by Sarah Rayne
Not a morsel of the food delivered to that house reaches the workers in the manufactory, not so much as an egg yolk or a scrape of butter. A more mean-spirited individual than Mr Breadspear I hope never to meet—
The next line had been vigorously scored through, so that it was almost impossible to read it, but Michael, tilting the paper closer to the window’s light, made out the word skinflint. He read on.
It is normally the business of my herdsman to make milk and egg deliveries to customers, but on that morning I took the Salamander House order myself. You may well ask why I should do such a thing, being so busy with the farm, but I am compiling evidence against Breadspear. It’s my firm belief that he half-starves his apprentices, works them every hour God sends, and gives not a jot of care to their safety. They labour for hours on end in the firing rooms, and constantly suffer burns and blisters. Their eyes are often affected by the constant heat of the kilns, and their lungs become dry and scorched. In extreme cases I believe there can be permanent impairment to their sight, and that damage to the lungs is often permanent, as well. If any of those wretched creatures survive much beyond thirty years of age I should regard it as a miracle.
I make no secret of my suspicions regarding Augustus Breadspear, so you may write all this down fair and true, George Buckle, and I shall look at it very sharply before I put my name to it, to be sure it is exactly as I have said. Nor I shan’t listen to any nonsense about knowing my place and respecting my betters, for I farm my own land and Willow Bank came to me fair and square by inheritance and an entail. In short, I am as good as you – in fact I am as good as any man and a sight better than most. I pay my dues and I owe no man a brass farthing, which is more than can be said for a great many folk hereabouts. As well as that, I know my rights, because I have read Magna Carta, which I’ll wager is a sight more than you have.
On the morning of 22nd October I had resolved to see the firing rooms for myself while they were in full working operation. I wanted to catch Breadspear and his overseers at their cruel ways, which would give me evidence for a formal charge. The laws are disgracefully weak when it comes to the treatment of young people in manufactories (Magna Carta did not provide for every eventuality), but I am resolved to fight for what is right and kind. If it means a change in the law, then that is what I will fight to achieve. No, I am not an anarchist. If I am anything, I am a reformer.
I took the dray along the lanes and across Watery Toft, and delivered the eggs, milk and butter to the kitchen door of Breadspear’s private house. I dislike that house. I do know what happened there a couple of years ago – even as a relative newcomer to the area I have heard about it – but I take no notice of the tales spun by the credulous and the spiteful. It is simply an ugly, mean-looking house, in which a bad and tragic thing once happened.
It is nonsense for Breadspear to say I slunk into the manufactory and crept through the corridors like a homing tomcat. I unlatched the gate in that wall and walked openly across the courtyard, entering the manufactory through the main doors.
It was a little before eight o’clock, but even at that early hour there was a thrum of machinery and a clatter of steel and metal. I followed these sounds, opening several doors, but finding only store rooms or packing bays. Trays of glass ornaments were set out, ready for packing, and in Breadspear’s favour I will say he has a thriving manufactory and the trinkets and goblets and decanters he makes are of a beautiful quality. That, however, does not excuse his treatment of his workers.
In the end it was easy to identify the firing rooms; the heat from the kilns belches out into the corridors, and as you approach that part of the building the very stones glow with uncomfortable heat. In the height of summer it must be an unbearable place in which to work.
The instant I opened the door of those firing rooms I felt as if a burning fist had dealt me a massive blow. My eyes prickled and heat scoured my skin. I put up a hand instinctively to shield my eyes, and when I felt able to remove it, for a wild moment I believed I had stumbled into a living depiction of hell’s deepest caverns – that a painting by one of the dark masters had sprung into life around me. Bruegel perhaps, or Hieronymus Bosch, or Botticelli who mapped the diagram of Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell – Yes, I will spell those names for you, although you should think shame, George Buckle, that you do not know them.
At the centre of the firing room was a large six-sided structure, almost like a summer house or the kind of folly that rich men sometimes build. Thick stone pillars stretched from floor to ceiling, but between those pillars – inside the structure – the kiln itself blazed. It was fiercely, intensely hot, and impossible to look at directly, but from where I stood I could make out rudimentary shelves within the fire, with trays of objects I took to be the glass pieces.
The workers moved around this structure, carrying and fetching, some of them using hooked iron rods to pull out the trays or push them deeper into the roaring heat. Some wore makeshift eye protectors which had the appearance of having been fashioned from odds and ends by the workers themselves. But most simply kept their heads turned away from the intense heat as much as they could.
Those rooms are terrible places. They are filled with fire and yet they are somehow dark, as if the fire has severed day from night, and sucked the light from the forgotten sun—
No, those are not indelicate remarks, they are quotations from two of our greatest writers and poets, Shakespeare and Tennyson. Have you never read the great works of our men of genius, Sir George, or wandered amidst the groves of their imaginations? Well, I suppose I am not surprised to hear you have not, and yes, I do want that written down, if you please, for it is as much a part of what happened that morning as anything else.
One of the dreadful things I discovered about the kiln room inside Salamander House that morning was the extreme youth of most of the workers. They were little more than children – perhaps ten- and twelve-year-olds, most of them boys, but there were also one or two girls. They ran about, obediently doing the bidding of the four overseers, who directed and controlled everything. It was a terrible thing to see small children cowed into such docility.
Every few moments molten gobbets and splinters of glass flew outwards from the kiln, as if demons were spitting their anger and venom from within its depths and, as a particularly fierce shower of splinters cascaded out, an order was rapped out for one of the trays to be repositioned. One of the boys went towards the kiln, clutching a hooked iron pole – I now know him to be Douglas Wilger, but at the time I did not realize who he was. As he went forward, a worker from the far end of the room set off across the room, carrying a large iron tray, on which were a number of glinting shapes – ornaments and suchlike, intended for firing.
Douglas Wilger was intent on obeying the order given to move the firing trays. He was also clearly intent on trying to avoid the scorching heat. For that reason, he was not aware of the man with the iron tray, and the man was concentrating on balancing the heavy tray.
The two of them collided. The tray fell clattering to the ground, sending the glassware flying, splintering into glinting shards. Wilger gasped and instinctively threw up his hands to shield his face and his eyes from the showering fragments. In doing so, he half fell against one of the stone plinths, knocking his head against it, and slumping to the ground. I started forward to help him, but it was already clear he was no more than slightly stunned, for he sat up almost immediately, brushing off the shards of glass, but looking fearfully at it, clearly expecting punishment.
There was a movement behind me, and I saw Augustus Breadspear standing in the doorway. I don’t think he saw me; he strode forward to where Wilger half-lay. It was, I suppose, stupid to expect him to help the boy to get up, to make sure that neither he nor anyone else was cut from the glass. He did no such thing. His concern was all for the damage to his precious glass, intended for customers.
His large face was suffused with purple, and he shook his fists at the hapless boy, shouting tha
t he was a clumsy oaf, fit for nothing but the most menial work, and that an entire tray of expensive materials had been smashed to splinters because of his inattention.
Before anyone could intervene – not that I think anyone would have dared, because even I was hesitating – Breadspear had kicked the boy hard in the ribs. Now, I am an honest and a fair man and I would have to say Breadspear’s intention was almost certainly to simply remove from his path the boy who had ruined a batch of glassware, and then to see if anything might be salvaged from the wreckage. But the kick sent Wilger – still partly stunned – skidding and toppling towards the stone pillars enclosing the open kiln. There was a moment when he fought to stop himself, flailing at the air with his arms, but the force of the kick was too strong. He fell between two of the pillars, half into the kiln itself. The fires roared upwards, and the sudden glow reflected on the trays, causing the glass to glint redly like the eyes of watching devils.
Wilger was silhouetted blackly against the fire, writhing and struggling like a spitted worm on a pin, and screaming like a trapped hare. The sounds were only partly smothered by the frantic rush of the others towards him – I was among them, of course – and amidst confusion and panic we managed to pull the boy clear. His clothes were smouldering, and we had to beat at them to quench the sparks. I shouted over my shoulder for a doctor to be fetched, and when I saw Breadspear hesitate, I yelled furiously at him to damn the expense; I would pay.
By then someone had fetched a servant of some kind, for a stout woman, flushed and puffing with agitation, arrived with a bowl of something and cotton cloths.
‘Soda bicarbonate, sir,’ she said. ‘Helpful for burns.’
They slathered the mixture over the boy’s skin – I helped by cutting away some of his clothing, but two of the overseers had to hold him down. And even then I think it was clear to all of us that the burns were far beyond the help of the mild domestic remedy. Almost the whole of one side of Douglas Wilger’s upper body was burned – in places the skin was charred for pity’s sake – and although most of his face had escaped, angry weals and blisters showed down one side, down his jaw and neck. Mercifully his eyes seemed to have been spared, but this was a very small mercy indeed.
I intend to place this information and evidence before the appropriate authorities, representing that Salamander House in general and Augustus Breadspear in particular be thoroughly investigated. There are several Acts of Parliament in existence, protecting workers and young people, and all workshops and factories who employ more than fifty people have to be inspected regularly by government inspectors. I cannot tell yet if Salamander House comes into this category, having no information as to the number of people employed there. Possibly, the jurisdiction will still be with the local authority. However, whoever is responsible is fulfilling the task very poorly, and I intend to see to it that Augustus Breadspear pays for his brutality. He has certainly ruined Douglas Wilger’s life, and very likely a number of other lives, as well.
There is one final fact I wish to be set down, and it is this: the frantic promise I threw out to pay a doctor’s expenses for attending on young Wilger was taken up by Augustus Breadspear. Three days after the incident, he sent me the doctor’s note of fee. It was half a guinea for attendance and 2s.9d for potions and dressings. I paid it the same day.
SIXTEEN
There were only a few sheets left in the parcel, and they all looked somewhat official and a bit dry. The first page was simply a medical report by the doctor who had attended Douglas Wilger.
Statement made by Doctor Ian Maguire, General Practitioner of Medicine.
I was called to Salamander House by Mr John Hurst, to tend to Douglas Wilger, who had, I was told, slipped, and fallen partly into the open kiln. When I arrived the boy was in great pain and in deep shock. The lower side of his face had suffered moderate burns, but the cause for real concern came from the other injuries. Almost the entire left half of his upper trunk was severely burned. It was not possible to determine the thickness of the burns, but they were extreme. The housekeeper had applied soda bicarbonate paste to the affected areas at once, which had afforded some slight relief. However, I used a solution of picric acid, which is a recognized cure for burns, and is sovereign in the reducing of pain and infection. Properly applied, and covered with gauze, it then allows for the formation of a scab, under which healing can take place.
Sad to report, when removing the boy’s dressings three days later, as I feared, the burns had been too deep to respond well to the treatment. There is severe shrinkage of tissue on the chest wall, which has drawn the flesh of the chest inwards, and in time will pull one, and possibly both, shoulders forward. This process will be progressive and is already discernible. Eventually it will result in what will be virtually a hunchback stature – although the hunching will be due to contraction of flesh and muscle, rather than deformity of bone.
The boy’s lungs are also damaged, and I think it unlikely they will heal. Coupled with the shrinkage of the upper trunk, he finds it difficult to draw in very deep breaths. Consequently, he is unable walk more than a few paces at a time.
Sadly, the lower left side of his face is somewhat disfigured from the burns. About that I can do nothing, although by God’s good grace, the burns missed his eyes.
Michael reread the last couple of paragraphs. ‘Shrinkage of tissue on the chest wall, which has drawn the flesh of the chest inwards, and in time will pull one, and possibly both, shoulders forward … Will result in what will be virtually a hunchback stature …’
Was this the misshapen shadow he had seen in Deadlight Hall? A lingering memory of a sad little ghost, its body maimed, its life probably spoiled? You poor wretched little creature, he thought, then turned to the next page.
Conclusions by Sir George Buckle:
While my fellow committee members and myself are sure that Mr Breadspear’s glass manufactory is run on proper and humane lines, in order to alleviate concern in the minds of several local people, a full and official inspection will be made of Salamander House.
I would make the point that such inspections are intended to bring about a moral climate of observance, rather than to supervise the general running of any industry. It is believed – indeed, it is recommended – that inspectors should not take from employers the ultimate responsibility for operating decent establishments.
Across the foot of this last page, in what Michael thought was the unknown Rosa’s handwriting, were the words: ‘What a cruel and unpleasant bunch of people! I am ashamed to think I have an ancestor among them!’
He wondered briefly which of the players in the long-ago drama had been Rosa’s ancestor, but could not see that it mattered. He reached for the other package, disentangled the string, and began to read the contents. The first was a letter from the ubiquitous Maria.
Deadlight Hall
November 1882
My dear Mr Breadspear
I was very glad to hear from you that the inspection of Salamander House concluded that no blame could be attached to you. I was also pleased to hear that the inspectors enjoyed the lunch you arranged for them. I dare say such people do not often have the chance of sampling grouse, and it was generous of you to serve your best wines, as well.
It cannot be easy for you to arrange such occasions in your house, after the terrible tragedy, and I am glad to think that much of the unpleasantness about that is dying down. Perhaps ‘unpleasantness’ is rather a mild word to use, but you will know what I mean.
What is not dying down, however, is the annoyance caused to me by that man, John Hurst, with his visits to the Hall and the books he brings for the children. I always look at the books very sharply before allowing them into the house, for on his own shelves at Willow Bank Farm, Mr Hurst has a number of very questionable volumes (some are even in French), which he brazenly says are great literature. There are paintings on the walls of the farm which Hurst calls Art, but which to my mind are nothing better than shameful flaunting hus
sies. During the lunch he gave for the ladies of St Bertelin’s Church charitable committee I did not know where to look. The lunch itself was what I can only call ostentatious.
It is a pity that the likes of Sir George Buckle take such notice of Mr Hurst’s opinions, although I dare say Hurst’s contributions to the Parish coffers will have much to do with that. But then Sir George seldom knows what goes on in his own household, never mind the wider world beyond. I know for a fact that one of his maidservants has regular assignations with young men whom she meets in the buttery at Buckle House, and is acquiring a very undesirable reputation among the drinkers at the King’s Head. Sir George would be shocked to his toes if he knew he was employing such a hussy in his house, although he will probably find out eventually, on account of it becoming common gossip not only in the King’s Head, but also the Coach and Horses. Not that I have ever frequented either place.
I dare say you will recompense me for the cost of sending the carrier to Salamander House to bring Douglas Wilger back to Deadlight Hall after the accident in your kiln room. A matter of one shilling and sixpence, which I feel is not excessive since the carter lifted the boy on and off. I am sending the note of fee with this letter.
Respectfully yours,
Maria Porringer (Mrs)
Deadlight Hall
November 1882
My dear Mr Breadspear
Regarding your enquiry about Douglas Wilger’s injuries, he is recovering, although his behaviour leaves much to be desired. I have pointed out to him how fortunate he is to have been saved a worse fate, and how he might well have lost an eye in the accident, but he is disobedient and ill-mannered. The two Mabbley girls are his constant companions. I do not care for particular friendships at Deadlight Hall as these can lead to all kinds of trouble among the older ones (I will not give further details of the kind of troubles these might be, being one as was brought up to consider reference to such things indelicate, but you will take my meaning). However, at least Rosie and Daisy Mabbley push Wilger’s wheeled chair around, which is fortunate, since I have no time for it.
