One Snowy Regency Christmas. Sarah Mallory

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СКАЧАТЬ hubbub at the mill.’ When he’d rescued the Lampett girl he’d been literally rubbing shoulders with the same sort of man as the one who had raised him. The brutal commonality of them had attached itself to his person like dust, sticking in his mind and appearing now, as he neared sleep.

      ‘That’s what you think, is it?’ The ghost gave a disapproving grunt. ‘I see you have not changed a bit from the time you were a boy.’ Then he ladled his speech thick with the burr that Joseph had heard when he was in the midst of the crowd around his mill. ‘Th’art daft as a brush, though th’ live like a lord.’

      ‘And I will say worse of you,’ Joseph replied, careful to let none of his old accent creep back into his speech. No matter what his father might say of him, he had changed for the better and he would not go back. ‘You are a stubborn, ignorant dictator. Two drinks is hardly a sign of debauchery. And I live in a great house because I can afford to. It is not as if I am become some noble who has a line of unpaid credit with the vintner. I pay cash.’ He’d been told by Bob that the habit was horribly unfashionable, and a sign of his base birth, but he could not seem to break himself of it. It felt good to lie down knowing that, though he might need investors for the business, he had no personal debts.

      Although why his rest was now uneasy he could not tell. The bad dream staring him down from the end of the bed must be a sign that all was not right in his world.

      His father snorted in disgust. ‘No matter what I tried to teach, you’ve proved that buying and selling is all you learned. You know nothing of art, of craft or the men behind the work.’

      ‘If the men behind the work are anything like you, then I think I’ve had enough of a lesson, thank you. You may go as well.’ He made an effort to wake and cast off the dream. To be having this conversation at all was proof that he was sleeping. To rouse from slumber would divest the vision of the last of its power.

      His father gave a tug on his spectral forelock. ‘Well, then, Your Lordship, I am put in my place. I hope by now you know that you don’t fit with the posh sort that you suck up to. You are as much of a dog to be kicked from their path as I am to you.’

      ‘Probably true,’ Joseph admitted. There was no point in lying about that, even to himself. Though the gentry might be forced to mix with those in trade, there was nothing to make them enjoy it. ‘But if I am a dog, then I am a young pup with many years ahead of me. Their time is ending, just as yours did. In the day that is coming men of vision will be rewarded.’

      ‘At the expense of others,’ his father replied.

      ‘Others can seize this opportunity and profit as well, if they wish to,’ Joe snapped back. ‘It is not my responsibility to see to the welfare of every man on the planet. They had best look out for themselves.’

      ‘That is no better than I expected from you,’ his father replied. ‘And not good enough. Believe me, boy, I can see from this side of the veil that it is not nearly enough. It is no pleasant thing to die with regrets, to have unfinished business when your life is spent and to know that you have failed in the one thing you should have profited at: the care of another human life.’

      The statement made the speaker uncomfortably real. It was most unlike anything in Joseph’s own mind. It sounded almost like an apology. And never would he have put those words in his father’s mouth—no matter how much he might have wished to hear them. If things went as planned Joseph would be a father soon enough. It would not take much effort on his part to do a better job of it than his father had done with him.

      ‘You would know better than I on that, I am sure. As of this time, I have no one under my care. I answer only to myself, and I am happy with that.’ Surreptitiously he made a fist and dug his nails into his palm, pinching the skin to let the pain start him awake.

      ‘Boy, you are wrong.’

      ‘So you always told me, Father. Although why I should dream of your voice now, I do not know. I have only to wake up and look around me to prove that I am doing quite well for myself.’ Although, thinking on it, he could not seem to recall having fallen asleep in the first place. But it was the only explanation for this. He was not in the habit of conversing with ghosts.

      He was sound asleep in this bed and having a dream. No. He was having a nightmare. If he could not manage to wake, he must try to go to a deep, untroubled rest where his father would not follow. To encourage the change he sat upon the edge of the bed and began to undress himself. While it seemed strange to do so during a dream, he could think of no other way to set things right.

      As he leaned forwards to pull off his boots his father stepped closer and brought with him the smell of the grave—damp earth, a faint whiff of decomposition and the chill of a cold and lifeless thing made even colder by the season. ‘Do not think to ignore me. You do so at your peril.’

      ‘Do I, now?’ Joseph could not help it and stole a glance up at the spirit—if that was what it was. And he wondered when he had ever had a dream this real. He could smell and feel, as well as hear and see. He had to struggle to keep himself from reaching out to touch the shroud that the man in front of him carried like a mantle draped over his bony arm. He stared at the ghost, willing it to disappear. ‘I ignored you in life as best I could. Because of it I gave you enough money to die in comfort, instead of bent over a loom. But that was years ago. Go back to where you have been and leave me in peace.’

      ‘You do not have peace, if you would be honest and see the truth. Just as it always was when you were a boy, you are careless. You have not attended to both the warp and the weft. The tension is uneven. You have done much, and done it quickly with your fancy machines. But your work is without shape.’

      Joseph glared into the hollow eyes before him, too angry at the slight to stay silent. ‘I bore enough of that needless criticism from you when you lived—trying to teach me to weave when it was clear I had no skill for it. The last piece of work you will ever see me make on an old-fashioned loom was the shroud I buried you in. I wove it on your old machine with my own hands. I made it out of wool in respect for custom and your trade. If you have come to me to complain of the quality, then go back to your grave without it. As for my current life—there is no basis for this criticism. I can measure my success by my surroundings. This Christmas I will have a house full to the brim with guests and a table creaking with bounty. I have a new mill. When it opens I will be able to afford to fill the warehouse with goods, ready to ship when the sanctions are lifted.’

      The ghost shook his head, as though all the achievement was nothing, and waved the shroud before him. ‘Shapeless. Tear it out. Tear it out before it is too late. Your grain is off, boy.’

      Joseph finished with his undressing and pulled a nightshirt over his head. Then he lay down on the bed with his arms stiff at his sides, fighting to keep from stuffing his fingers in his ears. He could hear the old man’s death rattle of a breath, along with the same repeated criticisms that had tortured him all through his failed apprenticeship.

      Then he thought of the girl who had been clinging to Bernard Lampett’s arm in front of the mill. Her difficulties with her father had raised these memories in him. He felt a sympathy with her. And, for all his convictions that there could be no mercy shown, he would not rest easy until he had found a peaceful solution.

      He looked at the shade of his father again, half hoping that it had evaporated now that he’d found the probable cause. But it was still there, as stern and disapproving as ever he had been. ‘If you are my own guilty conscience, the least you could have done,’ Joseph said, ‘was come to me in the form of Barbara Lampett. And I’d be much more likely to listen if you told me plainly what you wanted.’

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