Bowness-on-Windermere, and you had to cross the lake to get to it. ‘So walking wouldn’t be a good idea either, would it?’
Alena laughed. ‘Course it would. Best thing in the world.’
‘Depends who you walk with.’
Again the unasked question hung between them. Dolly said nothing. She hadn’t told Tom yet, and really had no wish to break the news to Alena before she did so. What would she say if she knew it was her own precious brother who’d put Dolly in the pudding club?
Surprising really that Alena had been so kind, when she usually gave the impression of being a bit stuck-up. The way she talked, with scarcely any sign of a Lancashire accent, always having new frocks to wear, and a brand new bicycle bought her last Christmas. Ma Townsen spoiled her daughter, everybody said so. Short of nothing of what she’s got, that lass. And never away from Ellersgarth Hall and young Rob Hollinthwaite. Thought she was somebody because she was friends with the son of the mill owner. Huh! Such niceties didn’t cut any ice with Dolly. Her mam said the Hollinthwaites might have a lot of fancy goods on show in their shop window, but a lot of dusty goings on in their back store rooms that didn’t bear the light of day. Dolly still hadn’t managed quite to discover what she’d meant by this description, since the Hollinthwaites didn’t own a shop, but it sounded intriguing, and not quite proper. Anyroad, those two were nobbut a pair of li’le bairns, Dolly thought, rather condescendingly. Why bother about them?
‘We could go for a walk on Saturday,’ Alena was saying. ‘I could do with a bit of company myself just now.’ And she smiled such a winning smile that her lovely face lit up and the last shreds of Dolly’s resentment faded away. No wonder she got away with all sorts of mischief. What a cracker she was, and no mistake. Why was it some girls had everything? Wasn’t bloody fair. Like this Hallowe’en business. Most folk would simply smile and say, Ah, it’s only Alena up to her mischief.’ But when her neighbours thought she, Dolly Sutton, was responsible, then it was a different story. Just because her dad hadn’t made an honest woman of her mam. What did marriage matter anyway?
It just did, she thought bleakly. For all her mother had lost her man in a war, she’d grown lonely and bitter as she’d suffered the stigma of being a single woman with a fatherless child. Dolly hated the idea of ending up like that.
‘What do you say?’ Alena persisted. ‘A walk would be good. We could take a picnic and go as far as Devil’s Gallop or even Esthwaite Water.’ That would show Rob Hollinthwaite she had other friends she could call upon, and didn’t have to wait on him.
Dolly, far from keen on walking at the best of times but unwilling to give offence, hesitated. Yet there seemed no help for it, and the exercise might solve her problem. Or better still, things might be different by Saturday, back to normal, and then she could change her mind and go and have a cuddle with Tom instead. She might even get round to telling him. He was such a good-looking, big-hearted sort of chap with half the village girls after him, she wondered why she was worrying at all. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
‘Where were you? Why didn’t you come? I waited hours and hours, every night this week.’ Alena stood with arms akimbo, fists bunched into her waist, lovely face tight with her fury.
‘I couldn’t.’
It was late Friday afternoon. School was over for the week and really she was itching to tell Rob all about Dolly’s revelation, but meant to make him suffer for his neglect before she did so. Then it occurred to her that he wasn’t suffering at all from her show of temper. There was an air of suppressed excitement about him. With his brown hair sprouting in every direction, checked shirt buttoned up wrong as if done in a great hurry, and his skinny legs protruding from long grey shorts, he seemed to