The Sleeping Sword Read Free Page B

urge all the Barforths felt to pursue success had enabled her to place it among the most luxurious and hospitable houses of the North. The Barforth in her had caused her to break down, trample underfoot, or simply to ignore all obstacles in her path, but that same Barforth driving force, even as it had swept her on from triumph to social triumph, had, by some strange act of metamorphosis, converted her entirely into a Chard. And in her heart of hearts she did not believe that Blanche Barforth, who was beautiful and rich and her own brother’s daughter, could really be good enough for her eldest son.
    But Dominic had always been stubborn. Blanche had made up both his mind and her own, and here they were, an exquisite bride, a handsome groom, with myself and Venetia standing behind them in our bridesmaids finery of apricot silk, thinking, I suppose, that next time—quite soon—eventually—we would be brides and wives and mothers ourselves.
    Venetia was the daughter of the second Barforth brother, Mr. Nicholas Barforth, a gentleman whose restless ambition and overwhelming shrewdness had not allowed him to be content with the fortune his father had left him and which he and his brother had divided between them. Blanche’s father, Uncle Blaize, had taken good care of his money, making absolutely certain that it amply sufficed for the very pleasant life he enjoyed with Aunt Faith. But Venetia’s father had set himself, with a singleness of purpose rare even in the Law Valley, to increase his inheritance, had extended and diversified it to become the owner not only of the original Barforth mills of Lawcroft Fold and Low Cross where worsteds of the very finest quality continued to be woven, but of such gigantic undertakings as the Law Valley Woolcombers, the Law Valley Dyers and Finishers, and, more recently, a brand new structure of Italianate design built on the site of an old mill at Nethercoats where the weaving of silk and velvet was making Mr. Nicholas Barforth’s fortune for the second, the third, or even for the fourth time.
    Yet his acute judgment in the field of commerce had not extended to his private life and even his well-wishers—relatively few, it seemed, in number—were forced to admit that none of his personal relationships had prospered. He had quarrelled violently and unforgiveably with his brother and no hostess in Cullingford would have dared invite both Blaize and Nicholas Barforth to her table at the same time. He had quarrelled with all his mill-managers in turn, making no secret that although he paid high wages a man needed nerves of steel and the stamina of an ox to earn them. He was known to live in a state of bitter discord with his son, to have little time for Venetia, his daughter, while his relationship with his wife had been a source of gossip and speculation in Cullingford for many a long day.
    Unlike his brother who had chosen Aunt Faith from the manufacturing middle-classes, Mr. Nicholas Barforth, following his sister Caroline’s lead perhaps, had married into the landed gentry. But while Caroline Barforth’s marriage had brought her Listonby Park and the title that went with it, Nicholas Barforth had received nothing but a fine-boned, high-bred, quite penniless lady and—it was rumoured—a great deal of trouble. For once, long ago in Venetia’s early childhood, her mother had run away from her father and had been brought back again—or so we believed—a mystery Cullingford had never solved to its satisfaction, the gentleman in the story being unapproachable, the lady well-nigh invisible.
    â€˜How is your dear mamma?’ Cullingford’s matrons, unwilling to be cheated of so promising a scandal, were fond of asking Venetia.
    â€˜Very well indeed,’ was her only reply. But the fact that her mother lived almost exclusively at her house in the country, the ancient estate of Galton Abbey with its few hundred scrubby acres and