The Favourite Child Read online

  The Favourite Child

  Freda Lightfoot

  Hodder Stoughton (2001)

  Tags: Romance, Historical Saga, Fiction

  * * *

  Synopsis

  1928, Salford

  Isabella has always been her father's favourite, but when she becomes involved with the new birth control movement, her father is scandalized. He tells himself that it will be merely a phase, but as Bella's enthusiasm for "fallen women" shows no sign of abating, her father loses patience and banishes her from the family home, where friendship and love are not as easy as they seem.

  The Favourite Child

  Freda Lightfoot

  Originally published 2001 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

  Copyright © 2001 and 2010 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 978-0956607379

  This edition published by Freda Lightfoot 2010

  Isabella Ashton has always been her father's favourite, but when she becomes involved with the new Birth Control Movement, Simeon is scandalised. It’s 1928 and running a family planning clinic in Salford is challenging but rewarding work, and Bella is grateful for the help of Violet Howarth, a big, generous-hearted woman who takes her in off the street. A friendship with Violet’s son, Dan, quickly turns to love. But Bella also becomes involved with handsome ne’er-do-well Billy Quinn, leader of an illegal betting ring, and soon finds everything she has worked for put at risk, and herself in mortal danger. . .

  Acknowledgements

  This book is dedicated to the memory of all the women who were pioneers in the work of birth control and improvements in women’s health care. In particular to Charis Frankenburg who, together with Mary Stocks, opened the real Salford and District Mothers’ Clinic for Birth Control in 1926. My sincere thanks go to Mrs Frankenburg’s daughter, Mrs Ursula Kennedy, for inspiring me with the idea in the first place and for her help with information on the work of the clinic from family papers. For anyone interested in learning more I would highly recommend they read her mother’s autobiography, Not Old, Madam, Vintage. It sheds as much light on a remarkable woman as on the noble and worthwhile enterprise she helped found.

  The clinic depicted in this story, though it may bear some similarities, certainly in its work and aims to the original, is entirely fictitious, as are the characters. Salford is as real as I can make it. I would also like to acknowledge the unstinting help of the Librarians at the Manchester Central Library who always seem to know what I am looking for and how to find it.

  ‘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

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Now take a sneak preview at Kitty Little

  Also by Freda Lightfoot available as ebooks

  About Freda Lightfoot

  1927

  Chapter One

  Isabella Ashton alighted from the tram car at the corner of Cross Lane and strode out along Liverpool Street, her boots ringing on setts polished by generations of clog irons; thick woollen skirt swinging against her long legs. The slanting rays of a weak winter sun glinted momentarily upon wet slate roofs before being blotted out by a belch of smoke from a forest of broken chimney pots.

  Two children passed her, one a girl of about seven or eight pushing an old pram loaded with a pitiful quantity of coal. Seated in the midst of it sat a grey-faced toddler chewing on a piece, dribbles of black soot running down its chin. In front, pulling with all his puny strength was a child of no more than four or five years. A boy judging by his ragged britches. The pair had evidently been visiting the coal yard on the corner of Denbigh Street and were returning home with their meagre prize which would barely keep a family warm for more than a day. Isabella’s heart went out to them. How was it that small children must bear such onerous responsibilities?

  As she paused to watch them go by, she took off the hated cloche hat and shook out her red-gold hair. Long and untamed, it seemed, like its owner, utterly beyond control, refusing to be either confined or tidy, despite all efforts.

  She wished she could have bought the children a wagon full of coal, had done so for others on numerous occasions, not to mention giving those in need countless loaves of bread, pairs of boots and whatever else she could supply. But Isabella knew that even she, daughter of Simeon Ashton, the well-to-do mana
ger of a thriving cotton mill, couldn’t afford to provide the whole of Salford with heat for their hearths and food for their kitchens. Not that it was easy to get them to accept anything at all. She’d learned to tread carefully with her well-meant offers of help, for fear of causing offence.

  Tucking the hat into her pocket she picked her way around puddles, and children skipping or playing hop scotch. Women shrouded in thick woollen shawls hurried by, many with yet more children clinging to their skirts. The lamplighter was just completing his round, setting his long pole against each gas lamp and bringing a warming glow to the cold street.

  A man stepped out from the lighted doorway of a tripe shop, a stone jar of hot soup cradled in his hand. ‘Ow do Miss Bella.’ A friendly voice, cap neb touched in deference. ‘Thee’s a sight for sore eyes on a raw night like this.’

  ‘And yourself Joe.’ Bella returned the greeting, hazel eyes bright with good humour. All her friends called her by the shortened form of her name in these parts, and she rather liked it.

  ‘Night’s drawing in. I wouldn’t linger. Tara chuck.’ His voice drifted back to her as he hurried on home to his supper through the gathering evening mist that clung wraith-like around the gas lamps.

  ‘Tara Joe.’ She tugged the collar of her coat closer about her neck, feeling the bite of a cold November day that, as he said, was rapidly fading into a damp evening. But Bella didn’t even slow her pace as she hurried on through the gathering gloom. Somewhere in the direction of the cattle market she heard a clock start to chime. She lifted her chin, which her brother Edward claimed jutted with a stubborn forcefulness like all Ashton chins, and tilted her head to one side to listen.

  Six o’clock. She was going to be dreadfully late. Mother was already annoyed, having been abandoned outside the Midland Hotel following their afternoon tea party with Mrs Prudy and her whining daughter. If Bella were not back in time to bathe and change for her brother’s birthday dinner which had taken weeks of careful planning, hours of preparation by Mrs Dyson their overworked cook, and a large slice of Pa’s hard won income, she would be utterly furious.

  ‘Why do you always have to be so perverse?’ she had raged earlier as, mumbling excuses, Bella had leapt onto a passing tram car. ‘I will not have you visiting your dreadful friends today of all days!’ Emily Ashton had personally hand-picked several delightful young ladies, selected from the twin cities of Salford and Manchester and miles beyond, to present to her darling son. If a would-be wife were not secured for him this evening, it would be no fault of hers.

  Bella felt simply relief that she had long since given up hope of finding a husband for a recalcitrant daughter who, at very nearly twenty-four and with a most radical outlook on life, was quite beyond the pale. Riddled with self pity after trying to start a family for nearly twelve years before finally getting pregnant, her mother had become crippled by the bitterness of her many disappointments, made worse when all she’d got for her efforts was a tomboy of a daughter and a son with no more spunk than limp lettuce - Simeon’s description, which Emily furiously refuted. Edward had been given every advantage, including an expensive education quite unsuited to his nature, all because it had been considered the right and proper thing to do. Bella, as a mere girl, had been condemned to spend her formative years at Miss Springfield’s Academy for Young Ladies where she learned to speak bad French and do dreadful embroidery. A complete waste of money on both counts.

  In truth, Edward’s one passion had been to learn carpentry but his mother threw three fits if she ever saw him with a tool of any kind in his hand; while Bella had been forced to devour whatever books she could find, in secret under the bedclothes, yearning for knowledge and information with an unquenchable thirst. All these frustrated educational ambitions, Bella thought with a wry smile, had caused her to put all her to direct her energies into radical issues considered quite inappropriate in a young lady of her standing.

  ‘I’ll be no more than half an hour,’ she’d shouted back above the rattle of wheels on tramlines, grinning broadly before galloping up the curving staircase to the top deck. But the image of her mother’s ashen faced fury had remained with her as she’d collapsed, gasping for breath onto the hard wooden slatted seat, a shaming guilt stifling her rebellious giggles at she remembered her mother’s vehemence. The mere fact that Emily had so far forgotten herself to raise her voice in public, spoke volumes.

  Now Bella bent her head into the wind and hurried on. No matter what the outcome of this particular show of rebellion, she intended to make sure that the Stobbs’ children were on the road to recovery. She could not begin to enjoy Edward’s party until she was certain they were taken care of. Her fingers curled around the pot of calf’s foot jelly in her pocket. Small but rich in nourishment, Mrs Dyson had assured her, and you couldn’t take risks with influenza. What if it developed into pneumonia or worse? What if she’d misdiagnosed the sickness and it were really the start of TB or pleurisy, or one of the other dread diseases that stalked these mean streets.

  Bella shivered. Beneath the fine tweed coat she wore a warm jumper and a bright green skirt, and on her feet smart Russian boots to keep out the wet. There would be salmon for supper, and a large rib of beef succulent with gravy, followed by Mrs Dyson’s apple turnovers that melted in the mouth. The Stobbs’ family, like many another, were not so fortunate. Guilt ate into her soul as Isabella thought of this other life she led, one which seemed far removed from any true sense of reality.

  ‘’Alfpenny for a shrive o’bread missus.’ The thin, childish voice penetrated her thoughts and Isabella paused to rummage through pockets and purse. There must surely be a halfpenny somewhere. She can’t have used it all on the tram fare. It was at that moment she heard the screams.

  Jinnie had never felt so bad in all her short life, and she was no stranger to pain. She knew what it was to be cold and have nowhere to sleep but the hard pavement, wrapped in a newspaper like a piece of haddock. And she was certainly on close speaking terms with hunger. Who wasn’t in these streets? Jinnie knew what it felt like to be desperate for food and yet have her stomach heave and refuse to digest it. Once, she’d been told that milk was the thing for a stomach shrivelled by starvation and had set off to walk to the country, Brindleheath way, meaning to try and find some. As if she would have the first idea how to catch a cow, let alone milk one. She’d only got as far as the ‘Rec’ ground, and there were no cows there, before coming over all queer and passing out.

  That was the day she’d met Billy Quinn. And hadn’t she been glad? He’d seemed like her salvation at the time. She’d learned different since, of course. Lord but she was feeling proper queer now. ‘It must be working, Sadie. Is it working?’

  ‘Hush up luv. I’ll fill the kettle. Clean you up a bit afore his lordship gets in.’

  Dear lord yes. She had to get up and off this bed before he got home. For all his nasty ways, Billy Quinn was a Catholic and he’d kill her for sure if he ever found out what she’d done.

  He’d carried her back here that day she’d gone to look for the cows; brought her to his home, or hovel more like, being one room without benefit of running water save for what seeped through the walls. But he’d given her sips of warm milk. Jinnie had been no more than twelve at the time and had been with him ever since; nearly four long years and she really shouldn’t complain. He’d fed her, hadn’t he? Except when his Irish luck failed him. Helped her find employment of sorts, charring, doing washing, or running errands for him. He’d provided a bed for her to sleep in, even if it was his own. And if sometimes she wanted to object to the things he demanded of her in the dark hours of the night, at least he’d never required her to warm anyone else’s bed, which was saying a good deal.

  But then, so far as Billy Quinn was concerned, she was his own private property and he could do with her as he willed.

  ‘Don’t you owe yer life to me? Me being the one what saved you,’ he’d remind her in his soft Irish brogue, whenever she showed signs of want
ing to move on. ‘You do what I sez, girl, and ye’ll be right as ninepence. Isn’t that the truth?’

  ‘Whatever you say, Quinn.’ It was always safer to agree, using the name he liked to be known by. She’d not go so far as to call Billy Quinn her friend. Few, if any, could lay claim to such a state of affairs. But it was no bad thing to have him on your side. She’d learned the art of acceptance quite early in their relationship. To keep her trap shut. Tell no tales or she’d be sorry. Jinnie certainly hadn’t told him that she’d fallen.

  Now, clutching her stomach she watched Sadie move to the fire, lift the blackened kettle with her skinny arms and then drop it in shock as a scream ricocheted around the tiny room. From some far distant place Jinnie became aware it must have been she who’d screamed. And no wonder! It was as if a knife had sliced through her groin. The pain ground into her, seeming to go on forever, filling her with terror and panic. A warm wetness ran down the inside of her leg and she struggled to get up off the bed so she would avoid messing it up. Quinn hated mess of any sort.

  ‘Stay still. Stay still child.’

  The pain came again, dragging her down. So did the scream. Hammering in her head. Beating her to a bloody pulp. This time when it finally subsided Jinnie lay exhausted, drenched in a cold sweat of fear. ‘Dear lord, what have we done!’