Free Easterleigh Hall by Margaret Graham Page A

rumble, shouts. Way off. Was it down the east seam? Martin looked at Jack. ‘Bugger of a life, eh?’ It was some poor sod’s unlucky day but not theirs, this time. They’d hear whose soon enough and put something into the collection, but all they could do now was to get on.
    They crawled on. They spent too much time on their knees, far too much. Too many workers did, from the dockers to the railwaymen, to the miners, to the domestics, and if this went on there’d be a revolution just as he’d said to Evie. Jack wielded his pick and felt the judder right into his shoulder, and settled in to hacking out the coal because he had enough to think about without straying into the land of maybe. He’d just listen hard and perhaps he’d hear the roof before it came down.

Chapter Five
    IT WAS HER first morning at Easterleigh Hall. Monday, the day the miners hated. The clock chimed on the wall of the corridor outside Evie’s bedroom. It was 5 a.m. and she’d barely closed her eyes, so worried had she been that she’d not hear the corridor clock chime the time and not be down to light the range furnace at five thirty. Annie was still asleep, the blanket pulled up around her head. She had put her two shawls over the bed for extra warmth, just as Evie had done.
    Evie lay quite still listening for the noises of the house. There were none. At home in her box room she would have heard coughs from the men’s bedrooms, a stirring from her mother downstairs, the barking of a dog further along the terrace. A sense of loss drenched her, but she had no time for that.
    She crept to the washing bowl, the wooden floor like ice. She’d bring one of her mam’s proggy mats and let Mrs Green try and stop her. She poured in bitterly cold water from the jug which she’d lugged up last night. It was midnight before she’d finished clearing the kitchen with Annie, but what did that matter when her clear soup had been acceptable, and her vegetable-chopping adequate, or so Mrs Moore had said with a smile before retiring to her room further along the corridor from the servants’ hall.
    The clock chimed five fifteen, by which time she was washed and dressed. She’d left her corset looser than was thought desirable, but she couldn’t see the point of agony. She dragged on her boots, tied her hessian apron, then shook Annie. ‘Come on, lass, time to get up and at ’em.’
    Annie groaned. ‘In a minute. It’s your job to get the furnace going, not mine. So get it going.’ She turned over, her face puffy from tiredness and her light brown hair a bird’s nest.
    Downstairs Evie hurried into the kitchen and mice scuttled in all directions. She froze, but within a few seconds they’d disappeared. ‘Darned beggars.’ She hated them, always had, always would. She dared the furnace to misbehave, though Mrs Moore had said it would be fine if there was a brisk wind to draw it. And when wasn’t there hereabouts, even in the valley? Dropping to her knees, she cleared the ash into the buckets left by Kev the hallboy. She heard him coming in from outside with the coal. He slept in the bell corridor on an apology for a bed, but had told her yesterday evening that one day he’d be a butler, and he’d show his beggar of an uncle in Consett who’d wanted him in the steelworks.
    â€˜Here’s your kindling too, Evie.’ He had not washed, or if he had the coal had worked its magic and left its usual coating. Paper and kindling laid, she carefully placed the coal, finding the familiar smell comforting. What was more, it was top grade, not a trace of shale anywhere. She opened the flue, lit the paper and prayed.
    Kev laughed. ‘You don’t need that sort of help, the wind’s fierce today.’
    Annie said from behind, ‘He’s right, you know. It’ll go like the clappers.’
    Kev disappeared back into the bell corridor to