A Mother's Gift Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  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

  Part Two

  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

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Copyright

  About the Book

  What will Katie do to keep her child?

  When Katie’s grandfather and her childhood sweetheart are both killed in a mining accident, she is devastated by grief. Matthew Hamilton, the unscrupulous owner of the mine, takes advantage of her distress in the most despicable manner.

  Thrown out by her grandmother, her reputation and nursing career in tatters, Katie finds herself facing a home for unmarried mothers. Only Hamilton offers her a way to keep her baby, but only if she forgoes her principles and becomes his mistress...

  From the bestselling author of A WARTIME NURSE.

  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.

  She is the author of A WARTIME NURSE, also published by Ebury.

  A Mother’s Gift

  Maggie Hope

  For my lovely grandson,

  Jonathan Christopher Hepworth

  Part One

  Chapter One

  IT WAS JUST a muffled sort of sound at first but as it progressed down the row it got louder. Thump! Thump! Knock, knock, knock! Gran dropped her slice of bread and dripping on the table and rushed to the black-leaded range, picked up the poker and with the handle banged on the fire-back above the bars. Bang, Bang! This time the thumping rang metal on metal.

  ‘Howay, pet,’ Gran said to Kate, ‘give us a hand, the man’s on his way. Had away and tak’ a peep. See how far he’s got down the row.’

  Kate nodded her head, went to the front door, had a bit of trouble getting it open because it was stuck with all the rain they’d had that summer and the threshwood was swollen and rotten and coming away in thin spelks, leaving gaps for the rain to get in. But she did get it open and stuck her head out to look up the row.

  He was there all right, the Means-test man, him with his double-breasted suit and shiny shoes and his hair slicked back with real brilliantine not water. He was close an’ all, too close. She pushed the door to and ran back through the room to the kitchen.

  ‘He’s nearly here, Gran, he’s just at Mrs Wearmouth’s!’ Mrs Wearmouth was only three doors away, Kate’s heart began to beat faster with the dread of the Means-test man.

  ‘We’re here, Mrs Benfield, what have we to tak’?’

  Billy Wright and his marra burst in the back door and glanced around at the meagre furnishings. There was obviously little to take from the kitchen, all it held was a table, a press which was propped up with an off-cut from a pit prop where Grandad had broken the leg one night when he came in bad with the beer and three chairs.

  ‘The sofa in the room!’ said Gran. ‘Oh God, don’t let them take me sofa will you, lads!’

  ‘Not if we can help it,’ said Billy, making a beeline for the connecting door. But he was too late and it was Kate’s fault. She hadn’t closed the front door properly and it had swung open and now, gazing at the opening in horror, she saw the Means-test man standing there, already writing in his notebook.

  ‘Mrs Benfield isn’t it?’ he said, ‘And who are these two lads? I thought there were just you and your man and the lass? Katie Benfield, isn’t it?’

  Kate stepped into the room and nodded her head, unable to speak. Not so Gran who pushed past her and stood, all four feet ten inches of her and with fists on skinny hips, confronting the Means-test man. The two boys melted away; they had other things to do, helping the other residents of the rows to hide their treasured bits of furniture and nick-nacks the Board reckoned could be sold and the money deducted from the hardship allowance. Katie knew that they would be all up and down the back lane carrying precious bits out to hide in the back yards of houses that had already been inspected. She watched her gran, face red as fire as she glared up at the man.

  ‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?’ Gran screeched. ‘I’ll have the law on you, I will an’ all! Barging into decent folk’s houses—’

  ‘Aw, howay, Missus,’ he said and pushed his glasses up over the bridge of his nose. ‘You know full well who I am.’ He looked mildly down at her and sighed. ‘All right,’ he said and for a wild minute Katie thought they had won. But no, he simply reached in his pocket and took out a card. ‘There you are, Mr Thompson I am, see it there on the top? And I have full powers to have a look to see what you’ve got worth selling. So you’d best not get in me way or it will be the worse for you.’

  He stepped forward and Gran turned on him, stamping her foot and screaming, ‘Get out! Get out!’

  Easily he took hold of her around her skinny shoulders and lifted her bodily to one side and then, as though nothing had happened, went over to the sofa and felt the plush covering and worn out springs. Calmly taking a piece of chalk from his jacket pocket he chalked a price on the back: 2/6. He was writing the amount into his notebook when Gran got her second wind.

  ‘2/6!’ she shouted. ‘Two shillings and sixpence! Are you telling me my sofa’s worth no more than 2/6?’ Her expression reflecting her outrage she jumped at him, stamping her heel on his instep, grinding it in. When this made no impression, after all he has wearing good leather shoes and she was in flat-heeled plimsolls minus their laces, her ‘house slippers’ as she called them, she tried kicking him in the shins.

  ‘Come away, Gran, please,’ said Katie, grabbing her arm and pulling her as hard as she could.

  Mr Thompson sighed. ‘I’m sorry Missus,’ he said, ‘but if you are going to carry on like this I’ll only call the polis. Now, howay, be a good lass.’

  ‘A good lass! And you telling me my sofa that cost me four bob a week for three years is worth only two shillings and sixpence?’

  ‘I’m trying to help you, Missus. Can you not see that if I say it’s worth more it means you’ll have more deducted?’

  ‘Well—’ Gran was brought up short, she didn’t know what to say but not for long. ‘Lad,’ she tried in a softer tone, almost wheedling, ‘lad, I only get four and sixpence for the bairn and fourteen and six from the dole for me man. I cannot keep the lass on two shillings, you can see that, can’t you?’

  Katie cringed as she saw the look on Mr Thompson’s face, almost a smirk.

  ‘I tell you what Missus, did you not go to school?’ he asked. ‘If you could but add up you would see you have nineteen shillings coming in, where do you think it comes from? Folk like me who�
��s doing an honest day’s work.’ Sticking his chalk in his pocket he walked to the door. ‘Good day, Missus,’ he said. ‘You’ll be hearing from us.’

  ‘Well, at least we’ve given the rest of them time to hide their bits,’ said Gran. She was bending over the sofa looking at the numbers chalked on the back. Taking out a rag duster from her apron pocket she spit on it and rubbed at the chalk hopelessly.

  ‘I might be able to get a job,’ said Katie. ‘I thought I could deliver groceries for the Co-op store. They want people.’

  ‘They want lads,’ Gran said flatly.

  ‘Well, I can put my hair up in a cap and borrow Grandad’s bike. I can—’

  ‘Aw man, Katie, don’t be a bigger fool than you can help. Nobody is going to tak’ you for a lad, you’re going on thirteen already though by heck, you don’t act it!’

  Katie looked down at her feet miserably. The toecaps of her boy’s shoes were scuffed so badly the top layer stuck up in tufts. She had hoped they might be able to get a grant to buy her new school shoes but that wasn’t likely now. And Gran would never sell the sofa, why should she? It was the only place she could get a bit of peace and quiet on a Sunday afternoon, when Grandad came in from the club and lay snoring upstairs in bed.

  ‘Any road,’ Gran was saying. ‘Any road, if you got a job they’d tak’ the other two bob off us an’ all. I don’t know. I might just have to ask your mam for a few coppers to help us out like.’

  ‘No, don’t, Gran!’ Katie exclaimed. ‘You know they cannot give us anything. I’ll find something to do, I will.’ Kitty Benfield sat down the sofa and gazed solemnly at her granddaughter. The granddaughter she loved and Noah loved an’ all, she knew that. Though sometimes she thought he loved the beer more. Ah, it was no good, men always had to have their pocket money for beer after working down the pit all the week. Though they weren’t working down the pit at the minute and hadn’t done for weeks.

  There was no market for the steel from the ironworks in Middlesbrough so there was no demand for the coal from the pits because the pits were owned by the men who made the steel and they had closed them down. Not all of them but this one, the one at Winton, which was what mattered to her family. Because the Hamiltons owned the pits and the ironworks and most everything else she could think of. By, she’d like to see them worrying about where their next crust of bread was coming from. She’d laugh in their faces, she would.

  Kitty roused herself from her bitter reverie and sighed. ‘Aye, I know,’ she said heavily, ‘your mam’s worse off than us.’ After all, it was a fact that her Thomas and his wife had six bairns to think of without Katie. After all that was why she had taken Katie when she was but six months old, and a second child. Hannah had had to stop giving her the breast because she was already far on with a new baby. And Katie hadn’t thrived on sugar water and condensed milk and Kitty had picked her up one day from the rickety pram which had been pushed into the furthest corner of the yard so her mam wasn’t pestered by her weakly cry. By she had thought, the bairn was light as a feather.

  ‘I’ll tak’ her,’ she had said to Hannah and Hannah had merely looked at her and nodded. Hannah had about given up, what with feeling sick and bone weary all through her pregnancies and this last one was the third in two years.

  ‘It’s no good you complaining, mind,’ Kitty had said to Noah when she carried the bairn into the house. ‘We’ve got this bairn now and we have to fetch her up.’ To give him his due, Noah said not a word. Why, after all, it happened quite often that a grandmother took a bairn that was one too many. And there was no denying it was sweet to hold the little thing and Katie had been a good bairn, sleeping through the night once she had her belly filled with good milk. And look at her now, a lass to be proud of.

  Katie looked like Noah an’ all, a real bonny lass she was with dark blue eyes and wavy fair hair and straight limbs, not like a lot of the bairns in Winton where rickets was the scourge of the babbies. Her own younger sister, Ena, hadn’t walked till she was three, her legs bent out in a bow.

  ‘I just wanted to say, thanks for giving us time to hide the good tea service, Kitty, I’m ever so grateful.’

  Katie and her gran glanced up. Dottie Dowson from next door was standing in the back doorway, hesitating for only a courtesy moment before coming in and standing before the range. She was a stout woman and her pinny was pulled tightly round her waist, straining at the thin strings tied at the back. She looked hopefully towards the kettle on the side but the fire was almost out and the teapot out of sight in the pantry.

  ‘By, I’m fair clemming for a cup of tea,’ she said.

  ‘Aye well,’ said Gran, who had come through from the room with Katie close behind. ‘There’s no coal and what’s more, I’ve swept the coal house out, there’s not so much as a teaspoonful left. So how I’m supposed to mak’ a drop of tea I don’t know.’

  ‘Aye, me an’ all,’ sighed Dottie. ‘I’ll have to go to the soup kitchen again for a bit of dinner for the bairns.’

  Kitty looked at her. So far the Benfields had not been to the soup kitchen which operated from a room behind the infants school. And she couldn’t bear the thought that they might have to go now. She looked hopelessly at Katie and Katie caught the look and something shrivelled inside her. But if Gran wanted her to go to the soup kitchen then she would go, she decided, never mind if the girls from school saw her there. It was her fault the Means-test man had got in before the lads had the sofa hid and it was up to her to do something about it.

  ‘I’ll come with you, Mrs Dowson,’ she said.

  ‘Eeh, no, lass,’ said Gran but her voice trembled unconvincingly.

  ‘I will, I don’t mind, honest,’ said Katie. But half an hour later as she stood in line with a large bowl held before her and a paper bag for the bread in her pocket she minded all right. Especially she minded when a group of girls from the grammar school got off Radley’s bus, talking and laughing until they saw Katie standing there, her back turned towards them in a forlorn hope they wouldn’t see her. Not that they said anything nasty, oh no. After all, they had been her friends at the junior school and she had won a scholarship to go to the grammar school with them but Gran hadn’t been able to afford the uniform.

  ‘Hello, Katie,’ June Wright had called and blushed and the girls had walked on talking quietly to each other and June had glanced back and away quickly when she saw Katie was still looking. Katie’s throat burned and her heart beat sickeningly for she knew they must be talking about her. And it was then that she vowed to herself that she would get out of Winton, she would make something of herself. Oh yes she would if she died in the attempt.

  Moving along with the queue Katie had her bowl filled with vegetable broth with bits of ham floating in it by Mrs Brown, the wife of the manager of the Co-op store.

  ‘I’ve put some extra bread in for you, Katie,’ Mrs Brown said kindly. Katie blushed and stammered thanks she could hardly get out because her throat was closing up tightly but at last she was free to go home as fast as the slopping broth would allow her to walk.

  ‘Flaming hell, what’s this muck?’ Noah demanded when he sat down at the kitchen table to eat his share. ‘By, our Kitty, you know damn well I don’t like broth.’ His face was red with anger and for a minute Katie thought he might chuck the lot out into the yard but he didn’t.

  ‘What do you expect when the pit’s laid off?’ Gran demanded. ‘Do you know the Means-test man’s been round this morning? Put a price on my sofa he did an’ all.’ Her voice quivered as she spoke, no anger there, just despair.

  ‘You mean this is from the soup kitchen,’ said Noah. ‘Why man, is it any wonder a man turns to drink?’

  ‘It’s well to be seen you had the price of a pint!’

  Noah sighed. He picked up his spoon and began ladling the soup into his mouth, swallowing fast and in between mouthfuls taking great bites out of a crust of bread in his other hand. The truth was he hadn’t had the money for a pint, he had gone into the club
intending to put the price on the slate. Only Les, behind the bar, had shaken his head.

  ‘Nay, Noah,’ he had said. ‘The slate’s full enough. You’ll have to find threepence if you want a pint.’

  Noah had stared at him in disbelief. ‘Hey,’ he had demanded, ‘haven’t I always paid me dues as soon as I could?’

  ‘Aye, I know, lad,’ said Les. ‘But I can only sub you so far, be fair, man. I have the brewery to pay and I don’t mind telling you they’re getting a bit restless like.’

  Noah had gone a fiery red with the humiliation but he held his head up and glared at the club steward. ‘Well, by hell,’ he’d said. ‘If I go out now I tell you, I won’t be back! I’ll walk to Coundon first.’ He glanced around the bar for support but as it happened the place was almost empty, only a domino-playing foursome of aged miners sitting in the corner nursing half-pints which had lasted them since the bar opened at eleven. They had looked up at the sound of the altercation at the bar but quickly turned back to the dominoes. Noah looked back at the steward. He was polishing glasses and whistling under his breath and obviously not caring if Noah and all the rest of the laid-off miners deserted for Coundon.

  Noah strode to the door then glanced around once again. ‘Aye well,’ he said. ‘I could do with the exercise any road. I’m away then.’ The steward didn’t reply.