The Orphan Collection

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Da’s off shift, he’s in bed. A strange voice always wakes him up, we can’t go there.’

  ‘Well, we have to go somewhere. It’s no good going back to our house, not with the mood Mam’s in. Better take a chance on waking your da. I’ll tell Mam when she’s calmed down a bit.’

  Wesley gazed earnestly at Meg. There was no hint of teasing or male arrogance in his face now. He just wanted to do right by her, she could see.

  ‘Yes,’ she conceded. ‘We’ll have to be quiet, though. We’ll go through to the front room, Da sleeps over the kitchen.’

  She led the way into the house and the front room, thankful that she had already put up the chiffonier bed and tidied the room so that there was no hint that it was also her bedroom. There was no fire in here and the air struck chill, icy draughts coming in through the ill-fitting door which led directly to the outside.

  Meg didn’t feel the cold now as she pulled up a chair for Wesley and sat down opposite him. No, she felt all of a lather, hot and embarrassed now she actually had to talk about her trouble to him. She pondered where to begin.

  ‘How far do you think you’re on?’ asked Wesley, and he too seemed awkward and shy. He leaned forward on his chair, looking at the floor and with his hands clasped before him. Then he sat back and looked out of the window, anywhere but at Meg.

  ‘You know how far I’m on,’ she said. What was he talking about?

  ‘Oh, aye, you’re right. It must be three or four months.’

  They sat quietly and, through the wall, Meg could hear Bella, chattering on to Auntie Phoebe in her high, shrill voice. Wesley cleared his throat loudly and Meg looked apprehensively at the ceiling, listening for any signs of Da waking up.

  ‘Whisht,’ she whispered.

  The silence lengthened until at last Wesley broke it, speaking in a low voice. ‘We’ll get married.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Meg, realising he couldn’t plan any further than that, it was up to her to see to arrangements. Wesley was of that breed of miners who had everything done for them by their mothers.

  ‘When?’ she prompted him.

  ‘We shall have to book the chapel and the minister,’ he said, pleased that he had thought of it.

  ‘No, we will not!’ Meg said in her normal voice, and this time it was Wesley who looked up at the ceiling and raised his hand warningly.

  ‘No, we won’t,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to be wed in our chapel, not with a thick waist and everybody sniggering at me.’

  ‘I’d soon stop anybody sniggering,’ he snapped.

  Meg glared at him. That was just like him, she thought, a bully-boy. He thought everything could be settled with his fists.

  ‘I’m not getting wed in chapel,’ she reiterated. ‘We’ll have to go to the register office in Auckland.’

  ‘The register office?’ Wesley sat back, shocked. ‘That’s not a proper wedding, not in the register office.’

  ‘Aye, it is.’ Meg nodded her head. ‘We’ll be wed just as much as if we were wed in chapel.’

  ‘Me Mam won’t like it,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘She’s not going to like it any road. Now, we have to decide when.’

  ‘As soon as we can, I suppose.’

  ‘Don’t be soft, Wesley,’ said Meg, surprising herself at the way she was taking charge now he had agreed to the marriage. ‘We haven’t got anywhere to live, have we? We can’t get wed till we know what we’re going to do after, can we?’

  ‘We’ll live with me mam,’ he said. ‘I can only have the one house from the colliery, we’ll have to live with me mam.’

  Meg’s heart sank. Oh, no, she didn’t want to live with Wesley’s mam, she didn’t! ‘We can live here, we can have this room.’ She looked around the front room. It would do for a start and then she would be handy to see to the place for her da.

  It was Wesley’s turn to look impatient. ‘What about me mam? If I’m not living there they might take the house off her. Why, man, we have to live with me mam.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Both Wesley and Meg started guiltily. They hadn’t heard anyone come in and when the door opened and there stood Jack Boy, still in his pitclothes, they were at a loss what to say.

  ‘Our Meg?’

  ‘Eeh, Jack Boy, is it that time? You’ll have to have a bit of bacon for your dinner, I haven’t done anything else.’

  ‘Never mind me dinner. I said, what’s he doing here? An’ in here an’ all, where your bed is?’ Jack Boy was glaring at her, his voice tight with rage.

  ‘The bed’s up!’ she cried. ‘It’s not like that at all. We just had to talk about something, that’s why he’s here.’

  ‘I can speak for meself, Meg,’ said Wesley. Now he was over his initial surprise at Jack Boy’s sudden appearance, he faced the younger boy squarely.

  ‘Me and your Meg, we’re going to get wed.’

  ‘Aye? And who says so?’ Jack Boy demanded, thrusting his chin forward aggressively. ‘Meg’s only eighteen, me da might have something to say about that.’

  ‘We have to, lad,’ she said quietly, blushing to the roots of her hair. She felt her brother’s bitter gaze on her and wanted to die with embarrassment.

  ‘You hacky, dirty sod!’

  ‘Jack!’

  Meg looked at Jack Boy in astonishment. She had never heard him swear in her life before. But the men were ignoring her, squaring up to each other, her brother’s face red with rage, and Wesley’s too.

  ‘Why couldn’t you stick to the whores in Auckland? What did you have to go getting a decent lass like our Meg into trouble for? Come outside, I’ll show you what—’

  ‘Lads! Lads!’ Auntie Phoebe came running in, puffing and panting with the exertion. ‘They can hear you all over the rows.’

  But Jack Boy was fairly dancing with rage. Though younger than Wesley and not up to his weight, he was ready to take him on and Wesley was willing to fight too, Meg could see the angry sparkle in his eyes.

  ‘Wesley! Take no notice of him, man, he’ll come round in a minute.’ She caught hold of his arm and pleaded with him. And just then Jack Maddison came downstairs, his trousers pulled on over his nightshirt, braces dangling and his feet bare.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he said grimly. ‘Can’t a man have some quiet in his own house after he’s been on shift down the pit?

  There was a sudden silence. The boys and Meg didn’t know what to say so it was left to Auntie Phoebe.

  ‘Meg and Wesley Cornish here, they’re wanting to get wed,’ she said flatly.

  Jack Maddison said nothing. He walked into the kitchen, took his clay pipe from the high mantel and lit it, using a spill of paper from the brass pot at the side by the fire. He waited until the pipe was burning to his satisfaction before turning back to them.

  ‘Well, she cannot. She’s only a bairn as yet.’

  Meg and Wesley looked at one another as Jack Boy gave a short laugh.

  ‘Bairn or no, she’s having a babby herself,’ he blurted out.

  Jack Maddison took the pipe out of his mouth and Meg hung her head as he looked at her. She had thought she would never see any real feeling in her father’s eyes, he had carried that dead look with him for so long, but just at that moment a touch of real fire showed there.

  ‘You’ve shamed your mother’s memory,’ he stated, and tears welled up in Meg’s eyes.

  ‘Da!’

  ‘Don’t you call me Da, I’m no father of thine. Get your things and get out.’

  Meg couldn’t believe she was hearing it. What was Da saying? He’d never throw her out, she knew he wouldn’t, he was just angry, that was all it was. Getting woken up an’ all.

  ‘Da?’ she said, incredulous. She must have not heard him right.

  ‘Jack, man,’ Auntie Phoebe put in. ‘Jack, they’re going to get wed. Calm down man, it’ll be all right.’ She bit her lip anxiously. None of them could believe that Jack Maddison meant what he was saying.

 
‘You’d better be ganning or I’ll put you out, and you can whistle for your clothes,’ said Jack, ignoring the older woman as he stared grimly at Meg.

  ‘Da – this is our Meg, you can’t put her out,’ Jack Boy stepped forward to plead for his sister.

  ‘Oh, I can. An’ I don’t want you saying her name round here neither, or you can be off yourself.’

  There was a chorus of gasps and Meg turned blindly to find the straw box to pack her clothes in before remembering that Alice had it, away in Lancashire. She would have to make a bundle with her shawl. Her fingers trembled. She dropped the ends of her shawl and couldn’t tie the knot properly. It came undone the first time.

  ‘Here, I’ll do it.’ Wesley spoke for the first time. He was white and strained, looking more like a chastened schoolboy than a young man about to be married.

  ‘You get out of my house. Go on, you can wait outside if you still want her, or else be off with you,’ snapped Jack, and Wesley went without a word so that it was Jack Boy who secured the bundle and took it to the door for her.

  ‘I’ll try to help you, Meg,’ he whispered.

  She stood in the doorway and looked round at her father. She still couldn’t believe this was happening. He had sat down in the rocking-chair and was staring into the fire, puffing furiously on his pipe and deliberately not looking at her.

  ‘Jack, man!’ Auntie Phoebe said again, but she might as well have saved her breath, he didn’t seem to hear her.

  Meg walked slowly down the yard to the back gate. Wesley was there, standing round the corner leaning against the wall of the coal house. He looked at her sheepishly.

  ‘Where am I going to go?’ she asked helplessly, and he flushed an even deeper red than before.

  ‘I cannot take you home. First I’ll have to go and tell me mam.’

  Meg nodded. Up the row a pair of housewives were standing by a yard gate, arms folded and eyes avid with curiosity as they watched the young couple.

  ‘Go on then,’ she said, and put her bundle down on the dirt of the back lane. She was past caring about getting dirt on her clothes.

  She was standing there, gazing unseeingly at the wall opposite, when Auntie Phoebe came out.

  ‘What are you going to do, lass?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered Meg. ‘Wesley’s gone to ask his mam, see if I can go there.’

  Auntie Phoebe eyed the two women further up the street and her expression changed from concern to truculence.

  ‘Have you nowt better to do than gawp at folks as is in trouble?’ she shouted, and the women retreated behind their own walls. They knew better than to start an argument with Phoebe Lowther. She knew all the gossip about everyone in the row and wouldn’t be slow in bringing it out in defence of her family, they were well aware of that.

  ‘Howay, pet, come in with me. We’ll wait in our house, away from that lot.’

  Phoebe picked up the bundle and led Meg round to her kitchen door.

  ‘Wesley won’t know where I am, though,’ she protested weakly.

  ‘Aye, he will, I’ll keep an eye out for him. Any road, he’s likely to be a long time yet persuading his mother. If I know owt about that Jane Cornish, that is.’

  Meg was filled with dread. What was she going to do if Wesley weakened and didn’t wed her? What if his mam changed his mind for him?

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Are you going to live with me and Auntie Phoebe and Uncle Tot now?’

  Bella beamed at Meg, obviously delighted at the prospect, and she had to smile back even though she felt more like crying.

  ‘Stop asking questions, that’s a good lass,’ said Auntie Phoebe. ‘Howay now, Bella, help me make the tea. You can peel the potatoes for me. You like to do that, don’t you?’

  They had waited and waited and Wesley hadn’t come back. Meg had just about given up any hope that he would.

  ‘I’ll do them for you, Auntie,’ she offered. ‘I could do with something to do.’

  ‘Bella likes to do them. You sit still, Meg, you’ve had some shocks today.’ Auntie Phoebe hadn’t said anything about Wesley not coming back but Meg knew the subject was lying between them and her aunt must also think he wasn’t coming back.

  What was she going to do? She couldn’t stay here, she knew she couldn’t. If she stayed here Da wouldn’t have Auntie Phoebe in the house either, and then how would he and the lads manage? They needed a woman to see to things. There was Jack Boy, for instance. He’d already come in from the pit and there was no dinner for him, and Miles would be in any minute now from back shift. He’d be hungry an’ all. Miles was a growing lad, he was always hungry.

  Meg fretted on, her mind jumping from one worry to the next. If Alice was here now, it would be all right to leave the menfolk to her, Alice was a good little housekeeper. But she was in Manchester, wasn’t she? Maybe she would come home … I’ll write to her, decided Meg, I’ll tell her. But Da might come in any minute, might say it was all a mistake, he wanted his Meg to come home.

  ‘Get that down you.’

  Auntie Phoebe placed a mug of tea in front of Meg, adding a spoonful of condensed milk. She sat down at the table beside her, sighing.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think Wesley Cornish is coming back, he’s been too long.’

  The sound of the words spoken aloud, the words which had been running through Meg’s head for the last hour or two, seemed to make them definite.

  ‘Can I stay here the night, Auntie? Da’ll likely have calmed down by the morning.’

  Auntie Phoebe looked doubtful. ‘You can stay an’ welcome, pet. But I don’t know how your da will take it.’

  Just what Meg had been thinking herself but she didn’t know what else to do. She stirred her tea in the mug, round and round, round and round. This day was a nightmare, a terrible nightmare. It was almost worse than the nightmare about the candyman. This nightmare wasn’t going to end, that was the worst of it, she fretted. And just then, there was a knock at the door.

  ‘I’ll go, I’ll go,’ cried Bella, dropping a potato into the water with a splash which marked her clean pinny. Eagerly she ran to the door. Bella loved company.

  ‘Is Meg here?’

  Her heart leaped as she turned to face the door and saw Wesley stooping under the low lintel.

  ‘Eeh, Wesley, lad, we thought you weren’t coming back,’ said Auntie Phoebe, relief shining in her smile.

  ‘I said I would. You didn’t think I’d run away, did you?’

  Wesley was speaking to Auntie Phoebe but he was looking at Meg and watching the conflicting expressions chase across her face.

  ‘You did! You thought I wouldn’t come,’ he accused her, but he sounded more amused than annoyed. ‘You don’t trust me yet, then, do you Meg?’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ she answered swiftly. ‘We knew Wes would come, didn’t we, Auntie?’ She looked at her aunt, daring her to deny it.

  ‘Well, what did your mam say?’ demanded Phoebe impatiently, deliberately not looking at Meg. What they’d thought didn’t matter now that Wesley had come. Besides, Tot would be in from the pit soon and she wanted this settled before he came.

  ‘You’ve to come along of me,’ said Wesley, smiling at Meg, pleased to be relieving one of her worries at least. He did not say his mother would be happy to welcome her and Meg was fairly sure he had spent all this time using his powers of persuasion on Jane Cornish. That would be the reason he was late coming back.

  ‘Right now?’ she asked, dreading the thought of facing his mother again.

  ‘Aye, you might as well. I’ve to go to work in half an hour.’

  Meg’s heart sank. That meant she was going to be on her own with her future mother-in-law for the rest of the afternoon and evening. But there was nothing she could do, she had to go with Wesley now.

  ‘Don’t forget, Meg, if you need me at all, I’m here, you just have to ask,’ Auntie Phoebe said softly as Meg and Wesley were leaving.

  ‘I know,
Auntie, don’t think I’m not grateful either,’ Meg answered. But in her heart she knew that her aunt was pleased that she wasn’t going to have to take her in and cause more friction with the Maddisons.

  Meg followed Wesley up the row and round to his house, hardly noticing the curious eyes at every window. She was too full of sorrow at leaving the house in Pasture Row where she had worked so hard to raise her brothers and sisters. And now she had to leave the lads to fend for themselves. But she would write to Alice as soon as she could, she promised herself.

  I’m sorry, Mam, she cried inside. I am, I’m that sorry. For Da was right. She had failed her mother and shamed her memory an’ all.

  Whatever it was her son had said to Jane Cornish, it had had an effect, for she held her tongue when Meg came into the house, keeping her remarks to the bare necessities. Meg was to have the front room where there was a chiffonier bed, the twin of the one in which she had slept at home. Wesley had quickly changed into his pitclothes and picked up his bait tin and water bottle and gone off to work, leaving his womenfolk to sort themselves out. This was when Meg expected Jane to turn nasty. She was all prepared for it, determined the older woman would not upset her any more than she already had been that day.

  ‘Poor lad,’ Jane remarked to the air somewhere over Meg’s head, after the door closed behind Wesley. ‘How’s he supposed to get through a shift at the coal face after a day like the day, I don’t know. He’ll be needing pit props to hold his eyelids open.’ But she spoke mildly enough as she took up her knitting and sat down before the fire in the kitchen, working furiously away on a woollen sock. Meg watched her for a minute or two then awkwardly sat down on a hard wooden chair at the table.

  ‘We’ll have a bite of tea just now,’ said Jane casually, not even looking up from her knitting. ‘I’ve got a knuckle of bacon and some taties left off Wesley’s dinner. I’ll fry them up with a bit of onion.’

  Meg could only blink her eyes in surprise at the change in Jane. What had Wesley said to his mother to cause this complete about face?

  In the following days, spent in a kind of limbo as she waited for the wedding date to arrive, Meg began to realise that the change in her future mother-in-law was only on the surface. Jane didn’t seem able to stop herself from letting the odd acid remark escape her lips, and sometimes Meg would turn unexpectedly and see a malevolent glare directed at her, swiftly veiled as she caught Meg’s eye.