Nest of Sorrows
Ruth Hamilton
Transworld (1991)
Tags: Fiction
* * *
About the Book
Kate Murray's father had never forgiven her for being born a girl. Her elder sister, Judith, he had accepted – after all, she was a pretty child and the next one would be a boy. But when Kate arrived, scrawny, red–haired, under–weight, he was told there would be no more children, no son and heir, and from that moment his hatred for his younger child was born.
Kate, growing up in a world of constant rejection, seeing the way her Lancashire ‘respectable poor’ family tried to hide the cracks of a bad and violent marriage, determined to find a life – a world – where she was loved, was successful – where people were proud of her.
It took several years, several astounding and unusual developments, and a great deal of courage before Kate became the woman she wanted to be – successful, warm, forgiving, and able to give the love she had so lacked in her own life.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title page
Dedication
Epigraph
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
About the Author
Also by Ruth Hamilton
Copyright
Nest of Sorrows
Ruth Hamilton
For Meg Cairns, who listens
He that loves not his wife and children, feeds a lioness at home and broods a nest of sorrows.
BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR 1613–1667
1
View Street, in the town of Bolton, Lancashire, sat like a monarch frowning down on those subjects who seemed to flee from her, four little streets set on impossible slopes that ran parallel with the main road, the latter being called Derby Street. These four cobbled ways were populated in the thirties by ‘good little houses’ containing ‘good little bodies’, for they were proud streets where there lived weavers and others with proper trades, such as high-earning coal-facers, ironworkers and skilled tanners.
Every step in the thoroughfares was cleaned and stoned daily, while windows and doors showed no signs of cracks or wear in paint. Pavements were swept clean, and the back alleys reflected a similar interest in cleanliness. This was the place to live if you were up-and-coming. Those who eventually arrived, usually through saving and a long history of self-denial, often moved on to View Street itself, or to the top of Deane Road where the houses had bathrooms and inside toilets.
Number 39 Maybank Street was as proud as the rest, though its inhabitants were young, just a pair of ordinary recently-wed workers who had set their caps at a decent house. From older and settled relatives, these two had taken rugs, a table and chairs, a flock bed and an old sofa that was worth re-covering, while from Rachel’s dad, who lived at 33 View Street, they had gladly received some pots, a few pans and two good chests of drawers. The Murrays were set up; they had been set up for the past two years.
It had all begun in 1932 with a rush of great happiness and enthusiasm. Rachel O’Leary, anxious to escape from a house still filled by half her motherless brothers and sisters, had flung herself headlong into love, while Peter Murray had known that he had got himself the best-looking girl for many a mile. That her price had been a wedding ring had neither surprised nor deterred him, for a decent girl would never settle for less than this full amount. So now here they were, settled for life, one baby in its cot upstairs, another about to emerge at any minute from his mother’s womb.
The certainty that this second child would be a lad could not be questioned in Peter Murray’s mind – he had never even considered that he might father a second girl. Judith was a smasher, she would turn heads in time, would his bonny little lass. Aye, girls were all right, girls were necessary. But to really make a place in life, a man needed three things. A good wife, a good job, and a son. The first two were lined up all right – Rachel was a tidy body, a good cook and a sight for sore eyes. His job at the ropewalk carried plenty of responsibility and a good wage. All he wanted now was his boy. He, above all men in this street, needed a son, because his life’s ambition was to ‘make somebody into somebody’ and you couldn’t do much with a girl, even in this day and age. Lasses just got wed at the finish and made more kids; there was no future in educating a girl. Of course, Peter would have got an education himself, given half a chance and a couple of better days in his impoverished past. It was just lately – since he’d turned about twenty-ish – that he’d come to realize, through library books and suchlike, how much he might do for a young Murray.
He glanced at his wife who lay groaning by the fireplace. He had brought the bed down as soon as her waters had gone at tea time. She looked pale and sweaty, but it would soon be over. All women went through this, didn’t they? Mind, she hadn’t been as bad this time last year when Judith was born. Happen this one wasn’t going to come easy.
‘I want the doctor!’ This statement emerged from a mouth contorted with pain.
He gulped down the last of his hot brew of stewed tea. ‘Nay.’ His voice was as calm as he could make it. ‘I’ve booked Bessie Hargreaves. Everybody has Bessie, she’s reckoned to be the best. She’ll be here once she’s seen to her own, never fret.’
‘Doctor!’ She was panting now. ‘Doctor! This minute!’
‘We can’t afford . . .’
‘Get him!’ Her eyes were wild and the red-gold-hair, usually light and fluffy, was plastered against her head like an auburn cap. ‘Get me a doctor, or, God help me . . .’ She screwed up her face against the stabbing in her abdomen, then went on, ‘. . . I’ll lose this one. I will! I watched me mam for days before she went, and I know . . .’ She screamed loudly, words he could not understand because they were not really words. When the paroxysm had passed, she glared at him steadily. ‘Do as I say. Do it!’
He flew from the house, cap and scarf ready to be donned against a bitter November wind.
Rachel Murray lay still as a stone while poor little Judith cried out from upstairs. With excruciating slowness, the woman eventually managed to roll over and use a tin cup to hammer on the party wall until Eileen Foley put in an appearance. ‘Take Judith,’ commanded the voice from the bed. ‘Take her. Keep her till this is all over.’
Eileen studied her next-door neighbour. The poor thing was only a lass herself, barely twenty-one, but with the face of a sixteen-year-old. Young for her age, was Rachel. But not healthy. Not at the moment, anyway. ‘You’re not doing so good, are you? Shall I get Bessie for you, luv?’
‘She’s . . . she’s . . . coming. Oh, dear Lord! That one hurt.’
‘And where’s yon feller?’
‘Doctor.’
‘Oh. I see. Well, if there’s nowt I can do for you . . .’
‘Take . . . Judith.’
After Eileen had removed the howling child, Rachel mopped her fevered brow on the yellow woven quilt, then reached under the pillow for her beads. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God . . . Oh sweet Jesus, help me . . .! Pray for us sinners now and at the . . .’ He wanted a boy. He has to have a boy. ‘Oh God! And at the hour of our death. Amen.’ And it is dead, I know it’s dead. ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son . . .’ It’s a dead daughter. She hasn’t moved for days. Days and days. ‘And to the Holy Ghost . . .’ The rosary slipped through slick fingers and clattered to the oilcloth. ‘Mother!’ she screamed now, and it was not Chri
st’s mother she screamed for.
Isabel Street. She was suddenly back in Isabel Street with all the fleas and the ringworm and the flies. But she wasn’t really there, was she? No, she couldn’t be. She was in Maybank Street having a baby . . . But look! There was Jimmy, her favourite brother. His boots didn’t match and he’d been to the clinic to get his head shaved. Yes! She could reach out and feel the stubble, she could see the circle of degradation on his scalp.
The stabbing pain was there again, but it was all tied up with something else, something she hadn’t remembered for years. Jimmy and John were together in the street, heads bent to jacks and bobbers. Agnes and Frances had come back from the Theatre Royal where the management was holding a twins’ week and twins could get in free. But because Agnes and Frances looked so unalike, they’d been refused free admission and had come home for birth certificates. Frances’ face was down to her clogs. ‘It’s not worth it,’ Rachel heard her say. ‘Show’ll be over by the time we get back.’ Vera was being marched hurriedly up the street by Annie and Nellie. She’d been playing knock-a-door-and-run and was not favourite with the neighbours. Theresa was in the house, too young for street-playing. Mam was in the house too. With a new baby called Joe.
It was all so clear. Etched deep in her mind, it was, nearer than the pain. Other children were about too, playing with hoops and sticks, tops and whips, skim-stones and hopscotches. A few mashers were setting off for the town centre, lads with hair parted down the middle and plastered to their heads with grease. Some older girls came past; Rachel could hear the giggles, could smell the essence of violets with which they had covered the smell of their bug-spoiled clothes.
‘Oh, Mam!’ she screamed in both times, though no-one in Isabel Street heard her. Maybank Street listened and kept its counsel – women in labour often called for their mothers.
Locked inside the delirium, Rachel cursed her invisibility. Because in Isabel Street she could make herself neither seen nor heard. She ran from one to another, bare feet scarcely touching the burning flags. It had to be real – she could feel the heat. And if it were real, she could save Mam! To Frances and Jimmy she called, ‘Run! Run for the doctor! Mam’s dying!’ But they carried on with their stupid games.
Then it arrived in Isabel Street, that awful sound she could only liken to the scream of a mortally-wounded animal. And still everyone played. While Molly O’Leary howled her final torment, while her life-blood soaked the sheets, ropes turned and children sang their skipping songs. After all, the noise could have been anything, couldn’t it? Kiddies playing Indians often made a cry just like that.
Rachel echoed that sound all the way to the hospital. Neighbours stood aghast while she was carried out of the house for what looked like – certainly sounded like – the last time.
Throughout the days that followed, Rachel remained in that other time, sometimes managing to save her mother’s life, usually failing completely due to lack of cooperation on the part of others in her dream. When she finally regained her senses, she learned that her child had lived, that it was another girl, and that she, Rachel Rose Murray, would never again be fruitful.
That such a minute scrap of humanity could have caused such agony was a source of great bemusement to her. Judith, at eight and a half pounds, had been easy to part with. But this poor little red-haired soul weighed no more than five pounds, was frail and ill. The tiny child had taken away much of Rachel’s fight and strength, and had caused the destruction of her mother’s reproductive system, not to mention her father’s hopes.
So if Rachel Murray had ever been forced to answer a question which was seldom asked outside her im- mediate family, she would have pinpointed the start of her husband’s downslide then, right after the birth of Katherine. He took no interest in the child, bought no gifts, stayed away from the hospital, was absent from the baptism of his daughter.
After this event, the O’Learys gathered at 33 View Street for what they called a family conflab. Things were getting serious, out of hand, it all was. Joseph O’Leary Senior stroked his tobacco-streaked white moustache and thought about how serious it was. For a man to fail to attend the naming and blessing of his own baby, well, such things went beyond all understanding! Ten children he had reared single-handed since his own good wife’s death, and although three of them had been of working age, the other seven had required constant attention. Especially Joe, who had been just ten days old when his mother passed away.
‘He’ll come round at the finish.’ Joseph tapped his pipe against the chimney breast. ‘There’s no man on earth could turn his back on the little mite she is. Would you ever look at her now, Annie?’ he asked his eldest daughter. ‘Like a fairy queen, she is. Rachel, where is your man just now?’
Rachel shrugged listlessly. ‘Drinking, roaming the streets with his mates, who’s to know what he’s up to? He wanted a lad. It’s not his fault it wasn’t a lad . . .’
‘And you can’t have no more?’ Theresa’s eyes were round with questions. As yet unwed, she knew little of the workings of the female body.
‘No more.’ Rachel’s voice was expressionless. ‘And that’s what’s upsetting him.’ She looked down at her sleeping daughter. ‘So unlike Judith, she is. Judith was a mass of black curls and big blue eyes. But this one, well, I don’t know who she looks like.’ Judith gurgled and stumbled about on the peg rug in front of a roaring fire, but still Rachel’s eyes remained fastened to the younger child. ‘It’s as if they ripped the heart out of me and placed it in my arms. It’s funny, the way I love her. As if she’s the last piece of me, I suppose.’
‘You must not prefer her over Judith.’ The old man’s tone was stern. ‘Ten I had, and never a pick or a choose did I make between them. Every one had his or her own needs. Back in Ireland, I was taught by me own mammy never to show a preference once my children were born.’
Rachel sighed loudly. ‘I’ve no preference. I’m just lucky to be alive, and so is Katherine.’
‘Aye.’ John’s serious face glowed in the firelight, making him look even more earnest and concerned than ever. ‘But what are you going to do about Peter? He can’t carry on this road. There’s been rumours of him messing about drunk all over town.’
‘Wetting the baby’s head, I don’t doubt.’ Vera sounded angry. ‘Wetting it all by himself, or with his daft friends. He should be here, Rachel. You should have made him come. Lad or no lad, he should have come to the church like everybody else. And where’s his family? His mam and their Harold and their Bert? I bet he never even invited them. Just because our Katherine’s a girl!’ On this, they physically closed ranks, standing in a semi-circle around Rachel and her two children.
Agnes was the first to speak. ‘If he gets awkward, Rachel, over money and such, you’ll have to tell me dad and we’ll all muck in with a shilling a week. This little lass is too frail for anything but the best. So you just tell us if Peter keeps you short of owt.’
Jim almost growled, ‘He’ll not turn awkward, Agnes. Me and our John and our Joe will stop him turning awkward.’
‘No fighting!’ cried Rachel. ‘And there’s three of them, don’t forget. Their Harry and Bert are both handy when it comes to punching. Anyway, Peter’ll get over it. Just you wait and see.’
But Peter didn’t get over it. As the months and years went by, he held his deep hurt to himself, nursing it like some unmendable wound that had been deliberately inflicted by life, by ill-luck and by his own wife. It was almost as if she had conspired with factors elemental to deprive him of that which he had most deserved, and he took it out on her by sulking. Time and again, she attempted to shake him out of it. Whenever there were a few coppers to spare, she bought herself a new blouse or a cheap skirt, tried to make herself presentable and clean when he came home from work. But he would have none of her.
Judith was fortunate; she remained acceptable in her father’s eyes. But poor Katherine was ignored from birth, because he could not find it in his heart to forgive the one who had k
illed his unborn sons. Also, while the child was not exactly ugly, she was puny and pale in comparison to her more robust sister. It was not unusual, therefore, for him to take the four-year-old Judith out for a romp in Queens Park, though he never offered to take Katherine.
At last, after three years of stretched patience, Rachel snapped. To be around when Rachel Murray snapped was not a good idea. She had an Irish temper that had been carefully cultivated and handed down through generations of Dubliners, and while her level of control was usually good, a breaking point was inevitable.
She faced him across the table on a fine Sunday in June 1937. Judith was all done up in her royal-blue bonnet and coat, while little Katherine, who had begun to take things in, stood to one side as if she knew her place already. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ began Rachel, her dark grey eyes flashing ominously.
‘I’m taking her down to look at the crown green bowling.’
‘Oh aye?’ A foot tapped sharply against the flagged kitchen floor. ‘And what about this one?’ She waved a hand towards the younger child.
‘Eh?’ His mouth fell open as if she had asked a totally pointless question. ‘What about her?’
‘Why can’t she go an’ all? Come to that, why can’t we all go?’
‘She’s nobbut three! She’ll only get in everybody’s road.’
‘You took Judith when she was only three.’
‘Aye, well.’ He drew a hand across his upper lip. ‘Judith’s got sense – haven’t you? She likes a bit of bowling, does my lass. And you don’t enjoy it, Rachel, so don’t carry on as if you’re missing summat.’
‘Missing summat? Missing summat?’ Her voice rose in pitch as she bundled both children into the safety of the back yard. ‘I’m missing a husband, that’s what! And yon lass is missing a dad, a dad she has a right to.’
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