The Miner’s Girl (10 page)

‘I have work to do, sir, if you don't mind?' he said pointedly to Tom. So Tom and Merry had no option but to go.

Outside on the road of High Bondgate they stood for a moment. Tom took out his pocket watch and noted the time – he was already late for his afternoon surgery.

‘Try not to worry too much, Nurse Trent,' he said. ‘I'm sure Ben will come home soon, you'll see.' Though he was not sure at all, really. ‘I have to go now, to my surgery. I'll give you a lift as far as Winton if you like. You look tired.'

‘Thank you, Doctor,' said Merry, taking her tone from him. ‘You've been very good.'

As the trap turned into the market place Miles was just emerging from the Queen's Head Hotel with a woman, Miss Bertha Porritt. They had been taking tea in the lounge. Miles had met Miss Porritt, by design rather than accident, when she was looking at the latest winter fashions in Jones's Department Store. She had happened to mention on the last occasion he had visited her father that she liked to see what was new in the shops and usually on a Friday afternoon. The town was not so busy on a Friday. Thursday was market day when the town was thronged with people from the pit villages and the farming villages up the dale, all after bargains. Fridays, the shopkeepers had more time to give to their better clientele, she had informed the two men in her not quite strident tone.

When Miles met her in the street on this particular Friday and offered to give her a cup of reviving tea at the Queen's Head she had agreed instantly.

‘Was that Dr Gallagher?' she asked, now leaning to one side to see round the corner where Tom's trap was disappearing behind the town hall. ‘Surely he has someone in the trap with him?'

Miles smiled though his mood had turned black as thunder. ‘One of his patients I shouldn't wonder. He has a practice in one of the colliery villages. He is a tenderhearted young man. No doubt he will learn as he gets older that it is impossible to help these people. I know, I've tried.'

‘I'm sure you are just as tender hearted as your son, Mr Gallagher,' Miss Porritt gushed. ‘I'm sure you just pretend to be hard, but if there is a truly deserving case or with those close to you . . .' She let the sentence trail off.

‘Do call me Miles, at least when we are alone,' he said. ‘I think we know each other well enough now, don't you?'

‘Indeed, Mr Gallagher – Miles. And you must call me Bertha.'

He was making progress, thought Miles triumphantly. It was all ridiculously easy. Really, she wasn't so ugly. Her eyes were quite fine in fact. He handed Bertha into her carriage, holding her fingers in his a little longer than was strictly necessary.

‘Would it be convenient for me to call on you, Bertha, perhaps on Saturday afternoon? Say three o'clock?'

Bertha couldn't conceal her delight. ‘Of course, Miles, I will look forward to it,' she replied and Miles indicated to her coachman to drive on.

This evening he would have a serious word with Tom, he thought. Anyone could have seen him riding through the town with what looked like a girl who was little more than destitute. He wasn't going to do his reputation any good, let alone his chances of building a practice among the decent people of the district.

Merry ran down the field after leaving Tom, hoping against hope that Ben had come back. When she reached the village she closed her eyes for a minute.

‘Please God,' she prayed. ‘Please God, let Ben be here. I don't care where he's been so long as he's safe home now.'

He was not. The whole place was hushed and silent. Even the goat wasn't bleating but laid on the ground with its legs tucked beneath it as it dozed in the early dusk.

Merry went inside and lit the fire and put the kettle on to boil. She took out the ashes and spread them on the old slag heap, then milked the goat which bleated sleepily in protest. Her milk was diminishing – she should have been taken to the billy before now, she thought. Ben had been going to do that. Oh Ben, what am I going to do? She laid her head against the animal's side and
wept. After a while she dried her eyes and carried the milk into the house. She had not thought to buy in groceries so there was nothing much to eat apart from a heel of stale bread. She warmed milk and added a spoonful of sugar to the bread, pouring the milk over it to make broily.

When it was ready she forced herself to eat quickly, standing up. Then she went out again looking for anything that might give her some idea of where her brother was. The shadows were long across the grass as she climbed the stile into the field. This time she turned left along the old pack-donkey trail. She had the lantern with her so was not too worried about the approaching dark. As she went through the gap into the next field, she saw Mr Parkin herding cows back to the byre, ready for the evening milking. Curious as always the cows paused in their slow walking and turned to look at her. One or two came up to her and gazed straight into her face, their tails swishing from side to side. Merry waved her arms and they moved back warily.

‘Did you find your brother then?' called Mr Parkin and ‘U-urp u-urp!' at the cows as they headed off again up the field.

‘No, Mr Parkin, I didn't,' Merry answered as he came up to her.

‘Now where the heck has the lad got to?' the farmer asked, almost to himself. ‘I'm sure it's not like him.'

‘I don't know, Mr Parkin,' said Merry. ‘I went to the police station in Auckland but they said it was too soon to say he'd gone missing. Anyway, they said, he might have run away to sea, he's old enough.'

‘Tripe and onions!' Mr Parkin said. ‘He's never run away to sea. The lad wanted to be a farmer.' He was walking away as he spoke, for the cows had reached the top end of the field and were waiting to be let through the gate. ‘I'll keep an eye out,' he said over his shoulder. ‘Don't worry too much, lass. I'm sure the lad'll be all right.'

Merry nodded and went on down the lonnen where generations of pack donkeys had carried coal along towards the coast before the days of the steam engine. It was almost dark now and she turned right with some idea of climbing the hill from where she might see something, anything that showed Ben had been this way. There was nothing. Oh, a few hoof marks where a horse had been ridden along, perhaps taking a shortcut across country to one of the villages dotted about the Durham plain.

By the time Merry reached the top it was too dark to see anything; she wasn't thinking straight, she told herself. She stopped beside the old stone-built ventilation shaft and leaned against it to get her breath. Away in front of her she could see the glow of a pithead, she wasn't sure which – Shildon or Winton perhaps. The
sky was clear but for the dark plumes of smoke rising through the glow.

Merry had brought a lucifer to light the lantern and she struck it against the stone now and did so. It cast a circle of light around her, showing the bramble bushes where she had so often picked fruit to make jam. Or sometimes Gran had made a suet crust, rolled out and filled with blackberries and sugar and rolled up in a pudding clout to boil. And it had tasted wonderful with a little goat's milk poured over the top. The purple juice would stain the white milk in little eddies and Ben had loved it. She must pick some late berries and make Ben a suet pudding – Ben. Merry realised her mind was letting go of reality, she was so tired. She must go home to bed, she had to work tomorrow. She set off, and stumbled almost immediately on something, stubbing her toe. Bringing the lantern light to bear on it she saw it was the ladder, the iron ladder that had once run up the side of the ventilation shaft. She looked quickly at the shaft. Had it just happened? Had Ben been climbing the shaft when he should have been digging over the vegetable garden for the winter? Had he fallen in?

Merry leaned against the shaft and shouted. ‘Ben? Ben? Are you in there? Ben?' But there was no sound from the shaft, no human sound at least though there were rustlings and the distant sound of water slapping against stone. She stood the lantern on the ground and
tugged and pulled at the rusty iron ladder until somehow she had it propped up against the stone shaft.

It did not reach to the top. From the top a piece of jagged iron jutted out, barely discernible against the dark of the trees and the sky above. Still, if only she could get nearer the top perhaps she could get a grip on the top stones, she thought. The bottom of the ladder dug into the soft earth at the base, so it should be safe enough. Merry put a foot on the bottom rung and stepped up; the ladder stood without wobbling as she climbed higher.

When she reached the second from last rung she was still about a yard from the top of the shaft. Merry clung with the fingertips of one hand to a stone that stuck out from the rest and with the other hand she clung to the ladder. Leaning her forehead against the stone she called again.

‘Ben, Ben, answer me, Ben, please!'

An owl flew by suddenly, swooping low by her head and hooting as it snatched up something from the grass beneath a bramble bush. It startled her and for a moment she panicked as she felt her balance go, the ladder moving. Then she steadied herself and the ladder held. She looked up and for a moment crazily contemplated climbing the stones, but common sense prevailed. Much better to ask for help in Winton Colliery or Eden Hope.

Gingerly she climbed down and jumped out of the way as the ladder fell to one side once her weight was removed. She had kicked over the lantern as she jumped but luckily the light hadn't gone out. Merry picked it up and set off back to Old Pit. She was tired to the point of exhaustion and had to get some sleep.

As she walked home Merry felt the blackness of despair. If Ben was inside the shaft he could be dead. Or he could be injured and unable to cry out. ‘Or he could not be in the shaft at all,' she said aloud. What was the good of looking on the black side all the time? Pull yourself together, girl. She could almost hear Gran berating her for her attitude. She had to make proper plans, especially if Ben was somewhere in danger. She had to find him and she had to get other people to help her. The folk in Winton Colliery would help her; she knew they would. Tomorrow morning she would go there again and this time she would not be too timid to ask for help. This time she would knock on doors, get off-shift miners to help her. She would do it.

How she was going to manage without going in to work at the hospital she didn't know. But she would manage. By hook or by crook. The most important thing was to find Ben.

Merry got back to Old Pit, undressed and sluiced herself under the pump outside by the light of a half moon that shone fitfully down. She had never washed
there since she was a little child and that was in the hot weather. But the cold water on her skin felt good and afterwards she towelled herself dry and went straight to bed. Her skin tingled and she was warm beneath the bedclothes. Anxious thoughts still filled her mind but nature took over and she slept the night through.

‘I'm afraid we're short staffed today, Doctor Gallagher. The auxiliary has not turned up for duty. I'm beginning to think that Nurse Trent will have to go; we cannot have anyone who is unreliable.'

Tom looked up from scanning the patients' notes at Sister Harrison's stern expression. He had come early to do the rounds because he was bothered about Merry Trent and her brother. He wanted to know if the boy had come home, something he was naturally concerned about.

‘She probably has a good reason for not turning up for work, Sister,' he said. ‘Her young brother has gone missing—'

‘Nothing should come before a nurse's duty,' said Sister. ‘This will be a black mark on her record when the time comes for her to apply for training. She may not be accepted by the Board. After all, the Board will have to
bear most of the costs of her training and if she is unreliable it may be a waste of the ratepayers' money.'

‘Come on, Sister, have a heart,' said Tom. ‘Her brother is her only relative now that her grandmother has gone. Besides, she must have years to go yet before she is old enough to do any formal training.'

Sister Harrison was affronted at the suggestion that she was being heartless. ‘That may be so but my first concern is my patients, Doctor,' she said. ‘Now the cleaning has not been finished and half the beds remain unmade. When Doctors' rounds begin everything has to be ready for the patients' comfort.'

By this Tom was to understand that he too had offended against hospital routine by turning up early for the ward round.

‘Do you wish me to go and come back later, Sister?'

Sister Harrison's starched cap quivered and rustled against her starched collar. ‘Oh no, certainly not, Doctor. It is entirely up to you when you wish to see patients.'

‘Righto, then, let's get on with it,' said Tom, rising to his feet. He picked up the notes and handed them to the sister. ‘The sooner I start the sooner I will get out of your way.'

It was half-past ten before Tom left the hospital. He set off along Cockton Hill, unsure what to do. He didn't have a surgery this evening as it was Saturday and so for
the rest of the day he was free – Dr Macready, whose practice was at Eden Hope, did alternate weekends with him and this weekend it was his turn.

He would go to Old Pit, he decided. After all he could say he was concerned for Ben, as he surely was. First of all he would call in at home to see if there were any messages. Also, he might be in time to have coffee with his father, feeling a little guilty at spending so little time with him.

Miles was in his study when Tom put his head around the door. The coffee tray was on the table and he was sitting in one of the comfortable leather armchairs before the fire smoking his first cigar of the day.

‘Morning, Father,' said Tom. ‘I thought it would be your coffee time. I've told Polly to bring another cup.'

‘Where have you been? Have you been out all night with that . . . that pit lass I saw you riding round Bishop Auckland with yesterday for anyone to see?' Miles growled without any preliminary greeting. He had been mulling the scene from the day before over in his mind and got angrier every time he thought of it. ‘Don't you realise we are known in this town and have a position to keep up?'