God Is an Englishman (8 page)

Across the fifty-yard gap her father’s voice reached her.
“Afire? Our
mill?” and then everyone began running back and forth, and she saw Makepeace glance towards the summerhouse, and instinct prompted her to move out of the ribbon of light cast by the dining-room lamps and into the fringe of the copse where the ferns grew waist high. She heard him call twice, but nobody came in pursuit and within minutes Goldthorpe’s carriage came pounding through the stable arch GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 33

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and she watched the three men scramble in, and Joe Wilson wheel his sweating horse. Then, in a long, rambling clatter, they were gone.

She thought gratefully, “It’s a sign from heaven, it’s God helping me to escape!” and without conscious thought her resolution was formed and she dodged round the summerhouse, avoiding the group of yammering servants gathering on the terrace as they stared up at the glow in the sky, and along the north side of the house to the con servatory door.

She went through it to the hall, up the stairs and along the passage to her room, still littered with her preparations for the dinner party. From the cupboard, where her dresses hung, she dragged out a small basket-trunk full of odds and ends and emptied them on the floor and after that the carpetbag holdall Mrs. Worrell had loaned her to carry discarded clothes to the needy. Recalling its purpose, and the patronage with which she had filled it, she thought of herself as far needier at this moment than the most impoverished family she had visited in the company of the curate, Mr. Burbage. She was deficient in many things, including advice, money, and, above all, a plan, but there was no time to isolate any need beyond one to put distance between herself and Makepeace Goldthorpe. It did not occur to her to consider the prospect of staying on and defying her father, for no one had ever successfully defied Sam Rawlinson. A man who could hold a town to ransom through a long summer drought would make light of a locked bedroom door, or tears, or threats of suicide, or anything that she could do to divert him from the course he had decided. Men like Cromaty and McShane, the strike leaders back in the town, understood that and that was why they had put a torch to the mill, and now, she supposed, they would all end their lives in gaol on that account. But Cromaty and McShane had offered her a loophole for in these circumstances he was unlikely to return to the house before morning, and this gave her a minimum of eight hours to circle the town to the west, reach Lea Green, and catch a train to Liverpool where regular packet boats were said to leave for Ireland. She would be miles away, and perhaps even at sea, before a search could be mounted, and it would be some time before anyone thought of asking Mrs.

Worrell where she might have gone.

She wondered, as she began to stuff underclothes and toilet bag into the trunk, whether even Mrs. Worrell, the only person in her life who qualified as a confidante, would recall telling her those stories about her mother’s family in Kerry.

Her father, if he had ever heard of them, had surely forgotten them long ago.

Months might elapse before in quiries could be pursued across the Irish Channel and at the moment she could only think in terms of hours. It struck her then that GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 34

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perhaps this flight was not a spontaneous idea after all and might have been dormant in her mind for a long time, or why else was the name and address of relatives she had never seen rooted in her memory? Uncle and Auntie O’Bannion. Shaun and Dympna O’Bannion. Briar Cot tage, Ballynagall, County Kerry, Ireland. The words jingled like bells promising laughter and protection, so that she saw her unknown uncle as the traditional stage Irishman, with gap-toothed smile, and her aunt as a woman with a shawl over her head and kind, deepset eyes that would light up with pleasure when a fugitive niece came knocking on the door of Briar Cottage, Ballynagall.

When the basket-trunk was full, and fastened with a girdle, she began putting things into the holdall: shoes, a needlework bag, an extra pair of drawers, one or two pieces of trumpery jewellery, a nightgown, and a half-emptied box of toffees bought when she went into the town to collect the dress. On second thoughts, recalling that she liked toffees, she stuffed the tin under the girdle where it would be handy. Then she turned out her purse on the bed. There was a shill ing and a few coppers, enough to buy a railway ticket from Lea Green to Liverpool but certainly insufficient for even a deck passage to Dublin. She put the small change back in her purse and the purse in her reticule, and then, gathering up basket-trunk and holdall, she opened the door and listened.

The prattle of the maids rose from the hall via the stairwell. The staff would continue to relish the drama until Mrs. Worrell descended on them from somewhere, and Mrs. Worrell was surely to be avoided as the one person in the house with authority to detain her. For a few moments Henrietta hovered on the threshold, uncertain of her next move, but then something stirred around her calves and she heard the panting of Twitch, her liver and white spaniel, who must have been roused from his kitchen basket by the outcry and slipped up the backstairs to seek reassurance. The pre sence of Twitch was an added embarrassment. He was very attached to her and would certainly follow wherever she went. Standing there, shushing the dog, clutching the basket-trunk under one arm and the holdall in the other hand, her thoughts began to sort themselves out. She had to have more money. She had to reach the schoolroom and get her atlas (for who could find their way to Ballynagall without an atlas), and she had to reach the shrubbery bordering the drive without being seen. Money was the first priority, and she thought she knew where she could find some. Taking brief advantage of a surge of the maids out on to the terrace, when someone shouted news of the crimson glow in the sky, she slipped downstairs and along the passage leading to her father’s den.

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In here a lamp still burned turned very low. It must have been overlooked during the panic exit of the men from the house. Twitch, scenting the excitement that engulfed the house, pranced along in her wake and she turned up the lamp in order to rummage in the drawers of the desk, recalling that Sam kept a cash-box there for pay ing out the domestic wages. Most of the drawers were locked, but the one containing the cash-box was open and upending it she realised why.

There was no coin of a higher value than a shilling and only two of those. The rest, perhaps about seven shillings in all, was made up of sixpences and coppers.

She crammed the coins into her purse and leaving her bags under the window ran back along the passage to the schoolroom, still with the spaniel at her heels.

It was dark in here but she found the atlas by running her fingers along the bindings of the tattered school books on the shelf beside the fireplace. The dog was now whimpering with excitement, and she hissed, pleading, “Be
quiet,
Twitch! For heaven’s sake, be quiet!” and ran across the room, into the passage and straight against the yielding bosom of Martha Worrell.

The shock was so great that she cried out in alarm so that Martha Worrell’s brawny arms went round her as she said, “I’ve been looking for you, child. You heard about the mill? Everyone’s half off their heads, and you’re to spend the night in my lodge…!” but Henrietta broke away, scudding down the passage to the den with Mrs. Worrell in breathless pursuit, until the sight of the luggage piled high on the desk stopped her dead. She hung on the doorpost a moment, gasping for breath. The passage was no more than ten yards long but Martha Worrell weighed seventeen stone. She said, at last, “Where do you think you’re going? Who said to pack those things?” and Henrietta, her back against the window, stared back at her defiantly, as though the housekeeper was the agent of Makepeace Goldthorpe, commis sioned to deliver her into bondage. She said, through her teeth, “You can’t stop me, Martha. I won’t stay, you hear? I’m going now, be fore they come back. They won’t give me a thought with what’s going on, and when they do I’ll be gone, I’ll be safe in Ireland!” Martha Worrell passed a hand half as big as a ham slowly across her brows.

“What
is
it, child? What’s to do? For mercy’s sake, what’s scared you so? Those fools in the town won’t bother wi’ you…” and then, because she had known and handled Henrietta from the moment she was born, she sensed that it was not the riot in the town that had planted that stricken look on the girl’s face but some other agency and that in some way it had to do with the ceremonial meal she had cooked for Sam Rawlinson’s guests that evening. She said, with a flash of intuition, “Goldthorpe’s son? Is it
him?”

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There was no help for it now. If she was to get clear in the time left to her Mrs.

Worrell would have to be taken into her confidence.

“He’s going to marry me. He says it’s been arranged between his father and my father. He wasn’t pretending, he couldn’t have been. He’s got a house, The Clough, over at High Barton…”

“You mean you knew nowt about it? Not until tonight?”

“Father mentioned it this afternoon but he only said Makepeace might come asking, he didn’t say it was arranged…I
won’t
marry him, Martha. They can’t make me, can they?”

Martha Worrell had not kept house for Sam Rawlinson for twenty years without learning how to face facts. “Happen they’ll try,” she said, grimly, and felt the perspiration strike cold under her armpits.

“What else could I do to stop them? They’ll keep on, they won’t give up. I could see that tonight. It’s to do with money, isn’t it?
Isn’t
it?” The housekeeper cocked a shrewd eye at her, trying to gauge the difference between a tantrum and hysteria. Then she said, with a whistling sigh, “They’ll try an’ wear thee down, lass, if they’ve al ready got as far as that. Are you sure about The Clough?”

“Makepeace was telling me when Joe Wilson galloped up shouting about the fire.”

Mrs. Worrell glanced at the luggage on the desk.

“Eeee, but where did you think of going? Where is there to run to?”

“Ballynagall,” Henrietta said, and Martha Worrell’s escaping breath sounded like air forced from a split bellows.

“Ballynagall?
Good life, child, those folk of your mother’s haven’t been heard of in years! They might be anywhere. They might even be dead! You can’t go scampering off to Ballynagall just like that!”

“I can try, I won’t stay here after tonight…”

The housekeeper made a despairing gesture. “Stop mithering, child. Let me think.” She stood squarely against the door, hands clasped across her belly, broad, good-natured face crumpled in the effort of grappling with a string of imponderables.

From across the room, standing within the circle of lamplight, Henrietta divined sympathy and waited. Almost a minute ticked by. There was no sound now except the subdued panting of Twitch who had settled himself on the hearthrug, his attention divided between them.

“Ballynagall is nonsense,” Martha said, at last, “leastways, it’s nonsense the way GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 37

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you’re going about it. I would have to write first, and then wait for an answer.

But once your father got wind o’ it he’d put a stop to that one way or another.

Happen he’s as set on that match as Matt Goldthorpe is. I had a notion he was, and maybe I should have warned you, but I weren’t sure, or not sure enough. It were brewing, that’s all I knew for certain.” The brooding expres sion faded and suddenly she looked obstinate and resolute. “But you’re reet about one thing, lass.

It’s now or never, while there’s such a to-do in t’town and there’s nowt wrong wi’

putting distance between yoursen and your father, if only to show your mettle.

But
where,
that’s the rub!” And suddenly she unclasped her hands so that they were free to slap her belly with satisfaction.

“Our Nelly, be God! Go to our Nelly, i’ Garston!”

“The railwayman’s wife?”

“Aye, Nelly’s the one. She’s more spunk nor the others.”

“But won’t that mean trouble for you if…”

“Nay, I’ll say I sent you there for safety, and he’ll not give it another thought.

There’ll be plenty to occupy his mind for a spell!” Dramatically, instantaneously, the initiative passed to her, as though she was not the abettor but the fugitive. “Head for Lea Green and wait on t’first train that stops there. And when you get to Liverpool hire a fly at the station, it’s nobbut a few miles. I’ll write our Nelly a note saying I sent you on account o’ the riots, and the hands throwing bricks at his windows. Tell Nelly my letter will be on your heels but someone’ll have to tak’ you to Lea Green, and it’ll have to be Enoch, for he’s the only man left about here and that’s a blessing. Enoch won’t think it daft to be catching a train this hour o’ the night. Have you got money?”

“About nine shillings. I took most of it from the cash-box.” She nodded fiercely. “I’ll tell him about it. I’ll say I couldn’t see you go wi’

nowt in your purse. But you’d best leave wi’out the girls seeing you. I’ll find Enoch and harness the trap.”

“May I take Twitch? Would your sister Nelly mind if I took Twitch?”

“You could tak’ a zoo along to our Nelly’s. The house is a fair tip, spilling over wi’ spoiled children and spoiled animals, but the vittles won’t be up to the kind you been used to, lass. Her man don’t fetch home a sovereign a week and she was never a one to mak’ do. Tell her I’ll send money for board. Now drop that luggage out o’ t’window and pick it up on the way round. I’ll send Enoch down to the lodge wi’ t’trap.”