by Gracie Hart
Edmund sighed and put his paper down. ‘Your bloody father, it’s all I get in my ear from morning to night. He might own nearly every woollen mill in Leeds but he forgets I’ve a living to make and a mine to run and I just can’t drop everything on his request of luncheon. Take our William: he’ll keep him amused and it will keep him out of my way. As it is he just gets under my feet at the moment; he doesn’t seem to be interested in getting his hands dirty, learning his trade. Which sets him at a disadvantage when he one day becomes the owner of the coal mine. Take our Grace with you as well, she always sweet talks her grandfather, being the apple of his eye.’
‘Perhaps our William will find his feet in textiles; someone has to take the reins from my father and it certainly won’t be you, as you’ve no knowledge of the industry. I will take him with me and hint to my father that he would do well to encourage him into the running of the mills. It could be the making of him.’ Catherine Ellershaw smiled thinking of her precious eldest son who had just turned twenty and was back from Cambridge after finding it not to his liking, and being unable to settle into his studies.
‘Aye, let your father take him under his wing. So he can spoil him even more than he is already. When I was his age, I’d been a miner for at least five years, knew my job inside out and was gaining the respect of my fellow workers. I wasn’t swanning about with a poetry book under my arm, too precious to get my fine clothes dirty.’ Edmund Ellershaw was disappointed in his son; he wasn’t the tough manly figure he had hoped him to be, as the rightful successor to the pit at Rothwell. The pit that Edmund had bought when his old employer had struggled with its upkeep and had lost interest in. Ellershaw was a self-made man – at least where the mine was concerned – and he never let anyone forget it.
‘Not everyone is interested in mining, although it seems that it is the only thing talked about in this house. Have you thought any more about my proposal of taking a house in Roundhay? It would be so much more civilised there. Better for Grace, William and baby George. We could employ a proper nanny for him then, not just a local girl, plus we would have the Whittakers as neighbours.’
‘We want nowt with moving to Roundhay; Highfield is a good enough house and we are away from the rabble in Leeds. Besides, you’d never be away from the Whittakers, you’d be playing cards with them all day.’ Edmund threw his napkin down, he’d had enough of his breakfast and enough of hearing his wife and the notion that she had got of moving to Roundhay. A notion put into her head by her empty-headed friend Rosaline Whittaker, whose husband gave her anything she wanted just to keep her quiet. ‘I’ll be away to the pit now; time’s money and I can’t afford to be losing either.’
‘It seems to me you never have time for discussing our family and our needs, Edmund. And it isn’t as if we lack funds, Father would never see us short.’ Catherine looked up at her husband whose face belied the anger that he was feeling inside.
‘I’m away, say good morning to the boys and Grace when they eventually decide to get out of their beds and join you for breakfast. I’ll be back in time for dinner tonight.’ Edmund pulled his chair away from the table not giving his wife or servant a second glance as he walked through the dining room into the hallway, picking his hat and riding crop up from the hall stand. He stood for a minute and looked at himself in the full-length mirror in the hall, and wondered where all the years had gone.
He had once been a handsome young man full of ambition and a desire for life. Now he was middle-aged, grey haired with a podge of a belly and a wife who never gave him a moment’s rest. No wonder he made the colliery and his office there his refuge from her nagging voice and his unbelievably spoilt children.
It was his own greed that was to blame, he thought, as he looked around the grand hall of Highfield. He already had his mine when he met the Ellershaws. If he hadn’t had his head turned by the thought of Catherine’s money – or rather her father’s money – he would have been happy with a local lass from Woodlesford or Rothwell, one that would have been happy with just a roof over her head and bairns to care for. Not always wanting something bigger and better. He opened the front door and hesitated as he pulled it to. What was wrong with the house they were in? It was the biggest one along Princes Street; its six bedrooms were big enough for their family and guests when they entertained. His wife had a cook and several maids for all the work. He, himself, refused a valet but there was a groom to tend to the coach and horses and a stable lad besides the gardener.
Their house stood proud on the corner of the street, in its own grounds and the fluted columns at the doorway hinted at the wealth that lay within. Nay, they wouldn’t be moving to Roundhay, she’d have to be bloody satisfied with her lot. Edmund loosened the reins of his already saddled horse from the tethering ring in the garden wall and mounted. Time to get to his office and to wait for a visitor he knew would show their face today, a face that always gave him pleasure, albeit entirely one-sided.
Four
Sarah Parker closed the door behind her and set off up Pit Lane, following in her husband’s footsteps, and those of all the miners who headed to the pit every morning.
Her stomach churned with the thought of what she was about to do and her legs felt weak underneath her. She looked ahead of her, watching the pithead wheel that dominated the skyline turn, as men were lowered to their work deep down in the bowels of the earth. They were in search of the black gold that powered the wheels of the industrial revolution that was spreading like wildfire throughout the country.
Coal fed everything – the new steam engines that powered their way along the North Midland Railway; the engines that turned the spinning mules in the many mills around Leeds – and industries just could not get enough of it.
She hurried on; sooner she got it over and done with, the better. Her skirts brushed the side of the frost-covered grass and she pulled her shawl tighter around her as the early morning sun took its time to warm the sparkling white countryside. She looked up at the sign above her head and walked in through the open gates of Rose Pit, glancing around the yard to make sure her Bill was not there and that he was out of the way, down below at the seam head.
The yard was full of pithead ponies waiting for the precious coal to be brought up from the earth below, their handlers too busy to see or care about the desperate woman that quickly made her way to the office of Edmund Ellershaw, the mine owner. Even if they had given her any notice they would have recognised her as a regular visitor and all of them knew why she had come. Her with her husband down below, risking his life every day for her and her lasses, while she satisfied old Ellershaw as his mistress, the dirty old bugger.
Sarah stopped in her tracks as Tom Thackeray the mine supervisor pulled the office door open, blushing as he paid his respects, knowing full well why she was there.
‘Morning, Mrs Parker. Not a bad day for November.’ He touched his cap as he stepped down the steps allowing her to the office door. ‘Is Eliza well, Mrs Parker?’ He had to ask her, even if he didn’t like to be seen with the woman that everybody knew to be Ellershaw’s whore. Eliza, her youngest daughter, had caught his eye and he was sweet on her.
‘Very well, thank you, Tom. I’ll tell her you asked after her.’ Sarah smiled at the young man as he walked away and then quickly entered into the office of the man she absolutely loathed, who had treated her no better than a dog. He owned her, just like he owned the colliery, the house she lived in and half the houses in Woodlesford and Rothwell, and there was nothing she could do.
‘I thought I’d be seeing you today, Sarah. The state your man was in yesterday morning, I should have sacked him on the spot and thrown you out of that house once and for all.’ Edmund looked at the creature before him. Despite two children and a world of care, she was still a handsome woman and she was his for the taking. ‘So, he’s drunk the rent money away yet again and given you a good hiding into the bargain by the looks of that lip.’
Edmund got up from his comfortable office chair and ru
bbed his finger around Sarah’s trembling cut lip. His face inches away from hers as he pulled her towards him.
‘Well, you know what I want, don’t you, Sarah?’ His spare hand fumbled with his breeches buttons as he watched Sarah’s heaving breasts and ran his tongue as far as he could go down her bodice, licking between them and biting as he aroused himself. ‘Payment will be made and accepted with interest.’ He turned Sarah around, splaying her hands out across his desk and lifting her skirts up as far as they could go, exposing her naked buttocks. He ran his fingers between her legs and Sarah winced as no care was shown to her private parts. ‘That’s it, you just can’t get enough of me, can you, my dear little whore?’ He widened her legs with his knees and entered her with a force so hard that Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as he satisfied himself. She’d lost count of the number of times that she had put herself through the degrading act of making herself available for Ellershaw’s sexual desires in order to protect her family. She hated him with every inch of her body, but worse still she hated herself for letting him use her like a whore. She closed her eyes until his thrusting had come to an end and he withdrew, buttoning his trousers up quickly as he hid his shame.
Sarah breathed in deeply, pulled her skirts down and turned around to look at her assailant. ‘We are square? The rent’s paid for this month?’ She shook as she pulled her skirts straight and looked at the man she hated. One day she’d get even with him, but until then she was under his control.
‘Aye, we are square, until the next time.’ Edmund wiped his saliva-covered chin and slumped down in his chair. ‘Now best get off before somebody comes in; we don’t want the husband finding out about our little arrangement now, do we?’
Sarah held her head up high and stepped out of the red-bricked office, breathing in the sharp frost-filled air of the morning. Her legs shook as she sneaked out of the yard, noticing one of Bill’s friends looking at her as he spat a mouthful of saliva out onto the coal-dusted yard. He went about his work and didn’t acknowledge her, knowing full well her business with old Ellershaw – all the colliery workers did. That was everybody, except Bill.
Sarah made good her escape, hoping nothing would be said to her husband about her visit and that he would stop drinking, praying hopefully that there wouldn’t be a next time, when she had to degrade herself to Ellershaw’s perversions – a prayer she knew would never be answered, not while the landlord at the Boot and Shoe enticed Bill with his ale and he drank himself to oblivion.
Five
‘Go on then, get it opened and read. You won’t know what’s in it if you don’t.’ Mary-Anne watched the excitement on her younger sister’s face as she looked at the handwritten note that they had found pushed underneath the battered door of their small workshop when they arrived that morning.
Eliza looked up with a beaming smile at her older sister; they both had a good idea who the note was from. He’d been making his presence known to Eliza for some time now, since he had moved to the village, and now it would seem that the handsome but shy Tom Thackeray had decided to put pen to paper. She carefully unfolded the cream parchment, her hand shaking as she read the words aloud.
Dear Eliza,
I would be most honoured if you would walk out with me this coming Sunday. Could we perhaps meet after chapel and take a short stroll around Woodlesford together?
If I hear nothing to the contrary, I will wait for you outside the chapel gates at twelve.
Yours faithfully
Tom (Thackeray)
‘Well, he gets straight to the point: short and sweet.’ Mary-Anne laughed and smiled at her younger sister, whose cheeks had turned rose-bud pink. ‘Are you going to meet him?’
Eliza quickly folded the note away into her apron pocket and composed herself. ‘I might, I don’t know. After all, he’s the supervisor at the Rose, he’s at least got a good job. Please, don’t tell Ma, I want this to be a secret, and besides, she will only want you to escort me.’ Eliza reached for Mary-Anne’s hand and squeezed it tight. ‘Promise me you won’t tell her, because if Stepfather finds out he’ll not agree to it. You know how he hates anything to do with the management at the Rose.’
‘I’ll not say anything, you lucky devil.’ Mary-Anne grinned at her younger sister. ‘Just be careful what you get up to, as you don’t know the first thing about Tom Thackeray apart from where he works and that he lives on Wood Lane at Rothwell with his mother. You know he’s new to the village, he could be a right wrong ’un. Don’t you get led astray!’
‘I don’t know what you mean, our Mary! We will just take a gentle stroll around Woodlesford as he suggests.’ Eliza felt the letter in her pocket and went to sit at her usual seat in front of the shop’s window, picking up a garment to mend as she thought about the handsome blond-haired man that had caught her eye over a year ago and was now asking to walk out with her. A feeling of warmth and excitement fluttered within her; Sunday could not come fast enough.
Mary-Anne looked up from her sewing and sighed, she could sense the excitement that her younger sister was feeling over her meeting with Tom and had meant every word she had said when she had called her a ‘lucky devil’. How come Eliza was the one with a sweetheart demanding her attentions? Everyone always commented that she was the one with the looks, Eliza didn’t have her striking long auburn hair or her green eyes, which she had inherited from their father; instead Eliza was blonde with blue eyes, taking after their mother, and was, in Mary-Anne’s eyes, a little plain.
A pang of jealousy filled her as she accidently stabbed herself with the needle and thread that seemed to have developed a life of its own. She sucked on her injured finger, tasting the iron-rich blood that clotted on her finger end and looked over at her sister, thinking that served her right for being so jealous. Eliza didn’t bear any grudges against anybody and was the more open of the two of them. If the boot was on the other foot, Eliza would be glad that her sister had a suitor. She looked down at her finger, making sure it had stopped bleeding before carrying on with her handiwork, concentrating on repairing the green organza dress that they had bought and washed earlier in the week, burying the jealousy she felt. After all, it was only Tom Thackeray, and he was just a mine supervisor, of little importance.
‘Are you not coming to chapel today, Mother?’ Mary-Anne pulled on her best bonnet and waited with Eliza in the kitchen of their house on Pit Lane. Eliza scowled at her sister, not wanting Mary-Anne to encourage their mother to join them, else her meeting with Tom would be noticed.
‘No, my love. I’m going to miss it. I don’t feel myself this morning and I’ll stop and keep an eye on this piece of brisket that’s simmering on the fire for Sunday dinner.’ Sarah looked at her two daughters in their Sunday finery and smiled; any mother would be proud of such good-looking girls as hers. ‘Besides, Bill has gone rabbiting with that friend of his and he will want them skinning and gutting as soon as he returns home. He might be good at catching them, but making them fit for the pot is another thing with him.’ She brushed a lock of hair away from her brow and reached above to the stone mantelpiece for the small cash box that held the household’s change. ‘Here, put a penny in the collection and say a prayer for me. A good word with our maker is never wasted and the Lord knows I could do with him on our side at the moment.’
Sarah sighed and fought back the tears as she ushered them out of the warmth of the kitchen into the crisp air of the late November morning. She needed to be on her own for as long as possible this morning and she needed to keep her nerve as she started to feel the gripping pains low within her stomach as Patsy’s herbal potion started to take effect. ‘Go on, girls, Minister Hamilton will be waiting. You know he likes to talk to everyone before they enter his chapel.’ She kissed her girls on their cheeks and then leaned on the kitchen door as she closed it behind them.
Once the girls had disappeared out of sight, she made her way down the garden path and into the outside privy, thankful that, unlike some of the pit houses, each of
the cottages on Pit Lane had its own private privy, which meant she was able to keep her predicament within its walls.
Pain rippled through her body. Patsy’s concoctions had never acted this quickly before, she thought, as she reached for the door latch and pulled the door to her, pulling her skirts up and sitting down on the wooden bench that acted as an earth closet. Sweat dripped down her brow as pain ripped across her, making her nauseous and weak as she waited for the deadly potion to do its worst.
‘God forgive me,’ she whispered as the poisons took hold, her pain doubled her up and her head spun. Blood poured from her, down her legs and into the earth closet below, as her body rejected Edmund Ellershaw’s bastard child.
In the darkness of the outside lavvy, Sarah cried; it wasn’t the first time she had sought to get rid of a baby but this time it was different: she was weak and the blood wouldn’t stop flowing. She felt giddy as her head felt lighter and lighter, and she leaned back against the cold whitewashed walls of the outside toilet.
The condensation from her breath trickled down the walls and she tried to concentrate on the race that the droplets of water were having with one another to overcome the pain. She closed her eyes and prayed for the pain to stop, trying to keep herself awake, but was too fearful to leave the safety of the outside lavvy in case the neighbours saw what was happening to her. She sobbed as she saw in the dim light her skirts and legs covered in her own blood, realising that something was very wrong. But before she could even think to cry for help, another spasm took hold and she fought back a scream of pain, then lost consciousness as the darkness came, her life dripping and ebbing away with the tiny dead soul that lay in the earth closet below, alone and in shame.
