The Jarrow Lass (14 page)

They stood in line for tickets, Rose fretting they might be turned away.

‘It's huge, Rose,' William assured her, ‘seats for eleven hundred.'

Soon they were in and clutching a programme; William had splashed out and bought shilling tickets for the dress circle. They were ushered in by the proprietor himself.

Rose gawped in amazement at the vast auditorium below with its tip-up seats and the distant balcony above where the cheapest seats were. There was a hum of excited voices as people settled down and watched the bandsmen setting up their instruments on the raised stage. William helped her off with her cape and Rose glanced around. She recognised one or two shopkeepers, well dressed and middle class. Others were obviously prosperous working class like themselves, the elite of Palmer's workforce.

‘I feel like the aristocracy,' she joked. ‘Tell me what's in the programme.'

But before he could do so, the proprietor came on and began to banter with the audience. People shouted loudly from the balcony above to get on with the entertainment. Soon it started and Rose felt swept along by the music. A military band played rousing martial pieces and a colliery band played jaunty local tunes. A men's choir sang popular songs that brought Rose close to tears, then a comedian came on and had them laughing, provoking ribald exchanges with those in the pit stalls. A singer joined him and they gave a rousing comic duet. The evening finished off with the colliery band playing once more.

Emptying out into the street, Rose and William felt their ears still ringing with the music, and people around them repeated the jokes they had heard inside and laughed again. The couple went home arm in arm, humming the tunes of the evening.

‘It was the best night ever,' Rose declared.

‘We'll go again soon then,' William said, his spirits quite lifted by the experience too. It was so seldom that they had any time off to enjoy together away from the demands of work or daily chores. Tonight they had seen a whole new dazzling world that existed right on their doorstep, a place of music and make-believe hidden behind Jarrow's grimy streets. What harm was there in escaping to its bright, welcoming interior once in a while?

That night, still giddy from the experience, William and Rose made love for the first time in months. Their heads were full of music, their bodies energised rather than achingly tired. They made love with vigour and enthusiasm, their usual shyness at such an act quite dissolved. Afterwards, they lay cradled in each other's arms, wrapped in deep contentment. Rose wondered, before falling asleep, if they had created new life that night. What a passionate and loving baby that would be! A baby made from sweet longing and deep affection, a baby with music in its soul and laughter on its lips.

The following summer, as the roses outside their house burst into bloom, their fourth child was born.

Chapter 12

Lizzie happened to be home visiting from Ravensworth the day the baby bellowed its way into the world. Lizzie had come down with Maggie and her father to visit Rose and the girls. They found Rose pacing the kitchen, unable to get comfortable, while the girls played about on the backdoor step. Margaret leapt up in excitement at their appearance and took charge of the cinder toffee that her Auntie Lizzie held out.

‘The bairn's on its way,' Rose told them matter-of-factly, between grimaces of pain.

‘Get yourself upstairs now,' Lizzie ordered. ‘Maggie, boil up the kettle - and fetch newspaper.'

Old McConnell looked alarmed and raised himself up stiffly from the chair by the hearth. ‘I'll take a walk down to the Queen Victoria . . .'

‘No you won't, Da,' Lizzie told him. ‘You'll stop and give a hand with the bairns while me and Maggie see to our Rose. You can do your celebratin' later.'

He grumbled to St Patrick but sat down again, allowing Sarah to pull herself up on his knobbly legs. ‘Can you manage a boy this time, Rose Ann?' he called after her. ‘I've had a lifetime of being bossed around by women, so I have.'

‘Spoilt rotten, you mean!' Rose managed to shout back, before another spasm seized her.

Her sisters set to work stripping the linen from the bed and lining it with newspaper, while Rose got out of her clothes and put on her nightgown. She felt huge with this baby, like an overgrown marrow that was ready to burst. With the others she had felt nauseous and tired, but with this one she was always ravenous. For months she had had the appetite of someone who worked in the fields and she had satisfied her cravings with anything sweet: mounds of bread and jam, scones and cakes. There was plenty of work at the mill, William was bringing home a steady wage and they had fed well all year. The girls were thriving, William was happy and Rose felt luxuriantly fertile when he touched her full body and complimented her on her plumpness. Now this greedy baby, whom she felt sure must be a boy, was ready to leave the abundance of her belly.

The first part of labour came swiftly and her waters broke, but then the time dragged on and nothing happened. Rose grew weary and fretful, weighted to the bed like a sack of stones. She had expected this one to come quickly, with the same ease as her pregnancy, but something held it back.

‘Maybe we should send for the midwife,' Lizzie murmured to Maggie. ‘She's all done in.'

Maggie agreed - ‘I'll fetch Mrs Kennedy' - and went hurrying off for help. A while later she returned with Mrs McMullen, with a shrug at her sisters. ‘Danny's mam wasn't there.'

‘I said I'd come as soon as I heard,' Mrs McMullen said, bustling to the bedside. ‘Now what's the problem, Rose Ann? Can't be anything I haven't seen already. Mary Mother! You look like you've got room for three or four in there! I was never that big, even with the triplets.'

Rose looked at John's mother in alarm. ‘Don't say that,' she panted, sinking back on the bolster in exhaustion. She found the woman's presence unsettling. Despite her good intentions, Rose was hardly in touch with her any more, except to nod to or exchange a brief word outside church after Mass. She was a reminder of the past, of hawking vegetables in the bitter cold, of a time when all her clothes were second- or third-hand and when poverty had been an ever-present threat. She was aware of the woman's shabby clothes and grimy hands, the smell of the lanes about her. She stirred up uncomfortable memories of John, mixed feelings that made Rose sweat even harder in the stuffy bedroom.

She tensed as Mrs McMullen prodded her belly and felt for the unborn baby. ‘It's breech,' she announced. ‘Baby's trying to come out feet first, just like my John. It'll be awkward like him, so it will.'

The sisters stared at her. ‘So what do we do? Call for the doctor?'

‘Not a bit of it,' Mrs McMullen dismissed the idea. ‘I can manage fine. It just needs a bit of a sharp talking to. Now help me get Rose Ann propped up more - the baby won't come if she's lying down like the sleeping.'

Rose had no idea how long she crouched there on the bed, supported by her sisters and cajoled by Mrs McMullen into pushing her baby out. She roared with the pain and swore to the Virgin she would have no more children. No sooner had Maggie wiped her face than her eyes were once more blinded with salty sweat. It poured down her body like a stream. She screwed her eyes shut and surrendered to the red-hot hammers that thumped in her head, the pistons of pain that throbbed through her body. She vaguely remembered hearing Margaret and Elizabeth wailing at the door to be let in and Maggie leaving her side to go and placate them.

After each attempt to push she sank back weaker than before.

‘I'm going to die!' she sobbed in despair. She could see the look of fear on Lizzie's face.

‘Hush now,' Mrs McMullen said briskly. ‘There'll be no one dying here today. I can see it coming - just another push so I can get a hold of somethin'.' But even she began to pray urgently under her breath to a litany of saints, and Rose whimpered in fright.

‘Haway, Rose!' Lizzie rallied. ‘Try again!' She propped her up with strong arms and gripped her hand in encouragement.

Rose gathered every ounce of strength left to her and pushed for her life.

‘Here come the feet!' Mrs McMullen cried. She yanked at them so hard that Rose screamed at the searing pain. ‘One more time, Rose Ann,' she shouted. ‘You push and I pull!'

Together they made so much noise they startled a horse in the street below. It reared up whinnying, then bolted, shedding from its wagon a sack of flour that burst on the cobbles. Children ran to play with it and chuck handfuls at each other. The flour rose on the breeze like a sandstorm settling on windowsills and wafting into open doors.

By the time Rose's baby was out, she could taste flour on her parched lips. She sank back, utterly spent. She did not even have the breath to ask if the baby lived. But a moment later her worry was dispelled by a lusty cry.

‘St Theresa be praised!' Mrs McMullen beamed in relief.

Lizzie peered eagerly for a look. ‘It's another lass,' she laughed in amazement. ‘By heck, it's a strappin' one, our Rose!'

Rose felt a wave of disappointment. She could not summon the enthusiasm to open her eyes and look at her fourth daughter. How she had longed for it to be a son for William. They had been so certain that it would be that they had not even chosen a girl's name.

‘Haway, Rose,' Lizzie chided, ‘look at your new bairn. She's got dark hair like you. She'll be the bonniest of them all.' The baby howled louder as if trying to gain its mother's attention, but Rose felt pinned to the bed by exhaustion and disappointment.

‘Leave her be,' Mrs McMullen said gently, ‘she needs to sleep. We'll go and show off the bairn to her big sisters.'

They left her alone. Rose could hear the buzz of excited chatter downstairs and the clamour of the children to see the new baby. The fetid room smelt of childbirth and flour and horse dung from the street below. She was hot and thirsty, but past caring of her discomfort. Within minutes she was wrapped in a blissful sleep.

Rose took several weeks to recover from the birth and Maggie came down frequently to help with the children. They paid for a girl called Bella to come in and do the washing and ironing and black lead the range. But Rose's initial rejection of the baby was short-lived. She found herself enjoying the enforced rest upstairs, feeding and cuddling her newborn. William chose to name her Catherine, but somehow the name was too formal for the noisy, bright-eyed infant, and from the first she was known as Kate.

‘She's got your bonny dark hair,' William said, rocking the babe proudly in his arms.

‘She's got your lusty lungs, but!' Rose laughed. ‘We'll have another singer in the family.' Her mind went back to their evening of passion after the Albert Hall concert when she was certain Kate had been conceived. Looking at the pair of them she felt a surge of affection. When William held Kate up to his face to be kissed, she saw the same oval shape in miniature, the same fairness of skin as his. This daughter had taken the best features of them both and melded them into one. Rose prayed she would have William's sweet nature and her own common sense.

By the end of August, Rose was back on her feet again and gaining her strength. Bella continued to come in and help on Mondays with the washing, for Rose found her hands full with the four small girls. She strove hard to keep them clean and neatly turned out, well fed and polite, though often Margaret's bossy manner and Sarah's exuberance would manifest themselves when their Fawcett grandmother came to call. Margaret was strong-willed and intent on organising her sisters into games they did not grasp. But she was already a help to her mother in fetching her sewing box or mixing ingredients or standing on a stool and handing out pegs when Bella hung out the washing.

Elizabeth was milder natured, fair and bashful like her father, slow in picking up speech. She usually did what Margaret commanded without much protest, happy with the odd small bribe of a lump of sugar or being allowed to hold Margaret's doll. Elizabeth treated her baby sisters like dolls, combing Sarah's wavy hair and trying to lift Kate from her crib to hold on her knee.

Their third daughter Sarah had lost her babyish contentment and was forever trying to explore and escape to the dangers of the street. She would climb upstairs and not be able to come down again, or be found under the heavy oak sideboard eating a lump of coal. William had to make a special fireguard to keep her from climbing into the fire or playing with the bellows. Once when Bella dashed out to collect in the washing as rain began to pour, Sarah had staggered halfway down the back lane before they realised she was missing. She was a constant worry to Rose. But Kate at least lay where she was put, gurgling happily at the faces which came to peer at her.

The christening was delayed because St Bede's was being enlarged and new bells installed. In early October the refurbished church was opened again with a special service to bless the bells, and Kate was christened a week later. It was a happy family occasion, but Lizzie came with news from Ravensworth that the Reverend Edward Liddell's health had completely broken down.

‘He was staying with his lordship for a couple of weeks, before harvest,' Lizzie told her. ‘It seemed to upset him - being that close to Jarrow but not allowed to gan back to his work. So he went south again.'

It confirmed rumours locally that his health was in ruins. Rose had been disappointed that the summer trip to Ravensworth had been cancelled, for the Liddells had been absent. Yet there had been a big ceremony in the parish on St Peter's Day, when the Bishop of Durham had come to preach and open a new church in the more run-down area near the river. Mr Liddell had been made an honorary canon of Durham, and Rose had slipped along to watch them coming out of the new St Peter's. Jane, the Liddells' maid, had told her how proud Mrs Liddell was of the rector that day.

The week after Kate's christening, Rose bundled the girls into coats and bonnets, put the younger two in the pram and set off for the rectory to see for herself. Jane let her in.

‘The mistress isn't seeing visitors,' she warned, ‘but I'll tell her you're here with the bairns.'

They were ushered into the drawing room, which was cold and bleak, half the furniture covered in dustsheets. Rose was shocked to see how drawn and pale Mrs Liddell looked, but she rallied at the sight of Rose and the children. She made a fuss of the new baby and told Jane to bring in some tea and biscuits for them all.

‘We're leaving,' she said abruptly, turning to stare out of the soot-speckled window. ‘The rector needs a long period of convalescence.'

‘I'm sorry,' Rose said, trying to stop Sarah from exploring under a dustsheet. The older two fidgeted on the seat beside her. ‘Will you be gone for long?'

When Mrs Liddell turned round her eyes were full of tears. She nodded. ‘We won't be coming back,' she whispered. ‘It's been too much for my husband - he's made himself ill caring for so many.'

Once she started speaking of her anguish she could not stop. ‘He's given his best years to Jarrow - down at the docks before dawn, doling out hot drinks, preaching in the streets, visiting everyone who called for his help no matter what time of day or night! There's hardly a home in the town he hasn't been into to hold the hand of a sick child or a dying man. Never once did he spare himself. He drove himself until he dropped and I couldn't stop him! God forgive me, but sometimes I get really angry and ask, why him? Why did God give him this great challenge and then rob him of his health so he cannot complete it?'

She let out a terrible sob and Rose wanted to go to her, put her arms about her. How lonely she must be to be telling such things to the likes of her. But Rose was inhibited by this woman's social position; it was not for her to make such an impertinent gesture. So she sat and gripped Sarah in her lap, thinking of the rector striding about Jarrow with Verger at his heels, greeting everyone he met by name and with a cheerful smile. It was tragic that such a good man had been beaten down by the very conditions he sought to improve.

‘We're put here to endure,' Rose answered simply, ‘not to ask why.'