The Iron Master

by Jean Stubbs

  He seized a handful of earth and stone and wrapped it carefully in his scarlet kerchief, as though it had been precious stuff instead of waste matter. Then the glory of discovery burst upon him, and he gave a great shout which sent small creatures scuttling for cover. But a jay answered him with its harsh screech, and seemed to have been personally insulted, for it scolded a long time afterwards as though the peace of its rural precincts had been wantonly destroyed.

  *

  Hannah saw him return home like a drunken man in the failing light, and ran across the field afraid. He was sitting at the table in the kitchen corner, head down upon his arms. She stared at his torn hands and wild hair, his soiled shirt and crumpled coat, and the self-imposed discipline of months left her in an instant. Softly she stepped to his side, touched his shoulder, spoke to him like the part of her he was.

  ‘Eh, whatever’s to do, my lad. Wherever have you been?’ He lifted up his head and smiled at her.

  ‘I’ve found an old ironworks in Belbrook Woods, Hannah.’

  She grasped the implications at once: interested, pleased, and afraid.

  ‘Nay, you’ve never!’ she cried.

  She pulled the other chair out from under the table, and sat opposite him, hands folded in front of her.

  ‘Well, tell us about it,’ said Hannah, encouraging him.

  His narrative tumbled from top to bottom of Belbrook. He told it back to front, and inside out, tripping up on facts, righting himself half a dozen times in his exultation. She could not have understood very much, but she listened attentively, marking his story with little movements of mouth and brow; watching him talk as she watched him eat, with quiet satisfaction. So that he saw the situation in a calmer light, and rubbed his head ruefully, and laughed at himself, even as he believed in its possibilities.

  ‘There’s not much I can do about it though, my lass. It’d take a year to clean the site. Then there’s the mending and rebuilding and replacing. I don’t know who owns it, or whether they’d lease me the land. And if it’s worth summat then there’s richer folk than me’ll be after it. But I’d give my back teeth to have a try at it. I would, my lass. I would.’

  She pursed her mouth and nodded her head, thinking. Then rose briskly.

  ‘Take what’s left of that shirt off your back,’ she said. ‘I’ll brew us some tea and mend the fire. Then while I clean up those scrats and cuts I’ll tell you summat as you didn’t find out.’

  In his weary and exalted state he was content to be cared for, and sat trustfully as she steeped the cloth in hot salty water and applied it to his minor wounds.

  ‘You look as if you’d been pulled through a hedge backwards!’ said Hannah sarcastically, nipping out thorns.

  ‘Nay, I’ve been taking hedges apart, my lass,’ he answered, loving her sharpness and gentleness.

  ‘A good job you weren’t wearing your Sunday suit then. You’d be daft enough to ruin that and all! Ironworks-mad, that’s you, Will Howarth.’

  He twisted round to see her face. She was smiling, but cried, ‘Sit you still!’ and clapped the scalding cloth on his shoulder, so that he shouted.

  ‘They call one ironmaster Iron-mad Wilkinson, Hannah,’ he said.

  ‘That makes two of thee, then. I’ll rub some Self-heal into the worst of these scrats. The rest’ll do by themselves now.’ Utterly content, he let her scold and anoint him.

  ‘I’ll tell thee a tale,’ said Hannah, and he settled like a child in his chair. ‘Years ago, when Abel come courting me, he found that place. Sit you still! Nobody else is fretting for it, as far as I know. It takes somebody like Abel, or thee, to go ferreting after nowt!

  ‘He was lettered, was Abel, and he liked finding things out. He liked to know where things came from, and how folk were, once upon a time. So I can tell thee who owns the land, just like Abel told me.

  ‘Be’brook was a gentleman’s manor, and belonged to a French family called de Quincey who came over with the Norman king, and they had it for two hundred year until the Black Friars came to Wyndendale. Then they gave part of Belbrook to them to build a priory, and it’s still called Belbrook Grange by some round there. These monks were friendly-like. Not shutting themselves up and away from folk. They lived among them and did a power of good. And they cleared the forest and started iron-mining and iron-making. Then a king took against them, and he pulled the priory down and hanged the prior, and that part of Belbrook belonged to the Crown. And folks picked up the stones — like they do when a place is falling down — and used them to build their houses. Abel found stones in many a place that had come from the priory. And it all grew over, and nobody did anything with it.

  ‘Then the Quinceys joined a Catholic plot against the queen that was on the throne, and they lost, and she took that part of Belbrook as well. But she let it go on as it had done. And then there was the wars, and the land belonged to the Protector, but he did nothing different. And then the other king came from over the water, and he was short of money and he sold Belbrook to six gentlemen, four in London and two here. One of them was Lord Kersall — as he was then, like. The other was called Edmund Cotrell and he was betwixt a gentleman and a farmer. But he went down in the world and Lord Kersall went up, and the London gentlemen couldn’t be bothered and they sold out.

  ‘Farmer Cotrell owns that piece where the ironworks is. Abel found that out. And Lord Kersall owns all round it, and he’s wanted to buy up Edmund Cotrell for donkey’s years, but Cotrell won’t sell. He’ll see him — well, Abel said he’d see him damned first. So he might let you lease it, to do Lord Kersall in the eye, as you might say. But he’ll never sell. And if ever you do get it going you canna run it on an island, my lad, you’ll need Lord Kersall so as you’re not boxed up. So think on, and don’t say as I didn’t warn you!’

  William drew a great breath, and caught her hands as she rested them for a moment on his shoulders, and brought them to his lips and kissed them. She pulled away, but not quickly, or in offence.

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ said Hannah. ‘I’ll fetch you a clean shirt. Are you starved?’

  ‘I’m famished, my lass. Let’s have some of that potato pie!’ He twisted round again to see her, saying penitently, ‘I took it out, like you said, and put a bit of muslin over it to keep the flies off. Have you supped yet, Hannah?’

  ‘Nay, I’d only just got back from Boultons when I saw you come.’

  ‘Aye, and I can tell what you’ve been doing since you left here,’ said William, smiling, for they were so close he could detect the scents of food and field. ‘You’ve been brewing beer, and baking bread, and giving Isaac Boulton a hand with the hay. Am I right?’

  She laughed, and he watched her with delight.

  ‘Kettle’s boiling,’ she said, not needing to answer him. ‘I’ll brew tea.’

  ‘Shall you stop a bit, and have some pie wi’ me then?’

  ‘Aye, I might,’ she said lightly.

  For the first time they sat down and ate together. She delicately, as he had imagined she would. He ravenously, as became his appetite.

  ‘You cook as well as our Betty did,’ said William honestly. ‘I know I ought to say you cook better, but I don’t think anybody could.’

  ‘Why should you tell me a lie?’

  ‘Because I want to pay you a compliment.’

  She said nothing, and began to clear their plates away, confused.

  ‘Now I’ll tell you something,’ said William, musing. ‘When you’re vexed or worried you look like anybody else. But when I give you a bit of attention you look bonny, my lass.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ said Hannah again, but without conviction.

  ‘And I’m better-tempered when you’re bonny.’

  She looked about her distractedly, for something which was not there.

  ‘I’ll be off home now, Mr Howarth.’

  ‘If you’re looking for your shawl you never brought it with you,’ said William composedly.

  ‘No more I did!’
She paused. ‘Well, I’ll be off.’

  ‘It’s a grand shawl,’ said William. ‘I think of that shawl as part of you. Did Mrs Boulton give it to you?’

  She stood still, remembering sorrow but not ruled by it.

  ‘I bought it for my Abel’s funeral,’ she said quietly. ‘I had nowt else to show respect. And it covered the rest of my clothes. They wasn’t up to much.’

  They were silent, stripped of all artifice. He came over to her and put his arms round her.

  ‘Oh, it’s not right,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Aye, it is,’ said William.

  End of the Road

  Six

  1792

  Rarely did Hannah spend other than Saturday night with William in the small bedroom over the smithy, but he had been so despairing all the winter day that she hurried across the field after dark to offer consolation. They had lain together in a bed which filled two-thirds of the room, leaving space only for a wash-stand and wooden chair. She listened to his fears. They were only warming each other’s body, and she comforting his heart and strengthening his spirit, for it was no time for lovemaking. Those halcyon days had passed long since in the fierce struggle for the ironworks. They lay in her mind ringed with fire, as became a mortal sin, but honeyed as was the lure of sin. Now, he needed her much as he needed food and sleep, and forgot her afterwards. From time to time he realised the value of her, and loved in repentance, but the physical demands alone of running a forge and clearing a site for four long years had exhausted him. The accumulated worries over Farmer Cotrell’s health, Lord Kersall’s cupidity, and his own unchanging state of finance dragged William’s dreams down to earth, though in the beginning they had soared to heaven.

  ‘I’ll tell thee what I think, Will,’ old Edmund Cotrell had said that fine summer Sunday in ‘87, garrulous over his late wife’s dandelion wine, ‘I think you was sent, in a manner of speaking. Me and the missis had a brood of childer like a flock of chickens, and only two of them come through. Well, the lad went off a-soldiering, a long while back. And the lass wed a foreigner. So the only time I’m like to hear from them is when they’re short of a shilling. Neither of them gives a sow’s squeal for this here farm, as has been in our family for I don’t know how long. They’re waiting for me to push up the daisies, Will, and then they’ll sell up and divide up. And that’s all the use I am to anybody these days. But mark my words! I say, mark my words! There’s life in me for a good few years yet, and if I can do nowt else I can give owd Kersall a run for his money! Aye, you won’t catch me Lording him, Will. My great-grandsirs was as good as his, any day. They stood side by side, bidding for Belbrook, at one time. Bidding for Belbrook, and my grandsir’s money was as good as owd Kersall’s then. I’ll not Lord him, no, no. Have another mugful, lad. It’s a long while since anybody sat drinking wi’ me. The land round here’s not so easy to work. It needs a deal of clearing. Owd Kersall, he’s waiting for me to die. He owns half the valley, tha knows, and leases it and works it.

  ‘I’ll tell thee what I’ll do, lad. I’ll rent that piece of land to you for five year, at the price my grandsir leased it. How’s that for fair dealing? Nine pound, three shilling and fivepence. But I want summat for it. You can keep my oxen shod, and my horses, and do a bit of mending here and there, to help an old man. Aye, and call on me now and again, and give me the time o’ day. Now if you make nowt of it in that time, the deal’s off, and neither you nor me the worst for it. And if you make summat then I shall put the rent up. Aye, aye, you won’t catch me napping at midday, Will. I’m sharp enough for twenty Kersalls. Where’s that there bottle gone? I seed it in front of me, just now … ’

  It had been a hard bargain. Without his family, without Hannah, William could never have weathered those years. His spare time was either after dark, which was no use to him for outdoor work; or the Sabbath, on which he could not work; or public holidays which seemed either to fall in winter months or on rainy days. Stephen, growing daily stronger and more skilful, often minded the forge while William sweated at Belbrook. The men from Kit’s Hill, led by his father Ned and younger brother Dick, would give a day’s labour for nothing but goodwill. Dorcas graciously and very firmly called on Farmer Cotrell, to relieve her son of that penance, for he was a difficult old man. And in that relationship lay the only gleam of comedy, for Dorcas intended to improve Edmund Cotrell, and so dosed him and organised him into outward submission. But the farmer now had a living prey to torment, as well as a phantom enemy, and William paid dearly for every yard of land delivered from the undergrowth.

  And what of Hannah? Between them lay an unspoken understanding that someday they would wed, and make this profane love a sacred commitment, but small things constantly disturbed their peace. Formerly, William had paid her wages into her hand and thought nothing of it. Now he felt awkward, and left them on the corner of the mantelshelf. He still visited his great-aunt and his parents once a month, and those times seemed to be exacted from Hannah. When any member of his family called in on their way to Millbridge, she was treated civilly and even warmly, but not as one of themselves. There was a great part of his life in which she could not figure, and yet she was his main support and encouragement. These matters grieved both of them, but how could they be helped? One day, they thought and sometimes said, one day; though that day was never delineated, only hoped for, and perhaps meant different things to each.

  So on that wintry dawn, early in 1792, Hannah rose first from their bed. Clothes lay in little heaps where they had cast them down the night before. She folded his and donned her own, then slipped out by the backdoor, hurrying along the hedge path in the dark and cold. Though aware of her going, William pretended still to be asleep, and lay watching the dim wall long after the door had closed behind her. He had now paid nearly half his capital in rent, and the five years was up on the first day of August.

  ‘Forty-six pound, twelve shilling and one penny!’ Edmund Cotrell had reminded him at Lammastide. ‘That’s what it’s cost you, my lad, so far, and nowt but rusty iron and rough ground to show for it!’

  As though he were William’s adversary, instead of his landlord.

  ‘We’st come to t’day of reckoning, lad!’

  Oh, may he die in his damned bed! William prayed. And then prayed that Cotrell might live, for if he did not the farm and land and ironworks would go up for auction, and William could not buy them. Miss Wilde, now in her five-and-ninetieth year, had been approached to see if she would lend William money to bribe the farmer’s goodwill and induce him to sell. But she pretended not to understand what was expected of her, and then had young Mr Hurst round and endeavoured to cut William out of her will, which the solicitor managed to avoid — afterwards privately warning Dorcas not to approach the old lady on financial matters, for she grew more capricious with advancing age, and he could not forbid such whims, though he would always endeavour to reason with her. (This interview was, of course, conducted with the utmost circumspection, and the information conveyed to Dorcas by way of a report on her aunt’s health.) Nor would William allow his mother to break into her small annuity of twenty pounds per annum, and Ned was too busy setting good farming years against bad ones to give his elder son more than the strength of his arms and heart.

  Knocking at the smithy door aroused William, and he saw that the watch had been keeping time while he fretted it away. Stephen, now twenty-one years old and recently out of his apprenticeship, was rousing his master.

  ‘Not so good this morning, Mr Howarth?’ said the young man, including William’s mood and the weather in one remark.

  ‘I’ll be with you in a minute, lad. I’ll make us some tea first. What’s to do then?’

  ‘Mr Boulton wants his team shod again. The lady at Brigge House says what about that gate you promised her. They want a new sign at The Weavers Tavern. Jackie Slater’s hoop needs mending, and so does the Cheetham’s ploughshare. And Margery Higginbottom’s youngest has the smallpox, and she says can she come and lay h
im on the anvil while you drive the sickness out with your sledgehammer.’

  William’s silence told him more than words. The kettle slammed down upon the hob.

  ‘I’ll get on wi’ it,’ said Stephen peaceably, ‘dunnot wither thysen!’

  They had changed places. Now Stephen was the youth full of joy and hope, and William grimly enduring. Life had lost its savour, and dreams their ineffable rapture. The day was as dark as his soul. They worked by candlelight and the tallow stank in their nostrils, along with the odours of burning hoof, hot iron and scorched leather. Hannah knew better than to cheer him on, and went about her tasks mutely. Only once, when they were alone for a few minutes after dinner, did she put all her trouble into a gentle comment.

  ‘Eh, my dear lad, I wish I could do summat for thee!’

  He was lad no longer. Lines carved their character beside his mouth which had been soft and full. He had lost his muscular leanness and developed muscular might. He spoke deliberately, moved more heavily. His plumage lacked its lustre.

  ‘Nay, I must take life as it comes,’ said William, without conviction. ‘It was a gamble, my lass. I’d have done the same again.’

  He had bought a great wheel to replace the crumbling monster in the newly dug wheel-pit, and rolled it three miles down the road from Garth to Belbrook. Ten men, a day’s labour. He had bought an iron shaft from Birmingham, to replace the wooden one. Half his capital for rent, the other half for tools and a pitiful amount of materials.

  ‘Shall you have owt left?’ asked Hannah, hands in apron. ‘Myself,’ said William, and went off into the smithy. Normally they would have shut shop at four, for they could not see properly, even with a little forest of candles; but William sent Stephen home and worked doggedly on. Hannah fried up cold beef and onions, and left them in the oven covered with sliced potatoes; and a milk pudding to tempt his appetite. He was glad to be alone, to be let alone, in his small cave full of fire and homely smells. Though the early evening was cold and dank his sweat poured from him. He listened to his anvil as a musician listens to his instrument. Just the two of them, and one inanimate, was all he wanted.