Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  Richard sat against the wall in the saloon bar, the solicitor Jim Hutton opposite, a plate of cold tongue, pickles, salad, and sliced bread and butter between them, tankards of beer at their sides. Jim had a deformed right foot, wore a club boot, and walked with a limp. Besides being a solicitor he was also the Conservative party agent in Hedlington. Richard had hardly known him until, soon after leaving his father’s firm, he had also decided to leave the family solicitors, and put his affairs in Hutton’s hands.

  Hutton put a slice of tongue, with mustard and mustard-and-cress on to a slice of bread, and said, ‘Your father’s nursing this constituency for the Liberals, Richard.’

  ‘No one’s ever admitted it – but I’ve heard it rumoured.’

  ‘It’s a fact. Someone in the Liberals’ parliamentary office talked, and it got out. If he’s nursing Mid-Scarrow for the Liberals, someone ought to be nursing it for the Conservatives.’

  ‘There’s a political truce,’ Richard said, drinking some bitter. ‘Ellis is a Liberal, so if he dies or retires, the Conservatives have agreed not to oppose whomever the Liberals put up for the seat.’

  ‘The war might be over soon. Or the truce break down. Then what? They’ll have a well-known candidate, and we’ll have no one.’

  ‘I don’t think the war’ll be over soon.’

  ‘Nor do I, frankly. Rowland’s got a good order for staff cars for the army last week.’

  ‘I heard,’

  ‘We ought to be able to get a big order for you … Jupiter, isn’t it?’

  ‘JMC, it will be.’

  ‘… in return for us keeping the truce.’

  ‘Perhaps. But we’re not going to be able to turn out any machines for some months … six, probably.’ He looked round as a red-faced man with a paunch, black bowler hat, celluloid collar, and bright green tie slapped Hutton on the back, ‘’Ullo, Jimmy boy. Afternoon, Mr Rowland.’

  Hutton said, ‘Oh, so you know Mr Rowland.’

  ‘All of ’em,’ Bill Hoggin said heartily, ‘I married into the business, so to speak. My Ruthie’s Bob Stratton’s daughter. Got a little problem to speak to you about.’

  ‘Well, I’m busy all this afternoon, but…’

  ‘Make it four o’clock, Jimmy boy,’ Hoggin said. He fished in his pocket and planked a five-pound note on the table beside Hutton’s tankard, ‘Cash in advance, can’t say that of most of your clients, can you?’ He tipped his hat and moved on to the far end of the saloon.

  ‘Coarse brute,’ Hutton muttered.

  ‘It looks as if the war’s bringing him prosperity, at least.’

  Hutton nodded. ‘He’s in the food business, in Eastcheap. Don’t know why he’s down here in the middle of the week … probably has some shady deal brewing, and wants me to tell him how to get round the law. He’s making a mint, though … until he gets caught …’ He turned to face Richard directly, ‘We’d like you to nurse the constituency as the next Conservative party candidate for Mid-Scarrow. The committee has discussed it and all agree. You are young, energetic, progressive, the sort of man we want. Between you and me, the party has too many old fossils – landowners, relics from the dark ages. And it will make good publicity that you and your father are quarrelling.’

  ‘Not exactly quarrelling.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  Richard thought – why not? He could do the job as well as most, if he were elected. And it might help him get orders for JMC. He said, ‘All right. I accept.’

  ‘Good!’ Hutton stuck out his hand, and they shook. ‘We won’t make any public announcement and, of course, the truce is still in effect, but we’ll be ready if it’s broken, either locally or nationally. Anything I can do for you, meanwhile?’

  Richard said at once, ‘Yes. I’d give a lot to have Frank Stratton as Works foreman. He’s a marvellous mechanic and he manages men well, particularly unskilled labour, which most of ours will be. He’s in the Wealds – joined up in August. He’s at the depot here still, I know.’

  ‘I know the depot commander – old Colonel Bainbridge – dug out from retirement a week after war was declared. I’ll telephone him this afternoon.’

  ‘I don’t know whether Frank will come out, even if the army’s willing to let him go. He has a strong sense of duty.’

  ‘A couple of months of army life may have cooled his ardour.’

  They finished the meal, talking desultorily until Hutton left for his office. Richard sat back, thinking. Soon, he should go home and start working on the problems to be discussed with Overfeld and the Merritts tomorrow; meantime, he would just spend a few moments at peace, thinking, and digesting.

  One of the matters he had discussed with Hutton just now was his will. He had no children, so to whom should he leave his estate – which might become very considerable if JMC prospered? After Susan, of course … It was unfortunate, but something vital had gone out of their sexual relations, once they knew that no child would ever come of them. For the first five or six years they had been as near perfect as was possible, but during those years they had been telling themselves, one day it will happen. They had not then accepted the fact of sterility; but afterwards, gradually, sterility came in … not only the physiological fact of it, but increasingly in the sex act, and to some extent in their whole marriage, even their friendship.

  He finished his beer and got up … designs for the new building … see Toledano’s, with Stephen Merritt about capitalizing JMC … study blueprints of Ford’s Manchester plant more closely … think very carefully about wise use of capital… He went out, put on his driving glasses, and headed the Rowland for Beighton. He’d get in three hours or so of work before he had to come back to Hedlington to pick up his sister Alice.

  Hill House, Beighton, where Richard and Susan Rowland lived simply with a butler, chauffeur, cook, and two maids, was a brick house, built about 1880, on the slope of Moncton Hill, half-way between Hedlington and Walstone on the Moncton Hill road, so called to differentiate it from the river road, which ran up the Scarrow, through Cantley and Taversham, to Hedlington. Scarrow Rise, five miles to the south, hid Walstone, but on a clear day the upper floors of Walstone Park could be seen over the west end of the Rise. It was quite dark at six o’clock on this Guy Fawkes’ Day, as Richard drove slowly past the kennels of the North Weald Hunt, on the outskirts of Beighton, and into the village. The hounds were giving tongue in their kennels and he wondered why until, coming round the final bend, a pair of rockets whooshed up into the clouded dark above, fiery sparks trailing in their wake. Smoke from bonfires in back gardens, and a giant one on Beighton Common, rose straight up in the still damp of the evening. Silhouetted against the fires, two boys were playing conkers, swinging the dried chestnuts fiercely in turn. Firecrackers danced down the gravelled road, Roman candles sputtered, girls screamed excitedly. At every bonfire a broomstick or pole wilted under the weight of the Guy that had been built round it – straw stuffing, a torn coat, rag doll face, a black hat.

  Children danced round the fires, chanting, ‘Remember, remember the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot! Remember, remember the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot! Remember, remember…’

  ‘The children do so love Guy Fawkes’ Day,’ Alice said, at his side.

  ‒So do a lot of grown-ups,’ Richard said, indicating the thirty or forty people gathered round the bonfire on the common. More rockets rose, to land God only knew where. The village constable strode ominously towards two boys in a small cottage’s tiny front garden. ‘Now, look ’ere, you young rapscallions, you’ll be setting fire to the thatches, you will! Point them things out that way, see?’

  They drove on, turned up the narrow road to Hill House and soon swung round the tight circle in front of the house, and stopped. All the front windows were open; and Susan was standing in the bowed front of the drawing-room, looking out over the flying rockets and glowing bonfires below. The chauffeur bustled up, opening the door for Alice. ‘Evening, Miss
Alice, evening, sir. Will you be wanting me to take Miss Alice back to Hedlington, as usual?’

  ‘Yes, Stafford. About half-past nine probably.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Stafford was twenty-three. Richard wondered how long he would be able to keep him; and whether he ought to try.

  They went into the house, Susan at the front door now to hug Alice and kiss Richard; then to the drawing-room, and Summers serving sherry, the curtains still drawn back, the fires and lights below haloed by damp, smoke from the bonfires drifting slowly up the hill and into the house. In the bright light Richard noticed that his wife looked drawn, and said, ‘Are you feeling all right, Susan?’

  She said, ‘Your father called, a few minutes ago. Mr Ellis heard a rumour in Parliament today, and called him. There’s supposed to have been a battle at sea off Chile, in the Pacific, a few days ago. The news has only just arrived here, because two of our ships were sunk and the others had to escape as best they could. One of the ships sunk was HMS Monmouth.’

  ‘Tom’s ship!’ Richard gasped.

  ‘Yes. Mr Ellis said that the Admiralty do not intend to make any announcement until they’ve checked all the facts, but they probably will tomorrow.’

  ‘No one was saved?’

  ‘Mr Ellis said that there were no survivors from either ship. And that we didn’t sink any of the German ships.’

  Richard stood a long moment, silent. Tom … floating cold and dead in the ocean, being eaten by fishes. He shivered, drank down his sherry, and said, ‘I don’t think anyone’s heard from Quentin for nearly a month.’

  Susan said, ‘The casualty lists are getting bigger every day.’

  ‘And hate growing every minute,’ Alice said quietly. ‘Yesterday in Hedlington I heard some people booing a lady down the street, and I asked a man what she had done. He said the lady was called Mrs Schmidt. When I asked some more questions it turned out that she was English, married for twenty-five years to a German who deserted her and left England five years ago. I would never have believed English people capable of such blind, stupid hatred.’

  Richard said, ‘Boy will be in France any moment now. John told me.’

  They were all silent. At length Susan said, ‘Mr Hutton called, too, while you were out. He said he spoke to Colonel Bainbridge, and to Frank Stratton. The colonel thinks it could be arranged for Frank to be released from the army but Frank doesn’t want to go. He said to give you his respects, but he would rather stay in the regiment.’

  Richard said, ‘I was afraid so … but thank heaven for the Frank Strattons of this world, all the same. And as for Tom and Quentin, we must keep hoping.’

  Then they spoke of other things, Richard mostly quiet while the two women talked in low tones. At last Richard remembered something that had been at the back of his mind for several days. He waited for a pause in the conversation, then said, ‘Alice, how old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-four. And unmarried … that’s what you are going to point out, isn’t it?’ She laughed lightly. ‘You have a suitor for my hand?’

  Richard did not smile. She was his favourite sister. Being the eldest, nine years old when she was born, he had looked after her a great deal, when the nannies and governesses were enjoying their half-days off. After she came out and was presented at Court he had tried to find suitable young men for her – to no avail. Now, she came regularly to dine with them at Hill House once a month, sometimes more often.

  He said, ‘In a few months I am going to have JMC producing lorries. There will be a great deal of paper work to organize and keep track of before that is achieved – starting now. You are educated, even if the Governor wouldn’t let you go away to school or university. You have taught yourself to type, I know. You have a good head for figures. And you have a good mind to read and understand things … such as government regulations, tax laws, and so on. We’re going to need a secretary for JMC, someone to start and run the office. Will you accept the position?’

  Alice said nothing, looking into the glowing coals of the fire.

  Richard said, ‘It will not be easy, Dormouse. It’ll be a real challenge. But I think you can do it.’

  Then Alice said, ‘My dear Lamps, I would love to – but I can’t.’

  ‘Mother?’ Susan said.

  Alice nodded. ‘She’s not well. I don’t know what’s the matter with her. She won’t go to see the doctor. Perhaps it’s just old age. Whatever it is, someone has to look after her. Not every minute – she’s not as ill as that. But some of the time. Take the weight of running Laburnum Lodge off her. Look after the Governor when she’s too tired even to talk to him.’

  Richard said, ‘You have too much talent to waste it. Oh, I know it’s not a waste, to look after Mother. But there are others who can do what you’re doing. The Governor can afford to get a housekeeper, and a nurse or companion perhaps. But you are capable of living your own life, a much more exciting and rewarding life.’

  ‘I’m capable of it, yes, Lamps, but I can’t … Mother has to be looked after by someone who loves her. Same with the Governor … and anyway, I’m writing to a Mrs Jason Kerr in Hammersmith who’s started something called a Tipperary Room there, for wives and relatives of soldiers and sailors to sew and knit and learn home nursing, and how to be good mothers, all sorts of things.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I’m going to start a Tipperary Room in Hedlington.’

  Richard said, ‘Well, it’s something. But you’re capable of much more than that …’

  ‘Perhaps. But it’s all I can do, with the other. I really am sorry, Giglamps.’

  The three of them sat in Stephen Merritt’s suite on the second floor of the South Eastern Hotel. The sitting-room, with angled bow windows, was large and comfortably furnished; the bedroom was smaller, as it had recently been bisected and half of it turned into a private bathroom and toilet; but the wash-handstand in the bedroom had not been removed. At the same time central heating had been put in throughout the hotel, and the three radiators in the room were all gurgling quietly. It was a sound that the Americans had seldom heard since their arrival in England: but welcomed, as a sign that, here at least, they would not need to wear their overcoats indoors. The windows were shut, and the red curtains drawn to keep out the raw cold and the low fog drifting south up the Scarrow valley from Rochester and the sea. A steam engine whistled and then chuff-chuffed out of the station on the Tonbridge line, all sounds softened by the heavy curtains. It was ten o’clock.

  ‘The British sure like to set off fireworks,’ Overfeld said. His bowler hat was hanging on the back of the door, revealing a shaven bullet head. ‘Back there around dinner time it was like the 4th of July. And why the scarecrows they were burning everywhere? Are they meant to be the Kaiser?’

  ‘No – Guy Fawkes,’ Johnny said. ‘He and some other Roman Catholics tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. They were caught and executed.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘1605. As I’m living in England, I thought I should know.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me the day or the month. Remember, remember the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. That crazy ditty’s been ringing in my head all evening. It still is.’

  Stephen coughed. ‘Time we wrapped it up for the day, then. Let’s see where we are … The cable’s gone, recommending that we close the deal to buy Armbruster’s. Also listing the main items we want bought and shipped over here … and instructions on hiring sea transportation. You’ve worked out a rough floor plan for the new building, and you’re going to go through it with us and Mr Rowland tomorrow?’

  ‘That’s right, boss,’ Overfeld said.

  ‘On Monday Johnny and I and Mr Rowland will go to London to hire lawyers to arrange incorporation, and the British end of the financing. Mr Rowland is to have the managing directorship of the new firm, with a salary to be agreed on plus ten per cent of the net profits, after tax. Also ten per cent of the common stock will be offered
to him at one fifth of par. Another director will come from the British bank – probably Toledano’s. Two will be members of the Board of Fairfax, Gottlieb in New York. The fifth will be resident here, and will have the proxies of the New York directors. And that will be you, Overfeld. But you will take Johnny here into your full confidence. He’s here to learn, but he can’t unless he’s shown, and told. He’s going to send me informal reports on how things are going here – not only with the plant, but in England generally, and with the war – so don’t think he’s going behind your back.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Overfeld said vigorously. ‘Writing’s not my game. Johnny went to Harvard.’

  ‘Quite. But you send financial statements, which must be worked out and agreed on by Mr Rowland … What are your plans for next week?’

  ‘Try to find a builder capable of putting up that new building in a hurry. And make a guess at the materials he will need, so that we can ensure they will be on hand when he wants them. Cable a pal of mine in Detroit to come over as plant foreman. He works for Cadillac now.’

  ‘Does he have tact? English workmen aren’t going to like an American foreman, you know.’

  ‘Morgan’s Welsh – came over as a baby with his parents. His dad worked in the coal mines. Morgan can charm the birds out of the trees. We’ll have to pay him, though.’

  ‘Give him twenty per cent more than he’s getting now, to start with. ’ He sat back, yawning. The room was full of cigar smoke, for both he and Overfeld smoked, Overfeld vile thin brutes of the kind called Wheeling stogies. He appeared to have brought a thousand of them over on the ship with him. Overfeld said, ‘What do you think of the war, boss? Are the British and French going to make it?’

  Stephen said, ‘I think so. I hope so. We shall have thrown a few million dollars down the drain if they don ’t.’