The Sleeping Sword (66 page)

There was a keen frost that Saturday, a long, cold Sunday to follow, a high wind the next morning that woke me earlier than usual and sent me—since I had nowhere else to go—to the
Star
. I expected the office to be unwelcoming and empty, Monday morning never finding Liam at his best, and I was mildly surprised—no more—to see his horse among the crowd which seemed to be gathering around our door. What of it? Liam might well have been at the office all night, not necessarily alone, and when was there not a crowd of idlers in Gower Street?

‘Oh good lord, Richards!' I said to my coachman's indifferent back. ‘I believe someone has put out our windows again.'

‘Yes, madam,' he said, probably not in the least surprised helping me down and then, quickly withdrawing his valuable horses and his own superior person from too closed contact with the mob, leaving me on the pavement to contemplate the gaping holes where the windows and the window-frames had been, and the havoc inside.

I cannot remember, in those first moments, any feeling whatsoever. I simply walked through the crowd and went inside, through the space where the door had been torn off its hinges and into the ground-floor rooms which had contained our printing-presses. There was nothing there now that I recognized, just a litter of wood and metal, the junk of a scrap dealer's yard, and I understood that this was how the first power-looms had looked when the Luddite hammermen had worked over them. The whole of some millmaster's investment gone in a single, violent night, the
Star
lying in inky, rusty fragments about my feet, and Liam—who had no insurance, no capital, no credit—standing among the ruin, haggard and unshaven yet managing to smile.

‘I reckon I can give you the day off today, Grace. You'd be better at home in this cold.'

I picked my way across the debris to his side, my skirt catching and then tearing on something that had once formed an essential part of our livelihood—something else, sharp-edged and probably very rusty cutting into my shoe—and stood close to him, closeness being necessary, I found, in the face of such total disaster, the proximity of a sympathetic body offering more than the empty indignation of words. He was ruined and he knew it. He had no need of me to tell him so. A senseless and brutal thing had been done to him—a foul thing—for which no one but himself would ever pay the price. He knew that, too. And when I could speak it was simply a name.

‘Tom Mulvaney?'

‘Well, I doubt Miss Tighe to be capable of it, so yes, I reckon it was Tom Mulvaney. He got his roof on but he was late, and I hear Cousin Gideon cut up rough about the bonus. So yes—Tom Mulvaney—with or without instructions from Gideon Chard we shall never know.'

I put my hand on his arm again and pressed it, seeing no point in telling him that Gideon would have been most unlikely to involve himself in this massacre, not from any moral scruple or lingering kindness of heart but because he had no need of such crudity. He had only to sit in his luxuriously appointed office at Nethercoats or in the splendid boardroom at Lawcroft Fold, had only to despatch, at regular intervals, those notices of increased rents, in order to bleed Liam dry; a procedure, I thought, which would suit Gideon's nature far better than this. But if it eased Liam now to blame Gideon, or anyone else, then I would not quarrel with it.

‘When did it happen?'

‘Sometime in the night. They sent a lad to fetch me about two o'clock this morning, but it was over then, of course—'

‘Liam, that was six hours ago.'

‘So it was.'

‘And you've been here all the time since then?'

‘I reckon so. I sat and looked at it for a while, and thought about it. It's much the same upstairs. No machines to smash, of course, and the furniture wasn't worth much, so they tore the floorboards up and knocked a few holes in the walls. It's a wreck, Grace.'

The staircase was a mess of fallen plaster and splintered wood, hatchets, it seemed, having been used to attack the roughcast walls, while the upper room was a battleground, the door thrown down, desks and chairs overset and shredded as if for firewood, the partition wall between office and storeroom knocked clean through, broken glass and builders'rubble underfoot, papers—papers—churned and scattered everywhere, and, in case there might be anything we could salvage, soaked in whitewash and green paint—the colour they had been using at Low Cross—which had been thrown down by the bucketful and left, most foully, to congeal.

Total devastation which must have taken several large and noisy men at least an hour to perpetrate. No one had intervened. No one, thank God, had sent for Liam until it was over. Now, as the shock abated, it seemed that something, however futile, had to be done and so, without making any visible headway, we began to go through those soiled and scattered papers, a task so very much akin to emptying the North Sea with a ladle that I knew it would either break my heart or make me very angry. And so, kneeling there among the sodden litter, in the bitter cold of that December day, I grew very angry indeed.

We sent the boy for bread and cheese and beer at noon, and worked on, sorting, discarding, achieving nothing, while on the floor below us the helpers Liam had recruited from the street were sweeping up the corpses of his printing-presses, to carry them away by the barrowload and bury them in the nearest midden.

‘There goes the
Star
,' he said, raising the brandy flask he always carried with him as the unkempt cortège trundled by. And by this time, still on my knees on that loathsome floor, I was crying with the sorrow of true bereavement and my terrible fury. I had needed the
Star
. I loved her, and I wanted blood for her now.

‘What are you going to do, Liam?'

He remained silent for a moment, staring after those funereal barrows, and then, raising his flask again, he took a rapid swallow.

‘That's not a question you should be asking me now, Grace. Give me until tomorrow.'

‘Mr Liam Adair?' we heard a dry little voice calling, and through the gaping doorway came stepping a painfully, neat, self-important figure I recognized, a clerk from Nethercoats Mill, hastily taking a handkerchief and pressing it to his nose and mouth with the gesture of one who enters a plague spot.

‘Mr Liam Adair?'

‘Who wants him?'

‘Mr Gideon Chard presents his compliments—'

‘Does he, by God?'

‘—and asks me to deliver this letter, sir.'

A long brown envelope changed hands, the pompous little man smirked, seemed disposed to linger and then, catching a hint of his peril in Liam's eye, moved hastily away.

‘Will there be an answer, sir?'

‘Get out of here.' And the simple command was followed by so explicit an obscenity that the precise little gentleman turned tail and fled.

I gave him a moment to read and then went to stand beside him again, my skirt, smeared with paint and damp, filthy patches, feeling heavy against my legs.

‘What is it now, Liam?'

He folded the letter, replaced it carefully in its envelope, his hands steady, his face grey.

‘Aye, what now? News travels fast in Cullingford, it seems. Mr. Chard has heard of my misfortune and wonders when it would be convenient for someone to call and assess the damage to
his
property.'

‘Liam!

‘Yes—damage to his floorboards and his walls, his doors and windows, for which, naturally, I am liable.'

‘How much?'

He shook his head as if to clear it and blinked hard.

‘God knows! More than I can afford, at any rate, which wouldn't make it very much. Enough to bankrupt me, I shouldn't wonder, which would mean I couldn't carry on this—or any other business—again. Enough to silence me once and for all, should Gideon decide to take legal proceedings against me. And I'm not in much doubt about that, Grace, my darling. Are you?'

His eyes closed again, just for a moment age touching every feature, until his sudden grin sent the years, but not all the greyness, away.

‘I'll have to make a run for it, I reckon. The world's wide enough. How about coming with me, Grace? I wouldn't be the first man who went out to the colonies to escape his creditors and came back a millionaire.'

‘There's Grandmamma Elinor.'

‘So there is, except that I've got nothing for her to invest in, and whatever else I am, I'm no beggar. I wouldn't feel right about taking her money now, Grace, and I hope you know better than to offer me yours. I think we've done all we can for today. Go home now, my darling, you look done in.'

‘Come with me.'

‘Later. I'll call and see you this evening, a little after dinner maybe. Right now I'm going to do the only rational thing I can think of. No—no—there's no need for alarm. I'm not considering blowing Chard's brains out, nor my own. I just want to get quietly drunk. It won't solve anything, I know, but—whether you approve of it or not—it won't hurt.'

I watched him walk down the stairs and pause for a word or two with the men who were still sweeping the lower floor, take another swig from his flask, and then go out into the street. I had never been so angry in my life, had not even realized anger could be so burdensome and so painful. I went out into the street myself, speaking to no one, went home and kicked off my soiled clothes, refusing to answer the foolish girl mouthing at me questions to which she knew the answers.

‘Lord! ma'am, whatever have you been doing? Paint, ma'am—and the state of your shoes—it won't come off—'

‘Burn them—everything. Now shut up and get me my hot water.'

I washed, dressed, brushed my hair and did it up again, that load of anger still pressing hard against my chest.

‘Tell Richards to bring the carriage round again.'

‘But he's just taken it away.'

‘Should that be of any interest to me?'

He brought it back again and I got into it, feeling as if I was made of granite. I had hoped, by the delay of changing my clothes and making myself presentable, to reduce my anger to manageable proportions. I had not done so, and since one way or another I would have to unleash it before it suffocated me, I was going now, not tomorrow morning as I had first intended, to see Gideon. I still did not suspect him of ordering the attack on Liam's presses, but I wanted to ascertain the extent and the nature of his complicity, whether his letter had been the result of a malicious impulse or part of a cruel plan. And what else did I want? To save the
Star
if I could and to strike a blow for Liam, to keep him from bankruptcy and out of jail in some way that did not oblige him to borrow money he could never repay from his female relations? Certainly I wanted that. But there was something else, at the very root of my nature, which I wanted too.

I had desired Gideon as I had desired no other man, to a point where it had become difficult for me to desire other men. One day, if I ever found the courage to face the truth, I might well find that I had been very much in love with him and unable to love anyone else because of him. But that day had not yet dawned and since he was committed to marry Hortense Madeley-Brown and I was committed to independence—and since neither one of us would be likely to deviate from those commitments—it would be easier for my peace of mind if I could think ill of him. I wanted to eliminate the slightest possibility that I might ever again—for no matter how fleeting a moment—long for him. I wanted to greet his wedding morning with a detached amusement—dear God, not another wedding!—to report in the
Star
on the astonishing beauty of his bride, the splendour of her jewellery, which
would
be very splendid, and then casually to remark: ‘Vacant little fool—pompous opportunist—they deserve each other.' I wanted him to mean nothing to me, and to achieve that blessed state of indifference I would have to hate him first. I would have to hurt him again and give him the opportunity to hurt me.

I knew his habits. In the morning and the early part of the afternoon he was difficult to trace, dividing his time among the four other factories in his care, but in the days when I had had charge of his social engagements, his travelling schedules, his recherché dinners, a note sent to Nethercoats at this hour had usually reached him. I was kept waiting, as I had expected to be, sitting with several curious strangers in the ante-room through which he passed twice, a flurry of clerks about him, without even glancing at me.

‘Mr Freeman, if you'd care to go in now, sir?' the clerk said, the same smirking little man who had twice delivered messages to Gower Street. Mr. Freeman went in and half an hour later came out again. A Mr. Porter did the same. I was still very angry.

‘Now then, who's next?' said the clerk. I was alone, and without answering him I got up and walked away into Gideon's room unannounced, letting the heavy door swing shut behind me.

I had last come here—was it almost five years ago?—to ask him to take back his wife who was pregnant by another man. It had been painful then. It would be painful now and for both of us. I was determined to make sure of that.

‘Good-afternoon, Gideon.'

‘Yes?' he said curtly, dismissively, the tone of a man too busy for any woman's arguments, since he is always in the right in any case. And I understood that he was very angry too.

‘You have not asked me to sit down.'

‘I beg your pardon. I merely thought the length of your visit unlikely to warrant it.'

‘Are you asking me to leave unheard? I should be inclined to take that for a sign of defeat you know—or of a troublesome conscience.'

‘Then you have the advantage of me, Grace, for I have not the faintest notion as to what you mean.'

I sat down, carefully arranging the folds of my skirt in the manner of Miss Madeley-Brown, took off my gloves and placed them, with my muff and reticule, on his immaculate desktop, a gesture calculated to annoy. For I had come to engage him in battle and it was essential now to strike hard, to strike first if I could, and after that to stand firm against the returning blow.