Forever Yours
| Forever Yours | |
| Rita Bradshaw | |
| Headline Publishing Group Ltd (2010) | |
| Tags: | Historical Saga |
About The Book
A heartbreaking saga of true love against all odds. A tragic house fire kills both her parents, but Constance Shelton escapes, rescued by her eight-year-old neighbour, Matt Heath. She is brought up by her grandparents, but the two children become inseparable and, as she enters her teens, these strong feelings turn into love. But Matt sees her only as a sister and Constance can do nothing when he proposes to another girl. When Constance discovers that the fire that killed her parents wasn't an accident, but in fact the actions of a jealous man, she finds herself in terrible danger and is forced to leave the village and everyone she knows. Although Constance makes a good life for herself elsewhere, her heart remains with the only man she has ever loved. But what will it take for Matt to realise his true feelings for her?
Forever Yours
RITA BRADSHAW
headline
Copyright © 2010 Rita Bradshaw
The right of Rita Bradshaw to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may
only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means,
with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of
reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of
licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN : 978 0 7553 7111 2
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
Table of Contents
For our beautiful granddaughter, Emily Rita Anderson, born 17 June 2009 – perfect in every way and infinitely precious. Baby sister for Georgia and cousin for Sam and Connor. So much prayer went up for you, little one, when we thought we were going to lose you – you really are our beloved miracle baby and cherished more than you will ever know.
All praise and thanks to the Lord for His grace and mercy, and thanks to our darling Faye and Roy too, for doing their bit in producing the most adorable and exquisite pair of little girls the world has ever seen. Those genes are pure dynamite!
Love that is constant knows no boundaries,
It is the dew in the morning and the night’s breeze.
Its melody can be heard in a child’s laughter,
Its warmth in a mother’s smile.
It gives and gives without measure
And when it is spent, it gives again.
It sees the worst and the best in the beloved
And it is not shaken.
It believes all, endures all, trusts all.
It is constant; it is love.
It is the dew in the morning and the night’s breeze.
Its melody can be heard in a child’s laughter,
Its warmth in a mother’s smile.
It gives and gives without measure
And when it is spent, it gives again.
It sees the worst and the best in the beloved
And it is not shaken.
It believes all, endures all, trusts all.
It is constant; it is love.
Prologue
Sacriston, Durham, 1880
‘Where are you off to, this time of night?’
‘Out.’
‘Aye, I can see that – I’m not stupid. I didn’t think you were going to park your backside in front of the fire wearing your coat and muffler, now did I?’
Vincent McKenzie cast a cold glance at his mother but didn’t reply. He reached for his cap, pulling it over his thick brown hair. He then waited for her voice to come at him again, and as he opened the front door her nasal tones followed him as he had known they would.
‘Well? I’m waiting for an answer, m’lad. Are you off sniffing after a lass? Is that it? ’Cos I won’t have some little baggage back here, so think on. This is my house and I say who comes in and out.’
Knowing his silence would rile her more than any retort, he stepped outside, shutting the cottage door behind him and walking down the garden path to the gate. He’d just opened this when his mother wrenched open the front door and let loose a tirade worthy of any dockside fishwife.
The night was as black as pitch and bitterly cold but to the tall, well-built man striding away from the cottage it wasn’t overly dark. It was the same with any miner. They’d say to anyone who’d listen that you didn’t know what darkness was until you’d been down the pit. That blackness was consuming, a living entity so thick and heavy you felt you could touch it.
But Vincent wasn’t thinking of the pit, nor of his mother. His thoughts were concentrated on the news he’d heard that morning. Hannah had had a baby. His Hannah. His beautiful, pure Hannah had had Stephen Shelton’s bairn. She’d lain with Shelton, let him kiss and fondle her and impregnate her with his seed.
He made a sound deep in his throat that could have come from an animal in pain, the muscles in his face working. Why had she done it? Why had she married Shelton?
It was beginning to rain, icy droplets that carried sleet in the midst of them, but Vincent didn’t feel anything besides the white-hot rage which had burned him up all day as he’d laboured down the pit. It had been bad enough this time last year when she’d married Shelton. Having to stand by and watch her on her wedding day, dressed in white and walking down the aisle to that nowt. That had been betrayal enough. But to bring forth living proof of what they got up to . . . His thin lips curled back from his teeth as though he was smelling something foul.
Hannah had been the one perfect, spotless thing in his life, a being apart. From a bairn he’d adored her, worshipped the ground she walked on, and she’d returned his love. He knew she had, although they’d never spoken of it. He’d made up his mind he was going to ask her to walk out when she turned sixteen, but Shelton had got in first. However, he’d waited for her, knowing she’d come to her senses. What could Shelton offer her, after all? A two-up, two-down terrace in the village, whereas his mam’s cottage—
No, his mind corrected him in the next moment.
Not
his mam’s cottage. He’d been the man of the house since his da was killed down the mine the very week he himself had gone down as a lad of thirteen. The cottage was his – he paid the bills and put food on the table. And situated as it was just outside the village and with gardens front and back, it was a cut above the colliery housing typical of that provided by the mine-owners all along the Durham coalfield. His grandfather had built the cottage, brick by brick, and it was comfortable and roomy; three bedrooms upstairs and a separate scullery and kitchen and sitting room downstairs, with a wash-house and privy across the paved yard outside. Aye, most lasses’d give their eye-teeth to live there, even with his mam.
Not
his mam’s cottage. He’d been the man of the house since his da was killed down the mine the very week he himself had gone down as a lad of thirteen. The cottage was his – he paid the bills and put food on the table. And situated as it was just outside the village and with gardens front and back, it was a cut above the colliery housing typical of that provided by the mine-owners all along the Durham coalfield. His grandfather had built the cottage, brick by brick, and it was comfortable and roomy; three bedrooms upstairs and a separate scullery and kitchen and sitting room downstairs, with a wash-house and privy across the paved yard outside. Aye, most lasses’d give their eye-teeth to live there, even with his mam.
As always when he thought of his mother Vincent channelled his thoughts in a different direction. It was an art he’d perfected long ago as a young boy of seven years old, the first time she had come into his bedroom at night and told him that the things she’d done to him and made him do to her were what every mother and son did.
The cottage was on the edge of Fulforth Wood, and as Vincent came out of the narrow lane into the wider road which led to the colliery village a quarter of a mile away, his eyes scanned the darkness. It was gone eleven and he didn’t expect to run into anyone, but you never could tell. One thing was for sure, he couldn’t afford to be seen for what he’d got in mind. If he met someone he’d have to abandon his plan and try again another night, but he was loath to do that. He didn’t think he could endure another hour of knowing they were playing Happy Families while he was in hell. And it was hell, a hell more real than anything Father Duffy scared everyone with in his fire and brimstone sermons.
When he came to the crossroads where Witton, Durham and Front Streets met Plawsworth Road, he stood looking down Front Street. The lines of housing called Cross Streets in the area to the north was in total darkness, but the inn to the left of the grid of streets showed a light in one of the bedrooms. Moving into deeper shadows, he stood and waited.
The village was growing fast. There was talk of the colliery owners partly funding a new Catholic school as they had with the Roman Catholic church presently being built at the far end of the village. He and Hannah and the other colliery children had had their lessons in two cottages on Front Street, used as a school on weekdays and a mission chapel on Sundays, but it looked as though that would soon be a thing of the past.
He hadn’t enjoyed his schooldays. His brown eyes narrowed. Living as he did some distance from the village, he’d been the outsider – and the other lads had never let him forget it. It hadn’t helped that his father was known as the village drunk; when his da wasn’t down the pit he could normally be found propping up the bar in the Colliery Inn, and his mother had had to meet his da at the pit gates come pay day and wrestle enough money off him to buy food for the week. Many a night his father had slept in the sawdust and dirt on the inn’s floor; sometimes three or four days had gone by before they saw him. But his da had never missed a shift. He could say that about him.
Vincent flexed his big shoulders, his eyes unseeing as he looked back down the years. When his mother’s night-time visits had become a regular occurrence he’d thought about running away, because even as a little lad he’d known that she was lying and other women didn’t do that to their bairns. But there had been Hannah. Beautiful, golden-haired Hannah, his angel, his undefiled, perfect angel. For such a slender wisp of a thing she’d been like a small virago when she’d defended him from the other bairns’ bullying, even though he’d been inches taller than her – an awkward, lanky lump of a boy who’d known he was dirty, filthy, inside. But she had liked him. She had been his friend.
Or so he’d thought. But it had all been lies. The sound came again from his throat. She was no better than the rest – worse, in fact, because she had made him believe she cared about him and let him dare to dream about a future where he would be like everyone else. That’s all he’d ever wanted, to be like everyone else. But it couldn’t happen now and he was done with pretending.
She had to pay.
He breathed deeply, struggling for control. He had to be thinking calmly when he did this. There could be no mistakes.
Clear your mind. Focus, man.
He breathed deeply, struggling for control. He had to be thinking calmly when he did this. There could be no mistakes.
Clear your mind. Focus, man.
His fingers felt for the can of oil in his deep coat pocket and he straightened as the light in the inn was extinguished. He’d wait another minute or two before making his way to the Cross Streets, just to be sure.
‘Leave her, Stephen. You’ll wake her up and she’ll want feeding again.’
Hannah’s voice wasn’t cross, on the contrary it conveyed tenderness as she looked at her husband bent over the cradle at the foot of the bed. She knew that some miners, like Stephen’s brother, Howard, would have been miffed if their first bairn wasn’t a boy, but not her Stephen. All along he’d insisted he wanted a miniature version of herself and it was clear, once Constance was born, that he’d meant it. He was besotted by their daughter. Her mam had said she’d never seen a man so unashamedly thrilled with his child and it was true.
‘She looks like you.’ Stephen Shelton’s voice reflected the wonder he felt as he stared down at his tiny daughter. ‘Our Howard’s little lad looked like a wrinkled prune for weeks, but she’s as bonny as a summer’s day.’
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