A Mother's Gift Read online

  ‘Righto.’

  Katie ran off down the row to the school. Only a year and a bit before she could leave school altogether and get a job. She couldn’t wait for the day. It was the only way she was going to get on now that there was no chance of getting a secondary education.

  Behind her, Billy Wright leaned on the shovel and watched her disappear around the corner. She was a bonny lass, he thought, a real bonny lass. If she was a bit older; if they were both a bit older and he had a job he might ask her to go out with him. Aye well, time would remedy that, wouldn’t it? He walked up the alley carrying the two buckets of coal for Mrs Scott before taking Kitty’s yard broom and sweeping up the dust left on the pavement.

  He was due at the Technical Institute in an hour for his class in mining surveying. He intended to be ready when the pits went back to work. He wasn’t going to work filling coal for long though. Nor even as a hewer on the coal face. No, he was going to be a surveyor and then maybe even go into management.

  He climbed on to the bus for Bishop Auckland an hour later, washed and spruced up but with his dark hair uncovered for he had decided not to wear his cap. A cap was the mark of a miner or another lowly occupation and he meant to start as he intended to go on. And in good time he would marry Katie Benfield, he promised himself. After all, there was no hurry, they had all the time in the world.

  ‘Gran says for you to tell our Willie to come round for a couple of buckets of coal tonight,’ Katie said to her sister when she found her in the schoolyard during the break. Betty looked at her as she would at a stranger or at least someone she didn’t know very well. She always did, all Katie’s sisters did and it made her feel uncomfortable.

  ‘We heard Grandda had got taken on with the safety men,’ said Betty. ‘Me mam says he’s got hair on his toenails, he’s that lucky.’

  For a brief moment Katie pictured Noah’s toenails with hair sprouting from them and her lips twitched. She looked at her sister, noting her limp, straight hair, how thin and pale she was. She didn’t look like a Benfield, she took after Mam’s family. And they were mostly sickly.

  Betty sniffed. ‘We don’t want any favours, like,’ she said. ‘That’s what me mam says.’

  ‘What do you mean, no favours? We’re the same family, aren’t we?’

  Betty stared at her and sniffed once again. ‘Oh aye, I suppose so,’ she said as the bell rang. She went off, calling to a friend to wait for her, not even saying goodbye to Katie who was left feeling sad.

  As she sat through the afternoon of needlework class at which she was hopelessly inept, followed by history, which she liked well enough, the thought kept coming back to her. Why did her sisters not count her as real family? That was what she wanted really, to be counted as one of them.

  She had asked her grandma once why things were like they were but the old woman had only shaken her head. The truth was Kitty didn’t get on too well with her daughter-in-law and when she had taken Katie, Hannah gave every appearance of having put out of her mind the fact that Katie was really her child. Hannah wasn’t really fit to be a miner’s wife, that was the truth of it. Kitty had remarked on it to Noah more than once.

  ‘Why man, leave her alone, Kitty,’ he usually said. ‘She’s our Tom’s choice an’ that’s all about it.’

  Katie would hear him and wonder. Why hadn’t she been her da’s choice, she wondered. She asked her gran once but Kitty had simply said she was her choice and that was all that mattered. And Katie did admit she would rather live with her gran than in the untidy, higgledy-piggledy house her mother kept.

  Katie left school on her fourteenth birthday and went to work in the Meadow Dairy, a grocer’s shop in Newgate Street in Auckland. But as she counted out eggs, sliced bacon and weighed out pats of butter, she dreamed of better things. One day, one day, she told herself, she would become a nurse. A proper nurse, trained, and for that she had to have a better education. So her evenings were taken up in studying and in attending classes in adult education. She hadn’t time to go around with the other girls in the rows, she was determined to make something of her life. And that meant she had no friends. At least not friends she could call close.

  ‘We will re-open the mines which are idle next week,’ said Matthew.

  ‘Will you, dear? That’s nice,’ Mary Anne replied.

  Once again they were sitting over the breakfast table but now they were living at what had been Dawson Hall and which Matthew had re-named Hamilton Hall. For not only had the Dawson Ironworks been swallowed up by the Hamilton works, but Dawson’s private property had been mortgaged to Matthew. Dawson had died the year before and Matthew had done what he considered to be the decent thing. He had provided his widow with a decent little house in Ormsby and moved himself and his family into the Hall. It was far away from the smells and dirt of the ironmasters’ district of Middlesbrough on the North York moors.

  He glanced irritably at his wife now. He was sure she hadn’t heard a single word he had said. And if she had she hadn’t understood, she was as dim as a Toc H lamp in his opinion.

  ‘I said we were going to open up the pits, Mary Anne. Don’t you know what that means? The business is picking up at last.’

  Mary Anne glanced quickly up at him then returned her gaze to her plate. All he thought of was money, she told herself. That and begetting an heir. He wouldn’t come to her bed but for that. Oh, God, how she hated it when he did. She lay there night after night, trembling with terror, going through the awful experience over and over in her mind until she heard him come upstairs and go into his dressing room. She would strain to hear the creak of his bedsprings as he climbed into bed and only then would she shudder and sigh and settle herself for sleep. It hadn’t been like that with her first husband, dear Robert.

  She had not been prepared for the rough way Matthew would take her with no preamble, thrust into her rigid body so that she had to bite her tongue to stop herself screaming out loud with pain.

  She moved on her chair now, trying to ease the soreness in her vagina, the aching in her thighs.

  ‘The miners will be glad, dear,’ she said. Matthew snorted in disgust and got to his feet.

  ‘Well, I’m going over there, I can’t say when I’ll be back,’ he said. He went out into the hall and took his overcoat from John, his newly acquired manservant. Then picking up his hat and gloves before John could do it for him he strode out to the waiting car. A purposeful figure, Mary Anne thought as she watched through the dining-room window.

  ‘Mama! Mama!’

  Mary Anne turned, her whole demeanour transformed now that her husband had left the house. She opened her arms and Robert and Maisie ran to her; something they would certainly not have done if their stepfather had still been in the house.

  ‘What shall we do today, darlings?’ she asked, one arm round Robert as she kissed the top of Maisie’s head.

  ‘We have lessons first,’ said Miss Morton. She was standing quietly by the door, watching the children with their mother. ‘Well, until eleven o’clock at least,’ she added as all three turned reproachful faces to her.

  ‘I thought we could go into Whitby,’ said Mary Anne. ‘We could look at the shops and decide what Father Christmas should bring for Christmas. We can have tea there too, crumpets and butter and fairy cakes. Would you like that?’

  No one was going to deny that they did indeed like the idea and well before lunch they were driving across the moors in the four-seater Austin that Matthew had bought for Mary Anne’s use when they moved to the Hall. Everyone in the house had been sceptical about it but Mary Anne had surprised them all by mastering the car within a week by driving round the estate during every hour of daylight she could.

  They took a picnic basket and ate on the cliff above Runs wick Bay. Mary Anne wanted to make the day as memorable as she possibly could, for after Christmas, Robert was to go to a crammer in Barnard Castle before taking the Common Entrance. After that, well, his father had put his name down for Durham School.
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  As he usually did when in the town, Matthew lunched at the Queen’s Head in Bishop Auckland. Afterwards he strolled through the market place towards the entrance to the bishop’s palace. The gates to the park were open and he walked through, taking his time for he had a couple of hours to spare before his appointment with Parsons.

  Today he felt a little less energetic than usual, not at all inclined to inspect his properties before the meeting; something he would normally have done.

  A watery December sun shone on the trees sloping away from the path to his left. It lit up the few bronzed leaves still clinging to the branches. Below them he could see the occasional glint of the rain-swollen Gaunless on its way to meet the Wear. To his right he could see through the gates in the massive wall to the castle, old and solid, the mullioned windows glinting palely in the sun. He walked on to where the cow-catcher gate opened out the ride to the greater park behind it; the stretches of grassland and the old oaks from which the town got its name. It was very tranquil and beautiful, a world away from the smoking chimneys, whirring wheels and slag heaps of the mines. Yet he knew there were pit yards within easy walking distance. He stood leaning on the fence by the gate and smoked his cigar. Then he turned to make his way back to the town to where Lawson was waiting to take him to meet his agent. It was as he went out through the ancient arch which led into the market place that he felt someone was watching him. He looked up keenly. It was a girl, a book on her lap, an open packet of sandwiches on the bench beside her. A shop girl eating her dinner, he thought, taking the chance to get a little fresh air.

  She did not drop her eyes as he caught them but returned his gaze steadily. He had seen her before somewhere he thought, puzzled. He walked closer.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he asked and immediately felt a fool. How could he possibly know a girl like her?

  Katie reddened slightly, not knowing what to say. She remembered him and the occasion on which she had seen him and it was the memory of what a sight she must have looked with pitch on her face and her hands black with it that made her blush.

  Now he had a close-up view of her unusual dark blue eyes, he remembered her too. ‘You’re the girl I met on the wagon way down by Eden Hope aren’t you? You were with your grandfather. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  Katie hastily wrapped up the remainder of her sandwiches and got to her feet. ‘I have to go,’ she said and started to walk along by the market place to the entrance to Newgate Street. But Matthew was not so easily put off though for the life of him he didn’t know why he was so interested in her.

  ‘How is your grandfather?’ he called after her and she stopped.

  Turning to face him she said, ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You who got him taken back on at the pit? Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, young lady,’ said Matthew.

  She smiled and went off down the street to the Meadow Dairy. He watched her go in then turned and walked briskly to where Lawson was busily rubbing away a splash of mud from the bonnet of the car.

  A nice-looking girl, that, Matthew thought and a picture of Mary Anne came into his mind unbidden. The contrast was stark. He wondered for a second what the girl would be like in bed. There was a spark of fire there, he could see it smouldering in her eyes. Not at all like Mary Anne nor that pale copy of her mother, Maisie. Good God, what was he thinking of, making such comparisons? The girl was just a kid, he told himself and climbed in the door held open by Lawson. But he didn’t stop thinking of the girl. As he gazed out of the window he didn’t see the lowering sky but her dark blue eyes as they looked steadily at him.

  Chapter Five

  NOAH TOOK A deep breath of the fresh, cold air as he came out of the cage with the rest of the safety men on his shift. It brought on a deep, rumbling cough and he stopped for a minute to clear his air passages. So he was a little behind the rest of the men as they crossed the pit yard to the gate. In spite of the cough, which was becoming a regular and persistent irritation to him, he was still an upright figure, striding out with a young man’s gait. He glanced at the fancy car standing in the yard with a chauffeur in a peaked cap sitting at the wheel. (No sort of job for a real man, he thought fleetingly.)

  ‘Wot cheor,’ he said to the man as he caught his eye.

  ‘Now then,’ the man replied.

  Briefly Noah wondered what sort of high-up boss was in the office of an idle pit but his curiosity was only slight, he was more interested in what Kitty had ready for his dinner.

  Matthew, looking out of the window of the manager’s office, watched Noah as he made his way down the yard.

  ‘What’s that man’s name again?’ he asked.

  The manager was sitting at the desk making notes of the conditions under which they would re-engage the men with Parsons overseeing him. There had been no need for Matthew to be there and the fact that he was put both men on edge. They looked up from what they were doing. Thompson got to his feet and went over to the window.

  ‘Benfield, sir,’ he said. ‘Noah Benfield. He’s a hewer but he has been working with the safety men. He knows the layout of the mine like the back of his hand,’ he added as though making excuses for having a hewer doing safety work.

  The agent was gazing out of the window too by now. ‘It’s the man you wanted taking on,’ he said. ‘A couple of years ago.’ He hoped to hell it was the right man, he had forgotten all about him until now. He glanced up at Matthew.

  ‘A good man, is he? Satisfactory?’

  ‘Reliable, yes. Never misses a shift,’ replied Thompson.

  ‘Won’t be picking pitch then,’ said Matthew.

  The other two looked at each other. ‘Pardon, sir?’ asked the manager.

  ‘Oh nothing,’ said Matthew, ‘Well, I’ll be off now, good afternoon to you both.’

  Both men felt a lightening of spirits as the ironmaster left the office. ‘It’s good news for the men, anyway,’ said Mr Thompson. ‘But how long do you think it will last, Mr Parsons?’

  ‘For as long as Hamilton’s Ironworks want the coke, I suppose,’ said Parsons. ‘But the outlook is more promising than it was, let’s just say that.’

  Thompson knew he would get no more from the agent. Mr Parsons rarely discussed business with individual mine managers. Still, it was good to be starting up the pit after it had been lying idle for so long. He handed the notice to his clerk to be typed and pasted to the gate. By the following Monday he expected to have taken on all of the men needed for the work. Within a month or so production would be back to normal.

  ‘Drive along the ends of the colliery rows, Lawson,’ said Matthew. ‘Fairly slowly, I want to see their condition.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Lawson was startled, the boss had shown no interest whatsoever in his workers’ housing before now. He drove along by the rows at ten miles an hour. Matthew was just in time to see Noah Benfield disappear into a house two or three doors down West Row. He didn’t even notice the condition of most of the roofs, most of which were awaiting the colliery slater to start repairs.

  So that was where the man lived. Did his granddaughter live there too?

  ‘Right, Lawson,’ he said, leaning back in his seat. ‘Home now if you please.’ There was a couple of hours’ journey back to the Hall on the North York moors and Matthew settled himself to have a sleep on the way. It had been a full and interesting day and he had to prepare himself for the night with Mary Anne. For he was determined that he would have a son of his own to inherit the empire he was still enlarging at every opportunity. And opportunities there were, so many of his fellow businessmen, second and third generation ironmasters, had gone soft and slow, he thought. Too near-sighted to realise they were on the slippery slope and when they fell in over their heads unable to get out again. Ready for the picking they were and he was just the man to do it.

  Matthew sighed, his thought returning to Mary Anne. Having sex with his wife, for he would hardly call it making love, was the hardest thing he had to do in his life. He couldn’t
enter her bedroom without a couple of stiff drinks. ‘All cats are alike in the dark,’ his father had once said to him but it wasn’t true, not for him. Even with his eyes closed he couldn’t imagine her being anything or anyone other than Mary Anne, his mouse of a wife.

  Still, he thought, as they drove through Darlington and out into the blackness beyond on the road to Yarm, she had proved she wasn’t barren at any rate. There were Robert and Maisie.

  Later, about midnight in fact, when Mary Anne had been in bed for a couple of hours and was beginning to believe he was going to leave her alone that night, he entered his wife’s room. She went rigid as she lay in the high bed listening to him taking off his clothes, felt the movement of the bed as he sat down to take off his shoes, heard the thud as they were thrown to the floor. The scent of whisky hung heavily on the air.

  The assault, when it came, was swift and brutal with no preliminaries. She ought to have been used to it but still, it was always a shock. Grasping her meagre breast he parted her legs with his knee and thrust into her. Mercifully it was over in seconds rather than minutes. He flung himself off her and lay on his back, panting. He felt her turn from him to lie with her back to him. She was still stiff and quiet; he could hardly hear her breath. Shame flooded through him, what was he putting this poor woman through?

  ‘I’m sorry, Mary Anne,’ he whispered and got out of the bed.

  He put out a hand to her then decided against it. She would recover the sooner on her own, he thought. He walked across to the door and went out.

  Mary Anne sagged down into the mattress as the door closed behind him. Her eyes stung with unshed tears but she didn’t cry. Instead she got out of bed and went to the hand basin, newly installed in her closet. She would not go to the bathroom in case he heard her though she wasn’t sure why. Instead she ran water into the basin, stripped off her nightgown and washed herself all over before putting on a clean gown. Then she gazed at herself in the mirror. Was she so repulsive? she wondered. Perhaps she was. Her front teeth were a little too long but they were white and regular. Her skin was white and rather dull, but that was because she hadn’t got out in the fresh air as she ought, not these last few weeks. The children had both had measles but they were recovering now. Her hair was thin and refused to curl, she knew that. Even when she wore steel pins all night the curl lasted only for an hour or two in the morning. A Marcel Wave made it frizz, not wave. It was neither one colour nor another, she thought dismally. Wearily she climbed back into bed.