Bellman & Black, Page 8

  After it was done and the gravedigger had been lowered into a grave of his own, Paul and Fred Armstrong shook hands.

  “I hear it was William who pulled him out,” Fred said.

  “It was.”

  “Will you mention it, perhaps, when you write to your son in Italy?”

  Paul was curious. “Did they know each other?”

  Fred hesitated. “Perhaps not. Not really. We were just children.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I wonder whether we should put some ears in the inns on the Stroud Road?” William asked.

  He might easily have used a more authoritative mode of speech. “Let’s send out the spies” or “We must find out what the Stroud millers are up to,” but instead he “wondered whether” and thus submitted his idea to Paul for approval.

  Paul was touched by this verbal tentativeness. His nephew knew as well as he did that in knowledge, understanding, and business sense they were on an equal footing. Ownership was another matter, of course. On those rare occasions when William and Paul disagreed, it was ownership that won the day. “It’s your mill, Uncle,” William would say, palms up, easy smile. But it wasn’t often that he went against any idea of William’s. These days, when his own judgment was at odds with William’s, it was himself that Paul was inclined to overrule.

  Eight years ago he had made William his secretary, and in those years the mill had gone from strength to strength. The books were full of orders. The mill hands were efficient and orderly. Profits had risen and continued to rise. They were investing in new machinery, investigating ways of boosting the steam power, expanding. He couldn’t have achieved it alone. If William was now concerned that the Stroud millers might be poaching hands it must be with good reason.

  “You know the right ears to send?”

  “I have someone in mind.”

  “Put them on it.”

  William glanced at the clock. It was five o’clock. “I’ll arrange it on my way home.”

  And William was happy at home too. Long gone were the days when the young man worked late at the mill, squinting at the ledgers till it was too dark to see. He had another life now.

  “What are your plans for Sunday, Will? Bring Rose and the children for lunch. It will be good to have some life in the house.”

  “We’ll come,” said William. “See you tomorrow.”

  Paul could have wished that William were his son. He might have looked at Dora and the two boys and wished they were his grandchildren. But he was careful with his desires. Wiser than his father, he knew that Charles would never marry, never return to Whittingford. No matter what reports reached his ears of Charles’s life in Italy, he would always love him. Better for Charles that the gossip was in a foreign tongue and whispered by strangers who had not known him as a child. Paul Bellman loved his son and his nephew, but what he admitted privately was this: loving William was a much more straightforward matter.

  · · ·

  After supper, William had Paul and baby Phil on his lap, and Dora was leaning on his arm. They were playing with a puzzle, three carved bits of ash that could, with a bit of cleverness, be made to interlink. William was amusing his children by being deliberately clumsy and failing to connect the pieces.

  It was Rose who answered the door. A girl, Dora’s age, out of breath, in the rain. “My mother says, can Mr. William come?”

  “It’s Mary, isn’t it? Mrs. Lane’s girl?”

  Rose went to William. “You are wanted. At your uncle’s house.”

  She brought his coat, frowning. “I wonder what it can be?”

  William did not seem concerned.

  Perhaps it was nothing.

  At the Mill House, Paul’s housekeeper was full of words. Too many, too fast, and in the wrong order. Something that had been done as soon as possible, but yet was too late, too late. William was still failing to make sense of it when she opened the study door and there was Paul, at his desk, back to the door.

  “What is it then, Uncle?” he asked.

  A gasp came from Mrs. Lane’s throat and she stopped in her tracks. Will stared at her.

  “But he is dead,” she said. “I have just been telling you. He is dead.”

  He shook his head, half laughed. “No, I was with him only two hours ago. He was perfectly all right.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs. Lane. Two hours ago Mr. Bellman had come home from the mill, perfectly all right. And now he was dead. So quietly!

  She attempted to usher him into the room, to look, to see. William would not be drawn.

  “Mrs. Meade will come for the laying out, but he must be got upstairs. Do you think we can manage it? The two of us?”

  Paul’s back was very still. William could see it now, something unnatural in the sit of him. He was not held upright from the inside, by his own power. Gravity’s hold on him was delicately poised, and death had come so gently to him that he had not slumped forward or back or to the left or right, but downward only. A mere hand on that shoulder would be enough to destroy the balance and he would topple . . .

  William sought something to steady himself, something to grip onto. He found it: a list of tasks.

  “I will fetch men to move him. I will get word to Mrs. Meade and to the vicar. I will send to Charles.”

  Better now. The dizziness had receded.

  “You look very pale, Mrs. Lane. You have had a shock. I will have the housemaid make you a cup of tea. You are to sit down until the others come.”

  He left the room, turned on his heels to come back in.

  “Where is the key?”

  “The key?”

  “To the mill?”

  “Why . . . In his pocket, I suppose—”

  William eyed Paul’s tweed jacket. He could not touch it. He could not.

  “—the pocket of his overcoat, in the cupboard in the hall.”

  So that was all right, then.

  William instructed the housemaid to make tea, retrieved the key, and left.

  A pair of ragged rooks flew airily overhead, talking philosophy and laughing.

  · · ·

  William went first to the clerk’s house. There he raised Ned and his brother and sent them to his uncle’s house. On hearing the news, Ned’s mother offered to go to Mrs. Meade’s house, and he accepted her kindness. He left a message at the vicarage door for Reverend Porritt to go to Mill House as soon as he returned. When these things were done, he ran to the mill. He had never unlocked the main gate before; he did it now.

  In his uncle’s office he found Charles’s address and wrote a plain, informative letter to his cousin. He roused Mute Greg from his bed alongside the donkey and put the envelope into his hands. “Take this to Robbins. It must go now, tonight, without delay.”

  Next he looked through the charts and lists pinned to the wall, outlining the orders and productivity needed in the coming weeks. He went into the side room, and set his own schedule alongside his uncle’s diary. Obviously his uncle’s work would fall to him. It would be more time efficient to take over his uncle’s diary than to transfer the notes to his own papers. Those of his own jobs that could not be delegated he added to his uncle’s workload, his own quick and jagged hand squeezed between his uncle’s neater notes.

  And the rest of his work? To whom would he delegate? He thought rapidly, listed the men it would be most important to have around him, the ones who knew his mind best, the ones he could rely on. He worked intently and with method. What was urgent? What might be left for a later time? What must be canceled, postponed, rearranged? He made lists, notes, clipped them together in careful order.

  William lost track of time, his mind engaged in the to-ing and fro-ing between the overall business of running a mill and the detail to which it all comes down to in the end. He was so absorbed that the hours were like minutes. His uncle’s solicitor needed to know what had occurred. The mill’s local suppliers and customers should hear from William himself and be reassured immediately that everything
was in hand, rather than chance upon the news and be plunged into uncertainty. The vicar: better the funeral be Wednesday. No need to give any reason. Was it seemly to organize a man’s funeral in relation to the smooth running of a mill? Probably not. Yet for a vicar one weekday must surely be the same as any other. William couldn’t see what harm it did to organize things in such a way as to minimize disruption.

  Mute Greg returned. William gave him the dozen letters he had written. “Now these, Greg. Quick as you can.”

  William worked without recognizing the ease that came from losing himself in a project like this. His mind moved with satisfying smoothness from one detail to another, prioritizing, organizing, planning, deciding, instructing, calculating.

  When he emerged from this state of absorbed concentration, it was early dawn. He went to rouse the sleepers at the stove in the pressing house and gave his instructions. “Wait at the gate, and when these men arrive”—he named them: Crace, Rudge, a handful of others—“send them straight to me.”

  By seven o’clock the men were all present in his office. William could see from their faces that word was already out. He presented the fact of his uncle’s demise, and the men presented their condolences. It was so unexpected; Mr. Paul was a good man; God works in mysterious ways; only yesterday he had seemed well, etc. etc.

  When everything had been said about Paul that needed to be, William suggested that the mill’s work ought to be disrupted as little as possible by the unhappy event and indicated to each man what he had in mind to ensure continuity. “Yes,” each one said, “that should do it.”

  “And you are my key men now,” he told them. “I need your help to keep the hands steady and the work progressing smoothly through this period. It is only natural for the men to worry. Change always brings worry. But I know that there is no need for doubt or uncertainty. Your job is to convey that to the men in such a way that they feel the truth of it. Do you think you can do that?”

  They looked at him. He was steady, confident, reliable. It was impossible to imagine anything going wrong.

  “Yes, Mr. William.” They nodded. “Yes, Mr. Bellman, sir.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was Wednesday. The day of the funeral. William was irritated. Since the death he had spent the best part of his time at the mill, planning and ordering and problem solving. He had slept for a few hours at most. There was so much still to do.

  What was a funeral? Only sitting and standing and singing and praying. Any fool could do it. His efficient working mind proposed delegating it a hundred times, and he regretted that he could not accept the idea. But it would not do. Someone must lead the mourning, someone must show himself in public, visibly, as the new Mr. Bellman of the mill. As likely as not, Charles had not even received the letter yet, and even if he could have made the distance in the time, his presence would not have the same effect. It could only be Mr. William, Bellman the nephew. It must be done.

  After five good morning hours at the mill William raced home to change. The tub of water in front of the fire was cooling, for it had been waiting for him this last hour, and Rose, who had put out his best suit and a freshly laundered shirt, was vexed. But on the day of a funeral you do not grumble at the chief mourner.

  When he was almost ready, she stood in front of him to retie the cravat his hasty fingers had rumpled. He was taut with tension, his impatience was palpable.

  “You’re overdoing things.” She looked at him for a few long seconds. He was thinking of something else, appeared scarcely to see her.

  “Come home after the funeral. Are you listening to me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Now, go. You’ll be late.”

  He was late—almost. Anxious faces were looking out for him. “Here he is!” said Mrs. Lane, relieved and cross. He took his place in the line of mourners and they proceeded to church.

  During the service William rose and sat and knelt with the congregation, murmured amen where he had to, and sang. His voice did its job, gathered and organized the voices of the mill workers in the congregation. He knew the songs by heart, and all the while he was singing, he was thinking.

  Stroud . . . Word had come. The ears he had planted in drinking places along the road to Stroud also had mouths, and the mouths had come whispering everything they knew to him. The Stroud millers had orders again. The hands they had laid off were welcome back, and they would match Bellman’s wages. “And they are tempted to go,” the mouth told him. “At least, those that have family still over Stroud way.” William was disappointed but not surprised. If they went, it would mean losing some good men.

  The simple answer was to offer more money. But what was to stop the Stroud millers from matching his higher wages? It was easy to escalate salaries, a lot harder to rein them in again. There had to be a better way. He would think of one.

  The strain of overwork and lack of sleep had put bags under William’s eyes and taken the color from his cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot. If he had a half-absent air about him all through the funeral, it passed quite naturally for grief.

  Coming out of the church a knot of mourners formed in front of William. He was deep in thought, blundered, and in the minor collision that followed, someone turned. The face was instantly familiar. Head on one side, curiously, the man gave William a stare: frank, ironic, questioning. William couldn’t quite place him. It was a bit unsettling.

  At the Mill House, William drank a glass or two with Paul’s friends and neighbors and the most senior men from the mill.

  “Who was the fellow at the funeral . . . ?” he asked Ned. “I recognized him but can’t put a name to him.”

  “What did he look like?”

  William opened his mouth to describe him but was too tired to call the man’s features to mind properly.

  “He’s not here?” Ned asked.

  “No.”

  “You are more familiar with Mr. Bellman’s friends than I am. If you don’t recognize him it’s hardly surprising that I don’t.”

  “I suppose not.”

  · · ·

  William was among the first to leave the gathering. He gave his feet no conscious direction, and left to their own devices, they turned of their own accord toward the mill. They had made no promise to Rose. The mill was closed all afternoon as a mark of respect for Paul. It was an opportunity to get on with some paperwork in peace and quiet.

  It was unusual for the mill to be still. William was used to the noise, the different machines, the shouting, the wheel, all with their own tone and rhythm, blending into a cacophony too familiar to be uncomfortable. It was strange on a weekday to hear the rooks cry overhead. He could hear the thumping of his own heart, the rush of blood in his veins. As he opened the door to his office, something black appeared to be perched on his desk. It seemed to rise, flapping, toward him.

  William cried out and raised his hands to protect himself, but the thing receded.

  It was only cloth. An open window, a draft he had made himself by opening the door, and a sample of fine black merino. Attached to it, in his uncle’s hand, was a note: “Will—for Portsmouth? J.”

  William reached to the ink and had already put pen to paper for an answer when he realized that his uncle was dead.

  I have seen that man before, he thought. He was at my mother’s funeral.

  He had to grip the back of a chair to steady himself.

  · · ·

  Many hours later William stood and left the office. The paperwork was untouched. He had sat all through the end of the afternoon and half the evening, not knowing what he did. His thoughts were as muddled as a barrow load of wool roving on its way to the spinning house. His chest meanwhile was overfull of beating heart and flighty breath and urgent jabbing sensations.

  As he walked home, the sky that was losing its light seemed full of ill-defined menace. He wanted walls around him, a roof over his head, and Rose’s arms. He shrank from looking at the leafy canopies of the trees that rustled i
n the dark, and was relieved when he came to the door of the cottage.

  “William Bellman, what has become of you? You gave me your word you would come home, and you have been at the mill for hours.”

  Rose was too mindful of the sleeping children to shout, instead she hissed her anger. “Have you forgotten you have a home? Have you given one thought to your children these last days? Have you once thought of me? Because we think of nothing but you, and this is how you repay us!”

  Though she averted her face, hands plunged in a sink of water, he saw the gleam of tears on her cheeks.

  He glanced at the table. It was late to be clearing the meal away.

  “We waited for you. We waited though the children were hungry. We waited because you had been at the funeral and we wanted to comfort you!”

  William sank to his knees in the corner of the kitchen. His fists rose to his eyes, the way his sons’ did when they wept, but he did not weep. His shoulders shook, and the pain in his chest rose up and stabbed at the back of his throat, choking him, yet he could not weep.

  He heard the soft placing of the plates Rose was washing, and then she was crouching beside him, drying her hands on a cloth. Her still-damp arms enfolded him and he felt her cheek resting on the top of his head.

  “I’m sorry. The day of the funeral . . . He was a father to you, William. I’m so sorry.”

  She fed him morsels of bread and cheese. She sliced late plums for him. She took him to bed where they made love with sudden intensity. Afterward they fell instantly asleep in each other’s arms.

  The next morning William slipped out of the warm bed before dawn and went to the mill.

  · · ·

  The mill lost not an hour in productivity. William did his uncle’s job at the same time as continuing to do half of his own. Ned took on a good deal for him in the office, and he had Rudge and Crace and the others to do the rest. There were a few younger men he had noted: reliable, intelligent, willing, and he let them know there were opportunities. The time it cost him to train them up to what he wanted was time he could ill afford. But it was an investment. In four to six months, he would reap the benefit as they grew into the roles he envisaged for them. And who else to teach them but him? A number of others he called and laid off. Shirkers, unreliable types, men you couldn’t quite trust. If Stroud wanted men, let them first have the ones he selected for them . . .