The Other Cathy (6 page)

‘Oh, Seth!’ Emma made an effort. ‘I thought he was in your
bad books at the moment.’

‘No, not any more! I know I was vexed with him at the
fair, but he explained about that.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Well, it was just that he happened to be standing next to that girl Bessie Lister, and she asked him to take her for a
turn on the merry-go-round. That’s all it was.’

‘I see.’ Emma guessed this wasn’t all, but she applauded Seth’s good intentions in wanting to spare Cathy pain. Her cousin’s possessiveness must often leave the poor lad be
wildered.

‘You will keep your promise, won’t you, Emma?’

‘My promise? What promise?’ She earned herself a re
proachful glance.

‘Have you forgotten already? I mean about telling Seth how
smart he looks in his footman’s clothes.’

(
Oh yes, I’ll be sure to tell him at the first opportunity.’

As a result of this diversion Emma was unprepared when
Mr Sutcliffe was announced. By chance, as he stood in the doorway of the drawing room, the dying sun’s rays shining
through the stained glass of the hall window held him in relief,
and lent him the appearance of a giant, dark and terrible. Then as Randolph brought him across the room, making the neces
sary introductions, he became once more of human dimensions; a tall man handsomely attired in evening clothes of
excellent cut and finish, his crisp dark hair gleaming. Only his
face, the skin weathered and lined beyond his years, seemed
in any way out of place in an English drawing room.

‘You have already met my daughter, Cathy,’ said Randolph,
‘and,’ with a steely glance of warning, ‘also my niece, Emma.’

Emma gave Matthew Sutcliffe the smallest permissible nod,
but kept her eyes downcast.

‘Indeed we have met,’ he murmured, ‘and I have been
greatly looking forward to this renewal of our acquaintance
ship.’

* * *

Passing through to the dining room with their guest of
honour, Chloe reviewed the dinner arrangements with satis
faction. She and Mrs Hoad had put their heads together to plan a suitable menu, aided by Mrs Beeton’s household management articles in the invaluable
Domestic Magazine.
The poulterer had provided two brace of grouse that had
already hung, and there would be red mullet and curried
lobster, a haunch of venison, their own capons and numerous
side dishes; to be removed with a summer pudding, a lemon
cream pudding, a Stilton cheese, thin dry biscuits, shortbread,
ginger parkin and sweetmeats. Randolph, selecting the wines
from-his cellar, had marked the occasion with four bottles
of the fine light claret he had laid down for his own con
sumption, and a couple of his best after-dinner port.

Randolph took his place in the carver’s chair at the head
of the table, with Blanche on his right hand and Jane on his
left; next to Blanche sat Bernard Mottram with Emma on his right, then Dr Eade, who was put at Chloe’s left hand;
on her right sat Mr Sutcliffe, and Cathy, seated beside him,
was separated from Jane by the large arrangement of flowers
which was Chloe’s expedient for dealing with uneven numbers.

Conversation was slow, once Chloe’s general remarks on
the wet start to the summer and her hopes for a continuance
of the recent improvement had been disposed of. Bernard Mottram, anxious to be helpful, mentioned the interesting
account he had been reading in the
Illustrated London News
of the solar eclipse so spectacularly observed in northern Spain; but no one else had anything to contribute on that
subject. The visit of the Prince of Wales to North America
fared somewhat better, and Chloe referred to the gracious
letter the Queen had received from President Buchanan and his exceedingly civil invitation to the Prince to become his
guest at the White House. But even this topic died for want of sustenance. Randolph then broached the question which
was in everyone’s thoughts; what were Mr Sutcliffe’s future intentions? Emma noted with bitterness that the past was discreetly ignored. It might have been that the man had left England as a free emigrant, and made his fortune in Australia.
All thoroughly estimable.

‘You’ll be looking around for something to do now that
you’re back in this country,’ Randolph was saying. ‘Will it be land or industry, do you think?’

‘Perhaps neither,’

‘Come now, my dear fellow, a man must have an interest
of some sort.’ Randolph raised his thick eyebrows and added jocularly, ‘You’d find a ready home in the Brackle Valley Mill for any spare cash you wanted to invest.’

‘You surprise me, Mr Hardaker. I imagined that trade was so good that you’d have no need for outside capital. Or have
the Factory Acts cut into your profits? I well remember the op
position to the Ten Hour bill. My father was staunchly in
favour of it, believing that women and children should be
protected from exploitation in the mills.’

‘Yes, and your father didn’t have to pay the wages!’ re
torted Randolph with an asperity Emma knew he did not in
tend. Recollecting himself, he shrugged and said, ‘We’re all reformers now, Mr Sutcliffe. The working class of England is
pampered and cosseted as never before, and devil take the
masters who have to find the money for it all.’

‘If things are really as bad as you suggest, sir,’ Matthew Sutcliffe observed with a smile, ‘then your mill would hardly be a safe investment for any surplus cash I might have avail
able.’

‘Oh, but you are quite wrong.,’ Chloe intervened in an
affronted voice, ‘The Brackle Valley Mill is one of the most
thriving and profitable woollen manufactories in the entire West Riding.’

Randolph laughed. ‘Our friend knows that full well, he’s
just having his little joke, eh, Mr Sutcliffe? You’ll understand
there’s been a good deal of speculation about you. Are you pre
pared to tell us how you came by this renowned fortune of
yours?’

‘It is no secret. I made it from gold.’

‘Gold, eh?’ Paget Eade emerged from his alcoholic mist,
and adjusted his spectacles. ‘So you were one of those who struck it rich? Fine life for a young man – adventure, com
radeship, big rewards. As it’s turned out, Lady Luck hasn’t treated you too badly, all things considered, you can’t deny
that, can you? I’ll tell you this, by Jove! If I weren’t a pro
fessional man tied here by responsibilities, going to Australia
to search for gold is very much the sort of thing I would decide
to do myself.’

Absurdly, Emma felt apologetic for her uncle’s fatuous, ill-chosen words, and found herself glancing across the table to see how Matthew Sutcliffe was reacting. He caught her eye,
and responded with a look that invited her to share his un
concern. At once she turned away, furious with herself for be
traying a lack of family loyalty.

‘I daresay,’ she heard him remark ironically, ‘that the news
papers have printed stories of the diggers picking up great slabs of pure ore, and washing gold dust by the pannierful
from the river beds.’

Paget beamed, nodding his bald head vigorously, ‘I was
reading of one huge nugget found at Ballarat a couple of years ago worth nearly ten thousand pounds. Just fancy, all that gold lying there for the taking. Remarkable!’

‘It is a pity, Dr Eade, that the newspapers don’t show the
reverse side of the picture. For each man who’s lucky enough
to strike gold like that, there are ten men who find it only after sweating their hearts out. And a hundred more who
suffer the misery and hardship of a gold field – the mud and
squalor, the accidents and disease, the long hours of back-
breaking toil, the inhuman brutality of desperate men – and
have to give up in the end with nothing to show for it. Noth
ing.’

Randolph interceded, ‘There are always those who fall by
the wayside in any endeavour. Happen the ones who get on
in this world are those who deserve to. How about you, Mr Sutcliffe, did you find your gold easily?’

‘No, sir, I did not.’

‘So that just proves my point. You didn’t give up when
confronted by hardship. You stuck at it until your efforts were
crowned with success. In other words, like myself, you’re a
man of determination.’

‘I’d like to think so. It could be merely that a man who starts with nothing has nothing to lose by persisting against
all odds.’

Blanche had remained silent so far, but now she lifted her head. ‘Was it very dreadful, all those years out there?’ she said with husky intensity. ‘I often wondered, one hears such
tales—’ She broke off, confused, aware that everyone round
the table was silent with embarrassment, then went on
brightly, ‘And now you’re back, having made your fortune! You will soon forget it all, I am sure, living the comfortable
life of a gentleman here in England.’

‘There are some things a man can never forget, Mrs Hard
aker,’

She coloured, and Emma felt a stab of satisfaction. Earlier
she had thought of her aunt as a possible ally, but now Blanche
had proved she was just as ready to appease this man as the
rest of them. She deserved to be snubbed for her pains.

Changing the subject to something- safer, Blanche struggled on, ‘Your railway is greatly used, Mr Sutcliffe. Only last Satur
day I travelled to Bradford by it with some friends, to attend a
choral concert at the St George’s Hall.’

Cathy looked up at him with sudden interest. ‘Do you own
the railway, Mr Sutcliffe?’

He laughed, ‘By no means, Miss Cathy! Your aunt is re
ferring to the fact that I was an engineer during its construc
tion. A very junior engineer. But all that is a long time ago, before you were born.’

‘Any road, we’re grateful to you for your part in building
the Brackle Valley branch line,’ said Randolph. ‘It brought us cheap coal, so I was able to convert from water-power to steam. But for that, we’d be sadly behind the times. The coming of the railway was our salvation at the mill.’

In Emma’s eyes, though, the railway was first and foremost an escape route from the narrow confines of this uplands
valley, an outlet to the wide world. With her mother, and
afterwards with Uncle Randolph, she had visited all the major towns of the West Riding, and some beyond. One day, she
had long promised herself, she would take the train to Lon
don and a life that was rich with meaning and purpose; like that of the indomitable Miss Nightingale, whose
Notes on Nursing
had filled Emma with inspiration and a desire for
service. Her dreams had always begun with the railway, but
now, the knowledge that Matthew Sutcliffe had contributed
to its building, in however humble a capacity, would taint it
for her for ever.

When at long last the meal came to an end the ladies with
drew to the drawing room, leaving the four gentlemen to their
port. The room was now lamplit and the green curtains had
been drawn across the windows.

‘Thank goodness that’s over!’ exclaimed Jane candidly,
sinking into a deep sofa. ‘I do declare, though, it was an excel
lent dinner. The lemon cream pudding was quite superb, Chloe. I must ask Mrs Hoad for the method – though whether that idiot of a woman who cooks for me will succeed with it,
heaven knows!’

Chloe sniffed. ‘It would do you good to starve yourself for
a week, Jane. You’re getting stouter than ever. And Paget
drinks far too much! Randolph will not have been at all pleased by his tactless remarks to Mr Sutcliffe.’ She rounded
on her sister-in-law, ‘And you were as bad, Blanche. What
possessed you to come so dangerously near to referring to –
to his unfortunate experiences?’

Emma did not wait to see how Blanche would defend her
self, but cut in hotly, ‘Why are you so anxious to gloss over
the fact that Matthew Sutcliffe was
transported
to Australia?
That he’s a convicted criminal? The man who killed my
father, your own brother, Aunt Chloe!’

‘Your twin brother,’ added Jane with malicious enjoyment.
‘I must confess I was astonished to learn that he had been
invited to dine here. In my opinion it’s in very questionable taste to entertain him at the Hall.’

Chloe looked nonplussed, and Emma suspected that she
privately agreed, but, as usual, dared not oppose any decision of Uncle Randolph’s.

‘Suppose we had not invited him
here,’ she argued, ‘what
then? There are many others in the Brackle Valley who would
gladly have taken up with him. No, Randolph is right. The
Hardakers must be seen to lead the way, in this as in everything else.’ Abruptly, her domineering tone became persuasive. ‘After all, it was all so long ago, wasn’t it? Are you
suggesting there is never a time to be merciful, to be ready to
forgive and forget?’