The Miner’s Girl (7 page)

‘We'll manage,' Merry said tightly.

‘Aye, we will an' all,' said Ben.

After the man had gone away, the two looked at each other.

‘I can get work,' said Ben.

‘No you can't,' Merry replied. ‘Anyway, you can go to school and still look after the gardens, can't you? Maybe you'll get some more work with Mr Parkin. You can snag turnips and that. When you're not at school that is. Granma wanted you to finish school, Ben, you know that. Now I have to go back to work.'

As Merry walked the three miles into town her thoughts were at last coming out of the turmoil they had been in since Peggy died. She had to plan to get through the winter. She calculated that they would have about twelve 8-stone bags of potatoes when they had completed the harvest and they would be able to keep them
dry and free from frost in the upstairs room of the house next door.

If Ben worked for Mr Parkin on Saturdays in return for turnips and eggs, they would manage, for she could buy off-cuts of meat at the market on Saturdays from her own wages. The best time was after dark when the butchers wanted to get rid of what they had left and go home. And when the fishwives came in from Shields they could often get fish for next to nothing – caller herring or black-skinned cod that no one else wanted because the fish was older and more coarse. Granma had taught her how to bake the cod in the oven, though, slowly so as to make it tender.

Granma. She hadn't thought of her granma for ten minutes and now the memory of the old woman had popped into her mind. It took her by surprise and the lump in her throat threatened to explode. She blinked her eyes rapidly and pressed on her top lip to stop herself crying. Crying did no good, she just had to get on with things.

Doctor Gallagher was in the entrance of the workhouse when Merry walked in, standing talking to Matron who was also the workhouse mistress.

‘You should come in by the back door, Trent,' Matron said sharply.

‘Sorry Matron,' Merry mumbled.

‘How is your grandmother, Miss Trent?' the doctor asked and Matron looked disapproving. It was not for a doctor to make conversation with the domestic staff; she would have to have a quiet word with him about it.

The question took Merry by surprise, even shock. She looked properly at him. ‘Granma died, Doctor,' she said and, her guard down, her eyes filled with tears.

‘I'm sorry,' said Tom and she was further upset by the kindness in his blue eyes.

‘Yes, well,' said Matron, ‘go to your work now or you will be late.' Merry turned blindly away and hurried off to the ward on Block 3 where the infirm and bedridden were housed.

‘It's no good letting these girls get too emotional,' said Matron. She was tired having been got out of bed by the night nurse an hour earlier than usual because one of the patients who was suspected of having typhoid had died. As it happened Dr Gallagher had called in to see the old man in any case and he issued the death certificate. Though what he was doing there at this godforsaken hour of the morning Matron couldn't think. She disapproved of it though. There was no real need for doctors to be cluttering up the wards except at the appointed times for the rounds.

Tom Gallagher went out in to the cold morning air to where his horse and trap were tethered close by. At the
other end of the site he could hear the noises made as the men from the workhouse began their stone-breaking work in the stone yard. He felt thoroughly depressed.

That little girl, for she was no more than that, had looked so woebegone. She was so pale and her dark eyes looked enormous, the lids pink where she had wept. Her dark hair was drawn back unbecomingly under the enormous cap the hospital made her wear. In fact he wouldn't have recognised that it was dark but for the small lock that had escaped onto her neck at the back. He wondered if she was left on her own now in that tumbledown huddle of miners' hovels. God help her if she was.

Tom climbed onto the seat of the trap and clicked at the horse to get him going. His thoughts wandered back to the old man he had just seen die. His hands had been gnarled and marked with blue scars from the coal, his lips drawn back in a permanent half-grin from the effort to breathe after a lifetime breathing in coal dust. And he had ended a pauper.

The horse took little direction for he knew his own way home. They turned into the entrance of Tom's father's house and Tom drove round the back to the stable.

It was still very early, only just breakfast time so he washed his hands in the downstairs cloakroom which had a newly installed washbasin decorated with green
ivy leaves, and even hot water from the copper boiler in the kitchen. Oh yes, he thought, the agent's house has all the latest conveniences, even a water closet on the upstairs landing.

‘Good morning. What on earth were you doing out at this time of the morning?' asked Miles as Tom went into the dining room and began to help himself from the dishes of bacon and eggs kept hot over a candle burner. Tom filled his plate and sat down at the table before replying.

‘I wanted to see an old man at the hospital. He was pretty poorly last night.'

‘How was he?' asked Miles. At least it was a way of making conversation with Tom, he thought, though he wasn't the least interested in how a pauper in the workhouse infirmary was. Sometimes Tom seemed like a stranger, and he never knew what to say to him.

In fact Miles strongly disapproved of Tom attending the paupers. Goodness knows what he might pick up. He buttered a piece of toast and added marmalade before taking a bite.

‘He's dead.'

Miles shrugged. ‘Nothing contagious, I hope?' Old men who were paupers usually died.

Tom almost said it was indeed contagious, typhoid perhaps, or cholera. But he didn't. ‘No, not contagious. The miner's disease, emphysema. And poverty of course.'

‘These pitmen rarely save for their old age; they give no thought for tomorrow. All they are interested in is spending their wages in the nearest ale house.'

Tom frowned but said nothing. He would never succeed in changing his father's opinions, he'd tried before. In any case it was true that the ale houses were full on pay nights. He decided to change the subject.

‘That woman who stayed on in the old Jane Pit rows died too. I was surprised she was still living there on her own, but for her granddaughter. I think there is a boy too. He's just a child, still at school.'

Miles, who had been raising his cup to his lips froze, the cup halfway.

‘Father?'

Miles realised Tom was waiting for a comment. ‘Oh, did she? I seem to remember there was one left there.'

‘Yes. I was surprised she was allowed to stay really. She would have been better off in Winton Colliery, surely?'

‘The houses in Winton are needed for the pitmen. Anyway she couldn't afford to pay any rent. It was an act of kindness to allow her to remain at Jane Pit.'

Tom almost choked on his coffee at the idea of his father doing an act of kindness to one of the mining community. Perhaps he wasn't so hard as he had thought.

‘She was a widow. Her husband and son were killed in the disaster at Jane Pit,' said Miles almost as though
he had to explain himself. ‘In any case, it costs nothing. Since then there has been the Employers Liability Act of 1880. Iniquitous it is. Now they're bringing in a Compensation Act. More often than not these miners are killed through their own negligence. And accidents happen in any walk of life.'

Tom stood up abruptly. He was too weary to argue and if he stayed he would be unable to stop himself.

‘I think I'll have a bath and a rest before it's time for my surgery,' he said. He had a practice in Winton village that barely covered expenses which was the reason he was living at his father's house.

‘Why you don't take a practice in the town I don't know,' grumbled his father. ‘I have told you I am willing to help you buy . . .'

But it was too late, Tom was already halfway up the stairs.

Miles was once again riding along the old waggon way that ran from Winton Colliery along by the side of the deserted village and old pit. Though nowadays it was more comfortable for him to take the tub trap when he went round the collieries in his charge, a horse could go places a trap could not. Not that he had intended to go to Old Pit for really he was on his way to Eden Hope, and usually he took the newly tarmacked road when he went there.

He was thinking of his future plans. Although he had said nothing as yet to Tom, he had been thinking of remarrying lately. Miss Bertha Porritt was the daughter of a mine owner on the other side of the Wear, a man with three mines all producing good quality coking coal and no sons to inherit. She was a bit long in the tooth perhaps but what did that matter? With his knowledge of the coal trade and the burgeoning iron trade in
Middlesbrough, he could go a long way. Miles smiled to himself. Her nose was a trifle long too and the only red patch on her face, but who looked at the chimney when you stoked the fire?

Miss Bertha had looked sideways at him the last time he'd been invited to dine with her father. And he could swear that her pale eyes had softened when she looked at him.

It was just a notion, he told himself when he took the branch of the waggon way that led to Old Pit. After his talk with Tom that morning he might as well see for himself if there was anything left to be salvaged from the houses. The woman had gone now so he didn't have to avoid the deserted village. And the owners, despite their wealth, liked to think he was being frugal.

Marcus, the second horse he had had of that name, slowed to a walk and picked his way carefully between the sleepers. Most of the rails had been taken up and those left were rusted and broken. Grass and weeds grew between the sleepers, hiding places where large stones lay or there were unexpected hollows in the track. Miles moved his horse to the narrow path by the side, barely discernible for dead bracken and weeds.

There was still evidence of Old Pit yard, he noticed as he passed it. The shaft, capped with strong wooden beams, the engine house, roofless and gutted and with jagged pieces of iron jutting from the wall where the
staircase had once been. Fancifully it reminded him of Barnard Castle which had suffered a similar fate after the wars of the Roses.

The houses still stood in two straight lines with a road between leading to the pump. Some of them had had the roof slates removed, but most had not. He led Marcus on to the pump, dismounted and drew some water into an old and battered bucket standing there.

The end house was still occupied, he saw. Miles walked over and peered in to the kitchen he remembered so well, though he had tried to put it out of his mind. He had not been along this way for years – thirteen years, in fact. He glanced back at his horse; the animal had finished drinking and was cropping at bits of grass between stones of the road. Miles went around the back of the houses.

The gardens were cultivated, or at least some of them were. Winter cabbage and brussel sprouts stood in rows. Earth had been newly turned in places and there was a boy working in the farthest corner from him. As Miles walked towards him, the boy stood up, breathing heavily and stared at him.

‘What do you want, creeping up on me like that?' he demanded. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow, leaving a trail of brown earth over pale eyebrows. ‘If you're the school inspector, I'm not going back and you can't make me. I'm thirteen and I can leave school if I want to!'

Miles stared at him, unable to believe his eyes. Apart from the ragged clothes and the rough speech of the lad it could have been Tom standing defiantly there. The lad was sturdy, with no sign of the rickets that plagued so many of the miners' children and he was tall and straight.

‘Who the hell are you?' Miles demanded.

‘Who are you?' the lad countered. He stared levelly at Miles with blue eyes exactly the same colour as Tom's. Only his hair was slightly darker, Miles saw now.

‘I'm the mines agent,' said Miles. In spite of his stunned amazement he was pleased to note his tone was normal – with the same tinge of impatient arrogance he always used with these people.

The lad lifted his chin. ‘My name is Benjamin Trent,' he said. ‘I live here with my sister. We're not hurting nothing, mister. My gran got leave to live here, she told us.'

His gran? Could it be that this was not the product of that snow-bound night? But the evidence was there before his eyes, the boy the spitting image of Tom.

‘Where is your gran now?'

Miles couldn't believe that the boy had been here all these years without him finding out. That old witch must have hidden him away. But no, he had spoken of the school inspector so he must have gone to school. How could he ever have bedded that old biddy? If it ever came up no one would ever believe him if he denied fathering
the boy. His thoughts flew round inside his head chaotically and he had to pull himself together.

The wonder was that there hadn't been rumours flying about him and the lad, for these colliery villages were hotbeds of gossip and usually the gossip reached their betters. Oh, he had to get rid of him and as soon as maybe; his luck wouldn't last forever and if it ever got out that would be the end of his dreams of Miss Bertha Porritt.

‘Where is your sister?' Miles demanded. Vaguely he remembered a baby crying, watching him over a fence of chairs that night.

‘She's at work, mister. Where else would she be at this time of day?'

Ben was uncomfortable and beginning to worry. This fella was a gent and the mines agent an' all. He was a bit hazy about what an agent did or what sort of power he had but Ben could guess it was a pretty strong sort. What would Merry and he do if they were thrown out of the village?

‘You're on your own?'

Ben took a step back ready to run if need be – he didn't like the look in this man's eye. ‘She'll be back any time now,' he said. ‘It's her half day.'