The Girl From Pit Lane

by Gracie Hart

  ‘No, not at all. He was a true gentleman, not at all like his father.’ Mary-Anne smiled.

  ‘Oh, lawks, don’t you look like that. Remember your place, Mary-Anne. His intentions are not going to be honest, are they? He’ll wed one of those simpering girls but he won’t be adverse to getting you into bed. Forget him, Mary-Anne, and remember what his father did to you. He can’t be all good with a father like that; just enjoy his money and forget about him.’ Eliza warned.

  ‘I’ll try but he is a gentleman no matter what you say.’

  ‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing, more like. And I bet he only took you to tea to cause trouble … I’m willing to bet our two guineas he’s a wrong ’un. Stick to John Vasey, he’s more our kind.’ Eliza tutted.

  ‘You are only jealous.’ Mary-Anne laughed.

  ‘Jealous that you’ve got a full belly of tea and cake and I’m left with mutton stew and nothing to smile about except work,’ Eliza grumbled.

  Nineteen

  Edmund Ellershaw looked up at the most hated man in his employ. ‘Well, who owes me this month? I suppose those hussies at Pit Lane haven’t managed the rent.’ Edmund put his pen down and waited for an answer.

  ‘Aye, they have,’ replied Fred Bailey, Edmund Ellershaw’s tallyman. ‘In fact the eldest one was waiting of me, and she asked me to give you this note.’ His hand shook as he passed it across the desk to his employer. He might be fearsome in extracting money from Ellershaw’s tenants but in the presence of his employer he was a coward. Besides, a note from a tenant usually meant one of two things: they were either begging for clemency for paying the next month’s rent or they were leaving. Either way, Edmund Ellershaw would lose his temper. However, Mary-Anne had handed him this note after paying the rent and with a look of satisfaction on her face that Fred knew did not bode well. He had been sorely tempted to open it and read the contents, especially in view of the gossip about the past history of her late mother and his employer but he’d thought better of it when he noticed it was in a sealed envelope, intent on keeping its contents private.

  ‘Go on, bugger off. You’ve done your job. Take your pay and leave me be.’ Edmund passed over the few coppers he paid the quivering man, and looked at the note in his hands, waiting until Fred had left his office to open it.

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ Fred tugged on his forelock and was thankful to leave the office before the letter was read.

  Edmund tore open the envelope and retrieved the note:

  By now you will have realised that we have managed to pay this month’s rent. So our ‘understanding’ has come to an end. As long as I have breath in my body, you will never lay another finger on me again. I’ve also sent the coal you supplied back today. The least I have to do with you the better and unlike my mother I will not be used or belittled by you.

  Edmund screwed the note up and swore. Where the hell had the bitch got the money to pay her rent from? He had enjoyed his romp with such a young body under him and looked forward to her next visit where she traded her dignity in lieu of the rent. The bitch had even returned the coal that he’d sent, so she must be sure of her money. Her mother had been easy prey, eager to do anything to keep a roof over the family home and her useless husband in work, but her daughter was stronger willed and headstrong, more of a challenge.

  He threw the note and envelope into his waste bin and swore again, and then looked at his rent book. He’d raise the rent on number one Pit Lane. Let’s see how she’d like that and see how long she could keep paying her rent then. An extra penny a week would make her worry. Stupid bitch, did she not know he always got what he wanted? Edmund grinned as he altered his rent book; he’d send Fred back with a note of his own about the rent increase and then Mary-Anne would be back in his bed next month, come hell or high water.

  ‘This coal burns better than the last lot we had.’ Eliza poked the fire and sat back taking in the warmth of the fire.

  ‘Yes, and it was cheaper.’ Mary-Anne sat reading the paper next to the fire and answered Eliza in a bright voice. ‘From what I’ve heard, the new manager at the Nibble and Clink pit is more of a gentleman than Edmund Ellershaw will ever be. His foreman told me a lot of people are turning to him for their coal because they dislike Ellershaw’s ways; seemingly he does have a bad reputation.’

  ‘Bill used to be always playing hell about the Rose, but I must admit I never took no notice of his rantings. If it wasn’t the Rose he was moaning about it was something else, but it would seem he was right to moan about Ellershaw. I don’t know why he didn’t go and work for the Nibble and Clink; it’s not that far away, just between the canal and railway line. In fact, I think it is even closer than the Rose as the crow flies.’ Eliza looked across at her sister.

  ‘Yes, but they don’t pay as well, I don’t think, and the previous manger didn’t look after the safety side. Can’t you remember when the pit’s cage was brought up too fast, hitting the headstock and making it plummet nearly two hundred yards below, killing the two men within it?’

  ‘I remember, the incident nearly caused a riot.’ Mary-Anne looked up from her newspaper. ‘Bill hadn’t a good word for anyone who worked there. The inquest that followed said that the winding engine man had been drunk and he’d previously been in prison for manslaughter for a similar incident at Glasshoughton. I remember reading it in this very paper and that’s why he never worked there.’ Mary-Anne put her paper down and looked into the fire.

  ‘Well, Bill was often drunk when he went to work. In fact there would be more days when he was drunk than sober. I don’t know how he managed to keep his job.’ Eliza sighed. ‘Our poor mother, what she had to put up with.’

  ‘What do you mean, Eliza?’ Mary-Anne asked her sharply, full of panic. She had taken care to keep her knowledge of the arrangement between her mother and Edmund Ellershaw to herself but could someone else have let something slip?

  ‘Just that Bill was never good with her once he’d had a drink. She must have feared for her life sometimes and always worried that he might come home without a job. Bill couldn’t have been that good at his job, else Edmund Ellershaw would have sacked him, and a drunk man is no good down the pit.’

  ‘Just be thankful he didn’t, else we would have been out on the streets and Bill wouldn’t have cared. I sometimes think he would have been glad to see our mother and us put into the workhouse, once he’d worked his way through Father’s savings.’ Mary-Anne cast her mind back to the times when they were younger when she and Eliza had laid in their beds listening to Bill ranting and raving in drink and threatening to throw them all out on the street. If Eliza ever knew the sacrifice that their mother had made to keep her husband in work and a roof over their heads, she’d do more than curse Bill; she would probably kill him if she could find him.

  ‘Those days are behind us now; we are women of means. Isn’t it good to be able to sit back and enjoy the warmth with a full stomach and our rent paid? I hope that we will always be able to do this.’ Eliza curled her toes around the fender, bathing in the warmth.

  ‘Yes, so do I, but it won’t always be like this, we won’t always be together. Tom, I’m sure, will eventually ask you for your hand, don’t think I haven’t noticed the correspondence that’s been going on between you both. The poor devil must know his way to this door blindfolded. When are you to see him next? I can make myself scarce if you want the house to yourselves, or perhaps you would be better with a chaperone, to keep an eye on you both.’ Mary-Anne tried to keep her face straight as Eliza looked horrified.

  ‘He’s coming to see me on Friday evening; his mother goes and plays cards with the next-door neighbour on a Friday. So he’s going to sneak out for an hour. Can you leave us on our own or at least stay in here while I entertain in the parlour?’ Eliza pleaded with her sister.

  ‘Entertain in the parlour! That sounds saucy, I think I’d better sit between you both like a gooseberry,’ Mary-Anne teased.

  ‘Oh, Mary-Anne don’t be a spoilsport, I wo
uldn’t do that to you. It’s bad enough that his mother rules his life without you ruling mine. I don’t know why she dislikes me so much, she’s never even met me.’ Eliza sighed.

  ‘I’m only having you on. You do what you want with Tom the mummy’s boy. If he loves you he will have to stand up to his mother sometime; either that or he’ll make you wait until you are an old maid and she snuffs it.’ Mary-Anne yawned and folded her newspaper away. ‘I’ll stay in the kitchen on Friday if you stay out of the way next time John Vasey visits. Because I can’t see William Ellershaw knocking on our door any time soon. And to be honest the more I think about him, the more I think about what his father did so I don’t even want to see him again.’

  ‘It would be nice to have a choice?’ Eliza whispered.

  ‘It’s not much of a choice, though, is it?’ Mary-Anne looked across at her sister. ‘A penniless Irishman or the son of my attacker, and I think the latter is only in my dreams, or perhaps I should say my nightmares.’

  ‘Yes, you are better not thinking of him. Let him court the snobby Priscilla and we will move on with our lives. You with John Vasey and me with Tom and we will just take the money that Grace Ellershaw and her friends are willing to send our way.’ Eliza looked at the sadness that had suddenly clouded her sister’s face. ‘Things will get better, believe me. They have already.’

  Mary-Anne patted her sister’s shoulder. ‘I know … I’m going to bed. I’m tired. Lock up, and I’ll wind the clock up.’ Mary-Anne kissed her sister gently on the cheek and walked over to the grandfather clock that stood in the hallway. She opened the door on the case and pulled on the chains and weight that operated the cogs that kept the pendulum ticking. She closed the door and looked up at the smiling moon’s face that adorned the clock’s face. It was the one remaining item that reminded her of better times when their father had been alive; everything else had been pawned or sold to keep the wolf from the door. ‘I’m glad you have no worries, because I think mine are just starting,’ she whispered to the moon before she climbed up the stairs to bed. If only life would be straightforward and simple for once.

  ‘Not off home, lad?’ Bert Simms walked up Pit Lane with his young foreman by his side on his way home from his shift.

  ‘No, I’ve had a quick wash at the pit and made myself presentable and now I’m going to call on Eliza, so I’m going the same way as you for a change.’ Tom walked with a swagger in his step.

  ‘Oh, I see. Are you sweet on the lass? Now, wait, when I think about it, my missus told me she’d seen you walking out with her after chapel one time.’ Bert stepped out faster trying to keep up with the eager young man who had his head set on seeing his girl.

  ‘Aye, she’s a grand lass, and so bonny. Don’t you think so, Mr Simms? You must see a bit of her, with living next door?’ Tom turned and looked at the elderly man who he worked with and knew was respected within the colliery.

  ‘Well, we did, but her and the wife fell out a bit over a misunderstanding and she’s had nowt to do with us since that. What does your mother think of you setting your cap at her?’ Bert couldn’t help but ask; he’d heard Tom Thackeray’s mother was set in her ways and wouldn’t like her son walking out with such a lass as Eliza. She’d want more for her only lad.

  ‘She’s not happy, she thinks I could do better for myself. Trouble is she’s listened to the gossip about Eliza’s mother and Mr Ellershaw, and thinks she will be like her. I’ve told her it’s only gossip!’ Tom sighed.

  ‘I don’t know, lad, there’s usually no smoke without fire and you know and I know her mother was as regular as clockwork visiting that office of Ellershaw, you’ll have seen her there more than me what with being the foreman.’ Bert slowed down in his walk and caught his breath.

  ‘She preferred to pay her rent in person, so I was told, rather than have Fred knocking on her door. That’s why Mr Ellershaw always asked me to leave the office when he saw her coming; she had her pride.’ Tom stopped in his tracks and watched as Bert caught his breath.

  ‘Sorry, lad, it’s the coal dust. The bloody stuff’s got on my lungs and it slows me down nowadays. I think we both know it was more than that. Edmund Ellershaw is a bastard and I think it was more a lack of pride that sent Eliza’s mother to see him. Your mother’s right, you could do better. We saw Eliza once saying goodbye to a man at dawn on her doorstep. Now I wouldn’t have said anything to you, but you are worth more than Eliza Wild. Wild by name and wild by nature; neither lasses have many morals from what I can see.’ Bert looked at the deflated youth in front of him, feeling a slight pang of guilt for telling him what he had witnessed, but at the same time the lad had to be saved from a trollop.

  Tom was taken aback by Bert’s news. ‘I think you’ll find you are wrong, Mr Simms. My Eliza would never do that to me. She loves me, she’s said so in her letters. I think your eyes must have deceived you.’

  ‘Well, make of it what you will, lad. All I’m saying is take care when it comes to the Wild lasses, they aren’t as innocent as you think.’ Bert set off on the last few yards home and noted that Tom’s steps next to him were not as fervent and that he had gone quiet. ‘Night, lad, see you in the morning.’ Bert left Tom at the gates to the cottages noticing his hesitation as he opened the garden gate of number one. He felt bad telling the lad the truth, but the going on next door didn’t sit right with him and his Ada. They’d opened their house to them when they were in need and look how they’d been treated, just because his Ada had commented on Eliza’s conduct. Anyway, whatever the lad did, on his own head be it. At least he had been warned.

  Tom hesitated before he knocked on Eliza’s door. Bert Simms had sowed a seed of doubt and it wasn’t the first time Eliza and her sister had been the centre of gossip. It was true that they were tougher than some of the more gentle young women of the district, but that, along with their looks, was the attraction to Tom; he liked their forthright ways.

  He stood for a second and then raised the knocker on the cottage door. He’d choose to forget what the old codger said, everyone knew that his wife was a gossip and as straight-laced as one could be. Eliza was true to him of that he was sure. He loved his Eliza and had done for a long time; no gossip was going to put him off from the girl he eventually wanted to marry.

  His heart raced when he heard the door being opened and all memories of Bert’s conversation was wiped from his head when Eliza welcomed him with a kiss as he passed over the threshold.

  No, the old man was wrong; she loved him only and no amount of gossip was going to part them.

  Twenty

  Mary-Anne was filling the copper boiler with cold water but halfway through had to sit down, resting the empty enamel jug at her feet. She felt faint and sickly and not herself. She breathed in deeply.

  The fire beneath the boiler cracked and sparked; it needed further fuelling with coal. Mary-Anne fought the nausea that was building up in her. She stood up and stepped outside the outhouse and breathed in the fresh spring air, trying to quell her natural instincts of expelling her stomach’s contents. It was to no avail as she retched and was sick down the drain in the yard.

  She wiped her hand across her mouth and breathed in, steadying herself against the red-brick wall of the outhouse and felt like crying. She knew all too well what was wrong with her; she’d seen her mother felled by the same condition and now realised why.

  She was with child, fathered by the bastard Edmund Ellershaw, as nobody else had ever touched her. She shook with fear as she remembered her mother’s death, looking across at the outside privy, understanding now her mother’s desperation. She didn’t want the baby that grew in her belly; it was a mistake she could never love. Life was just beginning to move in the right direction after the year’s heartbreak and now her world had been shattered.

  ‘Mary-Anne, what’s wrong? Are you not well?’ Eliza came out into the backyard after seeing her sister being sick from the kitchen window.

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ Mary-Anne, tears in her eyes
, shook with the upset of her realisation. ‘Really, don’t worry.’ Looking at her sister, she knew Eliza was sure she was lying.

  ‘I don’t think you are. You are never sick.’ Eliza returned with the empty enamel jug and filled it with water from the yards pump, swilling the drain free of the contents of Mary-Anne’s stomach. She then went back, and added a quick shovelful of coal to the kindling sticks under the boiler that was struggling to keep burning. ‘Right, come on, the washing can wait till the water’s hot. Come into the kitchen and talk to me, you’ve looked peaky and have been quiet for a week or two.’ Eliza put her arm around her sister and smiled at her ashen-white sister.

  ‘Eliza, I don’t know what to do. I’ve missed a few of my monthlies and just look at my belly! I’m carrying Edmund Ellershaw’s baby and I don’t want it.’ Mary-Anne broke down in tears as she sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I can’t have the child of a man I don’t love! My life was just beginning to look a bit brighter. I hate the bastard for doing this to me.’ Mary-Anne sobbed.

  Eliza squatted down by the side of her sister and put an arm around her, comforting her by holding her tight and kissing her head. ‘Aye, no more tears, we will sort something out. You might be wrong; you might just be tired. I’m not always regular …’ Eliza tried to give her sister hope, but in truth she knew that Mary-Anne would not be wrong in her diagnosis.

  ‘No, I am expecting. I know I am, it’s no good ignoring it.’ Mary-Anne raised her head and look at her younger sister. ‘What a bloody mess. I’ll go and confront Edmund Ellershaw with my news; he might have the decency to even pay for me someone to get rid of it, if I’m lucky. Because I don’t think I will ever be able to show any love towards this child.’

  ‘Don’t go there, Mary-Anne; you know he’ll only insult you. He’s no heart. Why, he even put our rent up last month because he knew we’d paid it the month before and wanted us to fail so he could either use you or throw us out of our home. He’s a heartless bastard and I hate him.’ Eliza was furious.