our best by the mill and by Charles by making sure that such a man is ready and waiting. Charles does not want to be at the mill. William wants nothing more. Why should not both of them lead the lives they wish? Both benefit? And let the mill thrive.”
Old Mr. Bellman’s views of the matter were unalterable and Paul would not be swayed. It was a stalemate. In the end it was agreed that Charles would go off for the twelve months of traveling he had askedfor, and that William would be invited to act as secretary to Paul for that year. At the end of which time . . .
Paul’s father gave way because he saw the future as clear as a bell.
“When Charles comes back, he’ll be ready for it. And when young William realizes what’s at stake, he’ll soon take fright. All that work for a mill you can’t call your own? He’ll back off. Take my word for it!”
At the end of twelve months Charles, inspired by the palazzos and basilicas of Italy, refused to come home at all, and far from “backing off,” William was throwing himself into new projects and ventures, and the Bellman mill was prospering as never before.
This had happened though:
Old Mr. Bellman sneezed and then coughed. A summer cold, not uncommon, though it lingered and turned into something more serious. He had a fire lit in his bedroom on the first floor and spent the days with a rug over his knees, looking out over the fields where the rooks were coming down to jab at the earth with their stony beaks.
It was the maid who found him.
If in his last minutes he had reviewed his life—his unhappy marriage, his wife’s infidelity, the revenge he took on her second son—and if at the last minute he had had a change of heart and realized that his domestic unhappiness was in part the result of his own harshness, then not a trace of any of this showed on his face. Rigid, glaring, set in a frown, his face was so much what it had been in life that the maid spoke to him three times before she realized he was dead.
William was in London when it happened. A series of meetings with the India and General Company. “Send me,” he had begged. “They’ll think I’m still green and it will put them off their guard.” He came back clutching a nice batch of orders to find that old Mr. Bellman—he had never thought of him as grandfather—was not only dead but in the ground.
“I’m sorry to hear it, Uncle.”
“Show me these orders.”
Paul nodded. “You’ve done well. These dates will dovetail nicely with the Portsmouth orders. Do you ever think of your father, Will?”
Will shook his head.
“You don’t wonder where he is? Whether he is alive or dead?”
Will applied himself to the question, as though with effort he might find among his recollections some small overlooked instance of such curiosity.
He shook his head. “Never.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I t came like this.
Dora Bellman felt tired. That’s unlike me, she thought.
She took a bowl and went to pick blackberries. Perhaps the fresh air would stir her. In the distance, beyond the farmland, was the tenterfield: lengths of white cloth all in a row, and a few tiny stick men, moving between them. Not William; even at this distance she would know him. Was it a good drying day for them today? A strong breeze was stirring the treetops and the rooks were cawing in vulgar merriment as they roiled and tumbled on the high air currents.
The bowl was half full of fat berries and her fingertips were stained red when a vast fatigue came over her. The bowl fell; berries rolled on the ground. When her legs gave way, not wanting to fall onto the scattered fruit, she grasped at the hedgerow for support, but she slumped all the same, and scratched her hands. The blackberries bled into the fabric of her dress.
Astonished dismay: at spoiling her dress, at showing her calf, at dying.
Think of William . . . say a prayer . . .
First though, she must rearrange her skirt—
· · ·
It was the Misses
Old Mr. Bellman’s views of the matter were unalterable and Paul would not be swayed. It was a stalemate. In the end it was agreed that Charles would go off for the twelve months of traveling he had askedfor, and that William would be invited to act as secretary to Paul for that year. At the end of which time . . .
Paul’s father gave way because he saw the future as clear as a bell.
“When Charles comes back, he’ll be ready for it. And when young William realizes what’s at stake, he’ll soon take fright. All that work for a mill you can’t call your own? He’ll back off. Take my word for it!”
At the end of twelve months Charles, inspired by the palazzos and basilicas of Italy, refused to come home at all, and far from “backing off,” William was throwing himself into new projects and ventures, and the Bellman mill was prospering as never before.
This had happened though:
Old Mr. Bellman sneezed and then coughed. A summer cold, not uncommon, though it lingered and turned into something more serious. He had a fire lit in his bedroom on the first floor and spent the days with a rug over his knees, looking out over the fields where the rooks were coming down to jab at the earth with their stony beaks.
It was the maid who found him.
If in his last minutes he had reviewed his life—his unhappy marriage, his wife’s infidelity, the revenge he took on her second son—and if at the last minute he had had a change of heart and realized that his domestic unhappiness was in part the result of his own harshness, then not a trace of any of this showed on his face. Rigid, glaring, set in a frown, his face was so much what it had been in life that the maid spoke to him three times before she realized he was dead.
William was in London when it happened. A series of meetings with the India and General Company. “Send me,” he had begged. “They’ll think I’m still green and it will put them off their guard.” He came back clutching a nice batch of orders to find that old Mr. Bellman—he had never thought of him as grandfather—was not only dead but in the ground.
“I’m sorry to hear it, Uncle.”
“Show me these orders.”
Paul nodded. “You’ve done well. These dates will dovetail nicely with the Portsmouth orders. Do you ever think of your father, Will?”
Will shook his head.
“You don’t wonder where he is? Whether he is alive or dead?”
Will applied himself to the question, as though with effort he might find among his recollections some small overlooked instance of such curiosity.
He shook his head. “Never.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I t came like this.
Dora Bellman felt tired. That’s unlike me, she thought.
She took a bowl and went to pick blackberries. Perhaps the fresh air would stir her. In the distance, beyond the farmland, was the tenterfield: lengths of white cloth all in a row, and a few tiny stick men, moving between them. Not William; even at this distance she would know him. Was it a good drying day for them today? A strong breeze was stirring the treetops and the rooks were cawing in vulgar merriment as they roiled and tumbled on the high air currents.
The bowl was half full of fat berries and her fingertips were stained red when a vast fatigue came over her. The bowl fell; berries rolled on the ground. When her legs gave way, not wanting to fall onto the scattered fruit, she grasped at the hedgerow for support, but she slumped all the same, and scratched her hands. The blackberries bled into the fabric of her dress.
Astonished dismay: at spoiling her dress, at showing her calf, at dying.
Think of William . . . say a prayer . . .
First though, she must rearrange her skirt—
· · ·
It was the Misses
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