Page 59 of Dark Tidings on the Thames
“Perhaps we might talk outside?” Kara suggested. “It would be easier to hear and perhaps a bit cooler.”
They all exchanged glances. “I want to hear what she has to say,” someone said. “She’s come all this way.”
Kara realized the woman, Mary, clearly not a part of the usual crew, must be the visitor Mr. Lowell had mentioned.
Louisa nodded. “Just for a bit, mind. We don’t want to fall behind.”
They all shuffled outside and gathered in the shade of a couple of small trees. Louisa gestured to the woman who had been lingering by the door. “Tell us, then,” she said, sounding resigned. “And I noticed you only asked to talk to the women, didn’t you? We do get the worst of it.” She sighed. “Why should it be any different here than in the rest of our lives?”
Gyda’s face had set into a hard expression. “You said something about dangers?”
Mary drew herself up. “It’s the usual poppycock, ain’t it? Women who must work for their bread must also be of loose morals, no better than they ought to be, eh? At least, that’s the way some owners and overlookers think.”
“Not Mr. Lowell,” someone said loyally.
“Yes, well, he ain’t the one I come to warn ye about, is he?” Mary snapped.
“Where is it you’ve come from?” Kara asked gently.
“Manchester,” Mary answered. “And my story ain’t the usual poppycock, neither—and all of ye need to hear it.”
“Tell it, then,” said Louisa.
Mary leaned in, her face earnest. “Me and my sister worked in a cotton mill up north. Dreadful work it is, hunched at the machines and breathin’ in the fluff until it fair fills yer lungs. The hours are long and sometimes we was so tired at the end of the day we could barely lift our feet to walk home. But we had no trouble of the other kind, not at first. Not untilhecome.”
“Who?” asked Gyda.
“Mr. Selby Royston,” Mary said darkly. “Devil’s spawn, he is. He was hired by the mill owners. It was whispered he knew how to make the mill run better. More profit, less expense. But all I ever saw him do was make things worse for us, the workers.”
“How?” Gyda demanded.
“He gave every overlooker a strap and told them he expected it to be bloodied at least twice a shift. He docked the wages of those who didn’t spend enough of their pay at the company store.” She sighed. “It were the little ’uns that got hurt the most. The scavengers crawl underneath the machines to clear it of stray wool, leaky oil, or trash. They get their hair ripped out by the looms, or sometimes their arms broke or their fingers cut off. If they got stuck down there, their heads could be crushed or their little bodies mangled.”
One of the women gasped.
“The piercers are the bigger kids who put together any breaks in the threads. They almost always end up with their knee joints givin’ way. It was never good when anyone got hurt, but Royston started docking all of us when any injury happened.”
Mary stopped, her lips pressed together. The women all stood quietly, waiting.
After a moment, she spoke again. “Royston was one of the men who felt free to chase the workin’ women for… improper purposes.”
Kara and Gyda exchanged dark glances.
“It started with young Amy White. Everyone teased her and calledher Amy Bright, because they said the sun bouncin’ off her yellow hair blinded them. She had finally growed old enough to be set to work at the looms. That’s when Royston noticed her.”
“What did he do?” someone asked, sounding nervous about the answer.
“He started by praising her work and her manner. He would pull her aside to speak with her when they closed the mill for our half-hour lunch break. She would linger to talk to him when we all shuffled out at the end of our shift. There was rumors he was seen in her street at night. One Sunday, she showed up to church wearin’ a new, fancy silver bracelet.”
“What of her family?” Gyda asked. “Did no one object?”
“Amy only had her younger sister. The girl works as a drudge in one of the mill kitchens. Ye cannot truly blame the lass. What was she to do? How could she refuse him, when he could make her life even more of a misery? When he likely made her promises he never meant to keep? People muttered, but no one felt able to do anything to stop it. Then one day, Amy showed up with her eyes red and her face blotchy from cryin’. The next day she came in with a blackened eye. And the next day, she didn’t come in at all.”
Louisa let out a long sigh.
“When she didn’t come to the mill on the second day, the overlooker went lookin’ for her. He found only the wee sister, who hadn’t seen Amy in days.”
“Were the police notified?” Kara asked.
