When she turned around, Ada was holding up the note and regarding it suspiciously. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Where can it have come from? You’ll have to read it to me.’
She held it out to Sarah, who delayed by settling Ada so that she could sit comfortably against the pillows and manage her breakfast tray. Then, with trembling fingers, she unfolded the piece of paper. It looked as though it had been torn from a notebook. Would Daniel, no doubt imagining that Ada would read this herself, reveal anything of what had happened to cause his sudden departure? Would she find herself reading out shaming words referring to herself?
Taking a deep breath, Sarah read,
‘My dear Ada,
‘I was so glad to have the chance to spend time with you yesterday even though I was, of course, very sorry to find you unwell and confined to bed. I hope that Sarah’s very good care will have you back on your feet again in no time at all.
‘It was delightful to catch up on all the family news from Sarah and to hear about her future plans. I have some plans of my own that I couldn’t bring myself to share with you yesterday and I hope you will forgive me. I am shortly to depart for America to study the ways in which they operate their mills there and I am none too certain when, or if, I will return. I wanted the time we spent together to be untainted by this. I am particularly sad that I do not know when I will next see Alice, who has grown greatly since my last visit.
‘I must also ask forgiveness of you all for departing in what you may think a cowardly manner, although I hope you will come to see it as having the intention of sparing us all from sad and uncomfortable farewells.
‘Your friendship over these last few years has been invaluable to me and it has brought me much joy. I will treasure those memories and hope that the future will bring great happiness to us all.
Your loving friend,
Daniel.’
Sarah didn’t know how she had made it to the end of the letter without breaking down. She hoped that her pauses could be read as astonishment at the revelations contained within it. Indeed, she was at a loss as to what to make of it.
‘Did Daniel tell you anything of this last night?’ Ada asked. Her brows had knit together in a frown and she was plucking at the sheets.
‘No, he did not,’ Sarah said. ‘I am as shocked as you are.’
‘And what did he mean by referring to your future plans?’ Sarah’s grandmother had lost none of her sharpness despite the pain of her illness.
Sarah looked down at the note, silent while she tried to gather her thoughts. ‘I’m taking work at the mill. From Monday. You’re not to worry – Martha will look after Alice and come in to keep you company during the day, too.’
Ada opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Alice, who had been looking from her mother to Ada throughout the reading of the letter and the subsequent conversation, had understood very little of what was going on but could sense that it was something that she might not like. The corners of her mouth turned down and she showed every sign of getting ready to wail until Sarah scooped her up, saying ‘Time to get dressed.’ She hurried her out of the room, leaving Ada to digest the startling news of the last half-hour.
PART SIX
November 1877 – September 1881
Chapter 47
Sarah would always look back at the time she spent at the mill as one of almost unremitting unhappiness. It didn’t help that, starting work as she had in November, her walks to and from work were in the dark at each end of the day and always, or so it seemed to her, in wind, driving rain or snow. Despite getting up early to make sure that everything was ready for Martha, she invariably set off late. It had been agreed that it was better for Martha to come to Lane End Cottage to look after Alice and Ada there.
‘It’s no hardship,’ Martha had protested in an attempt to stop Sarah fretting that it was an inconvenience. ‘I just have to step next door. It’s not as though I have to travel any distance, unlike you.’
Sarah had subsided, only too aware that rousing Alice before dawn to take her to Martha’s would be problem enough, while leaving Ada alone and unattended at home for long periods was likewise inadvisable. So she persisted in making sure that meals were prepared in advance, even though Martha had declared herself more than happy to cook. Sarah knew it was guilt that made her do this – guilt at leaving two family members who were unable to fend for themselves for someone else to care for.
Each morning when she left the house she was already late, hurrying to catch up with the tail end of the mill-workers who were already well on the way along the road and out of the village. She would listen for the sound of their voices ahead of her, straining her ears to hear them over the noise of her clogs ringing on the road. She knew that if she caught up with them just before they turned down the path into the valley, she would make it to the mill just in time. If they were already on their way down, her success was less assured.
The path was steep and worn away in places by the passage of so many feet. Taken in company, the pace was a little slower and, with a number of lanterns to guide the way, a little safer. Taken at speed, with the fear of wages docked for lateness and the humiliation of a public scolding lying ahead, the path seemed more hazardous. Loose scree made it precarious in places, the wind invariably blew out the lantern even if Sarah had managed to light it before she left, and rain made the stones slippery lower down the path so that a hurried descent risked causing Sarah to skid or take a tumble. After the first week or so, some of the mill-hands had taken to keeping a watch for her arrival, sending up an ironic cheer as she made it to the mill yard, which only served to draw attention to her lateness.
Ramsay, the mill manager, who knew something of Sarah’s situation, was inclined to leniency at first, whispering to her to ‘Hurry along in and straighten your cap for goodness’ sake. Be on time tomorrow and we’ll let no more be said.’ But with Sarah late five days out of six he had no option but to dock her pay. ‘It grieves me, Sarah,’ he said. ‘Your grandmother was my mother’s saviour with the remedies she prescribed for her, but I can’t keep making allowances for you. You’ll have to buck up your ideas if you want to keep your job.’
Lateness wasn’t Sarah’s only problem. She seemed to have no aptitude for the work, being intimidated by the machinery, the noise and the sheer size of the mill floor. On her first day she watched in awe as the spinners manoeuvred the carriages of their spinning-mules, deftly sending the frames back and forth, drawing out the thread while doing several things at once without ever breaking the rhythm. Sarah started as a bobbin-carrier, ferrying the reels from the carding room to the mill floor. Her first sight of the vast space captivated her and she was enchanted by the fine cotton fibres floating everywhere like fairy gossamer.
She was quick to realise that appearances were deceptive – the floating fibres caught in everyone’s clothes and hair and, even worse, clogged their breathing. On top of that, the heat and humidity necessary to prevent the cotton thread from breaking as it was spun, and the noise of the great machines, stunned her. Children darted everywhere. They picked up the drifts of fibre from under the machines to prevent them creating a fire hazard, used their small, nimble fingers to mend thread broken during spinning, or acted as runners between the different areas of the mill.
Daniel had spoken the truth. After being on her feet all day, hurrying from the carding room to the mill floor and back again, Sarah was exhausted and there was an uphill walk home still to be faced. She longed to spend time with Ada and Alice and hear news of their day, but she could barely manage to eat her food and utter a few monosyllabic answers to her grandmother’s questions before sleep claimed her and the whole process had to be started all over again before dawn the next day.
After two weeks, Sarah had become more used to the routine and less exhausted by it but her skills as a mill-hand were still woefully inadequate. She looked in envy at the women around her who managed their machines with a supple grace, turning, bending an
d twisting as they moved along the great framework, all the time conducting a low conversation with their immediate neighbours. Her own attempts to stifle squeaks of fear when the great carriages of spindles rolled towards her as she made her way amongst them didn’t pass unnoticed. She was consigned to the carding room where the bobbins were prepared, a lowly job in the great hierarchy of the mill.
The number of people that the mill employed had taken her by surprise. Its population of workers was considerably larger than the village of Northwaite, sitting on the hillside up above it. It attracted workers not just from there, but also from Nortonstall and all the surrounding villages.
It soon dawned on Sarah that the relatively solitary life she had led up until now had made her ill-suited to the noise and bustle of the mill and the banter of the workers there. Once her mother and sisters had left to join her father in Manchester, she and Ada had been thrown very much on each other’s company. Hill Farm Cottage had been a little remote and Sarah’s trips to the village were for supplies or to deliver remedies, and not for social reasons.
At first she had found it hard to understand the closeness of the friendships among the women who had worked at the mill together for years. She observed them as they walked along in the morning, arms entwined, chatting as they went. Conversations were randomly set aside and picked up again throughout the day, as work allowed, while the journey home saw the same women walking together again, arm in arm, weary but still chatting. Sarah came to realise that they spent so much time together, they mostly knew one another better than they knew their own husbands and families.
Just a few of the women walked alone, keeping themselves to themselves, and Sarah saw how this sometimes happened when a spat between friends saw one of them cast out from the close-knit group. It rarely lasted longer than a day before everything would be back to normal. Sarah, though, was acutely aware that she walked alone each day more often than not.
Chapter 48
During Sarah’s early days at the mill, she felt her isolation keenly. None of the women offered to welcome her into one of their tight-knit groups and at first she didn’t have the confidence to introduce herself to them. After a few days, she thought she recognised some of the children she had once known in Northwaite, now grown up, amongst the women workers. She was getting up the courage to go over to them one day in her dinner break when, to her annoyance, a man settled himself on the hard wooden bench opposite her, obstructing her view.
‘New here, are you?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Sarah said. She didn’t offer anything else, hoping to discourage further conversation.
‘From hereabouts?’ he asked, smiling and not in the least put off.
‘Yes, from Northwaite.’
‘I’m from there mesen and can’t say as I recognise you,’ he said, his brow creased into a frown. ‘And I’m sure I would ha’ noticed if I’d seen a pretty lass like you around.’
Sarah, aware that the women seated further along the rows of bench seats had stopped their chatter to listen, became increasingly uncomfortable.
‘Well, being a married woman perhaps I don’t frequent the same places as you.’ Her frosty response drew giggles from the listening women.
The man, far from being put in his place, seemed to be enjoying their exchange.
‘Oh, aye. And who’s t’lucky man then?’
‘Joe Bancroft,’ Sarah said.
The man frowned. ‘Don’t know anyone o’ that name from Northwaite.’
‘He’s from Nortonstall,’ Sarah said.
One of the women leant forward. ‘Joe Bancroft, from Nortonstall?’ she asked. ‘And you’re his … wife, you say?’
She paused deliberately and the other women nudged each other and giggled.
Sarah flushed. The dinner break usually seemed far too short but today she was relieved when the bell sounded to send them back to the mill floor.
‘Yes, his wife,’ she said. She felt instantly wary and she’d have asked the woman why she wanted to know, if the overlooker hadn’t been shouting at them that it was time for them all to get back to their places. The opportunity lost, Sarah couldn’t find a reason to reopen the conversation, but she became acutely conscious of nudges and giggles whenever she passed that little group at home time or clocking-on time, until before long something else engaged their attention and she was forgotten.
Sarah’s spirited response to her dinner-time inquisition had an unexpected benefit, however. Other women – ones from Northwaite village – had been witness to it and that night, on the way home, one of them approached her.
‘Well done for tekkin’ no nonsense from t’likes of our Will.’ The woman who spoke was so well muffled against the cold that Sarah couldn’t recognise her but that overture was all that it took for the other women to register their acceptance, too. From then on, Sarah was offered friendly words of greeting when she joined the group on the walk to the mill in the morning and was invited to sit with them at dinner-time.
It turned out that Edie, who had spoken up first, was sister to Will, the forward chap who made it his business to try it on with every woman who worked at the mill, regardless of age or marital status. Edie had ceased to pay his actions any heed although one dinner-time she was heard to express the wish that there was surely one woman in the whole of the mill who’d be prepared to take him in hand and relieve her of the obligation.
‘I had high hopes of you,’ she confided in Sarah, ‘until you opened your mouth and we could tell you had your nose up in t’air.’
Sarah protested, to much laughter, and Edie gave her a nudge. ‘Aye, well, we know you now and you’re one of us. Although ’tis a shame. You’re a sight too dainty for this work – an’ you can read an’ write an’ all.’
There was a murmur of agreement from the other women. Sarah shook her head to negate their comments but in her heart she felt it to be true. Gaining their acceptance had helped her to feel more settled at the mill but it still took every ounce of resolve to get her there each day.
At night she watched Alice sleeping peacefully – her arms flung free of the covers and cheeks flushed – and marvelled at her perfection. Alice was now nearly three years old and Sarah felt it deeply that she was missing so many stages in her daughter’s growing up. Yet there was food on the table and money put by, so that whatever the future might bring she would hopefully be ready for it.
Although she continued to write dutifully to Joe every three months, she found it harder and harder to know what to say to him. He’d been gone for virtually the whole of Alice’s life now and Sarah had given up asking him whether she could visit. In any case, a six-day working week left precious little time for prison-visiting, especially to see someone who felt like a stranger to her. Daniel, though, was another matter.
Despite all her resolutions to forget him, it was Daniel she thought about before she went to sleep at night; Daniel’s face that came to her unbidden when work was unbearably dull. Daniel, alas, wasn’t there to save her when her daydreaming caused her to neglect the thread as it spooled, leading to unevenly wound bobbins or, even worse, broken threads. Sarah veered between shame that she was unable to master what was apparently the most basic skill in the mill and a kind of triumph at her unsuitability for the work.
Chapter 49
December 1877 felt like an endurance trial to Sarah, as she walked to work through rain and snow, fog and frost, always wishing herself somewhere else. The days crept by but, as the month progressed, Sarah sensed a change in atmosphere at work. There was an air of excitement, even of friskiness, at the mill. They would have two days’ holiday at the Christmas period, as Edie explained with delight, and there would just be three days at work after that before they got their Sunday off as usual.
‘The master usually lets us leave early on Christmas Eve an’ all,’ Edie said. ‘He has guests at his table in t’evening and he likes his workers to be well out of t’way so we don’t spoil his party.’ Edie snorted to express h
er contempt then added, ‘I’m not complaining, mind. I’ve enough to do in my own home to get ready for Christmas. An’ if it’s been a good year we get something extra in our pay packets the Friday afore. I’ve got my hopes pinned on it – I’ve my eye on a new bonnet and I’ve asked Bessie in t’shop to put it by for me.’
Having Christmas in the offing gave the workers something to talk about at dinner-times and the women were eager to share plans and recipes with each other. Sarah listened, smiled and nodded but didn’t have much to add to the conversation. It would be a quiet Christmas with just the three of them at home this year, she reflected. No Daniel and no Joe – it would seem odd. She realised that she ought to come up with some ideas of her own, otherwise the day that would be special to her for being a mid-week holiday would simply seem boring to Ada and Alice.
The arrival of mistletoe in the mill the week before Christmas whipped up a frenzy of excitement. It was frowned upon by the management, but the men were wise to this and kept it well hidden, whipping out a sprig whenever the opportunity to demand a kiss from an often reluctant victim presented itself. The whole mill was astonished when the tables were turned on Edie’s brother Will – one of the worst mistletoe offenders. Carrie Banks, a petite and pale wraith-like girl with a mass of dark hair, and possibly the quietest worker at the mill, presented herself to Will with a sprig of mistletoe all of her own and procured from who knows where. She stood on tiptoe, the sprig held aloft, puckered her lips and closed her eyes. Will, astonished by the turn of events, was seen to blush deeply, then bend down to kiss her on the lips, to a round of applause from all those nearby.
‘Can you believe it?’ Edie asked Sarah a day or two later. ‘That little minx Carrie has only gone and turned our Will into some sort of mooncalf. He’s chased after every bit of skirt in t’mill, wi’out success. Then this little madam turns tables on him. I swear he’s in love. Can’t stop talking about her.’
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