The Bobbin Girls

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Oh, no,’ she sighed. ‘Not another.’ Kit’s lack of success with women was legendary, but for all she thought him the most good-looking of the four, Lizzie knew him to have the quickest temper. Too like his father.

  ‘Ma,’ Alena persisted, afraid her needs were about to be forgotten as her mother was already reaching for the oven cloth to fetch the steaming tatie pot she had ready and waiting in the oven for her menfolk. ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Let her, for pity’s sake. She’ll come to no harm.’

  ‘Aye, give us a bit of peace,’ Jim agreed, ruffling his sister’s hair.

  ‘Would she listen if I said no? She never has yet. Take care now. Don’t get up to any more mischief. And be back by eight. not a minute later. D’you hear?’

  Their promises were lost in the sound of running feet and bubbling laughter.

  This was one of Alena’s favourite nights of the year. She envied Rob being born on Hallowe’en, though because their birthdays were so close, they always celebrated them together on this day.

  She loved Christmas best, of course, and the pace-egging that they did at Easter. When she was small, she’d loved to dance around the maypole, and even enjoyed the rushbearing ceremony her mother took her to each year at Grasmere, though she had never been chosen to wear the special green and white tunic and carry the linen rush-sheet herself. But then she did not live in Grasmere. She lived here, in the village of Ellersgarth, in this beautiful valley of Rusland. Between Coniston Water and Windermere, it was full of twisting lanes and fine old beeches, green fields and deep, mysterious coppice woods. Secret places where a person could hide themselves for hours, perhaps days.

  A little further north it merged into the thick forests of Grizedale where you could lose yourself forever if you didn’t take care. Alena never tired of exploring the woodlands, for all she was not officially allowed to venture far. She found following rules and regulations a great nuisance, preferring to work on the principle of what her mother didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt her. Swimming in High Birk Tarn, for instance, which was but a short, steep climb from the village and had become one of her favourite pastimes. There was little else to do in this quiet spot, and Alena felt sure that she was perfectly safe.

  ‘Will we knock on old Jessie’s door?’ Rob’s voice broke into her thoughts. He was swinging the lantern tied to a stick and as he looked down at her, waiting for her reply, the light sent odd shadows across his face, causing the gold flecks in his brown eyes to glint and sparkle. In that moment he looked much older than fourteen and Alena’s heart swelled with pride that he was her very special friend. She hoped he would remain so when he really was old. Life without Rob seemed impossible to imagine.

  In that peculiar moment of intimacy at the tarn, between one heartbeat and the next, she had longed for something she couldn’t quite put a name to. Had known instinctively that Rob felt the same way, almost as if they could read each other’s mind.

  But then she had loved Rob Hollinthwaite for as long as she could remember. He was a part of her life, a part of herself. Since her own brothers were so much older, he had been the constant companion of her childhood. As children they had played together in her cottage, on the village green or in the cold waters of the beck.

  ‘Only if you can run away quickly enough. It’s no fun if we get caught,’ she reminded him.

  Sometimes Alena had been allowed to share his lessons, which were taken at his home, Ellersgarth Hall. He’d often begged to go to school, as other boys did, or as Alena did in the village, but he was never allowed. Rob, being an only child, and, his mother insisted, rather delicate, had received his education at the hands of Miss Simpson, his nanny turned governess. Alena hadn’t minded the extra work involved when she joined Rob at his studies. For all she fussed too much, Mrs Hollinthwaite had been kind, lending Alena books and even teaching her a little mathematics and French; encouraging her to make something of her life, perhaps one day become a teacher. Alena doubted her family could afford such grand ambitions. Not that it troubled her, she cared only about being with Rob.

  And four brothers had taught her to stand her own corner when it came to pranks. They teased her for being a tomboy, but when Jim put a frog in her wellington boot, she would put a toad in his. If Harry left a dead spider by her breakfast plate she put frog spawn in his bed. Kit and Tom, being the two younger boys, would chase and wrestle with her, as if she were one of them. Yet she knew that if any outsider were to threaten her, her brothers would be the first to stand up for her.

  There was nothing Alena loved more than a bit of fun and mischief. And mischief was what they were about now. Which was another reason she so loved Hallowe’en.

  They scurried along Birkwith Row, flicking every knocker, rattling every dustbin lid, then stifling giggles behind their hands they melted swiftly into the darkness just as doors opened and light spilled out on to the pavement.

  Mrs Rigg at the village shop caught them just as they were about to rattle her letterbox. She pounced before they could hope to escape and, with an ear belonging to each of them grasped firmly between fingers and thumbs, took them right into her kitchen where she made them fill all her coal buckets. Then she gave them each a sticky toffee and sent them on their way with what she called ‘a flea in their ear’.

  ‘I’ll have that kind of flea any time,’ mumbled Rob through a mouthful of caramel.

  ‘Me too.’ And they grinned at each other in perfect companionship.

  ‘Does she sit waiting for us, d’you reckon?’

  ‘I think she must.’ The idea of Mrs Rigg with whiskers on her chin and her pink floral pinny wrapped tightly about her skinny body sitting behind the shop door in wait for them, made them laugh out loud. But she’d always been a good sport. In all the years of rattling her letterbox, she’d never failed to catch them, make them do some task or other, and then produce a reward as if they’d done her a favour, at the end of it.

  Next door to the village shop stood The Golden Stag, which seemed half empty this early in the evening, though it would no doubt fill up later when the workers from the bobbin mill had eaten their supper and came out for their usual pint, and perhaps a bit of a sing-song.

  They peeped in through the door and saw Jack Turner, the pot-bellied publican, shake a fist at them. He’d come back from the Great War to find his wife had run off with his best friend, so had never been quite so amenable as Mrs Rigg. They backed quickly away, taking no offence since this was their village and his irascibility held no threat for them. They ran around the back of the public house and headed towards Applethorn Cottages. just beyond Ellersgarth Green.

  ‘Let’s go to Hollin Bridge instead,’ Alena suggested, dragging Rob to a halt.

  She knew that the Suttons lived on Applethorn. Dolly Sutton had once been a close friend but the friendship had faded. Two years older, Dolly thought herself above hanging around with schoolgirls now that she worked at the mill and had money in her pocket to spend. She wore lipstick, marcel-waved her hair and always had a string of boyfriends in tow.

  ‘We’d best not touch Dolly’s house,’ Alena warned. ‘She’d half kill me.’ And think her such a child.

  Rob raised an eyebrow at this sign of weakness. ‘I thought you weren’t scared of anyone?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘I’m no fool neither, Robert Hollinthwaite. Dolly Sutton is bigger than me.’ And tough with it.

  ‘So you’d run a mile from her, all the way to Hollin Bridge?’ It was dark down there, and there was talk of a ghost; a pale lost maid who wandered that part of the woodland, weeping and wailing for her lost love. ‘It’s getting late. We’ll have to be getting back soon. I promised your mam.’

  ‘You’re scared.’

  ‘I am not.’

  They stood on Ellersgarth Green with the lantern between them, and argued. It was always so. If one said one thing the other would say the opposite. But it made no difference to their closeness, o
nly emphasised it, for they both knew that in the end they would do whatever Alena had decided.

  The clock in the hall chimed eleven as James Hollinthwaite climbed the stairs later that evening. Following the revelations at the tarn he’d walked for miles, going over everything in his head. Had he made a mistake? He didn’t usually. Except in his marriage.

  He entered his wife’s bedroom without knocking and looked down upon her with something very close to contempt, the whole arrogant stance of him silently protesting at having to be in the same room as her, if only for a moment.

  She sat propped up in bed against embroidered pillow-cases and beneath starched linen sheets, swathed in a nightgown he knew reached from chin to toe, revealing not a glimpse of flesh between these two extremities. Even the rich sheen of her hair was denied him. It hung in a solid plait over one slender shoulder.

  Never robust, years spent in trying to produce a healthy child, her naturally nervous disposition and a growing disillusionment with life in general and himself in particular, had all taken their toll. Olivia Hollinthwaite was no longer the woman she once was, now spending more hours than was healthy in contemplation of her lot. In James’s opinion this was a pity, but surely it was entirely her own fault if it resulted in depression. After two miscarriages and one stillborn boy, she’d finally performed what she considered to be her duty. But following that long and painful birth on a stormy night fourteen years ago, his wife had done everything she could to avoid this aspect of married life, even to insisting upon separate bedrooms. If only she didn’t appear so distant, so entirely unreachable, they might have been happy enough. Even now she was reading a book, as if she really didn’t care whether he were home or not.

  ‘You were not at dinner,’ she remarked, in tones that to James’s sensitive ear sounded cool and indifferent. ‘The Cowpers and the Tysons were rather put out.’

  He’d forgotten about the dinner party. As a good Christian woman she would never have held such an event on Hallowe’en were it not her son’s birthday. It had always seemed an odd quirk of fate that the most momentous events of his life had taken place on this night.

  ‘My apologies.’ He was perfectly genuine. He shouldn’t have forgotten. It didn’t pay to offend people, even pompous fools like George Tyson. Who knew when they might prove useful?

  Olivia lifted her gaze from the book and rested it upon the ceiling. Like a martyr, he thought. ‘I made excuses for you. Some pressing problem you’d been called to deal with at the mill.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Annoyed at finding himself in the wrong, he could barely keep the irritation from his voice. ‘Ask them again next week.’

  ‘Oh, that would be too soon. I couldn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you could.’ He had flustered her, which was rare, and he revelled in the sense of power it gave him.

  When he had married her twenty-two years ago, Olivia Leck had been the handsomest, most elegant woman imaginable, for all she was three years older than he. Coming from a respected Lancashire family, she’d naturally brought money to the marriage, and a very useful parcel of woodland not too far from his own valley. But most of all, she had possessed that precious commodity - style. He’d admired that in her more than any other quality. Her dress, her grace, her manner, - all had indicated the impeccable training she had received at the hands of her own formidable mama.

  She could decorate and lay a table in white and gold, and make it look as if it had just dropped from heaven. But that had been in another age, Edwardian and leisurely, before the war, and infinitely more elegant than this one. In those early days, she had made it seem as if her one desire was to please and pamper those fortunate enough to be invited to sit around her table, lifting her new husband and his humble farmhouse to the echelons of the middle classes, where by rights James considered he should be. Even now she could somehow manage to get all the right people to her dinner parties. Surely a great asset in any wife.

  ‘They are busy people and may not wish to risk the humiliation again.’

  ‘Ask them.’ For a moment he saw the familiar rebellion flicker across her beautiful face. He hated unpleasantness and rebellion of any sort, so said it again, in more forceful, commanding tones. ‘Do as I say, Olivia.’

  She sighed with a tremulous sadness, as if he had wounded her. ‘As you wish.’

  His exhilaration at winning this small victory quickly faded, leaving him feeling flat and faintly foolish. It was ever so. He resolved not to remain in her company a moment longer than necessary. But James liked to be seen to follow the conventions, even when in reality he flouted them at every turn. It seemed correct for a man to bid goodnight to his wife, so he did so. Now he turned to go, his eagerness to quit the suffocating sweetness of the room making him momentarily forget what had occupied his thoughts all evening, and been the cause of his neglect. Turning abruptly he saw her cringe away from him. Even now, after all these years, it had the power to infuriate.

  Never, in all their married life together, had she welcomed him with anything approaching desire. He might have been willing to show more consideration towards her had she made the smallest effort to please him.

  He could not deny that she carried out her wifely duties without protest, when called upon to do so. But he was a man who demanded passion, for God’s sake, not duty. Yet she had the effrontery to complain about his lack of sensitivity! Olivia should consider herself fortunate he preferred not to risk a scandal by taking a mistress, which would do neither of them any good. In his younger days he’d once had a fling of sorts, but it had caused as many problems as it had solved. But had he the time or inclination for dalliance, he could still have any woman he chose. He thought of himself as a well set-up sort of chap, not overweight, with a fine head of dark brown hair, good teeth, and rather splendid patrician features. Yet apparently he repelled his own wife.

  But what did she have to complain of? She had money and status, a cook, a governess for her child, the use of a motor to take her to coffee mornings, charity functions and whatever committee she was currently serving upon. He made very sure that her diary was kept full. What more could she require? James liked an ordered life, and had always made certain that he attained one. If that meant supervising his wife and son more than they might wish, that was something they must both learn to tolerate. Which thought brought to mind the real purpose of his visit. ‘I saw that child this evening - Alena Townsen.’

  ‘Oh?’ Olivia closed her book and showed interest for the first time. ‘She is hardly a child, very nearly a young woman.’

  ‘So I noticed. She was with Robert. They were swimming together in the tarn. Naked.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  He stared at her. ‘Is that all you have to say. "Oh, dear"?’

  ‘They are young, and very fond of each other. They’ve grown up together, so I don’t see a little nakedness as a sin.’

  ‘You’ve been too soft with both of them.’

  ‘A person needs love. It is an essential part of life.’ She looked him directly in the eye as she said this. How was it she could always twist every conversation to his disadvantage? If she was not openly criticising him for having offended yet another of their over-sensitive neighbours - as if it were possible to make money without treading on someone’s toes from time to time - she was regarding him in silent, condemnatory reproach. He was never sure which he hated most.

  True, the folk who lived in this village were practical and hard-working with a natural feel for the woodlands and the wildlife that lived within it. But their country ways, superstitions and slow acceptance of change were constant sources of irritation to him. James Hollinthwaite prided himself on being a far-seeing man; one poised to exploit the future, if he didn’t have one foot

  in it already. The last thing he needed was a difficult wife or disobedient son.

  ‘You’d best speak to the boy. We don’t want any - accidents.’

  She gave a half-smile but said no more, and fury shot through him, hot and
fierce. Drat the woman! Why must she always give the impression of being superior? As if she knew something he didn’t, or understood people better than he did, which couldn’t be the case. In point of fact, he was more in control than she could ever imagine. But then, he had always been willing to do what must be done.

  ‘It’s time we settled that boy’s future. Come to my study tomorrow at ten.’ Having issued his wife with this order, James strode from the room, certain he had finally succeeded in showing he was the one who made the decisions in this house.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning when the inhabitants of Applethorn Cottages were busily righting their dustbins, which they always had to do following Hallowe’en, Dolly Sutton had her head in the scullery sink.

  She wasn’t sure whether this queasiness she felt was the result of eating too much supper or stemmed from a more sinister reason, one too frightening to contemplate. In case it was the latter, she had, over the last several days, jumped off every stair for as high up them as she could manage. She’d taken a dozen baths, whenever her mother was out, most of which had been stone cold because she’d used up all the hot water from the back boiler, but all the more painful for that. She had also taken more than the odd nip of her mother’s gin. But despite all her best efforts, there was no sign of her monthly visitor. What she longed for more than anything right now was that familiar dragging pain in her belly. Instead of which all she felt was a ball of breathless fear in her chest.

  She remembered reading in some newspaper or other how even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself had given the go-ahead for contraception, so long as it wasn’t for selfish reasons, which seemed a bit contrary to Dolly. The only trouble was, the article didn’t explain how you went about it. And she’d never dared ask her mother.