Chapter Twenty-Three
Edwina handed her brother a letter—seal perfectly intact—and watched him expectantly.
He shoved it into his pocket.
“Did he open it?” Jac asked. “I didn’t hear the wax break.”
“He did not,” Winnie replied curtly.
“And I won’t.” He could feel Jac’s scowl even if he couldn’t see it.
Back in his study, he made good on his statement, filing the unopened letter in his desk drawer, where he kept her last letter, also unopened, and all the letters before that.
He did not know what Eleanor had to say. He did not care. Her letters would disparage him—the duke, or him—the Captain, her former friend. He’d heard enough of her opinions. He didn’t need to torture himself more.
Except it was all torture.
He pulled out some paper.
Eleanor,
Damn it. Quit haunting me. I cannot get away from you and it is driving me mad. I lie there at night and think of you. Your words play over and over in my head, and I’m furious, mostly because I wonder if you’re right rather than because you had the honesty to voice your thoughts so directly.
No one has ever dared speak to me in such a manner. I do not appreciate it, but also, I do. Damn you.
The nib of his pen bent and ink spilled across the page. Cursing, he reached for blotting paper. The stain smudged her letters as he shoved his in the drawer on top of them. Just as hers would go unopened, his would go unsent.
Seagulls squawked loudly as they fought over the fish heads tossed by fisherwomen onto the banks of the river.
Eleanor sat on a nearby bench, her typecase next to her.
Habit had caused her to get up and get dressed at dawn.
Whole body jitters drove her feet out the door.
Panic made her grab the typecase on her way out.
Aimlessness had led her here, where a newspaper boy was selling today’s paper—on a day of the week that had not had a paper before.
It was a sign that the duke had been right, which meant there was a chance that she had been wrong.
Unbearably full of feeling, she flipped open her typecase. There were several leaves of paper resting on top of the sorts, printed with neat text—tests to ensure the sorts hadn’t worn and didn’t need replacing.
She flipped one to the blank side and grabbed the pencil that was always tucked along the edge.
Dear Captain,
I am faced with hours that I need to fill. Days or weeks, potentially. Maybe months, though I fear to think of it.
I realize this time would be a dream for most people, but the allure of the zoo and the museum is missing. Not even my two favorite places can rouse joy. Leisure feels better after work, when it is earned.
I don’t deserve to see a platypus, and soon I will not be able to afford to.
That is the consequence of such a resounding failure.
God, my grandfather would be so disappointed in me.
You would be too, I fear. But that is of no consequence, since we are no longer friends.
This letter will live in my typecase with the rest of my past.
“The architect will visit Berwick next week to assess the site. It’s feasible that the school extension could be completed this year, now that we have the funds.”
Andrew was clearly waiting for an enthusiastic response, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to give one.
Andrew furrowed his brow and moved to the next item on his list. “Repairs to the church roof in Weston have commenced, and an order has been placed for the new twine binders that we were discussing two summers back. They should arrive at each estate before this season’s harvest.” He paused again.
Again, Peter could manage little more than a nod. “That’s good. It will give them the support they need now that the pool of workers has slimmed.”
Andrew turned back to his notes. “Your sisters are clamoring for curling irons. They are the last people in the world to have one, apparently. It’s the reason so many of the girls these days have that look… you know, the one with the tiny curls on their foreheads.”
He knew the look. He was surrounded by it every night. “Fine. See if the supplier will give the staff private training. I don’t want one of the girls to lose an ear because a maid doesn’t know what she’s doing. Is that all?” If it was, he could return to staring at the fire.
Andrew shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve instructed our manufacturers to increase the next shipment of Linotypes by a dozen.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “Do you expect more sales than we predicted?” Every sale was good news.
“Branson Books was vandalized two nights ago. All three of their machines were destroyed.”
Not good news. Everything that already felt heavy got more so. “Was it a former employee?”
Andrew shrugged. “I can’t imagine who else. Apparently, negotiations between the publishers and the compositors have broken down.”
“Are they still refusing to give severance packages?” He’d hoped that the London Society of Compositors had made some progress, and that the people who were supposed to support those affected had done so.
“It was not in the employees’ contracts, and the publishers’ liquid assets were drained in order to purchase the machines.”
Peter’s stomach turned. All he had to defend his actions was the reasoning he’d held from the beginning—he could not be responsible for everyone—but it felt weaker each time he used it. He could tell Andrew thought so too.
“The society can press harder.” They were hollow words, but still he spoke them. “The publishers can do the right thing; compositors can retrain and find other work that will pay their bills.”
With time. The compositors could retrain with time, but how much was needed? By what means would they do so?
An hour later, when their business was finally done and Andrew had gone, Peter opened the drawer of unsent letters and retrieved a blank sheet of paper.
Eleanor,
I knew there would be casualties in all this, but I never once questioned whether you’d be fine.
You are intelligent and determined and talented and could be just as successful in anything you put your mind to.
But even though you are not my problem, even though you made it clear that you want none of my assistance, I can’t help but wonder if my assumption was right.
Are you, indeed, fine? or have I done more harm than I’d thought?
Peter
“This is a very sad business.” Lady Wharton drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair.
Eleanor traced the floral pattern of the cushion in her lap. It was a beautiful cushion. Just looking at it brought her a measure of joy. Lady Wharton had excellent taste.
“The book will still be published as planned, my lady. Sooner, in fact. Which is good news.” She managed a wan smile.
Agatha huffed, staring out the window for a long moment before returning her attention to Eleanor. “You’re having a run of it, my girl.”
Eleanor choked out a laugh and then pressed a hand to her lips. “I… Yes… I rather think I am.”
There was no smile in return. Instead, Agatha frowned rather disapprovingly, as though Eleanor wasn’t taking the reality of her circumstances seriously enough.
What the dowager countess didn’t realize was that laughter, no matter how hollow, was all that was left.
Eleanor had spent the week visiting every other publisher.
None had been willing to take her on—either at her normal rates or for what they’d paid her lesser-performing colleagues.
She had three months of living expenses saved, but that hardly felt like enough given the only type of work she knew was impossible to find and every other kind of work required more experience than Eleanor had.
“What will you do?”
Eleanor twisted the ribbon tied around her wrist, unable to meet her employer’s eye. “I do not know. Every time I feel as though my mind has grasped an idea, it slips.” Even her ever-dependable brain was failing her.
“And the boy? This Captain?” It had been weeks and Agatha’s displeasure had not waned. “Has the scoundrel returned to give an accounting for his absence?”
She hooked the ribbon with a fingernail and tugged it. “I think you should stop expecting a resolution there, my lady. I certainly have.” Her nails had grown long. She’d had no cause to trim them and now her hands were starting to look as pristine as her dresses.
“I’ve decided to kill him off, you know.”
Eleanor’s gaze jerked upward. Agatha was deadly serious. Her nails dug into the padded furniture, her lips puckered, and her narrowed eyes suddenly flared. This was the dragon people whispered about.
“You cannot kill him when you do not know who he is,” Eleanor said. “But your desire to do so is kind. Thank you.”
“I can murder whoever I like, Miss Wright. It is my book. In fact, it will be easier to kill off your Captain than it will be to kill off Strafford because I’ve never seen him. There is no danger that my description will too closely resemble the source material.”
Eleanor smiled. The duke was unlikely to read Lady Wharton’s high-society mystery novel, but perhaps his sisters would and they would inform him of his demise.
Agatha’s sour mien did not change, even as her words softened.
“You have a place with me until you get on your feet. When the season is over, you can read my chapters and give me your thoughts. I’m not sure what a service like that should pay, but you’ve been in the book business for a long time, and that is worth something. ”
Eleanor wiped away a tear and Lady Wharton huffed. “Don’t get sentimental. Here.” She handed Eleanor the book she’d been reading. “My eyes are tired. Read this.”
Eleanor looked at the title and her heart twisted.
Dear Captain,
Has a familiar story ever suddenly felt foreign? As though you are reading it for the first time? Emma is hitting differently this time, and not just because it makes me think of you. I am beginning to fear that she and I are more alike than I thought. We are both prideful and naive.
Our endings will bear no resemblance, sadly. She was a work of fiction and reader expectations kept her safe. How I wish my life could be fiction and you would show up at my door with a good reason for your disappearance.
I wonder what you’re reading now. Jules Verne’s latest translation will be released this year instead of next, for complicated reasons. That brings me tempered joy, a sliver of a silver lining. You will not have to wait very long to have your cliff-hanger resolved.
The protests wore on but the mood of them had changed.
The protesters’ worn and ratty signs suggested that the men and women who’d made them no longer had the desire to fix them.
There was no chanting, no humor. There were as many people sitting in the gutter or slumped on crates and overturned rubbish bins as there were standing, marching, and facing off against the constabulary, who at this point looked bored.
Peter had thought that the crowd would have dissipated by now, that after the initial shock, things would have shifted, compositors would have picked up different work, the specter of change they’d fought against having not wreaked the damage they’d feared.
It was not so. As his carriage passed, not one protester called out. Perhaps the men he’d displaced had no more fight left in them.
Eleanor had predicted this, and he’d dismissed her.
He’d counted on other people to take responsibility—for the unions to do their jobs well, for the publishers to negotiate in good faith, for compositors themselves to proactively seek new opportunities, and for industry at large to recognize the value of such a skill set and find room for them in other roles.
Dear Eleanor,
Perhaps I am as cold and emotionless as people think I am.