The Black Mountains

by Janet Tanner

  Bello:

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  Contents

  Janet Tanner

  Dedication

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Janet Tanner

  The Black Mountains

  Janet Tanner is a prolific and well-loved author and has twice been shortlisted for RNA awards. Many of her novels are multi-generational sagas, and some – in particular the Hillsbridge Quartet – are based on her own working class background in a Somerset mining community. More recently, she has been writing historical and well-received Gothic novels for Severn House – a reviewer for Booklist, a trade publication in the United States, calls her “ a master of the Gothic genre”.

  Besides publication in the UK and US, Janet’s books have also been translated into dozens of languages and published all over the world. Before turning to novels she was a prolific writer of short stories and serials, with hundreds of stories appearing in various magazines and publications worldwide.

  Janet Tanner lives in Radstock, Somerset.

  Dedication

  For my Father, Gerald Young, 1897–1973

  ‘Who was a “carting” boy in the pits of the Somerset coal-field for ten years, and a collier is Somerset and South Wales for several more.

  The stories he told me inspired this book. The plot and the characters are fictional, but the way of life is as he described it to me, and I believe that he, and others like him, helped to write “Black Mountains” with their lives.’

  BOOK ONE

  Charlotte

  Chapter One

  Beneath a hot June sun, the coal cart rolled and ground its way through the centre of Hillsbridge.

  Down the steep curving hill it came, with every turn of the wheels jarring the man who lay on the filthy wood-plank floor, covered by a threadbare working coat. Past the Rectory, whose shady trees overhung the road it rolled, past the hoop-shaped block of shops where the doors stood open to the drowsing afternoon. In the station yard the parcel-deliveries horse, standing patiently between the shafts of its baize covered wagon, stopped flicking its ears at the troublesome flies to watch with mild interest, and a group of back-shift miners squatting on their haunches against the railings spat in a studied nonchalance that was belied by the grim narrowing of their eyes.

  As the cart jolted across the first of the two sets of railway lines that severed the main street, the low moans of the injured man became a shriek of agony.

  “Go bloody careful, mate. He’s got a broken back!” his companion called roughly to the driver.

  On the wide pavement that bordered the road between the two sets of railway lines, two women broke off in their conversation to watch the cart’s uneven progress.

  The one, plump and fair, looked only interested. Her men were not miners, but colliery carpenters who worked in safety above ground level.

  But the other stood tight-drawn, her whole body frozen into an attitude of waiting. Charlotte Hall had three sons and a husband underground at South Hill Pit. The injured man in the coal cart could be any one of them.

  As the cart approached her eyes followed it, blue and anxious in her pale face, and when it drew level she set her shopping bag down on the pavement abruptly. Peggy Yelling, her companion, touched her arm sympathetically, but she brushed her aside and hurried to the roadside.

  “Who is it?” she called to the haulier. “ Who’s been hurt?”

  The haulier shrugged bad-temperedly and ignored her. He was still cursing his luck for having been at the head of the queue waiting at the pithead for his load of coal when the injured man had been brought to the surface.

  “Who have you got there?” she called again, her voice rising.

  The second miner in the back of the cart straightened from tending his workmate.

  “It’s all right, Mrs Hall. It’s not one of yours. No need for you to worry.”

  The cart ground on its way, but still she stood on the pavement’s edge staring after it as if she had seen a ghost.

  This time they were safe. This time it was not James, her husband, who was being jolted through the streets in agony, nor Jim or Fred, her sons. This time it was not Ted, just thirteen years old, whose future had been ruined with a broken back. But how long could their luck hold? How long before it was a Hall in the coal cart that served for an ambulance?

  “Lotty, are you feeling all right?” Peggy Yelling’s anxious voice seemed to be coming at her through a haze, and she drew a deep, trembling breath.

  “Yes, I’m all right, Peggy. It’s just that I thought … oh, you know what I thought. I don’t have to tell you, do I?”

  “No, Lotty, I know.” Peggy nodded sympathetically. “I’d never get used to it, if my men were underground. But you shouldn’t be upsetting yourself. Not in your condition.”

  Charlotte laughed briefly and glanced down at her stomach. Not even her loose black gabardine coat could hide the large bulge.

  “You’d think I’d have had more sense at my age, wouldn’t you?” she laughed. “Still, it’s only another month to go now. You haven’t forgot I shall be wanting you when the time comes?”

  “I haven’t forgot,” Peggy assured her. “I wrote it in my almanac as soon as you told me. I’ve seen all the others come into the world, and I don’t intend to miss this one. Though I’m warning you, it’s eight years since you had Amy. This one might not be so easy, Lotty.”

  Charlotte shrugged impatiently and retrieved her bag from where she had left it. “ I’d have another dozen if it ended with bringing them into the world,” she said shortly. “It’s the worry that comes after that gets me down. Now take our Jack. He’s going to start work now, down the pit like the others—as if I hadn’t got enough of them underground already.”

  Peggy Yelling looked surprised. “He’s going underground straight away, your Jack?”

  “No, he’s going on the screens first, sorting coal,” Charlotte told her. “ But how long will that last? He took his labour exam this March, and passed, so he can leave school any time. A few weeks back he went to see O’Halloran about a job, and he’d have started by now, I reckon, if it hadn’t been for getting the chicken pox. Chicken pox at twelve—I ask you!”

  For a moment Peggy was silent, her round, pleasant face thoughtful.


  “You’ve never thought about him going into a shop, I suppose,” she asked presently.

  “A shop?”

  Peggy nodded. “When I went to the chemist’s just now for some Liquafruta I noticed a card in the window, advertising for an assistant I don’t suppose …”

  “The chemist’s?” Charlotte repeated sharply. “Our chemist?”

  “Well, yes, of course. Now I would have thought that might suit your Jack. But if he’s going after it, he ought to make haste. He won’t be the only one, by a long chalk.”

  “The chemist. I’ll go home and tell him about it right away.” Charlotte hitched her bag up on her arm. “You don’t mind if I don’t wait for you, Peggy?”

  “Well, no, if you want to go on. But don’t you go hurrying up the hill in this heat!” Peggy cautioned her.

  Charlotte shrugged impatiently. “I shall be all right. I’ll see you again, Peg. Toodle-oo for now. And thanks!”

  She turned and started along the street in the direction the coal cart had gone. Over the second pair of railway lines she went, crossing the road when she reached the market place and passing through the forecourt of the George Hotel that faced its rival Miners Arms on the opposite side of the street.

  Here the way branched, the main road going straight on through rolling green countryside towards Bath, but Charlotte turned to her right, passing the forge and livery stables at the foot of the hill, and beginning the steep climb that would take her home.

  The town of Hillsbridge was set in a valley bowl, there was no way out of it except up a hill. She had never minded much in the past. While others complained of being ‘done up,’ Charlotte reckoned the exercise kept her healthy. But today the heat and the weight of the baby in her belly combined to exhaust her. By the time she reached the wooden bench, set into the grass verge and half-way up the steepest part, her breath was ragged and her legs felt unsafe. She paused for a moment, resting her bag on the seat and wishing she could go and get a drink of water from the spring that ran out of the hill on the opposite side of the road, as the children did.

  But the memory of the coal cart was too fresh in her mind, her own fear still too real. It was too late now to stop the older boys going down the pit. She’d tried, God knew, but she’d failed, and she’d had to watch them in their turn go down the hill with their cans of cold tea, their tin of sandwiches, and the half-dozen tallow candles that would light their way underground through a day’s shift.

  But if she could stop Jack, it would be something.

  He was still at home, getting over the chicken-pox, but the spots had all gone now, and he’d been given a clean bill of health only this morning. If he could get down to the chemist’s straight away, maybe they’d take him on. Jack was a smart boy, who would be a credit to any shop, and if he did well, they might even encourage him to train as a dispenser.

  Hitching her bag up on her hip, Charlotte set off again. Today the hill seemed to go on forever, past cottages whose gardens were ablaze with roses, snap dragons and night-scented stocks, past the walled grounds that sloped down from the big houses on the hill-top. Hardly a breeze stirred the snow-on-the-mountain that hung in pendulous white drifts over the wall of Miss Emery’s cottage, and Charlotte thought it was almost impossible to believe that only last week she had been complaining that summer was never going to arrive.

  Determinedly she set her gaze on the break in the houses that would mean the end of her climb, and at last she reached it, a narrow track branching away from the hill and following the curve of the valley bowl.

  From here it was plain that the town had been built around the railway lines that would carry the coal out of the valley. They ran arrow-straight through the untidy jumble of dust-blackened buildings. The strong sunlight had made a silver ribbon of the river, and pointed up the tower of the church, away beyond the shops, and chapels, while on the opposite hillside, the terraced houses, with their strips of garden, looked cool and shady by comparison.

  Into the track Charlotte turned. It was rough underfoot at first. Then, as it passed the allotments and reached the houses on the one side and the blocks of privies, wash-houses and bake-ovens on the other, the road was better made. To the rest of Hillsbridge it was known as Greenslade Terrace, one of the rows of cottages built across the hillside to accommodate the miners and their families. But to the inhabitants of its twenty houses, it was simply ‘the rank’.

  The door of number eleven, like most of the others, stood ajar. Charlotte pushed it open and walked through the small scullery to the kitchen.

  Even at this time of year a fire had to be kept burning under the hob for cooking and boiling a kettle, and its heat, reaching out to meet the warmth of the summer afternoon, made the room oppressive.

  She put her bag down against the settle and crossed to the door in the far corner of the kitchen. Behind it, the stairs rose, steep, scrubbed wood.

  “Jack!” she called. “Are you up there?”

  He came down the stairs and into the kitchen, a slightly-built boy with fair hair that grew thick and springy away from his forehead, and eyes as blue as Charlotte’s own.

  “I didn’t expect you home yet, Mam,” he said. “I was reading.”

  She nodded abruptly. Jack did far too much reading for his own good. Far better if he’d only get out in the fresh air more often. But she’d had it over with him a good many times, and he never took any notice of her.

  “Jack, about this job of yours,” she began shortly. “I want to talk to you.”

  He turned away, crossing to the window and looking out across the yard.

  “What’s there to talk about? I’m going to start at South Hill Pit now my chicken pox is cleared up.”

  “No, Jack.” She followed him. “I don’t want you going down that pit.”

  The boy pushed his hands into his pockets, still staring out unseeingly at the blank wash-house wall on the other side of the path.

  “What else is there for me to do?” he asked flatly.

  “There’s a job going at the chemist’s,” she told him. “Peggy Yelling saw the card in the window. Now if you went down straight away, you might get it.”

  He half-turned, frowning and biting his lip, and she caught at his arm.

  “Jack, you don’t want to work in that filthy hole, do you?”

  He shook his head “ No, but …”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t want to work in a chemist’s shop, either.”

  Her expression softened.

  “You mean there’s something else you’d like to do that you’ve been keeping quiet about?” she asked.

  He hesitated, his face brightening momentarily. Then he turned away.

  “It wouldn’t do any good if I told you. If you live in Hillsbridge, there are two jobs you can do. You can go down the pit, or you can work on the land. A farm labourer earns even less than a miner, and at least a miner gets Sundays off.”

  The bitterness in his voice surprised her.

  “But you’d get time off in the chemist’s shop, Jack,” she said. “It would be a nice, clean job.”

  “I don’t want to work in a shop,” he said mulishly. “ I might as well be on the screens. And there’s no money for what I want to do, so it’s pointless going on about it.”

  “Well, what is it you want?” she asked in exasperation.

  For a moment the silence hung between them, as hot and heavy as the afternoon air. Then he raised his eyes to meet hers squarely.

  “I should like to be a teacher. Mr Davies wanted me to sit a scholarship, but I knew we couldn’t afford it. There’d be books to pay for, and all the travelling, even if I got a free place. Mr Davies was going to come and see you and Dad, and I had to stop him. So I took the labour exam instead, and got the job at South Hill Pit.”

  “Why ever didn’t you say?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want to worry you,” he said simply.

  She pulled a chair from beneath the red chenille folds of the
table cover and sat down, easing her shoulders out of her coat. Her mind was flitting back across the years to a half-forgotten love, and a young man with gentle hands and a white body that was not blue-veined like a miner’s. He had been secretive, too, and sensitive, and clever …

  “Chemist shop, screens, I should have known none of them were for you, Jack,” she said softly.

  For a moment they were silent. Then the mantel clock chimed the hour and she came out of her reverie abruptly. “ Jack, I wish you’d go up the hill and meet Amy for me. We’ll talk about this again.”

  He paused in the doorway. “Are you going to tell Dad?”

  “I’ll have to tell him, won’t I? You’ve taken me aback a bit, though, and I want to think about it first.” She smiled briefly and encouragingly. Then, when he made no move, she went towards him, giving him a little push. “ Don’t look so worried. We’ll sort something out. Now off you go and meet Amy for me, there’s a good lad. It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

  But as the door closed after him, she wished she could feel as confident as she had sounded.

  BENEATH the black mountains, the town of Hillsbridge was sleeping.

  The last customers had rolled unwillingly from the bars of the George Hotel and the Miners Arms, already dreading the hooters that would shatter their peace before dawn had broken. The tenors, baritones and basses of the male voice choir had whistled snatches of ‘Song of the North Men’ and ‘ The Teddy-bears’ Picnic’ as they climbed one of the inevitable hills home and fallen into bed to dream of the reception they would get next week at their annual concert.

  In one or two houses, lamps burned late as men discussed ways of raising money to help the Whitehaven disaster fund, set up to help the dependants of those who had recently died in a pit explosion in far-off Cumberland.

  But to Charlotte Hall, sitting beneath the stars on the doorstep of her house in Greenslade Terrace, it seemed as if she might be the only person in the world still awake.

  The pits would be resting now. The great wheels that raised and lowered the cages would be still, and no steam would be belching from the chimney above the winding house. Maybe the odd maintenance man would still be at work, but by now the shot-firers who worked the backshifts would have finished blasting, and the yards that were alive throughout the daylight hours with busy men calling to one another, with hauliers’ horses and carts queuing at the screens for their loads of coal and tubs shunting on the sidings, would be silent and ghost like in the white light of the moon.