The World From Rough Stones

by Malcom Macdonald

  "I told you to stay behind," he whispered angrily.

  She crouched just beside him. "And I told my limbs but they didn't obey me either."

  "Can you see them?"

  She stretched slowly upward until the site became visible. All the men were

  still there. No one had come from the hovels—or, if they had, they had returned on seeing who was doing the burning.

  "Now you're here," John said grudgingly, "you might as well be useful. I can see their horses along the road a bit. See if you can slip up there and let them loose and drive them off." He caught her arm as she made to leave. "If you hear me shout and you're near the horses, take one and ride off for help. If you're still too far to make it, run back here."

  She bent and kissed him. Until then, it had not even occurred to her that he was in danger. The idea that any mortal could harm John Stevenson was laughable. All the way to the horses she wondered why he was so calm—so joyful, almost. Did he love a fight so much that he'd even relish the destruction of their business?

  She drew closer to the bushes where the horses were tethered. And then she froze again. Light flashed off moving glass. Eye-glasses. Someone was there. They had left a guard, a young man, one of their company. She saw him now. Not taking her eyes from him she felt on the ground with her foot for a stone. When she found one, she pinned it beneath the toe of her shoe and slowly, quietly bent to pick it up.

  Should she throw it? Or creep forward and hit him? Creep forward. Again she hoisted her skirt up and gathered it to her thigh, as if for fording calf-deep water; and with one slow, deliberate tread after another she gained on the young man, who was still oblivious of her approach.

  When she was almost within striking distance she realized that matters were not entirely as she had supposed. The young man was sobbing, very quietly, very gently. His shoulders, black in outline against the hellish blaze beyond, heaved in slow despair, as one giant sigh after another escaped him. His cheeks—or the one cheek she could see—glistened with the tears.

  She raised the stone to bring it down upon his head but could not complete the act.

  "Horrible!" he sobbed, still unaware of her. "Horrible!" His voice was almost strangled.

  She could not hit him. But what could she do? She could not just ignore him. And she had to let the horses go.

  She took the one remaining pace that separated her from him and, still holding the stone above his head, reached her free left arm up around his throat, intending to half-strangle him. But he did not offer even token resistance. Indeed, he appeared not only to be expecting an attack but almost welcome it. With a gurgling noise in his throat, he dropped to his knees, forcing her to release her grip.

  Quickly she grabbed a fistful of his hair, a wild mop untamed by any hat. "I have a stone here. Right over your head. One struggle from you…one shout…"

  But he was not listening. His hands were clasped before him in supplication and, in that same broken, sobbing voice, he was reciting the Lord's Prayer. She shook his head roughly, making him stop. He looked up at her, his face contorted in an agony that had nothing to do with her tight grasp on him; she wondered what he could possibly discern through those wet, steamed up little octagons of glass; what distorted forms they would conjure.

  "Horrible!" he repeated.

  She let him go then and relaxed the hand that held the stone. "What?" she asked, the beginnings of sympathy stirring in her.

  "They're burning me!"

  She could see the tears flooding down his cheeks, unhastened by any accompanying sobs—just a flood of tears and a strange, almost whispered wailing from his throat.

  "I burn! I burn! Too…easily," he added, as if he thought it an explanation.

  She threw away the stone and laughed. "You're drunk," she said. "What's your name?"

  He laughed too, a slow, quiet, odious, mirthless laugh. "Figment!" he said.

  "Pigment?"

  He dropped to all fours and buried his head in the grass. "Pigment!" he said in cold despair.

  She left him repeating the word endlessly in that same tone. "Drunk," she repeated to herself.

  It was the work of moments to let the horses go. There were eight in all. She gathered their reins as she untied them, and led the animals slowly and as quietly as possible down toward Deanroyd bridge. On the way she picked up a stout, slightly rotten, branch lying near the ditch. When they reached the crown of the bridge, she released her grip on the reins and stood, letting them walk past her. As soon as she was behind them, she raised the stick and brought it down with all her might on the nearest rump. It broke with a crack that rang up the valley.

  But the trick worked. With a neigh of fright the horse stampeded away up the road and the others, willy nilly, followed. With her heart in her mouth she began to run back to where she had left John. The two sounds least likely to intrude upon the vandals, she had reasoned, were the crack of a stick amid all the crackling of the flames, and the neighing of a horse, for there was hardly a night hereabouts that was not broken by that particular sound. But had she gone far enough away? The drumming of the hooves as they stampeded had seemed agonizingly loud. Was it loud enough to carry two furlongs and penetrate the roar of the flames and the drunken glee of the youths?

  When she was still fifty yards away from the foot of their lane, she saw John making his way down, behind the cover of the hedge, to the point where she had left him. He must have returned to the house. She hoped he had brought the other shotgun or her pistol; she cursed herself for failing to think of it when she had come down.

  It amazed her that no one saw her, walking openly on the highway, for no concealment was possible. Perhaps they did see her and paid no attention; after all, what threat was there to them in the sight of a lone woman, without a bonnet, walking slowly along the highway?

  She reached the foot of the lane only a moment or two after John returned.

  "All away," she said.

  He chuckled softly in delight. "No trouble?"

  "They left a guard but he was too drunk to hinder me. I've just passed him on the way back, fast asleep in the grass."

  He breathed vastly in his relief. "Take this," he said, handing her the other shotgun. "It's charged blank. No shot. Go up toward Stone House. By the milestone there. Shoot yours in the air after I shoot mine. About three seconds after. Count three."

  She thought: For three seconds you count four, but all she did was nod. "Is yours charged?"

  He nodded. "Lightly."

  He watched her walk all the way to the milestone. And she knew he was watching her, so she did not bend to snatch up a handful of gravel and stuff it down the spout until she saw him leaving his place of hiding and walk over the road. Charged blank indeed! she thought.

  The fires were dying down now, and their sheds and tents were emerging from the holocaust as glowing heaps of embers. Still that question nagged her: Why did these louts behave as if they felt themselves utterly safe from discovery? She could not help remembering the mysterious and handsome Mr. Dow who had stopped at this very spot not a week since. Was he somehow connected? If, when they were in London, they went anywhere near that place of his, in Grays Inn Road, she'd certainly try to find out. The more she remembered the way he had looked at their workings here, the more certain she felt that he had some connection with this fire.

  "Stand where you are!" John's shout rang back from the opposite valley side. "In the Queen's name!"

  After one moment of shocked immobility the dozen or so youths made a dash for their horses—or, at least, made the first few steps of such a dash before the sharpest-eyed among them shouted, "They've gone!"

  "Come up here!" John called to them. "Walk nice and quiet."

  "The canal!" came a cry and, as if moved by a single brain, they turned and fled away from the road. As soon as their backs were toward him, he fired his shotgun straight at them; they were too far away to sustain anything more than a light flesh wound. Three seconds later they took a s
lightly more painful broadside of gravel.

  She walked gaily back toward John.

  "I waste my bloody breath telling you anything!" he said. "What was it? Gravel?"

  "Better than that," she said. "Rough stones!"

  He had to laugh then, even though her disobedience angered him. She took his arm. He put both guns over his other arm and they walked together down to the smouldering ruins of their huts and tents. The tent with the ale casks had burned to a cinder, but the casks themselves were only superficially charred. They heard a distant crackle of undergrowth as the raiders made good their escape.

  "Lucky we keep the meat in the wagons," she said. "Not more than forty pounds worth of stock destroyed. Eee! Smell that butter!"

  "D'ye fancy a baked potato?" he asked.

  She laughed. "Aye!" And he passed her the guns before he made a quick dash over the cooler embers to fish out two that were uncharred and quite edible.

  "That was folly!" he said when he returned. "I forgot." And he patted the powder horn slung at his belt. "We mustn't get light-headed now."

  Eating gingerly, breathing sharply in to cool what they bit off and blowing vigorously on the rest, they walked around the glowing heaps of ash. Eerie blue flames danced over each pile. "No danger of it spreading," he said. "We'd as well go home."

  On the way up he said, "The biggest loss is two hundred and forty-seven in cash, but as most of it was in gold sovereigns, we'll recover it I'm sure."

  "What about the records?" she said.

  He looked pityingly at her. "The day I rely on written records I'll retire."

  "Thank the Lord we keep all the accounts at home."

  "Aye. Someone's watching over us."

  "What I can't fathom," she said, "is why they were so open. Ye'd think they were sure we were out."

  "I'm sure they did. They'd never have behaved like that otherwise. Have you told McGinty about our visit to London?"

  "Of course," she said, "but I didn't tell him it was this week. I said I'd not be coming tomorrow because we were going to London…next…week." Her voice slowed as she heard the possible confusion arise.

  "That's it!" John said. "I'll be buggered!"

  He yawned. They turned in through the front gate of Rough Stones.

  "Another thing I can't fathom," she said, diffidently, "is the…eagerness…in you. Even before you left, when we were still upstairs, you nearly split your face grinning. You're like a dog with four tails."

  "Well," he said, "put yourself in Squire Redmayne's position. If this costs us five hundred pound, it'll be worth it I reckon."

  Bess came out of her room, holding a lighted candle, as they went upstairs, but they told her to go back to bed and that all was well.

  Nora wanted then to mention Mr. Dow and her suspicion about his connection with tonight's affair. But, as they were getting back into bed he grasped her waist from behind and said: "Eee, if there's one thing that gets me going it's a warm night."

  "Tonight!" She laughed, disbelieving. "Warm?"

  "Give us half a chance," he whispered craftily drawing her to him and caressing her all over.

  But she was slow to fire. "It's a long day tomorn," she said, half-heartedly.

  He stopped and held the blankets up for her to get in. "Aaah! You poor old gentlewoman!" he said, full of mock solicitude.

  "Aye," she said wanly. "That's just how I feel!"

  But five minutes later, remembering his hands upon her, she regretted what she had said and whispered. "All right, if you still want." But he was sound asleep once more.

  Not for long, though. Within an hour there was a thunderous hammering at their front door. John was awake before her and was lighting the candle as she opened her eyes. He drew back the curtains and threw open the casement. "Yes?" he called.

  "Stevenson!" a voice said from below.

  "Good morning," John answered. "Squire Redmayne is it?"

  "Aye. And wishing he were any other man in this Vale! I'd not want the sun to rise without your getting my assurance I'll pay all your damages."

  "That's handsome of you, squire. I can't yet say what they'll be."

  "Whatever! Whatever! And look, Stevenson…I don't know exactly if it's your sort of…uh…line of business, but I've got plans drawn up for eleven acres—a mill, four hundred houses, chapel, and other works. I was putting it out to tender but, if you want it, it's yours for the nod."

  John, too excited to trust himself to speak, swallowed and stared down into the dark.

  "Say?" Redmayne prompted.

  "I'll take it, sir," John said. "Where is it?"

  Nora, sitting up in bed, curled her toes and shivered her legs in a regular spasm of joy.

  "Just beyond the Albion mills in Todmorden. Go along Romfield Road and turn as if making for Baltimore bridge. It's the waste ground opposite the Baltimore malt house."

  "May we meet there tomorrow? Or later today I mean?"

  "Come to the Hall. At eleven, say. We may easily walk it from there." He began to leave.

  "One other thing," John called. "I'd be grateful for ten gallons of vitriol from your works. There's gold in those ashes."

  "It shall be," Redmayne promised.

  They heard the gate slam and listened to the dying clatter of his horse's hooves before John lifted her off the bed and swirled her round in a near-delirium. "I said it! I said it!" he repeated. The swish of air extinguished the candle. He put her down on the bed again, afraid of blundering into something in the dark. He shut the window.

  "I wish I knew people like you do," she said. "You knew he would do some such thing, didn't you?"

  "Nothing like that. I was certain he'd compensate us and offer his good offices over some contract. But…well you heard! Four hundred houses, a factory, a chapel—if that hasn't the smell of a hundred thousand pounds! And on our doorstep." He waited for a response.

  "Yes!" she said, but her enthusiasm was a fraction late.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "Redmayne's no fool. His grandfather came up from an eight-and-six a week weaver and he's not lost it."

  "So?"

  "Well—he's more or less asking you to swindle him. No competitive quote… name your price."

  John dropped his voice to a low, level pitch. "I think he knows I won't cheat him."

  "Oh good," she said. "As long as you know it, too, he's safe. But if that's not like stretching his neck across the block, what is?"

  The clock downstairs struck three.

  John chuckled. "Just now you said you wish you knew people. When you say things like that I can only agree." He did not speak unkindly, so her reply was rueful rather than hurt.

  "Well—you've been right so far."

  He leaned back against the head of the bed. "A mill…" he repeated. "Four hundred houses…a chapel…It depends on the size of the mill, but it must be at least a hundred thousand." He sighed happily. "A hundred…thousand! You realize that we'd have to go to London anyway now. This is a new phase. We'll be looking to borrow at least twenty thousand for this and the canals. Working capital."

  "Aye," she said. "Let's hope there's a real ding-dong fight now between the Liverpool and Manchester and the Manchester and Leeds over the route of the link line. A year's delay'd suit us now."

  He laughed voicelessly and, reaching over her, placed a finger on her brow. "I like the mind that goes on steaming away quietly in there," he said. "Never fret over what it doesn't know. The things it knows and the ways it works are all I ever wanted." He scratched his head. "Eee! Three o'clock eh. How can we get back to sleep with eleven acres of work out there on offer?"

  She cleared her throat suggestively. He knew what she meant but he wanted to tease her for her earlier refusal. "Not catching cold are you?" he asked. But she insinuated a warm and expert hand beneath his shirt and made it impossible for him to maintain his cool pretence.

  He leaned over and kissed her thighs at the hem of her chemise. She lay back and wormed herself, slowly, ve
ry slowly, from it; he followed the hem with his lips, kissing and nuzzling the flesh that it laid bare, all the way up to her lips. He followed with his hands, straddling her, gently raking her with his nails, caressing her with his fingertips. When he took her face between his hands she moaned: "Be soon! Oh…!" And he stretched himself upon her and waltzed them into the sort of delirium he thought they had forgotten how to achieve these last two months or so, since Tommy's death.

  Later, running her fingers gently through his hair, she said quietly: "I've not been that much of a wife to thee. Not since Tommy died." She kissed his mouth and laid a finger on it to show he needn't speak. "I've known it, too, though I've said but little." She tried to say something else but could not manage. Instead she rubbed her cheekbone hard against his; and he, responding, felt their skin slip, lubricated by her tears.