Marriage and Mary Ann Read online

  MARRIAGE AND MARY ANN

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Marriage and Mary Ann

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  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

  Marriage and Mary Ann

  It hardly seems possible, but Mary Ann Shaughnessy, the irrepressible child of Tyneside whose tempestuous journey through life thousands of readers have followed in the five books previous to this, is engaged to be married. The wedding is set to be in five weeks’ time. Everything in the garden is expected to be lovely, but few things go all together smoothly in this life—particularly when associated with the Shaughnessy family—and once again Mary Ann finds herself involved in sorting out the problems of those she love
s.

  Mary Ann’s father, Mike, reluctant to accept that his romantic days are on the wane, has a ‘last fling’ during a visit to a holiday camp. Was it really just a fling, was it just the dangerous age, or was it just an over-anxious Mary Ann seeing something that wasn’t there? And Mr. Lord wants to help finance the newly-weds in the purchase of a garage, which Corny, that sturdily independent young man, will have nothing to do with. A number of family storms have to blow themselves out before all can be happily resolved.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1964

  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 978-1-78036-080-5

  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

  Chapter One

  ‘And all this has come about because they went on a holiday.’ Fanny McBride thrust out her thick arm and pulled the blue sugar bag towards her, and after ladling three spoonfuls into an outsize cup of tea she added, ‘But you’re sure you’re not enlargin’ on everything, Mary Ann?’

  ‘No, Mrs McBride. I wish I was. But it isn’t imagination, it isn’t.’

  ‘Well, I was just thinkin’ you have a lot on your mind at the present moment, with Michael and Sarah’s wedding in the offing, and your own looming up ahead. By the way, I must tell you, I was glad when you and Corny decided not to make it a double do. I think you want your own glory on a day like that.’ Fanny smiled broadly at Mary Ann. ‘Aw’—she shook her head—‘the day I see you and Corny married I think my heart’ll burst for joy. I’ve known you since you were that high’—she measured a short distance with her hand—‘and I’ve watched you grow up to great things.’

  ‘Aw, Mrs McBride.’ Mary Ann was shaking her head as she stared down towards the table. ‘I’ve done nothing with me life, nothing as yet.’

  ‘Not for yourself you haven’t, me dear, except to take me grandson for your husband, but you’ve done it for others. Where would your da be the day without you and your schemes, eh?’ She poked her broad face towards the heart-shaped, elfin face of Mary Ann. ‘Would Mike be managing a farm with a grand house, an’ be the right hand of Mr Lord, if it be his only hand?’

  ‘It was through me he lost his hand, don’t forget that, Mrs McBride.’

  ‘Do I forget that God works in strange ways, child? If Mike hadn’t lost his hand he wouldn’t be where he is the day.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Well then, you’ve no need to bother your head about the things you haven’t done, for to my mind you’ve achieved almost the impossible where your da’s concerned. As you know, I’m very fond of Mike, an’ I know him inside out, his strength and his one weakness, an’ that being the drink. But he’s conquered that, thanks be to God. Well, knowing him as I do, I wouldn’t have said that he had a weakness for the women, although I could say that some women might have a weakness for himself, for the older he gets the more fetchin’ he gets.’

  ‘That’s the trouble.’

  Mary Ann was looking solemnly at this big, buxom old woman, who, as she had said, had known her from a small child. And from a small child Mary Ann had looked upon Fanny McBride as her friend and comforter. From the day they had first come to live in the attic of Mulhattans’ Hall—which place her mother had considered the very end of the downward trail—from that day she had been comforted and helped by the tenant on the first floor, Mrs Fanny McBride. There was no-one else in the world she could talk to freely about her da, except to this woman, because, as Fanny had also stated, she knew Mike Shaughnessy inside out.

  Mary Ann said now, ‘It seems sad to think that it was my mother’s first real holiday, and she had been looking forward to it so much; and we all had fun and carry-on before they went, saying what would happen to them at a holiday camp. The awful thing is that it was herself who plumped to go to a holiday camp; me da wasn’t for it at all, he just went to please her.’

  ‘How old did you say the girl was?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘And she has red hair?’

  ‘Yes, and my mother says that’s how it started. They were at the same table and her mother—the girl’s mother, Mrs Radley—pointed out that me da’s hair was almost the same shade as her daughter’s. Then he danced with her, and after that they were in the swimming pool together. My mother can’t swim and she just had to sit and look on. At first she didn’t think anything about it, until Mrs Radley and her—Yvonne, they call her—tacked on to them everywhere they went…and me da seemed to like it.’

  ‘And your mother told you all this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Fanny shook her head again. ‘Lizzie must be upset in her mind to speak of it so plainly, because she was ever so close about some things was Lizzie, reserved like, about the private things in her life, even when she was upstairs here. She must be taking this very badly, and it’s hitting her at the wrong time of life. But then, that always happens; these things always hit women at the wrong time of life. I think men were built to cause it to be so, just to make things harder for us.’

  ‘She can’t set her mind to the wedding because they’re coming.’

  ‘Who was it asked them?’

  ‘It must have been me da because she says that she never did.’

  ‘Well, it needn’t have been him, you know, Mary Ann. People, clever people, have a way of gettin’ themselves invited—aye, begod, even into me house here!’ She laughed. ‘They put you on a spot. Perhaps your da was put on a spot; I wouldn’t lay that at his door.’

  Mary Ann rose from the table and walked to the window, and, looking out through the narrow aperture of the curtains down into the dull, sunless street, she turned her gaze towards the top end from where she hoped to see Corny coming, and then she fingered the curtains before saying, ‘He must have known that if she came to the wedding me mother would be upset, and if he didn’t ask them outright he could have done something to put them off. That’s what’s in me mind all the time. I hate to think of him deliberately hurting me mother.’

  Fanny, pulling herself to her feet by gripping the worn, wooden arms of her chair, shambled towards the open fire, and there, lifting up the long rake, she pulled some pieces of coal from the back of the grate down into the dulling embers. Then, placing the rake back on the fender, she said, ‘Tell me, was he pleased to see them when they came on the hop last Sunday?’

  ‘Yes…yes, he was. He seemed a bit taken aback at first, but then he started to act like a young lad, skittish. I…oh, Mrs McBride…’ Mary Ann turned from the window and looked across the cluttered, dusty room to the old woman, and she bit on her lip before she ended, ‘He made me so ashamed. I…I never thought I would feel like that about him…ashamed of him. It was…it was a different kind of feeling to when he used to get roaring drunk. I wasn’t really ashamed of him then, only sorry for him, pitying him, sort of; but last Sunday I…I knew I was ashamed of him. Oh…oh, Mrs McBride, it was awful. I…I can say this to you, can’t I, because I’ve always been able to talk to you, haven’t I?’

  ‘Aye, hinny, you have that,’ said Fanny in a low tone. ‘It’s another thing I’ve thanked God for. Go on.’

  Mary Ann came and took her seat at the table again, and, moving the spoon round in the empty cup, she concentrated her gaze on it as she said, ‘Well, there was a time when I began to dislike me mother for certain things she did, for her attitude towards the front room…Remember, when she didn’t want Sarah to have it. And then the way she used to go for me da at times. But I could never imagine me ever disliking me da, because you know…’ She lifted her eyes to those of Mrs McBride and said very softly, ‘I worship him, I really do. At least I did. He was like God to me, but when I saw him actually put his arm round that beastly, scheming cat’s waist’—her lips were now squared from her teeth—‘I felt that I hated him.’