A Weaver's Web
by Chris Pearce
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Date: December 6th, 2013
Synopsis:
Handloom weaver
Henry Wakefield, his wife Sarah and their five children live in abject poverty
in the Manchester area of the UK in the early 19th century at the time of the
Industrial Revolution. Henry hates the new factories and won’t let his family
work in them. He clashes with Sarah, a factory agent, a local priest and
reformers, and son Albert runs away. The family are evicted and move to
Manchester but are even worse off, living in a cellar in a terrace and have
another little mouth to feed.
Henry’s love of money overrides his hatred
of factories and he starts one of his own, but it is beset with problems. The
Wakefields eventually become quite wealthy, but Henry holds the purse strings
and this has a devastating effect on the family. Albert is caught stealing and
is transported to New South Wales. Her baby’s death, Albert’s unknown fate and
society parties become too much for Sarah, who hears voices and is taken to the
lunatic asylum. Son Benjamin faces eviction from the family home for having a
baby with an orphan girl too soon after their marriage.
Family members,
including Sarah who has got out of the asylum and Albert who has returned to
England unbeknown to Henry, have had enough and seek
revenge.
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Excerpt from A Weaver's Web
A young woman he couldn’t help
notice hobbled along the footpath just ahead of him. She reminded him of the
cripples in the factories he worked in as a child. Benjamin still feared his
father might one day make him work on the factory floor. If it happened, he was
sure he would run away for good.
There was something familiar about
this girl. He wanted to speak to her, but was worried she might think he was
going to rob or assault her. Just then she must have sensed his eyes were on
her, for she spun around and faced him.
‘What are you looking at, Mister?’
she said.
He recognised the voice, then the
face. How could he ever forget the little factory girl who was caned by the
masters, crippled by the system, and fell into the machinery and was almost
killed, yet came up smiling and joking. It had to be Charlotte, the orphan who
always called him mister. It didn’t matter to him she called all males older
than herself mister. He hated master, and boy was even worse. To be called
mister made him feel like he was grown up and important, someone who commanded
respect.
‘Charlotte,’ he
said.
‘How do you know who I
am?’
‘We worked in the same factory.
Remember?’
She looked at him closely and took
a step back. ‘No.’
He could see fear in her eyes. He
had forgotten he was dressed in a good suit and hat and she wouldn’t recognise
him in such clothes. She was in her rags, and that was how he too had dressed
when she knew him. Benjamin realised she might think he was one of her old
masters who had been cruel to her in the past and had caught up with
her.
‘It’s me – Benjamin,’ he said. ‘I
was the one who talked to you and the other orphans at meal times. Don’t you
recall?’
She stared at him again. Slowly
her eyes brightened. ‘Yeah, I do.’ But she became defensive again. ‘Why are you
dressed like that, and what do you want?’
‘Nothing. I
...’
‘Then go away.’ She limped
off.
He stood and watched her and was
about to call out, when he asked himself why he would want to have anything to
do with an orphan in rags who was crippled and probably slept in the street. She
was grubby and small and slow. But he was intrigued. He set off after her and
quickly caught up.
‘My brother Albert worked as an
orphan,’ he said, walking just behind her, ‘in the same factory as us. I told
you about him. Remember?’
She ignored
him.
‘He was kidnapped off the street
and taken in a cart to the factory. He was kept there, locked up, and he worked
nights.’
‘So what.’
‘It must’ve been
terrible.’
‘No worse than what I went
through.’
‘That’s true,’ Benjamin said,
realising she too couldn’t leave the factory. He kept following her. ‘Where do
you work now?’
‘None of your
business.’
‘You can’t still be a factory
orphan, or you wouldn’t be here, walking along the
street.’
Charlotte didn’t respond, so he
stopped. Again he watched her wander off and again something made him catch up
to her. He still wasn’t sure what it was. It wasn’t her appearance or her manner
towards him or her gait.
Knowing she wasn’t going to get
rid of him, she decided to use her streetwise ways and try and get whatever she
could from him. ‘You got any money, Mister?’
He patted his pockets and shook
his head. ‘No.’
‘What? All dressed up like that
and you’ve no money.’ She sounded upset, but then she turned and giggled at
him.
He blushed. ‘I had a ten shilling
note, but ...’
‘Ten shillings!’ She stopped and
looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘I’ve never seen one. Where did you get it from? What
did you do with it?’
She was quite pretty, he thought,
for an orphan. ‘I ... had to give it to someone.’
‘Did you have a debt? It’s not
good to have debts.’
‘Oh no, it wasn’t a
debt.’
‘You had a ten shilling note, just
to give away?’
‘No, it was to ... to care for
someone.’
‘Who?’
‘Never
mind.’
‘When you get your next ten
shillings, can you give it to me?’
‘I won’t have any more
money.’
‘But you must work
somewhere.’
‘For my
father.’
‘He must be rich.’ She reached out
and touched his jacket. ‘Good quality, but look, it’s got a hole in
it.’
Benjamin knew he must have torn it
climbing over the asylum wall. He went to brush his jacket where she had touched
it, but took his hand away. ‘It’s only an old one.’
‘You mean you have more than
one?’
‘A few, for different occasions.
Not much good if you’ve got no money though.’
‘I’m broke
too.’
They walked side by side along the
narrow footpath. He lifted his hat to anyone who did the same or wished him a
good afternoon. She acknowledged nobody. He wondered where she was going after
they had gone several streets and had left the older part of town behind and
were passing endless rough brick terraces. Residents sat outside or stood in
groups talking, no doubt to escape the stench and the squalor inside, things
that brought back vivid memories for Benjamin. He thought of his family’s house
now – two storey splendour and more than a dozen rooms set on several
acres.
‘Going home?’ he
said.
‘Yeah, it’s getting late.’ Soon
she stopped outside some steps leading to a cellar.
‘Who lives
here?’
‘Me and a few others. Some of us
work at the factory over there.’ She pointed to a nearby mill casting a shadow
over the whole terrace. Dirty smoke came from its chimney, the breeze blowing it
onto the houses.
‘Can we meet again?’ he said as
she hopped down the steps.
Charlotte looked up.
‘Maybe.’
‘How about
...?’
But she had gone inside.
About the Author
Chris Pearce was born in
Surrey, UK in 1952, and grew up in Melbourne, Australia. He has qualifications
in economics, management/marketing and writing/editing. He worked as a public
servant (federal and state) for 25 years and in the real world for 12.5 years.
His inspiration for writing
A Weaver’s Web was a postgraduate creative writing course he topped from
30 students in the mid 1990s. After unsuccessfully targeting many literary
agents, including one who compared his manuscript to John Steinbeck’s The
Grapes of Wrath, he decided to publish it as an ebook.
He also has a non-fiction book
(print only), Through the Eyes of Thomas Pamphlett: Convict and Castaway,
which he plans to publish as an ebook later in 2014. He is writing a book on the
history of daylight saving time around the world and has some notes towards a
novel set 80 years into the future.
His other hobbies include
family history and tenpin bowling.
Chris and his wife live in
Brisbane, Australia.
Author Links:
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