A Mother's Courage 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

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Will her courage be enough to protect her family?

  Eleanor Saint spends as much time as she can helping in the community of her small mining town, even though her snobbish grandmother does not approve of her visiting the poor. When she comes of age, Eleanor is married to Francis Tait, a missionary, and she is delighted to have a husband who shares her passion for helping others.

  It is not long before Eleanor starts a family of her own. But when Mr Tait’s work takes them far from home, her children face dangers that Eleanor could never have imagined. She will need to put her family first, before everything else, if she wants to protect them…

  About the Author

  Maggie Hope is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Coal Miner’s Daughter. She was born and raised in County Durham and worked as a nurse for many years, before giving up her career to raise her family.

  Also by Maggie Hope

  A Mother’s Gift

  A Wartime Nurse

  A Daughter’s Gift

  A Nurse’s Duty

  Molly’s War

  The Servant Girl

  A Daughter’s Duty

  Like Mother, Like Daughter

  Orphan Girl

  Workhouse Child

  Eliza’s Child

  The Miner’s Girl

  An Orphan’s Secret

  The Coal Miner’s Daughter

  Chapter One

  ‘Please, missus, can you not spare a bite for me little sister?’

  Eleanor heard the plea as she came through the baize door into the kitchen with the orders for cook from Grandmother Wales. Grandmother was not feeling well and had decided to rest in bed until the dinner hour at three.

  ‘You will be so good as to give cook the menus for the day,’ she had said to the fifteen-year-old Eleanor, more of a command than a request, thought Eleanor rebelliously; after all, she wasn’t a servant.

  ‘Yes, Grandmother,’ she replied meekly enough, though she was wishing she was back at the Wesleyan School for Young Ladies in Houghton le Spring. But she was too old for school, her mother had said; it was time she learned about household duties, how to look after a husband and a family, and about managing servants. How else was she to find a gentleman willing to marry her? For Eleanor was a little too plump and plain with her straight black hair, which, though thick and glossy, had to be tied up in rags every night to produce the ringlets that girls her age wore. A line of anxiety would appear between Mama’s brows whenever she looked at her daughter, her ninth child, and the one it was going to be most difficult to get settled in life.

  I don’t want to be married, Eleanor told herself as she closed the door from the hall behind her and walked into the kitchen, lifting her crinoline skirts slightly so as to negotiate the narrow path between the dresser and the large scrubbed table that stood in the middle of the room. What she wanted to do was go on with her studies and one day get the chance to go to university and become a doctor – an ambition she had learned to keep to herself, for if she mentioned it to anyone at all they thought she was very droll and couldn’t possibly mean it. Young ladies definitely did not go to university to study anything; their poor minds were not up to it, her father had said when she first broached the subject.

  Eleanor sighed and looked towards the back door where Mrs Green, the cook, was standing, holding the knob of the door in one hand ready to close it.

  ‘Go away, Mary Buckle,’ the cook was saying. ‘You know I can’t give you any food, I could lose my position here if I did. You should be ashamed, begging at the door like this, can’t you get any work like respectable folk?’

  ‘Mary Buckle!’ Eleanor cried and moved to the door. She knew Mary Buckle – hadn’t they been in the same Sunday School class years ago when they were both small? That had been when Eleanor had stayed the whole summer here in Hetton-le-Hole with her grandparents.

  Mrs Green halted in the act of closing the door and stood back. ‘It’s Mrs Wales’s orders, miss,’ she said, ‘no handouts at the door.’

  ‘Mary,’ Eleanor said again, ignoring Mrs Green for the moment. She stared at the other girl, who was about five feet tall, very thin, and the cotton dress she was wearing, despite the cold north-easter that was blowing up the yard, barely reached her calves. The shawl that she had over her shoulders was also wrapped round the tiny girl she carried on her hips, a sickly-looking child of about two years old. But it was Mary’s face that shocked Eleanor for although they were the same age, Mary’s could have been that of a woman in her thirties.

  ‘Mary, you remember me, don’t you?’ Eleanor said at last, trying to wipe the shock from her face. ‘I met you at Sunday School years ago, when I was here for the summer, can you remember?’

  ‘Aye, I can. I remember you all right, miss,’ answered Mary. The child in her arms squirmed and sniffled and she hitched her higher on to her hip. ‘Be still, Prue, will you?’ she admonished sharply before turning back to Eleanor. ‘She’s hungry, like, we both are. We’ve had nowt to eat since yesterday. There is a supper at chapel the night, miss, but it’s a long time till seven o’clock, like.’

  ‘Oh!’ Eleanor stood back from the door, distressed. ‘Come in, do, sit by the fire and warm up, you must be frozen. I’ll get you something to eat.’

  Mary stepped forward immediately, walked past the scandalised cook and sat down in that lady’s chair by the range, with its blazing fire, piled high with best household coal in order to heat the oven for the evening meal. There was a smell of new bread baking in the oven; cook must have the bread rolls for dinner in there now.

  ‘Miss—’ Mrs Green began but Eleanor interrupted.

  ‘I’m sure there’s bread left from yesterday’s baking, isn’t there, Mrs Green? And is there any cheese in the pantry? And two of your excellent jam tarts, I’m sure the baby would like one of those.’

  Mrs Green didn’t move. ‘There are only enough tarts for the mistress’s tea,’ she said, her whole being exuding disapproval that Eleanor refused to acknowledge.

  ‘Well then, a fairy cake, I know there are some fairy cakes, Mrs Green.’

  Reluctantly, the cook moved to the pantry and came out a moment later with two pieces of bread and cheese and two dainty fairy cakes on a single plate.

  Prue sat up straight on her sister’s lap and stared at the food, her eyes gleaming. A tiny drop of slaver appeared at the corner of her mouth and ran down her chin and she r
aised a tiny hand, rubbing it away impatiently. She did not reach for the food when Eleanor first proffered the plate, however; first she looked up at her sister, her eyes large with hope.

  ‘Go on, Prue,’ Mary said gently. ‘It’s all right to eat.’

  She herself waited until Prue had picked up bread in one hand and a piece of cheese in the other before taking a piece of bread herself. She ate carefully, a small bite at a time, concentrating wholly on the food. But the child tore the bread with her hands and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing quickly and barely swallowing one piece before taking another.

  ‘Careful now, Prue,’ Mary said warningly. ‘You’ll choke.’ The child slowed for a moment but soon forgot and resumed ramming the food into her mouth.

  Eleanor watched, dismayed, while Mrs Green stalked off into the pantry and could be heard banging pans about. Prue coughed and put a hand to her chest, obviously finding the food too dry but determined to eat it anyway. Eleanor found two cups in the dresser, filled them with milk from the jug on the table and offered them silently.

  ‘I’m grateful to you, I am, God bless you, Eleanor Saint,’ Mary said quietly and sipped daintily from her cup. Prue regarded the milk suspiciously and looked at her sister again, seeing she was drinking the milk but unsure whether to follow her example.

  ‘It’s all right, Prue, it’s milk, it’s good for you,’ Mary reassured her.

  ‘Do you mean to say she hasn’t seen milk before?’ asked Eleanor, shocked.

  ‘Not since Da was killed in the pit.’

  ‘Oh dear, I’m so sorry.’

  The words hung in the silence, inadequate, banal. Eleanor tried again. ‘I mean, I know how awful it is, my father died too. Last year.’

  ‘More?’

  Their attention was taken by Prue’s request; she had climbed down from her sister’s knee and was holding the plate out to Eleanor. The plate was empty so she must have eaten Mary’s cake as well as her own. She still hadn’t touched her milk; the cup was perched on the steel fender before the grate. Eleanor looked down into the intent brown eyes, almost too large for the pinched little face, and nodded, unable to speak for the emotion welling up in her. Emotion that was a mixture of the old, aching sadness over the death of her own father and pity for these two, so much worse off than she was herself. For her own father, though he had begun work as a miner, had been a colliery agent when he died. The family circumstances were now straitened but they were certainly not so badly off as Mary seemed to be.

  ‘No, Prue, don’t ask for more,’ said Mary. ‘You’ve had enough.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ the child asserted, shaking her head.

  ‘I’ve told you,’ said her sister firmly. ‘We’ll go home now.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ insisted Prue. ‘I hungry.’

  ‘Perhaps just another piece of bread?’ suggested Eleanor and behind her, from the pantry, she heard Mrs Green snort and mutter something about most folks having to work for a living.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Mary and rose to her feet, catching hold of Prue’s hand. She stood before Eleanor, her head held high despite her rags and the fact that Prue was dragging at her hand and whimpering.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘I won’t forget your kindness to us.’

  ‘Would you like some to take home? I could easily put some in a basket for you,’ said Eleanor.

  Mary hesitated before answering. ‘Mam wouldn’t like it,’ she said at last. ‘We’re not supposed to ask for anything, but Prue was so hungry and I thought—’

  She broke off as Prue suddenly stopped struggling and turned a nasty shade of green.

  ‘I feel bad,’ she whimpered.

  ‘Don’t you be sick in here,’ cried Mary and rushed her off to the drain in the back yard where Prue promptly relieved her stomach of its contents. ‘Never mind, pet,’ Mary whispered to her. ‘You’ll feel better now. Mind, you shouldn’t have eaten both the cakes, it was over much on an empty stomach.’

  ‘I could have told you that would happen, miss,’ commented Mrs Green, folding her arms across the white expanse of her apron and nodding sagely. ‘Cakes is too rich for them by half. Such as them’s not used to cakes.’

  ‘Seems to me they’re not used to eating anything, let alone cakes,’ Eleanor was stung into replying. She would have said more but from inside the kitchen a bell began to ring insistently. She looked up at the row of bells and saw it was the one from Mrs Wales’s bedroom. ‘It’s Mrs Wales,’ she said when Mrs Green didn’t move.

  ‘I cannot be leaving the kitchen when I’ve bread in the oven and strangers in the yard,’ said the cook. ‘And Jane’s gone for the messages and Phoebe’s busy in the drawing room. Mebbe you can answer it, miss?’

  Eleanor seethed. She almost retorted that she wasn’t a servant, that it wasn’t her place to answer the summons of the bell. She glared at the cook but Mrs Green stared implacably back and in the end it was the fifteen-year-old Eleanor who dropped her eyes and turned towards the door that led into the downstairs hall. Passing the window, she noticed that Mary and Prue were going out of the gate, Prue straddled on her sister’s hip and her head lying on Mary’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ll find out where they live and go to see them,’ she said aloud as she went upstairs to her grandmother. Standing before the bedroom door, she smoothed down her dress and patted her ringlets in place before going in. Grandmother could be quite cutting if she thought her granddaughter looked at all untidy.

  ‘Where have you been, Eleanor?’ Grandmother’s voice was petulant. ‘And where are the maids? One would think the house deserted, it makes one wonder why we keep such lazy good-for-nothings. What they need is a firm hand; if only I felt better and was able to oversee them properly things would be different, you’d see.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Grandmother, I was in the kitchen giving cook your orders.’ Even as she said it, Eleanor remembered she had done no such thing. Oh well, she would do it as soon as she could. ‘Jane has gone on an errand for cook and Phoebe is still cleaning the drawing room. Can I get you anything, Grandmother?’

  ‘I have a headache,’ said Margaret Wales fretfully. ‘I need more lavender water to soothe it, it’s the only thing that helps. Why was I not informed that Jane was going out? She could have bought some at the apothecary’s. Here am I, mistress of the house, and no one tells me anything. How am I to run it properly?’

  ‘I can go, Grandmother, it’s not far, it won’t take long.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Margaret bit her lip doubtfully as she regarded Eleanor. ‘It’s not proper for young ladies to be out on the streets on their own.’

  ‘I’ll only be ten minutes, Grandmother.’

  Margaret nodded, wincing as she did so. ‘Oh, my poor head. I suffer so from these dizzy spells. Go, then, but don’t dawdle and don’t speak to anyone. Remember you are a young lady now and should behave as such.’

  Eleanor sped down the stairs and gave the belated orders to Mrs Green. Tying on her bonnet before the looking glass in the hall, she grimaced at her reflection. The plain brown bonnet with its demure brim and matching ribbons did nothing for her, except perhaps to hide the fact that her heavy hair was already beginning to drop out of its ringlets. Still, at least her cloak hid her plump arms and neck, she thought, grinning as she turned away. She was so looking forward to getting out of the house, even if just for half an hour; the air inside was so stale for, after October, Grandmother insisted on all the windows being kept closed.

  The street outside was muddy and there was no footpath so she was glad she had remembered to strap on her pattens. At least they raised her skirts above the mud and she was still young enough to enjoy the satisfying squelching sound they made as she walked along to the corner and turned into Front Street for Mr Herrington’s apothecary shop.

  She bought two ounces of lavender water from Mr Herrington’s apprentice, a young boy who blushed and stammered and fumbled with the wrapping paper as he made a parcel of the tiny bottle. Eleanor sto
od demurely waiting, holding her lips together primly so as not to burst out laughing as she pretended not to notice how inept he was.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Saint – it is Miss Saint, is it not?’

  Eleanor looked up as she heard the minister’s voice. She knew him well, for Mr Nelson served her home chapel besides this one in Hetton. ‘Good morning, Mr Nelson,’ she answered. ‘How are you today?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, Miss Saint. You are staying with your grandmother and uncle, I take it? How is Mrs Wales?’

  Fractious and ill-tempered, Eleanor thought, but otherwise in fairly good health. Aloud she said, ‘Tolerably well, thank you, Mr Nelson, apart from a headache. I must go now, she’s waiting for this lavender water.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Saint,’ said the minister, nodding his head so that his grey-speckled beard went up and down against his white collar. ‘I may expect to see you in chapel on Sunday, then?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Mr Nelson,’ Eleanor replied and escaped into the street. The winter sun was glinting on the coloured bottles through the small panes of the apothecary’s window and she looked up at them, pleased with the jewel-like colours. Reluctantly, she walked slowly along the street, almost deserted at this hour, as the whistle from Lyon Pit had just blown its message over the pit rows that fore shift was loosing, and the men and boys were coming home. The womenfolk would all be busy preparing a meal for them, thought Eleanor, or setting the back shift off for their ten hours in the pit. Dreamily, she imagined them in the tiny cottages in the rows, happy families even if they were poor. Though the mines were doing well and the pitmen were all in work and earning good money, according to her Uncle John.

  Eleanor was almost to the end of the village and regretfully she turned the corner to the lane that led to the Lyon viewer’s house out of the village, away from the dirt of the pit yard and colliery rows. As she passed the end cottage she noticed the door was open and she couldn’t resist peeping inside, for she had remembered that this was the Buckles’ cottage. A flagstone was in place before the open doorway and a rag mat lay on top to keep the worst of the mud at bay. Eleanor paused, staring into the room, which had a brick fireplace with a smoking fire and a ladder up to a hole in the rafters, presumably leading to a bedroom. The only other furniture in the room was a bed in the corner, covered by a patchwork quilt. The floor was made of bricks laid end to end and there was another rag mat before the fire.