Shining Threads (40 page)

‘What were you saying, dear?’ Charlie was deep in yesterday’s newspapers and did not even look up. He was well accustomed to his wife’s anxiety over almost everything her
cousin did, or said, and was once again reminded of the deepseated and strange feeling of insecurity she had unconsciously acquired as a child. It made him gentle with his wife, perhaps more
indulgent than he might otherwise have been. He held her in considerable affection, a protective and obligatory affection which had never faltered. He made love to her when she would allow it, not
often for she had conceived six times in nine years, bearing five live children, and she wanted no more. He knew she did her best, running this house and her children with efficiency and a certain
good humour; this was what she wanted and was a way of life she understood. But, and he knew he must be honest about it, she was somewhat jealous of Tessa Harrison, and it soured her life.

‘I was remarking to Aunt Jenny that it was time Tessa grew out of the notion that she is a boy and not a young woman and gave up wearing those ridiculous breeches. Will you look at her . .
.’

They made a stunning couple, there was no doubt about it but Charlie could see what it was that made his wife so uneasy. Tessa simply drew every male eye to her wherever she went. She had become
a gloriously sensuous woman, there was no other description for her, and yet she was still no more than an innocent girl. Where did she get that flaunting, outrageous, and fascinating – and
Charlie was aware that there was not a man who came within a hundred yards of her who was not fascinated – magnetism? He drew in his breath sharply, then looked away, not wishing his wife to
see him admiring such splendour. He caught his sister’s eye and grimaced, aware, awkwardly, that she knew exactly what was in his mind. She did not blame him for it since, though he was
Tessa’s uncle, he was still a man.

‘She does no harm, Laurel,’ Jenny said mildly, folding her own newspaper and standing up to move towards them. ‘You must admit she has done wonders with Drew in the last three
months.’

‘But everyone is talking about them.’

‘I can’t see why. They have done nothing they have not been doing all their lives.’

‘But alone. Just the two of them.’

‘What are you suggesting?’Jenny’s voice had become cool.

‘I am suggesting nothing, Aunt Jenny, I am only repeating what has been implied to me in every drawing-room in Crossfold. They are never apart. He clings to her hand wherever they go for
everyone to see and she makes no objection.’

‘He is her cousin. His brother died in harrowing circumstances. He is only just beginning to recover. And who else would he turn to but Tessa? She is the closest to him after
Pearce.’

‘Oh, I know all that, but I must say I find it extremely embarrassing having to listen to my friends, not in so many words, naturally, for they are ladies, but intimating nevertheless that
there is more to it than cousinly affection.’

‘Fiddlesticks.’ Turning on her heel Jenny swept from the room but not before Charlie had seen the uncertain expression on his sister’s face.

‘And shouldn’t he be back at the mill by now?’ Laurel continued, allowing her voice to rise plaintively now that there was only her husband to hear it.

‘He’ll go back when he’s ready.’

‘Heavens, he’s been home three months already. How much longer is he going to lark about like the young squire?’

‘He needs time, Laurel. You know how close he was to Pearce.’ Charlie tried to be patient, realising that Tessa, and now Drew, threatened Laurel’s security in some curious way
which was not even clear to herself.

‘I think he is making it an excuse not to go back to the mill.’ Charlie thought so too, but with far more understanding than Laurel since he had seen his nephew’s distaste for
the work they had been expected to do there. Neither of them had been true ‘commercial men’ as he and Jenny were, and he tried to imagine how he would feel if he was forced to work at
something he loathed. But then hundreds and thousands did so for it was that or starve and not many were as privileged as Drew Greenwood.

Drew had changed quite dramatically from the pale, devastatingly thin and hollow-eyed shadow he had been on his return. As handsome and strong as ever, his old audacity showed in the brilliance
of his vivid blue eyes when he and Tessa rode to the top of Badger’s Edge, the ghost of Pearce Greenwood always at their shoulders, to look out on the lovely stretch of summer moorland which
swept down to the busy valley, the chimneys of the growing town. It showed in his eagerness to do what he, his brother and Tessa had always done: in their search for anything which might erase the
memory of the past two years. But only with her. She was his ‘partner’, a ‘steadier’ to the other self Pearce had taken away from him. For three months no one had spoken of
the past, nor of the future, knowing his loss and suffering, allowing him to do as he pleased, what best suited him, what best mended him.

Tessa protected him fiercely. He was not to be pressed to resume his duties in the mill, she commanded. Indeed, no one was to mention the mill. They rode out when and where they pleased as the
weather improved. He had quickly recovered his boundless health and the humorous, engaging charm he had shared with his brother. Country life, country pursuits that had nothing to do with warp and
weft, with yardage and quality, with frames and looms, boilers and steam engines, these were what he sought. He had not survived the hell of the Crimea to spend his days in the hell of his
family’s mill, his manner said, though he did not voice such an opinion out loud, and no force, no coercion was put on him to do so.

The peace treaty with Russia had been signed at the end of March and guns were fired in all major towns of Lancashire to signal the end of the hostilities. The armies of the Allies were to
return to their own countries as soon as possible, they were told, and there was to be great rejoicing and fireworks on an enormous scale in London.

A naval review by Her Majesty the Queen at Spithead, one of the finest sights the country had ever witnessed, those who saw it reported, showed exactly what England could do in times of war. The
fleet was so large it extended for several miles across the Channel and people travelled on the new and exciting railway trains from all parts of the country to see it.

It was not until the end of May that a day was appointed as a national holiday to celebrate this new thing called peace. Hardly before the day had started the guns were booming from Oldham
barracks and in every church tower bells rang, fit to wake the dead, Briggs remarked gloomily, and what was the point of it when the war had been over since September? There was to be a celebratory
procession with bands and flags, banners and mayoral speeches and Tessa spoke to Charlie on the advisability of risking Drew in the intense fever of patriotic joy which would undoubtedly abound
there.

‘I don’t know if he’ll be up to it, Charlie. All the hurly-burly, the noise and confusion, all those people celebrating what was to him . . . well, you will know what I mean.
The memories . . .’

‘You can’t go on cosseting him forever, lass. You know, you’re like a mother cat protecting her kitten whenever anyone threatens his peace of mind. He’s bound to think of
Pearce, as we all will, but sooner or later, preferably sooner, he must rejoin the world. You and he spend all your time up on the tops, playing with those thoroughbreds of yours in the paddock and
racing that curricle you’ve acquired. Just the two of you, lass, and it really won’t do. He’s a man and must mix with other men, do what they do. These months have been good for
him and have returned him to full health but he needs other things now. All men do, Tessa.’ His voice became very quiet. ‘And no matter how you both refuse to face it, one day he must
return to the mill. It will all belong to him, and when the time comes he must be able to run it alone. With Pearce gone he has no choice but to learn how to go about it.’

‘Charlie . . .’ Tessa’s face was soft with pity.

‘No, lass, he must face up to life again. Take him to the celebration. Put on your prettiest gown’ – and let him see you as you are and not as a replacement for Pearce
Greenwood, Charlie thought – ‘and go and have some fun. I’m sure the Squire’s lad will be there.’

‘Drew, my God, old chap, it’s good to see you. We had heard you were back and have been looking forward to . . .’ Nicky Longworth, with more sensitivity than
Tessa would have given him credit for, said no more than that, pumping Drew’s hand enthusiastically, terribly glad to claim him for a friend, for was he not something of a hero amongst those
with whom he, and Pearce, had once roistered?

‘And Tessa How absolutely splendid you look, doesn’t she, Johnny? Why have we not seen you both at the Hall? Why don’t you come over . . .’

She held Drew’s arm protectively, waiting for the sudden trembling to subside, and when it did and his face broke into a tentative but pleased smile, she relaxed her grip somewhat. His
right hand, when it had been shaken by several more of the ‘fellows’ who had come over to see the fun, closed over her own where it rested in the crook of his left arm and he squeezed
it gently to let her know he was all right.

And they did indeed look splendid, both of them. She wore blue, a lovely cornflower blue that was almost violet. Her jacket fitted neatly to the sweet curve of the bosom she had regained when
her flesh returned after her illness, and her enormous skirt was looped about its wide hem with tiny bunches of silk cornflowers. Her bonnet was the same colour, decorated under its brim with
masses of white tulle and her blue lace parasol shaded the grey velvet of her eyes.

Drew’s face, in the sun-warmed breezes of the days spent in the saddle, had regained its brown smoothness. His dark curly hair was cut short, glossy and thick, tumbling across his wide
forehead. His eyes narrowed in a deep and brilliant blue as he smiled at his friends and his mobile mouth curved across strong white teeth. He wore dove grey with a well-cut watered-silk waistcoat.
His shirt front was snowy and his boots polished. He had removed his top hat and his tall frame was straight and yet easy, graceful. He looked quite beautiful, she thought proudly as she looked up
at him, just as though it was all her doing, and in a way it was. She was the one who walked with him through the tortuous memories which harrowed him, who shored up and filled the gaping hole left
by his brother’s death, who held him in her arms in the black of the night when his cries brought her from her bed. She it was who had coaxed him to eat, to rest, to doze in the sunshine with
his head in her lap, to get up on the new bay he bought and ride again as he had not done for two years. She had brought him back to this hesitant willingness to be a part of life again and she
felt a most proud and proprietary self-esteem settle about her.

In the weeks they had been alone together, he talking, weeping, but speaking at last of what he and Pearce had seen in the battles they fought, she listening, weeping with him, he had finally
asked her about Robby.

‘When Pearce and I left . . . you were to be married,’ he said diffidently. Just that, nothing more. A few words which invited her to speak of it if she wished.

‘Yes.’

‘He . . . you changed your mind?’

‘I . . . I was ill.’ It was no lie and yet not the full truth. Her face was averted from him and she knew he could not see the expression of pain which flickered across it. Robby
Atherton still lay uneasily in her heart. A hard and often despairing desolation struck at her when she least expected it. She loved him still: that was a fact of her life which would not change.
How could it? Her mother had told her, from experience she said, that time would heal her, would lessen the ache in her heart, and during the last three months with Drew she had found a certain
measure of content. His need had overridden hers. His pain had pushed hers to the back of her conscious mind, tamped it down to bearable proportions in her breast, not lessening it, as her mother
said, but easing it somehow as she poured what Robby had left into her compassionate love for Drew. What a tortured pair they were, she and Drew Greenwood, she thought as she turned back to him,
the sharing of their misery perhaps making it more bearable.

‘I had a fever. I was ill . . . off my head for weeks. You know about it, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Aunt Jenny told me.’ His expression was gentle, steady, with something in it which invited her to confide in him, if she wanted to, as he had done with her. They were friends
as well as cousins, it said. He was not the young man he had been when he rode away, not yet, but he was more than willing to give her a hand to cling to, if she had nothing else. But somehow,
despite his dearness, she could not tell him the whole truth.

‘I was not myself. At times it seemed I was not to recover and he did not . . . return.’ Dear Robby, forgive me for the lie, she whispered in her heart, but it lay easily on her
conscience for what else was she to say?

‘When you were recovered, you did not let him know?’

‘No.’

‘Why not, if you wish to tell me?’

‘I . . . it seemed we were . . . no longer suited.’

She looked up and smiled and was startled by the intent expression in his eyes as they stared into hers. A deep and concentrated watchfulness showed there and waited for her answer as though its
meaning, the content of it was of the utmost importance.

‘You love him still?’

Again there was that breathless attention to her words, a diligent alertness which placed a faint prickle of surprise in her. His eyes studied her minutely, blue, she had never seen them so
blue, and he seemed to hold his breath. And she knew, suddenly, though she could not have said how she knew, that her answer was vital to him and for his peace of mind it must be the right
answer.

‘One must have a love returned for it to flourish, Drew,’ she said softly, knowing as she said it that he was satisfied.

They began to widen their activities. He took her to see a play at the assembly rooms in Crossfold,
Richard III
which was staged quite splendidly considering that it was not put on at an
established theatre such as those in Oldham or Manchester. He was quite shaken by the press of his family’s acquaintances who rushed to shake him by the hand, expressing their joy in seeing
him ‘himself’ again, not mentioning Pearce, perhaps warned against it by the savage look on Tessa Harrison’s face. She held fast to him like a tendril of clinging ivy, they
noticed, those mamas whose daughters might, now that he was home and apparently settled down from the hellion he had once been, be pushed in his direction. Was there any truth in the rumours that
circulated about them, they wondered to one another? True, they had always galloped wildly about the countryside ever since they had been children, but there had been three of them then, which made
a difference, one must admit, from just one man and one woman! And they did seem completely wrapped up in one another since it was noticed that his eyes followed her every movement. Was Jenny
Harrison keeping something from them, they asked one another. But the question was still unanswered.