Even had he not known of Sir Valerian’s meeting, he would have recognized within ten minutes of his arrival that something had changed, and not for the better. An air of tension hung over the mill that had not been there the previous day. Small knots of men engaged in hushed conversations or exchanged furtive looks from their posts at the power looms. Others, like Tom, seemed even more wary than before, regarding their co-workers with distrust if not outright suspicion.
“Tom,” Theo said at last, raising his voice only as much as necessary for the other man to hear him over the noise of the machines, “is something wrong?”
“Of course not!” Tom said a bit too quickly. “Why should there be anything wrong?”
“No particular reason,” Theo said, trying to match the other man’s attempt at nonchalance, and failing quite as miserably. “You just seem—distracted.”
“Distraction is dangerous.” As if to prove his point, Tom focused his gaze intently on the thread as he fed it into the loom. “The sooner you learn that, the safer you’ll be.”
Theo would have pressed him to elaborate, but was interrupted by the arrival of Wilkins. “What’s toward, Tom? Is Thee-o-dore here bothering you?” Again, he made a mockery of Theo’s given name.
“It’s all right, Abel.”
“What’s that, Tom?” asked the foreman, taking a menacing step forward.
“It’s all right, Mr. Wilkins,” amended Tom in placating accents. “Theo just had a question, and I was answering it.”
Wilkins turned his beady-eyed gaze on Theo. “You’ve got your answer, then. Now, get back to work, Tom. Not you,” he added to Theo. “You come with me.”
Theo did as he was told, following Wilkins back to the small room where he’d first had the dubious pleasure of making the man’s acquaintance. As they traversed the mill, he could not help noticing the expressions on the faces of his fellow workers, expressions ranging from malicious to apprehensive to sympathetic. He was surprised, upon first entering the makeshift office, to discover that the desk was now covered with a white tablecloth. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a length of the same cotton cloth that he was employed to produce.
“Aye, take a good look at it,” commanded Wilkins, noting the direction of his gaze. “What d’you see?”
Thus ordered, Theo bent for a more thorough inspection, and noticed that certain threads were streaked with a reddish-brown substance.
“The stains,” he said. “Are they—”
“Aye, they’re your own blood,” Wilkins said with malicious satisfaction. “Here’s a piece of otherwise good cloth two ells long that can’t be sold now, because someone’s lily-white hands bled all over it. What do you suggest we do with it?”
Theo would have liked very much to tell Wilkins exactly what he could do with it, but quite aside from the fact that this would do nothing to make his life at the mill any easier, he was afraid the man had a point.
“I’m very sorry,” he said at last. “As you noted, I’m not accustomed to the work, and rubbed blisters on my hands. I’ve come better prepared today, so it won’t happen again.” He lifted his hands, displaying the bandages on his fingers.
Wilkins gave a contemptuous grunt. “We’ll see, won’t we? In the meantime, you might as well take this.” He snatched the cloth off the desk, then bundled it up and shoved it at Theo. “It’s not like we can do anything else with it, and mayhap the sight of it’ll remind you of what your incompetence is costing his nibs.”
Privately, Theo doubted his brother-in-law would be overly burdened by the loss of two ells of cotton fabric. Still, he resisted the urge to regard Wilkins with the single lifted eyebrow which his late father had employed in dealing with impertinence, and instead took the bundle of cloth without a word. Far from being pleased with this display of restraint, however, Wilkins seemed almost disappointed not to have goaded Theo into some show of temper. “Now, get back to work,” the foreman growled, clearly for lack of anything better to say.
“Yes—sir,” Theo said, and suited the word to the deed.
Having nothing better to do with it, he stored the bundle of cloth with his basket of food, and when work was suspended at noon, he lost no time in seeking out Ben and taking a seat next to him at the long table.
“I see you’ve come prepared today,” Ben remarked as Theo unpacked his basket.
“Yes,” he admitted before continuing somewhat sheepishly, “I must thank you again for what you did for me yesterday. If you’d like to share my meal, you’re welcome. I’m sure I couldn’t eat the half of it,” he added with perhaps less than perfect truth, as his stomach had rumbled in anticipation at the sight of the thick roast beef sandwich.
“That’s all right. I’ve got my own.” In proof of this, he unpacked his own midday meal, a rather sparser repast comprising a scrawny chicken leg and a boiled potato.
“So,” Theo began in an offhand manner that, had he but known it, did not deceive the old man for a moment, “were you at the meeting last night?”
Ben’s sparse gray eyebrows lifted, pushing into sharp relief the wrinkles that lined his forehead. “Oh, so you know about that, do you?”
“I could hardly help it! It was held in Mrs. Drinkard’s dining room, which is situated directly below my bedchamber. Ben, what’s it all about?”
“What do you think?”
“I should say,” Theo said thoughtfully, recalling the snatches of conversation—if one could call it that—which had drifted up through the flue, “that Sir Valerian Wadsworth is trying to stir up unrest at the mill.”
Old Ben inclined his head in a manner that reminded Theo forcefully of his old tutor congratulating him on correctly performing
