by Millie Vigor
Catherine of Deepdale
Millie Vigor
Dedication
For Slim, who encouraged me and was always there for me.
For Willie Leask who gave me the inspiration for the story.
And for both of them because I know they were looking
over my shoulder all the time I was writing.
Acknowledgments
My grateful thanks to all those people I could not have done without. Jennifer Sutherland, Jim Budge, Robbie Burgess, Elma Johnson and others who during conversation inadvertently gave me ideas and snippets of information. Special thanks to the members of the Rebel Writers of Sandwick for comments, criticism, companionship and encouragement.
Special thanks also to the staff at Robert Hale Ltd, who have kindly and expertly led me along the road to publication.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY ONE
TWENTY TWO
TWENTY THREE
TWENTY FOUR
TWENTY FIVE
TWENTY SIX
TWENTY SEVEN
TWENTY EIGHT
TWENTY NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY ONE
THIRTY TWO
THIRTY THREE
THIRTY FOUR
THIRTY FIVE
THIRTY SIX
THIRTY SEVEN
THIRTY EIGHT
THIRTY NINE
FORTY
Copyright
ONE
1946
CATHERINE LEANED AGAINST the ship’s rail, Robbie’s arm round her waist. Eager for sight of the land that was to be her new home, she gazed in silence when Sumburgh Head, its lighthouse high on a rocky cliff, came in sight. As the ferry sailed on and the land that was Shetland unfolded she was fascinated by gently undulating hills, valleys and clusters of houses, the restless surge of the sea and waves that exploded into a shower of spray when they broke against the land. At long last she said, ‘It’s beautiful, Robbie, why did you never tell me? And now you’re coming home. Aren’t you excited?’
‘Well, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere.’
‘How far is it to Lerwick and Deepdale?’
‘Should dock by midday and home about three.’
Nerves rippled in Catherine’s stomach. Soon she would start the exciting adventure of life on an island, on a farm with maybe a horse and a cow, chickens, sheep and lambs. There would be no more swabs, bedpans or doctors and nurses and hospital work; that was all behind her. How envious her friends would be.
‘Your mother will be overjoyed to see you.’
‘If she knows we’re coming.’
‘What? But you wrote; didn’t you get a reply?’
‘No. But she’ll only send a letter when the postie calls and that’s not often.’
A seagull swooped low, then with a rush of wings soared up and away.
‘I do hope your mother will like me.’
‘Of course she will.’
‘If they don’t know we’re coming,’ said Catherine, ‘there won’t be anyone to meet us, will there? Couldn’t you phone your father?’
‘He hasn’t got a phone.’
A frown creased Catherine’s forehead. What sort of farmer was Robbie’s father if he hadn’t got a telephone? What a time to realize she knew very little about Robbie’s family. Robbie was very spare with words, but after long busy days in the hospital his companionable silences were what she had liked about him. She wished now she had questioned him more closely, wished she knew more about Shetland, wished she’d asked him what her new life was going to be.
It would be all right though … wouldn’t it?
They had been walking for what seemed to Catherine to be hours and were now on an unmade road that curved round the side of a hill and dropped steeply into a valley. She stopped and looked down, ‘Is this Deepdale then, are we there?’ she said.
‘Yes, we’re home at last.’
On the valley floor and nestling into the side of the hill were four small houses. Smoke snaked up from squat chimneys.
‘And where do your parents live?’
‘In the first one.’
Catherine looked at the house Robbie Jameson pointed out. It had a thatched roof, the bushy eaves of which overlapped the top of a door and two small windows. He had told her his parents lived in a house that was all on one floor and to Catherine that meant a bungalow. But this was not a bungalow. Doubt as to the honesty of the man she had married made her feel sick. Her stomach threatened to throw up as she asked, ‘Where’s the bungalow and the farm?’
‘Farm?’
‘Yes, the farm. You said your father kept a lot of sheep.’
‘I didn’t say he had a farm.’
To control her rising sense of fear that all was not as it should be Catherine took a long deep breath. For a few moments she said nothing.
‘You didn’t tell me it was like this,’ she said, ‘you let me believe …’
‘No, Catherine,’ Robbie shook his head. ‘I didn’t say it was a bungalow; didn’t say there was a farm. You put two and two together and made five.’
‘But I thought … you said … I thought they lived in a bungalow.’
Robbie looked at the little house. ‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘well, I suppose it is in a way. It is on one floor and there’s no upstairs.’ For a while there was nothing to hear but the sigh of the wind, the cry of a gull and the rumble of the sea. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, ‘sorry it isn’t a palace, but we’re here now so are we going to go on or do you want to walk back to Lerwick?’
Catherine looked down into the valley and at the little houses crouching there. Four days ago she had walked up the aisle of St Bart’s church in Southampton to where Robbie Jameson waited to make her his bride. Excited and eager she had set out with him on a journey that had lasted three days, the last night spent in a bunk on a ferry boat. It had been a bad night and she had slept very little. They had left their luggage with a carrier and walked the three miles from Lerwick to Deepdale. She was tired, very tired, and thought she didn’t deserve to have her expectations shattered this way.
‘Catherine,’ said Robbie, ‘shall we go on?’
What other option did she have? ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said.
She was wearing the shoes she had chosen to complete her going away outfit and that had cost many precious clothing coupons. They were not the sort to wear for terrain like this. ‘You should have told me we would have to walk; I’d have put my old shoes on if you had.’
Robbie looked down at them. ‘I didn’t even think about it,’ he said.
‘I wanted to look nice to meet your parents, but … I’ve been rained on, my hair is wet, my shoes scuffed and I’m tired and … oh, I must look a mess.’
Robbie slid the bags he was carrying from his shoulder and took Catherine in his arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I should have given it more thought, but you’ve nothing to worry about; I love you and that’s all that matters. I don’t care what anybody else thinks.’ Raising a hand he touched her hair. ‘Your curls look even better wet and nobody’s going to look at your shoes. You’ve left the city; you’re my country lass. Come on.’ He picked up the bags and they walked on.<
br />
A country lass, was appearance not important then? As they got closer to the Jameson house Catherine’s heart sank. Its walls were only fractionally above the height of the door. Its roof of thatch was not neat like those she had seen in the south of England. A net had been thrown over it, held down by rocks. To the left of the house was a stone barn and beside the house a stack of something black.
Robbie opened the door, dropping the bags as he went in. Immediately there was the clatter of a dropped pan and the screech of a woman’s voice.
‘Is that you, Robbie?’
‘It is, Mam.’
Catherine stepped over the threshold and watched as the woman threw her arms round him and weeping and laughing hugged him to her.
Disentangling himself from his mother Robbie turned to Catherine. ‘Say hello to Catherine, Mam,’ he said and when his mother looked at her and back at him, a questioning look on her face, added, ‘my wife.’
The expression on his mother’s face changed rapidly. ‘Your wife!’
Faced with this glowering woman Catherine gritted her teeth, forced a smile to her lips then listened as Robbie and his mother exchanged heated words.
‘Yes, my wife.’
‘You said nothin’ about this.’
The smile on Catherine’s face faded and died.
‘I did, in the letter.’
‘There’s been no letter here.’
‘But I sent …’ Robbie shook his head then said, ‘she’s a hard worker, Mam, she’ll be a help to you.’
‘Why would I be wantin’ help?’ spat his mother as she glared at Catherine.
What have I done to deserve this? Where is the smiling face, the arms to hold me too? If this was the way the woman was going to be it meant trouble. Catherine thought of her own mother who said the best policy was to meet trouble head on, so she took a deep breath, smiled, stepped forward and held out her hand. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs Jameson,’ she said, ‘I promise to do my best not to get in your way.’
Again the smile faltered and was in danger of disappearing before Jannie Jameson took the proffered hand. With bad grace Jannie said, ‘Well, you’re here, we shall have to make the best of it.’
So that’s the way she wants it is it? Catherine tightened her grip on the hand in hers and stared, unflinching, into her mother-in-law’s eyes.
Robbie watched anxiously as the two women confronted each other. ‘Now, Mam,’ he said, his voice a trifle too loud, ‘how about some tea?’
Catherine maintained her grip and kept eye contact till Jannie looked away. Then she smiled and let go. Round one to me, she thought.
Jannie Jameson cut and buttered what Catherine thought rather flat scones. ‘They’re bannocks,’ said Robbie when he saw Catherine looking at them.
Jannie poured tea into china cups, set a cup in front of Catherine then, with a casual sweep of her hand, indicated that she should help herself to food. Turning to her son, she began a barrage of questions. She spoke rapidly and in dialect and Catherine was at a loss to understand. With an occasional apologetic glance toward his wife, Robbie did his best to satisfy his mother’s questioning.
‘Daa’ll be glad to have you back,’ said Jannie, ‘now that he’s troubled with rheumatism. You’ll be a help.’
Daylight had turned from dusk to dark. Jannie set an oil lamp on the table, took off the glass chimney, lit and adjusted the flame till it burned bright and clear. Catherine looked round the room. It was austerely furnished. A stove on short legs squatted in the fireplace, its hob hardly higher than a bucket of fuel standing by it. An old and sagging arm chair stood close by the fire. Other furnishings were in plain wood. Behind Robbie and in a corner was a piece of furniture that puzzled her. To her it was a large box on legs and too big to be a store cupboard, she wondered why it had a curtain in place of a door. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed. A combination of smells, cooking odours, cabbage, some sort of smoked fish, the musky smell of wet dog and something else that she couldn’t put a name to hung over all.
The first flush of questions and exchange of news over, Jannie got up to tend the fire and set the kettle to boil again. The door opened and the man who came in ordered the collie dog with him to go to its bed, then he looked at Robbie. ‘Boy, you’re home,’ he said.
‘Ay, Daa, I am.’ Robbie stood up, took Catherine by the hand, ‘This is Catherine, my wife.’
‘Your wife! You didn’t tell us.’
So this was Robbie’s father. Catherine held out her hand as she looked into John Jameson’s pleasant face and kind brown eyes. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Jameson,’ she said.
The palm and fingers of the hand that enveloped hers were smooth and hard as leather. John Jameson looked down at her; briefly the corners of his mouth twitched into a smile and the hand that held hers gave it a quick squeeze.
‘Welcome to Deepdale, lass,’ he said. His voice was soft and mellow.
‘Thank you,’ said Catherine.
‘You’ve chosen a hard road.’ He squeezed her hand again, then let it go and went to sit in the chair by the fire.
What had made him say that? The little seed of doubt that had been sown earlier in Catherine’s mind began to take root. Had she been foolish in not questioning Robbie more closely about his home?
‘Where’s the bathroom, Robbie,’ she said, ‘I need to spend a penny.’
‘I’ll get a lantern.’
She frowned. Why would she need a lantern?
‘Here you are, I’d better come with you. Put your coat on.’
My coat! Oh my God, it’s outside. Catherine shrugged herself into her coat and followed Robbie out and along to the end of the house. He stopped and held the lantern up so the light fell on them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but we don’t have a bathroom and the toilet, such as it is, is here.’ He indicated a small building on the end of the house.
‘Here … this is the toilet?’ There was no mistaking the disgust in Catherine’s voice. When there was no reply from Robbie she looked at him; searched his face for some sign of remorse, found none, then, as he opened the door and handed the lantern to her, wordless, she walked in and shut the door.
He was not there when she came out again.
Setting the lantern on the ground she felt in her pockets for cigarettes. She put one in her mouth, lit and drew hard on it, exhaled long and slow.
Night had come earlier than she had expected. Rain and wind had fled away leaving nothing more than a fitful breeze. The moon sailed across a rain-washed sky; its light illuminating the valley. In front of her a stretch of cultivated land sloped gently away to end in a patch of rough grass, then came rocks, a beach and the glittering waters of a bay. The hills behind her and to right and left of her had spread their arms around the valley and headlands guarded the entrance to the cove. The valley was enclosed and self contained.
Her cigarette finished, Catherine threw the stub down and ground it out under her shoe. She wrapped her coat tightly round her and folded her arms. She didn’t want to go back indoors into that bleak unwelcoming domain. Why hadn’t Robbie described the house he had grown up in, told her what it was like? Why?
The creak of a hinge and a door being shut meant that someone was coming. It had better be Robbie. It was. ‘Why didn’t you come back in?’ he asked.
‘Good question,’ said Catherine, ‘I have a few for you.’
‘Oh.’
‘You haven’t been honest with me, have you? You knew your home was totally different from mine, so why didn’t you tell me? And your mother treats me like dirt. Not the sort of welcome I expected.’ Catherine clenched her fists and glared at Robbie. ‘My parents made you welcome,’ she went on, ‘treated you like one of the family, but apart from your father all I’ve had is the brush off. You met all my family, nothing was kept from you, everything was open and above board, but you,’ she jabbed at him with her finger and her voice rose as she went on, ‘you let me think your parents lived in a bungalow, on on
e floor you said, and had a sheep farm, “they keep lots of sheep” you said. Why have you deceived me? For that’s what you’ve done.’
‘I didn’t tell you they had a bungalow or a farm,’ said Robbie. But Catherine wasn’t listening. She was feeling for cigarettes again.
‘There’s no electricity, is there?’ she went on, ‘What about water? Where do you get your water? No, don’t tell me. There’s no bathroom so how do you have a bath?’ She gasped. ‘Oh my God … you don’t.’ She gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘It’s no wonder your father said I’d chosen a hard road. Why didn’t you tell me the toilet was a bucket in an outhouse?’ She put a cigarette in her mouth, lit it then flicked the match away in an arc. Turning away from Robbie she drew hard and sucked smoke into her lungs. ‘What else don’t they have?’ she asked. ‘Is there a kitchen and does it have a sink? I suppose there’s no possible hope of a washing machine.’
Robbie looked at her but said nothing.
‘Well say something,’ Catherine snapped, ‘or are you just going to stand there and hope it will all go away?’
‘I love you, Catherine,’ he said at last.
‘You could have fooled me. Did you think if you didn’t marry me first I’d turn tail and run? Have I got a surprise for you, much more of this and you’d better not think I won’t.’ Robbie reached out to her, but she struck his hand away. ‘If there’re any more nasty surprises, things you haven’t told me, mark my words, I’ll be on the next boat out of here.’ With a groan of despair she turned away from him. ‘You should have told me.’
The keening cry of a lone gull made Catherine look up. You and me both, brother, she thought.
‘You should have told me,’ she said again, ‘you should have been honest. You lied to me. How am I ever going to believe you again? How could we ever get on together without trust?’ She blew a steady stream of smoke. ‘Your mother knows nothing about me so why does she hate me?’
‘You never did listen to me, Catherine, I didn’t lie to you, it was just that I didn’t tell you and you jumped to your own conclusions.’