The Miner’s Girl (33 page)

‘What's going on there?'

Merry closed her fists and gritted her teeth – they had woken Dr Macready just as she had dreaded they would. This was the second time he had been wakened up and he wouldn't stand for it, she knew he wouldn't; she and the bairn would have to go.

‘Just go, Robbie, please. Take Bessie back to her mam, can you not see the lass isn't feeling well, man?'

Robbie turned and looked at the young girl who was just clambering to her feet. He shook his head. ‘She can't hold her beer, that's the trouble with her,' he said. But he too had heard Dr Macready and he wasn't keen to meet up with him. He was sober enough by now to
know it might mean a night in the cells if the doctor called the bobbies.

‘Aye well, I'll go,' he said. ‘I've said what I came to say. Mind my words, I'm lying idle come Monday an' I'm off to see the lawyers. I will get me divorce, see if I don't. Me mam told us it was a big mistake getting wed to you and by heck she was right.' He nodded his head a few times as he went over to Bessie and took her by the arm. ‘By God, you stink summat awful for a young lass,' he said. ‘Howay, then, babby, let's away.'

Dr Macready had come around the corner just as Robbie turned away. ‘Just a minute,' he said with cold authority and Robbie halted. ‘If I catch you on my property again I will call the law. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, Doctor,' Robbie mumbled.

‘Now take that child home and if I hear of anything happening to her I will know who is to blame. Do you understand me?'

‘Yes, Doctor.'

The doctor watched the pair until they were out into the road, then turned and looked up at Merry. ‘Just a moment, Merry,' he said. ‘I'm coming up.'

She threw a large shawl round her shoulders and crossed it over her breasts before going into the sitting room. Was he going to tell her to go, she wondered, her heart beating fast – he had every right after being disturbed twice like this. Doctors were disturbed often
enough in the middle of the night by their patients so needed their sleep when they could get it.

‘They didn't wake the boy?' Dr Macready asked when he came in, and Merry shook her head. ‘Just as well,' he said as he went over to the fireplace and stood before the almost dead fire. ‘Merry, something will have to be done. I won't have these disturbances going on.'

‘I know, Doctor. I'm sorry. He's drunk. He wants a divorce.'

‘Hmm. I suppose he needs a bit of Dutch courage to come and tell you. Well, let him have it, you will be well shot of him. But you might have to suffer a bit, you know. Have your name in the
Auckland Chronicle
and maybe even the
Northern Echo.
There's bound to be some notoriety. It's the boy I'm thinking of. Perhaps you should let him go to the Friends' School earlier than we thought.'

Almost on cue, Benjamin appeared in the doorway of the sitting room. Tears were streaming down his face yet he hadn't made a sound until now.

‘That was
him,
wasn't it?' he cried. ‘Mam, we haven't got to go back and live with him, have we?' The boy was shaking with terror. Merry held out her arms to him and he ran to her. His nightshirt was soaked with urine, she realised; it was the first time for ages.

‘No, lad, we'll never go back to him. Don't worry, pet, everything will be all right, you'll see. Howay, son,
I'll get you changed and back to bed,' she said and carried him through to his little bedroom. It didn't take her long to settle him and when she came back into the living room Dr Macready was still there standing before the fire.

‘He soon settled down,' she said. ‘Doctor, if you want us to go—'

‘What? No of course I don't. But this is not doing the lad any good, is it?' asked the doctor.

‘I don't think it'll happen again; I'm sure it won't. Robbie doesn't come round here usually. It was just he had a skinful.'

‘Well, if Benjamin was over at Great Ayton—'

‘My brother wants him to go to Durham School,' said Merry. The doctor looked astounded.

‘Durham? But he has a scholarship to the Friends' School!'

‘I know. But Ben is buying a house in Durham.'

‘You're not leaving us, are you, Merry? Do you want to go? Kirsty will be very sorry to hear that and so would I.'

The doctor looked agitated as he took a few steps towards the window then back. Merry gazed at him. He and his wife had been so good to her and Benjamin it seemed like gross ingratitude to go against them. But these last few days she had been thinking of what Ben had said and was undecided about what to do. Sometimes though,
she did have the feeling that the Macreadys were taking over and wanting to make decisions for her and Benjamin almost as though the boy belonged to them. To be honest, she thought, she didn't know what she wanted to do – one moment she was worried that the doctor would want her to go and was filled with anxiety, and the next she was toying with the idea of going to Durham.

Durham, near to where Tom lived and worked. The thought of it enticed her.

‘Merry?'

She shook her head. ‘No not really. I've been very happy here and so has the lad. You have been so good to us, both you and Mrs Macready and I love my job an' all. And even if we did go, we would always keep in touch with you both. You mean such a lot to us.'

If the doctor noticed the ambiguity of her answer he didn't comment on it. ‘Well, Merry, I had better go back to bed before my wife comes looking for me,' he said and walked to the door. ‘I don't think you'll hear any more from Robbie Wright, not tonight at any rate. If you did I would get the police without the slightest hesitation and he knows it.'

‘Goodnight, Doctor and thank you,' said Merry and her thanks were heartfelt. She didn't know what she would have done without him, even tonight. She knew she would have had trouble getting rid of Robbie and young Bessie if the doctor hadn't come out.

She locked the door after him and went through to check on Benjamin. He was lying with one hand under his cheek, his eyelashes still wet, but he was sleeping peacefully enough.

These few months they had had with the Macreadys had been the happiest in his young life, she thought. In fact he had been transformed from a nervous youngster who had cowered behind her skirts, terrified of Robbie, to a self-confident little boy who was blooming more every day, intelligent and talented; self-confident enough to look forward to going away to boarding school, though he would be home for the weekends. It was a future she would never have hoped to be able to give him.

Merry pulled the bedclothes up over his shoulder and tucked them in. She dropped a kiss on his forehead and tiptoed out of the room. As she lay down in her own bed the thought of Tom came to her as she pictured him clearly in her mind's eye. And her heart ached for him.

She turned over restlessly in bed as her thoughts reverted to Robbie. Divorce was practically unheard of in the rows and she knew she would be in for a lot of stick if he managed to get one. He would say she hadn't told him Benjamin wasn't his, and would bring Tom into it too. Oh, she could imagine the lies he would tell – she would be the talk of the place, she was well aware of that. But if Benjamin was away at school it wouldn't affect him much.
Or if they were living in Durham. No, the scandal would affect Tom, and she couldn't allow that. But how was she to stop it? That vindictive woman, Doris Wright, would tell everyone Tom was Benjamin's father and there would be a big scandal.

She had to stop thinking about it, Merry told herself. She was so tired, she needed her sleep. Everything looked worse at night-time, so Gran used to say. And she was right.

Tom parked the Wolsey on the drive of the agent's house at Canney Hill and got out. It was a bright morning and he had decided to come here first to see his father before going on to Dr Macready's place in Winton. Dr Macready would have a Saturday morning surgery and no doubt both he and Merry would be busy there. It was only just gone ten o'clock as he paused and looked around him – at the house where he grew up, the sweep of the drive around the side of it to the stables and, as he turned and looked out over the valley, the view from the front of the house.

It was beautiful despite the fact that there was smoke from colliery stacks in two or three places, curling up into the blue of the sky. But from this height, even the slag heaps were distant and not out of place against the burgeoning green of the surrounding farms and woods. To the right, on the facing hill, lay the town, running along the ridge high over the Wear.

Tom smiled to himself, at the feeling of coming home, even though he lived only a few miles away. He was determined that before the weekend was over he would have matters resolved with Merry – she had said he was Benjamin's father, hadn't she? He felt a pleasurable thrill of anticipation at the thought of seeing her again. Everything would work out fine – he knew it would. But first he had to have a serious talk with his father and this time he wanted the truth about everything that had happened.

‘Mr Gallagher is in the study, sir,' Polly said formally. ‘Will I tell him you're here?'

‘No, it's all right, you get on, Polly,' Tom replied and crossed the hall to the study door, opening and closing it behind him. Miles was sitting at his desk with a pile of papers in front of him. For a man in his sixties he was still erect, strong and alert, still ambitious.

‘Tom!' he cried. ‘It's good to see you, son.' He rose to his feet and walked forward a couple of steps, his bad temper on the telephone apparently forgotten, but his welcoming smile slipped away when he saw Tom's expression. ‘What have I done now?' he asked.

Tom jumped straight in. ‘Why did you not tell me Merry Trent was expecting my baby?'

‘What? I don't know what you're talking about, Tom. I don't even know anyone called Trent.' Even as he said it the memory came to him of the broken-down
old cottage in the deserted village of Jane Pit and the woman and little girl living there.

‘Of course you do. You turned her away when she came looking for me, didn't you?'

‘I told you—'

‘Don't bother. I know you're lying.'

Miles shrugged. ‘Oh, what the hell! So a miner's brat who'd got herself into trouble came crying to me saying it was you. I sent her away, of course I did. Of course she wanted to claim the father was someone better than those ruffians she had probably been with. Anyway, I had my hands full with you, in bed with pneumonia and likely to die. I couldn't be bothered with the lass, why should I? Even if you had been there it doesn't mean it was you, it could have been any number—'

‘Shut your dirty mouth,' said Tom. ‘I know the child is mine. I know Merry too – she was nursing at Oaklands when I was there. She is
not
promiscuous. And I intend to take responsibility for him. I will marry her and adopt the boy legally, that is if she'll have me. And there is not a thing you can do about it.'

‘Tom! Think what you're about; you can't possibly know he's yours.'

‘Have you seen him?'

‘Seen him? Of course I haven't damn well seen him.'

‘If you did you would know he was mine. There is a strong family likeness.'

‘I don't care who he looks like, she can't prove a thing. Don't be a bloody fool, Tom!'

Tom walked to the door but before opening it he turned and gazed at his father. ‘I'm going now. I don't want to hear another word from you. I will never forget you turned her away as you did. If it weren't for you we—'

Whatever Tom had been going to say he changed his mind abruptly and went out, ignoring Polly who was hovering in the hall and banging the front door behind him. Polly lost no time in running to the kitchen to regale the other servants with what she had heard from behind the closed door of the study.

‘Aye well,' said Edna, nodding her head as though she had known all along, ‘that lad didn't look like a Wright. I said so, didn't I, Cook?'

‘It's none of our business. Now, howay, get on with your work instead of gossiping.'

Miles did not try to stop Tom from leaving, but sat down at his desk and stared unseeingly at the papers he had been studying before his son had interrupted him. He had other pressing things to see to, never mind Tom. He would come to his senses; he wasn't the type to hold a grudge and he was bound to see that it wouldn't do, anyway. The boy was too much like his mother; that was his problem. Soft he was, soft as clarts.

He tried to concentrate on the papers before him. They were records of the amount of coal won from the collieries belonging to Arthur Bolton and Co in the past month. Production at Eden Hope was up, so the ironworks would not miss the amounts he intended to divert, he thought. He could easily falsify the documentation, but now was not the time – Tom had spoiled his concentration and he would need all of that to do what he intended to do. There could be no mistakes.

Miles sat back in his chair. The boy bore a strong family likeness, he had said. Just as that other boy had. It was a bloody nuisance that it should come out so strongly, especially the colouring, the silvery-fair hair.

Memories were crowding in on him, memories of that other boy. He could have been a full brother to Tom by the look of him, Miles reckoned. He was a fool for not putting an end to the brat instead of sending him to the colonies on that immigrant ship, but it had seemed a good idea at the time. The newspapers had been full of certain charities helping the boys to a new chance in life. The likelihood of him being able to return was practically nil. And yet, Miles could have sworn he had seen him or at least someone very like him, and not once but two or three times.

Not that he cared now if Bertha found out he had an illegitimate son, even one by a pitman's widow. She would do nothing about it, she couldn't. Even Tom
couldn't say much; after all, he was in much the same position. But the lad himself, what would he do? He could create a hell of a fuss and spoil Miles's standing in the town altogether.