Eppie

by Robertson, Janice

  Eppie desperately needed to speak to Brodie. Why had he not been with the other boys at Dawkin’s lodgings? Had someone, the real murderer, coerced him to fabricate the events of that fateful night? Though she had sought the boy out, he was nowhere to be found.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CRUSADE FOR THE POOR

  Thurstan strode into the mill office. ‘Uncle, I have a pressing matter to set before you.’

  Panic swept through Mr Grimley. He felt sure that this was the moment of doom.

  Thurstan smiled vindictively at the mill manager, delighted with the terror he was imparting to the man.

  Du Quesne was engrossed in paperwork. ‘Can it not wait? We are swamped with orders.’

  There was a deathly silence as the machines came to a standstill.

  ‘What the deuce is wrong with that engine now? Someone go into town and drag Redgy Dipper from his sickbed. He’ll know how to repair it. That’s the second time it has broken down this month.’

  ‘I would imagine it has something to do with the protest that Dung Heap’s sister is organising,’ Thurstan said.

  ‘Protest? What protest?’

  ‘Nihil agendo homines male agree discunt.’

  ‘Do not annoy me with your supercilious diction.’

  ‘I was reflecting that you do not drive your workers hard enough. The devil finds mischief for idle hands.’

  ‘I can do without you interfering, telling me what I do or do not do.’

  ‘Temper, temper.’

  The engine-maker, a short, grey-faced man, bowed deferentially in the doorway. ‘Sir, I have turned off your power.’

  ‘That did not fail to come to my attention,’ du Quesne said. ‘Might I be enlightened as to the reason?’

  ‘I find myself confronted with a serious financial problem.’

  ‘You may well be, Mr Blower. However, that is no excuse to meddle with my business.’ Of his nephew, du Quesne demanded, ‘When did you learn of this protest?’

  Thurstan took a sadistic pleasure in rousing his uncle to fever pitch. He cast him a wry smile. ‘Days, if not years ago.’

  ‘You might have thought to have informed me earlier.’

  ‘It slipped my mind.’

  Du Quesne glared at Wilbert, who had trailed Mr Blower. ‘Why are you dithering, man? Get that engine running.’

  ‘Before you …’ Thurstan began.

  ‘What now?’ du Quesne barked.

  ‘I thought you might like to know that Wakelin Dunham is the instigator of a plot to wreck your mill.’

  ‘He’s what!’

  ‘And there was something else. What was it? Some matter of slight significance. Ah, yes, he plans to murder you.’

  ‘Murder me!’

  ‘I presume you would like me to send one of my men to the knacker’s yard to deal with him?’

  Teeth gritted, du Quesne thumped the desk. ‘Hell and damnation!’

  ‘I take that as a yes.’ Thurstan strolled off. ‘Grim, that matter about the fines. I will speak to my uncle upon my return.’

  ‘What matter?’ du Quesne asked irascibly.

  ‘About this money,’ Mr Blower said. ‘What you gave me wasn’t right, sir. Mr Howard, the banker, has asked that I deal directly with you about the problem. I’m sure there’s been some mistake, so I suggest we go somewhere private to talk about it.’

  ‘You may have time to waste, Mr Blower. I have an uprising to crush. Good day to you.’ Du Quesne left the office and strode towards the line of workers.

  Tramping steadily past the silent machines, the mill children carried a banner emblazoned with a red cross, proclaiming Christ as their leader. Behind them trod sacked men and their working wives.

  Seeing the furious expression on du Quesne’s face, Eppie, at the fore of the crusade, experienced a moment of doubt.

  Crumpton raised his cudgel. ‘I’ll put a stop to this.’

  ‘Let her speak,’ du Quesne said, knowing he would win any argument. ‘The animosity between Eppie Dunham and my good self goes back many years. I find myself intrigued to hear what she has to say on this occasion.’

  ‘For my part, sir, I feel no enmity toward you,’ Eppie said. ‘What I do feel strongly is the lack of justice you show towards those weaker than yourself.’

  ‘Is that so? Might I enquire what you hope to gain by your audacious behaviour?’

  ‘My foremost anxiety is for the children, sir. I request that safety improvements are made throughout the mill. The machines must be fitted with guards.’

  ‘Request denied. The machines constantly break down and need to be readily accessible to be quickly repaired.’

  ‘Children should no longer be forced to clean under the machines whilst they are in motion.’

  ‘Out of the question. Anything else?’

  Realising that she was in for a tough battle with her father, she turned her attention to the overseer. ‘Mr Crumpton must no longer beat the children.’ This request was greeted with whoops of jubilation from the girls and boys. ‘Beating with the strap, trying to drive sleepiness off with blows, these are no means by which to encourage the young to work.’

  She was aware of Mr Grimley, who stood slightly to the rear of du Quesne, nodding his agreement.

  Du Quesne was unmoved. ‘Dread of punishment is the only way to force children to work the hours I demand.’

  ‘Can you not see that the children need to work fewer hours? They scarce have time to sleep and eat, none for physical exercise in the open air or for the pure enjoyment of nature.’

  ‘I cannot afford to run my mill only when children feel like working. There is, moreover, value in hard work. Hard work is good for young people.’

  Thurstan returned.

  ‘Here is something to amuse you,’ du Quesne said. ‘Though I can scarcely claim to be enraptured by her discourse, never have I had the privilege of dealing with such an amusing firebrand. The misguided fool maintains that life at this mill should be a paradise on earth.’

  Rowan crept to Mr Grimley’s side.

  ‘Ah, Miss Grimley,’ Thurstan said, ‘you have arrived at a timely moment. You will have the opportunity to marvel at Dunham’s histrionics.’

  ‘Let me assure you, sir,’ Eppie answered, ‘the motive behind my action is entirely sincere.’

  ‘Have you any further faults you wish to air?’ du Quesne asked. ‘I have much to do today.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I have. Work at the mill is unmeaning for the children. It is no field for mental activity. Only through Sunday school can I encourage the children’s learning, though I am in desperate need of resources. I have few books and the sand-table is an unsatisfactory means of teaching them their letters.’

  ‘As I recall, Parson Lowford exercised your brain at the vestry school and such activity has only served to enhance your natural ability as a nauseating troublemaker. Request rejected.’

  Though it appeared impossible for her to achieve her objectives, she fought on. Now was the moment to voice the toughest demand. ‘You must re-employ the men, and the women must be paid wages upon which they can live.’

  At this, there were shouts of concord from Hedley and the other sacked workers.

  ‘That I will never do. You women and children, back to work.’

  ‘Sir, have you considered the implications of casting out the men?’ Eppie went on rapidly. ‘By your action you drive many of them to stealing. If they are moral men they and their families may starve. If not, they may commit suicide. None of these acts are chosen by the poor. They are pressed upon them by you.’

  ‘I will have an end to this foolish outcry. I treat my workers fairly, that is all they must expect. For your insolence and temerity, young woman, consider your employment in my establishment terminated. Join your friends on the street. Steal, starve, commit suicide, I care not which.’

  Now she had nothing to lose. ‘It is utter hogwash to say that you treat the workers fairly. When have you ever shown fairness and kindness to u
s? You think of mill workers simply as wooden limbs to the machines, not as people, flesh and blood like yourself. You know the fly is injurious to the workers’ health, yet where are the vents to extract the bad air? By obstinately refusing to improve working conditions you hasten the poor to early graves.’

  ‘Hasten? What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I suggest nothing. I state the facts. The workers cannot defend themselves. Eibhlin and Coline O’Ruarc did not suffer natural deaths. Their lives were cut short by you, for it was as though your sword cut through their hearts.’

  ‘I am your natural superior. How dare you have the audacity to imply that I am a murderer? Crumpton, drive them back to work.’

  Eppie was overcome with a rage which she knew not how to curb. ‘Having to endure years of bullying has made these people like frightened animals. They believe they are weak, that they deserve the rough life they lead. I tell you they do not. You condemn me for calling you a murderer. Why are you so blind that you cannot see that by your cold-hearted treatment of the workers it as though you are their murderer? By your very hand you are a killer, for you shot my father.’

  Eppie’s words offered the very opportunity for which Sukey had been waiting, a chance to get her revenge on her childhood adversary. ‘That weaver weren’t no more your pa than mine’s King George o’ England. For well ‘ee knows that yer pa stands afore ya.’

  ‘Why would you suggest such a preposterous notion?’ du Quesne demanded.

  ‘I overheard Dunham telling Miss Rowan that Wakelin Dunham stuck his ma’s dead baby in her ladyship’s cradle and stole ‘er.’ She jabbed a finger towards Eppie. ‘Genevieve du Quesne.’

  Like moths around a candle, the workers drew close, listening in awe.

  Eppie glanced round at Martha and Lottie, thankful that they were at the end of the line of workers. She had to protect their lives at all costs.

  Rowan stepped to Eppie’s side to offer her moral support.

  Casting Rowan a quizzical look, Thurstan saw from her steady gaze and dignified demeanour that she knew Sukey’s outburst to be true.

  ‘Shiz nicked Mistress Talia’s locket an’ all, has Dunham,’ Sukey added.

  Involuntarily, Eppie raised her hand to her neck. Seeing this slight movement, Thurstan rushed at her. Though she tried to fight him off, it was to no avail. Slipping his fingers beneath the delicate chain, where the locket hung under her bodice, he wrenched it free. ‘I will see you hang for this, Dunham!’

  Violently the roots of the mill shook. Alarmed, Eppie glanced round in time to see the door to the scutching room blast open. Out swept a macabre procession of gashed and bleeding spectres, their billowing shrouds like the sails on a sloop of war. On and on, merciless, they stalked towards their murderer, the timber floor reverberating to their weightless tread.

  ‘No!’ Thurstan shrieked as though jumped upon by robbers. ‘Keep away from me!’

  Cotton threads whipped around his ankles, strained as taut as guy-ropes, until he fell.

  ‘My property, I believe,’ du Quesne said, maddened by his nephew’s inexplicable gibbering and bizarre behaviour.

  At the moment that he snatched the locket from Thurstan, the fusty phantoms made a wending rush through the cotton fluff. For an eerie moment, a haunting sigh, like the last breaths of the victims, was left dangling in the air.

  A crazed look in his eyes, Thurstan scratched his dry hair, as though it crawled with the blood of those who had died, making it stick up wildly. ‘You saw her!’ he shrieked, staring at Eppie. ‘I know you saw her! Tell me!’

  ‘What have you to say?’ du Quesne demanded of Eppie.

  She was struck dumb by what she had seen and by what she saw now, everybody immobile, no evidence of the raw cotton or seed vessels that had blasted down the aisle. None other than her and Thurstan had seen Talia leading the gaunt-faced ghosts. The disembodied, the discarnate, faces she knew well: Titcher, Tobias, Alicia, Jenufer, Brodie and the climbing-boys, many more besides. All had lost their lives at Thurstan’s hands or at his instigation.

  ‘There was no theft, sir. I gave the locket to Eppie.’

  Looking around at having heard that loved voice, hardly could she suppress her thrill at seeing Gabriel. About him was a weary, slightly dusty look. They gazed upon one another, each aware of the torment felt by the other, their vulnerability.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ du Quesne asked. ‘Was there,’ he wondered, ‘a possibility that Hix was speaking the truth? Why has Gabriel always been so amiable with Eppie Dunham?’ Unwillingly, he forced himself to stare long and hard at Eppie. There was something about her, that pensive look he saw so often in his son. He had always dismissed it.

  Scoured by exhaustion, Eppie could not refrain from showing in her face the truth. She dragged her eyes away from her father’s piercing stare.

  ‘Your lordship, about my money,’ Mr Blower wheedled, having become weary of waiting in the office.

  ‘Blast your money, sir!’

  Mortified that his cousin should catch him in this predicament, Thurstan peeled himself off the floor and hastened away; half crawling and half running towards the mill doors.

  Mr Blower, not seeming to be getting anywhere with Robert du Quesne who, besides, no longer deserved his goodwill, pursued the magistrate, hopping first this side of him and then the other.

  ‘Hix!’ du Quesne bawled. ‘I want no more lost time; get these mules up and running.’

  ‘I will escort you home,’ Mr Grimley told Rowan. ‘Too much excitement is not good for the heart.’

  Rowan cast a loving glance at Gabriel, and he upon her, and then allowed herself to be borne away.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  A TENUOUS THREAD SNAPPED

  Dismal and defeated, Eppie stood alone. Women and children returned to their work, the men to the street.

  ‘That was some show, Genevieve du Quesne.’

  Tenderness flowed through her as she faced Gabriel for the first time as her brother.

  Machines thundered.

  ‘Let’s go into the office,’ he said. ‘It’ll be quieter.’

  He slumped into Mr Grimley’s chair. ‘I must apologise for my unkempt appearance. Twice I was thrown out of my lodgings for not paying the rent. Added to that, I’m feeling pretty miserable. When I arrived in Malstowe yesterday I went straight to Rowan and asked her to marry me.’

  Although Eppie still shook from the spectacle of those long, sad faces and the sight of the bulging sinews and veins on Squire Bulwar’s old, strong arm as he reached through the haze of cotton dust towards Thurstan, she managed a smile. ‘I’m so happy for you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Rowan can’t have refused?’

  ‘Quite the reverse.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Father. He said his good friend Squire Obadiah Bulwar would never have allowed the marriage and nor, therefore, will he. I know father detests malicious gossip and would hate to admit that his daughter-in-law spent her early childhood in a poorhouse, but I think he ought to judge Rowan on her finer qualities. Even Mrs Bulwar has a predilection for her great-granddaughter. I don’t know, Eppie. I feel so helpless.’

  Du Quesne stood beside the open window in the engine room, gazing upon the river. ‘I will not allow myself to imagine that wretch Eppie Dunham to be my daughter,’ he thought. ‘Besides, if I did, I would be crediting Wakelin Dunham with a brain. He stole my wood, but any numbskull is able to pick up a few fallen branches. The man would not have the wit to steal a child.’

  He stared at Talia’s portrait, feeling gored with remorse for the harsh way he had treated her, as though her infliction had been of her own making. He straightened his shoulders. ‘I will not succumb to any show of weakness.’

  So preoccupied was he with his thoughts, he failed to notice that Thurstan had entered the machine room and was shouting above the battering engine. ‘Sir, I must speak with you!’

  Infuriated by the go
rmless expression on his uncle’s face, Thurstan persisted, ‘The matter needs your urgent attention.’

  ‘Attention?’ du Quesne repeated vacantly, looking up at his nephew.

  ‘Blower has accused you of using forged money to purchase the steam engine.’

  With a jolt, du Quesne came back to reality, amazed at what he was hearing. ‘Forged? That was your money.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘The money you loaned me after the last disastrous harvest.’

  ‘Are you accusing me of underhand dealings? I would have thought better of you.’

  ‘Better of me?’ Du Quesne grew damp with rage. ‘I made that settlement in good faith. I refuse to pay the man a second time.’

  ‘I see no hope for you, Uncle. You have slandered my good name. That I will never forgive. I insist that you relinquish Tunnygrave Manor to me. Then I will see what I can do about getting you off the charge of forgery.’

  ‘Never will I do such a thing! Ever since you and that deranged mother of yours came to live with me I have lavished money on you. I have been proud of you like a father would be of a fine, upstanding son. At the back of my mind, though, I have always had a gnawing feeling, expecting you to lower yourself to such an underhand scheme.’

  ‘What else is a good education for? Throwing money at me always was your way of assuaging your culpability. I hate you for what you did to my father.’

  ‘I advised Charles, that was all.’

  ‘It was advice that led to his death. Before I have you incarcerated alongside your odorous associate, Grim, there is one other thing that you should know. For years I have known that Eppie Dunham is your daughter.’

  Du Quesne gaped in disbelief at what he was hearing.

  Enjoying his supremacy over his uncle, Thurstan sought to prolong the man’s distress. ‘On the night of Genevieve’s birth I could not abide to be indoors, having to listen to Aunt Constance’s screams. Such pitiful weakness. So I took a bottle of brandy to the folly, to while away the hours. Towards dawn I was returning home when I chanced to see someone emerge from the priests’ tunnel that leads from the manor.’