Page 2 of Indebted (Hidden Gems #2)
“ F ather, look at these. I have corresponded with a Mr. Wiltshire, who is a representative of Mr. Corliss and his engines. Not only that, I have here seven testimonials from other textile mills. They praise the Corliss engine’s cam gears and their adjustment of valve timing, creating a much more precise, efficient—”
“Amy!” Mr. Winthrop roared and threw a piece of scrap tin on the freshly swept floorboards of the factory office. “Get back to the house this instant! I don’t want to catch you down here again!”
Amy didn’t flinch when the piece of tin tumbled over to her feet. She was used to her father’s explosive bursts of temper and took a slight satisfaction that he never cowed her, especially in front of her brothers. “I don’t see anyone else coming up with ways to improve production and increase our profits.” She crossed her arms at her waist and held her ground. “If you want me to leave, you shall have to carry me out.”
“It’s not ladylike for you to be seen at the mill, Amy,” Thomas, her youngest and most timid brother came over and whispered to her while her father paced and seethed.
“Already have enough people saying you're a crotchety old spinster. Hanging about at the mill makes you look mannish. Doesn’t help your prospects any,” Philip, her eldest (and possibly the most patient) brother tutted.
“Unless you’re after one of the workers. Hey, that’d make tongues wag, wouldn’t it?” Steven laughed, spitting bits of apple as he did so.
Amy shrugged off a stray fleck of apple as well as her middle brother’s remarks. “Hush, Steven. If all three of you are so worried about marriage, why don’t you find wives of your own?”
Her father suddenly marched over and seized her by the elbows, “Because they’re hardworking, decent young lads who know their place and their jobs. If you don’t want to marry, fine. So be it—but you get back to the house and arrange some flowers. Play the piano. Practice your French!”
Amy gasped as her father, a wide, grunting bull of a man when angered, hoisted her off the floor and carried her to the doorway. “My letters!” she cried as her carefully hoarded correspondence fell to the ground.
“Tinder! Steven, scrape that nonsense up and put it in the fire! If you want to write to men, you’d best have a letter of introduction and they ought to be suitable prospects. God knows I’ve offered a dowry large enough to attract bloody Prince Leopold!”
“Father! Don’t swear,” Thomas hissed, paling and dropping his pen.
“Those letters were to your peers in the industry, Father, people who have knowledge you should value!”
“Quiet! What makes you think you’ve any right to tell your elders who they should listen to?” her father thundered, still holding her just far enough from the floor that her toes couldn’t reach it.
“Put me down, I’m not a child! I’m nearly thirty!”
“And more the shame of it! Every man that might’ve been interested has been put well off by your fancies and your tinkering!” Her father put her down at the threshold and then shoved her through the door. “Go home. Now.”
Amy stood outside the door of the factory office, cheeks flushed and tears trembling on her lashes. It wasn’t so much the humiliation of being thrown out of her own family’s factory, the largest textile mill in all of Lancashire, or the fact that he’d shouted at her and probably bruised her elbows when picking her up and thrusting her bodily from the room.
No, she could weep with frustration at having all of her carefully preserved correspondence thrown into the fire. Amy balled her fists and considered pounding on the door, but she knew it would be about as useful as trying to cut down an oak with a teaspoon. Her father refused to see how helpful she could be, nor would he acknowledge how much she knew about the textile industry, profit versus expenses, or steam engines. Her tinkering had produced working miniature models of any number of steam-powered inventions—and he called them all foolish toys.
“He’s the shame of the family, not me. This mill will close down if we don’t keep up with the competition,” she whispered, storming from the building.
When she was outside, Amy paused to glare at the window of her father’s office. As she did so, Steven opened the window and chucked his apple core down at her feet—and her letters, hastily crammed into one envelope and weighted down with another tin scrap—came tumbling after.
“Clever boy!” she whispered, bending to swoop up the letters. Her brother might seem a bit of a bore, but that was mostly an affectation to keep her father from hounding him. Steven must have burnt the envelopes but managed to smuggle the letters out of them first. Her father wouldn’t look closely as long as a bunch of papers were thrown into the fire as he directed.
How very like him. As long as everything looks fine, then it is fine. For a man who worked so stubbornly to reach success, it has surely blinded him.
Amy beamed up Steven, who managed to wave before shutting the window.
Amy retrieved the pony trap from the front of the factory. Passing workers tipped their flat, soot-stained hats as they hauled bolts of fabric into the larger delivery wagons heading for the station. Winthrop Mills sent textiles all across England and even across the ocean to an importer in Boston.
But soon, their competition would take their contracts. Faster mills meant more cloth produced per hour, more money to be made for less wages to be paid. Nelson Winthrop knew as much, but instead of looking to new methods, he looked for ways to increase the speed of the equipment and workers he already had.
Haste makes waste, Amy thought with a wince as a long blast on the factory whistle sounded, followed by three short bursts.
That was a signal—and it meant “Accident on the line.”
Having no wish to see another man or horse injured, Amy turned her trap away from the factory and slapped the reins to urge her pony to a trot.
“Father will have to listen to me if men keep getting hurt, Daisy,” she muttered to the fawn-colored pony. “If other men were to talk of the efficacy of the Corliss engines as opposed to ring spinning and our own steam engines, maybe he’d see sense. But he’ll never see the truth if I’m the one showing him.”
With a sigh, Amy sat back and let Daisy have her head. The mare knew her way home to Littlewood, the Winthrop’s small estate. “Perhaps it is just as well that there are no ‘suitable men’ of my age and standing in these parts, old girl. Father would marry me off in a heartbeat.”
MARCUS HAD LONG AGO learned the art of manipulating people to do things that he wanted them to do while making it look like it was their idea.
For example, being thrown out of his digs in London, clearing most of the debts that he could with whatever he could scrounge, and using his few remaining pounds to hightail it out of the city was exactly what Marcus needed to do in order to escape utter humiliation and further bruising.
Sending a wire full of prodigal’s remorse to Uncle Horace was what any skint, work-shy nephew would do. Letting the old boy think his “change of heart” was all his idea was pure craft on Marcus’ part. As he sat in the juddering train, trying not to dwell on how horribly dull his life was about to become, Marcus ran over the words of the telegraph in his mind, knowing he’d have to echo those words in person with all the sincerity he could muster.
Dear Uncle,
I have seen the error of my ways. After reflecting upon your wise counsel, I’ve quit London and will journey north to Lancashire at once to devote myself to industry as you have always wished. As you’ve often advised, a man of my years should look for a suitable wife to steady and improve him. I trust that I shall find one if I but devote myself to the search. Perhaps you could suggest a young lady in the district?
Your Repentant Nephew,
Marcus
With any luck, Uncle Horace would not pass him in a fury, but instead receive the wire in time. Otherwise, Marcus knew the old codger would be off to London in a foul temper to haul him to the current “ancestral home” by the ear. Marcus had left a handwritten letter expressing the same sentiments he’d sent by wire. Hopefully, this would mollify Uncle Horace if he made the journey for nothing and put him in a good mood by the time he returned.
“Homeward bound?”
Marcus looked up. A rather snuffly man in a stained overcoat was sitting in the same drafty coach. “Yes.”
“Looking for work?”
“No. Absolutely not.” Marcus flapped open a copy of The Sporting Life and put it firmly in front of his face, blocking out everything but an article on greyhound racing.