“Now,” asked Lydia, wafting the paper before him, “are you ready to discuss our demands?”
Mr. Boott gave the merest of nods. Ever the gentleman, however, he offered Lydia his arm. “Shall we . . . shall we discuss it over tea?”
Judith hadn’t moved, nor had Hannah, nor Mrs. Hanson. As she passed with Mr. Boott, flanked by Abigail and Eliza now, Lydia caught Judith’s eye with a questioning look, to which Judith nodded. “Well done,” she mouthed.
The party had no sooner passed than the other girls of Mrs. Hanson’s house and Mr. Reed the engineer ran to Judith.
“What’s happened to her?” Lucy asked, while the kind man lifted Hannah.
“Please,” said Judith, “I need to get her to her looms.”
13: The Power Loom
MR. REED CARRIED THE SEER across the footbridge and through the gates of the Merrimack Mill. Judith walked quickly at his side, carrying the candles from Mr. Boott’s house. Someone had begun ringing the bells in the Concord Mills, and soon the Lawrence Mills were answering, and even the bells of St. Anne’s Church.
But the joyous clanging scarcely pierced Judith’s ears. “Which looms are hers?” she asked Lucy, who worked in the same weaving room on the fifth floor. The machines stood, for now, in silent rows, abandoned by the replacement weavers.
Lucy led them past her own station, where she’d pasted up pages of Miss Wheatley’s book to study while she worked, and showed them the four looms that Hannah had tended for untold hours.
“What about a doctor?” asked Florry, uneasy. “Surely, this is the worst place for her?”
“She needs her spirit back,” said Judith. “She’s spent more of it here than any other place.” She began making a circle, setting a candle down at each of the four looms and a final spot, where, “You can set her here, Mr. Reed,” she said.
The square-shouldered engineer hesitated, eying the chalk circle she’d drawn. “Is it true? Is this all witchcraft?”
Before Judith could answer, Mrs. Hanson interceded. “It is craft, yes. To save someone we love very much. Isn’t that the most Christian of acts?”
Finally, the man nodded and lay Hannah on the floor beside the fifth candle, crossing himself as soon as his hands were free.
Judith sighed and turned. “Sarah, would you?”
Sarah Payne nodded and began lighting the candles. Meanwhile, Judith stepped inside the circle, wondering what kind of incantation would spring to her lips. She’d never worked any craft without the Seer’s directions.
Metaphor and connection, Hannah had said. Spells were built on metaphor and connection.
“Looms,” Judith started, haltingly, “you know Hannah Pickering. With her hands, she’s strung your heddles. With her eyes, she’s minded your passes. With her fingers, she’s tied your broken threads. With her lips, she’s kissed your shuttle.”
The others stood on the outside of the circle, watching and listening silently. Waiting. Quite unlike herself, Judith felt abashed in the center of their attention as she extemporized. Hannah let out a sharp cough that stood out from her wheezing, and Judith shook herself. She could not be cowed by uncertainty while Hannah needed her. Besides, the ears of the looms would not be critical.
“Toiling here, in this mill, in her every breath,” she went on, “she gave up her youth to you. You drank in her soul, her genius.”
Hannah coughed louder, heaving. She curled onto her side toward Judith and hacked into the crease of her elbow. Instinct told Judith to go to her, to comfort her beloved while her lungs struggled, but the spell was incomplete.
“She fed you cotton thread and her very breath. What did you give her in return?” Judith asked, growing louder. “You rendered up cloth but not to her—your finest gift you reserved for masters you’ve never known.”
A startling sound—a groan—passed through the machines around them. Some of the girls reached for one another’s hands.
“She did bewitch the machines,” Florry whispered, as if she could never have believed it before.
“Shh,” said Mrs. Hanson.
Judith licked her lips. Hannah was coughing harder than ever. “All you gave to Hannah was your dusty breath,” Judith went on, raising her voice still higher.
It sounded as if all the looms were groaning now, in cascading echoes through the factory, though their gears remained still and the shuttles motionless.
Suddenly, Hannah pulled herself upright and sat at the fifth point of the circle. Air entered her lungs in long, ragged breaths between each cough.
“We need to get her out of here,” murmured Sarah Payne. “She needs fresh air.”
“You took her genius!” Judith accused, still louder, over Hannah’s coughing. Indeed, it seemed that Hannah would surely do some injury to herself, forcing her lungs to toil so ferociously. And yet she was upright—she was awake—she was alive.
“Judith,” Lucy tried, “I believe Sarah is right—”
“Wait,” said Mrs. Hanson. “Judith, keep going.”
“You took her genius!” Judith repeated, shouting now. The whole mill creaked and groaned like a storm-battered ship. Hannah’s brow was wet with sweat and her hair was crimson. “GIVE IT BACK!”
Hannah collapsed, bracing herself against the floor, one hand on either side of the candle, while she gave a fierce, wet cough that sent a shudder through her entire form. Below her, a fist-sized boll of cotton hit the floor. An instant later, the five candles were snuffed out together. All became silent and still.
Judith’s eyes went dark and she felt her knees buckle. She sank to the center of her circle. After a moment, she felt cool, soft hands on her hot ones. A lock of copper hair dropped into view as her vision came back.
“Hannah?” she breathed, looking up into the heart-shaped face. “Are you all right?”
In response, the older girl took a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly. She smelled of the river after a rainfall and blooming columbine. She smelled clean.
The others broke the circle, rushing in to embrace their comrades, but it did not matter. There was no further need of craft today.
* * *
It was the first of May, and the townspeople of Lowell and not a few of the old Chelmsford farmers gathered on the lawn of the Boott Palace, watching the former agent’s possessions make their way one by one from the house to the waiting wagon. It was the sole opportunity, for many, to marvel at the bronze candlesticks, the Japann’d tea service, the harpsichord, the heaps of silken garments trimmed in ermine and lace.
Among the onlookers stood a trio of gentlemen in high collars and starched cravats, mill owners come from Boston on the morning coach, to witness for themselves the departure of their former employee. Reportage of the mill girls’ strike was confused and contradictory, but abundantly clear was Boott’s innocence in the outcome. Nevertheless, neither Mr. Appleton of the Merrimack Corporation, nor the Lawrences of the eponymous mills, nor any of the absent owners could overlook a contract that bound them to a multiplying payroll, with absurd capital outlays in comfort and ventilation. An example must be made.
Around them, the people of Lowell carried on like revelers at a picnic, pointing and gossiping.