peach; he had cool green eyes, the colour of light, clear tourmalines, fringed with thick black lashes. His eyes and his skin were the envy of his sisters – and most other women.
Matched to the striking colouring and handsome profile was a superb athletic body. He was exactly five feet nine and a half inches tall, well muscled, firm and taut and without one ounce of fat or flab on him.
Immaculate at all times, Vincent considered himself to be a bit of a dandy, loved clothes, wore them with flair and elegance. He cut quite a swathe wherever he went, especially on the dance floor, where his easy grace and good looks showed to such advantage.
He was his mother’s favourite.
His siblings were aware of this. They did not care. Neither were they jealous. In fact, they shared their mother’s feelings about him. His brothers admired or hero-worshipped him; his sisters adored him.
Only his father treated him like a normal, ordinary person.
Alfred Crowther loved his first-born child, but he had no illusions about him. A former sergeant-major in the Seaforth Highlanders, Alfred was a veteran of two great wars, having fought the Boers on the African veldt and the Germans on the fields of Flanders. Subsequently, he knew men and their motivations, could read them well, and his own son was no exception. He had a great deal of insight into Vincent.
Alfred recognized there was a lot of devilishness in the boy, not to mention temperament, stubbornness and a good measure of vanity. He thought Vincent was too handsome by far for his own good. But, being a realist, Alfred knew there was not much point in worrying about this eldest child of his who had been born with the looks of a matinee idol. Fretting would not alter these facts nor accomplish anything. The elder Crowther believed that what was meant to happen eventually happened. His fatalistic attitude could be ascribed to his Irish mother, Martha, who, when he was growing up, had constantly told him, ‘What will be, will be, Alf, sure an’ it will. Tis preordained, I am thinkin’, this life each one of us poor souls be livin’ in this hard and cruel world.’
Father and son were good friends. They enjoyed sharing a pint of beer, usually stopped off at the pub together at weekends, and often they went to race meetings in Doncaster and York, especially in the summer weather. However, despite a certain masculine camaraderie, there was not as much intimacy between them as might have been expected. It was his mother who was Vincent’s confidante and friend. She always had been. She always would-be – until the day she died.
His manifest physical attributes and pleasant demeanour aside, Vincent Crowther was no dunce. He was quick, bright, and intelligent; he had powerful analytical ability, and a retentive memory.
But coming from the working class as he did, he had left Armley Council School when he was fourteen and had found himself a job in one of the tailoring shops in Armley. He had quickly grown bored, mainly because his interests lay elsewhere. He was particularly drawn to building and construction and frequently wished he could have studied architecture.
After leaving the tailoring shop, he had a short spell labouring in the local brickyard, before finally finding an opening with a building firm. He was currently learning his trade; he liked working in the open air, drew pleasure and satisfaction from seeing each building take shape and grow and so fulfil the architect’s original vision.
Sometimes Vincent told himself he was going to enrol in night school in Leeds, to learn draughtsmanship, but he put this off, was always sidetracked and distracted by other more pleasurable activities. He was partial to dancing and he had been a voracious reader when a boy, but otherwise he had no real hobbies to speak of. For the most part, he spent his free time drinking with his cronies and could usually be found propping up the bar in the tap room of one of the local pubs, quaffing down pints or studying a tissue, the pink racing sheet that was published every weekday and was his bible.
He was engrossed in his tissue on this cold Saturday morning in late December, wondering which horses to back at today’s Doncaster races. In particular he was concentrating on the runners in the one o’clock race, turning the salient facts over in his clever mind, considering the virtues and the weaknesses of the trainers and the jockeys as well as those of the different horses, and carefully weighing the odds.
Vincent was seated at the table in the centre of the basement kitchen in the Crowther home in Armley, a tall, Victorian terrace house with two upper floors and huge attics under the eaves. The kitchen, with a big window fronting onto a patch of garden and yard, was a large yet cosy room; eminently inviting, it was comfortably furnished in the manner of a parlour, which was the custom in these parts.
The focal point in the room was the fireplace. This was actually a Yorkshire range, so called because it combined an open fire with an adjoining oven. The range also boasted an arm for supporting a kettle or a stew pot over the fire, and a boiler for heating water. All of these elements were built into the one unit which was about four and a half feet in height and the same in width.
The black iron range was surmounted by a heavy polished wood mantelpiece. On this stood a fancy chiming clock, two brass candlesticks, a tobacco jar, a rack holding Alfred’s pipes and a container of spills. The hearth was encircled by a heavy brass fender that was cleaned with Brasso by one of the girls every Friday, and it glittered like gold in the dancing flames of the fire, banked high up the chimney back. Two green-moquette wing chairs flanked the fireplace, faced each other across a large broadloom rug patterned with blood red roses on a deep green background.
In point of fact, roses abounded in this kitchen. They were Eliza’s favourite flowers. Pink and white cabbage roses entwined into garlands flowed down the wallpaper to meet scarlet rambler roses scattered all over the green linoleum; rose-patterned white china filled the shelves of a Welsh dresser positioned in a corner; pillows embroidered with yellow rosebuds marched across the dark green leather sofa set against the far wall.
It was a cheerful room with a gay and welcoming ambience, and it was generally the centre of activity, the heart of the family’s home life. But this morning it was strangely silent and deserted.
Vincent was alone.
He was glad to have peace and quiet for once, to be able to pursue the serious work of picking out his potential winners in absolute tranquillity, without the distracting racket often created by some of his brothers and sisters.
Taking a sip of tea, he continued to peer at the racing newspaper, frowning to himself in his concentration. He had been at this task for almost an hour, and at last he made several selections, wrote down the names of his horses on a scrap of paper, sat staring at the list for a moment. Slowly he nodded his head, satisfied he had made the best choices, then he reached for the packet of Woodbines.
He leaned back in. his chair, sat smoking reflectively.
For no reason at all he suddenly thought of the girl. Again. She had a way of popping into his head when he least expected. He had met her only once in his life, but when he closed his eyes he could see her face so clearly, and in such detail, he might have known her forever.
When he had first noticed her standing near the bonfire in the grounds of the Parish Hall, he had instantly and instinctively understood, and without the benefit of knowing her, that she was not the type of young woman whom a man played around with. She was serious business.
And since he was not interested in being serious with any girl, or of starting a relationship that would lead to the terrible bondage of marriage, he had fled, rushed to the White Horse for a game of darts and a drink with the lads. But just before ten o’clock he had run all the way back to the hall, hoping to have the last waltz with her.
How
