by Emma Newman
She worked so fast that each loom was still for only about fifteen seconds. And she didn’t rest between the bobbin changes. Dotty was constantly vigilant, checking the cloth being produced, wiping the edges of the machine down, constantly checking and rechecking the state of the threads.
And all the while, the temperature rose. Charlotte’s head was pounding. Her feet hurt. The noise was unbearable. No one could talk to each other but she did notice a couple of people mouthing words across looms and seeming to understand each other. She could see people coughing, even though she couldn’t hear them, and by midmorning she was coughing, too, feeling a persistent tickle at the back of her throat that she simply couldn’t shift.
Surely there had to be a break soon? It felt like days since the shift had begun. The sun’s steady rise, something that usually lifted her heart, filled her with dread as the factory’s temperature became unbearable. She had to get outside and breathe in some fresh air! She had to tell Ben that this was never going to work!
The bell was rung and the shafts stopped turning, bringing the drive belts to rest and the looms to a stop. Charlotte’s ears were ringing and she could still hear the clattering of the looms even though they’d stopped. Dotty said something to her and she couldn’t hear her. Panicking, she pushed her way through the press of workers, fearing she was about to collapse as she was squeezed in the throng, and then she was staggering into the cobbled yard, sucking in great lungfuls of air.
Gradually, Charlotte became aware of people laughing at her, but instead of being embarrassed, she could only be grateful she could actually hear their jeers. Dotty hurried over and rubbed her back as Charlotte braced her hands on her knees, coughing.
“I knew you’d find it ’ard,” Dottie said. “Bugger off, you lot!” she shouted at some of the kids who were mocking Charlotte’s distress. “It’ll get easier. I promise. Come on, we ’ave to get our lunch. We’ve only got twenty minutes.”
“I thought it was half an hour!” Charlotte said, but Dottie shook her head.
“We ’ave to clean the machines before they start up again. Only quick like. C’mon.”
The food was being served at the long tables this time—there was no time for queuing after all—and soon there was a plate of some fatty beef chunks and a helping of boiled potatoes in front of her. A pitcher of water was passed down the table to refill glasses and Charlotte was so thirsty she drank it, despite the fact it was cloudy. She could imagine George’s rage if he saw her do that, given his friend’s beliefs.
Her feet throbbed and her ears were still ringing. She’d been in that mill for only seven hours and hadn’t even been working, just learning the job, but she was exhausted. Her heart pounded too fast at the thought of going back into that oven. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of it. She picked at the meat, unable to stomach it, had a couple of the potato chunks and then pushed the plate over to Dotty. “Here,” she said. “You have this. Thank you for looking after me.”
Dotty looked up from her own plate, mouth full. “What y’doin’?”
Charlotte put her bread roll next to the crumbs left on Dotty’s plate. “No one should live like this,” she muttered and got up.
“Where y’goin’?” Dotty called, but Charlotte kept walking, unable to say that she was going to find her brother.
She left the dining hall, ignoring the foreman who watched her go by with a frown on his face, and went back to the mill. She had to find where the magi worked.
She’d arranged to meet Ben at sunset back at the worker’s cottage where she’d changed her clothes the day before. She couldn’t wait until then.
Ben would be involved in making the line shafts turn; he’d said as much and from what she’d seen in there, it was the only thing a magus of the Dynamics college could do. The looms contained too many parts in concert for anyone other than a Fine Kinetics magus to control, though a Dynamics magus could turn the drive belt. It was far more efficient for them to turn the main line shafts, however, driving hundreds of looms at once.
She’d noticed how the ends of the shafts went through square gaps in the far wall to allow them to turn unimpeded, so whatever the magi did to turn them had to be on the other side of it. Having endured the morning in that place, she now knew why they were kept separate. She reasoned that they must have their own way in round the back of the mill.
There was indeed another entrance, with doors that had ornate brass handles and a dressed stone portico framing them. Leading up to the doors was a neat flagstoned path running from the boundary of the mill site, an entirely separate set of iron gates at the end of it. They were, unsurprisingly, more ornate than the gates she’d passed through the night before.
The ground floor windows on this side of the mill were larger, but the lower sills were too high for her to be able to look inside. She tried the doors but they were locked. She didn’t even know if Ben was in there. She couldn’t shout for him; she didn’t want to draw attention to herself or, more important, to him. He’d get into trouble if people discovered the relationship between them.
Leaning against the wall, Charlotte wished she could just go home. Then she felt guilty, and selfish and pathetic for wanting to run away when Dotty and Mags had nowhere to run to. How lucky she was to even have somewhere to go!
She couldn’t abandon Ben, either, but she wasn’t going to uncover a saboteur in that mill, not when it was impossible to hold a conversation in there. If there was a plot to disrupt production, it would have to be discussed in the evenings, and no one seemed to have the energy to do that. And even if they did, no one would tell a new girl. She’d been so concerned about following Ben’s plan, she hadn’t stopped to consider if it was actually a good one.
It was hopeless, and she had to tell him so. Charlotte listened at the doors in the vain hope of hearing something, and then decided there must be another way in; surely there would have to be a door between the main mill and where the magi worked? For emergencies, if nothing else.
By the time she got back round to the worker’s entrance to the mill, most people were returning to their looms. She saw Dotty wiping hers down and clearing lint, too absorbed to notice her go past and slip down the far side so she could get a better look at the wall between the mill and the magi’s section. There was a door right at the far end, but without any legitimate reason to go through it as a mill worker, she stopped, frustrated.
“Oi!” The foreman’s shout made her jump. “What are you up to?”
He was staring at her from the other end of the row of looms. With no good answer to give him, she hurried back to Dotty.
To Charlotte’s dismay, the foreman was waiting by Dotty’s looms when she arrived. “There ain’t nothin’ for you over there,” he said. “What were you lookin’ for?”
“Nothing, I—” The words died when she saw the thick leather strap he was holding. Charlotte had a horrible feeling she was about to find out what getting “a strapping” meant.
“She’s new, Mr Foreman,” Dotty said, a quiver in her voice. “She just got turned about in ’ere, that’s all.”
“I saw you sniffing about the other entrance,” the foreman said. “’Opin’ to catch someone’s eye, were yer? There ain’t no jobs ’ere for pretty things lookin’ for rich husbands, I can tell yer that. Don’t y’know them magi can’t marry? Unless you were ’opin’ to lift yer skirt for a bob or two?”
Charlotte gasped. “How dare you!”
The strap was raised and came down so quick that Charlotte had no hope of avoiding it. It hit her across her left arm and shoulder, sending her into the nearest loom and making a sharp pain explode through her hip where she hit the cast-iron upright.
“You’re ’ere to work!” the foreman bellowed. “Not flutter yer eyelashes at some magus, ’opin’ he’ll let y’off a shift!” The strap whooshed through the air a second time, this time catching her forearms as she tried to defend herself.
The blow was hard enough to make tears come t
o her eyes. As the third came down, the bell rang and the shafts turned once again. Her sleeve caught on the loom’s drive belt, snagging on a rough piece of leather that had patched up an earlier tear, and her arm shot up towards the line shaft with it. For a terrifying moment she felt her feet leave the floor, and then without even considering the consequences, Charlotte snapped the drive belt with a thought. She tumbled free, landing with her sleeve torn as the loom juddered to a halt.
The foreman’s strap came down again, catching her across the head this time, as she was too shaken to defend herself. She couldn’t hear the crack of it against her, the sound stolen by the din of the looms weaving again, but the pain was even more intense. She raised her arms again, but when the expected blow didn’t come, her fear was rapidly replaced by rage. At the back of her mind, there was the faintest memory of one of her lessons with Hopkins.
“Your temper will be the end of you,” he’d said. “Unchecked rage can turn a Latent wild, and it only takes a moment for control to be lost. That’s why you need the marque.”
Her marque was the furthest thing from her mind. She was going to wrench that strap from the foreman’s hands and beat him to death with it.
Someone was screaming at a high enough pitch to rise above the clatter of the looms, and it snapped Charlotte from her murderous fury. It was Dotty, and for an awful moment she feared the foreman had turned on the poor girl for defending her. The foreman was nowhere near Dotty, though—he was still standing where he had been before, but now the strap was hanging from his hand at his side. Charlotte saw the wide-eyed terror on his face as he stared at something behind her.
She whipped her head round just in time to see the loom rise a couple of feet off the ground and then slam down again, making the floor shake. She scrabbled away on her backside as it rose a second time, only to buckle in the middle before being dropped again, as if a giant’s invisible hand were squeezing it.
For one terrifying moment, Charlotte thought she was doing it, that she’d lost control like she had during Ben’s test when she smashed a window and broke the dining room table. She tried to remember her marque, but the visualisation exercise was impossible when the loom’s wooden frames were splintering apart right in front of her.
The shuttle had fallen to the floor, as had the roll of fabric collected at the side of the machine, and the broken threads were already a tangled mess. Half the frame lifted into the air again and Charlotte saw a wispy form above it, just for a moment, before the wood dropped to the floor and splintered into kindling.
Wondering if she’d imagined it, Charlotte stared at the air above the broken loom, but the violence seemed to be over. The foreman, visibly shaking, looked at her and Dotty and then beckoned to them to follow him out of the mill.
Dotty helped Charlotte to her feet, both of them shivering. With arms wrapped around each other, they went outside, Charlotte studiously avoiding making eye contact with the nearby workers. Even though those working the looms around them had seen it all happen, they still kept an eye on their own work. Now Charlotte knew why; they were keen to avoid a beating.
She wanted to cry. She could feel welts burning beneath her dress, her cheek was stinging where the end of the strap had caught it and her head throbbed. But she wouldn’t give that man the satisfaction of seeing her upset. She gritted her teeth when she saw him outside, promising herself that she would tell Ben about him and see to it that he lost his job. It was the least she could do for Dotty.
“I don’t want either of you t’say anything about what y’saw,” he said, still gripping the strap. “None of it, d’yer ’ear?”
“But other people saw it too!” Charlotte said, and he scowled at her.
“They already know not to talk.” His voice was more a growl. “Now get back in there and get on w’yer shift.” He pointed the strap at Charlotte. “Any more wanderin’ about and yer out. There’s plenny more who’d give their eye teeth to work at this ’ere mill. I want t’see you workin’ a loom by the end of today, else it’s the cardin’ room for yer and y’won’t like that, either.”
Dotty pulled at Charlotte’s hand. “C’mon Charlie,” she said timidly. “You can load the next empty shuttle, for practice.”
Charlotte levelled an angry glare at the foreman and the strap twitched, making Dotty pull her harder. She let herself be guided back into the ovenlike mill, deafened once more, but more motivated to stay now. She didn’t know what she had seen above the loom, nor whether it was even real. Whatever it was, she feared she’d started it off when she’d lost her temper.
Resolving to stick it out to the end of the shift, Charlotte made a mental list of grievances to take to Ben. He had to know what it was like here. He had to understand how badly the people were treated. And she had to keep her temper, or saboteurs would be the least of her brother’s problems.
Chapter 5
BY THE END OF THE SHIFT, Charlotte was managing one of Dotty’s looms whilst shadowing her on the others. The first time she’d had to change the shuttle, she’d been so terrified the loom would start up again whilst she was tying on the new thread. Dotty had taken pity on her and shown her, yet again, but Charlotte couldn’t explain what she was really afraid of. If her hand were maimed, she’d never be able to draw again.
She was so tired after eating the measly soup and roll that she almost fell asleep at the dining table. She’d planned to ask Dotty about the other incidents, but then the sun was setting and she had to get to the cottage.
There were no rules about having to stay within the mill complex, but the gates were locked a few minutes after eleven bells. She walked as quickly as her aching legs allowed. She wasn’t the only one heading out, to her relief. It felt strange, going out without a proper bonnet, so she’d tied her shawl under her chin, making her look like a washer woman. She didn’t care. At least the red mark on her cheek was hidden.
There was a reassuring glow coming from the cottage’s ground floor window as she approached. Ben opened the door before she’d even knocked. She stepped inside wordlessly and went into the small front room as he shut the door.
“Charlie?” he followed her in and watched her drop into the dusty armchair. “Have you no greeting for me?”
She glowered at him, making no effort to disguise her exhaustion. His eyes widened. “Good lord. You look terrible.” He collected something from the hall and came back in. “I brought you some currant buns and a bottle of ginger beer. Here, I’ll open it for you.”
He passed her the opened bottle and she drained it so quickly it gave her indigestion.
“Charlie Bean, say something, dear. You’re worrying me.”
“You have sent me to work in hell.”
His concerned frown warred with a nervous smile. “Come now, it can’t be so bad.”
“It’s awful, Ben, truly awful.”
He started to pace. “Well, you won’t have to be there for long. Tell me, what have you learned? Any suspects?”
She stared at him. He had no idea. She wanted to shout at him, but couldn’t find the energy to do so. She suppressed an uncomfortable belch, still thirsty. “No. There aren’t any suspects. The poor souls who work there are too exhausted to organise any sabotage.”
“I heard there was an incident today. Didn’t you see anything?”
“I was there! And there were no other workers involved, I can tell you that. The loom lifted off the floor and smashed itself to pieces, without any help from your fictitious ringleader.”
He paled. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s as I say! I saw it with my own eyes. I was almost killed. Well, that was because the foreman knocked me into the loom and my sleeve caught on the strap and lifted me up.”
“Good God, Charlie!” He knelt in front of her, seizing her arms. “You must be more careful!”
“You’re hurting me!”
He was so strong now, and didn’t seem to realise it. He let go quickly as if she were a dish pulled from the o
ven, too hot to touch. “I’m sorry. Tell me everything. What happened to the loom?”
She told him exactly what she saw, all except seeing the wisp above it. She wasn’t sure what he’d make of that.
“And no one else was near to it?”
“Only the foreman. I was so furious with him, Ben, he—”
“You lost your temper?”
“Only for a moment. He—”
“Charlie! For the love of all that is good in this world, you must report yourself for testing! Don’t you see? You made this happen!”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not true,” she said, trying to disguise her own doubt.
Still kneeling in front of her, he rested his hands on her knees. “Charlie, you can’t hide this anymore. I know you love George and want to marry him, but don’t you see how much danger you’d put him in? And even if you managed to keep yourself in check, what if you were reported after your wedding? He’d be prosecuted for hiding a Latent. That would be the end of his career, possibly his freedom. If you really do love him, you must submit yourself to the Royal Society!”
“It’s under control.” She forced herself to look him straight in the eye as she said it. “I would never put him at risk.”
“If you don’t do this yourself, darling, I will have to report you.”
“No!” She pushed him away. “If you do that, I swear I’ll . . . I’ll throw myself off Tower Bridge!”
Appalled, he stared at her. “What a terrible thing to say!”
“I’d rather drown than be one of their prisoners!”