The Northern Correspondent

by Jean Stubbs

‘Blast me eyes, if it ain’t old Sweetheart come begging again!’ roared one bull of a navvy named Teapot Flanagan.

  ‘Ye’re out o’ luck, Sweetheart!’ bawled Fisty Dooley, who was considered to be a great wit. ‘There’s jobs a-plenty here. No need to give ye the tramping bob this time. Ye can stand us all a drink on payday instead!’

  Others recognised him and came forward to shake his hands and thump his back in a friendly fashion. Tons of earth, miles of iron rails, years of wandering from job to job in exile had bonded both strangers and friends into a brotherhood. Penniless and blanketless though he was, they brought him in and made him welcome because he was one of them.

  All afternoon they sat drinking and talking. First, Sweetheart gave them news of the outside world. Then they outlined the task on which they were engaged.

  They reckoned that the tunnel would take at least three years to build, and it posed particular problems. Working like moles in the dank earth, the men were wringing wet in half an hour and could not get dry again, which laid them open to all sorts of minor ailments. The fumes from the gunpowder got on their chests and made them cough, and there had been two or three roof falls in the tunnel, with some bad casualties. Still, taken all in all, it could be worse. The pay was good, the contractor was honest, and Mr Vivian was a gentleman. So drink up, lads, there’s more in the barrel!

  Towards evening, Reilly withdrew into himself. It was one of the best Sundays he had ever spent, but he had grown weary of it. His beer had lost its flavour, his tobacco its taste. His head felt woolly. He couldn’t hear as well as usual. Flanagan had to ask him twice what in the name of Jesus was the matter with him. It was nothing, he said, he just felt out of sorts, tired-like after the journey. Someone gave him a blanket and he dossed down on the dirt floor.

  In the middle of the night, he had a fit of diarrhoea so quick and so violent that he soiled himself. He managed to get outside, where he vomited and lay on the ground for a while, shaken by the fierceness of the double attack. But before he could summon the energy to go back into the hut the sickness and griping returned, and though he emptied the contents of his stomach and bowels time and time again, it was never enough. He strained to bring forth, to fetch up, anything in response to a demand that would not be satisfied. The sound of his retching and purging became so inhuman that he woke the occupants of his hut, and Flanagan and Dooley came out to help him.

  He cried that the pit of his belly was afire but the rest of him ice-cold. As he shivered and groaned for relief, he was suddenly and cruelly contorted by muscular spasms, and fairly screamed with pain.

  ‘Best fetch the surgeon,’ said Teapot Flanagan, afraid.

  ‘That bugger wouldn’t come out at this time o’ night. Not if we was all on our last legs!’ said Fisty Dooley.

  ‘But poor old Sweetheart’s puking his guts up!’

  ‘Well then, we’ll fetch him inside and get the women to look after him, while we find a ’pothecary!’

  They roared round Garth at two o’clock in the morning, rattling shop doors and throwing stones at shutters to rouse their occupants, but their reputation had gone ahead of them, and nobody stirred.

  Reilly was worse when they got back. The women had made him a rough bed on the dirt floor, and were keeping him as clean and warm as they could. His bowels and belly seemed to be settling down, though occasionally a watery motion would escape, but now he was tormented by convulsions during which he screeched and jerked without control. In moments of respite he fell back whimpering, staring pitifully at the circle of spectators with little sunken eyes. A used puppet.

  Gradually the cramps eased, but then he began to shiver and to wail that he was freezing to death. They laid more blankets on him and heated two bricks and wrapped them in flannel, setting one by his feet and one upon his breast. The skin on his hands was wrinkled like that of an old washerwoman. His voice, when he could gather strength to speak, was hoarse and faint, as though it came from a great distance. Then he fell into a still, white coma.

  All night they watched by him, but as dawn broke they saw the sweat of death shine on his livid flesh, and knew he was leaving them as surely as if they stood on shore and watched the tide draw him out.

  Demented, Teapot and Fisty descended again upon Garth, found an apothecary just taking down the shutters of his shop, and fetched him back unceremoniously by the scruff of the neck. The little life that was left in Reilly issued forth in one long mournful sigh as the man turned him over.

  The inquest, though immediate and unofficial, was long-winded, owing to the amount of evidence everyone insisted on giving.

  ‘It’s difficult to tell what he died of,’ said the apothecary cautiously. ‘It sounds as if you’d all eaten and drunk enough to kill yourselves twice over! I’m surprised there aren’t any more of you throwing up after a party like that!’

  Incensed, they described Reilly’s sufferings in vivid detail.

  ‘Sounds like food-poisoning,’ said the apothecary.

  ‘Then why wasn’t the rest of us taken like it?’ demanded Fisty.

  ‘Well, you say he only got here yesterday. He could have eaten something on the way here that you knew nothing about.’

  ‘What about them cramps?’ asked Teapot, in awed recollection. ‘I never seen nothing like them cramps before!’

  ‘Well, you don’t die easy with food poisoning. He’d be bound to hop about a bit.’

  Then a fearful thing happened. As if to illustrate the truth of their descriptions, Reilly stuck first one and then the other leg in the air. His limbs vibrated, his toes twiddled — as Fisty said — like he was playing a heavenly harp. And all the while his sunken eyes stayed tight shut and he grinned into his beard as if he was having the very devil of a joke on them.

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God!’ cried Flanagan, kneeling and crossing himself. ‘Don’t play them sort o’ games wid us, Sweetheart!’

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph save us!’ echoed Fisty.

  Some navvies fell to their knees alongside him, praying for succour. The rest stampeded from the hut, yelling blasphemies. For the dying man had been horrific to watch, but the dead one chilled them to the marrow of their bones.

  The apothecary had never seen this grisly comedy before, but he was not superstitious and he assumed he had made a mistake. He persuaded Flanagan and Dooley to hold their comrade down while he examined him afresh, but found neither pulse nor breath.

  ‘Nerves!’ said the apothecary, very practical. ‘You’ve seen a chicken run with its head off, haven’t you? Well, that’s nerves, too!’

  He knew better than to ask for a fee and departed unobtrusively while the behaviour of the corpse was being discussed.

  Reilly would not lie still. For upwards of an hour, the body went through a hideous mime of its former agonies, and at one time even snapped open its eyes. So that the navvies, who had presumed they were afraid of nothing and nobody, were quite unable to stomach Sweetheart’s antics; and though at last he lay cold and tranquil, no one would enter the hut until the undertaker came to carry him away.

  SIX: A LADY FINANCIER

  The sun poured down on Wyndendale and everyone rejoiced. Mary Vivian was at that happy stage of pregnancy where early ills are over and the child is not yet a burden. She blossomed in loose flowered gowns, her quick step slowed to a saunter, her quick temper softened. Mud in and around the tunnel had dried as the good weather continued, making working conditions easier. The navvies only swore out of habit, and Hal Vivian came home early for dinner.

  William Howarth, M.P., divided his attention between Parliament, the constituency, the ironworks and The Herald. With his self-earned fortune, his image as a man of the people, and his hard common sense, he appealed to a wide range of voters. Parliament being in recess, he was presiding over Kingswood Hall, relishing a domestic triumph. His youngest daughter Ruth had made an excellent match and was to be married in August. William planned to give her the finest wedding of them all.

  E
ven the family black sheep, Ambrose Longe, whistled that hot summer afternoon as he wrote a leader guaranteed to make the ironmaster sit up and take notice, if not to beg outright for mercy. His other uncle, Dick Howarth the farmer, had dropped in to pass the time of day on his way home from the Monday market and told Ambrose in all innocence that there was an outbreak of summer diarrhoea among the navvies in Garth. One of them had actually died of it the previous week, and the apothecary had said he was not surprised. He said Garth had grown too big for its boots, and the Wyndendale Railway Board should have provided a better water supply and a new draining system when they took the village over eight years since.

  As soon as Dick had gone, Ambrose sent his apprentice and journeyman home for their teas, with instructions to return in an hour, by which time he should have written a new editorial. They would then typeset it, substitute it for the old one, rearrange the inside pages, and be ready for the old Koenig printing-press to roll out that week’s edition of The Clarion. Now he sat on the high stool at the high desk and tried out a possible headline for his latest broadside. His concentration was so deep, her step so light, that he did not become aware of his visitor until the air in the musty shop smelled of essence of violets, and a feminine shadow curved across the threshold. Ambrose read both signs as an infuriating distraction.

  Without turning round, he said curtly, ‘Go away, Mary. I’m busy.’

  The answering chuckle was deep and soft, the voice a gentle contralto. The shadow straightened and became too tall for Mary.

  ‘It is not your cousin, Mr Longe, but her friend.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Bloom!’ he cried, and slid down from the stool in some confusion.

  ‘It is I who should beg yours, Mr Longe,’ said Naomi sincerely, ‘for I see I have interrupted a flow of thought. I should have knocked and waited — but the front door was wide open, as though you expected your callers to walk in.’

  ‘Yes. Well. Not exactly. It is a necessary form of ventilation in this place, at this time of year.’

  ‘But you should have a notice on the door, asking people not to come in unless it is absolutely necessary.’

  ‘That wouldn’t stop Mary, I can tell you!’

  ‘Ah, you always joke!’

  ‘And how may I be of service to you?’ Ambrose asked, as politely as he could, wondering how soon he could return to work.

  ‘Perhaps we may be of service to each other, Mr Longe. I have come upon a matter of business.’

  He hesitated. He sighed. Business, with Millbridge ladies, was either an account of their latest social event or the offer of a poem for publication under a pseudonym such as Ariadne. He glanced wistfully at his unwritten leader and reluctantly at the ladder-back chair in which visitors sat and wasted his time. Naomi bowed her head.

  ‘I understand. You would rather I went away?’

  ‘No, no!’ he cried, and cursed the conventions that forbade him to answer in the affirmative. ‘I must ask you to excuse my apparent abstraction. It is just that we go to press this evening, and I have some work to do at the last minute which I did not expect. Pray do sit down, Miss Bloom.’

  He spoke courteously, but with an undertone of firmness which she could not mistake. She smiled with the utmost good humour, and remained standing.

  ‘I can state my business in a few moments, Mr Longe. I merely wished to invite you…’

  There it is! he thought. Another damned soiree.

  ‘…to call upon me at your convenience, to discuss the possibility of my investing money in The Clarion.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Ambrose.

  He sat down in the chair himself, quite winded.

  Naomi smiled serenely upon him. There was a gleam of amusement, of satisfaction, in her lustrous eyes.

  ‘You are surprised?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows. ‘You do not think your newspaper warrants such an interest?’

  He put his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, trying to collect himself.

  ‘You will excuse me, Miss Bloom. I hadn’t thought about it at all. And it … really … is … a bit of a … swinger!’

  His memory warned him. He wiped both hands over his face to erase the dream. He looked up sharply. He asked his question deliberately.

  ‘On what terms, Miss Bloom?’

  She replied easily, still amused, ‘That would surely be the subject of our discussion?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ambrose. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘When shall we arrange? I regret to say, but I am ignorant of newspaper work. As you print today, shall you be free tomorrow?’

  ‘That would be perfectly…’

  But he owed three months’ rent, and there was not so much as the price of a pie in the house, and he could no more write the leader now than fly.

  He jumped up, crying, ‘Miss Bloom, why don’t you sit down here and tell me what you had in mind?’

  Her gleam of amusement faded. Her gaze seemed to penetrate the empty larder, the empty cash box, and his empty hopes. She rustled forward to the proffered chair and settled herself in it as gravely as if it were Chippendale, resting both gloved hands on the head of her parasol.

  ‘Excuse me a moment!’ said Ambrose hastily.

  On a sheet of paper he scrawled ‘BACK IN AN HOUR’ and pinned it on the front door, which he then shut in spite of the heat.

  ‘You see, Mr Longe,’ said Naomi, very friendly, very noticing, ‘what a good idea that is?’

  He perched on the office stool opposite to her. The first moments of euphoria were fading. From his experience of life he knew there had to be a snag somewhere, and the greater the offering the larger the snag. It occurred to him that she might be looking for a husband. Not that he was much of a catch, but women of her age could be desperate. Not that she looked desperate, either. She looked uncommonly cool.

  ‘Before we begin, Mr Longe,’ said Naomi, as though he had asked the question outright, ‘I should like to make my motive clear. I give you a brief account of my circumstances.

  ‘I was an only child, and my mother died when I was very young, leaving me in my father’s care. He was a successful businessman, who gave me the sort of education he would give a son. He did not care for domesticity and never remarried. For the last eight years of his life, I was both companion and confidante and acted as his private secretary. There was good and bad in this for me. I saw and knew a great deal more of the world than do most women. But it also meant that I had no permanent home and no friends of my own age.

  ‘When my father died, his business friends were very kind with help and advice. Among them was your uncle, Mr William Howarth the ironmaster, who introduced me to our dear Mary. I am happy to live at Thornton House, and to make many pleasant acquaintances, but always the other field is more green, Mr Longe! I speak frankly. My heart is grateful for what I have, but I miss,’ and she fluttered her fingers to express the word, ‘the frisson of the business world.

  ‘It is of no use to grumble. Therefore, I thought, why not do business on my own account? Why not invest in a good and interesting proposition? Something on my doorstep that I can watch! Our dear Mary so often says that she would help you if she could. Well, she cannot, but — if I feel the risk is worth taking — perhaps I can.’

  Ambrose sat quite nonplussed.

  ‘You think I exaggerate my business knowledge?’ Naomi asked. ‘I shall show you letters and papers which will act as my credentials. My father was a good financier. I learned from him.’

  Ambrose recovered his sense of humour.

  ‘I wish I could say the same, Miss Bloom. My father had simply no idea of finance at all, and neither have I!’

  ‘Ah! You joke of serious matters?’

  ‘No joke,’ said Ambrose seriously. ‘I’m down on my luck, Miss Bloom. If you saw the books — if there were any books…’

  ‘You keep no accounts?’ she asked, horrified.

  He shook his head. Her horror soothed rather than annoyed him. He
began to see that she was very serious indeed, and about business.

  ‘So how shall you convince me that my money will be well spent?’

  She was handsome, but then so were many women. She talked to him as one person to another, without lure or guile, and that could be said of very few women. He liked her, and liked her idea even better. He wished he knew the right words or actions, but could not find them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ambrose, smiling helplessly.

  She lifted her eyes to heaven, that it might witness this lack of business acumen.

  ‘So what can you offer as collateral, Mr Longe?’

  He gestured round the hot, cramped shop, then touched his breast with one thin, brown hand.

  ‘I work hard,’ he said. ‘The newspaper is my life.’

  Naomi pondered his reply. Her expression was unreadable.

  ‘Your shop is too small,’ she observed.

  ‘I have frequently regretted its lack of space, myself. Forgive me, Miss Bloom, but might I ask you a question?’

  She inclined her head graciously.

  ‘I presume, excuse my own frankness, that you have a thousand or two lying around doing nothing very much?’

  ‘You can presume I have sufficient capital, but I assure you that it is not lying around. It works hard for its living, Mr Longe!’

  ‘Lord above!’ said Ambrose, half to himself. ‘A lady financier!’

  Naomi smiled. The title pleased her.

  ‘To return to our onions,’ Ambrose continued, beginning to enjoy himself, ‘do I understand you to mean that you have looked into the business side of newspapers in general, and believe you can make money out of The Clarion in particular?’

  She inclined her head again, but put up one finger to stay him.

  ‘Your newspaper would be a viable proposition only if it was conducted on a much larger and a more business-like scale, Mr Longe.’

  ‘That’s what my uncle, the ironmaster, thought.’

  ‘He was right. Your uncle, the ironmaster.’

  ‘He didn’t — you haven’t…?’

  ‘I am on social terms with Mr Howarth, only. Your name has never been mentioned. I have told you that I wish to conduct my own business, Mr Longe.’