The Miner's Wife

by Diane Allen

  ‘So, you are Dan? Our Meg tells me that your mother’s died and that’s why you are here. Well, I’m sorry for your loss, but I don’t know what our lass thought I was going to do with you. We are just holding our own, without having another mouth to feed.’ Tom looked at his nephew and searched for any likeness to his sister, but he also heard the voice and accent of the man who had got Anne pregnant and had split the family apart.

  ‘Meg has fed me more this morning than I’ve had for over a week. You’ve no idea how we have been living – it’s nothing like here, isn’t Liverpool. My mother said that you’d look after me, as you are all I’ve got. I’m a good worker, honest, Uncle Tom. I’ll sleep in the barn and you’ll not even know I’m here. Please let me stay.’ Dan’s eyes filled with tears, and he started to bawl and carry on.

  ‘Tom, the lad’s your flesh and blood and is in need of our help. You loved your sister, Anne, and you need to do right by her. She’s obviously entrusted you to look after him, even though he’s old enough to stand on his own two feet. He’ll be no bother. I’ll make him a bed up in the barn, until we know that he’s not contagious. And then he can have the spare bedroom, once we know he’s clear of cholera.’ Agnes looked at the lost soul in front of her and thought that if Megan had lost both her parents, she’d want someone to look after her until she got back on her feet again.

  ‘Thanks, missus – I mean, Aunty Agnes – you’ll not regret it. I’ll work for my keep, I’m not idle.’ Dan smiled and wiped the tears away from his cheek.

  Tom breathed in deeply. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting this, but you are our Anne’s lad, so you are blood, and I can’t turn you away.’ He looked at the lad in front of him and saw himself at the same age and his heart softened. ‘Make him up a bed in the hayloft and then if he’s still with us next week, he can move into the house,’ he grunted at Agnes and Meg. ‘Now don’t you be thinking you will have a soft life here, as we work long hours and I’ll expect you to do the same, helping out around the farm,’ he said to Dan as he watched a smile light up the boy’s face. ‘Get him some of my old clothes and all, then burn the ones he’s in, after he’s had a swill in the horse-trough. Happen then he’ll look a bit more like a worker,’ Tom growled as he walked out of the farmhouse to see to the still-unstabled horse.

  ‘Thank you, I’m so grateful. Here, I’ve the change from what you sent my mother.’ Dan fumbled in his pocket.

  ‘Keep it, lad, you might need it, if I throw you back out down the road,’ Tom shouted back.

  ‘He doesn’t mean it, Dan. Now go and wash in the horse-trough out in the yard, and Meg will bring you some fresh clothes, blankets and pillows. Next week, if all’s still well, you can have the back bedroom. Your uncle’s not as bad as he makes out, but he can be a stickler, so don’t push your luck too much.’ Agnes looked at the scrawny lad as he walked out into the yard; her heart bled for him, and she could not see him being turned away from his own family. Perhaps this was the lad that Tom had always wanted, if he did but know it, but only time would tell.

  7

  ‘Tom, Tom, wake up. The cows are out, they are going past our garden gate.’

  Agnes shook her husband, who was still asleep and had not been disturbed by the sound of his milk-cows making their way across the farmyard, unlike her. She pulled back the bedroom curtains, still in her nightdress and with her hair in rags, and squinted at the two cows wandering back into their pasture, with Dan walking behind them with a switch.

  ‘It’s alright. Dan’s putting them back where they belong – he must have heard them as well.’ Agnes breathed a sigh of relief as she started to get dressed for the day ahead.

  ‘They’ve never done that before, and I’m sure I closed the gate last night. Happen it’s a good job he slept out there last night, else they’d have been in Hawes by now. What time is it, anyway? It must only be dawn, by the looks of it outside. Get back into bed, woman, for a bit longer.’ Tom yawned and stretched.

  ‘It’s six, the hall clock’s just struck. I might as well get up, now I’m awake. Besides, Dan’s up and going, so I’ll make him some breakfast.’ Agnes looked down at her husband, who was still in bed.

  ‘Now, don’t you go pampering him because you feel sorry for him. He’ll have to rough it, like the rest of us. We don’t even know if he is our Anne’s lad – we’ve only his word for it.’ Tom sat up on the edge of the bed and relieved himself in the chamber pot.

  ‘You’ve got to be blind not to see that he’s your nephew. He has a look of his mother, Anne. Poor little bugger, he’s got nobody but us.’ Agnes put on her apron over the top of her long skirt and blouse and sighed. ‘Anyway, he’s proved he’s of worth already, making sure the cows weren’t halfway down the road. So hold your noise.’

  ‘I will not; we know nowt about him, and he might be a right wrong ’un, especially if he takes after his father.’ Tom pulled his breeches on and went over to the jug and bowl filled with cold water for a wash.

  ‘I thought you were going to lie in,’ Agnes said as she stood next to the bedroom door.

  ‘Nay, I’m up now, I might as well do the milking. Besides, we have Jim Pratt from Sedbergh coming today to kill the pig. It’s best that I’m up and going, as the shed will need all scrubbing out and making clean before he kills it in there.’ Tom pulled his braces over his shirt and looked out of the window. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered, look at this!’ He stood and watched, as Agnes joined him by his side. ‘The little bugger’s done the milking for me. Look, the milk kit is full; he’s just rolled it into the dairy, and he’s bringing a bucket of milk for the house across the yard. I didn’t expect him to do that.’

  ‘Looks like you’ve got a farm lad, Tom. So stop complaining and look after him, as he’s kith and kin after all.’ Agnes smiled. ‘Now, I’ll make some breakfast and you can thank Dan for doing your job without being asked. I’ll give our Meg a shout. She’s a busy day ahead of her, helping me once the pig is butchered.’

  ‘Aye, our Dan’s done something she’s never done without being asked. She’ll need to pull her socks up now.’ Tom pulled on his jacket and grinned.

  ‘Oh, it’s “our Dan” now, is it? Now that you know he’s a worker.’ Agnes laughed as she shouted into the bedroom next door. ‘Meg, stir your shanks. Jim Pratt will be here in another hour or so, and we’ve to make all ready in the kitchen.’ She stood for a second and heard a faint reply from under the bed sheets. Little did Meg know, but it would seem that she had a rival for her father’s attentions now, Agnes thought, as she went down the creaking stairs and into the farmhouse kitchen. She opened the door to let in the late-summer sun and smiled as she found the bucket of milk on the step, along with Dan’s cap full of freshly picked field mushrooms. Well, he’d sorted breakfast out, that was for certain, she thought as she picked both up.

  ‘Morning, Aunty Agnes. I thought I’d make myself useful,’ Dan shouted across the yard.

  ‘Thank you, lad, we weren’t expecting that. Meg will bring you some breakfast across in a little while. Another week and you can live with us. It’s just that we don’t know if you are carrying—’

  ‘Aye, I know, better safe than sorry.’ Dan stopped her in her tracks. ‘I slept like a baby anyway, so don’t you worry.’ He watched as his aunt went back into the house, before going and sitting in the early-morning sunshine outside the barn. He hadn’t slept well really; he’d tossed and turned and had thought about his life, and wondered how long he would be able to stay with his new family. He was grateful to get out of Liverpool, especially now, as he sat and looked around him at the beautiful scenery, but it was not far enough away to feel totally safe. His life had been nothing but hardship and trying to make ends meet, and all the time people like this wanted for nothing. He was going to make the best of it for as long as he could, that was for sure.

  The smell of frying bacon made his mouth water as it drifted across the yard: bacon for breakfast, now what a bloody good treat that would be. If he wer
e back home in Liverpool, he’d be lucky to have anything to eat at all until dinner time, and then it would only be bread and dripping if he was lucky. No, he didn’t miss the hellhole or the folk within it. He would make sure this was his home from now on. He’d have to impress Tom to ensure that he won him round, because he was a cantankerous old devil. He’d have to make himself irreplaceable; that’s why he’d milked the cows and taken them back to the field, to make himself look good. He yawned and stretched his limbs as Meg walked out of the porchway towards him.

  ‘Morning, Cousin,’ Dan yelled. ‘Beautiful day.’

  ‘It is, if you are not a pig,’ Meg said as she placed a plate of bacon, eggs and mushrooms in front of him, along with a mug of tea. ‘The poor old sow’s hours are numbered, as the butcher’s coming up from Sedbergh today to kill her.’

  ‘Oh, the poor bloody thing, but it’ll mean we’ve plenty to eat over this winter, so I’m not going to complain.’ Dan looked at the crispy bacon, then picked up the knife and fork that lay next to the plate and tucked in.

  ‘I am. I hate today. I hate the sound of the pig squealing for its life as the butcher slits its throat, and the fact that I always have to stir the bucket of its blood, so that it doesn’t clot, before we make it into black pudding. But most of all I hate the smell of the pig’s head boiling in the copper, which I’m having to fill with water in a minute. It all turns my stomach.’

  ‘You really know how to put someone off his breakfast, don’t you?’ Dan looked at his bacon and decided to tackle the eggs first. ‘What did your father think, when I milked the cows? Has he said anything?’

  ‘Aye, he said he could get used to someone else doing his job for him, but that the poor old lasses will have wondered what was going on, as they aren’t milked as a rule before eight in the morning. What made you milk them so early? It must still have been dark when you brought them in from the field.’ Meg sat a distance away from Dan and watched as he cleaned the egg yolk off his plate with his crust of bread.

  ‘We always start milking at four in Liverpool. Folk expect the milk on their steps before they go to work. It was no hardship to me. I’m used to it.’ He started to eat his bacon as Meg watched.

  ‘Is Liverpool really huge? Furthest I’ve ever been is Gunnerside and Sedbergh. I’ve never been to a city or even a big town.’ Meg waited until Dan had finished chewing the rind from the bacon and then listened to what he said.

  ‘Liverpool’s full of folk. All different colours, from all over the world. It’s one of the main ports, so there’s ships coming in with different cargoes every day. The docks are always busy. I used to go there with my father and watch all the fancy stuff being unloaded and loaded: oranges, spices, fancy cloth and the like. A day would soon pass as you watched the different ships come and go. Then the folk there live in all sorts of ways: some are really well-to-do in their fancy town houses, and there’s the merchants who buy and sell and move house every so often, when their deals have either gone badly or well. But there’s plenty of poor on them streets and all, just like we were. At least we had a roof over our heads; a lot of the poor buggers live on the streets, begging, or sleep in doss-houses, where all you get is a straw sack to sleep on, and some fleas and lice to call your own. There’s never any quiet, and you’ve to watch your back all the time and learn to look after yourself, else you’d never survive, if you are the likes of us. I can’t say I’m going to miss it, not now, when I know what this place is like.’

  Dan pushed his plate back and looked across at Meg.

  ‘Are you not walking out with a young man yet? The lasses at Liverpool are nine times out of ten nearly married by your age – either that or they have a bun in the oven!’ He grinned.

  ‘Bun in the oven?’ Meg looked at her cousin, wondering what he meant.

  ‘Aye, you know, having a baby! But most times they don’t know who the father is. There’s many born into the world like that.’ Dan laughed.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Meg blushed. ‘No, I’m not courting, and I’m certainly not with child.’ She scowled at her cousin; things like that were never talked about in her family, and she found it quite shocking that he was so forthright. ‘I’d like to see a bit more of the world before I settle down. I know, as you say, that I am lucky to live here, but there must be more to life? I want to see the sea and to visit other lands, perhaps. I don’t just want to marry a farmer and stay here all my life.’ Meg sighed and thought of Sam: would she ever get the chance to see him again, especially now that Dan sounded as if he aimed to make Beck Side his home? Perhaps it would be Dan her father took into Swaledale every week instead of her, if he was to stay, and then she’d never get to visit Sam again.

  ‘So that’s what you think, is it, my lass? We are not good enough for you?’ Tom Oversby had overheard the two of them talking as he had walked across the farmyard and was not impressed by the words he’d heard from his daughter.

  Meg turned to face her father and immediately regretted the words she had said. ‘No, Father, it’s not like that. I simply know there is more to life than this small dale, and I’d like – given the chance – to see more of the world.’

  ‘Aye, well, you go and get your arse into the kitchen with your mum. She needs you this morning,’ Tom growled as he watched Meg quickly disappear with Dan’s dirty plate. ‘Now, what are we to do with you? It seems you’ve already milked the cows for me, so you might as well clean the cowshed to earn your keep, while I clean the pig-hull out, ready for the butcher to come later this morning.’

  ‘Meg said it was going to be butchered today. Can I help? She said she hated stirring the blood. Well, I could do that. I’ve never watched a pig being killed before.’ Dan jumped to his feet.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t want any of us catching anything that you might be ailing with. It’s better that you keep your distance from folk at the moment. Now, you’ll find a shovel and fork in the cowshed, and when you’ve finished that, come and see me and you can whitewash the pig-hull out, ready for our next pig.’ Tom looked at his nephew; if he thought he was going to have an easy life away from Liverpool, he could think again. He’d have to earn his keep like anybody else.

  ‘I’d not get too close to Dan, Meg. Just until we know he’s healthy and not carrying cholera.’ Agnes looked across at her daughter as she filled the copper boiler with cold water from the pump outside the back door.

  ‘I’ve no intention to. Besides, I don’t think I’ll get a chance, as my father is lining him up with jobs already, from what I can see. Neither of them is going to smell very pleasant tonight, especially my father, as he’s cleaning the old sow’s hull out, while she has her last few breaths of fresh air and freedom in the orchard. The poor thing!’ Meg wiped her brow and smiled at her mum. ‘How was Mary Battersby? With Dan arriving on the scene, I never got a chance to ask you yesterday.’

  ‘She’s not good. I don’t think she will see the week out. Poor Harry doesn’t know what to do; he’s even talking of selling the shop after she’s gone, because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to manage on his own.’ Agnes held back the tears while she greased the baking tins that the black pudding was going to be cooked in.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I know you are close. If there’s anything I can do, you’ve only got to ask.’ Meg stopped for a second and looked at her mum, who was heartbroken about her friend being so ill. And she, like a spoilt brat, had thought only of herself yesterday, when she had behaved so selfishly.

  ‘You are a good girl, Meg. These things happen, and you’ve got to grin and bear it. Now what do you think of Dan? I haven’t had much to do with him, and I hope you are keeping your distance from him, just until we know if he’s contagious or not.’ Agnes lifted her head and waited for a reply.

  ‘He’s alright, Mum. He’s had a hard life, not at all like ours. He’s been telling me about his life in Liverpool and the people there. My father heard me say that I wish I could travel, like Dan, and thought I was being disloyal. But I wasn’t
. I was simply envious of what Dan has seen.’ Meg sighed. ‘I love my home, and it seems that Dan thinks he’s here to stay – his mum must have told him so.’

  ‘Aye, dear, your father is always finding fault with folk. I don’t know if Dan will fit in or not; we will have to wait and see. However, he did make an impression on him when he got up so early and had done the milking and, by the sound of it, he doesn’t shrug off work. He’ll happen make our lives easier, Meg. Besides, your father always did want a son. Well, now he’s got a nephew instead. His poor mother did right in sending him here; it’s where he belongs.’

  Agnes went into the larder to get the pearl barley and sage that were to be used for the black pudding, and left Meg wondering if Dan might not do her any favours, if he won her father over. After all, this was her home, not his, and perhaps he’d have been better staying in Liverpool.

  The squeal of the pig as it was caught by the butcher and her father made Meg’s eyes fill with tears. She hated the fact that its life had to be taken, for them to have something to eat.

  ‘Go on, it’s gone quiet now – they’ve done the worst. Go and get the bucket and stick and come back with the blood,’ her mum prompted Meg as she stood in the porchway. Tell your father all’s ready, and that I’ve made Jim Pratt a bite to eat.’ Agnes watched as Meg ran across to where the dirty deed had taken place, knowing full well that her daughter hated her allotted task.