The Northern Correspondent

by Jean Stubbs

  Servants were moving in and out of the little throng with trays of sherry and plates of assorted sandwiches, cakes and biscuits. The refreshments were light, but had been prepared and presented with a delightful attention to detail. These exquisite mouthfuls would not spoil one’s appetite for dinner, and yet they staved off the hunger which a man was bound to feel when his last meal had been eaten at noon. Even the air of this occasion was light and leisurely, although upstairs the maids were still packing personal luggage, boxes stood in the entrance hall, and most rooms were empty of furniture.

  ‘My dear Aunt Zee, you always do everything so beautifully. When you leave here, more than forty years of lavish hospitality will go with you! Who can imagine Kingswood Hall without the Howarths?’

  ‘Thee should not dazzle me with worldly compliments, Ambrose,’ Zelah replied, smiling. ‘Remember that I have been accepted into the Society of Friends once more, and am now a plain Quaker!’

  ‘Nonsense. The adjective plain could never be applied to you under any circumstances!’

  She laughed and touched his hand affectionately, and turned away to welcome Hal and Mary Vivian, who had arrived rather late as usual.

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ said Sam at his elbow, popping a miniature sandwich into his mouth and washing it down with sherry, ‘Mrs Vivian isn’t the most punctual person in the world!’

  ‘She’s punctual when she has to be! Hello there, Mary, we’re tearing your professional reputation to shreds!’

  She laughed, wrinkled her nose at Ambrose and shook hands with Sam Pickering. She was watching her husband greet Anna Howarth, and a certain tenseness in her expression betrayed jealousy.

  ‘Don’t be a goose!’ Ambrose whispered, taking her arm and leading her away. ‘It must be twenty-five years since they were engaged, and Anna’s the nearest thing to a saint that I’ve ever come across.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Mary whispered back furiously. ‘Hal and Anna only broke that engagement because they found out that Uncle William was father to both of them! It still makes me feel that my marriage is an accident rather than a proper intention!’

  ‘That’s a trumpery notion, better put in the silly mind and mouth of a languishing literary heroine! By the by, when does The Lady’s Hour burst upon our waiting world?’

  Mary was animated and vivacious in an instant.

  ‘The first issue will be out in February.’

  ‘Then you’ll be busy throughout January? Naomi will have to produce the baby without you for once!’

  He spoke teasingly, but felt alarmed. He relied on Mary. She started to say something and changed her mind.

  ‘What’s up, pisey cat?’ Ambrose asked, knowing her. ‘Oh, and that reminds me — I’ll thank you not to discuss my personal affairs, Miss! I have just heard from Sam Pickering that this infant will be our last. Very obliging of him, I’m sure, but it’s none of his business. I didn’t know you gossiped with him!’

  Flustered, Mary began to protest and explain at the same time.

  ‘Why, you said so yourself only last week. “This is the last!” you said. In front of him and three others. It was a casual…’

  Zelah, coming up to them unnoticed, squeezed her arm.

  ‘There is a messenger in the hall for thee, love. Ambrose, my dear, would thee like to take Mr Pickering into the library and choose thy gifts? If thee doesn’t lead the way everyone will be here for dinner, and only members of the family are invited to that!’

  Mary promptly vanished. The two men accepted another glass of sherry and strolled into the library, where Tom Hadley stood by the long table ready to be helpful. Ambrose had the feeling that these handsome little knick-knacks had already been allocated, but he did not care, it was not important.

  Sam Pickering’s green eyes were fixed on a handsome glass paperweight. His hand moved tentatively, acquisitively, forward. His choice was not questioned. Satisfied, he pushed it into his jacket pocket, gulped down the rest of his sherry, and was ready to leave.

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ said Hal Vivian in Ambrose’s ear. ‘Aunt Zee has been generous enough to me already. But Mary would like something, I know. Where is she?’

  ‘A message came for her, and she darted off.’

  ‘Oh, yes! Probably to do with the magazine. Let me see…’

  ‘Would Mrs Vivian like Mr Howarth’s leather blotter and his silver inkstand, sir? Being a literary lady,’ Tom suggested.

  ‘Excellent idea!’ said Hal. ‘Come, Ambrose, you must have something. You didn’t benefit directly.’

  ‘I did, actually. Aunt Zee gave me first choice of his library. I have done rather well and now have a modest library of my own!’

  Tom spoke confidentially in their ears.

  ‘Mrs Howarth and I rather thought that Mr Longe would like the silver desk calendar. It’s an ingenious little article. You can change the date and day and month quite easily.’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’ Ambrose cried obediently, and accepted the gift.

  So it had been sorted out beforehand. He thought so. Well, you could hardly have a scrimmage for bequests. Too undignified.

  One by one, people were guided to their choice. The crowd thinned out rapidly, and finally became a few old friends gathered together for the last time in this great house. The end of another era. The long shining table and chairs in the dining room stood in empty state. Five places had been laid on a round table in the breakfast room.

  ‘Where on earth is Mary?’ Hal asked, as they went in to dinner.

  ‘Oh, she was called away on an urgent matter,’ said Zelah, smiling. ‘She said she would see thee at home later, and that we were to eat without her. Come, Hal, thee shall sit next to me. Ambrose, pray sit over there. Tom, wilt thee sit next to Anna?’

  ‘It’s a pity Naomi couldn’t be here too,’ Ambrose said, feeling that her presence would have completed the occasion. Zelah’s smile understood, agreed with, and consoled him. ‘Now, Ambrose, wilt thee play host for me?’ she asked. He did so most gracefully, although he could not help feeling that a ghostly ironmaster was despising his efforts.

  It was almost midnight before he paid the driver of the hackney-coach and negotiated the steps of Thornton House, fumbling for his keys. Joseph opened the door while he was trying to find the lock, and helped him off with his overcoat, remarking on the cold. As if to remind him that servants should not be kept up, the long clock in the hall chimed twelve strokes quite distinctly.

  ‘Am — am late?’ Ambrose said, astonished at the passage of hours.

  ‘Not at all, sir,’ said Joseph reassuringly. ‘In fact, sir, I should say that you were right on time.’

  This remark struck Ambrose as being very strange, but he realised he was slightly the worse for the ironmaster’s best claret and he endeavoured to understand it.

  ‘Wife not — stayed up — I hope?’

  ‘Oh no, sir. Mrs Longe retired quite a while ago.’

  Upstairs, a bedroom door opened and closed quietly.

  ‘There. Woke — woke — woke her!’ said Ambrose penitently.

  And was utterly confounded to see Mary Vivian coming downstairs.

  ‘S’wrong?’ he cried, alarmed in an instant.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, you old silly!’ said Mary, slipping her arm through his, and smiling. ‘I dropped in to see Naomi, as I was in Millbridge, and stayed with her until you came home. That’s all.’

  ‘Should I bring some coffee, madam?’ Joseph asked tactfully.

  Mary nodded, and smiled even more broadly.

  But Ambrose was afraid and started up the stairs, holding tightly to the banisters whenever he could find them.

  ‘Come on, you old lush!’ Mary said, taking his arm, and giggled.

  He would have told her to mind her manners, but claret and apprehension had rendered him wordless.

  Their room was quiet and candle-lit. A most beautiful fire blazed on the hearth and sent shadows leaping on the walls. He heard Naomi laugh soft
ly and say, ‘So!’ and could have wept with relief.

  ‘Thought — something — wrong!’ he said, putting out his arms.

  ‘Steady a minute, Ambrose!’ Mary ordered. ‘You’re facing the wrong way.’

  The stifled laughter of both women roused his pride and steadied his legs. He took a mental grip on his mind and tongue.

  ‘Sorry — Naomi — bit too much — to drink.’

  He focused on her smile. She was sitting up looking very splendid and triumphant, and her baby lay in her arms.

  Ambrose turned stone-cold sober.

  ‘Your daughter, Jessica Mary, Mr Longe!’ said Naomi, smiling.

  He moved forward like a dreamer, and put his forefinger into the little pink palm. Jessica’s eyes opened. Her fingers closed round his delicately. She went back to sleep again. He was incredibly moved.

  ‘Why — you’re the only one who’s — caused me no grief,’ he said to himself. ‘No grief at all.’

  The two women exchanged smiles over his head. He was bemused.

  ‘I thought — she wasn’t expected — for a few weeks, yet.’

  ‘I told a little lie,’ said Naomi soothingly. ‘You always suffer so. It was better that you should not worry.’

  ‘Oh, stuff!’ said Mary frankly. ‘I’ve been on tenterhooks for the last week, praying she wouldn’t arrive in the middle of the night. We didn’t want to cope with you as well as the baby!’

  He was too amazed and happy to be hurt, but Naomi looked at her friend reproachfully and said, ‘Mary! Mary!’ in a low voice.

  Unrepentant, Mary went on, ‘But the message came this afternoon when we were at Kingswood Hall. So I told Aunt Zee to keep you as long as possible, and it’s all worked out beautifully.’

  He had not listened, looking and looking at his daughter. He put a finger in the other palm, and again her dark-blue eyes opened and fixed on his face, her fingers closed softly round his own, and her mouth wavered into the semblance of a crooked smile.

  ‘She knows me,’ said Ambrose. ‘Do you see how she smiles?’

  Even Mary was not so cruel as to say that it was wind.

  Ambrose woke up by degrees in the spare room bed, filled with relief and joy at the thought that Naomi was safe, and the child born. Then, happy as a boy with a box of treats ahead of him, he recollected that this was his day off, and he had promised to take his sons out to see the Christmas shops. And treats lay inside treats, like Chinese boxes, as he realised they could enjoy Christmas together without the threat of Naomi’s ordeal hanging over them. Until at last all these thoughts demanded immediate action, and he sprang out of bed and reached for his dressing gown.

  As he stuck each foot into a cold slipper, the long clock chimed seven. He felt astonishingly well, and set it down to the excellence of the ironmaster’s claret and his own high spirits. The fire had burned out, and already the room was chilly, but sunlight pierced through chinks in the curtains with a peculiar brightness, and the early morning sounds had a muffled tone. He drew the curtains apart, and again his heart lifted as if he had been Nat or Toby or Jack. Snow. Thick, soft, white snow, almost unmarked as yet. Just a single trail of footprints along the pavement, and a double line of coach wheels in the road. Lord above, what a day it would be! They could go tobogganing on Kersall Hill. Go snowballing. But first of all, first and most important…

  He padded quietly downstairs to find Dollie, was reassured as to the condition of mother and child, and taken tiptoeing in to Naomi with the morning tray. They were very quiet and happy together for half an hour, drinking tea and talking a little in low voices, and watching the sleeping infant. Then Ambrose went to the nursery for the boys so that they too could hang over the bassinette.

  But three-year-old Jack stroked the baby’s silky black hair when no one was looking, and experienced two terrible emotions at once. Simultaneously, he loved her so much that he wanted to die for her, and he hated her so much that he could have killed her. Overcome, he scrambled into his mother’s arms and sobbed with frustration.

  ‘You know I love you?’ Naomi whispered into his hair.

  She held him close until he was restored again, and then she dried his eyes and made him laugh instead.

  Entwhistle’s Toy Shop, in Market Square, had been built the previous century and bore the hallmark of elegance belonging to that era. Two elegant barrel-shaped windows were set on either side of a dignified front door, and just beneath the fanlight — in letters of gold on a black ground — Benjamin Entwhistle was rightly proclaimed to be a Toy Maker and Toy Supplier of Distinction. There was hardly a moment of the day when some small face was not pressed against one of his windowpanes. And at night, when the streetlamp shone into the shop, adults could be seen standing there entranced, staring into the depths of their childhood.

  There was no snobbery about Entwhistle’s. They imported toys as well as making them, and you could buy anything from a whip and top to a fully-furnished doll’s house. The ground floor held a selection of small appetisers for all ages and both sexes. The first floor was a feminine, and the second a masculine province. The third floor housed an astonishing collection of specialist and mechanical toys. In the basement workshop, Benjamin pursued his own fine craftsmanship. In the attics, he and his mother and sister made a cramped but cosy home.

  Ben Entwhistle was a strange fellow, half-child himself, and some said half-touched, but perhaps that touch was of genius. In the world of toys and children, he was entirely at home. As to the world outside, his womenfolk dealt with that, though he liked to greet new customers and old favourites. Up he would climb from the basement, with paint on his fingers, wood shavings in his hair, and an ingenuous smile on his face. He always began each friendship by saying, ‘Good day, young sir,’ or ‘young miss’, ‘Do you know my name?’ And when the child, having been coached beforehand, whispered shyly in his ear, ‘Mr Entwhistle!’ he always said, ‘Not quite. Listen to me! Mr Ent…’ And then he whistled two notes, and said, ‘Now you do it!’

  As they grew older they found this embarrassing, but he seemed to know that, and did not trouble them once they were eight or nine.

  So now, having shouted and snowballed their way up the High Street, Ambrose’s three sons pressed their noses against every available window-pane before entering to choose the gifts which would be theirs on Christmas Day.

  ‘Papa,’ said Nathan, ‘should we choose a Christmas present for the baby, too?’

  ‘What’s its name?’ Toby asked.

  ‘Jessica Mary,’ said Ambrose.

  ‘I don’t think much of that!’ Toby observed judiciously.

  ‘I don’t neither,’ echoed Jack loyally.

  ‘It doesn’t send me into a rapture!’ Nathan remarked, who was inclined to pick up expressions from Mary Vivian.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ said Ambrose, squashing the argument.

  A small silvery bell over the door tinkled as the boys filed in. They doffed their flat peaked caps and bowed their heads.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Entwhistle!’ they cried in unison, to that stout and dignified lady sitting behind the till.

  ‘Good morning, young sirs,’ she answered, very correct.

  They then greeted Miss Entwhistle, who was thin and wistful.

  The old lady lifted a stout walking stick which leaned against her chair, and knocked the floor thrice to alert her son.

  Jack hid behind Ambrose, and tugged the sleeve of his overcoat.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, you idiot?’ Ambrose whispered.

  Jack whispered back, ‘He’ll want me to whistle his name, and I can only blow.’

  Toby pulled himself up on his toes so that his face was level with Mrs Entwhistle’s formidable countenance, and said, ‘We’ve got a baby sister this morning, called Dessima Rary.’

  She looked at Ambrose for confirmation, and replied amiably, ‘Have you indeed, young sir? That’s very nice.’

  ‘Oh, very nice!’ said Miss Entwhistle, and clasped her hands.


  ‘I suppose we’d better give her a doll for Christmas,’ said Nathan, who had previously ignored the existence of such things.

  ‘Good day, Mr Longe,’ said Benjamin, appearing bit by bit up the basement stairs. ‘Good day, my young friends!’ to the boys.

  Nathan and Toby answered obediently, ‘Good morning Mr Ent…’ and whistled two good clear notes.

  ‘I told you!’ Jack whispered into the waist of his father’s overcoat.

  Tactfully, the Entwhistles affected not to notice his lack of response, and he was able to come out shortly afterwards, undisgraced.

  Then the old woman preened herself behind the till, saying in a tone of great importance, ‘These young gentlemen have a baby sister, Benjamin. What do you think about that?’

  He threw up his hands to heaven, amazed. He rounded his eyes and opened his mouth in astonishment. The gestures were as eloquent as those of a clown or a mime, and went straight to their hearts.

  ‘Oh, what a day for celebration!’ cried Benjamin. ‘And by what name are you going to call this pearl of a princess?’

  Nathan spoke up, as the eldest son.

  ‘We don’t like her name very much,’ he announced frankly.

  ‘But we want her to have a present, just the same!’ said Toby.

  ‘Because we love her a lot!’ Jack explained, and added in a deep voice, ‘I don’t! I hate her a lot!’

  As horrified as they, he cried, ‘That’s not me saying it. That’s my Little Voice, and he’s a very naughty bad boy indeed!’

  ‘Indeed, he is!’ said Mrs Entwhistle deeply, ‘and should be shut in a dark cupboard and fed on bread and water.’

  ‘No, he shouldn’t,’ cried Nathan, contradicting an adult in his excitement, ‘he should be chained up in prison and starved to death!’

  Toby shouted, ‘No, he shouldn’t. He should be poisoned and … and … made to walk the plank … and…’