The Bobbin Girls (6 page)

‘Hello, Alena. How lovely of you to call.’ Olivia was standing at the stove stirring soup when Alena burst through the back door, as usual without knocking. Ellersgarth Hall was like a second home to her, and she’d never been told that any formality was necessary. The kitchen was warm and cosy on this brisk autumn day, the smell of herbs and vegetables deliciously appetising.

Rob, it seemed, was not in. He had been taken by his father to visit the new school, which was in Yorkshire, so they wouldn’t be back until the next day. Alena wondered why Mrs Hollinthwaite hadn’t gone with them but was too polite to ask.

Olivia insisted that she stay and drink a cup of tea with her. ‘I was about to put the kettle on anyway. Let’s be cosy and chat, or have a bit of crack as they say round here.’

This was one of the things Alena liked most about Mrs Hollinthwaite. She wasn’t a bit stand-offish. And despite having a cook-general, the redoubtable Mrs Milburn, she was not above doing kitchen tasks herself. She was an excellent cook and proved it now by bringing forth a plate of freshly baked scones and a jar of home-made blackcurrant jelly. Alena chose a scone, slit it in half and spread it thickly with the jam.

‘Hmm,’ she mumbled through the crumbs. `Delicious. How do you find the time?’

‘Heavens, my life is easy compared to most. Ask your mother how she manages to keep house for a husband, four grown sons and a daughter, and still hold down a job as canteen lady and general factotum at the bobbin mill?’

Alena couldn’t help but smile. ‘She’d say it’s because she’s a woman.’ And Mrs Hollinthwaite laughed. It was a lovely, tinkling sound and Alena realised she didn’t hear it very often.
 

‘I’m surprised Jim and Harry aren’t married. Handsome blond giants the pair of them. Even Kit must be nearly twenty-one by now, mustn’t he? Tom not far behind. It’s a wonder none of them has been snapped up.’

‘Ma says they’re too comfy at home, but she lives in hope,’ making her laugh again.
 

They gossiped about neighbours and village life; the Harvest Supper and the new vicar - latest in a long line since few of them seemed to take to the peculiar isolation of the parish, and how Mrs Rigg at the village shop had promised to get in some of the new lightning zip fasteners as soon as they became generally available. They discussed the tragedy of Sir Henry Seagrove being killed during an attempt to beat the speed record on Lake Windermere in June when his boat Miss England overturned. And, inevitably, they got on to the depression and the increasing number of unemployed which everyone was concerned about. Alena always enjoyed chatting with Olivia, since she talked to her as if she were an equal.

‘What are you going to do, young lady, when you leave school?’ It was a question adults loved to ask, Alena had noticed.
 

‘I’ll probably work in the mill too,’ she said, a hint of defiance in her voice. She’d somehow lost all interest in teaching.

Mrs Hollinthwaite seemed disappointed. ‘I’m rather sorry about that, Alena. You’re bright enough to do better. With women gaining the vote two years back I would’ve thought you’d be keen to make your mark.’

‘There’s naught wrong with working in the mill,’ she said, rather heatedly, knowing it was once the last thing she’d wanted. But now somehow she craved it, as if to compound her misery by such sacrifice.

For a long moment Olivia Hollinthwaite sipped her tea and said nothing. Then, very quietly: ‘You’ll miss Rob when he goes.’

It was a statement, not a question, and another reason in favour of going to the mill. Without Rob, Alena felt she would need the comfort of familiar folk about her.

‘Yes.’ Tears sprang to her eyes but she tightened her lips and ground her teeth together, determined not to give way. If sometimes Alena found her more feminine side in conflict with her tomboyishness, that was a problem she had learned to hide. Rob would think her soppy if she cried.

‘He’ll miss you too. I know he’s very fond of you. We all are. And we’ll miss seeing you here every day.’ Their eyes met in a long glance. Mr Hollinthwaite wouldn’t miss her. He barely spoke to Alena, unless he happened to bump into her by mistake. She thought him very full of his own importance.

‘Yes,’ Alena said again. Then swallowing the pain in her throat, ‘Is it definitely decided then? Will Rob go whether he likes the school or not?’

It was a long moment before Olivia answered. ‘I’m afraid so.’ Another pause and she added more brightly, ‘I’m sure it will be good for him. He probably should have gone years ago, though I’m rather glad he didn’t, aren’t you?’

‘Why didn’t he?’

‘My fault, I suppose. I enjoyed having him at home. What is the point of bringing children into the world then sending them away? That’s what I always said. Though I never had as much time for him as I would’ve liked, so perhaps . . .’ She was frowning now, as if trying to puzzle something out.

‘And Mr Hollinthwaite thought the same?’

‘What? Oh, yes.’

‘Then what changed his mind?’ the girl was eager to know. ‘Why is he sending Rob away now? Why can’t he go to the local school with me?’

Olivia Hollinthwaite looked into the girl’s bright blue eyes and admitted to herself that she had wondered the very same thing. It couldn’t be entirely due to that silly swimming incident, surely? She’d decided not to mention this to Alena, so as not to embarrass the girl. Fourteen was such a self-conscious age.

She rather thought her husband had developed grand ambitions for Robert. Several years at a worthy university, followed by marriage to some horse-faced female with land. This was no doubt what James had in mind for his only son and heir, so he’d want to cool this particular friendship. Olivia couldn’t help but smile. Hadn’t he always underestimated Rob? There was much more to the boy than James gave him credit for. But then, Rob wasn’t easy to get to know. For all she’d kept him at home, and their perceived closeness, there were times when his reticence, his quiet stubbornness, left even her perplexed. She was never entirely sure what he was thinking. Which made her wonder if perhaps her reasons for keeping him at home were perhaps a touch selfish, and that it was time to cut the apron strings.

‘I’m sure his father feels it is for the best,’ she said briskly. ‘Making friends among boys his own age will be good for Rob. Another scone?’ Alena shook her head. She hadn’t finished the one on her plate. Her bitter disappointment at finding Mrs Hollinthwaite was not to be the ally she had hoped for, had made it go all dry and lumpy in her mouth.

‘I think I’ll go now, if you don’t mind. Will you ask Rob to meet me tomorrow, as usual? He’ll know where.’

‘Of course. I’ll show you out.’

‘It’s all right, I know the way.’

‘No, I want to.’ At the door, Olivia put a hand upon the girl’s slender shoulder. ‘You are growing up fast, Alena. One day you will be a very beautiful young woman. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to grow up though, will you? Sometimes, life - adult life - isn’t all that it seems. People - people aren’t always as happy as you might imagine. Enjoy your youth. It is all too pitifully short.’

Alena looked into the woman’s tired, if once pretty face. and dutifully nodded. On the way home she thought about these words, but could make no sense of them. Being fourteen wasn’t much fun either.

Alena decided to announce, quite dramatically over supper, that she meant to leave school as soon as possible and take a job in the bobbin mill. She wanted to prove how desperately she needed Rob and how her life would be ruined without him. Her mother, she knew, would be disappointed by this news, as she echoed Olivia’s hopes for her only daughter.

But as the family gathered for the evening meal it soon became apparent even to Alena that there was a strange atmosphere which had nothing at all to do with her own problems. There was none of the usual joking and hectoring. Her mother was banging supper dishes on to the table with uncharacteristic vigour, not even noticing that Alena was fidgeting with the salt, making little heaps of it all over the cloth. All four brothers were unusually well-behaved, Tom, in particular, sat tight-lipped and pale, with everyone glancing at him in a funny sort of way from time to time. Her father glowered more severely than ever, and worst of all, a deep, heavy silence persisted throughout the meal.

Even so, Alena was determined to make her point. She glared accusingly at the Yorkshire pudding steaming on her plate. Filled with a rich onion gravy, it was usually one of her favourite meals. The very smell of it set her mouth watering but she merely stabbed at it with her fork, eating none of it. How could she? The food would choke her, and she was desperate for someone to understand the very real misery she felt.

Why could no one see how important this friendship was to her? Rob was like another brother to her, wasn’t he? No, more than a brother. One day last summer they’d taken a picnic and as they lay together on the crisp grass of the Furness Fells, watching the buzzards fly, Alena had sworn, on her living soul, that she would be with Rob Hollinthwaite till her dying day. He had made the same vow. They’d written the promise out on a piece of paper. folded and sealed it with red sealing wax borrowed from James’s office and, having each made a fingerprint upon the seal, had later hidden it deep in the earth beneath their special oak. This simple act had symbolised their pact of friendship.

Oh, yes, he needed her. Rob had made that clear in a thousand different ways.

Like when his father tried to make him study serious books on politics, or to drum geography and mathematics into him till he grew confused and filled with a sense of failure. Rob was no scholar. But nor was he weak. He simply wasn’t the son James Hollinthwaite wanted him to be which, in Alena’s opinion, made him all the better for that. Rob’s skills lay in his hands. He could make anything out of nothing, but for some reason James thought this degrading.

His father had once destroyed a drey that Rob had worked on for weeks. He’d fashioned it with his own hands, and nailed it high in a tree so that he could watch the red squirrels come and go as they set up home. It had broken his heart to see it torn down and be instructed to stop encouraging vermin. Alena had hugged him to her and let him cry as if he were a child. But she knew that he wasn’t a child, he was very nearly a man. And one day soon she would be a woman. They cared for each other in a very special way. Dare she call it love? To herself at least. A love that one day, she hoped, would blossom and develop into something wondrous and enduring.

Now he was to be sent away, her dearest friend, and they would be separated whether they liked it or not. Alena thought that Mrs Hollinthwaite was wrong about not rushing to be grown-up, believing, as all children do, that adults could decide their own future without interference from anyone.

She was gratified when her father at last noticed she wasn’t eating.

‘What’s up with you?’

‘Rob is to be sent away to school.’

He stared at her in silence for a moment, as if she spoke a language he didn’t quite understand. Alena was nervous of her father. He was a thin wiry man with bloodshot eyes and an uncertain temper that erupted all too frequently from fists like sledgehammers. He claimed that with four sons to keep in order, these were the best tools for the job. To Alena he’d always seemed dark and forbidding, a distant figure who rarely had much time for her, being usually either working in the mill or out in the woods, poaching half the time she shouldn’t wonder. He had once been employed as gamekeeper in Mr Hollinthwaite’s woodlands but, for some reason unknown to Alena, had left.

‘I’m to lose him, d’you hear?’ she shouted, feeling the tears spurting afresh. ‘My very best friend.’ Everyone stared at her in horror for breaking this terrible silence.

‘For God’s sake, child, we’ve no patience with your little dramas this evening.’

‘But what will I do without him? I’ll have no one.’

‘Don’t talk daft. You’ve plenty of other friends.’

‘Not like Rob.’

‘Heaven help us, what’s the matter with this family? Have they all gone mad? Life is full of disappointments - some of them, believe it or not, far more important than losing a friend. I lost a good job I once had with the Hollinthwaites, didn’t I? You can’t trust that lot an inch.’

‘You can trust Rob. He’s different.’

‘Eat up your supper.’

‘I couldn’t . . .’

Her father picked up her plate, making them all flinch as he leaped angrily from his seat. Then he opened the back door and threw it outside. They all heard the pottery smash as it hit the stone flags. ‘If you don’t want it, then the dogs can have it. Now go to your room. I’ve more than I can cope with already this evening.’

‘But…’

‘Now.’

Alena went.

It was as if a second World War had broken out in the Townsen household. Over the next few days voices were constantly raised in anger. Lizzie went about her work stone-faced, the three elder boys were notable by their absence, and on one terrible occasion Tom and his father actually came to blows. Ray Townsen took the leather strap down from where it hung behind the back door and thrashed his son as if he were a boy still and not a grown man of nineteen, nearly twenty. Alena felt certain poor Tom might have been killed had not her mother finally managed to wrest the strap from her furious husband’s hand.