Trying to keep her panic from showing in her voice, she said with passionate intensity, “Please listen to me, Harry! Even with all our support Sarah wouldn’t be happy living at Crag-Side. Forcing her to make such a social leap would be a cruelty to her, not a kindness. And William isn’t interested in the mill as you are. You’re the one who, whenever the opportunity arises, goes to the London wool sales. You’re the one your father talks business with and seeks advice from. You know yourself you’re far more cut out to be master of Rimmington’s than William is—”
“That’s not the point!” He ran a hand through his hair, hardly able to believe they were having such a conversation. How could she think, even for a minute, that he would stand by and watch his father disinherit William? Didn’t she understand anything about him? And why were they standing on either side of the Renault like two strangers? What was happening to them for God’s sake?
“It’s William’s right to inherit Crag-Side and the mill,” he said, wondering if, because her own parents had nothing to bequeath, she didn’t quite understand how inheritance worked.
He began to walk around the Renault towards her, intending to put an end to the nonsense by taking her in his arms.
As he did so two things happened simultaneously. Rose entered the stable yard, hurrying because she knew he had been waiting for her for at least ten minutes, and Nina’s tightly-reined self-control slipped at last.
“You’re wrong!” she flared, her cat-green eyes flashing such sparks he stopped dead in his tracks. “It isn’t his right to inherit it now! Not when your father doesn’t want him to inherit it! Not when he’s going to marry Sarah Thorpe!”
“What on earth …?” Rose came to a faltering stop.
“We should have Crag-Side!” Nina was oblivious of Rose’s presence. She couldn’t believe Harry could be so stupidly obstinate. If he’d ever lived in a back-to-back in Beck-Side Street he wouldn’t be so obstinate! Where did he think they were going to live when they were married? What did he think they were going to live on?
“That’s a terrible thing to say!” Rose stared at her, hardly able to believe her ears. “Last night, at dinner, you were as upset as the rest of us when Uncle Walter said he was going to disinherit William …”
Her words tailed away, sickening understanding dawning. It hadn’t been the quarrel between William and his father which had so distressed Nina; it had been the prospect of having Crag-Side so suddenly and tantalizingly placed within her reach only, in the same few moments, to have it snatched away again.
Nina was uncaring of Rose’s opinion. All that mattered to her was that Harry should agree with her that Crag-Side should be theirs.
“Crag-Side’s never going to be ours,” he said, wishing to God he’d realized earlier the effect his father’s words had had on her. At least then he would have been prepared for the present ghastly scene. He would have been able to explain to her with a little more care; to have let her down with a little more gentleness. He ran his hand through his hair yet again, desperately wanting her to understand how impossible her demands were.
“Leastways, it’s not going to be ours in the way you want it to be ours,” he added with a conciliating smile. “We shall be able to live there, of course …”
“Live there?” Nina’s eyes blazed like emeralds. “How can we live there if William and Sarah are living there? If Crag-Side is theirs? And what about the mill? Are you going to oversee the running of it for William as if you’re one of his employees? As if you’re a … a … skivvy?“
Rose gasped.
The blood fled from Harry’s face. Until now he had assumed that, because of a basic misunderstanding, he and Nina were enduring a nasty scene that would soon be over and would have no far-reaching consequences. Now he knew differently.
Closing the distance between them in one stride he seized hold of her shoulders so hard she cried out in pain. “Christ Almighty!” he shouted, not knowing which emotion was uppermost, rage or bewilderment. “What the devil’s got into you, Nina? Yes, if William wants me to, I’ll run the mill for him! I’ll run it because I want to run it! Because like my grandfather I’m a wool-man to my fingertips!“
“But I don’t want to be married to a wool-man!“ There was hysteria in her voice now, the word ‘wool-man’meaning no more to her than the word ‘warehouse-man’. “I want to be married to a man of consequence!“ and with tears streaming down her face she twisted violently away from him, running out of the stable yard and towards the house as if all the hounds of hell were at her heels.
For a long moment neither Harry nor Rose moved and then, sucking in his breath, his jaw and neck muscles bunched into ugly knots, he wheeled round towards her. “Get in the car,” he ordered harshly. “I’m taking you to Bradford.”
“It doesn’t matter …” Still hardly able to believe what had just taken place, Rose’s voice was little more than a croak. “You don’t have to—”
“Get in!”
He had already seized hold of the Renault’s cranking-handle and, not knowing what else to do, she did as she was told.
It was a hideous journey. Harry didn’t speak and drove as if he were intent on inadvertently killing them both. When they finally reached Beck-Side Street he didn’t vault over the Renault’s driver’s door and walk her into the house to have a word with her parents, as he usually did. Instead, a pulse throbbing at the corner of his clenched jaw, he roared away over the cobbles intent on tracking down William.
Rose made her way dazedly into the house. How could Nina have behaved so appallingly? She had said terrible things to Harry. Things so terrible she didn’t even know how Nina could have thought them.
“Is tha … at you, li … ttle love?” her father called out from the cellar-head where, with difficulty, he was putting the lid back on the biscuit jar. “Your Mo … ther’s over at Ge … rtie’s. Did you ha … ave at nice time at Cra … ag-Side? Is everyone ke … eping well?”
“Yes, Pa,” she lied, glad he couldn’t see her face; glad her mother was out of the house. “I’ve got a bit of a headache, though. I’m going to lay down for a little while.”
Quickly, before he emerged from the cellar-head, she ran up the short, curving flight of stone steps that led to the two bedrooms. She wouldn’t say anything to her mother and father about the scene that had taken place at Crag-Side the previous evening. If her Uncle wanted her parents to know about it, then he would tell them about it himself. And she certainly wouldn’t tell them about the scene that had taken place between Nina and Harry. How could she? How could she possibly find the words?
She sat on the edge of her brass-headed bed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. What would happen now? Would Nina and Harry’s love affair continue? And if it didn’t continue, would they still be friends?
Her hands tightened, the knuckles showing white. Unless Nina and Harry were friends, family get-togethers, such as the forthcoming trip to London for the Coronation, would be strained, miserable occasions.
Suddenly, very much, she wanted to be with Micky. Micky was moody at times, but he wasn’t likely to suddenly have a tempestuous row with anyone.
She sprang to her feet, clattering down the stairs, shouting out as she did so, “My headache’s gone now, Pa! I’m just going to Micky’s! I won’t be long!”
When she returned home three hours later it was to find Noel at home.
“Nina’s gone back to London,” he said bluntly, standing on the immaculately white-stoned front doorstep and giving her all the news even before she stepped inside the house. “William was round a little earlier. He wanted Ma and Pa to know about Sarah, and about the fall-out with his father. He and Sarah are getting married in three weeks time and he’d like us all to be there.”
“And Harry?” Her heart was beating fast and light as she wondered if Harry had been with William; if he was perhaps in the house now, talking to her father. “Was Harry with William? Is he here now?”
Noel shook his
head. “No. William came by himself.” He gave a wry grin. “You’ll never guess what our surprising cousin is thinking of doing now.”
Still standing on the pavement, well aware that half a dozen neighbours were peering nosily at them from behind crocheted half-curtains, Rose couldn’t even begin to guess.
“No,” she said, knowing that if William was marrying Sarah in three weeks time, he certainly wasn’t contemplating an early return to Crag-Side, “I can’t.”
“He’s hoping to stand as the local Labour candidate in the next election.”
Rose’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “But that … that would be wonderful!“
“A Rimmington as a Bradford Labour candidate?” Noel chuckled, tickled pink by the idea. “It’d be more than wonderful. It’d be down right amazing. Can you imagine what our grandfather would have said if he’d still been alive? He’d have had a blue fit.”
She stepped up onto the step beside him. “Do Ma and Pa know?”
“Oh aye.” Noel lapsed into a Bradford accent almost as broad as Micky’s. “Pa’s so taken wi’idea he’s all set to go out canvassing for him, speech impediment or no speech impediment!”
Three weeks later, when William married Sarah in Bull Royd Methodist Chapel, the only members of the family not present were Walter and Nina. Nina had, however, sent a pretty lace-edged tray cloth to the happy couple as a wedding present and a note, apologizing for her absence and wishing them well.
Noel, who had been back in London for two weeks out of the intervening three, had travelled back to Bradford the previous day. Without telling anyone she was going to do so, Lottie had gone to Bradford’s Exchange Railway Station to meet him, running down the platform as he stepped off the train, throwing herself into his arms as if he were a hero returning from the wars.
When the wedding ceremony was over and Thorpes, Sugdens and Rimmingtons had filed out into the June sunshine in William and Sarah’s wake, Lizzie had tightened her hold on Laurence’s arm.
“Do you see what I see?” she had whispered to him in fierce hope as, in front of them, Noel and Lottie walked out of the church hand in hand. “Do you think perhaps …?”
He had patted her hand gently. “Do … on’t let’s leap to con … elusions, dear hea … rt,” he had said gently, knowing how savagely disappointed she was that Harry and Nina’s romance appeared to be over. “Lo … ttie’s little older tha … an Rose, and we wouldn’t be ima … gining our Rose in lo … ve with anyone, would we? She’s still li … ttle more than a bairn.”
The bairn in question, well aware that now she was sixteen she, too, could have been standing at the altar in bridal white if only the young man she loved, loved her, was smiling brightly, hiding her inner misery as she always hid it. Harry and Nina’s love affair might have come to a catastrophic finish, but Harry still loved Nina. She knew that, because he had told her so.
“And I think it’ll be all right eventually,” he had said to her, smiling lopsidedly down at her in a way that always made her tummy do somersaults. “She just doesn’t understand the principles governing the inheritance of family property, that’s all.”
“That isn’t all,” Rose had said bullishly, hating the fact that even after all the terrible things Nina had said to him, he was still trying to find an excuse for her behaviour. “When Nina wants something for herself she simply doesn’t think about other people. She certainly wasn’t thinking about William, was she? And why would she want Crag-Side? It isn’t as if she’ll ever want to live in it – or at least not permanently.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
They had been walking towards the tennis-court, about to have a game, and he stopped, his racket resting against his shoulder as he looked down at her with a perplexed frown.
Rose had given an exasperated shrug. “London and Paris and Rome,” she had said, wondering how he could possibly have forgotten. “Nina wants to be an internationally famous dress designer and that’s where internationally famous dress designers live. They don’t live in Yorkshire, at the edge of the moors.”
An absolutely unreadable expression had crossed his strong-boned face. It was almost as if such a thought had never before occurred to him. Rose had dismissed the notion as ridiculous. Everyone knew that Nina wanted to be an internationally famous dress designer. It was why she was in London, studying at St Martin’s.
She was so deep in unhappy thought that for once her sunny smile was absent. Seeing her sunk in deep gloom while everyone around her was boisterously congratulating the bride and groom, Harry walked towards her.
“What’s the matter, Funny-Face?” he asked affectionately. “You look as if you’re at a funeral, not a wedding.”
He often called her Funny-Face and until now she had never taken umbrage. Her face was a little odd but, as her father had once pointed out to her when, as a child, she had tearfully complained about its oddness, it was nicely odd.
“Nothing,” she said stiffly, wishing he would call her Yorkshire Rose, as his father did. “I was just thinking, that’s all.”
“Well, if it makes you look so unhappy, don’t.” He stood companiably beside her. He had been William’s best man and he looked wonderful, a white bud rose in his lapel buttonhole, his starched linen shirt collar fashionably high, his dark hair curling over it in a way that was positively gypsyish. “You still haven’t been round the mill, have you?” he said suddenly. “Would you like me to show you round it one day next week?”
All her unhappy thoughts immediately vanished. To go round Rimmington’s! And to do so as a member of the family!
“Oh, yes Harry!” she said fiercely. “Oh, I should like to do that more than anything else in the whole, wide world!”
“We’ll start off in the wool-sorting,” he said four days later as they strolled across the cobbled mill yard. “I’ve always thought it’s what I’d choose to do myself if I was an ordinary mill worker.”
“I’ve been inside Lutterworth’s,” she said, having to walk very quickly to keep pace with him. “But only the design office and the weaving sheds.”
“And you didn’t mind the noise?” He shot her his down-slanting smile and she flushed rosily, happy to be on her own with him; happy to be inside the mill that had dominated her thoughts for so many years.
“No. Just as you think you could enjoy being a wool-sorter, I think I could enjoy being a weaver, or at least I could if I was allowed to make up my own designs.”
He laughed, amused at the thought of the mayhem that would ensue if his father’s weavers were allowed their heads where designs were concerned.
“Have you always been so passionately interested in textile design,?” he asked as they left the wool-sorting and made their way towards the scouring.
“Always.” Her eyes shone, testifying to the truth of her response. “My father used to take me with him to Lutterworth’s when he was Head Tapestry Designer there and I was a little girl. I thought it was wonderful. All the different pieces of cloth and the different textures and the colours and patterns. And I’m doing really well in design at school; it won’t be long now till I’m finished there. Then when I do, I want to be a Head Tapestry Designer, just like my father.”
They were outside the scouring shed, but the strong stench wasn’t bothering her. Not as it would have bothered William, who avoided the scouring sheds like the plague. He tried to imagine Nina in the wool-sorting and the scouring and failed utterly. Nina might want to be a mill owner’s wife but she certainly wouldn’t want to be familiar with the mill itself. Just as, in many ways, William didn’t.
“This isn’t the pleasantest part of the mill,” he said, leading the way into it, realizing for the first time just why it was the two of them had always enjoyed such a sense of compatability and rapport. It was because they, unlike William and Lottie and Noel and Nina, had inherited their grandfather’s passion for a piece of good cloth.
With increasing enjoyment he took her round the wool-combing an
d the spinning and the twisting. She was far more knowledgeable about everything than he had remotely imagined she would be. With happy enthusiasm he began telling her of just what he hoped to achieve over the next few years.
“And Uncle Walter won’t mind you making such radical changes?” she queried, having to raise her voice to a shout as they stepped into the roaring clatter of the weaving shed.
“Pa’s always been happy for someone else to do all the hack work for him,” Harry shouted back to her wryly. “And he doesn’t have a passion for the mill in the way I do. He never comes down here unless he really has to, and you can’t run a mill like that. The hands don’t like it. They’ll accept me as his stand-in, though. I spent every free hour of every school holiday I ever had, trotting around the place in Grandfather’s wake. He took me to my first wool sale when I was seven and when I was ten I was going with him to Bradford Wool Exchange!”
They lingered for quite a time in the weaving. Rose wanted to see the designs being woven and as the women stood at their looms, shuttles flying, she stopped to shout a friendly few words to one after another of them.
By the time they began making their way back to the offices her legs ached and her voice was hoarse.
“You were quite a hit,” Harry said, pushing open the door of a vast boardroom. In every part of the mill he had introduced her to every overlooker as his cousin. They had all known his grandfather had also been her grandfather. In many respects it had been almost a royal tour, and his only regret was that it was a tour their grandfather hadn’t taken with her. “Do you want to have lunch here, or do you want to go into Bradford to lunch?”
“If we have lunch here can we go to the design offices afterwards? Can I ask your Head Designer why he does so many check and herringbone designs and so few heather mixtures?”
Yorkshire Rose Page 17
