The Jarrow Lass (37 page)

John shot Rose a resentful look. ‘Aye, well, I was a fool. I should've stopped at home.'

Rose knew that he blamed her for his going away, just as she was to blame for all his trials in life. She retaliated. ‘If it was such a mistake, then why fill the lad's head full of nonsense about joining up?'

‘I didn't,' he snapped. ‘Just took him to see the daft buggers who do.'

But she suspected John was secretly envious of the young men who could march away to the beat of the drum and leave behind their drab lives in an instant.

‘Well, I thank the saints he's too young to gan to war,' Rose sighed.

‘I'm not glad,' Jack said grumpily. ‘I hope the war gans on long enough so I can join the army and fight the Boer.'

John gave a harsh laugh of satisfaction. ‘Listen to the little runt! I'll make a fighter out of him yet, Rose Ann.'

A chill went through her at the thought and she was reminded once again of the gypsy's curse.

May the son that sleeps in your wife's belly be the one to stand up to you. May he bring you not a minute's peace till the day he dies
.

She would not let Jack become a soldier and risk dying young, or let John turn him into a bullying McMullen.

As 1900 progressed, John's obsession with the war continued. When the country went wild with celebration at the news of the relief of Ladysmith in late February, he sulked and lost his temper, as if good news did not fit his mood of doom.

‘You're just like your brother Pat and them Nationalists,' Rose accused, ‘only cheering when the Boers are winning.'

‘No he's not.' Jack came to his father's defence. ‘You're right pleased with General Buller for getting back Ladysmith, aren't you, Father? You don't know what you're talking about, Mam. You're just a silly woman.'

Rose was pained to hear John's words trip off her son's tongue.

‘Aye, you tell your mother,' John said, taking delight in Jack's derision of Rose. It was time he had an ally in this house of women who thought they could do what they wanted without his say.

‘Don't be cheeky,' Rose said smartly and threw John an angry look.

Rose was hurt by Jack's increasing rebelliousness against her and siding with his father, but at least it disproved the gypsy's threat that Jack would be a constant trouble to John. More worrying was John's growing jealousy over the girls. He was becoming stiflingly protective, until they could hardly glance at a man in the street without provoking his wrath. If he caught them outside chatting with anyone older than Jack, he would shout at them to get in the house, then turn on the astonished neighbours and give them an earful of abuse about the laxness of their morals.

There was little Rose could do about his fretfulness, except humour or ignore him.

Just before Easter, Kate came home bursting with excitement.

‘The Pattersons have asked me to gan on holiday with them!'

‘They haven't!' Rose exclaimed.

‘Where?' demanded Mary.

‘The Lake District,' Kate squealed. ‘They want me to look after the bairns. We'll be staying in a hotel. Can you imagine!'

‘Bet you'll be put in the attic and have to eat with the kitchen staff and won't get any time off to see anything,' Mary pouted.

‘I don't care,' Kate said, dismissing her sister's envious outburst. ‘The bairns are canny. I don't mind stopping with them if the Pattersons want to gan out.'

Rose smiled. ‘That's grand, hinny.'

‘They like walking, Mam,' Kate continued, ‘and Mrs Patterson says there's a steamer on the lake we can go on.'

‘I hate ferries,' Mary said, ‘they make me sick.'

‘You've never been on one,' Kate laughed.

‘Have so! Aunt Maggie took me on the ferry to North Shields once. And they make me sick.'

‘It's a good job you're not ganin' to the Lake District then,' Rose said drily.

‘I wouldn't want to,' Mary declared.

But she lost no time in telling her stepfather when he came in. ‘Kate's boasting about ganin' with her posh people on holiday. And we can't even afford a day trip to the seaside. Tell her to stop ganin' on about it, Father.'

Rose watched in irritation as John began to work himself up.

‘What holiday? No one thinks to ask my permission whether you can gan so far away. Who do these people think they are, taking a young lass away from her family like that?'

‘They're respectable people, that's who,' Rose answered.

‘She'll be staying in a hotel an' all.' Mary needled his anxiety. ‘Full of strangers - and what about the stable lads and the porters?'

‘Hotel?' John cried. ‘No, I'll not have you ganin' to any fancy hotel!'

‘John,' Rose tried to calm him, ‘it's not going to cost us anything.'

‘Oh, it'll cost us. She'll come back with ideas above herself and there's no knowing where that will end.'

‘I won't, Father,' Kate protested.

‘She already does think she's better than us,' Mary said maliciously, ‘just ‘cos she works in a big house in Shields.'

‘I don't!'

‘You're not going,' John barked.

‘Mam?' Kate appealed to her mother.

‘Don't you gan crying to your mother. She'll keep her big trap shut! I'm the one who says what can happen in this family, do you hear?' John thrust his puce face at his stepdaughter.

Damn her for looking so pretty! Defying him with those large blue Fawcett eyes. He would show her who was master. He would show them all! John scowled at Rose. She was to blame. They took their lead from her and she showed him nothing but contempt these days. He saw it in the dull resentment of her faded brown eyes, the downturn of disapproval in her bloodless lips. Was it possible that she had once smiled on him and kissed him with a willing, fulsome mouth? He tried to remember what it was about Rose that had attracted him all those years ago. He wanted to conjure up those dark good looks that had plagued him half his life, but could not.

She was forty-one or two, but looked much older. John saw only a lumpen woman in a shapeless apron whose grey face was creased with fatigue and disappointment. Well, it was not his fault! He had saved her from a worse fate; Rose would've been dead by now if it hadn't been for him. And what had he gained by it? A millstone around his neck. A wife who did not want him in bed and a houseful of daughters who drained him of every penny he ever made and tempted him to distraction with their plump figures and soft skin.

‘You can't stop me,' Kate cried, ‘I'm ganin' whatever you say! The Pattersons have asked me and I'm not going to let them down.'

Instantly, John slapped her hard across the cheek. ‘Don't you speak to me like that!' he thundered. ‘You'll do as I say, you little bitch!'

Rose moved to intervene but he raised his hand in threat and she faltered. She knew the cruel power of that fist and she hated him for it.

‘You'll do as I say an' all, woman,' he shouted. Rose glared at him but said nothing, too frightened of his violence.

John stormed out of the house and went off to find Pat or another drinking friend with whom he could fulminate about the lack of respect of young women and the godlessness of the age. He came back late that night, fired up with whisky and indignation, dragged Kate out of bed and beat her for daring to defy him - this time with his belt.

After he had fallen asleep, Rose slipped out of bed and went through to the other room to comfort Kate. They were all awake, shaken and subdued by the abruptness and savagery of the outburst. Sarah had her arm around her sobbing sister. Jack stared with anxious eyes over his blanket from the desk-bed. Even Mary was looking sheepish at her part in stirring up trouble. Rose held up a candle to see if John had marked Kate. Luckily his aim had been impaired by drink and the lashes from his belt had landed as much on the bed as the girl. She dabbed a weal on her bare shoulder with a damp rag. Kate winced and whimpered.

‘He's a bastard,' Sarah hissed.

‘Don't speak about your father like that,' Rose chided half-heartedly.

‘He's not me father,' she answered. ‘I remember me real one - Da would never have laid a hand on us like that.'

‘Your father doesn't know any better,' Rose tried to explain. ‘He was brought up hard among lads. He thinks he's doing it for the best.'

‘He stares at us an' all,' Sarah complained, ‘when we're dressin'.'

Rose felt uncomfortable. ‘He wouldn't—' she began, then stopped herself. She did not know what he would not do in one of his drunken rages. She could no longer ignore John's unhealthy fixation with her maturing daughters. Somehow she had to protect them from his increasing violence and latent lust before he did any real damage.

‘I want to go with the Pattersons, Mam,' Kate whispered, still defiant.

Rose felt the bile in her throat rise at the thought of what John had just done to her. ‘You will, hinny,' she promised. ‘I'll see that you do.'

Chapter 42

Rose waited a few days and then instructed Kate to come home with a letter from the Pattersons asking John for permission to take her away with them. It was written in flourishing handwriting on thick notepaper and sealed in an envelope with a wax seal. Rose watched John open it, preening with self-importance.

‘So, what's it say?' he asked Kate suspiciously.

Kate read out the formal request asking for her to accompany their children on the holiday. It was polite and deferential to him as the head of the family and as Rose had hoped, it worked. He gave his permission. But he spent the days before Kate went warning her of the dire consequences of speaking or looking at young men, so that right up until the moment Kate went, Rose feared he would suddenly change his mind.

That Easter, with Kate away, Rose steeled herself for a more onerous task. She had decided the only way to keep John's interest from straying to her daughters was to give in to his pestering at night. She had put up with his whispered demands and his filthy words when she rebuffed him. He could no longer threaten her with the priest, for Rose had long ceased to care if the Catholic Church thought her a bad wife. She had stopped going regularly to Mass when she no longer had decent clothes to wear. She had seen to it that Jack received instruction from the priests at school and that they had all had their first communion. Beyond that she would not be reproached by the Church and least of all John, who never darkened a church door, for all his sermonising.

So the next time her inebriated husband fumbled for her in bed, Rose did not push him off. She allowed him to paw her breasts and pull up her nightgown. She turned her face away from his sour, whisky-fumed breath and prayed it would all be over swiftly. Perhaps because John was so surprised by the easy capitulation, he was quick to satisfy himself. Within minutes he was asleep, half slumped across her, snoring heavily.

Rose lay, not daring to push him away, fighting down the revulsion she felt. She told herself it was worth it if it kept his attentions away from her daughters. No matter how bitter she felt at the hardships she'd endured these past years and the changes for the worse in John, her children were what kept her going. For them she would submit to the indignities to which John subjected her. For them she would go to Hell and back. And one day they would escape their stepfather and poverty and make her proud.

Kate came back from her holiday in the Lake District bubbling over with the experience. She regaled them with stories of the children and eccentric characters at the hotel and places she had seen. It had quite opened her eyes to a world she had not imagined existed.

‘You wouldn't believe the height of the mountains,' she gasped.

‘I've seen bigger in Afghanistan,' John said scornfully.

But not even her stepfather could dampen Kate's enthusiasm.

‘And the water - it was that clear and fresh, you could see right through it!'

Kate's delight at what she had seen reminded Rose of her rare trips beyond Jarrow to the countryside around Ravensworth. She could still remember being entranced as a child at the sight of long green grass and trees heavy and rustling with leaves. It had been a glimpse of Heaven. She saw the same wonderment in her daughter's face - and something else - a growing confidence in the seventeen-year-old. She had tasted freedom and Rose could tell she hungered for more.

A few weeks of relative peace followed with John and Jack caught up with following the progress of Lord Roberts's march north after taking Bloemfontein. Jack looked out for billboard headlines on his way back from school and reported them to his father. He had copied a map of South Africa on to brown paper from a globe in his classroom and traced the progress of the British troops whenever reports on the war filtered through.

It was a Saturday morning in late May when the extraordinary news reached Tyneside. Rose had thrown open the back door and levered up the sash window to let air into the hot kitchen. The smell of fresh baked scones and bread wafted out on the warm breeze. John was down the bottom of the yard feeding the chickens and Jack had last been seen vaulting over the black tarred fence with his toy rifle, made from scavenged pieces of wood. For weeks he had been re-enacting the heroic sacrifices of Spion Kop and the relief of Ladysmith.

Somewhere down on the river a hooter went off. Then a factory siren wailed. Rose and John looked up at the same time. She saw the alarm on his face and knew he was thinking the same thing. An accident had happened, maybe an exploding boiler or a fire. John stood up and went to the back gate. As he did so, a red flare soared up from the river and speckled the air above them. Several more hooters began to blare along the riverside.

‘What the bloody hell's ganin' on?' he cried. ‘Are we being invaded?'

Rose picked up her long skirt and apron and hurried down the path towards him. There was now a cacophony of noise rising up all around them. Ships' bells were being rung as if for action stations. Rose's pulse hammered in alarm.

Just then, Jack came hurtling up the back lane waving his dummy rifle above his head.

‘They've gone and done it!' he screamed in agitation. ‘They've broken through!'

‘What in the name of—' Rose stretched her arms out to calm him. ‘Who's broken what?'

‘We have!' Jack squeaked, hardly able to speak.

‘What's happened?' John barked. ‘Spit it out, lad.'

‘Mafeking,' he panted. ‘Mafeking's been relieved!' He whooped and punched the air with his rifle.

‘Is that what all this song and dance is about?' Rose asked in bewilderment.

‘Aye,' Jack grinned. ‘Happened Thursday or Friday. They're saying down at the station London's ganin' crackers at the news. Can we have a party, Father?'

John just grunted. ‘You scarper before I find you a job to do.' Then as an afterthought he fished in his pocket and pulled out a penny. ‘Gan and get yourself some'at to celebrate.'

Jack took the penny as if he had just been given a sovereign. ‘Ta, Father. Ta very much!' He ran off with the speed of a fire-cracker before John changed his mind.

John shook his head. ‘Well, bugger me! He's gone and done it again. Lord Roberts - he's a bloody wizard.'

Only later did the newspapers reveal that it was Colonel Baden-Powell who was the hero of Mafeking, bringing deliverance to the railway town after seven months of siege. But to John it was still the brilliance of Roberts, that talisman of the British army that was turning the conflict in the country's favour, conjuring victory out of humiliation. Rose could not decipher whether her husband loved or hated the field marshal, but that day he basked in the glory of it all as if he had had a hand in it.

The town was gripped in a fever of celebration and John was not going to miss out. Factories closed and brass bands marched with children parading behind them playing kazoos and waving flags. The pubs did a roaring trade and by the afternoon there were people openly singing and dancing in the streets.

Sarah came home excited. ‘They've given me the rest of the day off, Mam. Can I go into Newcastle with Clara? Her Auntie Bella lives there now - we could stop with her.'

‘I'll not have you stoppin' with strangers,' John said at once. He had returned from several hours' drinking and was dozing in his chair. But he was not too drunk to give his opinion.

‘They're not strangers,' Rose defended. ‘The lasses have been friends since school. And Bella used to help me out with the bairns when we lived at Raglan Street.' As soon as the words were out she knew it was the wrong thing to say. Bella and Raglan Street were part of her past that was anathema to John.

‘I don't know them,' he snapped. ‘And Newcastle won't be safe on a day like this. It'll be heavin' with strangers and bad ‘uns.'

‘We'll just be looking round the shops,' Sarah said, ‘and having our tea with Auntie Bella.' She looked pleadingly at them both. ‘Please. I hardly ever get time off and it's a special day - one for celebrating.'

Rose forced herself to keep quiet, knowing that if she gave her permission, John would perversely refuse it. It was best to say nothing and let him make the decision.

He stared at Sarah suspiciously. ‘You sure you're not meetin' some lad?'

‘Course I'm not,' Sarah exclaimed. ‘It's just me and Clara.'

‘Cos you're too young to start courtin' and when you do it'll be on my say-so.'

‘Aye, Father, I promise.' She stared at him expectantly. ‘So can I go?'

John pulled a face. ‘Aye, go on. Just this once, mind.'

Sarah's face broke into a smile of relief. She gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. ‘Ta, Father.'

But before she could fix on her boater and dash out the door, he added, ‘You're to come home the night, mind you. There's no stopping in Newcastle on a Saturday night.'

Sarah glanced at Rose in dismay, but Rose cut off any protest, fearing that John might forbid her to go at all if she argued back.

‘You'll do as your father says,' Rose warned. ‘Be back here by nightfall.'