by Tim Jeal
He glanced at George with secret satisfaction and then caught his breath. The man’s face was wet with tears.
6
Lord Goodchild, dressed in his favourite baggy green shooting jacket and stained moleskins, led the way through a narrow cattle-gap into a boggy gorse-brown pasture. Trudging behind him, strung out in line, came his son, Humphrey, his head gamekeeper and an under-keeper, both weighed down with guns, powder horns and shot pouches; his lordship’s valet brought up the rear, carrying a hamper containing chicken sandwiches, seltzer water, East India sherry and a large flask of brandy.
Just as two weeks before, thoughts of his wife had spoiled Goodchild’s anticipation of the hunt, today Helen’s shadow loomed darker still over his sporting enjoyment. He had recently returned from Manchester, where he had been stunned to be refused admission by Dr Carstairs, who had told him bluntly, with no reason given, that in future he would not be welcome. The following day at Hanley Park, Goodchild had not only heard from his head coachman that her ladyship had been to Manchester, but had also been informed by his steward that Lady Goodchild had asked for details about certain payments. After these revelations, Carstairs’ behaviour had no longer seemed inexplicable. Murderously angry though he had been, Goodchild had nevertheless controlled himself, and since that day had done his utmost to avoid being alone with Helen, using his regimental duties as an excuse for prolonged absence. If she was bent on forcing him to a separation or on compelling him to renounce his mistress, Goodchild knew that he would better be able to resist her if he could avoid a decisive confrontation before the election. Today he had only risked returning home for some shooting with Humphrey, because he was alarmed that, unless he spent some time with his son, he might lose the boy’s affection entirely after the inevitable rift with his mother.
The ground they were walking across was heavy and clinging, and Goodchild’s new boots felt stiff and not fully broken in, although they had been worn a week by his manservant. Out in front, his lordship’s two favourite pointers sniffed their way across the wet grass. Suddenly they froze and crouched like statues, their right feet raised, and muzzles pointing towards a rushy patch in the middle of the pasture.
The under-keeper handed his master a loaded gun and retired. Goodchild cocked it. As he moved forwards a hare bounded off towards the hedge. A sharp scream followed the second shot and the animal crumpled and twisted in mid-stride.
‘Seek dead,’ he murmured to the nearest pointer with a wave of the hand and the dog raced away and retrieved. Goodchild handed the gun back to the under-keeper and took another, which he held out to his son. The boy received it without a word.
Five minutes later as they were crossing a field of stubble, a covey of partridges rose with a loud whirr. Humphrey missed with both barrels and the head-keeper handed him a second gun but, before he could discharge it, his father had fired into the rapidly dispersing flight of birds. One checked, dipped and then plummeted downwards in a corkscrew dive, suddenly heavy after being so light. Humphrey heard the soft thud as it landed. Again at a word, a dog streaked away to collect.
‘Won’t get easier shots than that,’ muttered Goodchild, unable, for all his good intentions, to hide his displeasure.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘No need for that. You’ll get more chances, I wager.’
In spite of his father’s conciliatory tone, the boy said nothing but stared down at his feet with compressed lips and colouring cheeks. Goodchild thought he detected as much defiance as contrition in the expression, and wondered whether Humphrey had missed on purpose to annoy him. On the two brief occasions on which he had spoken to him, after he had headed the fox at the hunt, he had found his son unusually sullen and withdrawn even for him. A short silence ended when Palmer, the head-keeper, started telling Goodchild about the barbarous new method poachers were using to take his pheasants: scattering raisins transfixed with a sharp pin or fish-hook, which choked the birds as they swallowed. Palmer detailed the measures he was taking to kill poachers’ dogs, including the nocturnal placing of poisoned rabbits’ livers near gates where poachers set snares and nets to catch hares.
‘You might poison a fox,’ objected Goodchild.
‘Kill a poacher’s dog, your lordship, and he won’t train another under a year.’
‘A dead fox here and there is worth a hundred pheasants saved, I suppose,’ conceded Goodchild.
They walked on in silence over a wide turnip field, the heavy soil adhering to their boots making walking a laborious business. Overhead the slate grey sky seemed to promise snow. They stopped at a stile beside the Flixton road and the valet got out the sandwiches and brandy.
‘Come here, my boy.’ Humphrey sat down beside his father on the stile, while the servants withdrew into a separate group. ‘If you don’t care for it, you need not come shooting.’
‘I must persevere, sir.’
‘Perhaps I am too hard on you,’ said Goodchild gently. The boy looked at him suspiciously, as though sensing a trap if he spoke his mind.
‘I’m sure a gentleman should be a good sportsman,’ he replied tactfully.
The valet handed them both sandwiches and a glass of brandy each. Humphrey did not like the taste but took the proffered glass without objecting.
‘I think so,’ went on Goodchild, ‘but others might not agree. Your mother for one, I fancy.’
Humphrey bit into his sandwich and did not reply. He wished he had some water to get rid of the unpleasant burning sensation left in his mouth by the brandy. Goodchild looked at his son’s disgruntled face and cursed himself for having allowed him to become so dependent on his mother; but for this, he knew he only had himself to blame. His long absences had hardly served to win his son’s confidence. Now it might well be too late. If Helen lost him Joseph Braithwaite’s financial support, they would be ruined. He tried to imagine a life with Hanley Park sold up and the land over which he had shot and hunted since boyhood closed to him forever. He waved to his valet to re-fill his glass but the brandy did not help him.
‘Perhaps we’ve had enough sport for this morning,’ he said turning to Humphrey.
‘As you wish, sir.’
‘What do you wish?’ he snapped back, unable to bear his son’s chilling formal obedience.
‘I should like to return.’
‘Then why did you not say so?’
‘I did not want to spoil your sport.’
‘You do so by refusing to speak your mind.’
Humphrey, who had been gazing into his brandy, looked up with a flash of his mother’s directness and said vehemently:
‘Then I can no longer shoot with you.’
‘Why pray?’
‘I dislike doing what I am not good at. You asked me to speak my mind.’
‘I did, and I applaud your decision. There’s no pleasure dragging a reluctant boy after one.’
‘Nor being dragged, sir.’
Goodchild felt confused and saddened. He had magnanimously offered the boy exemption from shooting but at first this had been refused. Then when he had repeated his offer, Humphrey had accepted, not with gratitude but with curt insolence.
‘It would have been better if you had been truthful from the beginning and saved yourself the hypocrisy of deceiving me into believing that you enjoyed our sport.’
‘Had I done so, we would never have seen each other.’
‘And now that thought no longer distresses you?’
‘Not when my presence only angers you.’
‘Should I be pleased by bad shooting?’
‘Indeed not.’
‘You have mistaken criticism of your marksmanship for personal disapproval.’
‘Following game, little except shooting signifies.’
A long silence, broken only by the wind in the leafless hedgerow. Goodchild’s brief flicker of anger had spent itself and now only an empty helplessness remained. His voice was more appealing than peremptory as he said:
‘If w
e neither ride nor shoot together, what can we do?’
‘Nothing, I’m sure.’
‘We could walk.’
The same look of suspicion as though the remark had been ironic.
‘I would have little of interest to say.’ Humphrey was surprised by his father’s unexpected burst of laughter.
‘The struggle, I assure you, would not be one-sided.’ Goodchild tipped back his brandy and smiled. ‘Good God, nothing to talk of. What do you know of the foresters or the ditchers? Have you seen a warrener at work? We’ll find subjects enough.’
‘I shall enjoy it.’
Goodchild looked at his son’s diffident smile and had no idea whether he was being sincere. Another four years and the boy would be grown-up, and by then any chance of getting to know him would have been irretrievably lost. He tossed his glass to the valet and jumped down from the stile. Soon they were on their way back to the house. Passing through a field of recently sowed winter wheat Humphrey saw a boy, little younger than himself, perched on top of a gate; he had been hired to scare rooks from the seed. The under-keeper waved and the boy rotated his wooden rattle: a small sound in the empty landscape. When they reached the road, Goodchild took Humphrey’s arm.
‘I could never talk to my father. Do you think it runs in the family?’
‘I hope not, sir.’
‘So do I, my boy.’ He sighed. ‘D’you know what I have to do in a week’s time?’
‘No, father.’
‘Stand up in the market square and propose Mr Braithwaite as Tory candidate.’
‘What will you say?’
‘The usual Nomination Day nonsense; there’ll be too much shouting and groaning for anybody to hear much.’
‘Will people throw things?’ asked Humphrey with a trace of anxiety.
‘I expect so,’ laughed Goodchild.
‘I’d be frightened.’
‘I’m not looking forward to it myself.’
They walked on in silence; they were sheltered from the first gusts of sleet by a fence of rotting wattles. At his age, thought Goodchild, I was betting on how many rats the best village terrier could kill in a minute, and laying money on whether any of the grooms could ride a hack round the edge of the paddock without using reins. A dirty black-nailed boy, smelling of the stables, with half a cigar in his pocket and some filthy chewed toffee wrapped in a handkerchief; a boy whose main aversions had been dress coats, piano playing and his tutor. Yet Humphrey might almost belong to a different species with his love of books and dislike of rural pastimes. Goodchild heard his son say:
‘Couldn’t somebody else propose Mr Braithwaite? Mother can’t abide him.’
Goodchild looked glumly at the rutted surface of the road.
‘I’ll explain a lot to you one day, Humphrey. I can’t now, but I will; I will though, I promise you that.’
As they tramped on, fresh flurries of sleet made their cheeks and ears smart. Coming into the park, the grey portico of the house was just visible through the bare black branches of some trees. Goodchild glanced at Humphrey and frowned. Would he ever be able to admit that his folly had endangered the boy’s inheritance? Perhaps not, but he knew that he would have to be more truthful in future, if his past omissions were to be forgiven. At any rate a start had been made; a small one, but a start.
*
Goodchild had lunched with his wife, secure in the knowledge that Humphrey’s presence would prevent her raising any objectionable topic of conversation. Afterwards he retired at once to his smoking room, confident that he would not be disturbed in his private sanctum. Her ladyship had her dressing rooms and boudoir, where her husband never intruded, and she accorded him the same privilege in his smoking room and study.
Goodchild closed the door and sat down on the raised fender-seat in front of the fire. In an hour he planned to return to Manchester to try to talk some sense into Carstairs, but in the meantime, before his journey, he intended to rest in his favourite room with its shelf of bound copies of Bell’s Life, its gun cases and trophies. On the walls were sporting prints, so numerous that their frames touched, and by the hearth a fine tiger skin. A wide selection of crops and hunting whips sprouted from an elephant’s foot near the door and on the mantelpiece were ranged his lordship’s collection of enamel and amber Turkish pipes. Goodchild lit a cigar and poured some brandy. Soothed by the warmth of the fire and the pleasant aroma of cigar smoke, he sank down in his leather chair. Later he began to doze; his eyes were still closed when the door opened and Helen entered.
‘What the devil …’ he muttered, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
‘Since you choose to avoid me at all times when we might otherwise talk privately, I have been obliged to seek you out.’
‘To what purpose?’ he asked, forewarned of trouble to come by the silky gentleness of her voice. She smiled at his question.
‘To speak privately of course. I believe it is not unusual for husbands and wives to wish to talk to one another occasionally out of their servants’ hearing.’
‘Say what you wish.’
‘Will you still sell Audley House?’ she asked with sudden sharpness.
‘A London establishment is impossible. You know that.’
‘I know that you have told me so.’ She moved closer to him and went on in the same unemotional voice: ‘I fear you will have a lean time of it with Dr Carstairs.’
‘Your meaning, madam?’ he snapped, jumping to his feet.
‘He will bring an action against you unless I dissuade him.’
‘Unless you dissuade him?’ he repeated incredulously.
‘Poor man, he seemed most anxious in case details of your payments to him should reach the ears of his professional superiors.’
Her self-possession and feigned sadness at being the cause of his indignation brought Goodchild to the verge of screaming, but he controlled himself and said in a level voice:
‘Spite and jealousy do not become you, Helen.’
She inclined her head as though thinking hard what reason he might have for this statement.
‘Jealousy? I think not, Harry.’ She turned to him with a look he could not fathom: part sadness, part derision. ‘Can you remember when I last waited up long into the night listening for the wheels of your phaeton?’ She paused as though trying vainly to recollect the precise date. ‘I think it was a month or two before you discovered that you could sleep so much better in your dressing room. That would make it three years and a bit over. I was jealous then, I don’t deny it.’ She flashed him a mocking smile. ‘I could have killed Lady Stratton and I wouldn’t have been unhappy to have done the same to Lady Constance Mowbray but when she became so upset about Mrs Darcy, I felt quite sorry for her. I daresay I’m spiteful, Harry, but my modest stock of jealousy is sadly depleted.’
‘I fear I am a poor audience for your polished ironies, Helen; they do not however affect the facts of the matter in question.’ He had spoken with a languid air, but there was no more nonchalance as he continued. ‘If scandal diminishes the benefit which Braithwaite expects to derive from my support in the election, he will seek repayment; and then you may bid farewell to Hanley Park as well as Audley House. Think of our son, madam, before you contrive our ruin.’
She flung back her head defiantly and said with icy scorn:
‘When did you think of him, Harry? Is it my fault that you must grovel to Braithwaite? The debts are your doing, not mine.’
‘They exist, regardless of their origin,’ he replied impatiently. ‘I cannot keep Audley House, nor maintain you anywhere but here.’
‘Then you must suffer the consequences,’ she replied in a low trembling voice. In spite of the fury and hatred in her eyes, he met them resolutely.
‘Since they will fall as heavily on you, I will bear them as best I can.’
Goodchild had expected another outburst of anger to greet his dry response, but instead she gazed at him remotely with a confused and perplexed expression. Then she raised her
eyes and stared at him with astonishment, as if seeing him for the first time.
‘You really would prefer that … the loss of everything … prefer that to giving way an inch to me. Whatever it cost you, you’ll always be too proud to bargain with me.’
‘I was not aware,’ he replied curtly, ‘that your terms allowed me that latitude.’ He leant with an elbow against the mantelpiece and looked down into the fire for a moment before facing her abruptly. ‘Your circumstances will be much reduced, but, if you wish it, I will have my solicitor set out the basis for a separation.’
‘When?’
‘January.’
‘No,’ she cried vehemently. ‘You will do it before the election.’
‘I will do it,’ he shouted, ‘when I please or not at all.’
She laughed harshly and pressed her hands together, seeking to suppress her despairing anger.
‘And what persuasion may I use with you when that time comes? None, I think.’
‘Do you doubt my word of honour?’
‘Honour, of course, how foolish of me to doubt you. Gentlemen call their gambling debts “debts of honour”. It surprises me how often their notes are not honoured by their banks.’ She paused breathlessly, feeling tears pricking. ‘What honour is there in your dealings with your doctor’s wife? In your toadying to Braithwaite, your….’
‘Accept my word,’ he roared, ‘or do what you please. I will give no other guarantee.’
Outside the room she clutched at her head and choked back a deep sob. She could not risk her son’s inheritance and he knew that. She had thought him at her mercy, but in reality she was as much in his power as ever. Not until she reached her boudoir did the cruelty of this fact no longer obliterate other memories of their conversation. He had given his word and she would keep him to it by whatever means.
7
If Joseph Braithwaite’s home, with its massive china cabinets, its silken draperies and Turkey carpets, was a temple dedicated to the material rewards of a successful commercial career, his dark and meagrely furnished set of offices were consecrated to the austere nonconformist virtues of thrift and self-denying industry, by which these good things had been achieved. Even the pictures on the walls – prints of the Braithwaite mills taken from Knight’s Cyclopaedia of the Industry of all Nations – were intended not to divert or delight the eye but to stimulate the beholder to still greater feats of application.
