The Chainmakers (2 page)

'A sweet little lass - such as Sir John Millais would have liked to paint - dancing on a pair of bellows for 3pence a day to supply 'blast' to the chainmaker at the forge, and to put 3pence a day into the pocket of her employer. As she danced, her golden hair flew out, and the fiery sparks which showered upon her head reminded me of fireflies seen at night near Florence, dancing over a field of ripe wheat...'
Robert Sherard  'The Chainmakers of Cradley Heath' 1896

Anna Gibson was almost eighteen when she saw Robert Nicholson for the second time. She felt no pang of recognition, the handsome fair haired young man chatting to old Ma Higgins bore no resemblance to the spindly youth of his teens. However, Anna couldn't help but glance at him again, and as a result she mis-hit the iron link she was closing. A frown flitted across her brow as she concentrated repeated hammer blows on the red hot link in a shower of fiery sparks, and then, satisfied the link was successfully forged into the chain, she turned to pull on the bellows. As she made to pluck the next glowing iron rod from the fire she heard Ma Higgins call  ''Ang on ma wench, this gentleman wants a waerd.'

Anna stood apprehensively as they made their way towards her through the chainshop, watched by the other women, who stopped their hammering and chattering to stare at the unexpected sight of a young man, clean and well dressed at that, picking his way through the debris. As they reached her Anna's face hardened with suspicion.

''E only wants a waerd...' Ma Higgins wheezed, 'But doe be tew long, them cart traces is urgent.'

Good morning Miss Gibson,' the young man began, 'I hope you don't mind my asking for you.'

'What's it about?' Her voice was softer and more refined than he had expected in this hellhole. He smiled encouragingly but she quickly added 'I aye done nothin'.'

'Of course you haven't Miss Gibson, I assure you there is no trouble of any kind.' He smiled again before continuing lightly, 'You don't remember me do you?'

Anna eyed him narrowly. 'No. Should I?'

'Probably not, but perhaps you remember my father, Andrew Nicholson...' He waited for a glimmer of recognition, but seeing none he continued, 'Father sketched you several times when you were about ten years old...'

'Oh yes!' A look of delight passed over her face, and Robert Nicholson realised for the first time that perhaps his plan would work. When she smiled her features were quite delightful underneath all that grime. He inspected her face closely as she added excitedly, ''Course I remember... and he did the paintings afterwards... and one of them was in the exhibition at Dudley Art Gallery and we all went to see it... we had a real day out...' She stopped suddenly, as if aware she was talking too much. Then in a faltering tone she said 'You'm Robert... his boy?'

'Yes, that's right. I'm afraid my father died last year Miss Gibson...'

'Oh.' She looked nonplussed for a moment, and then said with genuine concern, 'I'm real sorry Mr. Nicholson...'

'Thank you, and the name is Robert. I believe your name is Anna?'

'Yes.' A slight suspicion reasserted itself and a questioning look came over her face.

'Well Anna, you probably wonder why I have looked you up after all this time. The truth is I came across father's sketches the other day and thought how good they were... as well as being charming in their own right, there is a certain honesty, the same clarity of vision I admire so much in Chardin...' Realising he had lost her completely Robert added quickly, 'Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to do some paintings of you now you are grown... a continuum... the child, and the woman she became... a triptych perhaps...'

He had lost her again, but she asked quickly  ‘You want to sketch me? You’m a painter too, like your Dad?’

He laughed, and Anna thought he looked quite wonderful, better looking than any man she ever saw in her life, even Clancy...

‘Father wasn’t really a painter Anna, he was a businessman.’

‘Oh yes,’ she agreed quickly, ‘I know he owned factories and all that...’

‘Even so, he was very interested in art, and was quite well thought of for an amateur,’ Robert continued cheerfully. ‘I take after him, at least as far as artistic temperament is concerned. Business is a different matter, I have no head for business at all, and no interest in it either if truth be told.’

His easy smile made lack of business sense seem like a virtue, and he added in a confiding tone, ‘I’m going to be a real artist Anna, not an amateur. I intend to make art my life’s work.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Anna replied. She didn’t see at all. How could painting pictures be considered work?

‘Well, now I’ve explained, will you sit for me?’ Robert asked.

‘Oh sir I’d love to, but I’m working now as you can see and can’t spare the time. I work from eight to six...’

‘And how much does that pay?’ Robert interrupted.

‘Well, this is number one size,’ Anna explained. ‘If I can make a hundredweight and a half, like I did last week, I’ll get about eight shillings.’ She smiled at him openly and then added ‘But I have to pay for my gledes out of that...’

‘And you don’t work at weekends?’

‘No.’ Anna did not mention that Saturday was the family day for the copper, and she spent it washing and ironing, cleaning and blackleading the firegrate.

‘I’ll pay you ten shillings to sit for me at weekends,’ Robert stated firmly. ‘You can travel to my home at Edgbaston on the Saturday morning, sit for three hours in the afternoon, stay overnight, sit another three hours on Sunday morning and travel back on Sunday afternoon.’

Anna, stunned by the suddenness of the offer, could not reply. In her mind two words resounded again and again. Ten shillings... ten shillings... ten whole shillings! Just for sitting around doing nothing. She gazed at Robert, but still was unable to speak.

‘Everything would be completely respectable of course,’ he hastened to assure her, mistaking her silence for distrust of his motives. ‘My mother will see you are allocated a room in the servants quarters. We have more rooms than servants.’ He smiled, attempting to allay her fears.

Anna swallowed. What would her father say? And how would her mother manage without her at the weekend? In a flash she had the answer. Pay old Mother Smithson to do the washing and ironing, she would be glad of the chance to do it for a shilling and the blackleading too... and there would still be nine shillings over...

‘I’d pay for your travelling costs of course,’ Robert was saying. ‘There’s probably a Saturday cart coming to Edgbaston, but if there isn’t you can get on the canal boat and be in Birmingham in two hours, and I could send our trap to pick you up there.’

He looked at Anna expectantly, and although she was quivering with excitement at the prospect of earning so much extra money, all that came out of her mouth was, ‘I’ll miss Chapel.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but you would be back on Sunday in time for evensong... if you have evensong in Chapel,’ Robert responded quickly, ‘We are Church of England,’ he added almost apologetically.

‘We have an evening meeting.’ Anna said quietly. ‘Yes, I’d be back in time for that.’ She pulled herself together and gave Robert her rare smile. ‘If my Dad agrees,’ she said, ‘I’ll be glad to do it. How many weekends were you thinking of?’

‘I don’t really know,’ Robert answered, pleased with his success. ‘Several I should think, up until Christmas anyway, that will be about ten weekends perhaps.’ He smiled briefly. ‘I have business in Dudley now, but may I call back this evening to obtain your father’s permission?’

Anna smiled assent and gave him her address. Robert thanked her and made his way out of the chainshop, turning to wave his hand as he went. In a moment Anna was besieged by the other women, demanding to know what was going on. Ribald comments flew around the chainshop about Robert’s good looks, and when she had explained his errand there was a great deal of screeching laughter and expressions of disbelief, and not a little envy. After Ma Higgins had scolded them back to work the women continued to yell at each other above their hammering, and there was much laughter and speculation about models having to take off their clothes for dirty minded artists to paint them.

‘There’ll be none of that!’ Anna remonstrated, blushing furiously in spite of herself. ‘If he starts any of that alarkey I’ll come home. Anyway,’ she added, ‘I’m sure he won’t ask any such thing. His Dad never asked me to take my clothes off...’

This was met with further gales of mirth, and old Betty Potts, making spikes at the forge in the corner, wiped the tears from her eyes on her sacking apron and cackled, ‘What a ninny yo’ am Anna Gibson, yo’ was ten years old then!’

This was met with more screeches of laughter, and shouts of ‘It’s a bit different now ma babby!’ and ‘You’m in for a shock!’ until Ma Higgins came in and reminded them that if they didn’t want to work for her there were plenty of others that did. The sparks flew as they settled back to their hammering, and after Ma Higgins had left the chainshop Betty Potts wheezed ‘Miserable old glede. ‘Er’s the waerst fogger I ever knowed...’

‘No ‘er aye,’ shouted a young woman who had recently joined the team. ‘Yo’ should waerk for old Stubbin’s...’er’s the waerst bar none...’

‘Arr... ‘ several voices agreed quickly. It was a dread that haunted them, that they could lose their work and be forced to make chain for Ma Stubbings. Her wages were lower for every size of chain, so you had to work longer and harder to make ends meet. The laughter had died, and the only further comment came from old Betty, who shouted above the din that perhaps Anna’s Dad would not let her go... after all, staying overnight in a strange house...

‘He’ll let me go,’ Anna shouted back confidently as she pulled at the bellows. If he don’t it’s all the same, she thought, as she took another glowing rod from the fire and began to hammer, I’m going to do it and he won’t stop me. Expertly she cut in on the hardy and twisted the red hot link, inserting it into the previous link of the chain and beginning to hammer again. I’ll meet Dad from work and get him home before he has chance to get to the pub, she resolved, once he gets in the Sandley Arms I’ll never get him out. Anyway, it makes no odds if he’s drunk or sober, I’m not missing out on a chance like this.

~

Surprisingly, Anna had more problems convincing her mother than her father. Catching George Gibson when he was sober had been the right approach, and as she hurried him home explaining along the way, she only had to mention the extra money and he readily agreed, even putting on a clean paper collar to meet Robert Nicholson.

Her mother was against it in principle but wanted the money. 'Why can't he come here and sketch you?' she moaned, in her soft north Worcester accent.

'I don't know Mom,' Anna said with some irritation. She had never been able to understand how her mother, a gentle soul who could read and write well, had been so attracted to George Gibson that she had given up the comparative luxury of life on her father's farm and defied her parents to marry him. As she busied herself in the small back room waiting for Robert Nicholson to arrive, the incongruity of her parents match flitted across Anna's mind again. She wondered what Robert Nicholson would make of them, her father, huge and sweaty, struggling to fasten the paper collar around his thick bull neck, and her mother, frail now and largely confined to her chair by the firegrate, nevertheless managing to convey an air of delicate gentility amid her poverty stricken surroundings. Anna felt a pang of sympathy and knelt down by her mother's chair.

'Mom, I don't know why he wants me to go to Edgbaston,' she explained quietly, 'I only know that for ten shillings I'd be a fool to miss the chance.'

'I still don't see why he can't come here...' Sarah said plaintively, 'His Dad sketched you at the forge didn't he?'