of tea with us,’ Jack Kingston insisted, ‘and you can give us all the news from Whitton.’

  All through the hot afternoon, bent double over an endless row of cauliflowers, the thought of an evening at the Kingstons’ in Davie Kirkup’s company kept up Minnie’s spirits. If she was honest, it had been the chance of seeing Davie away from the strictures of the village that had prompted her to come seeking work. More than a few pennies in her pocket, Minnie craved a bit of fun in her drab life of scrimping and going hungry. Davie Kirkup was a kindred spirit, who knew how to laugh and make the cares of the world go away for a while.

  That evening, when Minnie had scrubbed the brown dust of the fields from her face and arms, changed into her best dress, still crumpled from being in her bag, and brushed her wavy dark hair, she set off down the road to the foreman’s house. Her companions in the cottage made ribald remarks about where she was going dressed up in her finery, but she laughed off their joking. They were hardy women, with thick hands like gnarled wood, who were used to the backbreaking work of the fields, and Minnie was warming to their uninhibited chatter.

  She pushed Jack’s pram to the front door of the Kingstons’ cottage, halfway down the farm track. The baby was asleep by the time they arrived, so she left the pram outside in the warm evening air. In Eva Kingston’s cosy kitchen, Minnie tucked into a feast of lamb stew and freshly baked bread, followed by baked apples and strong, hot tea. She could not remember the last time she had eaten so well. The Kirkup boys looked healthy after several weeks on the farm; John’s fair skin was tanned a ruddy brown and Davie’s lively blue eyes watched her from his sunburnt face, his fair hair bleached as golden hay.

  Minnie did not want to dampen the jovial atmosphere, so did not dwell in any detail on Louie’s sad news except to tell them that she had lost the baby.

  ‘That poor lass,’ Auntie Eva clicked her tongue against her uneven teeth. ‘If ever someone deserved a bairn it’s young Louie.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ Davie asked in concern.

  ‘You know Louie,’ Minnie answered brightly. ‘Doesn’t let her troubles get her down.’

  ‘Aye, she’s a strong’un, our Louie.’ John nodded and slurped his tea.

  ‘Still, she’ll be missing Sam,’ Davie said glumly, ‘and she was right pleased to be having that bairn.’

  ‘Aye,’ Uncle Jack agreed, pulling at his left ear. They fell into contemplation.

  Minnie did not want the evening to end in morose thoughts, so she said to John, ‘I saw your Marjory before I came away.’ His head shot up with interest.

  ‘You did? And how was she?’

  ‘Champion,’ Minnie smiled. ‘Said she was missing you, like. She’s helping at the soup kitchen when she’s not at the store.’

  Davie nudged his brother so that he spilt his tea. ‘Hear that, Marjory’s missing you. He’s been pining like a sick dog since we left Whitton,’ he teased.

  ‘Give over,’ John growled back, his face a scalded red.

  ‘Leave the lad alone,’ Auntie Eva chided her irrepressible nephew. ‘You should
be asking after your own wife and bairn.’

  Davie gave a bashful laugh and slipped Minnie a look. ‘Don’t suppose Iris has missed me for a minute, eh?’

  Minnie shrugged. ‘Don’t see her much. Louie said Raymond has cut two more teeth since you’ve been away, mind.’

  ‘By, that’ll be in all the papers,’ John mocked, ‘News headlines - “Two more teeth for Raymond, when will it stop?’”

  Davie gave his brother a hefty push. ‘Put it there!’ he challenged and thumped his elbow on the table, clenching his hand. John swiftly answered the invitation to arm wrestle by gripping Davie’s fist.

  ‘Lads!’ Auntie Eva protested. ‘Jack, do something about them.’ John had Davie’s arm down on the table before their uncle could call them to order.

  ‘I beat him every time,’ John announced with satisfaction. Minnie laughed at Davie’s chagrined look.

  ‘I’m sure our Fanny wouldn’t allow such behaviour at her table,’ Auntie Eva sighed, with such resignation that Minnie concluded the arm-wrestling must be a regular feature since her nephews had come to stay.

  ‘I don’t know how they have the energy after a day picking cauliflowers.’ Minnie grinned.

  Uncle Jack began fingering his ears, which indicated he was about to speak. ‘Best be getting back up the road - you’ll need your sleep, lass. The first week nearly kills them,’ he told her cheerfully.

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ Davie volunteered as Minnie rose, ‘Stretch my legs.’ He ignored a snort from John, and Minnie did not protest. She thanked her kind hosts and wished them good night. Out in the clear night air, Minnie caught her breath at the myriad of stars spilling across the indigo sky. At home, with the smoke and street lamps, the sky was never so visible, so magical. She breathed in lungfuls of air that tasted of long grass and honeyed flowers.

  ‘Pongs, doesn’t it?’ Davie shattered her romantic notions of the countryside. ‘But you’ll get used to it.’ Minnie threw back her head and gave in to a fit of the giggles, made worse by trying to suppress the noise in case she woke the baby.