by Jean Stubbs
‘Then — plainly — no, sir.’
‘Are you telling me that you prefer to live from hand to mouth in this piggery, rather than work for the future I envisage?’
‘Your vision of my future newspaper could not sound more to my liking, sir, but its cost in personal terms would be too heavy.’
The ironmaster rose with surprising speed and agility for such a big man. He towered over Ambrose Longe. He gripped his cane to his side lest he be tempted to use it on his nephew’s head and shoulders.
‘You arrogant fool!’ he shouted. ‘What do you think will become of you, eh? No home, no wife, no friends, no property. Living alone and scratching a living from one day to the next. Producing a couple of paltry rags which barely make ends meet. Still in the same position that you were in when you came here fifteen years ago, and nothing better to look forward to. Well, I have done my duty by you. Do not trouble to beg of me when the time comes.’
Ambrose walked past him, not without an inward tremor, and made a gesture of holding the front door open, though it already stood as wide as it could go, and the air and sky grew fouler yet.
‘You will find the offices of The Wyndendale Post almost directly opposite, sir,’ he said with deliberate insolence. ‘I am sure Arnold Thwaites would need no persuasion to ditch his present patron — providing you made it worth his while.’
Then William stopped short, as if seeing his opponent for the first time, and put the truth into words.
‘I am not blind to quality,’ he answered slowly. ‘The Post has none, and its editor is a toady and a hack. I want a newspaper of authority and style which will be the envy of the provinces. The Clarion could have been made so! And I need an editor who can stamp his individual mark upon it, and yet be a loyal friend to me and the party I shall represent. I want, in short, exactly what you want — a first-rate provincial newspaper — for I believe you to be honest enough to recognise The Clarion’s shortcomings. And you may prate of principles until you are blue in the face, sir, but what your paper needs is capital investment. Without it, you must stagnate.’
He had made up his mind as to the next move. He set his top hat firmly upon his head. He even smiled at his nephew, though the smile was not a kind one.
‘I shall put my money to better use elsewhere. I shall found my own paper. I shall install my own editor. I shall get what I want.’
He mounted his great black horse. He turned its head towards the Royal George. He sat looking down at Ambrose Longe.
‘And when that happens, my lad, I promise you that my newspaper will cut The Clarion’s throat. Which will leave you no option but to cut your own. And good riddance to the pair of you!’
The heavens were now so enraged that two young women, drawing up in a carriage a few hundred yards further down the High Street, stopped at the very house which Ambrose had left that morning and made haste to reach its shelter.
Had the ironmaster seen them, he would in a moment have turned his horse’s head about and engaged them in conversation. For the vivacious young woman with copper-coloured hair was his favourite niece, Mary Vivian; and her companion, Naomi Blüm, tall and dark and stately, was the daughter of a Jewish merchant with whom he had dealt in the past. Mary wanted to sell a house, and Naomi wanted to buy one. William Howarth had been the means of bringing both ladies together.
Though their acquaintance was only hours old, they had liked each other immediately, and would have declared a friendship were business not so pressing. Now little Mary Vivian hurried her visitor up the steps, talking all the way.
‘What a pity that we muddled the dates between us. For had you come next month, as I intended, the house would have been ready for viewing. As it is, my cousin Ambrose only moved this morning, and of course I have not had time to inspect it, let alone engage a cleaning woman. But since you have come so far, and it is a charming property, perhaps you would excuse a little dust and disorder?’ Over her shoulder she cried imperiously, ‘Alfred, take the carriage and horses round to the yard at the Royal George and shelter there. They will not mind.’
Her coachman was not so sure, but sighed and touched his hat and did as he was told.
Artlessly, Mary sought to impress her prospective buyer.
‘As you can guess, knowing my Uncle William, he has done so much business with the George over the years, that they are only too delighted to oblige us at any time.’
She concentrated on turning the front-door key.
‘Let us hope that the storm soon blows over,’ she said, in some difficulty. ‘Not that we shan’t be very comfortable resting here for an hour or so. Still, I do hate thunder and lightning. The one gives me a headache and the other makes me jump so. Drat this key! And then, I don’t like the idea of leaving the children at home. My housekeeper, Polly, is wonderful with them, but she is getting old, and I fear they tire her. There! The lock needs a drop of oil — not that Ambrose would notice anything like that!’
Then she smiled most delightfully, opened the door with a flourish, and cried, ‘Welcome to Thornton House, Miss Bloom!’
Only the ominous weather outside could make the place seem welcome. Dust and disorder were not the only faults. It had been long and grievously neglected.
‘Of course, two bachelors working odd hours are no inducement to good housekeeping,’ Mary explained. Adding to herself, ‘That wretched servant-girl must have been bone-idle!’
Her stream of chatter, springing from enthusiasm, was quickly doused. Her companion was by nature quiet and contemplative. In silence they trailed through silent rooms which still bore the faint, stale scent of dried rose-petals, and saw webs float from leaf to plaster leaf across the moulded ceilings, and heard mice scuttle in the empty larder. Mould spotted the piles of linen, laid away in tall cupboards. The long clock in the hall had stopped. In the bedroom where poor Jem Tripp had died that spring, the furniture was carelessly shrouded in old sheets, the curtains drawn closed, the air stuffy. So that Mary almost felt the presence of his coffin, saw again upon his waxen face the look of mild astonishment, and closed the door gladly on his ghost.
‘Ah, you should have seen the house as it used to be!’ Mary cried, in a passion of self-reproach for the long, kind years it had given her.
But Naomi Blüm, taking an inner view, gave one of her rare smiles and asked, ‘Whose room was this?’
A palpable presence was here also. Grave and serene, triumphing over the masked looking glass, the stripped four-poster bed, the faded square upon the carpet where the sun had shone on many an afternoon.
Mary’s forehead became smooth, her smile returned.
‘It belonged to Aunt Charlotte. She lived in Thornton House with Great-Aunt Wilde for a time when she was a young girl. When her husband died, she returned here as mistress. Then there was a political scandal, and she went abroad for some years, but came back again in her old age and made a home for Ambrose and Jeremy and me. There is her desk under the window. She wrote in her journal every day, and taught me to do the same. The desk is something of hers we would wish to keep.’
This reminded her of another omission.
She cried, ‘Oh, what a muddle I have made of it all! There should have been a proper inventory of furniture, and everything cleaned and polished before you arrived. Uncle William said you have lived in the best hotels in every capital of Europe. What must you think of us?’
Naomi replied soothingly, ‘Mrs Vivian, I think very well of you.’
She stood by the long window, looking down at the darkening High Street, smiling still. The smile illumined her.
She said, ‘Mr Howarth is right. I have had every luxury and every excitement that city life could offer. But now I am looking for a home, Mrs Vivian, not a hotel. I wish to belong somewhere, not always to be the passing stranger. This house has known much living. And I like your Millbridge. Very old, very handsome.’
She answered Mary’s silent question with another smile. ‘Yes, Mrs Vivian, I should like to buy
your house and the furniture you don’t want for yourself. For I feel I have come home.’
Mary stood quite still and silent, marvelling at the double favour which Naomi Blüm had conferred on her. Hal Vivian’s debts could now be paid, without secret recourse on Mary’s part to the ironmaster, and this exotic stranger could become a friend.
‘Oh, that would be… Oh, goodness, I was so afraid…’
Impulsively she held out both gloved hands, which were warmly clasped, but was immediately distracted by what she saw outside.
‘Oh, look at that! Oh look!’ cried Mary.
The air had become a thick black vapour. The heavens opened, lit and hurtled spears upon them. Almost simultaneously, low and threatening at first, then loud and confident, came the growl and crack of thunder.
‘Oh, let us close the shutters, pray!’ cried Mary. ‘We shall be struck dead else!’
But Naomi was too awed and Mary too frightened to move. So they stayed where they were, their hands now clasped for mutual comfort, watching. And the storm, finally let loose, filled Thornton House with fury and outraged its rooms with light.
In the Town Hall, a special council meeting was still in progress. Had old Hamish Standish, the director of Millbridge Hospital, still been alive the argument would have been decided long since. But his successor and nephew, Dr Jamie Standish, was too young to master the councillors and too obstinate to let go of them. So while one storm broke over their heads, another threatened to engulf them as they sat around the table. The chairman hastened to intervene.
‘I think I may say, on everyone’s behalf,’ he began soothingly, ‘that we are most grateful to Dr Standish for the vigilance, enterprise and public spirit he has shown this afternoon.’
For he wanted to go home to his tea.
‘Hear, hear!’ they murmured in relief.
‘And I believe I speak for all of us when I say we shall sleep sounder at night knowing that the health of Millbridge and this valley is in such capable hands.’
They endorsed this statement with great enthusiasm.
‘All Dr Standish’s remarks and suggestions have been carefully noted, and I can promise him they will be just as carefully considered. I regret that so many of our members are absent, but this is a holiday period. Meanwhile, I thank Dr Standish for giving us so much of his valuable time, and perhaps we can discuss the matter at a later date.’
They clapped and nodded at the young doctor as if he had been knighted, and began to rise from their seats and collect their papers. But the gangling red-headed fellow brought his fist down upon the table with a thump that rivalled the thunderclaps outside, and shouted in a strong Scottish accent.
‘Will you sit down? I have not yet done!’
‘Oh dear,’ said the chairman to himself.
He had been afraid of this. Like uncle, like nephew, he thought, and sat again. The others followed suit.
Jamie spoke with quiet emphasis, for his time and patience were not so important as the issue at stake and he had to win his point.
‘Gentlemen, this is not a matter you can put off, nor even put to one side. We are not speaking about a seasonal attack of measles, or a local epidemic of scarlet fever, bad though they be. We are discussing a deadly disease of pandemic proportions, for which there is no known cure. We are confronting cholera, gentlemen!’
They were listening impatiently, frowning, staring at their hands.
‘I feel I have not made myself understood, and I grant you that my own limited knowledge of the disease is acquired from professional journals such as The Lancet. But I am not alone in believing that this country faces one of the most serious health crises in her history. For the first time, Asiatic cholera has entered Europe and is moving westwards along the routes of trade and war. Only last September it devastated Moscow. Soon it will reach the Baltic ports, a few days’ sailing time away. Less than a week after boarding ship, gentlemen, it could be on our shores. It is too late to prevent an epidemic when the first victim drops dead in Millbridge High Street.’
In the little silence that followed he asked permission for his colleague, Mr Bailey, to speak to them. He had been sitting on a hard chair outside the door waiting for just such an emergency.
So very shortly a wiry, yellow-faced, pock-marked fellow was ushered in and introduced as the chief surgeon at Millbridge Hospital; but more importantly as an ex-army surgeon who had served in India, when the regiment to which he was attached suffered severely from cholera.
The members of the Board stared suspiciously at him, as though the fellow carried plague in his pocket, but Jamie Standish addressed him cordially, for he respected this unassuming man.
‘Mr Bailey, these gentlemen find facts an unconvincing argument. Would you be so kind as to tell us what to expect if the cholera catches us unprepared?’
The surgeon was as modest as his status, but eloquent. He fixed his eyes upon the opposite wall, wet his lips, and recited his piece like a child called upon to give hideous entertainment.
‘Sirs, it is like this. A man is out of sorts. Nothing much. A touch of summer diarrhoea, a feeling of heat at the pit of the stomach. You prescribe a dose of calomel or rhubarb and magnesia. Suddenly, he begins to vomit and purge so violently that he cannot hold medicine down. He is seized with the most agonising muscular cramps. You cannot help him, try though you might. And so it goes on until the poor wretch is passing the linings of his own damaged bowels, and too weak to scream. He shakes with cold, he sweats with fever. Even in his final collapse, he is wracked by excruciating spasms. If he is fortunate, he will die in a few hours. If he is not, he may suffer thus for three or four days, while all around him his comrades are dying in a like manner. And when death comes, they call it mercy.’
He looked at them directly, and said, ‘If you had seen even one case of cholera, gentlemen, you would do everything within your power to keep such an evil at bay.’
They were subdued, studying his pock-marked face. Then one councillor, who had no time for such gloomy flights of fancy, made a practical objection.
‘Aye, it’s all very well to scare us with tales, but what about the cost? Dr Standish, here, has been talking of lime-washing poor folks’s cottages and tenements, and hospitals and workhouses and prisons and suchlike, from roof to floor, and purifying every drain and privy in Millbridge and the valley!’
This reminder brought forth a host of grievances.
‘Aye, and giving idle folk warm clothes, and feeding them up for nothing, to help them fight this sickness better!’ added another.
‘Why, we should be put to no end of expense,’ grumbled a third, ‘and the poor cost us enough already, Lord knows!’
Which revived all their former prejudices.
‘You say the cholera starts in poor quarters and poor folk suffer most?’ cried an alderman. ‘Then I say it is a poor man’s disease. And if we keep them apart from the rest of us, as the sick were kept in times of plague, then we have naught to fear!’
‘Sir,’ said the surgeon very clearly, ‘cholera, like death itself, knows no distinctions between rich and poor. Healthy folk stand a better chance of resisting the disease, but in my regiment the officers died along with their men.’
This was not the answer they wanted.
‘Surely we should leave such decisions to those who are best qualified to deal with them?’ the chairman suggested. ‘The Privy Council in London has set up a Central Board of Health to deal with this very problem, and so far they have seen no need to issue a national directive.’
‘Too damned busy sipping port!’ said Jamie Standish savagely.
The alderman’s tone was cautionary, reproachful.
‘Seven illustrious medical men of the highest integrity, working without payment for the public good, Dr Standish!’
‘Seven rich and idle drones, sir, who don’t care a fig for it!’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ chided the chairman.
‘Besides,’ said another councillo
r comfortably, ‘surely cholera can be held at bay like the yellow fever was. We have the benefit of being an island. If an infected ship comes into port, it can be quarantined. That’s how we’ve dealt with it in the past.’
But this brought forth a protest from the businessmen present.
‘Why, you talk of quarantine as though that were nothing! Ships and goods and men standing idle for above a month! Let us hope we do not come to that pass. Quarantine will cost more than lime-washing!’
‘I believe we can reach a compromise,’ said the chairman loudly, as though light had suddenly shone upon him.
He felt that he had been harassed quite enough for one afternoon. And by now the thunder had reached such a pitch that they were almost shouting at each other in order to be heard.
‘Both Dr Standish and Mr — er — his colleague have convinced us of the gravity of the situation. For which we thank them. But there seems to be a general agreement that we should wait for instructions from a higher authority before we act upon their suggestions. Which, of course, in the event of cholera, we should certainly do.’
Defeated, Jamie Standish reached for his hat.
‘Yes,’ said the chairman, relieved, ‘I think that should meet the case. Meanwhile, we all have homes to go to — and are doubtless anxious about the safety and wellbeing of our loved ones…’
Doctor and surgeon lingered in the empty council chamber, marvelling at the power and fury of the elements.
‘We had best gird our loins for the fray,’ said Jamie grimly, ‘which may be on us sooner than we think.’
‘If it is not already in our midst, as yet unrecognised.’
‘That’s a terrible thought, Mr Bailey!’
The wiry surgeon had faced worse thoughts. Nor did he flinch from the cannonade of thunder, the swords of lightning.
‘With regard to cholera, Dr Standish,’ he said, surveying the war without, ‘whose side did you favour in the recent medical debate? Do you believe it to be borne upon the air as a poisonous vapour? Are you a miasmatist?’