A Time Like No Other (9 page)

But today, on her own, she had felt a sense of well-being. Except at one farm, though she said nothing of this to Biddy because if she had Biddy would have insisted that Carly accompany her and she did not want that. Her tenants evidently liked and even trusted her and Carly’s presence might impede the progress she was making. The exception, of course, had been at Foxwell Farm where the Weavers appeared to have nothing to do but sit about in their cramped and sour kitchen, the men smoking their pipes, the women staring at a heap of rushes which, as she entered, they fell on with an air of great urgency, stating that they were busy with their baskets which they were to sell at the market!

It was the two sons who made her uneasy. They were big, handsome lads, as their father must once have been and the way they eyed her with easy familiarity from the tip of her boots to the windblown curls on her head was nothing short of insulting. They took great interest in her legs, nudging each other and grinning and she supposed she should not have come here dressed as she was. Her other tenants treated her with respect and though they might not approve of her outfit they would not dream of letting her see it. She had refused drab Evie Weaver’s offer of a cup of tea and, addressing her remarks to Arty, who at least had the goodness to stand up when she entered the farmhouse, asked if there was anything he required in the running of his farm. It was February and his hedges needed trimming and she had noticed there were repairs required to his dry-stone walls, she said politely. Mr Sinclair had mentioned that spring corn should be sowed so should not his field be ploughed by now and what about early potatoes?

Clearly taken aback by her knowledge of farming, which she had learned from the dozens of agricultural books she had found in the estate office, Arty began to babble, bowing and scraping and rubbing his hands as he did so, that he needed the ‘lend’ of a plough-horse since he and his family could not afford to buy or even hire one. This bitch, as he privately called her to his family, had caught them all on the hop. They had lived a life of lazy ease for years since the young squire and his father before him had paid scant heed to such things as ploughing and planting. They had hens and one skinny cow, pigs and with what Evie and the girls earned with their baskets and the fruits of his sons’ poaching, without doing a hand’s turn they had lived a comfortable life.

‘Us needs all manner o’ things ter make a proper start ’ereabouts,’ he whined.

‘Come up to the house and see me and we’ll discuss it,’ Lally told him, wanting to get away from the sly grins and narrowed eyes of his two sons who had not stirred from their positions before the fire since she arrived. She would make sure Harry was with her when Arty Weaver presented himself. ‘Perhaps the day after tomorrow would suit you,’ she added, ‘in the morning. I’m usually there between ten and twelve.’

‘Well, yer see, ma’am . . .’ Arty began but, slapping her boot with her riding crop and calling to her two dogs who leaned close to her, their muzzles slightly lifted in disapproval of the atmosphere in the kitchen, she turned on her heel and walked out into the yard. She was conscious of the male laughter that erupted as she lifted herself somewhat awkwardly into the saddle but nothing on God’s earth would allow her to ask Arty Weaver to give her a hand.

She had crossed the stream, a tributary of the River Calder, and was just entering Priory Wood when she heard her name called and the sound of horse’s hooves snapping the fallen twigs in the undergrowth. She turned her head, disorientated for a moment, since her head had been filled with how she was to deal with the family at Foxwell as it seemed to her that they would never become decent tenants on what could be a small, but profitable farm. Riding along the edge of the wood came the familiar and handsome bay on which Harry Sinclair rode and on his back was Harry.

She was ready to smile but his face was thunderous, scowling with what looked like murderous rage and so alarmed was she, she hauled at Merry’s reins, causing the mare to throw up her head and jink sideways. Harry trotted towards her and even before he had reined in Piper he raised his voice and demanded to know what the hell she thought she was doing.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Her face fell into frozen lines of annoyance.

‘What the devil are you doing riding about by yourself and in that bloody get-up? Are you determined to do not only yourself but your reputation even further damage? I gave strict instructions to Carly that whenever you rode out to the farms he was to go with you and when he said he was the only groom and who would look after the others while—’

‘What right have you to order my servants about, may I ask? And he has other duties to perform besides—’

‘I know that so I offered to send over one of my grooms to take over while he accompanied—’

‘Dear God! I am on my own land with my own tenants all within shouting distance so what harm could possibly—’

‘That is not the point. You might have a fall—’

‘I have been riding since I could walk and am hardly likely to—’

‘And then there are those two ruffians at Foxwell. I don’t like the look of them.’

No, neither did she. They made her feel extremely uncomfortable with their sly looks and grins, the way they licked their lips when they stared at her, but she was not having this man order her around, who, though he had been inordinately helpful when she had been at her lowest ebb, did not own her.

‘And what is wrong with what I’m wearing, pray? I am modestly covered from head to foot and, besides, it is not your place to say what I should wear. This coat was Chris’s and is warm and . . . and I like wearing it. It is comfortable for riding and really, why should a woman be trammelled by wide skirts and hoops and . . . and all the paraphernalia she is forced to wear to please society. No one can see me so—’

‘The tenants can see you including those rogues at Foxwell. That outfit is not the attire of a lady, as you are, and what’s more you have been seen at the theatre in a gown that was not suitable wear for a widow. Really, Lally, I thought—’

‘Do you know, Harry Sinclair,’ she spat out, ‘it is a matter of supreme indifference to me what you think. I am a free woman and I shall do as I please. Now I would be obliged if you would get out of my way as I have things to do and no time to waste. I bid you good-day.’

Harry stared in sinking despair as he watched her break into a furious gallop, her dogs at her heels, and disappear into the woodland.

6

Moorend was a quiet town in an obscure setting of moorland and fast-flowing streams surrounded by other towns such as Halifax and Bradford and Huddersfield, these three coming into their own with the invention of steam engines, spinning machines and mechanical looms. They had transformed the cottage craft of weaving into what was increasingly known as the industrial revolution. They had all, with the exception of Moorend, doubled their size annually, filling up with smoke-blackened factories and to accommodate the growing population hundreds of cramped, terraced houses had been built clustered around the woollen mills.

But Moorend, which was a small township south of Halifax on the outskirts of the more dignified Skircoats, had somehow escaped this grand tidal wave of progress and it was here, spilling over from Skircoats, that the owners of the factories and mills lived in smart villas and even mansions, depending on their status and bank balance. There was a park and recreation ground with a small ornamental lake and regimented flower gardens, a great favourite with Sunday strollers who came to listen to the brass band. There was a market square in which was situated the elegant shop, or salon as she liked to call it, of Miss Violet Hockley, a clever young dressmaker and milliner who catered to the gentry. She worked hard, supervised her workroom and kept her girls in order and was well thought of in the town, for not only was she respectable as were her staff, she was imaginative, creative and the soul of discretion. There was Jewsbury & Brown, Pharmaceutical Chemists, whose shelves contained row upon row of exquisitely coloured jars in which the mysteries of medicines were displayed, a high-class grocer, a perfumer and wig-maker by the name of William Roberts, Mr Walter Jupp who created hats for gentlemen, a baby linen warehouse where the new mothers of the town fitted out their children, and on each Saturday an open-air market where one might purchase cheese, butter, poultry and eggs straight from the surrounding farms.

A People’s Park was to open the following year in Halifax which was, so it was said, to be an even greater affair than the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, designed in fact by Sir Joseph Paxton and was to cost £50,000. It was to have a terrace providing views over the park to the moors beyond, while pavilions in the form of an Italian loggia would give shelter from inclement weather. In the central pavilion was to be a large seated statue of the donor of the park, Sir Francis Crossley, though of course many other wealthy men of Halifax and its surrounds had given generously to provide what was to be, or so they thought, the most splendid park in the north.

One of those benefactors was Harry Sinclair who, along with his younger brother, owned High Clough, West Heath and South Royd Mills and who was at the moment seated in what his housekeeper called the ‘drawing room’ but which his grandmother, a down-to-earth Yorkshire woman, had known as the parlour at Mill House. Mill House was situated on a shelf of landscaped greenery overlooking his woollen mill High Clough, a vast six-storey building capable of housing 500 looms. The gardens in which the house stood were cut from the bare hillside, surrounded by beds of fragrant lavender and carnations and other flowers with which Harry did not concern himself, leaving it all to the gardeners he employed. There were stables behind leading off a cobbled yard where a couple of grooms looked after his horses and the gig he used when necessary. The house had high ceilings to its airy rooms which were still stuffed with the sturdy furniture his grandmother had thought appropriate to the sturdy men who lived in it, among them her husband and those of her sons who had survived the afflictions that were visited on young children. Nothing had been changed since those days and Harry and Roly were comfortable enough, well fed and cared for by Mrs Cannon and her staff of three girls.

He had a glass of after-dinner brandy in his hand and a cigar between his lips when his brother strolled into the room. They had dined together on vermicelli soup, crimped cod and oyster sauce, roast beef with horseradish sauce, with meringues and whipped cream to follow. They had eaten a prime Stilton cheese with a decent claret followed by port and cigars. They had chatted in a desultory fashion about the ratification of the peace treaty between Great Britain, the Allies and Russia, and the possibility of increased trade in the woollen industry which the ending of the Crimean War would bring about and then, after drinking coffee brought into the parlour by Ivy, the housemaid, Roly, who was once more home from his travels, had excused himself, saying he had an appointment in Moorend.

‘With Lally Fraser, one presumes?’ Harry could have kicked himself as the words burst from between his lips. It was weeks since he had seen Lally as she rode back to the Priory and he had remonstrated with her for going about the estate alone. He had had his head bitten off for his trouble and had decided to stay away from her for a while to give her and himself time to cool off, but at the same time he had been worried that his desertion of
her
, at her command, might perhaps have left her rudderless. His feelings for her were his undoing, he was aware of that. His anxiety for her safety, though he supposed she was perfectly safe on her own land with her own people about her, had led him to say more than he meant. To let her see his concern was unwise, he knew that, but somehow he could not always help himself. She was so vulnerable, so fragile in her widowhood and he was desperate to help her, to get her through the pain and sorrow she must be suffering. Or so he had thought until he realised that his own brother was the one who was doing what he longed to do. It was common knowledge that Roly visited her at the Priory whenever he was home though there had been no more visits to the theatre or indeed anywhere; even so there had been a decided falling-off of callers to the Priory, he had heard, and who could be to blame for that, Harry asked himself bitterly, but his own brother. Roly was a good-natured, gregarious sort of chap with no thought of causing damage to Lally Fraser, but she was a beautiful young woman, the widow of his best friend and if he could make her life a little more cheerful then why not? He had a way with women, with everybody come to that, even Harry himself, but could he not see he was doing Lally Fraser no good?

‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact,’ Roly answered, surprised.

‘I’m to be off again soon as you well know, and she has little enough company besides that woman who insists on sitting with us whenever I call.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Harry pronounced sharply, drawing deeply on his cigar. ‘You know the ways of our society as well as the next man and your attention to Lally, who has been a widow for some five months, has not gone unnoticed by the—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Harry, are we to take heed of a lot of old cats when poor Lally is so much in the doldrums over Chris? I’m only—’

‘I don’t know what you are only doing. I only know you are giving a decent woman a bad name, or so those old cats are saying. I had Albert Watson at West Heath the other day to look at that wall – you know, the one with the crack in it, and he had the effrontery to suggest . . . well, I won’t tell you what he suggested with his innuendos but . . .’

Roly sat down and reached for a cigar from the silver box on the small occasional table beside the chair. He lit it and drew in the smoke then turned to Harry, a sneer on his handsome face. ‘No, Harry, do tell me what that old buffoon implied and then I will go over to Skircoats and knock his bloody block off.’

‘Very well, he was winking and nudging me with the implication that you were doing well for yourself with the widow . . .’