Calico Road by Anna Jacobs Page A

her away. He turned round to find his wife in tears.
    ‘She did that on purpose. She hates me! Take me away from Northby . . . please take me away.’ And then Meg was weeping against him.
    That evening Jack came round. Ben answered the door and gave him a stern look. ‘If you’ve come to upset my Meg, you can just go away again.’
    ‘I’d never do that. I’ve come to see how she is and find out what really happened.’
    Ben gestured him inside and he saw Meg, sitting red-eyed near the fire, huddled defensively into herself.
    ‘I’m sorry she upset you, love,’ Jack said at once, going across to give her a quick hug.
    ‘I should have known better than to let her in, but I thought she’d make a scene if I didn’t. Only she made a scene anyway.’ Meg sniffed and wiped away a tear with the back of one hand. ‘I shouldn’t let her get at me like this, should I? I ought to be used to it by now.’
    ‘You shouldn’t have to get used to it,’ Ben snapped. ‘No one should.’
    ‘Tell me what happened,’ Jack said.
    She explained and he looked from her to Ben in consternation. ‘I’m sorry, more sorry than you can know. Mam seems to hate anyone else being happy, as Meg clearly is with you.’
    Ben put his arm round his wife. ‘Well, I’m looking for a job somewhere else. Anything will do. In the meantime, I’m not having my lass upset like this again, so you’d better tell your mother to keep away.’
    Jethro went about his business as usual, showing nothing of the seething emotions that filled him. He had learned as quite a young boy to hide his feelings from the world, and especially from his father who always seemed to exploit any weakness.
    But whatever he was doing, Jethro kept seeing Sophia’s face: in the morning when he woke, in his dreams, even when he was walking round his mill – something he did every day, though he left most of the supervision of the operatives to Barney Spencer under the new and more lenient rules he’d instituted. Barney said the operatives were producing as much cotton as before, so it just went to show that being too severe with them did no one any good, in Jethro’s opinion.
    He set his lawyer to make discreet inquiries about the state of the Goddbys’ finances and what he was told made Jethro smile.
    On the day appointed for Perry to dine with him Jethro came home early and took his time getting ready. He sat and waited in the drawing room, a stark place compared to that in the Goddbys’ house. He would have to do something about it, he decided, but didn’t want it so full of frills and fuss he was afraid to move around in it.
    When he heard a carriage draw up in the driveway, he said, ‘Ahhhhh!’ and sat up very straight, listening to the maid showing his visitor into the house. He hadn’t invited the fellow to stay the night because, if things did not go according to plan, it’d be too uncomfortable the following morning. Anyway, the moon would be nearly full tonight.
    Only when the door of the drawing room opened did he rise to his feet and move across to greet his guest. ‘My dear Perry! I’m so glad you could come.’
    The two men shook hands then Jethro gestured to the seat opposite his and moved towards the tray of drinks. ‘Care for a glass of brandy before we eat?’
    ‘Happy to.’
    Jethro was surprised by how quickly the brandy vanished down Perry’s throat. Without comment, he took the decanter across and refilled his glass. They talked of the weather, and of the stupidity of trying to build a tunnel under the Thames where several men working on it had died when it collapsed. Afraid his guest would grow too drunk to talk sense, Jethro rang to tell the maid they would eat now and led the way into the dining room. A plain dinner of roast beef, fried chicken pieces and boiled potatoes drenched in butter awaited them, followed by Jethro’s favourite plum pudding with sweet white sauce.
    ‘We’ll serve ourselves if you don’t mind,’ he said