The Bobbin Girls (34 page)

On Monday morning, Alena was working in the drying room, just off the barrel house. She was sewing the tops of the sacks with a curved needle and string, using blanket stitch and finishing off with a pair of ‘pig’s lugs’, one at each corner. When the sack was ready she would use these lugs to lift it on to the bogey, and when they were all done, push it to the loading bay where she’d fling the heavy sacks of bobbins through the big doors on to the truck in the yard below.

The men in the yard shouted up to her. ‘How did your meeting go? Have you saved the world yet?’

Incensed, she shouted back. ‘At least we’re trying, which is more than can be said for some folk.’

‘We’ve more sense. Listening to you Townsens can get a bloke in trouble. Mind, there’s some forms of trouble I wouldn’t mind getting into with you, Alena, if you’d only say the word.’

There followed the kind of ribald joking she could only deal with by closing her ears and pinning a smile to her face. But, still with a touch of the tomboy in her, she managed to fling down the sacks faster than they could catch them, and never quite where they expected, so that minutes later they were begging her to slow down and she was the one laughing.

Mickey came to her during her dinner break to sit next to her at the trestle table to eat his sandwiches. ‘You’ll be giving up this campaign nonsense now, I take it?’ he said. ‘Now that it hasn’t worked and the meeting was a failure.’

She looked at him aghast. ‘Who says it hasn’t worked? We’ve hardly started yet. Sandra’s really got the bit between her teeth. She’s planning more posters, letters to the newspapers, all kinds of things.’

He snorted with laughter. ‘I suppose it’ll keep her mind off her troubles, but you have better things to occupy your time.’

‘Such as? Making bobbins for James Hollinthwaite?’

‘Planning our wedding. I don’t like my girl chatting up men in the yard.’ He sincerely hoped too that those men would never let on it had been he who had actively put them off attending the meeting, warning of likely reprisals from Hollinthwaite if they did. He might care deeply about the Lake District, and the coppicing industry in particular, but Alena was more important than anything else in his life. Mickey did not intend to lose her, or let her play fast and loose with his plans.

‘Chatting up?’ She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘If there was any chatting up being done, it was by them, not me. Don’t be so touchy, Mickey.’

‘I won’t be made a fool of. Time I put a ring on that pretty finger of yours, and let them see who you belong to.’

‘I don’t
belong
to anyone.’

‘Aye, you do,’ he said and, grabbing her to him, kissed her full on the mouth right there in the canteen in front of everyone. The girls giggled while the men roared with laughter, stamped their feet and cheered as the kiss went on and on. Alena couldn’t move since Mickey’s arms were tight about her, trapping her own to her sides. When he finally let her go she was all hot and flushed, and utterly speechless.

‘When’s the happy day then?’ a voice called out.

‘Soon,’ Mickey grinned. ‘And you’re all invited.’

Not wishing to look even more foolish, Alena said nothing, just smiled at the ensuing saucy remarks. The mill canteen was not a place for over-sensitivity. But as the men got up to go back to work, she called out to them. ‘Not that any of you deserve an invitation since you’re all cowards, the lot of you. You’d run a mile rather than face up to Hollinthwaite, while he strangles your valley to death. Haven’t you considered that you and your sons could be out of work in a few years’ time? He’ll be making more money out of harvesting his spruce than he will out of bobbins by then.’

There was a silence while this fact was digested. Even Lizzie paused in pouring out a cup of tea for a latecomer. The whole room seemed to hold its breath for a long moment, then one by one the men shuffled off back to work. It hadn’t escaped Alena’s notice that not one of them had argued with her.

Lizzie raised her eyebrows, a twinkle in her grey eyes, before continuing with the pouring. Mickey looked less pleased and told Alena sharply that they’d get down to details about the wedding when he came round later that evening, and hadn’t she better get back to work?

‘I’m going,’ she airily remarked, and walked away with the kind of swaying athletic grace that made his mouth go all dry.

When she reached home that evening Alena flung off her coat and flopped down at the kitchen table as if she carried the card of the world on her shoulders. In a way she felt as if she did. ‘Why do I feel so strange?’ she asked Lizzie. ‘I know Mickey wants to get married as soon as possible. He never stops going on about it, and I am fond of him, so why do I keep putting him off?’

‘Nay, don’t ask me. I’m only your mother.’ Lizzie folded freshly ironed shirts while she listened to her daughter search her heart.

‘I suppose I don’t feel ready.’

‘You’re young yet. But if you’ve any doubts, lass, you can postpone it, or even call it off. You don’t have to wed Mickey Roscoe.’ Lizzie’s eyes were soft. She longed to cradle this precious daughter in her arms while knowing it would not have been the right thing to do. Alena was a woman with a mind of her own who had to make decisions for herself. Sometimes such decisions were hard. Lizzie was beginning to think that full-grown children were more of a problem than when they were little. If there wasn’t one of them to worry over, it was another.

‘We get on well and he’s such fun,’ Alena was saying. If she found some pleasure in his kisses and didn’t mind him caressing her, must mean she was growing to love him? ‘It’s only that Mickey is the impatient sort, greedy for life. He wants everything to happen quickly, which is usually my problem so how can I blame him for it? I’m sure we’d be happy.’

‘It’s just cold feet then?’ Lizzie queried, and Alena agreed that it must be. She was certain that once they could truly afford to marry, she’d be more than ready. ‘We haven’t even a home to call our own yet.’

She was startled therefore when Mickey arrived later that evening in his best brown serge suit, and announced he’d been promoted to foreman. Arthur, it seemed, had been pensioned off, as he never did anything but ask for favours from the managers. ‘Mr Hollinthwaite says he was too much on the side of the workers, which isn’t the point of a foreman at all.’ He also told Alena he’d had a bit of luck and found them a good house, quite close by, and saw no reason, if Mrs Townsen were agreeable, why they shouldn’t get wed on the first day of spring.

Much to Dolly’s disappointment her period arrived the following week. It caused her severe stomach cramps and when she went off to bed early, Tom brought her up a cup of tea. Since their long talk he hadn’t been out once to the pub, which gave her some cause for hope. She’d caught him looking at her once or twice in a thoughtful sort of way. Perhaps he was softening, which helped her remain resolute in her determination to make a go of things.

‘We’ve not struck lucky this time,’ she admitted with some shyness as he slid a hot water bottle in beside her. ‘But happen we could try again. If you wanted to?’ Although he said nothing, Dolly noticed how he went off downstairs with that thoughtful look on his face.

The following day he came home with a cut lip and a black eye. ‘It’s all right, don’t panic. You should see the other bloke.’ And he grinned. ‘I’ve just given that Danny Fielding a piece of my mind. Told him not to interfere with my wife in future, if he knows what s good for him.’

‘Oh, Tom, you didn’t! But Danny Fielding and I never...

‘So you said, but it’ll do no harm for him to know I choose to believe
you
, and not
him
. I’ll stand no more nonsense. I wanted to make that clear.’

Dolly had the sense to keep her mouth shut and be grateful, for it seemed that some sort of male pride had been salvaged by this boyish display of fisticuffs. And if Tom were championing her again, it looked as if he meant to keep her.

Then his face softened slightly as he hunkered down beside her chair and very tentatively rubbed the tip of one finger over her hand.

‘We didn’t get off to a good start, you and me, eh?’

‘No.’

‘But if you’re serious about trying again, I wouldn’t be against the idea. If it isn’t too late.’

Dolly could scarcely breathe for pleasure.

Tom was very nearly smiling, and there was in his eye that familiar glint, the one which always set her heart racing. ‘You sit there and put your feet up. You still look a bit washed out. I’ll make tea tonight.’

Chapter Eighteen

On the twelfth of December 1936, King Edward renounced the throne for the sake of the woman he loved. The papers were full of it and since everyone had been gripped with the romance for months, no one was without an opinion on the subject.

Sandra believed he should be allowed a morganatic marriage. Alena considered he should put duty first and give her up, and Mickey insisted that he would never give up Alena, so why should the King give up Mrs Simpson?

Alena gave a light laugh. ‘Never? That’s a bit drastic, isn’t it? What if something happened - you lost your job for instance, as Harry did, and could no longer afford to marry?’

‘I wouldn’t lose my job.’

She felt her irritation with him growing. ‘These things happen.’

‘Not to me.’

‘All right then, what if
I
lost my job and changed my mind about marrying you?’

‘You wouldn’t change your mind. You know I’d always look after you. How could you even suggest otherwise?’ And such a wounded expression came into his rust brown eyes that Alena felt guilty at her impatience, and hastened to reassure him that, of course, she was only teasing.

‘You should stop worrying about the King and concentrate on making plans for our own wedding,’ he gently scolded. ‘It will be spring before you know it.’

In a wave of panic Alena went straight to Sandra. ‘It’s all happening too fast. I tell Mickey I’m not ready but he doesn’t seem to listen. Oh, Sandra, what am I to do? Why do I feel like this?’

Surprisingly, the first thing her friend said was, ‘Will you tell him?’

‘Tell who?’

‘Rob, of course, about your coming marriage. You still write to him, don’t you? What do you think he’ll say?’

Alena clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘It’s really none of his concern. If Rob Hollinthwaite chooses to believe his father’s lies, nothing I do can be of any interest to him, ever again.’ But the words did not in any way express how she truly felt.

Sandra, close enough to Alena to understand this, gave a sympathetic smile. ‘Life is so strange, isn’t it? I long to marry and can’t. You could marry but can’t quite bring yourself to.’ And the two girls wrapped their arms about each other and wept.

‘I’ve turned into a silly female,’ Alena said, wiping away the tears. ‘Anyone would think I didn’t want to marry Mickey but I do, really I do. He’s kind, and good fun, and quite an exciting lover.’

‘Oh, well, that’s all right then. You can spend all your time in bed.’ Now they both fell into a fit of the giggles which for once did not make either of them feel any better.

Alena told Mickey that there was plenty of time before next spring, and she was really far too busy to think of weddings at present. The two girls spent every spare moment writing letters to everyone of influence they could think of, as well as to all the local newspapers. Sandra painted huge placards in bold bright letters and walked about the village with them tied about her. The response was more likely to be laughter than support but it didn’t put her off trying. She would follow people along the street, bullying them into listening to her.

‘For goodness’ sake, leave me alone, Sandra,’ some would say in guilty exasperation, then take one of her leaflets. Others would rush into their houses and shut the door.

But finding the money for the campaign was a real problem. It was needed to buy paper and envelopes and stamps, which greatly strained their meagre resources. The sealed envelopes would sit on Aunt Elsie’s dresser for weeks while they saved up to send them off a few at a time. It came as no surprise to either of them that they received few replies.

Mickey spent Christmas with the Townsen family, sharing in their jollity. It felt odd, at first, to have him there as if he were already a part of the family, but Lizzie said it was the right thing to do.

Everyone exchanged gifts, and he gave them all a small present each by way of appreciation. For Alena, there was the long-promised engagement ring. It had a single tiny diamond on a gold band. When he slid it on to her finger she almost shouted at him to take it off again, but then her family kissed and congratulated her so she smiled and let Mickey kiss her too.

Getting engaged made Alena feel suddenly grown up, as if she must take life more seriously in future. But it was quite exciting all the same. Later that night, as she lay curled up in her bed, warming her toes on the stone hot water bottle, the panic returned and she wondered whether she’d done the right thing. What would marriage with Mickey be like? Would they be happy? She couldn’t always make him out. He was quite possessive and proprietorial, which was flattering in a way, but then he could be completely absorbed in his own affairs and scarcely give her a thought.