The Parson's Daughter Read online

  THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  The Parson’s Daughter

  PART ONE One

  Two

  Three

  PART TWO One

  Two

  PART THREE One

  Two

  Three

  PART FOUR One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  PART FIVE One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  PART SIX One

  Two

  PART SEVEN One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  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 Parson’s Daughter

  The Victorian Sabbath was not without problems for some of those committed to its strict observance. Nancy Ann Hazel, the young and high-spirited daughter of a country parson, suffered from her father’s lengthy Sunday sermons. The autumn sunshine beckoned her into the fields and along the bank of the river that wound its way through this pleasant corner of County Durham. This area was dominated by the neighbouring estates of two very different landowners: Graham Mercer, the reclusive lord of the manor, and Dennison Harpcore of Rossburn House, where life was lived on the grand scale and reputed to be more than a littlƒe dissolute.

  Two older brothers had taught Nancy Ann how to look after herself well enough, and she could hold her own with the roughest of the village children. But soon she had to muster her courage and fortitude to the full when the far greater challenges of a controversial marriage thrust her into womanhood and into a whole new world of conflict and tragedy which had to be faced and overcome.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1987

  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 978-1-78036-052-2

  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

  SUNDAYS

  One

  ‘To think unkindly is a sin, but to give voice to your thoughts and allow them to direct your actions is a greater sin. Who are we to condemn? Did not Christ say, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone?’

  Oh dear me! Some people were moving restlessly in their seats. Nancy Ann looked towards the pulpit where her father seemed about to topple out of it, so far was he leaning over. He always looked too tall for the pulpit, but when he became agitated about righteousness, as he was now, he appeared about to do a somersault right into the front pew, where sat Mrs McKeowan the churchwarden’s wife, and her two daughters Jancy and Eva; and next to them were Mr and Mrs Taylor from the village who had the grocery store that sold everything, and behind them were Mr and Mrs Pollock who kept the hardware and oddments shop. Then between them and Mrs Norton was an empty space reserved for Mr Norton the baker, but likely he had got drunk again last night and couldn’t get up. It was known he often got drunk on a Saturday; because he hadn’t to work on a Sunday not till after midnight when he made his first batch of dough for the Monday morning bread. Yet, he sometimes appeared in that seat. These were the times when he tried to go ‘on the waggon’ as her grandmama said; but she also said that the wheels would come off before the next Sunday, and she was usually right. Her father, though, said Mr Norton had to be given credit for trying. In her father’s opinion everybody had to be given credit for trying. She loved her father.

  There was nobody seated in the front seats of the gentry gallery. Hardly anybody sat there these days, even when Mr Harpcore was in residence. He himself never came to church, but more servants would attend than usually did. But this morning she could count only seven: three men, three women, and a boy. Two of the women looked elderly; the other was the pretty young woman who came to church every other Sunday and sat in between them.

  Her father was going on and on this morning and she knew why, although she wasn’t supposed to; she had heard Peggy talking to Jane: it was about the Winter family who had left the village to go into Gateshead and work in a factory. Of course, as Cook had said, if Jed Winter hadn’t got one excuse for leaving the village he would have found another because he had known he was going to be stood off on the farm and would lose his cottage, for things were bad all round and the corn wasn’t selling. It was them Americans, Cook said, who were sending the cheap stuff over here and taking the bread out of decent people’s mouths. But Peggy said the real reason the Winter family had left was because Nellie had got a baby and her husband who went to sea had been gone these twelve months. But what that had to do with it, she didn’t know; people had babies when their husbands were away. Her grandmama had said her father had been born when her grandpapa was at the war. Anyway, Mr Winter couldn’t stand the disgrace of his daughter having a baby.

  There was something she couldn’t get straight here, because why bring Farmer Carter into it.

  Her father had liked Mr Winter. He always said he was a God-fearing man, and his wife too. Nellie was their only surviving daughter. One way and another they had lost four children. Nellie had been God-fearing too: she had come to church every Sunday, at least she had until some months ago when she had stopped all of a sudden. It was about this time her father had become agitated about Nellie.

  A small clearing of the throat and a slight dig in her ribs caused her to glance to the side and at her brother James. He made a funny little twitching movement with his nose that always made her laugh, even when it came as a warning; she must have been fidgeting and not aware of it.

  She was looking up towards the pulpit again from where her father was at last drawing to a close amid a rustle and coughing among the congregation not unmixed with sighs, when she felt a heel pressed on to her toecap. And this caused her to emit a stifled groan and to turn sharply, an indignant look on her face, to see her other brother Peter staring solemnly towards the altar, a look of pious intent on his handsome face. She, too, stared back at the altar; then, lifting her foot, she brought her heel sharply into the narrow-trousered shin to the side of her, and when she felt her brother jerk and cough deep in his throat, and saw her mama who was sitting to the right of him cast an enquiring glance towards him, she said to herself, I warned him. I told him what I’d do if he did it again. Now I’ll have skinned toes before I get home and unblock the cap.

  Why had she to wear such shoes
anyway? Other girls didn’t. Her mama said it was because she kicked the toes too quickly out of ordinary shoes; and only yesterday she said that such tomboyish behaviour was excusable up to eight years old but not when one was on thirteen. Her mama, she noticed, never blamed her brothers for inciting her. But of course, they weren’t boys any longer and couldn’t be chastised, they were young men, university men. A feeling of sadness took the place of her indignation now as she realised that tomorrow they would both return to that university and life would become dull once more.

  Although Peter was seven years older than her and James eight, they had always been like playmates, and the only time she could say that she was really happy was when they were at home. It had always been like that.

  She understood they had been at boarding school when she was born, and when they first saw her they had fought as to who would hold her. Everything she knew and which she felt was worthwhile, they had taught her: how to climb a tree; how to stand in a loop of rope attached to a sturdy branch and swing out across the river; how to bowl at cricket and how to strike out with the bat; how to run the hills without losing your puff; how to fish, and even wrestle a bit, and fence; although they would never let her fence with anything but sticks.

  She loved them, next to her father that is and equally as she loved her grandmama. Why didn’t people love her grandmama? Likely it was because of her voice; and she was rude at times and didn’t care what she said and how she offended people. And she offended her mama most of all. She knew that her mama considered Grandmama a trial, but she also was aware that her mama had to put up with Grandmama, because it was she who had, for years, paid for the boys’ education and was now to pay for her own.

  Oh my! She didn’t want to go to another school. She liked the village school, at least she liked most of the children there, although, as her mama said, they were all of common folk. She didn’t mind that at all, because they were all nice to her, all except the McLoughlins. Oh, they were common all right, the McLoughlins.