A Web of Dreams

by Tessa Barclay

  In real life it was otherwise. The housemaid opened the house door, looked surprised at finding Jenny on the doorstep as well as a visitor, stepped back, and Jenny ushered Franz in, saying, ‘How do you do, Herr Lennhardt.’

  The maid took his hat and linen topcoat. Jenny said, ‘Is my mother in the drawing-room?’

  ‘No, mistress, she’s upstairs. Shall I ‒’

  ‘No, I’ll tell her. Please bring Mr Lennhardt some refreshments.’ With a slight bow she left him, to go up and tidy herself. After a day at the works she was hot and a little dusty, her mourning dress made her feel dowdy, her hair needed smoothing down after her walk. She was vexed. What did he mean, turning up here at such an awkward hour?

  She tapped on her mother’s door. ‘Can you come down, dear? We have a visitor.’

  ‘Just a minute, Jenny.’ Her mother opened the door, revealing that she was in a wrapper. ‘I’m changing for dinner, pet. Is it Mrs Kennet about the Braw Lads Gathering?’

  ‘No, it’s a gentleman from Hamburg.’

  ‘Hamburg?’ She might just as well have said, From the moon. ‘Ach dear me! Well … I’ll be a minute or two yet.’

  Jenny went downstairs, uncertain how she was going to handle it and what exactly it was she was feeling. Delight? Consternation?

  After she got home from Hamburg, she had banished thoughts of Franz from her waking hours. He was a married man. She had no right to feel this perturbation over his merest touch.

  When her father died, every other emotion was swamped by grief and guilt. Day and night the picture was in her mind ‒ William’s crooked body at the foot of the staircase, lifeless, cast there because he had stepped in among a band of silly, quarrelling women.

  The need to take charge again at Waterside had pushed the memory from her waking hours, but it haunted her dreams to the exclusion of all others. She would wake in a sweat, wrestling with the sheets, knowing she had tried to throw out her arms to catch him and break his fall ‒ but in the nightmare some iron band had been fixed about her, preventing any movement.

  Gradually, after Lucy went and life became more relaxed at home, the nightmares had ended. Everything had been going along quietly, the day’s work, the evening’s innocent amusements, an occasional meeting of friends and neighbours, the refreshment of eight hours’ good sleep …

  The past, she had told herself, was behind her. A stupid, unnecessary accident had robbed her of her father. Could blame be laid at her door? She couldn’t tell, but tried to forgive herself because otherwise the feeling of guilt would cripple her.

  As to Franz and what might have been, she ought to be glad her stay in Hamburg had been so short. Franz belonged with that other memory, Bobby Prentiss, better never dwelt upon.

  Yet here he was, behind the door of the drawing-room.

  She drew a deep breath and went in.

  He was sitting on a dark oak settle in the window, drinking iced lemonade and looking out at the garden. He began to stand up as she came in but she waved him to remain seated, taking a chair near the low table on which the carafe stood. She poured cool lemonade for herself, wondering if she ought to have offered him something stronger. But wine was only for parties and special occasions in her mother’s house, beer was unknown, and since Ned’s departure the whisky decanter was seldom in use.

  ‘What brings you here, Herr Lennhardt?’

  ‘How good it is to see you again!’ he burst out, smiling at her with evident pleasure. He was faintly tanned, which went well with the light brown hair and the dark blue eyes. ‘I was so delighted when I was offered this post, Fraulein! To renew acquaintance with you ‒’

  ‘What post is that, mein Herr?’ she asked hastily.

  ‘I am no longer with Jener and Schlieber. Promotion was slow there and it was time to move on. I was offered this post with Gebel’s, a good promotion and with considerable responsibility, so I ‒ do you say, jumped at it?’

  ‘That’s what we say,’ she agreed, sipping. ‘But what post exactly? Are you a traveller for Gebel’s? They usually buy through Wilson’s in London.’

  ‘No, no, my travelling will be very little. I am based here in the Borders. I can choose where to make my home and ‒ need I tell you, dear lady ‒ I have decided to make it here in Galashiels.’

  ‘You will be … living in Galashiels? Permanently?’

  ‘I have a year’s contract which can be renewed indefinitely. Now, isn’t that wonderful? We can be sure of seeing each other often.’

  She stifled a gasp. It was so blatant. ‘How is your wife, Herr Lennhardt?’ she inquired, in a very level tone.

  ‘Elsa? You met her, of course, at the restaurant. She is well. Very taken up with her new baby.’

  Jenny bent her head and closed her eyes.

  ‘Fraulein? Are you unwell?’ Franz had risen and hurried towards her.

  She looked up. ‘Just tired, that’s all. I never enjoy hot weather.’

  He took her hand in his. She drew it back at once. The door opened, and her mother came in wearing a good black gown, rather better than she would have worn for an evening alone with Jenny. She had heard about these important people her son and daughter had met in Hamburg.

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  ‘May I present Mr Lennhardt ‒ he is representing Gebel’s Warehouses. My mother.’

  ‘Mrs Corvill, let me offer my sincerest sympathies on your loss. At the time I was employed by Jener and Schlieber ‒ I believe you received a letter from them?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, many kind letters. I appreciated them. You’re very welcome in Galashiels, Mr Lennhardt. When did you arrive?’

  ‘I just stepped off the train half an hour ago, Mrs Corvill. I left my luggage at the hotel, then came straight here to renew acquaintance with your son ‒’

  ‘Ah! Ned has gone to Glasgow.’

  ‘Gone? On holiday?’ He was uncertain of the meaning.

  ‘No, sir, he has gone to live there. He is writing a book, you know.’

  ‘No, indeed, I had not heard that. A book?’

  ‘About the Greeks. He needed access to libraries and places of learning, so he and my daughter-in-law are now living in Glasgow.’

  Jenny saw that their visitor was surprised by the news, baffled, almost. ‘I recall that Mr Corvill did not seem to take a great interest in the Wool Fair … He plays no part at all in the running of Corvill’s?’

  ‘No, my son’s a scholar, always was.’

  ‘Then who …’ His eyes went to Jenny. ‘Who runs Waterside Mill?’

  ‘It’ll surprise you when you hear,’ Mrs Corvill said, with a smile. ‘Gentlemen are always amazed. My daughter manages the mill, sir. She’s in complete charge. It was an understanding between her and Ned so that he could get on with his book.’ This was the fiction given to Ned’s mother. She fully believed it.

  ‘I see.’ Franz paused. ‘You have no other family, Mrs Corvill?’

  ‘What? You mean, who else lives in our fine house? A strange thing, is it not? Just the two of us, Mr Lennhardt. Ah, little did we know when we bought it that it would empty so soon …’

  ‘The local children say, “A widow and an old maid, Clinging like ivy in the shade”,’ Jenny told him, smiling.

  He frowned. ‘That is unkind.’

  ‘But it’s true. Children often speak aloud things that adults only think.’

  There was a melancholy in the air that he didn’t like. He set himself to chase it away, with so much success that when he said he must be going, Mrs Corvill protested. ‘But you must stay to dinner, Mr Lennhardt.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t impose ‒’

  ‘Nonsense, nonsense, to let you spend your first evening in Galashiels on your own ‒ that would be a cold thing! No, no, if you’re prepared to take pot luck with us, we should love to have you.’

  Mother, Mother, you don’t know what you’re doing, Jenny said within herself. She wanted Franz gone, kept at arm’s length. But Millicent thought of him as a friend of her son’s,
alone in a strange land. She must befriend him.

  To keep matters straight, Jenny talked stoutly about their visit to Hamburg and Franz’s wife. Mrs Corvill took an interest, heard there was a baby, and after the meal asked if he had a photograph. Of course he had. He produced from his pocketbook two tinted portraits, one of a baby in lace shawls enthroned in many cushions, the other of a thickset young woman holding the child in her arms and staring transfixed at the camera.

  ‘A very fine child,’ said Millicent. ‘A boy?’

  ‘Yes, three months old.’

  ‘You must have been very sad to leave them,’ she sympathised.

  Laughing, he said that men were not much wanted when there was a new baby around, and gave some humorous examples of how he had been at a loss in his role of father. Millicent laughed and told him he was pretending but she knew he would be lonely for them.

  ‘You must come and see us whenever you feel like that. Ned told me how kind you were to Jenny and him when he was in your homeland.’

  ‘I hope you mean it, Mrs Corvill, for nothing would give me greater pleasure.’

  When he had gone Jenny tried to put up barricades. ‘Mother, we can’t single him out for special favour. He’s here to buy cloth ‒ the other agents would be very annoyed if he had freedom to come and go here.’

  ‘Oh, really, dear? I never thought of that.’

  ‘You mustn’t encourage him to drop in. If he comes without invitation, you must arrange not to be at home.’

  ‘I couldn’t send a message that I wasn’t at home if I was, Jenny. You know your father disapproved of white lies.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll see to it.’

  She instructed the housemaid that if Mr Lennhardt called unexpectedly, he was to be told Mrs Corvill was not at home.

  ‘She wants to fend him off,’ the housemaid remarked to the kitchen staff. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘Never bother your head about it,’ Mrs Baird said crossly.

  ‘He’s a handsome lad,’ said the kitchen maid. ‘I had a peep at him as he left. I’d be glad if he came a-calling at my house.’

  ‘He’s a married man,’ Baird said, in a tone that put an end to all tittle-tattle.

  Jenny might arrange for Franz not to be admitted beyond the hall of Gatesmuir, but she couldn’t prevent him from calling regularly at the mill. Even when she was busy elsewhere, he was known to be in the visitors’ parlour looking at the pattern books. He contrived matters so that they came across each other in the High Street. He made a large circle of acquaintance so that he was often at events that Jenny attended.

  She wasn’t surprised to see him at the Braw Lads Gathering. He edged nearer in the crowd to ask the significance of the event. ‘It’s a haphazard summer celebration, commemorating the marriage of Margaret Tudor to James IV of Scotland in 1503,’ she explained politely.

  ‘Was that particularly pleasing to Galashiels?’

  ‘The nearby Forest of Ettrick was granted as a bride-gift.’

  ‘Folklore is very interesting, is it not?’ he remarked.

  A procession of young people went round the outskirts of the borough, a king and queen of the summer were crowned with leafy coronets.

  ‘This is surely of pagan origin,’ Franz hazarded.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Mr Hailes, joining them, ‘you’ve hit it, sir. The same kind of thing happens all over Europe in summer. But it’s a grand excuse for a day’s holiday in which to get drunk.’

  ‘Ah, that is universal.’

  Mr Hailes dug him in the ribs, grinned at him, and told him he had a particularly fine bottle of whisky at home he’d be delighted to share with him that evening. At that moment the uncertain weather decided to cut the festival short. The rain came down. Everyone dashed for shelter. Most people rushed into Haldane’s brewery in the yard of which trestle tables had been set up under a canopy. Jenny saw her mother escorted into the lobby of the inn. She herself was being guided elsewhere.

  She knew she should have wrenched herself free and run after her mother and Mr Hailes. But the holiday spirit, the high summer madness, was in her. And his hand was on her arm.

  They came to rest in the doorway of the block of offices next to the Bank of Scotland. He pulled her back into its shadows. He put his arms about her, held her trapped, her body between his and the wall behind her. He kissed her so fiercely that her lips hurt.

  She made a sound of protest. He released her only a fraction, simply so that his tongue could part her lips and dart into her mouth. Sweetness rose up on her palate as if honey had been dripped there. Her head tilted back against the stones of the wall. He put one hand on her stretching throat, and caressed it with the tips of his fingers while his mouth moved on hers.

  ‘I will resist, I will resist,’ her mind was saying. But her body was melting under the glowing assault of touch and taste.

  Running footsteps and laughter on the pavement outside brought her back to her senses. Any moment someone might come in, seeking shelter from the rain. Franz too relaxed his hold, looking towards the doorway. She slipped from him, hurrying towards the street.

  No one came in but she saw a group of young people running by. Franz caught her arm from behind.

  ‘Jenny!’

  She tried to free herself. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Jenny, don’t run away ‒’

  ‘Let me go this minute or I’ll never speak to you again.’

  His hand fell away. He joined her near the entry, standing innocently at her side, two people sheltering from the summer downpour so common in hill country. The decorated carts of the Braw Lads procession could be seen at the top of the hill, the horses tossing their heads impatiently as they waited to be taken to shelter. Beyond that there was the sound of fiddle and melodion as the merriment at the brewery yard continued under the canopy.

  ‘I love you, Jenny,’ Franz said, his voice low, his lips close to her ear.

  ‘No!’

  ‘You know it is so. I love you and you love me.’

  ‘No!’ She flung up her hands to cover her ears, to shut out the words.

  ‘Jenny ‒’ He put an arm about her shoulders.

  She ran out into the street, into the rain, anywhere, to escape the dangers that would engulf her if she stayed near him. She ran up the hill towards the carts, round a corner ‒ and straight into a group of men carrying baskets with bottles and wrapped dishes.

  ‘Hi! Mind where you’re going! Oh, it’s you, mistress!’ They fell back respectfully.

  She knew them, they were her employees. Then a well-known voice said, ‘My, you’re getting drenched! Here, take this.’ Ronald Armstrong took off his jacket to hold over her head and shoulders like a tent.

  ‘What are you doing here, mistress?’ someone asked. ‘The notables are all at the brewery wi’ the mutton pies and the Forfar bridies.’

  ‘I made a mistake, looking for shelter …’

  ‘Come on then, lassie, we’ll escort ye back to the celebrations.’ Laughing and joking, they turned on their steps to lead her back to the party of important townsfolk. One of them began to sing, ‘Braw, braw lads of Gala Water, Bonnie lads of Gala Water …’ They were all a little tipsy, but full of good intentions.

  ‘Where were you off to?’ she asked, to keep them from asking why she’d left her mother’s side.

  ‘Where else but the well in Rye Haugh ‒ for a wee revelry of our own, with the requisite provisions.’ They flourished the baskets.

  ‘I wish you joy,’ she said, as they delivered her to the brewery gates.

  There was something in her tone that made Ronald look at her with attention. ‘You’re not enjoying the day, mistress?’

  ‘Oh, of course I am. It’s lovely.’ She ducked out from under his jacket and handed it to him. It was soaked. ‘Mr Armstrong, you’ll catch your death of cold if you sit around the edge of Rye Haugh Well in that!’

  ‘Na, na,’ cried a wag, ‘he’ll have a warmth within to dry him.’

  ‘Besides,
it’s clearing up, he can spread it out to dry.’

  ‘Mistress Corvill, are you all right?’ Ronald asked, disregarding the joviality around him.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Because if you’re not, I’ll see you home.’

  She longed to say, Yes, take me home, let me hide from all temptations in the safety of Gatesmuir. But she knew she couldn’t withdraw from the festivities. This was a great day in Galashiels, a commemoration of a happy time, apart from Sundays the one day except New Year when the mills were quiet.

  She shook her head, trying to smile at Ronald Armstrong. He studied her. He wasn’t sure that the drops on her cheeks were rain ‒ they might even have been tears.

  His companions claimed him, he nodded farewell and left her to join her mother, who scolded her for running off and getting wet. The rain didn’t clear. Under the canopy the mutton pies and the Forfar bridies, the shortbread and the thick cake, the whisky and the ale and the fruit cordials were sprinkled with blowing moisture. Even the bravest spirits had to agree that it was best to give up the thought of an al fresco celebration.

  On Braw Lads Day open house was kept by everyone. Buffet food was spread out in the Gatesmuir dining-room from five in the evening onwards, and a continual stream of visitors came to dance to the fiddle of John Graham the coachman. The ladies changed into a lesser form of mourning ‒ dark purple with a gold mourning brooch for Mrs Corvill, dove grey for Jenny.

  Jenny knew Franz would come. It was inevitable. She had escaped from him but he would pursue. She recognised something in him that wouldn’t be denied.

  He came with Mr Hailes, about eight o’clock. A boisterous game of forfeits was in progress at the time. Mr Hailes was a little enthused by generous samplings of the excellent bottle of whisky he had mentioned. Franz was entirely sober, and proved it by sitting by Mrs Corvill in quiet conversation. Only his occasional glance told Jenny he was watching her.

  She moved about, playing hostess, greeting newcomers, saying farewells to those who were moving on to other parties. The drenched garden glittered in a belated evening sunshine. Carriages of laughing people came and went, guests arrived on foot bearing flowers traditional to the day ‒ rose and iris and veronica. But at last the gathering began to thin out, the dishes of food on the buffet table were almost empty, the wine had been drunk, the whisky decanter held only a shallow golden puddle.