Shining Threads (75 page)

Tessa smiled but on her face was that look of strange sadness Joel had seen now and again though he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why she was sad. Of course, he knew she worried
about the American Civil War and the shortage of cotton which affected workers in the family mill, but this look had nothing to do with them.

‘I can remember,’ she began and his delight knew no bounds for she had such lovely ‘rememberings’, ‘one year when it snowed for days. There were drifts twenty feet
deep in places right up to the top of the stable door and Walter and Percy had to clear a path across the yard to get to the horses. It was Christmas . . .’ She sighed and he tugged on her
hand to remind her he was here for sometimes she was inclined to allow her thoughts to wander.

‘Oh, yes,’ she went on, ‘. . . Christmas, and I wanted to take a present to someone . . .’

‘What was it, Aunt Tess?’

‘What, darling?’ She was forgetting that as a small boy he wanted to know everything down to the smallest detail.

‘The present?’

‘It was a bright red knitted scarf.’

That seemed pretty unexciting to him but he wanted to know how to walk on top of the twenty-foot drifts of snow which she described. He had seen it in previous winters lying over the parkland
which surrounded his home, so deep Nanny would not allow them out in it saying they would be ‘swallowed up’. He waited patiently.

‘How . . . splendid.’ His voice was polite.

‘Yes, well . . . I wanted to get to . . . Chapmanstown and the snow was so deep, too deep to walk on, so I searched in the cupboard – you know, the one where we keep all the cricket
bats and things . . .’

‘Yes, yes . . .’

‘. . . and I found two tennis bats. I had seen pictures in a book, you see, of a man who lived in Canada and walked on top of the snow and the things he had on his feet and . .
.’

‘Yes, what happened, Aunt Tess?’

‘I walked to Chapmanstown.’ Her voice had become clipped now and her eyes had gone quite funny. He didn’t like it. For one awful moment he didn’t like it, then she
suddenly put her arm about his shoulders and pulled him to her, hugging him, and he knew it was all right again.

He sighed happily but pulled away as they turned into the stable yard. He was nearly eight now and it would not do to let the men there see him holding his aunt’s hand.

‘Have you decided yet?’ she called out to him as they cantered up the back slope behind the house. ‘Where shall it be? Friar’s Mere, Dog Hill or . . .’

‘Badger’s Edge,’ he shouted joyfully into the teeth of the biting wind, for was not that his most favourite place of all? It was where they had gone on their first ride
together and though he was only a boy he sensed that it was the place she liked the best. They had sat together through the seasons with their backs to that certain rock since that day when she had
first taken him out on his fat pony.

They had watched a skylark soar almost out of sight, a quivering dot in the dazzling summer sky, not lingering at the top of its flight but descending again, dropping and pausing as though it
were on an invisible thread. The bird ate the tender stalks of sprouting corn and the farmers hated it, Aunt Tess told him, but it was grand to lie in the sweet-smelling grass up on Badger’s
Edge and watch it dive from the sky.

They had seen the wheatear, its white patch looking like a dancing snowflake as it spun above their heads into the languid blue of the sky. There had been hedges where wild roses and honeysuckle
grew as he and Aunt Tess moved up in the direction of the tops, and in autumn the sharp scent of heather and gorse and peat, the season of mists, of blackberries still warm from summer and swifts
flying over his head to warmer parts than the bleak winter moorland which was to come.

But in the depths of that winter, when the moors were cruel and the weather as fickle as a woman’s heart, or so Walter had told him though he was not certain of his meaning, they must stay
away from Badger’s Edge for if the snow should catch them up there they might not be found for days.

It was achingly cold and Aunt Tess had made him put on an extra jumper beneath his warm woollen cape. He had a scarf about his neck and wore gloves knitted by Nanny and when they reached the top
they sat shoulder to shoulder for half an hour, the dogs about them, close and warm, gazing out over the steep clough and down to the glint of water which could be seen amongst the leafless trees
at the bottom.

‘Will we walk on the snow when it comes, Aunt Tess?’ he asked presently, his gloved hand smoothing the head of the dog which rested on his knee.

‘I dare say,’ she replied but her eyes were far away on something he could not see and he moved impatiently. The dog stood up and wandered to the edge of the rocky cliff and Joel
watched as the others rose, following with the curiosity of all animals, to investigate what the first had discovered.

‘But will we have enough bats?’

‘We can look if you like,’ she answered vaguely.

‘Perhaps Walter could make us some. If you showed him the picture of the man in Canada. He makes all kinds of things with wood and I bet if we were to ask him he could make us some,
don’t you? We could walk wherever we wanted to then,’ he finished, the prospect of a winter shut in with his brothers and sister not a pleasing one.

‘Shall we ask him then?’ he said after a moment or two.

‘What, darling?’

He stood up suddenly, his face reproachful. She wasn’t listening to him. She’d gone off to that strange place as she did now and again and he might as well do something interesting
as sit here and try to get her to talk. He loved her, really he did, but sometimes she was very irritating, especially when they were having such a good talk about those fascinating
‘snow-bats’ she had mentioned.

He sighed dramatically, just to let her know he was not at all pleased, then wandered across the stiff, springy turf to see what the dogs were quarrelling over. They were all milling around just
as they did when they came across a rabbit hole from which the scent of the animal, safe deep in the earth, titillated their keen noses.

‘What is it, Bart?’ he asked, leaning into the middle of them, pushing aside two large heads to peer in the manner of small boys at anything which might interest their inquisitive
minds. The dogs, big and heavy, were not disposed to be moved from the frozen carcase of the small animal – he was never to know what it was – which some large bird must have dropped
and they nudged him, each one’s weight four times that of his own.

His thin scream as he lost his balance brought Tessa from the sad reverie into which the talk of Christmas and snow had plunged her and as she leaped to her feet, turning her head sharply she
was just in time to see him fall backwards over Badger’s Edge.

‘Mistress not back yet, Walter?’ Percy asked, poking his head round the stable door. Walter was brushing the floor vigorously, his strong shoulders pumping as he
propelled the stiff bristles beneath the line of horses’ heads which hung over each stall. There were a dozen of them all told, inluding two pairs of matched grey carriage horses. When he
stopped, turning to Percy, his late master’s bay nibbled his shoulder but he pushed the handsome head to one side, leaning on the brush.

‘Nay, what the bloody ’ell’s the time? I’d not noticed.’

‘Tis gone four an’ comin’ on dark.’

‘She’ll be in afore long, Perce. She’d tekk no chances now.’ Percy was well aware that Walter meant now she had young Joel to fill the dreadful gap Mr Drew’s death
had left. A year ago they would have worried for she’d been wild and daft in her grief, but he’d steadied her a treat, Mr Charlie’s young ’un.

‘Aye, ’appen yer right but she’d best mekk it quick ’cos if it don’t snow soon my name’s not Percy Barlow.’

‘D’yer reckon?’

‘Aye, Them clouds’ve bin bankin’ up along’t tops fer’t last ’our. You mark my words, it’ll be comin’ down by full dark.’

They worked side by side, settling the animals for the night with soothing murmurs and heavy, affectionate slaps on their rumps. Thomas came in and looked about him, then moved to the carriage
horses which were his responsibility, whistling through his teeth as he performed small, unnecessary jobs about the place, secretly as worried as they were, going to the door every few minutes to
stare up at the rapidly darkening sky. The lamps were lit and all was cosy in the warm, horse-smelling stable. The men’s work was finished for the day. All they had to do was see to Miss
Tessa’s mare and the lad’s pony and as soon as that was done they would go to the warm comfort of the kitchen where there would be steaming mugs of Cook’s strong, sweet tea, hot
soup to keep them going until their supper, the comfortable laughter of their ‘family’, for most of the Greenwood servants had been employed at Greenacres for many years. Some, like
Dorcas, had even served old Mrs Greenwood and Mrs Harrison, Miss Tessa’s mother, who were both now living in me sunshine of Italy with old Mr Joss Greenwood.

There was the pitter-patter of light boots on the cobbles in the yard and holding an old shawl about her head and shoulders, Miss Tessa’s maid Emma ran into the stable, her eyes searching
anxiously into every corner.

‘Miss Tessa’s not here then?’ she asked, although it was obvious her mistress was not present. Her glance fell on the empty stall which was waiting for Miss Tessa’s mare
and the next one to it which was also unoccupied and her eyes widened in alarm.

‘Don’t tell me she’s not back, Perce?’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Dear Lord, she should be back by now. It’s almost full dark and I felt snow on me face
as I crossed the yard.’

Percy looked about him in triumph for had he not forecast this very thing? Then he remembered the seriousness of Miss Tessa’s failure to return and he scowled to hide his own misgiving.
There was nothing wrong, of course, for Miss Tessa knew them moors like the back of her hand and was not one to take lightly the hostile and furious changeability of the wilderness which lay about
her home. She had been riding out there since she was ten years old and Percy was sure that if she had the slightest doubt that snow might be on the way she’d be headed home in an
instant.

Then where the bloody hell was she?

‘Where did she say she were off to, Walter?’ he asked, attempting to be casual for Emma’s benefit since they wanted no hysterical women on their hands at a time like this.

‘Nay, don’t ask me. She were askin’ t’lad, seein’ as ’ow it were their last ride afore . . . afore the snows. Where did ’e want ter go, she said, but I
didn’t ’ear ’is answer.’

‘Oh, my God . . . oh, my God.’ Emma began to moan and flap her hands and the men looked at one another over her bobbing cap. ‘She’s lost, Miss Tessa’s lost and that
little lad with her. Poor lass . . . oh, my poor lass, whatever next? When’s it going to end, Percy? It’s one thing after another and, really, why one family should have so much heaped
on them’s beyond me.’

‘Give over, Emma,’ Percy said roughly, his own dreadful fear only just hidden. ‘You’ll ’ave her dead an’ buried next an’ ’er not gone fer more
than . . .’

‘When . . . when did she go?’ Emma shrieked.

‘Well, when did she go, Walter?’

Walter shook his head fearfully for Miss Tessa and Master Joel had been up on them moors for over three hours. It was dark now and when the four of them looked out on to the stable yard the
lovely dancing snowflakes which were caught in the lamplight were thick and heavy.

He had landed on a small, grass-covered ledge, no more than eighteen inches wide and as far as she could judge about thirty feet down. She was never to know how it had broken
his fall and in that first moment she did not even stop to wonder. He lay on his back, one of his arms hidden beneath him, the other hanging dangerously over the edge. His cape had flown out as he
fell, spreading behind him, and his face was pale and unmoving against the dark cloth.

She began to scream his name and all around her small birds and animals, disturbed by the dreadful noise, became still, their hearts pounding in terror, and both horses flung up their heads,
snorting, Joel’s pony pawed the ground, then rolling his terrified eyes, reared up and, trailing his reins, galloped off into the gathering dusk. Her own mare, steadier than a young pony,
stood for a moment but as her mistress’s screams intensified, tearing the air in terror, she took fright and followed the pony along the track which led to her stable and safety.

‘Oh, God . . . Joel, darling, can you hear me? Oh, please, Joel, answer me . . . Joel, can you hear me, darling? Joel . . .’ For thirty seconds Tessa Greenwood lost control and was
no more than the hysterical, panic-stricken, useless female she herself had always despised. The dogs wheeled about her, confused and afraid but not leaving her, waiting for her command as they had
been trained to do, but in those first moments she was out of reach to them, unable to command herself, let alone them.

Still he did not move and she took a deep breath, fighting her need to scream again, to shout for someone to come to help her, to calm her terror, to tell her what to do, to reassure her that
there was no need to panic . . . anything . . . someone . . .

But there was no one there, only Tessa Greenwood who must climb down to Joel and carry him up to safety. He was hurt, even from here she could see he was hurt . . . not badly, God, please not
badly . . . and she must get down to him, now, now . . . She had no rope, and if he should awake and move . . . no, he was not dead . . .
he was not dead
. . . she would not
let
him
be dead . . . he could fall further, go over the ledge and down into . . . down . . .
No! No!
. . . she would not let him . . .

She flung off her cloak so that it would not impede her, leaving it lying carelessly on the edge and one of the dogs went to lie down on it, guarding it fiercely for it was hers. She did not
look down but turned her back on the depths behind her. Her gloved hands . . . she should have taken her gloves off for a firmer grip on the rocks . . . there was no time to turn back now. There
were rocks which were deeply imbedded in the turf at the edge of the drop and with the abyss clutching at her back, dragging her down into it, she clung to them, feeling carefully for a foothold.
She found one, then another, each boot planted firmly in some small crevice.