Mr. Wilson, God bless him, was as good as his word. Immediately, he gave me more responsibility, and I strode through that vast mill as if I owned it, and, indeed, I sometimes foolishly imagined that I did. My father’s words had made me see myself differently from what I had before I met with him. Once, I had felt more kinship with the children who worked in the mill than I did with Mr. Wilson or even Bob Wrisley, but now, suddenly, I saw myself in company with men of substance, like Mr. Wilson. I imagined I might even someday hold my own beside my father.
It did not take much time for me to become accustomed to this new vision of myself, and to quite enjoy it. Mr. Wilson seemed as proud of me as if I were his own son, and he frequently invited me to dine with him at noontime at the Crown, where he usually ate his dinner, now that Miss Little and Mrs. Brewer had come to stay. Sometimes we were joined by Mr. Landes, a neighbor who owned a flour mill, or others of Mr. Wilson’s friends, but as for the people who worked in the mill, I had begun to see them more fully as Mr. Wilson and his friends did—as a caste quite lower than ourselves, quite inured to difficult times, and lucky indeed to hold the jobs they had.
The workingmen at the mill paid me as little attention as possible, save for one: Rufus Shap, a lout built like a bull, who carried an angry face and glared at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I dared to ask Mr. Wilson once if he had noticed that Rufus seemed to bear me ill will, but he only replied, “That is Rufus for you.” Even Mr. Wilson sometimes nearly came to words with Rufus, but Rufus always backed off at the last moment. “Despite everything,” Mr. Wilson said to me once, “Rufus is a good worker, with a strong back, if a weak enough mind. There are men, Rochester, for whom anger is a way of life. They wake up angry and go to bed angry; they seem to know no other way to accept their position in this world. As long as he controls himself, we can live with the way he looks at us. And I would daresay, if you or I had been born in his shoes, we might see the world the same way.”
But I was not in Rufus’ place, and I was wary of him, and he sensed it. I could tell it in his smirks that passed as smiles, in the way he sometimes deliberately turned his back to me as I neared him, and in the way he at other times stared at me directly in the eye in a kind of silent challenge. It was as if he wanted me to know that as far as he was concerned, I was still that young boy who had first come to Maysbeck Mill and always would be. I tried to ignore it, as Mr. Wilson had advised, but there remained between Rufus and me an animus that simmered as if waiting for the moment of boil.
My duties at Maysbeck Mill had absorbed nearly the whole of my life, and while I sometimes imagined myself as a full partner with Mr. Wilson, in fact I was only too glad not to have the entire responsibility of the place. That became even more clear to me one night just a few weeks after my father had paid his short visit. It was a cloud-covered night, the moon only a vague presence in the sky, and I had been asleep, it seemed, for only a short time, when a fierce pounding came on the front door of Mrs. Clem’s house—even I could hear it on the third floor. At first I thought,Fire!and I leaped from my cot, but I could smell nothing. I was about to climb back under the covers when I heard a commotion belowstairs: shouts and replying shouts, and footsteps running up the stairs and my name: “Rochester! Rochester!” Doors opened on the floor below, and then the steps pounded quite close and I heard my name again. I pulled open the door, and it was a boy, a young boy I did not recognize, full out of breath from running.
“It’s the mill!” he shouted as soon as he caught his breath. “Men!” he shouted at me. “Villains! Attacking the mill!” And suddenly I realized—it should have registered with me before—the mill bell was ringing, clanging wildly in the night: the most ominous sound—an attack on the mill.
Oh God,I thought.They’ve come to Maysbeck—Luddites.The name had been only a distant possibility, men angry at the mechanizations that had taken their jobs. The newspapers had lost interest: there was little mention of them anymore, and anyway, one always assumes such catastrophes happen elsewhere. I threw on my clothes while the boy stood watching, as if to make sure I would really come. And then I followed him, barreling down the narrow stairs and out into the night. We ran the full distance to the mill—a mile or more, only a pale half-moon to light the dark, the sounds growing louder as we approached, shouts and crashes and even gunshots.
There was a crowd, lighted by the torches they carried. Some were attempting to beat down the double oaken doors while others shouted angrily, waving cudgels or anything else they could use as a weapon. I knew I had heard shots, but at first I could see no sign of a gun. Then I saw, in a third-floor window of the mill, Bert Cornes with a musket, which he shot from time to time—more to frighten the mob away than to kill or injure anyone.
Across the way, on the other side of the crowd, I saw Mr. Wilson and Mr. Landes, both also with pistols in their hands, appearing angry and somewhat frightened. My eyes scanned the mob, but I did not recognize any of them—agitators from elsewhere, I guessed. My gaze fell on Rufus Shap, at the far edge of the crowd, only a couple of yards from Mr. Wilson. His stoic face showed nothing, neither anger nor pleasure, and I was stunned by the equanimity of it. Though Maysbeck Mill was his livelihood, it was as if he’d as soon break down the mill as defend it.
Then another shot rang out—from Bert Cornes, in the window—and this time a cry of pain pierced the night. The crowd stilled for an instant, and then it surged forward, as if by signal, as if by the mere force of their combined strength they would push through those solid oak doors. Another shot was fired, and another. I saw Mr. Wilson’s arm raised, and I thought,My God, there’s going to be murder.Just then someone near Mr. Wilson turned to face him, grabbed him, and held him to keep him from shooting, and I realized it was Rufus who had done it.
Desperately I pushed my way through the crowd—I, not half as strong as Rufus but not thinking, so set was I on preventing harm to Mr. Wilson. It was difficult to get close enough, the milling crowd shoving me one way and another, but when I finally reached for Rufus to pull him away, it was like reaching for a bull. He turned to me, though, his face dark with fury. “Get him out of here,” he demanded. “At least you can manage that.” Then he shoved Mr. Wilson toward me, and I grabbed him, pulling him through the crowd and away toward his home. He came almost willingly, as if he were relieved to have someone else make that decision for him. Behind us, Mr. Landes followed.
By daylight it was all over. The doors had held; Bert Cornes’ well-placed shots had injured a few but mostly frightened the rioters from doing their worst, and in the end they gave up and melted away into the countryside from whence they had come. Mr. Wilson expressed dismay that he had been pulled away from his place at the battle, but I quoted Tacitus at him about living to fight another day, and he was so surprised that I not only knew it but could say it in Latin that he quite forgot to be angry with me.
Indeed, in the days after, he expressed his gratitude to me again and again, but he was also subdued for a time, as was everyone else at the mill, going about their business with quiet and serious faces. It was only Rufus Shap who glared at me, and I remembered his words:At least you can manage that.It was clear he despised me. On the other hand, he had saved Mr. Wilson, and I could not deny that.
And then two completely unexpected things happened: I received a letter from Mr. Lincoln, with whom I had held desultory communication since I left Black Hill; and Mr. Wilson fell ill. Mr. Lincoln’s letter was the usual accounting of his present boys, their strengths and their foibles (which always led me to wonder what he had written to others about me). But at the end, a few simple sentences stopped my breath and quickened the beat of my heart:
You will remember Carrot, I daresay. He is the Earl of Lanham now, as you may know, and he writes asking of you. I had not been in communication with him as I have been with you, so I did not know if you two had maintained a connection after leaving Black Hill. I am inclosing his address, for I am not aware if you are in a position to want him to know where you are and what you have been about. So I leave that to you.
I remain,
Mr. Hiram Lincoln
Black Hill
For some strange reason, my eyes suddenly watered with tears.Carrot…Carrot asking about me. I heard again my brother’s terse words:You surely do not think that thenephew of the Prince Regent of England is really interested in what became of a clerk in a countinghouse in Maysbeck, do you?
Perhaps not. And yet, hewasCarrot and we had shared a great deal together, and hehadasked about me. He himself had said it:I missed you, too, Jam.
Besides, I was no longer merely a clerk, for all the difference that might make to the Earl of Lanham. I sat down a dozen times to write to Carrot, struggling to find words that would reintroduce us, that would convey my hopes of seeing him again without sounding maudlin, but each time I threw away my attempt, and it was nearly a month after I received Mr. Lincoln’s correspondence when I got up my courage and wrote something that might have been suitable. I posted it before I lost my nerve.
Four days later Mr. Wilson crashed down onto the mill floor withapoplexia. The mill foreman came for me and I sent Wrisley for a carriage, and the three of us managed to get Mr. Wilson outside and installed into it. I accompanied him, still unconscious, to his home.
Mrs. Wilson was all aflutter and Mrs. Brewer hurried Miss Little upstairs when we arrived. The coachman helped me carry Mr. Wilson into the house, and then I ordered him to collect the physician posthaste. After an examination, the physician shook his head and would not forecast the future but only ordered nourishment when he regained consciousness, and complete rest—as if Mr. Wilson could do anything else. Through it all, Mrs. Wilson clung to me, weeping into my chest, and I comforted her as best I could.
She was determined to spend the night in the parlor with her husband, but I convinced her to go upstairs and sleep in her own bed; I would hold vigil with him. He did recover consciousness the next day, but his speech was muddled—it was harder to tell about his mind—he had lost all control of the limbs on his left side, and that side of his face seemed almost to have melted. After breakfast I felt it imperative to return to the mill to ascertain that all was running properly, though Mrs. Wilson begged me to return as soon as possible. Mr. Landes came as soon as he heard and offered whatever help was needed, which was kind, given that he had his own mill to run and his own house and his own wife, who had been poorly for years.
Mr. Wilson owned the mill outright, and that was a good thing in the respect that there was no doubt who should have been in control, if only he were capable. But now there was only I and Bob Wrisley—who, though he had many more years’ experience of the mill than I, was still only a countinghouse clerk—and Jeremy Hardback, the overlooker. Jeremy was a good enough man, as Mr. Wilson had often said, but not cut out to be more than he had already risen to. In other words, it was now up to me to run Maysbeck Mill, with Mr. Landes’ help and advice.
Those workers who had been at the mill for many years still saw me as the near child I had been when I arrived, and it was difficult for them—especially the men—to countenance the fact that I was now truly acting in Mr. Wilson’s stead. Somehow, I needed to establish myself in their eyes, if only by force of will. Mr. Landes laid it out for me in no uncertain terms: “I imagine these folk are decent people, most of them, but they, like servants, must keep to their places, and you must keep to yours. One cannot converse with them on terms of equality; one must keep them always at a distance, or one will lose all authority.”
I worked at doing that, and I was aware that some at the mill disliked it, but steady work was scarce enough that no one dared to leave. It was always the men who grumbled behind my back; women, I thought at the time and still think, are more practical than men, perhaps because they are used to being powerless and therefore bear what they must, and often more honorably. Certainly, I was often nervous about my new responsibilities, worried that I would fail and let Mr. Wilson down when he needed me most, but I also learned that even if one is unsure, one can play the role with no one else the wiser.
Mrs. Wilson insisted I come back to stay at the house, and I did so out of pity for her. However, that was not an easy choice, for Miss Little continued to abhor the sight of me, and she screamed whenever I appeared, until Mrs. Wilson, who could neither abandon her sister nor bear life without my presence, came up with a solution. I was to move into the second-floor guest room that Miss Little and Mrs. Brewer had been using, and they in turn would take up residence in the third-floor room, where meals could be brought to Miss Little, and she would never have need to come down, nor ever accidentally meet me on the stairway. With that resolved, quiet and almost peacefulness returned to the house.
***
It was weeks later that I heard from Carrot. My letter, sent to him at Lanham-Hall, had followed him to Bath and then to Baden-Baden, which was just gaining a reputation for all the pleasures that aimless young men enjoy. His return letter exhibited a gratifying level of enthusiasm at having heard from me, and he invited me to join him at my earliest convenience. I noted with a kind of schadenfreude that Rowland was not mentioned. I responded that I could not leave my present position, as I was direly needed, but that I would be delighted to see him as soon as possible after he returned to England.
