The Mistress of Windfell Manor Page 22

  ‘He’s not answered the door for two days now and the window shutters are still closed. I’ve left the milk for the house on the back step for two days, but it’s not been touched.’ Arthur rubbed his head with his cap. ‘Nothing would surprise me, though. I don’t know who he is, but he’s not a farmer, that is for sure. He’s not lifted a hand since he was put in Crummock.’ Arthur looked worried and pale.

  ‘Don’t worry, Arthur. I’ll come back up to Crummock with you and Jethro and get to the bottom of Mr Wilson’s disappearance. Perhaps he’s ill?’ Charlotte could tell that the farm lad was really concerned about the tenant, and this would give her a chance to meet him.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am, I just didn’t know what to do. I’ve been rushed off my feet ever since your poor father died. It’s lambing time and I’ve had no help, and I need to get the meadows spread with muck. I can’t do everything,’ Arthur stressed, then went and mounted his horse.

  ‘Aye, lass, you’d better go and see what’s up. Call on your way back home, and I’ll give you what you need to see you right. Sounds like another mess your man’s left you.’ Lucy hugged Charlotte as she lifted her skirts and climbed into her trap. What was she going to find at Crummock? God only knew!

  All the doors at Crummock were locked and bolted and the window shutters of the kitchen were still closed, as Arthur had correctly informed Charlotte.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing else we can do but break in. Something is wrong. Either Mr Wilson is too ill to come to the door or he’s left and not told anyone.’ Charlotte stood looking in through the dining-room window and gasped quietly at the state of the room. ‘He’s certainly not looked after my old home, by the look of this room. Arthur, break the windowpane here, then put your hand in to lift the latch on this window. You should be able to climb in then.’

  ‘Stand back, ma’am.’ He picked up a stone from the garden wall and smashed the window, before putting his hand through to open the window and climb in. ‘I’ll go through the house and open the back door.’ Arthur ran through the rooms and met Charlotte and Jethro at the back door, hesitating at what he found in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t think you should go into the kitchen, ma’am. It’s not a pleasant sight.’ Arthur tried to stop Charlotte from entering the house.

  ‘Nonsense, Arthur. I’ll not be that upset that he’s left the house in a state.’ Charlotte pushed past him, angry that her old home was in such a mess.

  ‘But, ma’am!’

  It was too late.

  Charlotte stopped in her tracks. Lying on the floor of the kitchen, in a pool of blood, lay the body of Roger Wilson. ‘Is he dead?’ she gasped.

  Arthur opened the window shutters to bathe the body in daylight.

  ‘I’d say well and truly dead.’ Jethro bent over the body and pulled an empty port bottle from his hand. ‘Looks like he drunk himself to oblivion, then fell and cracked his head.’

  ‘That’s all he ever did – drink. He had me running back and forth to The Gamecock like an idiot,’ Arthur groaned.

  ‘Well, you’ll not be going there again. But, Arthur, can you go and get the doctor and explain the situation we are in here. We can’t leave his body here for another minute.’

  Charlotte looked at the corpse of Roger Wilson. She could tell he was one of Joseph’s friends from Accrington; he was certainly no farmer, dressed like the dandy he was. Just how much more aggravation was her life going to have, before that scourge Joseph Dawson was caught and brought to trial for all his sins? No sooner had she solved one problem than another arose. What would happen now to her beloved Crummock?

  Charlotte sat back and sighed. With the help of Lucy’s money she’d finally cleared the backlog of outstanding bills, including the one from before Christmas when she had indulgently treated herself to the fur muff, gloves and hat. She sighed again. At least she was free of debt, and the bank knew that she would honour any commitments outstanding on Ferndale Mill. She could now hold her head up high, knowing that she owed nothing to no man. The death of Betsy Foster was another matter, however, for folk would never forget that. She leaned back and played with her pen. What was the way forward? She’d to keep the mill going – she couldn’t live with herself if all those people were without wages and food on the table – but how?

  Her thoughts returned to the day when Charles Walker had read her father’s edited will to her and Joseph, and how touchy Joseph had been when Walker had mentioned new mill owner Lorenzo Christie knowing that the cotton industry was about to hit worrying times. Hmm . . . Perhaps she should make herself known to the hard-headed businessman; it couldn’t hurt. She was a pregnant woman whose husband had just left her and a failing business – surely he’d show her some sympathy? Perhaps she could even play the sympathy card and see what Mr Christie thought of a woman running a cotton mill. Yes, that’s what she would do. She’d make an appointment with Lorenzo Christie and see how the land lay.

  Lorenzo sat back in his chair, looked at the bonny blonde woman in front of him, and puffed on his cigar.

  ‘I thank you for giving me this time to talk to you. I realize you are extremely busy and that time is precious.’ Charlotte looked across at the middle-aged dark-haired man, who seemed to be listening to her. ‘I just wanted to introduce myself, as we are both in the same business and are only based a few miles from one another.’

  ‘A woman in business – now that’s a novelty. But then, from what I understand, you’d not much say in it.’ Lorenzo flicked the ash from the end of his cigar and watched the colour rise in his visitor’s face.

  ‘No. As you say, Mr Christie, I don’t have much choice. However, I do care about my husband’s employees and I’m damned if I’m going to let them down.’ She knew the gossip of her husband’s deeds was spreading like a disease throughout the area and she wasn’t about to be tarred with the same brush.

  Lorenzo smiled. He liked a woman with fight and he could tell that, despite her condition, Mrs Dawson was a woman who could hold her own ground. ‘Your husband cared a bit too much for a certain one of them, from what I hear. So much that his neck is in jeopardy, from what the gossips say.’

  ‘I can’t deny it. To be honest, Mr Christie, I hope he hangs. He’s not done right by me, this baby I’m carrying or, indeed, anyone he’s touched. I only wish my eyes had been opened to him before I married him, else I wouldn’t be in this position.’ Charlotte could feel her temper rising, but also that tears weren’t far from falling.

  ‘Aye and, like the fool I am, he bought and started a cotton mill at the worst possible time. Still, he had the foresight to see – as I had – the prospects of a good business, if we can ride out this upset in the Americas. If you’ve enough brass, you’ll make it and, like me, you’ll keep the bellies of some of these locals fed. They had bleak enough times until we opened these mills. I remember walking around Langcliffe only a few months ago and the cobbles were green with grass growing amongst them, and the cottages empty. Now there’s families in every one, and the cobbles are weeded, with bairns playing on them.’

  ‘That is how I think, Mr Christie. I have more than a hundred and fifty souls working for me, and I can’t let them down. My husband has done enough damage, and I don’t want to see them thrown out of their homes, with no food on the table.’ Charlotte looked down at her hands and fidgeted with her gloves.

  ‘Have you enough raw cotton to keep your place going?’ Lorenzo looked at the young woman, who had more spine and morals than her husband ever had.

  ‘We have at the moment, but I don’t know where to get ongoing quantities, to keep the mill running. Either I secure that or close down now, and my heart will not let me do that.’ She let a tear roll down her cheek, hoping to tug on Lorenzo Christie’s heart-strings.

  ‘Well, happen you are best selling up. I’d offer to buy Ferndale from you, but it would only be at a low price. After all, a cotton mill without cotton is worth bugger-all. My lad Hector has just bought Bridge End at Settle, so I’ve en
ough outlay at the moment, especially in these troubled times.’

  ‘I don’t want to sell. I want to learn to run the mill. Bert Bannister is acting as manager at the moment, and I’m to do the books. I’m good with figures – better than my husband was anyway.’ Charlotte looked up at the smoke-shrouded businessman and decided to ask what she had come for. ‘If you could give me some guidance on how to import raw cotton, and where to go in these troubled times, I’d be grateful. My solicitor, Charles Walker, talks highly of you and says that you are a very knowledgeable man.’ She smiled and looked as the man leaned back and pondered on what she had asked.

  ‘I tell you what, Mrs Dawson. If you can put some cash up front, Hector and I have a cargo of cotton hopefully outrunning the blockade on the Atlantic seaboard as we speak. Give me one-third of the cargo’s price and one-third of it can be yours, on the understanding that if you can’t make Ferndale profitable, I get first refusal.’ Lorenzo stubbed out his cigar in the small brass ashtray on his leather-topped desk and waited.

  ‘It’s a deal, Mr Christie. I can’t express how grateful I am for your offer. If we all pull together, we might just survive.’ Charlotte rose from her chair and held her hand out to be shaken, smiling as Lorenzo was taken aback by a woman offering her hand over striking a deal. ‘My father was a farmer, Mr Christie. He always shook hands on business, and he never backed down on his promises.’

  ‘Tha’s a different kettle of fish from your husband. I could never take to him. He was a flash devil – all talk, at the local business meetings.’ Lorenzo shook her hand and showed her to the door. ‘You mind those steps, lady. You are carrying a precious load and you’ve had enough trauma in your life lately.’ He watched as Charlotte carefully climbed down the stone steps from his office in High Mill to the warehouse floor below. He turned and went back into his office, with a satisfying feeling within him. Whatever happened, he was a winner: if she paid, it would help him with a full cargo of cotton that he hadn’t really wanted; and if she didn’t, he’d have first refusal on the mill. The cotton industry was his business, and hopefully he could ride out the impending storm from the Americas.

  Charlotte looked at the angry crowd gathered in the mill yard and took courage as she stood on the loading-bay steps to talk to them.

  ‘I know about the terrible thing that my husband is being accused of and, like you, I don’t know if it’s true or not. But I wasn’t part of it, in any way. I’m as shocked and horrified as the rest of you.’

  She stopped for a second and gulped for breath as someone shouted, ‘Bastard!’ at the top of his voice from within the crowd.

  ‘However, you all need your wages and I, as well as you, need the mill to continue. From today I am putting Bert Bannister in charge, and I will be attending the mill every day to learn as much as I can and to run the finances. What I don’t know, I promise you I will learn.’

  ‘Tha’s having a baby – what can you do? Tha’s a woman,’ shouted the same man from the crowd, pointing out something that was obvious to everyone.

  ‘I can run it better than my husband, and I will make sure you are all fed and paid, and your women not harassed. I’ve already joined forces with Lorenzo Christie, and we have paid for a new supply of cotton to get through the blockades that are currently in place. What I can’t promise is to continue the daily supply of free bread. If I keep you all in work, I won’t have time to help with that. But you’d be keeping your jobs. Now, are you working for me or not?’

  She stood defiantly on the mill steps and listened to the surprised murmur that ran through the crowd. She’d bargained that the deal she had made with Lorenzo Christie at High Mill would win her workers back, even though it had depleted her funds badly, along with negotiating payments to the bank, to keep Ferndale in her ownership. She had hated going cap-in-hand to the clever old mill owner, who was known for his hard business head, but both of them were in the same boat and needed cotton at a reasonable price. So she had taken a chance on Christie, hoping that he’d take pity on a weak, feeble woman, and had made it sound as if she didn’t know the first thing about finances. She knew he wanted to get his hands on Ferndale and could see the look in his eye as she told him of her plight, thinking that eventually the mill would fold and then he would be first in line with a low offer. Wheels within wheels, she thought, as she waited for an answer from her workers. She could play games as well as any man.

  ‘Well, are you going to do a day’s work or not? Or do I close the mill and evict all those in the cottages? Which helps no man or woman.’ She looked around the murmuring crowd.

  ‘Come on, you bloody lot. Things are different, now that bastard Dawson isn’t in charge. No disrespect, ma’am.’ Bannister doffed his cap at Charlotte. ‘Mrs Dawson here wants you to work, and she’ll be fair. She paid your wages out of her own pocket last week, if you did but know it, because he had pinched them. She’s not like her bastard husband – she’s a good woman.’ Bert went to the warehouse doors and opened them. ‘Not working doesn’t bring Betsy back, it just gives you hungry bellies. And we all know what we are doing, so let’s get on with it.’

  Charlotte watched as, one by one, the workers turned to one another and then wandered through the mill doors, still discussing whether they were doing the right thing. She climbed down from the mill steps, her legs shaking like jelly. She was thankful that the situation hadn’t turned nasty, which it could have done, in view of Betsy’s death.

  ‘Thank you, Bert, I couldn’t have done that on my own.’ Charlotte patted her new manager’s hand and smiled.

  ‘They are a good lot. They just need a bit of coaxing and a bit of stick. They are a little like sheep really.’ Bert grinned, knowing that Charlotte could relate to farming analogies. ‘Besides, it makes no difference to them who owns the mill; they just want their supper on the table and a roof over their heads. They’ll not forget about Betsy, though. Have the police found Mr Dawson yet? When they do, they’ll hang him, you know.’

  ‘No, I haven’t heard anything. I think they are to visit the Talbot Arms for some reason; and Dora Dodgson, who used to be the housekeeper at Windfell. But they’ve not said anything to me. And then of course I had to tell the police about the death of Roger Wilson, although they don’t think he has anything to do with Joseph’s disappearance. He was seemingly hiding from the law in Accrington. It tells you everything about my husband’s past life and his associates.’ Charlotte sighed.

  ‘You look tired. Go home – I’ll look after this lot today. Come down tomorrow and we will go through everything together.’ Bert turned and yelled at the carter for striking a horse that was playing up in its traces, stamping his authority on the situation straight away.

  ‘Thank you, Bert, we’ll do it together. This mill will make it through the next few months, of that I’m sure.’ Charlotte smiled.

  ‘Yes, it will indeed, ma’am, because we are going to show that bastard husband of yours. I never did like him.’

  ‘No. It would seem that even my father had doubts about him towards the end of his life.’

  ‘Aye, well, we are all wiser with hindsight. Go and get yourself home; we’ll be fine here. There’s folk down in Lancashire with no jobs. This lot are not daft. They know which side their bread’s buttered. They’ll not let you down, now you’ve shown them you are committed.’ Bert turned to enter the mill.

  ‘Thank you, Bert. I’m beholden to you.’ She smiled.

  ‘Just you look after that bairn – we’ll need him or her to help run this place.’ Bert grinned.

  ‘I will. I’m going to have a lie-down as soon as I’m home.’ Charlotte picked up her skirts and accepted Jethro’s hand into the cart’s front seat. ‘Home, Jethro. My job is done here today.’

  Percy Proctor talked to the landlord of the Talbot Arms over a gill of one of his finest ales and asked him when he had last seen Joseph Dawson.

  ‘Nay, I’ve not seen him for a month or two, or even longer, now I think about it. It’s
like all them in business at the moment – they are keeping their heads low, while the ones that can’t afford it turn to drink, ’cause there’s nowt else for them to do. It makes no sense, but that’s life for you.’ The landlord hung up his clean tankards around the bar and then leaned over close to Percy and looked him in the eye, breath from his rotting teeth making Percy stand back from the offensive aroma.

  ‘Did he kill that lass then? The posh bastard! I hope they hang him. Taking advantage of that poor lass. He always did think himself summat, with his posh bloody suits and his swaggering ways.’ He leaned on the bar and waited for an answer.

  ‘Looks that way. He seems to be our man, but that’s all I’m saying.’ Percy swiftly drank the last few dregs of his gill and placed his bowler hat back on his head.

  ‘It’s always his sort. They make themselves out to be summat they aren’t. The fellow that came from Accrington said Joseph Dawson was nowt, when he came asking for him way before Christmas. And by God he was right.’

  ‘Which fella? Why didn’t you mention this before?’ Percy stopped in his tracks.

  ‘A little fella. Came one afternoon and asked if Dawson drank here, and if I knew him. In his own words, he said, “Does that useless bag of shit, Joseph Dawson, drink here?” He threw me for a minute, and then I realized who he was talking about. It was the Lancie accent that made me think who he was after, for they both had the same twang.’ The landlord leaned on his bar and waited for a response.

  ‘And what happened after that?’ Percy asked.

  ‘I never saw him again. For all I know, he went back to Lancashire. I never thought about it again until now. And for the following day or two I was down at Lancaster, on business buying my ales, so I don’t know if he came back in or not. What’s that got to do with owt, anyway?’

  ‘Probably nothing. But I’d like to know who he was, because he obviously wasn’t a fan of Dawson’s.’ Percy put an extra sixpence on the bar. ‘If you can think of anything, just let me know.’