“Good of you to come to luncheon. We have only cold meats and salads, but Cook has an excellent palate for sauces. I am certain she will have put together something very pleasing.” Mr Henstridge bowed slightly, then stood stiffly upright in his high collar and smart woollen suit.
Fortunately, Jack escorted her into the dining room and seated himself next to her. Harriet sat opposite. Good. It meant Bella didn’t have to meet the telling stares and forced smiles of her host and hostess. She knew they were watching her closely for any sign that she might have noble blood in her. They were probably secretly laughing at her too, at her simple manners, so ill-suited to a woman of wealth and breeding.
But what could she do? She was still herself, Bella Hart from the Poor House, and in her head still nothing more than a local schoolteacher. All the same, she could learn. She had been learning all her life, and few of the lessons had been easy. This was likely to be the easiest of all, learning how to be a lady, because nobody here was threatening her. And she would show them—yes, she would, so they wouldn’t be able to laugh at her for long.
Jack whispered encouraging words when nobody was watching, if he noticed she was struggling. She found it hard not to laugh when he did, for his curly brown hair, which he wore quite long, tickled her ear and her cheek. He smells really nice, not like the children or the townswomen. When I’m a lady, all the men I meet will smell this good.
It was a nice meal, but a fussy one. She had trouble learning how to fill herself up with titbits and fancies when she was more used to getting stuck into bread and stew. How would her stomach ever be able to cope with such complexity? Yet the Henstridges all seemed well enough on their daily fare. She would probably get used to it all in time.
“How about a wander around the garden before we go off to look around the factory, to let our lunch digest?” Mr John Henstridge gave her a smile. “Harriet can show you her little rose garden first, Miss Hart. And after that, you might like to take a look at Jack’s drawings. He’s very proud of them, aren’t you, Jack?”
Jack stared at his father, and a flush crept over his cheeks. “I’m sure she wouldn’t—”
Harriet chirped, “Oh, yes! She’d love to see those, I’m sure. And she insists she’s not bored by mechanics—which is what Jack seems to spend most of his time drawing.”
Bella shot a look at Mr Henstridge and then, more covertly, at Jack, who still seemed unsettled. If she didn’t know better, she could think Mr Henstridge was trying to praise his son up to her. Had he hopes that when she was a rich lady, she might favour Jack in some way? Marry him even? No, she was misreading it—it was just that she didn’t understand these people yet. She wondered if she ever would.
As it was, Bella was spared the drawings and the rose garden. A few spots of rain dotted the window panes, and it was decided to head into Warbury right away, lest the rain worsen. It was grand, riding in a carriage, though it rocked a lot more than the train had, and Bella kept bumping knees with Jack. She looked at him under her eyelashes, but he didn’t seem to mind it.
When they alighted, he helped her down, and took her arm, just like a proper gentleman and lady. It was a mix of strange and wonderful, but she was aware of a change in Jack. His smile was slow in coming and never seemed to reach his eyes. He kept her hand tucked well against his side, keeping her so close her skirts brushed his thigh as they walked. It was almost as if he had to touch her, couldn’t bear not to be close, and she felt this need in him awaken a response in herself. She gripped his arm tightly and gazed up at him, trying to understand what was happening.
They started their tour with the ground floor, where the heavier machines were located, including the carders with their huge spiked rollers that turned fleeces into loose fibres as soft as thistledown. With Jack leaning close and shouting in her ear, Bella struggled to concentrate less on the feel of him and more on what he was saying.
She saw it was mostly men on this floor, because of the heavy and dangerous work, but there were a few women as well, most of them unknown to her. Nobody seemed to be deliberately ignoring her—either they weren’t friends of the Froggatts, or Jack’s discussion with the two women had borne fruit. Both were now reinstated and would be upstairs on the spinning floor. Seeing them again would be the real test.
Bella was glad she’d never come here and asked for work. It was like her idea of Hell—all heat and noise and the dust. Yet nobody seemed to mind. She could see why people would come here from the Poor House—you’d never freeze or get numb fingers. And there’d be a wage and time to yourself at the end of the day—if you had enough energy left to use it. But she much preferred teaching at the school. Miss Ainsty had been right about that.
After brief nods of recognition to Mr Henstridge, the workers returned to their tasks—there were signs everywhere reminding folk that any idleness was punished, any lapse of concentration could mean catastrophe. If the carders wanted to convey anything to their fellow workers without leaving their machines, they used a series of hand signals. They were moving their mouths too, like they were talking but they couldn’t possibly have heard each other.
“They look at the shape of each other’s mouths.” Jack spoke close to her ear. “If you’ve got an idea of what someone might be saying, that always helps. Hickett says there’s nothing private in a woollen mill, as everyone can lip read.”
She nodded at him, not wanting to raise her voice above the din. Still with a tight hold on his arm, she stared about her in fascination. Huge belts sped past overhead, connecting via an ingenious system of cogs to the separate drive-belts of the machines themselves. The air was solid with sound and drifting wool fibre—she brought her hand up to her mouth to prevent herself choking.
Harriet appeared in front of them, her eyes screwed up like she was in pain. “Too much for me,” she shouted at them. “I’ll wait in the carriage.” Hands clamped over her ears and mouthing something at her parents, she hastened past them and back towards the entrance.
Jack raised his eyebrows questioningly at her, but Bella nodded. She was happy to stay. She’d recognised a few people. Some of the youths looked like older versions of the children she taught, and she began keeping an eye out for family resemblance. Phoebe Froggatt was there, looking very grown-up, with her abundant dark hair hidden beneath a matronly cap. Just now she was wiping the sweat from her brow as she attended to one of the carding machines. Bella saw Kenneth Jackson carrying fleeces in that direction, and smiled to herself.
Bella thought she recognised a woman standing by one of the trundling carding machines, but she had her head down. She’d just pulled off her cap and was scratching vigorously at her sweaty head, knocking her hair out of its pins.
When she realised who it was, she pulled Jack to a halt and stared, open-mouthed.
Chapter 44
What on Earth was Annie Tullard doing here? From what Bella had heard, the girl had been taken on as a piecer in one of the mills further down the river. But here she stood, bold as brass, in Henstridge’s, and she was now staring back at Bella with a smug grin on her face. Then she put her head down again and started pinning up her hair as if Bella’s existence meant nothing to her.
Instantly, images of being on the floor as she was force-fed ink, of being strapped up in the rain, and degraded, and flogged in front of all those men flooded back into Bella’s mind. A sick fury raged in her stomach at this woman. Never mind the Froggatts—Annie Tullard was a different kettle of fish. She had no right to work in this place, after what she’d done, no right at all.
Jack must have felt the change in her pressure on his arm, for he pulled her off to a corner of the room and asked if she was alright. But as she looked up at him, knowing she couldn’t begin to explain the effect Annie Tullard had on her, his face changed into a mask of horror. Above the clack, clatter and rumble of the machines, she was aware of a high-pitched scream.
Jack thrust her sharply away and flung back the way they’d come, and she could see
Annie Tullard was now no longer standing upright at her machine, but was at an impossible angle, fighting to stay on her feet while the carding machine dragged her in by her hair.
Jack vaulted over the safety barrier, and Bella couldn’t breathe as she watched him grab Annie around the waist with one arm and pull at her hair with his free hand, trying to rip it out of the machine. All the time, Annie was screaming and thrashing in fear, and Bella felt the nausea rise up in her stomach. Jack’s shoes were sliding on the oily, wooden floor. Would he hang on till the last? What if the machine took him as well? Lord, no! She couldn’t just stand here and watch him die. Why was everyone else so slow? Were they all deaf?
Stumbling forward, so frightened she could hardly see straight, Bella grasped a pair of shears hanging from a hook and leaned over the barrier as far as she could go. As she hacked and hacked at the shiny twist of hair, she knew she was screaming too, though she could barely hear herself. Then someone appeared right next to her, a man, pulling down on a handle.
As more and more strands of Annie’s hair gave way under the shears, the relentless movement of the machinery began to slow until, running out of momentum, it rumbled to a halt. At the same time the last shreds of Annie’s hair broke off, and she and Jack were catapulted backwards onto the floor.
He scrambled up instantly and set the hysterical woman on her feet. Her scalp was bleeding and torn, and what little hair she had left stuck up in clumps, glued together by blood. As more of the factory people realised what had happened, a couple of men came and lifted her up and carried her out of the building. One of the women turned off her own machine and followed. The overlooker hurried over to speak to Mr Henstridge, a conversation that required a lot of gesticulating.
Jack climbed shakily back over the barrier and returned to Bella, his face ashen, eyes wild. She felt a surge of fear as he took her arm roughly and pulled her towards the door, towards the daylight. Harriet met them there.
“I saw some poor woman being carried out. What happened? Where are Mama and Papa?”
“Stay here, Harriet,” Jack commanded. “Wait for Mama and Papa—they’re fine and will be along shortly. If anybody wants me urgently, I’ll be at Mrs Day’s with Bella. But I’d rather not be disturbed.”
Jack hauled Bella across the road and deposited her in the parlour. Hands unsteady, he poured a cupful of water and shoved it at her. When she had forced down a swallow or two, the cup was roughly removed, and his hands bit savagely into her shoulders, shaking her until she stared at him in blank shock.
“Don’t you ever, ever, do anything so stupid and dangerous again. You could have been killed leaning in so close like that.”
She looked into his pale face, expecting to see his wrath, but instead, his eyes were moist as if he was in extreme distress. He grasped her around the waist then and pulled her tightly against himself. Her hands clutched at his jacket, and her head was buried against his shoulder as she said, “But if I hadn’t done something, you could of been pulled in as well. Please, don’t be angry with me.”
“You would have risked your life for me, and I don’t deserve it.” He pressed his face against her hair and sighed deeply, and the next thing she knew was that he was kissing her, raining kisses all over her face until his mouth found her lips, and moved desperately, longingly over them.
It was a moment she had been waiting for all her life and yet she’d never known it until now. To be held with such feeling by someone who, in a very short time, had become so dear to her. She brought her arms up and clung to him, so relieved that he was still here, not crushed and bloodied by that dreadful machine. And all the while she was thinking how good it felt to hold him, to be kissed by him with such urgency, such passion. Now she knew, with a great swelling of her heart, that he could never again say that it was wrong for them to be together.
“Ah, Jack, dearest, dearest Jack.” Her hands were moving up his arms and across his back, and still he was kissing her like she was all that mattered in the world. She pushed her fingers roughly into his hair to keep his head close while she kissed him back.
There was a knock on the door.
Jack tore his lips away. “Come back later, damn you!” he shouted and turned his attention to Bella again.
The door came open, and someone flung it against the wall so hard the house rattled. A short blonde man, very well-dressed, stood on the threshold. His green eyes were steely as he looked at Jack and then at Bella. Then, taking a step forward, he squared his shoulders and growled, “Leave my sister alone, you filthy swine, or I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.”
Chapter 45
Bella felt that dreadful scene would remain with her for the rest of her life. Many times, as the hired coach rattled off towards the station, she wanted to throw herself out of it and run back to Jack, do anything she could to remove that look of devastation on his face when her brother had borne her away.
There had nearly been a fight. She’d been in tears, not wanting to go, and Jack had had his fists raised, ready to strike Lord Henry Sutcliffe across his handsome, aristocratic countenance. If it hadn’t been for the soothing words of Sarah Hart, the mother she had been deprived of all these years, she would have struck Henry herself, for treating Jack like he was nobody.
Oh, what a horrible mess! To have to make up her mind in so short a time to leave the man she now knew she loved for the family she had always longed for—should she have done it? Did Henry really give her a choice? If she’d begged Jack to save her and keep her with him, he would have, she was sure, despite the ominous arrival of a coachman brandishing a whip. Thank God her mother had been just behind, to talk sense into the men, to assure Jack that Bella would be given every comfort and her future secured He’d calmed down then, his face had gone blank, and he’d told her she should go. He would never be able to offer her what her brother could. But he would wait for her if she changed her mind, and she’d said she’d write to him.
Once Jack was beaten, Henry had shown no further interest in him, and that made Bella furious. But she didn’t know quite what to say to this masterful new person in her life, this man who was like no one else she’d ever met. She would have to watch and wait and listen until she knew how to handle him. And then she would find a way to bring Jack and her new family together—then maybe she’d finally find happiness.
“You’re weeping again, my dear.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Please, call me Mama. There can be no doubt that I am your mother, nor you, my daughter. It has been a great shock to you, I know. I think Henry could have managed it better.” Sarah Hart frowned at her son. “But as I am learning, he is a law unto himself. I’m sorry he was so rude to your friend.”
Henry snorted. “The fellow was an impudent upstart!”
“Henry, he’d just saved someone from a terrible accident in the factory, which nearly claimed himself and Bella as well. He could be forgiven for seeming rather… violent in his reactions.”
Henry waved his hand dismissively. “You would know better than I how these common folk behave. I’m sure there’s no need for Bella to fret so, all the same. Now that she is to be made a lady, the fellow is well beneath her touch. She will meet much finer in the next few weeks, and he will be quite forgotten.”
Sarah ignored her son and put a tentative hand on Bella’s arm. “Come now, Bella. Dry your tears. We’ll have to leave the carriage to board the train in a moment, and you wouldn’t want any of the townsfolk to see you like this, would you?”
Bella sat bolt upright. “We are going straight away? But what about my things? I need to see Mrs Day, make arrangements about the school—”
Henry’s eyes glittered. “Nonsense. There can be nothing you’ve left behind worthy of a second thought. I don’t think you understand yet, sister, quite what you’re going to. I can buy you dresses a hundred times finer than any you have left behind. You’ll have use of an extensive library, and you shall not want for sewing
things, musical instruments, singing tutors, jewels, horses—”
“Horses? But I can’t even ride.”
“I do not view that as a problem. It is my expectation that you will learn all the necessary skills.”
That seemed to be that. Normally Bella would have been bursting with questions, or eager to pour out her stories to her mother. She would have been enjoying the experience of the train journey, but instead, all she felt was weary, oh, so weary! The week had been draining, the day had been draining, and the last few hours—even worse. She was used to a life that was black and white, clear-cut and decisive. She had been sure of her own mind always, and had pursued whatever course was best for her. But suddenly the black and white had broken into splinters of many shades of grey, and now she had other people to think of besides herself—her family, the Henstridges, the children she had left behind. Despite her mother trying to draw her into conversation and Henry offering the odd opinion, she could not bring herself to talk.
Despite knowing she had found her true family at last, she couldn’t help thinking back to the restrictions of the workhouse, and wondering if she was just exchanging one prison for another.
And with Lord Henry Sutcliffe as her gaoler, would she ever get to see Jack Henstridge again?
Chapter 46
Jack arrived back at Henstridge Hall without any memory of how he’d got there. Harriet was already there, and the moment she spotted him coming up the driveway, she ran forwards.
“You look terrible. What happened? Where are Mother and Father?”
He looked at her dully, trying to find an answer. He could barely think, his mind felt heavy as lead. But no heavier than his heart.
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