Chapter 12 #2
“What is wrong with you?” he asked her nastily when she told him she had no time and he had to leave.
He was dismayed to see how busy she was, and that she had no need of him whatsoever.
The other women he knew were grateful for his pretended protection.
He wasn’t protecting anyone, he was taking advantage of their fears and boredom to prey on them.
Victoria wasn’t afraid, she was working at full speed.
Jane’s father had closed his mill when war was declared, so Ed had nothing to do except drink and chase women.
“I don’t understand you,” he said to her.
“You work like a man, only I don’t know a single man who works as hard as you do.
Don’t you ever play or want to have fun, go dancing or to a party, or have some romance in your life? ”
“I don’t have time to go to parties, Ed.
I’m working. I love what I do. That’s romance enough for me.
Maybe you should do something for the war effort, since you can’t serve your country.
I’m not sure keeping your friends’ beds warm and their wives happy counts for the war effort,” she said, and he left a few minutes later, disappointed again.
Victoria was a tough nut to crack, but he hadn’t entirely given up yet.
She had to get lonely eventually. She was only human, and very young.
He had never met a woman like her. He found it disconcerting rather than exciting.
He wasn’t in love with her, he wanted her money, and then he could divorce Jane and get rid of her.
If he married the right woman, one who was sufficiently important, aristocratic, and well-connected, no one would blame him.
Victoria qualified in every category. All he had to do was convince her and seduce her.
She was impervious to his charms so far, but he still hadn’t lost hope.
The Wests had gone back to the States when war was declared in Europe.
They were back in Grosse Pointe and Johnny was working in Detroit.
Florence wrote that she was bored silly, but didn’t miss Manchester at all.
Victoria had had a letter from Delphine too.
She had just given birth to her sixth daughter, and Frederick was finally beginning to lose hope of a son.
Six daughters sounded terrifying to Victoria, and childbirth six times.
Delphine popped them out every time without a problem.
But Victoria didn’t envy her. Six daughters sounded like hell on earth to Victoria, no matter how cute they were.
Motherhood was a need Victoria didn’t have and was sure she never would.
She preferred what she was doing with Bert’s business.
* * *
While riding back from Yorkshire that day, she was thinking about the wools they were using, and she wasn’t entirely satisfied with the woolen fabrics they were weaving.
They were stiff and a little rigid, which limited their usefulness.
As she thought of it on the train home, she had an idea.
Possibly a crazy idea, but it seemed like an incredible opportunity if she could pull it off.
She wasn’t quite sure how to do it. She wished that Hubert Maddox were there to discuss it with her, or Bert.
The project was so mammoth that she couldn’t decide where to start.
She needed to know someone in the military supply office.
She wracked her brain for the rest of the train ride home and hadn’t come up with a name yet.
She didn’t tell anyone about her idea when she got home, but she had a feeling that Bert would have approved, and maybe even thought it brilliant. It felt like a stroke of genius to her.
On Monday she got the name of the chief supply officer in the War Office, and decided to go to London to present the idea in person, if she could get an appointment.
She left for London that night, promising to be back in a few days.
She told only her secretary where she was going.
The next day, in London, she called the War Office.
Much to her amazement, she got an appointment for Friday morning, with Lord Colonel Homer Broome.
She spent the next two days doing errands around London. There were men in uniform everywhere.
She took a cab to the meeting, driven by a female cab driver, and arrived ten minutes early. A woman in uniform led her into Colonel Broome’s office at precisely nine a.m., and he invited her to sit down. She took the chair across from his desk, and he smiled at her.
“I’m very happy to meet you, Lady Victoria, your father and I were old friends.
Our fathers were at Oxford together.” She took it as a sign that the gods were looking favorably on her.
“And I have a son in Yorkshire, who tells me you’re setting all the mills on their ear.
” He looked amused as he said it. She seemed so young and innocent, but clearly she was a very enterprising young woman.
“I run my late husband’s factories, which are now almost entirely staffed by women, whom we’ve trained, and it’s working out very well. We have four thousand workers,” she said simply, and he was impressed.
“And what brings you to me today?” He was intrigued.
“We have a wool mill in Yorkshire, and seven factories in Manchester. I’d like to propose stopping production on our usual goods for the duration of the war, and making uniforms for the military.” She looked at him with wide eyes, and he stared at her.
“Did you think of that?” he asked her.
“I did, sir. I think it would be profitable for both of us. Once we have the patterns set, and the fabric, we can produce what you need at a very rapid rate. And I can hire more workers if I need them. A government contract would be a great thing for us, and we can handle the kind of volume you need. It could be very mutually beneficial.”
“I think you should be running the war, Lady Victoria. You appear to be a very resourceful young woman.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Would you write me up a proposal? Then I’ll put it through the proper channels.
” Victoria reached into her purse and brought out five pages clipped together, typed on the Banning Industries letterhead, and handed them to him, and he was even more impressed.
She was no amateur, she was a very capable businesswoman, and he thought her idea was exactly what they needed.
The military were planning to speak to factories all over England, and she was a step ahead of them.
He glanced at the papers she had handed him and they appeared to be very professionally done and in good order.
He stood up and shook her hand across his desk.
“You’ll be hearing from me very soon,” he said, and two minutes later she was out of his office.
The meeting had taken half an hour, and although she had been afraid he would reject her idea, instead he seemed to like it.
By the time she left the building, he was already on the phone to the proper channels, and sent her proposal to them by courier shortly after.
Victoria picked her bag up at the house then, rode the train back to Manchester, and took a cab home. She didn’t have time to call Seamus. She got home at four o’clock, and drove herself to the office to check on things there.
Her meeting that day proved to be one of her best creative ideas for the business.
In November she signed a government contract, which was the most profitable deal they had ever made.
She wished that Hubert Maddox were there so she could tell him about it, but he had already been sent to the Continent by then, and the fighting had begun.
The government contract for uniforms provided a level playing field, since it was a new product for the factories, and everyone was learning the production needs and pitfalls at the same time.
After the first prototypes, they figured out ways to manufacture the uniforms more quickly.
They stopped all other production for the duration of the war, and it was of huge financial benefit to the business.
The other mill owners were green with envy when they heard about it, and it gave Victoria the respect and credibility they had denied her until then.
In December, when they held the mill owners’ dinner, they invited her for the first time.
The evening was somewhat awkward, but they were charmed by her modesty and impressed by how bright she was.
She had trumped them soundly with the government contract.
There were others after that, but hers was by far the largest and most profitable.
The dinner was held at the Union Club, which normally didn’t admit women beyond its front door, but they made an exception for her.
It was Manchester’s oldest private club, modeled on all the finest men’s clubs in London.
It had a smoking room, a coffee room, a newsroom and library, a billiard room, several dining rooms, and ten bedrooms. The evening was a triumph for Victoria, and she returned home that night knowing that she had done something very, very good and Bert would have been proud of her.
The mill owners who had attended were extremely nice to her, and Victoria felt accepted by them for the first time.
It had taken nearly two years for them to admit her into their ranks, and they assured her that they hoped she would join them for their monthly dinners. It was a validating moment for her.
After that, she worked straight through Christmas.
She had hated the holidays ever since Bert’s death.
She had no one to spend them with, and she spent Christmas Eve and Day circulating among the shifts working on the holidays, stopping to speak to each of them and thank them.
She recognized one of the old foremen from before the war and she stopped to talk to him for a while.