World From Rough Stones

by Malcolm Macdonald

  "And Tommy," he said, warily. "Tha'llt not conserve thy grief? Tha'llt give it rein?"

  She nodded. "Nay but tha were reet," she said. "An' I were wrong. We shouldn't ought to have meddled. I were wrong to send her to work. To tak him here. We should've sent them ten bob a week and…" She shrugged.

  "And abandoned them?" he said. "Let the Royal Mails be their best link with humanity? Never! Ye don't mean it."

  "Meddlin' with others' lives is wrong," she answered. "Just because we've gotten money. Money doesn't convey such a right."

  He sensed then that she needed some just cause for guilt to help her overcome her grief; there would be little point in trying to argue her from this stand yet a while. "'Appen," he said, in a tone that begged to differ. "You call it a right. I'd call it a duty. And in a truly just society all rights and all duties merge into one unavoidable responsibility."

  She looked cannily at him then. "You and that Mr. Fielden! The man will have ye in Parliament yet."

  He was glad that she could say anything that looked brightly forward—even such nonsense as that.

  Chapter 38

  When, on Thursday, they heard that Metcalfe was not to be released on licence for the funeral, Nora at once suggested that Tommy's body should be embalmed sufficiently to preserve it over the ten days that remained before the father's sentence was served. To her surprise, John strongly, almost vehemently, opposed the notion.

  "It looks like a confession of responsibility…as if we think we owe it to the Metcalfes," he said, though that was not the real cause of his opposition; he wanted an early occasion for corpse and grief and memory to be buried.

  "But…" Nora faltered. For of course it was precisely such a responsibility and such a debt that oppressed her. This impasse threatened to separate guilt from grief and to give each its independence.

  His spirits fell as he saw how she struggled between the impulse to nurse her guilt and the contrary urge to confess it; and the thought occurred to him that although the immediate funeral might console her grief, the postponement until Metcalfe's release would better assuage that more stubborn sense of guilt. He resigned from the decision. "Let the mother determine it," he said.

  Midmorning brought Beth and her mother, dressed for the expected funeral. As soon as Nora put the suggestion to Mrs. Metcalfe she regretted it. The pair had come to Rough Stones braced for the ordeal and welcoming the release it would bring. The momentum of their expectations almost carried the mother to a decision for an immediate funeral. Yet there was a gleam in her eye that Nora at once recognized: a savage gleam of proffered revenge.

  Nora remembered how, when her little sister Dorrie had died of fever and loss of blood, after the rats had savaged her, and when, only days later she had come home from the mill to find that Tom o' Jones's boar had killed and devoured her youngest brother, Wilfrid, leaving only an arm to bury, one of her first, grief-stricken reactions had been to wish for some way of sending their wretched remains out to Daniel in his Australian penal colony. How desperately she had wanted some means to inflict her outrage upon him and heap him with it. So she understood, perhaps even better than Mrs. Metcalfe herself, why the other finally decided for a postponement—and why the decision was made with such quiet satisfaction.

  But vengeance of that petty order is not easy to sustain. Nora, a year earlier, had not even been able to send Daniel a cutting from the Manchester Guardian, which had carried a paragraph baldly summarizing the coroner's findings that no one was particularly to blame for the deaths. So, too, when the day of the funeral came, Mrs. Metcalfe was as confirmed in her grief and as grateful for her Tom's support as the most devoted of wives and mothers.

  That last day of February shivered with the false promise of spring. Bare branches stirred in a gentle breeze, gleaming robustly in the sun as if by afternoon they might burst forth in buds of green. Fields and headlands, after a rainless week, put off their sodden winter darkness and tempted the bolder farmers to mend their ploughs and patch up their big harnesses. A light powder scattered from hoofs and wheels passing and repassing along the turnpike, foreshadowing the dust devils of high summer. Only down the thickset, overhung lanes and dank in the shades of ditches, where mud lay clogged and water gurgled crisp and cold as it drained, only there was winter's reign unbroken still.

  The earth had been heaped from Tommy's grave before that earlier, postponed interment. Already its appearance was that of an ancient mound, smoothed by rain, cracked by frost, and smoothed again. Nora wished the sexton had roughened and freshened its surface for today's ceremony; its smoothness and the erosion of its feet gave it the semblance of a mountain. Indeed it seemed a prodigious quantity of earth to pile upon so small and frail a body.

  Though a hundred or more awaited the interment outside, only a handful went into the church for the service—the Metcalfes, the Stevensons, Findlater and the other Chartists, Hope, Burroughs, and a number of the Summit navvies and tradesmen. The young boys who bore the coffin and pall, sons of Metcalfe's fellow-bricklayers, were also there.

  Prison had changed Metcalfe—not merely in such obvious ways as his gaunt frame and haggard face, but also in a new shiftiness about his eyes and a permanent air of nervous apprehension. His dignity had been laid waste. The man who shouted defiance at John Stevenson at the trial, and who ruefully but goodhumouredly smiled at the shouted reply of "better combination," had been broken, or so it seemed. The wreck of him shuffled in an off-the-treadmill gait down the aisle, looking to neither side, avoiding every eye. Even when Findlater reached out and squeezed his arm, he passed on with scarcely a nod, still not raising his eyes.

  Stevenson was shocked to see what the new silent prisons could do to a man. The old, rowdy, anarchic houses of correction might have brutalized and degraded the body, but they had never so quenched the spirit. Throughout the long service he stared at Metcalfe's listless back, hoping for some sign of that old truculent confidence and finding none.

  The curate spoke endlessly of death and sin, never once mentioning Tommy, never even hinting that it was a child they were committing into the care of eternity. If he had gone on a minute longer, Nora would have stood and thrown a hymnbook at him. John, sensing her mood, patted her clenched fist and whispered: "Look at Findlater."

  She turned slowly and saw that the Methodist's face was fixed in a mask of bloodless fury. She was glad her mood was shared—indeed, looking around she could see no expression there of solemn and composed agreement. Most were coldly angry at the irrelevant and platitudinous homily they were being forced to endure. The energy and relief with which they went out of doors for the interment was almost unseemly.

  But out there, the cleric was reduced to his proper dimensions—an ill-thriven cold-heart, posturing beneath an infinite sky and half-drowned by breezes. He became—as indeed he was—an outsider to their collective sorrow, centered now on that tiny polished coffin waiting for its last consignment. Their anger dissipated itself as they faced the solemnity of those last awful rites, now so near at hand.

  To Nora, as that moment approached, it suddenly became clear that no justice had been done to Tommy. They had all been put through a ritual of no especial relevance to him. They might as well have collected every creature that had died in the parish over this last fortnight and heaped it all in beside him for economy's sake. She saw the young bearers and the head carpenter, Shortis, who was officiating here as undertaker, preparing the braid straps for the lowering, and a panic seized her. He must not be left to go in this cold, irrelevant way. Someone must say that it was Tommy in that box and say what manner of person Tommy was. In her agitation, she almost decided to take the office upon herself but, to her relief, she saw that Findlater, also in the second rank of mourners, stood no more than a few paces away.

  Quickly she edged herself to his side. "Findlater," she said. "We can't commit him to Judgement with just this curate's words to go beside him. Someone must speak as to the little lad himself."

&nbs
p; At once she knew that Findlater had been on the verge of the same decision, for he shot her such a look of grateful relief and stepped forth to stand beside the grave, holding out a hand to stay the bearers for a moment. Tom Metcalfe, who had overheard, beamed his gratitude at Nora, who, in thin-lipped embarrassment, returned his smile.

  "By your leave, doctor," Findlater said to the astonished curate, who, looking around the assembled mourners, had the good sense to bide his peace.

  In a style no longer fashionable, Findlater spoke directly to the coffin: "I did not know you well, Tommy. We met but once and you asked me a question that puzzled me then and that continues to puzzle me now. As I went from that meeting I could not but help thinking of the story of Our Lord in the second chapter of Luke, where He astonished the doctors of the Temple with His questions." Then, sensing the outrage stirring in the curate, he added in a slightly querulous tone: "I did not then, nor in all that I have heard of you since, feel any taint of blasphemy in that conjunction of my thoughts. For there was about you, Tommy, a quality that brought to me a deep understanding of Our Lord's injunction to suffer little children to come unto Him. Often in these months past, and of course most especially since your tragic death, I have found my thoughts returning to you, together with those words 'suffer little children.' So, all unknowingly, you have brightened my life with a deeper awareness of the radiant love of God. That is why I have come today, Tommy, and why I am moved to speak this farewell.

  "But I am a mere one, one of a hundred and more, all moved by that same spirit of ineffable sorrow. Perhaps they would not express it in quite these same words, but their inner sense would not be otherwise: A radiance has gone from among us. A direct illumination of God's holy Word has been taken from us. Yet for those of us who have the eyes to perceive and whose hearts are open to accept, you leave behind among us the understanding which, all unknowingly, you brought. God is indeed tender and merciful to us. For though He has taken you and your brightness to Himself, He has left below your dearest gift: a deeper understanding of His ways. For who, knowing you, did not at once also know, and know with a certainty that learned homilies could never impart, what Our Lord meant when He said: 'of such are the Kingdom of Heaven.'"

  Everyone thought Findlater had finished and so began nodding agreement, blowing noses, and wiping their eyes. But he, looking directly at the Metcalfes and the Stevensons, raised his voice and added: "In your life, you united people whom these troubled times might have torn asunder into bitterest hatred. Let us not forget that. Let us not turn back from the kinship you gave us. Let us preserve it and thus honour you."

  He bowed his head in mute prayer. In the silence before the ceremony resumed, Nora's heart exulted. Tommy had been sent off duly and fittingly. It was almost a triumph to see his coffin lowered and hear the closing words of the interment ring out over that silent throng. He did not go to his long home unshriven. The hollow rain of subsoil on the lid of his box was like the applause of a grand finale.

  And at last it was completed. One by one the crowd withdrew, silently to the churchyard gate, then with animated chatter—some even with laughter—as they strode or strolled out along the turnpike to the barn where the funeral meats were to be served.

  At length, only the Metcalfes were left at the graveside; a little way behind stood John and Nora. The sexton, spade in hand, waited respectfully by the church wall, studying one of the windows as intently as if he had never seen it in his life. Tom Metcalfe had lost that air of meek submission he had worn in church, but his dignity was still a mere phantom of its former substance. When he turned and saw them he smiled with a wan and unconcealed surprise. They nodded back, uncertain who should speak first.

  Beth leaned toward her mother and whispered something. With fussy resignation Mrs. Metcalfe led her daughter away, round the back of the church building. Only when they were out of sight did Metcalfe, facing the inevitable, turn again to them and begin to stammer out his gratitude.

  "You must not even think it," Nora said. And to distract him she moved to the graveside to take her own last parting.

  John did not join her. "You certainly must not," he said. "Young Tommy came to mean a lot to Mrs. Stevenson and me. Whatever little we've done was as nothing, for if we'd done less, we'd have hurt ourselves."

  "All the same…" Metcalfe said. He was uncertain how to speak to John.

  "Well…" John looked at the tower and then at the sky. "I expect Shortis has settled up but I just ought to see he's left nowt undone." He turned and left them alone at the grave.

  Nora stiffened at once. Despite her love for Tommy, and the solemnity of the moment, and despite Findlater's eloquent final plea, she could not block out the thought that here was the man who had wished to encompass their ruin. It was hard not to hate.

  "Mrs. Metcalfe's told me of all what you did," he said. "About getting her out the workhouse an'…seein' her straight and all…an' helpin'…" He nodded at the earth, unable to say the name.

  "I know what it's like. Being left…" She answered in as neutral tone as she could muster. She did not look at him.

  "Aye. She told us that an' all. Well…" He sighed. "I'd just say thanks, like. Not wantin' to make it more difficult for thee."

  She stared at the coffin, knowing it would be the last time she or anyone ever saw it; she tried to efface Metcalfe at her side. "God preserve that little spirit," she said quietly.

  He stood bowed and silent as she left. She thought her words might have stung him into tears, for though he was still, he breathed like a sobbing man. She was glad he had heart enough left for it.

  Toward the end of the day, as the afternoon faded to a frosty night, John Stevenson came upon Metcalfe, standing, as chance would have it, in that same bowed and silent attitude near the turnpike gate. The funeral tea was drawing to its close.

  "Tom," he said.

  Metcalfe grunted.

  "What'll tha do now?"

  "I've not given it that much thought."

  "What about America? Make a fresh start of it?"

  "Run away, tha means!"

  Stevenson was heartened to hear the challenge, just a hint of that same old challenge, return to his voice. "I hope jail's not made thee bitter, Tom," he said.

  "I'll go back down south I think."

  "Tha could do well by thissen. These are champion days for men of enterprise."

  Metcalfe snorted a single, despairing laugh, shook his head, and sucked a tooth.

  "What's that to say?" Stevenson asked.

  "Tha'llt never change."

  "And thou? I'd hoped thy time on Jacob's ladder'd bring thee to a better comprehension of this world and Tom Metcalfe's place in it."

  "Th'union's still our lodestar, if that's what tha'rt on about."

  "Which union, lad? Tha talks as if there's nobbut the one." Metcalfe stared morosely at the reddening sky, not deigning to answer.

  Stevenson pressed on, wanting to test him for any new weakness in resolve, any undermining of that once-implacable faith. "Eay—I wish sometimes I were in manufactures."

  Metcalfe turned to him in surprise. "You?" he asked.

  "I'd know what to do with unions there!"

  "Same as here—smash 'em."

  "Would I?" Stevenson sneered. "I tell thee: If I was Fielden or any o' these other mill masters, I'd not let any man or woman through't gates as weren't in a union. Bible."

  Metcalfe stared at him, frankly incredulous. "And in the Horse Marines, too, I've no doubt," he said at last.

  "Tha'rt blind, Tom. Blind. Tha thinks all masters are't same and act as one. And tha thinks't union's like one Leviathan operative—all power delivered in one mighty fist."

  The image seized Metcalfe's imagination and his eyes burned red with light borrowed from the falling day. "Aye!" he breathed.

  Stevenson laughed. "Eeee! Tha'st that much to learn o' human nature! Listen—tha'llt hear owt for free. Hast tha heard this word bureaucracy?"

  "Nay."


  "It's a paradise for clerks. And it's what thy union'd turn itsen into."

  "Never!"

  "I guarantee it. Give me a big mill and compel every hand into a union, and inside a year I'd get fifty committees goin'. I'd weave rings round't likes o' thee. I'd get committees for carders, committees for doffers, for strippers, for grinders, for sheet-loom minders, patchers, spindle-shank turners, twelve-hour men, floor sweepers…I'd find fifty classes under that one roof. Fifty different workin' classes to shove and elbow one another. Inside five years, there'd be that many committees goin, I'd be able to drag wage negotiations out best part o' six months. Easy!"

  Metcalfe was trembling with anger. "Never! Th'union'd never let thee! Th'union'd stop it."