‘You tell me not to steal and then you are going to steal coal from off the railway banking. You know you nearly got caught last time,’ Sarah whispered, not wanting her mother to hear her and Meg’s conversation.
‘This is different,’ Meg replied. ‘We have to keep warm and anyway, the coal I get is just going to waste. It’s left to go back to the earth, nobody else can be bothered to pick it up, and it keeps us all warm – surely that’s not a sin?’
Meg wrapped her shawl around herself and listened at the bottom of the stairs for any sounds of her mother before she grabbed the storm lantern that had belonged to her father and lit it. ‘I’ll not be long – tell Ma that I’m next door if she asks, there’s no need for her to worry about me. I wouldn’t be doing this if Roger Ingram had kept his word and had brought us some broken crates, but it’s too late now, he’ll have been home an hour or two now.’
‘I don’t want you to go; if the railway police catch you, it will be jail for you. Then what would we do?’ Sarah wailed as she watched her sister pick up two buckets for her night’s illegal picking in her spare hand.
‘They’ll not catch me, stop fretting. Now stop blubbing and look after Ma. I’ll be back before you know it.’
Meg walked quickly through the streets to where the busy railway track divided the rows of terraced houses. The smell of oil, coal and steam hung in the air and Meg watched as an engine, pulling carriages glowing with gas lights, hissed and trundled above her head as she squeezed through an opening in the fence and headed towards the steep embankment which the train ran upon. She must not be caught by one of the many railway workers who regularly walked the line, especially the railway peelers who would not think twice at locking her up for trespassing and theft from the line, even though the coal was worthless to them.
She swore under her breath as the metal buckets clanked against the wet grassy bank as she climbed up the steep sides of the banking and balanced her storm lantern, which she had turned down low. The best coal was to be found along with the rocky ballast at both sides of the track, lost as the fireman shovelled the coal onto the hungry engines’ fire, but it put her at most risk of being seen or being knocked by a train if she did not keep her wits about her.
The lights of Leeds Station could be seen in the distance as she started to search, pouncing on each lump of precious coal here and there but keeping her ears open for any approaching trains or lengthsmen checking the rails. The coal was wet and mucky but that did not matter: it would keep them warm for the next day or two, she thought, as she filled both her buckets up. Feeling relieved, she stood up, carefully carrying her precious loads, then made her way down the banking, balancing them and the lamp, and trying not to spill any of the black nuggets. She was just in time – as soon as she was out of sight, a train made its way along the line on its way to York.
The train’s steam wrapped around her like a cloak, and the sparks from its engine lit the sky as she snuck back through the fence. The two heavy buckets pulled on her arms as she walked slowly back home, hoping no one would stop and question her about their contents.
She was relieved when reached the end of Sykes Yard. Her arms ached and she was chilled to the bone – it felt like she’d never been as cold as this. Then she stopped as she noticed a horse and cart outside her home. Instantly she recognized them as Roger Ingram’s, the cart painted bright green and his name emblazoned upon it. He’d not let her down after all.
Her heart lifted as she reached her home and saw him and Sarah standing in the doorway. ‘Meg, I’m so glad that you are back before Mr Ingram returns home,’ Sarah said happily. ‘He’s brought the biggest load of wood, already split up and ready for the fire. He’s piled it up in the backyard – we will not be going cold now.’ Sarah beamed up in the candlelight at Roger Ingram.
‘I can’t thank you enough, Mr Ingram, you don’t know how much this means to us,’ Meg said, then put her two buckets of coal down next to her feet. She blushed as Roger looked at her and knew instantly that what Sarah had blurted out to him about her sister’s whereabouts was true.
‘Aye, well I never go back on a promise, and we wouldn’t want either of you doing anything you shouldn’t. Your mother needs you and besides, she always spent enough money with us market traders when times were better. Now, I’ll be back next week with another load for you. All the traders are only too happy to give me their old wooden crates so they just won’t be mine. Mixed with a lump or two of coal, they’ll keep you warm. Now, behave yourselves and don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do. I’ll see you next week.’ Roger felt for his cap on his head and then pulled himself up onto the buckboard before gently urging his horse and cart into motion.
‘Thank you!’ Meg shouted down the street after him and watched as he raised his hand in acknowledgement before turning his cart around the corner and into the dark night. ‘We are lucky to have friends like that on the market, Sarah. I hope you offered him a drink of tea?’ Meg said as she picked up the buckets of coal.
‘I did, but he wouldn’t stop. He just unloaded the wood and said he hoped that he’d see you once you came back from the railway line,’ Sarah said and hung her head.
‘You didn’t tell him what I was doing, did you?’ Meg asked as she placed her buckets of coal on the hearth.
‘I did, I just didn’t think. I was worried that you would get caught,’ Sarah mumbled.
‘Oh, never mind, he’ll know we don’t make a habit of it, I hope. He’ll think we’re a right pair of thieves, but I’m sure he knows we wouldn’t do these things if we weren’t so desperate. One day, Sarah, when we are rich – although I don’t know how we’ll become so – we will look back at these days and laugh about them,’ Meg smiled at her young sister.
‘I don’t think those days will ever come,’ Sarah said mournfully. ‘Nobody on this row of houses has any money. I don’t know anybody with any money and never will.’ She sighed. ‘I’d like to live in one of those big houses out at Headingley and eat and drink until I could eat no more, instead of my stomach always growling because it’s empty.’
‘You will one day, I promise. We have to take the rough with the smooth but one day our luck will change, it has to,’ Meg said and hoped beyond hope that her words would come true but God only knew how.
‘Mam, I’m going to take the mop, bucket, scrubbing brush and some soda flakes to work with me in the morning, if that’s all right with you. There’s nothing but a brush at Ted Lund’s and the floor hasn’t been properly cleaned for years.’ Meg sat on her mother’s bed edge and watched her finish her supper, taking small bites of the bacon and bread that Meg had put in front of her. She was hardly eating enough to keep a sparrow alive, Meg thought as she watched her leave what she couldn’t manage.
‘The mucky old devil, he’s gone to the dogs since he lost his wife. You can’t run a shop if you don’t keep it clean but I sent you to help with the baking, not be his cleaner.’ Agnes leaned back into her pillow while pulling her covers up around her.
‘He’s not asked me to clean, but I just think it would look better and he’d happen to get more customers. Besides, I don’t like to think that I’m standing on mice droppings all day. Lord knows what his storeroom where he keeps the flour is like, I’ve not been let loose in there yet,’ Meg replied.
‘You’d better take the mouse traps from out of the privy as well, they will catch a few but not all. I’d never have bought anything off him if I’d known he’d got it in such a state, sawdust in bread and mice running all over the place. He should be ashamed of himself.’
Agnes closed her eyes and thought about the better days when the bakery had been so busy that there was always a queue outside the door.
‘I’ve also made friends with a lass called Daisy Truelove, she lives a few doors down from the bakery. She calls in every morning for her bread before going to work at Hunslet Mill. She asked if I wanted a walk-up in Leeds with her on Saturday afternoon, but I said no. I wondered if I could ask her around here or happen visit her. She’s a nice lass, you’d like her.’ Meg felt guilty at asking for some time away from her mother with a new friend when she was so ill but she too could do with her spirits lifting and Daisy seemed to be able to do that with her cheerful banter and open ways.
‘Daisy Truelove, now was her mother Rosie Holmes?’ Agnes mused. ‘I think she married a Truelove. Rosie used to work in the corner shop until she got wed and then she soon had a family around her feet, if she’s who I think she is. If her lass is anything like her mother, she’ll be a good’en. A heart of gold Rosie had, always did you a favour if she could, but she’ll not have had it easy bringing up her tribe. I don’t think her parents approved when she married who she did, they knew he liked a drink and was only a docker down at the cut.’ Agnes opened her eyes and started to think about the Rosie she had known when younger.
‘That sounds like her mam; her father still works at the canal and I think there’s a few of them from what Daisy says.’ Meg smiled as her mother looked at her.
‘Happen if you went there, just for an hour. I wouldn’t want her coming here and thinking that we had nowt. The house is not at its best, there’s nothing that’s worth anything in these walls that we haven’t already pawned. You go there and see what they live like and then you can ask her back. I’m glad you’ve made a new friend. You should have a bit of time for yourself instead of looking after this old woman and your sister.’ Agnes reached for Meg’s hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I’d be lost without you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I know, Mam, but things will get better. Sarah has behaved herself today and we’ve got wood and coal for the fire and hopefully, Ted Lund will pay me something at the end of the week so that I can buy some groceries.’ Meg leaned forward and kissed her mother on her brow. ‘You have a sleep now, I’m going down to Sarah. I’ve promised to read her another chapter of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn – at least the books are free from the library and we can borrow them to read.’
‘You always were a clever lass, you’ll make something of yourself, I know you will. It’s Sarah I worry about. She is so headstrong.’
‘She will do all right, Mam, I’ll always be there for her when she wants me. Now, try and sleep, I’ll bring you a drink when we come up to bed but I’ll not wake you if you are asleep.’
Meg rose from the side of her mother’s bed and looked down at her. She didn’t know how she’d cope without her mother by her side for advice and comfort but she knew that the day was looming and she would have to deal with it.
‘I don’t know why you feel the need to clean the shop floor and why you’ve made a show of yourself carrying a mop bucket and such-like through the streets of Leeds to my front door. Anybody would think my bakery was mucky,’ Ted Lund grunted as he opened up the bakery door and looked at Meg as she clattered the bucket and its belongings down on the shop’s floor that no one had seen the true nature of for many a year.
‘I just think it would look better and there’s always a lull between the bread being made and the first early customers coming into the shop,’ Meg replied. ‘You might as well make the most of me and get me to clean the floor; your customers will appreciate it.’ Meg hoped that she had not said too much or offended Ted.
‘You bloody women are always looking for work, I’d forgotten that. Once it is properly cleaned it will always have to stay that way, it’s best left as it is. Black and nondescript, the way I like it.’
Ted looked down at the floor and admitted to himself that he’d forgotten what lay under the years of footprints that had never been cleaned away. Whatever it was would only mean more work and he didn’t need it.
‘Just let me clean a little bit, then you can see if it’s worth our while continuing. If it’s all like I found when I was sweeping under the counter, it should be green, white, and yellow tiles with some sort of pattern on it,’ Meg said. Looking down at the grot that was on the floor, she’d have her work cut out but it would be worth it, she was sure. She took pride in her home, so there was no reason not to take pride in where she worked. She liked everything clean even if she was poor.
‘Bye, your mother didn’t tell me when I took you on how feisty you were. Here you are a few days in working for me and you are already telling me how to run my business. I didn’t ask for your advice, just your help with baking and serving on in the shop. Think about who’s your boss, missy, I’ll not take any of your lip. As it is you can clean the floor. I remember now, it’s covered with yellow sheaves of corn. My wife had them specially made when we first opened the shop. I couldn’t stand the sight of them after her death, so I let them gradually disappear under the footfall.’ Ted looked down at his feet then at Meg as she placed her cleaning stuff behind the counter.
‘I’m sorry your wife and daughter died, my mother told me what happened to them,’ Meg said softly and looked at Ted Lund in the shadows of the newly lit gas lamp.
‘Aye, well, I don’t talk about it. Now, move your arse else we are going to be late with the morning’s bread. I’ll see to the ovens, you get on and make the dough. The floor can wait, if you must see what it originally looked like. I will say this: if you are intent on cleaning it, you keep on top of it every day, especially when it rains like it did yesterday,’ Ted yelled as he made his way into the bakehouse.
‘I will and can I ask: will you let me watch you light the fires under the ovens? Then if you are ever ill or indisposed I can light them and keep the shop open for you,’ Meg asked as she watched Ted rake out the ashes and set the wood and coals in place.
‘The next thing you will be asking me for is a key for the shop, I suppose?’ Ted stood with his hands on his hips and looked at the slip of a lass who in the past few days was starting to be worth whatever he’d decide to pay her at the end of the week.
‘Well, it might be an idea!’ Meg said quietly.
‘Not just yet, in another month or two happen, when I know I can trust you. A day off now and then would be good for me, once I know that you can make bread as I’ve told you. I think I deserve the odd late morning in bed after baking for the last twenty-five years. I suppose it is no good having a dog and barking yourself all the time.’
Ted grinned; the thought of a long lie-in made him feel light-headed as he watched the flames lap around the kindling in the bottom of his ovens. ‘However, now you can get on with making the bread and don’t forget the sawdust – like I say, it makes all the difference to if we both eat well or not at all. I’ll have to penny-pinch even more now I’ve you to pay. Did we agree on a fee? You’ve coddled my brain so much that I’ve forgotten what I agreed with your mother,’ Ted mumbled as he fed the fire and rubbed his hands.
‘No, sir, you didn’t say how much. You wanted to see if I could bake first,’ Meg said and held her breath waiting to hear what she was to earn for her hours with the disagreeable Ted Lund.
‘Two shillings is what I’ll pay you. That seems fair enough for now. One shilling and nine pence for the weekdays and a threepence for Saturday and you can take a loaf home with you of an evening. That at least will keep you all fed.’ Ted grinned as he closed the oven doors to heat them up.
‘That’s not a lot, Mr Lund, can I ask for two shillings and sixpence and no bread? I’m surely worth that and I make our own bread at home,’ Meg said, feeling embarrassed to admit that she would not eat the bread she made for the customers of the shop.
Ted thought for a moment, and Meg wondered if she’d pushed her luck. Finally he said, ‘You are a cheeky minx, two shillings and threepence or you can be on your way and I expect some work out of you for that money. No lounging over that shop counter gossiping when you could be helping me and doing some work.’ Ted took his usual position in the chair next to the fire to watch Meg making the bread.
‘Thank you, sir – can it be subject to a review depending on how the shop sales go? I’ve got a lot of recipes and ideas that would work if you would let me try them out,’ Meg said with bated breath.
‘We make bread, and that is all,’ Ted said firmly. ‘Now, enough of your blether and cheek, get on with your work.’
He watched as Meg reluctantly added the amount of sawdust to the mix. She was a good worker and quick to learn, but she had to know her place. He was in charge, and his bakery would not be changing its ways; leastways, not until he had decided he wanted to.