The Bobbin Girls (18 page)

Feeling the familiar heat rise in her cheeks at this traitorous thought, she deliberately turned her gaze to the distant mountains and began to chatter about having walked up this one or that one, yet afterwards couldn’t remember a word she’d said.

Sandra didn’t help. She simply sat beside them, quieter than ever, apparently lost in thoughts of her own.

At the end of the sail, Mickey bought them tea and cakes at the Lake Side Hotel, which must have cost him a pretty penny. Despite herself, Alena was impressed by the white damask tablecloths and the musical accompaniment as they tucked into tiny scones, and Sandra poured tea from a silver pot in her dainty, ladylike way.

Afterwards Mickey insisted on walking them both home. It was pleasant, idling along the lanes through the undulating countryside, the mountains already wearing their pale winter cloaks, though the first fall of snow had still to come. They took a short cut through the forest when they reached the two-hundred-year-old avenue of beeches. It was as they neared Ellersgarth and turned the corner by Hollin Bridge that Alena spotted a figure beneath the limestone arch that had once been a route for pack-ponies. Or rather two figures. The pair seemed locked together on a patch of grass left bare by summer-starved waters not yet augmented by winter floods.

‘Don’t look,’ said Mickey, chuckling as he put a hand over her eyes, doing the same for Sandra. ‘Not fit for a decent girl to see.’

Alena laughingly allowed him to shield her vision, though it was already too late. It had taken only a glimpse for her to see that one of the figures had been Danny Fielding, a good looking ne’er-do-well her brothers kept well clear of. And the other was Dolly.

Low Birk mill had never suffered a major calamity, not even a serious fire. It was a regular task for the men to damp down the sawdust and shavings every morning and night. But there were no safety guards on any of the machines so it was important not to lose concentration for a second. Small accidents, in particular lost fingers and damaged thumbs, were common in a bobbin mill. They always said you could recognise an old bobbin worker merely by looking at his hands. The task of foreman necessitated keeping production high and workers at their machines despite the hazards.

He needed to have a strong character, be able to manage people in a fair way and yet be disciplined. A good foreman, for instance, couldn’t risk wasting valuable production time by allowing a machine to be stopped for adjustment or cleaning. This task, and the sharpening of tools, was normally done on a Saturday morning after the required number of bobbins had been produced for the week, and not a moment sooner. Since it took all of four hours to do it properly, it was virtually impossible to produce the required number of bobbins on the same day a machine was cleaned and stripped, so the canny wood turner made sure that he produced a few extra each day during the week and secreted these away for Saturday’s batch. Otherwise he would have to come in on a Sunday to do the cleaning and tool sharpening.

It was likewise the task of a canny foreman to notice that if so many extra bobbins could be produced each day, then the turner was reaching his bonus too easily and the figures to achieve it needed adjusting. But since it was such common practice, and a man needed his Sunday off, a more sympathetic foreman would have the sense to turn a blind eye.

Harry had always been good at reaching a bonus. Lizzie had become so used to the extra he brought in as a result of his hard work, that she came to think of it as part of his normal wage.

Mickey Roscoe, more concerned with needing to impress Alena than understanding the Townsen family situation, and uncaring of Harry’s ambitions, made it his business ‘accidentally’ to bump into James Hollinthwaite one evening.

‘Do I know you, boy?’ Hollinthwaite barked, irritated at having his way blocked by a mere mill worker yet seeing something vaguely familiar in the stocky figure. Mickey politely introduced himself, reminding James how his own father, Frank Roscoe, had once done him the favour of finding his missing son, and how he was in a position to do him a similar service. Seeing the sharpening of interest in the man’s narrowed eyes, Mickey calmly informed him how it was that some of the men were taking advantage of his generosity.

‘Reaching the bonus is too easy for them, they can still make enough each day to store a few extra and save themselves a half day’s work come Saturday,’ Mickey explained to the glowering mill owner.

James Hollinthwaite knew little about bobbin production. He’d never shown more than a cursory interest in the day-to-day running of the mill. He didn’t even wish to live in the mill-house that went with it, leaving that to his manager, Bill Lindale. All he wanted out of the mill were profits, and was infuriated by the very notion of being robbed of some of them by his own workers.

‘Who are these men?’

Mickey slyly adopted an expression of fear. ‘Nay, I can’t name names, not my own work colleagues. Too risky. Who knows what they might do to me?’ He half glanced over his shoulder, as if fearful he was at this moment being followed. ‘I mean, it’s not as if I had any right to watch them, particularly with me being a newcomer.’ He let that thought sink in before blithely commenting, ‘What if I were wrong? Though I’m certain I’m not.’

‘That’s for me to find out. You did right to warn me, young man. I appreciate it.’

Mickey smirked with satisfaction. Oh, yes, this little encounter would do him a power of good in the future, he was sure of it. ‘It was just that one of them has put forward his name to be the new foreman, claiming he deserves the job because he reaches his bonus so often.’ He put on an expression of outraged innocence. ‘Well, that seemed like cheating to me, which I didn’t think was quite right. I thought you’d want to know the truth.’

Hollinthwaite remembered the letter from Harry which Bill Lindale had showed him, and his brow cleared. ‘Ah, so that’s the way of it. I should have known. Thank you, I shan’t forget this.’ As Mickey turned to go, he added, ‘If you’ve ever anything more .’ And their eyes met in perfect understanding.

Harry was not promoted to the job of foreman and was, in consequence, bitterly disappointed. Everyone in the mill had been certain he would get it. Even Bill Lindale, when he walked into the lathe shop to make the announcement, cast a sorrowful glance in his direction by way of apology.

Boring but safe Arthur Thistlethwaite was given the job instead.

‘Well, he might save our souls.’ Edith dryly remarked. ‘But that’s about all.’

‘Which will do naught to put any more bread on our plates,’ Minnie grimly agreed.

‘Right, Arthur, what we need is better wages and shorter hours,’ Annie Cockcroft informed him. A stocky, determined little person with a fiery temper, she was not a woman to be ignored.

‘And a new lavatory,’ Deirdre giggled to a chorus of approval. They all hated the three closets, only one of which was functional since the middle one hadn’t worked for years and the end seat was covered with a board and piece of sacking for the girls to enjoy an illegal break if they wanted a cigarette. It had been known to hold as many as five girls, all gossiping and smoking in that one cubicle.

‘Nay, that ain’t my job,’ he mourned. ‘I’m on the side of management now.’

‘Whoever told you that rubbish?’ Edith scorned. ‘See if you can get Lizzie back. We need her to make our dinners. I’m fair sick of sandwiches. She looked after us, Lizzie did. Put plasters on our cuts and injuries. We need her. She’ll happen come back part-time, if she gets enough money to help pay someone to mind Ray.’

Alena didn’t hear any of this for she was taking very little interest in the conversation at all. Her troubled eyes were fixed on Dolly, who was even now casting languishing glances in the direction of Danny Fielding. Had it really been her wild sister-in-law under the bridge? Up to God knew what with that no-good piece of work. How could she, when she was married to Tom? And what should Alena do about it?

‘Got dust in your eye?’ Dolly remarked, coming to stand by her while the list of tasks for the new foreman continued to lengthen, and the debate heated up.

Annoyed she’d been caught out in her curiosity, Alena hissed furiously, ‘Are you quite mad? What do you think you’re playing at?’ At which Dolly pushed her face close up to Alena’s and spat the words back at her.

‘What am I playing at? I’m minding me own bloody business. Which is what you’d best do, if you know what’s good for you.’

Annie Cockcroft’s booming voice rang out again. ‘And ask for a new first aid box while you’re at it, lad. We’ve naught left in this one bar an eye bath and a bit of old bandage and sticking plaster.’ Poor Arthur began to look bemused by this growing list of requirements, quite changing his mind about his good fortune and wishing that someone else had got the foreman’s job. It didn’t seem to occur to him to exercise the new authority he’d been given and send them all back to their machines.

Mickey didn’t join in the conversation either, half his attention being on Alena, the rest on Bill Lindale who remained in the lathe shop, frowning at the fracas resulting from this management decision which had been made in spite of his advice to the contrary. Mickey kept his head down, wanting Lindale to see how hard he was working, but he made sure he took in the gist of what was being said, in case it should come in useful later.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alena grasp hold of her sister-in-law’s arm and heard the fierce hiss of her voice. ‘If you were to mend your ways, then maybe it would be easier for me to mind my own business.’

Now what, he wondered, was all that about?

Alena was furious with Dolly. How could she be so cruel to poor Tom? First trapping him into marriage and then betraying him. What sort of wife would do such a thing? It made her heart ache to think how differently she would behave with Rob, given the chance. At least Sandra, she noticed with some satisfaction, was the first to offer sympathy to Harry.

‘They’ll realise their mistake,’ Alena heard her say, as the girl reached out to touch his arm. ‘They’ve picked the wrong man. You are by far the best one for the job,’

‘In your opinion.’

‘Of course.’

Alena couldn’t help feeling pleased to see the two smiling into each other’s eyes. They’d been seen walking out together once or twice since the Sunday Sandra had helped him with the letter. And even though his application hadn’t paid off, this new friendship might be doing them both a world of good. Alena knew that her friend was tired of living with her aunt, who apparently found the responsibility of bringing up her brother’s daughter something of a chore. Most of all, Sandra longed for someone to love and cherish her for her own sake, and not out of duty. A feeling Alena could sympathise with entirely. Didn’t everyone long to be loved?

Where was Rob? Did he still love her? If so, why didn’t he come home?

Olivia sat at her dressing table asking herself the very same question. One hand clenched tightly around a silver hairbrush, the other clutching the nightgown to her throat.

‘It’s all right, don’t fret,’ her husband snarled. ‘I’m not about to ravish you. If you won’t come to me willingly, I’ll certainly not make you. I came to enquire if you’ve done anything yet about my request for one of your dinner parties?’

‘Yet another scheme to dupe some poor fool into doing you a favour? And using my services to achieve it, without a care as to what
I
really want from life.’

‘What can you possibly want that I haven’t generously provided?’ James tetchily responded. ‘You could try being equally generous with me.’

‘Generous? Why should I be generous when you’ve robbed me of my precious child? Why won’t you allow him to come home? I thought you loved him.’

‘I do love him. He’s my son.’ James said it with the kind of possessiveness in his tone that he might use over a horse or piece of land.

‘Well then.’ Olivia felt quite light-headed with nervous energy, and what she recognised in herself as lonely despair. There were days when she could feel depression settle upon her like a suffocating shroud. She’d long since given up on her marriage, accepting its stultifying limits with dull resignation. She was expected to be grateful because James didn’t have affairs, or, if he did, with such supreme discretion she’d detected no sign, apart from that little fling with a housekeeper some years ago. Even that hadn’t lasted long for he’d quickly come to regret it and dispensed with the woman’s services without any prompting from his wife. But then James was quite unable to express love and tenderness, so perhaps the woman left of her own accord.

Olivia stared at her reflection in the mirror, mentally tracing the fine lines around the eyes, the droop of discontentment at the corners of her mouth. Where had her youth gone? When had she grown older? Life is passing me by, she thought, fear joining the tumult of emotions surging inside her, together with a righteous anger.

She needed warmth in her life. Love. No one should be expected to live without it. And if her husband had none to give her, then where else could she find it but from her precious son? She wanted - needed - Rob. Why had he driven the boy away? Was James so blindly arrogant that he didn’t realise they risked losing him entirely? Not once in all these years had the boy been allowed home on a proper visit. ‘Your sister in Edinburgh sees more of him than I do, his own mother. And you’ve only allowed me to visit the school twice. It won’t do, James, it simply won’t do.’