The Obsession Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  The Obsession

  PART ONE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  PART TWO

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  PART THREE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  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 3 or 4 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 bed-ridden 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 80’s.

  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

  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

  The Obsession

  Dr John Falconer, recently appointed partner to old Cornwallis, is invited to a garden party at Pine Hurst, seat of the local lord of the manor. It is an occasion arranged to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of Simon Steel’s eldest daughter Beatrice, who introduces him to her three sisters, one of whom, seventeen-year-old Rosie, takes it upon herself to conduct him around the extensive grounds of the house. In a moment of indiscretion, she lets slip her true feelings about Beatrice who, she says, has always been over-possessive about Pine Hurst and, since the death of their mother, has become insufferably dominating. At that time, even though she was then only in her ’teens, Beatrice had taken over the running of the house and now she ruled her father and the servants with an iron hand. What was particularly frustrating for Rosie, who could see no end to the tyranny, was that no man had so far shown any willingness to marry Beatrice and thus deflect her from the object of her passion.

  As for Beatrice herself, her wanderings about the house and grounds convince her that no one could ever take the place of her most prized possession – although she constantly has to remind herself that it is her father who owns Pine Hurst. But she runs it and glories in being its mistress. Of course, he might decide to remarry – not that she would mind his taking another wife; it is the thought of another woman becoming mistress of the house that fills her with dread.

  But then, unexpectedly, her father dies, and when the family meet for the reading of the will, she realises her security is threatened and that she must begin to lay plans to protect her position and allow her the freedom to continue as before.

  The Obsession powerfully portrays a woman so driven by the need to protect her inheritance that she will sacrifice almost anything or anyone to ensure she does not lose it.

  THE OBSESSION

  Catherine Cookson

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1995

  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 1988

  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 978-1-78036-065-2

  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

  THE GARDEN PARTY

  One

  As he walked up the long, pine-bordered drive, so thick on either side were the trees that they dimmed the sound of voices and laughter coming from beyond them.

  Approaching the end of the drive was like emerging into daylight after walking through a tunnel. From the surroundings it was obvious why the house was called Pine Hurst. This was the first time he had seen it, for it was his partner’s preserve. It was long but not too low, and as his eyes travelled to the right they took in what looked like a cottage attached to the end, yet, as was the rest, it was mullion-windowed. In front of the main building was a balcony from which shallow steps led down to a gravelled area which in turn gave way to a large lawn.

  It was a most attractive-looking house from its long front up to its ornamental chimneys, of which, he noted, there were several, suggesting the house was even larger than it appeared to be from the outside. The neighing of a horse coming from the far end announced there was a stable yard round the corner. But he turned now from the house and looked to where two freshly clipped topiary lions guarded the low pillars that headed the four steps leading down to the lawn, not into a rose garden as one would expect, but to the large lawn on which was set a number of tables with bright canopy umbrellas above them. Some people were already seated at the tables but more were walking about, and as he hitched up the small parcel under his arm he reminded himself that this wasn’t only a garden party but a twenty-first birthday celebration for Miss Beatrice Penrose-Steel.

  He noticed a man disengage himself from a group and walk towards him. This was, he surmised, the Lord of the Manor, as old Cornwallis dubbed him, and not a patch on his father, the late colonel.

  Simon Steel greeted him, saying, ‘Ah! Ah, you found us then. How is Doctor Cornwallis?’

  ‘Not in very good shape today, I’m afraid; his leg is very painful.’

  ‘’Tis gout, but he won’t have it, will he?’

  ‘No, he won’t have it.’

  ‘Ah well, come and meet my daughter.’

  He was now being led to a table at which sat a young woman, and immediately he noted the similarity between the father and daughter: they were of the same colouring, and both had light brown hair, grey eyes, the same-shaped mouth, wide but thin. Only the noses were different: his was beakish whilst hers was more inclined to be snub.

  ‘This is Doctor Falconer, my dear, Doctor Cornwallis’ deputy.’

  John Falconer cast a sharp glance towards his host, and he had the desire to put him right and say, ‘Partner’, for the man was aware that there was now a partnership between Dr Cornwallis and himself.

  ‘How d’you do? May I wish you a happy birthday?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was light and her smile wide, and as she took the parcel he held out to her he said on a laugh, ‘I must inform you that this present is not of my choice; Doctor Cornwallis said you were partial to chocolates.’

  ‘Yes, I am. Thank you so much.’

  As two young women approached the table, she stood up and said, ‘Oh, here are my sisters,’ and indicating one, she said, ‘This is my sister Helen . . . Doctor Falconer.’

 
He found himself looking at a young woman. Her hair was a gleaming brown, her eyes a darker shade; her skin was like alabaster, her mouth wide and full-lipped. She was tall, almost as tall as he: he was five-foot eleven, and she must be all of five-foot nine, and she carried herself so well . . . She was beautiful, unlike her sister.

  His attention was jerked from her by Beatrice saying, ‘And this is Marion.’

  Marion, too, was tall, but very fair. She, too, was good-looking, not quite beautiful. She had a quiet expression, but her eyes twinkled as she said, ‘I suppose you’re standing in for his bad leg . . . not gout. No, not gout,’ she added, mischievously, shaking her head; and he answered her in the same vein as he shook his head, too, and laughing back at her, ‘No, not gout. Never mention the word gout.’

  ‘It should be a lesson to you, Doctor, to shun port.’

  ‘Yes, I’m learning that lesson quickly, Miss . . . Marion.’

  They laughed together now until Beatrice put in again quickly, ‘Helen, Leonard has arrived.’ And on this the tall girl said, ‘Oh! Oh, yes.’ And then she made hastily for the steps and the tall, middle-aged man standing at the top of them.

  Marion caught John’s attention again, saying, ‘As for me, I’d better go in and attend to the Army.’

  John Falconer looked slightly perplexed until Beatrice said somewhat primly, ‘She has a suitor, and just like Helen’s, he is in the Army too.’ Then she added, ‘I’m sorry I’m unable to show you round at the moment . . . But ah, here’s Rosie; you’ll be shown very much around by Rosie, my youngest sister, every little detail. Rosie!’ she called to a girl, who was on the point of running towards another group of laughing young people. The girl turned and, making towards them, said, ‘Yes, Beatrice?’