The Girl from the Mill

by Chrissie Walsh

  THE GIRL FROM THE MILL

  Chrissie Walsh

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

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  About The Girl from the Mill

  In the drab Yorkshire town of Garsthwaite, Lacey Barraclough works hard in the textile mill, determined to fight for improvements to the dismal working conditions she and her fellow weavers face. But she hadn’t reckoned on falling in love with the boss’s son, Nathan. Nathan returns her love, but to succeed they must overcome the class divide, as well as persuade their families that their love for each other is real.

  Before Nathan and Lacey can make a life together, World War I breaks out and Nathan enlists to fight. When Nathan heads off to the Front, he takes Lacey’s dreams with him, and she must find a new way to face the future. As hard times come to Garsthwaite, will there be a home for the returning heroes to come back to? And for those men who do make it back from France, can they ever outrun the horrors they have witnessed, and learn to love again?

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About The Girl from the Mill

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgements

  About Chrissie Walsh

  Become an Aria Addict

  Copyright

  This book is dedicated to my mother, Dolly Manion, my inspiration in all things.

  In memory of my husband, Billy, who believed in me.

  1

  Long before Lacey Barraclough reached the outskirts of Garsthwaite, a dirty little mill town in the Colne Valley, her armpits and the hand that held her basket were already sticky with perspiration. It was shortly before six o’ clock on a bright June morning, and the sun’s strengthening rays signalled that today would be a scorcher.

  With the moorland and hillside farms behind her, Lacey entered the depths of the town. As she hurried along Towngate she was plunged into sudden gloom, the sun shut out by towering, soot blackened mills and the air thick, every crevice filled with the rank stink of raw wool, acrid smoke and foul smelling dyes. Behind the mills ran a tumbling river and the slick, still waters of a canal. Today, the canal added its own stink, the pungent reek wafting through the mill yards and into the street. Lacey’s nose wrinkled.

  When she reached Turnpike Lane, a shabby little terrace of two up and two down houses, she darted up to number thirteen and rapped on the door. It opened instantly.

  ‘You’re late,’ Joan Chadwick exclaimed, slamming the door behind her. ‘We’ll have to dash if we’re to get there before the hooter blows.’ Joan hoisted her basket into the crook of her arm and set off at a run, Lacey keeping pace with her cousin.

  At the end of Turnpike Lane they crossed the main road, dodging the constant stream of horse drawn carts and the new, motorised lorries that plied their trade between Liverpool, Manchester, Huddersfield and Bradford.

  Lacey leapt for the pavement. ‘Phew, that were a bit close. You forget how fast them things can travel,’ she panted, as a huge lorry rumbled past, its horn blaring. She adjusted her basket then ran the last few yards to Brearley’s Mill, Joan hot on her heels. As they hurtled under the arched gateway a piercing shriek reverberated from the Mill’s tower; the six o’ clock hooter.

  ‘If tha’d a bin a second later tha’d a bin locked out,’ the wizened old gatekeeper shouted as they scooted past him. The ornate iron gates clanged shut, the gatekeeper deaf to the pleas of a woman left outside.

  Lacey half turned. ‘Let her in, you mean old sod, it’s nowt to you,’ she shouted.

  Joan threw the woman a pitying glance. ‘Thank God that wasn’t us,’ she said, both girls knowing had they been any later they too would have been locked out for the next two and a half hours. It was policy in all mills in the valley to punish tardy employees by keeping them out until breakfast time at eight thirty, thereby losing them a quarter of their day’s wages. Making a final dash across the cobbled yard, Lacey and Joan entered the weaving shed, the smell of linseed oil, sized warp and greased leather assailing their senses.

  ‘Whew! It’s hot in here,’ gasped Joan, flapping a hand under her nose as she followed Lacey into an alcove in the back wall of the shed.

  ‘It’ll get worse afore the day’s done,’ replied Lacey, undoing the buttons on her blouse. Joan followed suit, the girls stripping down to their underwear and at the same time keeping a sharp eye out for Sydney Sugden, the lecherous overlooker. The women in the weaving shed called him Slimy Syd, his proclivity for sexual harassment earning him the nickname. It wouldn’t do to let him catch them in a state of undress; he didn’t need encouragement.

  Lacey was just tying the strings on her sleeveless, cross-over pinny, the sort most weavers wore to keep the fluff off their clothing, and Joan was wrapping hers across her plump little belly when Syd slunk from behind a loom, the disappointment at being too late plain on his face.

  Syd stomped off, and the girls, giggling at having thwarted him, covered their heads with cotton headscarves to protect their crowning glories from the savage thrash of their looms or the overhead, low hanging leather belts attached to the drums and pulleys that powered them. Together, they hurried down ‘weaver’s alley’ – the wide space that separated row upon row of looms – and standing between the two looms she minded, Lacey called across the alley to Joan.

  ‘Syd’ll be as mardy as hell since he didn’t get a chance to see you in your knickers.’

  Joan’s saucy reply was lost as the hooter blasted again, the shed echoing with a grinding roar as the weavers set their looms in motion. Shuttles trailing fine woollen yarns flew forwards then backwards, the strategy of advance and retreat interlacing wefts with warps, the beaters thrashing faster than the eye could see. Oblivious to the monotonous clatter, Lacey kept a constant lookout for broken threads, empty bobbins or flaws that might suddenly mar the fabric’s parallel perfection.

  Golden shafts of sun pierced the shed’s glazed roof, descending through a haze of shimmering dust motes to glint on the oily machinery below, and as fine Yorkshire worsted smoothly lapped thickening cloth beams, the heat in the shed intensified.

  A stream of sweat wormed its way under Lacey’s chin and trickled between her breasts. She plunged her hand inside her overall to wipe away the discomfort, withdrawing it just as quickly to catch and secure a loose end.

  When Joan glanced in Lacey’s direction, Lacey raised two fingers to her lips indicating she was about to speak. Although the noise of machinery eliminated normal conversation, Lacey, like all weavers, was adept at mouthing and lip reading; in the cacophonous din of the weaving shed gossip flowed as easily as it would in the quiet of a churchyard.

  ‘Them windows need opening; I’m sweating cobs,’ mouthed Lacey, gesturing to the high transo
ms that ran the length of both sides of the shed.

  ‘Me an’ all; I’ll faint if it gets any hotter,’ Joan mouthed back.

  Lacey watched out for Syd to ask him to open the windows, but the overlooker was nowhere to be seen. Typical, she thought; when you want him he’s never there.

  At half past eight the hooter blew again, the looms shut down and mill hands poured out into the yard, hungry for breakfast. In the shade of the dye house wall, Lacey and Joan ate drip bread and drank cold tea. Half an hour later they were back in the hot, dusty confines of the weaving shed.

  Sweat stained and weary, Lacey roved between her looms. Spotting an empty pirn she removed it, the thin metal rod slipping from her sweat soaked fingers. As she stooped to pick it up, she felt a hand grope her backside. She shot upright and swung round.

  ‘You’ve a lovely arse on you, Lacey,’ cackled Syd, standing too close for comfort, his knowing leer displaying stumps of rotten teeth.

  Lacey stepped back, her nose wrinkling at his fetid smell. ‘Any chance of opening them windows, Mr Sugden?’ She gestured upwards. ‘An’ the doors an’ all; let a bit of air in.’

  Syd licked his teeth. ‘Tha knows what tha has to do for a favour, Lacey.’ His grimy hand pawed her breast. Lacey slapped it away, her swingeing contempt making Syd curl his lip as he leaned into her face hissing, ‘Watch what you’re doin’, Lacey. I wouldn’t want to fine you for shoddy work.’ He smirked and strode off.

  Lacey watched him go, her blood boiling. Syd could easily dock her pay by a shilling or two, saying her piece was flawed even if it wasn’t. In bad grace she carried on working, only to be distracted by a commotion further along ‘weaver’s alley’. Lizzie Isherwood, the ‘Mrs Weaver’ in charge of training the women hove into view shouting, ‘Get ’er up an’ out in t’fresh air.’

  Flo Backhouse had fainted. A short while later it was Gertie Earnshaw’s, then Maggie Collier’s turn to be carried out.

  The windows stayed closed and, as the temperature rose, so did Lacey’s ire. By midday she was raging; injustice of any sort always raised her hackles. ‘We’re treated worse than animals,’ she fumed to Joan. ‘We have rights and I’m going to see we bloody well get ’em.’

  At half past twelve the perspiring weavers stilled their looms and trudged out into the yard, scrabbling for shady places against the shed walls to eat their dinners. Flopped down on the cobbles, they dabbed their sweating faces and armpits.

  ‘I asked Syd to open t’windows and t’doors but the dirty sod wanted payin’ for it,’ Lacey told the women sitting nearby. The women’s faces registered their disgust; they all knew Syd’s game.

  Disconsolate, Lacey munched her cheese sandwiches and drank cold tea. She felt cheated and abused. Thirsting for retribution, she moved from one group of women to another, exchanging whispered words. Some, their eyes flashing in anticipation, nodded their heads in agreement, the faint-hearted objecting for fear of dismissal or docked wages.

  The one o’ clock hooter wailed. The women got to their feet but remained standing on the spot. Syd appeared in the shed doorway. ‘Oy, are you lot bloody deaf? Get in here an’ get back to work.’

  Lacey stepped forward. ‘It’s not right that we should have to work in that heat. We’re not going back in until you’ve opened them windows.’

  ‘Aye, get your long pole out, Syd,’ a raucous voice yelled, and the women roared with laughter.

  ‘Go on, Syd, you like getting your pole out.’

  ‘Aye, an’ shoving it where it’s not wanted.’

  ‘Aye, he does. The dirty bugger asked me to hold it for him yesterday morning.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, it’s not long enough or stiff enough to open t’windows.’ Screeching laughter rose to a crescendo.

  Syd dithered.

  Lacey struck again. ‘Closed windows means idle looms, Syd,’ she yelled above the hubbub. ‘Open ‘em and we’ll come back in.’

  The racket brought Jonas Brearley to his office door, the mill owner glancing at the timepiece he’d taken from his waistcoat pocket. ‘What’s going on here?’ he barked. The women fell silent.

  Lacey stepped forward. ‘The shed’s too hot work in, Mr Brearley, sir. Some lasses fainted this morning because of it. We’d like t’windows opening to let a bit of air in.’ She looked pointedly at Syd then back at Jonas.

  Jonas Brearley stared quizzically at the tall, slender girl whose direct gaze met his.

  He noted her fine features and vibrant green eyes; eyes full of passion. Inwardly admiring her courage and forthright manner he raised his hand to his mouth to hide the smile forming on his lips. A firebrand if ever he saw one.

  He stepped down into the yard. ‘And am I to presume you asked for the windows to be opened?’ Now it was his turn to look pointedly at Syd.

  Syd quailed, visibly.

  ‘That’s right, sir. The dirty lummock wanted a favour for…’ Lacey changed tack. ‘I asked Mr Sugden to open ‘em.’ Then raising her chin defiantly, she added, ‘It wa’ me who told the lasses not to go back in until he’d done summat about it, ‘cos you’ll not get good work out of ‘em if they’re fainting an’ their hands too sweaty to change a pirn or catch loose ends.’

  Jonas eyed her closely; not only was she a beauty, she was shrewd too, and a damned good weaver so he’d been told. He turned his attention back to Syd and let out a roar. ‘Well, what are you waiting for, man? Open the blasted windows. And you lot,’ he addressed the women, ‘no more complaints. Get back to work.’

  Syd scuttled off, and before all the women were back at their looms the windows and doors were open, the escaping heat making conditions tolerable. Lacey was ecstatic. She’d fought for her rights – and won.

  Jonas Brearley returned to his office, a thoughtful expression on his face. He admired strong women, but he’d have to watch that one; it wouldn’t do to let her get too cocky. He’d not sack her; he’d keep her in check – dock her wages or put her on short-time if need be.

  Back at her looms, Lacey mentally replayed her altercation with Jonas. She’d been surprised at the outcome. The more she thought about it, the more dumbfounded she was. He could have sacked her on the spot. After all, she couldn’t expect Jonas Brearley to identify with the hardships his employees endured.

  But she was wrong. Jonas was well aware of the hardships.

  Hector Brearley, Jonas’s late father, unlike many of his counterparts, had not sent his son away from home to receive an expensive education, and return a gentleman. Instead, Jonas had worked in the mill as soon as he was old enough, learning every process at first hand. This hugely beneficial experience had led to his success. Now he was one of the most prestigious manufacturers in the West Riding, and if his unrefined manner of speech and his intricate knowledge of every warp and weft, thrum and bobbin in his mill made him a figure of fun amongst his more gentlemanly rivals, he cared not one jot. His mill outstripped most of the others in the valley.

  Now, as he sat down at his desk, his waistcoat stretched tight over his ample paunch, Jonas was pleased with his recent decision, telling himself he wasn’t a cruel taskmaster but a wise and generous employer.

  *

  ‘Did you see t’look on Slimy Syd’s face when Mester Brearley shouted at him; it were priceless,’ chortled Joan as, at half past six that evening she and Lacey walked arm in arm out through the Mill gate and along Towngate.

  Lacey, still flushed with triumph at her small victory, grinned broadly before saying, ‘Aye, happen next time it’ll make him think twice, ‘cos there will be a next time. We’ve got to stick up for us selves, Joanie, else we’ll always be treated like muck. It’s badly wrong when them that think they’re our betters deny us our rights as human beings.’

  Lacey warmed to her theme as they made their way out of the town and along the road leading to Netherfold. Joan often went to Lacey’s home after work to spend an hour or two with her cousin before going back home to Turnpike Lane. As they walked and talked, Joan som
ewhat in awe of her cousin, they exchanged the mean grey drabness of narrow streets of shabby houses and towering mills for hawthorn blossomed hedges and grassy banks golden with buttercups and dandelions. On either side of the road were steep hillsides dotted with clusters of weavers’ cottages, some derelict, the sun glinting in the long rows of little windows in their upper storeys; a reminder of the days when the occupants of these dwellings had toiled over looms in their own homes. Now all the weaving in the Colne Valley took place in huge mills such as the one Lacey and Joan worked in.

  ‘We’ve come a long way since then,’ said Lacey, pointing to the cottages. ‘Then we were our own bosses. Now we slave for greedy mill owners but it doesn’t mean we don’t have rights.’

  Joan sighed. ‘Folks like us will always be put down by t’bosses, Lacey. We’re too poor to do owt about it.’

  Lacey stopped in her tracks, and pulling her arm free of Joan’s, turned to face her. ‘We might be poor but we’re not ignorant. I’m as good as anybody, an’ so are you, Joanie. We deserve respect; fair treatment for a fair day’s work. It’s about time we did summat about it.’ She walked on, her back straight, her head high.

  In the near distance the evening sun shimmered on vast swathes of green bracken, purple heather and the rocky outcrops of black millstone grit on Marsden Moor. In a sheltered cleft on the edge of the moor, Lacey could see the sun’s rays glinting on the cobblestoned yard and warming the red doors of the outbuildings of the farmhouse that was home. She quickened her pace. For all its close proximity, Netherfold Farm seemed a world away from drab, dirty Garsthwaite.

  Joan hurried after her.

  ‘I’m fair looking forward to t’works outing next Saturday,’ she said when she caught up.’

  The annual Mill outing, always a source of great excitement, was something the mill workers anticipated all year. On Saturdays throughout the year they were expected to work until midday but on the day of the outing Jonas Brearley not only released them from their duties, he also arranged a day of pleasure. To this end the workers contributed two pence a week, Jonas footing the rest of the bill. Sometimes they visited a grand house with parkland open to the public, or a place noted for its beautiful scenery. This year a barge trip down the John Ramsden canal would be a first for many.