A Woman's Promise

Book 0: Birch End

by Anna Jacobs

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

As the only female cabinet maker in the valley in 1935, Frankie Redfern is unusual. She faces prejudice even from her own mother. But she's content working for her father, and is unwilling to give up her independence or the work she loves for marriage.

When her husband falls gravely ill, Frankie's mother takes over, causing serious trouble for her daughter. And her cousin, an unscrupulous local builder, starts to help her for his own reasons.

Jericho Harte has never met a woman he wanted to marry until he bumps into Frankie on the moors. When she comes to him the next day with an extraordinary suggestion, it seems a marriage of convenience might suit them both. Or could their relationship become more than that?

But Frankie's problems worsen as her father goes missing from hospital. Is there more to his illness than met the eye?

Can Frankie and Jericho help uncover the truth and put an end to the danger she's in before it's too late?

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Release date: November 26, 2020

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 368

Sample

Dear Reader,

Here is the third story in the Birch End series. I hope you enjoy A Woman’s Promise, which is set in 1935 and is about a woman who is not following a traditional path in life.

After that we’ll be moving on to a new series set in Backshaw Moss which is ‘near’ Birch End in my imaginary valley. I keep having to remind myself that it’s an imaginary place, it seems so real at times. I’ve ‘seen’ the heroine of the new story but I have no idea yet what she’ll get up to. She’ll show me once I start writing properly about her life.

Readers seem to have enjoyed my old photos, so I’ve added two more to the end of this book: at least, one is a photo, but the other is something a bit different.

The young couple in the photo are my parents just before they married, aged nineteen and seventeen in 1939. This was before my dad got called up into the army. He was sent to the Middle East in 1941 and spent the rest of the war there. They didn’t see one another for over four years, but they wrote every single day. After he came back, they didn’t let anything separate them, as you can imagine.

I still remember him returning after four years away. I was nearly five by then and not at all used to having a dad living with us. The family woke me up in the middle of the night and brought a big soldier in uniform into the bedroom I shared with my aunt. So of course I stuck my tongue out at him. I got teased about that for years.

I thought I’d show you something different instead of a second photo. This is a page from my great-aunt’s autograph album from about 1905, with a pencil sketch done by one of her friends. The album has at least a dozen careful drawings, really good ones too. Without the distractions of TV and computers, people often entertained themselves by doing creative things. I’ve smiled at this man falling over on the ice a good few times over the years. It’s a very feeble joke but a very careful drawing.

I hope you enjoy my new tale. There are more stories fighting one another at the back of my brain to be given their day in the sun. I’m not short of story ideas, just time to write them.

At least I don’t waste my writing time by ironing! I haven’t ironed anything for about ten years. My husband and I were wondering the other day where we’ve put the iron and if it still works. But neither of us tried to find it.

Happy reading!

Anna

Lancashire: January 1935

Frankie Redfern sighed and pushed her hair out of her eyes, retying the piece of string she’d grabbed to hold her hair back as she bent over to apply a final coat of polish to the small bookcase she was working on.

It would have been more practical to have worn her hair short and more fashionable too, but her mother would have thrown a fit if she’d done that as well as going out of the house wearing ‘those ghastly men’s trousers’.

‘Was your mother in one of her moods today, miss?’ the foreman asked.

‘How did you guess?’

‘You’ve got that look on your face again.’ He gave her shoulder a fatherly pat and left her to get on with the work she loved. She’d taken her brother’s place in the family business during the Great War, but that was patriotic so her mother had had to put up with it. But to stay on working there after it ended was apparently shameful.

Her fiancé, Martin, had been killed in the last year of the war and then her twin brother Don a few weeks later. That had been the worst time of her whole life, the very worst. When others were out celebrating the end of the war, she’d locked herself in her bedroom and wept.

Frankie’s father had told his daughter to do what she truly wanted, and tried to stop her mother nagging. As if anyone could.

As a child, she’d often wondered why her mother didn’t love her. She could tell, because she saw how her mother treated her brother.

Fortunately, she had known that her father loved her and Don equally, and that had helped so much. And when both young men had been killed, her father had helped her cope with her grief.

Oh well, no use going over that again. Sometimes in life you just had to carry on.

She stopped to stare at herself in a mirror as she moved to and fro, putting away her tools. She would turn thirty-eight in a few months. Where had all the years gone since the Great War? Sixteen years it was now. With well over a million young men killed there simply hadn’t been enough men left to provide husbands for all her generation of young women, so she’d never married or had a family.

She shook her head, annoyed at herself. She had a satisfying and useful life, so must be content with that. At least she had work she loved to fill her days.

Her father came out of his office with a pleased look on his face. ‘That was Mr Paulson on the telephone. We got that job doing the repairs on that Ravensworth Terrace house, the one where they had a fire in the back room last week.’

‘Oh, good!’

‘You’ll enjoy the work because there’s a fancy mantelpiece to redo as well as repairs to some furniture. I’ll leave the delicate stuff to you while I supervise the rest.’

‘I’ll enjoy that.’

Sam nodded, picked up a chisel to get on with his work then put it down and looked round as if checking that no one was near. ‘I’d better warn you: your mother was going on at me again last night after you went to bed for letting you carry on working here. She says we’re not short of money now, which is true, and I should get a man in to do that work. She got hysterical and threatened to burn all your trousers.’

‘I thought we’d sorted that out once and for all years ago. I can’t work properly in skirts, anyway. It’d be dangerous and they’d get in the way. What started her off this time?’

‘Her friend Lily’s daughter has got engaged to a widower. Nora’s about your age apparently, so it’s raised Jane’s hopes that you can still find a husband. She’s saying it’s not too late for us to have grandchildren, even if you are a disappointment to her.’ He patted Frankie’s shoulder. ‘Eh, she never gives up, does she? And that cousin of hers seems to be egging her on. Lately it’s as if Higgerson wants to get you out of the business. What’s it got to do with him anyway?’

‘I can’t abide Higgerson. Thank goodness he’s only a distant relative.’

Frankie let her own determination show. Her father hadn’t been well lately and had given in to his wife on a few smaller things, as if he didn’t have the energy to argue. ‘I will not spend all day sitting in the office, or even worse, stop work completely, Dad. I’d go mad with boredom.’

She looked down at her hands, hard-working hands on a tall strong body. She had calluses on them here and there, earned by honest toil. She held them out to him pleadingly now. ‘I’m good at working with these, you know I am, Dad.’

‘Aye, you’re as good as any man at the cabinetmaking side of our business, I admit, and better than most. But not everyone agrees that it’s right for you to do such a job, however good you are. I’ve had people say to my face that you’re taking work away from a man.’

She snorted in disgust. ‘Show me the man in Ellin Valley who can do what I do!’

‘I can’t, because there isn’t one. You’re the best I know at what you do. Exceptional, old Bill used to say. And he was the best foreman I ever had, so no one could know better. Even so, you only got your trade papers because the authorities thought the Frankie who’d completed the apprenticeship was a man.’

‘I was lucky there, wasn’t I?’ They’d been too embarrassed about the mistake to take her trade certificate away again, especially with Bill backing her.

He sighed. ‘I worry about you, though, love. What will happen to you and the business if I die?’

‘You’re just going through a bad patch with your health,’ she said soothingly.

‘It’s more than that. I’m not as strong as I used to be and I’ll turn sixty next year. Sometimes men of my age drop dead unexpectedly. I’ve seen it happen more than once, lost a good pal last year like that.’

She felt sick at the mere thought of losing her father.

He paused, fiddled with a piece of wood and then burst out, ‘Eh, Frankie love, you’re still a fine-looking woman and you don’t look your age at all. It is still possible that you could marry. I won’t nag you like Jane does, but I hope you won’t turn away the chance if a good man tries to court you.’

‘It wasn’t only my twin brother who was killed in 1918, but my fiancé, Dad.’

‘Do you still think about him?’

‘In a way. I remember how I loved Martin with all my heart. I couldn’t marry anyone just to be able to call myself Missus. I’d have to care for him as well.’

‘We all had young loves once. Not many folk get to marry them.’

‘I know.’ Her father married his first love. After the poor girl died, his parents had encouraged him to marry Frankie’s mother even though she was older than him because Jane would bring him money. And he’d paid for it dearly.

No use dwelling on that. ‘Working with you has given me more satisfaction than a loveless marriage and life as a housewife ever could, Dad.’

‘I do understand how much you care about your work, but surely you wanted children?’

She didn’t talk about that to anyone. Of course she had wanted children, still felt sad about the lack. She tried to distract him.

‘I’m not cut out to be a housewife. You’ve heard Mother’s view of my sewing many a time. As for playing the piano, which she’s also been suggesting I try again, I was Mrs Fumble Fingers with that when I was younger. Remember?’

He grinned. ‘I used to go out for a walk if I was at home while you did your daily half hour on the piano. You’re definitely not musical.’

‘No. I’m practical and what I love most is working with wood.’ She picked up a piece of oak and ran her fingertips down the grain, a lover’s caress. ‘I was lucky. Bill was a wonderful teacher.’

‘Aye, and after the war when there wasn’t much work around, those pieces of furniture you and he made helped bring in much-needed money. People are still willing to pay more for your pieces.’

‘I know. But even now they offer less if they know they’ve been made by a woman.’

‘I don’t take less, do I?’

She smiled at him. ‘No, Dad.’

He sighed wearily. ‘I’m fighting your mother all over again about you working with me, though. It’s very wearing.’

‘Yes. We’ve both suffered the sharp end of her tongue lately and she’s getting worse.’

They were both silent for a moment or two, then she said briskly, ‘Anyway, I’m set in my ways now. I couldn’t stay meekly at home and let a man order me around. Why should I? I’ve got a good brain in my head as well as these hands.’

‘Aye, you’re right about that. But will you make me one promise, at least?’

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘What about?’

‘If you ever do meet a likely chap, you’ll give him a chance.’

She couldn’t see herself meeting anyone at her age, so shrugged. ‘All right. I promise.’

‘And if anything happens to me, you’ll find someone to marry as quickly as you can.’

She looked at him anxiously. He must be feeling worse than he’d let on.

His voice grew harsh. ‘Promise that, too.’

‘All right. I promise.’

‘I know you’ll keep your word, my lass. You’ve never in your life broken a promise to me.’

‘What happens to the business if you die?’ He’d always refused to talk about that.

‘It’s time you knew. The business has to go to her. I signed a lawyer’s paper about that when we married because her family supplied the money to set things up.’

‘She wouldn’t let me work here if she was in charge.’

‘No. I’m afraid not. I’ve always hoped she’d change her mind when she saw how good you were at the work, but she won’t.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She’s grown more unreasonable over the years, I’m afraid. I threatened to change my will the other day when we were arguing, and she turned very strange, said I’d regret it if I did and she still had family to look after her interests.’

He looked so worried Frankie waited a few moments to let him calm down before she spoke again. ‘If anything happened to you, I’d leave home and set up my own cabinetmaking business, perhaps in another town. I have the money my brother and Martin left me. I’ve looked after it and it’s grown quite nicely. If I were careful, there would be enough to start a small business.’

He frowned. ‘You’ve got that much?’

Her voice thickened with tears. ‘Yes. But I’d rather have had them alive still than have their money, far rather.’

She kept her bank book and a few other important papers in a locked strong box she’d bought. It was at the office where her mother couldn’t break into it. She rummaged through Frankie’s bedroom regularly.

Realising that her father was still talking, she forced herself to pay attention.

‘I’ve never said anything to your mother about you dealing with the money yourself because it’d give her something else to get upset about.’

‘Does she know you pay me the same wages as a man?’

‘Good heavens, no! She’d throw a fit. Even the Bible disagrees with her on that: “the labourer is worthy of his hire”.’

‘Or her hire!’

‘In your case well worth it, love.’ He changed the subject then.

But their conversation left her feeling even more worried than before.

That evening her mother didn’t stop talking about Lily’s daughter Nora finding herself a man at last, all this interspersed with pointed remarks about Frances being so unnatural that she’d never made the slightest effort to attract one.

It was a relief when bedtime came and Frankie could take refuge in her bedroom.

One day she’d have a home of her own, where she could do what she wanted and didn’t have to go to bed so early to get a bit of peace and quiet. She could have afforded to buy a little house, but it’d cause talk for her to leave her parents’ house and live alone in the same town.

Over the next few days Frankie wished very strongly that Nora hadn’t found herself a husband, because it had stirred up hope in her mother again. She started nagging Frankie about her appearance and would probably now go on the hunt for a husband for her daughter – and just about any man would do.

Ugh! Frankie hated the thought of being paraded around like a prize cow as her mother had done after the war.

And that horrible cousin of her mother’s would no doubt join in the hunt this time. Why had Higgerson started paying more attention to her mother? It didn’t make sense. He’d never seen her so often before and he always looked bored when he came to call on them.

After days of that haranguing, Frankie decided to go for a long walk across the tops at the weekend. She loved to stride out over the moors beyond Birch End and breathe in the clean, bracing air.

It was never as good going for walks here in Rivenshaw. Towns were smoky places and the only park was small and full of people who knew her mother and reported back on who Frankie spoke to, it always seemed.

She had to run a gauntlet of criticism and even disobey a direct order to go to church. As she left the house, her mother screeched down the hall after her, ‘You’ll be sorry, you cheeky young madam. I’ll bring you to heel yet, see if I don’t.’

Frankie sighed with relief as she hurried to catch the only Sunday morning bus up the hill towards the village of Birch End. She’d walk on the moors nearby and then follow a country path she knew back down to Rivenshaw.

She needed to have a good long think about her life. She couldn’t go on like this and would have to find some way to change things.

Jericho Harte woke in the basement bedroom he shared with his two younger brothers and looked up at the frost on the window at the top of the ventilation well next to his bed. He didn’t like to lie around once he’d woken, so got up and crept up to the living room, leaving his brothers sleeping.

His mother was already up and dressed, sitting sipping a cup of tea. He waved to her and went into the bathroom to wash and dress. As he returned, he paused at the door to smile fondly at her. They’d moved recently from the slum at Backshaw Moss into this three-room dwelling with the luxury of its own bathroom, and she hadn’t stopped smiling and looking happy since.

He was grateful to the Pollards for giving them this place in return for helping keep the house and its occupants safe. Wilf Pollard was a shining example of how far hard work could take you in life. He’d started from humble beginnings and managed to support his first wife and children through the hard times by going on the tramp to find work in nearby towns and villages. In the process he’d learned to do all sorts of jobs.

After her death he’d re-married and joined Roy Tyler as a junior partner in his building business, which was based in Birch End. They’d started giving work regularly to Jericho and casual jobs to his brothers sometimes.

Now that his family was starting to get on its feet again after his mother’s long illness and expensive operation, Jericho wanted to do more than just make a living. He was determined to make a success of his life. He might not do as well as Wilf, but he could try, couldn’t he?

He realised he was still standing like a fool, holding the teapot and doing nothing with it. After pouring himself a mug of nice strong tea he sat down at the table.

‘You’re looking well, Mam.’

‘I am well now, thanks to you boys. But I’m sorry my appendix operation and recovery from it took all our money.’

‘Your life was worth every penny. Look, I’ve got some really good news for you, Mam.’ He paused and took a deep breath, hardly daring to say it out loud, ‘Mr Tyler has offered me a regular job.’

‘Oh, Jericho love, I’m that pleased for you. Maybe now you can make a more normal life for yourself in other ways.’

He looked at her warily, guessing what was coming. ‘You’re not talking about me finding a wife, are you?’

‘Well, you’re thirty-five and it’ll be too late to start a family if you leave it much longer.’

‘I’m not marrying just for the sake of it. I’ve not met anyone I want to marry and I’ve seen how unhappy some people are if they marry the wrong person. I’d rather stay single than risk that. Far rather.’

‘Lots of people are happy together. I was with your dad.’

‘I know, Mam. I remember. But you’ve been without him for ten years now. Why don’t you find yourself another husband if you’re so keen on married life?’

‘Cheeky devil!’ She pretended to swat him with the newspaper.

He changed the subject. ‘I think I’ll go for a tramp across the tops this morning.’

She looked out of the window. ‘When I brought in today’s milk bottles it felt as if there was damp in the air.’

‘Well, even if it rains and I get wet, I won’t melt.’

He got restless sometimes, couldn’t just sit around doing nothing. Maybe once he was working full time, he’d not have that problem. But nothing ever really switched off his brain and stopped him thinking about the wider world, even if the newspapers he read for free at the library were usually several days old.

By nine o’clock the sun had melted most of the silver frost from the grass, so he put on his overcoat and wrapped his neck in the long multi-coloured scarf his mother had knitted for him. He wore it more to please her than because he would feel the cold. He put his cap on too, so that he would look respectable. It was what you did. But he’d take it off and stuff it in his pocket once he was away from the village. He loved to feel the wind in his hair.

He set off along a little-used path that twisted round the edge of the field next to their back garden and led up the hill behind the new houses in the posher part of Birch End. The council hadn’t allowed Higgerson to block that ancient right of way when he built these, thank goodness, or everyone would have had to go a much longer way round to get up to the moors.

Higgerson! Jericho hated even the sound of that name. The fellow might be the biggest builder in the valley by far, but he was also the biggest cheat, building shoddy houses which looked nice but soon developed faults.

He’d been their landlord in Backshaw Moss, owned half that slum, and his agent had refused to do any repairs. When they kept asking he’d had the Hartes and all their possessions thrown out.

Jericho clicked his tongue in annoyance at himself. What was he thinking about that sod for? They had a lovely home now, thanks to Wilf, who did know how to build and repair houses properly.

He whistled tunelessly as he strode along. He hadn’t even suggested that his brothers join him. They thought him crazy going out walking for no reason, but he loved it. It felt good to be out on the tops, so very good! He breathed deeply, enjoying the bracing air.

He was looking forward to starting work full time at Tyler’s tomorrow, but today was his own to enjoy as he pleased.

As he left the last buildings behind, Jericho saw a woman walking across the moors in the distance and stopped to shade his eyes. There was something familiar about her. Oh yes, it was Miss Redfern, who worked in her family business in Rivenshaw. Carpenters they were and had a good reputation.

She’d been pointed out to him a while back as an oddity because she did a man’s job. The conversation had stuck in his mind, because the chap who’d told him about her had got very worked up about her taking men’s work. When Jericho asked what exactly she did, his companion had scowled in her direction.

‘Claims to do fancy cabinetmaking and inlay work. I’d like to see that! No woman can do such skilled work. But if your father’s the boss, like hers is, you can say what you want, can’t you, and no one will dare to contradict you?’

‘There aren’t many men in the valley who’re trained cabinetmakers. Who is she taking jobs from? Who’s there to do the work if she doesn’t?’

‘They’d come from elsewhere. Work’s not plentiful anywhere in the north. A woman shouldn’t be doing it at all, that’s what I say, and I’m not the only one.’

Jericho didn’t argue because he didn’t care what this fool thought. Women had done men’s work during the Great War, all sorts of jobs, and had helped win the war for their country. Why, his own mother had worked in a place making parts for army vehicles and left him and his brothers with her mother. No one had complained about her taking a man’s job then, had they?

He reached the moors proper and carried on across them, knowing his path would join Miss Redfern’s. There was only one way up to Hey Top from here and it had the best view across this part of the Pennines. He hoped the sight of a man going in the same direction wouldn’t make her nervous because he’d set his heart on sitting on a sheltered rocky ledge he knew and simply drinking in the view.

She glanced in his direction a couple of times and paused once to shade her eyes and stare at him.

He carried on, striding as steadily as he could along the uneven ground of the narrow path. When he was a few paces away, they both stopped and he nodded to her. ‘It’s a lovely day, isn’t it, Miss Redfern?’

‘You know me?’

‘I’ve seen you in town.’

‘You look familiar to me, too, but I don’t know your name.’

‘I’m Jericho Harte. I’m starting a new job with Roy Tyler tomorrow. I was coming to sit on Hey Top and look at the world.’

After another searching glance she seemed to relax. ‘I was going to do the same thing.’

‘If you’d rather I leave you to do that alone, I’ll walk on and find somewhere else to sit.’

‘That’d be silly, wouldn’t it? There’s plenty of room for both of us. I love to look out across the tops to Yorkshire.’

He nodded and waited for her to move forward and choose a place to sit, then found himself a seat on the other side of a tumble of smaller rocks. She couldn’t think he was waiting to pounce on her from there.

He saw that she was still watching him, smiling slightly as if she’d understood perfectly well what he was doing. Then she took a few deep breaths, clasped her arms around her knees and seemed to forget about him.

He didn’t forget about her. She seemed to fit in here as if she was part of the landscape and by hell, she was a fine figure of a woman. He couldn’t help noticing that because he was over six foot tall and found most women too small and childlike for his taste.

‘I heard your family had moved into the back part of the cottage on Croft Street, Mr Harte,’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s such a pretty building and I envy the Pollards living so close to the moors. His children must love having a big garden to play in as well.’

He was glad she’d spoken first, had wanted to chat to her, but hadn’t liked to start a conversation.

‘They do enjoy it. They’re a grand pair of little ’uns.’

She stared into space again and when she spoke, he wasn’t quite sure whether she was thinking aloud or continuing their conversation.

‘I’d have given all my dolls and toys to be allowed to play wild out of doors as a child, but my mother didn’t think it nice for little girls to get themselves dirty. I used to sneak out to play with my brother, though, and come back dirty anyway. It was worth a scolding.’

He decided it’d be all right to answer. ‘It’s normal for kids to get dirty. Me and my brothers all did.’

‘Yes. But my mother still complains if I look less than neat, even now, though how she expects me to do my job without getting dirty sometimes, I don’t understand.’

‘Someone told me you’re a cabinetmaker. You couldn’t stay tidy while you’re doing that sort of work.’

‘No. My twin brother was given little tools and taught to use them as a boy but I had to throw a few tantrums to get my own hammer and saw, and be allowed to play with similar pieces of wood.’ She looked at him as if expecting criticism.

‘I envy you having a proper trade. I’ve had to pick up what skills I could along the way. I passed the exam for grammar school, mind, but my parents couldn’t afford to send me there. Luckily for me Mr Tyler thinks I’m good with my hands, so he’s taken me on and he’s going to give me some more training. I shall enjoy that.’

‘He’s a good builder, everyone says so. Higgerson on the other hand—’ She broke off and gave him a doubtful glance as if not sure whether to continue.

He finished it for her, ‘—cuts corners when he can. I’m not afraid to say that aloud, because he already hates me and my family.’

‘He hates anyone else who’s doing well, but he’s left my father alone so far. That’s partly because he’s a distant relative of my mother’s and partly because we only work in a small way, as well as making furniture. So that doesn’t conflict with his building business.’

‘He hates Mr Tyler. I worry that Higgerson will try to get at him and destroy his business. He must have thought it was going downhill without any help from him after Trevor Tyler was killed, but now Mr Tyler’s bringing it to life again. The lads at work are all a bit worried for his safety. We need to—’

The brightness of the day suddenly dimmed and he didn’t finish what he’d been going to say but looked up to see that while they’d been chatting a cloud had covered the sun and other clouds were racing across the sky to join it. ‘I think it’s going to rain soon. I was so lost in the pleasure of having someone to chat to that I didn’t pay attention to the weather.’

He stood up and gestured towards the path. ‘If we don’t want to get soaked, I think we’d better start back towards Birch End.’

She stood up as nimbly as he had. ‘I suppose so.’

‘You don’t sound as if you want to go back.’

‘I don’t. My mother has invited a gentleman to tea. She’s trying to match-make. I don’t want to marry.’

‘Not ever?’

‘No. Because it’d mean I’d have to stop working.’

‘Why should it mean that?’

She looked at him as if surprised. ‘Because men don’t like their wives working outside the home. They just want domestic slaves.’

‘That’d be a sad waste if you’re as good at cabinetmaking as people say.’ He noticed suddenly the calluses on her hands and enjoyed the way. . .