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Chapter 22


May 1635


Margaret felt shaken and sick most of the voyage from Hamburg to Liverpool. Hettie clucked over her like a hen with one chick, putting salve and clean lint on the wound the would-be kidnapper had left on her throat. Never had such a thing happened in her life! She was grateful all over again for Rita’s forethought, which ran not only to benevolence she had seen, but things that she had not. Her mind would not allow her to think what would happen to those men. Neither James nor Hettie would entertain her speculation.

Though she knew she was safe, and that no one could touch her again, she remained below in the officers’ cabin nearly all of the time. She entertained irrational fears that someone might swoop down from the sky and carry her off again.

“Who were those men?” Hettie asked over and over, for all of the first day, and often during the rest of the voyage.

“I’ve no idea,” Margaret said.

“They acted as though they know who you are. But they sounded Irish, not English. There hasn’t been an Irish guest at the manor in, oh, five years? And you didn’t speak to any Irishmen during the time awaiting the Earl of Cork’s pleasure, or you would have mentioned it to me, mistress.”

“That is true.” Margaret cudgeled her memory to try to picture having seen the men before. She wondered if she had missed them in Whitehall, or in the Tower when she had gone to visit Rita and the others. No, she swore she had not seen them. But…Irish…the Earl of Cork was Irish. Were these two of his men? Had her secret been exposed?

She had nightmares, picturing his lordship appearing at her father’s manor house, arresting her for her part in the escape, even taking the rest of the family down to stand trial for treason. Hettie must not have slept much either during the return voyage, as she was always there when Margaret opened her eyes, offering a cool cloth for her forehead, or just a strong hand to clutch despite her own injury. The bruise on her throat faded slowly from purple to yellow as they neared their destination.

“Do you have regrets, mistress?”

That question took her by surprise. She thought deeply about it. “No. The only one I have is the possibility that I may have put my family in danger. But for the sake of these good people, I would have done more if they had asked me. I’m still in their debt, even if they say that the balance is still to my side.”

The crew treated her like a porcelain doll, coming by to see to her comfort and health. The captain made certain that she had the best food and wine and entertained her at the table during the evening meal. James, too, hovered as much as he could, in between duties on board the ship. He tried to lift her spirits by telling her how excited he was for her to tell their father about the plans and the innovations that she had set in motion. He was like her, able to picture things in his mind, and had been raised to the loom.

He did persuade her to come up on deck to see them sail into Liverpool Harbor, all colors flying, as people on the docks waited. A cluster of urchins waved frantically, and she waved back. It’d cost her a few farthings of alms when she came down the gangplank, but it was a familiar nuisance, and she could hardly fault them. It felt like a welcome home. Her spirits lifted just a little. She was glad to be back on English soil.

Not accustomed to being fearful, she was reluctant to travel overland by herself, despite going with a carter that she had known for years. With the Master’s permission, James took leave to escort her homeward.

The truth was that she couldn’t have been in safer hands. The carter who awaited them in the warehouse on the dock was named Ranulf Bracey. A man with shiny black hair like a crow’s wing, Ranulf had worked for the estate for years until he could buy his own wagon and horses. He was up to three carts and matching teams of ruddy-coated Suffolk Punch horses, with his two sons driving the others for hire. Ranulf greeted her with a broad grin with teeth split in the middle like a pair of doors standing ajar, and started loading crates and trunks as if they were filled with feathers. James handed her and Hettie up to the seat and swung into place on the outside, to prevent anyone reaching for her from the street. Ranulf bracketed them on the other side and clicked to the near-side horse to set off.

The de Beauchamps knew he was completely trustworthy and would be deaf and dumb as the sister and brother exchanged their stories. Even so, Margaret was careful that the word “American” never passed her lips, but Ranulf would have had to be simple in the head not to figure it out for himself. He kept a lot of people’s secrets, but particularly those of the de Beauchamps. He knew which side of his bread the butter was on.

By the time they arrived at the manor, Margaret was feeling much more herself. She waved to shepherds in the stone-fenced fields, and counted the fuzzy backs of the hundreds of sheep contentedly cropping the grass. So many lambs! The flocks looked healthy and lively.

The bells in the church steeple that they could just see over the treetops tolled three of the clock. Ranulf paid toll to a small girl in a plain gray dress to pass over the bridge leading over the busy river toward the manor. It was all so homey, Margaret dared to think that she could relax.

At last, they turned onto the long, tree-lined lane that led from the main Stoke road in between burgeoning fields toward their home.

The elderly gatekeeper, Jacob Damson, grinned his wide, gap-toothed smile at them out of the window of the small stone gatehouse at the edge of their estate. The wagon creaked to a halt beside it. Jacob stumped out in his heavy boots and opened the iron portal for them.

“Welcome back, mistress!” he said. “And Master James, you’re lookin’ fine as a sunny day!”

James leaped down nimbly to clap the old man on the back. “And so are you, my friend! Is our father at home?”

“Aye, he is. He was out with the shearers this morn, but back again the now. Fine fleeces, all. Thirty done today,” Jacob said. “The spinners’n been telling over them like chickens getting their share of the corn, e’en ere the carders get to them.”

Margaret shook her head. Nothing could have been a homier welcome than this. She was grateful to be back.

James helped Jacob close the gate behind the wagon and hopped up onto the board beside Ranulf. The carter tapped the near-side horse with his whip, and they lurched forward. Margaret looked ahead toward Churnet House.

Perhaps it wasn’t the grandest home in England. She had seen humbler folk occupying newer and better-appointed domiciles in Hamburg and in the USE. Still, this was where she and three hundred years of her forebears had been born, and she loved it. The warm, golden stone seemed to absorb the spring sunlight. The brilliant double blossoms of proud columbines added spikes of color in the beds flanking the wide front door. That had been freshly painted since she left and gleamed a rich sable in its stone frame. The small-paned windows glistened like jewels, each picking up the colors from the outdoors as if they were stained glass. She sighed with pleasure.

Margaret spotted a couple of groundskeepers in ecru blouses belted over their baggy trousers who were working on espaliered trees in the walled garden. She waved to them. The younger of the two, Noah, dropped his shears and ran toward the house, shouting. Their noise disturbed the family greyhounds, who sprang up from their doze on the sunlit walkway, and came hurtling toward the wagon. The four dogs leaped with joy, trying to get into the cart with them. Margaret laughed as they licked her hands and romped around, barking happily. Hettie, seldom patient with the animals’ antics, shook her head and kept her hands in her lap. James pulled his favorite, a piebald giant named Alfred the Great, up onto the seat, where he thwacked Hettie in the face with his tail while covering James with kisses.

Before the horses plodded the rest of the way up the stone drive, a dozen people poured out of the house to greet them: housemaids, ostlers, even the under housekeeper, Liza Grey. Mrs. Ball herself was too grand to step out for anyone less than the king, nor would the reeve emerge. But the others were glad to greet the squire’s two eldest children. Margaret found herself lifted almost bodily out of the cart, hugged, brushed down, and scolded as if she was five years old again.

“Your mother will be beside yourself that you don’t have your head covered, mistress,” Liza said. “The sky could open up at any minute! And you’ll ruin your complexion. And you!” She turned on James and pointed at his bare feet. “Put your shoes on, sir! What will your father say?”

James laughed, reaching for his boots. “Now I know I’m home.”

* * *

The dogs leaped and raced around Margaret and James as they came inside. Ranulf and two of the housemen brought in the boxes and trunks and stowed them in the box room as Liza Grey ordered.

“Don’t scratch the floor, none of you!” she shrilled. “And you two, mistress and master, if you will please to come this way. Sir Timothy is in his study.”

Margaret breathed in the scents of home, enjoying the aroma of old leather, oil, wood ash, lavender, and meadowsweet. Spring had come in full bloom in her absence and was easing into summer. The housemaids had all the windows open to let in the refreshing breezes, and she could tell that the rugs had all been gathered up and beaten to free them of winter’s dust. The greyhounds had even been bathed recently, as they smelled of hyssop and grass instead of dog.

Sir Timothy could not have missed the din coming from the hallway. His study door swung open, and he spread his arms wide.

“There you are!” he cried. He embraced them and set them back a pace to study each in turn. “I’m so glad to see you safely home.”

Margaret and James exchanged glances. They’d tell everything in its proper turn, including the assault.

“I’ll leave you here, mistress,” Hettie said. She was at the center of a cyclone of curiosity from the rest of the servants. They swept her away beyond the green baize door that led to the belowstairs chambers.

“They want to hear the news fresh,” James said, with a laugh. “Onward, then, Grey.”

Squire de Beauchamp’s study resembled the nest of an acquisitive and very tidy bird. Everything was gathered around him so that he could pick it up without reaching too far. No one else understood the arrangement, and even the housemaids had to dust carefully so as not to knock anything over. Margaret and James had to wriggle their way in between piles of books and papers, and remove hanks of wool, a small tray with the remains of bread and cheese, and one of the family cats off of the chairs in order to find places to sit. Sir Timothy plunked himself into his favorite leatherbound chair and clasped his hands between his knees. If it wasn’t for the thinning brown hair on his head and the Van Dyck mustache and beard clinging to his round chin, he would have looked like an eager twelve-year-old.

“My chicks, tell me all! Was this United States as wonderful as we have all heard? You are more fortunate than I. The full information that I have about it comes from the yellow press and wild tales.” He gave Margaret a sly look. “Not to mention gossip from supposedly unimpeachable sources.”

James crept back to look out of the door to make sure none of the servants were hanging around to overhear their conversation.

“Well, Father,” Margaret began, “Lady Simpson treated me to a ride on a steamboat from Hamburg to Magdeburg.…”

Three hours later, the sun was beginning to set, sending orange and gold rays through the window at Sir Timothy’s back. Margaret had had to skip backward and forward in her narrative as her father asked for more details of one thing or another. He was dismayed and puzzled about the attack on her by the two strangers. He understood Margaret’s concern that the assault might have had a connection to the events of the previous year but shook his head when she asked if he was worried about repercussions coming from London.

“We shall have to wait upon news from your friends in Magdeburg to tell whether we need to gird our loins or go about our business, my dear,” he said. “If they are as thorough as you have said, they will find out what those men know. I agree that they could not have been common thieves, following you about like that, but if there was any suspicion upon you or us, to be sure we would have had a visit from official officers of His Majesty, not a pair of rowdy thugs attempting to abduct you from a wharf in a foreign land.”

“I…I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Margaret admitted.

Sir Timothy put his arm around her shoulders. “Trust to divine Providence for protection, my dear, and don’t borrow trouble until we must.”

With an act of will, she pushed the matter to one side, even though it left a sense of worry in its wake. However, the square of silk brocade she had brought home evinced nothing but joy from her parent.

“That is a marvel and a wonder,” he said, turning it over to see the way the weave went together and stroking its smooth surface. “What shall you do with it?”

“From this piece directly, I will make a purse for Mother,” Margaret said. She took a deep breath. “But before that, I want to use it as an example to our weavers.”

“What’s that?” Sir Timothy asked, taken aback. “We don’t deal in silks. Never have. It’s not the outlay, although that’s a king’s ransom to begin in that trade. We’ve developed no market for it. Our customers rely upon us for good, solid woolens.”

“Father,” Margaret began, fixing her eyes on his, “while I was in the Germanies, I learned some very uncomfortable truths. May I share them with you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “More uncomfortable truths? I wonder that I should regret asking you to go in my place. Share away, my chick. Is it something very bad?”

“The first truth is. The second, I hope, will be very good news.”

“Well, I am listening.”

Seeing his open expression made it harder than she had thought to explain, but she brought out the printed ledger from the Treasury aqualators. Sir Timothy marveled over the regular and smooth paper and the clear typography before reading its contents.

“These figures are no secret to me, my dear. Wasn’t that the purpose of your journey, to make a sale to the USE and ease our financial burden? Has Prime Minister Stearns refused to buy from us? That would be very bad news, indeed.”

“No.” Margaret sighed. She opened the enormous mathematics textbook and handed him the letter of credit and the list of requirements from Admiral Simpson. “They have sent you an offer to purchase as much fabric as we can supply.”

“Ah, what a handsome order!” Sir Timothy exclaimed. His eyes widened, and his cheeks turned pink with pleasure. “My, my, they’ll take everything we have! We are set for the next year, to be sure.”

“But if these calculations are accurate, we cannot find our way out of debt even if they buy everything that we can produce every year from now on.” Margaret went on to explain her visit to the merchants in Hamburg, and the discussion with the executives of the USE. Her father’s face grew longer and longer as each successive tale added proof to the inevitable demise of the family business.

To have it all set out in black and white caused Sir Timothy’s shoulders to bow under the weight of truth. He was silent for a long time, then spoke.

“You are right, Margery. I have averted my eyes every time I came near to seeing this truth. I’ve moved this expense here and that deficit there in hopes that it would all add up. But what can I do? We have what we have. We shall have to go on as we have until it is all gone. There is nothing else we can do.”

“There is,” James said.

“There might be,” said Margaret. “If we are willing to take a chance. We could still lose everything.”

Sir Timothy emitted a heavy sigh. “It looks as though we will lose everything even if we don’t take a chance. What does this scrap of cloth have to do with rescuing our fortunes?”

From its waterproof wrappings, Margaret produced the book on the power looms in the Industrial Revolution. She explained how photographs were made, and what these particular images represented. Sir Timothy turned the pages, and his eyes grew wide with the marvels set out therein.

“We would become rich, indeed, if we could produce cloth at a speed equal to our descendants,” he said.

“But it would be the same cloth,” Margaret said. “What I picture is creating machinery that would make brocade out of our wool thread.”

That made her father laugh. “That’s impossible!”

“It isn’t. It wouldn’t be. These devices,” she patted the book, “are distant history to the Americans. They have more advanced machines that will take complex patterns and cause the machines to run by themselves. We could create textiles that no one has ever seen before. Think of how popular they would be among the nobility!”

“Well, they turn their backs on woolens for court wear, as a rule,” Sir Timothy said, stroking his beard with a thoughtful hand.

“Not in the winter. Even palaces are cold in those months. The Palace of Whitehall was uncomfortably chilly even in April when I visited it. Ladies in velvet skirts shivered despite the beauty of their garments. And they would not reject warm fabrics if they were not plain. Imagine roses or fleurs de lis, or even the royal lion and unicorn, but rendered in fine wool instead of silk.”

Sir Timothy’s eyebrows rose. Margaret could see that the idea was beginning to take hold of his imagination.

“And how will we make this wonder come about?”

Here came the difficult part. It would become no easier to evade the question. Margaret took another deep breath.

“I have commissioned an American programmer to make devices that would cause our looms to weave brocade. He is engaged upon research and design at this moment. Once he manages to encode the images that I left with him, he will oversee the manufacture of enough devices for our weavers’ shed. If those prove successful, we can buy more through him. He has promised to keep the expenses as low as possible. I believe in him, and he believes in us.”

Sir Timothy’s normally mild eyes flashed with anger. “What? You have commissioned someone to make machinery for my business without my permission? You have overstepped, my daughter. I did not authorize you to spend the manor’s funds on a dream, before asking me!”

She held out her hands to him beseechingly. “There wasn’t time, Father. I was there, in Magdeburg, with all the people in the world who want to help us. I had the opportunity, the goodwill, and the knowledge, there with me at that time. It would have taken weeks to get an answer from you, and I felt the rightness of what I was doing. You have always taken the chance to make a good deal. Strike while the iron is hot! I struck. If I have erred, I can send word to Magdeburg now to tell the programmer to stop what he is doing. James can carry a letter to Hamburg and put it into the hands of a messenger to take it to the USE. It will be weeks from now that Aaron will get word. But, Father, you said yourself just moments ago that we will fail, sooner or later. Let us try, I beg you.”

“She’s thought it through with care, Father,” James put in. “You ought to be proud of her. The Americans are capable of marvels, and they support us in this.”

Sir Timothy dropped his eyes. He was silent for a long time. Without looking up at her, he spoke.

“It is almost time for supper. Let me think.” As she rose, he added, “Leave the books.”

“Yes, sir,” Margaret said. She retreated. James closed the door to the study behind them.

“What do you think?” he asked in a low voice, when they were safely on the stairs leading to their bedchambers.

“I don’t know,” Margaret said. “We saw a new side of him just now. A hard side.”

“And he saw a new side of you.” James tweaked a lock of her hair. “A brave one, and an ambitious one. He’s not accustomed to that. ‘Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind,’ Seneca said. Imagine what he is going through right now, seeing his daughter rising to be the heir that Julian was meant to be.”

Margaret looked up at the closed door. “I hope that I will have done more good than harm.”

“You have,” James said. “And for what worth it may have, I believe in your dream, too. You know too much about our craft to make a mistake on this scale. I can’t wait to see the fabric your American engineers for us.”



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