Page 43 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)
Mrs Crane didn’t seem at all put out by the hostility.
Indeed, it seemed to have stimulated her.
But when Clemmie also took her arm, she allowed herself to be drawn a step back.
She waved her umbrella under Bleaker’s nose, and said, ‘You haven’t heard the last of me!
’ And she turned and strutted away with her head high.
‘You’d better hope I have!’ Bleaker shouted after her.
The other three clustered round her and they walked away with as much dignity as they could muster.
The crowd let them through silently, though there were unpleasant grins on some faces.
Nina was trembling inside, wondering how Mrs Crane could endure confrontations like this.
He had called her an old boiler hen ! The impact of the words reverberated inside her head.
No-one had ever spoken harshly to her in her life and it was a shock.
She wished she’d never come. Much of the crowd had gone about their business, but a ribald remnant was trailing them, hoping for more entertainment, and shouting comments, which, thanks to their accent, she couldn’t understand – but could certainly make a guess at.
Don’t run , said a little voice in her head.
You mustn’t show fear . But that was wild animals, wasn’t it?
Or dangerous dogs . . . If only the cab were still there!
And, thank God, here was the end of the road and, oh, thank God there was the blessed cab and the thrice-blessed jarvey!
Seeing they had acquired company he pulled himself up straight, squared his shoulders and cracked his whip in a thoughtful manner.
The crowd didn’t really mean harm: they were just amusing themselves, and halted at the corner to continue with their commentary, and watch with amusement as the toff ladies climbed in, bested.
They transferred their attention to the jarvey, with such well-worn jibes as ‘The only way I can tell you from yer ’orse is ’e’s better-looking!
’ The cabby only smiled sardonically as he pulled out into the traffic, performed an audacious 180-degree turn under the nose of a brewer’s dray, and headed back towards civilisation.
On the outward journey they had travelled by Underground to Liverpool Street and taken the cab from there.
When they were dropped off again at the station, tea seemed to be urgently required, and they retired to the Palm Court of the Great Eastern Hotel.
The pleasant hush of civilisation closed over them, and Nina, soothed by it, reflected that, after all, nothing very bad had happened to them, and began to feel more cheerful.
Lepida and Clemmie seemed less upset than disappointed not to have seen inside.
‘But you have been in, you say?’ Lepida asked.
‘It was easier with one,’ said Mrs Crane.
‘I slipped in and managed very nicely until a foreman spotted me, and fetched the boss, and he asked me to leave. I argued with him for quite a while, which allowed me to go on observing. Perhaps it was unwise of me to try the same thing again with you, ladies. But you see, at least, that they must have something to hide, or they wouldn’t have been so determined to keep us out. ’
‘That’s all very well,’ Lepida said, ‘but we haven’t seen, so we don’t know what they are hiding.’
Mrs Crane reached into her reticule and drew out a notebook.
‘Fortunately,’ she said, with a smug look, ‘I was able to interview a couple of the women when they came off work that evening, and I wrote up these notes straight afterwards. They didn’t really want to talk to me at first, but I took them to a pie shop a short distance away and bought them pies and coffee.
They talked to me on condition that I never mentioned their names, for fear they’d lose their jobs.
But when you hear what they have to endure, you will wonder, as I did, why they want to keep them. ’
The tea tray arrived, and Clemmie took charge of it, poured the tea and placed the sandwiches within reach. Then Mrs Crane began to talk.
‘Mostly what the women do is carrying, like beasts of burden, but they are also employed in unhairing and scudding – that is, scraping away the dirt, hair, flesh and fat – the smaller hides. The larger hides, I believe, require more muscle, so that is men’s work.’
The women worked from six in the morning until six at night, with a fifteen-minute break in the middle of the day to eat whatever food they had brought with them. They worked six days a week, for five shillings – two shillings less than the men doing the same work.
‘And they hardly ever get the five shillings, either,’ said Mrs Crane.
‘There’s a system of fines, by which the owner claws back much of their wages.
If they’re caught talking, if they go to the lavatory without permission, if they drop a scrap from the bundle on the floor, if they tear a hide while scudding – all those are all fineable offences.
Fines range from threepence to a shilling.
If they’re late for work in the morning by even five minutes, they’re docked half a day’s pay. ’
‘Why don’t they leave and get a different job?’ Lepida asked.
‘I asked the same question. They said it was hard to get work, and if you left or were dismissed, the word went round the other local factories, and you would not be taken on.’
‘Surely some of them must be married.’
‘Indeed, but their husband’s wages are not enough to keep them and the children. If he has work.’
‘They have children? Who looks after them?’ Nina asked.
‘Sometimes an older person, who doesn’t work, like a grandparent. Sometimes one of the older children takes care of the younger. One woman,’ Mrs Crane tapped the notebook, ‘told me her little Annie was a proper mother to the rest. Annie is just seven years old.’
‘She should be at school at that age,’ Clemmie said.
‘She should indeed. But these are not the worst examples. Some of them have to use childminders – very low women, sometimes too old to work, often drunks, who keep anything up to a dozen children in their one room all day. You may imagine the abuses that gives rein to, and the infections that breed. My informant said she would never use a childminder.’
And then, Mrs Crane went on, there were the ill effects of the tanning chemicals.
‘They cause sore eyes, they affect the lungs – both of my women had racking coughs. They can develop horrible sores on the skin. And the liver and the kidneys become affected, leading to severe illness and even death. One woman said it was common for tannery women to have yellow skin and eyes – the signs of liver and kidney disease.’
‘Something must be done about this,’ Clemmie exclaimed.
‘Yes – but what?’ said Lepida. ‘That man Bleaker was right – he’s running a lawful business, and I suppose these women work there of their own free will.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Crane, ‘but we could at least see that they are paid a fair wage, and that the fines system is abolished.’
‘How would we do that?’ Clemmie asked.
‘First we must interview more of the women, gather more testimonies – two are not enough. Then write articles for the papers, letters to Members of Parliament, rouse up a public revulsion. A petition, perhaps, to take to Downing Street. If necessary, we might have to organise a strike.’
She, Clemmie and Lepida began discussing these and other actions. Nina, too young and inexperienced in the field to contribute, listened to them at first; but then her mind drifted.
She started thinking about the evening before, at the Cassels’.
The grand house, every window lit up when they arrived; the liveried footmen who took their coats; the great oil paintings on the walls, the thick carpets underfoot and the glittering chandeliers .
. . The contrast with today’s setting could not have been more fantastic.
As she had expected, the company was rather elderly – she was the youngest by a good margin – but she was greeted very kindly, and she was glad to find there was no sense that anyone thought Mr Cowling and his young wife were out of their place. Even when the King arrived.
She was nervous when she was presented, and had only a confused impression of him – a big man, blocking out the light.
She blessed her education at Miss Thornton’s, which had taught her how to curtsey without wobbling.
Then the King offered her a very clean, pink hand, and spoke in a warm rumble of a voice, and she had looked up to see a smiling, clean, pink face and very round, pale blue eyes.
Afterwards she had been introduced to Mrs Keppel, who was very kind, and said, ‘I’m so glad to meet you, my dear. Mr Cowling has been boasting for ever of his beautiful, clever young wife. I can see you are beautiful, and you look clever. Are you clever?’
‘I don’t feel very clever at the moment,’ Nina had said.
Mrs Keppel laughed. ‘It was a most unfair question, and I withdraw it! Tell me instead what you are interested in. I know all the other guests, and one so longs for something new at these affairs. They can be rather deadly, you know,’ she added, in a conspiratorial tone, setting Nina quite at ease.
They had talked about paintings, then, and music, and Nina did not feel she had let herself down too badly.
The conversation round the table was mostly about the Entente Cordiale recently signed with France – ‘And isn’t it typical of them,’ Mrs Keppel laughed, ‘that it’s named in French, rather than being called the Cordial Alliance?’