Shining Threads (27 page)

‘Nor me neither. Reckon no one but me’ll ’ave yer.’

‘You’re right.’ They smiled in perfect understanding at one another.

‘It’s Will, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘’E’s ready fer marriage an’ you’re not, is that it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not good enough for thi, is that what yer sayin’?’

‘No, Annie, oh, no. You know I’m not like that.’ But Annie was not so sure. Tessa was ‘gentry’ and spent a large part of her life with gentry. Could she give up the
social position she had, which was bound to happen if she married Will? Mrs Will Broadbent would be a considerably less important person than Miss Tessa Harrison.

‘Then what’s ter stop yer?’

‘Annie, I don’t want to get married. I’m not even eighteen and the thought of living for the rest of my life . . .’

‘In a foreman’s cottage, is that it?’

‘No . . . well, yes, up to a point though I’m sure if we were married Charlie would promote him to something more suitable to . . .’

‘To’th’usband o’t millowner’s daughter. D’yer know, Tessa Harrison, I can’t fathom you. Social position, or so you say, don’t seem ter bother
thi’. I’m a spinner, wi’ clogs an’ a shawl an’ yet yer seem ter like me company, so why, when yer love the man, a man what’s the same class as me, will yer not
wed ’im . . . ?’

‘I do love him, Annie, at least, I think I do . . .’

‘Then wed ’im, fer God’s sake.’ Annie sat down and hitched her chair closer to Tessa’s, her sharp little face a bright pink in her earnestness. ‘Can yer not
see what a good match it’d be . . . ?’

‘
A good match!
’

‘Don’t tek that tone wi’ me, lady. ’E’s as good as any man in’t valley. An’ when yer Mam’s gone, an’ yer Uncle Charlie, who better ter run
them mills than a man what’s bin fetched up in cotton?’

‘And what about Drew and Pearce? Are they to be disinherited?’ Tessa drew back abruptly, deeply offended by Annie’s contempt for her cousins’ capabilities as millowners.
‘They’ll take over when . . . well, when they’re ready.’

‘Give over.’

Tessa stood up. ‘If you’re going to insult my family then I think it’s time I left. Thank you for the tea. And I don’t think I shall be able to call next week.’

‘Suit thissen.’

But as Annie watched Tessa ride away her face was sad and filled with pity, not only for the girl – for what else could you call her? – who seemed unable to reach out and hang on to
the happiness which was offered to her, but for the man who offered it.

12

The first awareness Tessa Harrison had had of the ‘trouble’ which existed between Russia and Great Britain was last November when the newspapers reported that the
Russian fleet had fired on seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes at Sinope – wherever that might be – and nearly four thousand men had perished. She couldn’t understand it,
really she couldn’t, she had said to her mother who had read the account out loud to them. Why should the sinking of Turkish ships and the killing of Turkish sailors have anything to do with
them, for heaven’s sake? But everyone seemed to think it did and it was apparent the British public was highly indignant. Now it appeared the French and British had declared war on Russia and
troops had embarked for Varna.

The news about the war excited Drew and Pearce. They had known from the start that there was to be one, Drew said, and naturally, Britain should be drawn in if she was to protect her interests
out there.

‘Out where?’

‘In the Balkans.’

‘Well, it’s a mystery to me and I can make neither head nor tail of why Britain and France should declare war on Russia over it.’

They were all three sprawled before the drawing-room fire. Laurel and Charlie were dining with commercial acquaintances and as always when Laurel was absent they all took advantage of it, even
Jenny, turning up at table in whatever they had worn during the day. They were relaxed, quiet, a family with no need of the bright social conversation which Laurel insisted upon.

‘They’ve made their camp on the northern slopes. The French have 15,000 men and 520 guns. It says the Russians have already retreated from Silistra and the British and French have
pitched camp at Varna. It’s rumoured to be quite a glorious sight: white tents and green fields, broad sweeps broken by a great many fine trees overlooking a shining lake, or so the papers
say, and all surrounded by meadow land and backed by the rugged outlines of the Balkans.’

Pearce’s soft voice trailed away and his eyes seemed to gaze, not at the valley he described but at some image only he saw. His brother looked away, his own eyes shuttered.

Jenny lifted her head from the newspaper and her voice was startled.

‘You sound as though you’d like nothing better than to be there, lad?’

‘The thought had occurred to me, Aunt, that it might be rather splendid to see something other than mill chimneys and loom-gates before I die.’

‘You’ve been to Italy to visit your mother and father. Why should you wish to see . . . where was it? . . . Varna? I don’t even know where it is.’

‘Varna is on the Black Sea, Aunt Jenny, half-way across the world and a long way from Chapmans mills.’

‘But your life is in those mills, Pearce, you know that.’

‘Indeed. I am only too well aware of it.’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

‘Why, nothing. Only that Pearce and I are not the stuff you and Charlie are made of, Aunt Jenny.’ Drew’s voice was smooth as he stepped in quite instinctively to support his
brother. ‘We are neither of us, or so it appears, naturally cut out to be industrialists, as you are, as our own mother was. Father became a politician, despite his humble beginnings . .
.’

‘Humble beginnings, is it, Drew Greenwood? And don’t we all come from those, you included?’

‘Oh, indeed we do, Aunt Jenny, but I hardly think Tessa, Pearce and I fit into the . . .’

‘Oh, don’t talk daft, lad. Your grandfather and your father planted taters to see them through the winter and even in 1826 during the power-loom riots they brewed nettles to make a
bit of nourishment for Charlie and Daisy who was our sister. They were only children then . . .’

The three faces about her had taken on that faint and uneasy look of the young when confronted with the awkward and tedious reminiscences of the old. It was all history, their expressions said,
and nothing to do with them and their generation. But she had lived through those times, riots and machine-breaking and the fight for a decent standard of living for the working man. And the father
and mother of those two young men who were staring so irritatingly at her, had been in the forefront of that fight. Yet here their sons sat, careless, restless, ready, it seemed, to take a ship, if
they had the choice, to some far-flung spot on the globe just for the hell of it. Just as though they were Nicky Longworth or Johnny Taylor, with no other obligation but to amuse themselves.

‘Don’t you care?’ she asked coldly.

‘About what, Aunt Jenny?’ Drew’s voice was polite, genuinely puzzled she could see.

‘About what happened to your family. To all the families around here thirty years ago.’

‘Really, Aunt Jenny, it is all so long ago. The future . . .’

‘Depends on the past, my father always said.’

‘How very quaint.’

Drew’s face had assumed the haughty expression of a young prince and her own became a bright pink in her anger.

‘You supercilious young devil! Your grandfather was a great man with a wisdom and a feeling for others which I suspect you wouldn’t recognise. He was a working man, as I am a working
woman, as
you
, both of you, are from a working-class family, and you will not expend your so-called humour at his expense. You really do amaze me, yet I don’t know why you should for
you’ve always shown a marked reluctance to take up your responsibilities in the mill. And I suppose you feel the same, do you?’ She turned savagely on Pearce. ‘About . . . what
were the words your brother used? . . . the need to see something other than mill chimneys and loom-gates before you die?’

‘Well, it would be splendid to travel but I don’t know whether I’m prepared to go all the way to the Balkans to . . .’

‘To escape your heritage, is that what you’re saying? To live like young lords without having to do a day’s work in your lives? Shooting grouse over the Squire’s moor . .
.’

‘The Squire works hard, Aunt Jenny,’ Drew protested angrily. ‘He is busy from morning till night seeing to the needs of his tenants, just as you do your operatives. His people,
he calls them. He is Chairman of the Bench at Quarter Sessions, a magistrate and is always occupied about the estate . . .’

‘Oh, that.’ Jenny Harrison’s voice was contemptuous, reducing Squire Longworth’s busy day to the proportions of a tea-party which, if he did not care for it, he had no
need to attend.

‘Yes, that!’ Drew was beyond caution now and though Pearce made a movement towards him, one that said he should take care, he chose to ignore it ‘And, I can tell you, the life
would suit me admirably. Out in the sunshine instead of inside that . . . that . . .’ It seemed he could find no word strong enough to describe his detestation of the mill. ‘In the
rain, if you’ve a mind to, not bound by clocks or bells but merely the seasons, the needs and desires of one’s own inclination which certainly would not include the amassing of more and
more money which one can scarcely need, surely?’

‘That’s because you have plenty already which others have worked for.’

‘But there is no need of it any more. There is enough and to spare for us all. We can live in luxury for the rest of our lives . . .’

‘And what happens to your workers? Are they to be thrown out like old bobbins, or will you keep them in this luxury as well?’

‘They would not lose their jobs. If we were to sell the business whoever bought it would continue to run it just as it is.’

‘Really! So you would cast off your responsibilities just as though you were talking of a herd of cows or a flock of sheep to be sold to the highest bidder? These are people you are
concerned with: men and women who have worked loyally and faithfully for your family, some of them for over twenty years; young men who are beginning to make something of themselves because of the
chance they have been given. Your family have shown all these people the opportunity to move forward, to find a change of place, each generation taking another step up. Yet you want to throw them
all away so that you might walk in the rain whenever you have a fancy for it.’

‘You will not understand, will you, Aunt Jenny? You will not even try to see what I am, what Drew Greenwood is. That we are not all the same. You are one of them . . .’

‘And proud of it, lad.’ She stood up and with quiet dignity walked from the room.

‘Well, you have put the cat amongst the pigeons,’ Pearce said softly, wondering how the war in the Balkans had led to the passionate argument between his brother and his aunt on the
eternally recurring theme of the trials of the working ‘poor’.

The scene between Jenny Harrison and her nephew was not spoken of the next day or the next, and by the end of the week Drew and Pearce had convinced themselves it had been forgotten. The weather
had turned quite glorious. It was almost the end of May, Whit Monday and a holiday, and they with Tessa were to stroll down in the bright sunshine to watch the Whit walks.

Tessa had seen nothing of Will and made no attempt to. She missed him quite dreadfully. Her body, now that of a woman with the needs of her awakened sexuality, was even more restless than usual
and she rode the moorland with all the wildness which had always been in her, but doubly so now without Will to soothe her to peace. She startled many a tramping family as she flew past on her
fleet-heeled mare, her dogs about her feet, her unconfined hair growing longer now and streaming about her head like a dark and whipping pennant. At night she lay in bed, tossing her stimulated
body from side to side, or fidgeting at the window for the rose-flushed dawn to break over the hills.

He had steadied her, she was aware of that now, making her think of things which had nothing to do with the wild excitement which had once been important to her. Now, without him, she needed it,
or him, again. Several times during the week, as the spring evenings drew out towards summer she had been tempted to ride over to his cottage. She longed to fling her arms about him in a passion of
love, to declare that she would marry him, despite her doubts, since she really could not manage without him and his quiet strength. Perhaps, in a week or so, if she still felt as miserable, she
would drop by and talk to him, ask him to be patient with her, give her time to think. The thought heartened her, glowing like a tiny candle flame in the surprising darkness his absence left her
in. Drew and Pearce had grown somewhat cool with her in the months she had known Will, going, she thought sadly, knowing nothing of their secret, on their own masculine and hell-bent pursuits from
which she was firmly excluded. She had ridden to hounds in season, the last hunt in April, and joined the Squire’s shoot over his moorland during weekdays when her cousins had been forced to
the mill, accompanying them when they managed to elude her mother’s and Charlie’s disapproving eye, but they were different with her now. They had their share of milliners, dressmakers,
actresses and parlourmaids, those who were fair game to young gentlemen such as they, and appeared to be completely preoccupied in their man’s world in which, she was aware, she no longer had
a place.

On the day of the Whit walks the houses in Jagger Lane and Reddygate Way were decorated with flags and banners, with mottoes which read ‘God save Good Queen Victoria’. There were
processions of Sunday school children in their Sunday best, the girls in white starched pinafores, the boys in white starched shirts and all provided, to those who could not afford them, by the
ladies of the many church committees formed to help the deserving poor. Those who could pay for the new outfits of their children, a custom at Whitsuntide, did so, naturally, and even put a ribbon
on the end of a glossy plait, or a rosette in a buttonhole.