Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
The scheduled visit to Mr. Thornton’s factory took place on a late winter day. Mr. Hale and his daughter left Mrs. Hale to the comfort of her sitting room and headed out into the dreary cold.
Margaret had often accompanied her father on his way to the Lyceum when he was scheduled to give a lecture on ancient architecture or philosophy. She was now more familiar with the walk to town, which was about two miles of byways and paths.
On the rise of a hill just before they reached the center of town, the wind blew in gusts, and Margaret was glad her bonnet was tied on.
She liked the view from this vantage point, however, and recalled how she had wondered aloud to her father weeks ago which imposing chimney in the skyline below was from Mr. Thornton’s mill.
“From what I understand, Mr. Thornton’s mill is the largest in the town,” her father had replied, and they had guessed which chimney might be the most imposing.
They had seen the towering structure of his mill, of course, when they had visited his home, but now they would enter the very core of Milton’s volcanic power—to see the mystery of its inner workings.
Both father and daughter were curious to see the great factory to which Mr. Thornton’s life was tied.
The visitors reached Marlborough Street at last and walked through the tall, open gates into the mill yard.
Margaret glanced cautiously at the upper windows of the grand stone house standing to one side.
A smile crept to her face as she imagined Mrs. Thornton spending a portion of each day just standing there to admire her son’s empire.
But a “Halloo!” from a burly man coming to meet them brought her attention to their purpose.
“Mr. Hale? The name’s Williams. I’m the overseer. Mr. Thornton sent me to bring you along.” He turned back toward the building, and they dutifully followed.
He led them into a door, and they walked through a hallway into a great room where bits of cotton fluff floated in the air.
A giant wheel on the far wall drew in much of the floating cotton ‘snow.’ At the center of the room was a massive machine with turning cylinders of some kind that creaked.
The roar and clank of heavier machinery could be heard in the distance.
A few girls were working in the room, their hair bound inside headscarves. One of the girls looked up from her work to notice the visitors, but the others kept their heads down.
“This here is the carding room. Mr. Thornton should be here shortly. I’ll tell him you’re here.” Mr. Williams announced before opening another door and disappearing.
Margaret had, of course, seen cottagers spinning cotton into thread and making cloth. But she’d never seen it done on such a scale. Her father took an interest in the machinery, while Margaret wondered about the lives of these girls.
“Hello,” Margaret ventured kindly when the girl glanced at her again. “Have you been working here for long?” she asked.
“Only a few months,” she answered shyly. “My father got me work here at Thornton’s because it were better for my health. I worked at Hamper’s afore that.”
“How is this mill better than any other?” Margaret asked, intrigued.
“Mr. Thornton put in a wheel undefinedhere to clear away cotton fluff. So there’s less fluff floatin’ around to get in yo’r lungs,” she explained, casting curious glances at Margaret as she tended to her work.
Margaret listened solemnly. That other mill owners might not take any care for the health of their workers shocked her. Was Mr. Thornton different from the rest?
“My name is Margaret Hale. May I ask your name?”
The girl stared at her for a moment. “Bessy Higgins,” she replied. Seldom did women such as her come and look at all their doings. And never would such a one speak to a factory girl so kindly.
Margaret smiled, and Bessy couldn’t help smiling in return.
“Do you like working here?” Margaret asked, but Bessy snapped her attention to her work, her visage hardened.
“Mr. Hale, Miss Hale.” The familiar Darkshire voice made her heart skip a beat.
Margaret whipped around to find herself under Mr. Thornton’s gaze. She colored, wondering if he had heard her question.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. But I see you have made the time useful,” he remarked. “This is the carding room. The carding machines work like a comb, straightening knotted fibers into long ropes we call ‘slivers.’ These cotton ropes are collected in cans that are taken to the next station.”
Mr. Thornton led them to the next door. Margaret glanced back before following, exchanging a last glance with the factory girl. Had Bessy been frightened by Mr. Thornton’s presence? She wondered if he was stern and unforgiving in the treatment of his workers.
They moved through a brief corridor, and the Master stopped before the next door.
“The next room is our spinning shed. Each machine, which we call mules, has over a thousand spindles. The cotton is twisted and stretched to make yarn. It is important that the temperature is warm enough here that the cotton will not break,” Mr. Thornton explained before opening the door to let them in.
Heavy mechanical mules slowly rolled back and forth over the floor, pulling long threads.
Margaret’s eye caught a flash of movement, and she turned to stare aghast at two young children scrambling beneath the long strands to gather the cotton that had fallen.
Their bare feet were smudged with mud, and their breeches were worn and ragged.
She guessed them to be about eight years of age and marveled that they should be scurrying so near the massive moving machinery.
Mr. Thornton then shepherded them through another corridor before stopping before a massive wooden door on an iron track. He explained that the weaving shed would be very loud as each power loom shuttles warp and weft threads across the width of the cloth two hundred times a minute.
He heaved aside the heavy door on rails to reveal a cavernous space filled with rows upon rows of clattering and clacking machinery.
Mr. Hale watched the arms and looms in their monotony of motion, while Margaret noticed the living humans whose daily labor was to tend to these monstrosities. The noise was deafening.
After gaining a full view of this cavernous room and all the cacophonous operations therein, she studied the Master. He walked with head erect, surveying his realm as a sovereign—as he rightly was in this place. And she saw the cautious looks from the workers that he garnered as he passed by.
She could not help but admire how commanding his figure appeared amid this seeming chaos. He was a man of power, and he knew it. But her awe was tempered by a sense of uncertain dismay at his apparent control over so many lives. How did he treat those who worked for him?
He walked his guests to the far side of the vast weaving shed, when Mr. Williams hurried to his side to inform him of something unheard by the visitors.
Mr. Thornton then begged apologies for the abruptness of his coming and going, but added that he hoped they had enjoyed seeing how cotton was made into cloth in his mill, and explained that he was obliged to leave them.
The overseer who had first met them, now led them to an exit near the great steam engine that powered the entire factory. Margaret looked up at the high-reaching chimney and the plumes of smoke dissolving into the mottled gray winter sky.
A boy, not yet a man, with a soot-stained face and blackened gloves shoveled coal into an opening in the brick wall, his breath visible as puffs of gray in the frigid cold.
Margaret shivered and drew her coat close around her. Inside the factory had been warm, and she realized how the mill might offer many people inside their warmest hours of the day.
Mr. Hale wondered at the magnificence of such an operation as they hurried home—while Margaret remarked upon how many lives were affected by their daily work there.
The sight of so many women at work made her wonder who was tending their homes?
It was all a far cry from the cottage life in Helstone, where hearth and home were central.
Here, work for pay consumed the better part of the day.
And to think that they worked six days from dawn to dusk.
She was glad to think that the winter hours were shorter, for the early coming of dark allowed these workers more time to be home with their families.
Home life in Milton followed less invigorating and engaging patterns for Mr. Hale’s family.
Without parishioners to look after, Mrs. Hale and Margaret were left with much less to occupy their days.
Margaret read to her mother most mornings, and noticed with not a little anxiety that her mother languished much more often than not.
She was glad that Dixon could be a companion of sorts for her mother, but Dixon had grown bitter with all the housework and cooking that fell upon her, for they had found it difficult to hire enough suitable help.
The girls they had seen demanded more pay and were less willing to live under Dixon’s strict rules.
Margaret missed the solace and joy of taking walks in the fields and moors of her childhood hamlet. She needed to feel a part of the larger world and escaped the confines of her home nearly every afternoon to take long walks and observe all she could in her new surroundings.
Free to go where she would, she was glad her mother put no strictures on her roaming as her Aunt Shaw had done in London. She had sometimes felt a prisoner in her cousin’s grand home. How astounded Aunt Shaw would be to know that Margaret walked the streets of Milton alone.
Her soul found beauty in the streaming life on these streets. The energy of brisk movement and people engaged in purposeful activity lifted her flagging spirits on days when her home seemed desultory and empty. Here, there was always hope for the future, a decided air of reaching for progress.
But progress appeared a sham in the boroughs where poverty was mired in the dregs left by those most successful in seeking their own profits. How could such disparity live side by side?
Margaret looked up at the tall chimneys that cluttered the skyline.
All these towering factories proclaimed to play a part in making England renown.
But what of all the hundreds of workers who toiled long days, stationed at the mechanical marvels that made other men wealthy?
Were these people not worthy of taking part in the country’s splendid success?
It disturbed her to think of how unfairly the balance of justice hung, when so very few seemed to enjoy the benefits.
The spacious, perfectly furnished drawing room at the Thorntons'—with thick brocade curtains, glistening mahogany, and pristine ornamentations—contrasted sharply with the harsh environment of the factory that sat across from such comfortable luxury.
Her jaw tightened to imagine that the Thorntons never gave a thought to their mode of living, and how it compared to the lives of the workers who made their wealth.
In the evenings, it seemed to Margaret that Mr. Thornton was a frequent topic of conversation at dinner.
She knew that although her father had acquired a few other students, Mr. Thornton remained his favorite.
And her father’s fascination with all he was learning about Milton led him to share something Mr. Thornton had told him.
“Were you aware that Mr. Thornton is a magistrate?” he asked his family as he buttered his bread one evening.
“I was surprised to hear it from one of my new students. Although perhaps it ought not to be so surprising. He certainly has a very fine capacity for discernment and logical reasoning, and I believe his sense of moral justice is firmly fixed to carry such a role in the town very well. I can only imagine how busy he must be if he works all day overseeing his mill and is called to cases occasionally,” he said, taking a bite of roast.
“He’s rather young for a magistrate, is he not?” Mrs. Hale wondered, still in the process of sipping her soup.
“I should say so. I don’t think we have quite understood the standing he has in this town. I’m very glad to have him come to me for his learning. It is an honor for me to call him my pupil.”
Mrs. Hale’s expression was one of confusion. “But you are the Oxford scholar,” she returned.
“Yes, but how one is esteemed in society is different here. Accomplishments in business account for a great deal in Milton society.”
“Would Mr. Thornton then be considered something comparable to a gentleman in Milton?” Mrs. Hale queried in some astonishment.
“In some regards, I believe so,” her husband answered.
Margaret followed the conversation in silence. Conflicting opinions rose and fell within her as she considered how much esteem Mr. Thornton should be given.