Netherwood
Authors: Jane Sanderson
NETHERWOOD
Book 1 in the Netherwood series
Jane Sanderson
Jane Sanderson is a former BBC radio producer, and has used some of her own family history as background for
Netherwood,
her first novel. She is married to author and journalist Brian Viner. They have three children and live in Herefordshire.
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-7481-2941-6
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Jane Sanderson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Reading group discussion points
To Brian,
for his love, faith and friendship.
And in loving memory of Nellie Sanderson
(1901–1999).
W
here better to begin a list of thanks than with my parents, Anne and Bob Sanderson, whose encouragement, interest and fund of books and memories have helped
Netherwood
on its way, from the first sentence to the last.
To my agent, Andrew Gordon, I should like to say thank you for spotting the potential, for taking me on and for guiding me from conception to publication, with patient advice and great good sense. Thanks, too, to Joanne Dickinson at Little, Brown, who fell as completely as I did for Eve, Anna and Henrietta, and the rest of the
Netherwood
cast.
I’ve had expert help from Brian Elliot, a fount of information about Yorkshire and its mining heritage. Andrea Tanner willingly supplied details of Fortnum & Mason, plundering on my behalf the company archives for price lists and products. And Catherine Bailey’s peerless research into the history of the Fitzwilliam family in
Black Diamonds
was an essential source of authentic detail and inspiration. Thank you.
To my beloved husband Brian, thank you for your wit and your wisdom and for sustaining me with frothy coffee, lunch-time platters and an unshakeable belief in my book and me. And to Eleanor, Joe and Jacob, our three wonderful children,
thank you for keeping me so firmly rooted in the realities of life whenever fiction threatened to take over.
Finally, a heartfelt and posthumous thank you to Nellie Sanderson, my grandma, in whose kitchen the seeds of the book were unwittingly planted and whose cooking, like Eve’s, fed the soul as well as the body.
Chapter 1
I
t was morning but the bedroom was still as black as pitch when Eve Williams opened her eyes. Wednesday, she thought. Nearly payday, and it couldn’t come a moment too soon. The housekeeping tin on the kitchen shelf was already empty, except for a button that was still waiting to be sewn on to Eliza’s pinafore. Miserable business, buttons in the housekeeping. They made the tin rattle and then sat there, worthless, when you opened it.
She lay still for a while, pressed flat by the weight of the blankets, staring into the blackness. There was the merest sound beside her, the soft and steady rise and fall of Arthur’s breath, but that was all, and from the quality of the darkness and the depth of the quiet, she could tell it was early, probably too early to rise, though that had never stopped her before. She gave herself a few seconds longer in the warm hollow of the mattress, and listened for clues. Nothing. Even Clem Water-dine wasn’t about yet, shuffling on bandy legs along the terraces, knocking-up the day shift. He was generally the first soul out in Netherwood on these merciless winter mornings, but Eve was almost always awake to hear him and however reluctantly she might leave the warmth of her bed, there was
always a particular pleasure to be had by stealing a march on the day, pottering about in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil and the tea to brew.
The cold hit her like a wall when she slid from under the layers of heavy wool, going carefully so as not to wake her sleeping husband. Her bare feet made contact with the linoleum floor and she winced, noiselessly, thinking for the umpteenth time that she needed a rug there. It was only ever first thing in the morning that it crossed her mind. Speed was of the essence now that she had left the protection of the bed, and she groped blindly on the floor for the thick stockings she kept there for just such emergencies as these. They were coarse and heavy, the sort of wool that pricked at the skin and that the children hated to wear, but they gave instant relief from the shocking cold. On they went. Next, a shawl, which she wrapped and tucked tightly around her upper half like swaddling. Then, sufficiently well clad to risk the journey, she moved carefully across the bedroom floor, side stepping the loose boards and making her way through the inky darkness. In her head she held the coordinates for the bed, the dresser, the known creaks and the exact position of the doorknob, so her progress across the small room was efficiently managed even though her arms remained pinned to her side by the shawl. At the door, she released a hand to turn the knob and pull it open, but then she stood still for a moment, listening. Arthur’s breathing continued regular and undisturbed, and she stepped out of the bedroom and on to the small landing where all her strenuous efforts to be silent were almost undone because right behind her a small voice whispered: ‘Mam.’
It was Eliza, so close that she almost knocked her over. Eve, heart hammering, managed to hold in the scream but took a few moments to recover herself, then crouched down to the same height as the little girl. Still Eve couldn’t see her, but Eliza’s breath was on her face.
‘You scared me ’alf to death,’ Eve said, whispering too.
‘I ’ad a bad dream. Is it morning?’
‘Not for you. Back to bed. T’dream’s gone now.’
‘’as it? ’ow do you know?’
‘Because they do when you wake. Especially when you wake and tell your mam.’
‘Mam?’
‘What?’
‘Seth’s snoring.’
‘Let’s give ’im a shove on our way past then. Come on, back you go.’
Eve stood and, finding Eliza’s shoulders with her hands, she steered her into the children’s bedroom. Seth was indeed snoring, though very softly. He slept the way his father did, flat on his back, like someone had just knocked him out in the ring. She gave his shoulder a gentle shake and he protested sleepily, but shifted position and the snoring stopped. Eliza, back in bed, said:
‘Mam?’
‘Shhhh. Quieter. What?’
‘Is there stewmeat gravy?’
Only Eliza would think of her next meal when the house was in darkness and dawn was still some hours away. She was thin as a lath, but was always first at the table and last to get down.
‘Not if I don’t get downstairs,’ said Eve. ‘Go to sleep now, else you’ll be droppin’ off in t’schoolroom.’
‘See you in t’mornin’ then,’ said Eliza.
‘You will.’ She found the child’s head, and kissed it, then navigated her way carefully out of the room. Nothing much could wake Seth when he was sleeping but the baby, Ellen, seemed always to be on red alert, determined not to miss anything. It was a wonder that Eliza hadn’t already woken her, with her night-time wanderings. Again, just ’as she had
in her own room, she paused at the open door, listening. Then she turned and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Eve and Arthur lived with their three children in Beaumont Lane, a short terrace of eight stone houses without front gardens, but backing on to a cobbled yard, which was shared by the residents of Watson Street and Allott’s Way. The streets ran at right angles to each other, forming three sides of a square, the fourth side being completed by the privvies, which were housed in a long, low-roofed building divided into separate stalls, one for each family. A narrow entry part way down Watson Street led into the yard, enabling residents and visitors to enter the houses via the back. Nobody used the front doors. They could have been bricked up and not be missed.
The houses had been built in 1850 by William Hoyland, the fifth Earl of Netherwood, father of the present earl, and a man whose great fortune was matched by a desire to do good. He had thrown himself with philanthropic zeal into the expansion and improvement of Netherwood town, and had conducted exacting interviews with a number of architects before settling on Abraham Carr, who demonstrated by word and deed his belief that the working classes were as entitled as anyone to finials, fan lights and front steps. Mr Carr drew up plans for several hundred new dwellings for the folk of Netherwood, and while all his terraces differed subtly from each other, they shared the same sturdy integrity and solidity that seemed to declare an intention to stand there for ever.