Free Trapped In She Town : A Romantic Novella (The Jute Mills Series) by Serena MacKay

didn’t work and worsen again during the week. Tess told her she had ‘Mill
Fever’, the dust and heat from the machines affecting her lungs.
    This particular
morning Mary was having difficulty breathing and was coughing up mucus. John
called the doctor and he was told gravely that Mary had bronchitis. John tended
to her as her fever rose, and never left her side, except to get her some water
to sip and something to cool her fevered brow.
    Tess took in the
children, and a week later Mary’s fever broke.
    Mary recovered and
carried on working at the mill to ensure the children were fed, but over the
next two years she was constantly getting sick and having time away from work.
She now seemed to have a permanent hacking cough.
    One afternoon around
three, Tess came running up the hill to batter on the front door of the little
flat. John came running out at the noise.
    “John! John! It’s Mary
again” she cried out. “She collapsed in front of the machine at work. John,
it’s a miracle she wasn’t caught up in the machine and mangled. The supervisor
isnae happy.”
    “Where is she now
Tess?”
    “They took her to the
doctors”
    When John got there,
the doctor took him to one side. “Your wife is seriously ill. Her lungs can’t
take any more of the dust in that factory. If she goes back to work there I
give her eight months. I’m sorry.”
    When John saw Mary, he
thought she was already dead. “Oh Mary, my love.” he sobbed. “I’m sorry. Please
just get better and I will search and search until I get a job. There is no way
I’m letting you step foot back inside that mill.”

December  1879
     
    Mary was busy scrubbing the little flat from top to bottom. It
didn’t matter how hard, or how often she swept and scrubbed, she could never
seem to get rid of the layer of dust and grime that settled on everything.
There was nothing she could do but keep cleaning it every day as the mill
chimneys just kept pumping out their never-ending plumes of black smoke, up and
out over the town.
    She couldn’t wait until they moved into their new home across the
water in Leuchars. She remembered John’s anguish when she had taken ill the
last time.
    Once she recovered, he had told her again how much he loved her and
voiced his fears for her.
    “You can’t keep working in that mill Mary. It will be the death of
you.” he had cried “Look how many of your friends have been injured or are too
sick to work with mill fever and bronchitis. We nearly lost you already. I’m
going to find a job right away and you will get better and look after the
bairns.”
    John had been as good as his word and had found a position as head
groomsman at a large house over in Fife. The position came with a small house
for him and his family, which they were to be moving into as soon as the old,
outgoing groomsman had finished up. John had started two weeks before and was
learning the ropes from the old man. The older man was to be moving in with his
daughter in Tayport, and the house would be ready for them next week.
    So, every morning John was away at 6 o’clock to head to the train
station and over on the train to Leuchars.
    Mary thought back to Christmas Day, three days before. John had been
given the day off, and to see the smiles on the children’s wee pinched faces
had been a delight. They had managed to buy a little toy for each child; a
spinning top for Patrick and a doll each for Jane and Annie. Then they had all
walked up the road to the park where they had gone sledging in the snow. They
had carried on to the “Swannie” Ponds which was iced over and watched some
young people skating. There had been so much laughter, and for the first time
since she had left her home in Aberdeenshire, almost ten years before, Mary
felt contentment.
    She had a husband who loved her and was now providing for her and
her family, even although the lovemaking for her was still a problem. She was
so happy that her children would soon be growing up in