Ghosts of Yorkshire

by Karen Perkins

  ‘I’m sorry, lass. Mornings ain’t a good time for her. She’s still in so much pain, has been since birth, but at least she’s getting about easier now than she were.’

  ‘But the birth was over a year ago, Harry.’

  ‘Aye, and don’t I ruddy know it.’

  Emily touched his arm. ‘Don’t give up hope. I have some more of the preparation Mrs Hardaker makes.’ She gave him a small bottle. ‘She’s still not happy about making it up without seeing Martha, you know what druggists are like, but she trusts me. And knows Martha of old.’

  ‘Thank thee, Emily. It does help, even though she won’t admit it and I have to sneak it into her food.’

  ‘Just take care, Harry, she’ll have you in the gaolhouse for trying to poison her.’

  Harry grunted. ‘Nay, she won’t.’ He cheered up as the thought struck him. ‘Without it, she’d never get upstairs on her own. Happen laudanum’s the only thing ever gives either of us a bit of peace.’ He laughed. ‘Anyway, she needs me to earn our living. She wouldn’t want to rely on alms or you for her bread, even if I really were poisoning her.’

  ‘That won’t be an issue after next week.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m departing with Charlotte for Brussels on Tuesday next.’

  ‘What?’ Harry’s mouth dropped open in shock. ‘You’re leaving? You? But—’

  ‘I know, I know, but we’re serious about founding this school, and Charlotte is convinced a few months studying in Brussels at the Pensionnat Heger will give us vital experience and make it much more likely to succeed.’

  ‘A few months?’

  ‘Weeks if I can help it.’ Emily smiled. ‘You know how I get if I’m too long from the moors.’

  ‘Aye, ’tis like a sickness in you.’

  ‘So you know I won’t be away long.’ She glanced at the house. ‘Martha should be cheered, at least. She hates the very sight of me, it seems.’

  ‘Don’t thee mind her. She’s a jealous woman, in all things. Allus has been. And pain’s making her worse.’

  ‘Mrs Hardaker has upped the amount of laudanum.’ Emily indicated the bottle that Harry still held in his hand. ‘That should ease the pain; the pain in her body anyway. Branwell swears it heals pain in the mind an’all. Maybe my absence will help to heal the pain in her heart.’

  ‘I’ll miss thee, Emily,’ Harry whispered.

  ‘Aye, I know. I’ll miss you too. All of you.’ She turned to encompass the dogs, duck and pheasant that patiently awaited her. ‘Wish I could take all my friends with me.’

  Harry knew he was excluded from that sentiment, it was only the company of animals and birds that Emily craved.

  7.

  Edna grasped hold of her mother’s skirts, trying to hide in the folds as a dray cart, laden with casks, thundered down West Lane, barely a foot away.

  ‘Oh don’t fret, lass,’ Martha scolded as she knocked on the door. ‘ ’Tis only a drayman. Scared of owt, thee is.’

  ‘How do, Martha, thank thee for coming,’ Sarah Butterworth said as she opened the door.

  Edna shrank even further into the protection of Martha’s skirts. Sarah had only just survived the outbreak of smallpox a couple of years before. Glad of her life, she nonetheless rued the loss of her looks; her face now a patchwork of disfiguring scars left behind by the foul pustules.

  ‘Aye, well, sorry for thy troubles,’ Martha said. ‘What else are friends for?’ She followed Sarah into the house and deposited Edna and Thomas into the care of Sarah’s eldest girl, Betty. Aged seven years, she’d be following her elder brother’s footsteps on to the mill floor any day now.

  ‘He’s upstairs,’ Sarah said. She lit a candle and led the way up, solicitously walking slowly to give Martha time to climb the stairs.

  ‘In here.’ She pushed open the door to a small, dim room and used her flame to light two more.

  ‘Ain’t this the haunted room?’ Martha asked.

  ‘Aye, none of kids’ll sleep in it for fear of the Pendle witch. He has no choice now, though.’ Sarah nodded to a trestle table under the shuttered window.

  Martha walked over to the small, still figure of Edward, and crossed herself. ‘Such a shame, and him only seven.’

  ‘Eight,’ Sarah corrected. ‘He turned eight last month.’

  ‘Of course he did, damn fine day it were too. Strapping lad he were, such a shame,’ she repeated.

  ‘Aye, he were a good worker. Old Man Rook thought highly of him up at mill. He had a good future ahead; family won’t be same without him.’

  They stood in silence a moment, regarding the child’s body. Betty could only look forward to a spinner’s wage, Edward could have had his own loom in a few years and earned a decent wage weaving pieces for the Rooks. Ain’t going to happen now.

  ‘Aye, a right shame,’ Martha said again.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Reet, so what needs doing?’ Martha had had enough of sentimentality and got down to the business at hand.

  ‘The lot, I’m afraid. Wash him, dress him, then sew him into his shroud. Our Robert’s gone to see Tobias Webster about coffin boards, then parson will bury him next week.’

  ‘Next week? Why so long?’

  ‘He has his own bereavement, ain’t you heard? His sister passed last night. All funerals have to wait.’

  ‘Miss Branwell’s passed?’

  ‘Aye. That’s why we’re doing this. Doris is up at parsonage, laying out Miss Branwell, and I’ll not have my Edward lying here still with mill dust on him. Bad enough it killed him, he’ll not suffer it in death an’all.’

  ‘It were the mill lung?’

  ‘Aye. Either that or the consumption. Result’s the same, anyroad.’

  Sarah bent her head to her son. ‘He’s loosening up now.’ She eased his left arm out of his jacket and Martha limped round to take care of his right.

  Sarah lifted him to remove the woollen garment, folded it neatly, and placed it on the seat of a wooden chair. ‘It’ll do for our lass’s boy, Stephen. He’s growing fast that one.’

  ‘Aye, ’tis a good jacket,’ Martha said.

  ‘Sewed it mesen,’ Sarah said unnecessarily. Almost everyone in the village made their own clothes.

  She untied his shirt, then moved the body into a sitting position so she could lift it over his head.

  Next were his breeks, then his long johns, and soon the eight-year-old boy lay pale and mottled with blue on the makeshift table.

  Sarah fetched a bowl of water and placed it on the wooden boards by his feet. Both women wrung out rags and started to wipe away the dirt from Edward’s skin.

  ‘So if Miss Branwell’s passed, the sisters will no doubt be returning home,’ Martha said.

  ‘Aye, more than likely. They’ll want to be here for their aunt’s funeral, no matter how far they have to travel. She more or less raised them after their ma died so young.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Thee still fretting about Emily and Harry?’

  Martha shrugged.

  ‘They’re just pals, Martha, allus have been, ever since they were little. Thee knows that.’

  ‘She allus hangs about him.’

  Sarah tsked. ‘No she don’t. She stops by to say how do, the workshop and house is right by the parsonage. ’Twould be an insult if she didn’t.’

  ‘Far too ruddy often if thee asks me.’

  ‘She ain’t got no eyes for anyone, ’cept them animals that follow her around everywhere.’

  ‘She’s a rum ’un.’

  ‘Aye, that she is. And so’s thee, Martha Sutcliffe, if thee can’t see that Harry only has eyes for thee.’

  Martha screwed up her face in a scowl.

  ‘He still ain’t touched thee? Not since ...’ Sarah knew better than to mention Thomas’s birth, even though she’d lived every agonising minute with Martha.

  ‘Won’t let him.’ Martha shrugged. ‘Last bairn all but crippled me. I ain’t chancing another.’

&n
bsp; Sarah said naught, but stroked the cheek of her son.

  ‘I’d love more, but Robert won’t come near me now.’ She indicated her face. ‘Hardly ever here, either. It’s just me and the girls now.’

  ‘Well, what a pair of misery guts we are!’

  Sarah managed a slight smile, then looked up at her lifelong friend, expecting her to have more words of wisdom. She was unprepared for the look of horror on Martha’s white face.

  Slowly, Sarah turned to see what had frightened Martha so.

  A figure, a woman, hanged from the rafters in the middle of the room, little more than a foot away. She slowly rotated on the rope that encircled her neck, creating deep purple welts, her tongue protruding from her swollen face, cocked to one side. Inch by inch, the head straightened, and Sarah later swore she saw that grotesque mouth stretch in a smile.

  She would see no more though; with a piercing shriek, she bolted from the room.

  Sarah’s scream broke Martha’s paralysis, and she limped around the room, as far away from the apparition as she could manage, and followed her friend.

  As she approached the top of the stairs, Sarah had reached the bottom, flung the door open, and charged into the street.

  Straight into the path of a heavily laden wool cart.

  The horse’s shriek matched Sarah’s and the drayman’s for intensity, and the animal reared up as Sarah floundered beneath its pawing hoofs.

  Robert Butterworth, returning from his meeting with Tobias Webster, was quick enough in mind to grab hold of her, and he hauled her away from the descending horseflesh.

  ‘What the Devil do you think you’re doing, woman? Scaring the horse like that! Get back inside with you. All this carry on and our son lying dead upstairs!’ He shoved her back into the house.

  ‘I’ll take care of him, Robert, you look after Sarah,’ Martha said with a gulp. ‘It’s too much for her.’

  She glared at Sarah, warning her not to mention the phantom they had both seen. Robert would not appreciate such tales. She made her slow way back to the room, pushed open the door, and sighed in relief. The only occupant was Edward.

  8.

  ‘Good morn to you, Harry Sutcliffe.’

  Emily received no response bar the rhythmic clanging of Harry’s mallet upon his chisel.

  ‘How do, Harry?’ she shouted, then laughed as the master stonemason jumped and dropped his tools.

  He glared at Emily then inspected the stone he was working on. ‘Lucky for thee, there’s no damage done,’ he said. ‘Good morning to thee.’

  Emily grinned at him. ‘You’re in a world of your own when you’re carving.’

  ‘This is the last impact the dead have on this world,’ Harry said, indicating the stones. ‘Each name and date should be my best work. Though it were almost my own name that needed carving today. I wish thee’d take more care when thee discharges thy father’s pistol of a morning, Emily.’

  She shrugged. ‘I can’t point it at the moors, I might hit a hare or lapwing. Papa jests he’d almost be safer firing it himself, even with his sight failing the way it is.’

  ‘At least he’s never pointed the damned thing towards village, and I were never scared of morning’s shot afore!’

  Another of Emily’s rare smiles graced him. ‘I’d never hit you, Harry Sutcliffe.’

  ‘I’m surprised he still keeps it by his bedside at night, it’s been many years now. Branwell must take more care on his way home from Black Bull on his visits home too; any noisier and he’ll have his father mistaking him for a rioter.’

  ‘Aye, Charlotte’s said the same thing. Papa will never lose his fear of the Luddites, though, and the riots he bore witness to in Hartshead.’

  ‘But he’s safe now surely? It’s only mills and their owners that are being targeted.’

  ‘True, but feeling still runs high. So many children are maimed or worse, and so many families starving now their work can be done faster by machine. ’Tis not only spinners now, there are new contraptions for carding, gilling and winding. If they devise a loom that runs on steam instead of manpower, many more will starve.’

  ‘People have it tough round here, and no mistake,’ Harry said. ‘Thank the Lord for thy father, if he hadn’t had old Mr Barraclough take me on as apprentice all them years back, Lord only knows where I’d be now; and family an’all.’ He shuddered at the thought of little Edna and Thomas going to the mill every day to slave over spinning mules from dawn until dusk and beyond.

  ‘Aye, Haworth’s nowt but one large rookery as it is,’ Emily said, staring downhill at the village spewing coal smoke from every chimney. ‘Reduced to a slum, nowt more.’

  ‘Surely ’tis not so bad as that,’ Harry protested.

  ‘Oh it is. I’ve seen more places than you, Harry Sutcliffe, and Haworth does not measure well. The water stinks, effluent soaks the streets, and sickness thrives. Papa conducts so many funerals, he’s exhausted with it, they each take a toll. ’Tis not right, Harry. Folk should live better.’

  ‘Aye, that they should.’ Harry struggled to order his thoughts. ‘But who shall make it so? The men are so knackered by their work, they have neither time nor heart to fight for better, and ’tis not in the interests of those who are idle to fight.’

  Emily dropped a copy of The Fleet Papers on to the stone on which Harry had been working. She said naught, trusting Harry to know they were the work of the anti-Yorkshire-slavery activist, Richard Oastler, who continued to campaign, despite his ongoing incarceration in The Fleet prison for his debts.

  It took Harry a moment, but then he understood. Emily had talked of him before. He picked up the publication.

  The Fleet Papers; being Letters to Thomas Thornhill Esquire of Riddlesworth from Richard Oastler his prisoner in the Fleet With occasional Communications from Friends.

  ‘Read it,’ she said. ‘Tell people about it. He speaks true.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll spread the word,’ Harry said after scanning the article, his head spinning in dismay with details of corn laws, poor laws and diatribe against the long working days of the mills. ‘I’ll need time to take this in, but I’ll help Oaster’s cause if I can, small as my part may be, if it helps the poor sods who still have to send their nippers to mill instead of school.’

  Emily nodded and opened her mouth to say something more, but the ringing of a bell forestalled her.

  ‘It’s mill,’ Harry said. ‘Summat’s up, come on, lass, there’s summat wrong at mill!’

  He took off running down Church Lane, then up West Lane and on to Lord Lane to Rook’s Mill. Emily’s mastiff, Keeper, kept pace with him, so he knew Emily was not far behind. And, apart from a few souls ahead, he knew the rest of the village not already working in the mills would be there too. All fretting over who was hurt, and praying it was no one of their kin.

  The bell continued its toll.

  9.

  ‘What’s gone on?’ Harry asked Bartholomew Grange, who stood at the mill door, blocking the way.

  Everyone stopped for a moment as the constant rumble of spinning jennies and mules faded into silence. Even Big Bart looked uneasy.

  ‘One of little ’uns got trapped in mule,’ he said, his voice like thunder in the unaccustomed silence.

  ‘Who? Let us in, man! What’s happening?’ A chorus of voices at Harry’s back echoed his own words.

  ‘Let us in, man!’ Harry shouted at Bart, and reached for his lapels. Bart was big, and he was hard, but Harry worked with rock every day, and was likely the only one in the village who could take him on, and Big Bart knew it.

  He stared at him in silence a moment, then flicked his gaze to Harry’s feet. ‘No hobnails on mill floor, Harry.’

  ‘What? Someone’s hurt, and you want me to take me boots off afore I come in? This ain’t the big house thee knows, Bart!’

  ‘No hobnails on mill floor,’ Bart repeated, no expression on his face. ‘Place is full of wool fluff; any spark from nails could have whole place going up in flames.’
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  ‘Come off it, Bart,’ Harry said and tried to push past him. ‘They need our help. Someone could be dying in there.’

  Bart lifted Dasher, his alley strap, and Harry stared at him in shock. Bart was a big man, yes, and a hard man, but he’d never been a cruel man.

  He met Harry’s stare. ‘Only takes a second,’ he said. ‘Me brother were killt that way over at Beckhead Mill. One pair of hobnailed boots, one spark, and whole mill floor were engulfed with flame afore any bugger could get out. Happened in a second and three hundred dead. No hobnails on mill floor.’

  Harry nodded. Bart was right. He bent to free his feet of his boots while Bart repeated his words to the rest of the villagers. ‘Boots off. No hobnails on mill floor.’ He had no need to shout; he was used to making his words heard over machines, no one had any trouble hearing him when the machines were quiet.

  Finally in stockinged feet, he let Harry pass, the others following as quickly as they could.

  The stonemason ran down the main gangway, coughing on the wool fibres in the air, so thick it gave the impression of a snowstorm. He pushed his way through the gaggle of women and children, then stopped short at the sight of his sister, Lizzie. She had a little ’un in her arms.

  Harry couldn’t see who it was and part of him didn’t want to know. By the amount of blood streaked over them both and the floor, there was no helping the child.

  He looked the machine over. One of the new mules; the low horizontal carriage would normally be unrelenting, pulling and spinning the wool fibres through rollers until it reached the end of its traverse, clanging against the support stanchion before travelling back to the main body of the machine to wrap the yarn on to spindles.

  He gulped as he saw white flecks of bone amidst the blood on the second stanchion.

  Harry knelt by his sister. ‘Give her to me, lass.’

  Lizzie slowly turned her head to him and he gasped. Her normally rosy cheeks were stark white, her eyes dark and wide, looking like caves in her normally pretty face.