Deadlight-Hall(57)

Dearest Mildred,

It is very kind of you and Simeon to agree to store my things at Willow Bank Farm until I can send for them. I dare say the bits of furniture can go in your attic, and in these packages are a few old family papers – nothing valuable or even particularly important, but mostly old photographs and a few letters from my great-uncle’s time, which my mother always kept. I expect you’ll be surprised to find me being so careful – and even sentimental – but I’d like to think they were in safe-keeping. With the future so uncertain and everything being blown to smithereens around us, it seems somehow important to preserve the past – even though parts of this particular past are not very creditable!

I will write soon.

Fondest love to you and Simeon,

Rosa.

Rosa. By her own admission, there was nothing especially interesting in the papers she had left for her good friends Mildred and Simeon Hurst to store. It was slightly odd that if the papers had meant so much to her, she had never reclaimed them, but there could be any number of reasons for that. There was no date on the letter, but it sounded as if it had been written at the height of WWII, when there were all kinds of upheavals and tragedy in people’s lives. Curious to know what Rosa had wanted to keep for posterity, Michael turned over the next layer.

Two names leapt out at him at once. The first was that of Augustus Breadspear, the vaguely Dickensian-sounding name familiar from the documents found at the Archives Office a couple of days ago.

The second was Deadlight Hall.

Moving with extreme care, almost expecting the thin brittle pages to crumble into dust beneath his hands, Michael lifted out the little stack of papers, and carried them to the deep wing chair in the corner of the room.

He placed them carefully on the small side desk where the gentle sunlight filtered through the window, sat down in the deep wing chair nearby, and began to read.





FIFTEEN


Deadlight Hall

October 1882

My dear Mr Breadspear

Tomorrow I am sending you Douglas Wilger, who should be sufficiently strong for the work, being twelve years old, but could pass for fourteen. He may need discipline, for he has turned out to be a wilful and ungrateful child, one as needs a firm hand. Already he has had the impudence to say that to work at Salamander House is what he calls ‘beneath him’. He also makes objection to the hours, which he says are very long, and adds that it is a dangerous place.

I do not know what the world is coming to when a child born in shame is so ungrateful, although I will allow that his father – whoever that may be – pays our accounts very prompt.

To my mind the work at Salamander House is easy and the hours reasonable. My goodness, I should like to see how these young people would fare if they had to stand behind a counter in a busy apothecary’s establishment all day, as I did in Mr Porringer’s establishment.

The Wilger boy will come to Salamander House tomorrow morning at 7.00 sharp.

Respectfully yours,

Maria Porringer (Mrs)

Following this letter was what appeared to be an official report from the same year.

DEADLIGHT HALL TRUST

ENQUIRY HELD INTO INJURY AT SALAMANDER HOUSE.

Governing Chairman of Enquiry Board and author of report: Sir George Buckle.

Statement made by Mr Augustus Breadspear, owner, managing director, and Chairman, of Salamander House Glass Manufactory.

I attest that the boy, Douglas Wilger, was employed by me for work in the furnace room of my manufactory at Salamander House commencing on the 10th day of October, in the year 1882. His hours were from seven o’clock in the morning to seven o’clock each evening. (Saturdays are seven o’clock until four o’clock, and Sundays, of course, are a day of rest, although I make sure all my apprentices attend Church service.)

My workers are looked after properly and considerately. They are allowed half an hour for breakfast at half-past eight, and another half an hour for dinner at midday. I provide breakfasts and dinners for them all – which is more than I can say for a great many other factory owners – and good substantial food it is at Salamander House, none of your rubbishy bread and dripping or onion broth. There is a delivery each day from Hurst’s Farm, of fresh eggs and milk, as can be seen from my account books, which are all kept in proper order and can be inspected by anyone who wants to see them.

Douglas Wilger’s duties were to carry the blown glass objects from the manufactory benches to the furnaces for firing and finishing, to lever open the furnaces and to ensure the doors remained open while the products were placed inside. He had also to assist the glass blowers to arrange such products on the inner shelves of the furnaces.