We Five (12 page)

Jane nodded. “And you are amenable to our request for chaperons?”

“If such a thing is absolutely necessary.”

“It
is
, Mr. Catts. Otherwise, Miss Thrasher will refuse to come along.” Jane tossed a glance at Pardlow. “And I think you should like Miss Thrasher, Mr. Pardlow. She
also
very much loves to read.”

Pardlow nodded and smiled. He coloured a bit, as well, to have his favourite pastime so deferentially acknowledged.

“We shall bring along Mrs. Colthurst on our side,” Jane went on. “And you gentlemen must find a man of impeccable character to accompany the five of
you.
”

Castle roared merrily. “
We
? Know of a gentleman of ‘impeccable character'? Whoo! I dare say we'll be hard put to conjure up a man of even
middling
character. I put it to you, Miss Higgins, that we are lowly millworkers and haymakers who do not generally fraternise with men not of our own ilk.”

“Then if you cannot find even a single man who will vouch for your reputations and who will warrant behaviour beyond reproach when in the company of my sisters and me, we shan't be taking an excursion on this coming Sunday or
any other
Sunday.”

Jane turned as if to take her departure.

“But my
dear
Miss Higgins!” This ejaculation came in a most desperate tone from Tom Catts. “Mayhap the vicar will agree to join us. He's a jovial sort and would no doubt enjoy an after noon out of surplice.”

Jane Higgins shook her head. “Miss Barton will not have the vicar because he drinks. I won't brook disagreement on this point, because I have seen it for myself. I would suggest, instead, should you gentlemen not be too averse to having a Dissenting minister superintend our outing, that Mr. Mobry come along. He is a good and kind man, and you must know how strongly he has advocated for the rights of labour in this and well nigh every mill town in Lancashire. In other words, he is a friend to the working man and thus would be a good friend to you gentlemen as well.”

“He is already a friend to
me
,” said Pardlow, “for I have attended services at his church on several occasions.”

“Then you must
already
know my circle-sister Miss Thrasher.”

“I have seen her at services there, but we have yet to be properly introduced.”

“Then we should fix that straightaway! Ruth—rather Miss Thrasher—will be delighted to know that you are also an inveterate votary of books and such like.”

Castle made a funny face with his eyes and lips. “Love among the literate! Someone should write a book!”

Jane ignored this remark (or at least
pretended
to ignore it). “So we are all agreed. I shall deliver our reply to your kind invitation about this time to-morrow. Should it fall out that Misses Barton, Osborne, and Hale are unable to come in today, We Five will have ample opportunity to discuss your offer on our walk to work in the morning.”

“You are so very kind, Miss Higgins,” said Tom Catts, “and on behalf of myself and my four friends—Mr. Pardlow and Mr. Holborne, and young Mr. Harrison and the habitually churlish Mr. Castle—allow me to say that we eagerly await your answer.”

With that, Tom Catts bowed to bid Miss Higgins good morning. And all his mates did the same, young Mr. Harrison's bow being ridiculously deep and quite formal (for he had attended two classes in etiquette from a woman of breeding who had come to town to uplift and enlighten its youth, but left quickly thereafter when she discovered that Tulleford had neither iced champagne nor a vol-au-vent or timbale which wasn't rancid to the taste and pasty in its constituency).

Ruth was waiting for Jane just inside the door to the shop. “Jane, you must know that Mrs. Colthurst is quite worried that the lilac-coloured muslin gowns for the five Misses Cuthwaite won't be ready for that family's trip to London on Saturday. Unless, that is, you and I work doubly hard in the absence of the others.”

“I shall work late into the night if need be,” replied Jane. “I'll tell her not to worry.”

Ruth elevated her eyebrows with anticipation. “And so what was made of my request for chaperons? Is the whole thing now scotched?”

“On the contrary, Ruth. To their credit, the young men expressed a decided willingness to accommodate you.”

Upon Ruth's look of surprise, Jane drew her friend into the rear workroom, so as to avoid Mrs. Colthurst's curious gaze. Still, she spoke no louder than a whisper: “I should like to wait a day or two before asking Mrs. Colthurst to accompany us. Her mind is, at present, much too occupied with the Cuthwaite gowns.”

Jane and Ruth settled behind their sewing tables.

Ruth sighed with discontent. “Even with chaperons, I'm not certain—”

“It is a
picnic
, Ruth,” Jane snapped, “and nothing more. And I must say that the young men have had their eye on us for some time. So the invitation was a natural consequence of their long-lived interest.”

Ruth remonstrated with a slow and negatory turn of the head. “Had their
eye
? I should say ‘their
ogling
eye' would be the better way to put it.”

“Still, you do not fully know a man until you've had opportunity to see him at his leisure out-of-doors, capering through a fragrant meadow, taking a gentle hand to guide a young maiden over the slippery stones of a murmuring brook.”

Ruth whistled. “How you fancy this alfresco holiday which you and your cohort Mr. Catts have devised for us! I should like to see how the others take to it—especially Carrie, who hasn't exchanged so much as two words with any of our town lads since she was a chattering child of four.”

“You may very well be wrong about Carrie. She told me only two days ago that she fears her life has lost its savour.”

A smile now curled Ruth's lips. “There may be some
literal
truth to that, when one remembers that her mother cannot bake a muffin which isn't burnt to indigestibility.”

“Yet she tries,” laughed Jane indelicately. “Oh bless the woman, she does try!”

The two stitched for a moment without speaking. Then Ruth said, “Oh Jane, you won't hate me
too
much if I don't join you on Sunday.”

“
Too
much? I shall hate you more than it is possible to hate another. Now there are five of them and there are five of us, and if you do not come, there shall only be
four
of us and that would put the whole thing out of balance.”

“But the young men will come to know I haven't any interest in a connexion of any sort. It will be like the parlour game of musical chairs in which one chair is removed and then someone is left without a seat when the music stops.”

“But why do you impute this picnic with such serious purpose? It is merely the means by which ten young people who are seldom placed in the way of one another other than as unacquainted passers-by may enjoy a few hours of leisurely and inconsequential companionship. The good Lord knows I have sought to have the four of you accompany me to the village dances where we may meet some interesting young men, but each of you does not agree to it for all your various reasons: Carrie fears her mother will sit at home alone and pluck and plink and weep and burn things in the kitchen. Molly's father desires to keep her close at hand. Maggie's mother has no control over
her
, but Maggie is nonetheless motivated by her desire to avoid the society of farm boys who will reek of hay and manure and perturb her digestion. And you—it cannot be said too strongly—you haven't use for boy
or
man in this or any other life you shall ever live. So…we do not dance. We do nothing all day but stitch and sew and net and chitter, and when we are
not
in harness we may shop and sup a little together, but 'tis always within our own circle, and the one time we took the train to Manchester for a girls' holiday, if you will recall, we shopped and supped and chittered and met no young man of any consequence whatsoever, and it constituted no startling surprise, I must tell you. These five young men from the mill may not be men at whom we may wish to set our caps, my dear Ruth, but I have no doubt their company will at least constitute a pleasant diversion.”

“I don't believe you. I don't believe you and Molly and Maggie and Carrie won't be seeking husbands in this bargain. And, by the by, what if either Dr. Osborne or Mrs. Barton opposes this venture?”

“Then someone should blow the horn of hypocrisy and blow it loudly! For how can it be fair for either of them in the midst of their own autumnal courtship to deprive their respective daughters of similar romantic fulfilment?”

Ruth shook her head, her face darkened by fearful concern. “What I see withal is calamity and disaster, for we do not know just what these men are up to.”

“I choose to give them the benefit of the drought.”

“What is that?”

“I said that I
choose
to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

“That isn't what you said.”

“It very well is.”

“It isn't. You said
drought.
You said ‘benefit of the
drought.
' And
I
say that this sums things up perfectly.”

Maggie sate upon a stile. Molly paced. Carrie shook her head anxiously.

“There can be no resolution,” asserted Carrie, “if neither of you is willing to speak another word to the other. This is why we stand here apart from town, where none shall hear us but the errant cow. So talk. The both of you. Or I shall find things to chuck at you for inducement?”

“There's nothing else to be said,” answered Molly sulkily. “Every word that flies from her mouth casts aspersions upon my father, for Maggie cannot draw a difference between her deceased father, who was a disreputable toper, and my perfectly
alive
and
happy
and
loving
father who wants only for his new wife (and by obvious association both his residual daughter and his prospective daughter) to be blissful and contented with this impending union.”

“
Impending
?” muttered Maggie. “I should say not. For I will stop the marriage by all means available to me.”

“You most certainly will not.”

Maggie amplified her voice to match the intensity of her manner. “I
will
and I
must
. Mamma has suffered far too much already. Shall I name her woes and throes? Her many years of ill health. The terrible loss of two of her daughters. And then the dissipated decline of a husband whose useless life ended when he stepped, stupefied by the spirits, into the path of a fully-stoked L&NWR 2-2-2 Number 3020 Cornwall locomotive.” Maggie took a moment to fetch her breath. “I will not subject this poor mother of mine to the possibility of yet another heavy dose of sorrow and regret.”

“As for your mother's health, Maggie,” said Molly, who was no longer pacing, so that she should hold one spot and stare at her friend with a piercing gaze, “most of her troubles are self-inflected. I suspect she makes herself sick for the sole purpose of sending for my father. But he never minds it. Perhaps you haven't noticed it, Maggie,
but they are in love.
”

“I will not dispute the fact that my mother is the occasional hypochondriac.”

“And it is a terrible thing, as well, to lose one's sisters. You know I too lost my own sister only two years ago.”

Maggie dipped her eyes in melancholy memory. “They say that I may have lost a brother as well—that my sister Octavia had a twin. Once when Mamma was delirious with fever, she muttered something to this effect. But then she later disavowed it.”

“Whether it be two siblings or three, the sadness is the same, Maggie. It is a sadness that wants to be overcome by the joy of my father's ascendance in your mother's heart and in your heart too, if you will but allow it. And as for my father, I cannot tell you how it stabs my own heart for you to say the things you say about him.”

Now Carrie, the peacemaker, interceded: “Maggie isn't saying she loathes your father, Molly. Only that there are aspects to his character to which she cannot comfortably reconcile herself.”

“Being a quack and a fraud,” jerked out Maggie, “is not an ‘aspect of character.' It is a crime.”

“He is
not
a quack and a fraud!” cried Molly. “He is merely uncredentialed.”

Maggie replied in a sulky under voice: “I would rather he
not
be uncredentialed. For without the proper documents, he will never make enough money to provide for my mother as she deserves.”

Molly's mouth fell into a gape. “Then
that
is what this boils down to. That my father isn't
rich
enough for your mother.”

“Not precisely,” replied Maggie. “But it would certainly help matters if he
were
more prosperous. It would counter a number of deficiencies on his side.”

Carrie wasn't certain if it was Molly whose fingers went first to pull Maggie's hair, or Maggie who clawed at Molly's in defensive anticipation. But the outcome was the same.

And it was all rather appalling.

Miss Colthurst looked up at the clock on the wall and tutted.

11:20.

She summoned her head salesclerk in ribbons, Jane Higgins, and addressed her fretfully: “Any sign of them?”

Jane shook her head.

“It's nearly lunch,” said the harried floor-walker. “I've had to pull two girls from Hosiery and another from Misses' Ready-to-Wear. This leaves us short in both of those departments. But that isn't my greatest concern. I'm worried something serious might have happened to them.”

Jane was looking at the clock herself. It hung over the pass-through to Men's Furnishings and carried the name of the department store in bold script: Pemberton, Day & Co. “I'm a little worried myself, Miss Colthurst. When Mag telephoned to me this morning, she said they didn't anticipate being
too
late, but that was over two hours ago.”