The Stony Path Page 3
When the door was shut it was closed softly, which terrified the girl in the bed more than any show of temper could have done.
Eva sat hunched awkwardly on the old straw mattress, the blue and red weals and wounds inflicted by Walter’s buckled leather belt causing her whole body to feel as though it was on fire, but it was fear of what had been evident in her father’s face which was making her breath come in short, painful gasps. He meant to do for her. She stared across the room, the grotesque shadows from the flickering candle providing no comfort. Her mam wouldn’t let him do that, would she? Not in cold blood?
Suddenly she wasn’t hungry any more, and after finishing the milk she slowly placed the tin plate holding the bread and dripping on the floor and blew out the candle, sliding carefully under the thin grey blankets. Cautious though her movements were, they were enough to crack the worst of the congealed lesions criss-crossing her back, buttocks and legs, and she groaned out loud, holding herself stiff for a few minutes as her heart pumped like a piston and red-hot pokers prodded her body.
Henry was married, married. She stared wide-eyed into the darkness as the tears rained down her face. And he had left her at the mercy of their da, knowing what he could be like. All her dreams of living and working on the farm with Henry until her mam and da were gone, and the two of them were alone, were over. Henry had killed them at the altar that morning. Why couldn’t she hate him? She wanted to, so why couldn’t she? And what did the future hold for her now?
Eva found out what the future held two days later.
She had stayed in her room the whole time except for a visit to the privvy once it was dark to empty the pot under her bed, when she had taken the opportunity to sluice her head under the pump in the yard. The ends of her hair had been thick with the fat her mother had smeared over her back, and she had rubbed at them with a piece of the coarse hard soap from the scullery over and over again until they were clean.
The next morning she had stayed put as she’d been told, but after her mother had brought her a shive of bread and butter and a mug of hot tea, Eva had refused the offer of more goose fat on her wounds. Once she was alone again, and after eating her breakfast, she had eased off her calico nightdress, grimacing silently when the material stuck to dried blood in places.
Pulling on her flannel drawers, shift, dress and coarse white apron had been a painful and slow affair, but she had felt better once she was dressed. She had spent over an hour working the tangles out of her long thick hair, but in concentrating on her toilet she found she was able to keep her thoughts from the pictures that had been torturing her mind since the night of Henry’s wedding day. Mental images of Henry and Hilda. Intimate, earthy depictions that made her want to shout and scream and do herself harm. But she couldn’t do that, she mustn’t, because if she succumbed to what she was feeling her father would make sure all avenues to Henry were cut off, either by the workhouse or a mental asylum. That he was quite capable of incarcerating her in either place she had no doubt.
The long, hot day crept by with all the normal farm sounds outside her window, but inside her room Eva waited. She had seen her father drive off in the horse and cart mid-morning, and she felt in her bones that the business he was about concerned her.
Her mother brought her a bowl of bacon broth and a wedge of stottie cake at noon, expressing no surprise at seeing her daughter dressed, and remaining mute and tight-lipped as she left the room again without a word.
Eva forced herself to eat the broth, spooning the lentils, carrots, turnips, onions, potatoes and other vegetables into her mouth and swallowing them quickly before the ever-present nausea she was feeling overcame her. The two small dumplings she left in the bowl. The stottie cake was easier to get down; her mother always cooked the bread until it was firm and lightly brown, and its distinctive texture suited her queasy stomach.
The meal eaten, Eva resumed her waiting. It was just as the evening sun reached the far wall of her bedroom, mellowing the old lime mortar and stone with its golden touch, that she heard the steady clip-clop of Bess’s hooves.
She didn’t go to the window but she heard her father calling for Dick, Amos’s son, to see to the horse and cart, and then the sound of her mother’s voice from the direction of the hen crees, where she must have been gathering eggs. Eva had risen from her sitting position on the side of the narrow iron bed, and she continued standing for some minutes before she realised her father wasn’t coming straight up. Her straining ears caught the low murmur of voices from the kitchen below, but she couldn’t distinguish individual words. She had no sooner sunk down on the bed again when footsteps heralded her father’s approach.
Eva was staring fixedly at the door when Walter entered the room without knocking, and she was again standing, her hands tight fists at her side as she fought for composure.
‘It’s sorted.’ Walter’s keen blue eyes took in Eva’s stance and also the fact that she was dressed and apparently suffering little effect from the thrashing he’d given her. ‘You’ll be wed within the month.’
‘Wed?’ The fear she had been experiencing was swallowed by sheer amazement; whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this.
‘Aye, wed.’ Walter shut the door behind him and came fully into the room, standing a couple of feet away from his daughter as he whispered harshly, ‘I’ve bin into the town to see someone, a bloke I heard about last market day. Appears his wife died an’ left him with two young uns. Accordin’ to his sister-in-law, a customer of mine, he was lookin’ for someone to cook an’ clean an’ mind the bairns when he’s down the pit, but no one would work for the pittance he could pay.’
‘A pit yakker?’ It was a faint whisper, and then, as her voice came stronger, saying, ‘A pit yakker?’ her father took a threatening step towards her, causing Eva to stumble backwards and sit down suddenly on the bed.
‘Aye, he’s a miner all right, an’ to my mind Nathaniel Blackett is too decent a man to be dealt scum like you, but needs must.’
‘But a miner livin’ in the town ... I can’t, I can’t live in the town, Da, you know I can’t. I’m like you, you know how I feel about bein’ outside; times you’ve said I do a man’s job in the fields—’
In her distress Eva had reached up to implore, and now she felt her hand smacked down with enough force to make her cry out in pain. Then Walter was bending down, his angry red face close to hers as he grated, ‘You’ve a choice, the workhouse or Nathaniel Blackett.’
‘Does ... does he know?’
‘He knows you’re expectin’ a bairn an’ I’ve told him you were taken advantage of by a travellin’ man, an’ that’s the story you keep to whatever road you choose. He’s prepared to wed you quick an’ say the child’s his when it comes early so you keep your good name.’
Her good name! Eva stared into the blazing blue eyes, and she knew that if it were possible for her da to strike her dead at this moment and have done with her, he would have done so. All he was bothered about was what people would say if word got out she’d been taken down. He was leaving her with no choice, no choice at all, and they both knew it.
‘What if he doesn’t like me?’
It was said with a touch of her old defiance, and Walter’s hand rose swiftly before he checked himself, breathing deeply as he glared at this young woman who, up until three days ago, he had always secretly considered was more like him than his son. ‘You’d better make sure he does.’ It was soft but deadly. ‘Because I tell you one thing, girl: your life won’t be worth a farthin’ candle in the workhouse, an’ you’ll be in for a fourteen-year stretch until that’ – he pointed at her belly – ‘is old enough to keep itself.’
Eva married Nathaniel Blackett on an excessively hot day at the end of July. None of her family was present, and the only witnesses were Nathaniel’s brother Eustace and his wife, Delia. The bride had met the groom twice before the wedding day, and on each occasion Eva’s parents and the priest who was going to marry the couple – Nathaniel being o
f the Catholic faith – were present. This same priest had been given to understand Eva was expecting Nathaniel’s child; a fact which did not concern him nearly as much as her converting to the one true faith, which Eva, heartsore and ill from the effects of the pregnancy and the savage beating she had endured, listlessly agreed to. She had no interest in religion one way or the other anyway.
Henry and Hilda, on their return from honeymoon, had been told only that Eva was getting married, and Henry, guilty and ashamed at the immense relief he felt that his sister would not be living in close proximity to his wife, asked no questions. He assumed Eva found their changed circumstances too painful to submit to, and Eva – mindful that the family home would ever be barred to her if she spoke the truth – did not disabuse him of the idea.
So it was that Eva found herself leaving St Mary’s in Bridge Street, situated at the hub of the thriving town of Bishopswearmouth, on the arm of the stranger who was now her husband.
They had been married late on the Saturday afternoon – Nathaniel hadn’t finished his shift at the Wearmouth Colliery until well after midday – and as they left the relative quiet of the church and stepped into the hot, busy street to begin walking towards Wearmouth Bridge, Eva blinked her distress at the noise and press of human bodies. She had rarely come into the town with her father – Henry or one of the farm hands had always accompanied him on market days – but the once or twice she had ventured away from the farm she hadn’t been able to wait to get home, and now she felt as though she was being smothered alive.
Sunderland’s huge population growth in the last seventy years and booming prosperity depended heavily upon the Wear, although as a harbour the river had disadvantages: it was uncomfortably narrow, shallow and exposed to north-easterly gales, with a difficult entry for sailing vessels. Nevertheless, thanks to the thriving coal trade, it was invariably crowded with shipping.
The river also lay at the heart of Sunderland’s industry. Factories and workshops, roperies, glassworks, potteries, lime kilns, ironworks and, above all, shipyards clustered along its banks, competing with coal staiths, quays and warehouses. The noise and clatter and smoky pall was oppressive even to those who were used to it, and as the party of four reached the bridge and Eva gazed about her, the urge to start to run and keep running was so strong she had to bite her lip against it.
‘You all right, lass?’
It was a moment before Eva replied to the small, wiry man in whose arm she had her hand, and then her voice was stiff when she said, ‘I’m perfectly well, thank you.’
Her chalk-white face and bloodless lips belied her words, but after a swift glance at his brother and sister-in-law walking just in front of them, Nathaniel said no more. It was to be expected the lass was terrified out of her wits, and but for her condition he would have been only too pleased to give her more time to get used to him before they were wed. Mind, it was only that very thing that had put her across his path in the first place. In spite of her bulk, she seemed to him like a frightened young bairn that needed careful handling, and he wasn’t averse to going slow. From the little her da had said, she’d obviously been took down against her will, and that was enough for any bit lass to come to terms with without her belly being full as a result of it. Aye, he’d go slow all right; he was no sackless lad still wet behind the ears.
Once they had crossed over the bridge into Monkwearmouth, passing the great cranes on the banks either side, they continued walking along North Bridge Street past the saw mills and then Monkwearmouth Station and the goods yard on their left, before turning left before the smithy and continuing into Southwick Road.
Coal dominated the western part of Monkwearmouth, and the Wearmouth Colliery in Southwick Road provided a livelihood for hundreds of Sunderland’s working men. The company had raised a gridwork pattern of dwelling places for its miners, stretching north from Southwick Road, and now, as Eva entered the narrow, mean streets of terraced houses, the desire for flight rose hot and strong again.
She couldn’t bear this, she couldn’t. She breathed deeply, the soulless uniformity of the cobbled streets claustrophobic after the wide-open spaces she’d grown up with.
‘Well, we’ll be gettin’ along, man.’ Nathaniel’s brother and his wife had turned on the narrow pavement to face them, their eyes studiously avoiding Eva’s white face and stiff body.
‘You’ll not come in for a bite of somethin’?’
Although Nathaniel made the offer, it was with a marked lack of enthusiasm, and now it was Delia who said, ‘We’d best get back, Nat,’ before turning to Eva and placing a tentative hand on her arm as she added, ‘I’ll nip round the morrow, lass, an’ see how you’re doin’. Likely it’ll all be a bit strange, you bein’ a country lass an’ all.’
There was no criticism implied, but it was a moment or two before Eva replied, and then her voice was cold when she said, ‘I’m sure I’ll be all right, thank you.’ She had been half listening to a group of dirty-nosed barefoot urchins skipping in the road with a piece of old rope whilst the others had been talking, and the macabre rhyme the raggedy guttersnipes had been singing, drawn from the execution of the murderess Mary Ann Cotton in Durham Jail a few years back, had somehow seemed indicative of both her surroundings and her circumstances.
‘Mary Ann Cotton
She’s dead and forgotten
She lies in a grave
With her bones all rotten
Sing, sing, oh, what can I sing?
Mary Ann Cotton is tied up wi’ string.
Where, where? Up in the air
Sellin’ black puddens a penny a pair.’
‘Aye, aye, I’m sure an’ all, lass.’ It was hasty and embarrassed, and as Eva turned towards the children again the other three made their goodbyes quickly, before Nathaniel’s brother and his wife crossed Southwick Road and turned into Pilgrim Street.
‘She was only tryin’ to be friendly; she didn’t mean anythin’ by it.’
‘What?’
As Nathaniel spoke Eva turned to him, her gaze wide and vacant, and he stared at her for a few seconds before he said, ‘Nothin’. Nothin’, lass.’ He rubbed at his coal-dinted nose, clearly out of his depth, before saying, ‘You’d best come in an’ take the weight off. Likely you could do with a sup o’ tea, eh?’
She continued to stare at him as he opened the door of the house against which they were standing, the rear of which overlooked the sidings of the Wearmouth Colliery, but she said nothing as she stepped into the dwelling which was now her home.
It was later that night, and only after Nathaniel was snoring gently at the side of her in the big brass bed, that Eva let herself think. It could not possibly be just six hours since she had come into this house. It seemed like six days, six weeks, six months ... Her body was stiff, every muscle straining in its effort to be still, and the unaccustomed softness of the flock mattress was too alien to be comforting.
Nathaniel had surprised her. Her eyes were wide and staring as she gazed into the darkness. She had expected him to take what was his right but he had made it plain, before the neighbour who had been looking after his boys had arrived on the doorstep, that he wouldn’t touch her until after the bairn was born. Her large, full-lipped mouth twisted. He had made up his mind she was a bit lass, that was it, and as it suited her to let him think along those lines she’d go along with that for the time being. She had enough to put up with without him mauling her about.
Nathaniel’s consideration brought no shred of tenderness into her thinking, only contempt for what Eva saw as his lack of gumption in asserting himself.
The hot summer night was stifling and the stench from the privies in the backyards drifted in through the partly open window, causing Eva to wrinkle her nose and swallow hard. The man at the side of her stirred slightly, grunting once or twice before he resumed his periodic snoring, and as she pictured the small, skinny body topped by wiry, dirty-coloured hair and indeterminate features, a wave of bitterness engulfed her.
‘What about if you’d bin promised to one of the Silksworth miners, eh, or Whitburn or Ryhope?’ Alice had railed at her the day before. ‘The hovels some of them poor devils live in aren’t fit for pigs. There’s no yards or washhouses or coalhouses or drains, an’ the middens are shared by ten or more families with one tap atween ’em. Two rooms, an’ the floors seepin’ filth an’ the smell enough to knock you backwards, an’ here’s you, goin’ to have a two-up, two-down an’ your own privy. You don’t know you’re born, girl, that’s your trouble. You ought to be down on your knees thankin’ God for your luck in landin’ Nathaniel Blackett. Aye, you should that.’
Well, she knew who she had to thank for her present circumstances all right, and she’d see her day with her mam and da if it was the last thing she did. Eva’s green eyes narrowed in the blackness and they were alive with hate. But she had to go careful if she still wanted to see Henry, and she had to see him. She had to. He was part of her, wound into her innermost being like parts of her own body. She would die if she couldn’t at least see him.