Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  They all walked faster. Johnny said, ‘Harvard’s on the far side, in the crimson singlets … Harvard! Harvard!’ he yelled, though the crews were still much too far away to hear him.

  ‘I’ll shout for Boston,’ the dark girl said. ‘Harvard’s a bastion of privilege … Boston! Boston!’ her treble rang out. She began to run, holding up her skirt.

  Johnny said to Tom, as he too broke into a limping run, ‘I’m the regular No. 3 in our boat, sir … sprained my ankle.’

  ‘And Guy sprained his wrist or he wouldn’t be here. He’d be playing cricket for Wellington … Harvard, Harvard!’

  ‘We’re striking about thirty-six, Boston thirty-nine,’ Johnny muttered, stopping and peering back, his hand shading his eyes. ‘Our boat’s very smooth in the water … Boston’s got a canvas in front, I think.’

  They ran on. Suddenly Stella stumbled and fell headlong, revealing her legs up to white-stockinged knees. Johnny Merritt was down beside her in a flash. ‘Are you hurt? Are you all right?’

  She sat up, the big eyes wide, lashes fluttering – ‘Oh, thank you.’ Her hands pushed down the skirt, the colour coming and going in her cheeks. Naomi watched in amused annoyance; once, she had been sure that all Stella’s reactions in such circumstances were carefully calculated, and practised, to attract the opposite sex. Slowly, unwillingly, she had come to believe that Stella could not help herself. Everything that happened to her, everything that she did in relation to men, was without her volition or intent.

  Johnny helped her to her feet. She dusted herself down. The boats came on fast. Johnny yelled, ‘See you at the finish line!’ and ran limping on as fast as he could, screaming, ‘Harvard, Harvard!’

  The racing boats came. Harvard was still striking slower than Boston, but rowing a longer stroke, catching the water further behind the riggers. The long bows needled past, level. The hunched bodies coiled, uncoiled, the blades made sixteen circles in the river. For a moment there was no sound but the splash of the oars, the creak and slat of the slides, and the barked cadence of the coxswains. Then the coach trotted by on his horse, shouting, and bicycle bells trilled, and they all hurried forward, jostling on the narrow towpath, Johnny Merritt’s figure flying ahead. The crews became smaller, until they seemed like mechanical water-boatmen toys.

  Guy shouted, ‘Harvard’s in front!’ Then the men settled down to a steady trot, and a few minutes later came upon Johnny Merritt standing outside the Stewards’ Enclosure, an ecstatic grin splitting his face. He spread his arms wide. ‘We won! Length and a quarter! They’ve already thrown Kreger into the river … we did it! We won the Grand!’

  ‘Even without you,’ Guy said gravely.

  Johnny said, ‘Even without me!’ He stuck out his hand. ‘You’ve got your nerve for a … what are you? Senior? Junior?’

  Guy said, ‘I’m seventeen and a bit.’

  Johnny said, ‘God help us all when you’re twenty-one.’

  Then they all wrung Johnny’s hand, and clapped his back, congratulating him on the victory; and the girls came up, panting, to congratulate him in their turn, even Rachel Cowan. Then Johnny said, ‘Excuse me … I’d like you to meet my father, and I sure would like to meet your people … but they’re pulling Kreger out of the river, and I have to go for now. I’ll look for you afterwards, when I find my father.’ He turned to Stella, ‘Will you all be at the Phyllis Court Ball tonight? My father and I are going … and all our crew. The Phyllis Court people have been kind enough to invite us as guests.’

  ‘We’re members,’ Guy said, ‘and some of us will be there, but Stella’s really in quarantine for measles, so she – ’

  ‘Guy!’ she screamed, ‘I’m not in quarantine for anything! I’m going to the ball. We all are, Mr Merritt.’

  ‘We’ll meet again there, then, if not sooner?’

  ‘I’m sure we will. We’ll look for you and your father.’

  ‘And I’ll look for you, Miss Cate.’

  Daily Telegraph, Saturday, July 4, 1914

  YACHTING: CLYDE FORTNIGHT

  The King’s Cutter Beaten

  The Clyde yachting fortnight opened yesterday in excellent sailing weather. The breeze, which was from the northwest, was light at the start, but gathered strength as the racing proceeded, and was fairly steady.

  The chief interest centred, naturally, in the appearance of the King’s cutter Britannia, which returned to the Clyde after an absence of some fifteen years and fortunately four good-class yachts were got together to test the powers of the famous racer. In addition to the Wendur, which has been competing with the Britannia since the Holyhead Regatta, the Clyde yawls Rose and Harbinger joined the class, and on the day the winner turned up in Rose, which saved her time from the Royal yacht by 4 min 17 sec.

  Christopher Cate, sitting in a comfortable chair by the window of his library, office, and music room in Walstone Manor put the Telegraph down, yawned, and stretched. It was a hot day, and the bees were making a great humming in the Virginia creeper on the wall outside. A shaft of sunlight illumined the shelf where he kept the philosophers – Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Kant, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Santayana – and all their comrades, upright as soldiers and solemn as judges, in their tooled leather bindings. It was time he tackled Spinoza again. The problems of farming in the Scarrow valley in this year of 1914 were by no means few, or small; but from time to time the brain needed to bite into something more chewy, something which demanded total concentration, and that for hours on end …

  Perhaps he should turn his philosophical eye on himself. Christopher Cate, fifty years of age, squire of Walstone in the county of Kent – only no one but Probyn Gorse called him ‘squire’; the position itself, and all that the word had connotated for so many centuries, was slipping away, retreating into the past to a sound of faint music – early Victorian hunting horns across far fallow perhaps, or part songs round an Elizabethan maypole. If Mr Lloyd George had his way with taxes, the landed gentry would soon cease to exist. He ought to consider that possibility as dispassionately as he could. Was it now desirable? … disastrous? … inevitable? If the last, then he should begin to think how he could prepare Cawthorn, Shearer, Mayhew, and Fleck, his tenants, against the day when they would have no squire – call it ‘landlord’ – standing between them and the vagaries of the weather, diseases of animals and plants, and other acts of God. He yawned again, and got up.

  His father-in-law, Harry Rowland, would be retiring in a month or two. He’d worked hard, and had a good life. But the two statements were connected: he’d worked hard, ergo he’d had a good life. Would it be the same for the younger generation – for Stella and Laurence and Guy and Naomi and the rest of them? He must try once more to find a husband for Alice – thirty-four now and as ripe a woman as she would ever be, going to waste. His brother Oswald ought to have married her fifteen years ago when he’d had a crush on her for a month or two; but he’d married that … that hard-mouthed mare in skirts instead.

  Perhaps he could retire, himself. But how? When? The idea was ridiculous as long as he owned land. But hadn’t he just been pointing out to himself that he might soon lose it?

  He yawned a third time. The racing would be over at Henley now, or nearly so. Tomorrow he’d better walk over to the Home Farmhouse and talk to Matthew Fleck about what fertilizer was best to use on the farm’s 460 acres of arable land … and how to pay for it.

  And while he was there, he might hint to Matthew that his witness as to Probyn Gorse’s sterling character would be appreciated at Probyn’s trial, due in ten days’ time. Matthew had done some poaching himself, when younger, and certainly held no messianic views on the subject, but what on earth had persuaded Probyn to go out after pheasant in high summer? He should know better than that…

  And he must say a sharp word to that young rogue Fletcher, Probyn’s grandson. It had been easy to find a husband for Mary Maxwell, because the girl was handsome and strong and sensible, and would make anyone a wonderful wife. No one but
Fletcher could have turned her head. But, having got the wretched girl pregnant, he should have married her … but in truth she’d be a great deal more wretched if he did. Fletcher Gorse was a superb human animal, but would never be a superb husband, surely.

  He picked up the paper … must read the farm news and stock and grain prices, or he’d never be able to give his tenants sound advice. A small half-buried headline caught his eye: ARSENAL STRIKE … strange information to find on the sports page. The piece began: ‘A serious situation arose yesterday at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, resulting in a strike of about 1500 men.’

  He read on. All the members of the Engineers’ Union had walked out because one of their number, a man called Entwhistle, had been dismissed for refusing to erect some machinery on concrete bedding which had been prepared by non-union labour. Now the Arsenal was practically shut down because without the engineers the rest could do little or nothing.

  Cate put down the paper, shaking his head. Heaven knew where the rights and wrongs of the matter lay, at bottom; but it was fortunate indeed that England was at peace …

  2 Henley, Saturday, July 4, 1914

  The orchestra swung into The Blue Danube and the level of sound in the ballroom rose in the same lilting rhythm. The women’s dresses, white and blue and pink, swung wider, the tails of the young men’s black coats whirled faster. Under the myriad lights, their bronzed faces glowed from the days in the sun, on the river. Their white-gloved hands rested on the matt, white backs of the young women dancing in their arms. The floor creaked one – two – three, in rhythm to the pounding of their feet. Rose Rowland settled herself as comfortably as she could on her chair. She still ached all over from yesterday’s cab accident, but there was no longer any sharp pain. She was sorry to have missed the day’s racing, but resting all day had been a great help. She twirled her fan a shade faster to keep time with the waltz. She liked the waltz. In their time, she and Harry had waltzed as well as any of these youngsters on the floor now – better, for today’s young seemed to be more self-conscious than her generation, never able to lose awareness of who and where they were. She remembered times, in Harry’s arms, when she had known or cared about neither. Had her feet touched the floor in those magical evenings? How, without her remembrance of any time or place of transition, she had been lying in his arms, no gloved hand on her back, but his fingers digging in, his body thrusting hot nectar into her vitals?

  She slowed her fan. Time passes, age comes, and with it, pain. Dullness and aching where the nectar flowed.

  She said, ‘That’s the third dance Stella’s had with that young American you told me about – Johnny Merritt, isn’t it? What cow’s eyes she’s making at him!’

  Alice Rowland, sitting at her mother’s side along the wall of the ballroom, said, ‘She can’t help it, Mother. Or perhaps she’s flirting to get Margaret’s attention. But I don’t think she’s watching. She doesn’t like dancing.’

  Rose said, ‘Margaret takes no better care of Stella than Fiona does of Virginia. Louise is the only one who seems to care about her daughter. It’s a shame she and John couldn’t come this year.’

  ‘Louise takes more care of Naomi than Naomi likes, often,’ Alice said. ‘She’s a very independent young lady.’

  Her mother said, ‘It’s better when Margaret’s away. Then Louise feels free to keep an eye on Stella, too, which she can hardly do when the girl’s own mother is present … Why are Naomi and that Cowan girl sitting out this dance? Look over there.’

  ‘I don’t know, Mother. They’re not old maids like me.’

  ‘You’re not an old maid, Alice, you’re just too intelligent for these silly men. And that’s what Naomi and the Cowan girl think … that the young men are too silly for them. I can see it in their faces, from here.’

  She heard a man’s voice beside her – ‘Mother, you love the waltz. Are you feeling up to dancing this one with me?’

  She turned her head, smiling. ‘Thank you, Richard, but old-fashioned waltzing is for younger legs than mine. Why don’t you dance with Alice? You mustn’t let your sister be a wallflower.’

  Richard bowed exaggeratedly, ‘Will you waltz, Miss Rowland?’

  Alice rose, giving a slight curtsey, ‘I shall be honoured, Mr Rowland.’

  Her brother laughed. ‘Come on, Dormouse. You look about twenty-two tonight.’

  They swept away and Rose changed her position on the satin-covered chair. She could never stay comfortable in one position for more than a few minutes these days. It was nothing to do with the accident, just old age, old age … She shook her head, wiping the thought, and the nagging slight pain, from her conscious awareness. She looked about, examining, her fan swishing slowly now – a tall woman now in her seventies, straight backed, dark hair grey-streaked, the face and mouth a little severe, and beginning to be etched with the signs of a permanent physical pain, always suppressed … There was her eldest son, Richard, dancing with her youngest daughter, Alice. There was her youngest son, Tom, standing in a doorway with Guy, the boy’s arm still in the sling, and his friend Dick Yeoman. They were not dancing, while rows of pretty girls waited, any of whom would be delighted to dance with a commander, Royal Navy, even though they might think the boys too young for them. They were a good-looking trio, Tom mature and square-faced, Guy hawklike, and the friend almost as long-lashed and pretty as a girl in the face, but with a young man’s solid body … Where were the rest of her family? She knew that her husband Harry was in the lounge, but where were … ah, there was Fiona, dancing with a man whom Rose did not recognize. She raised her lorgnette and examined him carefully as they passed. No, she did not know him. She must remember to ask Fiona who he was … but Fiona looked bored. She always did, even when Quentin was home.

  She turned her head as she heard her husband’s voice beside her – ‘Rose, I’d like to introduce to you the gentleman whom Tom and the boys met after the races this afternoon – Johnny Merritt’s father. We have been talking in the lounge. Mr Stephen Merritt … my wife.’

  She smiled up. He was a tall man in his fifties, balding, with a monk-like tonsure of grey hair, angular in his motions, a little stooped. She patted the chair beside her. ‘Sit down, Mr Merritt. I hope you are enjoying yourself in England.’

  ‘I certainly am, Mrs Rowland. And Johnny even more so, from the looks of things.’ He gestured towards the floor, where Johnny was again dancing with Stella Cate. He said, ‘Your granddaughter is a very lovely young lady, ma’am. I have a girl about her age at home.’

  ‘You should have brought her over,’ Harry said, from the chair on her other side. ‘Enough young men at Henley to make any girl feel she’s a beauty … though, of course, I’m sure your daughter really is,’ he added hastily, catching Rose’s flicker of warning at his near-gaffe. ‘Mr Merritt’s a banker, Rose.’

  ‘A merchant banker, you call them here,’ Merritt said. ‘We look for opportunities to invest in businesses that are well managed but need more capital to reach their full potential. Or we buy control of businesses that are not being well managed, and for that reason have depressed earnings – and of course, price – and then put in new and efficient management. Your husband has been telling me about his firm. Of course, we have heard of Rowland automobiles in America. They have a high reputation.’ He always spoke slowly, Rose noticed, in a deep rather flat tone. He said, ‘I can say that it is Mr Rowland’s field, automotive, that is our speciality. In fact, our bank Fairfax, Gottlieb – is looking for suitable opportunities in Europe, including Great Britain … Mr Rowland mentioned that one of your daughters-in-law is American.’

  Rose said, ‘Susan is. Richard’s wife. She was a Miss Kruze. Her father was in the timber business, in San Francisco.’

  ‘They have no children,’ Harry said, as Rose knew he would. Harry hated people to ask about Susan and Richard’s family, because then he’d have to tell them that they didn’t have any, after sixteen years of marriage.

  Stephen Merritt nodded, saying
nothing, until he said to Rose, ‘Do I detect a touch of the Emerald Isle in your voice, ma’am?’

  ‘You do,’ she said, ‘I am a McCormack. And you? Many Americans are Irish, I know, though you have no brogue.’

  ‘Not I,’ he said. ‘Pure English by descent.’

  ‘If there is such a thing,’ Harry cut in.

  Merritt said, ‘My wife’s ancestors – she’s passed away, God rest her – were originally Huguenots. Both families farmed in Maine for many generations, but my grandfather came to New York, and we have lived there ever since – New York State, specifically Nyack. It’s on the west bank of the Hudson River in Rockland County, about thirty miles up from Manhattan.’

  Rose said, ‘Is the river as pretty as the Thames?’

  Stephen Merritt stroked his long jaw and considered before replying, ‘I wouldn’t call it pretty, Mrs Rowland. I would say that “grand” or … “imposing” would be better words. From our boathouse it is nearly four miles to the Westchester shore, opposite.’

  ‘Goodness gracious! It’s like a sea. It must get very rough sometimes.’

  ‘It does.’

  Harry said, ‘You live in this place but your office is in New York – the city, surely?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Most men in my position would live in the city – on Upper Fifth Avenue, perhaps, but I travel daily by the railroad to New Jersey and then by ferry to Wall Street, and back the same way every evening.’

  ‘A long day,’ Harry said.

  ‘I think it’s worth it, sir – for the fresh air, and the view… Mr Rowland was telling me that you are planning a trip round the world in September. I would be honoured if you would spend a few days with us in Nyack.’

  Rose said, ‘How kind of you, Mr Merritt. We must see if we can fit such a visit into our plans. We are due in California at the end of September – I don’t remember the exact date. We go there from New York by train.’

  ‘That’ll be an all day and night trip, I expect,’ Harry said, ‘America’s a big country.’