It Happened At Christmas (Anthology)

by Penny Jordan

  She swayed slightly, her head feeling as though it was full of cotton wool. She could feel her face was damp with perspiration, in spite of the freezing night, and the thought of the long walk home from the factory in the East End of Sunderland to the room they were renting in a house on the outskirts of the town was daunting. But it was no use standing here in the cold.

  Pulling her felt hat more firmly on her head, she walked out of the factory gates, shivering as the raw north-east wind hit her. The sky lay low over the town, and the big fat snowflakes whirled and danced in the wind. The pavements underfoot were treacherous, with a layer of ice beneath the freshly fallen snow. It was quite dark, being seven o’clock on a late November evening, but as she passed the entrance to the old market in High Street East the smell of hot meat pies wafted out on the bitingly cold air, mixed with tripe and onions.

  Connie walked on a few paces and then leant against a shop wall. Normally the smell from the old market made her mouth water, but tonight it had brought on a feeling of nausea.

  By the time she had reached the tangle of mean terraced streets on the west of the town, close to the grim high walls of the workhouse, Connie was feeling very strange. Added to the sick dizziness in her head and the excruciating pains in her chest and back was a consuming exhaustion. It made her want to lie down in the snow, just where she was, and go to sleep.

  But she couldn’t do that. She forced herself to keep treading on. Flora was waiting for her, and Tommy and David and Ronnie. They wouldn’t have eaten yet. They always persisted in waiting for her, even though she told Flora to feed them all when they got in from school with the stew she prepared each night once her sister and brothers were in bed. What she would feed them on tomorrow, though, she didn’t know. She had eked out the scrag-ends and vegetables until there was only enough for a meal tonight, and she didn’t get paid for another two days. But she’d worry about that tomorrow. For now it was enough to get home. If she could just rest for a few hours she’d be all right.

  As she turned the corner into Howarth Street, where they rented their room, any relief she might have felt was swept away by the feeling that she was going to faint. Clinging on to a lamppost, the main street behind her and Howarth Street obscured by the driving snow, she willed herself to go on as the dark buzzing in her head increased. She thought she heard someone say her name. It sounded like Mrs Briggs from three doors down. But as her hold on the lamppost slackened and the darkness took over she slipped to the ground into…nothingness.

  ‘…too much for her. I mean she’s a slip of a girl, there’s nothing to her, and to work all day at that factory and then be mam and da to the rest of them—it couldn’t go on. I knew something like this would happen one day.’

  ‘What happened to the parents? How long have they been gone?’

  She could hear the voices, but from a great distance, as though she were under water, and the lead weights on her limbs prevented her from making any movement.

  ‘Mr Summers—grand man, he was—he died in a fall at the mine over twelve months ago now. Just after their mam was took with the fever. Been ill for years though, had poor Annie. Always sickly. They lived in a house in the next street then, but with only Connie’s wage coming in they couldn’t continue there. There was talk of the younger ones going into the workhouse, but Connie wouldn’t have it. She’s fought tooth and nail to keep them all together, but I reckon this is the end of it. Poor lass. Still, you can only do your best in this world.’

  ‘Mrs…Mrs Briggs?’ Somehow she found the strength to pull herself out of the enervating exhaustion and open her eyes. ‘What’s happened? Where are Flora and the lads?’

  ‘It’s all right, Connie. Don’t fret, lass.’ Mrs Briggs bent over her in the next moment. ‘You passed out in the street, right at me feet, and I was just wondering what to do when this kind gentleman stopped. He brought you home in his horse and trap. That was nice of him, wasn’t it?’

  Horse and trap? Connie wanted to sit up. She wanted to ask a whole lot of questions. But she could feel herself slipping into the darkness again when she tried to move.

  ‘Keep still.’ The male voice was deep and authoritative. ‘The doctor has been called and he will be here shortly.’

  The doctor? They couldn’t afford a doctor. There was barely a crust in the house, and nothing for tomorrow’s dinner. A doctor was the last thing she wanted. ‘No.’ This time the room didn’t spin so fast when she struggled to sit up. ‘I don’t want a doctor.’ Her vision clearing a little, she saw Mrs Briggs’s worried face at the side of her. ‘Tell him I’m all right,’ she said feebly. ‘Please, Mrs Briggs, tell him.’

  ‘But you’re not.’ Mrs Briggs’s voice was unusually soft. ‘Now, just you lie back and rest a while. You’re in my kitchen and our Elsie has gone to see to your lot. Mr Briggs went for the doctor over fifteen minutes ago. They’ll be back shortly.’

  For the first time Connie realised she was in her neighbour’s house, lying on the kitchen settle, a blanket over her. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘I have to get home, Mrs Briggs.’

  ‘For the moment you’re going nowhere.’ There was a movement behind her and then the owner of the voice she had heard came into view. He was tall—lying on the wooden bench as she was, he seemed to tower over her—and handsome in a rugged sort of way. His face was tanned, as though he was used to being in the open air, and his hair was black. But it was his eyes that held her weak gaze. They were grey, a deep smoky grey, and his lashes were thick and long, but it was the forcefulness emanating from them that was so disconcerting. Even before she had taken in the quality of his clothes she had gathered this was a man who was used to being obeyed.

  Nevertheless, she opened her mouth to argue—only to shut it again as Mr Briggs and the doctor came into the kitchen from the door which led into the hall.

  Mrs Briggs stayed with her while the doctor examined her, and Connie was glad of this in view of the shock of his diagnosis.

  ‘Pleurisy. You will need to go home to bed and stay there for the next few weeks. And make sure you take the medicine I give you at regular intervals. Plenty of liquids, good nourishing soup once you feel like it, and don’t overtax yourself unless you want to end up in the hospital or worse. And keep warm. Both inside and out.’

  Connie stared at him. Every word he had spoken was impossible. She tried to tell him so, but the bout of coughing this caused had her lying weak and helpless at the end of it.

  Mrs Briggs showed the doctor out, and Connie heard him talking to Mr Briggs and the stranger in the hall but couldn’t hear what they were saying. Not that it mattered. She gazed round Mrs Briggs’s homely kitchen, the glowing fire in the black-leaded range and the well-fed cat sitting on the big, brightly coloured clippy mat in front of it telling her what she knew to be true—here was a family where the father and three teenage sons were all in work. This home couldn’t be more different from the one room they were renting, with its damp walls, tiny fireplace and bare floorboards. Everything smelt musty, no matter what she did.

  It was clean. Her small chin rose a fraction, as though someone had suggested otherwise. She and Flora had made sure of that when they moved in, scrubbing every inch of the place before they had moved the boys’ bed and the one they shared into the confined space. But with the table holding their pots and pans and plates and cutlery, the wooden chest containing their meagre few items of clothing and the personal belongings she had kept when she had sold the contents of the house—which had fetched a paltry sum—and her mother’s old rocking chair, there wasn’t room to swing a cat. She had tried to maintain a semblance of decency by putting the boys’ bed in a corner of the room and stringing an old curtain up, so she and Flora had some privacy when they washed and undressed, but the last twelve months had been hard for them all. And the grim shadow of the workhouse had always been there. Threatening them.

  Connie pulled herself into a sitting position, holding on to the high back of the settle as the room whirled.
She wouldn’t let the younger ones go there. She wouldn’t. And if she gave in to this sickness that was what would happen. Maybe she’d just have the next day off work and send Flora to explain to the foreman. She had always got on all right with Mr O’Dowd—he’d keep her job for a day or two, but no longer. The manager didn’t hold with folk being sick. But two days would be enough.

  Pushing the blanket to one side, she brought all her considerable will to bear and swung her legs over the side of the bench. Ignoring the rushing in her ears, she stared down at her ugly, heavy-looking boots without seeing them. She had to get to her feet and show them she was all right. She had the doctor’s fee now, on top of everything else; she supposed the Briggses had paid him, but she would have to settle up with them.

  She managed to totter a few steps before the door opened and Mrs Briggs and the man came in. He caught her as she keeled over, and she heard him swear under his breath as he whisked her up and carried her back to the settle, dumping her unceremoniously on the flock-cushioned seat.

  ‘For crying out loud, girl, stay put. Do you want to pass out again? Just lie still.’

  It was a growl. If she hadn’t been feeling so ill, Connie’s temper, which went with the red in her chestnut hair, would have been roused. As it was, she managed to say fairly strongly, ‘I need to get home now. I have to see to my sister and brothers.’

  ‘I rather think it will be a case of your sister and brothers looking after you for the immediate future,’ he said flatly.

  Connie stared into the dark face. He didn’t have a clue. In spite of Mrs Briggs explaining their circumstances, he had no idea how things were. It was hurting her to breathe, and she wanted nothing more than to lay her head down on the flock-stuffed cushions and go to sleep, but still she said, ‘I’m going home.’

  As she tried to stand up he muttered something that sounded like, ‘Damn little fool,’ but Connie didn’t have time to reflect on that. He had bent and lifted her into his arms again, holding her against his black overcoat as he said to Mrs Briggs, ‘I’ll take her home. She can’t walk back. Perhaps your husband would be good enough to bring the medicine round later?’

  ‘Aye, aye—he’ll do that, and I’ll pop round in the morning and see how she is. Poor little thing. She’s worn out.’

  They were talking as though she wasn’t here. The thought came, but barely registered. All her senses were taken up with the fact she was in a man’s arms for the first time in her life. In spite of her physical state, the fresh clean smell of him, the effortless strength with which he held her, and the fact that his hard square jaw with a dusting of black stubble was inches from her face rendered her dumb. She didn’t even make a token protest as he carried her out of the house. Which wasn’t like her.

  Once in the snowy quiet street, he looked down at her, his eyes glittering in the darkness of his face. ‘Which house is yours?’ he asked abruptly. ‘What number is it?’

  He wasn’t wearing a cap. All the men and lads hereabouts wore a cap. But as they’d left the house Mrs Briggs had handed him a hat, like the gentry wore, which was clasped in his hand right now. And yet he didn’t talk like the gentry.

  She watched the starry snowflakes settle on the jet-black hair, her head muzzy, and then caught sight of the horse and trap some yards away. He had tied the reins of the horse to a lamppost. It was just as well it was such a terrible night or else the urchins from miles around would have congregated round it by now. She couldn’t remember anyone ever being visited by someone rich enough to own a horse and trap, and it was a fine horse too, not like the rag and bone man’s old nag.

  Connie suddenly became aware he was waiting for an answer to his question. ‘It’s three doors down,’ she said quickly, beginning to cough as the cold air hit her throat.

  It only took him a couple of strides to reach the house, but she was coughing so badly and felt so dizzy she couldn’t tell him the door was never locked. With an old couple in one room upstairs, a spinster lady in the other, and a family of six occupying what had been the kitchen when the house was first built, the hall was merely a thoroughfare. She and her sister and brothers had the front room, and everyone shared the privy in the backyard, along with the tap for water.

  Flora must have seen them arrive through the front room window, though, because the next moment her sister opened the door, bursting into tears as she did so. Mrs Briggs’s Elsie stood in the doorway to the room, gnawing on her thumbnail as they entered the hall, then springing to one side to let them pass.

  As her coughing subsided, Connie gasped, ‘Thank you. I’ll be all right now.’ But he didn’t put her down as she’d expected. Instead he stood surveying the room from the doorway.

  Tommy, David and Ronnie were sitting huddled under their thin blankets in their bed, mouths agape, and the small fire burning in the grate was heating the steel shelf fixed over the hot coals on which the pot of stew stood, but doing very little to warm the room. She saw the man’s eyes linger on the stew for a moment, and on the five bowls Flora had put to warm on the hearth. She knew what he was thinking. Not much to feed five people. She agreed with him, but there was little she could do about it. If ever the day came when she could let Flora and the lads eat until they were bursting, she’d know they’d landed in heaven.

  The grey gaze moved to the curtain over the boys’ bed, which at the moment was pulled back and tied to a hook on the wall with a bit of string, then to the old rocking chair next to the battered table holding their pots and pans. Finally it focused on Flora, who was still sobbing unrestrainedly. And very loudly.

  Acutely embarrassed now, Connie murmured again, ‘Thank you. You’ve been very kind, Mr…’ It was only then she realized she didn’t even know his name. ‘But we can manage now.’

  He didn’t acknowledge that she had spoken, turning with her still in his arms and speaking to Elsie standing in the hall. ‘Tell your mother I’m taking Miss Summers and the rest of them home with me tonight, so I shall need the medicine your father’s fetching the minute he gets back. I shall call and have a word with your mother tomorrow, when I come to collect the necessary belongings, but I live at Hawthorn Farm—past High Ford and the old quarries. Can you remember that? Hawthorn Farm?’

  Elsie stared at him before nodding. She seemed to have lost the power of speech. Connie didn’t blame her.

  ‘Go and wait for your father and then bring the medicine straight here,’ he said slowly to Elsie, as though she was dim-witted. ‘We cannot leave until we have it. Do you understand?’

  Elsie nodded again, and then turned and flew out of the house as though she had wings on her feet.

  Finally Connie found her tongue. Trying to instil some strength into her voice, she said, ‘We can’t go anywhere, Mr…’

  ‘Hudson. Luke Hudson.’

  ‘We can’t leave here, Mr Hudson.’ She wriggled as she spoke, and he walked across and placed her in the rocking chair, looking down at her with unfathomable eyes as she continued, ‘I have a job, and the children have to go to school—’

  ‘You won’t be able to work for some time. Hasn’t that sunk in yet? You’re ill, Miss Summers. Very ill. If you don’t do exactly as the doctor ordered you may well find you will be leaving your sister and brothers for good. Have I made myself clear? I’ve no wish to frighten you, but the doctor was explicit.’

  Her face was chalk-white, and she was as weak as a kitten, but still she argued. ‘You don’t understand. If we lose this room we won’t be able to get anything else if I can’t find another job. I have to go to work.’ Her breath caught in a little sob which was more frustration at her own weakness than anything else. ‘I have to. There’s no other choice.’

  ‘One of the labourers’ cottages on my farm is empty as of last week. You and your family can stay there. When you’re feeling better you can help my mother in the farmhouse. She’s been thinking of getting someone to assist her for some time. There are jobs your sister and brothers can do when they get home from school
to earn their keep too. I’m not offering charity, Miss Summers. You’ll all work in some capacity.’

  The grey gaze was cool—distant, even—and with her head swimming as it was Connie found it difficult to take in what he had said. ‘You mean…?’ She paused, brushing a strand of hair from her face with a trembling hand. ‘You’re saying it would be permanent? The cottage, me helping your mother, everything?’

  ‘If you so wish. You would be free to leave at any time, of course, if you find the arrangement does not suit you.’

  He was offering them the moon, and he must know it, but he was so cold, so aloof. But he was saying there was a cottage—a cottage—and she would be helping his mother. No more pickle factory, where even when she was well she felt sick with exhaustion at the end of the day. ‘But why?’ she said dazedly. ‘Why would you do this for us? You don’t even know us.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Like I said, you would earn your keep, all of you, but I like to think I offer a good day’s wage for honest work. For the moment you need someone to take care of you, if these children aren’t going to be left alone, and my mother is an able nurse. You’ll be in good hands.’

  It wasn’t really an answer, but she felt too ill and too weak with relief to care. She wanted to say thank you. She wanted to express her thanks for the most miraculous, wonderful thing that had ever happened to them. But instead she found herself falling into the darkness again, and the only difference to last time was that now she could hear Luke Hudson swearing softly as he gathered her into his arms once more.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘HOW is she?’ Luke appeared in the doorway to the scullery, rubbing his hands dry on the big rough towel his mother kept there for that purpose when he came in from the fields.

  He watched her close the kitchen door which led directly on to the big stone-flagged yard at the back of the farmhouse. The farmhouse’s front door was situated in the huge, oak-beamed sitting room, and this opened on to his mother’s front garden, which she kept as neat as a new pin in the summer, when the flowerbeds were a riot of colour. It was his mother’s boast that no other farm in the district had a front garden, and in this she was probably right. When his father had been alive he had indulged his mother’s love of flowers, and Luke saw no reason to do otherwise.