Page 3 of Cinders and Smoke

The frigid glass against his forehead did not cool his fever.

∞∞∞

Higgins’s steps reverberated as he climbed the stairs into the high gallery.

The bass beat brought back his childhood, when the Darkshire Regiment marched through town on its way down to Liverpool. The enemy had been clear back then: the Beast, the Tyrant, the damned crapauds. Men knew the rules. Taking the King’s shilling meant that you would do what was needed to keep those greasy foreigners—stinking of garlic and mouthing heathenish words—on the other side of the Channel.

But the workingman’s enemy is well disguised. His grand’da may hae been your grandsire’s best friend. He speaks the same language and eats the same food as you. While he may hae servants, they shop for his needs in the same markets as your woman.

The only difference? He hires. You toil.

So many of them act like they be the Duke of Devonshire, pissing rosewater and shitting sovereigns.

Nicholas’s shoulders were bowed as he traced Thornton’s path up and away from the scene in the master’s office. The physician Donaldson had arrived about twenty minutes before, dragged there by Miss Hale’s woman, Dixon. When the trouble began, she had been below-stairs while her charge had sat to dinner with the Thorntons. How that hard woman had found her way through the crowds of muttering men still clustered in the streets to Donaldson’s quarters was beyond Higgins’s ken. What she said to gain safe conduct back to the mill was less of a mystery. Nicholas Higgins had encountered her when Miss Hale would attend to his Bessy. The thought of her taking on work-hardened men and giving better than she got buoyed his battered soul.

Nay, there is little to find in this night, let alone this world, about which to smile.

At least the doctor is hopeful. He thinks the stone only grazed Miss Hale.

But while the lady may be out of danger, the cause of all who tend the looms and their families is more difficult than ever before. The fine folks of Milton, the ladies who use acts of charity to ease their consciences and the men who relieve their guilt by supporting the vicars and preachers with the blunt they need to feed the orphaned bairns, will turn their backs on us if this violence against one of their own goes unpunished.

No, this could be the death of the union. They’ll paint us with the same brush as that poor, broken fool.[3]

I shall, and must, give him up. I can do nothing more for him.

One short and one long flight led him up through the building’s eaves to an area that may have begun as a place where workers looped block-and-tackle arrangements above the factory floor. Sometime in the past twenty years, though, one master or another had walled and windowed the inner side while punching through the roof on the other. They could now ascend into the factory’s ‘heaven’—fittingly, for had not these self-styled masters placed themselves above their fellows—for a God’s-eye view of the ants toiling among the gigantic machinery.

As his head cleared the last stair, Higgins scanned Thornton from the ankle up, his eyes gradually moving from legs to head. He was surprised to see this tall, proud man bent like an ancient gaffer. The master’s posture bespoke great weariness— both body and soul.

∞∞∞

At the sound of Higgins’s footfalls, Thornton pulled away from the outer window and turned to face him.

“Well, man,” Thornton challenged, “how is she?”

Higgins nodded in respect for the man’s position and his obvious distress at Miss Hale’s injury. “Better’n we might ’ave ’oped. Th’ doctor—”

“Doctor?” Thornton snapped. “Donaldson? Who sent for him?”

Higgins snorted. “Yes…Dr. Donaldson. Miss ’ale’s woman, Miss Dixon, somehow got through th’ crowds—both ways—to fetch ’im ’ere.”

Looking skeptical, Thornton shot back, “Really? How did she get past those men down below—the ones I see lurking about the gates, house, the very doors to this building? Is she in league with them? Are we to expect an assault? A massacre?

“How can you stand there, man? I know you care for Miss Hale—I do! She told me about her friendship with your daughter. What if those animals breach our doors? What if they drag her out and ravage her? They will not get to her again! I swear it.”

By this point, Thornton’s voice had ripped itself ragged on the edges of his despair. He made to dash down the stairs, but Higgins’s shoulders blocked his progress. The older man planted a meaty hand on each of Thornton’s arms, holding him until he stopped struggling. “Ye asked o’ the men you see in the courtyard, Master Thornton. They be union men. They listen ta me. Long as we ’ave breath, no wrecker will impose on Marlborough Mills.

“While the factory be yours an’ Mr. Bell’s, each o’ us…wull, not me as I don’ work for you…don’ work for anybody…sees this place as ’is. You may buy th’ machines but ’tis our sweat that keeps ’em runnin’.

“I tol’ them ta stand guard, not ta let any o’ those ’ot’eads near th’ ’ouse nor th’ mill. ’Twould never allow ’arm ta come ta any ’oo call Marlborough ’ome, ’specially Miss ’Ale. She is dear ta my Bessy.”

Thornton calmed at the other man’s declaration, thought for a moment, and then leveled an accusatory glare at him. “You know who did this, don’t you?”

Here was the test, Higgins realized, that would prove his honesty to a man who doubted any workingman’s veracity. He shrugged, walked to the window, and looked into the factory. “I do.”

Thornton pressed him. “And…”

Higgins turned back, sadness pulling down his face. “A blue story, that ’un. Th’ man lost ’is job, ’is bairns be starvin’, an’ ’e is lookin’ at life through the bottom o’ a bottle o’ penny gin.”