When the Devil Drives

'Ask Cal Blackstone,' Joanna bit back at him. 'He hasn't forgotten athing. Fifteen years ago, his father took the mill away from us. Nowhis son's coming for the rest. And, thanks to you, he hasn't even had tofight for it.'There was a sullen silence.Joanna released her grip on the chairback, rubbing almost absentlythe indentations the heavily carved wood had left in her flesh.Cal Blackstone, she thought, and her skin crawled. The grandson ofthe man who was once glad to work for my grandfather as anoverlooker at the mill. The trouble-maker, the rabble-rouser who triedto close our doors with strikes over and over again. The self- mademillionaire who drove Chalfonts to the edge of bankruptcy, and diedswearing he'd put us out on the street.Even after the fierce old man had gone, there was no respite for thebeleaguered mill. His son Arnold had proved just as inimical, just asdetermined. In the end Chalfonts had had to be sold, and there wasonly one bidder.Arnold Blackstone got it for a song, Joanna thought, anger welling upinside her. Chalfonts, who'd been making quality worsteds on thatsite for over a hundred years. And he made it a byword for cheaprubbish, aimed at the bottom end of the market.The only thing remaining from the old days was thename—Chalfonts Mill—kept deliberately by the Blackstones,Joanna's father had said bitterly, as a permanent thorn in the family'sflesh—a constant and public reminder of what they'd lost.Now, under the direction of Cal Blackstone, his grandfather'snamesake, the mill, as such, no longer existed. The looms had beensold, and the workforce dispersed, and the vast building had become athriving complex of small industrial workshops and businesses.