The Bobbin Girls (10 page)

The atmosphere always lightened once the main party had gone off for the felling. When they were alone the women would sing and laugh, exchange gossip and offer each other advice in the age-old way that women do: on how to catch a man, rear children and keep themselves young, attractive and healthy.

‘Is young Rob your boyfriend then?’ they asked, eager to know all about the newcomers.

‘Are you in love?’

‘Will you marry him?’

As Alena sat flushed and tongue-tied, not quite knowing how to answer, she was grateful when Kate stepped in, telling them to stop ganging up on the poor lass.

Then Kate would go on to tell them stories about how she was often mistaken for a gypsy. With her long black hair worn frizzed about a face that was somehow bright and knowing, as if she could tell a score of secrets should she have a mind to, Alena didn’t wonder at it. A natural born storyteller with a wry sense of humour her stories kept everyone amused while they worked.

‘Some townsfolk can’t make us out, d’you see? Don’t know what coppicing is, so how can they understand what we do?’

On these occasions, as they talked, Alena would be shown how to prepare the spells and taws which, she discovered, were the names given to the flat strips of oak needed for the making of the coracle-shaped swill baskets. The women worked on smaller baskets, but these others were a skilled craft, produced by one or two of the men sitting astride a swill-horse. Finished, they were practically unbreakable and useful for carrying logs, bobbins, fish or any manner of goods, even being used by colliers down in the mines. For this reason they were an important source of income for the coppicers.

Alena’s hands were chapped from being constantly in water, soaking the pieces of oak to keep them more pliable. Blisters appeared and her fingers became sore from the hours spent splitting or riving the oak poles, then shaving them into the necessary thin strips. But for all it was hard work and tiring, she found it surprisingly satisfying.

‘I tried to explain,’ Kate said, ‘but this woman was so set on the fact I was a gypsy, she crossed my palm with a silver sixpence.’

‘Did you take it?’ someone asked.

‘Course I took it. How many sixpences d’you reckon I see? I told her she was going to meet a dark, handsome stranger, live to be a hundred and die in her own bed.’

Alena giggled. ‘And did she believe you?’

‘Indeed she did. That’s what they all want to hear, ain’t it? So that’s what they get told. Is it my fault she wouldn’t believe I weren’t a gypsy? Anyroad, if it turns out wrong and she doesn’t live to be a hundred, she can’t come back and complain, can she?’

And everyone laughed, including Alena who wiped tears of merriment from her eyes.

In the evening when the day’s work was done they would sit around the fire and eat rabbit stew, roast venison, salmon or trout from the river, that had been wrapped in wet leaves and slowly baked in the hot ash. Alena never dared ask how this delicious food came about, nor was she ever told. She found a wonderful sort of freedom living and working out here in the forest, and if sometimes she thought of home and her family with a wave of nostalgia, she tried not to dwell upon it.

By Thursday everyone had ceased to expect Roscoe, and on Friday evening Mickey came back. He hadn’t heard from his father either, but didn’t seem in the least concerned.

‘Like I said, Alena, he’s his own master. Freedom to move is his right. Now let me see those poor fingers of yours. Are they sore?’ He picked up one of her hands and, turning it over, began to examine the calluses and blisters that had appeared, smoothing them tenderly with the tips of his fingers. ‘You need something on those, and I have the very thing. Arnica cream. I bought it for a strained shoulder but you can have it.’

‘Oh, Mickey, you mustn’t give it to me.’ But she was grateful all the same. Some of the skin had split and she worried about it becoming infected. The heel of her thumb felt badly bruised and an ache spread right up her wrist and forearm.

His eyes flashed. ‘You’re very important to me, Alena. Haven’t you realised that by now? While you are in my care, I shall look after you.’

She found herself blushing as she allowed him gently to smooth on the cream, then wished she hadn’t when she saw Rob hovering close by, a scowl upon his face.

Oh, dear, what had she done now? She’d said nothing untoward to Mickey, scarcely a word about herself, in fact, so what was the problem? She loved Rob with all her heart, but he could sometimes be far too serious for his own good. He rarely smiled these days, and the arrival of Mickey seemed to have worsened rather than lightened his mood.

‘Are you coming?’ he asked, sounding even grumpier than usual.

‘Where to?’

‘With me, of course?’

Heavens above, she thought, startled by her own perspicacity. He surely couldn’t be jealous of Mickey Roscoe? The very idea made her want to laugh out loud. Oh, but she shouldn’t laugh. If he was jealous, then that wasn’t funny at all. It was perfectly dreadful. But what could she do about it? Rob sometimes found it difficult to express his emotions, and the last thing she wanted to do was to embarrass him. Perhaps if she made some casual remark, let him know in a roundabout sort of way that he was the only boy she really cared about, that might bring the smiles back? But even as these thoughts flew through her head Mickey spoke up before she could find the right words to express them.

‘No, she isn’t. Can’t you see she’s talking to me this evening, for a change? At least I take care of her.’ From the bag slung across his shoulders, he dug out a small jar and handed it to her. ‘If you want anything else, Alena, you’ve only to say the word and I’ll get it for you.’

‘Thank you.’ And before she could protest, Mickey took her by the arm and began to lead her away.

‘We’ll take a walk by the beck, eh? It’s a grand evening for a stroll.’

‘All right.’ As if as an afterthought, half glancing back over her shoulder, she called, ‘Coming, Rob?’ But he only mumbled something she couldn’t quite hear and stomped off. Alena watched him go with regret, recognising the slump of his shoulders so expressive of his hurt feelings. Although she was sorry about that, she had to admit that it was flattering to be courted by two such good-looking young men. It made her feel all warm and excited inside. But she’d seek an opportunity to put Rob’s mind at rest, first thing tomorrow.

The next day, which was a Saturday, Alena didn’t see Rob. He wasn’t in his hut, nor did he put in an appearance at breakfast. When she enquired, she learned that he’d gone off early with some of the men to fell one particularly large tree. The day stretched out long and lonely ahead of her, with nothing to occupy her but her own hands. She wished now that she’d not allowed Mickey to hurry her away the previous evening. By doing so, she’d only made the situation worse. What must Rob have thought of her? Why hadn’t she settled the matter there and then? Jealousy could be painful, and the last thing she wanted was to hurt him. As the morning wore on her worries grew and festered, and a kind of self-loathing built up at her own apparent callousness. The feeling became so bad she was forced to speak quite sharply to herself.

‘I’ve done nothing wrong, for goodness’ sake. A chat and a stroll by the river, that’s all.’ If Rob had taken it into his head to be foolishly jealous that was his problem. Mickey was just being kind, giving her the ointment. She could feel the benefit of it already. Alena struggled to stop herself brooding and concentrate on her work.

This morning she was being instructed in the making of besoms that would be used by housewives as sweeping brooms. She had learned how to gather together a tight bunch of twigs and tie it in three places with hazel withies. Then, taking a length of birch pole already stripped of its bark, she would knock it into the bundle, and peg it to keep it in place. The task wasn’t as easy as it looked and she marvelled at the speed and dexterity of the other women, who could make as many as thirty dozen in a day, for which they might be paid a halfpenny a dozen for their efforts by Frank Roscoe. What he would be paid later when he sold them on, nobody dared ask.

Despite herself, she was surprised and almost glad when Mickey came to sit with her as she worked.

‘You’re doing fine,’ he told her, and Alena flushed, either because of the compliment or because he sat so close. She was surprised how much Mickey Roscoe’s presence flustered her, despite her best efforts not to allow it to. He held the bunch of twigs for her, giving the withy an extra firm tug and a quickly tied knot to hold it in place. Alena tucked her hands hastily away on to her lap as he did so, concerned that they might brush against the tough strength of his.

‘Now you do the next.’

The fire in her cheeks warmed further as her fingers fumbled beneath his steady gaze.

‘Your hands would harden if you did this regularly, and you’d soon become quick and skilled,’ he said, smiling down at her, evidently proud of her efforts. He watched how her cheeks glowed, how the wind lifted her hair, bright as copper beech leaves, from her slender white neck, and how the tip of her tongue crept out at the comer of her mouth as she concentrated.

She half glanced up at him from beneath her lashes and wondered if this was to be her lot in life. Would she stay here forever with the coppicers and acquire more of their woodcraft skills? Alena decided it might be quite pleasant, if only she could persuade Mickey and Rob to be friends. The tranquillity and slow rhythm of the forest were already seeping into her soul, making her feel as if she had always been here, that time no longer held any meaning. Rob would surely be pleased if she could only banish this lingering ache she still carried for abandoning her mother, and agree to stay in the woods for good. She was the one who’d made the decision to run away in the first place, so she should stop looking back and harbouring nostalgic longings for the past, and look to the future. But how would they get through the harsh months ahead?

As if reading her thoughts, Mickey said, ‘Are you cold?’

‘Of course not.’ She could no longer feel her feet.

‘We don’t live here all year, you know. We do have homes to go to, and when the worst of the winter sets in, we go to them. That’s the time the women catch up on their indoor jobs. Making more of the besoms, for instance. The men make the swill baskets and ship’s fenders, sell firewood, do odd jobs, see to their tools and so on. Then, at the first sign of spring, we’re ready to pack up and be off again.’

‘But I thought you worked in a bobbin mill?’ The worry over what she and Rob would do when the coppicers all went off to their real homes niggled unpleasantly at the back of her mind. Though now didn’t seem an appropriate moment to give the subject an airing.

He grinned. ‘I’m good at my job so I stick with that. Besides, I need the money. There isn’t enough in coppicing for both me and Dad, not nowadays. But I help when I can.’

‘Are there many gangs like this in the forest?’ Alena asked.

‘Not so many as there once were. All the more work for us though, eh? There isn’t the same demand for coppice timber as there used to be, not since the iron forges started to use water power or coke instead of charcoal. Not surprising, mind, considering the way the forest was near decimated at one time. There were once pitsteads and iron bloomeries all over the Low Furness Woodlands and more charcoal burners than they could rightly support. Thriving industry, it was once. The forest is better managed these days but we still send charcoal to the gunpowder works, and the larger timber to the bobbin mills. Have you met old Isaac, our friendly charcoal burner?’

Alena shook her head and Mickey’s eyes twinkled more merrily than ever as he grinned from ear to ear. ‘Now there’s a treat in store. You think we live simply, you should see old Isaac’s hut.

Real hermit he is, but a man of great character and intellect, as he will tell you himself. No flies on him.’ He pegged the birch pole into the besom for her and set it to one side, his eyes never leaving her face. He wanted to keep her here all day talking to him. And he would if he had any say in the matter. Which was why, in his position as deputy to his father, he’d been able to send young Robert off into the depths of the forest, leaving the field clear for himself. ‘Where was I?’

‘You were telling me about the timber you send to the bobbin mills.’

‘Oh, aye. Might be five or six inches in diameter, or nearly a foot. They slice the bigger pieces like cake so they can stamp out cylinders for the small bobbins from them.’

‘Oh, yes, I know about that, my…’ Alena stopped, appalled. She’d been about to say her brothers worked at Low Birk Mill, and could have bitten off her own tongue. One careless word could ruin everything. She felt herself start to tremble, struggling to think of something else to say in its place and cover up her slip.

Mickey, pretending not to notice, continued with his tale. ‘They’ll always need bobbins, I reckon. Mind you, some of the greedier landowners have planted larch and other quick-growing conifers.’ He shook his head, pressing his lips together with disapproval. ‘Not good for our line of business. Gloomy dull place is a larch plantation, and doesn’t grow well here. Not native timber, d’you see? We worry that coppicing might die out altogether one day, which will be the death of the forest and woodlands.’

Recovering her composure, Alena listened enthralled, drinking in every word. Afterwards she told Rob all that had been said, and how she had almost blundered. ‘But I don’t think he noticed. I mentioned no names.’