CHARLOTTE STOOD AT THE entrance to a large cobbled yard, trying to muster the courage to go in. LEDBETTER MILLS was written in large iron letters, filling the arch above the railings, with PRINCE STREET written in smaller ones below. There was the mill, huge and imposing, four storeys high with dozens of small windows and then two red-brick buildings on either side of it. One was the men’s lodging house; the other was for the women.
The yard was empty and it was almost eight o’clock in the evening. She was tired from the journey and feeling horribly out of sorts. She was wearing an old cotton dress that Ben had given her, with a rather threadbare underdress that had seen better days. She’d changed in an empty worker’s cottage nearby which Ben had taken her to after they’d dined together. When she first saw the clothes, she’d refused to wear them; with the ground-in dirt around the hem and cuffs and stains in the armpits of the underdress, she’d thought they were unwashed. They’d argued, Ben explaining that they were simply stained, rather than dirty, and needed to look used so she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. She couldn’t deny that her hooped crinoline would be the most ridiculous thing to turn up in. She’d given in after reminding herself not to be unreasonable when her brother’s freedom—and possibly his life—were at stake.
She had a bundle of bed linens under her arm, a spare underdress, clean smalls, and her hairbrush. Hidden in the centre of the bundle were her sketchbook and a solitary pencil. Ben had told her she shouldn’t take it with her, but she couldn’t bear the thought of having nothing to give her mind comfort. Besides, it was compact and brand new, bought specially for travel. There was nothing in its pages that could incriminate her. Her crinoline, pretty dresses, crochet and embroidery were left with Ben, who promised to keep it all safe whilst she was working undercover. He’d obviously planned ahead, and must have been confident that she’d say yes. They’d arranged to meet at the same cottage the next evening.
Shaking with nerves, Charlotte took a hesitant step into the courtyard. Ben said that the lodging house was expecting her—or rather, expecting a Charlotte Baker—and that she should go straight there. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d picked the surname she illustrated under. “Charles Baker” was a successful illustrator of a best-selling poetry collection. If anyone knew that Charles was actually a woman about to go to work in a cotton mill, there would probably be angry letters sent to the Times. Even the thought of portly gentry, red in the face with outrage, didn’t make her giggle like it usually did. She was genuinely afraid.
There were stories of rampant disease, thievery and even accidents that caused mutilation and death, all with the mills at the centre of them. Some had speculated that the miasma behind the ’48 cholera outbreak had originated in these huge buildings. George had told her that was nonsense. His friend, Dr Snow, had all but convinced him it had something to do with water, rather than the air. It made no sense to Charlotte, not when the learned men of the day all agreed that where there was a foul stench, disease was sure to follow.
It didn’t smell particularly sanitary where she stood now. She bit her lip and thought of Ben. Surely if it really were as bad as the papers said, he wouldn’t dream of asking her to do this? He had said the stories were exaggerated. Yes, that must be true. He loved her and wouldn’t risk any harm coming to her. Besides, she’d seen engravings and paintings of mill workers at galleries in London. Everyone looked strong and the picture of health in those.
Rallying herself, she started off for the lodging house as a loud bell rang inside the mill. When she was halfway across the yard, the mill’s doors opened and workers spilled out of the building like water from a sluice gate. She stopped and stared at them as they shuffled to their respective lodging houses.
They were dirty and looked pale; many of them looked sickly. Shoulders slumped, backs curved unnaturally and children limped with deformed knees. They all looked exhausted, pulling neckerchiefs free to mop at their faces. There was a lot of coughing. Conversation was a low hum, rather than the usual roar of any crowd she’d ever seen.
No magi emerged with them, and she remembered Ben talking about how they were kept separate. On the way to the mill, she’d expressed a concern about Ledbetter recognising her, but Ben had assured her that the magus was overseeing the construction of a new mill up in Bury and rarely came to this one. Looking at the workers, Charlotte could understand why Ledbetter stayed away. Who would want to be reminded of these poor souls?
“Are you lost, love?”
A woman, whose age was hard to pin down to anything besides older than Charlotte, had peeled off from the flow of people and come over to her. There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked just as shattered as the rest, but there was something kind about her smile that Charlotte warmed to immediately. “I’ve come to work here.”
“’Ave ye now?” The woman’s voice had the same sort of soft Lancashire accent as the Thermaturgy magus who’d tested Ben. “You’re not from round ’ere, are yer?”
Charlotte shook her head. “I come from London.”
The woman looked her up and down, frowning. “First time ye’ve needed to work?”
“In a mill, yes.” Charlotte didn’t dare say she already worked as an illustrator and had sometimes helped Mother with her sewing work. Compared to what this woman did to earn a living, it seemed ridiculous to even call it work.
“’Ard times can fall on us all.” The woman sighed. “I’m Marjory, but everyone ’ere calls me Mags. I reckon you’ll be in the same dorm as me—there’s a bed free there now. You’ll be next to Dotty. She’s a kind girl and she’s your age. You’ll be fine. C’mon.”
“Thank you,” Charlotte said, falling into step with her. “I’m Charlotte. But everyone calls me Charlie.”
“Pleased to meet you, Charlie. Keep yer ’ead down, do as yer told and don’t complain. You’ll be ’right.”
Charlotte saw a broad-chested, well-dressed man come round the side of the mill and go over to a shorter man watching the workers leave. He was wearing the same cravat as her brother and had collar-length light brown hair. Mags noted her interest in him. “That’s Apprentice Paxton,” she whispered. “Keep out of his way, love. He likes nothing more than to lord it over us all, and if he don’t like the look of yer, yer out. We don’t ’ave nothin’ to do with them magi, and that’s the way it should be.”
So that was the man determined to see her brother transported. Charlotte tore her eyes away from him, lest he notice her. Would he see a family resemblance between her and Ben? The thought made her turn away completely.
Mags steered her through the process of being confirmed as a new employee, taking her to the “right people to ’ave the right things written in the right books,” as she put it. Her first shift started at five the following morning. It had been a while since she’d been up that early. Since moving house, Charlotte hadn’t had to get up to light the stove. She had a new appreciation for the maid her mother had hired.
“What time does my shift finish?” She hoped to go and find where Hopkins was staying, just so she knew where to find him if she dug up something particularly damning.
Mags gave her a strange look. “Eight o’clock. You saw us all comin’ out, didn’t yer?”
“I thought that would be the second shift.”
Mags cackled. “Oh, you poor lamb. You’re in for a shock. Working in t’mill is tougher than any fancy-pants London jobs, I can tell you that now. Let’s find Dotty, she can take you round. I’m shattered.”
Mags took her up two flights of a dingy stairwell and down a long corridor. Most of the doors off it were open and Charlotte could see rows of beds inside, about twenty to a room. There was no privacy to speak of. She followed Mags to a room at the end, where Mags waved a hand at the bed nearest to the window. It looked onto the red-bricked wall of the mill next door, practically in arm’s reach. “That’s yours, Charlie. Dotty, come and say ’ello to the new girl.”
There were several women there, most of them younger than her, lying fully clothed on top of the beds. The chatter had stopped and everyone stared at Charlotte. Mags was the eldest, and from the way Dotty leaped up from her bed, it seemed authority came with age.
“’Ello,” Dotty said with a shy smile as Charlotte went to her bed.
“Hello,” Charlotte replied. “Don’t you want this bed? It’s by the window.” Even though there was no view, there was fresh air to be had.
Several of the other women sniggered. “Now you lot,” Mags said sternly. “Charlie’s new and won’t ’ave any of you lording over her just cos she don’t know ’er arse from ’er elbow. Charlie, love, no one wants that bed cos it’s cold as buggery by the window when winter comes. It’s all yours.”
The narrow metal-framed bed was covered with a scratchy grey wool blanket. When Charlotte pulled that back, she saw that old, dirty sheets were still on it. Thank goodness Ben had given her clean bed linen. She opened the window and started to strip the bed as Dotty watched.
“Where you from then?”
“London. I’ve never worked at a mill before. Have you been here long?”
“Since I were ten. Me family stuck it out on the farm for as long as they could, but it were ’opeless. When my brother died, we upped sticks and started again.”
“I’m so sorry. About your brother.”
Dotty shrugged. “He were little and the ’arvest failed that year. It were ’orrible. Only me left now. What about you?”
Charlotte almost said she had a brother, but it seemed insensitive, and besides, she had to be careful. She needed a cover story, something to make it sound plausible for her to have ended up here. “My mother and father died a couple of years ago. I was married, but my husband . . .” she hesitated. Lying was something she did far too much of as it was, hiding her magical abilities and her art, but this felt even more sordid.
“Drink or gamblin’?”
She couldn’t decide. “Both,” she said, fixing an image of the archetypical villain from some penny dreadful story. “He gambled away all our money and drowned in the Thames.”
Dotty’s brown eyes were huge with horror, tinged with a hint of grim fascination. “So what brought you up ’ere, then?”
Charlotte was briefly distracted by the stains on the sheets and the stench of urine. She had to sleep on this? “Oh, well, I had relatives nearby, but they died, too. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. What should I do with these sheets?”
“There’s a washing room downstairs. Want me to show you round? It’s nearly time for supper anyway.”
Charlotte nodded and started off for the door, but Mags rested a hand on her shoulder. “Take yer bundle, love,” she whispered. “There’s some light fingers ’ere.”
Blushing, Charlotte retrieved her belongings. Dotty gathered up the dirty sheets, rolling them up without even wrinkling her nose.
“This is one of the better mills,” Dotty said as Charlotte retraced her steps back to the stairwell. “They take twelve shillings a week from yer pay but you get three meals and yer bedclothes washed for you. You can use the washing room on Sundays if you wish, but you can pay a shilling to add something to the group wash and it’ll be cleaned and dried with the sheets. Boil wash and all.” She leaned back to whisper, “I do my own smalls, though. Can’t stand the thought of anyone else goin’ near ’em.”
Charlotte nodded, hoping she would be gone before she had to wash anything. She was shown the washroom and the courtyard at the back, with its dozens of washing lines. The old sheets were dumped in a big basket with others and soon forgotten about.
“Supper’s at ’alf eight,” Dotty said. “And the food’s really good. You get a bread roll with every meal! Not like them other mills where they don’t put on any food at all. You get an egg in the morning with a rasher of bacon on Sundays, meat and potatoes for lunch and soup for supper. You’re dead lucky they had an openin’ for you. I’ve heard that Cartwright’s mills ’ave started puttin’ food on for the workers, but it’s all the old scraps that no one else wants to buy from the ’olesalers. And there’s maggots in the meat! I’ll show you where the privy is and the water pump so we can wash up for supper.”
The privy was a stinking shack at the far end of the yard. Charlotte resolved that she would just have to hold everything in. Her face must have said as much.
“We all use the pot. There’ll be one under yer bed. If you pay a penny a week to the cook’s son, he’ll collect yours up with ours every morning and every evening. Don’t look like that! It could be so much worse! Them’s that work at Cartwright’s end up in the slums. They ’ave to put bricks down to stand on so you can get across the street without treading in shit. People just chuck it out onto the street there.”
Dotty took her to the hand pump at the back of the building, and they drew water for each other to wash their hands and faces. Charlotte noticed how hard it seemed for Dotty to work the handle. “I’m no use to man nor beast by the end of shift,” she said with grim cheer. “I’ll be ’right after supper. We tell stories and have a sing-song sometimes, in the dorm, y’know. They’re not a bad bunch, really. In the dorm I was in before, one of the women took a disliking to me and ’it me all the time.”
Charlotte was glad she had her bundle to cling to as they queued at the hatch to the kitchen. The dining room was filled with long tables and benches and in the last of the evening light, it didn’t seem too bad. She’d always known she’d been lucky to have the life she did. Her parents had always made it clear that she and Ben had a much easier childhood than they had had. And her grandparents had all been farmers, so she knew how hard a life it was. But it was only now, as she stood in borrowed clothes, that Charlotte really, truly appreciated how lucky she was.
She listened to the chatter around them, but there was no mention of any incidents. Dotty told her about the foreman and how horrible he was. She talked about the looms she managed and how to work them, but for every word Charlotte recognised, there were three she had never heard before.
Supper was watery soup with cabbage and anaemic chunks of what might have been mutton. Charlotte hoped it was mutton. It smelt of dishwater. Dotty tucked in with relish, but Charlotte was unable to muster the will to even try it. Thank goodness Ben had taken her out to eat earlier; her belly was still full from the steak and kidney pie she’d enjoyed with him.
“Do y’not want that?” Dotty asked as she finished her bread roll.
“I think I’m a bit nervous,” Charlotte said truthfully. “I haven’t got any appetite. You have it.”
She pushed it across the table and Dotty stared at her. “Really?” At Charlotte’s nod she spooned the soup into her mouth like she hadn’t eaten for days. The way her eyes sparkled with happiness made Charlotte want to cry.
“I’m going to go and make my bed,” she said to Dotty, unwilling to sit there and watch her eat for a moment longer.
“I won’t be long,” Dotty said through a mouthful of soggy bread. “I’ll see y’up there.”
Charlotte went the wrong way to start with, but then realised there was more than one stairwell and eventually found the correct corridor. The gas lamps had been lit, but they were so widely spaced she had to go through pools of darkness to get to the dorm. With relief, Charlotte didn’t hear any conversation coming from the room as she approached. She wanted a few minutes alone to gather her wits, steady herself and find somewhere to hide her sketchbook.
But there was someone on her bed when she arrived at the doorway; a woman with her back to the door, lying on her side. For a moment, Charlotte thought she’d made another mistake, but then she saw the open window and recognised the fresh bed linen. “Excuse me,” she said, but the woman didn’t stir. “Excuse me,” Charlotte repeated, stepping inside the room. “I’m afraid that’s my bed.” The woman continued to ignore her. She was probably asleep. Charlotte approached the bed, feeling bad for disturbing her. “I’m so sorry, but that’s my bed,” she repeated.
“Who are yer talkin’ to?”
Dotty was standing at the entrance to the door, frowning at her.
Charlotte pointed at the bed. “That lady—” But when she looked back, the bed was empty. She shivered. “I thought someone was on my bed.”
“Want an ’and tuckin’ in your sheets?” Dotty asked.
“Thank you,” she mumbled. It was probably just a shadow playing tricks with her eyes. Charlotte had the feeling she wasn’t going to sleep well that night.