The Reckoning by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page B

murmured.
    ‘ rush. Of course it will be windy. That's precisely the point – only think how fresh and delicious!' Rosamund turned firmly in the direction of the headland, and the gentlemen, only too happy to fall in with the scheme, offered their arms, Farraline to Rosamund and Hawker to Sophie.
    ‘ That was well done,' Farraline murmured as they walked ahead – the flagway being only wide enough for two.
    ‘ I'm an old campaigner,' Rosamund said. 'I'm used to getting my own way.'
    ‘ It's an excellent idea, though I'm afraid Miss Morland may be right about its being too windy for ladies up on the headland. I fear for your bonnets. But oh, for the freshness and the invigorating air! And the view – nothing in the way as far as the eye can see! Don't you ever feel hemmed in, Lady Rosamund? Don't you ever feel the houses crowding in on you, ready to suffocate you?'
    ‘ Yes, sometimes; but then I usually send for my horse and go out for a gallop.'
    ‘ Yes, that would do it. At home I sometimes follow the same plan –'
    ‘I'm afraid I have no idea where home is for you.’
    The family seat is at Grasscroft, on the edge of the Pennines. We have moors all around us there. But I'm building a new house on Cheetham Hill, just outside Manchester, for the convenience of being nearer the mills.’
    Rosamund looked at him in surprise. 'Nearer the mills?’
    He smiled. 'Yes. Does it shock you? It shocks everyone else, including Mama!'
    ‘ I'm not shocked, but intrigued. It sounds like a story, and I love a story.'
    ‘ Then I shall make it one for you. You see, just before Papa died, he bought the Ordsall mills from old Samuel Ordsall. Over the years he'd gradually grown more and more inter ested in machinery – well, you can hardly live in that part of Lancashire without being aware of its influence.'
    ‘I suppose not.'
    ‘ You're not convinced, I can see, but it's true! Well, Papa was very excited by everything to do with machinery and steam-power – it takes some people that way – and he came to feel strongly that the future way lay through manufac turing. So he looked for some mills to invest in, and he came upon Samuel Ordsall. Have you heard of him?'
    ‘No, I'm afraid not,' Rosamund said politely.
    ‘ Oh, he was a grand old fellow! I met him once – one of the first of all the mill-masters, a character straight out of history! He started off as an apprentice blacksmith in a tiny village in Derbyshire. By the time he was twenty he owned the forge, and by the time he was thirty he had his own mill employing a hundred spinners. When Papa met him, he was old, but he was still looking to the future. He wanted someone to invest money so that he could expand his business – this was during the war, of course, when the demand for cotton goods was outstripping the supply.'
    ‘Of course.'
    ‘ He offered Papa a partnership, but somehow Papa persu aded him to sell entirely. Well, Old Samuel had no heir, so perhaps it wasn't so hard. However it was, Papa became the first Earl of Batchworth to be a mill-master!'
    ‘Tremendous.'
    ‘ Mama and Kit – my brother – thought he was mad, and I must say I did too, at first. But he took me round the mills one day – against my will at the time – and I began to see what it was that fascinated him about the machines. There's something about them when they're running –'
    ‘ And when your father died, he left the mills to you?' Rosa mund hurried him along.
    ‘ Good God, no!' Farraline laughed. 'Papa would never break up the estate. Everything went to Kit, along with the title. Kit would have sold the mills if he could, but there was a clause in Papa's will preventing it – apparently he'd promised Old Samuel he'd keep them in the family, as a condition of the original purchase. So Kit did the only thing he could – he just ignored them, and left them to an agent to run.'
    ‘Very wise.'
    ‘ I was in the army, of course, and I suppose I intended to make it my career, until