by Jean Stubbs
Naomi was momentarily bewildered.
‘Isn’t that the new infant’s name?’ he asked, embarrassed.
She gave a little laugh of amusement.
‘No, no. Her name is Alice!’
‘I can never remember all their confounded names,’ Ambrose muttered. ‘What with the Howarths, the Poles, the Vivians — and no doubt the Standishes in due course! — there are too many children in the family already!’
She passed over this remark, regaining confidence as he lost it.
‘Alice Vivian is both healthy and hearty. A fine infant. And she seems, as far as one can judge, to have inherited Mary’s bright hair.’
‘Good God! What an affliction!’
‘She is a very pretty baby,’ said Naomi, now quite composed. ‘Ah! I forgot! — I shall forget my head next!’
He dared to look at her again.
‘But never your bonnet!’ he countered swiftly.
She laughed. He smiled.
‘I am forgetting to tell you that Mary and Hal wish us to be Alice’s godparents. Mary says that you must not refuse her.’
Ambrose put down the sheets of paper which would become Page Seven in a few hours’ time. He could not concentrate on them while she was there. He got up and strolled to the window, hands in pockets, and saw only her image superimposed on the bustle of Middleton Street.
‘It is typical of Mary to pay lip-service to a title and ignore its meaning,’ he began sarcastically.
The tone sounded wrong, false.
He said simply, ‘To tell you the truth, I am not fit to be anybody’s godparent. I am not even a convinced Christian. How can I be expected to take on a child’s spiritual welfare?’
‘But that is not why you have been chosen,’ she answered. ‘Mary knows what you are not. She wishes you to take a special interest in her child because of what you are. Because of what you can give.’
‘And what am I? And what can I give that is of the slightest value?’ he remarked bitterly.
He was not prone to ask such questions as this, rather to assume that there was no God, the world was a bad joke, and one must make the best of it. But he had just suffered a profound emotional upheaval.
She heard the trouble and fear in his voice.
‘Do you not know yourself?’ Naomi asked in surprise.
‘I know I have not an atom of reverence in my nature!’
Naomi said, ‘You know how to enjoy life. That is a great gift. Teach Alice how to delight in life also.’
He was moved and amazed. To make much of little, to transform nothing into something, had always come so naturally to him that he could not regard it as admirable. Immensely comforted, he returned to his chair.
He said, as airily as he could, ‘Oh, that’s my father in me. That’s old Toby! My mother used to say that he could make a banquet out of a pie from the cookshop and a bottle of indifferent claret. But that’s more of a knack than a virtue. I don’t suppose it will help Alice Vivian to lay up treasure in heaven or on earth.’
Then he fell into the contemplative pools of her eyes, and floundered there.
Naomi rose gracefully, picking up her muff.
‘You wish to get on with your work,’ she told him. ‘I will go.’
He hurried to open the door. He bowed deeply, reverently.
She inclined the brim of her bonnet in his direction. The roses shivered.
‘Alice will be baptised very shortly. Shall I tell Mary that we both accept?’
He shrugged, endeavouring to be an old self which he feared had gone forever.
‘Oh, if it pleases her. Yes. Of course. But you can tell her from me that I think the whole thing is quite ridiculous!’
‘Ridiculous, perhaps, but very necessary. Good evening, Ambrose.’
He now found himself unable to pronounce her name, so he caught up her hand and kissed it humbly.
He watched her descend the stairs.
Only when she was no more than a whiff of perfume did he return to his desk.
‘It is ridiculous!’ he assured himself. ‘Damned ridiculous. Come to think of it, everything is ridiculous!’
He caught sight of the papers on his desk. He glanced at the clock on the wall.
‘But very necessary!’ he added.
He began to read Page Seven.
THIRTEEN: FLESH AND BLOOD
On Mondays and Fridays, The Correspondent’s presses were busy with her own concerns until the early hours of the following morning. During the three remaining weekdays, they worked steadily on other people’s printing until six or seven o’clock at night and left the evening to Ambrose to spend as he pleased. So it became known that if you wanted a private word with Mr Longe, whether it be a small grievance of watered milk or a larger one of social injustice, you could best hold his attention when the presses were silent. In fact, if he wanted any privacy at all except in his sleep, Ambrose soon realised that he must find it away from No. 21 Middleton Street.
Over the past year, according to his mood, he had divided his free time between Mary, Naomi, and a certain lady in Flawnes Gardens, but in his present state of disturbance he could do none of these things. Delicacy forbade him to approach Naomi, Mary’s eyes and intuition were far too sharp, and the thought of Mrs Evans made him feel uneasy. He was, therefore, liable to be troubled, and a series of double knocks at ten o’clock one gusty February night hardly surprised him. He would have liked to ignore the summons, but a sense of duty fetched him downstairs, candlestick in hand.
‘Who is it?’ he called, pausing at the front door.
The stranger apparently bent down and applied his mouth to the keyhole, answering in such a hurried and embarrassed fashion that Ambrose could not catch the name.
‘Who did you say?’ he enquired. ‘Cuzzins?’
The man again applied himself to the keyhole and enhanced his original statement, but no more intelligibly.
‘Would you mind speaking a little more slowly?’ Ambrose asked.
His visitor sighed like the wind, but replied syllable by syllable, patiently and hollowly through the keyhole.
‘It’s your cousin George. Dick Howarth’s lad. From Kit’s Hill.’
‘Oh, George, of course!’ said Ambrose, trying to remember which one of Dick’s seven sons he could be. ‘George, to be sure. Hold on, George, while I unbolt the door. You must forgive me for being so uncommonly cautious, but I have to take care who I let in at this time of night, in this part of town.’
The voice, deep and laconic, said, ‘Aye, I know.’
He had stood back while the bolts were shot. Now he came shyly into the hall, pulling off his cap. Ambrose reckoned him to be in his twenties, but like many a working man he looked older than his years. Though the night was raw, he wore nothing more protective than a brown fustian jacket and a muffler. His hands and face were scarlet with cold, and he wiped an incipient drop from the end of his nose. He was short for a Howarth, but his thatch of wheaten hair and straight blue gaze were pure Howarth, and he held himself as tall as he could.
So far as Ambrose knew they had never met before, but he shook the proffered hand, said he was looking well, and invited him to come upstairs into the warm.
They mounted two flights in silence. Ambrose’s slippers flapped in homely fashion on the uncarpeted stairs, but George’s boots creaked and echoed; and his breath came short and heavy with unease, like that of a man who has run a long way.
‘Here we are!’ cried Ambrose heartily. ‘Come, draw up that other chair for yourself and I’ll mull some ale. Should you like that?’
Again the laconic answer came, ‘Aye, I would.’
Then George sat down and pushed his cap into his pocket and held out his hands to the blaze.
Not a tremendous conversationalist, Ambrose thought. If this is a family visit, it’s going to be a heavy one!
He thrust a poker into the heart of the fire and poured out two tankards of the Ship’s best ale.
‘And to what do I owe this unex
pected pleasure?’ he asked, with automatic courtesy.
George considered the question. His reply, when it came, was truthful rather than polished.
‘Nay, it canna be any pleasure to you. We don’t even know each other in a manner of speaking. I only saw you two or three times when I were a little lad. And I haven’t come to talk of pleasure, neither. I’ve come on a matter of business.’
‘I see,’ said Ambrose, amused by his honesty. ‘Well, now you mention it, George, you’re perfectly correct. I don’t know you from Adam. Which son are you?’
‘I were the fourth lad. The one as went for a drummer-boy the year my Mam died. I come back when my time were up. I wouldna have stayed longer, not if they’d hung every hair of my head with a golden sovereign. I come back three year since, and it were then as they told me she were dead.’
He paused and brushed his sleeve across his eyes. It was a very simple gesture, and without shame.
‘But there warn’t no place for me at Kit’s Hill. Our Hatty’s taken over! She might be Fred Tunstall’s wife, but he’s not her master. Nor’s our Dad. And our Mary’s got that grand! I hung about her place for a while, but in the end I dursen’t knock. So I cleared off and looked up our Dickon and our Willum and our Edwin, and they got me a job at the colliery on Swarth Moor. I haven’t been back since.’
‘I see,’ said Ambrose, who did not.
The ale hissed round the hot poker.
‘Drink up!’ said Ambrose.
George drank loudly and appreciatively, drawing breath between each sup and staring into the flames. He grew grave with reflection.
‘What might you call them coals, Cousin Ambrose?’ he asked quietly, pointing to the fire in the grate.
‘That’s Wigan coal. The best I can buy,’ said Ambrose easily.
The blue eyes looked at him steadily above the scarlet cheeks.
‘That’s flesh and blood,’ said George Howarth.
Ambrose sat down, silenced.
‘This newspaper of yourn,’ George continued, his tongue loosened at last. ‘It’s not what you’d call a working man’s paper, is it?’
‘No. But it speaks for the working man.’
‘Aye. I thought that’d be the case. But it’s bought and read by t’others, isn’t it? The masters? Them as might do summat for working men if they liked?’
‘Yes, and I hope that The Correspondent will eventually have some influence over them.’
‘That’s what I hope, and all!’ said George with a touch of humour, but he found life too hard to take lightly.
He set down his pewter tankard and drew a sheaf of soiled and crumpled papers from the breast of his jacket.
‘I haven’t had what you’d call an eddication, but it’s the truth as I’ve set down there. You’ve had an eddication, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Ambrose, taking the papers with reluctance.
‘Then make summat of that,’ said George. ‘I’ve wrote down what I know to be truth, and what I feel. The words don’t allus come right, but you’ll get the meaning. I don’t mind if you turn it upsides down and insides out, so long as you make sense of it and print it. I want folks to know what’s going on. I want them to feel whenever they see coals in the grate as them coals is flesh and blood. That’s what I come to tell you.’
He drained the last of his ale and stood up. He pulled his cap from his pocket and settled it dead straight on his head. His appearance was both earnest and comical.
‘I’d best be off,’ said George. ‘Thankee for making me welcome.’
Ambrose’s conscience was stricken. His welcome had been courtesy of the emptiest kind. He put a restraining hand on George’s sleeve.
‘Won’t you stop a bit longer and tell me more about this?’ he asked, indicating the sheets of paper. ‘Why, we haven’t finished the ale, and you’ve told me nothing about yourself. I don’t know where you live or whether you’re married. Sit down, man, for heaven’s sake!’
George hesitated, and again his honesty made nonsense of good manners.
‘Nay, I’m no talker, cousin. And I’ve done what I come for. You’ve hearkened to me and I canna ask more nor that. I know as you and our Aunt Charlotte have spoken up many a time for the likes of us, but you’re not one of us. I walk on t’other side of the street, as you might say. We’re as different as chalk and cheese, thee and me.’
‘Very well,’ Ambrose replied, with equal frankness. ‘We have nothing in common. But we share the same grandfather, and we care what happens to our fellowmen. Won’t that do for a start?’
George’s eyes became bluer, his face a deeper shade of red. He moved from one foot to the other, pondering. Then he snatched off his cap, stuffed it back in his pocket, and sat down again, breathing hard. Ambrose mulled more ale and endeavoured to mine some information out of this taciturn relative.
‘I’m a bachelor, myself. Are you married, George?’
‘Nay, I’ve got more to do than get wed.’
‘Ah. I live alone here. Do you live with your brothers?’
‘Nay. Our Edwin died of the cholera, and our Dickon and Willum emigrated two year since. To Americky.’
Ambrose maintained a few seconds’ silence for the news of Edwin.
‘A great many people are emigrating nowadays. Didn’t you want to go with them?’
‘Who, me? Nay, I’m not running away from owt. I’ve got summat to do here!’ He paused then and added reluctantly, nodding his head towards the papers on Ambrose’s desk, ‘Every word of that’s the truth, but I dursen’t put my name to it, else I’d lose my job.’
‘I understand that. You needn’t worry. I shan’t mention names.’
George seemed unwilling or unable to part with more words at the moment, so Ambrose tried again.
‘What is it that you feel you must do, George?’
The man looked up, and said simply, ‘Tell folks. I must tell folks how it is. For they canna know, or they’d do different by us.’
‘Would you mind if I read your article now?’ Ambrose asked. ‘I should have a better idea what you’re talking about.’
George shrank a little at the thought of such public exposure, but nodded. He watched apprehensively as Ambrose began to decipher his cramped writing, and after a minute or so he burst out defensively, ‘I can but print my letters!’
‘I prefer printing,’ Ambrose replied. ‘Some people’s handwriting is so difficult to read.’
His face changed. He settled back in his chair, leaving his ale untouched, and read on to the end in complete absorption. When he looked at his cousin again, it was with amazement and respect.
‘I shall publish this as it stands,’ he said.
‘What?’ cried George indignantly. ‘Put me to shame? The masters won’t take no notice of a working man’s words! If you do it proper, they’ll read it proper.’
‘They’ll read it as it is,’ Ambrose replied just as fiercely. ‘I’m not serving it up on a china plate. I’m going to shove it down their throats and hope it sticks!’
George leaped out of his seat, jerked his cap from his pocket and struck it against his thigh with frustration.
‘Dang me!’ he swore under his breath. ‘And I thought as I could trust him!’
‘Man, man, you have a gift of expression which I wish to God was mine. I’m a good journalist by any standards. Now and then, I can be very good. But I haven’t your power of expression. To polish this article in the way you mean would be to spoil it and weaken its case. I publish it as it is, or not at all. Take your choice.’
George simmered for a couple of minutes. Then he glanced sideways. He made up his mind.
‘You’re not having me on, are you, cousin?’ he asked shyly.
‘No, I’m not. I’ll tell you something else. I’d be prepared to help you with your schooling, and later to employ you on the paper. It would take time and hard work, but you’d make a splendid journalist. That’s my opinion. There’s my offer. The rest is up to you.’
The meaning of the words had penetrated at last. George breathed harder. His eyes fairly bolted with pleasure. Evidently, praise did not usually come his way. He fairly twirled his cap between his hands in an effort to contain himself. When he did speak, he did not look in Ambrose’s direction but straight ahead.
‘You’ve knocked me all of a heap, cousin,’ he admitted. ‘Nobody called me owt but a clown afore. I’m right grateful to you. I’d be glad of the schooling. I feel, many a time, like a workman wi’ poor tools. If the tools was good, I could say more. Thankee.’
Then he managed to turn and look at his benefactor face to face.
‘But I shan’t work on no newspaper,’ he said emphatically. ‘I’m not here for that. I could get led astray. I’m here to speak out as a working man, for working men.’
Ambrose was impressed and annoyed at the same time.
‘Don’t belittle other men’s gods, George!’ he said, light but firm. ‘There’s no finer weapon, to my mind, than a great newspaper. The Correspondent has a long road to travel before she becomes what I want her to be, but she’ll get there in the end.’
George was watching his lips as well as his expression, unused to all this verbal play.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘no offence meant, and none given, I hope, cousin. Only, I’m a working man and that’s my road. Eh! Look at t’time. I must be off. I’m on t’six o’clock shift at Prospect!’
‘Half a minute, George. Give me your address.’
The man printed it laboriously at the bottom of the sheet, adjusted his cap and muffler and followed Ambrose down the stairs. At the front door they shook hands: Ambrose warmly, George solemnly.
‘It’s a dirty night, I’m afraid,’ said Ambrose, of the raw wind, the driving rain.
Time and place being creations of the mind, George replied, ‘Nay, I shan’t notice owt. I’st be tramping in good heart. Nor wind nor rain can mither me now. It’s the best night o’ my life, cousin.’
FOURTEEN: UGLY DAYS
The Northern Correspondent
10 February, 1834
A Prospect of Hell
A sound education is a vital tool with which we can fashion and improve the lot of mankind, and we shall not be satisfied until every citizen in this country can regard it as a birthright. Nevertheless, the most rudimentary learning can serve the ends of humanity, truth and justice. The following article has been written by a collier and is printed exactly as it was received by us, without alteration or amendment. It is an essay from Hell itself.