Poor Carrie. She was about to lose her father, and now perhaps she was going to lose her husband too. Agnes wondered if his wife would ever find the courage to tell James the truth.
God knows, she herself had never found the courage to tell Daniel.
If she had, would things have turned out differently for them? she wondered. Perhaps they might have been married by now, and she would be holding her son in her arms instead of mourning him alone.
But even as the thought came to her, she knew it was a foolish thing to imagine. She could never have told Daniel the truth, because that would have meant answering questions she didn’t want to answer, bringing to light secrets that she wanted to be kept deep in the dark where even she did not have to think about them.
I just wanted to forget all about it, to bury the whole thing and pretend it had never happened …
Carrie’s words had struck a painful chord inside her. The poor girl had to confront her past now, but Agnes wasn’t sure she would ever be prepared to do the same.
The sound of a horn behind her startled her out of her reverie. Agnes wobbled on to the grassy verge, pedalling to stay upright as the bus rumbled past, taking the next shift to the pit. She looked up at the men’s faces through the windows. Their expressions were grim, defiant, but there was a wretchedness about them, too. They looked as if they hated themselves as much as the men on the picket line hated them.
She heard the roar of the men at the pit gates, like animals baying for blood. Then she thought about Seth Stanhope, marching resolutely through the crowd, submitting to their curses and insults and blows, all for the sake of his son.
She paused for a moment, making up her mind. Then she turned her bicycle and followed the bus down towards the colliery gates.
Chapter Forty-One
The hooter sounded for the end of the shift, and Seth set down his pick and straightened up slowly. It was months since he had hewn coal from a seam, and every muscle in his body protested painfully, no longer used to spending hours bent double, wielding a heavy pickaxe. He longed for home and a hot bath more than he ever had in all the years he had worked down the pit.
Around him, the other men set down their tools, as silent as they had been all day. Seth had never known the pit to be so quiet. Usually, they would be laughing and joking amongst themselves as they worked the seam, all pals together. But apart from one or two familiar faces, most of the men around him were strangers.
It made him uneasy. Coal miners usually worked in tight teams. They depended on one another, trusting one another to do their job properly and keep the rest of the team safe. But he knew none of these men, and trusted them even less. How could he put his life in the hands of someone who was prepared to betray his fellow pitmen …?
He stopped the thought dead.
But it wasn’t just the other men who worried him. There was something about the seam itself that felt wrong.
The props groaned above his head, as if the ground was waking up from a long sleep. The air was hot and thick, pressing against his skin, and the coal face refused to yield under his pick. The seam had lain idle for so long, gases had built up and several times during the shift the deputy had had to call them off until it could be made safe again.
But this was more than fire damp. After nearly twenty years down the pit, Seth had a sixth sense for when things were going wrong. He had tried to talk to the deputy about it, but he wouldn’t listen.
‘After making trouble again, Stanhope?’ Arthur Marwood had said. He was one of the few Bowden men to be working down the pit, and one of the first to go back to work. Seth held him in special contempt, and Marwood knew it. ‘None of the other men have complained.’
‘They don’t know this pit like I do.’
Arthur Marwood’s mouth curled. ‘Think you’re so special, don’t you? Get back to work and keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you.’
When the shift was over they travelled up in the cage to the surface, crammed in together, reeking of stale sweat. They lined up to hand their checks over the counter in the lamp room, then emerged into the early evening. It was a grey, miserable day but the light still hurt Seth’s eyes, making him blink.
‘Not coming on the bus with us, lad?’ one of the men, a stranger from up Middlesbrough way, asked. Seth shook his head.
‘Look at him, reckons he’s better than the rest of us,’ Arthur Marwood mocked. ‘Thinks he’s going to walk out of them pit gates a bloody hero. Well, let me tell you, you in’t no hero now, Stanhope. Not in their eyes. You’re a blackleg, just like the rest of us.’
‘Never,’ Seth muttered.
‘Oh, aye? And what makes you so special?’ Another local man, John Chambers, taunted him. ‘You think those men at the gates are going to welcome you with open arms, just because you’re the great Seth Stanhope?’ He shook his head. ‘They’re going to give you the same welcome I had from you when I went back to work to feed my family.’
If only it was as simple as feeding them, Seth thought. If it was only a matter of going without, he would willingly have starved himself rather than let down his fellow pitmen.
But his son needed treatment, and hospitals cost money.
‘It was greed that sent you back to work, John Chambers,’ he said. ‘You and your family could’ve lived hand to mouth, just like the rest of us. But you decided to betray your mates instead.’
‘And you think your mates will care that you’re doing this for your sick lad? D’you think their hearts are going to bleed for you?’ John sneered. ‘You’re going to hear the same insults you shouted at me when I first went through them pit gates. And you’re going to deserve them because you’re twice the traitor I am.’ He squared up to Seth. ‘They all expected more of you, Stanhope. And you let them down.’
‘What’s going on here?’ Suddenly James Shepherd was shouldering his way between them, his smart suit a stark contrast to their blackened, sweat-soaked pit clothes.
‘It’s him,’ John Chambers started to say. ‘He said—’
‘I don’t care who said what. Stop it, both of you.’ James turned to Seth. ‘Get on the bus, Stanhope.’
‘Nay, I won’t.’
James Shepherd stared back at him. He looked like a boy, his body all gawky angles. Seth had seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil.
‘Please, Stanhope,’ he said. He shot a worried glance towards the pit gates. ‘I can’t allow you to walk out of those gates. Not after what they did to you yesterday.’
‘Aye, and they’ll probably do the same to me again today.’ The blackened skin around his eye still pulsed painfully, even after Hannah had put raw meat on it to draw out the swelling. ‘But I’ll not skulk away on a bus to the middle of nowhere. I still live in this village, and sooner or later I’ll have to face them.’ Better to let them take their revenge now than have them smashing his windows late at night, frightening the bairns.
James sighed. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Watch yourself, won’t you?’
‘I hope they tear you to pieces,’ Arthur Marwood called back over his shoulder, as he followed the other men towards the waiting bus.
Seth could see the men’s faces pressed up against the bars of the pit gates as he walked towards them. Their mouths were open, roaring with anger. A few days ago he would have stood with them, shoulder to shoulder. He would have called them his friends. Now he barely recognised them, their faces twisted with rage and spite.
The gates swung open and Seth walked out, into the baying mob. He kept his head up, looking straight ahead of him as the men closed in on him, nearly jostling him off his feet. A gob of spittle hit him and ran slowly down his cheek. Seth’s fists clenched at his sides, but he made no move to wipe it away.
‘You’re a bloody traitor, Seth Stanhope!’ He heard the voice of Tom Chadwick in the crowd.
Poor Tom. Seth knew the hardships he had been through to keep his family together. Barely a month ago, Seth had stood on this very spot and urged h
im not to give in, even though his bairns were suffering and his wife was terrified of what was to become of them.
And now look at him. Tom had every right to feel hurt and betrayed. Seth deserved all their scorn and anger. Because no matter how much they hated him, it could never match how much he hated himself.
‘Hope tha’s proud of thysen, Stanhope! You’ve let us all down!’
The fist came out of nowhere, driving into his belly, winding him. Seth doubled up, just in time to see the second fist coming towards his face. It caught his jaw, snapping his head sideways and knocking him off balance. He hit the ground and curled up into a ball, his body tense, waiting for the kicking he knew would come.
Through the ringing in his ears, he suddenly heard a voice calling out, clear and cold, ‘Let me through!’
He felt a boot connect painfully with the small of his back, sending darts of pain down his legs.
‘Stand aside! Let me through, I say!’
It was a woman’s voice. Seth felt a shadow fall over him.
‘Mr Stanhope?’
He squinted up at the blurry outline of a woman looking down at him. As the picture swam into focus, he made out a cap perched on top of chestnut hair, and a pair of beautiful, bright brown eyes, full of concern.
‘Mr Stanhope?’ she repeated. ‘Can you hear me?’
He tried to speak, but only a groan came out. Warm blood oozed from the cut that had opened up again on his lip, still badly swollen from the previous day. He could taste it, metallic on his tongue.
He tried to struggle to his feet, but a bolt of pain in his ribs caught him off guard and he hissed in pain.
‘Where does it hurt?’ Miss Sheridan asked him.
‘I’m – all right.’ He managed to bite out the words.
‘I can see you’re not.’ Miss Sheridan’s arm went around his shoulders, trying to pull him to his feet. She turned to the other men, a blurred ring of faces standing around them. ‘Help me get him up.’ No one moved. ‘Isn’t anyone going to lend a hand? He’s supposed to be your friend.’
‘He in’t no friend of ours,’ someone mumbled.
Agnes stood up. ‘How could you? For pity’s sake, you’re no better than animals!’
‘She’s right.’ Another voice, this time one Seth knew well. The crowd parted and he saw the tall, familiar figure, dressed in a man’s overcoat, her broad shoulders swathed in shawls.
‘Hannah …’ He tried again to get up, but his head swam.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.’ He heard Hannah’s voice rise as she addressed the crowd of men. ‘You reckon you’re such heroes, don’t you? But I bet there in’t one of you who would have the courage to face up to him if you were on your own!’
She turned back to him. ‘Come on,’ she murmured, hooking her strong hands under his arms and hauling him to his feet. ‘Let’s get you home.’
‘Here, help me get him into the chair.’
The lass was stronger than she looked, Hannah thought. She was only a slip of a thing, but she had taken more of Seth’s weight than Hannah had expected as they half carried him all the way back to Railway Row.
Of course, Seth had protested all the way home that he didn’t need their help, but every time they released him he staggered like a drunkard.
‘Concussion,’ Agnes declared, as they lowered him into the chair. ‘He must have hit his head when he fell.’
‘Nay, I’m fine,’ Seth mumbled through swollen lips. ‘Stop fussing over me, and leave me alone.’
‘Aye, happen we should have left you alone by them pit gates,’ Hannah said as she filled a bowl with cold water from the jug on the sill. ‘Those lads might have knocked some sense into you.’
Seth glowered back at her but said nothing.
‘I don’t understand,’ Agnes Sheridan said. ‘Why didn’t he get on the bus with the other men?’
‘Because he’s got some daft notion that he owes it to his mates to let them knock him about.’
‘But that’s ridiculous!’
‘Aye, it is.’ At least they agreed on something, Hannah thought as she dipped a cloth in the water. ‘I know what I’d do if I could get my hands on ’em.’ She wrung out the cloth as if it was a scrawny neck.
She carried the bowl across to where Seth sat and set it down on the hearth beside him.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘let’s get you cleaned up. And I don’t want to hear a word about it,’ she added, as Seth opened his mouth to protest.
She thought Miss Sheridan might try to step in and take over, but to her surprise the nurse stood back and let her get on with cleaning Seth’s wounds.
Hannah glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. Agnes was watching Seth, chewing her lip worriedly. When Seth flinched in pain, she seemed to flinch too.
Hannah couldn’t get over the sight of Agnes, her shoulders squared and chin lifted, facing down that mob.
‘It took a lot of guts to do what you did,’ she said quietly. ‘There in’t many who would stand up to a load of angry pitmen.’
‘I didn’t stop to think about it,’ Agnes looked at Hannah. ‘But I’m glad you came along when you did.’
‘I thought I’d best walk over to meet him. I had a feeling he might need some company after what happened to him yesterday.’
Hannah dabbed at the painfully swollen flesh around Seth’s eye, the skin already blossoming purple. Lord, how she hated those men for what they had done. She wouldn’t forget, either. Their faces were marked in her mind forever now.
She glanced up at Seth. He had gone very quiet, his face turned away from hers.
‘You reckon he might have concussion?’ she said to the nurse.
‘It’s possible. He did get a nasty blow to his head.’
‘And what’s the treatment for that, then?’
She saw the surprise on Agnes’ face. Hannah was surprised at herself, if truth be told. But she had made a terrible mistake with Christopher, and she didn’t want to take any chances. Even if it meant swallowing her pride and accepting that she might not always know best.
‘It really depends how bad it is. If he loses consciousness or starts to vomit—’
‘I in’t got concussion,’ Seth growled.
‘We don’t know that yet,’ Agnes said. ‘Here, let me check your eyes.’
She started towards him, but Seth jerked away from her.
‘I’m telling you, I’m all right.’ He gasped, his teeth clenched together in a hiss of pain.
‘It looks as if he might have damaged his ribs,’ Agnes said. ‘I’ll have to get them bandaged up.’
‘Hannah can do it.’
‘But—’ Agnes Sheridan started to protest.
‘I said no. If there’s any nursing to be done, Hannah can do it.’
Hannah sat back on her heels, the damp cloth in her hand. Seth’s face was turned away, but she could read his obstinate profile. Suddenly she understood.
‘He’s right,’ she said to Agnes. ‘I can manage.’
Agnes Sheridan looked from her to Seth and back again, her expression bemused. She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again.
‘Very well. If that’s what you want,’ she said.
But Agnes insisted on giving Hannah a clean bandage and instructions on how to apply it, and Hannah patiently resisted the urge to point out she was helping her mother strap up men’s broken bones long before Agnes put on her smart nurse’s uniform.
All the while, Agnes kept looking past Hannah’s shoulder at Seth. But he refused to meet her eye, his moody gaze fixed stubbornly on his boots.
It wasn’t until she was leaving that Agnes whispered, ‘I don’t understand … Did I do something to offend Mr Stanhope?’ She looked so lost and bemused, Hannah almost felt sorry for her.
‘You shamed him,’ she said shortly. ‘Earlier on, at the pit gates.’
Agnes frowned. ‘I only tried to help him!’
‘Exactly. You saw him when he was weak, and he won’t
be able to stand that.’
Hannah saw Agnes’ frown deepen as she struggled to take in what she was hearing. ‘But he lets you help him?’
‘I’m family.’ And I don’t matter to him, a voice inside her head added silently.
‘But I don’t think any the less of him for what happened.’
‘Nay, but he thinks less of himself. He’s a proud man, Miss Sheridan.’
‘Too proud for his own good, if you ask me,’ Agnes said curtly.
‘If you think that, then you don’t understand Seth Stanhope.’
Agnes glanced back over Hannah’s shoulder at him. ‘No,’ she sighed, a hint of sadness in her voice. ‘I’m beginning to realise that.’
Hannah watched her cycling away, her head down. The nurse was gone, and Hannah knew this time she wouldn’t be back again. Miss Sheridan had managed to drive a wedge between herself and Seth, just as Hannah had always hoped she would.
Hannah knew she should have been elated, but she actually felt rather sorry.
Seth looked up as she went back inside. ‘Has she gone?’
‘Aye.’ Hannah took one last look up the lane as she closed the door.
‘Good. Best if she doesn’t call any more.’
‘She saved you from a beating, Seth.’ Hannah had a sudden recollection of the young girl, facing down the crowd like an angry lioness.
‘There was no need,’ he said. ‘Anyway, as I said, best if she doesn’t call any more. We’ve no need of her.’
Hannah looked at his battered, stubborn face. The nurse was right: sometimes he was too proud for his own good.
Chapter Forty-Two
As everyone predicted, by the middle of September all the men of Bowden Main had returned to work.
Sir Edward Haverstock made one of his rare visits to the pit as they arrived for their first shift. He stood in the yard with James, rubbing his hands together with unconcealed glee, and watched them clocking on.
‘Well, my boy. We won, didn’t we?’ he laughed, clapping James on the shoulder. ‘I told you they’d have to come crawling back sooner or later. And on our terms, too.’
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