The Cotton Spinner

Manchester, England 1896.

The sun tried valiantly to break through the thick brown smog that covered the city. It cast its light onto the cobbled streets and shanty’s in the slum district. She awoke as the first rays of dawn came into her room. She yawned and rolled over in her bed, the mattress lumpy her under body, and her younger sister moaned in her sleep and mumbled something she couldn’t understand. She heard her father bustling around in the kitchen, stoking the coal range and then the door creaked as he went outside to the pump to fill the kettle for his morning cup of tea.

She slipped from the bed and stretched. Her sister peeked up at her, more asleep than awake and mumbled again.

“Good morning, Jenny.” The little one said, her voice thick with sleep.

“Go back to sleep, Sarah, it’s not time for you to be up yet.”

Jenny told her in a whispered tone, as she tousled her hair.

She wrapped her gown around her and made her way into the kitchen. Her father turned as she entered the room and spoke in his guttural, accented German voice.

“Morning, Jenny. Cup of tea, Luv?” He asked her as he reached out for the big old stained tea pot, bubbling away on the top of the coal range.

“Yes, thank you, Father.” She replied as she washed her face at the tub in the corner of the kitchen. She watched his strong broad back as he poured the steaming tea into her old mug.

“No milk today, sorry Luv. The milk-man hasn’t been yet, or it got stolen off the stoop again.”

“That’s alright, Father, black will do.” She finished washing and brushing her dark hair, tying it in a bun at the top of her head.

She looked at the old clock on the mantel above the coal range. It was just after 5:30am, on another workday. Her father was dressed for another day in the mines. She would be departing in another 15 minutes to her job as a cotton spinner in William Jacob’s dirty cotton mill across the river. She sipped the hot black tea and sat down at the rickety kitchen table. The clock ticked loudly from its perch above the old coal range, the only sound in the house apart from her fathers sipping of his tea. She loathed the day ahead, the back-breaking toil for twelve hours in the steamy atmosphere at the mill. But, they were poor and her mother was sick, and they need the money. Her father reached across and dropped his tea mug into the sink, and rose to go.

“Work beckons, the mines are calling.” He smiled a weak smile at Jenny and left the room. Moments later she heard the front door slam and her father call up the road to his fellow workers as they began the long walk up the hill towards the mines, hulking against the sooty skyline.

She glanced once again at the clock, sighed loudly and left the kitchen. She walked into the bedroom and sat down on her bed, careful not to wake the sleeping Sarah. She found her boots and pulled them on, doing the laces as she went. She reached across and planted a sisterly kiss on the sleeping Sarah’s forehead and left the room. She walked through the warm kitchen, checked the fire in the coal range and left the house. She closed the front door behind her and glanced briefly at the morning sky before beginning her journey down the road, towards the smoking chimneys in the distance, across the river. The milk-man’s horse and dray turned into the bottom of the street as she approached the intersection and began its climb up the lonely street. The milk-man waved a cherry greeting and doffed his cap to her.

“Top of the morning, Miss Jenny Klein! Off to the mill again?’ he called in his thick irish brogue.

“Good morning to you, Mr O’Sullivan.” She called in return and turned the corner, heading towards the bridge across the dirty waters.

She crossed the river, glancing down into the water, moving slowly, like time itself. She walked along the bridge and turned left as she came off the bridge and began the walk along the canal path, a shortcut to the mill. A few minutes later she turned onto the street and walked the hundred yards up to the mill gates. A small crowd was gathered at the gates, waiting for the mill foreman to arrive and unlock and let them in. She stood blowing her warm breath onto her frozen hands to ward off the chill of the cold morning. The factory whistle hadn’t rung yet, so she knew it was still a little before 6AM.

The factory foreman came cycling up the road on his old black bicycle and dismounted in front of them. He propped the old cycle against the wall and rummaged in his pocket of his greatcoat for a large ring of keys. He unlocked the padlock on the huge iron gates and dropped the keys onto the ground.

“Blast it!” he cursed loudly. He was in another foul temper, the effects of last nights whiskey and the fight he’d had with his wife in the early hours when he had stumbled home did not help his humour any.

“Get my keys, and get these gates open!” he yelled at someone, anyone, and a young lad from the boiler-house obliged him by bending down and picking up the large key-ring. Two other men swung the iron gates aside and the knot of people shuffled their way towards the factory entrance. The foreman cycled past them, sneering at them as he wobbled his way towards the doorway.

Jenny kept her eyes downcast, not daring to look at the foreman. She didn’t want his attention, and in his foul mood, he could be a slave-driver. If anyone openly defied him, he’d make their work-day a living hell, and his mood seemed to be worse than ever before.

He strode up and unlocked the doors, swinging them open with a crash. The workers shuffled in and formed a queue at the desk inside the doorway. They moved forward slowly, each one in turn taking a time-card from the rack on the wall, pushing it into the clock mounted there, and then placing it into another rack on the other side. Jenny moved up the line slowly and clocked in dutifully. The people slowly dispersed to their various departments of the mill and Jenny made her way down the corridor in the gloom, towards the cotton spinning section.

She could hear the clank of machinery as the factory started to swing into motion, as another grinding work-day began. The pipes running across the ceiling hissed and she stepped around the puddle of steaming water that dripped from the leaking pipes above her. She opened the door as the factory whistle trilled to announce the beginning of the shift. She hurried to her station beside the huge cotton loom. Her workmate was already there, slipping into her stained grey apron and Jenny smiled a greeting.

“Good morning George” she called above the noise. George tipped his cap in her direction and began his task of oiling the large loom. She rolled the heavy cart towards the output end of the loom as another girl approached with a cart of spools. George finished his task of oiling and together they loaded the spools into the loom.

After it was all loaded, George threw the lever and the loom began its task of producing the fabric. Jenny walked along the length of the loom, checking to see that all was well, and as the fabric made its way down the loom, she went to the end and positioned the cart to catch the emerging fabric. She glanced up briefly, noticing the foreman watching her and George as they worked. She could feel his creepy, pig eyes on her and she turned back to her task of checking the weft as it rolled off the loom and into the cart.

“Klein!” He roared at her. “Make sure that weft is correct, or you’ll be back in that slum you came from before 8 o’clock!”

“Yes sir.” She nodded back at him and looked harder at the fabric rolling into the cart. George looked down at her from his seat above the loom, and smiled at her while rolling his eyes and making a ‘drinking’ gesture with his hand surreptitiously. Jenny smiled behind her hand, to stifle a giggle and George laughed.

The foreman walked away and they breathed a sigh of relief. Jenny wiped the sweat from her forehead and thought to herself.

“It’s going to be a long day.”

The morning ground on, Jenny changed the cart and pushed the heavy cart full of freshly woven fabric away down the line to the huge washing drums. She came back and checked the new batch of weft and then went to help George change the empty spools. The two worked well together, nodding and gesturing at each other. The foreman frowned on anyone talking while they were working, and in the mood he was in, it was best not to provoke his quick, mean temper.

He stood on the walkway in front of his office, perched high up on the south wall of the spinning floor, like a crows nest on a ship. From there, he could survey all his workers as they toiled away below him. The six wide-bed looms all churned out coarse cotton fabric, but this morning, his mind was on loom 4, and the young Jenny Klein. He watched her as she moved from cart to loom, checking, filling spools and cutting the wide swath of fabric as it filled the cart. She filled another cart and swung it out of the way, pushing an empty one into its place.

He smiled to himself and opened the door to his dismal little office. He crossed to the small stove against the wall. He hefted the large tea-pot and poured himself a cup. He went and sat down heavily into his chair and reached down and opened the bottom drawer of the desk. He lifted a leather bound ledger and from beneath it he pulled a half-full bottle of whiskey. He poured a generous slug into his cup of tea and took a sip. He stowed the bottle back into its hiding place and began to write, in a scratchy, shaky hand in the ledger.

Jenny was on her way back from the washing drums, hurrying along the dark, dank corridor when he appeared in front of her, blocking her path.

“Jenny Klein.” He sneered. “Away from your loom again?”

“I was just coming back from the washers, Sir.” She said as she tried to step around him. He moved in front of her, blocking her path, and she felt a prickle of fear creep over her.

He reached down and pulled out his pocket-watch and flipped it open. He looked into her eyes, noting the fear in them, like a startled bird. He laughed aloud as she cringed before him.

“Get back to your loom! I’ll speak with you later!” he roared at her, and she quickly dashed past him. He turned and watched her running down the corridor, lust in his eyes and a tickling feeling in his groin. He thrived on causing fear to his staff, and it gave him an evil, powerful feeling.

Jenny ran breathlessly across the spinning floor and back to her loom. George looked down from his perch and could see the fear in her face, and the tears in her eyes.

“Are you alright?” He mouthed the question to her, and she silently nodded her reply. George cast his eyes around the factory floor and saw the Foreman come in through the door that Jenny had just ran through. His eyes narrowed and he cursed under his breath at the foreman.

“I’ll get you, one day, McMillan. I swear I will! So help me God, I’ll get you!”

Jenny tried to carry on her work, but she couldn’t shake the mounting fear. She could feel his eyes on her, a mounting dread she just couldn’t shake. Everywhere she looked, she could feel his burning eyes boring into her, and every noise was his sneering voice, echoing in her head. She looked up at George, and made the ‘drinking’ gesture again with her hand. George rolled his eyes at her and glanced up towards the office, perched high on the wall. McMillan’s broad silhouette could clearly be seen through the grimy windows, watching out over the factory floor like a hawk. She moved to the far end of the loom and checked her cart. It was ¾ full, and soon she would have to push it through to the washers again, and take that dark corridor back to the spinning floor.

“If only, I could run the loom while George took the cart to the washers.” She thought to herself. She knew the thought was futile, as the girls weren’t allowed to run the looms, even if they knew how. Their place was to cut the fabric and deliver it to the washers and to help change the empty spools. Nothing more than that was allowed, and no-one dared to cross McMillan.

He stood at his window, watching intently the cart on Loom 4. It was nearly full and soon, young Jenny would have to push it all the way to the washers and then return via the dark corridor. A plan, an evil plan, began to formulate in his dark mind, and he left the office and made his way down the narrow walkway and down the stairs to the factory floor. He crossed to the nearest loom, and bent down and grabbed a piece of rag from the floor and stuffed it in his pocket. He made his way past Loom 6, nearest the south wall.

He paused briefly and watched Catherine Bates as she filled her cart and eyed him warily. A slight smile crossed his face as the memory of terrorising her in that same dark corridor only last week. He smiled a little more as he recalled the soft feel of her body, yielding to him as he took her violently from behind in the dark storeroom just off the corridor. He felt that familiar feeling, a tightening in his groin and a quickening of his pulse.

He left Loom 6, much to Catherine’s relief, and made his way into the next department. He doubled around through the washing drum area and out into the corridor. He walked halfway down this corridor and stepped into the alcove. He unlocked the door and stepped into the small dank store room. Its walls shone darkly in the single light, and the musty of stale air could be smelt. He reached over and cleared the table that sat against the wall. He grinned an evil grin to himself as he looked down on the table.

“So many girls have crossed that table.” He thought wickedly.

The moment had come, the moment she dreaded. The cart was full, and she hesitatingly cut the weft with her scissors. She looked up at George and sighed. He looked up at the office, noticing that McMillan’s silhouette no longer framed the window. He climbed down from his seat high above the spools and walked over to Jenny.

“Be careful, young Miss. He’s not in his office, so he could be lurking anywhere. Here, slip this under your apron. Use it if you have to, teach the bastard a lesson he won’t forget.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and handed her a pocket knife. He glanced over his shoulder, to make sure no-one had seen him, and then he opened the blade. It glinted wickedly in the factory lights briefly, before Jenny hid it under her apron.

She pushed the heavy cart away and replaced it with an empty one, then began her dreaded journey. Time seemed to stop, and every footstep echoed in her ears. She reached the swinging doors and heaved the cart through into the washer department.

The washing department foreman looked up from his desk as she pushed the cart in front of him.

“Loom 4” she told him in a shaky voice and watched as he wrote it into his large ledger.

“Off you go, back to your loom.” He told her unsympathetically and she turned to head back the way she had come.

“Not that way, Miss. You know the rules. Go back through the corridor.” The gruff foreman’s voice cut through her, like a judge, pronouncing sentence on a condemned prisoner.

“Yes sir.” She managed to stammer. She turned away from his desk and started to walk toward the dark maw of the doorway.

She reached under her apron and clasped the knife in her pocket. She ran her thumb over the blade and flinched as she felt the cold sharp steel on her thumb.

She went through the door, hearing it clang behind her. It echoed loudly in the long dark corridor and she jumped slightly in fright. She scanned the corridor, peering into the darkness. No lights greeted her, and she tentatively set out. Her steps echoed off the stone floor, click clack as her boot heels hit the stone. She was tempted to run, to scream into the blackness, but found her legs were wobbly and her voice cracked. Fear clawed at her mind, and her panic began to rise, along with the pulse that was pounding in her ears.

She was close to the store-room now, she knew McMillan might be lurking there, waiting for her. She felt a foreboding sense of fear, and dread clawing at the pit of her stomach, but she held her head high and tightened the grip on her knife. Her breath came in ragged gasps, that sounded far too loud in the dark silence of the corridor. She stepped slowly along, trying to be as quiet as possible, but each footfall sounded like a thunderclap.

She was now scant yards away from the store-room. She knew she must pass that evil opening, but she felt like it was the gates to hell, and Lucifer himself waited there, waiting to capture her soul and add it to his belt. She caught her breath and steeled herself for the run past it. She gathered her long pinafore around her knees and took her first trembling step.

He stood there, motionless, silent in the darkness. He could hear the click of her boots on the stone floor, and the pulse of excitement at what was to come pulse through his veins. His cock was hard in his pants, and his hands shook with anticipation. Her steps faltered for a moment and he cursed silently.

“Come on bitch, hurry up.”

The footsteps were nearer now, much louder, again they stopped, then continued onwards, getting louder and louder as she got nearer. He eased the door open, no sound came from the well-oiled hinges. He’d taken care of that personally, making sure they were checked and oiled regularly. He moved into position against the wall, and withdrew the rag from his pocket. He coiled it into a wad in his hand and crouched, ready to spring onto her as she cleared the doorway. He was panting, and the erection in his pants strained against his belt. He’d have to be quick, grabbing her before she had a chance to scream, or claw and kick at him. He tensed and set himself at the ready.

She was now very near to the doorway, just a little ahead of her to her left. She thought she caught the sound of a boot-heel scraping on the stone, but couldn’t be sure. She held her breath and prepared to run, but found her legs were jelly, and could hardly hold her up. Her breath was ragged, loud in the stony silence of the darkened corridor.

She stepped out in front of the door-way and turned to look. Suddenly, a hand hit her full in the face, across her mouth, she felt the sudden pain of the strike and the taste of dirty cotton as he forced the wadded rag into her mouth. She tried in vain to scream, but his rough hand held firm across her mouth and she nearly choked on the rag, forcing it deeper into her mouth. His other arm wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her up against him. She could smell stale sweat from his body and whiskey on his breath as he pulled her against him and dragged her into the room, kicking the door closed behind him with the sole of his boot.

He hit the light switch and the room burst into brightness around her, blinding her temporarily. She felt his body pressed against her back and something hard pressing against her bottom as he pushed her against the table. He changed positions of his hands and pushed her head down onto the rough surface of the table. There was a smell on it, but she couldn’t make it out what it was, a faint coppery smell.

She felt his hand snake around under her and tear at her apron and her pinafore. He kicked her ankles apart and pressed his large body up against her bottom. That hard thing pressed between her cheeks. She was pinned down, she couldn’t move, couldn’t scream with the cotton rag still wedged between her teeth. She tried to struggle, but he was much too large for her. She felt his free hand reach down and lift the hem of her pinafore up. Up past her knees, then she felt the cold air on the back of her thighs, she could feel the coarse material of his trousers against her skin, and the coarse whiskey soaked breath on her neck. Her hand groped silently under her, feeling the handle of the pocket-knife clutched there. She tried to free her arm slightly, but the weight of him crushed down on her, and she found that she could hardly breath, let alone move.