Shining Threads (6 page)

Nelly Beale stood against the wall, her eyes wide and shocked. She was fully clothed but down the inside of her bare, grubby leg ran a dribble of blood. She was nine years old and almost at the
end of her own six-and-a-half hour shift as her older sister’s ‘piecer’. When it was finished, when she had washed herself in the women’s washroom Kit Chapman had installed
twenty-five years ago, when she had eaten her ‘baggin’ in the dining-room provided for the workers, she would spend the afternoon doing her sums, reading her book from which over the
weekend she had learned by heart a whole passage to ‘say’ to the teacher. She would be a little girl in a normal little girl’s world, singing, playing a tambourine, giggling as
little girls do with others. But now, in a moment of animal lust, her young innocence had been cruelly taken from her.

Her sister ran to her wordlessly, swift in her need to remove her from the violent destruction which threatened. She put her arms about her and led her from the room where, it seemed to her, not
only rape but murder was to be done today.

‘Mr Greenwood, sir . . . Dear God in ’eaven . . . Mr Greenwood . . . leave ’im be . . . Christ man, thee’ll do fer ’im . . .’ Edwards was grunting, his own
considerable strength unable to control Charlie Greenwood’s killing rage. The molester of the child was screaming like a pig with a butcher’s knife to its throat and in the spinning
room women began to cry out, their machines coming to a standstill, threads snapping and children running this way and that for want of direction.

There was a cracking of bone and the sallow-faced under-tackler went as limp as an old dish-rag in Charlie Greenwood’s grasp and as he slid, like water which can be held in no man’s
hand, to the floor, Charlie regained his senses. Edwards, who had grasped him fiercely from behind about the arms and chest, slowly, carefully, stepped away from him, hardly daring to look at the
crumpled heap on the floor, though it was nowt to him if the man lived or died. The heap stirred and groaned, then was violently sick and Mr Greenwood inched away from him looking as though he
could quite easily be sick himself. The man fumbled his way to his feet holding the arm which Edwards had heard snap, shivering and sweating at the same time, and when Mr Greenwood lifted a hand to
wipe his own sweating face, recoiled away from him.

‘Nay, I’ll not touch you again, man,’ Mr Greenwood croaked. ‘I’m only sorry I soiled me hands on you in’t first place. I thought never to see the likes
o’ this again, not in
my
mill, anyroad, but it seems I was wrong. But you’ll not satisfy your perversions again in this town, no, nor in bloody Lancashire, if I’ve
’owt to do wi’ it.’ In his distress Charlie Greenwood had begun to revert to the broad northern vowels of his youth. ‘If I could have you clapped in gaol or flogged at the
cart-tail, by God I would, but I know the magistrates in these parts, aye, an’ the rest o’t country an’ all.’ His voice was bitter. ‘Throw up their hands they would if
it were one o’ their own but some poor workin’ lass’d be nowt to them. So get yer gone before I have yer thrashed in’t yard fer all to see. An’ don’t go
lookin’ fer work in south Lancashire fer I’ll make sure you find none.’

The man had gone and Charlie and Edwards stood uneasily side by side in the cabin.

‘I can’t abide that sort o’ thing, Edwards,’ Charlie Greenwood said at last.

‘Nay, sir, tha don’t ’ave ter say ’owt ter me,’ Edwards protested. ‘I can’t say as ’ow, if I’m ’onest, I agree wi’ all tha
methods in’t mill but I don’t like ter see a lass taken down, especially as young as that ’un.’

Charlie looked surprised at Edwards words. ‘What is it you don’t agree with then?’ He was calmer now, glad it seemed, to talk of normal, everyday things.

‘I don’t reckon it ’arms some o’ them bigger lads to ’ave a bit o’ discipline now an’ again.’ Edwards stuck his chin out. ‘I ’ad a few
thrashin’s in me life an’ it did me no arm.’

‘Happen not, but I’ll not have it in my mill, think on. And you’re not the only one, lad, to have been given a beating. Where d’you think I got this face of mine? Not in
the prize-fighting ring, I can tell you.’

‘Aye . . . well . . .’ Edwards cleared his throat and moved towards the smashed doorway. He’d said his piece though much good it would do him. ‘If that’ll be all,
sir, I’ll get back ter me work. Them women out theer are runnin’ about like ’eadless chickens and the machines all tangled up. It’ll tekk the best part of an hour ter sort
’em out. Oh, an’ I’ll ’ave to ’ave another chap ter take place o’t . . .’

‘Right, Edwards . . . and thanks for stopping me from killing that . . . bastard. He deserved it but I wouldn’t like to swing for him, just the same.’

‘No, sir.’

He was still brooding, lounging against the cabin wall, his narrowed eyes staring at where the child had stood but seeing pictures which seemed to grieve him when Annie Beale slipped across the
threshold, pale as wood-ash and just as insubstantial.

‘Thanks, Mr Greenwood,’ she said quietly.

‘Nay, lass. I’m only sorry that it happened in my mill and that we didn’t get to her in time to . . .’ He struggled awkwardly with the words since he was a man and
ashamed of his own masculinity at that moment. ‘Why didn’t you report him to Mr Edwards as soon as the bugger took her into the cabin?’

‘It’s not my place ter tell one tackler what t’other’s up to, sir, you know that.’ She looked quite shocked and he was saddened that even now, after all these years
of enlightened treatment, this girl was still afraid of a system which might lose her her job if she ‘spoke out’.

‘But . . .’

‘Anyroad, sir . . .’ she interrupted smoothly, seeing no need to dwell on something which could not be undone. ‘I’ve cleaned ’er up an’ she’s back
in’t jennygate . . .’

‘Good God!’

‘Aye, well there’s bread ’as ter be found an’ only way ter pay fer it is wi’ brass what we both earn.’

Charlie sprang away from the wall and almost lifting her from her feet led her from the office. His face was contorted with anger, not at her but at the circumstances which forced this girl,
scarcely more than a child herself by the size of her, to accept not only what had been done to her sister but that she must be prepared to ‘clean her up’ and return her to her work as
though nothing untoward had happened. And this was
his
mill, known throughout Lancashire as a
model
mill; a model mill built on the spot where once had stood row upon row of mean
hovels thrown up by Kit Greenwood’s grandfather to house his own operatives. She had razed them to the ground and in their place had erected the factory which had become the talk of the
textile industry. Six storeys high, the site covered several acres. The rooms in which the work was done were high and spacious with windows which opened – as the old ones had not – in
order to allow in what fresh air there was, and blinds were put on those which faced south to keep out the heat of the sun. The machines were set, in pairs, at a decent distance from one another,
most of the moving parts well guarded. At the back of the building was a separate room with tables and chairs where the workers could eat their ‘carrying-out’ in peace instead of beside
their machines as they did in other factories. There was piped water, brought from the river, clean and cool, and separate privies for the men and women. Insanity, those millowners with whom
Katherine Chapman had done business called it, sheer madness and where the hell would it lead? Might not
their
workers want the same thing, indeed were they not already grumbling about
better conditions and higher wages?

Charlie Greenwood looked down at the girl who was apologising to him for causing a disturbance, assuring him,
him
who had defended girls just like her, and children too, all his life,
that she and the child would soon have the machine going again. She was anxious to let him know, just as though he was as unrelenting as any other millowner, that he would lose no profit over this
little commotion. Did she not know that his own scarred face had been given him by an overlooker in circumstances very similar to those in which her sister had been involved? Had she not heard of
Joss Greenwood, his own brother, now up to Westminster as radical Member of Parliament for Crossfold, who had caused such trouble and aggravation on behalf of the working class in his younger days
he had been put in prison for it? Was she not aware that his father, Joshua Greenwood, had died for his belief, aye, given his life at St Peter’s Field in the massacre which took place
there?

‘Nay, lass . . . what’s your name? . . . Annie Beale. Well, Annie, thi shall have thy bread and a bit more besides,’ he went on, deeply moved, ‘if I’ve ’owt
to do with it, and as I’m bloody maister I reckon thee can count on it. Now get thissen home, you and the child an’ when
she
feels up to it, you an’ her come back,
d’you hear? Send someone to collect thy wages an’ you shall be paid. Now, don’t you argue wi’ me, Annie Beale, for I’ll not ’ave it. Dear Lord in heaven, what
next . . . no, please . . . I want no thanks . . .’

He could do no more, he told himself; it wasn’t much but still a damn sight better than she could have expected in any other mill in the Penfold Valley, for despite his family’s
efforts to improve the lot of the workers in the textile industry there were still tens of thousands in the land who suffered under the tyranny of profit-mad millowners.

He shook his head sadly as he walked out of the spinning room and into the bright, sunlit yard, since their dream of equality was as far off as it had been over thirty years ago when his father
had died for it.

3

‘Mr Greenwood’s not here just now. He had some business to attend to up at the Cloth Hall later on so happen he’s gone straight there. Unless it’s some
family thing which has held him up, as is more than likely. There’s always something with them Greenwoods. If it’s not them wild lads who should be here in this very room right now as
ordered by their father – and the Lord only knows where they’ve got to – it’s the lass. She’s as bad as them, let me tell you. Why, only last week we heard she’d
been seen over at . . .’ The man who spoke turned his head to look back at the long passage which led into a room where a dozen clerks employed in the main counting house of Chapman
Manufacturing had their heads bent industriously over their tall desks. Satisfied that he could not be overheard he beckoned to the large man who blocked the doorway and automatically the man bent
his head to listen.

‘She’ll not be told, you know, and her no more than sixteen,’ he continued importantly, implying that he was privy to the Greenwood’s most private family business,
indeed, his manner seemed to say, had been asked on more than one occasion for his advice. Will Broadbent straightened up distastefully, unwilling to listen to gossip.

‘Have you no idea when Mr Greenwood will be here?’ he asked curtly, letting the clerk know he was not concerned with tittle-tattle about the girl of whom, he had heard, the whole
valley gossiped, nor indeed of the family who owned the mill. He was aware, as who was not, of the tales of the wild Greenwoods: the woman who had begun the legend over thirty years ago, the man
she had married and whose involvement with the outlawed radicals, as they had been then, was still spoken of with some awe by those he had fought for, and now their sons who were if anything, it
was rumoured, more rebellious than both of their parents put together.

‘No, and if you ask me . . .’

‘Yes, yes,’ Will interrupted him brusquely, then looked about him as though searching for someone to tell him what to do next.

‘You had an appointment with Mr Greenwood then?’

‘Aye, at eight thirty sharp.’

‘Well, I can’t help you and if that will be all I’ll get back to me work,’ the clerk said, implying that if this chap had nothing better to do with his time than hang
about gossiping, he had.

‘Thanks.’

Will turned away and walked down the steep flight of steps, hesitating on the bottom tread to gaze out into the yard. It was bustling with activity. There were enormous waggons pulled by
enormous horses, all loaded with Chapman goods ready to be taken to the new railway station in Crossfold. Men grunted as they shifted huge sacking – wrapped bales of the finest fustians,
velveteens, sateens and muslins, all to be despatched to the warehouses of Piccadilly and Portland Street in Manchester where they would be stored awaiting shipment to every corner of the known
world.

Against a building at the far side of the yard other men unloaded bales of raw cotton each weighing 500 pounds, just come from the southern states of America by way of Liverpool. The Chapman
enterprises were situated in five mills in different parts of the town, two concerned only with spinning, two with weaving and this one which combined the two processes and all the other processes
connected with the manufacture of cotton cloth. It was huge, six storeys high and covering many acres. On the ground floor, where the humidity was the highest, were power looms since the weaving
process must be done in a damp atmosphere to prevent breakage of thread, and the heavy beams on which the warp thread was wound were of too great a weight for the upper floors. Here also, and on
the first floor, were carding, drawing and roving rooms and above them spinning was done on the top four floors.

The men were hot and sweating from their exertions and their brawny muscled arms rippled in the smoke-hazed sunshine. There was a clatter of horse’s hooves on the cobbles and a chestnut
mare galloped dashingly into the yard, scattering the men and boys who were about to address themselves to the task of moving the bales of cotton to the blow room where they would be opened and the
raw cotton cleaned and blended.

The men might have been a pack of dogs for all the notice the rider took of them. They were useful, naturally, for the work they did, but not to be spoken to, nor any particular care taken to
avoid them since they were expected to get out of
his
way. He threw his leg over the horse’s back and leaped lightly from the stirrup to the ground and with a shock Will realised that
this was no arrogant lad, but a girl, a girl like none he had seen before. He could do no more than stand and stare, mouth slack and eyes wide with astonishment, since she was wearing a shirt and
breeches more suitable to a male than a female.