The Silk Factory (6 page)

In the stillness, Jack suddenly caught a glimpse of movement, someone bending, moving silently beneath the trees. He drew Maisie to a standstill and watched.

A young woman. A young woman wrapped in a thin dress and a shawl the colour of a wood pigeon’s breast. Stooping to gather something from the ground and place it in the shallow basket at her feet, she came out into the light as if born from the shadows. Intent on her task she drew towards him and he sat motionless, watching the soft contours of her body as she moved among the stark, stick-like trees. Looking more closely he saw that snowdrops grew in clumps around the trees, their green leaves choked with snow but their white and drooping heads pushing through. It was these that the girl was gathering, clearing away the snow with her hands to pick each stem delicately until she had a posy and then laying them in the basket and packing the stems with snow. As she drew nearer, the light caught her profile; her face was inclined to the ground, and the curve of her cheek and its delicate colour struck him, the flush of blood strangely moving, speaking to him of Life in the barren scene as strongly as did the snowdrops. He held his breath. Here was life in adverse circumstances, beauty in a wasteland. A gift.

Maisie’s flanks quivered beneath him as she shivered. He had kept her standing too long. Automatically he moved her forward and her hooves struck on the track.

Effie looked up and saw a soldier passing, his red coat as bold as the haws in the hedgerows, his dark horse shiny as polish and everything bright as a vision. He looked back over his shoulder and their eyes met as he raised his hat to her. She gazed at him without smiling. Effie knew that men meant Trouble. Nonetheless, even though it was only half-full, she picked up her basket so that she could straighten up and watch his departing back as he clip-clopped on along the lane, smart as paint. As he passed the other women who were working at the far end of the nuttery, she saw him tip his hat to them and felt unaccountably disappointed.

She tutted at herself and bent back to her work. What a fool to let her eyes wander after a man, however handsome, she berated herself, and a soldier at that! Better to concentrate on filling her baskets; the carter would be here within the hour to collect them and then she must get back home to start work on Mrs Millington’s washing. She set her mouth in a firm line and returned to her gathering. The rent was due and paying it would mean little left to tide them over until Tobias and Beulah brought their wages home at the end of the week. On top of that she would have to endure Hob Talbot’s visit to collect his money, with his constant reminders that they had no right to the tied cottage since her father had passed away and were only living on his farm through his grace and favour. He would invite himself to her fireside and ask for a drop of ale and her ‘good company’, and watch her as she poured his drink, with the hungry look that made her flesh crawl.

She picked another handful of the tiny flowers. Her fingers were bare for the delicate work, her hands covered only by fingerless gloves that gave little protection. She placed the flowers in the basket, packed more of the stinging snow around to keep them fresh on their journey and then rubbed her palms together in an attempt to restore some life to stiff, numb hands. Despite the arduous work, bent double and aching with cold, Effie had not grown immune to the beauty of the flowers as had the other women, who talked in a businesslike way of ‘cropping’ and ‘packing’. She still found the flowers beautiful and took pleasure in their perfect shape and the thin line of green that traced the edge of their petals. She observed them in all their moods, the way they fluttered in an icy breeze or hung, drooping, when it was still. She marvelled that something so frail could push through the frozen earth and the crust of snow and thought of them as dogged little flowers, each year achieving their reassuring miracle.

Jack rode on through the village and out past the water mill until he came to the woods. He turned off the main track and coaxed Maisie haltingly along a track bounded by the lumpy snow-covered shapes of brambles and dead bracken. A crow landed on a branch a few feet away, showering the path with snow, and Maisie whinnied and shied so that he had to throw himself forward over her neck to avoid hitting his head on a branch above him. Swearing, he gripped on tightly to avoid being thrown and reined her in firmly, turning her in tight circles to stop her bolting, as the crow, disturbed by the noise, flapped away again. Maisie snorted and shook her head. She planted all four hooves firmly on the ground and wouldn’t give an inch.

Jack knew this mood of hers and sat tight, giving her time to calm herself. He let the reins go slack so that she could drop her head and investigate the fallen snow that had alarmed her. He patted her neck while she flicked her tail. The wood, muffled in snow, seemed silent at first but as he sat, relaxing in the saddle, small sounds reached him: a stream trickling with meltwater, a robin’s high piping song, the sough of branches as a breeze passed through and was gone. He felt a restless happiness he couldn’t name. Each sound fell upon his ear with an intense sweetness, as though his senses were suddenly attuned to a new pitch. The very branches cradling the snow seemed charged with light. Beside him, beads of water dripped from the ends of the twigs and it was as though he felt the slow gathering of every drop.

He walked Maisie on towards the sound of water, a strange excitement fizzing in his blood. The path narrowed and meandered until he rounded a tight bend and in front of him lay a stream with three mossy planks laid across it. Plates of ice floated on its surface and on the far bank stood a roe deer, a doe with her spindly legs planted and her head down to drink. Jack stopped Maisie. They were upwind and the creature took a moment to register their presence. It lifted its head, water dripping from its muzzle, its nose twitching as it searched for their scent, and looked straight at him with candid, liquid eyes. For a moment Jack felt the privilege of meeting face-to-face with a wild thing. Then, with a flurry of snow and a flash of its white rump, it was gone.

Jack let out his breath. The restless excitement that had been building in him crystallised. The image of the young woman came before him again; there had been something pure in the moment, almost holy. He had never seen anything so perfect. When she had looked up at him he had felt a shift, a change, a sense of communion. He must see her again. He must go now, while there was a chance that he might catch her before her work there was done.

The path here was too narrow to turn Maisie, the matted bracken making the undergrowth impenetrable on either side. With excruciating slowness he coaxed her over the mossy plank bridge and rewarded her with a piece of apple from his pocket as she reached the path once more, urging her along as best he could until they reached a path that turned left, back towards the edge of the wood. ‘Walk on, walk on,’ Jack muttered to her as they went, for what if the girl was gone? He knew nothing about her, not even her name. Would she be there if he came another day? The group of women could be itinerant labour, here today and gone tomorrow, disappearing as swiftly as the crop of flowers they picked. The thought that Lieutenant Jack Stamford should not be pursuing a girl who might be no better than a gypsy never entered his head; all he knew was that he must look upon her again.

Emerging at the edge of a field, Jack set his course by the church tower whose bells were now tolling the hour of ten o’clock. Maisie, relieved of the terrors of creaking branches and frozen puddles, was persuaded into a steady walk over the level pasture and Jack urged her on until they reached the lane through the village. He passed a cart rumbling slowly along, drawn by two bays in jingling harness, the carter hunched in a blanket with his hat jammed down over his ears against the cold.

Turning into the lane that ran down to the nuttery he slowed to a sedate pace, gathered the reins in one hand and sat back in the saddle to appear as one casually returning from a ride along a customary route. A gaggle of women, gossiping and laughing, came out of the entrance to the nuttery and turned away from him, down towards the farm. His eyes passed quickly over them: she was not among them. For a desperate moment he considered calling out to them to ask where he could find the girl in grey but he immediately dismissed the idea; at best they would think it odd, at worst he would appear ridiculous. He slowed his pace and looked around in case there was any other route she might have taken.

Ahead, in the gateway to the nuttery, a pile of flat, lidded baskets were now haphazardly stacked. He guessed that they awaited collection by the carter he had passed earlier on the road. As he approached, he saw the girl emerge carrying a last basket and he let out his breath. She reached up on tiptoe and placed it on the top of the stack, but the baskets, roughly stacked on uneven ground, were unstable and the pile teetered, overbalanced and, before she could grab it, fell in a crash and bounce of wickerwork, snow and flowers. She cried out in consternation.

Jack slid from Maisie’s back. The girl stood surveying the muddled debris. ‘Oh, they will all be bruised!’ she said, as much to the air as to Jack, and, pulling a basket from the mess, she began picking over the flowers, discarding those that had been crushed and reassembling new posies from those that were still good.

‘Come, let me help you.’ Jack hooked Maisie’s reins over the gatepost and then lifted a fallen basket that was still closed and intact and put it down to one side of the still teetering pile. ‘Shall I set these straight first?’ he asked her.

She nodded with tears of vexation in her eyes. ‘I’m to wait for the carter. He’ll be here directly; the blooms have to reach market before noon.’

‘Don’t worry; we’ll soon set all to rights.’ Jack took down some baskets and started to straighten those beneath so that they sat more firmly. ‘Who buys all these snowdrops?’ he asked, to draw her into further conversation, and then, more daringly, ‘I dare say they’re posies for sweethearts?’

Effie glanced up at him quickly, thinking him rather forward. ‘Certainly not,’ she said briskly. ‘They go to the big houses and hotels in the town in time to grace their tea tables.’ She closed the lid of the basket she’d tidied, even though it wasn’t completely full. She would have to share the good flowers between the baskets and hope no one would notice that each basket was a little short. If the load were a whole basket light it would certainly be missed.

Jack took it from her, stacked it and then bent opposite her to help gather up the flowers. ‘They’re so delicate,’ he said. He looked straight at her. ‘Very pretty.’

Effie blushed and bent her head low. Her hands moved quickly and efficiently over the snowy ground. Jack saw that her fingerless gloves were sodden and her fingers red and chapped. He found himself wanting to cover them with his own and warm them; he hated seeing her hands so raw with cold. He imagined holding them between his palms, blowing warm breath upon them or kissing them back to life …

The sound of hooves and wheels turning into the lane reached them, and Effie worked even more quickly, tucking bunch after wet bunch into the last basket. The slow rumble grew louder and she closed the basket and pushed it towards him, saying, ‘Quick! He’s here!’ She scooped up the remaining squashed flowers, broken stems, snow and all, into the lap of her dress and ran back into the nuttery to hide it behind the nearest tree, while Jack hefted the basket up on to the stack. He took Maisie’s reins to steady her as the carter turned the other horses in through the gateway and drew them to a halt with a creaking of leather and a jingling of harness. ‘Good morning to you,’ Jack said.

‘Where’s Talbot’s girl?’ he said gruffly, looking Jack up and down with suspicion. Jack nodded towards her, his heart lifting as he recognised the name of one of the local farmers – not a gypsy then; she must be settled here, maybe living somewhere nearby.

The carter climbed stiffly down and began to load the cart. Effie joined him but when Jack stepped forward to help too, she shook her head behind the carter’s back. When the load was on board she stood on the far side, as if to distance herself from him as much as possible. As the carter counted the baskets he looked curiously from one to the other and Effie seemed to shrink further from him, crossing her arms and tucking her hands inside her shawl as if she would fold herself away completely. At length, the carter wrote a receipt and handed it to her. She nodded, tucked it into the pocket of her dress and set off down the lane without a word to Jack.

Feeling foolish, Jack stood waiting as the carter drove further into the nuttery entrance to turn the cart and, with much muttering and cursing at the horses, finally drove away with a backward glance and a scowl in his direction. As soon as the carter looked away and touched the horses with the whip, Jack mounted, turned Maisie’s head in the opposite direction and walked her along the track after the girl. He soon caught up with her and she looked round in some agitation.

‘Thank you for your help, but you didn’t ought to have stayed. People do talk so, you know,’ she said. ‘Not that I’m not thankful, I wouldn’t want you to think that, but I’ll bid you good morning …’ She tailed off in confusion.

Jack said quickly, ‘I shall see you safely home. Do you have far to go? Won’t you ride?’ He halted Maisie, slipped from the saddle and stood with one hand on the pommel ready to steady it as he handed her up.

Effie, still disturbed by the carter’s meaningful looks, shook her head emphatically.

‘Then I shan’t ride either,’ Jack said and proceeded alongside her, leading Maisie by the reins.

Effie could think of no answer, feeling rather overcome by all the attention from this young man. He confused her so – he was treating her like a lady. They walked along in step. After a little while, Jack said, ‘It seems to me that after sharing such disaster, we should at least be properly introduced. I don’t even know your name.’

‘Effie … Effie Fiddement, sir.’

Effie. Jack turned the name around in his mind. ‘Were you christened Effie or is it short for Euphemia?’