Chapter 33 The Factory
The Factory
I know the truth at last. May God have mercy, I almost wish I had not found it out. But I did. How blind I have been!
The night before their wedding, I believe most ladies stay in. They finish the last stitches of their trousseaux, dine with their families one last time, and go to bed early so that they might be fresh as rosebuds when they go to church in the morning.
They do not do as I did, which was to stay up until the small hours, teaching tricks to a small dead bird to stay awake. They do not don boys’ clothing and a pair of heavy hobnailed boots, nor tuck their hair into a flat cap. They do not set out alone into the dark night.
It was clouded over heavily. I wondered, as I tramped along the road, what clouds meant for Miss Darcy’s affliction—would she transform anyway, if the moon was full behind the clouds?
I cut off that thought ruthlessly. There was no transformation; just a silly dream that I had been too upset to tell from reality. I felt a spike of rage for Miss Darcy, as though she had deliberately tricked me into thinking her some sort of magical were-owl.
I had trouble banishing her from my thoughts now.
I had been so busy these last few weeks, preparing to wed and move to Netherfield, I’d scarcely had a moment to dwell on any Miss Darcy–related sorrows.
But now I was alone on the road, clad in boys’ clothes, and I was inevitably reminded of my last nighttime adventure when another “lad” had tramped beside me.
An owl hooted somewhere in the woods. A strange, lonely sound. My foul mood got fouler.
I had felt so free last time. This time I just wished I was back in bed, that I had never met Mairead, that I felt no call to investigate Pike’s doings any further. Surely I would find nothing, and what a fool I would feel then—what a fool I would be then.
The trees around the lane grew so high and thick that I could barely make out my hand in front of my face.
Only having walked this path a thousand times before gave me confidence that I had not wandered from it.
I almost missed the turnoff for the factory, but the faint sigh of rushing water off to my left told me I was near the river and thus near Pike’s factory.
The water grew louder as I picked my way down the drive. My heart did, too. I stood outside the front door, uncertain, my hand poised over the handle.
What am I even looking for? I wondered. What will I say if I am caught?
My leg throbbed. The marks of Pike’s teeth had never entirely faded.
Enough. Do not be insolent or inquisitive , Quindley said. He also said, Be guided by your husband .
Though the lines all but screamed in my mind, I knew myself well enough to be sure that the only way to stop myself from asking questions was to find out the answers. I tugged at the latch. Locked.
That was a bit odd. There were no near neighbors, so why bar the door?
There were lights lit within—I could see them spill out of the high windows—but the chunk-chunk-chunk sound was absent.
The wheel was not running. Still, I could hear sounds from within—rustlings, scrapings.
Voices? Hard to tell. It was well after midnight.
What could they possibly be doing? If Pike was as kind a master as he claimed, his workers ought to have gone to sleep hours ago.
I crept around to the rear, but the entrance to the dormitory was locked, too. I thought about knocking—I meant the girls no harm, after all—but I doubted my ability to make that clear, and they might alert whoever was within.
That was it, then. The windows were too high to peer through, and the doors were locked.
I had tried, and I had failed. All I could do now was go home and sleep.
I was not going to be Meryton’s most beautiful bride in any case, so I ought to at least ensure I did not appear at the altar with dark circles under my eyes. Quindley would surely say—
Oh, do not be such a wet stocking, Sir Gregory.
I shook the stray voice from my head. Quindley would say—
You got struck by lightning, and that did not stop you. What is a little lock?
It was the clothing, I suppose. Wearing boys’ clothes reminded me so powerfully of that night that I felt as if she was by my side.
Right. There must be another way in.
The chunk-chunk-chunk was still absent. My heart sank. I knew the way in, and wished I did not. Before I could change my mind, I waded into the icy waters of the river.
The cold of the water was like a slap. I could only hope the sound of it had covered my ragged gasp.
Grimly, I half-walked, half-swam against the current, toward the sluice gate.
The water was high and fast. It had rained much of late.
This would be a very silly way to die. Deeper and deeper.
I had never been taught to swim. I understood the theory, though, which was good, for my toes were about to leave the ground.
“Who’s there?”
Pike’s voice broke the silence just as my feet left the bank.
He leaned his head out the window. I must have made some noise.
Luckily he did not expect his intruder to be in the river—he turned first toward the road.
Before he could look at me, I scrabbled at the brick wall beneath the lane and pulled my head underwater.
As it was the first time putting my head entirely under the surface, I cannot claim I made a great success of it.
I ought to have taken a breath before doing it, for one thing, for my lungs quickly screamed for air.
Next time I am at leisure, I must do some practicing.
One never realizes what a luxury air is until one must go without.
I would also advise a first-time submerger to avoid my mistake and close her mouth.
If she does not do so, she may find that she swallows half the river, then tries to cough it out, then consequently breathes in the other half.
How I managed to keep from bursting to the surface, I shall never know. I managed to creep along by feel, using the submerged barge rings as tethers, until I was sure I was under the wheel shed and out of Pike’s sight.
Then, finally, I allowed myself to break the surface.
Hacking up about a hundred gallons of river without making a sound ought not to be possible, but I am nothing if not determined.
I let my frustration grant me strength. Honestly, all those years growing up on the bank of this creek, and not one swimming lesson? It is as though they want us to drown.
At last, I managed to quell my desperate gasps. My throat was still raw and my hands shook, but there was no more time to lose.
What if Pike came into the wheel shed? That was a chance I would just have to take. Wedging one elbow in the crook of a support beam, I pulled myself up and groped with my other hand until I felt a plank move. I had found the trapdoor.
With muscles that, I believe, had never been taxed before, I managed to pull myself up through the gap. Thank goodness it wasn’t locked! Apparently even Pike had not expected so determined an invasion.
My bridegroom ought to know his bride better than that. But I was glad he didn’t.
The room I emerged into was small and nearly pitch dark, except for one high window.
I eased the plank back into place. I winced at its creak, but the rush of the water would surely cover it.
I opened the door and crept down the small, dark corridor.
I squelched and dripped with every step.
If anyone cared to shine a lantern this way, there would be no doubt that a damp intruder had passed through.
Luckily, this seemed unlikely. The floor was painted a deep black—a practical color for a working factory, I supposed—and as I emerged into the main structure, I found it only dimly lit. Crowded, too, with crates piled high—they must be shipping their first batches of fabric soon.
Keeping toward the outer wall, I crept among the maze of crates and machinery. Toward the north wall, the light was a little brighter. Someone had a lamp there. I could hear voices, one of them Pike’s, the other a woman’s.
“This one’s almost dry, dash it. Almost the last of that variety, too.”
“Would sir like another?”
“No, no, I shall get by with the dregs. For the moment, at least.”
Over the sound of the river, I could now hear something else: a faint trickling sound.
Sticking to the shadows, I eased a little closer. If Pike’s great secret was that he liked a drink of wine in the evenings, then I had been very silly indeed.
Pike’s servant approached, and I froze. Luckily she passed by me with no apparent notice. I peered around a large weaving apparatus and felt my body grow cold.
Near the northern end of the factory, where sacks of flour had been stacked in the old mill days, an empty space was now cleared.
In the middle were two things: a large table, and a large apparatus of some kind.
It had been covered with tarps on my last visit, and I had taken it for unused looms or something.
It was no loom. No, it was a tangled mass of jugs and phials, of small gas lamps heating delicate copper pots.
I ought to have understood at once—I, who take such pride in my cleverness!
—but I was too mesmerized by the ghastly sight before me.
On the table lay a young woman. She was dead.