A Web of Dreams

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘Mistress, mistress, dinna fash yourself ‒ I’ll see to it all, you’ll look as pretty as ever when you set out.’

  She couldn’t tell her maid that she was dressing not only for the Queen, but in case she had another encounter with Laura Prentiss.

  When she was ushered through the ground floor of the entrance wing next morning, she saw a figure sitting on a chair in the main hall. Instinct told her that it was Laura. She held her head high, knowing that though she was very pale she looked attractive and elegant ‒ certainly not like a ‘mill girl’.

  As they crossed the hall to the staircase, Laura rose. ‘Good morning, Miss Corvill. I heard you were coming today.’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Prentiss. How kind of you to take an interest.’

  ‘I was, indeed, very interested,’ said Laura, with a flash of hidden annoyance. ‘I hear the Queen has mentioned you more than once.’

  ‘I’m gratified. Do you spend much time at the Palace, Mrs Prentiss?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Laura said, with triumphant satisfaction. ‘My husband ‒ you may remember him? ‒ Captain Prentiss concluded his turn of duty as equerry but his new post at the War Office allows us to be here as often as we are wanted.’ She gave Jenny a warning look. ‘We have many friends here.’

  ‘How delightful,’ said Jenny. She moved a little towards the footman who was leading the way, and who now glanced back as if to say, Remember we’re being waited for.

  ‘Perhaps I shall see you again, Miss Corvill.’

  ‘I greatly doubt it. I seldom visit London.’

  ‘Ah.’ There was relief in the sound. ‘Perhaps that is all for the best, Miss Corvill. Unless one knows one’s way about, it’s easy to … shall we say … find oneself in a difficult situation.’

  ‘That must surely be true even for those familiar with the palace,’ Jenny riposted. ‘But good sense helps in every situation. Good morning, Mrs Prentiss.’

  The other woman stood back to allow her to proceed. Jenny followed the footman up the staircase with legs that trembled.

  Veiled threats, animosity scarcely hidden ‒ Laura Prentiss was in a position to harm her if ever she wanted to. But then ‘having friends at the Palace’ didn’t necessarily mean that Laura was often in the Queen’s company. Part of what she’d said was bluff, she felt sure.

  She was shown into a different room this time, a larger room with more furniture and massive paintings on the brocaded walls. There were heavy armchairs near the great fireplace. From one a figure rose as she entered. The Prince Consort!

  ‘Good morning, Miss Corvill. We met before, when you were on a similar errand, if I remember rightly.’ The infallible royal memory, the kindly royal manner. And still a handsome man, though his hair was receding fast from the lofty brow.

  Two little boys in sailor suits scrambled up from behind a sofa, one carrying a toy boat. They converged on Jenny as she was curtseying, almost bowling her over.

  ‘Mama, is this the young lady who’s making our new tartan?’

  ‘Hush, boys, mind your manners!’ said a voice.

  Jenny, led by the Prince, was brought to the other armchair where the Queen sat facing the fire but with a mesh screen to keep its warmth from her cheeks. She laid aside a document to give her attention to her visitor. ‘Good morning, my dear. I hope you don’t mind my two young ones making up the party. They so much wanted to see their father’s design made into cloth.’

  Jenny realised these must be Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold, about seven and four years old. The smaller boy was intensely eager, coming to pull at the parcel she was holding.

  ‘Let me do it,’ said the Prince, taking it from her. He put it on an inlaid table and with a few deft tugs had undone the tape.

  ‘This packet, sir,’ she said, taking up the one that held the Balmoral plaid. She unfolded the tissue paper, caught hold of a corner of the cloth, and with a practised throw laid it across her arm.

  The Prince leaned close to study it. Jenny bent forward so that the Queen could see it without having to get up.

  Prince Leopold craned on tiptoe. ‘Is it nice, Papa? May I see?’

  ‘Surely, my boy ‒ here is the pretty cloth the young lady has brought.’

  Prompted thus by his father, the little boy said solemnly, ‘It’s very pretty.’

  ‘You see there are three samples,’ Jenny pointed out. ‘Her Majesty asked to have weights suitable for kilts and woman’s gowns. I suggested ‒’

  ‘Yes, yes, for jackets, I understand. What do you think, my dear?’

  Victoria was looking at her husband, not the cloth. She could see he was smiling. ‘Most pleasing, Miss Corvill. We are very satisfied with what you have produced. But what is in the other package?’

  Jenny produced the Old Stewart, explained that Corvill and Son wished to offer it as a gift in any length Their Majesties might choose. She passed on Ronald Armstrong’s suggestions about the shade of green. ‘We thought that if you wished to use it for the children ‒’

  ‘A very kind thought. We are happy to accept.’

  The two little boys, hearing that the green tartan was primarily intended for them, asked to be allowed to hold it. In a moment or two they were draping it over each other and saluting, as if on parade. Jenny laughed, then checked in embarrassment, but the royal parents were indulgent for the moment.

  A short conversation ensued, about how much of the Balmoral tartan should be woven. Jenny produced notebook and pencil, and jotted down the requirements.

  ‘May I mention one thing, Your Majesty?’ she ventured. ‘About the Old Stewart. That is an old clan tartan. As such, the pattern is in the public domain and anyone can wear it.’

  ‘How does it come,’ Albert inquired, ‘that Old Stewart is so very different from the other?’

  ‘The reason is lost in history, sir, but the legend goes that when Mary Stuart came home to rule Scotland in the middle of the sixteenth century, she was shown her family tartan. Having been brought up in the French court she found it too countrified, and so the red check ‒ you see it, sir? ‒ was increased to make it look brighter. In the course of another century or so, the red overcame the green. That’s the story, although I cannot vouch for it.’

  ‘I like it as a story,’ Albert said, with a faint smile. ‘The ladies, you know … they are always the leaders in fashion.’

  ‘Even the name of the cloth, sir, perhaps we owe that too to Mary Queen of Scots. It’s supposed to come from the French, tirletane. It’s said that the French courtiers thought the cloth worn by the Scottish nobles was barbarous and referred to it as tirletane, which seems to have meant linsey-woolsey.’

  ‘Linsey-woolsey ‒ this I do not know?’

  ‘It’s an old name for a cloth of mixed linen and wool, which a rich Frenchman might have thought very inferior.’

  ‘Miss Corvill, you are quite a student!’ said the Queen.

  ‘Not at all, Ma’am, it’s simply that I’m interested in anything to do with cloth. Which brings me back to what I intended to say, if I may?’ At a nod from the Queen she went on: ‘The two Stewart tartans can be worn by anyone descended from the Stewart clan ‒ and I’m afraid by anyone who likes them and wishes to wear them, because there is nothing to prevent it. But the Balmoral tartan, Ma’am ‒ that could be kept exclusively for royal use. Corvill and Son will never make it except at your orders, if you wish it so.’

  There was a little pause. She saw the Queen lay her hand on her husband’s sleeve and press it gently. The Prince said, ‘Miss Corvill, you have very good understanding. That would please the Queen and myself very much.’

  Her chief purpose accomplished, Jenny allowed herself a few days’ relaxation in London before returning home. She went shopping with Baird, to view what was available in the dressmakers, the milliners, and the tailors. Men’s fashions interested her as much as women’s ‒ the colours were still drab, with brightness focused on the waistcoat. Checks for waistcoats could be bright, although checks for trou
sers seemed to be growing more sombre every year. But plaids for overcoats could be rich in colour, she noted in her notebook.

  She bought a round felt hat as a present for Ned: ‘New from Paris,’ proclaimed the copper-plate card beside it in the hatter’s window, ‘suitable for country wear.’ She found some ready-made shirts for her father, with the new starched cuffs ‒ she thought they would go well with his habitual black. For her mother she bought a lace bertha, and for Lucy stockings made of very fine silk in a lacy pattern.

  She stood for a long time before a window showing fishing tackle, looking for a gift for Archie. Was it proper to give him a present? They weren’t yet officially engaged. But when she got back she would have a word with Archie’s mother and hint to her that it would be convenient for him to offer for her hand as soon as possible, so that the Easter wedding could be planned. And as soon as all that was in train, she could give Archie the fine cane fishing rod.

  Her gifts were received with pleasure in the family, but even more so her account of her interview with the royal parents and children. She had to go over it a dozen times to please her mother. ‘And what kind of clothes did the children wear? Did they have shoes or boots? And the young one still had his ringlets?’

  It was now 9th February. St Valentine’s Day was approaching. She decided it would be pleasant to have Archie make his declaration on that romantic day. She must take the next opportunity of speaking to Mrs Brunton, which would be in two days’ time at a birthday party in the home of Mrs Balfour of Hermont.

  The day before the party, Jenny felt unusually restless. Once she spoke to Mrs Brunton, the die was cast. Archie would ask her the following Sunday, she would say yes, and within seven weeks she’d be a married woman.

  The thought filled her with a strange mixture of feelings. There was reluctance ‒ reluctance to give up her freedom, reluctance to commit herself to Archie, reluctance to face the arguments that must ensue when he discovered she couldn’t settle down to be a dull provincial wife. Yet there was eagerness, too. As a married woman she could know again the pleasures of physical love. She couldn’t deny to herself that she had often longed for that ‒ to have a man’s body melting with hers into that perfect unity of enjoyment.

  She knew, however, that most of the married women in her circle were less than transported over their love life. Whispered conversations, immediately broken off if she entered the room, had conveyed enough ‒ phrases caught, expressions glimpsed. ‘I can’t imagine why he finds pleasure in it,’ or, ‘But men insist on that kind of thing,’ ‒ murmurs that implied distaste rather than joy.

  Needing to clear her head, Jenny took the afternoon off from the office and went for a walk in the hills. The weather was still exceedingly mild for February. The snow had melted, leaving the brownish green of the winter grass to gleam, warmly tinted, under the sun. The burns were full of clear brown water, rushing over the stones with a sound like children laughing.

  She trudged up the slope, holding up the skirts of her gown to keep them from the mud of the path. When she reached Wallace’s Stone, she turned to look back. Sheep were moving dreamily on the hill, their fleeces still heavy with winter wool. The larch and birch had a haze of green, new growth tempted out by the soft early spring. Far below her the town straggled, mill chimneys like fingers pointing up to the robin’s-egg blue of the sky. The Gala Water glinted between the houses, touched here and there with creamy-beige foam ‒ colours suitable for a plaid coat, she told herself.

  She watched a heavy wagon, tiny at this distance, drag its way to the railway. Off to the north she could see the steam of the approaching train though the folds of the land hid it from view.

  If she stood very still, on the wind she could hear the hum of sound that meant the town was busy ‒ traffic in the streets, carding engines and looms at work, steam boilers heating dye vats, people calling to each other, the whole world busy about its affairs.

  She loved the town. She was suddenly aware of it. The hard-working, bustling, thriving little town ‒ it had claimed her and made her its own.

  Must she leave it to live at the Mains with Archie and his mother?

  Well, it isn’t so very far off, she told herself. It’s only a short drive from Bowden to Galashiels, less than eight miles, a little over an hour’s drive in good weather.

  Yes, but what if the weather’s bad?

  And what if Archie won’t let me come?

  She put her hands up to her cheeks, closing her eyes, squeezing them shut to prevent the daunting picture ‒ Archie with his back to the door of his house, barring her way to her carriage.

  She must persuade him. Before they were married she must make it clear to him that though she of course couldn’t attend to the day-to-day problems at Corvill and Son, yet she must, she absolutely must be at the mill two or three times in each week. Otherwise everything would dwindle away, everything would lose impetus. Her father was afraid of the mill, her brother had no taste for it. A manager, yes, they could bring in a manager but why should they, when Jenny Corvill could do the job better?

  The sun began to sink behind Miegle Hill. She made her way down to the path leading to Gatesmuir. Unwilling to face her family, she sat for half an hour in the summerhouse overlooking the newly constructed paved walk. On either side the beds of tulips showed green shoots in the brown earth. But soon they were indistinguishable in the dusk. With nothing resolved, she went indoors.

  She was quiet that evening through supper and the pastimes that followed ‒ a game of draughts with her father, a reading by Ned from the Edinburgh Review. She went to bed physically tired by her walk but mentally too alert for sleep.

  The mild weather made her bedclothes seem heavy. She felt smothered by them. She thrust them off. But then, soon after she dropped asleep, she was too cold. She sat up to draw the covers over her again, but found herself too wide awake to settle down.

  She got out of bed. The moon was riding high in the sky. Soft clouds from the west diffused the light, spreading a milky glow over the garden. She opened her casement window to look out, to see the barn owl from the coach house tower flit on wings like grey velvet into the trees.

  She breathed the cool air. How still the night was, how tranquil. If only her mind and spirit were as calm …

  She heard a sound, the faint screech of a door hinge, from the side of the house. She leaned out a little, startled.

  A figure came from the side of the path, across the little terrace, down the step to the paved walk. A woman, in a dark thick cloak. One of the servants? But where was she going, at this hour?

  The figure halted. A froth of lace at the hem of a nightgown was visible in the opening of the cloak. Not a servant, then. She put up a hand to tuck back a fair curl. It was Lucy, Ned’s wife. Gasping with disbelief, Jenny drew back from the casement.

  A movement among the trees drew her gaze. A man stepped out into the moonlight. He crossed the lawn in rapid strides, took the woman in his arms. She threw herself into his embrace, they kissed with an urgent passion. With one arm about her shoulders, he led her along the paved walk, towards the summerhouse where Jenny had sat a few hours earlier.

  Jenny let her head droop against the cold stone surround of her window. She felt stifled, unable to breathe.

  The man who had come to meet Lucy was Archie Brunton.

  Chapter Ten

  Jenny excused herself from the party at the Balfours’ next evening by saying she felt a bad cold coming on. Her mother immediately said she would stay at home to keep her company and her father, who never enjoyed parties, did likewise. He spent the evening with his books in the library, while Jenny, in shawl and slippers to keep up the fiction, sat with her mother in Jenny’s bedroom.

  By and by Millicent’s suggested remedies had been endured. Jenny began to be restless. She found a book, laid it aside, longed to look through some business papers but knew her mother would object.

  At about nine o’clock Millicent, having eyed her for some t
ime, asked, ‘What was the real reason for staying at home, daughter?’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘Well, you’re not unwell. Is it the same as last time ‒ you want to give some sort of rebuff to Archie?’

  ‘No,’ Jenny said slowly. ‘I’ve decided to put an end to anything between Archie and myself.’

  Millicent nodded, saying nothing.

  ‘You don’t protest?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘Well … If God had meant it to be, it would have come to pass by now, daughter.’

  Jenny considered the idea. She didn’t share her parents’ strong and simple faith, but she respected it.

  ‘What changed your mind, Jenny?’

  ‘Oh … I hardly know …’ During a sleepless night she had decided to say nothing of what she’d seen in the garden. So now she had to account for her apparent fickleness. ‘He’s so unwilling, Mother. I began to think … perhaps it’s best not to drag him to the altar.’

  ‘Aye. To tell the truth, your father never quite approved of our doings. And lately he’s heard things. The church elders have spoken to him about Archie … The long and short of it is, your father would have accepted Archie Brunton as a son-in-law in the hope that marriage might reform him, but without great optimism on that score.’

  ‘What has he heard, Mother?’ Jenny asked in alarm.

  ‘Nothing fit for your ears, my dear.’ But there was a calmness in her manner that told Jenny the gossip had had nothing to do with Lucy.

  ‘I’m glad you’re not disappointed. It seems to me we had better avoid the Bruntons for a month or two.’

  ‘Very well, Jenny.’

  This meant that invitations from the Bruntons were met with a polite refusal, none were extended to them, and though calls were still exchanged between the elder ladies, they were on a purely formal basis.