Collins mourned his father as would be expected, but he was pleased that he was next in line to reclaim the birthright too long denied a Collins.
Chapter 5
The Bingleys of Scarborough
For some generations, the Bingley family had been honourable, hardworking tradesmen. The family had its roots in Ireland. Towards the end of the sixteenth century with his business failing in Dublin, Eoin Bingley sold the concern he had created—for whatever he could. He also sold the family home.
Bingley moved his family to England, and they settled in Scarborough located in The North Riding of Yorkshire where he purchased a home for himself and his family, and thereafter, he began to search for work.
He decided that it would be foolish to start his own company making barrels as there was no need for more in the area because there were already more than enough produced in and around Scarborough. At first, he sought employment at the existing companies. However soon, Eoin Bingley decided he needed to start his own concern. He had applied at the two local cooper works, and both times, he had experienced the disdain that some men in England had for those from Ireland.
Being a savvy businessman and knowing what he needed, he studied the existing trades and decided that the city needed its own carriage works. The nearest one was in York, and the wait time for a new conveyance was rather lengthy. He was certain that those in the surrounding area would appreciate not having to travel to York and being able to receive their vehicle in half the time.
It did not take long before Bingley found a large warehouse for sale. He employed carpenters and builders to turn the warehouse into the offices and fabrication areas he needed. He took on a man who had managed the carriage works in York as his manager, and together, they employed the skilled men they needed.
Bingley knew he had to minimize the time spent waiting for supplies to arrive from York. Rather than being solely reliant on wood from some of the mills further afield, and with the help of a few investors, Bingley purchased tracts of forested land which had an abundance of oak, lancewood, ash, and birch trees. A mill was built not far from the newly named Bingley Carriage Works.
The first carriages and coaches were manufactured for the investors. When the quality was seen by the locals, word soon spread and demand for Bingley-made conveyances increased exponentially.
As Bingley made more money and while paying off his investors, he purchased more and more forested land. This resulted in needing to employ men to plant new trees when the trees in an area were cut down. Within ten years, Bingley had repaid every penny he had borrowed from the investors, plus interest, and he had already had to double the size of his carriage works operation.
Bingley had two sons, the eldest Ciaran, and Sean the youngest. He also had a daughter, Noreen. Sadly, his wife, Pádraigín, had already been called home to God. Due to the discrimination and antipathy to papists in England, Bingley and his offspring became members of the Church of England.
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All three of the Bingley children who had been born in Ireland married those who had been born in England. Asmuch as Eoin Bingley would have preferred it not be so, when his grandchildren were all given English names and not those from his beloved Ireland, he had accepted his children’s decisions.
By the time the three siblings who had been born in Ireland were called home to meet their parents in heaven before the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were few who remembered that the Bingleys originated in Ireland. Of course, it did not hurt that the carriage works had made the family rather wealthy. Bingley Carriage Works now had factories in the five closest counties and included the works in York which had been purchased by the Bingleys twenty years past.
Thanks to Eoin Bingley’s children and their spouses being rather prolific, the three branches of the family had all done well from the growing concern. Before the end of 1770, Arthur Bingley, Eoin’s great-grandson, owned the largest share in the family business. Like the Bingleys before him, he had a very good head for business. In the last ten years, agents of the Duke of Bedford—Lord Russell—had opened a ship-building yard in Scarborough. By then, the Bingleys owned oak forests in Yorkshire and the two counties closest to the shipyards.
One of His Grace’s men of business offered to buy one of the forests. Bingley refused, but he did agree to supply them with the oak they would need. As pine and fir trees were not native to England, their wood was to be imported. That contract added to his wealth significantly.
In 1777, one year after the tantrum in the American colonies, Arthur Bingley married Miss Mavis Ross, the daughter of a very successful merchant in Scarborough.
He loved her, and he thought she felt the same, but she was in love with his wealth, and although she never said anything before the wedding, Mavis wanted nothing more than to rise to the heights of society. She was also rathersuperficial, judging more by outward appearances and wealth than anything else.
The new Mrs Bingley was careful to hide her true self from her husband, that was until their first child, Louisa Mavis, who had been born on the second to last day of October 1779, passed her second birthday.
Shortly after the little girl was born, Bingley setup a dowry of twenty thousand pounds for his daughter, the same amount he would for any subsequent daughters.
Louisa, or Lulu as her loving father called her, had been born with a light pink birthmark on the left side of her face, about halfway between her lip and nose, an inch or two back on her cheek. Mavis, who had refused to suckle a babe and demanded a wetnurse, which had been provided by Bingley without delay, was sure the blemish, as she thought of it, would fade and not mar her daughter’s looks.
Rather than fade, as Lulu got older, the ugly mark got darker and by the time she was two, covered more than half of her left cheek touching her nose and mouth and then spreading out across the cheek. Mavis was horrified and demanded her husband have surgeons and physicians attend her daughter and remove the eyesore from the girl’s face.
To placate his wife, Bingley sent for a doctor. The man examined the timid two year old. Thanks to her mother not wanting her to be seen, she was not used to interacting with others, so she was very wary of the man who was looking at the thing on her cheek that Mama did not like.
When the man met with Mr and Mrs Bingley, he explained that there was nothing to be done about what was called a port-wine stain. It was not contagious or dangerous, and no, it could not be removed. He assured them that their very lovely daughter would be able to live a normal life. He did warn them, and he looked at Mrs Bingley, in particular,when he spoke, that some people misunderstood what it was and thought it was the mark of evil or some deformity, which it was not at all. He told them he related this because they should prepare themselves for comments from ignorant and superstitious people.
Once the physician departed, when Mavis wanted to essentially lock Louisa away so no one could see her, Bingley refused her, something he did not do often. He commanded that Lulu be treated like any of his children should be treated, and that any one employed by him who tried to make her feel less than normal, would be sacked on the spot without a character.
As embarrassed as she was that she had a daughter with such a blemish on her face, Mavis Bingley would not gainsay her husband. His orders were passed on to all staff and servants.
She had to admit that other than the birthmark, Louisa was a pretty girl who had a lot of Mavis’s own colouring. Like her mother, the girl had sandy blonde hair, and her eyes were just like her mother’s in shape and colour—almost gold. Also like Mavis, if one looked at her from her right side, Louisa was handsome.
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Due to the fact that Mavis would make Lulu feel self-conscious about her birthmark, Arthur made sure that his wife and daughter were alone in one another’s company as little as possible. Given how busy he was with his large concern, even with his uncles and cousins involved in the business, he did not get to spend as much time with Lulu as he desired. However, when he was able to spend time with her, she was aware that her father did not think she was deficient because of a birthmark over which she had no control.
