Broken Threads

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘According to Mr Armstrong’s instructions I have set in hand the inquiry for a sheep station to buy. At present there is nothing on the market that would be worth your interest so while I wait for a good property, I wonder if you would be so kind as to put in writing the exact requirements? It would help me very much, although you may be here yourself to make the final choice.’

  ‘Dear God!’ Jenny exclaimed, clutching her two hands together around the paper. ‘A sheep station? Without even consulting me?’

  Now she was angry. It wasn’t enough that Ronald expected her to come rushing to the other side of the globe, he was making decisions that meant a great expense ‒ and without even asking her opinion.

  She sat down immediately and sent a message by cable and telegraph, to be passed on as a written directive to the first ship en route for Sydney. By this means short messages could reach the destination in about six weeks instead of eleven.

  ‘William Corvill and Son to H. Chalmers Esq, Bridge Place, Sydney, New South Wales. No intention of buying a sheep farm. Do nothing at all until you hear further from me.’

  At the same time she wrote again to Ronald. It was in a different tone from the last letter. She said rather tersely that the news from Mr Chalmers about the sheep station had surprised her very much, especially as it was the first she had heard of it.

  ‘I believe that is another matter we ought to discuss when you are home again, my dear.’

  When she signed it she still called herself his affectionate wife, but there was precious little affection in the letter itself. Afterwards she was sorry. But she had been made very angry.

  It was difficult to keep her mind on the day to day business of the mill. She was often inattentive when she was with her friends. Archie Brunton remarked on it. ‘There’s something very serious on your mind these days,’ he remarked, as they waited to take their places at a formal charity dinner in Selkirk.

  ‘Not at all, Mr Brunton.’

  ‘Tell the truth, Mrs Armstrong. I’ve got to know you quite well over the last six months ‒ I can tell when you are worried.’

  ‘I assure you, I’m not in the least worried.’

  ‘If it’s anything to do with money …’

  ‘No, really ‒’

  ‘I mean it, Mrs Armstrong. You know I am a wealthy man. If your firm needs money, you have only to ask.’

  ‘In all seriousness, Mr Brunton, business has never been better at Waterside Mill. But I thank you for the offer.’

  He sighed. ‘Ah, Jenny, Jenny, you’ll never let me be a real friend, I know. But I must be thankful we can at least speak to each other without sharpness now.’

  She smiled and nodded. She knew he was in earnest. Whether it was only a temporary change or not, he wasn’t the same man who had first come home to the Borders. There hadn’t been a whisper of amorous scandal about him. He seemed to have given up the pursuit of pretty ladies. It was even possible to be with him and hear only the usual compliments that gentlemen were supposed to offer ladies ‒ and to tell the truth some of the ladies were quite disappointed at the change in him.

  The dinner was for the Weavers’ Benefit Fund. At its end, a signal honour was bestowed on Jenny. She was elected a member of the Manufacturers’ Corporation. It was something she had often longed for in the past, the mark of equality with the other mill owners, withheld until now because she was a woman. But her good advice on the introduction of the Reform Act had impressed them. She was forgiven for being a woman, she was welcomed into the fold.

  It should have made her feel triumphant. Instead, it made her feel old.

  Congratulations flooded in over the next week or two. She pretended to be very pleased. Inwardly she was saying, ‘What does all this matter, if my husband insists we leave home and start again?’

  In November came another letter from Henry Chalmers, a long letter from the feel of the folded paper in the envelope.

  ‘Dear Mrs Armstrong,

  Thank you for your express message concerning the purchase of a sheep station. In any case I had withdrawn from the negotiations for reasons which I feel it my duty to lay before you. Forgive me if the facts give you pain, but I believe I am doing right.

  I was in error in thinking Mr Armstrong wished to buy a sheep station. Further inquiry on my part ascertained that he was seeking a small farm for his own occupation. His letter to me had not made it quite clear and sometimes his travels through the Riverina have made it difficult to keep in communication.

  He returned to Sydney before the arrival of your express message. When he heard I had written to you on the matter of the sheep station, he was angry, although at the time I could not understand why. He told me he wished to buy a small property. I was at a loss.

  Subsequently rumour has made his intentions clearer. People are saying he has an attachment to a young woman on one of the stations. I have no way of ascertaining the truth of this but it seems to be borne out by his wish to buy what one might call a “family property”.

  If you know better than I do on this point and are satisfied that Mr Armstrong’s actions are on your behalf or on behalf of William Corvill and Son, then I can only make the most abject apologies. But the rumours here are very strong, and since my loyalty is to William Corvill and Son I have ceased to act for Mr Armstrong and shall continue in this unless I hear from you to the contrary.

  I enclose some reports on the quality of the wool from recent shearings, and a piece from the local paper on farmers’ incomes.

  Your humble and obedient servant, Henry T. Chalmers, Buying and Shipping Agent.’

  If Ronald’s letter about removing to Australia had shocked Jenny, this one shattered her.

  Luckily it had come to the mill office. She let it fall from her fingers on to the desk, covered her eyes, and shut out the world for a long moment.

  Heather, sitting in a small chair by the window doing ‘sums’, looked round. Mama was perturbed. She got up, came over, put her hand on Jenny’s arm, and leaned against her.

  Jenny took the deepest breath she’d ever taken, to force life back into her deadened body. She uncovered her face. Heather was staring at her in alarm. She knew she was as white as chalk.

  ‘It’s all right, my pet. It’s all right.’

  Heather put a hand up to Jenny’s brow, as she had seen Baird do when her mother had the headache. Her hand was warm and sticky. Jenny captured it, kissed it with foolish fervour, and hugged the little girl to her. ‘It’s all right. I haven’t got a headache. Come, let’s go out for some fresh air.’

  Heather was astonished. She had recently learned to tell the time so she knew the wall clock said only nine in the morning. At nine Mama looked through the morning mail, dictated letters to the clerk, surveyed the order book, listened to any problems from the foremen. Somewhere between ten and eleven they would go up to the studio on the top floor. Mama would work on her designs, or look at samples of wool, or survey past pattern books in search of a nuance, a shade.

  But they never went out until they set out for Gatesmuir at lunchtime.

  Yet it was exciting to be going out at an unusual time. She ran to get her serge jacket while Mama wrapped her cape around her. Outside, everything seemed different ‒ the light at nine was different from the light at noon, the grey sheen of a November morning was resting on the red sandstone facades, the cobbles glistened in a different way.

  They walked to the new bridge over the Gala. It was close to the railway station, a fine object for a walk because one could drop sticks into the river at the same time as keeping an eye open for the plume of steam from an approaching train.

  But the place was busy, a train was just in and passengers were hurrying to and fro. Mama led her further up the slope of Buckholm Hill. Soon they could look back past the cottages of Buckholmside to the roofs of the town, grey slates shining with the remains of morning mist, trees with late autumn branches specked with a few green leaves, the hum of industry from the mills.

 
; Heather forgot that Mama had seemed upset. She ran to and fro picking up treasures ‒ acorns, a pigeon feather, a metal ring from some gentleman’s walking stick.

  Jenny stood in the shelter of the bare oak trees. The letter from Chalmers was in her pocket. She took it out, reread it.

  Another woman. She should have guessed.

  Despite the hesitancies of Chalmers’ letter, she knew the rumours in Sydney were true. All the things that had puzzled her were made clear by this shocking fact.

  There had been no letter from Ronald for some time. She’d thought she had offended him by the tartness of her reaction to the supposed buying of the sheep farm. She realised now that she had silenced him because he didn’t know what to say in reply.

  And all that had gone before; the strange, urgent summons for her to come out and start again with him in a new land ‒ she should have said yes, she should have replied that she was coming at once. Because that had been his plea for help. She could guess at it, feel it in herself ‒ he had known he was falling in love with someone else and had made a last attempt to shore up their marriage.

  And she had failed him.

  She reminded herself with horror that she had received the letter in May, he had probably written it in March, and now it was November. November! Eight months had gone by. God alone knew what had happened since then.

  She looked at the date on Chalmers’ letter. September 4. Two months ago it was a well-known piece of gossip in Sydney that Ronald Armstrong was involved with a young woman from one of the sheep stations of the Riverina. Involved enough to be wanting a home for the two of them, a farm they could handle themselves, perhaps. By now he might have found it. They might be living together.

  She took refuge in movement, walking suddenly to and fro under the oak branches. Heather ran up, looking at her and rubbing her hands against her arms to signify that it was cold standing still, that she understood why Mama was walking about.

  Jenny took her hand. They went on up the hill. At the top the air was cold and moist. Sheep moved among the tussocks of tough grass. In the distance a dog barked. Buckholm village lay on the far side, but it was too long a walk for a little girl of six.

  What was she to do? The question rose up in front of Jenny, like a wall she must scale. What could she do? She was so far away from the man she loved, separated by oceans and by time. If she wrote begging him to remember her, to remember their little girl and the love they had shared, it would be months before the desperate words reached him.

  In any case, were those the words to write? She couldn’t help remembering that it was over Heather they had quarrelled. Everything had begun to go wrong from the moment Heather was taken away.

  She tried to examine Ronald’s behaviour, without rancour but without excusing him either. At first he had been as stricken by Heather’s loss as Jenny. But he had been willing to accept that the child was dead long before Jenny would even consider it. He had wanted her to give up the search.

  She understood that when she at last found the missing child he had been glad, but he had been unhappy too ‒ full of guilt for his own lack of faith, full of guilt for his moment of rejection when he first saw Heather again.

  Had there been some resentment towards herself too? She had been proved right, he had been proved wrong ‒ perhaps it was too much to expect a man to feel total love and acceptance of a woman who had put him in the wrong.

  And then, her own behaviour … She had forgotten everything except Heather, Heather and her needs. The wounded child ‒ wounded in her spirit, in her faith in humanity ‒ had taken up all Jenny’s attention.

  To her it had seemed natural, right, necessary. But how had it seemed to Ronald? He had said, in so many words, that she was too indulgent to the child. His view was the one shared by most of the world ‒ that children should be strictly brought up, that they should know their place, that they should be seen and not heard. In the last respect Heather was an ideal child, for she hardly uttered a word. But that too had been thought of as stubbornness rather than as the scar of a deep wound. And it had led to Ronald’s sense of shame when others thought the little girl mentally damaged.

  Jenny had gone by her own instincts. She might have spoiled Heather ‒ only time would tell. But as she walked on the hillside with her daughter’s hand in hers, she felt she had not done badly. Heather was still very silent, and still clung to her mother. But she had gained some confidence, some gaiety, some lightness. She was quick and clever no matter what the rest of the world might think.

  Even so, even so … No husband likes to be put so much in second place, even by his own child. She had heard other women speak of the problem ‒ the irritation of the man when his wife had to give her time and energy to the children instead of to himself. In the course of family life the thing resolved itself naturally ‒ the child wormed its way into the father’s heart and he ceased to feel any resentment. Heather, alas, had not regained her father’s love. He had been at a loss how to handle her.

  When she looked so far back, Jenny’s mistakes seemed plentiful. For years she had been neglecting Ronald. He had seized on the idea of travelling to Australia as a way to be a man to himself again, instead of merely husband to Jenny Corvill, father to the dimwitted child, manager of the firm he had married into but had no share in. The cry rose up within her: How could I have been such a fool?

  Yet at the time she had done what she felt she had to do. Heather had been her first thought. Heather had needed her in a way that Ronald did not.

  For God’s sake, she exclaimed, in her own defence, he was a grown man! Surely he could see that the child came first?

  Yes, he could see. He had accepted her course of action. But that didn’t make it easier for him. Their love for each other had suffered. She had to be honest and admit it. After Heather was kidnapped she and Ronald had ceased to be close physically. She had often been too anxious or too tired to want to make love. And when they did, it had not been like the old days.

  The old days. At the words her thoughts turned back to the time when Ronald had first taken her in his arms. They had been happy, confident lovers. With him there had been none of the near desperation that had sometimes haunted Jenny. They seemed right together. Time and separation had taught them that they needed each other.

  At least … it had taught her that she needed Ronald. The day that she saw him again had been like a new dawn. She had needed him, wanted him, been enraptured by his mere presence ‒ that tall angular body, the long face with its glinting smile, his dry manner of speech.

  Had he needed and wanted Jenny? Yes, of course, why else had he come back to her from Perth? Yet perhaps he hadn’t wanted a marriage.

  Certainly she’d given him no time to think about it. Within months they had been man and wife. Now that she came to look at it, with unbiased vision, she wondered if perhaps she’d been selfish and precipitate ‒ and Ronald had been too kind-hearted to draw back once she’d shown her need of him.

  As she walked on the hill Jenny tried to be completely fair. It might really be that she had rushed Ronald into marrying her. But if that were so ‒ and that having been admitted ‒ he was now in fact her husband. He had taken the vows at the marriage ceremony, he had signed the parish register. Just as it was her duty to try to be a good wife to him, it was his duty to be a good husband. A good husband doesn’t want to reject his own daughter. He doesn’t resent her. He doesn’t leave home to get away from her.

  And he doesn’t take up with another woman.

  The thought hurt her so much that she had to bite her lip to keep from sobbing. She couldn’t bear to think of Ronald in someone else’s arms. It stormed over her like a tidal wave ‒ she missed him, she missed him. All this past year while he had been gone she had been growing more and more colourless, more sad-minded. Without him there to mirror back humour and wit and intelligence, she was diminished. The days seemed long without him there to hear her news and tell her his thoughts.

  A
nd the nights … Her body recalled the touch of his hands, the warmth of his skin against hers. Even when they didn’t make love but simply lay in companionship with arms about each other, there was a joyful contentment. But when passion took them, life was changed ‒ they entered a different universe where auroras flamed and galaxies wheeled.

  She had lost that with his going, and even before his going. She had retreated from that wonderland into her shell of anxiety over the child. She said to herself, I denied him that ‒ no wonder he ceased to love me.

  The grey of the day was being touched with a faint pearly sunshine, but it was still cold. Heather came running up, tugging at her hand in a suggestion that it was time to go back to the warmth of the mill.

  Sighing, she led the little girl down the hill path to the bridge and the streets of the town. Her mind was still whirling. But at least this much had been accomplished: she had recovered from the first shock, she was fit to meet her manager and her workpeople without breaking down.

  If she thought she was completely herself again, she was wrong. Everyone noticed that something ailed her. Gaines decided to handle the problem over the late rail collection by himself, and the dye-master withdrew from an argument about his new light blue without forcing a decision.

  They knew her well. If something troubled her so much, they felt they must be kind to her. Among her friends something of the same spirit prevailed. At a party at the Misses Wilsons’ she was poor company and lost continually at cards, yet no one scolded her.

  Word went round: Mrs Armstrong was unhappy. Two and two were put together ‒ there had been a letter from her Australian agent, she was downcast, it had contained bad news. Money lost? Wool shipments astray? But it must be more than that, they felt. In the face of business problems, Jenny Armstrong was generally full of fight. Now, for the first time, she seemed beaten.

  At the end of that week Jenny had guests to dinner ‒ nothing elaborate, just good food and wine and the opportunity for talk. The guests were Mr Kennet and his wife, the textile agent for one of the Hamburg warehouses and his wife, Mr McCardie of the Dighton Mill, Miss Lambert of Highton Rise, and Archie Brunton.