Broken Threads

by Tessa Barclay

  He frowned. If he could possibly avoid it, he never thought of Ned, nor of his wife Lucy whose actions had brought Heather to her present state. ‘Are you going to open it?’

  ‘Do you think I should?’

  ‘Throw it on the fire.’

  ‘Yes.’ But she didn’t do so. She sat looking at it. Heather, who took breakfast with them ‒ who in fact was never parted from her mother if she could possibly avoid it ‒ glanced from one to the other, then busied herself offering porridge to her shapeless doll.

  ‘I think I ought to open it, Ronald.’

  ‘For God’s sake, why? We agreed we never wanted to see or hear from either of them again.’

  ‘But he may be ill …’

  He grunted. He cared nothing for that.

  Jenny was thinking to herself that she couldn’t hate Ned. Now that she had Heather back again, she was so grateful to the world in general that she couldn’t even hate Lucy. She certainly didn’t want to see either of them ‒ yet if Ned had taken the trouble to write, ought she not at least to read the letter?

  ‘I think I’ll open it, Ronald.’

  ‘No.’

  She hesitated. ‘Do you forbid me?’

  It was seldom that Ronald behaved as the traditional ‘head of the house’. In this respect he was very different from most of the men they knew, for it was accepted and expected that men should exert authority over their wives and families. He, however, had a wife different from most. And as to a family … the situation in his household was so strange he sometimes wondered if he even belonged there.

  After a moment he said, ‘Open it, then. You’ll be unhappy if you burn it.’

  ‘I just feel …’ She didn’t finish the sentence, but instead picked up the letter-opener and slit open the envelope. She read:

  ‘Dear Sister, the great news of the abolition of slavery in the United States of America has roused me to feel that life after all can take a fresh start.

  Moreover, an item in an English newspaper, recently come to hand, tells me that Heather has been found safe and well. In view of that I felt I must write to offer my congratulations and good wishes. I hope the condition of safety in which she was apparently found will at last diminish your resentment towards my poor little wife who, as I am sure you know and will now acknowledge, never meant any harm to the child.

  The climate and circumstances here do not quite agree with Lucy. She finds the heat enervating. That being so, and the peace now being assured in America, I have accepted a post there to help in the education of the freed slaves. I will send my address once we are settled there. I think we shall be in or near Richmond, Virginia.

  We go first to Washington so that I can meet my colleagues in this good work. The cost of removal and our expenses in settling in a new home will be considerable, so I should like you to instruct Mr Kennet to arrange for an advance on my allowance ‒ and indeed, I think it would be reasonable to ask for an increase in it, as living in Washington or Richmond is bound to be more expensive than here in Kingston and the stipend I shall receive is only nominal.

  Such news as I can glean of the woollen industry in Scotland is excellent ‒ expansion and prosperity seem to be the rule. My best wishes for Waterside Mill and for the New Year, which by the time you receive this will be well begun.

  If you would write to me once we have taken up our new abode, it would be a great blessing and consolation to me.

  Your affectionate brother, Ned.’

  To read his words summoned him up before her: apparently benevolent towards the world but in reality self-engrossed, and still blind to any fault in Lucy.

  She raised her eyes, blinking back a tear, to find Ronald watching her. He held out his hand. She had no choice but to give him the letter. He read it in a silence that grew more and more grim.

  ‘Well, if that is not completely typical,’ he snorted when he laid it down. ‘Safe and well ‒ he got that phrase from a newspaper, but does he bother to inquire as to the real situation? Not he!’

  ‘You can quite understand he didn’t want to write too much on that point, Ronald.’

  ‘No, the real point was to ask for more money. First he tells us he’s taking up this philanthropic post, then he tells us his allowance is too low, then he congratulates us on how well the mill is doing. In other words, we’re being tight-fisted if we say no.’

  ‘But after all, my dear, it is his money ‒’

  ‘The hell it is! He never did a hand’s turn to earn it, and after the way he and that cat of a wife of his behaved he doesn’t deserve a penny! Why you ever told Kennet to arrange that income ‒’

  ‘Ronald, please don’t raise your voice ‒’

  ‘Dammit, I have a right to raise my voice in my own house! I want you to ignore this letter ‒’

  ‘I certainly shan’t reply to it ‒’

  ‘But you’re not to increase his allowance ‒’

  ‘Please don’t shout. You’re frightening Heather.’

  Ronald leapt up from the table. ‘What the hell is she doing eating with us instead of in the nursery like other children? Why do we have to have her hanging round our coat tails all the time?’

  ‘Ronald ‒’

  ‘And another thing! I won’t have that disgusting object at table with us one more time! It’s enough to put anybody off his food.’

  ‘Ronald, you know she needs it ‒’

  ‘Needs it? Don’t talk rubbish! How can she need a lump of dirty old sheepskin?’

  ‘It’s not dirty, Ronald, we wash it from time to time.’

  ‘My God, I’m not talking about laundry! I’m talking about my daughter dragging around with her a piece of tattered, grubby leather when she has dressed dolls and German toys by the score.’

  ‘But Mo-mo is special, Ronald. He seems to be a sort of link with her past ‒ he makes her feel she belongs here.’

  Ronald glared down at his wife. The pent-up irritation of past weeks erupted as he saw her, flushed and upset, trying to defend what he knew for certain was silly waywardness.

  ‘I want that doll thrown out,’ he commanded. ‘We’ve had enough of this nonsense about the world revolving around a little girl. We’ve got to have some sense and discipline in the house. Heather’s to have the same kind of routine as any other child ‒’

  ‘No, Ronald! Don’t be cruel ‒’

  ‘Cruel? What’s cruel about trying to behave sensibly? As it is, you’re spoiling her beyond belief. She’s a law unto herself at the moment and she’ll grow up totally uncontrollable. I tell you, Jenny, enough is enough. You’ll do as I say. That doll goes in the dustbin ‒’

  Heather had been following all this with a tense interest that now brought her into a protective crouch around the sheepskin toy. She made a whimper of protest.

  Infuriated, Ronald snatched the sheepskin Eskimo out of her arms, and with an angry movement tossed it into the dining room fire.

  The little girl watched the flames take the toy. Then she opened her mouth and uttered a wail of misery and loss.

  Jenny, who had darted from her place to try to retrieve the toy, turned back to take her daughter in her arms. She gathered her close, hid her face against her breast, and rocked her to and fro.

  ‘Never mind, my dove, never mind, it’s all right, my lamb, don’t cry. Don’t cry, baby, Mama will look after you, it’s all right …’

  Ronald was stricken to silent immobility. He couldn’t believe what he had done. For a long moment he stood looking down at mother and child. He wanted Jenny to raise her eyes to him so that he could show her he was sorry.

  But her entire attention was on the child. And after a pause which seemed to him to last an eternity, he turned and left the room.

  He didn’t go home for lunch because he still hadn’t worked out how to apologise for his action. At the end of the day he delayed his return to purchase a fine new doll in Galashiels’ only toy shop. When he went indoors he gave the parcel to Thirley. ‘Put it in the cloak cupboard
for the moment,’ he said.

  His intention was to go up to the nursery, try to make friends anew with his little girl, and then lead her downstairs to find the new doll in the cupboard. He opened the nursery door, and put his head round.

  Heather was sitting on the hearthrug before the fire ‒ her favourite spot, for she loved the generous warmth of a fire. Jenny was sitting beside her reading from a book of nursery rhymes.

  But what struck Ronald at once was that Heather had her sheepskin toy in her arms, hugged close.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes. He came in, walked slowly towards them, and stooped to kiss first his wife and then his daughter. It seemed to him that Heather drew back a little from this customary kiss, but his attention was all on the Eskimo doll.

  ‘I see you’ve got your friend with you,’ he remarked, in a too jovial tone that hid his perplexity.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful,’ Jenny rejoined, nodding at him to warn him he must take part. ‘Poor Mo-mo was getting so worn out that he had to go through the fire to Toyland, where they washed him and dressed him and made him new again ‒ and here he is, back home and full of his adventures.’

  All the courage to make his apology ebbed out of Ronald. His wife had solved the problem, had made good the damage. He would only renew the original hurt by going over it again. And as for his fine china doll with her satin dress and lace-trimmed bonnet … He didn’t even mention that.

  Later Jenny explained that she had gone immediately after breakfast to the retired shepherd who made the sheepskin toys and bought a new one. He had a cupboard full of them, all as like the first Mo-mo as made no difference. The charred and smelly remains of the original had been taken out with a pair of tongs and given a secret burial while Baird dressed Heather for her morning walk, and at lunchtime there had been the new Mo-mo, sitting by Heather’s place.

  The drama was over, the crisis had gone by. But Ronald felt only too deeply that he had not behaved well. Other men would have scoffed: ‘Good Lord, if a man isn’t master in his own home, things have come to a sorry pass …’ But to be master, to snatch a beloved toy from a child ‒ that was not what he wanted.

  He didn’t mention the letter from Ned. He never asked what Jenny did about it. He didn’t want to allude to that awful scene in any way whatever. But he was sure she had increased Ned’s allowance, and he was secretly angry at that. It rankled to think that he, in the office at Waterside Mill, wrestled with the problems and found the solutions which supplied the money Ned would spend so blithely.

  Although the woollen industry was flourishing, it wasn’t without its problems. New machinery meant new work routines. Although the weavers of the Borders were the aristocrats of the industry, they had to comply with new regulations. Informality in the work place couldn’t be allowed any more: fines were introduced for lateness or drunkenness.

  Waterside had ‘modernised’ twice in the last three years, but Ronald had resisted the move towards greater strictness.

  ‘I can’t bring myself to fine a man for being late if he has a sore head,’ he remarked to Jenny. ‘I was a workman myself, I know what it’s like to wake up the morning after a night out.’

  ‘Have the others all introduced the rules?’ she asked, although she knew it was so ‒ dinner guests had mentioned it over the last year.

  ‘Aye, and it causes friction between us because, you see, workers tend to wait for a chance to move to Waterside when there’s a vacancy.’

  ‘That makes an awkwardness.’ The fact was, good workers in the Borders were in great demand, so that no manufacturer liked to lose any to a rival.

  They each went back to their own pursuits. Jenny was sketching an idea for a marled tweed, Ronald was reading a technical journal. The silence grew.

  ‘Ach,’ he grunted, ‘I suppose I’ll have to introduce the fines system.’

  She hid a smile. ‘But, Ronald man, make sure the fines are paid ‒ no letting a lassie get away with it if she slips off before the teatime bell.’

  ‘I hate the whole idea. Ah well, I can have a notice put up to say the fines will start next week, and as I’m away to the wool auctions in London then, they’ll not be able to reproach me.’

  ‘Ritchie and Ainsley will have it all running by the time you get back. You’ll see that the new “tailor’s tartan” is set up before you go?’

  ‘Jenny, I never take any part in that these days! I seem to spend all my time attending meetings, seeing factors and buyers, talking to the bank manager … I haven’t had my hands on a dye tube for weeks.’

  She looked at her sketch with her head on one side, but her thoughts were elsewhere. ‘Times are changing, Ronald. These days a manager has to spend his time managing.’

  ‘But I’m not a manager!’ he burst out. ‘I’m a dye-master! I hate all this fiddle-faddle about rates of pay and definition of practice. And I’m not even all that keen to be consulted about the joining of the Galashiels and Peebles Railway ‒’

  ‘But all the manufacturers were consulted about the volume of business ‒’

  ‘The volume of business! That’s book-keeping! My field is dyestuffs.’

  This would have been the beginning of something he had long wanted to confide ‒ that he wasn’t comfortable any longer in the role of manager now that the job was becoming so specialised. But at that moment there was a sound from upstairs. Heather, who had been put to bed about an hour ago, had awakened.

  Jenny threw down her sketchboard and hurried out. She came back thirty minutes later, peace restored. But the moment had gone by, the opportunity to talk about his problems had passed.

  In London Ronald found yet more to contend with. The Saxony fleeces from this year’s German growers happened to be less abundant than usual because of drought on the sheep pastures. The alternative, the excellent Saxony-merino from Australia, were not plentiful either, because the great London merchants were buying them at the source, in New South Wales. After a week’s hard bargaining Ronald went home, angry and disheartened.

  ‘I bought enough, but by God the competition from the Yorkshire factories was fierce. I tell you, Jenny, that agent of ours in Sydney is worse than useless.’

  Jenny nodded. Henry Chalmers, wool factor, was unknown to them. They had hired him by letter when it became clear that the London mercantile houses had their own men out there ready to do business on the spot. But against the plentiful credit the big merchants could supply, it was very hard for freelance agents to hold their own.

  ‘I read in the Textile Recorder that the London houses are even beginning to buy their own sheep-farms,’ she remarked.

  ‘That’s damned unfair!’

  ‘It’s just good business. If you have a continuing need of a product and you can buy into the production of it, that’s good sense.’

  ‘Meantime supplies are tied up so that manufacturers can’t get at them.’

  ‘Well, that’s not entirely true. We did actually get what we wanted.’

  ‘This time. But I tell you this, Jenny, I’m not looking forward to having to go through that every year. Suppose we came up short in supplies? We’ve orders to fill ‒ if we can’t get the right wool we’d have to renege on our commitments.’

  ‘It’s never happened yet, my love.’

  ‘You weren’t there, Jenny. You didn’t see the infighting. There were dealers there from America and Canada as well as from Italy and Turkey and God knows where.’

  She listened to his worried and irritated recollections of the auction. Then she said, ‘You’d better write to Chalmers and ask him to send us a proper report of how the deals are done in Sydney. Perhaps we need to review how we buy our wools.’

  Somehow he felt she didn’t take it quite seriously. Her main attention was always on Heather, and recently she’d been involved in a campaign to help vagabond children. Most of her free time was spent in correspondence to do with that.

  Jenny had never forgotten the scenes in the infant asylum. She had hired David Bax
ter to find out more about the place. He had helped unearth the awful fact that forty-one children had died over a short period of time under Mr Drouet’s reign. With others, he and Jenny had urged an inquiry. At length that had been held, Drouet had been censured, the home closed down and its inmates dispersed among other, healthier institutions.

  But still the methods of helping children in need were limited. The Boards of Guardians regarded them as lesser citizens, the main problem being to deal with destitute adults.

  One man had put forward a new idea. With financial help from supporters such as Jenny Armstrong, Dr Barnardo had just opened his first home for waifs in Stepney.

  Jenny felt that her own little girl was now strong enough to undertake a journey. Now that Ronald was at home again, she and Heather set out for London, where Jenny would visit the new home for children and meet some of the friends with whom she had corresponded over the last year.

  The house in London seemed infinitely strange when she went into it. More than a year had gone by since Jenny had last been there, though Ronald had been there intermittently on business. She walked through the downstairs rooms, went slowly up the stairs to the drawing room, and looked out over the gardens of the square. Heather, at her side as usual, stared about with interest. No memory seemed to visit her of her homecoming here after the reunion with her mother in the infant asylum.

  They spent ten days in London. Baird urged Jenny to order some new clothes. ‘You’re a sair sicht these days, you havena bought a single new gown for almost two years. And while you’re at it, get some stylish hats ‒ the fashion’s going right away from the wee set-back bonnet.’

  They shopped, they went for outings on the Thames and to the Zoo, in Regent’s Park. When Jenny went to her meetings concerning the welfare of children, Baird sat with Heather. They were a self-sufficient trio, and it struck Jenny that Heather often seemed happy these days ‒ almost on the verge of happy speech.

  Unfortunately on the way home the little girl caught cold. It was nothing serious but Jenny took alarm at once. So the homecoming was marred by immediate demands for hot-water bottles, camphorated oil, flannel chest pads. Ronald watched his wife and the maid bustling about, directing operations, seeing to the little girl’s needs, and realised they were absolutely oblivious of him.