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.‘You mustn’t say such things.’Bob Breton, who was the mildest and most pleasant man that Joseph could name, looked colder than December.‘I think them often enough.I find it difficult to stay silent, with the cancer of it eating me from the inside.I said I understand why you stay, and I cannot fault you for it.He is your husband, and can offer much beyond the legality of your union.But that does not mean that I like it.’He kissed her again, until she was near to swooning with desire for him.Then he spoke.‘I love you, Anne.But I cannot wait much longer.If he does not let you go with his own timely death I will do what is necessary to achieve the end necessary so that you might be free.’Joseph waited for the denial, the pleading from his wife that would spare his life.Instead she was silent, but worried.She leaned forwards into Breton’s shoulder, as though her only fears were for him.Breton’s arm went about her, offering her the support that a husband should have given her.Strangely, he felt no real jealousy at the sight—only sadness that it had come to this, and that two people so obviously in love had been poisoned to desperation with it.‘Enough of this,’ he said to the shadow at his side.‘They hate me.There is nothing more to see.I am a cuckold, but at least I am alive.Take me to the mill, for I wish to see how it fares.’They continued down the hall and out through the front door, across the lawn and into a mist so thick that the walk might have been one mile or ten for all he knew of it.There was no landmark to show him the way.Nor did he feel the passage of time as he walked.They were standing at the mill gates now.The silent spectre reached up, resting a wisp of a hand against the gatepost, tracing a divot where a bullet had struck brick.‘There was trouble here, then?’ There was no other evidence of it.The mill still stood, even larger than it had been when he’d last seen it, a decade before.He released an awed breath.‘Let me go inside.’They entered through the dock, to see goods rolled and stacked in neat rows along the wall, ready for delivery.The boilers chugged and rattled, letting off heat and clouds of steam and the stink of sizing and dye.On the factory floor the looms rattled and the shuttles clattered in and out of the warp in a sprightly rhythm—the deafening sound of industry.Everywhere he looked he saw workers: silent, sullen women and children, operating as surely and mechanically as the machines he’d made for them.From time to time they looked up with quick, rat-like glances at the clock.Then they hurried back to their work with a nervous shudder, as though they did not want to be caught looking anywhere but at their assigned tasks.It was functioning exactly as he’d hoped.And the sight of it filled him with a misery he could not describe.‘Very well, then.All I have worked for, all my dreams, will be like a mouth full of ashes to me in ten years’ time.Is there more? Or will you take me home to bed?’The shadow moved on, out into the fog again.There was nothing he could do but follow.They walked down the high street of the village, a little way behind a hunched figure that seemed strangely familiar.Joseph quickened his pace to catch the man and end the mystery.But then he watched the villagers look up from their daily doings, stiffen and turn away.‘They see me?’ he asked the spirit.If they did, it was not a connection he welcomed.While he had not been well liked in his own time, their glares now held a level of animosity he was not prepared for.What had once been reserve and suspicion had hardened into cold hatred.And it was all the worse because it was mostly the women who stared at him—not just the men who had always been angry.In fact there seemed to be an unusual number of females.Then a woman stepped directly into the path of the man in front of him, blocking his way.The man he was following stopped dead in his tracks.He did not push past the stranger, but neither did he say anything, either in apology or enquiry.It was as though this was a ritual that had occurred before.‘Merry Christmas, Mr Stratford,’ she said to the man he followed.‘I hope you are glad of it.’ Then she spat on the ground at his feet.Without a word, this other, older him stepped around her and continued on his way to the edge of the village, past the church and into the little graveyard beside it.Not so little any more, Joseph noticed.Not huge, by any means, but larger than he would have expected.Had there been an epidemic? Or some other disaster to account for the additional graves? With little warning, the spirit at his side turned in at the gate and walked through the headstones to the last row of stones.They were all names he recognised, for he had seen the men gathered around him just a few days ago, with hammers and torches, eager to push through the gates and smash the frames on the mill floor.Wilkins, Mutter, Andrews—and the eponymous Weaver, whose family had been at the craft for so long that they shared its name.All dead.All on the same day.Had he called the militia? Or some other branch of the law? It could have been hanging, or just as easily a pitched battle that the local men were overmatched to fight.But the arrival of troops would explain the crease a bullet had made in the stonework at the mill.No matter what it had been, the rebellion had been stopped.And he had been at the heart of it.Calling in the law to protect his rights, and wiping out families in the process.‘It seems I won the argument in the end,’ he said to the spirit.‘But there is no joy in knowing it.’He looked down at another grave, some way distant from the cluster, and found Jordan—the man whose family he had seen starving just two nights ago.This man’s stone was flanked with two smaller ones, topped with stone lambs.Joseph felt a chill, and found he did not have the nerve to look closer, for he was already imagining that table of hungry children, and the likelihood that whatever food was offered there now did not have as far to stretch.The spectre gestured that it was time to withdraw, but he shook his head.Joseph searched the gravestones for one name in particular, knowing that if these men were here Barbara’s father had likely died at their side, a victim of violence.She might have been hurt or killed, and the fault would lie with him.‘Where is Bernard Lampett? He must be dead as well.Why does he not lie with his friends?’The ghost led him back to a monument worthy of a lord: a marble tomb, with brass fittings and a weeping angel at the top that shone with gilt.It was just the sort of grand thing he’d have ordered, had he the choice.It was garish and horrible next to the sad simplicity he had visited, but at one time he would not have been able to resist this final display of wealth.He fingered the letters carved in the side.‘Lampett.Dead the same day as the rest.And his wife three months later.’ Whether she had passed from poverty or grief, he did not know.There was no sign here of what had happened to Barbara.But he could read the truth in the marble [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.‘You mustn’t say such things.’Bob Breton, who was the mildest and most pleasant man that Joseph could name, looked colder than December.‘I think them often enough.I find it difficult to stay silent, with the cancer of it eating me from the inside.I said I understand why you stay, and I cannot fault you for it.He is your husband, and can offer much beyond the legality of your union.But that does not mean that I like it.’He kissed her again, until she was near to swooning with desire for him.Then he spoke.‘I love you, Anne.But I cannot wait much longer.If he does not let you go with his own timely death I will do what is necessary to achieve the end necessary so that you might be free.’Joseph waited for the denial, the pleading from his wife that would spare his life.Instead she was silent, but worried.She leaned forwards into Breton’s shoulder, as though her only fears were for him.Breton’s arm went about her, offering her the support that a husband should have given her.Strangely, he felt no real jealousy at the sight—only sadness that it had come to this, and that two people so obviously in love had been poisoned to desperation with it.‘Enough of this,’ he said to the shadow at his side.‘They hate me.There is nothing more to see.I am a cuckold, but at least I am alive.Take me to the mill, for I wish to see how it fares.’They continued down the hall and out through the front door, across the lawn and into a mist so thick that the walk might have been one mile or ten for all he knew of it.There was no landmark to show him the way.Nor did he feel the passage of time as he walked.They were standing at the mill gates now.The silent spectre reached up, resting a wisp of a hand against the gatepost, tracing a divot where a bullet had struck brick.‘There was trouble here, then?’ There was no other evidence of it.The mill still stood, even larger than it had been when he’d last seen it, a decade before.He released an awed breath.‘Let me go inside.’They entered through the dock, to see goods rolled and stacked in neat rows along the wall, ready for delivery.The boilers chugged and rattled, letting off heat and clouds of steam and the stink of sizing and dye.On the factory floor the looms rattled and the shuttles clattered in and out of the warp in a sprightly rhythm—the deafening sound of industry.Everywhere he looked he saw workers: silent, sullen women and children, operating as surely and mechanically as the machines he’d made for them.From time to time they looked up with quick, rat-like glances at the clock.Then they hurried back to their work with a nervous shudder, as though they did not want to be caught looking anywhere but at their assigned tasks.It was functioning exactly as he’d hoped.And the sight of it filled him with a misery he could not describe.‘Very well, then.All I have worked for, all my dreams, will be like a mouth full of ashes to me in ten years’ time.Is there more? Or will you take me home to bed?’The shadow moved on, out into the fog again.There was nothing he could do but follow.They walked down the high street of the village, a little way behind a hunched figure that seemed strangely familiar.Joseph quickened his pace to catch the man and end the mystery.But then he watched the villagers look up from their daily doings, stiffen and turn away.‘They see me?’ he asked the spirit.If they did, it was not a connection he welcomed.While he had not been well liked in his own time, their glares now held a level of animosity he was not prepared for.What had once been reserve and suspicion had hardened into cold hatred.And it was all the worse because it was mostly the women who stared at him—not just the men who had always been angry.In fact there seemed to be an unusual number of females.Then a woman stepped directly into the path of the man in front of him, blocking his way.The man he was following stopped dead in his tracks.He did not push past the stranger, but neither did he say anything, either in apology or enquiry.It was as though this was a ritual that had occurred before.‘Merry Christmas, Mr Stratford,’ she said to the man he followed.‘I hope you are glad of it.’ Then she spat on the ground at his feet.Without a word, this other, older him stepped around her and continued on his way to the edge of the village, past the church and into the little graveyard beside it.Not so little any more, Joseph noticed.Not huge, by any means, but larger than he would have expected.Had there been an epidemic? Or some other disaster to account for the additional graves? With little warning, the spirit at his side turned in at the gate and walked through the headstones to the last row of stones.They were all names he recognised, for he had seen the men gathered around him just a few days ago, with hammers and torches, eager to push through the gates and smash the frames on the mill floor.Wilkins, Mutter, Andrews—and the eponymous Weaver, whose family had been at the craft for so long that they shared its name.All dead.All on the same day.Had he called the militia? Or some other branch of the law? It could have been hanging, or just as easily a pitched battle that the local men were overmatched to fight.But the arrival of troops would explain the crease a bullet had made in the stonework at the mill.No matter what it had been, the rebellion had been stopped.And he had been at the heart of it.Calling in the law to protect his rights, and wiping out families in the process.‘It seems I won the argument in the end,’ he said to the spirit.‘But there is no joy in knowing it.’He looked down at another grave, some way distant from the cluster, and found Jordan—the man whose family he had seen starving just two nights ago.This man’s stone was flanked with two smaller ones, topped with stone lambs.Joseph felt a chill, and found he did not have the nerve to look closer, for he was already imagining that table of hungry children, and the likelihood that whatever food was offered there now did not have as far to stretch.The spectre gestured that it was time to withdraw, but he shook his head.Joseph searched the gravestones for one name in particular, knowing that if these men were here Barbara’s father had likely died at their side, a victim of violence.She might have been hurt or killed, and the fault would lie with him.‘Where is Bernard Lampett? He must be dead as well.Why does he not lie with his friends?’The ghost led him back to a monument worthy of a lord: a marble tomb, with brass fittings and a weeping angel at the top that shone with gilt.It was just the sort of grand thing he’d have ordered, had he the choice.It was garish and horrible next to the sad simplicity he had visited, but at one time he would not have been able to resist this final display of wealth.He fingered the letters carved in the side.‘Lampett.Dead the same day as the rest.And his wife three months later.’ Whether she had passed from poverty or grief, he did not know.There was no sign here of what had happened to Barbara.But he could read the truth in the marble [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]