It were Stephen who got things started without meaning it. We were sitting eating our bait one day when he said slyly — There goes thy light o love our Peter. I looked up and saw Alice walking with some other lasses quite close. I felt myself blush a bit — without knowing why — and I said — Now stop thy laking — I dont know what tha means.
It were likely my awkwardness that made some of the others laugh — and one of them — a big solid brute of a fellow called Archie Doyle — with a reputation for beating his wife — said — Tell us then young Pascoe hasta shagged her yet?
Now a silence fell — not because any of them were shocked — this kind of question passes for wit in a mill — but to see how I would take it. If you let yourself get angered — then thas done forever — fair game for any who want to get a rise. I took my time — chewing on a crust of bread — then I said — Whysta want to know Archie? Ist so long since tha did it thasel — thas forgotten how?
That got them laughing — all but Doyle who jumped to his feet and came towards me fists clenched. Id seen him in action and I knew what he could do — I jumped up too thinking of running — but I knew I couldnt run forever and hed always be looking for me. So I grabbed up a length of four by two lying around for use in wedging the machine gate open — and I held it before me like a club — and I said — Listen Archie — I’ll put up wi thy filthy tongue cos tha knows no better. But if ever tha lays a finger on me I’ll split thy skull wide open so help me God.
He stopped in his tracks but I could see he wasnt going to back down not unless he had a way out — and he were too thick to think of one — and I was wrought too tight to give him one — then one of the others — Tommy Mather one of the Union men — said — No need to get thy dander up Pete. Archie ud never have spoke like he did if hed known tha was really courting the lass — would you Archie? — and Doyle said — No. How was I to know? — and I said — Thats all right then. Just then the hooter went and as we went back to work Mather said to me — Best start making up to the girl for the next week or so at least young Pascoe — just till Archie gets used to the idea.
I didnt answer but I found myself thinking about it all through the shift. The truth was — and Im almost ashamed to write it — that Doyles foul minded question had got me thinking about Alice not as a growing child but as a grown woman. Its funny the way God twists things — turning bad to good and sometimes so it seems good to bad.
So thats how I started courting Alice and she told me later to my surprise that shed been waiting ever so long for me to ask and had almost begun to fear I never would!
We were in no rush to get wed — partly because we wanted something behind us — and partly because so sure were we of each other neither felt the need to tie us together with church knots. As for those strong fleshly urgings which some women use to lead a resisting man to the altar — so alike were we in this that soon we were giving and taking gladly — confident that what we did was holy without need of parson preaching his solemn words.
Another reason was that I was getting on so well in the job. Id long moved on from being a crawling boy and rapidly moved up through most of the jobs on the machines — too rapid for some like Archie Doyle who started sneering at me as the bosses pet. In the end I did what I mebbe shouldve done that first time and told him to put up or shut up — and when he put up I split his head open. He still got one or two blows in and gave me a cracked rib or two but there was no doubting the result and after that no one said owt about my rapid advance. In fact Doyle suffered unjustly — though not before time — because I knew in my heart that it werent no peculiar merit that was getting me on — though I quickly mastered everything I turned my hand to — but Mr Grindals special interest.
By this time the Union men had just about given up on me — not that I argued against them but rather I twisted and turned and ducked and dodged — knowing as I did that my progress would hit a brick wall if ever Mr Grindal got it in his head I was mixed up with them. Sometimes I talked of this with Alice whose father was hot for the Union — she played the submissive maidens part saying it were mens business and beyond her — but there was nowt submissive about her when her dad told her that no bosses man was going to marry his daughter — whereupon she told him that no Union man was going to tell her who she could wed or not!
For all that he might have been an obstacle to us till she came of age — which I had rather waited for than what did happen — which was an outbreak of typhoid fever in Kirkton that carried several off including Mr Clark among the first. Alice too was touched and I feared for her life but when I told Mr Grindal of this — who till now I had kept dark about my hopes for marriage not knowing how he might view them — he immediately got his brother in law Mr Sam Batty to consult with her doctor. Mr Sam was now quite famous for his patent ointments and stomach draughts which he would probably have given away for free if Mr Grindal had not set him up in works on a piece of land he owned just over the river from the mill. I have heard Mr Grindal say his brother in law knew more about the workings of the human system than any doctor in England but less about the workings of the capital system than any grocer in Leeds. I know not what he prescribed or said but do know that under his advice Alice quickly recovered — for which I am more grateful to him than any man living.
So now with no father to object and with Mr Grindals approval — for once he met Alice he could see for himself that she was apt to make a wife and helpmeet fit for any man — we had the banns called and married in the spring of 1911 — and the following year little Ada was born.
By now I was off the mill floor and into the counting house — a proper clerk with good prospects and enough money coming in to keep his wife and family properly — I even bought a piano because Alice hoped that Ada would turn out musical — and to my surprise I found that I was gifted that way myself — never before having any chance to discover this — and in no time I was able to pick out the ragtime tunes which were all the rage.
Mr Grindals trust in me grew daily — and when he decided that his son young Bertie should spend his summer holiday emptying his head of all the fancy notions he was picking up from his mother and his expensive school it was to my care that he entrusted him.
He was a good looking boy in a rather girlish way with long soft light brown hair — which when he was advised to take care of it catching in the machines he tied back with a red silk kerchief — after which everyone called him Gertie though never in Mr Grindals earshot.
He said he recalled me from when he was a baby and he talked of my mother most affectionately — whom I had not seen for more than a twelvemonth. She had been taken ill while the family were in the house at Cromer and remained there when they moved on — unable even to travel to see her grandchild. I had accepted reassurance that it was a slight and temporary illness but from some hints that young Gertie carelessly let drop I began to fear it might be something much worse — but to my shame I did nowt about it. This apart there was little to trouble my life — and when Mr Grindal recommended that I should go to the Institute to take courses in book keeping and generally improve myself I looked into the future — working for the best of firms in the best of countries — and saw nothing but peace and prosperity on the horizon.