The Reckoning (51 page)

There was Mr Pendlebury, red-faced with the constriction
of his stock and sporting a gold-embroidered waistcoat which
tinkled with dangling fobs and seals, bowing over Sophie's
hand and smirking with the confidence of prior acquaintance.
There was Mr Jack Withington, bulging in his clothes as
though he might split the seams with the very next flexing of
a muscle, and attempting quite blatantly to elbow every other
male aside.

There were the Ardwick twins, Richard and Robert, known
to their friends as Voice and Echo, and Mr Philip Spicer the
attorney's son, and Mr Adrian Worsley, who fancied himself a
poet and wore a soft collar and a pained expression. There were three unmarried Audenshaw boys who were as like as
three blonde peas in a pod and had five identical blonde
sisters to match, and the younger Droylsden who played the
violin
a merveille.

If it had been a ball, Sophie would have been engaged for
the whole evening within five minutes of arriving. No normal young woman in a new gown could object to being the centre
of so much flattering attention, but still Sophie turned with
relief when she saw Mr Hobsbawn, who had just arrived,
standing apart and watching her unsmilingly. The young
men's noise and nonsense had become a little wearying. She
was not accustomed to it, and as soon as she saw Jasper, she
realised how much better she would enjoy a rational conver
sation with someone who was not trying to impress her and
outdo his fellows in outrageous compliments.

‘
Miss Morland,' he said when she turned aside from them to greet him. 'It's kind of you to spare me a moment, when I
see your attention has so many claims on it.'

‘
I'm glad to see you, Mr Hobsbawn,' she said, offering her
hand. 'I didn't know you'd be here.’

He merely touched the ends of her fingers, his face still
grave. 'I was a little surprised to be asked. I am acquainted
with Farraline through our common interest in the mills, but
we have never met socially.’

Sophie retrieved her unwanted hand, cocking her head at
him, wonderingly. He sounded stern, even angry about some
thing. Now why? Did he think her frivolous? Did he disap
prove of all social events, or only of this one – and if so, why
had he come?

‘
Everyone seems to be here,' she said, since she had to say something.

It seemed to be the wrong thing. 'Yes, I suppose if they
have got so far down the list, they may well have come to me,'
he said bitterly.

She put her hand out impulsively. 'Please forgive me! I
didn't mean it like that at all. I was so glad when you came in
and I thought I should have someone agreeable to talk to
after all.’

He softened a little. 'Don't you find
them
agreeable? I
should have thought any young woman would like to be
flirted with by so many young men.’

Ah, that was it, Sophie thought. He believed her to have
been flirting, and disapproved of it. What a strictly moral
man he was! But she hastened to reassure him. 'They were noisy and tiresome, but they meant no harm – like puppies
playing, you know.’

He smiled at her suddenly. 'Puppies,' he said, as though the
word pleased him. When he smiled, his eyes lit up in a way
that made her feel very strange – humble and glad at the
same time. His eyes could be as bright as Father Rathbone's,
but with such a different light – a light that blessed and
strengthened, rather than devoured and ennervated. 'Should
you like to take a turn about the room, Miss Morland? It will
take you out of their range for a while, and give you a little
peace.’

He offered his arm, and she laid her hand on it without
hesitation. 'Thank you, you are very kind.'

‘
No, I'm not,' he said seriously. 'At the moment I'm being
entirely selfish.’

*

It was some time later when Jesmond Farraline came up to
them. 'Now really, Hobsbawn, I can't let you monopolise Miss
Morland like this. It's too bad of you. Miss Morland, I know
you are simply too polite to tell this fellow to be off, but with
every man in the room dying to make love to you as well –'

‘
Oh, but he was not,' Sophie said innocently. 'We were
talking about manufactories.’

Farraline laughed. 'Were you, indeed? What a sad dog you
are, Hobsbawn! Can't you find any better topic of conversa
tion than that when you're with a beautiful young woman?'

‘
It was what you talked to me about when we were in
Scarborough,' Sophie said.

Did I? I must have been mad. But I claim the privilege of
an old friend, Miss Morland, to ask your forgiveness.’

‘
But it's what I like. I'm interested in manufactories, especially now I've been to visit Hobsbawn Mills.'

‘
Have you, indeed? Then you must come and see Ordsall
Mills, too. They knock all other mills into a cocked hat, I
assure you. Shall I arrange a visit for you?'

‘
Oh – well, thank you – but –' Sophie was embarrassed.

‘
Miss Morland found the noise of the machines distressing,'
Jasper put in. 'I don't think she'd care to repeat the experi
ence. What we've been discussing is the welfare of the mill-
workers.’

A faint expression of distaste crossed Farraline's features.
‘Now don't tell me you're an Owenite, Hobsbawn! I had
thought better of your intelligence until now.’

It had not escaped Sophie's notice from the beginning that there was a faint air of hostility between the two men, which
she had not been able to account for; but now Farraline's
rudeness was overt, and she was shocked.

Jasper, however, leapt to the fray with energy. 'It surely
cannot have escaped even your notice that the mill-workers'
condition is pitiful, and that something must be done about
i
t.'

‘
Certainly something must be done about it. We must get
our interest represented in Parliament, which is exactly what
I have been trying to do these two years. I was saying to Sir
Robert Peel only the other day –'

‘
Precisely,' Hobsbawn interrupted hotly. 'Sir Robert is to
present the Ten Hours Bill to Parliament next year, and then
we shall see –'

‘
Oh, that! That's the biggest piece of nonsense –! How the
deuce are we to make a profit, tell me that?'

‘
But Owen has shewn how it can be done. He told the
Committee last year that he'd reduced the hours and still
produced more goods.'

‘
And as I remember, the Committee didn't believe a word
of it. They were quite adamant that it's not possible to
produce more goods from a spinning-machine without either
speeding up the machine or running it for longer.'

‘
I don't care what they
believed –
he shewed it for a fact!'

‘
But in any case, the Bill is wrong in principle, which I
should have thought you of all people would see,' said Farra
line sharply.

‘
Why is it wrong?' Sophie asked. The effect on both men
was almost comical – they had both evidently forgotten her
presence in the heat of their quarrel. Jasper reddened and
pressed his lips together, and Farraline looked embarrassed.

‘
I do beg your pardon, Miss Morland,' he said. 'It was inex
cusably rude of us to argue in front of you.'

‘
Oh, but please, Mr Farraline, now that you have, won't
you please explain? Because you said that you wanted to be
represented in Parliament in order to help the mill-workers.’

Farraline glanced doubtfully at Hobsbawn, who merely
turned his eyes away, and then he said, 'Well, ma'am, the Bill
Sir Robert Peel wants to introduce is intended to forbid the
employment of children under ten years old in cotton mills.'

‘
And to limit the hours of children over ten to ten a day,'
Jasper added.

‘
Just so. But I believe – most of us believe – that this is not
a legitimate area for Government interference. The ills that
beset factory-hands are not susceptible of improvement by
legislation. Who are we to tell parents they may not put their children into employment, if they wish? A parent must know
better what's right and good for his own child than a body of
men far away in London who have never seen the child, the
parent or the work-place.’

It all sounded very reasonable to Sophie, spoken in Farra
line's measured and cultured tones. 'But what did you want
Parliament to do, then?' she asked.

‘
To remove the Corn Laws, and allow the price of wheat to
fall, instead of keeping it unnaturally high to please the
farmers and landowners.’

Jasper could restrain himself no longer. 'That's all very
well, Farraline, but when you've seen, as I have, little children
of seven, eight and nine working thirteen hours a day until
they are too exhausted to stand, seen them crippled by it,
dying of it –'

‘
I've seen those sights, just as you have,' Farraline snapped,
‘but your way is wrong, wrong, wrong! In this kind of case, when Government interferes, it always makes things worse, not better. A Government's business is to raise taxes for the defence of the realm, and to enact such laws as enable us to
trade profitably with the rest of the world – and nothing
more. Good God, man, we want less regulation, not more!'

‘
There are some human activities that need regulation. We can't always do exactly as we like.'

‘
Do you want to license the Government to interfere in any
aspect of our lives it pleases? Interference, despotism, tyranny
– that was what we fought against with the French for twenty
years! People know their own interests best. Leave them
alone, and they'll find the answer to their problems sooner or
later, without interference from politicians and soldiers and
government spies.'

‘
That's all very well, when you're talking about healthy,
able people, with enough strength at the end of the day to
think about their problems. But when they're exhausted,
weak and undernourished –'