On the morning after the drinking bout Eleanor took Alan for a walk on the moor immediately outside the grounds of Temple Hatton. She was troubled because she had overheard one of the servants talking about Ned’s reproaches to Alan the night before. She was also angry because she knew that Knaresborough had coerced Alan into the drinking bout which had preceded it.
These days she was becoming more and more aware of the undercurrents in the world in which she lived. Consequently she said nothing to Alan about either event, but he was immediately aware that something was troubling her.
Their walk ended on a wide plateau at the edge of a cliff which gave them a superb view across that part of Yorkshire. Eleanor stopped beside a flat-topped boulder and invited him to sit beside her.
She thought that he looked tired and sad, but Alan’s first words showed that he had lost nothing of his acute understanding of her.
‘What is worrying you, Eleanor?’ he asked.
‘Nothing and everything,’ she told him, giving him an odd little smile and an answer which he might have made himself to a difficult question.
He took her hand. ‘I know that it’s wrong of me to be curious, but…’
‘No,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘I will give you a straight answer. It’s Lord Knaresborough. I think that he brings trouble with him. He’s not like Sir Hart…although Sir Hart values him. He uses people, I think, although he can be kind. He’s always been kind to me,’ she added a trifle inconsequentially.
Alan thought that he knew the reason why Knaresborough was kind to her—but that was not a story for him to tell.
‘I admire him,’ he said, ‘but that does not mean that I like him. He would be a good friend, but a dreadful enemy. He likes to test people.’
He began to stroke her hand. ‘You are not to worry about him—or me. I can look after myself.’
She then said something which he was to remember later. ‘Where he is concerned, no one is safe. Be careful, Alan.’
He kissed the hand he held, and then leaned over a little to kiss her cheek. The scent of her roused him; it was so sweet that he was again in danger of forgetting himself. She turned willingly into his arms, and there, alone, overlooking the wild beauty below them, he made gentle love to her, kissing and stroking her so that she might feel pleasure but not be frightened.
It was sweet torment for both of them, until he was the one to break away. Eleanor, in the first throes of active love, was unable to deny him anything, and the time for them to progress beyond nursery matters was not yet.
Soon, he told himself when they walked back, hand in hand, I shall ask for her hand in marriage—but he knew that before he could there were mysteries to be solved, and ghosts from the past to be laid.
Eleanor was right: Knaresborough was dangerous. Two mornings later Alan found himself fighting Ralf, not sparring with him. Knaresborough had said that he wished to see a real bout, so he engineered one by deceiving Ralf when he met him in the stables after he had watched him sparring with Alan.
‘I hear that the Australian boy is your master,’ he said, jeering at him a little, ‘and spares you when you spar with him.’
Now this was true, but Alan had said nothing of it to anyone. Wounded to the quick, Ralf denied the accusation fiercely.
Knaresborough shook his head at him. ‘Easy to prove it,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you good money if you can persuade him to engage in a real fight with you tomorrow morning. And if you beat him fair and square I’ll treble your reward.’
‘Fair and square, then. I’ll tell him I want a real fight,’ said Ralf, and so he informed Alan—to have Alan refuse him until he understood that he would have to agree in order to soothe Ralf’s feelings, so casually plundered by Knaresborough.
He said nothing to anyone of his dismay. He knew that once in a real fight he would be unable to restrain himself, and would go for Ralf with all his strength and all his cunning—which was why he only ever sparred. But there was no way in which he could gainsay either Ralf or Knaresborough, so the next day he dressed himself for the fight and went to the moor beyond the House—to discover an eager crowd was waiting for him.
Besides the estate workers and the servants from the House there were gentlemen and labourers from Brinkley and other local villages come to see the fun—but the news had been kept from the women, he later found.
Everything was to be done in proper form: Knaresborough had seen to that. It was he who had arranged for the crowd to be present, and for betting to be organised.
Alan knew, even before the bout began, that, however much he had promised himself to spare Ralf, once he was in the ring with him he would have only one idea in his head—to win it. Quite early on he knew that Ralf was his for the taking—he was older and slow; his fine edge had gone. Alan also knew that the pugilist who had taught him in Sydney had been right—he possessed the hard malevolence needed to be a champion, as well as the strength and the skill.
But when he turned Ralf for the last time, readying him for the final knock-out blow, Knaresborough’s face came into view, and he saw that Knaresborough knew it, too, and could scarcely wait for the final blow which would defeat and humiliate Ralf—and complete his pleasure.
The killing rage against Ralf which he had built up during the bout was in an instant directed against himself and Knaresborough. He would not be manipulated in order to provide a Roman holiday for an unprincipled patrician by humiliating Ralf, whose last remaining and only pride was in his skill.
Coldly and deliberately he turned the rage on himself, and so that no one should suspect that he was throwing the fight he changed it, so that he was exposed to Ralf’s most punishing blows.
Suddenly he was lying, half-fuddled, on the ground, supported by someone’s strong arms which did not belong to either Ned or Stacy, his seconds. The same strong arms were lifting him on to a bench and were beginning to sponge his face. His senses steadied and he knew that it was Knaresborough who was ministering to him and holding the others back.
‘No,’ said Alan feebly, trying to push him away, but failing. ‘No, not you. I don’t want you.’
‘Yes,’ retorted Knaresborough, his voice low, so that the others surrounding them should not hear. ‘I know what you did, if no one else does. You will not be managed, I see. You are Sir Beauchamp’s best. Be still, that I may help you.’
‘No,’ said Alan, turning his head away from him. ‘Not you nor any man shall pull my strings. Ralf is not a toy for me to maul and break for your pleasure. Fight him yourself—or leave him alone. I’ll not do your dirty work for you.’
‘He has not addled your wits, I see,’ said Knaresborough, still sponging Alan’s face. ‘And you are right to try to shame me. Must I apologise to you, then?’
‘Apologise to Ralf, not to me.’
‘Oh, Ralf does not need apologies. He will be well rewarded now that you have thrown the fight.’
The killing rage swept through Alan again, despite his weakness.
‘That is a vile thing to say. Mind me. When I recover I shall strike you down for that, Earl though you are.’
Knaresborough stared at him. ‘I believe you would. I will tell him that I was wrong to pit you at one another—not to escape your blows but because I see that Ralf is a man, too, in your mind. Let me help you up.’
Despite himself weakness had him taking Knaresborough’s arm to rise. He found he was facing Ralf.
Ralf glared at Knaresborough, his face set. ‘I shall not take your money, m’lord. I did not win the fight—he gave it to me most cunningly. Why, I don’t know, only that he did. Until then he had me for the asking. He was never mine to beat, not now, nor when I was in my prime.’
‘Do not say so,’ returned Alan. ‘You won fair and square and I shall spar with you when I am fit again. No, do not argue with me. I was wrong to agree to fight you. Take his money—as much as you can get of it. He owes you more than that.’
‘Yes,’ said Knaresborough, ‘and I was wrong to set you at each other for my pleasure. Had I asked you both straight that would have been different, but I did not. I ask your pardon, Ralf.’
‘That is nobly said, m’lord,’ said Ralf.
Knaresborough put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a purse of guineas. ‘You shall get drunk for both of us, Ralf. Now let us get him to the House.’
Alan did not come down from his room until the afternoon. By then the news of the fight was known to everyone. Eleanor met him in the garden and exclaimed at his black eye, swollen face, split lip and damaged hands.
‘Oh, Alan, I was angry when we missed our ride this morning. You told me once that you could not equal Ralf in a fight, so why did you try?’
They had been riding together the previous day and they had made gentle love again. Each time the power of what they were doing struck Eleanor anew, and each time it was stronger. Being in love was hard, not easy, she found. She had a curious desire to be Alan. She wanted to be lost in him, but did not know how, only that after a time mere kissing became unsatisfactory—more than that was needed, but the possible nature of the more frightened her.
‘You will not be fit to ride with me tomorrow,’ she said sorrowfully.
Alan tried to smile at her, but smiling hurt, so he stopped. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It will not be long before I am fit again.’
Since nothing else was possible, he allowed his eyes to caress her to make up for his hands not being available. Knaresborough, watching them together—the party was assembling for tea on the lawn—said to Sir Hart, ‘So that is why he came here—against his better judgement, no doubt. For he must suspect the meaning of the likeness.’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Hart painfully. ‘I am sure that, but for Eleanor, he would never have visited Temple Hatton. Now, with Ned’s hidden resentment revealed, he stays only for her. And me, a little, I think.’
‘The sooner you tell him the truth, the better. My care is for Eleanor, as well as for him, as you must know. She deserves him, and must not lose him to his sense of honour—which is strong.’
‘Yes—but you must understand that I have asked him nothing of his origins, and until then all must be supposition. I fear that he might tell me nothing. I also fear that he may believe Eleanor to be his cousin—with all the consequences which might flow from that.’
‘In that case I shall smoke him out for you, since matters must not remain as they are. He must know the truth about Eleanor’s parentage, as well.’
When Sir Hart began to protest he said gently, with none of his usual brutal panache, ‘No, trust me. I shall use no bravado. The young man is of a metal which deserves our respect. He is gold through and through—Sir Beauchamp with a heart that feels for others. What could be stronger than that?’
Eleanor persuaded Stacy to rescue Alan from the unwanted attentions of the rest of the party, particularly Jane’s mother. He took Alan to the upstairs drawing room, ostensibly to show him something he had found in the library that morning. Eleanor, joining them a little later, came in to find him sound asleep on the yellow brocade sofa. Stacy, quietly reading opposite to him, put his finger to his lips when he saw her.
Knaresborough had come to her at the end of the tea party and had walked her through the rose garden, chatting of this and that, until she had said, quite calmly, ‘Tell me, m’lord. Is it true that you were responsible for setting Mr Dilhorne and Ralf at one another?’
‘So,’ he had said, equally calm, ‘the gossip has reached you already. Yes, I must confess to that.’
Surprised at her own daring, for he had always seemed like a capricious God to her, someone so powerful and mighty that he was not to be questioned or criticised, she had said, ‘The other day I told him to be careful, that you were dangerous. I did not think that you would prove me correct so soon. It was not well done, m’lord.’
‘Oh, I quite agree with you, Miss Eleanor. It was not. I am delighted to discover that you have such a fund of good sense as to appreciate that.’
At first she had thought he was mocking her, but when he saw her anxious face, he’d added, ‘The same good sense that has made you choose him from all the shallow fools who have courted you here and in London. I can only trust that he has the good sense to offer for you soon, and so I have told Sir Hart. Now may we talk nonsense—which is all that men and women are supposed to do, sense being usually employed only with one’s own sex?’
This was so truly Knaresborough that Eleanor had begun to laugh. She wondered how often he ever made confession of a fault, and decided that it was rare. She was thinking of this when Alan woke up and put out a hand for her to hold. Stacy, seeing that he was awake, began to read to them until it was time to dress for dinner.
Alan and Knaresborough were playing piquet. Knaresborough was naughty, and cheated wildly. He had warned Alan that he would before the game began, since they would be playing for counters, not money.
‘No holds barred, Master Alan. Anything goes for both of us when we’re not playing for money.’
Alan’s face was almost healed. That afternoon he had ridden out on the moors with Eleanor. For the first time he had unbuttoned her riding habit to reveal the silk beneath it. He had kissed her neck and shoulders and stroked her breasts through the silk. She had shivered her delight while he did so.
Eleanor had not known what to do with her hands, but she had caressed his face, running them down his strong jaw. Her body had been on fire, and her eyes had questioned him.
Alan had contained himself with difficulty, saying inwardly, A seasoned man has only so much self-restraint; there must be no more than this until I offer. He had imagined Knaresborough’s grin if he had heard him.
He’d seen Jane and Stacy, whom they had outpaced, coming towards them, and rebuttoned Eleanor’s habit rapidly. They had been decorously admiring the view by the time the other pair of lovers arrived.
Stacy, taking in Eleanor’s brilliantly roused eyes and her flushed face, had said nothing, but thought a lot. He was taking great care not to frighten Jane and thought how strange it was that everything was allowed to young men and nothing to women, who consequently came ignorant to the marriage bed.
Now he was watching Alan and Knaresborough; their voices were low so that none could overhear them.
‘You play well, young sir.’
Alan laughed at him. ‘Oh, there is nothing to that. If one man marks the cards, the other may use them—if he knows how.’
‘Yes, you are a fox among the chickens. I must not forget that.’
They played on a little in silence before Knaresborough said idly, ‘You speak proudly of your father—but give little of him away.’
‘Nothing to give away, m’lord.’
‘Knaresborough. I am Knaresborough to you. I suppose that he was sent as a felon to New South Wales instead of being hanged in England?’
‘You suppose correctly…Knaresborough.’
Knaresborough laughed. ‘You did not mind me saying that?’
‘He would not mind if he heard you, so why should I?’
‘Why indeed? And from London, I hear. Pass the bottle, boy, you have nursed it long enough. Mark you, though, I note how little you actually drink. No Yorkshire connections at all?’
His voice was idle when he came out with this last.
Alan suddenly tired of both the games they were playing; tired of the half-truths and the evasions. He remembered Sir Hart’s anxious face, Ned’s angry one on the night of the fight, his father’s likeness to Sir Hart—and, above all, his own to Sir Beauchamp. It was time to end it.
‘Oh, yes, Knaresborough, there was a Yorkshire connection. However did you guess?’ His voice was mocking.
‘I am sure that Sir Beauchamp did not live for nothing.’
‘Well, as to that, I don’t know. They are your points this time, Knaresborough, but you have not won enough to help you.’
‘I distracted you,’ said Knaresborough mildly. ‘Have you told Sir Hart of the connection?’
‘No, nor has he asked me if there were one—but I am tired of being devious. Nothing but the truth will satisfy me now—for there is Eleanor to think of.’
Knaresborough made no immediate answer. At last he said, ‘I think that I may have won my first hand.’
Alan’s answering laugh had no mirth in it. ‘I think not. You are rubiconed as the game has it, I fear, and have lost it.’ He watched Knaresborough stare in disbelief at the cards before saying, ‘My father, as you have doubtless guessed, had no acknowledged father, but you could not disturb him by calling him bastard.’
‘Oh, I could believe anything of a father of such as you. But your father had a mother, I suppose?’
‘Oh, yes, and I know that she was from Yorkshire. It is your turn to play.’
‘Indeed, and you have beaten me again. Are there cards up your sleeve, too?’
‘You must ponder that, Knaresborough, for I shall not tell you. What I can say is that she worked in a big house on the edge of the moors.’
More counters on Knaresborough’s side passed to Alan. They played on.
‘It was the old story, I suppose. The son of the house and the pretty servant, no doubt.’
‘No doubt.’
Alan was short, for the game was nearly over.
‘I can tell you that my father was born at a farm on the moors, but the moors are wide and there are many farms and many big houses on them.’
‘Indeed, young man. But not many by-blow’s sons have Sir Beauchamp’s brass face, I assure you. You are too good for me again.’
Alan made him no direct answer, said instead, ‘You would have done better to have played without marked cards and sleight of hand. My father taught me how to use them against the cheat, long ago.’
‘So, you have beaten me; I give you best. You know that I shall tell Sir Hart all this?’
‘Of course—else I should not have told you.’
Ned, seeing that the game had ended, walked over to them. ‘So you have won, Alan, and against Knaresborough of all people. He always wins, for he plays dirty, you know, when he does not play for money.’
‘Yes, I guessed that, Ned.’
Ned said sorrowfully, ‘But you play dirty, too, Alan.’
‘Yes, and did so for you, Ned.’ Alan had not meant to remind Ned of the debt he owed him, but Ned’s tone had stung.
‘You shall both drink with me,’ Knaresborough told them, ‘to celebrate my defeat, for I rarely lose.’
Ned drank down one bumper and then left them. Knaresborough said dryly to Alan, ‘You are sorry for Ned, I see. Why? He is most fortunate, being the Hatton heir.’
‘He would have been happier in a cottage.’
‘There is nothing to that. He is heir here, and that’s an end to it. When you visit me at Castle Ashcourt leave him behind. He bores me.’
‘You are frank, Knaresborough, but unkind.’
Knaresborough’s laugh was humourless. ‘There is no point in being able to call the Queen cousin if I may not say and do as I please. And it will not be long before me and mine will not be able to please themselves. For as my friend Alexander Baring says, “The field of coal will outstrip the field of barley”, and you and yours will sit where I am sitting now—but until then I will do as I please. What was your grandmother’s name?’
‘The same as mine, only Mary. I know little of her beyond that. My father has never spoken to me of her, or of his English past.’
‘As is natural. Well, I like you, and not only because you remind me of a man whom I feared and respected. I hope that you may be successful with Miss Eleanor. She deserves better than she may find here.’
Alan looked Knaresborough square in the face.
‘I understand your concern for her, Knaresborough. It is most natural, given everything, and if we marry I shall try to make her as happy as her father might wish.’
Knaresborough whistled. ‘You know, boy. How do you know? That was, and is, a well-kept secret.’
‘Now, that I shall not tell you, nor will the secret ever be revealed by me. You may be sure of that.’
‘The only thing that I am sure of is that Temple Hatton deserves one like you, and not like Ned.’
‘That is as may be, Knaresborough.’
Alan bowed—and left him. For once the Belted Earl had been given his congé by an inferior, and had accepted it.
Eleanor motioned for Alan to sit beside her. She had been reading—or pretending to. ‘He’s splendid, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘I ought to tell you that Ned hates him.’
‘I’m not surprised. If he does not like you, or consider you worthy of his interest, he could be cruel.’
‘Sir Hart says that he is a splendid relic. They were all like that when he was a boy.’
They thought together of that distant, different, world, so far removed from the one which they inhabited. Eleanor was restless: she was becoming aware of the body’s demands.
‘Ned says that you could have beaten Ralf. Is that true?’
‘Half true,’ he said, not wishing to hurt Ralf, but not wishing to lie, either.
‘Ned is sometimes right,’ she offered.
‘We are all of us sometimes right, Ned included, only the sometimes is greater for one than for another.’
Eleanor said doubtfully, ‘That does not seem fair.’
‘Life is not fair, Eleanor, or we should not be sitting here in comfort while they half starve in Brinkley.’
She shivered. ‘You live in the real world, Alan.’
‘A little—but all worlds are real to those who live in them.’
He laughed, and added wryly, ‘We are sober tonight.’
‘Yes. Stacy is sober, too. He is playing chess with Jane in the library to get her away from her mama. My mama is teasing me about making a great marriage now that Stacy and I are no longer a pair.’
‘Is that what you want, Eleanor?’
‘You know it is not, Alan.’
She did not add, It is you I want—for that would not be the act of a properly brought up young lady—but her face told him what she thought.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’
He also knew that he could not offer yet. Knaresborough must tell Sir Hart what he had learned, and then Sir Hart would speak to him of it. He knew that as surely as he knew each new day would bring the dawn.
‘I’m afraid that we must prepare ourselves for tomorrow,’ Eleanor said, trying to lighten the conversation, ‘for Sir Hart has decreed that Beverley may join us again.’
‘Poor Charles,’ said Alan, and he was not speaking lightly.
‘Poor all of us,’ riposted Eleanor. ‘But I think that if he misbehaves again Sir Hart will have him beaten, or sent away.’
She shivered, although the evening was warm. ‘I often wonder why Sir Hart, who is goodness itself, should be plagued by such unworthy children and grandchildren as we are. You must know that my father and uncle were such disappointments as a man could scarcely bear to have for sons.
‘I sometimes think that Mama and Ned are so flighty because that was the only way in which they could manage to live with Papa. Ned, though, is more good-hearted than Papa ever was. They say that Beverley is exactly like my father was when he was that age. I only know that I was glad when he was absent when I was a child. Such scenes there were. Such hate. Me, he particularly disliked, but then, he liked nobody but himself.’
She thought that Alan ought to know all this before he offered for her: it was only right.
‘When he died I felt unworthy because I was not sorry. He would never beat Mama nor Ned again. It was strange—he never touched me. I sometimes think that Ned is as he is because of our father’s treatment of him as a boy. Sir Hart would not tell us how he died, but I fear that it was disgraceful, like Uncle John’s death on the day that Beverley was born. Only Uncle John was kind, but silly, and Father was neither.’
Alan could see that telling him this pained her, but he could only admire her honesty. What was he to say to her? That we cannot choose our parents, or our children, only accept them as they are? The father of whom she had spoken so sadly must have been well aware that Eleanor was not his child—and fearful of what Knaresborough might do to him if he mistreated her.
Thinking of Eleanor’s timid and frightened mother made him wonder how exactly she had come to have an affair with Knaresborough, of all people. But that was no business of his. Only that she had, and the result was Eleanor, who had inherited the bottom of sound common sense which lay beneath Knaresborough’s theatrics.
After that they spoke of lighter things. She was to attend a friend’s wedding in York soon, with Ned, and they would be away for a few days. ‘I know that you must be fretting for London and occupation,’ she said, ‘but I hope that you will not leave until after we have returned. Sir Hart likes you, I know, and he has little enough to comfort him.’
Alan did not think that he comforted Sir Hart, but he did not tell Eleanor so.
Alan sparred with Ralf again in the early morning, but it was not the same. Knaresborough, in his careless arrogance, had spoiled it for them. He would have given up this much-needed exercise, but he needed it, not only to keep himself in trim, but to provide him with something to look forward to and to do.
Eleanor was right: he was missing occupation. That is why they are so unsatisfactory, if beautiful, these great ones, he had decided, for everything is done for them and they live only to please themselves, which they cannot do, for they have no lives to live; their servants do it for them.
Well, if Eleanor married him she would find that she would have occupation, for he did not intend his wife to be a mere decoration, a toy, but that she would take her part in his life, as his mother had done in his father’s.
Sir Hart did not come down to breakfast on the morning after Alan had told Knaresborough of his grandmother’s past, but Knaresborough did. A messenger from Castle Ashcourt brought him letters, and he sprawled in his chair, eating and drinking and exclaiming as he read them.
‘I have to leave sooner than I intended,’ he told them. ‘Matters call me home—but my business here is ended—for the time being, at least.’
He took Alan on one side before he left that afternoon.
‘I told the old man last night of your father’s mother, and he took it hard, I know. Very hard, although he said nothing. I hope that you fix yourself with Eleanor. You have my blessing, and if you marry her in London she shall be sent off from my palace there. I ought to marry myself; my life is lonely since my poor Jenny died. Why should all I own go to the little Queen when I die? She has enough already. Mind you visit me before you return to London, else I shall follow you there and persecute you.’
The House seemed empty when he had gone. I do not like him, Alan thought, but he does not want to be liked, and I shall visit him because I admire such splendid arrogance.
He had thought that Sir Hart might have sent for him straight away, but he stayed in his room that day, sending word that he had a megrim and was unfit for company.
‘Which is very unlike Sir Hart,’ Eleanor told Alan.
Stacy agreed. ‘He is seldom ill.’
Stacy consequently proposed that it was such a fine day they should all ride over to his home, Culverwell Manor, which was not far distant. They could take food with them for a picnic there, leaving the House quiet for its owner.
‘We will all win that way,’ said Stacy cheerfully to Alan. ‘In the afternoon the mamas will want to sit on the lawn in the sun and we can take the girls for a walk, unchaperoned, if we promise not to roam too far away.’
‘I can see a successful career for you as a diplomat,’ Alan told him gravely. ‘Such an ability to please everyone should ensure that you rapidly become an ambassador.’
He shared the joke with Eleanor when, mounted on Abdul, he rode alongside the landau in which she sat beside Jane.
‘It is nonsensical, is it not,’ Eleanor remarked, ‘that we should have to go such lengths to be alone together? Particularly now that I have discovered that it is an open secret that Lord Knaresborough and Mrs Lorimer have what is known as an “understanding”, and that her husband is quite happy to turn a blind eye to it because he has one with another man’s wife. Her daughter, Polly, on the other hand, is kept in what the Turks call purdah, and is barely allowed to speak to a young man. Mrs Lorimer thinks me horribly forward because I chat with you and Stacy.’
Jane nodded her head in agreement. Eleanor said eagerly, ‘I have read that in America women are allowed to become doctors. Do you think that could ever happen here?’
‘Would either of you like to be a doctor?’ Alan asked them.
Jane shook her head, but Eleanor said thoughtfully, ‘I am not sure whether or not I should wish to be a doctor, but I would like to think that if I wanted to I might be allowed to try.’
Alan thought that Eleanor was becoming more like her unknown father every day—and less like Ned and Beverley.
‘Would you object to me becoming a doctor?’ she asked him suddenly.
‘I might not,’ he said, ‘but many men would.’
‘Because they think it would be indelicate, I suppose,’ Jane said.
Later, when she and Alan were walking in the little wilderness of shrubs and plants at the back of the Manor, Eleanor raised the matter again.
‘It does seem odd to me,’ she told him, ‘that while it is not considered indelicate for women to work alongside the men down the pits in the Yorkshire coalfieds, it should be considered wrong for them to be doctors—or lawyers, for that matter—for that very reason.’
‘Ah, but the world is not a reasonable place,’ was Alan’s answer. ‘For example, as you rightly pointed out, married women may take lovers, if they so wish, so long as their husbands do not object, but the behaviour of young girls is regulated so that they must not be alone with young men lest the young men do this to them.’
He turned towards Eleanor, put his arms around her and kissed her gently on the lips.
They were quite alone in the warm and balmy afternoon among the scents of the flowers and plants. In the distance they could hear Jane and Stacy. Hidden from them by the trees, Mrs Hatton and Mrs Chalmers sat half-dozing in the sun. Ned had cried off from such a ladylike expedition, preferring to be roistering somewhere else with Robert Harshaw.
Eleanor, not to be outdone, kissed him back. ‘I may not be allowed to become a doctor,’ she murmured, ‘but I can do this—so long as no one is about.’
‘Much more fun for me,’ agreed Alan. ‘It wouldn’t heal a broken arm, though!’ He kissed her again.
There was a rustic bench in a little bower. They sank on it together.
‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ murmured Alan, giving her a third kiss.
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ agreed Eleanor, blushing. She did not add, But I like it, for common sense was telling her not to allow him overmuch licence—who knew where such pleasant self-indulgence might end? It was not so much that she distrusted Alan, but rather that she distrusted herself. Her mind was telling her one thing and her body was telling her another.
For the first time she was beginning to understand how girls could allow themselves to be betrayed—to put it politely. It was not, she was slowly grasping, entirely the man’s fault. Every time Alan started to make gentle love to her she found herself responding with greater enthusiasm—and consequently each time their lovemaking grew a little less gentle.
Perhaps, after all, there was some sense in the etiquette which forbade unmarried men and women to be alone together!
Alan must have thought so, too, for he suddenly drew away from her. He was rapidly becoming roused. The warmth of the day, the beauty of their surroundings, the beauty who had been briefly in his arms, were eroding the self-control on which he prided himself.
‘We must be good,’ he said.
The Eleanor she had once been might have said or done something to weaken his resolve, but the new woman who had learned responsibility moved sadly away from him so that they were no longer touching—since it was touching him which was doing the damage.
If he truly loved her, he would offer marriage, she thought, but so far, although Alan had shown her how much he felt for her, he had never said anything which could be construed as an offer. On the other hand she was now sure that she was the real reason why he had come to Yorkshire. Oh, how difficult life and love were for a poor girl, since in them the final initiative was always left to the man.
Alan had some inkling of what Eleanor was thinking but he also knew that it was imperative that he speak to Sir Hart before he offered for Eleanor—and that Sir Hart knew that too. If his delay was hard on Eleanor, it was also hard on himself: the strange likeness stood in their way and needed to be explained.
After their brief interlude together they continued to enjoy themselves, but for both of them the bright day had darkened a little. They privately comforted themselves with the thought that the unknown future might prove their friend.
Alas, the immediate future brought more delay. They arrived back at Temple Hatton to find a messenger from Bradford waiting for Alan.
‘Maister Wilkinson bids me tell you that you mun come at once to Bradford or he cannot answer for the consequences. The hands are threatening to strike if their wages are not raised.’
‘I will do as he asks,’ Alan told the man, who was staring warily around at the magnificence which was Temple Hatton, ‘but when I leave for London what will Wilkinson do then? Wait for me? He must learn to manage the mill himself. Go to the stables, find my man, Gurney, and tell him that I need my horse and my kit packed for a short stay in Bradford.’
Before he left Temple Hatton he walked with Eleanor in the long gallery upstairs.
‘I’m sorry to have to leave you again so soon,’ he said. They were standing before the great painting of Venus. ‘It’s my own fault, of course. I would get involved in the affairs of the district. You will forgive me, I hope—and Ned, too. Present my apologies to him when he comes down for lunch.’
‘I think that he’s reconciled to the fact that you have other duties which claim you,’ said Eleanor gently.
Alan made a wry face. ‘Nevertheless, I think that when he invited me here he thought that my visit was going to be one long bout of fun.’
‘Then he didn’t know you very well,’ she said, her voice brisk.
‘But you don’t resent that?’
‘Not at all. I only wish that Ned were more like you. You will be careful, though. Robert Harshaw was saying last night that the mood among the workmen in the Riding is ugly and that violence has been threatened.’
‘I promise to be careful,’ he said, knowing that he was not quite telling the truth.
They kissed goodbye beneath the great portrait of Sir Beauchamp and he left, but not before Sir Hart had sent for him.
The old man, looking white and ill, said, ‘I had hoped to speak to you before now on most urgent matters, but I have been unwell and you must do your duty. I shall send for you when you return, that I promise.’
On the way out he ignored Beverley, who bellowed questions at him. ‘Where are you off to now, hey? I hope that you do not come back!’
Charles said sadly, ‘I wish that I could come with you, Alan.’ He feared that Beverley, released again, would torment him cruelly once Alan, his protector, had gone.
‘Not today, Charles. It would not be suitable, I fear. I shall try not to be gone too long.’
The fuss made on the sweep outside when he set out amused him. Sir Hart watched him go from the big window in his bedroom, and could not help thinking that the arrival of this one young man had caused more excitement at Temple Hatton than it had known for many a long year.
Eleanor also watched Alan leave with a heavy heart. If she were to marry him their life would consist of many such partings while he followed his star, and she would have to learn to accept it. She shivered, remembering Sir Hart’s warning—that Alan’s duty might prevent him from marrying her. For she knew that with him duty would always come first.
Ned came towards her and echoed her thoughts. ‘So, he has gone. His duty again, I suppose. But it is really his pleasure, you know.’
This was perceptive for Ned.
‘I thought that you liked him,’ Eleanor said gently, disturbed by his tone.
‘Oh, I did, I did, but he is not the man I thought he was. He will be a good companion, I thought, and that is true—but he frightens me.’
‘He saved you from ruin, Ned. I would have thought that he had earned your gratitude for that, even if he has lost your friendship.’
‘He has not lost my friendship,’ said Ned restlessly. ‘I hardly know how I feel about him. Respect, perhaps, a little. I used to think his having my face was a joke, but now I don’t. It has begun to trouble me. Partly because he is so much Sir Hart’s favourite.’
Eleanor began to protest, but he said wearily, ‘You must know that is true. I suppose it may be because Alan is like the grandson he always wanted. Someone who is serious—and worried about his duty.’
He almost spat the last words out.
Eleanor looked at him. Ned might know what he ought to be doing, but he would not do it. He was too stiff-necked to try to please others.
‘Do you intend to marry him, Eleanor?’
‘If he asks me. I know that I love him—but he has said nothing yet. Sir Hart warned me that he might not. Why?’
‘I don’t know. I almost wish that you would marry him, and then…no. He’s like my dam’d conscience, Eleanor—and he’s so hard. Do I want him around? To remind me of what I am not?’
He flung himself down on the sofa, stretching his booted legs before him. ‘I want to enjoy myself with jolly good fellows like Robert Harshaw, and Alan will always want more than that from me. And you, Eleanor, do you really want to be Golden Boy’s tireless wife?’
‘Golden Boy?’ repeated Eleanor, bewildered.
Ned laughed. ‘That’s what Gurney calls him from what he’s done in London, let alone here. The other servants have taken it up. Fits him, don’t it? What a joke, eh? Sir Beauchamp back on earth as a businessman.’
His change of mood was rapid. ‘Oh, Eleanor, if you want him, have him. He’ll lead you a merry dance—though not with other women. But you’re energetic, too, I suppose, and can join him in his duty.’
Well, that was the coda to his tune, thought Eleanor, as Ned rose and walked away, whistling a melancholy song. If Alan asks me, I shall certainly say yes, but, oh, he hasn’t, and now I am fearful that he never will.
On the way to Bradford Alan thought about his last conversation with Sir Hart and Eleanor. They had both understood that he had to do his duty.
He shook his head ruefully. Duty! The word seemed to follow him about. He rode into Bradford to find the trouble there was worse than the recent small outbreak at Thorpe’s in Brinkley. Outhwaite’s was bigger and the men were angrier. They ran a little Chartist newspaper which urged them to action. It was edited by one of the union leaders named Brough.
Alan was an outsider and was resented for that. It was thought that he had cheated Outhwaite out of the mill, and although Outhwaite had been hard, it was said that the new owner was harder. He had stood up to Ralf, even though he had been beaten, and had been ruthless with the hands at Brinkley when they had tried to strike.
But they were hard, too, and more was at stake at Outhwaite’s, for the men had a bargaining counter which the Brinkley hands had not possessed. Outhwaite’s, whilst not remarkably so, was reasonably prosperous and was returning a small profit. That profit, though, would disappear if wages were raised, and Alan himself had more capital at stake here, unlike at Thorpe’s, which he had gained for a song.
Men carrying home-made banners and shouting slogans stood in the mean street outside the mill. When they saw him they called after him, ‘No foreign maisters wanted here!’
Those from outside the district were surprised by his size and strength and the hard indifference with which he pushed through them.
Wilkinson was waiting for him in his office on the first floor. It was a small dark room with unclean windows; one overlooked the shop floor, the other on to the men assembled in the yard outside. With him was a stocky, muscular man with a strong pushed-in face and coarse black hair, typical of the district, resembling many Alan had seen about the moors, less elegant versions of Stacy.
‘Bob Sutcliffe,’ said Wilkinson briefly. ‘He threatens me with a strike and mischief if we do not raise our wages.’
‘Does he so?’ said Alan. ‘Has he a voice? Can he speak for himself?’
‘Aye, I can that, Maister Dilhorne. I use it to tell you that if you do not heed us I shall call all out. Men, women and children, too. We have had enough of starvation wages here before you came, and you are no better than those you tricked out of the mill.’
‘I pay you a fair wage according to the practice of this part of the world.’
‘But the practice is wrong.’
‘So you say, sir.’
‘I do say so. There were Luddites in this part of the world once. Armed.’
‘Do you threaten me, then?’
‘But you have threatened us. We cannot live decently on what you pay us. You merely lose a little of your profits if you give way to us.’
Alan changed tack a little. Useless to argue economics with a determined man. Instead he came out with, ‘Our profits—when we have any, and we have little enough now—pay your wages. Do you think it wise that we should be at stand-off? Should not master and men work together as partners?’
‘Strange partners where one has all and the other nothing.’
Alan sighed. ‘That may be true, but I warn you, the mill is barely in profit. To raise your wages would destroy even that. Tell me, what shall I do? For it is your choice. Will you carry out your threat to withdraw your labour? If you do I shall turn all the hands away. The mill will be stripped, and the building sold as soon as can be arranged. Withdraw your demands and work will continue as before.’
Sutcliffe glared at him. ‘I’ve met hard men before, but I never thought to meet one as hard as you.’
‘This is idle talk. I do not wish to close, sir. It is you who brings on all. Choose what I shall do—and quickly. I am a busy man.’
‘Aye, busy at the big house. We all know that. They do not know what busy is. Soft, the lot of them.’
They stared at one another, neither giving way.
Sutcliffe said at last, ‘It is a pity Brough cannot be here today. He would have made you sing a different tune.’
‘No doubt—but he is not, and the choice is yours. Choose, and quickly. Strike and closure—or resume work at the same pay.’
‘I choose—not to choose, Maister.’
‘Good, you have chosen after all, Wilkinson, assemble the hands in the yard and tell them that they are turned away. Lock the doors behind you. Have the overseers fetch hammers and begin to smash the machinery. It is out of date and none would wish to buy it. Tell the clerk to pay the hands for work done before today. Inform the local auctioneers that the buildings are to go up for sale before Saturday. Any price is better than none. If no auctioneers are available before then I shall conduct the sale myself.’
He swung on Sutcliffe, whose face was grey, before finishing, ‘I always cut my losses, sir.’
‘You would not dare.’
‘Indeed, I would. Remember the choice was yours—not mine.’
Wilkinson said harshly, ‘I know him, Bob. I know how he got the mill and the shops. You do not know how hard he is.’
‘Wilkinson, do as I bid you,’ Alan ordered.
‘No,’ howled Sutcliffe. ‘I change my choice. The men will return.’
‘You are wise to choose so.’
‘Oh, the power is yours, now,’ said Sutcliffe bitterly, ‘but we shall see who wins in the end.’
‘Why, no one wins in the end,’ said Alan, ‘for we all die in the end, masters and men alike. I shall stay until tomorrow, Wilkinson, to see my orders carried out.’
That following morning, though, he found the hands in the street again, and many from the town and the surrounding district with them. They hurled curses at him, but made no attempt to harm him, although one spat on his boots—to be reprimanded by one of his fellows, who told him severely, ‘You know what Brough said about violence, Jem.’
So Brough was back, and all was doubtless to do again. For Brough’s reputation as a bargainer was known to everyone in the Riding, both gentle and simple. Alan found him in Wilkinson’s office, with Sutcliffe and two other men at his back.
Brough was as he might have expected, dressed better than a mill hand, worse than a clerk. He had a hard shrewd face, and began to speak the moment Alan entered without waiting for an introduction.
‘Come, come, Mr Dilhorne. Let us talk sense. You know that you really cannot wish to close the mill down if the men continue to make their legitimate demands. That is the idle threat of a blackmailer designed to get what he wants.’
‘Interesting,’ murmured Alan, showing his teeth. ‘But if the men threaten to strike if I do not agree to their demands is not that also blackmail? It seems to me that we are at stand-off again if, through you, they renew their demands. They made another choice yesterday.’
Brough thought for a moment, but before he could speak again Alan continued with, ‘My decision to close down if the men refused to return to work was not a threat, it was a promise. To concede what they ask would result in ruin and closure in the short run. Nothing has changed since yesterday afternoon. Like Sutcliffe, you must choose.’
The look Brough gave him was one of hate, mixed with respect. Report had not lied. He was as hard as the devil, and did not waste words.
‘Is there nothing you can offer us? For I warn you, if you carry out this threat we shall call out all the hands in the Bradford mills—and then you would have to contend with the anger of every mill-owner in the town. Think on, young man.’
Alan sat down before Wilkinson’s disorderly desk and picked up the papers on it. ‘These tell me that there is little I can offer you. Make no mistakes, if I cut my losses here and close down I shall not lose much. Indeed, in the long run I will gain by losing a millstone.’
Brough leaned forward and said hoarsely, ‘There you sit in your over-fed pride, disposing of us all. Does the thought of starving men and their families mean nothing to you? For starve they will; these are hard times in the North.’
‘Hard times everywhere,’ said Alan. He picked up the papers again. ‘I will look at these and see whether I can make you any sort of offer, however small. I am not hopeful.’
He had no wish to see those for whom he was responsible suffer because he had not sufficiently considered every possible way by which he could agree to meet at least some of their demands—but he did not tell Brough that. Nor would he appear to give way easily. But he must not behave like Sir Beauchamp.
‘You may come back tomorrow, at noon, and what I decide will be final.’
Brough thought to argue with him, but changed his mind. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘at noon.’
‘So noted.’ Alan smiled. ‘And now you must all leave, and quickly. I dislike wasted time, and I have work to do before I decide whether to close or not to close—as I please. You cannot coerce me.’
‘Oh, I think,’ said Brough, smiling, ‘that somehow you will come to terms with us.’
Alan’s grin was like the teeth-baring of a predatory animal. ‘Don’t tell me what to do, Brough. This is my mill. I shall decide.’
Brough looked at him queerly. ‘By God, boy, you need a lesson, and Bradford might give you one. A touch of hardship is what a pampered young devil like you needs. You might feel a little for your fellows then.’
Alan’s answering laugh was a genuine one. ‘Hardship, is it, Brough? You do not know me, I think. Be off with you all—until noon tomorrow.’
His determination, which they could not shake, enraged them. He heard them cursing all the way down the rickety stairs, and he laughed to himself when he sent Gurney, Wilkinson and the clerk away, refusing all offers of help.
He stripped off his fine coat and worked in his rolled-up shirtsleeves without eating or drinking. He thought, calculated, went to the window, stared through its grime, and pondered on whether he was hard enough to destroy the livelihood of all at Outhwaite’s in order to save his pride.
Against this was the knowledge that to raise wages at Outhwaite’s much further would drive it into bankruptcy. What he and the hands had half agreed before the news from Brinkley had reached them might have been possible. To fulfil all their demands meant ruin.
By half-past ten that night Alan had covered sheets of paper with his calculations and had arrived at a conclusion which might just bring agreement. He was bone-weary, and ready for bed at the inn where he had left Gurney.
It was only a short way away, and he walked slowly towards it. They might listen to reason tomorrow if he showed them his calculations, and the basis on which he had made them.
Tiredness, and the feeling of safety which living at Temple Hatton had given him, was his undoing. He kept his mind only on the morrow, so that when they took him at the end of the road—they had been waiting for him for hours—he was not ready for them, and he was their captive without a struggle.