Sons and Daughters
| Sons and Daughters | |
| Margaret Dickinson | |
| Pan Macmillan (2010) | |
| Tags: | Family Life, Fiction |
SYNOPSIS
Charlotte is an only child, reared by a brutal father who cannot forgive her for not being the son he desires. Loved by most that she meets, Charlotte has a gift for friendship, and it is her work as a Sunday School teacher that gives her hope ' and an escape from home. When Charlotte meets Miles Thornton, she is instantly drawn to him. He is new to the area and a widower, with three lovely young sons to look after but the one thing he has longed for is a daughter. As they grow to understand one another, it seems that Miles and Charlotte have more in common than meets the eye
Sweeping from the early 1920s through to the end of World War II, SONS AND DAUGHTERS is a compelling, traditional saga set against the Lincolnshire landscape that Margaret Dickinson portrays so well.
Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Margaret Dickinson moved to the coast at the age of seven and so began her love for the sea and the Lincolnshire landscape.
Her ambition to be a writer began early and she had her first novel published at the age of twenty-five. This was followed by twenty-three further titles including
Plough the Furrow
,
Sow the Seed
and
Reap the Harvest
, which make up her Lincolnshire Fleethaven trilogy. Many of her novels are set in the heart of her home county, but in
Tangled Threads
and
Twisted Strands
the stories included not only Lincolnshire but also the framework knitting and lace industries of Nottingham. The Workhouse Museum at Southwell in Nottinghamshire inspired
Without Sin
, and the beautiful countryside of Derbyshire and the fascinating town of Macclesfield in Cheshire formed the backdrop for the story of
Pauper’s Gold.
In
Suffragette Girl
, the story took the central character to London and even to France and Belgium in the First World War, but
Sons and Daughters
is, once again, firmly based in Lincolnshire on the fertile marshland near the east coast.
A
LSO BY
M
ARGARET
D
ICKINSON
Plough the Furrow
Sow the Seed
Reap the Harvest
The Miller’s Daughter
Chaff upon the Wind
The Fisher Lass
The Tulip Girl
The River Folk
Tangled Threads
Twisted Strands
Red Sky in the Morning
Without Sin
Pauper’s Gold
Wish Me Luck
Sing as We Go
Suffragette Girl
Sons and Daughters
PAN BOOKS
First published 2010 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-52150-5 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-52149-9 EPUB
Copyright © Margaret Dickinson, 2010
The right of Margaret Dickinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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C
ONTENTS
For Mandi
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My grateful thanks to Eric and Mervyn Griggs for a lovely day out around Wainfleet All Saints and district. Thank you for sharing all your memories with me.
Many thanks to David Henson, Chairman at the Magdalen College Museum, Wainfleet All Saints, for a warm welcome at the museum and to David Turner for his kind interest and knowledge of the area in times past.
And as always my love and thanks to my family and friends for their continuing support and encouragement, especially to those who read the typescript: Fred Hill, David Dickinson and Pauline Griggs.
LINCOLNSHIRE, 1905
‘Is that the – the coffin?’
‘Yes, Charlotte dear.’
‘And is – is Mama lying inside it?’
Mary, standing beside the child and holding her hand tightly, gasped and covered her mouth with her handkerchief, her eyes brimming with tears. She could not answer.
From an upstairs window of the farmhouse, Charlotte watched the cortège move away from the front door with sadness in her dark, violet eyes. But she did not weep. The coffin, smothered with wreaths of white lilies, lay in a glass hearse drawn by four black horses. Behind it walked her father, Osbert Crawford, and behind him were the men who worked for him. Charlotte – even at five – knew them all. First there was Edward Morgan. He was their household manservant. His wife, Mary, was their housekeeper and cook with only a young girl, Sarah, who came in daily to help her. Between the three of them they took care of everything and everyone in the household. Papa, Mama and Charlotte.
Only now there would just be Charlotte and her father.
Harry Warren, Osbert Crawford’s farm foreman, walked beside Edward. Though still only in his mid-fifties, he suffered from arthritis and needed a stick. Usually he rode his chestnut horse around the fields and lanes overseeing the farm workers. But today he was obliged to walk with the rest of the mourners and every step looked painful. Just behind him and ready to help if he was needed was Harry’s son, Joe. He’d worked on the land since leaving school and even before that he’d worked during the holidays, at weekends and most evenings, always ready to do his father’s bidding, always eager to learn the ways of Buckthorn Farm and to please its master, Osbert Crawford. No doubt, Joe would take over his father’s job when the older man retired. The Warren family lived in one of the two semi-detached cottages two hundred yards down the lane from the farm. Charlotte wondered where they all slept, for now there were not only Mr and Mrs Warren and their son Joe, but also Joe’s wife, Peggy, their two sons and a little baby girl, Lily, who’d been born two weeks ago.
Charlotte bit her lip. Was it really only such a short time ago that she’d walked down the lane to the cottage holding her mama’s hand and taking a large basket of food for the family and gifts for the new baby?
So how, the child puzzled, could her mama have got so poorly so quickly that she’d died?
Mary had tried to explain it gently. ‘Your mama’s gone away, sweetheart.’
Mama never went away. Charlotte had never known a night when her mother had not been there to tuck her into bed. She’d been there a few days before, had bent to kiss Charlotte gently and whisper ‘My darling daughter’ before tiptoeing from the bedroom. The last sound Charlotte remembered had been the rustle of her mama’s silk gown and the soft closing of the door. Even after she’d gone, Alice’s perfume still lingered, enveloping the child in her mama’s reassuring presence. But in the cold light of morning, Charlotte’s world had fallen apart
‘When is she coming back?’ Charlotte had asked.
Mary had dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘She won’t be coming back, lovey.’
‘Not – ever?’
The woman had shaken her head and glanced up at her husband, Edward, standing solemnly beside her. ‘No,’ she’d whispered. ‘Not ever.’
The child had asked no more. Despite Mary trying to break the news gently, Charlotte knew her mother was dead. Living on a farm, she’d seen dead animals. She’d sat on a stool at Mary’s kitchen table often enough, watching the cook pluck a chicken, skin a rabbit or a hare. She’d seen the pheasants hanging in the barn – row upon row of them – after one of her father’s shooting parties. She knew full well what ‘dead’ meant. And now – though she couldn’t see her – she knew her mother was lying silent and still in that coffin disappearing down the lane on its way to the churchyard.
