World From Rough Stones

by Malcolm Macdonald

  "But," she said, after thanking him and going through a parade of her joy to be at last reunited with her savings, "I don't really need them now, for I have Mr. Stevenson to see me well. I think that, as you found them, you shall have them."

  His eyes almost popped in a joy that, for once, left him speechless. She looked at the coins to see what value she was giving away but did not recognize them. "Let's see which ones you've found," she said and took him to wash them at the pump, two streets away. But even when they were clean the coins were still unfamiliar to her. Both were silver, of the time of George III. One, dated 1811, said five shillings—one dollar. The other, dated 1816, had the unusual face value of eighteen pence. Whoever in that house had collected them had done so for their oddity.

  "I remember those," she said. "I kept them because I'd never heard of such a thing as an English dollar or a one-and-sixpenny piece. They say he was mad that George the Third, you know."

  She looked again at the coins and shook her head. "I think, before I give these to you, I must ask Mr. Stevenson about them. If they're the money of a madman…we'd not want that, I'm sure."

  But Tommy got his coins in the end, for, although neither John nor Thornton had any idea what they were, the vicar of Christ Church, to whom Arabella applied with them, said they were safe currency. The dollar had started life as a Spanish-American coin and had been re-struck as English currency during the Bonaparte crisis; the eighteenpenny piece was simply valid currency. So Nora scoured them up bright and clean and gave them to the boy.

  Thornton, who heard of this growing attachment between Nora and Tommy at secondhand from the tales Arabella brought back to Pigs Hill, told Stevenson he didn't think it all that good. But Stevenson merely said that Nora would start their own family soon enough and there would be the end of it. He did not add that he had worries enough at Summit without adding the burden of a disgruntled wife.

  And over it all, casting his dark shadow forward on every success and every hope of success, loomed the Reverend Doctor Prendergast.

  Chapter 32

  At eleven in the morning of Christmas Eve, to the most tumultuous cheer that Summit had yet heard, the last stubborn barrier between Lancashire and Yorkshire crumbled, tottered, and spilled before a rain of blows from a dozen eager drifters, each taking his turn. Moments later, Stevenson, on the Yorkshire side, reached his hand through the gap and grasped that of Thornton. "What did I tell ye?" he crowed, beside himself with relief and delight. "What did I tell ye!"

  Now that there was a space for fractured rock to fall into, the remaining breakthrough, ironically, went at almost lightning pace, and several hunks of more than a hundredweight came away at a single heave of pick or bar.

  "You want to keep one of those," Thornton said. "Get it trimmed. When you build your own place, use it for a foundation stone."

  Stevenson thought that a capital idea and had a large chunk sent out for the masons to dress. Later, he sent out another, on which the arms of the Manchester & Leeds Railway were to be cut. "We could set it over the keystone of the southern portal," he said.

  He had some of his men bring in two dozen of champagne, kept in store against this hour. And the corks began to pop as soon as the carpenters hammered the last nail into the last length of shoring. Only those who had worked the two driftways on the two shifts shared this particular treat; but everyone knew that two hundred and fifty gallons of beer were waiting up at Deanroyd. Beyond the immediate circle of celebrants, in the dim light that fell down the shafts or the fitful glow of torches and lanterns, eager hopefuls could be glimpsed, open-mouthed and waiting.

  "The minute yon rail track is made from Deanroyd to Calderbrook…and 'as carried a tub of muck all its length…we may send for't beer," he said.

  The thirty-foot length still unmetalled was the scene of the quickest bit of tracklaying Thornton had ever witnessed. And all along the line, men checked bolts and rivets, sleepers and ballast—even the track width and camber; nothing must delay the arrival of the beer. When they had finished, it was safe enough for the queen herself to have trusted.

  "Shall we walk it?" Thornton asked.

  "I suppose we ought," Stevenson answered. "Yet, I wanted to save it for Boxing Day. Tell you what—you go south, I'll go north."

  Thornton considered it odd that Stevenson should want to keep his pledge so literally; it was a relic of navvy-like superstition, strange in so practical a man.

  By four o'clock, the beer train had reached Calderbrook and, as most of the men already had their back teeth well afloat by noon, there wasn't a sober navvy left underground by knocking off time at five.

  Nora, still in her plainest clothes, had left Littleborough with the carter and all their belongings at midday. They called first at Rough Stones, where they dropped most of the load—together with a long list of tasks for the two servants, Bess and Tabitha, to carry out before Boxing Day morning was very far advanced. There were at least two mice who were not going to play while this cat was away. Then she gave Tommy three parcels—not to open until he, his mother, and sister had helped carry them home. One, with T for Tommy in a corner, held a small tin whistle and a plume of hearse feathers; one, with B for Beth on it, had a little Sunday pinafore with a border of pretty blue and purple and yellow flowers; and the third, with F for family, held a mince tart and a pound of beef jelly and dripping. As she was on the point of leaving, he tugged at her dress and, when she turned, he handed her, in an agony of embarrassment and joy, a small flat paper packet.

  "For me?" Her surprise was quite unfeigned.

  He nodded and squirmed. She could see he was longing for her to open it, so she said: "If it's something very precious, I don't want to take it to Todmorden where all the robbers live, I'll leave it safely here. Shall I just have a peep at it and see?"

  He giggled and crammed all ten fingers in his mouth. She opened the packet, which was really just one piece of paper folded inside another. The outside one said: Mrs. Nora Stevinson. "Only I'm not a widow, you know," Nora laughed, remembering what Arabella had been teaching her. The address read: Rough Stones, More Hay Wood, Rochdale Road, Wallsden, Lancashere, near Yorkshere, England, The World, Creation.

  The paper inside was a drawing, or four drawings, in Tommy's childish hand, of the two coins she had let him keep, front and back. They were not well done, for his draughtsmanship was no match for his skill at reading and talking, and there were several errors of spelling; but to Nora they changed the tarnished silver of the originals to purest gold. She turned to see him staring up at her, the very picture of anxiety. His elbows were in that same cramped, awkward posture as when his mother had broken down and he had not known how to respond. Only when she stooped and lifted him and hugged him and swirled him around did he relax and laugh. "There's nothing you could give me I'd want more nor this," she said, and ran upstairs to put it in a place of absolute safety. She took the outer wrapping, though, to show the others. Then she went outside to the cart and left for Pigs Hill, taking an excited Bess along to help with her dressing.

  From midday onward, Arabella, who was a great deal more girlish since her friendship with Nora, had gone to the window at least once every five minutes and out to the gate at least every fifteen. Her excitement was nearly a fever by the time Nora and her maid actually arrived, shortly after two. Throwing all decorum to the wind, gloveless, hatless, cloakless, she dashed out into the roadway and jogged impatiently up and down. As soon as the cart came into view around the bend, Nora leaped from it and, hitching up her skirts, ran the forty paces between them in equal delight. They kissed and hugged and held each other at arm's length and hugged again.

  "Oh Nora! Such doings! I don't know what to tell you first!"

  "You have some boxes came for me I hope," Nora said.

  Arabella's hand flew to her mouth and her jaw fell open. "Oh no!" she breathed.

  "What?" Alarm seized Nora. "Two boxes—at least two boxes—from Costillio's of Moseley Street!"

&nb
sp; "Oh my dear, my dear! They were quite right then!"

  "They? Who? What…"

  "I have done the most dreadful thing! I have sent them to Rough Stones…" But she could maintain the pretence no longer and her eyes, brimming with mirth, gave the game away to Nora.

  Ever since Nora had deceived Arabella, the time when they dropped their surnames, the two had played such practical jokes on each other.

  "You!" Nora cried and made a throttling movement with her hands. The cart passed them and turned into the drive, where Sweeney and Horsfall stood ready to take the baggage indoors.

  "What are they?" Arabella asked. "Costumes? From Costillio's!"

  "I have kept it a secret. John does not know, even now. And he's not to know either…let's go in; you must be perishing without even a shawl…he's not to know until I'm completely dressed and ready."

  Arm in arm they turned from the lane and swept along the drive toward the house. A fine mist condensed on the bare twigs and boughs of the trees and glistened coldly in the gray daylight. Every stray breeze shook them by the dozen to the ground, but soon other droplets hung in place, ready, in their turn, to fall.

  "It's not the sort of Christmas we usually offer up in these parts," Nora said.

  "I don't care two straws about your Christmases! I want to know about these costumes. You young slyboots! You've said nothing."

  But "in good time" was all Nora would add. So Arabella had to turn to her next piece of news. "What do you think—this morning a footman came up from Mrs. Redmayne of Todmorden Hall with such a charming note." She shut the front door behind them. Nora heard the three maids already gossiping and giggling upstairs. "It was to say we should all be welcome down at the Hall for their celebrations this evening."

  "An invitation!"

  "Not quite," Arabella said. "That's what was so good about it. She says she quite realizes we may already have made unalterable arrangements for this evening, but if not, then, as newcomers to the district, we may not understand that they keep a sort of open house for his tenants and the families of his staff. And, as he's a director of the railway, he'd be pleased to see us there and any of our guests, too. So that includes you, you see! There's a servants' ball and a young people's ball and my maid says they have a large oak buffet at the side of the main hall with mince puddings and every kind of meat on it, so I sent back to say we should all be very pleased to come down there—what do you think?"

  For Nora it was the best and the worst of news in one. She understood well enough that if their business prospered, she would have to learn to move at ease in respectable society, but she had hoped to arrive there by degrees, beginning with this short stay en famille with the Thorntons. And now…here she was, going to Todmorden Hall her very first time out!

  Arabella divined at once the cause of her hesitation. "It sounds very informal and jolly. We come when we may, eat what we want, dance or not—without programme—and leave when we please."

  In the end, Nora rose to the challenge of it—helped, to be sure, by the excitement it would be. "We must start getting ready at once," she said and, taking Arabella firmly by the arm, went eagerly upstairs.

  "Your maid can sleep with Horsfall," Arabella said. "She's such a tiny thing there'll be plenty of room in her bed."

  First, Nora and Bess unpacked the two boxes and checked their contents carefully—though it was more likely that a day of the week would go missing than that Costillio's would pack a delivery wrongly. Bess had never seen or handled such fine and beautiful clothes before and Nora had to call her to her work more than once.

  She had bathed and washed her hair the night before so she needed only a wash before she started to dress. She started with a strapless chemise of fine cotton, over which went a voluminous horsehair petticoat, followed by six more of cotton, the outermost one being black. Bess alone could not pull the lace of her stays tight enough, and had to go and fetch Sweeney to help. She was away rather a long time but came back explaining that she first had to help Sweeney with Mrs. Thornton's corset—"And, ma'am! She's gotten down to twenty-one inches!"

  "Has she?" Nora said. "Then twenty it is for me! So come up you two good strong wenches—pull on it!"

  She held herself to the foot of the bed while the two maids, each with a foot on her kidneys, strained at the strings. She breathed out and sucked her vitals up into her ribs to make it easier for them. Then, when the string would draw no tighter, Sweeney took both ends while Bess dashed forward to secure them. Nora was almost apoplectic with lack of breath by the time Bess said "Done!"

  "Quick, what is it?" she asked.

  They stretched the tape around her and measured.

  "Twenty and a half," Sweeney said.

  "It'll do," Nora told her with a grimly satisfied smile of self-immolation.

  From the start Nora had known that her skin was not and probably never would be of the fashionably pale and sickly cast, so she had chosen dark colours to make it appear as light as possible—against the protests of Madam Costillio, who thought only of the very latest fashion and its demand for pale and delicate colours.

  For the bodice, Nora had chosen a silk pekin woven with fine black and winered stripes. It was cut pointed at the waist and very decolleté at the shoulder, so that she could not raise her arms above the horizontal. She was determined that this dress should in every way be the very opposite of those she usually wore.

  It was now dark enough to light the lamps. "And I think, on this day of all days, Mrs. Thornton'll not grudge us the luxury of those two candles as well," Nora said. She looked critically at her lace bertha. "It's too white," she complained. "It shows up the darkness of my skin."

  "It's never this bright in Todmorden Hall, ma'm," Bess comforted. "You step back from the light and you'll see the effect better."

  Nora obeyed, and, seeing how the contrast narrowed once the light was reduced, felt a little happier about the choice.

  The bertha completely covered her short, tight sleeves, revealing only their lace cuffs, which hung loosely below the elbows at the back but, at the front, were gathered up to smaller rosettes of the same crimson silk as the dress.

  "Look at these hands," she said. "I doubt they'll ever grow ladylike."

  And Bess, being an honest girl, could this time offer no comfort. Nora tried on the gloves she had bought for the especial purpose of masking her hands; they were of flesh-coloured silk, trimmed at half-arm's length, just below the elbow, with orange ruffs. The transformation was almost complete.

  "Now," Nora said, "for the hair."

  "Before that, shall I fetch you a pot of tea, ma'm?" Bess asked.

  "Yes. Very nice. And a cup for yourself, too. We could both do with it, I think."

  But as she opened the door, Horsfall, in her best tucker and pinafore, being honoured to wait above stairs, came in with a tray of tea and two cups, along with a little plate of Christmas savouries and fancies.

  After she had made up the fire, Horsfall peeped quickly out of the window— the third time she had done so since entering.

  "It's all still there is it? Outside?" Nora asked.

  Horsfall blushed. "It's't gentlemen. I must keep a eye—an eye—skinned. I'm to let them in," she added proudly.

  "And you can show Mr. Stevenson to the little room at the back," Nora said. "He can dress there. He's not to come in here."

  When Bess had shot the snib again and they were safe from interruption, it was time to begin on Nora's hair.

  Bess parted it in a double parting, meeting centrally in a vee at the forehead. With her nimble little fingers she began to plait a broad band of hair to cover Nora's ear on the right; the loose ends she took back and tied temporarily to the back hair. She was about to repeat this on Nora's left when John knocked at the door, calling: "What's all this?"

  "Go away!" Nora laughed. "You'll not get in here before I'm finished."

  She heard him go to the other spare room, grumbling that he'd never known such fussing and faddle.r />
  "'E'll fall down in wonder when 'e sees thee, m'm," Bess promised.

  It took her a lot longer to plait the left-hand side, for she had to keep checking that it was properly symmetrical with the right. But she managed at last to make a perfect match of the two and very soon she plaited all the loose ends and the back hair into a low knot at the neckline. This she spiked into place by an ebony comb set with artificial gems. All that then remained was to place a row of gaily coloured feather-flowers in the form of a diadem right up and over the crown of her head. Above and behind her right ear she put three bigger flowers, set in a spray of green feathers cut to imitate leaves. Over her left ear, to prevent a totally deadening symmetry, she put only two.