The Miner’s Girl (12 page)

‘That man seems to know when I'm having my ten o'clock,' he said. ‘I suppose I'd best go then.' Stuffing the remains of his cake in his mouth he went out to the stable.

Cook compressed her lips. ‘That man will suffer with his innards, having his eating interrupted like that,' she said. She watched him through the window, a stocky little man with rolled-up shirtsleeves and open waistcoat, and only a few wispy hairs on top of his head.

Polly glanced at Edna knowingly. Cook was soft on Johns; it was plain for anyone to see. It was becoming something of a joke in the kitchen.

‘Now then, get on with your work,' Cook said sharply as she caught sight of their smirks. ‘Have you even started on the dining room?'

Miles rode down the field and opened the gate that led onto the old line. Marcus nickered at an old pit pony that had been put out to grass and it trotted over. As he paused to open the gate the two horses rubbed noses; Miles looked at the galloway with disfavour. One of his eyes was milky and blind, the other looked to be going the same way; there were blue-black scars across his face and on his back, no doubt from when he had been working low seams where even his ten hands in height were too big.

Miles pulled his horse away, took him through the gate and closed it after him. He trotted along outside the hedge and the old galloway trotted along inside, whinnying. Lonely no doubt, Miles told himself. He would have to have a word with the manager – better to have
the animal put down than leave him alone in that field in the cold of the coming winter. He would have a word with Mackay, the manager at Winton.

Merry scrubbed away at the bedpans in the sluice. Her fingers were red and raw from the carbolic acid solution she was using to sterilise the enamel pans, and even though she was used to that she winced as the solution got into a keen on her forefinger. She ran the cold tap on it quickly and the sharpness eased.

‘Are you nearly finished, Nurse?'

Sister's voice behind her made Merry jump; she turned off the tap and turned to face Sister Harrison who was standing by the door.

‘Yes, Sister. This is my last one.' She finished the bedpan quickly and put it in the rack.

Sister looked round the sluice for signs of slipshod work she could complain about but she had to admit there were none. The draining boards were scrubbed white and everything was spick and span. Her eye fell on Merry however, and she looked disapproving. The girl's hair was slipping down from under her cap and wisps were hanging on her neck. The heavy rubber apron she was wearing on top of her cotton one was twisted round and damp around the waist where she had leaned over the sinks.

‘Go and tidy yourself up, Nurse,' said Sister. ‘What Matron would think if she saw you like that I don't know.
Be sharp about it too, we're almost ready to go to dinner. You are to go first turn today.' Sister Harrison didn't approve of Nurse Trent, though she had to admit that the girl had improved since she conveyed her doubts to Matron. It had been disappointing that the girl was not dismissed; instead she had received a severe warning from Matron. Perhaps someone had put in a good word for the Trent girl.

Merry gazed into the tiny mirror in the nurses' cloakroom. She had hung the rubber apron in the cupboard in the sluice, rolled down her sleeves and retrieved her stiff cuffs from the drawer. Now she took off her starched, enveloping cap and pinned her hair more securely before replacing it.

There were shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep and worry about the whereabouts of Ben. ‘Where are you, Ben?' she whispered into the mirror, but of course there was no reply, not even in her heart. Sighing she turned for the door; it wouldn't do to keep Sister waiting.

Merry was living in the Workhouse Hospital now. Not in the workhouse wards but in a tiny room of her own that Dr Gallagher had advised her to apply for. It was bare of furniture except for the bed and hooks to hang up her clothes, but at least it was handy for her work, which meant she could spend more time looking for Ben. All her spare time was spent in looking for Ben.
Sometimes Robbie, the joiner's son, helped her. Robbie was sweet on her, she knew, but she hadn't time for anything like that. She was glad of him to help her in her search, though sometimes she felt a pang of conscience that she was using him.

‘I don't care,' Robbie said to her more than once. ‘I've nothing better to do.'

It was a fortnight now since Ben had disappeared. Merry was sure something terrible had happened to him. It must have done or he would have got in touch with her. Why would he run away to sea? Ben had shown no interest in going to sea; not once had he mentioned it. The police in Auckland weren't interested either. She had even gone to the police station in Shildon but they were uninterested too.

‘Lads are always running away from home,' the desk sergeant had said.

‘He wouldn't,' Merry had replied and the desk sergeant had sighed.

‘Right then,' he had said. ‘Let me have his birth certificate and I'll put out a call.'

That was the trouble; she didn't have a birth certificate for Ben; not a birth certificate or a baptismal certificate. She searched Gran's box where she kept all her papers. She found her own certificates, her mother's death certificate and also her father's. ‘Killed in a pit explosion,' it said. ‘Buried in the pit.'

The trouble was, the dates didn't match up. How could Ben be her brother when he was born so long after her mother and father were dead? Merry's thoughts went round and round it in her head whenever she had a moment to herself or lay down in bed to try to catch some sleep; and now, as she walked to the nurses' eating hall. They didn't eat with the paupers, getting marginally better rations.

The trouble was, the Board of Guardians kept back three-quarters of her wages to pay for her room and food, which made her only slightly better off than the paupers. Soon, when she had time, when she could spare an hour from her search for Ben, she would get a room in the town. Then she could save a little on food perhaps, towards a home for herself and Ben when he returned. For he would return, of course he would; the alternative was unthinkable.

She thought of that day when the off-shift men had helped her search for Ben. They had searched everywhere, but there were no more signs of him. Two men had even gone down the disused ventilation shaft again, climbing down from staging platform to staging platform. All rickety, all creaking alarmingly, but they had been tied securely together by a rope anchored at the top. Her heart had been thumping wildly as she waited for their shout, dreading the possibility of them finding Ben's body.

‘Nothing to see down there,' they had reported. ‘Nothing but an almighty stink.'

Tomorrow was the start of Merry's spell of night duty. If she went to bed as soon as she went off duty she could be up at six o'clock in the morning and go over the ground again. Also, she had saved enough money to put an advertisement in The
Northern Echo
asking for any news of Benjamin Trent, aged fourteen years, who was missing from home. And she had a wild hope that he might have been back to Old Pit and left a message for her.

‘Any reward?'

The man behind the desk in the newspaper office looked over his spectacles at Merry. She was silent; for some reason she hadn't thought of the need for a reward.

‘I could just put “reward”,' the man said kindly, seeing her dismay. ‘If there is no answer it won't matter, if there is you will surely find something.'

‘All right then,' said Merry. It was pay day on Friday. She had been going to buy badly needed new ward shoes but if she cut out cardboard soles and put them inside the ones she had, well, perhaps she could make them last for another fortnight. Or maybe she could sell Gran's rocking chair? She didn't really want to but she had left it at Bob Wright's house and worried that it was in their way, though Bob, being a joiner and superior to the miners, had a slightly larger house than they had.

She walked through the woods to Winton Colliery on her way to Old Pit. Going along the road towards the pit yard and waggon way, she almost bumped into Dr Gallagher as he came out of a back street, black bag in hand.

‘Nurse Trent!' he exclaimed. ‘Why aren't you at the hospital?'

‘I start night duty this evening, Doctor,' said Merry. She could feel the colour rising in her cheeks at the unexpected meeting. She must look a mess, having come straight from the ward without bothering to wash or tidy herself. After all, she had thought to spend the day wandering the fields and old workings, just in case some clue to Ben's whereabouts had been overlooked.

Tom gazed at her and smiled, she looked so pretty with her cheeks pink and her eyes bright from the sharpness of the frosty weather. Yet there was still a shadow of unhappiness about her.

‘Have you heard from your brother?' he asked and she bent her head quickly to hide her suddenly damp eyes.

‘No,' she said and pressed her upper lip hard against her teeth to stop the tears coming. She rarely cried but, of course, wouldn't she just make a show of herself now, in front of Dr Gallagher? He would think her weak minded and silly.

Tom looked at her, noticing now how thin she had become. Her hands were red and chapped; seeing him look at them she thrust them into the pockets of her coat, for she had no gloves despite the bitter cold.

‘Come and have a cup of tea in Mary's teashop,' he said. ‘It will warm you and we can have a talk. I've half an hour before surgery. I've been visiting Mrs Green, poor soul. I'm afraid there's little anyone can do for her.' Merry knew Mrs Green, though not very well. She was an old lady who was bedridden and lived with her daughter in the same street as the Wrights.

‘Well?' Tom prompted.

‘Thank you, I will,' said Merry. After all, what was half an hour? She could still go on with her search later and probably be better for the warm spell and the hot drink.

Merry wandered along at the end of the lonnen, the old pack-donkey road now overgrown with straggly bushes and patches of dead nettles. She kept her eyes on the ground searching for what she didn't know – a sign, anything that told her Ben had been that way. It was silly, she knew it was silly but she felt impelled to search and search even though this was ground she had been over before. She even went around bushes to make sure she wasn't missing anything, then climbed over the gate and walked up the hedge at the other side.

She was into the edge of the woods now, the ground cold and dank. Dampness penetrated her old shoes and her toes were numb. A few flakes of snow were falling. Merry looked up at the patch of sky she could see between the trees; the clouds looked heavy with snow. She came to bushes overhanging the barely discernible path and kept in close to them as the snow increased.

Merry was bone weary with lack of sleep and being constantly on the go. She should go back, she knew, but really she wasn't so far from Old Pit – she would be able to shelter in her grandmother's house if need be. The path she was following was probably made by animals – rabbits or a badger – she knew that really. Yet she wandered along it, impelled to go on, further into the wood. She walked further round a bush, seeking for the shelter of a slight overhang of rock behind it.

There was an opening behind the bush. Quite a large opening with rotting wood lying about; wood that must once have been used to bar the entrance. Of course Merry knew what it was immediately: an ancient drift mine, driven into the side of the hill, perhaps centuries ago. There were one or two about, wherever a coal seam came near the surface.

She peered into the gloomy darkness inside as a dreadful fear began to form in her mind – if Ben was in here then he was dead. She found the box of lucifers she kept in her pocket and lit the storm lantern she carried with her. Looking around she saw broken, rotten pit props lying on the ground, a fall of earth and stone blocking the road a few yards in. It didn't look as though it had been disturbed at all.

If she had been less weary, if her thought processes had been working properly she would not have attempted to do what she did. There was a gap near the top of
the tunnel; she could see the blackness of it above the fall of stone. She began to climb up, awkwardly transferring the lantern from one hand to the other as she needed whichever hand to dip into the stones.

Merry reached the top, lay panting for a minute or two, then slithered on her belly and held the lantern over the other side. All the time she feared she would see Ben's body lying there.

He wasn't there, at least not within the radius of her light. Merry relaxed suddenly, feeling as if all the breath had left her body. She closed her eyes tight and lay there while tears forced themselves between her eyelids and ran down her cheeks. After a few more minutes she began to slither back down the stone, not so careful now, simply wanting to get to the bottom and out of the tunnel. She was lucky and reached the ground unhurt but for a few scratches on her hands and legs where her skirt rode up. Shakily she got to her feet then stumbled and fell again, dropping the lantern and saving herself only at the expense of her hands, which thrust into the dirt and gravel and chips of stone.

Her left hand touched cloth and she froze, then scrabbled away at the stone until it was uncovered and she could draw it out. The lantern was still alight and she held the cloth near the flame. It was the patch from Ben's trousers; she was sure it was. Dear God, was Ben under the fall of stone? She took a step back and pain shot
through her ankle – she had twisted it when she fell, she realised. But that was as nothing compared to the fact that she was becoming sure that she had found Ben. She lifted her skirt and tore a strip from her flannel petticoat; with trembling fingers she bound her ankle, cramming her shoe back on afterwards. Then she made her way back to Old Pit and from there on to Winton Colliery. The off-shift men would help her, she knew they would.