Down Weaver's Lane (2 page)

When Madge went out to work that night Emmy went to bed and bolted the door of her room from inside. She was not tired and as she lay there staring up at the night sky through the tiny skylight, she kept seeing again the gloating expression on her mother’s face and hearing the boasts about what George had promised to do for them. A whole house of their own, good furniture, nice clothes, plenty to eat ...

Why should he do all this? It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t a kind man, whatever her mother said. Even Emmy could tell that.

 

When she got back from work late that night, Madge Carter checked her daughter’s bedroom door and smiled to find it locked. Lighting a candle, she used it to stare at herself in the specked mirror on the mantelpiece, grimacing at what she saw. One of the younger women had called her a ‘silly old bugger’ tonight. She wasn’t old, not really, but she wasn’t young, either. She’d been pretty once and it upset her to see the wrinkles round her eyes, the faded colour of her hair and the sagging skin under her chin. Emmy looked very like the way her mother had in her youth and the contrast made Madge feel worse about herself. Her daughter had the same light brown hair falling in waves about her shoulders, though her eyes were hazel with gold flecks like her father’s had been, not blue like her mother’s. Emerick had had such pretty eyes for a man.

Madge sighed as she moved away from the mirror. In the daytime men no longer looked at her as she walked by, though she could still pass for pretty in night’s kinder shadows. But once your looks faded you had no chance of bettering yourself. George was her last chance, she was quite sure of that. If she didn’t keep him happy it might be hard to find another man to love her. If only ... but it was no use lingering on what might have been. When Emerick had died suddenly and agonisingly of a pain in the belly, she and her daughter had been sent away by his family and the money they’d given Madge hadn’t lasted. She had not dared ask them for more and had soon found out then how useless the words
if only
were when you and your child needed something to eat.

She sighed and went to stare out of the dormer window at the rain, which was now pelting down and turning the cobbled street and rows of grey slate roofs to shiny black in the moonlight. Feeling a bit down, she picked up the bottle of gin she’d brought home with her, unable to resist the warmth it gave - not to mention the feeling that everything would turn out well this time. She was glad Emmy had gone to bed because her daughter looked so disapproving when she drank. As if a woman who’d been as badly treated as Madge had didn’t deserve all the comfort she could get! Finding a glass, she poured out a measure and took a good swallow, sighing in relief as warmth began to spread through her body.

As memories of her husband flooded through her she sipped daintily from the glass - only sluts drank out of the bottle. Emerick had been kind as well as good-looking and fun. George couldn’t hold a candle to him. He could be ruthless, cruel even. She knew that. But with him looking after her she felt safe again - well, more or less.

Cradling the glass in her hands she sat on, her feet aching from all the running to and fro tonight. She wished George were with her now. He’d have driven away these miseries with his strong, warm body and his exciting plans for getting rich.

When she grew tired she rested her head on her arms and woke up later, shivering, to a dark room, rain still beating against the windows and a fire that had gone out. As she stumbled across to her bed she admitted to herself that she was dreading going back to Northby, something she’d sworn never to do. Her father and mother had been a pair of old miseries and she’d been glad to get away from them and their suffocating respectability. They might be dead but her brother Isaac was still living in the town with his ugly old hag of a wife. He had married for money but it hadn’t brought him much joy when he was younger and she doubted that things would have changed since.

It was a long time before Madge could get to sleep, thinking of the price she might have to pay for being with George. Would have to pay. And in Northby, of all places. She was not so stupid she didn’t realise what he wanted her for. But she also knew she could make him laugh, surprising amusement out of him as no other woman could. She prayed it would be enough to hold him.

 

Hands stuffed into his pockets, Jack Staley watched his father Jem and brother Tom black their faces with soot from the chimney and listened to them joking with one another. He felt so furious at the way they were risking their lives that the words he’d been holding back burst out. ‘They’ll be waiting for you!’

Big Jem Staley grinned at his second son. ‘They won’t, you know. We’ve planned it all out careful-like. They’ve only got one watchman at Rishmore’s tonight because th’other ’un fell ill.’ He winked. ‘Suffering from a severe case of knock on the head. Old Phil won’t give us no trouble. We s’ll smash up them damned new weaving machines afore they can bring in the military.’ He cocked his head on one side. ‘Sure tha doesn’t want to come wi’ us, lad?’

‘Aye, very sure, Dad. I don’t agree with what you’re doing.’

Big Jem’s expression darkened. ‘I should make thi come. I’m ’shamed to see a son o’ mine holding back when there’s summat important to be done.’

‘You couldn’t force me,’ Jack said simply, folding his arms and staring challengingly at him. ‘I’m near as big as you two now an’ I’d kick up a right old fuss. You couldn’t keep what you’re doing secret with me yelling an’ struggling all down the street.’

Tom broke the tension, as he usually did. ‘An’ you’re twice as stubborn as we are, too.’ He laughed, cuffing Jack affectionately about the ear. ‘Leave him be, Dad. He allus was an old sobersides.’

But a sob from his mother made Jack grab his father’s arm and beg once again, ‘Don’t do it, Dad! Look how you’re upsetting our Mam.’

Jem glanced towards his weeping wife, a guilty yet stubborn look, then shook his head. ‘She’s allus gettin’ upset about summat. Any road, I can’t let th’other lads down. Not now. Nor I don’t want to.’

Jack kicked the toe of his shoe against the table leg in a rhythm that emphasised his words. ‘You’re wrong about all this, Dad.
Wrong
! Violence won’t get you anywhere an’ it won’t stop the Rishmores from using them power looms, neither.
It won’t!’
To his mind you had to be stupid as well as dishonest to steal or damage the property of other people, especially ones as rich and powerful as the Rishmores who had just taken delivery of some new power looms at the mill. The handloom weavers like his dad were up in arms about it, but you couldn’t stop progress or prevent the rich from doing as they pleased. Look how old Mr Rishmore ordered folk around at work, even his own son, and dismissed them on the spot if they didn’t do exactly as he said.

Jem shrugged and wrapped a muffler round his neck to hide the lower half of his face. ‘Suit thysen, lad. But don’t come crying to me when they throw thi out of work because a damned metal monster has taken thy place in t’mill. All I can get now is damned checked cloth to weave, an’ me a skilled weaver an’ all. Things’ll get worse if we don’t do summat, mark my words. If women can work them new machines, why should they take men on at all when it costs ‘em twice as much in wages? Who’ll be the breadwinners then? Women, that’s who. It’s unnatural, that’s what it is, an’ we won’t stand for it!’

He went across to give his wife a quick, bracing hug. ‘Don’t wait up for me, Netta love.’

He said that quite often, Jack thought, though it was usually because he was going out to the alehouse for a wet with the lads.

She flung her arms round her husband’s waist, begging, ‘Don’t go, Jem! Think of the childer, if you won’t think of me.’

He pushed her roughly away. ‘I
am
thinking of them childer. Six on’em we’ve raised, Netta Staley, an’ what for? To see ’em go hungry, that’s what. To see our Jack take a job in that damned mill like a slavey, ‘stead of getting his own loom upstairs here. We have to show Rishmore we shan’t put up with it an’
force
him to stop buying them damned machines.’

His anger made Netta sink down on her chair and close her eyes, but tears still trickled down her cheeks. ‘They’ll call out the soldiers on you,’ she said in a dull voice. ‘Mr Rishmore threatened it an’ he’ll do it too. You’ll be shot and killed like my uncle was at Peterloo. It’s not ten year since that happened an’ it’ll happen again. An’ I’ll never forgive you for dragging our Tom into it. Never.’

‘He didn’t have to drag me, Mam,’ Tom said gently. ‘I happen to agree with him.’

She looked at him, all her love for her handsome first-born showing in her face. ‘Then you’re as daft as he is, lad. What shall me and the kids do if owt happens to you two?’

‘Ah, nowt’s going to happen to us. We can allus run away if there’s trouble, can’t we?’

‘Right, then, are thi ready, Tom lad?’ Jem crammed his old felt hat down over his eyes and turned to leave, stopping briefly to call to Jack, ‘Keep that door latch on, son. I don’t want anyone comin’ in an’ seein’ we’re not home.’

When the sound of his father’s footsteps had died away and all that was left was the patter of rain beating against the windows, Jack went across to put his arm round his mother’s shaking shoulders. ‘Don’t take on, Mam. They’ll likely be all right.’

But she continued to weep and made no effort to go to bed. ‘Four on ’em there are upstairs, four childer younger than you. Your dad doesn’t care about me, but he ought to think about them.’

Jack didn’t say anything. Maybe his father would care about her more if she didn’t nag him all the time and make his life a misery. He felt sorry for them both. They should never have got wed, they were so unsuited. And his father drank too much, which had left the rest of them hungry more than once. It wasn’t so bad now because though handloom weaving paid less and less, for all his father and Tom’s hard work, Jack and Meg were bringing in money as well. But he would never forget going to bed with an empty belly when he was younger and seeing his mother go without to give the little ’uns a bite or two more. His dad had never gone without, though.

Meg, who was only eighteen months younger than he was, crept down to join them.

‘You should have gone with ’em, our Jack.’ She scowled at him. ‘I’d be with Dad if I were a man.’

‘Then it’s a good job you’re a girl, isn’t it?’ he threw back at her.

An hour later they heard hoofbeats, then shouting and shots in the distance. Netta moaned and began to sob again, but when Jack went towards the door, she screamed and flung herself in front of him. ‘You’re not going out!’

‘Just to see what’s happening, Mam.’

‘No. You’re not leaving this house!’

She fell into such a passion of weeping he couldn’t leave her. He and Meg had to half-carry her back to her chair.

They were still sitting in front of the fire half an hour later when the door burst open, sending the clumsy wooden latch clattering to the ground. As the parish constable came striding in, Netta moaned and clutched Jack’s hand.

‘Mrs Staley?’

Jack was puzzled. Eli Makepeace knew perfectly well who she was because Northby was a small town.

His mother nodded, her eyes huge with fear in her thin face.

Eli took a deep breath and said it badly, because there was no way to soften such news. ‘I’m afraid your husband’s dead. He was shot while attacking the property of Mr Rishmore. And your son Thomas has been arrested and taken to prison.’

She let out one piercing scream then fainted.

Jack tried to get to her, but the constable stepped between them and when Jack would have shoved him out of the way, the soldier who had accompanied him stepped forward, raising his rifle threateningly.

‘We need to have a word with you first, lad,’ Eli said. ‘You see to her, lass!’

Jack hardly heard him. He was watching Meg kneel beside their mother, tears running down her cheeks. She had been their father’s favourite. Although Jem Staley was big and rough, he had loved his children and Jack had a hundred memories of him cuddling or teasing the younger ones, calling Meg his little pet lamb ... He couldn’t believe his father would never do so again.

He stood still, not daring to give way to his own grief. He wanted to, though, wanted to weep like a great babby because the last thing he’d done was quarrel with his father - and now they could never make it up.

Eli looked severely at him. ‘Where have you been tonight?’

He pulled his thoughts together hurriedly. ‘At home with my mother.’

The constable ran a hand across Jack’s shoulders and squinted at his face, touching his hair briefly.

The soldier still had his rifle at the ready, so Jack stood still and let them do as they chose. At other times he liked and respected Eli Makepeace for they were both in the church choir. Tonight, however, Eli was on
their
side.

‘His hair’s dry an’ so are his clothes,’ Eli said in a formal voice. ‘Will you bear witness to that for me?’

The soldier stepped forward and made sure of this for himself before nodding. ‘Aye. This one’s definitely not been outside.’

Eli turned back to Jack, his voice a little less harsh. ‘Why didn’t you go with your father, Jack lad?’

‘Because I’m not stupid.’ But now he almost wished he had, because he was at home safe and Tom had been clapped in jail. He realised Eli was speaking again and forced himself to attend.

‘Well, you’ve done the right thing. Mr Rishmore wants a list of them as stopped at home. I’ll see your name goes on it. It’ll likely keep you your job.’

Jack would have liked to tell him to mind his own business, but he’d been working in the mill for long enough to know you didn’t get on the bad side of old Mr Rishmore. Gesturing towards his mother he said, ‘Thanks. She’ll need my wages now.’

Eli nodded and stepped back. ‘Aye. She’s lucky to have a sensible son like you.’