A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  I adjusted my hat and took a step forward, then stopped, frowning. “I’m sorry—Mr. Darling, did you say?”

  The clerk nodded, ushering us over the threshold. The little office was stuffy, windowless; the smell of fresh paint hung in the air, but the dark walls were sweating from the steam. From behind a delicate turned-leg desk rose a gentleman in a black velvet suit, far, far too warm for the room. He was thick round the waistcoat, heavily jowled, his mouth turned down in a perpetual frown. Upon seeing me, he gave those bent lips an upward twist, trying to affect a smile.

  “Miss Miller, do come in, come in! Such a delight to have you here at our little”—he coughed—“establishment. What did you think?”

  “Mr. Darling?” I said. “You’re Mr. Arthur Darling?”

  “Primary shareholder of Pinchfields, I am.”

  “And trustee of the cloth market?” I was trembling, unable to believe my stupidity.

  He nodded. “I’m glad to see that your uncle has been able to talk some sense into you, Miss Miller. Trust me, you will not regret an alliance with Pinchfields.” He drew a sheaf of papers from the desk, tidied their corners, and smiled at me—a great wolfish smile, complete with shining teeth. By God, he had sale papers all drawn up already! This wasn’t just a friendly tour…I had been lured into a snare!

  I glanced at Uncle Wheeler. He was leaning easily against the doorframe, studying his fingernails. I took a deep breath of the stifling air.

  “Mr. Darling,” I said, and I am proud of how my voice carried. “I and all the Millers will be cold and dead before you get your filthy hands on Stirwaters.”

  I swiped the papers off that ridiculous desk and tore them in two, scattering the pieces on the brand-new rose-print carpeting.

  That mad fire sustained me all the way through the mazelike corridors to the open air and the waiting carriage. I clambered up and took several deep breaths to steady myself. I was almost calm again when Uncle Wheeler sprang in after me.

  “You stupid girl!” He grabbed my wrist and twisted it up toward my face. I gasped with pain and surprise, and could not breathe with his face so close to mine. “Do you have any idea what that little display cost us?”

  I wrenched my hand from his. “Cost us? What did you think—I would meekly sign over my home? I’m afraid you’ve been quite deceived, Uncle. Rosie was right. They must be plotting something. Your Mr. Darling? He sent the letter from Worm Hill. It can’t be coincidence.” I rubbed my sore wrist and matched him glare for glare.

  He licked his thin lips and frowned delicately. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose that does look rather suspicious. But, my dear, I beg you to reconsider. If this factory has that sort of influence, what chance do you have? Surely you recognize the hopelessness of your situation now.”

  I sank into my seat, gripping my reticule with both hands, where my “chance” was safely tucked away—my precious cheque from Mr. Parmenter. “Never.”

  Uncle Wheeler leaned in over me. Beads of perspiration stood out beneath the white of his wig, and the lilac scent had gone faintly sour. “Charlotte, please—listen to me. You can still go back in there, and—”

  I pulled away and gave a rap to the back of the driver’s box. “Take us back to the hotel,” I said, with such finality even Uncle Wheeler could not protest.

  That night, I found it impossible to sleep. The day’s excitements—the confrontation at Pinchfields; the too-heavy hotel supper, shared in stony silence between my uncle and myself; and—most of all—the fat cheque from Mr. Parmenter haunted my efforts. Something was nagging at me—some unease I could not name. I lay still as a board in the too-soft bed and stared at the wardrobe door where I’d hung my reticule. Surely it was only the burden of carrying so much cash on my person; the sooner I ferried it to Mr. Woodstone’s possession, the better. I imagined scheming innkeepers slipping into those cupboards in the dead of night, by means of secret doors cut through the walls behind them. I’d been living far too long with Rosie, to conceive of such a thing. But I climbed out of bed nevertheless and retrieved it, checking for the thousandth time that Mr. Parmenter’s cheque was still inside. I tucked the little purse beneath my pillow, my arm through its strap. But I was only somewhat comforted.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the morning Uncle Wheeler rapped on my door as I finished dressing. He looked me over with that strange appraising glance before sweeping it across my chambers. I forced myself to smile my good-mornings, wrenching my thoughts from the purse at my side.

  “Oh, good,” he said. “You’re up. I have some business to attend to this morning, so I will be leaving right after breakfast. You—”

  Relief made me careless. “Well, that works out nicely, then. I wanted to go out myself—”

  His gaze darkened momentarily, and I saw my mistake. But rather than delivering a lecture on propriety, Uncle Wheeler dipped into his waistcoat pocket and consulted his watch. Snapping it shut impatiently, he said, “Oh, very well. Just do try to be back by noon, and don’t make a spectacle of yourself.” He slammed out of my room without a backward glance, and I blinked at the doorway in surprise.

  The offices for Uplands Mercantile Bank anchored a city square near the river, just up the street from Pinchfields. The bank stood, solemn and white and heavy, at the crown of the square. Stone steps stretched all along the front, rising slowly to white columns and a line of bronze doors, black with age and city smoke. I tried to imagine Mr. Woodstone climbing these steps each morning, and the picture in my mind of the young man in his scuffed boots and brown hunting coat did not mix at all with this austere backdrop.

  I made my solitary way up those steps, nodding to the liveried footman who held the door for me as I entered.

  Everything inside the bank was shiny: marble tiles, deeply polished wood counters, a domed ceiling with a map of the world in colored glass. I wondered how my father had ever thought to come inside such a place, let alone found courage to ask for money. I was here with money in my purse, and I wished to flee back down that gleaming hallway, down those white steps, and all the way back to the dusty road and mossy stone walls of home.

  Somehow I took myself up to the counter and placed myself at the foot of the line forming at one of the booths. I was the only woman there, and I felt curious eyes upon me. I stared resolutely at the back of the gentleman in front of me, until a little cough sounded at my elbow.

  I turned to see a small man, smartly dressed and bespectacled. “Is—is there something I can help madam with?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you. I’m here to see Mr. Randall Woodstone.” I said it too loudly, and the curious glances turned to outright stares. I suddenly realized how I must look—a girl alone, in a shabby printed dress and no cloak, asking after a young gentleman banker. Thankful for my hat to hide my flush, I added clearly, “My name is Charlotte Miller. I’m here on business for Stirwaters Woollen Mill, in the Gold Valley.”

  My bespectacled clerk relaxed. “Of course, Miss Miller. Right this way, please. Mr. Woodstone’s offices are on the second floor.” He led me off into a maze of glassed doors, cold walls, and further marble stairs. The clerk finally stopped before one door that looked the same as all the others, opened it, and ushered me within.

  “A Miss Miller here to see you, sir.” The clerk bowed and disappeared.

  “Charlotte!” Mr. Woodstone sprang up from his desk. He was in his shirt sleeves, his jacket tossed casually on the chair behind him. “That is—Miss Miller. This is a surprise. Come in, come in!” He fumbled for his coat and shrugged into it awkwardly. There was a great crease down the front, and he looked as though he’d spent the morning shoving his hand through his hair. He leaned across the desk to shake my hand. I withdrew Mrs. Parmenter’s cheque from my reticule and held it before him in both hands. His eyes grew wide.

  “I say, you did it!” He took the check and stared at it a moment, then hit it on the edge of his desk, like a punctuation mark. “Well done—extraordinary. I knew
you had it in you. Everything fare well at the market, then?”

  I gave my too-short skirt a tug I hoped he couldn’t see. “Yes, well. We had a stroke of luck.”

  “Well, you were due one. Here, Miss Miller—sit down, won’t you?”

  “Look, Mr. Woodstone—”

  “Call me Randall,” he said with a wave of his hand, fumbling through some papers on his desk.

  “Mr. Woodstone, I’m afraid that isn’t quite the amount we’d agreed upon. But if you’ll allow me to send you the rest when I return to Shearing—”

  He shrugged. “No matter. You’re good for it.” He gave me a smile that went right to my bones. As I was sorting myself out, he put a stack of papers before me on the desk. “All right, then. Here are the papers for your loan. I’ve taken the liberty of redrawing them to reflect the new payment schedule.”

  As we filled out the new paperwork, ominously now in my name, not my father’s, Mr. Woodstone chattered on like an excitable little boy. “You’re not in the city alone, then, surely? No—let me guess. Your esteemed uncle. Where is the gentleman, then?”

  I must have looked a bit guilty, for Mr. Woodstone laughed. “Flown your fetters, have you? I can’t blame you—but why all the secrecy? Haven’t you told him about me? The loan, that is?”

  I shook my head, uncertain how much to tell him. I wanted to like him; he was terribly likeable, like an earnest dog—but he was my banker. Still, I was grateful to have someone to confide in, if only slightly. And I rather felt I’d paid for the privilege, frankly. “I don’t know. He thinks I ought to sell out. I’m sure he means well, but—”

  Mr. Woodstone shook his head. “But you’re holding out?”

  “Well, of course,” I said. “I can’t just give up. There have been Millers at Stirwaters—”

  “Since the beginning of time.” He smiled. “Your father said something much the same. Look, I have to say—I’m awfully sorry about all of this.” He waved a careless hand over the papers spread on the desk. “I can’t help feeling somewhat responsible—”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” I said. “Why should you? Did you force my father to incur a debt he had no hope of repaying?”

  “Charlotte,” he said gently, and I realized I must sound more bitter than I thought. “We never would have loaned him anything he couldn’t afford to pay back. He must have believed he had the means.”

  “He always believed he had the means. That was the problem.” An uncomfortable silence fell over the stuffy office. Mr. Woodstone studied the papers in front of him, drumming his fingers against the desk. They were as inkspattered as my own, but strong—as if he did something in his off-hours besides scribble in record books. “Look, Mr. Woodstone, you don’t know why my father took out this loan, do you?”

  “I assumed it was for capital improvements to the mill,” he replied. “That’s the reason he gave us, and—oh. Given what you showed me at Stirwaters, I’m guessing he never made them?”

  I shook my head grimly, but a thread of a whisper flitted across my thoughts: This mill don’t want to be fixed up… I shoved it aside. “No. He spent a lot of time tinkering with new ideas for machines, but he certainly can’t have spent two thousand pounds on that.”

  Mr. Woodstone eyed me thoughtfully, until the intensity of those greyish eyes made me look away. “I’m afraid you have a mystery on your hands, then. We don’t require that our clients show us evidence of how they’ve used the money—only that they pay it back. I’m sorry, Miss Miller. I wish I could tell you more.”

  Somewhere I heard a clock chime the quarter hour, and I started. “Dear me, what time is it?”

  “It’s gone half past eleven,” he said. “Why?”

  I rose from my seat and bundled together my hat and reticule. “I promised my uncle I’d be back by noon. I’m sorry, Mr. Woodstone, and thank you—but I must go.”

  He rose with me. “Here, surely you’ll allow me to walk you to the cab stand. It’s the least I can do.”

  As we descended the stone steps into the square, Mr. Woodstone rambled on blithely, inquiring after the wonders of the city I’d witnessed: Had I seen the portrait exhibition at the Royal Gallery? The Botanic Gardens? Taken tea at the Mayfair Hotel? I shook my head and replied that I had been here only on business and hadn’t had the opportunity for anything else.

  “Well, that’s a great pity,” he said. “You and your uncle must accompany me to the opera tomorrow night—as my guests, of course. My father keeps a box, but we never use it…”

  A horrifying image of myself sandwiched between Mr. Woodstone and Uncle Wheeler, in my faded yellow dress and threadbare shawl, nearly brought me up in my tracks. “Oh, but I’m afraid that’s impossible,” I said with admirable smoothness. “We’re leaving this afternoon.”

  “But—” Mr. Woodstone paused—“so soon? I thought you were here for a fortnight. When will I see you again, then?”

  I shook my head, wondering how it could possibly matter to him.

  We had reached the cab stand, where rows of carriages waited for passengers. Mr. Woodstone selected one for me, gleaming black and open to the air. After he gave the driver my address and paid the fare (ignoring my objections), I turned to him.

  “Mr. Woodstone,” I said. “You put your faith in me when others would not have done. Why?”

  He looked only slightly taken aback. He combed his hand through his hair, which had never quite recovered itself, and shrugged. “Let’s say I have a lot of respect for girls—young women—who have to step up and take care of their entire families.” One hand on the coach above my head, he looked down at me. His eyes had gone blue in the bright day. “My mother died when I was born, and I was raised by my sister. My four sisters, really—but mostly Rebecca, the eldest. I see what you’re trying to do, and, well, she’d never forgive me if I let you fail.”

  Something in his words, or those alarming eyes, or the sudden warmth of the waning morning, caused a piercing tightness in my breast. I could not answer that, and so I said, “Four sisters? And I thought Rosie was a handful.”

  Mr. Woodstone laughed aloud. “Trust me, your Rosie can’t have anything on my Marianne.” He rapped on the carriage frame and offered me his hand as I stepped up inside. He may have held it just a moment or two longer than necessary—or that could have been my imagination. “Good day, Miss Miller.”

  As the carriage flew along the cobbled streets, giddiness and relief overwhelmed me. I had succeeded in my business at Parmenter’s, survived my trip to Pinchfields, and relieved myself of a third of my debt. It seemed my Harrowgate début had been quite the triumph after all! I eased back in my seat, determined to enjoy the ride. When I alit at the Colonnade Hotel, I hesitated. I should still have to smooth over the awkwardness with my uncle that had arisen from the scene at Pinchfields, and I did not relish the prospect. Instead, I crossed the street during a gap in traffic, to a little public house with a white-striped awning and a view of the park across the way. I had a few moments and coins to spare; I could treat myself to a cordial.

  I stepped inside and was just about to remove my hat and sink into a booth by the window, when I heard a familiar voice pitched slightly above the other conversation in the room. I looked up and froze. Well in the back, tucked away nearly out of sight near the kitchen, was my uncle. His back was to me, but I would know that robin’s-egg blue coat and lilac-powdered wig anywhere. He was deep in animated conversation with another man I knew—the Pinchfields wool-buyer. It had to be him—he had the same dark angular face and narrow features, the same derisive sneer that had made Rosie say he looked like a ferret.

  My breath caught in my throat. What on Earth had brought those two together—and with such urgency—this morning? I could tell from my uncle’s demeanor that this was no friendly renewal of acquaintance, no casual breakfast between old city friends. I studied them from behind the cloaks a moment longer, straining to hear clear words among the murmur of their voices, watching for shifts in the Pinchfields
man’s ugly face. I wanted to march up to their table and confront them, but I didn’t dare. Before they could see me, before the barmaid could cross the creaking floor to ask me in, I fled the pub and clattered breathlessly across the street and up to my hotel room.

  I longed to question Uncle Wheeler, all the long drive home. But there were other passengers on the stage—and what would I say? “I’ve been spying on you, and I demand you tell me what you and Pinchfields are scheming!” There should be fewer people on the drive tomorrow; perhaps by then I’d have time to form the perfect question, the one that would force my uncle to give up all his secrets. But as the miles rolled past, it began to seem all the more innocent. What had I truly seen? That their meeting had something to do with Stirwaters, I had no doubt. But my uncle had arranged for me to discuss a sale with them; surely the man from Pinchfields had merely been urging my uncle to talk sense into me. Nothing more sinister than that.

  I turned to my uncle, willing him to give something away, but he merely smiled at me absently and patted my hand with his gloved fingers. I heard nothing more about Pinchfields, and though I was still curious, I was grateful for that.

  We arrived late at the inn due to delays on the road caused by the movements of sheep and the vagaries of wealthy passengers who chose, at the last moment, not to travel. Uncle Wheeler was by then in a foul and imperious mood, made no more amenable to discover that they had given away our rooms, and the only accommodations available were a single room on the top floor (for Uncle Wheeler, naturally), and a cramped but tidy cupboard overlooking the stable yard. There was scarcely enough room to turn around in, but it had a bed and thereby satisfied all my requirements. We had missed dinner, but Uncle Wheeler’s persuasion garnered us trays of cold meat and bread. I barely tasted mine, and was asleep in minutes.

  But I did not sleep well. In the dark of the night I awoke to strange noises—laughter, I thought groggily, and something like a henhouse being ravaged by foxes. I mumbled something rude and rolled over, folding my inadequate pillow over my head. A moment later, the raucous concert hit fever pitch. I knew further sleep was hopeless, so I pulled myself out of bed to peer out the window.