Loose Leaves from Milton #4
‘That hardly seems possible, Mr Thornton.’ Mrs Hale was rarely assertive, preferring to suggest without ever, as a well brought up lady, being suggestive, ‘The tea strainer was purchased in Mrs Miggins’ Tea Shop in Helstone. Her emporium only sells the very best of everything, being in Helstone.’
‘Is Helstone so perfect?’ J Tea gave a wry smile, thinking he was lightening the atmosphere.
‘Absolutely.’ Mrs Hale’s response was instant, and heartfelt. ‘Helstone is as Heaven upon the Earth and . . .’ her voice became suspended with emotion, and she dabbed at the corner of her eye with a lace-edged handkerchief, making the tears flow the more as the scratchy bit rubbed her eyeball.
‘My Mother is a lady of delicate sensibilities, Mr Thornton, and of refinement. She was presented at Court.’
J Tea, a long-standing magistrate upon the local bench, blinked.
‘I am sure that it resulted in acquitt . . .’ He stopped, aghast at his mistake.
In the confusion of sweet tea and the proximity of Miss Hale’s bosom, his brain was scrabbling to work normally, and had clutched at the word ‘court’ and gone straight to his own regular experiences of it.
‘Er, a quite indelible memory.’ Whew, he might just have got away with it.
The other three people in the room stared at him for a moment, a long moment.
He had not got away with it. ‘I fear I have trespassed upon your hospitality too long, Mrs Hale, and . . . is that the time? I really ought to be getting home.’ He stood up, almost thrusting his empty tea cup at Margaret, and the teaspoon clattered to the floor.
Both bent a little at the knees and attempted to pick it up, with the consequence that their faces were but inches apart.
Neither knew whether they ought to let the other pick up the small utensil, and then Margaret took a deep breath, and while J Tea was transfixed by the movement of her bosom, snatched it from the floor.
‘A gentleman, a gentleman from The South, never drops cutlery.’ The words were uttered to dismiss him, from her thoughts as much as the room.
J Tea, as furious with himself as with this wilful young woman who seduced him, yes, that was the word, with tea and bosomage, said nothing, but nodded to his host and hostess and left, clamping his hat so firmly upon his head as he left that it was a good half inch shorter than when he purchased it.
Leaf Four - Trouble Brewing
J Tea was unsettled, which he found most unsettling.
He was a man who was serious, thoughtful and knew his own mind.
At present he knew his own mind was performing feats of acrobatics when it came to the person of Miss Hale; the hoity-toity, look-down-her-beautifully-shaped-nose-at-him Miss Hale who despised The North and all things therein.
Their encounter over tea in the parlour at Scotland Yard cast him into alt and despair simultaneously, and copious cups of Assam did not ease him.
Should he avoid her, and cease his visits to Mr Hale?
He enjoyed the rigour of study, and the fellow was actually less of a mouse when it came to Ovid and fifth declension nouns.
Soft and southern he might be, but J Tea could appreciate the even temper of the man, and his patience. Patience was not J Tea’s strong point.
Just to add to his frown, which now furrowed his brow almost permanently, there were mutterings of a strike brewing, and with his recent investment in machinery to improve productivity and workers’ health, he could little afford to lose money with delayed or incomplete orders.
The irony was that the dispute centred upon tea, the best beverage available to man, the beverage that made Britain what it was.
Beer and gin inebriated, but tea invigorated.
He had actually applauded the inclusion of the clause in the new Factory Act Clause 3(t) subsection 42, which stipulated that mill workers were entitled to drink tea during their statutory lunchtime break, and that it should be made and served not within the weaving shed.
However, some Southern parliamentarian with do-good ideas had added an amendment, which had been passed, ensuring that each worker might have a biscuit.
The Union was now ranting and raving because the majority of mill masters were offering thin, cheap biscuits of no flavour, which immediately became soggy if dunked, and sank to the bottom of the cup (which the worker had to provide).
J Tea had his biscuits baked by Widow Murgatroyd, who made a very fine and firm biscuit with just a touch of cinnamon in it, but he knew that Slickson and Hamper were going to Hemmeroyds, who cut them as thin as possible, baked far too many per oven, and then stacked them in piles whilst warm, so that they were inherently soggier.
The Union, if it told the workers to walk out, would be taking issue with the mill-masters as a whole, and J Tea knew they would not give a fig roll that Marlborough Mills would suffer for a problem not of its own making.
His mother, revelling in his brooding demeanour, which she saw as a refusal to be soft and weak, was also concerned at the likely industrial inaction, both for its effect and also its timing.
She was in the process of writing out the invitations for the annual Marlborough Mills dinner, which was a highlight of the Milton social scene, though she said it herself.
She never noticed that nobody else said it, and since she declined all but two other dinners to which she and J Tea were invited each year, she had little with which to compare it.
‘Would you prefer me to withhold the invitations this year, J Tea?’ She sounded regretful.
‘No, Mother. It would show weakness before the other masters, and you never know, we might persuade a few to favour Widow Murgatroyd with their biscuit orders after all.’
‘Aye, and Dyspepsia Murgatroyd is an honest and hardworking woman with six mouths to feed on something other than ginger snaps. I admit I doubted you when you went and paid sixpence per dozen for biscuits, but we have no sogginess in Marlborough Mills, and soggy biscuit brings on idleness, as I have always said. I wonder at the Union not applauding inferior biscuits for that very reason.’
‘The Union simply wants to flex its muscle, Mother. We shall ride out the storm in a teacup, even if it means getting in workers from Ireland.’
‘Oh dear, and they want to dip slices of fried potato in their tea. Can you imagine anything as bad as thinly sliced potato fried to a - well, to a crisp? It must make a noise as one eats it, unless dipped in tea.’
‘My thought is that it ruins the tea, but we digress, Mother. Send your invitations, but please add Mr Hale and his wife and daughter. I do not think they leave the house very much, and he has a good mind.’
‘But a soft southern head, if he gave up his parish for some whim of libertarian doubt, which is what I gathered when I visited his wife. Besides, the woman is ailing. I have seen ailing, and although it goes against the grain with me to commend a southerner, the woman ails very well, very well indeed. I doubt she will attend.’
J Tea made a mental note to send a basket of fruit to Scotland Yard. He had no idea why, but baskets of fruit were meant to be beneficial to invalids.
Mrs Thornton was right about Mrs Hale, The lady was swift in her excuse to her husband that it was her evening to darn socks, since she feared worrying him. She also recommended that Margaret not undertake any ironing on the day of the dinner, since it made her hair fall in damp squiggles.
‘Why would I want to attend the Thornton’s dinner when I could be darning socks with you, Mother?
’ Margaret was aware of a fluttering in her bosom, and it was not caused by a small bird trapped within her layers of undergarments.
Mr Thornton was a monster, obviously, and she disliked everything about him - other than that voice, those hands, the way he frowned so broodingly, and even the little pock mark above his left eye.
Not that she had noticed, oh no. Meeting him whilst wearing evening dress would be disastrous.
‘Now Margaret,’ Mr Hale remonstrated gently, ‘you know that your Mother has always darned my socks, and would never let another at even a single worn heel. Besides, it will do you good to get out of the house. I overheard you talking to the grate in my study only yesterday.’
Margaret could not tell him she was muttering unladylike imprecations at it, involving the word ‘blasted.’ Nor would she like to admit she called it Herbert, but that was another matter.
‘But Father . . .’
‘You will come with me and represent your dear Mother, there is an end to it.’ Mr Hale tried to sound commanding, and just about managed harassed.
The Hales took a hansom cab to the dinner, since it was pouring with rain and the cemetery hill was very dark on a dark, dark night. Margaret wore a silk gown cut low across the bosom as fashion dictated, and an expression her father likened to that of an early Christian martyr.
As they trod up the steps into Marlborough House, he whispered that she need have no fear, since there were no lions in Lancashire.
Admittedly, Mrs Thornton arrayed in charcoal silk taffeta and enough jet jewellery to have kept several Whitby makers employed for a month was nearly as scary as a lion.
Beside her was Mr Thornton, looking both severe but welcoming to his guests, and a young woman with fair ringlets and a gown Margaret mentally put down as an overblown northern attempt at last year’s London fashion.