Read The Miner’s Girl for Free Online

and a good shape and her teeth good, unusually good for a woman of her class.
    Peggy looked up and saw him watching her. ‘Eat,’ she said. She picked up the baby and began spooning gravy into her mouth. The baby dribbled and Peggy went back to the range and took a cloth from the rail above the grate. She had to reach for it and he watched surreptitiously as her breast strained against the thin stuff of her dress. Damn it, it was a long time since he’d had a woman, he thought. Not since long before his wife died and after all, he was only thirty-eight, a young man, wasn’t he?
    ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘The lamb stew I mean.’ It was too, though probably lamb was a misnomer. The meat was a bit stringy and strong tasting, but satisfying nevertheless.
    Peggy put the baby down and began to eat her own meal before she replied.
    ‘It’s not lamb,’ she said.
    ‘No, well I know it’s mutton really.’
    Peggy took another spoonful into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. ‘It’s not mutton,’ she said.
    ‘No? What is it then?’
    ‘It’s the old nanny goat. She stopped giving milk and I had nothing else.’
    Miles gagged. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at his lips.
    ‘The first time you’ve eaten goat, is it?’ Peggy asked and smiled, her eyes twinkling in amusement. ‘You’re not going to waste that, are you?’ For Miles had put down his spoon.
    ‘I’m damn well not going to eat it!’
    ‘No? Well, isn’t it nice that you have a choice? You can go back to your own grand house an’ no doubt you will have chicken for dinner an’ . . . strawberries an’ . . . fresh cream an’—’
    ‘For God’s sake, woman, shut up!’
    Miles had risen from his chair and Peggy did too, though she still had to look up at him.
    ‘Meantime you are turning us out of our home; what I want to know is how can you sleep at nights?’
    Suddenly she lifted her arms, bunched her fists and began to hit him on the chest for that was as far as she could reach. Miles took a step backwards before catching hold of her wrists and holding them tight. Unable to hit him Peggy started to kick out and succeeded in catching him a hefty blow on the shin. Miles swore andpulled her closer, pinioning her arms. She still struggled so he flung her down on the clippie mat and fell on top of her – suddenly his anger turned to something else, he could feel his desire rising.
    Peggy could too and she lay for a moment in disbelief before renewing her struggles. But he had her arms pinned down as with the other he flung her skirt over her head and forced one leg between hers. Peggy screamed but of course there was no one to hear her. Except the baby.
    Behind her barrier of chairs, Merry began to wail, as Peggy stopped screaming and lay still.

Four
1893
    Peggy emptied her bucket down the sluice and stayed for a moment, leaning against the cold ironstone slab. She had the pain in her chest again, the tight, gripping pain. She leaned forward and surrendered to it, closing her eyes. Gradually the pain lessened, faded into the distance where it remained threatening.
    She was getting too old for this job, she told herself. The laundry was hot and steamy so that sometimes she was hard put to breathe and the buckets of water and baskets of dirty bedding were heavier by the week. But if she could just hang on for a few more months she could keep Ben at school until he was fourteen at least. A lad who was lettered could get a job at the Co-operative Society, the store, maybe even work in the office. By, it would be grand! And Ben was a clever lad, everyone said so. Didn’t he bring in a bob or two now, doing odd jobs and working as a delivery boy on Saturdays?
    By, she thought, his beginnings had been terrible. She had tried all she could think of to get rid of him when he was in the womb. Once she had stood on the edge of the quarry and jumped, but the bairn had been a strong ’un, and had held on. All she had done was twist