A Mother's Gift
What will Katie do to keep her child?
When Katie’s grandfather and her childhood sweetheart are both killed in a mining accident, she is devastated by grief. Matthew Hamilton, the unscrupulous owner of the mine, takes advantage of her distress in the most despicable manner.
Thrown out by her grandmother, her reputation and nursing career in tatters, Katie finds herself facing a home for unmarried mothers. Only Hamilton offers her a way to keep her baby, but only if she forgoes her principles and becomes his mistress...
From the bestselling author of A WARTIME NURSE.
Maggie Hope was born and raised in County Durham. She worked as a nurse for many years, before giving up her career to raise her family.
She is the author of A WARTIME NURSE, also published by Ebury.
Maggie Hope
For my lovely grandson,
Jonathan Christopher Hepworth
Chapter One
IT WAS JUST
a muffled sort of sound at first but as it progressed down the row it got louder. Thump! Thump! Knock, knock, knock! Gran dropped her slice of bread and dripping on the table and rushed to the black-leaded range, picked up the poker and with the handle banged on the fire-back above the bars. Bang, Bang! This time the thumping rang metal on metal.
‘Howay, pet,’ Gran said to Kate, ‘give us a hand, the man’s on his way. Had away and tak’ a peep. See how far he’s got down the row.’
Kate nodded her head, went to the front door, had a bit of trouble getting it open because it was stuck with all the rain they’d had that summer and the threshwood was swollen and rotten and coming away in thin spelks, leaving gaps for the rain to get in. But she did get it open and stuck her head out to look up the row.
He was there all right, the Means-test man, him with his double-breasted suit and shiny shoes and his hair slicked back with real brilliantine not water. He was close
an’
all, too close. She pushed the door to and ran back through the room to the kitchen.
‘He’s nearly here, Gran, he’s just at Mrs Wearmouth’s!’ Mrs Wearmouth was only three doors away, Kate’s heart began to beat faster with the dread of the Means-test man.
‘We’re here, Mrs Benfield, what have we to tak’?’
Billy Wright and his marra burst in the back door and glanced around at the meagre furnishings. There was obviously little to take from the kitchen, all it held was a table, a press which was propped up with an off-cut from a pit prop where Grandad had broken the leg one night when he came in bad with the beer and three chairs.
‘The sofa in the room!’ said Gran. ‘Oh God, don’t let them take me sofa will you, lads!’
‘Not if we can help it,’ said Billy, making a beeline for the connecting door. But he was too late and it was Kate’s fault. She hadn’t closed the front door properly and it had swung open and now, gazing at the opening in horror, she saw the Means-test man standing there, already writing in his notebook.
‘Mrs Benfield isn’t it?’ he said, ‘And who are these two lads? I thought there were just you and your man and the lass? Katie Benfield, isn’t it?’
Kate stepped into the room and nodded her head, unable to speak. Not so Gran who pushed past her and stood, all four feet ten inches of her and with fists on skinny hips, confronting the Means-test man. The two boys melted away; they had other things to do, helping the other residents of the rows to hide their treasured bits of furniture and nick-nacks the Board reckoned could be
sold
and the money deducted from the hardship allowance. Katie knew that they would be all up and down the back lane carrying precious bits out to hide in the back yards of houses that had already been inspected. She watched her gran, face red as fire as she glared up at the man.
‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?’ Gran screeched. ‘I’ll have the law on you, I will an’ all! Barging into decent folk’s houses—’
‘Aw, howay, Missus,’ he said and pushed his glasses up over the bridge of his nose. ‘You know full well who I am.’ He looked mildly down at her and sighed. ‘All right,’ he said and for a wild minute Katie thought they had won. But no, he simply reached in his pocket and took out a card. ‘There you are, Mr Thompson I am, see it there on the top? And I have full powers to have a look to see what you’ve got worth selling. So you’d best not get in me way or it will be the worse for you.’
He stepped forward and Gran turned on him, stamping her foot and screaming, ‘Get out! Get out!’
Easily he took hold of her around her skinny shoulders and lifted her bodily to one side and then, as though nothing had happened, went over to the sofa and felt the plush covering and worn out springs. Calmly taking a piece of chalk from his jacket pocket he chalked a price on the back: 2/6. He was writing the amount into his notebook when Gran got her second wind.
‘2/6!’ she shouted. ‘Two shillings and sixpence! Are you telling me my sofa’s worth no more than 2/6?’ Her expression reflecting her outrage she jumped at him,
stamping
her heel on his instep, grinding it in. When this made no impression, after all he has wearing good leather shoes and she was in flat-heeled plimsolls minus their laces, her ‘house slippers’ as she called them, she tried kicking him in the shins.
‘Come away, Gran, please,’ said Katie, grabbing her arm and pulling her as hard as she could.
Mr Thompson sighed. ‘I’m sorry Missus,’ he said, ‘but if you are going to carry on like this I’ll only call the polis. Now, howay, be a good lass.’
‘A good lass! And you telling me my sofa that cost me four bob a week for three years is worth only two shillings and sixpence?’
‘I’m trying to help you, Missus. Can you not see that if I say it’s worth more it means you’ll have more deducted?’
‘Well—’ Gran was brought up short, she didn’t know what to say but not for long. ‘Lad,’ she tried in a softer tone, almost wheedling, ‘lad, I only get four and sixpence for the bairn and fourteen and six from the dole for me man. I cannot keep the lass on two shillings, you can see that, can’t you?’
Katie cringed as she saw the look on Mr Thompson’s face, almost a smirk.
‘I tell you what Missus, did you not go to school?’ he asked. ‘If you could but add up you would see you have nineteen shillings coming in, where do you think it comes from? Folk like me who’s doing an honest day’s work.’ Sticking his chalk in his pocket he walked to the door. ‘Good day, Missus,’ he said. ‘You’ll be hearing from us.’
‘Well, at least we’ve given the rest of them time to hide their bits,’ said Gran. She was bending over the sofa looking at the numbers chalked on the back. Taking out a rag duster from her apron pocket she spit on it and rubbed at the chalk hopelessly.
‘I might be able to get a job,’ said Katie. ‘I thought I could deliver groceries for the Co-op store. They want people.’
‘They want lads,’ Gran said flatly.
‘Well, I can put my hair up in a cap and borrow Grandad’s bike. I can—’
‘Aw man, Katie, don’t be a bigger fool than you can help. Nobody is going to tak’ you for a lad, you’re going on thirteen already though by heck, you don’t act it!’
Katie looked down at her feet miserably. The toecaps of her boy’s shoes were scuffed so badly the top layer stuck up in tufts. She had hoped they might be able to get a grant to buy her new school shoes but that wasn’t likely now. And Gran would never sell the sofa, why should she? It was the only place she could get a bit of peace and quiet on a Sunday afternoon, when Grandad came in from the club and lay snoring upstairs in bed.
‘Any road,’ Gran was saying. ‘Any road, if you got a job they’d tak’ the other two bob off us an’ all. I don’t know. I might just have to ask your mam for a few coppers to help us out like.’
‘No, don’t, Gran!’ Katie exclaimed. ‘You know they cannot give us anything. I’ll find something to do, I will.’ Kitty Benfield sat down the sofa and gazed solemnly at her granddaughter. The granddaughter she loved and
Noah
loved an’ all, she knew that. Though sometimes she thought he loved the beer more. Ah, it was no good, men always had to have their pocket money for beer after working down the pit all the week. Though they weren’t working down the pit at the minute and hadn’t done for weeks.
There was no market for the steel from the ironworks in Middlesbrough so there was no demand for the coal from the pits because the pits were owned by the men who made the steel and they had closed them down. Not all of them but this one, the one at Winton, which was what mattered to her family. Because the Hamiltons owned the pits and the ironworks and most everything else she could think of. By, she’d like to see them worrying about where their next crust of bread was coming from. She’d laugh in their faces, she would.
Kitty roused herself from her bitter reverie and sighed. ‘Aye, I know,’ she said heavily, ‘your mam’s worse off than us.’ After all, it was a fact that her Thomas and his wife had six bairns to think of without Katie. After all that was why she had taken Katie when she was but six months old, and a second child. Hannah had had to stop giving her the breast because she was already far on with a new baby. And Katie hadn’t thrived on sugar water and condensed milk and Kitty had picked her up one day from the rickety pram which had been pushed into the furthest corner of the yard so her mam wasn’t pestered by her weakly cry. By she had thought, the bairn was light as a feather.