The Orphan Collection

by Maggie Hope

  Meg grinned and went inside. She made herself a cup of tea and got out the loaf and jam. Tucker was right to some extent in that all lads went down the pits here, following their fathers usually. But if Kit wanted to work on the land then he would. He would never have to go down the pit if he didn’t want to and she could do anything about it. Not like poor Da.

  She cut bread and spread it with jam for the three boys and sat down to eat herself. But she had only taken a few mouthfuls when she felt sick and had to rush out into the yard and bend over the drain, retching miserably, throwing up what little she had eaten. She leaned against the wall and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  ‘Are you badly, Mam?’

  She looked down at Kit’s anxious little face, his mouth besmeared with plum jam, and smiled wanly.

  ‘No lad, I’m fine, I am. Something went down the wrong way, that’s all.’

  Kit looked relieved and she took his hand and went back into the house with him. That settled it. She had been nauseous the first few months in all her pregnancies so she was sure now. She had no choice but to ask Jonty to help her.

  ‘Can we go up the bunny banks, Mam?’ asked Tucker, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Me and Walter? We’ll get some brambles for a pudding.’

  ‘I want to come! I want to come!’ Kit danced up and down before his brother.

  ‘Aw, man, I have you trailing after us all the time,’ said Tucker, disgusted. Kit tried Walter. Sometimes Walter let him go with them on their expeditions, he was a kind-hearted lad. And so it proved this time.

  ‘Howay, then,’ Walter said. ‘Mind, you’ll have to keep up wi’ us, and don’t fall down no holes neither.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Meg said doubtfully, reminded of that terrible day when Kit fell down the old shaft.

  ‘Aw, Mam, all the lads go, there’s nothing to hurt,’ argued Tucker. And it was true, the children of the rows usually wandered around the countryside and no harm came to them. Maybe she was being overprotective because of Kit’s accident?

  ‘Well, you watch the little ’un,’ she admonished, and they went whooping up the yard and along the rows, scattering the girls’ hitchy stones as they went.

  I could go to meet Jonty, Meg told herself after they had gone. She glanced at the clock. It was half-past nine. If she hurried she could be there not too long after ten and still be home to give the boys their dinner, she reasoned. Oh, she wanted to go, she wanted to go so badly. But Tucker and Kit, what if they should need her in the meanwhile? Last night she had failed them, staying with Jonty when she should have been home when they needed her. And the time Kit fell down the pit shaft, if she had kept a better watch on them maybe it wouldn’t have happened. The weight of her inadequacies as a mother lay heavily on her.

  In the end, Meg decided she could not go. On the other hand, she could not wait another day before seeking Jonty out. Her mind was full of uncertainties, fears and hopes she hardly dared to express even to herself. The morning dragged on. She had thought that Alice would be back by one o’clock, but she must have missed the horse bus from Bishop Auckland. At ten past one there was no sign of her sister.

  Her brother Jackie came in and she took his dinner of pan hagglety from the oven and served it to him. As she spooned out the layers of potato and onion and bacon, covered with bubbling cheese, she considered asking him to keep an eye out for the boys. But one look at his weary face convinced her she couldn’t do that. Jack needed his bed. He was working so hard in the pit, and at the same time working for his deputy’s ticket. That was the reason he had stayed on at the pit that morning.

  Meg brought in the tin bath and filled it from the boiler on one side of the range with the ladling tin before sitting down and pouring herself some tea. She felt she couldn’t eat a bite herself. Jack ate silently, hungrily. After all, he had had nothing but his bait of bread and jam since the night before. After he finished his meal he lit his pipe and sat a few minutes before the fire before stripping to the waist and bathing the upper half of his body.

  ‘Wash my back, Meg,’ were the first words he had spoken since greeting her as he came in the house. Jackie didn’t understand about her and Jonty, she thought miserably. She knew how hard it could be for a man if there was talk about his sister, and she and Wesley had already provided enough of that. She soaped the proffered flannel and rubbed away at the coal dust and dried sweat.

  It was time the bairns were back, she thought, suddenly beset with anxiety. Jack took himself off to bed and she went to the end of the row, looking along the road for any sign of them. There was none but Alice was walking along from the stile where the shortcut to Bishop Auckland came out on the road, swinging her basket by her side.

  ‘I had to walk back,’ she said. ‘The lecture went on and on, you would think the teacher had no home to go to.’

  The sisters went into the house and Meg served Alice her pan hagglety.

  ‘You saw to Jack, then,’ she commented, giving her sister a level stare. ‘I thought you might have gone off again, leaving him to get his own dinner.’

  Meg flushed, remembering how she almost had gone to meet Jonty.

  ‘Please, Alice,’ she asked, ‘try to understand.’

  Whatever Alice was going to say was forgotten as Tucker and Kit came running into the kitchen, eyes shining and faces purple with blackberry juice. Tucker had his cap in his hand and it was filled to the brim with large and luscious fruit.

  ‘Look, Mam. Look, Auntie Alice, see what we got,’ shouted Kit. ‘We got pounds and pounds of brambles.’

  ‘I did, you mean, me and Walter,’ said Tucker, crushingly. ‘You only picked red ones. You don’t know the difference between black and red.’

  ‘I do, I do,’ shouted Kit, turning on his brother furiously.

  ‘Never mind, never mind, don’t fight,’ Alice intervened. ‘I’m sure Kit did his best, Tucker. Now, won’t we have a lovely pudding for supper tonight?’

  Meg emptied the berries into a bowl, looking ruefully at the purple-stained lining of the cap. She’d have a job getting that clean. She should have thought and given the boys a bag, they had said they were going brambling.

  She gave the boys the rest of the pan hagglety and took the dish into the pantry to soak in cold water. Alice and the boys had fallen silent as they tucked into the meal. Should she ask Alice to mind them? she wondered. If she did she could go to Grizedale Hall this afternoon and seek out Jonty.

  ‘Alice, are you doing anything this afternoon?’ she asked as she came out of the pantry. Alice looked up, unsmiling.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, I just wondered,’ answered Meg, feeling intimidated by her manner.

  It would be a waste of time asking Alice, she decided. If she was going to see Jonty she would have to take the boys with her. Which was not a bad idea at all, she realised, they would have to know about him sometime.

  ‘Eat up,’ she said to Tucker and Kit, though they were already eating as though it was their first meal for a week. ‘We’re going out.’

  ‘Out?’ queried Alice, frowning.

  ‘Yes.’ Meg smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry, Alice, everything’s going to work out, I know it.’

  ‘I wish I felt the same,’ her sister replied tartly, but she said no more.

  Meg and the boys walked to the grassy knoll first, just in case Jonty was still there, though it was already late afternoon and it was a forlorn hope. In fact, no hope at all, Meg realised as she stood watching Tucker and Kit swooping round and round the ash trees, shouting and laughing.

  ‘Be careful,’ she called, for they had on their Sunday suits and the ground was very slippery. Too late. Kit tripped over a tree root and was rolling on the wet ground, amid dead leaves and loamy soil. He got to his feet and rubbed dirt from his trousers with his hand and then wiped his face with the same hand, leaving a dark smudge across his cheek.

  ‘Oh, Kit,’ she said helplessly, but he looked so like a grubby little cherub that she c
ouldn’t be really angry with him.

  ‘Howay, now, we have to get along,’ she said, taking each boy by the hand and leading them on.

  ‘Where are we going, Mam?’ they clamoured.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  They left the track and crossed over meadows to the drive of Grizedale Hall. Her heart quailed as she thought of maybe meeting Ralph Grizedale but she took a firmer grip on the boys’ hands and quickened her step. This was no time to be faint-hearted.

  ‘Eeh, Mam,’ exclaimed Tucker, as the Hall came into sight round the bend in the drive. ‘It’s grand, isn’t it? Is this where the Queen lives?’

  The question made Meg laugh and this relaxed her. What had she to be afraid of anyway? She marched up to the house and hesitated, deciding after all to go round to the back. She had to leave the boys somewhere safe until she made sure that Ralph was not in. She wasn’t going to let him frighten them. It was a problem though, she didn’t know what to do.

  A nickering from the stable made her go in there and close the door behind her. She and the boys stood looking round them, even Tucker overawed by the smell of straw and horses and leather. Kit’s eyes shone as a horse put its head over a half-door and whinnied.

  ‘Mam! Mam, look, it’s Mr Dale’s horse,’ he cried, running to it and reaching up to stroke its nose.

  So Jonty must be in then, thought Meg with a sigh of relief. It seemed to be the only horse in the stable so there was a good chance that Ralph Grizedale was away somewhere.

  ‘Be good boys and stay here a few minutes,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long, I just have to see someone.’

  ‘Is it Mr Dale?’ asked Tucker shrewdly. Had he heard something? she wondered.

  ‘Never mind. Just you wait here. Stay on this side of the door mind. And watch that horse doesn’t bite.’

  ‘Aw, Mam, he won’t bite,’ said Kit with disgust. ‘He likes us, see?’ He rubbed the horse’s nose, quite enchanted with it.

  ‘Well, be careful any road,’ she said, and left them. It wouldn’t be for long, she told herself.

  Meg went round to the front of the house and knocked at the door. There was no reply, no sound at all, though she knocked again and waited. Tentatively, she tried the huge knob and the door swung open on to the large, square hall with its curving staircase at the far end. There was no sign of life.

  ‘Jonty?’ she called softly, but no welcome answering call came. All was quiet.

  Well, she thought, she wasn’t going to give up now, not when she’d come this far. She stepped into the house and looked around. All the doors leading off the hall were shut so she walked to the bottom of the stairs, debating whether to risk going up. Jonty might not have heard her call if he was upstairs with his grandmother.

  She was still hesitating when a muffled crash followed by a curse came from behind one of the closed doors and she raced up the stairs and along the passage to the room at the end, Jonty’s room, bolting inside and closing the door. It was blind instinct which made her run, for the voice had filled her with dread.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ‘Bloody hell!’ the voice had said, and it had been Ralph Grizedale who had said it. The voice resounded over and over in Meg’s head, reducing her to a shivering panic.

  ‘The candyman!’ she breathed. All the dread of her nightmares was beginning to swamp her, paralyzing mind and body.

  Dear God, she thought, her heart racing and threatening to choke her as she leaned against the closed door. It was Ralph who was home, not Jonty, even though she had been sure the horse in the stable was Jonty’s. She cowered behind the door, all her old fears returning to her. The terror she felt was as strong as that she’d felt as a child when the candyman came and chased her and Mam and little Jack up the old line.

  Where are you, Jonty? she cried in her heart. I need you, I need you now! She tried to imagine where he could be. If she could picture him well enough and cried to him he would come, she knew he would. She closed her eyes tightly and concentrated. She never knew how long she crouched there, behind the bedroom door. It could have been hours or just a few minutes.

  Her eyes flew open as she heard someone on the stairs, heavy footfalls coming nearer and nearer. It had to be the candyman. He had reached the head of the stairs and was coming along the passage and Meg’s heart pounded with every step. Did he know she was there? The footsteps stopped. Was he just playing with her, dragging out the thrill of the hunt as long as he could? Ralph Grizedale was a huntsman. Meg remembered the story Auntie Phoebe had told them when she was a child of how cruel he was in the chase. Oh, how she could identify with the hunted fox now, she could.

  But no, he was moving again, going into another room. She breathed again before a new fear came to torment her.

  The boys! She had to get back to the stables before Ralph found them there. He could go downstairs any minute. She couldn’t let him get to her boys. The new fear was paramount, overcoming all others. Her limbs unfroze themselves, her brain began to work again.

  What a ninny she was, she berated herself, full of selfcontempt. Here she was hiding from Ralph Grizedale, and all the time her boys were in danger. Bracing herself, she opened the door a little and peered down the corridor. No sign of anyone. Taking off her boots and hanging them round her neck by the laces, she tiptoed out of the room, freezing to a halt as she heard Ralph say something. She could hardly hear what he said from here but she thought she caught the word ‘Mother’. He was asking his mother something. It must be her room he was in and the door stood open. Now, if she could only get past the old lady’s bedroom without attracting attention, she could reach her boys …

  Meg forced herself to stay still until she had got her breathing under control. It was essential Ralph did not hear her.

  Mrs Grizedale was saying something, her voice so thin and weak that Meg couldn’t catch what it was. But she heard Ralph’s reply, savage and threatening as it was.

  ‘You bloody old witch,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll put paid to you, I will. I’ll get those shares one way or another, I’m telling you.’

  Sweat broke out on Meg’s forehead as she listened and heard the black menace in his tone. She had to get past the door, she had to get to her boys and take them away from here, yet she was paralyzed with fright once again, a fright summoned up by that long remembered terror of the candyman.

  But Mrs Grizedale was saying something now. Her voice was stronger and more firm than it had been earlier so that Meg could hear clearly.

  ‘Ralph, please don’t speak to me like that. I have no intention of giving you anything more, so you may as well stop threatening me. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. I’m your mother, after all.’

  ‘You will give me those shares,’ he said savagely. ‘One way or another, I’ll get them out of you.’

  ‘Ralph, I’ll tell you something I’ve kept from you before. But now I am almost at the end of my life. Oh, Ralph, I always thought you would realise how much you hurt me and Jonty. If your father knew, how he would grieve for you …’

  ‘Sod my father, I tell you, I got the better of him and I’ll get the better of you. Believe me, old woman, I will.’

  Mrs Grizedale sighed. ‘Well, Ralph, maybe you will. But I could not go and leave John Thomas with nothing, my conscience would not let me. What I have is left to him, there is no way you can get at it. But, my dear, Jonty would never let you starve, he will look after—’

  She stopped talking as Ralph howled with rage, startling Meg in her hiding place in the passage so that she began to shake uncontrollably.

  ‘Ralph, Ralph—’

  The pleading cry was barely above a whisper and was cut off abruptly but it was enough to cut through Meg’s terror. What in the name of Heaven was Ralph Grizedale doing to his mother? She stepped forward and looked into the room.

  He was standing over the great four-poster bed, a pillow in his hands, pressing down with it on the tiny figure in the bed, the veins standing out on his forehead and his eyes gl
ittering with rage. He was trying to smother her! Even as Meg flung herself into the room and raced for the bed, the thought flashed through her mind that she had witnessed this scene before. But instinct and action had taken the place of thought. She launched herself at him, the surprise of her attack catching him off balance so that he fell to the ground.

  He was down for only a few seconds. Howling and screaming with rage he clambered to his feet, his red-rimmed eyes glaring at her. But before he could do more, she was at him, tearing at his face with her nails, kicking, scratching, riving at him so that he gave ground, grunting in shock.

  Meg was screaming at the top of her voice without realising she was. The scream seemed to come from a long way away.

  ‘Candyman! Candyman!’

  It was the old scream of fear and warning she had first heard as a child in the back street of the old railway houses, a scream which had haunted her all her life. But now she was doing something about it. She could fight back, and fight back she did.

  She was not simply defending his mother, she was kicking him in the shins, kneeing him in the groin, she was paying him in kind for all he had done to her family, her father. Her hair had come down over her face and as she put up an impatient hand to brush it away she caught hold of a boot, still strung round her neck. Steel toecaps it had, a strong leather boot, heavy and hard-wearing and with a new steel heel plate put on by the cobbler only the week before. She drew her arm back and with all her strength she swung the boot, catching Ralph Grizedale on the side of the head with the heel.

  For a moment she thought it had had no effect on him for he took hold of her shoulder and held her away from him, and lifting one hand high, brought it down on her head with a force which knocked her to the ground.

  Meg lay there, winded, her hair falling back from her face. The room was going round and round, darkening and then lightening again, and in the centre of her vision was the violet-hued face of the candyman, and he was talking, saying something, what was it he was saying? She tried to shrink away as he fell to his knees and lifted her head. And a great cut opened up on the side of his face and blood began to flow, falling faster and faster on to her dress, her face, her hair.