Eliza's Child

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Tot wants Mammy,’ the boy said. He had stopped crying and spoke quietly, gazing up at his father.

  ‘Aye, never mind, pet. I’ll get you a sugar bullet,’ said Jack.

  He thought of how he had come to the city that morning, determined to forgive Eliza. He had found out where she was living after months of searching. After all, he reasoned, it hadn’t been all her fault, what had happened. No doubt she would be delighted to see him after trying to live on her own with the bairn. But he had soon found out that she was not. She had been carrying on with that bloody union man. By, the next time he saw Collier he would thrash him to within an inch of his life.

  The black rage and jealousy overwhelmed him again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘GOOD DAY TO you, Mr Oxley. Is it all right if I leave my basket with you?’ Eliza asked Bill Oxley, the grocer in Alnwick. ‘It will be only for a short while.’

  ‘Eeh, it’s Mrs Mitchell, isn’t it? Mrs Jack Mitchell, that is. By, you do look tired. Aye, of course, leave the basket here, I’ll put it in the corner out of the way.’

  ‘Mitchell-Howe,’ murmured Eliza automatically. She was about ready to fall down, she was so exhausted. ‘And thank you, Mr Oxley, I’m obliged to you.’

  ‘What? Oh aye, but the family has been known in the town as Mitchell a long time. It’s more convenient, like,’ said the grocer. He looked at Eliza’s pale face, the shadows under her eyes. ‘I tell you what, why don’t you go through to the back? Mrs Oxley will make you a bite to eat and a pot of tea.’

  Eliza was about to refuse but she was hungry and tired, she realised. And she had to have her wits about her when she talked to Henry. If Henry consented to talk to her, she thought bleakly.

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Mr Oxley,’ she said. ‘I will be glad to if it’s not too much trouble for Mrs Oxley.’

  The room behind the grocery store was warm and smelled of new bread. Mrs Oxley was a little woman almost as round as she was tall. She had bright dark eyes and snow-white hair combed back into a bun. Tendrils had escaped from the bun and she was perpetually pushing them back beneath the white cap she had perched on the top of the bun. Her smile was friendly but inquisitive.

  ‘Mrs Mitchell, I am pleased to see you. Sit yourself down and I’ll make you a bit of breakfast in a trice. Would you like a bit of bacon and an egg? The bacon is from one of our own pigs and the eggs new laid. There’s a fresh stotty cake just out of the oven—’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Oxley. A slice of stotty cake will be fine,’ Eliza interrupted the flow. ‘I’ve just got here and the journey is tiring.’

  Mrs Oxley chatted on as she pushed the kettle from the bar on to the fire and got out the bread and a pot of fresh butter. ‘The butter’s fresh an’ all, I made it only yesterday,’ she said as she put the plate on the table in front of Eliza. ‘By, it was a shame about Mr Mitchell, wasn’t it?’

  For a moment Eliza thought she was talking about Jack and she looked at her in surprise. Then she realised that Mrs Oxley meant John Henry.

  ‘Yes, a pity,’ she murmured and took a sip of tea. It was strong and sweet and instantly reviving. The flat bread cake was warm and the butter melting into it. It tasted heavenly to her. She was hard put not to wolf it down for she was ravenously hungry.

  ‘You’ll be going on up to the house to see the family? I could get Bill to drive you, it’s a fair step,’ offered Mrs Oxley.

  ‘No, thank you, but no. The walk will do me good.’

  Mrs Oxley sat down at the table and watched as Eliza finished off the stotty cake. Eliza ate a second slice but then refused a third.

  ‘I must be getting on,’ she said, then realised she was being abrupt. ‘I’m grateful to you, you’ve been kind.’ The grocer’s wife seemed to accept this.

  ‘Oh aye,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’ll have to get back to your man and the little lad.’ She walked with Eliza to the front door of the shop. ‘How are they, in good fettle? A lovely bairn he is, I’m sure.’

  A stab of pain shot through Eliza at the mention of Thomas. Her face must have changed because both Mr and Mrs Oxley looked at her curiously. She struggled to keep her composure.

  ‘He is,’ she murmured. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Living in Durham, aren’t you?’ Mrs Oxley asked. By this time they were out of the shop and standing on the step.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eliza. Unable to bear any more questions, she thanked her again and headed off up the street, walking at a fast pace with her head down. It took her ten minutes to get her emotions under control and by then she was in sight of the house.

  Her heartbeat quickened as she braced herself to open the gate, walk up the path and lift the heavy brass knocker. The house was silent and she began to wonder if she had wasted precious time coming here. She lifted the knocker and banged it as hard as she could against the brass stop. The sound of it was very loud. She waited a few minutes, then was turning away when the door opened and there stood her mother-in-law. She was dressed in black bombazine and wore a white cap on her hair, pulled low on her forehead. She was thinner than Eliza recalled and it made her nose look even sharper than she remembered it.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The woman stood with one hand holding the door and the other the doorpost, as though she feared Eliza would force her way in.

  ‘Good morning to you, mother-in-law,’ Eliza was stung into replying. ‘I want to come in, I need to talk to you.’

  ‘You can say all you want to say where you are,’ said Annie. ‘Have you come to plead for that good-for-nothing man you married? I told him to keep away; he’s no son of mine. More like a son of Satan. I don’t want to see him again. Any road, where’s the little lad? By, I expect he doesn’t grow up like Jack. I did my best for Jack but he was born a bad ’un.’

  ‘I thought you might know where Jack is. He’s took the bairn,’ said Eliza. Her heart had plummeted. All the way here she had thought that Annie might know where Jack and Thomas were. Even though she knew Jack and his mother were not so much as speaking to each other she had thought Jack’s mother would know where Jack was staying. For goodness sake, she was his mother.

  ‘Took the lad? Why would he do that? He cannot keep himself never mind a bairn.’ Annie opened the door a little wider. ‘He’s left you, has he? Well, I’m not surprised. But why has he taken the lad?’ She gazed at Eliza with a mixture of disdain and suspicion. ‘Howay in if you must. I’m not some pit wife to gossip on the doorstep.’

  Eliza’s first instinct was to turn and walk away. Why had she come here? Annie was a nasty-tongued, terrible woman, oh, she was. Her own mother was worth two of her.

  ‘I said come in, howay then,’ said Annie and opened the door wider. Perhaps if she went in and talked longer with her mother-in-law she would pick up a clue as to where Jack was likely to be. In spite of Annie’s talk, surely she had some motherly feelings towards him. Eliza couldn’t imagine ever cutting Thomas out of her life altogether and surely, deep down, Annie felt the same? She followed her mother-in-law into the house. Annie led the way into the kitchen; evidently she wasn’t good enough for the front of the house. Eliza didn’t care.

  The kettle was singing on the hob of the black-leaded grate but Annie did not offer Eliza a cup of tea or ask her to sit down, against all the rules of hospitality that Eliza had grown up with. She still didn’t care; she stood straight and lifted her chin. There was no sign of Bertha.

  ‘Well, are you going to answer me? After all, the babby is my grandson, I have a right to know what is happening with him.’ Annie stood with her back to the fire and her arms folded over the black bombazine bodice. Her thin lips worked together and her chin quivered though her expression was as forbidding as ever.

  ‘And I’m his mother. Though I know you would like it better if just about anybody else was.’ Eliza was trying hard to hang on to her temper. ‘Do you know where Jack is living now? ’Cause if you don’t I’m wasting my time.’

  ‘I haven’t
heard a word about him since Henry threw him out of the house after his father’s funeral. I don’t want to neither.’

  ‘What about Henry? Do you reckon he’s heard anything?’

  Annie shrugged. ‘How do I know? Henry tells me nowt. Now tell me, why did he take the lad? What have you been up to? It must have been something bad. Been with another man, have you? You’re just the sort—’

  ‘Shut up! Shut your mouth. I’ve done nowt wrong, I haven’t. Except leave Jack. You don’t know what he did, neither.’

  ‘No an’ I don’t want to. But if you left him he has a right to take the lad.’

  She wasn’t going to find out anything from Annie, Eliza realised. And standing here arguing was just wasting time. Oh, she had been a fool to come. She turned and marched out to the front door and pulled it open, taking great gulps of fresh air. By, she couldn’t stand the atmosphere in that house, she thought as she began to walk away, going back towards Alnwick. Behind her she heard Annie shout something after her but she did not turn round. Her head throbbed and her eyes were blurred. Dear God, what could she do now but go back to Durham and start her search all over again? Oh Thomas, she thought, Thomas, where are you?

  Eliza went into Oxley’s shop to pick up the oblong straw basket. Mr Oxley had put it behind the counter for her. ‘Seen to your business then, Mrs Mitchell?’ he asked, the curiosity returning to his face. She nodded, too full to speak.

  ‘You look upset, hinny,’ he said. His head was on one side as though inviting her confidence.

  ‘I’m just tired,’ she managed to say. ‘Thank you for everything, Mr Oxley. I must go for the train now. I have to get back.’

  ‘Oh aye, the bairn.’ He nodded in understanding. She picked up the basket by the leather belt that held the lid closed and hurried out.

  Eliza was almost to the train station when she ran into Bertha, the little maid who worked for Annie. She was carrying a bundle tied up in a grey woollen shawl.

  ‘Mrs Jack.’ The girl smiled. She had grown in the last couple of years but she was still small and thin. Her mousy-coloured hair poked out from under her bonnet. As she stood for a moment she transferred the bundle from one hand to another as though it was heavy.

  ‘Bertha, it’s lovely to see you,’ said Eliza. ‘Where are you going with that bundle?’

  ‘I’m off to Newcastle, I’ve got a place there,’ Bertha replied. ‘I was turned off at the Mitchells’. Only I’ve not been on a train before.’

  Eliza looked at the girl. She did have a frightened look about her and her normally rosy complexion was pale. Now she came to think about it, she remembered that Bertha had been a workhouse child; she had no family of her own. She would have to find a place and they were hard to come by in Alnwick, especially for young girls, and Bertha could not be more than fifteen now.

  ‘Well then, we can travel together,’ she said. ‘For I’m going back to Durham. We can be company for each other.’

  Bertha looked relieved as they walked together to the ticket office. They had a wait of half an hour before the southbound train puffed into the station, and they sat on a bench outside the waiting room.

  ‘What happened? Why did you have to leave the Mitchells’?’ Eliza asked. ‘I thought you were happy there, happy and settled.’ Not that she had thought much about the girl at all. But then, she had had a lot on her mind at that time just as she had now.

  ‘It was all right but Mrs Mitchell was a bit sharp,’ Bertha replied. ‘But it wasn’t her what sacked me. It was Mr Henry’s wife. By, she’s a mean one, that.’ The girl looked up at Eliza and seemed to have come to a decision. She sighed. ‘She reckoned I was up to something with Henry.’

  Eliza was astonished. ‘With Henry? What do you mean? You’re just a bairn.’

  ‘I’m fifteen. But I wouldn’t, no matter what.’

  Eliza gazed at her. Bertha was small but now she looked more closely she saw that her figure was definitely developing: there was a curve to her bosom and the shapeless brown stuff dress she wore couldn’t entirely hide her neat waist.

  ‘I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor in the hall, like. Mr Henry came up behind me and touched my … my bottom. I jumped and spilled the pail. There was soapy water all over the floor. I could have mopped it up but Mrs Henry had seen it all and she turned me off.’

  ‘Oh, Bertha,’ Eliza said sadly. Bertha’s eyes were swimming but she brushed away the tears with the back of her hand.

  ‘She said I’d tempted him but I didn’t, I wasn’t even thinking of him. Well, I don’t care; I’ve got another place. Only I’ve not been out of Alnwick afore. Any road, I reckon it was just an excuse. Mrs Henry was going to get rid of me. She thinks the old woman can do my job now she’s got nowt else to do. At least she gave me a reference.’

  ‘The old woman?’

  ‘Aye, Mrs John Henry. Mrs Henry is the gaffer now.’

  Eliza thought about it all as they climbed on to the train, one of the third-class carriages now. It took her mind off the continuing ache in her heart for Thomas. Was he crying for her or had he got used to being with his father? No, of course not, it was only a couple of days, not that, even. But she hoped he wasn’t too upset.

  The carriage was open to the elements and a cold wind was blowing. The two women huddled together for warmth on the wooden bench. If only the rain held off they would be all right; if it didn’t they would get soaked. Luckily, the rain held off though dirty smoke swirled into the carriage, leaving smuts on their faces and clothes.

  ‘Did the bairn get a fever?’ Bertha asked, peeping at Eliza. She had been wondering about the baby since she had met Eliza in the street. It was not usual for a mother to be anywhere without her baby. But if he was dead, she did not want to remind Eliza of it.

  ‘No, he’s fine. He’s grand, in fact, running about all over the place. He’s with his father the day.’ Eliza said it as though she was going back to him now. Bertha had enough troubles of her own. Besides, what she had said was true for she was going to find Jack and Thomas. She would find them and then she would get the bairn back, oh yes she would.

  They steamed into Newcastle and it was time for Bertha to get off. She clung to Eliza for a few moments and couldn’t control her tears, even though they had not been close when they lived in the same house. Yet Eliza was the only link Bertha had with her old life. For her, Newcastle was another world.

  ‘Listen, Bertha,’ said Eliza on impulse. ‘I live in Durham city. I do at the minute, any road. If your place doesn’t work out you can find me through the chapel at Elvet. They know me there.’ The train was in the station now and preparing to move off so Bertha had to alight.

  Eliza bit her lip as she watched Bertha fading into the distance, wrapped in swirling smoke. Maybe she shouldn’t have said Bertha could seek her out. She had given up her room and she didn’t know what her plans were except that she had to search for Thomas. The wheels of the train were picking up speed and going clackety-clack and they were saying ‘Thomas, Thomas, Thomas …’ Please God, she prayed. Let me find Thomas.

  For want of knowing whom else to ask for help or, indeed, where else to go, Eliza began to look for Peter Collier. At least he was easier to find than Jack. Though the union had not found a proper home as yet, it was more frowned upon by the authorities than actually outlawed. And there were miners living in the city. So it was barely six o’clock when she knocked on the door in Claypath. And she breathed a sigh of thankfulness when Peter answered her knock.

  ‘Eliza?’ he said in surprise and gazed at her white face and dark shadowed eyes. ‘Are you in trouble?’

  ‘I am. My husband has stolen my little Thomas,’ she said and swayed with fatigue. Her purpose had carried her through this endless day but now she was ready to drop. Peter grabbed hold of her arm.

  ‘Come away in,’ he said. ‘You can sit by the fire and tell me what this is all about.’

  ‘I told you, Thomas has gone,’ Eliza cried but he shook his h
ead.

  ‘Wait. You can tell me inside,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve just mashed the tea and there’s soup. You look as though you could do with sustenance.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE ROOM PETER Collier ushered Eliza into was small and sparsely furnished. There was a deal table set with plain white crockery and a glass salt cellar. A chair was drawn up to the table; evidently Peter had been about to eat. A wooden chair with a high back and a patchwork cushion was drawn up by a small grate set in an iron surround and a pot bubbled on the coals, filling the air with the aroma of boiled mutton. Eliza swallowed the saliva the smell had brought instantly to her mouth. She had not eaten since she was in Alnwick.

  ‘Sit down and get warm,’ said Peter. ‘We can talk later. First of all you look as though you could do with something in your stomach.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Eliza sank down on to the chair by the fire. Though it was early summer the evening was cool. The heat from the fire assailed her and she closed her eyes for a moment and leaned back against the wooden slats. Peter busied himself bringing her a mug of tea, strong and sweet and with a tiny amount of real milk. He moved between a shelf in the corner alcove and the table, bringing another bowl and spoon and setting them on the table. Then he brought up another chair.

  ‘Are you sure you have enough?’ Eliza asked anxiously. ‘You needn’t feed me.’

  ‘There is enough,’ Peter said firmly. ‘Don’t worry.’

  She sipped the hot tea, feeling it revive her a little and moved aside slightly as he lifted the pan from the fire and took it to the table. He ladled out the soup into the two plates and brought half a stotty cake from a tin on the shelf.

  ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘Come on, tuck in while it’s hot.’ He sliced the bread cake thickly and handed her a slice. The soup was more like a stew for it was thick with lentils and barley and slivers of mutton. He ate with all his concentration on the food and she followed his example. The room was silent.