The Bobbin Girls (14 page)

Rob swore never to let it happen again. His father might bully him, but he certainly didn’t intend to allow anyone else to do so. For his next homework he worked even harder and gained a straight A.

This time they brought a weapon. Rob blinked in disbelief as he stared at the riding crop held high in Colin Briggs’s hand.

‘You can’t seriously mean to use that?’

Briggs laughed. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child, isn’t that what they say? We think you’re in grave danger of being spoiled. Not a single master has thrashed you yet, so we thought we’d rectify that omission.’ The other boys giggled nervously and Rob turned upon them, hot with anger, which at least helped to disguise his fear.

‘And are you lot going to stand by and let him? What are you, bloody sheep? Would you jump off a cliff if he told you to? It’ll be one of you lot next, if you let him get away with this.’

But he knew, even as he spoke, that so long as it wasn’t one of them, they would do whatever Briggs instructed them to do. That was their means of self-protection. He was the misfit, not them.

They held him face down on the bed. Two boys pinioned his arms, another two held down his feet. In that moment it all became too much. The slights and pinpricks of boyish bullying had grown to represent all that was wrong with his life. Hadn’t his father constantly told him he was a useless failure? Hadn’t he strived to make a life for himself and Alena in the forest and failed even at that? Now here was the proof of his inadequacies. Anyone could batter Rob Hollinthwaite, and he wouldn’t say a word.

The first lash, artfully administered on top of his pyjama jacket, `So as not to break your tender skin,’ as Briggs calmly informed him, whipped every ounce of breath from his body.

Perhaps it was this that galvanised him into action, Briggs’s laughter, or the fact that the shock of it caused the other boys momentarily to slacken their grip. With a growl of fury Rob managed to free himself, snatched the crop from the other boy’s hand and, snapping it in two, set about Briggs with his fists. It was as if he were pounding his own father for all his unfeeling harshness over the years, or back in the forest showing Frank Roscoe he could chop down a tree with a seven-pound axe. He punched and struck in a ceaseless rhythm of uncontrollable rage. How long he might have gone on in this rare gesture of defiance it was hard to say, but suddenly hands were grasping him, voices screaming for him to stop. Doors were banging, and then the crackling starch of Matron and her high-pitched cry of horror.

Both boys were taken to the sanatorium, but although there was the red stripe of a bruise across Rob’s back, Briggs asserted it had been administered by one of the other boys, meant only as a lark or rag, in which he had taken no part at all. His face, on the other hand, was a sorry state indeed, with blood from his nose leaking all over his clean pyjamas. Consequently it was his explanation of the dispute that was accepted.

Rob’s parents were instructed to come and collect him from the school with all speed. He was to be suspended for three months for breach of discipline and lack of team commitment. He had, the headmaster stated, constantly let the dormitory down with his slip-shod ways. Nor had he ever taken a full part in games. At the end of three months, he might, on receipt of a written apology, be considered for readmission.

James Hollinthwaite, however, decided that no son of his should carry such a black mark against his character and withdrew him the very next day. For once Rob warmed towards his father. Now all he could think of was that he could go home. Tomorrow, he might even have the chance to see Alena.

One morning a day or two later, Lizzie, coming out of Mrs Rigg’s shop, almost ran into James Hollinthwaite. She’d dashed out to do a bit of shopping, leaving her next-door neighbour to keep an eye on Ray, though with luck she’d be back before he missed her. He could be very difficult if he found her absent, as if she had nothing better to do than sit with him all day.

James asked after him, naturally, wanting to know if he was showing any further signs of movement. Lizzie shook her head. ‘I doubt he will now. He can move his left arm and one foot. That’s about it.’

‘I’m sorry, Lizzie.’

‘Aye, so am I’ She bobbed her head, anxious to be gone. But he caught her arm, staying her.

‘Does he talk much?’

‘He shouts a lot,’ she said, with a wry smile. ‘Never was the patient sort, my Ray.’

‘I mean about the accident, about how it happened?’

‘No.’

‘Has he said what we were arguing about?’

She looked at him, clear-eyed and uncondemning. Why should he? I know what it was about. It was about those daft bairns of ours running away. All because of some silly swim in the tarn with no clothes on. Nine days wonder, that’s all it would’ve been, only they were too young to see it.’ She made no mention of their running off into the forest because of James Hollinthwaite’s decision to send his son away to school, on the grounds that it was really none of her business and a part of her agreed with him. It might do the lad good, instead of being mollycoddled at home.

‘Yes, that was it,’ he agreed. ‘The swim. Lot of fuss about nothing.’ There was a small awkward pause in which neither of them knew quite what to say next.

‘Has the lad settled then?’

‘Yes, eventually.’ Another pause. ‘Though that first school wasn’t quite the right one for him. We’re moving him to a new one.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Lizzie made a mental note to mention this fact to Alena. It didn’t sound as if Rob had settled at all, and she’d want to know if he had moved. ‘Anyroad, he’ll be home for the summer holidays in no time, I dare say. Olivia will be looking forward to that.’

‘He may stay at my sister’s, in Edinburgh. For the sake of his education, you know, since it is such a fine city. We haven’t quite decided.’

‘I see,’ Lizzie said again, and indeed she did, very plainly.

‘And your own family?’ James finally, and rather stiffly, enquired.

‘Very well, thank you, but I must go.’

‘Of course.’ James doffed his hat. ‘Mustn’t keep you. Give Ray my best regards.’ He turned and marched away, leaving Lizzie frowning after him.

Hard-hearted old devil, she thought. Did no one give a tinker’s cuss for that poor lad, shifted from pillar to post? Why didn’t Olivia put her foot down? Lizzie tried to imagine what it must be like being married to James Hollinthwaite and failed completely, inwardly admitting that nobody should have to endure such torture. But why had he stopped for a chat? What had it all been about? James Hollinthwaite certainly wasn’t a man to waste time in conversation without trying to do some good to himself.

James was not a happy man. Nothing in his life was going quite as it should. He’d thought that sending Rob away to school would solve everything, but so far it had proved to be a complete failure. The boy was upstairs even now licking his wounds, and where James would send him next he hadn’t the first idea.

‘Don’t unpack his trunk,’ he’d instructed Olivia, who had immediately started fussing round her son, hugging and kissing the lad as if he were a hero.

‘Can’t he have a short holiday? Aren’t you at least pleased to have him home for a while? Your own son,’ she’d asked, taunting him in that way which always set his blood pressure rising.

‘This isn’t the time for holidays. He’s in disgrace, and will do as he’s told.’

It was all to do with some rag or other, which Robert didn’t cope with very well. James hadn’t been given the full details, nor had he asked for them. Couldn’t handle discipline, the headmaster had said, didn’t fit in. James would like to have denied it, dismissed the matter as a load of nonsense and argued that the boy hadn’t been given a proper chance to settle. Unfortunately, in his opinion, he’d been too long tied to his mother’s apron strings and it would take a major effort to put some real spunk into the lad. But, one way or another, he would do it.

Nothing had gone quite right lately. James seemed to be carrying the can for everything that went wrong. Even talking to Lizzie Townsen in the street filled him with guilt. But then he hadn’t reckoned with that damned fight dragging open old wounds that he’d long since thought healed. Not that he considered himself responsible for Ray Townsen’s condition. That was the man’s own stupid fault. He’d started the fisticuffs in the first place, hadn’t he? Thankfully, Lizzie didn’t see anything untoward about their quarrel, so that was all right. Ray always did have an unreliable temper.

Business too was far from satisfactory. What with unemployment the way it was, there was precious little spare money around for spending on fancy goods, or even on staples. And women’s clothes had gone so short, they barely needed any fabric in them at all. All quite shocking, in James’s opinion, from every point of view. Not least that such fashions badly affected the textile industry, which in turn meant they needed fewer bobbins. Add to that the rise of cotton imports from India, challenging their own home market, and the threat that Britain might soon come off the Gold Standard, and prospects were dire. It wouldn’t surprise him if there weren’t a General Election soon. Most certainly a financial crisis was in the offing, which meant interest rates, even taxes, might rise. He’d have to make sure his own interests were safeguarded. No doubt about that. No good standing by and letting things happen.

Which brought his mind back full circle to his errant son. If the boy thought he could slip back into his old layabout ways with that young lass, he’d another think coming. James set aside his account books for once, and spent two long hours on the telephone. By the end of it, he had secured a place for Rob in a school that might not have quite the reputation of the first, but had the advantage of being firmer on discipline. Which, apparently, was exactly what the boy needed.

When Alena got home from the mill that evening, Lizzie broke it to her as gently as she could that Rob was to move schools and it was unlikely that he would be home in the summer. Alena stared at her mother, stony-faced, for a long moment, then turning on her heel went to her room, where she remained with the door shut fast, not even coming down for supper.

But whatever Alena suffered in those bleak hours would have been a thousand times worse had she known that Rob sat facing his family across the dining-room table in abject misery. He pushed his food about his plate uneaten, gazed from time to time through the window, wishing he was as free as the wind that shook the tree tops.

Olivia kept her eyes on her plate, casting only occasional anxious glances at her husband and son.

‘Eat up, boy. It’s not the end of the world. There are other schools.’

Rob looked at his father, obstinacy flaring in his hazel eyes. ‘I don’t want to go to another school. I want to stay here, in Ellersgarth.’

James filled his mouth with partridge pie. ‘Rubbish,’ he said, spitting crumbs about the table. ‘You’re not fifteen yet. How many times must I say it - you’ll not get to university if you don’t have a proper education.’

‘I don’t want to go to university.’

‘Aye, you do. Every young chap does. Wish I’d had the opportunity. I had to start work when I was twelve, nay eleven, working in the boys’ home where I was brought up. How would you feel if I asked you to shovel cow muck from five in the morning, at eleven years of age? You don’t know you’re born, lad. You’re lucky to have a home, not to mention a caring family.’

Caring? Rob thought. Don’t make me laugh. He’d heard these phrases repeated so often they made any impression. ‘I’d do it,’ he obstinately insisted, ‘If I could stay at home with my family.’ He glanced across at his mother as he said this. But they both knew he had no wish to farm, or learn to run the bobbin mill, so the mockery in his father’s eyes only diminished him further.

‘Eat your supper. We can’t afford to let good food go to waste because you’re having a bit of a tantrum.’

‘I’m not having a tantrum, I just want you to listen to
my
opinion.’ James’s face was growing red, eyes bulging as much as his full cheeks.

‘Your opinion? What sort of opinion can a boy like you have?’

Rob knew that his expression must be one of utter misery and he struggled to sound calm and adult, to organise the carefully planned phrases which threatened to scatter like stray leaves beneath the onslaught of his father’s contempt. ‘I have a brain which you’re always telling me to use. Must you always reject me? Don’t you care what I want to do with my own life?’ He watched spellbound as a trickle of gravy ran from the corner of James’s mouth.

‘Don’t talk daft.’ The gravy splattered in tiny telling spots all over the damask tablecloth. ‘You’re too young to know what you want. You’ll do as you’re told and be grateful for it. Now let your food stop your insolent tongue. I’ve had enough of this.’

‘But I won’t...’He got no further as Olivia put out a hand to rest it gently on his, a look in her eyes that beseeched him to stop. Rob could take no more. He staggered to his feet, all the carefully worded explanations of how he wanted to serve an apprenticeship in the forest, then perhaps go on to college and qualify as a forester, dissolving like mist in his head. He watched his father stuff yet more pastry into his mouth and chew on it with the calm assurance that he was in complete control and there was nothing anybody, certainly not his own son, or wife, could say or do to alter that fact.