Last Telegram Read Online Free PDF Page B

encouragement.”
    â€œDon’t listen to your brother. You’ll get on splendidly,” Mother said encouragingly. “You never know, you might even enjoy it.”
    I was unconvinced. Setting off across the yard, the short trip I had seen my father, and more recently John, take every morning, I felt depressed: this was far from the glamorous life I’d planned. But why were butterflies causing mayhem in my stomach—was I afraid of being ridiculed as the gaffer’s daughter, I wondered, of letting him down? Or scared that I might not be able to learn fast enough, that people might laugh behind my back? Oh, get a grip, Lily, I muttered to myself. This is a means to an end, remember? Besides, you haven’t let anything beat you yet, and you’re not about to start now.
    I took a deep breath, went through the big green double doors into the mill, and climbed the long wooden stairs to Father’s office.
    My first impressions of Gwen Collins were certainly not favorable. She wasn’t exactly old—in her late twenties I judged—but otherwise John’s description seemed pretty accurate. An unprepossessing woman, dumpy and shorter than me, in a shapeless brown smock and trousers with men’s turn-ups, she had concealed her hair beneath an unflattering flowery scarf wrapped and knotted like a turban. There was something rather manly about her—a disregard for how others saw her, perhaps. Her expression was serious, even severe. But something softened it, gave her an air of vulnerability. Then I realized what it was: I had never seen anyone with so many freckles. They covered her face, merging into blobs that almost concealed the pale, nearly translucent skin beneath. She’d made no effort to hide them with makeup. Even her eyelids were speckled.
    I returned the forceful handshake with what I hoped was a friendly smile. “Pleased to meet you, Gwen. Father tells me you’re going to teach me all you know. He says you’re a mine of information.”
    â€œMr. Harold is very kind; the regard is mutual,” she replied without returning the smile and without even a glance at Father. Pale green eyes regarded me with unsettling intensity beneath her almost invisibly blond eyelashes.
    After an awkward pause, she said briskly, “Right, we’ll make a start in the packing hall, so you can learn about what we produce, then we’ll go round the mill to see how we weave it.” With no further pleasantries, she turned and led the way, striding down the corridor so purposefully I had to trot to keep up.
    The packing hall was—still is today—a large room running the length of the first floor of Old Mill. Sun poured in through six tall windows along the southern wall, and the room was almost oppressively warm, with that dry, sweet smell of raw silk that would soon become part of my very being. Along the opposite wall were deep wooden racks stacked from floor to ceiling with bolts of cloth.
    In the center, two workers stood at wide tables edged with shiny bronze yard-rules, expertly measuring, cutting, and rolling or folding bundles of material and wrapping them with sturdy brown paper and string. On the window side, four others sat at tilted tables like architects’ drawing boards, covered with cloth stretched between two rolls, one at the top and another at the bottom.
    â€œThese are pickers,” Gwen said, introducing me as “Miss Lily, Mr. Harold’s daughter.” As we shook hands, they lowered their eyes deferentially, probably cursing the fact that they would have to watch their language with another Verner hanging around.
    â€œJust call me Lily, please,” I stuttered. “It’s my first day, and I’ve got a lot to learn.” Naïvely, I imagined they might in time consider me one of them.
    â€œThey check the silk and mark each fault with a short red thread tied into the selvedge. That’s the edge of the