Shining Threads (63 page)

‘Leave Pearce out of this . . . bitch . . . bitch . . .’

He raised his arm and she threw back her head challenging, daring him to strike her, not believing he would. Her snarling anger, so long leashed, curled her lip dangerously. When he hit her the
blow stunned her, snapping her head to one side, lifting and swirling her loosened hair and knocking her to her knees. She was dazed, blinded as blood flowed from a cut where his ring had caught
her flesh. She did not see him raise his arm again and the second blow struck her to the floor.

When she came to he had gone.

30

Drew Greenwood did not attend the next day’s meeting of the board of directors though his wife was there in her capacity as chairman. Strangely, she wore a close-fitting
bonnet with a face veil, unlikely apparel for her elegance was now a byword in the Penfold Valley and the dark bonnet was not as fashionable as it might have been.

The meeting was held in the quite splendid board room of the new Chapman mill. A great deal of worthwhile discussion occurred amongst the directors on the excellent start the new mill had made
in its first year of trading. The interest and the dozens of enquiries they had received from men in the cotton industry had been extremely gratifying. They had a full work complement with every
position filled, from managers right down to piecers and scavengers. The bales of raw cotton which had been stored in rented warehouses in readiness for the new mill had been opened, blended,
carded, drawn out and spun and many thousands of yards of fine cloth had been woven. Providing there was no reduction in the supply of raw cotton which came, as they all knew, from the southern
states of America, they would be able to promise a fine profit by the end of the financial year. If Mrs Greenwood would care to look over the figures for July she would be able to see at a glance
that what Mr Bradley had forecast at the first board meeting a year ago was already taking place.

Tessa stared through her veil at the neat rows of figures put before her. Mr Bradley’s words about the supply of raw cotton and its connection with America rang in her head and more to
divert these astute businessmen from her own odd appearance than from any particular desire to know, she asked:

‘Should we be worried then about the flow of cotton from America, in view of the possible war there?’

Will Broadbent leaned back in his chair and watched her admiringly. She had got over that first hurdle. Her own shrewdness had connected Mr Bradley’s remark with some small doubt on the
matter of cotton supply, and these men about the table were pleasantly surprised by Mrs Greenwood’s grasp of the situation.

‘Well, it’s early days yet, Mrs Greenwood, but as you will have read in the newspapers there is some . . . shall we call it . . . disagreement between the northern and southern
states of America. Now there appear to be many reasons why they are at odds with one another, difficult for those not involved to understand, but it seems to be more and more obvious that the
cotton-growing states are certainly going to be affected. To what extent is yet to be seen. Already there has been some slowing down of supplies and we have men, agents, looking in the East and
West Indies, in Egypt and India for alternative supplies, just in case, you understand.’

‘Do you mean to tell me that we have committed ourselves to this new mill and the hundreds of people who work in it and now there could be difficulties in obtaining the raw cotton which
keeps us trading?’

Tessa’s voice was bewildered but beneath it was a splinter of steel and Will felt his heart move with pride in her. She was no longer the uncaring, furiously riding, defiantly challenging
girl with whom he had fallen in love seven years ago. She was no longer the restless, frighteningly high-spirited young woman looking for adventure anywhere it could be found, who had casually
thrown his love aside for something her vigorous nature had told her was more exciting, more to the taste of Miss Tessa Harrison. Nor was she the high-flying, imprudently pleasure-seeking woman who
had married Drew Greenwood when all else had failed her. Slowly, in the two years since the death of her uncle, she had lifted her head and looked about her; looked beyond her own thrill-seeking
world which made fun of those who were sober and hard-working, and had been changed irrevocably by what she had seen. She had not liked what she had been forced to do, forced by some element in her
nature inherited, no doubt, from her own positive mother, but by God she was doing it. And she had something else in her, though perhaps she was not fully aware of it yet: it was that she
cared
. She had carried her unstable husband around for years, guided him, distracted him from his obvious frailties, not shrinking from the responsibility he laid on her. She had defended
him, become everything he needed to sustain his tenuous hold on reason. Enough for any woman, most would have thought, since he was scarcely fit to be let out alone, but now she had to take on
another burden and judging by her steely manner was not to shirk its difficulties.

Mr Bradley put out a placatory hand, then withdrew it hastily since it did not do to pat the arm of the woman who was, after all, his employer.

‘Mrs Greenwood, a civil war in America is foreseen by no one, at least not in this country, and even if it were, would you have told us not to re-build the mill?’

Will sat up, straightening out his long, indolent body, waiting for her answer, ready to support her should she need it.

‘I really cannot answer that, Mr Bradley, but I certainly would have considered deeply the effect it might have on my operatives.’

Her
operatives! Will almost smiled.

‘As we have, Mrs Greenwood,’ Mr Entwhistle, who brewed the finest ale in Lancashire, or so his signs said, put in, ‘and I can assure you that in our opinion there is no cause
for alarm.’

‘You know about such things then, Mr Entwhistle?’ she asked sharply. ‘I believe you are a brewer.’

‘That is so, Mrs Greenwood, but I am also a man who knows business and the world markets and therefore I am certainly in a position to know when I am, or when I am
not
to make a
profit.’

‘Of course you are, Mr Entwhistle, and I hope you will forgive my ignorance. I apologise if I appeared to be questioning your ability.’

By God, she knows how to handle them, Will exulted. First she puts their backs up with questions they are convinced she would not even understand, let alone ask, then, just as they realise the
sharpness of her and are about to bristle, she smoothes them down with a soft word and a smile.

‘Nevertheless, I think we should consider that we may have to go on short time, Mrs Greenwood.’

Mrs Greenwood turned politely to Mr Broadbent who had spoken. Her cool, silvery-grey eyes met his through her veil with nothing in them, should they have been seen plainly, but the concerned
interest one business associate gives another, nothing in them or her manner – nor his – to reveal that the last time they had been together he had made love to her naked body on his
greatcoat in an abandoned hut high on Saddleworth Moor.

‘At my own mill,’ he continued smoothly, ‘which, of course, is smaller than Chapman’s and without its resources, we are already running for only four days a week.
Temporarily, I hope, but rather than turn anyone off I recommended this policy. Perhaps we may discuss doing the same here, should it be necessary.’

‘Indeed, Mr Broadbent, but for the moment we must endeavour to find our cotton wherever we can and perhaps by the next meeting Mr Bradley will be able to report any new market where it can
be obtained. And let us hope this war in America will come to nothing though the headlines are that the Union is to be dissolved.’

‘I read that report too, Mrs Greenwood.’ They smiled politely at one another before turning back to other matters for discussion and for two hours Tessa Greenwood said little as she
listened intently to what each member of the board had to report.

Coffee was served at eleven but Mrs Greenwood declined to drink a cup. When they stood up at the end of the meeting she reached for the bank manager’s report on the financial trading of
the company.

‘I will take this with me if I may, Mr Bradley, to study more thoroughly.’

‘Of course, Mrs Greenwood. Perhaps your . . . husband might care to peruse it. I am only sorry that he was not able to attend.’

‘It is the twelfth of August, Mr Bradley.’

‘Has that some significance?’

‘Come, Mr Bradley. Grouse shooting starts today and it being such a short season my husband was eager to take advantage of it. Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I have one or two
things to attend to in my office.’

Will bowed with the rest of them, then, as she was about to leave the room and move along the richly carpeted hallway to her own suite of offices, his voice cut across the polite farewells.

‘If I may beg a moment of your time, Mrs Greenwood?’

She turned her head a fraction, speaking over her shoulder.

‘I’m afraid I cannot spare even that, Mr Broadbent. I have an employee coming to see me in five minutes regarding a matter which I intend to bring up at the next board meeting.
Perhaps in a day or so, if you would care to make an appointment.’

‘It really will take no more than thirty seconds, Mrs Greenwood.’

‘Mr Broadbent, I . . .’

Will smiled urbanely and the gentlemen who still stood in groups about the table, looked round, surprised by the sudden tension in the room.

‘I would be immensely obliged, ma’am.’

‘Very well, but no more than . . .’

‘Oh, indeed.’

The moment they were in her office with the door shut firmly at his back, she did her best to avoid him but his left arm held her tightly whilst his right hand lifted her veil. Across her face
was a livid red weal and her right eye had a small cut in a raised bruise at its swollen corner.

‘I thought so,’ he hissed perilously. ‘I thought there was some reason why you were wearing that bloody silly hat and veil. He did this, didn’t he? That . . . that thing
who calls himself a man. He hit you, the bastard, but by God he’ll not do it again.’

‘Will, please . . . I hit him back,’ she lied.

‘And is that supposed to make this more acceptable?’

‘He was provoked . . .’

‘Provoked! By what? Your refusal to go with him to shoot bloody grouse, I suppose, or was it your ability to take over and do what he is incapable of doing himself?’

He flung himself away from her, turning about the room in a snapping and uncontrollable spasm of torment. He was beside himself with red-hot anger, and with his own impotence at not having the
right to prevent what had been done to her. And yet at the same time he was cold, forcing out each word distinctly, dangerously. His face had gone quite blank and his eyes were empty and bitter. It
was as though what had happened had been her fault, something she could have prevented, by distancing herself, she supposed numbly, from what threatened her.

‘He was . . . he had . . . I had led him to believe that I would . . . that there was no need for either of us to attend another board meeting . . . and then . . . we had been . . . we
were guests at . . . I taunted him . . . I have been at the mill on many occasions recently, to see Annie . . . and others, which he had allowed . . .’

‘Dear Christ,
allowed?
’

‘It is not as it seems, Will. I should not have said . . . what I did.’

‘So he struck you across the face?’

‘Believe me, Will, I did not . . . I should not have . . .’

‘Do you think I care about that? Do you think that because you say you . . . what was it? . . . provoked him, I can accept this as though . . . ?’

‘You must.’

‘
Must!
’

‘It has nothing to do with you. It is between my husband and myself.’ She made herself hold back from the comfort she longed to find in his arms, the comfort of having him hold her,
his sympathy, his kisses and the tender concern she badly needed. She had dreaded this. She had hoped at best she could get through the meeting with no one questioning too deeply the strangeness of
the dense veil she wore but she might have known that Will would see through not only the veil but her reason for wearing it. He was too aware of her, too deeply involved with Tessa Greenwood and
too well acquainted with every inch of her body which only last week he had explored minutely from her hair-line to her toe-nails.

‘Is it now, and so I am to stand aside and see the woman I love, a woman whose boots he is not fit to polish, take a beating which would not look amiss on a bloody prizefighter?’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Will,’ she said coldly, and was alarmed when he made a violent movement towards the door, his fists clenched tightly, his face ominous and snarling.
‘Where are you going?’

‘Up to the bloody Hall, where else? That’s where I’ll find him, isn’t it?’ he wrenched at the door handle just as she reached him.

‘Will, you can’t, you can’t. I won’t let you. Can’t you see it will destroy him?’

He turned, his chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot, his fists clenching and unclenching. His face was soaked with his own maddened sweat and she knew it was taking every ounce of his control not
to strike her, as Drew had done, in sheer, full-blooded frustration. He breathed heavily as the agony of her last words almost felled him.

‘Destroy
him?
’ he whispered. ‘
Destroy him?
What in hell’s name do you think it’s doing to me?’

‘You are strong . . .’

‘And better able to bear your cruelty, is that it, my lass? To see you defend a man who . . . goddammit . . . you so obviously love more than me.’ He turned away and crashed his fist
against the sturdy frame of the door, then leaned slowly, heavily, against it, defeated, his face pressed close to the dark wood.

‘Darling, please, try to understand . . .’ Her voice was gentle, begging for his sympathy.

‘Understand what? That I must allow him to do just whatever he pleases to you and then have you defend him for it? Jesus Christ, Tessa, what d’you think I am? Other men have suffered
far worse than he has and not become the weak and irrational misfit he is. Why must you give your life, and mine, to keep him from killing himself? That is what he will do one day in his mad ride
to destruction and if he does not do it himself, I swear I will do it for him.’