‘I doubt if you would have been happy. Poor Venetia! What a good thing we told nobody. We were waiting for you to come back. Charlotte thought … people would say … I can understand her feelings. No wonder she wants to go. But it must be a disappointment for all that; such a good match!’
‘She never pretended to love me.’
‘Yes, but so few girls marry for love. One can’t blame them. They must get husbands. I was lucky. I loved your father. But I don’t think Charlotte or Sophy … we must make it perfectly clear to everyone that it was Venetia, not you, who broke the engagement. I shall write to Charlotte that you are quite wretched.’
‘You can do that with a clear conscience.’
‘Indeed I can. We are all wretched. We were so fond of Dr. Newbolt. It’s so very shocking.’
For her, for everyone else in Stretton, lamentation over Jenny was no longer necessary. All had been said on that score and Dr. Newbolt now held the field. It was only after an interval of wondering exclamations that she said:
‘Such a thing could never have happened if Jenny had been there. She would never have allowed … she was …’
At a sudden involuntary movement from Romilly she broke off, glanced at him, and said:
‘Ah! I forgot. That’s news to you too. Poor Jenny! I feel quite ashamed when I remember … as though we never valued her enough…. No, Ellen, my love! Not now. I’m talking to Romilly.’
‘Ellen can come in,’ said Romilly. ‘I’m never sorry to see Ellen.’
‘I only came for my sewing,’ said Ellen, who had peeped round the door.
‘How are you?’
‘Quite well, thank you.’
She spoke a little coldly, ignored his outstretched hand, and went across to get her work-basket. He saw that her eyes were red, as though she had been crying.
‘We were talking about poor Jenny,’ said Mrs. Brandon, ‘and how we know what she was, now she’s gone.’
To this Ellen made no reply. There was something almost stubborn about her silence as she gathered her embroidery wools together. She carried the basket to the door and then turned to say:
‘What Jenny was … ought not to be gone. It ought to be here still. She was very good. Everybody says that. Now she’s gone everybody laments that there is no convenient good person to see to things. Jenny would never have allowed that poor woman to be sent away.’
‘My love! We’ve been into this before. Giles says …’
‘Oh, I know she’s not one of our people, and not … not very deserving. But she had a home of sorts before she was brought here. Now she’s turned off with nowhere to go and her children will be taken from her …’
‘What’s this?’ asked Romilly.
Mrs. Brandon explained. The Hollins family were to be turned out of the Parsonage stables. She had wanted to do something for them, but Giles had said that no cottage was available and that the villagers would resent it.
‘Jenny would not have allowed it,’ repeated Ellen. ‘Oh, Romilly …’
‘Now, Ellen! Don’t trouble Romilly just now.’
‘Three children?’ asked Romilly, remembering the eyes in the yew tree. ‘I think I saw them this afternoon. Don’t cry, Ellen. I’ll attend to it.’
‘Oh, Romilly! If you would! Instead of talking and talking about …’
‘But, Romilly, my dear boy. Giles says …’
‘Let them stay in the stables till some plan can be made,’ urged Ellen. ‘Those stables don’t belong to any of the Newbolts, now that their father … you can give orders about the stables, I’m sure, till you’ve chosen another parson.’
‘I’ll send a note down to Charles … I’ll write it now.’
Ellen, much cheered, brought him writing materials. He wrote a line to Charles, asking that the family might be left where they were until he could arrange for their removal. He was not sure of his own rights in the matter but quite certain that Charles Newbolt had none. When he had finished he gave the note to Ellen, charging her with its despatch.
‘And you might tell them to light a fire in my bedroom,’ he added. ‘I find it very cold here.’
Ellen went and he lingered awhile with his mother, reluctant to face solitude or the night. She told him about the cook’s grandchild and a fox in the poultry yard. He scarcely listened, but her soft chatter was soothing.
Night had fallen when he braced himself to rise and leave her. His room was waiting for him. A bright fire danced in the grate. All his clothes were unpacked. His brushes lay on the dressing table and beside them lay a white oblong — a letter, folded and sealed. He picked it up. It was addressed to himself. But not until he had opened and read it could he be certain that he recognised the hand.
6
NO EXPLANATION WAS ever found for the appearance of Jenny’s letter upon Romilly’s dressing table. The servants denied all knowledge of it. Ellen suspected Amabel, and privately taxed her with it, but Amabel stoutly asserted that she had done nothing save pray, on that visit to Jenny’s room.
Speculation and enquiry were, in any case, confined to the women. Romilly scarcely asked how the letter had reached him. It was enough that he had it. Within a few weeks of her death Jenny had written to him exactly as she would have spoken ten years ago, with unshaken affection and complete confidence. The long silence was broken. That woman who wandered past him in the plantation might have drifted, beyond recall, out of the path of common human happiness, but she had not forgotten him.
It remained to do as she asked: to claim and protect this child whose story moved him deeply. It might well be his; he could remember nothing of the mother, but some recollection of nights spent at Slane St. Mary’s forced him to allow the possibility. Jenny made no claims for it on that score, but her interest and affection gave a strong indication of her private opinion.
Early next morning, without a word to anybody, he set off for Corston Common, only to learn, from Goody Cottar, that Dickie was now in service at the Parsonage. She had seen and heard nothing of him for weeks. Thither Romilly pursued him, to be informed that Dickie had gone back to his grandmother. Everybody was at first quite positive on this point. Where else could he be? But neither the parlour nor the kitchen could agree as to the date of his departure. The subsequent excitement over Dr. Newbolt had confused their memories. Venetia could not remember seeing him after the funeral. She made it plain that she thought this cross-examination in singularly bad taste, but Romilly was too anxious to mind what sort of figure he cut. Charles furiously refused to have any opinion at all. Harry had gone home. Stephen reminded Venetia that she had been urging them to get rid of Dickie for many days after the funeral. He alone showed sympathy with Romilly’s quest and also contrived to inform him that Mrs. Hollins was to remain, undisturbed, in the stables. Romilly was a little softened by his civility, until a casual reference, by Venetia, to the vacant living suggested that there might be a motive for it.
Perceiving that no more could be got from the Newbolts he went home. The idea that Dickie could be quite lost did not as yet trouble him. So young a child could not have gone far; kindly people had probably taken him in. He put the problem before his mother and Ellen, who now heard of the letter for the first time. Their attitude displeased him. They were angry and dismayed. It appeared that they had known of Dickie’s existence and had been in a plot to keep it from him.
‘You think the child is not mine, and has therefore no claim on me?’ he demanded.
‘It’s not a matter to be discussed before Ellen,’ said Mrs. Brandon.
‘I fancy she knows all about it. I’d have expected her to support me. My son or not, Jenny asked me to protect him. Is that not enough?’
‘I don’t wonder the Newbolts were offended. It must have looked so very odd … just after the engagement was broken … to be going there and demanding … they must have concluded …’
‘That I own to him? If I do, I don’t care to have him cleaning anybody’s boots.’
‘I k
now what you mean about Jenny, Romilly,’ said Ellen in some distress. ‘I felt as you do, the day Jenny died; that for her sake … I found him crying in the churchyard …’
‘Crying, was he?’
‘Everybody in the parish was crying. But I think he might be a difficult child to help.’
‘On your dressing table?’ cried Mrs. Brandon, who was always slow in mastering details. ‘Who put it there?’
‘It must have been found among her papers and sent here,’ said Romilly impatiently. ‘Difficult?’
‘He’s not respectful.’
‘Why should he be respectful?’
‘I advised him to join the Navy and he was very rude.’
‘I should be rude if anybody advised me to join the Navy.’
‘There’s no profession …’ began Ellen hotly.
‘He sounds intelligent. Does he look like me?’
‘N-no.’
‘You don’t sound very sure about it.’
‘He’s small and thin.’
‘Natural in a half-starved child of nine. I never asked if he looks like a well-fed man of thirty.’
‘My dearest boy,’ broke in Mrs. Brandon, ‘it’s impossible to be certain. Bessie Cottar … she’d lost her character a long time before she went to Slane St. Mary’s.’
Romilly looked thoughtful. Those two names had been linked in his mind before he got Jenny’s letter. But he had at first been so intent on her message that he had not paused to wonder why. There had been some recent incident connecting them. He searched his memory and located it. He saw suddenly the lane to the Parsonage and a child. A child with a fiddle!
The discovery jarred him. He had not much liked the boy, who had nothing in common with the interesting little creature evoked by Jenny’s appeal.
‘Mine or not,’ he repeated, with less passion, ‘I must find it and do as she asks. I must set enquiries afoot: offer a reward if necessary. I’ll go and have a word with Giles.’
‘Oh dear! Oh dear!’ wailed Mrs. Brandon as soon as he had gone. ‘Now it will be all through the country. Everyone will think …’
‘Don’t oppose him,’ begged Ellen. ‘You know what he is. If we are sympathetic he may be sensible — apprentice Dickie to some good trade. But if we make him angry he may insist on bringing the child here! Treating him like a gentleman!’
‘At your age you ought to know nothing about it. Most improper.’
‘Not half as improper as heathen gods and goddesses,’ said Ellen. ‘And I’m obliged to learn about them in Lemprière. Only last week I learnt that the Minotaur was shut up in a labyrinth in order to “conceal the lasciviousness and indecency” of his Mama.’
‘But that’s education, my love. And it’s not true, and we don’t talk about it.’
‘Why is it education to learn things which aren’t true and can’t be mentioned? However … you must admit that getting this letter has done poor Rom a world of good. He’s almost himself again, and yesterday he looked dreadful.’
‘Ah yes. It might help him to forget Venetia.’
‘Venetia!’
Ellen sniffed. She had never believed that Romilly cared a pin for Venetia and was beginning, moreover, to suspect the truth, though it amazed her not a little. She thenceforth did all that she could to further Romilly’s search, suggesting likely sources of information and consoling him in repeated disappointments. These troubled him greatly, as his lively imagination went to work on the possible fate of a nine-year-old child adrift in this wicked world. Local pessimists were eager with horrible suggestions. He could dismiss the idea that Dickie had been caught by the body snatchers and sent to be cut up alive, but there were likelier alternatives which sounded grim enough. Kindly people would have come forward at news of the enquiry. Respectable people would have claimed the reward. If the boy was still above ground he had probably fallen into bad hands.
It was Ellen who thought suddenly of the pottery and of the chance that Dickie might have got work among the children there. The people in the black valley were so much cut off from the rest of the world that nobody might have questioned them. Romilly snatched at the idea and rushed off to Cranton’s. He was gone so long that she grew hopeful. But his face, when at last he rode up the drive, promised no good news. It was so blanched and weary that she wondered if Dickie was dead.
‘A fruitless errand,’ he said, as he dismounted. ‘Though I insisted on seeing every child in the place. Come with me … I’ll tell you about it.’
They went into that part of the grounds known as Mrs. Brandon’s flower garden, although she seldom set foot in it. It was some time before he could bring himself to speak. His nostrils were still haunted by the stink of the potters’ children and his eyes dazed by peering into stifling caverns where wizened pygmies scampered hither and thither for dear life. This brightness and peace could not entirely banish that other spectacle. Across the gay flowers little shadows flitted. With bird-song was mingled the echoing shouts, the strange clamours of those murky sheds.
When he did begin to talk it was about himself and Jenny. Her name had been continually present in their thoughts, during these days, but seldom mentioned. Now, in the bitterness of failure, he told the whole story to Ellen, who found it hard to comprehend since she had no memory of Jenny which might account for it. Amabel, two years older, might have had a glimpse of a tall, happy girl laughing because she had nothing precious enough to put in her secret drawer. Ellen had been but five years old when that girl was quenched for ever.
‘But … but … how could you have been so cruel to her?’
‘Cruel? Ah, child, you could never understand that. You … who are all kindness!’
‘Oh no! I’m often unkind to people I dislike.’
‘But not to those you love.’
‘Why … that’s impossible. Love is … it is kindness.’
‘We don’t always know our own hearts.’
I know mine, she thought.
‘And when those we love hurt us …!’
If Edward were to be unkind to me I should … I think I should lay me down and die. But I could never wish him to be unhappy.
‘But it made no difference to her, Romilly. Her letter tells you that. Oh … I’m so glad you got that letter. I understand now.’
He took it out, for he always carried it with him, and began to re-read it, yet again, with agonised attention.
Ellen reflected that his unkindness had touched many people besides himself and Jenny. But for that, Dickie might never have been born. Father and son might not have fallen out. The river valley might have been saved and Cranton might never have come amongst them, to distress poor Dr. Newbolt.
‘Is Cranton’s really such a shocking place?’ she asked.
‘I might not have thought so once. But when every child I saw there might … might have been mine …’
‘But all poor children have to work, don’t they?’
‘Not work of that sort. No wonder they die. They should, if employed at all, have light tasks … short hours …’
He folded the letter and put it away, adding:
‘I shall insist on that.’
‘Can you? How can you? Is there some law?’
An idea which he had debated on the ride home hardened into a decision. Jenny’s letter had provided him with an Object. We must challenge misery. He had failed to find Dickie but he might still obey this behest in another way.
‘I mean to buy the place,’ he declared.
‘What? Buy back the land? Have it all taken away?’
‘No. Buy the pottery and manage it myself. I believe I could prove that it’s not necessary to employ children at all. Cranton only does so because they’re cheap.’
‘Manage … how could you manage a pottery?’
‘You’re not very flattering, are you? If Cranton can do it, surely I can. He strikes me as singularly stupid. I saw him today, when I’d done with the children, and told him what I think of him.’
‘But would he sell it to you?’
‘I think so. He had the impudence to tell me that I could have it and welcome if I thought I could make a profit on it.’
‘I’ve heard rumours,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘that it does badly.’
‘By his lights no doubt it may. He thinks of nothing save profit. I, you see, should be content with a much smaller return on my capital. Three per cent would be quite enough, I think. I could therefore pay higher wages than he does.’
Having digested this, Ellen asked why there could not be a law forbidding people to take more than three per cent interest on their capital. There would then, she pointed out, be more money for wages. Nor could she quite understand him when he explained that this would infringe liberty.
‘All laws do that,’ she argued. ‘But we are obliged to have them, in order to prevent people from doing what is harmful. If it’s harmful to take more than three …’
‘Women don’t understand these things. I hope to set the matter right without any need for laws. I mean to set an example which others may follow.’
Romilly rose from the bench where they had been sitting and began to walk up and down, explaining his idea.
‘Gentlemen must take to industry and treat their people with the same liberality and justice which we show towards those who work in the fields. Here are black valleys springing up all over the country. This sweet island will soon be given over to a thousand Crantons. To put a stop to that … to lead the way … that is my Object.’
Ellen began to think it a splendid Object. She thought of a clean valley full of tidy cottages — an orderly population calling down blessings on Romilly’s head every Sunday when they came to church.
‘How grateful those poor people will be!’ she exclaimed.
‘I trust I may give them cause. They shall at least learn that an industrial employer is not necessarily a brute. They may come to know him as a benefactor.’
‘And the smoke! What a blessing to be rid of that horrid smoke!’
Her enthusiasm was very welcome but he did not feel able to make any definite promise about the smoke. He had not so far examined any facts about the manufacture of china, but he had a notion that it was baked in a kiln and that kilns must needs smoke.
A Night in Cold Harbour Page 17