Threads of Silk

by Grieve, Roberta

  Alex’s house – she still couldn’t think of it as her own – had originally been a farmhouse, a long, low rambling building, added to over the years to create a delightful jumble of rooms and passageways, odd little corners and stairways. It was the sort of house Ellie had often dreamed of. But Alex had chosen the furnishings before their marriage and she had never really felt at home, although he had told her to feel free to make any changes she wanted. But she couldn’t summon up sufficient interest to do so.

  Ellie sighed and moved restlessly. It wasn’t the house that was the problem. It was Alex. She didn’t blame him – no other man would have been so patient for so long. But his patience was showing signs of running out.

  She thought back to their honeymoon in Italy when she’d been so sure that everything would work out for the best. She enjoyed Alex’s company as he showed her the sights of Rome and Florence, delighting in seeing at first hand the paintings and sculptures so familiar from books and prints. Later, as they sat drinking wine or coffee at outdoor cafés, Ellie wished the days would never end.

  It was the nights she had dreaded – and still did. She had hoped things would improve in time but, despite his unfailing patience and understanding, their relationship had gone from bad to worse, so that now she was at the end of her tether. And she knew Alex felt the same.

  Ellie shook her head and bit her lip to stop the sob escaping. She had tried – God knows she had tried. During the day she would tell herself that this time it would be different. Alex loved her – and she was fond of him, wanted to please him. He had given her so much. Surely it wasn’t too much to expect that she should give herself to him in return?

  That first night together, she hadn’t even given it a thought, looking forward to the time when they would be alone. Unlike many girls of her age, she wasn’t apprehensive of what was to come. After all, she wasn’t some gently-brought-up young maiden ignorant of the facts of life. And she had enjoyed Alex’s kisses and caresses before their marriage – provided he didn’t try to go too far. When she had pulled away he had laughed and said, ‘I can wait, darling. I understand if you want to save yourself for our wedding night. Our love will be all the sweeter for the waiting.’

  She had kissed him fervently, believing it to be true. Marriage – lovemaking – with Alex would wash away the bitterness and hurt of the past.

  In their honeymoon hotel room she had gone into his arms willingly, opening her lips to his passionate kisses, pressing herself against his hard masculine body, her own flushed and rosy through the thin silk as he ran his hands down her back and over her buttocks. When he slipped the flimsy nightdress down over her shoulders, letting it slide to the floor, she was ready for him.

  But, as he laid her on the bed and lowered himself beside her, taking her in his arms, it was as if an icy wind had entered the room. She began to shiver and she had to clench her teeth to stop them chattering. Perhaps mistaking her reaction for a shudder of desire, Alex had rolled over on to her, unable to hold back his own fierce need.

  Ellie had lain beneath him, unseeing eyes fixed on the corner of the room. When it was over, he had stroked her damp hair away from her face, kissing her neck tenderly. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I, my darling?’ he murmured.

  ‘No. It’s all right, Alex. I’m all right,’ she whispered back. Turning away from him, she bit hard on her knuckles as slow tears slid down her cheek.

  When she woke next morning to the cacophony of revving engines and impatient horns outside their Rome hotel, for a brief moment she was back in her attic room above the shop in Kendall Street. She stretched and rolled over, flinching away as her naked body encountered the warmth of another.

  Then it all flooded back. She was in bed with her husband – and she knew at that moment that she should never have married him.

  If only she had someone to talk to, she thought now. But Jackie had married her Dave and now lived the other side of Ipswich, busy with her baby son and another child on the way. And she couldn’t talk to Norah about her problems.

  The last time she had visited the Ridleys Norah had given a knowing smile. ‘Landed on your feet there, girl,’ she said. ‘You’re a lucky one.’

  Ellie had smiled and nodded agreement. What else could she do? How could she confide in her friend that the merest touch of Alex’s hand, the soft breath of his lips against her cheek, turned her to marble?

  How she wished things were different. She had tried to explain to him how she felt but it was hard to put into words and, for the first few months at least, he had persisted in thinking that somehow the fault was his.

  Just lately though, he’d become impatient and when the inevitable tensing of her body communicated itself to him, instead of trying to coax her as he usually did, he would fling himself away, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

  Last night he’d grabbed her shoulders, his eyes blazing. ‘Christ, Ellie – you drive a man to … I’m not trying to rape you, for God’s sake. But you’re my wife, I want, I need….’ He pushed her away with a stifled groan.

  She could only whisper that she was sorry, the tears running unchecked down her cheeks. But he seemed unmoved and had got up, leaving her to sleep alone.

  This morning he’d seemed his usual self, dropping a kiss on top of her head before helping himself to toast and coffee and immersing himself in the morning paper.

  After he’d left for the mill, Ellie tidied up the kitchen, reluctant to do too much – she had to leave something for Mrs Mills to do. She would like to have done the housework herself – at least it would help fill the long days. But Alex had insisted that they keep the housekeeper on. If only he’d let her work. Naïvely, she had assumed that she would carry on as Alex’s secretary, as well as continuing to build up her silk-scarf business. Why shouldn’t things go on as before – at least until she started a family?

  It had come as a shock to find someone else sitting at her desk when she entered the office after returning from their honeymoon.

  ‘You’ll have more time for your painting,’ Alex told her when she protested. ‘Besides, the business is doing well. You don’t need to work.’

  It was true. The problems with the new ‘silkene’ thread had been ironed out and the old looms adapted to weave the fabric. The disused buildings had been renovated and the thread was once more spun on the premises – as it had been when Turners produced all their goods, from silk-moth cocoon to finished material. The firm was prospering and Alex made it clear that he was in a position to support his wife in luxury.

  Ellie, needing something to distract her from the disaster she now knew her marriage to be, fought for her independence. Alex, wanting her to be happy, had the old stables converted into a studio. But she couldn’t help feeling it was like a consolation prize and besides, she could no longer summon up any enthusiasm for her art. Maybe if she had a child to love it would take away this dreadful ache, which never seemed to go away.

  Ellie sighed, knowing what was at the root of her depression. This morning she had woken once again to the knowledge that she wasn’t pregnant. She blamed herself, wondering whether something inside had been damaged when her father assaulted her. The doctor had said there was nothing wrong, but then, she hadn’t confided her deepest fear even to him.

  She opened the back door and picked her way across the lawn, her feet squelching on the soggy turf. Even the surly monosyllables which passed for conversation with George, the gardener, would be preferable to the silence indoors.

  He scarcely looked up in response to her determinedly cheerful ‘good morning’ and, after a few remarks about the weather and the state of the garden, Ellie gave up and walked through the gate at the side of the house towards her studio. No expense had been spared in fitting it out and she had all the frames, dye baths and other equipment she could possibly need – now that she no longer had the inclination to use them.

  She entered the light airy room for the first time for weeks, telling herself sh
e must snap out of it, find something to fill the empty hours. It was no good mooning around hoping that everything would come right one day. In the past she’d always taken positive action to solve her problems. But what could she do this time? Other than running away again, the solution seemed to be beyond her.

  As she stood in the doorway, she seemed to hear her grandmother’s voice: ‘Don’t give up, girl. You’re strong, like your mum. Look at all she’s had to put up with over the years – she never ran away, just made the best of things, like you must.’

  ‘Make the best of things!’ It was hard, but she would do it. Fired with new determination, Ellie walked over to one of the frames which stood under the window. On it was a half-finished painting. She hadn’t touched it since before Christmas, and a film of dust now dulled the brightness of the colours. She brushed her hand over it, almost absent-mindedly. Art had always been her solace. Why shouldn’t it work its magic now?

  Perhaps it was because there was no incentive. She didn’t need to earn a living and she had no one to prove anything to. However successful she was, her family would never know – the name Helen Cameron would mean nothing to them. For the first time for weeks a spontaneous bubble of laughter rose in her throat. Helen Cameron was still Ellie Tyler at heart – and who did she think she was, anyway?

  Another little voice made itself heard. She could still paint – there were galleries in Chelmsford and Colchester. Surely Alex couldn’t object. It wasn’t as if she’d be ‘working’. Perhaps she could make Alex understand that she didn’t want to paint pretty pictures as a hobby. Like him, she needed to be doing something that engaged her brain as well as her aesthetic senses?

  Like most men of his generation, Alex seemed to think that caring for home and husband – and in time their children – was enough for a woman. It wasn’t as if they needed the money, he’d said.

  It was all right for him, Ellie thought. Not content with the success of ‘silkene’ he and Donald were looking for ways to improve the yarn and were working on a new type of fabric which meant long hours spent at the mill. Ellie wouldn’t have minded if only, when he came home, he would share his enthusiasm with her, talk about his experiments as he had in the days when she’d been his secretary and assistant. But he fobbed her off, intimating that she wouldn’t understand.

  Now, she brushed her hand across the half-finished panel again, disturbing the cloud of dust, She picked up a soft brush and, hardly thinking, carefully cleaned the silk. She inspected the tins of dye which had lain undisturbed on their shelf for so many weeks.

  Before long she was immersed in her work, scarcely noticing as the sun crept lower in the sky and the afternoon drew to a close. It was only when it was too dark to work that she threw down her brush and looked at her almost finished work with a glow of satisfaction. Tomorrow she would make an early start and get it finished. She couldn’t wait to start on the next one; her head was buzzing with shapes and colours. And she didn’t care what Alex said. Would he know, or even care, what she got up to in the long, lonely hours that he was away?

  Ellie tried not to feel too disappointed as she left the shop and pushed her way through the crowds which thronged Colchester’s narrow High Street. It was only what she’d expected – although she’d set out full of confidence.

  She’d tried four shops already and no one seemed to be interested. No – that wasn’t strictly true. Two of the buyers she’d spoken to had been very impressed with her samples. But one had indicated that, because they were individual designs, there would only be a limited number available and therefore would be too expensive for his shop. And the other had been very enthusiastic until she told him that she could not produce them in the quantities he wanted.

  ‘Why don’t you get the design printed on to the material and run off as many as you can sell? I’d buy them in bulk – at the right price,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to produce them in quantity if you want to make a profit.’

  She agreed – up to a point – but the whole idea was that no two of her scarves were alike. She could tailor the design to what the customer wanted – like an art commission in fact. After all, silk painting was still only a hobby.

  But was it? Since the day she’d picked up her brushes again she had begun to feel like her old self. Even the problems with Alex had faded now that she had something else to think about. Her old ambitions were stirring once more. Painting scarves wasn’t just something to fill the empty hours. If she could sell just a few it would prove to Alex and everyone else who’d laughed at her ambitions how wrong they’d been.

  Ellie turned into a narrow lane just off the High Street. She might as well try one more shop before giving up. Sylvia – Accessories, was painted in flowing script over the blue-painted shop front. It was just the sort of shop Ellie had imagined selling her scarves, its window draped in purple velvet with a matching hat, handbag and gloves tastefully arranged in the centre, a chiffon scarf thrown artistically across the bag. But it wasn’t a patch on any of hers, Ellie thought. She hoped the shop owner would agree.

  Thirty minutes later she was drinking Earl Grey out of delicate bone china, trying to give the impression that she had business meetings like this every day of the week. Her samples were spread across the table in the back room and Mrs Marshall, the shop’s proprietor – ‘Call me Sylvia, dear’ – was enthusing about the colours and designs as she ran a pale-blue-and-mint-green scarf through her long slim fingers.

  ‘I was trained as a milliner and it was always my dream to have my own little shop,’ she told Ellie. ‘But so few ladies wear hats nowadays – except to weddings. So I’ve started branching out into other accessories – even a bit of costume jewellery. I want to expand my stock even more and your scarves are just the thing. So individual, dear.’

  When she left the shop, promising to deliver a dozen scarves by the following week, Ellie could hardly stop herself leaping in the air and shouting for joy. The silly grin was still on her face when she started up her car.

  Sylvia had asked her if Helene scarves would be exclusive to her shop. Ellie didn’t want to be restricted to one outlet. ‘Exclusive to Colchester,’ she said, thinking quickly.

  Sylvia had smiled happily. ‘I’ll mention that in my advert in next week’s local paper,’ she said.

  It had been Norah’s idea to give Ellie’s ‘creations’ as she called them a name. ‘You must have your own label,’ she’d said, suggesting she use her name. Now each scarf was signed Helene in the corner – with an ‘e’ because it looked more classy, as Norah said.

  As she drove through the country lanes, her mind busy with new designs, she itched to get home and take up her paintbrushes. Her success in Colchester was the start of a new phase in her life. Next week she’d try Ipswich, maybe London – not her old home ground but exclusive West End shops. She couldn’t wait to get home and tell Alex her news, hoping he’d be pleased for her. But something told her not to say anything just yet.

  When she opened the front door she was greeted with silence. Mrs Mills had gone home, leaving a casserole simmering on the Aga and a note on the table saying that Alex had phoned to say he would be late.

  Disappointed, Ellie sat down to her own meal. She was just finishing when the phone rang.

  ‘Sorry, darling. Crisis at the Manchester plant. I’ve got to rush up there. Hope to be back tomorrow if I can sort things out.’

  ‘Do you have to go tonight?’

  ‘If I drive up now, I’ll miss the worst of the traffic and be ready to start first thing.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t say you’ll miss me.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ she replied.

  ‘I phoned earlier. Where were you?’

  ‘Colchester.’ Ellie was about to tell him her news but he laughed again.

  ‘Spending my hard-earned money, eh?’ He laughed. ‘Must go. See you tomorrow but if I can’t get back, I’ll ring. You will be in, won’t you?’

  She put the phone down and went back to the dining roo
m. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but Alex hadn’t sounded his usual self. It wasn’t unusual for him to go away on business and, in a way, she was relieved. Perhaps now wasn’t the right time to tell him she was going into business for herself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Harry was working even longer hours in the market. Sid was still unwell and he had taken over the more arduous work of running the stall. Leaving Sid to serve the customers, he did all the setting up, the dismantling of the stall and packing away at the end of the day. Recently, he’d started doing the books as well.

  If only Sid would admit that he’d never be able to work full-time again, they could find someone else to take over the pitch. Then Harry could look for a ‘proper job’ doing something he enjoyed. He still hoped to work with cars one day. But Sid was determinedly cheerful in the face of his recurring stomach problems and swore he’d be ‘back on his feet’ before long. Until then, Harry continued to keep things ticking over for his mate.

  Today he was worried about Mary too and had popped home to make sure she was all right. He crossed the landing to her room. She was lying on top of the bed, fully dressed, her hands clasped across her stomach. Even in the dim light filtering through the partly closed curtains, he could see she was in pain.