The Devil and Mary Ann Read online

  THE DEVIL AND MARY ANN

  Catherine Cookson

  Table of Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  The Devil and Mary Ann

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  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
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  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 Devil and Mary Ann

  When Mary Ann is sent from her native Tyneside to become a pupil at a high-class convent boarding school on the South Coast, the idea in her benefactor’s mind was that she should be turned into a little lady.

  In this, the third story in the Mary Ann series, Mary Ann is seen again as that irrepressible child of Tyneside in all her cheeky delightfulness. As usual, however, despite the seemingly over-powering difficulties, everything is sorted out satisfactorily in the end.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1958

  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 978-1-78036-077-5

  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

  From her bedroom window in the farmhouse Mary Ann was surveying her kingdom almost for the last time. Below her lay a part of the garden. Late wallflowers were blooming in patches of red and yellow glory; but it was to the lank and drooping leaves of the daffodils that her eyes were drawn now, for they symbolised her feelings. She too was dying…she knew she was dying. Tomorrow when she left the farm and her da and her ma and their Michael she would die. How could she live without them? Well, without her da? The separation from her ma would be a dreadful wrench, but being parted from her da would drain from her all desire to live. Her nose gave a series of rapid twitches, and she admonished herself, ‘You’d better not start bubbling, your ma’ll be up in a minute.’ Her large, brown eyes, that seemed to take up most of her elfin face, blinked and she moved her gaze over her kingdom. The huddle of the farm buildings making three sides of the courtyard; the foundations of the big, new barn to the right; the two farm cottages, one of which her own family had so lately occupied, bordering the road that ran past the farm gates; and away up the hill, behind the cottages, Mr Lord’s new house, standing as guardian and owner over all. Even this came into the realm of her kingdom. And it was her kingdom, bought for her da with her sacrifice.

  Mary Ann’s thoughts may not have literally taken this shape, but her feelings told her more plainly than anything else could have done that for love of her da she had sold herself to Mr Lord, and the price he had demanded of her was—education, and that was to begin tomorrow. In return, her da had been made manager of the farm. But her da, of course, did not know of this deal. Eeh, no; and he must never know.

  The fact that her da was now manager of the farm where, a month ago, he had been just a farmhand, still had the aura of a miracle around it. And the miracle enlarged itself a thousandfold when she thought back to the time, just a few months previously, when they had lived in Jarrow in two attics at the top of Mulhattans’ Hall, and her da had worked in the shipyard and was forever on the booze. Eeh! Fancy thinking that. She shook her head vigorously to throw off the memory. Her da never got drunk, not really; he got sick a bit but not drunk. Everybody knew he never got really drunk; it was Sarah Flannagan who had started that lie.

  Oh, Sarah Flannagan! A little spark of joy forced itself into the gloom in her small chest. Today, when she went to Mulhattans’ Hall to say goodbye to Mrs McBride, she hoped that the big, lying, cheeky cat would be in the street and she’d show her. She’d be all got up in her new clothes—she wouldn’t fight with her; no, that was strictly out now—but she’d go up to her and say, ‘So you see, Sarah Flannagan, every blessed thing I said has come true. Me da is a manager, and I’m going to be a lady and talk swanky. So get that out of your crop if you can.’ Yes, that’s what she’d say to her, all swanky like. Then she’d walk away with her head in the air.

  It was going to be a busy day. She must go and see Father Owen an’ all and pay a last visit to the Holy Family. Sadness settled on her again on this thought, to be abruptly swept away on the sight of her da. He had just come out of the cowshed and was walking across the yard with Mr Jones. Her heart swelled with pride. He looked grand did her da: even with only one hand he was better and bigger than any man in the world. The thought of his affliction brought a flame of tenderness into her body. But he was managing fine. She stressed this point to herself, for whenever she consciously thought of the accident that had taken off his hand a certain part of her mind was attacked by a fear, and this she would press away, making no effort to ask the reason for its presence. Mike Shaughnessy had done a very good job in taking the blame of his accident from her young shoulders and placing it at the door of his own carelessness; in doing so he had sealed off effectively the remorse that would have surely turned her brain.

  When her da got the hook for the end, he said his hand would be worth ten of any other man’s. He had said that to her only yesterday, when she had gone to his office—oh yes; it was his own office now—to tell him that dinner was ready. And he had stopped what he was doing with the books and suddenly lifted her onto his knee and held her close for a long time. Then Mr Lord had come in, and her da had put her down and his face had gone all red. Neither of them had said anything, and this had left her with a certain uneasiness. Yet she couldn’t somehow understand why she should feel uneasy. But she always did when Mr Lord came on her when she was with her da. When she had Mr Lord all to herself she never felt like that; she could talk to him, twenty to the dozen, and make him laugh. But not when her da was there.

  Her da was now making his way to the house, and Mr Jones was going towards his cottage. Mr Jones looked littler than ever. Mr Jones didn’t like her. He never spoke to her, not since the time she had thrown a One o’clock Gun under his bed on Guy Fawkes Day and he had run out of his house in his pants like a madman. That was the day Mr Lord had laughed and her da had got mad at her, madder than he had ever been, and he’d said she was to have a walloping and Mr Lord said she wasn’t. That was the first time she had felt that funny something between the two of them.

  She knocked at the window now and waved to her da, and Mike waved back, a wide wave of his great arm. And he was almost at the side gate when round the outskirts of the house came Mrs Polinski, and she called to him, ‘Good morning.’ And he said back to her, ‘Good morning.’ And he stopped at the gate as she hurried, and Mary Ann looked down on them.

  Mrs Polinski was bl
onde, but her hair wasn’t like her ma’s in a great bun at the back of her head and of a lovely colour like looking into the sun; Mrs Polinski’s was—tousey, and she wore it cut like a lad’s, all over the place. But she didn’t look like a lad.

  Mrs Polinski was always very nice to her. Yet Mary Ann, as she somehow put it to herself, didn’t know what was up with her; some part of the child wouldn’t come to the fore and meet the new farmhand’s wife on the terms she so liberally offered…let’s all be bairns together. Mary Ann sensed an unnaturalness in this attitude. Mrs Polinski was old; she was over twenty, and therefore past the age of acting the goat, and this included hopscotch. Her da laughed at Mrs Polinski when she played with her, but her ma said, if she was to go in and mend Mr Polinski’s coat and get a good dinner ready for him it would fit her better. And her da had said, ‘She’ll learn.’

  Her da liked Mr Polinski. He said that although a puff of wind would blow him over he could do double what Mr Jones did, and he’d have a farm of his own some day and good luck to him. Mr Polinski was from Poland but Mrs Polinski just came from Dover.

  She watched her now, laughing up at her da and her da laughing in return. Oh, her da did look grand. His red hair rumpled and his shirt neck was open and she could see the curly hairs on the top of his chest.

  ‘Haven’t you got your things on yet?’

  She swung round to the door, and there was Michael, his expression this morning without its usual brooding seriousness and his voice unusually kind. Up to yesterday his greeting would have taken the form of, ‘Get a move on, you, or else you’ll catch it,’ to which her retort would have been of the quality, ‘Aw, you!…Nuts!’ But on this last day of life her reply even touched on sweetness as she said, ‘I won’t be a tick, Michael.’

  And she wasn’t a tick, for she flung herself into her clothes—not her good ones; these wouldn’t be donned until after breakfast and her usual scamper around the farm—and was downstairs in a matter of minutes.

  As if she hadn’t seen him for weeks she leapt from the doorway into Mike’s arms. Mike had just turned from Lizzie, who was at the stove, and as Mary Ann pulled his face round to hers he finished saying to his wife, ‘You could teach her a lot…Polinski has a thin time of it on the whole. Why don’t you take her under your wing, Liz?’