Shining Threads

by Audrey Howard

  ‘I was remarking to Aunt Jenny that it was time Tessa grew out of the notion that she is a boy and not a young woman and gave up wearing those ridiculous breeches. Will you look at her . . .’

  They made a stunning couple, there was no doubt about it but Charlie could see what it was that made his wife so uneasy. Tessa simply drew every male eye to her wherever she went. She had become a gloriously sensuous woman, there was no other description for her, and yet she was still no more than an innocent girl. Where did she get that flaunting, outrageous, and fascinating – and Charlie was aware that there was not a man who came within a hundred yards of her who was not fascinated – magnetism? He drew in his breath sharply, then looked away, not wishing his wife to see him admiring such splendour. He caught his sister’s eye and grimaced, aware, awkwardly, that she knew exactly what was in his mind. She did not blame him for it since, though he was Tessa’s uncle, he was still a man.

  ‘She does no harm, Laurel,’ Jenny said mildly, folding her own newspaper and standing up to move towards them. ‘You must admit she has done wonders with Drew in the last three months.’

  ‘But everyone is talking about them.’

  ‘I can’t see why. They have done nothing they have not been doing all their lives.’

  ‘But alone. Just the two of them.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’Jenny’s voice had become cool.

  ‘I am suggesting nothing, Aunt Jenny, I am only repeating what has been implied to me in every drawing-room in Crossfold. They are never apart. He clings to her hand wherever they go for everyone to see and she makes no objection.’

  ‘He is her cousin. His brother died in harrowing circumstances. He is only just beginning to recover. And who else would he turn to but Tessa? She is the closest to him after Pearce.’

  ‘Oh, I know all that, but I must say I find it extremely embarrassing having to listen to my friends, not in so many words, naturally, for they are ladies, but intimating nevertheless that there is more to it than cousinly affection.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks.’ Turning on her heel Jenny swept from the room but not before Charlie had seen the uncertain expression on his sister’s face.

  ‘And shouldn’t he be back at the mill by now?’ Laurel continued, allowing her voice to rise plaintively now that there was only her husband to hear it.

  ‘He’ll go back when he’s ready.’

  ‘Heavens, he’s been home three months already. How much longer is he going to lark about like the young squire?’

  ‘He needs time, Laurel. You know how close he was to Pearce.’ Charlie tried to be patient, realising that Tessa, and now Drew, threatened Laurel’s security in some curious way which was not even clear to herself.

  ‘I think he is making it an excuse not to go back to the mill.’ Charlie thought so too, but with far more understanding than Laurel since he had seen his nephew’s distaste for the work they had been expected to do there. Neither of them had been true ‘commercial men’ as he and Jenny were, and he tried to imagine how he would feel if he was forced to work at something he loathed. But then hundreds and thousands did so for it was that or starve and not many were as privileged as Drew Greenwood.

  Drew had changed quite dramatically from the pale, devastatingly thin and hollow-eyed shadow he had been on his return. As handsome and strong as ever, his old audacity showed in the brilliance of his vivid blue eyes when he and Tessa rode to the top of Badger’s Edge, the ghost of Pearce Greenwood always at their shoulders, to look out on the lovely stretch of summer moorland which swept down to the busy valley, the chimneys of the growing town. It showed in his eagerness to do what he, his brother and Tessa had always done: in their search for anything which might erase the memory of the past two years. But only with her. She was his ‘partner’, a ‘steadier’ to the other self Pearce had taken away from him. For three months no one had spoken of the past, nor of the future, knowing his loss and suffering, allowing him to do as he pleased, what best suited him, what best mended him.

  Tessa protected him fiercely. He was not to be pressed to resume his duties in the mill, she commanded. Indeed, no one was to mention the mill. They rode out when and where they pleased as the weather improved. He had quickly recovered his boundless health and the humorous, engaging charm he had shared with his brother. Country life, country pursuits that had nothing to do with warp and weft, with yardage and quality, with frames and looms, boilers and steam engines, these were what he sought. He had not survived the hell of the Crimea to spend his days in the hell of his family’s mill, his manner said, though he did not voice such an opinion out loud, and no force, no coercion was put on him to do so.

  The peace treaty with Russia had been signed at the end of March and guns were fired in all major towns of Lancashire to signal the end of the hostilities. The armies of the Allies were to return to their own countries as soon as possible, they were told, and there was to be great rejoicing and fireworks on an enormous scale in London.

  A naval review by Her Majesty the Queen at Spithead, one of the finest sights the country had ever witnessed, those who saw it reported, showed exactly what England could do in times of war. The fleet was so large it extended for several miles across the Channel and people travelled on the new and exciting railway trains from all parts of the country to see it.

  It was not until the end of May that a day was appointed as a national holiday to celebrate this new thing called peace. Hardly before the day had started the guns were booming from Oldham barracks and in every church tower bells rang, fit to wake the dead, Briggs remarked gloomily, and what was the point of it when the war had been over since September? There was to be a celebratory procession with bands and flags, banners and mayoral speeches and Tessa spoke to Charlie on the advisability of risking Drew in the intense fever of patriotic joy which would undoubtedly abound there.

  ‘I don’t know if he’ll be up to it, Charlie. All the hurly-burly, the noise and confusion, all those people celebrating what was to him . . . well, you will know what I mean. The memories . . .’

  ‘You can’t go on cosseting him forever, lass. You know, you’re like a mother cat protecting her kitten whenever anyone threatens his peace of mind. He’s bound to think of Pearce, as we all will, but sooner or later, preferably sooner, he must rejoin the world. You and he spend all your time up on the tops, playing with those thoroughbreds of yours in the paddock and racing that curricle you’ve acquired. Just the two of you, lass, and it really won’t do. He’s a man and must mix with other men, do what they do. These months have been good for him and have returned him to full health but he needs other things now. All men do, Tessa.’ His voice became very quiet. ‘And no matter how you both refuse to face it, one day he must return to the mill. It will all belong to him, and when the time comes he must be able to run it alone. With Pearce gone he has no choice but to learn how to go about it.’

  ‘Charlie . . .’ Tessa’s face was soft with pity.

  ‘No, lass, he must face up to life again. Take him to the celebration. Put on your prettiest gown’ – and let him see you as you are and not as a replacement for Pearce Greenwood, Charlie thought – ‘and go and have some fun. I’m sure the Squire’s lad will be there.’

  ‘Drew, my God, old chap, it’s good to see you. We had heard you were back and have been looking forward to . . .’ Nicky Longworth, with more sensitivity than Tessa would have given him credit for, said no more than that, pumping Drew’s hand enthusiastically, terribly glad to claim him for a friend, for was he not something of a hero amongst those with whom he, and Pearce, had once roistered?

  ‘And Tessa How absolutely splendid you look, doesn’t she, Johnny? Why have we not seen you both at the Hall? Why don’t you come over . . .’

  She held Drew’s arm protectively, waiting for the sudden trembling to subside, and when it did and his face broke into a tentative but pleased smile, she relaxed her grip somewhat. His right hand, when it had been shaken by several more of the ‘fellows’ wh
o had come over to see the fun, closed over her own where it rested in the crook of his left arm and he squeezed it gently to let her know he was all right.

  And they did indeed look splendid, both of them. She wore blue, a lovely cornflower blue that was almost violet. Her jacket fitted neatly to the sweet curve of the bosom she had regained when her flesh returned after her illness, and her enormous skirt was looped about its wide hem with tiny bunches of silk cornflowers. Her bonnet was the same colour, decorated under its brim with masses of white tulle and her blue lace parasol shaded the grey velvet of her eyes.

  Drew’s face, in the sun-warmed breezes of the days spent in the saddle, had regained its brown smoothness. His dark curly hair was cut short, glossy and thick, tumbling across his wide forehead. His eyes narrowed in a deep and brilliant blue as he smiled at his friends and his mobile mouth curved across strong white teeth. He wore dove grey with a well-cut watered-silk waistcoat. His shirt front was snowy and his boots polished. He had removed his top hat and his tall frame was straight and yet easy, graceful. He looked quite beautiful, she thought proudly as she looked up at him, just as though it was all her doing, and in a way it was. She was the one who walked with him through the tortuous memories which harrowed him, who shored up and filled the gaping hole left by his brother’s death, who held him in her arms in the black of the night when his cries brought her from her bed. She it was who had coaxed him to eat, to rest, to doze in the sunshine with his head in her lap, to get up on the new bay he bought and ride again as he had not done for two years. She had brought him back to this hesitant willingness to be a part of life again and she felt a most proud and proprietary self-esteem settle about her.

  In the weeks they had been alone together, he talking, weeping, but speaking at last of what he and Pearce had seen in the battles they fought, she listening, weeping with him, he had finally asked her about Robby.

  ‘When Pearce and I left . . . you were to be married,’ he said diffidently. Just that, nothing more. A few words which invited her to speak of it if she wished.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He . . . you changed your mind?’

  ‘I . . . I was ill.’ It was no lie and yet not the full truth. Her face was averted from him and she knew he could not see the expression of pain which flickered across it. Robby Atherton still lay uneasily in her heart. A hard and often despairing desolation struck at her when she least expected it. She loved him still: that was a fact of her life which would not change. How could it? Her mother had told her, from experience she said, that time would heal her, would lessen the ache in her heart, and during the last three months with Drew she had found a certain measure of content. His need had overridden hers. His pain had pushed hers to the back of her conscious mind, tamped it down to bearable proportions in her breast, not lessening it, as her mother said, but easing it somehow as she poured what Robby had left into her compassionate love for Drew. What a tortured pair they were, she and Drew Greenwood, she thought as she turned back to him, the sharing of their misery perhaps making it more bearable.

  ‘I had a fever. I was ill . . . off my head for weeks. You know about it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Aunt Jenny told me.’ His expression was gentle, steady, with something in it which invited her to confide in him, if she wanted to, as he had done with her. They were friends as well as cousins, it said. He was not the young man he had been when he rode away, not yet, but he was more than willing to give her a hand to cling to, if she had nothing else. But somehow, despite his dearness, she could not tell him the whole truth.

  ‘I was not myself. At times it seemed I was not to recover and he did not . . . return.’ Dear Robby, forgive me for the lie, she whispered in her heart, but it lay easily on her conscience for what else was she to say?

  ‘When you were recovered, you did not let him know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not, if you wish to tell me?’

  ‘I . . . it seemed we were . . . no longer suited.’

  She looked up and smiled and was startled by the intent expression in his eyes as they stared into hers. A deep and concentrated watchfulness showed there and waited for her answer as though its meaning, the content of it was of the utmost importance.

  ‘You love him still?’

  Again there was that breathless attention to her words, a diligent alertness which placed a faint prickle of surprise in her. His eyes studied her minutely, blue, she had never seen them so blue, and he seemed to hold his breath. And she knew, suddenly, though she could not have said how she knew, that her answer was vital to him and for his peace of mind it must be the right answer.

  ‘One must have a love returned for it to flourish, Drew,’ she said softly, knowing as she said it that he was satisfied.

  They began to widen their activities. He took her to see a play at the assembly rooms in Crossfold, Richard III which was staged quite splendidly considering that it was not put on at an established theatre such as those in Oldham or Manchester. He was quite shaken by the press of his family’s acquaintances who rushed to shake him by the hand, expressing their joy in seeing him ‘himself’ again, not mentioning Pearce, perhaps warned against it by the savage look on Tessa Harrison’s face. She held fast to him like a tendril of clinging ivy, they noticed, those mamas whose daughters might, now that he was home and apparently settled down from the hellion he had once been, be pushed in his direction. Was there any truth in the rumours that circulated about them, they wondered to one another? True, they had always galloped wildly about the countryside ever since they had been children, but there had been three of them then, which made a difference, one must admit, from just one man and one woman! And they did seem completely wrapped up in one another since it was noticed that his eyes followed her every movement. Was Jenny Harrison keeping something from them, they asked one another. But the question was still unanswered.

  Nicky Longworth remarked to Johnny Taylor as they discussed it over a bottle of his father’s best claret that there really could have been nothing in the rumour that had circulated some time ago that Tessa Harrison and Robby Atherton were to be married. And if there had been she’d damned soon recovered from it. Most women went into a decline when they were jilted but there was no sign of it about Tessa. What a splendid creature she was and if she weren’t so firmly attached to that lucky cousin of hers he wouldn’t mind giving her a whirl himself.

  At the start of the hunting season, when he had been home for six months, they rode over to Longworth Hall. She was dressed in the superb outfit which had been made for her by Miss Maymon and which had caused such a commotion last season, a magnificent study in black and white. But for the high swell of her breasts, she and her cousin might have been the two brothers, one of whom lay in his grave at Scutari.

  She was instantly surrounded by admiring gentlemen the moment she put her booted and spurred foot to the ground and none of them noticed the ominous clenching of Drew Greenwood’s jaw. She was breathless with laughter, swaggering amongst the men, one of them, it seemed, as she accepted a glass of punch. She was completely at home in their company, unaware, as indeed were they, of any gulf between them. She had been welcomed here, despite her commercial background, from an early age. She had dined, with her cousins, in the medieval great hall, had watched them play wild games, and even joined in on occasion, down the long gallery lined with ancestral Longworth portraits. She had danced with them at their last Christmas party before Drew and Pearce rode away and dreamed here in the arms of her love, before the great darkness had fallen in on her. Now, it was as though she had come home.

  ‘Tessa.’

  His voice was like a whip, snapping about her and the group of laughing men. They all turned, their faces still wreathed in merriment, their eyes glowing with that particular look gentlemen bestow on a pretty woman, especially if she is as spirited as Tessa Harrison. He could see it in their eyes, that slight hint of coarseness only another man will recognise, a look of speculation as these boi
sterous and brash young gentlemen eyed the long and lovely body of his cousin.

  ‘It’s time we were mounted,’ he said harshly. His voice sounded strange even to himself for he could not bear, simply could not bear her even to speak to these men who were clustered about her. He was eaten up with jealousy and had not the least idea how to cope with it. She must come to him, she must come at once, his arrogant manner said, or he honestly thought he might break down in some way. His legs which had so easily swung him on, and then off his new bay were rigid with the necessity of keeping himself upright. But at the same time he could feel that familiar snapping rage, that savage temper, the Greenwood temper, the Chapman temper, he had been told, that had been his mother’s, begin to race through him. She was his. Tessa Harrison had belonged exclusively to Drew Greenwood for the past six months. She had folded herself in all but the physical sense about his wounded soul and body and had begun the process of healing within him.

  She knew, of course. Though he said nothing more and they were all looking at him in amazement – for had not Drew Greenwood always been the most amiable of fellows, except in a fight? – she knew, and miraculously she put her glass in the nearest hand and came to him.

  ‘I’m ready, cousin, if you are.’

  That night, just as though the terror he had lived in for several minutes that day had awakened the sleeping beast of his nightmare, he screamed for her, calling her by name, urgently, though he still slept.

  Jenny Harrison stood by the door of his bedroom watching the now familiar scene as Tessa rocked him against her breast. Laurel was at her back, and Charlie, and over Laurel’s head their eyes met in understanding. Jenny closed the door quietly.

  ‘You’re not going to leave them there alone?’ Laurel was aghast, genuinely shocked by her aunt’s attitude towards something which was not at all proper. Both Drew and Tessa were in their nightclothes, almost lying together on the bed, and how could Jenny Harrison countenance such a thing, turn a blind eye to what was becoming a scandal in the Penfold Valley? It must be stopped, this gossip which was on everyone’s lips and which might affect her own standing in the community. It must be put an end to, preferably, in Laurel’s opinion, by sending Tessa to her own mother and father in Italy for a few months until it had died down, and returning Drew to the mill where he belonged. This attachment between her brother and her cousin had begun to frighten her as she recognised its potential for dislodging her from her present position as mistress of this house. One day, of course, Drew would marry, some shy, submissive sixteen-year-old who would be safely and easily managed by someone as proficient as herself. But if she and Tessa, who was headstrong and wilful, were bound together in the running of Greenacres, how could Laurel possibly retain the control which had been hers for so many pleasant years?