Page 41 of One London Eve
The heavy wooden door creaked open. A middle-aged man with a stout frame, dressed in a loose shirt and no necktie, peered at him with no umbrage as to their differing statuses.
“Are you Nicholas Higgins?” The Master started.
“I am. What brings you here, Thornton? I’ve done naught against the law.”
Mr. Thornton took a long breath. “I’ve not come as a magistrate. I’ve come to speak to you man to man, if you will allow it.”
Higgins studied him for a moment and then opened the door wider.
A single lamp burned on a sturdy table that served as the centerpiece of the room. A girl with dark hair stood stirring a pot over a small fire against the side wall. Another girl, with fairer hair, lay in bed on the other side of the dwelling.
Bessy gasped when the stranger’s face was finally revealed as he stepped closer to the lamp.
“You’ve not yet eaten,” Mr. Thornton noted, seeing three bowls and spoons stacked on the table. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he apologized.
Higgins nodded to indicate that his guest should take a seat while he himself sat in the hard kitchen chair across from him.
The dark-haired girl came to the guest’s side in an awkward rush, motioning to take the top hat in his hand. She promptly set it on a hook by the door and went back to her pot.
“Who sent yo’ here?” Higgins asked, scrutinizing the Master with caution. “Hamper? Slickson?”
“I’m not a dog to be ordered about by such as they. I play no tricks or underhanded schemes, as well you should know,” Mr. Thornton answered with unmoved gravity. “I made a promise to come here. I believe we are both acquainted with someone.”
“Miss Margaret!” Bessy blurted out the name without thinking and shrunk in embarrassment as the Master turned to look at her.
“That’s my Bess,” Nicholas explained. “Miss Margaret has been a friend to her since she saw her working in yo’r own mill.”
Mr. Thornton remembered her now. Miss Hale had been bold enough to converse with the workers in the carding room at the beginning of her tour of his factory.
“Bess worked over two years at Hamper’s mill, afore the cotton fluff got in her lungs and made her ill. She worked a bit in yo’r mill then,” Higgins explained. “She’ll work no more now,” he said in a low, somber voice.
He looked directly at the mill master. “Her life will be one of those sacrificed to make the likes of yo’ comfortable in your fine houses and fancy clothes. While we eat stew with a bit o’ grizzle day after day!” His words stung with the force of years of bitterness.
“Father!” Bessy called out to stop his tirade, but her outcry was too much for her lungs and she began coughing.
Higgins rushed to comfort his daughter, feeling a twinge of guilt that his outrage should disturb her health.
Mr. Thornton was touched by the scene, recognizing that Bess looked to be near the same age as his own sister, Fanny. The disparity between these two girls’ lives could not be more apparent.
As her coughing and gasping subsided, Mr. Thornton stood. “I won’t take up more of your time. I came only to explain why we masters cannot meet your demands.”
“Yo’ could ‘ave saved yo’self the trouble of coming here. I know the reason you won’t pay more,” the Union leader clipped, his anger reigniting. “Yo’ like to keep us at yo’r mercy, giving us just enough as to scrape by but not enough to give us the chance to better ourselves and build a life above what is fit for a dog!”
“I was told I might find you to be a reasonable man,” Mr. Thornton replied, his voice tight with his own rising anger. “But I see that I was right to believe it would do no good to come.” He turned to leave, but then pivoted to address Higgins a final time.
“I know you think me a heartless man, but I’ve known hunger and how to live on sixteen pence a week with three mouths to feed. Do you think I’ve forgotten? Do you think I want to keep your wages low to watch you suffer? Has it not occurred to you that we have bills to pay and markets to watch so that we can keep the machines in operation? We know when we can afford to pay the workers more and when we cannot. You cannot make your demands and expect us to oblige when doing so might shut down the mill. Then where would you be? How would you feed your family?”
Higgins narrowed his eyes, his arms crossed over his wide chest in defiance. “We are men, and deserve to be treated like men. We’ve not been paid an increase in five years while you earn your profits and eat very well. And you wish us to believe that a five percent increase will shutter your mills?”
“You may believe what you like, I only tell you the truth of the matter. We shall not meet your demands, because it putsthe mill at risk,” the Master answered through clenched teeth. “I’ll leave you to your supper, and wish your daughter well,” he added in a level voice, and left.
The swell of righteous indignation still swirled in his thoughts as he shut the door behind him. Such men as Higgins refused to see reason! It was much simpler for them to paint the masters as monsters. It struck him sorely that all his diligence, efficiency, and directness should be disparaged as nothing but greed. Did these men not owe their livelihoods to the mills?
His temper dissipated as he trod along the dark alleyways. Heading toward his spacious and comfortable home, he thought of the cramped and barren dwelling he had just visited. They had shelter and food—although perhaps not hearty or varied sustenance. He passed many similar doorways, all testament to the great many inhabitants of this town who toiled daily to survive.
He thought of the girl and her violent coughing. A flare of condemning disgust rose in him as he thought of how Hamper had chosen not to install the apparatus in his mill that would diminish the cotton fluff floating in the air. Hamper had chosen to save himself the 700 pound expense, laughing that the workers wanted to eat the fibers to fill their empty bellies.
His anger turned to pain as he remembered that the Higgins girl was Margaret’s friend, and that Bessy would likely die within the year. There was no cure for brown lung, but it might be alleviated to some degree with proper care.
