Eppie (52 page)

‘Speaking from experience,’ du Quesne said, ‘you will find
this child more trouble than she is worth. Simply forfeiting her wage for a
breach of the rules will not be enough to quell her wilful, impudent nature.
What she needs is a regular dose of corporal punishment. In short, thrashing
into order.’

Crumpton ripped out his strap.

Cowering, Eppie crossed her arms over her chest and held her
breath in fear. Whistling cracks, like the stings of a thousand ferocious bees,
lashed her body. Crash, slam, pounded the machines. Red, bulging were the eyes
of the overseer as he struck time and again.

Distraught at the brutality of
the overseer’s attack, Mr Grimley made towards them. His insistent, booming
voice broke through her cries. ‘Enough!’

That evening, Martha attempted to get the fire going to heat
the potage so that the families would at least be warm on the inside.

The tinkers’ fire blazed, their chicken stew bubbled.

‘It’s no use,’ Eibhlin said. ‘The faggots are damp.’

 Martha battled against her fighting nature. ‘It’ll be well
past midnight before we get it to kindle, if at all. We’ll have to make do with
bread and dripping again.’

Wakelin found no difficulty in keeping warm. Boiling inside,
he stormed around the cellar, furious in the knowledge that du Quesne was the
mill owner. ‘We’ll have to leave, Ma. There’s no way I’m having o’t to do with
du Quesne. We’ll work to the end of the week, get our wage and go.’

‘But you’ll have made your mark?’ Eibhlin said.

‘How d’ya mean?’ Wakelin asked.

‘When you started. Crumpton doesn’t make a thing of telling
folk what they might not like to hear.’

He stepped close to her. ‘What ya saying?’

‘Once you’ve cut your mark you’re bound to work at the mill
for ten years, except when trade’s bad, then workers are laid off without
pay.’  

Wakelin turned on his mother. ‘Why didn’t you ask what you
were putting yer mark to?’

‘I wasn’t thinking,’ she answered humbly, ashamed of her
stupidity.

Wakelin longed to smash something. ‘Ten years! I can’t do
that. I
won’t
do it!’ Aware of the tinkers smirking, delighting in his
misery, he growled like a rabid dog, booted the stew pot, and was gone.

Eppie knew he would not return that night. 

Her head aching from eyestrain, Martha did her best to make
the girls comfortable. She tucked Eppie in and rubbed rank lard over Lottie’s
skin to shut out the cold.

‘We could break all the rules and get ourselves dismissed,’ Eppie
suggested.

‘What work would we get around here that is any better?’
Martha answered.

More than anything Eppie longed to sleep, to forget. The
unbearable stinging in her limbs made slumber impossible. Eibhlin lay close by,
her breathing laboured. Though Eppie tried to hold her nose against the
offensive stench of the tinkers’ full bucket, the muscles in her arm were too
weak even to make this small effort. Unblinking, she stared into the darkness,
listening to shouts in the streets.

Time ground on, slowly.

Growing weary, longing for sleep to carry her away, she
yearned to exist no longer. 

Soon enough the tolling of the
mill bell sliced through the hoary air.

After her beating, Eppie’s body felt like a scab that, with
each bend, as she was compelled to crawl beneath the mules to retrieve a bobbin
or brush the fly, cracked open and bled afresh.

The stone, which she was forced to wear around her neck for
a second time, slowed her reactions. On several occasions she was almost caught
by the moving parts. Trembling, lying flat against the floor, she sensed the
threatening mass of hissing machinery pass over her head like a dragon creeping
out of its lair, seeking its next victim. 

So consumed was she by her worries that she gave not a
thought to Wakelin until he lurched in, drunk. He had been content in the
company of Ezra and Tobias and always looked forward to hunting with Fur. But now,
consumed by the knowledge that he was working for a man he hated, how could he
live? He felt as powerless as the creatures he trapped. Drowning in drink
always was his means of escape.

If Wakelin had hoped Crumpton would not notice him sneaking
in, he was mistaken.

‘What do you mean by coming in at this time?’ the overseer
bellowed. ‘You’re twenty minutes late.’ 

‘I’ve come in, s’all ya need ta know.’

‘Dock quarter of a day’s wage,’ the overseer informed the
clerk. ‘Dunham.’

Eppie pondered frantically, ‘The loss of four hours’ pay for
having arrived only a few minutes late. Oh, Wakelin!’
 

He had been making an effort,
dutifully handing a shilling a week to Martha. However, with the family’s fines
increasing, their savings were rapidly dwindling.

Martha rushed Lottie into the cellar that night. The child’s
face was ashen and as shiny as a tallow candle. 

‘Whatever is the matter?’ Eibhlin cried. ‘She looks half
dead.’

‘It’s a wonder she isn’t dead. Now I know why she’s been
looking so lost, without the energy to eat. Grandmother Mobsby’s been dosing
the children with heart’s-ease to keep them quiet. And poor Becky, Ezra’s youngest,
died this morning. Grandmother Mobsby never even had the gumption to send word
to Jenufer at the mill.’

‘What are you going to do with Lottie?’ Eibhlin asked the
following morning.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Martha agonised.  ‘I’ve been awake all night,
worrying.’

‘We’ll take her with us,’ Eppie said.

‘We can’t,’ Martha answered. ‘It’s against the rules.’

‘Rules!’ Eppie said hotly. ‘I am sick of rules. It’s stupid
that children are beaten because of rules. Rules that say we mustn’t talk or
look out of the windows.  Rules that say I have to carry that horrid stone
around my neck. Rules that workers mustn’t sing or whistle - not that anyone
feels happy enough to do that anyway.’

Taking no heed of her pains, she swept Lottie into her arms.
The child’s hands felt icy to her touch.

Martha plodded up the street alongside Eppie. ‘I don’t think
this is a good idea.’

‘Lottie is ill. I am not leaving her.’

Crumpton’s gyrating mouth ceased its habitual whirling as he
watched Eppie cross the yard. ‘Oy!  Where do you think you’re going with that?’

‘Lottie is a little girl, not a
that
!’ 

Eppie knew she had uttered dangerous words because the
overseer reached for his strap.

Mr Grimley glanced up from his desk, startled, as she burst
into the office. 

Sat on his long-legged chair, Longbotham was copying details
of fines into the book of misdemeanours.

‘Some trouble?’ the manager enquired.

‘The little ones need somewhere safe to go in the day. Becky
Shaw died yesterday. She was only two. Granny Mobsby has over twenty children
to take care of. She can’t watch them all the time. Outside her house there’s
that ditch what flows down Scalding Lane. It’s full of hot water tipped in from
the soap-boiler’s place. A boy tripped into it and got roasted. Another child pottered
away and got crushed beneath cartwheels, and a three-year-old girl drowned in a
horse trough. What if a child fell into Granny Mobsby’s fire? That’s if she’s
luckier than us and able to get one going in the first place.’

Having been used to the enforced silence of the workers, the
mill manager was taken aback by her torrent of words. ‘Is that what happened to
you, your face? A fire?’

She stared forlornly at the brown stripes on his canary
yellow waistcoat, remembering the time when Twiss had been killed.

‘You are a good Christian girl. I see you regularly at
chapel. You have a strong faith?’

She looked deeply into his sad eyes. ‘Yes, Mr Grimley. I
believe that God is in every living thing: each bird, tree, and flower. I can
feel God’s energy all around me. It is in the air, the earth, and in the
water.’ She pulled a face of stiff repugnance. ‘Though, I don’t suppose God
would like swimming in that foul river by our cellar.’

‘Hmm, quite. You and your brother have got yourselves
noticed in the short time you have worked here.’

‘Wakelin only got pilking-drunk yesterday because he found
out that Lord du Quesne was the mill owner.’

‘Why would your brother have feelings of animosity towards
his lordship?’  

‘When we lived in Little Lubbock, Lord du Quesne wanted to
hang Wakelin.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Thurstan accused Wakelin of being a rowdy revolutionary.
Gabriel was real good when I went to ask him for his help. He tried to tell his
father that Wakelin didn’t mean no harm. When his pa wouldn’t listen, Gabriel
stuck the noose around his own neck and told him that, if he wanted to hang
Wakelin, he had to hang him first.’

‘Gabriel did that? And you are much acquainted with Gabriel?’

‘In the Crusader Oak he taught me to play the flute. That’s
when he wasn’t learning me my letters or we weren’t sossing about in the
woods.’

‘Forgive me for asking. Why would Gabriel du Quesne choose
to associate with the likes of you?’

‘Talia led him to me.’

‘His deceased sister?’ He looked at Eppie askance, weighing
up the possibility that there might be a touch of lunacy about her. He deemed
it best to change the line of conversation. ‘Why did your family come to
Malstowe?’

‘Partly because Wakelin refused to be muck-man and partly
because Lord du Quesne doesn’t like me. When he shot my pa dead in the
graveyard I shouted at him that if he came back to life after he’d died he’d be
a grizzly wild boar, like his head in the Brown Room. Dawkin told his lordship that
he already was one.’

 ‘Well, well, there is a lot about you that intrigues me. I
am sorry you were beaten by Crumpton. Too much of that goes on. I rue the day that
I was compelled to sell out to Lord du Quesne, but the circumstances were
beyond me. He does not have a care about the workers. There are too many
hazards, especially for the children when they are tired towards the end of a
long day. If his lordship forces them to work from such a young age and for
such long hours is it any wonder that they fall asleep. It is utter nonsense to
beat them for that reason.’ He swung his leather chair around and rose to his
feet. ‘You are right; we must do something to help the very young. I have a
notion. Follow me.’

It was still dark as they strode past the truck store and up
the hill, passing the weaving shed and woollen mill. 

Stepping solemnly behind the manager, Lottie in her arms, Eppie
trailed him through the kitchen of the apprentice house and upstairs to the
dormitory, where rows of truckle-like beds were laid side-by-side with scarce a
space between. Covering each of the straw mattresses, where the children slept
two to a bed, were grey blankets. Besides a line of chamber pots were little
heaps of straw, ready to use to clean bottoms.

‘Mrs Muggleton,’ Mr Grimley said, indicating to Lottie, ‘this
child is unwell. She needs taking care of. I have decided that the mill
workers, if they so desire, will be offered the opportunity of leaving their
under-fives here during working hours. The children will be safe in the
apprentice house and may make use of the beds if they are tired. There will be
no charge. I shall buy provisions: milk, bread, that sort of thing.’

‘I thought you sold the mill to Lord du Quesne because you
was poor?’ Eppie said. ‘Where will you get the money?’

‘I shall manage,’ he ruminated. ‘One way or, perhaps, the
other.’

Merrily the Christmas bells of
Little Lubbock church chimed. Eppie whipped across the frozen mere, sheep bone
blades strapped to her feet. ‘Watch me, Dawkin! I can skate!’ Overwhelmed with
a sense of freedom, she whirled until she felt she would never stop.

Martha grabbed her flailing arms. ‘Eppie, wake up!’

Dawkin’s laughter died.

‘Mam? What’s up?’

‘Can’t you hear the mill bell?  Hurry or we’ll be late.
Eibhlin, you’re surely not thinking of going today? You spent the whole night
awake, coughing. Take the day off.’

‘If I do, that’s the last I see of the mill and my children
will starve.’    

Tramp, tramp went the tread of many feet across the desolate
marketplace as workers marched through the shrouding cloak of darkness.  

With a heavy heart, Eppie set about the task of joining
broken threads.

It seemed an eternity until the end of the day.

On and on they worked. Wheels clattered.  Straps and
spindles hummed.

Abruptly, Eibhlin fell.

Coline dashed to her mother, terrified she would die before
her eyes.

‘Back to piecing!’ Crumpton roared. ‘Longbotham, fine Mrs
O’Ruarc six pence for lying down.’

‘She’s not well!’ Martha cried. ‘She needs to rest.’

Helped by Coline and Martha, Eibhlin rose, slowly, coughing
up fluff. Her ankles swollen from continuous standing, she sank back to her
knees.    

Crumpton kept a cudgel in his belt as ready punishment for
slacking mule operators. Threateningly, he wielded the weapon over Eibhlin’s head.
‘On with your work!’

Staggered by his callous attitude, Eppie stamped her foot at
him. ‘You’re a wicked, spiteful man.’

Before Martha could stop her, fearful of further trouble,
she had dashed off.

‘That’s five pence for leaving your place without my say
so!’ Crumpton yelled after her. 

‘I couldn’t give a hoot!’

Du Quesne was going over orders with the manager. He shot an
enraged look at the noisy intruder. ‘How dare you enter this office in such a manner?’

‘Whatever is the matter?’ Jeremiah Grimley asked calmly.

Eppie glanced from one stern face to the other. For the
first time, she noticed that Mr Grimley’s right hand was made of wood. ‘Coline’s
mother is sick. I think it’s a stupid rule that says she can’t rest if she
feels poorly.’