And why was it was that Mr. Catts and his mill-mates should insist upon this particular bench and none other? The answer was a simple one: the spot where the bench was placed commanded the best view of Mrs. Colthurst’s Fine Dress Shop, situated directly across the lane. Here the five young men partook daily of their forenoon refection (for unlike Mrs. Colthurst and her employees, who were not expected to begin work until eight o’clock, early-shift millworkers commenced their labours at half past six). Was there something architecturally interesting about the dress shop that drew the young men so close? Of course not. It was a rather drab and dingy building, only slightly redeemed by the charming colourful frocks hanging in its large street-side window. No, as the reader has, no doubt, already guessed, it was the young lasses who went thither to toil each day, and who, by fortunate coincidence, came out from it to take their bit of late-morning sun in fortuitous concurrence with the latter half of the young men’s luncheon.
However, today was different. The weeks of male gawking begetting female blushing and bashful giggling had drawn to a close. A new epoch was dawning, ushered in by none other than Mr. Tom Catts himself, whose idea it was to move matters into a brand new sphere of engagement betwixt the sexes.
Tom, though informal leader of his group, was not its oldest member. This distinction belonged to Tom’s lifelong friend Cain Pardlow, who, at three-and-twenty years of age, had watched his four companions wax from early childhood—their collective friendship cemented in the shabby and soot-begrimed side avenues of the Manchester neighbourhood of Hulme. It was from this city that the five had fled only two years earlier to seek employment in a different town—one that afforded fresh air and salubrious sunlight, at least during those hours spent away from the bronchiotoxic and Cimmerian cotton mill.
Cain was quite blind without his spectacles. He had dark brown hair and skin of perhaps a lighter tone than that of his companions, for as boilerman’s apprentice, Cain worked in the mill year-round. The other four, who were engaged as spinners and weavers, slipped away with most of the other men of the town in early summer to make hay in the neighbouring fields, as was the long tradition of this parish. (It was a tradition that would soon be coming to an end with the anticipated demise of Lord Tulle, who had always wished his many tenanted acres kept under cultivation and the parish to maintain its historical bucolic character. His heir, on the other hand, was a majority stakeholder in one of the mills, and was eager to see Tulleford join the march to rapid industrialization, which was producing smoke-belching mills and factories from the Pennines to Liverpool Bay, whilst reducing the parish’s cornfields to a state of permanent stubble. For an expenditure of only a few extra pence a week a farmhand could be enticed to abandon his plough and pitchfork and take up the operation of a mule spinner or a loom, which generated enormous profit for the mill owners.)
Cain Pardlow read. He read Lucretius and Epictetus and The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and The Six Enneads of Plotinus, betwixt the alternate firings of the twin furnaces of the mill’s new Lancashire boiler. He spoke sometimes to his chums of what he had learnt from his scholastic maunderings, but found little in their responses with which to fuel the flues of enlightened discourse, and therefore he largely confined his conversations with his mill-mates to more prosaic observations. It was axiomatic that most men (and women) in the mill town of Tulleford—with the exception of fireside dips into the Holy Bible and the occasional browse of a Manchester newspaper—did not read.
Cain was born a twin, and when his brother was brought forth into the world strangled by Cain’s umbilical cord, his parents named the dead child Abel and its apparent fetal murderer the only logical companion-appellation. Though Cain was slender—almost scarecrowish in frame—yet he possessed nonetheless a gently rounded face, his cheeks deeply dimpled—the indentations becoming even more pronounced when he smiled—though this was not a common occurrence, for whilst Cain sometimes perceived the potential for levity in situations deriving from his daily intercourse, he was not inclined to acknowledge this fact upon his face, except when there should be missteps and pratfalls resulting from the impetuous blunderings of his mates. (For how could even the most inveterate stoic not laugh—or at the very least, smile—over such puerile behaviour?)
Next oldest by but a few weeks was the wittiest of the five, Jeremiah Castle. Jeremiah—familiarly called Jerry—was an orphan. He was, at a very young age, taken in by a benevolent cheesemonger and his equally benevolent wife, in whose company he grew to solid, strapping manhood (largely through the hoisting of heavy cheese wheels). Jerry was the strongest of the group, and though quick to put his opinions forward and to lose his temper with those who did not subscribe to them, yet he would never engage his fist unless it was absolutely necessary, and even then would apply it with measured restraint, lest the recipient of his displeasure incur permanent bodily injury.
Next came Tom Catts, who wore thick mustachios, in part to hide his plump, girlish lips, which were the object of ribald remarks by his companions, although he could certainly melt the heart of any member of the gentler sex who found soft blue-grey eyes, ruddy cheeks, and pouting, bristle-browed lips to be creditable aspects to the physiognomy of a young man. Unfortunately, Tom’s character was blemished by a scheming, unscrupulous nature. Intrigue was mother’s milk to him, and it pleased him to no end to get the best of others. He did not see himself dwelling forever in the company of his four mates, for there were mountains to be climbed and fortune to be chased, and most importantly, people—a good many people—to be bested.
The youngest-but-one of the group was William Holborne, called Will, whose ancestors came from someplace with fjords. He had a thick shock of straw-coloured hair, which grew even blonder in the radiant summer sun, and a baby caterpillar fixed above his upper lip, so lightly shaded as to be missed in bright illumination. He had bulging Viking arms and a buckler-like chest, and whereas Jerry was blessed with the kind of bodily strength that is marked by sinew and agility, Will’s physical prowess was muscle-bound and all but enchained, save when it should be summoned in a burst of brute force, such as upon the occasion in which one of the looms came crashing down on its operator and Will was called upon to lift it single-handedly to the plaudits of all his co-workers and to the tearful, though largely moot, gratitude of the operator’s widow (for the crush had unfortunately been too great for her frail and diminutive husband’s body to survive).
The baby boy of the bunch—a lad of a mere nineteen years of age—was given the name Patrick Harrison at birth, though he was usually called Pat—that is, when he wasn’t Runt, Scrunt, “Papist Paddy,” and “Hairless-son,” as pleased his four friends, who tolerated his tagging along with them in the beginning with only the greatest reluctance. Yet later, after he had grown out of knee-shorts, Pat’s gaping ignorance and pop-eyed ingenuousness came to be regarded as almost endearing, and so he was welcomed into the manly society of the other four without regret. Pat became the willing pupil of his four teachers, who instructed him in the arts of manhood, sometimes with secretly cruel intent, but just as often with some measure of manfully masked compassion.
Pat was, in a word, stupid. He had a boyish face and a most handsome turn of the mouth, and mud-coloured hair that was long and fell with whimsical negligence over his roguish blue-eyes. He bore, in some aspects—such as the winsome cleft in the chin—a striking similarity in appearance to our comely young Molly. But unlike the youngest member of the five sewing circle sisters, who had a head upon her shoulders that would serve her well (whenever she took a mind to use it), Pat, on the other hand, was, and forever would be, an amusing dolt—a silly pup to be either kicked or snuggled as circumstance required.
Whether Tom or Pat should be deemed the best-looking of the five is entirely a matter of opinion. Tom’s looks tended slightly to the feminine and Pat’s to the fuzz-faced man-child, and neither of the two had any idea as to which of them was the better favoured, nor did they necessarily care, as most men
generally do not, unless they be foppish and overbred. Yet there was one of the other three who was neither of these two things, and who, in fact, cared a great deal, for he was drawn to male pulchritude as part and parcel of his exceptional nature, this verity placing him in league with Ruth, who had a similar affinity for her own sex. For what it is worth, this young man, whose identity shall later be revealed, found Pat to be the better-looking of the two, and so treated him with demonstrably more fondness than he did his other mates.
“If you shilly-shally a moment longer, Tom Cat,” bawled Holborne, “you will find yourself unveiling your brilliant scheme just as its intended recipients come trooping out to take their little turn in the fresh air. It should be an awkward moment, largely avoidable by any man with half a brain. Speak, sir!”
Tom Catts responded by placing a silencing finger to his lips. Then he said softly, “If you would kindly keep your own voice down to a chick-peep, Holborne, the gossiping wife of a certain shoemaker won’t have opportunity to spread intelligence of my plan all the way from here to Manchester.”
“Then let us discuss the matter elsewhere,” offered Holborne, who belied his suggestion by moving not an inch from his spot whilst falling to his repast of crusty loaf and butter and cold loin of mutton as if it were the finest feast ever put before him.
“There’s to be no discussion,” pronounced Catts, “until I receive a sign from the modiste’s front window. Without it, the plan will expire in the cradle.”
“What manner of sign?” asked Pardlow, looking up from his book. Though the studied absorption of what he was reading generally proceeded apace without regard to where he was or how the world was spinning round him, Pardlow possessed a valuable facility for keeping himself peripherally attentive to anything being said within earshot that might redound either to his benefit or misfortune. For he was not the sort of young man to immerse himself so deeply in a book that he should be flattened in the lane by a runaway gig or have the wall of a house fall down upon him unawares until he be dead.
Catts replied: “A sign proffered by the delightful Miss Higgins.”
“The delightfully ill-favoured Miss Higgins,” croaked Castle with callous merriment. “Of the five, this is the one who has drawn your strongest interest? Powers above, Catts! Have you suddenly become struck with the same disease of acute myopia which afflicts our friend Pardlow?”
“I will have you know, sir,” readily protested that very object, “that there are things I can see quite clearly without even need of my eye-glasses!”
“Things two inches from your peeps!” croaked Castle again.
This statement propelled Pardlow from his seat. He moved his own face to within two or three inches of Castle’s, so the two men nearly touched noses. “What I see at this distance, Castle, is a boor who is constitutionally incapable of keeping his tongue inside his lip-flapping mouth. Miss Higgins may not possess so beautiful a countenance as her fellow seamstresses, but she is nevertheless wholly undeserving of your disapprobation.”
“Duly noted,” said Tom Catts, as he retrieved his bespectacled friend from the provocative vicinity of the group’s most inflammatory member and eased him back down upon the bench. “Jerry means only that Miss Higgins isn’t the loveliest flower in the spray. Yet to me she possesses charm and wit and there’s a twinkle in her eye, which our friend might catch if he paid better attention to all the maidens in their daily promenade.”
Castle wrinkled his lips in annoyance over having been so hastily confronted by the one among them least given to provocation (for Pardlow generally kept his own displeasure to an all-but-silent simmer). “I would not know, Catts, if Miss Higgins or any of the other maidens has charm or wit or just what their eyes do when one beholds them, with the singular exception of the bonny-faced Miss Barton who would command my attention from even the greatest distance.”
Holborne laughed whilst interlocking his large arms across his expansive chest. The picture was one of near Michelangelic statuary (beclothed, of course). “So, Catts, you have yet to set forth the rules of the game to the others, and already at least one of them has selected his victim.”
Castle cocked his head and looked queerly at Catts. “You’ve discussed the game with Holborne before the rest of us? What entitles our esteemed Norseman to this especial privilege?”
Catts shrugged. “I sought to put it to at least one of you in embryo to see if it was a proposition worthy of pursuit.”
“And what, pray, was the all-wise Holborne’s verdict?” asked Castle, grinning curiously. “Did it meet with his approval?”
Holborne grinned as well. “It did, sir. It did indeed. And it will meet with yours, depend on it. But let us suspend here, gentlemen. The scheme is too precarious at this early juncture to be exposed in such a public place as this.” He turned to Catts. “Where is Miss Higgins? Do I take this as a sign that your opening gambit has been inadvertently checked?”
“Alas, it was all too good to be true,” concurred Castle with a comically theatrical sigh, “whatever the gambit was.”
“Patience, gentlemen,” said Catts. “And do not fear. Miss Higgins is but momentarily delayed. Return to your book, Pardlow. And as for you, Master Harrison, feel free to proceed with your wonted woolgathering. Let no one disturb you.”
“What is that you say?” asked Harrison, shaken from a reverie.
Castle laughed heartily. “Paddy, my boy, have you been deaf to every word spoken here this morning?”
Pat Harrison’s face became a vacancy. “I was watching the shaping of the clouds. See the one just overhead? Don’t it resemble a fluffy white rabbit? Can you not make out its floppy ears?”
Castle could not contain his mirth. “And here are your ears—” He pinched at both of Harrison’s ears, as the latter emitted a boyish yelp. “And if there is aught betwixt them but sawdust, I’ll play the monkey for the next fortnight.”
“And how should that be any different from your present simian-like behaviour?” mumbled Pardlow without raising his eyes from his book.
Catts whistled to summon the attention of his mill-mates. Then he pointed in the direction of the dressmaker’s shop. “Lord love her! Miss Higgins now appears.”
Jane Higgins did not present herself in the shop window as had been arranged, but came instead to the street door, where she now stood upon its threshold. However, rather than signing anything to Catts from that spot, she began to walk toward him and the other men, who sate and stood in a picture of slovenliness and slouch on the opposing side of the lane. However, it took no more than five or six steps before Catts straightened himself to full erection, and the ever-courteous Pardlow scrambled quickly to his feet and sleeked down his hair with his free palm in an effort to make himself more presentable. In contrast, their three companions did nothing with themselves whatsoever. In fact, Castle shrunk a little more upon the bench in bodily contempt for the young woman who deserved no especial treatment in his estimation, given her far-from-prepossessing features.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Jane in pleasant but formal tones, and in spite of the imbalanced reception. “How are things at the mill? I see that all your fingers and noses remain intact, so that is a blessing, eh?”
Pardlow nodded his approval of Jane’s wit.
“My dear Miss Higgins,” said Catts, “you have completely forgotten the terms of our agreement. You were simply to sign acceptance of the proposal. It wasn’t necessary for you to—”
“But my dear Mr. Pussy—pardon me, Mr. Catts—”
Here, Pardlow dropped his book in shock to hear a woman speak with such easy frivolity.
“—I have not raised the matter with my sisters, for there are still three of us who have yet to arrive this morning.”
“Nothing serious detains them, I trust,” said Catts, with the requisite lineaments of concern.
Jane shook her head. “It is nothing with which you gentlemen need trouble yourselves. There is, however, a matter at hand whic
h demands an immediate resolution. Miss Barton and Miss Osborne have tramped off into the woods for the purpose of effecting an amicable agreement, with Miss Hale as mediatrix. Mrs. Colthurst has received word that she is not to expect them until early this after noon. At such time, I will communicate your proposal of a Sunday outing. I shared your invitation with Miss Thrasher a short time ago. She is opposed to un-chaperoned picnics as a matter of principle and refuses to come along without strict attendance to propriety.”
“Meaning which thing?” sought Castle. “That we are to be one chit short for our woodsy romp or that we must endure the odious presence of chaperons?”
“The latter, of course. We Five are never only We Four, unless it cannot be helped. And such an instance has never before occurred. What is your name?”
“Jerry Castle.”
“Mr. Catts didn’t give me all your names. I know you only as faces that gape and gawk at us when we come out for our morning stroll, as if we are prizes at the county fair.”
“Prizes at the fair, oho!” bleated Pardlow.
“And you are—?”
“Cain Pardlow, madam.” The reply was accompanied by the respectful suggestion of a bow.
“Like Cain of the Bible, who killed his brother?”