With Love From Ma Maguire (49 page)

‘I own the mills. But I’m still an ordinary chap, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I wouldn’t know, sir.’

‘Oh, come on! Why don’t you want to work with your brother?’

She sighed resignedly, then looked him straight in the eye. ‘Might as well hang for a sheep, I suppose,’ she muttered. ‘Have you ever been a twin, Mr Swainbank?’

‘No. No, I haven’t.’

‘Well, you’ve missed nowt, I can tell you. It’s murder at times – like having your shadow with you all the while, even in the dark, somebody you’re fastened to through no fault of your own. I love my brother, Mr Swainbank, but I want to be . . . oh, I don’t know—’

‘Independent?’

‘Aye, that’s it. I want to make me own way. They’re all mad with me at home, mouthing off ’cos Gran’s got these shops and I should know which side me bread’s buttered. Only I need to be . . . separate.’

Charles stared at her. These were the things he would have known, should have known about his own daughter. That she was free-spirited, imaginative, bright. Fifteen years he had missed. Now she came to him, a grown-up new baby with her character formed by circumstances he might have altered or improved. ‘It’s a hard life in a cotton mill, dear.’

‘I’ve no fear of work. And it’s not as hard as it used to be.’ She lowered her lashes and, for the first time, averted her gaze. ‘My mother doesn’t want me working for you. Happen she’s read the same books as I have, though she doesn’t really have a lot of spare time for reading. I don’t know why, but she doesn’t seem to like you, Mr Swainbank. Perhaps she doesn’t like mill owners.’ She shrugged and drew a deep breath. ‘Your great- or maybe great-great-grandfather had men hanged for croft-breaking, sir. That doesn’t happen any more, so nothing’s as bad as it was.’ She looked down at her gloved hands and continued, as if to herself, ‘They got hanged on Bolton Moor for stealing half a dozen yards of cloth.’

‘They were similarly punished for a loaf or a cup of milk, Janet. You seem to read a lot.’

She suddenly looked at him again, her face filled with a kind of excitement he had not witnessed in years. ‘Half of me wishes I’d been alive then, before the bleachworks, when Bolton was surrounded by miles of cloth left out in the sun to whiten. I bet it looked like snow in the middle of summer.’

He hid a grin behind an outspread palm. The girl was plainly a romantic at heart. ‘And what would you have done with the croft-breakers?’

‘In your lot’s place, I’d have given them a good hiding and got me cloth back. As a worker though, I’d have stuck up for them and fought back . . .’

‘And you’d have given my lot a good hiding?’

‘Aye, I would.’ Her chin jutted forward. It was clear that though she wanted the job, she would air her views nevertheless.

He cleared his throat again. ‘My mills are being renovated. You’ll find conditions here will improve gradually and your mother can hardly disapprove of that. Number three is almost finished – work begins on one and two next year.’ Dear God, was he apologizing to this child?

‘About time too, Mr Swainbank – if you don’t mind my saying so. Happen you should have a word with Leatherbarrow, ’cos he’s still in the Iron Age. Arms and legs have been lost, not to mention lives. I want the mills great because they’re a part of our town, but I don’t want them cruel.’

Yes, this was a cheeky young imp. Her mother was right, too much to say, too careless about choosing her audience. Any other mill owner in the town would have seen her off as a possible troublemaker. But he wouldn’t. And not only because of who she was, but because she fascinated him with her clear thinking and brave expression. ‘Would you not prefer to work in the offices?’ he asked. ‘I’ve an opening for a clerk—’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘No. I can’t see meself happy pushing a pen and wading through lists. I want me own looms and me own patterns – I like what they call fancies – all them brocades and such. One day, I want to invent a cloth of mine, something a bit Chinese or Indian with squiggly bits on. Me school reports were all good. I never missed, never got in no trouble. Ooh, I do hope I’ve not got on your nerves talking out of turn.’

‘No, you haven’t. I’m pleased to hear you speak your mind, though I should expect loyalty at all times if I were to employ you. If conditions are not perfect as yet, all my workforce is well and fairly treated. I’d be happier to hear less about lost limbs – we do try to send our staff home in one piece at the end of the day.’

She hung her head. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then, as suddenly as she had dropped it, she thrust her jaw forward once more. ‘I love the mills, Mr Swainbank. If they weren’t mills, some of them would be the most beautiful buildings I ever saw. We’ve a photo at home of Buckingham Palace – it’s dead plain, all square and flat. I always thought the king would live somewhere special – a grand posh house with castle walls and stuff. But it’s ugly and ordinary, right disappointing. If we had a garden outside this mill, it’d be like a palace, a proper one.’

‘And where would I keep the princess? In the north-east or the south-west tower? Yes, that might present a problem, having two towers. Prince Charming wouldn’t know where to look.’

Her mouth spread into a wide and extremely becoming smile. Her mother’s smile. ‘I know. I’m proper daft, aren’t I? Me mam’s always told me to keep me gob shut except for answering questions. She says me imagination runs away with itself and unless I can make a bob or two out of writing me soft tales, I’d best keep them to meself.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with pride in your town and the industry that supports it, Janet.’

‘Oh I’m not that proud, sir. Black people got put in chains for us. We shoved them on ships and sold them like animals. Them that lived through the trip got stuck in boiling cotton fields till they dropped dead. Then there was us here, spinners and weavers from way back, all living in cellars with no drains, dying of fevers, nowt to eat.’

‘And you blame my kind for that?’

‘Somebody’s to blame for it, sir. But you didn’t invent slavery, did you? And I can see you’re trying to put things right, proper wages and canteens, welfare to see to us. No. You can’t be blamed for things as happened before your time.’

‘Thank you.’ He smiled wryly. This fifteen-year-old was about to turn forty if he wasn’t mistaken.

‘Oh heck.’ She slid an inch or two down in her chair. ‘I bet I haven’t got the job. I was warned – it’s me own fault. I haven’t got what me granny calls tact. Mind you, neither has she. Oh well. I’d best go to the dungeons and see old Cowcart.’

‘Who?’

She gritted her teeth against this latest faux pas. ‘That’s what we call Mr Leatherbarrow, sir. Well, it’s one of the names we call him anyroad. Cow as in leather, cart as in barrow.’

This was too much. He leapt from the chair and made a mad dash for the window.

‘Mr Swainbank?’ She stared at the shivering back.

‘Yes?’ The voice was strangled.

‘Are you ill, sir?’

‘No.’ He mopped his eyes with a large white handkerchief.

The seconds ticked away. ‘Mr Swainbank?’

‘Just . . . just a moment, my dear . . .’

She tapped the edge of the desk with the tips of her fingers, then examined the newly-washed white gloves for dust marks. ‘Are you killing yourself laughing, Mr Swainbank?’

‘Shut up, Janet!’

‘Yes, sir.’

Charles returned to the desk, mouth clamped against merriment. He spent a moment or two going through the motions, applying the odd tick or written comment in the margins of the questionnaire. ‘Your grandmother is the best weaver we ever had,’ he managed eventually. ‘She won’t be coming back, then?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘A pity. She might have taught you.’

‘No thanks! I’ve trouble enough – hey! Does that mean you’ll take me on?’

It occurred to Charles that the boot was on the other foot, that this commanding little personality might well ‘take him on’ in the future if he didn’t watch his step. If she followed Ma, then she’d be sleeping under a union banner rather than a bedspread! But this was too bright a button to put back in the box. Yes, the slender waif with her polished blue clogs and thin cotton gloves was his only tangible link with the future – she and her dark-eyed brother. ‘Start next Monday. Stay behind for the guided tour – it’s part of your education.’

She jumped up from the chair, her eyes bright with victory. For one terrible moment, he thought she would grab his hand and shake it, or worse still, run round the desk and hug him. Had she done the latter, he would surely have been reduced to a pool of tears. But she hung on to her pride, gabbled her thanks, then fled from the room to send in the next candidate.

Charles remained where he was, determinedly seeing the task through to its end, trying to conceal boredom as he talked to other pale-faced applicants, a sombre group all scrubbed and dressed as if for Sunday school. Not one of them asked a question; few replied to his in better than a monosyllable. But then, none of them was a Swainbank and every last one had probably been terrified by teachers, perhaps even threatened by parents who desperately needed another worker in the house.

During the tour which followed, Charles found himself looking at this, his oldest mill, with eyes opened by Janet Maguire. Oh, he knew every inch of the place, but he could not help wondering how it looked to her.

He stood in the opening and blending rooms where the process began, watching her as she questioned a foreman closely. All around, groups of men were breaking bales and feeding raw cotton into blenders. The foreman explained as best he could above the noise that this was to guarantee uniformity, that even a single bale from one field could vary according to soil and sun. They followed the raw down the line from blending, through opening and picking, then right down to carding.

She arrived at Charles’s side, exclaiming over the large spikes protruding from a carding drum. ‘They look dangerous. Scalp you in two seconds, they could.’

‘Ah, but this is probably the most important single operation,’ he answered while she read his lips. ‘All the dirt comes out here – and you’ll notice cotton in a recognizable form at the end – see?’ He pointed to the cylinders that stood ready to receive thick strands of carded material. ‘After drawing and slubbing, this will be fine enough to spin.’

‘And I’ll finish up weaving it into cloth!’

He laughed. ‘Not yet, you won’t. You must walk before you can run.’

‘I’ll learn, Mr Swainbank.’

‘I reckon you will, child. But it’s still a very hard life in here.’

After following the cotton to its inevitable end in the weaving sheds, the party left for number three mill. As this had the only canteen, each factory used it in turn throughout the day, staggering meal-breaks so that all might be fed a decent cheap dinner. Refreshments for the new recruits were served by older apprentices, boys and girls with a year or more under their belts.

Again, Charles felt himself drawn to the table at which she sat with several of the silent ones, children used to the mindless discipline of a classroom, people who seemed scarcely ready to launch themselves into the world of work. She stood out as one who ought to have been educated properly, a candidate for management rather than manual labour. But he would train her from the bottom. This girl and her brother would come up in the world if he must drag them by the bootlaces.

He sat opposite her and accepted a mug of tea from the trolley.

‘Why isn’t it all done in the one place, Mr Swainbank?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Well, I just wondered – why can’t you do your own bleaching? Or do we need to be near a stream for that? Only if you did the bleaching and dyeing and printing, happen you could make things like frocks and curtains. Then everything would be cheaper at the finish.’

Goodness, she talked like some kind of bloody economist! Here she sat, fifteen years old, expounding a concept that had been pushed around many a cotton meeting – hadn’t they all been warned about over-specializing, about the possible danger of cheaper imports? ‘Bleaching’s an art, Janet. So is dressmaking – we can’t do everything.’

‘It’d be good though, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, I don’t doubt that it would be good.’

She stirred several spoonfuls of sugar into the thick brew, then dipped a biscuit into the beaker. There was little of the lady about her, much of the woman. He sighed. Ah well, any fool could learn to crook a little finger while holding a cup, but what she possessed had not arrived through a drawing-room, was not a copied pattern taught by elders and so-called betters. Janet would make her own pattern – and not just at the loom. The girl had raw brains, fertile, unspoiled, she displayed vivacity, enthusiasm, breadth of vision. Her faults he skimmed over. Her faults would be ironed out.

‘This is a nicer mill,’ she announced while those around her gaped and nudged one another.

‘Would you rather work here?’

She gazed around thoughtfully. ‘No. You’ve bigger sheds at number one and a lot of old weavers near retiring. I shall get me own looms faster there. Everybody wants to work at number three, so there wouldn’t be as much room for us learners. Mind you, that weaving looked a bit complicated. And you were right about the din! I think I’ll make meself some ear-muffs. I noticed it’s mostly men in them sheds, isn’t it?’

‘A master weaver was traditionally male. It’s a very taxing job.’

She glanced sideways at the other two recruits who had opted for weaving. ‘Not too hard for us, is it? This pair were at school with me Mr Swainbank. They’re not really shy and daft – I think they’re having you on. Ronnie here were dead good at drawing – weren’t you, Ron?’

Ronnie blushed a deeper red and muttered something unintelligible.

Unperturbed, Janet continued, ‘And Lizzie were the best at embroidery – she even did some of Father Mahoney’s vestments in gold. Can you imagine that? Thread made out of real gold? Her mother does lace-making for the church . . .’

A Catholic, of course. There’d never been one of those in the Swainbank clan – a few corpses would be turning if Charles left the inheritance to a pair of papists! Still. Better that than pathetic Cyril with his grasping mother and all her airs and graces. Even Amelia had agreed . . .