Shining Threads Page 8

  ‘Like hell I will,’ he answered harshly, wiping his arm across his sweated face. ‘I’ll run away to sea before I’ll go in there again.’

  ‘Hold on, brother.’ Drew’s lazy drawl and narrowed eyes indicated to him that the undertackler, Broadbent, was not far away but Pearce was beyond caution.

  ‘No! You hold on, brother. It’s not you who turns faint like some puling woman . . .’

  ‘I never ’eard such nonsense in me life. Turnin’ sick ower a bit o’ stink. We none of us like it, Mr Greenwood, but we’ve no choice. It’s work or starve wheer I come from an’ let me tell thi, we’re glad o’t work. ’Ave thi ever bin in Abbotts mill or any on ’em in this valley? ’Ave thi? Conditions ’ere are like a palace compared to t’other ’uns. Thee’d ’ave summat ter be sick ower if thi ’ad ter work theer.’

  Both young gentlemen turned to stare at the girl who spoke. She might have been some creature from another world, or a gatepost which one does not, naturally, expect to speak, so deep was the amazed consideration they gave her now. Indeed, despite their close proximity to them, the two boys had never actually noticed an operative in the weeks they had been working in the mill. The girl stared back at them grimly, such a plain, drab little thing, resembling nothing so much as the sparrows which nested in the ivy on the walls of Greenacres, a sparrow which, nevertheless, was prepared to take on two magnificent soaring eagles. Her expression asked quite plainly what else could you expect of these pampered young fools who were playing, reluctantly she had heard, at being commercial gentlemen. Their aunt and uncle knew exactly what she and the hundreds of others in the mill endured day after day, though this was a good mill. Both of them knew the meaning of work. These two young bucks, quite evidently, would soon tire of the discipline, the sheer physical discomfort of the factory floor and take themselves back to their old pastimes of shooting everything that took wing and riding like madmen with others of similar inclination, chasing the fox through the farmer’s cornfield.

  ‘I’ll get back ter me machine, then,’ she added coldly. ‘Time’s money ter me, an’ I’ve already lost ’alf an ’our wi’ thee.’ With that she turned on her heel and walked away, her thin back straight, her narrow shoulders squared.

  ‘Sorry about that, Mr Broadbent,’ she said to the overlooker who still leaned in the doorway. He was watching the two young men. They were laughing now, quite amused, it seemed, by the strange girl who had given them the sharp end of her tongue but not the least offended since, really, did she matter? They had got themselves, through her, out of the damned spinning room and why not take advantage of it? They strolled towards the gate with the appearance of gentlemen who, having done their day’s work, were off about more important matters, though it was barely seven o’clock.

  ‘Nay, Annie, don’t fret, lass. It’s not the first time it’s happened and it’ll not be the last.’

  ‘Does’t tha think they’ll come back, then?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘Oh, aye. Their father’s set on it, it seems. It’s to be their mill, after all.’

  ‘God ’elp us, then.’

  ‘Happen he’ll get over it, the sickness.’

  ‘’Appen, but that’ll not mek ’im into a millmaister, Mr Broadbent.’

  There was a sudden commotion at the closed gate and the man who had charge of the key ran frantically across the yard to unlock it. Every morning the gate was locked on those late-comers who had no legitimate excuse, such as the illness of a child, and not opened again until eight o’clock, but the girl who was shouting to be let in was not one of those and the gatekeeper knew better than to keep her waiting. The mare was restlessly sidestepping, catching her rider’s impatience, and the gatekeeper fumbled with his keys whilst the voice on the other side urged him to get a move on. At last he had it open and in she came, hair flying out in a banner behind her, scattering the same men and boys Will had watched her disperse a few weeks ago. He had not seen her since that day but she was just the same. Heedless of those who got in her way, she went straight as an arrow towards her target, her two cousins who had turned to look at her.

  She did not dismount. Drew put up a hand to her mare’s nose as she leaned down to him. All the men in the yard, grumbling beneath their breath, had turned to look at her, as Will was sure she intended. Her mare moved sideways again, nervously shying away from the enormous waggon which was just entering the yard, but she held it in expertly, her gloved hands firm on the rein, her slim, muscled legs strong and lovely in their dove-grey breeches.

  Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of him across the heads of the men and there was a burst of laughter as she said something to her cousins. All three turned to look at him and he could feel the hard knot of anger tie itself beneath his breastbone. The two young men lounged indolently against the mill wall, their hands shoved deep in their trouser pockets, their dark eyebrows arched, their eyes gleaming in identical amusement. He saw their good white teeth flash in their sun-darkened faces and then, with the insolence of the lordly young gentlemen they considered themselves to be, they turned away. He was nothing to them, merely that breed known as overlooker in their mill, a man under the man who was in charge of the spinners, but not of them. Pearce left the other two for a moment, making some sign to the boy who hung about the yard and whose job it was to attend to the horse of any caller. In a moment the boy returned, leading the two restive bays which the brothers rode. They all three turned to look at Will again, the girl grinning now to let him see that this was really her doing. The boys mounted gracefully and one turned to him, grinning, his voice flippant since they all knew he was lying.

  ‘Some urgent business. Tell Wilson, if you please.’ With their coat-tails flying and the girl’s hair and ribbon streaming out behind her, they galloped madly from the yard, down the street towards the edge of town and the wild moorland which was the only place they really wished to be.

  Mr Wilson came slowly down the steps from the first-floor spinning room, his face resigned but not unduly concerned since they were not his problem, thank God.

  ‘Where the devil have those two gone now?’ the men in the yard heard him say out loud, shrugging, for what else could you expect? It was no good trying to tame a bird which has flown free since it came from the egg and in their opinion, their good-humoured north-country faces seemed to say, best save your breath to cool your porridge. It was too late. A flogging once a week starting in the nursery was what those two had needed, her an’ all, really, then happen they might have shaped themselves. Too late now, they repeated as they resumed the work which had been so violently disrupted, bloody glad it was nowt to do with them.

  ‘Urgent business, they said, Mr Wilson,’ Will answered him, eyebrows sardonically raised, and was not surprised when Mr Wilson swore quite rudely beneath his breath before turning back to the stairs.

  5

  She had given her mare her head, letting her go flat out over the rough stretch of moorland known as Besom Hill, seeing the coarse grass blur beneath the animal’s hooves. Her face was pressed close to the mare’s neck as she bent down with her into the wind. Her dratted hair had come loose as usual, whipping about her head and eyes, blinding her for a moment, and she did not see the half a dozen rabbit holes until her mare swerved to avoid them. She felt herself move forward over the animal’s neck, her co-ordination gone completely with her balance; when she hit the ground, though she landed in a clump of heather which broke her fall somewhat, the breath was knocked from her body. She lay for a minute or two, gasping for air, watching the sky swing in sickening loops above her, then as it steadied and became still and serene again, she sat up, looking around for her mare.

  She was high up here, almost at the top of the moorland sweep with a splendid view of the rock-strewn stretch of moor which went on endlessly as far as the eye could see. It was bleak and treeless, rough ground pierced with moss-covered boulders, submerged in gorse and bracken, with a dozen shades of green from the paleness of the ferns which she
ltered by a dry-stone wall, to the dark, cloud-shadowed foliage on the far side of the deep clough which split the land. A soaring, grey-green landscape, hard and enduring, cut with water and rocks, where a bird or two wheeled above her head, and nothing else.

  There was no sign of her mare.

  ‘Damnation,’ she said softly, swinging back her mane of hair. Then, feeling for the ribbon which confined it and finding it gone, she pulled her scarf from around her neck and carelessly bound up the troublesome locks. She stood up and dusted off her cream, doeskin breeches. Shading her eyes from the sun, she looked about her, her eyes penetrating the vast landscape for a sight of her mare. There was nothing to be seen, no movement of any kind beyond that of the birds above her head.

  It was not cold and the clouds were broken and low, some enfolding the top of the highest peaks. They moved quickly allowing the sun to show through, and for half an hour she sat on a rock and stared out across the tops, to the next and the next, whistling now and again to attract her mare, should she still be in the vicinity. But the mare was not inclined to show herself and would, no doubt, be well on her way to the stables at Greenacres by now. There was no alternative but to walk: almost five miles, she reckoned, skirting Edgeclough and Harrops Edge and following the rough moorland track to the back of the Greenacres parkland.

  It was warm walking but very pleasant. She removed her jacket and was tempted to hide it under a rock, picking it up the next time she came this way for it was cumbersome to carry. She draped it over one shoulder, climbing steadily up the next rocky incline until she reached the brow, then, carried by her own momentum, almost running down the far side.

  Her boots began to chafe her heel. She was used only to riding in them; in fact, come to think of it, she really had no footwear suitable for striding out across the hills since she rarely did it. She walked over the Squire’s moor when she accompanied Drew and Pearce on one of his shoots but that was in a much more leisurely fashion, more of a stroll than a walk.

  She skirted Edgeclough an hour later, clambering over a dry-stone wall to walk on the rutted path, once a ‘salt-way’, she had been told, which led past the town, or hamlet as it had been in the old days. The clamouring of factory bells and whistles announced the changing of shifts and far below she could make out the patient crowds of ant-like men, women and children streaming through half a dozen factory gates.

  The moors were deserted, achingly empty, and the sun had gone completely as the summer’s day began its slide towards twilight. Her boots were really rubbing now as she began the descent from Edgeclough towards Chapmanstown. Damn it, she would have to stop a minute and take them off. She must have blisters the size of a guinea on her heels. But if she took them off would she be able to get them on again, she wondered? Well, she’d rest for a moment and then go on. Her mare would have reached home without her by now and Walter would be running round the stable yard raising the alarm. There’d be a search party out in half an hour and she wanted to be well on her way before she met up with it. How very demeaning to have taken a tumble on this relatively easy stretch of moorland! Drew and Pearce would crow over it, saying she was not fit to be let out alone, which would bring the whole matter to her mother’s attention. There would be hell to pay, probably an ultimatum to take Walter with her on future rides or some such nonsense.

  They came over the brow of the hill just as she stood up, half a dozen or so of them. The man was of medium height but painfully thin and a washed-out, ferret-faced woman shuffled behind him pushing a broken-down hand-cart on which rattled and shook a festering pile of what Tessa could only describe as rubbish which threatened to fall off with every turn of the wheels. Slung out behind was a miscellaneous rabble of children of various ages and sizes, all scratching and picking at themselves, with sore eyes and no teeth to speak of in their wizened, little old men’s faces, small and stunted with rickety legs and no shoes to their dirty feet.

  They all stopped when they saw her, as though she was some mirage shimmering ahead of them, which, in a way, she was. Who would expect to see a girl such as herself alone up here, a girl in a pure silk shirt, in breeches of the finest quality doeskin and boots of the finest quality leather, all of which would fetch a decent price in any market?

  The man’s eyes, which had been vague and empty, sharpened to flint. He did not turn to the tribe behind him, merely put out a hand which said ‘leave this to me, we’ll have us a grand supper tonight’, and they all stood obediently, well used to taking his orders, it seemed.

  ‘Good day to yer,’ he said cheerfully, his Irish brogue so thick it was difficult to understand. ‘’Tis a great one, ter be sure.’

  ‘Indeed,’ she answered guardedly, beginning to walk towards him for he stood on the track down which she must go to reach Crossfold.

  ‘Could yer spare a copper or two fer a starvin’ family?’ His eyes ran over her like the fleas which so evidently swarmed on himself and his family, to judge by the way they were scratching, and she dug her fingers into her own suddenly prickling scalp.

  ‘I don’t carry any money with me,’ she said shortly, wishing to God she’d brought the dogs with her, cursing her own stupidity in leaving them at home. She’d imagined, as she had always done in the past when she had come across a vagrant or a tramp or one of the itinerant families she met, such as this one, that she had only to touch her heels to her mare’s flank and she could outrun any man with dubious intentions towards her.

  She began to edge past them. The man made no move to stop her, merely watching her with the child-like curiosity of someone set down amongst beings he had never before clapped eyes on, and she began to breathe a little more easily. The woman even sketched a curtsey, though there was no respect in it, and it was not until she reached the last figure, a weasel-faced, cross-eyed, runny-nosed lad somewhat bigger than the others, that the whole family moved. The man must have made some signal behind her back and as she passed the boy, trying hard not to look into the nastiness of his face, his foot shot out and neatly inserted itself between her boots, bringing her down with her face in the dry-baked hardness of the track. They were all over her then, like a pack of squealing rats, hands and small, filthy feet pressing her down until the man’s voice, harsh and expecting to be obeyed at once, shifted them all.

  ‘Turn ’er over an’ let’s see what we got,’ he commanded and several pairs of hands obliged until she was glaring up into the dirt-ingrained face, the cunning, jubilant eyes, the mouth in which there was nothing but blackened stumps, of the head of the family. For several minutes they all laughed and chattered evidently unable to believe their good luck and though Tessa struggled wildly, threatening them with everything from a flogging to transportation, even the gallows, they took no notice. In her heart where up to now there had been no more than outrage, alarm began to grow. She had believed that though they might take her boots, her beautifully cut and tailored tweed jacket, she had nothing more to fear than that: they were a family and therefore, though they might be thieves, would not use violence. But the man and the boy who had tripped her were looking at her in a nasty way, licking their cracked lips, their eyes on her freely moving, almost exposed breasts which strained through the silk of her shirt. The woman had become uneasy, shifty, watching her menfolk with the resignation of one who has long given up defiance or argument, and when told would obey without question.

  The man did not speak, just lifted his eyes to those of his son and smiled. The boy smiled back at him and when the man, with a curt movement of his head to the woman and the rest of the group indicated that they were to move on, the gesture saying that he and the lad would be along presently, they obeyed at once.

  Tessa began to scream. It was no more than the shrill cry of a rabbit when faced with a stoat, a despairing cry, but the woman turned back, her woman’s sensibility giving her, for a moment, the pity one female feels for another who is to suffer as perhaps she once had done, as perhaps her own female children had done, despite their age
.

  ‘Get on, woman, ’tis nought ter do wi’ you,’ her husband, if that was what he was to her, said and struck her across the face. For a second, only the boy held Tessa; he was looking away towards his parents, waiting eagerly for what he was to share with his father, impatient for his mother to be dealt with as he had probably seen her dealt with a hundred times before.

  Tessa was up then, and free of his grasp, pushing him out of her way since she was stronger than he was, bounding in terrifying leaps down and down the steep stretch of moorland, tearing herself on the spiky gorse, banging her ankles on angry rocks, her breath hot and cutting in her throat and chest, her back cringing away from what was behind her, her flesh flinching, expecting at every step to feel their hands. There was another wall ahead of her, higher than she was, dangerous with loose stones, crumbling and waiting only for an unwary hand or foot to bring it down. She had her fingers on the top cam stones, pulling at them to lift herself up and over, but her pursuers were at her back now, their hands reaching for her. She could smell their foul, unwashed bodies, the stench of the rotting teeth in their opened mouths, then she was carried backwards, flung into the waist-deep fern and bracken and her cry, her feeble cry of anguish, was strangled by a cruel hand.

  The roar of rage could be heard as far away as Edgeclough, or so she believed later. Now she was conscious of nothing but a great, heavy shadow looming over her, of hands which she tried weakly to resist: then air and space and light, emptiness, no sound but that of men’s voices and men’s bodies blundering away into the distance, becoming fainter and fainter, a blessed ‘nothingness’ which wrapped itself about her peacefully. She dared not look, of course, for fear she had imagined them to be gone and they would be standing over her, grinning, taunting. She curled herself up, her arms wrapped about her knees, pulling them high to her breasts, her head tucked into her shoulders, prepared to stay there until Drew or Pearce, or even Walter came for her, but a voice spoke up sharply.