A Curse Dark as Gold (15 page)

"My dear, you are the answer to my prayers! Wait -- did you say one
thousand?
Of this? Are you pulling my leg, then, miss?"

"No, indeed, sir. I am quite serious."

He turned to me, and a flood of words poured out of him. "You can't imagine what a trial it's been this season! There are outrageous taxes on local gold, and tariffs on imported gold are so bad the lacemakers can't afford it, and if you could get me one
hundred
spools of this by the end of the month you will absolutely save my life. A thousand!" He broke into a little giggle, rummaging through a heap of tambours and ledgers and uncovering a receipt book. "I can offer you ten shillings sixpence per spool. I know, it's low --"

"I need fifteen."

He pursed his lips. "My dear, I can't even sell it for that -- and that's retail. I can maybe go up to twelve shillings -- maybe twelve and six ..." He shook his head sadly.

"Mr. Parmenter, what are the wyre-drawers charging these days? It must be close to four or five pence
a yard.
I'm offering you a bargain at fourteen and six." I stepped in closer and rolled the spool toward him, the gold thread pouring onto the desk like a ribbon of light.

"Will you take thirteen?" he asked in a small soft voice. I forced myself to breathe easily. That would bring us some twelve pounds short of Mr. Woodstone's bill -- but I had managed to squirrel away a little money during the summer, and Mr. Woodstone did not seem the type to quibble over farthings.

"Very well, Mr. Parmenter, I think we have a bargain."

"Splendid!" He scrawled something in the register, and ripped the cheque from the booklet. "Now, miss, I'll give you forty percent now, and the balance when we fetch the stock."

"Mr. Parmenter, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for ready money."

"But, miss -- I couldn't possibly. Oh, there's no way --" Feeling wickeder than sin, I reached for the spool and slowly drew it away. Six hundred pounds was an absolute fortune, and I had no reason to assume the Parmenters had that sort of money lying about for the taking. Still, it couldn't be helped -- if this was the only way ... but I had to be careful. I had more to lose here than Mr. Parmenter.
He watched me with quavering breath, then scowled and tore up the first cheque. "Fine, although I shudder to think what Bessie'll do to me when she finds out."

I allowed myself one deep breath. "Thank you, sir. The stock is available immediately."

"Oh? Good, good. I'll send a man for it at the end of the week." He eyed me over his spectacle rims as he passed me the money. "Are you sure you don't have a source for silver as well?"

I smiled and shook my head, and Mr. Parmenter led me to the doorway. "Mr. Parmenter, what did you mean about staying away from the Miller business? What was odd about it?"

He scowled, the little eyes bleary. "Odd? Whatever gave you that idea? Nonsense. Now, if we can ever do business together again --" and he hurried me right down the stairwell before I could so much as blink back at him.

As I made my way downstairs, I could not suppress my smile. It wasn't exactly Worm Hill Cloth Exchange, but I think I did not do too badly in the end.

Uncle Wheeler had not quite made it past the foyer, having been detained in conversation by the girl in the window, a sharp-featured beauty who had turned her arched eyebrows like a weapon on my uncle. He was leaning casually in the doorframe, bending over her slightly as she laughed and swept her curls from one shoulder to the other. I clattered down the last few steps as gracefully as a dairy maid. At my entrance, she gave me one scornful look and stabbed her stitching brutally with her needle.

"All done, Charlotte?" Uncle Wheeler murmured absently. He drew the young woman's hand to his lips with an alarming smile, and blew a kiss through the air across her wrist.
She blushed very prettily as Uncle Wheeler took my arm and steered me outside.

"Pretty thing," my uncle said.

"She's no older than I am," I said.

"Well, we've talked about that before, Charlotte -- you're quite of a marriageable age. As am I, when it comes to that."

"She's just a seamstress," I said cruelly -- just to see what should happen. Uncle Wheeler dropped my arm abruptly and turned his smile on me.

"Yes, but she'll have a lovely afternoon now, won't she?'' He stepped toward the waiting cab and held out a hand, "Come along now, we don't want to leave the gentlemen at Pinchfields waiting."

My stomach turned, and I was more than happy to climb into the carriage, where the noise of traffic inhibited any further conversation.

Pinchfields was a misery: an ugly, dark, filthy, stinking nightmare of industry, crouched on the banks of the Stowe like a great hulking beast, covetously gripping its sere acre of land and spewing black smoke into the heavy air. Two vast buildings, their red brick faces barely broken by windows, wound round themselves in a tangled labyrinth until it was impossible to make heads or tails of anything. The river slinked beside, so slow and rank I could barely believe it was the same Stowe I had lived beside all my life.

Uncle Wheeler was enchanted. "The factory is only five years old, Charlotte," he said as we alit from our hired cab. I could not credit it. Its dark walls and grimy windows spoke of ages and ages on this spot, and surely they had dogged our footsteps at Stirwaters longer than that! Yet as we approached I saw the cornerstone, stamped with the date, implacable as the walls themselves.

We were shuttled through an iron gate, where a Mr. Edgewater, a stout man in middle age, sweating and mopping his wilted wig with a silk handkerchief, was waiting for us. He shook Uncle Wheeler's hand heartily, but barely noticed me.

"Welcome, welcome," he huffed, striking out for a barred door in the brick wall. "I am instructed to give you the grand tour. I'm sure you'll be very impressed. We've made some recent improvements in the weaving rooms --" He halted, apparently out of breath, and cast his glance back toward us. "That is, rather -- well, come along, then." He shoved us forward into a dim, clanging workroom.

"What is that noise?" I cried before I could stop myself. It truly seemed as though we'd stepped into the belly of a dragon -- dark and hot, with a roar and a hiss so loud I barely heard my own voice.

Mr. Edgewater laughed, and it was not a friendly sound. "Steam!" he cried, loud above the dragon's breath. "That's steam, my dear girl. No clumsy waterwheels here -- we use only the very latest equipment." He pointed to the ceiling, at the snaking network of painted pipes shuddering slightly in their bindings. I followed them with my eyes, up through a hole in the ceiling. Wool works best in heat and damp; if Pinchfields had found a way to create those ideal conditions, it didn't matter how poor their raw materials were. They could make it up in the processing.

We followed Mr. Edgewater through five floors in two buildings with hundreds of workers in thrall: children barely old enough to dress themselves and hollow-eyed girls hunched, flushed and coughing, over their machines, where the stench of sweat and sickness overpowered even the smells of wool and grease. It had none of the light and room of Stirwaters, nothing of the view and air; no space even to step back and take a breath. The workers might have been chained to their machines for all the freedom they had to move about; they stood and worked in a slow, dispirited trance.

By happenstance I chanced upon Abby Weaver there, working a massive plying frame, her nimble fingers red and blistered, cheekbones standing out too clearly in her face. She started when she saw me (as surely I did as well).

"Mistress!" she cried, looking up briefly before turning back to her work. The threads she was winding into yarn had skips and slubs in them, an uneven batch of workmanship that would never have passed at Stirwaters. She pinched at odd bits of the yarn, as if trying to mend the errors before it became
her
sloppy workmanship, but to no avail.

"Where's Tom?" I said, pitching my voice above the din.

"Home," she said, slipping aside the rings and spools. "He broke his leg and lost his post. He's watching the baby, at least."

What kind of "home" must they have here, this lost branch of my Stirwaters family? A windowless room on a back alley somewhere, their children never to run in the willow groves or splash in the streambed? I clutched my purse with stiff fingers and realized that Abby was shouting at me.

"... a machine here that weaves by itself," Abby was saying. "You should go look; they say it's a wonder!"

"I'm sure!" I called back. With great effort I managed to leave Abby there. Thoroughly sickened by the whole place, I made myself follow my uncle and our guide.

Soon enough, we entered a vast room of almost unfathomable depth, stocked with row upon row of looms -- twenty, fifty -- I lost count. One girl worked two or three, and she was not weaving: She was watching. The machines
themselves
were weaving -- the shuttles flying back and forth through the sheds, the battens banging up and down in a deafening, oppressive rhythm. I stepped forward, drawn into that clattering nightmare as if it had hypnotized me.

This was it, then, the end of the world I had felt upon us when Father died. It wasn't fire or famine or debt that would destroy us. This was Progress. Stirwaters wasn't venerable, we were just
old.
How could we survive in the face of this massive, inevitable newness? I wanted to escape those stifling rooms and the beasts that lived there, devouring my future with every steaming breath.

"Shall we step into the office?" Mr. Edgewater's voice broke into my thoughts.

"Indeed," Uncle Wheeler said with a sniff. "It is a bit close in here."

Mr. Edgewater brought us to a closed door on the highest level, glassed over and ill-fitting in its frame. I could see shadows moving behind the frosted panes. Our guide tapped obsequiously on the glass, and a liveried clerk stepped out and bowed.

"Miss Miller," he said, the first person in this entire factory to call me by name. "Mr. Darling will see you now."

I adjusted my hat and took a step forward, then stopped, frowning. "I'm sorry -- Mr. Darling, did you say?"

The clerk nodded, ushering us over the threshold. The little office was stuffy, windowless; the smell of fresh paint hung in the air, but the dark walls were sweating from the steam.
From behind a delicate turned-leg desk rose a gentleman in a black velvet suit, far, far too warm for the room. He was thick round the waistcoat, heavily jowled, his mouth turned down in a perpetual frown. Upon seeing me, he gave those bent lips an upward twist, trying to affect a smile,

"Miss Miller, do come in, come in! Such a delight to have you here at our little" -- he coughed -- "establishment. What did you think?"

"Mr. Darling?" I said. "You're Mr. Arthur Darling?"

"Primary shareholder of Pinchfields, I am."

"And trustee of the cloth market?" I was trembling, unable to believe my stupidity.

He nodded. "I'm glad to see that your uncle has been able to talk some sense into you, Miss Miller. Trust me, you will not regret an alliance with Pinchfields." He drew a sheaf of papers from the desk, tidied their corners, and smiled at me -- a great wolfish smile, complete with shining teeth. By God, he had sale papers all drawn up already! This wasn't just a friendly tour ... I had been lured into a snare!

I glanced at Uncle Wheeler. He was leaning easily against the doorframe, studying his fingernails. I took a deep breath of the stifling air.

"Mr. Darling," I said, and I am proud of how my voice carried. "I and all the Millers will be cold and dead before you get your filthy hands on Stirwaters."

I swiped the papers off that ridiculous desk and tore them in two, scattering the pieces on the brand-new rose-print carpeting.

That mad fire sustained me all the way through the mazelike corridors to the open air and the waiting carriage. I clambered up and took several deep breaths to steady myself. I was almost calm again when Uncle Wheeler sprang in after me.

"You stupid girl!" He grabbed my wrist and twisted it up toward my face. I gasped with pain and surprise, and could not breathe with his face so close to mine. "Do you have any idea what that little display cost us?"

I wrenched my hand from his. "Cost
us?
What did you think -- I would meekly sign over my home? I'm afraid you've been quite deceived, Uncle. Rosie was right. They must be plotting something. Your Mr. Darling? He sent the letter from Worm Hill. It can't be coincidence." I rubbed my sore wrist and matched him glare for glare.

He licked his thin lips and frowned delicately. "Well," he said at last, "I suppose that does look rather suspicious. But, my dear, I beg you to reconsider. If this factory has that sort of influence, what chance do you have? Surely you recognize the hopelessness of your situation now."

I sank into my seat, gripping my reticule with both hands, where my "chance" was safely tucked away -- my precious cheque from Mr. Parmenter. "Never."

Uncle Wheeler leaned in over me. Beads of perspiration stood out beneath the white of his wig, and the lilac scent had gone faintly sour. "Charlotte, please -- listen to me. You can still go back in there, and --"