A Mother's Sacrifice

Table of Contents

 

 

Also by Catherine King

 

 
 
 

 
A Mother’s Sacrifice

 

 
CATHERINE KING

 
 
Hachette Digital

 
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

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.’