by Gracie Hart
‘I don’t know why you’re making you’sel look so smart. She’s nowt special this lass you’ve set your cap on. Her mother’s the talk of Woodlesford the way she goes behind her man’s back with Edmund Ellershaw.’ Madge Thackeray looked at her son as he preened himself in the hallway mirror.
‘I wish I’d never told you about Eliza, Mother, because you’ve never let it rest since I mentioned her name.’ Tom put on his hat at a jaunty angle and picked up the change from the hallway table for the chapel’s collection. ‘I’m only having a quick walk out with her, I’ll be back in time for my dinner.’
‘Well, make sure you are. You can do a lot better than that’en. I brought you up to set your sights higher than a common lass from Pit Lane.’ Madge sighed and looked down at her knitting, putting it to one side with disinterest as he closed the front door behind him, as she watched him pass the kitchen window, whistling like a cock robin on his way to walk out with Eliza Wild – her, whose mother was nothing more than a trollop and her stepfather a drunk. She’d wanted so much better for her lad. Why wouldn’t he listen to her? He always had been stubborn, even as a young’un, she thought. There was never any telling him anything and invariably it always ended in tears. Just like this would, with this young hussy. Never mind, she’d be here for him, no matter what; that’s what mothers did. You learned by your mistakes and this lass was definitely that! She picked up her knitting and gazed into the fire. Tom was all she had in the world since her husband had died and they’d moved here. She knew it to be selfish, her wanting him to stay at home with her, but he was all she had. Nothing else mattered.
The chapel service seemed to last forever as the preacher yelled out his warnings of hell and brimstone and paused with long looks at some of his known fallen within his congregation. Mary-Anne and Eliza wriggled in their hard wooden pew, wishing for the service to come to an end and for Mary-Anne to go back to home comforts, while Eliza kept glancing over at Tom, who shot quick looks in her direction, not wanting anyone to notice his stares.
‘Well, I thought the minister was never going to shut up.’ Mary-Anne pulled on her gloves and looked at her younger sister, who was fidgeting and looking flushed as she watched the chapel goers shake the hand of the preacher before disappearing to their homes. ‘Go on then, he’s waiting for you. I’ll give Mother your excuses and tell her you’re helping out the less fortunate or something or other. It depends how hard she questions me to what I say, but you’re all right, I’ll not tell her you are with your sweetheart.’ Mary-Anne laughed and dug her blushing sister in the ribs with her elbow. She looked over to the yew tree that stood next to the chapel gates and the young handsome man that stood underneath it, looking down at his shoes. ‘Get gone and enjoy your time together.’
‘Thanks for covering for me, our Mary. You know I’d do the same for you.’ Eliza smiled at her older sister before nearly running to where Tom stood.
Mary-Anne watched as the young man offered his arm to Eliza and noted the huge beam on her face as she turned to mouth her thanks yet again. She’d never seen her sister look so happy and radiant, she thought, as she watched the young couple walk in the direction of Pottery Lane. Another slight twang of jealousy swept over her and she held her head up high as she felt a tear well up in her eye. She checked herself quickly as the voice of her neighbour brought her to her senses.
‘It was a good sermon, don’t you think, Mary-Anne? Full of the warnings of the sins that can tempt us, and the good Lord knows there’s plenty of them.’ Ada Simms gazed up and down at Mary-Anne and looked into the distance as Eliza and her beau disappeared nearly out of sight. ‘Was that your sister I saw, walking out with Tom Thackeray? Now don’t they make a lovely couple? I didn’t realise that they were sweet on each other.’ Ada Simms folded her arms underneath her ample bosom and waited for a response.
‘They are just going for a Sunday stroll together. There’s nothing between them.’ Mary-Anne looked darkly at the local gossip.
‘Sure, isn’t that how it starts? I remember when Bert used to wait for me after chapel, and look at us now. Married for the last thirty years and still as happy as the day we set eyes on one another.’ Ada smiled to herself as she thought back to the years she had spent blissfully married to the man she had met all those years ago.
‘Then, I’m glad for you Mrs Simms. I hope your happiness continues. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to make my way home; Mother will be waiting of me.’ Mary-Anne wanted to walk back home on her own, not wanting to make idle conversation with Ada Simms as they walked the same route.
‘I’ll walk with you. I usually visit Miss Beaumont at Applegarth House, but her arthritis is making her so unagreeable of late. I really don’t know why I should give her the benefit of my company. She can be so sharp in her comments when she is that way inclined.’ Ada set off on her walk down the street, in the direction of their home.
‘Did I not hear that Miss Beaumont has found herself a suitor? Perhaps that is why she is not so agreeable. I’m sure I heard that Mr Todd has been calling on her … perhaps she didn’t want you to find out her secret, hence her sharpness.’ Mary-Anne smiled at the old gossip, knowing full well that her neighbour wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of finding out if what she said was true.
‘The silly old fool. Why would she want a man at her age, especially Mr Todd? He’s no spring chick either. They always say there is no fool like an old fool.’ Ada Simms stopped in her tracks and looked at Mary-Anne. ‘Perhaps I should show a more caring side and visit Miss Beaumont; after all, she is being a martyr to her pain.’ Ada looked up into the face of Mary-Anne and smiled. ‘Forgive me my dear, I’ll let you walk home alone and I’ll just make my way to Applegarth, after all it would not be very Christian of me to neglect a friend in need of friendship.’
‘I quite understand, Mrs Simms. Please wish Miss Beaumont my warmest wishes and that I hope that her arthritis is not too painful.’ Mary-Anne sniggered as she watched as the old busybody turn around on herself and made her way past the chapel to the track that led to Applegarth House. She’d fallen for her tasty morsel of gossip, hook, line and sinker, just as she knew she would.
Eliza shivered as the cold wind bit through her best coat.
‘Are you cold?’ Tom pulled her close to him.
‘Just a little. It’s my own fault, I should have put my shawl on but I wanted to look my best for you.’ Eliza linked her arm tight into his as they stood on the bridge overlooking the Midland railway.
‘Aye, it’s that wind is biting. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea I’ve had to walk out on a grey November morning, but I couldn’t wait to ask you any longer.’ Tom looked at the lass he’d adored from afar for so long and couldn’t believe that she was there, standing arm in arm with him. ‘Besides, it’ll be Christmas before long and I wanted you to know how I felt about you before the other fellas made their advances to you at the Christmas dances that you are sure to be attending.’ Tom blushed as she turned and looked at him.
‘I wouldn’t have wanted for you to wait another minute, Tom. I don’t mind that it’s cold, honestly; I’m glad that you asked me to walk with you this morning. Anyway, tell me, how do you feel about me, Tom Thackeray?’ Eliza hugged Tom’s arm and grinned up at the bashful lad.
Tom went red, and spluttered. ‘I think you are so bonny, Eliza, and have done for some time. I didn’t think you’d have even read my letter, let alone be waiting of me this morning. I didn’t even think you knew I existed.’
‘Now you are being silly. You must have noticed me looking at you when I come to the colliery on errands for my father,’ Eliza confessed. ‘I always accepted them, for the chance that I may catch a glimpse of you while there.’
‘You did! It’s a wonder you could make me out under all the muck and coal dust. It’s a mucky job being a miner, but you’ll know that with your father being a miner.’ Tom looked at Eliza and saw her shivering.
‘He’s not my father, he’s m
y stepfather,’ Eliza quickly said. ‘We are not related, nor do I want to be.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Tom bowed his head. ‘You obviously don’t get on with one another.’
‘No, we don’t. I miss my father, he was twice the man Bill Parker is. Even my mother will say that most days, she knows she made a bad decision the day she got re-married to him.’ Eliza rubbed her hands together to warm them and looked at Tom.
‘You’re freezing. Come on, we’ll walk to the end of your lane and get you home. My mother will be wanting to serve Sunday dinner anyway. Heaven knows how much moaning she will do if I’m later than one o’clock.’ Tom sighed and put his arm around Eliza as they turned from the top of the railway bridge down into Woodlesford.
‘You are like me, aren’t you? You’ve no father?’ She walked quickly by the side of Tom trying to keep warm.
‘Aye, I lost my father last year when there was an explosion at the Midland Pit. It was a bad day, my mother’s never got over it.’ Tom glanced at Eliza. ‘Trouble is, she depends on me too much and thinks I should be by her side when I’m not at work.’
‘It’s early days yet. Your father hasn’t been dead long, it’ll take her time to adjust. She’s lucky she’s got you. Our mother tried to make a living after father died, but struggled, and then when Bill turned up one day he was the easiest way out of our situation, or so she thought. I can’t blame her for marrying him, but she could have done a lot better, of that I’m sure.’ Eliza and Tom stopped walking at the bottom of Pit Lane and looked at one another.
‘Can I walk you to your door?’ Tom asked.
Eliza looked up at Tom. ‘My mother and Bill don’t know I’m with you, so we had better say our goodbyes here.’
‘All right, I understand. Can we meet again, same place next week?’ Tom looked into the blue eyes of Eliza and hoped that the answer would be yes.
‘I’d like that. And next time I’ll wear something warmer instead of my pride getting in the way.’ Eliza grinned.
‘In my eyes you’d look beautiful in anything that you wear,’ Tom said as she walked away from him. ‘See you next week!’ he shouted as he watched her set off to run to the small terrace of miner’s cottages at the bottom of Pit Lane. ‘You don’t need fine clothes to impress me, my Eliza,’ he whispered as she turned to wave him goodbye.
‘Mother, Mother, where are you?’ Mary-Anne yelled, as she rescued the pan of burning brisket from the fire. The pan had filled the kitchen with the smell of burning meat and rancid smoke, which caught in the back of Mary-Anne’s throat as she opened the back door to let the smoke drift out into the sharp midday air. She coughed and spluttered and caught her breath as she placed the boiling hot pan down onto the frosted cobbles of the backyard before going back into the kitchen. ‘Mother, are you up there?’ Mary-Anne stood at the bottom of the stairs and called up them, deciding to climb up just in case her mother was lying ill on her bed. But there was not a sign of her as she searched in each room.
Mary-Anne stood with her hands on her hips and glanced out of her parents’ bedroom window, which overlooked the yard and the earth closet at the end of the yard, wondering why the house was empty and where her mother could be. It was then she noticed the redness of the heavy white frost next to the earth closet door. It looked like blood seeping into the frost, creeping across the yard with long fingers. ‘Mother!’ she yelled and ran with skirts pulled up down the stairs into the cold frosty air to open the earth closet’s door to discover her mother still bent double, soaked in blood, dead.
‘No, no, you can’t be!’ She bent down in the pool of blood that surrounded her and cradled her mother’s head. ‘What have you done, what has become of you?’ Mary-Anne sobbed. ‘Don’t leave me, please don’t leave us. Both Eliza and I need you.’ She hugged the blonde-haired head of her mother and smelt the familiar scent of her mother’s clothes. She looked around at the blood surrounding them both and she knew her mother had gone and that no amount of pleading and begging would bring her back to life. She was old enough to know what had happened – her mother was dead along with the sister or brother she had been carrying who was now lying in the excrement below.
She sobbed and cried in the empty cold of the earth closet and wished she was like the dead baby, unknowing and untouched by the harsh world around them. Life was going to be harder now, more than ever without a mother to protect them. Her and Eliza had nobody except Bill Parker and now her mother had gone he was not beholden to them. Her thoughts flit to Eliza and how happy she had looked linking arms with Tom Thackeray. It was a day she should have filled with good memories; now it would be one of the worst days of her life. Poor Eliza … what news to come home to. How was she going to tell her? Mary-Anne let out another sob as she realised that her loving mother had gone forever and that their lives would never be the same. God have mercy on their souls.
Six
‘Bloody hypocrite,’ Bill Parker mumbled as he stood at his wife’s graveside.
‘Now, Bill, that’s no way to talk about the Minister Hamilton. He was only giving you some advice in your grief.’ David Bowers patted his work colleague on his back and shook his head as he turned and watched Eliza and Mary-Anne leave their mother’s grave, comforted by their next-door neighbour Mrs Simms.
‘He knows nowt about me; the bugger isn’t even wed. How would he know about my grief? And I’ll handle it in my own way.’ Bill looked down at the coffin of his beloved Sarah and looked up at the gravedigger, who was wanting to fill the grave in before dusk fell on the frosted graveyard. ‘Aye, get her covered, you bugger. She’s not here anymore, anyway. She’ll either be rotting in hell, or up in paradise according to that sanctimonious bugger of a preacher.’ Bill spat out a mouthful of saliva and turned away from the graveside, catching sight of his stepdaughters as they left without letting him know their departure. ‘Aye, you get your arses home as well, because you’ll not have any tears for me,’ Bill shouted after them.
The two girls and Mrs Simms didn’t look back as they left the chapel yard, Bill wasn’t worth wasting their breath on when he was in such a way.
‘Bill, it’s their mother that they’ve just lost. They are as broken-hearted as you, if not more so.’ David was taken aback by his friend’s self-pity in his own grief and wanted to shake him out of the dark hole he had dug himself in since the death of his wife three days ago.
‘And what am I supposed to do with them two?’ Bill growled. ‘They are not my blood and they’ve never taken to me. I never replaced their precious father and am not about to now.’
‘You look after them, Bill. That’s what your Sarah would have wanted. And besides, you need someone to run the house and both of them are fine lasses. They’ll soon be finding husbands of their own and then they’ll be off your hands. And you keep off the drink like the preacher says, because you might not like what we’re saying but it does nowt for you, when you get so drunk.’ David knew Bill would either take his advice in the spirit it was given or take against him too. He hoped it would be the former and that it would make him think.
‘I know you mean well, David, but I’ll not get through the day without a gill or two today. I swear, this’ll be the last time you see me worse for wear in the Boot and Shoe, but today I’ve got to drink to my old lass.’ Bill patted the only friend that had stood by him through thick and thin on the back, and then urged that he walk with him to the Boot and Shoe to help him drown his sorrows. He hoped that the landlord had already set up a gill on the bar for him; his thirst was so bad.
‘Now, will you girls be all right? Your father seemed to be in a bit of state with himself.’ Ada Simms looked at the two girls who were bearing their mother’s death with dignity.
‘He’s not our father!’ Eliza retorted.
‘Aye, I keep forgetting, he was your mother’s second husband, poor soul. You haven’t had blessed lives, have you, you two?’ Ada Simms watched as Mary-Anne stoked the fire and put the kettle on to boil. ‘You’ve lost both you
r parents, through no fault of your own. Life can be cruel sometimes.’
‘We will be fine, thank you, Mrs Simms, we’ve got one another.’ Mary-Anne smiled at her younger sister. ‘Thank you for being there for us today, your presence gave us strength.’
‘Aye, well, she wasn’t a bad woman, your mother. If I’d only known she was losing a baby out there in the backyard I’d have been there for her. I feel so guilty when I think of her and what there was of a baby lying dead in the earth closet. Thank heavens Bill had it in his heart to bury it with her. The poor woman.’ Ada drew her lace-trimmed handkerchief from up her sleeve and patted her dampening eyes. ‘And you poor dears then had to see to her and tend to her until he came home after checking his snares. You poor, poor dears.’
Mary-Anne looked at her younger sister who sat shaking in the chair next to the fire, clearly remembering how her day had turned from being full of joy into the worst of her life. ‘We’ll have to bear what life has thrown at us, Mrs Simms. Now, if you don’t mind, Eliza and myself need some time on our own to gather our thoughts; it’s been a hard few days.’ Mary-Anne walked to the hallway and opened the front door to usher their well-intentioned next-door neighbour on her way. The sisters needed time together before their stepfather returned.
‘Well, you know where I am if you need me. Bert and I will help in all that we can. Not that we’re ones for interfering into other people’s lives, but sometimes it is good to know you’ve got someone there for you. If you need them.’ Ada sniffed into her hanky and picked up her black skirts as she made her way down the garden path to her home, looking back at Mary-Anne as she closed the wooden garden gate behind her. ‘Remember, just give a shout if you need anything.’
Mary-Anne closed the front door and sighed as she leaned back against it before going into the kitchen. ‘I thought she was never going to go!’ Mary-Anne looked across at Eliza and watched her as she sniffed hard, stifling another onset of tears.
