The Daring Ladies of Lowell (5 page)

She couldn’t leave without saying something more. “It will only get worse, won’t it?” she asked.

He ran a hand through his hair; pink scalp was showing through the white strands. His voice suddenly sharpened. “I’m a doctor who does his best, and that’s all I need to say to you.” Regaining his composure, he added, “Good day, Miss…ah—”

“Barrow.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good day, Dr. Stanhope.” She donned her coat and walked out of the surgery, pulling the door shut behind her as hard as she dared.

I
t was a Monday night, perfectly ordinary, except for the fact that there were two empty places at the dinner table.

“Where are Mary and Lovey?” Ellie asked, her voice carrying around the table.

“Hush, they went to a meeting,” her sister replied.

“Who knows what goes on in those tents the revivalists put up,” mumbled Mrs. Holloway. “Those girls are—”

“They’ll be fine,” Alice interjected. The chilly edge to her voice halted the conversation. Why did she feel she had to speak up? Perhaps because there was so often a tut-tut tone to any conversation about Lovey, who was a bit of a risk taker, yes, but as generous as anybody. The other girls didn’t always appreciate that. Anyhow, Alice was still brooding over her encounter with the spineless doctor. There was nothing to do about it at the moment. But at least Lovey would patiently listen to her complaints. She wanted to talk to her now. Where was she?

M
idnight. No Lovey or Mary-o. Alice sat up in the parlor, sleepless, worrying. She could hear the rhythmic breathing of the others from the dormitory and wondered if they, too, were listening. Mrs. Holloway had padded around the house at ten o’clock, her face set tight with strain, peering out the window from time to time before finally turning out all the lights.

“It’s long past my bedtime, and I’m locking up for the night,” she finally said. “If there’s any mischief going on, we know who’s causing it, don’t we? I swear, that girl Lovey has no common sense.” After some hesitation, she left one lamp on in the parlor. “I don’t want them freezing out there,” she said when she saw Alice watching her.

“They’ll come,” Alice said.

Mrs. Holloway stared out the window into the blackness. “We do always want to hope for the best, don’t we?” she said.

“No, I truly mean it, they will be here soon.”

Mrs. Holloway stared into the distance, her thoughts on broader territory. “Young women, taking foolish chances, old story,” she said tiredly. “I didn’t take well to a harness, either, but there’s no telling that to the young.” She turned and left the room.

A
t a quarter past the hour, Alice heard movement on the porch. Slipping out of bed, she hurried to open the door. A shivering Mary-o and Lovey looked up from where they sat on the steps.

“Thank God,” Mary-o whispered.

“We have to get up in only four more hours,” Alice sputtered. “How could you stay out so late?”

“Don’t scold,” Lovey said. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dancing.

“Weren’t you worried? You broke a major rule, you could be sacked,” Alice protested.

“Please forgive us,” Mary-o said, her voice contrite.

“What happened?”

Mary-o stole a furtive glance at Lovey. “We got separated; I couldn’t find her.”

“It just ran late,” Lovey cut in, yanking at Mary-o’s hand. The three of them walked into the house, standing in the weak light of one lamp.

“I’ve been so afraid we would be thrown out of here,” Mary-o began. “I—”

“Stop it, Mary,” Lovey said, her voice lightly careless. “We had a good time, now pick your chin off the ground and let’s go to bed.”

Mary-o straightened. “Well,
you
did, more than me.” She sniffed.

“Lovey—” Alice ventured, touching her friend’s hand.

Lovey’s hand softened under her touch for a second, then pulled away. And she would say no more.

T
he next morning, nothing seemed different. Lovey had hollows under her eyes but laughed and joked at breakfast with the others, ignoring the stony manner of Mrs. Holloway, while Mary-o ate in silence. There were glances exchanged, but no one asked questions, and neither Lovey nor Mary-o discussed their late-night return. By some unspoken group agreement, that event hadn’t happened.

Alice had little time to dwell on this at the mill, for Tilda did indeed hand over to her a second loom that day, and tending two of them for the first time left her breathless. There would be a way through all the questions. It would just take time.

T
he weeks streamed by, the days beginning to blur, each much the same as another. Almost every night, Alice and Lovey gravitated to the front steps, enjoying the warm summer breezes and then the crisp fall air. Lovey was always in great spirits. She would sneak out extra cookies from the kitchen, and they would argue the merits of sugar versus gingerbread, talking and munching. Lovey teased Alice for being a bit too proper, and Alice confessed to a cautionary approach to rules. “You know what you need to do?” Lovey declared one day. “You need to steal a cookie. It’s your turn.”

The next night Alice dumped half-a-dozen cookies in her friend’s lap.

“You see? You can filch things, too.”

“I learned from an expert.”

“Do you think we should have to start work so early?”

It was habit now, for both of them, to pick any topic and introduce it at any time, and they were always, always able to discuss it together. They could be talking about labor reform, Sir Walter Scott’s
Ivanhoe,
or the best way to seam up a shirtwaist. It didn’t matter. To feel free to think and argue and explore was new to Alice and made her euphoric. She had not known a friendship like this.

“I wish I had stayed in school,” Lovey said one night, staring up at the moon. “I’d like to learn things—history, things like that.”

“You know many things I don’t know, especially how to navigate life in Lowell. Sometimes I think you want people to believe you are always reckless and not too smart, and I know that isn’t true. Why?”

Lovey’s reply was light and self-mocking. “It’s my costume,” she said. Then she simply grew quieter, seeming to draw into herself more. She could suddenly not
be
there, be oddly distracted, her mind somewhere else.

“Where are you?” Alice teased, waving a hand in front of her friend’s face.

Lovey grinned. “Wandering in my head,” she replied. “But you wander in your books. What are you reading?” She pointed at the book of poetry in Alice’s hands. “Is it yours? You brought so many.”

Alice sighed. Probing her friend was like poking at a drop of quicksilver. “It’s mine now, I guess,” she said, staring down at the creased and faded pages of her mother’s favorite book of poetry. It was in such forlorn shape because Alice had left it out in the leaky barn one night when it rained. And she would never forget her mother’s gentle scolding.

“For your punishment, you must memorize them all,” she had said. And so Alice had, and now she would always love poetry. Which was precisely what her mother had hoped would happen, she told Lovey.

“You never talk about her,” Lovey said. “I figured there was some bad story, but from what you’re saying, if she were my mother, I’d be thrilled.”

“She died last year.” The words filled her throat, thickening her breath.

“I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry.” Then with a touch of surprise, Lovey said, “Why haven’t you told me before?”

“I didn’t want to say it out loud.”

“Makes it final, I suppose.”

Alice nodded.

Lovey was silent for a moment. “It must have been wonderful to have a mother who read,” she offered.

“That’s all I have left of her, the books she loved.” There weren’t that many left, but Alice hadn’t been about to leave a single one in her father’s farmhouse for him to throw away.

“You told me she taught you to stand up for yourself,” Lovey said. “That’s a good legacy, I’d say.”

“Yes.” There would be no awkward platitudes from Lovey, for which she was grateful. But Lovey’s next comment startled her.

“I wish there had been someone who loved me.”

“Oh, Lovey, there must—”

Lovey cut her off. “Who wrote the poems?” she asked.

“A woman named Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They’re quite wonderful, especially the ones about love.”

“Is it sinful love? That’s always interesting.”

“Love isn’t sinful.” Alice pointed to a sonnet and read the first two lines, then handed the book to Lovey.
If thou must love me, let it be for nought, except for love’s sake only.

Lovey read in silence, absorbed as she began to turn the pages. “May I copy some of these?” she asked.

“Only if you promise to memorize them.”

Lovey broke into a wide grin. “You just watch me,” she said. “Lovey is going to learn about love.”

There was something strange about the way she said it. “Are you all right?” Alice asked. “Something—”

The swift tenderness of Lovey’s glance stopped her. “You really do care, don’t you? I’m fine, Alice. Remember, I’m the one who is always fine.”

“You seem pale. The cotton—”

“Not me.” Lovey patted her rib cage. “Lungs of an ox,” she said with a laugh.

DECEMBER 1832

“W
ell, finally. I was beginning to wonder if the whole thing was some kind of joke,” Lovey said as they stared at the notice pinned on the mill bulletin board one morning.

“President Jackson is really coming,” Mary-o said, her eyes shining. “My goodness, it’s tonight!”

The big event had been postponed three times already, and all of them had begun to doubt whether it was ever going to happen.

“What will you wear?” shouted Tilda to Alice above the clattering machines as the day came near its end.

“My beautiful hat,” Alice shouted back. She had spent nothing at the store for weeks. She wasn’t about to miss the president.

“And that’s all?” teased Tilda.

“Have to keep saving my money,” Alice said with a smile. She shook her head, rubbing her ears, all the while watching the low-hanging whale-oil lamps swinging above the looms.

“You’re hearing crickets in your head, right?” Tilda shouted cheerfully. “It happens to all of us.”

Just like the cotton balls, Alice thought.

“Look!” Tilda was pointing at Lovey, who was working four looms today, moving expertly back and forth, peering at scraps of paper she had attached to one of the machines, frowning in concentration.

“What are you doing?” Mary-o yelled.

“I’m memorizing,” Lovey yelled back. “‘How do I love thee, let me count the ways’!”

They all laughed as the closing whistle sounded. Only twelve hours of work today, and weren’t they lucky? The overseer for the mill had announced this morning, a bit grudgingly, that it was a gesture of respect for the visit of President Andrew Jackson.

Or perhaps, some agreed, it was out of fear that the mill girls would otherwise fall asleep in their chairs at tonight’s splendid event.

L
yceum Hall looked as if it had been carved from a single block of cool stone, then crowned with a soaring steeple. Looming high on a hill above Lowell, it had the lines of a church, but it was more impressive than any church Alice had ever seen. She felt inspired. She mustn’t keep saving or sending every penny home. She must come here to learn. She would take notes and absorb all the knowledge she could. She would do everything necessary to pull herself up in the world. She and Lovey would do it together.

There was a flurry of movement as the mill girls lined up and began marching into the hall, two by two, through the huge double doors. “Sit up straight, be attentive,” a portly overseer announced as he wiped perspiration from his brow. “You’re important tonight. Old Mr. Fiske wants you to be the living examples of his magnificent new model of industry, do you understand?”

“We’re important,” Jane recited, standing up straight.

“Do you think the mills would close without us?” murmured Mary-o, her eyes wide.

“Heavens, no,” said Lovey. “They’d just bring in the Irish.”

It wasn’t said with her usual easy humor. Alice wondered if the other girls had even noticed.

Inside, arched stained-glass windows rose from floor to ceiling for the length of the hall. Alice could not take her eyes off them. Even now, after dark, the windows—lit from behind by lanterns—cast rich hues of red and blue and orange, flooding the hall with glowing light. Rainbows seemed to dance off the mahogany floors. It was as grand as a palace, she was sure.

“Look,” Tilda whispered, nodding toward the stage. “They’re all here, the whole family. Even Hiram Fiske and the daughter, Daisy. Look at her, she’s a pretty thing and she knows it.”

An old man sat to the left of a large podium, straight and tall. His hair was white, his well-groomed mustache a perfect snowy match. Rumors were he would soon retire. But now he gazed at the line of mill girls filing into their seats with the approving eye of a general reviewing his troops.

Alice knew the story. Hiram Fiske—with several partners—had built the Lowell mill after Francis Cabot Lowell died. It was Lowell who had toured the cotton mills of Britain, memorizing their structure and machines and techniques. Not allowed to make notes, he had kept the information all in his head—and brought back to America a new industry. And this was the man who had known him, worked with him. Aged though he was, Hiram Fiske certainly didn’t look to Alice like someone who would tolerate being pushed aside.

The young woman sitting to his right wore a peach-colored silk gown that perfectly set off her fair, translucent skin. She fanned herself vigorously, looking calmly bored, her thoughts somewhere else.

And there was Samuel Fiske. He stood erect, hands clasped behind his back in what seemed to be an effort at ease, looking both in demeanor and clothing as prepared for a funeral as for a wedding. His eyebrows were dark and thick, which she hadn’t noticed before. He had an ample mouth held in mannered reserve. He looked fully trained to take on the role of responsibility expected of an elder son. She wished she could see him smile. His expression now was quite serious as he leaned sideways to whisper something in his father’s ear.

Hiram frowned slightly, nodding his head, continuing to watch the girls with their matching parasols moving into their seats, giving them a wintry smile.

“He approves of us; that’s good. If we had decent working conditions, all would be splendid,” Lovey murmured. She tossed back her hair in a careless gesture that immediately drew Jonathan Fiske’s eye.

“Lovey, no, not tonight. Please don’t court attention,” warned Delia, looking quickly right and left, her voice strained. Alice thought she knew why. Delia had been upset when Mrs. Holloway insisted that Ellie could not go to hear President Jackson. A child would disturb the decorum; she would have to stay in the boardinghouse. The cook would watch her. Company orders. She did not budge from her stance even when Delia’s protests grew increasingly fevered. Lovey had given Delia a warning nudge—not good to cause a scene.

“Have you been hearing the same stories I’ve been hearing?” Lovey said now. “One of the men downstairs was combing cotton and got his hand caught in the carding machine yesterday. Lost two fingers.”

Alice’s gaze shifted back to Samuel; surely he hadn’t recognized her. But there was a flicker when their eyes caught. Embarrassed, she looked away.

Lovey suddenly yanked hard at her shoulder. “Take off your hat before she sees you,” she hissed, pointing urgently to Daisy Fiske.

Alice looked. Was Daisy wearing the same hat? Yes. She fumbled with the ribbons under her chin, but it was too late. Daisy Fiske was staring directly at her with startled indignation.

“Yours looks every bit as good as hers, and she paid much more than fifty cents,” Lovey whispered lightly. “Anyhow, you weren’t looking to make her your friend.”

Alice sank into her seat, unnerved by Daisy Fiske’s frosty glare. She glanced up again only once, this time at Samuel. For an instant she thought she saw a faint smile on his face, but it disappeared; she had only imagined it.

“T
hat mill girl, where did she get my hat?” Daisy Fiske whispered to her brothers. Her small mouth, the color of rosebuds, was pinched tight, with her lower lip protruding a bit more than usual. “Doesn’t she know that it is
not
appropriate for her?”

“Sorry, my dear sister—you can’t say, ‘Off with her head,’ and you can’t confiscate her hat,” Jonathan said, trying to hold back laughter.

“I’m certain it’s a poorly made copy, no one will think it’s yours,” Samuel retorted. He was weary of his sister’s flaring temper; surely she was past the age where her behavior could be excused as “a little spoiled.” His fingers flexed and intertwined, a nervous habit of sorts, his prelude to calming Daisy’s flare-ups, wondering—not for the first time—about women and their moods.

“Everyone is noticing,” Daisy complained. “I’ve been made a laughingstock.”

The sound of Hiram Fiske stamping his cane twice on the floor stopped her from saying more. The old man stood and walked slowly to the podium, raising his hand for silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “I have the great pleasure tonight to welcome Andrew Jackson, the president of the United States. He visits us today to see firsthand the visionary work we here in Lowell have undertaken—while giving unheard-of opportunity to these young women before us now.” His gaze briefly took in the array of mill girls before him. Then, with a theatrical gesture, Hiram extended his arm in the direction of the heavy curtains. “Make no mistake about it—we are changing the economics and the culture of this country. Ladies and gentlemen—President Jackson.”

A tall man with a long, craggy face and a thin, tightly sculpted mouth strode forward to enthusiastic applause.

“No praising of the president,” Jonathan whispered to his brother. “But then we know Father doesn’t trust him.”

“Jackson is not always a reliable friend of industry.”

“At least he doesn’t balk at using southern cotton; helps to have a slave owner in the White House.”

“We have no need for satisfaction there,” Samuel retorted.

“You’re always fighting the truth. We can’t say our hands are clean, can we?”

Samuel felt a familiar knot in his stomach. He did not reply.

J
ackson spoke for close to an hour, something about banking. The huge crowd listened respectfully, but there was impatient stirring in the seats as he wound down. Alice felt her eyelids growing heavy. Tomorrow would be another long day.

“Before I leave, I must say I am intrigued by these pretty women before me,” Jackson said. “Such bright, intelligent faces! This town is truly becoming a showpiece for respectable female employment, isn’t that right, young ladies?”

He stared down at Alice and the others. Startled, they nodded.

“So now”—he bowed in the Fiske family’s direction—“I would like to ask these pioneers a few questions. Do my hosts have any objections?”

Hiram looked pointedly at Jackson before giving a curt shake of his head. “No objections,” he said.

“Outperformed,” Jonathan muttered.

Jackson’s eyes looked coldly amused. Clearly, he liked Hiram no better than Hiram liked him.

“My dear,” he said, beckoning at Mary-o, who jumped up, vainly trying to hide the knitting in her lap. It slipped with a clatter to the floor. “What do you like best about working at the Lowell mill?”