Our Kate

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘I must go to Mass every Sunday,’ I said flatly.

  ‘But if my husband and I wanted to go away for a day, or a weekend, we couldn’t leave the child if we thought you had to go off to Mass. It would be perfectly all right if we were there. You’d be quite willing to fall in with this arrangement I suppose?’

  Between the glory of my good luck and me was rising a barrier, and on it was written ‘It is a mortal sin to miss Mass. Those who die in mortal sin will go to Hell. The devil takes many shapes and has a smiling face.’

  The devil was smiling at me now and saying sweetly, ‘But you can’t mean it. If through your work you are tied on a Sunday, then you’ll be excused from Mass, surely they’ll grant you that?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘I’ll have to go to Mass.’

  No small voice said to me, ‘You’re daft, you’re mad, stark staring mad. Go to the priest, explain things and he’ll tell you it’s all right.’ No, there was only black and white in those days. I was a Catholic and under pain of everlasting damnation I must not miss Mass. Father Bradley’s voice was booming in my ears. Father Bradley’s presence was spreading in front of this woman, obliterating her amazed expression from my gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, on the point of tears.

  ‘So am I,’ she said.

  I think she was more amazed than sorry. She was absolutely dumbfounded that the chance she was offering this ignorant untravelled girl could be turned down just because she couldn’t guarantee that she would allow her to attend Mass every Sunday.

  When I returned to the registry office the woman said nothing for a time, she simply gaped at me, and then on a high sigh she brought out, ‘Well, I’ve heard some things in me time but this beats all. I hope you don’t live to regret it.’

  Without much interest she gave me the address of a woman in Harton village who wanted a companion-maid. That was the term, companion-maid.

  I walked for miles to get to this house, it was well beyond Harton village. It was a big house surrounded by an orchard and gardens. It had large high rooms which were beautifully furnished. It was here that I first saw antique furniture, real antique furniture, not the clumsy Victorian monstrosities, but beautiful pieces with line. Pieces that brought a satisfaction into my being just to look at them, and a strong desire to possess them. These pieces I later came to put names to, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, Louis Quinze, Georgian, Queen Anne, William and Mary. They may not all have been in that house but shape and patina was there, and something inside me rose and recognised it as if an old friend.

  The lady was in her fifties, small, quiet and very charming. She had, she said, an extra help in to do the rough work. I would be required only to help her. She did her own cooking. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind helping with the washing?

  I took the job, then returned home and told Kate. She was furious.

  I wasn’t going into any service unless she saw who it was and where I was going, etc, etc.

  All right, she could come with me and see for herself. She was very sad about me going into service, she looked upon it as a reflection on herself in some way.

  But before I could take up my new duties I had to get rigged out. The lady had said I would need uniform, at least two blue dresses for the mornings and one dark dress for the afternoons. At least half a dozen white aprons for the mornings and two fancy ones for the afternoons. And, of course, I would need caps. I did not wonder at the time why a companion should need all this uniform, plus caps. I had never been in this kind of service before. But when I told Kate what was expected she did say, ‘Are you sure she said maid-companion? You’re just not making it up?’

  ‘The woman in the registry office said that, it’s down in the book.’ I was indignant. ‘I don’t tell lies.’ And, strangely, at that time I didn’t. I felt myself to be above lying. A slight evasion of the truth was one thing, but lying was quite another.

  With the kind help of Mrs Maguire I got a five pound club and away I went to Allen’s in Shields. It took all of the five pounds for the uniform.

  What was my wage to be?

  Nine shillings a week, all found.

  From under the bed Kate pulled the brown painted tin trunk that had served her through all her places. She turned out the old junk and put into it my uniform and the few bits of underclothing I possessed. Then, she taking one handle and I the other, we left number 10 William Black Street and I went out into the world.

  The lady was so pleased to see Kate. She also took to her, saying it was so nice for a mother to come with her daughter. It proved that we were so respectable. Not everybody was so respectable, or words to that effect. Kate helped me up to my room with the box. It was a slit of a room but she seemed pleased with it.

  Later the master came into the kitchen. He was something in Newcastle. He was very nice indeed and seemed pleased to see me and hoped I would stay with them for a long time.

  That evening the lady told me what my duties were. She showed me how I was to do the morning-room carpet. I was to sprinkle tea leaves all over it then brush them off – the pile was very deep and there were no Hoovers in those days. Then I had to clean the room and set the table for breakfast. This particular room was bigger than the three rooms in number ten put together.

  I could cook bacon, couldn’t I?

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll leave it out for you. I’m sure you’ll manage,’ said the kind lady. ‘Then after breakfast you’ll do the drawing room, the hall and the stairs. You know how to prepare vegetables, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  ‘And then after you have washed up the lunch things you can do the silver.’ – Silver was used for every meal – ‘We have tea served in the drawing room at four o’clock, and something high about six.’

  This was the Monday. After breakfast on Tuesday the kind lady showed me a stack of dirty linen. It didn’t matter if I didn’t get it all done that morning – and left me to it. There would be something cold for lunch. I just had to dry my arms, change my apron, adjust my cap and carry it in. I could do that, couldn’t I?

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  The funny thing about the washing was, although I had seen so much washing done in our house I had no idea of the routine. Kate wouldn’t see me in her way, for my tiredness after wielding a scrubbing brush or a poss-stick always irritated her. However, I got through more than half the enormous pile of washing, weeks of it I should say.

  Every day of that first week the lady told me in the most gentle tones – she never raised her voice and always had a most kindly smile – what she wanted me to do. But she never said, ‘Come and sit with me.’ She never said, ‘What do you read?’ There was no time for that. I rose at six o’clock in the morning, I went to bed at nine at night, almost collapsing with fatigue. It was only my nervous energy that kept me going for I was never physically strong. And then came Friday and the at-home day.

  In the morning I had to go at the double getting everything ready for the afternoon, and then the lady told me what to do. After getting into my black, donning a fancy apron and new cap, she gave me a silver plate and said in her sweet voice, ‘This is for the visitors’ cards.’ I was to open the door, read the names, then come to the drawing-room door and announce the visitor. Did I think I could do that?

  ‘Yes, I thought so.’ My enthusiasm wasn’t so strong as at the beginning of the week. I had never announced ladies before. I didn’t know what an at-home was. Our Kate had never talked about waiting on ‘at-homes’. Nevertheless I was soon to learn.

  They came in their ones and twos, and they looked me up and down, and later when I wheeled in the tea trolley I interrupted my mistress talking. Then their eyes were turned on me. Like a cow in the cattle market I was under appraisal.

  Not one of the ladies who were surveying the lower animal guessed that the tall girl with the well-developed bust and unfashionably thin legs, and the enviable mass of nut-brown hair above a debatable, g
ood-looking face was undergoing a most strange desire. She wanted to stand in the middle of them, and after holding them with the same silence and gimlet eye that she had used on her playmates in an effort to bend them to her will, she wanted, not to say ‘Aa feel like a fight’ but to question them, and to prove to herself through their answers their inferior intelligence.

  With me, to think a thing was to accomplish it mentally, the result of the examination of the ladies was shown in the curl of my lip as I left the room.

  The tea over, I stood in the kitchen gripping my fancy apron and saying, over and over, ‘This is not for me. I can’t help it. I cannot stand this.’ I shook my head as something within me asked, ‘Why?’ and answered, ‘I just don’t know why. I only know I can’t stand it.’

  As I was getting the evening meal ready the lady appeared and said how nicely I had carried off my duties. Her friends couldn’t believe that this was my first real post. I had acted as if I was born to it.

  She actually started, so quickly did I turn on her. And although I did not speak something in my face must have warned her, for she left me alone.

  Again I gripped my apron. Whatever I’d been born to, it wasn’t going to be this. My picture on the wall had come to life, and in it were the so-called ladies and gentlemen and I wasn’t to be seen – I had never seen myself as a servant in the picture.

  By this time I also had a funny feeling about the lady herself. When was I going to be a companion to her? When was I going to sit with her? Could the companion bit be lies? Oh, no, she was a lady. But there was something funny.

  The next afternoon was my half-day and before I went to the station the lady said most solicitously, ‘I would put your feet up this afternoon if I were you, Kate.’

  I had been on my feet so much during that week that they had swollen up over the tops of my shoes, very like Kate’s, and were paining me a great deal.

  I went to the station and there on the little platform stood two girls. They eyed me, then said, ‘You working in the village or about?’

  I hated to admit my position, but then why should I be ashamed of being a companion-maid, so I said, ‘Yes, I’m working at Mrs X’s.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ said one, ‘she’s done it again,’ and they fell on each other’s necks and laughed. Then, regaining their dignity, one said, ‘Are you her maid-companion?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I said.

  ‘What companioning have you done so far?’ They were laughing again.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, but already knowing that they were going to voice my suspicions.

  ‘She’s an old bucket and shovel if ever there was one. She just sweeps them up. How she gets off with it I don’t know. You’re about the sixth she’s had this year. Maid-companion! You know, if we all had our rights she should be brought up for false pretences. That agency woman should be told.’

  Later, standing in the familiar warmth of our own kitchen, I related my experiences and the conversation on the platform to Kate and me granda, and their loud indignation warmed me.

  ‘That’s them!’ said Kate. ‘That’s them! And I never wanted you to go into service. You’re not cut out for it in the first place.’

  ‘The smarmy-mouthed, deceitful, lying old bugger,’ said me granda, and I laughed and patted his knee.

  ‘She won’t deceive me much longer,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Kate, ‘you give your notice in the minute you get back.’

  ‘I’m going to,’ I said, and then added, somewhat aghast, ‘But what about all me uniform? I’ve got all that to pay for.’

  ‘We’ll manage that somehow,’ said Kate. ‘And you’ll get something, don’t worry about that.’

  It was a very comforting experience being wanted back into the fold, and I did get something. That very night I got a job as a laundry checker in the workhouse.

  Although my feet were swollen and the sight of them aroused Kate’s anger against ‘the lady’ still further and she too said I should put them up, I went to the whist drive and dance in the schoolrooms that evening. I had always attended the weekly whist drive and dance and I didn’t want to miss this one. And it was while there that Billy McAnany, Councillor McAnany as he was then, later to be Mayor, came to me and said, ‘Katie, how would you like a job in the workhouse as laundry checker?’

  It seemed in that moment, as it did often in my youth, that I had only to pray for something very hard and my prayer was answered, with the exception of the one about our Kate.

  I’d no idea what a laundry checker was, it might have included scrubbing and possing. I didn’t know but I said, ‘Billy, I’d love it.’

  He said, ‘I heard you had to give up the pen-painting . . . Now this is what you’ve got to do.’

  He told me I had to go and see a lady on the Monday and she would give me a reference to take to Matron Hill at the Institution. Now I have always given Billy full credit for getting me that job, so it came as a surprise to me when only a few years ago when he was visiting Hastings and we had a talk, he told me that the person who was responsible for getting me the job was Father Bradley, the priest to whom I went when I was sixteen and asked if he would give me a reference to get me into the same institution to be trained as a nurse. His answer to that had been, ‘You’re not old enough to train for a nurse. What’s more you haven’t got the required education.’

  My love for him wasn’t increased by this remark, and me granda cursed him up hill and down dale. Yet Billy McAnany told me that Father Bradley came to him one day around the time I am speaking of and said, ‘I feel something should be done for Katie McMullen. She’s a good girl and I would like to see her settled. Do you think we can get her into the Institution?’ – Father Bradley was then on the Board of Guardians, as was Billy McAnany – ‘There’s the post of laundry checker going. It would be quite a good start for her, don’t you think? See what can be done about it.’

  The lady I was sent to was a power behind the throne. She gave me the note to take to the Matron. It has often puzzled me why Matron Hill, who was a little tartar of a woman, but an excellent matron, should accept me straight away. Even when I told her quite frankly – if nothing else I was always frank, so frank that it became a failing – that I didn’t like being a servant and that I had been worked to death. This was the only time I spoke freely to Matron Hill. She was a terror and put the fear of God into me, but in a different way from Miss Corfield and Father Bradley. She always saw me as a strong individualist and something of a rebel and acted accordingly.

  When I told ‘the lady’ that I was giving a week’s notice and that I was going into a laundry she was aghast. As was her husband. They stood over me.

  ‘My dear, you are not cut out for a laundry, you won’t last a week in a laundry.’

  ‘You are much too intelligent for a laundry.’ This was the gentleman. ‘What can your mother be thinking of? It’s such a let-down for you.’

  ‘It’s a pity your father’s at sea, he would surely have put his foot down.’

  Davie putting his foot down; poor Davie. He lived to please. Whatever you wanted to do you should do it, was his theory, and this applied to Kate’s every wish. Would she have pulled up in the early days if she’d had a stronger-minded man? I don’t know.

  Anyway, I stopped being a lady’s companion at the end of the week.

  About this time there was renewed in me an overpowering desire to see my father. This no doubt had been aggravated by the reference to Davie. I blamed Kate for indicating during her brief meeting with my employer that my father was seagoing.

  Davie my father! Davie was the last man I’d choose for a father. Davie was only a stoker, the lowest form of seagoing life. He could never even hope to take the place of my father.

  I’m glad that Davie never knew my true feelings, for he thought the world of me, and was so proud of me; when there was nothing to be proud of he was still proud. He was a good man was Davie McDermott.

  Ten

  The
following Monday evening Jackie Potts and his pal helped me to carry my tin box through the iron gates of Harton Institution, and so began an interesting period of four and a half years, which was, in the main – happy.

  I worked in the laundry checking the dirty linen in and the clean out and keeping the books, from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. and half-day Saturday. I had every other night off after five o’clock until ten, every Sunday off and every other weekend off. When on duty every alternate evening and every alternate Saturday I usually relieved the infirm ward attendants. Once a month, on a Saturday, I took the unmarried mothers to the Cottage Homes at Cleadon to visit their children. This particular duty always made me think, as I looked at the children, ‘But for the grace of God there go I,’ and as I looked at the unmarried mothers, ‘And there but for her pluck goes our Kate.’

  An unmarried mother was kept in the workhouse for fourteen years, that is if her people wouldn’t take her out. The child was sent to the Cottage Homes after it left the workhouse nursery, and the mother wasn’t free to leave the workhouse until the child was old enough to work for itself. Some of the mothers became so used to the workhouse that they couldn’t leave it after doing this long-term stretch.

  Added to my duties was the cutting of the bread.

  Saturday teatime was always a high tea with tarts and cakes and such, and this task fell to the lot of the last-comer. My position was at the bottom of the table and the officer next to me was about four years older than myself. There was a great deal of laughter at these teas. They laughed about funny things that I couldn’t get the hang of, so I laughed with them. But on this particular Saturday – I had been there about a month – as I stood hacking away at the great loaf to replenish the plates I suddenly realised what the laughter was all about. Somebody had just told a dirty story.

  There had always been plenty of swearing in our house, but Kate would have no smutty talk, nor would she indulge in it with the neighbours in the back lane – she had one or two coarse sayings which she considered clever but that was as far as it went. So I had been brought up to abhor this kind of talk. Added to this I was a very strong Catholic. I was also quite fearless in some ways. I turned round with the big bread gully still in my hand, and I startled that whole table, filled mostly with senior officers, by shouting, ‘Stop it this minute! If I hear any more dirty talk like that I’ll report you all to the Matron.’