The Bobbin Girls (2 page)

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.