Bellman & Black Read Free Page A

Alongside and behind these singers was a mass of mill workers whose hearing was not what it had been. These created a flat background drone, rather as if one of the organ pedals had got stuck.
    Thankfully there was the choir and thankfully the choir contained William Bellman. His tenor, effortless and clear, gave a compass bearing, according to which the individual voices found north and knew where they were going. It rallied, disciplined, and provided a target to aim at. Its vibrations even managed to stimulate the eardrums of the hard of hearing, for the dull drone of the deaf was lifted by it into something almost musical. Although at “sorrow, fear, and sin” the congregation was bleating haphazardly, by “Hasten the joyful day” it had agreed on a speed; it found its tune “when old things shall be done away,” and by the time it reached “eternal bliss” in the last verse it was, thanks to William, as agreeable to the ear as any congregation can expect to be.
    The last notes of the hymn died away, and soon after, the church door opened and the worshippers emerged into the churchyard, where they lingered to talk and enjoy the autumnal sunshine. Among them were a pair of women, one older and one younger, both abundantly decorated with corsages, brooches, ribbons, and trims. They were aunt and niece, or so they said, though some whispered otherwise.
    “Doesn’t he have a fine voice? It makes you wish every day was Sunday,” the young Miss Young said wistfully to her aunt, and Mrs.Baxter, overhearing, replied, “If you wish to hear William Bellman sing every night of the week, you need only listen at the window of the Red Lion. Though”—and her undertone was audible to William’s mother standing a little way off—“what is pleasant to the ear might be less so to the soul.”
    Dora heard this with an expression of benign neutrality, and she turned the same face to the man now approaching her, her brother-in-law.
    “Tell me, Dora. What is William doing these days, when he is not displeasing souls who loiter at the window of the Red Lion?”
    “He is working with John Davies.”
    “Does he like farmwork?”
    “You know William. He is always happy.”
    “How long does he intend to stay with Davies?”
    “So long as there is work. He is willing to turn his hand to anything.”
    “You would not prefer something more steady for him? With prospects?”
    “What would you suggest?”
    There was a whole story in the look she gave him then, an old story and a long one, and the look he returned to her said, All that is true, but.
    “My father is an old man now, and I have charge of the mill.” She protested, but he overrode her. “I will not speak of others if it angers you, but have I done you any injury, Dora? Have I hurt you or William in any way? With me, at the mill, William can have prospects, security, a future. Is it right to keep him from these?”
    He waited.
    “You have not wronged me in any way, Paul,” she said eventually. “I suppose that if you don’t get the answer you want from me, you will go to William directly?”
    “I would much sooner we could all agree on it.”
    The choristers had disrobed and were leaving the church, William among them. Many eyes were on William, for he was as agreeable tolook at as he was to the ear. He had the same dark hair as his uncle, an intelligent brow, eyes capable of seeing numerous things at once, and he inhabited his vigorous body with grace and ease. More than one young woman in the churchyard that day wondered what it would be like to be in the arms of William Bellman—and more than one young woman already knew.
    He spotted his mother, widened his smile, and raised an arm to hail her.
    “I will put it to him,” she told Paul. “It will be for him to decide.”
    They parted, Dora toward William, and Paul to go home alone.
    In the matter of marriage, Paul had tried to avoid his father’s mistake and his brother’s. Not for him a foolish wife