The Stony Path Read Online Free PDF Page A

only witnesses were Nathaniel’s brother Eustace and his wife, Delia. The bride had met the groom twice before the wedding day, and on each occasion Eva’s parents and the priest who was going to marry the couple – Nathaniel being of the Catholic faith – were present. This same priest had been given to understand Eva was expecting Nathaniel’s child; a fact which did not concern him nearly as much as her converting to the one true faith, which Eva, heartsore and ill from the effects of the pregnancy and the savage beating she had endured, listlessly agreed to. She had no interest in religion one way or the other anyway.
     
    Henry and Hilda, on their return from honeymoon, had been told only that Eva was getting married, and Henry, guilty and ashamed at the immense relief he felt that his sister would not be living in close proximity to his wife, asked no questions. He assumed Eva found their changed circumstances too painful to submit to, and Eva – mindful that the family home would ever be barred to her if she spoke the truth – did not disabuse him of the idea.
     
    So it was that Eva found herself leaving St Mary’s in Bridge Street, situated at the hub of the thriving town of Bishopswearmouth, on the arm of the stranger who was now her husband.
     
    They had been married late on the Saturday afternoon – Nathaniel hadn’t finished his shift at the Wearmouth Colliery until well after midday – and as they left the relative quiet of the church and stepped into the hot, busy street to begin walking towards Wearmouth Bridge, Eva blinked her distress at the noise and press of human bodies. She had rarely come into the town with her father – Henry or one of the farm hands had always accompanied him on market days – but the once or twice she had ventured away from the farm she hadn’t been able to wait to get home, and now she felt as though she was being smothered alive.
     
    Sunderland’s huge population growth in the last seventy years and booming prosperity depended heavily upon the Wear, although as a harbour the river had disadvantages: it was uncomfortably narrow, shallow and exposed to north-easterly gales, with a difficult entry for sailing vessels. Nevertheless, thanks to the thriving coal trade, it was invariably crowded with shipping.
     
    The river also lay at the heart of Sunderland’s industry. Factories and workshops, roperies, glassworks, potteries, lime kilns, ironworks and, above all, shipyards clustered along its banks, competing with coal staiths, quays and warehouses. The noise and clatter and smoky pall was oppressive even to those who were used to it, and as the party of four reached the bridge and Eva gazed about her, the urge to start to run and keep running was so strong she had to bite her lip against it.
     
    ‘You all right, lass?’
     
    It was a moment before Eva replied to the small, wiry man in whose arm she had her hand, and then her voice was stiff when she said, ‘I’m perfectly well, thank you.’
     
    Her chalk-white face and bloodless lips belied her words, but after a swift glance at his brother and sister-in-law walking just in front of them, Nathaniel said no more. It was to be expected the lass was terrified out of her wits, and but for her condition he would have been only too pleased to give her more time to get used to him before they were wed. Mind, it was only that very thing that had put her across his path in the first place. In spite of her bulk, she seemed to him like a frightened young bairn that needed careful handling, and he wasn’t averse to going slow. From the little her da had said, she’d obviously been took down against her will, and that was enough for any bit lass to come to terms with without her belly being full as a result of it. Aye, he’d go slow all right; he was no sackless lad still wet behind the ears.
     
    Once they had crossed over the bridge into Monkwearmouth, passing the great cranes on the banks either side, they continued