Christmas Past Read online

  Christmas Past

  Glenice Crossland lives in Sheffield. She has loved writing from an early age, only taking it seriously after early retirement from her job in a leisure centre. She has read one of her poems on BBC2, had several read on Radio Sheffield and more published in various anthologies. She is well known locally for her watercolours of churches and local traditions. Married with one son and grandchildren she still lives a few hundred yards from the house in which she was born. She is also the author of The Stanford Lasses.

  Also by Glenice Crossland

  The Stanford Lasses

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781409065968

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  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

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  For my brother Bernard,

  Dorothy and Simon.

  With love.

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks once again to Georgina Hawtrey-Woore and all the Random House team for their continuing support. Also to Rob Hindle and the members of the WEA Creative Writing class at Stocksbridge, for their encouragement and friendship.

  Special thanks to Maggie Caine for patiently struggling through my first draft. And to Maureen Hall for taking the trouble to read my finished script.

  Chapter One

  ‘Michael, you must let her go. It will be the making of the girl.’

  Mick O’Connor made no response and the priest tapped his fingers on the oilcloth-covered table in frustration. He tried again. ‘It’s just what Mary needs. The finest fresh air, nourishing food and most of all the treatment for her TB glands. Rowland Roberts is a fine doctor,’ he stressed.

  ‘She should be getting the treatment she needs here, from our own doctor, in her own home,’ Mick O’Connor said.

  Mariah O’Connor gave her husband a look which spoke volumes. ‘Yes, we know she should be having treatment here, Mick, and we all know why she isn’t getting it: because nothing’s been paid off the doctor’s bill since our Michael was born.’ She broddled the poker through the shining, blackleaded bars and riddled the ashes vigorously into the pan below. ‘A shilling a week is all it would take.’

  ‘Just as I was saying,’ the priest continued, ‘Rowland Roberts will give Mary a course of injections which will put her right in no time. Besides, she’ll have a room of her own.’

  Young Mary O’Connor had been supposedly engrossed in a library book but she gave Father Flynn her full attention at the mention of her own room.

  ‘After all, the boys ought not to be in with the girls for much longer.’

  Mick O’Connor shuffled nervously in the straight-backed chair. Father Flynn was right as usual. Although his sons Bill, Jimmy and Michael were younger than their three sisters it wouldn’t be long before the sleeping arrangements would have to be looked at. Mariah had told him often enough, not that she nagged though the Lord knew she had good reason to do so. Oh no, she wasn’t the type of woman to nag. Too good for the likes of him was Mariah. He would have to mend his ways, keep off the beer and move them out to somewhere better.

  If he had but known it the same thought was going through the mind of every other person in the room. His wife Mariah was mentally exhausted by trying to make ends meet and had been driven to waiting at the pit gates on a Friday in order to get her hands on the housekeeping money before the nearest pub landlord did so. Even so, if Mick had run short of beer money by Monday he would help himself to anything left in her purse, in order to finance another day’s drinking, A collier’s Monday they called it, and it was rare for some of the miners to turn in for work on the first day of the week. God only knew how Mick had kept his job. Still, he was said to be the hardest grafter in the pit on the days he did turn in. It made Mariah seethe inside to think of the money wasted on beer when they could have moved out of the row and into somewhere large enough to house them all comfortably.

  Young Mary at the tender age of sixteen and a few years older than Norah and Kathleen was having visions of a room of her own. To begin with she hadn’t really wanted to go and live with the doctor friend of Father Flynn and his wife in a village somewhere in Yorkshire. She had begun to panic at the thought of leaving home and travelling halfway across the country. Admittedly the thought of leaving the employment of the awful Mrs Brown and her two pampered daughters had been tempting, but not tempting enough to persuade her. The promise of a room of her own was another matter. Mary had begun to dread the time of the month when her periods began. Smuggling the blanket squares in and out of the bedroom was difficult enough, but if the bleeding started unexpectedly during the night, hiding the bloodstained sheets and nightie was virtually impossible. In fact only last week young Michael had asked if she had cut herself and sent his older brothers off into a fit of giggles.

  Another thing Mary hated was the thin wall against which she slept. When her da had been drinking he never cared how much noise he made, or how the bedhead knocked against the wall when he did things to her ma. Mary would draw the blanket over her ears and pray that her ma wouldn’t become pregnant again and overcrowd the house even more. Then she would have to go to confession and tell Father Flynn about her sinful thoughts. She blushed when she remembered some of the things she had revealed to the good father about her family.

  Oh, she did wish her da would keep off the beer. She loved him dearly from Tuesday to Friday when he had no money left and came straight home from the pit. Black as hell’s kettle was how her ma would describe him. There he would sit in the old tin bath in front of the fire whilst her ma scrubbed him with the hard brush, but even the scrubbing brush and carbolic never managed to remove the blue slivers of coal embedded in his flesh.

  Father Flynn’s thoughts were taking a similar turn. ‘They’re a good couple, Michael.’ He was still bent on persuasion. ‘They were never blessed with children of their own; Mary will be treated like their own daughter.’

  ‘Aye, don’t you see, man, that’s the trouble? She isn’t theirs. She’s mine, my Mary, and I love her.’

  Mary was shocked to see that her da looked close to tears.

  ‘It’s all right, Da, I won’t go,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to leave Newcastle anyway.’ But she did. The idea of going on a train and out of Newcastle for the first time in her life had begun to seem like an adventure.

  Father Flynn ignored her. ‘Yes, Michael, you love Mary, you love all your offspring. The trouble is you love the drink more.’

  The living kitchen suddenly became deathly silent. Michae
l O’Connor sat with his head in his hands, for once lost for words.

  ‘I’ll make a pot of tea,’ Mariah muttered, and filled the kettle at the low stone sink.

  ‘I’ll help you, Ma,’ Mary said, lifting the cups from the hooks beneath the shelf in the corner.

  Father Flynn realised he had overstepped the mark. He wasn’t an interfering man, nor did he usually moralise. Besides, he felt immense pity for the man across the table, who hadn’t been a drinking man at all until a few years ago. It was the explosion at the pit that had begun his downfall. The priest couldn’t condemn him, not after what had happened: it had been enough to drive any man to drink. Michael O’Connor had dug, sometimes with his bare hands, to free the trapped men. And then to find his twin brother almost sliced down the middle would have landed many a man in the asylum; in Michael’s case it had sent him to the bottle.

  The four of them sat, Mary and her mother clutching their hot teacups between their hands, the men facing each other with the steaming brew in front of them, all lost for words. It was Mariah who finally broke the silence.

  ‘You’re sure they would look after her, Father? If she went, I mean.’

  ‘Ma, I’m sixteen,’ Mary pointed out. ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘Do you think I’d let her go otherwise, Mariah? A lassie I’ve watched blossom since the day she was born?’

  ‘And she’d get the course of injections the doctor says she needs?’

  ‘She would.’

  ‘And she wouldn’t be worked to death like she is at the Browns’?’

  ‘A few light duties is all that would be required of her. Why, if I know Gladys Roberts, Mary will be the one who’s waited on hand and foot.’

  Father Flynn knew all about the longing Gladys had harboured for many years, the yearning for a child of her own. He considered it a tragedy, a couple with so much love to give and no child to lavish it upon. When he had written to Rowland asking for advice on how to treat TB glands, he hadn’t really been surprised when his friend replied with an invitation for Mary to go and stay with them, and he hadn’t been fooled for a second by the explanation that they were in need of a maid.

  Mick O’Connor spoke at last. ‘She shouldn’t have been at the Browns’. A bloody slave-driver, that woman – I never could abide her. The hours she worked, no wonder she’s suffering. I should never have let her go.’

  ‘It’s all right, Da – she’s not all that bad. I get paid regularly, and look at the clothes she gives me.’

  ‘Aye, so she can brag about what a charitable woman she is.’

  ‘More like it’s an excuse to buy more finery for her two horsey-looking daughters. Dress them in as many fancy ribbons as she likes and they’ll still look as though they ought to be pulling a plough.’

  Mary giggled, pleased that Father Flynn was back to his normal jovial self.

  ‘Ten hours a day my lass worked for that woman, and I let her carry on. If she hadn’t collapsed in church she’d still have been doing it. What sort of father does that make me?’

  ‘Now then, Michael, you weren’t to know the girl was ill. It was nobody’s fault.’

  ‘Would she . ..’ Mick looked embarrassed at his sudden thought, ‘would she be able to come home? if she didn’t like it, I mean.’

  ‘She’ll have a return ticket if and when she needs one. The Robertses promised me that.’

  ‘What do you say, lass? Do you want to go or not?’

  Mary felt a surge of excitement wash over her but tried not to appear too eager. ‘Only if you think I should, Da,’ she said. ‘And only if I can come home if I don’t like it.’

  ‘You’ll like it, Mary, I promise.’ Father Flynn was almost as excited as if he was going with her. ‘Wait till you see the place. I won’t tell you any more. Let it be as much of a surprise as it was for me the first time I visited my old friend. The best friend I’ve ever had, even if he is a blooming Protestant.’

  The priest thought back to when he and Rowland Roberts had first met on their arrival at university. He chuckled to himself as he remembered some of the antics they’d got up to in those carefree days.

  Mary grinned. She had known Father Flynn would persuade them. He could get blood out of a stone, that man; her da had always said so.

  Torn between excitement and anxiety, Mary had worried all the way from Newcastle about what she would do if no one should be at the station to meet her. However, Father Flynn had arranged everything to perfection, and she had spotted the chauffeur even before the train had drawn to a halt at Sheffield.

  She was soon settled nervously in the back seat of the gleaming black Morris and for the rest of the journey sat feeling somewhat in awe of the dark-haired driver, who didn’t look much older than herself. Fortunately, he whistled cheerfully most of the way so conversation was unnecessary. Instead she found herself relaxing and marvelling at the comfort of the soft leather seats, in the first car she had travelled in throughout her uneventful life.

  It was only as they approached the drive that Mary became aware of her surroundings. Green lawns, still sparkling from an earlier shower, spread out before her, lined by rhododendron bushes and disappearing to the rear of a beautiful old house.

  ‘Holy mackerel,’ she exclaimed, using one of her mother’s habitual expressions, ‘I must have arrived in heaven.’

  She scrambled out of the car, completely unaware that the young driver was being given an equally interesting view of brown lisle stocking tops. Remembering his manners he turned away, but not before he had managed a good eyeful of shapely white thigh.

  Mary gathered her few pieces of luggage together, mesmerised by the glory of the scene. The large, stone-gabled house; the miles of purple-heathered moorland stretching to left and right and down to the long valley below them, then up the hill beyond; the looming grey crags in the distance; and everywhere green meadows, like a patchwork quilt, dotted here and there with stone farmhouses. To the left two tiny hamlets nestled, one deep in the valley, the other high on the opposite hill.

  Mary’s wide brown eyes travelled downwards to the valley and the large, pear-shaped reservoir that had been created there. She could see smoke rising to the right, a looming grey cloud of it.

  ‘Is something on fire over there?’ she enquired of the rather handsome young man beside her.

  ‘No, that’s Sheffield yer can see. Spoils the view a bit, doesn’t it? Still, it’s handy for the shopping and not too far for the doctor to travel to the hospital. He lends me the car sometimes, to take my young brothers to the park. A right good sort is Dr Roberts. Yer mustn’t take advantage of ’im, mind. He’s not daft and he’ll soon ‘ave yer weighed up.’

  ‘Oh, I would never do that,’ Mary assured him. ‘But why would anyone want to visit a park when they’ve all this countryside here?’

  ‘Yer’ll be surprised. When you’ve been here a week or two yer’ll be longing to get back to civilisation, especially in’t winter when snow blocks road to Longfield. Yer’ll wish yer’d never set eyes on’t place. If yer look over t’other way that’s Lower Longfield in the bottom and up the hill is Upper Longfield. Doesn’t the church stand well? I suppose yer’ll be going there on Sunday. Even if yer not religious it meks a change.’

  ‘Is it Catholic?’ Mary asked doubtfully.

  ‘No. We don’t have a Catholic church in Longfield. I expect yer’d ’ave to go into Sheffield for the nearest, although there is one over in Millington where some of the lads go on St Patrick’s night, but that’s only to the dance – yer’d be as bad burned as scalded trying to get over there every Sunday. By the way, I’m Tom Downing. I hope yer like it here and stay a bit longer than the others. Like I said, it isn’t much of a place for young folk. I’m used to the quiet, being born down in the village, but for someone from town it takes some getting used to. Can’t seem to keep a maid at all. Can’t think why, with a good boss like doctor. Where are yer from, anyway? Obviously not Yorkshire with an accent like that.’

&
nbsp; ‘Newcastle.’ Mary smiled and clasped Tom’s outstretched hand, then grabbed her bags and hurried up the steps towards the large panelled door. It opened even before she reached it, revealing a rather buxom, grey-haired lady who looked immaculate in a black skirt and crisp white blouse, the sight of which made Mary feel even more bedraggled. She should have brushed her hair in the car, and someone should have warned her not to stand near the edge of the platform. She had been speckled with soot even before leaving Newcastle.

  She patted her beautiful chestnut hair back into the tortoiseshell comb behind her head. Then her hand was clasped in a warm welcoming one and she was drawn into the hall, from which a staircase curved upwards. Mary had seen a picture of one like it once, in a book at Father Flynn’s, but imagined they only existed in the homes of film stars and royalty.

  Gladys Roberts not only fussed like a mother hen, she looked quite like one too. Her head jutted forward when she walked and her nose had a little bump on it making it rather beak-like in the middle of her ruddy face. Despite her fifty years her eyes had not yet lost their healthy shine, and her whole appearance seemed to ooze energy. She had been up since six this morning cooking and baking. The windows had been polished to a high shine with crumpled newspaper and the large range in the kitchen blackleaded until it gleamed. Despite the warm August day she had built up a fire to give the kitchen a cosy glow, and all for the new maid. Dr Roberts had pointed out to his wife that Mary was not to be treated like a hotel guest but as the girl appointed to do all the tiresome jobs Gladys was now doing herself, thus leaving her time for the leisurely pursuits befitting a doctor’s wife. But Gladys Roberts had no more intention of taking to her sofa with a piece of fancy, useless embroidery than the doctor had of neglecting his patients.

  Truth to tell it wasn’t a maid Gladys needed but someone on whom to lavish the deep maternal love which had grown in her heart from the day she was first married. Not once in all the years had she voiced her disappointment at her childless state but inside she had grieved continuously, as much for her husband’s sake as for her own. She had never suspected it to be his fault, nor he hers. They had come together from the first with an earthy passion, never forced but exchanged spontaneously, whenever and wherever the urge came over them. Yet for all the love they had to give she had remained barren.