‘Nay, lad. Windfell can be all yours, once I’ve moved out. It’ll make life easier for all.’ Archie patted James on the back. ‘Now, I’m off for a gill in the King Billy – something I haven’t done for years. You lot get yourselves home and explain to your families what’s to happen next. I can do no more.’ Archie looked at his pocket watch. It was three o’clock; he’d have a gill and then get a carriage back home, just in time for his supper. He needed the peace, some time away from all the squabbling. He could just imagine the chatter and racket at both houses, once they were on their own and able to discuss their futures. Both siblings caused nothing but worry and were never satisfied with their lot. He’d just been happy with a full belly and a roof over his head, and hadn’t expected anything from his parents, when he was their age. Where did it all go wrong?

4

4

Isabelle stood in the hallway of the manor, looked around her and sighed. She was home. She’d always known Windfell would be hers one day, and although she was sad she had lost her mother, she was overjoyed that at last she could move her family there. The clock that Archie had brought from Butterfield Gap chimed, as if to remind her that Windfell was not quite hers yet – not until Archie signed it over to her, as he had agreed earlier in the week. ‘Well, you can be thrown out; you never did fit in with the rest of the house,’ she said to the chiming clock, as she stood with her hands on her hips. She remembered her mother putting up with it, after it was placed in the hallway on the death of Archie’s father. Nevertheless, it was going to be good to be back in her beloved bedroom, and to be able to walk down the sweeping stairs knowing that now she was the new mistress of Windfell.

She turned as the front door opened, realizing that the summer’s day had slipped into a warm sultry evening and that James and her daughter Jane – the new apprentice – had just returned from their first day working together in the shop at Skipton. Her shop; the words seemed strange as she mulled them over in her head. The shop that she now owned, along with the one in Leeds and the one rented in Bradford.

‘Well, I can see what you’ve been doing all day, while Jane and I have been working hard to earn you more money.’ James hung up his bowler hat on the hatstand by the door and grinned at his wife. ‘Playing lady of the manor, by the looks of it.’