Pauper's Gold (9 page)

‘I – I . . .’ the girl faltered, but Hannah laughed.

‘It’s nothing, Mr Scarsfield. It’s only a bit of fun. I’ve got a name for her, an’ all.’ Her eyes twinkled with merriment. ‘But I’m not going to
tell you what it is.’

The overlooker glanced between the two girls. He was well aware that there was animosity between them; he’d seen it from that first day. That was partly why he was looking to move Hannah
to another job. He’d taken to this girl. She was a willing worker and a quick learner, even if she was a bit rebellious at times.

‘Hmm,’ he glanced at Millie. ‘I’ll think about it. Maybe I’ll try you as a tenter working on the carding machine with Hughes. In the meantime, I’m putting a
new girl with you. You can teach her to do your job and then we’ll see.’ Millie’s eyes flashed resentment but she had the sense to keep silent. The overlooker’s voice took
on a note of warning. ‘She’s come from the village, not from a workhouse. Her
parents
work here in the mill and they’ve apprenticed her.’ Without saying so, he was
indicating that it would be unwise to try bullying the new girl; she was not alone in the world. ‘She starts on Monday, so you,’ he turned back to Hannah, ‘come to me first thing
on Monday and I’ll take you to Hudson. She’ll show you what to do.’

Hannah smiled broadly. ‘Thank you, Mr Scarsfield.’ She liked Nell Hudson. The bed she shared with Jane was s till next to Nell and her sleeping companion, and there were often
muffled giggles in the night between the four of them.

‘It’s all right for some,’ Millie muttered begrudgingly. ‘I’ve been here a lot longer than you. I should be getting a better job, not you.’

‘Who says it’s a better job? It’s not bad in here. At least it’s away from all that noise.’

‘You’ll’ve more chance of being offered overtime, that’s what,’ Millie spat. ‘You’ll be able to earn money instead of just your keep and a new set of
clothes once a year.’

‘Well, if you weren’t such a slacker, you might get the chance. The bosses aren’t stupid, y’know. Keep yer nose clean and you might get the chance to work with Joe next
door.’

‘I don’t want to work with
him
. Mrs Bramwell’s pet. I’m no bootkisser,’ Millie sneered. ‘You ’n’ Joe Hughes make a good pair.’

Now Hannah didn’t respond. Since the day he’d carried tales to Mrs Bramwell, Hannah had heard it from some of the other children that he was not only the woman’s favourite but
that he deliberately sucked up to her. Joe still attempted to be friendly with her, but Hannah gave him the cold shoulder. Luke, she’d decided, was the one she wanted as her friend.

‘Come to think of it, that Hudson girl’s one an’ all.’

Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Nell? Never!’

‘You’ll find out. Only it’s not boots she’s kissing,’ Millie said smugly and refused to say more.

The rest of the day passed in silence between the two girls, but at six o’clock, Hannah ran out of the yard and up the hill, excited to tell her good news to Jane and Nell.

‘I’m coming to work with you,’ she cried, grabbing hold of Nell about the waist and whirling her around. ‘Mr Scarsfield says I can be a piecer and you’re to teach
me what to do.’

Nell’s dark eyes lit up. ‘That’s wonderful. Marvellous!’ She flung her arms around Hannah and they danced the length of the dormitory, laughing and singing together.

‘What’s got into you two?’ one of the other girls asked as, one by one, they trudged wearily into the room. ‘Come into a fortune, ’ave yer?’

‘They’re leaving. I bet that’s what it is,’ said another.

‘Nah.’ Millie, coming into the room, overheard the remarks. ‘They’re a couple of bootlickers, the pair of ’em. ’Er,’ she pointed at Hannah, ‘has
got Mr Scarsfield wrapped round her little finger. And as for ’er – well, we all know who’d she’d lift her skirts for, don’t we?’

The two girls stopped dancing and looked at each other, their merriment dying. Hannah made to pull away from Nell and lunge herself at the smirking Millie, but Nell caught hold of her.
‘No. Leave it. She’s not worth it. Not worth losing this chance over. You come and work with me. We’ll be all right together.’

‘Yeah, ’course you will,’ Millie sneered. ‘His pimp now, a’ yer?’

Hannah started forward again, but Nell’s grip tightened. ‘I said, leave it.’

The rest of the girls averted their eyes or hurried out of the room. Hannah said no more, but the vindictive Millie had spoiled her exciting news.

‘Mrs Bramwell, please may I go to see my mother one Sunday?’

The superintendent stared at Hannah in amazement. ‘Go – to – see – your – mother?’ she repeated.

‘Yes. I haven’t heard from her since I came here.’

Mrs Bramwell sat down suddenly, her shocked gaze still fastened on Hannah’s face. ‘Well, I never heard the like.’

Hannah put her head on one side and stared at her, puzzled by the woman’s reaction to what, to the girl, seemed a simple, straightforward question. ‘May I go? Please?’

‘Oh no, no.’ Mrs Bramwell shook her head. ‘It’s out of the question. Dear me. The very idea.’

Now Hannah frowned. ‘Why? Why can’t I go? It’s not so far. I could do the journey in two days. There one day and come back the next. I just want to see her.’

Mrs Bramwell laughed wryly. ‘Oh, my dear child, don’t you know what signing that indenture means?’

‘What’s an in – indenture?’

‘The piece of paper you were asked to sign when you arrived here.’

‘Oh, that. I’d forgotten what it was called.’

‘Yes, that.’ Mrs Bramwell’s tone was flat. ‘Signing that paper means that you’re bound to Mr Critchlow until you’re eighteen. And he doesn’t allow
anyone to leave here. Not even for a day.’

Shocked, Hannah stared at Mrs Bramwell. ‘You mean – you mean I can’t go to see my mother for – for
six years
?’

Mrs Bramwell nodded.

The twelve-year-old child felt a lump in her throat and her eyes smart with tears. ‘Why? Why not?’

Mrs Bramwell bit her lip as she considered her answer. This young girl was spirited, some might say wilful. If she put ideas into the girl’s head, then . . . ‘It’s –
it’s the rules here,’ she said lamely, ducking giving a full answer.

Now Hannah was angry with the uncontrolled rage of a young girl. Her blue eyes sparkled defiantly. ‘Then they’re cruel rules that keep a child from its mother.
For six
years!
’ She whirled around and ran from the room, and though Mrs Bramwell called after her, the girl didn’t stop, ignoring the possibility of a night in the punishment room for her
disobedience. Left alone, Ethel Bramwell sighed. For once, she’d take no action against the girl. For once, she sympathized with her.

Hannah ran on, out of the house and down the hill to the mill. She would see him. She would seek out Mr Critchlow – the man who made these harsh rules. She’d tell him exactly what
she thought of him.

Moments later she was banging on the door of the outer office. When a voice bade her enter, she thrust open the door and marched into the room. The clerk, Mr Roper, looked up from his desk. He
blinked at her over the top of his spectacles.

‘What do you want, girl?’ he asked gruffly. ‘You’ve no right to be in here. Have you been sent for? In trouble, are you?’

‘No, but I want to see Mr Critchlow.’

‘See – Mr Critchlow?’ Mr Roper was startled, just as Mrs Bramwell had been, at the girl’s audacity. Hannah thought for a moment that he was going to say, just like Mrs
Bramwell, ‘Well, I never heard the like.’ But instead, he pursed his mouth. ‘You’ve got cheek, I’ll give you that. But in this place, that’ll only earn you a
punishment – not admiration.’

Hannah bit back a hasty retort. She swallowed her anger, realizing suddenly that belligerence would gain her nothing.

‘Please, sir,’ she said, modifying her tone, her whole attitude. ‘Please, could I see Mr Critchlow?’

‘He’s not here. He’s gone for the day.’ Mr Roper paused and then added, slyly, ‘but Mr Edmund’s here. You could perhaps see him, if you like.’

In her innocence, Hannah nodded. ‘Yes, please.’

Josiah Roper was a strange, complicated character. He had been born into relatively privileged circumstances. He’d attended private schools and had been set to enter Oxford or Cambridge
University until the day he’d learned that the family fortunes had been drunk and gambled away by his ne’er-do-well father. Josiah had been obliged to seek gainful employment. He was
intelligent and able, but the doors that once might have been opened to him by way of his family’s standing were now slammed in his face. Seventeen years earlier, as a desperate young man of
eighteen, Josiah had sought out Edmund Critchlow, who’d been one of Josiah’s father’s more fortunate gambling cronies. Mistakenly, Josiah believed the man might feel some pangs of
guilt, perhaps some sort of responsibility that he’d been involved in the downfall of the Roper family. Whilst Edmund did persuade his own father to employ Josiah as their clerk, his reasons
were far from charitable. Edmund was ambitious. He couldn’t wait to take over the running of Wyedale Mill from his father. Roper, he assumed, would be eternally grateful and utterly loyal to
him. The impoverished young man, Edmund believed, would be his eyes and ears throughout the mill. People would tend to ignore the quiet man, to look upon him as a mere clerk. But they would be
mistaken, Edmund schemed, for there would be nothing happen in the mill that he wouldn’t hear about from Roper.

Josiah was indeed grateful to take the position, but his appreciation was short-lived. Though he did his job conscientiously, he was resentful of his benefactors, seeing his lowly position as an
insult to his intelligence and none of his own making. In his twisted, embittered attitude, he took a perverse delight in hearing the quarrels and troubles that took place within his hearing in the
inner office. As he went about the mill, ostensibly on office business, he picked up titbits of gossip, overheard private conversations, witnessed quarrels between workers and saw problems arise.
And all of this he carried back to his office to calculate how he could best use such information. If he could manipulate a situation to cause tro uble for someone – anyone, it didn’t
matter who it was – then his day was all the brighter. It relieved the monotonous drudgery of his enforced servile position. Yet, with his tale-bearing he was unwittingly fulfilling the very
act that Edmund wanted of him.

And now here was this girl, who’d been in the mill but a few weeks, standing in his office demanding to see the master. Josiah’s lip curled. It lightened his day. Well, she could see
the young master. That’d stop her gallop and no mistake. She was a bit young at the moment, but Edmund would mark her out, and in three or four years’ time . . .

Josiah rose slowly from behind his desk and straightened up. ‘I’ll ask if Mr Edmund will see you.’ He moved deliberately slowly towards the door to the inner office, knocked
and entered without waiting for a reply. He closed the door behind him and Hannah was left alone. She looked about her.

The offices were on the top floor of an annexe attached to the main mill. As she looked out of the windows, Hannah could see the building at right angles to this one and then, directly in front
of her, the third one. The room itself was dark and dreary, furnished only with Mr Roper’s high desk and an odd chair or two. A candle stood on the corner of his desk to give him a little
extra light by which to write in his fine, spidery hand. The walls were lined with shelves, overflowing with ledgers and files and papers. No doubt Mr Roper knew where everything was, but to her,
the place looked a muddle.

After what seemed an age, the door opened again, and Josiah beckoned her inside. Nervous now – the waiting had robbed her of her daring – Hannah stepped forward until she was
standing before the man she’d seen only a few times walking through the mill. Mr Roper retreated from the room and softly closed the door.

Mr Edmund kept her waiting several minutes whilst his pen scratched across a sheet of paper before him. At last, he looked up, his thick, black eyebrows meeting in a frown. Then, as he realized
who it was, he leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers.

‘Well, well, well, the little blonde girl whom Scarsfield thinks fit to promote to piecer, even though she couldn’t do her first job properly.’

Hannah’s chin lifted defiantly. ‘I hadn’t done the piece of cotton you picked up.’ She paused deliberately before adding, ‘Sir.’

Edmund’s eyes glittered. ‘Hadn’t you, indeed? Are you telling me that the other girl had done it?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘No, sir. I’m just saying that you picked up a piece that I hadn’t worked on.’ She met his gaze, outwardly fearless yet inside she was quaking, her
knees trembling uncontrollably.

He was a frightening figure, tall, commanding, and he held her life in his hands. His power was absolute and yet here was this slip of a girl daring to stand up to him. Strangely, it amused
Edmund. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk. ‘So – to what do I owe this pleasure?’

Hannah ran her tongue around her dry lips. ‘Please, sir, I would like permission to visit me mother.’

Edmund frowned. There was a long pause, before he said slowly, ‘Your – mother? You have a mother?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Goodbody told me you were orphans. The four of you.’

‘The other three that came with me are, sir. But I’ve still got me mother.’

‘And where is she?’

‘At the Macclesfield workhouse, sir.’

‘And how do you propose to go all that way to visit her?’

‘I . . . I thought if I went on a Saturday afternoon and came back on Sunday night—’

He smiled sarcastically. ‘You think you could walk all that way in that time?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘I thought I could get a lift with the carter who brought us.’

‘That costs money, girl.’

‘But I have money, sir. The two guineas—’

‘Ah yes. The two guineas.’ His cruel smile broadened. ‘That money is to pay for any stoppages you incur. It is not to be frittered away.’

‘And that’s frittering? Wanting to see me mother?’ Hannah cried rashly, growing red in the face.