A Time Like No Other (37 page)

Lally held up her hand and, surprised, he stopped speaking.

‘John, there is something you should know, then perhaps it might give you some insight into why Harry is as he is. He took a terrible beating. His skull was . . . must have been severely damaged but . . . but there is something else. I might say keep it to yourself but it will be all over Moorend before long.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘So I might as well tell you now.’

John leaned forward, his youthful, earnest face worried.

‘Lally . . . ?’

‘My daughter Cat is not Harry’s child,’ she told him abruptly and was not surprised when he fell back in consternation.

‘I did a foolish thing after . . . after Chris died. Roly was our friend, mine and Chris’s and . . . well, one thing led to another and Cat was the result. When I told Harry, who was already helping me with the estate, he offered me marriage. He is a wonderful man . . .’

‘You love him.’ It was a statement of fact.

‘Yes, I do,’ surprising herself as she answered.

‘So?’

‘I am with child again, John, but it seems that because Roly has just come home . . . well, a couple of months ago and I have just become pregnant, Harry’s troubled mind has put the two events together and he believes the child I carry is Roly’s. When I told him we, Harry and I, were to have a child he became as he is.’

‘But surely—’

She held up her hand again. ‘There is more. Roly wants the mills. He and Harry, naturally, have not got on well since . . . so Roly wants to buy him out, or split the business. If Harry will not agree he threatens to tell the world that Caterina is his child and not Harry’s.’

‘Dear sweet Christ! No wonder Harry’s mind has retreated. That blow to his head . . .’

‘Must have somehow interfered with his reasoning powers, for the man I knew would never have become as he is. He was aware of the strife between himself and Roly before he was attacked by the Weavers but add to that his belief that the child in my belly is not his . . . John, oh, John, what are we to do?’

And so it was that Martin came into their lives and each day they waited for Harry to be himself again and for Roly to make his next move in the acquisition of the Sinclair mills.

The following Sunday the Moorend Hunt met at Holestone Manor on Lord Billington’s estate which lay to the south of the Priory. It had been feared that the snowstorm of the previous week might mean a cancellation of the fox hunting but the weather had turned mild and apart from pockets of snow lying here and there and in the shade of the dry-stone walls, the fields and moorlands were clear. The hunt – the one that had killed Chris Fraser – was popular with local landowners and squirearchy and not a few of the county folk who could afford a decent animal. The hunt fulfilled a number of functions besides the social focus and enjoyment. It rid the farmers of vermin and provided employment for ostlers, grooms, stable lads, and each hunt recruited its staunch regiment of whippers-in and dog-stoppers.

It was a thrilling scene that clear, bright morning, the hounds milling about the master, the sound of the horn, the brilliant red coats, the laughter as the stirrup cup was handed round by his lordship’s servants. There were many ladies mounted in riding habits of black or dark blue, their tight jackets buttoned up the front, their cambric shirts immaculate. They had sleeves to their jackets with cuffs, a black, beaver top hat with a veil, riding trousers of chamois leather with black feet over which they wore a full skirt which allowed them to ride astride.

Among those flirting with the ladies was Roly Sinclair, mounted on a magnificent thoroughbred coal-black hunter, large, bold and confident, as he was himself, chosen by Roly for riding in flat open country with big jumps but also able to cross moorland terrain. Miss Anne Bracken, to whom he had recently become engaged, was not present since she came from a class that did not ride to hounds. He would not have been so sanguine had he been aware of the activity that was taking place on the premises of the Sinclair mills.

‘There must be a desk or a large table up here somewhere, Susan. It looks as though all the Frasers throughout the ages could not bear to part with anything. Look at that monstrosity over there with all that carving. Is it a wardrobe, d’you think? Or that thing with a marble top and legs like an elephant. How on earth did they get it up here? I wonder. I’ve never seen such furniture in my life. And these,’ indicating what looked like bow-fronted steps. ‘It’s got a lid.’ She lifted the lid and peered inside and then began to laugh.

‘What?’

‘It’s a chamber pot.’

‘Look, Lally, if you’re going to spend your time examining everything in the attic we’ll never get done. Remember, there’s only today to do what we must. Now cast about for something suitable. Big enough for a desk but small enough for the men to get it down the stairs and into the cart.’

For half an hour they poked about in the vast attics, dusty, dishevelled and disheartened until at last Susan exclaimed in excitement.

‘This will do if the men can get it out. It’s big enough and has drawers along the front. Drawers with locks on them if we can find keys. Oh, look, the keys are actually in the drawer. There’s even a chair to match. Oh, do come and look, Lally.’

They studied the table from every angle and Susan even sat at it. Lally thought it might be a library table from perhaps the last century, fashioned in mahogany. It had well-turned legs and casters so that it might be moved about more easily.

‘This is it, Susan,’ Lally said quietly as though the seriousness of what was ahead of them had at last become reality. Her face was set in a mould of grave resolution. ‘I’ll call Carly and Ben. He has borrowed a cart from Sean McGinley and it’s standing ready in the yard. And I have the keys to the gates and the office. Now, d’you think we should change?’ She looked down ruefully at the dusty state of her gown.

Susan nodded firmly. ‘Oh yes, we must start out as we mean to go on. Neat, simple, no bright colours but smart!’

The maids were agog as Carly and Ben staggered through the kitchen with the table. It had been dusted and, while Lally and Susan were changing, thoroughly polished as only Jenny knew how before being covered with a blanket and hoisted on to the cart. The chair was given the same treatment. Susan and Lally did not ride in the cart since there was no room on the seat across it but followed in the carriage with Caleb, one of the grooms Harry had brought with him from Mill House, at the reins.

With the master absent, Mrs Cannon, Ivy, Annie and Tess, the domestic staff at Mill House, watched from the parlour window, their mouths agape, as the carriage bearing Mrs Sinclair, the young master’s sister-in-law, with a cart behind it, drew up at the mill gates at the bottom of the drive. Enoch and Arthur, who worked in the stables, and George the gardener, come to watch the extraordinary sight, exchanged bewildered glances, wondering if they should go down and ask Mrs Sinclair what she was about, politely, of course, as she unlocked the mill gate. The carriage passed through the gate into the empty mill yard beyond.

George, after much prodding and whispered conversation, made so bold as to creep down to the mill gates, which had been left open, reporting to the others that the men with Mrs Sinclair had carried the contents of the cart up the stairs that led to the mill office. What should they do? they asked one another. The weaving sheds were nothing to do with them. They were house servants but Mrs Cannon told them not to worry, for as soon as young Mr Roly returned from the hunt he would be informed. Mrs Sinclair had gone, the office and the mill gates had been locked again and all was secure. They only had to wait for young Mr Roly who was in charge since Mr Sinclair’s accident.

Roly Sinclair had enjoyed his day’s hunting, and not just of the fox! It was over twelve months since Ebenezer Franklin had been able to sit a horse. At seventy-two one’s bone and muscle refused to obey one’s will and with reluctance he had given in to his doctor’s orders that he no longer joined in the hunt. Not so his attractive young wife, Polly, who saw no reason at twenty-eight years of age to stay at home with him. She had been married to him for his enormous wealth and had given him three sons so her duty was well and truly done! She and Roly, without a word spoken, had conveyed to one another their mutual attraction and since she was a house guest of Lord Billington there was a bedroom readily available to them to assuage their lust and where Roly spent the night. There had been a wild party, drinking, gambling, and it was eight thirty the next day, the first day of the working week, when he rode up the steep drive to the stables at the rear of Mill House. He was still dressed in his hunting pink. Mrs Cannon’s rambling tale of carriages and carts and mill gates went through his aching head like water through a sieve. His manager had evidently supervised the turning on of the looms and in his own good time he would drift down to the weaving sheds and climb the stairs to his office.

They were both sensibly dressed as they stood at the gate at five thirty that morning, Lally in charcoal grey lightened with touches of crisp white, Susan in bottle green. The stream of men with jaunty caps thrown to the backs of their heads, the women in shawls and clogs, the children in cut-down second- or third-hand bits and pieces of clothing, mostly barefoot, stared in wonder at the two finely dressed ladies as they hurried to their looms. They longed to stop and stare as Mr Mather, the overseer, did his best to move the ladies away to the office or indeed anywhere they would not be on display. One of them was Mrs Sinclair, wife to the master and the other one several of the women recognised as Susan Harper who had once worked in a loom gate beside them.

‘Mrs Sinclair, I beg you, come away from the gate. Mr Roly will be here any moment and—’

‘Thank you, Mr . . . er . . . Mr . . . ?’

‘Mather, ma’am. But the gates will be closed soon against latecomers and—’

‘Leave them open, Mr Mather, if you please,’ for she could see anxious women hurrying down the lane, dragging children who were still half asleep, terrified of being shut out and losing precious wages.

‘Mr Roly will—’

‘My husband is in charge, Mr Mather and as he is—’

‘But Mr Sinclair’s not been here for weeks, ma’am and young Mr Sinclair says—’

‘I will discuss it with Mr Sinclair when he arrives.’ She turned to her companion whom the overseer did not recognise. The ‘hands’ all looked alike to him. ‘Come, Susan, let us go in. You know the way.’ And to the consternation of the overseer the two women followed the rest into the weaving shed.

It was already hot in the big room despite the chill of the day and so noisy Lally felt that she was being deafened. Susan led the way, for this was an environment with which she was familiar and Lally followed her blindly, her senses numbed by the sheer tumult of it all. The overseer hovered at their backs pleading with them to return to their carriage, or at least to the office where they would be out of sight of the curious hands, but he might have been a troublesome child for all the notice they took of him. ‘Mrs Sinclair, please, there is no need for this. Young Mr Sinclair will be here soon and will deal with anything that might be . . . amiss . . .’

‘Amiss? What should be amiss, Mr Mather? Mrs Harper and I are merely looking at the production of the cloth. Won’t you go back to whatever it was you were doing before we arrived?’

‘But, ma’am, Mr Sinclair’ll not be best pleased.’

‘Mr Sinclair should be here and since he is not . . .’ She stopped speaking abruptly as a tiny child – a girl or a boy, it was hard to tell – crept out at her feet from beneath a machine and for a moment she was appalled because the creature seemed no older than her own Jamie. Surely Harry was not aware that such young children were employed in his mill, but Susan was marching ahead, her face averted, and she hurried to keep up with her. There were dozens of men, women and children working ceaselessly at the machines they tended, most of the children underneath the swiftly moving carriages of the mules. They were collecting rubbish, scrabbling through woollen waste and oily dust, shouldering the bundles to the end of the rows of the looms. She understood now why Susan was averting her eyes and hurrying away from these pathetic little lads and lasses, for it was just such a task that had killed her Sam.

Some of the women were in charge of more than one machine, darting from one to another in a fever of movement. They had no thought in their heads but their need to keep an incessant watch on the beam from where the thread unwound to form the warp of the cloth, the shuttle that delivered the crossways thread of the weft. They were aware of and fascinated by the two finely dressed ladies but they did not stop since it was of the greatest importance, not only to them but to their young master, who was not as understanding of their hardworking lives and the children they did their best to raise as the older Mr Sinclair. He had even put a stop to the small school and nursery that Mr Harry had started and they were forced to leave their babies with neighbours or in the charge of little lasses who were no more than children themselves.

She and Susan walked between the rows of machines, not speaking, for it was hard to make oneself heard but though Susan was accustomed to the workings of the machines, to the noise and the smell of sweating bodies, Lally was not and her head was aching and she felt she might faint. She meant to learn all the operations of her husband’s mills, or at least to recognise them, but her chief interest would be in the office of the mills where the business, the heart of the concern, was carried out, to where the orders came and were completed, where customers spent their time and money, where the accounts were balanced, where the samples were studied and decisions made as to the suitability and quality of the woven cloth. She knew she would have a fight, to put it mildly, with Roly who would turn nasty when he realised what she meant to do but she would not be deterred. She had Susan who was courageous and loyal and who would stand shoulder to shoulder with her in this tremendous endeavour. Chances must be taken and her heart quailed at the thought of them but she had no choice.