by Val Wood
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much.’
That night in bed, she waited until she thought Jane would be asleep. Then she got out of bed and took the sovereign from Wilf’s coat pocket and put it in her own cotton purse, which she kept fastened on the strings of her petticoat. She took paper and pencil out of a drawer and began to write two letters, both for Jane.
Dear Aunt Jane,
This is for you to read and then burn before anyone else sees it. I’ve decided that if I’m going to leave I’d better go on Friday. That way we won’t get upset at parting from each other and you won’t know where I’ve gone if anyone should ask. I hope we’ll see each other again for I know I’ll miss you.
With respect from your loving niece,
Susannah.
PS I know that I am not really your niece, but I’ve always felt that you were my loving auntie.
The second letter was more formal.
Dear Aunt Jane and Mr Topham,
I’ve decided to leave home. I hope this is not too upsetting for you, Aunt Jane, though I know that Mr Topham won’t care. I’m not happy here any more and don’t want to stay. I wanted to keep on at school but Mr Topham said I had to go to work, so I’m running away to try for another life. Please don’t try to find me and bring me back because I won’t come.
Yours sincerely,
Susannah Page.
This letter she put in an envelope which she addressed to Mr and Mrs Wilfred Topham, and then she put both letters beneath her pillow. She hardly slept that night and it seemed as if she had only just closed her eyes when Jane was waking her and saying that they would be late for work if they didn’t hurry.
‘We’ll talk as we’re going, Susannah,’ Jane said as they were getting ready to leave. ‘About you running away. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I’m just being silly, I expect. But I do worry about you. Goodness,’ she said, looking at her. ‘Do you need all those clothes on? Are you cold?’
‘Yes. I’m freezing.’ Susannah gazed at her. What should she do if Aunt Jane had changed her mind?
Jane closed the door behind them. ‘I’m just so afraid of getting into trouble with ’Ellises,’ she moaned. ‘Wilf’ll say it’s my fault if Mrs Ellis finds out you’ve not been going to school. And he’ll blame both of us and tell Mr Ellis that we must have spent ’money and that he knew nowt about it. He’ll plead ignorance. I know him.’ She linked her arm into Susannah’s. ‘And I’m scared he’ll give you a leathering like he does me.’
‘Why would he, Aunt Jane? I don’t have anything much to do with him.’
‘Well, just listen to you,’ she said. ‘He’d be provoked just to hear you talk. He doesn’t need a reason.’
‘Oh!’ Susannah made an instant decision. ‘I’ve forgotten to pick up my dinner. I’ve left it on ’table.’
Jane had wrapped up two slices of bread and cold bacon each as always. She had put hers in her pocket and had reminded Susannah to pick hers up from the table.
‘You go on,’ Susannah said. ‘I’ll not be a minute.’ She turned to race back before Jane could utter a word.
She let herself into the house and saw the parcel of food where she had deliberately left it, collected it and in its place put the letter addressed to Mr and Mrs Topham. ‘There,’ she said, breathing hard as she ran back to Jane. ‘That didn’t take long, did it?’
For the rest of the journey Susannah listened to Jane putting forward reasons why she should or should not leave home. ‘I’d miss you no end, Susannah,’ she told her, as they tramped along the dark uneven road. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you; but on ’other hand, there must be more for you out in ’world than what we can offer. Stuck out here wi’ no opportunities! My ma thought I’d have better prospects when I went to work at Ellis’s, but I didn’t, of course.’
Jane chewed her lip as she deliberated on life. ‘So mebbe I’d have been better off stopping at home. I’d not have met him, at any rate. Mebbe it would best for you to stop where you are. But there again, I don’t know.’ She was knotted up with indecision. ‘I don’t want him hitting you an’ neither do I want him finding out—’ Abruptly she stopped her muttering.
‘Finding out? Finding out what, Aunt Jane?’
‘Finding – finding fault!’ she said hastily. ‘That’s what I meant. Don’t want him finding fault wi’ us. Not you, anyway. It don’t matter too much about me,’ she added flatly. ‘Folks have allus found fault wi’ me. Even my ma.’
When they arrived at the flax mill they hung up their coats and shawls and prepared to go their separate ways, Jane to the drying room and Susannah with the other young girls to the scutching room where they collected the broken straw tow from beneath the rollers.
‘Give me a kiss, Aunt Jane,’ Susannah said, as Jane turned to go. ‘Don’t wait for me tonight. I said I’d meet one of ’other lasses and have a chat with her after work.’
‘It’ll be dark!’ Jane said, leaning her cheek towards her. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
Susannah hesitated. ‘Mebbe I’ll see you at dinner time,’ she said. ‘Come back to ’lobby and we’ll eat our dinner here. I’ll put mine in my pocket. Will you do ’same?’ She took Jane’s parcel of food from her and pushed it into her coat pocket along with the letter she had written to her. She blinked her eyes and swallowed hard. Now it had come to it, she felt very miserable. Was she doing right? Her lips trembled as she watched Jane walk away. Who’ll look after her if I’m not there? she wondered. Would Wilf Topham really ill-treat me if I stay? There was something else, though, she thought, some other reason why Jane wanted her to leave. Wilf is always asking me questions, and questioning Jane about me.
I can always come back, I suppose. She felt suddenly lonely and isolated. I’ll have no-one to talk to. There’ll be no-one who knows me. I have no mother, no father. Nobody. She squeezed her eyes tight as tears started to fall. Whose child am I, Aunt Lol? she recalled saying in a childish whisper. And the answer had always been the same. Nobody’s.
At eight o’clock she presented herself at the office and asked to speak to the clerk she had seen the day before. He had her wages ready in a brown envelope. ‘I can’t give you Sat’day’s wages,’ he told her in a low voice. ‘But I’ve included today’s, seeing as you’ve come in.’
Susannah thanked him, collected her coat and shawls and left the mill. No-one stopped her; there were always people rushing around, coming and going, and without looking back she walked towards the main road. She hesitated there for only a moment and then turned her face away from Patrington and the bumpy road which led to Welwick and what had been home, and set off at a fast pace before she could change her mind. Halfway towards the next village she heard the rattle of wheels. She looked back and saw the carrier’s cart coming towards her. She put her hand up and signalled for him to stop.
‘Can you take me as far as Hedon, please?’ she asked.
‘Aye, jump up.’ He looked at her and grinned. ‘Off on a jaunt, are you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, close to tears. ‘I am.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jane waited at midday for Susannah to appear, but the time ticked on and she didn’t come. The women had little time to eat their dinner and use the privy before they had to be back at their work stations, so she went to take her parcel of food from her coat pocket and found the note. She burst into tears on reading it, blaming herself for suggesting to Susannah that she should run away. ‘Poor bairn,’ she kept muttering. ‘Poor bairn.’
She couldn’t eat her food, and because she then felt unwell with hunger and stifled by the heat of the drying room she passed out and had to be taken outside to recover. There was a steady downpour of drizzle and this only increased her misery as she thought of Susannah tramping along some road, cold and wet and alone. She read the note again and then took it to the boiler room and asked one of the men there to put it in the fire.
‘You don’t want your husband to read it, is that
it?’ he said saucily.
‘Yes,’ she said, sniffing away her tears. ‘He’d kill me if he found out.’
He took a long iron pole and pushed the note into the flames. ‘There you are then,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘I think I deserve a kiss for that, don’t you?’
His face was glistening with sweat and black with coal dust. ‘If you like,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t mind.’
He bent to kiss her cheek. She could feel the heat emanating from him and he pinched her thin bottom with his strong fingers. ‘I shan’t tell if you won’t,’ he murmured, and she was reminded that Wilf had said the same thing when he’d first followed her into Ellis’s kitchen garden.
‘I won’t tell,’ she said. The man though brawny was short. ‘He’s a lot bigger than you,’ she lied. ‘He’d make mincemeat of us both,’ and had the satisfaction of seeing him back away.
She tramped home along the long dark road, weeping with misery, saw the addressed envelope on the table, but didn’t read it, ate a lonely supper and went to bed. She rose the next morning and prepared for work, leaving the letter on the table for Wilf to find when he came to collect their wages, hers and Susannah’s.
He was waiting at the door when she arrived home that night. ‘Get inside, you!’ he said viciously. ‘What’s going on? Where is she?’
‘Susannah?’ She stumbled through the door, Wilf’s hand grasping her shoulder. ‘She’s gone to meet a friend. She said I hadn’t to wait for her.’
‘So what’s this?’ He waved the letter at her.
‘What?’ She pretended ignorance. ‘Has ’postie been? Who’s it from? We never get letters!’
‘’Postie hasn’t brought this,’ he said, thumping the table. ‘She’s left it. Telling us she’s run off!’
Jane simulated a gasp. ‘Never!’ she said. ‘She never would.’ She snatched the letter from him. ‘What does it mean? I can’t read it properly. I’m not a good reader.’
‘Daft bitch!’ he spat out. ‘She says she’s leaving home and we haven’t to look for her.’
Jane laboriously spelled out some of the words. ‘She says she’s not happy and has dec— dec—’
‘Decided!’ he bellowed. ‘That’s what happens when you give bairns schooling. They start using fancy words.’
‘She says that you won’t care,’ Jane said slowly, lifting her head to face him. ‘And I don’t suppose you do. Except about ’money she brings in. But I do.’ She began to cry, real tears, not false ones. ‘She was like a daughter to me. And now I’ve got nobody.’
‘Now listen to me, you.’ He pushed her into a chair and stood over her. ‘We’ll not let on that ’little bastard’s gone. We’ll not have her wages from ’mill now, but ’Ellises won’t find out she’s gone unless you tell ’em. So if by chance you should see him, you’ll keep your mouth shut.’ He glared at her. ‘Do you hear?’ He shook his fist in her face. ‘You’ll get this if you don’t.’
She was frightened but she had to speak out. ‘I’ll not lie for you,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll not go and tell him that she’s gone; but if he should find out she’s not been to school and comes to ask where she is …’ She was speaking of Joseph Ellis now, not his father, but Wilf didn’t know that. ‘I’ll have to say I don’t know.’
The blow he struck across her face shattered a tooth. She could taste the blood and feel gritty pieces of enamel in her mouth. ‘Everybody at work’ll know I’ve been hit,’ she mumbled.
He hauled her out of the chair and shook her. ‘Think I’m bothered about what other folks think?’ He punched her in the stomach and she shrieked and bent double in pain. ‘They’ll not see ’bruise there!’ He punched her again. ‘Or there.’
She retched and he let her go so that she fell to the floor. ‘You’ve probably killed your babby,’ she whimpered. ‘But mebbe you don’t care about that either.’
He aimed a kick at her. ‘I’ve got bairns all over Holderness,’ he yelled. ‘One more or less won’t make no difference to me.’
He screwed up the letter and aimed it at the fire, and from her position on the floor she saw it fall from the grate into the hearth.
‘Did you fetch your wages?’ he asked roughly.
She nodded, hardly able to open her mouth, which had started to puff up. She just wanted him to leave. ‘In my pocket,’ she mumbled. ‘Leave me summat to live on. It’s all I’ve got.’
He gave a humourless laugh and taking the wage packet from her coat he emptied it into his hand. He tossed her a coin which rolled across the floor. ‘If there’s onny you, you’ll not need much. And if that lass comes crawling back, she’ll get a leathering. You can tell her that. I’ve been itching to give her ’strap and now I’ve got every reason.’
‘She’s nowt to do wi’ you.’ Jane struggled to sit up. ‘You said that yourself. You’ve got no rights ower her.’ Her head started to swim and she felt a slow wet trickle running down her legs. ‘I’m losing ’babby,’ she moaned. ‘If you’ve any decency left at all, go fetch Mrs Davison for me. She lives down at South End.’
He walked to the door and took down his coat. ‘I’ll get wet,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t got time.’ He felt in the pockets, patting them, then turned the coat inside out. ‘Have you been looking in my coat?’ He stared accusingly at Jane, who was writhing on the floor. ‘Somebody’s pinched my sovereign!’
‘You never had a sovereign,’ she screamed out at him, blood trickling from her mouth. ‘It wasn’t yours in ’first place. Go fetch Mrs Davison!’
He looked down at her, his face creased with fury, and aimed another kick with his boot which caught her on her shoulder. ‘Go fetch her yoursen.’
He slammed out of the door and left her. She drew in several gasping breaths and, pulling herself up onto her hands and knees, reached out for the singed letter lying in the hearth and put it in her apron pocket. Then she crawled towards Susannah’s bed and dragged herself into it, pulling the blanket over her. ‘If I die,’ she muttered, ‘who’ll care?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘Could you drop me in ’middle of Hedon, please?’ Susannah asked the carrier.
‘Aye, I can, but I’m not going straight there. I’ve calls to make on ’way. I’m going to ’other villages first. Winestead, Ottringham, then Keyingham and Thorngumbald. I shan’t be in Hedon till well after dinner.’
‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought my dinner with me.’
They travelled in silence and Susannah wished it would stop raining so that she could see the countryside. Everything was dark and bedraggled. The trees were leafless, the branches stark against the overcast sky, and the ditches were deep with water.
‘Funny time of year for you to skive off school,’ the carrier said. ‘Why didn’t you wait till summer? Countryside looks lovely then when ’fields are full o’ corn and ’birds are singing. It’s a real pleasure to come out.’
‘I’m not skiving off school,’ she answered. ‘I’m old enough to work now and that’s why I’m going to Hedon.’ Then she added, ‘I’m going on to Hull then. They say there’re some good jobs there.’
‘Oh, you don’t want to go to Hull! Not a young country lass like you. Not on your own. Do you know anybody there?’
‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘I know somebody who lives there. I thought I’d try for work in ’cotton mill.’
He shook his head. ‘They don’t pay well. Not as much as at Enholmes. There was a terrible accident a couple o’ years back. It happened ’same day I happened to be there. Some of ’mill workers were drowned crossing over ’river Hull to go to work. Ferry tipped over. They were mainly Irish folk,’ he added. ‘Poor devils.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘What do your folks think about you going to work in Hull? Or haven’t you told them?’
‘I’m an orphan,’ she said, and looked at him as he gave a fake cough. ‘No, really I am! My mother died giving birth to me, and I don’t know who my father is.’
‘Left you, did he? Worthless so-and-
so!’ The carrier lashed out with his whip, the leather curling just above the horse’s back. ‘Folks don’t have standards any more. So who’s been looking after you? Brought up in ’orphanage, was you?’
‘My great-aunt,’ she said softly, and thought with tenderness of Aunt Lol. ‘But she died.’
‘Look,’ he said, after they had travelled a few more miles and he had made several deliveries. ‘You’ll have missed today’s carrier to Hull. And I know it’s nowt to do wi’ me, but if you want somewhere to stop overnight in Hedon, I could show you a place. It’s an ’ostelry, but quiet and not ower run wi’ drunks. Folks who keep it are very respectable; getting on in years they are, but they keep good ale and don’t water it. I know they’ve got a spare room cos I stopped there a couple o’ nights one winter when I couldn’t get back to Easington cos of ’snow drifts.’
‘I can’t pay much,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I haven’t got much money. That’s why I’ve to get work as soon as I can.’
‘They’ll not charge a lot,’ he assured her. ‘Not just for a couple o’ nights’ lodgings. Then if you’re set on going to Hull, you can catch ’carrier first thing on Monday morning. It’s onny just ower eight miles on ’turnpike road, or you can go on ’old road through Preston village. Carriers go both ways.’
She thanked him for the offer and considered it whilst he was making his calls, dropping off parcels and picking up others to be delivered. She was relieved that he didn’t collect any more passengers, for she thought the fewer people she met the better. She didn’t want anyone else asking questions and remembering her if Wilf Topham took it into his head to search for her.
Between the hamlet of Thorngumbald and the town of Hedon lay common pasture and meadowland with little habitation, apart from the occasional farm and manor house. Susannah grew more uneasy the nearer they came to the town, worrying about what was in front of her. As they approached the outskirts, the carrier asked her what she wanted to do. ‘If you want to stop with these folk I’ve telled you about – Brewster’s their name – I’ll need to drop you off at ’corner.’
