Free The Sleeping Sword by Brenda Jagger

increasing her rent.
    â€˜Pleasant enough, Mr. Chard—only a mill-house, of course, although I do my best with it. I have had my little notions of moving into the country, but my husband—as yet—cannot bear to be separated from his mill.’
    And there, in those few words, she had placed it all before him, had sown a tempting seed to convince him that the Agbrigg daughter had not only good sense, a safe disposition and a prosperous business to offer her husband, but the possibility of a country estate, which would be regarded as a most enticing bonus by the sporting Mr. Gideon Chard.
    â€˜No, I cannot persuade my husband to leave the view of the mill we have from this window.’
    â€˜Indeed?’ he said, striding to the window she indicated and staring keen-eyed down the slope of lawn and flowerbeds and over the hedge to the mill-yard. ‘An excellent view—and a splendid building, if I may say so.’
    â€˜How kind! Should industrial architecture be of interest to you, my husband would be delighted to show you around.’
    â€˜I should be very much obliged to him.’
    â€˜Then please consider it settled.’
    â€˜It is not so large,’ I said, my mouth very dry, ‘as any one of the Barforth mills.’
    But, involved with their own thoughts and with one another, they ignored me.
    â€˜Shall we say the day after tomorrow at three o’clock? I will tell my husband to expect you, and if you should care to walk up here afterwards and take tea …?’
    â€˜I should like that enormously.’
    I did not like it at all.
    â€˜What an exceedingly fine vase,’ he said, his landlord’s eye carefully assessing our treasures. ‘Meissen, I think?’
    â€˜Oh goodness!’ Mrs. Agbrigg fluttered. ‘I am always confused by the porcelain. Grace will tell you.’
    â€˜Meissen,’ I said shortly, rudely, receiving a raised eyebrow from the lady, a slight bow from the gentleman.
    â€˜We will see you the day after tomorrow then, Mr. Chard.’
    â€˜With the greatest of pleasure.’
    He came, inspected the mill from top to bottom as if he had the means to make an offer for it, fired sharp, pertinent questions at my father and then sat for a full hour at ease in the drawing-room—too much at ease for my liking—and paid court not to me but to Mrs. Agbrigg, recognizing her at once as the source of authority.
    â€˜What a charming young man, Grace!’
    â€˜He’s a fortune-hunter, Mrs. Agbrigg.’
    â€˜Well, of course he is, dear. All men are hunting for something or other. It is in their natures—and when one has a fortune, what else can one expect? The great thing about it, my dear, is that a fortune, if placed in the right hands—unlike youth and beauty—has no tendency to fade but can even be made to grow.’
    But Gideon Chard did nothing to commit himself, biding his time in true commercial fashion until the climate of the marriage-market should be exactly right. And when later that month it was made known to us that he had become an official Barforth employee, I believed Mrs. Agbrigg’s game to be lost. He would try to marry Venetia now, I was sure of it, and would probably do anything to get her, since he could hardly enjoy the prospect of investing his time and energy in the Barforth business to let half of it go with Venetia to someone else.
    He was often to be seen in Cullingford accompanying his uncle on his daily round of the mills—splendid Lawcroft, smaller but thriving Low Cross, brand-new, awe-inspiring Nethercoats and the rest—or at the Piece Hall, the platform for the London train, the Wool Exchange; sometimes with Gervase in attendance and sometimes not. But it was not generally expected that he would long endure the discipline, the sheer physical discomfort of the textile trade; the factory hooter which every morning shrieked out a demand for punctuality which he, like