Pauper's Gold (16 page)

‘It’ll never be a happy place with Mr Edmund around. And I ’spect his son’ll be just like him when he grows up.’

Hannah thought about the young, solemn-faced, dark-haired boy she had seen just the once. She’d’ve liked to have thought that he might grow up to be different. But it wasn’t
very likely.

She sighed sadly. ‘Yes, I expect you’re right.’

They turned their backs on Wyedale Mill and walked on, following the winding path worn into the steep hillside by the sheep that grazed there.

‘See that big house across there.’ Luke pointed to the cliff on the opposite side of the dale. ‘That’s the Critchlows’ place. Millersbrook Manor.’

The house was perched halfway down the steep hillside a little way from the village itself.

‘Do they all live there, then?’

‘Yeah. The old man, Mr Edmund and Master Adam – when he’s home.’

‘From school, you mean?’

‘That’s right. He’s away at some fancy boarding school. That’s why we never see him much. He only comes home in the holidays.’

‘How do you know all this?’

Luke forced a grin. He was trying hard to draw Hannah’s thoughts away from the sadness they were both feeling, take her mind off what was happening back at the apprentice house.
‘’Cos I’m a nosy beggar.’

‘Who else lives there, then? Is there a Mrs Critchlow?’

Luke shook his head. ‘No. The old man’s wife died years ago and Mr Edmund’s wife died having another baby.’

‘Oh yes. I’d heard that.’

‘It’s a houseful of men.’

‘They’ve got servants though? They’ll have a housekeeper, surely?’

‘Oh aye,’ Luke said airily. ‘But servants don’t count, do they?’

‘No,’ Hannah said soberly and her thoughts came back to Jane. The little girl’s life hadn’t counted with the Critchlows.

By a strange coincidence, it was Adam Critchlow whom they saw first when they dragged their feet reluctantly back to the mill.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Luke muttered.

‘He must be home from school,’ Hannah said.

The young man was standing in the middle of the yard looking up at the mill. At the sound of their footsteps, he turned. He didn’t say anything until they drew level with him. They were
about to pass by, but he spoke, bringing them to a halt.

‘I heard about the little girl.’ His voice was soft, gentle almost, though Hannah could hardly believe such a word could describe any of the Critchlows. She pressed her lips together
to stop the tears flowing again, yet her action had the look of disapproval.

Adam’s eyes clouded. ‘Tell me,’ he said suddenly, his gaze on Hannah’s face. Luke was ignored. ‘What happened? Tell me it all. I want to know.’

Hannah did so, sparing him nothing. She was gratified to see him wince, yet at the same time his response surprised her. Perhaps this Critchlow did have some feelings. If so, he was the only one
who did, she thought bitterly.

But it seemed that Adam believed differently about his family. ‘My grandfather’s distraught.’

Hannah’s eyes widened in disbelief and, beside her, she heard Luke give a derisory snort. Adam glanced at him briefly, but dismissed his presence. His attention returned to Hannah.
‘He is,’ he persisted. Even though Hannah had not spoken, he could read her thoughts plainly written on her face. He stepped closer to her, cutting Luke out. ‘I know perhaps he
seems harsh to you, but there are other mills a lot worse than this one, you know. They don’t have good food or the medical attention we provide.’

‘Medical attention? What medical attention? We never see a doctor from one month to the next. They only called him in this time because they had to. Because . . .’ Her tears spilled
over again. ‘Because they knew she was going to die. He couldn’t save her. No one could have done except not to’ve let it happen in the first place.’

Adam dropped his gaze and shuffled his feet. ‘I know and I’m sorry.’ He lifted his head again and stared into her face, holding her gaze. ‘But one day it’ll all be
different. One day – when the mill’s mine – it’ll be very different.’

‘Aye,’ Luke spoke for the first time. ‘But how long have we to wait before that day comes? And in the meantime, once the old man’s gone, it’ll be your father in
charge.’ He paused and added pointedly, ‘Won’t it?’

To this, it seemed, Adam had no reply.

News of the child’s accident and subsequent death spread through the mill, and a sadness descended over the workforce. Though everyone carried on with the work expected
of them, there was an undercurrent of resentment flowing beneath the surface. The workers were suddenly not as biddable. There was a feeling of unrest, and Nathaniel Critchlow was alarmed by
it.

‘It’s just like that other time when a little girl got killed. What can we do?’

‘Do?’ Edmund snapped at his father. ‘Why, nothing, of course. As long as they’re doing their work. And Scarsfield will see to that, else he’ll have me to answer
to.’

Nathaniel spread his hands. ‘But I like my workers to be happy. They work better. Maybe we should have a doctor visiting the apprentices regularly. I’ve heard there’s a mill in
Cheshire where—’

‘Nonsense, Father. You’re too soft. They respect a firm hand, not a weak one.’

Nathaniel regarded his son soberly and not without a little disappointment. ‘There’s a vast difference between a firm hand and a callous one, my boy. It’d be no bad thing to
look after their health. And,’ he added pointedly, ‘to be seen to be doing so.’

Edmund’s mouth twisted. ‘I’m not one for philanthropy.’

His father shook his head. ‘Outsiders – and even the workers themselves – might see it as philanthropic. But think about it for a moment, Edmund. A healthy, happy millhand will
work better. We need to keep them on our side.’ He frowned worriedly. ‘It’s what your grandfather believed and so do I.’

‘Our side,’ Edmund scoffed. ‘Workers will never be on “our side”, as you put it. It’s us and them, Father. Always has been, always will be. And for most of
them, the more they produce, the more they earn. Isn’t that incentive enough?’

‘Not for the apprentices. They’re not paid at all unless they do overtime.’

‘Huh! We feed and clothe the little brats. And we have to educate them – thanks to all the blasted new laws they keep bringing in.’ Edmund wagged his finger at his father.
‘Their lives are better here than if they were still in the workhouse, but as for pandering to them with regular health checks, well, that’s an unnecessary expense to my
mind.’

‘It’s not pandering to them. They have a right to—’

Edmund stepped closer to his father’s desk and leaned across it. Prodding his forefinger on the surface of the desk, he said, slowly and deliberately, ‘They have no
“rights”. When they work in this mill, when they sign their indenture, they belong to us. We
own
them. Body and soul.’

Edmund swung round and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Nathaniel stared after him with a growing sense of foreboding. How, in God’s name, he asked himself, had he reared such a heartless and, yes, he had to admit it, cruel son? A shudder of
apprehension ran through him. He had a sudden, awful, premonition of how the mill would be run after his own demise. It was a picture that filled him with fear. He sighed deeply. We should be
looking to improve conditions, not going back into the past, Nathaniel thought. It’s bad enough I’ve let him persuade me to carry on the scheme with Goodbody long after every other mill
owner has abandoned it. They were breaking the law, he knew. The children in Wyedale Mill worked longer hours, had less schooling than anywhere else. If a government inspector should call . . .

‘There’s only one thing for it,’ he murmured aloud. ‘I’ll just have to live long enough to see Adam grown up and come into the business.’ But then his musings
came to a halt. The boy was certainly tender-hearted, but would Adam be strong enough to stand up to his ruthless father?

Nathaniel groaned aloud and, resting his elbows on the desk, dropped his head into his hands. He felt suddenly dizzy and sick at the thought of what might happen to the mill his own father had
begun.

From boyhood, the mill had been Nathaniel’s life. He could still remember so vividly the day they had found Wyedale. They’d been touring the Derbyshire countryside on horseback, just
he and his father, Moses, looking for a place to build a cotton mill.

And they had found it. At the end of the long, curving valley where the River Wye tumbled in a natural waterfall, Moses had found the perfect place to build a mill for his son to inherit. And it
would pass down the generations, Moses had dreamed. From father to son with always a Critchlow at the helm.

Nathaniel could still remember that day so clearly – his father sitting astride his horse, his tall and imposing figure hiding a stern yet kindly disposition. At the top of the hill, he
had taken off his hat and waved it in the air, his dark brown hair blowing in the wind. They had ridden down the steep mud track, past the smattering of houses – the farm and a few cottages
– right to the end of the dale, where there was room to build a mill beside the river that would provide the power for the great wheel.

‘This is it, my boy,’ Moses had cried jubilantly. ‘This is where the Critchlows’ mill will stand for generations. For you, Nathaniel. For your sons and even for their
sons.’

‘But, Father,’ Nathaniel had said, looking around him at what appeared to him to be a bleak and desolate place. ‘There are no houses. Where will you get the people to work in
the mill?’

Moses had laughed, the wind whipping away the sound and carrying it through the dale. ‘We shall build houses. Up there.’ He had pointed to the cliff face rising steeply at the end of
the valley. ‘We’ll bring workers from the city slums. From the workhouses. We’ll give them a good life – a better life than they’ve ever known or ever expected. And in
return,’ Moses had smiled down at the young Nathaniel, ‘they’ll work hard for us and make us rich men.’

And everything that Moses had promised had come to pass. He’d built his fine mill and the houses on the cliff for the workers, and Millersbrook village above Wyedale Mill was born. He had
built an apprentice house and a schoolroom and brought pauper orphans from the workhouses in the nearest towns and cities. And many had stayed on to work in the mill as adults and to live in the
cottages in the village, to marry and bring up their families there.

Moses was a strict but fair employer. The list of rules and the fines posted up about the factory were those he had drawn up, and they were still in force to this day.

Remembering all this, Nathaniel groaned aloud.

The sound carried through the door to the outer office, and Josiah Roper smiled.

Three days later, though he was quaking inside, Mr Critchlow stood up to his son. ‘You’re to let anyone who wants to go attend that child’s
funeral.’

Edmund glowered and opened his mouth to speak, but Nathaniel Critchlow held up his hand. ‘We’ll have a rebellion on our hands if you don’t.’

Edmund appeared to think for a moment. ‘I’ll allow her closest friends to go and the Bramwells. Maybe Scarsfield as well, but no others. We’ll have the whole mill grind to a
halt if they think they can all wangle time off.’

‘Very well, then,’ Mr Critchlow agreed to the compromise. ‘Are you going?’

Edmund laughed without humour. ‘Me? Attend a pauper’s funeral? Hardly!’

Nathaniel’s hand shook visibly. ‘I should go,’ he murmured. ‘But . . . but I can’t face it. I don’t feel well.’ He passed a hand over his forehead as he
felt the dizziness and the headache he had been experiencing for the past few days – ever since the child’s accident – sweep over him.

But to everyone’s surprise, there was a Critchlow at the funeral.

As Arthur Bramwell and Ernest Scarsfield pushed the coffin on the handcart up the steep hill to the burial ground beyond the village, the few – the pathetically few – mourners fell
into step behind them. Mrs Bramwell, Hannah and Nell in the front, followed by Luke and Daniel, as ever walking side by side.

As they began to move off from the apprentice house, Adam Critchlow stepped out from behind the mill’s pillared gateway and fell into step at the back. Hannah didn’t notice him.
Walking between Ethel Bramwell and Nell, she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the small coffin and quietly prayed that her little friend had truly found peace.

‘Did you see him?’ Luke asked her later when it was all over and they were sitting in the kitchen at the house, drinking tea as a special treat on such a dreadful day.

‘At the back,’ Daniel put in. The four youngsters were sitting together whilst the three grown ups had gone into the Bramwells’ sitting room to partake of something a little stronger than tea.

‘Who?’ Hannah asked listlessly, cupping the mug in her hands to warm them. She was still shivering, though it was more from her inner misery and the terrible burden of guilt rather
than from the cold day.

‘Master Adam,’ Luke said. ‘He followed us all the way to the cemetery.’

‘At the back,’ Daniel repeated. ‘He walked behind us and then stood at the back when we was all round the grave.’

‘Did he?’ Hannah was surprised and, even against her will, a little moved. She wanted to think badly of the Critchlows, yet was there one amongst them who was actually showing some
compassion?

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘No,’ Luke said and Daniel shook his head.

‘I wonder,’ she mused, ‘just why he came?’

No one could answer her.

‘I’m sorry, Francis,’ Ernest Scarsfield stopped Hannah as she was leaving the mill three days after Jane’s funeral, ‘but my mate can’t find
out anything about yer mother. He went to the workhouse, but they wouldn’t tell him anything. He saw someone called – now, what was it? – Good, was it?’

‘Mr Goodbody,’ Hannah said, the disappointment spreading through her already. She’d had such hopes that word would come any day from Mr Scarsfield’s friend. Since
Jane’s death, Hannah had not felt like singing – not once – and news from her mother had been the only thing she’d looked forward to.