A Safe Harbour Read online

  A Safe Harbour

  Benita Brown

  Hachette UK (2010)

  Tags: Technology & Engineering, Sagas, Fisheries & Aquaculture, Fiction

  * * *

  Synopsis

  Cullercoats Bay, 1895.

  Titian-haired Kate Lawson is eighteen when the sea claims her beloved and leaves her with a broken heart - and a shameful secret. Banished from home by her violent father, Kate relies on the kindness of her aunt, until she too is cruelly taken from her. When Kate meets Richard Adamson, the owner of a fleet of steam trawlers, she knows she should despise the man who's stealing the livelihood of hardworking fisherfolk - yet she finds herself falling in love with him. Has Kate found her safe harbour at last, or will the sins of the past destroy her chance for happiness?

  A Safe Harbour

  BENITA BROWN

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2005 Benita Brown

  The right of Benita Brown 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.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 8337 5

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Benita Brown was born and brought up in Newcastle by her English mother, who was the youngest of thirteen children, and her Indian father, who came to Newcastle to study medicine and fell in love with the place and the people. Even at drama school in London, Benita felt the pull of the Northeast, as she married a man from Newcastle who worked at the BBC. Not long after, the couple returned to their home town and, after working as a teacher and broadcaster and bringing up four children, Benita became a full-time writer.

  To Norman, as ever.

  And also to my mother, who read to me and told me stories. I know she would have been pleased that I grew up to be a writer.

  Our first married home was a two-room, three-hundred-year-old cottage on a cliff top overlooking the sea at Cullercoats. My husband was born in a cottage not far away, as were his father and generations of Browns before him. Even when we set up home the village was not what it used to be. And, now, with many of the old dwellings gone and the streets redeveloped, it would be difficult for a stranger to visualize the thriving fishing community the village once housed.

  ‘Belle Vue Cottage’ is still there, although that is not its name. I have the fondest memories of it. But I hope you will forgive me for taking small liberties with the lie of the land. After all, this is a work of fiction.

  Chapter One

  Cullercoats, August 1895

  Eighteen-year-old Kate Lawson knelt by the bed and watched as her great-grandmother’s eyes moved restlessly beneath closed lids. What did Sarah dream about? Was she a child again running barefoot on the white sand, with the clouds racing overhead and the gulls’ harsh cries echoing round the bay? Or did she dream she was a young wife still, helping Rob bait the lines when their bairns were sleeping; here in this very cottage while night pressed down on the village? Or did her darkest grief come back to haunt her – was she reliving the torment when first her husband and then four of her sons were claimed by the sea, their drowned bodies brought back by the tides and tossed carelessly on the shore?

  No one knew quite how old Sarah was, but they reckoned she must be over a hundred. Her skin was weathered and wrinkled and the few wisps of hair that strayed out from her bonnet had faded to sandy grey. The lustrous auburn it had once been she had bequeathed to her children and it would live on through the generations.

  Kate remembered that when she and her brothers had been small children Sarah had watched over them while their mother went to the beach to help their da haul in the coble, the fishing boat the family depended on for their hard living. Sarah would tell them stories, sing the old songs, play counting games. She had been the only one who could make Kate sit still long enough to have the tangles combed from her long, abundant hair. Her wisdom and patience had been a source of comfort in difficult times.

  Sarah was fully dressed. One of Kate’s duties was to ease the old woman’s brittle bones out of bed each morning, wash her as if she were an infant, and then help her into her skirt, jacket, shawl and bonnet. And even put on her boots, which Kate’s elder brother, William, would have cleaned the night before along with the others; although Sarah had not set foot outside for many a year. She spent her days lying on top of the eiderdown on the bed in the corner of the main room of the cottage, propped up among pillows, her rheumy eyes sometimes open and staring into the mid-distance, and sometimes closed as she surrendered to the dreams that maybe seemed more real to her than her present purposeless existence.

  Her only pleasure now was her clay pipe, which she clamped between her toothless gums and sucked on ceaselessly. But the sucking noises had stopped and Sarah’s snores had alerted Kate to the fact that the old woman was sleeping again. She leaned over and removed the pipe gently from the corner of her great-grandmother’s mouth. The bowl was cold so, rising quietly, Kate took the pipe over to the fireplace and tapped it on the grate to empty the tobacco ash before placing it in the rack.

  She stepped back from the hearth and turned to gaze around the room. It was still too early to light the lamps but the glow from the fire and the last of the evening sunlight slanting through the open doorway merged to bathe the interior of the cottage in a mellow light. Everything in this room was familiar to her and yet Kate willed herself to see with the eyes of a stranger, wanting to record and remember, for her father had told her that once she left the cottage to marry Jos Linton she would never be welcome here again.

  Behind her the coals shifted and settled in the grate and the lid of the kettle rattled in the flow of steam. Along with the ticking of the clock and her great-grandmother’s snoring, they were the only sounds to disturb the air. They were alone here, she and Sarah. Her father and brothers were digging for bait and her mother, Nan, was taking her ease for a while, and had moved a stool outside to sit in the lane and gossip with her neighbours. But even in this precious spare time most of them would be knitting as they talked, the needles clicking and the oiled wool flying through their practised fingers as the light faded over the farmland beyond the village to the west.

  Kate had never learned to knit. Kind, patient Nan had despaired of the dropped stitches, the tangled knots and the hot, angry tears. Eventually she had given up trying to pass on to her only daughter a skill that was second nature to almost every other woman in the village. Even Kate’s childhood friend Jane Harrison had mastered the intricate age-old patterns while she was still at school, and Jane’s father was not even a fisherman.

  Poor Ma, Kate thought as she listened to the low pleasant voices of the older women and the faint click of needles coming from the lane. Kate still felt ashamed when she remembered the day she had flung the needles and the yarn down on the stone-flagged floor and run out of the cottage.

  She had fled down the bank to the sea shore red-faced and furious. Not because her mother was vexed with her – no one could have been more patient – but because she was embarrassed and angry with herself. She knew she wasn’t stupid. Didn’t she always come top in the weekly tests at school, even keeping ahead of the lads? So why couldn’t she master four needles and a skein of wool? She’d taken refuge in one of the caves and stayed there while the light outside had faded and her twin brother, Thomas, had come looking for her.

  ‘Hawway, our Kate,’ he’d said as he peered into the dimness and saw her crouched on the fine white sand with her arms wrapped round her knees. ‘You can’t sit here all day.’

  ‘Is Ma vexed with me?’ she’d asked him.

  ‘Not her. But you’d best come back before Da comes in.’

  She’d entered the cottage hesitantly, content to let her brother lead the way for once, but there’d been no sign of the ruined knitting. Their ma had been setting the table. Wordlessly Kate bega
n to help her. That had been years ago and her mother had never tried to make her knit again – although she hadn’t been able to resist saying, only a few weeks ago, that she wondered who was going to knit Jos’s ganseys.

  ‘His ma will knit his jumpers and his boot socks too,’ Kate had told her.

  ‘And divven’t you mind that?’ her mother had asked.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Most lasses want to look after their man themselves.’

  ‘Well, I’m not most lasses!’ Kate flared.

  Her ma saw her chin go up and her eyes spark and she shook her head. ‘Now, Kate, divven’t gan crabby. I know you’re not like other lasses. You’re bright and you’re bonny and I know you’re going to be a good wife to Jos and a good daughter to Mary. And Mary will be pleased to let you do the cooking; she doesn’t mind admitting that she hates it. And the rest of the Linton family’ll be happy, too, I imagine, after years of Mary’s burnt offerings.’

  Mother and daughter smiled at each other and Kate laughed. ‘I don’t know about that. I like cooking but William and Thomas always pull faces at my efforts.’

  ‘That’s brothers for you. But you know they’re only teasing. Fair tyrants they are. Heaven help the lasses them two wed!’

  ‘It’s your fault, Ma, you’ve spoiled them. You’ve spoiled all of us . . .’ Kate faltered, an ache of grief in her throat and her eyes moist. ‘Oh, Ma, I’ll miss you.’

  ‘Divven’t fret, lass. We’ll still be able to see each other.’

  ‘But not here, will we? Not in my own home. Da said once I was married to Jos Linton I would never be welcome here again. Why does he hate Jos so?’

  ‘You know fine well, Kate. It’s not Jos your father hates, it’s the whole family.’

  ‘But that’s worse! And for such a stupid reason.’

  ‘To be fair to him yer da isn’t the only one to frown on interlopers. They’re country people – not fisherfolk – and they come and take our living from us.’

  ‘There’s a difference between frowning and hating,’ Kate said, ‘and the Lintons came here before Jos was born.’

  Her mother sighed. ‘Memories are long. And at least yer da hasn’t forbidden the marriage. He could hev done, you know.’

  ‘He’s glad to be rid of me. He said so. He said I was a thorn in his side.’

  ‘And isn’t that true?’

  Kate looked at her mother in surprise and saw that Nan was smiling. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. It will be easier for you when I’ve gone, won’t it? There won’t be so much cause for him to lose his temper.’

  Their smiles had faded and they had looked at each other solemnly, each woman remembering what Henry Lawson was like when the drink or his temper took him. Nan had put her arms round her daughter. They’d stood there without speaking, watched only by the faded eyes of old Sarah – who might have heard everything, or nothing. As ever, her wizened face had given no clue.

  And now, one week before the wedding to her childhood sweetheart, Kate found that she was near to tears as she remembered that moment of closeness with her mother. Her vision was blurred as she took in the scrubbed table, the brown teapot reflecting the light of the fire on its rounded sides, the window beyond, whose small panes always sparkled even though this meant daily washing inside and out because of the salt air.

  Nan Lawson was house-proud and fastidious. Mary Linton was careless and easygoing. Jos’s father, James, was even tempered and tolerant. There were those who said he might have taken a firmer line with his two high-spirited sons, but the Lintons worked hard and respected one another. Kate knew that it was a very different household she would be entering as Jos’s bride, but she also knew that she would be happy there. She would no longer have to live in fear of her father’s unpredictable moods, his outbursts of rage and his drunken violence.

  When she and her brothers had been children their father’s favoured method of disciplining them had been to take off his belt and beat them. Nan had suffered beatings too, and they had only stopped when William had grown big enough to protect his mother and his younger brother and sister. Now, although William’s presence kept a rein on Henry’s worst excesses, Henry was still master here and the whole family lived under the shadow of his tyrannical authority.

  ‘Kate!’

  Kate blinked at the sound of her name and glanced towards the open door. A man’s figure was framed in the doorway, a familiar silhouette against the afternoon light. Her spirits lightened. ‘Jos . . . is that you?’

  ‘Kate . . . you’ve got to come . . .’ The voice cracked and Kate’s smile vanished. She felt the first stirrings of alarm.

  Not Jos, she saw as the figure moved forward falteringly. It was his younger brother Matthew, who had the same sturdy frame but was not so tall.

  ‘Come? Where?’ she whispered, with a nod towards the old lady sleeping on the bed against the wall.

  Matthew glanced at the old woman distractedly. He had stopped on the other side of the table and he stared at Kate wildly. Her alarm turned to dread when she saw his clenched fists. She took a step towards him and found herself grasping the back of a chair. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Jos. He’s not come back.’

  ‘Yes he has. I saw him. I spoke to him. We’re meeting later on the boat field.’

  ‘No, Kate, he’s missing. Him and Barty Lisle.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Kate stared at her sweetheart’s younger brother. The ticking of the clock on the mantel suddenly seemed louder as it consigned to the past the last few seconds when anything would make sense. ‘They came back from the fishing hours ago.’

  ‘I know. But they went out again. Two little lads playing on the beach saw them. They took Jos’s boat – just Jos and Barty. The bairns saw them head for the harbour mouth and then they just sat there.’

  ‘They must have dropped anchor,’ Kate said.

  ‘Aye, that’s likely.’

  ‘But why – what were they doing?’ Kate asked.

  Matthew shook his head. ‘Who knows? The next time the bairns looked out, the tide was high and the coble was nowhere to be seen.’ He came round the table and took her by the arm. ‘Ma’s down on the beach waiting. Please come.’

  Kate was still trying to make sense of what she’d heard, but she let go of the chair and allowed Matthew to guide her out of the cottage and along the lane towards the harbour. She was aware that others were following; she heard her mother’s voice among those of the other women, and the footsteps ringing out on the cobbles as they began to hurry.

  Damn this skirt, she thought, as she tried to keep up with Matthew. Losing patience she wrenched herself free from his grasp and, stooping swiftly to grab hold of the folds of the deep-tucked hemline, she yanked it up above her knees. With her long slender legs freed from restraint she was able to keep pace easily.

  Her heart was pounding, more from fear than exertion, as they ran down the slope from Bank Top to the beach. At the bottom, Kate almost fell as her feet sank into the soft sand still damp from the retreating high tide. She gasped, and cried out involuntarily. Matthew turned and steadied her.

  She was aware of others gathering as the word spread that two men were missing, but Matthew was guiding her towards the figure of a woman silhouetted starkly against the grey of the sea and the sky. Mary Linton, Jos’s mother, had drawn her shawl around her and was standing with arms crossed tightly across her body as if holding in her grief. The waves were lapping round her feet but she didn’t seem to have noticed. As they approached, Kate could hear her ragged moans of distress.

  ‘Stay with her,’ Matthew said quietly. ‘I’ll hev to help Da with the search.’

  ‘Aye, you go, Matthew,’ Kate said. He turned and retreated up the beach to make his way to the high water moorings.