Isabelle and Alexander by Rebecca Anderson (new books to read TXT) 📗

If Isabelle had an idea of how Alexander would react to her involvement in mill decisions, this silence and apparent frustration was not what she’d anticipated. Was the frustration directed toward her?

Isabelle felt the enthusiasm and confidence she’d fostered over the past few days wither. “I should think you would be pleased to be able to travel through parts of the mill,” she said, her voice significantly weaker.

“Should you?” Alexander replied, his face avoiding hers. “I ought to be pleased at the possibility of rolling across the floor, looking at my materials and my employees?” He glanced at her and went on. “When I once was capable of running every part of each machine on every floor of the place?” His voice continued to grow. “It should please me, should it, to be pushed through one room on one level? To see progress from a seated position? To watch each stage of millwork and know that it carries on perfectly well without me?”

The pain in his voice was acute and palpable. Isabelle lowered her head into her hands. She wished him to stop, but she also hoped he would continue, opening his heart and expressing his feelings. It was, she thought, better to know what he was thinking than to wonder.

He did not say more, and the two of them sat in near silence for many minutes. She listened to his loud inhales and aggressive exhales and wished he would continue to speak, but she understood much better than she had an hour ago some of his frustration.

The home in which Isabelle had grown up had been run by a mother who delighted in the daily details and a father who managed all from behind a large desk, the same desk from which he administered his mine operations, which required very little on-site supervision. In fact, Mr. Rackham traveled to the mines only a few times every year. This was a completely different management style than Alexander’s. He’d spent as many hours every day in the mill as the longest-­working wage earner.

Mr. Kenworthy and Mr. Connor had done all they could since Alexander’s accident to remove any concern about the mill from him. They saw to every problem, created solutions to every dispute, and finessed every snag in either process or product. All of this seemed necessary—crucial, even—to Alexander’s recovery. Now, however, Isabelle could see that every waking hour, each of those minutes she spent anxious about Alexander, he spent worried about the mill.

As much as she experienced daily and hourly defeat in her inability to comfort or cure him, he must feel the same or more without being of use at his work. She began to realize, to truly understand, that his hours spent at the mill were not an escape from her or from his home but were, in fact, a fulfillment of his desire to be involved, to be necessary.

Isabelle spoke quietly into the silent room. “I realize that Mr. Connor and Mr. Kenworthy are managing your mill in your absence, but they value your input. And I am certain your workers miss you. I know they do because some of them have told me so. I am confident that a simple visit, even though it would be less than everyone desires, would go far to securing the relief of your employees.”

She wished he would meet her eyes, but as the sound of his breathing was the only other noise in the room, she was sure he could hear her.

“I hope you will not cast aside the comfort of those who look to you as their provider.”

Isabelle could not have chosen better language to turn Alexander’s mind and his heart.

He looked up at her, the dark circles around his eyes testifying to a constant state of exhaustion. “Will you please write a letter to Connor and Kenworthy? Will you inform them that I plan to come oversee operations in the mill on Thursday morning?”

Thursday dawned drizzly and gloomy, and Isabelle could not have felt happier. Yeardley was prepared to walk beside Alexander at every step, even navigating his chair through the production floors and moving him up and down stairways, and in and out of narrow halls. The man agreed to all Isabelle’s plans without any complaint. In fact, Isabelle had rarely seen the stoic Yeardley look so nearly excited.

“’Twill be well for the master to get back to his work,” he said, a rare grin overspreading his face.

Isabelle had underestimated how difficult it would be to get Alexander down the front steps, not to mention piloting the chair through narrow streets rutted with carriage tracks. She was of very little use. Yeardley carried the chair from the house down into the street. Isabelle could wheel it about in the house but not lift it. Then Yeardley carried Alexander down the same steps, attempting to maintain his familiar composure as people stopped to watch the spectacle of a man being conveyed like a parcel.

Isabelle, standing dumbly with a hand on the back of the chair, avoided Alexander’s eye through this transport, which was not difficult. His hat hid his face sufficiently that he needed no effort to escape her gaze. Without either of them saying anything, she understood that he felt a sense of degradation as he was carried like a small child. She did not agree that he should be ashamed, but she understood what he must be feeling.

Yeardley pushed the chair through the uneven street, jostling Alexander at every moment. Isabelle knew there was no avoiding the uneven furrows, but she wished she could smooth the ride so he would have a possibility of arriving at the mill looking less fatigued.

She felt herself a part of a strange processional, walking a pace behind the wheeled chair in the rain. Never before had she felt so many eyes on her as she moved through Manchester. The city was so busy, and people seemed to have