by Emma Newman
He stood up, running his hands through his hair. “Like I am?”
She studied his face. He was defensive, and she needed to be more cautious around him. He was one of theirs now. As much as she wanted to believe he would take her side over that of the Royal Society, she couldn’t be certain. She blinked away the tears brought by that realisation. She was losing him. And from his point of view, she was being reckless; he had no idea about what Hopkins had been doing to help her. Of course, she couldn’t tell him. She had to redirect the conversation.
“Dotty, my friend, said this happened before,” she said. “In one of the previous incidents.” It was only a small lie. If nothing like that had ever happened before, the foreman and Dotty would have been much more frightened by it.
“No one said anything to me about looms lifting into the air.”
“Of course not,” she said. “The foreman told us to keep quiet. I’m not supposed to tell a soul, otherwise he’ll beat me again.”
“Again?”
She’d never seen Ben look angry before. “He saw me looking at the wall that divides the mill from where the magi must be. It wasn’t even when I was supposed to be at the looms; it was still in the lunch break. He hit me with the strap.” She pulled the shawl down to show him the mark on her face. “There are other bruises, too.”
Ben’s face flushed scarlet. “As soon as I have the power to do so, I’ll see to it that he’s dismissed,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m so sorry, Charlie. I’ve put you in danger. What was I thinking? I’ll never forgive myself.”
The words flooded her with relief. He was still her brother, despite the gulf between them now. “I forgive you. You had no idea what it’s like for the people who work there.”
“They get three meals a day and a safe place to sleep,” he said, folding his arms. “Ledbetter Mills are the best employers in the area.” He actually looked proud of this. “The best in the country, I’d wager. Everyone wants to work there.”
Now it was her turn to stare at him. “If that is one of the best mills, I dread to think what the worst ones are like.”
“Oh, come now. You’re simply not used to it, that’s all. It’s just a bit of a shock. Only another day or so and you can put it all behind you. Why are you looking at me that way? What have I said?”
Charlotte pressed her lips tight together, willing herself to stay calm. She shouldn’t be angry with him. But she couldn’t stand the way he looked at her, like she was some feeble girl who was overreacting. “I have no idea how you think I will be able to just put this behind me. How can I just go back to my life, leaving those poor souls in a place like that?”
“You’re clearly overtired and upset about that dreadful foreman. There’s no need to be so melodramatic!”
“Melodramatic!” She jumped to her feet, her exhaustion forgotten in her anger. “Those meals are not enough to keep a child’s belly full, let alone an adult working a fifteen-hour day! And that’s not to mention the heat and the air inside that place! And the noise . . . my ears are still ringing!”
“It’s hard work, Charlie, you’re just not used to it.”
She took a breath to argue but the ringing in her ears got louder and the room started to darken. She was dimly aware of Ben guiding her back into the armchair and then, with the utmost embarrassment, Charlotte realised she’d almost fainted.
“I’ll open the window,” Ben said. “You look fit to pass out.”
He didn’t lift the net curtain to open the sash, keeping his face hidden from view. She realised he was afraid someone would see him there; it reminded her of the risk they were taking.
The fresh air helped. “I can’t describe how awful it is for them there,” she said, Ben kneeling in front of her again, this time looking at her with concern. “There are people with fingers missing . . .”
“That’s because of the old type of looms, darling,” he said. “The new ones are a lot safer.”
“And there are children with deformed legs . . .”
“If they didn’t work at the mill, they’d work somewhere else,” Ben said. “Sweet Charlie Bean, always wanting to take care of everyone. It isn’t your fault they have to work. It’s just the way things are for that sort of person.”
“What do you mean?”
“They wouldn’t be there if their parents had bettered themselves. Like ours did. Don’t forget that our grandparents were dirt poor, living off the land. They came into the city and they worked hard and lifted their children up, do you see?”
She thought of Dotty. “Some of them don’t even have parents.”
“And that’s sad, but—”
“And how can they better themselves when they can hardly stay awake at the end of a shift? Most of their wages goes to food and board, so how can they ever change their lives?”
Ben laughed. “You expect the mill to pay for their subsistence? Most mills pay less and leave the workers to find their own beds in the slums. Ledbetter’s—”
“It’s killing them, Ben! They look so ill and they cough all the time—it’s the air, I’m sure of it—I’ve been coughing, too, and they won’t let anyone open the windows! They’re so cruel!”
He sighed. “That isn’t cruelty! The air has to be warm and humid, otherwise the cotton threads snap! And if they opened the windows, the lint would fly about and make things worse.”
She could understand the logic of that, but it still seemed cruel. And the thought of going back there in the morning, working those frightening machines, filled her with unspeakable dread.
“I don’t think this was a good idea after all,” he said, looking at her. “I shouldn’t have made you do this. I feel terrible. I’ll get your things and we’ll put you up a hotel tonight and—”
The thought of a hotel bed was almost too tempting. But then she remembered why she had gone through that awful day at the mill. “No, Ben! We have to understand what’s happening there. If you send me home, there’s no way for you to beat Paxton. What if he pins it all on you?”
“It hardly seems decent to prioritise my apprenticeship over your safety.”
Truth be told, she wasn’t only thinking of that. She had to be certain she hadn’t caused the loom’s destruction, and if it hadn’t been her doing, she had to understand what had happened! Besides, she was hoping to gather other evidence against Ledbetter. “Ben, I need to do this. As much as you love me, I love you. I won’t let you down.”
The clock towers rang out over the city, a different range and harmony to those of London, reminding her how far she was from home. Was Hopkins in one of those towers now? How she wished she could see him.
They looked at each other. “Nine bells. It’s getting dark,” Ben said. “I can’t escort you back, though. I might be seen.”
She stood, feeling better than before. “It’s not far. May I take the currant buns with me?” At his nod, she picked up the bundle and went to open the door. She looked outside at the darkening street, hesitating.
“I’m sorry it’s so hard, Charlie. Truly, I am.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said, turning to look back on him in the shadows of the hallway. “I can go home soon. They can’t. Darling, you must promise me that you will try to make things better there, as soon as you can.”
“I promise,” he said after a long pause. “Come back same time tomorrow. And be careful, Charlie.”
When he closed the door behind her, Charlotte felt horribly alone. She wriggled her fingers between a gap in the brown paper and counted four buns. She allowed herself to pick one currant off the top before closing it up again, saving them for the ladies in her dorm. She felt Ben watching her as she left, so she looked back in the hope of one last wave, but there was only darkness at the windows.
Chapter 6
ON THE WAY BACK to the mill gates, Charlotte looked for Hopkins amongst the gentlemen going about their business. She searched the tide of dark grey and black frock coats, hoping for a glimpse of burgu
ndy, but there was none.
She was disturbed by how disappointed she felt. When she’d collided with him in the street in the midst of the crisis with her father’s debt, she’d been furious with him for his interference. Now she craved it. She felt jittery and unfocused, her heart a starling, fears blooming in her stomach. What if she had broken the loom? What if her grip on her abilities wasn’t as secure as she’d thought? In London, at the end of her last lesson with Hopkins, he’d actually complimented her on it.
She’d beaten him in a game of bagatelle, having successfully controlled the small metal balls with enough finesse to move them around the wooden pegs and into the little holes on the board to score the highest points. None of the balls in play had been engraved with their respective marques, to make it fair. As a Fine Kinetics magus, Hopkins would have won hands down if the balls had been fully under his command. When they totted up the final scores and Charlotte was declared winner, she’d squeaked with delight.
“You could be one of the most powerful magi in the city,” he’d said, with no little admiration. He so rarely complimented her, it had made her blush.
“Well, I have an excellent tutor.”
“My dear Miss Gunn,” he’d said with one of his devastating smiles. “Your power has nothing whatsoever to do with me. Your ability to control it, however, does. You do understand the risk we are taking, don’t you?”
She’d nodded, solemn. “Won’t you tell me what you have in mind for me, Magus Hopkins? You said that I’d be your eyes and ears, and that we’d take down Ledbetter together. When can we start?”
The way he’d looked at her then had made her feel most strange. It was as if he were reluctant, but there was something else in his eyes that she could not fathom. She found it hard to read him, distracted as she was by how unreasonably handsome he was. He’d gotten up and crossed the small garret where they always met, hidden at the top of the Henrietta Street clock tower. There was a small window that looked down over Covent Garden. Their lessons always took place against a backdrop of shouts from the vegetable and flower sellers. “Soon,” he’d finally said, though she suspected that many other thoughts had gone unspoken. “Perhaps I have been overprotective.” He’d twisted round sharply then. “Of the general public, you understand. Sending you out to investigate something, perhaps even using your esoteric skills, feels like sending a fishing boat laden with gunpowder out onto the Thames.”
She’d deflated at the fact that he wasn’t confessing to being overprotective of her, and had immediately felt another sharp pang of guilt. How absurdly selfish of her, to wish that he’d want to keep her safe for any other reason. She was engaged to be married to a man she loved dearly, one who loved her, too. George had a respectable job and an admirable character. Hopkins was a magus of the Royal Society, forbidden to marry, like a Catholic priest. She’d tried so hard to think of him that way, like a man of the cloth there to guide her, rising above thoughts of the flesh. It was almost impossible, when he had a face that could have been carved into marble and admired for all time. And those blond curls . . . How many times had she sat on her hands to stop herself from discovering how it would feel to let them play through her fingers? And his lips . . . How many times had she imagined how they would feel upon her skin?
Then she’d remembered what he’d said. “I am no fishing boat, sir!”
He’d laughed. “My apologies. A royal barge, perhaps.”
“Oh, so I am wide and lumbering?” She’d stood, grabbing her bonnet and shoving it onto her head. “Thank you very much.”
“It amuses me that you take offence to the type of vessel rather than the gunpowder,” he’d said, with that maddening glint in his eyes. It was as if he enjoyed seeing her cross with him. What a perverted creature he was. How glad she was to be engaged to her sensible, kindly George.
She’d tied the ribbon of her bonnet so swiftly and with so little care that she caught a pinch of her skin in the bow. She’d ignored the sting, not wanting to show how he unsettled her. “Thank you for your lesson, Magus Hopkins,” she’d said tersely. “I bid you good day.”
“Don’t forget to leave by the tunnel,” he’d reminded her. As if she would forget! It was the only entrance she ever used. She couldn’t be seen going into a clock tower in broad daylight!
“Do you think me entirely stupid?” she’d snapped, and then he was in front of the door, scooping up her hand as was his way, bending to kiss the back of her glove tenderly. She’d gritted her teeth as her toes curled inside her boots.
“Far from it, Miss Gunn,” he’d said, finally releasing her. “Good day.”
Charlotte was so absorbed in her memory of him that she almost bumped into a lady crossing her path. Stopping just in time, Charlotte said, “Oh, I do beg your pardon! My mind was quite elsewhere!”
“I could see that, love.”
It was Mags, from the mill, and Charlotte blinked at her in surprise. “Oh, Mags, hello! Are you going back to the dorm?”
“I was ’opin’ to speak to you first, lass, if y’don’t mind? P’raps we could walk the long way round to our gate?”
Charlotte nodded, hearing something in the woman’s voice that put her on edge. “Of course.”
“What y’got there?” Mags nodded at the little bundle.
“Currant buns,” Charlotte replied. “I thought we could share them out in the dorm.”
“Well, there’s a kindly thought,” Mags said. “Did y’fancy fella give them to yer?”
Charlotte reddened. “I beg your pardon?”
“The bakery closed before the end of our shift, so y’couldn’t ’ave bought them yerself.” Mags, hands on hips, tilted her head as she examined Charlotte’s face. “Who are you really, Miss Baker?”
“What do you mean?”
Mags scratched her chin. “I’m not the sorta woman who plays games. I like it all out in the open. I can’t be arsed with tricks or with bloody bible bashers sendin’ in their soft daughters to try and do God’s work in t’mill.”
“Bible basher? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” As she denied it, Charlotte tried desperately to think of a good excuse for the buns, but it was clear that was the last thing on Mags’s mind.
“Who are yer? Who sent yer?”
“No one, don’t be silly! I told you, my husband died and—”
“Oh, go on with yer. I’ve never ’eard such a load of bobbins in my life. There’s no way you’ve lived through that. Look at yer. All fresh faced and plump cheeked. You’ve never ’ad to scrimp nor scrub to survive. Did that Ben send yer?”
The flush that crept up Charlotte’s throat was enough to heat a small room. “Were you eavesdropping?”
Mags nodded. “I’ll come clean. I followed you, cos I knew y’weren’t what you said y’were. I wanted to know who sent yer. Who’s that Ben? Did he send you t’work at t’mill?”
How much had she heard? For a moment, all Charlotte could do was steady her breath, panicked by the thought of what she and Ben had discussed. But then she remembered him opening the window late in the conversation. That might have saved her. Surely if Mags had heard anything about the Royal Society, this conversation would already be going very differently. There was no point denying it; she’d obviously heard enough to know that Charlotte was spying.
“Ben is my brother,” she said, not wanting Mags to think she was the kind of young lady who would sneak off to meet her lover in a seedy cottage, despite the fact that she was actually a young woman who regularly sneaked off to meet a magus. “He’s not a ‘bible basher.’ He’s a writer.”
Mags nodded and the tension eased. “Ah, someone who wants to expose what life is like for us common folk, eh? But too high and mighty to do it ’imself? Or did you just draw the short straw?”
“No, it’s not like that,” Charlotte said, settling more comfortably into this lie, it being much closer to the truth. “I do the illustrations for him. In secret. He passes them off as his own. We’ve been wo
rking together for a couple of years now.” It was easy to say, because it was what she’d always wanted as a child. She and Ben had talked about it as he lay in bed, sick, as life passed him by. Charlotte would read to him and they’d talk about him writing stories that she could illustrate. But he never had the energy to create anything, and as soon as he was well again, the last thing he wanted was to sit at a desk. “We want to expose how bad the conditions are in the mill.” That was true, for her, at least.
Mags sighed. “Yer not the first, y’know. Listen to me, lass. It’s clear you’re a delicate one, and this ain’t the place for yer. Y’need to go back to that brother of yours and tell ’im you’ve ’ad enough. There’s no shame in it.”
“No shame? I beg to differ. What sort of person would I be if I ran away after only one day?”
“The sort of person who ’as somewhere to go,” Mags said. “The only people who work in places like this are the ones who ’ave no choice.”
Charlotte grasped Mags’s arm. “But that’s exactly the reason why I must stay! The people who don’t have to work here simply don’t care. And that’s wrong.”
Mags arched an eyebrow. “It’s the way of the world, lass. In’t that what yer brother said? For people like us?”
“Well, it shouldn’t be,” Charlotte said. “And anyway, what he said was thoughtless and rude and desperately unfair.”
Mags smiled at her and rested her hand over Charlotte’s. “Ee by ’eck, I knew you was more than you look!”
Charlotte couldn’t understand the change in the woman’s demeanour. “Have I missed something?”
Mags laughed. “I wanted to see if y’were goin’ to give up, y’know, when I found you out. But yer not, are yer? There’s a fire in y’belly, and y’might be a slip of nothin’ but yer just the sorta person we need.” She linked arms with Charlotte and they started walking again. “Thing is, love, there’s been a few of us that’s been tryin’ to get people to pay attention for a long while. We’ve tried all sorts of things, but the magi are vicious sods, and they don’t like anyone standin’ up to ’em. I was lookin’ out for yer because the last time someone got into t’mill to spy on workin’ conditions, she got caught by the Royal Society, and it didn’t go well for ’er.”
