Bellman

by Diane Setterfield

  “Good.’ He nodded.

  What was this all about? Ned and Crace wondered. Just when Bellman had come back, sound as ever, troubles behind him, he appeared to be making plans for another absence.

  “How long might this new arrangement be for?” Ned asked. “If it is to be more than a month or two, is it worth training one of the junior clerks to take over some of my responsibilities?”

  “Certainly,” said William. “The new arrangement is to be permanent.”

  This new future was too large to be grasped immediately.

  Crace found his bearings sufficiently to ask a question: “But who will manage the mill?” and immediately lost them again, when Bellman answered, “You two.

  Ned was stunned. The mill without Bellman? He and Crace to run it? It was unthinkable! He took a deep breath in shock, but as the air entered him, he felt himself expand. Was it unthinkable? It took Bellman to think of it, but now that he had—

  Ned breathed out.

  It could be done.

  For a week William was quite busy at the mill. He sat in the office while foremen and clerks were called in to talk about their changed futures, changed fortunes. Bellman insisted that it must be Ned and Crace who took charge of these interviews. He was just overseeing, there for his new managers to refer a question to, to offer an opinion when asked. At first they hung back, expecting to take the lead from him; very quickly they understood what he intended: they were the decision makers now. They interviewed, conferred, made their choices, and then glanced at William. A nod was all that was required. They knew as well as he.

  During the following weeks, Bellman gradually reduced his hours at the mill. His presence was enough to stabilize confidence during the handover. What was already clear to Bellman now became clear to everyone else: the Bellman touch was there in the system, the routine, the habits. Like a clockmaker who has weighed and cleaned and balanced every cog and spring in a mechanism, he could leave it to others to wind it every day. There was no need for him to be there in person, and little by little he withdrew.

  Six months after the fever left the town, the mill was running all by itself.

  ***

  When all was still in the house, when the candles were all blown out and the last steps had sounded creakily in the landing, Dora heaved herself to a sitting position in her bed and arranged the pillows around her like companions.

  Fussing was over for the day. Mary and her mother were asleep. At last there was no one to take her temperature, ask about her appetite, weigh her or measure her or otherwise scrutinize her well-being. Only now was she free to remember.

  As she gazed into the blackness of her room, she could conjure the past. The noise, color, and movement of remembered scenes from the life she had lost reproduced themselves on the darkness, and the more she gave herself to this practice the more vibrant it became. It was effortless, this casting off of the present, this reunion with what had gone before.

  She began where she always began: Thursday evening, father arriving with the red felt bags and her brothers cheering. She saw and heard the pennies tumble into the bowl, felt the weight of the pitcher, smelled the vinegar as it splashed onto the coins. The tang of vinegar on Phil’s little hands all night long, no matter how many times he scrubbed them.

  From the coins, any number of other scenes, all as bright and as vivid as the day they happened. One day and another and another, days and days of living there had been, and she remembered every one with such freshness and vigor that it was scarcely less true and real than life itself. Her eye lingered on faces and expressions, she received again her mother’s loving looks, she made her brothers laugh, she sniffed the sweet and musty baby smell of her sister. Her remembering nights were vividly alive to her though they passed in a flash. It was the days she lived now that were long and dreary.

  The lightening of the sky, discernible through the curtains, drew her out of her reverie. She wriggled back into a sleeping position and closed her eyes. When Mary brought the tea, not long after, she put her head on one side to study her.

  “Hm,” she said, unimpressed. “You don’t look very rested.”

  “Would you open the curtains?” Dora asked her. “The rooks will be coming soon.”

  &

  Rooks are not fussy eaters. They like insects, mammals (dead is best), acorns, crustaceans, fruit, eggs. If the rook has a preference, it is for earthworms and juicy, white leatherjackets. But really he is pleased to gorge himself on almost anything he can find or steal.

  The poor blue tit loses heat so quickly that he must spend almost every waking moment looking for food. Equally the guillemot, whose wings are so inefficient out of water that he must think of nothing but eating all day long if he is to stockpile enough energy to get airborne. In contrast the rook, supreme creature that he is, can find all the food he needs in a couple of hours a day and consider the rest of his time leisure.

  What does the rook do with this leisure time?

  1. He tells jokes and gossips.

  2. He engineers handy, throwaway tools.

  3. He learns to speak foreign languages. The rook can imitate the human voice, a logger’s crane, the crash of broken glass. And if he wants to really make fun, he can call your dog to him—with your own whistle.

  4. He enjoys poetry and philosophy.

  5. He is an expert on rook history.

  6. He knows more geology than you do—but since it is knowledge passed down through the generations from his ancestors he calls it family anecdote.

  7. He has a good grounding in mythology, magic, and witchcraft.

  8. He has a keen passion for ritual.

  In essence the benefits of having the key to the world’s larder are that rooks have the time to think, the brain power to remember—and the wisdom to laugh.

  ***

  In Latin the rook is called corvus frugilegus, which means “the food-gatherer,” because of the extraordinary efficiency with which he meets his nutritional needs.

  Chapter Four

  In a large house in the Oxfordshire countryside, a wealthy haberdasher named Critchlow sat in his high-backed armchair by the fire and opened a letter with a silver blade. He had not been born to comfortable firesides and silver blades; the pleasure he took in them was greater than any earl’s or prince’s.

  The letter was from a man he knew only by reputation: William Bellman. It was not a long letter: from the opening salutation it went straight to the point. That was in keeping with what he knew of the man. William Bellman, a person of great drive, acted with purpose and didn’t waste time.

  “What do you know of William Bellman?” he asked his wife.

  “The clothier from Whittingford?” She put her head on one side. “He lost his child in that outbreak of fever, didn’t he? Unless it was his wife . . . What does he want?”

  “Money.”

  “Hasn’t he plenty of his own? Besides, we’ve never met him.”

  “Fact that a man prefers working to standing about chatting in other people’s reception rooms isn’t a reason not to invest in him. On the contrary.”

  Critchlow’s interest was piqued. He wrote a reply inviting Bellman to his house.

  ***

  By the same log fire, twenty-four hours later, William revealed the scheme to the haberdasher. He set out the idea, the costs (building, stock, labor costs, warehousing), the time scale, the product range, the demand, the supply chain.

  “All very sound,” the haberdasher said. “The profit?”

  Bellman passed a leaf of paper to him containing a table of figures. “The first three years.”

  In private Bellman had higher expectations than were shown on the paper. The private figures looked well founded to him. Still, he was businessman enough to know that a canny investor is likely to be put off by promises of gains that look too great. S
afer all round to promise something less ambitious, enticing but attainable. So he had reined the figures in.

  Critchlow drew the paper toward him and looked. He raised a rapid eyebrow at Bellman. “You’re sure of these figures?”

  “No sensible man of business is ever sure of anything. An estimate is a guess. A conservative estimate is a conservative guess. But death doesn’t go out of fashion.”

  The man rubbed his mouth with his hand, looked back at the page. The guess of a man like William Bellman had to be worth something.

  “How much do you need?”

  Bellman named a figure. “I’m putting up a quarter of that myself. I need three others.”

  “Whom have you spoken to?”

  William mentioned the names of the other investors with whom he had made appointments. Critchlow nodded. He knew them, and they were solid people.

  “I like the idea. Give me some time to think it over.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “You don’t waste time, do you? Tomorrow it shall be.”

  William picked up his table of figures and left. The man sat back down in his chair by the fire and looked into the flames.

  Death doesn’t go out of fashion, he thought.

  This interview was repeated twice. William was offered brandy or whiskey; he sat by a roaring fire; he set out his idea; he passed across a sheet of figures. None of the meetings lasted more than an hour.

  William went home believing he had not long to wait, and he was right.

  None of the haberdashers had ever invested so much money in a single project. None had ever made his mind up about a deal so rapidly, nor with such a surge of confidence. William Bellman was putting up a full quarter of the money himself, was he? Well, well, well.

  Three men by three fires poured themselves another brandy—or whiskey—and leaned back in three chairs with three satisfied smiles. They were rich men and they were about to be made richer.

  The morning brought William three letters. Yes, yes, and yes.

  Good.

  He could see the future. He could make it happen. He set about things.

  ?

  Chapter Five

  First the land. No simple matter, that. Then lawyers to see off the small tradesmen scratching a living there. Meanwhile architects and draftsmen to work on designs.

  “Five storeys,” Bellman told them, “and the essence of it should be light. The center of the roof to be an octagonal glass window to the sky, and the entire building to be pierced through the middle, so that light will fall through the center of the shop and not only through the windows.”

  “Hmm,” the architect said and stroked his beard. “Alternatively—”

  “An atrium,” said William. “Exactly as I have described. How else can my seamstresses see to stitch? How else can my customers see the black detail on a pair of black gloves at four o’clock on a November afternoon?”

  The architect presented plans for the building: there was no atrium. “It is hardly practical,” he pleaded. “It will be too hot in summer. Think of the maintenance costs! And is it safe?”

  William sketched out the atrium himself in his calfskin notebook, tore it out, and handed it to the man. “Go to Chance in Birmingham for the plate glass. You must get these men”—another scribble and torn-out page—“for the installation. They are familiar with the ridge-and-furrow system. There is a system that will raise the entire glazed ceiling to let the hot air escape in summer. And if you don’t know how to do it, I’ll subcontract the entire roof to one of Paxton’s men.”

  The architect produced new plans in accordance with Bellman’s wishes.

  A manager of works was needed. Bellman’s architect knew just the man.

  “Come with me, I’ll take you to him now.”

  The man’s office was as comfortable as any reception room. He was plump and jovial, the buttons of his waistcoat shone, and he shook Bellman’s hand with confidence. Bellman suppressed a grimace at the handshake: it was the man’s clean nails, the soaped and scented softness of his skin. He stayed ten minutes with him then took his leave.

  “He’s not the one,” he said. “He has not the voice for speaking to laborers. If a thing is to be done well, it cannot be done from the fireside. You have to be there yourself.”

  “With respect, sir,” the architect said, “Bensen has a very experienced team of intermediaries and he has vast experience. You need someone who is your equal in talent and experience, someone who can take the responsibility of the construction off your shoulders, leaving you free for the rest of the enterprise,”

  Bellman shook his head. It was not his way.

  Someone younger, he thought. Calloused. Closer to the men. Closer to the work. He asked around, and his enquiries led him to a man called Fox.

  They met in a small park, round the corner from a noisy construction site. Fox wore heavy boots, had dirt under his nails, and when he spoke to his men, he sounded like one of them. Fox reminded him a little of himself when young: talented, hungry for a big project. Bellman set out his terms plainly. He meant to pay Fox less than the fat man with the soft hands had wanted—a lot less—but the young man stood to gain not only a lengthy and lucrative contract but also something far more valuable: a reputation.

  “Night and day, I’ll work,” he promised, and Bellman believed him. The project would be the making of Fox, they both knew it. They shook hands, both satisfied.

  Together Bellman and Fox visited stonemasons, builders, and carpenters. Fox spoke their language—“My father was a builder in Exeter”—and Bellman watched and listened. Then he asked questions and Fox fell silent, listening to Bellman ask about materials, the raw costs, the transport costs. He watched Bellman scribble sums in the notebook he always carried in his deep pockets, work out reductions, take it upon himself to draft letters to quarriers and timber merchants. Sometimes coming away from a potential tradesman and shaking their heads together over a man’s perilously weak grasp of his own business, Fox would say, “Ah, but he’s got a good lad working for him. Did you see the work he was doing? Very nice. Now the lad would be an asset . . .”

  “Steal him away,” Bellman directed, and Fox set about the theft of the apprentice.

  ***

  The enterprise was not only a building to be constructed out of stone, but also a legal entity that had to be made secure and watertight with pages of impenetrable jargon. Bellman spent long hours in lawyers’ offices poring over paperwork, puzzling out contracts of labyrinthine complexity. He arrived at these meetings with a series of commonsense questions and listened to the answers with a quite uncommon intelligence. The instructions he gave were decisive, and framed in the lawyers’ own language. If there was any aspect of ownership, responsibilities, and entitlements he was in doubt about, it did not appear so to the lawyers, who were impressed by his decisiveness and acuity.

  The third aspect of the venture was financial. The grand entrance hall of the Westminster & City Bank was an impressive place. Half a mountain of Italian marble sliced into slabs for the floor and walls, hammered, chiseled, and pumiced into columns, expensive, hard, intimidating. Few entered here without an inner tremor: respectable ladies felt their voices tremble like schoolgirls as they asked for their balances, and baronets adopted an exaggerated swagger as they made a withdrawal. Even the blameless vicar suppressed a nervous cough. It was impossible to escape the awareness that somewhere in this place dozens of suited clerks labored like angels over their ledgers, entering in black copperplate the sage economies and financial imprudences of every customer, keeping account of every transaction in guineas, shillings, and pence, until the day of reckoning. No, the grand hall of the Westminster & City was not a comfortable place. No matter how stain free one’s balance, it caused the souls of even the most prudent to quail.

  Quailing was quite unknown to William Bellman. He to
ok the steps three at a time and entered the hall with as much awe as a bee that flies into Westminster’s other great cathedral and comes to rest on the altar there. Quite by chance, Mr. Anson, a senior manager at the bank was passing through the hall as Bellman strode in, and had noticed his indifference to the grandeur. A strong, dark man, possessed of great energy and force, he entirely bypassed the clerk at the desk where an ordinary customer would have made an appointment, preferring to cast an observant eye over everyone in the hall. When it alighted on Mr. Anson he stepped purposefully toward him and introduced himself and his requirements in a few words. “Are you the man to help?”

  Anson was not used to being accosted in this informal fashion, but something in Bellman’s manner and demeanor told him it would be worth his while giving him a few moments, and a few moments were enough to persuade him to give the man a longer hearing.

  In a private room Bellman set out his financial projections. It was a large loan that Bellman wanted. The construction of the shop was being paid for out of capital, but a loan was wanted in order to stock the shop. Anson considered the figures Bellman had prepared.

  “So you are in need of a loan and will be holding the shop account here too. A personal account as well, perhaps?”

  “Two.”

  “Two personal accounts? Both for yourself.”

  Bellman nodded without explanation.

  Well, that was unusual, but he could see no administrative or legal impediment. Anson looked at the proposed turnover figures. Overoptimistic, he thought, but if Bellman achieved even half of what he intended he would be doing well enough to cover the repayments. The outlook was rosy. There was nothing to stop him agreeing to a deal today, and besides, he had the feeling that if Bellman didn’t get the answer he wanted here and now he would take his figures and his business to another bank.

  “Glad to be able to help,” he said and offered a hand. Bellman took it and gave it a firm, single shake by the end of which he was already on his feet and ready to leave.