Open Writing

PERSEVERANCE. Edward Smith always raised his startling blue eyes to the stone-carved letters about the main entrance of the textile mill. It was the reason he had bought the derelict mill and converted it into desirable modern apartments. He had persevered all his life with only one thought controlling him, ‘to be successful’.

His private elevator rose to the penthouse apartment, and a haven of peace and tranquillity cocooned him as he stepped into his own luxurious territory. He prowled around the perimeter as the remote-control drew the curtains and activated the soft lights illuminating the family photograph, taken after he had graduated from Oxford. From there he had quickly moved into the financial world in the City, where his father’s motto: ‘Take care of the pennies and the pounds will
take care of themselves,’ was firmly engraved into his soul.

Edward had always been a loner. His sport, as he grew up, was running and every morning, before school, he would run up the moorland lane until he reached the outcrop of black millstone grit, where he would sit and survey his imaginary kingdom, cloaked by the solitary, stark splendour of the moors above him. The clear sharp air bristled in his nostrils and the smoke from the industrial chimneys could not reach him here as he dreamed of success. Running was still his sport and he was unaware of his nickname, ‘the Ice Adonis’, earned by his appearance and his nature. The industrial smoke in the valleys was long since gone, but Edward was often disturbed by the pungent smell of cigar smoke, which he had failed to detect in the whole complex.

Edward had always known that his father’s past was clouded in mystery and he had always hoped that when he was grown up and successful his father would reveal it, but it was not to be. After his father’s motorbike hit an icy patch on the moorland road he never regained consciousness. His heartbroken mother soon followed him, but had made Edward promise never to part with a Meissen teapot and two cups and saucers which had belonged to his grandmother and could tell a story, so she said, if only they could speak. As he stepped into the kitchen area his eyes were drawn to the Meissen china. “Yes, you could tell a story! How sad is that? I’m talking to inaminate objects,” he said, as he popped his ready meal into the microwave oven, then carried his solitary dinner into the television area.

“Well, I’ve made it, Mum and Dad. I really am somebody but who am I really?” Sad and lonely, Edward Smith fell asleep.

* * *

Exactly one hundred and fifty years ago the hooter at Perseverance Mill blared out into the cold dark morning. The knocker-up had tapped with his long pole on all the bedroom windows of the mill-workers’ houses stretching in long grimy rows around Perseverance and scores of bedraggled employees, some dragging tired children, scuttled through the iron gates of the mill, their clogs clattering eerily across the cobbled yard. Joseph Dewhurst, the mill owner, puffing on his early morning cigar, was watching from his lair and bellowed, “Close the gates, Lockwood, I’ll not tolerate lateness.”

John Lockwood dutifully did as he was told, muttering under his breath, but just in time he dragged in James Smith as the great iron gates clanged shut.

“Late again, Smith! Where’s yer brother? Yer lucky! Mr. Dewhurst has left his post. He hasn’t seen yer, but yer brothe’s locked out.”

“Thanks, Mr. Lockwood. George i’n’t coming today. He said I’d to say he his hotherwise hengaged.”

“You’d better not say that to Mr. Dewhurst or he’ll clout yer round yer lug’ole and sack yer an’ aall. Get up them stairs quick before he does his rounds.”

James galloped up the stone steps two at a time. The clattering looms engulfed him as he burst breathlessly through the doorway. His own and his brother’s looms glowered at him with disapproving silence.

“Where’ve yer been?” his mates chorused together but the question was just a mime amidst the tumultuous clattering.

“Family business, I’ll tell yer later,” he bellowed back as his loom came to life. They all pointed to George’s silent loom hovering ominously beside James, who touched his nose and shook his head. He was sworn to secrecy. George should be well on his way by now with Sarah Dewhurst, the millowner’s daughter. The pungent smell of cigar smoke drifted into the weaving shed alerting the workforce to the presence of their boss. The silence of George’s loom would infuriate him.

“Where is your brother, Smith?” Dewhurst bellowed, as the surrounding mill hands inhaled the pungent smoke, at the same time pretending not to have noticed.

“I don’t know, ’onest Sir,” James bellowed back, coughing as the cigar smoke was blown into his face.

“Well, when you see him tell him he’s sacked,” and Joseph Dewhurst stormed out leaving a cloud of cigar smoke behind him. James grinned knowing that by now George and Sarah would have disappeared into the nearby industrial city.

Sarah Dewhurst had persevered to survive ever since her mother died. Perseverance had driven her father and he cared about nothing except his mill into which he poured all his money to expand the business. Her brother was sent away to school to become an educated English gentleman while she was nothing but a slave. She learned to read at Sunday School and every afternoon she pored over her father’s newspaper telling herself that one day she would escape to a better life. And then it happened!

One Sunday she was sitting alone listening to the brass band in the park, when George Smith noticed her at the same time as she noticed him. A strange sensation consumed her when he smiled. She could not stop herself from returning his smile. From that precious moment their romance blossomed and she existed for their Sunday meetings, but they soon realised Joseph Dewhurst would never consent to his daughter’s marriage to one of his employees.

So now here she was on her way to George and their new life. Thriftily she had saved pennies from her household allowance and changed them into sovereigns whenever she could. Her precious hoard was sewn into the hem of her skirt. “Take care of the pennies and the sovereigns will take care of themselves,” her mother had always taught her.

Sarah had removed a Meissen teapot and two cups and saucers from the sideboard and carefully wrapped them in rags. They had been her mother’s pride and joy. She had no regrets, as she placed her carefully wrapped treasure into her bag and then leaving her past life behind she ran joyfully down the street to the tram-stop to meet George and to start a new life.
Despite a harsh life, they survived and when a son was born they named him James Joseph Smith, and Sarah was sad because her father would never know his grandson. The precious teapot and cups and saucers survived down the generations and became ornamental.

* * *

Edward Smith groaned and stretched. Something had awoken him. There it was again! The pungent smell of cigar smoke. It was coming from the kitchen area.

He jumped up, “Who’s there?” he shouted much more bravely than he felt, but there was an eerie silence and Edward shivered as cold air drifted around him. His eyes were drawn to the Meissen. It had moved from a display shelf to a work top.

He picked up the teapot to replace it. “It’s warm,” he gasped. The cigar smoke swirled around him and as it drifted away Edward suddenly felt an unaccustomed aura of unity with the heritage he had yearned to know. At last, although he didn’t know why, he experienced a sense of belonging.

Silently Joseph Dewhurst drifted away from his old domain. He was, at last, at peace.