Will her courage be enough to protect her family?
Eleanor Saint spends as much time as she can helping in the community of her small mining town, even though her snobbish grandmother does not approve of her visiting the poor. When she comes of age, Eleanor is married to Francis Tait, a missionary, and she is delighted to have a husband who shares her passion for helping others.
It is not long before Eleanor starts a family of her own. But when Mr Tait’s work takes them far from home, her children face dangers that Eleanor could never have imagined. She will need to put her family first, before everything else, if she wants to protect them…
Maggie Hope is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Coal Miner’s Daughter. She was born and raised in County Durham and worked as a nurse for many years, before giving up her career to raise her family.
A Mother’s Gift
A Wartime Nurse
A Daughter’s Gift
A Nurse’s Duty
Molly’s War
The Servant Girl
A Daughter’s Duty
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Orphan Girl
Workhouse Child
Eliza’s Child
The Miner’s Girl
An Orphan’s Secret
The Coal Miner’s Daughter
‘Please, missus, can you not spare a bite for me little sister?’
Eleanor heard the plea as she came through the baize door into the kitchen with the orders for cook from Grandmother Wales. Grandmother was not feeling well and had decided to rest in bed until the dinner hour at three.
‘You will be so good as to give cook the menus for the day,’ she had said to the fifteen-year-old Eleanor, more of a command than a request, thought Eleanor rebelliously; after all, she wasn’t a servant.
‘Yes, Grandmother,’ she replied meekly enough, though she was wishing she was back at the Wesleyan School for Young Ladies in Houghton le Spring. But she was too old for school, her mother had said; it was time she learned about household duties, how to look after a husband and a family, and about managing servants. How else was she to find a gentleman willing to marry her? For Eleanor was a little too plump and plain with her straight black hair, which, though thick and glossy, had to be tied up in rags every night to produce the ringlets that girls her age wore. A line of anxiety would appear between Mama’s brows whenever she looked at her daughter, her ninth child, and the one it was going to be most difficult to get settled in life.
I don’t want to be married, Eleanor told herself as she closed the door from the hall behind her and walked into the kitchen, lifting her crinoline skirts slightly so as to negotiate the narrow path between the dresser and the large scrubbed table that stood in the middle of the room. What she wanted to do was go on with her studies and one day get the chance to go to university and become a doctor – an ambition she had learned to keep to herself, for if she mentioned it to anyone at all they thought she was very droll and couldn’t possibly mean it. Young ladies definitely did not go to university to study anything; their poor minds were not up to it, her father had said when she first broached the subject.
Eleanor sighed and looked towards the back door where Mrs Green, the cook, was standing, holding the knob of the door in one hand ready to close it.
‘Go away, Mary Buckle,’ the cook was saying. ‘You know I can’t give you any food, I could lose my position here if I did. You should be ashamed, begging at the door like this, can’t you get any work like respectable folk?’
‘Mary Buckle!’ Eleanor cried and moved to the door. She knew Mary Buckle – hadn’t they been in the same Sunday School class years ago when they were both small? That had been when Eleanor had stayed the whole summer here in Hetton-le-Hole with her grandparents.
Mrs Green halted in the act of closing the door and stood back. ‘It’s Mrs Wales’s orders, miss,’ she said, ‘no handouts at the door.’
‘Mary,’ Eleanor said again, ignoring Mrs Green for the moment. She stared at the other girl, who was about five feet tall, very thin, and the cotton dress she was wearing, despite the cold north-easter that was blowing up the yard, barely reached her calves. The shawl that she had over her shoulders was also wrapped round the tiny girl she carried on her hips, a sickly-looking child of about two years old. But it was Mary’s face that shocked Eleanor for although they were the same age, Mary’s could have been that of a woman in her thirties.
‘Mary, you remember me, don’t you?’ Eleanor said at last, trying to wipe the shock from her face. ‘I met you at Sunday School years ago, when I was here for the summer, can you remember?’
‘Aye, I can. I remember you all right, miss,’ answered Mary. The child in her arms squirmed and sniffled and she hitched her higher on to her hip. ‘Be still, Prue, will you?’ she admonished sharply before turning back to Eleanor. ‘She’s hungry, like, we both are. We’ve had nowt to eat since yesterday. There is a supper at chapel the night, miss, but it’s a long time till seven o’clock, like.’
‘Oh!’ Eleanor stood back from the door, distressed. ‘Come in, do, sit by the fire and warm up, you must be frozen. I’ll get you something to eat.’
Mary stepped forward immediately, walked past the scandalised cook and sat down in that lady’s chair by the range, with its blazing fire, piled high with best household coal in order to heat the oven for the evening meal. There was a smell of new bread baking in the oven; cook must have the bread rolls for dinner in there now.
‘Miss—’ Mrs Green began but Eleanor interrupted.
‘I’m sure there’s bread left from yesterday’s baking, isn’t there, Mrs Green? And is there any cheese in the pantry? And two of your excellent jam tarts, I’m sure the baby would like one of those.’
Mrs Green didn’t move. ‘There are only enough tarts for the mistress’s tea,’ she said, her whole being exuding disapproval that Eleanor refused to acknowledge.
‘Well then, a fairy cake, I know there are some fairy cakes, Mrs Green.’
Reluctantly, the cook moved to the pantry and came out a moment later with two pieces of bread and cheese and two dainty fairy cakes on a single plate.
Prue sat up straight on her sister’s lap and stared at the food, her eyes gleaming. A tiny drop of slaver appeared at the corner of her mouth and ran down her chin and she raised a tiny hand, rubbing it away impatiently. She did not reach for the food when Eleanor first proffered the plate, however; first she looked up at her sister, her eyes large with hope.
‘Go on, Prue,’ Mary said gently. ‘It’s all right to eat.’
She herself waited until Prue had picked up bread in one hand and a piece of cheese in the other before taking a piece of bread herself. She ate carefully, a small bite at a time, concentrating wholly on the food. But the child tore the bread with her hands and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing quickly and barely swallowing one piece before taking another.
‘Careful now, Prue,’ Mary said warningly. ‘You’ll choke.’ The child slowed for a moment but soon forgot and resumed ramming the food into her mouth.
Eleanor watched, dismayed, while Mrs Green stalked off into the pantry and could be heard banging pans about. Prue coughed and put a hand to her chest, obviously finding the food too dry but determined to eat it anyway. Eleanor found two cups in the dresser, filled them with milk from the jug on the table and offered them silently.
‘I’m grateful to you, I am, God bless you, Eleanor Saint,’ Mary said quietly and sipped daintily from her cup. Prue regarded the milk suspiciously and looked at her sister again, seeing she was drinking the milk but unsure whether to follow her example.
‘It’s all right, Prue, it’s milk, it’s good for you,’ Mary reassured her.
‘Do you mean to say she hasn’t seen milk before?’ asked Eleanor, shocked.
‘Not since Da was killed in the pit.’
‘Oh dear, I’m so sorry.’
The words hung in the silence, inadequate, banal. Eleanor tried again. ‘I mean, I know how awful it is, my father died too. Last year.’
‘More?’
Their attention was taken by Prue’s request; she had climbed down from her sister’s knee and was holding the plate out to Eleanor. The plate was empty so she must have eaten Mary’s cake as well as her own. She still hadn’t touched her milk; the cup was perched on the steel fender before the grate. Eleanor looked down into the intent brown eyes, almost too large for the pinched little face, and nodded, unable to speak for the emotion welling up in her. Emotion that was a mixture of the old, aching sadness over the death of her own father and pity for these two, so much worse off than she was herself. For her own father, though he had begun work as a miner, had been a colliery agent when he died. The family circumstances were now straitened but they were certainly not so badly off as Mary seemed to be.
‘No, Prue, don’t ask for more,’ said Mary. ‘You’ve had enough.’
‘I didn’t,’ the child asserted, shaking her head.
‘I’ve told you,’ said her sister firmly. ‘We’ll go home now.’
‘I didn’t,’ insisted Prue. ‘I hungry.’
‘Perhaps just another piece of bread?’ suggested Eleanor and behind her, from the pantry, she heard Mrs Green snort and mutter something about most folks having to work for a living.
‘No, thank you,’ said Mary and rose to her feet, catching hold of Prue’s hand. She stood before Eleanor, her head held high despite her rags and the fact that Prue was dragging at her hand and whimpering.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘I won’t forget your kindness to us.’
‘Would you like some to take home? I could easily put some in a basket for you,’ said Eleanor.
Mary hesitated before answering. ‘Mam wouldn’t like it,’ she said at last. ‘We’re not supposed to ask for anything, but Prue was so hungry and I thought—’
She broke off as Prue suddenly stopped struggling and turned a nasty shade of green.
‘I feel bad,’ she whimpered.
‘Don’t you be sick in here,’ cried Mary and rushed her off to the drain in the back yard where Prue promptly relieved her stomach of its contents. ‘Never mind, pet,’ Mary whispered to her. ‘You’ll feel better now. Mind, you shouldn’t have eaten both the cakes, it was over much on an empty stomach.’
‘I could have told you that would happen, miss,’ commented Mrs Green, folding her arms across the white expanse of her apron and nodding sagely. ‘Cakes is too rich for them by half. Such as them’s not used to cakes.’
‘Seems to me they’re not used to eating anything, let alone cakes,’ Eleanor was stung into replying. She would have said more but from inside the kitchen a bell began to ring insistently. She looked up at the row of bells and saw it was the one from Mrs Wales’s bedroom. ‘It’s Mrs Wales,’ she said when Mrs Green didn’t move.
‘I cannot be leaving the kitchen when I’ve bread in the oven and strangers in the yard,’ said the cook. ‘And Jane’s gone for the messages and Phoebe’s busy in the drawing room. Mebbe you can answer it, miss?’
Eleanor seethed. She almost retorted that she wasn’t a servant, that it wasn’t her place to answer the summons of the bell. She glared at the cook but Mrs Green stared implacably back and in the end it was the fifteen-year-old Eleanor who dropped her eyes and turned towards the door that led into the downstairs hall. Passing the window, she noticed that Mary and Prue were going out of the gate, Prue straddled on her sister’s hip and her head lying on Mary’s shoulder.
‘I’ll find out where they live and go to see them,’ she said aloud as she went upstairs to her grandmother. Standing before the bedroom door, she smoothed down her dress and patted her ringlets in place before going in. Grandmother could be quite cutting if she thought her granddaughter looked at all untidy.
‘Where have you been, Eleanor?’ Grandmother’s voice was petulant. ‘And where are the maids? One would think the house deserted, it makes one wonder why we keep such lazy good-for-nothings. What they need is a firm hand; if only I felt better and was able to oversee them properly things would be different, you’d see.’
‘I’m sorry, Grandmother, I was in the kitchen giving cook your orders.’ Even as she said it, Eleanor remembered she had done no such thing. Oh well, she would do it as soon as she could. ‘Jane has gone on an errand for cook and Phoebe is still cleaning the drawing room. Can I get you anything, Grandmother?’
‘I have a headache,’ said Margaret Wales fretfully. ‘I need more lavender water to soothe it, it’s the only thing that helps. Why was I not informed that Jane was going out? She could have bought some at the apothecary’s. Here am I, mistress of the house, and no one tells me anything. How am I to run it properly?’
‘I can go, Grandmother, it’s not far, it won’t take long.’
‘I don’t know.’ Margaret bit her lip doubtfully as she regarded Eleanor. ‘It’s not proper for young ladies to be out on the streets on their own.’
‘I’ll only be ten minutes, Grandmother.’
Margaret nodded, wincing as she did so. ‘Oh, my poor head. I suffer so from these dizzy spells. Go, then, but don’t dawdle and don’t speak to anyone. Remember you are a young lady now and should behave as such.’
Eleanor sped down the stairs and gave the belated orders to Mrs Green. Tying on her bonnet before the looking glass in the hall, she grimaced at her reflection. The plain brown bonnet with its demure brim and matching ribbons did nothing for her, except perhaps to hide the fact that her heavy hair was already beginning to drop out of its ringlets. Still, at least her cloak hid her plump arms and neck, she thought, grinning as she turned away. She was so looking forward to getting out of the house, even if just for half an hour; the air inside was so stale for, after October, Grandmother insisted on all the windows being kept closed.
The street outside was muddy and there was no footpath so she was glad she had remembered to strap on her pattens. At least they raised her skirts above the mud and she was still young enough to enjoy the satisfying squelching sound they made as she walked along to the corner and turned into Front Street for Mr Herrington’s apothecary shop.
She bought two ounces of lavender water from Mr Herrington’s apprentice, a young boy who blushed and stammered and fumbled with the wrapping paper as he made a parcel of the tiny bottle. Eleanor stood demurely waiting, holding her lips together primly so as not to burst out laughing as she pretended not to notice how inept he was.
‘Good morning, Miss Saint – it is Miss Saint, is it not?’
Eleanor looked up as she heard the minister’s voice. She knew him well, for Mr Nelson served her home chapel besides this one in Hetton. ‘Good morning, Mr Nelson,’ she answered. ‘How are you today?’
‘Very well, thank you, Miss Saint. You are staying with your grandmother and uncle, I take it? How is Mrs Wales?’
Fractious and ill-tempered, Eleanor thought, but otherwise in fairly good health. Aloud she said, ‘Tolerably well, thank you, Mr Nelson, apart from a headache. I must go now, she’s waiting for this lavender water.’
‘Of course, Miss Saint,’ said the minister, nodding his head so that his grey-speckled beard went up and down against his white collar. ‘I may expect to see you in chapel on Sunday, then?’
‘Yes, of course, Mr Nelson,’ Eleanor replied and escaped into the street. The winter sun was glinting on the coloured bottles through the small panes of the apothecary’s window and she looked up at them, pleased with the jewel-like colours. Reluctantly, she walked slowly along the street, almost deserted at this hour, as the whistle from Lyon Pit had just blown its message over the pit rows that fore shift was loosing, and the men and boys were coming home. The womenfolk would all be busy preparing a meal for them, thought Eleanor, or setting the back shift off for their ten hours in the pit. Dreamily, she imagined them in the tiny cottages in the rows, happy families even if they were poor. Though the mines were doing well and the pitmen were all in work and earning good money, according to her Uncle John.
Eleanor was almost to the end of the village and regretfully she turned the corner to the lane that led to the Lyon viewer’s house out of the village, away from the dirt of the pit yard and colliery rows. As she passed the end cottage she noticed the door was open and she couldn’t resist peeping inside, for she had remembered that this was the Buckles’ cottage. A flagstone was in place before the open doorway and a rag mat lay on top to keep the worst of the mud at bay. Eleanor paused, staring into the room, which had a brick fireplace with a smoking fire and a ladder up to a hole in the rafters, presumably leading to a bedroom. The only other furniture in the room was a bed in the corner, covered by a patchwork quilt. The floor was made of bricks laid end to end and there was another rag mat before the fire.
Fascinated, Eleanor forgot herself and leaned in past the door frame to get a better look. The bricks had been scrubbed only that morning, she could tell, for they were still damp and there was a distinctive smell of lye soap. The walls were lime-washed, as indeed she had known they would be, for Uncle John had issued an order that all the cottages had to be as a guard against the cholera. He even supplied the powdered lime, as it could be bought cheaply from a shed in the colliery yard.
‘Who’s there? Is that you, Mary?’
Eleanor jumped back as the quilt on the bed moved and the thin figure of a woman appeared, sitting up against the black-painted bars of the bedhead.
The woman peered at the door. ‘Mary? Did you find any mushrooms? By, I could really fancy a few done on the griddle with a bit of bread. Have you got the bairn with you?’
Eleanor stepped forward into the room. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Buckle, it’s not Mary, it’s me. I was just passing and I—’
‘Come closer, will you? I can’t see a thing in this half-light, that window gets covered in mud every time a cart passes however often Mary washes it. I’m sorry, I can’t tell who it is from your voice, like.’
‘Eleanor Saint, Mrs Buckle, I used to go to Sunday School with Mary. I’m here visiting my uncle at the viewer’s house.’
‘Betty Wales’s lass are you? I remember Betty Wales when her da was nobbut a pitman. He did well for himself, he did.’ Mrs Buckle had slid down the bed and her voice was becoming weaker and more threadlike. The brief interest she had shown in Eleanor was fading and she said fretfully, ‘Our Mary should have been back afore now. I wonder where she’s got to? I’m fair clammed for a cup of tea.’
‘Well, shall I put the kettle on for you? I can make you some tea,’ offered Eleanor. Mrs Buckle roused herself to give a short laugh.
‘Aye, I’m sure, lass, an’ if you can find a few tea leaves in the caddy you can do it.’
Eleanor looked about her for the tea caddy. There was a wooden shelf over the fireplace and a battered wooden box standing on it but when she looked inside it was quite empty. She felt a fool.
‘Oh, you mean you have no tea,’ she said, a little lamely.
Mrs Buckle was lying back, her eyes closed and her face as white as the bleached flour sack that acted as a pillow slip but she managed to smile faintly and nod her head. Eleanor was at a loss; she could go back to the village and buy a twist of tea – Grandmother had an account with Mrs Lambton’s grocery shop just as she had with the apothecary and Mr Sweeney the book seller. She hesitated, knowing she was already late in getting back with the lavender water. But surely it was her Christian duty to do something to help Mrs Buckle? Her dilemma was ended as Mary came in the door, holding little Prue’s hand. She had a cloth bag slung around her neck bulging with what Eleanor took to be mushrooms and in her other hand she carried a pail of water. Prue was hanging back and whimpering softly to herself but the sisters both came to a halt as they saw Eleanor, standing awkwardly by the bed.
‘Miss Saint!’ exclaimed Mary, the first to find her voice. ‘What are you doing here?’ She placed the pail of water by the hearth and the cloth bag on the table. Prue clambered on to the bed beside her mother and turned hopeful eyes on Eleanor.
‘Cake?’ she asked.
‘No, no I haven’t—’ Eleanor began but Mrs Buckle interrupted.
‘Prue, don’t ask for nowt, I’ve told you before,’ she said sharply.
‘I have nothing,’ Eleanor finished, ‘or I’d gladly give it to you.’ She turned to Mary, who was regarding her steadily even while she was ladling water from the pail into the iron kettle and settling it on the smoking fire. ‘I … I’ve been on an errand for Grandmother, your door was open as I was going past, so I …’
‘You came in, miss. Well, that’s all right, our door is always open like most of the folks’ around here, but for the gaffer’s, like.’
Eleanor blushed, remembering the reception Mary and Prue had received earlier at the back door of the Lyon viewer’s house before she had intervened. But she held her head high. ‘I thought to help your mother,’ she said simply.
Mary sighed. ‘Aye, I’m sorry, miss. But I have a lot to do. Ben, that’s my brother, he’ll be coming in off the fore shift and you can see how Mam’s held, her sight’s going now and her head’s bad all the time. Laudanum helps, but we can’t buy much. The doctor says something’s growing in her head as shouldn’t.’
‘Oh, how aw—’ Eleanor gave a horrified glance to the woman in bed, who seemed to have dropped into a doze, forgetting her fancy for mushrooms. Looking down at the parcel in her hand, she had an idea and held it out to Mary.
‘Grandmother swears by this for her headaches. I’m sure she won’t mind if I give it to Mrs Buckle when she is so ill.’
Mary looked doubtfully at the parcel. ‘What is it, miss?’
‘Just lavender water. It may help. You should dampen a cloth with it and smooth it on to your mother’s temples. Look, I’ll show you.’ Eleanor opened the tiny parcel and looked around for a cloth. Seeing none, she took out her own dainty handkerchief, wet it with lavender water and, going over to the bed, gently wiped the invalid’s head. Mrs Buckle sighed gratefully and opened her eyes for a moment. Eleanor was shocked to see how cloudy they were, how sightless they looked. The smell of lavender hung in the air, overlaying that of lye soap and damp.
‘I’ll leave it here, Mary,’ said Eleanor and placed the bottle on the table. ‘I have to go now, Grandmother will be waiting.’
‘Thank you, miss,’ Mary said simply as she went with her to the door. A small boy was just entering. Ben, Eleanor supposed, for he was dressed in old clothes stiff with coal dust and on his head he had a leather helmet with a holder for a candle. Though there was little to be seen of his skin through the layers of dirt, his eyelids were drooping wearily and his shoulders bowed like those of an old man.
‘This is Miss Saint, Ben,’ said Mary and the boy nodded and walked past them to the chair by the fire and slumped down on it.
‘It’s a long shift for him, he’s only eight, Miss,’ Mary apologised for him. ‘He’s a trapper boy, like, down the Lyon.’
Eleanor nodded; of course, she had seen many young pit lads, she saw them every day. It was a hard life for a boy but trapper boys were necessary in a mine; Uncle John had explained to her they were needed to keep a flow of good air in the tunnels of the mine. She said goodbye to Mary and sped back to the apothecary’s shop in Front Street.
‘What have you been doing, Eleanor? You’ve been gone almost two hours!’
‘I’m sorry, Grandmother.’ Eleanor stood before her grandmother in the dining room. Uncle John was already sitting at table and Jane was serving him beef soup from a large tureen.
He looked at Eleanor’s face, pink with rushing back up the lane on her clumsy pattens, and smiled. ‘There’s no harm done, Mother,’ he said. I’m sure Eleanor has enjoyed her morning out in the fresh air instead of being confined to the house all day. Perhaps she met a friend, someone her own age to talk to.’
‘You haven’t been mixing with the people from the colliery rows, have you, Eleanor?’ Mrs Wales asked sharply. ‘Did you meet someone and talk?’
Eleanor studied the red roses in the carpet before answering. If she said she had been talking to a friend from Sunday School it might do but Grandmother might ask who it was and then there would be trouble – she would probably be confined to the house for the rest of her stay. Her mind flew back over her outing and she remembered the minister.
‘I met Mr Nelson. He inquired after you, Grandmother. I thought I would offer to help at the chapel supper tonight, if you will allow it.’
‘There, you see, Mother. A perfectly innocent outing. Now do come to the table, Eleanor, the soup’s getting cold and I’m ready to say grace.’
Uncle John drove her to the Wesleyan chapel that evening, on his way to a meeting of his fellow colliery managers. The night had turned cold and frosty and Eleanor was glad of her warm cloak and the rug to put over her knees. As they came to a halt before the chapel, she saw there was quite a queue of people waiting and the stewards were ushering them forward into the schoolroom.
‘I’ll come back for you, my meeting won’t take more than an hour,’ said Uncle John as he handed her down on to the flags at the entrance and walked with her to the door. Eleanor was very conscious that all heads were turned towards them as they went past the queue. Why didn’t the stewards let them in faster? she thought. It was so cold outside, the mud in the lane was already icing over, and some of the children had bare feet.
Inside, the schoolroom trestle tables were set out with barely space for two people to pass between them. The benches around them were filling up rapidly and Eleanor had to gather her skirts around her to make her way down to the serving table by the platform.
Mr Nelson stood by the table with Mr Briggs, a portly man with side whiskers and thatch of grey hair. Eleanor knew him slightly, for he was a lay preacher and she had heard him preach in the chapel at home. Beside him stood a young boy, half a head shorter than she was herself, fresh-faced and earnest-looking.
The smell coming from the cauldron of broth that stood in the middle of the table made Eleanor feel slightly queasy: boiled turnips and cabbage mingling with the greasy ham bones.
‘Oh, Miss Saint,’ said Mrs Nelson, who was standing behind the table, enveloped in a large apron and with a ladle in her hand. ‘Have you come to help? God bless you, my dear. We are few in number tonight, the weather being so bad. Some ladies don’t like to venture out in the dark winter nights. And there is quite a crowd to serve, is there not? You know Mrs Herrington, do you?’
The apothecary’s wife paused in her task of cutting thick slices of bread and piling them on plates and smiled at Eleanor. ‘Perhaps you will serve the tea?’ she said.
‘Of course,’ said Eleanor. She took off her cloak and hung it on one of the hooks to the side of the stage. Putting on the apron she had brought with her, she took her place behind the copper tea urn.
The schoolroom was full by this time and the stewards were ushering the last of the queue into the chapel itself, where extra tables had been erected. At last, everyone was inside and the doors closed. The buzz of conversation died down and all eyes looked to the platform as Mr Nelson climbed up, followed by the young boy.
‘Good evening, friends,’ said the minister. ‘Some of you will know Master Francis Tait, grandson of Mr Briggs. I am happy to announce that he has decided to give his heart to the Lord and become a lay preacher. I am sure you will join with me in wishing him every success. Now, Francis will offer thanks for God’s goodness in providing this food for our use.’
Eleanor stole a quick glance at the boy on the platform before bending her head for the prayer and was surprised to find him regarding her with steady brown eyes. Their gazes locked for a brief second before he turned calmly away and began to speak.
‘I believe we have a thief in the house, John,’ said Grandmother Wales.
Eleanor stopped eating her breakfast of bacon and eggs and placed her knife and fork carefully side by side on the plate. Cautiously, she looked up at her grandmother to find that lady not looking at Uncle John, but staring icily at herself. Blushing furiously, she raised her napkin to her face.
‘Surely not, Mother,’ Uncle John said, sounding very surprised. ‘The maids have been with us for years and they have always been honest before, haven’t they?’
‘I’m not talking about Phoebe or Jane,’ said Mrs Wales, still keeping gimlet eyes on Eleanor. ‘Nor Mrs Green.’
‘Who then?’
Instead of answering her son’s question, Mrs Wales spoke to Eleanor. ‘Have you something to tell us, Eleanor?’ Pointedly, she picked up two accounts that had been delivered with the morning post. Miserably, Eleanor saw the headings: one was from Mr Herrington, the apothecary, and one from the village grocer.
‘Eleanor? What is this all about?’ asked Uncle John. Eleanor was dumb, though her mind was racing furiously.
‘Someone has been acquiring goods at the village shops and putting them on my account,’ said Mrs Wales. And I’m sorry to say, it must have been Eleanor as it is she who has undertaken the marketing this last month.’
‘Eleanor? Come now, you can tell us if it’s not true, perhaps the tradesmen have made a mistake.’ Uncle John wiped his moustache with his napkin and waited for Eleanor to speak. He ignored his mother’s loud snort.
‘I … I can’t say that, Uncle John,’ Eleanor said at last. ‘I’m sorry, I just didn’t think—’
‘You didn’t think you would be found out?’ Grandmother said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘You think I am so bad a housekeeper that I don’t check the accounts? You are a thief, girl, you will burn in hell! Though God knows what you wanted with a pound of candles and a stone of flour. Not to mention a bottle of laudanum from Mr Herrington.’
‘I’m not a thief! I will pay you out of my allowance, it’s due any day now. I needed the goods for a friend, someone who is ill. Doesn’t the Bible tell us to feed the hungry and help those who are ill?’
‘How dare you speak to me like that! Preaching to your own grandmother about the Book! Go to your room, girl, you can stay there until I can arrange for you to go back to your mother. Perhaps she will have more success than I in controlling you.’ Mrs Wales was trembling with rage, she clutched her napkin so tightly in her hand that her knuckles gleamed white in contrast to the alarming flush that enveloped her face and neck.
‘Mother, Mother, calm yourself, you’ll be ill,’ Uncle John said urgently. ‘You know the doctor said you must stay quiet with no excitement.’ He looked across at his niece. ‘Eleanor, do as she says now, go to your room. I will speak to you this evening, when everyone has calmed down. Go now.’
‘I’m not a thief,’ said Eleanor stubbornly.
Mrs Wales started up from her chair, raising her hand as though to strike her. ‘No, and you’re not too old for a beating, my girl! By, if I was but a few years younger I’d—’ Her face had turned an unhealthy shade of red and her usually carefully cultivated speech had slipped, her vowels broadening as her voice rose. Eleanor remembered that Grandmother’s father had been a hewer down the pit.
‘Mother, sit down.’ Uncle John kept his voice calm and deliberately low as he moved to his mother’s side and put his arm around her and forced her back into her seat. ‘Eleanor, go now, I say.’
Eleanor stood for a second, her face flaming, her mouth open to protest, before turning on her heel and racing out of the room and up the stairs. She banged the door of her room shut behind her and flung herself on to her bed. Rage flooded through her, a rage every bit as high as her grandmother’s and all the more so because she knew herself in the wrong. But what was she supposed to do? She had no money of her own and since her mother had gone to live with her older brother Tom and his wife Charlotte, earlier in the year, her allowance had been cut drastically; it barely covered her dressmaker’s bills, small though they were.
She thought about Grandmother’s threat to send her back to her mother – surely she would not do so. In Charlotte’s house she would be worse off than she was here in Hetton-le-Hole. She would be expected to act as unpaid nursemaid to her spoilt little niece and nephew, Alice and Albert, and she couldn’t bear the thought.
‘Please, God,’ she prayed aloud, ‘don’t let Uncle John send me away. I won’t put another thing on Grandmother’s accounts, really I won’t.’ She paused for a moment and shook her heavy hair back from her forehead, the better to be able to think. What would happen to the Buckles if she couldn’t help them any more? Ben was growing older but it was still a long time before he would be earning a man’s wage and the few shillings he got as a trapper boy were not enough to keep the family. And Mary, now, she could work, it was true, but what about young Prue and her mother if Mary wasn’t there to see to them? Truly, it was a great problem, one she couldn’t answer.
Rising from the bed she went to the window and looked out on the green paddock that lay at the back of the house with trees and bushes at the side planted by Grandfather Wales to screen the ugly pithead and slagheap and, most especially, any view of the colliery rows.
If only she had been born a boy, she thought miserably. Then she could have gone to Durham University and become a doctor – oh, how she had wanted to do that. She had thought that Uncle John would understand, he was so different to how her father had been – until the day she mentioned it to him and he had smiled gently at her and told her it was impossible. He had explained to her that men liked ‘good’ girls rather than clever ones and she had had to clench her hands until the nails bit into her palms to stop herself from screaming at him. Here they were into the second half of the nineteenth century and women in England were as much slaves as those poor black folk in America.
‘Flaming hell!’ she said loudly and then looked apprehensively at the door. Had someone heard her? And if they had, what would happen then? She’d likely be turned out of the door without a penny, why she might have to earn a living on the coal screens at the pit head. She had seen girls there, as black as the stones they were picking out of the coal; in fact, it had been from them she had heard the swear words. The upstairs hall was silent, however; no one had heard her. ‘Flaming hell!’ she said again, quieter this time. The words expressed how she felt so perfectly and she didn’t care how wicked they were. Shaking her hair back from her face yet again, for it had already fallen out of its restraining ribbons, Eleanor glared out of the window for a moment before going back to her bed and flinging herself down on it again. She was still there when Uncle John knocked at the door at four o’clock.
‘May I come in, Eleanor?’
‘Just a minute, Uncle John.’
Eleanor jumped to her feet and smoothed down her dress, which was all wrinkled and creased from the hours she had spent on the bed. Her stomach rumbled; there was a delicious smell of food coming from the hall and not only had she left half her breakfast but she had had no dinner sent up to her at three o’clock. Grandmother’s orders, no doubt.
‘I’m ready now, Uncle John.’
Her uncle came in, closing the door quietly behind him, and came to stand in front of her. For a moment they looked at each other silently. He was a mild-mannered man, tall and earnest-looking. She thought he looked more like a college professor than a mine manager though she knew he ran the pit efficiently.
‘Well, Eleanor.’ It wasn’t really a question, nor even a greeting, just a statement. ‘Your grandmother has retired to her room, she is upset and feeling ill.’
‘I’m sorry for that, Uncle John,’ she answered. ‘I will pay for the things I bought, just as soon as I get my allowance from Mother. I always intended to. The things were for poor Mrs Buckle, she’s dying, Uncle John, and I couldn’t let her die in the dark for want of a candle, could I? And they were hungry, so I thought flour for bread—’
‘Sit down, Eleanor.’ Uncle John waited until his niece sank into one of the two small armchairs by the window and then he took the other. ‘Eleanor,’ he said quietly, reasonably. ‘We cannot look after all the destitute in the village, not you nor I. We simply cannot.’ It was typical of him that he did not ask who Mrs Buckle was; he knew everyone in the village, even though there were hundreds of men working in the mines and living with their families in the colliery rows. ‘I have given the boy employment, he is a trapper boy in the pit, isn’t he? And though we are short enough of cottages for our workers, I allowed them to stay in their home after Mr Buckle was killed. I think I have done my duty. I must remind you, I am but the viewer here not the owner. I am like the servant in the parable of the talents who received five talents from the master. I have to manage the affairs of the mine wisely and make a profit for the mine owner.’
Eleanor raised hot eyes to him. ‘But Mrs Buckle is so ill, Uncle John. I want to help, I went to Sunday School with Mary, it’s our duty to help those less fortunate than ourselves. And I have been reading about Florence Nightingale in the Ladies’ Home Journal. I can do what she does, after all, she is a lady and—’
‘I know well who Florence Nightingale is,’ said Uncle John. ‘A lady of independent means, I understand. You cannot compare yourself with her, Eleanor, you are still a child.’
‘I am not a child, Uncle John. I am almost sixteen. Why, when Grandmother was my age she had been earning her own living for almost ten years!’
Uncle John coughed dryly. ‘Hush, Eleanor, do you want to upset her further? You know she does not like to be reminded of it.’
Eleanor subsided; she was indeed well aware that Grandmother Wales was very sensitive of the fact that she had never been to school but as a child had worked alongside her brothers on the coal screens, for her family was large. She had learned her reading and writing in the schoolroom at the Wesleyan chapel on Sunday mornings.
‘Be a good girl, pet.’ Uncle John changed his tone to one of persuasion. ‘I would be sorry to see you sent back to your mother, you’re a ray of sunshine in this dreary old house, you are. Now my mother has retired, I’ll send you up a bite of supper so you don’t lie awake with night starvation and tomorrow evening you can come with me to the missionary meeting.’
‘Thank you, Uncle John.’
Eleanor’s tone was meek, in contrast to her earlier rebellion, for she could tell Uncle John considered the episode finished. Any thoughts of following in the footsteps of Florence Nightingale were to be consigned to the midden, along with her earlier hopes of becoming a doctor. She stared for a moment at the door, which he had closed behind him, and then returned to the window, staring out into the black night that was lit only by a red glow to one side, behind the trees, where the colliery continued its ceaseless working. Though she was frustrated in everything she wanted to do, she told herself, she would do something, oh, she would, she would make her mark in the world and show them all. She would find some way, yes indeed.
Francis Tait was at the missionary meeting. Eleanor saw him as she came through the door to the schoolroom along with Uncle John, and she felt his eyes upon her, calm and steady and velvety brown. When she returned his gaze, he inclined his head gravely in the manner of a man twice his age, yet it did not make her laugh as it might have done in any other young boy.
‘I see young Master Tait is here,’ said Uncle John, looking down at her. His sharp eyes had missed nothing of the silent exchange of greetings between his niece and the boy preacher. ‘He is apprenticed to learn business and commerce at Newcastle upon Tyne, perhaps he has a holiday.’
There was no time to say more as the meeting was called to order and Mr Nelson rose to introduce the guest speaker. There was a general rustle of anticipation, for it was Mr Mee, a visitor from the Australasian mission field, a man who had worked among the heathen of the savage islands they had heard such tales of – unspeakable tales of pagan rites, the wicked butchering of babies and more, the sin that the people of Hetton hardly dared breathe to each other. Eleanor watched and listened, enthralled, her mind taken completely off her own mundane trials and troubles as Mr Mee described fierce warriors, naked as the day they were born but for a few feathers in their hair, and armed with tall spears, warriors who would kill and eat you as soon as look at you.
Eleanor felt someone’s eyes upon her and glanced along the row, catching Francis Tait watching her. She lifted her chin and gazed at him loftily, and he blushed, quickly turning his attention on the speaker. Eleanor smiled to herself, feeling strangely pleased even though he was just a boy, years younger than herself. She was glad she had bothered to put on her new straw bonnet with its fringe of lace that hid her unruly hair.
The next minute she had forgotten all about Francis Tait and everyone else around her as she listened enthralled to Mr Mee describing how the natives had no real doctors, only heathen witch doctors and when they fell ill of even such mild illnesses as the common cold they often died because the witch doctors used the most horrific remedies, which seldom worked.
For half an hour Eleanor gazed at Mr Mee, but she wasn’t seeing the missionary, she was seeing herself going among sick natives like an angel of mercy, like Florence Nightingale, dispensing medicine and wise advice and saving them from the wicked witch doctors, and they would all adore her and call her the Lady from Heaven. Oh yes, she could be a medical missionary, or at least a nursing missionary, and the heathen hordes would all be converted to Christianity and become civilised human beings.
‘Eleanor, wake up, child.’
Uncle John was taking hold of her arm and the people were getting to their feet. For a moment she was disorientated, her mind still in distant lands, and she didn’t know why they were standing.
‘The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God—’
Oh, yes, of course, the meeting had ended, as always with the saying of the Grace. The members were moving about and beginning to chat among themselves and suddenly Francis Tait was standing before her.
‘Good evening, Miss Saint,’ he said. ‘Good evening, Mr Wales.’
‘Hello, Francis,’ said Uncle John. ‘You will excuse me, won’t you, I wish to have a word with Mr Mee.’
Francis and Eleanor were left looking at each other. He has grown, she thought abstractedly, realising his eyes were on a level with her own now.
‘Did you enjoy the talk, Miss Saint?’ he asked politely.
‘Oh yes, indeed, Mr Tait,’ she answered, full of enthusiasm.
Francis smiled at her animation, encouraged. ‘I intend to enter the Wesleyan Missionary College in London as soon as I am seventeen. I am greatly drawn to the work.’ He would have sounded impossibly pompous except that his voice broke during the last statement and became almost a squeak.
Eleanor, however, hardly noticed it. The animation was fading from her face and she turned abruptly from him. ‘I must find Uncle John, it is time I was going home,’ she muttered and pushed through the crowd away from him, leaving him staring after her looking suddenly young and dismayed. Why did his voice let him down at the important times?
It’s not fair, Eleanor was saying to herself as she waited for Uncle John to stop speaking to Mr Mee, her eyes fixed on the scrubbed boards of the floor. He was a boy; he could go away to college and become a missionary, he would have all the adventures, he could do anything. What could she do? Nothing, that was what, nothing at all, except be a good little wife to someone and stay at home and never make a name for herself, never have any fun. That was if anyone would have her and, according to Grandmother Wales, even that was doubtful. She would never be able to follow her dreams, never, she might just as well settle herself to it.
‘Come along, Eleanor, it is time we were going.’
‘Yes, Uncle John.’
She followed her uncle out of the hall, not even looking to see if Francis Tait saw her going. What did she care if he did or not; waves of envy were sweeping over her and in that moment she hated him.
Eleanor stood by Mary and her young brother and sister as the minister recited the burial service and the plain deal box, which was all the Poor Law Guardians allowed, was lowered into the grave. It was the corner of the churchyard where all those who were buried on the Parish were laid to rest and it was behind the church, out of sight of the imposing tomb-stones of the more affluent dead.
Prue was whimpering, for the corner was dark and damp, and what could be seen of her feet between the patches of mud was blue with cold. Automatically, Mary bent down and swung the child up in her arms and rested her weight on one hip. Mary’s face was set and white but she did not weep and neither did nine-year-old Ben; he simply stood there and watched as his mother’s body was laid to rest.
The service was over and the small gathering of neighbours began to move away, most of them glancing curiously at Eleanor, the viewer’s niece, in her plain black dress and poke bonnet. But the day was cold and they didn’t linger. After all, there would be no funeral tea to send off poor Mrs Buckle, no, and no doubt it would be the workhouse for the little lass too, for the family had no kin left to help them. Young Ben might manage to get a family to give him house room, as he was used to the pit now and in a year or two would be earning good money as a putter or even a hewer of coal. Housewives with more girls in the house than boys looked appraisingly at Ben and both Eleanor and Mary knew exactly what they were thinking.
‘Come, Mary, we should go now,’ Eleanor said when everyone had left and the minister had given them his condolences and gone back to his manse. ‘At least Uncle John has agreed to let you keep the house for now and there’s coal in the coal shed, Prue can get warm.’
‘Aye, Mary,’ said Ben. ‘Let’s away, I have to go down with the night-shift men the night.’
At first Eleanor thought Mary hadn’t heard, she was standing so still, simply looking at the grave. Then, holding Prue with one hand, Mary delved inside her apron and pulled out a bedraggled bunch of snowdrops and laid them at the head. Shaking her head, she turned away, her mood completely changed.
‘Now then,’ she said. ‘We’d best get back out of this wind or we’ll all be taking our beds.’ She started to stride towards the gate and then stopped and looked at Eleanor. ‘Do you need me up at the house today, Miss Eleanor? I can leave Prue on her own now, she knows not to do anything daft, she’ll be all right at home in the warm.
‘No, no, of course not Mary,’ answered Eleanor. ‘Tomorrow will be soon enough I’m sure.’ Though she would have to explain to Grandmother that she had given Mary the rest of the day off, thought Eleanor ruefully as she turned away and started to walk home on her own. She had been going to accompany the family back to their cottage but some instinct told her now that they wanted to be by themselves to mourn in their own way. At least there was bread in the house, she knew that, for Ben had been paid his fortnightly wage yesterday, along with the rest of the men.
Mary walked back to their tiny cottage in the row with Ben and Prue, her thoughts bitter. Poor Mam, these last years had stretched out for her, filled with such pain that her daughter had longed for her to go. Yet when the end did come it had filled Mary with a wild anger and sorrow. Why had