The Iron Master (11 page)

He did not chide himself for the tears that now came to his eyes. They were her requiem.

New Company

Seven

May
1792
Miss Wilde’s death made William the richer by one thousand pounds, and transformed Dorcas into a lady of means. With his mother’s backing and his own initiative the dream of Belbrook might become reality, but how to achieve that aim, or what to do best, he did not know. Then his long friendship with Caleb Scholes the younger decided him to seek help in that direction. He wrote, reminding Caleb of their boyish promise to form a partnership, setting down the problems and possibilities of the ironworks, leaving all questions open to advice from higher quarters. Of course, he hoped that the ironmaster would be interested, that wind of the venture would reach Bartholomew Scholes, and that the vast family network might throw up a few patrons eager to invest capital. For he would need upwards of twelve thousand pounds to start a company. He neither said nor hinted this, keeping his tone low and his story modest, but none of them were fools.

First, young Caleb replied in his usual dashing style, full of wild hope and pure delight. He was prepared, it seemed, to down tools in Warwickshire and catch the next coach for Lancashire, in the opening page of his letter. On the second page he mentioned that his own share of one thousand pounds would have to come from his patrimony, and he would need to consult his father. In the postscript, he scribbled, ‘
Wait and see
,
Will
!
Be
patient
!’

In his own good time, Caleb the ironmaster, brother to Bartholomew Scholes of Birmingham, invited William to visit them all at Somer Court and discuss this new turn of events.

His letter was brief, dry and courteous, but they read promise into it. Whereupon the best tailor in Millbridge was called in and, after much advice from Dorcas in person and Charlotte by return of post, created an ensemble fit to grace the occasion.

William twisted and turned and squinted sideways at his reflection in the
glass
, but could find no fault in his grandeur. His green cloth coat was slimly fashioned, with cutaway tails, steel buttons and a high velvet collar. His fawn breeches were buttoned below the knee, in the French style. His waistcoat was striped in white and gold. His white stock was most splendidly frilled. His tall-crowned hat boasted a ribbon-and-buckle trim. His Hessian boots of hard black polished leather were gloriously tasselled.

‘You should carry your great-grandfather’s silver-headed cane!’ cried Dorcas, entranced. ‘And you should wear a wig. A Cadogan wig.’

‘I shall not wear a wig, Mamma,’ William replied firmly. ‘You have but to look at my hands to see I am no gentleman. This is enough, and even so I fear I have made a popinjay of myself to please my mother and sister!’

He was confirmed in this by the men of Kit’s Hill, when he displayed his finery there on the eve of travelling to Warwickshire.

‘By Cow!’ said Ned, laying down his pipe and grinning broadly. ‘He’ll think you’ve come to give him summat, instead of borrowing!’

‘Dunnot let him into t’dairy, Nellie,’ cried Tom the carter. ‘He’d make cream turn!’

‘You’ll need to take care if you’re playing cards wi’ the Prince of Wales,’ said young Dick impudently. ‘He’ll win that fancy waistcoat off thee!’

But Nellie and the kitchenmaids cried that it was a shame, and William looked proper handsome. And they reddened and frowned and bridled to such an extent that the men were reduced to nudging each other, and exchanging covert winks.

While Dorcas sat very grand and silent, smiling proudly on.

William had first seen Somer Court a decade ago, and taken its beauty to his heart for life. Built in the reign of Elizabeth, the house had been designed for a country gentleman of ample means and large family. And from its walled kitchen garden to the fantailed pigeons on its roof, was an orderly delight A long sloping lawn bordered with flowers, a wooded park, a driveway shaded by noble beeches framed this retreat The ironmaster’s inferno, down below, was another world, another place; even, it seemed, another time.

Then, as on his first visit, the warm afternoon had drawn Catherine Scholes and her children and their nursemaids out on to the terrace. She had changed very little, though her marriage was regularly blessed and her eldest daughter’s first born was the same age as Catherine’s last-born. Today a mixture of children and grandchildren played together. Two boys rolled hoops across the shaven grass in keen competition. Two girls played battledore and shuttlecock, a toddler staggered half a dozen steps between one servant and another, and the youngest member sat on Catherine’s lap and stared boldly about him like a miniature ironmaster.

Pray God my household be as this, years hence, thought William. He would have liked to stay on the edge of that tableau for a few minutes longer, but the elderly manservant was hastening over the lawn to inform his mistress of William’s arrival, and then the children caught sight of their visitor and ran pell-mell towards him, crying welcome. While from the library, whose windows opened into the garden, came the ironmaster and his eldest son.

Caleb Scholes’s height was not very great, and yet he held himself as if to say, ‘These inches God gave me, and thou shalt see they suit me well enough!’ so that William wondered whether John Wilkinson the Iron King could be half so imposing, and made his bow and shook hands with sincere reverence. But young Caleb and he greeted each other with boyish delight after their long absence from each other, crying, ‘Seven years!’ as though it had been a hundred: their friendship as fresh and green as in their Birmingham apprenticeship, now promising to blossom into partnership at last.

The girls hovered like gauzy butterflies, the boys jumped up and down, hoping for compliments. None but a strict Quaker could have quarrelled over the Scholeses’ taste in dress, but some quality set them apart from the sober members of their Society, marking them as being worldly. At the same time William realised that he had grossly overdone his own apparel, and was standing out in this subdued elegance like a parakeet. His shame lasted but a moment or two. His resolve to learn and change was constant in him.

They dined at the fashionable hour of five o’clock upon fried soles, boiled fowls, veal cutlets, roast duck and new potatoes and green peas; followed by gooseberry tart and cream, a rich custard, and strawberries in a green dish. Then Catherine took her place at the tea-table to dispense cups and small-talk, while Caleb the elder signalled to the young men that they should retire to the library.

‘For the house will be full of folk by supper-time,’ he observed, placing a hand upon William’s shoulder, ‘and besides, I never know when I shall be needed down yonder,’ nodding in the direction of the valley. He added slyly, ‘But thou shalt bear that burden in thy day, my ironmaster, and oft find it a heavy one! Hast thou thy map and papers with thee? Let us see. Let us see.’

They sat very comfortably and privately, with the summer light coming in at the long windows, while Caleb Scholes spread out William’s survey and bent over it, smiling to himself as though he had begun life again and would find it just as good the second time round.

Belbrook Priory had commanded a view of both the Wyndendale and Charndale valleys, screened by forest which reached down to the River Wynden far below. How much land had been theirs no one knew, but Edmund Cotrell had bought a broad strip down the centre, through which the stream ran like a silver serpent; later supplying a series of pools with water, one after the other, as the friars dammed them. The blast-furnace had been built into the side of the hill, and fuelled with charcoal from the surrounding trees. It was a sturdy but simple affair, capable of dealing with the modest seams of coal and ironstone located nearby. The bellows, too, had been a homely construction worked by hand. The results of their labours, probably domestic pots and pans, were in small enough quantity to transport by pack-horse and sell the length of both valleys. Supply and demand would be about equally matched.

The ironmaster smoothed his chin and nursed his elbow, musing. The map, marked with symbols for trees and buildings, was largely coloured green over and beyond the Belbrook area; an oblong in the middle blazed defiant red, as if to show it would not be underestimated; within this was a little shaded ironworks.

‘The green is Kersall’s land, the red belongs to Cotrell, I take it?’ said Caleb, looking at William’s resolute countenance. ‘Thou art truly trapped, my friend. Thy site is not worth a farthing, without it can expand. A doll’s industry in an age of giants!’

William grew sombre, but said nothing. Caleb the younger softly sighed.

‘Will this Cotrell renew thy lease next month?’ asked the ironmaster.

‘Aye, sir, at twice the price. But he is an old man, and his family will sell all if he dies.’

‘Will they sell to thee, William?’

‘They will sell to the highest bidder, sir, and that would be Lord Kersall himself. But he could squeeze me out, or use me.’

‘Then thou must persuade the farmer to sell out now — site, farm, land and all. Make him a price a little above what he could fairly ask. Use thine adversary’s weakness against him, William, and keep thine own hidden! That is good business parlance. Edmund Cotrell nourishes the weakness of hatred: hatred of his kin and of this Kersall. Put it to him that he stands to gain by selling now, to thee. Promise him that he shall live on his farm as long as his life shall last, and put that promise into writing. Promise what else will keep him sweet, provided that this site is thine. When that is done, we can speak again. Until it is done our words are mere speculation — pleasant stuff for an evening round the fireside, but not good business!’

And he folded up the map and papers and handed them to the astonished young man. Caleb the younger looked at his steel shoe-buckles, and lifted one eyebrow philosophically.

If I could have worn such a suit as his, thought William, staring at the ironmaster, I should not now feel like some foolish interloper. Oh, that a length of brown broadcloth and a plain stock should make such a difference to a man!

He saw the ironmaster’s hands placed lightly upon the polished table, fingers splayed. He saw his own, clutching the precious documents: roughened, horny, dirty, in spite of patient scrubbing and anointing. He felt his anger rise, and welcomed its support.

‘Sir,’ said William, with a certain dignity, ‘I have not come so far to be dismissed as an idle dreamer. Your son and I long planned a partnership. My mother is desirous to invest in this enterprise. I had hoped for advice that went beyond mere commonsense. I know that Farmer Cotrell must sell, and so he shall. I have not worked so hard and so long for nothing. But when he has sold, sir,’ very firmly, ‘what advice do you give me then?’

Caleb the younger pursed his lips and whistled silently, looking out of the long windows. Caleb the ironmaster did not show by so much as a twitch of lip or eyebrow what he felt, but answered in apparent surprise.

‘Oh, it was but advice thee sought, William? I had thought thee looked for a major investor in this dream of thine!’

So he had, and for enthusiasm to meet his own, for encouragement to spur him to yet greater efforts, for an understanding. Bitterly disappointed, William spoke out.

‘Why, sir, it was you that invited me here. I am not so foolish as to think you could concern yourself with such a little venture, but since your son and I proposed to throw in our fortunes together I had believed you wished us well, and would give us the benefit of your long experience.’

‘My son Caleb is to invest one thousand pounds of his patrimony, if so I think fit. Was that thy whole proposition, William?’ the ironmaster asked with gentle sarcasm. ‘Thou’lt need far more money than that!’

‘Deuce take the money!’ William cried, jumping to his feet. ‘Is this good fellowship? I crave pardon, sir, for wasting your time and mine!’

And he put away his map, incensed.

‘Let not thy feelings ride thee, William,’ said the ironmaster quietly. ‘If thou would’st be a man of iron then stay cool, my son, and do not confuse business with friendship — unless thou art in trouble, when friendship in business is important. Think, William! If thou wert in my shoes would thee lend a young man a great sum of money for such a proposition? Think, now, and speak honestly.’

William sat down again, and considered the tassels on his Hessian boots.

Finally he said, ‘It would be decided, sir, upon the matter of character. Certainly,’ warming to the problem, as it became that of Caleb Scholes and not his own, ‘certainly I should not lend one penny until the land was secured. But after that, judging the man in question, I should think it a fair though not a safe proposition. Yet, on the other hand, what should we call safe? Security is not in our hands. We may be carried off, in a night, by the cholera, by the smallpox, by a thousand diseases of the body and mind. So might William Howarth die without seeing the fruit of his labours. So might I, Caleb Scholes, die without reaping the benefit of my belief in him. Yet the Quakers say,
Think
not
of
the
fruits
!’

Father and son sat in silence, watching William expand, He had become his mother’s mind: composed, detached, forcible, clear.

‘I have more knowledge and more power, by far, than William Howarth,’ William continued. He sat easily now, hands clasped between his knees, pondering. ‘The question of my son’s partnership is not important, except that I should not like to see him, too, fail. But what is a thousand pounds? I have wagered more than that in half a dozen new enterprises which might also have failed. So I could let William Howarth find his way through the maze, slowly, for he will find it, if it take him a lifetime of endeavour. But if he die trying, then the reproach is not his, but mine, for I could have helped him. And if he succeed, with my help, then can I say, “This is my protégé, in whom I am well pleased!” And if even with my help he fail, I sleep at nights, my conscience lies easy, I have done my best — and at little cost to myself. William Howarth — is a charity!’