A Mother's Gift Read Online Free PDF Page A

advance warning of the owner’s visits. The boss had been on his high horse too, criticising the way he had let some of the places on bank at the non-working mines get a bit run down. As if it was his fault, such things were up to the managers. But he’d sharpen them up anyway. They had very little else to do. Though after all, they were keeping things going underground right, weren’t they? That was the most important thing.
    Parsons’ thoughts returned to his interview with Mr Hamilton that morning. A queer carry-on about the man Benfield, wasn’t it?
    ‘Do you know a man, in his fifties, worked at Winton, Parsons? A big man, red-faced, dark blue eyes? Not afraid to speak his mind?’ Mr Hamilton had asked.
    ‘Well, Mr Hamilton, there were nigh on 800 men worked at Winton,’ the agent replied.
    ‘Yes of course. This man has a granddaughter, same eyes as himself, blonde hair.’
    ‘I can’t say I do, Mr Hamilton.’ Was the man going off his head? How was he supposed to know all the men that worked at Winton?
    ‘No, but you can ask Thompson, can’t you?’ The boss sounded testy. What had the fellow done?
    ‘I will, of course,’ Parsons said hastily. ‘Do you want Thompson to black-list him? Has he been impertinent?’ (How the heck did you meet him? was what Parsons wanted to ask.)
    ‘No, no, nothing like that. But if Thompson knows who it is I mean, I want him to give him a job.’
    ‘A job? Do you mean at Eden Hope or are you intending to open Winton again? I don’t mean to question your judgement but—’
    ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ said Matthew with a hard stare. ‘No, Thompson can put him on doing something till the pit opens again, can’t he?’
    ‘Yes, yes he can. Of course he can.’
    ‘Right then, see to it.’
    Matthew went out to his car and climbed in, sitting back with a sigh, content with his day. Though to be honest he didn’t know why he had given that last order to Parsons. But somehow he couldn’t get the picture out of his mind, he had kept thinking about it all day. The picture of the young girl coming round from behind her grandfather and standing shoulder to shoulder with him. The way she had gazed at him so directly with the old man’s eyes, the uplifted chin and the smear of pitch across her cheek. Of course the sack was full of pitch, he had known it by the smell even before he had come across the pool of old pitch further along the wagon way. There was obvious marks on the surface where the man had been taking lumps out.
    He’d never given much thought before as to how the miners got their heat when their concessionary coal was stopped. He looked at the window where sleet was pattering against the glass. It was snug in the car, thank God. Well, the old chap was showing some initiative going all that way for pitch balls.
    The girl too, helping him.
    ‘For goodness sake,’ Matthew said, half-aloud. ‘I’m going soft in the head in my old age.’
    Lawson looked through the rear-view mirror at him, startled. ‘Pardon, sir?’ he asked.
    ‘Take it careful, Lawson,’ said Matthew. ‘There’s no rush.’ He didn’t want to get home before his dinner guests went home. One of the reasons he had come out today was to make the fellow unsure of himself. Dawson was in deep water and there may yet be the chance of picking up his works for a song. Matthew forgot about the old man and the girl as he turned his keen mind to the problems of working iron.
    ‘What’s that?’
    Kitty stared as Noah strode into the kitchen and threw a ten-shilling note down on the table. He was grinning from ear to ear.
    ‘What does it look like, lass?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been taken on at the pit. That’s a sub the gaffer let us ’ave.’
    Kitty slumped down on to Noah’s chair. Suddenly her shoulders heaved and tears ran down her face unchecked, she who had never cried all during the ten-month strike and afterwards, when the miners had had to cave in and go back to work and the shock of