World From Rough Stones

by Malcolm Macdonald

  Nora turned to Arabella. "A newcomer to a district should wait until her neighbours have visited her before she attempts to visit them," she quoted.

  It gave them a respectable focus for their laughter.

  "I resign," Arabella said. "The North of England is a law unto itself!"

  Chapter 34

  At half past five the following morning Tommy descended from his fiery Arabian steed, sheathed his faithful scimitar, rebottled the genie, and threw handsful of golden coins at a grateful populace, before he reached up for the kitchen door latch at Rough Stones and let himself in. The household was already long awake. The fire burned brightly in the dining room, where, by the light of a single candle, John and Nora were eating their breakfast and going over the day's arrangements.

  "Please, m'm," Bess said when she came in to collect their plates. "Young Tommy's come."

  "You can set him to peel the potatoes until I come out," Nora said. And then, turning back to John, added: "And while we're away in Manchester he can clean out the shed down at Deanroyd. For the tommy shop. Will Whitaker be around?"

  "Whitaker or Fernley."

  "They can see to him. And I'll set him some reading. And some letters to do a hundred of. Keep him out of mischief while his mother…until his mother comes."

  Tommy was overjoyed when, at nine o'clock, he was taken down to spend the rest of the day cleaning and scrubbing and whitewashing "his" store. And Nora, watching the solemn, professional way he set out the cloths and brushes, feeling their bristles, and marshalling the soap and pails, before he began, yearned to stoop and kiss him farewell, knowing that she and John might not return until after he had gone home again; but she never displayed such tenderness when others were present, so she contented herself with tousling his thick shock of hair. It seemed to embarrass him even more than a kiss would have done. He was a man down here; a man among the other men. He refused to respond, pretending to be more than ever busy with his various bits of cleaning equipment.

  The coachman was the same as yesterday's. He was very stiff with them, saying pointedly before he let them board, that it would be the full fare for the stage. Nora knew that, had she been alone, the man would have driven on by, pretending not to see her.

  "I must have been a bit fierce yesterday," she said when they had paid their fare and were safe inside. They were the only inside passengers.

  "Slightly."

  "It was nerves," she confessed. "The Thorntons, Rough Stones, first day, everything."

  "It went very well," John assured her—for the tenth time.

  "I think she liked the furniture we've hired."

  "More than that," John said, and there was a cautionary note in his voice. "I thought I detected just a faint trace of envy there. She knows that in terms of income we've steamed far ahead of them and will always be so."

  "That or bankrupt." Nora laughed. "Anyway, our move will at least delight His Reverence, the Church of England."

  "Yes," John sighed. "His Reverence. For two whole days I had almost forgotten His Reverence."

  "What do we do about him?" she asked more seriously.

  He shook his head. "Play him on…make excuses…dare him to bring it all down in ruin about us—not in so many words, to be sure, not an open challenge. I think, come March, come April, we may just have enough to tempt Mr. Chambers. It's a thin hope, I know."

  She said nothing for a long while; it did not have the sound or the feel of a winning strategy. For the first time, she glimpsed a real possibility that Prendergast might be driven beyond the borders of his tolerance; wounded vanity might outrun even his monstrous sense of self-interest. For the first time, she seriously contemplated the prospect of ruin and jail for them both.

  She shivered. "A lot depends on our shop," she said, thinking aloud.

  "Aye," he agreed. "If profit on it is good, it might tip the balance up in London. And anyway, it's a good reason to give Prendergast as to why our capital's shrunk and why we've not had time to do the books up to date. That's what I mean. We must play him week by week."

  The Wholesale Produce Mart behind St. John's had had one of the busiest mornings of its year, what with the two idle days of Christmas behind it and the weekend to come. Charley Eade was in the middle of a gigantic stretch and yawn when, through the watering of his eyes, he saw what looked like the girl whose disappearance had plagued his nights and frayed his days until well into the autumn. He shook his head and wiped the yawn-water away; it was a lady. But dammit, it was the girl, too! It was that girl…Nora!

  "Nora!" he said.

  "Mrs. Stevenson to you, Charley."

  "Oh! Hark at you!" he sneered.

  She was as cocky as ever. Well, she'd not escape so easily this time. He looked around. No one with her. Where the hell was that boy? Send him for the Connally brothers…

  She stared at him as if she read his every thought.

  "You've found some fancy man," he said.

  Young Tony came back carrying a pail he had just filled at the pump outside. "Look 'oo's ere," Charley said to him—adding out the side of his month: "Get the Connallys."

  "'Ello luv," Tony called to her and, grinning as broad as Judas, left to do Charley's bidding.

  Nora's continued smile made Charley increasingly uneasy. She picked over the fruit and vegetables that remained on the stall, leaving them in disarray. He fussed after her, straightening out the display. She was doing it deliberately; she knew enough of the business to realize that. Thank God trade was virtually over for the day; this time he could deal with her properly.

  "You're asking for trouble," he said.

  "No I'm not, Charley," she told him brightly. "I'm asking for ten per cent."

  He snorted.

  "You still milking Coulter and Co for six and two thirds?" she asked in the same light tone.

  He laughed in astonishment. "You must be mad," he said. "You…this is…" His voice tailed off as he saw John join her.

  "John," she said. "This is Mr. Charley Eade I've told you so much about."

  John nodded; Eade stared at him open mouthed.

  "Charley, I want you to meet my husband, John Stevenson. Contractor for Summit Tunnel to the Manchester and Leeds Railway."

  Charley swallowed and licked his lips, looking nervously from one to the other of them.

  "That's what we want to talk about, Mr. Eade," John said. "We've got a thousand men and their families out there and we're not satisfied about the food they're getting and the money they have to pay for it."

  "We think we can supply better and cheaper," Nora said. "We can manage the better. And we're looking to you to manage the cheaper."

  By now Charley was totally confused. Feeding a thousand men…that he understood. At that point, he had prepared his mind to consider a plain business proposal. Now there was this word "cheaper" and the sweet smile on the face of that young bitch. And the big fellow. He looked a bloody sight too useful. By God, those Connallys should hurry.

  Nora, too, was feeling nervous. This was the moment she ought to hand over a bit of paper to Charley Eade. She and John had composed its contents the previous night, after the Thorntons had left. It read as follows:

  9,000 lb of beef, viz: aitchbone, mouse round, hock, thick flank and udder fat, thin flank, brisket, clod, shin—to average not above 4d a pound

  and maximum ............£150 21,200 lb of potatoes, to cost maximum ............ £24. 10s

  250 lb of tea, to cost maximum ......................... £43

  1,000 lb of sugar (red), to cost maximum .......... £27. 10s

  500 savoy cabbages, to cost maximum ............... £3. 12s. 6d £248. 12s. 6d. advance 10% £24. 17s. 3d. balance (in 7 days) £223. 15s. 3d.

  Prices to include delivery to Oldham Road station and loading on Stevenson's wagons.

  In her view, to hand this over to Charley Eade was like asking him to cheat them. Suppose he could get the meat at 3 5/8d but persuaded the wholesale butcher to invoice at 4d—it would
leave them £14. 1. 3 to split. Even a difference of 1/8d was £4. 13. 9—tempting enough for anybody.

  But John pointed out that whether Charley Eade cheated them was neither here nor there. Nora would be coming to market once a week—twice, sometimes— and she'd see the prices being asked. It would soon become clear whether there was a pattern of deception. That was the important thing, not the occasional light-finger exercise. They had to remember their own main interest: bringing back most of the wage to delay the cash on its natural course. They knew the price they could get. They knew the profit they wanted—part of it in well-fed, contented workers rather than in cash. They knew their costs, more or less. And so they knew the maxima they could pay for each item. To have any kind of an agent was asking to be swindled; all they had to do was to encourage him to keep the final prices below the maxima.

  "Cheaper?" Charley said. "How d'ye mean—cheaper?"

  "We're starting a tommy shop, Charley," Nora said. "Only it's not for tommy rot. This is our own workers and we've no interest in a man with bellyache or the squits or too starved to graft hard. This is best-quality tommy. And to get the keenest price, we, Mr. Stevenson and myself, have determined to come to Manchester, to Charley Eade. My old friend, who'd have good cause to see us well."

  "Good cause?" Charley laughed nervously, looking at John, who seemed to be losing interest; he stood a little way off and picked out some apples with care.

  "A thousand pound a month, Charley. Twelve thousand pound between now and this time twelve month. That's what we aim to put through this market— with your help. You see, Charley, there's no way I can get in here early enough, and I'd not want to stop overnight just so's I could be here first covers off. So we need a purchasing agent. That's when I thought of you."

  Charley, beginning to relax now, beginning to feel less threatened, took a step or two in John's direction, picked up an apple for himself and returned to her. Narrowing his eyes in the hope of seeming more astute, he bit the apple and, while his teeth mashed its wet, crisp flesh, said: "What's there for me?"

  "Before I tell you that, you must know it's only five commodities we're seeking here—two of them off this stall. So you've only meat, tea, and sugar to seek elsewhere. For that little service, we'll guarantee you forty-six shilling a week, but"—and here she produced the paper—"here's me first shopping list. Look at those limits, Charley. Every penny you save, every penny you get under those limits you may keep seven-eighths of—if the total saving exceeds the guarantee. D'ye follow?"

  "Ye mean I may have forty-six shillin' or seven-eighths of the savin' on these figures, whichever's the greater?"

  Nora smiled and turned to John. "Didn't I say? Where understanding of his own best interest is concerned, there's no man in Manchester quicker than Charley Eade!"

  "It's beginning to seem that way," John answered.

  Charley, evidently deciding it could do no harm to go further into the offer,

  now threw his arms open in a widely expansive gesture. "Meself," he said. "I was just goin' to the Duke o' Bridge-water. There's a good tally o' private bars there where we may conclude any business. What do you say to that? Some hot toddy on such a raw day eh?"

  Nora nodded. "Lead on," John said.

  Charley took his cash box and locked the little cubicle that served as his office. He left a porter to repack his displays. "You like apples, sir?" he asked John.

  "I like these," John said.

  So Charley told the porter to take a box up to Oldham Road Station for the gentleman. "A good Kentish pippin that," he said. "You never saw them up here before the railway." He left a card, saying "Duke," hanging from a nail on his door.

  When they were settled in the private bar, warming their hands around cups of toddy, Charley did not quite know how to reopen the subject. He fished out the paper she had given him. "Well," he said. "These prices now…"

  But Nora cut in. Speaking to John, she said: "Remember I told you how quick this Charley is?"

  He nodded, watching Charley intently—much to Charley's discomfort. In the smoke-filled gloom, the pale light that filtered through the cheap glazing of the narrow window did not let one read John's face; in fact, he might almost not be there, sprawled back like that in the darkest corner.

  "All the way over here," Nora went on, "he's been juggling four thoughts. One—how can he argufy us into raising these maximums? Two—is the seveneighths likely to exceed forty-six shilling frequently and by much? Three—what's to stop him making private business with butchers and grocers, copping the difference, or half of it, himself and our guaranteed forty-six?"

  She stopped there, seeming to have finished.

  Charley laughed and waved his hands as a lead-up to his protested innocence of all such thoughts. "You said four," he reminded her.

  She sipped her toddy and looked intently at him. "Number four, Charley, is the answer to the other three. You're wondering why we've come to you. Especially when I know you to be as black a rogue as ever got hisself double dyed. Why you of all people?"

  Again, Charley prepared his protest, but she went straight on: "We've come to you, Charley, because you know something about me, too. You know how long it took me to discover the true extent of your swindle against Coulters…" Charley tried to bank down her voice with his hands, while he looked nervously around at the door, the tops of the partition walls, and other places through which sound might travel.

  "How long was it, Charley?" Nora persisted. "One hour? A little less, I think. Well, I've chosen you because that little discovery has taught you how stupid it would be to try to deceive me. There's no blackmail in this, you'll agree. We're offering a very fair proposal, very advantageous to you without the need to cheat us." She paused. "I'm asking your agreement to that statement, Charley—that we are being fair."

  "Yes," he said, calmly, almost judiciously. "I have to agree to that. These prices and your offer is very fair."

  "Even so, people being what they are," Nora went on, "there would always be the temptation, in anyone else, to seek even greater advantage. That could lead to some very painful lessons, Charley. Very humiliating lessons. Very hard lessons in personal cost. But you already know better than to try cheating us, you see. There's no need for you to learn that lesson twice."

  Charley held up a hand to stop her. Now that her intention was plain, and now she had denied wanting to blackmail him and given convincing reasons for her denial, he could feel the ground firm beneath him once more. It was, as she had said, straight business, regular business, profitable business, and money as good as guaranteed. Unless some little loophole struck him, it looked as if she was right, too, about the folly of trying to cheat her. It was neat. You had to admire it. He could not really believe that the honest course was actually the most profitable one as well—that would be flying in the face of nature. But, for the moment, it seemed so. And, for the moment, he'd tread that path. Her only weakness, as far as he could see, was the lack of muscle behind her threat—or, since she had not actually made a threat, behind any that she might make.

  "I see your meaning clearly," he said and rubbed his hands. "There have been few moments in my life when I could put my hand on my heart and say the honest way pays, but it really looks like this is one. Nora—shake on it. Bargain's strucken."

  Nora did not take his hand. "Mrs. Stevenson to you, Charley."

  He waved a circle of good-natured apology. "Mrs. Stevenson. Strucken?" She took his hand then and shook it warmly.

  "Strucken!" Then, with a slow smile, her eyes not leaving his, she added: "What'll ye tell the Connallys?"

  "Connallys?" His surprise was very convincing.

  "Pat and Paddy. If I'm not mistaken, it's them outside now."

  "Eee!" He appeared to search his memory. "I've not seen them while…eee!" But he did not specify the term. "Do you know Pat and Paddy then?"

  She was about to say that John did—as John had told her to—when the Connallys burst in. They were dressed exac
tly as they had been in August, right down to the spotted blue bandana. Charley was about to call the pair of them off but they, eager to earn back their reputation with him, and whatever fee was offered, crowded Nora at once. Pat, the elder, grasped her chin between thumb and forefinger and jerked her face up. "Oh—laydee!" he said with smiling menace.