Dying in the Wool (23 page)

The picture was wrapped in brown paper. He saw through a small rip that it was a painting in a gilt frame.

‘I believe the Nelsons took most of their pictures and you’ll need something. This can be a start, perhaps for the landing?’

It seemed such a bizarre thing to do, and it could be construed as bribery. As usual, she seemed to read his thoughts.

‘It has no financial worth. Just an amateur painting of a local scene that may cheer your patients.’

The orderly left, closing the door behind him.

‘What are you thinking of? A painting?’

‘I had to. Don’t ask me why. Some things are hard to explain. Joshua did it and I just wanted it out of the house.’

Grainger felt a sudden dread. Perhaps she would be irrational, unpredictable, hysterical even.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Believe me, Joshua would want you to have it, in appreciation of your taking care of him.’

The scene showed a bridge, with a fast-flowing brook, and a waterfall in the background. By the reeds a couple of children played, a girl and a boy.

It was good, an accomplished piece of work.

‘I didn’t know your husband was an artist.’

‘He went to Art College, briefly. His older brother should have taken over the mill but he hightailed it to South Africa to search for gold. That sealed Joshua’s future.’

‘Did the older brother find gold?’

‘I’ll tell you another time. You wanted to see me?’

‘Just a moment.’ He locked the door. ‘I don’t think we’ll be disturbed, but let’s not take risks.’

‘Indeed not.’

He was undoing her dress, which seemed to have so many buttons. ‘This is very inconsiderate of you.’

‘I thought you would like a challenge.’

‘Shhh.’

He pressed his lips to hers, found her nipple, lifted her dress and let his hand caress her thigh.

‘I’m going to be such a good friend to this hospital,’ she murmured. ‘Every week I shall come and read to a soldier.’

They made love with great urgency. She drew him away from the desk where he had wanted to take her, leading him to the chaise longue.

‘Only every week?’ he said, as she stroked his hair. ‘If I don’t have you every day I shall go mad.’

‘You would grow tired of me.’

‘Never.’

‘I had better see Joshua, since I’m here, whether he will or no.’

She fastened her dress. It was a marvel to him that she could look so calm.

‘I’ll ask the orderly to bring him.’

It was Stafford who answered the bell.

‘Would you please tell Mr Braithwaite that his wife is here to see him, and escort him here.’

This would be awkward. Grainger decided to take the seat on the chaise longue himself, leaving the two carver chairs for Evelyn and Braithwaite. No. That would be ridiculous. He would have to give them privacy, and wait outside.

Evelyn sat in that self-contained way she had, ankles crossed, palms upturned in her lap. They did not speak.

Grainger suddenly stood and went to the window. He drew up the blind and opened the window. Surely there must be the scent of sex in the room, and Braithwaite would know it at once.

Stafford returned. He was sweating and appeared agitated. ‘Doctor.’

‘What is it?’

When the tongue-tied man did not answer, Grainger went out with him into the hall.

In an urgent whisper, Stafford said, ‘Mr Braithwaite’s not in his room. He was there at three o’clock when I did the teas, but he’s not there now.’

‘Has anyone apart from Mrs Braithwaite been here asking about him?’ Grainger had a sudden horror of someone having come to his door, or seen him with Evelyn through a crack in the blind. ‘Might the constable have come to speak to him?’

Stafford shook his head.

‘Think, man. Have you seen any of his workers or friends in the grounds?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Not a one. And I was only saying to the cook, you’d have expected an enquiry after him from one of his fellow chapel-goers.’

Sunday, 20 August 1916

ARTHUR WILSON

The chapel meeting room felt like a furnace by the time Arthur Wilson brought the men’s afternoon Bible class to a close. He slid his notes on the Book of Job into the battered brown briefcase that had served him well these twenty-five years, and his father before him.

Wilson had needed no notes.
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
That man of substance was hedged about with plenty, and everything was taken from him yet he sinned not. His oxen, asses, seven sons and three daughters taken from him, yet Job sinned not. He rent his mantle, shaved his head, fell upon the ground and worshipped.

Not a man in the Bible class doubted that Wilson’s lesson was not about the upright Job but about the less than upright Joshua Braithwaite, hedged about with plenty through the generations yet who failed the simple test when Satan gadded hither and thither in the world and snapped up his son.

Wilson stood at the chapel meeting room window. He relaxed a little, watching the men depart, still soberly thoughtful from his instruction. But wait. One turned to another, shedding the thoughtful expression. They
chatted. ‘Braithwaite’, he read on the man’s lips. Another man turned back and looked at Wilson, staring boldly. They knew he was right to judge Braithwaite. They understood.

They were walking through the chapel yard gate in twos and threes. Suddenly it hit him. The men liked each other. That thought had never occurred to him before. The idea struck him as odd. But do they like me? That mattered not. He didn’t want their liking, only their respect. As weaving manager that was his due. As a chapel leading light and instructor, that was his due. Wilson would have preferred a larger class, as it was before men took themselves off to war. But he made no attempts to make the lessons anything other than what they were: a serious study of the Good Book.

He watched the chapel caretaker open his house door and cross the scoured step into the yard. It had been a roasting day. The chapel and lecture hall windows were wide open to let in a little air. The caretaker entered the chapel. A window was closed from the inside, then another.

From along the corridor, a door slammed in the smaller meeting room. Light female footsteps trod the passage. Indistinct voices chirped like so many canaries. Arthur waited. After a moment, he picked up his briefcase and left the room slowly, giving time for the women to make their way through the yard.

Outside, he took a deep breath of the fine afternoon air, nodding to the taciturn caretaker, who touched his cap. As a prominent member of the chapel committee, Arthur Wilson expected no less.

Arthur feigned surprise when Neville Stoddard said into the back of his neck, ‘Good afternoon, Wilson.’

‘Good afternoon, Mr Stoddard.’

The two men fell into step. Unasked, Wilson informed Stoddard about the Bible-class topic. Stoddard grunted.
Wilson asked about the planned children’s outing which Neville Stoddard was helping to organise. In previous years this task had been undertaken by Catherine Stoddard. Arthur guessed that Stoddard had stepped in so that he could report to his wife on the committee’s progress. This would eliminate the excuse for female members of the Outing Committee to come to the mill house to see the ailing Catherine, shake their heads and go away saying to all and sundry, Oh, she did look real poorly.

‘Bad business about Mr Braithwaite,’ Wilson said, as they neared the post office. When Stoddard did not answer straight away, Wilson added, ‘Of course I had no say in the matter. I wasn’t on the scene. As assistant scoutmaster I was in another spot altogether. The younger lads needed to re-erect their tent.’ Stoddard did not answer. ‘Has there been news?’

‘No,’ Stoddard said curtly.

‘Do you think I wouldn’t have moved heaven and earth to have kept the law out of it?’

‘No. I don’t,’ Stoddard said shortly.

Wilson snorted. ‘You do me wrong, Mr Stoddard. As weaving manager, my loyalty is to the mill masters. If there’s anything I can do in the matter, short of lying under oath, be sure I will do it.’

‘You have done enough, Wilson.’

‘Come, Mr Stoddard. There’s nothing so bad that something good can’t come of it.’

‘I fail to see how, at present.’

Confound the man, Arthur felt his temper rising. Braithwaites had the upper hand now but it was only two generations since the better coat was worn by the Wilsons. Stoddard might be a stickler for profit and loss, keeping up output and the Lord knew he’d been smart enough to increase pay the minute men started joining up.

They were approaching the corner where Wilson
would turn off to his own street, where overlookers and managers lived, and his house right at the top – the best of its kind.

‘I’ll walk on if it’s all the same, Mr Stoddard.’

‘As you like.’

As manager, as a fellow chapel committee member, he was due more than this curt treatment. Now he began to worry. He could have stepped in yesterday. He could have gone to fetch Stoddard. There might be jobs at stake, his future at stake. True, there were other mills, but harsher places, and he didn’t think at his age he could face starting all over again. Some might say he was past it.

And what did he have to show for it all? Nothing.

He glanced at Stoddard. The man looked grim. Without Braithwaite at the helm, Wilson wouldn’t give the place six months. He happened to know contracts for khaki would be up for renewal. Stoddard would be too clumsy to shake the right hands and know who deserved a decent Christmas box.

Say that for Braithwaite, he could be sly and tricky while appearing hail fellow well met. Oh yes, Wilson knew that all right – to his own cost.

Braithwaite had run rings around Stoddard, too. Otherwise, why would Stoddard and his wife live in what was no more than a manager’s house in the mill grounds when Braithwaite lorded it up the hill in his villa?

‘Has there been any progress with my invention, sir?’ Wilson asked.

Stoddard took a long step to avoid a wide crack in the flags. He looked at Wilson in surprise. ‘Mr Braithwaite was dealing with that.’

‘Only he said that on top of my outright payment for the loom picker, if it came to anything he would see me right.’ This was not true. Wilson had accepted the twenty-five guineas offered and shook hands on it. But since then he had heard of a weaving overlooker in
Hebden Bridge who had gained immortality by having his name on a newly-designed lightweight shuttle. Wilson wanted immortality. This man from Hebden Bridge also, Wilson heard say, was to receive one penny for every dozen shuttles sold. Wilson wanted a penny a dozen for his pair of loom pickers. It would be a cushion in old age.

They were almost at the bridge. Stoddard stopped. He looked across at the Kelletts’ house. ‘I can never decide whether they have the best spot in the village or the worst. It’s between the edge and the outskirts. What do you say?’

Wilson took out his pipe. ‘I’ve no opinion in the matter.’ Slowly, he filled the pipe, pressing in the Sweet Briar tobacco. He offered the tin.

Stoddard shook his head. ‘Needs a new roof and won’t have one this side of doomsday.’ He brought out a small cigar. ‘Some of the village children call Lizzie Kellett a witch.’

‘She never sets foot in chapel.’

Who cared what she was called? Not Wilson. He kept his voice even. ‘Kellett was once up to summat where there was black smoke outa the chimney. Kids’ll reckon it’s her spells.’

‘And he’s the devil?’

‘He’s devilish clever.’ Wilson sucked at his pipe. This was getting somewhere near what he wanted to talk about. Kellett had prospered through selling the dyestuffs.

Wilson cleared his throat, plucked up courage and set out the new terms he had decided would be reasonable for the loom picker.

Stoddard looked at him in surprise. ‘That was all settled on a handshake between you and Mr Braithwaite. Good day, Mr Wilson.’ Without turning round, Stoddard called back to him. ‘You should have come to me when you found Mr Braithwaite by the beck.’

Wilson fumed as he watched Stoddard walk on towards
the mill house. Stoddard was playing with him. Things were at a pretty pass all round. Done out of his rightful dues. His wife was the worst housekeeper in the world. She’d found where he kept his money and sent half his hard-earned savings to their widowed daughter. The nub of it was, he felt tired, and old, and unrewarded for all his hard work. Camping out in the woods last night with the boy scouts felt like a nail in his coffin. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t lie right, could barely move his old legs this morning.

Wilson dabbed at his forehead. Damn this abominable heat.

Sometimes it seemed to Wilson that Marjorie provoked him deliberately. She made no effort to appear anything but drab, with her buttoned-up black clothes, like some widow, her greasy grey hair plaited and fastened up with big hairpins that fell out all over the show. One of them was popping out now. She pushed it back with a bony finger.