Sarah stood, unsure, between her husband and her visitor. Bunty Grant took charge of the situation

Stranger At The Door, Day 19

Left on her own in the kitchen, Bunty tried to ignore the headache that was intensifying, and instead turned her was a lilac envelope with flamboyant handwriting. “Giles,” she groaned. Her suitor’s handwriting was punctuated with a flurry of exclamation marks, while here and there his writing reared into capital letters as he described how lonely he was without her, how his bookshop was suddenly gloomy without her frequent visits, his visits to the National Gallery dull without her pithy comments on the paintings.

Worst of all, he wrote, his Saturday soirees in his Charlotte Square flat were no longer the highlight of the week. Indeed, he reported, guests were beginning to decline invitations because they were starting to bore each other rigid. The letter ended with a threat from Giles that if he did not hear from her soon he would come and rescue her.

Bunty sighed and stuffed the letter into her pocket. Much as she craved a little romance in her life, she knew that Giles could not provide it. With his silk cravats, velvet smoking jackets and affectations, he was much too self-centred. Options For a while, Bunty sat at the kitchen table considering her options for the day. The rain had stopped and a watery sun gleamed through the windows.

Suddenly she felt the need to get out of the house. Since the colonel and his lady had departed for Venice, Bunty had planned to pay a surprise visit to the pit and to see what Rushforth was up to.

She had an instinctive dislike of the man and had picked up on the fact that he was distrusted by the miners at Langrigg. Telling herself that a surprise visit might be a good idea, she went out to the paddock to fetch the bay and saddle up.

“The colonel wants tae get rid o’ ma’ beasts,” Ned Goudie mumbled, still busy in the stables. “Waste o’ money. He’s got nae time for ridin’ these days and she’s no’ inclined. And ye’re aye in Edinburgh.”

Bunty didn’t answer. Tightening the girths, she swung herself up into the saddle.

Bunty reflected that her day had taken a turn for the better as Sarah settled her in a chair by the range and bustled off to make a pot of tea. “Happy accidents,” she murmured as she took off her jacket and warmed her hands at the fire.

Riding into Langrigg, she had made for the pit office in her search for Rushforth, only to find that he had absented himself from the pit without any explanation and his whereabouts were unknown. Two clerks in the office were waiting for the day shift to come up and they were busy. Saturday was payday, they reminded Bunty.

It was when she had turned away and led the bay up the Front Raw, pausing to let knots of interested children pet him, that she’d met young Sarah Morrison carrying a brimming basket. “I’ve started doing a little shopping for Mary Ellen on a Saturday,” she’d explained.

Thanks had been relayed for the furniture given to Daniel for the house, and Bunty had seized on the offer of a cup of tea which Sarah had shyly extended.

“This is very cosy. You’ve worked wonders with this place,” she said appreciatively to Sarah, who was setting out tea and cake. Appropriate Sarah’s cup rattled slightly in her saucer as she regarded the plump figure in boots, breeches and tweed jacket. She hadn’t meant to invite Miss Bunty, whom she scarcely knew, to take tea here in the Raws.

Had she been up in the schoolhouse, the invitation might have been more appropriate. But she needn’t have worried. Bunty settled herself into her fireside chair and helped herself to a second slice of cake.

“This must be quite a change from living up at the schoolhouse,” she remarked. “I must say that you’ve made a very good start. You’ve made a lovely little home here in no time at all.”

She chatted on about the Wee School, and what a benefit it would be to the village, and about the colonel’s regard for Sarah’s father.

“Not the easiest of men, my brother said, but an inspired teacher,” she told Sarah.

Their conversation was cut short by the drumming of feet as the day shift spilled out at the pit gates and tramped up the Raws. Bunty noticed that Sarah flinched as the sound enveloped the house. She got up suddenly and pulled a pot forward on the range.

“Daniel’s dinner,” she said, suddenly apologetic. Bunty watched as she put on her apron and hurriedly cleared away the china teacups. In an instant, the girl from the schoolhouse up on the hill had become a collier’s wife. Fleetingly, Bunty wondered if romance would be enough to hold all this together, and hoped that it would.

The back door banged just as Bunty had got to her feet and was taking her leave. Daniel put his begrimed face round the kitchen door.

“I’ll just get shifted, love,” he began. “Bit o’ a mess, though. Workin’ in water the day. No’ a sign o’ Rushforth.” His voice, roughened with pent-up anger, tailed off as he caught sight of Bunty.

Sarah stood, unsure, between her husband and her visitor. Bunty Grant took charge of the situation. Sitting down again, she spoke firmly.

“Working in water? Now I’ve no wish to impose on you both, but I’d like to hear more about this.

“Take your time, Daniel,” she added. “Get out of those wet clothes and take care not to track dirt into your wife’s lovely sitting-room, or you’ll be in trouble.” Flustered Her lighthearted tone helped things along, although she waved away an offer of more tea from Sarah, who looked more than a little flustered.

At last, when Daniel sat down opposite Bunty, his face pallid against the white of his best shirt, his eyes still rimed in coal dust, she saw a young man filled with anger that was pushing its way past fatigue.

Sarah, in the scullery, struggling with a pile of wet working clothes, could hear the rise and fall of the conversation, quiet at first, then infused with anger as Daniel’s voice rose. Alarmed, she slipped back into the room and listened.

“That seam’s not safe,” Daniel was saying. “Two roof falls in the last week, and now the water. But there’s plenty of coal there and Rushforth wants it. It’s not safe, though. The older men have told him, but all they get is threats by return.

“Conditions down there are no’ fit for man nor beast. I’m tellin’ you, Miss Bunty, even the old stagers who’ve seen most things down the pit in their time are frightened for their lives when they start their shift.”

More tomorrow.

This story was originally written specially for The People’s Friend, which published it under the title The Life We Choose. There’s more fiction in The People’s Friend every week, available from newsagents and supermarkets at £1.30.

Artwork: Andrew Lloyd Jones