The Bobbin Girls

'an informative and lively read'
West Briton

Alena Townsen, a fiery tomboy from a large, happy family, wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with her childhood friend, Rob, the only son of James Hollinthwaite, a wealthy landowner. Hollinthwaite, however, has other ideas and when he forces the two to part, they run away together and join a wandering group of coppicers.  They are discovered and Rob is sent away to school while Alena must start work in the local bobbin mill. Life is hard and her love for Rob severely tested - particularly with the arrival of the coppicer’s son who becomes the mill’s new foreman. Torn between the two men, her indecision is heightened by the knowledge of a tragic secret.

Shy and unassuming, Sandra Myers finds herself an unlikely campaigner against Hollinthwaite’s destructive plans for the village when he ruthlessly sacks the man she loves. Dolly Sutton has problems of a more intimate nature as she is pregnant with Tom Townsen's child. 

1930

Chapter One

His first sight of them brought the blood rushing to his head.  He could actually hear it pounding in his ears.  The golden light of evening bathed their milk-white bodies in an almost ethereal glow.  They had lit several candles on the shingle beside the tarn, since it was both Hallowe'en and the boy's birthday.  The flickering flames were reflected a hundred times in the ripples of the water as they splashed and dived beneath the sheltering willow and alder trees.  Their laughter drifted across to him on a wayward breeze, bounced back by the surrounding Lakeland mountains, and fear rose in his throat like bile.  
            A rope hung from a tree down into the water and the girl's head came up beside it, shaking the sparkling water from the copper locks of her long hair.  Then she dipped once more beneath the ripples, twisting her slender body up and over, again and again, like a young otter at play, or some kind of golden water sprite.
            When she climbed out of the tarn to run along the tree branch, as graceful and slender as a gazelle, he saw how the young breasts were already budding with promise, the swell of her hips and a small triangle of curled hair indicating the first signs of womanhood.  She showed not the slightest sense of embarrassment at being naked before the boy, proving that this was not the first time they had swum together thus.
            James Hollinthwaite lifted his hand from the rock he had been holding, and found it starred with blood.
            What a blind fool he'd been!  Why hadn't he anticipated this?  Done something about it.
            Because, like a moth attracted to lamplight, he could not resist keeping her in his sight.
            
           But then to be fair to himself, he thought of them still as children. Yet they were fourteen, with childhood almost gone.
            He stepped back into the shadows, anxious not to be seen, knowing that they should not have come to the tarn without supervision, that some ill could befall them if he didn't send them off home at once. But he did nothing.
            He had never thought himself a coward. In all his forty five years he had faced many trials and tribulations, lived through a general strike and a World War, and met and dealt with them all in the certain knowledge that he was a man in control of his own destiny. He owned a profitable farm, and bobbin mill, and a large parcel of woodland which supplied all the timber it needed. He must be one of the biggest employers of labour in the valley, if not the whole Furness Peninsular, thereby gaining himself a position of respect in the community.
            He would survive this recent depression better than most. New York might crash and shares fall, but since he'd had the sense to put his money in land, which they'd never been making any more off, he do all right. Land would always go up in value, if one bided one’s time, and he had every intention of coming out of this financial crisis with his fortune not only intact, but increased.
            He possessed a wife, beautiful and talented, if not so compliant as he would like her to be. And, most important of all, he'd got himself a son.
            But now, for the first time in his life, he felt matters were out of his control, a state of affairs he abhorred.
            Turning his gaze back to the two papers, ignorant still of his presence, he was forced to admit their air of innocence. But how long did such innocence last? His thoughts grew darker, soured and curdled like a bad milk in his mouth.
            ‘Catch me, Rob,’ she squealed, as once again she jumped into the water. Dragging his gaze back to the boy who ran close behind, reaching for her just a second too late, James saw for the first time, that his son to near manhood, and the expression in the boy’s bright eyes as he leapt after her told all.
              Blind anger erupted, raging through him like a summer storm. The pain of it spread through his chest and ran down his arms. For a moment he thought he might actually pass out. The urge to pull the heedless, ignorant boy from the water, cart him off home and thrash the life out of him, was almost overpowering. James clenched his two great fists, managing by dint of enormous will-power not to hammer them into the trunk of a nearby alder.  He wanted to slap the wanton girl for this flagrant breach of convention, her lack of propriety and shamelessness.  Instead he stood transfixed by her beauty, making not a sound as she skipped and ducked and ran between the flickering candles, leaping in and out of the water in a hectic game of tag.  He became bewitched by the mounting excitement that flowed between these two young creatures who stood on the brink of adulthood.  Sweetly innocent they may be as yet, but for how long? Dear God, how long before this magical, breathless aura of gilded youth changed to something much less wholesome, far more potent, and a thousand times more dangerous?
            Why did he hate her so? Because she was rebellious and undisciplined, or simply a burr beneath his skin that would not leave him alone? Already there had been times when she had looked at him with something like insolence in those damned fine eyes of hers. And she had a brain far too agile and knowing for a child’s.
            Even as he fought the urge to bellow his fury, the girl raised her arms above her head and, lifting her hair from her neck in a languid gesture, let it tumble down loosely over her bare shoulders.  It glowed like molten fire in the dying sunlight as she walked on sure feet along the tree branch. James heard her gurgle of laughter, saw that the simple action held the boy’s gaze spellbound; saw her raise herself high on her toes and dive cleanly into the pool, a perfect arc formed by a perfect lithe body. When she surfaced she was laughing, her lovely young face bright with joy - and something else. Knowledge.  Power. The age-old wisdom of all beautiful women.
            An urge to turn and run hit him for the first time in his life. His entire body began to tremble at what must inevitably happen next.
            But he was wrong. The pair stood inches apart in the water, not moving, not touching, simply gazing at each other as if they had made a tremendous discovery. It seemed worse, somehow, than any fumbling adolescent caresses.
            It was then that he made his decision.    

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