Threads of Silk (12 page)

Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You don’t understand….’

Norah sat back in her chair. ‘I was right then. You did run away? And Helen Scott’s not your real name?’

Ellie nodded.

‘But you have got family? Trevor said you were supposed to be going to your sister after your grandmother died.’ Norah touched her arm again. ‘Why don’t you get in touch with her? Surely she’ll be pleased you’re safe.’

‘She’s only my half-sister – and she doesn’t really care,’ Ellie said.

‘But Helen, she’s family.’ Norah sighed. ‘It’s only when you’ve got no one left that you realize how important that really is.’

‘Gran was the only one who cared,’ Ellie said. She wouldn’t think of Mum – or Harry. Her mother should have stood up to Bert. And if Harry really loved her, he wouldn’t have married that German girl.

‘I’m sure your sister cares too. At least get in touch with her – tell her you’re safe.’

‘I sent a card at Christmas. They know I’m all right,’ Ellie said. ‘Anyway I can’t go to Sheila. I can’t stand her husband. Just being in the same room with him….’ She gave a little shudder and bit her lip.

Norah nodded. ‘Some men make you feel like that, don’t they?’ she said with a smile.

‘I don’t know what she sees in him,’ Ellie said. She remembered his sleazy smile, the way he’d looked her up and down. She’d tried so hard to forget that part of her life. Why had Norah brought it up? She began to shake and tears spilled over.

Norah put her arms round her and let her sob. At last she gave a shaky sigh and sniffed away her tears.

‘That’s better, love. Now – tell me, what brought all that on?’ Norah said. ‘Do you miss your family – is that it? Why can’t you go home, love?’

‘You don’t understand.’ Ellie bit back another sob. She couldn’t confide in her friend. Better to try to forget them all – Harry as well. She leaned forward in her chair. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re only trying to help and I do appreciate all you’ve done for me.’

‘That’s what friends are for,’ Norah told her.

‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you – Trevor too, but it’s time I started standing on my own feet. I don’t want to be a waitress all my life. I want to make something of myself so if I do ever go back home I can show them my education wasn’t a waste of time.’

‘Education’s never a waste,’ said Norah.

Ellie smiled and changed the subject. ‘Trevor told me you used to work in a silk mill. What was your job, Norah?’ she asked.

‘I was a throwster,’ Norah said proudly.

‘What’s that?’

‘I worked the machine that twisted the silk threads, before they were woven into material. It’s a very skilled job.’

‘They used to make silk in Bethnal Green – not far from where I used to live. There was an old row of weavers’ cottages, with big windows upstairs. But they were pulled down a couple of years ago. And there aren’t any mills left in London,’ Ellie said. ‘I didn’t realize there were any left in this country at all.’ She remembered the beautiful fabrics she’d seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum and her efforts to reproduce the designs for her art portfolio.

‘There’s not many – most of them have converted to making these new materials, nylon and such, especially up north. I sometimes wonder how Turner’s keeps going,’ Norah said. She sighed and began to reminisce about her old job and Ellie listened fascinated. During the war, the mill at Withies Green had woven thousands of yards of silk for parachutes and Norah had been proud doing such important work. ‘We’d stopped throwing our own silk by then – I went on to the weaving,’ she said.

‘Why did you leave?’ Ellie asked.

‘I couldn’t face going back after Bob’s accident,’ she said. ‘He came back there to work after the war – got his arm caught in a machine and lost a lot of blood. He should have been all right. But he was weak after being so long in the prison camp. He couldn’t fight the infection, you see.’ Norah’s voice trailed away and Ellie squeezed her arm sympathetically.

‘I’d like a job like that – something I can take pride in,’ she said.

‘So, what are we going to do with you, then?’

‘I really don’t know.’ Ellie said, ‘But, listening to your tales of working in the mill, I’d like to do something like that. Do they still make silk there?’

‘I think I’d have heard if Turner’s had gone out of business,’ Norah said. ‘But, Ellie – for all the skills you need, it’s just factory work really. Are you sure that’s what you want?’

Ellie gave a bitter little laugh. ‘I’m not really in a position to be choosy, am I?’

‘I suppose not. But really it’s nimble fingers you want – not brains.’ Norah held out her red, work-worn hands. ‘I’d be no good now.’ She gave a little laugh.

Ellie, her imagination full of images of rainbow-hued silks spilling out of the machines, nodded enthusiastically when Norah promised to write to her old boss to see if there were any vacancies.

Ellie ignored the jolting of the bus and read the letter again. Although she was nervous, she was determined to impress Mr Turner with her willingness to work and her genuine interest in the business of silk manufacture.

When she’d been invited for an interview, she’d gone to the library in Chelmsford to read up about it, discovering that Essex had once been a thriving centre for the silk industry. Fascinated, she read avidly until she felt she was almost an expert although she’d never seen a
spinning-machine
or a loom in her life.

Turner’s Mill was midway between Chelmsford and Braintree and when the conductor called out ‘next stop – Withies Green’, Ellie made her way to the front of the bus. She consulted the piece of paper on which Norah had written the directions. Yes, this was the right stop. There was the church and tucked away behind it was the mill, a tall building with large windows set under the eaves, surrounded by several smaller sheds and outbuildings. Some of them looked a bit run down, but it was a pretty scene and, for the first time in months, Ellie felt the urge to get out her paints.

She crossed a bridge over a stream and approached the huddle of buildings, hearing the clatter of machinery. A man crossed the yard in front of her, his arms full of pieces of different-coloured material – samples, she guessed. Maybe he was a sales representative. She ran after him.

‘Excuse me – I’m looking for Mr Turner. I have an appointment,’ she said.

‘Well – you’ve found him,’ the young man said, smiling down at her from his considerable height. ‘However, if I had made an appointment with such a lovely young lady, I’m sure I’d have remembered.’

Ellie’s cheeks reddened under his scrutiny as she explained that she’d come about a job.

‘Oh, sorry – wrong Mr Turner.’ He laughed. ‘You want my father – through that door there,’ he said, pointing.

Ellie hurried away, conscious that he was watching her. Although his manner seemed pleasant, she hadn’t liked the way he looked her up and down. She hoped Mr Turner senior wasn’t too much like his son.

She knocked on the door of the long, low building beside the stream and entered hesitantly. A tall, stooped man with grey hair looked at her over his glasses.

‘Ah, you must be Miss Scott – or may I call you Helen?’ he asked with old-fashioned courtesy. ‘Do sit down.’

Ellie sat in the chair opposite the wide oak desk which almost filled the tiny room. She folded her hands over her handbag, clenching her fingers nervously.

Mr Turner smiled over his glasses and proceeded to question her about her education and background. She answered as truthfully as she could without being specific and held her breath as he picked up the letter she had written, reading it through again.

‘Well, young lady, I was very impressed with your handwriting and spelling. But I have to say that, despite your seeming interest in our products, this isn’t really the place for a girl with a grammar-school education.’

Why had he wasted her time asking her for an interview then? Ellie stifled her protest and stood up, ready to leave. Mr Turner raised a hand, gesturing her to sit again.

‘Wait – I haven’t finished yet. I do have a job for you.’

She leaned forward eagerly but Mr Turner sighed as he confessed that the mill wasn’t doing very well. As Norah had told her, they no longer threw their own silk but bought it ready twisted ready for weaving. And the market for silk had dropped off – ousted by cheaper fabrics from abroad, as well as the synthetics that were being produced more cheaply by mills in the north.

‘I don’t understand,’ Ellie said.

‘We won’t close down – not if I can help it. I just hope my son will be ready to take over when I decide I’ve had enough.’ Mr Turner took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. ‘He’ll go over to man-made fabrics though – if he wants to keep in production.’

‘Norah – Mrs Jenkins – told me the mill had been in your family for over a hundred years,’ Ellie said.

‘Yes. We have a long history – Digances, who owned it before, were a family connection, so you could say the family tradition goes back more than three hundred years.’ He smiled at her. ‘We used to do everything here – throwing, dyeing, weaving all sorts of fabrics – damasks, crêpe, brocades. Now it’s just plain material – the sort of thing used for ladies’ petticoats and such.’

She wondered when he’d get round to explaining what the job was. But he seemed to be rambling now. ‘Thought Turner’s would go on for ever – foolish old man that I am. Would’ve been different if Philip was here to take over. Michael’s not interested.’ Ellie remembered Norah saying that one of his sons had been killed in the war.

Mr Turner stopped speaking abruptly and looked up, focusing on Ellie. ‘Don’t mind me, young lady.’ He straightened the papers on his desk. ‘Oh dear, I haven’t told you what your duties will be. You must think me very unbusinesslike.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘It’s all these papers, you see. I need everything sorted out and put in order. I haven’t been too well lately and I’ve rather let things slide. The last girl I had left rather suddenly and my son’s been too busy to see to it.’

Ellie’s heart sank. She didn’t know the first thing about office work. And Mr Turner seemed so vague. But Norah had said he was a good boss – and she had taken a liking to the old man. The loss of his elder son had clearly affected him deeply. Ellie felt a stab of anger towards the young man she’d encountered in the yard. Surely he could take more of an interest – if only for the sake of his father?

‘Well – will you take the job?’ Mr Turner asked.

‘Thank you – yes, I’d love to,’ Ellie said. She’d worry about what to do when the time came. It couldn’t be that difficult to sort out a few papers and file them away.

Ellie’s first day in her new job went well, although she was disappointed that Mr Turner himself wasn’t there to show her the ropes. When she entered the cramped little office her heart sank as young Mr Turner – she couldn’t call him Michael – rose from behind the desk.

She didn’t like the way he smiled at her – or the insinuation in his voice when he said, ‘I think we’re going to enjoy working together.’

She hoped he’d show her what he wanted done and leave her to get on with it. But first, he took her on a tour of the mill. The office was a partitioned-off area at the end of a long, low building which had once been the throwing shed but was now filled with a jumble of old,
worn-out
machinery.

Michael smirked as he opened the door and imparted this information and Ellie guessed he thought she knew nothing about silk production. The smirk disappeared when she asked, ‘Where do you get your thrown silk from now? Is it imported from abroad?’

‘It comes from France and Italy usually. But we buy ours from an import firm based in Bristol,’ he said.

‘And what happened to the throwsters when they lost their jobs. Did you find them work in the weaving and dyeing sheds?’

‘Some of them – most left to go and work in Chelmsford.’ As they crossed the yard he said, ‘I didn’t realize you’d worked in the silk industry before.’

She smiled and didn’t enlighten him. He opened the door to another building and stood back to let her see. ‘I don’t suppose I have to tell you what goes on here?’ he said.

A row of vats from which arose a pungent smell told Ellie this must be the dyeing shed. She could see that Michael was put out by her knowledge and she felt a little burst of pleasure that the hours spent in the library hadn’t been wasted. She had a feeling that Mr Turner Junior loved feeling superior and lording it over the people in his employ. What would he be like if he ever did take over from his father?

In the weaving-shed the noise was deafening and Ellie flinched. Norah had warned her about this and she was glad she wouldn’t be working here. She didn’t think she could stand it for long. But the girls standing at the rows of machines didn’t seem bothered. As their fingers flew nimbly back and forth they were laughing and talking, although it seemed impossible that they could hear each other.

Michael shouted in her ear, explaining that she would be required to collect the time sheets from the workers at the end of each shift and make sure they were filled in properly. Ellie nodded, stepping closer to the machine to examine the fabric that was spilling off the rollers at the end, a blue figured silk.

Ellie smiled at the girl working the machine and she smiled back. But, after a quick glance at Michael, she ducked her head and concentrated on her work. Ellie saw her surreptitiously nudge the girl next to her and in seconds the laughter and chatter had died and heads were bent industriously over the machines.

Michael Turner took hold of Ellie’s elbow and drew her outside. ‘Nothing like the sight of the boss’s son to keep them on their toes,’ he said. Catching Ellie’s expression, he laughed. ‘Just joking. They’re not a bad crowd. Still, I’d better have a word with the overseer.’

Ellie had been at Turners for a couple of weeks and had picked up the office work very quickly. Now all the files were in order and she had time to deal with the litter of orders and correspondence overflowing the baskets and trays on the desk. She had even started learning to type – using old scrap paper and picking out the letters hesitantly, like a hen pecking at corn. She wished she could do it properly and made up her mind to go to evening classes.

From her perusal of the ledgers and order-books she had deduced that things weren’t as bad as old Mr Turner had hinted. But the old man was in poor health and just didn’t seem to care any more. And Michael only seemed interested in strutting around, looking important and watching out for slackers.

Her first impression of him hadn’t changed and she dreaded him coming into the office, leaning on the edge of the desk and smirking as she tried to work.

He was there again today and she was glad when a sudden silence indicated that the machines in the weaving shed had stopped and work was finished for the day. Ellie put the cover on the typewriter and grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair.

‘No need to rush off, Helen,’ Michael drawled, getting up and blocking the door. ‘I’ll give you a lift home.’

‘I’d rather catch the bus,’ Ellie snapped, pushing past him. She rushed out into the yard as the crowd of girls from the weaving-shed dispersed, hoping frantically that Jackie Wilson hadn’t gone yet.

Her new friend, a bubbly vivacious girl a little older than herself, caught the same bus home. Whenever Ellie went into the weaving-sheds it was her laughter that could be heard above the noise of the machines and she seemed very popular with the other workers, old and young alike. They’d become friendly when Ellie collected the time sheets. One or two of the girls seemed to resent anyone from the office encroaching on their territory. But Jackie smiled and introduced herself. While they chatted, her fingers flew busily, checking the tension on the warp and watching for any broken threads.

Ellie watched fascinated, wishing she could pluck up the nerve to ask if she could have a go. But she was afraid of offending the girl. Neither of them noticed that Michael had entered the shed until his sharp voice interrupted them.

‘You’re paid to attend the machines – not to stand around gossiping,’ he said. He turned to Ellie, ‘Miss Scott – your place is in the office.’

Flustered, Ellie indicated the bundle of time sheets. But Jackie didn’t seem put out. She smiled at the boss’s son. ‘Oh well, you know what they say, Mr Michael – all work and no play.’ She laughed. ‘It would be a poor show if we had to be miserable all the time – like some I could mention.’

Michael only glared at her and stalked away after snapping at Ellie. ‘Don’t be long – I need those sheets in the office.’

Jackie grinned. ‘There’s one that knows how to play all right. Pity he doesn’t set us an example and do some work himself for a change.’ She handed her time sheet to Ellie and turned back to her machine. ‘See you at the bus stop,’ she said.

The funny thing was, Jackie’s cheek never seemed to get her into trouble. Ellie envied her confidence and wished she too had the courage to speak up for herself.

Jackie and a few of the other girls were still at the bus stop and Ellie breathed a sigh of relief when the bus came along before Michael had time to turn his car round in the yard and come after her.

‘Young master been making a nuisance of himself, has he?’ Jackie laughed as they flopped into a seat. She gestured out of the window, where the silver-blue Triumph could be seen streaking away down the main road in a cloud of exhaust.

Ellie felt herself reddening. Maybe she was reading too much into young Mr Turner’s remarks. But, for someone who seemed to do very little work, he spent a lot of time in the office.

‘I wish he’d leave me alone,’ she muttered.

Jackie laughed. ‘Some might say you could do worse – the boss’s son, and a good-looking feller at that.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t care if he was a millionaire,’ she said.

‘I’m glad you’ve got your head screwed on right,’ Jackie said, abandoning her teasing tone. ‘I wasn’t sure at first – thought you might actually like him. But I ought to warn you – he’s the same with all the new girls. Tries it on, butters them up – then when he’s had what he wants, he goes on to the next silly cow who’s taken in by those baby blues.’ She looked at Ellie thoughtfully. ‘You ought to be careful though. He’s been known to make life very difficult for those that refuse him.’

‘Don’t worry – I’ve met his type before,’ Ellie said, smiling. She wondered what the other girl would say if she knew Ellie had been propositioned by a famous film star – Philip Devereux, no less. She bit her lip. That part of her life was over. No one must ever know how she’d almost been drawn into a life of shame and degradation – even if it had been none of her doing.

She looked out of the bus window, only half-listening to Jackie’s gossip, lost in memories of her former life – memories she’d tried hard to suppress over the past year. Gradually she was beginning to realize that she shouldn’t feel such shame and guilt – the only person to blame was the man she’d once called ‘Dad’. Now, she felt nothing but hatred for the man who’d blighted her childhood and made her grow up all too soon.