Read Off the Rails for Free Online Page B

that,’ she said. ‘’Twill need a deal of – um – consideration. ’Tis not a thing to be rushed.’
    ‘No, ma’am,’ he said, trying not to show her what a rush he was in. ‘Course not. But happen you’ll think on it?’
    ‘How would you – um – pay for it?’ she asked. ‘Our cloth don’t come cheap.’
    He had the answer to that at once. ‘It could be took out my wages,’ he said.
    The boldness of it took her breath away. Really, there was no end to this boy. He had an answer for everything. ‘It would take months.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am, I know,’ he said. ‘But then if we get any sales as a result, what I can’t promise – we can’t know, can we? – but if we do there’ll be profit from that, what we could split half and half, on account of ’tis my idea an’ I’ll be taking the risk of it.’
    That was such a preposterous suggestion she didn’t know how to answer it at all. ‘I will give it – um – thought,’ she said, eventually, and went upstairs to the safety of her nice quiet living room before he could say anything else.
     
    ‘That boy has the cheek of the devil!’ she said to her brother and sister as they sat at supper that night.
    ‘What’s he done now?’ Richard asked, grinning at her.
    She told him, her voice querulous with disbelief, and was annoyed when he laughed. ‘It’s nowt to laugh at,’ she told him. ‘He wants to use our cloth and put a jacket in t’window for everybody to see, as if he hasn’t put enough things there already. Mr Bell must be turning in his grave. He signed the articles quick as a flash and now this. In the very next breath. Ithought I were hiring a workhorse – someone strong and dependable and willing and – um – obedient and so forth – but he’s more like a stallion, allus goin his own way.’
    ‘Give him his head,’ Richard said. ‘That’s my advice. If it works, we’ll get more trade, which ain’t a bad thing, if it don’t, he’ll learn the hard way and serve him right.’
    ‘But ’tis our cloth Richard.’
    ‘Aye, so ’tis,’ Richard said. ‘Let him earn it and wear it. He might have the cheek of the devil, I’ll grant you that, but he’s handsome enough in all conscience. ’Twill look well on him. And what looks well will sell. He’s got the right of it there.’
    So George got his cloth, which was a bold sky blue in a lightweight wool and found a tailor to make it up at a fair price – bein’ as ’tis a good advertisement for you, sir . He put it in the window as soon as it was ready to wear, carefully arranged on one of the tailor’s borrowed dummies and, sure enough, it attracted interest and trade just as he’d known it would. And the next Sunday, having borrowed a new white cravat from the stock and prevailed on Mrs Norridge to wash his best shirt for him when she had a copper full of hot water, and iron it ready for the occasion, he took his coat from the window and wore it to church.
    It was much admired, especially by the maidservants in the back pews, and there was much smiling and bobbing of heads and eye-signalling in his direction. And then just as he was beginning to wonder whether his illustrious uncle was actually going to come to church that morning, there he was, striding down the aisle with that quiet wife of his holding his arm and a new grey silk hat on his head.
    ‘Getting on, I see, young George,’ he said as he reached his nephew’s pew. ‘That’s the style.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ George agreed. ‘I do my best, sir.’
    ‘Good lad,’ his uncle said and made a heavy joke. ‘Now all you need’s the breeches, eh?’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ George said again, but he was thinking and the hat and the boots and a calling card. Oh, he’d a fair way to go yet.
    It took him till the beginning of July and it needed all his skills as a salesman and considerable manipulation of Mrs Bell’s profit figures before he’d amassed enough money to be kitted out as he wished. And then he had to wait