Virginia Henley (5 page)

“Please, ma’am, can you tell me where the trunks will be?” asked Kitty.

“My God, Irish, how am I to know? Somewhere in the attics, I imagine. You’ll have to ask. You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t you?”

Kitty thought, Begod, just as arrogant as that brother of yours, but then her heart skipped a beat at the thought of him.

“When are you leaving for London, ma’am?” asked Kitty politely.

“None of your business, Irish. I’m not here to answer your impertinent questions!” Julia pointed out.

“That’s cause you don’t know!” flashed Kitty, and Barbara laughed.

Julia slapped Kitty’s face. She immediately retaliated and slapped Julia’s face in the exact same spot. The two girls stood red-faced and glared. “How dare you?” Julia said incredulously.

Kitty said, “If you hurt me, I’ll hurt you back.”

Barbara held her breath, terrified of the outburst that would ensue, but Julia, being the unpredictable young woman she was, laughed and said, “At last! Someone with
some spirit around here.” She shook a finger at Kitty, “But don’t try my patience too far, Irish.”

By the sounds emanating from the dining room the men were deeply involved in their business conversation and would likely be hours. Barbara shrugged and said, “I’ll go and help Kitty.”

“Wait—don’t leave. Let’s play a game of cards,” Julia suggested restlessly.

“Oh, Julia, you know I’m no good at cards; you always win,” protested Barbara.

“I could read the cards for you,” suggested Kitty.

“Do you mean tell our fortunes?” asked Julia, her interest piqued.

“Oh, Kitty, are you a Gypsy?” asked Barbara, wide-eyed.

“Yes and yes,” confessed Kitty.

“Are you any good at it?” asked Julia bluntly.

“I’m an expert,” Kitty said, queening it over them. “I can read palms, tea leaves, cards and the ancient tarot. I can even do it all in rhyme if you like.”

Julia handed her a deck of cards. “Let’s see.”

Kitty considered for a moment. Young girls usually were interested in young men and falling in love. “We’ll all three play this game. Each one of us shuffles the deck and picks out five cards. Then I’ll give you the rhyme that goes with each card.”

“Me first,” said Julia, taking the cards back from Kitty. She shuffled the cards quickly and with deliberation selected five cards, face down on the table. Kitty turned over the six of spades.

The next card was the five of diamonds.

The third card was the eight of clubs.

“Ha!” said Julia with a laugh. “They won’t even let me have a key.”

Kitty turned over the fourth card: the king of spades.

“Oh, however did you know Julia’s future husband is called Jeffrey?” asked Barbara, amazed. “It’s in the cards,” said Kitty.

“Well, I shall always get my way,” asserted Julia. “That’s the reason I chose him.”

The last card was the queen of diamonds.

“Oh, we will be going to London after all,” exclaimed Barbara.

“Barbara, it’s just a silly card game,” Julia said, but she was well pleased with Kitty’s prophecies.

“Shuffle the remaining cards and pick your five,” said Kitty.

Barbara hesitated. “You go first, Kitty.”

Kitty shrugged and picked up the cards. The first one was the seven of hearts.

“Heaven preserve us, I’ve just done that,” muttered Kitty.

“Don’t worry, you won’t see any blue butterflies in Bolton,” scoffed Julia.

“Now, that’s a lie,” said Kitty, “for you are wearing, at this very moment, an enameled brooch which happens to be a blue butterfly.”

Julia looked down at her shoulder. “So I am. You made it up!” she said flatly.

The next card was the three of diamonds.

She turned over the four of clubs.

“That’s Father’s name,” said Barbara with a giggle.

“His name is Jonathan,” said Julia sternly.

Kitty’s fourth card was the knave of hearts.

Her last card was the queen of hearts.

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” said Barbara. She took the cards, shuffled them rather ineptly and slowly picked out five cards. The nine of spades was the first.

The ace of hearts was next.

The next card turned over was the ten of clubs.

“You shouldn’t tell her that. She’ll go upstairs and do it,” said Julia with a laugh.

The king of diamonds came up next.

Barbara blushed prettily. The last card was the two of clubs.

“Oh,” gasped Barbara, going a deeper pink.

“What rubbish!” said Julia with a laugh. “You’d better get that packing done.” When the other two girls had disappeared upstairs, Julia slipped out in the direction of the stables.

*   *   *

“Enough about the mills; how is the wholesale grocery business these days?” asked Jonathan.

“Oh, it’s doing well, John, but it’s my son here that’s surprised me. You know he started that little soap works a year ago? Well, I can tell you he’s come up with a soap that’s better than anything you’ve ever seen.”

James Leaver’s son looked pleasantly embarrassed at his father’s praise but conceded, “It is good. That’s what I wanted to talk to Patrick about. You’ve got such good ideas on marketing products, I wanted your advice.”

“To be a success you need only one thing—a good-quality product. But to be a phenomenal success you also need a good advertising campaign. Now, you start with a name that grabs the attention. What do you call your soap?”

“Why, it’s Leaver’s Soap, of course,” interposed James Leaver.

“You need a more catchy name than that,” asserted Patrick.

Young Leaver said, “Well, I have been kicking a few names around, but I’m afraid of looking foolish.”

“It’s your soap! Have the courage of your convictions,” urged Patrick.

“Well, I think of it as ‘Sun Light’ soap.”

“That’s very good. A woman would like that. Your best bet at the moment is billboards. As many as you can get and the bigger the better. Keep it simple. In large letters that fill up the whole billboard you put SUN LIGHT SOAP and underneath in small letters put something like ‘Best Soap in the World’ modesty doesn’t count in business. Send salesmen to every major town and the orders will come in so fast you’ll have to expand production. As soon as business warrants it, open an office in London. I can help you there with contacts.”

“I don’t want this advice for nothing, Patrick. I’ll pay you a retainer.”

“I’d rather have a one percent interest in your soap venture.”

Jonathan winked at James. “He’s got a head for business, that lad, probably richer than I am with his one percent of this and that.”

“You can’t beat quality, Father. In Lancashire we manufacture some of the best goods in the world. I’m thinking of exporting to America.”

“Eh? What’s this?” his father demanded.

“Oh, I’ve been talking to a shipowner in Liverpool, Isaac Bolt. If I bought half interest in a ship, we could take over our textiles from the mills and perhaps some of your soap. We have so many things that are manufactured right here in Bolton, I’d be spoiled for choice. Dobson makes the finest steam engines, and Webster makes water pumps and windmills. There’s Springfield Paper Mills and Walmsley’s wrought iron. In Bolton we make everything—chemical dyes, furniture, glass, leather goods, carpets, even coffins,” offered Patrick. He continued, “I’m thinking of sailing myself. Then I could buy the best long staple cotton from the Carolinas.” He allowed his father to digest all this.

James Leaver looked across at Jonathan O’Reilly and shook his head. “We thought we had big ideas when we started out, but if these two aren’t careful, their names will go down in the history books,” he said and winked.

“How am I supposed to run three mills while you go running off to America?”

Patrick said with a laugh, “Ah, well, it won’t be tomorrow, Father.”

Kitty lay in her small iron bed on the third floor and went over every pretty article she had packed. She pretended the
clothes were hers. She was deep into a fantasy now. She swirled around the ballroom floor in the most exquisite creation, and all heads were turned in her direction. Ladies whispered about her behind their fans and she looked up into her partner’s adoring eyes, and her partner was none other than …

Suddenly a stone fell onto her face. The drowsy sensations of near sleep she had been enjoying vanished immediately. She sat up quickly.

“Psst, Irish.”

Kitty leaned out the little dormer window and saw Julia on the driveway below.

“I’m locked out, Irish. Come and open the front door without rousing the house.” Kitty was shocked at Julia’s behavior. “I have to be up at five o’clock. How dare you wake me up at this ungodly hour, you selfish girl!”

“Please, Irish?”

“Me name’s Kitty!”

“Please, Kitty?”

Kitty crept down the two flights of stairs and quietly opened the front door for her. The look she bestowed upon Julia was one of tight-lipped disapproval. Kitty had no idea what she had been up to, but instinctively knew it was wrong.

Julia looked at Kitty and said, “You look like you’ve been eating pickled Bibles.” They both giggled and then shushed each other. By the time they climbed the stairs and Julia reached her room in safety, they were firm allies.

On Monday morning, Jonathan O’Reilly was up at dawn and on his way to the mills, determined to take the reins back in his own hands. First at the Falcon, then at the Egyptian, and finally at the Gibraltar he had called in the men before work began on the new machines and made it clear that in return for this technical innovation, management would claim a substantial reduction in wage rates. The men were surly and instead of producing more work they produced considerably less. Trouble was brewing ominously, but it wouldn’t erupt until after working hours, when they could get together and decide on a plan of action.

Patrick, blissfully unaware of his father’s intentions, decided to let him have the running of the mills to himself and went off with a friend to a horse race.

Kitty emptied the bucket of dirty water after she had scrubbed the kitchen floor and Mrs. Thomson took pity on her. “It’s almost ten o’clock, child. Mr. Parker will be here to give Miss Barbara her lessons. They are from ten to twelve each morning in the library. You be the chaperone today. Take your duster in there and after you’re finished, just sit quietly until the lessons are over.”

Mr. Parker was a thin, ratty little man dressed in a shabby but genteel fashion. Kitty almost pitied him until she saw he enjoyed the way he could make Barbara cower. He insisted that she could not give him verbal answers, but that she must write everything down on the slate.

Kitty moved about slowly so as not to attract attention as she went about the room dusting. When she came to the
grandfather clock, she moved the hands ahead an hour, then moved over to the bookshelves and continued to dust.

“Now, Miss O’Reilly, seeing you are hopeless in mathematics, we will put it aside and do spelling, and let me tell you, young woman, every time you make a mistake you will write it out one hundred times. That should keep you busy all evening, for from what I’ve seen, your spelling is as atrocious as your mathematics.”

Kitty opened a dictionary and with her voice low and her back toward Barbara and Mr. Parker, she began spelling the first word for Barbara. Kitty said quickly, “Just put down what I tell you, he can’t hear me, you know, he’s as deaf as a doornail. That’s why he makes you write everything on the slate.”

They finished the list of words and she handed him her slate to be checked for mistakes.

Kitty kept her face to the wall. “You mustn’t be afraid of him, Barbara. He probably threatens to tell your father about you, eh?”

“Now take a fresh slate and make proper sentences using the following words.” Mr. Parker was clearly annoyed that Barbara had made no errors for which she could be punished.