A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  It wasn’t altogether customary for a clothier to accompany the stock personally. Father had gone every year, but he’d also relied on a Harrowgate agent to keep him in line. No agent was willing to take me on, of course; my letters of inquiry had all returned with brusque but polite apologies. Although demand for Stirwaters’s cloth was never in doubt, my father’s reputation was questionable enough that no one would ally himself with his underage daughter.

  Still, I would not be entirely alone. Uncle Wheeler had embraced the prospect of accompanying his niece to her metropolitan début, insisting that I let him make our travel arrangements and that I acquire some new clothes for the affair. Rosie and I salvaged what was left of the ruined green flannel, and worked late into the evenings cobbling together a new travelling frock.

  I spent hours pasting swatches into our sample books and making and remaking our price lists. Had I not helped Father prepare for this every summer of my life? I opened up Father’s atlas to his depiction of the Exchange. The spidery letters scrawling out worm hill had given me a delicious chill when I was a child…the carefully markedout rooms and stalls, a somber reassurance during the weeks each year when Father left us. Now the thrill they gave me was something even more tangible. This year it would be my cloth in that little stall on the third floor; this year it would be Charlotte Miller’s chance to show the world what Stirwaters was made of.

  Finally, near the middle of August, everything was ready. I was ready.

  And then the letter came.

  It was one of those brutally hot afternoons we see in late summer, where the very air glitters and it is difficult to breathe. I retreated to the woolshed, where the limestone walls kept out some of the heat. Sunlight filtered down through the windows and cast the colored bales into jewelled hues: from pale creamy buff to deepest Saxon red; moss green to Lincoln green; robin’s egg blue to mazareen; dove grey, pearl grey, oyster, and charcoal. I looked them over with satisfaction, picturing how I’d like to display them at Worm Hill. The satinettes in one pile, perhaps, or all the blues together. It was good work; we could be proud of ourselves this summer.

  I moved from bale to bale, binding and labelling each bundle, making notes, and didn’t hear Harte until he was right up on top of me.

  “Mistress, you’ll hurt yourself doing that alone. Let me get that end for you.”

  “Harte, I’ve been doing this since I was ten years old,” I said, but slid aside and allowed him to lift the bulk of the weight. “You learn a thing or two in a house without brothers.”

  “Aye, and with a young lass like Miss Rosie to run after, too, no doubt.” Harte laughed and moved to the next bale. “You’re looking ready to leave, then. Won’t be the same around here without you, you know.”

  “Where goes the wool, follows the miller,” I said.

  Harte leaned in to retrieve the twine. “Rosie’s fit to burst with envy.”

  I had to grin. “I don’t think Harrowgate is ready for Rosellen Miller, do you?”

  Harte shrugged. “Never been. Give me the hills and the sky and the river.”

  “The sheep and the dirt and the—” I mopped my face with my apron. “The perspiration.”

  “Amen, Mistress.” Harte grinned and pulled a calico handkerchief from his trouser pocket. Something crunched as he patted his hand against his hip. “Ah—and there I forgot. Don’t tell Rosie. I was supposed to give you this—” He held out a rather crumpled envelope.

  “Oh, Harte. She didn’t bully you into fetching the post again, did she?” I unfolded the envelope, and my heart gave a little skip when I beheld the postmark: Harrowgate. Another letter from Mr. Woodstone?

  I should have been so lucky. This came instead from Worm Hill. No preamble, no pleasantries:

  It having come to the Attention of the Trustees of this Exchange that your firm has been operating without benefit of President, Foreman, or known Agency and therefore in Violation of the Bylaws of the Wool Guild, it is necessary to Inform you that the stock stall formerly held by Stirwaters Woollen Mill of Shearing has not met the requirements for Renewal. Thereto you will Quit all plans to display your stock, cloth, or other Wares within the grounds at Worm Hill, or in the general Vicinity of Harrowgate. Petitions for Reinstatement will be entertained at the next meeting of this Board and though seldom do Open stalls become available, finding that your Firm meets with Approval, Entry will be made on your behalf in the Queue.

  Yours respectfully,

  Arthur M. Darling, Trustee

  Worm Hill Cloth Exchange

  N.B. Copy of notice filed with Guild of Uplands Wool Merchants

  “Not bad news, then?” said Harte—but he addressed my departing back. I had balled up my skirts and marched off across the millyard. I slammed into the Millhouse kitchen, where Rosie and Rachel were bent over a pan of rolls.

  “We’ve been blacklisted!” I flung the letter to the table and wrenched my bonnet from my head. Rachel abandoned her mixing bowl and came to read over Rosie’s shoulder.

  Rosie stared at the letter as if it were some sort of foul insect she’d discovered crawling out of the millpond. “Those greedy blackguards!”

  “Rosellen Miller!” My uncle stepped into the kitchen. “Here, let me see—what’s all this fuss about?” He read the letter swiftly, then folded it again, sharpening the creases with his fingertips. “Well. This is terribly distressing. But perhaps it’s for the best. I have said you were working too hard, and now you’ve gotten yourself all upset. Baker, please bring my nieces some tea.” Uncle Wheeler gave a flip to the skirts on his jacket and slid into a chair. “Charlotte, dear, do sit down before you fall down.”

  I was too angry to move. “How can you say it’s for the best? I have a hundred bolts of cloth in the woolshed, and nowhere to sell them! And unless I sell that cloth, I’ll never be able to pay back—”

  Nearly too late I felt Rosie’s eyes boring into me. I stumbled to a halt. “All my workers,” I finished lamely.

  Uncle Wheeler sighed. “I’m sure your workers will find other jobs. Charlotte, do sit down so we can talk about this rationally. Baker! Where is that tea?”

  “I don’t want any tea,” I mumbled sullenly, but was too tired, suddenly, not to sit. I slumped into a chair across from my uncle and sank my head into my hands.

  “It would seem, now, that we have two options. Their chief complaint seems to be that Stirwaters has no leadership—”

  “What rot! What’s Charlotte, then?”

  I put a hand on my sister’s arm. “You know Father left no will. If I’d been a boy, they wouldn’t even question my claim. But as it is…”

  “But can’t we do something?”

  I shook my head sadly. “If we fight this, the Wool Guild could take Stirwaters from us.”

  “Well, that’s easily rectified,” my uncle said.

  “Go on,” I said carefully.

  “I would be happy to step into the role, of course; take the reins, as it were.”

  “You!”

  “Of course,” he said again, smiling confidently. “I am here to help in whatever capacity necessary.”

  I nodded slowly, unable to address this idea, yet. Losing Stirwaters would be a catastrophe—but having someone like Uncle Wheeler, however well-meaning he was, at the helm was nearly as unthinkable. Stirwaters was a Miller property; it had never been otherwise. And Uncle Wheeler had no interest in the wool business; how could we be sure he’d make decisions that were in Stirwaters’s best interest?

  And, to speak plainly, I wasn’t ready to give it all up just yet. “You said two options,” I said tentatively.

  “Ah, yes,” Uncle Wheeler leaned back in the chair. “This, of course, would be an excellent opportunity for you to sell.”

  Rosie burst to her feet. “Never!”

  “Rosellen, calm yourself.”

  “No, I won’t,” she cried. “It’s past time someone around here got angry! You sit there and smile at us over your wine—” She turned to me. �
��And you—you’re just going to let them pick and scheme and chip away at us?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What else? Pinchfields! Oh, you must see this is one of their schemes! They’re obviously in league with these trustees, or the Wool Guild…”

  I watched her with dawning horror. Was it possible? Oh, mercy—it would make so much sense: If they could keep us from selling our stock, they could ruin us. You’d best reconsider, before your name and your label are all you have left to sell…

  “Now, girls,” Uncle Wheeler said, “let’s not be irrational. Scheming against you? Oh, surely not. To what purpose? You told me yourselves that this business is fraught with risk. It would hardly take a robber baron to judge that Stirwaters hangs on by mere threads. Rosie, I won’t have you spouting nonsense and upsetting your sister.

  “Now.” He lifted the teapot and poured us each a fresh measure. “I must impress upon you the importance of viewing these events in the proper perspective. Perhaps this is a sign that it’s time for you to give up your foolish attachment to your father’s little operation.”

  “But I don’t understand. I thought you wanted to help us.”

  “Rosie, dear, of course I do. That’s why you must listen to reason now. I was willing to play along with your little fancies, for your mother’s sake. I know how fond she was of the mill, after all. But it’s time you saw sense.”

  Rosie shook her head and pulled her hand out of Uncle Wheeler’s soft grip. My uncle had opened his mouth to speak, but I rose to my feet. “Uncle, please,” I said. “We appreciate everything you’re trying to do, but as I said when you arrived, we simply can’t sell the mill. It’s impossible.” I added, much more confidently than I felt, “We’ll just have to find somewhere else to send the cloth.”

  Up in the bedroom, I peeled my damp stays from my body, splashed some lukewarm water on myself, and slipped into a clean shift. The air was stifling; no breeze at all lifted the curtains on the open window. I collapsed onto the bed and watched the late sun burn the afternoon into dusk as I turned futile thoughts over and over in my mind.

  Rosie arrived with a tray from Rachel, dumping it unceremoniously beside me. Grabbing a roll but not eating it, she paced between the window and the bed, a frown creasing her forehead. She had a fire building in her, and there was nothing for it but to let it burn out. Finally she said, very quietly, “Maybe it’s true, what they say.”

  I pulled myself up on one elbow. “What?”

  Rosie looked at me. “You know. The curse. No—listen. We’ve had more than even our share of bad luck this year. Father, and then the mortgage, and the cloth—and now this?”

  I sighed. “Rosie, honestly. Everything that’s happened has a rational explanation. I think your first theory made more sense.”

  She sat down beside me. “Pinchfields?”

  I nodded grimly.

  The news was all over the village by morning. Shearing gossip is a force of nature; besides, what was the point in keeping it a secret? I passed through a crowd of pale, questioning faces as I went to unlock the mill doors. I lay a hand against the rugged wood, but made no move to open up.

  I turned to them. “It’s all true,” I said. “Everything you’ve heard.”

  “What’ll you do, then, Mistress?” Eben Fuller asked. His voice was gentle, but I was bone weary and thin on patience.

  “I don’t know. Look, go home, all of you. There’s nothing to do here today.”

  “But, Mistress,” Mrs. Hopewell said, “it’s bearing-home today.”

  “Go home,” I repeated. “Call it a holiday, call it—call it whatever you like. But there’s no reason for any of you to be here. Not today. Not…” I meant to say, “Not anymore,” but I just couldn’t get the words out.

  A strong arm took me by the shoulders, and I was grateful for it. It was Harte, of course, and with a few calm words, he got everyone to disperse.

  I had told the millhands to leave, but I could not take my own advice. Despite the baking oppression of the mill, I climbed up to the office. My father’s atlas lay open to the map of Worm Hill. I lifted it to put my finger on our stall, my lost, forfeit stall, and nearly dropped the book.

  It read Pinchfields in curvy, spidery script. I closed my eyes tight, sure I was imagining things. A count of ten passed before I looked again, and surely as the turning wheel, the word remained. My hands shook, and I slammed the book shut and clutched it to my chest.

  A person needs rest after a shock. Maybe my uncle was right. Maybe I was finally breaking under the strain.

  “Charlotte?”

  I started. Rosie had followed me up, and with cold hands I opened the book for her. Her eyes grew wide and then looked straight at me. “Is this some sort of prank?”

  I let out all my breath in one great rush. Of course, that’s all it was. Just nasty commentary from a disgruntled millhand. But no one had been up here—

  Rosie studied the page, rubbed at it with a finger, scowled. “You can’t change Stirwaters to Pinchfields this tidily, not without leaving some mark. This is clean; nothing’s even been rubbed out. How?” She looked at me, wonder in her eyes.

  I grabbed it back from her. She was right—for all I could tell, this page had read Pinchfields for ten years. All traces of our own name had disappeared. It was impossible. Involuntarily, I felt my gaze rise from the atlas to the far wall, where the violet-and-gold hex sign watched over us like a great angry eye.

  Chapter Seven

  That dark mood prevailed for the next few days, that unshakable sense of some threat looming toward me from the distance. And no wonder, I suppose: If I didn’t come up with Mr. Woodstone’s money, we were doomed. Desperately, I pulled the packs apart in the woolshed, separating the plain cloths from the fancier sorts. I could sell the kerseys at market fairs in the Valley, I thought, and perhaps Mrs. Post’s customers would be interested in the plaid blanket cloth. But such sales were crumbs and scrapings, at best. There was nowhere I could divest myself of one hundred lengths of cloth. Not in time. If only I hadn’t dismissed Captain Worthy’s offer so hastily…

  I kept thinking I must do something—fight it somehow, file a protest with the Wool Guild, or write to someone: to the bank—to Mr. Woodstone. But I didn’t dare. As I had told Rosie, the Wool Guild could challenge my claim on Stirwaters too easily; and while Mr. Woodstone had seemed nice enough, his loyalties were with the very people who wanted to take my mill from me.

  For her part, Rosie was uncharacteristically silent those days, carrying Father’s atlas with her and ducking my gaze when we passed in the mill. I put her down as stewing, and deservedly so, but when I did chance to meet her eyes, she looked merely thoughtful, and not angry. I ought to have suspected she was up to something; she is never that meek unless there is trouble afoot.

  The millhands kept coming back to work, of course, however futile that work was seeming by the day. As was custom, the Friday we spun the last of the spring wool, we all took a half-holiday, although it was difficult to summon up the proper festive mood. Instead of the traditional afternoon toasting the season (and the miller) with Drover’s ale in the yard, that year everyone just trickled off home. I lingered in the shadow of the millwheel, listening to the water dribble sadly into the pit.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back, the rough cool stones digging into my shoulders.

  I watched the grey planks of the millwheel cut through the low water, steady as an executioner’s blade falling, over and over. Green lichen stained the weathered boards, and the sound of the water was a mere dip and murmur in the hot afternoon air. I could stand there for hours, gazing into the depths of the pit, looking for answers that would not come. Better to just collect Rosie and head home.

  I found her in the spinning room, in the widest clear space between two aisles of machines. She was silhouetted against the glare of the windows, and I could not immediately make out what she was doing. She crouched on the floor, a circle drawn round her
in white chalk. A stub of a candle, ground into wax on the floor, sat beside her, the smell of tallow sour and rank in the room. The room was uncharacteristically silent, the turning gears a mere whisper in the still air, no sound at all from the slow-turning wheel.

  I stopped in my tracks and stared at her. Her back was to me, and I watched her pause to glance at the floor, where Father’s atlas lay open at her feet.

  “Blood to bone, I summon thee,” she read aloud, casting something to the heart of the circle with a fling of her right hand. “Hearth and home, I summon thee—”

  “What in God’s name are you doing?” I cried. I took three long strides and arrived at Rosie’s side. Grabbing her by the elbow, I yanked her to her feet. “Have you lost your senses? What is this—is that mandrake? Did you take that from the dyeshed? If you got one speck of red on my spinning room floor—”

  “Your floor? I have wept and sweat and bled for this mill every bit as much as you have.” She turned away. “Blood to bone, I summon thee—”

  I glanced down at Father’s book, to the passage she’d been reading from: To Summon Faerie Aid. “Oh, for mercy’s sake! Why not stand by the pulpit at church and ask angels to intervene?”

  “I’ve done that,” she said.

  I couldn’t bear it. She looked so lost, and so young. It was easy to forget she was barely more than a girl, when I felt so old. I wrapped her in my arms and pressed her head to my shoulder. “I know you want to believe all those old stories. But this is nothing but superstition. Stirwaters needs help, real help. Not some fairy story you found in a book.”

  “Ha,” she said, pulling away from me. “What we need is a miracle.”

  “I don’t think this family is eligible for miracles. Rosie, I’m tired. Let’s get this stuff cleaned up before someone comes in and sees it.” I bent to collect the scattered remnants of her “spell”—a bowl of salt, the black candle, a packet of herbs wrapped in muslin. “Where did this all come from, anyway? Did you raid the dyeshed? Or—” I looked sharply at her as I recognized a dried flower I knew hadn’t come from Mr. Mordant’s supplies. “Don’t tell me you’ve been to see Biddy Tom.”