chapter 3
Before Caroline reached the side door of the mill, a man stumbled out, dropped to his knees and wretched in the grass beside the door. Oh, God, what had happened? Her heart in her throat, she raced inside. A group clustered around an ominously silent machine with its big gears and massive drum. The room was chock full of gears, shafts, and belts that powered all the machinery required to take cotton to material.
An ignored blood-spattered child stood sobbing. Dread pouring coldly through her veins, Caroline ran to the little girl and dropped to her knees. “Where are you hurt?”
The tiny waif closed her mouth, hiding her milk teeth, and shook her head as big tears leaked out of her eyes. Caroline ran her hands over the child but didn’t find any source for the blood. Thank God, the little one was unhurt. She gathered the child to her and smoothed back the girl’s flyaway blond hair.
Her relief at not finding injuries made her hug the girl too tight. She was a tiny thing, her arms scarcely bigger around than a string bean. The warm sweet smell of the child tugged at a yearning deep inside her.
Caroline picked up the child and turned toward several men working to turn the massive cogs. At their feet a man lay on the floor. He must be the source of the blood. Her relief at finding the girl unharmed flitted away, leaving a sick churning behind. Feeling as if she were forcing her steps through thick mud, she walked closer. The crowd parted in deference to her. She held her breath.
The injured man lay on the floorboards, his right ankle smashed between two massive gears. How could it even fit there? Thickness rose in her throat, and she shielded the girl’s eyes from the growing pool of blood. As the workers let her through, the man’s unbleached muslin shirt with the left sleeve shredded and bloody came into sight, then the newly barbered dark hair. Her lungs ached for air and her head spun. Oh God, it was him, the man who’d been watching her outside.
He opened his eyes. His gaze turned on Caroline than moved to the child cradled in her arms. “Is she all right?”
Caroline took a step back, half surprised he was conscious. “She’s fine.”
A tall lanky man scurried through the crowd with a long metal bar and braced it on the gear trapping the young man. Together with a heavier man, he leaned against the pole, trying to turn the giant metal cog. The trapped worker’s face twisted but he did not cry out.
“I don’t know as we can get him out, ma’am,” said the foreman, sidling up beside Caroline.
“Do whatever you have to,” she said.
“Might have to take off that leg.” The foreman twisted his cap in his hands.
The injured man glared in their direction. “No.”
Her stomach turned. That hadn’t been what she meant by doing whatever was needed. She had to take charge. Pulling command from a hollow hole in her chest, she instructed, “Dismantle the gears.”
“Iffen he dies, we’ll just cut off the leg,” said the foreman. “Reckon we can crank it out the other side. Mr. Broadhurst don’t hold with taking apart the machinery.”
“Mr. Broadhurst is not here. I am in charge of the mill today.” Mr. Broadhurst was at the house awaiting their visitors.
The foreman stared at a spot beyond her shoulder, not following her order. She made a concession to the gods of production. “The sooner he is out, the sooner operations can resume.”
The foreman scratched at his temple.
Summoning all the haughtiness of generations of aristocracy, she said with cool disdain, “Dissemble the machine now, sir, without further delay.” She let her tone imply an or else.
Yet, her stomach twisted and a cold sweat started on her spine.
“Yes, ma’am.” The foremen directed a worker to fetch tools.
A couple of the men pressed reddened cloths against the young man’s arm. He would need a physician. All around, the men watched.
“Who can ride a horse well?” she asked.
“I can.” An older man stepped forward.
“Take the horse tied by the office and fetch a doctor from Warrington. Get the one who was with the army in the Crimean. Tell him to hurry.” Warrington was a decent sized town, but five miles away. Even at a gallop, it would take at least a quarter hour to get there. “Ride as fast as you can.”
The man touched his forehead and bumped through the growing crowd. Women and children from the upstairs weaving rooms filed into the room. “Oh my God, it’s Jack!” one cried out.
The murmurs went back through the room, and the injured man coughed weakly. His skin was gray. Just minutes ago he had looked so alive, with the wind ruffling his hair.
“What happened?” cried someone.
“He’s hurt bad,” said one of the men pressing a cloth to Jack’s arm. “The belt snapped on him and his ankle is crushed.”
From other parts of the mill workers filed in, pushing and bumping closer. Had all of them come to watch him die? No, he couldn’t die.
Reluctantly, Caroline tilted the child in her arms toward a group of women. “Take her out of here. Take all the children out of here. This is no sight for them.”
A woman took the girl. Caroline gave the tiny girl a reassuring pat. Her stomach knotted, but she had to remain calm and keep in control.
She found the foreman in the crowd and met his eyes. “Clear the onlookers.”
The foreman followed her instructions, ordering the idle workers out of the room. A mature woman stumbled forward, shouldering through the crowd. Caroline recognized her from injured man’s home. Wanting to protect her from the sight of Jack on the floor, she stepped in front of the woman.
“What happened? Is it Jack?” The woman tilted, trying to see.
At Caroline’s nod, the woman glared with icy eyes and skirted around her. If she was his mother, she would want to offer him comfort.
The woman drew to a halt and stared at the leg caught in the machine. First in a whisper she said, “No.” Then she screamed shrilly, “No, no!”
Hoping to calm her, Caroline put her hand on the woman’s fleshy shoulder.
“How could you let this happen?” she shouted, while shoving back her lank colorless hair.
The short man working at freeing Jack said in a low voice, “He saved little Mattie when the belt snapped. She dropped her load of spindles and he rolled on one.”
Mattie must be the little girl spattered with blood.
“Why would you do that? Have you no sense?” the woman screeched at Jack.
Caroline recoiled. How could she berate him for saving a little girl?
Jack glared up at the woman, his mouth flattening. His expression of concern over the little girl was gone. In its place a shuttered look appeared. He slowly turned his head away.
The animosity hung heavy in the air. Jack needed comforting not condemnation. Caroline tightened her grip on the woman and turned her shoulder.
The woman resisted and burst into noisy wails of “Why? Why?”
“He’ll be all right. I’ve sent for the physician.” More for Jack’s sake than hers, Caroline kept her tone soothing. “We’ll get him out.”
“What good’ll he be? He won’t be able to work. I got another babe on the way. I can’t take care of another cripple.”
Appalled, Caroline gripped the woman firmly and shoved her toward one of the men. “Take her outside.”
Another one of the millworkers, trying to pry the gear loose, kicked an empty spindle. It rolled across the floor and knocked into Caroline’s foot. Wooden spindles littered the floor. Her chest tightened. How many had that little child been trying to carry?
Pressing her lips together, she moved closer and dropped to a knee beside the injured man. She found his hand and caught it, giving him a squeeze. He turned slowly, looking at her, and his hand tightened around hers. His grip was solid and reassured her that he was not on the verge of death. Odd that just holding his hand helped calm the skip of her heart. But his skin was too pale. The scarlet blood kept spreading out along the grooves of the floorboards and then filled in the surfaces.
Swallowing hard, she kept her features controlled and silently prayed Godspeed to the doctor.
“We’ll get you out,” she said softly. She should say something motherly and reassuring. Only she wasn’t a mother, and up close she could see the beginnings of lines etched around his eyes. He must be older than she’d thought.
His breathing was steady if a little heavy. The gash on his arm was deep. But it was his caught foot that most disturbed Caroline, making her throat catch.
“Dammit, Caro, did you tell that man he could take my horse?” Robert stomped through the room. He drew to a halt when he saw the commotion. “Oh dear Lord.”
“It’s an emergency,” said Caroline.
Her brother stopped beside her, pulled his snowy handkerchief from his pocket and patted his lips. She scowled at him. He should not allow his revulsion to show. Waving him away, she turned her attention back to the trapped man. Holding his gaze, she willed her strength to him.
The injured man’s nostrils flared as he stared back at her.
The men around lapsed into an argument about how the machinery could be dismantled. Desperation clawed at her. Did no one know how to break down the spinning frame cogs?
Jack tugged on her hand. He struggled to rise to his elbows. She didn’t want him looking at his mangled lower leg, and she put her hand to his chest to push him back down. In spite of the pressure she applied, he managed to achieve a half-reclined position.
“That bolt there.” He pointed with his gashed arm. “Loosen that one and then those.”
Caroline stared in amazement as the injured man directed the men how to disassemble the gears trapping him.
“You should come away,” Robert said to her.
“I can’t now, Robert.” She shifted to prop up Jack as he directed men through the maze of bolts and fasteners holding the massive cogs together. Reaching up, she snatched Robert’s handkerchief from him and folded it to press against Jack’s injured arm. She wished she could wrap her arms around him and comfort him. She settled for holding his well-muscled arm still and pressing at the bleeding wound.
Jack seemed inclined to shake her off, but for a second his dark eyes met hers and he hesitated.
That she was the mill owner’s wife probably stilled his protest.
“How often do these mishaps occur?” muttered Robert. “Good Lord above.”
“Once is too often,” said Caroline. There had been accidents before. There were deaths. The last had been a five-year-old boy who was knocked on the head by a loom. Mr. Broadhurst hadn’t understood her tears for a child she didn’t know. He never woke up, and passed a week later. She’d known then that she had to do whatever she could to get the children out of the mill, to make it safe for not only them, but everyone.
But as long as Mr. Broadhurst only paid lip service to her decree, the tots continued to work alongside adults. And Granger’s mills were worse.
After what seemed like hours, the men finally had the gear loosened and it fell down away from the mangled wreck of Jack’s boot. He lifted his leg and reached to grab his foot, but it hung down at an unnatural angle. He missed, reaching in the place his foot should be.
The tall lanky man crashed to the floor in a dead faint.
Caroline buried her face against Jack’s back. She inhaled his clean male scent while fighting the rise of bile in her throat. The cadence of his breathing changed to shallower and quicker. Of all the men for this horrid accident to befall, why did it have to be him?
He shifted, his shoulders tensing against her face. She needed to help, not hide away. Her weakness embarrassed her, and she struggled to regain command. No matter how hard it was for her to look, Jack shouldn’t be trying to care for his own mangled limb. She crawled around, grasped his boot, and slowly lifted straightening the broken leg.
He groaned.
She scooted until she sat at his feet. As gingerly as she could she lowered his leg to her lap, trying to hold it in a normal position. Fighting the squeamishness that might show on her face and alarm him, she peeled Jack’s bloody fingers away. “Lie down.”
Most of the onlookers turned away.
“Would one of you men please go outside and see if the doctor has arrived?”
No longer laboring to free Jack, several of the men rushed toward the door. Jack threw his arm across his face. Caroline wished she could do more for him, but she was helpless. She plucked at his bloody laces, loosening them. She half feared his foot would come off when she removed his work boot. She gave up and circled her hands around his leg, trying to stem the flow of blood.
“Get back here and put this machine back together,” shouted the foreman.
Dragging their heels the men traipsed back toward the dissembled gears. Two of the men lifted the largest of gears and reseated it on the shaft. One of the men put a wrench to a fastener.
“The other bolt . . . has to go on . . . first.” Jack pointed. His arm dropped down as if it had grown too heavy and he labored to breathe.
“It’s all right. They’ll manage,” Caroline soothed, and gestured for him to lie back.
He batted her hand away. “If they don’t do it right . . . the gears will grind apart.”
“We’ll get it,” muttered one of the men, but Jack kept an eye on them and directed them when they seemed uncertain.
“You don’t have to hold my leg,” he said at one point.
“Someone needs to keep it straight until the doctor gets here.” She wished she could do more for him.
A couple of the women returned with cotton and strips of muslin and wrapped his gashed arm, put a pressure bandage around his calf above the break, and splinted the broken ankle. His hiss as she shifted his leg told her he was hurting.
Scooting back to his side, she took his hand in hers. His crushing grip conveyed the tight leash he was keeping on his pain. Not knowing what else to do, she murmured words of encouragement and stroked the skin on the back of his hand. Her heart pounding, she said, “You’ll be fine.”
He shot her a skeptical look, his brown eyes communicating a wealth of information. He wouldn’t be fine, and he knew it. Fear and anger were dominate, but there was a yearning there she couldn’t place. He turned his gaze away, leaving her feeling chastised for offering false hope.
“The doctor will know what to do,” she said firmly, although she only hoped a man well versed in war injuries would be better skilled than others.
Not knowing what else to talk about, she said, “You have a big family, don’t you?”
His lips tightened.
At long last the doctor arrived carrying his black bag. He shook his head as he bent over, assessing the broken leg. “I need to get him on a table to operate. We best get him to his home.”
Caroline thought of the unusual interchange between Jack and his mother and made a decision she knew would upset her husband. “Take him up to the main house.”
“Take me home,” demanded Jack.
But the men carrying him ignored him. And it wasn’t as if he could leap off the removed door they employed as a stretcher, not with the mangled mess of his lower leg. The pain sliced anew through him with each jog of the wood under his back. How could pushing little Mattie out of the way have led to this?
Jack grabbed the sleeve of his friend George. “Don’t take me up there where that war surgeon will butcher me.”
George looked down at him, and the pity in his expression made Jack want to punch him. But his hand slipped off George’s arm as if he no longer had the strength to hold on. There could only be one reason that particular doctor had been summoned. A war surgeon got comfortable with slicing off legs and arms. A sick feeling invaded Jack’s throat. He couldn’t lose his leg. He’d never amount to anything as a cripple.
“Be grateful Mrs. Broadhurst is of a mind to look after you,” muttered George as he bore the stretcher toward the mansion.
That was part of the rub. “I don’t want—” her to see him like this.
“Martha can’t take care of you and your da.”
Jack’s head spun. He’d longed to speak with Mrs. Broadhurst, to hold her hand, but not as a helpless invalid, needing care, garnering her pity. And how was he going to make it to London in a fortnight? It was as if the Devil himself conspired to keep him in this wretched village. He groaned and gripped the sides of the door.
Partially denuded tree branches with their browned leaves clawed at the blue sky. His vision blurred, but he clung to the blue, hurtling prayers to a heaven that seemed to give him just a glimpse of hope before allowing his dreams to be crushed. For a second it was as if he floated along, before a body-wracking shiver made his teeth rattle.
Time seemed disjointed and he couldn’t tell if he was hot or cold. The shivers must mean he was cold, only he felt more numb than cold. He seemed almost nothing, as if his life force had ebbed away in the red pools left on the mill floor.
“Hang on, Jack,” urged George, his face crinkled in concern as he strained to bear the weight of hoisting Jack up the stairs.
“No,” he moaned.
The view above him changed to ornate plasterwork in a recessed ceiling high above. Activity exploded around him as servants ran hither and thither. And Mrs. Broadhurst was in the center of it all, looking flushed and issuing commands in a calm voice.
“Quick, help me roll the carpet,” she instructed a footman as she dragged two straight chairs to the wall.
Jack strained to watch her almost cursing at the men carrying him to move out of the way. Was he still bleeding? He couldn’t find the energy to look as people swirled around him. Maids in their black dresses with white aprons and caps, footmen in their old-fashioned breeches and black coats, moved every which way, leaving him dizzy. Bobbing in between them was Mrs. Broadhurst.
She scooped off the tablecloth, thrust it into a startled maid’s hands. “Take this away.” She snapped her fingers and bent with the footman on the other side to roll back the rug. Another footman worked on rekindling the fire. A maid brought in a washbowl and water, another stood dumbstruck in the door with a stack of towels, and a third with an armful of linens plowed into the stopped girl.
“Coming through,” shouted the man at his foot.
The men lifted and slid him onto the table like a haunch of meat. Pain shattered the numbness and he fought to contain screams. He couldn’t appear so weak in front of her, but the pain bit and snarled like a demon tearing him to bits.
“What is this?” boomed Mr. Broadhurst from the doorway.
“There was an accident at the mill.” Mrs. Broadhurst gestured toward his mangled leg.
“Good God, Mrs. Broadhurst go change at once. You cannot receive guests covered in blood. And get these men out of here.”
Mrs. Broadhurst lowered her lashes and then put her shoulders back. She planted a hand on Jack’s chest, keeping him pinned down. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she told the men from the mill. “You may return to work now.”
Was he to be without allies? He searched for George or one of his brothers or brother-in-laws, but the faces swam. All he could focus on was her pinched but determined face.
As the room emptied, Broadhurst glowered. “Get him out of here too.”
“No. He stays.” She stood defiantly in front of her husband.
Jack’s breath caught.
“I don’t think you heard me.” Mr. Broadhurst glared at his wife, while the servants slunk about with their shoulders to their ears. “I want him out of here before more guests arrive.”
Mrs. Broadhurst straightened. “I don’t care for your tone, sir. If you entertain the slightest hope that I will acquiesce to your wishes, you will consider your actions carefully.”
“You cannot bring millworkers into the house.” Mr. Broadhurst’s cold tone implied millworkers were lower than cockroaches and might infest the house if allowed to enter.
Jack shivered, wanting to get away, far, far away. He tried to roll to his side, but the doctor pushed him back.
Mrs. Broadhurst grimaced. “There was an infant in the mill. Because this man tried to stop her from getting hurt, he is now maimed. We owe him comfort and care. And if you cannot concede to that, I will attend him in his home—leaving your guests without a hostess at all.”
Mr. Broadhurst stared at his wife. Jack wanted to tell her to do as her husband said. Didn’t she know that he shouldn’t be challenged? Her husband was not a good man, although he wasn’t going to be the one to speak out against him. Not as long as his family needed their jobs at the mill. He didn’t want Mr. Broadhurst noticing him, not in this way.
“It was my fault,” said Jack. “I tripped.”
Mrs. Broadhurst swiveled back toward him. Color stained her cheeks. “On a spindle dropped by a child too young to work in the mill. I have said again and again that these babes only cause accidents. She should have been in school.”
Mattie had only dropped the spindles because he’d shoved her out of the way of the whipping belt, but it seemed a moot point. Jack pressed his lips together.
“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” growled Mr. Broadhurst.
The man was obviously not happy with the turn of events, but something Mrs. Broadhurst said had her husband struggling to contain his ire. It only made Jack’s spine tighten. Mr. Broadhurst got rid of people who stood in his way, and Jack didn’t want to be one of them.
“He needs surgery and doing it here is expedient,” Mrs. Broadhurst said in a mildly reproving tone.
Bloody hell, he didn’t want to be a bone they fought over. And he sure as hell didn’t want surgery.
“He can’t be here while we have guests,” said Mr. Broadhurst.
“I’ll leave.” Jack tried to swing his legs to the side of the table. Waves of dizziness washed over him, spinning his head.
The surgeon shook his head as he pressed Jack back. “You’ll lay still so I can look at your wounds.”
“We can breakfast in the dining room,” Mrs. Broadhurst said. “He won’t be a bother if he recuperates here. Besides, there will be too many people to have only this small room available in the morning.” Her voice was breezily dismissive.
Jack choked. This small room was bigger than all of the ground floor in his father’s house.
Mr. Broadhurst’s bushy gray eyebrows lowered over his beady eyes. More then ever Jack wanted out of here before he incurred the man’s wrath. He didn’t want to be like the union organizer a few years back. The man had disappeared one night, and no one was sure if he was just strongly encouraged to move on to greener pastures or if he’d been buried beneath one. Either way, Mr. Broadhurst was behind whatever happened, and no one dared talk of unions now.
“You cannot as a gentleman expel him when a young child working in the mill was the cause of his accident. You bear some responsibility for this tragedy,” Mrs. Broadhurst said softly. “Besides, I will not entertain your guests in any way if you do not allow the boy to stay.”
Jack wanted to object to being called a boy. He was likely of an age similar to Mrs. Broadhurst, but it hardly seemed important. And in this instance he agreed with Mr. Broadhurst. Leaving was far and away the best choice.
His beady eyes burning with impotent rage, Mr. Broadhurst turned toward Jack. The ireful look beat a path through him.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I’ll go home as soon as I am able.” Home was his father’s house. In spite of the fight this morning and Martha’s reaction to his injury, he wanted to go there. She would calm down in time and his siblings could see to his care. Under no circumstances did he want that sawbones operating.
Nor could he miss the appointment in London.
What made him think he could get free of this miserable life? It seemed his every opportunity was thwarted, but he had savings. He could hire a cart to Manchester, take the train to London. He could still take his drawings to the appointment.
Broadhurst was staring at his wife intently. “You’ll entertain them now, will you?” he growled.
All the color drained from Mrs. Broadhurst’s face. Her hand tightened painfully on Jack’s arm. “I will welcome them as any lady would. I should like your agreement that no child under the age of nine is allowed to work in the mill.”
There was a tension between them as if a deeper negotiation was under way. Jack didn’t understand. He didn’t know if he cared. Whatever they were discussing wasn’t about him. Strange, he’d thought Mrs. Broadhurst was always looking his way because she’d recognized the potential in him, but she seemed more interested in using his accident to implement changes. Maybe Martha had it right, and he wasn’t any different than the rest of them.
Except now he was different.
If they took off his foot, he wouldn’t be fit for work in the mill, nor would he be fit enough to work at the equipment manufactory. The only other course that was likely open to him was begging. God, he didn’t want to be a beggar. No matter what, he needed to convince them to let his leg heal.
“See to it you do.” Broadhurst pivoted away from the door, then Mrs. Broadhurst shut it.
“Ma’am, if you would, cut off his trousers.” The doctor removed his coat and rolled back his sleeves.
Mrs. Broadhurst cast a lost look toward the doctor, then grimaced and began slicing at Jack’s pants with scissors.
Jack reached out to stop her, but one of the footmen pushed his hands away.
After wiping his wet hands on a towel, the macabre doctor clipped away bandages and prodded at his ankle. Each poke shot agony through Jack. He bit his lip so hard he tasted blood, and a groan left his throat despite his efforts to hold it back.
The doctor pulled out a saw, and Jack’s blood turned to ice.
“No!” He jerked up to a sitting position. The room spun and went dark around him. He reached blindly, determined to stop this madness.
Arms came around him and pulled him back.
His head thumped against a hand. Hers? “Don’t cut off my leg.”
“We may not have a choice, son,” said the doctor in a calm voice. “The ankle is shattered.”
Jack’s strength deserted him and he heaved in gulps of air. “Try to save it.” He grabbed the doctor’s jacket. “I can pay. Whatever it costs to fix it. I have savings set by.”
Shaking his head, the doctor said, “Hold him down, until I get him sedated.”
Strong hands pushed him down. Two of the footmen held his arms.
Mrs. Broadhurst leaned over him. “Please, don’t fight. We’re trying to help.”
“Don’t make me a beggar,” Jack rasped out.
She blinked and her expression went blank for a moment. “It’ll be all right,” she soothed.
He almost wanted to believe her. But what would he do without a foot? Certainly, he would no longer be able to work in the mill.
The doctor put a couple of drops of liquid on a handkerchief and held it above his mouth and nose. The sickly sweet smell thickened in his throat and the light faded.