A Factory Magdalen

Summary

Cogs shriek, cotton-fog thickens, and inside a humming brick leviathan a trembling loom-girl named Angie Smith is promised the respectable heavens of marriage by slick-haired manager Walter Williams; the covenant soon rots into a scrap of lies when Williams, calculating that Mercy's patrimony gilds his ambition better than a mill-hand's devotion, swaps futures. A child quickens in Angie's ribs, an inconvenient truth, while Williams rewrites destiny with ink and iron: one signature forged, one mill-owner felled by a savage blow witnessed only by the woman who still loves the killer. Blood pools between boot-soles and gravel; Angie seals her lips, internalising guilt as though it were lint in her lungs. Rufus Sweet, a foreman nursing an unspoken sonnet for the heiress, is fitted up for the crime, exonerated, then vanishes into the American myth of self-reinvention, returning years later bearded, patent-rich, and luminous with capital. Angie, too, slips from the narrative, re-emerging at the altar like a vengeful apparition clutching maternity as evidence; the wedding fractures, Williams skids into embezzlement and hires knives to silence mother and babe. A torrent, a dog named Rex, a watertight cash-box, a man-hunt through pine and panic—justice arrives on four heroic legs. Shackled at last, Williams is dragged toward penitence while Angie, body broken but conscience unbroken, brokers one final grace between the two people whose union she once inadvertently obstructed; she dies as the bell tolls, a secular Magdalen expiring beneath the same wheel-driven sky that first ground her down.

Synopsis

The story tells of the sorrows of Angie Smith the "Magdalen," caused through her betrayal by Walter Williams, the manager of the mill in which Angie is employed. In the beginning of his acquaintance with Angie, Williams proposes marriage to her, but later decides that it would be more to his temporal advantage to marry Mercy Mackey, the daughter of the owner of the mill. As the time approaches when Angie is to become a mother, Williams is accused of his perfidy by Mr. Mackey. The result is a violent, altercation during which Williams strikes Mr. Mackey and kills him, Angie being the only witness. The murder takes place in the mill yard, and as Mackey falls prostrate at the feet of Williams, Angie looks through the window of the mill and sees the crime. Due to her love for Williams she keeps the knowledge to herself. After the murder Williams forges Mr. Mackey's name to a paper, the purport of which is that it is Mr. Mackey's wish that Williams remain at the mill as the permanent manager. The forged testament also contains the wish that Mercy Mackey and Williams marry. Mercy has been secretly admired and loved by one of the mill foremen, Rufus Sweet, who, on account of the disparity in their stations in life, has not declared nor shown his love. At the time of the murder Rufus is accused by Williams. He is arrested, but is exonerated, and on his release he disappears. About the same time Angie goes away and leaves no trace. Meanwhile, Williams persuades Mercy to marry him. Rufus, who, in his new environment, has become an inventor of note and has amassed considerable wealth, reads an announcement of the marriage. He finds Angie, and together they return to their native town, arriving on the day that Williams is to marry Mercy. As the ceremony is about to be solemnized Angie interrupts the wedding and declares Williams is the father of her child, and thus makes it impossible for the marriage to take place. Williams then declines rapidly in the moral scale and his next misdemeanor is the robbery of the mill safe. He also decides to be revenged on Angie, and with this end in view he hires a gang of cutthroats to murder Angie and her baby. Angie is thrown into the rushing mill sluice, thereby being apparently doomed to certain and swift death. Rex, a wonderful police dog, belonging to Rufus, rescues Angie. At this part of the story Rex takes a leading role, as he not only is the means of rescuing Angie, but he also recovers the missing mill cash box. He is seen taking this box from under a pile of heavy stones, where it has been hidden by the robber. Rex is then seen as the chief factor in a most exciting cross country chase, in which he finds the gang of thugs in their retreat, which is a hut in the midst of the woods. He holds the men until the posse arrives, when they are arrested under circumstances of the most exciting sort. Williams is finally called to account for his various misdeeds, is arrested and sent to prison to pay the penalty which is exacted for all evil-doing. The story closes with the death of Angie, her last wish being that Rufus and Mercy marry. She clasps their hands together and her brave spirit departs, glad of its release from the pain-rack body.