Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Katie, look at me.’ Theresa’s voice was sharp, and when Katie turned her head round she said, ‘You know Andrée better than I do, much better, yet you can doubt him. I don’t think for a moment that anything or anyone can keep him away from you. You know’—she smiled sadly—‘you don’t know your own value, Katie, you never have; you don’t know how you affect people.’ She didn’t go on to say, ‘You don’t know how you affect me, how you have always affected me’; she kept it general by adding, ‘Look at Betty, for instance, and Kenny, and Mr Hewitt. Even take Albert Weir, with his cab always at your disposal—to the inconvenience of other people no doubt. Once people know you, Katie, they don’t leave you unless they must…Don’t you realise that?’

  ‘That’s nice of you, Theresa. But you’ve just explained it…unless they must. She’s his wife, and if she’s ill and asks him to stay, even for a while, I feel he will. And once he gets a taste of the life he was used to amongst his own people—well, the pull will be too strong…and then there’ll be the chance of being master of a big ship again because he really hates these little coal tramps, I know he does. I know, because of the way he laughs at them. And on top of all this there’ll be his children. They, if nothing else, will hold him. It’ll be too much.’

  ‘Not for Andrée, Katie. Anyway, his children will no longer be children. Now listen to me.’ She bent farther forward and was about to put her hand on Katie’s when Betty’s heavy tread came to them from the landing. The next moment there was a knock on the door, and Betty came in holding out a letter, saying, ‘The postie’s just come.’

  Before Betty was halfway across the room Katie had risen and taken the letter from her, but when she saw the envelope the light left her face, and, saying ‘Thanks, Betty’, she stood scanning the unfamiliar writing.

  ‘Not from Andrée?’

  She shook her head at Theresa. ‘No.’

  Almost casually she slit the envelope open and, unfolding the single sheet of paper, began to read, and when she was halfway through the letter and her hand moved unconsciously upwards and pressed across her mouth, Theresa brought her feet from the couch and said, ‘Katie! Katie! What is it?’

  Katie didn’t answer until she had finished the letter, and then she seemed to have to drag her eyes from it to look at Theresa. And now she stared at her for a long moment until Theresa, getting to her feet, came to her and said, ‘What is it? You’re sure it isn’t from Andrée?’

  ‘Yes. No, it isn’t from Andrée.’

  ‘What is it, then? Sit down.’

  ‘No, Theresa, I’m all right.’

  ‘Why do you look like that, Katie?’ Theresa brought her brows together, and Katie could have answered at this point, ‘Because you’re a Rosier.’

  ‘Is…is it something bad, bad news?’

  ‘No, no.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s one of those letters I—I used to receive years ago, you remember, accusing…accusing me of making money the bad way.’

  ‘Oh, Katie, look. Take it to the police. Let me see it.’

  ‘No, no, Theresa.’ Katie pressed the letter in between her breasts. ‘I’ll ignore it…It’s best that way.’ Then, without pausing for breath, she went on, ‘No, I won’t, I’ll…I’ll take it to Mr Hewitt. But say nothing about it, Theresa, if…I mean, when Andy comes back. Don’t mention it, it’ll only make him angry.’

  ‘No, of course I won’t.’

  ‘I’ll…I’ll go now to Mr Hewitt. I’ll see you later, Theresa, at lunch. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Katie.’

  Katie went quickly down the stairs, across the hall and into a small room next to the morning room that she used as an office, and there, spreading the letter on her desk, she read it again, and her eyes seemed to lift each childishly rounded word from the page. The letter began, ‘Dear Mrs Fraenkel, I am Joe’s wife and I think there is something you should know. I have tried to get him to see you but he won’t, so I think I should tell you. You see my daughter, Lucy, works for the Charltons of Biddle Hall and knows the visitors who come there, and she mentioned the Miss Chapmans, whose names are Ann and Rose, and a young lady who was with them called Sara, which we think is short for Sarah, and Joe did not take much notice of her talking about these people until she said that the young lady was courting young Mr Rosier, him that is in the yard learning the business, and then Joe puts two and two together and he says that if these are the same Miss Chapmans as had your baby then Mr Rosier is her half-brother and it shouldn’t happen. I told him to come to you but he is stubborn, but it is a sin before God and I thought you had better know. Nobody knows here, only me and Joe, and that’s how it will be, but I felt I had to write to you, and I think he wanted me to although he never said. I am sorry to have to tell you this.’

  The letter ended quaintly, ‘I am, your obedient servant, Mary Mulholland.’

  At one time there wasn’t a day went by that she didn’t think of her child and that her arms didn’t ache to hold her, but she could never see her growing up. As time went on she had to make herself visualise a child of six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Gradually there had come periods when she wouldn’t think of her for days, or even weeks, and if she looked back it was to tell herself that she was grateful for the pleasant lines along which her life was now running. She felt she was being compensated in full for all she had gone through…The black time was past and would never return. Never could she be hurt like that again; nor could she be frightened like that again, intimidated, made weak, even cringing. That part of her life was gone, never to be resurrected. And now this. Again and again she read the letter, telling herself each time that it couldn’t be possible; it just couldn’t be possible that the Rosiers were coming into her life again, bringing a trail of sorrow across it. Her daughter would be nineteen and a half now. How old was his son?

  She herself was three months gone when Rosier married. His boy would be just turned nineteen…How had they come to meet? How? How?

  She beat her mouth with her clenched fist. What a silly question. Why had she never thought of this happening before?

  For the simple reason she never knew he had a son.

  She got to her feet and held her two clenched fists tightly against her cheeks and she moved her head desperately as she whispered, ‘One chance in a million!’

  But when she came to consider, the odds weren’t as great. This kind of thing must happen often. How many half-brothers and sisters married without knowing it?…But not hers, her daughter, and to a Rosier. No! No! She had cried aloud, and now she brought her fingers across her open mouth and glanced towards the door in case her voice had attracted Betty. What must she do? If only Andy was here. But, oh! She shook her head. Thank God he wasn’t, for he still didn’t know who had fathered her child, who it was who had vented his spleen on her; and if it lay with her he would never know, because his wrath would be even worse than her father’s. No, she had now to be thankful that he was away…And there was another one who mustn’t know about this, and that was Theresa. Every time Bernard Rosier had touched her life Theresa had picked up the cudgels for her, and the result had been disastrous. Besides which, Theresa was in no fit state to be worried; something like this could give her heart such a shock that she could die from it.

  What must she do? It was evident that Joe would never have anything to do with her. Joe was hard, like granite.

  Mr Hewitt? She would go, as she had said to Theresa, to Mr Hewitt; he would advise her, he always had.

  Mr Hewitt looked at her from across the desk after he had read the letter, and words seemed to fail him. He felt increasingly concerned and perturbed about the whole situation. He had a keen sense of devotion to Miss Mulholland, a devotion that was no longer confused by having to handle the business of the Rosier family. Mr Bernard had severed all business connections with the firm after the death of his father.

  Looking back now, Mr Hewitt was not sorry about losing the Rosier business, for he didn’t relish the idea of representing a man like Be
rnard Rosier in any form; and by what he had since learned the account wouldn’t have been worth much, for the family had gone rapidly downhill. Rosier, he understood, was now entirely dependent on the wife’s allowance, while she, it was said, had forfeited her fortune on her father’s death in favour of her son, and tied the money up so securely that her husband couldn’t put his hand on it. All this apparently had transpired after Rosier had had a visit from his sister, Mrs Noble, shortly after she had learned of Miss Mulholland’s wrongful imprisonment. Her visit had, unfortunately—or fortunately—however one looked at it, been badly timed, as when she had demanded to see her brother he had been entertaining three gentlemen friends, and one, who had extra good hearing, was vastly entertained by what came to him when he pressed his ear to the communicating door. The county had laughed about Ann Rosier’s reactions to her husband’s misdeeds, but some had applauded secretly, for they knew this last item that had come to her knowledge was but the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  Ah yes, Mr Hewitt was glad that he was no longer concerned with the Rosier family. But now, it appeared, he would have to contact the man, and about such a delicate, delicate matter. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it.

  ‘What am I to do?’

  ‘Well…’ Mr Hewitt passed his hands over his balding head, blinked his eyes, adjusted his spectacles again and said, ‘Well, we have here, Mrs Fraenkel, a very delicate situation to say the least.’ He stopped speaking and nodded at her—a small nod that gave emphasis to the fact he had just stated. ‘I…I had better give it some serious thought before I write to him…to Mr Rosier senior.’ He moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘He’ll have to be made aware of the facts.’ He paused while looking at her strained, troubled face, before going on, ‘By what you have told me, the young Mr Rosier is still a minor, and, of course, he himself will have to be approached; but let us hope he is a sensible young man and will see the impossibility of the situation.’

  ‘It—I mean the matter—should be given your attention without delay, don’t you think, Mr Hewitt?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Yes, Mrs Fraenkel. But, as I’ve said, it’s a very delicate matter and needs some thought. But I will send a letter to Mr Rosier today, yet I must, as I said, think carefully of the wording.’ He smiled at her. ‘You can leave it to me to do the best in my power to ease the situation.’

  ‘I know I can, Mr Hewitt. Oh, I know I can.’ She stared at him for a moment in silence across the desk, and then said, ‘As I was coming here this morning I…I wondered what I would have done without you all these years. The captain’—she always referred to Andrée as the captain when speaking to her solicitor—‘the captain set me up, but I doubt if the business would ever have been the success it is without you. I feel sure it wouldn’t; I would have had those three houses and nothing more.’

  ‘Tut, tut!’ Mr Hewitt got to his feet and came round the desk, taking off his spectacles the while and wiping them again. ‘Tut, tut, Mrs Fraenkel. Nothing of the sort. You have a business head on you; you have, as the saying goes, a nose for property. Even at the beginning, when you didn’t know a thing about it, you had this acumen. I remember saying so to Kenny the day you came in about the property near St Mary’s, down in Jarrow Docks. That must have been at the end of 1866. It was a real bargain, that property; must have paid for itself three times over during the years.’

  ‘You are very good, Mr Hewitt, so very good.’ She held out her hand to him, and he took it in both of his and shook it gently, and then asked, ‘The captain, will he be home for Christmas?’

  Her lids fluttered just the slightest as she said, ‘I hope so.’

  She did not explain that Andrée was not on the usual trip but had gone to Norway; there would be plenty of time to tell him about this matter if Andy didn’t come back. In an endeavour to keep everything normal she said, ‘Will we be seeing you over the holidays, Mr Hewitt?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Fraenkel, I’d be happy to call in.’

  ‘For dinner one evening, Mr Hewitt?’

  ‘Thank you. Yes, yes, indeed.’

  ‘Can we leave the date until later?’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Hewitt, and thank you…You’ll…you’ll let me know as soon as you get a reply?’

  ‘As soon as ever I get a reply you shall know. I shall send Kenny to you immediately.’

  ‘You are very good. Goodbye, Mr Hewitt.’

  He opened the door for her. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Fraenkel. Goodbye.’

  In the outer office Kenny was waiting for her.

  Kenny was an old man now, older than his years. His hair was a bleached white, sparse on top with a thick fringe around his neck and hanging over his collar. His long face was deeply lined and there was a perpetual drip on the end of his nose, at which he dabbed with a handkerchief while he talked.

  ‘Mrs Fraenkel.’ He opened the outer door for her.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Kenny.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, Mrs Fraenkel. You’re looking very well, if I may say so.’

  If Mr Kenny saw Katie four times in a day he would have informed her on each occasion that she was looking very well. This was the second time he had seen her today.

  At the outer door he smiled and bowed to the woman who had always addressed him as Mr Kenny; who never forgot him at Christmas, and not just with a paltry half-sovereign, but with a substantial sum that made all the difference to the comfort of his chilly years. But even without the gift he would have been willing to serve Katie Mulholland.

  Chapter Four

  It was on the day before Christmas Eve. Outside the house was a white, hushed world—the snow was packed hard on the ground and the fresh fall was adding to it—but inside there was warmth and brightness, and the comforting smell of Christmas cooking.

  Katie, coming from the kitchen, took off a large white apron that covered her blue corded velvet dress and hung it in a cupboard under the stairs; then, looking in the mirror above the gilt and marble hall table, she adjusted her deep lace collar, turned down the cuffs of her voluminous sleeves and went towards the office.

  Seated at her desk, she opened a secret drawer and took from it one of the two letters it held and read it for almost the hundredth time since she had received it ten days ago. It began: ‘Darling Kaa-tee,’ and went on;

  ‘I arrived yesterday. Kristin is very ill. I feel bewildered at all I see. My children are grown-up and married, all except my son. Everything is very strange, but all are kind and making things as easy as possible for me under the circumstances. I have so much to say, Kaa-tee, that I can’t write; but you know what is in my heart.

  ‘There is a boat leaving tonight. I will give this to the captain; he will see you get it as soon as possible. Do not worry, Kaa-tee darling. The course is set; no wind can alter it.

  I love you,

  Andrée.’

  ‘The course is set; no wind can alter it.’ What course? A new course that would hold him to his wife and family? Since she had first read them she could not get those words out of her mind. ‘The course is set.’ She felt sick to the heart of her—sick, lonely, frightened, and each day the feeling became intensified.

  Then there was this other business. This in itself was awful, even horrifying. Mr Hewitt had received no answer to his first letter to Bernard Rosier; nor yet to his second in which he had asked for an appointment to discuss the matter. She knew that Mr Hewitt saw Bernard Rosier’s silence as a refusal to accept such a preposterous situation; furthermore, a refusal to admit that he had ever fathered the child. Mr Hewitt had not said so openly, but had suggested that as an alternative he should contact the young lady’s foster parents and perhaps the association could be nipped in the bud from that side…It would have to be. Mr Hewitt had been emphatic about this.

  And so she was waiting. Waiting for word from Andy, for word from Mr Hewitt; and she was also waiting for something else. She would not admit openly to this secret waiting, for it concerned an old,
deep longing. It went farther than her association with Andy, this waiting; this desire to look upon her one and only child. There was in her the hope that somehow through this business they would come face to face, and she imagined that once that happened there would be no more secret, lonely corners in her—Joe would not matter then.

  She folded the letter and put it back in the drawer; then, getting to her feet, she walked slowly out of the office and into the drawing room. Everything looked colourful and shining here. She was proud of this room. She had seen few other ladies’ drawing rooms in the town with which to compare it; but, even so, she knew that her drawing room, with its French gilt furniture and strawberry brocade curtains, its sage green carpet and fine pictures, was elegant. But without Andy what did it mean to her? Nothing. The room was dead without the great burly sea captain; the man who, although turned fifty, was still handsome and arresting. She could not imagine there would ever come a time when he would not appear handsome to her—this man who could make her love, who could make her forget everything, who was proud of her, and told her so; so much had he praised her she felt that if she hadn’t any looks at all she must have developed them from his very insistence. She turned about and walked quickly out of the room and up the stairs to Theresa.

  Theresa was sitting, as was usual, on her couch. Her face this morning looked very white; the eyes, dark and bright, lying in deep sockets, were turned towards the door. She, too, was waiting, and almost immediately she asked quietly, ‘Is there any news?’

  Katie shook her head. ‘No, but there are two boats due in from Norway today. There could be a letter on one of them.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Theresa nodded her head. ‘Don’t worry. You know, Katie, I’ve got an odd feeling you’ll hear something today.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Theresa.’ Katie forced a smile to her lips. Then, sitting down, she said, ‘Shall we read?’