Broken Threads Read online

  ‘What?’

  ‘We don’t know. He … well, you know, he … took it badly about the explosion.’

  Jenny sank down on the hall settle. ‘You mean he got drunk?’

  Lucy came out of the drawing room, closing the door that her mother-in-law had left partly ajar.

  ‘Please lower your voices,’ she said in reproof. ‘Everyone can hear you in there.’

  Jenny began to untie the strings of her bonnet. A great weariness threatened to engulf her. For two weeks she had been gone from them. She had forgotten the anxieties and the animosities of her family. But once she set foot inside the door again, they swept towards her like a tidal wave.

  ‘You had better ask the ladies to excuse us, Lucy,’ she said. ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘You and Mother can talk in the dining room. There’s no reason why I should be dragged in.’

  ‘Lucy, we need to talk about Ned.’

  ‘I have nothing to say about Ned.’

  ‘My love, I think our friends would understand if we closed the meeting rather short,’ Millicent intervened. ‘They ken we’re in some trouble, they’re weaving folk themselves.’

  Lucy looked as if she would resist, but then with a sulky set of her mouth went back into the drawing room. Millicent led the way heavily into the dining room, calling to the maid, ‘Bring fresh tea and sandwiches in, Thirley, Mrs Armstrong must be famished.’

  There was the muted bustle of departure. About ten minutes later Lucy came in, looking mutinous. Jenny by then had drunk a much needed cup of tea. She had had nothing since a late breakfast at Dunbar.

  She had been brought up to date by her mother. The facts, briefly stated, were not pleasing. When news of the explosion was brought to Ned he had hurried to the scene, like most of Galashiels. Mr Saltley had been frightened by the rumour, which seemed to spring up like wildfire, that the Corvills were targets of the anarchists because of the Royal Family’s patronage of them.

  ‘It quite unmanned him, Jenny. So Ned took charge and spoke with the police and so on. On the Monday he got workmen in to make the wall safe and later in the day the wrecked machines were taken out. Some talk arose about the boilers being unsafe ‒ the dear knows where it came from ‒ and he decided not to restart any of the machinery.’

  ‘I understand he wouldn’t want to use the pressing plant. But that shouldn’t have stopped him from resuming with the water power?’

  ‘I don’t know, child. He seemed to be in a tither. Then Saltley came to him and said what was to be done about the workforce, who were standing about with nothing to do. So he told Saltley to lay them off.’

  ‘What on earth made him do that?’ Jenny demanded, raising her eyes to the ceiling for help.

  ‘I told him to,’ Lucy said, as she came in. ‘They were just earning wages for standing idle, it was silly. It was clearly going to save money to send them away.’

  ‘Lucy! You could have put them on half-time ‒’

  ‘So that a pack of girls could stay at home enjoying theselves?’

  ‘It’s not just the girls. Ritchie and Ainsley will have gone to the opposition ‒ we’ll never get Ritchie back if Begg and Hailes have got him. And he’s the best carding-room foreman in Galashiels.’

  ‘Good heavens, you can get him back if he’s so important ‒’

  ‘Why should he come back to a firm that turned him off at a moment’s notice? Ned should never have done such a thing.’

  ‘Well, in truth, Jenny, he knew it as soon as it was done because Dick Ainsley picked a fight with him the next morning and then … then …’ Jenny’s mother faltered into silence. She was unwilling to describe what had happened next with her only son.

  ‘And then he came home and found comfort in the whisky bottle,’ Lucy said with contempt. ‘So that’s where it all ended, all those good resolutions about never touching another drop and all the rest of it. I could have told your husband he was a fool to believe it when Ned told him he was reformed.’

  ‘But why didn’t you send a message?’ Jenny cried.

  There was an embarrassed silence. Then Millicent said, ‘If you remember, my dove, Ronald told only Ned where you were going for your honeymoon. It was so that you could have complete privacy, and at the time it seemed right …’

  ‘Then why didn’t Ned ‒?’

  ‘At first he was too taken up with what happened. We all were. And then, you see, he shut himself up in the reading room, and then on the Thursday he went out and he hasn’t been back.’

  Jenny was aghast. ‘He’s been missing ten days?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘You’ve sent to find him, I take it?’

  ‘Oh aye, all over Galashiels and in Hawick and Melrose. We’ve heard word of him, but so far Mr Kennet’s man hasn’t been able to catch up with him.’

  ‘In other words, he’s out on a drunken hooloch,’ said Ronald, when he heard the report from Jenny that evening.

  At the blunt words she bent her head. He caught the sparkle of tears on her dark lashes. Aghast at his own tactlessness, he put an arm about the slender shoulders. ‘Never you mind, my heart,’ he said, ‘it’s not your fault.’

  ‘When I think what a family I’ve dragged you into,’ she said, in a voice that quavered.

  ‘You didn’t drag me, I hurried in with an eager mind. Why, Jenny lass, if you’ve a brother that isn’t fit to be in charge of a Sunday School outing, what does it matter? We’ll sort it. I’ve made a fair start already ‒ the wheels should be turning at Waterside Mill tomorrow morning.’

  ‘But we have to find Ned.’

  ‘It won’t be difficult,’ he assured her. He was thinking that Ned must be running out of money after ten days, and no one can drink on credit for ever.

  Ned Corvill was found two days later in a local lock-up at Romanno Bridge. Due to be taken before the sheriff on a charge of disturbing the peace, he was recognised by a lawyer who had seen him in happier circumstances. A message was sent to Gatesmuir, everything was arranged discreetly, and Ned at his own request went into a private nursing home in Peebles.

  ‘We went through all this before,’ Lucy complained, when Ronald came back from shepherding his repentant brother-in-law into the nursing home. ‘It won’t do a bit of good. He just hasn’t any willpower.’

  ‘He wants you to go and stay in Peebles, somewhere near him so you can visit ‒’

  ‘I shan’t go near the place. That awful clinic in Glasgow was enough for me.’

  ‘Sister-in-law, your man needs you,’ Ronald said. ‘I said the marriage vows recently enough to recall them: “for better, for worse”.’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy enough for you to talk ‒’

  ‘Besides,’ Ronald went on as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘Peebles is a very agreeable place. Any spa town has its attractions. There’s a band concert every day in the public gardens, the shops are full of summer silks, there’s a touring company playing The Revenge of Adair at the theatre.’

  ‘Don’t try to coax me as if I were a child,’ Lucy cried, and flounced out of the room.

  Nevertheless, she went to Peebles at the end of the week. Ned began to mend. With that problem taken care of for the moment, Jenny and Ronald were able to concentrate on Waterside Mill.

  The original plan had been that Jenny would step down from the role of manager of the mill to make way for Ronald. She would occupy herself instead with designing the plaids with which she had made the firm of William Corvill and Son famous. To this end she had fitted out a room on the top floor of the mill, with a good northern light.

  But it was necessary to replace the damaged machinery of the carding room. Since they were having new, they might as well have all the latest improvements and refinements that weaving engineers could provide. Jenny had to go to Yorkshire to see the new machines.

  Then there came the problem of the money with which to pay for them. Jenny and Ronald expected it to come from the insurance on the lost machinery, but the Mechanical an
d Industrial Assurance Company refused to pay up. Jenny had to go to Edinburgh to confront the claims examiner.

  ‘The police are thoroughly satisfied that the damage was caused by the accumulation of coal gas when a tap was left on after a celebration in the works,’ Mr Scranton pointed out with stiff politeness. ‘I fear my company cannot be held liable for damage caused in that way.’

  ‘I think if you read paragraph 8c of the policy you will see that damage through accidental negligence of the workers is covered.’

  ‘But the implication of that, Mistress Corvill, is that the workers’ negligence occurs when the workers are working.’

  ‘That may be your reading of it, but there is no such phrase in the policy, sir.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mistress Corvill, but usage in the insurance business will bear me out ‒’

  ‘I don’t give a bent bawbee for usage in the insurance business, Mr Scranton. The policy covers accidental negligence by the workers and that is what caused the gas explosion.’

  ‘I fear I cannot go along with you on that ‒’

  ‘I fear you will thereupon hear from my lawyer, Mr Scranton.’

  ‘You should not waste your money on filing suit, mistress ‒’

  ‘I should not have wasted my money on a policy with a company who intend to welch on it. I bid you good-day, Mr Scranton.’

  ‘Wait, dear lady ‒ let us not part on bad terms ‒’

  ‘What terms do you offer instead, then, sir?’

  And so the fencing went on, the case at last went to arbitration, and in the end William Corvill and Son got a substantial settlement ‒ not enough to pay entirely for the repair of the damage and the replacement of the machines, but more than Jenny had expected at first.

  All these additional tasks kept her from stepping aside, as she had sincerely intended to do when Ronald took over. But she took care to leave him the full control of the work at the mill. There, she tried very hard to make everyone call her Mistress Armstrong instead of Mistress Corvill, and continued to keep to her role as designer.

  For some time now instinct had been making her turn away from the bright plaids and checks that had reigned supreme in the world of fashion. She found her paint brush mixing the browns and grey and slate-blues of a more sombre world.

  ‘Jenny, lass, you’d think you weren’t happy,’ Ronald protested as he looked over her shoulder one bright autumn day. ‘You don’t really want to put those in the pattern book for next spring?’

  She hesitated, head on one side, examining a check of brown and moss green. ‘I think so, Ronald. I think that’s what will sell.’

  ‘Ach, you’ve lost your lamp-wick! Men might buy that, but women always go for the light, bright checks.’

  ‘Yes, you may be right … but I think we should put half a dozen or so of my shadowy checks into the pattern book.’

  Since she had been right for five or six years running, she had her way. When the cloth buyers came to look at the new plaids, they fingered the samples gingerly, looking askance at the quiet dark colours she was offering at the back of the book. Hardly an order was taken for what had been dubbed her ‘shadow checks’.

  She shrugged. She wasn’t disappointed, for they had orders for the brighter designs, enough to keep them going without regrets for the others.

  Besides, she had something to keep her happy no matter what might happen in the world of trade. She confided her news to Ronald at the end of November, after an evening of planning for a St Andrew’s Day party. This was to welcome Ned and Lucy home from a sea voyage that had completely restored his health.

  ‘A bairn?’ Ronald said, when she had told him. ‘You’re sure?’

  She nodded.

  He picked her up and swung her round. ‘My lass, my love,’ he carolled, ‘it makes everything perfect! We’ll have a son, and we’ll call him Maxwell after my father, and he’ll be the best dyer and weaver in the whole Border country!’

  ‘Ssh,’ she warned. ‘You’ll wake Mother.’

  ‘You haven’t told her yet?’

  ‘I wanted you to know first.’

  ‘When’s it to be, Jenny my dove?’

  ‘June ‒ a summer baby.’

  ‘Well, that’s just right. We’ll put him out in his cot in the sunshine so he can see the flowers and hear the birds ‒’

  ‘He won’t be bothered with that at first, husband. Newborn babies sleep most of the time.’

  But Ronald continued to picture his baby son waving his fists and cooing at the flowers. Jenny hardly liked to mention the fact that babies often cried, too.

  Ned returned, looking bronzed and fit. Gatesmuir was filled with happiness. St Andrew’s Day came, the party was held, Lucy sparkled in a new dress à la Turque which she had brought home with her. Ned was greeted with pleasure by all his old acquaintances. The world seemed to glow with the expectation of winter revelry.

  All the worse, then, was the dreadful news that appeared in their black-bordered newspaper on 15 December:

  ‘Yesterday at an early hour His Royal Highness Prince Albert the Prince Consort died of the typhoid fever. Her Majesty the Queen was at his bedside. Arrangements for the funeral will be announced tomorrow. A full year’s mourning has been ordered at Court. It is expected that loyal citizens will observe this solemn duty also.’

  The shock stunned the country. Prince Albert had not been universally popular but it was known how much the Queen loved him, and for her sake mourning was adopted by everyone who could afford to buy it. The Corvills, who had actually met the Prince, immediately put off light-coloured clothes. Most others did the same.

  And so the sombre checks that Jenny had been designing in some instinctive foreknowledge were suddenly in demand. Orders flooded in. Waterside Mill was humming with activity.

  ‘A strange thing,’ Jenny said, her face pale, ‘that the death of a friend and patron should bring us trade.’

  ‘My dear lass, don’t think of that,’ her mother soothed. ‘Don’t think of death ‒ think of new life, think of the coming baby.’

  It was an old wisdom. Jenny accepted it. Yet the perfect happiness was gone, try though she might to recapture it.

  Chapter Two

  Newly returned from a cruise along the Mediterranean coastline, Ned and Lucy should have been the social lions of the winter season. They had stories to tell of the great market in Constantinople, the sunrise behind the Acropolis, the smoke cloud over Vesuvius.

  But the death of the Prince Consort changed the social climate. When Lucy brought out the spangled caftans and embroidered silks, she found there was no opportunity to wear them ‒ fashion was totally opposed to the idea.

  Ned, on the other hand, was listened to with some respect. On the cruise ship he had made friends with a politician whose family had supported Wilberforce in his campaign to abolish slavery.

  ‘We may have abolished it in this country,’ he told the startled worthies of Galashiels, ‘but others not only support it, they encourage it to flourish. Why, in Turkey, Michaels pointed out black men being sold ‒ didn’t he, my love?’

  Lucy, thus appealed to, shuddered. ‘Don’t speak of it, my dear. I hurried on, if you remember ‒ I didn’t wish to be present.’

  Ned gave her a fond glance. ‘It wasn’t fit for a tender heart to see, that’s true. They were in chains, you know. Most shocking. Michaels told me that slavery is still rife throughout the Arabian countries. I have joined the organisation to help abolish it.’ Ned stared around at the group of friends sharing a fine dinner with him. ‘I hope to enlist you all in that task.’

  Jenny exchanged a glance across the dinner table with Ronald, who was looking perplexed. Later, when they had said goodnight to their guests and had gone to their room, she explained.

  ‘Ned seems to need some campaign or crusade to throw himself into. You had left Galashiels before he got involved with the Temperance Society, I think.’

  ‘I read about that. He was stravaiging around the Borders, making s
peeches, was he not?’

  ‘Yes, and very successful at making converts.’ She sighed. ‘But after he fell from grace himself he could hardly go on haranguing others to give up drink. So I suppose he was ready to be recruited for another great cause.’

  ‘Well, it is a great cause, Jenny. You know what Burns says ‒ “Wha sae base as be a slave”.’

  ‘Of course. I don’t belittle the cause. I just wonder if Ned is really devoted to it, or if it’s just that he needs something to fill the gap left by his temperance campaign.’

  Ronald went to stir up the fire against the chill of the February night. ‘Is it warm enough in here for you, my love? I don’t want you taking the shivers, not in your delicate condition.’

  ‘I’m fine, Ronald, fine,’ she assured him, laughing. She had never felt so fit in her life, now that the pregnancy was well established.

  He put his arms round her. ‘I don’t want you worrying about Ned,’ he admonished. ‘Ned has made a good recovery from his lapse and if he needs any shoring up, I’ll see to it. You’ve been too worried about him all your life, if you want my opinion.’

  Jenny said nothing. Between her husband and her brother there was a sort of edgy friendship which might one day grow into real warmth, if only Ned would take a better hold on his life. Ever since he was a child, he had been subject to enthusiasms: he had yearned for a university education as if it were the Holy Grail, he had wanted to be a ‘gentleman’, he had started a learned treatise on Greek philosophy, he had embraced the cause of temperance … One by one these great goals had failed to satisfy. It was as if he were trying to escape from himself by entering into enthusiasms that might enlarge and transform him.

  This latest enterprise was certainly a worthy one. When she heard Ned speak with reverence of the late John Brown, Jenny thought she heard true conviction in his voice. Brown had been a leader of the anti-slavery cause and had been hanged two years previously by the State of Virginia. To Ned, he seemed almost a martyred saint.

  Now, of course, the United States of America was engulfed in civil war, the North against the South, with this very matter of slavery as the main quarrel. Ned threw himself into the business of raising funds for the Union cause, helping to organise meetings and writing to the newspapers.