by Wilma Counts
Enslow bowed and his wife curtsied, but the man readily shook the hand Quint extended to him and said, “Welcome, sir. We heard as ye was to take over for the lad. Sad business, the loss o’ your brother an’ his pa that way.”
“Yes, it was,” Quint said. “We do not wish to take too much of your time, sir, but we are on an inspection tour as it were—trying to acquaint myself and young Sedwick here with what we are up against in trying to deal with matters of the estate. Anything you can tell us to help shed light on matters will help. I hope you won’t mind that Mr. Gibbons will be taking notes for me—and Miss Mayfield will be asking questions and taking notes for a matter of her own interest.”
Enslow’s eyes were twinkling as he said, “Don’t s’pose I’d mind at all—long as you don’t think to toss me in that mill stream again.”
Quint looked at him questioningly. “Wha—?” Then he hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Jason Enslow. Of course. Why did I not make that connection immediately?”
Enslow shrugged. “Bin more ’n twenty years now, ain’t it? Ye and yer brother caught me and mine fishin’ in yer favorite spot. Not a one o’ us more ’n ten years old.”
“That was quite a brawl as I remember it, but seems we had some good times after that,” Quint reminisced.
“Aye. We did.” Enslow’s tone became more matter-of-fact as he added, “I’m not exactly sure what you want of us at the moment.”
“Perhaps if you were just to go about your usual activities just though we were not here?” Harriet said brightly. “We will try not to intrude too much.”
One of the older girls giggled at this suggestion, but a stern look from her mother quelled that, and the family quickly shuttled off to their usual positions: the mother hustled an older daughter into the kitchen; the giggler was soon at a spinning wheel in the living room; an older boy stood at the side of the loom; and the father was seated on the bench of the loom. Another girl of about ten was in charge of two toddlers on a rug in the living room.
Harriet could not help feeling somewhat embarrassed. How would she feel if someone came tromping into her life to examine it as though under a magnifying glass? She followed Mrs. Enslow into the kitchen, taking the basket she had brought into the house with her. In the kitchen she discovered an older woman and another child of about eight peeling potatoes.
“Hello, Mrs. Miller,” Harriet greeted the woman, whom she knew to be Mrs. Enslow’s mother. “And this must be—No!—It cannot be! Susan? All grown up so?”
The child giggled, curtsied prettily, and went back to peeling her potatoes. Her mother smiled gratefully to Harriet and Harriet went on in a more normal tone to the grown-ups. “I know this visit is probably an imposition, but we feel it is important that Lord Phillip get an idea of what it is really like to deal with estate business before he goes off to school, you see.”
“We understand, Miss Harriet. Truly, we do. ’Tis hard times for ever’one. The loss of the lord, o’ course. Folks out of work. The markets. Hard times.”
“How hard for you and your family?” Harriet asked. “Be frank with me, please.”
Mrs. Enslow gestured for Harriet to take a seat on a bench at the side of the long table at which the older woman and little girl worked, then sat across from her visitor. She leaned across and spoke sincerely. “Not as bad for Sedwick folks as for some—yet anyways. We—Enslows and a few others—we got a cow and a goat. We make our own cheese and the home farm shares the orchard with the cottagers and often shares when they butcher an animal.”
Harriet picked up her basket and set it on the table. “Mrs. Hodges sent a jar of her lemon curd and some of her ginger biscuits. Also a special blend of mint tea she swears is just the thing for indigestion.”
“How very kind of her.”
“And here are a few other items I am sure you will find use for,” Harriet said, quickly emptying the basket. “Now, I’d best get back in there and see that Phillip is not making a nuisance of himself. You know how young boys can be.”
Returning to the other room, she found Chet taking notes on the price of raw wool and finished cloth and the amount of time it took to produce a given amount of yardage on the hand loom. They watched with interest as Enslow worked his loom, with his twelve-year-old son running the shuttle back to him after every pull of the great beater.
“Might I try that, sir?” Phillip ask of the weaver with some hesitation.
“You, sir? You wanta work me loom?” the weaver asked in surprise.
“With your permission, sir,” Phillip said politely.
“O’ course, my lord.” The man looked at the boy’s skinny legs. “Though I doubt your legs’ll reach the pedals. But slide on here next to me—I’ll work the pedals, you do the beater.”
“All right!” Excitement sounded in the boy’s voice as he slid onto the bench and reached for the heavy wooden lever.
The weaver worked the pedals, nodded at his son, who tossed the shuttle across the cocked threads, then ran around to catch the shuttle on the other side and return it to position when the threads were repositioned. Phillip grabbed the bar to pull it toward him and did manage—with an audible oomphf—to get the shuttle’s thread pushed against the already woven fabric, but only just, and without the firm “thwack” that had accompanied each of weaver’s pulls at the beater.
“I want to try again,” Phillip said calmly.
The weaver nodded agreeably and they went through the motions twice more. Then Phillip slid off the bench and stood beside the weaver, looking in awe at the man and the machine. “You made it look so easy, sir,” he said, touching the finished portion of the fabric. “And the work is so fine.”
“Thank you, my lord. My Joey is about your age, an’ he can’t work the loom yet. But he’ll be a fine weaver one day. An’ I’ve no doubt ye could’ve been too if’n yer druthers had turned that way.”
“Thank you, Mr. Enslow,” Phillip murmured.
Harriet could have hugged the man for sparing the feelings of a young boy as he had. She wished there had been two sides of bacon in that basket of goodies she unloaded in the kitchen instead of only one! But there were still three other families to visit.…
The men moved to the dining table to discuss details of the cottage weavers’ business—how much raw material came from Sedwick sources, how much had to be obtained elsewhere and at what costs, market prices and factors that might affect them, and so on. While Chet took meticulous notes there, Harriet took notes of her own about the household that would be of interest to women readers of her articles, but that would probably not escape the notice of her male readers either.
Chapter 10
Visits to the other cottage weavers proceeded much as had that with the Enslow family. Quint was pleased to see the grace and maturity with which his nephew conducted himself. The Sedwick party had interrupted the last family at tea and, despite there being rather meager fare on the table, Lord Sedwick and his companions were readily invited to join the Smith family. His lordship, after consulting his aunt, refused ever so graciously with the excuse that he could not in good conscience keep his driver and other servants and cattle waiting any longer as it appeared to be threatening to rain again, but he thanked the Smiths very much for the kind invitation. Quint was sure that here, as at the earlier stops, Harriet’s visit to the kitchen with her laden basket helped to assuage any sense of awkwardness or intrusion, and he sensed that people generally were favorably impressed with their new young lord.
However, he continued, albeit discreetly, to watch the boy and his aunt carefully throughout that day and now this to see if there existed any foundation to his persistent suspicion that she might be undermining his authority with their nephew. He had no idea what he might actually do should he find evidence of such. In fact, he was not at all sure whether anger or disappointment would motivate whatever response he might take.
He had observed something different about the intriguing Miss Mayfield as he handed her into the carriage. No, it was not the fresh lemony mint scent about her. Then it hit him. While she had not exactly put off mourning in a grand gesture, she had donned a well-fitted russet-colored gown trimmed with black grosgrain frogging and a matching pelisse. Fashioned with a sort of military look about it, he assumed it was probably a fine example of the best work of some London modiste. He reluctantly turned his mind from contemplating the delights of what the modiste’s handiwork might be hiding to the conversation taking place on the opposite seat.
“Phillip, have you visited the mills before?” she was asking. “I do not remember your doing so.”
“Um, not really, Aunt Harriet. I just waited in the carriage as Father had a word with the manager and retrieved some papers from the office. Have you?”
“No. Your mother invited me to do so once, but I had a conflict and needed to be in London. I do recall that afterward she was intent on persuading your father to visit Mr. Robert Owen and talk with him about innovations in his mill communities.”
“Mr. Robert Owen?” The boy’s voice showed only vague curiosity.
“Robert Owen?” Quint blurted. Caught off guard, he was unable to hide his surprise or modify a hint of disapproval, which, of course, she noticed immediately.
“Would you have objected, Colonel Burnes?” she asked in what seemed to be as much a challenge as a genuine question.
Glancing at Chet, who shrugged slightly and gave him a look of sympathy, he bumbled on. “I—uh—well—truth to tell, I am not precisely sure, but knowing my brother as I did, I am quite sure Win must have had serious reservations about some of the ideas Owen puts forth.”
“What ideas? Why?” Phillip asked in what Quint was sure was genuine youthful curiosity.
There was a bit of silence, then Harriet answered, “It is somewhat complicated. As a mill owner like your father—and now you—Mr. Owen has broken with tradition in the way he deals with his workers.”
Quint leaned back in his seat, one hand at his waist, and held her gaze for a long moment, then said, “Most of his fellow mill owners and a good many other leaders in the business world seem to take a rather dim view of his so-called ‘breaking with tradition.’”
“I do not understand,” Phillip said.
When neither of the boy’s adult relatives leaped to respond, Chet did so. “Owen supports workers’ rights to organize trade unions and agitate for higher wages and shorter hours.”
“Needless to say, those things mean less profit for owners and they have a few objections,” Quint said.
“‘A few objections’!” Harriet’s shocked tone was not entirely feigned, he thought, distracted for a moment by the way the intensity of blue in her eyes changed with the vehemence of her emotion. She continued, “Very rich, very powerful men wielding every weapon at their disposal to beat down poor people merely trying to exist amounts to more than ‘a few objections.’”
Before Quint could formulate a response to this, Phillip asked, “Are the workers not paid adequately?”
“I suppose the answer to that depends on whether one is an owner or a worker,” Quint answered honestly.
“It certainly does,” Harriet asserted, but a little less vehemently. “However, Mr. Owen deals with far more than just worker’s hours and wages.”
Quint nodded. “Yes, he does. But he advocates for far too much far too soon.”
“Is that not always the cry of those who have much to those who have so very little?” she replied.
He heaved a sigh. “Perhaps. But as you well know—surely you read those papers you write for—England faces unprecedented problems, and this trade unions business is fomenting serious unrest that the government will certainly have to handle—probably none too gently.”
“That is a grim view,” she said.
He smiled weakly. “Not today, mind you. Probably not until Phillip takes his seat in the House of Lords.”
“Oh, fine,” Phillip said lightly. “I and mine get to solve all the problems of the world.”
“The eternal plight of youth,” Chet said as they felt the coach slowing.
* * * *
Harriet had sensed the day before what she saw as an unusual watchfulness in the colonel’s demeanor. She tried to assure herself that he was merely trying to see how well his ward might be taking to the responsibilities the boy would have to grow into—even as the colonel tried to get a better grip on the magnitude of his own responsibilities in the meantime—but she could not shake the idea that there was something more to the man’s keen alertness. She was taken aback slightly by the conversation about Robert Owen and sorry now that she had brought it up.
Well at least you have some inkling of how he may view suggestions of reform along those lines, she told herself. At the same time, she reminded herself that, while she might hold legal title to the bulk of Sedwick debt, this man held the real command over how anything and everything was to be managed regarding the entire Sedwick earldom. She had absolutely no authority in that regard, power of the purse notwithstanding. It is always some man who is allowed to make the real decisions in our world, is it not? she groused silently, then gave herself a serious mental shake. Good grief. The actual, day-to-day business of running an estate, managing property, and so on had never been one of her ambitions.
By the time they had exited the carriage and made their way to the mill office, she had regained her composure and readily accepted the colonel’s offer of his arm as they approached the mill office in a small cottage attached to one of the two large, five-storied mills. Quint simply opened the door and ushered Harriet in; Phillip and Chet followed right behind them.
“Good afternoon. Knowlin is it not?” He addressed one of two clerks behind a counter in the outer room.
The man scrambled to his feet from behind a desk. “Yes, sir.”
“We are here to see Mr. Stevens. I believe he is expecting us.”
“Yes, sir—my lord. He is. I’m to show you right in.” He quickly opened the door to the room and announced, “Colonel Lord Burnes, Miss Harriet Mayfield, Lord Sedwick, and Mr. Gibbons.”
Harriet saw John Stevens, a rather stocky man with gray hair, rise from behind a desk and come round to greet them. She judged him to be in his sixties. He was neatly dressed in gray trousers and a blue coat, but neither his person nor his surroundings were at all ostentatious. She liked that he singled Phillip out for greeting first.
“Ah, Lord Sedwick, I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, though I might have wished for a happier occasion for doing so.” His pale blue eyes looked kindly at the boy over wire-rimmed glasses.
“Thank you, sir.” Phillip offered his hand in a firm handshake. The man bowed to Harriet, “Miss Mayfield, welcome.” She dipped him a brief curtsy. He nodded to the men. “Colonel Burnes. Mr. Gibbons. Nice to see you again.”
“Thank you,” Quint said. In an aside he explained to Harriet and Phillip, “Chet and I visited the mills very briefly before your return from London.”
Inviting them to be seated on a worn brown leather couch and some equally worn leather-covered chairs, Stevens offered them tea, which Quint, with a corroborating glance at Harriet, politely declined for the four of them. He said to Stevens, “As I told you in my note, we are here today for a closer look. Lord Sedwick needs a better understanding of how this part of his holdings work—and, frankly, so do I. Miss Mayfield is not only Lord Sedwick’s aunt, she is a writer and wishes to do some independent research of her own, for which we have no objection. Mr. Gi
bbons will be taking notes for Sedwick and me.”
Stevens nodded. “I see. Where would you like to start?”
Quint chuckled. “At the beginning? Why don’t you just give us a quick overview of what we are about here and then we will have a look at both mills. I assume you have a copy of the account books in order as I requested?”
“Yes, sir. Knowlin will furnish them to you as we finish your tour of the mills.”
“Fine. Carry on, then,” Quint said with a polite gesture.
Stevens had seated himself so that the five of them formed a circle of sorts, with a small table at his elbow on which he had a pad with some notes he occasionally consulted as he rattled off what must have been a routine story for him.
“As you probably know, our two mills were built in the ’80s under the direction of your great-grandfather, the fourth Earl of Sedwick,” he began, with a direct look at Phillip. “I’m told he was something of a visionary and wanted to expand his interest in textiles beyond wool and decided to experiment with cotton as many others were doing at the time. Then, we obtained most of our raw cotton from India and Egypt, but Napoleon interrupted the trade from Egypt rather profoundly, so now it comes mostly from the former colonies, the southern states of the United States, if you will.”
“Through ports in the east or west?” Phillip asked.
Harriet thought all three men were impressed with the young man’s question.
“Both, my lord,” Stevens replied. “But mostly our cotton still comes through Liverpool, then is transported by wagons or via the canal systems. If you are thinking cargo of raw material and machinery is expensive, you are quite right, my lord. So is transport of finished goods.”
To continue his monologue, Stevens reached into a drawer of the table and pulled out a soft cloth-wrapped packet. He unfolded the covering to reveal small bundles of swatches of fabric, about six inches square, which he handed to Phillip and Harriet, who were seated on the couch nearest him. “These are samples of the fabrics we produce. Normally, we do not turn out all of these all the time, mind you. Depends on the market, you see.”