The Orphan Collection

by Maggie Hope

  The following Tuesday, Jonty was at the junction of the road and the overgrown track to Old Pit early, just in case. And even though he knew it was illogical, he felt a pang of disappointment that there was no sign of her. Somehow he had expected Meg to feel the same eagerness as he did. He opened the gate and took his horse through so that it could graze in the field, the reins tied loosely on to the saddle, then climbed the gate and settled down on the top bar to wait. It was May, and though the wind was still blowing cold, the sun was warm on his back.

  Jonty whistled idly as he waited. And waited and waited. Still Meg didn’t come. He took his watch from his waistcoat pocket. It was already one-thirty. They would have no time together if she didn’t come soon. Not if she had things to take to Old Pit Cottages and also had to be back for the children coming in from school.

  ‘Good day, John.’

  The soft voice came from behind him. With a quick smile, he jumped down from the gate and turned to her, the gladness he felt showing in a sudden brightness of his eyes.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he said, the first thing that came into his head.

  Meg smiled, ‘I was early, I’ve already been to the cottages.’

  In fact, she had been afraid he wouldn’t turn up. After she’d got home the week before, she had gone over and over their last meeting in her mind. How he had looked, what he had said, the feel of his lips on the back of her hand. And now she was seeing him again she found the reality was even better than her imagination.

  ‘We can take a walk then,’ said Jonty, offering her his arm. Meg hesitated, unsure what to do. Wesley had never walked arm in arm with her, never even offered her his arm. Tentatively, she put her hand out, feeling a touch of embarrassment at how red and rough it looked against the fawn sleeve of his jacket. It was so very strange to be walking along the path, his horse following them without being bidden.

  At the place where the track forked, one branch leading to Old Eldon and one to Old Pit, she hesitated.

  ‘We’ll go this way, shall we?’ he asked, leading her away from Old Pit.

  ‘Er, I saved two pies for us,’ she ventured. ‘That is, if you haven’t had your dinner yet?’

  She walked on, not daring to look at him after she had said it, and there was a moment’s silence which seemed to her to stretch on and on. It was a mistake, she thought wretchedly, he doesn’t want to eat with me, of course he doesn’t.

  But Jonty was simply looking around, seeking a good place for a picnic, and soon he found one. A stand of ash trees shading a grassy bank lay a few yards from the path. There they would be sheltered from the wind yet still warmed by the sun.

  ‘Course, if you’re in a hurry—’ she began.

  ‘Meg, I’d love to share a picnic with you,’ he said. ‘Over there’s a good place, don’t you think?’ He took her basket and led the way to the bank where they settled on the dry grass.

  They ate tatie and leek pie and meat and onion pastie, and drank water from the bottle Meg had brought with her, just in case. And they talked and talked, about anything and everything except what was really on their minds, their wild, blind attraction to each other.

  ‘There’s to be a procession in the village on Saturday,’ she told him. ‘Because of the relief of Mafeking, like. The colliery band will be leading off.’

  ‘Your boys will like that,’ said Jonty, smiling. ‘I suppose they’ll be marching too?’

  ‘Not Kit.’

  ‘Oh? I thought his leg was better now?’

  ‘It is,’ she assured him. ‘But, you know, Kit’s a funny lad. He’d rather be out roaming the countryside than marching in a procession. Tucker now, Tucker wants to be a soldier.’ She laughed indulgently.

  ‘I might see you there,’ said Jonty.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know …’ Meg looked alarmed. Wesley might not want her for himself but she didn’t know how he would react if he thought anyone else was interested in her, especially someone like John. In her position she had to be careful. She couldn’t afford to let pit folk turn against her, she depended on them for her living, not just with the baking but also the extra she earned attending to women lying in.

  ‘I didn’t mean – well, I meant I might go along to watch, perhaps take my grandmother if she’s feeling well enough,’ Jonty said quickly.

  For Mrs Grizedale was responding to the better weather, her aches and pains had eased and she often was well enough to be brought downstairs for tea. A fine day in the open air might be good for her.

  They parted reluctantly when the time came for Meg to go back and both looked forward to Saturday when they would see each other again, even though they could not acknowledge each other in the village.

  The intervening days were busy ones for Meg as she made up for lost time, but it was worth it. She worked with a new energy and vibrancy.

  ‘There’s going to be crackers, Mam, fireworks, the minute it’s dark,’ cried Tucker, his round face bright with excitement. ‘Eeh, it’ll be grand, won’t it?’

  ‘If you don’t stand still, we won’t be there to see the procession, never mind the crackers,’ said Meg. She was putting the finishing touches to a bright red soldier’s tunic she had made for him out of an old sheet dyed the appropriate colour. She had tried to persuade Kit to have one too but when he’d showed opposition to joining the procession she’d let it go, though insisting he go with her to watch the fun.

  ‘You’ll have a grand time, lad,’ she’d urged, ‘and there’ll be a penny each for you to spend. And we’ll go to the Lantern Show after, there’ll be pictures of Africa, lions and tigers an’ all.’

  This had been enough to sway Kit. Now he sat patiently on the settle, waiting for his mother to finish dressing Tucker in his soldier’s uniform.

  They went out to the street and joined the throng of other families, the adults dressed in their Sunday best and the children in fancy dress, some of them making very peculiar-looking soldiers indeed. They were laughing and chattering, making the most of the carnival atmosphere. It was already late-afternoon for the men had had to work in the morning, but the sun still shone.

  The procession formed up at the head of Pasture Row, there being some delay as the children sorted themselves out behind a troop of real soldiers from the Durham Light Infantry, there to boost recruitment for the war in Africa. But at last they were ready and the colliery band led them off, along the top of rows made gay with bunting strung across from one to the other, then on up the road to the old village, the main street and the shops.

  The band played and the children whooped as they marched along and the onlookers cheered enthusiastically. Walter and Tucker marched proudly side by side, and Meg and Alice, who had by then joined her, gave them an extra loud cheer.

  ‘Look, Meg, there’s Mr Dale,’ said Alice, pointing over to a governess trap with a man and a woman sitting in it, watching the fun. The woman looked very old and frail, thought Meg, but John now, he looked grand. Her heart swelled with pride that so handsome a man should take notice of her, should actually be interested in a lass like her from a pit village.

  ‘He looks nice, doesn’t he, Meg?’ whispered Alice. ‘Howay, let’s go across, mebbe he’ll have a word with us.’

  ‘Oh, Alice, I don’t know,’ Meg objected, panicking. If anyone saw them together, and she actually had to speak to him and listen to his answer, she was sure it would be obvious how she felt about him. She couldn’t disguise it, her feelings were too strong.

  ‘What the heck’s the matter with you, Meg? Don’t be so fond,’ said Alice impatiently. ‘What’s the harm in saying hello?’

  Just then, Jonty bent down to the old lady and spoke a few words and she nodded her head. He picked up the reins and prepared to go, carefully keeping his horse to a walk to avoid the milling crowds.

  ‘Now look,’ said Alice, ‘we’re too late. I don’t know, our Meg, you’re so backwards at coming forwards sometimes.’

  But Meg had caught his quick glance i
n their direction, the way he half-smiled and lifted one eyebrow in secret salute to her. And her heart warmed within her.

  ‘Would you just look at that!’

  The sisters glanced round at the sound of Auntie Pheobe’s voice. She and Uncle Tot were standing on the kerb looking over to their right. They followed her gaze.

  It was Wesley, Wesley and Sally Hawkins standing together as bold as brass, Wesley with an arm around the girl’s shoulders.

  Alice let out her breath in a hiss, eyes glittering at the thought of the public humiliation the sight of them must give to Meg.

  ‘Brazen hussy,’ she exclaimed.

  Meg looked quickly away. She didn’t want to watch them, didn’t want to see the triumphant smirk on Sally’s face which would surely be there if she thought Meg was looking.

  ‘She’s having a bairn,’ Auntie Phoebe’s eyes widened as she took in the shape of Sally’s belly. ‘Eeh, our Alice, have you ever seen the like? Standing there proud as punch, she is, a proper little trollop.’

  ‘There’s me da,’ said Kit, glowering, his normally pleasant face transformed darkly. As Kit spoke, Wesley bent down and gave a boy of about ten years old a copper. Of course, they all knew who the boy was: Ralph Hawkins. Sally had had him with her when she came home in disgrace from a place as a housemaid. She and the boy had lived in a broken-down cottage in the village with her mother until the older woman died and Wesley moved in permanently.

  ‘Got money for her by-blow but not for his own bairns,’ sniffed Auntie Phoebe.

  ‘Let it be, woman, don’t spoil the day,’ urged Uncle Tot. He saw Kit’s face and, drawing the wrong conclusion, took a penny out of his own pocket.

  ‘Dinna take any notice, lad,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a penny, and one for Tucker an’ all.’

  Kit still glowered darkly, though he took the coppers and thanked Uncle Tot nicely.

  ‘That Ralphy Hawkins,’ he said, ‘he’s always picking on our Tucker. Says he’s not our da now, but Ralphy’s. He says our mam’s no good to anybody.’

  Meg looked at him in dismay. Oh God, she thought, what is it all doing to my lads?

  In the evening, she took Tucker and Kit to see the Magic Lantern Show, gazing blindly at the pictures of the wicked Boers who had dared to rebel against the Queen, and black boys who were not black from coal dust yet grinned cheekily at the camera much the same as her own boys would have done. There was a great noise in the hall as the audience cheered and booed, according to whatever was on the screen, but Meg sat silently, in a turmoil of conflicting emotions. But guilt was not one of them. Any remnants of loyalty she might have felt towards Wesley were destroyed now. And in the dark hall she admitted to herself how deep was her love for John Dale.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Meg, I have a confession to make,’ said Jonty.

  ‘A confession?’

  Meg looked up from repacking her basket with the bottle and cups and pie dishes. They had got into the habit, that summer of 1900, of meeting every Tuesday when the weather was fine and sharing a picnic on the grassy knoll by the stand of ash trees. And it had been a good summer, a fine summer, there had been only one Tuesday when it had rained.

  ‘Yes.’ Jonty hesitated, not sure how to begin. But it was long past the time when he should have told Meg the truth about who he was, he wanted there to be no secrets between them. He took her hand and she lifted questioning eyes to his.

  ‘My name is not John,’ he began. ‘Well, it is, but I’m generally known as something else. Jonty.’

  ‘Jonty?’

  ‘Yes, Jonty. Jonty Grizedale.’

  ‘Jonty Grizedale?’

  Meg suddenly realised she was repeating everything he said. She was a bit taken aback. They had talked and talked this afternoon as they did every time they met and she had thought she knew him so well, yet here he was telling her he had been lying to her all this while.

  Then the significance of the name dawned on her. He was saying he was Jonty, her childhood friend, the son of her Aunt Nell and Ralph Grizedale, the candyman. Memories crowded in on her: her mother wondering aloud how Jonty was getting on, her father’s short replies. But she had to make sure.

  ‘Jonty, my Jonty, Auntie Nell’s son?’ she asked and he nodded.

  ‘Do you hate me, Meg?’ He had moved closer to her and was searching her face for a sign or for her reaction to his revelation, his dark eyes anxious. She gave an involuntary movement of denial. How could she hate him?

  ‘How could I hate you?’ she said, and silently she was saying: I love you, I love you. Then an awful thought came to her.

  ‘But – you’re my cousin then, aren’t you? Close kin? Does that mean …’

  ‘No, no, Meg, no! Not that close. There is no reason at all why we shouldn’t love each other, being cousins doesn’t matter.’

  She relaxed. Silently she folded the tea cloth which they had used as a tablecloth and laid it over the things in the basket. Having something to do with her hands gave her time to think. For apart from anything else, this was the first time Jonty had put into words their feelings for each other.

  ‘But why, why didn’t you say?’ she said at last.

  ‘Oh, Meg, I thought you must hate me. I thought all of you must hate me. Why else did your mother and father go away like that and leave me to a man such as my father? I must have done something terribly wrong for that to happen. I agonized about it all the time I was growing up. And then, when I found your aunt a few years ago, none of them would have anything to do with me. Why was that? What did I do to you all?’

  Meg looked helplessly at him now. In his moment of distress she could see the little boy in him, the Jonty she had loved so long ago, the Jonty of her dreams when she was younger.

  ‘Oh, Jonty, no, you didn’t do anything!’ she cried. And out tumbled that old, terrible memory, the one which had haunted her nightmares for so long. The day the candyman had come and put the railway families out of their houses. Jonty’s father sitting there on his great horse, seeming larger than life and twice as powerful. And how they’d had to go away, find work and shelter elsewhere.

  And he told her of how it had been for him, in that great house with no mother and not even Auntie Hannah to run to when his father whipped him. He told her about the time he found the cottages boarded up and empty, and how abandoned he had felt.

  Meg, in her turn, told him of her girlhood dream that he would come riding up like a knight in armour and rescue her from a life of unhappiness and drudgery, and they would go away together and live happily ever after. And he told her of his gentle grandmother and how he stayed at the Hall and tried to keep things going for her sake.

  They were very close together by this time, arms around each other, comforting each other for old wounds which had never healed, her fair head nestling on his broad shoulder, his hand in hers. And what came next was as natural as life itself as they made love in the grass, screened from any prying passerby on the track by the fall of the ground and the stand of trees.

  Meg couldn’t believe it. Here she was, a mother of three children, two living, and she hadn’t known what making love was. She was well acquainted with sex. Oh, yes, she had had too much of that in the short time Wesley had lived with her, but this was different altogether to that aggressive, and for her painful, act which she had gone through with him.

  Jonty was gentle yet passionate. Instinctively he knew how to raise her dormant sexuality, arouse feelings of an intensity that she had never suspected she was capable of, until at last they reached the height together and collapsed, lying heart to heart, as they slowly descended from the apex. And Meg had a wild hope that she had conceived. She wanted Jonty’s baby more than anything in the world. Oh, she wanted it, even though she was well aware of the difficulties it would cause her. But it didn’t matter, the world didn’t matter, all that mattered was Jonty and the baby she might already be carrying in her belly. And her boys, of course, her lads.

  Meg sat
up abruptly. It must be getting late. The boys would be coming home from school and here she was. She would never get back to the house in time for them.

  ‘What is it?’ Jonty was lying on his back, looking up at her. He held out his arms to her. ‘Come back, Meg. Don’t go, not yet, please.’

  ‘The lads will be home from school long since. I’ll have to run.’

  She rose to her feet and hurriedly brushed the dried grass from her clothes, tidied her hair, pulled her bodice into position and fastened it back up to the neck.

  ‘Oh, Lord, yes.’ Jonty scrambled to his feet and dusted himself down, then stopped and looked at Meg. ‘You can come tomorrow? Oh, Meg, my love, we have so much to talk about, so much time to catch up on.’ He caught hold of her hand and drew her to him, gathering her in his arms and kissing her tenderly – her lips, her eyes, the nape of her neck.

  ‘Meg,’ he groaned, ‘how can I let you go, now I’ve found you?’

  ‘I’ll try to come tomorrow,’ she said doubtfully. She had so much to do, had already taken this afternoon away from her work. She had to work to live, it was a hard fact of life. ‘I must run now,’ she said regretfully.

  ‘I’ll put you up in front of me, we’ll ride to the road,’ he suggested. And that was another first in her life when she was lifted before him on to the horse and held in his strong arms as he cantered along the track. She felt his chest at her back, his legs against hers. The wind was in her hair and her eyes shone with excitement so that when they reached the junction and he lifted her down, she sparkled with delight.

  ‘By, it was grand,’ she cried, and quickly reaching up to give him a farewell kiss, was away down the road, breaking into a run as she neared the colliery rows.