Chapter 7 #2
James Bennet let out a slow breath. It was dangerous to feel inclination too soon in business; yet he did feel it.
Not the rash eagerness of vanity, but the sober pull of a thing which presents itself not merely as advantageous, but as fitting.
He knew very well that he could not conclude anything without his father.
Mr. Bennet must judge the capital question, and laugh at him first for dreaming of becoming half-miller.
He would require not only his father’s approbation, but his father’s money—or at least authority over the family’s disposable capital.
Yet the desire to secure the option before it passed to Hertford was already active.
“When do you wish to sell?” he asked.
“At once, if I may. Before Michaelmas, if the papers can be drawn and the money found.”
James gave a brief nod. “And if not me?”
Mr. Henley’s mouth tightened with honesty. “Then the Hertford man, most likely. He has asked two questions fewer than you, which I take to mean either that he is richer than wise, or less scrupulous about what he buys.”
“That is often the same thing,” said James.
The miller’s look altered just enough to show he was uncertain whether the remark invited amusement. Deciding, perhaps, that gentlemen were privileged to say dry things without assistance, he only bowed slightly and waited.
James was not a man to promise from impulse, nor to affect indifference where he felt none.
“I shall not give you an answer in the street,” he said.
“The matter is too serious. But I will say this: I am strongly disposed to look at the property, and if the facts support your account, I am strongly disposed to think well of it.”
A visible easing came over Mr. Henley, though he fought to keep it within the bounds of proper deference. “That is all I ask, sir. If you will come tomorrow, or the day after—”
“Not tomorrow,” said James. “My father is not strong enough yet to be left long in uncertainty, and I will not begin this without first speaking to him. But I could come the following morning. Early.”
“I shall be there before you, sir, and the books ready upon the table.”
James inclined his head. “Very well.”
The footman had begun, at some distance, to look with that discreet anxiety which servants wear when their master’s quarter of an hour has become thirty minutes, and the butcher’s yard no longer yields sufficient excuse.
James knew he must go. Yet he lingered a moment more, his eyes narrowing slightly in thought.
“One thing more, Mr. Henley.”
“Sir?”
“If I proceed, I do not proceed as a man to be hurried. I shall examine carefully. I shall speak to my father. If we bargain, we bargain plainly.”
“You shall find me plain enough, Mr. Bennet.”
“I believe it.”
James Bennet offered his hand—not in easy equality, but with that grave civility by which one gentleman sometimes acknowledges solid worth in another man, though not his social equivalent. Mr. Henley, perhaps startled by the gesture, took it with evident feeling.
“I thank you, sir.”
James left him then and returned toward the yard, where the coachman had at last secured the final crate and the footman stood ready to mount behind.
Yet his mind was no longer with the butcher, nor with the tea, nor with the vexation of an overlong morning in Meryton.
It had gone ahead already to the stream, the wheel, the accounts, and beyond them to the library at Longbourn, where his father would sit with that mixture of idleness and discernment which made him so dangerous to weak arguments and so useful to sound ones.
***
As the carriage turned homeward, James gave only the briefest directions and then fell silent.
The road from Meryton to Longbourn was one he could have traversed in half-sleep; today he noticed every field.
Here wheat already cut and shocked. There the stubble pale beneath the light.
Beyond, a meadow where the stream bent out of sight among willow and alder, the very sort of water that could turn a wheel and money with it.
His thoughts travelled rapidly, though not disorderly.
Nineteen hundred pounds. Books to inspect.
Water-right secure, and Henley spoke true.
Three hundred pounds gross. Steady custom.
A local concern. Possible provision, one day, for Miles if his church path proved uncertain; or for Kit, if medicine required more expense than anyone yet foresaw; or even, in time, as an investment to ease the perpetual pressure which every younger son represented to an estate never large enough for all the lives dependent upon it.
By the time the carriage reached Longbourn, his resolution was settled.
James Bennet would buy—if the inspection justified it.
He knew it already. The only questions remaining were whether his father would see the matter as he did, and whether the necessary funds could be spared or rearranged without imprudence.
Mr. Bennet was in the library when James entered, wrapped in his dressing-gown despite the hour, one leg stretched before him and a volume lying open upon his knee in that posture which suggested he had either been reading with great attention or not at all.
The improvement in his colour over the last days had been enough to relieve the household, though not yet enough to restore him to his former carelessness of appearance.
At the sound of the door, Mr. Bennet looked up.
“Well,” he said, “you have returned unharmed from Meryton, which is always more than can be said for the household purse after your mother’s provisioning days. Was the butcher victorious?”
James closed the door behind him. “The butcher was tedious, the grocer inaccurate, the coachman invaluable; but that is not the matter I came to speak of, Father.”
Mr. Bennet marked the tone immediately and shut the book. “Then sit down and alarm me properly.”
James did so, though not without that grave self-command which always became more pronounced in him when he approached anything of consequence. “I was stopped in the street by Mr. Henley, the miller.”
“The man below Meryton?”
“Yes. He wishes to sell, Father.”
Mr. Bennet’s brows rose. “His mill? That is interesting.”
“The whole concern. He asks nineteen hundred pounds,” James said careful to see how his father would react.
“That is not a man’s way of wishing merely to talk,” said Mr. Bennet. “And what does his wheel do besides turn water into ambition?”
James explained then—plainly, fully, and without ornament—the substance of the conversation: Henley’s age, the absence of a suitable heir, the state of the mill as described, the regular custom, the water-right, the four pairs of stones, the reported gross of not less than three hundred in an ordinary year, the Hertford competitor, and his own intention of examining the books before anything further.
He spoke as he always did when earnest: clearly, without haste, and with a steadiness that made his conviction more persuasive than excitement ever could have done.
Mr. Bennet listened with more attention than his lounging posture would have suggested possible. When James concluded, there was a brief silence.
“At what point,” said his father at last, “did you decide you wished to buy it?”
James, who had no gift for false modesty and less taste for evasions, answered directly. “Before I left the street.”
Mr. Bennet’s mouth altered. “I thought as much.”
“I do not say I would conclude without inspection, Father.”
“No. But you mean to conclude, if inspection does not disappoint you.”
“Yes. If Mr. Henley set that price, he is probably aware that negotiations would lower his expectations.”
His father regarded him for a long moment. “And why? Not because mills are romantic, I trust.”
James almost smiled. “No. Because it is useful, near at hand, established, and, if honestly represented, profitable. Because it may in time be of service to the family in ways that acres alone cannot always be. Because I am tired, sir, of having so little to place between my brothers and uncertainty.”
There it was—spoken more plainly than he had perhaps intended. Yet once uttered, he did not regret it.
Mr. Bennet’s expression softened, though only slightly. “Ah,” said he quietly. “Then it is not the mill only. It is all the rest.”
“It is all the rest, sir,” James admitted.
Another moment of silence followed, and this time there was affection in it, and thought. Mr. Bennet leaned back, shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them again.
“You have my leave to inspect it,” said he. “You shall not have my money quite so quickly. Not until I have seen the books, heard your account, and decided whether Mr. Henley is an honest miller or only a very capable liar. But if the figures stand, and the concern is sound, I do not say no.”
James had not realised, until then, how much he had wanted even that much. The relief did not alter his posture, but it altered his breath.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do not thank me too soon. I may yet save you from becoming the most industrious Bennet in Hertfordshire, which would be a misery to us all.” He paused, then added, with quiet dryness, “Nineteen hundred is a bold price.”
“It is.”
“And if I agree, you understand that I agree because I think the thing may serve the family—not because I mean to indulge you in a passion for machinery.”
“I understand perfectly, Father. Some two potential buyers already exist–a Hertford brewer and a man from St. Albans.”
Mr. Bennet looked at him then with a degree of tenderness he seldom let stand long uncovered. “You are a good son, James.”
The words, precisely because they were so seldom spoken, went deeper than longer praise would have done. James lowered his eyes for a moment before answering, “I only mean to do what I can.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Bennet. “That is exactly why it is worth letting you try.”