For a Mother's Sins

by Diane Allen

  Lizzie joined her mother in loading the baskets with warm bacon sandwiches and bread and fruit buns that Agnes had made.

  ‘Right, girl, let’s see how we go,’ said Molly, picking up a basket. ‘See, I told you tomorrow was another day and not to fret.’

  Leaving a busy Agnes and a yawning John in the kitchen, they set off into the cold grey dawn to go knocking on the doors of shanties where men were getting ready to go to work, tempting them to a ready-made breakfast and the promise of a filling dinner later in the day.

  All four slumped exhausted in the kitchen. Even in Helen’s day, the Welcome had never seen such a rush at dinnertime. Word had rapidly spread that there was a new cook at the inn, and judging from customers’ compliments on the food they’d been served, they’d be coming back for more.

  ‘Well, lass, yesterday I hardly took a penny and today . . . well, what can I say.’ Molly fanned herself with a newspaper that had been left by a customer.

  ‘I’m glad I paid for my keep. I didn’t want to leave without paying the debt I owed you.’ Agnes took her apron off and picked her shawl up.

  ‘Well, you certainly did that all right – but what’s this about leaving? You still look poorly to me.’ Molly pushed her chair back and stood up.

  ‘I’ve imposed myself upon you long enough, I think it’s time for me to go. Thank you for your help, Mrs Pratt. And, Lizzie, your talk did me good.’ She drew her shawl around her and quietly made for the door.

  ‘Wait! Where will you go? Where will you sleep tonight, lass? I’ll not be having your death on my conscience, so you need not open that door.’ Molly’s words were stern but her touch was gentle as she laid her hand on Agnes’s arm. ‘We’ll not ask questions of your past, pet, not if you don’t want us to. That’s none of our business. But I’m making it my business to keep you alive, lass. I’m sure John will back me on this: we’d like you to stay.’

  A tear ran down Agnes’s cheek as John told her, ‘Aye, lass, you can stay. Just don’t wake me up so early in the morning!’

  ‘How about you stop in our spare room and we pay you to be our cook? That way we’ll all benefit – not to mention the navvies. They’ll be that fat after a month of your dinners, they’ll not be able to pick up their shovels!’ said Molly, putting her arm around the sobbing girl.

  ‘Stay, Agnes. We need you,’ pleaded Lizzie.

  Agnes, still sobbing into her shawl, nodded her head.

  ‘Good. That’s settled then,’ said Molly. ‘Welcome to your new home. Now let’s have no more of these tears. We need to decide what to cook for dinner tomorrow.’

  30

  Ribblehead Station, 1 May 1876

  The Band of Hope’s boisterous playing rang out over the dale, trying to rally up support while the directors and railway VIPs strutted up and down Ribblehead station platform. Overhead, bunting fluttered gaily in the breeze. The moorland and tracks were thronged with inquisitive bystanders, watching enthralled as the engine belched clouds of steam into the air as if gathering courage for its first run across the finished viaduct and through the man-made tunnels at the start of its long journey up to the Scottish border. Excited children ran between the grown-ups’ legs, pleading to be allowed to ride on the train, while one naughty little boy ran up and down the railings with a stick, making a racket that could be heard even above the playing of the band and the puffing of the train.

  ‘Just look at all these folk, Agnes! And they’ll all be wanting something to eat. It’s a good job we ordered plenty in. Are we ready to open our doors?’ Molly turned away from the window and brushed her hand down the soft velvet pleats of her new dress. It was all she could do to breathe in the tightly laced-up bodice, but it was a dress that befitted her new status and she was wearing it with pride.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Pratt, we’re ready. All’s cooked – just need the customers now,’ yelled Agnes from the kitchen.

  ‘Aye, get ’em in, lass! Let’s get some beer sold.’ John leaned over the bar, his apron around his waist and a gill in his hand.

  ‘Where’s our Lizzie?’ Molly scanned the room, wanting to make sure Lizzie was on hand to wait on the customers.

  ‘Where do you think? She’s out back, flirting with that Sedgwick lad. Claimed she was nipping out to fetch water, but I heard her giggling with him as he was loading the empty barrels. Poor lad doesn’t stand a chance! I should have warned him not to mess with the Mason women.’ John wiped his now-empty glass and smiled. ‘Go on, open the door, you’ve folk waiting.’

  Molly felt butterflies in her stomach. In addition to the bar and the guest bedrooms, she now had a small tearoom next door in what used to be the barn. Today was the grand opening, not only for the tearooms but the new railway line. It was a day for celebration, in recognition of the labour and the engineering that had gone into building the magnificent line.

  Taking a deep breath, Molly threw open the doors, beaming at the crowd of former navvies, all clad in their best suits for the occasion. Then she went to open the doors of the tearoom to the well-dressed ladies making their way down from the station. No longer did she feel uncomfortable in their presence, conscious of the disparity between their finery and her rags and mud-caked boots. She’d come from a navvy’s wife to a woman of wealth and property, and her new dress befitted her rise in status. Her future was secure: the signed deeds to the Welcome Inn were safely tucked in a box under her bed.

  Their luck had changed the day John brought the nearly dead Agnes into their home. Since then, they hadn’t looked back. Lizzie had learned to cook just as well as Agnes, John had settled in behind the bar, while Molly held it all together. The business had flourished to the point that they had been able to buy the Welcome from Helen, who had found herself a farmer and was content settling into her new married life in Swaledale. Henry Parker was long forgotten, along with the ramshackle shanties of Batty Green. The only remaining signs of those days were the tram tracks and sump holes of the workings.

  ‘Molly! We just had to come and sample one of your teas,’ said Doctor Thistlethwaite, ushering in Gladys and their two children across the threshold. ‘Doesn’t the station look magnificent! Who’d have thought all these people would turn out to see the first engine over the new viaduct?’

  ‘Come and sit here by the window. You’ll have a good view down the dale from here,’ said Molly, escorting them to their table. She was glad to see him with the children, and she’d long since risen above the bitter feelings she’d once felt for Gladys.

  ‘We sail for India at the weekend. I’ve been offered a practice out there, and you know me – always up for a challenge,’ said Doctor Thistlethwaite, unfolding a napkin. ‘I’ll miss this place, the wild rugged fells and the people.’ His hand touched momentarily on Molly’s and he smiled.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll not be forgotten.’ Molly looked at Gladys and thanked God that she’d not married him. Who on earth would want to go to India, and with two children? The poor cow.

  Leaving them to it, she went to the back door and yelled, ‘Lizzie, stop your flirting with that young Sedgwick and get yourself in here to help Agnes.’

  There was a yelp from behind her as the tearoom’s newly employed waitress almost dropped a plateful of scones in fright. She was still nervous around the formidable Mrs Pratt.

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’ Lizzie pulled her apron straight as she entered the kitchen.

  ‘You’d better have been behaving yourself out there.’ Molly fixed her daughter with a stern glare.

  ‘Course I have,’ protested Lizzie, embarrassed by her mother’s tone of voice. She busied herself picking up a tea tray as her mother hurried back to the inn.

  ‘Your mum’s only looking after you, Liz.’ Agnes glanced up from buttering her scones. ‘You should listen.’

  ‘I am listening, but she should know me better. I won’t let anyone near me until I’m married. I know what men are like.’ Lizzie turned her nose up and went about her service.

  Agne
s nodded, she too knew what men were like with their sweet talk. It would have been her undoing, if she hadn’t had the good fortune to be rescued by the Pratts.

  Silence fell over the Welcome as the train’s whistle blew. This was immediately followed by the scraping of chairs and a scramble of customers rushing outside to watch as the first passenger train came shunting over the small bridge next to the inn and then onwards to the twenty-four-arch viaduct. The steam curled around the arches and the whistle blew merrily as the engine and carriages crossed the spectacular granite viaduct on the slow climb towards Blea Moor. The crowds below cheered and threw their hats into the air. After all those years of toil, all the lives lost and the casualties claimed, the Settle to Carlisle line was complete. Passing through some of the remotest moorlands and featuring the highest station above sea level, it would now take its place as one of the greatest railways in England.

  John and Molly gazed out at the viaduct, bathed in the glow of the setting sun. They smiled at each other as two courting couples passed by, walking hand in hand down the path to the base of the viaduct.

  ‘I’m glad Agnes has found a good man,’ said Molly. ‘He may be a lot older than her, but she seems happy with Arthur Dowbiggin. And at least she won’t be moving far away when they get married, not with him being signalman at Blea Moor.’

  ‘Aye, he’s not a bad man. Did young Dan Sedgwick say anything to you?’ John sucked hard on his pipe, he’d wanted to tell Molly his news all day but they’d been rushed off their feet and he’d had no opportunity until now.

  ‘No.’ Molly turned to him in alarm. ‘He’s not putting the price of his ale up, is he?’

  ‘Nope, it’s a bit more serious than that. He wants to wed our Lizzie. He’d have asked you first but daren’t, so he asked me.’ John grinned and put his arm around Molly’s waist, pulling her close.

  ‘Our Lizzie? Married?’ Molly was frightened of losing her daughter. It made it worse that Lizzie was her only child, and looked set to remain that way.

  ‘She’s twenty, Moll. It’s time to let her go. Look at them.’ John held Molly tight, kissing her neck gently as the outline of Lizzie and Dan could be seen kissing beneath the middle arch of the viaduct. ‘Remember what we went through – spare her that heartache. Give them your blessing and put poor Dan out of his misery.’

  Molly nestled into John’s embrace. ‘I hope they’ll be as happy as we are. If they are, they’ll survive anything.’ She looked into his blue eyes. ‘I love you, John Pratt. And, aye, let’s have a wedding – think of all the ale we can sell! Happen she’ll be given a bit of the brewery if she marries old Sam’s eldest.’

  Happily totting up the potential profits in her head, she bustled back to the inn to serve her customers.

  John sat for a moment, watching her, then got to his feet to follow.

  What a woman! Wilful, wild and a right handful – but she was his and his alone.

  Poor Paddy

  Traditional Irish Folk Song

  In eighteen hundred and forty-one

  The corduroy breeches I put on

  Me corduroy breeches I put on

  To work upon the railway, the railway

  I’m weary of the railway

  Poor paddy works on the railway

  In eighteen hundred and forty-two

  From Hartlepool I moved to Crewe

  Found myself a job to do

  A working on the railway

  I was wearing corduroy breeches

  Digging ditches. Pulling switches

  Dodging pitches, as I was

  Working on the railway

  In eighteen hundred and forty-three

  I broke the shovel across me knee

  I went to work for the company

  On the Leeds to Selby railway

  In eighteen hundred and forty-four

  I landed on the Liverpool shore

  My belly was empty, me hands were raw

  With working on the railway, the railway

  I’m sick to my guts of the railway

  Poor paddy works on the railway

  In eighteen hundred and forty-five

  When Daniel O’Connell he was alive

  When Daniel O’Connell he was alive

  And working on the railway

  In eighteen hundred and forty-six

  I changed my trade to carrying bricks

  I changed my trade to carrying bricks

  To work upon the railway

  In eighteen hundred and forty-seven

  Poor paddy was thinking of going to Heaven

  The old bugger was thinking of going to Heaven

  To work upon the railway, the railway

  I’m sick to my death of the railway

  Poor paddy works on the railway.

  Author’s Note

  The Settle-Carlisle Railway was built by the Midland Railway Company, after a dispute with the London and North Western Railway over access to Scotland via the LNWR route.

  It consisted of seventy-two miles of track, with seventeen major viaducts and fourteen tunnels blasted through the seemingly impossible hillsides. Construction began in 1869 and lasted for seven long years with over 6,000 men working on the line, with little to supplement muscle power other than dynamite and temporary tramways to haul materials. Hundreds of navvies and their families died; some were killed in accidents, others in fights and smallpox outbreaks. The building of Batty Green (Ribblehead) Viaduct caused such loss of life that the railway paid for an extension to the local graveyard at St Leonard’s, Chapel-le-Dale. Memorials commemorating the deceased can still be seen within the chapel.

  The Settle-Carlisle line is one of the most scenic train rides within the UK. The steady ten-mile pull up from Settle Junction to Blea Moor – known to generations of enginemen as ‘the Long Drag’ – passes between the three peaks of Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside. The line then climbs on, passing through Dentdale and upper Wensleydale to reach its summit at Ais Gill (at a height of 1,169 feet, the highest point in mainline England), before entering the wide valley of the River Eden and reaching its final destination in the busy border town of Carlisle.

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  For a Mother’s Sins

  Diane Allen was born in Leeds, but raised at her family’s farm deep in the Yorkshire Dales. After working as a glass engraver, raising a family, and looking after an ill father, she found her true niche in life, joining a large-print publishing firm in 1990. Having risen through the firm, she is now the general manager and has recently been made honorary vice president of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

  Diane and her husband Ronnie live in Long Preston, in the Yorkshire Dales, and have two children and four beautiful grandchildren. For a Mother’s Sins is her second novel.

  Also by Diane Allen

  For the Sake of Her Family

  First published 2013 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2013 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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  ISBN 978-0-230-76916-8

  Copyright © Diane Allen 2013

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