A Mother's Gift (19 page)

‘What are you doing?’ the girl asked.

‘Don’t be daft, lass, you can see what I’m doing,’ said Kitty. ‘That blue was just the colour I had in mind for this pattern. It’ll look grand in front of the hearth in the Room.’

Katie didn’t answer; she was incapable of it for a minute or two. She looked at the blue cloth on the table,
the
front of the coat, the buttons still on it. The back of the coat was missing and the scissors beside the strips of cloth rolled into a ball told it all. Gran must have started to cut up the coat as soon as she went out of the door.

Gran leaned over and picked up the ball of cloth, peeling a strip from it. ‘I’ll just do this one before we have our teas,’ she said. She spoke calmly but Katie could hear the underlying tension.

‘Why? Why did you do it? You had no right! You hadn’t Gran, no right at all!’ Her voice rose, her heart beat wildly.

Kitty put down the prodder and stood up. ‘What do you mean, I had no right? You’re my granddaughter, I’ve had the fetching up of you all these years and I won’t have you bringing shame on this house. What will the minister say? I won’t be able to hold my head up in chapel, why I won’t even be able to put my nose outside in the street if I let you take such presents from men like that Hamilton! He’s the devil himself, Katie, can you not see it? What do you think your grandda would say? He’d put you out on the street, so he would!’

Katie took hold of the remnants of the coat and held the soft, fine wool to her face. ‘You were sly, Gran, that’s what you were. You waited until I was out, didn’t you? You planned to do it.’ She felt weak and weary and without the strength to shout though she felt like screaming and not necessarily about the coat.

‘Well, you weren’t going to wear it again, were you?’ asked Gran, her tone hard and clipped. ‘Not here you weren’t not if you wanted to live in my house. And don’t
you
call me sly, lady, you who’ve been carrying on with one of the bosses. Did you know the pit was going on short time again? No, I bet you didn’t, you don’t take any notice of what goes on with your own folk, none at all! Three days a week, that’s what the men are going to be on from Monday next. How’s a man supposed to keep a family on three days’ pay? How, I ask you, tell me now. Go on, ask your fancy man, any road!’

‘He’s not my fancy man, Gran,’ said Katie. She felt so tired. She felt as though her back would break in two at any minute. There, just between her shoulder blades.

‘He’s not, isn’t he? Well, if he’s not, he bloody soon will be! An’ look what you’ve done now, making me swear!’

‘Gran I swear to you—’

Kitty’s fury suddenly erupted. There were bright spots of red on her cheeks, her eyes flashed and she practically danced as she screamed at her granddaughter.

‘What do you think it’s like for me when the women say you’re a whore? I tell you, they don’t believe you’re working at that hospital now. Not when they’ve seen your fancy man and his flash car hanging about. Aye the word’s going round the rows already! And your Betty an’ all, poor lass, she says the folk at work are always making nasty remarks about you an’ what can she say back? Because it’s true, isn’t it? Tell the truth for a change, will you?’

‘All right, all right!’ Katie suddenly shouted, desperate to make Kitty stop. ‘Yes, it’s true!’

Gran sat down with a bump. For a minute she couldn’t
speak
. Then she said, ‘Get out of this house, Catherine Benfield and don’t come back here again. Don’t come near me again; don’t even come back to Winton Colliery. ’Cause we don’t want your sort here. You’ve broken my heart and all I can say is thank God your grandda wasn’t here to hear you say it. Go on, get out.’

‘Gran!’

Katie couldn’t believe she was hearing it. Surely it was another dream, a nightmare, she would wake up soon and it would all be just as it was before, when her grandfather was alive, when Billy was alive. When there had been no pit disaster at Winton Colliery.

‘Don’t you Gran me, Catherine Benfield. You’re no granddaughter of mine, indeed you’re not. Nor your Grandda’s neither. If I never see you again it’ll be too soon. Hadaway out of my sight!’

Katie turned blindly for the door; fumbled with the sneck and finally managed to get it open. The cold air rushed in. She turned back to her grandmother in mute appeal.

‘Gan on, I told you,’ said Kitty, still riding on top of a wave of rage. ‘An’ close the door after you, I can feel the draught.’

Katie went out, pulled the door to after her and ran down the yard and along the back street to the ends of the rows. She didn’t know where she was going, she simply knew she had to get out of Winton Colliery. The streets were deserted and the air damp and smelling of the gases from the coke ovens up by the pit yard. But it was a smell she had known all her life and it meant home to her.

‘Good for the chest,’ her grandda had used to say. The memory went through her mind as she stumbled into Matthew’s arms. Matthew had got out of the car to stretch his legs before setting off back to Teesside and thinking himself all kinds of a fool for waiting here so long for nothing. Only now it wasn’t for nothing, he told himself triumphantly, as she fell against him.

Kitty Benfield stared at the closed door, expecting any minute that Katie would come back and she would forgive the lass now. Katie would be sorry and after all the lass was not well and needed looking after, anybody could see that. She shouldn’t have been so hard on her, losing her temper like that. She’d said things that shouldn’t have been said, she had. Noah had always said she had a quick temper. She flared up easy, that was it but she soon got over it. When Katie came back in she would make her a nice tea with the pressed tongue.

Kitty took the black kettle from the bar and shook it; it was almost empty. She went out to the pantry where the single cold-water tap was in the corner with a bucket underneath to catch the drips. A nice hot, strong cup of tea would do them both good. She filled the kettle and carried it back to the range using two hands. By, she felt as weak as a kitten.

‘Serves you right for getting in a rage,’ Noah said inside her head. Kitty nodded, it was nowt but the truth. She leaned over to settle the kettle on the cinders and caught her foot on the chair supporting one end of the mat frame. She fell heavily, off balance and struck her head on the steel fender and the kettle fell too, spilling the water over
her
and the mat frame. The ball of fine blue wool strips rolled off into the corner leaving a trail of blue on the proddy mat and the stone flags of the floor.

Kitty was stunned, the kitchen swam crazily before her eyes. She closed them. She would just lie here a minute and collect herself. Any road, Katie would be back, of course she would be back and she would help her to get to the sofa for a lie down.

It was very quiet, she dozed for she knew not how long. She could hear the ticking of the clock but she couldn’t see it. The gas mantle flickered and went out, the penny meter needed feeding. Katie would do that too. Kitty drifted off again. The fire settled down with a shower of sparks but she didn’t hear or see it.

It was Betty who found her the next day. Betty, who had always been jealous of the closeness between Katie and their gran.

‘YOU CAN WEAR
your new dress tomorrow, Georgie,’ Kate said. ‘Now be a good girl and go to sleep.’ She leaned forward and kissed Georgina on the cheek and the little girl flung her arms around her mother’s neck.

‘Is Father coming tomorrow, Mam? As well as Father Christmas?’ The question was an appeal really. Georgina had waited and waited for Father to come home. She had stood by the landing window, which afforded a good view over the fell to the distant road, which led away to Middlesbrough in the north and Whitby in the south all the morning, and then again in the afternoon until the weak winter sun went down behind the rising ground to the west.

Kate gazed at her daughter’s eager little face. Georgina’s deep blue eyes, so much like hers, looked back earnestly. They were the only things that Georgina had inherited from her, the strong lines of her face were Matthew’s as was the fine dark hair. It was the
combination
that made Georgie so beautiful, her mother decided. Poor Georgie, what would become of her?

‘Goodnight, goodnight, mind the bugs don’t bite,’ she said, in the nightly ritual her grandmother had kept up with her when she was a child. She got to her feet and went to the door.

‘Will he, Mam? Will he?’ Georgina refused to have her query ignored. Kate sighed and turned back.

‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘I can’t promise though. But don’t worry, he’ll send a lovely present for you—’

‘I don’t want a present Mam. I want Father to come,’ said Georgie, her lower lip turning down.

‘Go to sleep now, Georgie,’ Kate said. ‘And if your father does come tomorrow you must call me mother. Mam is just a secret name, just between the two of us, isn’t it?’ Georgie nodded and Kate closed the door and went down the stairs into the little sitting-room she used when Matthew was not at home.

At home, she thought wryly. This was not his home though, was it? He lived in that great mausoleum of a house over by the Tees. With his wife and his family. His proper family. His very proper family, his wife was a lady. Katie remembered her vaguely, from the days when she had been a probationer nurse and his wife had been brought in, an emergency miscarriage. But her memory of Mary Anne was misty, it was so long ago.

Kate went to the cupboard in the corner of the room and brought out half a dozen ready-wrapped parcels which she carried through to the tree in the dining-room. She placed the parcels around the tree. Most of them were
for
Georgina but there was one for Matthew and one for Dorothy, the maid of all work.

When she had arranged then to her satisfaction she went out into the hall and listened in case there was any sound from Georgina’s room. Satisfied there was not, she went through to the kitchen where Dorothy was just brewing the tea.

‘By, I’m looking forward to that tonight,’ Kate said. She slipped into one of the plain Windsor chairs that stood around the table. Dorothy poured two cups of tea and put one before Kate. She went to the cupboard on the wall and came back with ginger biscuits and arranged them on a plate. Then she sat down and watched Kate stir sugar into her tea.

Dorothy felt sorry for Kate. She had been with her since before Georgina was born, seen her change year by year. She had seen the eager young girl watching and waiting for him to come home; had seen the eagerness fade to disappointment on far too many occasions.

‘Are you expecting the master home tomorrow, Mrs Hamilton?’ she asked and Kate put down the spoon and looked up, smiling.

‘Oh, yes, I am, Dorothy,’ she said. ‘He promised Georgie he would be home by dinnertime. Lunch,’ she added. Matthew frowned when she said dinner instead of lunch and tea for dinner. Only sometimes it was easy to forget, especially in the rush of excitement she felt when he came home.

Dorothy pushed an errant lock of white hair back under her cap and took another sip of tea. She selected a ginger
biscuit
and bit into it thoughtfully. What the heck did it matter what a meal was called, that was what she always thought. And for why did he keep the family here, hidden away in a fold on a God-forsaken moor? Kate was a woman to be proud of, not one to be tucked away out of sight. Just because she spoke with a Durham accent she supposed and hadn’t been brought up a lady. Dorothy had seen some of these so-called ladies and Kate was worth ten of them. By, if he let them down the morrow he deserved scalping, he did an’ all.

How had a woman like Kate even fallen for a man like Matthew Hamilton? There was no denying she thought a lot about him. Only sometimes Dorothy fancied Kate wasn’t so keen on him as she had been. Sometimes she saw her mistress looking at him strangely. Dorothy had come to know Kate well, very well in fact. No one else but she saw much of Kate anyway. Hamilton kept her well away from people; she might almost have been a prisoner on this lonely moor.

‘He can’t help it, you know, Dorothy,’ said Kate. ‘He has to keep up with the business. And … And there are other things.’ She finished awkwardly; she didn’t like to think of the ‘other things’ Matthew had to see to. They included his other family and no one here knew of them. Just as, she supposed, no one in his other family knew of her and Georgie. But Matthew knew best of course.

‘This is the best way to do it,’ Matthew had said when she felt her life slipping away and asked why it should be as it was. ‘For Georgie’s sake, I mean. She doesn’t deserve to be looked down on as a—’

‘Don’t. Don’t say it, Matthew,’ Kate had begged. ‘I don’t mind, really I don’t. Not when you come back to me whenever you can.’

Matthew had taken her in his arms and it was still good, so unbearably sweet. All her love, all her emotions were channelled into the feeling for Matthew and her baby. Oh, she loved him, she really did. He had been so good to her. Sometimes though, she felt really homesick for Winton Colliery and her gran; twice she had written to her and asked that the reply should be addressed to Dorothy but there had been no reply. The third time there had been but the letter hadn’t been from her gran but from her sister Betty and it had been a wonder the venom in the words hadn’t burned up the page.