Jarrow Trilogy 02 - A Child of Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Chapter 18

  Late October 1904

  The snow came down so suddenly that drinkers at the Ravensworth Arms were caught unawares. The light went quickly from the short afternoon and they left the fug of the taproom for the thick, silent white world of a snowstorm. Some struggled home, cursing the lack of moon, while others returned to the haven of the warm inn.

  Kate was kept extra busy behind the bar and serving food, while Mary helped prepare rooms for stranded travellers. There was a commotion at the door.

  ‘Carriage gone in the ditch up the hill,’ Bram Taylor shouted the news. ‘I’ll take a couple of lads and see if we can pull them out.’

  Kate nodded for Robert to go and help. The gardener’s son had been calling in to see her regularly since the summer. He drank little but made it last all evening in the hope of exchanging a few words with her. She found him likeable but tongue-tied and was growing impatient that he would never ask her to walk out.

  ‘Tell them there’s mutton broth to warm them before they travel on.’

  Half an hour later, the men stamped back in with a blast of icy air and swirls of snow.

  ‘Two more for the night,’ Bram called cheerfully, ushering in two be-cloaked figures. ‘Mary, show them to our best bedchamber.’

  Kate glanced through the door to see her sister bobbing at the be-hatted gentlemen and leading them to the stairs.

  ‘Someone grand?’ Kate asked Robert in amusement.

  ‘Aye,’ he blew on his numb hands, ‘been at the castle - left too late. Coach is stuck fast. We’ve stabled the horses.’

  Kate grinned to hear him so garrulous. ‘Two more for supper then.’

  But Mary came back saying the old man was staying in the room.

  ‘Wants a bowl of broth taken up to him - too grand for sitting in a public parlour,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘Other one’s coming down. Now he looks a real gentleman - posh voice and clothes. Handsome too.’

  Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Suppose you’d like me to take the soup up to the old man while you serve down here?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Mary with a quick smile. ‘Ta, our Kate.’

  Kate knocked at the door to the large bedroom and went in. She found a thin man with sparse grey hair sitting huddled by the coal fire, wrapped in a blanket.

  ‘Soup, sir.’ Kate put it on the table next to him. ‘Are you warm enough?’

  He fixed her with red-rimmed, watery eyes. ‘Thank you, yes.’

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like? Mug of beer? I could warm it with the poker.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t touch the evil liquid.’

  Kate felt the reproof. ‘I’ll bring a jug of hot water for washing, then. Nothing devilish in that.’

  ‘Wait. Have I seen you before?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘Don’t know, sir. I used to work at the castle,’ she said with a lift of her chin.

  ‘That must be it,’ he said, and turned to his soup. ‘You may go.’

  Kate descended the stairs wondering who this man with the well-cut clothes and superior air could be. There was something familiar about him too. But the bar was busy and she had no chance to question Mary on his companion.

  The night wore on and the snow stopped, but nobody seemed in a hurry to go home.

  ‘Give us a song, Kate!’ a miner from Kibblesworth called. ‘Then we’ll gan home.’

  Taylor encouraged her with a wink, so she went and stood by the fire and began to sing popular songs.

  ***

  Pushing back his chair, Alexander thanked the pretty, thin-faced maid and headed for the stairs. Behind, the door to the taproom opened and a blast of noisy singing spilt out. He hesitated. Jeremiah was upstairs waiting to talk over their latest business at the castle and a possible trade mission to Germany. The bar looked warm and welcoming. A swift whisky before bed would do no harm. His father could wait.

  Alexander turned back. As he stepped through the door, a woman’s voice came strong and clear. ‘The Waters of Tyne’, he thought in recognition. In an instant he was reminded of a summer’s evening at Ravensworth.

  His insides clenched. That voice. It wasn’t just the song that was familiar. His heart started to thud. Alexander pushed his way into the room, past the drinkers at the bar. The singer was staring into the flames, her soft cheeks flushed in the firelight, hair glinting.

  Kate!

  He did not think he had spoken aloud, but she chose that moment to turn and look across the room. Her eyes widened in astonishment and she faltered in her song. They gazed at each other in shock.

  Kate, seeing how others turned to stare, recovered herself and ploughed on with the song. Seeing how flustered she was, Taylor called a halt to the singsong and told his customers to drink up and get off home before the snow started again.

  Kate dashed for the safety of the kitchen. Her heart drummed so much she felt sick and breathless. After all this time! She had not set eyes on him for over a year and had given up any hope of seeing him again. Yet here he was, conjured out of the storm, and instantly he had the effect of making her legs useless and her words trapped in her throat.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Mary demanded.

  ‘Just catching me breath,’ Kate gasped, clutching the table.

  Taylor called, ‘There’s glasses to clear!’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Mary offered, alarmed by Kate’s look.

  Kate nodded and sank into a chair. This was ridiculous! How could he affect her so? He probably hardly remembered her or his once rash promise to take her riding. Though his aghast look suggested he had recognised her. Was it embarrassment that coloured his lean face?

  She stood up and splashed water on her cheeks. No one was going to make her cower in the kitchen. She had nothing of which to be ashamed. Kate emerged and set about clearing the bar. Alexander was sitting at a table by the fire being served by Mary. She was laughing at something he said.

  Kate’s insides somersaulted to see his sensuous smile and tawny eyes, and she felt a stab of jealousy. She busied herself with clearing the glasses and saying good night to the last of the drinkers. As she wiped a table close to Alexander, she heard him speak her name.

  ‘Kate,’ he said in a low voice, ‘do you not remember me?’

  She looked up and felt her face burn under his reproachful look. Remember him? How could she not!

  ‘Aye, sir,’ she managed to say, continuing a vigorous mopping of the table.

  Alexander felt dashed. He had found her again after all this time, having forced her from his mind, yet she hardly gave him a passing glance! Their summer walks must have meant nothing to her. Or was she wary of him after he broke their tryst?

  ‘Kate, come and sit with me.’

  She glanced at the landlord, who was ushering people out of the door. ‘I can’t stop, sir.’

  ‘Then just a word,’ he insisted. ‘You could bring me another whisky.’

  She nodded and went to pour the drink. Mary shot her a suspicious look.

  ‘How does he know you?’ she hissed.

  ‘From the castle,’ Kate whispered. ‘I used to clean his room.’

  ‘Fancy him remembering that,’ she said in surprise.

  ‘Aye,’ Kate said, and hurried back. As she put the glass on the table, Alexander stopped her with a hand on hers. She jolted.

  ‘I’m sorry that I never got the chance to see you again,’ he said softly. He watched her intently. ‘Everything changed when Lord Ravensworth died.’

  She nodded.

  ‘How have you been, Kate? I thought you’d returned to Jarrow.’

  She eyed him. Had he asked about her? ‘I thought I’d have to when Lady Ravensworth left, but I found work here with Mary - she’s me sister.’ Kate nodded towards Mary, who was watching them with interest.

  ‘Two pretty Fawcett daughters - no wonder the inn is so popular.’

  She smiled, unable to resist his charm. ‘It’s more to do with the snow than a couple of lasses.’<
br />
  Taylor called over as he bustled Mary from the room. ‘Kate, don’t be bothering Mr Davies. You’re needed in the back.’

  Alexander’s grip tightened for an instant. ‘I want to see you again - talk to you.’

  ‘It’s not possible here,’ she said, looking around nervously.

  ‘When is your next day off?’

  ‘Sunday week.’

  ‘I’ll come back then. Meet me, Kate,’ he urged.

  She nodded quickly and pulled her hand free. Hurrying from the room, she did not dare look back for fear he would see the longing in her face.

  ***

  The next day, the men left early after bowls of porridge in their room, which Mary took up to them. Kate wondered if she had dreamt the previous night’s conversation and was sure Alexander would not return on her day off. Still, as the day drew near her hopes and nervousness grew. If he came at all, would he call boldly at the inn and ask for her? Should she walk into the village and look out for him?

  Mary, who was working that Sunday, was suspicious of her evasiveness.

  ‘Are you ganin’ to meet Robert?’

  ‘No, but I might walk up to Ravensworth and call on Aunt Lizzie.’ Kate avoided her sister’s look. She did not dare tell her in case it came to nothing. Mary would ridicule her for being a romantic fool with ideas far above herself.

  The afternoon came, bright and blustery, and Kate set out, unable to contain her restlessness any longer. Even if he never came, she could not be confined to the inn. She would walk all afternoon until it grew dark and her yearning was spent.

  As she picked her way along the muddy verge, where lumps of snow still lingered under hedges, she heard the hooting of a train as it pulled into Lamesley station. It was coming from Newcastle on its way south and Kate thought nothing of it. She knew if Alexander came it would be from the other direction.

  She stopped under the sheltering wall of St Andrew’s church. Her mother had once described sitting on the church wall as a small girl, long, long ago, watching a Liddell wedding. As beautiful as an angel, she said of the young bride, in a voice of rare softness. Kate looked up at the stone wall and tried to imagine Rose as an excited child perched up there, clutching the hand of her old grandmother, who had been a servant at Ravensworth.

  How different life would have been for them all if Rose’s mother had not left the village to marry an Irishman on Tyneside. Kate touched the cold stone and felt a strange bond with the place, deep roots that went back through the generations. She was connected to these ancient stone walls, dun-coloured fields and rounded Durham hills that seemed changeless under the cold open sky. They were her inheritance as much as anybody else’s.

  Footsteps approaching made her glance round, her mind still half in the past. The familiar figure striding towards her with a glint of silver-topped cane made her heart jump. He had come as promised!

  Alexander grinned in delight to see her waiting at the church gate for him. It quelled his nervousness at the thought she might have gone out for the day, not believing his words. But here she was, looking pink-cheeked and dreamy under the last copper leaves of autumn.

  He stopped short, curbing his urge to reach out and seize her hands.

  ‘You came to meet me!’

  ‘Sir,’ she blushed, ‘I was on me way up to see me aunt. I wasn’t sure ...’

  ‘That I’d keep my promise? I don’t blame you, Kate, after the last time. I intended to meet you, but I couldn’t get away. There was no way of letting you know. I thought you would understand.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And I tried to find you at the lake - but you never came.’ His voice was reproachful.

  ‘I did go!’ she protested. ‘Twice that following week. But you weren’t there.’ She stopped, going hot under his gaze.

  He smiled in delight. ‘So you did think of me! I’ve thought of you often, Kate.’ He stepped towards her. ‘You still appear in my drawings. Even in South America you haunted me.’

  ‘South America!’ she gasped.

  ‘That’s where I went after Lord Ravensworth died. Then I came back to find Her Ladyship married to James, the next earl dead, and a new baron installed at Ravensworth - and my wood sprite vanished from the estate.’ His look was teasing.

  ‘Do you see Her Ladyship?’ she asked warily.

  ‘Yes. That’s where I’ve come from today; Newcastle.’

  ‘Is she well?’

  Alexander nodded. ‘She seems very happy.’

  ‘The marriage caused a right fuss round here.’

  This made him laugh. ‘I’m sure it did. But good luck to them, I say. And let the killjoys go to the Devil!’

  She looked shocked, then burst out laughing too.

  ‘Who would have thought? James Wadsworth!’

  Alexander held out his arm. ‘Come, Kate, it’s too cold to linger. I want to hear of everything that’s happened to you this last year and more.’

  She took his arm and smiled. ‘I’d sooner hear about South America.’

  ‘Then you shall. It might take until dusk. Can you walk that long?’

  ‘Till the cows come home,’ she grinned.

  He squeezed her arm and led her out of the village and down the valley, skirting the wooded estate. Neither said so, but both thought it better to avoid coming across people they might know.

  Kate would have carried on for ever, walking and listening to his tales of foreign travel.

  ‘There’s something about going to sea, Kate,’ he said eagerly, ‘the adventure, the freedom - that empty horizon beckoning. There’s no feeling like it.’

  ‘I prefer me feet on dry land,’ she mused. As they walked on she made him laugh with her pithy comments on life at the inn. But the short afternoon sped by too quickly and the light was already fading as they turned back for Lamesley.

  ‘Can we do this again?’ he asked as they approached the inn. ‘On your next day off.’

  ‘I’d like that, sir.’

  He took her hands in his gloved ones. They were numb with cold but she did not mind.

  ‘Please call me Alex,’ he insisted. ‘When we’re together like this, it doesn’t seem like master and servant - not to me. Is that how you still see me?’

  ‘No, Alex,’ she murmured, her pulse hammering at their daring.

  ‘Good!’ he cried, pressing her fingers to his warm lips and kissing them. ‘I’ll call for you in two Sundays’ time. Meet me by the church again.’

  ‘I will.’ She smiled broadly, reluctantly pulling her hands away. She hurried towards the lights of the inn, thrilled at the thought of their next meeting. Two weeks seemed an eternity to wait!

  Turning at the gate, she could still make out his tall figure, a shadow in the dark, watching her. She waved and he raised his stick in farewell. Kate rushed inside, unable to keep the grin of happiness from her face. She had to tell someone about this afternoon. Even Mary would do. She could not keep such a secret to herself or she would burst with the excitement and joy that bubbled inside her.

  ‘Mary!’ she gabbled to her sister, finding her in their attic room. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ***

  Alexander strode back to the station, warmed by the thought of Kate’s eagerness to see him again. What rashness had seized him? He felt light-headed, as if his actions weren’t his own, but those of a bolder man. His father would take a fit if he knew of the association. But what harm did it do? He enjoyed Kate’s company and she his. There was nothing more to it than that. He would choose his own friends.

  Yet as he waited for the train in the frosty dark, he felt a pang of misgiving. In all the long conversations this afternoon, he had made no mention of Polly De Winton or the promise he had made to Jeremiah that he would propose to Polly come the New Year. It had just been to keep him from the constant nagging about settling his future.

  Alexander had been happy to court Polly that autumn; she was pleasant company. But to him, their marriage would be lit
tle more than a business arrangement to please his father and hers. It was nothing to do with love. And he needed love. He would take it where he found it.

  Only after he had climbed on board and was passing the lights of the Ravensworth Arms did it strike Alexander. The sweet pain in his chest that he felt when he thought of Kate, the longing inside; it was love. He was in love with the blue-eyed maid from Ravensworth.

  Chapter 19

  The next time they met, Alexander drove a small pony and trap. ‘I’m taking you into Gateshead,’ he declared. ‘We’ll walk around Saltwell Park and take tea. I want to treat you.’

  Kate grinned with delight as he helped her up and was glad she had put on her best dress; one that Suky had given her in a flush of generosity after becoming pregnant and too big to button it up. It was deep blue and matched a hat Kate had bought at a village bazaar that had belonged to the stylish Mrs Fairish, wife of a master baker.

  She felt like a lady, riding into town beside her handsome companion. They walked around the public gardens, arm in arm, stopping to listen to a brass band playing Christmas carols under the gilded bandstand. Afterwards, they warmed themselves by a roaring fire in a nearby tea room and ate hungrily through a plate of currant bread and cherry cake.

  ‘My favourite cake,’ Kate mused. ‘Reminds me of being happy as a bairn - before my father died.’

  ‘I like to think your father was the William I remember - the kind man who took me to the circus with his pretty wife.’

  ‘So do I,’ Kate smiled wistfully. ‘I’m sure he must’ve been to a circus, ‘cos he made a lion and cage out of old wood for my older sisters. It’s the only toy that didn’t get sold—’ She stopped herself quickly. ‘I mean, it’s the only toy I remember my mam keeping. Our Jack used to play with it.’

  ‘Is your mother pretty, Kate? With daughters like you and Mary, she must be,’ he flattered.

  Kate thought of her mother’s tired, dark-ringed eyes and sallow square face, her once full mouth permanently set in a thin grim line. She hobbled and wheezed like an old woman. Only the treasured faded photograph of Kate’s parents and their young family showed that her mother had once been beautiful. She kept the photograph wrapped in brown paper and hidden under her mattress, for fear of inciting Mary’s jealousy. It had been taken on a rare trip to the seaside, before her youngest sister had been born. It depicted a happy family of which she had never had the chance to be a part.