every day and have a good meal twice as often.
I got a start at education too for they made me walk five miles to the village school each day – my fellow pupils did not make me welcome being nothing but a stupid townie in their eyes but six years growing in Kirkton had taught me to look out for myself and when they saw I could bite they soon learned to leave me be.
So here I lived happily for five or six years – till such time as I was told it was time for me to earn my living which I might do as boy of all work in the household – and so training up to footman or some such – or I could be set on at the mill in Kirkton.
I asked my mother what I should choose – expecting she would be warm for the household – but she surprised me saying it was an ill life always at her mistress whim and depending on her moods – and specially so for a man who must find it hard work winning a mans respect as a servant.
I was young but not so young as not to know this must have been hard for her to say – Wanwood being more than thirty miles from Kirkton where indeed they still kept up the Maisterhouse but Mrs Grindal rarely went there these days dividing her time between Wanwood and the London house they had bought and a house they leased by the sea near a place called Cromer which was where the fashionable people went. These last two I never visited staying behind under the care of the housekeeper at Wanwood – which truth to tell was no care at all – so though I missed my mother it was small pain otherwise to be left behind – my own master to roam at will.
This being used to being left alone added to what my mother said made me resolve to work at the mill – two days later I travelled to Kirkton in the coach with Mr Grindal himself who spent most of his time at the Maisterhouse – in those days he seemed a giant with brows like a ploughed field that used to turn black when he lost his temper which was quick and terrible. But he spoke kindly to me on the journey seeming surprised at my choice but pleased too – saying that I was a sharp lad and if I kept my nose clean there was no reason I shouldnt prosper.
But oh I had no reason to think of prospering during those first months at the mill where my main job was to crawl beneath the machines as they were working and sweep up the waste – I cannot think of anything worse than the noise and the close air and the terrible fear in my young heart that I underwent in those first endless days when you may imagine scarce a moment passed that I did not bitterly regret my choice to leave the safe servitude of Wanwood. Whatever life may bring me I shall never forget those long long seemingly endless hours of hopeless terror that filled my daily existence and my nightly dreams…
But what cant be cured must be endured and a man is a rare adaptable creature particularly a young one – and eventually what seemed at first but meaningless or even malevolent chaos came to have some shape and order – and I began to feel that mebbe after all I had some control.
I was lodged at my uncle Georges house – that is my fathers younger brother whose wife my aunt Sara was worn out with having had seven children – but only one surviving – my cousin Stephen who was two years younger than me – but such a weeny lad he might have been five.
At first Stephen did not care to have an older boy above him – for though he was the son of the house with lads it is always size and strength that sets the order – but I think that when he saw how lonely and unhappy I was in those first days he made up his mind I werent no threat and one evening on my way home from the mill I came on some bigger boys tormenting him and I gave one such a buffet on the nose I think it may have been broke – and the others ran off with him – and after that I could do no wrong in Stephens eyes.
Uncle George was the timekeeper at the mill – he was very bitter about the manner of my father's death but dare not say overmuch because he feared to lose what was regarded as a good and easy post.
But there were others who spoke more boldly – Union men – not just about my father which was old business – but about conditions and pay and such things – Mr Grindal hated unions and would not have employed any man who came to him openly saying he was a member – but the Union men knowing this had worked secretly at their recruitment till by the time he became aware of them they were far too many to be dismissed without bringing the whole mill to a standstill – and with it perhaps many others in the area which would not have won him much thanks from the other owners.
Uncle George despite him being so bitter about his brothers death was no lover of the Union which he said had done precious little in the matter of compensation – he warned me about getting mixed up with them – saying that he reckoned Mr Grindal had his eye on me for advancement – but Id not get far if he thought I were mixed up with the Union men. Being still a boy and working only a boys hours and earning a boys pay I was not able yet for full membership – so I cunningly gave the Union men the impression I would join when I got of age and Uncle George the impression that I was keeping them at arms length – and so I contrived to live at ease with everyone during those early years.
I knew Alice Clark right from the start of living back in Kirkton. I mean I knew she existed – one of two sisters living two doors up from Uncle Georges – but she were Stephens age – nobbut a child – so I paid her no more heed than I did the coalmans horse that I saw as often and admired a lot more. It werent till I were near on eighteen and shed been working at the mill herself for more than a year that I started taking notice. She were filling out nicely and had such a way of walking – as if she were by herself strolling under the trees by the river rather than passing down the aisle between them rattling machines – that I found myself going out of my way just for the pleasure of looking at her. From looking it were a short step to talking – nothing out of the way – just a few words if we met on the way to the mill or on leaving it – which we seemed to do more and more often that summer. It were a long way off courting – I still told myself she were only a child – and I had no thought that anyone would have noticed my interest – in fact I dont think I really understood it myself – I mean I were interested in girls and had been for the past two years or so – but little Alice didnt belong in the same class as the big bosomed wicked tongued women us growing lads lusted after.
It were Stephen who got things started without meaning it. We were sitting eating our bait one day when he said slyly – There goes thy light o love our Peter. I looked up and saw Alice walking with some other lasses quite close. I felt myself blush a bit – without knowing why – and I said – Now stop thy laking – I dont know what tha means.
It were likely my awkwardness that made some of the others laugh – and one of them – a big solid brute of a fellow called Archie Doyle – with a reputation for beating his wife – said – Tell us then young Pascoe hasta shagged her yet?
Now a silence fell – not because any of them were shocked – this kind of question passes for wit in a mill – but to see how I would take it. If you let yourself get angered – then thas done forever – fair game for any who want to get a rise. I took my time – chewing on a crust of bread – then I said – Whysta want to know Archie? Ist so long since tha did it thasel – thas forgotten how?
That got them laughing – all but Doyle who jumped to his feet and came towards me fists clenched. Id seen him in action and I knew what he could do – I jumped up too thinking of running – but I knew I couldnt run forever and hed always be looking for me. So I grabbed up a length of four by two lying around for use in wedging the machine gate open – and I held it before me like a club – and I said – Listen Archie – I’ll put up wi thy filthy tongue cos tha knows no better. But if ever tha lays a finger on me I’ll split thy skull wide open so help me God.
He stopped in his tracks but I could see he wasnt going to back down not unless he had a way out – and he were too thick to think of one – and I was wrought too tight to give him one – then one of the others – Tommy Mather one of the Union men – said – No need to get thy dander up Pete. Archie ud never have spoke like he did if hed known tha was really courting the lass – would you Archie? – and Doyle said – No. How was I to know? – and I said – Thats all right then. Just then the hooter went and as we went back to work Mather said to me – Best start making up to the girl for the next week or so at least young Pascoe – just till Archie gets used to the idea.
I didnt answer but I found myself thinking about it all through the shift. The truth was – and Im almost ashamed to write it – that Doyles foul minded question had got me thinking about Alice not as a growing child but as a grown woman. Its funny the way God twists things – turning bad to good and sometimes so it seems good to bad.
So thats how I started courting Alice and she told me later to my surprise that shed been waiting ever so long for me to ask and had almost begun to fear I never would!
We were in no rush to get wed – partly because we wanted something behind us – and partly because so sure were we of each other neither felt the need to tie us together with church knots. As for those strong fleshly urgings which some women use to lead a resisting man to the altar – so alike were we in this that soon we were giving and taking gladly – confident that what we did was holy without need of parson preaching his solemn words.
Another reason was that I was getting on so well in the job. Id long moved on from being a crawling boy and
