Black-eyed Devils Read online

  ‘Before you say another word, I saw the twins walking to school this morning. They need more nourishment and your mother will see they get the largest slices.’

  Amy tucked the tart beneath the cloth she used to cover the jug and took her place beside Anna at the serving table. Betty Morgan opened the doors and people moved into the hall. The adults pushed the children to the front so they would be served first.

  Although they were busy, time had never moved so slowly for Amy. She felt as though she had been ladling soup into bowls for days when her brother Mathew appeared. He removed his cap, nodded to the ladies who were in the hall and joined her behind the table.

  ‘If you’ve come to walk me home, you’re early,’ Amy complained.

  Anna indicated the sink. ‘Some jobs can be done just as well by a man as a woman. There are dishes that need washing, Mathew.’

  ‘I walked up with my father, Ned Morgan, the Evans’s and the other strike leaders,’ Mathew told them. ‘Father Kelly called a meeting. They’re holding it in his house.’

  Amy’s mouth went dry and her heart started pounding so fast she felt faint. ‘The police came here earlier and took Tom Kelly away. Father Kelly was upset.’

  ‘Tom Kelly’s a blackleg.’ Mathew didn’t bother to lower his voice. ‘And, you’ve been seen all over town with him, Amy. Dad told me to take you home. He wants to talk to you when he gets back from the meeting.’

  Amy didn’t argue but she refused to believe what Mathew had told her. She untied her apron, folded it into her basket, lifted down her cloak and slipped it over her shoulders.

  ‘You are never to see Tom Kelly or talk to him again, Amy, is that clear?’ Jim Watkins’s voice rang loudly. It echoed against the stone walls and chill flagstone floor as he faced his daughter.

  ‘Are you sure Tom’s a blackleg, Dad?’

  Jim softened his tone when he saw the pain in Amy’s eyes. ‘Father Kelly had it from Tom himself.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Father Kelly didn’t want to believe it either, love, but it’s true.’

  ‘Where is Tom now?’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t know. Sergeant Martin’s hidden him and the other blacklegs away. Arnold Craggs has sorted some kind of accommodation in the colliery for the blacklegs they’ve hired to do “essential work”. Although what essential work, no one knows. Mr Craggs refused the union’s offer to allow skilled men in to man the pumps to stop the pits from flooding while the strike lasts.’

  ‘But Tom’s not in the pit yet?’

  ‘We stopped management from bringing in men today. But it’s only a matter of time before they try again.’

  ‘What will happen to Tom if you and the other miners catch him?’

  ‘It’s not “if”, it’s “when”. And you know the answer to that as well as I do. Your mother said you’d seen the white shirting in town today. It’s what all blackleg scum have coming to them.’

  ‘Do you have to treat blacklegs like that, Dad?’ she pleaded. ‘They must be desperate and starving to work for management.’ She faltered when the expression on her father’s face hardened.

  ‘Never question me about union activities or judgements, girl?’

  ‘Tom told me about Ireland, Dad. The way he talked about the workers struggling for freedom and a living wage there, was just like the way you, Jack and the other strike leaders talk here.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me he can talk. Like all Irishmen he can do that all right. Especially to a young, innocent girl. I saw the way he looked at you. And the way you were looking at and listening to him. But you’ll see him and talk to him no more. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘Go to bed.’

  Amy took a stub of candle from the box on the mantelpiece and a newspaper spill the twins had made. She pushed the spill into the smouldering embers of the fire. Her mother had raked out the coals that were worth saving for their next fire as soon as their soup had warmed.

  She lit the candle, dropped wax on to an old chipped saucer and glued the candle to it with the molten wax.

  ‘The right man will turn up for you one day, Amy,’ her father said gruffly.

  She knew her father was trying to apologise for being sharp with her. ‘No man will be asking any girl to marry him while he’s on strike, Dad,’ she said without bitterness.

  ‘I know it feels like it after a year, but this strike won’t last forever.’

  ‘I know it won’t, Dad. Goodnight.’ She kissed his cheek, which was rough with stubble, left the kitchen and went into the hall. Her mother was hanging up the cloak they shared.

  ‘I called on Anna. She’s just come back from the soup kitchen after helping Father Kelly and his housekeeper to clean up.’

  ‘How is Father Kelly?’ Amy asked in concern.

  ‘How do you think? Anna said he’s shattered at the thought that his own nephew could come here as a blackleg. That’s why he sent for the strike leaders. He wanted to explain the situation to them himself. You’ve spoken to your father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He told you that you’re not to talk to Tom Kelly again? Not that you’re likely to see him.’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘Then up to bed with you.’ Mary kissed Amy’s cheek. ‘Check the twins for me on your way please, love.’

  Amy walked up the stairs, past her parents’ back bedroom door and along the landing to the front bedroom her brothers shared. A double and single bed had been crammed in, end to end. There might have been a room to walk around them, if a wardrobe and chest of drawers hadn’t been pushed in as well. The twins were fast asleep, sprawled side by side in the single bed, their arms flung wide out of the sheets and blankets.

  Amy kneeled on the bed and tucked their cold arms beneath the bedclothes. She glanced across at the empty double bed her three older brothers shared before closing the door. They wouldn’t be back until after midnight. The younger fitter men were given the night shifts on the picket line, because management frequently tried to smuggle blacklegs in under cover of darkness.

  She opened the door on her tiny box room that overlooked the street. The door hit her narrow iron bed stead. At the foot of the bed there was just room enough for the iron framed washstand that held a jug, bowl, slop bucket and soap dish. A towel rail was bolted on the side.

  Her Sunday dress, spare skirt and blouse, hung on hooks behind the door. She kept her underclothes and stockings in an old suitcase under the bed. On the wall behind the door was a black spotted mirror that had hung in the parlour until her mother had saved enough money to replace it. Above her bed her father had hung a framed embroidered sampler her grandmother had made before she’d married.

  She set the candle down on the windowsill. Beside it was a toffee tin. It had been a Christmas present when she was five years old. She used it as a jewellery box.

  She opened it and lifted out her grandmother’s wedding and engagement ring. The simple gold band was worn and scratched. The engagement ring, ornamented by a small but real diamond, sparkled in the candle’s flickering light. She recalled the stories her grandmother used to tell her and her brothers about her grandfather.

  “Simon came from England and was sent to my father’s house to look for lodgings. He knocked the door. Everyone in the Rhondda knows you knock once and walk in. But, he was English. He knocked a second time and stood on the step waiting for someone to open the door. When I opened it, I looked into his eyes and fell in love there and then. We were married six weeks later. Simon bought me the wedding ring with his savings and what was left of his first week’s wages after he paid my mother for his board and lodge. But the diamond ring came later when your father was born. Simon was so proud of his baby son.”

  Could it happen that way? Could a girl look at a man and fall in love that quickly? She pictured Tom Kelly, tall dark and handsome. Recalled the gleam in his eyes when he had looked at her. And knew that it could. Because it had happened t
o her.

  Restless, unable to think of anything other than Tom, Amy couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned on her bed, wondering where Tom was and what he was doing.

  She heard her mother and father walk up the stairs some time after her. Listened to the soft murmur of their voices, as they undressed and the creak of the bedsprings as they climbed into bed. She was still wide awake after the town clock struck midnight. It chimed one o’clock before her brothers came home from the picket.

  As she listened to Jack’s whispered “shushes” she decided they made more noise when they were trying to be quiet, than they did during the day. Matthew’s laughter echoed down the passage from the kitchen. She heard Mark talking to the dogs in their run as he walked out of the back door and down to the “Ty Bach”, the little house in the garden that held the toilet.

  Her brothers walked up the stairs. Their boots thudded on the bare floorboards after they’d unlaced and dropped them. Their shirts and trousers swished through the air as they tossed them on to the chest of drawers. Given their muffled laughter and the noises they were making, it was amazing the twins didn’t wake.

  All three of them were snoring when she pulled open the curtains and looked through the window. The moon haloed by mist shone down from a star filled sky. Something rattled against the glass and she looked down. Unable to believe what she was seeing, she rubbed her eyes.

  Below her window, holding a palm full of small stones was Tom Kelly.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Amy stared at Tom in disbelief. She didn’t move until he pointed to the front door. She shook her head and indicated herself and then the pavement. He nodded to show he’d understood. She pulled the curtain across her window and dived out of bed. Lifting her clothes from the iron footboard she began to dress. The more she hurried the more she fumbled with the fastenings.

  She pulled her bust shaper on inside out and decided there wasn’t time to turn it. She buttoned her blouse, only to discover she’d mismatched the buttons and had to begin all over again. She even managed to put two legs in one leg of her drawers. She rolled on her stockings, fastened them with her garters, tied on her petticoats, slipped on her skirt and picked up her boots. She turned the doorknob, eased the door open and held her breath.

  Her three older brothers were snoring in their bedroom. She took a deep breath and tiptoed along the landing. She was careful to avoid the floorboard that creaked outside her brothers’ door. She didn’t breathe again until she reached the landing at the top of the stairs. Her father coughed and she froze. She waited what seemed like hours until silence engulfed the house once more. Gripping the banister, she crept lightly down the stairs to the front door and reached for the cloak.

  Holding the doorknob in her hand because it was prone to rattle, she opened the door, stepped into the porch and closed the passage door behind her before opening the door to the street.

  Tom was standing, pressed against the house wall in a pool of moonlight. She caught hold of his hand. It was ice cold.

  She laid her finger over his lips and pointed towards the mountain end of the street. Stopping only to lace on her boots, she ran ahead of him. The air was clear, frosty, the temperature freezing, the moon strong enough to light their way. She headed for the ruins of an old farm cottage. Every bit of wood in the place had been taken by the strikers for fuel. But although the building had no roof, windows or doors, its walls were still standing. Once inside them she drew back from the doorway into a dark corner out of sight of a passer-by.

  ‘Are you mad?’ she whispered when Tom followed her. ‘It might be the middle of the night but there are people everywhere. The men work the drift mines at this hour, and there are usually soldiers and police out to catch them. Management usually move their blacklegs at night.’

  ‘I had to see you,’ he murmured. ‘I wanted to tell you that if I had known what it was like here I would never have signed a contract with pit management. When we walked around town today and I saw the soldiers and police I realized that the struggle here, was no different from the struggle in Ireland. Only I’d been tricked into joining the wrong side. Then, when I saw your father and the others on the picket line, saw what they were going through just to fight for a decent wage, I decided I had no choice but to break my contract.’

  ‘You left the soup kitchen with the police.’

  ‘They said they’d arrest my uncle and his housekeeper for helping a criminal if I didn’t go with them. And, that is why I have to go back to the other blacklegs now. I’ve been a fool and made a terrible mistake. But the last thing I can do is let them put my uncle and his housekeeper in prison for my stupidity.’

  ‘Did the police allow you out to come looking for me?’

  ‘No.’ He moved closer to her in the darkness. She saw his breath clouding in the moonlight that streamed through the door. Felt the warmth of his body as he stood almost, but not quite touching her. ‘They put a dozen of us in the hayloft of stables at the back of a pub and told us to wait there until they can move us into the colliery.’

  ‘What pub?’

  ‘One of the men with us said it was the White Hart. He recognized the yard. I didn’t see any more of the place because they brought us in under tarpaulins in a butcher's cart. Two policemen were left to guard us. But they locked us into the stables and disappeared. After a couple of hours I decided it was worth trying to find you to explain why I signed the contract. I stuffed my jacket with straw and pushed it under one of the blankets they gave us. The other men promised they’d cover for me if the officers came back. But it’s not likely. When I climbed out of the skylight on to the roof, I saw the soldiers in the pub kitchen. They were stretched out in chairs in front of a fire with their eyes closed.’

  It was only then Amy noticed that Tom was in shirt sleeves. ‘You must be freezing without your jacket.’

  ‘I’m used to the cold.’

  ‘Do you have to go back to the stable,’ she pleaded.

  ‘You know I do. I’ve brought enough disgrace on my uncle as it is. Besides, the other blacklegs aren’t a bad lot. Just desperate starving men.’

  ‘Work for management and you’ll be white shirted like that poor man today.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think of that happening to you, Tom.’ She looked up at him but he was a shadow in the darkness and she couldn’t read the expression on his face.

  ‘Everything I told you about Ma dying and having nothing to keep me in Ireland was true. The landlord didn’t want me staying on in Ma’s cottage. The rent is a quarter of what the farm produces in a year and he’d get more out of a young family than a single man. I told my sisters to share out Ma and Pa’s few sticks of furniture, not that any of them were worth much. All I was left with was the clothes on my back and, after I paid for Ma’s funeral not a penny to my name. As it was, I had to sleep under my eldest sister’s table for a week to work off some of the cost of the funeral by digging the priest’s garden.’

  ‘Was that when you signed the contract with the colliery management?’

  ‘That came later after I walked to Cork. I had hoped to find work there, but there was nothing going. Men were fighting one another for an hour’s work unloading ships on the docks. That’s when someone told me there was an agent from Wales recruiting men for the coal mines. I’d heard a bit about what it was like here because my uncle had written a few letters to Ma and Pa over the years. He said conditions were terrible underground. But I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss when the agent offered to pay my passage. He promised I’d get two pounds a week while I worked in the pit.’

  ‘They promised to pay you two pounds a week?’ Amy was stunned. At the best of times her father had only brought home one pound ten shillings. And he was a highly skilled man.

  ‘They said they’d have to take a pound a week from my wages for my keep and to pay back the cost of travelling here. But even so, I thought that if I worked here for a year I’d save enough to bu
y my ticket to America and have money in my pocket when I got there.’

  Amy grabbed his arm when she heard footsteps. They moved further back against the wall. The footsteps drew nearer and nearer. Amy’s heart was pounding so loudly she was sure whoever it was would hear it outside the ruin.

  The footsteps passed and she weakened in relief. Tom wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I love you and all I’ve brought you is trouble.’

  She lifted her face to his. He brushed his lips over hers, so gently and lightly, she couldn’t be sure he’d kissed her. Then, as she drew even closer to him and locked her hands around his neck, he pressed his lips down harder. The cold, the night, the fear of discovery, even thoughts of the future faded. She could think of nothing except Tom and his kisses.

  New and wonderful feelings coursed through her body. Nothing had made her feel as alive as Tom’s caresses. Her entire life had been building up to this one moment. And now it had arrived, it was perfect. She and Tom belonged together. Nothing – not even colliery management and the strikers could change that.

  Tom went to the ruined doorway and looked out. ‘There’s no one about. I’ll walk you back.’

  ‘When will I see you again?’

  ‘If can get away I’ll come to your window tomorrow night and throw up a stone as I did tonight.’

  ‘How did you know it was my window and not my brothers?’

  ‘Because the window over the front door always belongs to the smallest room. I didn’t think your Pa would make five boys sleep there.’

  ‘You took a risk.’

  ‘You’re here, with me. It was worth it.’

  ‘Tom, what are we going to do?’ she asked as she thought of her father and the stern warning he had given her not to see Tom again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied honestly. ‘I need to think clearly, and I can’t do that when I’m around you. We’d better go, and not a word on the way.’ He stole a last kiss from her and guided her outside.