Shining Threads

by Audrey Howard

  He grinned, then, with all the time in the world and the unconcern to go with it, reached into the silver cigar case on his desk, selected a cigar, lit it and when it was drawing to his satisfaction, leaned back in his chair and waited.

  ‘You can go to hell, Will Broadbent, and the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. I’d see the mills in ruins before I’d let you touch me again.’ She gathered her pelisse about her as she leaped up, snarling and dangerous, ready, should he put out a hand to her, to bite it off at the wrist but he merely grinned more broadly. He took another puff of his fine cigar, his long legs stretched out indolently beneath his splendid desk.

  ‘Just as you please, Tessa,’ he said as though it was nothing to him, one way or the other. But when she had gone, sweeping regally from the room, elbowing aside the clerk who would have guided her down the steps to her carriage, he leaned forward in his chair and pressed a trembling hand across his suddenly sweating face.

  24

  ‘I shall go alone then. If you cannot or will not come with me, which seems to me to be nearer the truth, I shall go alone. You know that Nick has set his heart on this holiday, and on having you there. You are a great favourite, darling, not only with the gentlemen of whom, by the way, I am, inordinately jealous, but of the ladies. They seem to find us immensely amusing because of our industrial background and the way, one supposes, we have risen above it. You make them laugh, my love, with your outspoken ways and your quite careless disregard of their belief that they are superior to us. Oh, come with me, Tessa, please. I know we are still in mourning for Charlie, but he wouldn’t mind. You know how he was. We have never been stag-hunting before. They say that runs of eighty miles are not uncommon and not a third of the horses which start out are in at the death. What a challenge, eeh? You and I against the others. What d’you say?’

  Drew Greenwood paced his wife’s sitting-room with all the fire and intensity of a beast which, having been caged, is searching, snarling and dangerous, for the way out. He had just ridden back from the Hall where he had spent the day riding to hounds with the Squire and his guests. He was over-excited as he seemed to be so often these days, Tessa thought. Either that or bored to distraction, casting around for something to amuse him, petulant and churlish at times and at others boyish in his eagerness to tempt her to come and share his play. But slowly, she knew, he was becoming increasingly hostile to what he saw as her stubbornness in the matter of the mills. She felt there was something barely harnessed within him and if she let go he would not be able to hold on to it without her, but she must put the factories into some kind of order before she could resume the pleasurably careless life-style they had enjoyed together before the disaster of the fire and Charlie’s death. No matter what she said, how she tried to explain to him the need for someone to be concerned, he still insisted that managers were employed for that particular purpose and that he could see no reason for this ridiculous obstinacy on her part. And he was becoming isolated from her in a quite frightening way. She who had been his ‘steadier’ was accused of being tedious and not half the fun she once had been. He would not listen to her when she explained patiently that though they had the managers in whom he set such store to see to the running of the sheds at Broadbank and Crofts Bank and the spinning rooms at Crossbank and Highbank, the four older mills, someone was needed to oversee them until order was restored. There was the re-building of Chapmanstown to be considered, insurances, she had been told vaguely by her mother before she left for Italy, and who was to do it if she did not? Her own sense of responsibility towards the accursed business which, after all, belonged to the Greenwoods, irritated her beyond measure and she wished heartily that she could do as Drew wished and just leave the whole damned lot to go to the devil. But something stopped her. Something only half-understood which had perhaps to do with old Joshua Greenwood who had died at Peterloo and all those who had come after him – her own mother, her Uncle Joss, Charlie. Or perhaps it was her own stubborn will which would not allow itself to be beaten, plus the certain knowledge, finally, that Drew would always be just as he was now, never able to be the Greenwood they had been, and which, surprisingly, she was.

  She had said as much to Annie when she had ridden over to her cottage, shortly after she had been to see Will. Drew had gone to the races with Nick and Johnny, sick to death with her long face, he said, and set on escaping it.

  ‘I don’t know where to begin, Annie,’ she moaned. ‘It’s like turning a three-year-old loose in a kitchen with instructions to prepare and cook a fifteen-course dinner for thirty people. I have never been in the counting house except to call on my mother and only in the yard to pick up Drew and Pearce and I have never once set foot in a spinning room or a weaving shed. I have heard my mother speak of carding and drawing frames but if you should ask me what they meant and my life depended on the answer I could not describe them. Will you not at least come with me for a day or so to start with? You are a spinner and have some idea as to what I might be looking for. We could walk round the mills together and you could tell me what is happening . . .’

  ‘Yer overlookers could do that, Tessa, much better than me, or one o’t managers.’ Annie’s voice was blunt.

  ‘But I don’t want them to know I’m so ignorant. Dear God, Aunt Kit had her father to guide her through it all and Mother had Aunt Kit. Dammit, I’ve no one.’

  Annie hesitated. ‘’Appen if you was to speak polite-like to Will . . .’

  Tessa’s face set in an icy mask of contempt. ‘I have already offered him the position of manager but he declined. He does not care what I do, he said. I can go to hell in a handcart before he would lift a finger to help me.’

  ‘Yer can’t blame ’im, lass. Yer tried him sorely a few years back an’ ’e’d not forget in a hurry. Still, I thought ’e might ’ave given thi some hint, some idea where tha might begin. Mind you, ’e said nowt ter me when ’e were ’ere last . . .’

  ‘You’ve seen him?’ Tessa felt her heart lurch painfully.

  ‘Aye. ’E comes over now an’ again, like ’e always did, an’ we ’ave a chin-wag. Just because you an’ ’im ’ad a fallin’ out years ago, doesn’t mean ’im an’ me ’ave to do’t same.’

  Tessa’s face was stiff, she could not have said why since what was it to her if Annie and Will had remained friends? She had known, of course, so why did the mention of it cause this agitation in her?

  ‘You never mentioned him.’

  ‘Would it ’ave made any difference if I ’ad?’ Annie, quick to take offence at the implied criticism and letting it be known that what she did was her own business, lifted the kettle from the fire and banged it down on the dresser just as though the innocent utensil was the cause of her pique.

  ‘No, indeed. None at all.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So what are we arguin’ about?’

  ‘We are not arguing, Annie, and certainly not over Will Broadbent who is not worth giving the time of the day. I don’t want to hear another word about him. I’m going to get out the carriage tomorrow and go to Crossbank and show him and everyone else who thinks I shall fall flat on my face that I’m as much a Greenwood as my mother.’ She lifted her head challengingly but in her eyes was the dreaded anticipation that that was exactly what she would do, and if she was to fall who would pick her up?

  Annie sighed sadly. ‘I’m right sorry. I wish I could ’elp thi, but I can’t.’ It was said simply, the truth of her words, the certainty of them very obvious. ‘I ’ave me own life ter sort out now.’ Tessa, absorbed with her own problems, did not hear her. Annie put out her hand. ‘Is there no other way? Could not that ’usband o’ thine not ’elp out, or ’appen yer could sell the mills?’

  ‘I suppose I could try but I don’t even know enough to guess at an asking price. Dear God, if only Aunt Kit or Uncle Joss or even Mother had remained for long enough to tell me what to do.’

  ‘From what thi tells me, Mrs Greenwood ca
n’t do wi’ ’avin’ yer uncle worried. She only cares about ’im an’ spendin’ what days they ’ave left together in peace.’ In a way, Annie could understand that: a bit of peace must be a wonderful thing to have. Not that she’d ever known any, what with her mam dying and four children to be fetched up somehow, but a thing to be treasured was peace of mind. ‘’Ow old d’yer reckon they are?’ she asked, more to take Tessa’s mind from her problems than her own curiosity.

  ‘Who cares?’ ‘Tessa’s voice was irritable. For God’s sake, Annie was really the limit sometimes. She could think of the most foolish things just when sensible advice was needed. What did it matter how old her aunt and uncle were? It was now that concerned her and what she was to do, if she could only think what that was. Perhaps it might be an idea if she were to go and see . . . the bank manager . . . or that lawyer chap in Crossfold her mother had dealt with. Would it not be practical to find out about the mill’s financial position? That sounded sensible. Its financial position. How much ready cash there was available. Would it be in the bank, hers and Drew’s inheritance, and if so could she get hold of some of it? Briggs had already intimated that one or two tradesmen had presented their accounts. No hurry, naturally, since the Greenwoods and Harrisons were valued customers who normally settled their debts immediately they were incurred, not like the gentry who seemed to think next month, next year or even never would be quite agreeable and who could take serious offence, and their custom elsewhere, if pressed.

  She felt quite pleased with herself. She stood up and smoothed down the tight-fitting black breeches she wore, smiling a little for she had made a decision and had a sensible plan of action. That was what she would do tomorrow. She would call on the bank manager and the lawyer and then, step by step, one action surely leading to another, she would gradually take a hold on the unwieldly package her mother had left her and which was loosely tied together and called ‘the mills’. She’d show them, all of them, meaning, of course, Will Broadbent who had so insulted her with his nasty proposition. She’d show him that she needed no one’s help, especially his, to keep the profits flowing from the business which had been the most efficient and productive in the Penfold Valley for almost a hundred years. It only needed that first step to get her going. Everyone had to take it. Her Aunt Kit and her own mother had done it and if they could do it so could she. She’d let no one guess at her complete lack of knowledge or her fear and though they might suspect they would never know for certain. Bluff, it was called, and she would learn to be good at it. Damn him to hell. She’d show him.

  ‘You off then?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ve had an idea. I’ll go to see the bank manager. He’ll tell me where to begin. Uncle Joss did say something about consulting him and I’d clean forgotten in all the . . . well, I’m sure he’ll give me some clue where to begin. Thanks for the tea, Annie. I’ll be over again soon and if there’s anything you need just let me know,’ she added for Annie, Nelly, Polly and Gracie had all been thrown out of work by the destruction of the mill. ‘By the way, where are the girls? ‘They’re usually helping you with something. Don’t tell me you’ve let them escape your tyranny for once?’

  ‘They’re workin’. All three o’ them.’ Annie stood up, moving the pans on the fire, setting the tongs to a more precise angle in the hearth, her face expressionless, her manner defensive, the very air about her rigid with her determination that everything should be in the perfect order she liked. ‘And I’m ter be off in a day or two so I’ll not be ’ere when yer call.’

  ‘Oh? You never told me you had a job.’

  ‘I’m tellin’ yer now an’ yer’d best be off or it’ll be dark soon.’

  ‘Never mind that. What are the girls doing and where are you going? I thought we’d agreed I’d fit you in at one of the other mills, you and the girls.’

  ‘Oh, aye, an’ what about them as was laid off because o’t fire? ’Undreds of ’em. Are yer to fit them in an’ all?’

  ‘You know I can’t do that. There isn’t enough work.’

  ‘They know that, an’ so do I, that’s why I’m off ter . . .’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘I’ve found work in Manchester.’

  ‘Manchester! But you can’t go all that way. I need you here.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Oh, Annie, you know you’re the only one with any sense I can talk to. You are . . . aware . . . of how things are with Drew at the moment.’

  ‘Aye, I reckon the ’ole valley knows.’

  ‘Well, then, I must have someone to . . . to discuss my problems with. Is it not possible to find work closer than Manchester? And how are you to get there and back each day? It’s nearly ten miles . . .’

  ‘We’re moving. I’ve sold up an’ we’re movin’.’ Annie’s face was gaunt and hollow-cheeked and Tessa wondered why she had not noticed it before, but her voice was tart and quite resolute. ‘We’ve got lodgings in Salford. I’ve got rid o’ most o’t stuff . . . we ’ad to eat, tha’ knows . . .’

  ‘But you know you had only to ask me . . .’

  ‘Mebbe so, but we’ve always managed on our own, like, an’ I’ll not take charity.’ She lifted her chin menacingly as though daring Tessa to try pressing it on her. She was looking for no sympathy. She stated a fact and that was that and there was absolutely no use in Tessa attempting to change her mind. ‘The girls are . . . pin-heading in Brown Street an’ I’m ter do pin-sheeting . . .’

  ‘Pin-sheeting?’ Dear God, what was that?

  ‘Aye, just ’til summat better turns up. Our Jack’s in a warehouse in Portland Street. It tekks brass to keep a lad articled. The lawyer in Crossfold kept ’im on as long as ’e could but . . . well, ’e’s a strong lad an’ when things is better ’e can go back. ’Till then us’ll manage.’

  Tessa fumbled her way into a chair, her face like paper and somehow, though her mind told her it was foolish, this appeared to be even worse than the death of poor Charlie and the chaos she herself was in. She had no one, no one in whom she could confide her absolute terror, her sense of being caught in some ghastly nightmare from which somehow she must escape. Only Annie. Only Annie and now Annie was to leave her as well. Drew was . . . well, Drew had a contempt for the commercial world so great and so condemning he would beg on the streets rather than submit to it. He was, in the opinion of Crossfold and the Penfold Valley and to himself, if she were to be truthful, too fine a gentleman for the life of a millmaster. He had simply been waiting, they told one another, to get his hands on his considerable share of the Chapman fortune when he would be off, with or without that dashing wife of his, to more exciting climes than Crossfold.

  ‘We are rather rich now, are we not?’ He had grinned amiably, daring her to deny it, his vivid blue eyes quite beautiful in the deep, smooth brown of his handsome face. He really is quite flawless, she had thought, from the outside, for she had no illusions about her husband’s unstable mind. She herself was wild and just as carelessly imprudent, but where Drew exposed himself to danger with no thought to the consequences, not even aware that there were any, she had, in the past, done it quite deliberately, challenging the gods to stop her. And now the gods had stopped her and she must find a solution without even Annie to give her a hand.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ was all she could find to say in response to Annie’s news. ‘I really had no idea.’

  ‘Thi ’as enough on thi mind, lass, wi’out me ter think on. But we couldn’t just sit ’ere an’ wait fer summat to ’appen. It’s same fer us all, them as worked at Chapmans. Mouths ter feed an’ no wages ter do it. Anybody with a bob or two put by ’as spent it. Now it’s pawnshops’ turn, then, fer them as can do nowt else, poor relief. You’d not noticed, what with all you ’ad on yer plate, but I’ve ’ad ter let me mam’s things go.’

  Tessa looked about her dazedly noticing for the first time that the dresser on which Annie’s willow pattern had once proudly stood, probably bought at one of the pot fairs which toured the nor
th of England and not worth a great deal but dear to Annie, was empty of all but a couple of chipped mugs, the old kettle and a frying pan with a broken handle – a few things not even the pawnbroker would consider. The room was bare somehow, though she could not have said what else was gone, and when she turned back to Annie her friend began to polish the dresser vigorously, wanting nothing said, nor willing to receive pity and indeed showing quite plainly she would be deeply offended if any was offered.

  ‘There’s no need ter look like that, my girl. We’ll be all right, me an’ the childer.’ She always called them that though Jack would be eighteen now. ‘It’s only temporary, o’ course,’ she asserted, warning any fates which might be listening that she’d know the reason why should it prove otherwise.

  Tessa stood up again, the colour seeping slowly back into her pale cheeks. For a moment she had allowed Annie’s news to bring her close to fainting, the awful prospect of not having this sharp-spoken, sharp-faced woman right here where Tessa could find her whenever she pleased, taking her wits. They had been friends, or as close to friends as Annie would allow, for years now, a faintly uneasy relationship since Annie was extremely sensitive to what she thought of as ‘decent’ and ‘proper’ and in her opinion persons of a different class did not mix. She was a good listener, becoming involved in all Tessa’s troubles, conveying her opinion with grunts of scorn, irritable shrugging of her shoulders, unbelieving shaking of her head, sharp tuttings, an ability to let you know exactly how she felt without saying a great deal. And yet when she did speak she demonstrated her north-country shrewdness, cunning almost, with bite and humour. What was she to do without her?

  But she was right, of course. Tessa could not find employment for the hundreds of operatives who had been thrown out of work by the fire until the mill re-opened and only the Lord knew when that would be, but though she might be unable to do anything about the rest she would put this family back to work by the end of the week.