A Curse Dark as Gold (23 page)

I winced. "Yes," I said automatically, and then shook my head. "No. I don't know. How do you talk about something you can't even bear to think of? But Rosie says she'll get the wall patched up, temporarily, and if anyone can build a millwheel, it's Harte...."

Randall sat there, a look of concern on his straightforward face, stroking my hand. He might have been an ostler soothing a nervous horse, and the firelight and the warmth and the great heavy drapes behind me seemed a palpable barrier between me and the troubles at Stirwaters. Absently, I reached up to touch the timepiece at my breast. This was what Randall did for me -- this moment of tranquility, this stalwart defense against the volleys hurled at me daily. But I sensed a fragility in that barrier, and I vowed then that I would let nothing disturb it. Whatever else happened,
this
was sacred. I think that was the moment when I truly drew Randall close in to me, alongside Rosie and Shearing and Stirwaters. These things were mine, and I would let no harm come to them.

The ice gave up its grip on Shearing within a day or two, thawing the village into mud and debris. There was not much damage, overall -- a few fallen limbs, some loose shingles. Only Stirwaters had received a mortal blow. After the initial cleanup, Harte took advantage of the break in his duties to head home for a spell, and Randall delayed his return to Harrowgate, as though I had gone fragile with the injury to my mill.

"For heaven's sake, I shan't go mad if I sit idle for one minute," I exclaimed in exasperation once, as Randall expressed concern over my well-being yet again. "Besides, it's not as if there isn't work still to be done -- cloth doesn't finish and catalogue itself, you know."
Rosie had been to the joiner's; she knew the cost of the new wheel and shaft, and I had told her to order them, but she dragged her feet. Oh, she had excuses: The joiner had to order the right-sized bolts; the log for the shaft was too green. I took her at her word, until she descended on me one chill morning and beckoned me into the office.

Rosie spread an armload of papers across the desk: schematic drawings of Stirwaters and its workings, sketched-out maps of our land and the river, pages and pages of calculations. I thought they must be Father's; the hand was his, and we were forever finding scraps and scribbles he had left behind.

"Where did you find these?" I asked, sliding one long drawing from beneath its fellows. It depicted a new millwheel -- a much larger one -- driving the Stirwaters power train.

"I didn't find them," Rosie said. "I've been working on them for days. Well, with Harte's help. He's not much with pen and ink, but he's something of a genius when it comes to machines."

"You! But what is it all?"

"Look --" she indicated the schematic before me. "These are plans for the new millwheel. I think we could increase the horsepower half again if we went with this design. It will take some tinkering, since it reverses the direction of flow --"

Oh, it was a grand idea, and she had such hopes for it! She talked on for a few more minutes, pointing out the elements she'd put so much time and care into -- how Rosellen Miller would put her mark on Stirwaters for still and all. Her eyes were bright, her face flushed.

"If we just replace the old wheel, how much will that cost?"
"About fifty pounds."

I cringed, though we
should
manage to save back nearly that much from our dealings with Captain Worthy. "And this larger one? And everything to fit it into place?"

"Perhaps three times that."

"You know we don't have that kind of money!" I hadn't meant to burst out like that.

Rosie sat stiffly in her chair. "I thought maybe Randall might advance us some funding."

"You can't be serious! How can you suggest such a thing, after what we've gone through to get
out
of debt to him!"

"Yes, well -- things are different now, aren't they?" She was glaring at me, her jaw thrust out stubbornly.

"And that is precisely the reason we will not even entertain the notion. I'll not take advantage of Randall's wealth!"

"Well," Rosie said slowly, "that's why you married him, isn't it?"

I slapped her. I don't recall
meaning
to do it -- somehow my hand shot out and struck her across the face, leaving a bright pale mark on her red cheek.

Her own hand flew up to the spot, her eyes wide as gearwheels. I stared back in horror, but an apology would not form itself on my lips. After the briefest moment, Rosie shoved back her chair and swept all her papers carelessly together. I saw she was fighting back tears.

"You're just like Mam, you know that?"

"It's too big a risk," I said, but my voice was very small.

"It's always too big a risk," she said. "Father would have understood!"

It was my turn to feel the sting of a blow. Blinking against the burn in my eyes, I mumbled, "Dreams, Rosie -- that's all Father's ideas ever were. That's all this is." But she was already gone.

With the unbearable silence of Stirwaters pressing against me like the air of a tomb, I wandered back up to the Grange. The wind was like a whip of ice in my face, and I was numb and breathless by the time I crested the wooded hill. One curiosity of living at the Grange was that our nearest neighbor was Biddy Tom. She occupied the old gatehouse on the property, a sturdy lime-washed cottage nestled in a tangle of spruce and heather. It was not actually all that near -- a few minutes' struggle through the wood, or a longer walk by the roadway -- and since her plot of land was not part of our lease, I seldom saw her. Perhaps when Spring opened up the world we would turn neighborly, but the very thought of it gave me a chill not part of the winter afternoon.

I found Randall hard at work outside, wrapped in his frock coat and hat, hacking viciously at a black thicket with a rather large set of hedge shears. An axe lay buried in the remains of a tree struck down by the ice storm. His pale cheeks chapped red with cold -- broke into a wide smile, and he lifted a gloved hand in a big wave.

"What are you doing?" I said, coming closer. We stood in the shadow of the dining room window, the stone eaves arched gloomily overhead, traced with the skeletons of last year's ivy.

"Well, once I got the last of the storm debris cleared, I thought I'd get a head start on spring."
"You cleared away all those damaged trees?"

"Of course," he said. "Who did you think had done it? Little Colly? Well, she helped some." He bent over the hedge and brushed his frozen lips against mine. "Mercy! We'd best be careful -- we'll stick together in weather like this. Why don't you head inside and get warm? There's water boiling in the hearth. I'll be in as soon as I get this demon hawthorn beaten into submission."

"I think it's winning," I said, just as he yanked his hand back from the hedge with a hiss. "Those thorns will stick through anything."

Holding the shears at a rakish angle, Randall surveyed the property. "It's a grand old park, or it will be, once I convince the woods to give it back." As he moved around the hedge, he elaborated on his plans for the garden and the yard. He showed me the strip of verge where he planned a bulb garden, the run-down carriage house ("Imagine having the horses and trap right here at home!"), the brick terraces overlooking a "vista" of the Valley floor. Every corner of the property would have Randall's touch -- fresh stonework, new plantings, a glass-paned summerhouse to enjoy the mature roses.

I listened with growing unease. How could he make such plans? This was not our house, not our land to dig up and repot as we chose. And to look ahead -- five, ten years for some of these ideas. It was dizzying.

"My father made plans like that." I said it without thinking, and Randall took it for response to some comment I had not even heard.

He squeezed my hand. "Then that's what I'll do first."

Inadvertently, I shivered.

"Darling, you're freezing. Let's get you inside and start on that tea." He put his arm round my shoulders and steered me back to the front of the house. We paused briefly to peek at our bedroom oriel, its paned window sparkling in the waning light. A twisted, black-trunked tree reached its stunted branches toward the glass.

"What's this?" I asked, fingering the gnarled wood.

"Lilacs. There's this one, and a whole copse of them by the morning room terrace."

I recoiled, snatching my hand back. "Cut it down," I said. "Cut them all down."

A few nights later, Randall and I called at the Millhouse for dinner. I had seen little of my uncle since my wedding, and though I confess I did not experience quite the proper regret, I supposed it a duty I should not dismiss so lightly. Thus my new husband and I, gaily bedecked, arrived at the Millhouse like company, and were ushered in across the parlor threshold by Rachel as if we were strangers. Truly, I almost felt like one, under the brief gaze Rosie rewarded me with.

I stood in the parlor and looked at the home that was no longer my own. My new shoes felt odd and awkward on the Millhouse floor; I could not feel the smooth uneven boards, and found myself seeking, with my toe, for the loose one near the fireplace. I saw my unfamiliar reflection in the old smoked mirror, and remembered looking at the room this way, all those months ago when Uncle Wheeler had first come. I put a hand up to touch the china lamp, turned now so the crack was at the back, and stilled my fingers in the air.

"Rosie," I murmured, half from curiosity, and half to fill the silence that had risen up between us, "what's happened to the prize cup?" The silver plate trophy, won generations ago by some unnamed Miller in some Wool Guild competition, had stood so long on the Millhouse mantel that it had made a permanent ring for itself on the painted wood.

"I've no idea," she said curiously. "Uncle Wheeler must have decided it was too low, and had Rachel move it. He's been doing that for weeks now." She drew me closer to the fireplace, and in a hushed voice said, "Charlotte, he's been acting strangely ever since you left. The trophy, then Mam's candlesticks ... and then last week he came home in the middle of the night, half undressed -- in his shirtsleeves; no jacket, no waistcoat. In the
snow."

A picture I had never quite been able to banish rose in my mind: of my uncle, bent over a ring drawn out in the sand, blood marring his blouse. I shook my head and tried to think what to tell her, when Randall strode up and gave her a companionable punch to the shoulder.

"Rosie, you're looking well. Won't you come see us at the Grange?" She brightened like a candle flame and gave him a very sisterly hug. Randall, smiling, squeezed her back. Uncle Wheeler finally joined us, and I must say he did not look so different after a few weeks' distance. I felt a curious sensation of distaste when I beheld the embroidery on his waistcoat, but bit my lip and quelled it. I should never be able to look at gold thread, it seemed, without thoughts of Jack Spinner. He drew me forward for a fluttering embrace, still scented very strongly of lilacs.

After dinner, Randall eased himself into the armchair facing the fireplace. "What are your plans these days, Wheeler?"
"My plans, my dear boy? What can you mean?"

Randall crossed one long leg over the other. "Well, you must feel as though your duties here are coming to an end, with Charlotte married and everything getting settled so nicely. You must be anxious to get back to your life in the city."

"Why, Woodstone, I wouldn't dream of it! With Charlotte gone, looking after Rosie has become
my full
occupation."

Rosie made a muffled sort of sound, and then coughed politely into her sleeve.

"Well, that must be tiresome for a man like you. No doubt you've had plans set awry by this ... arrangement? Schemes, plots, irons in the fire?" Randall spoke easily, almost carelessly, the way men of society must be accustomed to conversing. "Your niece can't need that much looking after; why, she's in the mill half the time anyway! You don't want to be saddled with a ward, not when there's a perfectly felicitous alternative."

Uncle Wheeler had a singularly peculiar expression on his face. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, my good sir, that I -- with Charlotte's blessing, of course -- would be more than happy to, as it were, take Rosie off your hands."

Rosie's eyes leaped with delight, and she caught my hand.

"What a splendid idea," I said. "Rosie, why didn't we think of it? Oh, Uncle, do say yes -- we wouldn't think of detaining you in Shearing one moment longer than necessary."

Uncle Wheeler coughed. "Why, Charlotte, anyone would think you
eager
to be rid of me!"

I felt myself color. "Oh, no, Uncle -- it's only that we know how tedious it's been for you here these last months -- and we're so grateful to you --"
"I think what my wife is trying to say,'' Randall broke in, "is that while she is deeply appreciative of all you've done for her, there really is no reason for you to prolong your stay here."

He was smiling still, that easy, casual expression he wears so well -- but his voice had a firmness to it I did not recognize. It seemed almost like a challenge.

But Uncle Wheeler did not rise to it. He gave a gentle, mild laugh, and settled back into the faded sofa, his cup at his lips. "My dear boy," he began, but at that very moment there was a crash, like the sound of all the plates in the house breaking at once, followed by a scream.

"Rachel!" Rosie and I were on our feet at once, sprinting for the kitchen.

It was a shambles. Rachel stood in the hub of a ring of broken glass and crockery, splattered broth and vegetables on the floor. She was spewing a stream of unintelligible obscenities -- and she was bathed in red.

"Rachel, my God, you're bleeding!" I rushed to her, lifted her apron to her face, but she waved me off.

"No, no -- it's cherries. Spoilt now." Still trembling slightly, she pointed to the utter ruin of a tart. "Daft vandals!"

"What?" Randall was right on Rosie's heels. The cause of the destruction, a brickbat, dripping with syrup, lay amid the rubble. Randall stooped for it, brushing off a speck of broken glass. "Here, there's a message." He untied the scrap of cloth, now sticky and stained with red, from around the bat.

" 'You've been warned.' What the devil is that supposed to mean?"
I shook my head, just as dumbfounded. "But who threw it?"

Randall turned and flung open the kitchen door, stepping out into the night. "There's no one --
oh.
Charlotte, you'd better come out here."
Chapter Seventeen
Randall
reached a hand out to me, and I gingerly stepped across the shattered glass and strewn food to the doorway. "Oh, mercy!" The words stuck in my throat and came out a strangled squeak.

It looked as though a great storm had struck the woolshed and the yard, scattering our stock to the four winds. There was cloth everywhere -- pieces of it. Scraps, snips, slices. Whole packs, bound for transport, had been torn apart and shredded to rags. The woolshed doors were wrenched clean off their hinges and banged crazily against the stone walls. Someone had broken into the dyeshed and overturned the vats and scattered dyestuffs into the liquid streaming over the yard. What looked like a great grey blanket floating across the yard -- or a ghost in a smoky shroud -- revealed itself to be several yards of silver cassimere, slashed to ribbons. I stooped for it, wrapped some round my hands, lifted it to my face and waited for it to whisper its secrets to me. It was sticky and damp and reeked of ammonia; I cast about and found that the barrels of lant outside the mill had been tipped on their sides, to let their foul contents leech onto the ground and the remnants of my cloth.
The entire stock -- every bale, every bolt, every yard of cloth. Every kersey, every baize, every satinette -- destroyed. Willfully. Gleefully. Maliciously. This was not just one or two lengths, vandalized on the tenterhooks. This was a massive act of unfettered aggression. An attack on Stirwaters. On me.

"Who did this?" Randall said. He was still clutching the brick, and I thought he looked as if he'd like to throw it at someone.

"Does it matter?" I asked, futilely trying to piece together a tear in the silver cassimere.

"I'll say it does," Randall said. "When I get my hands on whoever's responsible --"

Rosie flung herself into the yard, straining into the darkness as though she could see the culprits lingering in the fringe of wood, pointing and sniggering at us.

"Rosie, it's no use," I said. "They'd be long gone by now. We'd never find them."

Randall looked from Rosie to me. "Well, you must have some idea!"

"An idea, maybe. But no proof. Someone who knew that Harte would be gone, and that's the entire village."

"The entire village wouldn't do this. Now, think! While we have time to fetch the magistrate and round them up!"

I shook my head. "The magistrate won't be here until Sunday month, and by then all the evidence will be gone."

Randall grabbed for his hair and remembered too late that he had cut it off. His hand hung, helpless, before his face. "Blast -- I forgot. Small towns."

***
The mess -- both inside and out -- took hours to clean up, while my uncle fretted and tut-tutted and lifted not a single white manicured finger to help us. We swept up as much of the damaged cloth as we could, bundling it into old wool bags (the vandals had even destroyed the wrapping-cloth), but I knew we'd be finding bits of flannel and satinette in tree branches and under shrubs for a long time to come. Randall rolled up his shirtsleeves and held the woolshed doors as Rosie fixed the hinges; afterward she pronounced her brother-in-law "a proper hand with a ladder and block."

But among all the mess, there was no sign of the culprits' identity.

"I don't think one person could have done all this," Randall said. "Look." He gave the righted lant barrel a push. "Even empty, this is heavy."

"But the locks weren't broken," Rosie said. "Whoever did this
unlocked
the woolshed. Only Harte and Charlotte have keys, and Charlotte's never left a door unlocked in her life."

"You have Harte's keys," I reminded her gently. "He left them with you when he went home, remember."

She looked horrified, and took off for the Millhouse. A moment later she returned, breathless and brandishing the ring with a look of such relief I thought she'd cry. "They were right there, under my pillow. Right where I left them. Unless --" she gave a stricken sob. "Unless
I
left it unlocked."

"Hush, love. It wouldn't have mattered if you did. Look what they did to the doors -- do you think a thing like a lock would have stopped them? Besides, after what happened with the attic room --" I stopped myself, unwilling to draw that thought to its conclusion.

Rosie had no such qualms. "What? It won't open a door so we can get our thread out. but it
will
open a door to vandals who want to destroy the woolshed?"