by John Masters
Ruth started up – ‘Of course not, Lady Swanwick … I have plenty of things to do. When you’re finished, just call for Chapman by that …’
‘I know,’ Lady Swanwick said, smiling. Ruth hurried out.
Lord Walstone eyed the countess warily. What shop could she be knowing about? ‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked.
‘Of course not,’ she said. Hoggin produced a fat cigar and lit it. Lady Swanwick said, ‘Lord Walstone, I want you to consider me for the position of an area manager in your HUSL chain.’
Hoggin rocked back and forth on his heels in front of the fireplace, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Well, I don’t know about that, your ladyship … What might be your qualifications in the food business?’
She said, ‘You have ninety-two shops open, all over the country. You plan to have a hundred by the end of the year, and you’ll succeed unless there are hitches at Luton, Galashiels, and Barmouth. The other five shops are ready to open now.’
‘’Ow did you learn all this?’ Hoggin asked suspiciously.
‘By reading the Financial Times,’ the countess said coolly. ‘You have divided the British Isles into ten areas, some geographically large, some small. London is an area in itself, for instance. Seven of your area managers are efficient, one is not, one is probably a crook, and one is very ill.’
‘That wasn’t in the Financial Times,’ Walstone said, frowning at her.
‘No. But I have been thinking of this for over four months, and I have been learning all I can about the administration of such a chain.’
‘Who’ve you been talking to?’
‘Store managers,’ she said. ‘A countess can talk to anyone.’
‘You’re right,’ he said grudgingly. ‘They’ll all be flattered, particularly the women. Four of those area managers are women.’
‘Make it five,’ she said. ‘Dismiss the thief.’
‘But his area is London.’
‘So much easier for me. I won’t have to move to Glasgow or Birmingham.’
‘You’d do that?’
She nodded, her fingers carelessly intertwined in her lap, her eyes on him – ‘Yes. But it would be a bore. I like London – and I know it.’
Walstone said, ‘I know you can boss a lot of people … had a lot here, when it was yours, didn’t you? But the HUSL stores are not there to look beautiful … or sell the best food … they’re there to make money. We buy cheap and sell nearly as cheap. It’ll be good publicity for me to have the Countess of Swanwick as area manager, specially in London, but’ – he stabbed the air in her direction with his cigar – ‘you’ve got to make money, keep the managers’ noses to the grindstone, see that no one fiddles, keep everything clean and simple and cheap.’
‘I can do it,’ she said. ‘And make the stores look a little less like the inside of warehouses … serviced by automata.’
He thought a long time, staring at her. Haughty, brainy, honest … guts … must be damned near starving to come to this. She needed the job, and she’d do it right. What was it they said, that meant that? Noblesse oblige. He’d seen it written out, and pronounced it Nobles oblige.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Done.’ He stuck out his hand.
The countess took it. ‘Thank you, Lord Walstone. When can I begin?’
Probyn’s Woman said, ‘First, you got to go to a doctor, what specialises in women …’
‘Gynaecologist,’ Ethel said.
‘… and have him make sure there’s nothing wrong … there’s things called polyps, and fibroids. It’ll cost money, but it’s got to be done, and I can’t do it … don’t have the microscopes and such.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Ethel said, vaguely disappointed; but it made sense.
The Woman continued, ‘Then, you’ve got to keep your weight right … not too thin, not too fat. Your husband won’t like you if you are, so you won’t get as much seed … and being too fat or thin makes it more difficult for the egg to get fertile, see?’ Ethel nodded. ‘Then, don’t work too hard … don’t work your fingers to the bone. A woman that’s too tired won’t conceive easy, see?’ Ethel nodded again. ‘Now, you can lie anyway you like when your husband wants you, on your back, on top of him, but … which way do you usually do it?’
‘Lying on my back,’ Ethel said, blushing, ‘with Niccolo on top of me.’
‘That’s usually all right, but seeing you haven’t got pregnant in all these years, try kneeling, and him coming in from behind, like you were dogs … but, when he’s finished, don’t jump up. Stay there, kneeling, for half an hour at least, with your head down and your tail stuck up … so the seed won’t run out, see? … Do you wash yourself down there, afterwards, or use one of them douches?’
‘Sometimes,’ Ethel said.
‘Well, don’t, not till the next morning, and then just ordinary washing, nothing stuck up inside … Now, that’s all common sense, really, but it’s all to help your body, that wants to conceive. But there’s more than your body in this … making a baby is God’s work, creating, see? He watches, and there’s things He likes, and there’s things He don’t like … Eat coconuts … Do you have any green nighties?’ Ethel shook her head. ‘Well, get some, and always wear green when your husband’s making love … Wear old shoes … Share nuts and almonds with your husband before you make love … Keep a rabbit …’
‘I can’t, in London,’ Ethel wailed.
‘A cat then, a female, and make love when the cat’s in heat … eat lots of eggs when your husband’s at home … Remember the maypole dances there always was here on May Day?’ Ethel nodded. ‘Did you ever notice women chipping pieces off the maypole after it was pulled down on May 2nd?’ Ethel nodded again. ‘Well, they kept the chips under their pillows. If they was unmarried, they’d get husbands. If they was married, they’d get pregnant … Now, there’s things you can take, besides eggs and coconuts. Here’s one … write this down … Take one pint of port wine …’
Ethel wrote eagerly in her notebook. This was more like it. She’d heard of love potions – who hadn’t? The other things sounded queer, dotty … but the Woman knew what she was talking about.
Ron Gregory walked at the great Shire gelding’s head, for Naomi, leaning on the plough handles, did not have enough strength left to guide the horse properly. They were ploughing the Home Thirty, both arrived yesterday from France on a short leave. Ron had not been thinking of leave, still less of visiting Naomi’s home – but she had swept him off his feet; he had managed to persuade his CO to give him the leave; and here he was, trying to control and guide this behemoth of an animal.
‘Hup, Duke!… Well done!’ he gasped, as he struggled out of the way of the horse’s huge, feathered hoofs. ‘Hup!’ He tugged to the left and Duke nearly pulled him off his feet.
‘Not too much!’ Naomi yelled. ‘Easy!’
‘I’m trying,’ he gasped. ‘But he’s so damned big!’
‘Don’t swear,’ she said. Half-turning his head he saw that she was laughing. He looked back. You couldn’t let your attention wander for a moment … slowly up the long field, turning over the wet brown earth in long, shining curves, like waves … not very straight, one line wandering into another … a bit of land left untouched there, the wheat stubble still standing on it … couldn’t be helped … turn Duke slowly, carefully – ‘Whoa back … hup now! Steady … Pull, boy, pull!’… down the field, into the October rain … back-breaking work, worse for Naomi, but at least she knew how to do it, while he, a city boy, knew nothing.
Half an hour later they paused. ‘Wish Helen was here,’ Naomi said, wiping the rain off her forehead. ‘She could plough as well as Hillman … he was our ploughman – joined up when the war began.’
‘Who’s Helen?’ Ron asked.
‘Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu, that was. She worked as a labourer here for a long time. She has a boutique in London now. She’s married and has a baby.’
She thought she would marry Ron Gregory, but he was not yet a member of the family. He di
d not yet need to know about Stella; or that Helen’s baby was her brother Boy’s, killed near Passchendaele last winter … Winter was coming again. And this flu … everyone down with it, or had been, or would be. And Daddy – dead.
‘Ready?’ she said.
‘When you are.’ He stood up. They had been resting under a tree by the gate, Duke standing with one hoof arched, just touching the ground, five yards from them, his coat wet and dark, water running in rivulets under the plough harness.
‘You ought to get a tractor,’ Ron said.
‘We women can do it till the men come back,’ she said.
‘But I think the men’ll want tractors. And in the long run it’ll save money, because you’ll be able to get more done with fewer labourers.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Ready? Hup, Duke … hup, I say!’ Duke arched his mighty neck and plunged one heavy leg forward, then the next … the plough moved slowly up the field, curving the earth behind it in the rain.
They were sitting in the drawing-room before dinner, the five of them – Naomi, her mother Louise Rowland, the two Women’s Land Army girls Joan Pitman and Addie Fallon; and Ron Gregory, the lone man.
Louise eyed Ron surreptitiously. Naomi had telephoned from Southampton the day before yesterday that she had a short leave, and was bringing a young man with her, a lieutenant of Royal Engineers. This was the young man … Boy’s clothes fitted him, after a fashion, and by now she had got over the frisson of shock at seeing this stranger in her son’s Donegal tweed coat and knickers. He seemed inoffensive enough … obviously very admiring of Naomi … talked all dinner time, yesterday, about the time they first met, in a German bombing raid, and how wonderful she’d been. It wasn’t so clear what Naomi felt about him; no overwhelming passion, certainly. There’d be no recurrence of what had happened between Boy and Lady Helen last year. Naomi wasn’t the sort to be swept off her feet. Well, any woman could be, by the right man, at the right moment in her life …
‘It’s a shame that the house is like a hospital ward, on your leave,’ Addie Fallon said to Ron.
‘It can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘I only wish I could be more use, but I’m afraid they didn’t teach me any nursing at Birmingham University – just electrical engineering.’
Naomi said, ‘What are you going to do after the war’s over, Ron?’
Ron said, ‘I don’t know … Get a job with Lucas, or some other big electrical engineering firm. Though all engineering uses electricity now … even shipbuilding. There’s a great deal of electrical work in a ship – and the amount is increasing every day.’
‘What about cars?’ Naomi said. ‘They have electricity, too.’
‘Certainly,’ Ron said. ‘Ignition coils or sparking plugs, lighting systems, some of the gauges …’
Naomi was staring across the table at the young man with a half frown. She wasn’t thinking of him at all, really, her mother knew; but of some personal plan or project.
Naomi said, ‘I think the lighting system on our ambulances is very poor. It’s no better on any other cars that I’ve driven, or know of … and I’ve driven many different makes since I joined the Women’s Volunteer Motor Drivers in 1915.’
‘I quite agree,’ Ron said eagerly. ‘I’ve even thought of designing a better system myself, but …’
‘You have? And you could do it?’
Ron answered, a little uneasy at her intenseness, ‘Yes, I think so. I’d have to do some experimental work first … To make something really better, really more reliable, we might have to look at different metal for circuits, better switches, better batteries.’
Naomi said, ‘There’s a great future for sub-contractors in the motor car business. They make a lot of money, without locking up so much capital as the actual manufacturers. Suppose we founded a firm which made good lighting systems for cars and lorries – practically all cars and lorries … Who owns the Shell Filling Factory, Mummy?’
Louise was startled at the sudden question – ‘Why … why, I think your Uncle Richard does, still, though we all have some financial interest. The Government gave him a loan to convert to shell filling, I think, but I’m sure that’s been paid back … Why do you ask?’
Naomi said, ‘The war will end soon – we all know that. The Government will cancel all orders for shells – they have millions and millions of them stocked here and in France. Uncle Richard can’t restart the Rowland Motor Car Company and make cars – there are too many other new firms in the field. I want to buy the factory buildings and make electrical systems for cars and lorries in them.’
‘Good gracious!’ Louise exclaimed, feeling a little dizzy. ‘You, by yourself? Why, it’s …’
‘Not by myself,’ she said. ‘With Ron. We are going to get married … as soon as he asks me.’
Ron Gregory was staring at her in open-mouthed astonishment. This was the girl he’d met under the bombs – brave, bold, determined … Of course, he wanted to marry her. He had been in love with her since that night. But he had not so far brought himself to ask her … she was too much above him; she would marry a young colonel with a title and three DSOs … He rose slowly to his feet and, the words coming out one by one, said, ‘Will … you … marry … me?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As soon as the war’s over … Meantime, keep working on your electrical plans for cars … We’ll spend the rest of our leaves seeing where we can get the money we’ll need. I have quite a bit, but we’ll need more, so …’ She returned to her dinner, not realising that the other four in the room were staring at her, silent, amazed.
The two figures were lost in the huge room, mannequins in miniature satin chairs against the twelve-foot velvet curtains, and, continuing their stately march round the walls, the tall portraits in the heavily gilt frames. Ruth always felt this sense of smallness when she was in here. Of course it was her own fault; Lady Swanwick would have had her daughters in here, and the boys when they were younger, and their friends, and perhaps a footman or two standing by the door ready to take orders … at any rate, enough people to fill the room and make it seem what it was, a large, luxuriously furnished living-room for a large and rich family.
The bigness didn’t bother Bill Hoggin at all. He hardly noticed it, except to note that it was cold away from the two fireplaces, one at each end; but what house in England wasn’t cold, in winter? He was smoking a cigar, and slowly twirling a glass of port in his hand, idly admiring the ruby colour of the wine and savouring the perfume of the Havana tobacco. His wife, who was knitting a khaki wool scarf, said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t smoke in here, Bill. The smoke stays in the curtains and the upholstery. You should use the smoking room.’
‘We never had no smoking room before we bought this place,’ Hoggin said. ‘And you was, were happy enough to have your hubby there in the parlour even if he was smoking a fag … fags was all I could afford then. Now you want to send me off to the other end of this bleeding pile, ha, ha, that’s a good ’un!’
She said patiently, ‘We didn’t have people like the Duke and Duchess of Taunton to the house before.’
‘Then, why don’t we both sit in the smoking room when we’re alone? Or in the library – that’s where Swanwick and Lady S used to sit, I know ’cos Chapman told me … Or build a little room at the back just for us.’
‘That would be very expensive,’ she said. ‘And we really have plenty of rooms, even with the HUSL headquarters here, and all the space they take up.’
He said, ‘We can afford it. We can afford anythink, Ruthie. This has been a good year for me … very good. I’ve made a mint, I can tell you. I can have anything I want. So can you. Five-hundred-quid guns for me … what about a five-thousand-quid diamond for you? That’d show ’em, eh?’
She put down her knitting and looked up at him. She said, ‘I’ve been thinking about that, Bill. I mean, you being so rich. When you were a little boy, you didn’t get enough to eat.’
‘Stone the crows, I didn’t even wiv what I stole from the b
arrows!’
‘And you went barefoot and cold and wet. And you watched rich folk through hotel and restaurant windows, eating beef and drinking champagne, and you saw them riding about in big carriages with four horses and footmen on the box … Now you’ve got it all.’
‘That’s the bleeding fact,’ Bill said with satisfaction.
‘But what are you going to do – get – now? You can’t eat more than three square meals a day. You can’t buy more than one or two pairs of those expensive guns. You have two Rolls-Royce motor cars and goodness knows how many suits from Mr Poole and boots from Mr Maxwell … So what are you going to do now?’
Bill was puzzled. He said, ‘Why, fucking enjoy it, that’s what.’
‘Bill! I mean, this is what you were aiming at, what you wanted to be and to have, from the time you were little. Now you have it, and are it … now what is to be your purpose in life? You’re not old, you know. You have many more years to live.’
Bill scratched his head. Trust women to put you a poser. He’d never thought of it the way Ruthie put it; but now he did, and it was a puzzle. He might answer – just make more money … and more … and more … But to tell the truth, he was already a little bored with the money, and the making of it no longer interested him that much. That’s why he’d hired Lady Swanwick; it still interested her – ’cos she hadn’t got any, like she used to.
At length he said, ‘I don’t know, Ruthie.’
She said, ‘Well, think about it. I know what I want – to help the people of Walstone in every way I can. I never thought I’d be in a position to do it, but now I am, and I will, as much as they’ll let me. But you? Walstone’s too small for you … You ought to do something for England.’
‘What the ’ell can I do?’ Hoggin wailed. ‘All I’ve ever known is how to buy cheap and sell dear. And I can’t teach anyone that what doesn’t already have it in their bones. I don’t know anything about music, painting, dancing … except those girls at the Gaiety, waving their petticoats in the air … Books! I never read one in my life, except in school.’
‘There’s no great hurry,’ she said equably, picking up her knitting, ‘but think, dear. Keep thinking. Anything you hear about, think whether it might be for you, a place for you to use your talents, and your money, for the rest of your life.’
