Candles in the Storm Read online

  ‘Lass?’ Nellie’s voice was still quiet but there was a note to it which brought Margery’s head up with a little jerk, although it was still slightly bent as she answered, ‘Two . . . two months. I wasn’t sure before but now I am.’

  ‘Did he know? Tom?’

  ‘No. Like I said, I wasn’t sure until the last week when . . . when it didn’t happen again. And I’ve been feeling bad the last few days, and I was sick yesterday and then again this morning.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Daisy reached out and grasped one of the girl’s fine thin hands in her own, and although Tom’s lass didn’t reply her other hand covered Daisy’s, gripping it hard as the tears slowly dripped down her cheeks.

  ‘We . . . it only happened the once, I promise. We didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Once is more than enough, as you’ve found,’ Nellie said tartly, moderating her voice when Daisy raised a reproachful face and shook her head to add, ‘But it’s done now, lass, an’ what will be, will be. What about yer mam an’ da? Have you told them?’

  The slight shoulders hunched. ‘I wanted to tell Tom first but he didn’t come last night, and then, when I was sick again this morning, my mam must have guessed something. She was waiting for me when I got home from work - I work for Mr Mallard, you know?’ Daisy and her grandmother nodded their heads. They knew Mallard’s corner shop in Whitburn which doubled as a grocer’s and draper’s. ‘She went on and on at me until I told her, and when my da got in . . .’ Margery’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He went mad and . . . and he threw me out.’

  ‘Threw you out?’ Daisy was horrified.

  And now Margery raised her head to look into Daisy’s face as she nodded slowly, saying, ‘They . . . they said not to come back.’

  ‘Your mam an’ all?’

  ‘She . . . she pushed me out into the street again when I tried to get back in.’ Margery was sobbing loudly once more, and when she wailed, ‘Oh, Tom, Tom. I want Tom,’ Daisy and Nellie looked at each other helplessly.

  What on earth were they going to do? Daisy was still holding Margery’s hands in her own. Now her practical side came to the fore as she said, ‘Come on, come on, lass, you’ll be makin’ yourself ill. Look, you can stay here tonight an’ I’ll go an’ see your mam an’ da tomorrow, all right? I’ll explain about Tom an’ say he loved you an’ wanted to marry you--’

  ‘They know that, I said that, but when they found out he was a fisherman . . .’ Fresh sobs choked further words.

  Daisy straightened her back. So that was the way of it? Tom wasn’t good enough for their daughter. It wasn’t only that Margery was in the family way, it was who had put her there they objected to. Her voice cool, she said, ‘What does your da do, Margery?’

  ‘He’s a miner.’ And then the other girl’s head shot up as the frostiness of Daisy’s tone registered, and she said, her eyes still spurting tears, ‘Don’t take offence, please. My mam and da have no cause to be like that. I . . . I loved Tom, I did. I would have been proud to be his wife.’

  ‘Oh, lass.’ Daisy felt awful, and it was by way of apology that she said, ‘You sit still an’ I’ll make a nice sup tea an’ somethin’ for you to eat. You look done in. An’ we’d better see about gettin’ you into some dry clothes before you catch your death.’

  It was eleven o’clock at night. Daisy had all but fed Margery the cold pease pudding and shive of bread and dripping she had persuaded her to eat, and now the other girl was tucked up in what had been Tom’s bed with a hot stone bottle at her feet, fast asleep. Daisy had hesitated about putting her in Tom’s bed before she’d told herself not to be so daft. It was more comfortable than her da’s and the niceties didn’t apply in the current situation, not with the girl carrying Tom’s bairn.

  It was with this thought in the front of her mind that Daisy plonked herself down on one of the chairs after coming downstairs again, looking across at her grandmother as she said quietly, ‘I can’t believe our Tom could have been so stupid.’

  ‘Well, it weren’t another immaculate conception, hinny, that’s for sure.’

  Daisy couldn’t raise a smile. She sighed heavily. ‘I feel responsible for her somehow, with Tom bein’ the father.’

  ‘Don’t talk wet, lass.’ Nellie’s voice was sharp now. ‘You’ve enough on your plate without takin’ on more. They were old enough to do what they did, they’re old enough to take the consequences.’

  ‘But it’s not they, is it, Gran? It’s her, by herself. She told me a bit about her mam an’ da when I was settlin’ her in bed. Seems she’s the only one, somethin’ to do with her mam havin’ a bad time when Margery was born, an’ they’ve sent her to piano lessons an’ all sorts. They even paid for her to have lessons out of school with the teacher in Whitburn to learn how to speak proper.’

  ‘You’re jokin’?’ Nellie stared at her granddaughter, wagging her head in disbelief at the folly of some folk. ‘Bloomin’ hell, lass, our Tom could pick ’em, I’ll say that. All the nice ordinary lasses that’ve bin after him in his time an’ he has to go an’ dally with her. An’ not only dally but fill her belly an’ all.’

  ‘I think Margery is a nice lass, Gran.’

  Nellie brought her chin into her scraggy neck. ‘Mebbe. But all them fancy piano lessons an’ such didn’t teach her how to keep her knees together, did they? An’ all right, all right, you might purse your lips at me, Daisy Appleby, but can you truthfully tell me a lass like that is cut out to be a fisherman’s wife? Them upstart parents of hers had their sights fixed high, that much is for sure, an’ you go an’ see ’em tomorrow an’ you’re as likely to leave with a boot in your backside as a thank you for comin’. You think on, lass, I know what I’m talkin’ about.’

  Daisy stared at her grandmother. If she had spoken the truth she would have said she felt dazed by it all. Nothing was as it had been, nothing. She grieved for her da and Tom, and for Peter of course, and Tilly’s misery was pitiful to see. Peter’s widow was dreading the thought of being a burden - as she kept putting it - on George and Martha, and of her three older bairns going to Ron and Rose, but the alternative of the workhouse was an ever-present spectre at Tilly’s shoulder. And there was Alf, poor Alf, who in a funny sort of way was presenting more of a threat than anything else. Daisy could see that if she married him it would help everything enormously - or perhaps that should be everyone. Everyone except her. She couldn’t help it but that was the way she felt about it deep inside. And now this, Tom’s lass.

  The thought of the girl upstairs brought a strange feeling into her mind. Her granny, everyone, even Margery herself, would say she was ready for the asylum if she admitted to the fact that she was envious of Tom’s lass. Not of the bairn side of things, oh, no, not that, but of the love that had brought them together. Margery had said enough for her to realise the two of them had been aware of the difficulties they were going to face in the future, but had been prepared to weather whatever came just to be together. She had never thought of Tom as being like that. And now he was gone and all that remained of him was the bairn Margery was carrying. How could she not help the lass?

  ‘I’m goin’ to see Margery’s mam an’ da, Gran.’ And as she said it Daisy thought her granny of all people should understand how Tom and Margery had felt about each other. Hadn’t she braved her own parents’ wrath by marrying an outsider from another village? Hadn’t she left everything to follow her own love here all those years ago? Daisy thought it odd that she had this insight while her granny seemed oblivious to any similarity.

  Chapter Five

  By the time Daisy reached the small terraced house in Whitburn the next afternoon, her heart was in her mouth. She had timed her visit to catch Margery’s father when he had finished his shift at the colliery, mainly because Margery had insisted her mother wouldn’t wipe her nose without her husband’s permission. That being the case, nothing would be served by seeing Mrs Travis without her husband present.

  There was a high wind blowing but thankfully it
was dry as Daisy stood for a moment outside the house. It was identical to its neighbours to either side but for the fact that not only the front doorstep but also the pavement in front of the house had been freshly scrubbed and whitened. There was the usual motley collection of tangle-haired, snotty-nosed bairns playing in the roadway, one or two with the luxury of hobnailed boots - several sizes too large - on their small feet, but some of the children were barefoot despite the bitter cold. This surprised Daisy not one bit; in all the villages which had grown up a mile or so from the collieries where the men and boys worked, the bairns were the same. Although the coalfields spawned industry which made for the busy clangour, smoke and stench of prosperity, her da had always maintained the folk in the towns lived like rats in holes, and Daisy agreed with him in the main. And yet the miners and other townfolk looked down on fishermen, she thought, with the touch of resentment this line of thought always produced.

  She pulled her calico cloak straight, clearing her mind of everything but the confrontation which was almost certainly in front of her, and stepping up to the neatly painted front door, grasped the shiny brass knocker in the shape of an elf on a toadstool and knocked twice. She had to repeat this three times before the door opened, although once she had seen the stiffly starched lace curtains twitch Daisy was determined she wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Aye?’ The woman who had opened the door had a vestige of Margery’s startling fairness but that was all, and none of her daughter’s attractiveness. She stared at Daisy, her pale-blue eyes narrowing to slits before she said again, ‘Aye? What do you want?’

  ‘Mrs Travis?’ Daisy kept her back straight and her voice low but firm. ‘I need to speak to you an’ your husband.’

  ‘Do you indeed?’ Hilda Travis continued to stare at the bonny young girl with the beautiful face and unusual eyes. ‘An’ would that be about me daughter by any chance?’

  There was no point in prevarication. Daisy was aware her very clothes proclaimed she was a fishergirl. She nodded. ‘Aye, it is. Margery came to us last night and--’

  ‘We’ve got nowt to say to you an’ your kind so I’d thank you to make yourself scarce.’

  As the woman went to shut the door Daisy said quickly, ‘I shall only knock again, Mrs Travis, an’ again, an’ again. Do you really want all your neighbours to hear what I have to say?’

  She saw Margery’s mother hesitate and then the woman was pushed roughly aside and a small man stood in the doorway, and such was the look on his face that in spite of herself Daisy took a step backwards. ‘You threatenin’ us, eh?’ His voice was soft and deadly, and for a moment all Daisy could do was blink. Margery’s father was a small man but his body was a pack of tight hard muscle, and his face as dark and stony as the black gold he brought out of the ground.

  ‘No, I am not, Mr Travis, but I do need to speak to you.’

  In spite of her fear Daisy’s voice had not been deferential, and she watched the muscles of his face tighten and the blue-marked cheeks darken to a red hue before he ground out, ‘An’ who might you be?’

  ‘My name is Daisy Appleby. It’s my brother Tom who . . .’ Daisy found she didn’t know quite how to continue at this point.

  ‘Oh, aye? An’ your brother’s the type of scum who sends a lass to do his dirty work for him, is he? Well, I’ve nowt to say to you, but just send your brother to see us an’ me fists’ll do me talkin’ sure enough.’

  Daisy couldn’t believe this aggressive individual with the inky-black eyes and mop of coarse grey hair was Margery’s father. He was the very antithesis of the delicate and gentle girl she’d left behind with Nellie at the cottage.

  ‘That won’t be possible, Mr Travis. If Tom had been able to come he would be here now, but he died a few days ago.’

  Jacob Travis stared at the bit lass who was glaring at him, and hadn’t the smallest doubt in his mind that she was speaking the truth. He had always been an unerring judge of character with a reputation for being able to winkle out the weakness in a man as soon as look at him. Wasn’t that one of the reasons he had got on like he had? He was canny, and although he was always careful to stay on the right side of the owners, as pit deputy he made doubly sure the men always remembered he’d been brought up as one of them, amid rags, poverty, disease and death.

  ‘So she’s been left high an’ dry then? Sent you to pave the way for her comin’ back home, has she?’ He raised his eyebrows at Daisy. ‘Aye, well, mebbe this is where she belongs at that.’

  It was too easy a victory, too quick a turnabout. Daisy stood looking into those bullet eyes and bit her lip. ‘What are you goin’ to do to her?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Do to her? Nowt. Everythin’ that could be done has already happened, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Not really.’ She didn’t trust this man. Margery had told her only that morning how fanatical her da was about being respectable. She had expected to have to argue and plead with him and his wife, and now Mr Travis was saying Margery could come home without so much as a curse or a threat. ‘She’ll need lookin’ after. She’s not very strong an’--’

  ‘Don’t you tell me what she is or isn’t,’ he answered sharply, temper making the veins on his forehead bulge. ‘The little slut! An’ she’ll go where all the loose pieces go--’ He stopped abruptly.

  ‘You’re going to put her in the workhouse?’ Daisy was horrified.

  ‘It’s up to me how I deal with me own flesh an’ blood.’ His voice was deceptively low as the hard black eyes met hers again. ‘An’ I don’t give a monkey’s cuss what you think.’

  ‘Her baby is Tom’s bairn an’ that makes it my flesh an’ blood.’

  She heard his teeth grind and the woman behind him say, ‘Jacob! Please, Jacob, don’t lose your temper, not on the doorstep. You know the cuddy lugs next door’s got on her.’

  ‘You tell that little--’ He stopped abruptly, his teeth clamping together. ‘You tell her to get her backside home if she knows what’s good for her.’

  Daisy looked into the furious red face, her gaze taking in the woman standing behind her husband too, before she said dully, ‘She’s not comin’ home.’ And she was fully aware of the irony of the situation as she spoke. She had come here intending to plead and beg for Margery to be allowed home, and now the girl’s da was all for it and Daisy herself was refusing. But it was the right thing to do. She had never been so sure of anything in her life. Margery’s da was going to put her away, most likely have her committed into the workhouse where she would have to remain for fourteen years until the child was old enough to leave.

  Daisy had never set foot in the workhouse but she had heard enough horror stories about it to know what it would mean to a young lass like Margery. It wasn’t the rigid routines and discipline that were unbearable so much as the more subtle deprivations and degradations that made the workhouse inmates lose all their dignity, like the inmates of prisons and lunatic asylums. Margery’s bairn would be taken away from her to live with the other children in a separate section of the workhouse. The unmarried mothers, or ‘unchaste women’ as they were labelled, were excluded from the small privileges sometimes extended to the other inmates, who mostly consisted of the old, the sick, the handicapped and inmates’ children, prisoners of a harsh system which showed no mercy.

  The thought of Tom’s bairn being sent to school in the workhouse uniform when it was old enough, of its being taunted and jeered at by other bairns who were probably less well fed and well clothed but who had proper homes, wasn’t to be borne. Daisy thought back to the fights at her old school between the workhouse children and the other bairns, and it was enough for her voice to take on a note of authority as she said, ‘Margery will never be comin’ home, that’s what I came to tell you. She’s stayin’ with us. It’s what me brother would have wanted.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ Margery’s father was visibly quivering with rage. ‘An’ your lot are goin’ to clothe her an’ her bastard for the rest of their days, are you? Well, more fool you!’


  ‘Goodbye, Mr Travis. I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure meetin’ you but it hasn’t.’ Daisy steeled herself to turn and walk away with her back straight and her head up, but once round the corner and out of sight of Margery’s parents she leant back against a house wall, her heart pounding. Horrible man! And the look in his eyes when she had turned and left. If looks could kill she’d be six foot under right now. The next moment she nearly jumped out of her skin as a hand caught her elbow and a man’s voice spoke her name.

  ‘George?’ The relief she felt on seeing her eldest brother after the unpleasantness she’d just gone through and the fright she’d had almost made Daisy forget herself and fling her arms round his neck in the street. Instead she composed herself and said quietly, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’