A Time Like No Other (22 page)

‘My mam had a pretty name. At least I thought so,’ Biddy said almost shyly.

‘What was it?’ she asked, without much interest.

‘Caterina.
Her
mam was a bit fanciful, they say. My great-granddad, her pa, came from Italy, don’t ask me why since it’s a long time ago but it was said Caterina was Italian for Katherine. He was a sailor, so it was told to me.’

‘Caterina.’ For some reason the name pleased her and she realised that it would save her the trouble of talking it over with Harry if the name was already decided upon. Besides, would he care? ‘Caterina, that’s nice. Caterina Sinclair.’ She twisted in the bed and stretched out to grasp Biddy’s hand. ‘Oh God, Biddy, what if she looks like him?’

‘Does it matter, lamb? They are blood, after all, and there’s bound to be a family likeness.’

‘But their eyes . . . Roly and Harry . . .’

Biddy knew just what she meant but was not to be discomposed. ‘And there’s always you, lass. Your colouring. Anyroad, let’s wait and see when she opens her eyes, bless her. Now, here’s your bath . . .’ as someone tapped on the door and in a flurry of hot water and clean towels, fragrant-smelling soap, even her hair washed and fluffed about her head by Biddy, Caterina Sinclair was temporarily forgotten. She was herself being bathed and fed by the competent woman who, having lost her own baby at birth several days ago, was glad to be rid of the unending flow of milk that filled her painful breasts. Kitty Morgan had been distraught when Doctor Burton tended her, sent by Mr Sinclair in whose loom gate she worked and had at first refused, but the money could not be ignored and from the first moment Cat Sinclair was put in her arms she had filled the yawning gap left by the death of her own little lad. After all, her young husband said, they could have another and Mr Sinclair would be eternally grateful, wouldn’t he. He did not use such words for he was an illiterate weaver in Mr Sinclair’s weaving shed but both knew it might put them on the road to something that might not otherwise come their way.

And Biddy’s prediction proved correct, for when Cat Sinclair, fed, peaceful, washed and dressed in one of the little lawn nightgowns Biddy had made, was put once more in Lally’s arms and opened her eyes and looked up with what seemed like keen interest into her mother’s eyes they were the exact shade of her own. Her hair was dark in soft flat curls about her skull, the top of which pulsed, and her skin was like buttermilk, not white nor even cream, and at her rounded cheeks was a flush of good health. Her eyes were a pale blue with a shade of green in them, unfocused yet and almost milky, surrounded by lashes so thick and long it looked as though some finger had smudged coal dust about them. She was a replica of her mother and as Harry Sinclair bent over her dutifully he felt a great thankfulness enter his sorely tried heart. A thankfulness directed at God, or nature, or whatever it was that made up the construction of the human form and had produced this tiny scrap in the exact likeness of the beloved woman who held her. He felt something move inside his chest, his heart, he supposed, a place where he kept his secret hidden and which no one knew about and the twinge of interest that the baby’s face awoke in him startled him.

‘What d’you think, Harry?’ Lally managed to say, for she had sensed something in him and, strangely, in herself. The tiny hand that rested companionably on her breast twitched, as it seemed the baby dreamed, though what of Lally could not guess. She had only had a few hours on this earth so what could she possibly know to dream about? She smiled and put her finger inside the tiny fist and though she slept the child immediately gripped it and then it happened. A great wave of loving tenderness, a great drowning in which she and the child were swept along together, deeply floating in perfect harmony until they reached the surface. Harry was kneeling now at her bedside and Biddy silently slipped away from her corner of the room, leaving the parents with their new child, for that was how she felt it to be. It was all right. What had not happened – to either of them – at once, had happened now. ‘Caterina,’ Lally murmured, looking up to smile into Harry’s face. The look on it startled her for it was soft with some emotion she could not decipher.

‘What?’

‘How do you like Caterina?’

‘Caterina.’ He frowned, then the frown became a smile. He looked from the child to her. ‘Where did that come from? It sounds a bit foreign.’

‘Italian, so Biddy says.’

‘I might have known that woman would have something to do with it,’ but it was said with good humour. ‘Where did she acquire the knowledge of Italian names, for God’s sake?’ his eyes still on the baby’s sleeping face.

‘Her grandmother, apparently. Her great-grandfather was Italian. In English it would be Katherine.’

She was watching him closely, for she was amazed at his sudden interest in his brother’s child but like him she sensed it was something to do with the baby’s likeness to herself. Thank the good Lord, for she believed if there had been even the slightest resemblance to Roly, or even himself as the child’s uncle, he would have dismissed her from his life and their own would not go forward as she hoped. She
liked
Harry. He did not stir her in their bed which they had shared when they were first married, probably because she had believed he was making love to her not because he wanted to but for the sake of appearances. She did not love him. She did not love Roly. Sweet and loving in her heart remained the memory of her young husband where he would always be but she believed, given a fair chance, she and Harry might have a contented future together. Her sons were fast getting out of hand with only herself and Dora to discipline them and a stern, masculine hand would do them good. This lovely little girl in her arms might bring him, Harry, some female influence that would warm his heart and if the shadow of Roly could be dispersed perhaps they would have a chance. She would give him children of his own, sons, perhaps another girl to make their family,
his
family complete. She would be forever thankful to him for what he had done for her and her sons. He had given her a second chance, not just of respectability for her children, which now included Caterina Sinclair, but for her to mature and develop a life that would please them both.

She put her hand on his and he looked at it in bewilderment. ‘I think it might be time for you to hold . . .’ – dare she say ‘your daughter’? – ‘the baby. Would you like—’ But at that moment a great hammering at the door caused him to jump to his feet as though he believed whoever knocked might think him a bit soft in the head but when Biddy burst in he could see that there was something badly wrong.

‘Sir . . . oh, sir . . . please . . .’

‘What the hell is it?’ He sounded annoyed, which he was, for he had found he had begun to enjoy the intimacy he, his wife and the baby shared but Biddy crossed the room in two strides and took hold of his arm.

‘An accident at mill, Mr Harry. A lad, the chap said. In a right state he was an’ he said you was ter come at once . . . please . . .’

It was six o’clock and the day shift would nearly be over which was why Harry had come home to check, not on the child but his wife who was beloved by him, but within two minutes of his leaving her Lally heard his horse’s hooves rattle on the gravel as he put him to the gallop in the direction of his mill.

14

The coming of steam power, which in the woollen trade had brought prosperity to the mill-owners and poverty to the small independent hand weavers, also brought the factory system to the West Riding of Yorkshire and to the textile towns of Halifax, Leeds and Huddersfield among others. The spinning mule, as it was called, produced a thread firm enough for weaving, the loose slivers of wool being drawn out and twisted. The cotton industry gave the lead in the introduction of steam power but the woollen trade soon followed and the lethal machines had been installed at High Clough where the owners, Harry Sinclair and his younger brother Roly, were at the forefront of their trade. They aimed at the fine worsted ladies’ dress trade. As times grew harder on the land thousands poured into the textile towns in search of employment from their urban living. Long hours, anything up to thirteen a day, even for young children, was quite normal as was the custom of beating children to keep them awake at their jobs which was as ‘pieceners’, fastening broken threads, and ‘scavengers’, clearing away the waste, the oil, the fluff that gathered under the flying machinery. These children, some of them brought from London workhouses and supposedly ‘apprenticed’ to factory owners, were treated as virtual slaves by the unscrupulous.

Easing the workforce into the new work ethos was a management responsibility which some took seriously, among them the Sinclair brothers’ grandfather. Attendance at the mills in the early days was very irregular. Men still felt they could take time off work to do the autumn harvest, or on the first day of the working week, called by them, ‘St Mondays’! Wakes Week also brought the usual toll of absenteeism and truancy. Consequently factory owners came to insist on a strict factory discipline, often introducing fines for being late, for drunkenness, talking and sleeping on the job. A man, woman or child needed to be absolutely alert when working the mule, or, in the case of children,
under
it.

The small boy understood this. He was barefoot, dressed in a shabby but neatly darned shirt and drawers. He was on all fours, keeping his head well down to avoid the moving carriage of the mule. His hair was a bright ginger, curly and coated with a sort of dust, as was the rest of him. He was pushing a great bundle of woollen waste and oily dust under and between the rows of machinery. Finding the bundle too awkward to push he crept behind it and put his childish strength to dragging the filthy mass, moving backwards towards the corner where he shoved and heaved the pile on to a heap already begun. On his hands and knees he retraced his movements back to the further end of the row of clacking, whirring, lethally moving machinery, the flying shafts and straps of the spinning mule, nimbly avoiding the carriage as it glided on its wheeled tracks towards the women in charge of each machine and the threads above his head as he prepared to sweep another pile of waste towards the one that he and other scavengers had deposited at the further end of the room.

Someone shouted and thinking he heard his name he stopped his sweeping and lifted a bright face to the woman at whose feet he knelt. He smiled at her as she glanced down at him and she smiled back, the carriage still resting against the roller beam.

‘What did tha’ say?’ he shouted to her, for the din was earsplitting and before she could tell him that it was not she who had spoken the carriage began its inevitable journey back towards her. For a moment she panicked, because she could see the boy’s head was higher than it should be and knew what was about to happen if he did not watch out. She stepped back, her hands held up beseechingly as though to warn him but it was too late. The carriage continued towards her and the boys’ head with a horrible crunch was caught between the roller beam and the carriage as the latter was putting up. His small skull, so fragile in a child, was smashed into an obscene shape, elongating somehow and his bright little face, still smiling, was forced into a grimace of death. The woman, though well used to accidents in the thirty years she had worked in a woollen mill, particularly in the early days, began to scream as the carriage, carrying the child’s blood and some matter hard to describe, returned to the roller beam, leaving the crumpled body in the mess he had been about to clear up.

The long room was filled in every conceivable space with humming machinery and despite the time of the year it was hot and humid. The women at the mules were drenched in sweat and all along every row children crept on all fours from one machine to another but as the screams of the woman rang out their shrill voices were stilled though the machinery which cared nought for death and disaster rolled inexorably on.

‘Dear Christ . . . dear Christ . . .’ one woman whose own children worked in Mr Sinclair’s mill kept saying over and over again and the spinner beneath whose mule lay the body of Susan Harper’s son stood as if paralysed though it had not been her fault. It was no one’s fault really, for Mr Sinclair was a good man to work for and did his utmost to prevent accidents. The child had just been distracted for that fraction of a second and had paid the horrifying price. Mr Sinclair would be devastated. He was good to all his hands but especially to the women who had young children to see to and had been one of the first to open a school for an hour a day for the younger children and made arrangements for the care of infants while their mothers worked in their gates.

Susan Harper, who had heard the screams, had run like a chased hare to where she knew her Sam was working. She had cried out like a wounded animal when she saw him, a sound that had the women weeping in sympathy, then a wordless moan of pain escaped from between her lips, on and on and on. She was on the filthy floor, her son’s misshapen head in her lap, his blood on her apron, her face like granite as she cradled him to her when Harry Sinclair ran panting between the silent looms and the equally silent workforce. His own face was as though it had been cut from marble and when he knelt beside her he reared back, for she hissed at him like a snake as he did his best to take the boy gently from her.

‘Leave ’im . . . ’e’s mine . . .’

‘Susan, let me help you. Come, you can’t stay here. Give me the boy.’

‘’Is name’s Sam . . .’

‘Yes, I know. Let me have Sam and you and I will . . . See . . .’ He turned distractedly to the nearest woman under whose machine the boy had been injured. ‘Send a man for the doctor. Doctor Burton. Run, woman, run, for God’s sake . . .’ though Harry knew it would be useless. If he could get his hands on the lad he might be able to determine if he had a pulse, or a heartbeat but Susan held him to her in a grip of iron.

Though it was but half an hour since the word had come of the accident at the mill, the name of the one who had suffered it was whispered at the back door of the Priory and within thirty seconds of that the news had reached Lally.