Shining Threads (74 page)

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re in Lancashire.’

‘But why?’

She began to laugh and instinctively her arm went about his narrow shoulders and hugged him to her. He wriggled even closer and she knew a moment of unexpected delight at the warmth and contact
of her body with that of another human being. A small, defenceless human being who was looking at her as though she was as much a pleasure to him as he was to her.

‘Most of the places in Lancashire came by their name because of what was done there, or sold there,’ she explained, gaining great satisfaction from his rapt attention.

‘Really.’ His lips parted in awe and admiration for this clever and very beautiful aunt of his. He had really only just noticed what a very pretty lady she was. The pale, doe-like
expression in her face had gone and a flush of rose pinked her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled brilliantly, the sunlight dipping into their silvery depths, and her hair tumbled in a rich, glossy cloak
about her shoulders. He could smell her breath as he looked up, his face no more than six inches from hers, and it was nice, not like Nanny or Miss Gaunt who always sucked some nasty sweets, for
her throat, she said.

‘Oh, yes. Have you heard of Haslingden?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that got its name from the valley of hazels where it was built. Salterhebble came from . . .’

‘Bridge?’

‘Yes, good boy.’ She was delighted with him and his sharp memory and he wriggled again in the glow of her approval, grinning joyously. ‘It was a salt-seller’s
bridge.’

They talked for an hour, leaning companionably back against the stone where she had leaned with this boy’s cousins, for that was what they had been since Charlie and Joss Greenwood had
been brothers; with her own half-brother and with Will. When they stood up to leave she felt the balm of Joel Greenwood’s childish happiness soothe her, and the beginning, perhaps, of an
affection they each needed from the other.

The civil war continued, meanwhile, to rage in America where thousands upon thousands of brothers died and their blood soaked into the ground of their own homeland which they defended against
one another. The thin supply of cotton dried up completely and all the mills in Lancashire stopped work but it was said that preparations for a great battle were being made and that soon the war
would be over and all would be in work again. It was not so and 1863 became 1864 and still it went on, that war which seemed so cruel and pointless to many. Surely the slaves in the South could be
freed without men killing one another over it, some said, and if the trouble was that the South wanted to leave the Union, well let them get on with it and then the rest of the world –
meaning Lancashire where they did not understand what was happening – could get back to normal. Three years the war had been going on and machinery was rusting up, some of which had not been
in use since the end of 1861.

The sympathies of the distressed cotton operatives for the slaves of the cotton South swung dramatically towards the northern states of America when it was made known that since the civil war
was the chief cause of the hardship in Lancashire, the people would receive some of the plentiful corn which the splendid harvest had brought to northern America. In January the steamship
Hope
arrived in Liverpool with 1010 barrels of flour from the New York Produce Exchange, 11,236 barrels from the International Relief Committee and later in the month a further 1500 barrels
from the Exchange. The food was distributed by the Central Relief Committee and the people of Manchester and Oldham and Burnley amongst many others went to bed with their bellies full for the first
time in three years.

The starving cotton families were beginning to take a stand against the grievous suffering with which they were afflicted through no fault of their own and to which there seemed no end. They had
been patient long enough, they said, and the war in America which was starving their children was nothing to do with them. Disturbances occurred in the distressed districts, the first noteworthy
incident taking place during the distribution of the food sent from America. There was to be a meeting in Stevenson’s Square in Manchester and it was intended that the grateful workers should
march to Kersal Moor where 15,000 loaves would be given to them. The meeting took place but the operatives declined to allow political speeches to be made about their distress, no procession was
formed, the loaves were seized and the operatives went home.

But something had begun that day and serious riots broke out in Stalybridge and neighbouring towns. Dissatisfaction with relief which was to be reduced yet again aroused anger in previously
submissive breasts and windows were broken and machines damaged, just as in the old days when the first power looms had come to take the employment from handloom weavers. Special constables were
sworn in and the Riot Act read and a company of Hussars was called out to clear the streets. The next day, despite the reading of the Riot Act and the posting of a notice forbidding crowds to
assemble in the streets, a mob gathered, stones were thrown, shops invaded and sacked and twenty-nine men were arrested.

The disturbances which took place then and for several weeks afterwards brought the question of emigration to the forefront yet again. Many operatives who could afford to go or were able to
obtain assistance had already sailed for America and the colonies, but those employers whose mills were still somehow limping along regarded with alarm the prospect of losing skilled spinners and
weavers. What were they to do, they asked one another, when the war was over and cotton came pouring back into Lancashire, as it was bound to do, if their hands whose craft had been handed down
from generation to generation and learned during long apprenticeships were no longer available? The northern states of America, where cotton mills were springing up, particularly in New England,
were doing their best to attract Lancashire cotton operatives to emigrate and from May 1862 until December 1863, 60,000 persons left the country though only 14,000 of those were from Lancashire.
Most of those who had professed a desire to emigrate had been carefully dissuaded from it!

‘We’ll get through some’ow,’ Annie said stoutly as she and Tessa sat with their feet on her kitchen fender, the blast of warmth from the fire reaching up their lifted
skirts. It was November and a heavy frost, earlier than usual, had lain a coverlet of white over town and moorland alike and the thoughts of the two women turned pityingly to the thousands beyond
their door who had no such comfort.

‘Dear God, it had better end soon,’ Tessa said and Annie knew she was referring to the war.

‘They say t’South’ll not ’old out much longer. They’ve not got resources like t’North. Blockades got ’em by’t throat an’ their
strength’s dwindlin’.’

‘Like those poor souls out there.’

‘Aye,’ Annie agreed sadly.

‘I never guessed it would last as long as this, Annie, nor how it could affect people so far away. Will we ever recover, d’you think? Will we ever make up all that we have lost? Oh,
not in money, but in the improvements which were beginning to come in the lives of the operatives.’

‘Millmaisters weren’t all as obligin’ as thi family, lass.’

‘Perhaps not, but a better life was bound to come.’

‘An’ it’ll come again, you mark my words. Will said only t’other day . . .’

Annie stopped abruptly, cutting off the words on her lips as though they had burned them. She watched the soft flush caused by the warmth of the fire drain from Tessa’s face as she sat up
slowly in sharp, disjointed movements as though her body were suddenly stiff. She turned her head away and stared blindly into the shadows at the edge of the kitchen, then looked back at Annie. She
seemed incapable of speaking though her mouth opened and closed. She stood up jerkily and began to stride about the room, her hands clasping and unclasping. Annie watched her sorrowfully. It was
over a year since Will’s name had been mentioned between them. Tessa had not asked about him. She and Will had both made it perfectly clear to Annie that neither of them wished to know, ever,
what the other one was doing and though she stood between them, friend to both, she had respected their wishes. Now a slip of the tongue had brought Will Broadbent savagely back from the past.

‘I’m sorry, lass. I didn’t mean ter . . .’

Still Tessa flung herself fiercely about the kitchen, avoiding Annie’s eyes, turning this way and that in her effort to escape the pain the sound of his name was causing her. Her wide
black skirt brushed madly against the table, the chairs, the dresser, threatening to dislodge the crockery until finally she stood, as she had stood on that last day in her office, with her face to
the whitewashed wall.

‘I should have guessed,’ she said at last, her voice no more than a whisper.

‘Should’ve guessed what?’

‘That you still . . . saw him.’

‘I told thi a long while since that even if thi an’ ’im fell out ’e were still my friend, as thi are.’

‘I should have known, of course. I suppose I did know. You were always loyal.’

‘I’m . . . fond of thi both. I can’t choose between thi, lass. It’s bin ’ard at times when tha looked as though tha’d never get over it but recently both of
thi’ ’ave found other . . .’

The silence fell again, hard and hurting, and Annie watched as the trembling began in Tessa’s shoulders, moving her head wildly and running down her long, graceful back. She folded her
arms across her breast, hugging herself tightly as she turned back into the room. Annie had never seen such despair on any face, not even on her own in the mirror when her family was torn from her
in the stews of Manchester when the fever struck.

‘He . . . has . . . someone . . . ?’

‘Nay, lass, don’t . . .’

‘Don’t . . . ?’

‘Don’t ask me ter tell thi what Will’s doin’. Not now. Tha made it quite clear a year ago that tha wanted nowt’ ter do wi’ ’im. Get on wi’ tha
life, tha said to ’im, an’ tha can’t blame ’im when ’e ’as done.’

‘Annie . . .’ The shaking of her body became uncontrollable so that Annie stood up, alarmed, reaching out to the woman who surely was breaking apart. She pulled her fiercely into her
arms, awkward and clumsy for Tessa was six inches taller than herself, but she held her firmly, murmuring words which said nothing, stroking the smooth and glossy hair which, as Tessa wept, began
to fall about her neck and shoulders.

‘Annie . . . I . . . cannot . . . bear . . . it. I . . . just . . . cannot . . . bear . . . it . . . without . . . him . . .’

‘I know, love, I know.’

‘What . . . am . . . I . . . to . . . do?’

‘Sit thi down, lass.’

‘Annie . . .’

‘Come on, love, sit down an’ I’ll give thi summat ter mekk yer feel better.’

‘Annie, Annie . . .’

She was quiet at last, the empty glass which had contained one of Annie’s ‘potions’ still clasped limply beween her flaccid fingers. She stared dazedly into the heart of the
glowing fire, her colour returned though her hair still fell in shining swathes about her haunted face. Annie watched her, knowing that the valerian which she had put in the elderberry wine would
make her sleep soon. But when she woke? What then? Would she want to know, demand to know what Will Broadbent was doing, where he was, and who, if there was someone, had taken her place in his
life? Would she be bent on torturing herself as Annie believed women were in circumstances such as this? Well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it for there was no use in looking for
aggravation when it damn soon found you on its own. In the meanwhile she would send a message to Thomas at the Dog and Gun where he waited with the carriage for his mistress, to go home. Tessa
could sleep here tonight and in the morning . . . well, that was tomorrow.

‘Tell me about that little lad, Tessa,’ she said softly at last.

‘Who?’

‘That there Joel tha’s so fond of.’

‘Annie . . .’

‘Nay, not if tha don’t want to but I ’eard as ’ow. ’e was as able as thissen on that pony of ’is. Ginny Briggs was tellin’ me only t’other day
she’d seen the pair of thi racin’ up ter’t top o’ Dog Hill an’ thi was ’avin’ a job ter keep up wi’ ’im. What will ’e be now . . . seven
. . . eight?’

‘He’s almost eight.’

‘An’ a likely lookin’ lad. Reminds me a lot o’ Charlie Greenwood.’

‘Yes.’ Tessa’s lips lifted in a tiny smile and her unfocused eyes became soft.

Annie relaxed and let her breath ease thankfully from her lungs.

36

‘Where shall it be today, darling? You know we won’t be able to ride out for much longer, don’t you, at least not far from the estate so we must make the best of these last few
days. The snows will be here soon, Percy says, and that will be the end of our riding until they melt. Of course, we could go walking . . .’

‘Even in the snow, Aunt Tess?’

‘Well, it would be difficult but it is possible.’

‘How?’

The boy looked up into Tessa Greenwood’s face and his hand which was held in hers, shook it excitedly. He danced along beside her as they went towards the stables, wide-eyed and as
unsteady as a colt, small for his age, not like the tall Greenwoods a bit, but endearingly full of charm. He was the only one of Charlie’s children to have captured her heart, try as she
might to feel other than pity and a deep sense of responsibility for the rest. They had been too old, she had decided, too far down the path on which Laurel’s upbringing had set them, knowing
exactly what they wanted from life and expecting to get it, as their mother had done. Only this one was Charlie’s true child, just like him as a boy, though Tessa of course was not aware of
it. Sweet-tempered, generous, affectionate, he yet had a strong core of resolution in him which would not allow the others in the schoolroom to take advantage of his size and youth. There were five
years dividing himself and Henry, two dead children between them, but it did not deter him despite his smallness from raising his fists in his own defence against his brothers.

He loved it when she called him ‘darling’ and he loved her. She didn’t call his brothers and sisters ‘darling’. She belonged exclusively to him now, he knew that
with the selfishness of a child and he basked in her love and approval. He could scarcely remember his father but Aunt Tess kept him alive with tales of her own childhood, her two cousins, and
Charlie, who was his father, of course. He loved Charlie because she did and his small world was secure and steady in her loving grasp.