Shining Threads (66 page)

So what better way, the Public Works Act wanted to know, to keep idle men employed and the fevers at bay, than to put these men to the vexed problem of main sewering? The distressed cotton
operatives would be asked to volunteer to do the unskilled manual labour of building not only sewers and drains but reservoirs, good roads, public parks and recreation grounds at labourers’
rates of pay. The experience would strengthen their puny frames and improve their skills and without undue exertion they could earn themselves twelve shillings a week and at the same time relieve
the Guardians of the task of supporting their families.

‘Tis said there’s sickness at back o’ Jagger Lane,’ Annie offered in the long silence which had fallen over the two women.

‘What kind of sickness?’ Tessa’s voice was sharp and she returned her cup to its saucer with a clatter.

‘They say tis nowt’. Doctor Salter fetched me from’t school this mornin’. ’E knew I were . . . well, that I’d ’ad some sort o’ fever when I were
in Manchester. Reckoned as ’ow I’d survived it then I’d be in no danger now.’

‘But what is it?’

‘Nay, lass, don’t ask me. I’m no doctor.’

‘Has Doctor Salter no idea?’

‘’E ses as ’ow its bin a long time since there were an epidemic an’ ’im bein’ a youngish man, like, ’e’s never bin in one.’

‘An epidemic? Does he think . . . ?’

‘It’s bin nearly a year since most of ’em were in full work, Tessa, or ’ad a decent meal except what we give ’em. They’re all low, in poor ’ealth,
an’ the first illness what comes along’ll ’ave ’em before thi can say ‘pickin’ stick’. They’ll not call’t doctor since they’ve no brass
ter pay ’im. Will ses as ’ow . . .’

‘Will?’ Tessa felt her heart lurch sickeningly. ‘What was he doing there?’

‘Nay, Tessa. Tha knows Will, or should do by now. Wherever there’s trouble ’e’s in’t thick of it. Doctor Salter was talkin’ of puttin’ them what’s
sick in one o’ them empty warehouses in Ashton Lane. Keep ’em apart from t’orthers until ’e knows what’s up wi’ ’em. Just ter be on’t safe side,
like. I said I’d find some women ter nurse ’em. There’s a few o’ my pin-headin’ girls wi’ nowt ter do an’ they’d be glad of a bit of extra
cash.’

Tessa sprang up. ‘I’ll come and help.’

‘No, tha’ll not. Will wants yer kept out of it.’ Annie’s face was impassive, half-turned away and Tessa smiled at the very idea of being ‘kept out of it’.
These were her operatives, some of them, and she was part of this working community now. Besides, Will had no control over her. If she wanted to go down and inspect the premises she damn well
would. He ought to know
her
by now as well. She came and went as she pleased, or as much as she was able with Drew in the often violent moods which came over him. But certainly, despite
their love for one another, Will had no authority over her.

‘Don’t be foolish, Annie. If there is to be an epidemic of some sort in the town then those who are sick will need all the help they can get and I must see what is needed.’

‘I know what’s needed, lass, an’ there’s nowt you can do that I can’t’.

‘You mean because of who I am? Because I am Tessa Greenwood and not brought up to hardships as you and Will were?’

‘Aye, ’appen that, but most of all because Will wants yer kept out of it.’

‘Dear God, what has it to do with you or Will? I’m not a child . . .’

‘Then stop actin’ like one. Anyway, let’s see what’s to ’appen first. Get yer gone up to that ’usband o’ thine an’ see if there’s owt’
yer can be doin’ fer ’im. I ’eard as ’ow ’e caused summat of a disturbance, ’im an’ that merry band o’ gentlemen ’e rides about with, up at
Five Pigeons t’other night.’

‘Oh, Lord, what over?’

Annie looked uncomfortable, fiddling in a most unusual way with the enormous reticule she carried around with her and in which she kept all the many and varied items she might need in the course
of her active day. No one was quite sure what they were but she could provide anything from a clean rag to wipe a child’s runny nose to a safety-pin for a torn hem, a pencil for making a
quick note here and there, and even a screw of paper containing tea for some needy woman she visited and who might gain comfort from a brew.

‘Nay, don’t ask me. ’Tis nowt ter do wi’ me, Tessa.’ That meant, of course, that it
had
to do with some woman, or Annie would have told her.

It was nearly three years now since Tessa had taken up the burden which she had unwillingly inherited from her mother and Charlie; more than three years since the fire in which Charlie had lost
his life. She did her best to share her time between the mills and her husband, going only to Chapmans when it was absolutely necessary for a board meeting or when, as Drew’s proxy, her
signature was needed on some document, but now the crisis caused by the cotton famine demanded more and more of her time. Secretly she admitted to herself that she found the time she spent there
increasingly absorbing and the hours passed in the company of Drew and his friends increasingly trivial.

‘We are off to Nicky’s for a game of croquet, my love,’ he had said to her at lunch-time. ‘Why not join us? Johnny and Alicia will be there and Nicky has persuaded Polly
Arbuthnot to give that elderly husband of hers the slip. Afterwards we thought we’d ride into Oldham. There’s a new song and supper room just been opened, or perhaps the music hall. Who
knows? That is the charm of being free, don’t you agree? Go wherever the fancy takes us, for that is what makes life exciting, Tessa. Come on, darling, leave those bloody awful figures. In
fact, give them to me and I shall dispose of them where they belong. In the back of the fire . . .’ He had snatched a sheaf of notes and figures Will had made out for her to study on the
variations in trading from month to month since the new mill had begun operating.

‘Don’t, Drew. A lot of work has gone into those notes. Please, put them back,’ she said urgently as he made a movement towards the fire. ‘I know you think they are not
worth bothering one’s head about, any more than the mills and the operatives, but someone has to look after our interests at least until this crisis is over.’

‘And then what excuse will you give, my pet? What reason will you dream up so that you might give your undivided attention to the business and not to your husband? Will it be that another
catastrophe of desperate proportions will spring up to claim you, d’you think? Or will it be the fascination of making money which seems to have afflicted every member of my family, except
myself and Pearce, of course? Really, Tessa, your commercial heritage is beginning to show quite dreadfully. I was only saying to Nicky last week that one can hardly believe that you are the same
dashing girl who once rode out with us on more than one escapade. Adventure, that is what we were after, the three of us, you and I and Pearce . . . No . . . I mean . . . Drew. Don’t
I?’

His voice became uncertain and his eyes narrowed as he looked at something in the far distance of his memory. The papers dropped from his hand and she quickly retrieved them from the carpet
where they fell before turning back to him. His taunting manner had disappeared. His shoulders slumped and in his face was the lost and desperate expression he had brought back from the Crimea. He
shook his head wonderingly and his voice was soft when he spoke.

‘Where has he gone, Tessa?’ he said, in much the same way Emma had done only that morning. ‘I seem to have lost him somehow.’

‘Pearce?’ She put her hand to him, her own face as gentle as his.

‘No, not Pearce, not Pearce. But . . . both of us . . . myself . . . I cannot seem to function these days now that both of you have left me. I know I do dangerous things but I seem to have
no control . . .’

She moved quickly to his side, taking his hand in hers, but he turned away to look into the fire. She lifted it, a hard, horseman’s hand, brown and strong, to her lips.

‘You have not lost yourself, Drew, nor me. I am always here.’

‘No, you are not, Tessa, and I’m afraid that . . .’

‘What, my darling?’ In her voice was the depth of her love for him.

‘That one day, when I really need you, when Johnny is with his Alicia and Nicky off on some private jaunt with a lady and I have no one, you will not be here when I look round.’

‘I shall always be here, Drew, always. You know that.’

‘Do I, Tessa? Do I? You were not here this morning when I awoke and called out to you.’

‘No, I had to . . .’

‘I know. Go to the mill, or the school with that woman, or to the soup kitchen . . .’

‘There are so many of them, Drew, and all needing . . .’

‘None need you as I do, Tessa. Please come with me this afternoon. Show me . . .’

‘What . . . ?’

‘That you mean what you say. That you love me still. That you are here for me now. Prove it by coming with me.’

And so she had gone dressed in her outrageous black riding coat and cream breeches, her white waistcoat and tall top hat, her boots polished and her mare beneath her. She and Drew raced one
another along the wild stretch of track between Greenacres and Longworth Hall and the solitary figure of the horseman who rode quietly, tiredly in the direction of Crossfold was noticed by neither
of them as they shouted with delighted laughter in one another’s company.

32

‘I thought you said Will was coming with you. I wanted to speak to him about . . .’

‘’E couldn’t manage it. ’E sends ’is apologies.’

‘Apologies? What on earth does that mean? You and he had your meeting with Doctor Salter, I suppose?’

‘Aye.’

‘And . . . ?’

‘And what?’

‘Annie, for God’s sake stop playing games with me. Has the good doctor decided what is wrong with these people in the vicinity of Jagger Lane?’

‘It’s come so sudden, like, an’ ’e’s still not sure. Give it a week or two . . .’

‘A week or two? But I thought it was urgent.’

‘It could be ’owt, Tessa. Doctor Salter ses as ’ow ’e wants a second opinion so ’e’s asked old Doctor Ellison to come an’ look ’em over. Not that
Doctor Ellison was too pleased ter poke ’is ’ead in them alleys at back of Jagger Lane. But ’e’s ’ad more experience than Doctor Salter seein’ as ’ow
’e’s worked in London where such fevers are rife, they say.’

‘But what form does it take?’ Tessa sat back in her chair and studied Annie’s averted face. There was something about her reluctance to meet Tessa’s eyes which was most
alarming since Annie never flinched away from anyone’s gaze. Just the opposite for sometimes her steady eyes seemed to probe right inside Tessa’s head just where she didn’t want
her to see. Now she was staring out of the office window, this time at the busy yard for the cotton Tessa had purchased was at this moment being unloaded and carried swiftly to the warehouse where
the bales would be opened in readiness for blending.

‘Well, naturally, none of ’em are what yer might call fit. Scrawny and pale from a poor diet . . .’

‘Dear Lord, I hope we can keep our own people working, Annie, and if we can’t we must not allow them to fall into the state these are in. Are they all from the Moorhouse
mill?’

‘No, some are Abbotts. Jenkinsons’ve turned off ’undreds an’ there’s some from every mill in’t valley?’

‘And Jonathan Abbott refused to donate a penny last week when I cornered him at the Cloth Hall.’

‘Aye, well, that’s as mebbee, but them at back o’ Jagger Lane’ll need more’n a penny ter see ’em through. There’s women wi’ babies they
can’t feed. No milk, tha’ knows. There’s others’ve never got over the bronchitis and pneumonia they took last winter. They’ll be’t first ter go, Doctor Salter
ses.’

‘Is there nothing we can do to stop it?’

‘We’re doin’ all we can, lass, but ’appen it’ll come ter nowt though Doctor ses the symptoms are . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, tha’ll not want to ’ear what they are.’

‘Annie, really. I am no genteel lady who is about to faint away at the thought of sickness, nor am I to shirk the responsibility of doing what must be done.’

‘Do thi know, lass, sometimes I can’t get over the change in thi’?’ Annie smiled and her eyes, so pale and cool more often than not, had a softness in them, a warmth
which spoke of her deep affection for this woman. ‘Wheer did that ’oity-toity young madam go, the one what used ter come ter my ’ouse an’ treat it as though it was ’er
own? I’ll ’ave a cup o’ tea, Annie, if yer please, tha’ used ter say, expecting’ me ter stop whatever I were doin’ an’ brew up for thi’. Yer’d
sit in’t best chair an’ keep me from me work, jawin’ on about nowt, then, off yer’d go, ridin’ like the divil on that animal o’ thine, off on some foolish,
wasteful jaunt wi’ thy scapegrace cousins . . .’ She stopped suddenly, aware that she was speaking of Tessa’s husband, then her face hardened. ‘Nay, I’m not sorry I
said that even though one is dead . . .’

‘Please, Annie.’

‘. . . an t’other’s no more than a . . .’

‘
Annie!
’

‘Right, lass, I hear thi’. I’ll say no more except that tha’ve turned out champion, Tessa Greenwood. Now, where was I?’

‘About to tell me the symptoms of this illness, you fraud, you!’

‘Aye, ’appen I am. Well, they start wi’ vomitin’ an’ a loosenin’ of the bowels. They shake, Will ses, an’ can’t stop, an’ no one really
knows what it is. They say as ’ow it comes from abroad somewhere, India an’ such places. It seems ter live in muck an’ wi’ all them stinkin’ sewers an’ drains at
the back o’ Jagger Lane it’s a right breedin’ ground. Them as is took can’t keep owt’ down, an’ it’s a quick death, Doctor Salter says.’

‘There have been deaths already?’ Tessa’s voice was sharp.

‘Aye, a few.’

‘How many?’

‘Well, Will reckons . . .’

Tessa felt the first dreadful thrill of fear skim along the surface of her flesh and her stomach lurched for no accountable reason. She sprang up from her chair and reached for the parasol Emma
had persuaded her to bring this morning.

‘I’m going up to Ashton Lane,’ she said abruptly, heading towards the door, her every instinct telling her that for some reason she must hurry. Annie stood up too and followed
her, her face becoming even paler than usual, her hands reaching out and swiftly capturing Tessa’s arm.