“No.”
“Nothing? No matter how odd-sounding? It might be important, er, to the preparation.”
Briar raised her eyebrows. “No. She just said to give you these and you would know why.”
“Typical,” Miss Olive whispered. “I’d go visiting her and Mrs. Prince for more details if I weren’t up to my elbows in problems here.” She smacked her elbows for emphasis, sending up a puff of flour that always seemed to surround her. “All the girls who have fallen ill have been on your floor. Makes me curious about what’s going on there. Are you worried you might be next?”
An image of everyone crowded around her frame to touch the spindle flittered through Briar’s thoughts. She swallowed. “A little.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so insensitive to you operatives who are healthy. I’ve been so busy keeping an eye on the ill that I’ve been blind to other things. I clearly missed what was going on with Ethel and I feel terrible about that.”
“We all missed it,” Briar said. “She hid it well.”
“Yes, you girls can hide what you want to, can’t you?” Miss Olive pulled out a tray and it clattered on the counter. She looked thoughtful. “One other thing. Have you noticed an older woman loitering around the mill?” Miss Olive held her hand above her own height to indicate that of a potential stranger. “Calling girls over to her?”
“You mean looking for someone? Not recently. But Ethel said she had a mother-in-law. What if she came looking to warn Ethel about her husband?”
“No, Ethel received a telegram from her yesterday to let her know her husband is back home and feeling remorseful over what he did.”
“Is Ethel going back to him?”
Miss Olive shook her head. “No, dearie. But she is going to stay with us. She’s become a much stronger woman in Sunrise Valley and I’m glad she’ll let us help her a little longer. You and Mim have been good friends to her.”
“So who is this mystery woman?” asked Briar.
“What woman?” said Miss Olive. She pinched the tea into an infuser and set it in a teapot.
“The one you were asking me about. If I’d seen someone loitering near the mill.”
“Oh, I haven’t seen anyone. I was asking if you had.” She pointed to the stack of plates waiting to go out to the tables. “Would you mind getting the girls started setting the table?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Briar hefted a stack of plates to the table, wondering if she was in the right boardinghouse. Miss Olive was starting to sound a bit off, like Fanny.
Monday morning the overseers had the girls scrub the spinning room from top to bottom. At first their work was solemn, thinking about all the operatives missing from their ranks, but as the day wore on, they started singing and visiting with one another, something they couldn’t do when all the frames were running.
“Be sure to clean and grease each and every spindle,” the overseer had said. He had looked straight at Briar before rubbing his hands and trotting off to put his feet up in his office. “I’ll be checking.”
The work was tedious, and it took them a long time to complete a frame. Briar had begun with frame number one. She did a good job of cleaning her frames every Saturday, so there wasn’t much fluff to find. However, wiping off the grease and applying more was a messy job, and soon she looked and felt as dirty as a doffer.
Finally she’d worked her way to the frame with the fairy wood spindle. She’d already decided that she would not clean it. She’d work as far as the neighboring spindles, but not let her hands go near the wooden one, and hope the overseer didn’t check each and every spindle like he said he would.
She slowed down when she got near the wooden spindle, afraid it might compel her to prick her finger. When she was doffing, it was a quick off with the full bobbin, on with the new, and move along. She’d never been tempted to touch the tip.
The other girls started singing “Daisy Bell,” a light, fun song. Those who started work as doffers took off their boots and slid on the oily and soapy floor like they did when they were children. It had been a long time since the spinning room had been so joyful.
Briar sang along to relax her nerves. She was now cleaning the spindles on either side of the fairy wood. Hook in. Pull out. Sing the words. Pass over the wooden spindle. Hook in. Pull out. Sing the words. Breathe.
Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do.
I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.
It won’t be a stylish marriage.
I can’t afford a carriage.
But you’ll look sweet upon the seat.
Of a bicycle built for two.