God Is an Englishman (102 page)

“That’s a splendid idea,” he said, genially, “so don’t lose a day over it,” and he smiled again in a way that left her in no doubt but that he was convinced she GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 547

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had been Swann’s mistress for years. The injustice of the situation vexed her and she thought, “Devil take them and their dirty minds! At this rate it won’t be long before the silly rumour reaches his wife and once it does I’ll have no choice but to throw in my hand here and in the Crescents!” She went home in a resentful mood and in the course of the even ing, when it was too stuffy to do anything but sit fanning herself at her bedroom window, she made up her mind. Eight-thirty saw her at the yard gate awaiting Tybalt and before he had shed his hat she said, in a tone that cut short his protests, “I won’t be here today. I’m going down to see Mrs. Swann. Take your work up to the tower to be on hand for callers. There’s nothing that can’t be held over for twenty-four hours!” and she marched off without giving him an opportunity to argue.

3

She had always harboured a curiosity about his home, of which she had heard so much, and Henrietta, whom she had never once met but concerning whom she had a confused series of impressions. There was the general picture, common to all the provincial managers, of a pretty, imperious little madam, who had been clever enough to hook the Gaffer before he was in the swim and had since made his money fly. There was her own private picture, built upon the admis sions she had drawn from him when he had chased her half across England after that incident involving the death of a chimney sweep, and this estimate of Henrietta Swann was even less flattering, for it projected her as a shallow, heartless creature, the kind of daughter a brute like Sam Rawlinson would be likely to sire. But then, since he had taken her advice, her conception of the woman whom she had al ways envied and resented had changed again, for it seemed that Henrietta had matured to some extent and had seemed to grow on him, so that his casual references to her lately had been generous and affectionate. It was this, she realised, that had deterred her more than once from pressing her advantage, for her intuition told her he was now a little ashamed of his frankness in that heart-to-heart talk they had had beside the Swale.

The house made an unexpectedly profound impression on her. She first glimpsed it as the self-driven dogcart turned in at the drive, a home rather than the showpiece she had expected, a place of charm and serenity that was indubi-tably old and weatherworn but not un wieldy, as were most of the country seats of the period. Under the spur of summer woods it seemed to her to draw colour and greenery from all points of the compass, and she understood at once the urge GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 548

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that had led Henrietta to nag him to move in at a time when he needed every penny he possessed for the expansion. It had another and entirely unforeseen effect on her, one that almost impelled her to turn the dogcart and drive back to the yard. In an odd way it enlarged his wife and diminished her, so that she saw herself in the guise of a hanger-on, someone who had come here seeking a favour and was liable to be shown into a waiting-room. Then she summoned up her pride, buttoned her gloves, smoothed down her skirt, and rattled on into the yard, telling a man who came forward to take charge of the horse, that she had come to see Mrs. Swann on a business matter and asking where she was likely to be found.

The man looked across at a child aged about ten who happened to be standing on the steps at the rear of the house and Edith thought, “Now who can that be? She’s too old for his daughter but she looks as if she belongs,” and the child approached saying, gravely, “Aunt Henrietta is in the drawing-room writing. Shall I take you to her?” and Edith said, “You’d best ask her first. Tell her it’s Miss Wadsworth from the yard,” and the child disappeared into the back regions of the house, reappearing in less than a minute and saying, with the same adult gravity, “I’m to take you in by the front door, Miss Wadsworth. Uncle Adam isn’t worse, is he?”

“No, no, I’ve just called on business. Mr. Stock, the lawyer, sent me.” They went through the stable arch and round past a great clump of lilac growing close against the house, and the child stopped and sniffed at a sprig, saying incongruously, “It’s a pity he missed the lilac. He loves summer smells” and Edith thought it such an unusual remark that she said, “He’s going to get well. It’ll be a long time but he’ll be back,” and the child replied, cheerfully, “Oh, yes, I’m sure about that. I always have been.”

They had reached the deep porch when Edith asked, “Are you his niece?” and the child said, “Not really, but I spend my holidays here. I’m Deborah Avery. Papa worked with Uncle Adam until he went abroad,” and then Edith recalled Avery, and Avery’s sudden withdrawal, and the child’s bearing interested her so that she said, “What
makes
you so sure, Deborah? Is it because Mr. Swann is so strong and active?” and she said, with innocent directness, “Oh, no, not really, although he is, of course. Do you know him well, Miss Wadsworth?”

“Very well, I think.”

“Well, then you’ll understand. I mean, he’d put up a great fight, wouldn’t he, and wouldn’t give up like most people? Not if he was in pain, I mean. Or frightened. I told Aunt Henrietta so and she believes me now, tho’ she didn’t at first.”

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She had an impression then that a deep understanding existed be tween this funny little creature and her aunt Henrietta and her curiosity about Deborah increased but there was no opportunity to satisfy it for the child led her into a large room where the curtains were half-drawn against the sun and Henrietta Swann was sitting at a secretaire writing. The first sight of her, small, still, and hunched, stirred Edith’s pity. In that subdued light she appeared scarcely older than the child and far less assured.

“Miss Wadsworth, from the yard, Aunt,” Deborah announced as she withdrew and the doll-like figure at the desk rose and Edith saw that the face was drawn and that she was having some difficulty in extending ordinary courtesy because her mind, wherever it was, was certainly not at the disposal of callers. She said, however, “Please be seated, Miss Wadsworth,” and then stopped, biting her lower lip and staring down at her hands, very elegant hands Edith thought, with long tapering fingers matching a pair of slender feet encased in slip pers that looked like little black chisels.

She was nothing like the woman she had pictured all these years. There was a stillness about her that was not entirely due to the strain to which she had been subjected in the last few weeks. She was prettier, too, with a great cluster of copper-coloured curls disciplined by a piece of black ribbon, a very clear complexion, a large, ripe mouth, now half-open as though to emphasise her uncertainty, and restless green eyes in which fear continued to lurk. For a woman who had borne three children her figure was very good, although she looked as if she had lost weight recently. Any initiative she had possessed, Edith decided, had crumpled under the impact of shock or suspense.

She said, quietly, “I don’t imagine you know about me, Mrs. Swann. I’ve worked for your husband since the beginning, first under my father, lately as a manager in Peterborough. As soon as I heard I came down to Headquarters to do what I could,” and she saw a flicker of interest in the melancholy eyes as Henrietta replied, care fully, “I know about you, Miss Wadsworth. Adam often spoke about you and both Mr. Tybalt and Mr. Stock told me how helpful you had been since…since it happened. I’m sure Mr. Swann will be grateful.” Then looking at her directly for the first time, “You’ll have heard what’s been decided?”

“I heard Mr. Swann might go to Switzerland to be fitted with an artificial leg.

Has anything else happened?”

“No, not really, except that he’s likely to be away a long time.”

“You’ll go with him?”

“No, everyone is against that.”

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“But wouldn’t it help him?”

“It seems not. Sir John, the surgeon, says it requires tremendous concentration to learn to use a…a leg of that sort. And…well there are other reasons too.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Mrs. Swann.”

“I’d like to tell you. I…there’s really no one I can talk to about it, not in the way another woman might understand. The Colonel, his father, tries to make light of it, as if it’s…well…no more than getting used to a new house, or a new horse. And Phoebe Fraser, the governess, puts it all on God and just hopes for the best. Deborah, that little girl who showed you in, she’s been wonderful. I couldn’t have held on without her, but she’s only ten and like Phoebe, she leaves everything to God. I can’t, you see. I’m not even sure I believe in God any more.

Does that sound wicked? Seeing that he lived through it?” Her heart went out to her in a way she would have thought impos sible an hour ago. She supposed it was more than the normal compassion one might be expected to feel for a woman in her circum stances, someone who had leaned on a man as self-assured as Adam Swann for so long. It had to do, she imagined, with their shared appraisal of someone who had been free and far-ranging, self-governing and uncurbed, and was now reduced to a dependent role that he would hate and fear.

She answered. “Not in the least wicked. Inevitable, I’d
say, for any sensitive person who was close to a man like Adam Swann.” She was much sharper than she looked and did not miss the in ference.

“You were close to him?”

“I like to think I was one of the few who understood what he was trying to do.”

“Tell me then.” The voice was eager and far more alive than it had been a moment ago. She considered, choosing her words care fully. “Well, it wasn’t just a matter of running a business and making money. People and trends interest him more than goods and money and that always showed. In everything he did, every word he spoke. I think a lot of us sensed this but he didn’t proclaim it.”

“He must have to you?”

“To me, and to one other district manager, a man called Catesby, in Lancashire.” She moved closer, sitting directly opposite, her hands in her lap. “What
can
happen now? I mean, how will somebody like him man age with such an awful handicap?”

“People do and with less start than he has. By way of tempera ment, that is.”

“But don’t you see, it’s temperament I’m worried about. I’ve been to see him several times and he’s different already. I can’t…well…get to him. He seems GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 551

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patient and resigned but that isn’t really him. He was never resigned to anything.

I’d feel happier if he was restless and resentful, the way he used to be when things went wrong.”

“He’s weak. He’ll need time to adjust, Mrs. Swann. I think we can leave that side of it to him.”

“But what else matters?”

“What he’s created, what he’s worked for all these years. That’s extremely important to him. It will make all the difference if it’s still there and he can return to it as soon as he can walk.”

“There’s no risk of it not being, is there?”

“I think there is. It’s a very personal concern. It isn’t the kind of business that runs itself.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

She was silent a moment. Then she said, earnestly, “What could I do to help?” She had to think quickly and deeply, lest she should convey an im pression that she was here for her own advancement or, indeed, that anything was at stake beyond the vital necessity of maintaining the impetus of the concern that offered, to her mind, his sole chance of rehabilitation. And then, like the wink of a heliograph, she saw a solution that could conceivably solve both problems, his deep, per sonal involvement with the network, and this woman’s tenuous re lationship with him as wife and partner, someone who could, providing she had the courage and was sufficiently desperate, exploit this situation to tremendous advantage. She said, drawing a deep breath, “I’ve been running things, Mrs. Swann. I had to because there was no one else qualified to do it.

Mr. Stock is now trying to make me take over for as long as Mr. Swann is away and convalescent.”

“You don’t feel you could do that?”

“Yes, I could do it. Not nearly as well as him but I could do it if I had to.”

“But you have other plans?”

“I hadn’t when I came in here a few moments ago.” Their eyes met for a moment. Neither flinched.

Henrietta said: “It’s to do with me then?”

“Yes. It would be far better if you did it, Mrs. Swann.”

“
Me?
Me run the business? How would that be possible?”

“I think it would. Don’t ask me to explain why but I do. You could do it as well as me, perhaps better in the end. And I’d help. I’d help in anyway I could.” GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 552

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“But suppose that were true. Suppose I could leave Phoebe in charge, and Deborah stayed on to help with the babies, what on earth would be gained?”

“As far as you’re concerned? A very great deal, Mrs. Swann.”

“I’m sorry, I still don’t understand. Do you mean the men would be more likely to take orders from me than from you? Is that it?” It was a way out but she rejected it. It wouldn’t wholly convince her and she needed very much to be convinced. She got up and went over to the window, calculating risks of a kind that had nothing in common with those she had been taking in the tower, risks that seemed at this moment, not to qualify as risks. She said, finally: “I could easily offend you very deeply, Mrs. Swann, but for his sake, and yours too, I’ll say what I have to. If you did what I suggest, if you made that kind of effort, it would make a very great impression on him when he learned of it. It might even give him the kind of cour age he needs and has to find somewhere.”