The Old House at Railes: A heartwarming rags to riches Victorian family saga

by Mary E. Pearce

  ‘He offers twenty thousand pounds for the estate, which sum comprises fifteen thousand pounds for the land and five thousand pounds for the house. He will also buy such of the contents as you are obliged to sell, at a figure to be agreed, subject to independent evaluation.’

  Charles and Katharine sat silent and still. Stevenson spoke again.

  ‘It is a very generous offer.’

  ‘I don’t know that it is,’ Charles said. ‘It is certainly higher than the figure you thought Railes would fetch, which makes me wonder whether your other estimates might also be wrong. If this one anonymous buyer is prepared to pay more than you expected, perhaps there are others who would pay more still. My own feeling is, therefore, that this gentleman should take his chance at auction, along with everyone else. Perhaps after all, Hainault, with its plant, together with the cloth in my warehouse, may fetch something approaching their true value, in which case I should not only be able to pay off my debts in full but have something left over at the end of it.’

  ‘That possibility is so remote, it is not even worth considering. With trade so badly depressed as it is, men are only buying property where it can be had dirt-cheap. You know as well as I do, Charles, that if Newton Railes goes under the hammer, it could be knocked down to this same buyer for as little as eight or nine thousand pounds.’

  ‘Is he aware of that?’

  ‘Certainly. He is no fool. But he has offered a higher figure, knowing that your creditors are sure to accept it, which means that you and your family will be spared the distress of the auction.’

  ‘Do I have any say in the matter at all?’

  ‘Regarding the mill, yes, you do, because he will purchase that only if you wish to take up the option of renting it from him. Otherwise he has no interest in it. Regarding the estate, well, your views and those of Mrs Yuart will be put to the creditors, of course, and will, I am sure, receive the fullest consideration. But, as I have already said, they are certain to favour acceptance of this generous offer because failure to do so would almost certainly be to their disadvantage.’

  ‘In other words, this discussion is only a mere formality.’

  ‘The formalities do have to be observed.’

  ‘And the name of this well-meaning gentleman?’

  ‘Mr Martin Cox.’

  Yuart’s face remained impassive, but it was some time before he could speak.

  ‘Cox has offered to buy Hainault and lend me two thousand pounds to remain in it as his tenant. Why, I wonder?’

  ‘Out of the concern and goodwill he feels for Mrs Yuart.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Quite so. Also perhaps because old habits die hard. Rufus Cox was something of a money-lender, I believe, and it seems the son is following in his father’s footsteps. Well, regarding his offer to buy Hainault, the answer is no. I have no intention of selling myself in bondage to Martin Cox or anyone else. Regarding Newton Railes, however, I would like to discuss the matter with my wife, even though, once again, it is merely a formality. I will let you have our decision by the end of the day.’

  He rang for the maid to show Stevenson out.

  ‘Martin Cox!’ Yuart said when he and Katharine were alone together. ‘Strange how that quarryman’s son keeps cropping up in our lives.’

  ‘Yes,’ Katharine said, absently, looking at him across the desk. But then, collecting her thoughts, she said: ‘And yet not so very strange after all, for whatever your feelings may be towards him, I and my own family have always regarded him as a friend.’

  ‘I confess I have never understood why you should hold him in such regard. As I myself see the matter, he was a cunning jackanapes who wormed his way into this house years ago and ingratiated himself with you all, especially with your sister, Ginny.’

  ‘No, Charles, it was not like that. Papa owed Rufus money and Rufus allowed him time to pay. In return, Martin came to have lessons with us, and that is how we became friends.’

  ‘However it was, you were kind to him, and in return for that kindness he would now turn you out of your home.’

  ‘That, I feel, is unreasonable. We have offered the house for sale. Martin wishes to buy it. And Mr Stevenson considers that the sum he offers is generous.’

  ‘Generous it may be, but only my creditors will benefit from it!’

  Katharine was silent and he, seeing the look in her eyes, was stricken with shame.

  ‘I know! I know! I ought not to have said that! But the present condition of my mind is not conducive to feelings of gratitude or reasonableness. I don’t much like being pitied. Nor do I like being patronized with offers of help from Martin Cox. I suppose I’ll get used to these things in time but until I do I must ask you to ‒ to bear with me as best you can. As for this offer Cox has made, I take it you wish me to accept it.’

  ‘Yes. I do. Martin is quite right ‒ I’d be glad to be spared the auction sale.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have had to witness it. We should have gone from the place by then. But I understand your feelings, of course. Even the thought of an auction here … People tramping over the house … poking into every cupboard, and handling every ornament … At least if we sell to Martin Cox we shall be spared all that. I suppose I ought to be grateful to him but all I can feel at the moment is ‒ Oh, God, I don’t know! That I should have brought you to such a pass! It is really more than I can bear!’

  There was agony in his voice. His face was contorted, his fists tight-clenched. He sprang from his chair and crossed the room, to stand in front of the empty hearth, his back to her, his shoulders hunched.

  ‘When I think of the plans I had! All the things I meant to do. I wanted to make myself worthy of you. To make myself the sort of man that you and our children could be proud of. I hoped to make a career for myself. Go into Parliament. Get things done. What, I wonder, is wrong with ambition, that all my hopes should come to naught? That I should have lost not only the mill and everything I began with, but even this, your beloved home, which has been in your family ever since it was first built! I can’t forgive myself for that. I shall never forgive myself. To fall so low and to bring you so low! A failure. A bankrupt. Destitute!’

  Katharine rose and went to him. She put her hand on his arm.

  ‘Charles, we are not destitute. We have each other and we have our two children. You are still a young man. You have energy, knowledge, experience. There is still a place for you somewhere in the cloth trade. It is a question of beginning again.’

  ‘The bottom rung!’

  ‘Well, why not? Other men have begun there, and got to the top of the ladder, and a great number of those men did not have your advantages.’

  Charles turned to look at her. His face, though drawn, was calmer now. He placed his hand over hers, where it lay on his arm.

  ‘So long as you still have faith in me, I feel I can do almost anything. Though how I find a place in the trade after what has happened to me I cannot at present begin to conceive.’

  ‘Charles,’ Katharine said, in a tentative way. ‘Will you not even consider accepting Martin’s offer of help? I mean his offer to buy the mill and lend you the money to run it again. It seems as though you suspect his motives but I know him better than you do and I wish I could persuade you ‒’

  ‘No, Katharine! You may save your breath. You heard my answer to Stevenson. Nothing will ever budge me from that. Not even your persuasions. And that is my final word.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Katharine said, ‘why you should dislike him so much.’

  ‘All the things I dislike about him have been made manifest by the fact that he wants to buy Newton Railes. He is an upstart. A parvenu. Furthermore, he’s a hypocrite who supports the working-man’s franchise yet sets himself up as a gentleman. And it is quite bad enough that he should take our home from us without my putting myself in a position that would give him power over me. Though as to this business of his buying Railes … there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip and he could be disappointed yet.’
/>   ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, whatever Stevenson may say, there is always the possibility that someone else may come forward privately with an offer superior to his. It wouldn’t do for my creditors to be over-hasty in accepting Martin Cox’s figure, and when I write to Stevenson I shall make that point to him.’

  As events turned out, however, it was Yuart’s own hopes that were disappointed, for his creditors, learning of Martin’s offer, urged immediate acceptance lest by chance it should be withdrawn. The transaction was therefore put in hand. Shortly afterwards Hainault Mill, with all its stock and appointments-in-trade, was sold at auction without reserve. The purchaser was Oliver Hurne, who put his son Sidney in charge of it, which meant that the Hurnes, who still held Brink End, were now the biggest cloth manufacturers in the whole of the Cullen Valley.

  In due course, the sale of his assets being completed, Yuart was able to pay his creditors fifteen shillings and threepence in the pound. The deed of composition was discharged; his business affairs were wound up; and, for the first time in his life, he became a man who had neither property nor occupation. All he had left in the world was a small sum of money realized from the sale of his wife’s jewellery.

  On a rainy morning in early July, he and his family moved into a cottage in Cryer’s Row, at the bottom of Tack House Lane, in the lower part of Chardwell. They took with them such furniture as was suited to their new home: ‘the bare essentials,’ Dick said bleakly, speaking to his sister, Susannah; though there were in fact two items that were not purely utilitarian: the upright piano and the Welsh harp that had stood in their old music-room. Everything else had been left behind, sold to Martin Cox for the sum of two thousand, five hundred pounds.

  ‘I wonder what he’s like,’ Susannah said.

  ‘Mother says we met him once, years ago, at Chacelands, when Aunt Ginny held that fête in aid of the patriotic fund.’

  ‘I don’t remember meeting him.’

  ‘Neither do I. It’s too long ago.’

  Charles studied the local papers, but every week it was the same: there was nothing in the list of situations vacant that he could even consider taking. Millman wanted at Daisy Bank, twenty-one shillings a week. Clerk wanted at Longsides, nineteen shillings a week. Shearmen were wanted. And sorters, of course. But nobody wanted a manager.

  Six weeks passed in this way and then he received a note from George Ainley of Kendall’s Mill, who said he wanted an overseer and asked Charles to call on him to discuss the work and the salary. Kendall’s was a small mill, three miles away, at Belfray, where Ainsley, formerly a shearman, had set himself up making lightweight worsteds and cheap coarse tweeds. His venture so far had been a success and recently, in a cautious way, he had extended his operations.

  ‘I’m doing my own spinning now and as I can’t be everywhere I need another pair of eyes. The job is yours if you want it and I’ll pay you a hundred pounds a year.’

  ‘Very well. I accept. But it’s not what I hoped for and I think it only right to say that as soon as something better offers I shall ask to be released.’

  ‘That’s easy enough, Mr Yuart. A month’s notice on either side. Now if you’ll step along with me, I’ll show you what we’re doing here.’

  ‘What it amounts to,’ Charles said, savagely, to Katharine at home, ‘is that I shall be doing a manager’s work for less than one sixth of what it’s worth, yet to hear the way Ainley talked, you’d think he was doing me a favour.’

  His bitterness knew no bounds and when, at the end of his first day, Katharine asked how he had got on, his answer was curt.

  ‘I do not wish to talk of it.’

  But one evening, on coming home, he flung some small samples of cloth upon the table in front of her.

  ‘That, it may interest you to know, is the rubbish I help to make at Kendall’s Mill, and which George Ainley calls cloth! “Kendall’s Suiting”, he calls it, and it’s no better than sackcloth!’

  Still, at least he was in employment, which meant they could now afford a maid, and although Katharine protested that in this new home of theirs she and Susannah could manage perfectly well by themselves, Charles remained adamant. He would not have his wife and daughter doing the rough work of the house; nor would he listen to Katharine’s suggestion that she might give piano lessons to supplement their income.

  ‘I have brought you low enough ‒ I certainly won’t let you stoop to that.’

  ‘But I would enjoy doing it. And may I not be allowed to help? Surely, in our present position, we need to do everything we can if you are ever to have the chance of renting a mill of your own.’

  ‘Katharine, have you any idea how long it would take to save enough money for that?’

  ‘No. I only know it will take longer if we spend money on things we don’t need.’

  ‘The cost of a girl to help in the house is neither here nor there,’ he said. ‘It is not even worth thinking about. As to this question of your giving piano lessons, I wonder that you can even suggest it. Perhaps the next thing I shall hear is that you are thinking of taking in washing!’

  For the two children, Dick and Susannah, the change that had taken place in their lives was often difficult to bear. Dick, removed from Scanfield College, now attended Pettifor’s, the old Chardwell Grammar School, and although he liked it well enough, he was not making friends with the other boys. This fact he confided to Katharine when she questioned him in private once.

  ‘The Head Master is a splendid man. No end of a scholar, and a sportsman too. The trouble is the other fellows. They keep making remarks all the time, about Petty’s being a come-down for me after being at Scanfield. Ryeland is always doing it. “We know it’s not what you’re used to,” he says, “but you’ll just have to make the best of it.” And the stupid thing is that it’s simply not true. Petty’s is every bit as good a Scanfield. Even better in some ways.’

  ‘Then why not tell them so?’ Katharine said.

  ‘D’you think I should?’

  ‘Certainly, if it is true.’

  Susannah had never gone to school; she had always had a governess; now, of course, her mother taught her and this arrangement pleased them both. But she, like Dick, found it hard to adapt to their new life in Tack House Lane. The cottage, though of ‘superior’ size, was nevertheless very small after Railes. The rooms were poky, dark, and ill-arranged, and their neighbours’ voices could be heard through the walls. There was no garden whatsoever; only a small paved yard at the back, shared with two other cottages; and always there was the noise of the town.

  Tack House Lane was busy with traffic making its way to and from Fleet Mills; there was also the noise of the mills themselves: the heavy thud of the fulling-stocks echoing along the valley, and that conglomerate of sounds issuing from the steam-engines, the spinning-machines and the power-looms, the rushing of water over the weirs and the clatter of the waterwheels, along with the hubbub of people at work which together made up the ‘Cullen Hum’.

  This phrase had a double meaning, as Dick and Susannah soon discovered, for, even worse than the constant noise were the smells that all too often arose when effluent from the stocks and troughs was released into the rivers and streams. One was the smell of scalding-hot water in which the raw wool had been washed; the other was the smell of scalding hot ‘sig’ in which the finished cloth had been scoured; and sig, the children learnt with horror, was urine collected from the town privies.

  ‘Hainault never smelt like that,’ Susannah said indignantly; but, as her brother pointed out, no mill-man was ever allowed to empty his stocks while there were visitors at the mill. ‘Well, I don’t know how the people bear it who have to work with such a smell.’

  The children found plenty to grumble about during these first weeks in the cottage, but they never grumbled when their father was present, for their mother had forbidden it.

  ‘Papa has been under great stress and strain this twelvemonth past, and is still so now. You must not add to
his burden by showing that you are unhappy here.’

  ‘Some of the fellows at school say it was Papa’s own fault that he failed as he did. Is that true, Mama?’

  ‘Your father made mistakes,’ Katharine said. ‘There’s been a decline in trade, as you know, and he misjudged how long it would last.’

  ‘Pollard said that his father lost money when Papa failed. Mr Pollard did some work repairing the dam at Hainault last year and never got paid in full.’

  ‘Are the boys still unfriendly towards you?’

  ‘No. Not really. Not any more. I think in a way they feel sorry for me.’

  ‘Oh, how beastly,’ Susannah said.

  The one bright gleam in their lives at this time was when their aunt Ginny came in the carriage and took them back to Chacelands with her. Ginny hated seeing her sister living in the cottage in Cryer’s Row. It was more than she could bear.

  ‘I wish you would let me speak to George about your coming to live with us. I’m quite sure he’d agree to it, for he feels as angry as I do at the thought of your living in this place.’

  ‘No, Ginny, it will not do. Even if George agreed, Charles most certainly would not. It isn’t only a matter of pride. They have quarrelled badly, as you know.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know all that! Just because George lent Charles some money and only got two thirds of it back. As though money mattered a fig! But George can be very mean sometimes. He has an unforgiving streak. I wanted him to buy Railes and let you go on living there but he wouldn’t even consider it.’

  ‘Of course he wouldn’t,’ Katharine said. ‘You should never have suggested such a thing.’

  ‘I don’t know which I hate the most ‒ Charles for losing Newton Railes or Martin Cox for buying it.’

  ‘Somebody had to buy it, Ginny.’

  ‘Yes. And I should hate them whoever they were. But Martin Cox of all people! That, I think, is the worst cut of all.’

  Martin had not taken possession of Railes immediately on receipt of the deeds because he had been ill with influenza, which had kept him in bed for some days and house-bound at Fieldings for another week. Thus, he had only barely recovered when, on a morning in mid July, he drove out to the old manor house and saw it for the first time as its owner.