Page 32 of The Gentlewoman Apprentice

But in that moment, they were heading toward Meg’s home, where she would provide the girl with a bed and food. With hopes and desires of her own, this girl trustfully entered Meg’s stewardship, wherein Meg must keep her safe. Meg’s success or ruin affected more than herself or Samuel now.

Meg bit her cheek, sending away encroaching fears of failure. The path before her ended with one possible outcome. She would press forward until she triumphed, whatever the cost.

10

Clattering, whirring, and thudding flooded Peter’s ears. Nearby, a woman stopped one of a dozen spinners and tied together a strand of broken yarn. Across the room, another fed carded cotton into a machine. A few children gathered fallen bits from the floor and watched the spindles.

Lucius turned and said something Peter could not make out over the roar of water churning the wheel. Peter pointed to his ears. Lucius tilted his head toward the stairs, and the two friends made their way through the room, smoky with cotton fibers, and up to a vast, empty space.

Lucius opened his arms as if presenting a gift. “What do you think?” he shouted. The spinning below was muffled but raucous.

Peter conjured enthusiasm, imagined the room full of weaving machines alongside the spinners, and nodded his approval.

“The cloth will span twelve hands, and our production will be ten times faster.”

“I cannot imagine the guild is happy about that.”

Lucius grinned. “They can do nothing. A solicitor assured me the guild’s power applies only to wool. Cotton is the future, and I will supply it, faster and better. I lack one thing.” He gave Peter a look which, from a friendship of decades, made Peter’s stomach fall. “Follow me.”

They traveled down the stairs into a damp basement full of the pungent odors of dye. Peter almost felt instantly at home among the familiar equipment—copper vats; tubs; a cistern for river water; a table laden with scales, scoops, and canisters.

“You plan to complete the whole process here?” Peter asked. “Where did you get such an idea, and how will you convince the dyers’ guild? You will surely replace me as most hated by the guild masters.”

“Remember, this is cotton, outside the guild’s jurisdiction. Not all the dyers are convinced of the enterprise, but I have enlisted some who are as sure of cotton as I am.” Lucius cupped his hands. “Mr. Hobbins?”

Mr. Hobbins, master dyer and local guild committee member, emerged from an adjoining room. “Mr. Ivy. Mr. Sloan.”

“For now, he is merely renting space,” Lucius said with a suggestive raise of brows.

“This is a grander operation than I imagined. Congratulations, Lucius.” Peter was half envious, half exhausted by his friend’s drive. If the plan succeeded, Lucius would be rich. “I must be on my way. Lucius, a word? Walk me out.”

“Before you go,” Mr. Hobbins said, scratching his chest and glancing about as if the guild master were on his way from Gloucester to shut them down. “You’ve shown me some of the cloth you’ve dyed in your leisure time over the years, and I recognize your talent and understanding. But your grandfather… The Turkey red is beyond our power, and though you have not entrusted me with this particular display, I know you are capable.”

The eagerness in Mr. Hobbins’s face matched Lucius’s. Not this again.

“I am not asking for the books.” Mr. Hobbins shot a glance at Lucius. “Only that you work with me.”

Peter loved the hours he spent experimenting with dye, loved cloth and color and the chemistry that combined the two. With Hobbins as a partner, the gaps in his understanding might close. But his grandfather’s voice, trembling with hurt, stopped him. Keep it from those dyers. Punish them for punishing me. Peter had pledged with his thumbprint.

“I am a tailor with a shop to run.” Even without the promise, Peter’s obligation remained with his father’s industry.

“Chintz,” Mr. Hobbins breathed, as if it were sacred. “If we create chintz, we could buy London.”

Peter shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want London. And I was born a tailor’s son. Good day, Mr. Hobbins.” He turned away, regretting his curt manner. Mr. Hobbins did not deserve his rudeness, and the man was not wrong. Madder red would change everything for the dyers in Gloucestershire. Chintz would change all of England. Peter had long craved collaboration with a well-informed dyer, aware that sharing his knowledge would be a joy and a relief. Besides, Mr. Hobbins was a friend. He began to regret that youthful thumbprint.

Peter and Lucius walked along the river until the rushing of the mill became a distant shush.

“You are quite a visionary, Lucius.”

“As are you, if you would allow yourself to be.”

Peter shook his head.

“Giles could take over the shop,” Lucius suggested. “The same escape shielding us from the guild would apply to you. We will be cotton dyers, chintz creators.”

A lovely, impossible dream. Peter had mastered Turkey red at his grandfather’s knee and enjoyed sketching chintz patterns, but he could not discover how to print cotton. Even if he could, his limited experience was insufficient to justify such a drastic change in profession. “Sloan Tailoring” would ever swing above his door. It was his heritage, his responsibility, his life’s work. He was good at it.

“It would not be right to abandon my father’s livelihood. And you know I promised my grandfather,” Peter said.