A Child of Jarrow (4 page)

As she turned to get a glimpse out of the window, Mary called out, ‘Write and tell us what it's like - what the gentry are wearing. Bring me some'at back, won't you? Don't forget.'

Kate nodded and waved. She had no idea what she was supposed to bring back, but she would try to find something to please her sister. A moment later the train was jolting into movement and pulling away from the station. Kate peered through the blast of smoke for a final glimpse of Mary. Her heart hammered in sudden panic at what she was doing, leaving the familiar surroundings of Jarrow and South Shields for an unknown life in the countryside. At that moment she wanted to hang on to her sister and not let her go. She waved frantically, but someone had shut the window to keep out the smoke and the moment to shout a farewell was gone.

Kate squeezed into a seat in the middle of the carriage but craned for a view out of the grimy window. It all passed so quickly and the smoke was still thick around them, but she thought she recognised the stretch of embankment at Cleveland Place. She wondered if her mother paused in hanging out her washing to come to the back fence and watch the train go by.

When the rows of blackened terraces and spires of Jarrow gave way to the sprawling village of Hebburn and its docks, Kate thought of Sarah. There had been no time to see her older sister to explain what she was doing. Mam had said she would tell her on her next visit. Kate determined she would write a letter when she was settled.

Then all the familiar landmarks were past and the train hurried on into the towering tenements of Gateshead, where she had to change for her train south to Lamesley. By the time she was boarding the second train her nervousness was changing into excitement at her new adventure. She gazed out of the window as the train took her out of the teaming metropolis of Gateshead, heading south, and abruptly plunged her into a world of ripening com fields and undulating hills.

***

That day at the docks, men knew by the brooding look on old McMullen's pasty face not to speak to him or get in his way. When the dark moods took a hold of him it was best to let him work in silence. Some said he'd been like that since his army days in Afghanistan, about which he refused to talk. Others murmured he must be suffering from too long a night in the Twenty-Seven. Many wondered if there had been trouble at home, but it was pointless to ask. John McMullen was too proud to admit there was anything wrong, and what went on in a man's home was his own business.

Mary hummed to herself as she dawdled along the street, watching the shopkeepers winding out their faded canopies against the July glare. She peered into shop windows, yearning to touch the soft fabrics in the draper's, smell the soaps in the chemist's and listen to the soft rustling of tissue paper in the haberdashery. She would be a collector of beautiful things to guard against the drabness of the world. Aunt Maggie's love of books had shown her that there could be gentility in Jarrow, even among the dirt and poverty that were ever present like inferior neighbours.

Mary smiled as she suddenly remembered that Kate had not taken her winter jacket with the blue velvet collar that she had coveted for three winters. Kate had said she'd be back long before it grew cold enough to wear. Mary would have it. It suited her better and she would wear it whatever the weather. Kate wouldn't mind, and besides, she, Mary, deserved something in compensation for being the one left behind to slave for the family.

On the point of turning for home, Mary caught sight of a stall selling second-hand books and periodicals. She hesitated. There was money in her purse to buy suet, but she had a sudden desire to treat her favourite aunt to one of the battered novels. She would call on Aunt Maggie before facing her mother. Maggie would give her a bacon knuckle or some split peas to make a soup that would compensate for the lack of suet. Rose would scold her but she did not care. Mary had learnt how to close her ears to shouting and threats until they subsided. Her mother was too crippled to run after her with a rolling pin, and nagging Kate was gone. She would do as she pleased. Mary went inside and bought a book.

***

Left behind, Rose stabbed at the flapping shirts on the washing line with thick wooden pegs. Her arms ached from the savage pounding of washing in the poss tub that morning, but her face to her neighbours was expressionless. Only the redness of her eyelids betrayed the tears she had shed in the privacy of the wash house.

Along the embankment, Jack threw stones on to the empty track, his face disconsolate in the silvery glare of a hazy sky.

The scream of the train's whistle still echoed in his ears like a tune that lingered in his head and would not be quiet. He would be late for school or maybe he would not go that day at all. He would be strapped, but he did not care. He would grit his teeth and not flinch. Jack could bear physical pain, would welcome it. Anything would be better than the strange aching in his chest that felt like suffocation. His eyes felt itchy as if he would cry, but only bairns and girls cried.

He retreated to the oak tree and climbed into its comforting arms. Jack scraped at the lovers' etched initials with his dangling boot.

‘Williamena Ferret-Face loves Richard Mudpie,' he muttered.

Then suddenly, bewilderingly, the leaden lump in his chest heaved and tears flooded his eyes. Jack gave out a sharp yelp. He curled into the tree, buried his face in his arms and wept.

Chapter 4

Alexander felt a familiar boyish rush of excitement as the horse and trap turned under the castellated gateway and waited for the lodge keeper to emerge. Impatient, he leapt down from the passenger's seat.

‘I'll walk up to the castle,' he smiled at the coachman who had brought him from the station. He paid him his fare, waved away the change the man tried to give him and lifted down his leather case.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Bates!' he called to the stooped retired gardener, whose sole responsibility now was to open and close the high wrought-iron gates at this seldom-used entrance to Ravensworth. Most of the many visitors who came and went from the bustling estate did so by the broad entrance and sweeping driveway to the north. The south lodge was almost obscured by foliage and the narrow turf drive was roofed by massive oaks and elms, creating a green mossy tunnel. But it reminded Alexander of childhood visits and on the spur of the moment he had got the coachman to stop.

‘Mr Pringle-Davies?' The old man grinned with pleasure. ‘Good day to you, sir.'

‘Grand day, Mr Bates. You look fighting fit as ever.'

The keeper chuckled as he moved slowly to unlock the rusting gate.

‘Aye, grand day. Are you here for long, sir?'

‘A few days of business and a few more of pleasure, I should think,' Alexander answered with a swift smile, clasping the man on the shoulder as he stepped through the gate. ‘Is Lady Ravensworth at home?'

‘Don't rightly know,' he wheezed. ‘I'll ask the missus, she knows it all. If the cat sneezes in the castle kitchens she's the first to hear it. Mrs Bates!'

A tiny woman with an old-fashioned cap on her head and an even more bent posture than her husband came bowling out of the stone cottage. She looked up sideways and cried in delight at the sight of the tall young man.

‘Master Alexander! Come here and let me look at you. By, you're as tall as a tree - and still your mother's fair face, so you have. Such a bonny face!'

Alexander blushed and laughed aloud. ‘You knew her better than me. I bow to your superior knowledge.'

‘Listen to you,' she crowed, ‘words coming off your tongue like a proper gentleman. I don't care what they say about you being a common Pringle, your mam was a Liddell as much as His Lordship's a Liddell - and she was a real lady. I used to fill her bath for her and I can tell you—'

‘That's enough, Mrs Bates,' her husband coughed in warning. ‘Mr Pringle-Davies doesn't want your life story, just wants to know if Lady Ravensworth is at home.'

Mrs Bates clucked in disapproval. ‘No, she is not. Gone somewhere foreign - the Continent or the likes. Left His Lordship to his hunting. Not that he does much of that these days at his age - sleeps a lot in the library so I hear. Eighty-one. Still a handsome man, mind. And there's the old dowager still at Farnacre, and she a hundred! They're long-lived the Liddells - excepting your poor dear mother.'

‘Mrs Bates,' her husband cautioned her again with one of his embarrassed coughs.

‘Thank you for your information,' Alexander said with a reassuring smile, touching the old woman on the arm. ‘It's good to see you're still keeping a watchful eye on the place as ever, Mrs Bates. Just like you did when I was a boy.'

She clung on to him. ‘Always enjoyed your visits, Master Alexander. Not the same without children about the castle -you were always the liveliest, a right little handful, but a loving nature. Didn't I always say that, Mr Bates? A loving nature. Now there's no children - just parties and balls and the like when the mistress is at home. Crying shame His Lordship has no son and heir—'

‘Mrs Bates!' Mr Bates growled.

Alexander tipped his hat at them both, waved a cheery goodbye and strode off up the track before Mrs Bates could waylay him with offers of tea and a further hour of gossip. She had been equally garrulous as a housemaid, easily distracted from her work when he had stayed at the castle as a boy. The orphan. ‘That poor baim', as he had often overheard the staff describing him within earshot.

Nobody had known quite what to make of him, Alexander thought with familiar discomfort. He was a Liddell through his mother. But she had eloped with a handsome Scots coachman, been outcast and then died, leaving the itinerant Pringle with a small boy on his hands. His father had handed him straight back to the Liddells and disappeared out of his life too.

Alexander did not like to remember the painful, confusing years of being tossed around his mother's family like a hot coal that no one wanted to handle. He had felt like one of the gentry, but the world had looked on him otherwise. He was classed as a wild Pringle and had played up to their disapproval, behaving as badly as he knew how. Only the intervention of His Lordship's coal agent, Jeremiah Davies, had saved Alexander from his nomadic life and given him a home and education. Widowed and childless, the lonely businessman had offered to take on the troublesome boy as his own.

As Alexander walked on the soft drive, breathing in the scent of pine needles and freshly cut logs, he felt a stirring of the old resentment. Then he mocked himself for his self-pity. He might be lumbered with the names of Pringle and Davies - half wayward Scot, half upright man of business - but he felt in his bones he was an aristocrat.

‘I am a Liddell!' he cried at the trees and waved his walking cane at a pheasant that flapped in alarm across his path. He laughed his quick, deep-throated laugh. That was why he had the audacity to turn up at Ravensworth and expect Lord Ravensworth, his distant cousin, to offer him hospitality. He would not stay at the local inn like any ordinary commission agent or merchant. It was his birthright to stay in a place like Ravensworth. The earl was an amiable, generous man who had shown him kindness as a boy.

Yet once he was in the care of Davies, relations with the Liddells had cooled, for it was socially awkward to have the adopted son of an employee holidaying at Ravensworth. Once more he had been rebuffed. Then the earl's wife had died and to family surprise, Lord Ravensworth, at the age of seventy-one, had got remarried to a vivacious widow, who had breathed new life into the mournful estate and set little store by social convention.

Alexander smiled at the thought of the handsome middle-aged widow Emma Sophia, who so relished life. She loved entertaining; lavish dinners, dances, picnics, hunts and a houseful of guests. She loved her new husband and his magnificent Gothic castle and she loved to fill it with lively young women and attractive young men who shared her appetite for society.

When Alexander had first come on business on behalf of his adoptive father, Lady Ravensworth had insisted he stay on for a few days' riding. The few days had turned into a fortnight, until Jeremiah had called him home to the south of the county and reprimanded him for outstaying his welcome. But Jeremiah was ageing and Alexander was quick to take up offers of travel on his behalf. On several occasions he had done business on behalf of the estate and the Liddells' extensive coal interests. Usually his visits had coincided with a summer carnival or a winter ball to which he had been pressed to stay.

It was too bad if Lady Ravensworth was away from home, Alexander thought ruefully. But he would beg a night or two with His Lordship and maybe there would be news of her return before he had to take ship from Newcastle. He was bound for Scandinavia and the Baltic States to secure contracts for selling coal and arranging return cargoes of timber for use in British mines.

Travelling suited his restless nature and he spent more time roaming the art galleries and museums, and playing cards at the gaming tables of the richer hotels than he ever did haggling over the price of coal with the managers of Swedish iron ore mines. But he dressed and talked like an English gentleman and his mixture of charm and knowledge of the host country brought more success than Jeremiah's honest but dour business talk.

Alexander walked briskly up the steep track, whistling as he went. A group of low-lying stone cottages came into view around the corner, their lintels obscured by honeysuckle. The sweet scent permeated the warm air. A be-capped gardener was helping a young woman out of a cart. Alexander caught a brief glimpse of a fair curved cheek under a large straw hat and a flash of stockinged ankle as she dismounted.

‘Afternoon!' he called, touching the brim of his hat with his cane, thinking that the ruddy-faced man looked familiar.

The man pulled at his cap in reply, then a red-haired boy bounded out of the cottage and took his attention.

‘Look, look! I've got a duck's egg. Look, Cousin Kate!'

‘Let the lass down first, Alfred,' said his father.

Alexander grinned at the boy, whose exuberance reminded him of himself at that age, and walked on.

Kate, holding on to her Uncle Peter's earth-ingrained hand, jumped down from the small cart. She glanced at the walker's retreating back. He was tall and broad-shouldered, in a smart coat and hat, with thick, wavy hair that touched the back of his collar. Strangely, for a gentleman, he was carrying his own suitcase and seemed to have emerged from out of the woods. But in a few long strides he was gone, with a flash of silver-topped cane and a lusty tuneful whistling, and Kate wondered about him no more.

She turned to hug her young cousin. ‘Hello, Alfred. Let's see this egg, then.'

The boy dragged her into the cottage, his boots clattering on the stone flags. The kitchen floor was covered in unwashed clothes and the table with dirty dishes. There were trails of dried mud across the rag mats and the range was dull and soot-encrusted. Kate looked around in dismay. Suddenly a pheasant came darting and squawking through the kitchen, making her start in fright. The bird fled out of the open door.

‘That's Edward - he's called after the new king,' Alfred explained. ‘He comes here for his dinner.'

A ginger cat yawned and stretched on a pile of straw near the hearth and fixed an interested gaze on the retreating bird.

‘That's King Rufus,' said Alfred, running over to grab the cat. ‘Our George learnt about him in school - said he had ginger hair.'

‘What a lot of royalty!' Kate laughed. ‘Didn't know I'd be living with all these kings.'

‘I'll have to be gettin' back to work,' Peter said, his look harassed. ‘George'll be back soon to help. Your aunt's in there.' He nodded towards a closed door. ‘Make yourself at home.'

He raced out of the cottage like the pheasant, leaving her basket by the door.

‘Ta for the lift, Uncle Peter,' Kate called after him, but he was gone.

Alfred was quite absorbed stroking the cat, but the creature objected to being grappled in his small arms and leapt down, padding quickly after the others.

Kate untied her hat and then wondered in all the mess where to put it. Holding on to it she said, ‘Well, shall we go and tell your mam I'm here?'

‘Yes!' Alfred cried, having already forgotten about the duck's egg. He ran to the closed door, jumped at the latch and flung it open. ‘Mammy! Kate's here. Wake up, Mam!'

Kate stepped into the bedroom and peered into the gloom. ‘Aunt Lizzie?'

A sneeze erupted from the depths of the high bed next to the tiny casement window. ‘Kate? Is that you, hinny? Come closer.' Her voice was laden with cold.

Alfred had already scrambled on to the bed. ‘Aye, it's Cousin Kate.'

‘Ow, mind me leg!' Lizzie cried in pain.

Kate went quickly to her aunt's side, taking hold of her hand. ‘How are you, Aunt Lizzie? We've all been worried -Mam especially.'

‘Mammy's leg looks like a tree trunk, that's what me da says,' Alfred chirped.

Lizzie groaned in frustration. ‘I cannot move out of bed without Peter's help. And now I've caught a cold. I was that worried about what to do until we got your note.' She gave a weak squeeze of her clammy hand.

‘You don't have to worry,' Kate assured. ‘I can stay as long as you need me.'

‘This place is like a pigsty since I took to me bed.'

‘Don't fret. I'll get it put right,' Kate smiled.

‘You're a good lass,' Lizzie coughed.

‘Haway, Alfred,' Kate said, pulling her young cousin off his mother, ‘you said you'd show me that duck's egg.'

At the sudden reminder Alfred scrambled to the edge of the bed and slid off. He dashed out ahead of Kate.

‘I'll bring you a cup of tea in a minute.' Her aunt sneezed in reply and Kate closed the door.

She moved around the unfamiliar kitchen, trying to bring a measure of order to the chaos, tidying and sweeping and trying not to step on Alfred's collection of eggs and berries and feathers. She cleared the grimy clothes into a pile by the back door and searched the pantry for something to make for tea. At least that seemed well stocked, with baskets of carrots, beans and eggs, a wooden platter of butter, earthenware jars of sugar and flour and a china pail half full of milk. Tomorrow she would tackle the washing and scrub the stone floors.

George, a stocky boy of twelve, returned, eyeing her cautiously from the open front door. He was bashful and sandy-haired like his father, and replied to her questions with grunts. Alfred interpreted for his older brother.