Love and Money (12 page)

“I'll have a house like this one day.”

For surely his new cloth would bring him fame and fortune. He quite longed for tomorrow morning, when he could begin work on his beautiful figured Amens. It would be difficult, of course. He would need help in the weaving. Could his young brother do the job? Or would it be better to employ a journeyman weaver? That would mean paying out money, which was not as yet very plentiful at High Fold. Schofield's father would turn in his grave at the thought of paying out to a weaver, and his mother, still alive and active, might have something to say about it likewise. Well, that was for tomorrow; meanwhile let him learn as much as he could from this present visit. The agent and young Percy were making terrible weather of explaining the matter of the passages, and Sir John sat flipping his thumbnails and looking cold and cross beneath his powdered hair.

“It was this young man's notion, sir,” said the agent at
last, stepping back and indicating Schofield with an air of shifting the blame.

“Well, sir,” said Sir John with icy politeness: “Perhaps you will kindly explain the matter to me in simple terms, for at present I own I can make neither head nor tail of it.”

Schofield stepped forward, set two chairs to indicate the passage walls, drew his little folding rule out of his pocket and arranged them at the exact distance from each other of the walls in the Cloth Hall. He then threw a piece of cloth over Percy's shoulder, but the lad was so stupid in taking up the proper attitude, he so stumbled about at Schofield's push and staggered under the weight of the piece that Schofield quite despaired of him and Sir John pursed his lips impatiently. One of the deputation of clothiers solved the problem by stepping forward and taking the cloth on his own shoulder. As luck would have it—Schofield chuckled to himself—this man was a big broad burly fellow, who took up much more space than the lanky Percy. The moment Schofield threw the other piece over his own shoulder and faced him, Schofield's point was proved. Sir John scowled.

“This should have been thought of earlier,” he said sternly to the agent, who meekly bowed. “However, it is not too late. Measure the two men as they stand now, and add a few inches for comfort. And now, gentlemen, a glass of wine before your homeward ride.” He fixed Schofield with his cold grey eye and concluded: “I am obliged to you, Mr. Priestley.”

“You're welcome,” said Schofield.

Thus it happened that Schofield Priestley and Percival Ormerod took a long ride home together that night. The other members of the deputation returned to Annotsfield, but the two young men rode directly over the hill towards Walt Royd which lay on the south side of the Ire Valley; Schofield could then ride up the valley and cross the river by the bridge at Marthwaite, so the route they took was the shortest for both. The rain, which had held off during the
afternoon, now came down heavily, and it would have been natural if they had ridden in silence, hunched up from the rain within their cloaks. But they were both a trifle excited, a trifle out of themselves; Percy because of his first excursion to the market, and Schofield because of his new Amens pattern and his having distinguished himself in front of Sir John. Accordingly Percy, garrulous by nature, prattled all the way home, and Schofield's replies were less short than they would have been on any other occasion.

“I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Scofe,” jerked out Percy breathlessly as he rose and fell in his saddle—(“he doesn't even ride very well, silly lad,” thought Schofield)— “for your infinite kindness—to me today.”

“My name isn't Scofe,” said Schofield drily, giving his correct appellation. It was the Amens and Sir John which caused him to add: “But you can call me Schofield if you've a mind.”

Percy's effusive apologies lasted half a mile. Then he resumed his theme of gratitude; he was especially grateful to Mr. Priestley because he had no one to advise him—his father recently dead—he himself, destined for the law— studying in London—obliged to return to the West Riding—no experience in the cloth trade—quite at sea—his mother and sisters dependent on his exertions—

“But surely your father had a handsome estate,” objected Schofield.

Then the floodgates of Percy's troubles were opened, and he poured out such a tale of mismanagement, extravagance and misdirected ambition as appalled the sober Schofield, accustomed to prompt payments on a small scale. Mortgages, menservants, new carriages, sales of property, repairs, the repulses of his mother's family (landed gentry superior in social status to the Ormerods), lack of ready money, departure of weavers, the jilting of his elder sister by a cavalry captain—a sackful of disasters tumbled out higgledy-piggledy; it was impossible to make any sense of them, any coherent sequence of cause and effect; but one thing was certain in the hopeless confusion, and that was imminent ruin.

“He's no friend for me. Luckily I don't like him,” reflected the cautious Schofield, and he made up his mind to warn his younger brother against the Ormerods, just in case he ever came across them. “To lend this lad owt would be pouring water into a sieve.” His West Riding frame quite shuddered at the thought.

By this time the two horsemen were approaching Walt Royd, the back part of whose extensive premises lay near the main Ire Valley road. At the gate Percy drew rein.

“Will you come in and sup with me, Mr. Priestley?”

It was an invitation whose tone forbade acceptance. Whether this lack of desire for Schofield's company sprang from a feeling that Schofield was insufficiently genteel for Walt Royd, or that the Walt Royd supper would be insufficient for Schofield, was doubtful, but Schofield judged the first to be the reason, and his answer was stiff.

“No, I thank you.”

“Pray do, sir,” said Percy—but again his tone was rather polite than warm.

Schofield was about to return an emphatic negative when there came an interruption. The back door of Walt Royd was flung open and a figure appeared there, holding shoulder-high a lantern.

“Is that you, Percy?” cried a voice. “Mother has been anxious. Why are you so late, bad boy?”

She was young; most delicately fair, with silky curls of very pale gold and a cheek like a rose-petal; slender but of exquisite shape—her arm holding up the lantern was the whitest, the roundest, the prettiest Schofield had ever seen. Her gown was of a soft watchet-blue colour, and her eyes, very sparkling and merry, exactly matched this blue. Her voice was warm and sweet and laughing, like herself. In that moment when he first saw her Schofield's heart turned over and he loved her.

“I am coming,” called Percy. “My younger sister, Sophia,” he explained hastily to Schofield. He was just about to utter a conclusive farewell, when Schofield said strongly:

“Stay!”

“Eh?” said Percy.

“I can give you a cloth will make your fortune,” said Schofield.

“A cloth? How? Give?”

“I've invented a new design of surpassing beauty,” explained Schofield. (His voice trembled as he uttered these un-Yorkshire words, for in his mind they had another application, not concerning cloth.) “A figured Amens.”

“I have heard of such cloths. Their name comes from the French city of Amiens, I believe, where they were first made,” said Percy in his condescending drawl.

It was just like him, thought Schofield, to know this detail and yet be totally ignorant of the cloth itself.

“This cloth will sell at a high price.”

“But do you not want it for yourself, Schofield?”

“Eh, I've turned into Schofield now,” thought Schofield sardonically. Aloud he said: “I can easily make other designs.”

“Well! Come in—you
must
come in—we will speak of this further,” said Percy.

This time his tone was warm and eager, and Schofield accepted the invitation. The two young men rode down to the door and dismounted.

“Oh!” exclaimed Sophia in surprise as a second young man emerged from the gloom.

“Sophia, this is my friend Mr. Schofield Priestley,” said Percy, waving a complimentary hand.

“I'm afraid I'm a bit sodden, like, Miss Sophia,” stammered Schofield. “Rain's very wet.”

“Any friend of my brother's, sir, is welcome,” said Sophia, smiling at him very sweetly.

Thus did Schofield Priestley the West Riding man, without any unseemly fuss, or as he would have called it “silly work,” give away his great idea for love.

To relate in detail all the incidents of the next few months would certainly cause admiration for Schofield's tenacity,
but might perhaps make excessive demands on the reader's textile knowledge.

Percy's laziness and ineptitude, the languid snobbery of his mother, the waspish hostility of his elder sister, on the one hand; on the other the explosive outbursts of Schofield's own robustly sensible mother and the almost awestruck alarm of his young brother Ned as to the amount of time Schofield spent away from his own work down at Walt Royd; Schofield's own fatigue—for of course he had to sit at his own loom far into the night, to make up for this wasted daylight: as if all these were not enough, the new design proved unexpectedly difficult to carry out, to translate from a mere idea into actual threads. He had engaged on Percy's behalf a weaver from his own side of the valley, a skilful and reliable man, Brigg by name, and he and Brigg spent hours at one of the Ormerod looms, experimenting with reeds and healds, while Percy strolled in and out asking foolish questions and Miss Maria (the lady jilted by the cavalry captain) could be heard enquiring in her high acid tones whether “that man” would be staying to dinner again.

“He's a very good sort of man, dear,” said Mrs. Ormerod in her languid drawl: “And if he's helping Percy we must just try to suffer him. Though why dear Percy should wish to turn himself into a cloth manufacturer, I cannot conceive.
My
family never did anything of the kind.”

“Poor Papa was a cloth manufacturer,” said Sophia with spirit.

“He never demeaned himself by actually sitting at a loom, Sophy,” said Maria severely.

“I don't imagine Percy will sit much at a loom, either,” murmured Sophia. “I only wish he would.”

At this Madam Ormerod sighed, Miss Maria tossed her head, and Schofield continued to dine (very badly) in the glacial atmosphere of the Ormerods' handsomely appointed, but shabby and dusty, front room, which looked so pleasantly down the fields to the sparkling Ire.

Schofield was not daunted by all these difficulties; in fact he enjoyed them. But there were times—as he rode home to
High Fold perhaps after an overdose of Percy and Maria, or finally left his loom, fit to drop with weariness, in the small hours of the morning—when he chuckled to himself and remarked, wagging his head:

“Scofe, lad, tha's bitten off more than tha can chew.”

But he spoke cheerfully, for he did not in the least believe it. Whenever he thought of his difficulties, a strong, keen, intensely pleasurable feeling welled up in his heart. For Schofield was a West Riding man, and when a West Riding man shows himself most dogged, he is feeling most in love.

At last his tenacity was rewarded, and the weaving of his new design became a practical proposition. His original proposal, that Percy should weave and Brigg assist, had long been reversed, and now Brigg confided to him that to hire a young boy to assist him would be more economical than to employ Percy on the work, for Percy was already responsible for spoiling several yards by his lack of skill and attention. Percy agreed to the hiring of such a boy—Percy had a way of announcing his complete ignorance about textiles and leaving everything to his good friend Schofield, which would have maddened Schofield if he had allowed himself to be maddened by any of the Ormerods. So at last a couple of fine pieces of the new cloth were woven in a blue yarn, finished and displayed at Annotsfield market.

Their novelty and charm caught the eyes of the merchants, and orders for similar pieces poured in.

At the same time the opening of the commodious and convenient new Cloth Hall gave a fillip to the whole Annotsfield cloth trade.

So, as Schofield had foreseen, ready money tumbled plentifully into Percy's pocket. Prosperity, like decay, is cumulative. The Ormerods' credit rose. Bankruptcy fell quite out of sight. It was indeed only about a year after his first meeting with Schofield that Percy was able to release one of the many mortgaged closes of Ormerod land.

On the day that Percy, with jubilation, brought home these reclaimed title deeds, Schofield, having put on his
best coat and had his hair dressed, arrived at Walt Royd to request formal permission from Percy to ask Sophia to be his wife.

Percy coloured and appeared embarrassed and unwilling to meet Schofield's eye. He hemmed and ha'd; he threw out scattered phrases about Sophia's youth, her beauty, her many admirers; he turned his head and looked out (perhaps with meaning) at the fields and cottages which he now had good hope would soon again be his own. But Schofield continued to stand stubbornly in front of him without speaking, and at last Percy blurted out unwillingly:

“All things considered, Schofield, I don't see that I can refuse you.”

“No,” said Schofield sturdily: “I don't see that you can.”

“But I can't answer for Sophia,” said Percy hastily. “Will you tell her now, then,” said Schofield, disregarding this.

It was not a question but a statement, and though Percy shuffled, coloured, waved his hands about and brought out a good many long words, he eventually with a shrug and a sigh went away to find his sister.

He came back bearing all the signs of a man who has had his ears boxed, for his hair was ruffled, his face scarlet and his speech decidedly breathless.

“She will see you now—in the little parlour,” he panted.

Schofield made his way to this agreeable little panelled room, knocked and entered. Sophia stood by the hearth waiting to receive him. Her cheeks, like Percy's—their fair complexions showed every change of temper very markedly —were scarlet and she was clearly in a blazing rage. In this condition she looked even more beautiful than usual. As Schofield did not immediately speak she tapped her foot three times quickly on the floor, like an impatient pony; a pretty motion which made Schofield's heart quite turn over with love.