World From Rough Stones

by Malcolm Macdonald

  All light fled from the woman's face. "Oh," she said tonelessly. "You're one of them politicals. One of 'is."

  "Am I!" Nora said derisively. "Ower't left shoulder! Nay. He went off to glory and martyrdom—I were left behind in a pigpen."

  For the first time she saw a glimmer of warmth in those apathetic eyes.

  "Ye did well then," the woman said.

  Nora looked down. "Nay. I lost both bairns and me brother went into service. So I know, Mrs. Metcalfe. I know what it's like. That's why I slept so little last night. Thinkin' of you. And I determined that since my fortune's changed, I'd do what I can to aid you and these two bairns."

  The woman leaned against the door and began a long keening whine, the tears streaming down her face. She rolled her forehead on the doorpost seeking some frantic kind of relief and finding none. Nora saw the young boy standing rigid in a strange posture, with his little pointed elbows bent and poking out, as if he had been frozen while imitating a chicken. He shivered and stared at his mother with eyes that begged her to cease. The girl bit her lip and, by her glance, implored Nora to help. "She can't stop once she's started out," she said.

  A long agonized monologue poured wetly from the woman's lips. "I don't know what's 'appened, nor what to do, nor where to turn. First 'e sends us to th'workhouse, then 'e brings us back but 'e says we go, end o' th'month, an' Tom never told us, and now they took 'im an' I can't see 'im and they won't say where 'e is, an I got nothin'. 'E an't left us nothin'. What can a body do? Oh what can a body do?"

  "You can take this." Nora held out ten shillings, hoping her disgust did not show too plain. She was disgusted that a woman could so let herself go in front of her children.

  The woman stared uncomprehendingly at the money. Nora turned to the children. The boy was still locked, shivering, in his awkward position. With her free hand she thrust him forward. "Comfort your mother, son. You're the man of the house now. Summer's gone—you'll catch no flies in that great open mouth." The boy gingerly began to obey. "Go on!" Nora urged. "Hug her! You too, girl. Can't you see she needs you?"

  The girl looked at her mother and then at the money still in Nora's hand. "I could take that until she's calmer," she said.

  Nora broke into a great smile of approval. At least there was one person around here with a head on her shoulders. She counted the coins one by one into the child's dirty clutch. "Ten shillings," she said to the mother. The woman, calm again, but now almost vacant, nodded and gave a wan smile.

  Nora looked at the outhouse. "What rent does he ask?"

  It was as if the woman did not hear. The girl held up one finger. "A shilling?" Nora asked. She nodded. "What's it like?" She walked past the woman and looked inside. It was dry. The walls were rendered smooth. There was a stone floor. The fire kept it warm. For a shilling it was not a bad bargain; in Manchester you'd not get its like under eighteen pence. A bit dark. That was the only real drawback. She turned and looked at the woman. Still framed in the doorway facing out across the courtyard. She had a good, broad back and strong legs. She could easily get work at one of the mills if only she pulled herself together. There was no need for a great strong thing like her to go to the workhouse—unless there was trouble on account of her husband's politics. Even so, she could go to Fielden's in Todmorden. He'd take them, and that was only a 58-hour week. And the girl would work only forty-eight hours and get two hours' instruction a day, free. The boy could go to dame school in Littleborough—that would be only twopence a week and in the afternoons he could keep house and get a good supper ready. The mother could earn eight shillings a week on two ordinary looms, the child three or three and sixpence. If they were nimble, or lucky, they'd get sheeting looms and that would be an extra four shillings. So their earnings would be at least eleven and possibly fifteen and sixpence! There was no need for charity here. All that was wanting in this little household was spirit.

  "Can you read, girl?" Nora asked.

  The girl nodded proudly. "Dad taught us. And young Tommy. 'E can read too. Better'n me."

  "Can you, Tommy?"

  The boy nodded.

  "Show me."

  He darted into the room and came out with a small battered, clothbound book. Nora had expected some little children's verses or a fable; but the boy read without faltering: "The doctrines which fanaticism preaches, and which teach men to be content with poverty, have a very pernicious tendency, and are calculated to favour tyrants by giving them passive slaves. To live well, to enjoy all things that make life pleasant, is the right of every man who constantly uses his strength judiciously and lawfully. It is to blaspheme God to suppose that He created men to be miserable, to hunger, to thirst, and perish with cold in the midst of that abundance, which is the fruit of their own labour."

  "That's a jawbreaking book to be sure," Nora said.

  "Don't blame the child, missis," the woman told her. "'Tis 'is father teaches 'im. All them pernicious books as 'ave brought us so low. I 'ope 'e sees now where such books 'ave put us."

  "Do you understand it, Tommy?" Nora asked.

  The boy nodded and gave such a knowing little smile—as if he wanted her to understand he had not merely picked a passage at random.

  "Show me the book," she said.

  Watching this, the little girl swelled with pride, even more than her brother. Indeed, it seemed he considered her admiration was sufficient for both of them, for he handed over the book without affectation. Nora looked at the title. Cottage Economy, she read, by William Cobbett. The contents page promised information on Brewing Beer, Making Bread, Keeping Cows, Keeping Pigs…and so on. She looked through the pages and found them filled with practical hints on how a rural labourer might reduce the cost of his domestic economy while actually increasing the quantity and amenity of his food and home. One passage caught her eye—for no particular reason: "Rye, and even barley, especially when mixed with wheat, make very good bread. Few people upon the face of the earth live better than the Long Islanders. Yet nine out of ten seldom eat wheaten bread." She remembered the shape of the map of England framed in the bar parlour of the pub in Littleborough. There was a long island up at the top left of that.

  To test the boy she let the book fall open at another page and passed it back to him. "Read a passage from there," she said.

  The boy rapidly scanned the page and smiled. "This, therefore, is a matter of far greater moment to the father of a family," he read, "than whether the Parson of the parish or the Methodist Priest be the most 'evangelical' of the two; for it is here a question of the daughter's happiness or misery for life. And I have no hesitation to say that if I were a labouring man, I should prefer teaching my daughters to bake, brew, milk, make butter and cheese, to teaching them to read the Bible till they had got every word of it by heart; and I should think, too, nay, I should know, that in the former case I was doing my duty towards God as well as towards my children."

  He closed the book and looked up at Nora with that same knowing innocence. She could not help smiling back. "You may return the book, Tom. You're that sharp, you'll cut yourself one day."

  His precocity was a problem. No dame school was going to take him, that was certain; but a lad that sharp should not be left at home in idleness all day. She turned back to the woman, who had watched these exchanges in listless silence.

  "Well, Mrs. Metcalfe," she said cheerfully, hoping to rouse her, "I see a kettle singing there. Do you have any tea?"

  Mrs. Metcalfe brightened at this return to everyday things. "Aye," she sighed. "I could just do with that."

  Nora followed her inside; the two children went back to their stonecounting game.

  "When I was left to fend for a family," Nora said, "I lacked for more than you, but one thing I never lacked for was good neighbours to talk to. It seems you want that very thing and I mean to supply it."

  "They're not that bad hereabouts." Mrs. Metcalfe spoke more easily now that she could busy her hands; but her voice still hung low in bewilderment and grie
f. "It's just they're frightened, like. Police frightens 'em. You never said what they call you, Mrs…"

  "Nay," Nora spoke with reluctance. "I've been dreading tellin' you. But I must tell you, I can see that." She faltered.

  "I'll save you the trouble," Mrs. Metcalfe said. "Mr. Sutcliffe said 'e thought it was you when 'e come for us at th'workhouse, 'cos folk in th'ouses 'ere told 'im it was. Eay!" For the first time she smiled and put some warmth into her words. "You put the fear of God on Sutcliffe!" She nodded at the fire. "Them's 'is coals burnin there, not ours. 'E lit that for us."

  "I'm glad," she said, embarrassed to be thought of as the sort of hussy who ordered people about in such a fashion. "I lost me temper. It's not me usual way."

  "'Appen not," Mrs. Metcalfe said. "Still, it's handy to know it's there if ye need it." She placed a cup of tea on the plain deal table below the foot-square fastlight in the back wall. "Sit you down, Mrs. Stevenson," she said.

  "I should've said it straight out," Nora admitted. "When I was stood out there."

  "I'm that glad ye didn't," she almost chuckled. "I were too frightened to think, even."

  "Frightened!" Nora was astounded. For the second time in less than twenty four hours someone had claimed to fear her! Why was the world's Nora Stevenson so different from the one she knew?

  "Aye," the woman assured her. "'Course I know it's only a joke, but even so…"

  "A joke?" Nora was now completely bewildered. "What's only a joke?"

  "Well…about you. You know." She was now afraid again.

  Nora tried to be her warmest and most assuring. "Please tell me," she said. "I really have no notion of any of this."

  The woman sipped her tea miserably, committed now to revealing what she had meant. "Well," she said, "it was last Tuesday night. After that meetin'." She sighed. "Seems a blue month since. Metcalfe was sat there where you are. Burroughs was 'ere. Hope was there. And they was all discussin' the strike an' picketin' an' that. An' Tom Upjohn an' Jethro Carr and some o' them as lives round 'ere, they come in an' said…mind, I know they was only jokin', but they said that brickies should take care Lord John didn't"—she swallowed—"turn 'is wife loose on 'em. But, like I say, they was only jokin'. I know they was only jokin'."

  Nora's silvery peal of laughter rang out through the door and around the courtyard, fetching the children eagerly to the door. "Mrs. Metcalfe!" she said, still laughing. "Have you any notion what I was doing while these warnings were flying around in here?"

  "Nay."

  "I was walking up and down, up and down in our room in Littleborough— which"—she looked around—"isn't much bigger nor this—tremblin' with fear… aye, Mrs. Metcalfe, fear, fear and anxiety, for Lord John's safety and our possible ruin."

  Mrs. Metcalfe blew on her tea and shook her head in bewilderment. "Well, I'll go around the houses!" she said. "Is that a fact?"

  "I'd take my Bible oath."

  "Well…is that a fact?"

  Both of them sipped their tea.

  "Where can such a notion have come from?" Nora asked.

  "Well," Mrs. Metcalfe said, wondering if she dare point it out. "People in this row of houses, and Sutcliffe, they don't need to get it from outside. They seen it 'appen. An' 'eard it."

  "But that was today. And anyway, I lost my temper. I never thought he'd believe me. I was dreadin' havin' to carry out that threat. But Tuesday last. They'd no ground then."

  "Well. That engineer on the line…"

  "Mr. Thornton?"

  "Aye, that's what they call 'im. 'E's told tales of you turnin' back barges on th'navigation an' doin' I don't know what to Manchester merchants."

  "Mr. Thornton, has a way of tellin' fancy tales." She drained her cup and spat the tea leaves back into it before accepting the offer of a second.

  Mrs. Metcalfe said: "Ye'll not think me ungrateful. That I said nowt nor did nowt wi' them ten shillin's." She jerked her head toward the door.

  "I'll think you idle if I ever have to come back with more," Nora said. "A strong woman like you—two strong people, for yon girl's a strapper—should find work well enough to fetch in eleven bob a week."

  Mrs. Metcalfe was on the point of replying when they heard footsteps on the cobbles outside. Fearing that it might be Sutcliffe she leaped up and peeped around the edge of the door. At once she straightened herself and began that incessant wiping of her hands which Nora now recognized as her sign of anxiety.

  She turned back to Nora. "It's a priest," she said.

  A moment later, Nora heard the footsteps stop and the voice of the priest

  who had given evidence yesterday—Reverend Findlater. "Are you Thomas Metcalfe's little ones?" he asked.

  The children ran indoors without answering. Nora, watching Mrs. Metcalfe, was astonished to see her once again polishing her fingers in her apron. She breathed in short fits and repeatedly whispered "Oh dear," to herself, as if it were a kind of prayer.

  Findlater knocked and said, "Anyone at home?"

  Nora inclined her head toward the door and nodded encouragement to the woman, but she merely bit her lip and retreated even farther into herself.

  "Reverend Findlater," Nora was forced to call. "Come in."

  Puzzled both by the children's retreat and by an invitation from—or so he supposed—a woman he had never met, who still had not seen him, yet who knew his name, he entered as if he feared each flagstone he trod on were a trapdoor. And when he saw Nora sitting in the small patch of light by the window, his bewilderment was total. "Mrs. Stevenson!" he said and bowed awkwardly.

  Nora turned to the shadows behind the door, where Mrs. Metcalfe and the children had withdrawn. "Mrs. Metcalfe. Here is the Reverend Findlater, Methodist minister at the Wesleyan church in Smallbridge. He was a supporter of your husband."

  Findlater bowed at the shadows; his eyes, growing accustomed to the dark, could just make out the shapes of the mother and her children. "I still am his supporter, ma'am. You shall find him not without friends. Since yesterday until this noon we have been at work to organize a petition…"

  "While his wife and children were sent to Wardleworth workhouse!" Nora sneered "Aye—you have the same values as him! Agitation first, people second."

  Mrs. Metcalfe was sufficiently emboldened by Nora's hostility to come from the shadows and stand nearer the table.

  "Your pardon, ma'am," he said stiffly. "But that is unfair. Mr. Metcalfe assured me that his rent was paid until the end of the month, so I had no ground to apprehend any distress to them."

  "Then ye've a lot to learn of human nature. Do ye think she needed no comfort? While you and Fox organized your grand petition, did ye think this poor woman sat up here singing her head off with joy because the rent was paid to the end of the month?"

  "Mrs. Stevenson!" he began, but the protest expired in his throat.

  "If you've any impulse to civil behaviour with me, Reverend," she said, "you may ignore it. You've strayed too far from your study and your hymn books. You've meddled with commerce. You must expect nothing but hard, plain talk from me. Hard, plain talk."

  "A cup of tea, reverend?" Mrs. Metcalfe asked with cold hospitality. "I can soon freshen it." She sent the children out to draw another pail of water at the pump across the yard.

  He accepted the offer and sat on a stool, the other side of the table from Nora. "Since frankness is the thing, Mrs. Stevenson," he said, "I must ask you frankly why I find you here. Only yesterday Mr. Stevenson gave the evidence that put Mr. Metcalfe in jail. And now…"

  "It was not my husband's evidence alone," Nora said sweetly and, turning to Mrs. Metcalfe, added: "Perhaps you do not know that this reverend gentleman gave testimony against your husband yesterday?"

  It said a great deal for Mrs. Metcalfe's self-control that she not only held the tea cup in her hand but continued to carry it steadily across the room and placed it before the gentleman.

  "That, too, is unfair, ma'am. I was forced to it; I was not a willing witness. But what Mr. St
evenson may hope to gain by—"

  "My presence here has nothing to do with Mr. Stevenson's hopes," Nora said. "I am here by my own wish. Mr. Stevenson has no notion I am here at this moment, talking to you." Mrs. Metcalfe sat down between them so that they made three sides of a square with the window on the fourth. "I know nothing of politics and have no sympathy for those whose meddling with politics brings them foul of the law."

  Findlater opened his mouth to speak but Nora pressed on:

  "I was telling Mrs. Metcalfe. Earlier this year, my own brother led a group of workmen against their master. Just like Tom Metcalfe, they got their demands accepted but no acknowledgement of their Union. Just like Tom Metcalfe, he held out his plate for more. Only he didn't have no employer like John Stevenson. Everyone knows Tom Metcalfe and the others swore secret oaths. Everyone knows they could have been put in prison for years—or transported. But who was it stood up in open court and told that magistrate to his face that he thought as three months prison was harsh enough and he'd play no part in furtherance of more serious charges?"