Women Of Iron

by Catherine King

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

For sale: One child, six months old, Lissie. The seller: Grace Beighton watched the baby's mother die. Only she knows who the father is. The buyer: Luther Dearne has made a fortune with the iron masters of Yorkshire's South Riding. He has everything he could possibly want - except children. Now he can buy one of those, too. Hated by her adopted mother, adored and spoilt by her new father, Lissie will grow into a beautiful and independent woman. The child bought in a dark and dirty tavern will prove to be Luther Dearne's greatest joy, deepest heartache and finally his undoing.

Release date: June 21, 2012

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 384

Sample

‘My God, this child will be born with or without its mother’s help! I swear it will! Push, I said!’ the doctor urged her.
‘You must push when I say so. You must.’ He turned his tired, lined face to Grace. ‘Help her, woman! Tell her what she must
do. She will listen to you!’


The girl let out an anguished protracted scream as another wave of grinding torture seared through her body. She clutched
at Grace’s hand and begged her to stop the pain, to stop the infant, to stop her life. The bed, once smooth and white, was
now tumbled, stained and rank with the smell of childbirth. Grace supported the young mother’s shoulders and mopped her flushed,
damp face with a torn piece of linen. The coals, banked as high as possible in the grate, gave out a fierce heat and a flickering
light that danced shadows across the girl’s frightened eyes.


‘Keep breathing like I told you, miss,’ Grace murmured soothingly, ‘and do as the doctor says. It will all be over soon. First
timers always take longer.’


‘Not this long,’ the doctor commented grimly. ‘Both of them are growing weak.’

Grace looked up sharply at the concern in his voice. She had seen difficult births like this before, both mother and baby
worn out by the ordeal. If they were lucky and the doctor was good, he might save one of them. Best tend to the mother, she
thought. She can always have another child, next time inside wedlock.


The girl screamed again, an agonising wail that tore at Grace’s heart. The girl did not deserve this. She had brought shame
on her family, but, Lord in Heaven, the poor girl did not deserve this.


‘Let the baby go,’ she muttered quietly to the doctor. ‘Save the mother.’

The doctor, if he heard her, did not respond except to say hurriedly, ‘Fetch a parson. As quick as you can, woman.’

Grace picked up a storm lantern and scurried away, snatching her heavy winter cloak from its hook by the back kitchen door
and stopping only to bark at the timid maidservant, ‘Keep this fire banked up and fill another scuttle for upstairs. I shall
take it up when I return. You stay down here, do you hear me? You stay down here tonight and make hot toddies for the men.’


She would go herself for a parson. Young servants were unreliable. Also, servants gossiped. Grace knew that because she was
one herself. The less the other servants knew the better. She pulled up her hood and bent her head against icy driving rain.


The parsonage was set near to the church, a little way up the hill in this tiny coastal village, far away from London Town.
An onshore gale helped her with the climb, but coming back, accompanied by a sleepy dishevelled clergyman, it took her breath
clean away. She paused only once, before they entered the bedchamber, to hand the parson a coin and plea for his discretion.


The doctor had removed his waistcoat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. His hands and forearms were smeared and bloody, and,
miraculously, the mother’s screams had quietened. Had the doctor eventually given her some laudanum?


‘Ah, you’re back at last,’ he said. ‘Get over here, woman. I need your assistance.’


The baby was finally coming, its head was through and the mother had fallen back on the pillows in a faint, tired out by her
ordeal. The infant, too, was exhausted when, eventually, she slid into this world, a lifeless skinny thing with long limbs
and black hair.


Grace held out her arms for the baby. ‘Shall I take her, sir?’

The doctor shook his head. ‘Do what you can for her mother.’

She pulled a sheet over the bloodied bed and offered some brandy to the girl’s lips, already drained of any colour. Leaning
very close she whispered urgently in her ear. ‘Come on, miss. It’s all over now and you have a baby girl. What will you call
her? You must give her a name.’ Grace thought that even if the infant died, at least she would get a Christian burial if the
parson baptised her now. ‘What will you call her, miss?’ she repeated.


‘Mama, Mama,’ the girl breathed. She did not, or could not, open her eyes.

‘A name, you must give her a name,’ Grace insisted.

‘’Liss. ’Liss.’ The first syllable was lost as the name came out in a fading sigh and her head fell sideways.

Grace smoothed her sticky, tangled hair. Now she could sleep. Maybe by morning she would be stronger. But the infant … ? Through
the lamp’s yellow glow she watched the doctor tending the babe. There was no sound from her yet. Perhaps she had already gone.
Hopefully not stillborn, but the parson wouldn’t know that unless the doctor told him. He would need a name for the infant.
Liss? Aliss, was it? No, it couldn’t be Aliss. That was her mama’s name, a name for one of the gentry and not for one born
out of wedlock and shunned by her family.


A thin wail emerged from the babe. She was alive! Not for long, no doubt, if a baptism was nigh. But, if she did survive,
she was likely to end up as a servant. Best not call her Aliss and cause raised eyebrows. Aliss – ’Liss – Lissie – yes, Lissie
would be better. Yes, Lissie would do. Grace glanced at the infant’s mother. There was not a movement from her as the child’s
wail developed into a cry. The doctor had given her too much laudanum to quieten her screams. He had been tending her for
eight hours now. Poor man, he looked all in, as if he were ready to sleep on his feet.


She took the crying baby from him and wrapped her up for the parson. He baptised her quickly, by the flickering embers of
the fire, using a chipped kitchen bowl as the font. The child was skinny all right, but long limbed, like her mama and her
mama’s father. Maybe she was a fighter like him. Maybe she stood a chance.


A male voice interrupted Grace’s thoughts. ‘Parson! Over here. Quickly! You are not here for the child. The mother’s need
is greater. You should have tended to the mother first. I believe you will be too late.’


The exhausting, painful struggle had been too great for the girl. Her brief life ended during that stormy winter night in
a soiled and bloodied bedchamber, far away from her family home. Grace held the young life that she had helped bring into
the world and contemplated this unexpected turn of events. If anyone had to die this night, why should it be the mother? The
mother was young and pretty and could have married and had more children. Why had the babe not died instead?


What hope was there for a babe-in-arms with no father to speak of, and now no mother to look after her? Her ladyship’s orders
had been clear. The girl’s family wanted nothing to do with a bastard child. The infant must be farmed out to some worthy
farmer who would pocket a purse of gold and not ask any questions in return for an extra pair of working hands when the child
grew older.


The doctor interrupted her thoughts. ‘You will be in need of a wet nurse. I attended a young woman two days ago who can provide.
She’s healthy enough. You have money?’


Grace nodded. Oh, yes, she thought. For the first time in my life I have money. She had been well paid to hide and care for her pregnant charge in this isolated fishing village on
the windswept Yorkshire coast.


‘I’ll see to it then. Give the babe to me,’ the doctor went on briskly as he dried his hands on a square of linen and rolled
down his shirtsleeves. ‘You know what to do with the body.’ It was a statement rather than a question.


Grace nodded again. ‘There’s meat and drink in the kitchen and a maidservant to wait on you. I’ll be with you when I have
– when I have finished here.’


As soon as the room was empty but for her and her charge’s lifeless form, Grace carefully removed the locket and chain that
also carried the casket keys from around her neck, then began the process of laying her out. The girl had kept her jewels
in the casket. And money. Grace needed money.


Less than one week later, Lissie whimpered and grizzled in the biting east wind as her mother was laid to rest in a bleak
and barren churchyard. It was a discreet occasion. Grace had seen to that. Only the two of them and the parson stood by to
watch a plain wooden coffin being lowered into the ground. Nearby, a worn and mossy stone covered a vault that guarded the
decaying remains of distant cousins on her mother’s side of the family. The parson had no objections to another departed soul
joining those already lain to rest in this neglected corner of his graveyard. Grace had paid him well, with enough for a local
mason to add another name on the ancient stone slab.


She stamped her feet to warm them as the wind whipped round her ears. The baby in her arms began to wail. No doubt hungry
again, poor mite. No one from the girl’s family came to the funeral just as no one had visited her while the child grew in
her belly. Why should they? She was a family disgrace. They had done their duty. They had leased an empty house for her, far
away on the Yorkshire coast. She had an elderly distant cousin, a childless bachelor, living on the other side of the moor who might have attended. But the weather was evil for travelling at this time of year.


It was God’s will, and for the best, thought Grace, shrugging her new wool shawl closely around herself and the little one.
By gum, she thought, these local fishermen’s wives knew how to fashion a warm shawl. The rain began to fall in icy drops that
stung her eyes and spiked her cheeks. It would turn to snow on the moors. She should get the infant home quickly now the deed
was done.


Grace would have to send a letter to the girl’s family in London, telling of recent events. She sighed. Poor, wretched girl.
Not fifteen years on this earth. The scandal of it all had brought her low and a putrid fever did the rest. But the infant,
well, the infant was a bonny, healthy lass with a fine appetite and a strong pair of lungs. Did the family want to know about
the infant? Did they need to know? Lissie grew heavy in her arms as Grace walked away from the churchyard.


Any barren farmer’s wife would pay well for such a child and be thankful, even if she was a girl. Girls made good dairymaids
and, if they were handsome, made good marriages too. Grace had no need for a purse of sovereigns to farm out this little mite
and she wondered if she might keep her to herself. She wrote to the family that the child was a puny boy who might not thrive
and would be hard to place unless he grew stronger. She reasoned to herself that a bastard boy with a claim to the family
name would be better dead as far as the family were concerned. They would want no scandal attached to them. She finished the
letter by saying that she would stay in Yorkshire and do her best by him. Grace needed time to think about how she could get
far away from the family.


The doctor had been as good as his word and a wet nurse had arrived promptly. She was a ruddy-faced, hungry, fisherman’s wife
whose latest baby had sickened and died within the first few days of life. Little Lissie, having survived her fight for life at birth, carried on her demanding ways, took to a stranger’s breast well and thrived.


Grace, for her part, had weathered the northern winter in a pleasant haze of warm fires and French brandy, courtesy of the
grateful suppliers of her household needs. She had kept a good table for Lissie’s mother, and continued to patronise the local
tradesmen for herself and the baby and her wet nurse.


She needed to consider her future. If she kept the baby and the gold in the dead mother’s casket, where would she go and what
would she do? She could travel a long way with all that gold, but not so far at her age with an infant in tow. There was no
hurry; this coastal house was comfortable and it would be madness to travel anywhere before the spring. Grace bided her time
while Lissie ate, slept and grew.


It was Ruth, the wet nurse, who gave her the idea. Lissie was suckling contentedly at Ruth’s breast and, already, her skinny
limbs were filling out. She had lost the shock of black hair she was born with soon after birth. Now it was growing back,
just as black, but her skin was not olive as Grace had expected. It was pale, almost translucent, lightly tinged with a baby
pink, and her eyes were turning a smoky shade of green.


Ruth heaved Lissie over to her other breast. ‘Blooming ’eck, she’s getting heavy. I think she puts on weight every day. And
eat! Look at her, still going at it! Shall we try her wi’ some bread and milk tomorrer? ’Ave you thought what you’re going
to do with ’er, Grace?’


Grace was mulling a tankard of ale for each of them by a good fire in the upstairs drawing room. She had cut two thick slices
of bread and speared one to the end of a long-handled brass fork. ‘I don’t know yet. I can’t keep her with me, whatever I
do.’


‘Do you want to go back down south?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Grace shrugged, and then thought for a moment. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter where I am really, only I don’t want
to go back into service with the gentry. I’ve had enough of running round after them and I’ve done a good job here without having to take orders from any gentry.’


‘Oh aye, you ’ave that. Everybody says so. You’ve had this place all cleaned up and cosy for the winter. Where did you learn
how to do it all?’


‘In the poor house when I was a nipper. Over in the South Riding. I was born there, you see. The Admiral’s family used to
come up to Yorkshire every year for the shooting and I was sent from the poor house to help out at the lodge.’ Grace became
thoughtful for a moment, shaking her head gently. ‘I wouldn’t wish the poor house on this little mite.’ Then she brightened.
‘I was good with the children and in the sickroom too, and, one year, they took me back to London Town with them. The master
was a captain in the navy then and lived in a mansion near the Thames.’


‘You were lucky to get out o’ the poor house like that.’

‘Not so lucky with my husband though. I married a sailor and he was always at sea. I had to get used to being on my own.’

‘Didn’t he come home ever?’

‘Oh, aye! But when he did, he spent all his money, an’ most of his time, in alehouses!’ Grace became thoughtful again and
sighed. ‘He didn’t come back from Trafalgar though. That was twenty-five years ago. I went to work for the Admiral again.
He was a hero by then, and he knew the Regent and the old King and everybody.’


‘Will you go back there?’

Grace curled her lip and shook her head. ‘They don’t want anything to do with the little ’un. They’re too grand now, with
all their fancy ways. No, after a lifetime of that I’ve had my bellyful o’ the gentry. I’ll move out of here in springtime.
I shall find somewhere for the babe to keep her out of the poor house and will look for a little lodging house of my own.’


‘A lodging house? There i’n’t much call for them around here, or up on the moors. You will ’ave to go to t’ big towns for
that.’


‘A town would suit me. I’m used to London Town.’


Lissie was slowing down now, snuffling at Ruth’s breast and becoming sleepy. ‘Best put her down,’ Grace suggested, ‘and come
and get yourself something to eat.’


Ruth laid Lissie on the sofa, sat by the fire with Grace, and continued, ‘There are ports down the coast, all around the river
Humber. Always money from sea-going ships and canal barges down there, my Joseph says.’ She took some toasted bread and butter
and sank her teeth into it with relish. The butter ran down her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. ‘My
Joseph says you can make a good living from the Humber. It’s rough though, wi’ all the sailors and gangs o’ thugs about.’


Grace knew from her days on the Thames what it was like to live near docks. She was familiar with the comings and goings on
wharfs, and the ways of sailors, whether they sailed with merchant ships or the King’s navy, and she wanted none of it. No
longer young, she wanted something easier for herself. ‘Aye,’ she replied, ‘I know about living in ports well enough. And
I know I’ve had enough of sea-going men.’


‘Well,’ Ruth added, ‘they have plenty o’ trade in the South Riding. There’s coal and iron and they say they’ll soon have railways
as well. They’ll be all over the Riding one day, my Joseph says. Three of the fishermen have already left their boats to work
down the pits or on the furnaces.’


Grace’s memories of the South Riding were grim. Brought up on the parish, her young life had been one of humility and hardship,
constantly scrubbing away the ashes and soot belched out by the ironworks chimneys. Men and women worked hard, they sweated
hard and drank hard. Her escape to London Town had been a welcome release from this at first. But she quickly realised that
emptying slops and cleaning grates for the gentry was no different from the poor house, except that she wore cotton aprons
instead of sacking.


The Admiral did not travel to Yorkshire for the shooting any more. Since Trafalgar he had suffered from an injured leg that pained him constantly and tried his patience. But the wealthy
Riding ironmasters he knew from previous journeys often visited him in his elegant London house. And they brought their sons
with them.


Lissie’s father was one of those sons. A young gentleman he was, full of his own importance, based on his father’s money and
his university education. Lissie’s mother was the Admiral’s youngest child, fourteen at the time and a wild, wilful girl who
was taken in by the young gentleman’s charm. Some gentleman! Grace had heard them at it regularly, like a pair of rabbits,
in the old attic nursery and was not surprised a few months later when she was asked to take the girl away somewhere and farm
out the child. The young gentleman did not even know and nobody considered telling him.


The towns of the South Riding were grimy, and the gentry lived on the surrounding hills away from the smoke and dirt of the
manufactories in the river valleys. But Grace remembered the soft wind and rain, sheltered as it was from driving westerly
gales by the Pennine chain. Years ago the woollen trade had thrived there, but now the hills were scattered with ironstone
pits and coal mines to feed the greedy furnaces of ironworks by the river.


The South Riding was prosperous, Grace considered. It had plenty of trade and men with money to spend on good lodgings. A
woman could make herself a living there, she decided. She took another piece of toasted bread and spread it generously with
fresh butter.


‘Well, you were born in Yorkshire, so why not come back for good?’ Ruth suggested. ‘As you’re on your own, like. Unless you
think you’ll wed again, o’ course? You’d have no trouble wi’ that, you being such a good cook an’ all.’


As Ruth chattered on, between mouthfuls of toasted bread and warm, spiced ale, Grace’s thoughts wandered. What about the babe
though? She would not be able to run a lodging house with a babe-in-arms, and it would be years before the infant would be old enough to work. Grace went to sit by her on
the sofa. She did not want the child to end up in the poor house. What would the poor house do for her? Work her hard and
then place her as a servant when she was ten years old? The poor house did not look after its destitute folk for no reward.
They expected, and they got, payment for the years their inmates had lived on the parish. Most of the payment never went back
to the parish either, but into the pocket of the poor house master and his wife, if he had one.


Little Lissie already showed promise of becoming a real beauty with her large eyes and pretty mouth. She was too lovely for
the poor house and a life as a drudge or a farm servant. Grace could do better than that for her. She owed it to her and her
poor ma, if nothing else. There must be many a body who would pay well for such a beautiful, healthy infant. Then, Grace calculated,
she would have her ladyship’s purse from the casket, and more besides for her trouble. With all that gold and silver she could
make a nice life for herself somewhere else, and she wouldn’t have to go back to the beck and call of the gentry ever again.


Grace gave a rare smile and swallowed another mouthful of mulled ale. ‘What did you say, Ruth? You think she is ready to take
some bread and milk? Well, I’m sure you’re right. We’ll start her on that tomorrow. Your time with her is nearly done.’


As soon as the days began to lengthen and the weather turned warmer, Grace planned her departure from the Yorkshire coast.
She told all those who asked that she was going back down south, from where she came with the infant. She would take the same
route out that had brought her and the girl here at the beginning of winter, by turnpike south to the Humber and then she
would take a coastal vessel to London. The first part was true. She would take little Lissie with her to the estuary. And
then, who knows where she might go.


*    *    *

Travelling with a babe in arms in a coach and four was hard work for Grace now that she was no longer agile. Her joints were
stiffened by sitting and ached when she moved. But her fellow passengers were entranced by Lissie’s infant beauty and ready
smile, and they were more than willing to hold her while Grace took a nap or ate her bread and cheese. And while she travelled,
she thought about her plan and her future.


A babe like this might grow into a fine young woman, maybe catch the eye of a rich husband. She had breeding too. The blood
in her veins was gentry. If Grace had been a younger woman she would have considered keeping her. But the exhausting carriage
journey made her realise that she no longer had the energy to look after a little one as well as herself. And a child would
cost her a good deal of money until she was old enough to work.


No, she would have to move her on and a healthy little beauty, as Lissie was, would fetch a good price from the right buyer.
Besides, with all that gold she could take a house in a nice part of town, and provide lodgings for gentlemen to earn her
daily bread. Once the babe was off her hands, she decided, she would transfer to the cheaper canal barges to reach her destination.
Until then, she would stay in a respectable inn and she asked her fellow travellers to recommend one.


The North Star, near to the coaching inn where the horses were changed, was suitable. It was away from the squalor and noise
of the docks, yet within easy reach of the waterways for those travelling on. Night had fallen when Grace arrived, followed
by a boy and handcart with her luggage. The saloon was alive with drinkers and the landlord carried her boxes upstairs while
an exhausted Grace wrestled with a tired and fractious Lissie.


Grace surveyed her room. ‘I’ll have my dinner in here, as soon as you can. Bring me some warm milk and toasted bread for the
babe. You got a crib somewhere for her?’ The landlord nodded and muttered something about his wife finding one. ‘Good,’ she continued, now well used to dealing with tradesmen and the like. ‘Have you got a girl who can give me a helping
hand with her? I think the poor mite’s got her first tooth coming through.’


The landlord disappeared quickly, anxious to get back to the familiar territory of his saloon. Babbies, he thought, were women’s
work. However, a short while later a young woman knocked on Grace’s door and offered her services as nursemaid. By the time
Grace had eaten her dinner and Lissie had been quietened with a teaspoon of French brandy in some milk and honey, Grace had
learned from her gossiping helper all she needed to know about the inn’s regular visitors.


She waited until late, when most of the inn’s drinkers had gone to their homes and wives, before going down for a tankard
of porter. It was dark outside and the nights were cold, so the only people remaining were, like her, staying at the North
Star. She took her drink to a seat by the fire, next to a genial-looking fellow in a respectable tweed jacket, with a round
face and a belly to match. The nursemaid had described him well.


He looked up and gave a nod. ‘Evening.’

Grace nodded in return.

‘Saw you arrive earlier,’ he said. ‘With a babe in arms. Have you come far?’

‘North Riding,’ Grace answered, swallowing the greater part of her drink with relish.

She didn’t want him knowing too much of her business, even if she was going to move on. The gentry all knew each other round
these parts and it would never do for any word to get back to the Admiral’s family about the child. Her mind began to race
as she made up a story of the child’s origins.


Her new companion leaned forward, threw a couple of logs on to the dying embers of the fire and shouted over his shoulder,
‘Landlord! More whisky for me – and another of whatever the lady is drinking.’ He raised his eyebrows in Grace’s direction.


‘Ta very much,’ she replied, emptying her tankard. ‘The name’s Grace, Grace Beighton.’


‘Luther Dearne. Pleased to meet you.’

They carried on exchanging pleasantries until Grace was satisfied she could talk business with Luther. He was a rogue and
a crook, she didn’t doubt, but he sported a fine wool waistcoat with a gold watch and chain across his ample belly. The nursemaid
told her that he was known for being a soft touch with the landlord’s children, having none of his own. For her part, Grace
concentrated on covering her tracks regarding Lissie’s story. She needed to have the story straight in her own head before
she told anybody else.


The child, she decided, was a foundling and would have died of exposure if Grace hadn’t rescued her, and she was such a beautiful
child she deserved better than the poor house and a menial life as a laundry girl or scullery maid. But Grace herself was
a widow, which was true, and no longer young, which was also true, and she needed help to look after a baby as she had very
little money of her own. What she was seeking was someone with a need for a lovely, healthy child for their own. They had
to have means to compensate Grace for the trouble and expense of rescuing the infant. And she was such a pretty lass, you
only had to set eyes on her to take to her …


Luther interrupted her thoughts. ‘How long are you staying here?’

‘Just till I’ve completed my little bit of business,’ Grace replied.

Luther stared at her. She was nothing special to look at, he thought, but she seemed respectable enough. Plain dress though,
the sort of thing a housekeeper to the gentry might wear. ‘And what line of business is that then?’


Grace lowered her voice and leaned forward. ‘I’ve got something to place that needs a special kind of buyer.’

Luther drew his chair closer to Grace’s. ‘Tell me more. I do a bit of dealing myself.’

Grace told him her brief story about the ‘foundling’ child and before long she could see that he was interested.


‘That was the child?’ he asked. ‘The one you brought with you? Can I ’ave a look?’

She faked a yawn to stall him. ‘I’ve been travelling all day, my friend, and I need to rest. Tomorrow is time enough for that.
I’ll bid you goodnight for now.’ She took a candle and retreated upstairs to where Lissie, soothed by her teaspoonful of brandy,
slept soundly in an old and battered wooden crib. Lowering the light to see her better, Grace was pleased with the way the
nursemaid had washed and changed her before tucking a clean blanket around her. In the yellow glow, her skin looked as soft
as down and her tiny lips like rose petals. Her silky black hair poked out of the pretty white night bonnet her mother had
lovingly sewn for her.


Grace st