Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Aye. Aye.’ Joe was excited. ‘That’s it, Katie.’ He put his two hands on the table and leant towards her. ‘The miners have got one—solicitor he’s called. Aye, yes! How much is there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Count it.’

  Joe counted the coins from the four bags, and when he was finished he looked at Katie and said, in awe-filled tones, ‘Two hundred and twenty-seven pounds.’ And again, ‘Two hundred and twenty-seven pounds.’ Then, gazing at his mother, he added, ‘We’ll never be hungry again, Ma.’

  ‘Be quiet!’ said Catherine harshly. ‘Can you only think of your stomach.’

  Joe bowed his head and murmured, ‘I know, Ma, I know.’

  Catherine, now looking down at Katie, said, ‘Where are you going to keep it? And when you start spendin’ people will twig, an’ you’ll be had up.’

  That was a point. Katie stroked the soft hair from her daughter’s brow. Sovereigns were few and far between among the poor. If she went round here breaking into sovereigns and no man in the house to bring even half a one in, of course people would twig. She would have to go farther afield to do her spending, and be careful at that. As to where she would hide the money, she had already thought of that on her way home. ‘I’ve figured that out,’ she said now. ‘I’m going to sew them all on to me shift.’

  ‘Sew them on to your shift? Carry them round with you?’ said Catherine. ‘But the weight, lass.’

  ‘It’ll be spread over. I’ll make a sort of little pocket for each one and just take them out as we need them. I can wear me other shift near me skin for washin’.’

  ‘Aye. Yes.’ Catherine was nodding now, and it brought a little lightness to Katie’s mind to see that her mother had come out of her trance-like state.

  All afternoon they sat, the three of them, Joe cutting out inch squares from pieces of old calico, and Katie and Catherine sewing three sides of them to the garment, slipping in a coin, then securing it with a stitch or two.

  They had come to the last twenty sovereigns when Joe said, ‘If you’re going to see a solicitor hadn’t you better keep some money out, Katie—say ten pounds or so. They cost a lot.’

  Just as she was about to answer Catherine said, ‘Where will you say you got the money from…golden sovereigns?’

  The question stumped Katie. Then after a moment she said, ‘I—I could say I got it from a friend.’

  ‘Lass, folks like us don’t have friends who throw golden sovereigns around.’

  ‘Well’—Katie shook her head impatiently now—‘I’ll think of something, Ma, when the time comes.’

  ‘What’ll I do with the bags and the book?’ asked Joe, holding them out in his hands.

  ‘Burn them,’ said Katie. ‘But wait a minute…Here, let me see the book.’

  She now opened the book, and going and standing near the window she drew the curtain just the slightest and looked at the column of figures which filled the first page. The entries always followed the same pattern, and the dates went back for years. They started on a January day in 1850, and opposite this date was the sum of three pounds. The second entry was in June 1850, and the amount stated was four pounds. As she turned the pages she saw that as the years came more up-to-date the entries followed closer together, there being frequently two in the same month. Then an entry made last year brought her attention fixedly on it. The date of this entry was the day following that on which she had gone to him and said she would marry him. The entry was for fifty pounds; and something else was added to this entry, two letters, B.R. The next entry in the book was also for fifty pounds, and it was made on the same day on which she married Mark Bunting, and again this entry was followed by the letters B.R.

  ‘A hundred pounds for you’…B.R. He must have given him a hundred pounds to marry her. She lifted her eyes and looked at her mother, and then at Joe. She wanted to say to them, ‘But why? Why?’ If she hadn’t let on up till then, wasn’t it pretty plain to him that she was going to keep her mouth shut? So why had he paid Mark Bunting a hundred pounds to marry her?

  ‘What is it?’ said Catherine.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Katie. Going to the fire and pushing the book into the dull embers, she moved it about until it caught fire, then motioned to Joe to follow suit with the bags.

  It was the following day that Katie learned why Bernard Rosier had paid Bunting to marry her. At the same time it was made possible for her to spend a sovereign when she liked, and these two things were brought about through a visitor to the house.

  The visitor was Miss Theresa, and she came to the door surrounded by a horde of children. When Katie heard the noise outside she opened the door and a girl said, ‘She was lookin’ for you, missis.’

  There stood Miss Theresa, surrounded by barefooted, ragged, dirty children. An ordinary woman coming to this quarter would have aroused no curiosity, but even children could recognise gentry when on the rare occasions they happened to meet.

  ‘May I come in, Katie?’

  Katie turned her head round and looked into the awful room. Her shame was deep. She would like to have said, ‘No, Miss Theresa,’ but what could she do but pull the door wider and allow the quietly dressed, tall young woman to enter. Then she closed the door and pushed the bolt in in case the children might be curious and open it.

  ‘Ma.’ Katie looked towards the seat where her mother sat and said, ‘This is Miss Theresa from the House.’

  Catherine got slowly to her feet. She did not bob or curtsy, she merely inclined her head. This was a member of the household that had brought disgrace on her girl; she owed them nothing, only hate, and she had been taught not to hate.

  Theresa willed herself not to look round the room, at the shocking conditions under which this family was living, but one thing she couldn’t do was close her nostrils to the smell that pervaded the whole place. She moved towards Catherine and, looking her straight in the face, she said softly, ‘I’m deeply sorry, Mrs Mulholland, for what has come upon you. I…I wonder if I could be of any help?’

  ‘I would welcome help from any direction, ma’am,’ said Catherine quietly. Following this, an embarrassing silence fell on them, until it was broken by a noise from the corner of the room, a noise which startled Theresa. Lizzie had pumped. She looked in the direction and saw sitting in the dimness a great fat lump of a girl.

  ‘That’s…that’s Lizzie,’ said Katie apologetically under her breath. ‘She’s…she’s not quite right in the head.’

  There was pain in Theresa’s eyes as she brought them back to Katie.

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Katie now, pulling a stool forward, and Theresa, thanking her, sat down. But she was no sooner seated than she was startled again by another noise coming from beyond a door facing her, and as Catherine turned away without excusing herself and went through the door Katie again explained, ‘That’s me granda; he’s…he’s had a stroke.’

  ‘Oh, Katie.’ Theresa began to twist her hands together. ‘I feel that all this has come upon you through me. I’ve suffered agonies of mind since I heard about this happening, because I feel that…that I’m to blame; not because of…of that.’ She pointed to the child lying in the tub. ‘That began it all, but if…if I had only left it there and let you work out things for yourself, as I’m sure you would have done with the help of your parents, you wouldn’t have been in this terrible trouble today. But I did what I thought was the best. Believe me, believe me, Katie.’

  Katie looked back into the thin, troubled, pale face and said, ‘I don’t quite understand what you are on about, Miss Theresa. I don’t see how you had anything to do with it.’

  ‘I had, Katie, and you’ll hate me for it when I tell you. You see, it was me who forced Bernard’s hand. I told him and my parents that if reparation wasn’t made to you I would tell his fiancée. It was then, and then only, he thought up the scheme of getting Mr Bunting to marry you… . You see?’

  Yes. Although bewildered by this information, Katie saw in part; what
she didn’t see was how Miss Theresa knew it was Mr Bernard, and she said so.

  ‘How did you find out, Miss Theresa, about…?’ She moved her hand towards the child, which did away with the necessity of using Bernard Rosier’s name.

  ‘I…I saw him push you from the room the night of the ball, and witnessed your great distress.’

  ‘Oh!’ Katie bowed her head and Theresa went on, ‘I was greatly concerned for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Theresa.’

  The silence fell on them again, and in it the smell seemed to have become intensified, and Theresa, taking a handkerchief from her beaded bag, dabbed gently at her nose, and then said softly, ‘I’m in much the same position as you yourself are, Katie, in that I’m poor.’ God forgive her. The same position as this child, for she still looked a child, in spite of her swollen, milk-filled breasts. There were grades of poverty, and she was in the presence of the lowest.

  ‘What do you mean, Miss Theresa?’ Katie’s face held concern now for her visitor.

  ‘Well, I have left my husband, Katie. You know I should never have married him; it was my parents’ doing. I…I was to have a baby but I lost it.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Theresa, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry for me, Katie; I didn’t want the baby. I’m really very fortunate. I see that now. I…I have a small income and it’s been accumulating over the years; it’s been enough to buy me a little house on the outskirts of Westoe village in Shields. And Miss Ainsley’s going to join me at the end of the year. We’re to start a little school.’

  Miss Theresa a school marm! Brought up in that big house with everything she wanted, and now she was going to be a school marm, and seemed to relish the idea. Life was funny, very funny.

  Theresa was now bending towards her, her hands joined on her knees as she said, ‘I wonder, Katie, when…when your trouble is over, whether you will come and live with us. You…you can bring the child.’ She wanted to add ‘Not as a servant’; she wanted to go further and say, ‘I will teach you all I know. There is time yet for you to be not only a beautiful woman but a cultured one.’ She had a picture of a life that appeared to her like paradise spent in the company of Ainsley and Katie, but the figure of Katie loomed much larger than Ainsley within the frame.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Theresa, but…but I don’t know how things are goin’, an’ I’ll have to see because me mother isn’t well at all now. She can’t manage like she used to. And there’s Lizzie.’ She motioned her head towards the corner. ‘But it’s very kind of you, Miss Theresa, very kind of you. I’ll…I’ll think of it.’

  Although Katie said she would think about the offer, which if it had been made a year ago she would have considered came straight from God, she now had no intention of accepting it. Already she knew what she was going to do. Whatever happened to her father—and the thought of what might happen to him made her shudder—she had plans for the family, plans that would take them out of this hovel. She went on quickly now, ‘It all depends on what happens to me…me da. Miss Theresa…’ She bent forward. ‘Do you know of a solicitor man that would speak for him? I…I’ve got a little money, I could pay him.’

  Theresa knew of many solicitors; her husband’s solicitors, her father’s solicitors, solicitors who were friends of the family, but would they be impartial and speak for such a man as this girl’s father who had murdered a keeker at the mine? Anyway, it would need a barrister to defend him. She thought for a moment, then said, ‘There’s a firm in Shields by the name of Chapel and Hewitt; I remember my father mentioning them. You could try them. I think their business is in King Street.’

  ‘Thanks, Miss Theresa, I will. I’ll go down straight away.’ As if she had appeared rude she added, ‘Well, I mean later.’

  ‘I hired a trap to fetch me here, Katie; would you care to drive back with me? I could take you right to the door.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Miss Theresa, yes. Yes. Would you wait till I put me other frock on?’

  ‘Certainly, Katie, certainly.’

  In the room, as she changed her dress, Katie whispered to her mother, who was sitting on the foot of William’s bed, what she was about to do. ‘This’ll solve it,’ she whispered. ‘If they see me drivin’ up in the trap with her they’ll think she’s given me the money. If anybody asks where I got it, I can say I got it from a friend, and they’ll think it’s her.’

  Catherine nodded her head. ‘Yes. Aye,’ she said. ‘You’ll see to the child, Ma?’ asked Katie, anxiously now.

  ‘Yes, don’t worry. But…but I’m not comin’ out there again; tell her anythin’, but I’m not comin’ out there again.’

  ‘It’s all right, Ma.’ Katie put her hand on her mother’s head and stroked her hair for a moment; then bending over William she patted his cheek and smiled into his dim eyes. ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Granda,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right; Miss Theresa’s come an’ she’s going to help us. She’s takin’ me down now to get a solicitor man to speak for me da. Everything’s going to be all right, Granda, don’t you fret.’ And she believed what she said; since she had found the money she had found hope.

  Chapter Eleven

  They sat in the court like reluctant visitors to a strange world, and just as fearful. Katie sat on one side of Catherine and Joe on the other, and each gripped one of her hands.

  Rodney was sitting between two policemen. He looked grey, thin and gaunt. His eyes had sunk deep into his head and it seemed to Katie that she hadn’t seen him for twenty years, so changed was he; yet he held himself straight. In contrast, his guards looked thick and solid; their bodies seemed to be pressing out of their uniforms. They represented to her the impregnable wall of the law, a wall at which the barrister who had talked, and talked, and talked, seemed to be beating his head in vain. She had felt the inevitableness of the whole proceedings from the beginning, although he had done his utmost—and she felt sure he had done his utmost, but mainly because he thought she was under the patronage of Miss Theresa. Miss Theresa was a Rosier, and the name told. She had let it be known to the solicitor the first time she had seen him that Miss Theresa had recommended him to her, had even brought her along. She knew that this recommendation would make a difference to his fee, that he would sting her because he thought Miss Theresa was paying, but that didn’t matter; nothing mattered except that the man up there would convince the judge of her da’s innocence. And he had tried—oh yes, he had tried—but he hadn’t touched the old man in the wig sitting on the high bench, and now the old man was about to speak to the jury.

  Mr Justice Dowry was tired; added to this, his gout was troubling him, and he was hungry. He had no patience with the case in hand and had been further irritated by the defending counsel, talking the way he did. A valuable man had been lost to the industry, and so he began to speak pointedly to the jury. Passing lightly over the facts presented by the defence counsel, he dwelt on that of the prosecution.

  ‘As you have heard,’ he continued, nodding three times slowly towards the jury, ‘the deceased made an offer of marriage to the daughter of the accused who was with child, and not to him. Let that point be remembered, gentlemen. The daughter of the accused bears this out: the child was not the deceased’s, yet this man married her and gave her a home.’

  ‘On the night of the events which you are considering the deceased comes back from his work; tired, no doubt, as all men connected with mines are tired at the end of the day. He takes his bath. What followed, we are given to understand, is that he splashed some water from the bath towards the child, probably in play; but we are told the action was not in play. However, this is a point that can’t be proved. His wife evidently thought that the action was malicious and she retaliated with something equally, if not more malicious. Repeating her own words, she tipped the hot water over him. From the condition of the deceased’s back when examined by the doctor we have his assurance that the water must have been more than just hot, it must have been boiling…Wha
t happens when a man gets scalded? He is almost demented with pain. Isn’t it understandable that when the deceased was suffering the agony of his bare neck and bare back being scalded he should be beside himself, and the reflex action would be to grab the first thing that came to hand and belabour the person who had scalded him?

  ‘It is not for the moment to be thought that if the deceased had been in his right senses he would have used his belt on his wife to the extent he did. We are not disputing the fact that she was beaten cruelly. Dr Bullard, who examined her, has been emphatic about this. But I would stress the point here that, given the opportunity when once again in his right mind, I have no doubt but that the deceased would have been extremely sorry for his actions, but he wasn’t given the opportunity. What followed you have already heard. The deceased’s wife made her way to the village with her brother who had called at the house. A man, James Morgan, goes into Jarrow and brings her father. From there we take up the accused’s account. He saw the condition his daughter was in and he was filled with rage. He went to the deceased’s house and fought with him. He said he fought with him. You must remember that the deceased had been badly scalded and would still be suffering from shock; would he be in any condition to fight? But we have the accused’s word that he made a stand. We also have the accused’s word that he beat him round the room with his fists, then left him lying on the floor…Alive, he said. You know the rest, gentlemen of the jury. The deceased was found not far from his house, lying in a ditch; his head was split open and near him lay an iron poker. Remember there was no poker of any kind to be found on the deceased’s hearth when the police searched, so we can but understand he was beaten to death with his own poker. That is the case, gentlemen. It is up to you to bring in a verdict.’

  Among the jury were the managers of three mines; they were out for five hours. When they returned, their spokesman gave a verdict of guilty and Rodney bowed his head deep into his chest. Catherine, after one look at him, collapsed, and Joe put his arms about her, crying, ‘Ma! Ma!’ But Katie looked at her da. Her da was going to die…her da was going to die, and it was all her fault. ‘Oh no, you can’t! You can’t!’ She had turned and was screaming at the judge. ‘He’s good; he reads the Bible, he does. You can’t! He didn’t do it, he didn’t! It’s wicked, it is. Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’