“What mill?”
“Mr. Wilson’s mill. The Maysbeck Mill.”
Mr. Wilson’s establishment is a mill? Surely there must be some mistake, I thought, but I had no chance to ask, because the boy was hurrying so fast ahead of me that it was all I could do to carry my trunk and keep up with him. When we finally arrived, my feet and hands and nose were back to ice again, and I imagine the boy was just as cold, since he wore fewer warm clothes than I. In the darkness the building presented an imposing mass as we approached it. The boy made straightaway to a heavy oak door and pounded on it until it was opened by a rough-looking man of forty years or so. He was carrying a lantern, which he held up to my face to get a good look at me.
“This is ’im?” he said.
The boy said, “Yes.”
“Well, come in, then,” he said, motioning us forward. “It’s bloody cold outside.”
Inside, I tried to glance around, but the light of his lantern spread only far enough to show a cavernous place filled with large, complicated machinery. I followed the man, and the boy came along behind, as we walked to a dimly lit room twenty yards or so away. I could tell it was an office of some sort. There was a desk and, additionally, a high table covered with neat piles of papers. In a corner, a coal grate glowed. The man put down the lantern and took a good look at me. “Rochester, they say your name is.”
“Yes, sir, it is,” I responded. “Edward Rochester. My apologies for the time, sir. The coach was late in coming. I’m sorry if I kept you up.” The man had not introduced himself; I could not imagine that he was Mr. John Wilson himself, but I could hardly be sure, as so much strangeness had already occurred.
“There is a cot for you in the corner,” he said, waving his hand vaguely toward a darkened part of the room. “You will sleep there tonight. I have no idea what will become of you after that. Mr. Wilson will be deciding that. But be sharp: they come promptly to work. You will need to be up and ready before six o’clock in the morning.”
“How will I know the hour?” I asked.
He laughed. “You will know,” he said. “And, in case you are a very ’eavy sleeper, the frames start up promptly at six. There is no doubt you will ’ear them.”
“The frames?” I asked stupidly.
“Boy, what do you know of this place?” he asked.
“I know nothing,” I responded, “except that it’s a mill, I think. But what kind of mill? And what are frames?”
“Ah,” he said in a more kindly tone, “well, it’s a broadcloth mill. The finest woolen goods you can buy. Beyond that, though, you shall be told what you need to know in the morning.” With that, he turned away from me, taking the lantern with him as he put his arm across the shoulders of the boy. They walked closer to the coal grate to warm themselves for a few moments, and then they left.
The room was not nearly as cold as it had been outside, and I lifted my trunk once more, carried it over to the cot, and took off my shoes and lay down, digging my hands into my coat pockets and wondering if there had been some kind of mistake. This was not a school. Mr. Wilson seemed not to be a tutor. But it must be the place my father had intended me to go, for they had known my name; they had been expecting my arrival. Still, what was I doing there?
Chapter 6
The night watchman had been correct about my knowing when to rise, but I was so tormented about my new situation—so different was it from what I had expected—that I barely slept. Why was I there? Was I to be an apprentice in a woolen mill? Was this to be the end of a proper education for me? Would I never get to Jamaica, after all? And what about Thornfield? Thoughts slid around in my brain and kept me awake, but even if I had slept like the dead, I would have been awakened by the bell tolling above me.
Within minutes after that, I heard the sounds of foot treads in the mill, the murmurs of voices, and then the loud clattering as the machines started up, and I rose from my cot and stepped to the wall of windows looking onto the mill floor. In the dim early-morning light, people of all aspects and ages—including boys and girls younger than I—moved purposefully, setting up their tasks for the day. Their countenances told me that they were involved in difficult, serious, deadening work, and I felt a chill of fear run down my back. Why would my father send me to such a place? Then, still staring, I was struck with a realization. I had thought they were men and women equally, but now I saw that by far the most were women. Women, in the chill atmosphere of the mill in early spring, wrapped as best they could manage in ragged shawls, hair bound in rags or covered in tattered mobcaps. I had never seen such sorry-looking people; even the stableboys at Thornfield had been better dressed than these. The girls’ dresses were faded to nearly colorless, as if they had been handed down from sister to sister or cousin to cousin, and it seemed that many of the girls wore more than one layer of dress, as it was the only way to keep warm. The boys—fewer in number than the girls—wore trousers either too long or too short, worn through at the knees, their hair curling over their collars. The few men, as well, wore ragged sweaters under threadbare woolen jackets. They grunted greetings to one another and nodded to the women and mostly ignored the children, some of whom seemed as young as six or eight years of age and who were already gathering up spindles from wooden boxes in a far corner.