Nobody's Child Read online

  Jane shrugged. ‘Onny my ma,’ she said. ‘She likes you to come. She still misses your ma, I think.’

  Mary-Ellen nodded. Aunt Lol was her mother’s sister and had been a surrogate mother to Mary-Ellen after her mother died until she was old enough to look after herself and her father Isaac. Isaac Page, however, was extremely demanding and grumbled if she spent time away from their homestead. ‘Lol has plenty of her own kin to blether to. She doesn’t need you,’ he would say, if ever Mary-Ellen went to visit. ‘And you’ve plenty to occupy you here without gallivanting over to Welwick.’ He had never really got on with Aunt Lol, probably because she had a sharp tongue and he had felt its lash from time to time.

  A rough, hard-working labouring man, he had felt his wife’s loss keenly. He hadn’t wanted much, he ruminated into his ale. He liked his food on the table, a good fire in the hearth and a warm bed. Mary-Ellen kept hens, milked the cow, grew vegetables, and washed and cooked for him. For his bed she provided a hot brick wrapped in a piece of flannel, though there were some nights when he stayed overlong at the hostelry in Welwick, drowning his sorrows and occasionally taking comfort from an obliging female.

  ‘November?’ Mary-Ellen said now. ‘Well, you’ll be well settled in before winter comes. You’ll be in a warm kitchen; they’ll have fires in every room, I should think—’

  ‘Aye, and I’ll have to clean ’em,’ Jane interrupted.

  ‘But you hate ’winter! You’re allus complaining about being cold. And you’ll get fattened up with all that good meat that ’toffs eat.’

  ‘But I won’t know anybody, Mary-Ellen, and nobody’ll talk to me.’

  ‘Well, you don’t know anybody round here! And who is there to talk to ’cept me and a few other bairns?’ Mary-Ellen patted her on the shoulder. ‘It’ll be a new life for you, Jane, just you see.’

  Do I wish it were me? she wondered later as she filled another pail from the pump. She scooped up the pale gritty shrimps, put them into the fresh water and began to clean them. I could wish I was going from this drudgery, though I wouldn’t want to work in the big houses and be at the beck and call of anybody. But it would never happen. Her father wouldn’t allow it. He agreed that she could go into the fields at harvest time, but vowed that she’d never go into service, nor work in any of the inns or hostelries. She must keep house for him. But she also knew that no-one would employ her. She was known to be wild, with a sharp tongue and a will and spirit that couldn’t be tamed. The only one who held any sway over her was her father, and he did that with the back of his hand and on occasions with his belt as if she was the son he had never had.

  Yet Mary-Ellen was generous of spirit and could be kind and loving, as she was with Jane, of whom she was fiercely protective. Jane was invincible when Mary-Ellen was there. No lad or teasing lass would torment Jane if they thought that her cousin would find out.

  Isaac Page came home in the late afternoon. A square-set, heavy man, he worked the farms when they needed him for spring sowing or autumn harvesting; he could dig a ditch and turn a furrow, or fish with the boatmen of Patrington Haven or at the riverside village of Paull. He boasted that he could turn his hand to anything, and he did. He had never refused an offer of work.

  Mary-Ellen could smell ale on him as he came into the one-roomed dwelling, but he wasn’t drunk, and he sniffed appreciatively. ‘Fish pie?’ he asked.

  ‘Eel pie,’ she said, ‘and shrimps! I’ve been down to ’river, and on ’way back I found some elvers buried in the mud.’

  He nodded. ‘Was ’tide in? Did you tek ’boat out?’

  ‘No. I thought I might catch flounder, but ’tide was running too fast for me to go out, so I just dipped my net and found a few shrimps. It would have been a poor supper if I hadn’t found these elvers.’ She’d made a substantial meal, chopping off the heads of the little eels, and then cutting them into small pieces before putting them into a pie dish with onions and potatoes. She covered the mixture with a thick flour and water paste and cooked it in the brick oven at the side of the fire. She’d rinsed the samphire to remove the salt and then heated it over the flame, in a pan with a drop of water and a knob of dripping.

  Her father had built the brick oven and fireplace for her mother when he had first brought her here, before Mary-Ellen was born. It was heated by wood, so they wasted nothing. Every twig or fallen branch was kept for fuel, both to keep them warm and for cooking. Sometimes a log or spar was washed up on the estuarine marsh and she would drag it home triumphantly, leaving it to dry in the lee of the cow shelter, ready for use on the winter days when they couldn’t go out. The weather could be cruel here in the depths of winter, when the flat marshy land was covered in snow, and there were no indications of hidden drains or ditches.

  They scraped up the few fallen leaves in the autumn, for this was almost a treeless countryside, and piled them in the hen house, leaving them until they settled to a thick matted texture, when a handful would be put on the fire overnight to give a slow burn. Then in the spring they dug the rotted mulch into the area where Mary-Ellen grew potatoes, leeks, onions and carrots.

  ‘You’re a good lass,’ her father admitted, as he tucked into the pie. ‘But you must tek care if you go out on ’river. How would I manage if owt happened to you?’

  She reflected that he would only miss her for her skills at keeping him fed and warm. Is that all women are useful for? Is that why he married my mother? Was he attracted to her when he met her? She was pretty, I remember, more comely than Aunt Lol; at least she was before she became ill. Her mother had been dragged down by repeated miscarriages. Mary-Ellen, the eldest and sole surviving offspring, had only memories of her mother constantly carrying a child and then losing it.

  That’s not what I want, she thought, clearing away the dishes and putting them into a tin bowl to wash later. Then she set the kettle over the fire to make a hot drink. I don’t want to be constantly having babies. One would be all right, or maybe two, but no more than that. You’re for ever poor when there’s a lot of bairns. Look at Aunt Lol and Uncle Ben and their brood. She gave a deep sigh. But how to stop them from coming, that’s the problem. You can keep a cock away from the hens and a ram away from the ewes, but how do you keep a husband out of your bed?

  ‘Mary-Ellen!’ Her father’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Tha’s lookin’ dowly. What ’you pondering on?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nowt much,’ she said, knowing the subject wasn’t one to share with her father. ‘Just this and that.’

  He screwed up one eye and gazed at her with the other, a habit he had if he was concentrating. ‘Fed up with your lot, are you?’ he asked perceptively. ‘Wishing for summat more?’

  ‘Don’t know what more there is,’ she muttered. ‘I haven’t seen owt for me to wish for. Our Janey’s going into service at Martinmas, at one of ’Skeffling farms,’ she added.

  ‘Janey who?’ he grunted.

  Irritated, she raised her eyebrows. ‘Aunt Lol’s Jane,’ she said testily. You know!’

  ‘How am I expected to keep track of all them bairns?’ he answered sharply. ‘Is she ’skinny lass that’s allus coming here? She’s got nowt on her. How is it they’ve tekken her?’

  ‘Cos she’s honest and willing, I think,’ Mary-Ellen said, ‘and their cook needs somebody.’

  He humphed, muttering something about gentry and their servants. ‘Is that what you want to do?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Cos if it is, you can forget it! Don’t get any fancy ideas. You’re wanted here!’

  ‘I didn’t say I wanted to go into service,’ she said sullenly. ‘But I never see anybody from one day to ’next. I’ve nobody to talk to, Da, not till you come home, and then you’re either off out or you fall asleep in front of ’fire.’

  ‘Talk to?’ he barked. ‘I’ve telled you afore, there’s plenty for you to do without spending your time gossiping.’ This time he narrowed both eyes. ‘Or are you talking about meeting lads?’ He pointed a threatening finger. ‘Cos I’ll not h
ave that! I’ll tek ’strap to you first, aye, and them as well.’

  She curled a disdainful lip. The village lads from Welwick or Weeton who came larking down to the river held no attraction for her, though they called jokingly to her or showed off in front of her. ‘I’m talking about conversation, Da! Somebody to discuss things with.’

  ‘Discuss? What’s to discuss apart from ’weather and where ’next meal is coming from?’ He chewed on his lip as he deliberated and stretched his legs up onto the hearth. ‘When ’time comes – when I can’t work any more – then I’ll look round for some likely fella for you to marry and he can come here and keep us both.’

  She tossed her head. ‘I’ll be too old then! You forget I’m seventeen! And if I wanted to marry – which I don’t – then I’d choose for myself, thank you! And besides,’ she added, ‘I don’t know who you think’d want to come and live here in this rat hole.’ She flinched as she spoke and dodged the slap which she had known would come.

  ‘Just watch your mouth, lass,’ he threatened, standing up, and picking up his jacket to go out. ‘I’ll not stand for it.’

  ‘And what’ll you do if I decide to leave?’ she taunted, unable to leave well alone. ‘You just asked how you’d manage if I drowned in ’river!’

  ‘I’d find some poor wench down on her luck.’ He pulled on his hat. He glanced at her as he spoke and their eyes met. He grinned and so did she.

  ‘She’d have to be at ’bottom of ’barrel to come out here,’ she shouted after him as he went out of the door. ‘Really hard pinched. With no hope at all!’

  They’d both backed away from confrontation, but it was an argument that raised its head time and again.

  Mary-Ellen made a pot of tea and, cradling a cup in her hand, stood in the open doorway looking out. Nightfall was slow in descending on this flat hummocky plain but an orange incandescent sun was sinking towards the horizon and the vast sky was brushed with a rich palette of colours: deep purple, ruby red, saffron yellow and hues of apricot, aquamarine and rose. The few trees in the landscape, ash and sycamore, were etched black against the sky. In the distance was the spire of St Patrick’s church in Patrington, and beyond that the church steeple in Ottringham village. She took a deep breath and drew in the salty aroma of the estuary, the gathered corn and turned brown earth, the smoke of burning fires. September was a notable time, particularly if there had been a good harvest. It saw the culmination of hard work well done, when the winter corn was gathered in, and pigs, sheep and cattle put to graze on chopped turnips and garnered stubble.

  I wouldn’t want to leave here, she thought. This is my home. My own place. I’m at one with the landscape and the river. But I could wish for more company, for something exciting to happen in my life, for I have this urge that there should be something more than I have now. She felt a quickening sensation of wanting to run like the hares, to fly like the birds which soared above her as they flew to and from their feeding grounds.

  She shrugged into herself, a shadow flitting over her. Life is passing me by. She watched the inky darkness fall, fading out the colour and leaving only blackness and silence pressing in on her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When Martinmas came, Jane went away to start work in service. She left home blubbering and sobbing, her eyes swollen and her nose red. ‘They’ll tek one look at you and send you straight back,’ her mother, Lol, scolded her. ‘Tell her, Mary-Ellen; tell her they won’t want a bawling lass working for ’em.’

  ‘It’s true, they won’t, Janey,’ Mary-Ellen agreed. She had come over to the cottage in Welwick especially to say goodbye to Jane, even though her eventual destination was in the opposite direction. ‘Come on, I’ll set you on ’road. Have you got everything?’

  ‘Nowt much to take,’ Jane sniffled. ‘Just my nightshift and a bit o’ candle.’

  ‘You’ll not need that.’ Her mother took the candle stub from her. ‘They’ll surely give you a candle to light you to bed!’

  ‘And I’ve got my hairbrush and pins, cos I’ve got to have my hair pinned under a cap.’ Her mouth trembled and she began to cry again. ‘I don’t want to go!’

  Her mother picked up the potato sack which she had washed for Jane’s belongings. She had packed a parcel of bread and cheese and a bottle of water, and now she handed it to her. ‘Come on now, lass, bear up. Just think on how you’re helping us out. Your money’ll buy all sorts of things and help towards ’new babby.’

  ‘I’ll not be here to see it,’ Jane wailed. ‘It won’t know who I am by ’time I come back.’

  ‘They’ll give you a day off at Christmas,’ Mary-Ellen coaxed. ‘Course they will. You’ll see it then. It’ll not be more than a week or two old. It won’t know anybody but its ma.’

  She glanced at her aunt as she spoke. Lol was heavily pregnant, fit and hearty, unlike Mary-Ellen’s mother, who had always been tired and worn out by her unsuccessful pregnancies.

  ‘Eat that bread and cheese afore you get there,’ Lol called after Jane as, clinging to Mary-Ellen’s arm, she set off. ‘Don’t go wasting good food. It’ll give you strength and raise your spirits afore you meet them new folks.’

  They walked down the muddy track of Sheep Trod Lane into the village where they were to part company, Jane heading to Skeffling and Mary-Ellen in the other direction to Patrington. Today was Patrington’s hiring fair, when servants, agricultural workers and casual workers, such as Isaac Page, gathered in the market place in order to obtain employment for the following year. Migrant workers came here too to join the locals: gypsies, Irishmen and tramps, all looking for work on the farms, from digging ditches in the marshy plain of Holderness to loading grain onto the barges at Patrington Haven.

  Mary-Ellen rarely went to Patrington, but she liked to go to the annual hirings to see who was about and listen to the local gossip. ‘You’ll be glad you don’t have to stand at ’hirings, Janey,’ she said to her cousin as they reached the road where they must separate. ‘I’d never want to do that. It must be like being sold as a sheep, or a sow!’

  Jane shook her head miserably. ‘If these folk don’t tek to me I might have to do that next Martinmas.’

  ‘Then you’d best cheer up,’ Mary-Ellen advised, ‘and do your work well and then they’ll want to keep you.’

  ‘It’ll be freezing at Skeffling,’ Jane complained. ‘’Wind really blows out there and ’big house stands near ’river and catches all of ’draughts.’

  There was no consoling her, Mary-Ellen decided. Whatever words of comfort she offered, they would be rejected. They waved goodbye and Mary-Ellen turned round once to see Jane walking with her head bent, dragging her feet as if she was going to her doom.

  Mary-Ellen wrapped her shawl round her head and shoulders. It was a bitterly cold November day and she knew that this was probably the last day of the winter when she would venture so far abroad. Her outdoor activities until the weather turned again would take her no further than their own garden or down to the estuary. Her father had tenanted the cottage, cowshed and plot of land for nearly twenty years, but there had been rumours since the last hirings fair that the title deeds for the acreage at Welwick Thorpe were to be sold. The present landowner was old, and as there was little or no profit in the often flooded area he wanted rid of it.

  I hope they don’t put the rent up, Mary Ellen mused as she trudged on, and then turned to look over her shoulder as she heard the clip-clop, rumble and rattle of a horse and waggon coming towards her.

  ‘Want a lift?’ the driver called out as he reached her.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He put out a hand to help her and she scrambled up to sit by his side on the wooden seat. ‘Mary-Ellen!’ he said. ‘Dost remember me? Jack Terrison? We both went to school at Welwick.’ He grinned. ‘Not that I went all that often.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘course I do! I didn’t go all that often either. We had lessons in Mrs Barnes’s cottage sometimes, or else in ’church. I used to set off for school,’ sh
e recalled, ‘but if it was a nice day I used to go down to ’river instead.’

  ‘By, weren’t it cold when we were in ’choch!’ he said. ‘I couldn’t feel my fingers sometimes.’ He grinned again, and she remembered that he had been a good-natured lad who didn’t tease as some of the others did. ‘’Parish paid for me to go, but ’schoolmaister told ’council it was a waste o’ their money cos I was nivver there.’

  Mary-Ellen nodded. ‘’Parish paid for me as well, and for my cousins. I don’t know of anybody who paid for themselves. Who round here can afford schooling for their bairns?’ she scoffed.

  ‘Onny thing I remember larning at school was about ’Wright brothers,’ Jack said reminiscently. ‘You know, Guy Fawkes and his conspirators ’n’ that. ’Maister said them two brothers lived ower at Ploughlands.’

  ‘I knew that afore I went to school!’ Mary-Ellen said. ‘My da told me about them. He reckoned that Guy Fawkes himself came down ’river from York just to meet up with them. Nobody round here would have known him, you see, so they could plot without any fear.’

  ‘Aye!’ Jack puckered his lips and nodded. ‘Happen he was right. And do you remember – were you in school that day when they told us that ’owd king had died?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said. ‘We stood up when ’parson came in and announced it. ’King is dead, God save ’king. I was ten and didn’t understand what he meant at first, then ’teacher explained that King George had died and William ’Fourth was now our king.’ She laughed. ‘Some of ’bairns on Crown land started to cry cos they thought he might want his land back and they’d have nowhere to live!’

  They travelled in silence for a while until Jack asked, ‘Are you applying for a job o’ work, Mary-Ellen? Going into service, is tha?’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘I keep house for my da. I’m just going to have a look round. See who’s about and what ’gossip is.’ She shrugged. ‘And buy a sack o’ spuds if ’price is right. Ours haven’t done all that well this year. They’ll not last us over ’winter.’