by Diane Allen
‘Nay, you are alright, lass. Go and enjoy your dinner in the sunshine, as this is no place for you to be at the moment.’ Harry glanced up the stairs as he heard a low moan from the bedroom above. ‘Here, take a barley-sugar twist, it can be your pudding.’ He passed a heavy jar filled with golden-orange barley-sugar twists over to her and opened the lid for Meg to help herself.
‘Thank you.’ Meg took one of them and then picked up her empty baskets and made for the door. ‘I’ll not forget to tell my mother. I hope Aunt Mary improves.’
‘She’ll not be doing that, lass, I only wish she would,’ Harry Battersby replied, as Meg stepped out into the summer sun.
‘Are you done at the Battersbys’ already?’ Tom turned and looked at his daughter as she put the empty baskets into the donkey cart and walked over to him, while he held his horse for the blacksmith as he examined its feet.
‘Yes, Mary’s in a lot of pain. She was glad to see me, but I don’t think they wanted me to stay today.’ Meg reached for her dinner of bread and cheese, wrapped in a piece of plain paper, from under the seat of the cart.
‘Aye, well, I’ve nearly done here and then I’ll just have an odd ’un in the King’s. What are you going to do?’ Tom looked at his lass and wished she’d been longer in the shop.
‘I’ll go and have my dinner up at the gill edge and enjoy the day, like Aunt Mary said I should. Do you want me back for two, or a bit earlier?’ Meg asked, knowing the answer before she heard the reply.
‘Nay, two will do. I’ve a bit of business to do, so there’s no great rush. But don’t you go trailing – and behave yourself,’ Tom growled as he watched Meg make her way up the path between the forge and the gillside, to where there was a well-known beauty spot and seat to enjoy the view. He’d have to sup up and catch up on the gossip quickly today, else she’d be moaning or up to no good, he thought, as he left his horse with the blacksmith’s lad.
Meg picked up her skirts and ran along the gillside; she felt bad about lying to her father, but technically she wasn’t lying, just not telling the whole truth. She was going to have her lunch by the side of the gill and admire the view – albeit the view of Sam Alderson, and not simply down into the dale. She climbed up the rocky stream’s side, slipping occasionally in her rush to walk the half-mile out of the village towards the tree line, before the wild moorland opened up and gave way to the fells. She could see the last large tree and, underneath it, she could just make out the form of Sam sitting there. He looked to be eating his dinner, dappled by the sunlight shining through the fresh green leaves of the sycamore.
‘I thought you weren’t going to show.’ Sam looked up from his seat at the base of the tree, as Meg caught her breath and stood with her hands on her hips, looking down at him.
‘I couldn’t get away. I had to go and see Mrs Battersby and give her a few minutes. The poor woman, I think she’s dying.’ Meg sat down by the side of Sam and looked at him. ‘You are as black as the back of our chimney! How can you eat your sandwiches with hands as mucky as that?’ She noted the big black thumb marks on his white bread, which contained beef dripping, and pulled a face.
‘You get used to it. I can’t come out of the earth all clean and pristine, else I wouldn’t be a miner. A bit of muck never hurt anyone.’ Sam finished off his sandwich as Meg looked at his soiled black face.
‘I can’t stay long. My father thinks I’m only just outside the village, not half a mile up this gill. He’s in the King’s Head, but once he’s caught up on the gossip and had a drink or two, he’ll want to get back home.’ Meg unfolded the brown paper from around her bread and cheese and started to eat it. ‘Is Jack alright? I take it he definitely couldn’t make it, then?’ she said between mouthfuls.
‘Now what do you want him for, when you’ve got me? But aye, he’s alright; he thinks of work and nowt else. He’s got this notion of buying himself some land. He’ll have to work a bloody long time for these bastards, to be able to do that.’ Sam pointed his thumb up the fell to where the main mines were.
‘So, he thinks himself a farmer, does he?’ Meg grinned, thinking of Jack and his quiet ways. ‘And what about you: do you not want to do more in life?’
‘I make enough from mining, and when the Sir Francis level is properly opened, I’ll make my fortune. It’s better than working with thick-headed sheep; they are ignorant animals. I’m the better prospect, you know – you don’t want to be looking at our Jack. He will never make nothing of himself.’ Sam leaned back against the tree, pulled his clay pipe out of his pocket and lit it with a Vesta from his case. ‘You look bonny today in that dress. Did you wear it specially for me?’ He gazed at Meg while she sat upright next to him.
‘I might have done, but then again it was the first thing I came across this morning,’ Meg lied, for she had taken at least half an hour pondering what to wear in order to look her best, but not raise suspicion from her parents.
‘Well, tha does look a bonny lass in it. I might be in need of a kiss before you leave me, because tha does look such a picture. Besides, I didn’t walk this mile down the fellside just to pass the time of day. I want to court you, Meg Oversby, and I aim to get one over on my brother, because he’s got designs on you, too.’ Sam sat up and dampened the tobacco in his pipe with his finger, before putting it back in his pocket. ‘Oh, bugger!’ he said quickly and fished his pipe back out of his pocket. ‘Wrong pocket! Left for a light, and right for a fright! I nearly blew us both up then, by putting my pipe in with the gunpowder, which I always keep in my right pocket. We’d have a lot to answer for then. But, you see, that’s what you do to me. I lose my head when I look at you.’ Sam ran his fingers through his hair and stared down at the young lass under the tree. He meant to bed her, if he had his way; and he’d made a bet with Robert Winn when he had told him of his liaison, saying that Meg would be his by the time summer ended, if not sooner.
‘Gunpowder! You could have blown us both to kingdom come, you idiot. I think you’ll just have to see me a bit more often, won’t you? And then you can get used to me, and me to you. Let’s make this our meeting place once a week, on a Thursday, when I usually come over with my father. Do you think Jack would be able to join us sometimes as well? Father would probably kill us both if you called at the farm again, so we’ve got to keep it a secret.’ Meg stood up and looked at Sam; she knew he was smitten with her, but she didn’t feel quite as strongly about him. Although he was good-looking, he was a bit cocky for her, and she knew what he was really after.
‘Aye, alright. But never mind Jack, you want nothing with him. I’d better be heading back – it’s a fair walk up to the mine. Any chance of a kiss to make my day?’ Sam puckered his lips and squinted, as he closed his eyes in hope.
‘It’d be like kissing Old Nick himself, with that mucky face. Next week you can perhaps chance your luck, Sam Alderson, when you’ve a clean face and know me a little better.’ Meg started to walk away; she wasn’t going to give herself that easily.
‘Nay, be damned.’ Sam grabbed Meg by the arm and pulled her back, holding her in his arms, and kissed her long and hard as she pretended to protest. ‘Now you are as black as Old Nick’s wife.’ He laughed as he let her go, looking at the hand-marks on her arms and the dirt on her face.
‘Sam Alderson, I don’t know if I want to see you again next week after that,’ Meg protested and laughed, then washed the dirt off herself in the river, before starting to walk down the fellside. She stopped to turn and shout at him, ‘Remember me to Jack. And next week have a wash before you meet me.’
‘You want nowt with him. It’s me that you need, and always will be,’ Sam shouted after her, before starting on the long walk back to work.
5
‘Thank heavens you are both back. I’ve been counting the minutes, because I just don’t know what to do.’ Agnes met Meg and Tom, looking distressed and carrying a letter in her hand that the postman had delivered that morning. ‘It’s from your sister, Anne. I’m afraid it is
bad news, but I don’t know what we can do to help.’ She brushed back a tear and looked at her husband as he took the letter from her hand, before seeing to the horse’s needs. ‘It’s cholera, Tom. We can’t go, we can’t bring it back to the dale, no matter how much Anne is begging you to go.’
Tom stood in the bright sunshine and read, with trembling hands, the letter that had brought dark clouds to his day:
Dulcie Street
Liverpool
Dear Tom and Agnes,
I’m writing to tell you that I have lost my Bob, last week to cholera. I, too, have the most terrible stomach cramps and have never been off the privy for the last day or two. I fear that I will be following my dear Bob shortly, unless the good Lord intervenes, as I am writing this on what I believe to be my deathbed. I’m begging you to see to my burial and to save our son, who is so far unaffected. I know that you will do right by us all, my dear brother. Dan is, after all, your nephew and is your own flesh and blood. Come and save him, if no one else.
With my most grateful thanks, and with my love on earth and in eternity.
Your loving sister
Anne
Tom stood and looked at the letter, then scowled as he took in the news of his sister’s predicament. ‘She made her bed when she walked out on my father, when he needed her most. Leaving him here in his dotage, for me and you to look after. She should never have gone to that hellhole of Liverpool with that bloody Bob, who was worth nowt and has never done a day’s work in his life. What does she expect me to do? I’m not trailing to that godforsaken place, so don’t you be fretting.’
‘But she needs you, Tom! She’s your sister – do right by her and see that she gets a proper funeral. And there is her lad, he’ll be almost sixteen now. I know there’s not much between our Meg and him, although none of us have ever clapped eyes on him, so we’ve no idea what he looks like or what he does. She’s begging you to take care of him. Surely you are not that heartless?’ Agnes looked at her husband, who had never forgiven his sister for following her heart instead of staying on the family farm; he’d not spoken to her since she’d moved to the hellhole of Dulcie Street, with its terraced slums and open sewers. He was unable to understand how she could leave behind a life of reasonable wealth and comfort for the back streets and slums of Liverpool and a useless, ale-swilling dock worker.
Tom turned his back on his Agnes. ‘I’ll see to the horse and then I’ll be in for my supper after I’ve milked the cows. I don’t want her name mentioned again to me. She’ll get buried by the authorities anyway, if she’s got cholera; and the lad’s old enough to look after himself. They are both nowt to me.’ Tom screwed up the letter in his hand and threw it down to the ground. ‘You can stop your wailing and all; Anne never did owt for you when you were run off your feet and carrying our bairns. So stop looking at me with those eyes, and don’t think you’ll change my mind.’
Meg watched as her father led the horse and cart off towards the stable, before she walked to her mum’s side, picking up the discarded letter from the farmyard and passing it to her. ‘Don’t fret, Mum. He’ll do something. Father’s not that heartless. Let him go and mull things over while he’s milking. You know what he’s like.’ Meg put her arm through her mum’s and walked with her back into the house. She’d never met her Aunty Anne, and now it sounded as if she never would. She’d barely ever been mentioned, and she had no idea she had a cousin called Dan. Would he die of the terrible disease of cholera as well, so that all the family would be wiped out by the creeping death that stalked the slums and streets of the city, or would he survive?
‘He’s a hard man, your father, and he never forgives. He used to be so close to Anne, we both were; we used to go everywhere together. And then that Bob turned up, with his fancy words and posh suits, and it all changed. Everyone tried to tell Anne that he was worth nothing, but she wouldn’t listen and ran off with him to Liverpool, just when her father needed her most. Your father never understood that her heart led her there, as he’s always that hard-headed.’ Agnes wiped her nose with her handkerchief and pulled the kettle onto the hearth to boil. ‘Now, how was Mary? It seems all my old friends are dying around me,’ she sobbed.
‘She’s really ill, Mum, and I don’t think she will be with us much longer. She’s asked you to go and see her next week. I think she wants to settle things before she leaves us all,’ Meg said as she spooned leaf tea into a teapot.
‘I’ll go and see Mary next week, God bless her. At least she has had a good life, married to Harry, but I don’t know what he’ll do without her. That shop of his takes some running.’ Agnes filled the teapot with the boiling water and stirred the tea leaves before letting it stand, while she mulled over Anne’s request. ‘Your Aunty Anne will need to settle things with your father; that’s why she will want to see him. I don’t want him to go, but I know that he should, perhaps just to see her for five minutes; he’d not catch anything if he was only there that long. He could at least see that Dan will be alright and will have a roof over his head. He’s not seen him since he was a baby. I don’t know . . . it doesn’t seem five minutes since we were all footloose and fancy free, and now two of us are going to meet our Maker. I suppose I should be thankful for my lot.’ She sat down and poured herself a cup of tea.
‘Try not to worry, Mum. Is it bacon and eggs for supper?’ Meg pulled the stool out from under the table and stood on it to reach the rolled flitch of bacon that hung in the driest corner of the kitchen, on a bacon hook hammered into the low oak beams. She struggled with the weight of the flitch as her mum nodded her head and walked over to help her.
‘Aye, that’ll do tonight. It’s as good as anything, and it’ll be more than poor Anne and Mary will be having, God bless their souls. I’ll speak to your father tonight, when he’s had time to think. He can’t do anything about them in Liverpool. Don’t you get involved, else he’ll dig his heels in even more. I’ll talk to him when we are in bed tonight.’
Meg got the sharp knife used for carving any meat that the family ate and started to slice the flitch into rashers, placed on the kitchen table. ‘I don’t know ’em, so I can’t say anything, can I? But if it was my sister, I’d be supporting her.’
‘Aye, well, that’ll never happen. But that’s another tale.’ Agnes sighed; life was a challenge, of that she was sure.
Meg lay in her bed and listened to her parents talking in mumbled voices through the wall. They’d been chatting for over an hour now, and surely her mum must be winning, with her concern for her sister-in-law and her son. They’d be ‘townies’, as her father had heard them being called; a different breed from northern dales folk, and he had no time for them. The morning would reveal whether her mum had won the argument or not, and her father would either be as black as a thundercloud in mood or would be making himself scarce to keep out of everybody’s way. Either way, it was good for her, as she was no longer the centre of their world and had not been asked who she had seen on the visit to Gunnerside.
She smiled, remembering her meeting with Sam. He was full of cheek – perhaps a little too confident, she thought, as she remembered him asking for a kiss. Jack was perhaps the better of the two and certainly earned more than Sam; working in the smelting works was a science, as they watched the ore melting at exactly the right temperature. But it wasn’t about the money – it was about who was the better man of the two, she reminded herself. Jack was deeper in mood than Sam and slightly more handsome. She blushed at the thought of the two men as she pulled the covers up around her and remembered the meeting under the sycamore tree. Next Thursday could not come quickly enough. She’d be counting the hours, let alone the days, and she might be willing next time for a kiss from either brother.
‘You needn’t do your usual jobs this morning, Megan. Instead, put on your boots and walk into Hawes and catch the Penny Post with this letter.’ Agnes took the handwritten letter down from the mantelpiece and placed it next to Meg’s bowl of porridge. ‘The sooner it goes, th
e better.’
‘The sooner it goes, the sooner I say goodbye to my hard-earned brass. Because I’ll never see any of that again,’ Tom growled and pushed his chair back, after finishing his breakfast. ‘I’m off up to the top pasture – there’s some thistles to get rid of.’
Agnes said nothing in reply as she watched him leave the farmhouse and make his way up to the pastures that led to the fellside. ‘That’s the best place for him, prickly old bugger,’ she whispered to Meg.
‘So, he’s let you write to Aunty Anne?’ Meg picked up the letter and looked at the envelope, addressed to both her aunt and Dan.
‘Aye, I’ve got him to do that, and send them some money. At best it will give Anne something to pay a doctor with; and at worst it will give her a decent burial, and happen enough money to keep the roof over Dan’s head for a while. At least he’s old enough to make his own way, unless he’s like his useless father. It’s the best we can do for them at this time.’
‘Well, at least it will ease my father’s conscience. He’d only have had regrets if he’d done nothing.’ Meg bent down and fastened the buttons on her boots with the button-hook, then placed the letter in her long white apron’s pocket. ‘I’ll not be long.’ She smiled; she was glad to have an hour to herself, and she would enjoy the mile walk into Hawes for a change.
She walked along the dusty road, singing to herself and admiring the summer’s day. The summer would soon be gone, and there would be plenty of days when it was too cold and wet to enjoy the walk into the market town of Hawes. Then it was a bind to go and get provisions and post letters, but she was happy to do so today and glad that her father had shown pity on his family in Liverpool.
Hawes was bustling, and the narrow street that ran the length of the small town was busy with traders. She stopped and watched as some young geese were sold to a local farmer. He’d be fattening them up for Christmas, the poor things; they were only going to be on the earth for a short time, in order for him to make a profit and to keep him fed.
