Kate Hannigan's Girl

by Catherine Cookson

  KATE HANNIGAN’S GIRL

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  Cover

  Titlepage

  About the Author

  Books by Catherine Cookson

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Catherine Cookson was one of the world’s most beloved writers. Her books have sold millions of copies, and her characters and their stories have captured the imagination of readers around the globe. She passed away in 1998, but luckily for her fans, Cookson left behind several unpublished works, including the magnificent Kate Hannigan’s Girl—her 100th book, the powerful companion to her first novel, Kate Hannigan.

  Set in the English countryside in the early twentieth century, Kate Hannigan’s Girl is the story of Kate’s eldest daughter, the lovely, free-spirited Annie Hannigan. Blessed with silver-blond braids and a lighthearted disposition, Annie enjoys a life her mother never had. She is surrounded by material comforts and a loving family, protected from the poverty and shame her mother endured in the slums. But as Cookson fans have come to expect, no good life can go unmarred by heartache.

  Annie grows into a beautiful young woman, and soon she draws the interest of both friends and neighbors. She falls in love with Terence Macbane, the elusive boy next door. But there are those who would keep them apart: Her childhood friend Brian Stannard is determined to have her for himself, and her more worldly rival, Cathleen Davidson, harbors a bitter jealousy that will prove dangerous to all. Tormented by unrequited love, the revelation of her own illegitimacy, and the demands of her deep-seated faith, Annie discovers that sometimes love is not enough—she must fight for what she wants.

  Kate Hannigan’s Girl is vintage Cookson. With its larger themes of early twentieth-century romantic love and class conflict, this novel showcases Catherine Cookson at the height of her storytelling powers, and it is sure to satisfy devoted readers everywhere.

  CATHERINE COOKSON lived in Northumberland, England, the setting for her international bestsellers. Born in Tyne Dock, she was the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished woman, Kate, whom she was raised to believe was her older sister. She began work in the civil service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a writer on only a domestic level—in 1968 her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award—her readership spread quickly throughout the world, and her many bestselling novels have established her among the best-loved contemporary writers. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was named a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She died in 1998.

  Visit us online at www.simonsays.com

  COPYRIGHT © 2001 SIMON & SCHUSTER

  Catherine Cookson’s Books

  NOVELS

  Colour Blind

  Maggie Rowan

  Rooney

  The Menagerie

  Fanny McBride

  Fenwick Houses

  The Garment

  The Blind Miller

  The Wingless Bird

  Hannah Massey

  The Long Corridor

  The Unbaited Trap

  Slinky Jane

  Katie Mulholland

  The Round Tower

  The Nice Bloke

  The Glass Virgin

  The Invitation

  The Dwelling Place

  Feathers in the Fire

  Pure as the Lily

  The Invisible Cord

  The Gambling Man

  The Tide of Life

  The Girl

  The Cinder Path

  The Man Who Cried

  The Whip

  The Black Velvet Gown

  A Dinner of Herbs

  The Moth

  The Parson’s Daughter

  The Harrogate Secret

  The Cultured Handmaiden

  The Black Candle

  The Gillyvors

  My Beloved Son

  The Rag Nymph

  The House of Women

  The Maltese Angel

  The Golden Straw

  The Year of the Virgins

  The Tinker’s Girl

  Justice is a Woman

  A Ruthless Need

  The Bonny Dawn

  The Branded Man

  The Lady on my Left

  The Obsession

  The Upstart

  The Blind Years

  Riley

  The Solace of Sin

  The Desert Crop

  The Thursday Friend

  A House Divided

  Rosie of the River

  The Silent Lady

  FEATURING KATE HANNIGAN

  Kate Hannigan (her first published novel)

  Kate Hannigan’s Girl (her hundredth published novel)

  THE MARY ANN NOVELS

  A Grand Man

  The Lord and Mary Ann

  The Devil and Mary Ann

  Love and Mary Ann

  Life and Mary Ann

  Marriage and Mary Ann

  Mary Ann’s Angels

  Mary Ann and Bill

  FEATURING BILL BAILEY

  Bill Bailey

  Bill Bailey’s Lot

  Bill Bailey’s Daughter

  The Bondage of Love

  THE TILLY TROTTER TRILOGY

  Tilly Trotter

  Tilly Trotter Wed

  Tilly Trotter Widowed

  THE MALLEN TRILOGY

  The Mallen Streak

  The Mallen Girl

  The Mallen Litter

  FEATURING HAMILTON

  Hamilton

  Goodbye Hamilton

  Harold

  AS CATHERINE MARCHANT

  Heritage of Folly

  The Fen Tiger

  House of Men

  The Iron Façade

  Miss Martha Mary Crawford

  The Slow Awakening

  CHILDREN’S

  Matty Doolin

  Joe and the Gladiator

  The Nipper

  Rory’s Fortune

  Our John Willie

  Mrs. Flannagan’s Trumpet

  Go Tell It To Mrs Golightly

  Lanky Jones

  Bill and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  Our Kate

  Let Me Make Myself Plain

  Plainer Still

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2000 by The Trustees of the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trusts

  Originally published in 2000 in Great Britain by Bantam Press

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ISBN-10: 0-7432-1721-7

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-1721-7

  1

  Annie stood gripping her bicycle and staring wide-eyed at the tal
l, auburn-haired boy leaning nonchalantly across his saddle.

  ‘What did Cathleen Davidson tell you?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, if I tell you you’ll jump down my throat.’

  ‘No I won’t.’ Without taking her eyes from his she flicked her head from side to side, throwing the long silvery plaits over her shoulders.

  ‘Your hair’s marvellous,’ he said.

  ‘What did Cathleen say about me?’ Annie asked again, a nervous tremor passing over her face.

  ‘Well, if I tell you, will you promise to go with me?’

  ‘Go with you? Oh, I can’t.’ Annie stared at him, aghast. ‘You’re nearly sixteen. And…and there’s Cathleen.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ He shrugged his shoulders and ran his hand through his wavy hair.

  ‘Yes I will. All right, then, Brian.’ The words came with a rush.

  ‘Well …’ His eyes moving over her face, from the fringe above the wide green eyes to the large, curving mouth, Brian was savouring the effect of his coming words: ‘Well, she said your mother and stepfather aren’t really married.’

  ‘What!’ This was new; she hadn’t expected to hear this.

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Oh, the wicked thing. They are married; I was there when they were married. It was the day after New Year’s Day, nearly four months ago.’

  ‘Were you really there?’

  ‘Yes, I was!’ she said with emphasis.

  ‘Well, don’t get so mad, you asked me to tell you. She said it wasn’t a real marriage because you are Catholics, and it was in a registry office, and the priest said that in the sight of God and all Catholics they are living in sin. That’s what she said.’

  ‘Oh, she’s wicked…wicked, wicked! They are married. What else did she say?’ Annie demanded, her eyes wide.

  ‘She said…Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does! It does! What did she say?’ There was the urgency of self-torture in her voice; she knew quite well what Cathleen had said, but she must hear it aloud.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter two hoots to me, you know, but she said you hadn’t got a da either. She said Kate—your mother—had never been married.’

  Annie had never ridden so hard in her life, and when she reached the gate to the wood the perspiration was running down her face. When Brian had attempted to ride with her she had pushed him so hard that he saved himself from falling only by dismounting, and she had pedalled away like a wild thing.

  Inside the gate and out of sight of the road, she flung her cycle on to the grass and ran, stumbling and crying, along the path through the wood…Oh, Cathleen Davidson, you wicked, wicked thing! Oh, how could you tell Brian! That’s why some of the girls in the convent school had cut her. And everybody would know now. The nuns would know…Sister Ann…Sister Ann would know. Oh, Cathleen Davidson, I hate you! I don’t care if it is a sin, I do hate her. And Mam is married, she is!…Why does Rodney like Cathleen? He can’t like her, she’s so wicked. Oh, if only Mam and Rodney had been married in a Catholic church, if only Mam would become a Catholic again! Oh, sweet Lady, make her a Catholic again and be married in the Catholic Church so they’ll not be able to say that about her.

  All the agony she had so recently experienced returned; the feeling of knowing she was a girl without a father weighed on her once more. For years she had prayed she would have a da like Rodney, and now, by marrying Kate, he was her da; but somehow, it would seem, it didn’t alter the fact that she was still a girl without a real father. Nobody round here knew that Kate hadn’t been married before. But four miles away, in Jarrow, they knew. Here was another world, a world of lovely houses and beautiful furniture, of grand meals and new clothes and…the convent. And now it was spoilt.

  She started to run blindly on again, crying as she went: ‘Oh, Cathleen Davidson, I wish you were dead. I do, I do. I don’t care if it is a sin…Eeh! yes I do. Well, she’s wicked and she’s spoilt everything.’

  Ever since Rodney married Kate, Cathleen had been horrible. She said Annie had taken her uncle away from her. But Rodney wasn’t Cathleen’s uncle, he was merely her father’s friend. Perhaps she had done this latest injury because her father had told Rodney not to buy her any more expensive presents; he said she was being spoilt and had come to look upon them as her right. Annie had pricked up her ears when she heard Kate and Rodney discussing this: she had felt glad and sorry at the same time, for Cathleen’s brother, Michael Davidson, would have to come under the same ban, and Michael was nice.

  For the moment she wished she were back in Jarrow, in the fifteen streets, among the dreariness and poverty she had grown up in and knew so well; it didn’t seem to matter so much there who your father was. You lived so close to your next-door neighbours that you could hear the words of their fighting and laughter through the walls, and you could keep no secrets; yet out here, in these extensive grounds where you couldn’t even see your nearest neighbour’s house, it seemed imperative to bury the stigma of your birth. Up to four months ago she had known this area only as the place where the swanks lived, but now Shields seemed far removed, and Jarrow…oh, Jarrow was another world away. Yet at this moment she longed to be back in those familiar surroundings.

  She went stumbling on, sniffing, blinded by her tears. Dazedly she felt she must find some place to hide and have her cry out, for she mustn’t go into the house like this; Mam would ask too many questions.

  Leaving the path, she zigzagged through the trees at the back of the house. If she went deep enough into the wood she would skirt the place Rodney was having cleared so that he might build his clinic for sick children: Mr Macbane might be there, and she was afraid of Mr Macbane. He helped around the grounds in his spare time and lived in the cottage by the woods, cycling past the house every morning on his way to the pit. Rodney liked Mr Macbane; he said he was a character, though he could well understand how sharp a thorn he had been in the previous owner’s side. But Annie felt she would never like him.

  Her jumbled thinking and mental pain seemed suddenly to be transferred to the physical as she felt her legs wrenched from beneath her, and a voice yelled, ‘Look out there!’ She was thrown into the air, and she turned a somersault before hitting the ground.

  When she opened her eyes the trees were swimming all about her, and as they steadied she found herself looking up into the angry face of a young man.

  ‘I…I fell,’ she murmured.

  ‘You should look where you’re going,’ he said sharply. ‘Running like a mad thing!’ Then, more gently, he asked, ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No; I don’t think so.’ She got up slowly and brushed the dry leaves from her clothes. ‘I tripped over something.’

  He made no answer, but turned from her and busied himself tightening a rope which was strung from an iron stake in the ground to a tree some distance away. Feeling a little sick and dizzy, Annie stood watching him and wondering whether he noticed she had been crying and that her face was all wet. She supposed he hadn’t. She hadn’t seen him before, but she knew who he was. He was Mr Macbane’s son whom Kate and Rodney had been talking about last night; they didn’t know Mr Macbane had a son until he had said, ‘Me lad’s comin’ home. Can you set him on with me, part-time, clearing the wood?’ The Macbanes seemed to be forever working: Mr Macbane worked at the pit and between times cleared the wood, and still made time to tend a vegetable garden—there were no flowers in the Macbanes’ garden—and Mrs Macbane went out each day to work in the village. And now this mysterious son had been pressed into work too.

  She noticed he was very thin and that when he bent down his lank, black hair drooped over his forehead, and that although his face was thin his head was large …

  Before her startled eyes, she saw it swelling until it blotted out the sky. The next she knew was that his hand was on the back of her head, which was being pressed between her knees.

  ‘Take a deep breath,’ he said, pulling her up straight again.

  She tried, but
found it impossible.

  ‘Here, here,’ he exclaimed; ‘pull yourself together!’

  Oh, he’s snappy, just like his father, she thought. Then she fell down, down into the earth, to the sound of his voice pleading, ‘Great Scott! Don’t pass out; pull yourself together!’

  As she came round she realized she was being carried. She blinked slowly at the face close to her own, and when she felt his arms sag she became panicky, thinking: He’s too thin, he can’t carry me.

  He hitched her closer up against him, and she closed her eyes as the blackness threatened to engulf her again.

  They were out of the wood now and crossing the little wooden bridge over the stream. She knew this, for faintly she heard the loose plank go plop, plop! She wanted to be sick, and wondered if she should ask him to stop so that she could be sick over the side of the bridge.

  She didn’t remember passing through the orchard, or through the belt of firs, but she knew they had reached the greenhouses below the cypress hedge which bordered the side lawn when she heard Steve’s startled exclamation, ‘God! What’s happened?’

  With relief she felt his big arms go round her and his broad chest pillow her head. She liked Steve: he was big and safe, and he let her sit next to him in the car and put her hands on the steering wheel and pretend she was driving it. She was borne swiftly and smoothly to the house.

  There was a clamour of voices about her. Summy was saying, ‘Is she killed? Oh, the bairn!’ Summy was nice; she made lovely cream sponges with icing and nuts on the top…There was Rodney’s voice, crying, ‘What on earth’s happened?’ Oh, her beloved Rodney’s voice! That was a nice word, ‘beloved’. She had only learnt it in the past few months…beloved, darling, dearest, all lovely words; the house seemed full of them. Rodney was always calling, ‘Where are you, darling?’ and Kate would answer, ‘Here, dearest.’ Those were Kate’s hands on her now, moving swiftly, tenderly over her. The comfort of being near Mam—she was putting one of Annie’s lovely nighties on her. Now Rodney was saying, ‘Don’t worry, darling, it’s just slight concussion.’ She wondered vaguely what concussion was, but whatever it was Rodney would cure it, for he was a doctor.