Shining Threads Page 34

  Tessa could sympathise with her reluctance to come to Greenacres to join in the celebrations: when one is no more than a lowly mill girl it took courage to place oneself amongst those who consider themselves to be one’s betters. She had not dared to offer Annie the ‘loan’ of a decent bonnet and gown since she knew where that would lead, but if she would just come to the church, see her married to Drew, Tessa would be content and she meant to try to persuade her to do so today.

  She had known, though nothing was ever said, that Will still called at Annie’s cottage when he was in the district and she had relied on her friend to let her know when that was so that there would be no awkward confrontations. Yet now, in that first moment when she realised that this visit must have been unforeseen, just as Annie had not known that she, Tessa, was going to call, she felt an unexpected surge of incredible gladness.

  ‘Tessa,’ he said coolly. ‘Are you well?’ No more than that, leaving her in no doubt that whatever there had been between them was not only dead but decently buried. He was a man who had, unwillingly, his imperturbable manner seemed to say, lost his head over a pretty girl. That was folly from which he had recovered as one recovers from a heavy cold or a fever, debilitating at the time but not dangerous. So he could greet her quite calmly now, just as though they were no more than acquaintances of Annie’s who found themselves together in her kitchen.

  ‘Thank you, yes, and you?’ With a great effort she kept her voice just as neutral, her manner just as off-hand.

  ‘I’m well, thank you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘And what brings you over to Annie’s so unexpectedly?’

  At the back of the room Annie drew in her breath sharply and when one of the children, Tessa could not have said which one, erupted into the scullery from the back of the cottage, Annie moved quickly to the back door and ushered whoever it was out again, whispering something which neither the man nor the woman in the kitchen could hear.

  Tessa was stung by Will’s familiarity since it was nothing to do with him when or why she visited Annie. So she was not expected, was it any of his concern? Her head lifted imperiously and she turned away from him, tossing her riding crop and cloak to a chair beside the table. She was aware of the silence. She could no longer see him as she stared out of the window to where her mare cropped Annie’s few winter plants, but she could feel him there and the dread grew in her, for a small part of her wanted to turn round and touch him. To put out her hand and . . . and have him grasp it.

  Dear God, was she mad? She believed she was for it seemed there was still something in her which called out to something in him despite what had happened since she had seen him last. She did not love him, of course she didn’t. She loved Robby and she loved Drew, though in a completely different way, naturally, so why, her suddenly anguished mind asked, was she dithering about in Annie’s kitchen allowing herself to become upset at the sight of Will Broadbent?

  ‘My dear Tessa,’ he said, amusement in his voice, ‘you seem quite agitated. I do apologise if I have . . . startled you.’

  ‘There is no need to apologise.’

  ‘Good, nevertheless you are startled?’

  ‘Of course not. I . . . did not expect to find you here.’

  ‘Nor I you.’

  She allowed herself to turn to him then, conscious of the softening in his voice and was just in time to see the strange expression which deepened his amber eyes to a smoky brown, then it was gone and he smiled. He took a cigar case from the pocket of his well-cut jacket, selected a cigar, lit it and when it was drawing to his satisfaction, blew smoke into Annie’s kitchen ceiling. His smile deepened as he saw her look at it.

  ‘Aah, yes. As you see I have acquired the . . . er . . . trappings of the business gentleman. The good suit, the cigar, the . . . well, other things.’ He gave a sardonic twist of the wide, strong mouth, a lifting of the heavy eyebrows as though to say it was all a performance put on for those who were impressed with such things.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘And to yourself.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Are you not to be married shortly?’ The sudden swerve unnerved her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How splendid. I do like to hear of good fortune. So, it seems we are both . . . doing well.’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Oh, indeed. A good marriage is not a thing to be scorned.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You mean it is not to be a good marriage?’ He leaned forward or did she just imagine it? His expression did not change. His face was just as suavely smiling but there was still the remainder of something curiously tense in his narrowed eyes.

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Not like the . . . er . . . other one?’

  ‘What . . . ?’ Please don’t, her heart cried out to him. Please don’t hurt me, or try to, and in her anguish it did not occur to her to wonder why he should try to do so.

  ‘I do beg your pardon.’ He was immensely civil now, all traces of feeling of any sort wiped from his face. ‘It has, of course, nothing to do with me. Now,’ he turned to Annie who still hovered at the back of the scullery, ‘I must be off. I have an engagement this evening which I would not like to miss.’ And his manner, and smile, told them both quite clearly that it was with a lady.

  He had been gone for several minutes when she felt Annie’s gentle touch on her arm. She had been brooding out of the window into the street along which his broad-shouldered back had disappeared and she jumped when she felt Annie’s hand, then turned, attempting to smile.

  ‘It seems Will Broadbent has gone up in the world, Annie.’

  ‘Tessa, lass . . .’

  ‘Don’t say it, Annie.’

  ‘Say what, Tessa Harrison?’

  ‘I don’t know. You have a look on your face which says you are going to argue with me about . . . well, whatever it is you feel must be argued about.’

  ‘Yer can’t do it. Yer can’t wed Drew Greenwood. Not just because of Will an’ what you an’ ’im ’ad. But because that cousin o’ thine is . . .’

  ‘Will’s nothing to me and I am nothing to Will. Heavens, it’s two years. Two years, Annie. I can’t just keep drifting from man to man like some aimless butterfly . . .’

  ‘Nobody ses yer should, but wait . . . give it a month or so, lass . . .’ and see what comes of this reunion with Will, her anxious eyes said, but Tessa flung her off roughly.

  ‘I can’t.’ Her face which, an hour since, had been filled if not with joy then with peace, was now devoid of all expression.

  She was married to Drew Greenwood on a white and frosted morning just before Christmas. There was a crunch of new snow underfoot as she walked up the path on the arm of Joss Greenwood and above them the sky was streaked in delicate layers of palest pink and blue. The sun shone hazily through the slight curling mist and when they moved inside the dusty parish church it was scarcely warmer than the crisp air outside.

  She wore ivory velvet and carried rosebuds of the same shade from the Greenacres hothouses. Her veil was a marvel of white lace and seed pearls and in her ears and about her neck were the lustrous pearls her bridegroom had given her as a wedding gift. Her wide skirts flowed from her supple waist, whispering across the worn flagstones as her uncle put her carefully beside his own son, and the massed congregation agreed they had never seen a lovelier bride. She looked fragile and mysterious, although of course she was not, for she was tall and had junketed about the high tops and deep valleys of the countryside with her recklessly wild cousins since she was old enough to sit on a horse.

  Her family were arranged on both sides of the church since she and her groom were cousins, with their guests in descending order of importance behind them. The Squire with his lady and their family sat in the second pew, naturally – a feather in the Greenwood cap there, by God, with the young Squireen, who was known to be one of those with whom the Greenwoods had made merry, acting as groomsman.
Among the mainly commercial congregation were one or two members of the fox-hunting set, those who had taken a fancy to the Greenwood girl, as she was known, over the past few years. She had proved to be not only their equal on the hunting field, but damned amusing as well, with the lofty arrogance they both admired and shared since it was the characteristic which set them apart from the orders. And Drew Greenwood had shown the courageous foolhardiness on the battlefield which was the stamp of the pedigreed and ruling class to which they themselves belonged. A rare couple and one they were more than ready to take up.

  It was all most gratifying and despite Laurel Greenwood’s fierce disapproval of the marriage it was apparent that she considered herself to be getting only her due as she greeted ladies and gentlemen known to be related to the lesser aristocracy. She had been attempting to get her toe in the door at Longworth Hall for three years now, ever since her Christmas fancy-dress ball which had been honoured by the Squire’s presence. Surely this meant a further and renewed warmth between her family and that of the leading gentry of the Penfold Valley? The young Greenwoods and the Longworths were so obviously the best of friends and Laurel had sons and daughters of her own whose future hopes might well be furthered by her acquaintance with the local Squire.

  Kit Greenwood, doing her best to signal to her husband that no one would think the worse of him if he sat down, looked quite splendid in one of the new hooped ‘cages’ or ‘artificial crinolines’ to support her vast skirt. The bodice of the outfit was separate and worn over it was a ‘gilet’ or waistcoat, considered a little fast by the ladies of Crossfold where the Paris and London fashions had not yet arrived. It was in a lovely violet-blue, the exact shade of her eyes which had sadly lost their brilliance since the death of her son. Her bonnet, worn at the back of her head, had a dip in the centre of the brim, on the underside of which was a froth of blond lace. She watched her boy, for surely he was still that despite his twenty years, lean against his cousin, his wife now, and as he made his vows his mother was seen to reach for her sister-in-law’s hand as though she herself was sorely in need of support. They sat quietly together, the mothers of the bride and groom, perhaps dwelling on their losses as a family, on the past which had led to this marriage, which, if they were honest, neither had wanted for their children.

  The wedding breakfast was of such splendour it was talked of for weeks by those, and there were well over one hundred, who sat down to share it: the Squire and Mrs Longworth, Sir Anthony Taylor and Lady Prudence, Nicky Longworth, Johnny Taylor and numerous ladies and gentlemen of their society rubbing shoulders with Abbotts and Jenkinsons and others of the manufacturing classes. Annie Beale had not been persuaded to come. There were flowers everywhere amidst the warm, scented comfort of Greenacres and Drew Greenwood proposing a charming, witty and quite emotional toast to his lovely bride.

  It was a moment of great beauty, of great poignancy, when one remembered the son who had been left behind on the battlefield of the Crimean Peninsula, but perhaps with the responsibility of a wife and no doubt a child within the twelvemonth, Drew Greenwood would now buckle to, and become a part of what he would one day inherit.

  Jenny Harrison watched them, her daughter and her new son-in-law, her mind not on wedding cake and champagne, on laughter and toasts and kisses, but on what Joss was to say to his son and his new daughter-in-law the next day before they set off on their wedding journey.

  They gathered in what had once been the study of Barker Chapman, Kit’s father, then in turn hers, her husband’s, Jenny’s and, occasionally, Charlie’s, but never Drew’s. Kit, still beautiful despite her fifty-one years; Joss, his face brown with the Mediterranean sun, but lined; Jenny, looking older somehow than her own brother; and Charlie, his pleasant, good-humoured face wondering on what this meeting could be about. Laurel, his wife, making sure of everyone’s comfort in the way a good hostess should; making sure everyone understood, particularly Tessa, that she was mistress of this house, at least for the time being.

  And Tessa and Drew themselves, sitting close together in the deep leather chesterfield, Drew ready to whisper and giggle, treating the whole event with the light-hearted frivolity he directed towards anything which smacked of the serious. He was eager to be off to the railway station and the start of their grand wedding tour: Italy, France, Austria and wherever their careless search for pleasure took them. They might tarry in Paris since he had a fancy to deck Tessa out in the most fashionable and expensive gowns money – and they had a lot of it – could buy.

  Joss smiled at them all, reaching for his wife’s hand which was there, as it had always been for thirty years, waiting for his.

  ‘You’ll be wondering what all this is about,’ he said, ‘especially you, Drew.’ His son blinked in surprise since he was not wondering at all. He supposed it to be some gathering, a family occasion in which a toast was to be drunk to the health of the bride and groom, wishing his father would get a move on since he and Tessa were to be off within the hour.

  ‘We’ve been through some rare do’s, your mother and me, and we’ve always managed to overcome them, haven’t we, lass? But we’re none of us getting any younger and there’s still some ends want tidying up, eeh, my love?’

  ‘Rubbish, Joss Greenwood. You might be in your dotage but I’m in my prime yet.’ Kit held his hand fiercely, her eyes clinging to his with a passion which was quite extraordinary, even somewhat embarrassing in Laurel’s view.

  ‘Aye, well, that’s as maybe, but best get things sorted out.’ Tessa suddenly realised that what she had always considered to be her aunt’s mills, her aunt’s house and fortune, in fact belonged entirely to Joss Greenwood since on the day of their marriage, by law, everything she had owned became his, even herself. She had no existence, she did not exist in the eyes of the law except as Mrs Joss Greenwood, and what had once been hers could now be disposed of by her husband as he thought fit.

  She felt a warning prickle at the base of her spine and her grip on Drew’s hand tightened. The room was so quiet she could distinctly hear the voices of the servants in the breakfast room as they cleared away the table.

  ‘We’re not short of a guinea or two.’ Her uncle grinned boyishly and his wife shook her head. ‘I reckon Kit and I can live very pleasantly, luxuriously even by my standards remembering I was brought up in a weavers’ cottage’ – he winked at his sister and Tessa could swear she saw a glint of moisture in her mother’s eye – ‘with what the mills have brought us and the investments we’ve made. The railways have . . . well, I’ll not go into details except to say the shares we bought have made a pretty penny. So . . .’ He paused and though it was of no concern to her, Tessa found she was holding her breath. ‘My wife and I have decided to let go, to make over the business to those who deserve it. A partnership. Drew, as our . . . our only son will have a three-quarter share but the rest is to go to my sister and brother who, for the past twenty-five years, have kept the whole bloody lot together. They will hold their share, half each of the remaining twenty-five per cent, until their death and then they may leave it to whoever they please in the family, or sell it back to Drew. As the largest shareholder Drew will be general manager but Jenny and Charlie will now be partners in the business. These arrangements were made some time back, before you and Tessa decided on marriage, Drew. There was a proviso which, at the time, was not fully completed and until it is Drew does not become the head of the firm as is his right. Jenny and Charlie are in control as it stands. All the decisions made are theirs alone, but Mr Dalton, the lawyer, is to come here this morning and everything will be put in order, so I would like you all to be present. Naturally, for the time being Jenny and Charlie will continue to advise since Drew has not the experience to do what they have done for so many years. But when the papers are drawn up he and he alone will be in charge of Chapman Manufacturing.’

  ‘No!’

  They turned as one, all heads moving as one to look at the drained and pallid face of Joss Greenwood’s son. He sa
t beside his wife, his hands wringing hers most piteously. Gone was the look of indolent amusement, of unruffled carelessness, and in its place was an expression so haunted Jenny was reminded of the day he had come back from the Crimea.

  ‘I cannot work in the mill, Father.’ He lifted his proud head but in his eyes was the terrified look of a child about to be shut up in a dark cupboard. His bravery on the field was beyond question, both on the hunting field and on the field of war. His courage had been spoken of by several returned officers, acquaintances of the Longworths and the Taylors, but the horror and dread which the one word ‘mill’ conjured up had, it seemed, unmanned him.

  ‘Then what will you do?’ his father asked him, his voice steely.

  ‘Must I do anything, Father? Could we not sell the mills? We could use the money to buy an estate . . . land . . . farm land . . .’ His face brightened and the expression of horror began to fade from his eyes. ‘I could live as the Squire does, not farming, of course, but looking after the tenants, acting as a magistrate . . . a gentleman’s life, Father, to which I am particularly drawn . . .’

  The echo of a conversation – a hundred years ago now, surely? – slipped into ‘Tessa’s mind and the day on which it had taken place became clearer with every minute. There had been just the four of them dining that night. Her mother had been there, yes, and this man who was now her husband, Drew Greenwood, and another – his brother, his twin brother who was dead but who surely lived on in the man who had just spoken. Her mother was looking towards her as though the thoughts in her head were the same as her own. Drew, as always, had met the confrontation with his aunt that night head on, arguing that what had been in the past should remain there and did not concern those who lived in the present and the future. But it had been Pearce who had sworn he would sell his heritage, sell it without a thought for the men of his family who had made it. Sell it and live as the Squire did, close to the land which bred him.