Irish Linen

by Candace McCarthy

“Just be careful,” Betsy warned.

  “Careful? Oh, with the machine,” Meghan said with sudden understanding. “I’ve experience with a loom. I’m sure I’ll manage.”

  “I’m sure you will, dear,” Patty said firmly. “You’re a capable young woman. I’m sure you can manage anything.”

  Then, suddenly, the tone of conversation changed, as everyone picked up and shared Meghan’s excitement. Meghan retired for bed that night, feeling as if she’d done the right thing in taking the new job.

  The next day Meghan began her new position as a weaver. The work was hard, but she didn’t mind, although she had to remain at her station all day. A worker in the spinning or dressing room was allowed to leave her station for an hour or more to escape the fabric dust and humidity for fresh air. Some simply went outside the building, but many used the opportunity to perform personal tasks at home.

  Meghan enjoyed working on her prettily painted machine in the wide, high-ceiling weaving room with its bright white walls. Her loom was near a window, which allowed in the afternoon sunlight. The air on the floor was cleaner, free from the heavy cotton dust generated from spinning or dressing the thread.

  That night, after a hearty meal shared with Patty, the woman’s sons, and Patty’s other boarders, Meghan went up to her attic room, changed into her nightgown, and flung herself onto her bed. She stared at the ceiling beam and thought about her day as a weaver with satisfaction. A short while later her roommate, Betsy Long, came in to bed, and the two women talked about the mill, their fellow employees, and Meghan’s impression of her new job. Soon, they fell silent, and Meghan drifted to sleep. The next thing she knew it was five in the morning, and she hurriedly dressed for breakfast before beginning her third day at the mill.

  When the bell rang, signaling the end of Saturday and the work week, Meghan stopped her machine and tidied up her work area. The sun had set in the night sky, and the weaving room was lit by a series of oil lamps suspended from the high ceiling, away from the danger of igniting the cotton cloth.

  As she reached for her cloak, Meghan heard the other girls in the weaving room chatting happily about their next day off.

  After five days of employment, Meghan was tired. Her muscles ached in places that until now she’d been unfamiliar with; her feet were sore and slightly swollen from standing for long stretches at her loom. But she felt good about her position and the wages she’d earned. Although she wouldn’t receive her pay until later in the month, she felt rich. It was a heady sensation to have money and know that you wouldn’t be left out in the cold to starve. If she became efficient enough to manage not one but two weaving looms, Meghan knew the money would be well worth the hard hours of concentrated work.

  “Meghan.”

  She turned to find the overseer near her loom, inspecting her day’s production. “Mr. Phelps,” she said, approaching him with a smile. “Thank ye for me new pos—”

  Her words died as the man turned from her machine. “Would you come into my office please?”

  A feeling of dread settled within her breast as she nodded and followed the overseer into a small office at one end of the weaving floor. Had she done something wrong?

  Mr. Phelps closed the door, blocking out the conversation of the weavers as they shut down their machines for the day.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked.

  He turned from the door and smiled. “On the contrary, young woman, you’ve done an excellent job during your first week here.”

  “Thank ye,” she said politely. She didn’t care for the intense way he studied her.

  “You like your lodging?” he asked.

  “Aye, Patty is a fine woman. I’ve no complaints. Betsy Long and I get along well enough in the same room.”

  “Good.” Mr. Phelps looked pleased. “After a week or so, would you consider taking another machine?”

  Meghan couldn’t control a rush of pleasure. Who would have thought she’d be grateful for more work? “Aye,” she said, “if you think I can handle it.”

  “I know you can handle it, Meghan,” he said with a grin that made her uncomfortable. He approached her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m glad you enjoy your position here, Meghan,” he purred as he turned her and trailed his fingers down her arm.

  She stood in shock that he touched her. “Mr. Phelps—”

  “Mathew,” he invited.

  She bristled. “Mr. Phelps,” she said, “I would appreciate it if you would unhand me.”

  Surprise flickered in his gaze, before he regarded her with anger. “You had better not speak to me in that tone, woman.” He didn’t remove his hand; he shifted it to rest on her hip.

  “I said let go of me!” she hissed, twisting to break free of his grasp. “You’ve no right to touch me!”

  His mouth tightened as he stared at her. “You forget yourself, Meghan McBride. You are my employee. It is by my word and my word alone that you have—and keep—your job.”

  Meghan shivered as she kept her distance. “You’re threatening to release me?”

  He stared at her hard. “Have I said that?” He skirted his desk and sat, leaning back in his chair. “A word of advice, Irishwoman—I don’t know how things are in your country, but here in America it’s always wise to be friendly to your employer.” He smiled slowly as he raked her with an insolent gaze. “Without me, where do you think you’d be?”

  Meghan was silent as distress warred with fury. She wanted to hit the smile right off Phelps’s smug face, but he was right. She needed this job. Rafferty was upset when she’d lost her last position. The only other employment, he’d said, was the black powder mill downriver. It was a dangerous job, one she was unfamiliar with. She liked working at Gibbons Mill, and she liked the people. All but Phelps. And the overseer hadn’t actually done anything to her, had he …?

  “I apologize if I misunderstood,” she said. It was the closest thing to an apology he’d get. She didn’t think she misunderstood him, so in her mind, she wasn’t apologizing.

  He rose from his chair with a smile that appeared more genuine. “I understand that you’re new here. If I’ve offended you,” he said, much to her surprise, “then I’m sorry.”

  She was thinking about the incident and Phelps’s startling apology as she left his office and started for home. The man had said he was sorry! Had she misread his look and intentions?

  He’d stared at her breasts! she realized. Anger lent a new snap to her steps. No, she hadn’t misread his intentions, nor did she believe that his apology was genuine. But position or no position, she wouldn’t stand for such behavior from the man again.

  “Hold on, Meghan!” Susan Morgan called as the young Irishwoman left the building and headed toward Patty’s. “Why are you hurrying?”

  Meghan opened her mouth to tell her the truth, but then decided not to make an issue of it. After all, there had been no harm done. And she needed the job and the pay. “I’m hungry,” she improvised as she slowed her steps and waited for Susan to catch up.

  “Me, too,” the girl said. “I wonder what Patty’s cooking.” She didn’t wait for Meghan’s answer, but asked, “So how do you like your work as a weaver?”

  A stiff breeze swirled about the yard, taking Meghan’s breath away, making her answer slow in coming. Meghan held the edges of her hood tight to her chin. “I thought it’d be terrible adjusting, but it wasn’t,” she said loudly to be heard above the wind.

  At eighteen years of age, Susan had a face with the ripe fullness of a farm girl, who had benefited from the fresh air, hard work, and good food. She leaned in close to Meghan. “Catherine Brown was put out when you got a loom,” she said. “But then Catherine is annoyed by everything that doesn’t benefit Catherine.”

  “Catherine?” Meghan couldn’t place the face.

  Susan shivered as she clutched her coat. “She works in the spinning room. Has her heart set on weaving, but Phelps won’t use her.” She huddled closer to Meghan so that she could lower her v
oice. “Catherine’s all thumbs when it comes to weaving,” she said conspiratorially. “She barely gets by with spinning. She started as a doffer and hardly managed to do that!”

  Meghan smiled at the mental image of Susan’s words. A doffer’s job was to change spools in the spinning room, replacing full ones with empty ones as the thread was spun and collected from the machines.

  “I haven’t met Catherine,” Meghan said.

  “You’ll get to know all of us in time,” Susan replied. “I work in the dressing room, and you know me!” She laughed as if she’d told a joke. “Of course, you and I, in a sense, live together.”

  Meghan nodded and increased her pace when she spied Patty’s house ahead. Susan easily kept in step with her.

  “You’ll be going to church service with us tomorrow morning?” Susan asked as they reached Patty’s steps.

  Meghan shook her head. “Me fiancé is coming for me this night. I’ll be going to church with him, I suppose. It’s the only day we have to spend together.”

  “Oh, you poor dear, how awful for you to be separated from him,” Susan commiserated. “You must miss him terribly.”

  Meghan mumbled an appropriate response. Actually, she hadn’t given Rafferty much thought this past week. She’d been too busy working and adjusting to life at the mill. She felt a prickling of guilt as lately she ’d been thinking of Lucas again. Too much, she knew, for someone betrothed to another man.

  Then, her thoughts returned to her experience with Phelps, and she felt a shiver of revulsion. What would she do if he touched her again? Should she mention it to her friends? To Rafferty? No, she thought, not unless it happens again.

  A week later, Meghan felt quite comfortable with her new life. Bad weather this last Sunday had kept Rafferty from coming to take her to Somerville, but she didn’t mind. She enjoyed the company at Patty’s much more than Rafferty’s of late. Raff seemed irritable whenever she spent the day with him. She preferred the easy, laughing camaraderie of the women boarders over her fiancé’s long periods of angry silence.

  After a month at the job, Meghan was in charge of three looms. The hours were long and there were times when Meghan wished for a free day to lie in and read, but she was grateful for the work, the money, and her new friends. Mr. Phelps had kept his distance, and relieved, Meghan had begun to wonder if she had, in fact, misread the man’s behavior toward her.

  Susan had been helping her, during the evenings, to improve her reading and writing skills. The young woman had been fortunate enough to have attended a country school near her parents’ farm with classes taught by the local Methodist minister’s wife.

  Today was the day before Christmas. Everyone at the textile mill was excited about the holiday. Patty Rhoades had been baking for three days in preparation for the special two days of feasting. Patty’s son James had gone off into the forest last evening for holly and evergreens for the great room and second-story parlor. When Meghan had risen early this morning and gone downstairs, she’d noticed the house was filled with the fresh scent of pine.

  Meghan had saved a portion of her first weeks’ wages for gifts for everyone at Patty’s along with a special present for Rafferty. She wanted to repay her betrothed for his kindness in bringing her to America, but knew there was no way she could repay him for all he’d done.

  As she set out to work at 6:00 A.M., Meghan recalled her last visit to Somerville and the increasing feeling she’d had that something was bothering Rafferty. When she’d tried to talk with him, he’d been uncommunicative, even angry at her attempts to question him, until she’d threatened to stay home the following weekend if he didn’t shake out of his worrisome mood. Rafferty had put himself out to be charming and cheerful after that, and Meghan was able to enjoy his company for the remainder of her stay. But the memory of his earlier behavior still bothered her.

  Meghan was the first in the weaving room, but not the mill, when she arrived to start the day. On her way to her station, she’d spoken briefly to those she’d come to know and smiled a hello to those she hadn’t met. The weaving room was on the fourth floor of the factory. All three of her looms stood, side by side, near the window on the building’s south side. The day had hardly begun, but there was enough light to see without the oil lamps.

  She went quickly to work, for she had set a goal for herself, and she wanted to finish it by the end of the day.

  While she’d rather have spent the holiday at Patty’s, she’d be spending it with Rafferty. Her intended would be coming before supper to take her back to Somerville and the cold, now unfriendly atmosphere of her former home. Now that she worked and lived near the Gibbons textile mill, Meghan had to share a room at Mrs. Pridgly’s with the woman who had taken up residency in her place. Miss Doddleberry snored, often keeping Meghan up well into the early morning hours of the next day. And the woman was messy with her belongings, dropping her clothing on the bedchamber floor, wherever she had happened to undress. Meghan missed Betsy, her quiet, neat, and warmly considerate roommate at Patty’s, whenever she was in Somerville visiting.

  That morning, Meghan was the first to start up her power loom, and soon the floor hummed with the noise of operating machinery. She felt happy and anxious about the holiday herself as she listened to Ellie Trundle talk with Kitty Mason about their plans for Christmas. Her thoughts drifted again to Lucas. What would he be doing this holiday? Would he be spending it with his sister? Meghan loved her cloak and couldn’t forget the man who had generously given it to her. Did he ever think of the woman he’d once rescued? Where would she be now if she’d accepted his offer and become his mistress?

  Her mouth curved with amusement as she checked her thread. Certainly not in a mill, making cloth, she thought. No, if she was with Lucas, they’d be … She felt her cheeks warm as she envisioned what she and Lucas would be doing together this early in the morning. She recalled the heat of his kisses … his bare flesh. She sighed and then scolded herself for such wistful thoughts.

  “Meghan?”

  She was startled from her reverie. “Mr. Phelps!”

  He nodded toward her loom. “Get Kitty to watch that for you and come into my office.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and approached Kitty with the request.

  Meghan wasn’t especially concerned when she entered Phelps’s office and, at his invitation, sat before his desk. The man opened a desk drawer, extracted a box, and then handed it to her.

  “Merry Christmas, Meghan,” he said.

  Her gaze transferred back and forth from the box to the man’s face. “I don’t know what to say,” she murmured.

  He smiled. “Why don’t you open the package before you say anything,” he suggested.

  With trembling fingers, she took the box and carefully opened the lid. Inside the wooden box lay a beautiful cameo brooch that was much too expensive and certainly inappropriate for this man to give her. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re a good worker,” he said, rising from his seat.

  She frowned as she stared inside the box. “Mr. Phelps—” She gasped, for he was suddenly there by her side, leaning against the edge of his desk.

  He straightened, and she shoved back her chair and stood.

  “I can’t accept this,” she said, extending the box, but keeping her distance.

  “Why not?” His eyes gleamed as he held her gaze.

  “Because it’s not proper—”

  He grabbed her extended arm and dragged her against him. She cried out, struggling, as he kissed her, and the box fell to the floor.

  Meghan whimpered against his mouth as she fought to be free. Her hands were trapped. She tried to kick him and bring her knee up, but he was stealing her air … and her strength.

  His head lifted, and he studied her with satisfaction. Meghan caught her breath and then jerked, spitting fury, from his arms. “Don’t touch me!” she hissed. “I told you never to touch me.”

  He appeared surprised by her outburst. “And I warned you
about your attitude toward me! Do you wish to lose your position?”

  “Go ahead!” she exclaimed. “Release me. No employment is worth enduring your touch!”

  “Irish bitch! Go to hell.”

  She opened the door and glanced back. “It seems I’m already there, thank ye,” she said with a new calmness. Then she left his office, slamming the door behind her.

  The noise made by her exit drew glances from the workers nearby. With stubborn determination, Meghan returned to her looms and began to work. She wouldn’t allow Phelps to intimidate her! Would he follow her and order her to leave, causing a scene?

  When Phelps didn’t appear, Meghan relaxed. The man hadn’t actually fired her, had he? Could he fire her? Or did a dismissal have to come from the owner of the mill?

  Fear kept her nervous for the rest of the morning, but Phelps kept his distance. Once, she saw him watching her, but he didn’t approach or order her to leave. Ha! she thought. On what grounds can he release me?

  His threat had been nothing but a bluff designed to get her to cooperate and “be nice” to him. Meghan glanced about the workroom, studying the women workers’ faces. How many others had he intimidated into following his will?

  Meghan sought out Mari Bright when the time came to break for the midday meal. “May I speak with you a moment?”

  Mari, who had been talking with another worker, nodded. “You’ve done fine work today, Veronica,” she said to the other girl. “Keep it up.” Then, she waved Meghan to a private area in the corner of the work room.

  “Mari—”

  “It’s Phelps, isn’t it?” the woman said.

  Meghan blinked with surprise. “Aye, but how did ye—”

  The woman looked away. “It’s happened before.”

  “To you?” Meghan asked.

  Mari shook her head, but her gaze skittered away.

  “Who?”

  “One of the girls.”

  “Only one.”

  Mari sighed. “All right. It’s happened more than once.”

  “I don’t understand,” Meghan said with anger. “ ‘Tis not right! Why is the man still here then?”