An Orphan's Secret Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Maggie Hope

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Read on for an extract from The Coal Miner’s Daughter

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Life is a long, though struggle for Meg Maddison…

  Growing up caring for her brothers after the death of their mother, it is only her indomitable spirit that gets her through the hard times. And when she marries and starts a family of her own, it seems as if the hardships are over.

  But the return of a darkly menacing figure from her past threatens to destroy all she has fought for…

  About the Author

  Maggie Hope was born and raised in County Durham. She worked as a nurse for many years, before giving up her career to raise her family.

  Also by Maggie Hope

  A Wartime Nurse

  A Mother’s Gift

  A Nurse’s Duty

  A Daughter’s Gift

  Molly’s War

  The Servant Girl

  A Daughter’s Duty

  Like Mother, Like Daughter

  Orphan Girl

  Eliza’s Child

  Workhouse Child

  The Miner’s Girl

  One

  January 1878

  It was cold in the lane behind Railway Cottages, so cold even the stink from the netties wasn’t so bad today. But Meg and Jonty didn’t feel the cold. Both were wrapped up warmly with mufflers tied round their heads and necks, criss-crossed around their chests and tied at the back. They were playing in the middle of the lane, they were playing house. Meg was standing inside a circle of stones which was the house, rocking the baby in her arms, and Jonty was striding down the lane with Uncle Jack’s cap on his head. He was coming home from his work on the line.

  ‘Now then, Meg,’ he said as he stepped through the gap in the stones which was the doorway. ‘Is the dinner ready? I’m starved.’ He did his utmost to deepen his voice to sound like a man but at three years old, going on four, only succeeded in making himself cough.

  Meg pursed her lip and shook her head in imitation of her mother.

  ‘You’ll be wanting some butter and sugar and vinegar the night, to cut that cough,’ she said reprovingly.

  ‘Meg! Jonty! Howay in now, I want you to get ready to go up to the Hall.’

  The children dropped their make-believe and looked over the frost-covered lane to Meg’s mam, standing in her back doorway. They moved close together. Meg took hold of Jonty’s hand, feeling it tremble. She held the baby, now just a peg dollie, by its head, dangling it by her side.

  ‘We don’t want to go to the Hall, Mam. Jonty doesn’t like it,’ said Meg, speaking for them both.

  Hannah Maddison came out of the house and walked awkwardly towards them, the bulk of her late pregnancy lifting her apron high at the front.

  ‘I know, pet, I know. But Jonty has to go, and you don’t want him to go on his own, do you?’ She put a gentle hand against each child’s head, Meg’s so fair and Jonty’s so dark, caressing them both.

  ‘Look, hinnies, it’s Monday, I don’t think Jonty’s da will be there. You like Jonty’s grandmother, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think she is Jonty’s grandmother,’ Meg declared stoutly. ‘If she is, why’s she not mine an’ all? Me and Jonty, we’re twins.’ Meg had heard Mrs Hart say they were just like twins so she had asked Da what twins meant, and he said it was when two bairns were born at the same time to one mam. So she knew she and Jonty were twins.

  Hannah smiled, but still she led the children firmly into the house to clean them up for the visit to the Hall.

  ‘No, Meg, you and Jonty are not twins, you’re cousins.’

  But Meg was not convinced. Later on as they walked over the fields to Grizedale Hall, Meg held on to Jonty. She was his twin and if Jonty’s da was there she wouldn’t let him touch Jonty, no, she wouldn’t.

  Jonty was quiet. He scuffed the frost with his boots, making long trailing marks, and Meg knew he was frightened, just in case his da was at home after all.

  Mrs Grizedale, Jonty’s grandmother, was waiting in the hall to greet them. She must have been watching out of the window. Meg rushed straight in but Jonty hung back, casting fearful glances around at the closed doors. Meg came straight to the point, even before saying hello nicely like Mam said she should.

  ‘Is Mr Grizedale in?’

  The old lady shook her head, smiling down at the little girl standing so fiercely before her cousin, ready to do battle for him.

  ‘No, dear, John Thomas’s father isn’t in, he’s gone to Darlington today on business.’

  Meg relaxed and stood aside, allowing Jonty to move forward to be kissed by Mrs Grizedale. ‘Hello, Mrs Grizedale,’ she said belatedly, ‘are you well today?’

  ‘Yes thank you, dear. Now, come into my sitting-room, both of you. I’ve ordered hot milk and Cook has baked some gingerbread men.’

  Gingerbread men! Meg’s eyes glowed in her rosy face. And it was weeks since Christmas. It must be somebody’s birthday if they were to have gingerbread men. She waited impatiently while Mrs Grizedale loosed the knot in her muffler and unwound it, then did the same for Jonty.

  Soon they were sitting before the fire in the sitting-room, drinking milk and eating the bicuits. Meg sat quietly, giving all her attention to picking out the currant eyes and eating them first then nibbling at the legs, bit by bit, making it last as long as possible. She was not really listening to Mrs Grizedale who was talking to Jonty, asking him questions. Was he well? Was his Auntie Hannah well? And Jonty was smiling and saying little, just keeping close to Meg and following what she was doing so that his biscuit wouldn’t be finished before hers.

  ‘Come, Jonty, talk to your grandmother,’ Mrs Grizedale pleaded at last. Meg heard that all right and decided she would get this question settled once and for all.

  ‘You’re not Jonty’s grandmother. How can you be his grandmother if you’re not mine?’ she demanded. ‘She’s not your grandmother, is she, Jonty?’

  Jonty shook his head. He knew better than to disagree with anything Meg said.

  ‘Oh, but I am, dear,’ protested Mrs Grizedale.

  ‘But me and Jonty, we’re twins,’ insisted Meg.

  ‘No, dear, cousins, that’s what you are. Your mother and Jonty’s mother were sisters.’ Mrs Grizedale looked at Meg’s indignant little face, the biscuit poised in one hand, forgotten for the moment. ‘Jonty’s mother passed away, dear, so your mother took him to live with you. Then, when he’s old enough for school, he will come back here to live.’

  ‘He won’t!’ asserted Meg. ‘Eeh, no, he won’t. Jonty’s going to live with us for eve
r and ever.’

  Mrs Grizedale gave up the argument, there was plenty of time yet, Jonty was not yet of school age. She changed the subject.

  ‘Hurry up and finish your gingerbread men,’ she said, ‘then you can go up to the old nursery and play with the rocking-horse. You won’t make too much noise, will you? Grandfather is in bed today, he’s not feeling well. Later on perhaps, you can go to see the horses in the stables. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Jonty?’

  He smiled and carried on with his biscuit, carefully watching Meg, synchronizing his eating with hers so that they finished the last crumb together. Mrs Grizedale watched them, a faintly anxious expression on her face.

  ‘Oh, I do hope I did the right thing taking you down to Hannah to nurse,’ she murmured, almost to herself. ‘I hope you won’t find it too upsetting when you have to come here.’ Luckily, her murmurs were too low even for Meg’s acute hearing.

  It didn’t take Meg long to lose interest in the rocking-horse.

  ‘Howay, Jonty,’ she said, sliding down from the painted wooden saddle. ‘Let’s go out to the stables and see the real galloways.’

  ‘I haven’t had a go yet,’ he objected.

  Meg sighed. ‘All right. You get on the daft thing and then we’ll go to the stables.’ She went over to the nursery window and looked out between the bars, over the stables and outhouses and beyond to the frost-covered, sloping fields of Farmer Teasdale’s farm. The rocking-horse squeaked and groaned as Jonty energetically rode it behind her.

  ‘Howay, Jonty,’ she said impatiently. ‘Hurry up, man, I want—’ Meg forgot what it was she wanted when out of the corner of her eye she saw a horseman emerge from the trees which lined the stream at the bottom of the slope. She clung to the bars and hauled herself up higher, the better to see. He was coming up to the Hall all right, up by Farmer Teasdale’s hedge, but on the inside, not on the track which the hedge bordered.

  ‘Jonty! Come and have a look.’

  He slid down to the ground obediently and went over to the window.

  ‘What is it?’

  He climbed up beside Meg and peered out.

  ‘What’re you looking at, Meg?’

  ‘Over there, by the hedge. Look, can you see?’

  The horseman had dismounted and was leading his horse up the field, but the two children had no difficulty in recognizing him immediately.

  ‘It’s me da!’

  Jonty’s cry was panicky; he began to tremble all over. He dropped down from the window bars and turned to run.

  ‘Howay, Meg, howay!’

  But she was thinking hard. She knew they couldn’t just run home, Mam would make them go back and say goodbye to Mrs Grizedale properly. No, the best thing to do was find a safe place, somewhere Jonty’s da wasn’t likely to find them.

  ‘We’ll go to see your grandfather,’ she decided, and led the way down a flight of stairs and along the upper hall to the door at the end which led to the master bedroom. She knocked hard on the door and Jonty knocked too, but no one said to come in and Jonty was getting more agitated by the minute. Meg reached up and turned the handle and went in.

  It was a large room with tall windows which faced on to the rolling parkland at the front of the house. Meg found time to admire the lovely thick carpet on the floor and the gleaming wood of the furniture. By, she marvelled, it was grand. But the middle of the room was taken up by a large bed, an impressive four-poster, and in the bed, propped up on pillows, was Jonty’s grandfather, dressed in a white nightshirt and covered with a huge, puffy eiderdown quilt. He had his eyes closed.

  The children walked over to the bed and stood watching him gravely. He was breathing slowly and deeply and Meg stared, fascinated, at the tiny bubbles appearing at the corner of his mouth every time he breathed out.

  ‘Go on, tell him good morning,’ she urged Jonty. After all, it was Jonty who should wake him. He was Jonty’s grandfather, wasn’t he?

  ‘Good morning, Grandfather,’ said Jonty.

  ‘You’ll have to say it louder than that,’ pointed out Meg, ‘or he’ll never hear you.’

  ‘Good morning, Grandfather.’ Jonty raised his voice almost to a shout and the old man stirred but did not wake. And in the silence they heard footsteps approaching along the upper hall, a man’s footsteps, and the sound sent terror coursing through them both. If Jonty’s da came in and his grandfather didn’t wake up, Jonty would be in trouble. His da would hit him again.

  He always hit him whenever he saw him and said nasty, nasty things to him. And it was too late now to seek out Jonty’s grandmother for protection, she was downstairs somewhere.

  Quick as a flash, Meg ran for the wardrobe, tugging Jonty after her. She thought she would never get the key turned in the lock but in the end she did and the door swung silently open. She pushed Jonty inside among the clothes and jumped in herself. She couldn’t manage to close the door from the inside but she pulled it to and held it by the rail on the inside which held ties and things. Behind her, Jonty buried himself behind the clothes. Her poor Jonty! She wouldn’t let his da get him. No, she wouldn’t.

  They heard the footsteps pause at the bedroom door and the door open. And Meg peered through the crack where the door wasn’t quite to and saw Jonty’s da walking over to the bed.

  ‘Father?’ he said.

  Old Mr Grizedale stirred and opened his eyes, grunting when he saw his son. He pushed himself up against the pillows and as he did so began to cough, a harsh, dry coughing which seemed to catch his breath. His face coloured up with the effort of it.

  ‘What do you want, sir?’ he managed to say, between bouts of coughing. ‘Didn’t I make it plain you would get no more money from me until your next quarterly allowance?’

  Meg watched. She didn’t know what to do. Should she come out and offer to get old Mr Grizedale some butter and sugar and vinegar for his cough to make him better? Maybe he would look after her and Jonty, maybe he wouldn’t let Jonty’s da be cruel to him. She hovered undecided and in that moment saw Jonty’s da pick up a pillow and hold it over the old man’s face. Jonty’s da was bending over the bed and holding the pillow down. Meg could see it plainly. Did he think that would make the old man better? For sure it had stopped him coughing. Behind her she could hear Jonty breathing. It was the only thing she could hear at all.

  Jonty’s da straightened up and put the pillow back under the others on the bed. She could see Mr Grizedale now. He was lying quietly, peacefully, not coughing any more. Meg leaned forward, opening the door a little further the better to see what Jonty’s da was doing. And the door swung open and she fell headlong out of the wardrobe and into the room with Jonty behind her.

  ‘What the devil!’ cried Jonty’s da, and his face went purple with rage as he saw the two children come out of nowhere. Meg didn’t want to see what he would do, she had to save Jonty for it didn’t look like old Mr Grizedale would wake up and stop Jonty’s da hitting him. He must be having a really good sleep. She grabbed hold of Jonty yet again and fled out of the room and down the stairs to where Mrs Grizedale was just coming out of her sitting-room.

  The two children paused. They had to say goodbye properly. Didn’t Mam always say they had to?

  ‘We have to go now, Mrs Grizedale,’ said Meg, if a little breathlessly.

  ‘Yes, we have to. Thank you very much for having us,’ said Jonty, though he didn’t take his eyes off the staircase. He was ready to fly the minute his da appeared at the head of the stairs, but they had to wait for Mrs Grizedale to answer them.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I thought you wanted to look round the stables? It’s early yet, you know, not twelve o’clock.’

  ‘Aye, but me mam wants us to do the messages,’ improvised Meg.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. I understand,’ said Mrs Grizedale, and as she turned away she added in her undertone, ‘Hannah must be near her time.’

  Though she might as well have spoken out loud for neither Meg nor Jonty knew what she was talking about. An
d still Jonty’s da hadn’t appeared at the head of the stairs, even though they had to wait while Mrs Grizedale wound their mufflers round them and pinned them at the back, he didn’t come.

  The children ran down the drive and over the fields, racing each other like whippets let out of the cage to chase a hare.

  ‘You’re soon back, mind,’ said Mam. She was kneading bread dough in the big earthenware dish, lifting the heavy dough from the outside and pressing it into the centre. The children watched, fascinated by the rhythm.

  ‘Da came back,’ volunteered Jonty, and Hannah frowned and paused in her work to look closely at him.

  ‘He didn’t touch you, did he, pet?’

  ‘We ran away,’ said Meg. ‘We said goodbye to Mrs Grizedale first, like.’

  ‘Good lass,’ said her mother. ‘I’m going to put the stotty cake in now. I’ll give you both a bit of dough and you can make little ones. Do you fancy doing that, then?’

  The next half hour was spent happily, kneeling on the form at the table and moulding dough. Mam put the large bread cake on the bottom of the round oven and the slightly grey smaller ones beside it to cook, while the loaves were rising on the fender before the fire. And when the stotty cakes came out of the oven they ate them hot with treacle spread on them, soaking into the bread and oozing all over the place.

  It was a lovely afternoon. Meg forgot all about Jonty’s nasty da as they sat, one on either side of Mam, on the settle drawn up to the fire. And she told the story about how she took Jonty when he was a baby to love and bring up with Meg.

  ‘Your mother was my sister,’ Mam told Jonty. ‘Eeh, she was a grand lass, she was. I married Uncle Jack and she married Ralph Grizedale. And when she died you were a tiny baby so you came to live with us.’

  ‘Why did she marry Mr Grizedale, Mam? He’s a nasty man.’

  ‘Whisht, pet, don’t say that,’ said Hannah. ‘Our poor Nell – she was your mam, Jonty – she must have loved him. And he is Jonty’s da.’

  ‘Mrs Grizedale’s nice. She gave us gingerbread men,’ said Meg. She wished with all her heart that Mr Grizedale wasn’t Jonty’s da.

  ‘You won’t die, will you, Auntie Hannah?’ put in Jonty. He leaned against her and looked up into her face with anxious eyes. Meg hadn’t thought of that and felt a tug of fear. They knew what dead was. Hadn’t Mrs Hall in the end house died and they’d taken her away in a box and she’d never come back?