The Miner’s Girl (36 page)

‘We'll miss you both, lass,' said Dr Macready. ‘But we didn't expect to keep you forever. You have your own life to lead.'

‘We'll be back to see you,' said Merry. ‘Of course we will.'

Now the couple had gone the little flat was quiet. Tom stared into the flames, his expression sad, and Merry squeezed his hand. He looked down at her and smiled.

‘I did think of going back to South Africa when this is all settled. I have business interests there and friends too,' Ben said suddenly and the others looked at him.

‘Oh Ben, I don't want to lose you again,' Merry said softly.

‘Nor will you,' he replied. ‘Now I think I will stay in the county, live the life of a gentleman for a while. I may even take up mining again. There are places over by the coast which show promising surveys. I may do tests, sinkings. Up to now it has been the limestone shelf that has prevented deep mining over there. But with modern ways, the coal can be won. I could build a model village—' He fell silent and stared into the red depths of the fire.

‘Whatever you do you will always be a brother to me,' said Merry. They were both thinking of their childhood in the deserted village. It had been hard but there had been some good times too. The bond between them would always be firm as steel.

‘I must get back as I have a surgery in the morning,' said Tom, rising to his feet. Merry went with him to the door.

‘We won't be parted for long,' he whispered. ‘But I can't wait.' He kissed her and gave her a hug before reluctantly going out to his car. Merry watched him go, her heart full of love for him.

A few days later the postman brought the divorce papers which was quite a surprise as she hadn't expected them so soon. She opened them with some trepidation for she wasn't sure what Robbie was saying about her – she was worried he might cite adultery and what would that do to Tom? But no, desertion was what the papers said. Desertion, so it would all be straightforward, a weight lifted from her; she felt she could allow herself to be happy. She spent the rest of the day packing up her own and Benjamin's belongings for the move to Durham – not to Tom's house, not yet, but close, to Ben's where she and Tom could meet as often as his work allowed.

Next day there was a more unpleasant surprise. The
Auckland Chronicle
had got hold of the story and for a few days it was the talk of the district. Divorce was not unheard of in the mining villages but it was sufficiently rare as to provide plenty of gossip and speculation.

Merry surprised herself by how little she cared – the future was beckoning brightly and in a few days she was leaving.

‘You will visit us, won't you?' she asked the Macreadys anxiously. ‘I can't thank you enough for what you have done for us.'

‘Try and keep us away,' said Kirsty as they watched Ben crank the engine before climbing into the driver's seat. They went down the drive and out onto the road.

‘We'll come back though, Mam, won't we?' asked Benjamin. ‘For visits?' He turned a solemn face to Merry.

‘We will, pet,' Merry promised. ‘Indeed we will.' And his expression brightened.

They drove the fifteen or so miles to where his father was waiting for them. With an arm around both of them, Tom and his little family followed Ben into the house.

‘Soon we will be in our own home,' said Tom.

‘Yes,' Merry whispered. ‘Soon.' Not yet but the day would come. And for now, well, they were together and nothing would part them ever again.

‘Mammy!'

Lottie woke suddenly, panic flooding through her whole body. She sat up in bed and stared across the large dormitory filled with beds and sleeping children. The child in the bed only 12 inches from hers began to cry, and a couple more followed suit.

‘Quiet!' shouted a stout woman standing in the doorway holding a lantern. ‘Any more noise and I'll bray the lot of you.' The room quietened at once until only an odd muffled sob could be heard.

Lottie sank down in the bed, feeling the lumps in the hard mattress against her backbone and skinny shoulders. The bed was wet, she realized with a shiver of foreboding. She would be smacked, or brayed as Matron called it, anyway. Well, she thought, she was used to that. Ever since her mammy had gone to heaven she had been smacked most days.

Matron closed the dormitory door and the room was dark again but for the moonlight filtering in through the high windows. Lottie stared at the bits of sky she could see through the panes. There were stars shining between small clouds. Her mammy was there, she told herself, and she was happy and watching over her little girl.

Lottie couldn't remember very much about her mammy. But she comforted herself with holding on to the small scraps she could remember and added to them in her imagination. She hugged her pillow as her heart slowed back to normal after her nightmare. She couldn' remember what the dream had been about even, only that she needed her mammy. Mammy would look after her; she would make the unnamed thing go away. Even if Lottie couldn't see her, she knew Mammy was there in the sky just like one of those stars.

Suddenly aware that the tiny girl in the next bed was sobbing and the noise was getting louder, Lottie sat up and leaned over towards her.

‘Ssh,' she said softly. ‘Whisht now, whisht, don't cry, pet. If Matron hears you she'll come back and we'll both get wrong, we'll be smacked.'

‘Lottie? Can I come into your bed? Please can I?'

‘Howay then, come on,' Lottie replied and a small body climbed in and snuggled under the blanket, not minding the dampness of the sheet. She put her arms
around Lottie's neck and Lottie cuddled her skinny little frame to her. Betty had only come into the workhouse a day or two ago and she was only two years old or maybe three. Even the matron couldn't say for sure how old she was, because she had been a foundling. One of the Guardians, Mr Robson, who had a greengrocer's shop, had caught her biting into a plum she had taken from the stall at the front of the shop and had chased her into Newgate Street before catching her.

‘You little imp!' he had shouted and she had dropped the plum and begun to tremble and wail in fright.

‘Shame on you!' a woman shouted at him. ‘What do you want frightening a little bairn like that for?'

A few late shoppers, for it was eight o'clock on a Saturday evening, stopped and stared at the woman, the child and Mr Robson.

Mr Robson's face was as red as a beetroot with the injustice of it, for the remarks they made about him were uncomplimentary, to say the least.

‘She was stealing my fruit!' he said and then wished he hadn't, for he certainly didn't want to bandy words with people like that. After all, late shoppers were usually folk in from the mining villages and just looking for bargains as the shops closed for the weekend. After something for nothing, they were.

‘The lass must be hungry,' another woman observed. ‘What's a mouldy old plum to you?'

‘Nevertheless . . .' Mr Robson began, then stopped. ‘As a matter of fact, I was looking for her mother,' he said stiffly. ‘But as there is no sign of her, I'll take her up to the workhouse for the night. Not that I have to explain to any of you. I am a Poor Law Guardian and it is my duty.'

‘Oh aye,' said the woman, favouring him with a scornful glance. ‘Of course it is.'

He turned away, remembering he wasn't going to talk to these people. Instead, still hanging on to the little girl, he called to his assistant to close the shop while he went up to the workhouse, with its adjacent orphanage.

‘It's an infernal nuisance, that's what it is,' he grumbled to Matron when he brought the child in. ‘I have better things to do on a Saturday night. But what else was I to do? There was no sign of her mother, or father either. If she has one, that is.'

He handed the child over to Matron, holding her away from him with some distaste, for there was a nasty, dirty smell about her.

Lottie happened to be walking along the corridor at the time, trying not to be noticed, but the woman had a sharp eye. She too held Betty away from her clean apron as she called to Lottie.

‘You there! Lottie Lonsdale! Take her and see she is washed and gets a uniform. And mind, I'm putting you in charge of her. Oversee her properly or you'll feel the edge of my belt.'

‘Yes, Matron.'

Matron and Mr Robson watched as Lottie took the child and went on down the corridor. ‘I'll enter her into the record, Mr Robson,' Matron said. ‘There's no need for you to bother. You get off home to your wife and family, they'll be wondering why you're out so late.'

‘I will, thank you, Matron,' Mr Robson replied. ‘But it was my Christian duty to fetch the lass. Duty comes first, Matron.'

‘Indeed, Mr Robson.' She smiled archly at him and the bow beneath her chin wobbled. She shouldn't have mentioned his wife and children, she thought as he turned away. He may have joined her in a cup of tea in her cosy sitting room. Sometimes she could do with a little company in the evenings.

Meanwhile, Lottie had taken the new little girl to the kitchens, where Susan Dunn was washing up the supper bowls at the enormous stone sink. Though Susan was twelve years old, old enough to have recently joined the inmates on the women's ward, she had to stand on a stool to reach the tap. It was just a cold water tap, but there was a large copper boiler to the side of the range and hot water had to be ladled from there.

‘Who's this then?' she asked Lottie, as she eyed the little girl. ‘I'm not seeing to her mind, I'm done for the day. Just as soon as I finish off these pots.'

‘Matron said I had to see to her,' said Lottie. ‘Is there any panacklty left? I reckon she's hungry.'

‘A bit. You're lucky, I haven't washed the pan out yet. I was just going to put the panacklty in a bowl and put it in the pantry. The night porter likes a snack when he comes on.'

Lottie looked at the child. She was gazing at the bowl with undisguised hunger. She would have to be fed before she was bathed.

‘I think the bairn's need is more important than the night porter's,' Lottie opined and Susan nodded agreement as she put the bowl of potatoes, onions and a few scraps of fat bacon on the table and Lottie sat the girl in front of it.

‘What's your name, any road?' she asked.

‘Betty,' the girl said, through a mouthful of the food she was stuffing into her mouth with her hands rather than the spoon Susan had given her. Lottie brought in the tin bath and ladled hot water into it from the copper boiler and added cold from the tap.

‘Well, hurry up and eat your supper. Then you can have a bath and I'll fetch you a uniform from the linen cupboard.'

It was the policy of the Guardians for the inmates of the workhouse to do all the cooking and cleaning for themselves and that included looking after the little ones. In addition, the children had to be taught how to take over all the tasks as soon as they were old enough. After all, they were there at the expense of the ratepayers, and
should show their gratitude for their board and lodging by paying some of it back.

And they got a free education too, didn't they? It was not so long ago that poor children got no education at all, and even now most scholars at the National Schools had to take their threepence every Monday morning to be taught their letters and figuring.

Lottie knew all about this, because the children were reminded of it every single day.

Lying in bed a short time after being assigned to Betty, her arms around Betty as the little girl's breathing slowed into a sleeping rhythm interrupted only by the occasional snuffle, Lottie was having difficulty in getting back to sleep herself. Her thoughts were going over her nightmare and the unnamed dread that was always in the back of her mind.

It was still dark when she heard the shuffling and occasional cough as the male inmates walked along by the end of the corridor on their way to the stone yard. That meant it must be half past five in the morning already and they were starting their working day. They broke stone with picks and shovelled it into huge barrows, ready to be taken away to be used to mend the roads across the county and even up to Weardale, where roads were being built which stretched right across the dale as far as Tynedale in places where there had been no roads before, just cart tracks or donkey trails.

Betty had settled down at last and was fast asleep, her thumb stuck firmly in her mouth. Poor little soul, thought Lottie, did she remember her mother at all? Did she miss her, as she herself had missed her mother when she came into the workhouse? The tears were dried on to the tiny girl's cheeks and her lashes sparkled in the dawning light. Soon she would have to wake the child up and return her to her own bed or there would be another reason they would both be smacked. Still, it was very quiet at this hour and if she sneaked to the linen cupboard she could get dry and clean bedclothes and change the bed. If she hid the wet sheets in the dirty laundry basket, then neither of them would be smacked.