2
It did not take Edith Wadsworth long to decide that the presence of someone in authority at Headquarters was essential to the survival of the firm. She had long known that Swann-on-Wheels was a one-man concern, owing everything to his considerable administrative talents as well as his initiative, but the degree of dependence upon him surprised her, as did the helplessness of experienced men like Keate and Tybalt in this contingency.
She would have thought that, for a week or so, a month even, the network would have run itself, but within forty-eight hours of her arrival she realised that this was not so, and that power was so distributed here and in the provinces that no one person, other than himself, was capable of steering the concern. This was partly due, she imagined, to an essential fault in its structure but it also owed something to the very nature of the business. Although, throughout the territories, responsibility was strictly departmentalised, the movement of goods at short notice from one end of the country to the other necessitated a constant crossing of lines of communication and unless endless duplication of effort and double-tracking was to result, someone equipped with cool judgement and an encyclopaedic memory was needed to devote unwavering attention to the inflow of orders, the limitations of teams and rolling stock, the day-to-day staffing situation at every depot, and a dozen other constantly changing factors, not excluding several outside their control, such as weather, and the vagaries of public authorities charged with the repair of roads and bridges.
She understood now the tremendous amount of thought and patience that had gone into the building of the system, and the nature of some of his eccentric apparatus, notably the ready reckoner, part map, part itinerary, part index, that he called “Frankenstein.” She had always thought of Frankenstein as a kind of joke he played upon himself, but now she saw that it was far more than that, that it symbolised his unique approach to the entire field of road haulage, that is to say, ready access to hard facts and their translation into terms of time and distance, from which emerged two end products, the gross cost of a run and the net profit it represented.
But this was only one discovery she made during that first exploratory period when, with one half of her mind, she was trying to hold the business on an even keel, and with the other steel herself against the near-certainty that the next person through the little door at the top of the staircase would bring her news that he was dead.
Gradually the first preoccupation took precedence over the second, and as she became ever more deeply enmeshed in the task of deputising for him, she was able to forget why she was here and whether, in point of fact, all her efforts would prove futile. She had already passed this stage when they brought word of the amputation and the high fever that followed it, but such was the degree of concentration demanded of her that even this could be set aside until the day-shift went off and the clamour in the yard below was stilled. By then, when the heat had gone from the day, and the city lay gasping like a spent old whore supping twopennyworth of gin in the gutter, she was too dazed by the effort she had poured into the task to do more than drag herself to the lodging Keate had found for her, eat her cold supper, and sleep until it was time to clear the pending trays in time for the next avalanche of mail. Then she had reason to be grateful to the impulse that had sent her flying down here to take over in this high-handed manner. Alone among them she could prevent the swift dissolution of all they had worked for and this, she thought, was ironic. With the possible exception of Catesby in the Polygon, she was the only henchman who thought of him as a man rather than an employer.
She soon adjusted to the inadequacies of Keate and Tybalt. The one was no more than a conscientious waggoner and the other an excellent administrator within certain limits but far more equipped to obey orders than to issue them. Neither, she discovered, welcomed responsibility outside their narrow spheres and among their juniors there was only one, an ex-Thameside waif in charge of the warehouse, who could be relied upon to back his judgement without reference to herself. Nobody raised an eyebrow at her usurpation and she soon came to believe that, in the territories at least, her presence as his vicereine was accepted as official. In her correspondence with men like Ratcliffe and Fraser she encouraged this fiction for it made for swifter decisions, whereas down here, where all roads met, Keate and Tybalt were only too glad of someone to whom they could look for a lead.
In less dismal circumstances she would have found the challenge exhilarating. The network was now making over three hundred hauls a day and perhaps half as many deliveries, a total of around two thousand separate movements in a six-day week. Four-fifths of these began and ended within a specified territory, and unless they were complicated by some exceptional factor, such as an insurance claim or a breakdown, the mechanics of each operation did not concern Headquarters, save as a figure on a monthly return sheet. It was the odd fifth that represented the hard work in the way of estimates, advice notes, memoranda, the checking of distances, choice of routes, and rapid transfers of reserve teams and waggons, for these involved journeys that crossed from one territory into another and sometimes in as many as four adjoining sectors. Tybalt could give her a good deal of information, and Frankenstein (once she had learned to manipulate him) gave her more, but there were areas where common-sense and guesswork were the only available tools, and a mistake could be costly, representing the difference between modest profit and heavy loss. Then there were the maps and indexes to be kept up-to-date, new contracts to be vetted, and staffing problems sorted out, so that sometimes it astonished her that he had been able to spend any time at all with that family of his, much less tour the network twice a year.
Her first big decision was the transfer of Godsall from Northern Pickings to the Kentish Triangle, and this was done before the part Blubb played in the Staplehurst disaster was made public by no less a person than Charles Dickens, who wrote a letter to the press entitled “Former Coachman's Heroic Act.” She knew that Godsall was earmarked for the Triangle and went a step further, persuading Tybalt that young Skilly rated a more important job than warehouse-keeping, and could replace Godsall in Derbyshire. Keate approved, encouraged by the fact that Skilly was one of his proteges, and that Rookwood, notwithstanding his extreme youth, was making good in the Square, but Tybalt argued that they could not afford to lose a key man in the yard at a time like this. She said, shortly, “Fill that yard vacancy with a clerk. That's what he would do,” and it was done.
She had been there about three weeks when the next crisis came and went and she learned that Adam had a good chance of complete recovery, if he accepted Sir John Levy's advice and went into a Swiss sanatorium for a protracted course of treatment. The amputation had been carried out above the knee and his tough constitution, they said, had enabled him to survive a battering that would have killed most men verging on forty. His other injuries, severe but trivial by comparison, included a dislocated shoulder, severe concussion, a broken wrist and the long, jagged laceration caused by the splinter under his eye. He was very weak, they said, and bedside visits were prohibited. Even his wife had been kept away until the effects of the concussion wore off. As to a discussion of business concerns, it was out of the question.
She learned all these details from Stock, his lawyer, for whom she developed a high regard, partly because his advice was always helpful but also because she decided he had a profound admiration for Adam as a gambler in a world where men habitually played safe. It was Stock who complimented her on her practical display of loyalty in taking the Headquarters’ tiller and warned her that it was a job liable to keep her in London for another twelve months. She had not thought of it in that light until then and now that she did she hesitated.
“I couldn’t stay here that long without official sanction,” she protested. “I’m not sure I’d want to in any case and even you must see that I can’t appoint myself to the job. I only stepped in as a stopgap and he’ll have to be consulted before he goes abroad.”
He said, smiling, “Oh
, I’ve no doubt we can make a tidy legal package of it, Miss Wadsworth, and call a general conference if you insist, but you can rely on my backing, as well as Keate's and Tybalt's. Can you think of anyone better qualified for the job?”
That was the point. There was no one else with her grasp of his affairs and it frightened her to realise that Stock, and probably the more discerning of the managers, were well aware of this, but the prospect of moving into his chair more or less permanently scared her. In a way, it was a tacit admission that all those rumours concerning their relationship had substance but how could she explain this to Stock? She said, uneasily, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go down to Tryst and discuss the situation with his wife. After all, she's his executor, and if this dreadful business had ended as we thought it would she would have been consulted at once.”
“That's a splendid idea,” he said, genially, “so don’t lose a day over it,” and he smiled again in a way that left her in no doubt but that he was convinced she had been Swann's mistress for years. The injustice of the situation vexed her and she thought, “Devil take them and their dirty minds! At this rate it won’t be long before the silly rumour reaches his wife and once it does I’ll have no choice but to throw in my hand here and in the Crescents!”
She went home in a resentful mood and in the course of the evening, when it was too stuffy to do anything but sit fanning herself at her bedroom window, she made up her mind. Eight-thirty saw her at the yard gate awaiting Tybalt and before he had shed his hat she said, in a tone that cut short his protests, “I won’t be here today. I’m going down to see Mrs. Swann. Take your work up to the tower to be on hand for callers. There's nothing that can’t be held over for twenty-four hours!” and she marched off without giving him an opportunity to argue.
3
She had always harboured a curiosity about his home, of which she had heard so much, and Henrietta, whom she had never once met but concerning whom she had a confused series of impressions. There was the general picture, common to all the provincial managers, of a pretty, imperious little madam, who had been clever enough to hook the Gaffer before he was in the swim and had since made his money fly. There was her own private picture, built upon the admissions she had drawn from him when he had chased her half across England after that incident involving the death of a chimney sweep, and this estimate of Henrietta Swann was even less flattering, for it projected her as a shallow, heartless creature, the kind of daughter a brute like Sam Rawlinson would be likely to sire. But then, since he had taken her advice, her conception of the woman whom she had always envied and resented had changed again, for it seemed that Henrietta had matured to some extent and had seemed to grow on him, so that his casual references to her lately had been generous and affectionate. It was this, she realised, that had deterred her more than once from pressing her advantage, for her intuition told her he was now a little ashamed of his frankness in that heart-to-heart talk they had had beside the Swale.
The house made an unexpectedly profound impression on her. She first glimpsed it as the self-driven dogcart turned in at the drive, a home rather than the showpiece she had expected, a place of charm and serenity that was indubitably old and weatherworn but not unwieldy, as were most of the country seats of the period. Under the spur of summer woods it seemed to her to draw colour and greenery from all points of the compass, and she understood at once the urge that had led Henrietta to nag him to move in at a time when he needed every penny he possessed for the expansion. It had another and entirely unforeseen effect on her, one that almost impelled her to turn the dogcart and drive back to the yard. In an odd way it enlarged his wife and diminished her, so that she saw herself in the guise of a hanger-on, someone who had come here seeking a favour and was liable to be shown into a waiting-room. Then she summoned up her pride, buttoned her gloves, smoothed down her skirt, and rattled on into the yard, telling a man who came forward to take charge of the horse, that she had come to see Mrs. Swann on a business matter and asking where she was likely to be found.
The man looked across at a child aged about ten who happened to be standing on the steps at the rear of the house and Edith thought, “Now who can that be? She's too old for his daughter but she looks as if she belongs,” and the child approached saying, gravely, “Aunt Henrietta is in the drawing-room writing. Shall I take you to her?” and Edith said, “You’d best ask her first. Tell her it's Miss Wadsworth from the yard,” and the child disappeared into the back regions of the house, reappearing in less than a minute and saying, with the same adult gravity, “I’m to take you in by the front door, Miss Wadsworth. Uncle Adam isn’t worse, is he?”
“No, no, I’ve just called on business. Mr. Stock, the lawyer, sent me.”
They went through the stable arch and round past a great clump of lilac growing close against the house, and the child stopped and sniffed at a sprig, saying incongruously, “It's a pity he missed the lilac. He loves summer smells” and Edith thought it such an unusual remark that she said, “He's going to get well. It’ll be a long time but he’ll be back,” and the child replied, cheerfully, “Oh, yes, I’m sure about that. I always have been.”
They had reached the deep porch when Edith asked, “Are you his niece?” and the child said, “Not really, but I spend my holidays here. I’m Deborah Avery. Papa worked with Uncle Adam until he went abroad,” and then Edith recalled Avery, and Avery's sudden withdrawal, and the child's bearing interested her so that she said, “What makes you so sure, Deborah? Is it because Mr. Swann is so strong and active?” and she said, with innocent directness, “Oh, no, not really, although he is, of course. Do you know him well, Miss Wadsworth?”
“Very well, I think.”
“Well, then you’ll understand. I mean, he’d put up a great fight, wouldn’t he, and wouldn’t give up like most people? Not if he was in pain, I mean. Or frightened. I told Aunt Henrietta so and she believes me now, tho’ she didn’t at first.”
She had an impression then that a deep understanding existed between this funny little creature and her aunt Henrietta and her curiosity about Deborah increased but there was no opportunity to satisfy it for the child led her into a large room where the curtains were half-drawn against the sun and Henrietta Swann was sitting at a secretaire writing. The first sight of her, small, still, and hunched, stirred Edith's pity. In that subdued light she appeared scarcely older than the child and far less assured.
“Miss Wadsworth, from the yard, Aunt,” Deborah announced as she withdrew and the doll-like figure at the desk rose and Edith saw that the face was drawn and that she was having some difficulty in extending ordinary courtesy because her mind, wherever it was, was certainly not at the disposal of callers. She said, however, “Please be seated, Miss Wadsworth,” and then stopped, biting her lower lip and staring down at her hands, very elegant hands Edith thought, with long tapering fingers matching a pair of slender feet encased in slippers that looked like little black chisels.
She was nothing like the woman she had pictured all these years. There was a stillness about her that was not entirely due to the strain to which she had been subjected in the last few weeks. She was prettier, too, with a great cluster of copper-coloured curls disciplined by a piece of black ribbon, a very clear complexion, a large, ripe mouth, now half-open as though to emphasise her uncertainty, and restless green eyes in which fear continued to lurk. For a woman who had borne three children her figure was very good, although she looked as if she had lost weight recently. Any initiative she had possessed, Edith decided, had crumpled under the impact of shock or suspense.
She said, quietly, “I don’t imagine you know about me, Mrs. Swann. I’ve worked for your husband since the beginning, first under my father, lately as a manager in Peterborough. As soon as I heard I came down to Headquarters to do what I could,” and she saw a flicker of interest in the melancholy eyes as Henrietta replied, carefully, “I know about you, Miss Wadsworth. Adam often spoke about you and both Mr. Tybalt and Mr. Stoc
k told me how helpful you had been since…since it happened. I’m sure Mr. Swann will be grateful.” Then looking at her directly for the first time, “You’ll have heard what's been decided?”
“I heard Mr. Swann might go to Switzerland to be fitted with an artificial leg. Has anything else happened?”
“No, not really, except that he's likely to be away a long time.”
“You’ll go with him?”
“No, everyone is against that.”
“But wouldn’t it help him?”
“It seems not. Sir John, the surgeon, says it requires tremendous concentration to learn to use a…a leg of that sort. And…well there are other reasons too.”
“You don’t have to tell me, Mrs. Swann.”
“I’d like to tell you. I…there's really no one I can talk to about it, not in the way another woman might understand. The Colonel, his father, tries to make light of it, as if it's…well…no more than getting used to a new house, or a new horse. And Phoebe Fraser, the governess, puts it all on God and just hopes for the best. Deborah, that little girl who showed you in, she's been wonderful. I couldn’t have held on without her, but she's only ten and like Phoebe, she leaves everything to God. I can’t, you see. I’m not even sure I believe in God any more. Does that sound wicked? Seeing that he lived through it?”
God is an Englishman Page 77
