Shining Threads Read online

  ‘No, sir.’

  He was still brooding, lounging against the cabin wall, his narrowed eyes staring at where the child had stood but seeing pictures which seemed to grieve him when Annie Beale slipped across the threshold, pale as wood-ash and just as insubstantial.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Greenwood,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Nay, lass. I’m only sorry that it happened in my mill and that we didn’t get to her in time to . . .’ He struggled awkwardly with the words since he was a man and ashamed of his own masculinity at that moment. ‘Why didn’t you report him to Mr Edwards as soon as the bugger took her into the cabin?’

  ‘It’s not my place ter tell one tackler what t’other’s up to, sir, you know that.’ She looked quite shocked and he was saddened that even now, after all these years of enlightened treatment, this girl was still afraid of a system which might lose her her job if she ‘spoke out’.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Anyroad, sir . . .’ she interrupted smoothly, seeing no need to dwell on something which could not be undone. ‘I’ve cleaned ’er up an’ she’s back in’t jennygate . . .’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘Aye, well there’s bread ’as ter be found an’ only way ter pay fer it is wi’ brass what we both earn.’

  Charlie sprang away from the wall and almost lifting her from her feet led her from the office. His face was contorted with anger, not at her but at the circumstances which forced this girl, scarcely more than a child herself by the size of her, to accept not only what had been done to her sister but that she must be prepared to ‘clean her up’ and return her to her work as though nothing untoward had happened. And this was his mill, known throughout Lancashire as a model mill; a model mill built on the spot where once had stood row upon row of mean hovels thrown up by Kit Greenwood’s grandfather to house his own operatives. She had razed them to the ground and in their place had erected the factory which had become the talk of the textile industry. Six storeys high, the site covered several acres. The rooms in which the work was done were high and spacious with windows which opened – as the old ones had not – in order to allow in what fresh air there was, and blinds were put on those which faced south to keep out the heat of the sun. The machines were set, in pairs, at a decent distance from one another, most of the moving parts well guarded. At the back of the building was a separate room with tables and chairs where the workers could eat their ‘carrying-out’ in peace instead of beside their machines as they did in other factories. There was piped water, brought from the river, clean and cool, and separate privies for the men and women. Insanity, those millowners with whom Katherine Chapman had done business called it, sheer madness and where the hell would it lead? Might not their workers want the same thing, indeed were they not already grumbling about better conditions and higher wages?

  Charlie Greenwood looked down at the girl who was apologising to him for causing a disturbance, assuring him, him who had defended girls just like her, and children too, all his life, that she and the child would soon have the machine going again. She was anxious to let him know, just as though he was as unrelenting as any other millowner, that he would lose no profit over this little commotion. Did she not know that his own scarred face had been given him by an overlooker in circumstances very similar to those in which her sister had been involved? Had she not heard of Joss Greenwood, his own brother, now up to Westminster as radical Member of Parliament for Crossfold, who had caused such trouble and aggravation on behalf of the working class in his younger days he had been put in prison for it? Was she not aware that his father, Joshua Greenwood, had died for his belief, aye, given his life at St Peter’s Field in the massacre which took place there?

  ‘Nay, lass . . . what’s your name? . . . Annie Beale. Well, Annie, thi shall have thy bread and a bit more besides,’ he went on, deeply moved, ‘if I’ve ’owt to do with it, and as I’m bloody maister I reckon thee can count on it. Now get thissen home, you and the child an’ when she feels up to it, you an’ her come back, d’you hear? Send someone to collect thy wages an’ you shall be paid. Now, don’t you argue wi’ me, Annie Beale, for I’ll not ’ave it. Dear Lord in heaven, what next . . . no, please . . . I want no thanks . . .’

  He could do no more, he told himself; it wasn’t much but still a damn sight better than she could have expected in any other mill in the Penfold Valley, for despite his family’s efforts to improve the lot of the workers in the textile industry there were still tens of thousands in the land who suffered under the tyranny of profit-mad millowners.

  He shook his head sadly as he walked out of the spinning room and into the bright, sunlit yard, since their dream of equality was as far off as it had been over thirty years ago when his father had died for it.

  3

  ‘Mr Greenwood’s not here just now. He had some business to attend to up at the Cloth Hall later on so happen he’s gone straight there. Unless it’s some family thing which has held him up, as is more than likely. There’s always something with them Greenwoods. If it’s not them wild lads who should be here in this very room right now as ordered by their father – and the Lord only knows where they’ve got to – it’s the lass. She’s as bad as them, let me tell you. Why, only last week we heard she’d been seen over at . . .’ The man who spoke turned his head to look back at the long passage which led into a room where a dozen clerks employed in the main counting house of Chapman Manufacturing had their heads bent industriously over their tall desks. Satisfied that he could not be overheard he beckoned to the large man who blocked the doorway and automatically the man bent his head to listen.

  ‘She’ll not be told, you know, and her no more than sixteen,’ he continued importantly, implying that he was privy to the Greenwood’s most private family business, indeed, his manner seemed to say, had been asked on more than one occasion for his advice. Will Broadbent straightened up distastefully, unwilling to listen to gossip.

  ‘Have you no idea when Mr Greenwood will be here?’ he asked curtly, letting the clerk know he was not concerned with tittle-tattle about the girl of whom, he had heard, the whole valley gossiped, nor indeed of the family who owned the mill. He was aware, as who was not, of the tales of the wild Greenwoods: the woman who had begun the legend over thirty years ago, the man she had married and whose involvement with the outlawed radicals, as they had been then, was still spoken of with some awe by those he had fought for, and now their sons who were if anything, it was rumoured, more rebellious than both of their parents put together.

  ‘No, and if you ask me . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Will interrupted him brusquely, then looked about him as though searching for someone to tell him what to do next.

  ‘You had an appointment with Mr Greenwood then?’

  ‘Aye, at eight thirty sharp.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help you and if that will be all I’ll get back to me work,’ the clerk said, implying that if this chap had nothing better to do with his time than hang about gossiping, he had.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Will turned away and walked down the steep flight of steps, hesitating on the bottom tread to gaze out into the yard. It was bustling with activity. There were enormous waggons pulled by enormous horses, all loaded with Chapman goods ready to be taken to the new railway station in Crossfold. Men grunted as they shifted huge sacking – wrapped bales of the finest fustians, velveteens, sateens and muslins, all to be despatched to the warehouses of Piccadilly and Portland Street in Manchester where they would be stored awaiting shipment to every corner of the known world.

  Against a building at the far side of the yard other men unloaded bales of raw cotton each weighing 500 pounds, just come from the southern states of America by way of Liverpool. The Chapman enterprises were situated in five mills in different parts of the town, two concerned only with spinning, two with weaving and this one which combined the two processes and all the other processes connected with the manufacture of cotton cloth. It was huge, six storeys high and cov
ering many acres. On the ground floor, where the humidity was the highest, were power looms since the weaving process must be done in a damp atmosphere to prevent breakage of thread, and the heavy beams on which the warp thread was wound were of too great a weight for the upper floors. Here also, and on the first floor, were carding, drawing and roving rooms and above them spinning was done on the top four floors.

  The men were hot and sweating from their exertions and their brawny muscled arms rippled in the smoke-hazed sunshine. There was a clatter of horse’s hooves on the cobbles and a chestnut mare galloped dashingly into the yard, scattering the men and boys who were about to address themselves to the task of moving the bales of cotton to the blow room where they would be opened and the raw cotton cleaned and blended.

  The men might have been a pack of dogs for all the notice the rider took of them. They were useful, naturally, for the work they did, but not to be spoken to, nor any particular care taken to avoid them since they were expected to get out of his way. He threw his leg over the horse’s back and leaped lightly from the stirrup to the ground and with a shock Will realised that this was no arrogant lad, but a girl, a girl like none he had seen before. He could do no more than stand and stare, mouth slack and eyes wide with astonishment, since she was wearing a shirt and breeches more suitable to a male than a female.

  ‘Where’s that boy?’ she shouted, her clear voice carrying above the crash of hooves on the cobblestones, the cries of the men and the creak of the pulley which was being used to winch some machinery to the first floor of the mill.

  From across the yard a young lad darted amongst the activity, avoiding men and carts and horses until he reached the girl, catching the reins as she threw them at him, pulling the peak of his cap as he did so.

  ‘Give her a good rub down, Sam. I shall be here for about half an hour and she’s hot. We’ve been out since dawn up to Longworth Moor.”

  ‘Yes, Miss Tessa.’

  Miss Tessa! Miss Tessa Harrison! He should have known, of course, for who else could it be? This was the girl about whom the manufacturing class of the whole of the Penfold Valley whispered and, by God, he could see why. He stared quite openly, unable to do anything else since she was undeniably the most magnificent young woman he had ever seen. Any female so dressed would be bound to attract attention but it was not just her clothing which drew every male eye in the yard to her, though that was indecent enough. It was the way she tossed her imperious head, the defiant stare which did not really see the low-born beings about her, the square and challenging set to her shoulders and the graceful way she strode across the yard towards him, masculine in its arrogance and yet eternally female in its fluid movement. There was insolence written in every line of her taut young body but its symmetry was spellbinding to these men whose own wives revealed little of their bodies to them, and then more than likely only when the candle had been blown out. Her young breasts, unbound beneath the silk of her shirt, bounced joyously as she walked and Will felt his breath catch in his throat.

  Bloody hell! How did she get away with it? She must be no more than sixteen – that was what the clerk in the counting house had told him – the daughter of a well-known and well-regarded woman, the niece of one of the wealthiest men in south Lancashire. A female of her class could lose not only her reputation but with it the chance of a good marriage which was her destiny in life, so he had heard, if she were to be seen talking, unchaperoned, to a man who was not a close relative. Not a whisper of gossip, even of the most innocent, must touch her. She would be guarded like a precious jewel, always accompanied by another lady and never, never allowed to be alone with a gentleman, not even the one she would marry. Dressed like schoolgirls in modest gowns were the ones he had seen in their carriages, usually in white, bonneted, gloved, every inch of flesh which might be considered indecent hidden from sight and not even the turn of an ankle revealed to any man until they were married.

  But Miss Tessa Harrison’s legs, the soft curve of her booted calf, the long, firm muscles of her thigh, the twin globes of her buttocks, all rippled beneath the fine stuff of her breeches and her eyes looked challengingly into his, not caring, or so it appeared, for her own reputation, nor indeed considering whether she had one.

  When she reached where he still stood rooted to the bottom step of the stairway which led up to the counting house, she stopped. There was a deep silence for several tense moments as she waited for him to move aside. Her gleaming grey eyes, or were they silver he wondered in awe and confusion, cat’s eyes, the pupils outlined with a thin black line, stared directly into his. In that first fleeting moment he felt a strong urge to step hurriedly out of her path, to fumble with his forelock as the inferior orders were expected to do to those above them, to go bright red and mouth some humble greetings – but something in him would not allow it and his eyes refused to drop away from hers.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ she asked rudely, her eyes pale and dangerous. The small riding crop she carried slashed against her leg and he had the distinct impression she would like nothing better, indeed would have not the slightest hesitation in using it on him or on anyone who stood in her way, but he did not move. His mouth curved in an amused smile.

  ‘At you, my lass,’ he answered softly, watching the hot colour flood beneath her white skin. ‘As is every man in this yard and can you blame them?’ Deliberately he let his gaze travel down the length of her body.

  ‘You insolent . . .’ Her mouth gaped in amazement and the scathing words with which she obviously longed to flay him lodged in her throat. Tessa Harrison was not often lost for words of any kind, and she knew many more than a lady should, but it seemed they had become misplaced somewhere between her brain which leaped wildly to consume this presumptuous millhand, and her mouth which hung foolishly open. Her eyes blazed into his whilst her furious mind considered some way in which she might reduce him to his proper and inferior place in life. But even whilst it did so, some tiny core of her woman’s sensibility, independent and extraordinarily wilful, pondered on the pleasing shape of his hard mouth, the smoky brown depths of his eyes which had the most curious amber flecks in them, the brown smoothness of his freshly shaved face and his smile, an odd slanting smile which gave him a decidedly whimsical expression. He was a head taller than she was, with wide muscular shoulders and yet his waist and hips were slim. He leaned indolently against the door frame, his manner saying quite plainly that it was of no particular interest to him whether he had offended her or not and it was perhaps this which intrigued her the most.

  ‘You are unforgivably rude,’ she managed to say, foolishly, she realised.

  ‘Mebbe I am.’ His smile deepened into an amiable grin. ‘But you can’t expect men, if they are men that is, to be unaffected by the sight of such . . .’ Again he let his gaze wander speculatively up and down her lovely, quite audaciously displayed body, ‘such splendor,’ he finished softly.

  ‘I could have you flogged for this, you know that, don’t you?’ she said, just as softly, and somehow, though the words they were saying were quite clear in their meaning, their expressions seemed to imply something else, something which neither could quite grasp.

  ‘Nay, hardly. If you don’t want to be looked at, my lass, then you shouldn’t make a spectacle of what no sane man could resist taking a peep at, or even two.’ Will’s grin became even wider, showing the strong white teeth which were a legacy of the pitchers of milk and lumps of cheese he had consumed as a boy and she found herself watching his mouth with a surprising intensity. ‘You mun be used to taking offence, I dare say,’ he went on engagingly, meaning no impertinence now since what he said must be the truth. ‘Dressed like that every man between here and Oldham would be hard pressed to keep his eyes off you.’

  ‘Who the devil are you to air your views on my appearance?’ she managed to gasp. ‘What I wear is nobody’s business and certainly none of yours, whoever you are.’ She had recovered herself now, the hot flash of her temper exploding quite v
isibly. ‘And I should be obliged if you would stand aside and let me pass.’ Her face had gone strangely white, a pale translucent white as her fury increased, and her eyes had become almost transparent. She lashed her riding crop about her leg, in danger of hurting herself so menacing was her rage. Her nostrils flared and her soft pink mouth had thinned into a hard line, straining to find the words to punish him, to spit them out and turn them on him, whoever he might be. No one, except perhaps her Uncle Joss and he was hardly ever at home, had ever defied her dangerous spirit, had even had the courage to try to curb it. From the first nanny in whose arms she had been put at birth when her mother had hurried back to the mill which was her greatest concern, to the last young governess who had been employed to educate her, not one had had the resolution which was needed to discipline Tessa Harrisson and so she had come to young womanhood believing herself to be infallible. She pleased herself, barging her way through whatever obstacle was put in her path. Her cousin Drew was the same, knocking aside or breaking any opposition which threatened him. Pearce, though just as bent on his own way, was a shade more subtle, perhaps a shade cleverer than they. He had a knack of climbing over a hurdle, of getting exactly what he wanted but with less wear and tear on the nerves, the temper, the peace of mind and sanity of everyone involved in their upbringing. She and Drew often admired the way he did it, watching as he teased and cajoled until he had what he wanted, marvelling at his patience but not caring to try it themselves. She had moved, as they did, through sixteen years of her life expecting and getting everything she had ever wanted from it. It might be a nuisance in the evening when her mother insisted she wore a dress instead of her customary boots and breeches to the dinner table, but it was worth the bother for the freedom she was allowed at other times. She did not know, and did not care to ask lest it be curtailed, why her mother was so liberal, so different from the mothers of other girls of her acquaintance. It was enough for Tessa that she was: she took advantage of it and of every moment of liberty she could, blessing the mills which kept her mother so preoccupied.