Ravenscliffe (36 page)

Clem Waterdine had a fiddle and he struck up, unasked, with a Celtic jig that had Daniel organising folk into a circle for the Gay Gordons. No one but him knew what to do, but he demonstrated with Eve, who picked it up quickly enough, shimmering in her ivory silk as they promenaded and polka’d on the polished wood floor.

‘Look at Mam,’ Seth said to Amos. They were side by side at the edge of the room, each nursing a drink and swapping terse observations like a pair of old-timers.

‘Aye,’ Amos said. ‘I’m looking.’

‘Never seen ’er dance.’

‘Nor me. I don’t suppose there’s much occasion to, generally speaking.’

Seth looked away, down into his glass of dandelion and burdock. The sight of his mam in Daniel’s arms made him suddenly uncomfortable. He didn’t know much about sex beyond the mechanics of reproduction, but since starting work at New Mill he’d been forced to pretend he knew it all. To hear the other lads talk, you’d think they’d written the manual. They were dirty-minded buggers, too; Seth had taken a lot of stick from them when they got wind of his mam and Daniel. Times had been many that he’d wished he had a powerful right hook, but he was punier than any of the other boys on the screens. They’d pulverise him in moments if he started anything. He was due there later today – working men didn’t get a day off for their mam’s wedding – and the thought cast a little pall of gloom over his features. He looked at Eliza, dancing now with Silas, and he felt such longing for the freedom she had that his breath caught in his throat.

‘Work all right?’ Amos said, and Seth blushed furiously, feeling caught out.

‘Aye,’ he said. He’d often suspected Amos of being a mind-reader and there he went again, picking up on his precise thoughts.

‘It’s not though, is it?’

‘No.’ No point lying if the man knew what he was thinking.

‘So do yersen a favour and throw in t’sponge.’

The sound of the fiddle and laughter, not to mention fifty-odd pairs of feet on the floorboards, made it hard to hear what Amos had said.

‘Pardon?’

Amos leaned in. ‘I said, do yersen a favour and throw in t’sponge. Nob’dy wants you to be miserable, lad, an’ it’s not like your mam needs t’pittance they pay you.’

Seth shifted in his chair. Was it as simple as that, then? He really didn’t think it was.

‘It’s just … I’m Arthur Williams’s son.’

‘Is that in dispute?’

‘No. I mean my dad loved New Mill. If ’e were alive, ’e’d be proud to see me there.’

‘Your dad would’ve been proud o’ you if you emptied middens for a living.’

‘It’s like I’m carryin’ on a family tradition, though. Williams men work at New Mill colliery, don’t they?’

‘Aye, they do if they ’ave to. And I’ll admit, in your dad’s case, that ’e loved that pit down to t’last nut and bolt in t’winding gear. But that were Arthur, and there aren’t many men feel like ’e felt. There’s plenty more drag their feet when they walk down t’New Mill lane.’

‘You didn’t stop me going.’

‘Correct. Not my job, to stop you doing owt.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘No, to be honest, Seth, I didn’t. I never gave it much thought, mind; there was nowt I could do about it anyroad. But now, well …’ He sat back for a moment and thought
about it. ‘Now I’ve realised I’m not by nature a subterranean creature.’

‘I don’t think I am, Amos.’ Oh, thought Seth: the relief of saying that out loud. He hadn’t been sent underground yet – wouldn’t be until he was fourteen – but already he had begun to dread it. The trappers and water boys taunted the younger lads with what they had in store down the pit when their time came. A slow death of the soul in the pitch black is what it sounded like to Seth.

‘There you are, then. Decision made. Get thi’sen back to school where tha belongs, lad.’

On the makeshift dance floor Silas had cut in to dance with Eve. Close together like this, their likeness to each other was striking, even to them. He held her tight and smiled directly into her eyes, claiming an ownership of his own, different from Daniel’s but no less binding.

‘Look at us, Evie. How far we’ve come.’

This was an enduring theme of his, but she indulged him, because – after all – it was true.

‘And greater things yet to follow,’ he said. She wondered for a second if he knew about the earl’s gift to her, but he was talking about himself. ‘Dreaton Main now officially belongs to me, as of yesterday.’

‘Silas! You never said. Congratulations! That’s marvellous.’

He inclined his head a fraction, accepting Eve’s excitement as his due.

‘I have to be back in Bristol tomorrow for a few days, then I shall return to Netherwood’ – he leaned in conspiratorially, as if he was passing on state secrets – ‘to concentrate on coal.’ Ginger, beside them in the circle, gave Eve a shove.

‘You’re meant to be reeling,’ she said. Silas ignored her, but Eve smiled an apology and stepped to the right, making room.

‘I plan to make an entirely new fortune,’ Silas said. ‘Coal, this time.’

She flashed him an enigmatic grin.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Me too. But from pies. Lord Netherwood gave me full ownership of t’business as a wedding gift.’

He was so surprised that he stopped short and Ginger and her husband Mervyn cantered right into them. Silas pulled Eve out of the circle.

‘Are you sure?’ he said, still clasping her hands. ‘The building, the business – the lot? All yours?’

She nodded, a little bewildered by his intensity. Also, now she had told him, she wished she hadn’t.

‘But keep it to yourself,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you raising a toast or owt.’

‘Our secret,’ he said. His face was lit up by the wonderful possibilities of life.

‘And Daniel’s.’

‘My God, Evie. My God! What a gift your earl has given you.’

She shrugged, feeling uncomfortable; his hands on hers were too tight, he spoke too loudly – at this rate, the whole room would know her news. In any case, it had barely sunk in for Eve; her brother’s reaction was quite out of kilter with the way she felt. Around them, dancers had begun to disperse because Clem had abruptly laid down his fiddle to go in search of pale ale. Amos, who still sat by Seth across the room, their backs to the wall, raised his glass at her and smiled. Anna, pink from dancing, appeared by his side and spoke to him, and whatever she said made him laugh out loud.

‘Does he know?’ Silas said, following her gaze.

‘No! I told you, just you, me and Daniel.’

‘So what he’s been whispering about with Seth?’

‘Vegetables probably. When to ’arvest t’beetroot.’

‘I don’t trust him and his ilk. Not sure about her, either.’

He meant Anna, and Eve felt something inside her plummet. She didn’t reply, but stood looking at her friends and her son, who were now talking together. Seth looked up at Anna and told her something. Anna clapped twice then bent down and hugged him. Eve watching, wanted to join them, but Silas spoke again.

‘He’s trouble, Evie. He doesn’t have the best interests of this country at heart. He’s out to bring down capitalists like you and me.’

As usual his face was all smiles, and his voice was light enough. Was he joking, Eve wondered?

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘They’re my friends.’

‘And I’m your brother, and blood’s thicker than water.’

Still he smiled, then he kissed her on the cheek. ‘Let me find you a drink,’ he said. ‘We need to celebrate,’ then, seeing her face, he added, ‘discreetly.’

She watched him weave an elegant path through the crowded room. Behind her, Daniel appeared and encircled her with his arms, pulling her backwards into his chest. He dropped his face into her shoulder and kissed the warm hollow of skin there.

‘Can we leave yet?’ he said, too quietly for anyone but Eve to hear. He was pressed against her and she had to remind herself to breathe.

‘Behave,’ she said. ‘We’ve only been here an hour.’

His mouth found her ear: ‘Mrs Daniel MacLeod,’ he whispered.

She turned in his arms to face him, and Silas was forgotten.

B
efore she spoke, Henrietta had had no notion of writing to Emmeline Pankhurst. In any case, she had no idea how to go about it, or what she would say, or why she might bother. Naturally, she was well aware of the campaign for women’s suffrage and, on an academic level, she approved of it. She had followed its emergence, noted its apparent lack of progress; she had formed opinions on the subject, which she aired with lively eloquence when called upon to do so. But to involve herself personally with the movement – well, this had simply never entered her head until, provoked by frustration, she had plucked the idea from her subconscious and flung it at her parents, specifically to sting.

And there it would have ended, an empty threat, nicely timed. Except that as she flounced from the room she heard her father’s words – ‘bluffing’ he’d said – and his unruffled confidence that he had her number turned indignation into anger. She paced the floor in her room, feeling a little ridiculous but too cross to settle to anything. She was twenty-three years old and yet she had no more control over her own life than Isabella. Perhaps she should marry, after all? Perhaps she should put names into a tombola at the next church fête and
have someone draw out a husband for her. At least then she might be mistress of her own household, if not her own destiny. But then an image of Thea rose before her and she dismissed all other possibilities. Like Tobias, she was besotted. In the lavender-scented sanctuary of Glendonoch’s great pine linen press, they had silently positioned themselves side by side and Thea, with ingenious cunning and nimble fingers, had managed to pull and secure the double doors from the inside. Henrietta, whose imagination could supply her with nothing more intimate than this, had whispered an endearment and felt in the dark for Thea’s hand, but was stopped and silenced when Thea had leaned in and kissed her, parting her lips with her tongue and running the tip of it along her teeth; she had wet a finger in her own mouth then pushed it down the bodice of Henrietta’s dress, finding a nipple and rubbing gently until it rose and hardened like a little nut under the caress and Henrietta’s breathing came fast and shallow; she had trailed a hand up under Henrietta’s skirts, touching with fluttering fingers the soft flesh of her inner thigh above the top of her stockings. She had seemed to know exactly what she was at and Henrietta felt at once weakened and empowered by the novelty of extreme desire. And then Dickie had galloped along the landing and flung open the doors of the press with a triumphant flourish and Thea, calm as you please, had beckoned him in to join them while Henrietta had panted quietly in the scented darkness and attempted to collect herself.

She hadn’t seen Thea since Glendonoch, but she thought about her almost all the time. Thinking about her now, Henrietta had to support herself, bracing her arms against the writing desk, light-headed with longing. No young earl-in-waiting, no young tweed-clad eldest son, no top-hatted young viscount had ever made her feel about to buckle at the knees.

The crunch of wheels on gravel brought her back to the present and, looking up, she saw her father swaddled in tweed
and wool, driving away from the house. Judas, she thought. If it wasn’t for her, he would never have heard of Mr Garforth and now there he went, off to Long Martley to play the enlightened employer. Well, she would show him. Bluffing indeed. Votes for women! Why the blazes not? Full of purpose, she drew out the chair and sat down at her desk. A crisp, businesslike letter to Emmeline Pankhurst, introducing herself and offering support: with this weapon, she would strike back at her infuriating parents and if the cause of women’s suffrage was advanced by-the-by, then that was all to the good.

She dipped her pen in the ink and with a steady hand she began to write.

In the pit yard at Long Martley, three men were performing chin lifts on an iron bar and another three were running back and forth between two posts with what looked like sacks of wet sand on their backs. A further four, stripped to the waist in spite of the cold, were lifting weights, raising the loaded bars in unison like a display team of strongmen. The earl felt overdressed and not a little feeble. He whipped off his scarf and left it behind in the motorcar before crossing the cobbles to Harry Booth’s office. Inside, William Garforth was holding a piece of breathing apparatus by its leather strap and he held it out to Lord Netherwood.

‘New design,’ he said. ‘We’re very pleased with the early trials.’

It was heavy, and its weight took the earl by surprise so that he dropped it and had to retrieve it from the office floor.

‘Quite a contraption,’ he said.

‘Life saver,’ said Harry Booth. ‘Buys a man another hour in a smoke-filled tunnel.’

‘And how do men communicate when they’re wearing it?’
The earl hoped his question demonstrated his seriousness of mind and purpose. Poor show, dropping the mask, he thought. Puts a fellow on the back foot.

‘Each man carries a horn,’ said Mr Garforth. ‘One blast for safe, two for danger. No Lady Henrietta today?’

‘No. I’m afraid she’s indisposed.’ What a cad he felt, leaving her behind.