Authors: Janet MacLeod Trotter
Maggie began to croon softly, an old lullaby that her grandmother had taught her. She stroked her wrinkled brow with affection, sensing that Granny Beaton was slipping away from her and taking with her the last contact with her childhood.
Sometime in the afternoon, old Agnes Beaton gave up the struggle and died.
Maggie sat in the stillness, aware only of a sense of peace. Finally she leaned over and kissed her grandmother tenderly on her brow, torn between relief for the old woman’s release and deep sorrow at losing her dear relation. For they had been close companions, even during the last months of her grandmother’s growing weakness and senility. Her whole daily routine had been set round caring for her and now she felt a huge cavernous emptiness opening up inside.
‘Oh Granny!’ she cried aloud, tears falling at last. ‘What shall I do now?’
But in the days that followed, she felt strangely comforted, as if her dead grandmother was telling her to be strong and that she was never alone in her struggles.
Jimmy was sent out to alert the family to the funeral arrangements and the burial was held the following Saturday at the kirk in Elswick. It was the first time Maggie had seen Susan since their estrangement the year before over their grandmother.
Susan was well dressed in a navy dress with black trimmings and a black hat, but to Maggie’s amazement she was obviously heavily pregnant once more. For a moment Maggie felt a stab of guilt that she had never tried to visit Susan or make a fuss over her firstborn, Alfred.
Walking away from the fresh grave, Maggie made an effort to be friendly.
‘How are you, Susan?’ she asked, regarding her sister’s tearful, swollen face.
‘Well enough,’ Susan answered stiffly without meeting Maggie’s gaze.
‘And Alfred?’ Maggie persisted.
The mention of the baby brought a smile to her sister’s strained face and she looked at Maggie for the first time. ‘He’s grand,’ she said with feeling. ‘A real bonny bairn. Helen’s minding him - she doesn’t like funerals.’
Maggie had noticed her other sister’s absence.
‘Perhaps I could call and see the bairn sometime,’ Maggie suggested.
Before Susan could answer, Richard was at her elbow and steering her away.
‘Come on, Susan,’ he ordered. ‘This isn’t the place to chatter.’
‘You’ll come back to the cottage for a cup of tea, won’t you?
’
Maggie asked. ‘I’ve done some baking.’
‘My wife needs to rest,’ Richard replied firmly. ‘She couldn’t possibly walk all that way in her condition.’
‘Mr Heslop could give you a lift in his van,’ Maggie said directly to Susan.
‘No,’ Richard said, his tone acid. ‘We don’t approve of the goings-on up there, if you want to know. My Susan’s a respectable girl, so don’t embarrass her by asking her round. We’ve done our duty.’
‘Susan?’ Maggie appealed to her sister, galled by the man’s rudeness. But her sister stood mute, staring intently at the ground.
‘I’ve told you no,’ Richard said threateningly. ‘And you’re not welcome to call on us either, so don’t try sneaking round when I’m out, ’cos Susan’ll tell me.’
‘Don’t threaten me, Richard Turvey!’ Maggie stood her ground. ‘You’ll not stop me seeing me own family if I want to.’
Richard gave her a look of contempt. ‘Susan’s not your family any more, she’s mine. She’s a Turvey and she does as I say.’ He lowered his voice and leered into her face. ‘Interfere again and I’ll make sure your life isn’t worth living. So keep away from us, you little slut!’
Without thinking Maggie raised her gloved hand and smacked him across the face. The small group of mourners from the kirk stared in astonished embarrassment. George quickly came to Maggie’s side.
‘She’s upset,’ he explained, trying to calm the situation. ‘Come on, Maggie, don’t let him provoke you.’
‘She’s the provoker!’ Richard shouted. ‘And I’ll not forget this!’
‘Please, Richard, come away,’ Susan urged in a timid voice, touching his arm. He threw her off.
‘Get yourself off home, woman,’ he snapped ‘I’ve already wasted enough time at the old hag’s funeral.’
As he stormed off, Maggie felt George grip her arm. ‘Let him go,’ he said.
‘Susan!’ Maggie appealed to her sister, but Susan gave her a look she could not fathom and hurried after her husband.
Maggie stood looking after them, furious at the rebuff and upset to see her sister so meek and downtrodden.
Well, they could go to hell! Maggie railed inwardly. Why should she make an effort to see her sisters when they clearly thought so little of her?
Maggie was subdued for days afterwards. She grieved for her grandmother but realised she had lost even more, for her own sisters were now strangers and wanted nothing to do with her.
Of all her family, only Jimmy now acknowledged her and even he rarely came home more than once or twice a week. George remained her one true friend, yet it frightened Maggie how dependent on him she had become. What would she do if they ever introduced conscription and George was forced to join up?
They lay together in the wide bed that had been her grandmother’s, physically close yet far apart in their thoughts. Maggie could tell that George was troubled by something, but she could not get him to talk about it. Whenever he visited his invalid brother, he returned belligerent and fulminating about the folly of the war and the stupidity of those who oversaw it.
***
That September brought heavy losses in Flanders, with gruelling battles at Artois and Loos which gained little ground from the Germans. The first flush of patriotism was waning as life grew more grim at home. Pub hours were curbed to tackle drunkenness and absence from the shipyards and armaments factories, and there was renewed pressure on single men to enlist or be assessed for active service.
As the fields were harvested around them, Maggie increasingly felt that their days of detachment on the farm were numbered. Then one evening, as darkness descended, George did not return home from work.
Maggie had heard the buzzers blow at the end of his shift, the ghostly sound carried uphill on the chill evening breeze. But George did not appear.
She sat alone by the dancing fire, waiting. She no longer expected Jimmy; he had wheedled his way into Aunt Violet’s affections and was almost permanently living with her and his favoured Uncle Barny. Perhaps George had gone to a meeting that he had forgotten to mention, she tried to comfort herself. Tempted to go out and search for him, Maggie realised with alarm that she would not know where to begin. She had cut herself off from the town for too long, content to live a hermit’s life on the farm.
Then just as she could stand the waiting no longer, she heard his footsteps on the path and the door banged open.
She could tell immediately that George had been drinking.
‘What do you mean by staying out till all hours?’ she ranted, sick with relief and anger at his appearance. ‘I thought you’d gone under a tram! Do you ever stop to think what would happen to me if you weren’t here? No! A few beers and any thought of me goes flying out the window!’
He stared at her across the room.
‘What’s the matter?’ she demanded, suddenly alarmed at the sight of his haggard face.
‘They’ve sacked me,’ he said bleakly. ‘The bastard bosses have sacked me.’
Maggie gawped in bewilderment. ‘What on earth do you mean? They need you night and day at the yard!’
George shook his head violently. ‘An agitator - they called me an agitator. Said I was trying to stir up trouble among the men.’
‘But it’s not true!’ Maggie exclaimed, stepping towards him.
George brushed her off, weaving his way to the fireside. Staring into the dying flames, he spat viciously.
‘Somebody took notes at the meetings, put words into me mouth. Someone doing Pearson’s dirty work. Needed a scapegoat - said I was subversive - against the war.’
‘It’s not a crime to be against the war,’ Maggie answered robustly. ‘You’ve grafted as hard as any for Pearson’s.’
He lifted his head to look at her and she thought she saw resentment cross his harrowed face.
‘Well, they’ll never have me back,’ he answered coldly. ‘Whoever betrayed me’s made sure of that. Told the bosses I’m living with a known revolutionary, a suffragette who went to prison for trying to burn down Pearson’s mansion. Well, as soon as they heard that they started talking about a conspiracy inspired by you. Pearson’s will probably make sure I’m blacklisted anywhere on the Tyne.’
‘But the union . . .’ Maggie gulped, horrified by the implications of what he was saying.
George let out a harsh laugh. ‘They won’t rock the boat for me, not Pearson’s boat or any other! This war’s tied their hands tighter than any bosses’ legislation’s ever done. Pearson’s said they wouldn’t charge me or take it any further with the police if I went quietly, so the union told me to do just that. I divvn’t care what they do to me but I’d not see you go back to prison.’
He slumped into a chair and later slept by the fire rather than go to bed. Maggie lay alone, her mind in a turmoil. George had accepted defeat for her sake, to protect her from further trouble, but at the same time she knew he blamed her for being thrown out of work. She had seen the look on his face and it made her insides turn to ice.
Yet who was it who had really betrayed him? she wondered. Who could dislike him enough to arrange for his sacking and be vindictive enough to bring her past into it?
Her grandmother’s words echoed in her mind again, warning her to beware of the wicked man who had betrayed her. At times, Maggie had wondered if the old woman could possibly have meant George, but had felt guilty for even entertaining the thought.
Then, in the middle of the night, it came to her. Richard Turvey had done this to them. George had mentioned that he was working at Pearson’s. Richard had no interest in union politics except to spy on the activists. He was probably in Pearson’s pay to seek out and name radicals who might be suspected of trying to incite unrest among the workforce. The bosses were jittery enough to employ
agents provocateurs
, Maggie thought grimly as she tossed in the empty bed.
And then her mind searched for clues about Richard. They had known nothing about him until his abrupt entry into their lives two and a half years ago. She had been the only one of the family to dislike and distrust him from the start, Maggie realised, and he had neither forgotten nor forgiven her disdain of him; he had shown that plainly at her grandmother’s funeral. She knew he had lied about his job and his involvement in the brawl in the town, but he had wormed his way into the heart of her family anyhow.
So was it Richard Turvey who had betrayed her to the police? Maggie wondered bitterly. And by so doing had he been the cause of her mother’s heart attack? Suddenly Maggie was sure of it. Her mother must have suspected him too and that was why she had gone to confront him at Aunt Violet’s. He would have done it for spite or for money - or both, she thought angrily. That would explain how he always had money to squander on himself and Susan - and Helen, she thought with disgust. He might well have been in Pearson’s pay that long ago and taken money for trying to subvert the Women’s Movement. Anything was possible.
Maggie got up and paced outside to quell the waves of nausea that overwhelmed her at the thought of the harm Richard Turvey had done to her family and now to George. He had seeped into their lives like a poison, infiltrating every relationship until he was rid of the ones who stood in his selfish way or dominated the ones he could more easily exploit. She cursed her Aunt Violet for ever introducing her evil nephew into their family.
Shivering violently in the damp, chill night air, Maggie contemplated an angry confrontation with Richard where she would vent her fury and hatred of him and accuse him of his wickedness. But to what avail? she countered wearily. He would only deny it and throw her out - or bar her from entering in the first place. Did Susan and Helen know the extent of his deceit? she wondered. They could not be completely innocent, Maggie concluded, and yet they chose to stay with him. She felt betrayed by them all and achingly alone as she stood shaking uncontrollably in the fitful night wind.
But when she tried to speak to George the following day of her suspicions about Richard, he seemed irritable and uninterested in her theories. He disappeared for the whole of the day and returned without telling her where he had been.
George soon found that his suspicions about being blacklisted were right. He could not find employment with any of the naval yards on Tyneside or with any related industries that were owned by the men who did business with Pearson’s. He was an outcast on Tyneside and the bitterness and frustration of his predicament ate into his being, so that he lashed out at the person closest to him - Maggie.
He took to staying away at his family’s home in Benwell or sleeping in the loft, leaving Maggie alone and miserable and at a loss to know how to comfort him. As for herself, she had nowhere else to go. The Samuels had sold everything and bought a passage to America. She thought of approaching Rose for help, but they had not spoken for two years.
Once, she tried to suggest to George that they move away and start where no one knew them, as they had once joked of doing when she had been on the run from the police. But he seemed too far sunk in gloom to register what she had said.
‘What’s the use?’ was his despondent reply as he gazed down at his idle hands.
When they had nothing left to pawn for the rent, Maggie went to Farmer Hibbs and asked him to take on George. For two weeks he got work lifting potatoes and his mood improved. But when the harvest was over, George took to his chair by the fire and hardly moved from the cottage.
Worried they would be evicted and no longer able to bear his sullenness or bouts of bad temper as Christmas approached once more, Maggie sallied down to her old workshop on the riverside. She was not surprised when her old boss, Mr Roberts, gave her a curt refusal and hurried her out of his office. But Eve Tindall made an excuse to leave her desk and came rushing after Maggie.