Above him, leaking uncertainly through the chinks and cavities of the old timbers, the nursery serenade continued and for a moment he gave it his undivided attention. “God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…” an appropriate jingle, he thought, for his mood and the day that had provoked it.
Three
1
IT WAS SAID OF GEORGE SWANN IN HIS MIDDLE YEARS, THAT HE HAD BEEN BORN laughing, and the story, no doubt, originated from his father, who had been impressed on the occasion of their introduction.
Henrietta was sleeping then and Adam accepted the midwife's invitation to “take a peep at the nipper” wondering, as he did so, whether any of the women who came running at the whisper of a birth, could have been persuaded that a male animal actually participated in the process of procreation. This one, Nurse Hoxton, rushed in from Bromley the day before, was particularly patronising, apportioning to herself the lion's share of credit for the presence of a sturdy eight pound boy, as bald as a coot and evidently something of a night hawk, for he was wide awake and taking the keenest interest in everything that went on around him. George, it seemed, had other ideas about the allocation of credit, for he stared Adam full in the face, cleared his throat, flexed his chubby knuckles, put out his tongue, and (Adam would later swear to this) winked. Then, withdrawing his tongue, he burped twice and the sound must have pleased him, for the corners of his mouth turned up so that Adam laughed with him and then returned to the dining-room to drink the boy's health and with it his own for, all in all, the day that had just ended would surely rank as one of the most rewarding of his life.
In the years ahead there were to be many such days, occasions when circumstances and the Royal Mail combined to shower him with opportunities, but never a day quite like this so that although he was bad on birthdays he never forgot George's. St. Valentine's day, 1864, a day when anything might happen and whatever did could be turned to account.
It was for the same reason that he later came to associate George with luck as well as laughter, and this may have prepared the ground for the subsequent understanding between father and son that isolated George from all his other children, not as a favourite but more as a pledge that Swann-on-Wheels, now under full press of sail, was under orders to proceed anywhere at all with safety and dispatch. Somehow George represented these certainties, together with one other that his father, warming his behind at the fire, found exhilarating. Already, in his mind at least, George Swann stood four-square for commerce. Nobody would make a drill-ground dummy of someone who could wink within twelve hours of birth.
The day began ordinarily enough. Doctor Birtles had looked in the previous afternoon expressing an opinion that Henrietta might expect her third child early next week, and Adam, privately deciding on a dash north-west before the event, drove off to Croydon before the morning mists had dissolved, catching a train that set him down at London Bridge a few minutes before nine. He bought his Times and Morning Post at the station exit and was sifting through the mail in his tower when the clock struck the hour and a wintry sun played on the trailers along the margins of the river and then went to work on the brass fittings of a wherry moving downstream at the head of a string of pregnant barges.
The post limited his contemplation of the panorama to a glance. Sometimes, when the mail was commonplace, he would pay the Thames the compliment of an absorbed scrutiny, wondering what the tarpaulins of the barges concealed, and how the devil that daredevil Norman priest Ralph Flambard, had managed his midnight descent by rope ladder from the White Tower opposite in A.D. 1100, but Dockett's letter put these idle thoughts out of mind, for Dockett had not only made good his boast concerning the establishment of a near-monopoly in house-removals on Tom Tiddler's Ground, but had set the seal upon his achievement by inventing a slogan and transferring it to his waggons, without troubling himself to seek headquarters’ approval for such a breach of protocol. For so, it seemed, Tybalt had regarded it, having pencilled an exclamation mark, followed by a row of asterisks. Seeing them Adam grinned, as he often did at Tybalt's notations. They called to mind Phillip of Spain's marginal comments on official reports from Spanish governors who had been hustled by Drake and he would not have been much surprised had Tybalt written “Ojo, ojo, Dockett!” on the back of the photograph the Isle of Wight manager had taken of his new box-van, harnessed to four Clydesdales, and on the point of making its maiden run.
Adam studied the photograph closely, instantly approving the innovation. Below the swan insignia, stencilled on the side of the enormous waggon, were the words, “Swann's House Removals. From Drawer to Drawer.”
“By God, that's eye-catching!” Adam exclaimed to his friend Frankenstein. “I would have bet a sovereign Dockett didn’t have that much originality in him,” and then he remembered that it was Dockett who had broken the ice at the December conference, convincing everybody that there was money in house-removals, and that this had led to him being given the first box-waggon delivered by Blunderstone a fortnight ago.
Dockett's accompanying letter, moreover, was very encouraging. He claimed that the van was spoken for as far ahead as May, and that he could use another if others had doubts about their usefulness. He was out of luck, however, for the mail included a request from Blubb for the second van off the stocks, and Adam approved it, wondering if the request had anything to do with Blubb's yearning to drive a four-horse team across Kent again and relive part of his splendid youth.
In rising good humour he went swiftly through reports from the Border Triangle, the Northern Pickings, the Southern Square, and Crescent South. There was nothing from Catesby, in the Polygon, where the cotton famine was grinding through its third year, or from Edith Wadsworth, again deputising for her father who had been in hospital with a hernia since January. Then, with Dockett's photograph clamped to the wall by a drawing pin, and the sheaf of reports earmarked for circulation among the clerks below, he opened a letter addressed to him personally from Morris, manager of the Southern Pickings, the man who had been so insistent about canvassing porcelain factories for the transport of high-risk goods.
It was regarding this that he now wrote, enclosing another letter in the spinstery hand of Bryn Lovell, of the Mountain Square. It seemed that the two managers, who were neighbours, had got as far as hatching a scheme in their mutual advantage, and all they needed to secure an impressive contract was headquarters’ approval. Assessing the importance of the letters at a glance, he rang for Tybalt, who must have been anticipating a summons for he popped in at once, wearing the expression Adam had learned to associate with good news.
Responsibility had aged Tybalt but it had also given him a dignity he had not possessed when Keate introduced him into the firm more than five years before. He was now almost bald, with a grey, monkish fringe coaxed into a blunt point between his pink, flattish ears. He wore steel-rimmed eyeglasses secured by a strip of black tape to his lapel and security, plus three rises in pay in as many years, had given him a paunch. He trotted across to the desk flourishing a brace of letters that had apparently been held back, and Adam did not need to be told that they related to staff appointments, for Tybalt was a slave of method and invariably withheld letters of this kind to check against the day book in order that he could tell Adam whether or not he would be in London on the dates suggested. He said, breathlessly, “Things seem to be crowding in on us, Mr. Swann. Everything seems to be happening at once. You’ve looked at the mail, sir?”
Adam told him he had and before showing him Morris’ letter sounded him out on Dockett's slogan. He had almost abandoned hope of finding Tybalt ready to welcome an innovation that did not stem directly from him, or from his bosom friend, Saul Keate.
“What do you think of it, Tybalt?” he asked, and the head clerk's mouth contracted, as though he had bitten into an unripe plum.
“Frankly, sir, rather vulgar,” he said, unequivocally, and then, as Adam raised his eyebrows, “Oh, I don’t have to be reminded that vulgarity is very much in
vogue, sir. One has only to study newspaper advertisements to be aware of that, but it doesn’t match up to my conception of a sober concern. Too…er…facile, Mr. Swann, a catch-phrase that would come better from an American salesman.”
“But that's the point,” Adam said, seriously now. “It is a catch-phrase, just as you say, but catch-phrases stay in the mind. Think about it. “From drawer to drawer,” it's got a music-hall ring.” and Tybalt said, primly, “Quite, Mr. Swann!” indicating that this in itself was enough to condemn it. Like his friend Keate he equated music-halls with Sin and Saturday.
“Well, whether you approve or not I’m telling Dockett he can keep it, so long as he only stencils it to box-vans. It wouldn’t make much sense on the side of a waggon shifting pig-iron or milk. However, that wasn’t what I rang about. Run your eye over this, for it seems that Dockett isn’t the only one who has been taking vice-regal liberties with headquarters,” and he passed over Morris’ letter and the letter from Lovell that Morris had enclosed.
News of a big contract always acted as balm to Tybalt's dignity. He said, absorbing the text at a glance, “That's promising, sir! That's very promising indeed! Mind you, it doesn’t come as a surprise to me. Mr. Morris hinted at the possibility when he was down here.”
“He didn’t hint to me,” said Adam, and Tybalt said, apologetically, “Oh, don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Swann. I wouldn’t like you to think Mr. Morris took me into his confidence as regards details, but after he mentioned those china hauls, I…er…took the liberty of asking him if he had any particular factory in mind. He admitted he had, mentioning Royal Worcester. It's my opinion, Mr. Swann, he had as good as secured this contract before he mentioned it at conference, but I had no idea Mr. Lovell would be involved.” He held a letter in either hand and his glance darted from one to the other so that Adam thought, “By God, he might be stuffy but nobody could be quicker off the mark for he's already reading more between the lines than Morris or Lovell put on paper,” and he said, hoping to draw Tybalt out, “An overland haul from the factory to Cardiff docks. The entire distance by road, and half of it through an area well served by rail. Why? At first glance it wouldn’t seem economical from Royal Worcester's standpoint. Turn up those conference notes, and let's see exactly what Morris had to say about it at the time,” but here Tybalt became tutorial saying, with a hint of unction, “I don’t need to do that, Mr. Swann. What is it you want to know?”
“Why Royal Worcester have stopped shipping high-grade china from Bristol and switched to Cardiff. Also, given current rates of insurance, why they seem prepared to pay more for a much slower haul than they could get from the railways.”
“I can help you there,” said Tybalt. “Cardiff is a longer haul certainly but they’ve been dispatching via Cheltenham or Gloucester over the permanent way of two rival companies. That means the goods are either manhandled or switched in the original waggon over a link line. It doesn’t need much imagination, sir, to decide what that kind of usage might do to fine porcelain, no matter how carefully it was packed. If we could examine the claims departments of the Grand Central and Great Western, I think we should be in a position to discover why consignor and consignee have decided to part company.”
“There's more to it than that,” said Adam, and Tybalt agreed that there almost certainly was, and that it would probably have to do with Mr. Morris’ hard bargaining with local insurance companies and also interminable delays due to overcrowding at Avonmouth Docks.
They had formed the habit of communicating one with the other in this rather artful way, Adam using the less imaginative man as a sounding board while they nibbled at an idea, a problem, or a prospective source of income, like two schoolboys planning a raid on an orchard. Adam had often made up his mind on most of the questions and Tybalt was aware of this, but sometimes the gambler in Adam would over-reach himself and Tybalt, drawing on a reserve made up of his prodigious store of trivia, would apply the curb, citing the odds Frankenstein made available to them. Frankenstein helped them now, assessing the profit margin on a four-day haul, two over metalled roads, two down the winding valleys of Bryn Lovell's territory, where gradients were steep and the surfaces execrable. All things being equal, Adam decided, there was certain profit in a quarterly contract with an undertaking as rich and as rooted as the Royal Worcester, but risks in transit made him cautious, notwithstanding Morris’ carefully-worked-out insurance schedules. He said, thought fully, “We should look for a way to narrow that risk without lengthening the haul. Morris suggests specially built waggons but the fact is, notwithstanding the obvious benefits of a long-term contract like his, we simply can’t afford to invest in new rolling stock. We’ll be damned hard pressed to pay for what we have on order.”
He knew Tybalt, with his hand forever poised over the purse-strings of the enterprise, would agree with this, but the clerk, it seemed, had given the matter a great deal of thought after his exploratory talk with Morris and now he introduced what was, for him, a revolutionary compromise. He said, “I’m with you there, Mr. Swann. It would be folly to spend this income before we get it. But couldn’t existing waggons be adapted to Lovell's specifications? A thing like that could be done locally. I could take it up with Mr. Keate.”
“Over a period of a year, with bi-weekly hauls using two frigates, how much gross would a contract like that bring in?”
Tybalt had the answer in five seconds. “A hundred pounds a quarter, give or take a sovereign or two, Mr. Swann.”
“Right. Then we’ll invest the first half-year's income in double-springing and fitting compartments in half-a-dozen waggons, but, as you say, let it be done locally and at a cut price. Take the letters to Keate, put the problem to him, then write Morris at Keate's dictation. I’ll make one condition. Our limit on adjustments mustn’t exceed a hundred pounds.”
They went on to discuss other matters; the demand of Lawrence, the master smith, for a new forge; Fraser's discharge of two dishonest carters, against whom he wished to press charges; the withholding of a quarter's rent for stables in Crescent South that were threatening to fall down, the loose ends of a web in which hundreds of waggons, twice as many horses, and an army of clerks, carters, smiths, and saddlers were trapped. Much of it, by now, had become routine to him. He made his decisions quickly, lightly balanced on a see-saw of expenditure and income, short-term and long, seeing himself as a man liable to fall flat on his face at any moment yet relishing the never-ending challenge to his wits, judgement, nerve, and initiative. Tybalt said, hovering at the threshold, “Well, that would seem to be all for today, sir. Will you be going north this week?” and Adam, making another off-the-cuff decision, said, “No, but don’t ask me why. I planned to go today, at least as far as the Polygon and down through the Pickings to call in on Abbott at Salisbury, but I’ve just changed my mind. I’ve got a conviction we’ve turned the corner. I’ve no real grounds for thinking that, apart from Dockett's slogan, and this Royal Worcester contract, but it's in there, just the same,” and he tapped his chest. “Do you ever pull certitude out of thin air, Tybalt?” and Tybalt said, respectfully, that he did not, preferring to base hopes and fears on the answers to sums in the master ledger.
He went out then and Adam, crossing to the window, watched him cross the yard to the waggonshed where he and his friend Keate would soon be immersed in the agreeable task of cheeseparing. He thought, “Those two run on rails and I can understand men like Morris and Dockett getting impatient with them, but an undertaking as complex as ours needs a couple of sheet-anchors to hold it steady. The best turn I ever did myself was to sign on Keate and Tybalt at the start of it all.” In spite of a surge of optimism amounting almost to glee he did not feel like sitting still at a desk, and reassessing his chances of paying off Blunderstone and McSawney inside the time limit. His fancy continued to conjure with irrelevancies, the impact that lovable child of Avery's had had upon his household, the impersonal approach his wife had brought to the child she was about to bear, almost
as though she was having it by proxy, the health of the old Colonel, now approaching his seventy-fifth birthday, but, above all, his absorbing theories concerning the segments of the English working-class, represented by his own work force. There was an answer here somewhere to the astounding lead the country had gained over all its Continental competitors in the last forty years, and he did not think it had to do with steadfastness on Continental battlefields but was buried somewhere in the seams where the nation's commercial instincts were mined. There were the Keates and the Tybalts, sober, plodding men, buttressed by moral purpose, and at the other end of the scale men like Tim Blubb, who saw any change as a flaw in the national character but who could still be coaxed into adapting, as Blubb had adapted once pride was restored to him. There were the Catesbys, slaves of another kind of morality that had nothing to do with the beatitudes but was the legacy of the Saxon peasant who had made up his mind to screw advantages from his Norman overlord, and dotted here and there, as though to give an added shape and colour to the social kaleidoscope, were young sparks like the ex-ensign Godsall, oddities like Hamlet Ratcliffe, men who walked alone like Bryn Lovell, arrant thrusters like his father-in-law, astute, ambitious men like Morris, and imponderables like Dockett, who looked like yokels but possessed something more than a yokel's brain. What the devil did all these men have in common apart from obstinacy? And what common denominator had enlisted them under his banner? For that matter, what was he doing at the head of them, when he might, on the proceeds of that necklace, have lived a life of ease and idleness?
God is an Englishman Page 61
