At times like this his arrogance and self-sufficiency would inflate him to proportions when he could laugh at himself as well as at Continentals. There was that great land Russia, good for something, he supposed, although he wasn’t sure what, for there it was, grinding along at the pace of a mediaeval cart, its progress punctuated every now and again with the crack of the assassin's pistol or the blast of a homemade bomb. How would that end, he wondered? In a modern Jacquerie most likely, with smoke rising from country houses, and Cossacks carving a path through street demonstrators. And then, nearer home, were France and Germany, still glaring at one another over the twitching corpse of Alsace-Lorraine, both taking out insurance against a renewal of the 1870 debacle. Well, the country would keep clear of that, he hoped. He had never expected much of France, with its out-dated conception of glory, and its tendency, every year or so, to rip up the paving-stones and proclaim a new constitution, but Germany was beginning to disappoint him. After all, the Germans were Anglo-Saxons, and Bismarck, Prussian boor that he was, had the makings of a statesman. Adam had even been impressed by his social reforms and even more by the Reichstag's recent refusal to give the military clique a blank cheque, but things had taken a turn for the worse since that ass Wilhelm had pushed his ailing father out of the limelight and taken to swaggering here, there, and everywhere with that absurd eagle-crested helmet and a gilded breastplate that wouldn’t stop a slug from a Sikh's muzzle-loader. Further south, the Habsburgs were on the way out, so they said, playing a muted second fiddle to Hohenzollern brass, and that meant the Balkans were due to erupt any day and bring down the moribund Ottoman empire.
And then there was America, the up-and-coming country some said, but he wasn’t so sure. There was plenty of space out there, and God knows how many mineral sources to be tapped once they organised their transport system and stopped murdering one another. There was a sound Anglo-Saxon base too, with any number of thrustful immigrants, younger sons with their way to make flooding into the country, so they might do better than most; providing, of course, they standardised their language and banished the spittoon.
There was less stability to be looked for nearer home in Ireland, devil take the place, for who would have thought a bunch of ragged-arsed Paddies could split the British Liberal party down the middle and hold Parliament to ransom?
Well, thank God the country's real health didn’t depend on what was said and done in that debating society a mile or so up the river. He knew and they knew that Britain's position in the world depended on men like himself and his customers within the square mile, and in a dozen or so cities dotted about the network between Clyde and Thames. The rest (with the exception of the Navy) was mere window-dressing, as he had often told young Giles, still inclined to take politicians at face value. Commerce and cannon. That was all that counted when it came to dealing with Russians and Turks, with men who strutted about in eagle-crested helmets and breastplates, with idiots who pulled up paving-stones when something was not to their liking. There was the Navy, and behind the ironclads was the Bank of England. And behind the Bank a trained reserve, as it were, a hundred thousand adventurers like himself, who had long since decided what made the world go round. As long as they attended to their business the peace of Waterloo would continue and foreigners might do as they pleased with one another, and with such tracts of desert and jungle as were going begging when the British had posted their “keep out” notices.
There were some, Gladstone among them, who would have called a halt to overseas expansion; and there was a time, Adam reflected, when he would have agreed with them. But that was before he had made his pile, and poked his long nose into half the factories and foundries of the land. He was a dedicated Imperialist now, he supposed, although by no means as starry-eyed about Imperialism as some, seeing it as a bazaar rather than a mission, and assessing each new slice of red on the map in terms of money in the bank ten or twenty years from now. Providing, of course, that the spoilers were prepared to take the long view, and put something in before milking it dry and making new enemies in the process. It was for this reason, he supposed, that he had sided with the Holy Joes over that Maiden Tribute business. An empire was like a firm. To yield a steady return it needed more than a planted flag, a few hardbitten mercenaries, and a Bible-spouting general like Gordon. It demanded imaginative investment, well-guarded channels of communication and, above all, a trained work force that was aware, every hour of every day, which side its bread was buttered. That, to his way of thinking, was the prescription that had given Britain its place in the sun over the last fifty years. It had all begun as a sordid scramble, of course, with the weak going to the wall, but that hadn’t lasted long. There had always been a sufficient number of clearheaded idealists on hand to scrape the maggots from the fruit, and encourage the penny-an-hour vineyard workers to think of themselves as potential shareholders, so that an idiot like the Czar, who declared strikes illegal, deserved nothing better than a bomb splinter up his backside, if only to teach his successor that you couldn’t treat men like cattle and still expect the best from them. Even in Belgium, so Reuters told him, the military were shooting strikers in the street, whereas in Berlin those who “spoke ill of the Kaiser” were slapped into gaol, as if everyone was living in the days of the Star Chamber and Holy Office. Britain's dominance of world markets wasn’t simply a matter of Free Trade (although that was important); it was equally dependent on Free Speech and a Free Press, on the right of anyone with a grievance to air it, at the top of his voice if necessary. If you gave him leave to do that he would get the bile off his stomach instead of spilling it in an anarchist's cellar. This much had been learned over here a generation ago, and it was logical to assume that, given time, other tribes and federations of tribes would learn it. Until they did, however, they would continue to drag their feet, shaking impotent fists at the Channel, and shortchanging any Englishman who was fool enough to cross it in the belief that he could learn anything to his advantage over there.
Meantime, with the Jubilee looming up, there was no harm in a bit of advertising, of the kind the event promised to provide in good measure. The thought reminded him to make a draft of a memo concerning it that he intended to send out to the regions. There would be a smart run on bunting, and red, white and blue ribbons come the spring, and he was advising the managers to buy in advance. He was no blind worshipper of royalty. Sometimes he thought of Victoria as an insufferable bore. But that was no reason why his waggons and Clydesdales should not make as fine a show as anyone's come the Day.
So he pondered, sitting tight in his eyrie looking down on the curve of the river. Obdurate, prejudiced, utterly self-sufficient, and thoroughly typical of all of his kind crowded into that vast, dung-smelling capital.
2
Sixteen or so miles to the southeast Henrietta was also stocktaking, but her thoughts, as always, moved in a narrower circle. She was not much concerned with Romanoffs and Hohenzollerns, with trends in trade, or the scramble for Africa; in this sense she was even more of an isolationist than Adam, her world being Tryst, and the brood that had been hatched there. For smugness, however, there was little to choose between them as the firm and family moved along the level stretch of ’85 and ’86, and into the first weeks of Jubilee year.
The period began uncertainly for Henrietta. No sooner had she made her peace with Adam over that Maiden Tribute nonsense than she came to believe she had arrived at the menopause. The certainty of this, as summer gave way to autumn, caused her more initial worry than it need have done, for she had been exchanging gossip concerning its manifestations for many years now, The Change being a popular topic among the middle-aged marrieds the moment the men and children were out of earshot.
She soon realised, of course, that she could discount nineteen-twentieths of the tittle-tattle relayed to her by women a few years her senior. As always, in matters of this kind, they were soon seen to be liars or ninnies, with their ridiculous jeremiads of fainting fits, loss of me
mory, ungovernable fits of rage, depression, sleeplessness, and even, God forgive them, mental breakdowns necessitating temporary removal from husband and family.
Not one of these dire prophecies had substance so far as she was concerned. All were seen to be as far-fetched as the old wives’ tales fed her long ago concerning the alleged indignities of the marriage bed. Apart from a few hot flushes, and an increased impatience with the younger children and the maids, she hardly realised the change had caught up with her, whereas Adam, bless his heart, had been quick to notice and sympathise. No one could be more tolerant in this kind of field, as she had told herself many times over the last thirty years. Most women would have found it excessively embarrassing to raise the subject with their doctor, much less their husband, but he was prepared to joke about it, telling her it was years since he had seen her blush, and afterwards packing her off to the doctor, having smoothed the ground in advance.
That same night, when she showed him a bottle of the medicine old Dr. Birtles had given her, he sniffed it and said, gaily, “Well, I daresay you’ll get through it with very little trouble. For my part I’m relieved to learn we’ve bolted the door on the stragglers. Nine is more than enough and I’ve heard they have a tendency to slip through at a minute to twelve.” He looked at her fondly, “It wouldn’t have bothered you if we had made it a baker's dozen, would it?” She admitted that it would not, although it did occur to her that another baby, at her time of life, might have been a great nuisance, for it would have prevented their summer treks around the regions, an annual expedition she enjoyed immensely, especially when good weather enabled them to cover long distances in the waggonette.
She said, as she was getting into bed, “It isn’t… well… it won’t make any difference to us, will it?” and he replied, with feigned innocence, “Just how do you mean, dear?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean!” she snapped, and that made him laugh in the way he invariably did at any hint of modesty on her part.
“Well, it certainly won’t affect me,” he said, “for I’m spry enough, thank God. As to you, I can’t say. I’ve not noticed any loss of interest lately.” She said he was beyond redemption but kissed him gratefully and went on to enquire if it was true that there was an equivalent change in men when they entered their fifties.
“I’ve always thought there was,” he said, with a seriousness that took her by surprise, “but it's not a physical change. More of a change of heart, such as I had when I made up my mind I was carrying too much responsibility and passed some of it to those rascals in the provinces. You could call it a loss of drive, I suppose—no, not that exactly, more of a change of direction. At my time of life a man tends to look around and ask himself what he intends to do with what's left.”
It was only rarely she had heard him talk in these terms, even in jest. Ever since she had known him, a matter of almost thirty years now, he had been utterly dedicated to that complex centred on the Thames-side slum. She said, doubtingly, “I can’t see you devoting yourself to anything new, Adam. It’ll always be that yard and those cronies of yours. If you turned your back on it all, whatever would you do with yourself all day?”
“I’d start fresh right here,” he said, unexpectedly. “I’d make this place something to set tongues wagging all over the southeast. A showpiece, that's what I’d make of it, and one of the most impressive of its kind in the land.”
“You mean like Lord de L’Isle's place over at Penshurst, or Knowle House in Sevenoaks?” But this only made him laugh.
“Good God, no! Nothing on that scale, woman. I haven’t got that kind of capital lying around and even if I had it would go into the network. What I have in mind is something more intimate—cosier if you like, with landscaping and furniture and pictures typical of the English domestic arts over the three centuries the house has stood here. Something as unique as the network to hand over to Alex, or whoever takes on from us. Giles is the more natural heir, I suppose, for he's the only one among them with real taste to my way of thinking. Maybe Alex wouldn’t care to settle here permanently, and George certainly wouldn’t, so I daresay they could make some kind of arrangement after I’d gone.”
“Well, don’t talk as if you were in your dotage,” she said. “Fifty-nine isn’t old, and I’ve never known you spend a day abed since your accident.”
“No,” he said, “that's so, and I may even be good for another twenty years, given luck. But that isn’t what I meant. It's not just a matter of furnishings, and keeping an eye open for good landscapes and portraits going cheap at the auctions. It's leaving something permanent. Trees, for instance.”
“Trees? We’ve already got scores of trees, haven’t we?”
“Yes, we have, but they’re all English trees—oaks, beeches, and elms mostly. I’d like to plant exotic trees, of the kind that do so well over here. Incense cedars, Hinoki and Sawara cypresses, Californian redwoods, Grecian and Himalayan firs, and Monterey pines. We could have a wonderful spread down at the foot of the paddocks and some of them are fairly quick growing. By the time I took my final look out of that window they’d be a rare sight, I can tell you.”
That was one of the rewarding things about Adam Swann, she decided. You never stopped learning about him. Until this moment she had no idea he was even interested in trees and certainly none that he could talk about them knowledgeably. It took her a few moments to absorb his plan and assess the probability of him achieving it. She said, after a lengthy pause, “You really are the oddest man, Adam, but it's a pleasant thought. Do you know what? I think you ought to go about it at once. Where could you buy trees of that sort?” But, to her annoyance, he was asleep, and again she envied him the trick of slipping away so effortlessly, supposing it to be a legacy of his campaigning years, wasted years so far as she was concerned, for that was a time before she had the extraordinary good fortune to be thrown from a trap and abandoned on a moor in the middle of a thunderstorm. Did ever a few flickers of lightning bring a woman that much luck?
3
His talk of succession fired a train of speculative thought in her mind, so that she became a little absent-minded over the next few days, making an inventory of the family in a way she hadn’t done for quite some time. Taken all round, she decided, it was as satisfactory a balance sheet as he was likely to cast up in that tower of his, and prospects, with one exception, looked very promising indeed.
Foremost in mind came George and Stella, both paired off and set fair for life she would say, at least in Stella's case. One could never be sure about anyone as free-ranging and unpredictable as George.
Whenever she thought of her eldest daughter (as a wife, that is, and not as a woman) she awarded herself full marks for her foresight, remembering that she had practically thrown the girl at that clodhopper down the valley. Since then, however, shocked as everyone had been at the time, Stella had never looked back and had certainly never pined for the days when she had every young buck in the county making sheep's eyes at her. She supposed, studying the marriage objectively, that something similar had happened to Stella as had happened to her, when she came within a hairsbreadth of being married off to that toad, Makepeace Goldthorpe, a piece of merchandise bartered for a strip of land adjoining her father's loading bays. But in Stella's case, of course, the poor girl had to undergo the actual experience of a loveless marriage. It seemed probable that she was still drawing on her stock of relief at having escaped the clutches of that old goat Moncton-Price and his wretched son. Any woman, given those circumstances, could be expected to look on a man like Denzil Fawcett as a knight in rustic armour, but it was odd, Henrietta reflected, that this attitude should have survived the first transports of marriage. With the best will in the world nobody could call Denzil much of a catch, and yet there could be no doubt at all that the girl had adjusted to him and his background in a way that was really quite astonishing when one thought about it. They had three sons now, and a fourth child on the way, so that there seemed every prosp
ect (seeing that Stella was still only twenty-six) that she would fill the Fawcett farmhouse with children before she was done. Henrietta was sure, however, that the children were incidental and there was another parallel here if one looked for it, between the girl's attitude as a mother, and Adam's attitude as a father, something he had handed down to her like a birthmark. Stella's preoccupation was not with the children at all but with the farm, just as Adam's had always been with the network. And after the farm came the peasant who went along with it, as though the boy's adoration over the years had been absorbed, stored, and then fed back to him in the form of glances and gestures that any experienced woman could recognise as the sign language of love, and a very earthy love she would say, noting the way her daughter's eye sparkled when he came stumping into the kitchen, threw his arm over her shoulders, and paid her some commonplace compliment. Well, so be it, and good luck to the girl, for that was a byproduct of being happily married oneself. One found oneself wishing that every woman in the world took the same pleasure in the man who shared her bed and board.
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