Pit Bank Wench (7 page)

‘Father!’ Carrie suddenly trembled. ‘Why does he do such things? Why, despite all his preaching and sermonising, does he . . . does he fon . . . Mother is with child so often it’s a wonder she is not dead. Oh, I know very well why she is sick now. Another baby to be got rid of, another bout of suffering while he struts about spouting the Bible and being all holier than thou!’

‘Carrie!’ Emma’s eyes widened.

‘It’s true!’ her sister returned, almost to herself. ‘He knows what he does is wrong, it cannot be as he says it is – that it is the duty of every woman to satisfy the man, let him . . .’

‘Carrie, stop!’ Emma looked at her sister, usually so timid and quiet, hardly ever speaking of their father, going up to the bedroom as soon as he came home.

‘Carrie, you should not talk like that. How do we know whether or not Mother is . . .’ Emma broke off, embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken.

‘How?’ Carrie rose to her feet, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘For the simple reason she makes so many visits to Jerusha Paget. You know what she goes for, I know what she goes for. It is the same thing
you
went to ask for, the potion that ends a pregnancy; the potion that will kill her if she goes on taking it. And it will be
his
fault!’

What Carrie said was true. Emma folded her arms across her stomach, trying to ease away the pain. Their mother did go to Jerusha, two or sometimes three times in a year, afterwards suffering the same agony she herself was presently sharing. But better that, she had told Emma, better to suffer the pain of the body than the pain of the heart trying to raise a houseful of children on the wage their father earned, raise them in the squalor of Doe Bank, and so each time she visited Jerusha.

‘It’s so unfair, Emma. Why should women suffer so much? Why can a man take pleasure where he pleases when we feel only pain and heartbreak?’

‘It might not be like that for every woman.’ Emma watched her sister through eyes dulled with pain.

‘You think not?’ Carrie turned away, her face hidden from her sister. ‘I have not known a single woman in Doe Bank give birth without suffering torture. I’m afraid, Emma. I don’t want to go through that . . .’

‘What do you not want to go through, Carrie?’

Both girls looked sharply towards the door of the bedroom where their mother stood watching them.

‘I asked you a question, child. What is it you do not want to go through?’

A hint of colour touched Carrie’s cheeks and her eyes lowered. ‘The pain of childbirth. I . . . I’m afraid. I am afraid of . . .’

Mary Price’s faded eyes melted with love as she crossed to where her youngest child stood trembling. ‘You need not be afraid, my love.’ She looked across the girl’s bent head to Emma and her eyes asked forgiveness. ‘There is nothing to be feared of. You have been listening to the gossip and dirty talk of the pit bank.’

Held against her mother’s breast, Carrie shuddered. ‘It is no lie what they say, is it, Mother? I have only to look at Emma and at you to see that. Both of you drinking that . . . that brew, while Father and whoever . . .’ She lifted her head, her eyes at once apologetic. ‘Emma, I didn’t mean . . .’

‘Go downstairs, Carrie.’ Mary spoke to one daughter but her eyes stayed fixed on the other. ‘Your father will be home soon, go see the meal is not spoiling.’

‘No!’ Carrie’s fingers tightened on her mother’s hand. ‘I want . . . I’m afraid . . .’

‘Afraid?’ Mary kissed the soft hair. ‘Afraid of the dark? Not my girl! The lamp is lit and your father will be home in a few minutes. He’ll let nothing frighten you, he will let no harm come to you.’

Carrie walked slowly from the room, the words echoing in her heart. No harm, Father . . . no harm.

‘Don’t scold Carrie for listening to those women. She is very young yet, Mother.’

‘Arr, she be young and every bit as foolish.’ Mary sat beside her daughter. ‘But time will put the first right, and with God’s help and the love of a good man she will lose her girlish fears. But you, Emma, I never thought you to be so foolish . . . as to walk through those woods alone.’

Clutching her stomach as breath closed her throat against the hot lash of pain, Emma turned her face to her mother. ‘I did not lie willingly with . . . with the man, Mother. Let heaven be my witness, I did not!’

‘You don’t have to tell me that, I know you would never do such a thing.’ Taking her daughter in her arms, Mary touched her lips to the pale shining hair. Emma was beautiful, far too beautiful for the life Doe Bank would give her, and some man had seen that beauty, used that slender body then thrown her aside. But who was the man? Why had Emma given him no name despite a mother’s asking?

‘I meant you were foolish in going elsewhere than to Jerusha Paget,’ she said, gathering her daughter in her arms.

Pressed close against her, Emma felt the tears squeeze from beneath her closed eyes. ‘Jerusha would not give me what she gave to . . .’

‘To me,’ Mary finished the sentence quietly.

‘I . . . I had to go to that other house.’ She sobbed. ‘Jerusha would not help so I had to find someone who would. I had to, Mother. I could not take the risk of carrying Ca— a child. The woman said it would be all over by this time, that there would be no pain . . .’

‘But she was wrong, wrong on both counts. You have seen no blood, have you, Emma?’

Feeling her tremble, Mary’s arm tightened. If that man’s seed had taken root then there would be no flow of blood despite the potion Emma had drunk. The child would grow and it would be born . . . and her daughter would know the shame of it.

‘Mother.’ Emma lifted a face stained with tears. ‘Supposing I am with child? Supposing what that woman gave me does not work, what will happen? Father will not believe I was . . . was raped.’

No, Caleb would not believe that. Mary rested her head against her daughter’s. Caleb . . . the preacher man . . . would see only a temptress, a Jezebel, for in his eyes it would be Emma who was to blame.

‘We can only wait and see,’ she murmured. ‘We can only hope.’

Chapter Five

Emma watched her mother leave the bedroom, her wasted body seeming to wince with every step. Carrie had been right, their mother did suffer too many pregnancies, each more painful to end than the last. Surely their father knew why his wife always looked so tired? Why she was regularly confined to her bed with gripe of the stomach? Yes, Caleb Price knew, but it seemed his rantings against the sins of the flesh applied only to women.

If he should discover
her
sin . . . Emma felt her blood turn cold. There would be no pity in him, no forgiveness.

But perhaps he need never know? The pain of the last few hours had seemed to tear her apart. Surely the potion must have done its work?

Even though she was alone in the room, Emma crossed to the corner farthest from the door. Keeping her back discreetly towards the bed, instinctively seeking the only privacy the room afforded whenever her sister was present, she took the folded cloth from between her legs.

It was unmarked! Emma felt despair sweep over her. There was no stain upon it, no trace of blood. Whatever the mixture she had drunk, it had had no effect other than to put fire in her belly.

She stared at the rag. So much pain, so much fear. And all for nothing! If Carver Felton had left her with child, then the child was still inside her.

‘
There is a child within you . . .
’

Emma heard the words in her mind, the words Jerusha Paget had spoken.

‘. . .
a child that will be born into the world
 . . .’

That then was how it would be! A sense of acceptance wrapping about her like a cloak, Emma took a piece of paper from the chest of drawers she shared with Carrie. Wrapping the cloth, she pushed it into the pocket of her skirt. Carver Felton’s child would be born into the world but the Feltons would never know.

Downstairs she took the paper-wrapped cloth, thrusting it deep into the fire. Behind her Mary Price’s face twisted with sympathy. Her daughter was condemned to a life of sorrow. She would bear her burden alone, with every hand but her mother’s and her sister’s turned against her, with no hope of a father for the child other than the man who had . . .

Mary turned away, the bitterness of the rest of that thought stinging her heart like acid. But who was that man? Why would Emma not say his name? Had it been someone she knew, someone who knew her? Suddenly Mary felt a new coldness. Was it a man who already had a wife and children . . . a man from Doe Bank?

‘Serve the meal.’

Mary glanced up as Caleb strode into the house. Usually he washed away the dirt of the mine before taking his food.

‘Serve the meal!’ Caleb’s narrow features were drawn together with the anger that rang in his voice. ‘Serve the meal and then gather your belongings. We be leaving this house afore morning.’

‘Leaving?’ Mary’s startled glance changed to a frown that creased her brow. ‘Caleb, I don’t understand?’

‘Neither do I.’ He crossed to the fireplace, staring into the crimson flames. ‘He gave no reason, said no cause.’

‘Who, Caleb?’

‘Who? John Barlow. He be manager of the Topaz. Who else but him tells a man he be finished?’

Who else! Emma felt the blood surge along her veins. The Topaz coal mine belonged to the Feltons. Was this the work of Carver Felton? Not satisfied with raping her, had he raised his hand against her family?

‘Finished?’ The plates she had taken from the dresser clattering in her shaking hands, Mary stared at her husband. ‘You mean, you’ve been given your tin?’

Turning slowly, Caleb thrust a hand into the pocket of his jacket drawing out a slim rectangular tin box. The coins inside rattled as he threw it down on to the table.

‘That be the last we’ll get from the Topaz.’

‘But what will we do?’

Emma took the plates from her mother’s trembling hands, eyes going to Carrie, warning her not to interrupt.

‘We will do as the Lord ordains.’ Caleb crossed his forehead and chest. ‘If it be His will we leave this house, then His will be done.’

It was not the Lord’s will. Emma’s fingers tightened on the plates. He had not ordained that her father be robbed of his livelihood. That was Carver Felton’s doing.

‘But why?’ Mary sank down on a chair, eyes riveted to the box. ‘You’ve done your work as well as the next man, so why should John Barlow sack you?’

‘I asked him the same,’ Caleb answered, ‘but he would say naught but that I was finished.’

‘Is the Topaz mine to be closed, Father?’ Having warned Carrie not to speak, Emma knew she should do the same but the surging in her veins drove the question from her.

Caleb swung his head slowly from side to side. ‘Not that I be knowing.’

‘Then why lay off the men?’ Mary’s bewildered question followed her daughter’s.

Drawing a long heavy breath, Caleb lowered himself into the only comfortable chair the room boasted, his dust-laden sleeve on the cream cotton arm rest his wife had crocheted. ‘There be no laying off,’ he said dully, ‘I be the only one.’

Her father was the only man being laid off. Emma set each plate in its place on the table, her movements slow and ponderous. The mine was not to be closed, nor was any other miner to lose his job. There could be no other reason: Carver Felton wanted them out of Doe Bank, gone before his brother could return. He would know that the few shillings the women could earn picking coal from the waste heaps would not be enough to keep them. By sacking her father, Carver had rid himself of her in the most effective way. By driving her family from the village.

‘I was told at the end of the shift,’ Caleb continued to explain. ‘Told John Barlow wanted to see me at the mine office. He had my tin ready made up when I got there. Said as I was finished at the Topaz and that I must be gone from this house by the morning. He would say no more, answer no question.’

He did not need to. Emma watched her sister lay knife and spoon beside each plate. It did not take John Barlow to tell the whole of Doe Bank who was behind his action, nor did she need to be told that every man and woman in the village would be asking why – why should Felton’s sack just one man? Nor would speculation be limited to that. Once her father was over the shock, once the bewilderment had faded, he would put two and two together. Then he would know without being told. Know she carried Felton’s child.

‘Gone from this house?’ Mary’s faded eyes lifted to Emma’s. ‘Gone before morning. But to where . . . and with what?’

Almost as if her words were a challenge, Caleb rose to his feet. The fingers of one hand curling about the lapels of his jacket as they did about the black tail coat he wore to Sunday chapel, he took the stance he always adopted when lay preaching.

‘We will follow the Lord’s guidance.’ He lifted his hand towards the ceiling. ‘He will provide.’

‘The Lord will provide?’

Mary pushed herself to her feet, taking the pot of potatoes from the bracket above the fire, her tired eyes suddenly blazing like the coals at its centre.

‘Like He has provided for us up until now? Will He give us another hovel to live in, another plate of boiled potatoes for a meal?’

‘Speak not against the Lord lest He lift His hand against thee!’ Caleb’s face darkened, anger turning his voice to thunder.

‘No, speak not against the Lord. Nor against any man. A woman can say nothing against one of them, not a husband nor a father . . . nor one who lies with a woman he has not wed!’

The silence that fell over the room was like a living thing, touching each of them with numbing fingers, creeping into ears and mouths, holding them in its own embrace.

Beside the table Emma felt the world stop turning.

‘What gives you reason to speak such filth?’ Caleb’s stony glance settled on his wife.

‘No reason. I . . . I meant . . .’