The Silk Factory by Judith Allnatt Page A

hurt but he held his tongue.
    ‘But we weren’t late! You kept us talking!’ Beulah blurted out.
    Fowler’s gaze swivelled to fall on Beulah. His fist came down on the desk with a thump that rattled the brass pan of the scales. ‘Wha-a-t!’ he roared.
    Then Tobias was yanking her arm, pulling her stumbling to the stairs as Fowler leapt to his feet and, finding the first thing to hand, grabbed up a handful of brass weights and flung them after them with a curse. One found its mark and hit Beulah’s forearm so that she cried out; the rest thudded into the doorframe and on to the boards, thumping and rolling. Tobias pushed her before him up the steep, boxed stairs and they took the tight turn on the first-floor landing at breakneck speed. They ran on up the second flight and emerged, gasping for breath, into the clattering racket and floating dust of the top-floor workshop, where the black squares of the windows reflected a line of small moons from the glass globes full of water concentrating the light of tallow lamps on to the work. Jervis, the master weaver who was training Tobias, glanced over and gave them a quick nod of acknowledgement but everyone else bent their heads assiduously over their work, sensing something was afoot and wanting no part of it.
    Tobias looked back over his shoulder to see if Fowler was coming or if his anger was spent. ‘Quick, we could lose our positions!’ he hissed to Beulah. ‘Get in your place in case he comes.’ He gave her a little shove and then took his place beside Jervis’s loom, taking over from another lad as drawboy, to raise the warp threads that made the pattern.
    Nursing her arm, Beulah blinked back tears and threaded her way between the ranks of wooden looms on either side, their foursquare frames closely packed together, each reaching almost to the ceiling with their hundreds of threads and lingoes hanging close and thick as a curtain. Battens thumping, shuttles flying, each weaver on his bench was in constant motion, a dark shape against the yarn like a busy spider suspended in its web.
    The children’s overseer, Alice, scowled at her: the weavers must on no account be left without yarn to work with and Beulah was already behindhand. Beulah took her place with the other children at the bobbin winders. Each child must fill and refill their tray with wound bobbins, the conical pirns that fitted into the weavers’ shuttles, and each must be perfect, without snarl or hitch. Beulah fixed her spool, held the thread lightly with one hand and began to turn the handle of the wooden wheel. Barely as tall as the wheel, she hauled on the stiff handle, her arm throbbing with every revolution. She worked as fast as she could, trying to wind the thread not too tight and not too loose so that it would run smoothly and evenly off the shuttle without causing the weaver delay, but she couldn’t get her usual speed up. The thread seemed to have a mind of its own, looping and snagging, and her tray filled all too slowly as her bruised arm began to stiffen and refused to be forced at the pace she needed.
    Every now and then she glanced at Alice to see if she was coming to check the trays. She was ever ready with a shove or a slap for anyone who had fallen behind, though at least, unlike the master, she kept an open hand.
    Beulah wished it was evening and she could be at home with Effie, who would give her supper, rub comfrey salve on her bruises and console her as Mother used to. Then she remembered the five pence docked from their wages and worried what Effie would say. She hoped she would be cross. Cross was better than sad; she couldn’t bear it if Effie was sad. Effie never cried but sometimes, if Beulah woke in the night, from her bed by the warm ashes of the fire she would see Effie sitting up at the table with her head in her hands. Beulah did what she always did when the master had scared her; she puckered her brow, narrowed her eyes and concentrated on turning her fear into