God is an Englishman

by R. F Delderfield

  In here a lamp still burned turned very low. It must have been overlooked during the panic exit of the men from the house. Twitch, scenting the excitement that engulfed the house, pranced along in her wake and she turned up the lamp in order to rummage in the drawers of the desk, recalling that Sam kept a cash-box there for paying out the domestic wages. Most of the drawers were locked, but the one containing the cash-box was open and upending it she realised why. There was no coin of a higher value than a shilling and only two of those. The rest, perhaps about seven shillings in all, was made up of sixpences and coppers. She crammed the coins into her purse and leaving her bags under the window ran back along the passage to the schoolroom, still with the spaniel at her heels.

  It was dark in here but she found the atlas by running her fingers along the bindings of the tattered school books on the shelf beside the fireplace. The dog was now whimpering with excitement, and she hissed, pleading, “Be quiet, Twitch! For heaven's sake, be quiet!” and ran across the room, into the passage and straight against the yielding bosom of Martha Worrell.

  The shock was so great that she cried out in alarm so that Martha Worrell's brawny arms went round her as she said, “I’ve been looking for you, child. You heard about the mill? Everyone's half off their heads, and you’re to spend the night in my lodge…!” but Henrietta broke away, scudding down the passage to the den with Mrs. Worrell in breathless pursuit, until the sight of the luggage piled high on the desk stopped her dead. She hung on the doorpost a moment, gasping for breath. The passage was no more than ten yards long but Martha Worrell weighed seventeen stone. She said, at last, “Where do you think you’re going? Who said to pack those things?” and Henrietta, her back against the window, stared back at her defiantly, as though the housekeeper was the agent of Makepeace Goldthorpe, commissioned to deliver her into bondage. She said, through her teeth, “You can’t stop me, Martha. I won’t stay, you hear? I’m going now, before they come back. They won’t give me a thought with what's going on, and when they do I’ll be gone, I’ll be safe in Ireland!”

  Martha Worrell passed a hand half as big as a ham slowly across her brows.

  “What is it, child? What's to do? For mercy's sake, what's scared you so? Those fools in the town won’t bother wi’ you…” and then, because she had known and handled Henrietta from the moment she was born, she sensed that it was not the riot in the town that had planted that stricken look on the girl's face but some other agency and that in some way it had to do with the ceremonial meal she had cooked for Sam Rawlinson's guests that evening. She said, with a flash of intuition, “Goldthorpe's son? Is it him?”

  There was no help for it now. If she was to get clear in the time left to her Mrs. Worrell would have to be taken into her confidence.

  “He's going to marry me. He says it's been arranged between his father and my father. He wasn’t pretending, he couldn’t have been. He's got a house, The Clough, over at High Barton…”

  “You mean you knew nowt about it? Not until tonight?”

  “Father mentioned it this afternoon but he only said Makepeace might come asking, he didn’t say it was arranged…I won’t marry him, Martha. They can’t make me, can they?”

  Martha Worrell had not kept house for Sam Rawlinson for twenty years without learning how to face facts. “Happen they’ll try,” she said, grimly, and felt the perspiration strike cold under her armpits.

  “What else could I do to stop them? They’ll keep on, they won’t give up. I could see that tonight. It's to do with money, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

  The housekeeper cocked a shrewd eye at her, trying to gauge the difference between a tantrum and hysteria. Then she said, with a whistling sigh, “They’ll try an’ wear thee down, lass, if they’ve already got as far as that. Are you sure about The Clough?”

  “Makepeace was telling me when Joe Wilson galloped up shouting about the fire.”

  Mrs. Worrell glanced at the luggage on the desk.

  “Eeee, but where did you think of going? Where is there to run to?”

  “Ballynagall,” Henrietta said, and Martha Worrell's escaping breath sounded like air forced from a split bellows.

  “Ballynagall? Good life, child, those folk of your mother's haven’t been heard of in years! They might be anywhere. They might even be dead! You can’t go scampering off to Ballynagall just like that!”

  “I can try, I won’t stay here after tonight…”

  The housekeeper made a despairing gesture. “Stop mithering, child. Let me think.” She stood squarely against the door, hands clasped across her belly, broad, good-natured face crumpled in the effort of grappling with a string of imponderables.

  From across the room, standing within the circle of lamplight, Henrietta divined sympathy and waited. Almost a minute ticked by. There was no sound now except the subdued panting of Twitch who had settled himself on the hearthrug, his attention divided between them.

  “Ballynagall is nonsense,” Martha said, at last, “leastways, it's nonsense the way you’re going about it. I would have to write first, and then wait for an answer. But once your father got wind o’ it he’d put a stop to that one way or another. Happen he's as set on that match as Matt Goldthorpe is. I had a notion he was, and maybe I should have warned you, but I weren’t sure, or not sure enough. It were brewing, that's all I knew for certain.” The brooding expression faded and suddenly she looked obstinate and resolute. “But you’re reet about one thing, lass. It's now or never, while there's such a to-do in t’town and there's nowt wrong wi’ putting distance between yoursen and your father, if only to show your mettle. But where, that's the rub!” And suddenly she unclasped her hands so that they were free to slap her belly with satisfaction.

  “Our Nelly, be God! Go to our Nelly, i’ Garston!”

  “The railwayman's wife?”

  “Aye, Nelly's the one. She's more spunk nor the others.”

  “But won’t that mean trouble for you if…”

  “Nay, I’ll say I sent you there for safety, and he’ll not give it another thought. There’ll be plenty to occupy his mind for a spell!”

  Dramatically, instantaneously, the initiative passed to her, as though she was not the abettor but the fugitive. “Head for Lea Green and wait on t’first train that stops there. And when you get to Liverpool hire a fly at the station, it's nobbut a few miles. I’ll write our Nelly a note saying I sent you on account o’ the riots, and the hands throwing bricks at his windows. Tell Nelly my letter will be on your heels but someone’ll have to tak’ you to Lea Green, and it’ll have to be Enoch, for he's the only man left about here and that's a blessing. Enoch won’t think it daft to be catching a train this hour o’ the night. Have you got money?”

  “About nine shillings. I took most of it from the cash-box.”

  She nodded fiercely. “I’ll tell him about it. I’ll say I couldn’t see you go wi’ nowt in your purse. But you’d best leave wi’out the girls seeing you. I’ll find Enoch and harness the trap.”

  “May I take Twitch? Would your sister Nelly mind if I took Twitch?”

  “You could tak’ a zoo along to our Nelly's. The house is a fair tip, spilling over wi’ spoiled children and spoiled animals, but the vittles won’t be up to the kind you been used to, lass. Her man don’t fetch home a sovereign a week and she was never a one to mak’ do. Tell her I’ll send money for board. Now drop that luggage out o’ t’window and pick it up on the way round. I’ll send Enoch down to the lodge wi’ t’trap.”

  Henrietta turned her back to drop the bags out on to the gravel, but when she faced around Mrs. Worrell had already waddled as far as the door, so that the girl, with a little cry of dismay, ran across the room, threw her arms about her, and kissed her perspiring cheek.

  “Darling Martha! I made sure you’d stop me. Why are you doing this? Is it because you hate my father?”

  Demonstrations of this kind embarrassed Mrs. Worrell and she shrugged herself free. “Nay, lass,” she muttered, “there's far w
orse nor Sam Rawlinson around. Besides,” her brown eyes half-closed as though searching the past, “it was kick out or go under where your father started from, but nobody would have wed him to t’wrong lass! Makepeace Goldthorpe indeed! Sharing the bed of a lass I’ve raised. I’d see all of ’em burned first, along o’ t’mill!”

  She went out and a moment later Henrietta saw her beckon from the foot of the stairs. She whistled softly to Twitch, moving along to the front door that was standing wide open. Outside, at the den window, she paused to retrieve her bags and looking up at the face of the west turret noted how the glare in the northern sky had coloured it coral. She knew then, with certainty, that she would never see this ugly house again.

  6

  Beyond the copse that bordered the wilder section of the grounds the sky over Seddon Moss was bright orange laced with crimson, and the whiff of the burning mill, and who knew what else besides, was carried for miles on the soft currents of the night breeze. It could not have been mistaken for a bonfire smell for deep within it was the smell of the city, rank and sulphurous, the stink of a dozen factory chimneys out of hand.

  The smell and the coral sky scared Enoch, and it bothered the pony. Neither knew what to make of it and each, from time to time, lifted a head and snorted. They pushed on, however, beyond the fork of the dust road that led left-handed over the common towards Lea Green and the string of halts serving Cheshire folk living south of the factory belt. It was about here that Henrietta, on her rare excursions to Liverpool had seen the goose-children tending their flocks on the manorial waste, but there was no one here now; just her, the scared pony, and Enoch, Mrs. Worrell's odd-job man, who had no roof to his mouth and was reckoned half an idiot.

  Because, underneath her outward composure, she was just as frightened as man and beast, Henrietta decided to concentrate her thoughts on remembering how he had wandered up to the backdoor one winter's day, honking his willingness to sweep the drive free of snow in exchange for a drink and a bag of crusts. Henrietta had pitied him then and so, in her practical way, had Martha Worrell. She filled his belly, set him to work, and gave him a place to sleep, two planks laid along the rafters of the gardener's toolshed. Since then Enoch had been the gardener's drudge, but the staff called him the Boffin Boy, for the “boffin” was their name for where he slept. From time to time she had seen him at work in the yard and about the flower-beds, washing down setts, grooming the carriage horse, or hoeing and weeding under McEwan's direction. She had thought of him with compassion but genteel compassion, the kind one felt for blind beggars standing outside the Corn Exchange. Now, by a miracle, or series of miracles, he was her secret agent, helping her to escape from the clammy embraces of Makepeace Goldthorpe, and she warmed towards him, wishing with all her heart that she could afford to reward him with a bright new shilling when he left her to await the train at Lea Green in obedience to Mrs. Worrell's instructions. But she could not afford such generosity. It would have to be a penny, or perhaps, if a train was due, two pennies.

  About a mile down the track the last of the timber fell away, and they began to cross a wide stretch of open moor. The glare in the sky remained constant on the right, where lay Seddon Moss, and over her shoulder Henrietta could see streaks of crimson in the blue-black fringe of horizon. She could contemplate the devastation without any feelings other than relief. Sam could build another mill. She had but one life and could not afford to share it with Makepeace.

  Then it happened, suddenly and without the slightest warning if one discounted the interval of airlessness and oppressive silence that had endured since they emerged from the trees. A shaft of lightning forked across the whole width of the sky, its tongues leaping down on the glow in the north-east as though eager to join in such a bonus display. And within seconds of the glare thunder rolled from west to east, a long, long caravan of empty barrels trundled across the arch of the sky, pushing other barrels before them and trailing a string of laggards behind.

  She was aware at once of the effect upon Enoch and the pony. Enoch began to honk, just like one of the geese that grazed hereabouts, and the pony stopped dead, bracing itself against the shafts so that the trap tilted violently and the basket-trunk, reposing on end against the box-seat, slithered over the edge and thumped down on to the road. Henrietta cried out and Enoch turned on her, mouth open, eyes almost starting out of his head, and then the whole countryside was brilliantly lit by a second flash, far more extensive than the first, and the thunder crashed down on them like a mountain avalanche, sealing them between walls of booming, thumping, ear-splitting sound that sent every thought but terror skittering across the moor for sanctuary.

  This time the pony reared, and although she could not hear Enoch's terrified honks on account of the thunder she knew that he was screaming, for his mouth was wide open and his tongue flickering like a snake's. He dropped the reins and threw both hands across his face, and as the trap spun in a half-circle Henrietta lost her grip upon the rail and half-rolled over the shafts and down on her hands and knees in the road. The dog Twitch, who had been cowering beside the holdall, leapt after her, and when the third flash lit up the sky the pony was already tearing across the open moor, with Enoch hunched in the driving seat so that he looked like a mound of luggage rather than a boy.

  It had all happened so quickly that Henrietta had no time to gesture or call out to him to stop. Before she rose upright, conscious of a smarting pain in her palms and knees, the trap was already fifty yards away and heading towards the main road at a prodigious pace. She saw it once again, silhouetted against the fourth flash, but then it looked infinitely far off, a speck on the empty landscape. Then, preceded by a few heavy drops, the rain began to fall in great, hissing sheets, solid water bucketing out of a world of darting flame and stunning uproar.

  She acted solely on the promptings of instinct, trudging back along the road to retrieve her trunk, but by the time she reached it she was dripping wet. She stood there for about a minute, water cascading over her head and streaming down her shoulders, so that her shawl stuck to her and small rivulets dribbled from its ends, losing themselves in the ridges and flounces of the crinoline. Then another blinding flash revealed the shepherd's hut built of cunningly stacked stones and roofed with turf, no more than ten yards off the road, and she ran to it, the dog yapping at her heels. There was no door but inside it was warm and dry, and, to an extent, the cacophony of the sky was shut off, as though ten thousand romping children had been banished to another part of the house. She lay on her side gasping and whimpering, the dog close against her breast, the basket-trunk under her head. And presently, while she still trembled, the storm rumbled and grumbled across the moor in the direction of Seddon Moss, and the rain settled to a steady downpour that fell on the turf roof as a shower of peas.

  How long she lay like that, or whether or not she dozed, she could not have said but presently reason began to assert itself, its herald a fall in body temperature. The front of her, where the terrified Twitch crouched, was warm, but her back and shoulders grew cold under the dripping shawl and she realised, if she was to survive out here at all, she would have to make some attempt to help herself. She put no faith in Enoch returning to look for her. If he reached home at all he would be most likely to leap out of the trap and seek the shelter of his loft. He would not, perhaps, be questioned by Mrs. Worrell until morning, and even then he would have the greatest difficulty in making known to her what had occurred. He might even lie about it, implying that he had seen her as far as Lea Green, and if this was so Mrs. Worrell would assume she caught a train, write her letter to Nelly, and sit back to await a reply. In these circumstances it might be days before she was missed.

  The very bleakness of the situation injected courage into her, but it was not the courage of desperation that had caused her to flee from the embraces of Makepeace Goldthorpe. She now saw her survival as a kind of apprenticeship in the craft of freedom, an ordeal set her by Providence to test her nerve and hardihood, and b
ecause she was Sam Rawlinson's daughter she began, albeit slowly, to take stock of her reserves. Putting aside the dog she carefully raised herself, finding that she could stand upright, her head all but touching the roof. She reached behind her and grappled with the first six hooks of the bodice, and when the lowest of them did not respond to her blundering fingers she tore at the fastenings until the material parted and the skirt dropped away, settling itself at her feet. She unfastened the strap of the cage and her three petticoats, all as wet as the dress, fell by their own weight, and soon she was standing in camisole and linen pantalettes, and it was at this stage that she made a pleasant discovery. Torrential as the rain had been it had not penetrated beyond the last petticoat, and under the tent of the skirt the lower part of her was dry and warm. She went down on her knees again and loosened the strap of the basket-trunk. She had no recollection of what she had stuffed into it and now she made another welcome discovery, for her muff and braided mantle were there, together with two pairs of drawers and one pair of worsted stockings.