Eliza's Child Read online

  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 S
cots?’ 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.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ said Jack. ‘I got married.’ He indicated Eliza. ‘This is Eliza.’

  ‘Where’s my money?’

  ‘He’s sending it to you at the end of the quarter,’ said Jack. He was flushed; he looked like a small boy caught out in some naughtiness. Eliza stared at him; he seemed like a different man from the one she had married.

  ‘You’ve gambled it away! I should have known better than trust you,’ said John Henry bitterly.

  ‘No, he did not!’

  Eliza couldn’t help herself; she jumped in in Jack’s defence as she would have done for her little brother James, who was always into scrapes.

  ‘You speak when you’re spoken to, lass,’ snapped John Henry.

  ‘Sssh, Eliza,’ said Jack at the same time.

  Almost a year later, in the little house in Durham city, the memory of her introduction to her husband’s family flashed through her thoughts as she watched her mother hold her baby with practised ease.

  ‘By, Mam, I’m that glad to see you,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘You and Da are worth two of that lot in Northumberland.’

  ‘Now then, you’re a bit overwrought,’ said Mary Anne, looking keenly at her daughter. ‘Howay, sit down by the fire and feed the bairn. You’ll feel better come the morn.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘I DON’T WANT to wear the necklace,’ said Eliza.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Jack. ‘I like to see it on your pretty neck.’ His expression was genuinely hurt and puzzled. He felt he would never understand Eliza. Surely every lass liked real jewellery? Anyway, he had to find out where the necklace was.

  ‘It’s not really mine, is it? It’s your emergency fund for the next time you lose all your money on a horse or the turn of a card or whether a black beetle will beat a cockroach in a race—’

  ‘Eliza! How can you say such a thing? I’ve told you, it’s yours and I’ll not take it away from you again, I won’t!’

  Eliza lifted Thomas out of the tin bath and sat him on the towel on her lap. Thomas smiled at her with eyes wide and innocent-looking as his father’s. She wrapped the towel round him and rubbed him dry then dusted him with boracic powder before taking his flannel vest from the brass line under the mantel shelf and putting it on him. Thomas wriggled but was still smiling when his face emerged from the neck of the vest. He was a sunny-natured bairn, she thought. She looked up at Jack, who was lounging against the edge of the table, waiting for her to reply.

  By, she thought, Jack was a bonny lad, he was, especially when he raised one eyebrow at her when he saw he had her attention again.

  ‘I have the necklace put away safe,’ she said and pulled Thomas’s petticoat over his head and pushed the linen buttons through the holes.

  ‘Where?’ asked Jack.

  Eliza sighed. ‘Jack, you’re not being dunned for money again, are you?’

  Jack flushed. ‘No, I’m not. How could you think it? I told you, I don’t want to take the necklace away from you, I’m not going to do that. I just want to know where it is. I like to see you wearing it, Eliza.’

  ‘I have it safe,’ she said stubbornly.

  Jack stood up straight and stomped to the door. ‘What you mean is, you don’t trust me. Well, I’m warning you, Eliza, I won’t have you keeping secrets from me. I’m your husband and it’s not right. I’ll give you time to think about it.’

  As the back door crashed behind him, the brass sneck dropping onto the bar with a metallic click, Eliza stared out of the window as he strode down the yard and round the corner into the street. Thomas struggled as she held him against her and murmured in protest, and she looked down at him.

  ‘There, there, pet,’ she said. ‘We’ll go to the shop in a minute and buy something nice for dinner. Then we’ll walk along by the mill race, you like it there.’

  She sat the baby in the fancy carriage Jack had brought home after a day at the races. It was the only baby carriage in the street, for though this part of Durham was a little better than some of the mean little terraces which clustered at the foot of Castle Chare, the folk living here being artisans rather than labourers and pitmen, it was only the really better off who could afford such a thing as a baby carriage.

  ‘Nothing but the best for my lad,’ Jack had said when Eliza questioned the wisdom of buying it. So it stood in the tiny hall and they had to squeeze past it to get in and out, which was the reason they used the back door rather than the front.

  Thomas crowed and waved to everyone who went by as they made their progress down the street towards the steep path leading to the river. The sun sparkled on the water as she pushed the baby carriage along the towpath. There was a cool wind blowing on the top of the hill but here, sheltered by the high banks of the Wear, it was warm and almost springlike. In spite of her niggling doubts and worries Eliza felt her spirits rise.

  Perhaps Jack was not in debt to anyone, perhaps he had made a new start and she just didn’t trust him enough, just as he said. He had opened a workshop-cum-shop in Saddler Street and she knew he was a good carpenter just like his father. Why, they had only been in Durham for six months and already he had satisfied customers who came back for repeat orders. His reputation was beginning to grow. She should have more confidence in him. Since Thomas had been born he spent less time at the races and he worked hard at the joinery, she knew he did.

  Only, whenever he asked her about the necklace her heart sank. She had it hidden away in a bag of sugar in the back of the kitchen press. He would never look there, she was sure he would not. The necklace was her insurance.

  Eliza stood by the mill race so Thomas could watch the water rushing over into the pool below and spreading out in ripples to the wider river. Thomas crowed and clapped his hands, an accomplishment he’d only recently acquired. She smiled at him and he smiled sunnily back and tried to bounce up and down on the pillow, succeeding only in falling back against it. Eliza turned him on his side and pulled the coverlet over his shoulders.

  ‘Time for your nap, my little pet,’ she said and began to push the baby carriage up the steep path to the shops. She would call in to see Jack at the workshop, she thought. She hated there to be bad feeling between them. Pausing at the top of the hill, she allowed the wind to play on her face while she got her breath back. She felt slightly sick and leaned against the ancient wall surrounding the cathedral grounds until the feeling receded. Thomas was asleep, she saw, his thumb firmly in his mouth. Eliza smiled fondly and walked on, the baby carriage jiggling on the cobblestones.

  The shop was closed, ornate cast-iron shutters over the windows and door.

  Where was Jack? Eliza stared at the shutters as though she had made a mistake and they were open.

  ‘Howay, move out of the road, Missus,’ an impatient male voice said. ‘That thing you’ve got there is blocking the way.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Hastily, Eliza moved to the alley at the side of the shop and set off down it. Of course, Jack must be in the workroom, he just hadn’t opened the shop yet. But the door to the workshop was closed and locked. Maybe he’d gone out to a customer? With some difficulty, for the alley was narrow, she reversed the carriage and went back to the street. She couldn’t understand it; Jack would have told her if he was going off somewhere, wouldn’t he?

  A man was hammering
a notice to the front door of the shop. He had to reach through the bars of the shutters to do it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Eliza demanded. ‘That’s my husband’s shop, you have no right!’

  He hammered in the last nail before answering. When he did turn to her he looked her up and down, unsmiling. ‘Your man’s, is it, Missus? Well, mebbe you can tell me where I can get hold of him?’ It was the man who had asked her to move out of the way; a big, broad-shouldered man with a ruddy face and small blue eyes.

  ‘Why do you want to know? It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Aye but you’re wrong there, Missus. It’s my business all right. An’ I mean that, I have the deeds here in my pocket.’

  Eliza reeled with the shock. ‘The deeds! You can’t have the deeds, you’re a liar!’

  The man patted his pocket. ‘Oh but I have. An’ if you were a man I’d knock you down for that.’ He stopped and glanced down at her white face. She looked stricken. His tone softened. ‘Listen, I’m a reasonable man. You tell that man of yours to bring me the keys by four o’clock the day and we’ll say no more about it. But it’s no good him thinking he can run off with the keys and get away wi’ it. You just tell him that.’ Putting the hammer in his pocket, he strode off towards the market place.

  Eliza stared after his broad back until he disappeared round the bend in the road. It was a nightmare, she told herself, it couldn’t be true. Jack had given no sign that morning, he had not. She turned to the notice on the shop door. But she couldn’t read it, of course. She looked about her for someone who might be able to read it to her.