Eliza's Child (2 page)

ELIZA OPENED HER
eyes and there was her mother-in-law bending over her. ‘God be praised,' said Annie. ‘She's coming round, John Henry.' Eliza was bewildered; what were they doing in her and Jack's room? John Henry's face appeared at the bottom of the bed. He stared at her, unsmiling.

‘Aye, I can see that,' he said gruffly.

‘Jack?' Eliza asked and the word came out as little more than a whisper. She tried again. ‘Where's Jack?'

‘You needn't think he's getting in here again,' said John Henry. ‘I'm a Christian man. You can stay until you're up to the moving but as soon as the doctor says you are fit for it you and the babby are out.'

‘John Henry!' said Annie.

‘Don't you “John Henry” me. She was fool enough to marry a gambler and a thief and she'll have to abide by it. No doubt her and her folk thought she had done well for herself. Our Jack would be a great catch to them.' He laughed grimly. ‘Aye well, now they'll know just what sort of a catch.' He turned his back and stalked to the door.

‘Eeh well, Eliza, I'll have to abide by his word,' said Annie. ‘I know me an' thee haven't been close but I wouldn't have thrown you out, not with the babby an' all. I'll try to keep you for a while longer but you'll have to go soon.'

Eliza was barely aware of what her mother-in-law was saying. Her body ached, her head ached and a fog of weakness enveloped her. But over it all, she longed for Jack.

‘Jack? Where's Jack?' she asked again.

‘You'll see him soon enough,' said Annie. ‘Now howay, you'll have to feed the bairn. Here he is three days old and he's had nowt but cow's milk.'

The bairn? She'd had the babby then? She had thought it was all a terrible nightmare. The pain she had thought was tearing her in two; the pain that had gone on and on, and she had dreamed she was in hell and it was her punishment for her sins. Everlasting hellfire.

But Annie was lifting her shoulders and putting a pillow behind her, and she was handing her a shawl-wrapped bundle. Eliza gazed down at her son. He had a fuzz of dark hair and his blue eyes were unfocused yet still he turned to her and nuzzled at her with his mouth wide open. Not finding what he wanted, his tiny fists waved in the air and a small crease showed on his forehead. He made sucking noises and moved his head around impatiently.

‘Why, man!' said Annie in exasperation. ‘Let me unbutton your shift or the lad will die of starvation before he finds your titty.'

He was not long in finding the nipple once he felt bare skin; he took no guiding towards it. He found it and hung on, sucking hungrily. And Eliza, gazing down at him, felt the purest bolt of love sweep through her. All her difficulties and miseries were forgotten or at least submerged as she communed with her child.

‘He's a grand little lad,' Annie said softly. Eliza glanced at her. Her mother-in-law's face was softened, her normally harsh expression gone. She caught Eliza's eye. ‘He's our first grandbairn, isn't he?' she said defensively.

Eliza said nothing. She had no energy to point out that when she had to go then it might be the last Annie saw of the baby.

The following Saturday Eliza found herself standing on the step at the front of the house. She had the baby in her arms and boxes at her feet. She hugged the baby to her breast and gazed down towards the bend in the road. Surely Jack would come any minute. He would hire a horse and trap to take her into Alnwick, wouldn't he? Annie had sent to tell him to come and collect his wife and bairn.

Jack had not yet seen the baby. He had come to the door and made one more attempt to get in, shouting up at her window, ‘Eliza! Eliza!'

She had been feeding the baby and by the time she got to the window he was gone. John Henry had been at home and he had sent Jack packing. Eliza lay down on the bed and cried with frustration and the ache she had in her for Jack and the weakness of her body that stopped her running after him.

Now, almost a week later, she was still not herself but stronger than she had been and the doctor had pronounced her fit to move.

‘I don't suppose you have far to go in any case,' he had said. ‘Your husband has work away, has he? Not too far away?' Inquisitively he looked at John Henry who had just come into the room. He had heard talk of how wild Jack Mitchell-Howe had turned out to be and of a rift in the family.

‘Aye,' said John Henry. ‘Now, if you'll give me your bill, Doctor, I'll pay you now.' He held open the door and the doctor found himself following him out. Eliza was alone as she stood on the step waiting for Jack. Neither John Henry nor Annie had any intention of seeing their eldest son. It was as if he didn't exist any more, Eliza thought. By, John Henry was an unforgiving man, oh aye, he was. The clatter of horses' hooves on the stones of the road made her look again towards the bend in the road, but it couldn't be Jack for it was a carriage and two horses pulling it that came along the road. But it was Jack driving she saw, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he halted the horses and jumped down in front of her. Dear God, what had he done now?

Relief and love for him swept all other emotions from her as he took her in his arms and kissed her on the lips extravagantly, and the feel of him holding her brought back the old intoxication.

‘Mind the babby, Jack, don't squash the babby,' she cried, but softly, and Jack let her go and looked down at the baby, though all he could see of him was the top of his head, as he was swathed in a shawl against the cold wind that blew at this back end of the summer.

Jack moved the shawl aside and looked down on his son's face. The baby looked him straight in the eye solemnly for a few seconds then away, turning slightly towards his mother and making sucking noises. The tip of his tiny tongue showed between his lips, pink and milky. Jack laughed with delight.

‘Howay then, let's have you both into the carriage,' he said. ‘The lad wants his dinner.'

‘Where are we going?' Eliza asked.

‘You'll see.'

As he turned the horses, a curtain at one of the first-floor windows of the house twitched, but neither Jack nor Eliza noticed. They bowled round the bend and through the village and people turned to stare and mutter among themselves that mebbe Jack Mitchell-Howe and his father hadn't fallen out. Mebbe it was all gossip and Jack was doing all right for himself. Anybody at all who could keep a carriage and pair like that must be doing all right.

‘An' good luck to him an' all,' said Bill Oxley as he clasped his hands over his apron as he stood in the doorway of his grocer's shop. ‘If he stays off the gambling he'll do all right. He has as good a hand as his father when it comes to the carpentry.'

‘Aye well, it's a big if,' commented Mrs Wearmouth, who was standing in front of him with a large basket in her hands. ‘Now, are you going to let me in to do me shopping or not? I can always go into Alnwick if you're too busy to serve me.'

Eliza sat in the carriage and watched the countryside roll by. There were hundreds of things she wanted to ask Jack but now was not the time. Now was the time to enjoy sitting beside him with the baby on her lap and being happy, for soon enough she would have to ask. He was revelling in driving her to whatever place he had found for them. In
being
in a position to be able to take her away from his father's house in style. The child had been lulled into sleep by the movement of the vehicle but then he woke and was hungry and she suckled him, enjoying the feelings he roused in her and murmuring softly to him.

‘Where are we going, Jack?' she asked after they had left Alnwick behind and were rolling south along the Great North Road.

‘You'll see, it's not far now,' he replied.

They bowled over the bridge across the Tyne and into County Durham and ate a meal in an inn in Chester-le-Street and went on again until at last they stopped in Durham city, in front of a tidy little house in the shadow of the cathedral.

‘Where are we, Jack?' Eliza asked as he handed her down from the carriage, for all the world as though she were any grand lady. ‘Whose house is it?'

‘It's ours, Eliza,' Jack replied. He made a flourishing gesture with one hand and put his other arm around her shoulders. ‘Our luck has turned, hinny, our boat came in. I knew the necklace would be our good luck charm. I couldn't put a foot wrong at York races and since then every card I take is an ace.'

‘The necklace?' Eliza felt sick. She pictured the necklace in her mind's eye. It seemed evil to her now, glittering in the light of the candle as it had that night in his father's house. ‘It's sold then?'

‘It was but don't worry, pet, I have it back. It was the first thing I did, get the necklace back. I'll put it round your pretty little neck and there it will stay.'

Eliza clutched the baby to her and he stirred as though in protest. ‘I don't want it!' she cried.

‘Don't be daft, pet,' said Jack, smiling. ‘Howay in, I have a surprise for you inside. You don't want to catch your death out here in the cold, do you?'

The front door of the little house was opening and he drew her towards it. And there, wiping her hands on her apron, was Eliza's mother, Mary Anne.

‘Mam!'

Eliza forgot all about the necklace as she felt her mother's arms around her. All the tension of the last days seemed to dissolve and she found herself weeping onto the snowy bib of her mother's apron.

‘Hey, man,' said Mary Anne gently. ‘Pull theesel' together, our Liza. You're all right, there's nowt the matter that cannot be put right. You'll squash the life out of me little grandbairn in a minute. Let's have a look at him, any road.'

She drew Eliza into the parlour of the house while Jack stood aside, beaming all over his face at the success of his little scheme.

‘Give him here,' Mary Anne commanded, and she took the baby and moved the shawl away from his face so she could look at him properly. ‘Aye,' she pronounced after a moment. ‘He's a right bonny bairn. But then, why wouldn't he be? He's got his mother's face on him.'

‘I think he's like his da,' said Eliza. ‘A handsome lad.' She smiled over her mother's head at Jack.

Mary Anne barely looked up at Jack. ‘Aye well, handsome is as handsome does,' she commented.

‘Oh, Mam,' said Eliza. She hadn't seen her mother since the day of her wedding to Jack. They had left the cluster of houses which could hardly be termed a village and which had grown up round the pithead near Haswell in the county of Durham. The place didn't have a name in the early years when Mary Anne had followed Tommy as he carried his pick and shovel across the coalfield as he looked for better paying work than was to be had in the old worked-out bell pits of Cockfield. No one named it, not even the mine owner, but it had come to be known as Blue House after an ancient tumbledown farmstead that stood nearby.

There was a Wesleyan chapel, though not much of a one, for Wesley had paused nearby in his perambulations about the countryside and worked his magic on the local people. The chapel was tiny and barely accommodated Eliza's family, and no one from Northumberland had turned up to see Jack married.

‘They'd think our Eliza wasn't good enough for the lad,' said Mary Anne.

‘Nowt of sort,' Tommy had retorted. ‘Our Eliza is good enough for any man an' I'll fell the one that says she isn't!'

Jack had been on his way home from Durham, where he had been delivering a beautifully crafted mahogany sideboard to a friend of the bishop. The friend had been visiting the duke in Alnwick and seen some of John Henry's work. In the event he had got the sideboard for less than half he would have paid a more fashionable furniture maker and was well pleased. Not pleased enough to pay up immediately, though. Jack had the thankless task of going home to his father without the money due. So he had put off the day and driven the cart around the countryside a bit, and when he saw a ‘pitch and toss' gambling school in the shadow of a pit heap he went over to it and joined in.

The idea was to gamble on which side a coin would land when pitched in the air, and he was lucky, he won most of the pitmen's pennies. He and Tommy, that is. Afterwards Tommy invited him back to the two-roomed cottage for a bite to eat before he went on his way. A stranger was something of a novelty at Blue House and the miners were hospitable when they were able. Tommy had bought pies at Granny Hadaway's tiny shop on the corner of the row and they'd had a feast in the little kitchen along with Mary Anne and the bairns. Eliza was the oldest, and she was bonny, with a wealth of dark curly hair and deep violet eyes. All the pit lads were after her but once she saw Jack she knew he was the one for her and they were married within three weeks.

She was so happy to leave Blue House with her new husband. It was like living a dream. She was delighted when they crossed the Tyne and saw the wonder of Stephenson's railway bridge and the bustling city beyond. She was delighted with driving through the Northumberland countryside beside her lovely man and she was delighted with the ancient town of Alnwick, still fortressed by great walls 'gainst the Scots.

‘Against the Scots?' she had asked fearfully when Jack told her the reason the town was like that, and he had laughed.

‘The Scots don't come down now, you goose,' he had said. ‘It was centuries ago.'

Eliza felt foolish. She hadn't gone to school, had never had the chance. She couldn't write her name even. But she would learn, she told herself. Someday.

The disillusionment came when they reached Jack's parents' house and she stood with him in the hall facing John Henry and his wife. The air in the hall was icy and the looks John Henry and Annie gave her were icy to match. They stared at her then looked away towards their son.

‘Where the hell have you been?' demanded John Henry.