The Wingless Bird Read online

  THE WINGLESS BIRD

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  The Wingless Bird

  PART ONE Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  PART TWO Chapter 1

  PART THREE Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  PART FOUR Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  PART FIVE Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  PART SIX Chapter 1

  PART SEVEN Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Epilogue

  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

  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 Wingless Bird

  It is 1913 and the approach of Christmas fails to excite the restless Agnes Conway, the twenty-two-year-old manager of her feckless father’s adjoining sweet and tobacconist shops. There are dark secrets in Arthur Conway’s past, and these come tragically to light when Agnes’s younger sister becomes pregnant by one of the notorious Felton brothers. And Agnes herself has a secret which she knows she must keep from her father: an attachment to Charles Farrier, son of a local landowner, who outrages his own pious family by proposing marriage.

  But Charles is not the only man who shapes Agnes’s future, for his brother Reginald makes no secret of his admiration for her. She could not have foreseen how significant a part he was to play in her destiny…

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1990

  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 978-1-78036-034-8

  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 Shop

  To

  Hugo and Ann, with my warmest

  thanks for their thoughtful

  attention over the years,

  especially in the small hours.

  Friendship is love without his wings.

  Byron

  One

  Christmas 1913

  ‘You’ve done a splendid job on that window, lass; I’ve never seen it look so bonny. The only thing is, it’ll attract a squad of bairns until all hours.’

  ‘Well, what’s the window for but for the bairns at Christmas, because the grown-ups rarely stop and look at it.’

  ‘Aye, there’s that in it. What time is it?’ Arthur Conway took from his pocket a large silver-cased watch, sprang the lid, looked at it, then said, ‘You’d better go up and have a bite while things are a bit slack. Now d’you think you’ll be all right managing things on your own tonight? I could stay back if you…’

  ‘Father, the night you stay back from the club will be the night the shops are on fire, both of them.’ She jerked her head towards the far wall.

  ‘Well, tonight’s different. That Nan asking off early because she says her mother’s bad. She’s a sly one that, you know. I’d like to take a bet on it that the mother wears the trousers.’

  ‘Father, you know it isn’t often this happens. And her mother isn’t well. She’s never been really well since the boy was drowned.’

  ‘That’s all of six years ago, Aggie; sorrow doesn’t last that long.’

  ‘No?’ Agnes raised her eyebrows.

  ‘All right, all right; but don’t come back with examples. The main thing is I hate to leave you here on your own.’

  ‘I’ll hardly be here on my own, Father, with Mr Arthur Peeble managing the Tobacconist Emporium.’ She gave a derisive laugh as she again inclined her head towards the far wall, then said, ‘That fellow’s preciseness gets up my nose. The voice he puts on for the customers, you would think he was in daily contact with the Lord Mayor or the Duke. He uses it even when selling a packet of Woodbines.’ She now changed her voice, mimicking, ‘That will be two pence precisely…not, that’ll be tuppence, thank you, or ta very much, as Nan would say.’

  ‘Nan’s not dealing with men, and gentlemen at that.’

  ‘If she were she’d have more sense and be able to tell the difference between a stuffed dummy and a real man.’

  ‘Can you?’ He poked his head towards her, a grin on his face. And she nodded at him, her face unsmiling now, as she answered, ‘Yes, I can, a mile off.’

  ‘Aye, well’—he smiled indulgently at her—‘you’re a clever lass. Always have been.’

  Her face still unsmiling, she said, ‘And I can smell soft soap a mile off, Father. And I’m not a clever lass, I’m what you would call a b…fool.’ As she went to pass him he caught her arm and, his voice questioning, he said, ‘What…what makes you think that, lass?’

  ‘Oh’—she tossed her head—‘a number of things.’

  ‘I thought you liked looking after the shops.’ He made a small wagging movement with the flat of his hand.

  ‘I do. I do. But…but they don’t make up life…well, not entirely.’

  He took his hand from her arm and, his eyes narrowing, he said, ‘Do you want to be married?’

  ‘Oh no!’ She tossed her head on the exclamation. ‘Do you want me to be married?’

  ‘Well’—he pursed his lips—‘I sometimes think you should be for your own good. And there’s two chances, you know, wide open.’

  ‘Oh, Father! Henry Stalwort, forty-five if he’s a day; two daughters, one nearly as old as our Jessie. But of course’—she pulled a face at him—‘he’s in the wholesale business, isn’t he? We might get our tiger nuts cheaper.’

  ‘You’re a cheeky monkey. Tiger nuts cheaper, indeed! And you know it is wrong to suggest that I’ve any motives in that quarter because, between you and me, I can’t stand the man. If you want to know something, that’s why I let you do the ordering this last year or so. But Pete now, Pete Chambers, he’s a canny fellow.’

  ‘Yes, yes, he’s a canny fellow. And, as Mother points out, he’s got a share in a tramp steamer. But you’ve seen the tramp and I’ve seen the tramp, haven’t we, Father? It’s a leaky old coal-carrier. Never been further than London in its life. But you know that wouldn’t matter to me; if I had any ideas about Pete, he could be the stoker on that tramp. And anyway, Father, I know Pete will not cry when I say no; he’ll go to the first pub he comes across and get sozzled, and then he’ll start to sing. We’ve seen Pete’s reactions to disappointment. Look what happened last year when the three of them nearly went bankrupt. They came next door and bought th
e most expensive cigars, not Mexican, nor American, but Havanas. They didn’t know the name of any one of them, they just wanted the best.’ She started to laugh now. ‘And I sold them the best. Remember? You only had that sample of five, Sin Iguales. They were down in the order book at four and eight pence. You were going to sell them at one and tuppence each. Well, I charged them six shillings and out the three of them went puffing their heads off. Then later, Teddy Moules was picked up blind drunk, wasn’t he? I don’t know how Pete escaped.’

  ‘Nor do I.’ He smiled at her, and she smiled gently back at the tall, grey-haired, spare-framed man, whose brown eyes were so like her own, and whose hair at one time had been auburn too, not a grizzled grey as it was now. She could look back down on her twenty-two years and see a tall handsome man, and she recalled his words a few minutes ago, ‘Sorrow doesn’t last.’ Arthur Conway had been married before he met her mother. At eighteen he’d married a beautiful young girl of seventeen, who died when he was twenty-five, and he mourned her for ten years. She hadn’t known this until one night, three years ago, when he had imbibed too liberally. He had sat in the storeroom behind the shop here and told her how someone in the club had sung a song that recalled his Nelly to him. He was thirty-six when he married her mother, and she herself was born three years later. And here he was, a man turned sixty, still upright, but no longer handsome or as jolly as he used to be. She could recall that when she and Jessie were small he used to romp with them, crawl round the floor with them on his back. She was four years older than Jessie but he would treat them both alike. Her mind brought her abruptly back to the present when she thought, that was until two years ago when Jessie left the dame school. She had thought then he would bring her into the shop, as he had herself, and trained her into the business, not only the confectionery and tobacconist’s, but the little factory across the yard where they made most of their boiled sweets and toffee. But no, Jessie had to be something else; Jessie had to be sent to the Secretarial School: no getting her hands sticky from the toffee hammer, breaking up the slabs in the long tins; no weighing out a ha’p’orth of hundreds and thousands or a penn’orth of sugar baccy; and as for the weighing out of the real baccy, of hard cut or shag or even serving the best cigars, oh no, oh no, her father was having Jessie do nothing like that.