Pit Bank Wench Page 6

  ‘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 . . .’

  ‘Be careful to speak only truth.’ He lowered his hand. ‘What prompted you to speak of a man lying with a woman he has not wed?’

  ‘I . . . I was angry.’ Mary dropped the pot on to the hob, a flush rising to her cheeks.

  Caleb’s eyes glittered with the promise of righteous anger. ‘That can be no cause for uttering filth, there is more to your words than anger. Speak, woman, for I will know. And remember, the Lord will not be mocked with lies.’

  ‘I speak no lie!’ Mary’s head came up, all the bitterness of her hard-lived years burning in her eyes. ‘A woman has no say against a man. Her life belongs to one or other of them from the moment she is born. She must ask his permission for this and for that, she is not allowed a mind or a voice of her own. But a man need ask no permission of her. Not to take the money she might earn, not to do that which places a child in her body . . .’

  ‘Enough!’ Caleb raised his hands to his ears, his eyes closing. ‘To speak such evil is to know such evil.’ Opening his eyes again with dramatic slowness he glared at Mary. ‘These thoughts are placed in your mind by Satan, his are the ways of wickedness. You have given yourself to his murmurings. To think such evil is to flout the teaching of the Lord, to go against His commandment . . .’

  ‘No!’ Her voice was sharp in denial. ‘The teaching of the Lord does not state that a woman exists simply for a man’s use!’

  ‘“From Adam did God take a rib and from it fashion a woman whom he gave to Adam . . .”’

  ‘As a helpmeet, not as a chattel! You take His words and twist them until they become not His will but yours.’

  ‘And you are using words to take my mind from those that fell from your tongue a moment ago. Words that spoke of a man lying with a woman he has not wed. What woman, Mary Price? Who is the woman you spoke of?’

  ‘There . . . there is no such woman.’

  ‘Satan holds your tongue.’ He stared at her with a cold, almost calculating stare. ‘Do not give him access to your soul, speak no more lies for they will carry you into everlasting damnation. Is that woman you, Mary Price?’

  ‘Me!’ Mary’s astounded whisper reached into the room.

  ‘“Thou shalt not commit adultery!”’ Caleb intoned the words, his eyes relaying ‘an almost fanatical relish with the speaking of each one.

  ‘No. No, a woman must not indulge in fornication.’ Mary continued to stare at the man who had ruled every minute of most of her years. ‘Though a man, it seems, may practise that very thing as often as he wishes. Sowing his wild oats – is that not what it is called? And he may sow them in any girl he fancies for he does not have the reckoning. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods, neither his ox nor his ass”.’ She laughed, a short cynical sound. ‘You must know the quotation, Caleb, you throw them about often enough. But it does not apply to a neighbour’s daughter. Man is made in God’s image, all things are subject to him. Especially women!’

  ‘You are condemned out of your own mouth.’ His hands dropped to his sides. ‘A neighbour�
��s daughter can only mean yourself. You are a child of iniquity, a tool of the devil who has tempted some man and caused him to fall.’

  ‘Oh, how predictable!’ Mary avoided Emma’s restraining hand. ‘How very predictable! The man was tempted . . . there can be no blame upon him, it was the fault of the woman. All her fault.’

  ‘Stand away, Emma!’ Brushing the air with one hand as if to push her aside, Caleb glared at his wife. ‘Stand away from her, do not contaminate your hand by touching that which is evil.’

  ‘Mother isn’t evil!’ The awfulness of what had been said had held Emma speechless, but as her father lifted his hand the fear that he would strike her mother released her tongue. ‘She has done no wrong.’

  ‘Done no wrong?’ His glittering eyes were fixed on Emma. ‘You call lying with a man who is not her husband doing no wrong?’

  ‘Mother has lain with no man.’ Emma took her mother’s hand, weaving the fingers into her own.

  ‘It is not she who is the wrongdoer in this house.’ Her lips trembling, Carrie stepped forward. ‘Her only wrong is in answering you as she has. You do not care to be questioned, do you, Father?’

  ‘“Honour thy father and thy mother”,’ Caleb uttered one of the Biblical quotations that were balm to his soul. ‘Carrie, do not disregard the Lord’s word, do not speak so to me, keep a silent tongue lest you . . .’

  ‘She did not mean it,’ Emma answered quickly, fearing his anger would turn to Carrie. Things were going to get worse without her sister adding to them.

  ‘She did not mean it, neither did your mother?’ Caleb’s eyes took on a meaner glint. ‘Then why speak as she has, why speak of lying with a man if she has no knowledge of such? Your mother is a fallen woman, she will pay the price of that.’ His glance swung slowly to Emma. ‘I will have no fornicator under my roof . . . she will leave this house!’

  ‘We are all leaving,’ Mary said at last. ‘You are no longer a tenant of this house, Caleb. When I leave then so do you.’

  Full of righteous indignation he had temporarily forgotten that fact. Now with his wife’s reminder he cast around for words, but for once his store of Biblical quotations failed him.

  ‘Yes . . . yes.’ He stumbled over the words. ‘We all have to leave, but you will not travel with us. From this day on I have no wife and my daughters have no mother.’

  ‘Then you will have no family at all,’ Emma said at her mother’s strangled gasp. ‘If Mother does not go with you then neither do I. And neither will Carrie.’

  ‘What?’ Caleb moved a step forward, his heavy clogs making no sound on the rug his wife and daughters had pegged from clippings cut from worn out clothes. ‘You will do as I say, Emma, you and your sister, and I say you will turn your back upon that . . . that follower of Satan. Step away from her, do not soil your hand . . .’

  ‘As the Sadducee and the Pharisee stepped away?’ Emma smiled scornfully. ‘I see you take my meaning, Father. You are like them. You quote the Scriptures to suit your own ends, but when it comes to charity you are no Good Samaritan.’

  ‘I will not tolerate evil.’

  ‘Nor would you have to, not with Carrie, nor with Mother.’ Emma slid an arm about her mother’s shoulders as Mary cried out. ‘It has to be said so it is as well I say it now. You see, Father, it is as I told you. Mother has not lain with a man . . . I have.’

  Eyes hard as stone, lips working soundlessly, Caleb slumped forward, his hands palm down on the table, head hanging low between his shoulders.

  ‘It is the truth, Father,’ Emma went on quietly. ‘Mother is not guilty of that.’

  ‘You!’ he whispered. ‘I would not have thought that of you.’

  ‘There was no willingness on my part. I was attacked by . . . by someone while coming home.’

  ‘Attacked?’ Caleb glanced at her though he did not straighten up. ‘By whom?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know.’ Emma felt the pang of guilt that accompanied the lie. ‘It was dark, I could not see his face.’

  ‘Then where?’ Caleb’s eyes glanced with passionate anger. ‘Where did this . . . attack . . . take place?’

  ‘In the coppice that borders the Hall.’ Emma saw despair flood her mother’s face but there was no going back. Her mother must not suffer for what had been done to her.

  ‘Did the man speak?’

  What did another lie matter? Telling the truth now would not alter her father’s thinking. Emma shook her head.

  ‘Did you scream . . . run away?’

  ‘I tried but he rode me down.’

  ‘Rode?’ Caleb straightened up in the same slow deliberate manner in which he had raised his eyelids. ‘The man was on horseback and riding in the coppice of Felton Hall?’

  Emma realised her mistake. She had spoken without thinking and Caleb had pounced on her words like a diving hawk.

  ‘There are none ride in these parts except the Feltons, and no visitor to that house would leave by that path, no rider or carriage. Now I see the reason for my being finished at the Topaz. I heard talk of the younger Felton paying you some attention but I dismissed it as tittle – tattle. It seems I was wrong. He has paid you a great deal of attention and now he is feared of being found out. That is why I have been given my tin. Get them all out of Doe Bank, that way none will know of his doings!’

  ‘It wasn’t Paul . . .’

  ‘Not Paul you say?’ Caleb caught the lapel of his jacket. The role of inquisitor he enjoyed even more than preaching. ‘But you told me you could not identify this man who is supposed to have attacked you? You did not see his face, it was in shadow. You did not hear his voice for he did not speak. How then do you know it was not Paul Felton?’

  ‘It wasn’t Paul.’ Emma’s nerves were stretched tight as bow strings. ‘He would not attack me.’

  Caleb’s thin mouth seemed to turn in on itself, lips folding away to nothing. ‘Why not? Could it be because he did not have to? He did not need to take by force that which was willingly given . . . given and enjoyed.’

  ‘No . . . no, that isn’t true!’

  Ignoring Emma’s cry, Caleb turned on his wife, seeing her faded eyes widen with fear. ‘Did you know of this?’

  Fingers twitching at the apron that covered her black skirts, Mary nodded.

  ‘How long?’ It rapped the silence like a cane.

  ‘It was . . .’

  ‘Not you . . . neither of you!’ Caleb’s hand shot up. ‘The question was asked of your mother, the answer will be given by her.’

  ‘Mother isn’t well.’

  Brows drawing together Caleb’s eyes alone moved, slithering sideways until they held Emma in their sight. ‘I said, your mother will answer. You will not speak until I say.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Silence!’ The hand he had raised in the air shot out, his fingers curling before striking Emma a blow across the mouth.

  ‘Stop!’ The blow galvanising her into action, Mary was on her feet, her own body shielding Emma as she stumbled backward.

  ‘Leave her be, Caleb.’ Her voice quite steady now, Mary faced her husband. ‘Raise your hand to her no more for if you do, I swear I will kill you.’

  ‘You would be wise to listen, Father. Should Mother lack the courage, I do not. Put so much as one finger on Emma and you will feel this in your heart.’ Carrie stepped forward, a large kitchen knife gripped in her hand. But it was the hatred in her eyes that stopped Emma’s heart.

  ‘Carrie, don’t! Don’t make things worse.’ Blood pouring from her split lip, Emma tried to take the knife but Carrie pushed her away.

  ‘It would have come to this anyway,’ she whispered, eyes fixed on Caleb. ‘It would have come to this very soon. You know why, don’t you, Father?’

  Caleb’s hand dropped and his face became suddenly closed, his eyes becoming wary. ‘Do not break your word. Vows made before the Lord must be kept.’

  ‘Don’t bother quoting the Lord to me!’ Carrie hissed. ‘And don’t think to hide behind heaven�
�s shield any longer. It is finished, Father, over. You will never again force yourself on me . . .’

  Standing beside Emma, Mary Price gasped, all the colour draining from her thin face. ‘Caleb, no! Tell me, Caleb . . . what Carrie has said. It . . . it’s not true?’

  The light of the oil lamp glinting on its blade, Carrie raised the knife higher, holding it like a dagger. ‘Tell her, Father!’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Tell her. You can say it. You can tell that lie as you have told so many others. As you told me it was God’s will a daughter should do as a father asked, that it was her duty to heaven she should please him. Duty . . .’

  She laughed softly and in it Emma heard all the pain and misery of a frightened child. What was it placed so much hate in her sister’s eyes, so much loathing in her voice?

  ‘“Brother will betray brother, and the father his child”.’ Carrie laughed again, the sound bubbling harshly from between set lips. ‘You see, Father, I too can quote the Scriptures. I know them as well as you do. I learned them while waiting for you in Chapel, learned them in the room you took me to after the congregration had left. I listened and I did as I was told because I believed what you said, but the words you spoke did not come from God, did they Father? They were your words, spoken to hide the evil you did . . .’

  ‘Carrie . . . Carrie, child! There was no wrong . . .’

  ‘No wrong?’ Her voice rising, Carrie slashed at the hand that reached out to her. ‘“Thou shalt not commit adultery”. You told my mother that, but what of yourself, Father? What of your own adultery? Isn’t that what it is . . . or is there some other term for lying with your own child?’

  ‘Carrie.’ His wounded hand dripping blood on to the pegged rug, Caleb’s eyes swung wildly from one horror-stricken face to the other. ‘She . . . she doesn’t know what she is saying. Mary – Mary, my dear, the girl is ill, sick in the mind.’

  ‘Not me.’ Carrie stepped clear as Emma tried to hold her. ‘I’m not the one who’s sick, you are. Caleb Price, the preacher man! Spouting the Bible while he rapes his own daughter. Quoting the word of God while he walks with the Devil.’