Jarrow Trilogy 02 - A Child of Jarrow by Janet MacLeod Trotter

Author:Janet MacLeod Trotter [Trotter, Janet MacLeod]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: MacLeod Trotter Books
Published: 2011-06-08T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

At the moment of flight, the sisters had no thought of where they were going, just the urgency to be gone. They took shelter from the misty drizzle under the vast echoing arches of the dock staithes. But it chilled them to the bone to stand under the slimy dripping walls. Light was fading from the short day and it was eerily dark in the tunnel.

Kate shook uncontrollably. ‘What do you think’s happening to Jack? I’m that scared. I should’ve stayed to help him.’

‘The best help you can be is to stay out of Father’s way,’ Sarah declared, ‘if you want to live till the morra.’

‘But what about Mam and Mary?’

‘They can take care of themselves. Haway, we’ll catch our death stopping out here. Let’s gan to Aunt Maggie’s. She’ll take us in.’

Kate grabbed her arm. ‘But what’ll we tell her?’

Sarah sighed. ‘She’s ganin’ to hear soon enough; you cannot keep it from family.’ She saw Kate’s harrowed look. ‘We’ll just say there’s been fightin’. She’s taken us in before, remember; she knows what Father’s like.’

Kate did remember. As young girls, when Rose had been widowed, they had lived with Maggie and Danny at their smallholding up Simonside. And later, when their aunt and uncle had moved down to East Jarrow, they had taken shelter with their long-suffering aunt after John’s attack on Sarah. Kate nodded in agreement and they hurried out of the tunnel.

They had to pass the end of Learn Lane again, crossing over to the far side and hurrying past the blacksmith’s, heads down. Kate did not dare look across the street to the cluster of houses sandwiched between two shops and the notorious Twenty-Seven. The lane was deserted and no sounds came from Number Five, but they did not stop in their hurry up the bank towards Jarrow.

The road was potholed and muddy, and a raw wind hit them as they climbed above the river. Below lay the Slake, a stinking inlet of mud now the tide was going out. Rose had never let them play there as children, fearful of the ghost of the striking miner who had been hanged and gibbeted there long ago.

The isolated grid of streets known as the New Buildings hove into sight over the brow of the hill. Once, during a brief prosperous spell, they had lived there among this half-finished block of houses begun by a well-intentioned employer of a chemical works. They were solidly built workers’ houses, upwind of the sulphurous factory and surrounded by open wasteland.

Their young cousin Margaret came to the door. ‘It’s our Kate!’ she cried to her mother in delight. ‘And Sarah.’

Aunt Maggie appeared behind her and squinted short-sightedly. ‘Well, let them in, lass. This is a grand surprise. Our Mary not with you?’

‘No, there’s bother at home.’ Sarah was blunt. ‘Mam told us to make ourselves scarce.’

Maggie clucked in sympathy and bustled them into her cosy parlour. ‘Your uncle’s having a nap. Come by the fire and tell me how you’re getting on.

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