Break of Dawn

by Rita Bradshaw

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Will her tragic past haunt her forever? Break of Dawn is a gripping family saga of heartache and betrayal at the start of the 20th century, from much-loved author Rita Bradshaw. Perfect for fans of Rosie Goodwin and Annie Murray. Her mother's death in childbirth leaves Sophy Hutton at the mercy of her cruel aunt and uncle, and her childhood is brutal. At sixteen, Sophy learns the shocking truth behind her birth and escapes to London to pursue a career as an actress, determined to put the past behind her. But life for women at the turn of the century is fraught with danger and Sophy soon discovers the darker side to London's glamorous theatres. Young and innocent, she doesn't recognise the man who really loves her when he appears; instead she is charmed into marrying handsome actor Toby Shawe, a flawed and amoral individual. Then the heartache really begins... What readers are saying about Break of Dawn : 'This book was poignant, held my interest throughout and showed the depths of human weakness and fragility but also the strength and determination of character ' ' I didn't want this book to end. Many twists and turns ' 'The story kept me gripped from start to finish and I would highly recommend this book... but be prepared to not want to put it down once started!'

Release date: December 8, 2011

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

Every jolt of the coach was torture. She didn’t know how she had stood the journey thus far, but this last leg was the worst. Or perhaps it was that she knew she was going home.

Esther Hutton, or Estelle Marceau as she liked to be known, attempted to ease her swollen body into a more comfortable position on the hard wooden seat, but it was no use. She gritted her teeth, opening her eyes – which she had kept closed for much of the time since leaving London in an effort to avoid conversation with any fellow passengers – and sat staring out of the grimy window. The November afternoon was dark and overcast. The weather had got progressively colder over the long, tedious days since she had left her lodgings in Whitechapel, and for the last forty-eight hours, squalls of wintry rain had battered the coach roof and stung the travellers’ faces when they had hurried into the various inns for a meal or overnight stay.

How she hated the north – and her home village in particular. Her full, somewhat sensual lips curled. From as long as she could remember, Southwick’s residents had successfully fought off attempts by Sunderland’s corporation to integrate the village into the township, as though there was something worthy in remaining separate. She had been brought up listening to her parents talk about the dregs of humanity ‘across the river’, as though poverty and disease and squalor didn’t exist in Southwick. The hypocrisy, that’s what she couldn’t stand. All right, her family might be middle class, her father being a vicar and all, but his work must have brought him into contact with the seamier side of life in the village. When she had been able to escape her mother’s obsessional control and run wild in Carley, the area closest to the vicarage, it was the smell and flies she had noticed the most.

Esther swallowed hard, the memory of the ash middens rising up in her throat as the child inside her kicked as though in protest at her thoughts. The children she had played with on those oc casions had never seemed to be aware of the stench filling the back lanes, but once, when she’d had no choice but to use one of the backyard privies shared by several families or soil her drawers, the excrement was piled up practically to the top of the wooden seat and she had thrown up the contents of her stomach right there on the rough stone floor. Some of the children had even played in the field where the scavengers who cleared the human muck each week dumped their grisly load. Flies lived in their millions on the dung hill and during the summer months they invaded the tightly packed terraced houses closest to the farmer’s field, resting on food and getting into jugs of milk and crawling on babies’ sticky faces.

She swallowed again as her stomach churned, telling herself to think of something else.

How would she be received when she reached the vicarage? The grey landscape mocked the foolishness of the question. Why ask the road you know? Her father would be full of icy fury and her mother beside herself as to what people would think. To have their daughter’s sin paraded in front of their eyes was their worst nightmare. She glanced at the cheap gold band on the third finger of her left hand. She had bought the wedding ring before leaving London. It wouldn’t fool her parents but it gave some semblance of respectability to her homecoming.

Her gaze wandered and she caught the eye of the wife of the young couple sitting opposite. The woman immediately dropped her gaze to the neatly gloved hands clasped in her lap, her sallow cheeks flushing. Since leaving London, Esther had had to change coaches several times. This one, which had left Middlesbrough early that morning, held yet another different batch of travellers. Besides the young couple, a portly, red-faced man was sitting dozing next to the husband, and an elderly gentleman with snow-white hair and a frock coat was sitting reading from a book of prayers on the seat beside Esther.

All her fellow passengers were dressed soberly and the woman in particular was the very essence of propriety, her dark-brown coat and hat and high-buttoned black boots speaking of dignified refinement. Esther appeared like a bright exotic bird that had somehow found itself among a group of sparrows, and the young wife’s fascinated and covert glances as the journey had progressed had made Esther very aware of her mistake. Among the company she had mixed with in London her blue brocade dress and matching coat with its elaborate fur collar would have been considered almost dull. It was the most subdued outfit in her wardrobe, which was why she had chosen to wear it for her imminent arrival in Southwick, but too late she realised she should have pawned a couple of the dresses one or other of her ‘gentlemen’ had bought her and used the money to buy something plain and serviceable.

She looked out of the window again, studying her reflection in the glass. Her hat with its sweeping blue and silver feathers brought out the deep violet of her eyes and pretty tilt of her chin, but she lamented the loss of the paint and powder she had used regularly for the last decade. Her mother would have become apoplectic at the faintest suggestion of such wickedness.

The coach lurched drunkenly, its wheels struggling over the thick ridges of mud and deep icy puddles in the narrow road they were travelling on, and Esther banged her forehead on the window, knocking her hat askew. Suddenly hot tears pricked at the back of her eyes, not because of the bump which had been nothing in itself but because of the position she found herself in. She had vowed never to come back to the north-east when she had left it fifteen years ago, but what choice did she have? Her hands rested for a moment on the mound of her stomach. None. The music-hall audiences didn’t want to see an actress heavy with child entertaining them, and her admirers had vanished one by one over the last months as her pregnancy had progressed. She had sold every bit of jewellery she possessed and the lovely fur coat one of her gentlemen had bought for her in the early days, and she still hadn’t been able to pay the rent for the last few weeks. A moonlight flit had been her only option and she had left with the remainder of the clothes she hadn’t sold for her coach fare packed in her carpet bag and little else.

She blinked the tears away and sat up straighter. But she would return. Once the child was born and she had rested and was strong again, she would plan her escape. She had managed it fifteen years ago and she would do it again. Her parents would take care of the baby, they would see it as their Christian duty however much it stuck in their craw. She would make her way back to London and with her figure her own again she could take her life up once more. She was still pretty, and what she didn’t know about pleasing a man and catering for their more . . . unusual desires wasn’t worth knowing.

Her whole stomach shifted as the child changed position, and as she had done so many times, she silently cursed its existence. She hadn’t been able to believe the non-appearance of her monthlies at first, but once she had accepted that the preventative measures she had been instructed in by an older actress at the beginning of her career in the halls had failed, she had tried everything she could to get rid of the thing growing inside her. Bottles of gin, scalding hot baths, jumping down half a flight of stairs and lifting weights so heavy she thought her eyes would pop out of their sockets, she had done it all. All but visiting one of the old wives, of whose dark arts every actress knew. She had seen too many girls die as a result of their ministrations over the years to go down that route.

She shut her eyes, exhaustion uppermost from the last few days spent on uncomfortable seats in lumbering, swaying coaches and nights tossing and turning on bug-infested mattresses in wayside inns. She was cold and tired and hungry, and already homesick for London and the life she had led before this disaster had overtaken her.

She didn’t doubt that not a thing would have changed in Southwick; except, perhaps, the streets which had begun to spread eastwards from the village green five years before she left might have increased in number. But the glassworks, shipyards and all manner of industry that jostled for space with the lime kilns built to take the stone from Carley Hill would still be lining the river banks, and smoke and filth from the factories would continue to hang ominously in the air. Wearmouth colliery would still be dominating the western part of Monkwearmouth which led on to Southwick, and cinders and ash blown in the wind from the pit would inevitably find their way on to the washing of Southwick housewives.

Of course, the air could be thick with smog and the gutters running in filth in London, but it was different somehow, Esther thought drowsily. The taverns and coffee-houses, the theatres and exhibitions and concerts, the galleries and waxworks were all so vibrant and exciting, and the shops . . . Oh, the shops. Full of the latest Paris fashions and so elegant. Shopping being one of the few amusements considered suitable for unaccompanied women, she and her music-hall friends had often indulged themselves as far as their purses would allow. And if it had been one of the times when a group of upper-class young rakes had patronised the theatre the night before, looking for fun after the show, their purses might be very full indeed.

A small secret smile touched the corners of Esther’s mouth. The stories she could tell . . . But why shouldn’t she live life to the full? You were only here once. And when a woman got married she was finished. She was a slave to her husband, and unless she married well she was a slave to the home too. But in either case her freedom was curtailed, restraints came in their hundreds and all merriment was gone. Not that she intended to end up like one or two actresses she knew, reduced to working in one of Soho’s ‘pleasure halls’ where carnal depravity and unimaginable licentiousness was the order of the day. No, she would get out before her looks began to fade, take herself off somewhere in the country and pose as a genteel widow to snare some yokel who was wealthy enough to see to it she didn’t have to lift a finger.

She snuggled deeper into her warm fur collar, the rocking and swaying of the coach adding to the overwhelming weariness. And then she slept.



‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and it is not for us to fathom the mind of the Almighty, Mrs Skelton.’ Jeremiah Hutton placed a large bony hand on the shoulder of the little woman standing next to him. ‘Life and death is in His hands and His alone.’

A snort from the corner of the room where a wrinkled crone was sitting huddled in front of the glowing range with a sleeping baby on her lap caused Jeremiah to turn his head. This was the old grandmother, and he had had occasion to cross swords with her before. Shrivelled and skeletal, and possessing black teeth which protruded like witch’s fangs whenever she opened her mouth, she was nevertheless a force to be reckoned with and, in Jeremiah’s opinion, profane and godless. ‘You wish to say something, Mrs Woodrow?’ he said coldly, aware of Mrs Skelton at the side of him flapping her hand silently at her mother in an effort to keep the peace.

She might as well have tried to stop the tide from flowing in and out. ‘Aye, I do, an’ stop your flutterin’, our Cissie,’ the old woman added to her red-faced daughter. ‘All this talk of the Almighty an’ Him decidin’ what’s what don’t wash with me, Vicar. It weren’t Him who had Alfred standin’ on a plank weldin’ thirty feet off the ground, now was it? There’s not a day goes by that some poor so-an’-so don’t cop it in them blood yards, an’ you know it – but the owners aren’t interested in safety or workin’ conditions. Not them, in their fine houses with their lady wives takin’ the air in their carriage an’ pair.’

‘Mam, please.’

‘Weeks he’s bin bitin’ down on a bit of wood at night to keep from cryin’ out an’ frightenin’ the bairns, his legs smashed to pieces. You know – you saw ’em, Vicar. An’ when the gangrene set in an’ they brought the maggots to feast on his flesh, even then he didn’t give up. Fought to the last, Alfred did, poor devil. Well, he’s fightin’ no longer.’ The old woman’s rheumy gaze moved to the wooden trestle against one white-washed wall of the kitchen, a bucket standing beneath it to catch the drips from the body lying above. ‘God rest his soul.’

Jeremiah had remained still and silent throughout this discourse as befitted someone of his standing. He was not about to enter into a debate with Mrs Woodrow on the nature of her son-in-law’s untimely death; he had learned to his cost in the past that the irascible old woman had an answer for everything. His face impassive, he merely stared at her, wanting nothing more than to be gone from the two rooms the family of ten called home which smelled strongly of death and bleach. But his duty had brought him to the house to discuss the funeral the day after tomorrow, and he had never shirked his duty in his life.

He was grateful that most of his parishioners came from the better part of Southwick but there were a few, like this family, living in Low Southwick on the doorstep of the shipbuilding yards and marine engineering and glass bottle-works who worshipped at his church rather than attending a chapel or a smaller church in the district. Jeremiah looked on such folk as his cross to bear and prided himself that he did it with fortitude.

The tenement building in Victoria Street was all stairs and passages, and in this street and others like it, the front and back doors were always open, being thoroughfares for the numerous residents. It wasn’t unusual for each room of the two-up, two-down terraces to house entire families, but the Skeltons were fortunate inasmuch as they rented the downstairs of this particular house, comprising of the kitchen and front room, the latter used as the family’s communal bedroom.

Turning his pale-blue eyes on the bereaved widow, Jeremiah reminded her of something else she had to be thankful for as he ignored the old woman by the range. ‘It’s a blessing Adam and Luke are in employment, Mrs Skelton,’ he said stiffly, referring to the woman’s eldest sons who worked alongside their father in Pickersgill’s shipyard, or had done until their father was careless enough to get himself killed. ‘It must be a great comfort to know you are sure of two wages coming in each week.’

There was another ‘Hmph!’ from the corner by the range. ‘Aye, an’ young Luke already havin’ lost a finger an’ him only sixteen.’

‘Mam.’

This time her daughter’s voice held a note that caused her mother to narrow her eyes and suck in her thin lips, but she said no more in the few minutes Jeremiah remained in the house.

When he emerged into Victoria Street, the afternoon light was fading fast and the earlier rain had turned to sleet, but Jeremiah stood breathing in several lungfuls of the bitterly cold air before he began to walk briskly northwards. The stench of death had got up his nostrils, he thought irritably. It would quite spoil his appetite for dinner.

His thick black greatcoat and hat and muffler kept out the chill, and by the time he had walked along Stoney Lane and turned on to the green, he was sweating slightly. The usual tribe of snotty-nosed and barefoot ragamuffins hadn’t been playing outside the houses from whence he had come today, much to his relief. The worsening weather had sent them indoors. And now, as he made his way through the streets of High Southwick towards the vicarage, he relaxed a little. There might be some rough types hereabouts, especially among the Irish contingent in Carley, but they couldn’t hold a candle to the scum in Low Southwick.

He gave a self-righteous sniff, tucking his muffler more securely in his coat although it was perfectly all right as it was.

That dreadful old hag back there, daring to address him without a shred of respect for his position! Even the Carley O’Rileys, bad as they were, held him in the esteem due to him. It was a great pity the two Skelton boys were of an age to be in employment, since the workhouse would have soon brought their crone of a grandmother to heel and taught her to respect her betters.

He passed a group of ruddy-faced men leaving their shift at the Cornhill Glassworks, and as one man they doffed their caps to him. Their deference went some way in soothing his ruffled feathers, but he was still smarting a little as he opened the wrought-iron gates which led on to the drive of the vicarage.

He regretted not taking the pony and trap now, but the last time he had used it to visit one of his parishioners in Low Southwick Bess had been as skittish as a foal on the way home, something obviously having upset her. Sprites of Satan, some of those children were. But it gave emphasis to his standing, the horse and trap. He must remember that in the future when dealing with such as Mrs Woodrow.

In the last few minutes, the sleet had turned into fat flakes of snow which were beginning to settle as the temperature dropped, but Jeremiah’s mind was on something more serious than the weather as he reached his front door. The reverence given to a man of the cloth such as he, was surely a courtesy of the utmost importance and he could not, he would not allow the common rabble to display such impertinence. For their own sakes. Where would society find itself, if dishonour and insolence were allowed free rein? The Woodrow woman’s indictments against the shipyard owners – several of whom he counted among his personal friends – could not be tolerated. It was his clear Christian duty to have a quiet word in the necessary ears. It stood to reason, if the father had been stirring up anarchy within his own home, the sons must be tainted with the same brush. The old grandmother couldn’t have come to such conclusions on her own, she was merely a woman, after all. She must have heard talk. Rebellious talk.

Jeremiah breathed in deeply, exhaling slowly as he turned to look back over the pebbled drive and neatly manicured lawns and flowerbeds either side of it. The vicarage was a substantial building of three storeys and set in half-an-acre of ground. It was situated a few hundred yards from the main village, the church rising up behind it like a sentinel keeping watch over the grids of streets running down to the River Wear. He had been born in the master bedroom thirty-eight years ago, and apart from his time at ecclesiastical college he had never lived anywhere else. Just weeks after he had left college, his father had contracted cholera from one of his parishioners in Low Southwick, and within days he had died, his mother passing away of the same disease within the week. Jeremiah had remained in good health, something he had felt was God’s provision, especially when the bishop of the diocese, a family friend, had made it plain he wished him to continue in his father’s place.

Taking off his hat, Jeremiah banged it against his leg before turning and opening the front door. Immediately a strong smell of beeswax and lavender oil met his nostrils, and as he stepped into the tiled hall he exhaled again, this time with a feeling of satisfaction. His home was one of order and discipline – he would not tolerate anything else – and with his wife being of like mind, their existence together was harmonious. When the bishop had made it clear he expected Jeremiah to find a wife post-haste in view of his changed circumstances, introducing his niece at a dinner party shortly afterwards, Jeremiah had taken the hint and within twelve months he and Mary were wed. It didn’t matter to him that Mary was plain and severe in outlook – probably the reason she’d had no suitors at the age of twenty-five – she was domesticated and of good breeding and perfectly suited to her role as a vicar’s wife.

Such was his passionless nature he could have continued quite happily through life without a mate, but he had performed his husbandly obligations every so often and in due course Mary had given birth to their son, John, five years after they were married – a respectable interval, they had both felt. Matthew had followed two years later, and the twins, David and Patience, four years after that. By unspoken mutual agreement they had decided that their procreation function in the sight of God was adequately discharged, and both had felt relief that that side of marriage – obligatory but slightly distasteful – was over.

He was taking his coat off when Bridget, their little maid, came through the door at the end of the hall which opened into a corridor leading to the kitchen and servants’ quarters. His father had employed a cook and a maid, and Jeremiah had grown up in a very comfortable household along with his sister Esther, but his initial salary as a young vicar had not been such to afford servants. When he had married Mary, the bishop had seen to it that his niece could continue to live in the manner to which she was accustomed, and so Bridget, her mother Kitty who was cook and father Patrick who took care of the grounds and any odd jobs, had joined them. That had been twelve years ago and Jeremiah didn’t pay the little family a penny more than when he had first taken them on. He considered that they were adequately fed and clothed and had a roof over their heads; their wage was something he secretly resented.

Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed as he registered the start the little maid gave when she saw him, and as she scurried to his side he could see something was amiss.

‘Oh, sir, we didn’t know you were back,’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘The mistress asked me to keep an eye open for you, but then she wanted some more hot water for the pot and—’

‘What is it?’ He had no patience with Bridget’s gabbling; the girl was a constant irritation to him, but thankfully it was Mary who mostly dealt with the servants.

‘It’s her, sir. The – the lady who’s in with the mistress. She says . . .’ Here Bridget’s speech seemed to fail her and she gaped at him for a moment, before continuing, ‘She says she’s your sister, come to visit, sir.’

Jeremiah’s sharp ears didn’t miss the infinitesimal pause. He stared into the earnest rosy-cheeked face, his mind racing. Esther? Esther had come home? But it had been fifteen years and no word. Not that he, or his parents before they had passed away, had wanted one, not after the note she had left saying she intended to go on the stage. They had told no one of that, of course. His father had let it be known that his daughter had gone abroad for her health, and after a suitable time had intimated that she had decided to live permanently in warmer climes.

Becoming aware that Bridget was waiting for him to speak, he pulled himself together. ‘I see.’ He glanced at the silver hot-water jug which had been part of the fine tea set the bishop had bought the happy couple as a wedding gift. ‘Take that into your mistress and tell her I’ll be along shortly.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Bridget seemed glad her duty was done, whirling round and scampering across the polished tiles to the drawing room even before he had finished speaking.

The drawing room and morning room were on the ground floor of the vicarage. The first floor was taken up with the dining room, Jeremiah’s study and the children’s schoolroom. The top floor consisted of six bedrooms, with a less grand and space-consuming staircase than that which connected the ground and first floor.

Jeremiah had visited more lavish premises when calling on clergy friends, but also many less spacious, and overall he was pleased at the accident of birth which had destined him to live in the vicarage after his parents had died. When they had been alive the morning room had been the dining room, and his mother’s sewing room had occupied the present dining room on the first floor. On entering the house, Mary had immediately declared that an informal sitting room on the ground floor was essential. His position dictated a morning room where Jeremiah could see parishioners in private, or she could receive women friends who called for morning refreshments. He hadn’t argued. And so their meals had to come up one flight of stairs and be kept hot, which involved placing serving dishes in scalding water and perfect timing when a dinner party was in progress. But that was Kitty and Bridget’s problem. Servants were readily available, and could usually be replaced without difficulty if they failed to meet the required standards.

Jeremiah eased his starched clerical collar and smoothed the strands of sparse ginger hair either side of his head before looking towards the drawing-room door. He felt no excitement at the prospect of his sister’s return, merely anxiety. Esther had been a wayward child, given to flights of fancy and extreme precociousness, and as she had grown, so had her brashness. She had run rings round their mother, and her boldness with his friends had caused him much embarrassment. She had possessed none of the modest virtues appropriate for the daughter of a well-to-do vicar, and had stated quite emphatically that she had no intention of becoming the decorative wife of a boring provincial husband but would follow her own star. He had put much of her prattle down to her youth, but when she had skedaddled at the tender age of fifteen it hadn’t come as much of a surprise to him, although their parents had been mortified.

His brows drew together. And now the black sheep of the family was sitting in the drawing room with his wife, who knew nothing of the true circumstances surrounding Esther. He had been too ashamed to tell Mary the truth. The door to the drawing room opened and Bridget re-emerged, the girl’s expression changing to one of wariness as she saw him still standing there. He beckoned her over with a crooked finger and when she was standing in front of him, said tersely, ‘The children? Where are they?’

‘Me da’s lookin’ after ’em in the schoolroom for the present, sir. The mistress said for me to go and take over once I’d served tea.’

‘And have you served tea?’

‘Aye. I mean yes, sir. I have.’

‘Then go and do what your mistress told you.’

Jeremiah waited until Bridget had disappeared upstairs before walking across the hall. He opened the drawing-room door with a flourish and stepped inside.

Esther had scarcely been able to believe it when after knocking on the door of the vicarage and demanding to see Mrs Hutton, a stranger had come into the morning room where the maid had shown her. She had stared at the thin, colourless woman in front of her and the woman had stared back, before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘You wish to see me?’ her tone making it quite clear she did not expect the meeting to last long.

The woman’s barely concealed distaste had the effect of straightening Esther’s backbone and lifting her chin, but behind her cool facade her mind was racing. Where was her mother? Had her father married again? He must have. But to this frump? And if her father had taken a second wife, that must mean her mother had died.

The woman hadn’t asked her to sit down and Esther’s swollen feet were aching and her back breaking, but she gave no sign of her physical discomfort when she answered the usurper in an equally cold tone, ‘I was expecting to see my mother. I am Esther. Perhaps my father has spoken of me?’

‘Your father?’ For a moment the steely poise faltered but immediately the woman collected herself, gesturing at one of the small armchairs in the room as she said, ‘Please be seated. Am I to understand you are Jeremiah’s sister?’

Esther continued to stand straight and still as she inclined her head. Jeremiah. Of course. This pikestaff of a woman must be Jeremiah’s wife. ‘Where are my mother and father?’ she asked quietly but fearing the answer.

Mary was at a loss for perhaps the first time in her life. When Bridget had knocked on the door of the schoolroom where she was listening to John and Matthew’s tutor, Mr Maxwell, take the boys through the alphabet after she had settled the twins for their afternoon nap, and told her they had a visitor, she had excused herself forthwith and followed the maid on to the landing. There she had been slightly nonplussed when Bridget had practically barred her way, whispering, ‘Ma’am, it’s a – a lady – an’ she’s expectin’ a bairn. I thought you ought to know.’

Something in the way the maid had spoken had caused her to lower her own voice. ‘A lady from hereabouts?’

‘I don’t think so, ma’am. At least I’ve never seen her afore an’ she’s dressed . . .’ Here Bridget seemed to be searching for the right words. ‘She’s not dressed like folk round here, ma’am. And she wouldn’t say her name. Just repeated all haughty-like for me to fetch you.’

‘All right, Bridget.’ Mary had thought quickly. ‘I will see this lady but come immediately I ring for you.’

And now it appeared that their visitor was none other than Jeremiah’s sister who, she understood, was living somewhere on the continent having made an impetuous marriage to a Frenchman without asking her parents’ permission and thus incurring their wrath. When Mary had ventured a suggestion, shortly before they had wed, that Jeremiah might like to extend an olive branch to his sister no