Shining Threads

by Audrey Howard

  The thought gave him the strength to speak sympathetically to his brother. Really, he thought, with a sardonic twist of his young mouth, one could almost laugh about it had it not been so painful.

  ‘Do you want something to eat?’

  ‘No.’

  Drew sat down heavily and stared moodily at the empty coffee cups in front of him and the two servants exchanged glances which asked quite clearly what the devil the young master had been up to now? If he had nothing better to do than fiddle with a teaspoon all day, they had, and if he was not to break his fast why didn’t he beggar off and get changed for his day’s work at the mill and leave them to theirs?

  He lifted his head suddenly as though seeing them there for the first time. ‘You two can go,’ he muttered. ‘If I need anything I’ll help myself.’

  The servants, all bustle and activity now, left the room smiling, relieved to escape for the time being the uncertain tendencies of the Greenwoods’ volatile nature which could, at a moment’s notice, turn from the blankness of utter boredom to the sheer exuberance of some anticipated escapade. God knows which would take shape today with the pair of them looking as though they’d lost a guinea and found a farthing.

  They sat for five minutes without speaking, then Pearce cleared his throat painfully.

  ‘What are we to do, brother?’

  Drew laughed harshly. ‘Only God knows and He’s not speaking to me.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but we must speak to one another.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely.’ He twisted round in his chair to stare blindly out of the window. ‘Do you know, when I was having a quiet drink with myself last night – I couldn’t face the actress, you see – out on the moor actually, I had the strangest thought.’

  ‘Oh, yes, and what was that?’

  ‘What would have happened if she had chosen one of us?’

  ‘The irony of it has not escaped me, either.’

  They were silent for a distressing moment while Drew blinked rapidly.

  ‘I would have killed you for her.’

  ‘I know, so at least that has been averted.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One must try to see the bright side, I suppose, or so they say, but I’ll tell you this. I’m not hanging about to see her go up the aisle with that bloody . . .’

  ‘You think it will come to that?’

  ‘He’s calling tomorrow, isn’t he, with the express purpose of seeing Aunt Jenny. What else could it be but . . . ?’ Pearce could not continue and felt his heart constrict with angry pain. My God, was this what it did to you? This raging, savage jealousy which ate into him. It had him in such a damaged state he could not think beyond the desperate certainty that he could not stay here to see her married to another man. And the laughable thing, the almost hysterical thing that had him nearly in tears was that he was suffering it twice, for himself and his brother, and he knew Drew felt exactly the same. They had shared most things: their hatred of the mill and their hopeless attempts to escape it; their love of this land, this harsh north-country land which had bred them; their light-hearted disposition, their arrogance, their hot heads and warm hearts which had fallen in love a dozen times, often sharing the favours of the same pretty girl. And now, irony upon irony, they were in love, both of them, with Tessa Harrison.

  ‘Seen the newspaper?’ he went on curtly.

  Drew turned to stare at him. His face was drawn, unshaven, his eyes quite blank, dead somehow, and yet in them was a prick of bewilderment as though his brother’s question was beyond him just at the moment. His shoulders sagged.

  ‘I can’t say that I have. Is there something interesting in it?’

  ‘Read that.’

  ‘I don’t think I can drum up a great deal of concern.’ Drew turned away again, then stood up and walked slowly to the window. Putting a hand on either side of it he leaned against the frame and stared down the long sweep of lawn towards the lake and the trees on the far side.

  ‘I love this place, you know,’ he said almost dreamily and Pearce knew, with a kind of surprise, that his brother was near breaking point and that it was up to himself to provide the answer for both of them; that for the first time in their eighteen years, one of them must take the lead.

  ‘Listen, Drew,’ he said quietly. ‘Listen to this.’ And he read the report of the Russian defeat at Giurgevo.

  There was a long, almost death-like silence. Then Drew turned to him and this time Pearce knew he had his attention.

  ‘Stirring stuff.’

  ‘You know what I’m saying, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘An adventure at last. We have always, since we were boys, dreamed of one but we were forced into the mill. Made to see where our duties lie. And for the past year we have done it. Now, for a little while at least, I think it is our time. It might put Charlie and Aunt Jenny in a bind but I’m certain our combined contribution to the running of the mill could be easily taken care of by one little piecer! There will be someone to take our place for a . . . well, however long it takes. A month or two, perhaps . . . until the . . . wedding is . . .’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘It has to be faced, dammit.’ Pearce’s voice was hard and angry. He was suffering pain for the first time in his life and he was angry. He did not know how to deal with it beyond getting away as far as possible from its source.

  ‘How are we to manage it?’ Drew’s voice still dragged but he had straightened up. There was a look almost of hope about him, as though the torpor had shifted somewhat like a mist when the breeze touches it, revealing a path which might be explored, a path which might lead to a way out of it.

  ‘Get on our horses and simply ride away.’

  It was, strangely, Will Broadbent who drew to the attention of their uncle when he returned from London that Drew and Pearce Greenwood had not been seen for a couple of days.

  ‘Maister says ’as ’ow he wants to see them lads of ’is,’ the young lad who had been sent to deliver the message, told Will.

  ‘Well, they’re not here, tell him,’ Will answered flatly, not at all sure he wanted to be involved with any of her family just now. ‘I was told by Mr Wilson they’d gone away.’

  ‘Gone away?’ Mr Greenwood repeated to him ten minutes later. ‘Gone away where?’

  ‘Nay, don’t ask me.’ Will’s voice was short, curt even, but Charlie did not notice as the first trickle of annoyance ran through him. ‘Who told you they had gone away?’

  ‘Well, I suppose it was Mr Wilson, but he’d been told by . . . Nay, I don’t know. It seemed to be just sort of accepted . . .’ To tell the truth he could not for the life of him remember how he had come by the knowledge, or the rumour, if that was what it was. It seemed that all those in the managers office, each one assuming it had come from the other, were convinced those ‘damned lads’ had been given permission to absent themselves and yet here was Mr Greenwood looking madder than a wet hen. Perhaps this time he’d give ’em what for.

  ‘Have they not been home, sir?’ he said calmly. Dear God, they’d bred a pack of wild cats, untamed and unreliable, this family of decent, hard-working, working-class folk, for that was what they were. Yet from them had come these uncontrollable lads and that . . . that lass whose claws had raked his own heart almost to shreds.

  ‘I’ve not seen them, Will, but then they often don’t dine with us, or breakfast either, come to that, so I wouldn’t expect to. They come home late . . .’ He shook his head in exasperation. ‘Has no one seen them at the mill?’

  ‘Not that I know of, Mr Greenwood, but I expect they’ve gone off on some junket . . . some adventure which has taken their fancy . . .’ He stopped, realising who he was talking to, realising that he was talking about two young men, eighteen years old and no longer schoolboys who were expected to indulge in such nonsense. They had never grown up, never come to the maturity expected of most men. For the past year they had been made, half-heartedly, to present themselves at the mill and it was a wond
er to him that they had lasted as long as they had. No doubt they were in London or Paris, living high and dangerously, recklessly risking their young lives on anything which seemed foolhardy. And so he was not surprised a week later to hear that those ‘damned lads’ had fetched up with Lord Raglan’s army in the Crimea.

  15

  She was at the door to meet him when Briggs opened it. Her mother waited in the drawing-room, promising nothing, she said, for it was far too soon, declaring she would reserve her opinion on this ‘Robby’ her daughter spoke of, until she had met him. Tessa was seventeen, ready for marriage and, from the look of her, rapturously in love with this man she had met on Whit Monday and, she admitted, a time or two at the Hall. She would see him first, a proper introduction, question him about his intentions, his family, his suitability as a husband for her daughter, and Tessa had her permission to ask him to call.

  Briggs took his top hat, bowing reverently for this was a gentleman and not many of those stood in this hall, not real gentlemen. Then obeying Miss Tessa’s instructions, he left them alone together. There had been talk about her – when had there not been? – and the Squire’s Friday-to-Monday guest, which had reached the servants’ hall, and now, it seemed, there was more to it than talk for as he closed the door behind him Miss Tessa flung herself into the gentleman’s eager arms.

  ‘There’s something in the air, Mrs Shepherd,’ he told his only confidante in the kitchen, the housekeeper, ‘and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a wedding very soon and on a very grand style. A gentleman, this one.’

  Tessa wore a day dress of muslin in a tawny shade of amber. The skirt had a dozen flounces, each edged with black velvet ribbon; the pagoda sleeves were frothed beneath the wrists with a mass of lace; the bodice was tight and plain. Her hair was smoothed back into a glossy chignon, unadorned but for a tawny ribbon of velvet. Emma was delighted with her for it seemed her young mistress was a lady at last, a lady who cared about fashion and elegance and the need to allow her maid to take as long as was necessary each day to groom her, to change her as many times as was necessary from one outfit into another.

  ‘Darling, you look beautiful,’ Robby whispered.

  ‘And so do you.’ Her breath was sweet on his lips. He was correctly and immaculately dressed, his olive green frock-coat exactly the right length, the lapels wide, the collar high. His dove-grey trousers were tight to his long, lean legs, clinging to the calf muscle, his boots polished and his frilled and pleated shirt-front ironed to perfection. He smelled of lemon soap, his face freshly shaved, glowing and brown with health, and his gold-blond hair was smoothly brushed, not a curl of it out of place. His brown eyes worshipped her and she thought she had never been so exquisitely happy in her whole life.

  He grinned engagingly. ‘Do I look good enough for the daughter of the house?’

  ‘She will simply fall in love with you, just as I did.’

  Her answer was still on her smiling lips as he opened the drawing-room door for her, stepping back a little to allow her to enter before him. Her mother stood up, her face serious for this was a serious business. She had never met this young man and she would not be charmed by any facile and good-natured fool who thought he might get his hands on her daughter’s inheritance, since one day she would have one. It looked somewhat suspicious to her that this gentleman who had only just come into her daughter’s life was already making his intentions known having swept her off her feet, it seemed, in a matter of weeks. She would size him up, as she sized up any man who came to do business with her at the mill and draw her own conclusions. That was why she had not wished to hear any of Tessa’s gloriously coloured notions on what a paragon of virtue he was, what a marvel, indeed a miracle of perfection, and from such a splendid family, or so Tessa would have it. She would decide what he was when she met him: from long experience she could read a man, his motives, his beliefs and values, his pedigree and breeding as easily as she could read a balance sheet.

  He walked towards her, coming from the past as savagely as the fist of a pugilist swinging up from nowhere, the blow hitting her between the eyes with a force which took her senses, her breath from her lungs, the strength from her legs. She could feel the movement inside her head as her mind began to go round and round, darkening the space about her, blinding her eyes, reeling and dipping, flinging her about sickeningly, nauseously, as though she was a child on a swing which goes far too high. She put out a hand to ward him off, both hands as she felt herself fall, and her last thought as the blackness slipped mercifully over her was that she had burst her heart and would be dead before she hit the ground.

  ‘Mother . . . Dear God, catch her, Robby, she’s fainting. Mother, what is it? Ring the bell, Robby . . . Dear God, Mother . . . Robby . . . ask Briggs . . . fetch Emma . . . smelling salts in Laurel’s drawer, she always has them. Mother, oh, darling . . . speak to me . . . tell me what . . .?’

  She could hear her daughter’s voice spiralling down the length of the tunnel which led into her head, the words hollow and echoing, and even see her terrified eyes peering through the darkness. She was sorry she had frightened her. She had never, in the whole of Tessa’s existence been anything but calm, unruffled; not the perfect mother, perhaps, since she spent all her days at the mill, not always there when Tessa had needed her in her childhood, but never anything other than perfectly controlled. She had left this girl to others to bring up, hoping it would be all right, not knowing how to do anything else, not being awfully sure she could be anything else. But she had always, always been strong, steady, and had never swooned before in her life. But the sight of the man her daughter loved had taken away the props, the crutch on which she herself was balanced, and somehow she must find it again, or make another.

  He was looking at her, concerned, his eyes bewildered, his face just as she remembered it, his expression telling her that he was willing to be anything she wanted him to be for as long as it suited her, the young and endearing manner she knew so well. His mouth slanting into a smile of encouragement, his hand on her arm, ready to lift her wherever it pleased her to go, a gentleman at the disposal of a lady, and she did not know whether to love him or hate him.

  Her face was the colour of putty, somewhere between beige and gunmetal, it’s youthful elasticity gone, the flesh drooping, sweating, and she trembled violently. She was on the sofa, her head propped on a cushion, her skirts bunched uncomfortably beneath her as though she had been picked up quite urgently and bundled on to the nearest resting place. Tessa knelt beside her, chafing her hands anxiously. The room seemed to be full of people: Briggs hovering distantly as he always did by the door; Emma, her daughter’s maid, wringing her hands, and Dorcas, a sensible lass and the only one to show calm, holding the smelling salts which a moment before had brought her back to her senses, and him, the man her daughter wished to marry – which, of course, was impossible now.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she managed to whisper but her eyes could not tear themselves away from him. He stood to one side, a visitor, a stranger, really, who had been involved in a small family emergency, had helped out but who, knowing his place, had moved away to give the family, her daughter, some space and air to breathe.

  ‘What happened, Mother?’ Tessa continued to worry her with her hands.

  ‘I . . . I would like to go to my room, lass.’

  ‘Of course, Mother. Emma and Dorcas will help you but . . .’ Her gaze turned, radiantly, even now, towards the man she loved . . . Oh, dear God . . . dear, sweet God . . . ‘may I not introduce . . .’

  ‘I’ll go now, daughter.’

  ‘Please, Mother . . .’

  ‘If you will give me your arm . . . see, Dorcas, lift me up . . .’

  ‘May I help, madam?’ A true gentleman, he was beside her as she tried to rise, offering her his arm, his support, anything she might need as a lady and which he, as a gentleman, was willing to give her.

  ‘No, no . . .’ She broke the spell she herself had made, the link her eyes had f
orged with his, by turning abruptly away, rudely the rest of the assembly were inclined to think, particularly her daughter who loved him. He fell back, startled, genuinely puzzled by her apparent distaste for him, then bowed, his impeccable code of conduct keeping his face politely expressionless.

  He had gone, she had been told an hour later as she lay in her darkened room, not undressed for she simply could not face the task. He had sent his good wishes for her speedy recovery, Tessa said coolly as she sat beside her, and the hope that they might meet again to discuss his and her daughter’s future, when she was feeling better able to manage it. Perhaps the next day, if she could spare him an hour, since he wished to get the matter settled before he discussed it with his family.

  ‘He loves me, Mother.’ Her daughter’s voice came to her out of the darkness and she thought her heart would break, just as she was about to break this child’s. All these years and the past dead and buried, she had thought, hopelessly at times, but more easily as the years moved on and now, on an explosion of anguish and joy, of despair and winging ecstasy, it had come back to destroy them all.

  ‘I can see that, lass.’

  ‘Will you meet him tomorrow, then? If you feel better that is. He has to get back . . . the estate . . . his grandfather is not well so he cannot remain here indefinitely. I want to . . . we both want to make plans and there is his family. If I bring him up to the mill, to your office . . . or perhaps here if you feel up to it?’

  ‘No, my lass. I’m afraid not.’

  She saw the shadow who was her daughter lift herself from the chair in which she had waited, keeping quiet with a great deal of self-control until her mother was herself again. She moved across the room, graceful and lovely in her tawny gown, her face bewildered, her eyes mutinous, her expression saying she would have this man no matter what her mother said, or did, to try and stop her. She stood beside the half-drawn curtains, then flung them open with a great clatter and moved back across the room to stare with narrowed eyes into her mother’s. She found them steady and unflinching, clear and honest as they had always been with no inclination to look away.