A Crimson Dawn (7 page)

‘Is this true, Emmie?' she asked quietly.

Emmie nodded.

Helen said at once, ‘We're more than happy to keep the lass, aren't we, Jonas?'

Jonas grunted in agreement, still dumbfounded by his son's brazen defiance of the doctor.

Nell erupted. ‘But I'm Emmie's family, not you! You can't take her away from me! Tell them, Dr Flora, tell them they can't.'

‘Nell, we can't force Emmie against her will. It wouldn't be right. She'd only run away again,' Flora reasoned.

Nell turned on Emmie in fury. ‘You always want to spoil everything! Don't you want to be with me?'

Emmie said in distress, ‘Aye, I do - but I want to stop here. You could live here too, Nelly.'

‘In this pigsty?' Nell was contemptuous. ‘Not if it was the last place on earth.'

‘That's enough, Nell,' Flora warned. ‘Don't say anything you'll regret later.'

‘Oh, I'll not regret it,' Nell said savagely. ‘She's the one'll regret it. Turning her back on a good home and the only real family she's got.' She glanced around her in contempt. ‘You're not her real family - never will be. You're just common pitmen. Me and Emmie have proper breedin'. Our mother was a proper lady, she was.'

Flora took hold of Nell and steered her to the door. ‘Come on, Nell, we're going.' Pushing her into the street, she turned to the MacRaes. ‘I'm sorry, she's upset. We all are. Please don't take offence.'

‘No, course not,' Helen said quickly. The men were speechless at Nell's outburst.

Flora gave a strained smile. ‘Goodbye, Emmie. I will keep in touch. If there's anything you ever want… You can come and visit Nell whenever you feel like it.'

‘Thank you, Doctor,' Helen answered. ‘Jonas will see you down the hill.'

Jonas was galvanised by his wife's words and followed the doctor outside. The others listened to their footsteps growing more distant, Nell's indignant voice fading.

Emmie peered out of her blanket, wondering what she had done. The boys stared at her, then at each other.

‘By heck,' Sam exclaimed, ‘who would've thought a lass your size could cause as much bother?'

‘Aye,' agreed Rab. ‘Should make you lodge official.'

‘You're one to talk,' snorted his mother.

They laughed in relief. Helen looked at Emmie huddled in her blanket like a defiant imp.

‘Eeh, little pet,' she cried, ‘give me a hug.'

Emmie's skinny arms threw off the blanket and opened wide for Helen's plump embrace. They squeezed each other tight.

Emmie mumbled into her warm, floury hold, ‘I love you, Auntie Helen.'

Helen could not stop the tears that flooded her eyes.

‘I love you an' all, you little troublemaker,' she laughed. ‘Love you like me own daughter.'

Later that night, when Emmie was asleep on her truckle bed and Helen lay contented in her husband's arms, she asked, ‘What's the name of Major Oliphant's son?'

‘Charles,' Jonas yawned. ‘Why?'

‘Strange,' Helen mused, ‘there's a Charles Oliphant works at the Gateshead Settlement. Nell says Dr Jameson's in love with him.'

Jonas snorted. ‘Can't be the same one. The major's son went into the army, as far as I know. No doubt he's abroad somewhere, shooting natives.'

‘No, that was Liddon, the one who died.'

‘Liddon - Charles - what's the difference?'

‘They're not all as bad as the old man,' Helen reproved. ‘Miss Sophie came along to one of our Guild meetin's on women's suffrage.'

‘Spying, no doubt,' Jonas teased.

Helen dug him in the ribs, then snuggled into his hold. Jonas chuckled.

‘Quiet, or you'll wake our lass,' Helen whispered.

They fell silent, listening to Emmie's soft breathing. Helen felt the luckiest woman in the world.

Emmie was late leaving school that chilly spring afternoon. She had stayed on to help Miss Downs prepare lessons for the following day. She loved sharing the teaching, though she knew she was now too old to stay on as a pupil teacher. In a week she would be sixteen. The MacRaes had indulged her long enough; she would have to find a job. She felt a familiar restlessness as she crossed the school yard.

Louise, already seventeen, was courting twenty-year-old Sam MacRae. They had paired off at the Christmas dance at the Co-operative Hall and now Sam called round at the Currans' more often than Emmie did.

‘It won't last,' Jonas predicted. ‘Old man Curran won't want a heathen for a son-in-law.'

But Emmie thought he underestimated both Louise's determination to have Sam, and Sam's ability to charm the dour Currans. Besides, Sam and Tom had been friends since school and Tom welcomed an ally in the house. Mr Curran was not above using his belt on his twenty-year-old son, but Louise said he never beat Tom when Sam was present.

The cottage at China Street had never been quieter. Peter had been found a delivery job with a patient grocer in Blackton and was away long hours. And Rab had gone. Even now, two long years after Rab's disappearance from Crawdene, Emmie's insides clenched in familiar distress. She flinched at the memory of the monumental row Rab had had with Jonas. It started when Rab had led an unofficial strike in protest at a friend nearly drowning in a flooded pit gallery. Oliphant's manager had threatened to evict all the MacRaes.

‘What use is a pit house now?' Rab had accused his father. ‘You'll always be a boss's man as long as your job depends on living in his poxy cottage!'

‘Don't you call me a boss's man.' Jonas had leaped at his son in fury. Helen and Emmie had tried to break up the fight, but only when Emmie received an elbow in the eye did the men stop, appalled at what they had done. Rab blamed himself. He could not bear to look at Emmie's bruised face. Two days later, he disappeared and the threat of eviction was dropped.

Emmie had cried night after night, worried that he had nowhere to go. She felt somehow responsible for his disappearance and refused to be comforted by the others. Helen and Jonas did not speak for days. Only Sam joked about it.

‘The bugger will be starting a revolution wherever he is - and writing songs about it.'

A month later, a letter came from Glasgow. Rab was labouring at the docks and taking night classes in literature and philosophy. He was lodging with three Gaelic-speaking merchant seamen, a boiler-maker's apprentice and an anarchist.

A card came at Christmas from a different address, but no longed-for return to his family. Two years on and only a handful of postcards had come, none of them replying to Emmie's chatty letters; she had to admit that Rab was not coming back.

Rab. Her heart ached a little when she allowed herself to think of him. Vital, talkative Rab, with his curling dark hair and lively eyes, filling the house with singing and laughter, teasing and debate. She knew Helen missed him as much as she did, but Jonas grew short-tempered if they talked about him too much.

‘Your Uncle Jonas can't forgive himself for raising his fists to his own son,' Helen once confided, her plump face scored with sorrow.

As Emmie made her way downhill, she thought she might look for work outside Crawdene. The bank was slippy from a week of heavy rain and she stepped cautiously, clutching her poetry books from Blackton library. Dr Jameson would help her if she asked. Nell was, by all accounts, a proficient book-keeper for the doctor. Yet, Emmie was reticent in asking for help. Nell still accused her of betrayal for not going to live with them after their mother died. They saw each other only when Emmie made the effort to travel into Gateshead. The last time had been to see Nell perform in a musical evening at the Settlement.

Emmie had never seen her sister look so happy, nor realised what a beautiful singing voice she had. The MacRaes had made it a big outing and fussed over Nell, to lessen the strained atmosphere between the two sisters.

‘Next time,' Emmie had enthused to Louise, ‘you and Tom must come too.'

‘If we tell me father it's hymn singing,' Louise had laughed with a roll of her eyes.

Louise would always be more like a sister to her than Nell ever would, Emmie had to admit. They could tell each other anything. Except now there was Sam vying for Louise's attention. Things were changing.

Emmie was so deep in thought and concentrating on avoiding puddles that she did not see the demonstration until she was upon it. Outside the co-operative store, a group of women was standing on a flat cart bedecked in red, white and green bunting, exhorting the crowd.

‘Don't vote for Hauxley, the Liberal! His party pretend to stand for freedom, when all the time they are denying women the right to vote. What equality do we have under the Liberal Government? None! We pay taxes yet have no say in how our taxes are spent.'

‘Why aren't you at home looking after yer bairns?' a man heckled.

‘Sir,' a fresh-faced young woman on the cart rounded on him, ‘you men expect your wives to do the best for their children and families, don't you? Yet they are not consulted over laws that affect those children and families. Is that fair? No, it is not!'

There were murmurs of agreement as Emmie joined the crowd of onlookers.

‘Men!' The older speaker took over again. ‘You have it in your power to send a message to the Government in this by-election. No taxation without representation. Vote for fairness for your wives and daughters. Women! It is your duty to persuade your husbands and fathers to vote against the Liberal. Don't vote for Hauxley next week!'

A few people clapped, others shook their heads. Canvassers began to mingle with the crowd, handing out leaflets before people hurried out of the biting wind. Emmie glanced around to see if Helen was there, but could not see her. She took a leaflet from the smiling young woman in a large-brimmed hat who had dealt with the heckler. Emmie turned for home, so engrossed in reading the leaflet that she quite forgot about going to the store to buy a new exercise book. Halfway up China Street, she remembered.

The sky looked heavy with more rain. The first spatters arrived as she retraced her steps. When she emerged on to the main street again, she heard shouting further up the hill and the thud of feet in mud. A gang of men and young boys were bearing down on her, cursing and screaming.

Emmie stood in stunned confusion. Had something terrible happened at the pit? Then a stone whistled past her head and smacked into the mud just beyond. They were on the attack. Whirling about, Emmie suddenly saw their target. The canvassers had halted halfway up the road, unsure of what to do. Their cart was in the middle of the street, the horse stamping fretfully at the noise of the mob.

‘Run!' Emmie yelled, as a volley of stones and coal rained down the hill.

The women scattered with screams of alarm. The horse reared up and bolted with the cart. Leaflets flew about on the wind and were trampled underfoot by the pursuing miners.

‘Get back in the kitchen, yer harridans!' a man bellowed, barging past Emmie and knocking her books from her hold. ‘We don't want yer here upsettin' ower lasses.'

Emmie was furious as she bent to retrieve her library books. Most of the attackers were young boys, but she was shocked to see some members of the lodge among them, goading them on. She watched horrified as they drove the canvassers down the hill and out of the village. One woman slipped and fell in the mud a few feet away. Emmie recognised the large hat. She dashed forward and yanked her to her feet. A group of youths saw her and doubled back. The woman protestor was cornered.

‘Quick, come with me,' Emmie urged, pulling her into China Street.

They ran up the lane, chased by the boys. Emmie thought she might outrun them, but the young woman was gasping for breath, her mud-drenched skirts weighing her down.

Screwing up her courage, Emmie rounded on her pursuers.

‘Stop right there!' she ordered, shielding the woman. ‘Any one of you touches this lass - you'll have the MacRaes at your door.'

They were crowding about, laughing at her threats.

‘Give her over - we're not after you,' one of them jeered. ‘She needs teaching a lesson.'

Emmie gripped the woman tighter, hearing her whimper.

‘You should be ashamed of yourselves,' she answered. ‘Big, strong lads picking a fight with one lass. Maybes you should listen to what she has to say before you kick her down the street like a dog. Would you tret your mams like that - or your sisters?'

The faces in front of her seemed less certain. Abruptly, a voice from the back of the gang called out, ‘Haway, lads, that's enough. Leave the lasses be.'

Emmie felt her insides jolt. She knew the voice.

‘Tom Curran?' she cried, as Tom pushed his way through. She stared into his slim good-looking face. ‘I never thought you'd be part of this shameful business.'

Tom came close and whispered, ‘Get her inside.' Immediately, he turned and began cajoling the others to leave.

‘You've seen them off, that's all you were asked to do. Beatin' up lasses isn't part of it. Haway, scarper.'

As Tom herded the boys away, Emmie gripped the woman tight and helped her along to number eighteen. They stumbled in at the door, Emmie calling for Helen to help. Within minutes they had the woman out of her sodden dress and wrapped in blankets by the fire, sipping piping-hot tea. Fair bedraggled hair hung down over her flushed pretty face. Her dark blue eyes looked around her, wide and curious. When she spoke, it was with an upper-class drawl that Emmie had only heard on the hustings or from visiting preachers.

‘It's so kind of you to help me.' She smiled for the first time. ‘Those awful boys - I thought—'

‘They're more bark than bite,' Helen reassured.

‘They were hoying stones,' Emmie pointed out. ‘And that Tom Curran was one of them. If his da only knew.'