The Miner’s Girl (11 page)

Tom blinked. He couldn't remember seeing his father in the town. ‘What?' he asked. ‘What did you say?'

‘You heard me well enough,' snapped Miles. ‘There you were driving round the market place in Auckland in
the trap with a miner's brat beside you. And you don't come in 'til this time of the morning. You're a disgrace, sir, a disgrace.'

There was a knock at the door and Polly came in with a cup and saucer. ‘Will I pour, sir?' she asked, looking at Tom, but it was Miles who answered.

‘That will be all, Polly,' he said. ‘Close the door behind you.'

‘Yes sir.'

She went out to tell Cook the master was in a right temper, fit to burst his boiler. They'd best keep out of his way, she reckoned.

When she had gone, Tom took time to pour coffee and sit down in the armchair opposite his father's. He crossed his legs and took a sip of the dark-brown liquid, murmuring appreciatively. Meanwhile, Miles was becoming redder in the face.

‘Well?' he barked.

‘First of all, Father, I was not out all night with anyone. I was asleep in my own bed upstairs. And I have just returned from Oaklands, the workhouse hospital in Auckland where I have a duty to attend the inmates who are old or infirm or both.'

‘Hmm. Well, thank God for that,' snapped Miles. ‘Now about this girl—'

‘Yes, what about her, Father?' Tom was calm, his voice cold.

‘What were you doing riding about through the market place with her in the trap? Our family has a name to keep up, what are you doing associating with someone like her?'

‘How do you know what I was doing yesterday afternoon?' Tom countered.

‘What does that matter? As it happens Miss Porritt and I were just coming out of the Queen's Hotel when you came riding past, bold as brass, the pair of you.'

‘Oh, Miss Porritt,' said Tom as though that explained a lot of things to him. As of course it did. His father would not want Miss Porritt to see his son associating with the lower classes.

‘Yes, Miss Porritt. How do you suppose it looked to her?'

‘Does it matter?'

‘It does, I am thinking of asking Miss Porritt to marry me. It does not help when she sees my son keeping low company.'

‘Merry Trent is a patient of mine!' said Tom. ‘She works at the hospital and I was giving her a lift. She is in trouble and needs help, she is barely sixteen and lives alone with her brother in one of those broken-down old houses at Old Pit, and he has disappeared.'

The fact that his father did not reply immediately escaped Tom for the minute. He was thinking that Merry would have to move from Old Pit; she couldn't stay there on her own, not unless Ben came back. Perhaps he
should try to get her lodgings near the hospital, for the moment anyway.

Miles had had a shock. He hadn't realised the girl in the trap was that boy's brother. Or thought she was at least. Wouldn't the baby who had been in the house that awful night have been the woman's granddaughter? What a flaming tangle everything was. Why hadn't he gone back to Old Pit himself since it happened? At least he would have known what was going on and done something about it sooner. As it was, he had avoided the place for thirteen years. Why hadn't the woman told him she was pregnant in the beginning? He could have paid her to go away, though to be honest with himself he wouldn't have acknowledged he was the father. And of all the bad luck for the lad to grow up with such a striking likeness to Tom – and himself, of course, when he was younger, but that wouldn't have mattered as people forgot what one looked like thirty years ago.

‘Father? Are you all right?'

Tom's voice broke into his racing thoughts. Miles got up abruptly and put his coffee cup on the tray.

‘Yes, of course I'm all right. Her brother has disappeared, you say? Well, he's probably run off to sea, you know what these pit lads are like. Wild, you know. You've met them no doubt in your practice.'

‘She says he would not do that. He wouldn't go without at the very least leaving her a note. I gather they
are very close, those two. It probably comes from them growing up the only children in a deserted village.'

‘Well, none of it is your business. I've always said that nothing would come of your practising in a mining village. Now, forget about this girl, and mix with your own kind. I've told you before, find a town practice and I'll help you with the cost. Why don't you find a suitable girl to marry? A doctor needs a wife if he wants to get on.'

‘I'm happy working in Winton Colliery, Father. It is what I want to do.'

Miles lost his temper. ‘Well I forbid you to talk to that pit lass! And don't ever give her a ride in your trap again, especially not where you might be seen by gentlefolk. I won't have people talking.'

‘I'm afraid you're not in a position to forbid me to do anything,' said Tom calmly.

‘Am I not, begod! You ungrateful young whelp, I've given you everything! You're living in my house and while you do so you will do as I say, do you hear me?'

There was a knock at the door and Polly opened it but was stopped in her tracks by a bellow from Miles. ‘Get out!' She went in a hurry.

‘I couldn't get the coffee tray,' she told Cook. ‘The master wouldn't let me in. They're having a row in there.'

‘Well, girl,' snapped Cook. ‘Get on with your work, you can help Edna upstairs. It's nothing to do with you whether they're having a row or not.'

Polly sniffed and left the kitchen. She would have a nice gossip with Edna over the beds, she thought. Cook could get so uppity sometimes.

In the study Tom drew himself up and stared levelly at his father. ‘I can move out anytime, Father,' he said. ‘I will not be told how to run my life; I am no longer a boy.'

‘Go then,' said Miles. ‘You've been nothing but a disappointment and embarrassment to me in any case.'

‘If that's how you feel I'll go today,' said Tom.

‘Do that.'

Miles heard himself say the words but he could hardly believe he was doing so. How had things escalated to this? He didn't want Tom to go, not really. But he was so stubborn, just as his mother had been. He had his mother's temperament even if he did look like his father.

‘I will. If you'll allow me time to pack a bag. I'll send for the rest of my stuff when I'm settled.'

Ten minutes later as he stood at the window and watched Tom drive out of the gates and turn towards the town, Miles felt very sorry for himself. The lad had provoked him, it was true, but if he himself hadn't been so worked up and worried about the other one – for a moment he saw his face vividly, the eyes closed, a bruise forming on his temple, and he shivered. He didn't want Tom to move out – the house was too big for one man to
rattle around in. There was the staff of course, but they were not company. Tom was his son and his heir and he ought to do what his father wanted.

Miles sat down in his chair again. He was supposed to be going to call on Bertha but he'd never felt less like doing anything.

Merry stood on the patch of grass that surrounded the old ventilation shaft watching the party of men and boys milling around. They had rigged up a rope ladder and a lad of about nineteen was now sitting astride the top of the shaft, legs astride and bending down perilously low to peer inside.

‘There's nowt to see down there, Da,' he announced, sitting up straight again. He gave Merry a sideways glance as he spoke to his father, who stood at the bottom with another rope slung over his shoulder. ‘Nowt but water by the sound of it.'

‘Give a shout, Robbie lad,' advised his father, who was Bob, the colliery joiner. ‘Mebbe he might be on a ledge or something, asleep.'

Or mebbe dead, he thought but didn't say so, not in front of the bit lass. She was in a bonny taking over the lad, her brother she said it was. Though that was something of a mystery an' all – how could it be her brother? Everyone knew when the disaster at Old Jane Pit had happened.

It was a fine day and when she'd come into the rows a crowd of off-shift men were by the ball alley on the gable end of one of the houses. The lass was obviously in a state about something. He recognised her as the lass from Old Pit, Mrs Trent's granddaughter. So he had asked her what the matter was.

The miners were paid once a fortnight and this was the hungry week, so they couldn't afford the club or the institute. It had been easy to get a few of them together to go and search out the lad.

‘I never knew she had a brother,' said one, looking puzzled. He had once worked at Jane Pit.

‘Aye well, she has,' said Bob. ‘He's nowt but a bairn, only thirteen, so howay, let's get going. I'll get rope from the joiner's shop.'

‘Rope, what do you want rope for?'

Bob sighed. ‘Will you stop asking questions and get the lads organised? The lass is worried to death, can you not see? We're going up by that ventilation shaft on the old pack-donkey trail. You know, on the lonnen to Eden Hope.'

So now the gang of them were here, on a sunny autumn afternoon, looking for the lad and picking a few late brambles while they were on and stuffing them in their mouths.

Bob climbed the ladder and sat atop the wall of the shaft by his lad. It wasn't exactly black down there;
some light was getting in but it wasn't possible to see the bottom apart from the occasional glint of water, or at least something wet. He put his hand around his mouth and bellowed. ‘Ben? Ben are you there, lad?'

The sound reverberated round the shaft but there was no answer.

‘I can go down, Da,' said Robbie. ‘If I tie a rope round me I can reach that platform there, any road.'

‘Aw, I don't know,' his father replied doubtfully. ‘I wouldn't dare go home if owt happened to you. Your mam would kill me.'

‘Go on, I want to Da.'

In the end, the boy prevailed. The rope was secured on the outside and Robbie descended, walking down the wall with his feet as he held on to the rope. The men waited anxiously, ready to haul on the rope should it show signs of giving way, but it held firm.

An anxious ten minutes later Robbie was shouting to be brought up and they all joined in hauling on the rope.

‘There's nothing to see, Da,' he said as he climbed onto the rim of the shaft, breathing heavily. ‘I doubt he's not down there. Or if he is he's a goner.'

Merry, standing on the grass at the bottom, gasped and thrust her fist into her mouth.

‘Mind what you say!' snapped Bob.

‘Sorry Da.'

‘It might not have been him that broke the ladder at all, pet,' said one of the pitmen. ‘Look, if he's about here we'll find him, I promise you.' He turned to the others. ‘Howay lads, spread out, we'll search the woods.'

Miles Gallaghesr was writing a letter to the mine owner, his employer. Mr Bolton also owned the Arthur Bolton Ironworks in Middlesbrough and rarely came near the mines in south-west Durham, which supplied the ironworks with the coke needed to smelt iron. In many ways he was a remote figure even to Miles, his agent. Yet he insisted on detailed, meticulous reports on a weekly basis and, of course, the mines had to keep up the steady supply of coal for coking. Apart from this, Miles had a fairly free hand, he thought with satisfaction.

Miles sat back and stared out of the window at the garden. All the flowers were gone now and the trees bare, the bushes sodden with rain and blowing in a northerly wind.

It was quite true that the council were making noises, prompted by the
Auckland Chronicle.
Only last week there had been an article in the
Chronicle
complaining about the areas of barren waste left behind when a worked-out mine was abandoned. It was as well to show a willingness to do something about it, especially when the expense would be minimal. And of course he had his own reasons for clearing the area of vagabonds, reasons that were nobody's business but his own.

Miles got to his feet and walked over to the fireplace, turning his back on the fire and lifting his jacket a little to let the heat of the flames get to his backside. His thoughts turned to his son, Tom.

Tom was living in the town in some poky boarding house in Tenters Street. It was ridiculous when this house was big enough to allow him three or four rooms should he wish for them – even if he himself did marry
Miss Bertha, Miles thought. Tom could have his own rooms in the east wing; Bertha was unlikely to object, why should she?

He contemplated marriage to her with little enthusiasm. There was no quickening of the pulse at the thought, not at all like the time before he married Tom's mother. But what the hell, there were compensations, not least the prospect of managing the mines she would own when her father turned up his toes. Mr Porritt was just about in his dotage now; it would be a kindness to take the responsibility off his hands. The old man had made it plain that he wanted to see his daughter settled as soon as maybe, too.

He would go over there later on when he had seen to the matter of Old Pit. He crossed to the fireplace and rang the bell to summon Polly.

‘Tell Johns I want Marcus saddled and ready in ten minutes,' he said to her when she appeared. ‘And tell Cook I won't be in to dinner,' he added.

‘Yes sir,' said Polly and withdrew. Johns was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and a piece of Cook's excellent fruitcake. He sighed heavily, took a large swallow of tea and stood up.