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cheerless apartment, assisting with the household’s plain sewing, submitting myself to the tyranny of hem-stitch and blanket-stitch, the bewilderment of button-holes, at which I did not excel, and to spend my afternoons at the front of the house, my chair well away from the fire, listening, speaking when spoken to, as Aunt Hannah issued tea and instructions to the ladies she had involved in her works of charity—colleagues in their opinion, assistants in hers—and who, because of her desire to spare her own elderly carriage-horses, were obliged to come to her. And it was a constant proof of her natural authority that these ladies, the wives of owners not managers, although they disliked and resented her, and frequently threatened among themselves to rebel and ignore her, could be reduced after ten minutes of her company to obedience.
    She had as always a dozen schemes afoot. There was her plan to educate orphan girls for domestic service and then to ‘place’ them in the houses of her friends; her longstanding efforts to provide blankets and good advice for such poor families as she deemed worthy; her determination that our local manufacturers should open their hearts and their bank accounts to Cullingford’s need for a concert hall—since Bradford had one—and that it should be named after my father. But most of all that winter her mind was occupied by the proposal that Parliament should be petitioned to grant Cullingford its Charter of Incorporation, with the right to elect our own mayor and town council—not one felt, because she was really troubled by the inefficiency of our present parochial system of local government which had failed to pave the streets or provide an adequate water suppy—in some cases no water supply at all—to the poorer sections of the town, but because she intended her husband, Mr. Ira Agbrigg, to be our first mayor and herself his mayoress.
    Mr. Agbrigg could not bring her riches, but he could, at her prompting, offer her prestige; and since there were others who felt they had a greater claim to civic honour, it suited her, when Mrs. Hobhouse of Nethercoats Mill and Mrs. Rawnsley, the banker’s wife, came to call, to remind them that her nieces were the daughters of the late Morgan Aycliffe M. P., her brother Mr. Joel Barforth himself.
    â€˜Naturally my brother is most anxious for the Charter to be granted,’ she would throw casually into the pool of conversation, her keen eyes assessing the ripples she had created. ‘He feels local government to be altogether essential—since who better to ascertain our needs than ourselves—although he was telling me the other day that the office of mayor will really be most arduous.’ And here she would smile directly at Mrs. Hobhouse, whose husband was not noted for his energy.
    â€˜And of course the mayoress will have her duties to perform,’ she would murmur, glancing sidelong at Mrs. Mandelbaum, the wool-merchant’s wife, who was of a retiring disposition, hated crowds, and, when she was nervous did not speak good English.
    â€˜But will your brother not wish to take office himself?’ Mrs. Rawnsley, the banker’s wife, once asked her.
    â€˜Ah, no,’ Aunt Hannah replied, ‘his time is too fully occupied; but he will certainly put forward his nominee.’
    And since Mr. Rawnsley’s bank would have been hard-pressed to support the withdrawal of Barforth favour, his wife had no more to say than ‘Oh, yes—quite so. Assuredly Mr. Barforth’s views will be listened to.’
    â€˜Naturally,’ Aunt Hannah told her kindly, enjoying her moment of power as hugely as if she had already instructed Uncle Joel to transfer his funds, as if she really believed he would obey her. ‘I could not say at this stage just who that nominee may be. But I think we can all agree on the soundness of my brother’s judgment and his desire to serve the best