Across a Summer Sea Read online

  Across a Summer Sea

  Lyn Andrews

  Hachette UK (2010)

  Tags: Sagas, General, Fiction

  * * *

  Synopsis

  Mary McGann's marriage has always been difficult, thanks to her husband Frank's drunken, jealous nature. Only because the little money he earns in the docks keeps food in the mouths of their children is Mary prepared to put up with him. But when Frank throws them all out on the street, Mary flees to her family in Dublin. There she meets Richard O'Neill, a handsome though solitary man. Despite the attraction between them, Mary's not looking for love, and when she hears that Frank needs her, she returns to Liverpool, foreseeing a future of yet more hardship. But there are surprises in store. Though tragedy and danger are looming, a brighter horizon lies beyond – if Mary's prepared to be strong and take the chances that come her way.

  Across a Summer Sea

  LYN ANDREWS

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2003 Lyn Andrews

  The right of Lyn Andrews to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  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 written permission 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 being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  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 7921 7

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

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  www.headline.co.uk

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lyn Andrews is one of the UK’s top one hundred bestselling authors, reaching No. 1 on the Sunday Times paperback bestseller list. Born and brought up in Liverpool, she is the daughter of a policeman who also married a policeman. After becoming the mother of triplets, she took some time off from her writing whilst she raised her children. Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Award in 1993, she has now written twenty-two hugely successful novels. Lyn Andrews divides her time between Merseyside and Ireland.

  My sincere thanks go to Peter and Jim McDonald of Ballycowan for their generosity in sharing with me the information and documents in their keeping on the history of Ballycowan Castle, which is approximately four miles from my own home. Sadly, it has been a ruin for many centuries although on close inspection it is possible to imagine the magnificent house it must have been in 1626 when it was built. I hope that the purists and historians will forgive my poetic licence in bringing it back to life in 1910 for the purposes of this novel. Although built and owned by the Herbert family until its destruction by Oliver Cromwell, all its twentieth-century inhabitants are purely fictional, as are the implications of their involvement in the Easter Rising of 1916.

  My grateful thanks also to my friend and neighbour, Michael Guinan, for the additional local information and to himself and Kevin Guinan for taking the time to accompany me in climbing around what is left of the once imposing keep, great hall and main staircase of Ballycowan Castle. Without you both I would no doubt have broken my neck!

  Lyn Andrews

  Tullamore, 2002

  Chapter One

  Liverpool, 1910

  NELLIE JONES WAS FLUSTERED. The heat in the tiny kitchen had caused beads of perspiration to break out on her forehead and her normally florid complexion was heightened to an almost turkeycock red. Strands of greying hair had escaped from the severe knot to which she had that morning confined it. Her small, stout figure was enveloped in a large, unbleached calico apron, which was already stained and creased.

  ‘Why did she have to pick flaming Christmas, that’s what I want to know? Haven’t we all got enough to do as it is?’

  ‘I thought you were delighted your Violet is getting married at last? Haven’t you been adding Lord knows how many decades of the Rosary to your evening prayers that Sam Flaherty would ask her?’ Mary McGann smiled as she deftly transferred the rich mixture she had been stirring into the large square greased tin. ‘Well, that’s the bunloaf ready for the oven,’ she finished.

  Nellie sighed. ‘Oh, I am delighted. I’ve been storming heaven with me prayers. It’s just that it’s such a busy time.’

  ‘Last night I heard her going into raptures over a fancy three-tier iced wedding cake she saw in Skillicorn’s Bakery window,’ Mary informed the bride-to-be’s mother.

  Nellie looked annoyed. ‘She can go into as many raptures as she wants, she’ll make do with the bunloaf and like it. Who does she think her da is? Lord Derby? Iced wedding cakes indeed!’

  ‘Do yer think there’s goin’ ter be enough ribs ’ere, Nell?’ Queenie Phelps interrupted, thoughtfully eyeing the long sheets of meat laid out on the scrubbed table.

  ‘There’ll flaming well have to be, Queenie! This do is costing an arm and a leg and Fred says I’ve to manage on what he’s given me. His back’s near broke with humping sacks all day long.’

  ‘Yer should be glad ’e’s ’ad the work, Nell. There’s many fellers turnin’ up each day on the docks an’ gettin’ nothin’, not even a few hours. There won’t be no slap-up dinner fer those families this Christmas - unless they’re lucky enough ter get a Goodfellows parcel,’ Queenie reminded her. The charitable society distributed food parcels to the poor at this time of year, which were much coveted.

  ‘I know, Queenie, I know,’ Nellie said wearily. ‘Put the kettle on, Mary, luv, I’m parched,’ she added, depositing her ample bulk into a battered armchair by the range.

  Queenie pulled the bench out from under the table and sat on one end of it. Nellie was indeed fortunate to be able to give Violet any kind of a ‘do’, she thought enviously. Most of the time she didn’t even know where the next meal was coming from, and as for keeping her kids in boots and clothes, well, she’d had to rely on charitable societies herself in the past, including the Liverpool City Police. They, out of their own pockets, provided hard-wearing clothes for poor kids. Of course they were of a horrible stiff corduroy material and were stamped so they couldn’t be pawned, but when all was said and done they were clothes. She was fifty-two and had been married for thirty-two years; it had been a lifetime of back-breaking work and constant hardship. And it showed. She knew she looked like a worn-out old woman with her grey hair and a deeply
lined face.

  Mary wiped her hands on her apron and placed the large black kettle on the hob. There had been none of this fuss when she had married Frank McGann nearly ten years ago now. Her mam had been a widow with seven children to provide for. There had been no money for the necessities of life, never mind weddings. It had been a simple affair, but Frank’s mam and dad had been there, silently disapproving as always. They had both died the following year in an epidemic of influenza and she had always thought that her early years of marriage would have been difficult had they lived. Still, her aunt Molly and her numerous cousins who all lived in Dublin had come over for the wedding and they had certainly livened things up.

  She sighed as she pushed a few strands of auburn hair away from her cheeks; thick and curly, it was the bane of her life. It defied all her attempts to keep it in a neat bun as the other women wore their hair. She was twenty-eight now but had thankfully managed to stay as slim as she had been the day she’d been married. Even after three children. She had pale skin and large green eyes that betrayed her Irish ancestry and was taller than nearly all the women and girls in the neighbourhood.

  As she gathered the assorted cups and mugs she glanced around. Nellie’s kitchen was neither better nor worse than all those in Newsham Street, off Scotland Road in the heart of the terrible slums of Liverpool. At least they didn’t live in one of the courts which riddled the area, she thought thankfully. The unfortunate residents of the courts had even worse conditions to put up with. Very little daylight managed to penetrate them and they were damp and freezing in winter and unbearably stifling in summer. But all the women in the overcrowded, narrow streets waged a constant war on poverty and on the dirt in the decrepit old houses they lived in. Daily they swept and scrubbed inside, and took as much pride in keeping their doorsteps and even the pavement and kerbstones outside their doors scoured and donkey-stoned. The houses were frequently stoved by the Sanitary Department but this seemed to have little effect on the bugs that infested them; it was impossible to eradicate them completely. Every week Frank burned them off the iron bedframes, but they still came back.

  Nellie had made a big effort for the wedding. Her kitchen and her front room, which also served as a bedroom, had been given a fresh coat of whitewash. The fender and the ashpans had been polished to within an inch of their lives and the range black-leaded with Zebo. There had even been some talk of a roll of new oilcloth for the floor, but nothing had come of it. Hetty Price from the pub had promised to lend Nellie the curtains from her own front room, she being better off than nearly everyone else in the street. New curtains were far beyond Nellie’s reach.

  ‘Well, I think yer’ve done ’er proud, Nell. I’se never seen such a spread in a long time.’

  ‘Thanks, Queenie, luv. You’ve got to try, like.’ Nellie was indeed thankful that Violet, her eldest and large, loudmouthed daughter had finally found a husband. She had almost despaired of ever seeing her wed and Violet’s departure to Athol Street to live with her mother-in-law would give them a bit more room.

  ‘Mary, cut us all a slice of that Sally Lunn. I don’t see why we can’t have a bit of luxury. There’s still a list of things a mile long to be got through.’

  ‘Nellie, I don’t think we should start on the wedding breakfast just yet!’ Mary laughed, but she dutifully cut four slices from the currant loaf.

  ‘What time did Maggie say she’d be ’ere?’ Queenie asked.

  ‘Any time now. She wanted to get the last lot of washing on the line. Not that there’s much drying out today,’ Mary replied, casting her eyes to the patch of grey winter sky visible through the small panes of Nellie’s kitchen window. ‘We usually get finished before this, but with her being on her own this morning . . .’ Mary shrugged.

  She and Maggie Foley took in washing: she to eke out Frank’s meagre wages; Maggie to make ends meet, being a widow with no children. Mary, Frank and their three children lived with Maggie, sharing all the expenses, which helped Maggie out. They would never have been able to afford to rent a whole house just for themselves, and neither could Maggie have afforded the rent on her own. And with only the six of them, at least they weren’t as overcrowded as most families were.

  ‘We’ll have to take it to the bag wash soon. It’s getting too cold to be trying to work in the yard: the water in the washtub was frozen solid this morning. Even now we have to have it draped all over the house to get it dry properly and Frank hates that. He says it’s like living in a Chinese laundry.’

  ‘Pity about him! He doesn’t mind the hard-earned money it brings in, does he?’ Nellie said heatedly. In her opinion Frank McGann had got a jewel of a wife in Mary, considering he was such a mean, miserable man who did nothing but complain, even though he always seemed to get more work than many men did. He was selfish too. He always had good strong boots, thick woollen socks, and an overcoat in winter, while to turn her kids out respectably Mary often went without stockings, and had broken-down shoes and, like nearly every woman in the street, just a shawl to keep out the cold and wet. And he liked a drink. He said a working man should have his bit of comfort and pleasure. She wondered what kind of ‘comfort and pleasure’ Mary ever got? None. Like the rest of them. She kept that house spick and span and there was always a hot meal of some description on the table when he came home in the evening, whether he’d got work or not. What’s more, despite the hardships of her life, Mary always had a smile and a ready laugh.

  ‘ ’Ere she is now. Maggie, come in, luv. We’re just having a bit of a break, like,’ Queenie explained their apparent leisure.

  Maggie Foley sank down thankfully at the other end of the bench. ‘I’m fair wore out! I’m getting too old for all the pulling and dragging and carting water from the standpipe. And believe me, if I had sheets the state of those I’ve just pegged out I wouldn’t have the nerve to send them out to be washed!’

  ‘If I ’ad any sheets at all I’d think meself lucky!’ Queenie sniffed. ‘It’s a pile of old coats on the donkey’s breakfasts more often than not.’

  Mary smiled at the local name for the straw-stuffed mattresses that most people used.

  ‘Ta, Mary,’ Maggie said, taking the cup of strong tea and sipping it. ‘Well, Nellie, where are we up to then?’

  ‘The bunloaf’s ready to go to Skillicorn’s to be baked. It’s dead good of them. God knows how any of us would manage to get stuff cooked at this time of year if they didn’t let us use their ovens after they’ve finished the day’s baking. I’ve the ribs, the pig’s cheek and the cooked ham bought.’

  ‘’Ow much did that lot cost yer?’ Queenie asked.

  Mentally Nellie counted it up. ‘Two shillings and fivepence.’

  Queenie was scandalised. ‘Nellie, yer was robbed!’

  ‘There’s enough meat there to feed half the street!’ her neighbour retorted indignantly. Like all women she had to make every halfpenny count. ‘I’ll get the vegetables and fruit in Great Homer Street market late tomorrow night, you get the best prices then. And if you three want to chip in, we can get thirty Irish eggs for a penny.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind. Frank likes an egg for his breakfast and they’re good for the kids too. I’m hoping to get a chicken for Christmas dinner,’ Mary said.

  ‘I’ll be lucky ter get a pair of flamin’ rabbits ter do all of us, an’ then I’ll be sendin’ Alfie ter sharpen the carvin’ knife on the front step so folks’ll think we’re ’aving real meat,’ Queenie put in wryly. ‘But I can run ter the eggs. ’Ow fresh are they likely ter be? An’ ’ow do they manage ter get them over ’ere on the mail boat without ’avin’ them smashed ter bits?’

  ‘God knows, but they do,’ Maggie replied.

  ‘Hetty said she could get me a dozen bottles of port at cost,’ Nellie informed them.

  ‘Oh, aye! What does she call cost?’ Queenie demanded.

  ‘Fifteen shillings for a dozen.’

  ‘What did yer say?’

  ‘It was going to “cost” too flaming much!
I ask you. Fifteen shillings is more than a feller earns in two weeks!’

  ‘It’s all right fer ’er an’ Bert ter pay that. ’Ow much profit do they make on a bottle?’

  ‘Plenty, although to hear Bert you’d think he was expecting the bailiffs every day. I told her I’d have three bottles and that will have to do. When it’s drunk, it’s drunk and that’s that!’

  ‘Has Vi got her outfit?’ Mary asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from the contentious waters of the price of food and drink.

  Nellie cast her eyes towards the ceiling. ‘She’s had me half demented! She’s bought a dress from Sturla’s, which she’s been paying off, and young Sally Price is lending her her new hat, but she says she can’t afford new shoes or a jacket and what will her ma-in-law think of her in her old stuff?’

  ‘She can polish up her shoes and if it’s not too cold or wet she can go without a jacket,’ Mary suggested.

  ‘She’ll catch her death! It’s freezing out there and not likely to get much warmer,’ Maggie said darkly.

  ‘Well, I’ve had enough of listening to her complaints. Her da and me are giving her a good “do” and Fred’s getting the usual barrel of ale as our wedding present to them.’

  Queenie tutted and shook her head. ‘Oh, I know it’s traditional, Nellie, but wouldn’t they be better off with somethin’ more . . . useful, like?’

  Nellie looked at Queenie askance. ‘And have everyone talk about us for not providing anything for the fellers to drink? Fred would be mortified!’