Flint and Roses (5 page)

But Freddy Hobhouse, completely untroubled by that future, attended the parish church the following Sunday, an act almost amounting to a declaration, since the whole world knew the Hobhouses to be Methodists; and afterwards, in the churchyard, he gave Prudence his arm as she picked her way over the frozen ground, having first elbowed the physically and socially inferior Jonas aside.

‘Can't have you coming a cropper, Miss Aycliffe,' he announced with all the breezy self-confidence of a man who has always known where his four square meals a day are coming from, and as I followed them I couldn't fail to miss the taut yet perfectly controlled anger in the arm Jonas offered to me, nor the pouting outrage of my sister Celia, left to pick her way across the ice without any man's arm to lean on.

It was perhaps just as well that Uncle Joel's wife, Aunt Verity, took note of the situation and rescued us.

‘They must come to me now,' she said at the end of the second week, and although Aunt Hannah, was not pleased, Aunt Verity, after all, was Mrs. Joel Barforth of Tarn Edge, and she was obliged to agree.

‘Very well. Verity. But I must ask you to remember that they are still in full mourning and should not be taken out a great deal. In fact they should not really go out at all—their father was most precise in such matters.'

But Aunt Verity's beautiful, silk-upholstered, silver-mounted carriage was at, the door, her fur rugs swiftly wrapped around our knees, and within the hour we were installed before a happily crackling fire, our feet on velvet stools, while this younger, kinder aunt asked nothing of us except that we should be at ease.

Uncle Joel's house at Tarn Edge was scarcely a dozen years old, and, although it was but a mile or two distant from the largest of his mills, the windows of its principal rooms were turned away from the scowling city skyline with its fringe of chimney stacks to offer a view of old trees, thinning as they climbed the hillside, to sharp-scented, sharp-tufted moorland.

The house itself, a Gothic structure of spires and ornamental towers, had always been something more than a mere dwelling-place, for, unlike most Law Valley men, who preferred to confine their surplus cash in bank vaults or invest it in objects large and solid enough to announce their own value, Uncle Joel saw no shame in self-indulgence. And so, as a tribute to his own unflagging energy, he had built himself a palace, its treasures displayed not with the glass-fronted, locked-away care of my father, but with a nonchalance that some called arrogant, others magnificent.

The vast hall was medieval in feeling, a life-size bronze stag guarding the foot of the stairs, a gigantic stained-glass window at their head, casting its ruby and emerald light on a wealth of intricately carved panelling, dappling the limbs of a white marble goddess and attendant nymphs standing in splendid—some said shocking—nudity on the wide landing. But these sombre glories apart, the rest of the house was as light and pastel-tinted as a summer garden, blue velvet or honey-coloured velvet underfoot, blue silk walls rising to ceilings that were moulded in blue and white and gold, and set with the brilliance of crystal chandeliers; while in the ballroom, recently added for my cousin Caroline's convenience, a dozen windows opened directly on to abroad, paved terrace, a landscaped acre of roses, a trelissed walk, a lily-pool.

No one at Tarn Edge House ever gave a thought to the household's plain sewing except an elderly woman employed for the purpose, while at all hours of the day one could encounter a cheerfully starched maid running upstairs with hot water or a deliciously laden tray. At Tarn Edge, certainly, no one counted coals or candles, nor cared how many times the horses were got out, and had I found my uncle's presence less overwhelming I would have been well content.

He was undoubtedly a handsome man, massive of build, exceedingly dark of hair and commanding of eye; but, accustomed as I was to my father's narrow, stooping shape, my uncle's very maleness, the rich odours of wine and tobacco hovering about him, his luxury and freedom of speech all, in their various ways, alarmed me. My father's authority had been a chilling but restrained whisper. Uncle Joel's a mighty bellowing at the foot of the stairs whenever his sons, as often happened, were delaying his departure for the mill. For my uncle, in the fiftieth year of his age, still chose to be at his factory gates most mornings at half-past five o'clock, watch in hand, to check the punctuality of his employees, the stamina of his managers and his children; and the greatest source of discord at Tarn Edge was that my cousins, Blaize and Nicholas, were rarely of like mind.

‘Get yourselves down here, damn you,' I grew accustomed to hearing him shout. ‘We've a business to run, and God help it when it gets into your idle hands. But so long as it's mine—so long as I'm paying your bills—you'll jump when I tell you—damn you!'

And my cousin Nicholas would run scowling down the stairs, as big and dark and angry as his father, his waistcoat undone, hastily shrugging on his jacket, while my cousin Blaize would come sauntering behind at his leisure, his own brocade waistcoat correctly fastened, his curly-brimmed beaver hat and light-coloured kid gloves nonchalantly in his hand. From my room at the front of the house I would hear the crunch of wheels on the gravel, the growled commands of my uncle as he mounted his carriage, and would watch, sometimes, from my window, as my cousins on their thoroughbred bays raced each other for the lodge gates—Nicholas, hatless more often than not, bound for Lawcroft Fold to be instructed by Mr. Ira Agbrigg into the intricacies of textile machinery; Blaize, his hat tipped at a rakish angle, heading for the smart new suite of offices at Tarn Edge, to be initiated into the religion of profit, the mortal sin of loss.

My uncle was known throughout the West Riding, with some justice, as a man who had everything. No business enterprise of his had ever failed, but, in addition to that, at a time and in a place where men took wives for convenience, he had married a woman who was not only graceful, sweet-natured, and most pleasing to look at, but who actually loved him, was loved by him, displaying an open delight in his company which I, moulded by the long silence that had been my parents' marriage, found intriguing, something, I suspected, to be envied. And it followed, perhaps, quite naturally that this handsome, affectionate couple should have fine children: Caroline and Nicholas, the younger son, being as dark and immediately striking as their, father; Blaize, the elegant, careless first-born, a shade or two lighter and finer, his mother's child, who would, one felt, float effortlessly through life protected from misfortune by the power of his unique, altogether disarming smile.

On countless occasions during our childhood I had seen that smile flash out, melting the hearts of any irate adult from maidservant or gardener to Aunt Hannah herself, so that, knowing Blaize to be the real culprit, the one who invented the mischief for others to perform, they were nevertheless conquered by that impish charm, and somehow or other ended by meting out their punishments to the well-meaning but stubborn Nicholas. And although Blaize was decidedly less handsome than his brother, his light grey eyes in no way to be compared with Nicholas's eyes, which were almost black, his straight, chocolate-coloured hair nothing to Nicholas's ebony curls, his face quite unremarkable until it was illuminated by his smile, he had been born, it seemed, with so much easy assurance, a total conviction that everyone must notice him first and like him best, that so indeed it was.

‘Yes, of course I'll do as you ask—why not?' Blaize had declared almost daily throughout our childhood and then, with everyone off their guard, had done exactly as he pleased.

‘That's nonsense.' Nicholas had declared, ‘I won't do it,' proceeding to stand his ground, black eyes scowling, as he took his punishment, and quite often Blaize's punishment as well.

It was Nicholas, straightforward, obstinate, who on every occasion growled out: ‘I don't see why I should apologize when I'm not sorry.' Blaize who, gracefully shrugging his shoulders, declared himself quite ready to be as apologetic as anyone pleased, after which he would do whatever it was he had apologized for all over again. It was Nicholas who, disliking any kind of failure, had worked hard at school and had managed somehow to win a reputation as a difficult, argumentative lad, prone to use his fists; Blaize who, barely working at all, was remembered as a likeable, witty young rascal who could have done wonders had he condescended to try. And all my life I had been dazzled by Blaize, who was never defeated, never dismayed, for whom life seemed a carefree, cloudless summer day; and—being often in disgrace myself—had felt an immense sympathy for Nicholas.

Yet both these cousins, having strutted through my early years like young Lords of Creation, were separated from me now by the unseen barrier surrounding all marriageable girls, and it was their sister Caroline who, finding Prudence too serious and Celia too young, dominated my time.

‘I know Faith is in mourning,' she explained to her mother, who was not in any case too severe about such things, ‘but no one could possibly criticize her for going around with me.' And quite soon I became not only Caroline's best friend but her property.

‘We are to drive to town this morning,' she would announce, walking into my room long before breakfast. ‘And then, when I've done my shopping, we are to call on the Mandelbaums, which is a great bore, since the Mandelbaum boy wants to marry me. But you can chat to him, Faith, because it would be much more sensible of him to want to marry you. Manufacturers again and their wives at dinner, tonight, I'm afraid—really, you'd think father would see enough of them elsewhere—but we can escape to the landing sofa afterwards, and I shall rely on you to protect me from the Battershaw boy, who wants to marry me too, according to his mother. Battershaw's Brewery, Faith—of course you know them—they make thousands and thousands a year with their light ales, Mrs. Battershaw was telling me, which I thought very vulgar of her. So what do you think I should wear this morning? Come on, Faith, you're quite good with clothes—the blue velvet pelisse with the swansdown trim and the bonnet with the white feather? Yes, I thought about that too, except that my dear friend Arabella Rawnsley has had one made just like it—or as near as she could manage—and I really can't drive down Millergate looking like a Rawnsley. Hurry up, Faith, and we'll go to the Swan and see if the mail coach is in, for I'd like to know just where my parcels from London have got to. Really, you'd think they could deliver on time, since they must know there's absolutely nothing fit to buy in Cullingford.'

A young queen—my cousin Caroline—who required a lady-in-waiting, and I suppose I had always known that, however rich I might one day become, Caroline would be richer; whatever marriage I might make, Caroline's would be grander. And I was happy enough to drive with her at least twice daily from Tarn Edge down the leafy slope of Blenheim Lane, the steep, cobbled track called Millergate that took us via the even steeper, stonier Sheepgate directly to Market Square, flanked at one side by the Old Swan, where the London coach still clattered in each afternoon, and at the other by the ancient Piece Hall, a relic almost of a bygone age, when the hand weavers had come down every Thursday from their moorland cottages to offer their heavy worsteds for sale. The old market buildings had been removed now, at my father's instigation, the fishmongers and the butchers, the butter and cheese sellers concealed, in these prosperous times, behind an elaborate stone facade, an Italianate structure which had won my father much praise. His Assembly Rooms—his greatest architectural triumph—were visible too from Market Square, a smoke-grey building in the classical style, Doric columns and graceful proportions contrasting and partly concealing the weed-garden of warehouses crambling on the canal bank behind it, their cellars foul with floodwater, their floorboards sodden and dangerous with half a century's rain.

And if nothing in our main shopping area of Millergate was worthy of purchase, that did not prevent us from looking, touching; did not prevent me—since I was, as Caroline had said, quite good with clothes—from combining two lengths of silk, a little ribbon and lace into a confection which more often that not would find its way into our carriage.

‘Miss Aycliffe has taste,' they said of me in Millergate implying, I suspected, that since I lacked the striking dark eyes and black curls of Miss Barforth, I had need of something to see me through. Yet, although I was myself condemned to wear black at least until the month of June, I enjoyed not only the colour and texture of these rich fabrics, but the advantage this instinctive sense of dress gave me over Caroline, who had the advantage of me in every other way.

‘What about this, Faith?' she would say, throwing a length of purple velvet across her shoulder.

‘Oh, no, Caroline—at least, not until you are a duchess.'

And while she tried on something else, pouting, shrugging, but doing as I told her just the same, I took advantage of those large, dressmakers mirrors to discover that even a mourning dress might be improved by a high ruffled collar which could make a long neck seem longer, that a black frill so near the face made a pale complexion paler, fair hair a shade or two fairer, that a strategically placed lamp or a branch of candles could even turn that heavy, unruly hair of mine to silver.

‘What are you doing, Faith?'

‘Thinking about myself, Caroline. When you're not beautiful—when you're tall and fair, and small, dark women are all the rage—it takes thought.'

Of all the Barforths, Caroline was the one who most resembled Uncle Joel, being possessed of the same energy and endurance that had made him his not altogether unblemished fortune. Like him, Caroline would always head directly towards her goal, demolishing rather than climbing any obstacle foolish enough to block her way, and her problem lay not so much in deciding what to do with her life—since she believed she could do anything—but in what she would like to do best.