The Silk Factory (34 page)

He thought of all the labour he’d put in to grease the wheels of his business through ingratiating the family into the social round of the village, all the dinners and card parties for which he had inveigled invitations. After today’s humiliation, every such invitation would cease and, in his absence, lurid rumours would thrive and spread, harming him and his business further. His contact with village society would be limited to creeping in and out of church on Sundays with his tail between his legs, for if he stayed away, all would say it was an admission of guilt. Yet with Tabitha and Hebe trailing behind him with whey-faces and downcast eyes, how was he to hold his head high and brazen it out?

Those damnable Fiddement children! To think that such a worthless chit of a girl could have brought him such trouble! His workers had witnessed his public disgrace in front of the whole village today. Now, even in his own factory he would be forever conscious of sneers behind his back and snide remarks muttered just out of earshot. It was insupportable! Was he to suffer the opprobrium of drawboys and bobbin winders? With every attempt he made to exert discipline he’d be aware of the rumbling growl of dissent, his workforce like a dog sleeping with one eye open, ready to spring. For God’s sake, Jervis would be after him, like a hound scenting a weakness in its prey, demanding better wages, shorter hours. And soon Hawkins would be visiting, poking his long nose in. He threw down his pen. Was he to have his business inspected by a
parson
who knew nothing of Industry, of the vicissitudes of the Market, the responsibilities of a Master? The man was capable only of the most myopic, narrow view. He would nose around his factory seeing only the superficialities. He could hear him now, bleating on about the cramped conditions, the sweat and smell, the air too thick to breathe. He would moan that the children looked thin and exhausted and that veterans who had already fought for their country shouldn’t be adding bent backs and ruined eyes to their injuries. He wouldn’t see the Planning, the Vision and the Creation of Wealth for the Nation. Hawkins would spout reforming nonsense at him and using the power of the vestry; he would force yet more expense upon him, demand more space, better ventilation, a living wage, potatoes, meat, eggs: good vittles wasted on dross. Ah yes, Jervis and the parson would have him in their pincers.

The harsh fact of the matter was that without the paupers as cheap labour he would be unable to squeeze out sufficient profit. He would find it hard to tread water, never mind forge ahead. He pushed away the thought of his losses in Spitalfields long ago and his ignominious flight from his creditors. Could he sell his properties to tide the business over? ’Twould not be sound business sense; they brought in regular rents, a reliable income, unlike the swings in fortune attendant on the market for silk. In any case, it would be the talk of the parish if he sold property. Everyone would know that he was in difficulties. Viciousness would spread the fact further abroad, along with all the other rumours, and would turn yet more business away. If his suppliers withdrew credit he would be done for … Behind the regular beat of the great clock, he heard voices, the babble of gossip and spite dispersing from the village like a contagion amongst his creditors, amongst his customers:
financial difficulties
,
a cruel taskmaster
,
trouble with the Law
. He saw it spreading, like a dirty smear across his silks.

No, he could not sell the properties, but without the money neither could he modernise. Instead, he would be stuck with old machines and costly labour and all his great plans would come to naught. Rather than priming the bellows with cash to pump new life into his venture, he would be presiding over its slow death.

He stared, unseeing, at the open ledger. Above him, the clock ticked on in the cavernous silence.

Effie sat at the window of her room at the Wheat Sheaf Inn, in the part of the village known as ‘Weedon-in-the-Street’. The turnpike road below was busy with carts and carriages, mail and passenger coaches. Traffic was always passing, for this road, which passed east to west between Northampton and Coventry, was crossed here by the Watling Street, the Great Road that ran south, all the way to London and beyond.

Effie was sewing her wedding dress. A bright square of sunlight fell on her lap where the pale, slippery silk of the bodice lay. She paused now and then in her stitching, welcoming the distraction of the shouts of the carriers or the hauling of portmanteaux on to the top of coaches. Preparing for her marriage was a reason for joy and every day she thought of the blessing that Jack had been safely returned to her, but she worried for Beulah and could not rest. As she stitched, her mind picked over and over all she had heard. It seesawed between Alice’s adamant testimony to the justice that Beulah had absconded, now also corroborated by one of the bobbin winders, Thomasin Parks, and the rumours that had reached her from the bar of the inn that Beulah had come to harm at Fowler’s hands.

Although there was no proof against him and she knew that one should hold a man innocent until proven otherwise, news of his shaming at the church had filled her with a fierce, vengeful satisfaction. Yet at night she dreamt of Beulah hiding somewhere, in a barn or a hedge-bottom, scared and alone. In these dreams, she clasped her in her arms and told her, ‘Effie’s here – you’re safe – Effie’s here,’ but she woke to an empty room and the clatter of the night coaches passing.

Assuming that Alice and Thomasin were telling the truth, where could Beulah be now? Time and again she berated herself for having left Alice to pass on her message to Beulah to come to the workhouse. If only she hadn’t relied on the woman! If only she hadn’t let Alice hurry her away. If she’d had the chance to comfort Beulah after the shock of the stillbirth she felt certain she could have reassured her. They had asked too much of her. Beulah was too young to cope with it alone.

As the days had gone by, Mr Boddington’s assurances that Beulah would be found had sounded hollow to her ear. She and Jack had walked out along the Farthingstone road, where Alice said she last saw Beulah, and then cut across the fields all the way back to the cottage at Newnham hoping to find some sign of her by retracing her most likely route home. Jack had ridden out to the toll gates and given a description to the keepers, handing them small coin to ensure discretion and promising more for any information that might lead to the recovery of the child. All had drawn a blank and as time slipped on it seemed less and less likely that she would be found.

There was a tap on the door and she put her sewing aside to answer it. Hannah, the maid-of-all-work, bobbed a curtsey and said, ‘Lieutenant Stamford, ma’am – in the parlour.’ Effie caught up her shawl and followed her downstairs.

As Effie entered the tiny parlour, Jack thought with satisfaction how proper rest and decent food were doing her good. She was beginning to fill out once more and her complexion was regaining its colour. She looked stronger. ‘Shall we walk?’ Jack asked. ‘It’s a fine evening.’

They set off, arm in arm, first along the London road and then, turning aside to enter the village, they passed the long wall of the arsenal and crossed first the swing bridge over the canal and then the brick bridge over the river. As they went, Jack told her of his day, of the improvements he had made in the drill of the artillerymen and, hoping to amuse her, of the new bugler who had played reveille out of key. When they reached the crossroads at the Plume of Feathers, he steered her away from New Street and towards West Street, thinking to avoid passing the silk manufactory and save her pain.

Effie resisted the pressure of his hand upon her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Jack, but can we walk up towards Farthingstone again?’

Jack sighed. ‘It does you no good, Effie. It’ll only upset you.’

‘Please?’

Jack feared it was hopeless but nonetheless humoured her. They walked on, crossing to the far side of the street when they reached the factory and then ascending the hill that led out of the village. Jack asked questions about the landlord’s family at the inn, with whom Effie, as a long-term guest, was now on friendly terms. He tried to distract her and draw her into conversation but he saw how her eyes strayed always fearfully to the ditches. At length, he gave up all pretence that they were walking out together exchanging trivialities like a normal courting couple and fell silent. They walked along the ridge, out beyond the village, until there was only open farmland on either side: on the right fields full of sheep dotted with crows, and on the left a pattern of wheat fields and pasture sweeping down and then up again to a skyline pieced with woods, like uneven clumps of bristles in a brush.

Jack began to speak, instead, of more troubling matters, closer to their hearts. He pointed to the nearest field on their left saying, ‘Do you see that elm tree? That’s where Tobias was hiding. Thank God it was I and not Clay who found him and that he was able to reach the woods.’

Effie squeezed his arm. ‘He was always a good woodsman. He said you needed silent feet and wide eyes for rabbiting.’ She gave a sad smile as they walked on.

‘Effie,’ Jack said thoughtfully, ‘did Beulah know much about Tobias’s escape?’

‘She knew that his escape was through these woods, though not your part in it.’

They looked at each other, both thinking the same thought.

‘So,’ Jack said, ‘if Alice’s story is true and Beulah fled along this road, might she not have remembered and sought the same secretive route as her brother?’

They bent their steps towards the nearest wood, Castle Dykes, a dark ring of trees on the horizon.

They found a narrow, overgrown track leading from the road. It ran between pasture on one side and a cornfield splashed with poppies on the other, and passed into the trees through a cleft in a deep ditch and steep bank. An ancient fortification, it would once have been clear of trees and afforded, for its Iron Age tribe, a view of twenty miles over the surrounding countryside. The bank, once topped by palisades, was overgrown with trees, the ditch half-filled with fallen branches and a litter of weeds, knee-deep in leaf mould.

The trees enclosed a large central clearing, sunlit, scattered with stumps and swathes of bracken but largely covered by tough, dense grass, criss-crossed by earth paths. To one side, the remains of a campfire showed: a large patch of scathed turf scattered with charred wood, ashes leached and spread by rain. Upended logs were placed around it, a couple fallen over on their sides. Nearby, large patches of grass were yellow and dead as if something had stood there, and in other places there were holes in the ground as if pegs had been driven in as tethers.

At the back of the clearing, a low shelter had been made, a limb pulled down from a young sycamore and pinned to the earth with cut branches and bracken piled against it on either side to form a rough tent of wood and leaves. Seeing it, Effie ran over, calling out, ‘Beulah! Beulah!’ a wild hope rising in her.

Jack joined her where she stood disconsolate beside the empty shelter. ‘Whoever was here has long departed,’ he said. ‘The campfire is old – and look, here’ – he put his hand on the brown fronds and fragments came away at his touch – ‘the bracken is all but shrivelled away.’

Effie, still breathing hard, rubbed her hand across her brow. ‘I thought … just for a moment …’

‘We can try the woods further along, work through Everdon Stubbs,’ Jack said in the most encouraging voice he could muster. ‘We can come back another day or even carry on now, if you feel strong enough?’

Effie wasn’t listening. She was staring at something hanging above the shelter, a patch of red in a mass of green. As if in a dream she pulled a branch away to reveal it. Dangling from a twig, knotted at one corner, as if hung out to dry on any homely clothes line, was a red flannel kerchief. She reached out and felt it between her finger and thumb.

Jack came and looked over her shoulder. ‘Gypsies’ washing left out by accident?’

Effie unknotted the cloth and turned it over, running her thumb along the hem. She turned to him, her eyes shining. ‘Beulah’s!’ she said.

‘Wait, Effie; how can you know that? Red flannel kerchiefs are ten-a-penny. Even if Beulah had one it doesn’t necessarily follow …’

‘’Tis a message! To say that she’s been here, with the gypsies! ’Tis a message for me, to let me know she’s safe!’

Jack, torn between wanting to believe it so that she might have some peace of mind and feeling that this false hope would hurt all the more when logic dashed it, hesitated, undecided.

‘Look – look here,’ Effie said, folding the cloth so that the hem showed. ‘Do you think I don’t know my own stitching?’ Clutching the kerchief to her breast, Effie went and sat down heavily on one of the logs and Jack rolled another over and sat beside her.

‘Even if it is the case, you realise that there’s little chance of finding her. They could be anywhere by now,’ he said gently. ‘The gypsies wander the whole country without rhyme or reason. There’s no pattern to their travels; they stay somewhere until they’re on the brink of getting caught at some mischief and then move on.’

‘But she’s alive! She’s alive!’ Tears of relief stood in her eyes. ‘And they may come back.’

Jack nodded a tentative assent. ‘If you really believe it, we should speak to the constable. We should tell him what we’ve found – present it as evidence. It does support Alice’s testimony.’

Effie looked up sharply. ‘What! So that monster, Fowler, can send the law after her? No. He’s made others suffer long enough. ’Tis time he suffered himself and I’ll do nothing to clear his name.’ She folded the cloth and hid it away in her pocket.

Jack rubbed his chin but argued no further.

Effie looked around, her eyes lighting on every patch of disturbed ground.

‘What are you thinking?’ Jack asked softly. ‘It must be a small band of gypsies. See’ – he pointed to the rectangular patches of yellowed grass – ‘just three carts, I think.’

Effie shook her head. In a low voice she said, ‘I was thinking that perhaps our baby is buried somewhere in this place but I shall never know where.’ She leant forward and rested her elbows on her knees, putting her head in her hands.

Jack put his arm around her, pulling her close. ‘Darling Effie, I know it’s hard to believe it now but one day you will be happy again.
We
will be happy, together. I shall make it so, in time.’

In a muffled voice, Effie said, ‘Tell me the story. Tell me again about the house where we’re going to live.’

In the warm clearing all was silent save for the chirrup of grasshoppers in the bracken and a woodpecker far away drumming for its mate.

‘The house that Mr and Mrs Stamford will live in is a small house in Ordnance Row,’ Jack began, ‘but solid, in a terrace of four, all junior officers’ houses. There’s a little garden to plant with all your favourites: sweet peas and roses and gillyflowers.’ He paused to kiss her forehead. Her eyes were shut tight as if she were watching on the back of her eyelids the scenes he painted.

‘At the far end of the gardens is a washing yard where the wives gather and gossip and swap receipts for their best dishes, while they’re pegging out the sheets. The house itself has a sunny parlour where the Stamfords will sit and talk together or entertain their neighbours, and in the winter we shall be snug either side of a good fire.’

‘’Tis make-believe,’ Effie said.

He turned her face towards him and kissed her cheek. ‘There are two good bedchambers,’ he said. ‘In the large one we shall have a feather mattress as deep as a hayrick and twice as soft.’ He leant his forehead against hers. ‘The other room is tiny but there is space for a cradle and a truckle bed too, one day, when we are blessed again …’

‘’Tis just a fairy tale,’ Effie whispered, a catch in her voice.

‘Trust me.’ He kissed her softly on the lips. ‘We will make it true.’

Three weeks later, dressed in silk and with fine lace at sleeves and throat, Effie stood waiting anxiously in the church porch with her matrons of honour, Ann and Sarah, Jack’s sisters-in-law. Two of his little nieces sat upon a wooden bench seat, fidgeting and swinging their feet.

From outside in the lane, deep male voices drifted. Jack had arranged that, after the wedding, the path to the lychgate was to be lined with redcoats standing to attention, and that they were to pass under the crossed swords held aloft in their honour. The men’s jovial conversation was punctuated by the higher voices and laughter of the children who were gathering, ready for the thrill of climbing on to the churchyard wall with their handfuls of wild flowers, to shower them with petals. Effie tugged at her sleeves in nervous excitement, thinking of all the villagers who would turn out for the spectacle.

The heavy studded doors of the church were open a crack and Effie peeped through. Jack’s family filled most of the pews. His father and brothers were dressed in sober clerical grey; the wives’ bonnets nodded as they talked; children squirmed round to talk to others behind them and babies were handed from lap to lap. Effie’s side was woefully thin, just one pew lined with the women with whom she used to pick snowdrops, the younger ones bright with ribbons, giggling and nudging each other.