Sheri Cobb South (13 page)

Her agitation did not go unremarked by Mr. Brundy, who watched with a creased brow as the two of hearts slipped from his wife’s trembling fingers and landed face up on the table.

“Oh, dear,” she fretted, snatching up the card only to drop two more.

“It’s been a long day,” he remarked sympathetically. “Are you ready to call it a night, me dear?”

Up came Lady Helen’s chin. “I always finish what I start, Mr. Brundy.”

He acceded with a nod. “As you wish.”

The fourth hand did not go well for Lady Helen, and Mr. Brundy had the edge going into the fifth. By the time the sixth and final hand was dealt, he had built up a commanding lead, but unfortunately for the sake of his courtship, his play began, unaccountably, to slip. Whether through carelessness or premature anticipation of his reward, he made several crucial errors in judgment, and twice forgot to record points to which he was entitled. As a result, when the points were tallied at last, Lady Helen emerged victorious.

“Well, Mr. Brundy, it appears you will not get your kiss after all,” she said in a voice made smug by triumph.

“Indeed, it does,” her husband agreed mournfully. “Still and all, you can’t blame a man for trying. Per’aps tomorrow I’ll ‘ave better luck.”

Lady Helen threw up a hand in protest. “No, no! I shall wager no more on kisses, Mr. Brundy.”

“Frightened you, did I?” he asked, grinning broadly at her.

“Not at all,” she replied with a show of her former hauteur. “ ‘Twas a foolish wager to begin with, and you, sir, were no gentleman to propose it!”

“Per’aps not, but then, I am not a gentleman,” he reminded her without apology. “There are times when that can be a great advantage.”

Lady Helen smiled at him uncertainly, but could think of no suitable reply. Still, he regarded her steadily with a curious little half-smile playing about his mouth, and she found herself wondering what might have happened if she had lost....

This line of thought was perhaps fortunately interrupted by the sound of the mantel clock striking midnight.

“Good heavens, look at the time!” cried Lady Helen, leaping up in such haste that she almost tipped over the card table. “If I am to see this mill of yours in the morning, I had best seek my bed.”

“Unkissed, as agreed,” promised her husband, albeit not without regret.

“Just so, Mr. Brundy,” she replied.

But she climbed the stairs feeling strangely as if she were the loser.

Chapter 9

All work, even cotton spinning, is noble.

THOMAS CARLYLE,
Past and Present

As the sun rose over the Pennines, the textile mills of the greater Manchester area came slowly to life. By ten o’clock in the morning, some ninety-nine mills operated at full capacity, with the notable exception of one brick structure situated twelve miles outside the city, where work had been temporarily suspended.

This particular mill was witnessing a momentous event, for the door had been flung open to admit its beaming owner, bearing on his arm the most striking woman the workers had ever seen. The pair were almost of a height, but where he was dark, she was fair, and where he was solidly built, she was slender as a reed, and carried herself like a queen. Furthermore, her fashionable peach-colored walking gown and wide-brimmed gypsy hat had clearly not come from any of the local shops. Mr. Brundy, it seemed, had brought his “duchess” for their inspection.

And inspect her they did, with bulging eyes and gaping mouths, until Mr. Brundy was obliged to tell his bride, “They’re not ‘alf as dumb as they look.”

Like monarchs on progress, they slowly made their way down the center aisle separating the rows of spinners on either side, Mr. Brundy pausing now and then to address one or another of his workers.

The workers, Lady Helen soon discovered, fell into one of two camps. The older men called him Ethan or, as in the case of Ben, “lad,” and treated him much the same as they might a precocious nephew or grandson; the younger addressed him as “Mr. Brundy,
sir,”
and regarded him with the sort of reverence due one who fell only a step short of deity. A notable exception, however, was soon discovered in the form of a small boy sweeping lint in the nether reaches of the cavernous room. As if to defy classification, the child dropped his broom with a shriek and ran to meet the newcomers.

“Mr. Brundy! Mr. Brundy!” the boy’s high-pitched squeals rose over the noise of the machinery. “Did you bring me something from Lunnon-town?”

Mr. Brundy’s brow puckered. “Was I supposed to do that?”

“You promised!” the child insisted, dancing with impatience.

“Well, now, let’s see.” Mr. Brundy squatted down to the boy’s level and reached into the inside breast pocket of his coat, pretending to tug at something concealed therein. “I think I feel something.”

The boy needed no further invitation. He set upon his employer with enthusiasm, all but ripping the coat from Mr. Brundy’s back in his eagerness to claim the prize.

Not, reflected Lady Helen, that the loss would have been great even had the coat not survived the assault. Still, it was a very odd thing, but Mr. Brundy’s ill-fitting garments no longer bothered her as much as they once had done. Was she growing accustomed to him, she wondered, or did such things simply not matter so much outside the Metropolis?

By this time the child had captured the promised treat, a peppermint stick wrapped in wax-coated paper. His eyes round with wonder, the boy thanked his benefactor as fervently as if he had just been presented with the crown jewels. Without warning, the memory of her wedding night bobbed to the surface of Lady Helen’s mind, and once again she saw Mr. Brundy, resplendent in a dressing gown of polished chintz.
I’d like to ‘ave young ‘uns of me own, ‘elen. . . .
Yes, Mr. Brundy would make an excellent father, although he would no doubt spoil his children beyond all bearing—experiencing vicariously, perhaps, the carefree childhood he had been denied. This thought raised another puzzling question, which she addressed to her husband as soon as the boy had returned to his broom.

“I am surprised that you would hire a child, Mr. Brundy,” she remarked. “I was under the impression that you had strong views on the subject.”

“Aye, that I do, and it went sorely against the grain with me,” the weaver confessed. “But the lad’s father was crippled in me employ, and now the boy is the family’s only means of support.”

“Can you not simply make his father an allowance?” Lady Helen suggested.

Mr. Brundy shook his head. “These are proud people, ‘elen. They won’t accept charity, even from one of their own. I’d no choice but to give the boy a job, although I won’t let ‘im work more than four hours a day, and I’ll not ‘ave ‘im standing idle at a machine all day. At least pushing a broom gives him the freedom to move about a bit. ‘Tis unnatural for young ‘uns to be cooped up for long periods of time.”

“Like you were,” added Lady Helen sympathetically.

“Aye, like I was.” Mr. Brundy shook his head, as if banishing old ghosts, and when he spoke again it was in a much lighter tone. “I should be pleased to show you the manufacturing process from start to finish, if you like.”

Lady Helen smiled at her husband. “I should like that very much.”

“This is the spinning room, and the machines you see are called spinning mules. The mules twist the cotton fibers into threads, and the threads feed the looms, which weave it into cloth. Now, right over ‘ere—”

They proceeded to the power looms, where Lady Helen watched in fascination as thread turned to cloth before her eyes, while Mr. Brundy explained the three-step process of shedding, picking, and beating in. He was interrupted in this endeavor by the arrival of the one-armed Tommy.

“Mr. Brundy, sir—” he began, then checked at the sight of the lady accompanying his employer. “Oh, I beg your pardon!”

“ ‘elen, this is Tommy. Tommy, meet me wife, Lady ‘elen Brundy. You might say Tommy is me right ‘and,” he added as an aside to Lady Helen.

“Aye, for I can hardly be his left,” replied Tommy with a grin, indicating his empty sleeve. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Brundy, but we’ve run into some trouble with the printing machine.”

“I’ll be right there,” promised Mr. Brundy. “If you’ll excuse me, ‘elen? Tommy, would you show me wife about the place until I get back?”

Tommy grinned. “Glad to, Mr. B. Right this way, Mrs. Brundy.”

Lady Helen allowed the misuse of her title to pass. The appellation, so galling on Lord Waverly’s mocking lips, carried a very different connotation when Tommy spoke it.

“He certainly seems to know his business,” she remarked, watching her husband’s retreating back.

“Aye, none better,” agreed Tommy. “Now, where did you get to?”

“Mr. Brundy was telling me how the looms work.”

“Well, I should be able to do that, seeing as how I ran one for seven years,” Tommy said proudly.

“Why did you stop?” asked Lady Helen.

“It’s a two-handed job.”

“Is that how you were injured?”

“Aye, four years ago come August. Mr. Brundy had just taken over the mill, and he felt partly to blame, even though it wasn’t his fault. Still, he trained me as a sort of manager. I’ve had offers from some of the other mills, but I’ll not work for anybody else. He really is the best of men.” He paused, grinning sheepishly as he remembered his audience. “But you’re his wife, so I guess you already know that.”

Lady Helen smiled. “I’m beginning to.”

“Lord, I’d give a monkey to have seen him in London amongst all the nobs! Cut a regular dash, I’ll bet.”

You were the laughingstock of London long before you married me. . . .
The memory of her own words echoed in Lady Helen’s head. No, she could not bring herself to shame him before these people who thought so highly of him.  “He was—certainly eye-catching,” she managed at last.

Encouraged by this revelation, Tommy continued to ply her with questions to which she was hard pressed to form answers without resorting to outright fabrication. In this manner, they reached a curious-looking apparatus dominated by a large cast-iron cylinder and several smaller rollers. A trio of sweating men struggled to coax the rollers to turn, while a fourth, laboring underneath the machine, was invisible save for his booted feet protruding out from under it.

“This,” Tommy explained with a flourish, “is the new roller printing machine. Up to now, the woven cloth has been sent to Vint and Gilling for printing, but Mr. Brundy thought as how it could be done more cheaply under one roof.”

Lady Helen took a closer look at the strange contraption, and thought she recognized the boots. In spite of their sadly scuffed condition, they were far more costly than those a mill worker might afford.

“Mr. Brundy?” she addressed the footwear. “Is that you?”

The boots stirred and then began to emerge, growing first legs and then a torso, until at last her husband’s head appeared.

“ ‘elen, me dear,” he said, clambering to his feet. “I ‘ope Tommy ‘asn’t been boring you.”

Lady Helen, staring at her husband with new eyes, did not respond. His hair was mussed and a smudge of black grease stained his cheek. He had shed his coat and waistcoat, and the oppressive heat generated by the steam-powered machinery, combined with the exertion of physical labor, had plastered his thin cambric shirt to his body. The end result, while disheveled, held a certain raffish appeal. Lady Helen suppressed a strong urge to reach out and wipe the black smudge from his cheek.

“Boring me? Not at all,” she said hastily.

“Mrs. Brundy has been telling me about the splash you made in London,” put in Tommy.

Mr. Brundy regarded his wife warily, “ ‘as she, now?”

“Lord, I wish I’d been there to see it!” Tommy enthused. “We’re all proud of you, Mr. B.”

He continued in this vein for some time, until his employer conveniently recalled a task that required Tommy’s immediate attention, whereupon the conscientious worker hastily took his leave.

“Your workers are very loyal,” remarked Lady Helen as she watched him make his way through rows of hissing and groaning machinery.

“It would seem they’re not the only ones,” replied Mr. Brundy, regarding his wife with a puzzled expression.

They left the mill a short time later, Mr. Brundy having taken a moment to remove his dirt before escorting his bride back home. Unfortunately, Tommy had by this time spread the word that Mr. Brundy’s lady wife was not at all high in the instep—an observation which would have shocked her London acquaintances, had they been privy to it. Thus informed, the workers elected to notify their employer of their approval of his choice. Consequently, as Mr. Brundy ushered his bride past row upon row of humming spinners, a shout rang out.

“Give ‘er a kiss for us, boy!”

The cry was quickly taken up, and even some of the youthful worshippers were emboldened to join in. Seeing no other way to quiet the mob, Mr. Brundy gave his wife an apologetic look, followed by a chaste peck on the cheek.

This action found no favor with his workers, who greeted it with jeers and catcalls. In the end it was Jack (he whose laughing observations on his employer’s marriage had so cut up Mr. Brundy’s peace) who voiced the displeasure of the masses by demanding, “Didn’t we learn you any better nor that?”

Turning toward her husband, Lady Helen was surprised to see the unflappable Mr. Brundy turn beet-red with embarrassment. Forgetting her own discomfiture, she raised her face ever so slightly to his.

“Yes, Mr. Brundy, surely you can do better than that,” she murmured.

He gazed down at her with a question in his brown eyes. Finding the answer he sought in her green ones, he slowly bent and pressed a lingering kiss onto her expectantly parted lips, to the loud approval of the masses.

* * * *

It was a silent and self-conscious pair who made their way outside. Mr. Brundy handed his wife into the gig, then climbed up after her and took the reins. Neither spoke for a full five minutes.

At last Mr. Brundy could bear it no longer. “All right, ‘elen, let’s ‘ave it. What did you tell that boy to make ‘im think I’ve got all of London at me feet?”