A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  “He what? But—” Her eyes widened. “No, of course I didn’t know. Why would I?”

  I slammed the papers down on the desk. “You two were always so close; he talked to you about everything.”

  Rosie’s expression softened. “What happened?”

  Wearily, I sank down on the desk and related all the banker had told me. When Rosie was suitably pale from the news, she shook her head sadly. “Father never said anything—never would have said anything about it to me. You were the one he talked to about money.”

  I made a sound that was meant to be a laugh, but came out somewhere between a cough and a sob. “He never talked to me about money,” I said. “I spoke to him about it, but it was always a wave of his hand and, ‘Don’t fret so. Things will take care of themselves.’ Oh, aye, and look where that’s brought us, then.”

  I tapped my fingers on the binding of the ledger, wherein the debt was not recorded, and sighed. “He’s coming here tomorrow, to take an inventory for the bank. We’ve got to show him we’re worth saving.”

  Rosie gave a mirthless laugh. “Oh, I’ll show him a thing or two.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” I said. “He did seem awfully sorry about it.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but squeezed my shoulder. “Things will be all right.”

  “How?”

  “Because you’ll think of something. You always do.”

  I followed Rosie home with none of her misplaced confidence. It was all very well to tell Mr. Woodstone that our stock went to market at the end of summer, but the fact was, we’d never bring in two thousand pounds—or anything close to it. I’d been hoping to scrape together a few hundred pounds—enough to pay all my workers, hire a new jackspinner, and replace the broken glass in the spinning room windows.

  It seemed all my grand plans would have to wait.

  Dinner that night was a stiff and awkward affair, made perhaps even more strained by Rachel’s presence, leaning over my shoulder to ladle soup into my dish or refill my glass. Uncle Wheeler kept pausing to give instruction on any number of details she hadn’t managed to his satisfaction. The joint was overdone, the aspic was too cold, the wine not what he’d ordered. For Rachel’s part, she kept up the serene and patient expression she wore for difficult customers at the bakehouse and said nothing but “aye, sir” and “thank you, sir.”

  I watched the sumptuous dishes come and go: leek-and-cream soup, braised sweetbreads, stuffed duck; and all I could think of was the mortgage. What had Father done with that kind of money? It hadn’t gone into the mill, that much was plain.

  “My dear Charlotte, you seem distant tonight. Are you unwell?”

  I started and splashed soup onto the tablecloth. “No, Uncle, surely not. Just a long day.” My uncle reached out and stroked my arm with his thin hand. Lace that must have cost twenty shillings a yard frothed round his wrist.

  “My poor girl. You’ve had such a strain lately. All this work, on top of your recent tragedy. A delicate constitution like yours needs rest after such a shock.”

  “She hasn’t got a delicate constitution! She’s healthy as an ox.”

  I heard a clatter from the kitchen, I think to cover up a muffled laugh.

  “Thank you, Rosie. Uncle, truly, I believe work is just what I need right now, and—”

  Uncle Wheeler clucked his tongue. “This is exactly what we were discussing the other night. It’s all very well for a lady of consequence to own an enterprise such as your little mill, for an income, of course, or a dowry. But somewhere else, naturally, managed by some competent laboring class fellow, with an agent—or a relative—to oversee the finances. But actually running a—factory—herself?” He gave a distasteful sniff. “Well, that’s hardly done.”

  “Mam did it,” I said a little sullenly.

  Uncle Wheeler’s green eyes narrowed slightly. “Well. And look where that brought her. I’m very serious, Charlotte. Reconsider your position. I know your father took pride in that Miller stubbornness, but it’s hardly a virtue in a young lady.”

  And whatever thoughts I had of confessing my latest financial difficulties to my uncle went straight out of my head at that.

  I slept poorly that night and was at Stirwaters early, taking advantage of a few moments’ peace to check the cloth drying on the tenterhooks. Like two parallel farm fences, the tenters cross a wide field behind the millpond for thirty-five yards. We could have used a third, but it was one of those vexing mysteries of Stirwaters: The third tenter always fell down, or sagged in the middle, or tore the cloth, or was got at by goats; so we coped with two. That day we had two of Mrs. Hopewell’s pieces stretched out, dove grey satinette and a blue flannel, running along the river like its reflection. I walked the rows, checking the cloth for flaws. The cloth had come loose from a couple of the hooks, so I knelt down to refasten it, tugging the selvage taut and even.

  “Ahoy, there! Miss Miller?”

  I spotted an unfamiliar pair of creased riding boots beneath the cloth, briskly making their way my direction. The cloth was seized with a fit of perversity and would not reach to the hook, just as the boots stopped right on the other side of the tenter.

  “I say, do you need a hand there?”

  And I, with my great backside thrust gracelessly into the air, looked up to see my father’s banker grinning down at me. Flushing hotly, I abandoned my selvage and burst to my feet.

  “Mr. Woodstone! Is it your custom to go skulking about in tenter fields?”

  I could see he was trying not to laugh. “I resent skulking,” he said amiably. “I did call out. Good morning, Miss Miller.”

  He had exchanged his black suit for a coat of brown baize—heavy for the morning—and the scuffed and creased boots. His hair was tied back loosely with a ribbon, and he wore no hat, no waistcoat. If I hadn’t known better, I could easily have mistaken him for one of my country neighbors. Before I could answer, he stooped low beside me and pulled firmly on the cloth, slipping it easily onto the great iron hook.

  “You can’t think much of me after yesterday,” he said. “Let’s start fresh, why don’t we?” He rose and held his arm for me to take. “Miss Miller, would you do me the honor of showing me your mill?”

  I spent the better part of that morning leading Mr. Randall Woodstone on a tour of Stirwaters, from the spinning room to the tenterhooks, the felting room, the finishing room, the wheelhouse. All the while, he trailed at my heels, taking everything in and asking perceptive questions about the millworks: How efficient was the power train? What was our average return on a length of cloth? Did we buy our wool locally or was it imported? He noted my answers in a rather battered record book, no doubt taking our measure for the bank fellows. Is Stirwaters worth saving? If only their stock could bring in another two hundred pounds. Such a shame…

  Rosie, contrary to my concerns, was at her charming best, not even one gold curl out of place. If the banker thought it strange to find a young girl installed in the wheelhouse, walking him through the workings of the great waterwheel and its many smaller replicas, he gave no sign of it. Still, the farther along we went, the faster his pencil scurried across the pages of his inventory book, the more pointed his questions became. I read the look in Rosie’s gaze: Was he sizing us up to save us—or skewer us?

  Mr. Woodstone and I followed the gears from the wheelhouse upstairs, along the path the wool took in the mill. As we passed through the spinning room, he paused before Jack Townley’s carding engine. “And what does this do?”

  “Mr. Woodstone, please don’t touch that!” I scuttled closer and yanked his hand away from the razor-sharp carding cloth. “We’ve already lost one finger this spring, and I should hate to impede your ability to—to draft up mortgage papers and such.”

  Mr. Woodstone let out a great laugh that echoed off the stones. “Duly noted.” As I explained how the machine combed the matted wool into smooth fibers ready to be spun, Mr. Woodstone took notes: Carding engines (three), I fancied he wrote, fifty pounds a
piece. “Very good. What’s next?”

  Undeterred, I led him straight past my spinning jack to Tory Weaver’s, where the old jackspinner eased the long carriage forward into the mill room, drawing the threads out like a fine white web. Mr. Woodstone stepped in close and watched the hypnotic rhythm of Tory’s motion with the jack, which was like a slow, peculiar dance, as he alternately drew out the frame, and then pushed it back again.

  “Spinning is at the heart of our operation here, and Stirwaters was built to accommodate these machines,” I said. “It’s a skill that takes years to master. Mr. Weaver, how long have you been at Stirwaters?”

  Tory leaned back and regarded Mr. Woodstone from wizened eyes. “Ah, I’d say I been here through the last three masters. Not countin’ Miss Charlotte, of course.” He gave me a crinkled smile.

  “Very impressive, sir. Would you mind if I gave it a try?” He eyed me sidelong. “I trust there’s nothing dangerous about this machine?”

  I felt my mouth hanging open, like some country simpleton, and closed it with what was surely an audible clack of my teeth, as Mr. Woodstone shucked off his baize coat and let Mr. Weaver guide his hands into place on the spinning frame.

  “So that would be Charlotte’s father, then, and what, your grandfather?” Mr. Woodstone asked, watching the carriage frame advance under his touch. Mr. Weaver gave me a sharp look.

  “No, sir. My father’s cousin. Stirwaters has a—strange history in that regard.”

  “But it’s always been in the Miller family?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. We’re a family operation.”

  Mr. Woodstone looked up from the spinning jack and regarded me levelly. “And after you, Miss Miller?” The mill floor shuddered with the rumble of water beneath us.

  I swallowed hard. “There’s no one.”

  “No cousin, no uncle, no long-lost brothers?”

  I shook my head.

  “I see,” Mr. Woodstone said quietly, as the gears thumped steadily overhead.

  A few more passes with the carriage later (during which, I grudgingly noted, Mr. Woodstone broke no threads), the banker relinquished his claim on Tory’s jack, with what seemed genuine thanks. He passed me his little book to hold as he shrugged back into his jacket, and I was very well-behaved and did not peek once.

  “So how does all this thread become cloth?” Mr. Woodstone asked, flipping back through the pages of his notes. “I don’t see any looms here.”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. Weaving is sent out. There wouldn’t be any room for the looms here, first of all. And besides, they belong to the weavers—they aren’t the property of Stirwaters.” I may have said that a tiny bit more forcefully than necessary, but Mr. Woodstone did little more than twitch his eyebrows before scribbling yet another notation.

  He snapped the book closed. “Well, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to see some of this famous cloth of yours. I believe I heard something about blue dye?”

  I nodded. “Oh, yes, sir. Come this way, I have a new piece in the office.”

  I set off across the spinning room, my skirts swinging in a wide arc as I walked. I was halfway to the stairs when Mr. Woodstone called my name. I turned back, and saw with dismay that he had stopped before the wall painted with the hex symbol. Don’t ask, don’t ask, I silently pleaded, but Miller luck struck again.

  “I say, this is…unusual. Not the sort of thing I usually encounter in the businesses I survey.”

  My heart sank, but I plastered that serene, half-sick smile on my face. “Just our little…emblem. A sort of symbol for Stirwaters.” Well, why not? It was as fitting as anything else.

  He traced a finger along one gold-edged swirl. “Ah, yes.” He dipped into his jacket pocket and pulled out a figure of plaited straw. “I found this on the floor by one of the machines. Corn dollies? Very, ah, thorough of you, I’d say.”

  I stared at it, all the force of my will resisting the urge to snatch it back from him. Blast Father and his charms and curses! “Mr. Woodstone, I can assure you, we are not all superstitious rustics in Shearing.”

  “Miss Miller,” he said. “I would never suggest it.”

  And after that, I was relieved to fairly slam shut the door to the office, cutting off Mr. Woodstone’s view of the hex sign. He slid easily into a chair and leaned back, crossing his legs, while I fetched a length of logwood blue plush, fresh from Janet Lamb and the finishing room, and unfolded a yard or two over my arm, so Mr. Woodstone could watch the light disappear into the depths of its velvet-soft raised nap.

  “No one else makes this color,” I said. “It’s exclusive to Stirwaters.”

  “How much will something like that go for?”

  I refolded the cloth. “I’m going to ask twenty pounds for this. And there are two more bolts just like it.”

  Mr. Woodstone let out a long whistle, and I suppressed my smile.

  “Well, you’ve managed to impress me,” he said. He spread his book open on the desk, chewing on his lip and nodding as he read. I found the habit terribly distracting, and had to look away.

  “Is that good?”

  He sighed and sat straighter. “I don’t know, Miss Miller. When your father came to us, he was very determined. His mill and his daughters, that was all he cared about. I can honestly tell you I understand his affection—for everything. But it isn’t up to me, not completely. I’d like to see you make a go of it, truly I would. But you’ll have to show the bank that you’re worth a two-thousand-pound risk. Can you do that?”

  I met his eyes. He had trusted my father with an absurd amount of money—his poor judgement, but I would not allow Stirwaters to suffer for that. “What must I do?”

  Mr. Woodstone outlined the terms. I would have to make an “earnest payment” of six hundred fifty pounds by the end of summer—he could extend the deadline to after Market, but no later. After that, regular payments could be made over the course of eighteen months. It was not as good as I’d dared hope—not as good as if I’d been a man, certainly. Father’s loan had been for ten years; the bank, apparently, was not willing to take such a chance on me.

  “If you miss a payment, Miss Miller—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. We both knew what would happen.

  At long last, I led Mr. Woodstone out into the yard, where the afternoon sun bathed Stirwaters in golden light. He stopped and shielded his eyes with one hand, gazing out over the mill building, the dappled green pond beyond it, and the silver wheel, turning lazily in the slow water. Taking advantage of the moment, I brought him closer to the building, on the pretense of offering him a drink from the water-butt. A plume of mist rose from the water, making the very air glitter.

  “I say, that’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” he said softly. I did not let him see my smile.

  “Shearing folk say this mill has a mind of its own. That Stirwaters knows what it needs, and calls its caretakers to it. That’s how it’s managed to stay in the family so long.”

  “Do you believe that?” Mr. Woodstone’s voice was quiet, but I sensed no mockery in it.

  “My father did. He used to remind us that we were only keeping Stirwaters in trust for future generations. And, Mr. Woodstone, you must believe that I will do anything to ensure that that trust is not broken.”

  Mr. Woodstone stepped closer to me. “Miss Miller, I—” But at that moment, I heard the telltale creak of the Millhouse door, and I jumped, pulling away from the banker. My uncle was just emerging from the house. In a coat of salmon pink velvet, he crossed the shale toward us, pulling on his white gloves.

  Mr. Woodstone watched him with surprise. “I say—isn’t that Ellison Wheeler?”

  “Yes—he’s my uncle. He’s been staying with us since Father—while we get settled.”

  Mr. Woodstone rocked back on his heels. “Really? He’s quite a well-known…figure at some of the old clubs in Harrowgate, you know.”

  I frowned, wondering about my banker’s acquaintance with my uncle. That
was all I should need.

  Uncle Wheeler paused about ten paces from us. “Good day, niece. I’d not have thought to find you loitering about the yard in the middle of the day. And who is your…companion?”

  “Randall Woodstone at your service, Mr. Wheeler. We’ve not formally met, although our paths have crossed. I believe we belong to the same club.” He held out his hand.

  Uncle Wheeler drew back and pursed his lips. “I hardly think that likely, my boy.”

  “The Westmoreland? You must be missing the amusements there, I daresay. How are you finding the country, then? A little dull for your taste, no doubt.”

  My uncle smiled thinly. “You’d be surprised.”

  I did not want him to learn the nature of Mr. Woodstone’s business with Stirwaters—not when he had a banker so convenient to discuss the matter of selling—so I broke into their exchange. “Uncle, Mr. Woodstone was an acquaintance of my father. He’s been in Shearing on business, and has just dropped by to offer his condolences.”

  “What a very small world, indeed,” my uncle said softly. “What sort of business?”

  “Banking business,” Mr. Woodstone said with an easy smile. “And what sort of trade are you engaged in, Mr. Wheeler? I never did quite know.”

  “Ah well—a little of this and that, you know, my dear boy. Of course, my chief occupation right now is the welfare of my nieces.” He took a measured step closer to me, until I was within the circle of his lilac perfume.

  “What a generous gesture,” Mr. Woodstone said. “The Mistresses Miller certainly are fortunate to have such attentive relations.”

  “I’m sure. Now, my dear, you mustn’t keep Mr. Woodstone any longer. I’m sure he has important matters to attend to. Come along now; your luncheon is waiting for you.” One salmon arm round my shoulders, my uncle made to steer me toward the Millhouse.

  Mr. Woodstone took a quick step forward and bowed low, catching my hand on the way. “Miss Miller,” he said, meeting my eyes with great solemn grey ones. “Please do not hesitate to call on me if I can be of any assistance. Good day.” He gave my hand the faintest of squeezes before letting it drop, bowed again to my uncle, and disappeared, whistling, down the dusty road.