The Cultured Handmaiden Read online

  THE CULTURED HANDMAIDEN

  Catherine Cookson

  Table of Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  The Cultured Handmaiden

  PART ONE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  PART TWO

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  PART THREE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  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 Cultured Handmaiden

  At twenty-one, Jinny Brownlow was, to all intents and purposes, alone in the world, a typist at a large engineering firm in the Tyneside town of Fellburn, with her only outside interest the local theatre group and where the only role she seemed to play was that of general dogsbody.

  Then, suddenly, her life changed. Called upon to stand in as secretary to Bob Henderson, the formidable head of the company, she saw that his blunt manner provided a stimulating challenge. Later that same day, she had an unexpected visit from Hal Campbell, leading light of the Fellburn players, who displayed a touching concern for her personal problems. Both were older men and each would, in his own way, be a catalyst to the re-shaping of Jinny Brownlow’s pattern of life.

  Set against a splendidly realised background of industrial Tyneside in the late 1970s, Catherine Cookson’s enthralling novel is as powerful as any she has written.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1988

  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 978-1-78036-060-7

  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

  PART ONE

  One

  ‘Listen, and listen carefully, because you’ll remember what I’m saying till the day you die, and it’s this: chastity is the most expensive commodity in the whole world. The longer you keep it, the more you pay for it. The expense will shrivel you up. Some women are born virgins because the male in them has tipped the scales; others, like you, who aim to become one of the Brides of Christ, whose bloody harem must be chock-a-block by now, are nothing but runaways, runaways from life…The essence of it…And what’s the essence of it? Why, that dreadful word, sex. You’re afraid of it, so you sublimate it in locking yourselves up; submitting to obedience, tyrannical obedience, and humiliating practices: spreadeagled on floors…face down of course…kissing feet…God! to think of it…I wonder if He does, does He turn a little sick to see what rights man has inflicted on woman, and all in His name?…Go. Yes, go; hurry, your spouse is waiting for you. One last word: remember He’s promised there’s no giving or taking in marriage on the other side. So you are going to lose out all along the line…What did you say?’

  ‘I said, I’ll pray for you.’

  ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘I’ve been there; I’m going the other way.’

  Jinny Brownlow’s hand holding the prompting script dropped to her side, and she was about to lean for support against a piece of scenery, when its very decided inclination warned her that it would be dangerous inasmuch as her action could bring it and a number of pieces behind it tumbling about her, and that would indeed be the finale to a disastrous week.

  She watched the company of eight players now taking their bows amid the dismal clapping. The curtain dropped, and there was no second lift: the clapping had ceased and there was only the sound of scuffling feet and the scraping of chairs as the last of the small audience scrambled for the exit.

  She turned and joined the players now as they made their way to the so-called dressing rooms provided by the Fellburn Social Hall, and her eyes sought out Ray Collard, but he was away ahead of the others. He hadn’t looked at her as he passed her. There was something wrong. She had guessed at it for some time now, but mostly during this week while he had been playing the lead in this disastrous play. Even the notice in the Fellburn Gazette on Wednesday referring to the bad taste of the final speech…almost blasphemous, it had said…had failed to bring in the atheists, the agnostics, or the merely doubters. The critic had gone on to say, that if the play had been trying to prove that all good women lived in misery and that there was nothing worth having in life but sex it had failed, for the hero had wanted to marry the girl, he hadn’t said, ‘What about it? Let’s shack up.’

  Saying, ‘Excuse me,’ she pushed past Jess Winters who, always the comedienne, laughed as she said, ‘Now why should I excuse you, Jinny, you’ve done nothing for me, only got me over those two bad patches the night. I’m supposed to be funny; the only light relief in that damned indigestible tirade…’

  The rest of her words faded away; and again Jinny excused herself as she went to pass Hal Campbell, the actor-manager, the man who kept the whole thing going and the one who usually had the final word with regard to which four plays the Fellburn Players would put on each year. But he wasn’t to blame for this last one. Philip Watson, the producer, had plumped for it on the surmise that it was time the people at this end of Fellburn were made to think.

  Well, apparently they had thought…and thought it best to stay away, after the first night.

  Hal Campbell now put his hand on her arm and drew her to a momentary stop, saying, ‘See what you can do with Ray. He says he’s not coming to the party. Anything wrong?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  He pulled a face and let her go. She knew he didn’t believe her. Well, what did she know, anyway? The only thing she knew, and with certainty, was that she was a fool. But then she couldn’t help being her particular kind of fool.

  She caught up with Ray Collard at the end of the passage. He was going for the producer. ‘Well, you got your bloody way, didn’t you? During the three years I’ve been with this dud outfit there’s never been a flop like it.’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t the fault of the play so much as of the acting: some people can put it over and some can’t…’

  ‘Ray!’ Her voice surprisingly was almost a yell.

  Collard lowered his arm; then turning to her, he barked, ‘Get your coat! I’m leaving now.’

  He opened a door to the side of him and went in, then banged it closed behind him. And Philip Watson, looking at Jinny, said, ‘Do as your boss tells you. He said, get your coat. Well, why aren’t you running?’

  She stared at him. She had never liked him, yet he had always been very nice to her. In a way, she supposed, he had tried to make up to her. She was about to turn from him when in a different tone of voice he said, ‘If you t
ake my advice, Jinny, you won’t get your coat, you’ll come to the party with the rest of us. I’m…I’m only speaking for your own good.’

  She paused, and looked hard at him over her shoulder before moving away. Whenever there was something unpleasant to impart, people always said they were only speaking for your own good.

  She made her way down the passage to the so-called ladies’ dressing room, and there, ignoring the prattle, all concerning the madness of putting on such a play in this town, she took up her coat, woolly hat, and scarf and went out without anyone having commented on her presence, for after all she wasn’t considered to be an actress, so-called: she was good for prompting or accompanying a singer at the piano, but, as had been pointed out to her more than once, not in a very professional style. In fact, her lack of an accompanist’s talent had often caused the performer to give anything but of his or her best.

  When they did a musical show there was always a post-mortem by the leading lady and soprano Gladys Philips, the wife of the tenor, Peter Philips. It was odd, Jinny thought, that singers never blamed their voices for anything that went wrong with their performances: it was the acoustics, or the draught whizzing along the passages at each side of the stage, or they didn’t feel at their best, but more often than not it was the accompanist who had put them off.

  Ray Collard was in the car waiting for her, and she was hardly seated before he started it up. He gave her no explanation for the rush, nor did she ask for any. She knew what was coming and she didn’t want to hear it, for in a way she was to blame…No! she chided herself; she wouldn’t use that word blame in connection with this matter. No, she wouldn’t.

  No word was exchanged between them as the car sped along Bog’s End waterfront where the headlights picked up the name Henderson & Garbrook, Engineers, in huge letters along the top of a blank wall. Then they showed up the gates and another long wall dotted with windows. The third from the end of the bottom row was her window, at least the typing pool’s window by which, for the past year, she had sat most days, except when called upon to fill in for a secretary on holiday, or someone who had fallen sick in one of the offices.