The Northern Correspondent

by Jean Stubbs

  So Jack came up on the foot-plate and was shown how the engine started, and he stored away every word and motion of the instructions, just in case a train broke down sometime and he was asked to take over. And just wait until I get back to Millbridge Grammar School next week, he thought, and I tell the chaps that I’ve been to the Great Exhibition and my cousin Herbert is an engine-driver!

  With reluctance did he jump down into Uncle Dick’s arms, and watch him mount again in his stead. He was too well mannered to cry out that he would give his giant striped marble to travel to Preston on the foot-plate, but he ventured to open his heart to Naomi when they got back to the carriage, and woke memories in Mary Vivian.

  ‘Oh, I know exactly how you feel!’ she cried, suddenly young again. ‘Oh, Hal, do you remember when I rode on the foot-plate with you and Mr Edgeworth in Pioneer?’

  The Cornishman could not recollect it in detail, but saw that his wife could and that it meant much to her. So he picked up her hand and kissed it, and said of course he did.

  ‘I lost my parasol in the coal-box!’ Mary said.

  ‘We touched on six-and-twenty miles an hour!’ Hal remembered.

  Naomi and Ambrose smiled at each other in mutual understanding. So did Jamie and Dorcas. But Alice and Cicely, ripe for love, and believing it to be the exclusive province of the young, put their Bibi bonnets together and giggled.

  If Millbridge Central Station was grand, if The Northern Correspondent was a fine newspaper, if the cultural centres of Manchester and Liverpool were growing in number and splendour, and Lancashire welcomes were traditionally warm and hospitable, then London was all these things and more, rolled into one.

  The great hall at Euston towered above the thousands who buzzed to and fro within its hive. The city had cleaned itself up for visitors, and was concerned that they should find their way to everywhere and see everything without getting lost. On W. H. Smith’s bookstall inside the station Ambrose bought maps and guide books for his party, and saw that the orderly rows of London daily and evening newspapers had columns printed in different languages to welcome guests from abroad.

  And no sooner had they arrived than London provided them with their first sight of the Ladies’ Reform Dress, while the porter assembled their luggage.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ cried Mary.

  ‘Is it a man or a woman?’ Naomi asked ironically.

  For a Bloomer was strolling past with an air of nonchalance. No one could have quarrelled with her straw hat, bound by wide scarlet ribbons, nor with her tight-fitting black jacket cut snugly to the waist. Even her spotted voile skirt was pretty, if only it had not stopped at the knees, and so displayed in all their vulgarity — a pair of bloomers. But, worse than that, far far worse, was the cigar gripped lightly between the lady’s teeth. And as she passed them, she took the fine brown cylinder from her lips, blew a perfect smoke ring, and deliberately and most impudently winked at them. Transfixed, the Wyndendale party watched her go by.

  ‘She must be an American. Perhaps Mrs Bloomer herself!’ whispered Mary, horribly impressed.

  ‘I think,’ said Naomi distinctly, ‘that she is quite dreadful!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Mary murmured, watching the Turkish trousers sway away. ‘The cigar is rather dashing!’

  Then Hal Vivian woke up for perhaps the first and last time in all his married life, and read his wife’s mind. He uttered one word in a distinct and final tone.

  ‘No!’ said the Cornishman.

  Dick Howarth was apparently with them for moral support rather than company. He had chosen the same London excursion trip, one of many organised by a young man called Thomas Cook, but insisted on travelling third-class, though Ambrose offered to pay the difference so he could join them. Now, in spite of being among foreigners in foreign parts, he hung on the outskirts of the group purely as a temporary measure, to see where they were lodging.

  Naomi, never at a loss for connections, had rented a house overlooking the common at Wimbledon for them all, including himself. But once he had their address written down on a piece of paper, Dick made up his mind to try the modest hospitality of Mr Thomas Harrison in Pimlico, who had created a vast establishment near the Pier, where one thousand members of the working-class at a time could enjoy a good bed, breakfast and dinner for two shillings and threepence, plus the added convenience of a newsroom, a smoking room, light music on the premises, the services of a surgeon and barber if required, and a penny omnibus from the very door.

  ‘And if I canna get in,’ said Dick, ‘I’st find a clean place somewhere else, wi’ a bed to spare!’

  Admiring but concerned, the family gathered round him. Ambrose insisted on lending him three sovereigns, which Mary had to sew into the hem of his old jacket forthwith, sitting on a platform bench.

  Jamie Standish thrust a map into his pocket, with strategic points marked in red ink, and directions to the Great Exhibition written in the margin.

  Hal Vivian wrote the date and time of Dick’s return train on another piece of paper, and gave him a Bradshaw’s Railway Guide as an extra precaution.

  The men synchronised their silver watches with Dick’s old repeater, and shook hands with him. The women kissed him fervently.

  ‘We’ll meet you at ten o’clock tomorrow morning in the Exhibition Hall at the Crystal Fountain!’ Ambrose shouted after him.

  ‘T’day’s half over by then!’ Dick shouted back. ‘I’st have walked London by ten o’clock.’

  They watched him dodge his way resolutely between the evening omnibuses, carpet bag in hand.

  ‘I never expect to see my father again!’ cried Mary dramatically.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Ambrose. ‘There’s something immensely durable about Kit’s Hill Howarths!’

  THIRTY: WINDOW ON A FUTURE WORLD

  The Crystal Palace was all space and light and air. Fragile and iridescent it seemed, as if they were at the centre of a vast soap bubble and a puff of wind could blow it away.

  So that the ladies all cried, ‘Oh, what a work of art!’

  Art? Two thousand workmen taking no more than nine months to construct a building one third of a mile long, on a foundation of concrete which covered eighteen acres of Hyde Park! Art? Thirty-four miles of iron pipes run through iron baseplates to carry hollow iron columns! Art? Four hundred tons of sheet glass set into its iron framework without the use of scaffolding!

  ‘What a feat of engineering!’ cried the gentlemen.

  Sparkling in the sunlight, fluttering with the flags of all nations, its atmosphere was incredibly light-hearted: as light of heart and lively as the millions of people who streamed in and out of its portals.

  From the practical point of view, everything worked splendidly. There were three entrances and seventeen exits. Ten staircases gave access to a mile of galleries and courts, connected by bridges. And Chelsea Waterworks Company supplied three hundred thousand gallons a day to keep the fountains and other conveniences going. For in three parts of the building, Public Comfort Stations had been installed for the visitors: an innovation which was highly appreciated. Light snacks and non-alcoholic drinks were supplied by Messrs Schweppe at moderate charges. Silvery medals, commemorating the event, could be bought from trayholders at the gates or along the roads.

  This was the first shop window of the world, and countries all over the world from America to Russia hastened to advertise their wares. Products of every art and craft and industry were there: tons of sculpture, rooms full of modern machinery, gadgets and novelties of all descriptions, articles of use and ornament, something to suit the taste and capture the interest of everyone.

  Nothing had been regarded as impossible. Even old and noble elms were incorporated rather than hewn down, and spread their branches with dignity beneath the glass dome. Excepting Fridays, when the admission price rose to half-a-crown, and Saturdays when it became five shillings, the cost of viewing this fairy-land was only one shilling a day. Fifty guardians of the law,
top-hatted and truncheoned, made sure that peace prevailed. And the rules were few. You might not drink alcohol on the premises. You might not bring your dog. And the palace was closed on Sundays.

  True to his word, Dick Howarth was there before ten o’clock the following morning, waiting under a potted palm tree near the fountain. He had been up at five o’clock, sailed the river by steamboat from Pimlico to the city, and seen all manner of marvels. On arrival at the Crystal Fountain, he had drunk some of its filtered water, wetted his neckerchief and bathed his face, and was feeling the better for it. One hand gripped his carpet bag for safety. The other held a cold ham sandwich well laced with mustard, from which he had taken a couple of healthy bites. If a wanderer could ever be said to look at home, Dick Howarth was in his element.

  ‘I had trouble at t’gate, I did,’ said Dick cheerfully, when he had shaken hands all round. ‘They’ll not change a florin, tha knows. You have to give ’em t’shilling. I daresay they want to get folk in quick. Well, I hadna getten a shillin’. So I turned round and asked a chap behind me if he had change for a florin. Once we’d made us-selves understood he were very agreeable, but I tell thee summat, Ambrose — they don’t half talk funny down here!’

  ‘Ah! That’s what comes of mixing with foreigners!’ said his nephew gravely. ‘Did you lodge with Mr Thomas Harrison?’

  ‘Nay, he were full up, but I found a nice quiet widder woman in Ranelagh Street, and she had a sofa to spare in t’parlour. I’m going back there tonight, and all!’

  ‘And what’s our Hatty going to say about that, I should like to know?’ Mary asked playfully, kissing him.

  Then she caught sight of her husband wandering away towards the Machinery Rooms, and cried, ‘Hal! Come back! We must all see Father’s carving first!’

  A crystal of many facets, the exhibition bade them reflect upon it, and as they peered into its shining depths they saw themselves reflected back, enhanced and magnified. They were to emerge something richer for the experience.

  Dick Howarth discovered to his immense astonishment that he had two faces. One had grown old in all weathers and wore a dusty hat, and its mouth would dominate farming conversation ever after.

  ‘Aye, that’s all very well, Fred. But what you want, my lad, is one o’ them McCormick’s reapers for Sluther Field. It’d make a clean sweep in half an hour, and, as for threshing! Well, I’d chuck that owd thresher into t’river if I was you, and find yourself one of them new improved machines like I saw in t’Great Exhibition!’

  So would the oracle speak to his son-in-law, thumbs well down in his waistcoat pockets, chewing his pipe as he had seen a Yankee gentleman chewing his cigar. And how was Fred to know that these American marvels were designed to reap and thresh whole prairies of wheat, in the midst of which his crop of barley would be lost ten thousand times over? He did not. He could only thank Dick for his advice, and consider him to be the ultimate authority on such matters.

  The other face Dick had taken for granted, and never known for what it was: the face of a fine craftsman.

  ‘Eh, by Gow!’ cried Dick, looking round on his admiring family in wonder.

  For between a cardboard model of St Paul’s, and a set of carved fruit stones contributed by the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, lay the whole of his humble world in miniature.

  Garth Fell, Lancashire. By Richard Howarth, farmer. Carved in the evenings with a penknife, by candlelight.

  ‘Eh! Eh, by Gow!’ cried Dick, and could not see for tears.

  Once they had viewed his work and praised him, the families split into separate groups, making arrangements to meet at specific times and places, and re-mingle to form different parties. But what a dreadful thing happened to Jack Longe!

  His brothers and Matthew Standish were playing a new game, inspired by the wilder Novelties in the exhibition. It began with the words, ‘My Favourite Novelty is…’ and ended in peals of laughter.

  ‘…is undoubtedly — The Window Cleaner for the Protection of Female Servants from Fatal Accidents and Public Exposure!’ said Nathan in the beautiful dry tone inherited from his father.

  The three youths slapped each other’s shoulders and crowed with delight.

  ‘No! No!’ cried Toby, who always had to best his elder brother. ‘What about The Collapsible Piano for a Gentleman’s Yacht?’

  Whereupon he collapsed with laughter, and the others followed.

  ‘I say!’ cried Matthew. ‘What about The Expanding Hearse?’

  They fell about. They imitated a row of corpses and the bulging vehicle. They made jokes about the cholera epidemic which showed how strong a nerve they had, or how black a sense of humour.

  Jack laughed dutifully with them but was not really amused, so after a while he wandered away in search of his mother, who had given him an itinerary of her movements.

  And there, directly in front of him, was an amazing little textile machine called ‘The Tailor’, being fed with pieces of cloth to demonstrate its powers. Jack was enthralled. He watched first one and then another pair of trousers cut out, stitched, and thrown down for inspection. He came closer. And closer.

  At one stage — Jack could not remember when — he had offered to carry his mother’s dust-cloak, which now hung over his arm. The Tailor finished its latest creation, tossed it aside, and looked for more. Intent on the textile machinery, Jack did not notice that one corner of the cloak had floated within its grasp.

  Programmed to respond to the touch of cloth, the Tailor went into a ferment of agitation, whipped Naomi’s mantle from him, gave a shrill scream, and began to ply a pair of mechanical scissors.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Jack. ‘Oh, no, don’t do it!’

  Heedless of the boy’s protests, or the sympathy and amusement of those around him, the tailor’s needle flashed in and out of the snipped cloak with tremendous industry.

  ‘Oh, please help me, somebody!’ Jack cried, turning from one to another person. ‘Please, sir, please ma’am, this machine has taken my Mamma’s … my Mamma’s…’

  Contemptuously, the Tailor tossed him a pair of mangled trousers.

  Hal Vivian had been a lost cause since he caught sight of the improved double turbine engine from France. But Santo’s stomach, and his interest in a certain young lady, brought them back to reality.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Santo, addressing his father’s back, ‘but didn’t Mamma say we were to meet everyone in the Central Area for luncheon at one o’clock?’

  ‘I — believe — she — did,’ Hal replied slowly, fascinated by James Nasmyth’s steam-hammer, which was very tenderly cracking an egg to show them how wonderfully great power could be controlled.

  ‘Well, it’s half past two already, sir!’

  There was a long pause, at the end of which the Cornishman realised he was supposed to say something.

  ‘Is it, by Jove?’ said Hal, trying to sound interested.

  Still he did not look at the perturbed face of his son and heir.

  ‘Half past two, by Jove!’ he repeated.

  This was an old trick, to show that he had heard and understood what was said to him.

  Another egg was placed beneath the mammoth, and again cracked so lightly that the perfection of adjustment made Hal Vivian shake his head in silent admiration. As the hammer rose again, hissing, he became aware that he was expected to remark upon the time.

  ‘It seems we shall be a little late,’ said the Cornishman mildly.

  To Cicely Standish, the Exhibition was one enormous trousseau and furniture store laid out especially for her benefit. Even the fountain of Maria Farina Eau de Cologne provided its hint of romance. A young policeman, standing by, had kindly perfumed her handkerchief in the jet and returned it with a look of respectful admiration.

  In her mind, she trod an Aubusson carpet in a marble mansion. She was clad in silks, specially imported from Lyons, rich in handmade lace. She chose Dresden figurines for her parlour mantelpiece. The Carriage Court provided so much choice that she had dif
ficulty in deciding on a closed carriage by Clapp of Boston, and thought she should need a light park phaeton as well. Her establishment was almost complete when Alice spotted the monumental console table and mirror.

  ‘Isn’t that the most enormous and glorious thing you have ever seen in all your days?’ cried Alice, true daughter of Mary.

  A dream of grandeur, garlanded with carved swags and vases and cherubs and roses. Cicely rustled forward to look, and found herself small and exquisite in its glossy depths. Prophetically, in the distance stood Santo Vivian, and saw her from afar. They shared the same trance: the pretty girl in summer muslin, the handsome fellow watching her. Nothing had been said between them as yet. Nothing needed to be said. The looking glass spoke for them both.

  Alice Vivian saw it happen, and the moment which created their fusion set her apart.

  Cicely and Santo. Santo and Cicely, she thought. This is their beginning. But what will the middle and end be, and what will become of them? Imagine that this is the first and last time they see each other for many years. For some very good reason — his work perhaps — they will be separated. Would she be faithful? Yes! Would he? I’m not at all sure! She’s ready for marriage. He wants freedom. Reflections in a looking glass. Why, I could write a novel about that!

  She was a vivid girl, tall like her father, copper-haired like her mother, with those narrow, dark, amber eyes which seemed to be her own inheritance — for there were no others like them in the family. A girl quick to laugh, slow to cry, and simmering with vitality. As he swaggered by, a cavalry officer winked at her. Alice never saw him, lost in her imaginary world.

  She thought, ‘I must write it under another name, and not say a word to anyone until it is published. Not that Mamma wouldn’t be wholly entranced by the idea, but she’d never give me a moment’s peace to write it! Dearest Mamma, I shall do it without any help from you — and surprise you enormously. Now, what nom de plume should I choose?’