He could not have said how he knew this. His perception, as regards the tautness or slackness of the network, had always been keen, and perhaps he sensed trouble in a variety of ways, a word or two in a regional report, a surly look, a sharp exchange between Keate or Tybalt with one or other of the viceroys when they looked into Headquarters. Anyway, it was there—an overall pettishness that was not solely the hangover of a long, tiresome winter—and he could not help but feel it was linked, in some way, to George's claims of weaknesses in structure and personnel.
By late spring he was tired of guessing and ready, in a way, to make terms. He said to George, without the face-saving preamble most men in his situation would have found necessary, “Listen here, son. I daresay I was too hasty over that report of yours. It's plain things aren’t as they should be, here or in the regions. We’ve run out of steam and need a tonic. Suppose you go the rounds on the pretence of drumming up trade, and put some of your remedies to the managers and their deputies? On the strength of what you report, I’ll call a midsummer conference and we could at least get general reactions.”
But George, to his bafflement, said, civilly, “That would be a waste of time and travelling expenses, Guv’nor. I already have their reactions.”
“How could you have?”
“I’ve seen or written to every one of them in the last month or so.”
“You’re telling me you canvassed their views before you penned that report?”
“I’m not such a fool as to use my position as a basis for a palace plot, if that's what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Adam growled, “except that things aren’t as they should be out there, and it's nothing to do with turnover. Last year was the best we ever had. My guess is it's a slip in morale. Well, you hinted at allies. Who are they?”
“A disgruntled minority,” George said, with a flash of his old humour, “too divided to stage a coup, believe me.”
“But your report touched on weaknesses in every region.”
“Yes, it did, and everyone out there has at least one rotten tooth. If you take my advice you’ll pull them one by one in private. Certainly not at a conference.”
“Suppose you’re right? Where does that leave us?”
“With three factions; yours, mine, and neutrals with private grouses. And even mine have axes to grind.”
“Who takes your line that the depots ought to be resited, and frontiers merged on grounds that the days of horse-power are numbered?”
“Only Godsall, in the Triangle. Rookwood, in Southern Square, is wavering.”
“And the rest?”
“There's your group, the old stagers. Ratcliffe in the West, Lovell over in Wales, Catesby in the Polygon, and the two Wicksteads in the Crescent. Their loyalty is to you and I don’t quarrel with that. It's as it should be. You’ve all come a long way together.”
“Who do you regard as those sitting on the fence?”
“Jake Higson for one. He's forward-looking, and would have stood in with us if I hadn’t felt obliged to warn him his territory would be split up. That made him think twice. Then there's Morris, in Southern Pickings. He's too well-heeled to take risks, and Vicary, of The Bonus, who is any way for a pint, and O’Dowd, over in Dublin, who is keen enough to break out and cover the country but sees a Fenian with a bomb behind every bush.”
Because he knew every man so well, his picture of the regional pattern began to clarify. He sensed too that, had George been ready to make concessions, such as dropping his plans to resite depots and break up the ancient frontiers, he could have rallied enough support to win a majority at conference, enough to wash the Diehards right out of their seats. But he had not made those concessions, and it followed that his dedication to that stinking machine of his was more complete than even Henrietta had assumed.
He said, “Why wouldn’t you compromise, George? Why wouldn’t you take one fence at a time and carry a majority with you?”
George replied, levelly, “Because I’m not interested in patching, Guv’nor. I want to make a major contribution when I’m good and ready.”
“And when will that be?”
George hesitated. For the first time since he had handed in that report, he looked unsure of himself. He said, at length, “That could depend on you.”
“You mean when I’m ready to retire?”
“No. That's irrelevant.” He thought a moment longer and then took the plunge. “It's tied to Maximus—‘That stinking contraption’ as you always refer to it. The future of all of us is there, however much you deny it. You and those older men have earned your bread and salt with horses all your lives, and can’t be expected to recast your entire mould of thought overnight. But it's different with someone my age, who has worked alongside men like Gisela's Uncle Max—‘that crazy old Austrian’ as you think of him. Well, he wasn’t so crazy. Gottlieb Daimler was written off as a crank, but he’ll live to see the carriage horse put out to grass, and nothing will convince me I won’t see transport revolutionised long before I’m your age.”
“But, good God, boy, we’re dealing with practicalities. That machine of yours hasn’t even been road-tested. And even if it was successful, you’d be breaking the law of the land to drive it over four miles an hour, the pace of a broken-down cart-horse. Can you honestly see Swann-on-Wheels hauls preceded by a chap waving a red flag?”
“Acts of Parliament can be repealed,” George said, stubbornly. “Most are, given time.”
It was odd, Adam thought. Suddenly he saw himself as old Tim Blubb, the ex-coachman he had hired thirty years ago, who never ceased to lament the passing of the stage-coach, and consistently referred to the railway as “that bliddy gridiron,” and locomotives as “they stinkin’ tea-kettles.” He wished then with all his heart that the boy could convince him, if only so that they would find themselves in accord again. He said, “It depends on me, you say. How does it? I don’t know a damned thing about oil-driven vehicles. I’ve watched yours work but I find it absolutely impossible to see it hauling a ton of goods up a one-in-ten incline. Some of our routes are one-in-five, and unsurfaced at that.”
“It's only half a prototype,” George said. “It needs redesigning and stripped down to half its weight. That means a year's concentrated work, and ten times the capital I’ve put by, in spite of pouring half Gisela's housekeeping money into it all this time. Listen, Guv’nor, you backed your own dream once, why can’t you bring yourself to back mine? Give me a year off, and two thousand to play with, and you’ll own the patent. It’ll make you more money than the network in the long run!”
It was tempting to buy peace at this price, and for a moment or two he hesitated. Then his old hatred and mistrust of favouritism stirred, warning him that the network, such as it was, had been spun on principles of equity and impartiality. He said, “You’re welcome to take a year off, George, but I couldn’t pay you for staying in that stable tinkering with that machine. Neither have I the right any more to invest the firm's money in a venture of that kind unless a majority vote sanctioned it. You see that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” George said, “I see it. I knew it would be that way and I don’t quarrel with it. Everyone looks on you as a just brute.”
He went out then, swiftly but peaceably. At least he's no door-slammer, Adam thought, and would have liked an hour or two of solitude to think through all the implications of the discussion, but Tybalt summoned him on the speaking tube, reminding him that he had promised to travel west before the Jubilee break and interview a replacement for old Hamlet Ratcliffe, who had at last announced his intention to retire. He picked up his overnight grip and went down the winding stair into the yard. George was standing by the smithy with his back to him, watching a Clydesdale being shod. He thought, briefly, “If he's right, that's another trade that will go the way of coaching… I wonder what old Blubb, bless his pickled old heart, would have had to say about horseless carriages?”
3
I
t was Friday morning when he had this conversation with George, and he was not back in London until Monday afternoon, the selection of a Westcountryman to replace old Hamlet having taken longer than he had anticipated. Ratcliffe had made up a short list of applicants that included a number of relatives. Adam finally picked on one, a shambling, rather lugubrious nephew of Hamlet's amiable wife, Augusta. He was not surprised to learn that “Bertieboy,” as Augusta introduced him, had served time as an undertaker, the traditional trade of her family. The young man impressed him, however, with his knowledge of horseflesh, saddlery, and all the byroads of the west, for as well as an undertaker he had been a corn chandler's drayman, serving a wide range of agricultural customers, the backbone of the carrier's trade down here.
He left Exeter on Sunday midday, with the intention of stopping off and spending a couple of days with Rookwood, in the great slab of territory known as Southern Square, but the wily Rookwood had the answer to all his questions at his fingertips. By Monday afternoon he was through, and able to catch the three o’clock out of Salisbury that got him home to Tryst by early evening.
To his astonishment Henrietta was not there to greet him. One of the younger girls told him that her mother had gone off to Manchester early on Saturday, the day after his own departure for the west, and was assumed to be paying a call on Grandfather Sam. This puzzled him even more, for Henrietta and her father had never been close, and he could only suppose that Rawlinson's second wife, Hilda, had wired saying the old chap had been taken seriously ill.
He could get no confirmation of this, however. The big house seemed unresponsive and semi-deserted. Joanna and Helen were rushing off on one of their seaside jaunts, and even Giles was not to be found, Phoebe Fraser, the governess saying she believed he was staying with the Rycrofts in town. Hugo, he knew, was at a meeting of the Amateur Athletic Association in the Midlands, so there was absolutely nobody to commune with but the two youngest children. Feeling slightly disgruntled, he ambled down the drive to the mill-house, with the intention of inviting George and Gisela up to supper. Another surprise awaited him here. The door was shut and locked, and he wondered where they could have gone with the two babies, concluding it must be to spend a night with George's principal ally, Godsall, who lived in Bromley, and whose wife was a great friend of Gisela's. He thought, grumpily, “Damn it, a man raises a family of nine and comes home expecting a bit of company, but the place is like an empty barn…” Thinking he would wire Henrietta at Sam's, asking her how long she would be away, he went round to the stableyard to find someone to ride into the village.
Here, however, he paused by the pump, his mouth agape. The doors of the old stable quarters were standing open and George's machine had gone. The place was empty, save for some discarded mounting blocks and a pile of evil-smelling rags.
He almost ran up the steps to the kitchen, bellowing for Phoebe, who was seeing the two youngsters to bed. She came running, and in response to his breathless enquiry said, “That old engine, sir? Why, it was carted off Saturday afternoon. There were two waggons up here, with Mr. George handling every crate, as though it was full of eggs. Did he no’ tell ye it was being taken away then?”
“He never mentioned a damned word about it!” exclaimed Adam wrathfully, feeling himself the victim of a conspiracy and ignoring Phoebe's Calvinistic grimace at what she would regard as strong language. “What the devil is going on around here? That's what I’d like to know!”
Phoebe said, guardedly, “Mrs. Swann didnae think ye’d be home until tomorrow. Those were my instructions, ‘Look for him around late afternoon, Tuesday.’ She said that as she was going off and, to tell the truth, sir, I had the impression she’d be back ahead of ye.”
“She actually said that?”
“No, she didnae gi’ me more than ten minutes’ warning. Did I get it wrong, then?”
“No,” he said, thoughtfully, “for I didn’t expect to be back until tomorrow and told her so. But I got through my work quicker than I expected. Come to think of it, I recall telling her I wouldn’t be back until around tea-time on Tuesday. That’ll be all, Phoebe. And I apologise for bad language!”
He said this seriously. Everyone at Tryst had been taught to respect Phoebe Fraser's prejudices in this respect and he was no exception. She withdrew then and he dined alone. Having so much to think about, he no longer hankered for company.
There was a pattern here somewhere. Henrietta, who, in all their married life, had never once failed to greet him on his return from one of his trips, had rushed off to Manchester within hours of his departure, so that if she had gone in response to a message it must have reached her between eight and nine on Saturday and nobody here seemed to have any knowledge of the reason behind her trip. Then George and his family were missing, with their house locked up, and again no message left with Phoebe, or with any of the older children. Finally, Maximus had been dismantled, crated, and carted away, and that within a few hours of his refusal to endow the brute. This in itself seemed ominous, although what it had to do with George and his family leaving the mill-house was more than he could say. It occurred to him, although not very seriously, that George might have taken his refusal so much to heart that he was selling the machine. But if that was so, it seemed unlikely that he would encumber himself with a wife and two babies on a visit to the scrap-yard, or wherever one disposed of several tons of junk. On the whole, however, George's erratic course did not bother him so much as Henrietta flitting out of the house like a fugitive, and going so far afield without so much as writing him a note, or telling anyone the purpose of her trip. He thought, irritably, “I’ll be damned if I send a wire… she should have wired me. Whatever has happened to that old rascal Sam it won’t cause her much concern. I daresay she only posted off for the look of the thing!”
He carried his coffee into the library and idled there until past midnight, drinking more than twice his brandy ration and smoking half a dozen Burmese cheroots. For all that he slept badly, remembering, when he woke up in the small hours, Henrietta's complaints concerning the size of the Conyer bed when one had it to oneself. He dropped off again finally and sat up with a start about nine, two hours past his usual hour of rising. He had an aching head and a furred tongue, and to add to his troubles stubbed his toe on the way to his wash-basin in the dressing room that gave him a good excuse to use some of his favourite Hindustani oaths. A glimpse of his youngest child, seven-year-old Margaret, riding her pony across the paddock, failed to lift his spirits. It reminded him of his age and he thought, wryly, “I can remember Hetty telling me that child was on the way, a month or so after we buried the old Colonel. Seems the day before yesterday. At this rate I haven’t so long left to do everything I plan to do…” That made him think of George again, and regret that he hadn’t been more generous with the boy. Taken all round, and judged commercially, George was the flower of the flock.
He felt more cheerful with coffee and eggs and bacon inside him and had one of his rare impulses to play truant, telling himself it was a long time since he had taken time off to enjoy an early summer's day about here. There was no word from Henrietta or Giles, so he told Phoebe he would not be going up to town as usual and went off down the drive, admiring the haze of bluebells that grew under the copper beeches and the riot of campion and dandelion about the margin of the paddocks.
At the gap opposite the old mill-wheel, he cut through the pine and larch wood to the road, leaning there with his back against a tree and feeling peace steal over him as his headache lifted and his thoughts crystallised on the straight stretch of carriageway that led to the main road a mile to the northeast.
It was down that strip, more than twenty-seven years ago, that he had driven Henrietta one soft April evening an hour or so before their first child, Stella, was born. Time was a curious thing when you thought about it. Sometimes, as when he was shaving only an hour since, it telescoped, the years running into one another. At other times, as now, it unrolled like an endless length of
ribbon, and gaily coloured ribbon so long as you didn’t let your eye dwell too long on the dun patches. On the whole, they had been good and fruitful years, better than he deserved when you took his late start into account, and more rewarding, he would judge, than those of most of his contemporaries. For those who weren’t already dead were paunched and short-winded, and preoccupied with things like stocks and shares, and saddled, for the most part, with old hags and a straggle of dull, querulous children, whereas Henrietta was still fresh and comely at forty-seven, and each of the children was as much a character as the regional managers when you contemplated them individually and not, as he usually did, as a gaggle.
There were the two eldest, Stella and Alex, both rather solemn and set in their ways. There was Old George and Giles, both original but temperamentally as disparate as a Chinaman and a Zulu. There were the two younger girls, Joanna and Helen, the handsome extroverts of the family; Edward, who was beginning to look like a pocket version of old Sam Rawlinson; Hugo, a great handsome oaf who yet moved round a cinder track like a Greek god and still had trouble with spelling two syllable words; and finally Margaret, who reminded him somehow of the picture he had formed of his own mother, based on the one portrait that had come down to him.
He thought, lazily, “Now why the devil did I work myself up into such a lather over Old George, and that daft notion he had of pouring money into that engine of his? What the devil is money for but to fool around with, the way I have all these years? Most men of my standing would have a hundred thousand invested by now, but I should have a job to lay hands upon ten, unless I parted with the house and everything inside it. How much would George have wasted before he admitted it was going down the drain? A thousand? Two thousand?” But then, coming to him as a sustained rattle from beyond the tree-lined bend, he heard the approach of a light vehicle and thought, joyfully, “It's Hetty!… I’d know that jingle anywhere,” and climbed down from the bank just in time to see the yellow gig swing round the bend into the straight, with Henrietta perched on the box, moving at a spanking trot as though she was in a great hurry to be home.
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