Yorkshire Rose

by Margaret Pemberton

  William hadn’t gone. He’d sat down and had a cup of tea and a slice of Mrs Thorpe’s mint and currant pasty and by the time he had said his goodbyes he had been reeling in disbelief at the unexpected breadth of Mr Thorpe’s self-education. The journals of Dr Johnson; the writings of Charles Wesley; the poetry of John Milton and George Herbert; the novels of Charles Dickens and George Eliot, all were referred to by him in some way or other, and always knowledgeably.

  “Why shouldn’t Pa be well read?” Sarah had said reasonably when they were next alone. “He’s a lay-preacher and he knows his Bible inside out.”

  “Yes, well, I would have expected that,” William had admitted, still dazed at having had lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost quoted to him by a weaving overlooker, “but I hadn’t expected him to know Milton inside out, or George Herbert either, come to that!”

  He said now, slowing to a halt as the woods began to thin and the stile leading out onto Haworth Road came into view. “I’ll meet you at two o’clock on Saturday, and don’t worry about picnic food. I’ll see to that.” He came to a halt, not wanting to reach the stile; not wanting to have to say goodbye to her.

  She rested her head against his shoulder and he unclasped his hand from hers, sliding it around her waist, pulling her even closer.

  “I’m not going to wait until my birthday to speak to my father,” he said, his voice raw with resolution. “I’m going to do so at dinner on Saturday evening. I want us to be able to announce our engagement on my birthday, Sarah. And I want us to be married by Christmas.”

  Her eyes widened, deep blue and black-lashed, and the breath caught in his throat. How had a couple as homely as the Thorpes produced a daughter so lovely? Her abundant hair, caught in a high, loose knot, was so dark an auburn as to be almost black. With her delicately winged eyebrows, gently curving cheek bones and innate serenity, she looked more like a Madonna by Raphael or Perugino than a Yorkshire girl brought up in a strict Methodist household.

  “Sarah …” Desire was building up inside him hot and fierce and he was terrified he wasn’t going to be able to keep control of it. They had to marry soon! They had to! He couldn’t continue reining in his need of her, kissing her always with loving tenderness and never with deep passion.

  The pressure of her breast, as she leaned in innocent sensuousness against him, was unbearably arousing and he knew he could not trust himself to kiss her goodbye; that to kiss her goodbye now would be to abandon all restraint.

  “Sarah …” he said again hoarsely, “Sarah I …”

  As if reading his thoughts; as if sharing the intensity of his need, she turned more fully against him, her eyes holding his, the love in them absolute.

  He sucked in his breath and for one brief moment, as sunlight dappled down on them through the leaves of the trees, time seemed to hang suspended.

  “I love you,” he said thickly when at last capable of speech. “You’re my fortress and my peace Sarah, and I’ll love you till the day I die.”

  Her arms slid up and around his neck. “I’ll love you longer, William. I’ll love you for always – throughout all eternity.”

  It was too much to be borne. He abandoned his hold of her bicycle – abandoned all restraint. As the bicycle toppled into a mat of lily of the valley, his arms closed round her, pressing her in against him in a way he had previously only dreamed of doing, his body hard and urgent as his mouth closed in passionate longing on hers.

  Rose, Jenny and Micky surveyed the world from their usual meeting place on top of the midden the Porritt’s shared with three other families.

  “Will you really see the King and Queen when you go down to London?” Jenny was saying to Rose in awestruck tones. “Will you be in Westminster Abbey when the King is crowned?”

  “‘Course she won’t.” Micky was seventeen now and he often found Jenny’s fifteen-year-old naivety intensely irritating. He plucked a blade of grass from a crack in the midden’s roof and stuck it in the corner of his mouth, unhappy with himself, unhappy with the world. “Only proper nobs have seats in the Abbey,” he continued, looking not at her but at Rose, “and mill owners aren’t proper nobs. They’re folks like us who just happen to have brass. And they only have brass because folks like you, Jenny, are daft enough to work for’em.”

  Jenny’s arms were hugging her knees and her clasped hands tightened together, the knuckles whitening. She hated it when Micky spoke to her in such a belittling way, and she hated it even more when he looked at Rose with such unhappy intensity. Why did it matter where Rose went with her Rimmington cousins? Why was Micky so resentful of them?

  “Where else would I work if I didn’t work in the, mill?” she said defensively, wishing he’d pay her just a fraction of the attention he paid Rose. “Not everyone can be removal men like you and your dad and besides, I like working at Lutterworth’s. It may be hard work in the weaving but we have a lot of fun, even if we do have to shout at the top of our voices to make ourselves heard.”

  Micky made a disparaging noise and rolled the blade of grass to the other side of his mouth. He’d only been in a weaving shed once, when he and his dad had been picking up some shoddy, and no force on earth would get him to go in one again. He didn’t like enclosed spaces. He liked being out in the fresh air with the horse and cart, as far out of Bradford and as near to the moors as possible.

  “We will see King George and Queen Mary,” Rose said, wondering why it was Micky seemed incapable of being civil anymore; wondering why he had changed so. “There’s to be a giant procession through London and we’re going to watch it from The Strand.”

  Jenny had no idea where or what The Strand was, but she knew it must be a wonderful vantage point, otherwise the Rimmingtons wouldn’t be going to it. Images of horses with brilliantly coloured plumes dancing on top of their heads, and gold carriages, banners, bunting and flags filled her mind, so wonderful she temporarily forgot how miserable Micky had just made her. There would be soldiers in dress uniform, too, and not just ordinary soldiers, but Horse Guards and Grenadier Guards and Beefeaters and …

  “Though we won’t be in the Abbey, a friend of Nina’s will be,” Rose continued, not bragging but stating a truth she knew Jenny would want to know. “His name is Rupert Winterton and Nina nearly fell off her chair at breakfast when she read his name in The Times wedding guest list. He’s the youngest duke in England and there was an article about him as well, and a photograph.”

  “So?” Micky said bellingerently. “So what does that make him? It doesn’t make him any better than other folk, does it? He’s only a duke’cos his father was a duke. He hasn’t earned being a duke.”

  “I never said he had earned being a duke,” Rose said exasperatedly. “I was simply stating a fact. And he can’t be the kind of duke you so object to, Micky, or he wouldn’t still be at St Martin’s, would he?”

  Micky didn’t know anything about St Martin’s, and didn’t want to know. He yanked the blade of grass from his mouth and tossed it over the edge of the midden’s roof. Things weren’t the same any more between himself and Rose and he resented the fact deeply. It was all the Rimmingtons’fault. Until Walter Rimmington had driven his flash motorcar into Beck-Side Street, he and Rose had not only been the best of mates, they’d been equals. Now they were equals no longer. How could they be, when she spent so much time laiking with folk who had more brass than they knew what to with?

  “There’s going to be a bonfire in the street to celebrate the Coronation,” Jenny said, hopeful that a changed topic of conversation would put an end to the bickering. “It’ll be fun having a bonfire in June, won’t it? Mam’s going to put red, white and blue icing on her fairy cakes and Gertie’s going to make a trifle.”

  Micky made no response. Rose wouldn’t be at Beck-Side Street’s bonfire. Rose would be in London with the Rimmingtons.

  “I’m off to Thornton tomorrow,” he said, his arms clasped loosely around his knees, his feet crossed at the ankle, the steel heel rims on his clo
gs glinting in the sun. “I’m moving a widder-lady into a cottage on the edge oft’moor.” He stared down hard at his feet, a pulse throbbing at the corner of his jawline. “Do you fancy coming?” he asked, as if it wasn’t of much interest to him whether they did or not. “It’ll be a grand day out.”

  A day out on the horse and cart always was a grand day out and Jenny’s face shone in happy anticipation as she said eagerly, “We’d love to Micky, wouldn’t we, Rose?”

  Rose shook her head, genuinely disappointed. “I can’t, Jenny. I’ve promised to go on a family picnic tomorrow and it’s a special picnic, not just an ordinary picnic. There’s no way I can not go.”

  Jenny’s radiance evaporated. If Rose didn’t go, she couldn’t go. Her ma, who was always so sunnily reasonable, had suddenly become very odd about her going out on the cart with Micky if Albert wasn’t with them. A whole day out, and on a Saturday when there were so many household chores for her to do, would be completely out of the question.

  “I … I don’t think I’ll be able to come either, Micky,” she said unwillingly. “I’ve just remembered how much work there is to do at home on a Saturday and …”

  Her voice trailed away, her misery total. Micky wasn’t listening to her. He was on his feet, white lines edging the comers of his mouth, fury, resentment, and a misery more than equal to her own, blazing in his eyes.

  “Oh, aye, it’ll be special all reet!” he shouted, taking Rose so much by surprise that her jaw dropped open and her eyes flew so wide they seemed to fill her entire face. “Special, because it’s yon Rimmingtons you’re going jaunting wi’! Well, Rose Sugden, I’ll tell you this for nowt, I wish to God Beck-Side Street had never seen sight nor sound of t’bloody Rimmingtons!”

  His hair which, as a boy, had always stood straight up in a front in an irrepressible cowlick, now fell over his forehead in a manner even Rose had to admit was decidedly attractive. Always tall and skinny, his shoulders had filled out so that, although he was still slenderly built, there was a whippy look to him that told he would be someone to be reckoned with in a fight and the unleashed anger now coursing through him was evidence enough that he wouldn’t need too much excuse to join in any fight that was going.

  “Everything was all reet in t’street afore they came …” he continued, breathing hard, his nostrils thin and pinched, “… mixing wi’folk they’ve no right mixing wi’! We couldn’t just tek into our heads to go visiting them, could we? That’d be very different, wouldn’t it? So why do they think they can come down here and it’ll be all reet wi’us all?”

  “I don’t know what you mean—” Rose began, trying to interrupt him, far too bewildered to answer his anger with outraged indignation of her own.

  He didn’t let her even finish her sentence. “And it isn’t all reet!” he continued as if she hadn’t even attempted to speak. “They’re them and we’re us and them pretending to act as if there’s no difference, when there’s a world o’bloody difference, only confuses folks. It mek’s it so’s folks don’t know where they are and they don’t like it.” He ran a hand through his hair, exasperation adding to his anger. “The only reason Jenny’s ma hasn’t been shunned by everyone in t’street for having a gentleman friend like Mr Rimmington is because everyone knows he’s also your mam’s brother. And if you think that isn’t confusing to folks your mam dress-meks for, then you can bloomin’well think again!”

  Rose scrambled to her feet, appalled by how embarrassed Jenny must be feeling. “That’s a rotten thing to say, Micky Porritt!” she flared, the breeze that freshened the tops of the middens blowing strands of ginger hair across her face. “Why would people shun Jenny’s mum just because she’s friends with my uncle! He’s as single as she is and—”

  “Single don’t come into it!” It was all Micky could do to stop himself from seizing her by the shoulders and shaking her till her teeth rattled. “He’s not her class, can’t you see that? Folks like your Uncle Walter don’t mix wi’folks like us! And we don’t want ’em to neither! They should keep to their own sort and not come sniffing around where they’re not wanted!”

  Jenny had begun to cry. Neither Micky nor Rose took any notice.

  “That’s an ugly, nasty thing to say!” White-faced and trembling Rose wondered if Micky knew that her uncle wasn’t the only Rimmington to have a mill lass as a sweetheart. If he did know about William’s relationship with Sarah Thorpe he could at least have told her. She hadn’t known until William had invited her to Saturday’s picnic, informing her when he did so that the girl he intended marrying, a girl who lived only three or four streets away from Beck-Side Street and who worked in the weaving at Lutterworth‘s, would be attending it also.

  “Aye, well, if the cap fits,” Micky said tersely, knowing he had said all he wanted to say and knowing it had been far, far too much.

  As Rose sucked in her breath, about to make an indignant rejoinder, he turned on his heel. She knew how he felt now and, if she’d listened to him with half an ear, she also knew how other folk felt – and in his opinion it was about bloody time.

  “Micky …”

  He strode to the edge of the midden and vaulted down from it, the steel on his clogs flashing sparks as they made contact with the paving flags.

  What she did about what he’d told her would be up to her, but he knew what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to turn her back on the Rimmingtons. He wanted her to want to be with him. He wanted to tell her all about a book he had been reading; a book a schoolteacher he and his dad had moved from one of the smart terraces the other side of Toller Lane into an even smarter house down by Manningham Park, had given him.

  The book was all about New Zealand and there were pictures in it. Pictures of wide open countryside; countryside so beautiful and unspoilt it took the breath away. It said in the book that a man could sheep farm in New Zealand. Though Micky was city born and bred, he was also Yorkshire born and bred, and he knew all about sheep. A job as a hand on a New Zealand sheep farm would suit him fine, but he didn’t want to go out there by himself. He wanted Rose to go with him. She was sixteen in a few months time and in Bradford plenty of lasses were married at sixteen.

  “Micky!”

  There was no distress in the voice calling after him; no remorse. Instead she sounded outraged – as if she were going to demand that he make an apology.

  Not turning his head he dug his hands deep into the pockets of his shabby trousers and, as he entered the passageway leading through to the street, began to whistle. He wasn’t going to apologize for what he’d said. It had been the truth, every word of it, by heck it had!

  Rose stamped her foot on the midden roof in angry frustration. If Micky expected her to run after him, then he had another think coming because she wasn’t going to run after him, not now, not ever!

  Jenny’s crying was now impossible to ignore and Rose, deeply hurt by Micky’s savage outburst and more troubled than she wanted to admit by the prospect of Saturday’s picnic, said impatiently, “Do stop snivelling, Jenny. It was me he was angry at, not you.”

  Jenny gasped, shocked at Rose’s totally uncharacteristic lack of sympathy.

  Rose, still standing and looking out over a back yard filled with the Porritt’s washing, was oblivious. Had there been a shred of truth in Micky’s accusations? Were her neighbours confused and unhappy by her Rimmington relatives’visits to Beck-Side Street? She thought of the easy way Harry fitted in with everyone and, where he was concerned, couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Perhaps, though, where her Uncle Walter was concerned, there was truth in what Micky had said. And William? What would the reaction be in Sarah Thorpe’s cul-de-sac when William’s identity became public knowledge?

  As Jenny wiped her tears away with the hem of her working skirt Rose continued to stare out over the Porritt’s bleak backyard, the breeze tugging at her hair as she hugged her arms, deep in unhappy thought.

  Chapter Ten

  “Aye, li … ttle love, it is a bi … it of a ru
… urn do,” Laurence Sugden said with difficulty, thinking privately that it was a great deal more than that; that it was history repeating itself with rare old vengeance.

  “I don’t think it’s something recent,” Rose said, frowning slightly. “I think he and Sarah Thorpe have been sweethearts for a-long time.”

  She was sitting on a leather pouffe pulled companiably close to his chair and he reached out a prematurely aged hand, touching the top of her head lovingly.

  “You mean e … ven from bef … ore William knew ab … out his his fa … ther’s friendship with Polly?” he asked quizzically.

  Rose nodded. The nice thing about her father was that he always understood things without her having to laboriously spell them out. “I can understand William having kept his friendship a secret before he knew Polly Wilkinson was his father’s lady friend,” she continued, her frown deepening, “but I don’t understand why he’s continued keeping it a secret. I mean, Uncle Walter can’t possibly object to Sarah Thorpe, can he? At least he can’t if Sarah’s a nice girl and I can’t imagine William wanting to marry anyone who wasn’t nice.”

  Laurence, who had had plenty of experience of the vagaries of human nature, remained silent. On the face of it, of course, Rose was right. How could Walter Rimmington possibly object to his son wanting to marry a decent working-class young woman when he, too, had wanted to marry such a woman – and according to Lizzie, still did.

  “Per … haps William knows a side to his fa … ther we don’t,” he said perceptively. “People don’t al … ways be … have reasonably, little love. Some … times even people nearest and dear … est to us, take us by complete sur … prise.”

  Rose rested her chin on her hand and stared into the fireplace. Even though it was evening, because the weather had been so gloriously hot there was no fire in the grate, only a decorative paper fan to make it look a little less empty.