Shining Threads (50 page)

‘Will, please, think it over . . .’

‘I have no wish to think it over, and no need.’ His eyes had turned cold again, cold and disdainful. ‘You really must become used to the fact that you can’t have what you
want, whenever you want it, Mrs Greenwood. You mean nowt to me, and neither does that damned business of yours. You and your fine husband can go to the devil for all I care . . .’

‘Will, for God’s sake, Will.’ Her voice cracked painfully and she stood up, hauling herself to her feet as though she was clawing her way to the surface of a boiling torrent
which was dragging her under. Her eyes had turned a brilliant, quite incredible silvery grey, like crystal, in her despair and her breasts rose, drawing his eyes to them. Her face had flushed to
rosy pink and the soft flesh of her mouth was moist and swollen. She put out her hands to him in desperation and he felt himself begin to move towards her, his body answering the appeal of hers.
‘I’m ready to pay you any wage you ask.’ Her voice was husky, just as it once had been in the fierceness of their lovemaking. ‘I’ll give you shares in the mill, which,
I believe . . . I have been told, though I really know little about it, will give you a small part of the ownership. Apart from the ones left to Laurel by Charlie it all belongs to Drew and me and
he would give anything you name not to have to go in the mill.’

‘Would he indeed?’ His own voice sounded strange in his ears. His eyes gleamed, an intense speculative gleam which she was not sure she cared for. The lazy unconcern had gone
completely, as had his indifference, and she felt the first feather of alarm touch the nape of her neck.

‘He . . . you will have heard of his brother’s death, no doubt?’ Her mouth had dried up and she seemed to have trouble forming the words but he merely continued to watch her,
allowing her to stumble along at her own pace. ‘Well . . . they were . . . being twins, you understand, they were very close and Pearce’s death hit him hard.’ Dear Lord, why was
she telling him all this unless it was to dissipate the curious tension which had sprung up from somewhere? ‘He was himself wounded and it has left him . . .’

‘You really have no need to explain, my dear. Your husband’s . . . afflictions are well known to me. Remember we worked . . . I use the term loosely, you understand . . . together in
the Chapman spinning room.’

‘So you will help him then?’

‘Not him, Tessa, oh, no, not him.’

‘Then . . . ?’

‘You and I . . . once . . . had a very delightful arrangement, did we not? Do you remember? His voice was like silk and his eyes had become a warm and appreciative brown and she knew
immediately, of course, with what coin he was asking her, no demanding her to pay and she felt the fury explode in her, not just with him and the effrontery of what he implied but at the sudden
excitement which stirred in her at the idea.

She had never been so humiliated in her life, she told herself, whipping up her own temper until her cheeks were scarlet with her outrage. His eyes were merry now, maliciously so, and he had the
greatest difficulty, she could distinctly see it, in preventing himself from grinning broadly at her discomfiture. Her rage struck even more deeply, a scorching blow which had her savagely
struggling not to hit him. If she had held a pistol in her hand she would have shot him in his smiling face and been glad to see the flesh shatter, the blood flow. Her heart was banging and
crashing inside her –
why
,
for God
’
s sake
,
why?
– far too big for her chest, and deep, deep within her, where no one could see or even know of its
existence, the core of her female self, that which had lain dormant for many, many years, began to unfurl and throb, and she hated him, hated him for it.

She lifted her head and though her eyes were hot and baleful with her need to hide from him what was in her, she managed to keep her words cool and contemptuous.

‘May I ask what you are suggesting, Mr Broadbent?’

‘Come on, my lass. Don’t play the innocent with me. I know you better than any man, I would say, and certainly better than that husband of yours. You know exactly what I am saying or
do you want me to spell it out to you? Not only do you know, you’re excited at the thought, aren’t you? You’re a woman, Tessa, and though I’ve had my share before and since,
there’s been none to match you when it comes to . . . pleasing a man, and to taking pleasure from it yourself. I’m sure you know what I mean. I can see it in your eyes right now. So
what d’you say? Shall we strike a bargain? You come to my bed and I’ll see to those mills of yours for you. You and Drew Greenwood can skylark about to your hearts’ content, if
you’ve a mind, and I’ll keep your mills running to pay for it, but I’ll want a share of the profit, and a share of Drew Greenwood’s woman to go with it.’

He grinned, then, with all the time in the world and the unconcern to go with it, reached into the silver cigar case on his desk, selected a cigar, lit it and when it was drawing to his
satisfaction, leaned back in his chair and waited.

‘
You can go to hell,
Will Broadbent
, and the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. I’d see the mills in ruins before I’d let you touch me again.’
She gathered her pelisse about her as she leaped up, snarling and dangerous, ready, should he put out a hand to her, to bite it off at the wrist but he merely grinned more broadly. He took another
puff of his fine cigar, his long legs stretched out indolently beneath his splendid desk.

‘Just as you please, Tessa,’ he said as though it was nothing to him, one way or the other. But when she had gone, sweeping regally from the room, elbowing aside the clerk who would
have guided her down the steps to her carriage, he leaned forward in his chair and pressed a trembling hand across his suddenly sweating face.

24

‘I shall go alone then. If you cannot or will not come with me, which seems to me to be nearer the truth, I shall go alone. You know that Nick has set his heart on this
holiday, and on having you there. You are a great favourite, darling, not only with the gentlemen of whom, by the way, I am, inordinately jealous, but of the ladies. They seem to find us immensely
amusing because of our industrial background and the way, one supposes, we have risen above it. You make them laugh, my love, with your outspoken ways and your quite careless disregard of their
belief that they are superior to us. Oh, come with me, Tessa, please. I know we are still in mourning for Charlie, but he wouldn’t mind. You know how he was. We have never been stag-hunting
before. They say that runs of eighty miles are not uncommon and not a third of the horses which start out are in at the death. What a challenge, eeh? You and I against the others. What d’you
say?’

Drew Greenwood paced his wife’s sitting-room with all the fire and intensity of a beast which, having been caged, is searching, snarling and dangerous, for the way out. He had just ridden
back from the Hall where he had spent the day riding to hounds with the Squire and his guests. He was over-excited as he seemed to be so often these days, Tessa thought. Either that or bored to
distraction, casting around for something to amuse him, petulant and churlish at times and at others boyish in his eagerness to tempt her to come and share his play. But slowly, she knew, he was
becoming increasingly hostile to what he saw as her stubbornness in the matter of the mills. She felt there was something barely harnessed within him and if she let go he would not be able to hold
on to it without her, but she must put the factories into some kind of order before she could resume the pleasurably careless life-style they had enjoyed together before the disaster of the fire
and Charlie’s death. No matter what she said, how she tried to explain to him the need for someone to be concerned, he still insisted that managers were employed for that particular purpose
and that he could see no reason for this ridiculous obstinacy on her part. And he was becoming isolated from her in a quite frightening way. She who had been his ‘steadier’ was accused
of being tedious and not half the fun she once had been. He would not listen to her when she explained patiently that though they had the managers in whom he set such store to see to the running of
the sheds at Broadbank and Crofts Bank and the spinning rooms at Crossbank and Highbank, the four older mills,
someone
was needed to oversee
them
until order was restored. There was
the re-building of Chapmanstown to be considered, insurances, she had been told vaguely by her mother before she left for Italy, and who was to do it if she did not? Her own sense of responsibility
towards the accursed business which, after all, belonged to the Greenwoods, irritated her beyond measure and she wished heartily that she could do as Drew wished and just leave the whole damned lot
to go to the devil. But something stopped her. Something only half-understood which had perhaps to do with old Joshua Greenwood who had died at Peterloo and all those who had come after him –
her own mother, her Uncle Joss, Charlie. Or perhaps it was her own stubborn will which would not allow itself to be beaten, plus the certain knowledge, finally, that Drew would always be just as he
was now, never able to be the Greenwood
they
had been, and which, surprisingly, she
was
.

She had said as much to Annie when she had ridden over to her cottage, shortly after she had been to see Will. Drew had gone to the races with Nick and Johnny, sick to death with her long face,
he said, and set on escaping it.

‘I don’t know where to begin, Annie,’ she moaned. ‘It’s like turning a three-year-old loose in a kitchen with instructions to prepare and cook a fifteen-course
dinner for thirty people. I have never been in the counting house except to call on my mother and only in the yard to pick up Drew and Pearce and I have never once set foot in a spinning room or a
weaving shed. I have heard my mother speak of carding and drawing frames but if you should ask me what they meant and my life depended on the answer I could not describe them. Will you not at least
come with me for a day or so to start with? You are a spinner and have some idea as to what I might be looking for. We could walk round the mills together and you could tell me what is happening .
. .’

‘Yer overlookers could do that, Tessa, much better than me, or one o’t managers.’ Annie’s voice was blunt.

‘But I don’t want them to know I’m so ignorant. Dear God, Aunt Kit had her father to guide her through it all and Mother had Aunt Kit. Dammit, I’ve no one.’

Annie hesitated. ‘’Appen if you was to speak polite-like to Will . . .’

Tessa’s face set in an icy mask of contempt. ‘I have already offered him the position of manager but he declined. He does not care what I do, he said. I can go to hell in a handcart
before he would lift a finger to help me.’

‘Yer can’t blame ’im, lass. Yer tried him sorely a few years back an’ ’e’d not forget in a hurry. Still, I thought ’e might ’ave given thi some
hint, some idea where tha might begin. Mind you, ’e said nowt ter me when ’e were ’ere last . . .’

‘You’ve seen him?’ Tessa felt her heart lurch painfully.

‘Aye. ’E comes over now an’ again, like ’e always did, an’ we ’ave a chin-wag. Just because you an’ ’im ’ad a fallin’ out years ago,
doesn’t mean ’im an’ me ’ave to do’t same.’

Tessa’s face was stiff, she could not have said why since what was it to her if Annie and Will had remained friends? She had known, of course, so why did the mention of it cause this
agitation in her?

‘You never mentioned him.’

‘Would it ’ave made any difference if I ’ad?’ Annie, quick to take offence at the implied criticism and letting it be known that what she did was her own business, lifted
the kettle from the fire and banged it down on the dresser just as though the innocent utensil was the cause of her pique.

‘No, indeed. None at all.’

‘Well, then?’

‘Indeed.’

‘So what are we arguin’ about?’

‘We are not arguing, Annie, and certainly not over Will Broadbent who is not worth giving the time of the day. I don’t want to hear another word about him. I’m going to get out
the carriage tomorrow and go to Crossbank and show
him
and everyone else who thinks I shall fall flat on my face that I’m as much a Greenwood as my mother.’ She lifted her head
challengingly but in her eyes was the dreaded anticipation that that was exactly what she would do, and if she was to fall who would pick her up?

Annie sighed sadly. ‘I’m right sorry. I wish I could ’elp thi, but I can’t.’ It was said simply, the truth of her words, the certainty of them very obvious.
‘I ’ave me own life ter sort out now.’ Tessa, absorbed with her own problems, did not hear her. Annie put out her hand. ‘Is there no other way? Could not that ’usband
o’ thine not ’elp out, or ’appen yer could sell the mills?’

‘I suppose I could try but I don’t even know enough to guess at an asking price. Dear God, if only Aunt Kit or Uncle Joss or even Mother had remained for long enough to tell me what
to do.’

‘From what thi tells me, Mrs Greenwood can’t do wi’ ’avin’ yer uncle worried. She only cares about ’im an’ spendin’ what days they ’ave left
together in peace.’ In a way, Annie could understand that: a bit of peace must be a wonderful thing to have. Not that she’d ever known any, what with her mam dying and four children to
be fetched up somehow, but a thing to be treasured was peace of mind. ‘’Ow old d’yer reckon they are?’ she asked, more to take Tessa’s mind from her problems than her
own curiosity.

‘Who cares?’ ‘Tessa’s voice was irritable. For God’s sake, Annie was really the limit sometimes. She could think of the most foolish things just when sensible
advice was needed. What did it matter how old her aunt and uncle were? It was
now
that concerned her and what
she
was to do, if she could only think what that was. Perhaps it might be
an idea if she were to go and see . . . the bank manager . . . or that lawyer chap in Crossfold her mother had dealt with. Would it not be practical to find out about the mill’s financial
position? That sounded sensible. Its financial position. How much ready cash there was available. Would it be in the bank, hers and Drew’s inheritance, and if so could she get hold of some of
it? Briggs had already intimated that one or two tradesmen had presented their accounts. No hurry, naturally, since the Greenwoods and Harrisons were valued customers who normally settled their
debts immediately they were incurred, not like the gentry who seemed to think next month, next year or even never would be quite agreeable and who could take serious offence, and their custom
elsewhere, if pressed.