The Girl From Poorhouse Lane Read online

  The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

  Freda Lightfoot

  Freda Lightfoot (2011)

  Tags: Historical Fiction

  * * *

  Synopsis

  The slums of Poor House Lane are no place to bring up a child, and Kate O'Connor struggles to make ends meet when her beloved husband is killed, leaving her a single mother with a baby to support on the meagre hand-outs she gleans from charity. So when the childless Tysons, owners of Kendal's shoe factory, offer to adopt her son, Callum, and employ Kate as his nanny, she seizes the chance to ensure he has a better life.

  To be so close to her son, yet no longer be his mother, is bittersweet. But Kate is not prepared for the jealousy the new arrangement provokes in Eliot Tyson's brother, Charles, who sees Callum as a direct threat to his inheritance. But then events take an unexpected turn. Kate finds herself back in Poor House Lane facing a heartrending decision - how to find her missing son.

  The Girl From Poor House Lane

  Freda Lightfoot

  Originally published 2004 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

  Copyright © 2004 and 2011 by Freda Lightfoot.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-956607393

  Published by Freda Lightfoot 2011

  ‘The new series will be greeted with joy by the thousands of women who enjoy her books.’ Evening Mail, Barrow-in-Furness on Champion Street Market

  ‘You can’t put a price on Freda Lightfoot's stories from Manchester's 1950s Champion Street Market. They bubble with enough life and colour to brighten up the dreariest day and they have characters you can easily take to your heart.’

  The Northern Echo.

  ‘Lightfoot clearly knows her Manchester well’

  Historical Novel Society

  ‘Kitty Little is a charming novel encompassing the provincial theatre of the early 20th century, the horrors of warfare and timeless affairs of the heart.’

  The West Briton

  ‘Another heartwarming tale from a master story-teller.’

  Lancashire Evening Post on For All Our Tomorrows.

  ‘a compelling and fascinating tale’ Middlesborough Evening Gazette on The Favourite Child (In the top 20 of the Sunday Times hardback bestsellers)

  ‘She piles horror on horror - rape, torture, sexual humiliation, incest, suicide - but she keeps you reading!’ Jay Dixon on House of Angels.

  ‘This is a book I couldn’t put down . . . a great read!’

  South Wales Evening Post on The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

  ‘a fascinating, richly detailed setting with a dramatic plot brimming with enough scandal, passion, and danger for a Jackie Collins’ novel.’

  Booklist on Hostage Queen

  ‘A bombshell of an unsuspected secret rounds off a romantic saga narrated with pace and purpose and fuelled by conflict.’ The Keswick Reminder on The Bobbin Girls

  ‘paints a vivid picture of life on the fells during the war. Enhanced by fine historical detail and strong characterisation it is an endearing story...’

  Westmorland Gazette on Luckpenny Land

  ‘An inspiring novel about accepting change and bravely facing the future.’

  The Daily Telegraph on Ruby McBride

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Now read a sneak preview of the next in the series:

  Also by Freda Lightfoot available as ebooks

  About Freda Lightfoot

  The slums of Poor House Lane are no place to bring up a child, and since the death of her husband, Kate has struggled to feed her beloved baby son, relying on hand-outs and charity. So when the wealthy, childless Tysons offer to adopt Callum, and employ Kate as his nursemaid, she feels compelled to accept.

  To be so close to her son, yet no longer be his mother, is bittersweet. But Kate is not prepared for the jealousy the new arrangement provokes in Eliot Tyson’s brother, Charles, who sees Callum as a direct threat to his inheritance.

  Author’s Note:

  It has been a joy to revisit this series in order to prepare them as ebooks for a new market. The Girl From Poorhouse Lane suffered some criticism from readers for having too abrupt an ending, leaving loose ends dangling. I’d deliberately done it that way in order to leave the way open for the sequel, but it wasn’t popular. This time I’ve split the books into three, which resolves that issue and, I think, makes much more sense. Otherwise, I was pleased to see that it needed very little in the way of revision, apart from the odd clumsy sentence here and there. I hope my regular readers will enjoy revisiting this popular favourite and new readers will enjoy it too.

  Best wishes,

  Freda Lightfoot

  April 2011

  1905

  Chapter One

  ‘Make no mistake Kate O’Connor, this is the best chance you’re going to get so don’t mess it up. There’s many a lass who’d give their eye-teeth to work for Mr Tyson, hard taskmaster though he might be, and who can blame him when you see some of the ne’er-do-wells he has to rely on for labour? Just watch that lip of yours and you’ll happen be all right. And think on, Kirkland Poor House is closing before the week is out, so you’ll have to cope on yer own from now on.’

  With red hair which loudly proclaimed her Irish background, and apple cheeks made rosy by the sweet country air of the Westmorland fells, eighteen year old Kate O’Connor could easily have been taken for any simple, fresh young country girl. But looking closer, an interested stranger might note a bone-thin body, one that had not seen a good solid meal in a long while; a pair of scrawny ankles in too large boots jutting out from beneath the loose-fitting gown made for some other, more voluptuous and better class of woman altogether. They might note that what little was visible of her skin was encrusted with ingrained dirt, the hair which fell about her slender shoulders matted and uncombed for all a portion of it was carefully knotted on top of her neatly shaped head.

  ‘Oh, I can cope all right,’ Kate tartly responded. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work. Don’t you fret none about that. Ye wouldn’t find me accepting any of yer po-faced charity, not if I didn’t have me babby to think of.’

  Though she had only visited her homeland a couple of times as a child, there was a lilt to her voice, a musical intonation of sound that she’d perhaps inherited from her father, or had been born in her. And if she appeared alarmingly fragile, the fire within gave off a radiance to warm the soul. The grey eyes were alive with pride and passion and an a
nger as fierce, and as stormy as the Lakeland skies. And something else: a softer inner core she was doing her utmost to hide, a sadness which still held the bleakness of grief. Whoever had made her hate the world with such a vehemence, would not be let off lightly. That much was all too plain in the obstinate set of the small square chin, the way the eyebrows winged defiantly upwards and the nostrils flared with courage, revealing a rare beauty made all the more poignant by the outward image of a wayward young girl.

  That steady gaze, the proud, proprietorial manner with which she held her child, the very truculence of her stance proved that however low she had fallen, however downtrodden, the fight had only just begun.

  The woman wagged an admonishing finger then jabbed it against Kate’s thin shoulder, nearly knocking her over. ‘Mark my words, girl, pride comes before a fall. You were glad enough of our so-called charity once over, not least when your poor husband was called to his maker. Think yerself lucky you were fed and sheltered here, in Poor House Lane. Next time it’ll be the Union Workhouse on Kendal Green, then you’ll be sorry. They’ll not treat you so kindly, and you’ll have to work even harder making Harden cloth from flax and hemp, laundrywork happen, or emptying chamber pots. See if you like that any better.’ And with this parting threat, the woman nodded her head with gleeful satisfaction and slammed shut the door.

  Kate stood for a second in silent contemplation of that battered, filthy door she knew so well, scratched and pounded upon by a million hungry hands over the years, all of them paupers, like herself, who had come pleading to be let in, to be fed and watered by the unfeeling guardians within. They would queue for hours in the soft Westmorland rain for a bowl of watery soup or luke-warm porridge, then hurry back to the hovel they’d been assigned in Poor House Lane to feed their children, while others would stand where they were in the rotting filth of a stinking yard, eating it quickly before anyone stole it from them. They might be given free coal in severe weather, a warm shawl, or a pair of boots that some poor soul no longer needed since scarlet fever or ‘the visitation of God’ had perhaps carried them off. And they were daily encouraged by the overseer to adopt the habits of ‘prudence and virtue’, no doubt on the grounds that it was their own fault that they were starving.

  Perhaps, if Kate had been more fortunate in her family, she might not have needed to come knocking on that door at all. Things could have been so different. Her father had first come to Westmorland as a young man in 1870 as one of the navvies working on the new sewerage system, installing it over a period of five years so that for a time he’d enjoyed relative stability and prosperity, sufficient to take a wife and start a family, producing a son first who they named Dermot, after his own father. But Kate’s mother died giving birth to her just a few years later and the two youngsters had to be cared for by various well meaning neighbours while her father moved on to other building work: the new Market Hall, Sandes Avenue and Victoria Bridge. He’d passed quietly away in the flu’ epidemic back in ’92 when Kate had been barely five or six and Dermot had just started an apprenticeship with a shoe maker.

  Losing her beloved father had been terrible, all such a blur she couldn’t quite remember the details but while Dermot managed to board with his master, for Kate it was one short step to Poor House Lane and the Guardians.

  The only bright spot in a grim youth was when she’d met and fallen in love with Callum, married at just sixteen and gone to live with him behind his tiny cobbler’s shop. Then the River Kent had flooded, as it frequently did, not quite so bad as when at age eleven, in 1898, the worst floods in living memory nearly washed away the new bridge Daddy had helped build. But bad enough to deprive her of a beloved husband, just as if the gods resented this little bit of happiness she’d found.

  In Kate’s eyes he’d died a hero’s death trying to save her from the floods which had swamped their humble dwelling. Having got her safely clinging to a tree, her lovely Callum had lost his hold and been swept away by the swirling waters.

  But what was the use in complaining? This was where she lived now, in one room of a cottage right opposite where the pigs were kept.

  Poor House Lane was typical of many of Kendal’s yards, which were a distinctive feature of the town. These might be known by a number or a name, but all led off from the single main street that ran from north to south, parallel with the river, in this case close by the church in Kirkland through a narrow entrance that led to a row of ten or eleven cottages which might house thirty or more families at any one time. The walls were built of limestone, blackened by age and grime, and high enough to block out most of the sunlight that might creep over the slated roofs. And within the narrow confines of the yard with its shared privies and central open sewer running over the rough cobbles, was found a degree of security by the seething mass of folk, all victims of poverty like herself, who needed to draw strength from each other.

  A short flight of stone steps led to the upper floor of each of the cottages, and it was up one of these that Kate now went, holding her child close to her breast and ducking her head beneath the low lintel. Here, in number five, she’d been allotted a plank bed with a pillow and blanket, a straw pallet she scoured every day for bugs, and the facility to warm milk for her baby. As she entered, she saw that Millie, with whom she shared this room and had become a dear friend, was still asleep; no doubt having been kept awake half the night by her own brood which she’d produced at yearly intervals, regular as clockwork, since she was fifteen. All of whom were constantly ailing from something or other.

  Kate poured a small quantity of the milk she’d been given into a pan and set it on the hob to warm by the meagre fire, then sat on the corner of her bed, cuddling her child and humming softly as she lay him on his back on her lap to change his wet napkin. Freed from the encumbrance of the damp flannel, young Callum kicked his legs with exuberance, big grey-blue eyes fixed on hers, his beaming smile lighting up the gloomy room.

  ‘You didn’t get much then, only the milk.’

  Kate glanced up. Millie’s old mother-in-law, Ma Parkin, sat rocking herself in a corner, cradling the youngest infant in her arms, while doing her best to keep the others out of mischief by having them unpick a moth-eaten old woollen jumper they’d no doubt picked up off the rubbish tip. The rest of the Parkin tribe were either at Kirkland school, if they’d felt inclined to go that morning and managed to avoid the truant officer, or out with their father, Clem. Clem had only one arm, having lost his other to gangrene, following an accident at work, and could do little more than clean middens, or search for scraps to sell or use in their hand-to-mouth existence. Generally speaking he was a patient, kindly man who adored his wife, though if he did get any money in his pocket, he was fond of stopping off at the Cock and Dolphin and spending a good part of it on booze on the way back.

  ‘That’s right Ma, just the milk. And it’s all for you me grand boy, is it not?’ Kate crooned, tweaking her baby’s dimpled cheek and kissing him. ‘How many teeth can I see? One, two, three, four, ah tis too many to count now. Aren’t ye the clever one?’

  The old woman heaved a sigh, cursing softly under her breath. ‘What are we supposed to eat to keep body and soul together then, bloody muck off t’cobbles?’

  Kate said nothing, but the small crust of bread she had carefully secreted in her pocket seemed to press heavily against her thigh. She was fond of Ma Parkin yet she couldn’t give it to the old woman without depriving her own child. She meant to soak the crust in the last of the milk for his supper, so that at least he didn’t go to bed hungry. She washed and dried his little bottom with great care because whatever pains she took it was always a little red and sore, there being nowhere to properly dry his napkins.

  She neatly pinned on a clean one, then poured the warmed milk into the curved bottle, fixed on the rubber teat which he at once grabbed and began to suckle greedily. At fifteen months he was really getting too big for this to satisfy him, and Kate would’ve liked to give him something more solid, but the bi
t of bread was all she had. She’d given no thought to her own supper yet, relying on providence, Millie or Clem to provide it. She had a couple of pennies tucked into the pocket of her shift, but that would have to last until she’d got paid, which could be a few days, even a week or more before she produced anything worthwhile.

  ‘It’ll all be better soon,’ she told her child, rubbing her nose against his and making the baby chortle with glee. ‘Mammy’s going to make us a fortune, so she is, sewing shoes like yer clever uncle. Except that unlike yer Uncle Dermot, and most round here, I’ll save every penny, so I will, then we can get out of this God-forsaken place and start to go up in the world. Won’t that be grand?’

  Ma Parkin gave a snort of disbelief.

  ‘I will so,’ Kate insisted, just as if she had spoken.

  A loud sniff this time. ‘I wish I’d a penny for every time I’ve heard that.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m the lucky one, Ma. It might not look like it to some, but this is a red letter day for me,’

  The old woman gazed back at her, blank and uncomprehending.

  Kate simply smiled and returned to talking to her child, who was much more responsive. ‘I will so,’ she repeated in a whisper against the baby’s soft cheek. ‘I’m not having my fine little man being brought up in this hell hole, so help me.’