The Rich Are with You Always

by Malcolm Macdonald

  "A good chance," John said judiciously. "Thornton would know that."

  "She was only here the one afternoon, but he followed her out, up the road, and took her into a field. Over sixty!" She shook her head.

  He reached his arm around her. "Thou'll be over sixty one day, see thee." He put his lips to her ear. "And I sh'll still crave after thee."

  She grazed her ear on his moustache and shivered, serious now. "Nay," she said softly, dropping back into dialect too. "Leave off with thee!" But despite this verbal rejection, she did not repel his caresses. The Walter Thornton catharsis was over—until the next time.

  Far out over the park the sun slipped below the pall of rain cloud, moments before it set. In that brief interval it suffused the canopy of unrelieved grey with a raw, burning red.

  "Look at that," John said. "Promises fair tomorrow."

  "Talking of promises fair," Nora said, her eyes baleful with the borrowed fire, "what of our host?"

  John sighed. "You are sure we need to go into ironfounding?" he asked. He did not want to tell her yet how inconclusive his talk with Sir George had been. Nor did he want to confess that he felt threatened in some obscure way by the very idea of partnership with the man.

  She bit her lip. "You speak as though it was me forcing us to it."

  He did not answer. She pulled away from him then and grasped his arms, compelling him to face her. "It's our business," she said. "Not me."

  He nodded, still unhappy.

  "I'm not often wrong in these things," she said.

  He smiled then. "That's the annoying part. You're never wrong." He touched her forehead gently. "I trust that instinct. Never fear I don't."

  "Yet you hesitate."

  He pulled down the corners of his mouth ruefully. "I think you and Chambers with your ledgers and balances don't see the half of it."

  "What half?" She was not belligerent or challenging. She knew too well that the financial insight which had grown during the years she had spent in managing their books was only one small element in their business.

  "Trouble like Sir George Beador, for a start," he said. If only he could put his disquiet into words!

  "Drop him! We only took him up to get land and influence cheap. But we don't need either. Not cheap. It's only our greed."

  He shook his head. "We must build in Stockton. We both agree it's the best place in the whole kingdom. And we can't build there without Beador. Not now we've taken him up. We can't afford to make an enemy of him. But"—he waved Sir George away to a distant horizon—"that's not the real worry. It's the permanence of a foundry, d'ye see? Till now we've had nothing that's permanent. Not even the depots. It's what I'm used to. I'm a travelling man. But with a foundry we'll have static plant, a fixed gang of workers." He laid his fist heavily on the sill at each item. "Offices. Staff. Fixed deliveries. Orders. Supply troubles. Labour troubles. It's not—my skill, my instinct, it doesn't run that way."

  "You've never been one to turn from troubles. Not profitable ones."

  "Aye." He laughed. "I'm as keen on profit as the next man." He pinched her cheek lightly. "And as the next woman too, belike. So I sh'll do it. I shall build. All I'm saying is, don't think that because your books say it's one-tenth of our assets, this new foundry's going to be only one-tenth of our troubles."

  His answer pleased her. He had never committed himself so fully to the idea of going into ironfounding; until now he had always called his talks with Beador mere "soundings." She did not again raise her unanswered question about Sir George.

  "By the way," he called to her as he was dressing, "I'll likely see Thornton next week. Down in Exeter. I've heard Brunel's asked him to take over daily charge down there."

  "Well," she said, "I don't expect we shall ever escape him." But she barely thought of Walter Thornton; instead, she wondered what dismal things John had discovered about Sir George—things that had made him lay such an elaborate false trail for her as his own alleged fear of possessing one small factory.

  Chapter 2

  When the ladies killed that day's fox for the fourth time since dinner, Nora thought it a good occasion to leave them. On her way to the door Hetty Beador, Sir George's sister, beckoned to her.

  "If you really are intending to leave tomorrow, Mrs. Stevenson," she said, barely above a whisper, so that Nora had to lean close, "Madame Rodet is in the library. I know she has something particular to say to you."

  Nora thanked her and looked uncertainly at the two doors she might use, one leading through the hall, the other through the ballroom. "Take the candle on the bureau," Miss Beador said. "That will light you through the ballroom."

  Nora stepped tentatively into the great, dark chamber, where everything was kept shrouded except at the big festivities. Now, if this were my room…she thought, beginning a favourite game. But a roar of laughter from the gentlemen, still at their port, interrupted her. She did two solemn steps from a waltz, being careful with the candle flame, and then began to wonder what Madame Rodet could want.

  Rodet was the ironfounder who had supplied rail for part of the Paris–Rouen line, which John had partnered the great Thomas Brassey in building back in 1841. Since the coming of the railways to France, Rodet had prospered. Beginning as a small, well-established patron of the third or fourth generation, he had in less than ten years become one of his country's foremost ironmasters. How he had come to know Sir George Beador she had not yet learned; but she knew it was Rodet who had put Sir George up to this notion of investing in ironfounding as a way of making more money than his rents and bonds could fetch in. And it was Rodet, too, who had suggested John Stevenson as a likely partner. He had even been here on their arrival at Maran Hill to introduce John and herself to the Beadors; but he had left for France within the hour.

  "He doesn't want to get caught between us until things are settled," John said.

  Nora did not believe that that was a complete explanation.

  Madame Rodet had stayed on to enjoy a fortnight with the Hertfordshire

  and the Puckeridge, for Sir George hunted with both packs. She was the sort of follower Nora had little time for. She rode well enough, very correctly, but she didn't go. She was content to drop behind the field early in a chase and was delighted at every check, when she would mill around with the "at home" crowd and lose all interest in the hunt itself. In short, she hunted merely in order to ride. Nora, thinking they had little in common, looked forward to their meeting with no very special interest.

  At first she did not see Madame Rodet. But when the door latch sprang softly back into its mortise, part of what she had taken to be the upholstery of the high-back sofa moved. It was Madame's lace cap.

  "Mrs. Stevenson," she called. "I hoped you would come." Her welcome was very warm; that and the charm of her accent made it hard for Nora to persist in her indifference.

  "How do you see to embroider just by the firelight?" Nora wondered aloud.

  "Oh!" It was a Gallic laugh. "I can do it when I am sleeping even, you know." She patted the sofa beside her, next to the fire. "Please."

  Nora put the candle on the table before them and sat. She shivered at the heat. "I didn't know how chill it had got."

  "Tskoh!" Madame Rodet looked intensely at her, with a curious angry sympathy. She had a face like an eagle. "You must drink whiskey. Yes. It's good."

  Oh dear, Nora thought, realizing that the other had believed her to say she'd got a chill. Her heart sank at the prospect of the misunderstandings to come. "What are you making?" she asked.

  Madame Rodet stabbed two more deft stitches in to complete one small leaf in a formal arrangement of peacocks and vines; the embroidery was barely begun, most of the design was still just pencilled in.

  The more Nora looked at it, the more she marvelled at its intricacy. "Did you make all that up?" she asked.

  "Oh no!" Madame Rodet laughed. "It's a copy. Of course. From the moyen age. The middle times." She pierced the twist of silk on to the edge of the desig
n with the needle and put the frame aside. "Are they still killing the fox?" she asked, inclining her head back toward the drawing room.

  Nora smiled. "Better each time. Each telling."

  Madame Rodet looked sharply at her. "Strange isn't it, this word 'telling.' It was your name of—demoiselle. Your…"

  "My maiden name," Nora said, surprised.

  "Oh!" Madame Rodet was relieved. "You understand French!"

  "No." Nora laughed. "But I do remember my maiden name. I was born Nora Telling. How did you know, Madame?"

  "Mr. Stevenson, he told us. Racontant—oh, it's such a funnay name. For us it's quite strange. But for you not? Racontant. We cannot imagine it, you know."

  "I wouldn't say it's very common."

  "We have some neighbour, Tallien. He has much country. Oh, many farms. And when Mr. Stevenson was by us at Trouville, he heard this man, and the name Tallien, and it reminds him of you, Mrs. Stevenson. Tallien…Telling. You see."

  "That's how you knew," Nora said. She grew dizzy trying to think back over the chain of nonsensicals that had led to this most trivial conclusion.

  Madame Rodet was looking happily at the fire. "He has told you of La Gracieuse, M'sieu Jean?" she asked. Then, seeing Nora's bewilderment, she laughed, clutched at Nora's arm, and added: "Oh, I must tell you. We call him M'sieu Jean in Normandie. All his men, they call him Lord John. But he's not a lord. That's funnay. Did he tell you of La Gracieuse?"

  "Your house in Normandy!" Nora said, understanding at last.

  Madame Rodet looked at her uncertainly. "Our home," she corrected. "You say house? We have a house at St. Cloud, but La Gracieuse is our home."

  "He said it was very beautiful."

  They both looked at the fire for a while; Madame Rodet still clutched Nora's arm in her dry, cool fingers. "And very welcoming," Nora added. "I know he enjoyed his stay with you."

  "You shall see," she said, as if to herself. Then she turned and added urgently, "Soon."

  Nora did not know what to make of it. Madame Rodet's intonation was so un-English as to turn perfectly ordinary remarks into oracular pronouncements. "He's often spoken of France," she said. "Now we've got the Rouen–Havre contract, he'll be going back there quite often."

  "You will come too this time. You will stay at La Gracieuse and you will see Normandie. La Basse Normandie—the Pays d'Auge, you know, it's very typical for us. And you can even speak a little French perhaps. Peut-être. You will see. Peut-être."

  Five years of careful observation and tireless rehearsal had left Nora able to cope with every social occasion she was likely to meet. But this casual invitation, delivered in the manner of a fortune teller, was beyond that competence. In her bewilderment, all she could do was to ask a question that had occurred to her earlier when she had mentioned the Rouen–Havre contract: "Are you

  supplying the rail? For this new work?"

  But Madame Rodet seemed not to hear. Eagerly she searched Nora's eyes for an acceptance. "Oh, it will be such fun!" she said. "Spring in Normandie, you know, is very beautiful. I don't know about the rail; that's Rodet's affairs. Also, you can invite your brother, M'sieu Samuel."

  At once Nora was alert and attentive. Sam was supposed to be a secret. "You know of Sam, Madame?"

  For a moment only, Madame Rodet looked uncomfortable. "Oh, it's so funnay. For us. So English."

  "You know that Sam is in service?"

  "In France it does not matter. We have égalité. All are égales. I call my cook 'Madame.' In England it is so…you are all…" She craned her neck like a giraffe and waved her hands dismissively at the world beneath her chin: "'Oh, don't show me all that. Pfff! I don't wish to see.' That's English."

  Her enthusiasm to make her point had led her unwittingly to slight Nora, who now said, quietly, "I make no secret, Madame Rodet, of the fact that circumstance once left me destitute. I was barefoot when I first met Mr. Stevenson. And he was then a navvy ganger."

  Madame Rodet quickly realized where she had trodden and, parodying horror and remorse to the point of comedy, interrupted before Nora could encourage herself to become pompous. "Oh, of course. Of course. That's so right. For you, you must be proud. And these English—it's so sillay. But"—she looked crafty— "for them to know that your brother is in service—it's bad for business. Yes?"

  "Yes," Nora agreed, smiling despite herself.

  "So then! You are right. It's right to keep it secret!" She spoke with a sort of wounded triumph, as if she had just proved that Nora had agreed with her all along—making Nora's quiet reprimand now seem petulant. "But in France it does not matter. M'sieu Sam will be an English milord."

  The thought intrigued Nora. It had been very hard to meet Sam—increasingly hard as the years and the Stevensons' success widened the social gulf between them.

  "You understand, Madame, that Sam is still in service at his own wish. Stevenson has offered him…"

  Madame Rodet waved away the explanation and smiled.

  Nora thought of Sam. How he would love to play the milord; he would do it well too. The idea began to take root.

  Her amusement must have shown in her face for Madame Rodet pushed her arm lightly and said: "You see. It's good. We will have much fun."

  Nora laughed then. "I think we shall," she said. "I've never had such an invitation."

  Chapter 3

  The train slowed almost to a halt before it coasted under the great Gothic arch that had recently been cut through the city wall. Night had already fallen but the arch intensified the dark still further. Nora pressed herself into John's arms and said, "Home!"

  "Give or take an hour." He folded his arms around her. All the muscle his years of navvying had put upon him was still there.

  "York," she said. "York is Yorkshire, and Yorkshire's home."

  "Home is where the contract is," he said with mock severity.

  She butted him sharply in the chest with the back of her head. He pretended lethargically to be hurt and then yawned. "We need exercise," he said, "being cooped in all day."

  "I'm not walking to Thorpe!"

  "We could walk the last mile or so. Send the coach on. In fact, I think I will."

  "With all our baggage we'll probably have to walk up Garraby Hill anyway."

  Folds, the stationmaster, was waiting for them on the platform, an old acquaintance by now. He never failed to greet their arrival when he knew they were travelling. As soon as they had moved to Thorpe, in 1842, George Hudson, "the Railway King," as they called him, had insisted on giving John all the privileges of a director, and in York, Hudson's word was railway law. It meant, among other things, that they travelled in a private rail carriage and, at their destination, could command the service of the company's coach and horses if any were free.

  "I have the big coach with three ready for you, Mr. Stevenson, sir," Folds said. "I fancied you might have more bags than usual."

  The coachman's imitation of sobriety was so laborious that they had to bundle quickly aboard for fear he would see their laughter and take offence.

  "Er"—Folds stuck his head through the door—"he's a good lad is Ironside, drunk or sober. But I'll put another on, if ye wish."

  "Nay," John said. "He's taken me that many times drunk, I've forgotten what he's like sober. He'll sleep in our stables tonight. We'll top him up for breakfast and see he sets off westward."

  Nora laughed and Folds patted John's thigh. Then Ironside's gruff haaa! to the team almost dashed him to the ground. Nora was still laughing as they turned from Tanner Row into Hudson Street. At the corner north of the station and in the shade of the wall, a large vacant lot came into view.

  "Know what that ground is?" John asked. "I only learned the other week."

  "What?"

  "The cholera burial ground from the 1832 outbreak."

  Nora held her breath as she looked out.

  "There's talk now of new sewers," John said. "Lots of towns. That's something we should look at. Sewerage contracts. Brassey thinks
there could be a lot in it."

  "Do sewers use iron pipe?" Nora asked, turning away from the window.

  Now it was he who laughed. "Top o' the class for persistence," he said wearily.

  She wished he would either say yes or no about the ironworks. Since meeting Beador he seemed to have gone back on his commitment.

  Out in Micklegate she looked back at all the fine townhouses of the last century.

  "First time we came here I envied them," she said. "Now—less and less, each time. I fancy we've something ten times better in our rambling, ramshackle old house at Thorpe."