I paused before responding. “Of course I met her only briefly,” I equivocated. And then I added, “Perhaps Mrs. Wilson told you that her sister seemed unable to abide my presence. I did not stay there at her house.”
“She told me.” His eyes had not left my face, and I knew he expected more of me than I had already given. But dare I say that the woman had not seemed of sound mind? That was not something one would blithely say to the person’s relation.
“Perhaps her distress was due to my having the same name as their unfortunate brother,” I suggested. “Perhaps the memory was too much—”
“That was all? There was nothing more?”
I wished I knew what else Mrs. Wilson had told him, but the fact that they had talked in private the whole evening was enough for me to know that she must have unburdened herself to him quite completely. “She seemed…quite fragile of mind,” I ventured. “She did not at first recognize her sister, and when Mrs. Wilson told her who she was and mentioned your name as well, she seemed not to know who you were—who John Wilson was. I am sorry that I could not have observed her further, but she was adamant that I leave. And when I returned, she was not in sight.”
He seemed increasingly frustrated at my responses. “And Mrs. Wilson said nothing about it on the return?”
“She did not, sir, nor did I think it my place to insist. She was quite distraught.”
He took a decisive bite of his toast and chewed it slowly.
I looked down at my plate. I was not used to being the bearer of such disheartening news. My egg was growing cold, the fat of the bacon congealing, but I could not think what else to say.
“This changes everything,” he said at last. “I shall have to write to your father.”
This brought my head up in alarm. Had Mrs. Wilson told him of my leaving Harrogate on my own? Oh God, I thought. Mr. Wilson was going to write to my father of my truancy. I could not imagine what would become of me—nearly sixteen years old and not even fit yet for any trade except for the meanest of them.
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my silence and let my breakfast grow fully cold in front of me. Finally, he nodded at my plate and said curtly, “You’d better eat your breakfast, Rochester; there’s no telling what you’ll be getting henceforth.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, but I hadn’t the heart to eat now. All appetite had left me.
“You will not come to the mill today,” he said, as I by then suspected he would. “You must find other lodgings for yourself. I shall inform your father that you can no longer be accommodated here.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, just as if I understood what he was saying.
“One day will be sufficient, I should think.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will be back tomorrow, then, as usual.”
“Sir?”
“At the mill. Tomorrow.”
“I don’t…I thought…I don’t quite…”
“Get it out, Rochester. I haven’t all day,” he snapped.
“It’s just that—if you’ve dismissed me—let me go, then why—”
“For heaven’s sakes, Rochester, I haven’t dismissed you.” His face softened, but only by a degree, as he understood my foolishness.
“But you said—”
“I said you no longer will stay here. Mrs. Wilson has told me, and you have confirmed it: her sister must come here and live with us. God knows, it is not what I—well, not what anyone would choose.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Yes, sir,” I managed to say.
“You shall have to find other accommodations, and I will write to your father that our arrangement is, perforce, changed, and now that you are to be on your own, he and I shall have to work out who is responsible for your living expenses.” He gazed down at his plate for a moment. “Until Miss Little and Mrs. Brewer arrive, you may keep your room here. Unless you prefer to move out sooner.”
“I shall do the best I can,” I said, my head still reeling. For the first time in my life, I was to be on my own.
He rose to leave, but he turned back, his right hand gone to his pocket. “And I suppose it was necessary for you to pay for your lodgings in Harrogate from your own purse.”
“Well, sir—” I started, but he interrupted.
“Rochester,” he said, “some advice. If someone offers to give you payment, do not argue.” And he placed a note on the table.
“Yes, sir, I will remember that,” I said.
Chapter 9
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.