God Is an Englishman (105 page)

Left alone in the belfry one afternoon she coaxed a contract from a Eurasian tea-importer who had resisted Adam’s blandishments for years, and when Edith, GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 564

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quite bewildered, demanded to know how a grasping old cutpurse like Alcibiades had been netted, she replied, “Well, I suppose I simpered a little and then had one of the clerks bring us tea in tall glasses. With lemon, the way foreigners like to drink it in the Cotton Belt.”

Soon she was using similar tactics on the Headquarters’ staff. In a little over a fortnight she had every one of them dancing attendance on her, in a way that might have soured Edith had it altered the balance of the tutor-pupil relationship, but this was not so. She made it perfectly clear that she was not prepared to be infected by Tybalt’s fussiness, or slowed down by Keate’s caution, but as regards Edith she showed a circumspection that was touching, deferring to every hint, and putting her questions so humbly that it was not long before the alliance between them developed into mutual respect and genuine friendship, as between a pair of sisters widely divided by age and ex perience. At least, that was how Henrietta saw it, but to Edith it was more profound, something that made fools of them all, including Adam Swann, who had had her believing (and perhaps continued to believe himself ?) that he married a little goose who was a swan by courtesy alone. Soon, as they laboured five days a week through the heat of August, she was able to stand off and look in on the pair of them, seeing herself in the role of a sorceress engaged in coaching an apprentice who, given time, was likely to dislodge every stovepipe hat in London. Whatever jealousy she might have experienced at witnessing this phenomenon was moderated by glee, for in a way Hen rietta’s performance indicated that this was only a man’s world be cause men were determined it should remain so and that one fine day maybe a century hence, they would wake up and find petticoats in all their citadels. She said, when they were drafting Alcibiades’ contract, “Weren’t you ever tempted to poke your nose into his concerns be fore?” and Henrietta said no, never, and for a very good reason, for she was sure Adam would have resented it, however much he pretended to despise “twitterers.” “I suppose I must have kept my wits about me without knowing it,” she admitted, “and learned a certain amount listening to my father and his cronies. Up in the Belt a woman gets shushed if she so much as offers an opinion, but it’s all mostly a matter of commonsense, isn’t it? I mean, if you can run a house you ought to be able to run a business. What astonishes me is that even an old skin-a-grape like this Alcibiades is so full of his own conceit that he doesn’t see the obvious. Here he was, offloading tea at docks on the south side and carting it through all that traffic and over London Bridge to wholesalers, north of the river, when he could have saved himself time and money by repairing and using a tumble down warehouse he owns at Wapping, and stocking up GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 565

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by wherry every time a clipper docked. It was pointing that out to him that got us the contract.”

Edith said nothing. She was too busy wondering whether, in years ahead, both she and Adam would find themselves in the situation of the king who enlisted a powerful neighbour as an ally and found, when the war was over, that he had been absorbed along with the enemy. Her assurance was rather depressing when Edith recalled how tiresome and complex the work had appeared when she was up here alone, whereas Henrietta seemed to advance towards it with a kind of girlish gaiety. She would sometimes look across at that tumble of copper ringlets and try and imagine what was going on underneath them in a brain none of them had taken into account before it was confronted with slate hauls from Llanberis, and the profit represen ted by one of Dockett’s furniture removals in Tom Tiddler’s Ground. What would Adam be likely to make of it when he returned? Would things ever be the same between them when he came back with his pace inevitably slowed and his confidence in himself badly shaken?

One other aspect of this conspiracy on their part surprised her. Henrietta never made a single reference to what had emerged from that confrontation at Tryst, and seemed to take it for granted that any woman associated with Adam Swann would be likely to fall madly in love with him. It was one aspect of their association that irritated her, taking issue with her loyalty and her determination to play fair. She was grateful enough for a clear conscience but some times it seemed to her a very lopsided distribution of largesse, for here was a woman several years younger than herself who bore his name, had already borne him three children, was still in possession of good looks and a good figure, and was now seen to possess an agile brain and a self-confidence superior to anything she had to offer.

She kept these thoughts to herself, however, and because they were constantly occupied through that sweltering month they did not trouble her over much until news came that he had been measured for his leg and was likely, according to the latest bulletin, to be home by spring.

Edith noticed then that the news did not seem to elate Henrietta so much as she would have expected, and it even crossed her mind, rather treacherously she supposed, that Henrietta was thoroughly enjoying the challenge and might resent an end to the interlude. This suspicion was so persistent that presently she had to bring it into the open, saying, half-jokingly, “I really believe you prefer it up here and feel more at home in this belfry than at Tryst!” and Henrietta re plied, frankly,

“In a way I do, and I know why. For the first time in my life I’ve been useful, and it’s pleasant to learn you’re not such a fool as you took yourself for. Do you GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 566

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suppose women will ever get a chance to prove that they can do anything apart from cooking, scour ing, mending, minding children, and making themselves available when husbands have time to be affectionate?” The question was posed with such honesty that Edith laughed outright. It expressed so exactly all the secret resentments she herself had nursed over the years against the assumption by men that women were no more than a piece of apparatus, equipped for reproduction and servitude at the back of the cave.

“I daresay it will come dawdling over the horizon in time,” she replied, “but not in your time or mine. Men have been fighting and hunting for thousands of years. All they’ve done since is to exchange both pursuits for commerce. There’s a rumour, I hear, of giving women University places, and training spinsters for professions, but I doubt whether we shall ever be regarded as fit for anything except a little clerking and clearing up after our masters.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Henrietta protested. “You and I are plain proof that it is, and you especially. It’s quite obvious to me that Keate and Tybalt couldn’t have managed without you when Adam was in jured. They even admit to it, don’t they?”

“They might, but I don’t think Adam will, or anyone like Adam, who isn’t already conditioned to receiving orders. Does that bother you? I mean, having identified with this side of his life, will you ever be able to carry on where you left off?”

“I’ve really no choice,” she said, glumly, “for by the time he gets back I’ll have another baby to attend to and I don’t suppose for a minute it’ll be the last.” The casual announcement so stunned Edith that for nearly a minute she was incapable of comment. She stood beside Frankenstein gap ing at her partner with amazement that was approaching awe.

“You’re
pregnant?
But how…?” and she broke off as Henrietta, discerning the other’s incredulity, said, “Why do you find it sur prising? It doesn’t surprise me, although I must say it’s a perfect nuisance in the circumstances.”

“You’re saying you’re upset about it?”

“Well, no, not upset exactly, but I do wish it could be told to wait its turn.” She rose, standing in such a way that Edith could see then there was not much doubt about her condition and she was surprised she had needed telling. “After all, I oughtn’t to grumble. I’ve always wanted children, a whole tribe of children.

Stella was difficult but the other two came easily enough, and I’m not scared of having more. It’s just that I’ll have to go home around Christmas and I’d set my heart on carrying on until the last moment so as to surprise him.”

“You’ll certainly do that. Have you told him?” GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 567

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“No. I was only sure myself a fortnight ago. I put it down to the shock and worry.”

“You’ll tell him now that you are certain?”

“No, I won’t.”

She stood there looking, Edith thought, like a plump, stubborn child refusing to apologise, and in response to an impulse in which comradeship and humour were combined, she crossed the room and put her arm about her shoulders. “But why ever not? It isn’t likely to worry him, is it?”

“Oh, it’s not that,” said Henrietta, “it’s just that I want to hold it in reserve. It’ll give him something to think about the moment he crosses the doorstep.” She considered this, finding in it further evidence of this indomit able woman’s knowledge of the man Edith had once supposed she knew better than anyone alive. It was a very chastening thought and one that had the effect of removing yet another prop of self-esteem. She said, “I suppose you’re right,” and then, grudgingly, “You know him far better than I do,” and Henrietta said, lightly,

“Well, I know that side of him. Better than he knows himself.”

“You’re proposing to work here five days a week until Christmas?”

“Why not? So long as I’m well and I’ve felt well ever since I took your advice.

I’ll stay at the George, and go home every Friday afternoon. One good thing has happened that I didn’t hear about until after it was fixed. That convent Deborah attended is closing, and Adam arranged for her to live with us all the time. I suppose he was going to tell me that night, the minute we were alone. Did Mr.

Avery’s child impress you?”

“Very much indeed.”

“She’s a strange little body. Sometimes she doesn’t seem like a child at all, more like someone studying to be a saint. That sounds rather silly, I suppose, but I couldn’t have got through those first days without her. Or without you for that matter, Edith.”

“You’d get through anything,” Edith said, “anything at all, Hen rietta!” and she meant it.

“Will you come up again in the New Year?”

“That won’t be necessary. By then you’ll know enough to run Headquarters at a distance.”

She saw Henrietta’s eyes sparkle. “You think that would work?”

“Of course it would work.”

She realised then that she had removed a weight from the other’s mind, and it did not need much reflection to understand why. To have him come home, and GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 568

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find his wife in the nursery and herself back in command, would have cancelled out their entire strategy, but so long as she could continue to exercise control from Tryst Henrietta was likely to reap the benefit of all the work and enterprise she had con tributed to the plan. It was well enough from her viewpoint, Edith supposed, but it was difficult to suppress a sense of being pushed even further into the shadows, where nothing awaited her but a lifetime of watching waggons through that office window at Peterborough.

She said, with an effort, “Well, I’m glad for you, Henrietta, and for him too. I’ll go back to my lodgings now and start packing.”

“You’re thinking of going back to the Crescents already?” She managed to smile. “Why not? You’re perfectly capable of managing here, and my patch is in dreadful disorder after three months with no real supervision.” She went out quickly then, for fear of betraying her feelings. It was ungenerous, she supposed, but she could not prevent envy mount ing in her for the woman on the other side of the desk, someone who seemed to have virtually everthing when she had so little. The fact that Henrietta had earned her bonuses did not help.

4

When she saw him standing by the window, legs widely planted, hands deep in his breeches pockets, and an expression of uncertainty in his eyes, she could only think of him as yet another problem that had materialised out of a fog of dejec-tion through which she had been walking ever since Henrietta had told her she was expecting a child in early spring.

It was irrational that she should feel deprived on this account. The plan to involve Henrietta in his concerns had been hers, and the certainty of its succeeding beyond all expectations ought surely to have been an occasion for the greatest satisfaction.

But she found as the train rushed her north, that she could not defeat envy with logic, or derive comfort from a sense of rectitude that Christians reputedly enjoyed when they had made a sacrifice, and she supposed this had to do with the near-certainty that she would never have a child. By Adam Swann or by anyone else.

The mood endured all the way home as she reviewed successive phases of her life with a kind of gloomy relish, seeing very little that afforded her satisfaction.

Society, she thought, was badly organised for people of her temperament, possessing vast reserves of affection fated to remain untapped. A man, even a fool of a man, could make any number of attempts to track down happiness, addressing himself to the task until he was toothless and senile, but a woman had so little GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 569

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time at her disposal and time for her was running out. Fulfilment was not to be found in a job of work. At best it was a distraction, of the kind she had found at Headquarters and now that she was resum ing the rhythm of her old life it seemed scarcely worth the effort. For a woman as resilient as Henrietta there was a sense of purpose in everything she did, together with a sense of moving towards some definable goal, but up here, surrounded by men who looked to her not as a woman but as a gaffer, there was nothing to set one’s sights on but increased turnover, or the satisfaction of beating men at their own game, sources of inspiration that were beginning to run dry.