Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield Read Free Book Online Page A

the old griefs of her own lost happiness were as nothing compared to seeing her child in pain. He did not complain at Paul’s treatment of him but had gone straight back to Davies, his former employer, the very next day, losing not a single day’s work. But he missed the mill. It was his element, and he belonged there, and without it he was suffering.
    Now, as she finished stitching her rose, William himself came in.
    “Can you see to sew in this light, Mother? What pretty thing is that?”
    “A rose. It is not for a woman my age. I will put it in a drawer until the day you bring your betrothed home.”
    Seeing the dyed scraps she had used for the rose, he grimaced, before quickly covering his pain with a smile for her sake. Looming over her as tall and handsome as his father, her boy took the rose from her hands and held it to her hair.
    “Wear it. Wear it in your hat when we go to the wedding, and I will be glad to have the prettiest mother in Whittingford on my arm.”
    She was touched by his efforts to hide the extent of his unhappiness from her. After so many years of looking after him, it was still novel to have him wishing to protect her.
    “Let me talk to Paul,” she told him. “I can tell him that you were overcome by enthusiasm, that you have learned your lesson . . .”
    A spasm gripped his face, and he turned abruptly away. “Yes. Please.” His voice was strained and muffled.
    I’ll be crying in a minute, she thought as she took her hat from the peg and then realized it was too late for sewing now.
    Behind her back she felt William turn, and he gripped her shoulders in a brief, ferocious embrace. Then he was gone.
    Had he learned his lesson though? The trouble with William was that his enthusiasm knew no bounds. When he once got it into his head to do a thing—and she was his mother, she should know—there was just no stopping him.

CHAPTER NINE

    P aul turned away from the Windrush and into the high street. His thoughts had grown uncomfortable to him, and he wanted the diversion of activity and people.
    As he drew level with the church, Paul spotted William in his chorister’s gown on the church steps. A crowd was milling in the churchyard, and among them was Dora. She had a rose in her hat.
    It would not do to meet them now. He had not yet made up his mind.
    Nice day for a wedding. He had heard it was the baker’s son marrying today. He didn’t know the girl, but she was a sweet-looking miss, all smiles and blushes as her new husband shook hands with William, then embraced him with unusual vigor. William bowed to the pair, smiling, and Paul felt a paternal pride. He knew how much William wanted to be at the mill, knew what his error was costing him in heartache. Yet today his friend was marrying, and he smiled and shook hands, and only he—Paul and Dora—knew what the effort was costing him.
    Paul missed William at the mill too. After one short year, he had come to rely on him. Wherever something went wrong—be it mechanical, human, administrative—there would be William, scratching his head, cudgeling his brains, putting his shoulder to it, begrudging neither time nor energy till the trouble was sorted. He smoothed out machines, misunderstandings, tangles of yarn, figures, paperwork. His deft hands, physical strength, ability to talk to the workers, made him useful in situations beyond his years. A hundred times a day Paul thought, That’sa job for William, or, William will sort that out. Now each time he thought it, he had to ask himself, How will I ever manage without him?
    But William had put him in an impossible position.
    Paul had no liking for Mr. Lowe. It was his father that had taken him on. Mr. Lowe’s authority in the dye house had come about during old Mr. Bellman’s time. There were a lot of fathers in the case, Paul reflected, unhappily. Mr. Lowe made a good, clean blue because his father made a good, clean blue, and he, Paul Bellman, had never been into Mr. Lowe’s dye