The Iron Master (22 page)

Phoebe suddenly said, smoothing her handkerchief upon her knees with trembling fingers, ‘Zelah was very ill. No one considered her feelings. She was like to die last summer, and all because of her father and her lover quarrelling. Oh, William is the handsomest and cleverest man you could wish to meet, but he is absorbed in his work. And Mr Scholes, I dare say, is a good man in his way — though Papa could never abide a Dissenter! but he has his work for solace. And she, dear Zelah, had no love but William, and nothing to do but think of him, and so was took dangerously ill and they cut off her beautiful hair … ’

‘Phoebe dear,’ said Dorcas quietly, ‘we were all very sorry for Zelah, but she is quite well now. And let us not forget that her illness made her father relent and allow the engagement. Much good came out of that.’

‘But it is always the woman that suffers,’ cried Phoebe, mouth working, ‘and until we are about to die they do not consider us.’

The ladies were aghast at this unexpected ugliness, and sought to cover it over.

‘There is so much suffering in the world,’ said Mrs Graham, in her capacity as surrogate rector, ‘it does not bear thinking of. We must be very strong, and have faith.’

‘It is a woman’s part to love and a man’s to work,’ Mrs Pettifer suggested. ‘We have so much heart.’

‘Let us hope that we have heads too, and can use them,’ said Dorcas briskly. ‘I do not divide the sexes quite so sharply.’

Cicely put her sampler into Phoebe’s shaking hands saying, ‘I fear I have forgot how to do rose-knots, Aunt Phoebe. Could you show me again, if you please?’

Charlotte rang the bell for tea. Ambrose pursed his mouth and applied himself again to his newspaper.

Miss Mary Whitehead said, ‘Oh, what a gusty day it is!’ Watching the boughs of trees clash and saw in the wind. Mrs and Miss Harbottle said nothing, which showed that they knew their place.

‘William has asked Charlotte and me to look over the farmhouse at Belbrook,’ Dorcas said in a lighter tone, ‘which has been much neglected all these years. And, in any event, whether or not Mr Scholes allows the marriage to take place earlier than he stated, William and Caleb will be living there. It has been so inconvenient for them to be divided between their work and their lodging these last two years.’

‘Ambrose. Cicely. Pass the cakes, if you please,’ said Charlotte, as the tea-trays came in, followed closely by a large black tom cat.

He was now grown enormous, unrecognisable as that brave kitten who had fallen into William’s top-boot nine years before. His life at Lock-yard and his protracted journey to Millbridge had made him resourceful, and he regularly besieged the parlour when food was part of the entertainment

‘Oh, there is that dear puss,’ said Miss Whitehead, who detested animals. ‘What is her name?’ Though she did not care in the least.

‘He has two names,’ said Ambrose, proffering a plate. ‘We call him Wibs for short, but his real name is William Wilberforce, ma’am.’

‘Take the cat out, Polly, if you please,’ said Charlotte, scenting trouble, for the Misses Whitehead had once employed a little Negro servant.

‘Oh, what a strange name. Why do you call him that? Why do you not call him Blackie or Nigger?’

‘He was named by my father, after Mr William Wilberforce, ma’am, who wishes to abolish slavery.’ Then some hereditary demon made him add, ‘I dare say we could have called him Nigger, but would that not suggest that our sympathies were on the wrong side, ma’am?’ And before she could answer, ‘Pray have a macaroon, ma’am!’

‘Ambrose,’ said Charlotte, ‘take the cat out to the kitchen, and stay with him!’

The cotton manufacturer’s wife leaned forward and spoke to Dorcas, while the other ladies exchanged meaningful looks.

‘How many rooms are in your son’s house at Belbrook, ma’am?’ she asked.

‘Let me see,’ said Dorcas, grateful for the question. ‘There must be eight. It is a very pleasing place, symmetrical in its design, and two rooms deep on either side of a passage. The lower floors are flagstoned. The windows are well proportioned. Cleaned and painted and papered it should be charming … ’

Polly said to Ambrose in the hall, ‘Putting yer blooming foot in it again, Mr Ambrose! Sometimes I think you do it a-purpose.’

‘Sometimes,’ said Ambrose, with bland brown eyes, ‘I do, Polly. Come on, Wilberforce, back to the kitchen, you old slaver!’

In the front parlour Dorcas was skirting the perilous topic of mixed religions with Mrs Graham.

‘Of course, Zelah will join the Church of England when she marries William. The Society of Friends is very strict, and will unhappily — I am thinking of Zelah’s background and beliefs when I use the word “unhappily”, of course — will expel her from the sect. She is, I understand, deeply religious and has been very torn by this prospect, but now quite come to terms with it.’

‘Well, that is a good thing, at least,’ said Mrs Graham very stiffly, feeling that the Church of England deserved better than a fallen Quaker.

Emboldened by Dorcas’s difficulties, Mrs Pettifer slipped into the fray.

‘Why, Miss Scholes must be quite besotted with your son, Mrs Howarth. She will give up her home, her religion, her friends, her former betrothed, and her father’s goodwill for him. It is very brave! I fear I took the easy way and married Mr Pettifer because we had so much in common!’

Miss Whitehead, guessing this was an oblique reference to Dorcas’s own marriage cried, ‘Oh, but love is worth the sacrifice!’ For she had never been asked to make it.

‘Certainly,’ said Mrs Graham, ‘love is a woman’s duty!’

‘I did my duty by my dear Papa,’ said Phoebe, sipping and thinking. ‘They said that the flowers in church was never arranged so well as in my day!’

Mrs Graham, unable to reply to Phoebe, turned upon Charlotte.

‘Of course, you were just as brave as Miss Scholes, were you not, my love? For you left all behind you as she will do!’

‘What heroines they are!’ cried Mrs Pettifer in affected admiration.

‘Oh, it is not heroic,’ said Charlotte, so quietly that at first they missed the sting. ‘We do not marry out of heroism but out of ignorance. The heroism comes after, whether we love or not.’

‘Dear Charlotte,’ said Miss Whitehead, mercifully bewildered. ‘Always so clever.’

The silence was broken by the sound of Dorcas setting her cup upon the saucer with a little click.

‘Do you know,’ she said, looking out of the window, ‘I believe the light begins to fail already. I must go, Charlotte dear, if you will excuse me. No, do not let me break up the party. I live at the end of the valley, not close at hand!’

She began her meticulous round of farewells. The banker’s wife studied her watch, the Harbottle ladies stirred obediently, Miss Whitehead murmured something about her sister being afraid of the dark, and Mrs Graham picked up her reticule.

‘Goodbye, dearest child,’ said Dorcas, kissing Charlotte lightly on her cold cheek, for she saw that her daughter had been wounded and would have liked to soothe her, but did not know how to, and she was angry with everybody except little Cicely and the Harbottles. ‘I shall be here next Tuesday, weather permitting, of course.’

‘Weather and father permitting!’ Charlotte replied, with a ghost of a smile.

‘Ah well, if we court these tyrants we must expect tyranny, must we not, Mrs Pettifer?’ cried Dorcas smiling, which was unkind, since the banker’s temper was unstable and Ned Howarth’s known to be particularly mild. ‘If they are not charitable with us we must turn the other cheek!’ This to Mrs Graham, because the Reverend Robert’s charity stopped short at the pulpit and he was known to be mean with money. ‘Pray remember me to Miss Frances, Miss Whitehead. Take care, Phoebe dear!’ As that sad lady crossed the hall with Cicely in tow. ‘Bless you, Charlotte, for putting up with us all!’

‘I shall go to my room until it is time for supper,’ said Phoebe to herself, but quite distinctly. ‘I have done my duty even when it was most onerous. But I could be like to die before they considered me. It was always so.’

Charlotte closed the door behind her visitors and put her forehead against its smooth cold surface for a few moments. From the kitchen came sounds of china being stacked and washed, and the voice of Ambrose entertaining Sally and Polly. They were all right without her for a while. Just for a while she could wonder how far she had retreated from herself in the search for peace, and whether the price of a haven was not too high. She went into the parlour and drew out her footstool. The long clock stood at twenty minutes to five. Then the brass lion on the front door was knocked peremptorily, twice, thrice. She listened for Polly’s steps, but the kitchen must have been in an uproar with Ambrose for no one came. Savagely she pulled the bell, damning all callers. Polly came running, and shortly appeared before her mistress, saying in utter amazement, ‘Mr Awkright, ma’am!’

‘Ackroyd, girl. Ackroyd!’ said the owner of the name, and walked into the parlour holding out his hand with brusque courtesy.

‘Pray come in, Mr Ackroyd,’ said Charlotte, not altogether pleased.

‘Have I got the day wrong?’ he asked, looking at the used cups, crumpled tea-napkins and crumbs. ‘I thought you were at home on Tuesdays, Mrs Longe.’

‘Oh, I was. I am. We rarely expect gentlemen. Apart from husbands that is. And they are not often at liberty.’

‘Ah! But I did not come to trifle, Mrs Longe. I thought it an opportune time to speak of your son’s future education. Did I make a mistake as to the hour?’

She concealed a smile, for his presence this particular afternoon would have been more than usually disastrous.

‘No, no. You are perfectly correct, Mr Ackroyd. My callers left a little early today, that is all. Pray do sit down, and Polly will fetch fresh tea for us.’

For he was roaming the room, glancing accusingly at the pictures.

‘I never grasp these social niceties,’ he said loudly, abstractly, standing with his back to her, holding his hat behind him.

Mistress and servant grimaced privately at each other. ‘He wouldn’t give me his hat, ma’am,’ Polly whispered. ‘Never mind, Polly. Take these trays away, and see if there are any cakes left.’

A burst of laughter from the kitchen caused Jack Ackroyd to turn his head enquiringly.

‘My son Ambrose,’ said Charlotte, smiling, ‘is a born jester, but this afternoon his wit was out of place, so he stays in the kitchen until supper-time.’

She had decided to treat the visit with polite irony.

‘He seems to have found the proper theatre for his talents,’ said Jack Ackroyd drily, ‘and an appreciative audience. Is that your notion of punishment, Mrs Longe?’

‘No, sir. Of restraint,’ she replied, daring him to criticise.

She glided past him, motioning to a chair.

‘Yet, Mr Ackroyd,’ she continued lightly, ‘I could have wished you to call earlier, for I believe we touched upon every topic but that of education!’

He looked her fully in the face and said with an irony that matched her own, ‘I am astonished you should say that, since I believe Miss Whitehead was of the party!’

Charlotte accorded him silent respect, but asked, ‘And how should you know that, sir? I had not thought you and Miss Whitehead were on calling terms with regard to education!’

He dropped his hat upon her little escritoire, saying, ‘Do you work at this pretty toy, Mrs Longe?’

‘No sir, it is used for social purposes only. Letter-writing and household accounts. Nothing of importance.’

‘For social purposes,’ he mused. ‘Is there then another writing-table where you can fulfil your anti-social purposes, Mrs Longe?’

Her remembrance of him called forth the image of a wild young man with a menacing gaze, and a habit of saying the right thing at the wrong time and to the wrong people. She was relieved to see that he had mellowed somewhat. His forty years sat kindly upon him, clothing his scarecrow figure with a little more flesh, touching his rough dark hair to distinction, softening his tone and gestures. He now wore a fairly fashionable grey suit which needed brushing, and a clean cravat which was not properly tied. She guessed that he had conformed sufficiently to make himself acceptable for the post of headmaster, but would conduct his work according to his principles. Thus he examined her. An outrageous pedagogue. An unconscious heckler. And she let him advance that she might shoot him down more closely.

‘Oh, my professional work is done at my great-grandfather’s desk, upstairs in my room,’ she answered calmly, ‘but these days it could be read by any of my afternoon callers.’

‘If they had a mind to read anything serious, which I doubt!’ he said, and sat down abruptly.

It annoyed her that she had thought exactly the same thing. But she merely smiled sociably, for now Polly had brought in the tea things, and they were silent until she had gone.

‘If I were one of your parlour gentlemen,’ said Jack Ackroyd, ‘I should say that I was guilty of a mild deception. Since I am not I can tell you plainly that I waited until your visitors had gone before I ventured across the road. But I so far bowed to convention — a deplorable commodity! — as to seem surprised they were not here. That was for the benefit of your servant. And now the proprieties have been observed — deuce take them! — we can talk freely!’ Without giving her a chance to comment upon his singular behaviour he said, ‘Tell me, are you not very bored in Millbridge, Mrs Longe?’