For a Mother's Sins

by Diane Allen

  ‘God has ears! That’s bloody rich.’ Molly pulled her apron off and left it on the hospital steps and started to make her way home. Her heart ached as she remembered the day she had found Tommy dead in his makeshift cot. The harsh words she had said to Lizzie, and how she’d been driven to drink to cope with her grief. Tears welled up in her eyes, till she could barely see where she was going. Why did she have to go and fall in love with that woman’s son? That was the cruellest thing of all. Had he known? Would he ever have told her? She got to the bottom of the steps to her hut and looked across to where the Pratts lived. Beyond that, she could make out the bowed figure of Jim Pratt, standing next to some burning embers under the viaduct.

  She’d go and give him a piece of her mind. Lifting her skirts, she marched across to the lonely figure.

  ‘Now then, lass, you’ve crept up on me, that’s a fact.’ Jim turned and looked at the lass that his lad loved, the light from the fire catching the highlights of her hair.

  Molly stared at him as he sniffed into his hankie. He’d been crying and he seemed to have lost height and shrunk into an old man.

  ‘Well, did you know? Had she told you?’ Molly blurted the words out. She’d always been quite fond of the old man, but she needed to know whether the whole family had been part of this conspiracy of silence.

  ‘What are you on about? Know what?’ Jim saw the anger in the young woman’s eyes and realized that there was something wrong.

  ‘My baby – your bloody wife killed my baby! Not enough that your son nearly killed my lass, your bloody wife killed my Tommy! Why? What have I done to you, except to be daft enough to be in love with your lad?’

  ‘Nay, she’d not do that, not my Rose. She loves babies, she wouldn’t hurt a hair on its head.’ Jim was genuinely shocked, his whole world turned upside down.

  ‘She poisoned him with milk in a bottle. She said it was an accident, but I’m beginning to wonder. She’s always hated me!’

  ‘Nay, she’s not like that. It’d be an accident. She might be a stubborn old stick and protect her brood too much, but she’s not spiteful or cruel.’ Jim started to walk off.

  ‘Don’t you walk away from me, I need the truth,’ Molly yelled.

  ‘That’s what I’m off to find out before it’s too late. I’m off to hear it from her.’ Jim spat out his chewing tobacco and strode out into the night towards the lights of the shanties and hospital.

  Molly stood watching for a minute and then ran to catch up with the heartbroken old man.

  When he reached the hospital steps, Jim hesitated. He didn’t want to enter the hospital. He’d not set foot in one since his mother died. Now the memories came flooding back, the cries of the dying and the smell of death. He breathed in deep and climbed the steps, Molly right behind him. He walked down the rows of beds to where Doctor Thistlethwaite and the dark shape of Tiplady stood by the bed he knew to be his Rose’s. John rushed forward and put his arm around his shaky father, glancing at Molly but not saying anything.

  John urged his father to the bedside. The doctor put his arm around Jim’s frail form and said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, she passed away a few minutes ago. Reverend Tiplady is just giving her a blessing.’

  Jim bent down, knocking the preacher out of the way and squeezed Rose’s limp hand. Gazing into her white face, framed in long grey hair, he said, ‘I’m sorry, old lass. I should have been here for you. You know I hate hospitals, vicars and doctors – can’t stand ’em.’ He bent over and kissed the pox-marked head of his beloved. ‘I’ll never know the truth now, will I? Can’t tell this lass what you did or whether you meant it. Truth’s gone with you, my love.’ He gently kissed her once more and then rose. ‘John, fetch her home. It’s what she’d have wanted.’ He patted his son’s shoulder and dragged his feet slowly out of the hospital, leaving the group watching him on his lonely walk.

  ‘Well, I’m glad the old bugger’s dead, after what she did. She never did like me, always looked down her nose at all us lot. And what she’s died of is going to wipe us all out – Doctor says it’s infectious.’ Molly banged her cup down on the table. ‘Stop your snivelling, our Lizzie. What we’ve got to worry about is keeping you safe from harm. I don’t want you getting this smallpox.’

  ‘But she was all right, was Mrs Pratt. She looked after me and saved me from the workhouse. I remember that day she fed Tommy – she didn’t mean to kill him, Ma, I know she didn’t. I remember her searching for a bottle and Tommy was crying so much and upsetting her, she didn’t bother washing it out. It was an accident, Ma, really. She was kind to us both that day.’ Lizzie blew her nose and looked at her wild-eyed mother. ‘John loves you, Ma, so don’t turn your back on him, not when you’ve just got back together.’

  ‘Tuh! Don’t know what to make of that ’un. I hope he keeps away for a while, for more reasons than one. If he comes and you answer the door, keep him on the door step – I don’t want any of his disease coming into my house. It’ll be bad enough these next few weeks. Doctor Thistlethwaite says more folk will be catching it. Muggins here will be in the thick of it at the hospital, but we must keep you clear.’

  Molly wasn’t about to let Lizzie catch smallpox. What happened to her didn’t matter, but not Lizzie. The girl was all she had left.

  ‘Are you all right, Father?’ Mike put his arm around his dad, he’d not seen him for a while and he was shocked at how small and fragile he had become. This was the man that had always been there for them, that in years past could wield a pick like Hercules himself and always took care of his family. Now he was so frail it was as if all the life had been sucked out of him. He sat with his hand on the corpse of Rose, which had been laid out in her best nightclothes with two pennies on her eyes to pay for her safe passage into the next world. The coffin was nothing fancy but would serve its purpose and was awaiting the passage to the churchyard of St Leonard’s. Jim had argued with the doctor, insisting that he be allowed to keep vigil on Rose. He knew her body should be quarantined, but he’d nothing to lose now that the most precious thing in his life had been taken from him.

  ‘Aye, I’m all right, lad. Life goes on – I’ve you and John to think about, and happen now I’ll get to have a look at that granddaughter of mine.’ He patted Mike’s hand. He wasn’t a bad lad, he’d come as soon as he’d heard his mother had died and now he’d taken over the funeral arrangements, insisting that the funeral tea would be held at Gearstones. Rose would probably have had something to say about that, but he’d insisted. At least they were keeping the cost within the family.

  John beckoned Mike over to him. ‘Have you heard what our mother confessed to on her deathbed?’ John had wanted to talk to someone about it since his father told him, but didn’t want his father to have more worry.

  ‘Apart from trying to control all our lives?’ Mike shrugged, but then paused when he saw the anguish on his older brother’s face.

  ‘She confessed to Moll that she’d killed her baby, Tommy. She fed him milk out of my rat-poison bottle.’ John pulled on his brother’s sleeve, urging him not to speak until he’d finished. ‘Trouble is, our Mike, I think it’s true. Lord knows it was an accident, but I remember coming home and seeing a teat stuck on the bottle. When I asked what she’d been doing with my rat bottle, I remember her going white and running out of the hut. It wasn’t long after that she started doing all she could for Molly: taking Lizzie in, sending her to take food to her mother. I couldn’t understand it at the time, but when I heard about Tommy I started to put two and two together.’

  ‘Aye, God, why didn’t she say?’ said Mike, stunned by the news. ‘She’s been living with that guilt all this time! No wonder she didn’t come and see our bairn, it would only have reminded her. And what with Gearstones being her idea of hell on earth, I bet that just put the top hat on it, the stubborn old fool. What does your Molly make of this?’ It had been bad enough that Bob had turned out to be such a black sheep, but his mother . . .

  ‘Haven’t been near,’ sai
d John. ‘I know Moll, she’ll not want to see me yet. Best to let her calm down in her own time. I bloody well love the bones of that woman and if this has put space between us again I don’t know what I’ll do,’ John sighed.

  Mike, always the joker in the family, jostled his brother’s arm and said, ‘You mean you love bedding her, our John. I still owe you a shilling, don’t I?’ He laughed loudly, making his father stir.

  ‘A bit of respect, lads! This is your mother lying here – and don’t think I can’t hear what you’re talking about. As soon as your mother’s in her grave I’ll be away across to see Molly Mason. We’ve done her wrong twice and the poor lass doesn’t deserve it. As for you, John – if you love her so much, best let her know it, else you’ll lose her.’

  The brothers exchanged glances. Their father had the ears of a bat, that was for sure, even if he looked nearly ready for the grave himself.

  20

  Rose’s grave was the last plot but one in the tiny churchyard. The vicar prayed over her while worrying what would happen when that last grave was filled. He’d conducted more funerals in the eighteen months since the railway had arrived in the dale than in all the preceding years put together. And now the doctor had warned him that, with the coming of smallpox, this burial would be the first of many.

  ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .’ The vicar peered over his prayer book at the grieving family. The youngest member was screaming its head off in protest at the passing of a grandmother it had never known. One by one, Rose Pratt’s nearest and dearest sprinkled soil on her coffin and paid their respects. If the iron-willed Rose Pratt had succumbed to illness, the poorer shanty dwellers, many of whom were malnourished and lived in squalid conditions, would stand no chance.

  ‘Thank you, Vicar. That was a good service.’ Jim Pratt came across and shook the vicar’s hand. ‘You’re welcome to join us for a bite to eat up at Gearstones. My lad and his wife have laid a tea on.’

  The vicar shook his hand and murmured a noncommittal response. Jim Pratt was a good man who had been dealt a hard deal in life, but Gearstones was not a place the vicar would frequent if he could avoid it.

  Jim hoisted himself up into the back of the gig and took the seat opposite John. Jenny, who was sitting with his granddaughter fast asleep in her lap, smiled and put her free arm around him. Jim smiled back at her. Mike’s wife was a good lass; Rose should have given her a chance. But then, that had always been Rose’s way. If you weren’t one of hers then you were lacking.

  Mike urged the horses into action and they set off. As they passed the Welcome Inn, they saw the doctor heading through the door. Since he wasn’t the sort to drink there, they assumed he’d been summoned to attend to some poor soul who’d had a few too many and got into a fight. It was a regular enough occurrence at Henry Parker’s establishment.

  Their route took them onward, past the shanty town at Ribblehead and the viaduct spanning Batty Moss, until finally they came in sight of Gearstones, the sprawling group of houses and the infamous doss-house that Rose had visited once in her life and sworn she would never return to.

  ‘Come on, lass, let me help you down – that bairn needs her cot.’ Jim held his hand out to help his daughter-in-law down.

  ‘No you don’t! I’ll help her, Father.’ John jumped down quickly and eased his father aside. ‘Get yourself in, Pa. The front door’s that middle one.’ John pointed at the largest of the doors in the imposing square house that backed on to the rough track over to Hawes. He lifted Jenny down and followed his father in, while Mike took the horse and trap down the bank to the stables.

  ‘It’s good of your family to do this for me,’ Jim told Jenny as he waved her to go in first. ‘You’ll have to let me know how much I owe them.’

  ‘You owe them nothing. We won’t take it, even if you offer.’ Jenny opened the door to reveal a beautiful hallway, lavishly decorated and immaculately clean.

  Jim stared in wonder at the home that Rose had declared a den of iniquity. ‘Your home’s bonny. I thought you took boarders and sold ale in here.’ Jim couldn’t stop himself.

  ‘Only down at the doss-house, where you came last time, and the ale house next door to it. This is our family home. I can’t think of anything worse than having to live over the ale house!’ Jenny untied her hat and hung it on the hall stand before walking into the parlour and laying the baby down in her crib.

  The parlour was richly decorated and from the windows you could see right down the valley, with the new extending towards the huge peak of Pen-y-ghent in the distance. Jim could only imagine what Rose would have said if she’d known she was missing all this! A den of iniquity indeed! Clearly the Burton family lived well, for all their rough manners at the wedding.

  ‘My brothers and parents will join us shortly. Don’t worry, they’ll be right with you. The only reason they were unreasonable with Mike was that they were frightened he wouldn’t stand by me. They were just being overprotective. I’m their baby sister and they wanted to make sure I was taken care of. Now they’ve gotten to know him, they think Mike is a grand fella, one of the family. And they all dote on this bundle of trouble.’ Jenny rocked the cradle gently. ‘Keep an eye on her for me, will you? I want to make sure everything’s ready.’

  As soon as she closed the door behind her, Jim turned to John. ‘Did you know they lived like this?’

  ‘Aye. Our Mike landed on his feet when he married Jenny. The doss-house is rough, but I always knew the Burtons were worth a bob or two.’ John grinned at his father’s expression.

  ‘Your mother must be turning in her grave with envy! She’d no idea, else she’d have been coming up here every day, just to look at the carpet and wall coverings.’ Jim sat down in one of the comfortable chairs and gazed out of the window at Ribblesdale.

  ‘That’s why I didn’t tell her. She should have taken the time to get to know people before judging them. It was a fault of my mother’s.’

  Mike caught the last sentence as he came into the room. ‘I know I shouldn’t talk ill of her now she’s in her grave,’ he said, ‘but she certainly liked to control us all. And John’s right: she always did judge folk before getting to know them. Jenny’s family own all the buildings you can see and most of the land up to Dent Head. Mind, it wasn’t her money I was after, it was Jenny. If me ma hadn’t been too blind to see how much I loved Jenny, I’d have invited you up here instead of to the doss-house, but the way she was carrying on made me so angry . . .’ Mike sat down next to his father. ‘Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. The Burtons have laid out a cold tea for you and I’m to ask whether you both want to stop the night. I know it’s not far to go back home, but we’d like you to stay.’ Mike patted his father’s hand while John stood behind his chair.

  ‘Nay, lad, I’m not stopping. I’ve something to do before this day’s over – another thing that your mother, God rest her soul, interfered in.’ Jim twiddled his gold watch chain, a treasured possession he’d inherited from his father. ‘I might as well tell you now, lads, while I’ve got you both together. I’m going back to Durham. There’s nothing left for me here and you two are big enough to look after yourselves. Besides I can’t live through another smallpox outbreak – I’ve too many memories of the last one. I just pray none of you catch it.’

  John and Mike nodded. Neither of them wanted to see their father go, but it was obvious he was heartbroken. The last week had aged him and all his fight had gone. Without his Rose, he was lost.

  ‘We understand, Father,’ said John. ‘We’re both big enough and old enough to look after ourselves. But are you sure you’ll be all right?’

  ‘Aye, lad, I’ll be grand. I’m going to lodge with your aunty Margaret, if she’ll have me. It’s where I should be now, helping out my older sister. She was good to me when we lost our mother. Now we’re both widowed, we can help one another. I’ve been thinking about her, having to manage on her own since her husband died last year. Well, now I can do something about it.’
/>   ‘We’ll send you some money every so often, Father. It’s the least we can do,’ said Mike.

  ‘I don’t want any of your brass, lad. You have enough on your hands with this bonny little thing – and you never know, she might be the first of many. And you, our John, you need to look after that Molly and her little lass – although she’s not that little nowadays. Moll’s a good woman. A bit rough around the edges, but that’s what you need standing alongside you in this hard world.’ Jim’s eyes filled with tears that he tried to hold back.

  The drawing-room door opened and Jenny stuck her head in. ‘Come through, you three. The tea table’s set and there’s some folk walked up from the funeral and Ribblehead to pay their respects. She was a popular lady, was Rose.’

  Urged on by Jenny, they went through to the dining room, which was full of mourners and members of the Burton family. Spread out on a huge table was a funeral feast the likes of which Jim had never seen.

  ‘Aye, lass, you’ve done us proud,’ said Jim, tears rolling down his cheeks as he hugged his daughter-in-law.

  ‘It’s nothing, you’re my family.’ Jenny kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘If only Rose was here to see it.’ Jim’s voice trailed off, realizing the irony of his words.

  ‘She is. She’s up there, looking down – and probably kicking herself for missing her own funeral tea.’ Jenny squeezed her father-in-law’s hand and led him through the throng of mourners to the feast.

  ‘Is your mother in, lass?’ Jim shouted through the hut door.

  He was still warm after the exertion of walking all the way from Gearstones, but as soon as he stopped he could feel the cold beginning to creep in through his gloveless fingers.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Pratt, Mam says I can’t open the door to anyone when she’s not here, and she’s at the hospital.’

  ‘Never mind, lass. I’ll catch her tomorrow. You keep that door shut – your mother’s right, keep safe.’ Jim walked back to his empty hut alone. He’d left John behind having a drink in the ale house. Rose had been right: it was full of Irish navvies, the worse for drink – a completely different world from the Burtons’ home. Still, if that was how they wanted to make their money, let a better man than him tell them that they were wrong. He bent down and lit the stove and put the old black kettle on it to boil, pulling up the Windsor chair that Rose had insisted she had to have brought down with them from Durham. He smiled as he ran his hand lovingly over the highly polished chair arm, remembering when they had bought it together and how he’d scrimped and saved to purchase it. She always did want the best.