The Wild Dark Flowers by Elizabeth Cooke

in his chair, listening to the conversation. Octavia saw that he was particularly struck by the overseer, Capthwaite: he was an unpleasant-looking man with a large stomach barely contained in a greasy waistcoat. She knew him of old; he had been her father’s man. He had a florid face on which a large, empty-looking grin was permanently plastered. The smile was so false that it made her uneasy just to look at him, and, the more she spoke, the broader his smile became, his frank gaze flitting between herself and her son. She was convinced that she amused Capthwaite. Occasionally he would use the kind of cajoling tone that one would use with a little girl. It made her pulse increase, her hackles rise.
    She turned to Ferrow. “Why are children still working here?”
    “It’s the bylaw,” Ferrow replied. “His lordship approved it.”
    “They look only nine or ten.”
    “No, ma’am,” Capthwaite interjected. “Eleven’s the youngest.” His bullish tone challenged her to contradict him. She was convinced that he was lying to her, but there was no way to prove it. “I won’t have underage children working here,” she said now, looking pointedly at Capthwaite and then back at Ferrow. “Is that understood?”
    She knew that it was against the law to employ young children, but the mills and factories of Yorkshire and Lancashire routinely gainsaid it. At eleven, both boys and girls worked half-time; at twelve, full-time.
    “If you don’t mind my saying so, Lady Cavendish,” Ferrow added, “it’s the families who want it, and the children. They want to work. Now more than ever. The men are going. Someone’s got to replace them. And the orders . . .”
    She knew about the orders. The mill was working flat out to meet the demand for the army. Last Christmas, they began to work twenty-four hours a day.
    She stared down. She could see girls of Charlotte’s age, and younger, hurrying to and fro. There was a smell in the air, too: lanolin from the wool, and oil. It permeated the wood, the floors. Wool fibers floated in the air; even in the closed office she could feel it at the back of her throat.
    Harry was smiling at Capthwaite. “Do you have children?” he asked.
    “Aye, sir. A boy.”
    “Is he working here?”
    Capthwaite flushed. “Nay. He’s at school.”
    “And why is that?”
    “He’s a gradeley lad, he’ll make summat.”
    “Make something? You mean of himself?”
    “Aye, sir.”
    “And these children won’t?”
    Capthwaite’s empty smile broadened. “Them? Nay.” And his hand strayed to the leather strap at his waist. “They’re mardy, like. Stubborn.” He stuck out his chin as he glanced down at the workers below. “They’re good for the looms, and that’s all.”
    “And you know that, do you, of each one of them?”
    “Each one, aye,” he said, meeting Harry’s eye unapologetically, and holding his gaze.
    Octavia spoke. “Thank you Mr. Capthwaite,” she told him. “Don’t let us keep you from your business.”
    Capthwaite looked at Ferrow, who nodded his approval. They watched the man go, lumbering his way down the metal steps. He strutted up the central aisle glancing from right to left; halfway along, Octavia saw him stare in a leering fashion at a girl.
    “Extraordinary,” Harry muttered.
    “Mr. Ferrow,” Octavia said, “will you walk with us awhile outside?”
    They left the building by the outside stair; standing on the stone steps, they watched the yard, full of horse-drawn wagons, getting a shipment ready to be sent down to Bradford.
    “The flatbed lorries were requisitioned,” Ferrow said.
    “I read your reports,” Octavia answered curtly. “I’m aware of the requisition.”
    “They were brand new.”
    “It can’t be helped.”
    “Ma’am,” he acknowledged. And there it was again—that small slight smile to himself, as if she were intruding on a man’s game. As if to underline the point, Ferrow turned now and addressed Harry. “Perhaps you might