Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  Bob said nothing. Mr Harry was showing the strain in his face; but it wouldn’t last much longer, and after the break had been made, it would soon be all right … if the break was made, finally. And if it weren’t – what would he do?

  Harry Rowland got up with a decisive movement. ‘Well, thanks for your opinion, Bob … That was a terrible accident at the Fair yesterday.’

  ‘So it was. You would have missed it just?’

  ‘We heard the noise as we were leaving. We drove three injured people to the hospital in our motor car. Wright spent an hour afterwards, washing the blood off the seats and floor. Mrs Rowland took it very well.’

  ‘She’s a strong lady, Mr Harry.’

  ‘Thank you. Jane was good enough to offer us some tea, but we’d better be going. I’ll find my own way up, Bob.’

  ‘All right then, Mr Harry. I’ve maybe half an hour’s more work here, so …’

  ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Upstairs, in the house, Bob finished washing his hands in the bedroom wash-handstand and carefully dried them. A few minutes’ talk with Jane about tomorrow’s dinner, and then it would be time to walk to chapel for the evening service. And tomorrow, to the factory, to see that it was ready to start, and to sign off the night watchman. Then six days of labour: and the shed. And Sunday, morning and evening, to chapel, respectful greetings in the streets – Good morning, Mr Stratton, good morning, Mrs Stratton – and so round the cycle again: but only till September the first. Then, suddenly, he would no longer be himself. Of course he’d still have the shed, and Victoria, and the house, and Jane, and Nellie the girl, and sons and daughters and grandchildren, but he, the person behind the name, would disappear. The person who had been Bob Stratton, Works foreman of Rowland’s, would become Frank Stratton, and Jane would become Anne. It was a strange and frightening prospect, and he understood, suddenly, the suppressed panic that had brought Harry Rowland here this afternoon. But what escape was there? From that, or the other compulsions in a man’s life?

  He went downstairs, just as Jane came to the foot of them and called up, ‘Bob! Nearly time to go.’

  Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, July 14, 1914

  FINANCE BILL

  Super-tax on Gross Income Penalising

  Agriculture Foreign Investments

  The House went into Committee on the Finance Bill, Mr Whitely in the chair. This was the first of the four days allotted under the Prime Minister’s guillotine motion, to the remainder of the Committee stage of the bill … On Clause 5, which prescribes the taxation of income from foreign investments, Mr Worthington Evans (U., Colchester) moved an amendment exempting income from Colonial investments from the scope of the clause. The amendment was selected by the Chairman in order to give a general discussion, and the mover took the opportunity of warning Mr Lloyd George that he would not, as the clause stood, get at the people he wanted to ‘catch’.

  Mr Cassel (U., St Pancras) seconding, said the Chancellor was aiming at crows, but owing to his haste a great many would escape, and he would hit a good many pigeons. (Laughter). He was deliberately handicapping British insurance companies, which were already in severe competition with foreign companies, both here and abroad. It was an old principle that immovable property abroad should not be taxed here, but he was taxing the product of such property, namely, the rent.

  Christopher Cate read on, carefully. Economics was not a favourite subject of his, especially when it was liberally mixed, as here, with politics; but it was his duty to know about the taxes, for his own and his tenants’ benefits.

  ‘Your coffee’s getting cold, Christopher,’ his wife said.

  Cate got up and poured himself some more. Stella took the paper off his chair and read a few lines. She turned to him as he sat down again. ‘What are invisible exports, Daddy? It says here that Mr Throckmorton made a speech in Manchester yesterday, that without our invisible exports we’d be bankrupt.’

  ‘Quite true,’ Christopher said, sipping his coffee. ‘Insurance is an invisible export – and one of our biggest. People – businesses, shipping companies, foreign governments, even – insure things in England, usually through Lloyd’s. The premiums they pay, less whatever the underwriters have to pay out, is an invisible export. It comes to millions of pounds a year. Shipping’s another.’

  His wife went round to the sideboard and helped herself to grilled kidneys and bacon. Cate continued – ‘We own half the world’s shipping tonnage. People hire British ships to take cargo from one place to another, usually not from port to port inside their own country – in most countries that trade is reserved for its own ships – but anywhere else. We have the ships, and the organization, and people trust our seamen, even though a lot of them are lascars or Chinamen.’

  ‘What’s a lascar?’

  ‘An Indian … mostly from Bengal, I believe. The money the shippers pay to the shipowners is an invisible export. Another smaller one is expert services. British lawyers and doctors are frequently asked for by foreign princes and kings and multi-millionaires, because we have the best, and they know they can rely on an Englishman’s word.’

  ‘Not a Scotsman’s?’ Stella cut in.

  Cate shook his finger at her. He said, ‘Another very big invisible export is dividends from companies we own abroad. We own most of the South American railways, for instance. There’s a special sort of stockbroker who deals only in South American rail shares. We own an enormous amount of business in India and the Empire, of course – coal mines, sheep ranches, steel foundries, cotton mills, even though those are in direct competition with our own mills in Lancashire … You’ve read about the great cattle ranches in America?’

  ‘Yes. In Texas, or somewhere.’

  ‘Well, most of the really big ranches are owned by British companies, and as long as they make a profit, the money that is sent back to England is an invisible export. British firms own a great deal of the United States.’

  ‘Does that mean America has to do what we want it to do?’

  ‘Not a bit, I’m afraid, but it does mean we have big reserves of their money – dollars. The pound sterling is the strongest currency in the world, and the foundation and medium of all international trade, because it is backed by our holdings in the Empire, and in every trading nation. People know they can trust it. Whatever happens to cruzeiros or marks or dinars, the pound sterling will always be worth twenty shillings.’

  Stella’s attention was wandering, and she had turned to another page of the newspaper. ‘Oh, what a pretty hat Lady Avondale was wearing at Hurlingham yesterday,’ she exclaimed. ‘Look, Daddy!’

  Cate glanced at the page his daughter held out for him and said, ‘H’mmm … it’s as big as a Burmese coolie’s. I suppose you want one like it?’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s too old for me. She must be thirty.’

  Garrod came in silently, put the back of her hand against the coffee pot and the hot milk jug and said, ‘Will you be wanting any more coffee, sir?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Madam? Miss Stella?’

  ‘No thanks, Garrod.’

  The head housemaid said, ‘Then I won’t make any more,’ and went out.

  Cate said, ‘You and Laurence are lucky children – lucky people – to be born English. Not just because of the invisible exports, of course, but because of people like Garrod, and Probyn Gorse … and the King. You can rely on them … and they know they can rely on you.’

  Margaret Cate said, ‘His Majesty can’t rely on me.’

  Christopher said, ‘That’s different.’

  5 Walstone, Kent: Tuesday, July 14, 1914

  ‘Frank’s down at the cowbarn, Mr Cate,’ Jessie Cawthon said from the open door of Abbas Farm house.

  ‘Thank you, Jessie,’ Christopher Cate answered. He touched the peak of his tweed cap, and went back down the walk towards the barn. John Rowland followed, stepping faster to keep up with Cate’s long strides, his golden retriever, Viking, trotting to heel. The sun shone, it was
ten o’clock in the morning, dappled clouds sailed high and slow over the Weald of Kent, oast-houses rose like tilted fingers among the heavy trees. To the north, water gleamed here and there, where the Scarrow slid out from under its protective arch of elm and oak, and for a few yards flowed past field and garden.

  Frank Cawthon was not much taller than his wife, and the same shape – squat and wide, with big hands and grizzled hair. He was stirring something brown in a feeding trough, and hardly looked up as Cate said, ‘Morning, Frank.’

  ‘Morning, Mr Cate.’ The farmer stirred the gluey mixture more powerfully. ‘Morning, Mr Rowland … I don’t know whether this dratted stuff does any good.’

  ‘Molasses and linseed?’

  ‘Aye.’ The farmer straightened his back slowly, letting the heavy wooden stirring rod rest against the side of the trough. ‘I’ve got to buy some young cows, Mr Cate, and a few heifers.’

  ‘You told me last month. Mind if Mr Rowland listens?’

  ‘Mr John here? No, sir! He knows as much about our troubles at Abbas Farm as I do, or Jessie – everyone in Walstone knows, come to that. The fact is, I reckon this milk fever we’re having at Abbas is because half our cows are too old. There ought to be some way to cure it, but if there is, no one’s told us about it. I’ve nursed this herd along as far as it will go. We’ve got to buy new young blood, and soon.’

  Cate leaned over a cow stall, a straw in his mouth, the cap tilted forward on his long head, one leg in a Newmarket boot set up on the stall bar, elbows leaning on the rail. Cawthon returned to stirring the mix. Cate said, ‘Suppose we forget the rent this year?’

  ‘That’ll help,’ Cawthon said, but as though grudgingly. John Rowland knew him well, and knew that he was moved and appreciative; but Frank Cawthon was not the man to show it. Cawthon added, ‘It’ll need more than that, Mr Cate. It’s forty cows we’re talking about. About fifteen of them should be heifers in calf.’

  Again some minutes passed in silence, emphasized by the heavy glugging of the molasses mix. Then Cate said, ‘Suppose I guarantee a bank loan for you? I’d lend it myself, only I can’t this year.’

  ‘Aye, ’twould do it,’ said Cawthon, still grudgingly.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Three hundred and fifty pounds.’

  ‘All right, Frank. I have to go to Hedlington tomorrow. Come with me and we’ll talk to Mr Olcott at Barclay’s.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘The ten-five train, then we can have a bite at the Crown afterwards, eh?’

  Cawthon stood up. ‘Thankee … I’ll be paying it back as soon as I can, rent and all.’

  ‘I know that, Frank. But pay off the bank first.’

  Cawthon nodded and Cate slowly uncoiled and, with a wave of his hand, walked out into the sunlight. Cawthon returned to his stirring. Viking barked at a farm cat, which continued to stalk across the yard, coldly ignoring him.

  John walked at Cate’s side down the bramble-lined lane towards another farm further along the low rise of land that bordered the Scarrow valley on the south. Cate said, ‘Cawthon’s a good farmer, John. About the best. Abbas Farm has bad soil, old equipment, old cows … yet until this outbreak of milk fever he was making it pay.’

  ‘I wish I was as good,’ John said.

  ‘There’s no reason you shouldn’t be. Why don’t you spend some time here, watching Frank, learning from him?’

  ‘He wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘Not a bit. You know Frank – the outside of him growls, the inside purrs. You could leave the day-to-day running of High Staining to Fred Stratton.’

  ‘I suppose I could. He would certainly be happier with me out of his way. We just don’t get along, never have, though he’s a good foreman.’

  Cate said, ‘You should learn to be your own foreman. It’ll be hard work, but you – you and Louise – could do it, and save Stratton’s wages. Of course, you’d have to get an extra boy for milking, but he’d get less money than Stratton.’

  ‘I’ll think about it … What’s the problem at Upper Bohun?’ John asked, jerking his head at the rambling thatched house they were approaching, surrounded by oast-houses, sheds, and the other accompaniments of a hop yard. ‘Mayhew’s let some of the crop get nettle blight,’ Cate said briefly. ‘And he’s asking for rent relief. I’m not going to give it to him. He’s a Lady Day tenancy and I’ll tell him he can expect his notice from me next March, unless he mends his ways. Of course, I’ll give him another crop, really, but I want to frighten him.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Carelessness?’

  ‘Drink,’ Cate said. ‘Better not come with me this time, John.’

  ‘Of course not. I’ll wait here looking at the view. It’s a glorious morning.’

  Cate went on alone towards the house, while John leaned over a five-barred gate and thought about what Cate had said. He was right: if you considered yourself a gentleman farmer, and acted like one, you had to pay the price. You were in the hands of your foreman, of the labourers even, because they knew more about farming than you did, although they were much less well educated. Why? Because your status mattered more to you than your profession … wearing a pink coat to hounds, becoming a Justice of the Peace, perhaps, being invited to Walstone Park for balls, having your young accepted as suitable playmates, and mates, to the County. He wished that he had the drive to be a good farmer … a good anything. Richard wanted to make good motor cars, very badly; Tom wanted to have his own ship, and be the best post captain in the navy, very badly; and he – nothing – except perhaps to be a good and loving father to Boy and Naomi.

  The heavy thud of hooves approaching at a trot stirred him from his thoughts. He looked up to see the 9th Earl of Swanwick, Master of Foxhounds, crowned by a brown bowler hat, posting heavily towards him on a large roan gelding. The earl was wearing a tweed hacking jacket and, like squire Cate, cavalry twill breeches and Newmarket boots, without spurs. He carried a short hunting crop in his left hand. That arm was slightly but noticeably withered. He reined in the big horse – ‘Morning, Rowland.’

  ‘Good morning, Lord Swanwick,’ John answered. He knew the earl and countess very well, and their children even better. After the initial meeting of a day, they often came to christian names: but at the outset of an encounter he felt it appropriate not to presume. Swanwick was a nobleman who did not like being presumed upon.

  ‘Taking the air?’ the earl asked.

  ‘Visiting some of Cate’s farms with him. He’s in Upper Bohun now.’

  ‘Trying to solve his bloody tenants’ problems, eh? Vickers is out doing the same thing for me, but nothing ever does get solved. It’s one damn thing after another for a landlord and always it comes to more money. Cate’s talking to Mayhew?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Their girl’s been walking a pair of bitch puppies for me, and I’m taking a look at all our boarders.’ He stared out over John’s head, as though searching for something. Glancing the same way, John saw one of the wings of Walstone Park, the earl’s seat, showing above the trees, two miles away across the Scarrow.

  The earl said abruptly, ‘John, I’ve got too much on my hands this year … here, London, the Welsh mines, rising taxes, rising wages … How about you taking over the hounds?’

  John tried to look astonished, not finding it easy because Lord Swanwick had mentioned the subject once before, nearly a year ago; and after some consideration, and discussion with Louise, John had told him he could not do it. He rode to hounds regularly, and wore the hunt button; but following hounds was one thing, hunting them was another.

  Swanwick said, ‘Wilkinson’s an excellent huntsman, y’know. So’s Billing. Old Eaves will stay on and he’s as good a secretary as any hunt could hope for. He knows every farmer in the bloody district.’

  John said, ‘It’s very good of you to think of me, but I don’t feel up to it.’

  Swanwick turned his head, the horse easing round, pricking his ears and fidgeting, his head also turning. ‘Still, blast you
!’ the earl growled. Cate came down the farm lane towards them. ‘Hello, Cate,’ the earl said.

  ‘Morning, Swanwick.’

  ‘Been trying to talk John here into taking over the hounds. If he won’t, where the hell can I turn?’

  Cate said, ‘I’ve been thinking about it ever since you mentioned to me that you wanted to give them up. Can’t come up with anyone who has the money, and the knowledge … and the desire.’

  ‘Any English gentleman ought to be willing to give his right hand to be a Master of Foxhounds,’ the earl growled.

  ‘Ever thought of a committee?’

  The earl said, ‘Don’t hold with committees. Like councils of war … bloody well sit on their arses, and talk, and talk, but do sweet damn all. Well, I’ve got to look at those puppies.’

  ‘I saw them,’ Cate said. ‘They’re in good condition.’

  ‘Good. That’ll save me a quarter of an hour listening to that blasted Mrs Mayhew babbling on about nothing.’

  Cate put on his cap, which he had been dangling in his hand since he came down from the farmhouse. He looked up and said, ‘We must be on our way … Flora well? And Helen and Barbara?’

  ‘They’re all fine – eating me out of house and home,’ the earl said. ‘Arthur’s in Italy and Cantley’s on a train to Baghdad, I believe … See you this afternoon?’

  Cate looked mystified for a moment, then said, ‘Oh, the court. Yes, I shall be there.’

  ‘Good. We’ll put that bugger Gorse where he belongs – behind bars.’ With a wave of his crop he turned his horse and rode back down the lane the way he had come. Cate and John, also turning, headed towards another of Cate’s tenants, Isaiah Shearer at Lower Bohun.

  There were only a dozen spectators in court that afternoon, including the bespectacled reporter from the Courier, Hedlington’s weekly newspaper. Willum and Mary Gorse were there near the back, Willum fidgety and unhappy, Mary sitting tall and straight, firm mouthed. Albert Gorse sat in the front row, paring his dirty fingernails with a small knife. Willum and Mary’s eldest children, the twins Fletcher and Florinda, sat in the same back row as their parents, but not close to them. They had always seemed, to Cate, to be un-demonstratively fond of their parents, but town life, even such as was offered by Hedlington, was not for them, and since they were twelve they had lived with their grandfather. They looked unconcerned now, lolling back in the insolence of their youth and animal grace, Fletcher’s neck rising in a bronzed column from the open collar of his shirt, Florinda’s auburn hair cascading free down both sides of her oval face, lit with dust-laden sunbeams.