Eliza's Child (32 page)

‘I'll never forget what you've done for me,' she whispered across the sleeping boy.

‘I'm only sorry I didn't find him sooner,' Peter whispered back. ‘He would have been home anyway without my help but for Jonathan Moore. But
he
won't be bothering you again, I shouldn't think. If he does I will want to know the reason why.' He hesitated for only a moment before leaning over the narrow bed and kissing her gently on the lips. ‘I love you, Eliza. I realise now that I always will.'

Eliza too leaned over the bed and kissed him back. But they must have disturbed Tot for he rolled over and opened his eyes.

‘I love you too,' he said and smiled at his mother. ‘I'm not going away again, not ever.' His eyes closed again and he slept.

Peter and Eliza tiptoed out of the bedroom and went downstairs. Tommy was asleep in his chair by this time, but as they entered the kitchen he woke up and yawned hugely.

‘I'm away to my bed,' he said and stood up before looking hard at Peter and Eliza. ‘You two behave yourselves, mind, it's time you were in your beds an'all. Separate ones,' he added warningly. He had not missed the doting way they were looking at each other and he said so to Mary Anne when she woke in the early morning.

‘Aw, man,' Mary Anne said comfortably. ‘They're grown-ups, aren't they. It's no business of ours what they get up to.'

‘
BY, I'M THAT
glad you got the lad back,' said Bertha fervently. It was seven-thirty the next morning and she had left the dairy work to Charlie's mother as she had done since she had gone to stay at the farm. ‘My friend is in trouble,' she had said firmly to her betrothed. ‘I cannot leave her until she finds Tot.'

Charlie had agreed, much to Bertha's surprise. Already she could see she would have to stand up for herself in this marriage, though she would not admit such a thing to Eliza. Standing up for herself had shown Charlie in something of a new light. He was not so unreasonable as she had feared he might be.

Eliza sat with her mother and Bertha in the front room, having an early morning cup of tea. She felt so lighthearted it was almost what she imagined being intoxicated must feel like and if it was then there might be something to say for it after all. Even Mary Anne seemed better this morning. She had a little colour in her cheeks and she was breathing easier. Of course this could have had something to do with the fact that Dr Gray had only just left, having called in before starting his rounds on the wards at the Infirmary. While he was there he had examined Mary Anne and prescribed a new routine of care and medication for her. The very fact that a doctor had bothered with her was something new for Mary Anne and she had brightened. He had looked in on Tot before he went.

‘It's not serious,' he had pronounced as he felt the bump on the back of his head. ‘He seems to have got over the worst. He'll need to take it easy for a few days, that's all. It's a good job for you, young man, that you were taken in by a good, kind couple. You
could
have been press-ganged on to a boat bound for China, do you know that?'

‘Could I?' Tot had asked, an interested gleam in his eyes. ‘Wouldn't it be grand, going to sea? And as far as China! I would see elephants and maybe even tigers!'

‘Don't even think of it,' warned Eliza.

‘I was only saying,' said Tot. ‘I don't want to leave you now, Mam.'

‘I should think not,' the doctor said.

‘I'm afraid Nurse Henderson has changed her mind,' he told Eliza. ‘After yesterday she thought she could not manage an outside practice, not yet. Not until she has a little more experience.'

Eliza thought of yesterday, when she had taken the nurse on her rounds. She had been so obviously shocked at some of the conditions in the colliery villages around the city, the lack of even clean water in some. Perhaps she was better working in the Infirmary.

It didn't matter now. She would carry on with her work. Peter would want her to, she thought happily. Peter was different from most men. He understood her as Jack had never done. She smiled, a secret little smile, thinking of his love-making of the night before. She hadn't known a man could be so gentle and considerate and yet passionate at the same time.

‘What is it?' asked Bertha. ‘Did I say something funny?'

‘No,' Eliza replied. ‘By the way, Peter and I are getting wed.'

‘When?' asked Bertha. She didn't sound in the least surprised.

‘As soon as we can arrange it with the minister.'

‘Mind, not before time,' remarked Mary Anne. ‘I could tell it was in the wind.' Bertha nodded agreement. ‘What about Tot?' she asked now as she collected the teacups ready to take into the kitchen. ‘Will he be going on at school?'

‘I hope so,' Eliza replied. ‘But I don't mind so long as he is happy. He can be anything he wants to be and if he wants to be a cabinet maker then he can. Though I'd like him to go on at school. And now with his inheritance, he can. There is more than enough. The rest I will put in a trust fund for him. How can he really know what he wants if he doesn't know about other things?'

‘Aye,' said Bertha over her shoulder as she went through to the kitchen. ‘I suppose you are right.'

As she sorted the washing she had collected the day before and put it into piles to give to her washerwomen when they came in during the morning at different times according to what shift their men were on, she found herself thinking of the farm and quite looking forward to getting back there. It wouldn't be a bad life, she reckoned, so long as she stood up for herself and didn't let anyone shout her down. Even her future mother-in-law wasn't going to be allowed to do that, she decided.

She was bending over a bundle of washing, which she was tying in a sheet, when Tot came up behind her and flung his arms around her waist.

‘What—' she began. ‘Eeh, it's you, Tot, should you be out of bed? What about your poor head?'

‘It's not so bad,' Tot declared. ‘I've missed you, Bertha.'

‘What are you going to do when I wed?' she asked him.

‘I can come up to the farm and see you, can't I?'

‘Course you can,' Bertha replied. ‘Come on, now, you'll have to go back to bed. Didn't Dr Gray say you should stay there for a few days?'

Tot nodded. In truth he was feeling a little bit shaky still. He climbed the stairs to his room and got back into bed. Maybe he would go to the grammar school, he thought, as he drifted off to sleep. Maybe he would learn Latin and stuff and be a doctor like Dr Gray. He was fast asleep when there was a knocking at the front door, just a timid knock, so it did not wake him.

Eliza happened to be in the hall at the time and she wasn't even sure it had been a knock but she opened the door anyway. Outside a young girl was huddled on the doorstep. It took her a few minutes to realise it was Lottie. Lottie, who had looked after Mrs Green before she had died: Lottie, the girl from the workhouse. She was sobbing her heart out. Eliza took one look and drew her inside.

‘Come into the kitchen, pet,' she said. ‘I'll put the kettle on and you can tell me what has happened.' As she filled the kettle and settled it on the glowing coals, Eliza studied the girl. She had a rip in the bodice of her dress and she held it together with one hand. Her face was bruised, with one eye beginning to swell and close.

‘Has someone attacked you, Lottie?' Eliza asked. ‘Has someone stolen your purse?' There were stories of a pickpocket going round the city, there always were, but surely it didn't happen at this time of day. These people usually worked in the dark. Lottie shook her head.

‘Mr Green did it,' she whispered. ‘I wouldn't let him do what he wanted so he hit me and put me out of the house.' She hung her head, unable to look at Eliza. ‘I just walked around all night and then I sat down in the market place, I was that tired. I didn't know what to do. I didn't have any money nor nothing. I thought mebbe I'd best go back to the workhouse. Only I know the matron will be mad at me. She'll say I should have stayed with Mr Green, I know she will. She won't believe me when I tell her what he did.'

‘Oh, Lottie! Let me look at you. I'll bathe your poor face, shall I? I'll get some clean water and put a drop of white vinegar in it, that will help it feel better.' Eliza gave her a cup of tea with sweetened condensed milk in it. ‘Drink that first, it'll do you good. When did this happen?'

‘Last night, about eleven, I think. The church clock had just chimed eleven and he came into the kitchen. I was just banking the fire before I went to bed, Sister. I hope you don't mind me coming here but Bertha found me in the market place and she told me it would be all right.'

‘So it is, pet, so it is,' said Eliza, though in truth she didn't know where she was going to put her. The house was bursting at the seams as it was. Still, she tended the girl's bruises and made her some toast and took her in to sit with Mary Anne in the front room.

Mary Anne was all sympathy. ‘Poor lass,' she said to Eliza. ‘The fella wants stringing up. I'd do it meself if I was fit. Sit down, pet, and tell me all about it. You go on, Eliza, I know you have your rounds to do. Me and Lottie can shift for ourselves for the minute.'

Eliza hesitated, but only for a minute. She knew that the two of them would manage together, for Mary Anne would mother Lottie and Lottie would help her mother. In any case, her father was within call upstairs in bed should he be needed. She had patients she should see, for she had not been able to visit them all the day before.

Tommy was not upstairs in bed. He was only a mile or two from Stanley, for he had decided to go back and accept datal work there. He had seen the way things were going with Eliza and Peter Collier and he reckoned he and Mary Anne had to shift for themselves. Together with the two boys he could get a colliery house at Stanley and they would be a family again, taking ‘nowt from no one' as they had always done. One thing he knew, they might have stopped Jonathan Moore from putting the law on them but the mine owner would prevent him, Tommy Teesdale, from ever working in the pits around east Durham again.

‘We'll get wed as soon as we're able,' said Peter. ‘I cannot wait.' He put his arms around Eliza and kissed her lingeringly.

‘Peter!' she exclaimed. ‘Someone might come in.'

‘They might,' he agreed. ‘Does it matter?'

‘No, I suppose it doesn't,' she said and kissed him again before going on, ‘We'd best get home, there are things to see to. There's Tot and my mother and now there's Lottie. What will I do with Lottie? I can't let her go back to that house nor can I let her go back to the workhouse.'

‘She can stay with us when we're wed,' said Peter, still holding Eliza to him and stroking her back, thereby sending shivers down her spine so that she could hardly think straight. Eliza sighed. The problems which seemed insurmountable only yesterday were somehow only minor difficulties today. Now there was Peter to share the burden, and life was looking rosy.

‘I must get back to Tot,' she murmured and he immediately dropped his arms and turned businesslike.

‘Right, I'll shut the place up and we'll go,' said Peter.

‘You're coming home with me?' asked Eliza.

‘Where else would I go?' Peter replied. They went outside to where Dolly was contentedly chewing inside her nosebag. ‘Just get in, I'll see to the Galloway.'

Eliza did so and soon they were sitting in the tub trap, close together, so that she could feel the warmth of his side against her arm as he took the reins and flicked them over the pony's back.

‘Gee up,' he said. ‘Home, Dolly.' Dolly lifted her head and pricked her ears at the sound of his authoritative, masculine tone. She set off at what was a spanking pace for her at this end of a busy day.

There were things to be done, problems to be sorted, Eliza thought dreamily as they drove along the short distance to Gilesgate. But the future was going to be as bright as the sunset that lit the sky over the city. Tomorrow would be a lovely day.