Shining Threads (70 page)

‘Annie . . .’ Still she tried to lift herself, to drag Drew away but he was maddened to brute strength and nothing could break the grip of his fingers about Will’s throat. She
watched in absolute horror as one of Will’s hands dropped slowly to the arm of the chair, then fell to hang limply beside her face.

‘Hit him, Annie’ she screamed, but Annie was paralysed with shock and Tessa knew, quite calmly now, that she was the only one who could stop Drew Greenwood from killing Will
Broadbent. She was the only one who could save his life.

Save him for the second time in a week, she remembered thinking incredulously, then her hand found the heavy brass poker and with her strength renewed she brought it up, then down again and
across Drew Greenwood’s forearms. She distinctly heard the bones snap and her husband screamed before he fell away, stumbling back against the table, then back again to the doorway through
which he had come.

‘Tessa . . .’ His voice was no more than a whisper. His eyes were on her, huge and clouded, not just with pain and shock but with despair. The rage had gone and the madness, and
there remained only a childish uncertainty, a need for her to tell him that she was there, as she had always been there and that he had only to hold out his arms to her and she would fly into them
as she had always done.

But he couldn’t lift his arms. There was something wrong with them and so she had turned to the man in the chair and was holding him instead.

Blindly he turned into the sullen heat and smoky sunshine and began to run.

The men found him wandering along the track towards Badger’s Edge, muttering and already feverish, his useless arms hanging limply at his side.

‘Come along, Mr Drew,’ Walter said gently, putting a hand on his master’s shoulder since they had been told to be careful of his arms which had suffered a serious injury.

‘Who is it?’ his master said, swinging away wildly, then crying out with the pain of his flailing arms.

‘Tis Walter, sir.’

‘Walter? What are you doing up here?’

‘Us ’ave come ter fetch thi ’ome, sir. Tis gettin’ dark an’ thi’ll not be able ter see thi ’and in front of thi face afore long.’

‘No, indeed. I had not noticed . . . It has got dark, hasn’t it?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘And who is that with you?’

‘Tis only Percy an ’Jack, Mr Drew.’

‘But where is my bay, Walter? I cannot return without my bay.’

‘Er . . . ’e come ’ome a while since, sir. You were throwed.’

‘Never, not me, not me, eh Pearce?’ and he laughed boisterously over his shoulder into the darkness.

The three men stood about him warily. He had fallen, Mrs Greenwood had said, thrown from his bay in the street outside Miss Beale’s cottage in Edgeclough but had immediately regained his
feet and run away. It sounded daft to them but who were they to argue? There were some funny things going on these days at Greenacres what with Miss Tessa away up at that mill when not so long
since she’d hated the very sight of it, same as him. And what was she doing at Annie Beale’s place with Annie no better than a common mill-worker, and in the company of Mr Broadbent who
had once been an overlooker?

Still, it was nowt to do with them. They were used to Mr Drew and Miss Tessa and their wild ways and had become accustomed to their strange and unconventional behaviour. Find him and bring him
home, they had been told. Look in the direction of Badger’s Edge or Friar’s Mere for they were the most likely places he would be. And here he was, and poorly by the sound of him.

He wandered along beside them, laughing over something he seemed to hear on the still, warm air. He talked all the time incoherently, and his dead brother’s name was constantly on his
lips. They tried to help him, even to carry him for he kept straying off the track and was difficult to lead back, but he screamed when they touched him.

It was midnight when they met the carriage on Reddygate Way, just where the edge of town spilled out on to the moors. They managed to get him inside and home to his wife who was waiting on the
steps at the front of the house.

‘Darling, there you are,’ they heard her say, then Hibberson and Mr Briggs were there, and old Doctor Ellison since Doctor Salter was still busy at the warehouse in Ashton Lane which
was now a hospital, it was said.

Doctor Ellison strapped up his arms, considerably surprised at the suddenness with which his patient had changed from incoherent delirium to an almost trance-like state, scarcely seeming to
notice the pain he must be suffering. And the watery loosening of his bowels was not quite normal, nor the dramatic onset of vomiting. Drew Greenwood’s face had become cool and withered,
drawn almost, and his pulse was too faint for the doctors liking.

‘We must try to get some fluid into him, Mrs Greenwood, and do go and lie down yourself for a while . . .’ His patient’s wife looked none too strong herself. ‘Let your
servants clean up this . . .’ He indicated the foul-smelling man on the bed whom his wife was trying frantically to keep clean. ‘I shall remain in the house, naturally.’

At some time during the night, Tessa could not have said when exactly since she must have dozed, she found Laurel standing next to Drew’s bed, her hand on his brow, her face pale and
worried.

‘He seems to be cooler,’ she whispered when she saw Tessa’s eyes on her. ‘Do you think it means he is about to come out of this . . . this . . . ?’ She could not
seem to find the word to describe the strange state her brother was in.

‘I hope so, Laurel,’ Tessa said softly and though her pity for him put truth on her lips she could not help but wonder what was to happen when he did.

‘Would he drink some of this lemon wine Mary Abbott sent over with her coachman? It is thought to be strengthening and the doctor said he was to have fluids.’ Laurel placed the tray
on which was a cut-glass jug containing a pale lemon liquid and three glasses on the bedside table.

‘He seems to be sleeping and I shouldn’t wake him but perhaps I might try some. I’m dreadfully thirsty.’

‘I might join you.’ Laurel poured them each a glass of the cordial in which ice chinked and as they sipped it they watched over the mumbling, restless man on the bed. They finished
the jug between them and the last thing Tessa remembered was the quiet click of the door as Laurel left the room.

The pestilence, carried in the water from which the kind Mary Abbott had brewed her refreshing lemon wine and which was to kill four of her own household began its secret and deadly work during
the night.

It was about noon the next day when Tessa began to hallucinate. She distinctly saw her mother in the doorway, her face stern and disapproving, and behind her Charlie told Tessa
that it was no use in arguing, someone must mind the mills. She stood up then, leaving the flushed and mumbling figure on the bed, and moved to the window. She was surprised to find it standing
wide open since she felt so terribly hot. She really must change her dress for it was wet through with something which had soaked right into the fine cream foulard and it clung to her skin most
disagreeably. She lurched back to the bed and placed a trembling hand on Drew’s brow but could not make up her mind whether it felt cooler or if perhaps the extreme warmth of her own skin
only made it seem so. And she felt so nauseous. She really ought to eat something, she supposed, since she was quite light-headed. When had she eaten last? She couldn’t remember. Perhaps if
she asked Pearce who had just sat down beside Drew if he would stay with him for a while she would go down to the kitchen . . . or should she ring the bell to summon Emma? No, Uncle Joss and Aunt
Kit stood in the shadows and . . .

It was some time later, she couldn’t have said how long, when she found herself on the floor, her cheek pressed into some foul-smelling stickiness on the carpet. Lord, she felt dreadful.
So hot and tired. She’d just lie here for a while and then she’d get up and give . . . Who was it on the bed who tossed so fretfully? . . . Pearce? . . . Drew? . . . She didn’t
care really but whoever it was would need a drink. If only Laurel would stop shrieking about the fever and God striking someone dead for bringing it into the house to threaten the children . . .
Who . . . who were the children? . . . Robert? . . . Her head hurt so she could barely think . . . and where was Will? Her dear Will . . . she wanted Will, his arms about her to help her up and
keep her steady . . . Will . . . Will . . .

It was delightfully cool when she awoke, clean and cool. She was in her own bed and though she felt amazingly weak her mind was clear and at peace. She had memories, small and puzzling, like
pieces of glass which have shattered and fallen, jumbled, and though she knew what they were, they would not fit into an exact and recognisable shape.

Her mother had been here, many times, weeping. Why? she had thought since it was not like her mother to weep, leaning over her, touching her face and smoothing her hair back from her forehead as
she had never known her to do before. And Annie. She could recall awakening to find her in the chair beside the bed, in the dark of the night, the firelight playing on her dozing face, thinner than
Tessa remembered her. What on earth was she doing here, she had thought, quite astonished, for Annie had so much to do on the Relief Committee and with the Poor Law Guardians.

And had she dreamed that Emma had been at her bedside, spooning some stuff, milky and sweet, into her mouth, cross with her when she refused to open her lips, begging her to try, to be a good
girl and try? Emma had cried, her head on her bent arms on the side of the bed, her face tired, thin and drawn. And Dorcas. Good, sensible Dorcas had been heaping up the fire with coal though it
was so hot Tessa thought she had died and gone to hell.

It was like fighting a way through cobwebs, but perhaps the sharpest, sweetest, most disturbing dream had been about Will. He had leaned over her and kissed her. Many times. Warm, comforting,
safe. He had never wept like the others but bore her up to a place which delighted her; a place in which he and she had shared moments of truth and beauty. His amber-flecked eyes had smiled and his
hands were strong in hers. He had spoken softly to her, bringing her peace and she had slept in the shelter of his arms.

The light from the sky beyond her window was a pale green, the clear aftermath of an evening sunset. She thought she heard the whinny of a horse and the answering call from another. She turned
her head and there was Emma, a newspaper in her hand, no longer weeping as Tessa had last seen her, but calm and at peace. Tessa smiled and wondered what her maid was doing reading at her bedside,
ready to tease her for it, to make her jump guiltily. And where was Drew in the midst of all this tranquillity? Perhaps it was his bay she had heard a moment ago and soon he would come bursting
into the bedroom, striding across the room to lounge indolently at her side, sending Emma shrieking to the kitchen.

But he did not come.

‘Where is Mr. Drew, Emma?’ she asked, but Emma did not lift her head from her absorption in the newspaper.

‘Where is Mr Drew, Emma?’ she asked again, shouted, she thought, and this time Emma looked up and the most amazing thing happened. Emma stared speechlessly, her mouth open, her wide
eyes beginning to leak tears. Tessa felt a small prick of exasperation for, really, there was no need to be so dramatic. It was a simple question needing only a simple answer: “He has gone up
to the Hall,” or “He is downstairs, shall I fetch him?” But Emma sat speechless and motionless just as though Tessa had caught her out in some dreadful act of which she was
utterly ashamed.

‘Miss Tessa?’ she said, or rather, asked, as though she was not awfully sure. Her hand reached out vaguely in the direction of the bed.

‘Of course, Emma. Who else?’ The words were tart and came out of her mouth in somewhat of a croak, surprising her. She swallowed and her mouth was dry.

‘Oh, Miss Tessa, darling . . .’ With a great surge of apparent heartache which she could no longer contain, Emma sank down to kneel beside the bed, weeping as though her heart really
was split in two. She sobbed and sobbed, her face buried in the smooth white counterpane, her neatly capped head bobbing with the intensity of her weeping.

Tessa was astounded. Surely there was no need to be quite so distraught? What on earth was the matter with the girl, for goodness’ sake? Perhaps she herself was the reason for Emma’s
mournfulness. Had she been ill? Was that why Emma was weeping so grievously? Whatever it was Emma was dreadfully upset.

‘Emma, for God’s sake girl, calm yourself and get me up.’

‘Oh, Miss Tessa . . .’

‘Never mind, “oh, Miss Tessa”. Get me up,’ she ordered. This time Emma raised her head, bemused it seemed and quite unable to do more than stare in wonderment at her
mistress’s face.

‘Get me up, Emma, or fetch someone who can. I appear to be dreadfully weak.’

‘Oh Miss Tessa, oh, lass, if you knew how we’ve prayed for this moment. We thought we’d lost you . . .’

‘Lost me? What the devil are you talking about, girl?’ Her voice was irritable and she seemed unable to manage more than a hoarse whisper.

‘Miss Tessa, if you only knew . . .’

‘Knew what, Emma? For heaven’s sake, don’t stand there blubbering. Go and fetch my husband. Oh, and I’ll have some hot buttered muffins, I think, Emma. For some reason I
have an enormous appetite.’

They came to tell her then that her husband was dead and had taken his sister, Laurel Greenwood, to the grave with him.

34

‘I cannot see him, Annie, and that is an end to it. We have nothing to say to one another.’

‘Will’s got plenty ter say ter thee, lass, an’ ’e’ll not rest while ’e’s said it. Thi’ can’t treat ’im like this, Tessa, an’ I
thought thi was fair-minded enough ter see it. It’s not Will’s fault what ’appened.’

‘No, but it’s mine and I cannot just take up our . . . our relationship as though nothing had occurred. I brought the cholera from Will to Drew and it killed him and not only him,
but Laurel. I have made five children motherless and I will never forgive myself. Do you think I can simply go back to being the woman I was before it happened? I know it was not Will’s fault
that he passed the fever through me to Drew and Laurel, any more than it was the fault of the man or woman who brought it to Crossfold in the first place, but it was me, Tessa Greenwood, who
carried it into this house. It was my . . . my connection with Will which brought my husband to your cottage and to his ultimate death . . . and . . . and Laurel to hers. I am not blaming Will, nor
punishing him as you seem to think. I am saying, and you must tell him, that I am no longer the woman he loved. I have nothing to give him. I want nothing from him only his acceptance of it. We are
two different people now, Annie. I must look after the welfare of my nieces and nephews, I have the mills to run and the people in them who have been thrown out of work by the cotton famine need my
support. They need what I can give them. I have nothing left for Will.’