The Girl From World’s End

Miss Halstead took the littler children into another tiny classroom out of the Head’s way after assembly. Mirren went to the front on her first morning to be registered, eager to show off how well she could read and write, but Harold Burrows barely gave her a glance.

‘That’ll do,’ he muttered while she was finishing the page. His breath smelled like Dad’s had done. He pointed her towards the back bench among tall lads who couldn’t read or write much. Everyone stared and then giggled at her accent. At playtime the other girls crowded in a corner but didn’t make friends, just stood staring at her.

It was too far to walk home at lunch so she sat on her own, eating her pasty and apple, trying not to feel miserable.

‘She’s one of them posh clever clogs, a townie,’ sneered Billy Marsden in his jacket with his shirt hanging out of the elbows. ‘My mam heard she was living in a railway hut when they found her.’

‘No…it’s a bungalow,’ she lied.

‘It were a railway shed, fit for donkeys on our farm,’ laughed another lad.

‘Shut up, dumbo. At least I can read,’ she shouted. ‘It was a special carriage all on one level so it is a bungalow.’

‘Who does she think she is, bloody offcumden!’ Billy was not for being outfaced by this newcomer.

‘My granny lives at Cragside and I’m a Yewell, so there!’ Mirren hated being singled out. She just wanted to have a friend and be left alone.

‘So what’re you doing living in a railway hut? Mam says you’re not a proper Yewell. Her mam was a whore who ran away and had a bastard!’ He put his hands on hips, waiting for her to get out of that insult.

Mirren didn’t know what a basted was, or a hoor, but she sensed it was rude and when everyone started laughing she leaped up and flung herself into Billy’s face, scratching his cheek accidentally. ‘Shut up, numpty! You’re as thick as shit!’

Mr Burrows was standing in the doorway of the school. He’d heard none of the teasing and saw only her take action. Everyone stepped back, seeing the look on his face.

‘Gilchrist and Marsden, my desk, this minute. Not another word!’ he screamed, cuffing them both round the ears, not listening to Mirren’s attempt to explain.

‘I don’t want wildcats in this school. If you want to behave like an animal, you can go and amuse the infants in their room. Get out of my sight, Miriam Know-all. You’re too cocky for words, with your town ways and impudence. Hold out your hand.’

The cane struck her palm, bringing tears to her eyes but her mouth was drawn tight, wincing as the next blow hit the palm, biting into her flesh. She was not going to let him see her pain. She took five strokes but Billy Marsden got off with a caution. It wasn’t fair.

She was banished to the infants’ cupboard with her face to the wall. Her hands were stinging and cut but she turned her face to hide her tears. The silent battle of wills with Harold Burrows had begun.

He ignored her in class when her hand was raised to answer a question. She sat sullen and unresponsive to anything he offered to the class as a whole. Billy Marsden left her alone. In fact the whole school pretended she wasn’t there, avoiding her after lessons. It got to the point where there was no point in attending school any more but no one at Cragside had any idea of her unhappiness. If they found out, she might be sent away to the orphanage.

Every morning she waved them goodbye and set off for the track down to the village but once out of sight she veered off on another route. In this way Mirren got to know every nook and cranny of the Yewells’ fields and gullies, becksides and hidy-holes. With her pasty and bottle of milk to sustain her, she could amuse herself for hours. If it was raining there were hidden caves and boulders to shelter under, like the sheep, outbarns full of hay to hunker down in and read the book she’d hidden there at the weekend.

There was this wonderful book called Scouting for Boys, all about making dens and campfires and signalling. It taught her how to lurk out of sight of shepherds and workmen. For days on end she stayed up in the hills but knew soon she would have to return to the school with some excuse of sickness in case the Welfare man came calling to see why she was absent.

December was not the month for staying out too long. The first flurries of snow sent her scurrying for cover but it was better to have frozen fingers than be caned and bullied and ignored. There was more to learning than sitting on a hard school bench.

In the fields there were hares to watch and foxes to follow, gullies and waterfalls and leaping fish. There were birds she’d never seen before, berries to identify and mushrooms that she was warned not to eat.

As long as she wrapped up in her new thick wool coat with a flannel lining sewn in for winter, a hand-knitted scarf and beret like a cloche helmet, thick stockings and leather boots, she was warm enough if she kept on the move.

Now the sun was low in the sky, making long shadows. Mirren sensed by the way the sun moved when it was time to head back down to the track as if she was coming from school. The last bit of hometime was the worst, having to creep through the dark copse in the shadows where the tawny owl hooted and sometimes the eye of the fox glistened as the moon rose at dusk. It was dark by four thirty.

It was such a relief to leave the wood behind and watch for the twinkling lanterns in the yard and farmhouse windows before they closed the shutters. They always waited until she was home before doing that, while she sat with a slice of bread and dripping, making up stories of her happy day at school.

Two weeks before Christmas the snows came; flutterings of goosefeathers at first, turning to ice and then rain on the sodden ground. The wind turned to the north-east, making puddles into skating rinks and icy slides. Mirren decided to make a quick recovery just in case there were lots of Christmassy things to do at school but she needn’t have bothered for there was not even a string of paper chains or Nativity play to enliven the season, and no part for her in the carol service in the parish church. She was Chapel, after all.

Mr Burrows had forgotten she was on the register by the look he gave her over his half-moon glasses. ‘Back in the land of the living again, Miss Gilchrist? We thought you’d gone back to town.’

She stuck it until dinner break and told Miss Halstead in the playground she felt sick and could she be excused. The teacher looked concerned, felt her forehead and packed her off with a wave.

The sky was purple and grey, but nothing to worry about as she sneaked off over the track, glad to be away from the sticky sweaty smells of the school hall. The fact that everything on the hillside was going in the opposite direction never struck her as odd.

Sheep were heading down, butting and nudging each other like the kids in the playground queue. They sensed a change in the weather. Cows were bellowing from their stalls, no bird chatter in the tree tops, as if the silent wood was waiting. She was so intent on getting away, Mirren didn’t notice the darkening sky above her.

Yet it all looked so sparkly, ice like tinsel on the stone walls, sugary tree trunks. The air was sharp at the back of her throat, nothing to warn her of the storm ahead, but she pulled her tammy over her ears.

The snow came speckled at first, the wind pushing her forward. Then it slowed her pace as she rose higher and it got thicker and whiter, the feathery flakes sticking to her coat and chapping her bare knees. Only then did she realise she was too high and must turn back.

Sheep passed her by like walking snowballs. They were taking shelter behind the bield of the stone walls and so must she. Her coat weighed a ton, stiff like cardboard, and her cheeks were stinging with the chill. Miriam sensed she mustn’t stop, but finger her way along the stone walls, hoping to find the shelter of a barn. This, however, was new territory. Her eyes squinted at the whiteness that disguised where she was, her fingers ached in her mittens and her boots were like lead weights.

It was then she realised how stupid it was to be wandering alone in a snow storm. She had no strength against the wildness of these moors, being just a silly, disobellient little girl who was lost. There was trouble in the wind and no one to help her.

The fleeting warmth of her tears was no comfort. This was her own doing and her own fault, and now she was going to freeze to death and no one knew she was even missing. They thought her safe in the schoolroom. She would be found frozen like a dead sheep with its eyes pecked out by rooks.

The thought of that fate stirred her into one last effort to find a gate or a barn. ‘Help me…’ she cried, but there was none there to hear her, yet her stubborn spirit was not going to give in without a fight.

No use turning back, for the trackway was covered and she could stumble down a gully and be stuck. It was forwards or nothing, and she wasn’t going to lie down without cover. Slowly she edged forward, following the wall end. The effort took all of her strength and she felt herself struggling.

Just when she couldn’t go another step, she saw an outline in the whirling white, a jagged line of high stones, walls and a chimney stack. Her eye fixed on that marker with hope in her heart that she’d found a farmhouse or a barn. Listening for the bark of a dog or the bellow of a cow, she made for the shelter. The silence, stillness and swirling snow like a veil hid what was before her but she knew there was something there if only she could get her legs to work properly. To be so near and yet far…

‘Help me,’ she called again, but no one came.

Those last few yards were like agony, carrying a load of ice on her shoulders, but she fell into the stone porch with relief. It was already half filled with a snowdrift. She shouted but no one answered. Desperation fuelled her arms to batter the oak-studded door and it yielded even to her puny weight. How she yearned for firelight and the glow of a storm lantern, the smell of bacon or an open fire, but there was nothing, just an empty shell.

Part of the rafters were stove in and she could see snow falling through the gap in the roof, little drifts piling up, and it was just light enough to see the old stone fireplace behind a great arch of stone spanning the width of the room. Inside there it was dry and sheltered. There was even old straw bedding on the flagged floor, musty and dusty where it was dry, old cattle bedding. There was a broken ladder to a small loft but she daren’t risk going up there.

Through another arch she spotted the cold dairy with slate shelves. The storage holes were empty of jars. No one had lived here for years. There were a few bits of broken chairs, nothing else but four bare walls.

The disappointment rose up like bile in her throat. No fire, no welcome. There was not even a lucifer to light a fire, not even a beast to warm herself by, but it was shelter from the blizzard outside and it was getting dark.

‘Be thankful for small mercies, child,’ came her Sunday school teacher’s voice in her head. Looking around in the gloom, she had to admit that there was everything here for her to ride out the storm.

If you were silly enough to do what she had done then this was about the mercy she deserved, she decided. She was safe and this would have to do. Outside the wind was roaring up a gale. Bits of roof rattled and clanked but stayed put.

Mirren gathered up the driest bits of straw she could find to make a nest under the stone arch. She sat in the grate, trying to be brave. There was snow to suck on and she still had her store apple to feast on in her coat pocket. Every bite would have to be savoured slowly and eked out as if it was a proper meal, skin, pips, core, the lot.

Where she was, she hadn’t a clue, but it was high up above Cragside. The chimney breast smelled of old soot and woodsmoke, and the straw itched. She thought of mangers and cheered her flagging spirits singing ‘Away in a Manger’. She was away in a manger but no one knew where she was and there’d be hell to pay when they found out.

She heard little rustlings and scratchings beside and above her: night creatures scurrying into the walls. At least the house had other things here, mice and wrens seeking shelter…maybe wild cats, foxes, wolves…No use scaring herself with fairy tales. For one night she’d be glad of company, whatever it was. She was one of them, trapped, penned in, safe enough. The house will look after us, she sighed, and curled up in a ball to save heat.

Down in the valley Windebank school would be dismissed early. They had a snow drill and roll call, and children would have been collected. Others would be forced to stay by the stoves and stay the night in Burrows’ den, poor buggers! She could swear out loud and there was no one here to tell her off. This was better than being stuck with that hateful man. This was all his fault…

Mirren woke from a deep sleep feeling numb, legs aching with cramp. She scoured around hoping there might be a provender sack, something to stuff with straw to keep her teeth from chattering. There was a small store under the ladder stairs with a pan and a brush, and to her joy some rotten sacks. Once more the little house had come to her rescue. If only there was enough kindling to get a flame going.

It was then she remembered the scouting book. There was a section on lighting fires with sticks of wood and bits of cloth, making sparks to smoulder into kindling. She wished she’d read it more carefully.