The World From Rough Stones Page 18

  It was like cheating a trustful child.

  "Walter!" She was deeply disapproving.

  They had arrived at the Penny Stone—a "Venerable Antique" his guidebook called it. To them, it looked like any barnacle-bitten, weed-strewn rock. They could find no sign of the iron hooks or rings that horses might have tied to.

  "Between thee and me and this stone," Walter said, "I think our doctor is by way of being an amateur at card sharping."

  "Indeed!"

  "I believe he allowed me to win last night, when I had returned. It is their trick you know. To let you win a little and then take ten times back on the next occasion."

  "Oh Walter! Thank heavens you perceived it!"

  "Well—that's not quite so," he said, emboldened by her gullibility. "It was little Miss Sanders, Mrs. McKechnie's maid. I left the hotel with them, intending to escort them home, when Mrs. McKechnie went back for something. Miss Sanders took the chance to stay briefly behind and warn me against the doctor."

  "Oh, but how generous of her."

  "Yes. I am so inexperienced in these things, I was very grateful." He could have gone on in this vein for a long time but he forced himself to stop. It was so unfair.

  A seagull blew past them, its rigid wings tilted at a crazy angle. Farther up the beach some people were scattering crusts; a small flock of gulls had already crowded them, pecking and retreating. Their plaintive mewing carried far across the sand.

  Back at Dixon's, Arabella went into the bedroom to change out of her wet promenade dress. Walter said he might as well stay damp until the evening. If they went out again after dinner, he might only get wet again. He stood at the window watching the angry sea consume the sand. Every last shred of the wreckage had vanished. Occasional large drops of rain began to fall. "What an August!" he said, and his breath actually clouded the windowpane.

  At last she returned. She stood in the door and waited for his approval.

  For a moment, her loveliness took his breath away. "Say!" he cried when he found his voice. "What a beautiful dress! Is it new?"

  "I have worn it before, but the ribbons and bodice are new. As a matter of fact, your cousin gave them to me. Papa said…"

  "My cousin? Which cousin?"

  She settled on the sofa, which was now back in the middle of the room. He

  leaned against the mantelshelf and looked proudly down at her.

  "Clod Three. Papa said it was not seemly and desired me to return them, but Mama said that the gentry must be permitted some licence."

  "Hah!" Walter's harsh laugh split the air. "Gentry! The Thorntons gentry! They're tradesmen."

  "Shipowners, dear. And in the Russian trade, which is very select."

  "The shipowning is quite ancillary to…"

  "In any case," she interrupted, "with Letty soon marrying into the Desboroughs and with their connections through the Kents to Her Majesty, my goodness—if that isn't better than Lord Tomnoddy going bankrupt in Radnorshire—if they aren't accepted among the quality soon…"

  "And they'll go bankrupt themselves soon after. You'll see. What the older aristocracy took centuries to achieve—the long hard road from wealth to poverty—Clod Three will do in ten years. That's progress for you!"

  She looked disappointed. "You are so charitable about everything—except your family."

  "Plain justice. They taught me all I know of charity! Let me ring for some chocolate."

  He pulled the bellcord.

  "No. Tea," she said. "Let us have tea. It'll be dinner in twenty minutes. The bodice is not quite new. It used to be cut in the style that was such an enthusiasm in 1835. How mawkish it looks now!"

  "Mawkish?" He looked in astonishment at her bodice. "Mawkish is the last word I'd use about that."

  "No, no. Not this. The style of 1835 I meant. It looked dreadful."

  He lost interest. "I can't say I had noticed any change."

  The maid came in. "Ah, Sally," he said, brightening. "Be so good as to bring tea for Mrs. Thornton and chocolate for me."

  "That'll warm ye, after yon blow," she said as she left, not even noticing his disapproval.

  "I like their friendliness," she said, smiling at his petulance. "And how typical of you Thorntons—chocolate and tea! Most married people accommodate to one another, but with the Thorntons, he must have brandy, she tea, and the young ones anything from vodka to ginger cordial."

  He snorted, wishing he'd ordered tea. "They probably think it most aristocratic. Très bon ton! Yes—there's nothing the Thorntons would dislike more than to rest at the level of mere gentry. Jove how they ape the Desboroughs and old Cowper! And Melbourne over at Brockett Hall! They're like…schoolchildren!"

  She sat silent, looking out of the window, not wanting to reopen the subject of the Thorntons.

  "Still," he concluded, "they put me out to a good trade."

  "Surely, dearest, it is almost a profession to be an engineer."

  "There's nothing undignified in labour. Trade'll do me."

  The maid returned with their tray. She handed Walter his chocolate and left Arabella to make her tea.

  "Thank you, Sally," Arabella said.

  "It's a champion supper tonight. Always is, Sundays, like," Sally told them as she left.

  Walter waited until the door was shut. "I wish you would not thank the servants as though they had done you some personal service. You will regret it. It is her duty to bring what we ask. Not a favour needing a thank you."

  "I'll try to remember." She spoke absentmindedly, preoccupied with the tea ritual.

  "Look at that!" He thrust his cocoa under gaze and then crossed back to the fireplace with it. "They must be using bobbin grease instead of cocoa butter." And he spooned the melted fat off the surface into the empty hearth.

  He had barely finished before the girl returned. She had a letter in her hand. "This was to be left for you in the post office, sir," she said, passing it to him. "Only Bamper, who brought you 'ere by coach, knew you was 'ere and so come on special like to drop it."

  It was from John Stevenson. "Oh, thank you, Sally," he said in his excitement, before he saw Arabella's look of amused accusation.

  "Bamper'll want something," the maid said bluntly.

  "How far's he had to come—extra I mean."

  "All the way from south shore. Coach an' horse an' all."

  He gave her a shilling.

  Arabella was still smiling, catlike, at him when the maid left. "All right!" he said. "Point taken." And he fell to reading the letter. She sipped her tea and watched him.

  "How is our money invested, dear?" she asked when he finished.

  "That's a damn funny question for a pretty young lady to ponder!"

  "Please don't swear. People are making fortunes in railways."

  He laughed knowingly. "And losing 'em!"

  "Not everyone," she persisted. "The Wilkinses were very humble people five

  years ago, and, Papa says they turned two hundred pounds into two thousand in one year. And now everyone talks about their being wealthier than Lady Cathcart."

  "Don't say 'wealthy,'" he corrected. "Say 'rich.'"

  "And that was all through railways. Surely, as you know so much about the railways, you could avoid the risky lines and do even better?"

  He felt greatly uncomfortable to be discussing their money with her—almost as if she imagined he was accountable to her. "If it were as simple as that, pigs could choose their palaces," he said, hoping it would stop her. She never asked for engineering technicalities to be explained; why should she begin to fuss her head about money?

  "You think it better I know nothing of our affairs?" she asked. Then, seeing that he was trying to find a kindly way of agreeing, she added: "Like poor widow Carter, Lawyer Carter's wife, who thought her husband had the backdoor key to the Bank of England?"

  "No…" he said. What else could he say. "No…no…I…er…obviously you should…yes." He looked again at the letter from John Stevenson. "As a matter of fact, funny
thing, you talking about railways. I am thinking of one investment. Or was. I don't know now. Let me read you this. See what you think. This is from the contractor at Summit."

  She patted the sofa beside her. He sat there, took a sip of cocoa, and began to read: "'My dear Thornton…' Hm! It used to be 'Mr. Thornton sir'! 'My dear Thornton, I'm mightily obliged to you for the note from your bankers. In the meantime, I've managed to lay my hands on the extra thousand and so have no immediate need to translate your kind offer into equity. However, you have my word that, should the opportunity of investment in my contract arise (as I doubt not it will soon enough) and should you then still desire to take it, yours shall be the first offer on which I shall call. Work on the tunnel is proceeding at the accelerated pace I predicted when I introduced my bonus scheme. Indeed, one of the gangs will draw two day's bonus in this first week; but they will no doubt soon moderate to a more sensible pace. I now have no qualms but that you and I shall walk the entire driftway this Boxing Day 1839. I have taken lodging at the Royal Oak in Littleborough till then. When the driftway is complete, I presume it will be more convenient to move to Todmorden. The young girl…,'" he stopped there. "And so on," he said.

  She was smiling at him. "It sounded as if it was about to become a very masculine letter!"

  "Oh," he chuckled. "Not at all." He looked again at the letter and then, speculatively, back at Arabella. "I'll tell you about it. The week before last, I walked over near Littleborough, which is this side of our tunnel, to catch the mails. On the way back, I passed a young labouring gel. Tramping over the hills to Leeds with her toes sticking out of her boots…" He stopped, realizing that he was spoiling the point he wanted to make. "I can't tell you more at the moment. You'll soon see why. Tell me first what you make of this letter? Of the writer of it?"

  "It is very direct," she said. "Quite to the point. He is educated, clearly."

  That wasn't quite what Walter had meant. "How can I put it," he mused. "Suppose…if the making of a railroad were a military operation, what do you think the writer of this letter would be? What rank?"

  "My background is hardly military!"

  "No…but…just guess."

  "A major? A colonel?"

  Walter grinned broadly. "Exactly! So he is! He, that is, John Stevenson, the writer of this letter, is the contractor for Summit Tunnel, as I said—and the contract is let for over one hundred thousand pounds."

  Arabella drew a deep breath in a near-whistle.

  "Yet last week," Walter went on, "this same man was a mere ganger! The equivalent, I suppose, of a sergeant. From sergeant to colonel in a week!"

  "Good gracious!"

  "He is, I say, a most extraordinary man. A most…" Words failed. "When you see him among the men—'the lads,' he calls them—well, he's not exactly one of them, but he's not one of us either. He's a natural…I was about to say 'commander' but he doesn't command. He's a natural leader. He can tell the most drunken, surly, disorderly, rebellious bunch of navvies to do something and, by the powers, they do it! But he doesn't command them, as if from a distance. He leads them, from among them. He gives them pride, I suppose."

  "He sounds dangerously radical!"

  "I believe he could sound anything he wished. He could be anything he wished. I saw him talking the Board of Directors into giving him the contract that broke the previous man. Until then, I knew him only as a ganger—so you may imagine what I expected to walk through the door. But not a bit of it. There he was—every inch the provincial businessman. With a banker's letter good for ten thousand! A ganger! And when they asked him to find surety for a thousand more—no worry—no furrowed brows—nothing but smiles all round. I decided, on the moment, that he was the man. Offered him a thousand. But," Walter sighed and patted the letter in his pocket, "he's found it somewhere else."

  "Wasn't it a risk, dear?" Arabella had the vaguest of feelings, a mere presentiment which she could never have articulated in words, that this Stevenson was some kind of threat. It was unlike Walter to show such uncritical enthusiasm.

  "It was—on the face of it. But I have the strongest notion that this man is… nothing will stop him. If anybody is going to make a fortune at the railways, it'll be Lord John."

  "Lord John?" she asked. That was different; Walter had not said he was a peer…but how could a peer be a ganger?

  "Oh—that's just a nickname. Every navvy has a nickname. Though they say he is related to the peerage; on the wrong side of the sheets, you know. In fact, he's hinted as much to me."

  "How exciting!" Arabella's eyes gleamed. "And how romantic! Perhaps he's only waiting to prove his claim and to cast out some dastardly usurper…perhaps he was stolen away as—"

  "I hardly think so!" Walter laughed. "They also say he is a felon, a master of some nefarious trade, on the run. If every runaway felon in England were taken back into fetters, half our navvies would vanish overnight."

  "Oh." She was crestfallen.

  "Well even that," he teased, "viewed through glass of the proper tint, could be made to appear romantic."

  She pouted and gave him a self-deprecating smile. Then, seeing him eye the teapot, she rang again for Sally and asked for an extra cup and more hot water.

  "Curious thing," Walter said, suddenly remembering the incident. "When I offered the money, I said 'Nec quicquam acrius quam pecuniae damnum stimulat'— Nothing stings more sharply than to lose money. And without even pausing to think, this man, who had lived two years among navvies, men who can't write even their names, this man replied that he had always thought Cicero to be a better guide than Livy. And he quoted 'Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia'—It is fortune, not wisdom, that rules men's lives. What does one make of it?"

  "I can hardly wait to see this man of mystery."

  Sally returned and set down the extra cup and the fresh water. Arabella said nothing, but, turning her face from Walter, gave the girl a warm smile. When the door was closed, she chilled her expression and turned back to Walter. "Was that better?" she asked. "More to your liking?"

  "Much," he said.

  She poured his tea. "And what of the girl?"

  "Girl?"

  "The one with her 'toes sticking out of her boots'? Walking to Leeds."

  Walter sipped his cup and breathed out his appreciation. "To be sure. Yes—it was late afternoon and I knew she'd have a hard job to get over to Todmorden by dark. She looked exhausted already. So I told her to seek a night's shelter with Lord John's gang. He'd never see anyone go hungry. Which she did. And now"—he took the letter from his pocket—"he writes that she is to have permanent shelter. In short, he is to marry her, this coming week. It's dashed quick—and dashed odd! And another thing: She gave her name to me as Molly. He says it's Nora."

  Arabella gave a suspicious snort.

  "He writes that she is 'a genius at calculations and, from selling produce off their own few acres, has developed an amazing faculty at bargaining.' And I took her for no more than a simple farm servant." He turned to her. "That is what I most admire in him. I see no more than a ragged little waif—she dresses like a field girl and talks like a field girl. Ergo, she is a field girl to me. But not to Lord John. He is not like that. He is not, as it were, held back by the assumptions and prejudices that cloud my assessment—and most people's assessment. He sees through all that and finds some essential quality—something I would never have dreamed…"

  "Oh dearest…" Arabella was beginning to weary of Lord John and Lord John and Lord John. "You are so charitable! He is probably putting the best face on it! That's the simple truth."

  "Best face? On it? On what?"

  She tutted and lowered her voice. "He's probably got her into trouble. That's what it is."

  He threw back his head and laughed, slopping tea into his saucer. "How well we insist on knowing those we have never met! No," he went on more seriously, "it's too quick for that. This happened less than a fortnight ago; just over a week, in fact. The way among the inferior orders is to wait fo
r months, until the fact is well established. He wouldn't marry her until…November if that were his game."

  "Oh," she sighed. "Why can they not put more trust in God?" He set down his cup and drew himself to her side. He stroked her under the chin, shaking his head in smiling disbelief.

  "Dear, sweet Arabella!" he said.

  She drew in her lips to a stubborn slit.

  "So wrong—and so convinced!"

  "Very well, Walter," she spoke to the ceiling. "I know it is not you who mocks."

  He brought his hand down to her arm, rubbing the silk of her blouse gently with his knuckles. "Now what fancy is this?"