When I came home that evening, the housekeeper told me that Mr. Landes had already arrived and was in Mr. Wilson’s bedroom. I went into the parlor and sat down, attempting to read the newspaper but too distracted to comprehend the simplest sentence. I could not imagine the attempt at conversation that was going on upstairs.
When I heard Mr. Landes’ footsteps on the stairs, I folded the paper and rose to greet him. He entered the room brusquely and made for the hearth, just the sort of place where my father might stand to dress me down.
“Sir,” I said.
“Sit down,” he said, and I did. He got right to the point. “Your father seems a…a determined man.”
“Yes, he is, sir.”
“Nevertheless, he has a point. In the last few months, you have been as John Wilson would have been, if he had been able—”
“No, sir,” I interrupted, “not at all. He would have—”
Mr. Landes shook his head. “Never mind how he would have handled things. You have done your very best, which is all that can be asked of any of us. It was remiss of us—of me; I cannot put it to poor John’s fault—not to have realized that you were owed more than you were being paid. Therefore, I will write to your father immediately and tell him what John and I have decided. He will find it suitable, I should imagine.” He stared into the fire for a time, and then he added, “We shall have to sell the place, you and I.”
“Oh no. Mr. Wilson would not want that. The mill is…is—”
“Indeed he does not. But he has no choice.”
I looked away from that hard truth.
“He is more aware than you think,” Mr. Landes went on. “He doesn’t want to sell. He did not even want to hear me speak of it, but he will not improve much more than he already has. He can think; he can talk, in his fashion. He most probably will never again walk. Nor could he hold his own against another Luddite uprising. In life, one cannot depend on what has always been or, even less so, what has never been. You have your whole life in front of you, Rochester. We know that, John and I, and his life may well be drawing down. It would not be right for us—”
“It would not be right for me to leave him un—un—”
“You will not leave him unassisted. Indeed, I hope you will remain until we have sold the mill—I hope that your father will agree to that. In my letter to him, explaining our arrangement, I will tell our plans, and I hope he can allow to let you stay a bit longer. Would you be amenable to that?”
What could I say? I did not even know what my choices might have been, but Mr. Wilson had been a father to me. How could I turn my back on him? “Of course,” I said, “I will do whatever I can.”
“Fine. Then, it’s settled. Do not speak of this with Wilson, unless he broaches the subject first. It is, as you can well imagine, difficult for him to have reached this juncture, but there it is. He can do little else. And neither can either of us.” With that he left.
And I carried a lamp upstairs to my room, where I undressed and got into bed and did not sleep.
***
I was up and breakfasted and out of the house before Mr. Wilson awoke the next morning, so I had a slight reprieve from seeing him, now that I knew more than I wished to know. At the mill, I walked through the day in a daze: all seemed new, and yet terribly familiar. I felt a general unease among the workers, which puzzled me. Rufus Shap stared at me through the window glass of the countinghouse—his gaze black and more defiant than ever. Was I only imagining it, now that the mill was likely to be sold, or was there some sort of worker psychical perception that could read the minds of the managers?
At noon I did not go to the Crown or back to the Wilson home, but sent a boy out for a cheese pie, and though the task fell under his general duties, when he returned I gave him a whole shilling for his trouble. Mr. Landes came by late in the afternoon, full of apologies for not having come sooner, but I was so relieved to see him that I nearly hugged him in greeting. “And how was the day?” he asked.
“It was terrible,” was the best I could think to say.
He nodded and smiled kindly. “The first day after a big decision is made is usually the worst. One always thinks of what else one could or should have done. Second thoughts are the destroyers of good ideas. We are doing the best we can.”
“But how is it,” I asked, “that the workers seem to know things without being told?”
He nodded wryly. “You are young; you imagine outcomes that cannot happen. The mill workers know Wilson’s situation; they know he has little chance to recover. And, indeed, they do have a second sense. They have to, for there is nothing for them to fall back on if the mill closes. They are not like us—they have no education: most cannot even read. They have no savings, no property, and their friends and relatives are as bad off as they are. There is nothing for them but the poorhouse—or starvation. They live on the edge of hell and they know it. Before they left their country cottages, they at least had the gleanings after a harvest, or the chance of trapping a rabbit or two. Here, in a town or in the city, they have nothing. You can thank God you are not in their shoes.”
But I had remained caught on what he had said at the outset. “Might the mill really close?”
“It is one possibility,” was all he said. I had foolishly imagined that the mill would be sold as easily as selling a mince pie, but now I saw that that might not be the case. He said no more, and we walked on in silence.
Some days after that, again late in the day, Mr. Landes came to the mill to say he had received a letter from my father, who made some additional requirements in light of my changed situation. My father had also made clear that by next summer at the latest, I must leave Maysbeck, for he had other plans for me.
“Was that all he wrote?” I asked, eager for fuller news.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he responded. “Even I know by now how firm and terse your father can be.” He paused, then said, “Rochester, I know you are anxious about your future. Suppose you went to Liverpool and visited your father. Suppose, in the companionship of shared pints at an inn, you got him to talking. Perhaps he would tell you more.”
“I can’t leave the mill,” I said, impatient that he would even imagine such a thing.
