Tangled Threads (32 page)

Eveleen bit her lip but did not answer. Even if she risked revealing her identity she intended to repair the long mend, as they called the flaw.

When the length of lace came off the machine, Eveleen bundled it up and, at the end of her shift, carried it with her as she and Luke Manning walked side by side to Josh Carpenter’s
office.

‘So, what’s all the trouble?’ Josh was frowning, his face even redder than usual as he mopped at his brow with a large, greyish handkerchief.

‘No trouble, sir,’ Luke said smoothly. ‘Not now.’

‘Well, what was the trouble then? Come on, I want to know. I saw you clout this young lad. You’re not the sort to do that, Luke, without good reason. I know that.’

Although she kept her voice gruff and resentful, Eveleen could no longer stay totally in Jimmy’s character. She liked Luke and it had been her foolishness that had caused the problem.

Damn and blast all handsome young men, she thought, including Richard Stokes.

‘It was my fault, Mr Carpenter. A thread broke and I didn’t notice it.’ She indicated the fabric she was carrying. ‘But I’ll get it mended.’

For a moment, Josh’s jowls sagged sorrowfully. ‘If your sister were here, lad, she’d mend it.’ He glanced up at Luke. ‘Lovely worker, she is.’

‘Aye, well, we all mek mistakes. And if he can get it mended . . .’ Luke, his anger gone, was now prepared to champion his young apprentice.

Josh leant back in his chair and linked his podgy fingers across his belly. ‘So you’re prepared to give him another chance.’ Josh’s tone seemed to Eveleen to be more of a
statement than a question. Luke must have noticed it too, for he said deferentially, ‘If you think I should, sir.’

Josh looked sternly at Eveleen. ‘As long as you’ll be more careful in future and keep your mind on your work, lad.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Eveleen whispered. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Josh leant forward again. ‘That’ll be all, Luke, thank you.’

As Eveleen turned to leave too, Josh said, ‘A moment, lad, if you please.’

When Luke had left the office, Josh handed the letter across his desk. ‘Take this to your sister when you see her again, will you?’

Eveleen merely nodded as she took the envelope. She could not, at this moment, trust herself to speak. So guilty did she feel that she was on the verge of breaking down and confessing her
deception.

As she escaped into the passage outside, she found Luke was waiting for her. ‘Looks like you’ve got a champion, boy.’ His tone was friendly again, his earlier anger forgotten,
but as he put his hand on Eveleen’s shoulder and walked alongside her out of the factory, he said, ‘Or is it your sister that old bugger’s interested in, eh?’ When Eveleen
did not reply – she did not know what to say – Luke dropped his hand and added, ‘Well, just you tell that lass of yours to mind herself with him. See you tomorrow, bright and
early.’

Eveleen nodded. ‘Thanks, Mr Manning.’

Again, just briefly, there was a strange look in his eyes as he said, with a veiled warning, ‘And no more chatting when we have – er – visitors round the factory,
eh?’

Eveleen’s heart skipped a beat. It was obvious that Richard’s attentions had not gone unnoticed. At once Eveleen said, ‘Mr Richard was asking me about me sister an’
all.’ Feigning resentment, she added, ‘Can’t think why.’

Now Luke laughed and there was a look of relief in his eyes. ‘From what I’ve heard, your sister’s a very pretty girl. Can’t say I’ve seen her but it sounds as if
I’ve missed something if even Mr Richard’s asking after her welfare. She must be summat special.’

They had reached the gates and Luke turned in the opposite direction to the way Eveleen went.

Still chuckling, Luke shouted, ‘Tarr-ra,’ leaving Eveleen standing very still, staring after him.

His remarks had left her with a warm glow and, despite her resolve, the image of Richard Stokes’s handsome face was in her mind’s eye.

There was little privacy in the house in Foundry Yard so Eveleen waited until her mother and Rebecca had gone upstairs before she pulled the letter from her pocket and opened
it.

Dear Eveleen
, Josh had written in forward sloping script.
I am sorry that your grandmother’s illness keeps you from us. We miss your lovely smile
. Eveleen drew in a sharp
breath. The word ‘
We
’ had obviously been altered from ‘
I
’ and all that the single letter implied.

‘Oh no,’ she groaned aloud to the dying embers in the grate and the soft lamplight. ‘Don’t say they’re right and he really has got a thing for me?’

She sighed. Was there no man who would be a true friend? Young or old, handsome or ugly? Were they all just after the one thing? Perhaps she was being naïve. Perhaps there was no such thing
as a true friendship between the sexes.

She read on.
Don’t worry about your job. There’ll always be room for a good worker like you in our workroom. Your brother is shaping up very nicely now, Luke tells me. Maybe with
you being away, a bit of responsibility is good for him. Although I hope that part of it doesn’t last for too long. I am so glad the Griswold is proving useful. I might be able to help with
the selling of the socks. Tell your brother to bring some to show me and I’ll see what I can do. Take care of yourself and hurry back. With kind regards, Josh.

The letter was innocent enough, she supposed, but then she gave an involuntary shudder. If it had fallen into the wrong hands, there was enough in the words to hint at something more. What
factory manager, Eveleen asked herself candidly, writes to a lowly girl worker from the inspection room?

They don’t, was her honest answer.

She sat there until the embers had grown cold. By the time she rose from the chair and went up the stairs she had decided that she would not reply to Josh’s letter, but then she caught
sight of the pile of socks that Rebecca had made waiting for a buyer. Eveleen bit her lip. Just one more letter to thank him, she promised herself, and, as Jimmy, she would take some samples for
Josh to see. After that, no more letters. As Jimmy, she might have to fend off his enquiries about Eveleen, but surely when she did not reply to any future correspondence from him and did not
return to work, Josh would eventually forget about her.

As she slid quietly into the bed she shared with her mother, Eveleen could not prevent a stab of disappointment as she realized the full extent of the charade she had undertaken.

Never again could she talk to a man, any man, as a pretty, lively young girl.

The pattern went on much the same for the next two weeks. Even though Josh answered her second letter immediately, this time Eveleen did not write back. She was managing to
concentrate on her work, although she was intensely aware of his nearness whenever Richard Stokes was standing in the aisle close by her. And almost daily Josh would waylay her on her way into or
out of the factory.

‘I’ve found an outlet for your cousin’s socks and stockings. Bring ’em all in tomorrow.’

‘Right,’ Eveleen said. ‘Ta.’

And then, as he always did, Josh asked, ‘How is your sister? Any news?’

Towards the end of the second week, as the shift ended, Josh handed her another letter as she was leaving.

‘Take this to your sister. You’ll be seeing her on Sunday?’

‘I dunno,’ she answered gruffly and shrugged.

‘Then tell me the address and I’ll post it,’ Josh said, his fingers closing again on the letter as if to retrieve it from her grasp.

‘No,’ Eveleen said swiftly, suddenly afraid. If letters started arriving in Ranters’ Row addressed to her from a strange man, her uncle’s view that she and all her family
were destined for hell and damnation would be justified in his eyes.

‘I’ll take it to her,’ she said brusquely, snatching it back from his reaching fingers. She pushed it into the depths of her pocket, crumpling the offending letter
carelessly.

Why, oh why, she asked silently, did he have to go on writing to her? It’s your own fault, a small voice inside her head answered. You shouldn’t have encouraged him. You should never
have replied to his letter in the first place. You should have killed this before it even started.

Several men passing by had witnessed Josh handing the letter to her but Eveleen walked out boldly with the rest of the workers. To try to avoid them, to linger behind until they’d all
left, would look even more suspicious. So, pushing her hands into her pockets, she walked jauntily out of the gates and set off for home.

They were waiting for her round the corner at the end of the street. A gang of lads and one or two of the older men from the machine shop.

‘Here he comes. Carpenter’s little darling.’

‘We knew the old bugger liked the lasses, didn’t know he had a liking for lads,’ one of the older men leered, pretending to give a shudder as if the mere thought offended him.
‘What’s he put in the letter, eh? Asking you to meet him down a dark alley, is he?’

Eveleen glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. ‘The letter is for me sister . . .’ She couldn’t stop herself hesitating pointedly before she added with heavy sarcasm,
‘sir.’

‘Oh aye, I’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.’ His eyes narrowed as he added, ‘But who do you like, boy? Carpenter or young Stokes?’ He prodded his finger at
her. ‘I saw you eyeing the boss’s son. Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree there, son. He’ll be earmarked for some society girl, you can bet your last ’apenny on
that.’

Forgetting for a moment just who she was supposed to be, Eveleen felt the tears prickle at the back of her eyelids. She bit hard down on her lower lip. Her deception was bringing more ridicule
to Josh. Was that the way to repay the man’s kindness?

They encircled Eveleen, calling her filthy names and punching her so that she was pushed from one side of the circle to the other, then to and fro until she fell to the ground on her hands and
knees.

She was sick with fear, terrified of what they meant to do to her. But she was trapped. They were all around her. There was no escape and no friendly face. They stood over her, leering down at
her, jeering at her.

One of the young men straddled her back, as if to ride her like a horse. Holding her, he pushed his hand into her pocket and pulled out the letter. ‘Let’s see old Carpenter’s
love letter.’

Still, sitting astride her, his weight crushing her, he ripped open the letter and held it aloft.

‘
Dear Eveleen
.’

All around there were whistles and ribald remarks. ‘Oho, is that your name, ducky, when you’re not at work?’

‘No, it is his sister’s name,’ another spoke up, for the first time with a word in her defence.

‘I bet there ain’t no sister,’ the young man still sitting on her back sneered.

‘No, no, there is. She used to work in the warehouse.’

But the lad on Eveleen’s back was not listening. ‘
Dear Eveleen
,’ he went on. ‘
I was disappointed not to hear from you again.
’ There were loud jeers
around her and, straining not to give way beneath the lad’s weight, Eveleen caught the sob that rose in her throat. ‘
Please write back and let me know how you are faring. Your
friend, Josh.
’

‘Oho,
your friend
.’ He caught hold of Eveleen’s short hair and jerked her head upwards. He stood up and hauled her to her feet. ‘Well, let’s have a look at
just what it is that old Carpenter likes.’

‘I tell you, it’s not him, it’s his sister Carpenter’s after.’ But the lone voice of protest was shouted down.

They crowded closer with willing, eager hands to grab her and wrench off her jacket.

Eveleen began to scream but they only laughed.

‘He screams like a girl,’ someone said, still unaware that he spoke the truth.

They pulled the braces from her shoulders and while one man holding her lifted her off her feet, others yanked at her trousers. Eveleen kicked out and caught one of them in the face with her
boot. He cried out and stepped back, holding his cheek. Then, swearing at her, he lunged at her and tore off her shirt.

‘Come on, let’s finish the job. Let’s make him walk home naked through the streets. That’ll teach him.’

Though she struggled she was powerless against their number. They ripped off the man’s vest and long johns she was wearing and then there was a sudden silence. They stood back and the man
holding her set her on the ground.

‘My God. He’s – she’s a girl.’

Eveleen stood, her head bowed, tears coursing down her face, trying to cover herself with her arms. Then a sudden spurt of anger made her lift her head to face them all. She dropped her arms
and, shamelessly, stood naked before them.

‘Aye, come on, take a good look, ’cos that’s all you’re going to get.’

They were shuffling uneasily now. One or two picked up the items of clothing and handed them back to her, sheepish and embarrassed. They were trying not to look at her and yet, being healthy,
lusty men, they could not stop themselves looking upon the young, firm and shapely body of the girl.

Eveleen, her anger driving out her embarrassment, pulled on her clothes. ‘There, seen enough, have you?’

They parted the circle and allowed her to walk out of it, but then one of the younger men said, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Do you mean to say you’ve been posing as a lad to get work in our
machine shop?’

Eveleen turned to face him. Now her secret was out, there was nothing more to lose. The following morning even Josh Carpenter would not stand up for her. Not this time.

She held up her head proudly. ‘Yes. My brother, Jimmy, did start work on that machine but then ran away to sea. I was working with the women, but the pay’s rubbish. So I took his
place. I needed the money.’

‘We’ve all got families to support,’ someone muttered. ‘You’re taking a man’s place. A man who needs a job.’

‘I needed the job.’ She glared round at them. ‘I’ve my mother and the girl my dear brother’s left pregnant to support.’

There was grumbling among them until one of the older men spoke up. ‘We don’t mean to be hard on you, love. In a way, I admire you for what you’ve done. Those machines
aren’t easy to operate and from what Luke was saying, you’re coming on a treat now even though you weren’t much good to start with.’ He glanced round at the others and
grinned suddenly. ‘That explains it. She must be a better worker than ever her brother was.’ Then his face sobered. ‘But it’s not fair on the rest of us. If we let you carry
on, there’s no telling where it’ll lead.’