Mr. Rochester

by Sarah Shoemaker

  “I understand, sir,” I said, suddenly excited at the prospect. College: no doubt just as Rowland had done. My father really did have my best interests in mind.

  “From Mr. Lincoln’s reports, your education was acceptable, if not exemplary.”

  “He is quite a unique teacher.”

  “Lincoln’s boys do particularly fine at university, I have learned. You are no doubt wondering why I also sent you to Mr. Wilson.”

  “Yes, sir, I have wondered that.”

  “You needed some experience of life in your background before going up to university. To my way of thinking there are three kinds of young men at university. The first are the eldest sons, who will inherit money and position and will never have to worry about earning a pound and who only need finishing off, and who can, as well, benefit from becoming acquainted with other young men of their same class, and forming lifelong relationships. The second are the second or third or fourth sons, who will not inherit—boys like you—who need the education so that they will not make wastrels of themselves, or, worse, popinjays who live off wealthy widows.” He stared at me for a moment to make sure I was understanding him. “The third are smart boys of poor families, in whom some wealthy person has taken an interest, and who come in hopes of bettering their chances in life. In your case, you will not have to entirely make your own fortune; I have paved the way for you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Keep in mind: Jamaica will not be, perhaps, as you expect it.”

  * * *

  We started immediately after breakfast, walking down to the docks, inspecting his ships, of which he owned three, and two happened to be in port. Then it was on to an inn where he conferred with a couple of gentlemen, and to an importer’s office, and to dinner with another group of men. When it suited him, he introduced me—always as “my son, Edward Fairfax”—and I would nod and tip my hat and they would nod. I listened, though much of the time it seemed a continuation of a discussion that had occurred previously. My father, of course, never explained anything. If I hadn’t had five years at Maysbeck Mill behind me, I would have been completely lost; as it was, I was only half in ignorance.

  After dinner, my father sent me off to Mr. Gayle, a short, dumpy man who did not rise when his maid brought me into his room and who gazed at me from behind thick eyeglasses before pointing to a chair. Even after I was seated he continued staring for a time until he said, “Mr. Lincoln, was it? Mr. Hiram Lincoln?” He spat the name out as if it had come from the back of his gullet.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “It was Mr. Hiram Lincoln, of Black Hill. I was with him for five years.” At least Mr. Gayle would not condemn Mr. Lincoln for not teaching the proper way to answer a query.

  “And now it has been as many years since you left him.”

  “Yes, sir, it has been.”

  He thrust a book at me. “Let us see if you remember anything.”

  The text was Ovid, whom I had never particularly liked. I was rusty with the Latin, but after a few too many stumbles, I righted myself and was able to make a respectable showing. After a time, he shoved another book at me: Herodotus, whom I had always loved, and I slipped seamlessly into the Greek, despite the fact that my Greek was far worse than my Latin. But again I surprised myself—and Mr. Gayle as well—leading me to silently wonder if he knew Mr. Lincoln’s proclivities.

  Mr. Gayle let me read for quite some time before stopping me and asking if I had my mathematics as well in hand. I said I did but allowed that my natural philosophy was poorer. “Yes, then,” he said, leaning back in his chair—or doing the best impression of leaning back that he could manage, given that his spine was evidently permanently bowed. “And geography?” he asked.

  “Fairly good.”

  “Music?”

  “I can play the piano tolerably. And I can sing a bit.”

  He waved his hand, as if the singing were of no consideration. “Shakespeare?” he asked.

  I nodded vigorously. “The histories especially I know.”

  Instead of being pleased, he shook his head. “Lincoln,” he said. “Of course the histories. The Bible?”

  “Yes, sir, I am quite at home in the Bible.”

  “Law? Argumentation?”

  “About those I know very little.”

  He sighed. “We have only a short time; we will leave that to the dons at Cambridge. They must have something to do to earn their keep.”

  And so we began with natural philosophy.

  This became the pattern of my days that summer. I did indeed learn more from following my father around than I would ever have believed possible, although I often wondered what he did in the afternoons and evenings to which I was never privy. He kept his own counsel, and even to the end, I was never made a party to half of his machinations.

  Mr. Horace Gayle, by contrast, loved to hear himself talk, and his interests and opinions ranged further than I could have imagined. He was as different from my father as he could have been, except for one thing: both men were intensely serious about their business.

  There was no playing out of battles on map-covered tables at Mr. Gayle’s establishment. Instead, I read Thales, strengthening my Greek in the process, and Galileo and Newton, and I made computations and diagrams and wrote papers on the philosophy of natural events. For the first week, as Mr. Gayle questioned me on the slightest details, I feared that I would not measure up, but I came to realize that I was a better student than I had held myself to be, and I almost enjoyed the pressure of his gaze, the back-and-forth of our arguments, and the serious manner in which he approached all of life, whether it was the newest theories of magnetic force or simply whether or not to finish his tea with a glass of claret.

  My experience with Mr. Gayle led me to wonder once again why my father had sent me to Black Hill. Had he expected me to learn the ways of war? He had made clear that he did not want me in the military. But as I witnessed him in deep discussion with a colleague regarding another whom they both despised, I understood: business, for my father, was a kind of battle, a locking of horns, a demonstration of power. It was not the battles themselves he had wanted to expose me to, but the tactics.

  Some weeks later I heard from Carrot, who had been off on an expedition to India. His letter had been sent to me at Maysbeck, and forwarded by Mrs. Wilson to me at my father’s residence in Liverpool, and it included, in Carrot’s singular enthusiastic style, accounts of elephant rides and fantastic temples and the glorious Taj Mahal at sunset. He concluded with an invitation to visit Lanham-Hall at my earliest convenience, though he added that he would shortly be off to Baden-Baden, but if I missed him now he would be back in the autumn and was planning a trip to Newmarket to look for a horse.

  That information couldn’t have been more fortuitous, as close as Newmarket was to Cambridge. I could easily hire a horse or take a coach, I thought; I could even walk it if need be. I sat down to write an immediate response, asking exactly when he would be there. I would be at Cambridge by the first of October; it would be perfect. I couldn’t help grinning—almost laughing out loud, in fact—at my incredible luck. Carrot and I would have the chance to be equals again, if not exactly of class, at least as young men with freedom and some degree of leisure.

  Then I opened the other letter, from Mrs. Wilson, that had come for me in the same post.

  My dear Eddie—

  I have delayed sending you this letter for too long, and the one that I forwarded to you has now forced me to the inevitable. I am greatly sorry to write that Mr. Wilson faded quite rapidly after your departure, and he left this earth two weeks ago tomorrow. He is, I believe, in a better world with all the dear ones who have preceded him. My sister is the same, God bless her, and she does not even seem to notice that Mr. Wilson has left us. Young David Wilson is making many changes at the mill, I have learned, and I suppose they are for the best—I know nothing of business, as you know—but I am glad that John is not here to see them. And he is building himself a grand ho
use. I regret to say this, but he has begun courting Miss Alice Phillips, on whom I once had placed great hopes for you. But one cannot look back in regret but only forward in hope, and I hope that your father is doing well for you and that you are successful in whatever endeavors you set your mind to. If you are in Jamaica, as I know you so strongly wished, I hope that you are finding it amenable to your tastes.

  I often think of you fondly and of the many ways you acted as a son to the both of us.

  Rebecca Wilson

  I wrote to Mrs. Wilson immediately, expressing my deepest condolences, as well as my gratitude for all the two of them had done for me, how much they had seemed like family to me. I could not praise and thank them enough. Still, the news that letter contained was so disorienting that the next day my father scolded me twice at my inattention and Mr. Gayle frowned at me over his eyeglasses and shook his head and turned to another subject. I kept that letter, reading it and rereading it, for it contained so much emotion in every line that for months I could barely unfold it without a catch in my throat or a tear in my eye.

  Indeed, I so strongly felt the need to talk about Mr. Wilson and what he had meant in my life that I brought up the subject with my father. “Mr. Wilson, of Maysbeck Mill…,” I said. “He died a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh?” my father said, wondering, I suppose, what that was to him.

  “He was always very kind to me. I was sorry to hear of his passing.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I felt I just had to say more, but I was at a loss for what that might be. “You may know that, by strange coincidence, a young cousin came forward and was able to buy the mill,” I told him. “He—”

  “Yes, David Wilson,” interrupted my father impatiently. “Fine young man.”

  I blinked and nodded, determined not to reveal my own misgivings about him. “It would have been very difficult for Mrs. Wilson, I think, if it had been someone from outside the family. How fortuitous that he appeared when he did and had the experience and the money and all. I cannot imagine what might have happened otherwise; if circumstances had been different—certainly it would have been difficult for me to leave them, when they had been so kind to me…” I stopped suddenly, feeling once more the rise of emotion in my throat.

  But my father was completely unaware of all of that. He barely looked up from his papers. “Son,” he said, “in business there is no such thing as coincidence.”

  Chapter 16

  I went up to Cambridge that autumn. It pleased me when my father insisted on accompanying me, though he seemed mostly interested in revisiting his haunts from forty years earlier. He nodded in approval at my ground-floor rooms in the Great Court, just opposite the Master’s Lodge, but as soon as he left I felt the same emptiness as I had that first night at Black Hill. Still, I reminded myself how well that had turned out for me in the end.

  This turned my thoughts to Carrot, and I wondered if he had yet come to Newmarket. Surely, I thought, I would hear from him soon, and we could meet again on neutral ground, where I would not feel so much as if I didn’t belong. I imagined how that would be: taking him to dinner, perhaps, at some fine inn, probably spending too much of the allowance my father was granting me, but able this time to pay my own way, and Carrot’s.

  Despite all Mr. Gayle’s careful attention in the preceding weeks, nothing had really prepared me for Trinity College, Cambridge. I was not used to the formality of the setting, or to my classmates, nearly all of whom had been to schools like Charterhouse or Eton. They were accustomed to being part of a vast pack of students and knew how to navigate a society that was completely foreign to me. I could understand how Carrot, with his dominant personality and his winning ways, could have gone from the intimacy of Black Hill to accommodate himself at Cambridge, but I was sure that Touch would have felt as I did. Though it had been many years since his death, Touch came to my mind often in those first days, and once again I wished for his warm companionship.

  Still, I discovered that I could survive by keeping my head down and paying attention. As I slowly gained my bearings in that new environment, I wondered that I had yet not heard from Carrot. At times I fancied that one day he would just appear at his old haunts in Cambridge to surprise me, and I took to looking for him whenever I strolled through the town. I imagined I saw his distinctive mop of hair amid a crowd on the commons, or pictured him lounging in my sitting room when I returned from a session with my tutor. But none of those things happened, and impatient as I was to be once again in his company, I remained childishly defiant and refused to write him another letter.

  And then—not even halfway through the term, when some of my fellow students were already counting the days until the Christmas holidays—I happened to see a notice posted in the town: “Tattersalls October Yearling Sales in Newmarket.” Carrot had, I thought, mentioned Tattersalls; surely these were the sales he had planned to attend. Confused, angry, deflated, I stared at the words, wondering. Why had he not invited me to meet him? Had he not come to Newmarket after all? And if so, why had he not written to me? Or had Rowland come with him, and perhaps Carrot, knowing the coolness between Rowland and me, had decided not to include me?

  Heart heavy, I read the dates again: early and mid- and late October. The sales were nearly finished, except for the last. My spirit lifted at that realization: perhaps Carrot was attending that one. Perhaps he was planning to surprise me—to arrive in Cambridge mounted on his newest purchase. I could just imagine it: a grand appearance for all the world to note. And that thought gave me an idea of my own: I would do him one better; I would go myself to this last sale. I would surprise him—even if Rowland were with him—for I would rather be with Carrot in Rowland’s company than not be with Carrot at all. I did have seminars, but they did not matter. All that mattered was to be at the auction to surprise Carrot.

  I had never been to Newmarket, and the sales there brought hundreds—thousands even—into the town. As I walked through Tattersalls’ gates, my heart was pounding. I could not contain myself, and I scanned the crowds for the telltale shock of ginger hair, grinning at the thought of surprising him.

  But how to find him? I stood for a moment, unsure, and then I hailed a handler carrying a bridle and a riding crop. “How does one find a particular person in all this mass of humanity?” I asked him.

  “With difficulty,” he said, barely pausing to respond.

  I followed along with him. “No, but I must find him,” I said. “He’s a buyer, he’s a lord; surely there’s a way to find him.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why? What do you want from him?” he demanded.

  “He’s a friend,” I said. “He’s here to buy a horse.”

  “Not likely today, not if he intends to race it. Who is he, then?”

  Carrot. “The Earl of Lanham. Thomas Fitzcharles, by name.”

  “If you were such a friend,” he said, nearly sneering at me, “you would have known.” And he turned away.

  I grabbed his arm. “Known what? Known what?”

  “Your ‘friend,’ as you call him, was killed here two weeks ago. There was a horse—”

  I did not hear the rest. Later I would learn that Carrot had been tearing across the downs on a horse called—of all things—Jamaica Run, and the horse had stumbled badly and Carrot was thrown and his neck broken.

  I could hardly breathe; I could not think. I simply stood and watched the man disappear into the crowd. Carrot, dead. And at Newmarket, where I could easily have gone if I had not been so stubborn about waiting to be invited. And only shortly after I had first come up to Cambridge—while I was feeling so miffed that he had not responded to my letter.

  I walked around in a fog for days afterwards, and then weeks. How could it be? Carrot, who had called me his little brother, could not possibly have left this earth, I thought. Without my seeing him again. Without my ever seeing him again. My two dearest friends from childhood, both gone now, and I left alone without them.

  And ye
t…And yet…I barely could get past the and yet. The burial had already taken place. What had passed between Carrot and me in letters—and in my mind—in the previous months seemed an incredible waste. I should have gone anyway to the Derby in the spring, despite my injuries. Why had I so easily assumed there would always be another time, another chance? I should never have waited for an invitation from him, but just gone to Newmarket and surprised him. My mind caught on that: if I had been in Newmarket earlier, with Carrot, all would have been different, would it not? He might not have ridden that horse, at least not at the same time, under the same conditions. He might not have been thrown, would not have died.

  I could not get past those thoughts. There was no place now, other than a lonely grave, where I could once again come close to Carrot’s laughter, his brotherly arm around my shoulders. I went to a bookseller and bought another copy of Rob Roy. I had more than enough to occupy myself in the way of studies, but I still found time to read it, and I kept the book at my bedside as a visible promise to myself that I would not let Carrot’s memory fade from my mind. Nor would I let fade the understanding I took from it: that warmth and companionship are more precious than gold, and that the future is as uncertain as the weather, knowable only as far as one can see on each day, and therefore just as unpredictable and, at times, just as unkind.

  I thought, a time or two, of Rowland, who must certainly have heard of Carrot’s death—could he have been with him, that day in Newmarket?—but I did not reach out to him, nor he to me, each of us perhaps jealous of the other’s attachment to Thomas Fitzcharles, Earl of Lanham. Carrot.

  I spent the rest of the term attending lectures, meeting with my tutor and my coach, spitting out answers when required, all the while wrapped in my own private grief. It neither surprised nor disappointed me that my father sent word late in November that while I could come to his town house in Liverpool for the Christmas holidays, he would be occupied elsewhere. It was almost a relief: in Liverpool, on my own, I could let all pretense fall away.