The Bobbin Girls (37 page)

Mickey did not approve.

Why waste time on such things?’ he complained. ‘You’re neglecting yourself badly. Look how rumpled and untidy you are. Ally.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped at him.

He held up his hand, palm out, to placate her. ‘I’m only saying that dress looks as if it came out of a rag-bag. And red doesn’t suit you.’

Flushing with embarrassment, Alena had to admit the dress with its faded fabric and torn hem had seen better days. She hated dresses in any case, and had only bought it in the first place to please him What with long days spent at the mill and helping Sandra, there’d been little time recently for titivating. She preferred to throw on a sweater and skirt, or better still shirt and slacks like her brothers, shorts in better weather. She hated to fuss about her clothes. ‘I like red,’ she said by way of defence.

‘And your hair is all over the place. Get it cut, for goodness’ sake. I can’t have my wife looking like a bird’s nest when she walks down the aisle.’ She started to protest at his criticism, but Mickey was adamant. ‘I’ll drive you to Kendal on Saturday, then you can get your hair cut and buy satin or something for your wedding dress. Perhaps a box-pleated cream linen suit would be nice as a going-away outfit.’

For a man, Mickey took an inordinate interest in her appearance.

Alena felt a stir of resentment, but even as she searched for excuses to put him off, he told her how beautiful she was. ‘Even though there’s an ink stain on your chin and your hair is tousled.’ He smoothed the curls back from her face and started kissing her, one hand easing up her skirt and sliding down the tops of her stockings beneath her suspenders. She gasped at this unexpected onslaught but to appease his sulks after she’d fought him off, Alena agreed to his proposed visit to the shops.

‘That’s my girl,’ he said proudly.

Like the climate, plantation life on the high fells was harsh. Sometimes Rob worked in Ennerdale, other weeks at Whinlatter, in the endless progression of planting and weeding, or hammering in fences with a huge maul hammer, in horizontal sleet or driving rain. His first excitement over the job, and belief in the long-term benefits, became tempered by harsh reality. The fences he helped to erect often trapped sheep on the high fells. They strayed from their own heaf, injured or inadvertently driven there by a dog sent to find them. With their way down the fell blocked, the sheep would become pinned against the high new fences and perish there in the next fall of snow.

Rob, along with some of his colleagues, had a hard job persuading their ganger to allow the occasional break in the fenced blocks for lost sheep to find escape.

The screes on Ennerdale were constantly moving. Stones would crack in the frost, clattering downhill, or a loose boulder would topple and threaten the men who struggled to plant small trees in almost barren, stony soil. Sometimes they even had to carry up sacks of fresh soil in which to plant the young trees.

Nor did the promised number of forestry jobs materialise. Men from West Cumberland would often arrive in the early morning, in the hope of finding work, coming by bus if they were lucky enough to have the fare, otherwise on a bicycle and then by foot. But instead of the anticipated high numbers finding work, there were in fact only two others employed regularly besides Rob.

He lived with Phil Gilson and his family. Like men on the other plantations, Phil was attempting to scrape a living from the thin soil of the fells on the smallholding he’d been granted. The aim of the system was that it should subsidise what he earned as a forester.

Rob did what he could to help in return for his keep, but they soon discovered that working the holding was a thankless task since little that the family planted survived.

Worse, Phil was an unemployed miner. He knew nothing of sheep and goats, or trees for that matter, and the aching loneliness of the place almost drove his poor wife mad with despair.

It might have sounded a good idea in Whitehall, but the project proved to be far less workable on the ground. It was rare for a family to rise above subsistence level since there were too many days when the snow lay thick on the fells, or the rain and winds were so fierce they’d blow a man down and work was impossible. Then they’d be left kicking their heels at home without pay. Every now and then, Phil would go back to Whitehaven, looking for what he called ‘proper work’, and his wife would dream of packing their bags and going home to her family and softer climes.

They even considered taking the dole in preference to the kind of back-breaking labour that could lead only to starvation. But Phil was tough, not one to quit, and when the weather was fine, the pay was good.

Rob accepted the difficulties without complaint, almost welcoming the harshness since it kept his mind from dwelling on Alena’s lovely face, and sent him exhausted to his bed at night. But he often dreamed of returning home, or even to Grizedale which he loved, and secretly he longed for news of home. Since he worked so hard and moved about quite a bit, at his own request, his mail took some time to catch up with him.

But one day he collected a whole handful of letters. Several from Olivia and a couple from his father, enquiring as to his progress. And one in a strange hand that turned out, surprisingly, to be from Sandra.

With April came the first real sign of a thaw. Water dripped like rain from the branches, the beck ran at full flood and pools of snowdrops appeared in the fields and hillsides, making everyone think of spring. And then came the news that Dolly was at last pregnant. It had been a bitter disappointment when the missed period before Christmas had turned out to be a false alarm. But this baby was real, conceived in love. The whole family rejoiced, not least for the obvious improvement in relations between the couple.

‘If it’s a girl, I shall call her Elizabeth Rose, after our two little princesses,’ Dolly said. ‘Oh, I do wish we could go to King George’s Coronation in May. Wouldn’t that be grand?’ Alena agreed that it would, while secretly finding little pleasure either in this momentous event or the prospect of her own wedding, which was now rapidly approaching. The elation common to most brides still eluded her.

Over the last weeks, pressed by Mickey, she had striven to come to terms with the idea, but knew herself to be no nearer coming to terms with it. She felt confused and fearful instead of excited at the prospect of being a married woman. Acutely aware of a growing sense of panic, she feverishly attempted to quell it by giving her full attention to the smallest detail. She’d avoided the proposed trip to Kendal by pleading a sick headache, a weak excuse when really she should be telling him that she’d very nearly decided to call the wedding off. If only she could pluck up the courage to say the words.

His constant nagging had won in the end, of course. He’d taken her shopping, and a length of satin had been purchased. Lizzie was sewing it at this very moment as Alena cycled home from work one day in late-April.

The hedgerows were starred with stitchwort and celandine, the sun shone and sparrows dashed from branch to branch in a frenzy of effort to feed their newly hatched families. It was the kind of spring day that should bring a song to any bride’s heart. Except this one, who couldn’t get her mind off what might-have-been. Alena whizzed around a corner and almost cycled headlong into a man walking towards her with his head bowed.

‘Heavens, I’m sorry,’ she cried, skidding to a halt and jumping off her bike to go to his aid. He picked himself out of the hedgerow and dusted down his jacket. It was James Hollinthwaite.

‘That’s all right. I was hoping to run into you, Alena, though not quite so literally. I hear congratulations are in order at last?’ And he actually smiled.

She found her voice with difficulty. ‘Yes.’

‘I wish you well.
^,

‘Do you?’

‘I always did, though you may not have believed so from my manner.’

‘No.’

‘You have to admit that my latest efforts on your behalf have been more fruitful.’ His smile sent a chill running down her spine.

‘I’m not sure what you mean?’

‘It was I who recommended Mickey for promotion, though it was deserved. He’s done well at the mill considering he hasn’t been here very long, and I couldn’t have my best foreman living in one room in seedy lodgings, not when he intends to marry a fine girl like yourself.’

For a long moment she simply stared at him. ‘Are you saying that you found the house for Mickey?’

‘As for Rob, he’s happily settled working in the plantations, which will be of great benefit to me when I come to start planting my own next year.’ As if he had planned as much all along: ‘1 shall put him in charge of planning and...’

Why?’ she asked, interrupting the happy picture of a hard-working son. ‘Why did you go to so much trouble for Mickey?’ And then it came to her, clear as daylight. ‘Of course, why didn’t I realise? You promoted him, gave him a rise, made sure he had a house to offer ... so that you could be certain I’d accept him. Dear heaven, you’ve engineered all of this, haven’t you? It’s exactly what you wanted, what you’ve always wanted. For me to be married to someone else, and safely out of the running for Rob.’

He acknowledged her remarks with a casual twitch of his dark brows. ‘You always were far too intelligent for your own good, Alena. You saw through my ploy, didn’t you? But then I’d have done anything to be rid of you. To be rid of your whole damned family.’ As he walked away along the lane, he called back over his shoulder, ‘Do at least send me an invitation to your wedding. I’d hate to miss that.’

As she stood and stared after his departing figure, those few short sentences rang in her head. ‘You saw through my ploy, didn’t you?’ That’s what he’d said. ‘But then I’d have done anything to be rid of you.’ Alena recognised his words were as near an admission as she was ever likely to get. James Hollinthwaite had as good as told her that he’d lied. Even the arrogance in his swaggering walk reawakened her fury.

Lizzie didn’t see it as a problem. ‘You’ve known all along it could be a lie.’

‘But now he’s as good as admitted it.’

‘He said he’d do anything to be rid of you? That’s not quite the same thing,’ she reasoned, much to Alena’s vexation. ‘And you still don’t have the proof you would need to convince Rob who, if you recall, is out of your life now. You’re to marry Mickey, remember, As for that other business, why shouldn’t Mickey accept promotion when it’s offered, or a house for that matter? It’s very good of Mr Hollinthwaite to be so generous. Mind you, he owns enough property in this village, so why shouldn’t he help? He owes you that much at least. You’ve either got to put the past behind you, Alena or call this wedding off, once and for all. Now which is it to be?’

Alena considered Mickey’s likely reaction to being jilted, thought of how touchy he was and how he hated to be made to look a fool, and her courage failed her yet again.

Lizzie’s heart went out to her confused daughter, but she merely remarked in rousing tones, ‘Right then, are you going to try on this frock? I need to pin the darts.’

Alena stood meekly on a chair while her mother crawled about on hands and knees with pins in her mouth, tucking and tacking the dress which was to make her into Mickey’s bride.

Sandra arrived, and sat on a stool to watch and offer advice. ‘Will we have a bit of a party afterwards? Down at The Stag perhaps? They’ve got a gramophone now so we could play some records and dance. You know, "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" and "Red Sails in the Sunset".’ She crooned softly, wrapping her arms about herself, then grabbed Lizzie and began to waltz about the room, the pair of them struggling to sing through their laughter. Even Alena found herself giggling.

Harry walked in and found them. ‘So this is what you get up to when we menfolk are out?’ He grinned at Alena, smiling down at him from her precarious position on the chair, all pink-cheeked and clean and tidy for once, in pieces of pinned satin. He did not acknowledge Sandra’s presence, nor she his.

Lizzie shooed him into the front room. ‘We’ve no time for waiting on you this evening.’ But she did take him in a cup of tea when Sandra refused to do so. Lizzie put it in her son’s hands and asked, ‘Any luck?’

His silence answered her question and she knew, without asking further, that he’d done his best but no one was keen to take on a sacked man, particularly one who’d been accused of dishonesty. ‘Will you be walking Sandra home later?’

A short pause, then he picked up the evening paper and shook it open. ‘I don’t think so, Ma.’

‘Men! Never know when you’re well off. You’ll be sorry one day that you didn’t hang on to her.’ She closed the parlour door with a firm click, leaving him staring sightlessly at the paper in his hands.

Back in the kitchen she found Sandra had gone and Alena was ripping off the pattern pieces with little regard for the tacking or pins. ‘Take care, lass, you’ll ruin it.’

‘I don’t care. I hate satin anyway.’ Whereupon she burst into tears and ran from the room.

With a resigned sigh, Lizzie picked up the discarded pieces of wedding dress and began to inspect the damage. No more than wedding nerves, she hoped. And poor Sandra still suffering. If it wasn’t one thing, she thought, it was another.

Alena put on slacks and a sweater, pulled on her tam o’shanter and escaped, as she always did when she was hurting, to their special oak in the forest. She shinned up the trunk and propped herself upon a crooked branch, pressing her face against the roughness of the bark, hoping this would stop the tears. A wood pigeon cooed its monotonous call, soothing her nerves. She felt as unsettled as the weather. Clouds were gathering ominously, the wind veering round to the east with a hint of rain in it. But at least the days were longer now, so she needn’t hurry back. She might even take a long walk before supper. She needed to be alone for once. Most of all she needed to think.