A Time Like No Other Read online

  ‘Sinclair, what the devil are you doing here?’

  ‘I might ask you the same thing, you impudent dog. This is my house, a Sinclair house and I demand to know—’

  ‘Not any longer! This house has been given to me by my employer, Mr Harry Sinclair, and since it is his to do with—’

  ‘You bloody impertinent dog. How dare you move into my house and take over my servants . . .’

  ‘This is not your house, nor are they your servants. If you would care to see the deeds which I have in—’

  ‘Sod your deeds and sod you. I’ll have you thrown out.’ He strode back to the door and turned to where George hovered, the gardener wishing now he’d fled to the safety of the yard at the back of the house. He had heard the exchange between Mr Elliott and Mr Roly and was as flabbergasted as Mrs Cannon who stood dithering in the dining-room doorway, the fruit pie still in her hands.

  ‘You,’ Roly snarled at the old man. ‘Fetch the yard man, what’s-his-name, and be quick about it. I want this . . . this intruder removed from my house at once, d’you hear. And you’ – addressing his snivelling wife – ‘stop that immediately and come into the house.’ He whirled back to George who stood rooted to the spot, his fear so great he thought he might fall over.

  ‘There ain’t no one else, sir . . .’ he managed to stammer bravely, while the coachman, who had been with the Bracken family since Miss Anne was a small girl, gently put her back in the carriage, for a lady in her condition should not be treated like this. He was taking her home to her ma and pa and bugger that bully-boy she had married.

  Roly beckoned to him imperiously. ‘You, what’s your name, leave my wife . . . yes, she can stay for the moment in the carriage but come here at once and help me to eject this intruder from my house. Come along, don’t stand there with your mouth open. What the devil d’you think you’re doing? Bloody hell,’ for the coachman, just as though his young mistress’s husband had not spoken, indeed did not even exist, had closed the carriage door, climbed up on his box and was prepared to drive away.

  Roly stood there, his mouth open, his face scarlet with unbelieving rage, then turned as though he were about to attack Adam. Adam pushed Mrs Cannon behind him, indicating that she must make for the door to the kitchen, then prepared himself for the lunge he thought the maddened Roly was about to make. It was as well he did. Roly half crouched then threw himself forward so that his shoulder hit Adam in his midriff, carrying them both along the hallway, through the kitchen door and into the kitchen where Ivy the housemaid and Mrs Cannon screamed out loud in shock. Tess, the kitchen-maid, at Mrs Cannon’s directions, had run round to the front of the house to fetch George and his pitchfork but the old man was trembling in the flowerbeds and so, shrieking at the top of her voice, she caught the attention of the men who were at work in the yard of the destroyed mill, one of whom happened to be her mam’s brother’s wife’s nephew.

  For several long seconds the men simply stared at her in consternation, their tools in their hands, their jaws dropped then her mam’s brother’s wife’s nephew, recognising her from some family function, dropped his pickaxe and began to move towards the gate that led from the millyard to the garden of Mill House.

  ‘Fer God’s sake, our Freddy,’ she shrieked, ‘theer’s bloody murder bein’ done ’ere.’

  At once half a dozen of them began to run towards the gate, delighted to be interrupted despite the foreman’s shout. Tess was a right pretty lass and they elbowed each other aside to be the first to help her.

  Adam was giving as much, in fact more than he got from Roly Sinclair and would have managed without the assistance of the men who crowded at the back door of Mrs Cannon’s kitchen. Roly was a drinker, a man who stayed up half the night gambling or wenching and though he had got the better of his injured brother several hours ago, he was no match for Adam Elliott.

  The workmen were quite disappointed to find there was nothing much to do, for Adam, bruised and bloodied about the face where Roly’s head had split his lip, had him on the floor with his arms behind his back. The language was quite foul, since Roly Sinclair was no respecter of ladies when his temper was roused and, besides, the women who worked in the kitchen were not, of course, ladies. All three of them, Mrs Cannon, Ivy and Tess, had heard worse in their working-class lives but they were still shocked that a gentleman like Mr Roly should see fit to use it in front of them.

  ‘Your language is disgusting, Sinclair, as is your behaviour,’ Adam said calmly, ‘so I shall ask one of these gentlemen to assist me in removing you from the kitchen of my house and from the company of these ladies.’

  He hauled Roly to his feet but Roly had not yet learned his lesson.

  ‘You can——off, you . . . you blackguard. You’ll rue the day you ever came into Yorkshire and as for these bitches I shall make it my business to—’

  ‘Now Roly, I will not have you call my servants by such foul names.’ Adam began to frogmarch Roly towards the back door into the yard, the men jostling one another in their efforts to give him a hand.

  Roly began to scream, high and demented, like a woman, his fury so great he was like half a dozen madmen in Adam’s hands and those at his back leaped forward.

  They literally threw him down the steps and on to the garden path. It had rained in the night and there were pools of water about into which one of the men directed him. They all stood back and hooted with laughter, for he was a sorry sight but Adam, more closely involved and with more reason, knew he had made an enemy this day. Roly Sinclair had been humiliated beyond his limits. He had no way to reach his father-in-law’s house except on foot and when he did he would have some explaining to do to the man to whose daughter Roly had caused such distress. It would not be forgotten and he would not be forgiven. Roly Sinclair was a dangerous animal at that moment!

  31

  ‘I’m afraid we haven’t heard the last of Roly, my love,’ Harry Sinclair said to his wife a few days after the incident at the mill from which he still bore the bruises, though he had not been seriously injured thanks to Adam. He had gone up to South Royd the following day, allowing Lally to persuade him to let Carly drive him instead of riding in on Piper. The commotion was the talk of the parish, spreading round like wildfire, as these things do, followed by the account of the fight at Mill House where Mr Roly had tried to force Mr Elliott, who was now the legal owner of the house, to pack his things and bugger off. Those were his very words according to the men working on clearing the ruins of High Clough and it was for the most part true. It was reported to Mr Harry Sinclair by Mr Hardcastle himself that Mr Roly had gone post haste to consult him but Mr Hardcastle told him there was really nothing that could be done. Mill House belonged legally to Mr Harry Sinclair; oh, didn’t Mr Roly Sinclair know that? Yes, old Mr Sinclair, being something of a traditionalist, had stated in his will that the elder son should inherit the house, knowing, of course, that Mr Harry would not see his younger brother without a home but as soon as Mr Roly married Miss Bracken and moved into Bracken House Mr Harry had seen fit to dispose of it to . . . Yes, Mr Elliott. Oh dear, please, Mr Sinclair, I cannot allow you to fling things about in such a . . . really, Mr Sinclair, that kind of language . . .

  Mr Hardcastle’s clerk reported to a fellow clerk who was employed at the bank that he and Mr Hardcastle had feared for their own safety but thankfully Mr Roly had thrown himself out of the office and on to the back of his poor horse and positively whipped it down the street!

  Now that it was no longer necessary for Lally to see to the running of the Sinclair mills she allowed herself to drift into that trance-like state which her fourth pregnancy induced in her. She was a breeding animal, waiting the birth of her young and though she had thought she would miss the busy, one might even say the exciting battle of her days with Susan and Adam at High Clough, she was content to let one day run into another as the spring moved gently towards summer.

  ‘I wonder why we haven’t heard from Roly,’ Harry said lazily to Lally a
week or two later, and then again several weeks after that. It was said idly as though it did not really matter. Harry Sinclair was happy with his life and he could not, in his somewhat tranced state, believe that there was anything in the world that could spoil it. The two mills, West Heath and South Royd, were going flat out twenty-three hours a day and were producing almost, if not quite, the same quantity of worsted yarn as the three mills had done in the past, but orders, come from Brice Heaton whom Harry had not even met, were flooding in and most of his operatives, glad to be employed after the disaster, accepted the shift system that he had put into place. Later he was to wonder why he had been so complacent regarding the whereabouts and activities of his brother.

  ‘I think I’m going to try a walk in the garden,’ Susan told Lally out of the blue one day as they both sat gazing dreamily from Susan’s window at the long stretch of lawn that led down to the lake. Barty and Froglet were cleaning the edge of the lake of the weeds which, if not constantly checked, clogged up the clear water. The water-lilies were wide open to the sun and even from the house they could see the carp snapping at the flies on the surface of the lake. The swans and the ducks were on the far side well out of the way, though they kept a sharp lookout for the children who fed them regularly. Jamie, Alec and small Jack who was promising to be clever, though he was not yet two years old, were chanting something Philly was teaching them. Lally knew Boy was with them, just sitting quietly, since he could neither read nor write and would have a special lesson on his own with Philly when the others had raced off outside. He was beginning to ease gently out of the stunned state his ordeal had cast about him but he was inclined to cling still to Susan when he was allowed. Lally and Susan waited patiently for the day when he would play and shout and laugh with the other children but then they did not know what his life had been before the explosion. No one had claimed him so had he ever been loved, cared for, valued, cherished, which is the right of all children? It didn’t seem so or surely someone would have been looking for him. Perhaps his mother had been killed in the explosion. Still, they were making up for it as best they could and at least he was healthy, well nourished and the maidservants made much of him, poor little chap, they said.

  ‘Walk in the garden?’ Lally was astounded. ‘But you haven’t even been downstairs yet and if John—’

  ‘Never mind John. Adam and I have been walking round this room and down the hallway for a week now. Oh, I didn’t tell you because I knew you would fuss and so would John. With Adam beside me I’m in no danger of falling.’

  ‘Fuss! I should think so and I shall have a word or two to say to Adam Elliott when next I see him.’ Lally was appalled and her face became very serious so that Susan laughed and without any help stood up and tottered to the window where she leaned on the sill. Lally did her best to struggle to her feet to give her a hand but she was the one who needed a hand as she tried to heave herself up from Susan’s deep and comfortable armchair.

  ‘Dear God, I don’t know who is the more incapacitated, you or me. I swear I’m having twins, the size of me, but please . . . please sit down, Susan. Your legs have only just come out of splints and are still very wasted. John says—’

  ‘Ask Carly and Ben to carry me down, please, Lally. I shall go mad if I have to stay up here for much longer. And the sooner I can walk the length of the aisle the sooner Adam and I can be married. He is urging me to name the day but at the same time he knows I won’t until I can walk. Please, Lally . . . please . . .’

  And so Barty and Froglet were startled to see the two men, their arms linked to form a chair, carry Mrs Harper down the front steps and across the path to the seat they themselves had placed for Miss Lally and Mr Sinclair to rest on. It was becoming a firm favourite with those who were recovering from disasters and Barty was forever telling Froglet they had picked a good spot there. The sun caught it and the wonderful scent of the clusters of wallflowers hung about and really, he confided to his right-hand man, he often felt he wouldn’t mind a nice sit down there himself. Smoke a pipe in the peaceful sunshine. And would you look at Miss Lally with her – he nearly said with her belly out to here but stopped himself in time – so near her time, sidling about at the back of them as though she were afraid Carly and Ben might drop Mrs Harper.

  They placed her carefully on the seat and down the lawn ran Jenny and Clara with cushions and rugs though it was warm enough to fry eggs on the path, Barty remarked to Froglet in an undertone.

  ‘Leave her in my care, Carly. She can take my arm if needs be,’ sang out Miss Lally, as though she could give an arm to anyone never mind a woman who could hardly walk, but he and Froglet hurried up from the lake and promised to keep an eye on them, both of them feeling enormously important.

  Carly and Ben, Jenny and Clara, with many a worried backward glance, for both ladies were very vulnerable, trotted back to their duties and the minute they’d gone, bless me if Mrs Harper didn’t stand up and so did Miss Lally.

  ‘Nay,’ Barty admonished, but the pair of them set off along the path until he, taking it upon himself to act as nursemaid, firmly turned them back and sat them down.

  ‘Now you wait ’ere, Mrs Harper. I’ve just the thing for yer. Eeh, yer know yer shouldn’t be leanin’ on Miss Lally like tha’. Stop there, Froglet, an’ if yer let one of ’em put a foot to’t ground I’ll clout yer one.’

  They sat obediently while Froglet, speechless but determined, hovered about them until Barty, out of breath but wreathed in smiles, hurried round the corner of the house. He carried two walking sticks and a saw.

  ‘See, stand up, lass,’ he said to Susan. ‘Steady ’er, Froglet, see she don’t fall,’ and before five minutes had gone by he had measured the sticks against Susan’s height and, using the saw with great accuracy and with vast mutterings of ‘a bit off this’un . . . another ’alf an inch . . . there, that does it . . .’, Susan and Lally, Susan on her sticks, Barty to one side and Froglet on the other, were slowly walking on the flat bit beside the flowerbeds.

  ‘I knew them sticks o’ me dad’s’d come in ’andy one day,’ Barty told them.

  John, of course, pulled his lip and frowned when he saw her the next day, another gloriously sunny afternoon, but it was clear he was only being cautious. He had come, he said, to check up on the lad, meaning Boy, which he did every few days, not just on Susan, and it was noticed in the kitchen that he stayed to have a cup of tea with Miss Philly, herself a doctor’s daughter so it seemed natural enough, those in the kitchen told one another, that they should find a common interest.

  ‘Give over,’ Barty told them with a snort of laughter. ‘Common bloody interest indeed.’ Hadn’t he seen the pair of them holding hands on the other side of the lake when they thought no one could see them? Not much got past Barty, he added, tapping his nose.

  So perhaps there were to be two weddings, they whispered to one another in the kitchen. Eeh, two weddings and a babby! Life was grand, it really was, and what a difference to all those weeks back when the mill had blown up. Mr Harry had still been mazed, Mrs Harper and that poor little lad had been trapped and injured and now would you look at them all. Mr Harry riding out each day to watch his grand new mill going up, Mr Elliott round here every evening to court Mrs Harper, Miss Lally blooming, that lad they called Boy beginning to respond to a bit of human kindness and them young rascals larking about, keeping everyone on their toes and it’d be Miss Caterina next since she was all over the place trying to follow them. Toddling on unsteady legs, she was now, falling over, picking herself up, laughing, shouting in her own language for them to wait for her. The house was so filled with love and laughter it fair took your breath away, they told one another, believing in their innocence that the bad corners had been turned.

  Roly Sinclair looked at his wife who sprawled on the sofa opposite him, her thin body with its vast stomach ungainly and repulsive! His mother-in-law sat beside her, doing her eternal embroidery so that Roly wondered if there was a baby born in this bloody pari
sh with as big a wardrobe as this thing was going to have. They had dined, the five of them, for the youngest son of the family, Robert, was still unmarried and living at home, but his father-in-law, lucky bastard, had escaped to his study with Robert saying they had some accounts to go over and would the ladies excuse them. He did not speak to his son-in-law whom he had never forgiven for dragging his precious daughter through that awful scene at Mill House and which had been all over Halifax by the end of the day. Thank God, said Roly to himself, Briar House would be ready for them to move into by the end of July and he would be shut of the lot of them. Not Anne, of course, since she was his wife, the source of plenty of cash for his racing and his gambling, and must, unfortunately, come with him. And their child would be born by then, he supposed, so they would be what was known as a ‘happy family’. In the name of all that was holy, how was he to stand it? he wondered, but there would be plenty of diversions and he could come and go as he pleased without the Brackens’ disapproval forever ringing in his ears.

  With a muttered oath he sprang to his feet, noticing that his wife flinched as he did so. He had been forced to slap her a time or two when she had reproached him over something or other and he hoped his bloody father-in-law would not find out but then what if he did? Anne was his wife, his to do with as he liked and old George could do nothing about it.

  ‘I’m off out,’ he told the ladies on the sofa.