Easterleigh Hall (2 page)

She straightened up, easing her back, more glad than she could ever say that Miss Manton had agreed to train her as a basic cook rather than a housemaid, or she could have ended up on hands and knees brushing up the debris from the rugs and brewing a back that would be the bane of her life. Miss Manton was a good woman, a true Christian her mother said, but then added that she had to be, putting up with the sermons of that parson brother of hers.

Jack patted himself dry with sacking while she picked up his clothes from the floor. They were stiff enough with coal and dirt to walk to the scullery on their own but she helped them on their way, adding them to her da's pile. It was good to have Gala day to think about. It was this she'd concentrate on, as worrying never boiled a kettle, her mother always said. These sayings would lead everyone in the vicinity to commit group strangulation one day, but today the thought of them made her want to cry. She didn't want to leave. How could she? She stared at the men's clothes, still holding the shape of the bodies that had been within them. She picked up Jack's hobnail boots which she had cleaned and greased earlier and took them to the range. She touched his clean trousers on the clothes horse.

‘Your clothes are warm, bonny lad.' She knew her voice shook. No one noticed. She patted the clothes horse, looking around the room to give Jack his privacy as he dressed, studying the pictures of the Northumbrian coast painted by Ben, her da's marra. It was as though they'd been joined at the hip since school, her mam always said. Ben had joined a pitmen painting group that met in a nearby hut. Well, it made a change from leeks, whippets and pigeons. She looked at the oil lamps, and the dresser displaying her mam's best plates which were only used at Christmas, the proggy mat in front of the range. She loved every bit of their home, but it wasn't their home, was it? It was the colliery's, Lord Brampton's in other words.

She listened to the crack, spit and hiss of the fire. They had a free ton of coal every month along with the other miners as part of their wages. It was dirty coal, too full of shale to be marketable, still, beggars couldn't be choosers. She banked the range again, though it was unnecessary. Her father was watching, but it was as if he wasn't seeing. ‘Da, are you right grand?'

Her da just returned to his paper, rustling it. She tried again. ‘That wind's sharp today, Da. The parson went to Fordington and he said the surf was strong and tumbling.'

Her father said from behind the paper, ‘Good, it'll bring up the sea coal. We'll take out the cart tomorrow after dinner. The wholesaler will be there, he's offering good prices so we can put more into the savings. We've got to remember that everything we do is for the savings.' His voice was fierce suddenly, and strange. ‘Are you coming with Timmie and me, Jack?'

Da looked over his newspaper at his son, who was singing again as he did up his braces. Da's voice wasn't right yet. Could he know about the job interview? She concentrated on Jack, not on anything else.

‘Always do.' Jack reached for his shirt, dragging it on, buttoning it up. ‘But right now I'm off to Numpies to get a shave.' He ran his hand over his stubble, and his dark brown eyes seemed to grin all on their own. The young men went to Numpies, the old ones did it themselves. No one shaved during the week.

As Jack put on his boots Evie took the flannel through to the scullery, checking the grandfather clock to the left of the range. It kept good time and was useful for pawning. Three thirty. Please don't come yet, Miss Manton. Make it when the men have gone, Jack to the barber, Da to his pigeon loft at the bottom of the yard. Then, if she had passed her interview she would wait until the men were mellow from the Gala and break it gently that she was to be working for the owner they loathed. It was crossing the line, it was betrayal, but necessary, as it was the only establishment that could give her the training she wanted within easy distance of home, of her family. And why shouldn't Bastard Brampton pay for their escape from his bloody pit?

She opened the back door, shaking the flannel vigorously. She dadded the coal-drenched shirts and hoggers, the short miners' trousers, against the wall again and again, coughing all the while as the dust caught in her throat. There was a blue sky but the wind was sharp. There were nails banged into the wall further to the right where they'd hung their pit jackets, which she dadded as well. Her hands were black. What about their lungs? She would sort out Timmie's clothes when he came home. This might be the last time.

She reran yesterday's interview in time to the beating of the clothes. Miss Manton's former cook Mrs Moore worked at Easterleigh Hall, and she had promised Miss Manton she'd contact her if a position ever came up for Evie as kitchen assistant or even better, assistant cook. During the week the assistant cook was discovered to be pregnant and cast out, back to her family who thankfully had taken her in. Miss Manton had driven Evie in her trap for an interview with Mrs Moore after which she had been passed to the butler, who then led Evie upstairs to Lady Brampton.

Evie had never seen such carpets, such curtains, such opulence. She had never been spoken to with such disdain. For a moment Lady Brampton had diminished her, made her falter in her plans. But only for a moment. She had previously been told by Mrs Moore to back out of the drawing room, for it would offend her Ladyship to do otherwise, and at that point Evie had promised herself that one day, when she had completed what she considered a paid training, she would take great delight in offending her Ladyship good and proper.

Miss Manton was to deliver the result before the Gala. If she had been accepted it would be to start tomorrow in the afternoon, as further references would not need to be pursued in the face of Miss Manton's and Mrs Moore's recommendations.

‘What do you think then, Evie? Smart enough for the lasses?' Jack was standing at the entrance to the scullery. Evie stopped dadding and smiled. ‘I told you, you're a bonny lad.' She noticed the bag he was carrying and her heart sank. So, he was bare-fist fighting tonight, she should have known. The purse would be good with the Gala and all. She looked at him. ‘Be careful,' she whispered. ‘I will,' he mouthed. ‘There's a five-guinea purse. It's a fortune. The bets are coming in from everywhere. I have to do it.'

She knew what he meant. The whole family were saving to buy one of the three houses owned by the farmer, Mr Froggett, way out at the end of the village. The one they were aiming for was very small and therefore cheaper than the others. Property ownership was the only way they could gain power over their own lives and free up Jack to support Jeb, the union rep, without threat of eviction from the colliery cottage. Every penny any of them earned went into the pot after rent and food. This included Jack's bare-fist fights, the sea-coal money, the allotment vegetables, her wages, her mother's proggy rugs, everything. ‘Be careful, be quick, be strong,' she whispered.

Her da called, ‘What are you two gaggling about? I've got good lugs, you know. Your cap's here on the clothes horse, bonny lad.'

For a moment Jack looked at her. They shook their heads at the same time. Jack said, ‘I was telling her young Preston should be there this evening, let out of the Hall gardens by our all-powerful all-bastard of an owner for a couple of hours. How the lad can bring himself to work there beats me. He said he'd be at the shooting gallery at seven if I want to catch him, or if anyone else does for that matter.' Jack winked at Evie, who blushed, torn between longing to see Simon and fearing Jack's reaction to the result of the interview. ‘You need your scarf,' she nagged.

Jack grinned at her and left his bag by the back door before striding to the clothes horse. She followed him, longing to hurry him up. It was almost 3.45.

He picked his scarf from the clothes horse, and his cap. Their da was standing in front of the range now, his paper folded carefully on the armchair. He had backed against the fender, his pipe in his hand, but the tobacco was not properly tamped and was spilling from the bowl.

He usually wasted not a shred. His pose was one he took when they were in trouble and needed a talking-to. Evie shot Jack a look and felt the tension across her back. He'd heard about Easterleigh Hall, then? Or was it the fight? He'd been strange since his arrival home. All she could hear was the ticking of the clock, the cracking of the range fire as it began to burn through the bank.

‘What's up, Da?' She knew her voice was too high. She coughed, lowered it. ‘Is everything all right?'

Jack had become quite still at her side. It was what he did until he knew which way to jump.

Da's jaw was set, his eyes narrowed. His hand shook. More tobacco spilt. It was this, as well as the look in his eyes, that set the panic rising. It was nothing to do with her, or Jack. It was the same look he'd had when he'd told them six years ago that his job had gone, with the Top End Pit closure, and they had packed up to walk the roads until they reached her mother's sister in hope of a job in the Hawton Pit. There had not been one. For months they had de-thistled farmers' fields, collected sea coal, anything to find enough to eat. They'd all slept in Auntie Pat's outhouse, for that was the only spare space. It was that or the workhouse, but then Da had found work at Auld Maud. She saw her panic reflected in Jack's eyes when he turned to her, then back to his father.

‘Da?' Jack asked. ‘Is it that you've lost your job? Why didn't you tell us, man? Why did you just sit there reading the paper like nothing was wrong?' He wasn't still now, he was raging, filling the whole of the room as he did when angry. He was pacing, roaring. He threw his scarf and cap to the floor. ‘I'll bloody kill the bastards.' The fire must be roaring too because Evie felt impossibly hot. So terribly hot.

It was their father's name on the colliery house. Jack was unmarried, so not eligible for one. They'd be evicted and all the cooking in the world would not stop that. It had come too soon. She wanted to call her mother but Jack's pacing was fencing her in. She was shaking, all over. Just shaking.

‘Stop it, stop it.' She was shouting too, at herself. Jack turned, looked at her. ‘It's all right, pet. I'm sorry. It's all right.'

She waved him away, ashamed. ‘Not you – me. I must stop shaking. I must.' She could hardly speak.

Jack stepped forward, held her. ‘We'll be fine. Honest we will, pet. Don't worry. I'll find us somewhere, I'll do double shifts to pay for it. I'm nineteen, a good strong hewer and I can match any at the coalface.' His voice was shaking too now, and he was no longer a strong man but a frightened boy who was seeing their lives and hopes ruined, again.

She let him hold her for a moment but then straightened. ‘I can help more, I'm getting . . .'

Her father cut through. ‘Listen to me.' He half turned, placed his pipe on the mantelpiece, not looking at them. The oil lamp alongside the tin her mother kept for the rent money was soot-smeared. Evie had forgotten to clean it. She must, now. She must change their luck, do everything right. Yes, she'd clean the lamp. Her father repeated, ‘Listen to me. I'm your da, I have a responsibility, so shut the noise. I have changed my job, not lost it. D'you hear? I've changed my job.' It was only then that he faced them.

Jack let her go; they didn't understand. How could he change his job? He was a top hewer. Da hacked as though in confirmation, then looked down at his empty hand. He recaptured his pipe from the mantelpiece, held it, his fingers white from the tightness of his grip.

Jack moved then, homing in on his father, gripping his arm, shaking it so that even more tobacco fell from the bowl on to the rug. He stared hard into his father's eyes. Da said nothing for a moment, no one did and Evie could not understand what was passing between the son and the father.

‘I was offered . . .' Her da's voice was rough, as though it hurt to produce the words.

‘Just tell us,' Jack said, his face pale, almost as pale as his chest, so recently bared for his bath. Pitmen had pale chests because they never saw the sun. Evie wondered why such stupid thoughts surged to the surface when something was terribly wrong. She watched as her da shook off Jack's grip as though he couldn't bear to be touched, and now he put up his hand. ‘It's for the family. I've just taken a job that will help us, that's all.'

He stood as Jack did just before the fight bell rang – braced, on his toes, alert, all of these things. His stance was mirrored by her brother. She was excluded – outside the ring.

‘What have you done?' Jack asked, but it was as though he knew, or feared he knew. He was an inch from his father's face now. ‘What the hell have you done?' He was roaring again. ‘The only job on offer is the Deputy. You wouldn't? No Forbes would go over to Bastard Brampton's side. No, Da. No.'

He flung himself away, kicking with his bare feet at the clothes horse, at the tin bath. He kicked again, and Evie moved, pulling him back, pulling him far from her father. Jack wrenched free. She took hold of his arm again, holding him, glad now her ma was on the front step for she shouldn't see this.

‘No, Jack. Let Da speak.' Her voice was controlled, tight. ‘Let him speak.' She moved, placing herself between them. She was panting. It was from fear and shock, because in the growing silence Evie knew, from the shame in his eyes, that Bob Forbes had indeed changed sides, for in Brampton's pit the deputies did not join the union, they joined the Brampton Lodge, the management's ‘club'. It was the way Brampton ran his pits. He put one against the other, weakened, divided and ruled.

Da spoke again, his grip as tight on his pipe as before. ‘It was offered when Fred Scrivens lost his legs. The pay is good, and it's not true management, Jack. I'm your deputy safety overman, and I repeat, the pay is good. If I'm deputy then slowly we'll break Brampton's way of dividing us. I'll start a bridge between the miners and management. Besides, we need all the money we can get as soon as we can get it, because who knows what terms will be offered when the Eight-Hour Act comes in. All I do know is that there'll be trouble, and you know that too.'