The Silk Factory

by Judith Allnatt

  ‘Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy … rid them out of the hands of the wicked.’ Hawkins’s deep voice rolled out over the congregation as he turned first to one side and then the other. Was he imagining it or did the parson look with special meaning at the doctor, at the constable, at the members of the parish vestry, even at his own man, Hinchin? How dare he! How dare he use his position and the platform of the pulpit to prick their consciences about the paupers of the parish and try to influence a decision on a secular matter! Fowler’s brow drew into a deep scowl.

  The parson expanded on his theme of responsibility, speaking of the giving of alms, of Charity beginning in one’s own parish, of being your brother’s keeper. At this, Fowler’s temper rose further. He crossed his arms in front of him and secretly clenched and unclenched his fists, unable to find vent for his spleen. Tabitha glanced sideways at him and began to fidget anxiously and Hebe, sinking down in her seat, started to plait and unplait the silk-ribbon place marker she used for her Bible.

  The parson’s voice rose as he shifted his ground to justice for the poor and oppressed and for all those made vulnerable by misfortunes not of their own making. ‘I shall finish with a second lesson,’ he announced, ‘and exhort you to examine your consciences and repent any actions that exploit your fellow man or take advantage of their poverty or weakness.’ In a sonorous voice that rang in the rafters, he spoke out with a passion:

  ‘Lord, how long shall the wicked, shall the wicked triumph?

  How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?

  They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.

  They slay the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless.’

  At this, there was a stir in the congregation. Fowler turned round sharply and saw it run like a ripple to the very back of the church. A hundred pairs of eyes seemed to fix upon him and he quickly sat back, stiff and upright in his seat.

  The parson continued, his voice gradually rising, swelling with passion at the stirring words:

  ‘Yet they say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

  Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?

  He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

  He that chastiseth the heathen, shall he not correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know?’

  The last words resounded in the lofty building and many cast their eyes heavenwards as if believing that the roof might suddenly open and the judgement of the Lord manifest itself. As the parson smoothed the page and shut his Bible, the stir became a mutter and the mutter a hubbub. The parson, above them in the pulpit, held out his hands, pressing them down through the air to quell the sound. Voices died away.

  A pregnant silence hung in the church. He gave the blessing and then climbed heavily down to lead the way from the church. The choir filed from their stalls behind him and, once they had turned aside to disrobe, the gentry began to vacate their pews, the ladies showily gathering up fans, gloves and parasols. The congregation respectfully let them pass before starting their own orderly exodus following one pew at a time from the front. When it came to the turn of his row to empty, Fowler, still filled with rage, picked up his cane in one hand and his hat in the other and moved slowly forward along the pew. The clamour of voices began to rise again and from the corner of his eye he was aware of the faces in the pew behind, all staring at him with expressions ranging from naked curiosity to outright distaste. Beyond them, fingers were raised to point and there was nudging and shuffling, as though some were pushing forward before their turn.

  ‘Come along, Tabitha, Hebe.’ He stared fixedly ahead as they moved along behind the others towards the aisle. As they reached the end, the Marshall family stepped out from the pew and moved away but before he had a chance to follow, those in the pews behind pressed forward as one, crowding in front of him, trapping him where he stood.

  ‘Why are they not waiting for us?’ Tabitha asked indignantly. ‘Why do they not hold back?’

  Hebe’s face was flaming with mortification.

  The hoi polloi poured into the aisle before him. Faces turned back to stare, some with quick glances of derision, some blank and dumb, some openly sneering. Fowler stood impotently gripping his cane as the whole church emptied through the bottleneck of the main door, slow as an hourglass.

  When the lowliest labourers and their families filed out from the back, he stepped out into the aisle but made no move to go further.

  ‘I want to go home,’ Hebe said, her voice trembling.

  ‘Septimus, can we not go?’ Tabitha agreed.

  ‘Be quiet!’ Fowler snapped. ‘I will not follow directly behind a row of crossing sweepers and snotty-nosed ploughboys!’

  After the last person had passed into the porch, he waited a little longer, calculating that the congregation would by then have bade farewell to the parson, who always shook their hands at the door, and dispersed through the churchyard and into the lane outside to stand around in knots and exchange pleasantries.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, at length. ‘Tabitha, take Hebe’s arm. Hebe, hold your head up; you’re not a child!’ He marched down the aisle, the metal tip of his cane tapping out his steps.

  As they emerged into the light, he saw that the parson was still waiting at the door. Beyond him, the whole congregation stood around in groups: some obstructing the path to the lychgate, stiff, black-coated figures in their tall black hats; some up on the banks either side, finding room among the gravestones, men in flat caps with their dowdy wives and clinging children, Jervis and others of the weavers among them. All, it seemed, had stayed behind to see him leave. A silence fell.

  The parson stepped forward and with an inscrutable expression proffered his hand. Fowler took it so briefly that it appeared ill-mannered and muttered, ‘Good day, sir,’ with bad grace.

  In a clear voice the parson said, ‘Good day, Mr Fowler. Thank you for visiting us today. I shall return the courtesy and visit your manufactory very soon.’ He pressed the hands of Tabitha and Hebe with more warmth and a look almost of pity came into his eyes.

  Fowler walked away and the women followed. The groups on the banks above them, among the graves, drew nearer to the path, filling in the gaps until it seemed they walked along a deep passageway made of people looking down upon them. At the far end, by the gate, a group of men had gathered, Hinchin one of them. Fowler strode on ahead of Tabitha and Hebe, brazening it out. ‘Ah! Hinchin!’ he exclaimed, this time so loudly that he could not be missed. The whole group of men looked towards him and Fowler paused, his cane half-raised in greeting. Hinchin would not fully meet his eyes; he cut him, turning back to his companions as if Fowler had never spoken. Fowler hurried on through the shadow of the lychgate, Tabitha and Hebe close behind. He cursed Hinchin. He cursed them all. He would see them all in Hell.

  He strode away, tapping his cane on the road so smartly that sparks flew from its metal ferrule. As they reached the centre of the village, Tabitha called out breathlessly, ‘Septimus! Need we be in such awful haste? Can you not pause and explain? Why did everyone snub us so? What have you been doing?’

  He rounded on her. ‘It is not my place to explain to you,’ he said viciously. ‘Rather you should explain to me your failure with Hinchin’s wife! You should have made sure of her – found some way of putting her under an obligation.’

  Tabitha, shocked at his vehemence, put her hand to her throat. ‘I visited and befriended her. I did all that I could.’

  ‘’Tis true,’ Hebe ventured. ‘I went with Mama to the house on several occasions.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Hebe; this is no business of yours – and don’t conjure up the tears!’

  Tabitha, seeing that Hebe was indeed on the verge of tears, tried a more placatory tack. ‘Septimus, luncheon will be waiting. Perhaps we should
talk after our meal when all are in a better humour?’

  Ignoring her, he marched on again and when they followed, he turned with a face full of fury. ‘Go home!’ he shouted. ‘Do you think I want you women at my heels like trotting dogs?’

  Tabitha and Hebe stood together uncertainly as he set off down an alleyway towards the factory. Tabitha set her jaw and handed Hebe her handkerchief. ‘Let him rant. We’ll go home. There’s no point letting a good dinner go to waste.’

  Fowler let himself into his office. He threw his hat and cane down on to a chair and stood for a moment in the centre of the room. Sunday silence filled the factory: the looms all still, the workers all gone. The only sounds were the ticking of the great clock and the thrumming of his blood in his ears. The deadness of the silence seemed to press down on him from the floors above as if it had a weight of its own. He stepped forward to the desk and with a strangled cry swept cloth, scales, weights and all to the floor with a mighty thump. Silk crumpled and rolled on the dusty boards: pinks, yellows and blues, patterns of roses and ogees, cherubs and vines; pan, scales and weights scattered over them.

  Breathing heavily, he walked round the mess to his seat behind the desk. He took off his uncomfortable jacket, yanked open a drawer and pulled out the ledgers, a quarto notebook, pen and ink. There must be some way to recover from this! He ran his eye down the columns of figures but could not take in their meaning. In his head, he cursed the vestry roundly. Who did they think they were, to scorn him in this way: a gaggle of jumped-up, inky-fingered clerks! Hawkins might think himself the Voice of God but he was nothing but a common country parson, and as for Hinchin, the man had the initiative of a rocking-horse. Yet they had treated him as some kind of pariah! He saw again the staring eyes and pointing fingers, people pressing in upon him, crowding him in the church, lining the churchyard path, making a dark passageway through which he had to pass … Hinchin turning away … He might as well have been clothed in workhouse weeds or swinging a leper’s bell.

  He thought of all the labour he’d put in to grease the wheels of his business through ingratiating the family into the social round of the village, all the dinners and card parties for which he had inveigled invitations. After today’s humiliation, every such invitation would cease and, in his absence, lurid rumours would thrive and spread, harming him and his business further. His contact with village society would be limited to creeping in and out of church on Sundays with his tail between his legs, for if he stayed away, all would say it was an admission of guilt. Yet with Tabitha and Hebe trailing behind him with whey-faces and downcast eyes, how was he to hold his head high and brazen it out?

  Those damnable Fiddement children! To think that such a worthless chit of a girl could have brought him such trouble! His workers had witnessed his public disgrace in front of the whole village today. Now, even in his own factory he would be forever conscious of sneers behind his back and snide remarks muttered just out of earshot. It was insupportable! Was he to suffer the opprobrium of drawboys and bobbin winders? With every attempt he made to exert discipline he’d be aware of the rumbling growl of dissent, his workforce like a dog sleeping with one eye open, ready to spring. For God’s sake, Jervis would be after him, like a hound scenting a weakness in its prey, demanding better wages, shorter hours. And soon Hawkins would be visiting, poking his long nose in. He threw down his pen. Was he to have his business inspected by a parson who knew nothing of Industry, of the vicissitudes of the Market, the responsibilities of a Master? The man was capable only of the most myopic, narrow view. He would nose around his factory seeing only the superficialities. He could hear him now, bleating on about the cramped conditions, the sweat and smell, the air too thick to breathe. He would moan that the children looked thin and exhausted and that veterans who had already fought for their country shouldn’t be adding bent backs and ruined eyes to their injuries. He wouldn’t see the Planning, the Vision and the Creation of Wealth for the Nation. Hawkins would spout reforming nonsense at him and using the power of the vestry; he would force yet more expense upon him, demand more space, better ventilation, a living wage, potatoes, meat, eggs: good vittles wasted on dross. Ah yes, Jervis and the parson would have him in their pincers.

  The harsh fact of the matter was that without the paupers as cheap labour he would be unable to squeeze out sufficient profit. He would find it hard to tread water, never mind forge ahead. He pushed away the thought of his losses in Spitalfields long ago and his ignominious flight from his creditors. Could he sell his properties to tide the business over? ’Twould not be sound business sense; they brought in regular rents, a reliable income, unlike the swings in fortune attendant on the market for silk. In any case, it would be the talk of the parish if he sold property. Everyone would know that he was in difficulties. Viciousness would spread the fact further abroad, along with all the other rumours, and would turn yet more business away. If his suppliers withdrew credit he would be done for … Behind the regular beat of the great clock, he heard voices, the babble of gossip and spite dispersing from the village like a contagion amongst his creditors, amongst his customers: financial difficulties, a cruel taskmaster, trouble with the Law. He saw it spreading, like a dirty smear across his silks.

  No, he could not sell the properties, but without the money neither could he modernise. Instead, he would be stuck with old machines and costly labour and all his great plans would come to naught. Rather than priming the bellows with cash to pump new life into his venture, he would be presiding over its slow death.

  He stared, unseeing, at the open ledger. Above him, the clock ticked on in the cavernous silence.

  NINETEEN

  Effie sat at the window of her room at the Wheat Sheaf Inn, in the part of the village known as ‘Weedon-in-the-Street’. The turnpike road below was busy with carts and carriages, mail and passenger coaches. Traffic was always passing, for this road, which passed east to west between Northampton and Coventry, was crossed here by the Watling Street, the Great Road that ran south, all the way to London and beyond.

  Effie was sewing her wedding dress. A bright square of sunlight fell on her lap where the pale, slippery silk of the bodice lay. She paused now and then in her stitching, welcoming the distraction of the shouts of the carriers or the hauling of portmanteaux on to the top of coaches. Preparing for her marriage was a reason for joy and every day she thought of the blessing that Jack had been safely returned to her, but she worried for Beulah and could not rest. As she stitched, her mind picked over and over all she had heard. It seesawed between Alice’s adamant testimony to the justice that Beulah had absconded, now also corroborated by one of the bobbin winders, Thomasin Parks, and the rumours that had reached her from the bar of the inn that Beulah had come to harm at Fowler’s hands.

  Although there was no proof against him and she knew that one should hold a man innocent until proven otherwise, news of his shaming at the church had filled her with a fierce, vengeful satisfaction. Yet at night she dreamt of Beulah hiding somewhere, in a barn or a hedge-bottom, scared and alone. In these dreams, she clasped her in her arms and told her, ‘Effie’s here – you’re safe – Effie’s here,’ but she woke to an empty room and the clatter of the night coaches passing.

  Assuming that Alice and Thomasin were telling the truth, where could Beulah be now? Time and again she berated herself for having left Alice to pass on her message to Beulah to come to the workhouse. If only she hadn’t relied on the woman! If only she hadn’t let Alice hurry her away. If she’d had the chance to comfort Beulah after the shock of the stillbirth she felt certain she could have reassured her. They had asked too much of her. Beulah was too young to cope with it alone.

  As the days had gone by, Mr Boddington’s assurances that Beulah would be found had sounded hollow to her ear. She and Jack had walked out along the Farthingstone road, where Alice said she last saw Beulah, and then cut across the fields all the way back to the cottage at Newnham hoping to find some sign of her by retracing her most like
ly route home. Jack had ridden out to the toll gates and given a description to the keepers, handing them small coin to ensure discretion and promising more for any information that might lead to the recovery of the child. All had drawn a blank and as time slipped on it seemed less and less likely that she would be found.

  There was a tap on the door and she put her sewing aside to answer it. Hannah, the maid-of-all-work, bobbed a curtsey and said, ‘Lieutenant Stamford, ma’am – in the parlour.’ Effie caught up her shawl and followed her downstairs.

  As Effie entered the tiny parlour, Jack thought with satisfaction how proper rest and decent food were doing her good. She was beginning to fill out once more and her complexion was regaining its colour. She looked stronger. ‘Shall we walk?’ Jack asked. ‘It’s a fine evening.’

  They set off, arm in arm, first along the London road and then, turning aside to enter the village, they passed the long wall of the arsenal and crossed first the swing bridge over the canal and then the brick bridge over the river. As they went, Jack told her of his day, of the improvements he had made in the drill of the artillerymen and, hoping to amuse her, of the new bugler who had played reveille out of key. When they reached the crossroads at the Plume of Feathers, he steered her away from New Street and towards West Street, thinking to avoid passing the silk manufactory and save her pain.

  Effie resisted the pressure of his hand upon her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Jack, but can we walk up towards Farthingstone again?’

  Jack sighed. ‘It does you no good, Effie. It’ll only upset you.’

  ‘Please?’