'I am not accustomed to being idle,' Catriona said swiftly. She did not want leisure, with too much time to think. It was too painful to imagine Rory and Susannah together, or to think back, with pride, of what she had accomplished in her short time in Glasgow while she worked with Rory, and which she had been forced to abandon.
'Show me your samples,' Jan suggested. 'You must be tired after your journey, but I'll look at them tomorrow morning, and then perhaps you would care to accompany me to our printing workshop, and see how we manage it. There have been considerable changes since our grandmother's time.'
When she rose the next day, she felt strangely lethargic. The effort of leaving Glasgow, the problems of the journey, her anger and distress at Rory's attitude towards her suggestions for his business, had combined to keep her in a fret of eagerness to reach her family. Now she could relax, and she found an odd lack of enthusiasm for new ventures.
'You need a long rest,' Maigret said when she apologised for sleeping late. 'It sounded to me last night that you have been working very hard for a long time. There was your mother's illness, remember, and then having to find a position and earn your bread, when you had never before even had to contemplate such a thing. It has affected your strength, and we don't want you falling into a consumption.'
Catriona laughed. 'I'm not likely to do that,' she insisted. 'I shall no doubt feel quite energetic in a few days. Has Jan despaired of me, and gone in to work?'
'He'll be back soon. Now drink that coffee and eat the ham, and you'll soon feel better.'
She did as she was bid, and when Jan came in, carrying a bunch of tulips for his mother, she was ready to display her designs and talk about the techniques she had used in each.
'I wish I could have brought my last set of blocks,' she said wistfully. 'I had this idea, you see, of exclusive designs for bed hangings, and curtain drapes, and I wanted to incorporate part of the design in a border. I made blocks which were reversed, animal heads, stags, and I could use two facing each other, or three of them, the facing pair and another which fitted in between. Or that one alone, repeated. Do you understand what I mean?'
'It sounds wonderful, and I really do think these fabrics you have here are excellent. If you want to carve new designs for us,' Jan said, 'I am sure we can use them. I've been looking for something more original for a long time, and from what I have seen of your samples, you can give me just what I need.'
'Really?' Catriona asked. 'Your own business is so long established, you must have many designers. You are not simply being kind to me?'
'You should have more confidence in your talent.'
Catriona reflected that she had once been totally confident, but the argument with Rory, although not about her designs, had shattered her absolute certainty that she knew best.
'Shall I start by carving another set? I shall have to make them slightly different, I can't use the same ones as I left behind in case Rory – Mr Napier, decided to use them, and I doubt if I can remember them precisely. But I can use the idea. I could have lions, or elephants, perhaps.'
Jan was enthusiastic, and took Catriona to select the wood she needed, and buy new tools, for she had left most of the ones she had acquired in Glasgow behind. For the next few weeks she concentrated on new designs, but when she had time, Maigret kept her occupied by insisting on taking her to visit her own friends.
'Many of them have young families, who will love to include you in their activities. I am determined you will not spend all your time working. If you do you will become pale again.'
Without the pressure of running the printing shop, able to concentrate on her designing, Catriona was thankful to have the rest of her time occupied. It helped her to push thoughts of Rory to the back of her mind. Soon she was involved with a lively group of young people who invited her to balls and, as the weather grew warmer, expeditions into the countryside for picnics. Sometimes they took carriages, sometimes they rode, and often they went by barge along the canals.
Frequently her cousin Jan came too.
'Ought you not to be working?' she asked, worried that he was neglecting the business while he kept her company.
'I have excellent managers,' he replied. 'If I cannot take advantage of the useful fact that I own the business, or part of it, in order to spend some leisure time with my delightful new cousin, what is the point of working hard the rest of the time?'
He clearly admired her. He was becoming more particular in his compliments, smiling at her more warmly. When he touched her, handing her into a carriage or barge, or helping her onto a horse, he kept her hand in his just a fraction longer than necessary. Catriona recognised the symptoms of a man paying special attentions to a woman he admired, but she felt nothing.
She freely admitted to herself, when she lay in bed and had nothing else to occupy her mind, that she loved Rory. But he was lost to her. He'd never been hers, and had never been likely to fall in love with her. She doubted whether any other man would ever have the same effect on her. Jan was kind, appreciative of her talents and her person, and showed in a hundred little ways that he valued and admired her. It was early days, but if he was falling in love with her, could she respond when she felt no more than friendliness towards him, and knew it could never be anything deeper? Would she ever be able to love anyone else?
Until working with Rory she had never given much thought to the future. She'd assumed, like most girls, that one day she would marry, but had formed no real ideas of what sort of husband she wanted. Now she knew, and doubted whether she would ever meet another man she could love as she did him. The future prospects looked bleak indeed.
*****
Chapter 16
'What's the problem now?' Rory demanded impatiently. He never seemed to have enough time, and these days there were always a multitude of problems for him to solve. Every day he realised afresh how much Catriona had done, and every day he missed her more. The anger had died, and all he now felt was an aching void.
John McTavish looked across at him and shrugged. 'We need some better designs. Some of your customers have been asking for the exclusive ones you promised them, and they won't accept what David MacFarlane is offering. They say they are too simple.'
'He was the best man we could find in a hurry. Do you want to dismiss him?'
'No, he's adequate for ordinary designs, but he can't produce the same type of imaginative variations such as that set I found in the office. The ones that hadn't been used.'
The ones Cat had made, and never had chance to show him, Rory thought, and frowned. He'd spent hours in the workshop, long after the rest had departed, using old pieces of fabric as he experimented and tried to work out just what she'd intended with the somewhat unusual, repeated but reversed heads of stags.
'So what do you suggest? You're my manager in that area. And what is the problem with the new workshop?'
'Not enough water close by. We need so much for the washing and dying processes, and the well in the yard is so deep it takes one man all day just lifting enough.'
'You chose the site,' Rory reminded him.
'It was the best available at the time, and you were in a hurry to open the new place,' McTavish pointed out rather petulantly, and Rory knew he was right. He had rushed the man into undue haste. If only he'd had Cat beside him, to urge caution, and insist that everything had to be right before they settled on a property.
Rory considered the options. 'We can't move yet. You'll have to make do, even if it means slowing down, restricting the amount we produce. Can we increase production at the first workshop to make up for it?'
'No, not yet. They're slower than they used to be. We need to train another printer, too. Bessie says she's leaving.'
'Bessie? But she's always been so reliable, with us from the beginning. Why?'
Were all his most skilled people deserting him, Rory wondered. Ought he to abandon the whole idea and stick to plain linens, concentrate on repairing more of the bleaching fields, and not try
to make progress? No, he decided, he would not be beaten, he would solve these difficulties. He realised McTavish was speaking again and concentrated.
'She's been offered a higher wage from someone else. I don't know who, she won't say, but Mr MacNab says he can find out.'
Rory sat up, suddenly alert, and stared at him. 'Silas MacNab?' he said softly.
McTavish nodded. 'Aye.'
'Who gave you permission to speak of my business affairs with Mr MacNab?'
The other man looked startled. 'But – I thought – isn't he a partner? That's what I understood, anyway. He's always looking in, asking how things are going. You're betrothed to his daughter, and I assumed, that is, he said – '
'You have no right to assume anything,' Rory said, restraining his desire to hit the man or throw him bodily out of the office. But it wasn't his fault. He was just a pawn. Silas would never change, but Rory was furious with himself for having believed him when he'd promised to keep out of his affairs. A sudden thought struck him. 'Have you ever worked for MacNab?'
McTavish looked worried. 'I worked for him, yes, for a short while before I took the job at Paisley.'
'And was it through him that you heard about my need for a new manager?'
'Yes, yes, he did mention it. I met him one dinnertime in a tavern near his own manufactory. But Mr Napier, that's how word gets about, you hear of opportunities through talking with others.'
'Gossip. What is he paying you?'
'Paying me?' McTavish looked startled, and though Rory pressed him for several minutes, he stoutly maintained he was in no way in MacNab's pay.
Rory eventually sent him away, and sat fuming, wondering what to do. Surely Silas had no wish to damage his business, since he and Susannah would be living mainly on the profits? Was it just his compulsive desire to control everyone around him, to know everything? Was it completely innocent, in fact, and Silas had thought he was doing Rory a good turn by sending McTavish to him? The man was reasonably competent, kept order in the workshops, produced what was asked for on time, and knew how to keep his records properly. But Rory knew neither the old workshop nor the new had the same feeling of enthusiasm for the work as there had been under Catriona's sway.
He knew he'd never have begun this venture without his wild Catriona. She had inspired other people too, not only by her imaginative designs, which they enjoyed using, but by her constant cheerfulness and encouragement. Her absence was reflected in the drop in profits.
Loth though he was to admit it, she had been right not to want to rush into increasing production. He'd had so many problems. Some of the first printers he had employed had not been good enough, or had proved unwilling to learn the new techniques. The dyes had not been of a consistent depth of shade. His customers had been disappointed with the special designs, and demanded to know why these were not what had been offered them by Catriona. Now there were problems with the new workshop, and his vague plans of finding somewhere big enough to move both workshops, and his original office, so that it was all in one place, would have to wait. Profits had slumped, and he could not afford to take the risk.
There was Silas, too, and the demands he and Susannah made. She was as gentle and sweet as ever, but he was beginning to find her clinging need of him oppressive. If he attempted to talk of his problems she listened, but as soon as he paused switched the conversation to her plans for the wedding and the house in which they were to live.
That was another problem. Silas had insisted on providing a far bigger house than Rory thought necessary, and when he protested, replied that it was a gift, and mainly for Susannah.
'It was a bargain, Rory. The owner died, and his widow wanted to move quickly.'
And no doubt you helped to persuade her, in your usual domineering fashion, Rory thought. How much had he cheated the poor woman out of a fair price for her house, to get a bargain for himself?
'You don't want the dear girl to feel she has come down in the world, by moving to a tiny hovel, do you?' Silas asked, slapping Rory on the back. 'She's my only chick, Rory, let me spoil her.'
Rory had given way, though when he discovered that the house Silas wanted was only a few doors away from his own he had deep reservations. Silas, he suspected, would be spending as much time in his house as in his own, and would be liable to drop in at all times of the day, whenever he felt like it.
By the end of May his difficulties had intensified. McTavish resigned, saying he could no longer hope to resolve the problems, especially since he appeared to have lost Rory's trust.
Silas came into his office the day after McTavish left, and clearly knew all about it.
Until now Rory had contrived to keep his temper, not telling Silas of his suspicions, and suppressing his resentment. There was no point in upsetting Susannah or quarrelling with his future father-in-law, but when Silas began to urge Rory to close the printing workshops, Rory responded angrily.
'I'll run my own business, if you please! I'm not putting up with your constant interference.'
Silas looked hurt. 'I'm trying to help, lad. It's to cut your losses.'
'I am not yet making losses,' Rory said. 'I'd have thought your spies would have informed you of that!'
MacNab laughed. 'Not yet, perhaps, but you will be soon. It's been getting worse ever since that chit of a girl left and went to her Dutch family. Her designs were good, for a female.'
'How do you know where she went?' Rory demanded, his heart thumping at the unexpected news.
'My spies!' Silas said, chuckling. 'It's no secret. I had a drink a week or so ago with a fellow from Amsterdam, Wilhelm von Geer, I think he said his name was. Cousin of hers, I believe.'
'Catriona's cousin? He knows where she is?'
'She's living with them now.'
'Why was he here?'
'Some business to do with jewellry, he said. It sounded odd to me, since they produce fabrics, apparently, but he took the opportunity of visiting some of the Glasgow manufacturers.'
There was only one thing to do. After several wretched nights when sleep had eluded him as he turned over the problems in his mind, Rory knew he needed Catriona back. He was doing well, but not so well as he had with her help. If he could persuade her to return they could once more make the business the great success which it had once promised to be.
*****
Catriona had slipped easily into the life of the big house in Amsterdam. Much of the ground floor was given over to offices, but they had ceased using the winch by which bales of cloth used to be unloaded from the barges on the canal in front of the house, and stored in the upper floors. Now the family occupied these upper storeys, and the back house, reached by a passageway to one side of the narrow garden, was kept for visitors.
There were many of these, and she met several other members of the large van Geer family during the next few weeks. They lived in various towns all over the Netherlands and Flanders, and all seemed to have some part in what she had come to understand was an extensive business empire. Some controlled the various stages of production, supervising the weavers, buying the flax, sailing the seven seas in search of markets. They all seemed to come to Amsterdam frequently for making reports, consultations, or to discuss problems. Hans, Maigret's elderly husband, spent his entire life sitting in a huge leather chair behind an enormous desk in his office, like a spider at the centre of his web, controlling it all.
He liked Catriona's drawings, and promised to use some of her designs if he thought they fitted in with his overall scheme.
'You have talent, child, and your designs have a freshness, but I do not give favours to my family. They must all prove themselves, as my sons have proved their own skills, Wilhelm in bargaining, and Jan in supervising the printing works. You must come up to my standards.'
Which were very high, Catriona knew, and she was hesitant in showing Hans her new designs until she had asked Jan's opinion. It was the same idea as the one for which she'd had to leave the blocks in Scotland.
&nbs
p; 'We could use just the three, of the lions lying down, and the centre one facing front,' Catriona said. 'Or I could make two more, lions rearing up, so that we could vary the combinations still more.'
'One colour or two?' Jan asked.
'With about three shades of tawny and brown, and overprinting, we could get a lot of shading from very pale to dark.'
'Did you do anything like this in Glasgow?'
'No, apart from the blocks I left there. I hadn't used them,' she said, and sighed. She looked up and saw Jan eyeing her with suspicion in his gaze, and tried to smile.
She'd been thinking of Rory, what he would have thought when he found the blocks. Most of the time thoughts of him were at the back of her mind, ready to surface when she was not fully engaged on other things. She'd been thinking of him all that day, even more than usual. Firmly she tried to concentrate.
'This is how the blocks can fit together a different way,' she said, and broke off as a maid entered the room.
'Well?' Jan asked, sounding impatient, glancing over his shoulder.
'A visitor, sir, for Mistress Catriona.'
'For me? Who?' Cat asked, surprised. Although she now had several acquaintances in Amsterdam they did not call on her.
'A gentleman. I – I cannot say the name,' the maid said, embarrassed.
'Never mind, show him in,' Jan said, and turned back to look at the blocks once more.
Catriona looked over his shoulder and, suddenly breathless, grasped a table behind her. It couldn't be, but it was. Why had Rory come here? Did he want her back? A wild hope surged through her, and then as quickly she realised that was not the reason for his visit. How could it be? And even if by some miracle he did want her to go back to Glasgow she could not, for there was Susannah. She could not bear to see them together, to know that he loved the other girl and had no idea what she, Catriona, felt for him.
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