The Silk Factory

by Judith Allnatt

  Jack feared it was hopeless but nonetheless humoured her. They walked on, crossing to the far side of the street when they reached the factory and then ascending the hill that led out of the village. Jack asked questions about the landlord’s family at the inn, with whom Effie, as a long-term guest, was now on friendly terms. He tried to distract her and draw her into conversation but he saw how her eyes strayed always fearfully to the ditches. At length, he gave up all pretence that they were walking out together exchanging trivialities like a normal courting couple and fell silent. They walked along the ridge, out beyond the village, until there was only open farmland on either side: on the right fields full of sheep dotted with crows, and on the left a pattern of wheat fields and pasture sweeping down and then up again to a skyline pieced with woods, like uneven clumps of bristles in a brush.

  Jack began to speak, instead, of more troubling matters, closer to their hearts. He pointed to the nearest field on their left saying, ‘Do you see that elm tree? That’s where Tobias was hiding. Thank God it was I and not Clay who found him and that he was able to reach the woods.’

  Effie squeezed his arm. ‘He was always a good woodsman. He said you needed silent feet and wide eyes for rabbiting.’ She gave a sad smile as they walked on.

  ‘Effie,’ Jack said thoughtfully, ‘did Beulah know much about Tobias’s escape?’

  ‘She knew that his escape was through these woods, though not your part in it.’

  They looked at each other, both thinking the same thought.

  ‘So,’ Jack said, ‘if Alice’s story is true and Beulah fled along this road, might she not have remembered and sought the same secretive route as her brother?’

  They bent their steps towards the nearest wood, Castle Dykes, a dark ring of trees on the horizon.

  They found a narrow, overgrown track leading from the road. It ran between pasture on one side and a cornfield splashed with poppies on the other, and passed into the trees through a cleft in a deep ditch and steep bank. An ancient fortification, it would once have been clear of trees and afforded, for its Iron Age tribe, a view of twenty miles over the surrounding countryside. The bank, once topped by palisades, was overgrown with trees, the ditch half-filled with fallen branches and a litter of weeds, knee-deep in leaf mould.

  The trees enclosed a large central clearing, sunlit, scattered with stumps and swathes of bracken but largely covered by tough, dense grass, criss-crossed by earth paths. To one side, the remains of a campfire showed: a large patch of scathed turf scattered with charred wood, ashes leached and spread by rain. Upended logs were placed around it, a couple fallen over on their sides. Nearby, large patches of grass were yellow and dead as if something had stood there, and in other places there were holes in the ground as if pegs had been driven in as tethers.

  At the back of the clearing, a low shelter had been made, a limb pulled down from a young sycamore and pinned to the earth with cut branches and bracken piled against it on either side to form a rough tent of wood and leaves. Seeing it, Effie ran over, calling out, ‘Beulah! Beulah!’ a wild hope rising in her.

  Jack joined her where she stood disconsolate beside the empty shelter. ‘Whoever was here has long departed,’ he said. ‘The campfire is old – and look, here’ – he put his hand on the brown fronds and fragments came away at his touch – ‘the bracken is all but shrivelled away.’

  Effie, still breathing hard, rubbed her hand across her brow. ‘I thought … just for a moment …’

  ‘We can try the woods further along, work through Everdon Stubbs,’ Jack said in the most encouraging voice he could muster. ‘We can come back another day or even carry on now, if you feel strong enough?’

  Effie wasn’t listening. She was staring at something hanging above the shelter, a patch of red in a mass of green. As if in a dream she pulled a branch away to reveal it. Dangling from a twig, knotted at one corner, as if hung out to dry on any homely clothes line, was a red flannel kerchief. She reached out and felt it between her finger and thumb.

  Jack came and looked over her shoulder. ‘Gypsies’ washing left out by accident?’

  Effie unknotted the cloth and turned it over, running her thumb along the hem. She turned to him, her eyes shining. ‘Beulah’s!’ she said.

  ‘Wait, Effie; how can you know that? Red flannel kerchiefs are ten-a-penny. Even if Beulah had one it doesn’t necessarily follow …’

  ‘’Tis a message! To say that she’s been here, with the gypsies! ’Tis a message for me, to let me know she’s safe!’

  Jack, torn between wanting to believe it so that she might have some peace of mind and feeling that this false hope would hurt all the more when logic dashed it, hesitated, undecided.

  ‘Look – look here,’ Effie said, folding the cloth so that the hem showed. ‘Do you think I don’t know my own stitching?’ Clutching the kerchief to her breast, Effie went and sat down heavily on one of the logs and Jack rolled another over and sat beside her.

  ‘Even if it is the case, you realise that there’s little chance of finding her. They could be anywhere by now,’ he said gently. ‘The gypsies wander the whole country without rhyme or reason. There’s no pattern to their travels; they stay somewhere until they’re on the brink of getting caught at some mischief and then move on.’

  ‘But she’s alive! She’s alive!’ Tears of relief stood in her eyes. ‘And they may come back.’

  Jack nodded a tentative assent. ‘If you really believe it, we should speak to the constable. We should tell him what we’ve found – present it as evidence. It does support Alice’s testimony.’

  Effie looked up sharply. ‘What! So that monster, Fowler, can send the law after her? No. He’s made others suffer long enough. ’Tis time he suffered himself and I’ll do nothing to clear his name.’ She folded the cloth and hid it away in her pocket.

  Jack rubbed his chin but argued no further.

  Effie looked around, her eyes lighting on every patch of disturbed ground.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Jack asked softly. ‘It must be a small band of gypsies. See’ – he pointed to the rectangular patches of yellowed grass – ‘just three carts, I think.’

  Effie shook her head. In a low voice she said, ‘I was thinking that perhaps our baby is buried somewhere in this place but I shall never know where.’ She leant forward and rested her elbows on her knees, putting her head in her hands.

  Jack put his arm around her, pulling her close. ‘Darling Effie, I know it’s hard to believe it now but one day you will be happy again. We will be happy, together. I shall make it so, in time.’

  In a muffled voice, Effie said, ‘Tell me the story. Tell me again about the house where we’re going to live.’

  In the warm clearing all was silent save for the chirrup of grasshoppers in the bracken and a woodpecker far away drumming for its mate.

  ‘The house that Mr and Mrs Stamford will live in is a small house in Ordnance Row,’ Jack began, ‘but solid, in a terrace of four, all junior officers’ houses. There’s a little garden to plant with all your favourites: sweet peas and roses and gillyflowers.’ He paused to kiss her forehead. Her eyes were shut tight as if she were watching on the back of her eyelids the scenes he painted.

  ‘At the far end of the gardens is a washing yard where the wives gather and gossip and swap receipts for their best dishes, while they’re pegging out the sheets. The house itself has a sunny parlour where the Stamfords will sit and talk together or entertain their neighbours, and in the winter we shall be snug either side of a good fire.’

  ‘’Tis make-believe,’ Effie said.

  He turned her face towards him and kissed her cheek. ‘There are two good bedchambers,’ he said. ‘In the large one we shall have a feather mattress as deep as a hayrick and twice as soft.’ He leant his forehead against hers. ‘The other room is tiny but there is space for a cradle and a truckle bed too, one day, when we are blessed again …’

  ‘’Tis just a fairy tale,’ Effie whispered, a catch in
her voice.

  ‘Trust me.’ He kissed her softly on the lips. ‘We will make it true.’

  Three weeks later, dressed in silk and with fine lace at sleeves and throat, Effie stood waiting anxiously in the church porch with her matrons of honour, Ann and Sarah, Jack’s sisters-in-law. Two of his little nieces sat upon a wooden bench seat, fidgeting and swinging their feet.

  From outside in the lane, deep male voices drifted. Jack had arranged that, after the wedding, the path to the lychgate was to be lined with redcoats standing to attention, and that they were to pass under the crossed swords held aloft in their honour. The men’s jovial conversation was punctuated by the higher voices and laughter of the children who were gathering, ready for the thrill of climbing on to the churchyard wall with their handfuls of wild flowers, to shower them with petals. Effie tugged at her sleeves in nervous excitement, thinking of all the villagers who would turn out for the spectacle.

  The heavy studded doors of the church were open a crack and Effie peeped through. Jack’s family filled most of the pews. His father and brothers were dressed in sober clerical grey; the wives’ bonnets nodded as they talked; children squirmed round to talk to others behind them and babies were handed from lap to lap. Effie’s side was woefully thin, just one pew lined with the women with whom she used to pick snowdrops, the younger ones bright with ribbons, giggling and nudging each other.

  The curate was to come and fetch her, there being no kin to walk her down the aisle, and Effie watched anxiously for his appearance. She was grateful, of course, for Parson Hawkins’s sensitive suggestion, but could not help but be a little tearful when she imagined how proudly her father would have led her in, or with what solemn care Tobias, gangly in his Sunday best, would have discharged the duty. She did not know Parson Hawkins or the curate and, for all their kindness, neither did they know her. She was to be given away by a stranger.

  She pushed the door open a little further and a shaft of light fell upon the stone flags. Jack and his elder brother took their places beneath the pulpit, backs stiff and straight, Jack’s red coat neat and spruce, belt and boots polished to a deep shine. Effie wished that he would turn round, if only for a moment. She longed for his reassuring look. He would not turn. It was not the custom. She must wait until the curate came and flute and viol started to play as they made their entrance, before she could look on his face.

  Ann touched her arm gently. ‘Your veil … I fear it may be coming loose?’ she said shyly, for they were still new to each other, although they were to be sisters.

  Effie’s hands flew to her head.

  ‘May I?’ Ann asked. She fastened the veil of net lace more firmly above the coil of Effie’s hair. Effie thought of Beulah and how much she would have loved to be her maid. She blinked hard.

  The lychgate creaked open and they all turned to see what late guest was arriving. An old bent figure, dressed in a threadbare coat and waistcoat, and old-fashioned gaiters, made his way slowly up the path.

  ‘Why ’tis old Martin the shepherd – Mr Eben!’ Effie said. ‘However have you come all this way?’

  ‘An early start and Shanks’s pony, m’dear,’ Martin said, smiling broadly at the assembled company. ‘Ladies.’ He bowed, sweeping off his battered hat, and then clapped it on to the head of the smallest bridesmaid, making her laugh and wriggle.

  ‘I’m so glad to see you.’ Effie held out her hand and he enclosed it within his own, the knuckles red, the palms deeply seamed.

  ‘Well, it crossed my mind that you might need an arm to lean on, your father being gone. And though mine might not be the sturdiest, ’tis nonetheless willing, like, should you need it.’

  Effie squeezed his hand tight and her thank you came out in a whisper.

  ‘Well, who’d miss such a chance? A wedding breakfast with much drinking-of-healths and speechifying! Why, ’tis only right to come along to touch glasses and wish you both luck.’

  The curate arrived and, taking in the scene, smiled and shook hands with Martin. At a nod from Effie, Ann reached behind her, lifted the edge of her veil and brought it down over her face. Closed in, behind its gauzy folds, everything around her was softened, as if she looked through a fine mist. Martin held out his arm and she took it; then they were walking in procession behind the curate as flute and fiddle struck up and filled the high space with cheerful sound. Faces looked towards her, all of them smiling, and she, looking only for one face, one smile, saw Jack turn, his eyes soft and full of expectation.

  The parson stood at the altar, beaming. He spoke of marriage being ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, and for the procreation of children, and then they made their vows.‘Who giveth this woman to be joined to this man?’ he asked and Martin spoke out and handed her forward. As her eyes met Jack’s, her heart filled with a joy louder than any music, higher than the lofty space around her, and she took her place at his side.

  TWENTY

  In the middle of January, Rosie received two letters that filled her with new hope and energy.

  The first was from Mr Douglas, the solicitor, informing her that her case had been successful and that an increase to her maintenance payments had been awarded. Rosie, reading the letter in the hall, where she’d swooped on it as soon as she saw the solicitors’ logo on the envelope, let out a huge sigh of relief. The little bit extra each week would let her finish readying the house for sale. It struck her that once she would have felt fearful of Josh’s response, the snide comments and petty revenges he indulged in whenever he didn’t get his own way, but since their confrontation at Christmas she felt that something in their relationship had shifted. She thought he was now less likely to take her on, and, perhaps even more importantly, she felt less vulnerable to his criticism. She had stopped worrying what he thought about her; she didn’t care.

  She hired a skip and Rob and Tally joined her to clear out the cellar. Together they hauled out all the rubbish and dumped it in the big yellow container in the road, turning the cellar into an empty echoey space. In daylight and fresh air, the bedstead, cupboard, boxes and mirror lay higgledy-piggledy in the bottom of the skip with the pitiful look of any unwanted, everyday objects.

  ‘Better?’ Tally said.

  ‘Much,’ Rosie replied.

  Once the cellar was clear, Rob got a mate who was a builder to check the crack in the wall and confirm that the structure was sound and Rosie was extremely grateful to have no further reason to go down there. Feeling that a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, she pressed on and did most of the decorating and was ready to tackle the garden.

  Her plan was to have the house ready for sale by the spring. They would stay until it sold, so that she could show prospective buyers around a house that seemed warm and lived-in. Then, in the longer term, once they were back in London, Sam would start school and she would find a nursery place for Cara. She would make an appointment at the teaching agency and say that she was keen to take on supply work again. She felt sure that once she could guarantee that she was reliably free she would pick up work easily; it was all about being around and available.

  The second letter came a few days later and was postmarked Oxford. As she eased the sheet of paper from the brown envelope, she saw the letterhead of a small indie publisher to whom she’d sent print samples. She expected the same polite rejection that she’d received from others at intervals over the past few months. Her eyes scanned the letter: We are pleased to tell you … impressed by your portfolio … unique style … a children’s book … She let out a yelp of surprise and delight. If she was agreeable in principle, they would like to send her the full manuscript and then fix a date to discuss her ideas with the art director. She sat on the bottom step of the stairs and read the synopsis that was attached; it was a story set in Tibet about a boy called Tashi and his adventures in the mountains. At once she was picturing spinning prayer wheels, cross-legged statues of Buddha and horned yak with woven woollen saddles. She
wrote back that evening to say that she agreed and would love to meet up. The payment offered was modest and the publisher small but it could be the start of something that might grow. For a moment she dreamt of being able to make a living as an illustrator – what bliss to be free to work away in the quiet, light-filled room upstairs on projects that would fill her with enthusiasm and ignite her imagination! If only she could get regular commissions they could afford to stay here, amongst friends, instead of going back to the poky flat. The rent agreement was due for renewal in February. What if she didn’t renew, tried to sell her own work instead of going back to teaching, moved up here wholesale? It was an idea, and sometimes you had to make a leap of faith … She reined herself in. The thought of going entirely freelance scared her. She hadn’t got the nerve to take the risk.

  Still, the letter was wonderful news. She hadn’t touched pen and ink for months, hadn’t even felt the urge to sketch. This would make her pick up a pen again and she was thrilled to have the chance of a proper commission.

  There was one last snowfall that remained for a week and then a thaw that left the world rinsed clean and returned to colour once again. In the garden, beneath a cold, clear sky, the red stems of dogwood glowed against the fence and yellow algae painted the bark of the trees.

  While Cara was at playgroup one afternoon, Rosie and Sam, wrapped up round and fat in layers of clothing, wearing scarves, gloves and beanie hats, had come outside and were making a start on clearing the undergrowth. Rosie was chopping with secateurs through the woody stems of brambles and dragging them out. Some were yards long and she made Sam laugh when she pulled them and the undergrowth twitched and shivered at the very end of the garden; they had bets on which would prove to be the longest.

  Each time she cleared a patch, pulling out nettles and docks once the briars were out, Sam’s job was to fill up his little blue wheelbarrow with the old bricks and bits of mortar beneath and trundle them over to the sacks which Rosie planned to add to the skip. He was in his element, doing the job of a loader for real, and Rosie felt quietly companionable as they worked alongside each other, Sam puffing back and forth with cheeks pinched pink by the cold air.