The Emperor (47 page)

‘Then we worked until dinner time, half past twelve, or
one o'clock. Dinner was oat cake with butter or treacle
spread on it, and a drink of milk. Twice a week we had an hour allowed us for dinner, while the machines were oiled.
On other days we had half an hour by turns, for the
machines never stopped turning.

‘We worked until six or seven at night, except in busy times, and then it might be nine or ten. We got very tired,
and then the overseers would beat us to keep us awake. The
little ones particularly kept falling asleep. There were often accidents because they fell asleep and got caught in the machinery.

‘
That's how I lost my fingers. They got caught in a wheel
and torn off. The surgeon was sent for at once, but I think
the wound has gone bad.

‘We had our supper after we had finished, in the Prentice
House. Usually it was thick porrage, or potatoes, or
pudding.

‘
On Sundays we only worked in the morning, cleaning
the machinery. We had boiled pork and potatoes for dinner,
with peas or turnips or cabbage, which made us feel very
sleepy. In the afternoon we went to school and then to church,
and then we were allowed to play, but mostly we just slept.

‘
I ran away because I couldn't bear it any more. Every
day was just like the last. We never sat down all day long,
and we were always hungry, and so tired at the end of the day. And then my hand wouldn't heal. I thought if I came
back here, Betsey would help me. I thought if I could hide
somewhere until my hand healed, I could get as far as Hull
and get work on a ship.

‘
I knew if I stayed at the mill, I would just die one day at
the machine. They never stop, day or night.’

*

In the drawing room, Jemima faced her sons and
daughter-in-law and read to them what Father Thomas had written down. Their reactions were very different. Edward looked embarrassed and indignant, Mary Ann shocked and
unhappy, while James's face was thoughtful and inscrutable.

When she had finished reading she said, 'I need not tell you how shocked I am. My dear,' she looked at Mary Ann, 'I fear I may offend you by plain speaking, but I hope you
know that I do not wish to hurt you.’

Mary Ann made a vague gesture. Various loyalties were
warring inside her, and her strongest desire was to run away
and cry. James looked at her with sudden sympathy, and
took her hand and pressed it. Edward jumped up.

‘
Really, Mother, I can't understand what you are making all
this fuss about. Ten to one but the boy is exaggerating anyway.'

‘
Would he have run away if he had not been unhappy?'
Jemima asked. Edward snorted.

‘
Unhappy? Good God, Mother, are we to enquire now
about the happiness of these people?'

‘
These are our dependants, Ned,' Jemima said. 'We have
a responsibility to them.'

‘
Yes, a responsibility to provide for them, which is
exactly what we have done. We have taken orphans, found
lings, illegitimate children out of the gutters and off the
roads, and given them useful employment whereby they can
support themselves. What more can you possibly want? Do
you want to bring them all up to the house and have them
lie about on sophas all day eating strawberries?'

‘
It's true, Mother,' James said mildly. 'The poor are the
poor. They are different from us. They have their work, and
we have ours.'

‘
We don't work thirteen or fourteen hours a day in vile
conditions,' Jemima said.

‘
Of course we don't, but our villagers do,' James said.
‘Why, even their children work just as long hours, from the
time they are able to stand. How often have you seen a child of four or five gleaning stones, or standing by a gate all day,
to earn pennies by opening it for travellers? Ned is right.
What do you want for them?’

Jemima clenched her hands. 'Of course our village
children work hard, but that is quite different. They are out
in the fresh air, not shut in a factory, with the noise and
fumes; and they work at their own pace, and their work follows
the seasons in the natural way. You heard what this boy said -every day is like the last, and the machines never stop.’

Edward sighed. 'For heaven's sake, Mother, someone has
to work in the mills; and if these people cannot get farm-
work, they must do factory work. You refine too much
upon it, I am sure. Your poor have not your sensibilities,
depend upon it.’

Jemima said deliberately, 'This boy has been starved, and
beaten, and ill-treated. His hours of work and living
conditions have been other than was agreed upon. It is a
breach of contract.'

‘
And what do you propose to do about it?' Edward
asked more quietly. He flicked a glance at James and Mary
Ann. 'Don't forget we are bound to the Hobsbawn mills by
more than apprentices.’

Jemima stared at him. 'You knew about it, didn't you?
When you went to Manchester last month, you must have
seen. Why didn't you tell me?'

‘
For this very reason,' Ned said. 'Oh, I didn't see the
Prentice House, or any signs of ill-treatment. But the fact is,
Mother, that you had got fixed in your mind the image of a
mill in a green valley, and you were not going to like giving
it up for reality. If you had never seen that damned place at
Cromford, you would think this boy's story nothing out of
the ordinary.’

Mary Ann stood up suddenly. 'I never saw the mills,' she
said to Jemima. 'I knew nothing about them.'

‘
No-one blames you ...' Jemima began, but Mary Ann
interrupted.

‘
Is there blame in the case? The poor must work. It is for
us to provide them with work. And yet – they look to us
also for protection. I don't know. I don't know.' She bit her
lip, her expression deeply troubled.

Jemima looked at her with more sympathy than she had ever felt for her, and then said firmly to Edward, 'We shall
send no more children to the mills; and as to those we have
sent already, I shall make my decision in a day or two, when
I have had time to reflect. For now, the discussion is at an end. I need hardly mention, I hope, that this business must
be kept between us, and must go no further.' She turned
towards her daughter-in-law. 'My dear, I am going to the
chapel. Will you come with me? Father Thomas – ‘

Left alone, James and Edward looked at each other.

‘She'll get over it,' James said. 'She is too tender.'

‘
We had better hope she does. Can you imagine what
Hobsbawn will say if we accuse him of cruelty and contract-
breaking? Mother's too old to cope with matters of business
such as this – she should leave it to me. I'd have sent the boy
back under guard, and dismissed the girl, and no-one would
have known a thing about it.'

‘
What will you do?' James asked, regarding him thought
fully.

‘
We'll have to wait and see. Once all the fuss has died down, I dare say we can continue in the old way, without
Mother's knowing anything about it. What the devil can we do with all the pauper children if we don't send them to the mills?' he burst out irritably. 'Mother's living in a different
age. She just doesn't realize how many of them there are, or
what a drain they are on the parish. The mills are the best
solution for everyone.'

‘I dare say you are right,' said James.

 
While Mary Ann took a turn at sitting with Timmy, Jemima
went down to breakfast. She sat down heavily in her chair at
the breakfast table, too tired to want to eat, and James with
silent sympathy put down the
Mercury
and poured her a
cup of coffee. Edward was half way through carving a thick
slice from the fragrant mutton ham in front of him and
could not pause in the delicate labour until he had it safe
and symmetrical upon his knife, when he offered it by a
gesture to his mother. She shook her head, and Edward laid
it carefully on his own plate, added two handsome pork
cutlets fried in oatmeal and a couple of veal kidneys.

‘Well, Mama, how's the patient?' he asked.

‘
His fever is higher,' Jemima replied mechanically. 'I
don't think he knows where he is, now.’

James broke a piece of bun off the wig, split and buttered
it, and placed it on his mother's plate, and as an after
thought lifted her hand from her lap and rested it beside the
plate. She looked at him blankly for a moment, and then
gave a tired smile and began to eat.

‘
That's probably all to the good,' Edward said. 'This ham
is really delicious. Won't you let me carve you a slice?’

Jemima put down the bun. 'What do you mean, it's all to
the good?'

‘
I mean that there's been enough talk about this business
already. That deposition you took, Mama – well, it was
unwise, in my view.' James coughed a mild warning, and
Edward shrugged. 'Oh well, I'm sorry for the child, of
course, but he's obviously going to die, and nothing will
change that. It's better for him that he is delirious and does
not know his pain.'

‘What are you talking about?' Jemima said dangerously.

‘
Oh Ned, let mother have her breakfast in peace, can't you?' James interposed, but neither of them paid him any
heed.

‘
What I mean, Mother, is that the best thing that you can do now is forget about the whole unpleasant business. Bury
the boy, send the girl as far away as possible, and say no
more about it to anyone.'

‘You mean that you believe that we should go on sending
apprentices to Manchester?' Jemima asked. James picked
up the newspaper and retired from the scene, while Edward
actually put down his knife and fork.

‘
Yes, I mean exactly that. You can have no idea, Mama, how much the foundlings cost the parish. We can place one or two as domestic or farm servants, but there simply aren't
places for all of them, and there are more vagrants coming
in all the time. We have to provide for them, and the mill-
owners are the only employers who can absorb such
numbers.'

‘
You can say that, knowing what you know?' Jemima
said slowly. Edward ran his fingers through his hair in exas
peration.

‘
I just don't know what you want, Mother! Frankly, I'm
surprised to find you taking up such a revolutionary
attitude, when you've two sons out there at sea, fighting
against those very ideas!’

Jemima thrust her chair away and stood up, glaring
across the table at her son. ‘How dare you speak to me like
that?' she said in a low, angry voice. 'You presume to tell
me my duty? I think I know it a great deal better than you.
These people look to us for protection and guidance. There
will be no more apprentices – and Betsey shall not be sent
away. Those are my final words on the subject.'

‘
But Mama, we must have progress!' Edward cried, and
Jemima's voice rose in answer.

‘
Not at the cost of the old values! No, Ned! No more!'
She looked from him to James, who gave a small shrug and
picked up his coffee cup, declining to take sides. ‘I don't
understand any more,' she said wearily. ‘My own children –
what has happened to the world? I don't understand any
thing any more.' And she turned away and left the room.

Edward made a face of exasperation and went back to
his plate, tackling the cutlets with a compensatory ferocity.
James sipped his coffee and turned a page.

‘
I wish you would let Mother alone for long enough to
eat her breakfast,' he said. ‘Now you see she has had
nothing. You could have said those things later.'

‘
Oh shut up, Jamie,' Edward said crossly. ‘Just because
you have no principles, it doesn't mean to say that everyone
else must abandon theirs.'