Cat's Cradle (13 page)

‘No, sir,' I replied, wondering what on earth a tenter and a piecer were, but he seemed to expect us to know.

‘Well, lass, you look young enough to stay in the girls' dormitory in Mill Four, but as for your friend, I'm afraid she's too old to be placed among the weans. I'll have words with one of the schoolteachers and see if she has room for a guest.' He tapped his watch chain, reviewing arrangements, checking he had not forgotten something. ‘Report to the overseer tomorrow when work starts: he will give you your tasks. Now if that is all I can do for you?' There was a definite note of dismissal in his tone.

I bobbed a curtsey. ‘Thank you. You've been very kind.'

‘My pleasure.' He showed us to the door. Opening it, he spotted Jamie sitting on the stoop. ‘Ah, Jamie Kelly, isn't it?'

The boy leapt to his feet, cap in hand. ‘Aye, maister.'

‘Show the young lass to Mill Four. She's staying with us a wee while.'

‘Very good, sir.'

Mr Dale turned to Bridgit. ‘I'll send you to the schoolmistress with one of my servants. You'll see each other tomorrow.'

Though I did not like being parted from Bridgit, I could find no grounds to protest the arrange ment. Dipping a final curtsey, I picked up my bag, bade Bridgit farewell, and stepped outside. Jamie set off at a fast clip down the path.

‘Jamie Kelly!' came Mr Dale's voice, much louder now. ‘Where's your manners, lad?'

Striding back, Jamie tugged the bag from my hands, doffed his cap to the master and set off again, me lagging behind.

‘I'm not your mule,' Jamie muttered mutinously.

‘But you act like one,' I quipped, feeling I was definitely coming out on top of this verbal sparring match.

He headed towards the endmost building in the manufactory, stamped across the wooden bridge over the millstream and deposited my bag at the door. With two thumps on the wood, he turned back to me.

‘The goodwife will look after ye from here, snippie.'

‘You've been most gracious,' I replied, trying not to smile at his ridiculous bad humour. Just because I'd proved him wrong about Mr Dale!

‘Ye willna be so gleg-tonguit after a day in the mill,' he said, with every sign that he relished the prospect.

The door opened and a harassed-looking woman stood in the entrance, long grey hair tumbling out of a bun.

‘Another lass for ye, mistress,' Jamie declared, nodding to me. He smiled in anticipation. ‘A Sassenach.'

‘Lord save us, what was the maister thinking, sending her to me?' the woman moaned. ‘As if I dinna have enough orphans to manage.'

Jamie shrugged and trotted away, kicking a
stone ahead of him. ‘See ye later, snippie,' he called over his shoulder.

The woman jerked her head. ‘Come in then, hen. I'll see if I can find ye a bed someplace.'

With a sigh, I picked up my bag and followed her.

‘I should warn ye,' the woman continued, mounting a steep flight of stairs, ‘the other weans willna like a Sassenach among them.'

So that was why Jamie had been so happy to leave me here. I couldn't do anything about my nationality, nor the fact that I would be staying for at least a night, so I decided it was best not to dwell on these ominous words.

‘I'd just be grateful for somewhere to lay my head, ma'am,' I replied politely.

‘Ye can call me Goodwife Ross.' She paused outside another door at the head of the stairs.

‘Pleased to meet you, goodwife. I'm Cat.' I held out my hand.

She just looked at my grubby palm, then at my face. ‘And what kind of name is that?'

‘Er . . . I mean Catherine,' I amended hastily,
taking back my hand and wiping it on my skirt. It was probably for the best that I was not introduced to anyone as Cat; I didn't want the Moirs to know I was there before I was ready to tell them.

‘Well then, in ye go, Catherine.'

She opened the door to reveal a dormitory filled with tiny beds. All the windows stood open, making the place feel very chilly, an atmosphere reinforced by the whitewashed walls and bare floor.

‘Ye'll sleep two or three to a bed, but ye'll have to wait until this evening to find a space.'

I nodded, hugging my arms to my sides. It was no more than I expected; I'd shared beds before, if never in a room as large as this. ‘Is there somewhere I can stow my bag?'

‘Aye. I'll keep it for ye. It'll be safe wi' me. Mind ye remember, Catherine, we're a God-fearing community – ye need nae fear for yer goods and gear. But we willna stand for snecking. It'll be out on yer ear at the first sign o' trouble.'

I murmured my agreement, though exactly what ‘snecking' was remained a mystery. But the general thrust of what she said was clear: it was a
privilege to work here, a punishment to be expelled from this paradise. To my mind, raised among the colourful splendours of the theatre, this place was a cold, bare Eden.

‘Supper will be at seven. Then ye'll go wi' the others to the school. Back by nine and into bed.'

‘School?' I was faintly surprised by the late hours the scholars kept here.

‘Aye, hen. Ye'll want to learn to read and write.'

‘But I can – do both, I mean.' I did not add that I could manage this in several languages thanks to my unorthodox upbringing in the multilingual environment backstage.

My words were met with scepticism. ‘Hmm. We'll see, nae doubt. The dominie will examine ye. Take yer rest, Catherine. Just follow the others at the bell.'

The goodwife bustled out, leaving me alone. She was right: I did feel desperately tired, not so much in body but in spirits. My desire to find my family no longer burned so brightly in my heart as I feared, Reader, that it was bound to end in disappointment of one sort or another. I stretched
out on the nearest bed and linked my hands on my stomach, staring at the ceiling, watching a cobweb waft gently in the breeze. Having come so far, I could but wait and see.

*
A note on the Scottish language: as I don't want my readers unfamiliar with the Scottish dialect to find difficulties following the dialogue, I have taken the liberty of ‘translating' some of what was said to me. I've kept a few terms, with explanations in my glossary, but inevitably I fear a little of the music and colour of the language has been sacrificed. Apologies to my Scottish friends.

*
For this painful episode, please see
Cat O'Nine Tails
.

Two hours later, a bell rang in the yard. The rattle of the looms slowed, then muttered into silence. This layer of sound stripped out, I was now able to hear the river below the windows of the dormitory – a soothing murmur after the clatter of the machines. The reprieve was short-lived. With the rumble of approaching thunder, voices resounded out side, echoing off the high walls – shouts, shrieks, laughter. I sat up and brushed my hair with my fingers, looking expectantly towards the door. I admit, Reader, to some feelings of trepidation as to who might come through. A few minutes later, mill girls poured into the room, chatting merrily, yawning, stretching with weariness. Some pulled off long white aprons and hung them on pegs along the wall; others splashed their faces with water set out in a basin on the washstand; friends picked off cotton fluff from
each other's hair. I waited, wondering when someone would notice me.

‘That isna yer bed.'

I felt a shove in the shoulder blades from behind. I got up and turned to face my challenger.

‘I know,' I replied, deciding to rise above such rudeness and smile in a friendly fashion at the stout, brown-haired girl on the other side of the mattress. ‘I haven't been given one yet.'

She wrinkled her brow, picking her way through my words. ‘Ye're a Sassenach.'

I grimaced. ‘'Fraid so.'

‘Annie, take a keek at the new lass!'

A girl of my height with russet curls and a turned-up nose was too busy tying her laces to pay me much attention. ‘What lass be that, Martha?'

‘This red-topped Sassenach standing right here – in our room.' Martha put her hands on her hips and glared at me.

Annie looked up. The ‘S' word was repeated from girl to girl and I soon found myself surrounded by a crowd of inquisitive but not very friendly strangers.

‘What are ye doing here?' Martha asked.

I crossed my arms defensively. ‘I've come to work.'

Martha's eyes ran over my well-made pelisse, dress and shoes – a mixture of hand-me-downs from Lizzie and items purchased from my meagre earnings as an actress. Though hardly the first stare of fashion, the clothes marked me out as a person of some substance. The girls, by contrast, were all dressed in a uniform of white cotton blouses and light grey skirts, woollen stockings and boots. ‘Ye dinna look like ye need to work for yer bread.'

I just shrugged at that. Little did she know.

‘Win off our bed, Sassenach. We dinna want any o' yer soothlan fleches biting us the nicht.'

‘I don't have fleas!' I protested, having worked out her insult from the giggles of the other girls.

‘We dinna believe the flech-lass, do we?' Martha appealed to the other girls.

It was an infantile way of humiliating me, Reader, but very effective. I moved away from the bed, considering my options for retaliation. I had
wanted to win some friends among my roommates, but Martha was smoothly isolating me by making me an object of mockery. She probably didn't want to share her bed, seeing as how her ample frame took up so much room.

Well, two could play at that game.

‘I did not have fleas when I entered this room today. Are you telling me that I may have picked them up from your mattress?' I searched my arms suspiciously, checking for bites. I moved towards her. ‘Wait a moment! Hold still.' I stared at her, transfixed by something on her head.

Martha's eyes widened. ‘What is it?'

I slapped my hand down on her crown and then pretended to pick something off. ‘There! Got it.'

‘I dinna have fleches!' Martha exploded, pushing my hands away.

I grinned. ‘No more do I. Now you know how it feels.'

A couple of the other girls giggled at Martha's blushing cheeks.

‘Ye'll no last a day at our mill, Sassenach,'
jeered Martha, retreating from the battle.

‘We'll see,' I replied evenly, pretending not to be ruffled by her hostility.

The girls began to leave the dormitory, heading down to supper. I tagged along at the end, wondering bleakly if there was anyone who would risk befriending me. I could sorely do with an ally or two to teach me the ropes – or threads in the case of the mill. I caught up with the girl called Annie who had lingered to put on a shawl. I'd noticed her throw me a look or two which, though not warm, had not seemed unsympathetic.

‘Hello. I'm Catherine by the way.'

She gave me a reluctant nod. ‘Hello, Catherine-by-the-way.'

I smiled. ‘Just Catherine will do.'

The girl unbent enough to introduce herself. ‘I'm Annie McGregor.'

‘Pleased to meet you, Annie. Would you mind showing me where the dining room is? I'm starving.'

‘Aye, I'll do that.' She beckoned me to follow her and we set off down the stairs, on the floor
below, joining up with a stream of boys heading in the same direction. They were dressed in a similar plain uniform, with grey woollen breeches and jackets over their cotton shirts.

‘What do you do in the mill, Annie?' I asked, trying to push past her reserves into the friendlier territory of conversation.

‘I'm a piecer.'

‘What does that mean?'

She gave me a funny look, astounded that anyone would not know such a basic thing, but replied anyway. ‘I twist the threads together when they break on the mule.'

I guessed she wasn't talking donkeys. ‘And the mule is . . . ?'

‘It's the machine that spins the thread from the cotton.'

I tried to imagine such a thing – thinking it must look like some big spinning wheel. ‘So how do you mend the strands?'

She laughed at my expression. ‘Why, ye are an unkennin lass! Ye must crawl under the mule to fix the pieces, o' course.' I did not like the sound of
this job at all, though surely it couldn't be worse than climbing a mast in a gale or emptying chamber pots? ‘Ye have a minute or two to do it while the machine rests, but it is best to be gleg and keep yer head down.'

Gleg – she must mean quick. I would certainly try to be that. I didn't fancy being caught up in the machine as it set to work again – rather worse than being trampled by mules, I guessed. I stored her words of advice away for the morrow as we turned into a room set out with tables and benches. The meal was already underway, hundreds of children eating bowls of porridge and drinking from cups of milk. Almost the same meal as breakfast, Annie explained, though sometimes the cooks added bacon in the evening. At least the portions looked plentiful – my stomach was grumbling and had not been full since dawn. There was no sign of Bridgit.