“A canna’,” he said. “Coom, missus, what art thinking? He’ll spit at thee.”
“I have to speak to him about John,” said Phoebe. “Open the door and let me through.”
“It’s more nor my plaice is worth,” he said, but, nevertheless, he was weakening. She was not making a request, she was not a weaver asking a favor of an overseer, she was Phoebe Bradshaw, whom Peter had brought up to be a lady, giving an order to a workman in the tone of one who commands obedience as a habit.
He scratched his head in doubt, then turned to a fellow-overseer and consulted with him. They murmured together with a wealth of puzzlement and headshaking and, presently, “Now, Mrs. Bradshaw,” said Aspinall, “tak’ heed to me. Yon door’s fast, but me an’ Joe here are goin’ to open it on factory business, understand. If happen tha’s creeping up behind us, it’s none likely we’ll see thee coomin’ and if tha’ slips through door and into office while we’ve gotten door open on our business, it’s because tha’ was too spry for us to stop thee. That’s best we can do for thee and it’s takkin’ big risks an’ all.”
“I’m grateful,” said Phoebe.
They opened the door and made loud sounds of protest as she slipped through, causing Reuben to look up from the bureau where he was opening his letters and to see both Phoebe standing in his office and the actors at the door. He waved them off and, when the door was closed, “Well?” he said.
“Reuben!” said Phoebe.
He rose with an angry cry. How dared she, this weaver, this roughened, withered old woman, address him by his Christian name? This gray wraith, whose hair hung mustily about her like the jacket of lichen about a ruined tree, she to call him by the name his Dorothy alone had used! That morning of all mornings it was outrage of outrages.
He did not know her whom once he nearly loved. Twenty years ago he had put her from him and had excluded her from his recollection. Long ago the factory had outgrown the stage when an employer has knowledge of his workpeople as individuals; he did not know her nor had the identification of the prisoner as John Bradshaw, a spinner in the factory, conveyed any personal significance to him. Bradshaw was a common name, and he had never known that Phoebe had called their son John.
“But I am Phoebe,” she said, standing her ground before his menacing advance. “Phoebe, Reuben. Phoebe, who—Phoebe Bradshaw.”