Shining Threads Read Free Page A

train. It simply isn’t fair,’ Tessa declared as she did at least once a day. ‘They are both concerned in the business world, just as Mr Abbott and Mr Jenkinson are, so why
shouldn’t they go? Tell me that.’
    Drew scratched his head wonderingly then looked at his brother for really they had given it no thought. Indeed, they had given little thought to their own inclusion in the great event.
Their father would no doubt officiate at the splendid moment when the engine had got up steam and was ready to head off on its journey. They themselves would certainly share in the excitement,
watched and admired by the ladies who would come to see them off, but, as usual, this cousin of theirs was not satisfied with her own female part in it.
    She had begun to whirl about in her indignation and the dogs milled at her feet, moving excitedly as her fierceness communicated itself to them. She turned to face her cousins, hands on her
hips, legs apart, chest heaving and her expression was bright and furious. Her eyes snapped, the pale grey velvet shaded, like a stormy sky, to the tints of slate and charcoal, deep and
threatening. She could scarcely contain herself, not, as they thought, in her rage, but in fear.
    Tessa Harrison by, in her opinion, a fluke of nature, was born a girl and for as long as she could remember, though she defied authority and her own femininity, she had resented it. Whenever she
could throw off the reins her governess slipped about her, the bridle which convention and her mother put on her as the gently reared daughter of a wealthy middle-class family, she had escaped from
them, riding about with her male cousins and their friends wherever they went. She would put on a pair of their outgrown breeches and riding boots, leap on to the mare’s back and gallop away
exultantly, as they did, knowing that she would be punished later for it, not caring, for that would be later and this freedom and excitement was now . But lately, as they had begun to
move away from boyhood, she had sensed that her cousins were ready to leave her behind, that her participation was accepted somewhat reluctantly, that they were a trifle irritated by her
female presence as they went off on their completely masculine jaunts with Nicky Longworth and Johnny Taylor. They wouldn’t tell her where they were going sometimes, which was worse, saying
carelessly that she was not at all likely to enjoy it, eluding her grasp and her furious demands to know what they were up to, and she had become increasingly alarmed. She had not accepted it,
naturally, begging them to wait for her, declaring that she was not going to be left out of it, whatever it was, but they had gone off nevertheless, and she had become even more afraid. She could
ride and even shoot as well as they, for they had taught her. She had been given permission by her mother to ride to hounds with the Squire’s hunt, for were they not gentry and therefore, in
her mother’s eyes, responsible and understanding of the need to protect a young, unmarried girl’s reputation? But that was not enough for Tessa Harrison. She wanted to go wherever her
cousins went, illogical and absurd as that might seem, and she would tell them so. What else was she to do with her life if she could not be with them , she asked herself, do as they did,
laugh with them over the foolishness of those who were fettered to rules, risk herself in the hazards they were to know? What would her life be without them in it?
    ‘I’m going with you next week. I want to ride on the train just as much as you do and I shall ask Mother and Uncle Joss to let me go. Why should you go and not me? I can do anything
you do, cousins. I can ride, yes, outride the pair of you and you know it. I could race you both from here to Greenacres and be home five minutes before you. Don’t you dare simper at
me, Drew Greenwood, or I’ll take my crop to you. I could open your cheek to the bone and then that cheeky little