As if she hadn’t trouble enough, Brigid was crying again. Lyddie glanced over at the loom. Everything seemed in order, but the Irish girl was standing there, staring at the shuddering machine with tears running down her cheeks. Lyddie quickly checked her own looms before walking over and saying in the girl’s ear, “What’s the matter with you, ey?”

Brigid looked around startled. She bit her lip and shook her head.

Lyddie shrugged. It was just as well if the girl learned to bear her own troubles.

Mr. Marsden stopped Lyddie at the stairs on the way to breakfast. Her heart knotted. How could he have heard about Rachel already? Had one of the other girls tattled so soon? They were jealous of her, Lyddie knew. She was the best operator on the floor. But it was not about Rachel that Mr. Marsden wished to speak, it was about the wretched Irish girl. “You must tell her,” he said, “that she must get her speed up. I can’t keep her on, even as a spare hand, unless she can maintain a proper pace.”

Why didn’t he tell her himself? He was the overseer. Brigid did not belong to her. She hadn’t asked for a spare hand—hadn’t wanted one—and now he was trying to shove the responsibility off on her.

She spoke to Brigid after the break. “He says you’ll have to speed up or he can’t keep you on.”

The girl’s eyes widened in fear, reminding Lyddie, oh cuss it, of Rachel’s silent face as the child sat crouched within herself in the corner of Mrs. Bedlow’s kitchen. “Oh, tarnation,” she hollered in Brigid’s ear, “I’ll help you. We’ll do the five looms together for a few days—just till you get on better, ey?”

The girl smiled faintly, still frightened.

“And keep your mind on your blooming work, you hear? We can’t have you catching your hair or being hit in the head by a flying shuttle because you’re being stup—because your mind is someplace else.”

Fresh tears started in the girl’s eyes, but she bit her lip again and nodded. Lyddie could see Diana smiling approval. Good thing she couldn’t hear me, Lyddie thought wryly. She wouldn’t be thinking I was so kindly then.

By the seven o’clock bell, Brigid was looking a little less distraught, and Mr. Marsden came past to pat both girls proudly. Lyddie sighed and hardly bothered to dodge him. She had gotten off the fewest pieces in one day since she’d had four looms, and she still had to go home to the burden of silent little Rachel.

“Well, it won’t do,” said Mrs. Bedlow. “She won’t talk to either Tim or me. Not a word. Just sits trembling in the corner like a frozen mouse.”

“Did she manage to eat anything?”