Kate Hannigan: A Novel by Catherine Cookson

Author:Catherine Cookson [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Historical, Cookson, saga, Fiction, Romance, historic, social history, womens general fiction
ISBN: 9780743253758
Google: SA5DNaZJHCQC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2011-07-04T14:00:00+00:00

As Sarah lay, she kept muttering to herself. It sounded, to Kate, like a single word, a name being repeated, but it was unintelligible. She’s tired and worn out, thought Kate. I’ll let her sleep as long as possible, there’ll be no-one coming in before teatime, unless Connie comes . . . The thought of her cousin aroused a slight uneasiness in Kate’s mind. Why had she ceased calling these past two months? Her mother, who had grumbled that she was never off the doorstep, was now wondering why her visits had stopped altogether. Perhaps, thought Kate, it’s because I demurred about going to Peter’s wedding . . . She and Pat had been invited to her cousin Peter’s wedding, and when in an effort to evade what she knew would be a drinking bout, she had said she thought she would be unable to get off that weekend, Connie had caused quite a scene and accused her of thinking herself to be a cut above them all now. So she had gone, and sat in the packed front room, watching whisky and beer being drunk in such quantities as to ensure that everyone was having a real good time. Her refusal to touch anything had only made Connie more firm in her belief that ‘Kate was looking down her nose at them all’. It was in his endeavour to turn Connie’s spleen from her that Pat had laughingly drunk all Connie had pressed on him, and, not being used to it in quantity, for as he was wont to say he could ‘take it or leave it’, he was soon quite befuddled, if not actually drunk. At four o’clock in the morning it was impossible for him to attempt the three miles walk home. There he had sat, smiling broadly at everyone and powerless to use his legs. Kate told herself she was glad she had seen him in drink and witnessed his reactions to it, and she was amazed, and not a little pleased, that he hadn’t followed the usual course of his countrymen and become fighting mad.

The house had been full with the family alone, there being ten of them in the four rooms, so, when it was decided that they couldn’t possibly go home until Pat had sobered up, Kate found herself sharing one of the two beds in the back room, lying between two of her young cousins. Pat, amid screams of laughter, had been assigned to a cupboard which ran under the stairs. Apparently this had often been used as a spare bedspace and a straw mattress had been made to fit it. Kate had rebuked herself for feeling disgust of her cousins, for, after all, she had told herself, they were her people, and had it not been for the Tolmaches she would have found them, if not likeable, at least amusing, but the only impression they left on her was disgust. After the wedding Pat seemingly thought as she did, for

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