For a Mother's Sins

by Diane Allen

  ‘It’s a letter that came this morning from our Bob. He’s wanting to come home. It seems he’s got fed up, being with Nancy. He’s such a bad writer, I’ve all on to make out what he’s written here.’ Rose sighed and sat with the letter in her palm. ‘What are you getting dressed up for? And how come you’re home so early? Has something happened at the tunnel?’

  ‘No, I promised Molly I’d carry her Lizzie home today. I left work early because we don’t want her to be out in the damp night air.’ John smoothed his hair and checked himself in the battered mirror.

  ‘Oh, so it’s “Molly” now, is it? The woman’s your elder – she should be Mrs Mason. What’s more, she’s a widow – just you think on!’

  ‘Oh, Mother, them days are on their way out. She’s a neighbour – a neighbour who’s in need of help. For God’s sake, leave it be.’ John slipped his jacket on and pulled his cap down, then reached for the door. ‘Don’t wait up for me, I might be a while. I was thinking of having a game of dominoes with the lads after I get Lizzie home.’ Without waiting for a reply, he banged the door shut behind him.

  Rose sighed and looked at the crumpled letter in her hand. She couldn’t risk Bob coming home yet awhile. Like it or not, he’d have to stop a bit longer with his aunt – at least until they could be certain that Lizzie didn’t remember what had happened to her. She got out pen and ink and replied to his begging letter. Better that he was safe and bored in Durham than locked up in Lancaster Gaol. She’d write and tell him no. He’d be all right with Nancy.

  ‘Right, young lady, are you ready for home?’ John smiled at the beaming Lizzie.

  ‘I am. My ma says you’re going to carry me home – I can’t wait!’ Lizzie grinned and stood up shakily on her weak leg. ‘Look, John, I can stand on my own! I can even walk a few steps. I’m going to be fine.’

  ‘Don’t you be doing too much, my girl. You heard what the doctor said – slowly does it.’ Molly tried to calm her excited daughter.

  ‘Come on then, let’s be away.’ John put one arm around Lizzie’s waist and the other under her legs, and lifted her into the air. She wrapped her good arm around his neck and rested the weak one in her lap as he carried her through the ward, the injured navvies wishing her well as she bade farewell to them all, sad to leave the kindly faces.

  Florrie was waiting at the hospital doorway and she skipped along beside them as John carried her best friend across the furrowed tracks. She was glad that that Lizzie had survived. Since the accident, she had gone to the hospital every day. At first they wouldn’t let her in, but she’d waited outside, refusing to leave until someone came and told her how Lizzie was doing. Then, when Lizzie was feeling a little better, she’d been allowed to keep her company. She’d take in books and sit listening as Lizzie read aloud, wishing that she had half the brains that her friend did.

  Molly had gone ahead to make sure the hut was ready to receive them. As they approached the front door, Florrie announced, ‘I can’t stop, Lizzie. My ma wants me back at the inn to help. But I was determined to see you home.’ She held out a bunch of wildflowers: ‘Here – I’ve picked you some flowers. Ain’t they lovely?’ As Lizzie took the now-drooping flowers and sniffed the bouquet her friend had thoughtfully picked for her, Florrie gave a cheerful wave and trotted off home. Bless her, she was a good friend. The flowers would soon revive in a glass of water and then she could have them by her bedside to cheer her up.

  When John set Lizzie down in the chair next to the stove, Molly took one look at her daughter’s pale face and announced, ‘Right then, miss, let’s get some supper in you and then it’ll be an early night for you. I bet you can’t wait to be back in your own bed again.’

  Lizzie was too busy gazing at the shelves adorned with shiny plates and cups to hear what was being said. The place had changed a lot while she’d been away. There was even matting on the floor. ‘It looks right cosy,’ she declared. ‘More like a home.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’ve had a lot of help from this fella – not that he’ll let on.’ Molly smiled at John. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without him.’ She ladled stew into a bowl and set it in front of Lizzie.

  ‘Give over, it’s all your own doing,’ said John. ‘You’ve worked every hour God sends at that hospital. All I did was put things up where you wanted them.’ He pulled his chair up to the table as Molly passed him some stew.

  ‘You know how grateful I am.’ She reached her hand out and touched John’s, words not enough to convey her feelings. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she said, ‘Would you look at me – sad old fool! What am I like? First hour home for my lass and I’m crying like a baby. We should be celebrating our Lizzie’s return.’ She wiped her nose on her pinny and put on her firm voice again: ‘Come on, lady, get that eaten and then off to bed with you. I promised Doctor Thistlethwaite there’d be no excitement for a day or two, so I’d better do as I’m told.’

  Molly sang softly to herself as she washed the dirty pots, content that her daughter was back with her and apparently none the worse for her ordeal. She’d been afraid that Lizzie would be tormented by nightmares about the fall and the long hours she’d spent lying out there in the wind and rain, but thankfully the child had no memory whatsoever of those terrible events.

  She dried her hands and turned to look at John, who was sitting in the chair next to the stove, lighting his pipe. ‘I love the smell of a pipe,’ she said. ‘It reminds me of my old man. He used to do just what you’re doing now. He’d stretch his legs out and puff on his pipe and look out of the window for hours.’

  ‘Aye, except I wasn’t looking out of the window. I was enjoying a far bonnier sight than anything out there.’ John rose and walked over to Molly, placing his hands tight around her waist.

  ‘Will you be quiet and behave yourself, John Pratt? You’ll wake our Lizzie, and I don’t want to upset her on her first day back home.’ Molly tried not to giggle for fear it would spoil her pretence of being cross with John as he gently kissed her and playfully bit her neck.

  ‘You’re a fine woman, Molly Mason.’ He ran his fingers down the side of her face and cupped her face in his hands, kissing her tenderly on the lips. ‘You’re enough to make a poor Methodist lad go off the road of good intentions and into the fires of hell.’ He grinned as his hands wandered up Molly’s skirts.

  ‘Give over.’ Molly closed her eyes and swooned in his arms. ‘We shouldn’t, Lizzie might hear.’

  ‘Shh, come down here, woman. Come on, stop your fretting – I’ll be quiet.’ He took Molly’s hand, pulling her down on to the warm matting where he laid next to her, kissing her on the mouth and stroking her hair. ‘I love you, Molly. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how it’s happened, but I know I want you so badly.’ He kissed her neck and bosom and pulled her skirts up as he laid on top of her and entered her.

  Molly gasped as she wrapped her legs around him and looked into his eyes as he clenched her hands above her head and made love to her with easy natural motions. Both of them forgetting the world around them, their passions fully aroused.

  ‘I shouldn’t have let you.’ Molly lay next to an exhausted John, looking up at the hut’s roof and feeling the hard floorboards through the matting. ‘You’ll think you can always do that to me, and I wanted you as a friend.’

  John reached over, wrapping his arm around her. ‘Moll, did you not hear me? I love you. I’d never take advantage if I didn’t love you.’ He kissed her gently on the neck to reassure her.

  ‘No, I shouldn’t have done it.’ She shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘I’ve too much history behind me. And what would your family say? Their lad going with the whore across the way. I can just see your mother now.’ Molly sat up and pulled her skirts down.

  ‘It’s nowt to do with her. Anyway, she’s got bigger things to worry about. There’s our Mike, living with the family from hell and a baby on the way, not to mention our Bob. Besides, she’s no angel herself.’

  ‘Your Bob’s all right
, isn’t he? What’s up with him?’ Molly turned her head to look at John.

  ‘Nay, he’s got himself into a bit of bother, that’s all.’ Realizing it was a subject best left alone, he steered clear of it. ‘Moll, you know it’s right, I love you.’

  Both of them stood up and Molly gazed out of the window rather than face him.

  ‘I think you’d better go, give me time to think.’ She leaned on the wooden cupboards, still avoiding his eyes.

  John picked his cap up and said nothing as he went out of the door into the crisp night air, his thoughts in turmoil.

  Molly turned and walked over to where Lizzie was asleep, pulling the curtain back and looking at her dark-haired daughter asleep in her bed. She’d known for a while that her feelings for John had moved beyond friendship, but rather than face up to what was going on she’d tried to focus on her work and Lizzie, hoping that the attraction she felt for him would subside.

  Planting a kiss on Lizzie’s forehead, she drew the curtain to screen her bed and went to sit by the fire, her thoughts still taken up with John.

  12

  The snow came down thick and fast, dazzling the eyes and making people feel light-headed as they watched the huge flakes falling down. It had snowed for over a week, off and on, leaving drifts the height of a man all across Ribblehead and the shantytowns. Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent were like white sleeping giants wrapped up in a blanket of snow. Construction of the railway had ground to a halt and the navvies were getting cabin fever with no work to do and no means to get out of the valley. The pipes of the chimneys belched out dark grey smoke against the heavy winter’s sky while residents of Batty Green huddled around their stoves.

  ‘I can hardly keep warm, our Lizzie, it’s so bloody cold.’ Molly wrapped her shawl around her as she put her breakfast down in front of her daughter. ‘I’m going to have to get some more coal from up near the track today. At least we don’t have to pay to keep warm – that’s one of the few perks of working for the railway. I don’t know what it’s going to be like in December if it’s this cold when we’re not even out of October. We’ll probably all freeze to death in this godforsaken spot.’

  Lizzie crouched over the stove, resting her bottom on the top of it to get some heat through her bones while she ate her porridge.

  ‘Don’t you block all that heat off! Your mother’s frozen and all, you know. Right, I’d better see if I can get someone to carry me a sack down from the coal yard. I dare say it’ll be frozen solid and too heavy for me to manage.’ Molly pulled her shawl over her head and stepped out into the blizzard, her skirt dragging in the snow. She held her shawl tight to her as the wind blew cruelly through it, and the snow caught on her eyelashes and hair as she trudged up the hill to the coal yard.

  ‘Bye, am I glad to have got here.’

  Molly lifted her head to see who was greeting her.

  ‘I’m frozen to the bone – I can’t feel my feet and my fingers are blue.’ The red-faced postman from Ingleton puffed and panted as he stopped to get his breath. Molly was the only human he’d seen on his five-mile trek from Ingleton and he was desperate for a bit of conversation. ‘I had to get through – I’ve a letter marked urgent and it’s been staring at me these last five days from the mantelpiece. Where do the Pratts live? Can you tell me which hut it is?’ He blew on his mittened hands as he waited for a reply.

  ‘If you give me a hand with a sack of coal, I’ll take you there.’

  ‘I’ll help you with it – if I can have a warm-up and a brew before I set off back to Ingleton.’ The postman put his head on one side, looking at Molly like an inquisitive robin.

  ‘Deal.’ Molly stomped off with the postman hard on her heels.

  Jim Pratt opened the door to find a three-foot snowdrift blown against the steps and a weary postman.

  ‘Letter for the Pratts,’ he said, doffing his cap. ‘I’ve come as soon as I could. This weather’s held me up.’ And before Jim had a chance to respond he was off, looking forward to some warmth and hospitality at Molly’s.

  ‘What is it, Father?’ Rose wiped her hands and peered at the letter in her husband’s hand.

  ‘It’s the postman from Ingleton. He’s come out in this weather to deliver us a letter. Must be because it’s got “urgent” written on it.’ Jim ran his finger over the seal and then passed it to Rose to open.

  ‘It’s from our Nancy, I know her handwriting.’ Rose ripped it open and began to read.

  A moment later, hands trembling and eyes filling with tears, she slumped into the chair next to the table.

  ‘What’s up, Ma?’ John rushed to her side.

  Tears ran down her face as she waved the letter for them to read.

  John lifted it from her shaking hand and read:

  My Dearest Sister,

  I really don’t know how to start and tell you the news I have to break to you and I fear that there is no easier way than to tell you straight out. I’m afraid that last night I came home from a friend’s home only to find Bob missing. It wasn’t until the following morning when I went into the outhouse that I found the poor lad’s body. I’m sorry to say he had taken his own life by hanging himself from one of the beams. I’m so dreadfully sorry for your loss and I know no amount of words will help you with your sorrow.

  He’d not been himself since your last letter. I think that he’d taken it hard when you told him to stay a bit longer with me. He was finding it difficult to fit in up here, tending to be bullied a bit by his workmates. You know how it is: they always pick on the weakest. Bob, bless his soul, was easy prey.

  I’ve arranged for the funeral to take place this coming Thursday. Everything is in hand and I presume I will see you on the Wednesday, so I’ll air the spare room. The vicar says he can’t be buried in the churchyard, so he’s to be laid to rest on a bit of spare land next to the cemetery with the other suicides.

  I’m so sorry to be sending you this awful news. God be with you and your family.

  Your ever-loving sister,

  Nancy

  John screwed the letter up in his hand as he looked at his ashen-faced father and his wailing mother.

  ‘This is your bloody fault – if you hadn’t sent him away, he’d still be alive.’ Words spewed out of his mouth. ‘You’re a bloody hypocrite, Mother!’ John stamped about the room, unable to contain his grief and anger.

  ‘Enough, lad,’ said Jim. ‘We’re all upset. Your mother’s not to blame for his death. She didn’t know he was down.’ Jim put a comforting arm around Rose as she sobbed uncontrollably.

  ‘Tell him, Ma. For once in your life, practise what you preach: tell my father the truth. It’s time he knew what Bob got up to and how you’ve covered for him ever since!’ John banged his hand down on the table.

  Rose sobbed into her apron, unable to look at her furious son.

  ‘I said that’s enough! Stop your bellowing, I know why he was sent away. You may think I sit in that chair and don’t take anything in, but I’m not daft. It didn’t take a genius to see the way Bob looked at that Mason lass. Then on the day she goes missing, he comes home with a cut on his head and sulking for the Devil. Oh aye, there’s not a lot gets past me. And don’t you look at me like that, Rose – our John’s right: you’re too devious for your own good. Maybe now our Bob’s dead, you’ll see what you’ve done and mend your ways. It’s time the pair of you squared yourselves up. Remember who’s head of this household.’ Having said his piece, Jim sat in his chair next to the fire and lit his pipe. ‘Now, when does she say the funeral is?’

  John unscrewed the letter, this time reading it more carefully. ‘Thursday. She says Thursday, but that was yesterday. We’ve even missed his bloody funeral.’ John slumped in the chair next to his mother’s. ‘I’m sorry, Ma, I shouldn’t have lost my temper. You did what you thought best.’

  Rose lifted her head and tried to smile at her son, her eyes red and puffy. ‘I only did what I thought was right for him. I loved him – he was my baby.
You’re all my babies.’

  John held her in his arms and rocked her. ‘I know, Ma, but we’re all grown-up. We can stand on our own two feet. You can’t look after us for ever.’

  Jim spat a mouthful of saliva into the fire, making it hiss. ‘I’m off to the Welcome Inn for a bloody gill – and don’t any bugger try and stop me or lecture me. A man should be able to have a drink in time of sorrow.’

  He’d no sooner left the house than he came across the postman, about to embark on the return journey.

  ‘Good day to you!’ the postman shouted.

  ‘Good day, my arse!’ Jim shouted back.

  ‘Now you’re sure you’ll be all right if I go back to work? Promise you’ll keep warm and not do anything daft.’ Molly looked at her daughter lying in bed.

  ‘Mam, just go. It’ll be grand to have some time to myself, and besides I can read this book that Doctor Thistlethwaite gave me. He says Charles Dickens is really good and he writes about our sort.’

  ‘How would he know about our sort? He’s never known what it is to go hungry. He likes to think he understands us, but he never will.’ Molly laughed at her book-loving daughter. She could read herself but never had the luxury of time to devote to reading a book from cover to cover.

  ‘Right, I’m off then. Coal’s by the stove, dinner’s on the table – and you mind what you’re doing till I get home!’

  Molly closed the door and set off along the track. The snow had melted, leaving behind a muddy slush that seeped into her boots and left the hem of her skirt soaked. When she got to the hospital she stood in the doorway stamping her feet to clear them of the icy mush before entering.

  ‘Ah, Molly, I was wondering if you were going to be joining us today,’ said Doctor Thistlethwaite, hurrying to the door to greet her. ‘I’ve no work, I’m afraid. Since this weather has put a stop to work on the railway we’ve had no new casualties and Nurse Thompson is able to manage those patients already on the ward. However, I’m glad to see you as there’s a matter I would like to discuss with you . . .’