Leonora

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THE DINING-ROOM TABLECLOTH is laid with dishes and around it are gathered the four children: Patrick, the eldest, is breakfasting on porridge, as are Gerard and Arthur; Leonora dislikes the stuff but the nanny, Mary Kavanaugh, says that when she reaches the middle of her bowl of oats she’ll find Lake Windermere, the biggest and most beautiful lake in all England. So the girl, spoon in hand, eats the porridge from the outside edge inwards, beginning to hear the sound of water and see how tiny waves ruffle its surface as she nears Windermere.

Of the boys’ three pairs of watching eyes, Gerard’s are her favourite because they smile.

The dining room is dark and gloomy, just like the rest of Crookhey Hall. Leonora has known soot since she was a child. Perhaps Planet Earth is one immense chimney. The smoke surging from the Lancashire textile mills accompanies her night and day. Leonora’s father is the king of all this blackness, and he, the brilliant businessman, is the blackest of all of them. Even the men she sees out on the street are dark with soot. Her grandfather invented the machine that manufactures a blend of wool and cotton trademarked Viyella, and Carrington Cottons stands out proudly in a county where the air is always tinged with the factory ash. When her father, Harold Wilde Carrington, sells the company to Courtaulds, he becomes the main shareholder in Imperial Chemical Industries.

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