Shining Threads (64 page)

He turned then and with the utmost gentleness put up a hand to her face, almost touching the livid weal which marred it. He smiled so lovingly her heart ached for him and tears blurred her eyes
as he placed soft lips on her swollen cheek.

‘I love you, Tessa, and despite what I said I know you love me. But he will not hurt you again. It will be the last time if he does.’

Annie found her ten minutes later staring from her window across the cheerful bustle of the mill yard, out to the high moorland which led from the outskirts of Crossfold up to the sky.

‘Nay, what ’appened to thi, lass? Yer’ve not come off that animal o’ thine, ’ave thi’?’ She studied Tessa’s closed face intently.
‘I’ve summat at’ome, a potion I mek that’ll tek that swellin’ down in a minute. Yer can tek me ower ter Edgeclough in yer carriage an’ I’ll give thi’
a jar.’

‘Thanks, Annie.’ But Annie knew Tessa had not heard what she said.

‘What’s up?’ she said after several minutes of silence.

‘Nothing.’

‘’Ow did yer come by that black eye?’

‘I . . . fell off my mare, as you said.’

‘Oh, aye, an’ what did Will ’ave ter say about it?’

Tessa turned sharply, wincing as the flesh about her eyes was stretched by the movement. ‘What has Will to do with it?’

‘I saw ’im comin’ out of ’ere no more an’ ten minutes since lookin’ as though ’e’d like nothin’ better than to thrash the livin’
daylights out o’ someone. Your ’usband perhaps?’

Tessa’s shoulders drooped and she sighed deeply.

‘Annie, what am I to do? What the hell am I to do? I can hide nothing from you so you are bound to know that Will and I are . . . well, you will know what I mean. But Drew is . . . he
needs me so badly. If he should learn of our friendship, it would be the end of him and yet I can’t give Will up, I can’t. Dear God, what can I do?’

‘Eeh, ’tis nowt ter do wi’ me, lass, an’ there’s nowt I can say to ’elp thi’. Yer mun walk the road tha’s chosen, Tessa Greenwood, an’ take
consequences an’ all. Tha’ knows that an’ thi’ don’t need me ter tell thi’.’

Tessa sighed again then turned to smile painfully. ‘You’re a big help to me, Annie. I know exactly where I stand with you, if no one else.’

‘What did tha’ want me ter say? Thee an’ Will are . . . dear ter me but I can do nowt ter ’elp either of thi’. Yer both welcome at my ’ome any time yer care
ter call an’ thi’ll always find me there, ’appen thi’ needs summat. Tha’ knows that. I can say no more.’

‘I know, Annie, thank you. Now then, how are you getting on with the project?’

Annie sat down in the chair opposite Tessa and shuffled the papers she held, edging them into a careful pile.

‘This is’t list so far. There’s dozens of ’em still turnin’ up at factory gates askin’ fer me even after all this time. Word’s got round. I’ve
fixed ’em up wi’ decent lodgin’s. Mind, some of ’em ’ave children wi’ ’em, but ’appen they can go ter’t school while their mams are
workin’.’ She pulled a face irritably. ‘Eeh, Tessa, I can’t get mesen set in that there . . . office. It’s right awkward ter me what wi’ that daft beggar as
calls ’imself ’ead clerk lookin’ down ’is nose. Pompous devil!’

Annie had regained the flesh which she had lost in Manchester but she was still gaunt. Though she was Tessa’s age she looked ten years older, craggy as the granite which sprouted on the
moorland, and as indefatigable. There was a grimness about her which said that though she had been dealt some of life’s severest blows she was still upright and always would be. She looked
even more drab and colourless than previously, an over-all impression of grey, in her skin tone, in her pale eyes and her hair which was scraped back into a tiny, uncompromising knot at the back of
her narrow head. Her skirt and long-sleeved bodice were also grey, charcoal-grey relieved by nothing but a narrow snow-white collar. Yet despite her austere appearance there was something in her
eyes, in the way she looked directly into those of the person she addressed, which gave her hearers a feeling they could not have described. Trust perhaps. A manner which said she would never let
them down. A steadfast reliability and strength on which anyone who wished could lean.

For the past eighteen months she had been what Tessa called her ‘administrator’ – a fancy name for ‘overlooker’, Annie said bluntly – in the plan which had
come to her in the pin-heading factory in Earnshaw Street. At that moment when Annie had refused to leave without the other hopeless and derelict women and children with whom she had worked, the
scheme had sprung, completely formed, into her mind. Annie had been compelling her, applying pressure, using their friendship which would not allow Tessa simply to leave her to her fate, to make
her see what was happening in the industrial world of which she was now a part. There were thousands upon thousands still suffering the degradation and poverty, the dreadful conditions of their
lives in the cotton industry. Most of the cotton manufacturers took little interest in their operatives and made no attempt to improve or ease their plight. They bent their energies and capital to
investment and improvement in their mills, not seeing, or if they did, not caring about the squalor around them, nor the men and women who lived and died in it to achieve the profit the masters
required. Annie was realistic enough to know that Tessa could do no more than help a few of the multitude who suffered, but by God, her attitude had said on that dreadful day, Annie would make sure
she did help those few she could.

Now those same women together with others who had heard of the ‘plan’ the great lady in Crossfold had set up to relieve women like themselves, were making their slow and often
hopeless way – since some of them did not reach it – to the mill where, it was said, decent work and lodgings would be found for those in need. It was not like the poor house, they had
been told. All their lives they had fought to stay out of that since a woman might be parted from her children there and never see them again. A clean bed was available, nourishing food, a doctor
where needed. But what about payment? No, the ‘lady’ would help there and, providing you genuinely wanted work and a decent way of life, she would not see you starve, nor your children.
Mind, she knew a malingerer – and there were those, of course – when she saw one and soon sent them packing, but any woman with no man and with children to support was made welcome. She
was one of them, it was said, since she had worked in a factory all her life, and had suffered as they did.

Tessa smiled, wincing again at the pain in her swollen face. ‘You can deal with old Rigby, Annie, you know that, so don’t complain to me about him. And you must have your own office.
These strays of yours must have somewhere to find you.’

‘’Appen, but it teks some doin’ fer women like them ter come up ’ere.’

‘You will persuade them to it, if anyone can.’

They talked at length on the progress of the small pin-heading and pin-sheeting factory and of the other employment which was being found, not all in the mills, for Annie’s workers. Some
had been put into domestic work and indeed anywhere that offered a respectable life, their children admitted to the Chapman school and some, sadly, to a small grave in the churchyard. Annie was
busy, her mourning for her own dead family done in private, and her new job with Mrs Drew Greenwood fulfilled some need in her which had shrivelled at Spicers. She was needed now and her gratitude
to Tessa, though never voiced since that was not her way, was enormous.

‘I’ll be off then. I’m ter see a chap about some new fangled pin-headin’ machine.’

Tessa was still smiling at Annie’s dignified acceptance of her own rise to a position of authority and her evident pleasure in the work she was doing, but when she had gone she left an
empty silence, a void into which Tessa’s despairing thoughts slowly infiltrated. Though she tried hard to keep them centred on what Annie was doing they would keep returning to the
increasingly hopeless situation between herself and Drew, between herself and this mill, and between herself and Will. She was like some favourite toy which a group of defiant children swears
belongs exclusively to each one of them, played with and handled, torn and tossed from one to the other until she cared not who had her as long as she could settle peacefully somewhere. Drew was
becoming harder to handle with each day, threatening unimaginable terrors if she did not stop going to that bloody mill. Yet the mill, though it had its board of directors, was claiming more of her
time and, if she were honest, she was beginning to find it . . . well, a challenge, she supposed, interesting and even exciting at times.

And Will. Where was her relationship with Will, so rapturously renewed, leading them both? He was on a tight rein, a self-imposed rein in his contempt and jealousy of Drew. How long before that
rein snapped and when it did, what catastrophe would follow?

She turned as someone tapped lightly on her office door, not even taking the trouble to replace her bonnet and veil. Dear God, what did it matter? The story would be all over the valley by now,
how the half-deranged husband of Tessa Greenwood had knocked the living daylights out of her, and each screaming, violent word, carried by the servants’ grapevine, would be reported and
gloated over in every household.

The door opened and Will stood on the threshold. His cravat was disarranged and his short hair stood up in tousled disorder as though he had ridden hard and at speed.

‘I couldn’t . . .’ His eyes were haunted and his strong face worked with the depth of his emotion. ‘I got as far as . . . as Linthwaite but I couldn’t . .
.’

‘Close the door, Will.’ Her voice was soft but commanding for there would be curious eyes in the outer office she was certain.

‘Yes.’ He closed the door behind him and lifted his arms to her. When she ran into them, pressing her poor, damaged face against his chest, he crushed her to him, groaning.

‘I can’t bear to lose you, my darling. I must accept what we have . . . what
he
has, because I love you. Christ, it tears me apart that . . . I have to share you, but . .
.’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘I can’t promise not to . . . to protest,’ he laughed weakly, ‘if he hits you again, really I can’t . . .’

‘He won’t do it again, Will.’

‘How can you know that? He is violent . . .’

‘No, frightened. If I can . . . allay his fears he won’t . . .’

‘Dear God, oh, sweet Jesus . . .’ He knew exactly what she meant. They stood for several minutes, drawing strength from one another, then he put her gently from him.

‘Perhaps we had better make this look like a business call, lass. Those clerks out there were somewhat alarmed when I stormed past them just now. Call in that head chap of yours and ask
him to fetch in the ledgers. Weekly accounting, wages books, order books for the months of August and September, oh, and some coffee. I’m going to give you a lesson in bookkeeping. Now, where
is that report of Bradley’s?’

When Mr Rigby brought in the ledgers Mrs Greenwood had asked for, she and Mr Broadbent were sitting a respectable three feet apart, one on each side of her desk, speculating politely on the
possibility of the hostilities in America being averted.

In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States of America but by February of the following year eleven of the southern states had seceded from the Union and
Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the President of the Confederate States of America. Fort Sumter, an island off Charleston, South Carolina and in Union hands was fired on by the new Confederate
troops, President Lincoln called for the mobilisation of Union forces and a state of war was declared between the northern and southern states of America. The ‘Brothers War’ had
begun.

31

Chapman Manufacturing Company Ltd put all its operatives on short time in December 1861 and its largest shareholder, Mr Drew Greenwood, who had come home drunk for the third
night in succession that week, was heard to remark to his wife that she could close the bloody mills for good, it was all the same to him.

In the previous month forty-nine mills in the cotton industry had closed down completely and 119 went on short time so that the wages of the millhands fell dramatically or disappeared
altogether. The scarcity of cotton, which was after all the life-blood of the industry, had become critical and it was estimated that stocks of raw cotton could last only until the middle of
December. There had been a skirmish, it was reported in the newspapers, at a place called Leesburg in Virginia where the northern states of America were defeated, and at Frederickstown in Missouri
where this time the South was defeated. What was the cotton manufacturer of Lancashire to make of that? he asked himself as he despaired over the prospect of ever obtaining his bales of raw cotton
from America again. How was he to keep his spinners and his weavers at their mules and looms? He stared hard times in the face, and if cotton was not to be shipped from America, where might he
obtain it and, in the meanwhile, were his hands to starve?

‘There is a rumour that Prince Albert is dead, Tessa,’ her husband remarked later in the month, quite cheerfully, since it made no difference to his life, as the war in America made
no difference to his life, as the short supply for cotton to his mills made no difference to his life. Tessa was disinclined to believe the report. All kinds of stories circulated among the
gossip-mongering society in which Drew moved, of the nobility and their goings-on and even of royal misdemeanours, but this was surely a bad joke on someone’s part? The Prince Consort was a
young man of only forty-two and in the prime of his life.

But the rumour proved to be true and the nation was plunged into mourning as the bell of St Paul’s began its death toll. Grief was universal, pervading every household as if each had lost
a dear and respected relative. The funeral was held a week later and the whole of the country came to a halt. Shops and factories were closed, blinds were drawn and flags were flown at half-mast.
The Queen, it was said, was out of her mind with grief and shock, and what was to become of them all if Her Majesty did not recover?