‘What, your real da?’ Lily looked startled.
Catherine nodded vigorously. ‘Say you will, Lily. I’ll never be happy till I find him.’
Lily’s look was dubious. Only reluctantly did she agree. ‘Aye, if it means that much to you, Kitty.’
Chapter 2
Catherine made an effort to be nice to Davie that week. She had the tea ready for her mother coming in after her cleaning jobs, and made herself scarce afterwards.
‘I’ve a parcel to deliver down Jarrow,’ Catherine announced one evening, wrapping up a set of finished cushion covers that she had been working on all day. She was proud of her small business of hand-painted furnishings. The next evening she said, ‘I’m off over to Lily’s. Be back before dark.’
But the McMullen house was too cramped for comfort: three rooms and a scullery, yet Davie and her grandda had to lounge around in the kitchen, getting under her feet while she tried to work. It got on her nerves the way Davie watched her painting the delicate flowers and birds on to the cushion covers and mantelpiece borders. She needed peace and quiet, but he never stopped whistling. She tried to tell Kate.
‘I need the table for me painting, you know that. But he spreads his newspaper all over it - and his baccy. Bits get in me paints.’
‘It’s his home an’ all,’ Kate pointed out.
‘And I’ve a business to run,’ Catherine said in exasperation. ‘I thought you were proud of me making me own way?’
‘I am, hinny.’
‘Then speak to him,’ Catherine pleaded.
‘I will. But you’ll have to get used to sharing,’ Kate warned.
Catherine bit back many a retort when Davie snorted brown snuff off the back of his gnarled hand and sneezed over her work.
‘Canny day for a walk,’ she suggested pointedly the next day.
Davie nodded in agreement. ‘Aye, you spend too long cooped up in here with your painting. Can’t be good for your eyes. You get yourself out and I’ll keep an eye on old John for a bit.’
Catherine got up in annoyance and cleared her work into a box. She could not stand another day of him peering over her shoulder with his tobacco smell.
‘And if you’re passing Aflecks, will you get me a bit of baccy, pet?’
She felt like telling him to get it himself, but didn’t. Just three more days and he’d be gone. Maybe then Kate would show her an ounce of attention, help her sew in the evenings instead of getting drunk and loud with her seaman husband. She longed for those rare quiet times when she and Kate worked on the cushion covers together and there was no extra money for whisky.
Catherine wandered aimlessly down the street and stood at the end looking down at the River Tyne. The tide was out. A raw smell of effluent, mud and timber wafted up from Jarrow Slake, the tidal inlet below. She had played there as a child, defying her mother and grandmother. The game had been to run along the bobbing planks of timber stored in the Slake, daring each other to go further and deeper. Then there had been the day when a young boy had nearly drowned and she had never gone there again. Billy. Catherine had not thought of him for years. She felt a chill shiver go down her back. No, she could not think about it. There were memories locked inside her head that were too painful to probe. Best to forget.
She turned on her heels and away from the breezy riverside. A few minutes later she was at the top of the dusty street and knocking on Aunt Mary’s door. An upstairs window flew open.
‘Come on up,’ Mary called out. ‘Remember to wipe your feet.’
Catherine smiled to herself, recalling Kate’s comment: ‘When her house burns doon, our Mary’ll be tellin’ the firemen to wipe their feet before they come an inch further.’
The upstairs flat was stifling, the windows closed against the swirling black dust from outside. Her aunt was ironing in the kitchen. It looked so much bigger than theirs, uncluttered with the large mismatched furniture that Kate and Grandda collected.
‘Had enough of the drunken sailor already?’ Mary snorted.
Catherine felt disloyal as she nodded.
‘Pour us both a cup of tea,’ her aunt ordered, ‘and you can tell me all about it. How was the wedding? Young Alec wasn’t at all well and I couldn’t leave him.’
Catherine saw no sign of her younger cousin. ‘Is he still ill?’
Mary flapped a hand. ‘No, no, he’s out with his father - gone down to Shields fishing.’
How Catherine wished she could be in the company of her gentle Uncle Alec and cheerful cousin on the pier at South Shields at that moment. Father and son fishing in the sunshine. She pushed the thought away quickly.
‘Did our Kate make a spectacle of herself?’ Mary asked eagerly.
‘No,’ Catherine defended her mother. ‘It was quiet and quick, and they both looked happy. Kate looked grand in your hat, Aunt Mary.’
Mary sniffed. ‘Well, tell her I want it back. She’s never thanked me for it.’
‘You’ve never been to see her yet,’ Catherine dared to say.
Mary gave her a sharp look and Catherine knew to be cautious. Her aunt took offence at the slightest remark. That was why Kate, who always spoke her mind, was constantly in trouble with her younger sister. All through her growing up, Catherine could remember spectacular rows between the sisters and threats of never speaking to each other again that could last for months. She quickly poured the tea from the pot on the stove into delicate china cups.
‘Anyway, I didn’t stay for the weddin’ party,’ Catherine confessed.
Mary gave a tight smile of satisfaction. ‘I can’t blame you. What would a good devout Catholic lass like you be doing in the sort of place Kate chooses? No, you’re more like me - too much breeding to be seen inside a public house. That’s the Fawcett stock showing through. My father was a respectable steelman, you know, and a brethren of St Bede’s. It’s a crying shame he died of consumption so young, and me just a baby. Life would have been very different for us if he’d lived. We’d have stayed Fawcetts instead of coming down in the world as Irish McMullens.’
She blew out her flushed cheeks and sipped the strong tea. Catherine loved it when her aunt talked about the family history. Kate hardly ever did. Only once did she remember her mother mention William Fawcett, Grandma Rose’s first husband. With tears in her eyes, Kate had spoken of a loving father who had delighted in grabbing his daughter by the hand and running down the street, chasing the moon.
Kate had seemed so soft and tender in that moment that Catherine had dared ask her about her own father. Immediately Kate had clammed up and been cross, telling her that her mysterious father was dead and not to ask about him again. But Kate’s alarm had been so great that Catherine doubted she was telling the truth. She just did not want her to find her missing father. Catherine was sure he must still be alive somewhere, living a more interesting life than theirs.
‘I don’t want to be a McDermott, any more than you wanted to be a McMullen,’ Catherine said quietly.
‘Poor Kitty,’ Mary said indulgently, ‘of course you don’t. Davie’s just a common stoker - rough as they come. I don’t know what Kate was thinking of. Course, a bad husband is better than no husband in some lasses’ opinion - specially those with as little reputation left as your mother.’
Catherine winced. ‘I don’t blame Kate for what she’s done, it’s just - I hate the way she thinks I should see him as me da. I could never think of Davie like that.’
‘Course you can’t. Davie McDermott is a world away from your real father—’ Mary stopped herself. Catherine’s heart began to thud.
‘You knew me real father?’ she whispered.
Mary was flustered. ‘Shouldn’t talk about it. It’s all long in the past. Your mam wouldn’t thank me.’
‘Please, Aunt Mary, just tell me some’at about him - anything. All Kate ever said was I’ve got his eyes and hair.’
‘Aye, you have his good looks,’ Mary mused. ‘Beautiful chestnut hair and bonny eyes.’
‘Tell
me a bit more,’ Catherine pleaded.
Her aunt relented. ‘He used to call at the inn where we worked,’ Mary said cautiously.
‘What inn?’
‘The Ravensworth Arms - on the Ravensworth estate - you know, where your Great-Aunt Lizzie lives.’
Catherine nodded. When she had been alive, Grandma Rose had spoken fondly of a special place in the country where her sister lived. Since the war and Rose’s death, Lizzie had lost touch with the Jarrow relations.
‘I didn’t know you’d worked away,’ Catherine marvelled. ‘Thought you’d always lived on Tyneside.’
‘No, I worked at the Ravensworth - a respectable place - a coaching inn where men of business and folk from the castle came to sup. Got your mam her job there - I had a good reputation as a hard worker, you see, so they agreed to take Kate on too.’
Catherine kept to herself the thought that her mother, for all her faults, could work twice as hard as Mary any day of the week.
‘Mind you, it would’ve been better if I hadn’t put in a word for her, with all the trouble she got into.’
Catherine flushed. ‘So that’s where she met me da?’
Mary nodded.
‘Was he a lad from the castle?’
‘No, not exactly.’
‘Then who?’ Catherine held her breath.
‘He was a real gentleman, your father. Oh yes, with his silver-topped cane and his beautiful black coat with an astrakhan collar. Quite the gent. They say he was distantly related to the Liddells themselves.’
‘The Liddells?’
‘The gentry at Ravensworth Castle.’
‘Never!’ Catherine caught her breath.
Mary nodded, her eyes bright with the telling of the long-kept secret.
‘Well, he used to come on business to the estate—’
‘What sort of business?’
Mary shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it must’ve been important. He always seemed to be visiting the estate - and he always found time to call at the inn.’
‘And that’s how he fell in love with Kate?’
‘Fell in love?’ Mary snorted. ‘Men of his standing don’t fall for barmaids! No, they’re only after one thing. Bold as brass he was -calling on her days off and taking her out in his carriage. Thought nobody knew what they were up to, but she was the laughing stock of the inn. “Look at Lady Kate,” they’d say, and, “There goes the Duchess of Jarrow with her fancy man!” ‘
Catherine swallowed. ‘So they were courtin’ - it wasn’t just...?’
‘If you can call it courtin’ when a gentleman takes a fancy to a working maid.’ Mary was scathing. ‘But, yes, he came visiting regular - over two years or more, it must’ve been.’
‘Maybes Kate thought he would marry her, then? To have courted for so long,’ Catherine said quietly.
‘The more fool her! The number of times I warned your mam not to lose her head over him. Oh, I could see she was daft for him - and what lass wouldn’t be? He was tall and handsome, with that posh voice - and such a way with words. But he would never have married her in a month of Sundays.’
‘I suppose not,’ Catherine said wistfully.
‘No, never. Besides, he was promised to another. That’s what he came to tell her when - well, when, you know, she made her big mistake. Just the once she went with him, I’m sure of that. But once is all it takes,’ Mary declared.
Catherine blushed. Perhaps Kate had lain with him in the desperate hope he would choose her? She rubbed her clammy hands on her skirts.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Disappeared into thin air,’ Mary said in disapproval, ‘and left Kate to face the music with old John. By the saints, he would’ve skinned her alive if our Jack hadn’t got between them!’
‘Maybes me da would’ve stood by Kate if he’d known about me?’ Catherine said with a hopeful glance.
Mary shook her head. ‘He did know. Came back months later asking for Kate. Well, I gave him a piece of me mind; told him good and proper she’d gone back to Jarrow in disgrace, carrying his bairn. Even told him where to find her.’
Catherine gulped down tears. ‘But he never bothered?’
‘That’s the odd thing,’ Mary mused. ‘I could’ve sworn he was going to fetch her there and then - left the inn like a dog off the leash. But I would’ve heard if he’d gone to see her - Kate and Mam never said a thing about any visit. So I kept me mouth shut an’ all. Kate was in a bad enough state without me giving her a shock about his lordship turning up looking for her. Eeh, she was like a lass in mourning all the time she was carrying you.’
Catherine sat stunned and speechless. Could it be true? Her father had been a gentleman, a man of wealth, just as she had always daydreamed? As a child she had created a fantasy world in which her father would come and whisk her away from Jarrow’s backstreets to a country mansion bathed in never-ending sunshine. Now it seemed the reality was not so far removed from her dream world. Perhaps if he knew about his long-lost daughter, he would claim her as his own? The thought made Catherine sick with longing. She had to find him and know for herself what kind of man her father was. He had rejected Kate, not her!
‘What was he called?’ Catherine whispered.
Mary frowned. ‘Alexander something.’
‘Please try and remember.’
‘It was that long ago,’ Mary protested. ‘Double-barrelled. Alexander... Pringle-Davies! Yes, that’s it.’
‘Alexander Pringle-Davies,’ Catherine repeated in a dreamy voice.
Mary glanced at her in alarm. ‘Don’t you go telling any of this to Kate. I shouldn’t have said so much. She’ll go light with me if she finds out! You never heard anything of this from me, do you hear?’
‘Aye, Aunt Mary,’ Catherine agreed.
‘It’s just our secret, then?’
Catherine nodded. She could never imagine asking Kate about such intimate things. Her mother had made it plain years ago that the shameful past was never ever to be mentioned. Catherine knew she would get no help from Kate in tracking down her father. But now she was armed with these new revelations, she felt even more determined to discover her father. Just being able to talk about him - a real flesh-and-blood person with a name and a position in society - gave her a thrill.
All the way home, Catherine hugged this new knowledge to herself. It gave her strength to face Davie, the impostor in their household who dared to be a father to her. She passed Aflecks, but did not go in for tobacco. Davie could fetch his own. She was the daughter of Alexander Pringle-Davies and did not belong round here. She was born to something far better than the sooty lanes of a shipyard town. Catherine held her head high.
Chapter 3
It was Lily who persuaded Catherine not to go chasing after her unknown father.
‘And when you get to Lamesley, what you ganin’ to do? Knock on the castle door and ask if he’s in? What will you say to folk, Kitty? They’ll wonder why you’re asking for him. Who will you say you are?’
Catherine had not thought of that. It might lead to awkward questions. I’m Kate’s bastard daughter. She felt nauseous at the thought of being exposed. Once people knew, they changed towards her, gave her that look. She had seen it so often in the eyes of neighbours: pity mixed with contempt. Even among her friends she had endured the casually cruel jibes of children, the arbitrary exclusion from games. That time at Bella’s party... no, she would not think about it. The memory lay like an unhealed wound.
‘No,’ Lily was adamant, ‘you’ll open up a can of worms with your questions. Leave it be.’
Catherine felt frustrated, but what could she do? Lily would not go with her and she did not feel brave enough to go on her own. She would have to abandon her plan.
Through the summer, Catherine threw herself into other activities. With Davie gone back to sea, she kept busy at her painting during the day, and in the long evenings went to Lily’s. On Saturday afternoons, when Lily was off duty from her job at the workhouse laund
ry, they cycled far and wide. Twice a week, they attended the Catholic youth club run by Father O’Neill.
The elderly priest kept a strict eye on proceedings at the club dances, but Catherine loved them. She took little persuading to get up and sing a song or recite a poem in front of the others during breaks in the dancing. She was never one to sit out the dances either. Catherine was light on her feet, quick to laugh and banter with the boys and was never short of a partner. Lily may have been prettier, with her dark looks, but Catherine was equally popular. She was vivacious and could tell a joke and was always the centre of a laughing, chattering crowd.
Catherine lived for such moments when she could be with her friends, away from her demanding mother and grandfather, playing the clown. Underneath, she might feel anxious or unsure of herself, but she hid it under a carefree mask.
‘Dance with me, Kitty,’ Tommy Gallon grinned, pulling her to her feet.
‘Father O’Neill will have some’at to say,’ Catherine teased. ‘That’s twice in one evening.’
‘And it’ll be twice more, if I get me way,’ Tommy declared.
Catherine laughed. That’s an hour in confession for you this week.’
‘It’ll be worth it for you, Kitty.’
Catherine blushed as he led her in the dance. Tommy was a miner, a couple of years older than she, and she felt his wiry strength under his best suit. He had boyish good looks, but she could imagine the fuss Grandda would make if she brought him home.
‘Pitmen - nowt but trouble. They’re half animals digging under the earth for a living. Dirty troublemakers, that’s what they are.’
It did not matter that his stepdaughter Sarah had married one. Or maybe he said it to goad her. Some of Catherine’s cousins were now working down the mine, but her grandfather blamed everything from the slump in the iron trade to bad weather on the luckless miners.
So when Tommy asked if he could walk her home, Catherine refused.
Jarrow Trilogy 03 - Return to Jarrow Page 2