The Bobbin Girls Read Free Page B

in a solid plait over one slender shoulder.
    Never robust, years spent in trying to produce a healthy child, her naturally nervous disposition and a growing disillusionment with life in general and himself in particular, had all taken their toll. Olivia Hollinthwaite was no longer the woman she once was, now spending more hours than was healthy in contemplation of her lot. In James’s opinion this was a pity, but surely it was entirely her own fault if it resulted in depression. After two miscarriages and one stillborn boy, she’d finally performed what she considered to be her duty. But following that long and painful birth on a stormy night fourteen years ago, his wife had done everything she could to avoid this aspect of married life, even to insisting upon separate bedrooms. If only she didn’t appear so distant, so entirely unreachable, they might have been happy enough. Even now she was reading a book, as if she really didn’t care whether he were home or not.
    ‘You were not at dinner,’ she remarked, in tones that to James’s sensitive ear sounded cool and indifferent. ‘The Cowpers and the Tysons were rather put out.’
    He’d forgotten about the dinner party. As a good Christian woman she would never have held such an event on Hallowe’en were it not her son’s birthday. It had always seemed an odd quirk of fate that the most momentous events of his life had taken place on this night.
    ‘My apologies.’ He was perfectly genuine. He shouldn’t have forgotten. It didn’t pay to offend people, even pompous fools like George Tyson. Who knew when they might prove useful?
    Olivia lifted her gaze from the book and rested it upon the ceiling. Like a martyr, he thought. ‘I made excuses for you. Some pressing problem you’d been called to deal with at the mill.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Annoyed at finding himself in the wrong, he could barely keep the irritation from his voice. ‘Ask them again next week.’
    ‘Oh, that would be too soon. I couldn’t.’
    ‘Yes, you could.’ He had flustered her, which was rare, and he revelled in the sense of power it gave him.
    When he had married her twenty-two years ago, Olivia Leck had been the handsomest, most elegant woman imaginable, for all she was three years older than he. Coming from a respected Lancashire family, she’d naturally brought money to the marriage, and a very useful parcel of woodland not too far from his own valley. But most of all, she had possessed that precious commodity - style. He’d admired that in her more than any other quality. Her dress, her grace, her manner, - all had indicated the impeccable training she had received at the hands of her own formidable mama.
    She could decorate and lay a table in white and gold, and make it look as if it had just dropped from heaven. But that had been in another age, Edwardian and leisurely, before the war, and infinitely more elegant than this one. In those early days, she had made it seem as if her one desire was to please and pamper those fortunate enough to be invited to sit around her table, lifting her new husband and his humble farmhouse to the echelons of the middle classes, where by rights James considered he should be. Even now she could somehow manage to get all the right people to her dinner parties. Surely a great asset in any wife.
    ‘They are busy people and may not wish to risk the humiliation again.’
    ‘Ask them.’ For a moment he saw the familiar rebellion flicker across her beautiful face. He hated unpleasantness and rebellion of any sort, so said it again, in more forceful, commanding tones. ‘Do as I say, Olivia.’
    She sighed with a tremulous sadness, as if he had wounded her. ‘As you wish.’
    His exhilaration at winning this small victory quickly faded, leaving him feeling flat and faintly foolish. It was ever so. He resolved not to remain in her company a moment longer than necessary. But James liked to be seen to follow the conventions, even when in reality he flouted