A Mother's Gift (22 page)

‘Isn’t someone meeting you?’ the driver asked as he opened the door for her. He was supposed to hand the girls over to someone and not let them out on their own.
He
gazed along the track but it disappeared in the bends and folds of the moor. He was impatient to get back home to his dinner for he reckoned Yorkshire pudding and onion gravy spoiled for the keeping too long and bringing this kid up on on to this god-forsaken part of the moor had taken up more time than he expected.

‘I think so,’ said Georgie. ‘But I’ll be all right, it’s not far, I just go along this path.’

‘Hmm,’ said the driver. But he couldn’t take the bus along the track for in places it was little more than a sheep trail and narrow. But it was well defined and surely she couldn’t get lost, she lived here, didn’t she? ‘Go on then, I’ll watch you to the bend,’ he said and Georgie skipped along the track, breathing deeply of the cold air. It was different from the air in Guisborough, she decided, it tasted nicer.

She took off her velour hat with the school badge on the front of the band and swung it by the elastic in one hand and her school satchel in the other. Though she was only here for the day she meant to find some time to read up on the capitals of the world and what’s more, find out what an igloo was. Miss High had said they were to build an igloo next week and learn about the people who lived in them. And she wasn’t going to be caught out letting everyone know she didn’t know what the teacher was talking about again. Especially that Susan Jones.

At the bend in the road she turned and waved to the bus driver and when she turned back there was Dorothy, puffing and blowing her way up the bank to her. And it was grand to see her; she felt a wave of love for the old
woman
wash over her. Dropping her satchel she flung her arms around her.

‘Hey, now, man, what’s all this?’ Dorothy demanded breathlessly but she smiled and kissed Georgie and picked up the bag and they went hand in hand down the track to the cottage.

The poor little lass was too young to be away from home all week, that was Dorothy’s opinion. It wasn’t normal. But then there was a lot about this family that wasn’t normal, she reckoned. It was a good job she had come to them when she did. Kate and the little lass were so isolated here and completely under Hamilton’s thumb. They hardly dared move without his permission. Mind, Kate hadn’t been herself, anyone could see that. She had a lost look somehow. At least she was better now. One of these days she would tell Hamilton to go to hell and Dorothy was looking forward to that. Only the lass loved him, just like all children loved their fathers no matter what they were like. Dorothy sighed.

‘I’ve made a batch of Yorkshire parkin,’ she said. ‘You can have some with your milk, it’s still warm.’

‘Is my father here?’ Georgie asked looking up eagerly at the old woman.

‘Not yet,’ said Dorothy and the eager look slipped from Georgie’s face. Bloody man, Dorothy said to herself. He’s not human, that’s what, letting the bairn down like this. ‘Your mother would have come but she’s expecting him any minute.’ And I wouldn’t put any fellow before
my
bairn, she told herself. Not that Kate usually did, she had to admit. Her thoughts strayed to her own daughter, in
Australia
. In a way Kate and Georgina had taken the place of Prue, for she had been feeling lonely and bereft at the time.

‘You can come with us,’ Prue had said but Dorothy knew her too well. Prue was asking but hoping her mother wouldn’t take her up on it.

‘No, I won’t leave the old country, not at my time of life,’ she had replied and turned away in case Prue saw the anguish in her eyes. The truth was, Tom, her son-in-law, was jealous of any feeling Prue might have for her; he wanted it all for himself.

Ah well, she thought as she took hold of Georgie’s hand, didn’t it just show that there was a purpose mapped out for her? Here she was with this little family she had made her own. And there was Prue in Australia with two little boys she had never seen. Though maybe one day – Dorothy sighed, breaking off her chain of thought as it was so depressing. After all, she had a lot to be thankful for.

It had been a lovely day, Georgina thought as she lay in her own bed that night. For Father had been in a good mood and when he was happy everyone was happy. He had been home when she and Dorothy got there and had lifted her up in his arms and swung her round and asked what she had learned at school and she even told him about the capitals and how she
had
to learn them all before she went back. And what was an igloo?

‘You see?’ said Father, looking at her mother and Mam had nodded. ‘Yes, I see Matthew.’

Matthew was in a good mood because he had just landed a lucrative contract with the government to supply steel to the naval yards. War with Germany had the country limbering up to full production and steel works were important again.

Kate peeped in to say goodnight and she sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed Georgie’s hair back from her forehead.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she whispered.

‘Me too, Mammy,’ said Georgie and then, without much hope, ‘do I have to go back tomorrow?’

‘You know you do, petal,’ said Kate and bent to kiss her. ‘Now go to sleep, you have to he up early to catch the bus.’

Georgie lay in bed, listening to the muffled sounds from her parents’ room, the murmur of voices. Well, she decided, if she
had
to go to school then she would make herself like it. What’s more, she would do her absolute best to be the cleverest in the school, she would show that Susan Jones she was not to be laughed at, ever again.

The war was almost four years old when Georgina won a scholarship to The Towers School at Saltburn. The girls at the school didn’t see much of the war apart from the fact that a lot of their fathers were away in the forces. They had to carry gas masks around with them in a box slung around their shoulders and they had air-raid warning drill once a week. Sometimes they heard planes flying overhead and tried to guess what they were and where they were going. And sometimes a girl was called out of class
to
go to the headmistress’s study. They all knew what that meant, her father was killed or ‘missing presumed killed’.

‘They say she has a fine mathematical brain,’ wrote Kate in a letter to Matthew in the summer of 1943. Her letters went to a Post Office box, he wouldn’t have them sent to his home or works or even his flat in London.

He was away more than ever nowadays, but then a great many men were away in the armed forces. Some of them were away for years at a time and Kate knew she couldn’t grumble if Matthew didn’t come home for months at a time.

He was in London a lot, working with the government though what he did she hadn’t the vaguest idea. But it was some comfort to her to think that he must see almost as little of his other family as he did of herself and her daughter. She tried not to think of Maty Anne and his other family; liked to pretend they didn’t exist.

‘I have taken a job as a nursing assistant at the cottage hospital,’ she wrote then nibbled her pen, wondering how he would take it. Why shouldn’t she though? She had actually applied and been accepted and worked at the hospital for more than a year and this was the first time she had told Matthew. She knew she would have to tell him when he came home and found her going off to work but somehow that never happened.

Kate was beginning to think more and more of her old life and ambitions. She had written to her mother without telling Matthew and received a very brief letter back from Hannah, giving only some stark facts of her grandmother’s death and not asking after Kate or giving
any
other word about the family. Kate had wept buckets in the privacy of her room and come out with a hard knot in her stomach that never really went away.

This was her life now, she told herself. She had made her bed and now she must lie on it. That had been one of Gran’s favourite sayings. She loved Matthew, she told herself as she did so often these days. But she felt she had come out of a fog which had enclosed her ever since the pit disaster when Billy and Grandda had died. She was ready to assert herself; Matthew had had it his way for far too long.

‘I will work on weekdays only,’ Kate continued in her round, unformed handwriting. ‘I will be at home at the weekends when Georgina comes from school.’ She paused for a moment, she never knew quite how to sign her letters to Matthew. Then she wrote, ‘Your ever loving Kate.’

She put the letter in an envelope and addressed it then took it downstairs to the kitchen where Dorothy was making Woolton pie with vegetables from the garden. She was a bit short of lard for the pastry so she had added a bit of hard margarine and was having a difficult time kneading it in.

‘I’ll put the kettle on in a minute,’ she said to Kate and wiped a floury hand across her cheek leaving a white, dusty trail.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Kate. ‘Then I’ll go to the post box on the road.’

Dorothy started to mix the pastry with water ready to roll out for the top of the pie. She knew who the letter was
for
of course, who else could it be? And she had her doubts as to whether the master would let the lass go to a school in Saltburn; it was too near the industrial centre of Cleveland for him.

Dorothy had been with Kate for long enough to find out the whole story, even if it had been in bits and snippets. And she had her own opinions about it all. One of her opinions was that Kate was wasting her life in this cottage in the back of beyond. It was all right for
her
, Dorothy, she’d had her life and she had her memories. But Kate hadn’t lived when Hamilton snatched her up. She’d only been a slip of a lass. She was still a slip of a lass, Dorothy reckoned, slim and a proper treat to look at with those marvellous eyes and translucent skin though Kate didn’t seem to realise it herself.

Dorothy was tired. She knew that but for the fact that Kate did a lot of the work she wouldn’t be able to manage. Anyway, if she retired she would miss Kate and Georgie almost as much as she missed Prue. Kate was like an adopted daughter to her.

‘YOU WILL GIVE
in your notice at once,’ said Matthew. ‘I don’t want you to go back to the hospital.’ He didn’t raise his voice; simply spoke in the assured tone he used when he was absolutely sure his wishes would be paramount. Lately, instead of making Kate give in immediately, his attitude merely irritated her. More than irritated her, in fact, for she had become used to making her own decisions while he had been away.

‘I cannot.’ Kate was equally as certain.

Matthew gazed sternly at her. He was tired, these last few weeks in London working with the government had been hard, he was beginning to feel his age, he reflected. It was late in the evening after a particularly hard day. Travelling up from King’s Cross even in First Class was an ordeal in wartime, the train being so packed with soldiers that the corridors were impossible to negotiate. Even the seats in his carriage were all taken by officers, tanned dark brown by the North African sun, who lounged about with their legs sprawled in front of them so that it
was
even more difficult to get out into the corridor. Worse, in one corner an officer had given up his seat to a young woman with a crying infant that refused to stop its caterwauling. They had reached Darlington before it fell into a snuffling sleep and he got out at Darlington in any case.

Thank God, he had thought as he strode up the platform breathing in the cold, sooty air. And thank God Lawson was meeting him with the car. He couldn’t have borne the slow local train to Middlesbrough and then finding a taxi to the works.

Lawson had been classed as C3 when he went for his medical for the army in 1940 and so had remained in Matthew’s service at the Hall. He was general handyman as well as chauffeur nowadays; it was so difficult to get servants of either gender.

The Hamilton Ironworks were going flat out as were all the steelworks on Teesside. But Matthew knew the war would end sometime and he also knew the political situation was most likely to change too. There were rumours of nationalisation in the air, not now of course as all efforts went towards winning this war. But later, maybe, should Labour get in. Now was the time to plan ahead or, if not that exactly, then the time to consider his options and be prepared.

Then there had been the meeting with Mary Anne. It had been four o’clock when he reached the Hall and Mary Anne was just finishing up a meeting of her Women’s Committee for supplying comforts to the troops in Italy. The meeting had ended rather sooner than expected when
Matthew
came home and the ladies had filed out, glancing sideways at Matthew as they did so and murmuring to each other that Mr Hamilton was still a handsome man; he was indeed, with his dark hair tinged witty silver and his dark eyes and air of authority. He was distinguished looking and his figure was so trim with no sign as yet of a paunch. Mary Anne was a lucky woman though there had been whispers about him at one time. He was not the man to let go to London on his own for weeks at a time. After all, there were a lot of young widows about nowadays.

Matthew did not miss the interest the ladies had in him; he smiled inwardly and looked them over openly to let them see he
could
have an interest in one of them but it was only a game he played, couldn’t help playing. When they had gone he dropped his slightly flirtatious attitude as he shed his coat and hat.

Mary Anne was on her feet by the drawing-room door and Maisie stood a little behind her. Each woman offered her cheek for his kiss.