The Emperor (45 page)

‘
Indeed. My mother and father, you know, went to visit a
spinning mill many years ago, in Derbyshire, and my mother
was very impressed with it. She'd be glad to have my impressions of your mills.'

‘In Derbyshire? Water mill, was it?'

‘Yes, sir.’

Hobsbawn chuckled. ‘Ah well, this is a very different go altogether, young man. Mine are steam-mills - the spinning machines are driven by steam-engines. Oh, a different go entirely, I promise you!’

*

So Edward found the next day. He also discovered why the mill-owners of Manchester did not live near their factories, as they did in Derbyshire. From the pleasant, tree-shaded, large-gardened streets around Hobsbawn House, and the handsome, broad thoroughfares and noble public buildings
around the Exchange, they passed into a very different
country altogether. The mills clustered along the banks of
the river Irwell, ten and twelve stories high, shutting out the
light. Their tall chimneys reared higher still, and from their
mouths belched black smoke which hung in palls to bring a
kind of unnatural twilight to the streets.

Soot was everywhere, coating every surface, and where it
met with damp, turning into an indelible slime like black
ink. Between the factories the houses of the workers were crammed, and as their carriage passed Edward caught a glimpse of little airless courts and mean and squalid streets of blackened brick tenements, cramped and unwholesome.
Black mud was their only paving, and heaps of rubbish,
offal and filth lay openly everywhere.

Mr Hobsbawn made no comment on it, nor on the
condition of the river itself, which could hardly be said to be flowing, so dense was it with detritus. Its waters were green
ish black, stiff with slime, and here and there great bubbles
of gas broke on the surface from things rotting in its depths.
Between the brick-built embankments and the water itself were narrow mud beaches on which such rubbish festered that Edward felt obliged once or twice to look away. It was clear that all the factories – mills, tanneries, dye-works,
bone-mills – pumped their waste into it, along with the
privies of the private houses nearby, and matters were not
helped by the weirs which had been built at intervals to hold
back the water for industrial purposes, against which choice
selections of the debris were leaning and rotting glutinously.

When they finally stepped out of the carriage in the fore
court of the number one mill, Edward took a breath and felt
for one moment of panic that he was choking. The smoky
air contained a stench which seemed to be a comprehensive
resumé
of all he had seen. He gasped and coughed, and
 
painful tears burst from his tear-ducts, and Mr Hobsbawn slapped him hard on the back and grinned.

‘Catches you a bit sharp the first time, don't it? Aye, but
you get used to it soon enough. It's worse than this when all
the mills are working.' His face darkened. 'Had to let the
engines stop, God damn it, after those bloody rioters
smashed their way in! That's the worst of it! Never let the
engines stop as a rule, nor the fires out. That's not the way
to turn a shilling. Takes time, you see, to build up the fires and get the steam up, so once they're off and running, you
leave 'em running. Day shift and night shift, one on and one off. We've gas light in the mills by night,' he added proudly,
and then gave a hearty laugh. 'You know what they say, young man? The beds of Lancashire never grow cold! For when the day shift tumbles out of a morning, the night shift tumbles in! Well, it's something in winter, to have a warm bed to get into.’

Edward said nothing, and followed Hobsbawn in to the silent mill. It was eight storeys high, and the rioters had broken in and smashed the machines on three floors before they had been driven back. Debris was everywhere.

‘
Wanton!' Hobsbawn cried, his voice breaking tragically.
‘Wanton destruction! By God, hanging's too good for the
rats that did this! To think I worked my fingers to the bone all my life, to come to this!’

After a long and, to Edward, boring conversation with
the watchmen, overseers and agents about repairing the damage, Hobsbawn took Edward to the number two mill,
further along the hank. This was newer and bigger, fourteen
storeys high, and here the rioters had been prevented from
doing more than breaking windows and throwing in flaming
rags, which the watchmen had been able to put out without much damage.

Hobsbawn shewed him round a floor of the factory with
great pride, pointing out the salient features of the
machines, and Edward experienced for the first time the deafening noise of running machines in an enclosed space.
The mill-workers did not seem to notice it – indeed, it
would be hard to say that they noticed anything. They were mostly children and young women – the only men he saw
were overseers and engineers - and they moved in a curious
manner about their work, both lethargic and mechanical,
their eyes fixed and dull, seeing nothing. They worked
standing up at the machines, though a good deal of the
children's work seemed to involve crawling under the
machines to doff the bobbins or mend the threads.

‘
I won't shew you namore,' Hobsbawn bellowed in his
ear. 'All the floors are the same as this one. Quite a sight,
ain't it? By God, there's power! There's industry!’

Edward nodded, feeling unequal to competing with the
noise of the machines, and followed him out into the
comparative sanity of the courtyard. It was all very different,
he reflected, from what Jemima had described to him of
Cromford, and it was on Cromford that she had based her
decision to send the asylum children to Manchester as
apprentices. It would be better, he thought, if he did not tell
her all that he had seen.

‘
When they finish their work,' she had said, 'they come
out into a beautiful green valley, and they have fine, stout,
stone houses to live in.’

It was not that the workers he had seen were pale and
thin and dirty - all poor people were, and they would not be
mill-workers if they weren't poor; and indeed, they had a
job, and a wage, in which they were better off than others
who had neither. But the appalling filth and stench of their
surroundings was a far cry from the green spaces of the
Peak district, and Edward knew that Jemima was much too
tender about her dependents to be able to accept that
knowledge equably.

*

Lucy and Chetwyn were at a reception in Carlton House,
which seemed to he being given for the purpose of cheering up the Prince of Wales, who had again been refused permission to go on active service. 'Military command is incompatible with the situation of the Prince of Wales,' the King had
written to him.

Carlton House, was, as usual, overheated and full of flowers, and despite the Prince's continued penury, the
entertainment was lavish and the supper sumptuous: soup,
fish, veal, hare, venison, fricassee of chickens, cutlets, tarts,
puddings, fruits and creams were laid out in splendid array,
with the appropriate wines to drink - claret, hock, cham
pagne, tokay, sherry and port - in plenty.

Lucy rather enjoyed these occasions, for though she did
not know the Prince well enough to like him - his virtues, as
Captain Brummell said, being more real than apparent - she
enjoyed contact with the 'Carlton House Set'. Language was
usually coarse and behaviour often gross, but she was a
great favourite amongst the large-drinking, loud-swearing
men, for here it was a virtue to be 'dashing', and women
were not expected to be Quaker-like, retiring, and oppressively proper. Here she might talk and do as she pleased.
The Carlton House set had a passion for nick-names, and
Lucy's was 'Lady Curricle': it was thought a great jest that
she had beaten the Prince's time to Brighton.

Lucy had George Brummell to her left at the supper-
table, which was pleasant, for the Lord Cummings, on her
right, was liberally doused in a heavy perfume which just
failed to drown the smell of him. She mentioned the circum
stance to her friend, to explain why she was leaning so far
over in his direction, and he gave her his charming smile.

‘
It is my ambition to be the arbiter of polite society,' he
said. 'Society should be a form of poetry, fastidious, elegant, witty - above all, fastidious! There are all too many who still think it effeminate to be clean. Dirt is as much an affectation as red heels or spangled waistcoats, you know. If a man have
fine linen, plenty of it, and country washing, he has no need
of perfumes.' He paused to wave away a dish of stewed
leeks, one of the removes, which a footman was offering
him.

‘
Do you never eat vegetables?' Lucy asked curiously. 'I
don't think I have ever seen you do so.'

‘
Never,' he said, and then, frowning in thought, 'Wait! I
think I may once have eaten a pea. I tell you as a friend: I
am sure you won't repeat it.'

‘
How absurd you are,' Lucy laughed. 'But tell me, is it true, what my cousin Horatio tells me, that you have sold
out?'

‘Oh yes. What else could I do, dear Lady Aylesbury, when the 10th Dragoons were ordered up to Manchester?'

‘
Yes, of course, to the riots,' Lucy agreed. 'My brother's
wife's father has some mills there, which were damaged. But
what of it?’

He raised an eyebrow. 'My dear ma'am, can you imagine
me
in Manchester? Quite unthinkable! As soon as I heard
my troop was on warning, I went straight to the Prince –
positively got him out of bed, the poor creature – and he
saw it at once. "By all means, my dear fellow," he said, "sell
out immediately". So you have relations there, have you?
Ah, but they are not blood relations, my dear ma'am, and
that is
everything!'

‘
Horatio was quite upset,' Lucy said, ignoring the jibe.
‘He says it will be monstrous dull without you.'

‘
What a fellow he is for the truth! But I shall often be
dining with them. I dare say they will hardly notice the
difference. Once they have come back from Manchester –
for one must draw the line somewhere – I shall make a point
of driving out to them wherever they are. I have just
discovered the delights of travelling with four horses, by the
by – the speed and convenience is wonderful. I have my
valet to thank for that, of course.'

‘Your valet?'

‘
The dear man gave me notice for expecting him to travel with only a pair. Indeed, it is true,' he said, opening his eyes wide, as Lucy laughed. 'When I first offered to take him into
my service, he asked for £150 a year. "My dear fellow",
said 1, "give me £200, and I
will work for
you!"
There is your cousin now, looking at us. I shall give him a nod, to
shew I bear him no ill feelings. I was forced to be somewhat scathing about his driving yesterday, when he took a tandem
into the Park.'

‘
Yes, he told me. How can you be so critical, when you
are never seen handling the ribbons yourself?'

‘
One does not need to be able to do a thing, to know
when it is well done. What an idea! Did he tell you he was
selling out as well?' he asked.

‘
No, is he? Because of you?' Lucy asked, helping herself
from a dish of mutton cutlets as it came past.

Brummell bowed. 'Thank you for your good opinion,' he
 
said, smiling. 'But I fear in this case it is unwarranted. The
on-dit
is that he is buying into a cavalry regiment – the Scots
Greys, I believe – in order to go on active service and make
his fortune. It appears that he has quite despaired of the
reversion, now his nephew has reached his first birthday in
perfect health.'

‘
It might be the best thing for him,' Lucy said thought
fully.

Not a doubt of it,' said Mr Brummell cheerfully. 'And it
will stop him trying to drive a tandem in the Park, which will
be a good thing for everybody else.’

*

Very early one April morning, Jemima was in the courtyard
being helped up onto Hazel, who was fidgeting restlessly
and making Jemima wonder for the first time in her life
whether she ought to think about changing to a more staid
mount. Since her father gave her her first horse, Jewel, for
her thirteenth birthday, she had always ridden fiery, highbred animals whose idea of repose was to have more than
one hoof on the ground at the same time; but the troubles of
the previous autumn had taxed her more than she had
realized at the time, and that winter, at the age of sixty-five,
she had begun to feel old.