God is an Englishman

by R. F Delderfield

  Musing thus, it occurred to Sam that he knew less about her than he knew of some of his hands, and he put this down to the fact that he had never recovered from the shock that she had not only had the gall to be the wrong sex but had, in arriving, killed his Irish wife, Cathy, thus depriving him of a chance to correct the error.

  His memory, so accurate concerning matters of business, retained little of Cathy now. He saw her as a willowy girl who had caught his eye during a visit to the docks at Merseyside, one of innumerable refugees from the first of the Irish potato famines in the thirties. He found her sitting on a tin trunk looking extraordinarily composed in the midst of the dock turmoil, and, for a reason that he could not, for the very life of him, recall at this distance, she had made him laugh so that he had whisked her off and fed her with the intention of seducing her as soon as he had concluded his business with a Levantine skipper. But although she had eaten what had seemed to him an enormous amount of beef, cabbage, and Lancashire cheese, she had laughed in his face when he had proposed she should settle the bill upstairs and had offered, instead, to wash his shirt that had been soiled by the Levantine's tarry cordage. He must have been in exceptionally high spirits on that particular trip—perhaps he got the better of the Levantine in the matter of freightage—for her impudence had made him laugh again and he proposed that she accompany him back to Warrington in his dogcart. Surprisingly she had agreed, and had even entertained him with sad Gaelic songs all the way home. Searching his memory for further fragments of the brief association he recalled now that Mrs. Worrell, his cook-housekeeper, had taken a liking to her, and it was probably the cook's remonstrances that had prevented him from turning her loose to fend for herself when she rejected his renewed advances with contemptuous good humour. Why, in God's name, had he decided to marry the girl? Had it been an impulse, related to the acquisition of Seddon Moss about that time and the need to establish himself among the conventional businessmen of a settled community? Had that snivelling priest who called on him to discuss the girl's future dented his self-sufficiency? Had he grown impatient with the need to go out and find a woman whenever he wanted one? Had he married out of fear of catching a venereal disease, or was it a subconscious groping after some form of permanence in the pattern of his life? He had never had time to find out. When, after a month or so she told him that she was pregnant, he was jubilant, and when they told him that she was dead he was furious, feeling himself to have been the victim of a complicated practical joke of the kind the wild Irish were always playing on their betters. To an extent the experience had sobered him and he had gone his own way, using people and discarding them but following a policy of keeping his private frolics to a minimum. There remained, however, Henrietta, and suddenly, a little surprisingly, she was a capital asset.

  He got up, stretched his clumsy limbs, slapped a midge or two, and stumped off towards the house, a tall, thickset, bull-necked man with thinning hair grey at the temples and the heavy florid features that go with sensuality and a refusal to suffer fools gladly.

  3

  Mrs. Worrell, as round as a bolster and crimson in the face after her exertions over the range in the airless kitchen, told him that Henrietta was somewhere about and he was to get out of her way if she was expected to prepare dinner for four at short notice. Alone among his seven hundred employees she could bully him, aware that a woman who could control staff, run a large, rambling house, and cook three wholesome meals a day was all but indispensable to a widower. Apart from that she was the only one among them that had known him when he was another man's servant, and over the years they had adjusted to one another. He went out, across the hall and up the broad staircase, calling his daughter by name.

  She answered from her quarters at the end of the corridor, an octagonal room representing one of the turrets in reverse and he went in without knocking.

  She was standing in front of a full-length mirror trying on a new green dress, and the sight of her, as she stood with her back to him absorbed in her task, gave him a moment to study her reflection and come to terms with her as a young woman, rather than a dumpy, imperious child. She was wrestling petulantly with the tough wire cage of a crinoline designed for a smaller waist and narrower buttocks. Her dilemma amused him, but it also offered him a sliver of satisfaction, for he had no patience with this eternal preoccupation among both men and women for seventeen-inch waists that demanded the torture of whalebone corsets. When he put his arm around a woman he liked to feel flesh, not armour-plating, and he had always thought of the crinoline as a monstrous contrivance designed, he wouldn’t wonder, to keep men at a safe distance. He said, tolerantly, “Where’d tha’ buy that dam’ silly thing, lass?” and she said, over her shoulder, “At Arrowsmith's, and it fitted when I tried it on. It's the first dress I’ve ever bought from a shop. Mrs. Worrell's niece sews for me and comes up time and again for fittings.”

  “Keep it that way,” he said, “for tha’ll get diddled every time tha’ set foot in Ned Arrowsmith's premises.”

  She made no comment on this, and when he crossed to the window she continued to ignore him. She was not, he reflected, in the least like other men's daughters, who fussed and fumed and fretted in a man's presence, even that of their fathers and brothers. She always treated him as though he was a casual acquaintance, or even a servant, and now that he thought about it she had always had some approximation of this attitude towards him, as though he was a useful piece of furniture, or a carriage horse awaiting her pleasure. It disconcerted him, but deep down he admired her for at least it argued that she had inherited his independence and was unlikely to become anyone's fool. His mind returned again to Makepeace Goldthorpe, and he thought “By God, if anything does come of it there's no doubt who’ll wear the britches!” and said, by way of a preamble, “Matt Goldthorpe and his son are supping here this evening.”

  “Mrs. Worrell told me. She said I was to help out with them.”

  “Aye, that's so.” Her acceptance of the rarely demanded duty of hostess pleased him. She was, he decided, more like a man in her ability to grasp essentials without a lot of tiresome explanation and suddenly he wanned towards her, watching her movements in the mirror with an almost affectionate contempt.

  “Eh, lass, let me lend a hand with that damned contraption. The neck of that birdcage needs stretching. It were made for a lass wi’ nowt to tak’ hold of.” He lifted the wire over her head as she let fall the voluminous green folds, revealing her frilled pantalettes that he thought of as women's reach-me-downs and a corset that was laced so tightly that her chubby behind jutted beyond its rim like a ledge and pushed her rounded breasts half out of her camisole. He addressed himself to bending the master wire outward, giving the cage an overall extension of over an inch in circumference while she walked unconcernedly to the wardrobe and shrugged herself into a flannel gown.

  The room, he noticed, was in disarray. Garments, packing paper, and ribbons were strewn about, and all the rugs were scuffed. Beyond the open door of the wardrobe he could see an array of dresses, cloaks, and boots, and a compartment at the top full of hats. It occurred to him that he must have paid for all that clutter and also that Mrs. Worrell's niece was probably making a damned good thing out of Henrietta's patronage, but he didn’t resent it. She was his property and there was no reason why he should object to reinvesting a little of his profits in one of his assets. He had not come here with the idea of sounding her out, but now it seemed advisable to know where they stood in relation to Matt Goldthorpe's suggestion. Never having acquired the least finesse in the matter of striking bargains he went straight to the point.

  “That son of Goldthorpe's, Makepeace, the eldest one. He's sweet on you, lass.”

  Her head came up sharply, trapping a ray of the afternoon sun in a cluster of copper ringlets. Before today, before he had begun to think about her as a marriageable woman, it would have taxed him to state the colour of her hair, but now he saw it as one of her selling points. The new dress, and the ca
refully arranged clusters of ringlets worn over each ear, suggested that she was as interested in her personal appearance as all young women growing up out of reach of the looms, and it struck him that she might find a certain amount of satisfaction in what she saw in that long mirror. There was a word almost everybody about here used for a woman like her, but momentarily it escaped him. Then it came to him, a word from over the Pennines. Gradely. Her sharp reaction to his mention of the Goldthorpes, however, had put him on guard so that he was not surprised when she said, “That Goldthorpe boy? The one with the droopy moustache who spits when he opens his mouth?”

  He chuckled. “Nay, lass, his stammer's nowt to worry about. He’ll get over that the minute he walks into Matt Goldthorpe's pile, and he’ll get pretty near all of it. The Goldthorpes think of themselves as gentry, and gentry don’t divide the brass the way our folk do. It all goes to t’eldest lad.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she said, carefully, “Is that why Mr. Goldthorpe is bringing Makepeace over here?”

  “No,” Sam said, “Goldthorpe's coming here to look you over himself, for I’ve never known Matt to buy a pig in a poke.”

  The colour that came to her face made him regret his choice of phrase. He had, as he himself would have put it, “sounded out” far too many prospects not to sense undeclared opposition to a proposition, and he now made a serious effort to improve his approach.

  “You can leave the old ’un to me,” he said. “All tha’ll need to do is give t’lad a little encouragement. He's no oil-painting, I’ll grant you that, and he's still fast under his father's thumb, but the old man won’t make brittle bones from all I hear. When Makepeace walks into his father's brass he’ll be t’best catch about here, tak’ my word for it!”

  She was staring at him now, and the grimness of her expression puzzled him. “Makepeace is coming here to propose to me?”

  He said, sharply, “Great God, it's not got as far as that yet! All I know is you’ve caught the boy's eye and he's mentioned as much to his father. That must mean business, otherwise I can’t see young Makepeace screwing up that much nerve.”

  “We met at the Victory Ball in the Assembly Rooms last autumn,” she said, slowly, “we danced together. Twice. Did his father tell you that?”

  “No, he didn’t, he just asked if you were spoken for, or likely to be.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I said you weren’t, and if any young spark came calling he’d do it through me or I’d kick his backside from here to the Mersey!”

  He had an uncomfortable impression that he was being forced on to the defensive and made an effort to regain the initiative. “I say nowt to you capering round the Assembly Rooms,” he growled, “so long as Mrs. Worrell was within call, but when it comes to a serious business of this kind I’ll decide what's best for you, and don’t get to thinking different.”

  “No,” she said, in the same flat tone, “but don’t you or that old miser Goldthorpe get any daft ideas about marrying me off to Makepeace or anyone like Makepeace! When I wed I’ll wed a man, not a toad with a stutter and a clammy touch that makes me want to jump into the bathtub when he's had his paws on me. Now give me that cage and let me get dressed.”

  He was so astounded that for a moment he could do no more than put the frame into her outstretched hand. It was years since anyone had dismissed him in that tone of voice and the few who had had lived to regret it. He said, heaving his bulk away from the casement, “You can tak’ your time with Goldthorpe, but who and when you wed is something I’ll decide, the same way as any man in my position would.” A sudden suspicion crossed his mind and came near to frightening him. “If there's any other young buck who fancies his chance of walking into my money…” but she turned her back on him and stepped nimbly into the enlarged hoop so that he found himself not only hectoring a reflection but being interrupted by one.

  “There's no one else! If it's any comfort to you I’ve never met a man I could marry,” and somehow, because he entirely believed her, the sense of outrage left him and again he made shift to soften his approach.

  “Listen here, lass,” he said, so reasonably that his tone of voice surprised him, “I don’t pretend to be gentry, and I’m not a man to hound a lass into wedlock for brass and nowt but brass, but it's time you realised you’re in t’market and put a price on yourself. I hadn’t decided on young Goldthorpe in particular. It was his father who made the approach. But if it's not Goldthorpe it will be someone in Goldthorpe's bracket, for in my book brass marries brass, make no mistake about that. It's no secret round here how much I can call on if I’ve a mind to, or that having no lads I’m likely to settle something substantial on you when we’ve picked our man. Keep young Makepeace on a string if you have to. Maybe that's the right game to play for a spell, but when he comes here tonight you’ll be civil to him, and mighty civil to the old man, if only because he's my ground landlord. Dammit, I’ve got troubles enough, and you’ve no call to add to them so long as you expect me to pay for what's in that wardrobe!”

  He paused then, half-hoping for some conciliatory word or gesture on her part, but none came. She clipped the cage about her, hitched it once or twice, and slowly drew the flounces of sprigged muslin level with her waist.

  Deciding that nothing would be gained by pressing her any further at this stage he clumped as far as the threshold, but here, feeling the honours remained with her, he turned and stood biting his underlip, finally adding, “After we’ve eaten, the old man will want to talk. When you get the nod from me tak’ t’lad outside, do you hear?”

  “They can hear in the kitchen,” she said, and gave the bell of her skirt a pert little undulation that struck him as being the equivalent of a street urchin's gesture of derision. It was only then, notwithstanding her attitude throughout the interview, that he realised his daughter might prove as stubborn as the hard-core troublemakers who had absented themselves from the latest deputation.

  4

  The meal, a culinary success, did nothing to ease the tensions a malevolent set of circumstances had combined to exert on Sam Rawlinson throughout the hours leading up to the climax of a discouraging day. There was the news that Joe Wilson, his overseer, brought him from the town about five, of operatives in a truculent mood and the certainty of the mass meeting hitherto dismissed as a bluff. There was Henrietta's hostile attitude towards him and his half-formed decision to accept Goldthorpe's offer of an alliance. There was the unexpected formality that the Goldthorpes, father and son, introduced into the house from the moment their coachman (Goldthorpe, too mean to employ a trained man, hired beery ostlers from the livery stable when he did not drive himself) deposited them on the front steps. And as if this was not enough to put a man off his meat and claret, there was his confoundedly constricting three-inch collar that he felt obliged to wear as an acknowledgement of the solemnity of the occasion.

  One of the disadvantages of growing rich and moving up in society, he decided, was the necessity to encumber yourself with frock coats, stovepipe hats, punishing boots, and, above all, that circlet of respectability about the neck that any well-ordered society would have reserved for felons.

  Notwithstanding these preoccupations he set himself throughout the meal to dissipate the old man's gloom concerning the mood of the strikers, the Goldthorpes having passed knots of operatives making their way to the meeting. Makepeace, stuttering with glee that was the privilege, he supposed, of a man who did not have to deal with any opposition worse than defaulting tenants, had declared that the men had looked menacing and that one had shouted after the carriage, guessing its destination. Sam told them that Wilson had made his report and promised to ride out here again if there were further developments. He added that the police had been alerted and could call, if necessary, upon reinforcements from Manchester, but old Goldthorpe, damn him, went on to imply that he, Rawlinson, was putting the work forces of other employers in jeopardy by refusing to capitulate to the last deputat
ion, and that the militants among them would now have plenty of brickbats to use at the meeting.

  “You should ha’ played for time, man, you should ha’ promised to think it over,” he muttered, scratching at his plate like a famished old cockerel. “If they were ready to go back on their demands it was a back-down, wasn’t it? This lockout of yours is going to cost me a pretty penny before it's over. More than half of them live under my slates.”

  Had it not been necessary to mollify the old skinflint and divert attention from Henrietta's glacial detachment, he would have reminded Goldthorpe that he was fighting every employer's battle, and also that anyone living under a Goldthorpe roof was liable to get a wet shift when the dry spell ended. As it was he was obliged to go into the details of his long-term strategy. He was only partially relieved by Makepeace's enthusiastic espousal of his cause, dictated, no doubt, by that young man's determination to squirm into Henrietta's good graces. Listening to him endorsing the policy of implacability, he could understand the lad's eagerness to demolish the barrier Henrietta had raised the moment she came floating down the stairs in that new green dress of hers. He was learning more than he had bargained for about his daughter when he had lounged into the house to discuss the prospect of marriage, never having realised she was so akin to him in temperament. She had, not beauty exactly, but a rare, eye-catching poise and prettiness in that decanter of a dress, and under it a figure likely to make a lustier man than Makepeace lick his lips. The last time he had looked at her consciously she had seemed no more than a fresh-complexioned schoolgirl, with a flat chest, an awkward legginess, and a mop of coppery hair, and here she was ladling out sherry trifle like an artful and mature woman, trained to keep men guessing about what she looked like when she stepped out of that birdcage clamped to her waist. In the soft shine of the table-lamp her eyes looked as green as bottleglass, and her neck, short though it was, was perfectly proportioned to a pair of wide, down-sweeping shoulders. Sitting there, saying nothing, yet otherwise playing a hostess to perfection, she struck him as a study in pink and white and green that was the only cool and composed element in that airless room, and understandably that cold fish of a Makepeace did not know what the devil to make of her. As for the old man, he was senile enough to behave towards her with the circumspection he might have accorded a young duchess with money to invest in one of his shadier projects, and Sam decided that here, perhaps, was the sole rewarding aspect of the evening, the fact that his daughter had made a deep impression on the richest old badger in Seddon Moss. It was surely time to begin drawing up articles before Makepeace began to look elsewhere.