A Mother's Sacrifice Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 - 1835

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Also by Catherine King

  Women of Iron

  Silk and Steel

  Without a Mother’s Love

  A Mother’s Sacrifice

  CATHERINE KING

  Hachette Digital

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Published by Hachette Digital 2009

  Copyright © Catherine King 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved.

  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.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 0 7481 1496 2

  This ebook produced by JOUVE, FRANCE

  Hachette Digital

  An imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DY

  An Hachette UK Company

  To the memories of Alice Ramsbottom Piper and Edmund Humphrey King

  Acknowledgements

  I should like to thank the staff and volunteers of Local History and Archives at Rotherham Library, especially Betty Davies, secretary of FoRA, for help with the research for this story. My thanks also to all my friends from Rotherham High School who are a constant lively source of tales and folklore from their parents and grandparents, especially Susan Sheehy, formerly Liggins, for telling me about Sun Dial Farm, my inspiration for the location of Top Field. Finally, special thanks to my agent Judith Murdoch, my editors Louise Davies, Caroline Hogg and Emma Stonex, my publicist Hannah Torjussen and the hard-working production and sales teams at Little, Brown for a beautifully finished book.

  Chapter 1

  1835

  They were prettied and ready by mid-morning. Their cottage kitchen was clean and tidy and a cut-up fowl was simmering slowly with barley over the fire. Quinta finished slicing carrot and onion at the kitchen table and stood up to tip them into the blackened pot. Her best gown was covered by a large apron. She was worried about the bottom edge of the skirt getting dirty if she had to help Farmer Bilton with Darby but her mother had insisted she wore it.

  ‘Come to the front window, Quinta,’ Laura called. ‘I can see him. He’s got a new horse. A beauty he is, too. Just look at that beast.’ She coughed, and then added, ‘Spring’s on its way now. A bit late this year but the trees are greening up nicely.’

  Quinta frowned and handed her mother a horn beaker of warm water with a calming honey mixture in it. It was time she threw off that cough. But even when she was poorly Laura Haig managed to look beautiful. Her skin was lined but still smooth and flawless. Unconsciously, Quinta passed her fingers over her own cheeks.

  ‘Did you put your salve on this morning?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Go upstairs and do it now, dear.’

  Quinta sat down in front of her mother’s looking glass and took the cork out of a squat stone jar. Mother made the precious salve herself, using wool fat and rose-petal water and used it every day without fail. Quinta spread it quickly over her face and neck, rubbing it in vigorously until the greasiness had gone. She stared at her image in the spotted glass. Folk said she looked like her mother, although she couldn’t see it. She had the same hazel eyes, but Quinta’s hair under her cotton cap was darker, a rich burnished brown, thick and glossy, which she plaited and wound around her head. She wondered if, now she was fifteen, she might coil it differently and curl the front.

  ‘Hurry, dear. He’s here,’ her mother called.

  A large black hunter carrying its smartly dressed rider ambled into their grassy yard. They stood outside the cottage door as he dismounted, tethered the animal at their lean-to woodshed and removed his saddlebag. Quinta watched seriously as he slid his shotgun out of its long holster. He wore a thick buttoned coat, breeches and leather gaiters, and nodded formally as he approached them. ‘Good morning, Mrs Haig, Miss Quinta. Where is he?’

  ‘Down by the stream,’ Quinta replied. Darby had not moved all night and Quinta was relieved his pain would soon be over.

  ‘Best get on with it then.’

  ‘We are pleased to welcome you here, sir. Will you stay for your dinner?’ Laura asked politely.

  He sniffed the air, looked from one to the other, nodded slightly and answered, ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

  Quinta noticed her mother brighten and smile. Even if she didn’t like Farmer Bilton, she knew that, as their landlord, his good opinion of them could be their salvation. Mother had been right to make an effort for his visit.

  ‘I’ll take the lass with me, Mrs Haig,’ he said, adding, ‘I might need an extra pair of hands.’

  ‘Very well. Take care with your gown, my dear.’

  Quinta ran ahead towards the stream. As soon as she saw Darby, quite still beneath his canvas blanket, she forgot about her skirts and knelt beside him. She fondled his ears as she held back her tears. She had ridden on his back as a child, sometimes sitting precariously on top of bulging sacks going to market before Father had made the cart. Farmer Bilton loaded his gun. At least Darby’s end would be painless and quick. Quinta pressed her lips together as he approached.

  ‘Move away from him, Miss Quinta. There’s bound to be mess.’

  She got up and stood on the muddy bank, unable to watch. Five-acre Wood across the water was still and quiet apart from - from . . . She narrowed her eyes, detecting a movement in the shadowy trees. It was too big for a fox. A deer, perhaps, but she thought not.

  ‘Oh!’ The shotgun went off, making her jump. The trees came alive with flapping squawking birds. It was over. She turned round in time to see the splintered bone and flesh oozing with Darby’s blood, and her face grimaced in grief. Farmer Bilton drew the canvas cover over his mutilated head. She told herself that Darby was only a donkey, but she had loved him nonetheless. She took a few deep breaths to calm her distress. ‘Thank you, Mr Bilton. Will the Hall take him away?’

  ‘Aye. The kennel-man will send a cart over.’ He rested the butt of his shotgun on the ground and surveyed the scrubby pasture and remains of a copse, and their small stone cottage roofed with red tiles. ‘I’ll take a look
at the cowshed while I’m out here.’

  It had been built in a similar fashion to the cottage by her father and fitted with wooden stalls inside. Father had learned carpentry as a labourer on the Swinborough estate before he became a smallholder. Holding the Top Field tenancy had been a step up for him; he had been lucky to gain it and had worked hard to make it profitable. But he had passed on two years ago and it was a struggle for Quinta and her mother to work the land without him. Farmer Bilton said little as he inspected. His expression told Quinta all she needed to know. He did not approve of what he saw.

  ‘Will you come inside now, sir?’ Quinta suggested eventually.

  ‘Aye. That dinner smells good.’

  He looked around with interest as they stepped into the kitchen. Quinta drew out their largest chair, the one Father had used, and said, ‘Please sit down, sir.’

  He did and Quinta brought over plates of stewed fowl and vegetables from the fire. Mother placed warm oatcakes on the table and said grace. The food tasted as good as it smelled and Quinta ate hungrily for a few minutes.

  Farmer Bilton broke the silence. ‘I can see daylight through that cowshed roof.’

  Her mother looked anxious and explained: ‘I lost some tiles in the winter storms. My late husband would have mended it by now if he were still with us.’

  ‘Aye. It’s hard for a woman living on her own.’

  ‘She’s not on her own. She’s got me,’ Quinta said firmly.

  ‘And a bright little lass you are, too,’ he responded.

  ‘If it were the cottage roof, you would send your man to fix it,’ Laura added.

  ‘I might. But Joseph Haig put up the cowshed himself so it was his job to mend it.’

  Quinta and her mother did not argue. Farmer Bilton drained his metal tankard of ale and Quinta poured more from the jug.

  ‘Will you want payment for killing our donkey, sir?’ Laura asked.

  ‘This dinner is payment enough. I’ve sold him for the dogs at the Hall. He’s not worth much, but I’ll credit your rent for what they give me.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I’m sorry there is no bread. We have no flour left and it is too dear to buy until the harvest is in.’

  He picked up a corner of oat biscuit and bit into it. ‘This suits me well enough. I’m a plain-living man—’ He stopped and added, ‘That is, I mean - gentleman.’

  So he was rising to his new wealth, Quinta thought. He had been working his farm for as long as Quinta could remember and was now reaping the benefits of his efforts. Mother had told her that gentleman farmers had always owned this part of the hillside. But Farmer Bilton was a distant cousin on the female side. It had taken the lawyers two years to find him when the old farmer died and he’d had to change his name to Bilton to inherit. It was said that before then he was only a farm labourer in the next county.

  He sat back in his chair and looked around. ‘You have a pretty little place here; a pretty kitchen for a pretty lady.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Laura replied.

  Quinta thought that the ale was having a good effect on him. He didn’t usually say anything to them that approached social conversation. She got up quietly to refill the jug from the barrel in the scullery.

  ‘It is small compared with your farmhouse, sir,’ her mother added.

  ‘Aye. I’m thinking of building on to this cottage.’

  Quinta heard this and her eyes widened. Was that the real reason he was here? He could have sent his farmhand to see to Darby for them. ‘But you’d put up the rent,’ she protested as she returned to top up his tankard.

  ‘Aye.’

  Laura said, ‘Well, an extra room is a kind thought, but I am a widow, sir, and hard pressed to pay the rent as it is.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘We can find it, Mother!’ Quinta responded. ‘I can do more. Perhaps Mr Bilton could let us have a nanny or two in exchange for our donkey?’

  ‘Shush, dear,’ Laura said as he shifted his eyes from mother to daughter.

  He shook his head slowly.‘You were a respectable little family, madam, when your husband was alive. But you neglect your duty on the farm, and on the Sabbath.’

  ‘Mother has been ill!’ Quinta protested. Her winter cough had persisted this year and the climb back from church was too much for her. Laura glared crossly at her interruption.

  ‘You are wasting good land,’ Farmer Bilton went on. ‘You need a man here.’

  Quinta began to feel uneasy. This was not at all what either of them had expected and she didn’t like Farmer Bilton’s disapproving tone or the way he called her mother ‘madam’.

  Laura looked down at her plate in silence.

  ‘I want a man here, too,’ he went on. ‘And a fitting rent for my property.’

  The silence lengthened until Laura lifted her head and said quietly, ‘I can’t afford any more, sir.’

  ‘I know folk who can, though. They can work the land and turn it back into profit.The town is spreading with newcomers, with labouring men and their families who need feeding.’ He speared a chunk of fowl on his plate and chewed on it slowly. ‘I’ll not have you wasting another year.’

  ‘You want us out.’ It was a statement rather than a question from Laura.

  ‘That’s about it, madam.’

  ‘But where would we go?’ Quinta exclaimed.

  Farmer Bilton looked sideways at her and, although he did not smile, she thought his features softened a little. He said, ‘I’m not a harsh landlord. I’ve let you stay for two years, watching you struggle.’ He shook his head and pursed his lips. ‘No man to mow and turn grass for hay, or clear the stream. It goes to rack and ruin, you see.’

  ‘We have done our best,’ Laura explained. ‘We till a large garden and sell eggs and - and make cheese, too, when we can get the milk.’

  ‘But only one donkey on all that pasture. And now he’s gone, you think only of a goat—’

  ‘Or two,’ Quinta interrupted.

  ‘Be quiet, dear. It is all we can manage, sir.’

  ‘Aye.’

  He resumed his eating and appeared to be enjoying his dinner. After another gulp of ale he asked, ‘Will you have my rent at Midsummer?’

  ‘I shall have half of it, sir.’

  ‘But will you get the rest?’

  Without a donkey to take their produce to market Quinta knew it would be difficult. She heeded her mother’s wishes and stayed silent.

  Laura had hardly touched her stewed fowl but she remained composed and replied, ‘I can work for you, sir, to make up the difference. I am clean and frugal in my ways. Look around you, sir. You can see that I am a good housekeeper.’ She hesitated, took a deep breath and continued: ‘You have good standing as a farmer in the Riding, if I may say so, sir. I wonder, does the vicar ever pay you the compliment of calling on you, with his sister?’

  Quinta saw Farmer Bilton frown and begin to look uncomfortable and she knew they did not. He was a bachelor and his farmhouse was ill furnished and unkempt. The vicar’s sister had caused a stir in the village when she had come to live there, for although she was a spinster lady of maturing years, she trimmed her bonnets lavishly and it was said she was seeking a husband.

  Laura went on, ‘How welcome they would feel if you had a parlour maid to offer them a glass of sherry wine in your drawing room. I was a servant at the Hall before I wed, sir. I know how to do things properly for you.’

  Quinta looked closely at him as his face set in a grimace. He was about the same age as her father had been when he died two years ago. His face was weather-beaten and lined, to be sure, but his wrists looked sinewy and strong and his hands were straight. Not like the knobbly, gnarled fingers of his bent old farmhand.

  ‘And would you leave here?’ he asked.

  ‘I should not wish to unless my daughter comes with me. I have taught her all I learned from my time at the Hall. She would not be a burden.’

  Quinta watched his face as he considered Mother’s offer. He pulle
d his mouth to one side and nodded slightly.Then he said, ‘Can she graft?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Quinta answered swiftly. ‘I can till a garden, milk a cow, churn butter and make cheese.’

  He glanced at her. ‘Aye. I believe you.’

  ‘However, I should like to stay in my home, sir. The old Squire promised my husband—’

  ‘He made promises to me, too. Nigh on sixteen year ago, when I first came here. Did your husband tell you that?’

  Mother did not talk of the past much and the old Squire was dead and gone, but Quinta knew her father had done him a great service and in return he had persuaded young Farmer Bilton to grant him a tenancy for Top Field. Bilton Farm had been neglected before its new owner arrived and three years advanced rent from the old Squire was a welcome sum to get the farm going again.

  Her mother became flustered. ‘You were glad of the Squire’s help at the time. As indeed were we. Quinta, would you pour me a little ale, dear?’ When she had taken a drink, she added, ‘I am a respectable widow, sir, and I should serve you well as housekeeper.’

  Farmer Bilton seemed to recover from his former uneasiness and looked from mother to daughter and back to her mother. ‘Aye, you might at that.’

  ‘You - you will consider me, sir?’

  Quinta gave him more ale. He drank again and leaned forward. ‘Do you know how old I am, Mrs Haig?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Past five and forty, madam. The years have run away from me. Now I am reaping the fruits of my labour. I visit my neighbours and the shopkeepers in the town, and I see how they all have ladies wearing pretty bonnets to walk out with them.’

  ‘As I say, sir, I can keep as good a house as any from round here.’

  ‘I want more than a housekeeper, Mrs Haig.’

  ‘My daughter and I can tend your garden and orchard, as well as your dairy, sir,’ she added.