The House of Women Read online

  THE HOUSE OF WOMEN

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  The House of Women

  PART ONE One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  PART TWO One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  PART THREE One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  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
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br />   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 House of Women

  Emma Funnell is the matriarch of Bramble House, built for her as a wedding gift by Patrick Funnell who had since died. Now into her seventies, and with the avowed intent of living to be a hundred, Emma continued to keep the firmest of hands on domestic affairs and commercial interests.

  Under Emma’s roof and rule lived three more generations of the Funnell family, all of them women. Widowed daughter Victoria had over the years become increasingly preoccupied with hypochondria; granddaughter Lizzie bore the brunt of most matters concerned with the running of the house, as well as enduring a loveless marriage to Len Hammond, a bitter, frustrated man with little kindness in him and a good deal of suppressed violence; and great-granddaughter Peggy, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl trying to find the courage to drop a bombshell into their midst. For Peggy had become pregnant by one Andrew Jones, a bright grammar-school lad from an entirely different background. This might be 1968, but the family reaction was surely to be faced with great trepidation.

  This explosive situation provides the springboard for a powerful and wholly absorbing novel that explores, over a span of fifteen years, all that fate holds in store for the dwellers in the house of women and those whose lives they touch, reaching its climax with the frank confrontation of a major social issue today.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1992

  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 978-1-78036-063-8

  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

  1968

  One

  ‘Something wrong, Peggy?’

  ‘No. What can be wrong?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen you sittin’ in the park, not at this time. It’s near on dark; they’ll be closing up shortly.’

  ‘Well, let them close up. Let them close up.’

  ‘There is something the matter, isn’t there?’ The boy carrying the guitar case slowly sat down on the park seat beside the young girl and, holding the case between his knees, he folded his arms about it and hugged it to him as if embracing it. He did not immediately speak but made a slight rocking movement; presently, he said, ‘It’s Andrew Jones, isn’t it?’

  ‘Who said it was Andrew Jones? And you, Charlie Conway, you are always sticking your nose into somebody else’s business.’

  The boy did not turn towards her to counteract in any way this short tirade, but remained still, his arms tight around the guitar case, until she said in a small voice, ‘I’m sorry, Charlie. Don’t stick your nose in; it’s…it’s…’

  When her voice broke he turned quickly towards her, saying, ‘Come on home. Look; it’s gettin’ on dark.’

  ‘No, no.’ She shook her head.

  ‘You frightened?’

  She did not answer him, but turned her head away and blew her nose. When, however, he said, ‘Can’t you talk about it to somebody?’ she rounded on him again: ‘Talk about what!’ she cried. ‘What you meaning? Talk about what?’

  ‘Well.’ He allowed the case to slip between his knees until the bottom came to rest on the grass; then he said, ‘Well, there’s your mam and your gran and your great-gran; surely you can talk to one of them.’

  ‘About what?’

  He now turned on her, and in much the same vehement tone as hers, he answered, ‘About what’s troubling you, making you cry. Sittin’ here on a park seat where I’ve never seen you sit before; you’re always flying through here as if the devil was after you; no time to talk to anybody.’

  Through the deepening twilight, they stared at each other, and in the silence that had fallen between them she bowed her head deeply onto her chest and her voice was almost a whimper now as she said, ‘I’m frightened, Charlie. It’s…it’s Dad. I’m frightened of Dad.’

  ‘He can’t kill you.’ His voice was as low as hers; and when she answered, ‘He could,’ he replied, ‘He’d get over it. Da did with our Lucy.’

  She almost reared back from him now, crying, ‘Anyway she’s married and got two children. I’m…I’m…’ She stopped; then bringing her head forward and glaring at him, she said, ‘What are you insinuating?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing…only…’

  ‘Yes; only?’ Her head was nodding now.

  He jerked himself to his feet, pulled the case up under his arm and said, ‘They’re talking. It’s all over the school. Your dear friend Mary Fuller couldn’t keep her mouth shut if it was glued.’

  Seeing her face quiver and her shoulders droop, he said, ‘Somebody wants to give Andy Jones a black eye; and that’s not all. Look; come on home with me.’

  She was bridling again. ‘Why should I? I’ve got my own home to go to.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go to it and talk to your mother, or them?’

  ‘Oh you! It’s all right for you. Talk to my mother or them. You’re so clever at working things out, the great mathematician. Great-gran said you were born old.’

  She swung round from him, shaking her head wildly as if she were throwing something off, as she muttered, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind. It’s a sort of compliment. Coming from your great-gran an’ all, yes, that was something; my mother’s always saying she can cut you to pieces with a look when she likes. Look, Peggy.’ He stood in front of her now. One hand holding the guitar case, he placed his other on her arm and said quietly, ‘My mother knows how to deal with things. She’ll go and talk to your mam on the quiet. Come on, else’—his voice lightened—‘we’ll be thrown out.’ The short laugh he emitted verged on a giggle. ‘Fancy being thrown out of the park at our age. I used to make a point of it at one time…being thrown out of the park. I used to hide behind the bushes till old Mr Terence caught a glimpse of me, then let him see me on purpose and run, not out of the West gate but the far one.’ He jerked his head backwards. ‘I used to like to make the old fellow shout. He couldn’t run: he was past it.’


  Peggy Hammond raised her head to look at this boy whom she had known all her life: she could never imagine him teasing the park-keeper because he never seemed to do anything that would get him into trouble. He was what her mam called solid. She used to say, ‘May’ll never have any trouble with him, he’s too solid.’ At times she would add, ‘and dull’. Sometimes she thought her mam was jealous of Mrs Conway. Once she had referred to her as Auntie May and her father had barked at her.

  When Charlie said, ‘This one can run, so I think we should be slippy,’ his broad plain face went into a smile and the thought passed through her mind that he looked like a man, not a boy, and when she stood up and started to walk by his side she changed the conversation by pointing to the guitar case and saying, ‘Where were you going with that?’

  ‘It’s where I’ve been with that…it.’ Again he swung the case up into his arms and he hugged it to him as he said, ‘I’ve been for my first lesson.’

  ‘You don’t need lessons; you can play it.’

  ‘That isn’t playing it, that’s just strumming. Anybody can strum. I’m going to learn it properly. He’s a classical guitarist, Mr Reynolds.’ He laughed now, saying, ‘He hates groups. The tiddly pom-pom-poms, he calls them. He’s very funny: he makes you laugh, that’s until he starts the lesson.’

  ‘Then you won’t be going to the old people’s sing-song or keeping in with the school group, because all that is tiddly pom-pom-pom, isn’t it?’

  He continued to walk on, the guitar case again being carried by the handle; and when he made no retort she muttered, ‘I’m being bitchy; I don’t seem to be able to help it these days. I…I…’

  ‘Oh! Peggy, don’t cry. Oh lord, don’t cry. Look, we’ll cross over to Hooker’s field and go in the back way…’

  ‘No! No! Not that way.’ She had stopped abruptly, and he with her.

  ‘Well, I just suggested it because it could be a short cut. All right, we’ll keep to the road, but we can still go in the lane by the bottom way.’

  They walked on in silence now, and five minutes later they entered the lower end of Bramble Lane, where bungalows had recently been built opposite the cemetery wall. Beyond the bungalows were older houses. These were detached, each with a quarter of an acre of land, some divided from their neighbours by tall cypress hedges that had grown twenty feet or more in the eighteen years since they were planted shortly after the houses were built.