The Silk Factory (31 page)

‘I cannot do that! The master wouldn’t allow it,’ she said brusquely. ‘And I can tell you now that she’d say no different. Beulah hasn’t been seen here since Friday afternoon. Not by anyone.’ She pushed past and hurried on with Effie dogging her footsteps.

‘Can you tell her, if she comes back, to come to the workhouse in Newnham?’ They reached the door of the High House. ‘Tell her that her sister has been looking for her and she mustn’t be afraid to come. Tell her all will be well …’ Mrs Gundy closed the door firmly in her face.

Effie stood in the street for a moment, wondering where else she could look. Three days! Anything could have happened. She paced up and down and asked the first passer-by to direct her to the constable. She would lay the facts before him and ask for his assistance in making enquiries. Then she must get back to Newnham before the workhouse closed its doors. She must be there in case Beulah came.

Later that day, Mr Boddington sat in Mr Fowler’s office waiting for the silk master to be informed of his visit. He studied the rolls of ribbon and bolts of patterned silk stacked on one side of the wide desk, their sumptuous colours and luxurious sheen reflected in the polished mahogany surface. A huge clock ticked above him and the brass weights on a set of scales gleamed. All was measure and order. And yet … Boddington could not forget Fowler’s bullying of the Fiddement child. Surely it had been this very chair, on which he now sat, that the man had forced her to stand upon. Boddington thought of the grave young woman who had visited him and expressed her concern. He had an uneasy feeling in his gut about this matter. Fowler was known throughout the village as a harsh taskmaster; perhaps this time he had gone too far.

Fowler breezed into the room. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ he asked, smiling, straightaway making for a corner cupboard where he kept glasses and a bottle of port wine. ‘It’s very timely to see you, Mr Boddington, very timely indeed, as I’d like to discuss my apprentice scheme for paupers a little further with you. My detailed plans have been submitted to the parish vestry now and are to be considered next month.’ He handed Boddington a glass and settled himself in the club chair on the other side of the desk.

Boddington put the glass down upon the desk without drinking from it, and cleared his throat deliberately. ‘That will have to wait until another time,’ he said. ‘I’m here to enquire after the Fiddement girl, whom I understand has disappeared.’

Fowler’s eyes slid away momentarily. ‘Indeed she has, and I suspect it is connected with another disappearance – that of a piece of yellow figured silk.’ He tapped his fingertips together as if considering a weighty matter.

‘Why have you not reported this?’

‘I discovered it missing only this morning, through checking an inventory. Prior to that I had assumed that the child must be sick. I should have known there would be some dishonest business afoot, after the roguery of her brother.’

‘But you have no actual evidence to suggest the child is a thief other than coincidental circumstance?’

Fowler looked annoyed. ‘It seems the most likely explanation. The whole family is nothing but trouble.’

Boddington rose, leaving his glass untouched. ‘I shall interview your workers, starting with the children.’ He held out his hand to stop Fowler from following him. ‘No need to accompany me.’

Fowler shrugged, affecting nonchalance. ‘As you wish.’

Boddington climbed to the top floor. The heat was intense; the stink of sweat and the never-ending clatter of the looms were oppressive. He called the children from their work, one by one, and questioned them outside the workshop at the turn of the stairs where it was a little quieter. No one knew much beyond the fact that Beulah had been moved to work ‘below stairs’ and that Alice had been in charge of her, until he came to Biddy.

When he asked if she had seen Beulah on Friday, she said, ‘At lunchtime she were well. I gave her some bread when she were fetching and carrying to the table.’

Boddington considered her answer. ‘But you think that after lunch she may
not
have been well, Biddy?’

The child gazed at her feet.

Boddington tried again. ‘Did you see her after lunch?’

‘No, nor since.’

‘But you saw something. Something or someone has made you concerned.’

Biddy glanced up at him. ‘You won’t say I said? Not to anybody?’

‘No one will know who has told me anything. I can assure you of that.’

‘The master chided me for falling to sleep. He pulled me by the arm to wake me and I saw …’

Boddington raised his eyebrows in enquiry.

‘There were blood on his sleeve.’

‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Which side?’

Biddy screwed up her eyes. ‘The left.’

‘Thank you, Biddy. You’ve done well, never fear. Now you can return to your duties.’

He spoke to the rest of the children and then moved along the line of weavers, calling them out, noting the concern that crept into the eyes of Jervis, Ellis and some of the others as they realised that Beulah had not been home. None had any idea of her whereabouts. The workers on the first floor were no help either, as they had little to do with the top floor workshop and some even seemed unsure which girl was Beulah.

He went down to the kitchen and saw Mrs Gundy, who told him of seeing Effie in the street that afternoon. She told him of Beulah’s work feeding the worms and showed him the cellar where they had been kept. The room was now completely cleared: the worm beds and floor scrubbed, the stove cleaned out and the windows left open to ventilate the place. ‘Disease,’ she explained. ‘Nasty, horrible things, those worms. Should never have been anywhere near my kitchen.’

He returned to the office where he found Fowler at his desk, his head bent over a pile of bills. ‘There was blood on your clothes on Friday afternoon,’ he said abruptly and watched Fowler’s head jerk up from his work.

‘On my … Oh yes, I caught my arm on a hook when mending one of the throwing machines,’ he said smoothly. ‘It was nothing. A mere scratch.’

‘May I see?’

Fowler’s face coloured crimson at this physical infringement but, nonetheless, he slowly rolled up his shirtsleeve to reveal a small, deep wound, just beginning to scab over.

‘More of an incision than a scratch,’ Boddington said. He had thought to see scratches that could have been made by a child’s nails.

‘A figure of speech. As I said, a metal hook did the damage.’

Boddington nodded. ‘I’ve not yet seen Alice Brooks. Could you send for her please?’

Fowler went out and returned with her a moment later. Boddington gestured that she should sit. ‘Now, Alice, you were overseeing Beulah’s work, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She glanced at Fowler as if asking his permission to speak.

‘When was the last time you saw her?’

‘I saw her on Friday afternoon, running from the factory along the Farthingstone road.’

‘And where were you?’

‘I was out the front, in the street. I’d been talking to the carter. I was just setting him on his way,’ she said defensively.

Boddington looked thoughtful. ‘And was she carrying anything?’

She glanced at Fowler again. ‘Well – yes – I think she was … a … a bundle.’

Fowler broke in triumphantly. ‘You see! I told you! There is a length of cloth missing and the girl has stolen it.’

‘What kind of bundle?’ Boddington said, scowling at Fowler.

‘A roll … it could have been a roll of cloth.’

‘She will have gone to join her brother, no doubt,’ Fowler said. ‘Find one and you will find both.’

Boddington ignored him and fixed Alice with a keen stare. ‘Alice, now this is important. If you were in front of a justice, could you honestly swear, on the Bible, that you saw Beulah Fiddement, alive and well, absenting herself from the factory on Friday afternoon? Think carefully before you answer.’

‘I could and I would,’ Alice said firmly. ‘I swear I saw her running up that road as if all Hell were after her and now I understand why.’

Boddington let out a long sigh. ‘Then I must inform all the toll keepers on the turnpike roads to look out for her, and the constables in other parishes too.’

Fowler sent Alice away, barely able to keep the smile from his face. He poured himself another measure of port. ‘Come now, Boddington, do join me,’ he said, indicating the glass that still stood on the desk. He leant back in his seat and rested his elbows comfortably on the arms of the chair. ‘About the meeting next week, I believe I have the good offices of Hinchin and two others but I must have a majority if I’m to carry it. I trust I can rely on your support?’

Boddington ignored the proffered glass. He thought such schemes simply a way of exporting pauper children from workhouses to become unpaid drudges. ‘You trespass too far on my goodwill, sir,’ he said. ‘These schemes are nothing more nor less than farming the poor.’

Fowler’s expression changed to one of open dislike. ‘You spoke of taking this case of the Fiddement girl to the justice,’ he said coldly. ‘You may not be aware that I had dealings with him over the frame breaking earlier in the year. We share similar views; indeed I consider him a personal friend. He was singularly unimpressed at the handling of that affair and I fear may look equally unkindly on your handling of this afternoon’s matter.’

Boddington stared back. ‘Have a care. You overreach yourself, Fowler.’ He rose and strode to the door. ‘I give you good day.’

The following day, in the yard at the back of the workhouse, the women sat in rows, oakum picking. Effie’s stool was set apart from the rest, at the front, under Mrs Smedley’s eye. Effie pulled out another hank of tarry rope from the heap in front of her. She started to tease out the threads of the old hemp into fibres that would be sold for the making of string or the caulking of ship’s timbers. Unused to the work, her fingers bled where the nails had pulled away from their beds. She dared not stop, not even to suck her fingertips for she had been too late in her return to the workhouse yesterday and had been caught.

Almost fainting with exhaustion, she had stood before Mrs Smedley in her dingy office.

‘This is not a boarding house,’ the matron said. ‘It is a place of relief for the infirm and of punishment for the idle, refractory and profligate! You are not a guest, to come and go as you please, but a pauper, dependent on the charity of the parish and the rules of this house. Do you understand?’

With lowered eyes, Effie said that she did.

‘Louder!’

‘I understand.’

‘Do you have anywhere else to go?

‘No.’

‘No,’ Mrs Smedley repeated with satisfaction. ‘Precisely.’ She took up a tiny pair of pince-nez spectacles and, peering through them, wrote slowly and painstakingly in the record book. Effie watched, all the while terrified that she would be turned out. Finally, Mrs Smedley looked up and laid down her pen. ‘If you decamp again,’ she said flatly, ‘you will not only lose your place but will be charged with stealing workhouse property – that is, your clothes – and sent to the House of Correction, which you will find considerably less amenable, I can assure you.’

Afterwards, Effie had been made to stand while the other women knelt for evening prayers and then held up as an example of shameless waywardness. The women filed past her, averting their eyes. In the sleeping quarters she had found her bed moved into a little alcove away from the others and had lain with her face to the wall, listening to the buzz of conversation behind her as the women at last had leisure and opportunity to talk. Only a cup placed beside the bed with a further dose of Mary-Anne’s infusion of herbs gave her any cheer: the act of kindness lending sweetness to the bitter brew.

Today, once more she was set apart. As she worked in solitude, shredding the old rope, she reflected on her new life and it seemed to her that the workhouse, far from being a place of succour for the needy, was little better than a prison. Each day was a round of hard labour, tract-reading and chapel. They were encouraged to reflect on their sins and kept in silence to make them look inwards. But there she found only pain and loss: of her kin, of Jack, of her infant child. She couldn’t see how she was to bear it.

Her reverie was broken as Mr Smedley approached his wife. ‘The
constable
is here to see Euphemia Fiddement,’ he said with heavy emphasis. Effie’s heart beat fast as she followed him. Until now, she had hidden from the worst fear of all. Now, Boddington’s visit filled her mind with horrible possibilities: Beulah fallen in a quarry, drownded in a pool, beaten and left in a ditch … When she saw Boddington, she caught at his sleeve. ‘Have you found her? Please … tell me!’

He shook his head and led her into the empty dining hall. He handed her a broadsheet, folded up to show a column of print.

WHEREAS Beulah Fiddement, bobbin winder and late servant to Mr Septimus Fowler, Silk Master of Weedon Royal, ABSCONDED FROM HIS SERVICE on Friday 31st July, stealing a piece of yellow silk figured with sundry birds and flowers, whoever will give Information of the Offender, so that she may be brought to Justice, shall, upon her conviction, receive TEN POUNDS for a Reward.

SEPTIMUS FOWLER

Effie read it and was filled with indignation. ‘Beulah would never do such a thing! She’s no thief – I’ve brought her up a good girl!’

Boddington held up his hands. ‘Mr Fowler maintains the silk is missing and Alice Brooks swears she saw Beulah running up towards Farthingstone carrying a bundle.’

Effie blanched at the mention of a bundle.

He added quickly, ‘However, this in itself is insufficient as evidence.’

Effie recovered herself. ‘Why, ’tis ridiculous! Where would she sell such a thing? It would be apparent that it had not been come by honestly. Who would buy it from her – a child with a piece of expensive cloth? This is a charge trumped up by the master out of spite. He has been venting his anger on Beulah ever since Tobias left.’

Boddington, who feared Fowler’s motives for the accusation might be even worse, but who had no evidence to set against Alice’s testimony, kept his thoughts to himself, not wishing to fuel the fire of the young woman’s alarm. Fowler’s violent reputation and ungovernable temper were well known and rumours had already spread from the manufactory to the village, growing and exaggerating with every telling of the tale: he had beaten the girl before; he punished her by keeping her locked in a cellar; he had been seen by Biddy Tranter with blood on his hands … In the bakehouse and over garden walls, at the public houses and on street corners, the story rumbled like distant thunder, ebbing only to return in another quarter.