Miss Martha Mary Crawford Read online

  MISS MARTHA MARY CRAWFORD

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Miss Martha Mary Crawford

  PART ONE One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  PART TWO One

  Two

  Three

  PART THREE One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  PART FOUR One

  Two

  Three

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  In brief:

  Her books have sold over 130 million copies in 26 languages throughout the world and still counting…

  Catherine Cookson was born Katherine Ann McMullen on June 27th, 1906 in the bleak industrial heartland of Tyne Dock, South Shields (then part of County Durham) and later moved to East Jarrow, which is now in Tyne and Wear.

  She was the illegitimate daughter of Kate Fawcett, an alcoholic, whom she thought was her sister. She was raised by her grandparents, Rose and John McMullen. The poverty, exploitation, and bigotry she experienced in her early years aroused deep emotions that stayed with her throughout her life and which became part of her stories. Catherine left school at 13, and after a period of domestic service, she took a job in a laundry at Harton Workhouse in South Shields. In 1929, she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings Workhouse, working all hours and saving every penny to buy a large Victorian house. She took in gentleman and lady lodgers to supplement her income and took up fencing as one of her hobbies. One of her lodgers was Tom Cookson, a teacher at Hastings Grammar School, and in June 1940, they married. They were devoted to each other throughout their lives together. But the early years of her marriage were beset by the tragic miscarriage of four pregnancies and her subsequent mental breakdown. This took her over a decade to recover from, which she did, often by standing in front of a mirror and giving herself a damn good swearing at!

  Catherine took up writing as a form of therapy to deal with her depression and joined the Hastings Writers’ Group. Her first novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in 1950. In 1976, she returned to Northumberland with Tom and went on to write 104 books in all. She became one of the most successful novelists of all time and was one of the first authors to have three or four titles in the Bestseller Lists at the same time.

  She read widely: from Chaucer to the literature of the 1920s; to Plato’s Apologia on the trial and death of Socrates (she said that here was someone who stuck to his principles even unto death); to history of the nineteenth century and the Romantic poets; to Lord Chesterfield’s Letters To His Son and the books and booklets that abounded in her part of the country dealing with coal, iron, lead, glass, farming and the railways. She disliked it when her books were labeled as ‘romantic.’ To her, they were ‘readable social history of the North East interwoven into the lives of the people.’ For the millions of her readers, she brought ‘an understanding of themselves’ or perhaps of their dear ones. Her stories do not bring in a realism in which the worst is taken for granted, but a realism in which love, caring, and compassion appear, and most certainly, hope. ‘This type of realism does exist,’ Tom Cookson said of her writing. There is nothing sentimental about her writing; she is unrelenting in the strong images she invokes and the characters she portrays. They were born of her formative years and her personal struggles. Many of her novels have been transferred to stage, film, and radio with her television adaptations on ITV, lasting over a decade and achieving ratings of over 10 million viewers.

  Besides writing, she was an innovative painter, and she believed that her father’s genes fostered the strength to work hard, but also, in rare moments of freedom, to strive to better herself. Catherine was famed for her care of money but had given much to charities, hospitals, and medical research in areas close to her heart and to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, who set up a lectureship in hematology. The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust continues to donate generously to charitable causes. The University later conferred her the Honorary Degree of Master of Arts. She received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside, today known as Catherine Cookson Country. The Variety Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the Year, and she was voted Personality of the North East. Other honours followed: an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1986, and she was created Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford in 1997.

  Throughout her life, but especially in the later years, she was plagued by a rare vascular disease, telangiectasia, which caused bleeding from the nose, fingers, and stomach, and resulted in anemia. As her health declined, she and her husband moved for a final time to Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne to be nearer medical facilities. For the last few years of her life, she was bedridden and Tom hardly ever left her bedside, looking after her needs, cooking for her, and taking her on her emergency trips, often in the middle of the night into Newcastle. Their lives were still made up of the seven-day week and twelve or more hours each day, going over the fan mail, attending to charities, and going over the latest dictated book, with Tom meticulously making corrections line by line, for Catherine’s eyesight had long faded in her 80s.

  This most remarkable woman passed away on June 11th, 1998 at the age of 91. Tom, six years her junior, had earlier suffered a heart attack but survived long enough to be with her at her end. He passed away on 28th June, just 17 days after his beloved Catherine.

  Catherine Cookson’s Books

  NOVELS

  Colour Blind

  Maggie Rowan

  Rooney

  The Menagerie

  Fanny McBride

  Fenwick Houses

  The Garment

  The Blind Miller

  The Wingless Bird

  Hannah Massey

  The Long Corridor

  The Unbaited Trap

  Slinky Jane

  Katie Mulholland

  The Round Tower

  The Nice Bloke

  The Glass Virgin

  The Invitation

  The Dwelling Place

  Feathers in the Fire

  Pure as the Lily

  The Invisible Cord

  The Gambling Man

  The Tide of Life

  The Girl

  The Cinder Path

  The Man Who Cried

  The Whip

  The Black Velvet Gown

  A Dinner of Herbs

  The Moth

  The Parson’s Daughter

  The Harrogate Secret

  The Cultured Handmaiden

  The Black Candle

  The Gillyvors

  My Beloved Son

  The Rag Nymph

  The House of Women

  The Maltese Angel

  The Golden Straw

  The Year of the Virgins

  The Tinker’s Girl

  Justice is a Woman

  A Ruthless Need

  The Bonny Dawn

  The Branded Man

  The Lady on my Left

  The Obsession

  The Upstart

  The Blind Years

  Riley

  The Solace of Sin

  The Desert Crop

  The Thursday Friend

  A House Divided

  Rosie of the River

  The Silent Lady

  FEATURING KATE HANNIGAN

  Kate Hannigan (her first published novel)

  Kate Hannigan’s Girl (her hundredth published novel)

  THE MARY ANN NOVELS

&nb
sp; A Grand Man

  The Lord and Mary Ann

  The Devil and Mary Ann

  Love and Mary Ann

  Life and Mary Ann

  Marriage and Mary Ann

  Mary Ann’s Angels

  Mary Ann and Bill

  FEATURING BILL BAILEY

  Bill Bailey

  Bill Bailey’s Lot

  Bill Bailey’s Daughter

  The Bondage of Love

  THE TILLY TROTTER TRILOGY

  Tilly Trotter

  Tilly Trotter Wed

  Tilly Trotter Widowed

  THE MALLEN TRILOGY

  The Mallen Streak

  The Mallen Girl

  The Mallen Litter

  FEATURING HAMILTON

  Hamilton

  Goodbye Hamilton

  Harold

  AS CATHERINE MARCHANT

  Heritage of Folly

  The Fen Tiger

  House of Men

  The Iron Façade

  Miss Martha Mary Crawford

  The Slow Awakening

  CHILDREN’S

  Matty Doolin

  Joe and the Gladiator

  The Nipper

  Rory’s Fortune

  Our John Willie

  Mrs. Flannagan’s Trumpet

  Go Tell It To Mrs Golightly

  Lanky Jones

  Bill and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  Our Kate

  Let Me Make Myself Plain

  Plainer Still

  Miss Martha Mary Crawford

  Ever since her mother died, Martha Mary had had to take over the running of her home, a sprawling mansion called The Habitation. But more and more she found herself nursing her aunt who was prone to fits and playing mother to her sisters, with no tasks too demeaning for her, as the bills mounted and there was no money to pay for supplies.

  She did everything she could to make ends meet but always managed to ensure her father was looked after well and had a good table laid when he came home. Her sisters and their loyal servants, Peg and Dilly, were often cold and lived sparsely. She could not understand why they were in such financial straits especially as when her mother was alive, they had several profitable businesses and even after she died, one of them had been sold well. She hoped that her father’s frequent visits to Great-Uncle James would finally come good when he died and they could sell his house to alleviate their great need of money.

  But when her father died suddenly, his last words to her were to go to Great-Uncle James’ house and deliver a message but never to disclose to anyone especially to his only son, Roland, who was away boarding at a private school, what she was to find there.

  That journey was to change Martha Mary’s feelings for the men in her life and brought home to her the huge burden she now carried on her young shoulders and the responsibility of those lives that depended on her. Her father’s shameful secret filled her with anger as she feared she would never escape from her drudgery

  This is an impossibly gripping story of an angry, self-righteous and neglected young woman, made so because of circumstance, who makes bad, even cruel decisions as she struggles towards maturity. Cookson reveals a sympathetic understanding of a proud character forced to confront her own errors of judgment and who journeys painfully towards love and humility with the unswerving devotion of Dilly and Peg.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1975

  The right of Catherine Cookson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

  This book is sold subject to the condition it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form.

  ISBN 978-1-78036-068-3

  Sketch by Harriet Anstruther

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described, all situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  Published by

  Peach Publishing

  PART ONE

  1879. THE HABITATION

  One

  ‘Martha Mary! Martha Mary! It’s beginning to snow again.’ The young girl racing down the broad, shallow oak stairs almost overturned her sister who was crossing the hall, her arms full of freshly ironed linen, and Martha, steadying herself, cried harshly, ‘If I had dropped Papa’s shirts I would have shaken you, Nancy. I know it is snowing again; it has been for the past hour. Where’ve you been?’

  After throwing her loose fair hair back from her shoulders, Nancy bowed her head slightly as she said, ‘In the attics with Mildred; she was hoping to find a dress she could turn.’

  Martha, about to walk away, stopped again and said slowly and quietly, ‘Both you and Mildred know that there is only one trunk of Mama’s clothing left up there and Papa will not allow these dresses to be cut up for whatever good reason you might propose. We have been through all this before, Nancy.’

  ‘Oh—’ Nancy now shrugged her shoulders—‘it doesn’t matter to me, I don’t care what I wear, but it’s Mildred. She says she’ll soon be ashamed to go out, we’re all like rag-bags.’

  Again Martha paused from turning away and her voice, lower now, had a sad note to it as she said, ‘For the kind of people we meet when we go out it doesn’t matter much what we look like.’

  ‘She’s…she’s hoping for an invitation…’

  ‘An invitation! From whom? Where?’

  ‘The Hall. The Brockdeans. They always give a dance at Christmas and…’

  Martha’s expression now changed, as did her voice. ‘And whom do they give it for?’ she asked flatly. ‘Their staff, their servants. Does she want to be invited as one of them?’

  ‘She…she wasn’t meaning the staff ball, Martha Mary.’

  They now stared at each other until Martha, easing one hand from the bottom of the pile of linen, placed it on the top and gently pushed back into position a white silk shirt and without lowering her eyes to it flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the collar; then she asked a quiet question of Nancy, ‘Have we ever been invited to their January ball?’

  Nancy made no reply to this, but she continued to stare at her elder sister and Martha said, ‘So what makes Mildred think that this year will be any different from others?’

  ‘Lady Brockdean spoke to her when they met in Hexham last week.’

  ‘Lady Brockdean acknowledged us when passing through the Market Place in Hexham last week.’

  Instead of accepting this as the last word on the matter, Nancy stepped close to Martha and whispered, ‘It wasn’t only then, Martha Mary. She didn’t tell you, but they met in Bell’s—Bell & Riddle, the chemists—they had a conversation. Lady Brockdean asked how Father was, and she said she was going to visit our shop because there was a book she wished to order, and when they parted she expressed a wish, well, I mean she made a sort of statement, Mildred said, that they would meet again.’

  ‘Nancy!’

  ‘Yes, Martha.’

  ‘You and I know that Lady Brockdean is a kindly, well-intentioned woman, and we know that Miss Rosalind is a nice girl, and Master William a very nice young man, but we also know that Sir Rupert is a hard, implacable, domineering, arrogant individual.’ Her voice rose as she ended, ‘So why can’t Mildred realise once and for all that no-one is invited to the Hall except through Sir Rupert…Oh, what am I wasting time for?And where’s Mildred now?’

  ‘In her room.’

  ‘Well, go and get her this very minute, and then both of you take wood and coal up to Papa’s room and keep the fire banked, and as soon as he enters the yard help Peg carry the hot water up.’

  ‘Yes, Martha.’ Nancy’s tone was resigned, and she turned away and ran back up the stairs holding her long faded serge dress almost up to her knees so as not to impede her progress. But she hadn’t reached the top before she stopped and, leaning over the banist
er, she called down, ‘Will you ask Papa if I may ride Belle tomorrow, that is if the snow doesn’t lie?’

  Without turning round Martha called back, ‘Yes; if the snow doesn’t lie.’

  ‘Oh, good. Thanks, Martha Mary.’

  As Nancy’s feet pounded away up the remainder of the stairs and across the landing, Martha left the stone-flagged hall, went down a short passage, turned her back to a black oak door and with a thrust of her buttocks pushed it open and entered the room which was known in the house as Papa’s study.

  The room was long and narrow. It had a marble-framed fireplace, and in the open grate a fire was burning brightly. Unlike the rest of the house it was comparatively free from falderals. Apart from the antimacassars on the two leather chairs and the long couch fronting the fire, the velvet mantel border, and the deep be-tasselled pelmet bordering the faded blue velvet curtains at the long window, it had an austere appearance. It was definitely a man’s room, as was indicated by the hunting prints on the wall, the two standing pipe racks on the mantelshelf, and the littered desk to the side of the window.

  Martha put the laundered washing very gently onto the round mahogany table that stood behind the couch. After dividing it into two piles in order that it shouldn’t tumble, she looked down at it for a moment before turning and going slowly towards the chair at the right-hand side of the fireplace.

  Once seated, she lay back, closed her eyes, and let out a long drawn breath. She was tired, she was weary, and she was irritable. She admitted to feeling all three, but at the same time she told herself that she must overcome these feelings before her papa came in, for her papa couldn’t stand a long face; as he was wont to say, he lived on smiles. Unfortunately, she was finding she was smiling less and less these days.

  She looked back to the time when she saw herself as a happy, laughing girl, being often chastised for giggling; but that was before her mother died giving birth to her seventh and last child. The child, a boy who was christened Harold, lived only one month; and a year later their youngest sister Jeanette died at the age of six years. This was the second sister they had lost in five years.