Broken Threads

by Tessa Barclay

  Ronald Armstrong was called into the discussions, of course, because the joining of Waterside to the rebuilt Messiter’s concerned him greatly. As the four of them sat in Mr Kennet’s office taking tea after an hour poring over blueprints, it seemed only natural to speak of the forthcoming baby.

  Mr Kennet had long had his own view on the injustice of the legal situation concerning William Corvill and Son. He surprised Ronald by taking matters into his own hands.

  ‘I suppose, Mr Corvill,’ he said to Ned, ‘that you’ll wish to make some disposition of the assets to take notice of your sister’s child.’

  ‘What?’ Ned said in surprise.

  ‘Of course it’s a family matter,’ Kennet said in an apologetic tone, ‘and of course you would come to it after the birth. But your mind is so greatly taken up at present with the war in America that I take the liberty of reminding you. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be remiss on something so important to your sister.’

  ‘Oh … ah … naturally, I would of course have … What exactly is expected in such a situation?’ said Ned, looking pink with embarrassment. He had never in this world given a thought to providing anything for Jenny’s child. He never thought about money unless it was linked to one of his enthusiasms.

  ‘This is hardly the time,’ Jenny said, equally embarrassed.

  ‘Quite, quite, your brother will wish to see me on another occasion to talk it over. I just felt this was an opportunity to remind you I’m at your service, Mr Corvill.’

  Ronald was sipping his tea and grinning to himself behind the cup. What an old fox! But good for him, he had made easy the opening of a discussion that might have been difficult.

  What was said between Ned and the lawyer never became public. But privately Ned said to Ronald, ‘It crossed my mind, your boy … it might turn out he will be the heir to William Corvill and Son.’

  ‘Good heavens, man, that’s looking far too far ahead.’

  ‘Well, you know, Ronald, Lucy and I have no children after nearly six years. Who knows? At any rate I thought I’d tell you that … well, I’ve talked to Kennet. Your boy will be well provided for.’

  And then Nature, with her usual irony, played her part. Jenny’s baby was a girl.

  Chapter Three

  Jenny was leaning back among her pillows in a mixture of exhaustion, triumph, and tearful apprehension when Ronald was allowed in.

  ‘You won’t be too disappointed?’ she asked as he tiptoed towards the ribbon-decked cradle at the bedside.

  ‘Disappointed? Why should I be disappointed?’ he asked in astonishment.

  ‘Well, you wanted a boy …’

  ‘Who ever told you that?’

  He leaned over the cradle for his first view of his daughter. She was asleep, fairish hair only hinted at beneath the edge of the crocheted bonnet. Her face was crumpled and flushed like a pink poppy in the bud. One tiny fist was folded against her cheek.

  Ronald put his forefinger into the curled fist. Instinctively she grasped it. And like every father, Ronald was captured for ever.

  ‘Ah, my bonnie wee lass,’ he whispered to her. When he turned to kiss Jenny, he was smiling broadly.

  ‘And what’s so funny?’ she asked, the threatening tears giving way to puzzlement.

  ‘One thing’s sure. We canna call her Maxwell!’

  Argument went on for a week or two about a name for the baby. In the meantime the servants called her the bairn, Mrs Corvill Senior called her Baby, and Lucy called her the infant. Jenny suggested names from her grandmothers ‒ Yvonne, Heloise. Ronald thought something typically Scottish would be better; his own mother had been Agnes.

  But nothing seemed right for the little slumbering child. In the end her name came by chance. Ronald, allowed to hold her, took her to the window to see the sun on the hills. It was early July, the heather was coming into bloom.

  The baby blinked in the light. Some tint or shadow reflected back for a moment on her shawl so that she seemed in a cloud of pale amethyst. ‘That’s what we’ll call her!’ exclaimed Ronald.

  ‘What, my love?’

  ‘Heather!’

  ‘Heather?’

  ‘Yes, it just suits her.’

  ‘But nobody is ever called Heather, Ronald.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Little girls are called Rose and Violet ‒ why not Heather?’

  There was no reason why not. Somehow it seemed to suit her. Heather Millicent Armstrong she was christened, and a few years later the name was not only accepted but became quite fashionable.

  At first Jenny was more than content to stay at home, watching over the baby, supervising her bathing and dressing and sleeping. The nursemaid was tolerant. New mothers were often like this, and so were grandmamas and aunts.

  At first Lucy resisted the charms of the baby. She wished to have as little to do with her as possible. But as the weeks went by and Heather spent less time asleep, Lucy could be found leaning over her cradle, cooing at her.

  ‘It’s a side of Lucy I never expected to see,’ Ronald remarked one afternoon as, from the far side of the lawn, he watched his sister-in-law dangling her silver pendant over the crib under the apple tree.

  ‘And you like her the better for it.’

  ‘Well, anyone who admires Heather must have some good in her, Jenny.’

  She laughed and patted his arm. ‘You’re biased.’

  ‘That might well be. But you must admit she’s a lovely little lass.’

  ‘I admit it, I admit it. So much so that I’ve designed a plaid for her.’

  Ronald raised his eyebrows at his wife. ‘I thought you weren’t going to think about work for at least six months?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not work to design a plaid.’

  ‘That’s not what you used to say when the pattern book needed filling.’

  ‘This just came to me. I thought we might put it in the book for next spring now that colour is coming back into fashion ‒ it’s a blue and brown check on a lavender background.’

  ‘And its name in the pattern book will be ‒?’

  ‘Need you ask? Heather!’

  Other ideas seemed to follow fast on the new plaid, so that without being aware of it Jenny was soon back in the swing of work. There was the expansion to supervise ‒ the redesigning and rebuilding of Messiter’s old mill to unite it with Waterside. She made a ceremony of it. The Provost was asked to unveil a plaque. The town band played. The mill workers were given a half-holiday.

  The extension was given over to the making of plain or mixed tweeds. The yarn used for the subtle shades in Jenny’s designs involved ‘doubling’, the twisting together of two strands before the weaving began. Ronald was in his element in the new works with a range of dyes at his disposal to produce the tints she needed. As a result, Jenny herself took over some of the management of the firm, or supervising the fastening and winding of the threads for the new ‘fancy’ tweeds which were generally woven in short runs to specific orders.

  It meant that she spent much less time at home. In fact, she was almost as often at Waterside Mill as in the old days. She came home with Ronald for lunch, and enjoyed that ‒ the walk through Galashiels during the working day, the meeting with acquaintances, the casual chat about the morning’s routine as they walked. At first Ronald had insisted she take a rest in the afternoon, but within three months this had been forgotten. She would go back with him to Waterside to consider the designs for next season, or entertain buyers, or speak with the auditors.

  As winter approached there was the usual conference among the ladies of Gatesmuir about the parties they would give. St Andrew’s Day had become a customary highlight and then there was Christmas to consider. Lucy was full of plans.

  ‘We must have a Christmas tree ‒’

  ‘A tree?’ interrupted Mrs Corvill in surprise. ‘How do you mean ‒ we should go outdoors into the wood ‒’

  ‘No, no, it’s in all the magazines, Mother,’ Lucy said, in the patronising tone she sometim
es used in response to Millicent’s naivety. ‘You have a fir tree in a pot indoors, and decorate it with sugar mice and sparkling ornaments. Heather will love it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a children’s thing. But is Heather no a bitty young for it?’

  ‘Nonsense, she’ll be six months, she’ll love something all sparkly and with candles.’

  ‘Candles. Not lit up?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is that not a dangerous notion?’

  ‘Of course not, we’ll be careful. You agree we should have one, don’t you, Jenny? For Heather?’

  Jenny had nothing against it, so long as the candles were only lit for brief periods and under guard. And truth to tell, it was a beautiful thing, this new Christmas symbol that the late Prince Consort had helped to bring to Britain.

  What did trouble her was the number of presents Lucy had bought for Heather. She had gone to Glasgow, and it seemed she had come home with every toy that a little girl could possibly want. Most of them were for a child much older than Heather. There were china dolls, puppets on sticks, tin dogs and monkeys, beads to thread, puzzles to put together.

  ‘Mercy me, girl,’ Millicent cried when she saw the gifts unwrapped on Christmas morning, ‘you’ve enough there to keep the bairn occupied until she’s ten years old!’

  Lucy laughed, kneeling on the floor to offer the baby a fairy doll. ‘It’s good to have plenty of things to occupy her. You don’t realise how quick she is ‒ she’s interested in everything that goes on.’

  Heather refused to be interested in the doll. Instead she was making determined efforts to roll over on her front so that she might try to squirm towards a length of bright ribbon on the carpet.

  ‘Any minute now she’ll be trying to walk,’ Lucy said, watching her proudly.

  ‘What, at six months?’

  ‘You don’t see as much of her as I do, Jenny. She’s dying to get at the things that interest her. Look how she’s struggling to get at that ribbon.’

  The baby’s strength gave out, she collapsed on her face in a muddle of long gowns and her shawl, and began to howl. The nurse, Wilmot, came to bear her off to bed.

  The grown-ups went to church, friends came for a Christmas dinner, and then thoughts turned to the really important celebration, Hogmanay. Every house in Galashiels had to be cleaned from top to bottom to welcome in the New Year, supplies of black bun, shortbread, port and whisky had to be laid in, and presents bought for first-footing.

  Gatesmuir was open and ablaze with lights when the chimes of midnight rang out. Kisses and hugs were exchanged, and within a few seconds Ronald came in at the front door bearing the obligatory piece of coal to ensure warmth and comfort for another year.

  Then the first-footers began to arrive. The ladies of Gatesmuir were in their best gowns, and music was provided by two fiddlers from the mill.

  In the midst of the first set of toasts and greetings, Jenny was amazed to see the nurse Wilmot coming downstairs with the baby in her arms. What was more, the baby wasn’t in her flannel nightgown but in a ‘company robe’ of embroidered net over satin.

  Jenny threaded her way to her through the crowd. ‘Wilmot! What on earth are you doing?’

  The nurse looked surprised. She glanced around as if in some confusion. ‘But I thought, I was told …’

  ‘Told what?’ Jenny’s voice was sharper than she intended. She saw the colour come up on Wilmot’s broad face. ‘I’m sorry, nanny, I didn’t mean to snap at you. Why have you brought the baby downstairs in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I thought I was meant to, mistress.’

  ‘What gave you that idea?’

  ‘I … well … Mistress Corvill told me to.’

  ‘Mistress Ned Corvill?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Jenny was just about to tell her to take Heather back up to her cot when one of the lady visitors caught sight of her. ‘Oh, the baby’s down to wish us a good New Year. What a little angel. Let me hold her a minute, nanny.’

  ‘No, Mrs Wallace ‒’ But Jenny was too late. Heather was taken out of the nurse’s arms to be crooned over like a little doll. Lucy came up to hear the compliments, and in a moment or two all the ladies were clustered round, admiring the marvellous robe which had come, so Lucy said, from the best shop in Glasgow.

  Naturally Heather became over-excited and began to cry. Wilmot took her upstairs to bed, but when Jenny went up at two-thirty to check that all was well, the baby was still crying and Wilmot was still trying to soothe her to sleep.

  ‘I canna do a thing with her, mistress,’ she said, with a mixture of distress and irritation.

  ‘I don’t wonder at it,’ Jenny said, concealing her own annoyance. The baby was crying in that stretched, whining fashion that becomes an established pattern until exhaustion ensues.

  Wilmot was swallowing her yawns.

  ‘You go to bed. I’ll get Heather off.’

  ‘Oh, are you sure, ma’am?’

  ‘Off you go, nanny.’

  The nurse went to the alcove that housed her bed. Jenny picked Heather out of her cradle, sat down, and began to rock her to and fro.

  ‘This is the way the weaver goes,

  A-rickelty-tick, a rickelty-tick,

  The treadle down with his heel and toes,

  A-rickelty-tick, a-rickelty-tick …’

  It was a song of her own childhood, with a gentle rhythm and a tune of the utmost simplicity. There were hand-movements that went with it, little pats on the head and the feet to keep the child amused. But for now it was a lulling motion, a voice that brought comfort. To the steady background of snores from the nurse, Jenny sang her child to sleep.

  Next day, New Year’s Day, was a day of visiting and activity. Nevertheless Jenny managed to keep an eye on her little daughter. It took all day for her to settle back into her usual happy frame of mind after the upset of being wakened and dressed in the middle of the night.

  Now Jenny was alerted. She began to see how much Lucy was engrossed by Heather. The trouble was, Lucy had almost nothing else to do but amuse herself with the baby. The house was run by the elder Mrs Corvill, the mill was run by Jenny and Ronald, and there was little companionship to be found with Ned.

  Ned was taken up altogether with his work for the anti-slavery movement. In America, the war see-sawed back and forth ‒ the Union army had lost the second battle at Bull Run, but Lincoln had the courage to declare that all slaves in his country would be considered free as from the beginning of this new year, 1863. Ned had barely spared the time to come home from London for New Year ‒ there was work to be done in publicising Lincoln’s speech, and in urging Her Majesty’s Government to admit liability over the cruiser Alabama.

  Jenny found his devotion to his cause encouraging. He seemed never to think of taking a drink, his faith in his own abilities was firm, his life was full. But, of course, looked at another way, he was neglecting his wife.

  If Lucy had been the least bit interested in helping him, that would have been ideal. But his political friends bored and alarmed her. They discussed matters she thought indelicate ‒ the fate of black women at the hands of Arab slavers, the punishment meted out to escapers.

  Lucy preferred the social and domestic round. And, with little left for her to do at Gatesmuir, it was only natural that she should give all her attention to baby Heather.

  It was difficult not to feel sympathy with her. Being condemned to a childless marriage had something almost tragic in it, a sense of being excluded from the blessings everyone else enjoyed. Practically all the married women of Lucy’s age had children, some three or four; ‘a fine young family’, as the complimentary phrase had it. It would have been almost impossible for Lucy not to feel as if she had some rights in the pretty, good-tempered baby in her own home.

  Yet Heather was on the verge of becoming hopelessly spoiled. Lucy thought nothing of waking her from sound sleep to play with her. If she so much as whimpered, her doting aunt was ready to pick her up and
amuse her.

  The convention in upper-class circles was that children should be banished to the nursery except at the set times when they were brought down to be shown off. This was when Jenny herself had the opportunity to play with her baby, to cuddle her and make a fuss of her. But Lucy found a way round this ‒ she went up to the nursery to interfere with Wilmot’s regime. Wilmot didn’t actually say that the younger Mrs Corvill was making a nuisance of herself, but there were little edged remarks, hints that the baby was ‘getting above herself’ because she got too much attention.

  Jenny understood Lucy’s feelings. She didn’t want to forbid her to spend so much time with the child, nor could she herself be at home more because this was a very busy time at the cloth mill. Besides, it would have meant being in open competition with Lucy over her own daughter ‒ a situation fraught with dangers.

  Heaven sent a distraction. In March of that year, the Prince of Wales was to marry the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Galashiels decided to celebrate the occasion with high festivity. The Galashiels Record announced that there would be ‘a Public Procession of Magistrates, Police Commissioners, the Manufacturers Corporation, the Volunteer Regiment, the Freemasons, and other notables’. The town was to be decorated, flower beds planted with royal emblems, there would be a firework display on the banks of the Gala Hill, and the town band would give a concert outdoors if the weather was fine.

  Naturally all this had to be organised. Without any difficulty, Jenny saw to it that Lucy was well to the fore ‒ and in fact Lucy’s love of everything shiny and gilded fitted in very well with the designs of the Decorations Committee.

  Later in the year, on their way north for a summer visit to Balmoral, the young royal couple made a tour of the Borders. Prince Edward was handsome in a more robust style than his late father; his skin had more colour and his manner was much more rakish. In his cutaway coat and curly-brimmed bowler hat, he was like some fashion plate.

  His bride seemed an ideal fairy-tale princess. She was beautiful, good-natured, kind, tactful. In the few months since her marriage she had already endeared herself to the population of London, and Galashiels was just as ready to fall under her spell. She allowed almost everyone to be presented, although there were some signs of boredom from her husband at the stream of townsfolk.