Frightened, but too curious to turn away, Lucy approached the front of the mill. The dirt and dead leaves and twigs crunched under her feet. She heard the distant hooting of an owl. The overlapping voices repeated their refrain until she was no more than twenty feet from the open door, and then, all at once, the chant stopped. For a moment there was only silence, and then came the clacking of a single loom, joined by another, and then a loud cough, and the busy thrum of a fully functioning mill. Lucy had the strange idea that if she were to step only a little closer the work would cease once more, the chanting would resume, and the shadows would again quicken. She believed it as much as she believed anything, yet she dared not put this notion to test lest she discover that she was right.
A hundred feet up the path, with the declining sun now in her eyes, Lucy saw a figure—still and straight and tall with wide shoulders. She could not see his face, so glaring was the sun, but she had the distinct impression that he stared at her, that he waited for her.
Lucy thought of retreating to the mill, but she could not go back there, not with those workers, with their dead eyes and their monotonous chants. And this man had not threatened her. He might only be a farmer or a laborer on his way, wanting nothing more from her than to tip his hat and wish her a good afternoon.
The figure did not move. She could see almost nothing of him, and put a hand to her forehead in an effort to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare, but it did little good.
“Good afternoon,” she said cautiously.
He stepped closer. His movements were stiff and lumbering, and yet unnaturally quick. The whole effect of him presented a convoluted image, as though his limbs were attached in some wrong way and as though he, like the creatures from the mill, were made of shadows. He did not seem vile like those scattering, pulsating things, but he was somehow similar. And yet, unlike too, for despite all the shimmering obscurity, he was a lumbering figure of a man, dressed in rough clothes, and he held in one hand a massive hammer—the sort used for… for breaking things. He was, she now understood, a machine breaker. This man was a Luddite.
“Miss Derrick,” he said in a voice deep and resonant and low, like the mournful note of a brass horn. She felt her bones vibrate. “Miss Derrick, you must gather the leaves.”
Partly out of terror, and partly out of exasperation, she squatted down and clutched a handful of limp winter-worn leaves that remained upon the ground, holding them out toward the silhouette. “Will this do?”
The man laughed, and the sound was rich and throaty. “That is not what is meant.”
“Then perhaps you will tell me what is meant,” said Lucy. She dropped the leaves and slapped her hands together to knock away the dirt. She was beginning to find her confidence, and liked it. Whoever, whatever this man was, he was not like the black thing she’d seen last night; he was not a creature of void and darkness. “Who are you? And where are these leaves I must gather, and why and what must I do with them once they are in a nice little pile?”
His face was still hidden, but Lucy had the distinct impression that he smiled. “You will know when it is time. You have seen that there are those who do not wish you to succeed, and so you must wait until you are ready. You are not yet ready.”
“Then why do you tell me to do what I am not yet ready to do?”
The hidden man cocked his head slightly, giving the impression that he smiled, though she could not know for certain. “So you will make yourself ready. Those who are to be your allies prepare themselves. You have seen the mill and the horror it brings. With what shall you counter something like that?”
Lucy said nothing. Fear and confusion and even a hint of excitement rendered her tongue inert. The man bowed deep and low before stepping out of view, not into the woods, but seemingly into the shadows, as though he pulled the shadows to himself, the way she might pull a cloak around her own shoulders. Lucy did not believe it while she watched, and she doubted her own recollection afterwards, but it seemed that the shadows around him were somehow physical—layered like the steps of a stairway or folds in a piece of fabric. Into these shadows the strange man vanished, leaving Lucy alone with the sounds of wind and birds and her own panting breath.
8
DURING HER WALK HOME, A RESOLUTION GREW WITHIN HER, and though that strange man was right to fear a bleak future of mills and oppressed workers living as little better than slaves, Lucy could think only of her own bleak future. The workers telling her to gather the leaves was odd—there could be no doubt of that—but perhaps it meant nothing. And the dark creatures she’d seen were likely bats or other animals that congregated in mills for the warmth and shelter. There had been nothing fantastical in her experience, and she would not let her imagination or her fear of marrying Mr. Olson convince her that the world was a place out of a story for children. But Lucy did understand something new. While she was hardly ready to join with the Luddites and their campaign of destruction, she could not build her own life upon the foundation of a mill such as she had seen. She could not be the wife of a man who beat children to make them work harder and longer and for less money. She could not establish her own domestic security upon a kind of slavery. However much she wished she could forget or discount what she had seen, she could not.
There was but one course for her. The moment Lucy returned to her room, she composed a letter to Mr. Olson, and upon finishing it, she stepped out and sent it at once, before she could reconsider or waver or delay. In this letter, she apologized for being indecisive, but she could no longer conceal her conviction that a marriage would not produce happiness for either of them. She thought well of him (certainly an exaggeration) and had no doubt that he would make someone very happy (there must be someone). However, she did not believe that she was that woman, and because she would not be happy, she did not imagine he could be.
She concluded with many more apologies and well-wishes, and begged that he not disquiet either of them by pursuing the matter further. In this she hoped to shelter herself for as long as possible from her uncle’s wrath. As far as either he or Mrs. Quince knew, she had written the first letter of supplication, delivered a basket of food, and all was well. It was only a matter of time before they learned what she had done, and she could not imagine their fury, but Lucy hoped it would not matter. Any day, she told herself, Miss Crawford would send for her with happy news. Lucy dared not consider what might happen if that news never arrived. All she knew for certain was that the moment the letter was gone from her hands, speeding its way to Mr. Olson, she felt light and free and relieved.
The day after her visit to that horrible mill, Lord Byron called upon Lucy. Given the great mistake she had nearly made with Jonas Morrison, Lucy would never have been granted permission to walk alone with any strange man, let alone Lord Byron, but she very much wished to speak to him. Anyway, why should she not? She had already burned her bridges by rejecting Mr. Olson, and so she hardly had more to lose. Therefore when he invited her out upon the street, she saw no reason to request permission. She simply accepted.
When filthy, his skin blistered from the cold, dressed in tattered clothes, and nearly ruined with exhaustion, Lord Byron had still been unusually striking. Now, there were hardly words to describe his beauty. His face was angelic, sensual, and amused all at once, his form broad and manly. He dressed in the London style of Beau Brummel, with buff pants, boots, a dark blue swallowtail coat, though he varied the form by wearing no neck cloth and keeping his collar rakishly open. One of his boots appeared made for the purpose of accommodating his clubfoot. Lord Byron walked with precision, and used his walking stick to help disguise his lameness.