I was interviewed by a Whale!

I was interviewed on American radio this week by the wonderful Ron Shaw, AKA The Whale and it was a lot of fun. Enjoy!
http://www.artistfirst2.com/ArtistFirst_Ron_Shaw_2015-11-02.mp3 …

DEALS (dedicated to all parents stuck at home with children during the school holidays)

DEALS

By C. A. Hocking

Dedicated to all mothers/fathers/grandparents stuck at home with children in the school holidays - with love and understanding.

(Note from the author: this was written in 1987 before tablets, devices and cell phones. The gadgets may have changed, but children haven't. Now my children have children of their own - and they're making their own deals!)

As a single parent on a low income with four young children in a small country town, going away for the school holidays was out of the question. So we took a holiday at home. Goodness knows we needed it. We were all tired after a year of work, school, chores, responsibilities and a tight routine that I adhered to strictly in order to survive.

We talked about what each of us needed in order to achieve some real time out. It wasn’t hard to come to an agreement as each of us basically needed the same thing – to sleep in every morning with no timetables or alarms, eat what we wanted when we wanted, stay up late to watch the all night movies or play on the computer, have meals on our laps in front of TV, play or garden outside when the weather was good, read or watch videos inside when the weather was bad. No normal washing, ironing, cleaning, tidying up or shopping. Fast food and bad habits for two weeks.

Sounds like bliss and it was!

I relaxed supervision of our usual rules and regulations, ignored the consequences and we slobbed it for two weeks. It was easy and it was fun, but, oh dear, the mess at the end of the fortnight had to be seen to be believed. Two weeks of goofing off, four active children and a spate of wet, cold weather had combined to create an environment worthy of any pig.

So Sunday, the day before school started and I was to go back to work, was, naturally, clean-up day. We had agreed on this at the beginning of our holiday-at-home. Didn’t seem like a problem at the time, but now it looked daunting. I made up the normal duties roster for the coming week, stuck it in its usual place on the fridge door and circled the children’s duties for Sunday so that they knew exactly what had to be done. I called them into the kitchen and pointed out what each of them was assigned to do.

I would tackle the laundry, the ironing (what a nightmare!), my bedroom and ensuite. I assigned the other rooms to the children according to age and, in my opinion, ability. Each was responsible for their own bedroom, including changing the sheets. In addition, Mr. 13 took the kitchen which looked as if it might need a blow torch applied to it; Miss 11 had the family room which appeared to me to be buried under more STUFF than I ever thought we possessed; Mr. 8 was assigned the bathroom, toilet, and passage; and Mr. 5 took the lounge room which I considered to be the easiest, as we had spent most of the time in the family room and hardly used the lounge room.

There was an immediate uproar.

“It isn’t fair! He/she has got it easier than me/us!” And so the day began.

13 and 11 started to argue about where the kitchen ended and the family room began. After a few minutes of this, they agreed to do the kitchen and family room together as they figured it would be quicker that way. 8 whinged about having to clean behind the toilet. After all, it wasn’t he who “missed” all the time and glared at his younger brother. 5 immediately objected – he wasn’t the only one who “missed”! Everyone “missed”! Female 11 put him right very quickly on that one. An argument ensued in the middle of the passage and didn’t stop until I intervened. Finally, a deal was made. 5 would clean behind the toilet and do the passage if 8 would do the lounge room.

Loud noises from the other end of the house. What now? 13 and 11 simply could not tolerate working together. OK, fine, so work separately. Then who does what? The family room looks easier than the kitchen, so based on age alone, I give the kitchen back to 13 and the family room to 11. Much wailing and gesticulating. Not fair! 13 says 11 is taller than him, so she should get the hardest room. 11 says 13 is older than her, so he should get it. They can’t agree. I say, “You aren’t expected to agree, just to do it. You made the mess, you clean it up.” They’ve heard that before.

Compromise. 13 says he’ll do the kitchen if 11 sweeps and mops it when she is sweeping and mopping the family room. I say, “If you spent the energy on cleaning up that you spent on arguing, you’d have it done by now.” They’ve heard that before, too.

8 ventures into the fray (on his way to the kitchen for more cleaning equipment, he assures me) and mentions, just in passing, that his friend at school NEVER has to clean up at HIS house. His mother does it all for him. I say, “More fool her,” and remind them all that mother is NOT spelled S-L-A-V-E! They’ve definitely heard that before!

I finish my bedroom and ensuite and hang out the fourth load of washing. The line is full and there are at least six more loads to do. I set the tumble dryer going.

Time to check the children’s progress. The house is too quiet for anything of real value to be going on, housework-wise, that is.

13 is sitting on the kitchen bench, swinging his legs, drinking cordial and reading next week’s TV guide. The dishwasher is half packed, but nothing else has been done.

11 is reclining on the family room floor, playing with the puppy who should be outside. The broom lies idle next to her.

8 is diligently cleaning the bathroom wall tiles with a toothbrush and toothpaste. That should keep him busy until the year 2050.

5 is – where is 5? A quick search finds him asleep on a pile of cushions behind the lounge sofa.

I explode. Everybody jumps and, for a few moments, I am hopeful.

“We’re hungry, Mum. Can we have lunch now?”

I’m hungry too. “Sure, as long as you all promise to get stuck into your chores as soon as you have finished eating.”

“OK, Mum, it’s a deal.”

Vegemite sandwiches and cordial at the table, humble fare, but the children treat it like a six course meal. An hour and a half later, we are ready to begin again. New deals have been struck during the lunch break. The children say they have it all worked out, but do they? Let’s see, just what do we have here?

13 will tidy the table; 11 will clean and polish it; 13 will clear the kitchen benches; 8 will scrub and polish them; 11 will finish packing the dishwasher; 5 will press the start button; 8 will wash the pots; 5 will wipe them; 13 will put them away; 11 will sweep the floors; 8 will mop them; 5 will vacuum the passage; 8 will vacuum the lounge room; 13 will wash the finger marks off the doors; 11 will wash the upper half of the walls, 8 the lower half, 5 the skirting boards; 13 and 5 will do the bathroom together; 11 and 8 will do the toilet; 11 will straighten the bookshelves; 8 will move the family room furniture back into place; 13 will do the same with the lounge furniture; and 5 will straighten the toothbrushes.

I smile at my clever little darlings and say encouragingly, “Sounds terrific.” I’m interested to see how far they all get before good intentions give way to petty bickering, for I’m just a little sceptical. I’m half way through the ironing when the first fight breaks out. It sounds like 8 and 5, but before I can set the iron down, 13 is in there, mediating. I hear him say, “Sshhh, quiet, don’t upset Mum,” and all is well again. There is peace in the house. Well, a sort of peace.

13 has his portable CD player set up at one end of the house. 11 has her portable CD player set up at the other end. Both going full blast. 8 has the radio going, also at full blast, somewhere in between. They don’t seem to notice the competition of sounds and beats. As for me, I don’t mind in the least. I am ironing in my neat and orderly bedroom listening to my favourite opera through the headphones attached to my own portable CD player.

At last, the opera and the ironing are finished. My back is killing me. Time for a coffee. Better check on the tribe first.

Mmm, bathroom and toilet look good, passage and lounge are lovely and the family room is spotless. The kitchen is – well, it’s a definite improvement. I can see that they have done their very best and I am proud of them. I’ll put the finishing touches to it after they are in bed tonight.

They are still scrubbing walls. So what if they have left a few water marks running down the walls, they are so pleased with themselves that I cannot bear to criticise. I make afternoon tea for us all and we sit down with great relief. We are all tired and it seems too much effort to begin again. But we must. The children haven’t done their bedrooms yet and the thought of cooking dinner is as intolerable to me as cleaning their bedrooms is to them. So more deals are made.

11 will do 5’s and 8’s bedroom; 5 and 8 will do 11’s bedroom; I will do 13’s bedroom; and 13 (bless him) will cook dinner. Oh no! That will mean messing up the kitchen again. The thought is too much for any of us. So 13 will ride his bike up the street and pick up fish and chips for dinner. Sounds good to me. We shake hands on it.

An hour later, we all sit in front of TV, picnic fashion on a tablecloth spread on the floor so that we don’t mess up the freshly polished table, and enjoy our last holiday video with fish and chips. We’ve had a wonderful rest, and thanks to my clever children’s clever deals, the house is clean and tidy and the washing and ironing up to date. I kiss them all good night and tuck them into their freshly made beds, ready for a couple of hours to myself with a cup of tea and the Sunday night movie.

There is a knock at the door and my neighbour pops in to join me for the cup of tea. She has also been home with her two children for the school holidays and is most admiring of how clean and organised the house looks. While I make her a second cup of tea, she uses the toilet at the children’s end of the house. She returns with a strange smile on her face. “Have you checked the toilet?” she asks.

“Yes, it looked spotless to me. Why?”

“Did you look up?”

“Up? What do you mean?”

“Go see,” she says with a chuckle.

I go see. Miss 11 and Mr. 8 had done an excellent job of cleaning and disinfecting. I look up and gasp. They had  taken Miss 11’s box of tampons from the cupboard under the toilet vanity, dipped the tampons in the toilet water until they swelled, then flung them upwards so that they stuck to the ceiling. It must have happened reasonably early in the day because they were already drying, their strings hanging down limply in a decorative fringe. All twenty of them.

My little dears had gone through the whole day without giving it away. They must have been waiting for me to notice. Did they think they’d get into trouble? In the normal course of events, they probably would have. But we’d just had two wonderfully relaxing weeks together, they’d worked hard all day to make our home liveable again, and I wasn’t about to do anything to spoil that. So what are a few tampons on the ceiling? Nothing more than an aberrant moment’s fun in an otherwise exhausting day.

I am too tired to laugh. Instead, I just sigh and make a deal with myself that that’s a job that can wait until tomorrow.

SARAH ANN ELLIOTT makes her entrance!

STOCKPORT, CHESHIRE, ENGLAND

1823 - DEATH AND BIRTH

The keening began on the first day of the wake for young Nan Elliott. By sunrise of that May morning, her body had been laid out and dressed, then tenderly arranged on the worn timber table, her fair hair brushed and the new wedding shoes placed on her feet. Her parents, Nancy and John, fussed over her for a few moments, placing her hands across her chest, arranging the skirt of her blue silk wedding dress in folds over her wasted legs and gently lifting her head to slip on the blue and white silk bonnet to cover the bare patches of scalp where Nan’s hair had fallen out. They stepped back and looked at their daughter with exhausted tears sliding down their worn faces. She had been so beautiful, but despite the best efforts of the women who had so lovingly laid her out, there was no hiding the fact that Nan’s had been a hard death.

**********************

The winter of 1822/23 had been a particularly harsh one in northern England. For Stockport families who were still feeling the devastating effects of the 1817 Blanketeers March and the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, the weeks of bitter cold, endless rain and fierce winds seemed too much to bear. Then the Great Snow Storm of the eighth of February 1823 had left their town under so much snow that roofs caved in, windows cracked, walls groaned, and men, women and children with small shovels and bare hands were forced to tunnel their way out of their own houses and along the streets buried deep under snow to reach the mills. For they must work, even when it meant risking their lives to get to their stations at the looms, the printing tables and the dye pits. No work meant no wages. No wages meant no food and no wood or coal for the fires. No fires meant a soul could freeze to death inside their own home. And too many ended their lives that way during that terrible blizzard.

The wind driving the snow had cut into the mill workers as they made their way to work in the freezing dark on the morning of that eighth day of February. The snow was already up to the knees of a grown man, but they’d seen many a snow storm before and this one began as they all did, with freezing winds, black clouds and snow whirling about them as they left their homes. As the day progressed, the wind became a screeching howl that could be heard above the din of the mill machinery. The mill workers went about their business, but there was no going home for the morning or midday break. Without exception, all chose to stay inside their workplaces, making do with the bread, cheese and pies they carried in their smock pockets.

They expected the storm to have passed by the time their twelve hour shifts were done, but it was not to be. They were forced to battle their way home in the dark through much deeper snow which came up to the chest of the tallest men, their bare hands creating a deep trench through the snow as they did so. Children were hoisted onto to shoulders and many joined hands together to hold themselves steady against the onslaught. The snow drove horizontally into their bare faces like stinging needles and the wind caught at their breath so that they must bend into it to keep moving foreward.

John Elliott shepherded his family through the deep drifts, feeling the shock of the freezing cold as he came out of the warm mill. He pulled his flat cap down over his forehead, buttoned his jacket and wound the thick wool scarf tighter around his neck, then ensured that his children were equally prepared before stepping outside. He’d not brought a lamp with him as the light from all the unshuttered windows was usually enough to navigate their way in the dark, but many others had thought to bring lamps and he followed their specks of lights along the darkened streets, squinting his eyes against the fierceness of the gale. No light pierced the windows of the cottages and houses around him on this night as curtains had been drawn and shutters latched against the gale force winds early in the day.

It was normally only a short walk between the old mill built along the banks of the River Mersey on Mill Street, through the Market Place, up Little Underbank to his cottage on Lower Hillgate, but tonight it seemed endless. Eighteen year old Nan and fourteen year old Ellen pulled their shawls tighter around their heads and shoulders as they closely followed their Da. Their calico mob caps which protected their hair from the cotton dust of the mill provided scant warmth under their shawls. Twelve year old Joseph and seven year old Johnny copied their father by pulling their caps down and buttoning their jackets, but it was no protection from the elements. When young Johnny slipped on the icy footpath, his vigilant father scooped him up and held him tight to his chest. Joseph grasped the back of his father’s coat and concentrated hard on keeping up and not losing his footing. The girls stayed in their father’s wake, reassured by his confident strides through the darkness. John glanced back frequently to ensure they were close by.

One by one, doorways opened around them as snow was pushed aside and workers disappeared behind hastily closed doors. On this night John was grateful that they lived on Lower Hillgate and not further up the side of the valley on the steep road south that became Middle Hillgate and Higher Hillgate, for those mill workers must battle the incline as well as the wind and snow. He knew some of them would stumble through their doors completely spent simply from the effort of getting home. And not all of them had warm fires and loving families waiting for them. He had much to be grateful for.

Finally, they reached their own cottage. John pushed the door open and Nancy was waiting for them with relief visible on her face. She proffered flannel cloths to dry off and hot sweet tea to warm them. The atmosphere in their small cottage was reassuring and welcoming. The fire in the deep inglenook fireplace was roaring, bread straight out of the bread oven was cooling on the oak mantle above the fireplace, the table was set with the white tablecloth for their evening meal, two year old Samuel was playing happily in the wooden play pen next to the table and Dahdo Joe, too frail now to work alongside John in the mill, was there to help them off with their wet clogs, socks and stockings. Once the children were inside, John pushed the door shut gratefully behind him, drew the heavy curtain across the doorway to exclude the draft that seeped in under the door, and tended to his family. He prayed that the storm would blow itself out before the morning for the trip to the mill must be made again before sunrise.

While Nan and Ellen slipped off their bodices, wet skirts and stockings, sponged off the grime from the hems and hung them over the long bench seats next to the fire to dry with the boys’ socks and jackets, Joseph and Johnny cleaned and polished everyone’s wooden-soled clogs, rubbed the leather uppers with linseed oil and arranged them neatly on the hearth. A few minutes was spent turning and turning again before the fire to dry off damp undergarments and trouser bottoms, the old slate floor warm under their bare feet. Sufficiently dried out and their evening chores done, they washed their hands in the basin on the sideboard, let their mother check that they were clean and respectable, and pulled up their chairs at the table, the girls in their woollen spencers and heavy winter flannel petticoats, the boys swinging their bare feet under the table. Nancy put the still-warm bread and the pan of stew in the centre of the table and the evening meal commenced.

All was well.

Nan started coughing while they ate their bacon stew. Nancy moved her closer to the fire, but the cough persisted. She’d had an irritable cough for weeks now, but so many of the mill workers had the same cough brought on by the ever present cotton dust inside the mills and aggravated by the cold winter. For many it cleared up when the winter was over, but for some it stayed and became the brown lung, a fearful condition that took many lives too soon, or the bleeding lungs of consumption which needed no cotton dust to aggravate it. Nancy watched over her daughter with great care. The cough tonight was dry and for that, Nancy was grateful. It was the wet cough and the shortness of breath that was feared so much.

Despite her cough and the fatigue that was common to all of them after a day at the mill, Nan was full of chatter about her forthcoming wedding to her fiancé, Billy Harrop who lived at the top end of their street at Upper Hillgate. The banns had been read and the date set for the second week of June. Nancy had bought a length of pretty pale blue silk and dark blue ribbon to trim it and had already cut out the wedding dress.  Tomorrow she would begin stitching it. It would be in the latest style that Nan liked so much: low in the neckline, caught into gathers under the bust and falling softly to the ground with little puff sleeves. The corset maker would have the short stay that lifted the bust ready in a week. Then there was the bonnet to make and the leftover silk to be taken to the shoemaker for the wedding slippers. Nancy knew her daughter and young Billy had a life without luxuries ahead of them and she wanted the pretty girl to have something lovely, just once in her life. Although Nan normally paid for her own clothes out of her own wages, Nancy would carry the expense of the wedding. She’d worked hard at her dressmaking and saved scrupulously to ensure there were coins to spare for just such an occasion. It was to be the first wedding in the family and they were all excited by the prospect.

Nancy Elliott was renowned in the old part of town for her fine stitching and it was her dressmaking money that afforded her the privilege of staying at home with her children before they began their working life in the mill when they turned six. Not all mothers were so fortunate as to have a skill like Nancy’s. Many of them went back to work a month after their babies were born, leaving their infants in the care of a children’s nurse, usually a neighbour too old or frail to work in the mills. Such a woman, Old Nellie, lived next door to the Elliotts. The babies were kept clean and safe, and were taken to the mill in an old handcart three times during the day to be fed by their mothers until they were weaned after their first birthdays. Then they were fed porridge and milk by the nurse until the day’s work was done and the anxious mothers returned home. Although it was well known that Old Nellie was a kindly soul who took her responsibilities seriously, there were days when Nancy heard those babies crying and she knew it was their mothers they cried for. Nancy knew she was blessed, more so than most.

As the meal progressed, Nan stopped chattering and coughed less often, but she looked more tired than usual. Nancy felt an unease when she looked at her daughter’s pale face. She needed sunshine and warm clean air, but both were a long way off yet in this bitter winter.

After the plates and cups had been cleared and washed, Nancy lit the night candle, lifted a tired and grisly Samuel out of the play pen and went upstairs with the children to prepare for bed. The upper room had a double casement window at the front which overlooked the street and another smaller window at the back which faced the steep hill that rose up behind their cottage. That slope had once been a field with grazing sheep, wild berries and fruit trees, and Mam had grown turnips, potatoes and onions there to begin with, but a narrow road called Hight Street which came off Lower Hillgate had been built to climb the slope and now houses crawled up the side of the hill. A mill was being built near the crest and the Elliotts had heard that a tunnel was being dug to channel water from the river to the mill. Nancy thought this to be a remarkable feat, one of many such marvels in Stockport.

Despite the houses looming over their cottage, a tiny plot of land remained at the base of the hill which gave them just enough room for a deep cesspit for their refuse. Because of the cesspit’s smell, the narrow downstairs back door next to the sideboard was kept closed. It was well known that miasma, the bad smell that came from privies and cesspits, caused disease, so Da dug a new hole and filled in the old cesspit every summer and for a few brief weeks, the back door and back bedroom window could remain open. The rest of the year they remained shut, except to briefly open the door and throw out the kitchen scraps and the contents of the chamber pots.

The small upstairs sleeping room was crammed with furniture. Nancy and John’s bed was pushed up against the front wall with a blanket box at the foot of the bed and a chest of drawers with mirror, wash basin, jug and brushes upon it next to that. A small cot sat by the head of the bed. The boys’ narrow bed was against the back wall with the girls’ bed between, leaving just enough space for a couple of people to stand between beds at any given time. Shelving above the beds held clothing and personal items, and hooks by the door allowed the jackets and dresses to be hung to keep them from creasing. Other possessions were kept in boxes under the beds. As small as it was, the room was a testament to Nancy’s good organisational skills.

The wide chimney breast took up valuable space in the room, but it gave out a gentle warmth which was much welcomed during the winter months, although on this night there was definitely an extra chill to the air. The girls considered themselves fortunate to be closest to the chimney breast and away from the windows in winter, although in summer it made the room stuffy. The boys sometimes whinged that the small back window leaked cold air, but John told them that a room must have some air and boys should not complain of such things. He and Nancy also felt a draft from the window above their bed, but they just pulled their blankets up higher and so should the boys.

Nancy changed Samuel’s nappy and tucked him into the cot while Nan and Ellen brushed and braided each other’s hair. She then supervised them all with crisp instructions, fussing over the flannel nightdresses and nightshirts worn over their winter underclothes, pulling their woollen nightcaps down over their ears and their thick knitted bed socks up to their knees. Each in turn used the chamber pot under the girls’ bed and cleaned themselves with the old rags kept in a basin nearby. Their mother chided the boys for missing as usual and made them mop up the dribbles on the floor boards, all the while noting that their aim was getting better, for they’d missed the rag rug between the bed tonight. Nancy would normally carry the chamber pot downstairs and empty it out the back before retiring, but tonight the chamber pot was pushed back under the bed. If there was too much snow to open the back door in the morning, it could be emptied out the back window. She put the basin of soiled rags by the door to take downstairs to rinse out later.

Then the children sat on the edge of their beds, bowed their heads, said their prayers and gratefully snuggled down, top to tail, under the layers of flannel sheets and woollen blankets. Samuel watched on with sleepy eyes. Feeling the chill of the air on her cheek, Nancy pulled extra blankets from the blanket box at the end of her bed and added them to her children’s bedding. As she walked out with the candle in her hand, she saw young Nan reach over in the fading light and pat little Samuel gently to get him off to sleep. She knew they would be asleep within minutes.

 As Nancy put her foot on the top step, she heard an unfamiliar cracking sound above her and looked up. The heavy rafters and thick thatch had withstood many storms and several feet of snow before, but she wondered just how much it could take. Many times she’d been grateful for the hill behind them for it often provided protection from the prevailing south-westerly winds. But the blizzard seemed to be coming from the north now, screaming its way unchecked along Lower Hillgate. The storm this night was like nothing she could remember before.

Downstairs, John and Dahdo Joe took up their places on the cushioned bench seats either side of the fireplace, their mugs of ale and pipes giving them the evening comfort that preceded a good night’s sleep. Joe’s bench seat would become his bed in another hour, with the pillow and blankets stored under the seat taken up to cover him. It was the warmest place in the cottage and he never complained about the narrowness of the bench. He wasn’t a big man and, coming as he did from the deprivations of a particularly brutal childhood, he always said he didn’t need much in this life to bring him contentment. A good fire, a full belly and a clean bed were more than enough. Nancy often felt especially blessed with her gentle father. And doubly blessed with the good man who was her husband.

Nancy took up her mending and sat closest to the fire where the light was best. And the warmth. She felt the cold more than the men folk, despite her heavy flannel petticoat and woollen stockings. There was an ache to her hands tonight as she stitched, but she thought it not worth mentioning when she looked over at her father’s hands, twisted and deformed with the rheumatism, and his bad knees and thin legs barely able to hold his skinny body upright. She knew her Da to be in terrible pain some days and there’d been occasions when laudanum had been needed to comfort him, but mostly he passed little comment about it. The example was set for her and she considered it an admirable one.

Usually, there was talk around the fireplace about the mills or the latest workers’ protest meeting and who might be speaking at the next one, or about the children. Sometimes, there was gossip to be shared and other nights, especially during the warmer months, John might produce his fiddle and Nancy and Joe would join him in a song from the old country. But there was little idle chat this night with the howling gale outside.

It wasn’t much later, though, when John suddenly looked up and said, “The wind’s down.”

Nancy listened. It was indeed quieter, but in the relative silence they heard other noises, unfamiliar noises, as if the cottage was straining hard against something. A strange creaking sound was heard near the front door. She looked at her husband and father uncertainly, then rose and went to the window. She’d shut the old diamond paned window against the cold days ago, but that morning, as the wind had picked up, she’d also pulled the heavy timber shutters across and locked the strong iron latch in place to secure them. Now she pulled the curtain aside, raised the latch on the shutter, pulled it towards her and gasped. John and Dahdo Joe were by her side in an instant.

Compacted snow pressed against the glass window right up to the top, dirty white even in the orange glow of the fire. The entire double casement window, made up of small diamond shaped panes of glass, was bowed inward. As they looked, a sound like a pistol shot was heard as some of the glass shattered and flew apart around them. John hastily reached over her shoulder and pushed the timber shutter closed again, dropping the latch to secure it. He pulled Nancy and Joe away, quickly checking to see they’d come to no harm and dropped the curtain back in place. As he did so, they heard another loud cracking sound from upstairs, this time much deeper and louder. Alarmed, the three adults hurried up the steep, narrow stairs with a candle.

All looked well at first. The children were still soundly asleep. Then Nancy felt a draft across her face and looked up. “Mother of God preserve us!” One of the heavy oak rafters had cracked and was sagging under the visibly sinking thatch.

John cried urgently, “Get the children downstairs!” He flung the blankets off the sleeping boys. “Johnny, Joseph, wake up!”

Dahdo Joe reached forward, lifted the smaller boy into his arms and started moving toward the door on his rickety old legs. Joseph awoke as his father pulled him from the bed. “Downstairs, boy! Make haste!”

Nancy roused the girls quickly, lifting Samuel out of the cot and handing him to Nan. “Quickly, Nan. Take care down the stairs!” Confused and still not quite awake, they children stumbled their way down the stairs, then waited at the bottom, looking up to see what would happen next.

Once the children were safely downstairs, the three adults began frantically gathering up the bedding, the three straw filled mattresses, their clothing and what possessions they could carry and took them downstairs. The rope beds, blanket box and chest of drawers would have to stay where they were, but John was able to get the cot downstairs without effort. The roof continued to crack and groan. After several anxious trips up and down the darkened staircase with ears peeled and eyes cast upward, John finally secured the thumb latch on the little used door at the base of the stairs. If the roof did cave in, they’d need as much between them and the upstairs as possible. The stairwell door was lighter than the heavy oak front door, but solid enough to provide another layer of protection.

Breathless from the exertion, Nancy, John and Joe comforted the frightened children. Nan, still cradling Samuel in her arms, asked tremulously, “Will it come down atop us, Da?”

John reassured her, although he was not entirely convinced by his own words. “Come down it may, dear, but not upon us.” He pointed up at the low beams above their heads. “Twould take the weight of all that God be sending us this night, never you fear.” He hoped what he said was true, for it would be the upper floor trusses that had to hold. The two hundred year old old floor was solid oak with heavy low beams carrying the weight of the upper storey on the two-foot thick stone walls of the cottage. It was built like a cave in a mountainside. Surely it would hold. It must hold!

Nancy began bustling around, busying herself with arranging the bedding and belongings in the small downstairs room and issuing instructions in her usual manner which were obeyed without question by all. The table was moved against the wall and John and Dahdo Joe moved the benches apart to make room for the mattresses on the floor. Nancy made them up with the bedding and pillows and the younger children quickly huddled under the blankets. Nan was more aware of the danger and could not settle, so she sat up with her parents, Samuel cradled in her arms, her face fearful as the house cracked and moaned around them. She began to cough a little. Her grandfather put a shawl around her and Samuel and held them close. “Be calm, child, all will be well. We’re in the Holy Mother’s hands now.” He patted his shoulder. “You be laying your head on my shoulder and closing your pretty eyes. And say your sleeping prayers for our good fortune. Our Lady will be hearing you, even through the storm.” Nan nodded wordlessly and laid her head against him. Samuel slept peacefully in her arms.

Nancy watched as exhaustion overcame anxiety and the younger children slipped back into sleep. She took her rosary beads from her pocket and fingered them without praying. She could not concentrate enough to pray with the noises of the imperilled cottage all around her, but just the feel of the worn wooden beads gave her comfort. They had been her grandmother’s grandmother’s and been held just so on many an anxious occasion.

Nancy saw John scanning the thick ceiling beams that ran the length of the room and whispered. “Will it hold if the roof comes down?”

He whispered back, “I’ll not be knowing that, Nancy. I’ve no way of knowing how much snow is atop us.”

Dahdo Joe said quietly, “There may be a sight of it on the other side the street. From the upstairs window?”

“Indeed, Dahdo, there may be, but it be perilous up there.”

“I’ll be going up to look, John, for I need to be knowing myself.”

John looked thoughtfully at his father-in-law a moment, then said, “I need to be knowing, too.” He rose to go back up the stairs. Nancy held him by the arm.

“Tis not safe, John!”

“I’ll be taking care, Nancy dear. I’ll be back down those stairs quick as lightning if I’m afeared.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and went up. Joe followed him slowly. They looked around the room. No further damage could be seen, although the terrible noises continued unabated. He moved quickly and took the candle to the front bedroom window, Joe next to him, lifted the latch and pushed the window out. In an instant, the candle went out and they were plunged into blackness.

Outside was equally as black. The wind was howling up the street, but for some reason not coming in through the window as John expected. In fact, he felt almost sucked towards the window as if it had become a chimney, drawing him out like smoke from a fireplace. He was mystified. John put his hand out to feel the wind and was clear of the eave above the window before he felt the force of the gale and the icy snowflakes cut into his skin. He withdrew his hand quickly and leaned out as far as he could without getting his face into the wind. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the blackness and he could make out the shadow and shape of things. It was a sight that filled his heart with dread.

The snow came right up to the first floor of the cottages and houses lining the entire length of Lower Hillgate. It was as if the street had disappeared. It took another moment to get his bearings, then as the wind gusted he saw glimpses of glowing chimney tops. His eyes adjusted a little more and suddenly, through a gap in the driven snow, he saw a glimpse of a candle in the window of the cottage directly opposite him. The McNamaras were doing the same thing he was. And in that glimpse, John saw the outline of the McNamara’s roof, a slightly lighter shade of blackness than the sky behind it. The roof was buried under so much snow that it looked like another storey had been added to it. It was far worse than he could have imagined, for he knew the roof above his head carried equally as much snow. And the houses on the hill behind his cottage as much again. If that came down, his cottage would be buried under an avalanche.

John closed the window quickly, wordlessly turned his father-in-law toward the stairs and they felt their way in the dark to the top step where they could navigate down by the glow from the fire. He closed the door at the bottom, dropping the latch quietly. He did not want to alarm his family any more than they were already, but there would be little sleep that night.

He instructed his wife, “Keep the fire high,” and went to check on the latched front and back doors, now knowing the snow to be packed high behind both. They were solid enough. The wooden window shutters were solid, too, and the stone walls over two feet thick. As long as the first floor trusses held, they should survive if the thatched roof came down. What might happen if the snow broke free from the roofs of the houses behind the cottage was another matter. He would not bring that to his wife’s attention, for there was enough to worry her already.

Nancy said anxiously, “Is it bad?”

“It is, Nancy, there’s no denying it. But there’s nought we can do.”

“And your Da and Jim’s family?” John’s father, Jimmy Elliott and his brother, Jim lived on the same road further up the valley on Upper Hillgate, working at another of the mills, but he knew their plight was no different from theirs. Their cottage was old, thatched and sturdy, too, unlike the newer houses being built to the west of Hillgate. And he knew his father and brother to be capable men. They would be doing much the same as he was tonight.

“They must fare as well as they can, just as we must. Upper Hillgate will be much the same as here. There’ll be none spared this storm tonight, rich and poor alike.”

Nancy shivered. “There be a mighty draft coming in under that stair door.” She rose to gather up some cloths to block it off.

Dahdo Joe said, “Leave it, girl. Tis all the air we’ll be getting til this be over. You’ll be suffocating us if you block that off.”

Nancy pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Her father was right. She’d heard of whole families found suffocated in closed up cottages after severe storms, their fireplaces using up the air, the people inside drifting into unconsciousness without realising the danger. A little cold air was a small price to pay.

She stepped over the children to put more wood on the fire and wondered briefly, as had her husband, how the people in the new part of town were faring. The houses there were poorly constructed with thin brick walls that you could hear the neighbours through, flimsy looking slate tiled roofs and those small coal fireplaces that she disliked so much. She didn’t believe they gave out the same heat that the deep wood burning inglenook fireplaces did. And coal fires smelled wrong to her. She liked the smell and colour of wood smoke. Only stinking black smoke came from the coal burning fires, like the smoke from mills. But there was little choice for the workers who manned the mills and who seemed to be pouring into the town in ever increasing numbers. The mill owners, interested only in profits, built cheap houses for their workers with little regard for the comfort and needs of those living in them.

The streets of new terrace houses were appearing at a staggering rate. On a crisp, sunny day at the end of last autumn, Nancy had walked up the side of the valley, through the fields along Lord Lane to the west of Hillgate, right up to Weaver’s Row to visit an elderly woman she knew who came from Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, her birthplace in Ireland. Then she’d strolled back towards Upper Hillgate to visit her sister-in-law, Betty Elliott on her way home. She’d been amazed at the many streets and houses which had not been there six months earlier. There was a whole new town being built there. She knew Nan and Billy were planning on finding lodgings there after they were wed.

All the young people wanted to be in the new part of Stockport and she wondered what the appeal was. But then, when she and John were young they had not wanted the old ways, either. They had wanted a new way of living, a better way which is why they’d left Ireland and come to England. When they’d found the cottage on Lower Hillgate, they felt they’d already come up in the world, for it was larger than the tiny low roofed cottage they’d shared with the other Elliotts in Enniskillen, and back then they’d still had the hillside behind them to grow vegetables and keep poultry before High Street had been built and the hillside covered in houses and factories. She supposed that Nan and Billy felt the same way about moving to one of the modern terrace houses in the new town.

Before she’d left Weaver’s Row that day, Nancy had looked west to where the New Road was being constructed. She could hear the sounds of the workers from where she stood and, from this high up, could see the road running north-south to connect Manchester to the London road. The road would span the Mersey River west of the old Lancashire Bridge and would be higher and wider than the old bridge, crossing over old Chestergate road on tall brick arches. A marvel to behold indeed. John had come home from the public house a few weeks earlier to tell her that the road would be called Wellington Road and the bridge Wellington Bridge, even though they were referred to as New Road and New Bridge for now. Grand name for grand constructions. They were to bypass old Stockport completely. There was talk of fine buildings to be constructed along the road in the next few years.

From where she stood, the road looked level and straight as an arrow, a departure from the steep, narrow, winding roads of the old town. She was impressed.

Across the New Road was the beginning of an enormous construction on Spring Bank, another mill which John had told her would reach six stories and provide employment for hundreds of spinners and weavers in the new town. The old Mill Street mill that John worked in had stood in Stockport for over twenty years, but was only three stories and considerably smaller, employing only two hundred men, women and children.

John had told her many times that the old mill was a fire trap, built in of timber, whereas the big new mills were built of steel and brick and supposedly fireproof. Mill fires were not uncommon and feared greatly. The looms in the Mill Street mill were out of date compared to the machinery going into the new mills, but he was familiar with the ways of the old mill, the mill owner had not lowered the wages as much as many of the larger mills and so he felt no inclination to go elsewhere.

Nancy had looked down the slope that she’d walked up towards the river. There was talk of Lord Lane being built up, too, the pretty fields buried under a new sea of roads, mills, businesses and red brick houses. Nancy felt it a pity that these open spaces would soon be gone. They’d been a destination, an escape for the mill workers on warm summer Sundays, a safe place to stroll without having to go far out into the countryside. Then she would think of the lush Irish countryside of her childhood and the accompanying hardship of failed crops and no work, and decided the sacrifice of pretty fields for food on the table and a roof over their heads was well worth it.

She’d walked back along the new streets and thought the row upon row of brick slate-roofed terrace houses to be harsh and charmless in appearance, each street looking just like the next one, even the shop fronts and public houses. There were no garden plots behind the houses. Instead, narrow lanes, courts and alleys had been built behind every cobbled street, some of the courts only connected to the street by a low narrow passage between houses. As far as Nancy could see, a single privy or cesspit served the needs of many houses. She thought that was unsanitary, having always had her own cesspit, and wondered whose responsibility it would be to maintain them. She shuddered at the thought.

Although building was still being carried out around her, people were moving in as she walked past, their possessions in hand carts and the heavier items on carter’s wagons. There was talk of a gasworks being built in Stockport and street lighting installed, but she saw no sign of that in the new town yet.

From Weavers Row she walked along Ridgeway Street, then through one of the little passage ways into Foggs Court, through another passage into Edward Street, turned right at  Bradshaw Street, crossed Bamford Street, along a winding alley between tall houses and into Mottram Street. On the south side of Mottram Street were labourers marking out fields for a new mill and reservoir. She walked on past them into Ratcliffe Street, crossed the road and climbed Cross Street.

At the end of Cross Street, she saw the foundations being laid for the new church of St Thomas’s, a very modern construction without the traditional tall steeple. Instead there were tall columns at the entrance. Brigitte had told her it was being built in the Roman manner and they’d wondered if the Holy Father lived in such a place. It was to be a daughter church to St Mary’s in the old part of town, built to accommodate the influx of people to the new town. John had mentioned that it was expected to be less drafty and more comfortable than cold, musty old St Mary’s overlooking the Market Place, or the more modern St Peter’s west of the Market Place, and he’d a mind to attend it which had surprised Nancy. Whilst she and John held to the Old Irish Faith in their hearts, they’d been spat on and openly abused in the street for their nationality and beliefs, and John was adamant that his English born children would not suffer the same fate. They’d attended both St Mary’s and St Peter’s several times and found little difference to the masses of the Old Faith. And John had reminded his wife that St Mary’s and St Peter’s had, after all, originally been consecrated in the Old Faith before the time of that evil King Henry and the English Reformation. A Catholic could be buried in either church cemetery knowing that it was acceptably consecrated ground. But St Thomas’s would be another matter. They would need to think upon it.

Nancy turned left into Small Street and then she was in Upper Hillgate.  It was suddenly as busy and noisy as Lower Hillgate where the amount of traffic going past her front door had become, at times, a riotous jam of people, horses, coaches and carts. Most of the passing traffic was connected with the building going on in the rapidly growing town. It indicated a level of prosperity that was heartening, but increasingly difficult for Nancy to cope with. Perhaps the New Road would siphon off some of that traffic and a little order would be restored to Lower Hillgate. She could but hope.

While she’d rested over a cup of tea with her sister-in-law, Betty, they remembered how quiet Stockport had been when they had first moved there in 1802. They’d left Ireland with her father, Joe Ridel, John’s parents, Jimmy and Ann Elliott, and brother, Jim. All accomplished weavers, they’d seen the demise of their prosperous cottage industry as the manufactories were built in ever increasing numbers across the Irish Sea. John’s other brothers had chosen to emigrate to America and most of Nancy’s family to Canada, but the voyage to such far flung destinations was too much for Joseph Ridel and Ann Elliott who both suffered terrible sea sickness, so they opted for the growing textile industry of northern England. The separation from their families was hard, but inevitable, and was the fate of many at that time.

They’d arrived in Liverpool looking for work and a better life, heard about the prosperity of Manchester and made their way east, but found the booming town too busy, too dirty and too crowded. Word of the fine market town of Stockport in the neighbouring county of Cheshire, home of the first textile mill to ever be built, had encouraged them to cross the Lancashire Bridge where they quickly found work. Weavers experienced in the management of looms and fine cloth were in great demand. Wages were good and rent was cheap back then.

The cottage in Lower Hillgate suited them all very well to begin with. Then Nancy’s first child was on the way and Jim had met Stockport born and bred Betty. After the wedding, Jim and Betty found their own cottage in Upper Hillgate, a little bigger than the Lower Hillgate cottage and had taken his parents to live with him there.

Back in the present, as the snow storm continued to rage across northern England, Nancy fondly remembered that sunny autumn day strolling through the new part of Stockport and the comfort of that cup of tea with Betty, and again she felt sadness at the loss of her mother-in-law, for Ann Elliott had died of fever this past August. Her father-in-law, Jimmy Elliott, pined for her still. She knew her husband also missed his mother although he was not one to show it.

Nancy had never known her own mother after whom she was named. Nancy Ridel had died giving her life. It was many years ago now and yet her father still spoke of it as if it was as recent as the loss of Ann Elliott. The bonds of love could not be broken by something as simple as death.

Nancy was suddenly jolted out of her midnight reminiscences into the moment as another sharp cracking sound was heard above her. She felt a real surge of fear as she looked up.

Nan had fallen asleep in Dahdo Joe’s embrace. The noise had not woken her. Nancy rose, took Samuel from her arms and laid him on the mattress next to Johnny. He did not stir. She straightened up.

And then the baby inside her quickened for the first time. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Vigourously. And her concern was transferred to the new life inside her.

This pregnancy was taking a toll on her that she’d previously not known. Normally a woman of great energy, the sickness now laid her low each morning, she battled fatigue with every step and her usually high spirits were flagging. When she’d told John that there would be another mouth to feed, he’d smiled his gentle smile through his unkempt grey beard and said, “Then I’d best be putting aside another penny a week for him.” He’d dropped a penny into the cracked jar on the great oak mantel above the fireplace where they kept their rainy day money, patted her belly lovingly, and poured himself an ale before taking his seat by the fire. “And you’ll not be lifting that wood bucket when it’s full, Nancy love. You’ll be getting help or waiting til we get home. We’ll not be losing this one.”

“And I’ll be obeying you, will I?” she’d replied playfully as she gratefully returned his smile. He chuckled.

“You’ll obey me only as you see fit. As you have always done. And I’ve nothing to be complaining about there.”

“Ahh Johnny boy, I did something good to deserve you.”

“That you did, for what a fine catch I am, Nancy.” He grinned now, baring what remained of his tobacco stained teeth. The two front teeth at the top were missing and the sight of his cheeky toothless grin always amused her. That grin still belonged to the handsome boy she’d fallen in love with so many years ago when he’d had all his teeth and his hair was thick and blonde. For a brief moment, she felt her spirits lift, then the sickness came upon her and she reached for the pail. It was hard work being a woman. 

Nancy had delivered ten children and buried five. It was the way for most women, she knew that, but the grief and sorrow was no less for knowing it. For her, children were a blessing, not a burden, and she believed that she and John were tasked by God with providing for them, however hard that might be. At times, it had seemed almost too hard, and yet they were still here, still fighting to make a better life for their children, still struggling every week to stretch the pennies a little further, and still battling for their rights to have fair wages and work conditions. That battle had taken a heavy toll on their family with little to show for it. Whilst John had the patience and forgiveness of a saint in the ongoing struggle, Nancy was quick to anger and action, a born fighter with what had once seemed unlimited determination. But this pregnancy was draining the will to fight from her and she’d grown weary of it.

Now, as the baby inside her moved, she put her hand on her belly and looked up at John. “Twould seem the storm has woken the babe.”

John reached over and placed his hand over hers. “Is he strong?”

“He is.”

“That is well for he’ll need to be in this world.”

Dahdo Joe smiled at his daughter. It was a bright moment in this tension filled night.

Nancy said, “It might yet be a girl, John. Will you be minding?”

“I’ll not be minding. But if it be a girl, she’ll need to be stronger still, for tis harder in this world for girls than for boys, as well you know.”

The sudden sound of glass breaking behind the shutters made them all jump. Nan woke with a start on Dahdo Joe’s shoulder and looked around fearfully. Then she began to cough, only this time it was a wet cough from deep in her chest. Nancy and John looked at each other. They knew the sound of that cough and it filled them with dread.

Dahdo Joe held Nan firmly while she coughed and coughed, her hand up to her mouth. She seemed unable to stop. Nancy quickly fetched a cup of warm tea from the kettle and tried to give it to her, but Nan could not stop long enough to sip it. And then as suddenly as it had begun, it ended, she pulled her hand away and looked down at it. Bright red blood had splattered across the palm. She looked up at her parents in shock. “Mam? Da?”

Nancy’s heart tightened as she gave her daughter the cup of tea. “This’ll be warming you, Nan.” She watched the girl sip her tea, then felt her forehead. There was no fever. She asked tentatively, “Is there pain in your chest?”

“There is, Mam. Like it is … pinching inside.”

John took the cup. “You’ll be needing to sleep, sweet girl. And don’t you be worrying now.” He patted her cheek. It was cool, despite her closeness to the fire. “Are you warm enough?”

Nan shivered. “I’m feeling the cold, Da.”

“Tis a fearsome cold night, Nan, there’s no denying that. We’re all feeling the chill.”

Dahdo Joe took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the blood on Nan’s hand. “Best you be lying down now, child. Nearest the fire. Twill be warmer under the blankets.” He helped her onto the mattress and tucked her in next to her sister. She lay on her side facing the fire, exhausted from the coughing fit, and was soon asleep.

Nancy, John and Dahdo Joe sat in silence, their shoulders slumped with the knowledge of what was to come. There was nothing to be said. If they survived the blizzard, they faced losing Nan.

Nancy had lost a brother and sister to the consumption before they’d come to England. And John his own mother. As for Dahdo Joe, the bleeding lung disease had taken more loved ones from him than he cared to think about. Each of them knew what was to come.

This terrible night was one they would never forget. And yet, with the fearful blizzard raging around them and their beautiful Nan facing the inevitable weeks ahead, the baby inside Nancy continued to move and kick, busy with its own life force, unconcerned for the struggles around it. It gave its mother a glimmer of hope.

They only realised the storm was abating when the draft under the stair door eased. John opened the door cautiously and they were surprised to see daylight at the top of the stairs. Leaving the children still sleeping by the fire, the three adults tentatively climbed the stairs. The roof rafter had held firm despite the deep crack across it and the sagging thatch. They went to the front window, pushed it open and looked out. The sight was almost too unbelievable to take in.

Snow still fell softly, the wind no longer driving it. To the west could be seen the last of the cold front that had brought the extreme weather as it passed swiftly over the town. Behind it was blue sky, something they hadn’t seen much of for many months. The clouds would be gone before the hour was up.

Stockport was buried. The snow came up to the bottom of the upstairs window. The old cottages on the other side of Lower Hillgate were nothing but a row of windows above the snow, topped by a good twelve feet of more snow on the high pitched roofs. The tall chimneys poked their way up through the snow. They’d been built tall to prevent cinders from setting alight to the thatch, but they’d served another purpose this past night. John knew his own cottage mirrored those across the street. Further up the street toward Middle Hillgate, they could see the more modern two and three storey houses with their shorter chimneys not visible, and they wondered how the occupants had faired. Had they been able to keep their fires burning? Upper Hillgate was nothing more than a blur in the distance. John could only hope for the wellbeing of his father and brother and their family.

Smoke from some of the tall mill chimneys struggled upward through the still falling snow only to be carried back down with the snowflakes, creating the grey greasy snow so familiar to those living in the industrial towns in northern England. It was already covering the pristine white snow of the blizzard. But for once the smoke was a welcome sight, for smoke meant life.

The window directly opposite opened and the faces of William and Brigitte McNamara appeared. Although ten years younger, Brigitte was Nancy’s closest friend. They’d know each other as children in Enniskillen and when Brigitte had turned up in Stockport, a young bride married to an older widower with four children in tow, an abiding friendship had formed.

Brigitte saw Nancy and called out, “Did you fare well, Nancy?”

“We did, Brigitte, but the roof has not fared so well.” Their voices seemed muffled as if the surrounding snow absorbed the sound, despite the women being only a few yards apart.

John said, “The rafter cracked under the snow, but tis holding. For how long, only the Holy Mother knows.”

William asked with concern, “Are your children safe?”

“Indeed they are, but we’ll be living downstairs until the thaw. There’ll be no repairs while this snow lies atop us.”

William was looking along the row of cottages that flanked John and Nancy. His eyes suddenly opened wide. “Godalmighty! Old Nellie’s roof has caved in!”

John and Nancy strained to see their neighbour’s cottage without success. “Is it bad?”

“Terrible bad, John. Twould seem the whole top floor has caved in. Tis nothing but pile of straw and snow I see there.”

“That would account for the fearful noises we did hear through the night.”

“Ahh, Nellie, Nellie…” William shook his head sadly.

Brigitte exclaimed, “We must go to her!”

“Indeed, we must.”

John and William exchanged a sombre look, knowing full well what they were likely to find next door. “Do you have a spade, William?”

“I do. And a shovel.”

“Then we must do what we can.”

“And with haste. My boys will help. How is it on this side, John?”

John peered up and down the street. “I can see smoke from all but the blacksmith’s house and the shoemaker’s.” He looked up at the snow covering the McNamara’s roof. “Twill be a fair avalanche when the snow comes off the roof and the thaw will be a flood.”

“Indeed, we must be mindful of that when we leave our homes.”

“But we cannot stand by and do nothing. There will be many in need of help.”

“Well then, we must begin with Old Nellie.”

Their eyes met, acknowledging the grim task before them. “We’ll be miners instead of weavers this day, William.”

“That we will, John. There’ll be none making it through to the mills. The looms will stand idle for now. We’d best make a start.”

The men nodded to each other and turned to go, leaving the women at the windows.

Brigitte called, “Are you well, Nancy dear?”

“I am, the saints be praised. The babe quickened last night.”

“I’m that pleased to hear it.” Brigitte was the nurse midwife in Lower Hillgate and took a strong interest in the welfare of her female neighbours. “Is it moving as it should?”

“It is, but…”

Brigitte’s brow furrowed with concern. “What bothers you, Nancy?”

“Young Nan. Tis the bleeding lung, Brigitte. She was poorly last night.”

“Ahh, no, I’m troubled to hear it.” There was the sound of children’s voices behind Brigitte. “I’ll come to you as soon as I can. My own bairns are calling me.”

“And I must tend to mine.”

The women nodded to each other and closed the windows.

The aftermath of the storm was felt for many weeks. There was loss of life and property damage. Tunnels were cut through the snow until there was a network of them criss crossing the town. Despite the conditions, workers returned to their stations within days, fearing for their jobs if they didn’t turn up. John, Ellen, Joseph and Johnny were back at the mill two days after the storm, but there was no knocker-up to tap at their windows each morning at 6am to wake them, and so they were sometimes late. But so was everyone else. The mill owners had to be grateful they turned up at all.

Nan stayed at home with her mother, grandfather and little brother. She was never to leave the cottage again.

Frozen bodies found inside homes had to be left where they were, for they could not yet be buried. Without a lit fire, their bodies remained preserved until the freeze was over. The injured were tended to and the homeless taken in. And then when it seemed as though the good people of Stockport could take no more, the thaw began and there was flooding in the low lying parts of the town as the snow turned to water and began its journey down the side of the valley towards the river. The Elliott’s cottage sat high on the sloping road with six deep steps down to the footpath and so was clear of the melting snow when it turned Lower Hillgate into a filthy stream, polluted with chamber pot excrement emptied from upstairs windows. As the snow receded, it was impossible to keep water from seeping into the houses around windows and doorways and Nancy mopped up several times a day until the thaw was over.

When the funerals finally began to wend their way down the street to St Mary’s Church, Old Nellie’s was one of the first. Many more followed. To Nancy it seemed a daily parade of grief passed her home.

A malaise settled on the town and was felt by all.

Nancy experienced it deeply. As her pregnancy advanced, she became more exhausted with each passing day. She went about her tasks without complaint, but her heart was heavy. Young Nan was slipping away from them and there was nothing they could do for her as the coughing spasms increased in frequency and severity. The cottage was filled will the sounds of her distress. After a few weeks, she was too weak to eat and could only take sips of warm tea. Brigitte came daily to bring comfort and relief, sometimes taking Samuel back to her own cottage so that Nancy might get some rest. But rest wasn’t easy. Although her body yearned for sleep, she was too afraid to close her eyes for fear of waking to find that Nan had gone from them while she napped.

Dahdo Jimmy Elliott, Uncle Jim and Aunty Betty visited Nan on Sundays with baskets of pies and pastries, their own young family in tow. Betty, pregnant with her own baby, sat with Nancy and they quietly stitched away at the bonnets and smocks for the forthcoming babies. Little was said but much comfort was gained.

Billy Harrop had turned up at the cottage two days after the storm, unable to conceal his pain when John told him of Nan’s condition. He visited her every evening on his way home from the mill. The two young lovers held hands and looked at each other longingly. Sometimes Billy stayed for the evening meal and only left when Nancy began readying the other children for sleep. It was after one such visit that Nan begged her mother to finish the wedding dress and bonnet, and to have the wedding slippers made for she wished to be buried in them. With her heart breaking more as each day passed, Nancy sewed the dress and bonnet while Nan looked on. The young girl seemed to accept her fate without bitterness. Death was part of life. It was simply the way of the world.

The owner of the cottage came to inspect the cracked rafter upstairs. He told Nancy that he’d suffered much damage to his properties in the storm and he could not afford to rebuild Old Nellie’s cottage next door, nor could he afford to replace the rafter and re-thatch the roof for some time. He’d been a good landlord who valued tenants like the Elliotts and so he did what he could to make the cottage liveable. He sent two workmen to fix a couple of sturdy timber struts under the cracked rafter and the sagging thatch. Nancy moved her family back upstairs, the beds squeezed in  around the intrusive beams in the middle of the bedroom. There was nothing more to be done there.

Nan stayed downstairs with Dahdo Joe. It was warmer there. And getting her up and down the steep stairs had become too difficult. As the baby in Nancy’s belly grew, the stairs became a trial for her, too, and she slept when she could on the bench seat opposite her father, Nan on the mattress between them.

The last week of Nan’s life was fraught with sorrow, with little comfort coming from the faith that Nancy and John had been born into. Despite still being devout Catholics in their hearts, they’d fallen out with the old Stockport priest a few years earlier over how much of their weekly wages they should provide to the Church. He was London-born, a nasty fellow, too full of the ale and a hatred for the Irish whom he regarded as unwelcome intruders in England. It was well known that the donations of the hard working and often poor Stockport parishioners had not gone towards the maintenance of the church but rather to the filling of the old priest’s ale jug and other more sinister habits which were only whispered of. He had come to their home one evening, drunk and abusive, railing against the filthy Irish and in particular the Elliotts for putting their mortal needs before the welfare of their holy priest. John had thrown him out and refused to attend his church ever since. It was then that John and Nancy had looked towards the Church of England for their children’s salvation, even though their own hearts would always belong to the Old Faith.

 But for the dying, the last rites of the Old Faith must be performed and the Church of England had no substitute for that. So Nancy sent for the the old priest to administer the last rites to her dying daughter, for surely he could not refuse. But it wasn’t the old priest who came. Nancy was relieved. The priest who came was a young man, Irish-born and recently arrived from County Down. Stockport was his first English parish and he was still grappling with the suffering around him, but he was kind and his gentle Irish speech was a welcome sound to Nancy’s ears. He did not stay long for his duties were many, but did what was needed, blessed Nancy and the baby in her belly, and shook his head sadly as he left. The ill girl’s suffering had moved him deeply.

Nan mercifully slipped into a coma in the final days, her face grey and gaunt, her skeletal frame hardly visible under the blankets, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. The struggle for life finally became too much and, cradled in John’s arms, she breathed her last during the night of the ninth of May, Nancy and Dahdo Joe weeping softly by her side.

John laid his daughter back on the pillow. Nancy placed a lit candle in the window and within the hour Brigitte had arrived with one of her older sons in tow. She’d risen from her bed to feed her baby and seen the candle. She sent her son off to fetch some of the neighbours - Charlotte West, Beth Taylor, Sarah Pollitt and Betty Wignall, all good friends who had help out over the terrible weeks of Nan’s illness. Another son was dispatched to John’s brother, Jim and an hour later Betty Elliott joined the women. They came quietly with basins and cloths, sent John and Dahdo Joe upstairs to sleep and began the business of laying out the body, for it must be done quickly, before the limbs stiffened.

But before they cleared the table to make room for the body, the women, deeply concerned by Nancy’s gaunt appearance, bedded her down on the bench seat. Despite her growing belly, she’d become very thin and pale whilst caring for her daughter. The dark circles under her eyes and the slump of her shoulders testified to the weariness she felt. She was not due to deliver the new baby for another month, but Brigitte, ever the midwife, commented that she looked ready now, for the baby was lying low underneath the cotton dress.

Nancy lay down without objection and watched in silence as her friends gently laid the body on the table, undressed it and began to wash the rank stench of sickness off her daughter. She closed her eyes gratefully and woke again as the knocker-upper tapped at the upstairs window to wake them. The knocker-upper was an old man, no longer able to stand all day at the looms but still needing to pay the rent and feed himself. His job was to rise early and walk the streets with the long sturdy pole that tapped on the windows of the workers who were willing to pay him a penny a day for his trouble. As he passed the front door, he saw the candle in the window, looked in and quickly took his hat off, nodding respectfully to the women inside. It was a familiar sight to one who had lived so long, but it still saddened him. He moved on to the next house.

Nancy rose awkwardly, the baby in her womb indeed feeling low and heavy. But it moved as she stood up, so for now she need not be concerned for it. She went to her daughter. Her friends had completed their task and cleaned up around them, the clothing and linen rolled up in their baskets to be taken to their own homes, washed and brought back after the funeral. The smell of lye soap was strong in the warm room.

Nancy had a moment alone by her daughter’s side. She was rendered numb by her grief and could only stare at what had once been a bright, beautiful girl. The women turned away respectfully to give her the moment and quietly busied themselves with preparations for the wake.

John came downstairs, his black armband in place over his black coat sleeve and stood on the other side of the table. The wedding bonnet still lay next to Nan’s head. The women had known that Nancy would want to do this last part of the laying out ritual herself. Together, Nancy and John lifted their daughter’s head, slipped the bonnet over the thinned hair and tied it gently under the chin. Then they folded her gloved hands across her chest and arranged the fabric of her blue silk wedding dress over her wasted legs. The wedding slippers looked too big on the skeletal feet. One of Nan’s eyes would not close completely, making her haggard face look distorted. It was a pitiable sight indeed.

It was too much for Nancy and she sobbed. John came to his wife and embraced her, their exhausted tears running unchecked down their faces.

Then Dahdo Joe and the children came downstairs and stood around the table with tearful eyes and lowered heads. Dahdo Joe and the boys wore their black armbands and Ellen had dressed in the simple black cotton skirt and blouse that young Nan had so recently worn after their grandmother’s death. John and Nancy comforted them and in doing so, were lifted a little out of their own grief and felt more able to go on.

Sarah, Beth, Charlotte and the two Betty’s picked up their baskets, farewelled the Elliotts with a few kind words and left to go to their own homes. Brigitte was making porridge over the fire. She called the family to breakfast, reminding them gently that they must not be late for the mill, then crossed the street to tend to her own family. All but Nancy and Dahdo Joe sat on the bench seats and silently ate their breakfast, their bowls warm in their hands. They would be back in two hours for the morning break and another meal of porridge and bread. The midday meal would be potatoes slathered in the gravy from the stew that Betty Elliott had brought them the evening before. Life had to go on.

Dahdo Joe left to go to St Mary’s to see the curate and the coffin maker. A funeral must be arranged. Ellen put Samuel in the playpen, and the Elliotts went to work just as if it was any other day. But it was not just another day.

The wake would have to begin without them.

************************

And so the keening began within hours of the death. The keener was an elderly Irishwoman from County Cork. Brigitte had sent for her. She would keen for Friday, the first day, for a shilling, food and as much ale as she wanted. Another would take her place on Saturday, and yet another on the third day, Sunday.

Nancy found her black silk bombazine mourning dress in the blanket box at the end of her bed. She had not long packed it away after the six month mourning period for John’s mother, Ann Elliott. It was twenty years old, but it was in good repair and would do well for the next six months. Because it was high waisted in the Regency style, it sat comfortably over her swollen belly. She had but the one pair of shoes, sturdy black leather lace-up walking boots that had also seen many years of service, her diligent care and regular resoling making a new pair unnecessary. She favoured them over the wooden soled clogs that the rest of her family wore, for she complained that the clogs hurt her feet. She took her black stockings, mourning cap and a black woollen shawl from the chest of drawers and prepared herself for the day.

The keener sat at the feet of the corpse and sang of sadness, of loss, and of grief. Dahdo Joe returned from St Mary’s and the two grandfathers took their places at the head of the table, as was right for the family elders. A jug of ale sat on the floor between them. It would soon need refilling. Whilst Joe Ridel was moderate in his drinking habits, Jimmy Elliott was well known for consuming more ale than was good for him and was already well into his cups.

Betty Elliott arrived, changed young Samuel’s nappy, put her own toddler into the playpen with him and sat with Nancy to help her through the formalities of the days to come. Although she was not Irish born, she was well versed in the traditions of the Irish wake. She knew her husband and brother-in-law would comfort each other with too many mugs of ale in their hands, and her father-in-law would need carrying home by the end of each day. But at such a time, all was forgiven. When they sobered up, their pain would be all the harder to bear.

As the first women and children from the neighbourhood came through the door with their baskets of food for the wake, they were immediately caught up in the somber mood that the keening created. The songs were sometimes in the old Irish Gaelic and not all of the mourners understood the words, but the soft earthy voice and lilting melodies conveyed the meaning without the need for knowing the language. The women arranged their food on the sideboard and went to Nancy on the bench seat, said their few words of comfort to her, then let her be, for it was obvious to all that this day was especially hard on the dead girl’s mother, what with the imminent birth and her looking so worn out.

The mourners spoke to each other in hushed voices as they lay their gifts of wild herbs and flowers around the body. Their offerings had been hastily gathered from nearby fields and overgrown scraps of land between houses. It was not seemly to enter the house of the deceased without them. The flowers were not ornamental. They were to disguise the odour that would begin to come from the corpse as they day progressed, for the fire was kept high and the room warm for the living, despite the effect it had on the dead. And the smell of death was needed before it was considered safe to bury the deceased. Everyone knew the tales of the poor souls thought to be dead but who were still living, how they seemed not to breathe and were cold to the touch, but who came to life inside their coffins. Those who could afford it buried their dead with a rope inside the coffin attached to a bell above the ground, just in case. For most, though, it was a simple wooden coffin they lowered into the ground, knowing full well that the decomposing body inside it was beyond hope of rising again in this life. There was a practical purpose to the three day wake, the warm fire and the display of the body.

None of the mourners was wealthy, but all benefited from the mill wages one way or another, so an offering of coins was customary. A small bowl placed by Nan’s head appeared to miraculously fill with pennies during the wake as, one by one, each mourner stood by the body to say a prayer for the dear girl and then pass a hand discreetly over the bowl. How much they were able to leave was nobody’s business but their own, but each was generous in their own way. Sarah Pollitt had recently buried her husband and times were particularly tough for her and the Pollitt children, but she had enough put by to drop three pennies into the bowl. Brigitte managed six pennies, Charlotte eight. The bowl meant the difference between being able to pay the grave digger and the coffin maker like respectable people, or seeking Poor Relief from the church like the less fortunate. It was of great importance to the family of the dead.

The day progressed slowly. Nancy was numb with weariness and grief. Betty Elliott kept a watchful eye on her, bringing her food and drink, but Nancy had no appetite for any of it. Her father was able to encourage her to take a mug of ale, telling her she must think of the baby and keep her strength up. When John and the children came home, they went upstairs to dress in their mourning attire, then joined their mother silently to wait for the next wave of mourners, for the mill workers were home now and it was their turn to pay their respects.

The number of jugs of ale and rum grew on the sideboard when the men and their families came through the door. The women and girls spoke quietly to Nancy and John, cheeks were kissed and hands pressed, their eyes openly displaying their sadness. Young Nan had been part of all their lives for eighteen years and much loved. The tragedy was felt by all.

Mugs were passed around. Tea was offered to those without the taste for ale or rum. Comments were exchanged quietly about the poor state of Nancy’s health after the terrible strain of the past weeks. Someone brought her a scone and a mug of ale and she took it without looking up to see who proffered it. The day seemed to drag, her weariness making her feel desperate to put her head down and sleep.

The evening mourners came and went. As each one came to Nancy to express their grief, she began to shift about uncomfortably on the bench seat, for her back was aching and there was a tightening in her belly. After so many labours and births, she should have recognised what was happening, and so it was a surprise to her when she finally realised that the backache and tightenings were coming at regular intervals. She whispered it in John’s ear, he quickly spoke to Brigitte and Nancy was ushered upstairs to be examined. Betty Elliott, Sarah and Charlotte accompanied her.

Brigitte felt her belly with expert hands. “It is the labouring pains, Nancy.”

“But tis in the back, Brigitte. I’ve not felt that before.”

“Ahh, that’d be the lie of the baby.” She felt the belly low down. “And yet it feels right. The babe’s head is down low.”

Charlotte said, “Two of mine were in the back, Nancy.”

Betty added, “Aye, and one of mine. It is not so uncommon.”

Nancy looked up at them plaintively. “But I be feeling too tired to be labouring. I have not the strength for it.”

Brigitte stood back with her hands on her hips. “Be that as it may, this baby will be coming soon.”

Nancy struggled up from the bed. “But not this day?”

“No, dear, I think not. The pains are too far from each other yet. Tomorrow, maybe. And you must indeed rest. I will sit with you for awhile and you will sleep, if you can.”

“I must attend to the mourners…”

Betty interrupted. “We will attend to them, Nancy. You must not concern yourself. Your thoughts must be for the babe, now.” She leaned over, took off the mourning cap and gently removed the pins from Nancy’s grey-blonde hair, releasing it to fall around her shoulders. Sarah helped her out of her mourning dress and hung it on a peg on the wall.

Nancy lay back on the bed in her chemise, relieved to have the responsibility taken from her. “Yes, I must think of the babe.” She yawned deeply. “I may be able to sleep a little. The pain is not so bad yet. Just a little…” She closed her eyes.

Nancy woke up in darkness and listened to the noises downstairs. The wake had not yet reached the rowdy stage, but that would inevitably come tomorrow. She tried to rise and felt the pain in her back grip her, cutting her breath short. She tensed and waited for it to pass. Then she struggled out of bed, combed her hair and pinned it up, dressed and went wearily downstairs. John helped her to the bench seat. “Tis almost done for the night, Nancy love.”

Then Billy Harrop came with his parents and siblings. The news had been broken to him at the mill and he was inconsolable. He wept over Nan’s body and would have thrown himself upon the table had it not been for the ministerings of his father and John Elliott. He stayed for the customary hour, never taking his tear-filled eyes off his fiancé, then was helped away by his family. Nancy thought her heart could not break any more than it had, but the sight of the poor boy’s grief touched her deeply.

Nancy’s labour progressed slowly as the evening wore on. With each pain, she paused what she was doing or saying, tensed on the bench seat and waited it out. It was plain to all what was happening. Little comment was made, for what was there to say about the obvious? But the women looked at her sympathetically, for the timing was indeed unfortunate.

The first day’s mourners left as a late supper was being served to the family. Dahdo Jimmy, weeping drunkenly, was helped away by Jim and Betty. He’d sleep soundly tonight and be back tomorrow to mourn again. A few late mourners would come soon, mostly older women who could keep watch over the body through the night without the need to do a shift at the mills the following day.

Dahdo Joe fell asleep sitting up on the bench seat and was gently laid down and covered with a blanket. John and the children were dispatched to bed at the normal time, for they would need to work the next day which was a Saturday. The third day of the wake would fall on a Sunday, so John would take his turn by his daughter’s side on Saturday night. But tonight the elderly women keeping watch settled in with their ale and rum. Despite the drink, they would remain vigilant, for evil spirits and body snatchers lurked in every doorway and must be kept away. Their responsibility was a serious business. Nan’s body would be safe in their care.

Upstairs, Nancy dozed fitfully between contractions through the night while John snored heavily next to her. He’d assured Brigitte before she’d left that he would fetch her if she was needed. Nancy knew how exhausted and dispirited he was, but he could always be relied upon if her labour took a turn for the worse. She was relieved that the night passed without needing to wake him.

In the morning, the tap-tap-tap of the knocker-upper at the window woke John as usual. After reassuring himself that his wife was alright, he saw to the children downstairs, then passed toddler Samuel to Charlotte to care for while Nancy lay abed upstairs. Brigitte came early and declared that Nancy was to stay upstairs from now on as the wake was not a proper place for a confinement.

As John left for the mill, he hesitated at the door, casting a worried glance behind him. He did not know what he would find when he returned home that day. He prayed silently to the Holy Mother for the safety of his wife and unborn child.

Saturday’s keener was a heavy drinker. Younger than the first keener, she began the keening mournfully, but by the end of the day she was so full of ale that she didn’t know what she was singing. Love songs, bawdy bards and folk ballads of the old country poured out of her, but this was how an Irish wake progressed. The small room was full of increasingly drunk mourners who sang along with the keener. Nancy listened to them from the upstairs room, taking comfort in knowing that Nan was not alone down there.

Her labour seemed to change little through the day, the pains neither increasing in severity nor frequency. Her last two babies had delivered within a few hours of the first pain, but the one before that had lasted two days. No two labours were alike and none could be predicted. Brigitte sat with her when she could, but she had her own family to see to, so the neighbouring women took their turns to sit with her. It was not safe to leave her alone so far into her labour, and many a time it had been Nancy sitting with them through their labours, so it was not considered a burden to do so for her.

The coffin maker arrived in the afternoon with the simple wooden box and Nan’s body was carefully lifted and placed in it. Muslin was arranged around her to line the coffin and a small cushion placed under her head. Billy came again, this time sitting quietly next to the body, his head lowered and resigned tears sliding down his cheeks. He wore the black mourning arm band on the sleeve of his black jacket, as did the Elliott males. Dahdo Joe and Dahdo Jimmy took pity on him and plied him with ale. He left, rolling drunk, as John and the children returned from the mill.

John went straight upstairs and sat with his wife awhile. Nancy had thought herself tired before the labour began, but now she felt so drained that she was barely able to raise her head to sip the tea that John held for her. They exchanged few words. When Brigitte came to check on her, John questioned the midwife with his eyes. “Tis in the hands of God now, John.” It was small comfort.

After awhile, John went downstairs to take his place by his daughter’s side for the night’s vigil. Half a dozen others stayed with him, for where there was free ale, there was always a reason to stay.

Saturday night was much the same as the night before for Nancy’s labour, but as the night drew to a close, she felt the pains begin to increase in strength and, whereas she’d coped with them in stoic silence, now they made her cry out. Betty Elliott stayed with her throughout the night.

At sunrise on the Sunday morning, Betty went quietly downstairs to tell John that Brigitte was needed. He sent young Joseph to fetch her. Brigitte dispatched Betty home for some sleep, assessed Nancy and prepared the room for the birth, then sat by the bed. The other women would join her when they could. Nancy moaned and cried out with each contraction. There was nothing to be done now but wait it out.

Sunday’s keener was young and blessed with a strong voice. She began mournfully, but her singing was interrupted by the cries from upstairs so often that by lunch time she was singing raucously at the top of her voice, slapping her knee and stamping her foot to the rhythm of the fiddles and drums which appeared as the day progressed. Those drunk enough danced irreverently to the tunes played out.  Those not drunk enough watched on approvingly. It was a distraction from the drama going on upstairs and the decomposing body on the table. It was a very Irish wake indeed.

A young curate from St Mary’s came in the early afternoon and consulted with John. He clearly did not approve of the Irish way of seeing off the dead, but he respectfully said nothing and discussed a time to suit himself and the family. The smell of the body removed any doubt about whether or not it was safe to bury Nan. He agreed to a 4 o’clock funeral that very day and left to make arrangements. John went upstairs to tell Nancy. She burst into tears. She was to miss the funeral of her own daughter. But she knew it was best to have it today. A funeral on Monday meant time off from the mill for the whole family and a loss of wages that they could not afford, especially with them being short a wage since Nan’s illness began. And even if it had waited until Monday, Nancy would have still missed it. It seemed like cruelty heaped on unbearable grief to her and she wondered, not for the first time, at the unkindness of the Holy Mother, for had she not been a mother herself?

The coffin was taken from the house at a half past three, carried on the shoulders of brothers John and Jim Elliott, Dahdo Joe and Dahdo Jimmy, young Joseph and Billy Harrop. It was a cool, cloudy day and a light drizzle dampened their hats and shoulders as they made their way down Lower Hillgate towards St Mary’s. The curate walked sombrely before it, with family, friends and neighbours following behind the coffin. Nancy’s absence from the funeral was noted but not commented on, for everyone by now knew the reason for it.

As the coffin left the house, Nancy looked up at Brigitte with pleading eyes. “I must see it, Brigitte, I must see it.” Betty, Sarah and Charlotte were in the room with her. They looked at each other uncertainly, for Nancy was in a severely weakened state. But she insisted, “I must!” They could not refuse. They helped her to rise and supported her next to the window. She pressed her hands against the cold glass, pushed the window opened, looked down upon the bleak procession and sobbed.

And then her waters broke. She gasped. Brigitte lifted her chemise and said, “At last. Not long now. Back to bed for you, my dear. ”

Nancy turned away from the window and the pain hit her so hard she almost fell against the bed. The overwhelming urge to push that she had so longed for but so feared made her cry out, “Holy Mother, help me!” The women hastily manoeuvred her onto her back and she bore down hard. Brigitte knelt on the side of the bed and parted Nancy’s knees. “It’s coming fast now, Nancy, you must keep pushing.”

She obeyed, for she could not do otherwise, then collapsed back onto the bed as the pain passed. “I can’t do it, Brigitte,” she whispered, “I’ve not the strength left in me.”

“You can and you will, dear,” Brigitte said matter-of-factly. “Sarah, get behind Nancy and brace her when the next pain comes. Charlotte, Betty, hold her legs away for she cannot lift them herself.”

The next pain came quickly. Nancy felt Sarah support her as she groaned into the pain. The women encouraged her with comforting words. Then Brigitte said earnestly, “The head is coming. You must keep pushing now, Nancy! Don’t you be stopping!”

Nancy summoned every ounce of energy left in her and bore down. She felt the unbearable burning pain as the baby’s head was delivered. Another pain came and, knowing it to be the last one, she bore down again as the body and limbs passed out of her.

The baby began to cry immediately. Nancy fell back into Sarah’s arms, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “It is a girl, Nancy. Methinks a good six pounds. And she’s a pretty little thing.”

Nancy closed her eyes. She was pleased with the news, but she only had one thought in this moment. “Do you have the holy water, Brigitte?”

“I do. And I’ll be baptising the babe as soon as you give me a name for her.”

Nancy nodded. It was the reassurance she needed to hear. So many babies born alive did not survive long enough to be baptised in the church. Midwifes were sanctioned by most churches to perform a baptism at the birth, especially if the baby was at risk. For Nancy and most of the women of her time, the midwife’s baptism ensured that the baby’s soul would enter the gates of Heaven, and if the baby did well enough to be baptised at church, it was merely the child’s official entry into the Christian faith. But it was the midwife’s baptism that guaranteed that mother and child would one day be reunited in Heaven.

Sarah rose from the bed, adjusted the pillow under Nancy’s head and said quietly, “Nancy’s terrible pale, Brigitte.”

“She is. These past weeks have been hard on her.” The concern in Brigitte’s voice was evident. “Can you be fetching her some broth, Charlotte?”

“Aye, there is broth still warm in the pot.” She left the room.

Then Brigitte leaned in close to Nancy and said, “Only the afterbirth to come now and then you can rest, my dear. But first open your eyes, Nancy. Look, she’s a pretty little thing.”

Nancy opened her eyes briefly. Betty was holding the swaddled baby before her. She was indeed a pretty child, even with the birth fluids not yet washed from her. Plump and pink with a rosebud mouth, she was already asleep, her tiny fingers twitching a little as she dreamed the dreams of the newborn.

Nancy smiled weakly, closed her eyes and waited for the pain that would expel the afterbirth. But instead of a pain, she felt an unexpected movement inside her. She flinched and opened her eyes in surprise. Brigitte was watching her closely. “What is it, Nancy?”

She barely had the energy to speak. “I felt…something.”

“A pain?”

No. A…kick.”

Brigitte was suddenly alert. She pulled Nancy’s chemise up and felt her belly. “There be another babe in there, dear. Tis not over yet.”

 Nancy’s eyes opened wide. Twins?

Brigitte continued to palpate. “The babe is very small. And I believe it will come arse first.”

Nancy felt a surge of fear. Breech births usually meant death for the baby and often for the mother if it couldn’t be delivered. She’d heard horror stories of women going to their Maker with a dead child hanging out of them. Would John come home from burying his daughter to find he’d need to bury a wife and another child as well? The fear shot a bolt of adrenalin through her system.

She felt the pain come upon her and the second baby moving down inside her. “I can feel it coming. Brigitte, I can feel it coming!”

“Then you must do what you can, Nancy. Sarah, she’ll need help…”

But before Sarah could get back onto the bed, the urge to push, fuelled by the flush of adrenalin through her, made her lift herself up and bear down hard. Brigitte knelt on the bed between her legs and watched as the baby’s backside appeared. “Tis another girl, Nancy.”

The contraction abated briefly, long enough for Nancy to look up at Brigitte and whisper, “You can see that it is a girl?”

“I know a girl’s backside when I see it.”

The pain returned and with another mighty push, Brigitte said, “The arms and legs are born. And she’s squirming already. She wants to live, Nancy, and you must do your best for her now. The head will be hard to come, it will hurt, but you must not give up.”

The next pain came on top of the last. Nancy bore down against it and held on, squeezing her eyes shut and gasping for breath as the contraction lingered. And then she felt a pain that was worse than anything she had ever experienced. Her body was imploding with it and she was certain she would die.

“Don’t stop, Nancy! She’s almost here!”

That was all Nancy needed to hear. If she must die to give this baby life, then so be it. With the last dregs of energy left in her, she delivered the head with a scream that could be heard up and down Lower Hillgate.

At first there was silence. That deathly silence she’d heard twice before with the two stillborns she’d laboured to deliver. But Brigitte had said the baby wanted to live! Surely she would breathe? She must breathe!

Nancy opened her eyes as Brigitte cut the cord, held the tiny infant up by its ankles and spanked its little bottom. Once. Twice. Three times. And finally the longed for cry came. Weak at first, but stronger with each gasping breath. Nancy closed her eyes in relief.

Brigitte handed the baby to Sarah. “Wrap her well, Sarah, I must see to this afterbirth.”

The afterbirth came easily and it was finally over. Nancy lay limp as a dishrag on the bed and opened her eyes as Sarah brought her the second child, swaddled in linen. She was shocked at how tiny the baby was, no bigger than one of Ellen’s cloth dolls. But the tiny child squirmed and wriggled as her little arms struggled to free themselves from the linens. There was a life force there that was pleasing to see. Nancy wanted to hold her, to hold them both, but did not have the strength to raise her arms.

Then she saw Brigitte examining the basin containing the afterbirth. The midwife looked up. “Tis a miracle the twin lives at all. They are identical, Nancy, with only the one afterbirth to nourish them. The cord for the first one is fat and full, but the cord for the second one is thin and white. It has twisted and starved the little one. I’ve seen it before, but the starved one is most oft stillborn.” She looked at the second twin. “She’s a fighter, that one, with a strong will. A miracle, indeed. And she can’t be weighing more than two pounds.”

Charlotte returned to the room carrying a jug of broth. She looked at the two swaddled babies and exclaimed, “What is this? I leave one baby and come back to find two?” Then she saw the size of the tiny twin. “Ahh, but this one is too small to be real!” She put the broth down and took the squirming infant from Sarah. “Tis too much to believe.” She tried to swaddle the baby again. “She’s restless. The birth has unsettled her.”

Brigitte said, “She’ll be wanting to feed. She has much catching up to do.”

Charlotte sat on the bed. “Can you give her the breast now, Nancy? I know you’re milk won’t come in for some while, but she’s needing to suckle.”

Nancy nodded and looked down at her stained chemise. Charlotte pulled it to one side to expose a breast and carefully placed the baby against the nipple. Without hesitation, the baby nuzzled the breast, her little mouth searching for the nipple. She found it and latched on, sucking strongly. Charlotte put a pillow under the baby and moved Nancy’s arm around to cradle her. A little arm freed itself from the swaddle and wrapped around the breast possessively, fingers spread wide and her tiny body relaxed. After a moment, she stopped suckling and slept. Nancy could not take her eyes off her.

The women heard the door open and close downstairs, then quick footsteps on the stairs. In a moment, John was at the door, the children and Dahdo Joe gathering behind him. Sarah, Charlotte and Betty went out onto the landing to make room for the family, leaving Brigitte by Nancy’s side. They crowded in. John’s eyes were red from weeping. He looked anxiously towards Brigitte. “Is she…?”

His glance quickly took in his wife’s weak but welcoming smile, then the baby in Brigitte’s arms and the baby at Nancy’s breast. “There are two?”

“Twin daughters, John.”

“Twin daughters?” he repeated disbelievingly. He went to Nancy and sat on the bed, taking her hand in his. “Nancy, my love, are you well?”

Brigitte answered. “She is terrible weak, John, but there is no bleeding and no fever.”

Nancy met her husband’s relieved eyes. “Our Nan?” she whispered.

“She’s with the Holy Mother now, Nancy.”

“And it was a good funeral?”

“It was. The curate was kind and spoke well. We did her proud.”

Nancy sighed deeply. It was done. Nan was safe with the angels now.

John asked, “And the babes? Have they been baptised with the holy water?”

Brigitte answered, “Not yet. They cannot be until you have given me their names.”

John looked at his wife. He could hardly take it in. “We had thought Jane if it was a girl. Another name will have to be chosen for the second one. Which one came first?”

“This one came first.” Betty handed the bigger baby to John.

He held her and kissed her forehead. She still slept. “Then this one shall be Jane. Are you in agreement, Nancy?”

Nancy nodded.

He looked down at Jane. “Ahh she’s a sweet one, to be sure.” He laid her against Nancy and picked up the littlest baby awkwardly. “Why, there’s nought to her!”

Brigitte said, “She was arse first, John, and twas a trial indeed for Nancy.”

John could not take his eyes off the tiny baby. “I did hear a story once about babes born wrong way ‘round, that they will live the wrong way ‘round or some such thing.”

Brigitte smiled. “They say that babies born thus will never know a straight path in life. But who does?”

Charlotte said, “We have a saying in Lincolnshire that a wrong way baby will grow to be a healer.”

“I have heard that too,” Brigitte said. “That is never a bad thing.”

John frowned. “Will she live?”

 Brigitte said sombrely, “She is formed well, but too small for thriving. I’ve not seen one such as her live long, John, tis the truth and I be sorry to tell it.” She leaned down and touched the baby’s hand, feeling it curl around her finger and hold on. “She’s in the Holy Mother’s hands now, John, but she’s strong. Tis a surprise how strong she be.” She pulled her finger away.

John tenderly pulled back the swaddle to look at the baby. “Why she’s nothing but skin and bone.” He smiled suddenly, joy filling him for the first time in many months. “And see, she’s opening her eyes.” He looked up at his family gathered inside the room. “Come see your little sister. What do you think of her?”

“She’s not as pretty as the other,” Ellen remarked.

“She looks like a little old lady, all wrinkly and such,” Joseph said with curled lip, not impressed by any of what he saw.

Dahdo Joe sighed heavily, came forward and sat on the end of the bed, his eyes wet with relieved tears. He patted Nancy’s leg tenderly. “You’ve come through it again, darlin’ girl.”

Nancy knew he was thinking of her mother who had breathed her last giving birth. “I have, Da. But I cannot be doing it again.” She looked up at John pathetically. “I cannot be doing it again, John.”

“And neither shall you, Nancy love. On my oath I do promise you that.” John took his wife’s hand and kissed it tenderly.

Brigitte said, “Tis glad I am to hear that, but those words are not for our ears. Tis a private matter for husbands and wives.” She smiled down at her patient.

Johnny reached up and touched the tiny baby. “Why’s she all wrinkly, Da?”

“She’ll fill out, you’ll see, Johnny.” Nancy watched on listlessly as John continued. “She puts me in mind of my old Great Granny Elliott in Ireland. She was very old indeed and seemed to us bairns to be nothing but a face of smiling wrinkles. Oh we did love our funny old Granny Elliott, God bless her soul.” He stroked the little face and the baby opened her eyes fully.They were the dark eyes of a newborn, but he knew they would become as pale blue as his own in time, for all his family were fair haired and blue eyed. The dark eyes looked straight at him and he was smitten. “Ahh but she’s a treat, she is.” The baby wriggled and he carefully placed her back in her mother’s arms where she latched onto the breast again. “My old Granny’s name was Sarah Ann. Not Sarah. We’d get our ears boxed if we called her Granny Sarah. It must always be Granny Sarah Ann. What do you think of that for a name, Nancy? Sarah Ann.”

Nancy nodded, smiled and whispered, “Baptise them thus.”

Brigitte took the small bottle of holy water from her bag and went to the two babies. She wiped both their foreheads clean of the birth fluids, then wet her finger with the holy water and made a sign of the cross on the biggest baby’s head. “In the presence of these witnesses, I do baptise thee, Jane Elliott, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” The baby woke and began to squirm.

Going to the second baby, she wet her finger again, made the sign of the cross on the suckling infant and said, “In the presence of these witnesses, I do baptise thee, Sarah Ann Elliott, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

John and the others in the room crossed themselves and bowed their heads reverently. John looked up. “This’ll not be a day to be forgotten.”

“Tis one I’ll be remembering,” Brigitte said as the replaced the cork in the bottle. “Tis the twelfth day of May and the first time I’ve seen one sister buried as two others are born. Tis a day for laughter and tears, to be sure.” She put the bottle back into her bag, then waved her hand at the men folk and the children crowding into the small room. “Now out, all of you. We have business to attend to here.”

John shepherded his family downstairs.

Nancy looked down at her new daughters. Jane was still looking for the nipple to attach to, while Sarah Ann suckled contentedly. “Jane’ll not nurse,” she whispered.

Brigitte looked at the babies knowingly. “She’ll learn soon enough, never you fear. It’ll be the other one that keeps you on your toes, Nancy, that’s a certainty. It’ll be Sarah Ann who’ll keep you awake and want to nurse at all hours if she’s to live. It’s always the little ones, and this one is as little as I’ve been blessed to see.” She touched the heel of the tiny baby. “But tis what she needs and she’ll fight for what she needs like she fought for it in your belly. You’ll see. You’ll have no peace with this one.” She grinned fondly. “Little Sarah Ann Elliott.”

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The completed novel will be available soon!