The Master of Liversedge (8 page)

‘But — it’s six miles to Huddersfield,’ said Mary. ‘How does he get there — does he go every day?’

‘Shanks’ mare, most often.’ The housekeeper saw that the last crumb was just being swallowed, and filled a mug to the brim with milk. She placed it before the boy, who drank eagerly. ‘Happen he might get taken up, now and then, if t’ waggons are on t’ road.’

Mary swallowed, and blinked her eyes. ‘He needs boots,’ she said, in a strained voice. ‘I think — keep him here a moment longer, will you?’

She almost ran from the kitchen to her bedroom. Once there, she leaned against the door for a moment, fighting back the tears. She had thought she knew poverty. There was little to spare in her own home, and her uncle’s scanty living had to be eked out by John’s earnings at a saddler’s. But poverty such as this, when the few shillings earned by a frail, weary child of eleven years old must serve to keep a whole family — this was something outside her personal experience.

After a moment, she pulled herself together, and went to a drawer in the big chest by the window. Opening a box, she took from it the remainder of the scanty hoard of money she had brought with her when she came to Liversedge. Her salary was due in a few days’ time; she could manage until then.

She went back into the kitchen. The boy was waiting on a stool by the fire, his pinched cheeks for once aglow with warmth and repletion.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked him.

He bobbed his head. ‘Tom, ma’am, please, ma’am.’

‘Well, Tom, I want you to do as I say. Take this’ She handed him the money — ‘give some of it to your Mama, and with the rest buy yourself a pair of boots.’ She saw a look of doubt on the child’s face, and pressed home her instruction. ‘You must have boots, Tom, for just now you are the family’s wage-earner. You have that long walk to make every day, while the others may stay at home, you know. They are depending on you, so you must do everything to keep yourself well and strong.’

He shook his head, and muttered words to the effect that his father would not like it, and would very likely leather him if ever it came to light.

Mary looked to Mrs. Duckworth for guidance, not caring to direct a child to deceive his own father.

‘You do as t’ lady says,’ insisted the housekeeper, firmly. ‘If tha father finds out, tell him as I told thee to do it, and threatened thee what
I’d
do, else. Sam knows all reight,’ she continued, turning to Mary, ‘that I don’t stand no nonsense from any on ’em, child or man, it makes no odds.’

She signalled to the boy to get down from the stool, and handed him the parcel.

‘But if tha’s got thy head screwed on t’ reight road,’ she adjured, in parting, ‘tha’lt not let him see owt to make him vexed. Off tha goes, now.’

NINE: ARKWRIGHT MAKES A CONCESSION

A few days later, Mary was roused from sleep by the housekeeper at an unseasonable hour of the morning.

Tm sorry, Miss Mary,’ she said, hurriedly, ‘but you'll need to get the breakfast this morning for yourself and Master John. Your uncle’s been summoned to Sam Hartley’s place — t’ new baby’s arrived, and like to die, and they want t’ poor mite baptized before it goes. Bess Hartley’s mortal bad, too, they say, and Sam’s carrying on like one demented, cursing Arkwright and swearing vengeance, and upsetting poor Bess and t’ little ones. They asked for me to go with t’ Reverend, for they know as I stand no nonsense; happen Sam might listen to me, and calm down a bit.’

Mary sat upright in bed, fully awake at this news. ‘Do you suppose I could do anything — or my cousin?’

Mrs. Duckworth shook her head. ‘Nay, lass. You’ve to go to your lessons presently; and as for Master John, t’ least said to him, t’ best, I’m thinking. You know what he is, and Sam needs firm handling, not sympathy, just now, by all accounts.’

She quickly explained what was needed in the kitchen, then hurried from the room.

Mary rose and dressed, all the while turning over in her mind what she would say to John. Some explanation of the housekeeper’s absence would be necessary, and she was almost tempted to invent an excuse. Knowing her cousin as she did, she was sure that he would take the bulk of the blame for this crisis on his own shoulders. He had felt his failure as leader of the deputation more deeply than he had ever allowed himself to show.

She cast about in her mind for a likely excuse only to realize that eventually John must be told the truth. To spare his feelings, she was prepared to lie to him now; but when he discovered the truth later, it would not be any less painful, and she would have forfeited his confidence for nothing. She shrank from the unpleasant duty before her, but there seemed no escaping it.

It proved as unpleasant as she had feared. After a torrent of self-reproach John was for starting out at once to the Hartley’s cottage. By then, he was in such a highly emotional state, that Mary dreaded the outcome if he and Sam should meet. She calmed him by degrees, pointing out that his father and Mrs. Duckworth were already at the cottage, and that it would not help Sam’s wife in her present state to have a crowd of people gathered round her. After a time, he saw the sound sense of this, and agreed to defer his visit until later in the day. It proved impossible, however, to persuade him to eat any breakfast.

‘It would choke me, Mary! How can I eat, when I kn-know that S-Sam’s family have lately been l-living on p-pigswill?’

‘You don’t mean that?’ she asked, shocked.

He nodded, unable to answer for a moment.

‘But surely the neighbours — ’ began Mary.

‘They’re almost as poor — and, anyway, Sam won’t take charity. Folks have had to find ways of smuggling food into the house without his knowledge — but you know that already. He’s almost come to blows with his own brother, Jack, on that score. He never forgets that the croppers are skilled workers — he’s got his pride, poor chap, even if it’s all he
has
got.’

Mary was reluctant to leave him in this frame of mind, but it was time for her to be setting out for the Arkwrights’ house. She impressed upon him again the folly of going to Sam’s at the present time, and believed that she had succeeded.

It was in a sombre mood that she began her daily walk to her work. At any other time, she would have taken pleasure in the first day of sunshine for many weeks, in the burgeoning buds which tipped the branches with green, and the birds’ swift dartings from tree to tree as they built their nests. Now all the stirrings of spring passed her by unnoticed. It was hard to be so helpless to relieve another’s misery: she could think of nothing else.

She started violently when someone came up to her and wished her good morning. She turned, and saw that it was Mr. Arkwright. Her eyes opened a little wider at sight of him. He was wearing the uniform of a Captain of the Volunteers, a handsome affair with blue facings and gold braid. She had not seen him dressed in this way before; indeed, she had not realized that he was a member of the Volunteer forces. It crossed her mind that her mother would have called him a fine figure of a man. The red military coat set off his broad shoulders to advantage, and gave an attractive devil-may-care look to his usually stern face.

‘No need to look so startled, Miss Lister,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘I suppose you’ve seen a Militiaman before now?’

It was at once evident that he was in one of his lighter moods. Mary tried to recall her wandering thoughts.

‘Oh — oh, yes,’ she stammered. ‘But I didn’t know — that is to say — ’

‘You didn’t realize I was one of them?’ he supplied, swiftly.

She nodded.

‘We’ve been out on exercises,’ he explained, swinging into stride beside her. ‘It’s a splendid morning for it, too.’

He raised his head, and sniffed the crisp air appreciatively.

‘I suppose so,’ admitted Mary, reluctantly.

He shot a quick glance at her, sensing that something was wrong. He made no comment, however, changing the subject when next he spoke.

‘You told me once you’re from the country — do you ride, ma’am?’

‘I can,’ said Mary, brightening a little. ‘But I seldom do nowadays, for lack of a horse.’

‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘Young Caro rides very well, and enjoys it. We must see what we can do to get you both out together, though there’s no prospect of finding you a mount from my own stable — if I can honour it with that title. It consists only of Caro’s pony, Carrots, and my own horse — a bit long in the tooth, and never at best what one might call a prime stepper, I’m afraid. Still, a faithful servant, and worth his oats — as indeed, he has to be, for me to keep him. Everything — man, woman, child, and horse — must earn its keep in the Arkwright household.’

‘Yes,’ said Mary, quietly. ‘I know.’

He checked for an instant, and submitted her to a searching scrutiny.

‘What do you know?’ he asked. ‘Forgive me, Miss Lister, but is anything troubling you this morning?’

Afterwards, she could not tell why she should have given way to such humiliating weakness. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears; as she turned her face towards him, one quivered for a second on her long lashes, then fell on to her cheek.

He took her arm, and bent his head to look more closely into her face, which she quickly tried to turn away from him.

‘What is it, lass?’ Unconsciously, he used the familiar Yorkshire word, his tone as gentle as she was used to hearing it when he addressed Caroline. ‘Something’s amiss — tell me.’

She shook her head, unable to speak without breaking down.

‘You’ve had bad news from home,’ he suggested, gently clasping her other arm and turning her round so that she was obliged to face him. ‘If there’s anything I can do — ’

She murmured something inarticulate, of which all he could distinguish was the word ‘No’.

‘Not from home?’ She shook her head. ‘Then it’s something to do with your uncle — or that cousin of yours?’

‘No — not really — ’

‘Not?’ He frowned, momentarily at a loss. Then his face cleared.

‘It must be something at the house, then — my household, I mean.’

He paused, and examined her face again. It was wet with tears; he thought how gentle and helpless she looked, like a frightened, small child, or a fledgling with quivering wings. He felt the stirrings of a protective instinct within himself. She was too young to be facing the world alone — too young, and too attractive. It flashed across his mind that he himself had done nothing to make things any easier for her.

‘Look here,’ he said, all at once becoming gruff with embarrassment. ‘If any of this is my fault — ’ he broke off for a moment — ‘Perhaps I’m not quite such a bear as I appear to be,’ he resumed. ‘My growl’s worse than my bite. Only tell me, and we’ll set it right, there’s a good girl.’

By this time, Mary was beginning to get a grip on her runaway feelings. She groped for a handkerchief, found it, and gently disengaged herself from his light clasp. She dried her eyes, blew her nose prosaically and stowed away the handkerchief. Then she faced him, her brown eyes looking calmly into his, which were so much darker as to be almost black.

‘Forgive me, sir — I can’t think why I should have given way to such foolish weakness.’

‘But there must have been a reason, for all that,’ he insisted. ‘Won’t you tell me what it is?’

‘It would do no good,’ she replied sadly.

‘How do you know?’ he countered. ‘I suppose I am right in thinking that it is something that concerns my household — myself, perhaps?’

She nodded slowly. ‘In a way, yes.’

‘Then tell me,’ he urged.

She shook her head. ‘You would not want to know. It might even — ’

‘Might even — what?’ He placed his hands upon her elbows again, and looked earnestly into her face. ‘Are you afraid of me, lass?’ he asked gently. ‘You needn’t be, you know — I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’

Again their eyes met, and this time it was Mary who felt a faint stirring of some indefinable emotion. She pushed it quickly away, her mind too taken up with thoughts of Sam Hartley’s predicament and her cousin’s sense of guilt. Should she speak? Was it possible that in his new, gentler mood, Mr. Arkwright might be worked upon to give Sam back his place in the mill? Could she succeed where John had failed, and bring comfort both to Hartley’s family and her cousin? She made up her mind in an instant.

‘I will tell you,’ she said, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. ‘In a way, it does concern you, though you have not done
me
any injury. It — it’s about Sam.’

‘Sam?’ He repeated the name, puzzled.

‘I mean Sam Hartley,’ she explained.

She saw a change come over his face. It tightened a little, and he relaxed his hold on her arms.

‘What have you to do with the labouring folk?’ he asked, abruptly.

‘It’s not that,’ she answered, and quickly told him the story, stumbling a little here and there as she noticed how his expression gradually hardened.

When she came to the end, he was silent for a moment. ‘We’d best walk on,’ he said shortly. ‘You’ll get cold, lingering here.’

They stepped out together in silence, Mary’s feelings far from easy. She had hoped to influence him, but now his mood had changed completely. Perhaps she had done harm rather than good.

‘Your cousin is an emotional young man,’ he said, at last. ‘You mustn’t allow him to upset you too much.’

‘But it’s not only that!’ exclaimed Mary, stung to protest by this cold comment. ‘Of course, I do not like to see John distressed, but it was not the thought of his sufferings which — which — ’ She faltered, and stopped.

‘Which made you cry,’ he interrupted promptly. ‘I recollect now what I was saying that must have set you off — I was talking of my horse being a faithful servant. That is right, isn’t it?’

She nodded, eyeing him warily but saying nothing.

‘Well, Miss Lister,’ he continued, ‘Sam Hartley was not a faithful servant, and so I got rid of him.’

She turned to him impetuously. ‘What did he do wrong, Mr. Arkwright? I have never heard of anything.’

‘Perhaps you may not always be so well-informed as you seem to imagine,’ he said, dryly. ‘I can think of no reason why I should account to you, ma’am, for my actions; but for once you may as well know the facts from an authoritative source. Sam Hartley’s a trouble-maker, and a suspected Luddite. Even you and your philanthropic cousin cannot expect me to employ a Luddite in my mill. You surely cannot have forgotten so soon what they are capable of.’

She stared at him, and gave a quick shiver. ‘But are you sure? John didn’t seem to think — ’

‘I can’t help but feel,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘that my affairs would benefit considerably if they received less attention from your young fool of a cousin. You must really allow me, ma’am, to conduct my business in my own way.’

‘There could be a mistake — ’ she faltered, unwilling to relinquish her point, yet not daring to say too much, for fear of angering him.

By now, they had reached the gates of the house: he opened them a little way, and guided her through with a firm hand placed beneath her elbow. He did not speak again until he had closed the gates behind them, and they were walking up the drive. She stole a sideways glance at him, and her spirits sank as she saw his hard, inexorable expression.

‘Possibly — possibly not. It’s a risk I can’t afford to take, with things as they are in the West Riding at present. There have been other matters in connection with Sam — I’d have sent him packing long ago, if it hadn’t been for his brother, Jack, who’s a good workman and a keen member of the Volunteers, into the bargain. No, he’s brought this on himself, and must take the consequences.’

They had reached the steps leading up to the front door. He paused before mounting them, and looked searchingly into her face.

‘Well, mustn’t he? What do you say?’

She shook her head, close to tears again.