A Mother's Duty

by June Francis

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Copyright

  About the Book

  A family at war ...

  Raising three boys and running the Arcadia Hotel almost single-handed are enough to keep widow Kitty Ryan busy. She has no time for romance – unless it’s in the form of a rare evening out at the local picture house.

  Then along comes John McLeod, bringing with him a second chance at happiness. However, Kitty finds her sons unwilling to accept another man into their household.

  Unless she can reunite her menfolk, the future looks set to be that of a family in conflict, in a world on the eve of war ...

  About the Author

  June Francis was brought up in the port of Liverpool, northwest England. Although she started her novel writing career by writing medieval romances, it seemed natural to also write family sagas set in her home city due to its fascinating historical background, especially as she has several mariners in her family tree and her mother was in service. She has written twenty sagas set in Merseyside, as well as in the beautiful city of Chester and the Lancashire countryside.

  Visit June Francis’s website at: www.junefrancis.co.uk

  Chapter One

  Kitty Ryan glanced around the room and was satisfied with its appearance. She had polished the tallboy and oval-mirrored dressing table with a power of elbow grease of which her mother would have been proud, and her cousin Annie had done the same to the linoleum. Kitty straightened a towel on the washstand before moving over to the window and gazing out on Mount Pleasant. It had once been called Martindale Hill and surrounded by countryside but now it was at the heart of Liverpool, only five minutes from Lime Street railway station and half an hour from the docks.

  On the opposite side of the road a yellowish sun was reflected in the windows of the YMCA and below in the street a nun was panting up the Mount in the direction of the Convent of Notre Dame. The faint sound of her voice and that of Mr Fyans, theatrical wigmaker, exchanging greetings, came to Kitty but she did not heed them because out of the corner of her eye she had caught sight of her eldest son Mick racing up the cobbled road. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat because she had been expecting something else to go wrong and this looked like being it. Her mother had always said bad things came in threes. First there had been her death six weeks ago, then early this morning Kitty’s brother-in-law Jimmy had told her he was leaving. Now here was Mick in the devil of a hurry and that usually meant trouble.

  Kitty fled downstairs and was in the lobby when the vestibule door was flung open, crashing against the wall.

  Mick stood in the hotel doorway, red-faced and panting, his dark hair damp with sweat. ‘Ma, you’d best come quick! Our Teddy’s at it again.’

  ‘What’s he done this time?’ She did not pause to untie her apron strings but hurried outside, trying to make sense of Mick’s babbled explanation as they ran past the numerous temperance hotels, dental establishments and shops strung out down the Mount.

  ‘I told him not to do it,’ gasped Mick. ‘I said we’re both too old for that sort of game! But he called me a coward and told me to shut me mouth! I should have hit him but he’s smaller than me, Ma, and I don’t—’

  ‘It’s all right, son. You don’t have to explain.’ She marvelled at how this eldest boy of hers was ever ready to take on responsibility for his younger brothers, who seemed unable to recognise fear even when it stared them in the face. Mick was a gentler soul, more like his father who had died three years ago.

  Roscoe Gardens came into view, named after one of Liverpool’s most famous sons who had instituted the Liverpool Botanical Gardens and found fame in America. Several grinning children, one with an elbow out of his frayed jacket sleeve and a couple with boots on but no socks, gathered where Teddy clung with both hands to a railing. He was trapped by a spike which had torn right through the fabric of his trousers and was sticking out near his groin.

  ‘Do you always have to be putting me to shame?’ said Kitty in a seething voice whilst her heart hammered in her breast. She could not see if the spike had caused any damage but she feared the worst and her fear made her speak more scathingly than she would have normally. ‘You think you’d have more sense at your age! You’re a blinking nuisance! How am I going to get you down from up there?’

  Beads of sweat had formed on Teddy’s forehead despite the cold. ‘I’m sorry, Ma. You’ll have to cut me trousers and lift me off. I’m scared to move. The spike’s scraped the skin off right along the inside of me thigh an – and further in.’ He looked anguished.

  ‘I knew it,’ she cried and for a moment everything swam around her. Then she took a deep steadying breath and weighed up the situation, wishing not for the first time she was six inches taller.

  A man in a pinstriped suit and a bowler hat paused in front of Teddy and wagged a finger. ‘Children have no respect for public property.’ His bulbous nose twitched and he sniffed. ‘Get your husband to give him a whipping, madam.’

  ‘My man’s dead,’ said Kitty in clipped tones. ‘And if you’ve got nothing better to say get out from under me feet and let me be thinking how to get him down.’

  The man spluttered indignantly and said something about finding a constable.

  Kitty turned her back on him and climbed onto the sandstone kerb into which the railings were cemented. Mick jumped up beside her and they both put a hand beneath Teddy’s bottom and attempted to push him up off the spike but they could not quite do it, despite his being small and wiry for his thirteen years. Then seemingly out of thin air came a long arm which barely brushed the flaxen hair Kitty had inherited from her Norwegian father and heaved Teddy from his perch, tearing his trouser leg apart in the process.

  Kitty glanced up at least a foot into an austere, weather-beaten face and eyes which were more green than brown, before switching her glance to her middle son. There was blood on his underpants, which were also torn, and her stomach turned over.

  The man planted Teddy on the pavement and there were tears of mortification in the boy’s eyes as his rescuer knelt and inspected his injuries. ‘Let me go,’ said Teddy through gritted teeth.

  The man released him. ‘Next time, laddie, don’t be worrying your mother. You nearly lost your manhood there. Think first and don’t be such a daftie.’ He nodded in Kitty’s direction. ‘He should see a doctor and have that wound cleansed and stitched.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘Thank you. He will.’

  A faint smile lightened the man’s eyes and he doffed his tartan bonnet before picking up a violin case from the ground and walking away with his kilt swinging, past the Shaftsbury Hotel and out of sight round the
corner.

  Kitty and Mick stared after him. ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Mick. ‘Fe-fi-fo-fum! Was he a giant or wasn’t he?’

  ‘I hate him!’ said Teddy, pulling the flapping trouser leg so that it covered his bloodied underpants and slashed inner thigh. ‘He shouldn’t have looked at me like that and, besides, men shouldn’t wear skirts. They’re for cissies!’

  For a moment Kitty forgot Teddy had been hurt and clipped him across the ear. ‘You ungrateful little monkey!’ she scolded. ‘Next time you mightn’t be so lucky. Now get off up home and wash that blood off and change those trousers. I’ll have to take you to see Doctor Galloway.’

  Teddy’s mouth set stubbornly. ‘No doctor’s going to mess with me there. Gran wouldn’t have allowed it. I’ll see to it myself.’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ she said firmly.

  He shook his head and, elbowing a couple of kids aside, he ran limping up the road. Mick followed him swiftly but a still-shaken Kitty trailed slowly after them, wishing her mother was still there to turn to at such times. Tears caught her unexpectedly by the throat. Her mother had been so strong and it still seemed incredible to Kitty that she could have died so suddenly. Her husband Michael’s death had been so much easier to accept. He had been weak and suffered long. She eased her throat. What was the point of dwelling on sad times? There was work to do and Teddy to deal with.

  She quickened her pace and hurried inside the Arcadia Hotel, which her mother had taken over seven years ago, three years before the Wall Street Crash. Times had been hard since then but somehow Kitty had managed to keep her head above water, although she had had to postpone the improvements she would have liked to have made. Still, having the hotel to run was what kept her going. The hotel was her boys’ future. It would provide them with jobs and an inheritance.

  She went in search of Teddy but the kitchen and basement were empty. She ran upstairs and found the boys’ bedroom door closed against her. ‘Are you in there, Teddy?’ she cried.

  ‘Go away, Ma. I’m dealing with this myself.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You could end up with septicaemia.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  Mick spoke up. ‘I got him some whiskey, Ma, from the shelf. You know how Gran only ever used it for medicinal purposes.’

  ‘Don’t you dare be drinking any of that,’ commanded Kitty, rattling the doorknob.

  ‘We won’t,’ said Teddy. ‘Just go and get on with the dinner, Ma.’

  Kitty gave in and went downstairs, considering how controlling her elder two sons had been much easier when they were younger. She went into the room she had been preparing for the Potters, whose liner from New York had been due to dock that morning, and checked once again that everything was spick and span. A rumbling of wheels on the cobbles and her brother-in-law Jimmy’s deep voice in the street below caused her to hasten out of the room.

  Annie, with her rusty-coloured curls unruly beneath a mop cap, appeared in a bedroom doorway at the end of the landing. ‘He’s back, Kit. Is there anything else you want me to do up here or can I go down?’ she said eagerly.

  ‘You go.’ Kitty had guessed months ago that Annie was head over heels in love with Kitty’s good-looking Irish brother-in-law. If Jimmy did leave as he had strongly hinted then Annie was going to be upset.

  In the lobby Jimmy was hauling a large trunk along the floor with Kitty’s seven-year-old son Ben doing his best to help. Since his father’s death he had followed Jimmy around everywhere. They had just been to the docks with the handcart for the Potters’ luggage.

  ‘Enough, Ben,’ panted Jimmy, coming to a halt near the foot of the stairs and collapsing on the trunk.

  Immediately Ben scrambled up beside him. ‘Now give us a ride upstairs,’ he commanded.

  Jimmy raised dark eyebrows, took a cigarette from behind his ear and lit up. He shoved the boy along with his backside until he fell off the other end of the trunk. Ben laughed before perching once more beside him.

  ‘Where are you putting them, Kit?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘First floor. I take it you’re not going to manage that trunk on your own?’

  ‘Not on your Nelly! It weighs a ton.’

  ‘I’ll get Mick. Teddy’s hurt—’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ Jimmy got to his feet. ‘I’ve a job to do for Annie’s ma in Vine Street.’ He glanced at the girl who was looking at him with sheep’s eyes and away again to Kitty. ‘I’ll see to the trunk later.’

  ‘But it’s going to be in the way there,’ she protested. ‘Can’t you hang on for half an hour. Besides we’ve got to talk.’

  ‘Not now.’ His tone was short. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘OK! I suppose now isn’t the right time – but what about the Potters? Where are they?’

  ‘They’re finding their own way – said they wanted to have a look at Liverpool and the Shakie. He says he’s a magician. And this—’ he tapped the trunk with his boot, ‘contains his props. I’ll see you later.’ With a wave of a hand he strolled down the lobby and outside.

  Ben slid off the trunk and ran after him. Kitty called him back but he took no notice and by the time she reached the front door he was running up the Mount at a fair lick. She let him go, wondering if she was losing complete control of her boys and how she would cope if Jimmy did leave. She went back inside, to be confronted by a serious-faced Annie. ‘What’s up with Jimmy?’

  ‘He might be leaving.’ Kitty’s tone was as calm as she could make it as she headed for the kitchen.

  ‘Leaving! B-but he can’t be,’ cried Annie, dogging her footsteps.

  Kitty did not reply but went over to the sink and washed her hands before taking the lid off the pan of steak and kidney she had cooked earlier. She began to spoon it into two shallow dishes. ‘Put the kettle on, love.’

  ‘But what’ll we do without him?’ said Annie.

  ‘We’ll manage somehow.’ Quite how, Kitty was unsure. Since Michael had returned from the war with gas-damaged lungs he had been unable to work. So it had been Jimmy who had done all the odd jobs and heavy lifting around the place, but he had been with them longer than that. He had been too young for the Great War so he had lived with Kitty and her mother in the lodging house in Crown Street which had been their home at that time, whilst his brother had gone off to Flanders.

  Annie looked as if her whole world was disintegrating. ‘But where will he go?’

  ‘I don’t know. He hasn’t said.’ Kitty took lard from the gas refrigerator and flour from a cupboard shelf. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to him about – as well as to try and persuade him not to go.’ She measured out ingredients and her fingers began to work lard into flour.

  Annie’s soft mouth set. ‘It’ll be difficult for him anywhere else. You must tell him that.’

  ‘He doesn’t need me to tell him.’ Kitty did not lift her head. ‘You know how touchy he is about not being able to read or write but never would he allow me or Ma to help him. His pride got in the way. You know the way it is with the whole male race. Have you made that tea yet?’

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ said Annie, her tone agitated. ‘You’re forgetting we’re all girls in our house. People could cheat him, Kit. We can’t let him go.’

  Kitty was silent, considering how Michael could have taught his brother to read and write, but Jimmy’s vitality in the sick room had only served to make her husband more aware of his own physical weakness.

  ‘We have to do something,’ said Annie, placing a cup and a buttered scone on a plate near to Kitty’s hand.

  ‘I’ll speak to him,’ said Kitty.

  ‘You make him listen!’ Her cousin stared at her unhappily over the rim of her cup and was about to say something else when the bell rang in reception.

  Kitty wiped her hands on a cloth and went into the lobby. A man was sitting on the trunk and a woman was gazing at a Victorian watercolour of wild flowers on the wall nearest to her. Both heads turned as Kitty entered.

  ‘Mr and Mrs P
otter?’ enquired Kitty.

  ‘Sure are,’ he said, not bothering to rise. ‘You the help?’

  ‘I’m Mrs Ryan,’ she said with dignity and whipped off her apron, concealing her annoyance. She rolled down long black sleeves, fastening the buttons on the creamy lace cuffs and resisting the urge to smooth her hair. She moved towards the chiffonier which acted as a reception desk and opened the register on top of it. ‘Did you have a pleasant voyage?’

  ‘It was rough,’ drawled Mr Potter in an American accent. He was floridly handsome with a pencil moustache and glistening dark hair.

  ‘That’s the sea for you! Who’d be a sailor?’ She smiled politely, thinking how her father had been a seafarer on a whaling ship. He had been washed overboard when she was seven years old and it was after that her mother had taken in lodgers in the house in Crown Street. ‘Now if you’d like to sign the register, I’ll show you to your room. If you’d like some tea – in a quarter of an hour, say? – I’ll have it served in the Smoking Room where there’s a good fire.’ She indicated the room’s position with a wave of a hand.

  ‘That sounds just the ticket,’ said Mr Potter, rubbing his hands and grinning, showing a mouthful of large teeth. ‘But I want this trunk taken to our room as quick as spit. Don’t want no one interfering with it.’

  Kitty felt indignant as she watched him sign the register with a flourish. What kind of establishment did he think this was? Her regulars were dependable and honest folk unlike some that were around these days. As for her other guests she had to take them on trust, just as she did him – despite the fact that since the depression there were reports of a crime somewhere or other every day in the newspapers. She reached for the key to room four and led the way upstairs. She did not linger once the Potters said everything was to their satisfaction but hurried back to the kitchen.

  There was no sign of Annie and she wondered if her cousin had gone off home in search of Jimmy, hoping perhaps that she could persuade him to change his mind about leaving. Kitty put on the kettle before going through the door under the stairs which led to the family living quarters in the basement. She found Mick and Teddy sitting in front of the fire.