THE JARROW TRILOGY: all 3 enthralling sagas in 1 volume; The Jarrow Lass, A Child of Jarrow & Return to Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  She blew out her flushed cheeks and sipped the strong tea. Catherine loved it when her aunt talked about the family history. Kate hardly ever did. Only once did she remember her mother mention William Fawcett, Grandma Rose’s first husband. With tears in her eyes, Kate had spoken of a loving father who had delighted in grabbing his daughter by the hand and running down the street, chasing the moon.

  Kate had seemed so soft and tender in that moment that Catherine had dared ask her about her own father. Immediately Kate had clammed up and been cross, telling her that her mysterious father was dead and not to ask about him again. But Kate’s alarm had been so great that Catherine doubted she was telling the truth. She just did not want her to find her missing father. Catherine was sure he must still be alive somewhere, living a more interesting life than theirs.

  ‘I don’t want to be a McDermott, any more than you wanted to be a McMullen,’ Catherine said quietly.

  ‘Poor Kitty,’ Mary said indulgently, ‘of course you don’t. Davie’s just a common stoker - rough as they come. I don’t know what Kate was thinking of. Course, a bad husband is better than no husband in some lasses’ opinion - specially those with as little reputation left as your mother.’

  Catherine winced. ‘I don’t blame Kate for what she’s done, it’s just - I hate the way she thinks I should see him as me da. I could never think of Davie like that.’

  ‘Course you can’t. Davie McDermott is a world away from your real father—’ Mary stopped herself. Catherine’s heart began to thud.

  ‘You knew me real father?’ she whispered.

  Mary was flustered. ‘Shouldn’t talk about it. It’s all long in the past. Your mam wouldn’t thank me.’

  ‘Please, Aunt Mary, just tell me some’at about him - anything. All Kate ever said was I’ve got his eyes and hair.’

  ‘Aye, you have his good looks,’ Mary mused. ‘Beautiful chestnut hair and bonny eyes.’

  ‘Tell me a bit more,’ Catherine pleaded.

  Her aunt relented. ‘He used to call at the inn where we worked,’ Mary said cautiously.

  ‘What inn?’

  ‘The Ravensworth Arms - on the Ravensworth estate - you know, where your Great-Aunt Lizzie lives.’

  Catherine nodded. When she had been alive, Grandma Rose had spoken fondly of a special place in the country where her sister lived. Since the war and Rose’s death, Lizzie had lost touch with the Jarrow relations.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d worked away,’ Catherine marvelled. ‘Thought you’d always lived on Tyneside.’

  ‘No, I worked at the Ravensworth - a respectable place - a coaching inn where men of business and folk from the castle came to sup. Got your mam her job there - I had a good reputation as a hard worker, you see, so they agreed to take Kate on too.’

  Catherine kept to herself the thought that her mother, for all her faults, could work twice as hard as Mary any day of the week.

  ‘Mind you, it would’ve been better if I hadn’t put in a word for her, with all the trouble she got into.’

  Catherine flushed. ‘So that’s where she met me da?’

  Mary nodded.

  ‘Was he a lad from the castle?’

  ‘No, not exactly.’

  ‘Then who?’ Catherine held her breath.

  ‘He was a real gentleman, your father. Oh yes, with his silver-topped cane and his beautiful black coat with an astrakhan collar. Quite the gent. They say he was distantly related to the Liddells themselves.’

  ‘The Liddells?’

  ‘The gentry at Ravensworth Castle.’

  ‘Never!’ Catherine caught her breath.

  Mary nodded, her eyes bright with the telling of the long-kept secret.

  ‘Well, he used to come on business to the estate—’

  ‘What sort of business?’

  Mary shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it must’ve been important. He always seemed to be visiting the estate - and he always found time to call at the inn.’

  ‘And that’s how he fell in love with Kate?’

  ‘Fell in love?’ Mary snorted. ‘Men of his standing don’t fall for barmaids! No, they’re only after one thing. Bold as brass he was -calling on her days off and taking her out in his carriage. Thought nobody knew what they were up to, but she was the laughing stock of the inn. “Look at Lady Kate,” they’d say, and, “There goes the Duchess of Jarrow with her fancy man!” ‘

  Catherine swallowed. ‘So they were courtin’ - it wasn’t just...?’

  ‘If you can call it courtin’ when a gentleman takes a fancy to a working maid.’ Mary was scathing. ‘But, yes, he came visiting regular - over two years or more, it must’ve been.’

  ‘Maybes Kate thought he would marry her, then? To have courted for so long,’ Catherine said quietly.

  ‘The more fool her! The number of times I warned your mam not to lose her head over him. Oh, I could see she was daft for him - and what lass wouldn’t be? He was tall and handsome, with that posh voice - and such a way with words. But he would never have married her in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Catherine said wistfully.

  ‘No, never. Besides, he was promised to another. That’s what he came to tell her when - well, when, you know, she made her big mistake. Just the once she went with him, I’m sure of that. But once is all it takes,’ Mary declared.

  Catherine blushed. Perhaps Kate had lain with him in the desperate hope he would choose her? She rubbed her clammy hands on her skirts.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Disappeared into thin air,’ Mary said in disapproval, ‘and left Kate to face the music with old John. By the saints, he would’ve skinned her alive if our Jack hadn’t got between them!’

  ‘Maybes me da would’ve stood by Kate if he’d known about me?’ Catherine said with a hopeful glance.

  Mary shook her head. ‘He did know. Came back months later asking for Kate. Well, I gave him a piece of me mind; told him good and proper she’d gone back to Jarrow in disgrace, carrying his bairn. Even told him where to find her.’

  Catherine gulped down tears. ‘But he never bothered?’

  ‘That’s the odd thing,’ Mary mused. ‘I could’ve sworn he was going to fetch her there and then - left the inn like a dog off the leash. But I would’ve heard if he’d gone to see her - Kate and Mam never said a thing about any visit. So I kept me mouth shut an’ all. Kate was in a bad enough state without me giving her a shock about his lordship turning up looking for her. Eeh, she was like a lass in mourning all the time she was carrying you.’

  Catherine sat stunned and speechless. Could it be true? Her father had been a gentleman, a man of wealth, just as she had always daydreamed? As a child she had created a fantasy world in which her father would come and whisk her away from Jarrow’s backstreets to a country mansion bathed in never-ending sunshine. Now it seemed the reality was not so far removed from her dream world. Perhaps if he knew about his long-lost daughter, he would claim her as his own? The thought made Catherine sick with longing. She had to find him and know for herself what kind of man her father was. He had rejected Kate, not her!

  ‘What was he called?’ Catherine whispered.

  Mary frowned. ‘Alexander something.’

  ‘Please try and remember.’

  ‘It was that long ago,’ Mary protested. ‘Double-barrelled. Alexander... Pringle-Davies! Yes, that’s it.’

  ‘Alexander Pringle-Davies,’ Catherine repeated in a dreamy voice.

  Mary glanced at her in alarm. ‘Don’t you go telling any of this to Kate. I shouldn’t have said so much. She’ll go light with me if she finds out! You never heard anything of this from me, do you hear?’

  ‘Aye, Aunt Mary,’ Catherine agreed.

  ‘It’s just our secret, then?’

 
Catherine nodded. She could never imagine asking Kate about such intimate things. Her mother had made it plain years ago that the shameful past was never ever to be mentioned. Catherine knew she would get no help from Kate in tracking down her father. But now she was armed with these new revelations, she felt even more determined to discover her father. Just being able to talk about him - a real flesh-and-blood person with a name and a position in society - gave her a thrill.

  All the way home, Catherine hugged this new knowledge to herself. It gave her strength to face Davie, the impostor in their household who dared to be a father to her. She passed Aflecks, but did not go in for tobacco. Davie could fetch his own. She was the daughter of Alexander Pringle-Davies and did not belong round here. She was born to something far better than the sooty lanes of a shipyard town. Catherine held her head high.

  Chapter 3

  It was Lily who persuaded Catherine not to go chasing after her unknown father.

  ‘And when you get to Lamesley, what you ganin’ to do? Knock on the castle door and ask if he’s in? What will you say to folk, Kitty? They’ll wonder why you’re asking for him. Who will you say you are?’

  Catherine had not thought of that. It might lead to awkward questions. I’m Kate’s bastard daughter. She felt nauseous at the thought of being exposed. Once people knew, they changed towards her, gave her that look. She had seen it so often in the eyes of neighbours: pity mixed with contempt. Even among her friends she had endured the casually cruel jibes of children, the arbitrary exclusion from games. That time at Bella’s party... no, she would not think about it. The memory lay like an unhealed wound.

  ‘No,’ Lily was adamant, ‘you’ll open up a can of worms with your questions. Leave it be.’

  Catherine felt frustrated, but what could she do? Lily would not go with her and she did not feel brave enough to go on her own. She would have to abandon her plan.

  Through the summer, Catherine threw herself into other activities. With Davie gone back to sea, she kept busy at her painting during the day, and in the long evenings went to Lily’s. On Saturday afternoons, when Lily was off duty from her job at the workhouse laundry, they cycled far and wide. Twice a week, they attended the Catholic youth club run by Father O’Neill.

  The elderly priest kept a strict eye on proceedings at the club dances, but Catherine loved them. She took little persuading to get up and sing a song or recite a poem in front of the others during breaks in the dancing. She was never one to sit out the dances either. Catherine was light on her feet, quick to laugh and banter with the boys and was never short of a partner. Lily may have been prettier, with her dark looks, but Catherine was equally popular. She was vivacious and could tell a joke and was always the centre of a laughing, chattering crowd.

  Catherine lived for such moments when she could be with her friends, away from her demanding mother and grandfather, playing the clown. Underneath, she might feel anxious or unsure of herself, but she hid it under a carefree mask.

  ‘Dance with me, Kitty,’ Tommy Gallon grinned, pulling her to her feet.

  ‘Father O’Neill will have some’at to say,’ Catherine teased. ‘That’s twice in one evening.’

  ‘And it’ll be twice more, if I get me way,’ Tommy declared.

  Catherine laughed. That’s an hour in confession for you this week.’

  ‘It’ll be worth it for you, Kitty.’

  Catherine blushed as he led her in the dance. Tommy was a miner, a couple of years older than she, and she felt his wiry strength under his best suit. He had boyish good looks, but she could imagine the fuss Grandda would make if she brought him home.

  ‘Pitmen - nowt but trouble. They’re half animals digging under the earth for a living. Dirty troublemakers, that’s what they are.’

  It did not matter that his stepdaughter Sarah had married one. Or maybe he said it to goad her. Some of Catherine’s cousins were now working down the mine, but her grandfather blamed everything from the slump in the iron trade to bad weather on the luckless miners.

  So when Tommy asked if he could walk her home, Catherine refused.

  ‘I’m stopping at Lily’s the night.’

  ‘I’ll walk you there, then,’ Tommy persisted.

  Catherine hesitated, but Lily intervened. ‘You can walk the pair of us. You in the middle, so we can keep an eye on you.’

  Tommy walked them home and they chatted all the way, but Catherine slipped quickly inside before he could kiss her good night.

  Lying in bed next to Lily that night she thought of Tommy and her pulse quickened. She was attracted to him and knew he liked her. But where would a kiss lead? She was terrified that she might be overwhelmed by passion like Kate, and not be able to control herself. Catherine flushed all over. She should not even be thinking of such things. Once, at confession, she had spoken of having sexual thoughts and the priest had threatened her with the flames of Hell. She was bad for thinking them.

  ‘Are you ganin’ to kiss Tommy next week?’ Lily asked, startling her.

  ‘No, never!’ Catherine said, flustered.

  ‘Why not? I think he’s canny.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘No harm in a bit kiss and cuddle,’ Lily said.

  ‘Yes there is,’ Catherine protested. ‘It can lead to bairns.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s in the kissing,’ Lily said doubtfully.

  ‘Well, I’m not taking any risks. Anyway, Tommy Gallon’s only a pitman - I’m ganin’ to marry someone better.’

  Lily snorted. ‘Don’t you be so fussy. Tommy’s in work and earning canny wages compared to some round here. Lads at the steel mills haven’t worked for six months. You should see the poor souls who turn up at the workhouse desperate for anything.’

  Catherine felt uneasy. If Rose and John had not stuck by Kate, she and her mother might have ended up in the workhouse too. According to Lily, there were many unmarried mothers and their babies locked away there, until their children were of working age.

  ‘Well, I’m not looking for a lad,’ Catherine said.

  She curled up tight in the bed, trying to banish thoughts of Tommy’s strong arms around her and the smell of soap and coal-dust on his skin. Maybe one kiss wouldn’t do any harm.

  Just as she was drifting into sleep, Lily murmured, ‘Wonder what they look like underneath?’

  ‘Who?’ Catherine yawned.

  ‘Lads. I’ve never seen a lad with nowt on - not even me da. Have you?’

  Catherine’s heart pounded. For a moment she could not breathe. A terrifying image came barging into her mind, unbidden.

  ‘Course not,’ she gasped.

  But in a deep part of her, she knew she was lying. She must be lying, or from where did this picture in her head come? She could never speak of it, not even to Lily, not even the priest.

  Catherine lay sweating and shivering, engulfed by anxiety, the joy of the evening gone. Was it her imagination? If so she must truly be wicked. If not. . . She clenched her fists and screwed her eyes tight shut, trying to forget. Just as she had as a child, she pushed her thoughts into an imaginary box and locked them away.

  Chapter 4

  All through the autumn, Catherine went to the dances with Lily, and Tommy vied with his friend Peter to walk her home. She was baffled by their attention. What was it about her that they could possibly find alluring? Lily was far the prettier. It was just that she gave as good as she got, answered them back instead of blushing and being tongue-tied like some of the other girls. Or maybe they had heard the rumours about her having no da and thought she would be an easy conquest? Well, she wasn’t. They could walk her home till they were drawing their pensions; she wouldn’t give in to either of them without a ring on her finger and the priest’s blessing.

  As the days shortened, the light for Catheri
ne’s painting went early. One evening in early December, the family was enjoying a quiet evening around the fireside, Grandda John dozing in his chair, Catherine at his feet, perched on the fender, stitching a cushion cover. Kate was making bread at the kitchen table, flour rising in a yellow cloud in the lamplight.

  Catherine’s eyes were aching from the dim light. She rubbed them and looked up. Kate was watching her, hands plunged in a ball of dough.

  ‘Don’t strain your eyes, hinny. Haven’t you done enough the night?’

  ‘I’ve a big order for Christmas,’ Catherine yawned.

  I’ll help you the morra,’ Kate promised. They smiled at each other. ‘Now shift yoursel’ while I put the bread to rise.’

  Catherine stood up and stretched her tired limbs. As Kate dumped the tin of bread on the hearth, the latch on the kitchen door clicked and heavy boots stamped into the scullery. Kate whipped round.

  ‘Is that you, Davie?’

  ‘Aye!’

  Kate darted towards the door, flinging her arms out as her husband bowled into the room. He caught her in a bear hug and she planted a kiss on his mouth. They laughed like young lovers. Catherine looked away, her stomach clenching. Lily’s words went through her head. You could have a baby brother or sister by this time next year. Heaven forbid! She’d be the one with the burden of helping to bring up a child, stuck here for ever.

  ‘Hello, Kitty,’ Davie said amiably.

  Catherine nodded and sat back down on the fender.

  ‘Well, don’t just sit there!’ Kate cried. ‘Fetch our Davie a cup of tea from the pot - and there’s a piece of cheese pie left in the pantry. Go on, our Kitty!’

  Catherine scowled as she picked up her sewing. ‘I’ve this to finish.’

  Kate looked furious, but Davie held her back. ‘Let the lass be. I’m past eating.’ He pulled a half-bottle of whisky out of his duffel coat.

  Kate’s eyes lit up. ‘I’ll fetch the cups.’

  John stirred. ‘What’s that? Davie, is that you, son?’