Meg felt half dead as she pulled herself out of bed. She’d not slept either Saturday or Sunday night for worrying about what Ted Lund was going to say to her now that he’d returned to find his shop cleaned from top to bottom, his store cupboard stocked to the rafters and his safe well stocked with the money she had made over the weeks he was away.
She’d also felt guilty about Sarah going for her first position in the world of work without either her or her mother’s support. However, Daisy had told her that Tom Askew, the manager who she would be under at the mighty Hunslet Mill, was a good man. In fact, Meg had wondered just how Daisy knew him so well but had decided that it was none of her business and took it that it was just mill talk and nothing more.
She turned around and looked at her young sister still asleep and wished that she was her age and innocent. Clean, immaculately ironed clothes were hanging up on the bedroom door ready for Sarah’s interview and she only hoped that she would curtail her thoughts and words when talking to Tom Askew. Whatever pay she could bring home would be welcome, just a little relief for her, and happen just enough to pay for her mother’s laudanum each week.
She kissed her own two fingers and placed them gently on Sarah’s cheek and whispered, ‘Good luck, my sister. Although I’d still prefer for you stay at school if we could afford to keep you there,’ and then set about getting herself ready for her day at work and the expected wrath of Ted Lund as he discovered just how much work she had made for him at the bakery.
The morning was fine as Meg walked along the quiet street and her mind wandered to Frankie Pearson. How she wished Brenda Jones had not told her about his shallow plans. She should have left her in blissful ignorance of his schemes. Perhaps romance could have grown out of the situation because that was how her heart had been feeling when he had kissed her. Now, she just felt empty and cheated every time she thought of him and she couldn’t bear to go anywhere near the patisserie, not even to look into the window.
He was a wealthy businessman who had used her and that was all there was to it, even though her heart still yearned for his touch and would melt at the sight of him. If he had thought anything of her, he could have come and visited her at the bakery, so obviously he was not too concerned.
As she walked down the street, she noticed the bakery’s shop door was open and that Ted must already have the oven lighted since smoke was coming out of the oven’s chimneys. Perhaps his holidays had done him good or perhaps she had shaken him up a little by showing what money could be made if he was prepared once more to work.
‘So, you’ve shown your face,’ Ted Lund said, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. ‘I thought that perhaps you’d think twice about coming back this morning. When I’d seen what money had been wasted on stock that might never be used! Joe Dinsdale must have been rubbing his hands every time he heard his shop bell and saw you entering his shop.’
‘I know. I do feel a bit guilty about stacking your shelves so well, but you must know that I have made you good money while you have been away.’ Meg watched Ted knead the bread that she usually made and hoped that he had not added the extra sawdust to his mix.
‘Aye, I’ll give you that, and on my walk yesterday the amount of folk who have said how good your baking’s been while I’ve been away was nobody’s business,’ Ted conceded. ‘So I suppose you’ll be glad to know there’s no sawdust in my mix this morning. I’ll make the bread and you make the rest of the fancies you’ve been serving folk with. That will make the most sense, as I’m happier making bread than fancy cakes.’
Ted looked at his assistant and thought of the days before she arrived in his bakery. He’d been able to do what he’d wanted and had made just enough money to keep the bills paid and more besides without all the work. But he’d humour her and see how things went. ‘I can’t guarantee to always let you do this. I think it’s madness. It’s a lot of work but you’ve made good money, so we’ll carry on until I think it’s not worth the bother.’
‘Thank you, Mr Lund, I enjoy baking and making people happy with what I make,’ Meg said and felt the shilling in her pocket that she had to replace in the till and hoped that he had not missed it.
‘That’s all very well but you’ve made work for both of us and if it doesn’t keep making me money, then it comes to an end. I still can’t understand why you decided to do it. There’s been no gain for you from what I can see and if you think I’ll be paying you any more for your work done here, you can think again.’ Ted looked hard at her and shook his head as he shaped his dough and left it to rise.
‘I did it because I love baking and I’ve always wanted to share my love,’ Meg said.
‘You are soft in the head, just like my Eleanor was,’ Ted responded. ‘Folk will support you for as long as they feel like it and then they’ll desert you to go to the next best thing. We’ll see just how long it lasts.’
With that, Ted went and stoked his ovens, leaving Meg to make her usual batch of baking for the day’s customers.
Agnes looked at her youngest daughter with a critical eye as she sat on the edge of her bed. It was seven thirty in the morning, Meg had been gone for over two hours and now it was Sarah’s turn to show herself willing for work.
‘You’ve washed behind your ears and your nails are clean? Appearances are important when you’re applying for a job. Folk doesn’t want to take somebody that looks like they’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards,’ Agnes said as she watched Sarah fasten the top button of her blouse, tie her clean cream smock-apron behind her back, and sweep her long dark hair back over her shoulders.
‘They’re not going to look behind my ears and yes, my nails are clean and I’ve got clean underwear on before you ask,’ Sarah said with disdain.
‘Now, there’s no need to be cheeky. I’m only trying to help you get this job. It’ll be a good one if you pull the line and behave yourself. You’ve got a lot to thank Daisy Truelove for if you manage to secure it today.’ Agnes looked at her daughter. ‘Take your sampler that you’ve been sewing with you to show the manager. He’ll be impressed with your stitching – and you take care on your walk down to Hunslet. It’s not the best of places, but work is work.’
‘Mam, I can look after myself, stop moidering. I know where I’m going and who to see and then if I’m in time I’ll go to school as promised and if I am a bit late, I’ll tell old bag Pringle why. She’ll probably put the flags out when she knows she’s getting rid of me. Meg will go and tell her properly though that I’m leaving, won’t she? If I get the job.’
‘Yes, she will, now get your bate for your dinner and get yourself gone. Else you never will get to see about your job and get to school in time,’ Agnes lectured as Sarah ran down the stairs. ‘And mind your manners, they cost nowt but get you a long way in this world.’
She heard Sarah grab her tin box with sandwiches in off the table and slam the door behind her.
Agnes lay back in her bed and thought about the baby of her family walking along the busy streets to the tall redbrick building on the banks of the Aire. It was a mucky place, full of the noise of the weaving that took place within its walls, but at least Sarah would be on the top floor in the well-lit room where the burlers and menders looked at each piece of material that left the building, searching out and mending the flaws in the cloth. She was thankful that she’d not be working one of the weaving machines that could damage and maim. That was a blessing, she thought, as she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
Sarah weaved in and out of the many people going to work. Nobody looked at the side she was on as she pulled the tartan ribbon that Meg had told her to wear out of her hair and shoved it in her bate tin. She wasn’t a child anymore, she didn’t need a ribbon in her hair. She was going for a job, but first, on her way there, she would tell Harry. She hadn’t seen him all weekend and she needed to tell him her news, she thought, as she walked along the streets and made her way down to the canal docks.
The docks were heaving with early morning traffic, burly men busy unloading coal from the Tom Puds while others were unloading cargo from barges in from the distant cities of Liverpool and Manchester, loaded with everything that made Leeds the busy thriving city that it was. Sarah pushed her way past men carrying boxes, fruit and all manners of things, looking around her for Harry, following the canal and the River Aire to the district of Hunslet and her appointment.
‘Sarah, what are you doing here? It’s bloody early for you to be down here! Is there something wrong?’ Harry jumped onto the wharf side as he turned and looked at the owner of the Tom Pud that had carried a load of coal from the coalfields from near Wakefield. ‘I’m a bit busy, I daren’t talk for long, else I’ll get shouted at.’ Harry stood in front of her, his face covered with coal dust and his hands filthy from shovelling the black coal from the sturdy barge.
‘I’m on my way to Hunslet Mill. I can’t stop long myself, but I wanted to tell you, I’m going there for a job. I’m to work there as a burler and mender if they take me on,’ Sarah said and grinned.
‘That’s a right good do, although I sometimes think I’d rather be back at school. Especially when I’m working as hard as I am this morning.’ Harry looked with worry as the barge owner yelled his name. ‘Are you walking all the way out to Hunslet? If you are quick, that Tom Pud that’s just unloaded is returning up that way will take you, there’s a pier directly opposite, it will save your legs.’ Harry looked quickly across to the barge owner that was about to get underway. ‘Hey, Tom, can you give Sarah here a lift up to Hunslet Mill? It is nowt out of your way,’ he called before Sarah had time to stop him.
‘Aye, if she‘s quick,’ the owner said as the engine of the barge filled the air with the smell of paraffin from the engine as he got ready for the return trip.
‘I don’t know, I’d be better off walking,’ Sarah said.
‘Nay, get a lift, go on, you’ll be there in five minutes,’ Harry said and urged her forward to get her out of his way so that he could get back to work, placing his grubby coal coated hands on her clean smock without her noticing.
‘All right then, I’ve never ridden in a barge before.’
Sarah stepped forward and took the barge holder’s hand as she stepped off the quay and into the barge.
‘I’ll see you tonight, meet you in the shed!’ Tom yelled as he watched Sarah turn and look at him as the barge with its chimney chugging out steam cleared the quayside. Thank heavens she left, she had no idea what work was like, he thought, as he watched her standing at the stern of the barge, going down the canal in the direction of Hunslet.
Sarah stood next to the owner who steered the filthy coal-covered Tom Pud barge up the canal. The smoke from the engine kept blowing in her face and hair and the owner she found was a man of few words as he kept an eye on the other traffic on the canal and concentrated on his job. She was relieved when after ten minutes she saw the large square red building that she knew was Hunslet Mill come into sight. Harry had been right, it had only taken her a few minutes to reach the mill instead of walking the full distance. Pulling up at the pier next to the mill she thanked the barge owner and climbed out of the pud, her bate box under her arm, and looked up at the hundreds of windows that shone in the sun and listened to the clatter of the weaving machines. Up there at the very top, a manager was waiting for her, one that she had to impress, and then she would be earning some money for herself to spend. She’d no longer be dependent upon Meg and her mother, she thought, as she entered the mill and asked for directions to the burling room.
The woman at the first desk looked at her and was taken aback by the sight of her. ‘You’ve come for an interview? You are not old enough are you, and you look as if you have just come from off the streets? I don’t think Mr Askew will want to see you looking like that.’ She and the other women in the office looked at the coal and smoke-covered young girl. ‘You can’t possibly touch the clean cloth with a face and hands like that, even your clothes have coal on them.’ The receptionist looked her up and down and tutted. ‘Let me look. If he’s expecting you, your name is in the ledger for the day. What’s your name?’ She consulted a large leather-bound book that was just in front of her.
‘It’s Sarah, Sarah Fairfax,’ she said and only then looked down at herself and realized why everyone was looking at her. The crisp cream smock apron was now a dirty shade of grey and there was a smudged hand of coal dust on the side of her, where Harry had pushed her forward. She could also smell the paraffin about her that had been driving the Tom Pud. She was filthy and smelly, everything her mother and Meg had told her not to be as she had got ready for her first-ever offer of a job.
‘Yes, you are down in his book to be seen. So I suppose you had better go up and see him despite your attire,’ the woman said and came out from behind her desk. ‘Go through these doors and keep climbing until you get to the top floor. Keep out of the way of everybody and go straight there. He’ll be expecting you: he’ll be on the viewing platform at the top of the burling and mending room.’
She pushed open the big wooden doors that led to the wooden stairs that reached every floor of the busy textile mill. Sarah felt her nerves set in. She felt sick, and just for once, she knew that she should never have gone near Harry. She’d been clean, tidy and respectable when she had set off that morning, now she looked like a waif and stray. With every step climbed and every door passed into the heart of the mill, she felt her stomach churning with anxiety.
She finally reached the very top and opened the door to the burling and mending room. Directly in front of her stood an immaculately dressed man in a navy suit and a pocket watch in his pocket. He turned when she pushed open the door and looked at her.
‘What on earth have I got here? You can’t be the Sarah Fairfax that I’m expecting, Daisy gave me such a glowing report of you. She didn’t say I should expect a ragamuffin and a filthy one at that!’
‘Please sir, I am Sarah Fairfax. I’m sorry, I got a lift on a Tom Pud down the canal and didn’t know that I’d got so mucky,’ Sarah said, nearly in tears. ‘My mam sent me out spotless, it’s all my fault.’ A tear dropped down her cheek making her face look even worse as a trail of coal dust trickled down her cheek and landed on the top of the once-white apron. ‘I can sew and I can spot mistakes, look I did this with my mam.’ Sarah pulled her sampler out of her pocket and tried to show Tom Askew.
‘No doubt you can, but you are not coming anywhere near our newly made linen looking like that. My girls have to be clean and spotless, we don’t want dirty handprints on the cloth.’
Sarah looked down into the floor below them, where row after row of girls were mending and burling the newly spun sheets of linen which were hung up in front of them. Each one of them carefully inspected the material and took out the burrs that had been left in it or repaired the weave of the material. All were clean and well presented and Sarah started to cry in earnest as she realized that it would have been the ideal job for her. Sarah felt like a child as the manager looked at her and didn’t know what to do.
‘Daisy said that you needed this job, that your mother’s ill. But you are very young, my girls on the floor are at least thirteen. Given that you have turned up looking like a lost soul, I can’t test you upon your skills. I do, however, need a lass to run errands for me and the girls on the mill floor. You could start there and work your way up, providing you don’t come as mucky as this every day. Now, get yourself home and cleaned up and you can start with us next Monday and we’ll take it from there.
‘Underneath all that grime, I’m sure a clean Sarah Fairfax started out, but you can thank Daisy Truelove for assuring me that you would be suitable to work here. Otherwise, I would have sent you on your way with a thick ear for wasting my time.’
Tom Askew looked at the young lass that was sobbing in front of him. ‘Go on, get yourself home. I’ll think what to pay you when you show up on Monday.’ A big smile started to emerge on Sarah’s face. ‘I’m too soft for my own good,’ Askew mumbled to himself then adopted his original stern demeanour. ‘You’ll have to work hard. There will be no peace for you – the lasses will want thread and needles getting, and if you run up these stairs once a day you’ll do it fifty times.’
‘Thank you, I really did come all clean and tidy. Meg and my mam will kill me when they find out what I’ve done.’ Sarah wiped her nose on her sleeve and looked at her new employer.
‘And bring a handkerchief with you next time. Now go on, get gone. Monday morning seven sharp and you’ll soon learn how better off you were at school. They all do when they first start here.’
Tom watched Sarah go through the doors without another word and shook his head. He shouldn’t have taken the lass on, he really didn’t have a job for her, but he’d find her something for her to do somewhere. It was the least he could to satisfy his lover Daisy and keep her happy.