Read Online 3 Great Historical Novels by Fay Weldon - Free Book Online Page A

the village, in the next cove, with the sand instead of shale at the back gate. Michael Kelly had once said he needed to see the ocean to remember that there was a world around its shores: doubtful he would need to be reminded of the fact again.
    As children, Rhia and Thomas would sit on stools by Michael’s loom and watch him. He taught them how to weave and told them that flax was one of the oldest fibres in the world. He showed them how the soft, flexible stem of the plant needed to be soaked to separate the fibres, allowing for a much finer yarn to be spun. Flax was a peculiar fibre, and much harder to spin than wool and cotton. Spinning it by hand produced a superior cloth because a spindle and hands as deft as Annie Kelly’s could produce yarn of any weight, whereas machines could only produce coarse yarns. Annie Kelly spun all grades of linen yarn; finer for lace and cambric and damask, and coarse yarn for rope and paper and canvas.
    Rhia arrived at the back of the cottage and tied Epona to the gatepost. The building was the shape of a barn and larger than most of the weavers’ cottages in Greystones. Thomas saw her through the window and beckoned her to come in. He was at the loom. The Kellys worked long hours. They produced such perfect repeat patterns that their cloth was always in demand.
    The back door was never latched. The long narrow room that looked out across the Irish Sea was sparsely furnished to make way for two ancient looms, one for linen and one for wool, each hewn from gnarled oak and dark with age. There was a large hearth in the middle of the room and from a hookabove the spitting flames hung a blackened pot. A bright copper kettle shone like a lantern on its stone ledge. The scene was so familiar that Rhia wanted to cry at the thought of leaving. Neither Thomas nor Annie stopped working when Rhia let herself in. She did not expect them to. The rhythms of the loom and the spinning wheel were not to be interrupted without good cause.
    ‘Morning.’ Annie smiled. She smiled no matter how much she missed her man or how much yarn was left to spin. ‘There’s broth in the pot, and you know where the bread is.’
    Thomas said nothing as Rhia fetched herself a bowl of broth and a hunk of warm soda bread from the cheese cupboard. She sat on a stool by the fire next to Annie’s spinning wheel and watched Thomas’s foot treadle up and down and his hands fly across the shafts as though they were an extension of his body. He had his mother’s colouring – wavy chestnut hair and milk-white skin. His hands and forearms were strong and sinewed. He was always quiet, but his silences had moods. Rhia could tell he was brooding.
    Annie looked from one of them to the other, wound her bobbin off and dropped it into the basket at her feet. She touched Rhia’s shoulder. ‘I’ve linen to boil. Don’t go away for ever, will you? You’ll be missed.’ Annie kissed her on each cheek and gave her a swift hug and then hurried away.
    Rhia swallowed back her tears and moved closer to the window near the loom. She waited for Thomas to speak. He finally took his foot from the treadle.
    ‘Well, Rhia.’
    ‘Well yourself.’
    ‘Will you come back to us do you think?’
    ‘What a thing to say! Do you really think I’d leave for ever? I don’t want to go. I’ve no choice.’
    He laughed bitterly. ‘My pa had no choice. You’ve been wishing yourself in London since you were wee.’
    It was true. ‘But this is not how I wanted it, not to seek a position.’
    ‘Aye, and I’m sorry for your troubles, but you’ve no idea how you’ve been blessed. You’ve not had to think about how to pay for your kid slippers and your silk ribbons. It won’t be so bad, you’ve a quick mind – you’re inventive.’
    ‘But I’m not polite. All of the Londoners I’ve met are polite. And I’m not clever enough to be a governess.’
    Thomas only shook his head as though this didn’t warrant a reply. He looked away from her