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  RORY’S FORTUNE

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Rory’s Fortune

  1851

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  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

  Rory’s Fortune

  ‘You’ll hold my life in your hands. Whatever happens, nobody must know what you are carrying…’

  Life changes overnight for fifteen-year-old Rory McAlister, an apprentice wheelwright, when his master, John Cornwallis, who had been kind to Rory and his poverty-stricken family, is injured in an accident and asks Rory to take his place on a vital errand.

  With a secret letter hidden under a patch on his shirt, Rory travels south to meet the sinister Miss Bluett—who sends him off on a terrifying voyage across the seas to Jersey. But what is the mysterious ‘blue baccy’ he is to carry home? And why is it so important that they can only come for it by night? Plunged into terrible danger, Rory’s very life is suddenly at stake as he finds himself caught up in the dangerous world of smuggling.

  Set in the mid-nineteenth century, Rory’s Fortune is a dramatic and action-packed tale of one young man remaining loyal to his master only to find his life changed forever.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1972

  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 978-1-78036-086-7

  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

  To Master Simon Reeves

  my youngest reviewer who always treats me fairly

  1851

  Chapter One

  ‘Now just look at that; did you ever see a finer?’ John Cornwallis rubbed his bearded chin, then patted the bark of a yet unstripped oak trunk lying obliquely across the whole length of the yard bordering the wheelwright’s shop and house. He patted it as he might do his horse, as if it were a live thing.

  Rory McAlister, standing by his master’s side, his squarish tousled head held at a jaunty angle, endorsed Mr Cornwallis’s words, saying, ‘No, I never did, Master. What you going to use her for?’ He, too, spoke as if the tree were still alive. ‘Mr Patterson’s cart?’

  ‘What!’ John Cornwallis turned on the boy. ‘Patterson’s cart! That!’ He now thrust his finger towards the oak trunk. ‘That for a dog cart! No, boy, never! That’s going into Farmer Ridley’s waggon. ’Twas me father who built the last one and meself who finished my apprenticeship on it. Seven long years I worked afore I was allowed to handle a waggon and then it was Farmer Ridley’s. An’ that’s many a day since. Thirty-three years, lad, Farmer Ridley has been using that waggon. It was made to fit the ruts of the road and it still does. Don’t know meself why he wants a new one, but there, who am I to turn down business?’ The wheelwright pulled in his lips to suppress a smile, then they both laughed at each other warmly like father and son might have done. Indeed, John Cornwallis looked on the boy almost as a son. His wife too, thought of him almost as her own. If it hadn’t been for the lad’s devotion to his own family, undoubtedly she would have suggested putting in writing a claim to him. And he himself would have been willing; oh aye, very willing.

  ‘Well now.’ John Cornwallis jerked his head. ‘Tomorrow she’ll be in the saw pit. I want to get her all done and nicely stacked afore I start me journey. And you go on your journey this day, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye, Master,’ said Rory, ‘but it won’t be as long as yours, me five and your five hundred and more. Eeh!’ Rory shook his head. ‘That’s a distance and no mistake, Master, five hundred miles.’

  ‘Aye, lad, it’s a distance, and no mistake.’ John Cornwallis turned abruptly away now. The smile had slid from his face and his countenance had taken on the look that was usual to him, a sober look.

  From the village of Wind Fell, where John Cornwallis had lived most of his life, to deep into the county of Durham he was known as a sober man, a good man, an upright man, a man who had never been known to do a wrong or underhand thing. Even the parson had spoken of his goodness, and everybody knew that Parson Amery was not for buttering up people. Where, he had said, would you find another man who would travel more than five hundred miles every other year or so to visit his mother who lived far away near a village called Yarcombe in the county of Devon? Where? And no-one could answer.

  Rory knew exactly where Yarcombe was, although it was too small to be shown on the map. During the four years he had worked for Mr Cornwallis the map had been a source of great interest to Rory. It was on the wall behind the chair and wooden bench on which Mr Cornwallis reckoned up his accounts, and the bench was in the storeroom behind the shop. Rory had wondered why his master did the accounts on the rough old bench, when in the sitting room upstairs there was a beautiful shining desk; then he had discovered that Mr Cornwallis might be master downstairs, but in the house above the shop it was Mrs Cornwallis who ruled. Mrs Cornwallis said the business of the shop must be kept in the shop and when her husband came upstairs, or those with him, there must be no shop talk; upstairs was for eating, and reading, and listening to her playing the harmonium.

  Mrs Cornwallis might be a martinet, but she was a kind, motherly martinet. Rory was very fond of her. At times he would feel guilty about his feeling towards both Mr and Mrs Cornwallis because he feared they were ousting his parents from his affections. Although he told himself this could never be possible, he knew that every time he went home on his fortnightly half-day he was always glad to get back to the wheelwright’s shop and to them both.

  Rory followed his master down the long yard now, past the saw pit, past a stack of elm stocks, and walked round a neat pile of sawn ash felloes which would eventually form part of the rim of a wheel for some waggon, or farm cart, or lady’s trap.

  Then they entered the wheelwright’s shop where Peter Tollett, an old man well into his seventieth year, was lovingly making the hollow belly to a felloe. He was using an adze with the precision of a sculptor, and Rory paused for a minute and looked at him, as he always did, because one day he hoped to be able to make a felloe like Peter, to be able to detect the shakes in the wood, the rind-galls, flaws which you didn’t come across until you opened up your tree and discovered them where the bark penetrated deep into the heart of the wood.

  Old Peter was finishing this year. Mr Cornwallis was giving him a pension of two shillings a week. It was only one-sixth of his wage but nevertheless it would pay his cottage rent and keep him in bread. That, together with his patch for vegetables, was surely all a man could want?

  Rory
had wished for a long time now that he were five years older, say twenty, then he might have been able to step into Peter’s shoes; but it was nearly sure that Mr Cornwallis would now make Benny Croft full-time and give him Peter’s place, although Benny, only half Peter’s age, had not his skill.

  Rory himself had done nearly four years of his apprenticeship and when he entered his fifth year at Christmas he would get two shillings a week. Mr Cornwallis had started him on a wage of sixpence when he first came into the shop; his work then had consisted of chopping the branches of the oaks into cord wood, and the twiggy boughs into small pieces to be sold to the baker for his oven and to a potter in Newcastle for his kiln.

  Mr Cornwallis had no need to pay him anything. If apprentices got their bed and board they were lucky. He had always been lucky, at least since he was eleven years old; before that—well, he didn’t like to remember what he had done before that, although at night he had dreams about being a scarecrow again. He could recall scarecrowing from when he was four years old. He did not know at what age he had first started work but he remembered well, when he was seven, his father and mother, young John, Katie and Sarah and himself leaving Hebburn and going to work on a farm; and it had seemed to him that from then on not one of them straightened their backs for years.

  It was on the farm that his father had begun to cough and spit blood. The doctor had said to his father that he must have rest and milk and good broth. His father had laughed at the doctor, he had laughed until he had cried. None of them laughed with him but they all cried.

  Of his nine brothers and sisters four had died with the cholera a few years back; these were the four that came next to him in age, John, Katie, Sarah and Annie. Now there remained only Bill, who was nine, Sammy seven, Edna five, Mabel three, and the baby, Joseph, who was three months old.

  For four years now his earnings had been the mainstay of the family. But what was of more value than his wage was the bag of bread and taties Mrs Cornwallis always gave him to take home.