Page 7

Chapter Seven

L ily tapped her pen on the ledger in front of her in frustration.

Her numbers were out again, and she couldn’t quite figure out where the missing figures had disappeared to.

She should have a higher number from the debits and deposits, but according to the bank ledger, they were missing funds.

If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought that someone was stealing from the club, but the only people with access to the account were the club committee members, and the missing amount would have been a trifling sum to them.

She lifted the ledger in her hand, walking down the hall of the administrative building to the mill manager’s office, where her father was reviewing operations.

Wanting to prove herself to her father, she had spent too much time trying to figure this out on her own when perhaps there was a simple explanation.

She knocked on the office door, and when she received no response, she pushed it open, finding his office empty.

Of course, that didn’t mean it was quiet.

The windows to the factory floor were open, the hum of activity echoing through the room above.

She crossed the green and gold carpet to the window, peering out at the noisy, crowded factory floor, where men and women of all ages worked with machinery and textiles.

She looked for her father, but it wasn’t him she saw – no, it was Colin Thornton, standing head and shoulders above most other people around him.

He walked around the floor, stopping now and again to speak with one of the workers before continuing on, his eyes seemingly ever watchful, his shoulders set protectively.

She supposed he always had to be ready to see to any problems and correct machinery before it could halt production or – even worse – injure one of the workers.

She hadn’t spent much time at the Harcourt Textile Mills before her working visits on the days her father also came to review the mill operations and she was relegated to the administrative offices.

If it was this loud from up here, she could hardly imagine what it would be like on the factory floor itself, and she wondered what it did to the ears of the children to be around the loud machinery for such lengths of time.

She was about to return to her own office, which wasn’t much more than a chair behind a desk in a small room down the hall, when something in the corner of the factory caught her attention.

It wasn’t so much any activity but rather the lack thereof.

It appeared a piece of machinery had quit, and a girl of about twelve years sat there, blinking.

Was no one supervising her? The girl tugged at the material, trying to pull it through the machine by force alone, but there was no way one her size would be strong enough to do so.

As she moved closer, trying to force it, Lily became concerned about her proximity to the machine. What if it began working again? Would the girl be too close? Could she become caught in the machinery?

Lily placed the ledger on her father’s desk and walked to the window, summoned her courage, cupped her hands around her mouth, and called out, “Over there!” to anyone who would listen below, but either the machinery was too loud or her voice was too quiet, for no one even glanced up in her direction.

She looked back at the girl, who was still attempting to rescue the fabric in her hands.

Lily was going to have to go down there and help her herself.

The ledger forgotten where she had left it, Lily started down the stairs as quickly as she dared, grateful for the serviceable black boots she preferred to wear, despite her mother’s chagrin.

She knew that the administration building connected to the factory, but she was turned around and couldn’t find the interior stairs anywhere, so she decided it would be fastest to take the path she knew.

She hurried around the outside, her boots sloshing in the mud until she found the doors, hearing the machinery before she even knew for certain it was the right building.

She pushed through the doors opening to the overwhelming factory floor. She quickly looked from one side of the room to the other, trying to orient herself. Her breath caught at the stifled air, and she wondered how anyone could breathe in here when working for long periods.

She looked up, finding the manager’s office and the counting house right above the floor, where all of the administration was done. In front of that was the overseer’s office, which she had visited before.

The loading bay and storage area were to her left, and across from her were a few tables and spindly wooden chairs that looked like a place where the workers might take their lunch.

Directly in front of her was what she recognized as the boiler room, where the mill's power source was hot and dangerous, while the large room beyond that must have been the main factory floor, which held all of the looms, machines, and people.

Which meant that the girl was likely in the farthest corner from Lily as was possible. Of course.

Lily forged ahead, weaving her way around workers, some who ignored her, others who eyed her with either interest or distaste.

As much as she was focused on her goal, being here on the floor was shaking her to her core.

While her father owned this mill, this world was so far removed from hers. When she was the age of these girls, she was sitting in a small classroom with a governess, learning how to read the classics before free time running about her father’s large estate.

The girls here were working hard, their faces aging with the toll these conditions were taking on them.

Mr. Thornton’s powerful form across the room caught her eye, and she wondered how much he could control the conditions. He ultimately answered to her father, but could he do anything to help the workers? Was there anything she could do?

She was doing something right now, as little as it might be.

She finally reached the far corner, but the girl was nowhere in sight. Did that mean that someone else had helped her? Had she given up?

Then Lily noticed she couldn’t see Mr. Thornton anymore, except – yes, there he was. Crouched down and helping the girl with the piece of fabric. So he had seen her, eventually. She sighed as all of the excitement leeched out from her after her run down here. It was all for nothing, then.

She should return to her office.

But instead, she found herself stepping up to a small platform that looked like some workshop, holding a workbench covered in tools.

She turned around, using the vantage point to watch the workings of the floor, finding her eyes drawn to Mr. Thornton as he moved through the space with authority and care.

From how he bent his head to speak to other workers and their answering genial expressions, Lily realized that he wasn’t checking progress or asking how their work was faring. He was making sure the people were looked after.

Of course.

A sudden shout captured everyone’s attention, and Lily followed the sound to see a worker struggling with a jammed textile machine. A few employees gathered around him, all trying to unjam the machine as others tried to hurriedly pull the fabric through with so much force that one piece ripped.

Mr. Thornton held his hands in front of him in a downward motion, and Lily could only guess that he was telling them all to calm down or stand down, one or the other.

Before addressing the machine, he briefly placed his arms on the man’s shoulders, reassuring him and checking him for injuries before he walked to the machine, made a few adjustments, and then had it going again within a few minutes.

The workers clapped, smiling at him, and Lily could see just how much they respected him.

She supposed it didn’t matter where one came from or what kind of education he had if he could command respect like that from those he worked with.

Then he turned and began walking away from the man and the machinery – and right toward her.

Lily suddenly realized where she was standing. If Mr. Thornton was the foreman, this was likely his workshop and where he oversaw the factory floor when he wasn’t walking through it. She had promised to stay out of his way, and now here she was, standing in the one place that belonged to him.

She jumped down from the platform, ducking behind a piece of machinery so that he wouldn’t see her coming.

The deafening clatter of the looms surrounded her, the rhythmic pounding of the shuttles and the spinning of the gears almost hypnotic.

She knew enough about the mill, having been raised within the business, but she had never been quite so intimate with it before.

A few people looked her way in confusion, and she stupidly smiled and nodded as she backed away, trying to keep him in her sights.

Then she bumped into something cold and hard, turning to see a large, iron-framed power loom behind her. Above her, leather belts connected to a central steam engine and wooden shuttles rapidly flew back and forth, threads joining together through the loop.

Lily was momentarily mesmerized until suddenly, one of the wooden shuttles splintered, the piece lodging itself in the machine gears.

Everything happened so slowly that it was almost like a dream, as the flywheel spun erratically and the entire loom began to shake.

One of the metal arms began to bend, and an overhead belt slipped off.

Hearing the machine's groan, Lily finally moved, trying to run away from any potential danger.

However, as the machine seemed to turn into an animate object itself, violently jerking back and forth, her skirt became snagged on one of the gear teeth, which continued to turn agonizingly slowly and erratically, pulling her ever closer.

Lily tugged on her skirt to try to free it, feeling like the girl she had seen trying to wrench the cloth out of the machine, only this time, she couldn’t get her clothing to budge.

She knew that her panic was only causing her to act even more erratically, but she couldn’t seem to stop her frantic tugging.

The loom tilted forward dangerously as workers shouted and metal screeched together.

A loud snap sounded as one of the metal arms broke loose and then came flying forward.

Lily let go of her skirts to lift her hands to shield herself, and the metal caught her in the midsection, pinning her against the machine.

She was completely trapped.

Against a machine that might take her life.