the country but they were attached to the area. Goodness only knew why. He found it very depressing. His years in Edinburgh training had been very different.
He walked down the stairs and round to where his pony and trap were waiting, the pony chewing contentedly inside his nosebag. He gave the pauper lad watching it a ha’penny, even though it was strictly against the rules, but hell, he’d had enough of the rules.
He was just going out of the gates when he came across Mrs Trent and her granddaughter again – they were standing by the gates, looking lost and unsure. Both appeared to have been crying; the little girl, for that was all she was – she couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen – was supporting her grandmother with an arm around her and the old lady was leaning heavily on her.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Tom, pulling the pony to a halt. ‘Perhaps I can give you a lift.’
Peggy would have refused if she had only had the breath to do so. He was the son of that man; she hated the lot of them. But Merry looked suddenly hopeful.
‘We’re going to Old Jane Pit,’ she said. ‘If you can give us a lift as far as the end of the lane where the path goes down that would be grand. I don’t know what to do else.’
Tom jumped down from the cart. ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll help you up.’ He lifted them both on to the cart then clucked at the pony and set off.
‘Bless you, sir,’ said Merry. Peggy said nothing.
‘I didn’t know anyone still lived down there,’ said Tom over his shoulder.
‘No, Doctor. Not many do,’ said Merry. She glanced at Peggy. Her grandmother was so quiet she was beginning to worry again. But Peggy was all right, holding her head high and gazing out at the fields as they left the town and headed along the country road.
‘We will manage from here,’ said Merry as they reached the stile on the back road from Coundon. ‘I’m sorry we’ve brought you out of your way.’
‘I’ll help you down to old pit,’ said Tom. He had jumped down from the cart to help them alight and now he was tying the reins to the fence.
‘No!’ said Peggy and the two younger ones looked at her in surprise.
‘Granma?’
It just wasn’t like her grandmother to be so rude, especially when someone had done them a favour. Merry was embarrassed.
‘I . . . I can walk from here, it’s all downhill,’ said Peggy. ‘But thank you, Doctor.’ She set off down the field path.
‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘I have to be getting home in any case.’ Sometimes these heart cases were excitable, he told himself. In fact there was some medical opinion to the effect that it was their nature that caused the problem. And the woman seemed to be walking all right now.
‘Thank you anyway,’ said Merry. ‘I’d better go after her. Thank you, Doctor.’ She hurried after her grandmother.
Well, the little girl seemed to have been taught her manners at least, thought Tom as he turned the cart and went back to the main road. She was a pretty little thing too, even if her hands were already rough and red and the nails broken down to the quick. He forgot about the odd couple as he drove the pony home, for he was hungry as a hunter and hoped Cook had made something tasty for dinner tonight.
Peggy always felt the same pain as she entered the deserted village. It was so full of memories for her. How the women used to talk to each other as they strung their washing across the street or gathered by the pump to fill their water buckets. The blowing of the pit hooter that used to warn them when the men were coming up to bank – coming off shift. The thought always came as she turned the corner and walked down the street with the grass coming up between the stones because nomatter how they tried they couldn’t keep it down. Her men weren’t coming up in the cage ever again. They were going to lie in the pit forever.
Then Peggy would dismiss the thought as morbid, but somehow