Episode 4: Visit to the Rigleys

The clock struck eight and she rose suddenly, dropping her sewing on her chair. She went to the stairfoot door, opened it, and stood listening. The children were evidently asleep. Very softly the mother shut the door, and, without hesitating, fetched an iron screen from the pantry, and hung it before the fire, turned back the rug, and put on her hat and a large grey cloth shawl. Then she went out, locking the door behind her.

Something scuffled down the yard as she went out, and she started, though she knew it was only the rats, with which the place was overrun. The night was very dark. In the great bay of railway-lines where the black trucks rose up obscurely there was no trace of light, only away back she could see a few yellow lamps at the pit-top, and the red smear of the burning pit-bank on the night. She could see the street lamps threading down hill beyond the railway and the field, shining large where the road crossed the lines, and tangling like fireflies in a blur of light where she looked straight down into Old Brinsley. She hurried along the edge of the track, stepping carefully over the levers of the points, and, crossing the converging lines, came to the stile by the great white gates near the weighing machine, whence she emerged on the road. Then the fear which had led her by the hand unhesitating loosed its hold, and shrank back. People were walking up to New Brinsley ; she saw the light in the window of his mother's house below the road by the crossing; twenty yards further on were the great windows of the "Prince of Wales," very warm and bright, and the loud voices of men could be heard distinctly. What a fool she had been to imagine that anything had happened to him! Here, in the common- place movement of the sordid village, her sense of tragedy, with its dignity, vanished. He was merely drinking over there at the "Prince of Wales." She faltered. She had never yet been to fetch him, and she never would . Yet, while she was out, she must get some satisfaction. So she continued her walk, with the black wooden fence and the railway on her right, and, across the road,  the long straggling line of houses standing blank on the highway. She went across the road, and entered a passage between the houses.

This entry sloped down sharply, as the houses were built on the drop to the brook, and had downstair kitchens. The houses were in pairs, as is usual, the back doors facing each other, and between them a small breadth of bricked yard. She did not know for certain which was the house of Jack Rigley, one of her husband's fellow butties* . She asked at the wrong house.

"No, Rigleys is next door -- there look!" And Elizabeth Bates turned round, moved past the big, lighted kitchen windows of the two houses, and knocked at the other door.

"Mr. Rigley? -- Yes! Did you want him? No, he's not in at this minute."

The raw-boned woman leaned forward from her dark scullery and peered at the other, upon whom fell a dim light through the blind of the kitchen window.

"Is it Mrs. Bates?" she asked in a tone tinged with respect.

"Yes. I wondered if your Master was at home. Mine hasn't come yet."

" 'Asn't 'e! Oh, Jack's been 'ome an 'ad 'is dinner long since. E's just gone for 'alf an 'our afore bed-time, but 'e won't be long. Did you call at th' 'Prince of Wales'?"*
"No----"

"No, you didn't like----! Its not very nice, is it?" the other woman was indulgent and kind. There was an awkward pause. "Jack never said nothink about--about your Mester,"* she added.

"No! -- I expect he's stuck in there!"

Elizabeth Bates said this bitterly, and with recklessness. She knew that the woman across the yard was standing at her door listening, but she was sick, and did not care. She was turning away.

"Stop a minute! I'll just go an' ask Jack if  'e knows anythink* ," said Mrs. Rigley.
"Oh, no -- I wouldn't like to put ----!"

"Yes, I will, if you'll just step inside an' see as th' childer doesn't come downstairs and set theirselves afire."*

Elizabeth Bates, murmuring a remonstrance, stepped inside, hesitating at the kitchen door.

"Come in! Sit you down. I shanna be a minute. Dunna look at th' 'ouse, Ah'n on'y just got 'em off to bed."*

The kitchen needed apology. There were little frocks and trousers and childish undergarments on the squab* and on the floor, and a litter of playthings everywhere. On the black American cloth* of the table were pieces of bread and cake, crusts, and a teapot with cold tea.

"Eh, ours is just as bad," said Elizabeth Bates, looking at the woman, not at the house. Mrs. Rigley put a shawl over her head and hurried out, saying:

"I shanna* be a minute."

The other sat quite still, waiting, noting with faint disapproval the general untidiness of the room, which was clean, if littered. Then she fell, with womanly curiosity, to counting the shoes of various sizes scattered over the room. There were twelve. She sighed and said to herself, "No wonder!"-- glancing again over the litter. Then came the scratching of two pairs of feet across the yard, and the Rigleys entered. Elizabeth Bates rose. Rigley was a big man, with very large bones. His head looked particularly bony. Across his temple was a large blue scar, caused by a wound got in the pit, a wound in which the coal-dust remained blue like tattooing.

" 'Asna 'e come whom yit?"* asked the man, without any form of greeting, but with a fine rough  sympathy, and some concern: "I dunna think there's owt amiss -- 'e's non ower theer, though!"* -- he jerked his head to signify the "Prince of Wales."

"E's 'appen gone up to th' 'Yew,'* " said Mrs. Rigley, gently, showing by her tone that she was upset.

"I bet that's wheer 'e is!" adjoined the husband. "Else at Jack Salmon's. 'E's very likely at Jack Salmon's, tha' knows 'is daughter wor married yisterday."*

There was another pause. Rigley had evidently something to get off his mind:

"Ah left 'im finishin' a stint* ," he began. "Loose--a'* 'ad bin gone about ten minutes when we com'n away* , an' I shouted, 'Are ter comin'*, Walt?' an' 'e said, 'Go on, Ah shanna be but alf   minnit,'* so we com'n ter th bottom* , me an Bower , an I thowt 'e wor just behint  us.* Ah'd a ta'en a hoath as 'e wor just behint* --an' 'ud come up i' th' next bantle----*

He stood perplexed and concerned, as if answering a charge of desertion of his mate. Elizabeth Bates, now again certain of disaster, hastened to reassure him:

"I expect 'e's gone  to th' 'Yew Tree,'* as you say. It's not the first time. I've fretted myself into a fever before now. He'll come home when they carry him."

"Ay, isn't it a bit too bad of 'em!" deplored the other woman.

"I'll just step up to Salmon's an' see if 'e is theer," offered the man, afraid of appearing concerned, and afraid of taking liberties with this woman. The bounds of intimacy are very dangerous to overstep.

"Oh, I wouldn't think of bothering you that far," said Elizabeth Bates, with the decision of a woman who knows her own affairs .

"It wouldna be no bother to me* ," urged the man. Elizabeth Bates hesitated.

"Yes--go on, Jack!" said his wife persuasively. "You can go up th' line an' across th' fields. It's as near as any way, an' then you can go with 'er to th' gate"* --she looked at him significantly.

Elizabeth Bates understood quite well that this meant "you can call at the pit top and get them to telephone down to the deputy* ," but she gave no sign.

"Ah, that's what I can do!" said Rigley with relief. He put on his cap again, and they went out.

"Good night, Mrs. Bates. I'm sure it'll be all right! Don't you bother now!"

As they went up the entry, Elizabeth Bates heard Rigley's wife run across the yard and open her neighbour's door. Then  suddenly all the blood in her body seemed to switch away from her heart.

"Mind!" warned Rigley. "Ah've said many a time as Ah'd fill up them ruts in this entry* , sumb'dy'll be breakin' their legs yit."

She recovered herself and walked quickly along with the miner. She wanted to get home--for fear there should be anything.

"I don't like leaving the children in bed, and nobody in the house," she said.

"No, you dunna!" he replied, with all his courtesy and sympathy in his tones. They were soon at the gate of the cottage. All was still.

"Well, I shanna be many minutes. Dunna thee be frettin'* now, 'e'll be a' right," said the butty.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Rigley," she replied, and the pathos and gratitude of her voice upset him.

"It's a' right--dunna mention it--you quite welcome!*" he stammered, moving away. "I shanna be many minutes."