A Sense of Duty

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Monty was unmoved. ‘I’ve told you there’s no point anyway. The masters will always win.’

  Owen detested such short-sightedness, not just in his brother but in the majority of miners. ‘Not if we all stand together! All of us, not just a handful. This is the perfect time to make a stand, while they’re getting a good price for their coil – so’s we who dig that coil get the benefit!’

  ‘It’s no good ranting on at me. I just can’t afford to pay out any more a week,’ Monty finished his say.

  With a sound of exasperation, Owen gave up.

  ‘Shouldn’t be long now.’ Flora’s reedy voice came somewhat out of the blue. Her presence was often overlooked.

  ‘What shouldn’t?’ Kit barely glanced up from the page.

  ‘Our Sarah’s started.’

  ‘Aw, when?’ Only now, Kit noticed that Gwen was in her sister-in-law’s chair, and upon being alerted she detected groans from above that she recognized as the signs of labour – though after six children it could hardly be called labour, the last babe had arrived within ten minutes of the initial pain.

  ‘About five minutes ago,’ simpered Flora.

  ‘Tut! Nobody tells me anything!’ Kit looked miffed.

  ‘Maybe you’d get to learn more if ’ee weren’t always so full of yourself.’ Monty felt instant remorse, for his youngest sister’s face fell. But it was too late to retract the words now. He hoped Kit would understand they had been provoked by the worry of another mouth to feed and the extra penny he would have to find to insure the life of this new child, taking the total to sevenpence a week – not to mention another lot of school fees. It wasn’t as if this penurious existence had been brought about by frivolity. That’s what he found so irritating about Kit. She didn’t earn very much, and one would think she’d spend what little she had on sensible attire but no, she’d arrive on her day off wearing another new hat or the next Sunday she’d be disporting herself in useless little gossamer gloves. Why did she not appreciate that he had struggled to bring her up? It wasn’t that he expected her to give him her entire wage, simply not to squander her own allowance on fripperies and to flaunt them so much. He really liked Kit’s obliging nature – notwithstanding the thoughtlessness of youth, if asked to help she would do so immediately without grumbling – but he was often harried to dementia by her dreamy self-indulgence. Please God, the years ahead would instil more responsibility.

  Gwen was more concerned about the instant. ‘She were just putting the kettle on for tea an’ all. Us’ll have to wait now.’

  Eager as ever, Flora offered to do it.

  The elder refused. ‘I want tea, not coloured watter.’

  The mild-mannered Flora blinked and retreated into her bonnet like a tortoise.

  ‘I’ll mash it.’ To cover her own hurt, Kit rose and put the kettle on the hob. Monty’s displays of exasperation always upset her, for of all her siblings he was the one she most respected. The thing of greatest upset was that his ire was usually deserved. How could she be so full of her own ideas that she hadn’t noticed Sarah’s absence? She turned apologetic eyes on her brother.

  It was remarkable how he always managed to look so clean and youthful despite his tribulations. Many in his profession had deeply lined faces but once Monty was scrubbed up his skin was smooth as a babe’s. Kit’s thoughts came round again to Sarah. Normally at this time of day she would have had the children doing bible readings. Kit suggested this now to Beata, who took up the scuffed leather volume and began to recite as her aunt stirred the teapot and in due time passed out the cups.

  ‘What’re you going to call this’n?’ asked Kit during an interval between the bible readings, trying her best not to spill her tea, with one child draped fondly around her shoulder and another on her lap.

  Listening to the groans from above, Monty tried to make amends for his previous harshness. ‘If I get to choose I might name her Katherine, for you.’ After six daughters he had ceased to waste his time pondering over boys’ names.

  Kit beamed, her pleasured glance embracing her sisters who did not seem to share this emotion. She hoped their jealousy would not extend to her little namesake. Barring the easy-going Charity they were even jealous of each other’s offspring. Owen was jealous that his brother had six children and he, not long married, only had one, offering the defensive retort that at least his firstborn was a lad – ‘It takes a man to get a man.’ Gwen was jealous of Flora and Charity because they had girls and she had only boys. Kit was glad Gwen hadn’t brought them today. She adored the company of children but Brian and Donald were pampered little tykes. Thank goodness there would only ever be two of them. Since the second one’s birth there was the whispered suggestion that Gwen might have some sort of trouble with her works.

  The bible reading was having no effect in taking the children’s minds off their mother’s travails. Kit struck up a jolly conversation to mask the sound of the groans. The older girls were used to the sound of their mother giving birth but six-year-old Wyn and two-year-old Meredith were wide-eyed and anxious. Kit favoured the youngest, who was a large child like she herself had been, with big stocky limbs, and she wanted to protect her from any hurtful comments – though oddly there were few; everyone seemed to like Merry’s merry nature.

  Kit reassured them. ‘Sithee! I’ve got a new face.’ She contorted her attractive features into a horrible mask, making the little girls cross their legs in laughter. Pleased with their reaction, the natural entertainer provided more. Again the girls brayed aloud.

  The jocularity was interrupted by a summons from the midwife. Monty looked alarmed – this was unusual. After each previous delivery she had made Sarah comfortable before sending him up as she herself left. There must be something wrong. Running a palm over his thinning, bright red hair – an act that bespoke his concern – he made for the staircase that led off the scullery, leaving his anxiety to infect the children. Again, Kit tried to jolly everyone but they chose not to heed her, waiting apprehensively for their father to return.

  Monty was absent barely two minutes. They heard his tread upon the stairs, then his stunned face appeared in the kitchen doorway, one hand clutching the jamb for support. His skin, always pale from working underground, was completely drained.

  A jolt of alarm flipped Kit’s stomach and she folded the two-year-old into a protective hug on her lap.

  ‘It’s a lad.’ Monty’s jaw hung open in disbelief.

  There arose a combined sigh of relief and amusement – ‘You soft aporth, you had us all going!’ said someone – and he was pulled into their midst, his skin turning the colour it adopted after a Bank Holiday outing.

  ‘Let your poor father sit down!’ Gwen ordered young Alice from the chair she had jumped into when Monty had previously vacated it. ‘He looks ready to pass out.’

  Monty flopped on to the warm polished timber, still stunned, though with delight spreading over his face now.

  Kit laughed her own pleasure and reached over to grasp his hand, no trace of disappointment that the child would not now be named after her. She knew how much this must mean to her brother.

  ‘Can we see ’im?’ Alice jumped up and down. ‘Can we, Father?’ She pronounced it feather.

  ‘Give your poor mother a chance to get her breath back,’ warbled her Aunt Flora.

  ‘Why no, she be sitting up as bright as a button,’ laughed Monty, growing brighter himself by the second, ‘raring to show him off – but don’t all go at once, you’ll suffocate the poor mite.’

  ‘We’ll go in shifts,’ decided Gwen, carrying a cup of tea for her sister-in-law and leading the way.

  Kit let others go before her, content to smile upon her brother’s face.

  A grinning Owen put the wad of Socialist pamphlets from his lap in order to rise and deliver a congratulatory slap. ‘Well done, me old love, tha’s a man at last!’

  Monty rarely issued a foul word, but now in his head he damned his brother as a mean little shit who wouldn’t e
ven permit him to relish this moment of joy. Owen had never enjoyed a special position in the family. Neither eldest nor youngest, he resented both Monty and Kit their privilege – resented everyone in the family come to that. The lack of a father had caused other complications; for Owen, in addition to the normal sibling rivalry, Monty represented the father figure to be constantly challenged. Tragic circumstance had thrust an uncharacteristic patience upon the elder brother, but at this moment it was becoming dangerously stretched.

  Kit watched the interplay between her brothers, wondering if the younger man was aware of the offensiveness of his remark. She thought not. Owen seemed to live his life back to front. It was somewhat anomalous that he who had been like a little man when he was a child grew more childish with every year.

  Under the barely concealed look of contempt from his brother, Owen swallowed his congratulations and gave an inner sigh, rubbing thoughtfully at the gap on his left hand where two fingers had been severed in a pit accident. Whatever he said and however enthusiastically, it would not find favour with the dour Monty, who had always resented him. It was as if by being born he, Owen, had usurped Monty’s position as only son. He didn’t want to usurp his brother – he loved him, not that he would ever utter it.

  Fortunately, to ease his discomposure, the first shift came down from admiring the baby, allowing others to go up.

  Upon returning, the younger man announced appeasingly, ‘By, he’s a grand lad,’ though the dialogue between him and his brother remained stilted.

  Waiting her turn, Kit had succumbed to dreaming about her own babies and so lost had she become within her imagination that she failed to notice her siblings’ return. Gwen had to speak twice. ‘Wake up, dopey!’

  Excited children scampering before her, Kit ascended the staircase. On the landing was a doorway that led to two bedrooms, the first of which belonged to Monty and his wife, the other, reached only through the marital room, having to accommodate six girls – and previously more, until the last of Monty’s siblings had left home to enter domestic service. Coming from such overcrowded circumstances Kit had thought herself in heaven to receive a room of her own.

  Today, on this late afternoon in summer, the parental room was ripe with the smell of birth fluids. Fingers of sunlight pierced the front window and trickled through the dividing doorway to infiltrate the normally gloomy back room. Particles of dust floated and danced upon the sunbeams which crept over the floorboards and up on to the counterpane, illuminating a happy scene. Eyes glittering like the black nuggets hewn from the mine, Sarah was propped up on pillows, the new arrival in her arms, an anxious two-year-old Merry cuddled up beside her mother and a host of other admiring little faces.

  ‘Make way for your Aunt Kit, there’s good girls.’ At their mother’s Welsh lilt the collection of small bodies parted and drew back allowing Kit to approach the bed, but when she perched on the edge of the mattress the sea of red heads closed around her again, one child resting her chin on Kit’s shoulder to gaze upon the babe, another little girl crawling under Kit’s arm with her head laid upon the plump breast, yet another sprawled across her lap. They loved this young woman almost as much as they did their mother – more in some ways, for besides having a naughty streak their aunt always had time to play with them and listen, at least she had until she’d gone into service. How they cherished the days when she was allowed to come home to be with them again.

  Using a gentle finger to explore, Kit laughed softly at the dark red fuzz on the babe’s pulsating fontanelle. ‘Another copper-knob.’ Every one of her nieces had auburn hair of varying shades.

  ‘Some things never change,’ smiled Sarah, who wished that just one of her children might have inherited her own dark looks.

  The poker-faced midwife beheld the collection of redheads and shook her head in sympathy. ‘Must be like living in a box of blinkin’ matches.’ Everyone laughed, even though Mrs Feather said the exact same thing every time a new Kilmaster child was born.

  After all these years and all these births, the Kilmasters had only recently been truly accepted by Mrs Feather and other residents of the village. It took patience to get to know these strange Yorkshire folk, for although the mining village housed Welsh and Irish and Scots and incomers from all over England, there was a wall of nepotism to break through. However, once Monty had gained a foothold and had shown that he was prepared to risk his life to rescue an injured collier, or sacrifice a great portion of his earnings to help a miner’s widow, acceptance had gradually come. Some of them might speak with foreign accents, but it was felt now that the Kilmasters were as Yorkshire as anybody.

  ‘Here, have a hold of your brother.’ Sarah passed the new-born to Beata, at which all the girls clamoured to be allowed to hold him and the snuffling bundle was passed from one to another before his aunt was finally allowed to cradle him in her arms.

  ‘Oh, isn’t he gorgeous!’ Kit almost wept.

  Sarah agreed, but wished she had more privacy to enjoy this long-awaited son. The house was never empty it seemed. Life had been very difficult. Over the years she had seen each of her extra burdens married off. Only Amelia and Kit retained their spinsterhood and the elder had found herself a nice young man so would soon be away to make her own home like the others. How Sarah would love to sit in an empty house. Yet they all imagined they were doing her a favour by congregating in her parlour once a month! Monty thought it wonderful that he had kept his family united. He had such lofty ideals, especially about duty, and was almost fanatical about keeping the family together, when in her opinion most of them would have been happier kept apart. But then he had never asked for her opinion. Sarah felt that she had never had a youth, that her husband only saw her as a mother to his children and someone to cook his meals.

  Kit gazed upon the latest creation adoringly, her senses acute with the newness of him, the piglet-like snuffling, his featherweight warmth in her arms, and her mind was filled with thoughts of the baby she would have one day. ‘None of us could believe he’s a lad. Our Monty’s still in shock downstairs.’

  ‘He ain’t, you know.’ Monty grinned from the doorway then came forward to take the precious bundle which Kit reluctantly surrendered. She retained her position on the edge of the bed, smiling, not a little envious of her brother’s wonderful brood – but she would have all this herself one day. She surely would.

  ‘Have you recovered enough to think what to call him?’ Kit asked eventually.

  Monty looked bemused, although truthfully downstairs he had been giving it careful thought and had come to the decision that there was only one name he could bestow – his own father’s. Some might deem this odd for one who had been at such cross purposes with his sire, but perhaps it was for this very reason that Monty chose to make belated amends. ‘Well, I been waiting for this moment all of fifteen years …’

  Kit maintained her smile but felt sorry for his daughters whose existence was somehow demeaned by this statement. Monty’s sense of nonfulfilment over the lack of a son, hidden so well all this time, was now clearly evident in that one remark. Yet, in a trice her sympathy was transferred to her brother as his wife jumped in with her own announcement.

  ‘Probyn!’ Though Sarah beamed, her tone brooked no discussion. ‘He’ll be named after his grandfather – and Montague, of course, after his father.’

  Alice demanded to know why this child had a grandfather and she didn’t. Her mother said she had, but he was down in Wales and it was too far away to visit.

  Monty hid his disappointment well. Time had shown that there was no point in trying to change his wife’s mind. For a moment his downcast eyes took in the new-born’s cherubic face. Then he smiled and asked himself if it really mattered. He had a son – was so full of pride that he felt his chest might explode. ‘Probyn Montague Kilmaster.’ His voice cracked as he spoke it.

  Kit issued compliment, but privately thought that it was far too grand a name for a poor little boy whose only role in life was to follow
his father down the pit.

  5

  In those first waking moments, when a persistent tapping infiltrated her dream, Kit had no idea where she was until the realization came: she had stayed the night at home. Normally, after she had spent the afternoon and most of the evening with her family she would leave at nine thirty and return to her workplace near Leeds. Yesterday, however, she had been unable to tear herself away from the happy atmosphere. After her sisters and Owen had said their goodbyes and gone home, she voiced her intention of remaining until morning. So long as she rose at four o’clock with Monty she would be there in time to light the fires and clean the sitting room before waking Cook with her morning cup of tea.

  Automatically, she reached an arm across her bedfellows and used her knuckle to return the tap as indication that she had heard. For the last few years the Kilmasters had been spared from having to pay tuppence to the knocker-up by old Mrs Allen, their neighbour, who, since her husband’s death in a pit explosion, had been unable to slumber past the hour that he had normally risen and so had transferred the benefits of her insomnia to them.

  Lack of bed space notwithstanding, Kit rolled on to her back, yawned, then commenced her morning ritual. Extending her warm, marshmallow body to its full length, she wriggled her toes to bring them awake – issuing soft apology to Ethel who slept with her head at the foot of the bed and now received Kit’s toe in her ear – stretched calf and thigh muscles, buttocks, shoulders, neck … then relaxed into the mattress again to lie for another few seconds, trying to postpone the release of accumulated bodily gases out of compassion for her roommates.