A Daughter's Love

by Catherine King

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

Nell Goodman is a good daughter. Her job in the local brewery is the only thing keeping her and her mother afloat. But with her mother becoming increasingly eccentric, Nell is starting to feel the burden of her responsibilities. When Nell goes to George Wilmot, the brewery’s owner, for help he offers her a job as a live-in servant. She begins to grow closer to Devlin, George’s son, and it looks like Nell’s luck is finally changing. An unwelcome discovery and tragedy mean that things suddenly change. Devlin pulls away from Nell, her mother’s behaviour is becoming worse and there are secrets around every corner.

Release date: July 30, 2015

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 352

Sample

Mabel stood in the middle of the Master’s office. A welcome fire glowed in the grate and she felt the warmth through her coarse scratchy gown. The square of carpet under her stiff boots was soft and silent.

The workhouse Master sat behind a large wooden desk and reread her schoolteacher’s report. It wasn’t good. The teacher had never liked Mabel very much because she wasn’t clever and had a tendency to be outspoken. Now, the guardian peered over the spectacles on his nose and grunted. His wide forehead creased. ‘Factory or domestic?’

‘Factory,’ she replied. She had had enough scrubbing in the workhouse to last her a lifetime.

‘Speak when you’re spoken to,’ the Master snapped. His forehead creased even further as he added, ‘Matron?’

Matron stood beside Mabel on the carpet. ‘Domestic,’ she said. ‘This one can sew as well as clean.’

The Master nodded and picked up another sheet of paper. ‘The Navigator wants a general help to live in.’

The Matron sniffed. ‘It’s that woman who runs the Navvy!’

‘She’s a ratepayer.’

‘She’s a trollop.’

‘Aye, well, that’s what happens when women have their own money. Our relieving officer speaks highly of her.’

It was the relieving officer’s task to decide if folk could be admitted when they arrived at the workhouse. He was responsible for spending the Parish Relief wisely.

Matron grunted. ‘Mabel’s only fourteen. I don’t think the Navigator is—’

‘You’re not paid to think or to tell me how old my inmates are. Besides, she’s nearly fifteen and I’ve only kept her on because you wanted her as a cleaner.’

Mabel pursed her lips and flared her nostrils. She had wanted to leave as soon as she was old enough, but Matron had told her that she had to stay because nobody in town had a position for her.

The Master picked up his pen and dipped it in the inkwell. ‘Domestic, Navigator Inn, Mexton Lock,’ he said. The nib scraped along the paper as he wrote. ‘Next,’ he called, without looking up.

Matron ushered Mabel out of the room. ‘Do you know where the Navvy is?’ she asked.

Mabel shook her head.

‘You go down to the canal and follow it towards Doncaster until you get to Mexton Lock. You can’t miss it.’

‘What’s a trollop?’ Mabel asked.

In answer, Matron clipped her round the ear and told her not to be cheeky.

Mabel rubbed the side of her head and protested, ‘I’m a girl! You’re not supposed to hit me!’

‘You’ll get worse than that at the Navvy if you don’t keep your tongue between your teeth.’

Mabel sat in the receiving ward while she waited for a piece of paper to take with her to the Navigator. Her corset dug into her skin. Matron insisted she wore it now she was leaving but she couldn’t imagine scrubbing floors in it. It was second hand, just as her stiff brown gown was second hand, but they were all she had in the way of clothes apart from her calico shifts and drawers.

The letter when it arrived was sealed in an envelope with ‘Union Workhouse’ stamped in the corner. She stowed it in her skirt pocket, hooked her bundle over one arm and wrapped her coarse woollen cloak around her. Then she set off for her new home without so much as a backward glance at the cold and draughty prison she had lived in for as long as she could remember.

She went through town towards the canal, past the church that she’d walked to every Sunday with other workhouse inmates, and down the high street. No one moved her on when she stopped to gaze in shop windows or stare at fine ladies in their carriages.

She didn’t see many fine ladies, though. This was an industrial town driven by steelworks, glassworks and factories. There were more rough-hewn carts than carriages lining the pavements outside the shops. She passed the doorway of a cooked meat shop and a working man came out with a bread-cake oozing roast pork. The smell made her realise how hungry she was. But she had no money so she dared not linger and quickened her step towards the canal.

The air was damp and chilly by the water. Some of the older buildings along the canal were derelict; others had been fitted out as workshops or factories, turning their backs on the waterway. A railway line ran alongside the canal now and it had taken most of the barge trade. The line followed the same route along the valley and steam engines pulling carriages chugged straight past the decaying wharves and horse marines that had kept the barges going in days gone by.

Mabel began to have misgivings about being all alone and away from the town throng. Suddenly she wanted to be back in the workhouse with the other children and Matron barking orders at her. But she was on her own now and fretted about coming face to face with thugs on the towpath.

A man pushing a handcart loaded with coal came towards her. The handle of his shovel stuck out of the top. As he got closer she noticed his clothes were grubby and dishevelled, and his face was grimy with coal dust. She slowed her step and looked around: there was the dingy water of the canal on one side of her and a prickly hedge on the other. Thinking of the lurid stories she had heard in the workhouse dormitory, from girls younger than she, about what men had done to them, she backed away against the hedge.

He was a tall man, but fresh-faced and young with dark hair and eyes, and he smiled at Mabel as he approached with his laden barrow. As he drew level with her, he stopped, touched the brim of his greasy cap and said, ‘Thank you, miss.’

He’s just a lad, she said to herself, not much older than the workhouse boys, although he was broader and … and obviously stronger. She froze to the spot. No one had called her ‘miss’ before. Why was he being nice to her? What did he want?

‘I haven’t got any money,’ she said in a rush.

His smile broadened. ‘Hey, steady on! I’m not going to rob you, miss. Where are you heading?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

His expression became serious and he put his head on one side. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re a pretty young lass out on your own and there’s not much back that way apart from Mexton pit.’

‘Oh!’ Had she missed the inn? Perhaps it was on the other bank? ‘Not the Navigator Inn?’ she queried. ‘Isn’t that this way?’

‘Oh yes, it’s not far. You come to the blacksmith’s forge first and the Navvy is next door. I’ve just come from there.’

‘Have you? What’s it like?’

‘Cheap enough, if you’re looking for a bed for the night.’

‘I’m going to work there.’

‘Are you? Well, the landlady could certainly do with more help. I’ll look out for you when I next call in.’

Mabel liked that idea and relaxed enough to manage a small smile.

‘I’m Harold, by the way,’ the young man said.

‘Mabel.’

He took hold of his handcart again. ‘Ta-ra, then, Mabel.’

‘Ta-ra,’ she said and watched him push on with his coal. After he had gone a few yards he looked back over his shoulder and, caught out staring at him, Mabel flushed with embarrassment. She hoped he was too far away to notice.

Pretty girl, Harold thought as he glanced back at her. He liked girls with fair hair and blue eyes; and if she’d be working at the Navigator he would see her again. This had been a good day for him with a new order to think about. He wasn’t keen on the landlady at the Navvy, especially the way she had given him the glad eye. She must be ten years older than him at least! Still, she wanted a carter and she could pay. But if he was going to carry sacks of grain and barrels of ale for her on a regular basis, he would need a horse and cart, which he couldn’t afford yet.

Harold had a fair business going now, carting coal by hand all the way from Mexton pit head to the rows of terraces in town. The profit was good, especially if he shovelled the coal into the cellar for his customers. He had been thinking of going into coal haulage proper until he’d seen the brewhouse in the back yard of the Navigator and the line-up of small barrels waiting to be collected by farmers and shopkeepers and the like. If he delivered the barrels for her she’d have more orders. But would she pay enough for him to afford to keep a horse?

Harold made his coal delivery then moved on to the flour mill to pick up a few sacks of flour that he paid for with his coal money. The flour was ordered and the miller gave him some old sailcloth to put down in his cart over the coal dust. Harold dropped off the sacks and collected payment for them on his way home. One of his regulars for flour baked bread and cake to sell from her front room. She always kept back one of her loaves for him and he was grateful.

His mother had baked her own bread until Father died. After that, she took poorly herself and never completely recovered. It was her heart, the club doctor said. He’d said that about his father, too, and Father had gone suddenly, whereas Mother was lingering, growing weaker and weaker by the month. Thank goodness he was fit and strong enough to work, Harold thought as he headed for home. It was a good couple of miles out of town but with an empty handcart he fair raced along.

Home was a farm labourer’s cottage. The farmer, Mr Hawkridge, was a kindly gentleman and hadn’t turned them out when Father died. His wife had a similar nature and looked in on Mother every day while Harold was out making a living. She was at the front door when Harold arrived so he knew something was up.

‘She’s had another turn – a bad one,’ the farmer’s wife said. ‘I had to send for the doctor.’

Harold was shocked. The doctor had told him Mother would be fine provided that she didn’t do too much. ‘Where is she?’ he queried.

‘Upstairs. The doctor is with her now.’

Harold took the stairs two at a time, fearing the worst. The front bedroom door stood open. ‘How is she, sir?’ he asked, but one glance at his mother’s grey face told him. He knelt down beside the bed. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘it’s me.’ She didn’t move – not even a twitch. Harold’s eyes were scared when he looked up at the doctor. ‘Is she asleep, sir?’

‘You must prepare yourself, son,’ the doctor replied quietly.

‘You don’t mean she’s going to die?’

‘Her heart is very weak now.’

Harold picked up his mother’s hand. The fingers were cold to his touch but he saw she was still breathing: in short shallow snatches, barely enough to notice.

‘It won’t be long now, I’m afraid,’ the doctor added.

She didn’t last through the night. The doctor stayed with her to the end and the farmer’s wife came back before breakfast. Harold’s head was heavy. His neck didn’t feel strong enough to hold it up. He had never been a lad to cry easily but a few tears squeezed through his tightly shut eyelids.

The hours ticked by slowly and the day passed in a blur of visitors: the vicar and a stream of church wives bringing him sustenance and sympathy. The funeral arranger called and later came to take Mother away to his chapel of rest. At the end of the long day, the farmer arrived with a flagon of ale, some cheese and a jar of his wife’s pickled onions. They sat down at the kitchen table, sawed hunks of bread from yesterday’s loaf and talked together, man to man.

‘Your father was one of my best labourers,’ Mr Hawkridge said. ‘I hoped you would follow in his footsteps.’

‘I like what I’m doing, sir,’ Harold replied.

‘I can see that, son, and you’re good at it. You’ve got more about you than he had, God rest his soul. Have you plans?’

Harold hesitated. His mother had just passed away and all thoughts for his future had flown right out of his head.

‘I’m not rushing you,’ the farmer added. ‘You can stay here as long as you like. You’ve always paid your rent and the doctor’s club on time. The vicar would’ve liked to see more of you on a Sunday, but his church ladies all took to you, right enough.’

Harold agreed and gestured towards the dresser, loaded with jars and covered dishes. ‘Can you take some of this for the old folks’ dinners?’

‘Nay. I can’t do that, son. It’s for you and it’s more than my life’s worth to upset the womenfolk. It’ll keep in the pantry.’

Mr Hawkridge crunched on one of wife’s pickles. ‘You see, son, what I need is another farm labourer as good as your father was…’ He paused, then went on, ‘And somewhere for him to live.’

Harold closed his eyes and nodded. That’s what this was about. His home was a tied cottage. Since his father passed on two years ago, Harold and his mother had been able to stay by paying rent. He had worked on the farm out of school hours since he was ten so the farmer knew and trusted him. Harold had saved his meagre pay until he’d had enough to buy wood and wheel axles to make his handcart.

As soon as he left school, he was ready to trade and bought up produce from local allotments that he took to market and sold for a profit. When his cart was empty he carried anything anywhere for pay in the town until it was time to go home. Forges and factories were thriving and expanding; folk had work; they were busy and they had wages to spend, so he was busy, too. He was eighteen now, saving for a horse and cart and doing all right for himself and his mother. But now Mother had passed on as well as Father, he was at a loss to think straight.

‘I’d be more than happy to take you on, Harold,’ Mr Hawkridge added.

‘I understand, sir,’ he replied. But if he didn’t want to be a farm labourer – and he didn’t – Mr Hawkridge wanted his cottage back. He felt sad and said, ‘When do you want me out?’

‘Nay, son, I’ll not turn you out. There’s no rush, but I do want you to think on it.’

‘I will,’ Harold said with more conviction. ‘I’ll give you a decision after the funeral.’

Harold couldn’t remember ever being alone in the cottage at night before. He wished he had brothers and sisters to talk to. Mother had been getting on in years when she had him and father was even older so no more children appeared after him. But he had never felt proper loneliness until now. Now, he was quite alone in the world and during that night he felt it keenly. He couldn’t sleep and ended up resurrecting the kitchen fire in the small hours and sitting by its red glow, staring out of the window into the darkness. Eventually he felt so sorry for himself that he allowed himself to cry until he pulled himself together and took the farmer’s advice to ‘think on it’.

He supposed he’d been marking time since Father died, gathering more customers and bringing home treats for Mother. This cottage was his home and he loved it. But he was a long way out of town and where his customers lived. His new order for the Navigator was the other side of town. If he had enough saved for a horse and cart it wouldn’t matter, but he hadn’t.

Then he remembered, as a nipper, seeing an old fellow take his potatoes to market in a donkey cart, because that had given him his original idea for a handcart. He perked up. He could afford a donkey with a bigger cart and that would be enough for the Navigator order to start with!

The dawn broke and Harold turned down the lamp. Did he want to stay here on his own, anyway, with only a donkey to talk to? That landlady at the Navvy was a handful by all accounts but she put on good dinners and had cheap rooms to let. She did have a reputation for the fellas, but that was none of his business. She had stabling at the back where he could keep a horse and cart. In spite of his overwhelming sadness, his spirits lifted for a moment. The Navigator also had Mabel. Mabel, sweet little Mabel. Her pretty face came to mind and he smiled. Just the thought of Mabel took away some of his loneliness.

Mabel’s initial nervousness when she arrived at the Navigator disappeared quickly as she was thrown into work. A shrivelled old couple seemed to run the place – she cooked food and he brewed beer – while the landlady stayed in her bed or went into town all dolled up to collect her rents. Nobody appeared to have done any cleaning before Mabel arrived.

The old couple slept in one of the attics. It had the kitchen chimney breast going through it so it was always warm. Mabel’s attic was not only cold but damp as well because water dripped from the rafters when it rained. But it did have a small fireplace and a spotty mirror that she leant against the wall. She didn’t meet the Missus, as the landlady was known, until the following day when she took her breakfast in bed and was amazed by the red velvet and gold-trimmed furnishings in the landlady’s bedroom. It contrasted sharply with the dingy curtaining downstairs. She deposited the tray of tea, bacon and egg and fried bread across the Missus’s lap as she sat up in bed.

‘So you’re Mabel,’ the Missus said. ‘Well, you look strong enough. The old duck’ll tell you what to do and I don’t want you under my feet, d’you hear?’

‘Yes.’ Mabel stared at the smeared red on the other woman’s lips, the creased ribbon in her tangled dark hair and the way her bosom swelled out under her nightgown.

‘Yes, Missus,’ the landlady corrected.

‘Yes, Missus,’ Mabel repeated.

‘I’ll have another cup of tea in quarter of an hour and hot water for the washstand.’

‘Yes, Missus.’

‘Knock and wait for me to say before you come in. I might be on the po.’

‘Yes, Missus.’

‘Stop staring then, and clear off.’

‘Can I have coals for my attic?’ she asked.

‘Help yourself from the coal hole,’ the Missus answered and waved her out of the room.

Mabel decided she would be very pleased to stay out of this woman’s way. In fact, the Missus took most of the morning to get up and dress herself like an actress on a music hall poster. She sometimes had a word with the old couple and inspected the brewhouse before she went off for the day in a hired trap with a driver who came out from town to collect her.

The ‘old duck’ in the kitchen was called Elsie and seemed grudgingly glad of Mabel’s help. Her husband, Sid, brewed good beer and folk came from miles around to take home a keg to set up in their outhouse or scullery. Beer was safer to drink than water these days and the Navvy did a steady trade. When Mabel pegged out washing in the yard, the yeasty smells from the brewhouse were quite heady.

Mabel worked hard. The taproom at the back of the inn was the worst to clean because coal miners drank in there on their way home from the pit, and coal dust stuck everywhere. Sometimes she was still there scrubbing when they came in after the early-morning shift and the younger ones often slapped her bottom or made suggestive comments, surrounding her until an older fellow came in and told them off.

But no one ever told her off, except once, one morning, when the Missus was so angry with her that she expected to be sent back to the workhouse. It happened after a particularly noisy night in the saloon. Mabel wasn’t allowed in the taproom or the saloon at night. She was sent to bed early with instructions to do the clearing up in the morning. But the carousing kept her awake until late. Even later she was roused by creaking stairs and whining door hinges. That was normal as the Navigator often had one or two lodgers – working men who liked a drink or two.

Mabel got up as usual the next morning to find that Elsie hadn’t laid up the Missus’s breakfast tray. The range was going and the frying pans were out. A pot of tea stood on the side but there was no sign of Elsie. Thinking the old lady might be out of sorts after all the noise last night, Mabel set to cooking the Missus’s breakfast herself. She found the bacon and eggs in the pantry, laid up the tray and took it to the Missus as usual.

She paused for a second outside the Missus’s bedroom and raised her hand to knock. But she heard cries of pain coming from inside. Dear me, she thought, the Missus was ill! Instead of knocking she balanced the tray on one hand, grasped the door handle and rushed in, splashing the cup of tea into its saucer.

The Missus wasn’t alone. The bedding was on the floor along with a jumble of discarded boots and clothes. The Missus’s nightgown was draped over the iron bedstead. She was stark naked and kneeling astride a man, also starkers, who was wild-eyed and grinning. Her head was thrown back so that her tangled black hair straggled down her white back. A tortured cry came out of her open mouth with each descent of her body as she moved up and down on top of the man as though she were riding a horse. Mabel was rooted to the spot by the vivid vision of the man’s sweating hairy chest and the Missus’s wobbly white bosoms bouncing up and down.

The man caught sight of her. His grin vanished and he croaked, ‘We got comp’ny.’

The Missus didn’t appear to hear him but her movements slowed. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she panted. ‘I haven’t finished yet.’

‘I can’t do it in comp’ny, Missus, not even wi’ you.’ His voice was strained.

The Missus looked over her shoulder with fury in her smudgy dark eyes. ‘What are you doing in here, you evil little witch?’

‘I … I’ve brought your b-breakfast.’

‘I can see that,’ the Missus seethed. ‘Now get out of here.’

‘I thought you were poorly,’ Mabel squeaked.

The man didn’t look very happy either. ‘Have you seen enough now, love?’ he asked sourly.

Mabel put the tray on the floor and fled. Elsie was going down the stairs and Mabel caught up with her. She had taken a mug of tea up to her husband in bed.

‘No sense in you being up,’ Elsie said. ‘There’ll be nob’dy about for a while yet. Mind you, I can smell bacon. Who’s in my kitchen?’

‘It was me,’ Mabel admitted. ‘You weren’t around so I took the Missus her breakfast.’

‘At this hour? After last night? Gawd ’elp you, then. Gawd ’elp me an’ all. She’ll be in a right paddy now.’

‘She was,’ Mabel agreed miserably.

‘Well, she’s gorra fella in there, ’a’n’t she?’

Mabel pressed her lips together, blushed and nodded.

‘You’ve gone red. Were they at it?’

Mabel’s blush deepened.

‘You’ll be lucky if she don’t gi’ yer the boot.’

‘But she can’t! I’ve nowhere else to go!’ Except back to the workhouse with a black mark against her name, she realised with a sinking heart.

Elsie tutted, shook her head and muttered, ‘You should’ve known she’d ’ave a fella wi’ her after a booze-up like last night.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Aye, yer should be. Come on, we’ll have our breakfast afore the men get up.’

Until then, Mabel had eaten breakfast alone because Elsie normally ate hers early with her husband. She could have what she wanted if she cooked it herself. After a lifetime of porridge in the workhouse, she fried bacon rashers and ate them between two slices of bread with a big mug of tea every morning. But today she sat down with Elsie to butcher’s sausages and fried bread.

‘I can put in a good word fer you wi’ the Missus,’ Elsie said over their second mug of tea.

‘Will you? I don’t want to go back to the workhouse.’

‘You and me can be friends then, can’t we?’

Mabel knew she couldn’t afford to have this woman as an enemy and mumbled, ‘I suppose so.’

Elsie didn’t smile very much because she had no teeth, but she did now. ‘Good lass,’ she said. ‘Now then, tell me what he was like, this fella?’

Puzzled, Mabel raised her eyebrows.

‘The one wi’ the Missus,’ Elsie prompted.

Mabel had no idea what he was like so she hunched her shoulders silently.

‘What did he look like? Dark or fair?’ Elsie’s tone had hardened. She wanted to know.

Mabel blew out her cheeks. He was dark, she thought. She suddenly remembered his legs stretched out on the white sheet and the Missus’s round white bottom contrasting with his dark skin. ‘He had black hair, all over him,’ she said.

Elsie chewed the inside of her mouth. ‘Oh, that one this time. What were they doing?’

Mabel didn’t know quite how to answer her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Tell me what they were doing. Yer saw ’em, di’n’t yer?’

She sounded like the wardresses in the workhouse and Mabel felt cornered. In there they did something horrid to you – like putting you on cleaning the privies – if you didn’t tell them what they wanted to know. ‘Well, yes. They were … you know, like you said, they were … they were at it.’ She finished in a rush and looked down at her empty plate.

‘I know that, but tell me how they were doing it?’

Mabel was shocked that she should ask. She didn’t want to say. It embarrassed her and made her blush even more. It was private anyway, she thought. ‘I can’t really say, Elsie,’ she muttered.

‘I thought you wanted to be my friend,’ Elsie reminded her.

‘Yes, but…’

Elsie sat back in her chair and grinned her toothless grin. ‘Get on wi’ it, then. Did they have owt on?’

Mabel shook her head slightly. ‘He … he was on his back and the Missus was … well, she was sitting on top of him.’

Elsie folded her arms and started to laugh, but more by shaking her shoulders than with her face. ‘Oh aye? Whereabouts on top of him?’

‘On top of him!’ Mabel exclaimed. ‘And I’m not telling you any more!’ She pushed back her chair and rushed out of the kitchen into the scullery to find her bucket and brushes.

‘Come back here you!’ Elsie called after her but Mabel ignored her.

The taproom was a pigsty after last night and it kept her out of Elsie’s way for a while. But later, as she was trimming the wicks on the oil lamps, she began to see the funny side of the Missus being caught ‘at it’, and chuckled to herself. No wonder she was cross!

After a couple of hours, Elsie came to find her, when she was on her hands and knees, washing the sticky floorboards in the saloon.

‘The Missus wants yer,’ Elsie said, with a hint of triumph in her voice.

The Missus was in a small room at the back of the stone-flagged entrance hall. The way she was sitting behind her desk reminded Mabel of the workhouse guardian. But that was all the Missus had in common with him. Her lips were painted red and her hair was done up in coils and jet combs, with ringlets at the back of her head. She wore a low-necked gown fit for a ball in dark red satin with black lace trimmings.

She waved a piece of paper in the air and yelled, ‘Do you know what this is? It says that I am your guardian for the next seven years. Unless I decide to send you back to the workhouse – and I can, you know. You are my property until you’re twenty-one. That means you do as I say.’

‘Yes, Missus. I’m sorry, Missus.’ Mabel had had years of learning how to be contrite and humble before her betters.

It wasn’t wa. . .