The Windfell Family Secrets

by Diane Allen

  ‘Danny, Danny, come back. He means nothing to me – we were just having fun,’ Amy yelled at him as he walked past the hedgerow of late-summer flowers.

  He carried on walking, without turning for the lass who had nearly ruined his life. His father had been right: she’d have broken his heart, if he’d thrown everything away for her. Come to think of it, she’d broken it already, if he was truthful. Now he had to pick up where he’d left off, and do right by Harriet and take on Butterfield Gap.

  Arthur leaned over the gate, watching the herd of belted Galloways graze on the new pasture they had just been turned into, with Archie by his side.

  ‘I might introduce a few Herefords into the herd next year, Arthur. They are good beef cattle. But I like my little Galloways; they are hardy little beasts, just right for up here, with the winters like they are.’

  ‘Aye, they seem to be happy enough and don’t take a lot of looking after,’ Arthur agreed.

  ‘It might be an idea to graze Butterfield Gap with Galloways; they wouldn’t take any looking after, seeing as my lad doesn’t want to farm it. I could always rent the house, I suppose. I don’t know what to do with it. The trouble is, I’ve enough on with here and Windfell. Someone has to keep an eye on the grounds and outbuildings, because Lottie’s enough on with the house and Ferndale, and now she’s involving herself with this new dress shop that she’s opening with Isabelle and Harriet. The Gap is home, you know, always will be. Lottie loves Crummock as her true home, and I’ve always loved the Gap and will class it as my home.’ Archie turned and looked over at the long, whitewashed farmhouse of Charlotte’s; this was his home now, along with Windfell, and he’d no real need for Butterfield Gap. It was just the sentiment that made him want to keep it.

  ‘If I’m talking out of turn, Mr Atkinson, do tell me.’ Arthur paused. ‘I just wondered if you’d happen to consider selling it to me and Mary. It doesn’t look like we are going to be blessed with children, so it would keep us two quite comfortably, and I’ve enough savings to make you a decent offer. I know it’s a bit soon to ask, seeing as your father isn’t yet cold in his grave, but I wouldn’t want to miss out on it.’ Arthur felt awkward, for not only was he turning his back on a good job at Crummock, but he was perhaps being too forward for his position, with the man who had helped him throughout his life.

  ‘Well, blow me, Arthur, I didn’t expect that. You’d leave Crummock to farm the Gap? It’ll need a lot of care. Nothing’s been done properly for the last few years, and my father had lost heart in it, without my mother.’ Archie looked at his farm man and saw the determination in his eyes.

  ‘I know, but the land would be mine, and that makes all the difference. I want to be my own man and Mary deserves her own house. Besides, we rattle around Crummock like two peas in a pod. We only live in the two main rooms downstairs, so we don’t do justice to the old house. We are grateful for our positions with you, Mr Atkinson, but I’m sure you understand.’ Arthur was quick not to offend his master, for he’d no urge to upset his good relations with Archie.

  ‘Aye, I can understand. There’s nothing like picking up a piece of soil and letting it run through your fingers and thinking: this is all mine. I spend many an hour just standing looking around at my lot, thanking the Lord for what I’ve got; and you are right: you can’t beat it. Let me have a think about it. Once the Gap is signed over to me we’ll take it from there. I promise you I will give you first refusal.’ Archie patted the worried-looking man on his back. He didn’t think any worse of Arthur; it was good that he wanted to improve his life, and his own family farm and Arthur were a match made in heaven.

  ‘Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. It’d mean a lot to my Mary to have her own kitchen.’ Arthur breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Of course it would. We’ve got to keep our womenfolk happy, else it’s the worse for us. Eh, Arthur?’

  ‘Aye, too true.’ Arthur grinned and prayed that he could afford the farm he’d had his eye on for a good few years.

  Danny looked at himself in the mirror of his wardrobe and combed back his hair. He picked up the posy of flowers that the young girl in the shop down in Settle had put together for him. He remembered her giggling as he asked for flowers that showed true love. She had assured him that a bunch of red and white chrysanthemums portrayed love and truth, with an added sprig of ivy for fidelity.

  He opened his bedroom door and listened for any sound coming from the manor and leaned over the bannister, watching Thomson rub his finger along the hallway table for signs of dust before disappearing into the drawing room, then Danny made good his escape. Closing the front door quietly behind him, he thanked Jethro for preparing the horse and gig and drove quietly down the path from Windfell. He’d told nobody of his decision to propose in earnest for the hand of Harriet and now, with the rest of the family at church on the last Sunday of September, he was going formally to ask permission from her father and put the engagement ring that he carried in his waistcoat pocket on Harriet’s finger. He calmly drove the horse and trap up the high, winding road to Winskill and looked around him at the limestone escarpment that made up the backbone of the Pennines. Looking down towards nearly as far as the Lancashire coastline at Heysham, he breathed in deeply. This was the day when things changed: he was to be a married man and hopefully, in the future, a father. He only hoped he was doing the right thing.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Armstrong. Is Mr Armstrong in?’

  Danny stood outside the porch of High Winskill and waited as a flustered Betty Armstrong left him waiting on the doorstep, as she announced to her husband Danny’s need to see him and yelled to her daughter to stay upstairs, out of the way of men’s business.

  ‘Danny, what are you doing here?’ Harriet leaned out of her bedroom window and whispered down to her beau, only for her mother to grab her back into her room and close the window firmly.

  ‘Now then, lad. What can I do for you?’ Ted stood in the doorway in his shirt sleeves, with his braces hanging around his waist. ‘I was just having forty winks, with it being Sunday. You’ve not caught me at my best.’ He pulled the braces back onto his shoulders and looked at the nervous young man holding a bunch of flowers in his hand. ‘Them for me, I take it?’ Ted smiled.

  ‘No, no – they are for Harriet, but you can have them if you want.’ Danny’s face fell.

  ‘Nay, lad, you’d better give them to the women. They aren’t quite my colour. Now, is it some business you are wanting to talk to me about or have you woken me up for the hell of it?’ Ted played with the young man; he knew damn well what Danny had come for; he himself had had the same look on his own face when he’d asked for Betty’s hand from her father.

  ‘It’s business, Mr Armstrong,’ Danny said solemnly.

  ‘Well, you’d better come in then. Sit yourself down over there in Betty’s chair and tell me what I can do for you.’ Ted urged Danny to sit in the rocking chair next to the blackened Yorkshire range, in which a joint of beef was roasting, by the aroma that filled the small homely kitchen. ‘Well now, what is it?’ Ted sat across from him and waited as Danny fumbled with his flowers and his words.

  ‘I’d be grateful if you would give your permission for me to marry Harriet and make her my wife. We’ve been walking out now for some months, and I realize that she is the one I want to spend my life with.’ Danny had rehearsed the words over and over in his head and waited now for Ted Armstrong’s reply.

  ‘Well now, is that how it lies? Do you love our Harriet, and can you afford to look after her in the way she needs?’ Ted kept a stern face; he knew well enough that she’d made a good catch.

  ‘I can, Mr Armstrong. My father’s already offered us Butterfield Gap, once we are married, along with an allowance. And of course my mother is to sign for the lease of the shop that Isabelle and Harriet are to make their own next week. Once we are married, it would be up to Harriet if she still wished to work there.’

  ‘Well, it sounds as if you have it all worked out. You look
after her, mind; once you are married she is yours, but I’ll not see either of my girls go without anything. And I’ll not be afeared of speaking my mind, if I think anything’s amiss. Right, lad, I hope you are both going to be happy, and you have my blessing. And for heaven’s sake give our lass them flowers before they lose any more petals. And you two can stop giggling at the top of the stairs and come down here,’ Ted shouted up the stairs. ‘I heard you listening in, and the poor lad had enough to say, without hearing you two.’ He patted Danny on the back. ‘Well done, lad, welcome to the family.’

  Danny looked up at Harriet as she made her way down the stairs with her mother behind her. ‘Harriet, as you’ve heard, I’ve asked for your hand in marriage.’ He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and pulled out the box that contained the engagement ring. He held out the bunch of flowers, thrusting them into her hands as he dropped down onto one knee to propose. ‘Harriet, I would be very proud if you would become my wife.’ He looked up into her blue eyes and waited for her reply, as she picked the diamond solitaire out of the box. Her eyes filled with tears as he rose to both knees and helped her place it on her finger.

  ‘I thought you were never going to ask. Of course I’ll be happy to marry you.’ Harriet smiled, her hand trembling as he held it tenderly.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, kiss her, lad, or have I to do it for you?’ Ted stood back and watched the loving couple, as his wife sobbed at the bottom of the stairs, hardly able to speak between sobs. ‘I think you’ve wasted money on them flowers, lad, they look a bit the worse for wear.’ He grinned as more petals fell on the ground, the flowers crushed in the pair’s passionate clinch.

  Danny looked at the fallen petals: love, truth and fidelity, the florist had said, and he only hoped he could keep to all three. He held Harriet tightly and whispered, ‘I love you, too, forever and a day.’

  The drawing room at Windfell was buzzing with the news of the engagement of Danny to Harriet, and the Atkinson family welcomed their new member with open arms.

  ‘Congratulations and welcome to our family, Harriet. I can’t say it comes as a surprise. I knew Danny was smitten, else I wouldn’t have offered you the position in the new shop.’ Charlotte kissed her future daughter-in-law on her cheeks and then reached for the bell-pull to summon Thomson. ‘What do your parents say? Are they pleased?’

  ‘My mother couldn’t stop crying. She barely touched her roast-beef dinner, and Father had to tell her to stop snivelling. But both are happy for us, thank you, Mrs Atkinson,’ Harriet gasped, as Charlotte ordered Thomson to bring a chilled bottle of champagne from the cellar.

  ‘I think we should all celebrate in style. It’s not every day your son gets engaged.’ Charlotte looked at Archie, who was strangely quiet. ‘We’ve just to find a match for Isabelle now, haven’t we, Archie? Else she’s going to be an old maid.’

  ‘Someone will turn up, no doubt. There’s no need to rush, is there, lass?’ Archie smiled. ‘Better to be sure that he’s the right one and take your time.’ He looked at Danny and then reached for a glass of champagne from the silver tray with which Thomson had walked into the drawing room.

  ‘Well, Harriet is the right one for me, Father, of that I’m sure.’ Danny looked across at his father, knowing there was an underlying question.

  ‘I’m sure she is, lad. Now let’s raise our glasses to you both.’ Archie stood up and put his arm around Harriet.

  ‘Yes, cheers, everyone! And don’t worry about me. I’ll surprise you all one day.’ Isabelle winked at her brother; she was glad he’d done right by Harriet.

  ‘Cheers! Now when are you thinking of setting the wedding? I could have had a word with the vicar this morning.’ Charlotte sat down and beckoned Harriet next to her on the sofa.

  ‘Can I be a bridesmaid?’ Isabelle pulled up a chair next to Harriet. ‘Can I design your wedding dress? It will do the new business so much good, if we make your wedding dress really beautiful. And you have such a good figure that we can’t go wrong.’

  ‘Isabelle, you must take after me, by putting the business before Harriet’s needs. It is up to Harriet to say what she wants. Now, the date?’ Charlotte held Harriet’s hand and looked into her eyes.

  ‘We thought perhaps March or April; it would be spring then and getting a little warmer. I would love you to design my dress, Isabelle. I only hope that I will do justice to it. And, as you say, it would promote our new business together.’ Harriet felt aglow with all the love she was being shown. It was a day she’d never forget.

  ‘Perfect, an Easter wedding perhaps, at Langcliffe?’ Charlotte smiled to herself, thinking of where the reception was to be held and what flowers to arrange.

  ‘Yes, perhaps. I’ll have to speak to my mother and father, and see what they wish. My mother was so dizzy with excitement that we never got around to that subject this morning.’ Harriet could see that Charlotte would take over her wedding day, if given the chance, when it really was her parents’ duty to do so.

  ‘Yes, of course, I was forgetting myself. But we will support and finance any decisions you make.’ Charlotte smiled at the tactful young woman, whose cheeks were flushed after sipping her champagne.

  ‘Father, do you think I could talk to you in private in the morning room, please? There’s something I need to discuss.’ Danny placed his glass down and looked across at Archie.

  ‘Aye, lad, we’ll leave the women to it. Let them discuss lace and flowers, which they seem to be obsessed with.’ Archie was thankful to have the opportunity to talk to his son alone, and wasted no time in closing the morning-room door to discuss Danny’s engagement announcement.

  ‘Well, you took us by surprise there, Danny. I thought you were having doubts about Harriet, and that you wanted to sow a few wild oats before you settled down.’ Archie stood in front of Danny, his hands behind his back, and looked at his son, for whom he would lay his life down.

  ‘I was wrong, Father. Amy Brown was all you said she was. Whereas Harriet is all you could wish for in a wife. It’s time I sorted out my life, and the offer you made of Butterfield Gap to start our married lives in was very generous, and I must have sounded like a petulant child when I lost my temper. I apologize for my headstrong actions and would like to take you up on your offer of farming Grandfather’s place.’

  ‘Oh, Danny, if only you had talked to me yesterday, before I went to see Arthur up at Crummock. He made me an offer for Butterfield Gap and, seeing you were so against getting wed and living there, I accepted it. I cannot go back on my word.’ Archie looked at his crestfallen son.

  ‘I see. It’s my own fault; you should never look a gift-horse in the mouth. Good for Arthur: he and Mary will be well suited there.’ Danny felt his world falling apart.

  ‘But that leaves Crummock empty. Now I’ll have to talk to Charlotte, because Crummock is hers and I can’t promise anything! But why don’t you take it on? It’s a grand farm to raise a family in, and you can always get a farm lad to help, and a cook and maid if Harriet still wants to play dressmaker with Isabelle. If she’s to be mistress of Crummock, she might think differently.’ Archie put his arm around Danny’s shoulders. ‘You are sure about this wedding, lad? It’s no good going through with it if you don’t love her.’

  ‘I’m sure, Father; Harriet’s the one for me. I’d be grateful if you could talk to Mother regarding Crummock. It’s belonged in her family for generations and perhaps she’d prefer Isabelle to live there, if she gets married.’ Danny knew his father’s concerns and wanted to assure him that he was doing the right thing.

  ‘It’s done then, lad, I’ll ask her tonight. Now, about that tup at Ragged Hall. I’ll go and pick it up next week, saves you a job.’ Archie waited for a response from his blushing son.

  ‘Aye, you go and collect it, because I’ll not be going there again. I never want to see Amy Brown again, so you needn’t worry about that.’

  9

  The narrow cobbled streets of Settle were thronged with busy shoppers as Charlotte,
Isabelle and Harriet made their way down the road. Passing Bloomenber’s jewellers, Charlotte turned and looked at Harriet.

  ‘Are you regretting giving in your notice, Harriet? Did Dora treat you alright, once she knew you were leaving?’ Charlotte glanced anxiously at Harriet.

  ‘I am, slightly. Mrs Bloomenber changed, once she realized I was leaving. She really does have a cruel tongue on her. Anyway, I have a new life now, with my lovely soon-to-be sister-in-law. The whole of Settle will soon be coming to us for fittings, won’t they, Isabelle?’

  ‘Indeed they will. We’ll keep up with the finest of Paris’s fashions and have the finest linens and silks, because of dear Mama and her contacts.’ Isabelle reached for Harriet’s hand and held it tightly.

  ‘Right, well, here we are, ladies. Here is the future Atkinson’s: Milliner & Ladies’ Outfitters, of Duke Street, Settle. I hope you don’t mind, Harriet, but I thought that now you and Danny are to wed, we might as well call it “Atkinson’s”. I’ll get a painter and signwriter to give the shop a fresh new look, as it looks a bit neglected at the moment.’

  The three women stood back and looked at the outside of the shop; its brown varnished windowpanes and door were peeling, and there was an unpainted piece of wood where the previous owner’s plaque had hung.

  ‘I know it looks a bit tired on the outside, but it’s a different matter inside, isn’t it, Isabelle? We both had a look inside it the other month and were quite impressed.’ Charlotte noticed Harriet’s face, as she glanced at the shop’s frontage.

  ‘I rather hoped that my name would be over the door, as I will be making the dresses,’ Harriet said quietly, not wanting to sound too precious.

  ‘It is your name, dear, for you will soon be an Atkinson. Besides, it is Atkinson money that is enabling you to do this. My money, made possible by working long, hard hours at Ferndale Mill. I didn’t have it all on a plate, just for the taking. Besides, Archie asked me last night if I would agree to Danny and you living at Crummock, which I of course do. We couldn’t see you destitute, and my grandchildren will want a stable home when they appear on the scene, now won’t they? So I think I have every right to have the family name over the door.’ Charlotte turned the key in the peeling door and threw it open, letting the morning sunshine flood onto the shop floor, oblivious to Harriet’s startled expression.