A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

“Rosie helps,” I protested. “We couldn’t manage without her.”

  “‘Tain’t what I mean.” She tucked the herbs into pockets in her apron and lowered herself back to the grass. “You’ve a lot of weight on those young shoulders, Charlotte Miller. Let Rosie hoist her fair share.”

  “By painting symbols on the floor and chanting nursery rhymes?”

  She looked sidelong at me. “Oh? And what happened?”

  I clapped my mouth shut. After a moment I said, “Nothing happened, of course.”

  “Oh? I’d not be too sure of that, lass. That big city trip you were planning is back on again, I see. And I don’t believe the rumors that it’s because you mean to sell at last.” The old woman actually winked at me!

  “Yes, it’s back on,” I snapped. “And it has nothing to do with any chalk drawings or mandrake root or—or wood sorrel or sage! So stay away from my sister and good day to you!” I spun on my heel and launched myself back home again.

  “Charlotte Miller.”

  Against my will I turned back.

  “You mind what I said about clearing the air hereabouts. Don’t you presume everything is as it seems by broad daylight.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  But Mrs. Tom had slipped away into the golden afternoon.

  Chapter Ten

  We arrived in Harrowgate after a day and a half on the road, bouncing over dry ruts in an airless stage compartment filled to choking sweetness by Uncle Wheeler’s lilac wig powder. As I had my head half out the coach window for most of the journey, I beheld quite the prospect driving into town. The narrow valley and green hills of home gave way to a flat broad plain, through which snaked the wide grey river and miles of endless golden pasture. We could see the city long before we arrived there, its staggered rooftops and church spires rising up from the landscape like a queer, manufactured mountain range. An arched iron gateway marked the transition from Country to City, and the packed-earth roadway instantly became cobblestones. Everything seemed both huge and curiously close, as if you could stretch an arm out the carriage window and touch buildings on both sides. Of course, you were more likely to have your fingers bitten off by the neighboring carriage horses, clattering past with an astonishing, inexplicable speed.

  Uncle Wheeler had spent the journey instructing me in all manner of city matters: distinguished personages whose paths we may happen to cross, the history and inhabitants of the great houses we passed, the best corner coffee-houses and streets for marketing. It was like someone had breathed life into a penny tour book, and I had only to turn an eye this way or that, and receive the full accounting. I supposed it was understandable; to my uncle, we were home at last.

  But as we drove into the city, he did not relax, as I should have done, coming home after months away; by contrast, he became more excitable by the minute, animated and flushed beneath his powdered cheeks.

  “Why, Uncle,” I remarked as we passed the bustling Stowebridge Market, my uncle’s hands on the grip of his walking stick white with exertion. “Anyone would think you were nervous!”

  At once he withdrew, easing back into the carriage seat and crossing one stockinged leg over the other. “Nonsense, child,” he said languidly. “It’s merely the heat of the compartment.”

  And since I was beating my bone fan rapidly at my own face, I could hardly argue with that.

  Uncle Wheeler had scheduled our appointment at Pinchfields for later that afternoon, which gave me scarcely enough time for my most significant errand. Fortunately, he did not object to my paying a call on “an old acquaintance of my father’s,” and after settling ourselves into the well-appointed inn, my uncle hired a cab to take us across town to the passementerie shop. Round through the foreign streets of Harrowgate we drove, through bricked lanes and grand wide roads crowded with traffic. It flashed by me in a blur; I was too preoccupied to marvel at the unfamiliar landscape. Rehearsing my lines in my head, I clutched my reticule and resisted the urge to reassure myself that the little spool of gold thread was still within. For his part, my uncle was at last mercifully silent, as well.

  The House of Parmenter was literally an old green town-house nestled in a row of residences in a modest neighborhood. The carriage pulled to a stop by a curtained bay window where a young woman sat sewing. Uncle Wheeler looked up long enough to sniff, before pulling open the heavy door for me.

  A grandmotherly woman in a feathered hat waved us in. Her crewelwork dress, with its silk piping and foot-long bullion fringe, made her look like a walking advertisement for Parmenter goods—or a walking sofa. “Good day, good day!” she warbled.

  The girl in the window, a much, much younger copy of the woman, looked up from her needlework with a coy smile. She stared openly at Uncle Wheeler, who lingered in the foyer behind me as the older woman shuffled out from her heaps of paperwork and samples.

  “My good man, what can I do for you? The House of Parmenter is at your service. Custom embroidery? Lace cravats? The finest imported silk thread?” Mrs. Parmenter looked me up and down through tiny spectacles. “Or perhaps a wedding costume for your young lady, hmmm…Mother-of-pearl buttons, linen mantua-lace light as air…” She swept a tape from the desk and advanced on me like a matador.

  “I think not,” Uncle Wheeler said in clipped tones that let all the air out of poor Mrs. Parmenter. “Charlotte, do get on with whatever your—business here is. I will await you in the carriage. Do not tarry.” He turned toward the door and paused, his hand lifted toward a length of silver braid. He examined it for a moment with some evident scorn, and then said, “Have ten yards of this sent to Burke’s and Taylor. I fancy a travelling coat.”

  “Heh,” Mrs. Parmenter said, as the landing door closed with a snap. “And I’ll be sure to hurry that along, won’t I?” She gave me a great wink. “Who are you then, dearie?”

  I started, quite unable to be nervous in the face of this reception. “Charlotte Miller, ma’am. I’ve come—”

  Her blue eyes grew wide. “You’re never James Miller’s girl!” She bundled me to her bosom in a flutter of gold lace. “Oh, my dear. Go right up, go right up. Mr. Parmenter will be so pleased to see you. Such friends, your father and my Irwin, you know.”

  Mr. Parmenter’s office was no tidier than Mrs. Parmenter’s desk. A bright workroom under a flood of cracked skylights, it was crowded with desks and tables piled high with sample books. Tacked up on every wall were scraps of gold lace, silk fringe, and braids and trims of every conceivable design.

  “Hello?” I stepped tentatively over a box of spools. “Mr. Parmenter?”

  Mr. Parmenter emerged from the muddle, a slight older fellow with thinning hair well-waxed and curled, his neck draped about with yards of trim like a tailor’s measuring tape. “What did you say your name was?” he said, peering at me in some confusion.

  “Charlotte Miller, sir. I’ve come from Shearing. Your wife—that is, the lady belowstairs, seems to think you knew my father, James?”

  Mr. Parmenter was scribbling notes on a scrap of parcelwrapping. “Hmm? What’s that? Oh—clothier, I believe. Some odd bits about that business, though—you’ll want to stay away from them.”

  “No, Mr. Parmenter—I am Miss Miller.” Clearly, talk would get me nowhere. I opened my reticule and withdrew the spool of gold thread and set it on the worktable. It shone like sunlight itself in the brightly lit workroom, a radiant coil of pure gold that made Mr. Parmenter’s other luxurious wares seem tawdry by comparison.

  Mr. Parmenter stared at the spool for the longest moment, his mouth half open, a blot of ink blooming at the end of his pen. At last he composed himself and gave the thread the same suspicious examination it had endured at my own hands.

  “Where did you get this?” he said, almost reverently.

  “Tradesman. Can you use it?”

  He eyed the thread as if afraid to give away his eagerness. Oh, that was a look I understood very well! “How much can you supply?”

  “Oh, nearly a
thousand of the like. Can—”

  “My dear, you are the answer to my prayers! Wait—did you say one thousand? Of this? Are you pulling my leg, then, miss?”

  “No, indeed, sir. I am quite serious.”

  He turned to me, and a flood of words poured out of him. “You can’t imagine what a trial it’s been this season! There are outrageous taxes on local gold, and tariffs on imported gold are so bad the lacemakers can’t afford it, and if you could get me one hundred spools of this by the end of the month you will absolutely save my life. A thousand!” He broke into a little giggle, rummaging through a heap of tambours and ledgers and uncovering a receipt book. “I can offer you ten shillings sixpence per spool. I know, it’s low—”

  “I need fifteen.”

  He pursed his lips. “My dear, I can’t even sell it for that—and that’s retail. I can maybe go up to twelve shillings—maybe twelve and six…” He shook his head sadly.

  “Mr. Parmenter, what are the wyre-drawers charging these days? It must be close to four or five pence a yard. I’m offering you a bargain at fourteen and six.” I stepped in closer and rolled the spool toward him, the gold thread pouring onto the desk like a ribbon of light.

  “Will you take thirteen?” he asked in a small soft voice. I forced myself to breathe easily. That would bring us some twelve pounds short of Mr. Woodstone’s bill—but I had managed to squirrel away a little money during the summer, and Mr. Woodstone did not seem the type to quibble over farthings.

  “Very well, Mr. Parmenter, I think we have a bargain.”

  “Splendid!” He scrawled something in the register, and ripped the cheque from the booklet. “Now, miss, I’ll give you forty percent now, and the balance when we fetch the stock.”

  “Mr. Parmenter, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for ready money.”

  “But, miss—I couldn’t possibly. Oh, there’s no way—”

  Feeling wickeder than sin, I reached for the spool and slowly drew it away. Six hundred pounds was an absolute fortune, and I had no reason to assume the Parmenters had that sort of money lying about for the taking. Still, it couldn’t be helped—if this was the only way…but I had to be careful. I had more to lose here than Mr. Parmenter.

  He watched me with quavering breath, then scowled and tore up the first cheque. “Fine, although I shudder to think what Bessie’ll do to me when she finds out.”

  I allowed myself one deep breath. “Thank you, sir. The stock is available immediately.”

  “Oh? Good, good. I’ll send a man for it at the end of the week.” He eyed me over his spectacle rims as he passed me the money. “Are you sure you don’t have a source for silver as well?”

  I smiled and shook my head, and Mr. Parmenter led me to the doorway. “Mr. Parmenter, what did you mean about staying away from the Miller business? What was odd about it?”

  He scowled, the little eyes bleary. “Odd? Whatever gave you that idea? Nonsense. Now, if we can ever do business together again—” and he hurried me right down the stairwell before I could so much as blink back at him.

  As I made my way downstairs, I could not suppress my smile. It wasn’t exactly Worm Hill Cloth Exchange, but I think I did not do too badly in the end.

  Uncle Wheeler had not quite made it past the foyer, having been detained in conversation by the girl in the window, a sharp-featured beauty who had turned her arched eyebrows like a weapon on my uncle. He was leaning casually in the doorframe, bending over her slightly as she laughed and swept her curls from one shoulder to the other. I clattered down the last few steps as gracefully as a dairy maid. At my entrance, she gave me one scornful look and stabbed her stitching brutally with her needle.

  “All done, Charlotte?” Uncle Wheeler murmured absently. He drew the young woman’s hand to his lips with an alarming smile, and blew a kiss through the air across her wrist. She blushed very prettily as Uncle Wheeler took my arm and steered me outside.

  “Pretty thing,” my uncle said.

  “She’s no older than I am,” I said.

  “Well, we’ve talked about that before, Charlotte—you’re quite of a marriageable age. As am I, when it comes to that.”

  “She’s just a seamstress,” I said cruelly—just to see what should happen. Uncle Wheeler dropped my arm abruptly and turned his smile on me.

  “Yes, but she’ll have a lovely afternoon now, won’t she?” He stepped toward the waiting cab and held out a hand. “Come along now, we don’t want to leave the gentlemen at Pinchfields waiting.”

  My stomach turned, and I was more than happy to climb into the carriage, where the noise of traffic inhibited any further conversation.

  Pinchfields was a misery: an ugly, dark, filthy, stinking nightmare of industry, crouched on the banks of the Stowe like a great hulking beast, covetously gripping its sere acre of land and spewing black smoke into the heavy air. Two vast buildings, their red brick faces barely broken by windows, wound round themselves in a tangled labyrinth until it was impossible to make heads or tails of anything. The river slinked beside, so slow and rank I could barely believe it was the same Stowe I had lived beside all my life.

  Uncle Wheeler was enchanted. “The factory is only five years old, Charlotte,” he said as we alit from our hired cab. I could not credit it. Its dark walls and grimy windows spoke of ages and ages on this spot, and surely they had dogged our footsteps at Stirwaters longer than that! Yet as we approached I saw the cornerstone, stamped with the date, implacable as the walls themselves.

  We were shuttled through an iron gate, where a Mr. Edgewater, a stout man in middle age, sweating and mopping his wilted wig with a silk handkerchief, was waiting for us. He shook Uncle Wheeler’s hand heartily, but barely noticed me.

  “Welcome, welcome,” he huffed, striking out for a barred door in the brick wall. “I am instructed to give you the grand tour. I’m sure you’ll be very impressed. We’ve made some recent improvements in the weaving rooms—” He halted, apparently out of breath, and cast his glance back toward us. “That is, rather—well, come along, then.” He shoved us forward into a dim, clanging workroom.

  “What is that noise?” I cried before I could stop myself. It truly seemed as though we’d stepped into the belly of a dragon—dark and hot, with a roar and a hiss so loud I barely heard my own voice.

  Mr. Edgewater laughed, and it was not a friendly sound. “Steam!” he cried, loud above the dragon’s breath. “That’s steam, my dear girl. No clumsy waterwheels here—we use only the very latest equipment.” He pointed to the ceiling, at the snaking network of painted pipes shuddering slightly in their bindings. I followed them with my eyes, up through a hole in the ceiling. Wool works best in heat and damp; if Pinchfields had found a way to create those ideal conditions, it didn’t matter how poor their raw materials were. They could make it up in the processing.

  We followed Mr. Edgewater through five floors in two buildings with hundreds of workers in thrall: children barely old enough to dress themselves and hollow-eyed girls hunched, flushed and coughing, over their machines, where the stench of sweat and sickness overpowered even the smells of wool and grease. It had none of the light and room of Stirwaters, nothing of the view and air; no space even to step back and take a breath. The workers might have been chained to their machines for all the freedom they had to move about; they stood and worked in a slow, dispirited trance.

  By happenstance I chanced upon Abby Weaver there, working a massive plying frame, her nimble fingers red and blistered, cheekbones standing out too clearly in her face. She started when she saw me (as surely I did as well).

  “Mistress!” she cried, looking up briefly before turning back to her work. The threads she was winding into yarn had skips and slubs in them, an uneven batch of workmanship that would never have passed at Stirwaters. She pinched at odd bits of the yarn, as if trying to mend the errors before it became her sloppy workmanship, but to no avail.

  “Where’s Tom?” I said, pitching my voice above the din.

  �
��Home,” she said, slipping aside the rings and spools. “He broke his leg and lost his post. He’s watching the baby, at least.”

  What kind of “home” must they have here, this lost branch of my Stirwaters family? A windowless room on a back alley somewhere, their children never to run in the willow groves or splash in the streambed? I clutched my purse with stiff fingers and realized that Abby was shouting at me.

  “…a machine here that weaves by itself,” Abby was saying. “You should go look; they say it’s a wonder!”

  “I’m sure!” I called back. With great effort I managed to leave Abby there. Thoroughly sickened by the whole place, I made myself follow my uncle and our guide.

  Soon enough, we entered a vast room of almost unfathomable depth, stocked with row upon row of looms—twenty, fifty—I lost count. One girl worked two or three, and she was not weaving: She was watching. The machines themselves were weaving—the shuttles flying back and forth through the sheds, the battens banging up and down in a deafening, oppressive rhythm. I stepped forward, drawn into that clattering nightmare as if it had hypnotized me.

  This was it, then, the end of the world I had felt upon us when Father died. It wasn’t fire or famine or debt that would destroy us. This was Progress. Stirwaters wasn’t venerable, we were just old. How could we survive in the face of this massive, inevitable newness? I wanted to escape those stifling rooms and the beasts that lived there, devouring my future with every steaming breath.

  “Shall we step into the office?” Mr. Edgewater’s voice broke into my thoughts.

  “Indeed,” Uncle Wheeler said with a sniff. “It is a bit close in here.”

  Mr. Edgewater brought us to a closed door on the highest level, glassed over and ill-fitting in its frame. I could see shadows moving behind the frosted panes. Our guide tapped obsequiously on the glass, and a liveried clerk stepped out and bowed.

  “Miss Miller,” he said, the first person in this entire factory to call me by name. “Mr. Darling will see you now.”