The Iron Master (21 page)

Riordan walked past him then, up to the dam wall, and inspected it minutely and at length. Shook his dirty felt hat from side to side, and returned to his master.

‘I’m going to tell the men to get out while this downpour lasts,’ he said on an impulse.

‘But what about the iron?’ Caleb asked

‘I want them out,’ William repeated. ‘Go back, Caleb. Go to the hut and wait for me.’

‘My men,’ said Riordan slowly.

He meant that their hut was in the line of water, should the dam go.

‘I’ll send everyone out,’ said Caleb, suddenly convinced, but of what he could not say, and he ran off, shouting orders.

‘You, Riordan,’ William said peremptorily, ‘go with him.’

But the Irishman shook his head. He had helped to build Belbrook. It was his responsibility too, or that is how he saw it. They stared at each other master and man both adamant, both leaders.

The workers were moving, quickly but in an orderly fashion, out of their shops and down to the road, headed by Caleb and the foreman. One of them alerted the navvies, and they joined the throng to the iron gates.

‘We shall look pretty foolish,’ said William grimly, ‘if it’s for nothing.’

But Riordan said, ‘No, sor.’

In the immediate flare of cupola fire he was illuminated, and in the light of that same flare he looked and shouted and pointed to the dark trickle in the dam wall.

‘Dear God,’ cried William, cold in spite of the heat. ‘Run, man. Run!’

And he set off pell-mell down the hillside. While the workforce, hearing him shout and seeing him run, themselves began running and shouting.

The trickle was stronger, making a little bulge in the wall as though a tongue were stuck into the side of a cheek. The bricks were swivelling outwards as though on pivots. The trickle had a neighbour, and another, and another. The wall bulged like a lower lip, like a giant pout.

William could not forbear looking over his shoulder as he ran, and then saw that the Irishman had not followed him.

He had taken charge of that wall and it was letting him down, making a fool of Ignatius Riordan. And beyond the wall was a blind force in the dark which had always been against him: something he had fought, dumbly, obstinately, uncomprehendingly, all his days. He had known he could not win, but he would not be beaten either. It could overcome him, but he would not yield. It must take him on his own terms. So, for a few moments, he attempted to stop up the trickle with his great body, and hold the wall. And as he exerted the might of his muscle he swore defiant oaths out of the night of his soul, and against the weight of black water.

Now it was Belbrook’s turn to give a cosmic firework show. From the far side of the river William and Caleb and their cohorts had a ringside seat, as the pool dam flooded the furnace, and the furnace blew up. Situated as it was, almost in the centre of the valley, that explosion blasted the ears and widened the eyes of all Wyndendale. Old ladies in bed woke with a start and screamed for the constable. Card-players dropped good and bad hands alike, and forgot them after. Horses panicked in stalls. Women near their time went into premature labour. Men ran and shouted and swore. Even work in the cotton mills stopped until they had ascertained what was afoot. And yet only one was killed.

No woman would come near the navvies’ living quarters, so they washed him and laid him out themselves; and someone sponged his best clothes and dried them and brushed them, until they were as good as new; and dressed him in them, top hat and all.

*

William paid for his funeral, and commissioned Joe Burscough of Garth to make him an oak coffin, and Joe said it was the biggest coffin he had ever fashioned. Then they asked a priest to bury him, supposing that he had been born into the Catholic faith, but as he had never been near the church or proved his faith in any way, none would do it. Nor did any holy place want Ignatius Riordan lowered into its sacred soil. So in the end they buried him in a corner of Belbrook, near the river, and William and Caleb said a few words over him. And navvies came from all over the valley, and formed into an orderly procession without being warned or told, and marched behind his coffin, linking hands. As a mark of respect they had tied black handkerchiefs about their bull necks, and wore their Sunday clothes.

‘ … receive thy child, O Lord,’ Caleb prayed, ‘and be merciful to him. The light that thou kindled in him was small, and he could not make it bright.’

He spoke with supreme compassion, and Riordan’s mates gave him credit for his feelings, but it was William who reached their hearts.

‘O Lord,’ William prayed, ‘Thou knowest this man better than we, for Thee fashioned such a one in Samson: strong and fearless and yet blinded by lust. Yet in his captivity was his freedom found, and in his blindness his greatest strength, and his last moments were his mightiest. Therefore, Lord, redeem his spirit. For if it serve Thee as his body hath served us, then halt Thou a great and goodly steward in Thy heavenly mansions.’

And they cried ‘Amen!’ to that.

Caleb the ironmaster had not been established in The Royal George for above half an hour when he called for a horse, and made his way down to Belbrook despite a night and a day travelling. The two young men were working with their labourers on the site, clearing debris, and there was no fear left in them when they greeted him. They had reached a limit of suffering. He could inflict no more, whatever he did. But he had not come, upon the heels of their letter, to add to their tribulations. His handshake was warm and firm. His smile kindly. His unshaven cheeks bore witness to his concern.

‘The Lord hath laid His Hand somewhat heavily upon thee both,’ said old Caleb. ‘Take me round, and let me see, my sons.’

His eyes approved what had been, saw that what was could be fast mended. The dam had only been breached at one point.

Shattered windows were the worst affliction in the workshops. The furnace itself had taken the full force of the explosion and must be rebuilt.

‘A month or two, my masters,’ said Caleb, much relieved. ‘I bring thee greetings from thy shareholders, much sympathy, and the promise of money where and when thee need it most This is but a step backwards. We shall stride forth again, and all the stronger for it. Where dost thee live?’ Abruptly. ‘William, I know thee well enough to say that thou hast not spared thyself, therefore will my son spare thee for an hour. I will see Flawnes Green on my way back. Wilt thou accompany me there?’

His manner had not altered in the slightest, but neither of them knew whether William was to be praised or chastised. So old and young ironmaster set forth on the Black Road, and Caleb talked pleasantly of his journey and the speed of the Royal Mail. In the same Fashion he looked round the smithy, shook hands with an awed Stephen, and gave the two apprentices some sound advice. Then made his way through the living quarters, tickled the sow’s back with his riding whip, was interested in Hannah’s oven and grate, and finally turned face to face, and spoke sternly.

‘My daughter cannot live here, William,’ he said, as though that had been in question. ‘Thee must find her a suitable house. Not like to Somer Court. We do not expect so much at first. Catherine and I began small and ended great. Until then thee may consider thyself affianced to Zelah.’

He set his hat more firmly upon his head, strode through the smithy and mounted his horse. Dazed, incredulous at the swings of fortune, William followed him, but could find nothing to say. The ironmaster looked benevolently down at his future son-in-law.

‘When thou hast re-fired the furnace,’ he said, ‘we expect thee at Somer Court. Ah, and thee must bring Caleb tonight to dine at the inn. Tomorrow I go home again.’

‘Tomorrow, sir?’ said William, roused to speech.

‘Aye, tomorrow, William,’ the ironmaster replied testily.

‘There is work to be done, my son!’

And rode away as though there were not a moment to spare.

*

Father and daughter sat together under the tree on the lawn that September. Summer, in dying, had given forth one of those lovely days when light and warmth and freshness mingle, reminders of past glory. They were content in this and in each other. Zelah’s thinness, the care with which Caleb adjusted her shawl, her cropped hair under the muslin cap, were signs of convalescence. But William was expected hourly, and her animation threatened to outdo her strength.

‘Thou hast had thy way,’ said Caleb, without rancour, ‘but before thee embark upon marriage thee should see William for what he is. Mark me, child!’ He pointed his forefinger. ‘I shall show him to thee, and then thee may answer for him.’

‘I do not fear it,’ said Zelah, though she gathered her shawl closer.

‘He is of the earth,’ said the ironmaster. ‘His faith is in himself, not in his Maker. He is honourable, but only so far as it shall serve him. He loves, but with fire and passion. We do not know how constant, nor how continent he may be. Yet brother Bartholomew thought highly of his parents, and that is a goodly thing in William. For our parents — though thee may not think it, Zelah! — watch over us alway, and oft guide us even after their deaths. So, thy future husband is brave, fearless, ambitious, industrious, and will rise high in the world’s view. Is this enough for thee, daughter?’

Her face was troubled. She looked inwardly upon her love.

‘Well then, doth he not need me?’ she asked. ‘For my faith is rooted in Almighty God, my love is given once and shall be honoured by me until death, and is this not my part?’

‘He gives thee crude ore, and thee transforms it into gold?’ Caleb said ironically.

‘Nay, father,’ she cried, with her old humour, ‘I am no alchemist. Let the iron be transformed into a cooking pot, and I shall do well enough!’

‘I shall go and find thy mother,’ said Caleb, rising. ‘For I fear that she too, like all good women, was given a lump of ore for a husband. And, in the manner of good women, hath made me more than I was, and thinks me more than I am. Thou hast chastened me, daughter!’

She laughed then, and lay back in her long chair, at peace with herself and life, and dozed a little in the late afternoon. So William found her, and sat at her feet tracing the marks of their trial upon her unconscious face. She had a way of holding her lips, a sharpness of bonework, a hollowing of eyes, that had not been there before. Above all, the cropping of her dark-gold hair hurt him most. He put out his fingers tenderly, to touch the tendrils which escaped her muslin cap, and the movement woke her.

Zelah and William, at the beginning. Zelah and William.

Chiming Clocks and Silent Rooms

Thirteen

Autumn
1794

Charlotte had now been twenty months at Thornton House, arriving as a bereaved young widow with two dependants, followed by Polly Slack and the cat on a slower stage-coach: servant and animal both surviving a prolonged journey in a hard winter. At first there were difficulties with Sally, the buxom young housekeeper. In her two-and-twentieth year, the girl was becoming an amiable despot with her two elderly charges, and did not welcome even Charlotte as a new mistress. She suspected Polly of attempting to usurp her position, said that the cat got underfoot, and that the children made a deal of work and cooking. There were a number of small scenes, much tossing of the head, and finally an interview with Dorcas; during which that cool and experienced lady suggested that Sally came as assistant housekeeper at Bit’s Hill, and lived in her parents’ cottage at Garth.

On the following morning Sally personally made Charlotte’s chocolate and lingered at the bedroom door, remarking on the likeness between young Ambrose and his father, remembering what a pleasant gentleman Mr Toby was, and recalling high moments of that Christmas in 1783 when he first illuminated their lives. From then it was only a matter of minutes before she and Charlotte picked up the threads of their girlhood; discussed the goodness and simplicity of Polly Slack, her lack of ambition and her capacity for hard work; set Thornton House in order, with every member in her right place; and forgot their differences.

This first disruption over, the house returned to its former tranquillity and Charlotte became young again. She woke early in the morning, rising with her servants and working in her room until the children needed her for their lessons. She went last to bed at night, loving the hours when she could recharge herself, as it were: walking the silent rooms, hands clasped before her and head slightly bent in contemplation: sitting at her writing-table in the front window, looking out at the quiet High Street or the lights on the fells. As before, the clocks marked the passing of each day: time for dinner, for the afternoon calls or the afternoon walk, for tea-drinking and conversation, a musical evening, supper and bed. Her angularity of body and spirit melted under these gentle, steady auspices. She smiled more frequently, laughed on occasion, lost the cough she had acquired in smoke-laden London, took an interest in her dress, received gentlemanly callers, and for a while became the family centre in Millbridge.

On Sundays she attended St Mark’s Church and listened to the Reverend Robert Graham, whose views were diametrically opposed to those of her late husband. His congregation, well-dressed and prosperous, flocked to hear him denounce the enemies of the King, the French Revolution and General Unrest. His sermons upon ‘That place to which it bath pleased God to Call us’, and ‘The Poor are always with Us’ were considered particularly fine, and came out regularly in different guises. He was exceedingly popular, and though he might lack the elegance of his predecessor, Walter Jarrett, he was innocent of that ironic humour which had often disturbed Millbridge in Jarrett’s heyday. Though poor Phoebe Jarrett, withered virgin, always whispered in church to Charlotte, ‘He has not Papa’s eloquence, I fear!’ and wiped her eyes in fond remembrance, forgetting how often she had been a victim of her father’s wit.

Then there was a delight in taking up pianoforte playing once again, and of teaching little Cicely, who early showed a surprising talent for music. The pleasure of receiving Mr Hurst, who delivered her allowance in person once a month, and came round every Friday evening to drink tea and ask how she did, with occasional talk of her investments. The piquancy of knowing that Dr Standish’s partner and nephew, Dr Hamish Standish, did not call so frequently just to enquire as to the state of her lungs and her children’s health; but sat hemming and hawing while he sought a way to captivate her attention. The slightly disquieting knowledge that William’s partner, Caleb Scholes, was far fonder of Charlotte than she of him, and must not be hurt. So that Ned, who called on market days, chaffed her about being the most sought-after widow in Millbridge. Dorcas was inclined to favour Caleb above the other suitors; but had a fondness for Mr Hurst because he had looked after all their interests so well with the late Miss Wilde; and a partiality for Hamish Standish on account of Dr Standish who had, in his dry way, been good to them.

In the third month of her stay at Thornton House Charlotte wrote circumspectly to Ralph Fairbarrow, and said she believed she would not be able to accept his offer of work. She proffered many excuses: the constant attendance of Aunt Phoebe, which allowed her no privacy, the demands of her family, the needs of her children. The truth was that she did not want to be absorbed again into that difficult, exciting, dangerous world she had once inhabited with Toby. Fairbarrow replied simply that if she changed her mind she should contact him again. Then all communication between them ceased.

There existed a tacit agreement among family and friends to say nothing of Charlotte’s past. Her former outrageous beliefs, her suspected part in a weekly journal which even the rector described as ‘that damned radical rag!’ belonged to yesterday. They were too relieved to have her safely back again to stir up old differences, and too polite to mention them. They felt that she had in some way lost herself in London, influenced by her husband’s opinions, but was now restored to her senses and her proper place in life. She had been misled, and saw the error of her ways.

Tuesday had been Callers’ Day at Thornton House for longer than anyone could remember, certainly back into the reign of Queen Anne when great-aunt Wilde was a girl. It had remained the best day for Dorcas to call, since her reconciliation of 1772, because she could meet most of her old friends there. And Charlotte continued the practice, or perhaps the practice continued and Charlotte countenanced it. At any rate, the faithful knocked upon the front door between the hours of three and five o’clock, to find Charlotte sitting in readiness, Phoebe Jarrett twittering, and the children summoned to hand round cakes and biscuits.

This day in the November of 1794 was cold, with a rough wind. From the parlour window Charlotte watched her visitors battle their way up the High Street, holding on to their hats, holding down their skirts, and almost taking to the air as great gusts swept by them. Phoebe sat close to the fire in Miss Wilde’s old chair. At the age of sixty-four, devoid of her life’s tyrants, she was ageing rapidly. One would have thought that a peaceable existence without care or personal responsibility might suit this gentle spinster, but her father’s selfish charm and Miss Wilde’s unfairness had provided an interest, demanded a response of some sort. No one now asked or needed anything of her, and she had for so long done what other people wanted that she did not know what she needed for herself, and was too submissive to find out. So she harboured grievances.

Ambrose, just nine years old, sat at his mother’s escritoire in one corner of the room, scribbling and drawing industriously. His curly brown head was held to one side, observing effects, his legs twined ecstatically round each other, his tongue protruded between his teeth. He was living each moment to the full, in the sheer delight of creation.

On her stool at Phoebe’s feet, six-year-old Cicely was embroidering quite an intricate sampler. She had inherited her mother’s deceptively sweet expression, and her ash-coloured hair.

Now Dorcas, having refreshed herself with a nap, called the family news into the old housekeeper’s deaf ears, made sure that Sally was content and Polly not put upon and the new scullery-maid showing promise, joined the circle. She saw that none of the parlour inmates needed her, and so hooked her spectacles into the thickest part of her grey hair and reached for
The
Wyndendale
Post
, making but one observation.

‘That child,’ she said of Cicely, ‘besides having my mother’s name is the very image of her! And she is adroit with people. Yes, she is very adroit.’

She was adroit with Phoebe certainly; while Ambrose was only polite, and endured the old lady’s fulsome compliments and easy tears with some embarrassment But Cicely understood the child in Phoebe, and would call her up to play companion. Thus, Cicely’s talk of sewing had brought forth a faded sampler stitched for the Reverend Walter Jarrett when Phoebe was nine years old; and Phoebe had taught the little girl both simple and complicated stitches, and was making a fine needle-woman of her: a skill which Charlotte conspicuously lacked, Dorcas rarely used, and Polly had never attained.

‘Yes, Cicely has leaped three generations,’ Charlotte agreed, ‘but that young man persists in being exactly like his father! He says he is writing his own newspaper, for ours is such a dull one!’

‘Dear Ambrose!’ said Phoebe, plucking out her handkerchief. ‘Poor Toby!’

Dorcas looked expressively at Charlotte, who shrugged and sighed. Ambrose, observing the exchange, smiled to himself. Then, meeting his mother’s gaze, wiped the smile off his face with one hand — which made her lips twitch in spite of herself.

Cicely said, lifting her eyes from her sampler, ‘I hear someone at the front door, Aunt Phoebe. Perhaps it is your friend Mrs Graham.’

Of all the callers, the rector’s wife was most likely to dry Phoebe’s tears and stiffen her resolution, because she had taken Phoebe’s place at St Mark’s Church, and though she was not to blame for that Phoebe would never forgive her.

‘Mrs Graham indeed!’ said Phoebe, and became very dignified.

‘Do you see what I mean, Charlotte?’ said Dorcas, nodding at her grand-daughter, putting away the dull newspaper.

It was not Mrs Graham but the elder Miss Whitehead, who had left her sister in charge of the Young Ladies’ Academy that Tuesday, and next Tuesday would stay at home while Miss Frances paid her call. Ambrose had early nicknamed her ‘Miss Oh-Whatter’, and been strictly chided by his womenfolk, though Dorcas and Charlotte could not help but be amused every time Miss Mary spoke.

‘Oh, what a day, my dears. I am blown to pieces! Oh, what a wind. Mrs Howarth, however did you manage to drive all the way from Garth? Oh, what a week we have had. Two of the young ladies threatening to have putrid throats! How are you keeping, Miss Jarrett? Oh, what a lovely fire … ’

She carried apologies from old Dr Standish’s newly acquired wife: a rich widow who had won his cold hand by offering to endow a hospital of his creation. Then in walked the self-conscious Mrs and Miss Harbottle, wife and daughter of a cotton-mill manufacturer recently come to the valley, who were courting Millbridge’s social circles with timid obstinacy; accompanied by Mrs Pettifer the banker’s wife, who was introducing them by reason of Mr Harbottle’s bank account. Finally these ladies were followed by Mrs Graham, upon whose entrance Phoebe came to life with a remark about the shabbiness of the old altar-cloth.

The weather, the new cotton-mills, rising prices and the altar-cloth being given due consideration, the visitors came to the nub of that afternoon’s call. For Farmer Cotrell, William’s benefactor and
bite
noire
had been found dead in his bed the previous week, and they were all anxious to know how this would affect William’s long engagement to Zelah Scholes. Since none of them knew, or would have cared to know, Edmund Cotrell, they endowed him with amiable qualities to fit him as an object of conversation.

‘A lonely death, I fear,’ sighed Mrs Graham, ‘but then he lived a lonely life these many years. A stoical old fellow, and genteelly connected in the past I understand. And what a friend he was to William, to be sure. Now, do tell us, Mrs Howarth, shall William leave Flawnes Green and reside at the house in Belbrook in the near future?’

She was so anxious to avoid the words ‘smithy’ and ‘farm’ that Dorcas supplied them in her answer, though civilly, so that Mrs Graham’s smile lost its sugar but did not leave her face.

‘Oh, William certainly intends to live at the farm, and of course his journeyman will now take over the smithy entirely.’

Mrs Pettifer leaned forward with a conspiratorial air, for like all the ladies she had become her husband’s shadow, and since her bedfellow was a banker it was naturally presumed that she dealt with the financial side of any discussion.

‘But does this not mean that William now has a house suitable to offer his future wife? Refurbished, of course, but then with a patron such as Lord Kersall, and the ironworks already doing well, the house could be made most elegant. Oh yes’ nodding sagely round the little circle — ‘very elegant indeed!’

As though she had glanced over William’s accounts before she came.

‘I believe William hopes that his patron the
ironmaster
’ — with slight emphasis on this august personage, as opposed to Lord Kersall who was merely an investor — ‘will consent to the marriage in view of their having a home on the site. I understand that William is shortly visiting Mr Scholes at Somer Court to discuss the matter.’

Charlotte’s lips again gave that slight twitch of amusement. So far she had not minded Dorcas presiding over her Tuesday afternoons. It was a relief to find herself part of a respectable
milieu
again. Though she had been somewhat piqued that the headmaster of Millbridge Grammar School had not sought her acquaintance, but kept himself formally polite and at a distance. And yet these sleek cats measuring each other’s striking-power were hardly any thinking person’s choice of company. Sometimes she wanted to clap her hands smartly together and cry, ‘Shoo, puss!’ Irony was her only weapon.