In addition to the pound to pay for my supposed lodging expenses at Harrogate, Mr. Wilson had given me a note of five pounds with which to secure a room and to pay for whatever else I needed until he and my father could work out a satisfactory arrangement. I found a room on the third floor of a house owned by a middle-aged widow, wide of girth and constant of smile: Mrs. Clem. “I keep a decent place,” she assured me. “There’s to be no drinking in the room. No guests after eight o’clock in the evening, no loud noises, no swearing, and no women guests ever, regardless of their marital status or relationship with you.”
Though the room was sparsely furnished, it was clean and had an iron-framed bed with a sagging mattress, an upholstered chair (which I later discovered to be most uncomfortable), a commode with washbasin and pitcher, and three pegs on the wall on which to hang my clothes. The one window faced onto the street below.
“Have you work here?” she asked after we had come to an agreement on price and other matters.
“I do,” I said. “At Maysbeck Mill.”
“Ah,” she responded, looking me over, gauging my status. “As an overlooker, I wonder?”
I laughed. “Not so important as that, I’m afraid. I help in the countinghouse.”
Her eyebrows raised, but her smile never diminished. “All in good time, I should imagine. All in good time.”
I moved within a week, not a difficult task, as I still had few belongings. Mrs. Wilson wept when I left, as if she were saying good-bye once more to her beloved Eddie, repeating over and over, “It cannot be helped; it just cannot be helped.” And, as I bundled my things into a hired trap: “You will come for Christmas dinner, surely. Say you will come.”
“Of course I will,” I said, though I wondered if Miss Little would see fit to allow me to stay through the meal.
Mrs. Clem, it turned out, had three other lodgers: Miss Lavinia Riley, a tall, serious woman who worked at a milliner’s; and two men, Mr. Matthew Hill, who was in his midtwenties and who traveled much of the time, and the other, Mr. Henry MacMichael, near sixty years of age, I should guess, and who seemed to do nothing but grumble.
I arranged for Bert Cornes—the night watchman at the mill, who, as his last task before going home in the morning, knocked his long pole on the windows of the mill workers’ homes to wake them—to come past Mrs. Clem’s establishment and knock me up as well.
Less than a week after I moved out, Mr. Wilson announced to me that his sister-in-law and Mrs. Brewer had arrived, though he needn’t have bothered, for his changed demeanor made that clear almost immediately. He spoke even less than before, and his work habits altered as well. He took to coming in earlier and staying on much later, even after the machines had shut down, as if he craved that peace and respite.
I was indeed invited to the Wilson home for Christmas dinner, and Miss Little did not drive me away from the table, but even so it was not a particularly pleasant occasion. Poor Mrs. Wilson was in a dither the whole time, and in fact I imagined that she was often beside herself since her sister had come: she gave her cook and her housekeeper one order after another—often countermanding a previous one. As for Mr. Wilson, he buried himself behind his newspapers and appeared at table only long enough to not seem completely unsociable. His distraction was such that I wondered how he managed to stay through the pudding, which I thought was delicious, though Mrs. Wilson complained that it was burned and Miss Little wandered off after only a bite or two, Mrs. Brewer scurrying after her. As they disappeared, Mr. Wilson seemed to lighten, and Mrs. Wilson, though still apologizing for everything, appeared more relaxed as well.
“You can see how it is,” Mr. Wilson said to me.
“Yes, sir, I do,” I said, knowing that Mr. Lincoln might scold me for such an abrupt and inadequate response, but there seemed nothing more to say.
He stared off into space for a time. “It can’t be helped,” he said. “It’s not what anyone would choose, bringing a person losing her mind into one’s own home, but it must be done. Even the fiercest of beasts—wolves and bears—take care of their own.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, for it seemed all there was to say.
And, to my relief, he changed the subject. “How are you getting on, by now?”
“I have no complaints. Mrs. Clem keeps a tidy place.”
“I understand she is respectable,” he responded. “You have done very well under the circumstances, I should say. And you have taken hold well at the mill.”
It was the first direct approval he had given me since his conversation with Rowland. “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me; thank the father who taught you that a gentleman can work hard and still be a gentleman. There are too many in this world who think being in trade is shameful.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, wise enough not to dispute the point.
“Has your father ever told you what he has in mind for you?”
“No, sir, he has not,” I said, suddenly sitting straighter.
“Nor do I know, but it’s clear he wants you to be able to run a facility—a mill or a manufactory of some sort—on your own.” He smoothed the tablecloth beside his place and waved to the maid for another brandy. “You are too young for such responsibility now, but that is what I think he has in mind. Would that suit you, do you think?”
“Yes, sir, it would, sir,” I said, my heart suddenly beating so wildly that it was a wonder he didn’t hear it. No one had ever asked me if any plans of my father’s, whatever they were, suited me. It would not have occurred to me to refuse them, but, in fact, at the time I could not imagine anything that would be finer. I still had a great deal to learn.
***
A few weeks later, a letter came to Mr. Wilson from my father, announcing his impending visit. I was stunned into panic. I had not seen my father since I was seven years old, before I had been sent to Black Hill. I did not know what I would say to him or how he would react to me or what he expected of me or, worst of all, if I would even recognize him.
“Well, now, that’s a welcome bit of news,” Mr. Wilson said, after reading the letter. “We’ll be settling a new arrangement for you, since I cannot house you as I had originally agreed.” Then he looked me up and down. “You’d best get yourself a new pair of trousers and a new coat.”
