He went by train to Manchester, relieved to discover that the city was emerging from its long trance, as trickles of cotton came in from the Mississippi Delta following the surrender of Lee only six weeks before. Sam Rawlinson, whom he met at his new mill further west, told him it would be months before King Cotton settled himself comfortably on his throne again but the stresses of the reconstruction period were likely to bypass a man now buying Egyptian fibres.
“Are you investing in owt else but cattle and waggons?” Sam asked him, and when Adam said he intended to stick to what he knew, his father-in-law shook his head so vigorously that his blue jowls flopped like a bloodhound's dewlaps. There had been a time, he said, when he too had crammed all his eggs into one basket but the cotton famine had taught him that a man who did this deserved “a mess on his britches.” They could talk this way now. Since presenting himself at the yard on his return from the East, Sam had been a regular visitor to Tryst. Henrietta, Adam noticed, continued to treat the old devil with caution, as though, at any moment, he would box her ears and drag her back to Scab's Castle, but he had adjusted to Sam and they now did a great deal of business together. Sam was too old, however, to respond to the new mood of industry. He still tended to regard a man like Catesby as a potential Robespierre who would, given half a chance, hustle him into a tumbril and cut him down to size in St. Peter's Square, Manchester. He even warned Adam that there was daft talk among cotton operatives of joining with other trades to hold a conference of delegates, and when this happened (if the Government was mad enough to let it) every employer in England had best look out for squalls.
They parted affably and Adam went to Salford to see Catesby, now reaping the benefit of the soup-kitchen hauls instituted at the height of the cotton famine in sixty-three. “Not all the cotton-kings are like your father-in-law,” Catesby said. “Some get religion once they’ve made a bloody pile, and those are the ones I go for. That chap Gladstone is God Almighty in the Belt, and they seem to think the Radicals will sweep the board as soon as Palmerston kicks the bucket. Then we might get progressive legislation out of that talking-shop at Westminster, for folk here have sworn they won’t stand for t’pay an’ conditions dished out before the Slump. Radicals are promising compulsory education, a ten-hour-day bill and extended suffrage. It's been a long haul, since I stood at a loom from six nor ten when I were a little lad.”
“Sam Rawlinson seems to think something on the lines of the Oath of the Tennis Court is being cooked up,” Adam said, and Catesby replied, “Aye, and he's none so far adrift either. The Association of Organised Trades has it in mind to hold a conference soon and I’ll doubtless be called upon to represent the waggoners hereabouts. Would that earn me my notice at Rawlinson's instance?”
“You know me a damned sight better than that,” said Adam, grinning, “but don’t count on a delegate from my father-in-law's patch.”
He left Catesby dreaming of his social millennium, crossing the Pennines to see Fraser at his Hexham headquarters. Fraser was making giant strides up here. The incident of the wreck had injected confidence into him that he had lacked in the early days of his command, and now he had many Lowland customers on his books, and clamoured for more waggons and teams. Adam, seeing the progress he had made, promised him a rise in basic salary before turning south and crossing into the Crescents, calling on sub-depots at Whitby, Market Weighton, Newark, Boston, and Spalding.
Like a child emptying a Christmas stocking he saved Edith Wadsworth until last. He approached the Peterborough yard one humid afternoon and saw her before she saw him, framed in the uncurtained window of her office. He was rather shocked at her appearance. Even at this distance she looked tired, drawn, and rather bowed about the shoulders, as if the demands of her command had sapped her vitality. Instinct prompted him to withdraw behind the double gates, thinking, “If I know her she’ll be ruffled if I show up without a warning” and took refuge in a tavern near by, dispatching a note saying he was passing through on his way to The Bonus and would call in around teatime. He spent the interval walking round the busy town, counting the number of his waggons he saw, but the thought of her, slumped over her desk, with the strain of responsibility apparent in face and posture, stayed with him so that he thought, “Did I do the right thing giving in to her, and making her gaffer of such a slice of territory? It's a big bite to chew on, and I daresay she's had jealousy and surliness from men like Vicary, Goodbody, and Homcastle.” He consulted his watch, finding it coming up to four, and made his way back to the yard where the weighbridge clerk, seeing him coming, emerged from his shed, saying, “Message from Miss Wadsworth, sir. She’ll be expecting you for tea at her lodgings. Will you want to look around first, sir? Mr. Duckworth's on hand.” He said no, smiling at the way he had been checkmated, and took her address. “Tell Duckworth I’ll call later if I stay on,” he said, and the man looked relieved and saluted. It was curious, he thought, how almost all his employees continued to behave to him as though he was still wearing a shako, and had a corporal's guard within call, although not one among them had ever seen him in uniform.
2
She had made the most of the respite he had given her. Her house keeper-landlady showed him into the ground-floor flat she occupied in a row of Georgian terrace houses overlooking a reach of the River Nene, where it wound its way across flat meadowlands on the southern edge of the town. She had changed into what he recognised (having hauled for so many suburban costumiers) as one of the new “double dresses,” with the upper skirt looped at the sides and bunched out behind, a style they were calling the “Grecian bend” whatever that meant. The colour, olive green, suited her but she had dressed her hair in a bang that did not suit her as well, for it added severity to her expression, as though she was a governess or a vicar's wife entertaining a testy bishop. He soon discovered, however, that the familiar and outspoken Edith was still there for she said, giving him her hand, “You didn’t imagine we were caught on the hop, did you? There is such a thing as a grapevine. We’ve had an eye cocked for you ever since you left town. Our problem, of course, is to decide in which direction you’re travelling, up the east coast and down the west, or vice versa. Try a cucumber sandwich. Mrs. Sprockett makes them for all my Grade A visitors.”
Her manner, bantering but half-resentful, bothered him a little. It was the first time they had been alone since she descended on him with her armoury of facts and figures more than a year ago, although she had been present at the annual conference, when her parcel-run pilot scheme was adopted by four other districts. He said, hoping to call her bluff, “Don’t take that tone with me. I remember you when you wore clogs and fried bacon beside the road. How is it working out, Edith?”
She looked at him sharply, as though he was posing a trick question. “You don’t need to ask that, Adam. Tybalt puts my returns on your desk every Tuesday morning,” and he said, impatiently, “I’m not referring to turnover and you know I’m not. Is the loneliness of power bothering you? You look to me as if you’ve been overworking. You’ve lost weight for a start!”
“Oh, I could afford a pound or two,” she said, pouring his tea, and then, “‘The loneliness of power.’ That isn’t original, is it? Someone famous said it about kings and ship's captains. Well, it's a price I expected to pay, for the fact is I carry an additional handicap as an unmarried woman. When I was a glorified waggoner I was at one with the men and their families, but as gaffer I have to watch my step, or I find myself accused of favouritism. The wives are the real sinners, of course. They can’t or won’t accept a gaffer in petticoats. Most of them regard me as a compromise between a lucky harlot and the Tattooed Lady.”
“I’d back you to make light of that,” he said. “From my standpoint you’re a tremendous success. Even sour old crab-apples like Blubb admit to that.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, nibbling at a sandwich in a way that suggested she would have preferred her bread and cheese, “the New Woman, climbing out of the seraglio and the schoolr
oom. But it's a long, hard climb, Adam, longer and harder than I expected. You and I are ahead of our time. It’ll be another two generations before men as a whole will admit that some women can function outside the kitchen, the nursery, and the double bed!”
“There was Grace Darling and Flo Nightingale,” he prompted.
“Freaks,” she replied, “patronised by Beards.”
There was bitterness in her voice and it continued to worry him although he was not all that surprised by it. He said, “Aside from the business, don’t you enjoy any social life? You were always one to make friends easily enough.”
“Not here, for I’m betwixt and between; that's to say neither husband-hunting nor qualified to sit among the dowagers and talk scandal. It isn’t easy for any spinster but a spinster in authority…! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t lonely sometimes. For all that don’t go away thinking I regret taking the plunge. It might have isolated me but it paid another kind of dividend.”
“Tell me?”
“Do you need telling?”
“I need telling. I’m happier about you than I was but I still worry. You’ve made a success of the job but that isn’t much to crow about if the price comes too high. Does it, Edith?”
She looked across at him with a smile. “You never will take things as read, will you? If I had my time over again I should do the same thing, only sooner. Handling a job like this, standing or falling by my own efforts, has given me back my self-respect and that's worth all the work and worry that goes with it. Now stop turning me over and prodding me to see if I’m done, and tell me what goes on elsewhere. You can begin with the truth about why you sacked Abbott and gave his patch to a boy like Rookwood.”
He told her the bare facts, reflecting that he had never recounted them to anyone, not even Henrietta, and he was not surprised by the objective view she took of the unsavoury business.
“You took the only course open to you,” she said. “How is Rookwood bearing up?”
“Surprisingly well.”
“I gather you were sorry for Abbott. Have you heard from him since?”
“He took my advice and put his money in a half-share of a schooner.”
She said, thoughtfully, “I was right about you, Adam. When it comes to handling hot potatoes I’ve never met your equal.” She looked him over with embarrassing frankness. “You’ve got what amounts to a feminine intuition but the odd thing is it only serves you with men.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it's obvious. You gave Ratcliffe the credit for that excursion idea when we all know it originated with his wife. You had to come to me to be told why your marriage wasn’t successful and how to set it right. And although I’ve shamelessly spelled it out to you, you’ve never really accepted the real reason that prompted me to shoulder a burden like this. Shall I refill your cup? It might stop you fidgeting.”
“I’ve done, thank you,” he said. “What are you trying to tell me, Edith?”
She stood up, smoothing the crumbs from her bodice.
“Perhaps I can demonstrate it. Put your arms round me. Go on, no one is likely to come in. Mrs. Sprockett is accustomed to me entertaining gentlemen. Put your arms round me and kiss me, the way you did when we parted on the road to Ripon.”
He looked so startled that she laughed and the sound of her laughter eased the tension between them. “If I remember rightly,” he said, “the last time I offered to kiss you you bucked away like a scared filly.”
“Yes, I did. For the simple reason I couldn’t trust myself. But a lot has happened since then, to you and to me. I daresay you’ve already assessed your progress. Now I’d like to take stock of mine.”
He stood up and kissed her on the mouth. It was something he had often thought about doing since that encounter beside the Swale, but now that he did it surprised him a little to find her lips friendly but unresponsive.
“You see? It's worked for both of us. If that had happened the last time we were alone together in that belfry of yours I wouldn’t have made much of a success of what I had in mind at the time. You follow me, I hope?”
“I follow you. But there's something else. My feelings about you haven’t changed. I still think of you as very desirable, and also as the best friend I’ve got. But I know that if it came to a choice between me and the Crescents I’d run a damned poor second, and so would any other man in the offing.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Certain of it. So certain that I’ll not waste time inspecting your yard and stables.”
He stood looking down at her thoughtfully, his regard for her enlarging itself into gratitude that there was at least one person who understood, in depth, precisely what animated him, and what had absorbed nine-tenths of his nervous energy over the formative years of the enterprise. “What's more” he added, “the next time we meet we won’t circle one another like gladiators. If I feel disposed to kiss you I’ll do it, by God, without having to be coached.” He picked up his hat and gloves. “There's a train at five-forty-five. It’ll get me back in time to start sorting out the conclusions I’ve reached on this tour.”
“I hope you won’t commit your Peterborough conclusions to paper,” she said, “but if you do, send me the duplicate. Tybalt wouldn’t know where to file it. Shall I walk you as far as the station?”
“By all means,” he said, welcoming the laughter in her voice, “but we’ll confine ourselves to business all the way there.”
She went into an adjoining room, re-emerging in seconds wearing her bonnet and pelisse and it seemed to him, quite unaccountably, that she had laid hands on her lost youth in that brief interval. The metamorphosis comforted him, so that he thought, as they emerged into the sultry heat of the street, “It's hard to believe she was ever in love with me or that poor devil of a sailor. She only fancied she was, until she saw a way to become her own boss, and in that respect we’re as alike as two peas.”
3
The old Colonel could not have said when or why the premonition touched him, causing a small, inward shudder. He was not given to premonitions and today, with a June sun flaming in a cloudless sky, was not a day for gloomy thoughts. And yet the prescience was there, formless but real, and once it had appeared uninvited and unwelcome, it remained, a silent, brooding wraith standing a yard or two behind his right shoulder, refusing to go and yet refusing to leave cover and identify itself as anything more than a shade.
There was no room for trolls of this kind in Tryst nowadays. By a series of imperceptible shifts and adjustments the tempo of the house had settled to the key and rhythm of the enterprise that sustained it, but he, as a permanent observer, understood that it was not a theme directed by a single conductor, as was the case with the orchestra beside the Thames. In the stone and timber house the first Conyer had built in a suntrap, it was possible to distinguish individual themes, his daughter-in-law's first violin, the governess's briskly played second fiddle, the incidental harmony contributed by Avery's child Deborah, the toot of little Stella's trumpet, and the steady rattle of Alexander's drum. And that was how the old man saw and heard it, a muted, pleasing, tuneful domestic symphony, accompanying the slow march of the seasons.
He was well-placed to watch and listen, for his observation post, an upended, sliced-through longboat, converted into a weird-looking summerhouse and planted on the spur above the house, overlooked frontage, paddocks, forecourt, and drive. He could sit here taking it all in whilst pretending to paint, and listen and wonder without embarrassing anyone, often without anyone knowing he was there.
On a day like this, when the sun warmed his old bones he would turn the leaves of his memories like an old, well-loved book, sometimes probing back half-a-century to a time when a stronger sun had flashed on his helmet as he rode along the banks of the Tonnes, the Tagus, and the Ebro with his light dragoons, or to half-forgotten garrison posts in the Caribbean, or set on the edge of some steaming jungle. But he was not a man to do more than savour t
he distant past much as a chef might savour a sauce before serving it. Mostly he lived in the present or recent past and that was odd for a man of his age and ripeness. It was probably due to the satisfaction he derived from his situation, doyen of a household populated by young people and children, a position he had never thought to enjoy until “that boy” took it into his head to go into trade and found a family.
He missed very little. From his elevated position, with his back resting against the old timbers of the upended whaler, his sharp old eyes could probe the landscape as they had once probed Marshal Soult's position on a distant ridge. It was here that he had first spotted the impact the Avery child was making upon the household, how deftly that prim Scots lass, Phoebe Fraser, had enlisted her as a deputy, how conscientious Henrietta had become concerning her responsibilities as stepmother and how dependent little Stella had become on the older child now that Deborah had been integrated into the family. He noticed, too, the transition of his daughter-in-law from girl to woman, sometimes wondering if that silly brush with that gunner had not had too sobering an effect upon her, converting her, almost overnight it seemed, from a lovable, mischievous hoyden into a matriarch. He would have regretted the transformation had he not been there to see her change back when Adam's horse's hoofbeats were heard on the gravel, for then the way she ran to greet him recalled his own short-lived happiness with the boy's mother, so that he thought, with a smile, “I daresay he knew what he was about when he threw her across his saddle bow and brought her home like a prize. She only lives for him and his appearances. The rest of us are so much surplus kit she lugs about.”
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