Page 5

Holly put a hand to the side of her mouth. ‘That’s because Mrs Morrison has put Tilsden on a permanent war footing and taken to reusing tea leaves, if she can get away with it.’

Alex laughed. ‘Don’t tell my mother.’

‘We do our best to protect the family from the outside world,’ Holly admitted.

‘Amen to that,’ Alex muttered. ‘How’s your war going, Holly?’

Holly sighed. ‘My youngest brother hasn’t left for Europe yet, but my elder brothers are in northern France, in a trench together, which helps us all to stay positive.’ She shrugged. ‘Sometimes, even though other girls say I’m lucky to be in love, I think it’s probably easier not to have a sweetheart.’

‘One less person to worry about?’

Holly nodded. ‘But life decided otherwise and I’ve got my man and I do miss a kiss now and then, though.’ She giggled. ‘We all need kissing, don’t we?’

‘We do. And I think it’s lovely you have your shop to dream about.’

‘Is it, though?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I’m not in a position to act on my dream.’

Alex blinked, taking a second to fully appreciate the undertone of the challenge in Holly’s words. ‘But I am?’

‘You have plenty of freedom, Miss. So long as you’re not hurting anyone through it . . .’

Holly’s words of daring made Alex feel as though she’d stepped out of a dark room into bright sunlight. ‘Follow my heart anyway, you’re saying?’

‘I’m not saying that. It’s not my place to encourage you to rebel against your parents, Miss,’ she said, her expression clearly saying the opposite, as far as Alex was concerned.

She regarded the racecourse they stood opposite stretching out verdantly and imagined that in a few weeks it would become boggy when the mire flooded. She’d seen people take boats out on it and in winter she usually joined the merry throng and skated over it during late January. Alex could see a lone man galloping his horse in the distance on the far side of the course. She knew the figure to be Arnold Rowntree, nephew of the original Joseph Rowntree, philanthropist and founder of the famous confectionery label. He was familiar with her father as they were both involved with the ever-expanding railway but she wasn’t privy to how their work connected. Arnold was in his early forties, plump, with his hairline racing backwards at a frightening rate to leave a shiny dome and thickets of hair just above and behind his ears. Until recently, as a Liberal MP for York, he was affectionately known as Chocolate Jumbo. As director of the family firm and a good Quaker, Arnold was also a conscientious objector, which had brought him the sort of notoriety in wartime that was far from positive.

Alex’s gaze narrowed, thinking of her cousins and Holly’s brothers and sweetheart living in filthy trenches, potentially killed at any moment, breathing mustard gas without warning while this chubby, jovial, prematurely balding man of immense wealth and privilege got to breathe fresh English air and ride his horse along the Knavesmire seemingly without a care in the world. And yet she liked him; everything her father said about him and his family’s constant good deeds for the town was endearing, including his most recent assistance to open up part of the factory to become a hospital for injured soldiers to convalesce in. There were plans already underway to build a village to get their workers out of the slum areas and into clean, healthy, modern housing. The Tuke family, former proprietors of the business that the Rowntrees now owned, had even bought a vast tract of land on the rim of the city, surrounded by a patchwork of meadows and orchards, and built a series of buildings to offer care and accommodation in friendlier, less sombre surrounds for the people of York with troubled minds. They called it The Retreat. According to her mother, the Quakers were spurred into this determination to build a sanitarium of sorts after their collective personal horror that a Quaker woman died in the County Asylum for lack of proper care. Alex shivered slightly. She knew the County Asylum to be a daunting hulk of brick and stone, built in the 1700s, with rumours of terrible treatments for the insane. She had to admire Rowntree for his magnanimity in spite of others calling him cowardly.

‘Penny for your thoughts, Miss?’

‘Pardon? Oh, sorry. Arnold Rowntree over there. Apparently his stallion is called Business.’

‘That’s an odd name for a horse.’

Alex grinned. ‘Well, the story goes that he detested the notion of lying to people in equal measure to having to entertain the constant stream of visitors he was receiving in a day on petty matters.’

‘Go on, Miss.’

‘My father said it eased Chocolate Jumbo’s soul for his servants to be able to put their hands over their hearts and say to a visitor that the master was not in because he was out on Business.’

There was not even a full second’s pause before Holly tipped back her head to laugh with Alex.

‘Priceless, isn’t it?’ she added. ‘I’ve always liked that story and it has endeared him to me knowing it hurt his heart to lie.’

‘People say mean things about all the Quakers these days.’

‘They don’t deserve it because they’ve done so much that is good for York, and let’s not forget that Quaker sons have signed up for the Friends’ Ambulance Unit serving at the Front.’

Alex led Blackberry forward and Holly fell in step as they began to head up the hill. It was eerily quiet, given that the road to London was usually a steady movement of carriages, buses and even a few automobiles backfiring as they rolled sleekly down the main artery of the two cities. The ascent would take them to The Mount, a protectorate of the wealthy and powerful. This enclave resided on the edge of York’s dark, crowded medieval streets . . . beyond the slums and markets, the department stores and civic buildings all crushed together and encapsulated by the vast city walls . . . beyond all the dirt and drama of city life to a stretch of clean, cultivated beauty that opened onto the space and bright air of the Knavesmire to their backs. Alex didn’t need to be told repeatedly about privilege; she lived it, accepted it and tried not to trade on it.

Holly switched them back to their original subject. ‘So what are you going to do about your situation, Miss?’

‘I just want to do something,’ Alex groaned. ‘Find something that fires my imagination and challenges me, and not just accept that now that I’m in my twenties I have to forget I have a brain or ambition and be defined instead by whom I marry.’