The Daring Ladies of Lowell (7 page)

Mrs. Holloway puzzled that out quickly. “It’s true, I see nothing different,” she said with a rare smile. “It’s the same as always.”

“Very perceptive of you, Mrs. Holloway.” Lovey beamed.

Alice watched Ellie eat the cookie, still working to get her bearings. “I don’t know what it is that they think I can tell them,” she said. “I’m no representative for the mill girls, or anybody else.”

“Tell them about Mama losing her hair,” Ellie said, her eyes flying wide open. “Tell them they should make safer machines. That nice man today will help.”

And would it be so? It sounded so simple, voiced by a child. That was the deception of simplicity, of course. Most adults scorned it.

T
he weather had softened, although clouds still covered the stars tonight, but Alice and Lovey, bundled up, sat out on the front steps in companionable silence.

“They invited you,” Lovey finally said softly. “They invited you, like a guest.”

“Not like a guest, it’s different.”

“But you’ll sit at their table and eat from their china plates, and you won’t have to reach for food. There will be maids standing by, asking if you need anything, anything at all, and their job is to get it for you.” Her voice was dreamy. “You know something? No one would ever invite me.”

“That’s—”

“Hush, Alice. You know it’s true. It wouldn’t matter what I do, I wouldn’t be respectable enough.”

“They would be wrong.”

“You really are my friend, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, I am. And I want to help you. Lovey, where do you go when you’re out late at night?”

Silence. Alice could hear someone in the parlor pumping away on the old piano, some tune she didn’t recognize, but there was clapping and laughter, mixed with the clatter of dishes being washed coming from the kitchen. Above their heads on the porch, tucked away in the eaves, a motionless robin huddled over her eggs, now used to the comings and goings of the boardinghouse. Everything was normal, but not the silence from Lovey.

“I don’t think friends should be burdened with problems other than their own,” Lovey finally said.

“I suppose that’s true if you don’t trust your friends.” She couldn’t help the barb. And yes, she was frustrated.

“I respect
your
secrets, Alice. I don’t have to know all of them. I’m asking no questions.”

Alice started to speak, but Lovey put her finger to her friend’s lips. “The thing is, I’ve got to help myself,” she said. “I have to do that first.”

“What could be braver than hiding that child today from that awful man?”

Even in the darkness, Alice could see Lovey’s faint smile. “Oh, I’m good at that sort of thing. I’m just not that good at figuring out consequences.”

“And that’s what you’re going to leave me with?”

“For now.” Lovey’s voice was gentle. “For now.” She reached out a hand as Alice started to rise. “Please don’t be cross. I’ll tell you everything when you come back from Boston, but I have to do something first. I promise.”

Alice sighed. “Soon?” she said.

“Soon.”

L
ovey was halfway up the dimly lit stairway that led to the top floor of the mill, balancing somewhat precariously on the narrow step, bouncing impatiently on her toes. She gestured to Alice. “Come on,” she urged. “We only have half an hour.”

Alice hesitated a fraction of a second before following her up. She had never seen the top floor. She glanced quickly as they passed the third landing, where the roving, spinning, dressing, warping, and drawing in were done, wishing she could watch for a while. But Lovey kept climbing, and then there they were, standing in a strangely quiet room. Women sat on benches with cloth before them, weaving in patterns. “It’s left thread to harness one and right thread to harness two, and you bloody well have to concentrate, because you can’t let them cross or the pattern will be ruined,” Lovey whispered.

Alice watched, fascinated. The pattern weavers were the most-skilled mill workers of all. They wove the highly prized calico cloth, which was not, as Lovey had taken pains to tell her, the cheap coarse muslin the English called calico. The weavers here were creating densely intricate patterns of vines and branches in indigo blue woven through with graceful curls of white. She and Lovey shouldn’t be here, this was a secret process; it was strictly off-limits. The Fiskes had no intention of allowing a competitor to steal their procedures. But here she was, feeling some envy. How quickly and deftly these women worked. What beautiful patterns they were creating. Could she ever be good enough to work up here?

“Y
ou are going to represent us at the Fiske home, and you should be properly dressed,” Lovey had announced that morning. “I know somebody on the third floor, and she says they have seamstresses making beautiful dresses—for the rich, of course, and that’s supposed to be a secret, too.”

Lovey leaned closer, her eyes shining. “We’re getting one for you to wear.”

“I can’t do that,” Alice had protested.

“Then what are you going to wear? Your homespun? Your apron from the mill?”

“She can borrow my Sunday dress,” Mary-o said.

Lovey shook her head, but not unkindly. “It isn’t fashionable enough.”

And so here they were, she and Lovey, standing in a corner, trying to be inconspicuous. A few of the women looked up curiously but then turned back to their work. They had quotas, too.

Lovey pulled Alice to the back of the room. One of the pattern weavers, looking a little nervous, was waiting behind a curtain. Two dresses hung from a peg.

“They have flaws and can’t be sold, so they’re supposed to be taken apart,” Lovey explained hurriedly. “But I think they’re quite handsome anyhow. Look, this one has those new ballooning sleeves.” She smoothed her hand over the closest one. “What keeps them so puffed up?”

“Down feathers,” said her friend, looking right and left. “They’re called gigot sleeves, truly the very latest.”

Alice ran her hand down the cloth of the skirt. The weaving was lovely work, not calico, but blended threads of pink and red in a muted floral design. She gazed at the simple lines of the bodice—trimmed with a carefully worked collar and small glass buttons—and could hardly believe it. She had never worn anything so quietly elegant.

“You have to return it the next day,” Lovey’s friend said quickly. “So, choose, please. I’ll tuck it in a little for you if you need it.”

“This one,” she said.

Lovey giggled. “You haven’t even looked at the other one.”

“I don’t need to; I like this one.”

T
here was much gaiety in the boardinghouse that afternoon. Alice and Lovey had to smuggle the dress into the dormitory without catching Mrs. Holloway’s eye, and everyone seemed delighted by the conspiracy.

“We can hide it under a mattress,” Tilda said, eyeing the voluminous skirt doubtfully.

“No, no, it must hang, best under the drapery,” Mary-o protested.

Jane objected. “The first thing
someone
here has to do”—she glared at Lovey—“is dust those filthy curtains and scrub down the wall behind them.”

“Jane, is anything ever clean enough for you?” Lovey asked.

But Jane had already donned an apron and was soaking a rag in the washbasin, wringing it out, ready to scrub the wall behind the limp curtains. “Nothing gets done here unless I do it myself,” she complained.

Lovey held the dress, watching her, while Mary-o watched for Mrs. Holloway. Then Lovey leaned over to Alice. “Here, hold this, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she whispered, and disappeared out the door.

When Jane declared the wall clean enough, they carefully hid the dress behind the folds of the drapery and stepped back. It was virtually invisible.

“For once, this place is clean,” Jane said, rebuttoning her sleeves and hanging her apron. “I’m going to get the mail.” She turned and left the room; the others started to follow.

Lovey slipped in, her eyes dancing. She looked around the impressively tidy dormitory and held up something in her hand for the others to see. A wrinkled pair of knickers.

“Knickers?” Mary-o said.

Lovey put a finger to her lips, then carefully deposited the knickers on top of Jane’s pillow.

“Let’s go to the parlor, quick,” Lovey whispered. “She’ll be back, she’s always forgetting something.”

They were barely out of there when, sure enough, Jane went hurrying back for her knitting. Heads down, giggling, they waited. And when they heard Jane’s explosive shriek, they broke into laughter; they couldn’t contain it, none of them, especially when Jane came storming in, holding the pair of knickers with two fingers and tossed them into Lovey’s lap.

“Janie, Janie, it’s just a joke,” Lovey protested, seeing Jane was nearly in tears.

“You’re all just making fun of me, and I don’t like it.”

Lovey took her hand. “I promise, I will wash these on the scrub board, and I will make sure no bits of food collect on the floor ever again. I swear it.” She paused and saw Jane would need a touch more coaxing.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Jane blew her nose quite vigorously. “I guess I’m a bit hard on the rest of you. You can’t help it if you weren’t taught to my standards.”

“Ah, well.” Lovey sighed. “We do our best.”

A
lice and Lovey sat out on the porch quite late that night. Together they studied and argued over an idea Lovey had been working on, an article she had titled “A Manifesto for Mill Girls.” Alice smiled a bit at the lofty goals—including the declarations that
No members of this society shall exact more than eight hours of labour, out of every twenty-four.
Such a fanciful idea—but Lovey was clearly excited.

“Please don’t give me one of those gently skeptical smiles that you do so well,” she said. “I’m serious. I think we can resolve to do things and then make them happen. I’m drawing up a whole list of things and when I’m done, I’m submitting this to
The
Lowell Offering.
”

“I’m not making fun; I just think that none of this will ever come about.”

“They don’t take us seriously. All we are to anybody are ‘the mill girls,’ and I think that should change. Why can’t we be daring ladies? Doesn’t that sound good? I’d like to be a daring lady. It sounds so brave. Here, listen to this.” Lovey picked up a page and cleared her throat: “Resolved: That the wages of females shall be equal to the wages of males, that they may be enabled to maintain proper independence of character.”

“Don’t you want to be taken seriously?”

“Well, of course.” Lovey thought for a moment. “We could be
decorous
daring ladies.”

“Well, that sounds good.” Alice gave her friend a mock-stern look. “But I think you need to add more.”

“I thought you would say that.” Lovey sighed, reading aloud as she scribbled.
“And virtuous deportment.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I do not guarantee I won’t take it out when you’re not looking.”

Alice remembered the wonderfully grave face Lovey presented at that point. But mostly she remembered what came next: Lovey’s burst of cascading laughter. And if there had been something of a hollow edge to it that time, Alice did not catch it.