Free Eliza's Child by Maggie Hope Page B

behind the door before going forward and confronting Jack from only a foot away. Hands on hips, she thrust her face forward and glared at him.
    â€˜Leaving your wife and bairn to God and providence, that’s what you did. Howay now, what have you to say for yourself?’
    â€˜I …’ Jack spluttered. He was uncharacteristically out of countenance.
    â€˜You can say nowt, can you? What sort of a man are you? Our Eliza and the babby would have starved but for me an’ Tommy!’
    â€˜I knew you wouldn’t let that happen,’ said Jack quietly.
    â€˜Oh aye? Supposing Tommy wasn’t in work? Supposing he and the lads had been laid off? They couldn’t have gone to another pit, you know that, not when the yearly bond was signed. Bad cess to it!’ Neither Mary Anne nor any of the pit folk ever mentioned the hated yearly bond without the curse on it. Now she was working herself into a rage, not just with Jack’s behaviour but also with all the frustrations and hardships of her life. And Jack was the only one she could take it out on.
    â€˜By, you’re a nowt, Jack Mitchell-Howe, in spite of your fancy name, you are an’ all. Some fella should give you the hiding of your life! It’s a pity your mam didn’t—’
    â€˜Mam, give over,’ said Eliza. ‘Jack’s back now.’
    â€˜Aye, all ready to do it again,’ said Mary Anne.
    â€˜You’ve just come from chapel,’ Eliza reminded her. ‘You’re supposed to forgive folk, aren’t you?’ She was forgetting her own bitterness and anger with Jack and in face of her mother’s tirade felt the urge to defend him. Jack himself stood blushing like an errant boy.
    Mary Anne glared at her daughter for an instant then shrugged. ‘Aye well,’ she said ‘I speak my mind. Wait until Tommy comes back in and see what he makes of it. Likely he’ll want to knock him into the next world.’
    â€˜No, he won’t,’ said Eliza. ‘Jack is my man, after all.’ And so it proved. When Tommy came in from the ‘toss penny’ school at the back of the pithead he had had a run of luck and won a couple of shillings, which he had spent on a couple of tots of rum for his marras. He was in too good a mood to fight with anyone and went straight into the front room for a lie-down.

Chapter Eight
    â€˜ I’VE RENTED US a house in Haswell,’ said Jack. ‘At least it is a short walk from Haswell. I want Thomas to grow up breathing clean fresh air.’
    â€˜Haswell? What are you going to do in Haswell? You’ll never settle there, Jack.’
    â€˜It’s just for a short while. When I’m properly on my feet again I’ll write to my father. He’ll take me back into the business when he realises how well I’ve done.’
    Eliza stared at him in disbelief. ‘Oh, Jack, he won’t. Don’t think he will, man.’ He was fooling himself, she thought in despair. John Henry would never take him back, no matter what Jack did. And if he did she would never go back to Alnwick. She had been treated as less than dirt by Jack’s parents.
    â€˜He might,’ Jack asserted. ‘I am the eldest son, Eliza.’
    â€˜Aye. The one cut off without a penny,’ said Eliza and smiled grimly. ‘Well, we’ll wait and see. Meanwhile we have to live. I asked you, what are you going to do in Haswell?’
    â€˜Oh, didn’t I say? I’m going in with Mr Benson, the cabinet maker.’
    â€˜Going into partnership with him or working for him?’ Eliza was surprising herself by how she questioned everything Jack said. It was as though she was at last seeing him as he really was. What choice did she have, though? She had to stay with him. Besides, she still had feelings for him. When her mother had berated him she had been defensive of him.
    â€˜Get your bundle together, Eliza,’ he said now. ‘Then