Visits to the other cottage weavers proceeded much as had that with the Enslow family. Quint was pleased to see the grace and maturity with which his nephew conducted himself. The Sedwick party had interrupted the last family at tea and, despite there being rather meager fare on the table, Lord Sedwick and his companions were readily invited to join the Smith family. His lordship, after consulting his aunt, refused ever so graciously with the excuse that he could not in good conscience keep his driver and other servants and cattle waiting any longer as it appeared to be threatening to rain again, but he thanked the Smiths very much for the kind invitation. Quint was sure that here, as at the earlier stops, Harriet’s visit to the kitchen with her laden basket helped to assuage any sense of awkwardness or intrusion, and he sensed that people generally were favorably impressed with their new young lord.
However, he continued, albeit discreetly, to watch the boy and his aunt carefully throughout that day and now this to see if there existed any foundation to his persistent suspicion that she might be undermining his authority with their nephew. He had no idea what he might actually do should he find evidence of such. In fact, he was not at all sure whether anger or disappointment would motivate whatever response he might take.
He forced his attention back to his surroundings. Again he and Chet were ensconced in the closed carriage with young Lord Sedwick and his Aunt Harriet—this time on their way to inspect the Sedwick cotton mills in the town of Hendley, a drive of some of some forty-five minutes or so from Sedwick Hall.
He had observed something different about the intriguing Miss Mayfield as he handed her into the carriage. No, it was not the fresh lemony mint scent about her. Then it hit him. While she had not exactly put off mourning in a grand gesture, she had donned a well-fitted russet-colored gown trimmed with black grosgrain frogging and a matching pelisse. Fashioned with a sort of military look about it, he assumed it was probably a fine example of the best work of some London modiste. He reluctantly turned his mind from contemplating the delights of what the modiste’s handiwork might be hiding to the conversation taking place on the opposite seat.
“Phillip, have you visited the mills before?” she was asking. “I do not remember your doing so.”
“Um, not really, Aunt Harriet. I just waited in the carriage as Father had a word with the manager and retrieved some papers from the office. Have you?”
“No. Your mother invited me to do so once, but I had a conflict and needed to be in London. I do recall that afterward she was intent on persuading your father to visit Mr. Robert Owen and talk with him about innovations in his mill communities.”
“Mr. Robert Owen?” The boy’s voice showed only vague curiosity.
“Robert Owen?” Quint blurted. Caught off guard, he was unable to hide his surprise or modify a hint of disapproval, which, of course, she noticed immediately.
“Would you have objected, Colonel Burnes?” she asked in what seemed to be as much a challenge as a genuine question.
Glancing at Chet, who shrugged slightly and gave him a look of sympathy, he bumbled on. “I—uh—well—truth to tell, I am not precisely sure, but knowing my brother as I did, I am quite sure Win must have had serious reservations about some of the ideas Owen puts forth.”
“What ideas? Why?” Phillip asked in what Quint was sure was genuine youthful curiosity.
There was a bit of silence, then Harriet answered, “It is somewhat complicated. As a mill owner like your father—and now you—Mr. Owen has broken with tradition in the way he deals with his workers.”
Quint leaned back in his seat, one hand at his waist, and held her gaze for a long moment, then said, “Most of his fellow mill owners and a good many other leaders in the business world seem to take a rather dim view of his so-called ‘breaking with tradition.’”
“I do not understand,” Phillip said.
When neither of the boy’s adult relatives leaped to respond, Chet did so. “Owen supports workers’ rights to organize trade unions and agitate for higher wages and shorter hours.”
“Needless to say, those things mean less profit for owners and they have a few objections,” Quint said.
“‘A few objections’!” Harriet’s shocked tone was not entirely feigned, he thought, distracted for a moment by the way the intensity of blue in her eyes changed with the vehemence of her emotion. She continued, “Very rich, very powerful men wielding every weapon at their disposal to beat down poor people merely trying to exist amounts to more than ‘a few objections.’”
Before Quint could formulate a response to this, Phillip asked, “Are the workers not paid adequately?”
“I suppose the answer to that depends on whether one is an owner or a worker,” Quint answered honestly.
“It certainly does,” Harriet asserted, but a little less vehemently. “However, Mr. Owen deals with far more than just worker’s hours and wages.”
Quint nodded. “Yes, he does. But he advocates for far too much far too soon.”
“Is that not always the cry of those who have much to those who have so very little?” she replied.
He heaved a sigh. “Perhaps. But as you well know—surely you read those papers you write for—England faces unprecedented problems, and this trade unions business is fomenting serious unrest that the government will certainly have to handle—probably none too gently.”
“That is a grim view,” she said.
He smiled weakly. “Not today, mind you. Probably not until Phillip takes his seat in the House of Lords.”
“Oh, fine,” Phillip said lightly. “I and mine get to solve all the problems of the world.”
“The eternal plight of youth,” Chet said as they felt the coach slowing.
* * * *
Harriet had sensed the day before what she saw as an unusual watchfulness in the colonel’s demeanor. She tried to assure herself that he was merely trying to see how well his ward might be taking to the responsibilities the boy would have to grow into—even as the colonel tried to get a better grip on the magnitude of his own responsibilities in the meantime—but she could not shake the idea that there was something more to the man’s keen alertness. She was taken aback slightly by the conversation about Robert Owen and sorry now that she had brought it up.
Well at least you have some inkling of how he may view suggestions of reform along those lines, she told herself. At the same time, she reminded herself that, while she might hold legal title to the bulk of Sedwick debt, this man held the real command over how anything and everything was to be managed regarding the entire Sedwick earldom. She had absolutely no authority in that regard, power of the purse notwithstanding. It is always some man who is allowed to make the real decisions in our world, is it not? she groused silently, then gave herself a serious mental shake. Good grief. The actual, day-to-day business of running an estate, managing property, and so on had never been one of her ambitions.
By the time they had exited the carriage and made their way to the mill office, she had regained her composure and readily accepted the colonel’s offer of his arm as they approached the mill office in a small cottage attached to one of the two large, five-storied mills. Quint simply opened the door and ushered Harriet in; Phillip and Chet followed right behind them.
“Good afternoon. Knowlin is it not?” He addressed one of two clerks behind a counter in the outer room.
The man scrambled to his feet from behind a desk. “Yes, sir.”
“We are here to see Mr. Stevens. I believe he is expecting us.”
“Yes, sir—my lord. He is. I’m to show you right in.” He quickly opened the door to the room and announced, “Colonel Lord Burnes, Miss Harriet Mayfield, Lord Sedwick, and Mr. Gibbons.”
Harriet saw John Stevens, a rather stocky man with gray hair, rise from behind a desk and come round to greet them. She judged him to be in his sixties. He was neatly dressed in gray trousers and a blue coat, but neither his person nor his surroundings were at all ostentatious. She liked that he singled Phillip out for greeting first.
“Ah, Lord Sedwick, I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, though I might have wished for a happier occasion for doing so.” His pale blue eyes looked kindly at the boy over wire-rimmed glasses.
“Thank you, sir.” Phillip offered his hand in a firm handshake. The man bowed to Harriet, “Miss Mayfield, welcome.” She dipped him a brief curtsy. He nodded to the men. “Colonel Burnes. Mr. Gibbons. Nice to see you again.”
“Thank you,” Quint said. In an aside he explained to Harriet and Phillip, “Chet and I visited the mills very briefly before your return from London.”
Inviting them to be seated on a worn brown leather couch and some equally worn leather-covered chairs, Stevens offered them tea, which Quint, with a corroborating glance at Harriet, politely declined for the four of them. He said to Stevens, “As I told you in my note, we are here today for a closer look. Lord Sedwick needs a better understanding of how this part of his holdings work—and, frankly, so do I. Miss Mayfield is not only Lord Sedwick’s aunt, she is a writer and wishes to do some independent research of her own, for which we have no objection. Mr. Gibbons will be taking notes for Sedwick and me.”
Stevens nodded. “I see. Where would you like to start?”
Quint chuckled. “At the beginning? Why don’t you just give us a quick overview of what we are about here and then we will have a look at both mills. I assume you have a copy of the account books in order as I requested?”
“Yes, sir. Knowlin will furnish them to you as we finish your tour of the mills.”
“Fine. Carry on, then,” Quint said with a polite gesture.
Stevens had seated himself so that the five of them formed a circle of sorts, with a small table at his elbow on which he had a pad with some notes he occasionally consulted as he rattled off what must have been a routine story for him.
“As you probably know, our two mills were built in the ’80s under the direction of your great-grandfather, the fourth Earl of Sedwick,” he began, with a direct look at Phillip. “I’m told he was something of a visionary and wanted to expand his interest in textiles beyond wool and decided to experiment with cotton as many others were doing at the time. Then, we obtained most of our raw cotton from India and Egypt, but Napoleon interrupted the trade from Egypt rather profoundly, so now it comes mostly from the former colonies, the southern states of the United States, if you will.”
“Through ports in the east or west?” Phillip asked.
Harriet thought all three men were impressed with the young man’s question.
“Both, my lord,” Stevens replied. “But mostly our cotton still comes through Liverpool, then is transported by wagons or via the canal systems. If you are thinking cargo of raw material and machinery is expensive, you are quite right, my lord. So is transport of finished goods.”
To continue his monologue, Stevens reached into a drawer of the table and pulled out a soft cloth-wrapped packet. He unfolded the covering to reveal small bundles of swatches of fabric, about six inches square, which he handed to Phillip and Harriet, who were seated on the couch nearest him. “These are samples of the fabrics we produce. Normally, we do not turn out all of these all the time, mind you. Depends on the market, you see.”
“Quite nice,” Harriet commented as, having removed her gloves to take notes, she felt the texture of the kinds of fabric, ranging from the heavy stuff one might use in upholstery work to the fine, almost sheer fabric used in the most delicate garments.
“Makes sense not to have all our eggs in one basket, so to speak,” Quint observed when the swatches to passed to him.
Stevens nodded enthusiastically. “That is almost exactly the way our young earl’s father and grandfather expressed it!”
“You mentioned transport as an expense,” Quint said. “Would you say that is the major expenditure of the mills?”
Stevens raised a hand to rub along his chin before answering slowly. “It is certainly one of them, my lord. Obtaining the raw cotton is probably the major cost. In recent years the acquisition and maintenance of power looms has been hugely expensive. They are run by steam, of course, but still require the direct supervision of skilled weavers—and they are expensive in themselves.” He looked at Phillip directly. “I mentioned earlier, Lord Sedwick, that your great-grandfather was something of a visionary in seeing the possibilities of cotton in our industry. Your grandfather was, too, in seeing the possibilities of the steam engine in the production of textiles. And your father was enthusiastic about continuing his work.”
“Thank you, sir,” Phillip said softly. “My father often talked to me about steam engines. He once introduced me to his friend Mr. Stephenson.”
“Did my father, or my brother—or have you—or anyone else in this area—experienced any of the—uh—resentment—of the machines that has been reported elsewhere—say, around Manchester?” Quint asked.
“You refer to the Luddites and their breaking of machinery, I assume.” Stevens’s tone turned rather grim, and he went on when Quint nodded. “I think Mr. Humphreys had an incident or two. I do not know the details, though he did dismiss a number of his workers with no notice whatsoever! At the time there was some apprehension and grumbling among our people, but the old earl and his son managed to quell it well enough. And they managed to keep all our people on the rolls too—that made a huge difference in the way our Sedwick folks accepted the machines.”
Both Harriet and Chet had been taking notes as Stevens talked, Harriet in more detail apparently than Chet, but she supposed he would be reviewing the books later with Colonel Burnes. She made a mental note to herself to compliment Phillip later on about how attentive and courteous he was being through a discussion that would not usually intrigue a boy in early adolescence.
Then Phillip surprised her as well as the rest of their company with yet another substantive question. “May I ask just how many people we employ in these mills?” Phillip colored slightly when all three men turned startled eyes upon him. He looked at Harriet and shrugged. She wanted to grin and hug him.
Stevens coughed. “Hmm. I’m not sure I can give you a precise number, my lord, but that information will certainly be in the books Knowlin has for you. However, there two mills, five floors each, plus the cellar. Twenty-five to thirty weavers on each floor with an overseer and handyman on each as well. Plus cleaning people and groundskeepers. I would suppose it comes to around two hundred people.”
“That many,” Phillip said, impressed.
“How many of those might be women and children?” Harriet asked, aware that Quint, especially, took note of her question.
“That, I am not sure,” Stevens said. “I am merely conjecturing, but I think about a third of the weavers themselves are women. We had to take on more women what with the war on the Continent, you know. And children are often used for odd kinds of jobs—usually in conjunction with whatever their mothers are doing. It is fairly common practice in textile mills, as I am sure you must know.”
“How young are the children who come to work in Sedwick Mills?” she asked.
Stevens began to look a little discomfited, but he answered forthrightly. “As long as they are working with one of the parents, we have a few as young as six, I believe. Our child workers are mostly between, say, eight and thirteen. However, most of our workers are adults—and most are men.” His voice had taken on a slightly defensive note.
“I see,” she said, turning just enough to catch Quint exchange a look with Chet that she found difficult to interpret, but she was fairly certain that, in a different environment, he might have been rolling his eyes.
Quint straightened in his chair, his hands on his knees. “Thank you, Mr. Stevens. I think you have provided us with a good overview of the workings of Sedwick Mills. Now, we would like to have a look around, if you would be so kind.”
“Of course, my lord.”
The five of them emerged from the small office building and climbed a few stone steps to the entrance of the nearest of the two mills, both of which sat on an incline that overlooked the Tayson river. Gazing upward at the brick building, Harriet could see each floor distinguished by a row of windows. Ivy crawled its way up much of the first and second story of each building, though it was cut away from the windows. Stevens led them up cleanly swept stone steps graced with a black wrought iron railing to the entrance, which was set off toward one end of the edifice. As they entered, Harriet could see that bare wooden stairs ran up the inside of the building, with landings at each floor leading off to a huge room of looms. From the landing at the entrance, there were stairs going down to the cellar, which Stevens explained contained storage for bales of raw cotton and laundry facilities for washing finished cloth, as well as a tool room. These interior wooden stairs were not so neatly tended as the stone steps outside were.
Both these wooden stairs and the wooden floors of the loom rooms were dark and smelled of oil used in an attempt to keep the lint-laden dust at bay. This being a late summer day, several of the windows were opened slightly, but looked as though it been months since they had had a proper wash. In fact, they were so murky as to provide only filtered light—certainly too dirty to offer even a glimpse of a cloud or a patch of blue sky. There were a dozen large looms loudly at work as they entered, though Harriet could see that nearly everyone in the room was aware of the visitors in their midst.
The new young earl and his companions were introduced to the overseer on the first floor who had obviously been expecting them. Standing near the first of the looms, he explained its workings and they examined the quality of the cloth it was producing. The overseer was a stocky man in his forties with a shock of brown hair, a florid complexion, and bit of a bulging belly. He was dressed aa a laborer in heavy tan cotton trousers, a lighter cotton shirt, and wide black leather suspenders.
He explained, “This machine puts out one of our finer products. From here the cloth will be sent down to the cellar to be laundered, then up to the top floor to be printed. Probably end up in ladies’ dresses.”
Harriet tried to stay in the background for the most part as she observed the surroundings and quietly took notes. After all, it was not her place to put herself forward. She trailed behind as the men and Phillip went from loom to loom, sometimes stopping to comment or ask or a question, mostly merely looking, occasionally nodding affably. She noted that the work force was, indeed, very much as Stevens had described it. She did see several young children performing simple tasks such as sweeping up excess lint, and she thought she could readily identify which of the workers were their parents.
It was noisy. Besides the hum of the engines to run the looms, there were the loud thwacks and clunks and bangs of the process of making cloth. Occasionally a human voice called out a greeting or a warning, but for the most part Harriet found the workers rather a quiet lot.
At one point, Phillip sidled up to her and, speaking in a low voice, pointed at a machine near them. “Aunt Harriet, do look at those children.”
“What about them?”
“That girl is no older than Sarah and that boy is no bigger than either of the twins.”
“You are right, my dear. And there are at least two workers on this floor who are probably your age.”
“I know.” His voice was dull.
“Is something the matter?” It was the overseer who had noticed they were not trotting dutifully along in the “inspection tour” mode.
“Oh, no,” Harriet dissembled. “I was just wondering what you use for light on truly dark days or late shifts.”
“We have oil lanterns. Smelly, but they give off enough light to get the work done.”
His reply brought to mind the smells of this environment. She quickly jotted notes about the oil on the floor, the dry smell of cotton lint floating in the air, and the occasional whiff of an unwashed body among the workers. It occurred to Harriet that her nephew was seeing a side of life he might never have imagined before. She had imagined it, but had rarely encountered it first-hand.
The tour continued with little variation except in the type of cloth being produced here and there. They visited each floor of both buildings, for Quint said—and Harriet agreed—that it was important that Phillip make his appearance to all the workers, not to slight any group.
On the fourth floor of the second mill, the tour was proceeding as it had elsewhere—the overseer this time a middle-aged man in black trousers and a black coat—when suddenly a woman working one of the looms near the door simply slumped to the floor. Harriet thought later it was a miracle that she had fallen away from the machine, for who knew what might have happened had she tumbled into the workings of the loom itself? She was a relatively young woman—probably about her own age, Harriet surmised. She was thin and dressed in a thin cotton dress that showed signs of wear, but seemed clean. She had smiled and greeted the visitors cheerfully as they had passed through earlier.
“Mama!” a girl child screamed.
They all turned abruptly, but Quint was the first to act. He squatted beside the woman and raised her to a sitting position. She was already coming around.
“I—wh-what happened?” she asked in a shaky voice.
The little girl, who could not have had more than seven years, now stood at her mother’s side. The child was dressed in the same cotton print as her mother and had the same shade of reddish-brown hair. “You fainted again, Mama.”
“No. I couldn’t have,” the woman insisted, already trying to loose herself from Quint’s hold.
“I am quite sure you did, madam,” Quint said, not allowing her to try to stand.
“Please. Let me up. I’ll be all right.” She sounded more embarrassed than hurt, Harriet thought.
“Just stay still a moment,” Quint ordered, his arm still supporting her shoulders as others gathered around. “Get yourself together first. Take some deep breaths.”
“Papa says it’s ’cause she don’t eat nothin’—gives me an’ my brother her food when he’s not lookin’,” the little girl said.
“Oh, Betsy, please—do be quiet,” her mother begged, clearly mortified.
Harriet knelt next to the woman and asked softly but sternly, “When did you last eat, Mrs.—?”
“Mrs. R-Reed,” she stammered. “Y-yesterday morning. I think.”
“Good heavens!” Harriet said. She looked up at those gathered around. “The poor thing just needs some food.”
“Here. Give her this.” Phillip held out something wrapped in paper. “It’s a biscuit. Mrs. Hodges always thinks I am going to starve to death before she sees me again,” he added sheepishly.
Quint took the packet, unwrapped it, and offered the biscuit to Mrs. Reed. She brushed his hand away. “Oh, no. I couldn’t. Just help me up, please.”
“You can and you will,” he said. “I am not letting you up until you take the first bite.”
She heaved a sigh, but did as he told her.
Quint glanced at the overseer for this floor. “Is there someplace she can sit for a while? And can you get her a drink of water?”
“There’s a bench under the windows,” the man mumbled. “I’ll be right back with the water, my lord.”
Hoping to spare the woman further embarrassment, Harriet helped support her as Quint stood and guided her to the bench, where she sat with the child standing at her knee. Harriet noted that she nibbled rather eagerly at the biscuit, but nevertheless broke off a bit to give to her daughter. The overseer returned with a ceramic mug of water, which he handed to Quint to give to Mrs. Reed.
Harriet sat next to Mrs. Reed on the bench and looked up at Quint. Seeing concern and confusion in his eyes, she said, “Why don’t you and the others continue on and catch me up when you finish? I’ll sit with Mrs. Reed to see that all is well with her before we leave.”
“Th-that is not necessary,” Mrs. Reed protested. “I am all right now. Truly I am.”
Quint ignored her protest. “Thank you, Miss Mayfield.”
Moments later, as her own party climbed the stairs to the floor above, Harriet sat with the mother and child listening to the clanks and thuds of the mechanical giants at work around the little threesome.