He opened his arms to her and she ran across the room to him. She hardly dared to ask, yet she had to know. ‘What happened?’
Adam took a deep shuddering breath and his voice was unsteady. ‘He’s disowning me. He’s going to change his will and cut me out. I can work in the mill but I’m no longer to regard myself as his son. I’m to be an ordinary worker.’
Hannah gasped. It was not what she had expected at all. She couldn’t believe that Edmund would cast his one and only legitimate son aside in such a callous manner, no matter what he’d done. She’d fully expected that he’d get rid of her. Have the marriage annulled, have her sent back to the workhouse – anything to break them up. But he’d keep his son. Oh yes, he’d keep his son close.
Her mind was working quickly. No, she didn’t believe what Adam was telling her. Edmund was doing this only to teach Adam a lesson. It was his way of bringing his young pup to heel.
‘And what about me? Am I to work in the mill?’
‘He . . . he didn’t mention you.’
‘Not at all? Didn’t he tell you to . . . to end it? To send me away?’
Adam looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, yes, but I refused. That was when he came up with the alternative. I can work here, but that’s all.’
Hannah shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t think it’s all by any means,’ she said quietly. ‘He’ll have other plans. He . . . he’ll be up to something to get rid of me.’
Adam held her close. ‘Oh, darling, don’t think that. You make him sound an ogre. He’s stern and strict with his employees – I know that – but he’s not so bad. He’ll come around. I know he will.’ His eyes sparkled as he looked down at her. ‘And if we give him a grandson – you’ll see. I’ll be restored to the family fold – and you along with me.’
Hannah stared at him, amazed at his naivety. He didn’t know his father at all.
Edmund Critchlow would stop at nothing to rid himself of an unwanted daughter-in-law.
There was only one thing she could do that might yet save Adam. The very thing that she’d planned all along, but now it was with a very different purpose in mind. It was not only to exact her revenge upon Edmund, but now it was to save Adam too. She’d have to reveal her true identity herself. She’d do nothing yet, she decided. She’d bide her time and wait and see what happened. But, she thought, I still have a trump card to play – if I have to.
Her mind was spinning and she heard Adam’s plans with only half an ear. ‘We’ll live in the apprentice house and take in lodgers. I know we don’t have the orphans any more but we still get single young men and women coming to work at the mill and needing lodgings. You could do that, darling. Run it as a lodging house, couldn’t you? There’d be no need for you to work in the mill any more. And when the family comes along . . .’
Adam was full of ideas, happily planning their future and confident that, in time, his father would come around.
Oh, how little you know of him, Hannah thought.
It was eerie to walk back into the apprentice house. So many ghosts lingered in the rooms. She could almost hear their voices: the Bramwells, Nell – and now Luke too. She fancied she could hear his laughter, teasing her. Calling up to her from below the window of the punishment room. Hannah shivered.
‘I know it’s cold and damp,’ Adam said, throwing open all the doors and going from room to room, dragging Hannah in his wake. ‘But we’ll soon have it cleaned and warmed through. Perhaps some of the girls from the mill would help . . . Oh!’ He stopped and his face fell. ‘I was forgetting,’ he murmured. ‘I’m no longer the owner’s son. I can’t ask for help.’
‘You could still ask,’ Hannah said.
‘I could, I suppose,’ Adam said doubtfully, ‘but I couldn’t arrange for them to be paid, could I?’
‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘No, I suppose not, unless . . .’
‘Unless what?’
‘How do you get on with Mr Roper?’
‘Roper?’ Adam was puzzled. ‘Well, all right, but . . .’ His face cleared. ‘Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Roper could arrange their pay.’
‘Mmm.’
Adam shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do anything that would go directly against my father’s wishes.’
Hannah said nothing. She was not so sure.
It was high time she had a word with Mr Roper herself. There were one or two matters that needed to be sorted out.
A week later, when Hannah heard that Edmund would be away on business for a few days, she crossed the yard and climbed the stone steps to the offices. She’d not been inside the mill since her marriage, but she knew the news would have travelled through the mill like a raging fire.
Josiah Roper was, as ever, sitting at his desk. As she opened the door and marched in, he looked up and smiled his thin, humourless smile as he saw who it was.
‘Ah, the new Mrs Critchlow,’ he said sarcastically. He laid down his pen and turned to face her. ‘And to what do I owe this honour?’
Hannah smiled brightly at him. ‘I’ve come to ask a favour, Mr Roper.’
‘A favour? From me?’
‘If Adam were to ask one or two of the girls to help clean out the apprentice house, would you arrange for them to be paid?’
For the first time that she could remember, Hannah saw surprise on Josiah’s face. ‘Arrange for them . . . to be paid?’ he spluttered. ‘For . . . for helping you?’
‘Yes, Mr Roper.’
He stared at her and shook his head wonderingly. ‘You’ve got some nerve, I’ll say that for you. I always did admire your spirit. Grudgingly, of course.’
Hannah’s smile widened. ‘Of course.’
There was silence as they stared at each other. ‘And how would you suggest that I justify such an action to Mr Edmund?’
Hannah put her head on one side. ‘He’s going away, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Josiah said slowly.
‘And whilst he’s away, you’ll be in charge?’
‘Mm.’
‘Have you been told – officially, for I’m sure you will have heard the gossip – that Master Adam is no longer to be treated as son and heir?’
Josiah raised his eyebrows. ‘Mr Edmund told me that his son’s allowance was to be stopped. That he is to become an ordinary worker in the mill and treated as such.’ He paused and then his beady eyes gleamed. ‘But he said nothing about disinheriting him.’ He was thoughtful for a moment before saying slowly, ‘He didn’t tell me that I was no longer to take instructions from his son – especially,’ he added with emphasis, ‘in his absence.’
‘You’re not afraid it’ll cause trouble for you on Mr Edmund’s return?’
His smile twisted wryly. ‘I’ve never been afraid of Edmund Critchlow. Oh, I pander to him. To his every whim,’ he added bitterly. ‘And I expect I’m a laughing stock amongst the workers, but you see, Mrs Critchlow,’ for some strange reason he seemed to delight in repeating her new-found title, ‘I know exactly what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. And Mr Edmund trusts me. Trusts me implicitly. I’m the keeper of his secrets, you see.’ He nodded meaningfully at her. ‘I’m a very good keeper of secrets, Mrs Critchlow.’
‘So – you’ll do it?’
He turned back to his desk, dismissing her. ‘Tell Master Adam to let me know the details of the young women involved and how much he wishes them to be paid.’
For a moment, Hannah stared at his hunched back. He was a complex, devious and mysterious character. She couldn’t pretend to understand him.
When she told Adam what she had done, he put his arms about her. ‘We’ll make a great team, you and I. It’s going to be all right. We’re going to be so happy and everything will work out. I know it will.’
If only I could be as sure, Hannah thought.
Forty-Four
‘So you’ve managed to hook him, then. What do you intend to do now?’
Crossing the yard after another meeting with Josiah Roper, to present him with the
list of the names of the girls who were at this very moment scrubbing floors and flinging open the windows in the apprentice house, Hannah was met by Daniel, stepping out of the shadows to bar her way. She wondered if he’d seen her on her way in and had been waiting to waylay her.
‘Daniel!’
‘Ma’am,’ he said sarcastically and doffed his cap to her.
How she wished now that she hadn’t confided in Daniel! Her feelings had undergone a radical change. Whilst she still wanted to bring Edmund to justice in some way for causing Luke’s death – that desire would never die – she wished she could do it without harming Adam. But it was seeming impossible now. Adam still respected his father, loved him, she supposed. Whatever she did to Edmund was bound to hurt Adam.
Now she faced Daniel. ‘We’re going to open up the apprentice house. Live there – take in young people working at the mill who need somewhere to live.’
‘Starting up the pauper apprentice scheme again, are you?’ His lip curled. ‘Talk about poacher turned gamekeeper.’
‘No, we’re not. We’re just going to offer a nice home to single folk.’
‘Huh! I’ll believe that when I see it. Well, I wish you joy.’ He turned on his heel, pulled his cap back on and disappeared into the mill. Hannah stared after him. He wished her anything but joy. She could hear it in his tone: Daniel wished her nothing but ill.
She sighed and carried on out of the yard. In the lane she hesitated. There was one other person she ought to see. It had been praying on her mind and she’d better get it over with.
She would do it now. She would go and see Mrs Grundy.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
Lily Grundy’s greeting was far from welcoming. She turned and went back into her kitchen without inviting Hannah in, but she left the door open as if expecting Hannah to follow. Hannah stepped inside and closed the back door.
‘So, you’re married to young Critchlow then?’
‘That’s right.’
‘All part of the grand plan, was it?’
Hannah licked her lips, unsure how much to confide in Lily. But there was no one else. No Auntie Bessie, no Nell. Yet in many ways Lily reminded her so much of Auntie Bessie that almost before she realized what she was doing, she was sobbing out the truth.
‘Oh, Mrs Grundy, I don’t know what to do. I’m so confused . . . so mixed up. I . . . I wanted to get revenge on Mr Edmund – for everything he’d done. For the cruelty he inflicted on the child workers who were supposed to be in his care. For all the suffering and the deaths he caused. I didn’t care how I did it or who I hurt in the process. Not Ted or Adam or anyone. I . . . I just wanted to make him pay.’
Lily stared at her for a moment and then, seeing that the girl’s distress was genuine, she set her hot iron in the hearth and pulled a chair up close to Hannah. Putting her arm around the girl’s shoulders, she said gently, ‘Now, why don’t you tell me all about it and then we’ll see what can be done.’
So Hannah confided everything to her, how she’d made Adam fall in love with her but how the tables had now turned and she was finding herself falling in love with him.
‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that, Hannah,’ Lily said. ‘You think you’ve made Master Adam fall for you. But you haven’t. It either happens or it doesn’t. He was going to fall for you anyway – once he’d set eyes on you, whether you wanted it or not. You can’t make someone love you, lass, unless they want to.’ She sighed. ‘And I was wrong to go on at you about our Ted. I’m fond of the lad and I’m fond of you and I’d’ve liked nothing better than to see the two of you happy together. I thought you weren’t giving him a chance, giving yourself a chance to like him, but I see now that if you were going to fall for Ted, then you would’ve done and you wouldn’t have been able to help yourself. Besides,’ she added, laughing a little sheepishly, ‘I have to admit our Ted’s a bit of a one for the girls. He’s got his eye on a lass from the village already, so I don’t think his heart is broken after all.’
Hannah smiled through her tears. ‘I’m glad. I didn’t want to hurt Ted and I hated you being angry with me. It was just that . . . that . . . well . . . even if I hadn’t been bent on setting my cap at Adam, I still wouldn’t have been right for Ted. I . . . I was believing myself still in love with Luke then.’
‘You can’t live in the past, love,’ Lily said. She sighed. ‘I s’pose I’ve been guilty of that. Never forgiving and never forgetting. Always bearing a grudge against them Critchlows because of our Lucy. But now, we’d best move on. All of us. Them days is gone. The apprenticing of young children has stopped – and a good thing too. I s’pect things is better up at the mill now, are they?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ Hannah said bitterly, thinking of the long working hours, the dusty, unhealthy atmosphere and the pitiful wage that most of the workers received. The punishment room might be gone, but workers were still fined for breaking the rules.
‘If only—’ She stopped, appalled to realize another consequence of her unremitting desire for revenge. ‘If only Adam were in charge, things would be a lot better. He’s kind and considerate and . . . and . . . oh, but I’ve put an end to all that, haven’t I? He’ll never have the chance to inherit the mill now. Oh, Mrs Grundy, what have I done?’
Lily squeezed the girl’s shoulders but she could think of nothing to say that would bring any comfort.
By the time Edmund returned from his business trip, the apprentice house was looking much as it had done when Hannah had lived there before. Better, in fact, for most of the walls were freshly whitewashed and the whole house scrubbed from top to bottom. Two of the carpenters from the mills had put up partitions in the dormitories, dividing the space up into single rooms. And best of all, the dreaded punishment room had been turned into a cosy bedroom.
If only Hannah didn’t feel such dreadful guilt hanging over her, she could have counted herself as happy.
‘Roper. Roper! Come in here at once.’
Josiah laid down his pen, slid from his perch and ambled into his master’s office. ‘Sir?’
Edmund prodded the page in the open ledger lying on the desk in front of him. ‘What is the meaning of this? These extra payments to some of the girls. And two of the men too. What was it for and who authorized it? Scarsfield? Because if so, he’s exceeded his authority.’
Josiah went around the desk, pretending to look over Edmund’s shoulder at the offending entries. ‘Oh those, sir.’
‘Yes, Roper. Those. Explain, if you would be so good?’
‘It was work authorized by Master Adam, sir. On the apprentice house.’
‘The apprentice house?’ Edmund was growing steadily more purple by the minute. ‘What on earth is he doing with the apprentice house?’
‘Restoring it, sir, to it’s – a-hem – former glory.’ Edmund eyed Josiah, but decided to let the man’s sarcasm pass. ‘Master Adam and his good lady wife are living there, sir. But of course, you knew all that.’
‘No, I didn’t know all that,’ Edmund roared, but Josiah didn’t even flinch. Years of working for Edmund had immured him to his master’s bursts of temper. In fact, Josiah revelled in bringing one about.
‘Oh dear, have I done wrong, sir?’
‘Done wrong? Done wrong? Of course you’ve bloody well done wrong.’ Edmund thumped the desk. ‘I’ve disowned my son, Roper. You know that full well.’
Josiah calmly shook his head. ‘No, sir, on the contrary, I knew nothing of the sort.’
‘But I told you – I told you that he was to work in the factory and treated as an ordinary worker.’
Josiah smiled obsequiously. ‘Well, yes, sir, but I thought that was all part of the young man’s training, so that when he takes over one day, he will have a true understanding of the workings of the mill. If I remember correctly, sir, you worked in the mill for a while – at your father’s insistence.’
Edmund glowered. ‘But I didn’t marry a slut of a girl and try to bring her into our home.’
‘No, sir. You didn’t marry them, did you? But God alone knows how many bastards you have residing in various workhouses up and down the country.’
‘Roper,’ Edmund said menacingly. ‘Watch your tongue.’ But Josiah only smiled. Turning back to the matter in hand, Edmund frowned again. ‘Nor did I give permission for them to live in the apprentice house.’
‘I understand they are turning it into a lodging house for mill workers.’ With measured mildness, he added, ‘They’re making a very good job of it, too, by all accounts. But then, I’m not surprised. Your son’s bride is a very enterprising young woman.’ He paused and licked his lips before saying with deliberate mildness. ‘She always was.’
Edmund stared at him. ‘What do you mean? “She always was”?’
Josiah raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, sir, you know who she is, don’t you?’
Feeling a sudden, inexplicable fear sweep through him, Edmund shook his head. ‘Tell me.’
‘She’s Hannah Francis. The girl you were chasing when that young lad fell in the wheel and was killed. I’m so sorry, sir. I could’ve told you weeks ago. I recognized her the moment I saw her. And I thought you were sure to have done so too. Oh, she’s dyed her hair, tried to make herself look different. But she couldn’t alter the colour of those magnificent eyes, could she?’ As he saw the veins standing out on Edmund’s forehead, saw his eyes take on a peculiar glazed look, Josiah thrust home his final barb. Edmund was now slumped in his chair, his hands shaking. ‘She’s come back and married your son. She’s got her revenge all right, hasn’t she?’
When Edmund had recovered a little from the shock, though his hands were still trembling uncontrollably, he gasped out, ‘Get them. Fetch them here. Both . . . both of them. I want to see for myself. I know you, Roper. You’re a lying toad . . .’
But Josiah only smiled at the insult and left the office. He sent one of the mill boys running to the apprentice house to summon Adam and Hannah.
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