The Bobbin Girls
Freda Lightfoot
Originally published 1998 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH
Copyright © 1998 and 2010 by Freda Lightfoot.
All rights reserved.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
ISBN 978-0956607355
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 permission in writing 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 including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by Freda Lightfoot at Smashwords 2010
‘The new series will be greeted with joy by the thousands of women who enjoy her books.’ Evening Mail, Barrow-in-Furness on Champion Street Market
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‘Kitty Little is a charming novel encompassing the provincial theatre of the early 20th century, the horrors of warfare and timeless affairs of the heart.’
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‘a compelling and fascinating tale’ Middlesborough Evening Gazette on The Favourite Child (In the top 20 of the Sunday Times hardback bestsellers)
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‘a fascinating, richly detailed setting with a dramatic plot brimming with enough scandal, passion, and danger for a Jackie Collins’ novel.’
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‘A bombshell of an unsuspected secret rounds off a romantic saga narrated with pace and purpose and fuelled by conflict.’ The Keswick Reminder on The Bobbin Girls
‘paints a vivid picture of life on the fells during the war. Enhanced by fine historical detail and strong characterisation it is an endearing story...’
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Also by Freda Lightfoot as ebooks
One of the pleasures of writing this book has been the many people I have met who have given so generously of their time and expertise. I express my gratitude to Eileen Thompson, Joyce Wilson and Pat Hogarth for information on bobbin making; Bill Hogarth and Stan Crabtree for coppicing; and Bill Grant for forestry. I also thank the Forestry Commission and the Friends of the Lake District for their assistance. Ellersgarth is a fictitious village in the Furness Woodlands, and Low Birk Mill, if it existed, might bear some resemblance to Spark Bridge, now closed, and Stott Park Bobbin Mill, now operated as a working museum by English Heritage.
Description
Alena Townsen, a fiery tomboy from a large, happy family, wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with her childhood friend, Rob, the only son of James Hollinthwaite, a wealthy landowner. Hollinthwaite, however, has other ideas and when he forces the two to part Rob is sent away to school while Alena must start work in the local bobbin mill. Life is hard and her love for Rob severely tested. Torn between two men, her indecision is heightened by the knowledge of a tragic secret. Dolly Sutton has problems of a more intimate nature, while shy and unassuming, Sandra Myers finds herself an unlikely campaigner against Hollinthwaite’s destructive plans for the village when he ruthlessly sacks the man she loves.
The windows of the house were ablaze with light as the young girl dragged herself on leaden feet down the seemingly endless driveway, though she guessed her deathly tiredness made it seem longer than it actually was. The farm or manor house, whatever it may be, was by no means grand. Solid and square and grey in the evening light, there was a bare, unloved quality about it that chilled her. Yet since it was the first glimpse of civilisation she had seen for miles in this bleak Lakes country, she kept her eyes fixed on those lights like heavenly beacons and, gritting her teeth, plodded steadily onward.
The wind moaned through a thicket of trees, making the boughs creak and grind together as if they might at any moment tumble down upon her. Rain-soaked hair whipped like a lash against her frozen cheeks but she did not trouble to wipe it away. Once her hair would have borne a sheen as fine as that of her short silk dress; now it was tangled and dirty, uncombed for days, just as the dress was torn and spoiled. Even the thin wool coat that was meant to keep out the bitter cold did no such thing, since it too was soaking wet with mud or blood, or both. It had been bought not for any practical purpose but to conform to the vagaries of fashion. She had no thought now for such niceties.
Not that she had any right to complain. Men were dying in worse conditions on the battlefields of France; dying in a war not of their making. But then she hadn’t committed a sin against mankind either, only against society.
It occurred to her that the bewildering number of lights could indicate that the people within were entertaining guests; they might not take kindly to being interrupted by a bedraggled ragamuffin covered in mud, shivering on their doorstep in her sodden clothing. She should perhaps seek out the kitchen door or servants’ entrance, beg a bowl of hot water from a housekeeper or maid so she could wash before making her request. Mama would wish her at least to present herself well. The thought, coming so unexpectedly and automatically, made her almost laugh out loud, but then the pain gripped her again and she gasped, falling to her knees as it knotted her spine, straddled the swell of her stomach and dragged piercingly down into her groin.
She clutched at a nearby drystone wall, her finger nails breaking in the rough lichen. How much longer could she bear it? As the worst of the pain ebbed away, she pressed her heated brow against the iron-cold stone. Was this how death came, with red-hot pincers?
What if they - the people at this house - refused to give her shelter? They knew nothing of her and her troubles, so why should they agree? Where then would she go? How could she survive yet another night in this wild, empty country? Her time was near.
With the last dregs of her energy, the girl pulled herself upright and, redoubling her efforts, reached a low flight of stone steps that led up through a wide storm porch to a solid oak door. She doubted her ability to climb them, let alone reach the high polished brass knocker. Her feet slipped on the rough stone chippings and she half fell, half sank thankfully upon the lowest step with an agonised cry, as the pain sliced through her back bone once more with merciless precision.
1930
His first sight of them brought the blood rushing to his head. He could actually hear it pounding in his ears.
The golden light of evening bathed their milk-white bodies in an almost ethereal glow. They had lit several candles on the shingle beside the tarn since it was both Hallowe’en and the boy’s birthday. The flickering flames were reflected a hundred times in the ripples of the water as they splashed and dived beneath the sheltering willow and alder trees. Their laughter drifted across to him on a wayward breeze, bounced back by the surrounding Lakeland mountains, and fear rose in his throat like bile.
A rope hung from a tree down into the water and the girl’s head came up beside it, shaking the sparkling water from the copper locks of her long hair. Then she dipped once more beneath the ripples, twisting her slender body up and over, again and again, like a young otter at play, or some kind of golden water sprite.
When she climbed out of the tam to run along the tree branch, as graceful and slender as a gazelle, he saw how the young breasts were already budding with promise, the swell of her hips and a small triangle of curled hair indicating the first signs of womanhood. She showed not the slightest sense of embarrassment at being naked before the boy, proving that this was not the first time they had swum together thus.
James Hollinthwaite lifted his hand from the rock he had been holding, and found it starred with blood.
What a blind fool he’d been! Why hadn’t he anticipated this? Done something about it.
Because, like a moth attracted to lamplight, he could not resist keeping her in his sight.
But then to be fair to himself, he’d thought of them still as children. Yet they were fourteen, with childhood almost gone. He stepped hack into the shadows, anxious not to be seen, knowing they should not have come to the tarn without supervision, that some ill could befall them if he didn’t send them off home at once. But he did nothing.
Hollinthwaite had never thought himself a coward in all his forty-five years he had faced many trials and tribulations, lived through a general strike and a World War, and met and dealt with them all in the certain knowledge that he was a man in control of his own destiny. He owned a profitable farm, a bobbin mill, and a large parcel of woodland which supplied all the timber it needed. He must be one of the biggest employers of labour in the valley, if not the whole Furness peninsular, thereby gaining himself a position of respect in the community.
He would survive this recent depression better than most. New York might crash and shares fall, but since he’d had the sense to put his money in land, which they’d never be making any more of, he’d do all right. Land would always go up in value, if one bided one’s time, and he had every intention of coming out of this financial crisis with his fortune not only intact, but increased.
He possessed a wife, beautiful and talented, if not so compliant as he would like her to be. Most important of all, he’d got himself a son.
But now, for the first time in his life, he felt matters were slipping out of his control, a state of affairs he abhorred.
Turning his gaze back to the two bathers, ignorant still of his presence, he was forced to admit their air of innocence. But how long did such innocence last? His thoughts grew darker, soured and curdled like bad milk in his mouth.
‘Catch me, Rob,’ she squealed, as once again she jumped into the water. Dragging his gaze back to the boy who ran close behind, reaching for her just a second too late, James saw for the first time, that his son too was near manhood, and the expression in the boy’s bright eyes as he leapt after her told all.
Blind anger erupted, raging through him like a summer storm. The pain of it spread through his chest and ran down his arms like fire. For a moment Hollinthwaite thought he might actually pass out. The urge to pull the heedless, ignorant boy from the water, cart him off home and thrash the life out of him, was almost overpowering. James clenched his two great fists, managing by dint of enormous will-power not to hammer them into the trunk of a nearby alder. He wanted to slap the wanton girl for this flagrant breach of convention, her lack of propriety and shamelessness. Instead he stood transfixed by her beauty, making not a sound as she skipped and ducked and ran between the flickering candles, leaping in and out of the water in a hectic game of tag. He became bewitched by the mounting excitement that flowed between these two young creatures who stood on the brink of adulthood. Sweetly innocent they may be as yet, but dear God, how long before this magical, breathless aura of gilded youth changed to something much less wholesome, far more potent, and a thousand times more dangerous?
Why did he hate her so? Because she was rebellious and undisciplined, or simply a burr beneath his skin that would not leave him alone? Already there had been times when she had looked at him with something like insolence in those damned fine eyes of hers. And she had a brain far too agile and knowing for a child’s.
Even as he fought the urge to bellow his fury at them, the girl raised her arms above her head and, lifting her hair from her neck in a languid gesture, let it tumble down loosely over her bare shoulders. It glowed like molten fire in the dying sunlight as she walked on sure feet along the tree branch. James heard her gurgle of laughter, saw that the simple action held the boy’s gaze spellbound; saw her raise herself high on her toes and dive cleanly into the pool, a perfect arc formed by a perfect lithe body. When she surfaced she was laughing, her lovely young face bright with joy - and something else. Knowledge. Power. The age-old wisdom of all beautiful women.
An urge to turn and run hit him for the first time in his life. His entire body began to tremble at what must inevitably happen next.
But he was wrong. The pair stood inches apart in the water, not moving, not touching, simply gazing at each other as if they had made a tremendous discovery. It seemed worse, somehow, than any fumbling adolescent caresses.
It was then that he made his decision.
Alena Townsen burst into the small kitchen like sunlight breaking through thick cloud. The woman standing hunched over the table turned at the sound of her running footsteps and, quickly pushing the letter she was reading into her pocket, lifted a face carefully smoothed clear of worry.
Her smallness was more than compensated for by an air of calm capability. Her hair was light brown, and though it bore a natural curl, was cut short and sensibly clipped back from a thin, delicate face. Her blue crossover pinny had been recently starched and pressed and she slid work-worn fingers over the fabric, as if smoothing it down, while checking that no sign of the paper peeped from the pocket.
‘Someone sounds in a hurry,’ she laughed. ‘You can’t be hungry after that tea you must have had?’
‘We had a wonderful tea but I can smell ginger parkin.’ Alena put her nose into the air and sniffed. ‘Oh, I knew you would make some today! Didn’t I say so, Rob?’ She launched herself at her mother, wrapping two thin arms about the slim figure in an exuberant hug of delight.
‘It tastes better if it’s been in a tin for a day or two.’
‘We can’t wait that long.’
Laughing, Lizzie Townsen reached for a knife to cut two large slabs of the still warm cake, face softening as it always did at sight of this precious daughter of hers. That tip-tilted nose, the almost boyish grin and teasing blue eyes in a perfect oval face ... it was a wonder to Lizzie that anyone could deny the lass whatever she asked for. Certainly not the boy who stood, as usual, so compliantly beside her. Their friendship sometimes troubled her. They’d always been close, happen a bit too close, and although he was a grand lad, who could not in any way be blamed for the sins of his father, Lizzie wondered sometimes if she should put a stop to it. But that would break the child’s heart.
She slid a piece of cake into each outstretched hand. Only then did Lizzie register their appearance. ‘Your hair is all wet, the pair of you. Have you been swimming in the tarn, when you know full well.’
‘Oh, Ma, stop fretting! We both swim like fishes. you know we do.’ Alena flung a damp arm about her mother’s waist while, mouth full of cake, depositing a sticky kiss upon her cheek. ‘Not on Robs birthday.’
‘Did you have a nice party then?’
‘It wasn’t exactly a party, Mrs Townsen. Mummy doesn’t like too much noise in the house, but Alena and I had a scrumptious tea, and Miss Simpson let us play Newmarket.’
Alena continued to talk between mouthfuls of cake, despite disapproving glances from Lizzie. ‘I can’t believe we are fourteen. When we were babies, which of us was the most beautiful? Was it me, seeing as I was older than Rob by a whole day?’
‘You were both grand babies.’
‘Did you expect me to be big and blonde and a boy, like my brothers?’
‘I was just glad to have you.’
‘When you and Mrs Hollinthwaite were both. you know - pregnant at the same time, did you go on waddling walks together.’ Alena giggled while Lizzie merely looked nonplussed for a moment then, laughing, slipped the cake into the tin to hide her awkwardness.
‘Impudent madam! No, we did not.’
‘Did you both wheel us out together in our prams then?’
‘Not that I remember. Mrs Hollinthwaite had a nanny.’
‘But you must have admired each other’s babies, living so close in the same village? Did you compare notes: how much we weighed, what we ate, sleepless nights, or if we were sick? Didn’t you become friends?’
‘Questions, questions. Don’t you want this turnip you asked me to get for you?’ Lizzie handed it to her, thankful for the distraction. ‘Oh, yes, please. Can we make a lantern?’ Alena wiped her sticky fingers on her mother’s apron and, grabbing a knife, eagerly began the arduous task of carving eyes, nose and mouth into the tough vegetable. The job took longer than expected. When it was hollow, Rob lit one of their remaining candles and set it inside. ‘Can we take a walk around the village, Mrs Townsen? I’ll look after Alena. See she’s all right.’
‘I don’t need anyone to look after me,’ Alena hotly protested, but if Lizzie had been about to refuse, the arrival of Jim and Harry, her two eldest sons, home from the mill and anxious for their tea, quickly settled the matter. They came in on a blast of cold air, filling the small cottage kitchen with their thickset bodies and booming voices. Harry, not quite as broad as his younger brother, but taller by a couple of inches, and with a thatch of hair as thick as corn, settled himself in the fireside chair, slid his feet out of his clogs and rested them upon the fender with a grateful sigh.
‘Like blocks of ice they are,’ he groaned, half to himself.
‘Where are the other two, and your father? Supper’s ready,’ Lizzie said, her eyes on the door.
Jim, the biggest and most soft-hearted of her sons, rested a gentle hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. ‘You can guess where our Tom is, but Kit’s had a bit of a shock today. Sally Marsden has dropped him so Dad’s taken him for a quick pint.’
‘Oh, no,’ she sighed. ‘Not another.’ Kit’s lack of success with women was legendary, but for all she thought him the most good-looking of the four, Lizzie knew him to have the quickest temper. Too like his father.
‘Ma,’ Alena persisted, afraid her needs were about to be forgotten as her mother was already reaching for the oven cloth to fetch the steaming tatie pot she had ready and waiting in the oven for her menfolk. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Let her, for pity’s sake. She’ll come to no harm.’
‘Aye, give us a bit of peace,’ Jim agreed, ruffling his sister’s hair.
‘Would she listen if I said no? She never has yet. Take care now. Don’t get up to any more mischief. And be back by eight. not a minute later. D’you hear?’
Their promises were lost in the sound of running feet and bubbling laughter.
This was one of Alena’s favourite nights of the year. She envied Rob being born on Hallowe’en, though because their birthdays were so close, they always celebrated them together on this day.
She loved Christmas best, of course, and the pace-egging that they did at Easter. When she was small, she’d loved to dance around the maypole, and even enjoyed the rushbearing ceremony her mother took her to each year at Grasmere, though she had never been chosen to wear the special green and white tunic and carry the linen rush-sheet herself. But then she did not live in Grasmere. She lived here, in the village of Ellersgarth, in this beautiful valley of Rusland. Between Coniston Water and Windermere, it was full of twisting lanes and fine old beeches, green fields and deep, mysterious coppice woods. Secret places where a person could hide themselves for hours, perhaps days.
A little further north it merged into the thick forests of Grizedale where you could lose yourself forever if you didn’t take care. Alena never tired of exploring the woodlands, for all she was not officially allowed to venture far. She found following rules and regulations a great nuisance, preferring to work on the principle of what her mother didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt her. Swimming in High Birk Tarn, for instance, which was but a short, steep climb from the village and had become one of her favourite pastimes. There was little else to do in this quiet spot, and Alena felt sure that she was perfectly safe.
‘Will we knock on old Jessie’s door?’ Rob’s voice broke into her thoughts. He was swinging the lantern tied to a stick and as he looked down at her, waiting for her reply, the light sent odd shadows across his face, causing the gold flecks in his brown eyes to glint and sparkle. In that moment he looked much older than fourteen and Alena’s heart swelled with pride that he was her very special friend. She hoped he would remain so when he really was old. Life without Rob seemed impossible to imagine.
In that peculiar moment of intimacy at the tarn, between one heartbeat and the next, she had longed for something she couldn’t quite put a name to. Had known instinctively that Rob felt the same way, almost as if they could read each other’s mind.
But then she had loved Rob Hollinthwaite for as long as she could remember. He was a part of her life, a part of herself. Since her own brothers were so much older, he had been the constant companion of her childhood. As children they had played together in her cottage, on the village green or in the cold waters of the beck.
‘Only if you can run away quickly enough. It’s no fun if we get caught,’ she reminded him.
Sometimes Alena had been allowed to share his lessons, which were taken at his home, Ellersgarth Hall. He’d often begged to go to school, as other boys did, or as Alena did in the village, but he was never allowed. Rob, being an only child, and, his mother insisted, rather delicate, had received his education at the hands of Miss Simpson, his nanny turned governess. Alena hadn’t minded the extra work involved when she joined Rob at his studies. For all she fussed too much, Mrs Hollinthwaite had been kind, lending Alena books and even teaching her a little mathematics and French; encouraging her to make something of her life, perhaps one day become a teacher. Alena doubted her family could afford such grand ambitions. Not that it troubled her, she cared only about being with Rob.
And four brothers had taught her to stand her own corner when it came to pranks. They teased her for being a tomboy, but when Jim put a frog in her wellington boot, she would put a toad in his. If Harry left a dead spider by her breakfast plate she put frog spawn in his bed. Kit and Tom, being the two younger boys, would chase and wrestle with her, as if she were one of them. Yet she knew that if any outsider were to threaten her, her brothers would be the first to stand up for her.
There was nothing Alena loved more than a bit of fun and mischief. And mischief was what they were about now. Which was another reason she so loved Hallowe’en.
They scurried along Birkwith Row, flicking every knocker, rattling every dustbin lid, then stifling giggles behind their hands they melted swiftly into the darkness just as doors opened and light spilled out on to the pavement.
Mrs Rigg at the village shop caught them just as they were about to rattle her letterbox. She pounced before they could hope to escape and, with an ear belonging to each of them grasped firmly between fingers and thumbs, took them right into her kitchen where she made them fill all her coal buckets. Then she gave them each a sticky toffee and sent them on their way with what she called ‘a flea in their ear’.
‘I’ll have that kind of flea any time,’ mumbled Rob through a mouthful of caramel.
‘Me too.’ And they grinned at each other in perfect companionship.
‘Does she sit waiting for us, d’you reckon?’
‘I think she must.’ The idea of Mrs Rigg with whiskers on her chin and her pink floral pinny wrapped tightly about her skinny body sitting behind the shop door in wait for them, made them laugh out loud. But she’d always been a good sport. In all the years of rattling her letterbox, she’d never failed to catch them, make them do some task or other, and then produce a reward as if they’d done her a favour, at the end of it.
Next door to the village shop stood The Golden Stag, which seemed half empty this early in the evening, though it would no doubt fill up later when the workers from the bobbin mill had eaten their supper and came out for their usual pint, and perhaps a bit of a sing-song.
They peeped in through the door and saw Jack Turner, the pot-bellied publican, shake a fist at them. He’d come back from the Great War to find his wife had run off with his best friend, so had never been quite so amenable as Mrs Rigg. They backed quickly away, taking no offence since this was their village and his irascibility held no threat for them. They ran around the back of the public house and headed towards Applethorn Cottages. just beyond Ellersgarth Green.
‘Let’s go to Hollin Bridge instead,’ Alena suggested, dragging Rob to a halt.
She knew that the Suttons lived on Applethorn. Dolly Sutton had once been a close friend but the friendship had faded. Two years older, Dolly thought herself above hanging around with schoolgirls now that she worked at the mill and had money in her pocket to spend. She wore lipstick, marcel-waved her hair and always had a string of boyfriends in tow.
‘We’d best not touch Dolly’s house,’ Alena warned. ‘She’d half kill me.’ And think her such a child.
Rob raised an eyebrow at this sign of weakness. ‘I thought you weren’t scared of anyone?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Well then?’
‘I’m no fool neither, Robert Hollinthwaite. Dolly Sutton is bigger than me.’ And tough with it.
‘So you’d run a mile from her, all the way to Hollin Bridge?’ It was dark down there, and there was talk of a ghost; a pale lost maid who wandered that part of the woodland, weeping and wailing for her lost love. ‘It’s getting late. We’ll have to be getting back soon. I promised your mam.’
‘You’re scared.’
‘I am not.’
They stood on Ellersgarth Green with the lantern between them, and argued. It was always so. If one said one thing the other would say the opposite. But it made no difference to their closeness, only emphasised it, for they both knew that in the end they would do whatever Alena had decided.
The clock in the hall chimed eleven as James Hollinthwaite climbed the stairs later that evening. Following the revelations at the tarn he’d walked for miles, going over everything in his head. Had he made a mistake? He didn’t usually. Except in his marriage.
He entered his wife’s bedroom without knocking and looked down upon her with something very close to contempt, the whole arrogant stance of him silently protesting at having to be in the same room as her, if only for a moment.
She sat propped up in bed against embroidered pillow-cases and beneath starched linen sheets, swathed in a nightgown he knew reached from chin to toe, revealing not a glimpse of flesh between these two extremities. Even the rich sheen of her hair was denied him. It hung in a solid plait over one slender shoulder.
Never robust, years spent in trying to produce a healthy child, her naturally nervous disposition and a growing disillusionment with life in general and himself in particular, had all taken their toll. Olivia Hollinthwaite was no longer the woman she once was, now spending more hours than was healthy in contemplation of her lot. In James’s opinion this was a pity, but surely it was entirely her own fault if it resulted in depression. After two miscarriages and one stillborn boy, she’d finally performed what she considered to be her duty. But following that long and painful birth on a stormy night fourteen years ago, his wife had done everything she could to avoid this aspect of married life, even to insisting upon separate bedrooms. If only she didn’t appear so distant, so entirely unreachable, they might have been happy enough. Even now she was reading a book, as if she really didn’t care whether he were home or not.
‘You were not at dinner,’ she remarked, in tones that to James’s sensitive ear sounded cool and indifferent. ‘The Cowpers and the Tysons were rather put out.’
He’d forgotten about the dinner party. As a good Christian woman she would never have held such an event on Hallowe’en were it not her son’s birthday. It had always seemed an odd quirk of fate that the most momentous events of his life had taken place on this night.
‘My apologies.’ He was perfectly genuine. He shouldn’t have forgotten. It didn’t pay to offend people, even pompous fools like George Tyson. Who knew when they might prove useful?
Olivia lifted her gaze from the book and rested it upon the ceiling. Like a martyr, he thought. ‘I made excuses for you. Some pressing problem you’d been called to deal with at the mill.’
‘Thank you.’ Annoyed at finding himself in the wrong, he could barely keep the irritation from his voice. ‘Ask them again next week.’
‘Oh, that would be too soon. I couldn’t.’
‘Yes, you could.’ He had flustered her, which was rare, and he revelled in the sense of power it gave him.
When he had married her twenty-two years ago, Olivia Leck had been the handsomest, most elegant woman imaginable, for all she was three years older than he. Coming from a respected Lancashire family, she’d naturally brought money to the marriage, and a very useful parcel of woodland not too far from his own valley. But most of all, she had possessed that precious commodity - style. He’d admired that in her more than any other quality. Her dress, her grace, her manner, - all had indicated the impeccable training she had received at the hands of her own formidable mama.
She could decorate and lay a table in white and gold, and make it look as if it had just dropped from heaven. But that had been in another age, Edwardian and leisurely, before the war, and infinitely more elegant than this one. In those early days, she had made it seem as if her one desire was to please and pamper those fortunate enough to be invited to sit around her table, lifting her new husband and his humble farmhouse to the echelons of the middle classes, where by rights James considered he should be. Even now she could somehow manage to get all the right people to her dinner parties. Surely a great asset in any wife.
‘They are busy people and may not wish to risk the humiliation again.’
‘Ask them.’ For a moment he saw the familiar rebellion flicker across her beautiful face. He hated unpleasantness and rebellion of any sort, so said it again, in more forceful, commanding tones. ‘Do as I say, Olivia.’
She sighed with a tremulous sadness, as if he had wounded her. ‘As you wish.’
His exhilaration at winning this small victory quickly faded, leaving him feeling flat and faintly foolish. It was ever so. He resolved not to remain in her company a moment longer than necessary. But James liked to be seen to follow the conventions, even when in reality he flouted them at every turn. It seemed correct for a man to bid goodnight to his wife, so he did so. Now he turned to go, his eagerness to quit the suffocating sweetness of the room making him momentarily forget what had occupied his thoughts all evening, and been the cause of his neglect. Turning abruptly he saw her cringe away from him. Even now, after all these years, it had the power to infuriate.
Never, in all their married life together, had she welcomed him with anything approaching desire. He might have been willing to show more consideration towards her had she made the smallest effort to please him.
He could not deny that she carried out her wifely duties without protest, when called upon to do so. But he was a man who demanded passion, for God’s sake, not duty. Yet she had the effrontery to complain about his lack of sensitivity! Olivia should consider herself fortunate he preferred not to risk a scandal by taking a mistress, which would do neither of them any good. In his younger days he’d once had a fling of sorts, but it had caused as many problems as it had solved. But had he the time or inclination for dalliance, he could still have any woman he chose. He thought of himself as a well set-up sort of chap, not overweight, with a fine head of dark brown hair, good teeth, and rather splendid patrician features. Yet apparently he repelled his own wife.
But what did she have to complain of? She had money and status, a cook, a governess for her child, the use of a motor to take her to coffee mornings, charity functions and whatever committee she was currently serving upon. He made very sure that her diary was kept full. What more could she require? James liked an ordered life, and had always made certain that he attained one. If that meant supervising his wife and son more than they might wish, that was something they must both learn to tolerate. Which thought brought to mind the real purpose of his visit. ‘I saw that child this evening - Alena Townsen.’
‘Oh?’ Olivia closed her book and showed interest for the first time. ‘She is hardly a child, very nearly a young woman.’
‘So I noticed. She was with Robert. They were swimming together in the tarn. Naked.’
‘Oh, dear.’
He stared at her. ‘Is that all you have to say. "Oh, dear"?’
‘They are young, and very fond of each other. They’ve grown up together, so I don’t see a little nakedness as a sin.’
‘You’ve been too soft with both of them.’
‘A person needs love. It is an essential part of life.’ She looked him directly in the eye as she said this. How was it she could always twist every conversation to his disadvantage? If she was not openly criticising him for having offended yet another of their over-sensitive neighbours - as if it were possible to make money without treading on someone’s toes from time to time - she was regarding him in silent, condemnatory reproach. He was never sure which he hated most.
True, the folk who lived in this village were practical and hard-working with a natural feel for the woodlands and the wildlife that lived within it. But their country ways, superstitions and slow acceptance of change were constant sources of irritation to him. James Hollinthwaite prided himself on being a far-seeing man; one poised to exploit the future, if he didn’t have one foot
in it already. The last thing he needed was a difficult wife or disobedient son.
‘You’d best speak to the boy. We don’t want any - accidents.’
She gave a half-smile but said no more, and fury shot through him, hot and fierce. Drat the woman! Why must she always give the impression of being superior? As if she knew something he didn’t, or understood people better than he did, which couldn’t be the case. In point of fact, he was more in control than she could ever imagine. But then, he had always been willing to do what must be done.
‘It’s time we settled that boy’s future. Come to my study tomorrow at ten.’ Having issued his wife with this order, James strode from the room, certain he had finally succeeded in showing he was the one who made the decisions in this house.
The next morning when the inhabitants of Applethorn Cottages were busily righting their dustbins, which they always had to do following Hallowe’en, Dolly Sutton had her head in the scullery sink.
She wasn’t sure whether this queasiness she felt was the result of eating too much supper or stemmed from a more sinister reason, one too frightening to contemplate. In case it was the latter, she had, over the last several days, jumped off every stair for as high up them as she could manage. She’d taken a dozen baths, whenever her mother was out, most of which had been stone cold because she’d used up all the hot water from the back boiler, but all the more painful for that. She had also taken more than the odd nip of her mother’s gin. But despite all her best efforts, there was no sign of her monthly visitor. What she longed for more than anything right now was that familiar dragging pain in her belly. Instead of which all she felt was a ball of breathless fear in her chest.
She remembered reading in some newspaper or other how even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself had given the go-ahead for contraception, so long as it wasn’t for selfish reasons, which seemed a bit contrary to Dolly. The only trouble was, the article didn’t explain how you went about it. And she’d never dared ask her mother.
She stared into the grubby medicine tin which bore a picture of Queen Victoria’s jubilee on the lid, no doubt indicating the age of its contents, in the hope of salvation. Fenning’s Fever Cure. Dolly shuddered. Kill or cure, more like. It would take the coating off her tongue, and even if she was prepared to suffer it, she doubted it would solve her problem. Vic’s Vapour Rub. Fat lot of good that would do. And a bottle of Indian Brandee, good for belly ache caused by a period. But would it bring one on?
She heard the back door open and her mother’s voice raised in argument. What was wrong now? That old nosy-parker from next door causing trouble again?
Dolly’s head ached abominably and she laid a cold flannel against it with tender care. Perhaps that third nip of gin had been one too many and that was why the top of her head felt as if it were being screwed off like the stopper from a stone ginger bottle.
Mrs Sutton’s voice rang out. ‘I wish I’d done it meself, you nasty old witch!’ Then the kitchen door slammed, reverberating throughout the small cottage and doing no kindness to Dolly’s headache.
If only she were older, she thought, after retching another thin stream of bile-like liquid into the sink. It wouldn’t have mattered so much then. She might even have been pleased, on the basis that Tom Townsen would have to marry her. But although he was near enough twenty, she was only sixteen, seventeen come February which was only four months away. Not that being seventeen would help in any way with this problem.
‘Are you all right?’ Mrs Sutton asked, as she watched her daughter peck at a slice of dry toast. Not known for being picky with her food, Dolly usually demolished two or three thick slices in five minutes flat. Her mother’s face cleared. ‘Ah, you’re on one of them new-fangled diets, is that it? To go with the shorter skirts.
Dolly looked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment since nothing could be further from the truth. Admittedly she was not a small girl: well-built some might say, plump certainly, voluptuous being the kinder term. Her face was pretty and she was pleased enough with that. Her hair was thick and brown and lustrous. She had good legs too, with dainty slim ankles, and was never short of admirers. So if the rest of her wasn’t quite what it might be, it certainly didn’t trouble Dolly.
But right now it seemed easier to agree with her mother that, yes, she was on a diet. Better than answering more probing questions about her pallor.
‘Got to rush, Mam. Been on the last minute a bit lately and the foreman is watching us like a hawk.’ She stood up and, taking a quick sip of tea, held the half-eaten slice of toast in her mouth as she shrugged on her coat. It was only as she went out of the back door that it occurred to her that such an admission would affect what was produced for her evening meal and every meal thereafter. Dolly groaned. If there was one thing she hated it was lettuce leaves, and that would be what she’d get from now on. The thought added to her depression, which worsened as she ran her gaze up and down the row.
There’d once been one long communal garden behind Applethorn Cottages, though any sign of the apple trees that might have served to christen it, had long since vanished. Instead there were patches of rough grass, small vegetable plots and the occasional lilac tree, interspersed with ramshackle outhouses and hen huts that leaned into the wind; even the odd pig-sty with its grunting occupant. The saving grace of all this muddle was the view. The cottages faced open countryside: thick woodlands and undulating fields criss-crossed with lichen-covered drystone walls, all lit on this particular morning with bright autumn sunshine.
But something was wrong. Frowning, Dolly tried to work out what it was. By every back door stood a dustbin, and each one had been up-ended. ‘Ah,’ she said, to no one in particular. ‘So that’s what all the row was about. Hallowe’en.’
At that moment Betty Thorns from next door came out, waving a shovel at Dolly. ‘I’ll knock your block off if I get my hands on you,’ she shouted, false teeth clicking with fury.
‘What? You don’t think I did this?’
‘Funny yours weren’t touched, don’t you think?’ The old woman nodded meaningfully at the Suttons’ dustbin, lid still firmly in place and not a scrap of litter around it. ‘Young hooligan! That’s what comes of having no father.’ It was her favourite method of attack when something had displeased her, and always set Dolly’s hackles rising. This morning it unleashed every ounce of pent-up emotion so that, for once, she hit back.
‘What’s that got to do with aught? Anyroad, they would’ve married, only me dad died fighting for his country before they could. Not that it’s any of your business.’ Instantly she regretted parting with this piece of private information.
‘That’s what she told you, is it? That he died a bloody hero? Run off, more like. She always did have a romantic imagination, did Maggie. Ask her what she gets up to on a Friday night, and see what she has to say about that. Pieces of muck, you Suttons! But then if you’re born wrong, you live wrong. Bastards, every one of you.’
White-faced and trembling, Dolly faced her with stubborn defiance. ‘Mam’s right. You are a bad-mouthed old witch. I hope you go to hell.’
This is all your fault, Alena Townsen, Dolly thought, as she marched stiff-backed down the lane. I’ll get my own back on you for this, madam, see if I don’t.
Are you going to tell me what you’re up to then?’
Alena, coming out on to the landing in pyjamas and plaid dressing gown paused as she heard these words; filled suddenly with a childlike curiosity to hear what it was adults talked about when they were alone, she slid into the shadows and listened.
‘I thought I’d make a few enquiries, that’s all.’
‘What sort of enquiries?’
She peeped between the rails of the banister. The kitchen door was flung wide open, and through it she could see the lower half of her father’s back and legs. Ray Townsen was leaning over the table, waving a paper, a letter perhaps, in Ma’s face. Well?’ he barked, in a tone of voice she knew well.
Lizzie folded the breakfast cloth with painstaking precision and put it in the drawer. ‘We haven’t time to talk about it now.’
‘When will we talk about it then? I asked you last night and you were too tired. I ask you this morning and you’re too busy.’
‘This isn’t the moment. We both have to get to the mill.’ Lizzie was buttoning her coat, tying a scarf around her hair and feeling in her pockets for her gloves. She hadn’t been sleeping too well lately. Too much worrying, and felt tired and weary, like an old woman, though at forty-six she was far from that. She wasn’t surprised by her husband’s persistence; rather she’d been amazed how long it had taken him to discover what she was up to. She’d been writing letters for weeks now. All in vain.
‘It’s about our Alena, isn’t it? I thought I told you not to interfere.’ And Alena watched, appalled, as his hand lashed out, slapping Lizzie across the face so that she fell awkwardly against the table, the corner of it jabbing into her side. Alena felt her palms grow sticky with sweat as she ached to run down the stairs and defend her beloved mother. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen such a thing happen. Ray Townsen had a quick temper, everybody said so, but would the next instant be as sweet as pie with his poor wife, kissing her better and making cups of reviving tea. Alena had long since vowed that no man would treat her so roughly, however sorry he might be afterwards.
Lizzie recovered her balance in seconds and, hand to her cheek where the livid marks of his fingers were already beginning to show, hissed back at him under her breath.
‘Will you hush? Do you want the child to hear?’ She made no reference to the slap. But then she never did, accepting it as her lot. ‘We’ll talk about this later, I tell you.’ She really didn’t want to talk about it at all, but supposed he had the right. Lizzie came out into the hall, still searching for her gloves, to stand unknowingly below her daughter, hiding above on the landing. Ray followed her and Alena sank further into the shadows, praying they wouldn’t see her, or hear the thud of her heart.
‘She’s been asking a lot of difficult questions lately, and I’m running out of ways to avoid answering them.’
‘You should never have lied to her in the first place.’
‘I didn’t lie! I’ve never lied to her. I simply haven’t told her everything, that’s all.’
‘You don’t know everything.’
Lizzie turned on her husband, eyes blazing with anger. ‘That’s why I’m trying to find someone who does. Without much luck, I might tell you.’
‘And what difference would it make if you found your answers?’ he persisted.
By way of reply Lizzie went to the bottom of the stairs and called: ‘We’re going, love. There’s some porridge on the stove. Don’t be late for school now.’
‘I won’t,’ Alena called back, trying to make her voice sound far away, which wasn’t too difficult since she felt as if she were choking. She didn’t move until the slam of the front door told her they were well on they’d gone. Even then she stayed where she was, shivering with emotion, and something cold and hard in the pit of her stomach that felt remarkably like fear.
‘Eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves.’ Tom’s low voice in her ear made her jump. She hadn’t even heard him approach.
‘I wasn’t eavesdropping.’
‘Yes, you were.’ His wide infectious grin seemed to stretch from ear to ear, and even as her mind struggled to make sense of what she had just heard and seen, Alena couldn’t help thinking it was no wonder her brother was so popular with the girls. He really was a handsome, devil-may-care sort of fellow, with his fair hair and melting brown eyes. But then she adored him too. The youngest of her four brothers, Tom was her favourite
‘Ma and Dad were quarrelling. Did you hear?’
‘Not a word.’
Alena met his gaze directly and for the first time in her life knew that he lied. ‘Have you had your breakfast, child?’ he barked, in a fair imitation of Ray Townsen. And when she flung one leg over the banister rail to slide headlong down it, he thundered after her down the stairs. ‘If you don’t get a move on, you’ll be late for school - then I’ll tickle you to death as punishment.’
By a miracle Alena was not late for school, but the day seemed endless. The teacher’s voice grated on her nerves, the rows of chalked sums on the blackboard seemed blurred and meaningless. And she hadn’t any interest in playing Piggy-Jack-Fly in the playground at break-time.
She couldn’t get the overheard conversation out of her mind; it kept on going round and round in her head. Who could her mother be writing to? Why had her dad accused Ma of lying? Why had Tom lied about hearing them? Alena hated the thought of lies, particularly told by people who claimed to love one another. Tom must have heard, despite much of the quarrel being conducted in angry whispers. Fierce and furious but generally short-lived, the whole Townsen family had grown used to them, and knew that although their parents’ marriage may not be perfect, they still loved each other, in a robust sort of way.
But what could she do? Alena knew she couldn’t ask what was going on without confessing to listening in to a private conversation. What disturbed her most of all was the pitiful sadness in her mother’s face as she’d called up the stairs.
She was still puzzling over it later that afternoon as she walked through Low Birk Copse, looking for Rob. She had on an old pair of shorts, long since discarded by Kit, a sweater that had seen better days and, to please her mother, a soft green beret pulled down over her wild curls. But the ribbon Lizzie had tied them back with had got caught up in a hawthorn branch, where it now flew like a bright red flag.
Rob was late, which annoyed her. She’d waited impatiently by the ancient oak, their usual meeting place, for almost an hour but he hadn’t come. The tree had stood sentinel in that clearing for a hundred years or more, surrounded by bluebells at the right time of year, its huge trunk pitted with rabbit holes and knotted with galls. She’d climbed to the top of its crooked branches so she could look out over the smaller trees as far as the mill leat that cut its way down the hillside. She’d swung from the knotted rope they’d tied from one thick branch many years before; walked fifty times one way around the circumference of the great tree, and fifty times in the other. But still he hadn’t come.
Now she followed the narrow forest rides that wound between the tall beech, sycamore, oak and ash trees, underplanted with the quicker growing birch and hazel, and called his name. Sometimes he played games on her, jumping out from behind an old hawthorn bush. Not tonight. Just when she needed him most, he’d let her down. So lonely did she feel it was almost a relief to meet Dolly Sutton.
The girl was sitting under a birch tree, a pile of purple-black berries cradled in her skirt which she was eating one by one, her face screwed up in agony. When Alena asked, with some curiosity, what she was doing, Dolly flew instantly into a rage, yelling about dustbins and how the blame for Alena’s Hallowe’en prank had been laid at her door. Then before Alena could reply, or even apologise, since she was indeed guilty of the offence, thinking she was doing Dolly a favour by not tipping over her dustbin, the other girl burst into noisy tears.
Alena was shocked. ‘Heavens, it’s not that bad, surely? They’re only dustbins. And there wasn’t much rubbish in any of them anyway.’
‘It’s not the dustbins,’ Dolly said, in between sobs. ‘I-it’s me.’ And away she went again.
Alena sat down beside her, putting an arm rather awkwardly about the plump shoulders. She waited patiently for the crying to abate sufficiently to risk probing further. It was quiet in the woods, and the crying seemed to swell and echo, shattering the peace in a most disturbing way. Where was Rob? Alena wished he would come and free her from this embarrassment, yet knew that if he heard this din, he’d keep well away. He hated any show of emotion. At last she felt it safe to ask, ‘Why are you eating sloe berries?’
Dolly’s surprised eyes appeared above a grubby handkerchief. ‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘These are juniper berries. They’re supposed to be good for -’ She couldn’t say it, couldn’t say how she hoped they would bring on her period.
Alena picked up a berry. Squashing it between her fingers, she licked the juice. It was sour and sharp. ‘That’s a sloe, Dolly Sutton. Soak it in your mam’s gin with a touch of sugar and it’ll be delicious. Eat them like this and you’ll get a belly-ache you won’t forget in a hurry.’
‘Is that why my mouth is all dry and horrid?’
‘I’d say so.’
‘Oh God, I can’t even do that right.’ And she burst into fresh paroxysms of noisy crying.
Little by little the story came out between Dolly’s gulping sobs. When it was told, Alena could only stare at her in awed silence. It seemed unbelievable, that Dolly Sutton, who was only two years older than herself, had actually done the unmentionable, when she, Alena Townsen, hadn’t even been kissed yet. She felt an urge to ask what it had been like. Had she enjoyed it? Was it as exciting and earth shattering as everyone said? How had she got over the embarrassment of taking her clothes off? Most important of all, who had she done it with? But it didn’t seem quite the right moment for such questions.
‘Go on, say it.’ Dolly’s voice was bitter. ‘Tell me I deserve it. That I’ve got what’s coming to me. That’s what Mrs Thorns next door will say. I can almost hear her saying it.’ Dolly told Alena of their exchange this morning. ‘That was bad enough. Heaven knows what foul words she’ll use when this comes out.’
‘I’m sure she won’t.’
‘Won’t she just! You can get away with anything, Alena Townsen, with a mother and father who care about you, four brothers to spoil you, proper family and all that. Me, I’m just a little b…’
‘Don’t say it, Dolly.’
‘Why not? It’s true. And it’s true what she said about my mam. She has got a fella. I think it’s the chap from The Golden Stag. She spends enough time there.’
Alena was enthralled by this piece of news. ‘Mr Turner? Hasn’t he still got a wife somewhere?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought he didn’t like women any more?’
‘He likes my mam.’ Dolly almost giggled, then seemed to remember her troubles and started snivelling again, loud, gasping sobs into a none-too-clean hanky.
‘Oh.’ Alena could see how that would be embarrassing. She would hate it if her own mother did anything so shocking. ‘She never did marry your father then?’ Yet another revelation.
Dolly shook her head. ‘Mam says he died at Ypres in the Great War, just after I was born, though he’d promised to wed her when the war was over like. She never had a dad neither, so it makes sense, don’t it, that I’m having a little bastard of me own?’ As the tears gushed afresh Alena wrapped her arms tight around her one-time friend, rocking her gently to and fro.
Rob never did appear, despite his promise, but Alena was too busy mopping up Dolly’s tears, cleaning her skirt of sloe juice in the cold waters of the beck and talking her into believing that her period was simply late, to make much of it.
‘Don’t let yourself think of it for a whole week. Every time it comes into your head, do something else to take your mind off it. Go for a walk, read a book, or go to the pictures. You like going to the pictures.’
‘It was going to the pictures that got me in this mess!’