The World From Rough Stones Page 5

  "We?"

  "Me. Thee. This gang if they can stand't race. All this navigation work that's goin on now—all this cuttin' an bankin' an driftin' an sinkin'—it's nothin'. Nothin'. Not compared to what's goin' to be. An' all this business of contraction out to little men, five furlongs 'ere, half a tunnel there, ten fathoms o' ventilation somewhere else, all to useless little half-bankrupts like Skelm an t'other petty barons on this line—it's no way. No way at all."

  There was no urgency in his voice now. In fact, he spoke almost without expression, forcing her to hold her breath and concentrate. "What should they do then?" she asked.

  "They? Do?" he chuckled softly. "Nay—it'll 'appen anygate. Ye can see it ten mile off if ye've got't vision. Big men are goin' to rise—men as can organize not one gang, not ten gangs, but whole armies o' navvies. Take this line, Manchester and Leeds. Can ye think on owt more gawmless than cuttin' it in little parcels and gi'in it out to two-three dozen little men? Nay—it should be one big man. One organizer. One central purchaser who can strangle suppliers if they try it on wi't prices—see tha—brick, stone, rail, timber, an' all. Screw em down to't rock bed."

  "Buy at pit bottom. Sell at pit head."

  "Aye."

  "Me dad always said that." Then, to break the silence and change his solemn mood, she added, "So—tha'rt Duke o' Wellington!"

  But he was not to be diverted. "Mock on. One day 'appen tha'llt remember I said it. One day there'll be armies o' navvies, ten for every one as fought at Waterloo, on both sides. It's not just this country, Nora. It's th'ole world. Look what's goin on in Manchester. Ye can't turn your back, but they've knocked up five more mills."

  "An' Leeds," she said.

  "Aye. An' Sheffield an' Birmingham an' London. Its't same down south tha knows. Mills, foundries, works—th'ole country's one cauldron o' molten iron. But I'll tell thee summat else: It's a bloody one-horse Newmarket. There's none else at it. We're th'only ones. There's English navvies in France now. An' Germany. Layin' railroad. It'll not be long afore its't rest o't world. They'll come to us. There's none else they can ask. That's where our fortune's coming from—not gold buried in a bloody tropic island, but gold buried in't future. Waitin' while we grow toward it. Do'st tha see?"

  By now he had entirely won her over. The thought that the navvy ganger beside her was perhaps some future civilian Wellington provoked no hint of mockery. "I'm thinkin' tha'llt do it," she said.

  "No thinkin'. I know I will. No doubt on't. I s'll do it."

  Suddenly the most important aim in her life was to claim whatever he had offered her a while ago. "I'll be thy fac…toe…whatnot."

  "Factotum." He said it as if she was already recruited. "Thou never said what tha did wi' yon seven guineas."

  "I boozed it." She wanted to lie about the part she had spent, but found herself not daring to. "I bin reet down in't merlygrubs since I were left on me own. T'int like us, not boozin' in't. Eay, but there's times when ye're that low, ye just…give way. Whatever's in ye makes ye…just give way." Then she remembered the pound Walter had given her; surely she could lie about that. How else could she explain it? "I still gotten one pound backset. Look away."

  He obeyed. She had tied the sovereign into her shimmy, over her stomach. To get it out she had to open his topcoat and turn her shimmy up from the lower hem. While she fiddled with the string that closed the makeshift pouch she looked up to meet his level gaze. "Do'st see owt tha fancies?" she asked. But she was coy enough to keep her thighs together.

  He smiled but did not answer. Nor did he look away. He knew he wanted her, yet he wished it was not all so inevitable, so taken for granted.

  She enjoyed his scrutiny and made no haste to finish undoing the knot. Eventually it gave and she caught the coin as it fell. "There!" She passed it to him, proud of her carelessness.

  "A warm golden sovereign!" He fondled it with his lips. "I've never known warmer. What'll tha do wi't?"

  "Thou keep it," she said impulsively, surprising even herself.

  "What?"

  "Aye!" She spoke firmly to smother his disbelief—and her own. "Put it in thy fund. Then I s'll be thy partner—not just thy…what tha said. Fac…toe… thing."

  He paused, aware that she was offering something much less explicit than a mere pound. He gazed long at her but she did not flinch. "Very well," he said. "Aye. For sure. Tell us, Nora. What'd thou do wi' a fortune?"

  "Eay! I'd 'ave a big 'ouse an' a park. Me own park, trees an' all. An' servants in powdered wigs…" Then, remembering this was no mere daydream but a distinct possibility, she added "…an' I'd 'ave a pump reet in't kitchen! Bugger goin out into't yard!" His laughter hurt her. "All reet Mr. Buckstick—what'd thou do?"

  He took her question seriously, to atone for his unfeeling mirth. "There's nobbut one end for money, Nora. For me. Power. Power to change things. To sweep away th'old order and make summat new. Make a better world for folk. An' for missen. They try doin' it through parliament and through't unions, but there's no success that way. Power first. Then ye can be free to act. Wealth's nobbut a dungheap; spread it and tha'st made fertilizer." To her surprise he stood and stretched. His joints creaked. "Nay but I'm gettin' desperate old. By! T'moon does make black shadows!" He scanned about them as if he had personally arranged the landscape. "Ye could put an army in them shadows—and lose 'em. Footpad's friends."

  "Aye," she said with unambiguous invitation. "There's a lot could 'appen in them shadows as folk 'udn't challenge!"

  He laughed, kindly this time, and, stooping, lifted her as if she had no weight. Before she found her balance his arms were about her. She did not even try to stand. Her lips poised, darted, and over the stubble of his face like a sucking bee on clover. He responded when they settled on his lips, but she was away again, nipping his ears and pushing his head down from behind so that she could kiss his eyelids. His breathing told her the effect she made. She had not known such happiness since…when? She had never known such happiness.

  "Eee—tha'rt a canty wench, Nora!" he said. "A reet fizzer." He imprisoned her head between his hands and made to kiss her firmly.

  "Stop tha gas!" she said and reached a hand down to his front.

  But before she could release the tension there he drew away. "Nay," he said, unaccountably lost for words. "I mean…not…"

  "Whassup?" she said. "I never wanted lovin', more. An, I'm nake-i-bed under me shimmy. Looksta!"

  Coat wide apart, shimmy held high, she discovered herself to him. Then, on a sudden impulse, she turned herself to face the moon. The feeling was so blissful that, for a moment, she fell under the enchantment of her own senses, ignoring him. She closed her eyes and began a slight barefoot dance upon the soft turf, humming notes that never quite resolved themselves into a tune—or, rather, notes through which many tunes threaded a memory. Lovely, spontaneous, her act set lust at a distance and kindled in her a desire far less easy to requite. And for that moment, there was nothing they could do. Looking for a copper ha'penny they had glimpsed Aladdin's cave.

  He held out his hand. "Come on," he said, glad it had not happened.

  Still swaying and humming she dropped the shimmy, buttoned up her coat, and took his hand. The mood had died, leaving barely an echo. They might have been strangers but for their clasped hands.

  "I should of told thee," he said. "When I was tidyin' Pengilly's leg, Thornton sent word. I'm to meet 'im in't drift against ten-thirty. Thy Mr. Thornton."

  That jerked her back to reality!

  "'Arken thee," she squeezed his hand to give her words emphasis. "'E's none o' mine. Tha'st no call to say that. I chanced to meet 'im this side Littleborough. We chanced to walk along't railroad at same time. An 'e chanced to say if I was flayed to tramp ower Summit in't dark, to ast for Big Lord John as 'ad a gang o' reet churchwardens. But that were XYZ-an-parcel. There were nowt more. Nowt."

  He marvelled at the fluency of her lying—for she was not to know that the sovereign she had given him and that now l
ay in his trouser pocket had lain there not twenty hours before. Thornton had won it from him in a wager that very morning. There was no mistaking the two nicks, one deep, one shallow, in its edge; they were just as his thumbnail remembered them.

  "Say no more," he said and gave her hand a squeeze. "I'll be back in a crack. Tha may stop in yon bed o' mine this neet. If tha'st still a mind on't!"

  Chapter 6

  He needed no light to guide him to the ventilation cavern in the drift—he who had supervised every foot of the digging. The steady gleam of a bull'seye lantern, being played slowly over the rock face, told him the engineer had already arrived. The lantern turned several times toward the driftway; but the rays were too feeble for Thornton to identify John Stevenson.

  "Lord John?" he asked when the other was almost in the cavern.

  "Aye, sir. I'm a touch late."

  "One of your men hurt I hear. I see some blood over there."

  "Pengilly. Lost a leg. Below the knee, so it could be worse." He sucked in his breath sharply and scanned the disordered rubble. "Nay but it's a sorry business, this, sir."

  Thornton spoke with little heat. "As if this tunnel weren't plagued enough. We've had an invert failure at the top end, too."

  Secretly, Stevenson was pleased. The more trouble for Skelm, the better for him. All he said was, "Aw—I'd not heard."

  "This afternoon. It's that blue shale. I knew it was trouble."

  "Much, is it?"

  Thornton nodded dourly, "Almost an inch!"

  Stevenson drew a sharp breath with what he hoped was proper sympathy.

  "It'll mean two more courses of brick," Thornton went on. "I don't know! Where's it going to end? And now this! It cannot rain but it pours. This'll put Skelm back."

  Stevenson took his chance. "Beggin' pardon, sir. Skelm's out. The minute this lot fell. 'E's been at far end these weeks past. A nudge like this were all 'e could take. All an' more."

  Thornton looked round with sudden interest. "You seem to know his business

  well."

  "I've a right to. I lent 'im a hundred quid not a month back to meet wages for my gang."

  "The devil you did!" Thornton, smiling, shook his head in amazement. "But if what you say is true, this is serious. Most decidedly serious. The tender's accepted now. The company's capitalized. We have to find someone to take it on at…well, the tendered price. If not…it'll be all merry hades!"

  He realized now that it would mean an emergency board meeting; and with Gooch, the senior engineer away, it would be his lot to lay the news before them. His heart slowed at the prospect. He hardly heard what Stevenson was saying; all he caught was the final sentence: "…an' I'm minded to take on't contract meself."

  "You!" Thornton blurted the word too quickly to suppress the mockery in it. But Stevenson merely smiled.

  "Aye—I've more to show than ever Skelm 'ad."

  His confidence unnerved Thornton, who did not know whether to patronize the ganger or treat him seriously. "I can't see the Board agreeing to that."

  It was an unexpected setback for Stevenson. "Ye mean Skelm couldn't just assign't contract to me. Take a dicky seat isself?"

  "No, of course not. Not if he really is bankrupt. You are quite sure?"

  "No doubt. Not a shade. So…it'd be for the Board to determine. Not Skelm?"

  "I don't relish telling them."

  "Might be better, like, if you was to go with a remedy in hand. If you was to…"

  But again Thornton was not listening. He spoke, thinking aloud: "Be a meeting tomorrow, of course. Emergency meeting. Of all they can muster."

  "If you was to put a word in first and then let me speak for meself."

  "Me? What could I say?"

  "D'ye not think I could measure to it then?"

  Thornton decided to let the fellow down lightly. "Yes. Or yes and no. Yes—I think you could…I know you could…get the gangs working. You could organize. Better than Skelm. You'd follow your trades through better. You know the job better. And for my part, speaking as an engineer for Mr. Gooch on this section, I can think of nothing would make me sleep easier o' nights than to have you on this driftway. But fellow—it takes more than that! Takes capital. Working capital. And that's where I must regretfully say no. I do not think…"

  "I've got some backset," Stevenson said, relishing the surprise he was about

  to spring.

  The note of contemptuous patronage crept back into Thornton's voice. "Yes. I'm sure. But hardly…"

  "'Ow much did Skelm 'ave?"

  "He lodged a note of hand, a banker's note of hand, good for ten thousand." Thornton hoped this intelligence would show Stevenson the sort of impossible desires he was chasing.

  "Ten thousand!" Stevenson shouted. "'E never ad ten undred—and one o' them was mine!"

  Thornton let the echoes die before he spoke—gently, he hoped, but firmly. "It's not a matter of hundreds, you see. It's going to…"

  "'Ow much do they want?"

  "How much?"

  "Aye. The Board. What'll they want to see?"

  Thornton turned his torch back to the broken face of rock, to indicate they must end this idle talk and start their proper business. "Well," he said absently, "if Skelm failed with ten—whether he had it or no—they'll want something the colour of twelve I should think."

  "I've got ten." Stevenson joined in the aimless search of the rock face.

  Thornton repeated with martyred patience, "I'm talking about thousands. Twelve thousand."

  "Aye," Stevenson sucked a tooth. "I've got ten thousand." He slipped his fingers behind a thin flange of loose rock. "I'll lodge a note of hand from my London bankers, Bolitho and Chambers of Dowgate in the City. Good for ten thousand." He pulled the rock loose, creating a toy avalanche of grit. A less practised deceiver would have made it twelve thousand; but Stevenson knew that if ever doubt seized Thornton, it would be stilled by the fact that the claim was for a mere ten and it was made within moments of hearing that ten would be insufficient. Also, to be sure, he enjoyed sailing close to the wind.

  "Jesting apart?" Thornton was wary now.

  "Never jest on brass."

  "You're worth many times more than I!" The idea made Thornton uncomfortable.

  "What's more to the matter is that me plus ten thousand is worth Skelm plus forty."

  "You're probably right. But it's unlikely the Board will see it in that light."

  "Even if you speak for me?"

  Thornton did not at once reply. "I'll do my best," he said at length. Then he turned full face to Stevenson. "Who are you?" he asked. "They call you Lord John. But who are you really?"

  Now it was Stevenson whose smile was patronizing. "Ye'll pardon me, but that's my affair. No offence meant and none taken I hope. I could, however, show the chairman, Sir…Sir…" He pretended to fish for the name.

  "Sir Sidney Rowbottom."

  "Aye. Him or the Reverend gentleman, Dr. Prendergast—under oath of secrecy—I could show either a letter of patronage from…one in a high place, a peer of the realm and close to the queen. Our present queen." He made a sudden expansive gesture to bring Thornton some way into the secret circle he had set up. "I trust ye'll be able to be discreet on this yourself, sir."

  "Why…" The change took Thornton aback. "Yes…to be sure…"

  "I think it'd satisfy 'em. The meeting's to be in Manchester I take it?"

  "Yes…yes…at the Miles Platting offices."

  "It's nothing so very grand, sir. So if you'll speak out for me and how I can organize the lads and see the working through, I'll fire the other broadside—the credentials and particulars."

  "Ye know what you're taking up?" Thornton reasserted himself. "I still expect this driftway finished by Christmas. Two thousand eight hundred and eightyfive yards. You know that."

  Stevenson pretended to be thinking aloud: "Well—this'll make number one shaft blind. And with number thirteen blind already there'll be only twelve shafts to work from." Thornton nodd
ed agreement. "So we'll only have twenty-six faces to work."

  "At most. Fourteen shaft is almost through to the end drift now."

  Stevenson reached the tip of his thumb into his moustache, ruffled it, then smoothed it with a knuckle. Thornton watched anxiously.

  "You and me shall walk every yard of it on Boxing Day," he promised at last.

  "This year." Thornton persisted.

  "This year of grace, eighteen hundred and thirty-nine."

  Thornton grinned broadly. "You can survey this sorry heap of rubble"—he played the torch once more over the rock, bringing it to rest on the bloodstained area—"the ruin of one contractor, and say that!"