Free Shining Threads by Audrey Howard

his fingers. His voice was ice cold and round the yard there was a
concerted hiss from a dozen or more throats as the men pressed in closer.
    ‘You need a good thrashing, Miss Harrison, and have done for a long while, that’s what I’m saying, and if you were mine I’d see you had one before this day was out. And
every day until you had learned some manners.’ Before she could close her astounded mouth or blink her incredulous eyes he had taken her crop away from her and with a gesture of contempt
snapped it in two over his bent knee. He threw it to the ground and her gaze followed it, the expression on her face quite unbelieving.
    The yard was as silent and still as the cemetery on the outskirts of the town. There was no movement beyond that of the horse’s tail as it swished at the flies which tormented it. The men
waited, stunned by the big man’s impudence. They waited for Miss Tessa to erupt into the savagery of which they knew her to be capable but the sound of another horse entering the yard turned
all heads except those of Will Broadbent and Tessa Harrison, who continued to stare challengingly at one another. Not until Charlie Greenwood spoke did Tessa Harrison tear her gaze away.
    ‘Tessa, what are you doing here?’ He threw the reins of his horse to the waiting boy and walked tiredly towards the doorway, his eyes somewhat vague as though he had things on his
mind other than his mill and was merely being polite.
    ‘Charlie, this man has . . .’ She turned angrily to him.
    ‘Not now, sweetheart, I have been . . .’
    ‘But, Charlie, you cannot mean to let this pass. He has . . .’
    ‘What pass, Tessa?’ He had reached them by now and as though he had only just become aware of the tension in the yard he turned to look about him and at once every man and boy sprang
into action and the yard became alive again.
    ‘What’s been going on here, Tessa?’ he asked, but his slumped shoulders and strained expression said he really did not want to know and at once, to Will’s surprise, she
went to him and took his hand.
    ‘It’s nothing, Charlie, really. Some small disagreement, resolved now but what . . . ? Is there news of . . . ?’ Her voice was soft, amazingly so, Will thought, the flashing
eyes and furious clenching of her jaw completely gone as her concern for her uncle showed in her face.
    ‘Aye, two hours since . . . but . . .’ He sighed deeply.
    ‘Not . . . ?’
    ‘Yes, dead, poor little mite . . . a girl . . .’
    ‘Oh, Charlie, I’m so sorry. And Laurel . . . ?’
    ‘Sleeping now. I stayed with her. That’s why I’m late.’
    He turned away from her abruptly and found himself face to face with Will Broadbent. Conscious suddenly that he was saying more than was decent before a stranger, his voice was sharp.
    ‘Do you have business here, Mr . . . er . . . ?’
    ‘Will Broadbent, and I believe we have an appointment, Mr Greenwood, eight thirty sharp, but I can come back, sir, if you’re . . .’ Will was polite and yet he showed no
humility for he was a man who knew his own worth. He was courteous as a man should be, not just with this man who he hoped would give him the vacant post of under-tackler, but with anyone who, in
his opinion, deserved it. Unruffled, honest of expression and sure of himself, but in his eyes was a look which conveyed his sympathy, the sympathy one man shows another who is grieving. Mr
Greenwood was not himself and though Will had taken precious time to come to see him, it would not be right to press the man at this moment.
    Tessa Harrison might no longer have existed for all the notice he now took of her. He was here by appointment, one made by Mr Greenwood only yesterday when Will had approached him in the yard.
Naturally, he was well aware that employment at the Chapman factory was hard to come by for every job which fell vacant had two dozen applicants waiting to fill it. It was like working in heaven,
it was said, compared to the dozens of