God Is an Englishman (20 page)

From then on, however, Henrietta was alerted and her presence on the edge of a teeming mill town had inevitably introduced her to the seamier side of life that came to her partly through the prattle of loose-tongued servants, partly through her own powers of obser vation and deduction. Sarah was fortunate in having brothers whereas Henrietta, having none, had a stroke of luck in catching a fleeting glimpse of a traditional rite among the millgirls of what was locally known as a “sunning.” A “sunning,” she learned later, was an uproar ious practical joke involving male operatives once it was known that they had celebrated their fourteenth birthday, and consisted of a pounce by all the older women in order to debritch and upend the victim, presumably to speculate upon his potentialities.

Avenues of this kind did not offer the curious more than a few hints, but between them, shortly before they were seventeen, she and Sarah had hammered out a possible sequence of events. Their diffi culty lay in confirming it, and this they had never succeeded in doing. On the whole they were inclined to doubt the sum total of their conclusions, feeling that there was, within their calculations, a gross ele ment of error, for the thing itself, viewed objectively, seemed a physical impossibility, and they therefore concluded that somewhere along the line they had been misled or hoodwinked.

It was in the hope of qualifying for more information in this parti cular sphere that Henrietta had approached Aunt Charlotte, but the plan miscarried in two ways. Not only did it cause the old lady acute embarrassment, it introduced into Henrietta a nagging doubt that she was not equipped to marry anyone, much less a hulking, experienced man of the world like Adam Swann, and this she found extremely vexing for it did a good deal to tarnish the pleasures of anticipation that had been hers ever since the project had proved acceptable to her future in-laws.

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This was the point where her state of mind began to change almost hour by hour. There were secure moments, when she felt safe and snug in this rural retreat; triumphant moments, when she could con template the future with a satisfaction that was close to smugness; and doubting moments, when she wondered, unhappily, just what it was about marriage that made old women furtive and younger wo men apprehensive, as though it entailed, besides orange blossoms, a ring, a trousseau, and a change of name, a mysterious and frightening ritual capable of driving weak-minded brides out of their minds, a possibility introduced by one of Sarah’s garbled stories about a cousin whose wedding she had attended as a bridesmaid.

Recollection of this quite blunted the edge of her delight in an overnight shopping expedition to buy her trousseau in Carlisle, but on the day following she accepted the Colonel’s invitation to accompany him on a sketching expedition to Friar’s Crag. It was here, sitting on a log beside the gentle old man, that she was at least able to learn what marriage might have to offer under ideal conditions, that is, between two people who were attracted to one another. She got no more than a few useful hints it is true, for the old man spoke solely out of a sense of duty. But his very reticence and good humour helped to allay the worst of her fears, even if it did next-to-nothing to dispel her doubts, particularly the doubt that had run her most promising conversations with Sarah Hebditch into a series of cul-de-sacs.

He said, by way of a preamble, “Charlotte tells me your mother died the day you were born. Is that so, m’dear?” and she said it was, adding helpfully that she had approached Aunt Charlotte for the pur pose of discussing the kind of things mothers would be likely to dis cuss on the approach of a daughter’s wedding. It was, as it happened, a felicitous approach, for it at once broke down the barrier of reserve between them and even made him chuckle. He said, laying down his brush, “That was a sensible thing to do, m’dear. Many gels wouldn’t have had the brains or the spirit!” and he basked for the moment in the lively recollection of his sister’s red face when she had implored his assistance. It was the first time in his experience that she had ever confessed to helplessness.

“Well,” he said, with no more than a trace of diffidence, “suppose we clear the ground. How much do you know? Gel of your age and liveliness must know something.” She told him what she knew and without much embarrassment, for he listened politely and encour aged her with a smiling nod or two when she recounted the predica ment of Agnes the kitchenmaid, and how that had been put right by Mrs. Worrell, the housekeeper. It was only when she went on to GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 100

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relay Sarah’s dolorous story, of the bride who was shocked into mad ness, that he said, with a snort, “Dam’ lot o’ nonsense! Never heard such balderdash! Don’t believe a word of it and you mustn’t either, you hear?” His emphatic reaction, however, made clarification more necessary than ever. She said, desperately, “But why should anybody invent a story like that, Colonel? And why is everyone so secretive about babies and how women have them?” and he replied, with a vigorous shake of the head, “Damned if I know now that you speak of it. Wasn’t always so. When I was your age people didn’t hush it up the way they do now. Perfectly natural process. Man fancies a woman, marries her, and they have children…” but then his basic honesty compelled him to admit that he wasn’t getting anywhere and he said, a little grumpily, “I don’t know why I should be expected to tell you things a girl ought to know at your age. That’s something for the man you’re about to marry I should say, but I’ll tell you this, if it’ll do anything to settle your mind. There’s deficiencies in that boy of mine: He’s impulsive, harebrained, and never did take kindly to discipline, but he’s good-hearted, and not a man to ride roughshod over a woman. More the opposite, I’d say, if you handle him right.” He gave her a keen glance and when she still appeared troubled he took her hand in his maimed one and went on, “I’ll add something to that, Henrietta, and you can credit it to my Monique, twenty-five years dead and no more than a memory to me, but a very pleasant one when I look at you. A wife’s first duty as I see it is to put a sparkle in a man’s eye, and everything follows from that, with a lot less fuss than many folk, including preachers, moralists, and dry old sticks like Aunt Charlotte, would have you believe! Now my eyes tell
me
you’re head over heels in love with that lad of mine. That’s a fact, isn’t it?”

“Oh, indeed it is,” said Henrietta, without a blush, “but I’m not in the least sure he’s in love with me.”

“Nonsense,” said the old man, “he more or less abducted you and proposed marriage to you, didn’t he?”

“I think,” said Henrietta, “that that was due to his kind-hearted ness.” The Colonel thought a moment. It seemed to him that there was a good deal of truth in this, and his instinct warned him that it was no time to fob her off with flattery. He said, at length, “See here, he must have taken a rare fancy to you, for he’s turned thirty and never yet given a thought to settling down. Be that as it may, a girl like you shouldn’t have much trouble heaping fuel on the fire, if you follow me.”

She did, more or less, remembering fleetingly how his hands had played over her when he had crushed her in that initial embrace and with this came a GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 101

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recollection that the sensation produced in her by his kisses had been the precise opposite to that induced by the clammy touch of Makepeace Goldthorpe. She would have liked very much to have improved the occasion by appealing to the old man for more specific instructions, but she hesitated to trespass on his patience. She said, carefully, “There’s a word in the Bible that one of my governesses said was meant to describe marriage. But, like everyone else, she wouldn’t explain properly, or maybe she didn’t understand herself. It was ‘knew.’ It said Adam
‘knew
his wife.’ Is that what you mean, that when you love somebody you know them, every part of them?” and was surprised to see him regarding her with beaming approval. “Upon my soul,” he said, “you’ve got more damn sense in that pretty head of yours than any of the flibberti gibbets I’ve seen about since I went on half-pay! Gaudy creatures, most of ’em, whispering and giggling together, and twirling their parasols like catherine-wheels every time a man tips his hat to them. You’ve got
sense.
That’s precisely what I’m getting at, and the word was written down at a time when English men and women weren’t so damned concerned with airs and graces, or giving fancy names to everything, even things about the house. A woman
knows
a man and a man
knows
a woman once they’re alone, with one another’s arms about them, and the satisfaction that comes of it is the middle and both ends of choosing a partner and raising a family.” He looked at her keenly again, “You mean to have a family, I hope?”

“Why, naturally,” said Henrietta, feeling more composed than at any time since she had adjusted to the reality of Adam’s act of libera tion in the library, “and I’ll tell you a secret. If I can help it, Col onel, they’ll be soldiers like you and Adam were, or at least soldiers’ wives, for I wouldn’t care to see my sons spend their lives money-grubbing the way Sam Rawlinson and all his cronies do. I should want to be proud of them when I was your age.”

“Amen to that!” said the old man, “and I hope I’m spared to see ’em all in uniform!”

That same night, after she had undressed and was about to slip her nightgown over her head, her instinct prompted her to do something it had never occurred to her to do before, to stand naked in front of the mirror and assess herself as an agent for, as the Colonel had ex pressed it, “putting a sparkle in a man’s eye.” Mystified as she still was about the ultimate expressions of affection between a husband and wife, she yet sensed she had made definite progress towards exposing the most jealously guarded secret of the mystique, and the very act of standing there by candlelight, trying to imagine how he would be likely to regard GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 102

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her in the unlikely event of him ever seeing her without clothes, introduced a glow to all areas of her body, that seemed to emanate from a sharp but by no means unpleasant pricking sensation under the heart. She even noticed, or thought she noticed, subtle physical changes in her appearance. Her colour was high and there was no necessity to bite her lips to increase their redness, a practice she had indulged in more than once before the mirror in the ladies’ room at the Assembly Rooms during a soiree. She saw herself now as the equivalent of one of those daring reproductions of a Gre cian statue, glimpsed in the cata-logue of the Great Exhibition her father had left lying about the house, and the thought returned to her that she equated more with the classical conception of a perfect form than with the kind of girl men were supposed to prefer, willowy wasp-waisted women, who threatened to keel over in a gust of wind. Despite this, however, she decided she liked what she saw. Her skin was very white, and entirely without blemishes if one overlooked the incongruous triangle of hair where her thighs met, and according to Mrs. Worrell (whom she had consulted in alarm when it first began to appear), every adult in the world was afflicted by that. Her shoul ders sloped away in the classical manner, her breasts were firm and nicely rounded, her stomach flat, and her legs shapely, with slim ankles and long feet that matched hands of which she had always been proud. She reached up, untied the ribbon that bound her hair and watched her copper ringlets cascade over her shoulders. The move ment, that produced a ripple of shadow, excited her so that she whirled round to see the effect at the back. Released from her stays, her waist now appeared to her at least two inches thicker than it should have been, and drew attention to the pronounced chubbiness of her bottom. She said, aloud, “I’ll just have to refuse second help ings,” and skittishly she girdled herself with her ribbon, frowning when the loop seemed almost wide enough to wriggle through. Then for no reason at all, she felt ashamed of gazing at herself without clothes in such an immodest manner, and bundled herself into her nightgown, blew out the candle, and scrambled into bed, wondering what had prompted her to do such a thing and deciding it must have something to do with all those doubts and uncertainties, partially stilled by the old man’s patient and patently honest advice. Her mind returned to those whispered confidences she had exchanged with Sarah Hebditch on the subject of men as they were reputed to behave once they had you alone in a bedroom like this, and the glow she had carried upstairs began to subside, making room for doubts. The debris of hints over the years began to form a pattern in her mind, and although it was blurred and indistinct it was yet definite enough to frighten. And then, like the GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 103

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comforting wink of a light in the dark, she remembered what the Colonel had said about his son’s kind-heartedness, of which she had so much proof since he had first ridden over the fold in the moor. Whatever awaited her was unlikely to prove hurtful and shameful. He might scold her, and treat her condescendingly, he might even bully her as he had been inclined to do on their way over the fells. But he was incapable of being cruel and dominating in the way she sensed Makepeace would have been. On this thought, greatly comforted, she slept.

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paRt ii

the cygnet years:

1858–1861

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One

ciceRone

1

Josh Avery was his quarry, for Josh was the only man of his ac quaintance who had been shrewd enough, or ruthless enough, to show a profit on the years he had devoted to the service of the East India Company; a cool, cynical rascal, who had not only seduced his colonel’s wife, and thus precipitated a resounding regimental scandal, but had, it was rumoured, done it on the proceeds of a substantial bribe given him by the Nizam for unofficial military support in a palace plot. This, however, had never been proved and Avery fore stalled an inquiry by resigning his commission and going off home, the simpering colonel’s wife in tow. Rumours reaching the garrison towns since insisted that the Nizam’s bribe had consisted of a handful of diamonds and that Avery had put his capital to very good account.