Pit Bank Wench (19 page)

She glanced up from prodding the sausages with a fork the watchman had produced along with a tin plate. ‘What question, Mr . . .’

‘Birks,’ the man supplied. ‘My name be Enoch Birks.’

Politeness an instinct with Emma, she bobbed him a small curtsy. ‘Good evening, Mr Birks. May I present my friend, Daisy Tully, and myself, Emma Price.’

In the light of the brazier the old man’s eyes twinkled and he grinned beneath the generous moustache.

‘Well, if that don’t be the prettiest introduction I’ve ever been given! You be fair well-mannered, the two of you. Makes a change to be addressed civil in this day and age, you be more like to be ignored by young folk today; they think ’cos a body has a few years they be bound to be senile or stupid. No manners.’ He shook his head. ‘That be what’s wrong with folk today, no manners and no respect. But you two have been brought up to know better, that be plain.’

Smiling her thanks, Emma returned her attention to the frying pan, turning each sausage while trying to avoid the darts of hot fat that sprayed with each move.

‘But I ain’t senile,’ Enoch resumed. ‘Old I be, but I ain’t stupid. That were a pretty speech you made, wench, but it still didn’t tell me where you be from nor how come it is you have no bed?’

Glancing quickly at Daisy, Emma caught the faint movement of her head. Daisy was warning her to say nothing. But the old man had been kind to them, he had not turned them away. He could so easily have set the dog on them but he had let them stay. Such an action deserved an answer that contained, if not all the truth, at least an element of it.

‘I come from Doe Bank.’ Her voice just audible above the splutter of the pan she kept her eyes lowered, hiding the pain that immediately leapt to them. ‘My home was . . . was accidentally burned and my family died in the fire. I was visiting a friend who lived at Plovers Croft at the time. That’s how come I too did not die.’

‘Plovers Croft?’ Touching the dog’s ears Enoch soothed its rising enthusiasm at the smell of cooking. ‘That place were flattened days since. Several of the folk stopped by here on their way into the town.’

‘Yes,’ Emma answered quietly. ‘When my own home was destroyed, I’d hoped to stay at Jerusha Paget’s house . . .’

‘Jerusha Paget?’ Enoch broke in quickly. ‘Be that the woman that physics folk?’

‘She uses herbal medicines.’

‘Arrh, that be the one. She helped my Mary many a time. She dead?’

‘No. Jerusha decided she was too old to go on the road so she stayed in Doe Bank, but I . . . I could not face staying there.’

Staring into the brazier, Enoch moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘The road be a hard place at any age, but there be more danger there for two young wenches. No respect, you see, no respect for women!’

Forking the sausages on to the plate, Emma took the thick wedges of bread that were to have been the watchman’s meagre supper and dipped each one into the sizzling fat. Adding several sausages to each, she handed them to Enoch.

‘Share and share alike.’ Breaking each sandwich in half he handed a portion to each of the girls, laying another on the ground for the eager General Kitchener.

Biting into the still too hot food he danced his jaw up and down jiggling the sausage on his tongue as he grabbed quick shallow breaths to cool his tongue.

Hiding her smile, Emma laid the smoking pan on a nearby pile of bricks, sitting herself beside it.

‘So what you two be going to do?’ More wary this time, Enoch blew on his sausage before taking a second bite. ‘I doubt you’ll be taken on anywhere in this town. Folk with money have all the help they need, and them without . . .’ he shrugged ‘. . . them without have a hard time feeding themselves. You’ll find there be precious few have anything to spare. So I reckon you two will have to settle for the parish. I hear several from Plovers Croft have already gone into the workhouse, God pity them, and you for having to follow.’

‘No!’ Squatting beside the brazier Daisy’s eyes flashed bright as the sparks shooting from the coals. ‘We’re going into no workhouse! This time I do know what I am saying, Mr Birks. I spent years in that hell and I’ll die before I go back there. Nothing can be worse than that place . . . nothing!’

In the ensuing silence Emma heard Daisy’s stifled sobs and moved closer, taking the younger girl in her arms. Beside the old man the dog nudged its nose into his palm.

‘Seems General Kitchener agrees with me,’ Enoch said at last. ‘He reckons you should spend the night in the hut. That be if you two young ladies can trust an old soldier?’

‘Implicitly, Mr Birks.’

Smiling at Emma’s answer, the old man rose to place a kettle of water in the heart of the brazier.

‘Then get you inside while I brew a mash of tea. A warm drink and you can settle to sleep. And you need have no fear of being disturbed, not with old Kitchener on guard. Don’t even a beetle get past him.’

Helping Daisy to her feet, Emma paused beside the old man then shyly kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Mr Birks,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘I told you!’ Daisy smiled broadly, every trace of her sobs vanished as they entered the small brick hut. ‘I told you we’d get shelter here for the night, and I was right. Give the watchman a share of the sausage and he gives us a place to sleep.’

‘Yes, you were right, but it can only be for one night.’

‘But why?’ Daisy grinned, settling herself into a corner. ‘Share and share alike, the old man said so. We share our supper, he shares his hut. There’s nothing wrong in that. It can go on just as long as we have money to buy supper.’

‘No, Daisy, it cannot. Mr Birks is an old man, he needs his rest more than we do. He can’t be put out of his hut night after night, he has to sleep.’

Daisy sat up, tucking her skirts over her feet. ‘But he’s a night watchman. He’s supposed to keep watch, not sleep.’

‘We both know that. But he’s old, Daisy. Too old for this job but it’s probably the only way he can earn enough to keep him from the workhouse. It’s the dog that does the watching, you must see that.’

Her grin dissolving in a shame-faced expression, Daisy nodded. ‘I guess I knew that all along, but the thought of that workhouse keeps everything else away. I’m sorry, Emma. We’ll share the tea with him and then we’ll go.’

‘Go where?’ Balancing a tin cup and two jam jars filled with tea on a broken slate, Enoch stood in the doorway.

Emma turned. ‘We were thinking, Mr Birks. We shouldn’t deprive you of your hut. We’ll share your tea and gladly, but then we’ll leave.’

Holding out the slate first to Emma and then to Daisy, the old man took his cup and sipped his tea.

‘So you would leave!’ Grey head lifting, he stared deep into Emma’s eyes. ‘You would share your meal with an old man then refuse the only hospitality he has to offer in return?’

The heat of the tea burning her through the glass jar, Emma set it down on the upturned tea chest that served as a table.

‘You were welcome to a share of our food, Mr Birks, but Daisy and I both feel we must not deprive you of your hut.’

Dropping into the lone chair, Enoch placed his cup beside Emma’s jar. ‘I was welcome to what you had to give.’ He spoke quietly, one hand falling to the head of the dog that padded in after him. ‘But my hospitality is not welcome to you. This hut holds little comfort, but then I thought you would have known that afore you accepted. Seems I were wrong, that you expected more.’

‘No, we didn’t. We expected nothing more.’ Emma glanced unhappily at Daisy sitting huddled in the corner, the jar of tea untouched on the floor beside her.

‘Truth is, Mr Birks, it were my idea, all of it. I told Emma you’d likely let us spend the night in your hut in return for a few sausages.’

‘Which I did.’

‘Yes, Mr Birks, which you did,’ Emma answered. ‘And very kindly. ‘But we feel we cannot put you out of your hut. You cannot spend the night outside.’

‘Share and share alike!’

Recognising in his tone a mixture of hurt pride and dignity, Emma blushed for shame. Glancing again at Daisy she saw contrition on the girl’s face. Returning her glance to the old man, Emma smiled.

‘Then share with us, Mr Birks. Share the hut.’

Old eyes displaying his appreciation of the trust placed in him, Enoch fondled the dog’s ears. ‘The General and me appreciates that, wench. We both hopes you find the sort of life you deserves.’

The sort of life she deserved? Lying beside a sleeping Daisy, Emma’s mind refused the opium of sleep. ‘What did she deserve, a girl who never saw the torment that drove her sister and her mother to suicide? Never recognised the evil that lay behind her father’s preaching. She deserved only what she had: a life on the road and a bastard child in her womb.

Chapter Thirteen

‘So you see, Langton, we bring a canal through here and getting our products to market can be accomplished in less than half the time.’

From the carriage’s stopping place on the road, Carver Felton pointed out over the expanse of empty heathland.

‘A canal is only part of it, Felton.’ Rafe Langton ran one hand over his bushy side whiskers. ‘There be other things to be taken in consideration. Things like wharves and loading sheds and like as not a basin barges can pull into while they wait for cargo. It all takes money.’

‘He’s right, it does take money, and I for one am not certain I wish to invest in such a scheme. We’re getting our steel away quite comfortably using the present carrier. I don’t see any real necessity for change.’

Arthur Payne couldn’t see a brick wall at five paces! Carver glanced at the younger man. Show him an Italian leather boot or a fancy jacket and he’d see every stitch. But business? It was a pity old man Payne had no son but this to leave his steel works to; but the son of Carver Felton would be different; he like his father, would see the chances in life. He would continue where his father had left off, build Felton’s into a commercial empire.

But for the moment it would prove beneficial to carry these men with him into the venture. Their money would help to make the prospect a reality, and then . . .

‘It takes money to make money.’ Carver kept his voice level. ‘Your father was a man who saw that.’

‘My father is no longer head of Payne Steel.’

Carver’s black eyes glinted and his mouth held a touch of mockery as he looked at the man leaning back languidly against the carriage’s blue upholstery. ‘That is an obstacle one can only pray Payne Steel will surmount!’ he rejoined.

‘Look here.’ Rafe Langton took a watch from his waistcoat pocket, checked the time then returned it. ‘You two pups can snap and snarl all day but I have a good lunch waiting and I don’t intend to see it wasted. We came out here to decide once and for all what we mean to do regarding this canal. Now either we do that or I’m off!’

Shrugging his shoulders, Arthur Payne flicked a gloved finger over the hat resting on his knee.

‘What about labour, Felton?’ Langton went on without pausing. ‘That will add considerably to the final investment.’

‘Not so much, the way I plan it,’ Carver replied, glancing back to the heath. ‘I propose to bring in my own labour force, one that will work for half the amount we would normally expect to pay.’

‘Eh!’ His interest freshly kindled, Rafe Langton edged forward in his seat. ‘Half the amount, you say, and just how do you propose doing that?’

‘There is a threatened famine in Ireland. Their potato harvest has all but failed yet again, so I am reliably informed. When men are starving they will work for pennies. I intend to bring some of them over here to dig out this canal.’

‘But will that not give rise to further expenditure?’ Arthur Payne smiled triumphandy. ‘There are men hereabouts who have need of work, you would not need to pay to have them brought in.’

‘That is very observant of you, Payne.’ Carver nodded indulgently. ‘But once more you seem to have missed the point. A man from Ireland will not only work more cheaply, he will work twice as hard for fear of losing the job that will keep his whole family from starvation. He will also bear in mind the fact that if that job is lost, so are his chances of earning the fare to return to them. So, you see, we can only benefit from bringing them here and will recoup the cost of their transportation in a matter of days.’

‘And the cost of housing these men?’ Arthur retaliated. ‘Have you considered that in your book keeping?’

‘Housing?’ Carver turned his head, the sunlight flashing silver from the twin streaks sweeping back from his brow. ‘We undertake to give a man a job, we do not offer a house to go with it!’

‘But they will need a place to sleep. Surely, Felton, even you can’t expect them to live without shelter?’

The derisory smile once more touching his mouth, Carver climbed back into the carriage. ‘Even you, Payne, must have heard of tents? We provide tents. If they want more than that, they provide it for themselves.’

‘My God, Felton, you’ve thought this business through.’ Rafe Langton’s fat jowls wobbled as he nodded his approval. ‘I must say, I’m impressed. How about you, Payne?’

Eyes the colour of burnt toffee were fixed on Carver, the message they contained very different from the words Arthur Payne spoke. ‘Oh, I’m impressed! But then, Carver never fails to impress.’

‘So, can we say we’re agreed? Are you definitely in?’

Toffee-coloured eyes never wavering, Arthur Payne inclined his well-groomed head. Felton made money whatever he touched, and like the fellow or not, the chance to share in his profit could not be overlooked. Especially when some other fellow did the donkey work.

‘You have my word upon it. Shall we say tomorrow at eleven to sign the necessary contracts?’

‘We need no contracts.’ Rafe Langton’s heavy body swayed as the carriage lurched forward. ‘A man’s word is as good as his signature any day.’

‘Agreed.’ Arthur’s brown eyes met Carver’s black stare. ‘But a man’s word cannot be locked in a safe.’