“My poor mother,” he said. It was the most any of them dared to say.
At twenty minutes to eleven Mrs. Brace came down carrying a small newspaper package. She looked saddened and put out; she washed her red hands at the sink, took a drink of cold water; then she addressed herself to Sammy — the eldest:
“A little lass,” she said, “a bonny thing, but dead. Ay, still-born. I’d have done as well as Mrs. Reedy, don’t yon fret. But I niver had no chance. I’ll come in te-morrow an’ lay the littlin out. Take yer mother up a cup of cocoa now. She’s fair to middling; an’ I’ve my man’s bait to see to for the fore shift.” She lifted the package carefully, smiled gently at David who saw that red was coming through the newspaper, then she waddled out.
Sam made the cocoa and took it up. He remained about ten minutes. When he came down, his face was pale as clay, and the sweat had broken on his brow. He had come from his courting to look on death. David hoped that Sam might speak, say that their mother was comfortable. But all Sam said was:
“Get into bed, here, lads. We’ll sleep three thegither in the kitchen for a bit.”
Next morning, which was Tuesday, Mrs. Brace came in to see to Martha and, as she had promised, she laid out the still-born child. David returned from the pit earlier than the others; that night he had been lucky and ridden to bank two cage-loads ahead of the main shift. He entered the kitchen in the half-darkness. And there, upon the dresser, lay the body of the child.
He went over and looked at it with a queer catch of fear and awe. It was very small, its hands no bigger than the petals of a water lily. The tiny fingers had no nails. The palm of his own hand would have covered its face; the pinched, marble-white features, were perfect; the tiny blue lips parted as in wonderment that life was not. Mrs. Brace, with the real professional touch, had stuffed the mouth and nostrils with cotton-wool. Looking over his shoulder now, not without pride, she explained:
“It looks mortal pretty. But she couldna bear it upstairs wi’ her, your mother, Davey.”
David hardly heard her. A stubborn resentment surged within him as he gazed at the dead-born infant. Why should it be so? Why shouldn’t his mother have had food, care, attention, all that her condition demanded? Why was his child not living, smiling, sucking at the breast? It hurt him, stirred him to a fierce indignation. As on that occasion when the Wepts had given him food, a chord vibrated deeply, painfully within his being; and again he swore with all the inarticulate passion of his young soul to do something… something… he didn’t know what or how… but he would do it… strike some destroying stroke against the pitiful inhumanities of life.
Sam and Hughie came in together. They looked at the baby. Still in their pit clothes they ate the fried bacon Mrs. Brace had prepared. It was not the usual good meal, the potatoes were lumpy, there was insufficient water for the bath, the kitchen was upset, everything untidy, they missed their mother’s hand.
Later, when Sammy came down from upstairs he looked at his brothers furtively. He said awkwardly:
“She won’t have no funeral. I’ve talked an’ talked, but she won’t have it. She says since the lock-out we can’t face the expense.”
“But, Sammy, we must,” David cried. “Ask Mrs. Brace…”
Mrs. Brace was called to reason with Martha. It was useless, Martha was inexorable, an iron bitterness had seized her over this child she had not wanted and which now had no want of her. No funeral was exacted by law. She would not have it, none of the trappings or panoply of death.
Hughie, always clever with his hands, made a neat enough coffin from plain pit boards. They put clean white paper inside and laid the body in the rude shell. Then Hughie nailed on the lid.
Late on Thursday night Sam took the box under his arm and set out alone. He forbade Hughie and David to accompany him. It was dark and windy. They did not know where he had gone until he came back. Then he told them. He had borrowed five shillings from Pug Macer, Annie’s eldest brother, and given it to Geddes, the cemetery keeper. Geddes had let him bury the child privately in a corner of the graveyard. David often thought of that shallow grave; he never knew where it was; but he did know it was not near the pauper graves; this much Sammy told him.
Friday passed and Saturday came: the day of Robert’s release. Martha had been confined on Monday night. By Saturday afternoon she was up, waiting… waiting for him, for Robert.
He arrived at eight o’clock, to find her in the kitchen alone. He entered so quietly she did not know he was there until the sound of his cough made her spin round as she stood, still bent over the fire. They stared at each other, he quietly, without rancour, she with that terrible bitterness burning like dark fire in her eyes. Neither spoke. He flung his cap on the sofa, sat down at the table like a weary man. Immediately she went to the oven, drew out his plate of cooked dinner kept hot for him there. She placed it before him in that same terrible silence.
He began to eat, casting quick glances at her figure from time to time, glances that became charged with a strange apology. At length he said:
“What’s like the matter, my lass?”
She quivered with anger.
“Don’t call me your lass.”
He understood then what had happened; a kind of wonder stirred in him.
“What was it?” he asked.
She knew he had always wanted a daughter. And to cut him more she told him that his daughter was dead.
“So that was the way of it,” he sighed; and then: “Did ye have a bad time, lass?”
It was too much. She did not deign to answer at once; but with embittered servitude she removed his empty plate and placed his tea before him; then she said:
“I’m used to bad times like, since ever I knew you.”
Though he had come home for peace, her savage attitude provoked his tired blood.
“I canna help the way things hev gone,” he said with a sudden bitterness to match her own. “I hope ye understand they gaoled me for nowt.”
“I do not understand,” she answered, hand on her hip, facing him.
“They had their knife in me ower the strike, don’t ye see!”
“I’m not surprised,” she retorted, panting with anger.
It was then that his nerves broke. What, under heaven, had he done? He had brought the men out, because in his very marrow he feared for them in Scupper Flats, and in the end they had scoffed at him and spat upon him and let him go to gaol for nothing. Fury seethed in him, against her and against his fate. He lifted his hand and struck her on the face.
She did not flinch, she received the blow gratefully. Her nostrils dilated.
“Thanks,” she said. “That was good of ye. ’Twas all I needed.”
He sank back into his chair, paler than she. Then he began to cough, his deep booming cough. He was torn by this paroxysm. When it had passed he sat bowed, defeated; then he rose, threw off his clothes, got into the kitchen bed.
Next day, Sunday, though he awakened at seven, he stopped in bed all forenoon. She was up early and went to chapel. She forced herself to go, enduring the looks, slights and sympathy of the Bethel Street congregation, partly to show him up, partly to establish her own respectability. Dinner was a misery, especially for the lads. They hated it when open anger came between their father and mother. It paralysed the house, lay upon them like a degradation.
After dinner Robert walked down to the pit. He expected to find himself sacked. But he was not sacked. Dimly he realised that his friendship with Heddon, the miners’ agent, and with Harry Nugent of the Federation had helped him here. Fear of real trouble with the Union had saved his job for him at the Neptune.