by Diane Allen
‘You not at work? I suppose you and your useless brother are still recovering from the fair, like all you miners,’ Harry growled. ‘Well, you needn’t hang about here. Get your shopping and bugger off!’
Meg put her head down and said nothing, as Jack picked up his mother’s white bloomer loaf, along with his sweets and tobacco, and handed over the money for them.
‘Now, that’s no way to talk to your customers. Especially when you rely on us miners so much.’ Jack looked at Harry.
‘If it were up to me, I’d shoot the bloody lot of you. Now get gone, before I get my gun. There’s a lass and her bairn dead in that chapel because of the likes of you, and I’ll not have you hanging around this shop. So clear off.’ Harry went and stood behind the counter next to Meg and watched as Jack left the shop. ‘He’s a wrong ’un, is that ’un. Both them Alderson lads are – and the rest of the buggers they mix with. They want to be hounded out of the dale.’ He looked at Meg. ‘Are you alright now? You did well to say who she was. It wasn’t a pleasant sight for a young lass to see.’
‘I’m alright, Uncle Harry. Just sorry that Margaret felt she had to end her life, and her baby’s, in such a way. Whoever the father is needs to be brought to justice for her death.’ She held back the tears again.
‘Aye, well, what’s done is done, and there’s no fetching them back now. I bet her parents are regretting not looking after Margaret now. Be thankful you’ve got a good home and that your parents would never turn their backs on you. It means a lot, does that, when it comes down to it.’
15
Sam and Jack lay in the darkness of their bedroom, both unable to sleep because of the day’s events.
‘Well, was the baby yours? Everybody saw Margaret talking to you at the fair. She looked so upset, and she must have said something to you,’ Jack whispered across to his brother, who was lying on the other side of the room from him.
‘She never said whose it was, so I don’t know why you should think that,’ Sam whispered back.
‘I saw the look of desperation on her face when she talked to you. She told you, didn’t she, that you were its father? That’s why you were in such a mood all day, and why she threw herself into the river where she did. You used to spend many an hour down by that river bank with her last summer – just like you are doing now with young Meg from the shop. You’ve got yourself to blame for her and the baby’s death,’ Jack said with contempt.
‘Hold your noise, else our mother will hear you. It was nowt to do with me, I tell you. Besides, her parents are as much to blame. They should have looked after her. How could they turn their backs on their own? At least our mother would never do that, as she worships the ground we both walk on.’
Sam hugged his pillow and thought about Margaret Parrington and the hours they had spent together that summer, which seemed to last forever as they made love and laughed together, unknowing of the fate that was to befall her. Then he thought of the words he had said to her in his cups, and how he had left Margaret and the baby there on the bridge top in the early hours of the morning. He was to blame for the baby’s death and for Margaret’s, but he wasn’t about to tell anybody that.
‘Aye, well, she and the baby are dead now, and God help you if you are the father, because you’ll be hounded out of the dale, if the locals get to know. Your life won’t be worth living.’ Jack rolled over, turning his back to his brother and wincing with pain, as his cracked ribs made lying down uncomfortable. The baby was Sam’s, of that he was sure. Before he went to sleep he whispered, ‘I saved your skin with Meg. I lied and told her that Margaret had been with most of the lads of the dale, else you would have broken her heart, too. I couldn’t tell her that my brother was really an uncaring bastard.’
‘I’m not its father, do you hear? At least Margaret never said I were. She didn’t know whose it was. I swear that’s what she told me on Bartle Fair day.’ Sam looked up at the ceiling, not hearing any response from his brother. He sighed and closed his eyes, but the thoughts rushing through his mind would not let him sleep.
He knew Meg had witnessed his meeting with Margaret. Thank God that Jack had made excuses for him. But to make things worse, he daren’t be seen with her yet, not until the scandal had blown over. Jack was right; there would be hell to pay throughout the dale. The minister at Reeth had already been giving services and lectures stigmatizing the miners as ‘colluvies’ – a term that he used for collections of filth and foul matter, which he thought the miners had brought to the dale. Locals were getting fed up with the ways of the miners, with illegitimate babies being born frequently and marriages postponed, because of the women being unsure who to call the father to the child they were already carrying; and husbands-to-be realizing that the woman they were about to marry had been unfaithful to them.
To make things worse, Meg would be upset, Sam knew, and for once he had fallen in love good and proper. But now, because of Margaret Parrington’s suicide, he might lose her. He was taking their courtship seriously. His former lies, when he had flippantly said he wanted to marry her, had now become the truth. But they might as well be a dream, because all hope of marrying Meg would never come to anything.
Meg kept her head down all week, listening to the gossips who came into the shop talking about the death of Margaret and her baby, and naming names of who the wretch of a father was who hadn’t stood by her. Nearly every young miner’s name had been mentioned, including that of Sam and Jack, as the women stood with their baskets waiting to be served.
‘They needn’t start blaming my two lads,’ Betty Alderson stormed, as two local women brushed past her without so much as a by your leave, nearly knocking her over as they left the shop. ‘Neither of mine would leave a lass in that way, I’d make sure of that,’ she said loudly as the door closed behind them.
Betty looked at Meg. ‘Besides, our Sam is sweet on you at the moment, from what I’ve heard and seen, although he never lets on to his old mother. But mothers have a way of knowing what their bairns are up to, without being told.’ She smiled as Meg threw a worried look to the back room, where Harry was doing his accounts. ‘I’ll not say owt else. But do you want me to take him a message?’ she whispered.
Meg’s face lit up. ‘Can you – would you, please? I can’t meet him down here at the moment, as the village is full of talk of revenge for Margaret’s death, and if I was seen walking out with him, I think the local lads would set upon him.’ Meg glanced at Betty as she got her shopping together. ‘Can you tell Sam I will meet him under our tree on Sunday? Nobody will see us there.’
‘I will, lass. Sunday, what time?’ Betty grinned.
‘Tell him eleven. Everybody will be at church or chapel by then.’ Meg changed the subject as Harry came into the shop. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Alderson, but no, I can’t do that.’
‘I hope you aren’t asking for tick. We aren’t giving any at the moment, especially to you mining families,’ Harry growled, putting his new policy into action, knowing it would hit the miners hard.
‘I’ve never asked for tick, and I’m not about to now.’ Betty reached into her purse and got out the change for her shopping, passing it to Meg. ‘Thank you, young lady. Enjoy the rest of the day. I’m told that the weekend looks good, weather-wise, especially Sunday.’ She smiled as she left the shop.
‘She thinks she can foretell the weather now, the old bugger. She should be concentrating on her lads, the wild pair,’ Harry growled. ‘I’m away to stretch my legs, but I’m not going far, nobbut to the end of the village to show my respects to the Parrington family. They are taking their lass and her baby back home to be buried. Although I’ve heard that she’s not allowed to be buried in the churchyard – suicide, you see, they’ll not let her.’ He put his cap on and headed for the door, shaking his head in despair.
Harry watched as the coffin containing Margaret and her baby was loaded onto the back of the undertaker’s cart. The narrow road through the village was lined with local mourners who didn’t
even know the dead woman and baby, but felt they had to show their respects to her and her family. ‘What’s that poor woman going to feel like, seeing her daughter and her baby dead and knowing she could have done something about it?’ Harry whispered to the blacksmith’s wife who stood next to him as they watched the distressed family walk slowly past them, following the cart out of the village.
‘It takes two to make a baby. I’d like to know who the father is. I’d cut his balls off, if I could get hold of him, the bastard.’ The blacksmith’s wife spat on the road and stared at the heartbroken family.
‘It’ll come out in the wash. Somebody will know who he was and, when it is made public, God help his soul. He’ll not last long in this dale. His life won’t be worth living.’
Harry placed his cap back on his head and wandered over to his wife’s grave in the chapel’s graveyard, once the family and bodies had passed him by, the locals all returning to their homes.
‘Aye, lass, it’s a rum do. It’s a good job you are not around to see all that’s going on. You wouldn’t be suited to present events.’ Harry bent down over Mary’s grave and talked to her. ‘I suppose, when you are looking down at me, you can see what I’m up to. I’m sorry, my old lass, but I can’t live without a woman in my life. And I know I should have waited until you were cold in the ground, but Lizzie Bannister at the boarding house and I just clicked. She’d been recently widowed, and you were so ill that I broke down one day when she was in the shop. That was how it started: me being broken-hearted over you, and her needing a shoulder to cry on and all. They say there’s no fool like an old fool. Well, I hope you can forgive this old fool. He loved you when you were alive, and I hope I was a good husband to you.’
Harry rubbed his eyes with his handkerchief. ‘I’ll always love you, old lass, but I can’t live on my own. But you already knew that when you asked Tom to send his slip of a lass over for a while. She’s a good worker, but she’ll have to return home before winter sets in and then I’ll be back on my own. Unless I do as Lizzie is begging me to do, and move to Reeth and marry her. But it’s too early yet, lass. I’ve got to show some respect to your memory.’
He stood up and looked around him. ‘I’ll bide my time, old lass. There’s no need to marry in a hurry at our age – unlike half the buggers round here, who can’t keep what they’ve got in their pockets. That’s the trouble with them.’ Harry smiled as he walked away; he felt better for saying what he had to his late wife. Whether she had heard him or not, it had lightened his load, getting his confession off his chest.
‘I can’t believe it’s been a week since your mother and father were here. Time goes so fast, since you came along.’ Harry looked across at Meg as they ate breakfast together.
‘Yes, it does seem to go fast – too fast. The summer’s nearly gone and, before you know it, I’ll have to be going home.’ Meg sighed.
‘You like being here, don’t you? I’ve seen how you like running that shop of mine, and talking to the customers. I’ll miss you when you do go home.’ Harry smiled. ‘You are no bother whatsoever to have living here, and I’ll tell your mother and father that. Speaking of which, that sounds like your father now, but he’s early today.’
Harry shouted through to the shop as he heard Tom’s low voice calling for him, ‘In here, we haven’t even finished our breakfast yet. Have you pissed the bed, to make you be here this early?’ he joked, as Tom and Dan entered the room. ‘Oh, I thought you’d have Agnes with you, but this must be Dan, I take it?’ He stared at the young lad beside Tom and decided there and then that he wasn’t keen on him, as he had a shifty look about him.
Meg cleared the breakfast table and smiled at her father and Dan as they sat down in the two spare chairs. Dan sat at the back of the room, skulking and looking nervously around him. He hadn’t really wanted to visit Swaledale, but he’d not been able to get out of it without it looking suspicious.
‘I’ve a cow thinking of calving, so Agnes has stopped at home to keep an eye on it. And I thought Dan here could do with knowing where you are at.’ Tom leaned back in his chair and thanked Meg as she poured both him and Dan a cup of tea. ‘How’s things over here? You both look well. I think life over in Swaledale is suiting you, our Meg.’
‘Not as much as my new life with you, Uncle Tom. Every day I wake up and think how lucky I am,’ Dan piped up, not giving Meg the chance to reply.
‘Well, you’d nowhere else to go, and you belonged with us. Your mother was right to send you back to her home,’ Tom said quickly. ‘I hear there’s been a bit of a to-do over here – a lass and her baby found dead in the river. The poor bugger!’
‘Aye, it has been terribly sad. If it hadn’t been for your Meg, we wouldn’t have known who she was. It was her who recognized her, from when she went to the fair last weekend,’ Harry said innocently, forgetting his own and Meg’s promise that she wouldn’t attend.
‘Bloody hell, Harry, you promised me you’d not let Meg go. And as for you, young lady, it’s no good looking all innocent. You well knew we both forbade you to go. I’ve a good mind to take my belt to you.’ Tom’s face was like thunder, while Dan sniggered at a shamefaced Meg.
‘No harm came of it, Tom. She went with a good lass from up Arkengarthdale and a few others from out of the village, and she was back well before supper time. Before all the drunken idiots emerged. Besides, she’s not a baby any more; she’s a grown woman. She’s the best help I’ve ever had, and I’m glad that she’s here.’ Harry stuck up for Meg, knowing how hard her father could be.
‘She still shouldn’t have bloody gone. What else are you two up to, behind my back? Perhaps you are as well to come back with me and Dan – it’s obvious I can’t trust you both,’ Tom growled.
‘Father, I behaved myself. And I like being here with Uncle Harry. I enjoy working in the shop, and the folk over here are so good to me. I know I haven’t been here long, but I feel like I really have settled in. And now that you have Dan, you don’t need me like you used to do,’ Meg said indignantly.
‘What, settled with all the miners, who are nowt but rubbish? Have some pride, lass,’ Tom stormed.
‘Tom, think of what you are saying. I know I call them a rough bunch, but some are decent souls that are just making a living. Besides, as things stand, the young fellas are going to get it rough around here until it’s clear who fathered the baby that was drowned alongside its mother. So Meg’s as well over here as back home with you at Appersett,’ Harry said curtly.
‘You’ve not the sense you were born with, letting her go to the fair in the first place. And you are only saying that because you need Meg to stay with you and do your work.’ Tom looked across at Dan. ‘What are you grinning at? You can get your arse outside with our Meg, and bring the butter and whatever else Agnes sent over out of the cart and into the shop while I speak to Harry.’
‘Yes, Uncle.’ Dan stopped laughing and looked across at Meg, who was all too ready to get out of her father’s way.
‘You are in a bother now. I bet you have to come back with us, once your father’s finished with Harry,’ Dan smirked as he lifted the basket of butter down from the cart and passed it to Meg.
‘No, Uncle Harry will stick up for me. He can’t run the shop without me – or not as well – on his own.’ Meg grabbed the basket and watched as Dan picked up a sack of apples from the farm’s orchard.
‘Well, I’m set for life, because since you’ve gone, your father’s taught me all there is to learn about farming. He says I learn better than any lass and that, come spring, I can have some lambs of my own. We let the ram out yesterday, so he’s busy with all his girls. A bit like the miners over here, from what your father says.’ He gave a sly smile.
‘You wash your mouth out, Dan Ryan. You and my father know nothing about how folk live over here.’ Meg glared at him. Not only had Dan wormed his way into her home, but now he was talking just like her father.
‘I’ll say what I want, and you won’t stop me. Your f
ather thinks more of me than he does of you, because I’m a lad and his nephew. And you will soon have your head turned by a fella, and then you’ll have no time for him or your mother. I bet that’s why she didn’t come with us today. The cow that’s supposedly calving isn’t due for another week yet.’ Dan leaned back against the cart and smirked. He was enjoying watching Meg get upset, as he’d set his heart on owning Beck Side one day, if he could get Meg out of the picture.
‘You are lying. My father wouldn’t leave my mum at home if there wasn’t a reason. I wish you’d bugger off back to Liverpool, you sneaky rat.’ Meg picked up the basket and her skirts and stormed back into the shop, turning her back on the grinning Dan.
‘Harry says you hardly stop working, and that he knows you are behaving yourself. Happen I was a bit hard on you, but your mum and I are only trying to protect you.’ Tom stood in the doorway between the shop and the living quarters and watched as Meg placed the newly made butter on the counter.
‘I’m alright, Father. I’m not daft, and I can look after myself.’ Meg looked over at him. ‘Is Mum alright?’ she asked.
‘Aye, she sends her love and says she will try and get over to see you next time.’ Tom smiled and watched as Dan placed the sack of apples on the counter. ‘We’ve let the ram out. Dan, here, has been helping me.’
‘He’s been telling me,’ Meg said curtly, while Dan said nothing.
‘Aye, well, you look grand and Harry enjoys your company, so you can stay a bit longer, until the weather turns. But then you must come back, no matter what Harry says.’ Tom made his way to the shop’s doorway. ‘Owt to tell your mother?’
Meg looked up. ‘No, just tell her that I love her and I’ll see her next time.’ She held back the tears. Dan’s words had cut deep, and she couldn’t help but think there might be some truth in them.
‘Right then, we’ll be away. Dan, you drive us back, and try not to take us off the edge of the road.’ Tom looked back at his daughter as Dan left the shop and got into the cart. ‘You alright?’
