Eve and Her Sisters Read online

  Returning to the yard, she filled the scullery bucket with water. If the tap froze it took ages to melt with bits of burning paper pushed up the spout and experience had taught her that a full bucket was the minimum required for cooking, drinking and washing.

  The kettle was boiling and the table laid for tea when her sisters came running into the kitchen ten minutes later.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Eve stopped them, pointing to their snowy boots. ‘Wipe your feet, both of you. What do you think the mat’s for in the scullery?’

  ‘Is it true?’ Nell, who was two years younger than Eve but a head taller and nearly double her size in width, which made her appear far older than her eleven years, had been crying. It was evident in her pink-rimmed eyes and red nose. ‘The fall at the pit? Is it true?’

  ‘Go and wipe your feet.’ Eve ushered her sisters back into the scullery but as they went, she said, ‘Aye, Nell, I’m afraid it’s true. Now come and take your things off and sit down. Da and the lads are probably quite safe but we won’t know what’s what for a while.’

  ‘Oh, Eve.’

  ‘Now don’t start blubbing, that won’t help anyone and Da’d be mad if we gave way.You know he would. They’ll be all right. I’m sure they will.’

  It wasn’t until her sisters were seated at the table drinking the hot tea she always served up in winter when they got home from school that Mary said, ‘Mrs Price’s husband is down the pit. Someone came to tell her and she went home. Flora Davidson, one of the girls from the top class, came to sit with us. She was ever so bossy.’

  Eve nodded but didn’t comment.

  ‘Hannah Walton lives next door to Flora and she said when Flora an’ her mam an’ da came round for New Year’s Eve, Flora kissed Hubert, Hannah’s brother, on the mouth. Do you think she would? Hannah said you can have a bairn if you kiss a lad on the lips. Is that how babies are made?’

  ‘Shut up, you.’ Nell poked Mary in the ribs and none too gently. ‘Who cares about that when Da and the lads are stuck down the pit?’

  ‘Shut up yourself.’ Mary tossed her blonde curls and glared at her older sister.

  With only sixteen months separating Mary and Nell, rows were common. It didn’t help that the two girls were so different, and not just in looks; with Nell being big and beefy and Mary as fragile as thistle-down, folk would be hard pressed to see any resemblance whatsoever. But the real difference lay in their personalities. Earth and wind, her father called the two, but while he would come down hard on Nell, even taking the belt to her on the odd occasion, Mary got away with murder. It wasn’t fair, Eve thought now, because Nell was all heart whereas Mary - as her detachment from the present calamity showed - was more interested in herself than anything else.

  Her voice flat, Eve said, ‘Eat your tea,’ and placed the bread and cheese and chitterlings in front of her sisters.

  Wrinkling her small straight nose, Mary surveyed the plates in front of her. ‘You said we were having pot pie tonight.’

  ‘I haven’t had time to cook with what’s happened. If you don’t want anything, that’s fine, but you’ll go to bed hungry, all right?’ Setting the pork dripping on the table, she added, ‘You can dip your bread in that if you want.’

  Mary pouted, a prelude to her crying, an action which normally served to get her what she wanted - at least with her father and brothers. Glancing at Nell’s scowling face and Eve’s tight one, she appeared to change her mind and reached for a shive of the bread. Eve forced herself to eat a little too, even though every mouthful seemed to stick in her throat. She could not afford to get sick. She had to keep things ticking over as usual. It was what her da would expect of her.

  At eight o’clock she could stand her sisters’ bickering no longer and sent them to bed. It was an hour before their normal bedtime and they went under protest.

  Eve stood at the kitchen door and watched Nell’s fat figure, candle in hand, waddling indignantly up the stairs to the room the three of them shared, and Mary flouncing after her. Eve pressed her fingers tightly to her mouth as if to forbid its trembling. Was it only last night the three of them had had a crack with da and the lads, laughing and joking after the evening meal? She swallowed hard. And now . . .

  Whirling round she busied herself tidying the kitchen before starting on a basketful of ironing. Once that was finished and the oats were soaking for the girls’ porridge in the morning, the urge to find out what was happening at the pit became overwhelming.

  Hoping Mrs McArthur was back, she stepped into the back yard. The snow was inches thick and the air so frosty it took her breath away.The clouds had dispersed and the night was clear, the sky pierced with twinkling stars. Everything seemed clean and bright and new. They had to be safe, she told herself for the umpteenth time. It was inconceivable that on a beautiful night like this everything wouldn’t come right. There had been other falls, other times when it had taken the rescue teams ages to reach trapped men and they had been alive.

  The McArthurs’ house was in darkness but a light showed from the kitchen window in the house to Eve’s left where the Finnigan family lived. Mr Finnigan worked at the South Moor Colliery so he wouldn’t know anything. She was about to go back into the house when the Finnigans’ door opened and Mr Finnigan stood there in his shirt sleeves with a mug of tea in his hand.

  ‘I thought I saw someone out here. Any news, lass?’ he called softly.

  Eve shook her head. She liked Mr Finnigan, everyone did. He was young and smiley and his wife had had twin boys the year before last and was expecting again.

  ‘Let us know when you hear, and if you need anything in the meantime, you know where we are.’

  The kindness loosened her tongue. ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded at her, taking a sip of the tea, and he was still standing there watching her when she opened the back door and stepped into the house.

  In the kitchen she stood biting at her fingernails. Coming to a decision, she lit the candle in the lads’ candlestick and made her way upstairs by its light to where Mary and Nell were sleeping. The lads’ room was across the landing - her father slept in a big brass bed in the front room - and she gazed at the closed door for a moment before going into the room she and her sisters shared. She made her way to the double bed where all three of them slept. Bending down, she shook Nell gently, saying, ‘Nellie, lass, wake up. Wake up.’

  ‘Wh-what?’

  ‘Look, I’m going to the pit to see if there’s any news. I might be awhile so don’t worry if you wake up and I’m not back.’

  ‘I’ll come an’ all.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, I need you to stay with Mary.’

  ‘Take my coat then, it’s warmer than yours. An’ me scarf an’ all, an’ Mary’s. It’ll be bitter.’

  ‘All right.’ Her voice soft, Eve added, ‘I’m sorry I was moany earlier, I didn’t mean it.’

  Now it was Nell who said, ‘Don’t be daft,’ her breath a cloud of white in the icy room by the light of the candle.

  Tucking the eiderdown round her sister’s shoulders, Eve smiled and left the room on tiptoe.

  In the kitchen she pinched out the candle and then put on Nell’s coat and her own hat and a couple of scarves. The last thing she did was extinguish the oil lamp before she left the house for the white world outside it.

  Chapter 2

  The last man and boy had been brought up. Of the one hundred and ninety-eight trapped miners, only thirty had survived.The miners’ local inspector, Frank Keegan, was acclaimed a hero for his part in rescuing twenty-six men, but on the day of the funeral when the whole town turned out to pay their respects, people were not thinking of the living so much as the dead.

  The day passed in a dream for Eve. She knew it was happening. She knew she would never see her father and brothers again but, like everything else, it did not seem real. Since the first day, a part of her had been expecting her father to walk in like he always did, his thick droopy moustache permanently stained yellow from the nightly
soaking it got in Burton’s Bass, calling for his dinner, the lads a step or two behind him, pushing and shoving each other. There would be noise and bustle and activity; the house came alive when the menfolk were home. But it had not happened. It would never happen again.

  The three sisters went to Mrs McArthur’s after the funeral. Larry McArthur had made his last journey from the pit face to the surface held close in his father’s arms. Unlike many, Eve’s father and brothers included, he had not been burnt but merely looked as though he had gone to sleep. It had taken three men to prise the body from his father and Mrs McArthur had told Eve that when Larry was laid out in the front room, her husband had sat up all night stroking his son’s face and telling him it was time to wake up.Anne’s husband, too, had been killed and the day he had been brought up,Anne had found out she was going to have a child. She had now moved back to live with her parents, along with Mrs McArthur’s younger sister,Alice Turner, and her three bairns. Alice’s husband and son of fourteen had both lost their lives in the accident.

  It was Alice who now left a group of mourners tucking into the ample spread Mrs McArthur had put on to come over to where Eve was standing, Nell and Mary pressed into her side. Without any preamble, she said, ‘You’re the lassies from next door, aren’t you?’

  Eve nodded. She had seen Mrs McArthur’s sister several times at Christmas jollifications and the like, and thought her as different to her sister as chalk to cheese.

  ‘Our Cissy tells me you’ve got no family to take you in, is that right?’

  Again Eve nodded.

  Bending forward slightly, her voice low, Alice spoke into Eve’s ear. ‘Don’t think our Cissy will be able to help. She’s got a houseful now, what with me an’ mine and Anne coming home an’ all, and family comes first at such times.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Aye, well, just so it’s clear. Cissy’s got a reputation for being a bit of a soft touch, as I’m sure you’re aware.’ Hard eyes glanced at Nell and Mary before coming to rest on Eve once more. ‘So, what are you going to do then?’

  Eve’s fair skin was scarlet but her voice was steady and her tone brought a flush to the older woman’s face. ‘I think that is my business, Mrs Turner.’

  ‘Well! I was only inquirin’ out of politeness.’

  The three of them watched Alice stalk off.

  ‘You’ve upset her.’ Nell’s voice expressed satisfaction.

  Eve made no reply to this. Mrs Turner was nasty, as nasty as Mrs McArthur was nice, but her words had brought to the fore the fear she had been trying to put to the back of her mind for days. She had told herself she couldn’t think of anything until the funeral was over, but she knew at the heart of her she had only been trying to put off the moment when she would have to consider their future. She could get a job, she had every intention of doing that, and she would work till she dropped but even the best paying job for a girl of her age wouldn’t keep the three of them fed and clothed and with a roof over their heads. They had to be out of the house by the end of the week and the landlord had already made a concession in letting them stay that long. If she didn’t do something, it would mean the workhouse for Nell and Mary, and she couldn’t bear that.The bit of money the furniture would bring wouldn’t keep them in lodgings for long; the only item of any worth was her da’s big brass bed.

  She hadn’t been aware of Mr Finnigan standing behind them so when he spoke in her ear, Eve jumped.

  ‘I didn’t realise the three of you had no kith and kin to help out, lass,’ he said.

  She swung round to see him looking at her with the kindly expression he had worn since the accident. Flustered, she stammered, ‘N-no, we h-haven’t.’

  ‘No one at all? Not even in distant parts?’

  ‘Not that we know of.’

  ‘Dear, dear.’ For once he wasn’t smiling. ‘Well, I hate to echo that woman’s question’ - the way he spoke indicated that his opinion of Mrs McArthur’s sister reflected Eve’s - ‘but what are you going to do? Do you have somewhere to go, a place to live?’

  She stared at him miserably then shook her head. The hazel eyes passed over each young face in turn, lingering for a moment on Mary who smiled at him. She thought Mr Finnigan was lovely and so did all her friends. He always had time for a laugh and a joke when he passed them playing, and more often than not he had a bag of bullets in his pockets which he’d pass around. To keep his attention, she said,‘I saw Archy and Stephen yesterday coming back from the shop with Mrs Finnigan.You can’t tell them apart, can you?’

  ‘No, you can’t. Even I have trouble at times and I’m their da. You wouldn’t think that, would you, that I wouldn’t know which was which?’

  Mary giggled. ‘They look like you, Mr Finnigan.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ He considered this with a tilt of his head before smiling. ‘Well, thank you, lass.’ Turning his glance on Eve, he said, ‘When have you got to be out?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘You’ve asked for more time?’

  ‘Aye. It was supposed to be last Friday.’

  ‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘Look, lass, I might be able to help.’ It was a conspiratorial whisper and instinctively the three girls moved closer to hear what he was about to say. ‘It so happens the wife’s mother cooks and cleans for the vicar at St Andrew’s, big vicarage he’s got, off Front Street. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yes, I know it.’

  ‘Well, her legs are so bad she’s had enough.They’re particular, she says, the vicar and his wife, and there’s the odd evening when she has to stay late to serve dinner if they’ve got guests. It’s all got too much for her. She’s told ’em she wants to leave a couple of times I know of. I could ask her to put in a good word for you if you think it’d suit.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Finnigan.’ Eve’s face lit up.

  ‘Mind, I can’t guarantee anything, you’d have to go an’ meet ’em, but with Mam having worked for them for donkey’s and her vouching for you I can’t see there’d be a problem. Not with a nice little lass like you.’ He grinned at them all, ruffling Mary’s curls as he spoke.

  ‘How-how much would I get?’Whatever the vicar paid, it wouldn’t be enough to rent somewhere.

  As though he’d heard her thoughts, Mr Finnigan’s voice gentled still more. ‘I don’t know, lass, but the three of you’ll need somewhere to stay. Now although I can’t offer anything long term, not with another bairn on the way, I could see me way clear to letting you bed down in the twins’ room. It’d be a squeeze with their cots but we could fit a double bed in, like as not. It’d give you a breathing space, maybe until Nell here starts work an’ there’s more coming in. When will that be, lass?’ he asked Nell.

  ‘Not for two summers, when I’m thirteen.’

  ‘How old are you now?’ He seemed surprised.

  ‘Eleven, Mr Finnigan.’

  ‘You’re a big girl, I thought you were twelve months older than that. Still, it might not be a problem, come to think of it. The babbie’ll be in with us for a good while once it’s born.We’ll manage somehow, eh?’ He turned back to Eve on the last words. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mr Finnigan, thank you.’ It was too good to be true. ‘But why would you help us like this?’

  His heavy lids lowered but when he met her gaze again his eyes were clear and wide. ‘It’s what neighbours are for, and don’t forget you’ll be paying board and lodging so you’ll be doing your bit.’

  ‘But would it be enough? For the three of us?’

  ‘Don’t worry your head about that. You’ll be getting rid of your furniture, won’t you? Maybe there’ll be a piece or two the wife can use.We’ll sort something out anyway.’

  The mention of Mrs Finnigan checked the flood of relief. ‘But what if she, Mrs Finnigan, what if she doesn’t want us to stay?’

  Josiah Finnigan surveyed the young faces in front of him. Softly, he said, ‘She will do what I say.’

  Eve blinked. Had she offended him? Bu
t then he was smiling again and she told herself she was imagining things. She glanced at Nell and Mary but they were both gazing at Mr Finnigan, their faces expressing a gratitude that verged on adoration.

  By Wednesday night it was done. Their double bed had been squeezed into the twins’ room, and their personal bits and pieces and spare clothes lay neatly stacked in Eve’s father’s hefty studded trunk which fitted under the bed. Her mother’s family bible and her father’s harmonica were wrapped in a piece of towelling at the bottom of this; she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of these being sold with the rest of the house’s contents - although not all had been collected by Pott’s Emporium. Mr Finnigan and his wife had expressed a liking for her father’s brass bed and the kitchen settle, along with her mother’s clock and the china dogs which had stood on the mantel-piece above the range. Mrs Finnigan had kept all the blankets and sheets too, and Mr Finnigan, being the same height and build as Eve’s brothers, said he could make use of the lads’ spare set of clothing and Sunday rig-outs.

  Mr Potts had given her two pounds for what remained, and that, he had tersely remarked when Eve had nervously said she’d expected more, was generous. She knew he had had his eye on the brass bed and had been put out when she said it was spoken for and so she had said no more.Two pounds was not to be sneezed at. She stared down at the one pound note, ten shilling note and four half-crowns before wrapping them in a handkerchief and depositing it next to the bible and harmonica. She repacked the trunk and closed it quietly - the twins were already asleep in their cots - and pushed it further under the bed. She stood up, smoothed her skirt and picked up the candlestick but did not immediately go downstairs to where the others were sitting in the kitchen.

  Mrs Finnigan’s mother had sent a message late morning saying she had handed in her notice at the vicarage, and the vicar and his wife had agreed to see Eve tomorrow morning at ten sharp for an interview. If she could get this job and begin on Monday she could start paying board to Mrs Finnigan for the three of them straightaway. She would feel better about things then.Although Mrs Finnigan hadn’t said anything, Eve knew she didn’t like them being here.