A Curse Dark as Gold (7 page)

"Shall I stop now, then?" Harte called down from the ladder. "Or do you want the rest?"

Rosie and I watched from below. "What do you think?" Rosie asked, her hand on the black collie's head. "It looks a bit bare, just that -- but the rest of it's not really true, then, is it?"

" 'Miller and Sons, Shearing,' just as it's always been," I said. "We did not go to all this work not to see the name Miller on this mill."
Chapter Four

Somehow
life slipped into its usual spring rhythm. V--' We spun and carded and dyed our new wool, and sent it out into the village to be woven, and we brought it back again, ready to be finished and bound up for sale. And then we did it all again. We were spared falling signs and overturned dyevats for a few weeks, and if anyone whispered of curses or spirits, they did not do so in my hearing. Rosie and I, too, became accustomed to Uncle Wheeler's presence in our home. Meals were more lavish, certainly; if we weren't careful, we should outgrow all our clothes. And even if we were made all too aware of our rustic manners and coarse country ways, surely it was worth it, to have a full larder to come home to every day.

One bright day in May, despite having awakened to one of Rachel's luxurious breakfasts, I had descended into a perfectly foul mood by afternoon. Mr. Weaver was training me to take over for Paddy Eagan at the spinning jack, and I'd spent hours winding and rewinding the spindles for the long machine -- all two hundred sixty of them -- until I had the knack of the quick light twist that sent the thread reeling up the bobbins. And the headache and sore wrists to prove it. Running the jack was skilled labor that took years to master, and there was no way I was going to pick it up, not in one springtime of lessons squeezed between my other labors.

"Now, lass -- are you with me? You've got to go slower on the backward pass, or you'll break the -- aye, as I was saying. Here, now, stop the whole thing." Without so much as a sigh, steady old Tory shifted the gear into neutral and sent me down inside the assembly to fetch the ends of the broken threads.

"Ah, Mistress," Tory said when I emerged, "why don't ye take a break? You've done better than anyone could expect."
And you'll he glad to be rid of me, no doubt,
I thought. "Very well," I said, "but I'll be back."

"Ah know ye will," Tory said softly, turning back to his spindles. "You wouldn't be a Miller if you weren't."

I scowled my way down the narrow steps and into the airless finishing room, where I was met by Lonnie Clayborn, who came swinging round the corner, breathless.

"Mistress -- there's a gen'leman skulking about like, out in the yard." He gestured clumsily with a hand still thickly swaddled in a filthy bandage.

"Do you mean my uncle?"

Lonnie shook his head. "Nay -- some city feller. Like them what was at Market Days."

The Pinchfields man? I stormed out of the mill and into the yard, where a young gentleman in a cassimere suit had hypnotized Pilot into a belly-up puddle of lolling tongue, drooping feet, and swishing feathered tail,

"I thought I had made myself perfectly clear," I announced to his black felt hat. "We are not some flystruck carcass for the picking!"
The man slowly raised himself up from the shale drive and brushed at the dust on his trousers. "I -- I'm a little confused,'' he said. "I'm looking for Stirwaters, and I seem to have found
that,
but --"

"Aye, and we're still not for sale!"

He doffed his hat, shoved a hand through his long sandy hair, and replaced the hat once more. "No, still confused," he said cheerfully. "I was hoping to speak to whoever had taken charge of the estate. I've come from Uplands Mercantile, in Harrowgate."

I felt my face turn absolutely scarlet. "Oh, Lord -- you're Mr. Woodstone! I have your letter --" I scrabbled through my apron pockets and found it. It had come some days before, and I'd been meaning to answer it, but work kept getting in the way ... some nonsense about a bank, and -- "Here, I'm so sorry. I thought you were -- well, never mind. I'm Miss Miller," I added, somewhat belatedly.

"You? But I was expecting children -- you know, little girls in pinafores and pudding caps?" He laughed. "Here, let's start over, shall we? Randall Woodstone, at your service. Miss Miller, if you could tell me where I might find whoever's responsible for the mill's affairs now."

I peered up at him through the visor of my hand. He was a sizeable fellow -- not that tall -- but he wore his clothes well, particularly that black jacket. I judged him to be a few years older than myself. "You seem to have found her."

The banker looked taken aback. I was getting used to that expression. "But how old are you? That is -- surely you have some sort of guardian, or an agent, at least?"

I gave the little smile I'd been practicing for such occasions. I hoped it made me look serene and competent. Rosie said it made me look half ill. "No, indeed, sir. Now if we've quite established that, shall we get on with whatever business has brought you to my mill?"

"Right. Miss Miller, I'm afraid it's about your loan. With the unfortunate passing of Mr. Miller -- your father -- and the mill's subsequent lack of stable leadership ... I'm afraid that the bank has decided to call in Stirwaters's mortgage."

"Our what?" I squeaked. That was too large a matter for even Father to forget to mention. The millwheel sounded, suddenly, very loud. "Mr. Woodstone, there must be some mistake. I am not aware of any such debt on the mill. Please, may I see the papers?"

Mr. Woodstone handed them over. I glanced through the sheets of neatly lettered vellum, but could not seem to make sense of them. The only thing that was clear -- altogether too clear -- was the name James Miller, in great implacable script right at the top of the first page. And on the last page, the scrawling illegible streak of ink that was my father's signature.

"Oh, mercy."

"Miss Miller -- here, why don't you sit down?" Mr. Woodstone steered me over to the millrace and plopped me down gently on the stone wall. "I understand this must be quite a shock --"

"But I don't understand. When did he take this out? It says -- but this was only a year ago. Where did the money go?" A sudden sickening thought struck me. "How
much
did he borrow?" I scrabbled through the pages.

A great warm hand reached in and gently pried my fingers from the mortgage papers. "Two thousand pounds," Mr. Woodstone said quietly. "Around nineteen hundred now. Not that I'm sure that's much comfort."
I choked out a blunt laugh. "Not a lot, no. What does that mean, call it in?"

Mr. Woodstone's expression was very serious. He had a kind face, even beneath all this bad news. "Miss Miller, I was sent here to collect the full amount."

"Two thousand pounds?" He may well have asked for two million -- or two hundred. I didn't have it. Mr. Woodstone nodded. "Or?"

"Or we foreclose. I'm dreadfully sorry --"

I sat there on the mossy stone of the millrace, dimly aware that somewhere Mr. Woodstone was still speaking. I fanned the mortgage papers and beat them before my face. I had never fainted, but this would be the moment for it. It was here, then: the End I had felt looming at the funeral -- here in the form of a kind-faced young banker from Harrowgate. The water trickled by below us, a faint whisper and splash in the afternoon sun; but I heard it as the blood of Stirwaters draining away.

"But you can't," I said suddenly, before I was aware that I was planning to say anything. "Don't you understand -- Stirwaters is the heart of this village. Twenty-two people work at this mill, and we supply income to dozens of farmers in the Valley and beyond. How can you foreclose?"

Mr. Woodstone regarded me with eyes the color of the Stowe. "Miss Miller, I know it sounds heartless -- but that isn't the bank's concern."

"Then make it your concern," I said desperately. "Please -- come inside. Meet Eben Fuller, and Mr. Mordant, and Harte -- and my sister. See some of the people who will be affected if you force Stirwaters to close. Does your bank find it profitable to send an entire village into ruin?"
"Miss Miller --" I do not know what Mr. Woodstone might have said next, for at that moment the church bell rang the evening hour, and the old mill doors creaked open, spilling the millhands into the yard. I rose hastily, suddenly fearful that I might be seen with this banker and -- and what? Be thought party to some illicit assignation?

Mr. Woodstone, all etiquette, rose with me. He watched the millhands pass us by, frowning slightly.

I saw my advantage and went for it. "Mr. Woodstone, please. Isn't there any way to convince the bank to -- to let us have more time? My father only passed away a month ago; there must be some provision for such an event. It's the height of the wool season, and Stirwaters's stock goes to market soon. Surely we can make
some
kind of arrangement."

As we stood there by the water, my Stirwaters family strayed past: plump red-faced Janet Lamb, cheerfully berating her son Ian; old Tory Weaver, who had evidently given up waiting for me, shuffling his stooped way across the shale yard; Jack Townley -- always met at the gates by pretty Mrs. Townley and a handful of small, perpetually dusty boys. Ruth saw me, and gave a wave.

"Very well, Miss Miller," he finally said. "I could at least spare the time to let you make your case. I was instructed to take an inventory of your assets; but I see that we're losing the daylight, and perhaps tomorrow would be a better time to have a look at the mill?"

"Thank you, Mr. Woodstone," I said, and did not quite let out all my breath until that sleek cassimere coat was halfway to Drover's inn.

***
Back inside Stirwaters, I found Rosie midway up a ladder, fitting a gear with Harte. I caught her eye and beckoned angrily. She slid down and met me in the office. "What happened to you? Mr. Weaver said you disappeared an hour ago --"

"Did you know Father took out a mortgage on the mill?"

"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.