A Mother’s Spirit
From rural rags to brief riches and back to ruin, this is a moving saga of hard work, bad luck and finally hope for a family’s future.Gloria Sullivan can’t quite believe where she has ended up.Growing up with no money worries, she fell head over heels in love with the handsome, hardworking Irishman employed by her father. They were the golden couple - until the Wall Street crash, when everything was lost. Finally she agreed to start again in London with husband Joe and their small son.World War Two was raging, and Joe laboured on the docks by day and fighting fires by night. He was a hero - but one dreadful fire left him terribly injured. Once more Gloria resolved to leave everything behind and to take Joe home to his family farm in Ireland, his only hope of recovery.Gloria now dutifully nurses her husband, but she can’t settle in the countryside. Then a nearby American base begins recruiting civilians. Gloria tells everyone it’s her chance to do her bit - but will she be tempted to do much more?
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ANNE BENNETT
A Mother’s Spirit
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008
Copyright © Anne Bennett 2008
Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007287680
Version: 2017-09-08
To my grandson Theo, the youngest Bennett boy, with all my love
CONTENTS
‘Please let me come with you, Daddy?’ Gloria Brannigan pleaded with her father that afternoon, as he prepared to leave the house.
Brian looked into the appealing eyes of his daughter, the child he loved more than life itself, and shook his head. ‘I cannot take you to the docks, my dear,’ he said. ‘Your mother would—’
‘Mother has retired to bed with a sick headache,’ Gloria said, almost triumphantly.
‘And what about the cold that has laid you low now for almost a week so that you have been unable to go to school?’ Brian asked with a wry glance at her.
‘That is quite gone, Daddy, and I could have gone to school today but you know how Mother fusses so!’ Gloria told him. ‘The fresh air might even be good for me,’ adding, as her father seemed unconvinced, ‘You could even claim the trip to be educational.’
‘And just how do you work that one out?’
‘Well, the things unloaded in New York are from all different countries, aren’t they? I could make a list of them and later I could look them up on my globe.’
‘I think not, darling,’ Brian said regretfully.
‘Oh, go on, Daddy,’ Gloria urged. ‘I am so bored, and the docks are exciting. I like to hear the sailors calling to each other in their own languages.’
‘It’s the languages you can understand that worry me,’ Brian said grimly. ‘Sailors’ talk is not for the ears of young ladies.’
‘Oh, Daddy, don’t be so stuffy,’ Gloria said. ‘Anyway, I shall be too interested in everything else to listen to anything unsuitable.’
Brian gave a throaty chuckle. ‘All right, you cheeky monkey,’ he said. ‘You win. I was taking the smaller carriage anyway, because Bramble can pull that and a bit of exercise will do him good. The pony’s been a bit skittish of late, with you not being able to exercise him. I suppose you know that I will catch it in the neck good and proper for encouraging you to play truant?’
‘You didn’t encourage me, Daddy,’ Gloria protested. ‘It was me persuading you.’
‘Your mother will not see it that way,’ Brian said, with a rueful grin. ‘It’s a good job that I have such a broad back.’
‘Well, I think you are a lovely, kind daddy,’ Gloria said, winding her arms around his neck. ‘In fact, the best daddy in the whole world.’
Brian felt tears prickle the back of his eyes. This child was the only one he would ever have, because of what Norah had suffered at their daughter’s birth. Gloria, however, made up for any son Brian may have hankered after. Her hair was the colour of spun gold and hung in natural ringlets, which she tied back with a ribbon that always matched her dress. Then there were those unusual and very beautiful violet eyes, encircled with long, black lashes and the wide and generous mouth, the only feature she had inherited from him.
‘We must hurry,’ he said. ‘There is not much daylight in these winter days. I will send Tilly in to you to help you get dressed in your outdoor things. The day is bone-chillingly cold and you will need to be well wrapped up.’
Gloria watched her father leave the room with a smile playing around her mouth. At fourteen years old, she was well aware that she could twist him around her little finger.
Joe Sullivan had been appalled by the conditions on board the liner bound for New York. It had been anchored in the deeper waters of Lough Foyle, and he had boarded it from a tender sent out from the pier at Moville in southern Donegal in Ireland two weeks before. He had been excited and in good spirits at being en route to America – the one place to which he had so longed to go.
