Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh, Katie.’ Theresa’s hand came out and touched hers gently. ‘You don’t want to read today, now do you?’

  ‘I don’t mind, I really don’t. Everything’s ready downstairs. It’ll keep my mind occupied.’

  ‘No. We’ll give it a rest…Yet wait. There’s something I’d like you to hear. It’s at the end of one of Chesterfield’s letters, I thought it was very amusing. Shall I read it or will you?’

  ‘You read it; you’ll do it so much better.’

  Theresa lifted up a book from her table and, glancing towards Katie, said, ‘It was written in London, November 12th, 1750, over a hundred and thirty years ago. It’s hard to imagine there were refinements in those days, but there were…Listen, this is what he writes to his son:

  ‘“My mentioning these particulars arises (I freely own) from some suspicion that the hints are not unnecessary; for when you were a schoolboy you were slovenly and dirty, above your fellows. I must add another caution, which is, that upon no account whatever you put your fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nose or ears. It is the most shocking, nasty, vulgar rudeness that can be offered to company; it disgusts one, it turns one’s stomach; and, for my own part, I would much rather know that a man’s fingers were actually in his breech, than see them in his nose. Wash your ears well every morning, and blow your nose in your handkerchief whenever you have occasion; but, by the way, without looking at it afterwards. There should be in the least as well as in the greatest part of a Gentleman les manières nobles. Sense will teach you some, observation others: attend carefully to the manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion, and form your own upon them. On the other hand, observe a little those of the vulgar, in order to avoid them; for though the things which they say or do may be the same, the manner is always totally different.”’

  At this point Theresa looked up and said softly, ‘You are not listening, Katie,’ and Katie, with a start, said, ‘Oh yes, yes, I am. He…’ She smiled now and said slowly and distinctly, ‘He was advocating that one uses a handkerchief.’

  Theresa laughed gently. ‘Indeed, Katie, indeed.’ Then, leaning forward, she said, still more gently, ‘Don’t worry.’ And now, her gaze dropping downwards, she added, ‘Will you believe me if I say you are not the only one who is missing him?’

  Katie’s eyes were moist and tender as she looked back at this frail woman who had brought so much disaster into her life, but she remembered, as she often did, that without having been the victim of that disaster she would never have met Andy. And she knew she would go through it all again if at the end she would be sure of meeting him.

  Never before had she discussed Andrée openly with Theresa. Through time there had evolved between them a mutual understanding with regards to him. It was as if Katie had silently suggested to Theresa that if she accept him she was welcome to stay. But now she said openly, ‘You like him?’

  ‘More than I can say, Katie. You once said he was a good man, and he is a good man. If I’d had to choose a man for you it would have been a man such as Andrée.’

  ‘Thank you, Theresa, thank you.’ Her hand was in the act of moving to touch Theresa when it became transfixed by a yell from downstairs, and they both stared at each other, their mouths and eyes spread wide before clasping hands for a second; then Katie was flying from the room as the voice filled the house, yelling, ‘Where is that woman? Where is that woman?’

  She actually jumped from the third stair and into his arms, crying, ‘Andy! Oh, Andy!’

  Their kiss was long and hard, and when it was finished they gazed at each other, then turned and looked at Betty, who was standing to the side, and they laughed at her and she at them. And then Betty said, ‘Eeh, Captain, Aa’m glad to see you in. You hungry?’

  ‘As hungry as a shipload of emigrants, Betty. What have you got?’

  ‘Everything, Captain. Everything. All you like. I’ll have somethin’ for you in a jiffy.’ She grinned broadly at them before turning and running to the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, Andy. Oh, Andy.’ Katie was gazing up at him as, with his arms about her, he went to lead her to the drawing room; but checking his step, and with his head back and turned towards the stairs, he yelled, ‘Hello there, Theresa. Be up aloft in a minute.’

  Once behind the closed door Katie said, ‘Let me take your things,’ but he, flinging his coat aside, cried, ‘Never bother with that. Come here.’ And again they were close.

  When, a moment later, they were sitting on the couch she traced his bushy eyebrows with her fingers and, looking into the blue eyes that were as bright as the night on which she first saw them, she said, ‘I can’t believe it. You know…I never thought I’d see you again.’

  ‘What!’ He pressed her a little way from him and drew his beard into his chest. ‘You actually thought I’d never come back? No, Kaa-tee!’

  ‘Yes.’ She closed her eyes and nodded her head in small movements. ‘Yes, I did. I thought that when you got back there, to your own country, and…and…’ Her eyes widened now and became more misty, and when she couldn’t go on he said quietly, ‘You still don’t know me, Kaa-tee; after all these years you still don’t know me.’

  ‘Oh, Andy, I do. But the pull, the pull of a family. I know what that means because I…I long for a family.’ She leaned her head against him now, but she didn’t look into his face as she asked, ‘How did you find everything?’

  It was a moment or so before he answered, and as he did so he lifted her hand and stroked each finger towards the nail. ‘She died a few hours after I wrote to you.’

  A stillness took possession of Katie’s body, but at the centre, deep in the core of her, there was a whirlwind of feeling; hidden emotions, hidden desires were struggling to be free and swamp her with relief, with expectation, with the wonderful knowledge of what this could mean to her.

  She clasped the stillness to her, the calm stillness, and let it come over in her voice as she said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  When he made no reply but continued to stroke her fingers she asked, ‘Was she bitter?’

  ‘No, no.’ His answer came quickly. ‘That made it worse at the time. No recriminations, nothing like that. If anything she was full of remorse. But it should have been me. Oh yes, Kaa-tee, yes.’ He now bent his head and looked at her. ‘I should have been full of remorse, because it was not a good thing I did to her, or my family, but I couldn’t help myself. You know I couldn’t, could I?’ It was a plain statement, not a question asking for support for his weakness.

  His face now as he continued showed a deep seriousness. ‘We talked the day before she went; she wanted to talk. She…she wanted to tell me that she was sorry. It was very strange to hear her say she was sorry for all that had happened. She…’ He swallowed deeply, then went on, ‘She said she should never have married me, that she wasn’t the marrying kind. Some people are not, you know, Kaa-tee. Some women should never marry.’ He touched her cheek gently and said hastily now, ‘Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry; it was not sad at all, not really. She had lived her life as she wanted to; she had her children…You see, some women want children but not the man. Kristin was made like that. She would have been happy with immaculate conceptions.’ His mouth went into a wry smile now, but Katie’s didn’t answer it; she just dropped her head against his shoulder, and after a moment asked, ‘And the children?’

  ‘Ah, yes, the children. You know, I had always thought of them like that…the children, forgetting that they were now men and women…Do you know, I am a grandfather many times.’

  ‘Really!’ There was a dull pain in her chest. ‘Were they happy to see you?’

  ‘No.’

  She pulled herself up abruptly and stared at him, her face full of concern now. ‘But, Andy.’

  ‘My daughters were doing what one would have expected their mother to do, they were blaming me. Oh! They were very polite, oh yes. “How do you do, Father?” they said. They looked at this wandering captain who had left his family to l
ive in another country, and they would have been perfectly happy, and felt so righteous into the bargain, if they could have believed I had left my little family starving. The funny thing is that if that had been the case, if they had been poor, I would never have left them, no matter what their attitude towards me.’

  ‘And your son? Did you see him?’

  ‘Ah, my son! Yes, I saw him. He, too, was stiff—very, very stiff at the beginning. But you know, Kaa-tee’—he bent to her—’just before I sailed he came to the docks and spoke to me. He asked…what do you think he asked me? He wanted to know if, when he was in England, he could come and visit me.’

  ‘Oh, Andy, I’m so glad. Does he look like you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, a bit, but more handsome.’

  ‘Never.’ She patted his cheek and smiled, then asked, ‘Did you like him?’

  He now looked away from her and it was some time before he answered; then he said, ‘You know, Kaa-tee, it is curious that you should ask, but I’m not sure. Isn’t that a funny thing to say, I’m not sure? We were strangers. When I looked at him he didn’t seem my son, Nils; he seemed—well, he seemed the son of his grandparents.’

  ‘That’s understandable, Andy,’ she said now. ‘People take after their grandparents. Are they still alive?’

  ‘Oh yes, those two will never die. But they’re not so happy as they were. You see, they’re not so rich as they were; they lost a great deal of money that they had invested in Sweden. Even at Kristin’s funeral…’ Now his face became straight as he went on, ‘Even at her funeral her father had to bemoan the fate of his losses. Ah, well, it’s over, and I’m back to my Kaa-tee.’ He stared at her for a moment, his face still straight, then said, ‘Do you know what this means, Kaa-tee?’

  She looked at him without answering, and he shook her gently, saying, ‘Do you?’

  She could not bring herself to say, ‘We will be married’, it had to come from him, and so she still remained silent.

  Again he was stroking her fingers. ‘You have never worn rings, Kaa-tee. Was there a reason?’

  Her eyes were so misted she could hardly see him now.

  ‘Will you marry me, Kaa-tee?’

  ‘Oh, darling…Oh, my dear, my dear.’ She was crying as she talked, her face buried in his neck, and as he stroked her hair he said, ‘It won’t make any difference, no law could bind us closer together than we are, but it’s a protection I’ve always wanted to give you…The last protection.’

  Andrée’s unexpected return and the joyous fact that she was soon to have a legal claim to the name of Mrs Fraenkel pushed into the back of her mind for the moment, ‘the other distressing business’, as Mr Hewitt called it. All that day it lay buried under the new joy and for part of the next day, which was Christmas Eve, but it was brought startlingly to the fore by the arrival of two visitors in the late afternoon. They were announced by Betty in a whisper. She came into the parlour hastily, closed the door behind her, and, looking to where Katie was standing under the chandelier handing a bunch of mistletoe up to the captain, who was perched on top of a small set of steps, she whispered excitedly, ‘Two ladies, ma’am. They are asking for you.’

  ‘Two ladies?’ Katie came forward. ‘Have you shown them in? Who are they?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. They said their name was Miss Chapman, but they are ladies.’ Betty, smiling at Katie, did not take in the change in her countenance, for she was seeing the visit of the ladies as a breakthrough for Katie—a break through the snotty-nosed lot, as she termed the society of Shields.

  At the name of Chapman Katie had turned a quick glance in Andrée’s direction, and he saw it and the look on her face. Descending from the steps, he came towards her but addressed himself to Betty, saying, ‘Well, show the ladies in, Betty.’

  ‘No, no, I mean…’ Katie wet her lips rapidly. ‘I’ll see them in the morning room.’

  ‘The morning room is full of parcels and packages, and my kit’s in there; it’s no place to show ladies…You know these ladies, Kaa-tee?’

  As she looked up into his face she did not know whether he had been making a statement or asking a question; she had only mentioned the Misses Chapman’s name to him once on that night long ago. Was it possible that he remembered it? She still didn’t know when he turned to Betty and said, ‘Show the ladies in and apologise for keeping them waiting, Betty. But before you go get rid of these steps.’ He picked up the set of steps and thrust them at her, and she scampered out of the room. And now he turned to Katie and whispered, ‘You weren’t expecting them?’

  ‘No, no, I wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter; you are looking your best.’

  ‘Andy.’ She was walking by his side towards the fireplace. ‘The Misses Chapman, they are…’ He caught her hand and squeezed it and said, ‘Yes, yes, I know. And if I hadn’t I would have soon found out…your face gives all your thoughts away, Kaa-tee. Ssh! Here they come.’

  The door opened and Betty, standing aside, said, ‘The Miss Chapmans, ma’am.’

  Katie moved forward towards the two women. She looked first at the taller, at Miss Ann, and saw an old woman, but Miss Rose did not seem to have changed very much since she last saw her; but from their joint expressions she saw that they found a change in herself. They seemed for the moment taken off their guard.

  ‘Miss Chapman,’ Katie inclined her face first to one and then to the other, and, half turning, she extended her hand towards Andrée, saying, ‘My husband, Captain Fraenkel.’

  As Andrée bowed slightly the ladies inclined their heads towards him and Katie said, ‘Will you take a seat?’

  Primly the two ladies seated themselves, and immediately Miss Ann spoke. Addressing herself to Katie, she said, ‘You know why we’re here Mrs Bun…Fraenkel.’ After a genteel gulp in her throat she added, ‘We had to come.’

  When Katie made no reply Miss Rose, with thinly suppressed indignation, said, ‘It’s very very distressing, dreadful.’ She glanced towards her sister, and Miss Ann nodded in agreement and repeated ‘Dreadful’. Then Miss Rose, inclining her body slightly towards Katie and going on rapidly and with gathering bitterness, said, ‘And if you had been truthful in the first place this would never have come about. Never. This is what comes of half-truths.’

  Katie blinked and turned her face towards Andrée; then, looking back at Miss Rose, she said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, half-truths.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do, Mrs Bun…Fraenkel, for you gave us to understand that the baby was your husband’s.’

  ‘Oh, no. No.’ Katie rose sharply to her feet. ‘I never did.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, you did, Mrs Fraenkel.’ It was Miss Ann speaking, stiffly but more gently than her sister. ‘We have the certificate. Sara was baptised Sarah Bunting.’

  Again Katie glanced towards Andrée, where he was sitting looking hard at the Misses Chapman, then she looked at them again, saying, ‘Well, yes, yes, she was; I didn’t think there was any need to explain further…You wanted her…’ She bent now towards Miss Rose, and her own voice held bitterness as she said, ‘You were crazy for her, you never rested until you got her and got me away from the place, and then you moved in case I might see her. Would it have mattered to you then if you had known who her father was?’

  The two ladies glanced at each other; then Miss Ann, in a tone that sounded as prim as her face looked, said, ‘Yes, I think it would. We would have taken it into consideration, anyway; the Rosiers were known to us. If we had known the father was young Mr Rosier we certainly would have considered our action very carefully. And even if we had gone ahead with the matter we would have been prepared for eventualities, and the present eventuality would never have arisen; we would have made sure of that.’

  At the name of Rosier Katie had stiffened instantly. She was still looking towards the two ladies, but she knew now that Andrée was looking at her. All these years she had kept that name from him. Now even the mention of it, and in his presence, had overwhelmed her with a s
ickly fear.

  ‘The situation is a terrible one. We have done our best, but apparently to no avail. Now, we think, it is up to you.’

  ‘Me!’ Katie’s voice was very small, but there was an eagerness in it as she asked, ‘You want me to see my daughter and explain?’

  ‘No, no.’ Miss Rose was on her feet, her small body bristling. ‘Never that.’

  ‘Why not?’ Katie asked the question in a hard, curt tone, and Miss Rose’s voice was equally hard as she replied immediately, ‘Because it would never do. You agreed to her adoption; leave it at that.’ Miss Rose exchanged another glance with her sister, then their attention was snapped towards Katie as she said, ‘What if I don’t?’

  This question nonplussed them for a moment; then Miss Ann, also rising to her feet, said hesitantly, ‘You…you couldn’t do that. You wouldn’t want to hurt her, would you? And, you see, this knowledge would upset her and cause her great distress, for…for she doesn’t know that she was adopted from outside.’

  ‘From outside?’

  ‘What I mean is…’ Miss Ann hesitated. ‘Well, you see, we wanted her to feel absolutely secure, so we told her, when she was old enough, that her mother had been our younger sister, who had died.’

  Katie had sometimes wondered if her child had ever asked who her mother was, and if she had pictured her mother. But apparently her daughter would have never thought that way; she would have thought of her mother as dead, and these two women as blood relations, her aunts.

  For a moment she experienced the feeling of acute aloneness, as she had done on the night she returned from the children’s gathering in Jarrow. There was no Andy in her life; she was a woman without prestige; she was a mother who had been deprived of her child; she had a brother who wouldn’t own her; she had no family…The feeling passed when she felt Andrée standing near her; she hadn’t been aware of him moving. She heard him say, ‘And what do you expect my wife to do now?’