Love and Money (11 page)

“Sir Richard's prodigious gaming was not my fault.” “No? You did not encourage Mistress Brownwood to encourage it?”

Sir John flipped his thumb-nails.

“And yet, Thomas,” he said, “I could do you a service if you would accept it.” Thomas was silent.

“It is rumoured,” continued Sir John, “that your uncle bequeathed substantial portions to your wife and to Isabella Brownwood.”

“That is so.”

“But who is Isabella Brownwood? There is no such person. Her mother was never married to Captain Miles. Whatever the child's name is, it is not Brownwood. You could retain her portion on those grounds, Thomas.”

“Perhaps I could, but I shall not,” said Thomas.

“Would it be agreeable to you that I should make known your generosity to Madam Brownwood and her daughter?”

“So that they might feel they lived always on my bounty? No,” said Thomas.

“I fear your generosity is as foolish as your uncle's,” said Sir John, flipping his thumb-nails again sharply.

“I do not game, however,” said Thomas. “And I am very happy in my marriage. So I hope to sell no more manors.”

Sir John gave a short sharp bark which Thomas presumed was meant for laughter.

“You are a better man than your uncle, Thomas Bellomont,” he said.

To Thomas this seemed nonsense. But if he was any kind of a man at all, he reflected, it was due to his dearest Isabella. Ah! Isabella! Isabella! There was only one Isabella in the world for Thomas. He rode home happily to tell her that she was now the lady of Bellomont.

Schofield Priestley Was a Yorkshireman. More: he was a West Riding man.

It was on a cold wet Tuesday morning in 1766 that he had his great idea.

He was riding down from his homestead on the Scape Scar hillside to the West Riding town of Annotsfield, Tuesday being Annotsfield market day, with the piece of cloth he had woven that week lying in front of him on the saddle. The sun was not yet fully risen and the wide landscape of turbulent hills looked chill, colourless and grim. A strong wind howled at his back and from time to time sudden gusts of rain in very large drops poured heavily down on him from the grey clouds flying across the sky. Many people would have found the scene dreary and comfortless, but to Schofield it seemed natural and stimulating. A shortish, wiry, sturdy, shrewd young man, with tousled dark hair and bright black eyes and a cheerful colour in his cheeks, Schofield had all the robust realism of his county, and the suggestion that his native Pennines were depressing would simply have made him stare.

At present, in any case, he was too deeply engrossed in an inward vision to notice the rainswept hills. A new and charming pattern for a cloth was forming itself in his mind. He saw it woven in a soft strawberry colour: an arrangement of nine little rectangles forming a kind of lozenge, repeated so ... or so. But no; to repeat the lozenge endlessly was too simple. Crude. A “figured Amens” cloth such as he was planning must have a delicacy, a subtlety, a richness, if it were to please a merchant's experienced eye. His nine-pointed lozenges must be interspersed with simple rectangles in some way or other, to soften and complicate the design.

No West Riding road ever completes its course without climbing uphill and sinking down dale, and the rough stony track which Schofield followed down to Annotsfield was no exception to this rule. A short but steep ascent now confronted him. Always kindly and warm-hearted whether to man or beast, Schofield slipped off his plain brown cob and led him up the slope. In this fold of the hills they were sheltered from the wind and had no view; the horse, climbing steadily, kept its head down and planted its feet with care, Schofield did the same and thought about his figured Amens. Suddenly at the top of the slope they came out into the open. The wind hit them like a blow and the huge landscape burst upon their eyes in the colours of full daylight, with the tower of Annotsfield Parish Church visible far away in the distance. At the same moment the design for Schofield's cloth burst upon his mind, clear and perfect.

“Aye, that's right! I've hit it!” he exclaimed.

He remounted Dobbie and rode away down to Annotsfield, whistling cheerfully.

At that time the cloth market in Annotsfield was held around the Parish Church, the fine Cloth Hall which the third Sir John Resmond was erecting for the town being yet a-building. The clothiers from the outlying districts—or manufacturers, as the more important of them liked now to be called—laid their pieces out on the churchyard wall, or sometimes to the scandal of the vicar on the flat table-gravestones themselves, and the merchants walked around looking at the cloths and choosing what they wanted to buy. If the day were wet or blustery, like this Tuesday, the market was a somewhat comfortless affair, what with the wet grass and there sometimes not being enough space on the wall to accommodate all who desired it. It would be a fine thing for Annotsfield when the Cloth Hall was finished and the cloth could be sold at one's ease inside, on a bench one rented and was therefore sure of, and sheltered from the wind and rain.

Today, for instance, there was a fair lanky lad at the
market who could not find a place to lay down his piece wherever he went; the men already in occupation either giving him a blankly polite rejection or driving him off with laughing jeers. The lad was well dressed in a full-skirted green coat and wore a cocked hat, beneath which his fair hair was neatly tied back with a black ribbon. His speech seemed above the ordinary, too, with a kind of lisp in it, and he was rather good-looking in a way, having a long fair face—like a merino sheep, thought Schofield—a large well-shaped nose and big pale grey eyes. But for all that he was something of a noodle, Schofield judged; he seemed to have very little idea how to carry a piece of cloth, and fumbled it about getting it over his shoulder till two or three yards came out of fold. Eventually he actually dropped the cloth to the ground, and began to tug and pull at it in a feeble, unaccustomed manner calculated to cover the whole piece in mud before he'd done.

“Here!” said Schofield, unable to bear the spectacle of this inefficiency any longer: “You can come next to me, if you've a mind. I'll give you a hand.”

With one heave of his wiry arms he threw the cloth on to the wall beside his own, then tidied its folds and opened its bosom for show with practised ease. It was a very poor, rough cloth, an old-fashioned kersey, undyed, unfinished and very unevenly woven.

“I am greatly obliged to you, sir,” said the lad gravely, bowing.

“Lord, what a fool he is!” thought Schofield. “And what a fool am I,” he thought presently with a grimace, “to let his cloth lie next to mine. I hope nobody thinks it's come off
my
loom.”

This reflection arose because one or two of his acquaintance, walking by with a nod and a “Well, Scofe!” of greeting, gave the kersey a startled glance as they passed. However, his uneasiness on this score was soon laid to rest, for a merchant he had often dealt with recently came bustling up and bought his week's work with flattering promptness. The price and place of delivery being arranged, the merchant
took a side glance at the kersey and opened his eyes in surprise.

“Taken a partner?” he said quietly to Schofield, turning a shoulder on the lad, who stood there beaming around as if he hadn't a care in the world.

“Nay! He's nowt to do wi' me. I don't even know his name.”

“Happen that's just as well,” said the merchant, glancing again at the kersey.

“Happen,” agreed Schofield drily. “Still,” he added, feeling a movement of pity towards the silly lad, “you might buy it in for rough use, for a few shillings, you know.”

“Well—I might,” agreed the merchant. He turned to the boy and in the customary whisper offered a price far below the usual level.

“Should I accept, Mr. Scofe?” enquired the lad. He named the price in his ordinary loud lisping drawl, so that several men near by frowned and cried “Hush!” at this transgression of the market conventions.

“Nay, it's your piece, not mine,” said Schofield, flustered by the lad's ingenuous appeal. “Still—yes, I reckon I should. You won't get any more from anybody else, I reckon.”

The tiresome part of this transaction was that it planted the lad on Schofield's shoulders for the rest of the day. Since they had to deliver their cloths to the same merchant, naturally the lad with the kersey followed Schofield to the appointed place, and Schofield found him still at his elbow when he dined at the Pack Horse Inn. What was all the more irritating, he copied everything that Schofield did. He drank what Schofield drank, ate what Schofield ate, and tipped the serving-man the same number of coppers as Schofield. Perhaps feeling Schofield's glance rake him rather shrewdly at this last incident, the young man coloured, and said with an apologetic note in his loud drawl:

“This is the first time I've ever been to market.”

“I guessed that,” said Schofield drily. He was about to add: “Well, good-day to you,” and turn on his heel, when
his natural kindness, heightened by the satisfaction he felt in his new design, overcame him and he said instead:

“Come up wi' me and take a look at the new Cloth Hall, eh?”

The lad smiled with pleasure and followed him.

The great brick oval of the Cloth Hall, planned to provide with its inner axes a hundred stalls for the use of the cloth-manufacturers, was growing fast week by week; its outer wall, windowless as a protection against fire and theft, was now complete, and the inner walls were beginning to rise from the ground and show their shape. Naturally the clothiers were keenly interested in its progress, and several were now clambering about amongst the piles of bricks and heaps of mortar, the Annotsfield men pointing out its promised beauties to those from a distance with much local pride. Among these Schofield saw a connection of his own, related through his mother, on the edge of a group of well known manufacturers, all men of considerable substance from the Annotsfield hillsides.

“Well, Scofe!” called his uncle genially: “And what dost think of t'Hall, eh?”

“It's grand,” replied Schofield. “But——”

“But!” exclaimed his uncle. “Why, what fault have you to find with it, lad?”

Schofield perceived that all the men in the group had fallen silent and were gazing at him in frowning disapproval. But he was a West Riding man and not easily daunted, so he replied firmly:

“Passages are too narrow.”

“Rubbish!” snorted his uncle.

“Pardon me, sir,” said a dapper man in a tie wig, coming forward. “But I should like to hear the young man's objections more fully. It is not too late yet for amendments to be made.”

“This is Sir John Resmond's agent, Scofe,” explained his uncle.

“Pray proceed, sir,” said the agent with cold politeness. “Well—if two men each carrying a piece of cloth met and
tried to pass,” began Schofield. He finished lamely: “They couldn't.”

A guffaw from one of the manufacturers vexed him into action. He seized the kersey lad, stuck his right arm akimbo as if carrying cloth and whirled him into place, his left arm brushing the passage wall; then standing at his side, facing him, brushing the other wall, stuck out his own right arm as if carrying a piece of cloth on his own shoulder. His contention was all too true; their elbows overlapped. There was a pause.

“The lad's right,” said Scofe's uncle with conviction.

“We must inform Sir John Resmond at once,” said an old and wealthy manufacturer.

“This should have been thought of before, gentlemen,” added the agent peevishly. “Sir John will not be pleased.”

“Why not take the two lads with you, and a couple of pieces of cloth, and let them show him what we mean?” suggested the manufacturer who had laughed at Schofield.

This suggestion was generally approved, the agent appearing to welcome any idea which prevented himself from having to announce the defect in the building to Sir John. Time, meeting-place, horses, the necessary loan of cloths and so on were arranged for the journey to Sir John's mansion of a suitable deputation.

“If these two young gentlemen will consent to accompany us, and demonstrate the difficulty, we shall be grateful,” said the oldest manufacturer. “I didn't catch your name, sir?”

“Schofield Priestley. I'll go.”

“And you, Mr. Percival?”

“Delighted to oblige, sir,” said the kersey lad, bowing.

“Uncle,” said Schofield in a low tone, drawing his uncle aside: “It would be better not to send that lad, you know.”

“Why ever not?” said his uncle, who seemed surprised.

“He's never been to market before, he knows nowt about cloth, he can't hardly pick up a piece without tumbling it all over the place.”

“Aye! That may well be so, Scofe,” said his uncle: “But you see he's an Ormerod of Walt Royd.”

“What, the son of Henry Ormerod?” said Schofield in astonishment, naming an extremely well known and wealthy clothier, lately deceased, whose family had made cloth for generations on the other side of the river from Scape Scar.

“Aye. But his father's dead, you see. And they keep mortgaging their land. There's a rumour they've fallen on evil times. But Sir John knew old Henry well, so he'll likely take more notice of his son than of you, you see.”

“Aye, that's likely enough,” agreed Schofield shrewdly.

Indeed Percival Ormerod seemed very much at home in Sir John Resmond's fine mansion; it was clear he had visited there before, for Sir John called him Percy and clapped him on the shoulder. But Schofield was not daunted. He was a West Riding man, and it was not his habit to be daunted. While all these courtesies were going on he stood modestly, but quite at his ease, in the background and looked round admiringly with his shrewd bright eyes at the fine plaster ceilings, the elegant chairs, the gold-framed pictures, the delicate china, which ornamented the high room with its large clear windows. Far indeed from being daunted, he thought with pleasure to himself: