shopping on market day but it was already darkening fast and the sky was full of snow feathers. Selma’s feet were freezing on the stone pavement.
She wandered past the toy shop, glad she was grown up enough now not to be disappointed by the lack of the Christmas dolls and games her other friends bragged about. This year there might be a new knitted cardigan with matching beret and scarf, a parcel of clothes from Aunty Ruth when she called in on Boxing Day, some of which might fit her, if she was lucky.
Selma’d grown inches since the summer, and filled out. Her breasts were like two rubber balls sticking out of her thick vest, and with them came the curse one morning and all that messy business that Mam explained was a step on the way to being a proper young lady. But fourteen was not quite old enough to roll her hair over in pads like Marigold Plimmer did, the other pupil teacher and the bane of Selma’s life.
Marigold was older by a year, pretty enough, clever too, but had a way of setting Selma’s teeth on edge. The Plimmers ran the Hart’s Head Inn on Elm Tree Square at the other end of Prospect Row, but not far enough from the teetotal Bartley forge for comfort on a noisy Saturday night. The pub had once been a house, with two fine bow windows and a large stable for horses at the back with benches for draymen to idle away their lunch times.
Marigold and her mother, Betty, were also on the horse-drawn bus to Sowerthwaite alongside the Bartleys, boasting about how big a turkey they were going to carve and how Marie was getting a new tartan dress with a crocheted collar for the Sunday school Christmas concert.
It was Marie who had pointed out that Selma and her brothers were heathens, since none of them had been baptised, and they would all go to Hell. Selma knew the Chapel didn’t do infant christenings but preferred them to make a profession of faith when they were teenagers, but it had still worried her for days afterwards.
‘What happens to my baby brothers and sisters who died before baptism?’ she had cried to Mam in distress one night. ‘Will they be saved?’
‘Of course. The Lord only lent them to us for a season. They are angels now in Glory, too lovely to live long in this wicked world. Take no notice of Marie Plimmer’s popish superstitions,’ Essie had reassured her, but Marie had a way of insinuating that chapelgoers were the poor relations in this village.
The mill owner, Mr Best, was a big worker and Sunday school teacher, as was their organist and schoolmaster, Mr Firth. They had a great concert party and outings to the seaside at Morecambe, fun and games at Christmas like everyone else.
Dad said that Christmas was the Lord’s birthday, not theirs, and the heart of Christmas was in giving to others, not wanting for yourself. But on this chill December afternoon, the forthcoming Christmas festivities glowed like a beacon on a dark night with all the special baking, the scent of spices, roasting meat and the promise of fun and games.
Farmer Dinsdale up the dale had promised them a joint of pork as a thank you for Dad’s good services to his Clydesdale horses over the year.
Selma knew all about pig sticking and slaughter at this time of year. The poor beasts were cornered and hung upside down with their throats cut to bleed into a bucket for black puddings. But she did love a roast with crunchy crackling and Mam’s special herb stuffing. Her mouth was watering at the very thought, making her forget the chill of the wild north-easterly as it tore through her thin coat and scarf: a lazy wind, they called this, one as went through you not round you. It was time to make for the bus home.
Then she caught sight of a tall young man striding across the square, parcels under his arm and another identical figure chasing after him. They looked so smart in thick tweed suits with Sharland School scarves flapping behind them, those distinctive purple and gold stripes that marked the public school boys out from other town scholars. Who could miss the Cantrell twins doing their own Christmas shopping?
Selma tried not to stare and pulled her muffler over her face to spare her blushes but not before she caught the eye of the first twin.
‘Hello there, Miss Bartley…Busy with your Christmas shopping too,’ he said. ‘And you’ll have a lot of folk to buy for.’
His brother marched on,hardly giving her a glance.‘Hang on, Angus! Let me introduce you to the young lady who helped save your life!’
Angus stared at her, his eyes blank and dull as if he had never seen her before. He nodded but said nothing. ‘He doesn’t remember a thing, sadly,’ Guy explained. ‘How are you? Looking forward to Christmas?’
Selma smiled back, not knowing what to say.
‘It’s jolly cold. There’s snow on the way but I hope it holds off for the Boxing Day meet.’
Selma nodded, knowing her father had been hard at the forge shoeing fine hunters for the annual foxhunting gathering that started outside the Hart’s Head.
‘Spare a thought for us on our Christmas morning parade,’ she offered. ‘I don’t fancy singing through a blizzard.’
‘Parade?’ Angus looked puzzled, fidgeting with the string on his parcel and looking at her sideways through drooping eyelids.
‘The Christmas waits. We sing carols under the tree in the early hours and then we have a band…’
‘Oh, the chapel thingy.’ Angus shrugged. ‘Spoiling everyone’s lie in, Mama says.’
‘Angus!’ It was Guy’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘Oh, look, there’s Beaven with his new toy. Father has bought a motor car. We’d offer you a lift only we’re off to the station to meet the London Express. Father is home for the hols too.’
‘I’m waiting for my mother. We’re catching the bus, thank you. I hope you both have a pleasant Christmas,’ she offered, bobbing a short curtsy.
‘And the same to you and yours. You know we are awfully grateful to you and your brothers, aren’t we, Angus?’ He turned to his brother, but Angus had already strolled off towards the big saloon. ‘Forgive his rudeness. He’s not been quite himself lately. I’d better be off. And you must go too. You look frozen.’
To Selma, Angus looked just as haughty as he had on that fateful afternoon when he was showing off. ‘I hope he recovers soon,’ she replied, more out of politeness than conviction.
Guy paused. ‘Will you be watching the meet?’
‘I might if the weather holds but we’re expecting company from Bradford: my aunty Ruth and her husband.’
‘And so are we, loads every day, Mother’s friends mostly. It’ll be charades, singsongs and cards, long walks and cross-country hacks; exhausting!’
‘We have singsongs too but no card playing…we don’t hold with gambling,’ she answered, not telling him that they never imbibed alcohol either. ‘Have fun then.’
‘Merry Christmas, Selima,’ Guy replied, raising his cap as he marched off.
She felt a glow of pride that he’d remembered her proper name. Guy was as warm as his brother was cool, sick or not. It was as if he saw her as a friend, an equal. Confusion and excitement fluttered in her chest as if butterflies were let loose from a cage.
Their families lived in separate worlds even within a small village, sectioned off by a high stone wall and beech hedge, but Christmas was a special time, she smiled, a time of goodwill to all men, rich or poor, high or low. Was it possible that their two worlds might meet again? One thing was certain: she wanted to see Guy on horseback in his hunting dress.
Suddenly her reverie was halted by a sharp dig in the back from a passer-by.
‘What were you hobnobbing with those two toffs about?’
Selma spun round to see the pinched face of Marigold Plimmer pursing her lips into a sneer. ‘Never you mind!’ Selma whispered back.
‘Be like that but don’t think you’ll get any favours from that quarter. My mum says one of them’s gone daft in the head. Had a fit in the school yard, or so