Sixpence at Christmas

Chapter One

Mary-Jane wakes before the rest of the cottage and counts what is left: a few matches, a little kindling, the last of the tea. Friday's wages are still days away, so she rations everything, spending the family's final comforts to keep the fire and the household going. She moves quietly through the cold rooms, making each small decision stretch as far as it can, and the fire she coaxes from the grate is thin but alive.

Joe and Ned come in from the night shift wanting only rest and breakfast. They hand off their washing and their food to Mary-Jane without ceremony, and she takes it, her load deepening with every request. When they ask where their mother is, Mary-Jane explains that Flora was called away to Mrs Johnston's labour, and the answer shifts the whole care of the household onto Mary-Jane's shoulders. She does not complain, but the weight of it settles behind her eyes.

Hal comes down subdued, wanting warmth and tea more than talk. Mary-Jane sees what the pit has done to him since he started as a trapper, the way it has drained the spirit out of a boy who used to be quick and bright. The change settles in her like a stone, and she privately vows to keep him from a hewer's life, though she has no means yet of making good on that promise. She only knows she will not let the pit have him whole.

Ned, wanting better wages from the poor seam, warns that Old Burgess will move them to worse work if the seam does not pay. Joe insists the seam will improve and refuses to hear otherwise, and the argument hangs in the close air of the cottage. It is one more worry stacked on a morning already thin with them, and Mary-Jane says nothing to either brother.

Hal, wanting comfort after a bad dream, tells them he dreamed of drowning in a bottomless mill dam. Joe dismisses it with a brother's bluntness, but Mary-Jane pities him and does not brush the fear aside. Joe, wanting sleep before the next shift, climbs the stairs favoring his bad knee, leaving Mary-Jane to finish preparing Hal for the day. She does not hurry him, though the hooter is coming.

Mary-Jane wants Hal safe and fed, so she gives him bread with honey hidden inside it and makes sure he has his snap tin. Then she sends him out into the dark with a prayer, watching him go toward the pit that has already begun to wear him down. The door closes behind him and she stands a moment with her hand on the latch.

With the men gone, Mary-Jane wants the cottage ready for her exhausted mother, so she makes dough, washes the dishes, and carries water, putting off her own rest until the work is done. The chores keep her hands busy while her mind wanders, and it wanders to Garrick Lindley. She wants him but believes he is above her, and she dwells on him while she tidies, then forces herself to stop, ashamed of wanting what she thinks she cannot have. The dough under her hands is the only thing she can shape.

Mary-Jane wants to reach the pit top on time, so she leaves at the hooter, quickening her pace despite gloves so frayed they barely cover her hands. The cold bites at her, but she does not slow, and the road fills with women and lasses all moving the same way. She keeps her eyes on the pit heap and walks as though her wage depended on it, which it does.

At the screens she wants her wage and her place, so she ties on her apron and takes her station beside Annie. The work is cold and dusty, and the foreman watches them bend to the belt. Annie, wanting more time before marriage, tells Mary-Jane that Albert has mentioned marriage, and Mary-Jane advises her to refuse until she is ready. Annie listens, and the belt keeps moving.

Mary-Jane wants a good marriage like her parents', so she rejects the idea of settling for any man. She measures Albert against the village's unhappy husbands and finds him wanting, and she holds to the standard her parents' marriage set for her. The screen lasses want to endure the cold, dusty work, so they bend to the belt under the foreman's watch and sing a Christmas hymn as the snow begins to fall.

Chapter Two

Mary-Jane returns home from the birth wanting nothing but rest. The house has other plans. Her mother is still working, worn out from her own long day, and Mary-Jane cannot sit idle while Flora keeps at it. She takes over the supper, easing the burden off her mother's shoulders without being asked, and the kitchen settles into a quieter rhythm.

Flora has a task on her mind, though, and it will not wait. The split wash-tub must be repaired before Saturday, and she orders Mary-Jane to carry it to the cooper. For Mary-Jane, the errand is a dread rather than a chore, because the cooper is Garrick Lindley, and she wants to avoid him. Flora overrules her daughter's reluctance, and Mary-Jane gives in, agreeing to go in the morning. The errand is set, and so is the knot in Mary-Jane's stomach.

Ned arrives home tipsy, and Mary-Jane's worry sharpens into a plea. She wants him to stop drinking, and she says so, her voice carrying the day's fatigue and fear. Ned rebuffs her, unwilling to hear it, and their father steps in on Ned's side, telling Mary-Jane to leave him be. The rebuke lands on her, not on Ned. The family turns back to the drink, and Mary-Jane's concern goes unanswered.

The family eats supper together, and then the men leave for the night shift. Mary-Jane wants the house settled before she can think of her own bed, so she stays up to finish what is left. The kitchen empties and quiets around her. She works until she decides the day is done.

When the house is finally still, Mary-Jane wants to calm her nerves about Garrick, but her own mind works against her. Daydreaming about him leaves her excited rather than soothed, his imagined voice and imagined glance stirring her more than any waking moment could. She goes to bed anxious for morning, her thoughts circling the cooper's yard she has been dreading.

Mary-Jane wants the tub delivered early, so she does not wait for the day to warm. She carries it through the icy lane to the cooper's yard, the cold and the weight of the tub making the errand a physical trial as much as an anxious one. Her breath clouds before her, and the lane seems longer than it has ever been.

Garrick wants to inspect the tub, and his manner puts Mary-Jane at ease. He knows her name, and he knows her grandfather's work as well, a recognition that turns a strange errand into something more personal. Then Garrick wants sixpence for the repair, and Mary-Jane's protest that it is too cheap slips out before she can stop it, embarrassing her. He will not be talked upward, and the exchange leaves her flustered in a new way.

Mrs Lindley wants to know who Mary-Jane is, and she dismisses her as a servant. The dismissal costs Mary-Jane her composure, the ease Garrick built in her stripped away in a single exchange. Then Garrick wants to deliver the tub himself, and his mother argues against it, airing the family's disapproval in plain view. The tension in the yard turns on her, and Mary-Jane wants only to escape it. She leaves the tub and flees the yard with burning cheeks.

Mary-Jane wants to reach work on time, but the delay at the cooper's yard has cost her. She arrives late, and her wage is at risk of being docked. The morning's embarrassment follows her into the mill and now threatens her pay as well.

Annie wants to gossip about Garrick, and Mary-Jane learns through her that his mother intends him for a genteel match. The news lands against everything the morning stirred in her. The mother's coldness now makes sense, and the gap between Mary-Jane and Garrick is plain. Annie's chatter carries on, but Mary-Jane hears only her own small hope being measured and found wanting.

Mary-Jane wants to forget Garrick, but his smile and the memory of his eyes leave her hopeful despite herself. She wants to focus on her work, so she joins the singing at the belt and buries her thoughts in the coal dust. The song carries her through the shift while the cooper's yard stays with her. The dust settles on her sleeves and in her hair, and beneath it all the morning stays with her.

Chapter Three

Agnes Lindley reaches for the brown teapot with the deliberate calm of a woman reasserting order over her own kitchen. She measures the leaves, pours the water, and lets the steam rise without once glancing at Nell, who stands waiting nearby. No second cup is offered, no invitation extended. Agnes drinks her tea alone, and the silence between mistress and maid says plainly who governs this house and who serves in it.

The View from the Window

Cup in hand, Agnes settles herself where she can see the yard through the lace curtains. She is watching for her son, tracking his comings and goings the way she tracks everything that might threaten her plans for him. What she sees instead is Mary-Jane arriving, and the sight of the pit girl crossing her yard sharpens everything Agnes has been turning over in her mind.

She withdraws to the parlour and broods. She cannot stop seeing the way Garrick gazed at Mary-Jane, and the memory hardens into a vow: her house will never belong to a miner's daughter. She means to defend the Lindley name.

Her thoughts drift back to her own marriage to Frank Lindley, and the recollection brings no warmth. She remembers the disappointment of village life, the narrowness of it, the sense of a woman of her caliber yoked to a small existence. That disappointment hardens into resolve. She endured the limits of village life, and she will not watch her son sink into them through a careless marriage. She prepares herself to remind Garrick of the rule she has laid down, as many times as it takes.

Visitors in the Parlour

A knock at the door interrupts her. Mrs Sykes and her daughter Cassie have come calling, and Agnes welcomes them into the parlour with every appearance of pleasure. Their purpose is plain enough: Cassie's prospects, and the hope of fixing Garrick's attention on her. Agnes's purpose aligns with theirs, and she seizes the opportunity, dispatching Nell to make a tea tray and seating her guests with warm ceremony.

Cassie plays her part well. She praises Garrick's trade, repeating the compliments her father has paid him, angling to ingratiate herself with the mother as a path to the son. Agnes receives it all favorably, filling the silences and steering the conversation, watching for any sign that her son might warm to the girl.

Garrick, when he finally comes in, gives her nothing to work with. He enters reluctantly, clearly pulled from his work and resenting it, greets the Sykes politely enough, and answers Cassie in single sentences, asking nothing in return. Agnes watches him show not the slightest romantic interest, and she must fill the silence herself.

Cassie makes her bid anyway. She asks whether Garrick will attend the Christmas concert, and whether he might save her a seat. It is a modest request, and a revealing one: she wants a chance to be seen with him, to let the village read a courtship into a saved chair. Agnes moves at once, suggesting that Garrick escort Cassie to the concert. Cornered before witnesses, Garrick agrees, but only conditionally, only reluctantly, in a way that concedes nothing.

A Word with Her Son

As Garrick heads for the workshop, Agnes calls him back for "a word." She has seen the coldness, and she has seen what she believes is the cause of it, and she intends to confront both. Garrick does not wait to be accused. He turns on her, charging her with setting Cassie in his path, and refuses outright to court a lass because she wishes it. The matchmaking, named aloud, becomes a fight.

Agnes changes tactics, arguing practicality. The grocer's business, she points out, could be sold for his benefit, a sound foundation for a man building a future. Garrick will not hear it. He calls the idea ghoulish, profiting from a girl's family trade, and he insists that he will choose for himself. The words land as a direct rejection of her authority over his life.

Agnes does not retreat. She reminds him that her dowry built the business he stands in, the money that made his workshop possible. It is her strongest card, the money that started it all. Garrick counters without flinching: the work is his, and the prices are his, including the price he set for Mary-Jane's repair. He defends his right to choose as firmly as he defends his own judgment, and then he leaves, the argument unresolved and the door between them as firm as ever.

Chapter Four

Mary-Jane works the coal belt with her hands moving on habit while her mind stays fixed on Garrick, and the distraction costs her: she fails to notice what she picks and what she lets slip past her fingers. The work that usually demands her full attention now runs second to the memory of the cooper, and the seam she is meant to be sorting goes half-tended.

Annie's Invitation

Annie breaks into this reverie with an invitation to the Christmas concert supper, and Mary-Jane hesitates. She wants to go, the wanting plain in her, but she is bound to her mother's birthing calls, and the obligation pulls against the invitation. She admits she missed the harvest festival for the same reason, her mother's work and Hal's illness between them, and the admission carries the weight of a rare night of fun lost. The stakes are small and sharp: a girl with few evenings of her own, asked to one, and the claims of family standing squarely in the way.

The Meal Bell

At the meal bell Garrick arrives with a cart of casks, and Mary-Jane drops her eyes, wanting to avoid his notice. She would rather go unseen than be seen by him, and the wish is futile. He approaches her directly and tells her he has mended her tub, and that he wanted to deliver it himself rather than send it. The errand is an excuse and both of them know it. Then he asks to bring the tub at six and to share tea while he is there, and Mary-Jane agrees, and her joy bursts through her before she can govern it. What she wanted and what stood in the way of it, her mother's calls and her own caution, give way all at once.

Annie teases her about Garrick's attention, and Mary-Jane threatens to tip her in the wash to silence her, the threat half in jest and half in earnest. But Annie does not stop there. She warns that Mrs Lindley will oppose a pit lass as a daughter-in-law, and the warning lands like a blow. Mary-Jane's bread turns to ash at the thought, the taste of it gone, the joy of a moment before soured by the name of the woman who would stand between her and the cooper.

The Green Ribbon

Mary-Jane walks home through the snow with Annie, then washes and dresses, tying her hair with a green ribbon to impress Garrick. The ribbon is a small vanity and a large hope. When her mother asks about it, Mary-Jane lies, wanting to hide her hopes about the cooper, and the lie sits between them unremarked. She is protecting something she is not ready to name aloud, least of all to Flora, whose opinion of the Lindleys is not spoken but not forgotten.

Garrick arrives with the tub and shows the two new fixtures, wanting to prove the tub will hold, and the demonstration is as much about his craftsmanship as about his standing with her. Flora pays him sixpence, and Mary-Jane is alarmed, certain the price is too low, wondering why he charged so little. The question hangs: whether it is kindness, or whether it is something else, a discount that means more than coin.

Garrick accepts tea and asks to be called by his name, wanting to be familiar with the family, and the request is a small step across a line that matters. He offers to bring a spare bucket as a Christmas gift, wanting to help the Hemsworths at no cost, and the offer is another kindness that Mary-Jane cannot quite account for. Then he asks her to attend the Christmas party with him, and she accepts, her mother's approval settling it, the yes given in front of Flora and so made safe.

Ned's Arrival

Ned arrives and greets Garrick as a cricket acquaintance, and Mary-Jane discovers a side of Garrick she never knew. The cooper she has been measuring in terms of tubs and tea and sixpence has a life beyond her door, a place among men and games, and the discovery unsettles and pleases her at once. The evening closes on this widening of him, the man she thought she knew proving to have corners she has not seen, and Mary-Jane left to wonder what else about Garrick Lindley she has yet to learn.