God Is an Englishman (85 page)

Hamlet Ratcliffe, enlarging his hold upon the Western Wedge, had all but accomplished Lord Courtenay-Hopgood’s migration to the edge of the Exmoor plateau, but the effort of coordinating the exodus, without disrupting his bread-and-butter runs, had exhausted him. When the last of his borrowed frigates had trundled up the Exe Valley to discharge its load in the clamorous courtyard of Milord’s new headquarters above Simonsbath, Hamlet was a spent man. In three months, the period it took him to shift Milord’s chattels over miles of execrable farm tracks, he lost more than a stone in weight. His comfortable paunch had shrunk to three folds of slack flesh that had to be held in by a leather belt, an item Hamlet had never used when the waistband of his breeches was taut, whereas his few grey hairs, that had been regularly plucked by his doting wife Augusta, were now so numerous that it was as well to leave them be for fear his scalp would begin to show.

All through May and June, when the great exodus was building to its climax, Augusta worried herself sick about Hamlet. She had never seen him so nervously extended, not even when terror of dismissal had driven him to catch a runaway GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 454

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lion, and her pitiful appeals to “’ase off a particle, midear” only made him irritable, so that at last he rounded on her bellowing, “Dornee talk so bliddy daft, Gussie!

’Ase off, you zay, time an’ again? But how can I, when I’m zittin yer on me arse all day, trying to pour zix foaming quarts into zix pint pots without spilling the bliddy lot?” She subsided at that, of course, but she went on worrying, neglect-ing her housework to keep a close watch on him, and surreptitiously dissolving malted-milk tablets into his nightcap cider as well as burying Iron Jelloids, three at a time, in the slice of walnut cake he always ate with his morning cocoa. They must have benefited him in some way for at least he survived and on the final day of June, when the last empty frigate returned to the Southern Square, she crept into his office to find him smiling in his sleep and looking, she thought, like the child she had never given him. She stood looking down at him suffused with tenderness, remind ing herself for the thousandth time how fortunate she had been to be chosen by such a genius from all the maids in Devon, and as she gazed it came into her mind that someone should do some thing for
him
in return for all he did for others. What he desperately needed, she thought, was to be taken out of himself, to be whisked away from all this clatter and excitement and bustle, and allowed to vegetate and grow his paunch again, and it was then she decided that,whether he liked it or not, he would take a holiday before another rapacious ogre appeared to sow more grey hairs over his ears.

It was not often Augusta Ratcliffe made an independent decision, but when she did it took a great deal of persuasion on the part of others to alter it. And so it was on this occasion, when Hamlet, re freshed by his nap, appeared for his midday meal long before it was ready. He said, when she proposed the holiday,

“Tidden possible, midear. Us’ve zeen the last of His Lordship, thank Christ, but now us is faaced wi’ the job of unscrambling the eggs and getting all the routine runs back on schedule. And a main tiresome job it’ll prove, dornee maake no mistake about that!”

She said, with an asperity that startled, “I daresay t’will, Hamlet. But
you
worn be about it. For one thing us dorn keep dogs to bark ourselves, do us? And for another, you worn be on tap, nor me neither!” Her assertiveness puzzled him so much that he decided to humour her, saying, genially, “What was ’ee thinking on, mother? A foo days in Dawlish? Or a week wi’ the quality at Budleigh Salterton, while the weather holds?” and Augusta said she wasn’t thinking of anything of the kind, for at both places he would be within close range of the stables and would, as like as not, be recalled to unravel some other tangle. “Us’ll tak’ one of they pinnaces an’ move off, gipsy-like,” she announced. “You need GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 455

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the change, midear, an’ youm ’aving it, for that way us’ll zee places us baint never zet eyes on.”

It was not unpleasing to hear her lay down the law in this way, so long as she did it on his behalf. As always, he looked to her for en largement and notion of the pair of them driving into the sunset attracted him for he was, at base, an idler by preference, and had often yearned to visit places to which he dispatched goods within his territory. He said, approvingly, “Now that baint a bad idea at all, Gussie!

I’ll put me mind to it, zoon as I’ve got some o’ that apple pie down me!” She had the good sense not to press the point, having learned in twenty-five years of marriage that he preferred to think of himself as the originator of an idea and never experienced difficulty in return ing it to its source in the form of an inspiration. And so it proved for that same night, when she was struggling with her corsets, and he was lying flat on his back contemplating the ceiling, he said, sud denly: “I’ve a fancy to take ’ee to Plymouth, midear, to zee that bliddy gurt battleship that’s put in there. Tis an ironclad, the virst they laid down, but why ’er dorn zink like a stone is more than I can zay. Would ’ee like that?”

“Why, for zure I would, ’Amlet,” she said, but then, artfully, “zo long as us travels by the coast road, for I dorn fancy crossin Dartymoor, an’ passing by that gurt prison. Chock full o’ rogues, tis, or zo they tell me, and they’m alwus up to some caper. Us’ll go by way o’ Dawlish, Teignmouth, Torquay, and Dartmouth-ferry. Us can afford it, can’t us?”

He chose to accept this as a slight on his qualification as a provi der and sat up, giving her a stern look. “Gordamme, o’ course we can afford it! We got the bonus commin’, baint us?
Afford it?
Why, us’ll put up at the best inns all the way down, and maake it a round trip while we’m at it. We’ll zee Plymouth, cut across to Bood with a fresh team, move on up to Ilfracombe an’ Barum, and then home down the valleys, where I c’n show ’ee where I caught that lion.” His imagi nation took fire as he went on, “Dam’ it, it worn cost us a penny piece. I can write it off as a Western Wedge survey, an’ get London to foot the bed an’ board bills. What do ’ee zay to that, midear?”

She disposed of her corsets just in time to set the seal on his genius with an embrace. “What do I alwus zay, ’Amlet? Youm one in a millyon, and there tis then!”

They set out in the newest light van, harnessed to two of the best pair of draught horses in the stable, for he reasoned that one horse could not be expected to tackle some of the gradients they would meet on their journey. They averaged about fifteen miles a day, winding their way slowly along dusty country roads gay GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 456

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with wildflowers and towards evening, having picnicked en route, they put up at one or other of the old coaching inns that had survived in great numbers down here, despite the blight laid upon hostelries by the Great Western.

She had expected a leisurely progression from stage to stage and looked for nothing more, but she had forgotten his erudition, and how closely he had been involved with all the communities they en countered. He knew the names and singularities of every village, their basic industries, and the distance separating them down to the last furlong, and on the fourth day, when they joined a party of sight seers to inspect
Warrior,
the first British ironclad, he not only astonished her with his store of information concerning the vessel but attracted to himself a party of hangers-on, who seemed to accept him as the official guide engaged by the Navy.

It was this incident that gave her another idea that was duly fed to him, mas-ticated, and regurgitated as an inspiration. As they were ambling north across the peninsula, on the first leg of their return journey, she said, pensively, “Lookit yer,

’Amlet. Seein’ as ’ow zo many folk come to the zeaside zince the railroad was laid, why dornee use some o’ they ole waggons o’ yours to taake ’em around at zo much a mile? Woulden it pay ’ee through the holiday-season? Woulden they
zee
more than they would on Shank’s?” His answer was noncommittal at the time but when they had en tered Bude, and were inspecting the wreck of a steamer that had gone ashore in Widemouth Bay and was the season’s attraction, circumstances conspired to put a practical polish on the notion. The wreck was some way out of town and the leader of the bedraggled Sunday School outing, caught in a heavy shower, offered Hamlet sixpence per head to convey them back to Bude before they all caught cold. In the drive along the coast towards Ilfracombe Hamlet was very thoughtful, and remained so, even when they were heading over the western spur of Exmoor towards the scene of his lion-catching exploit. He reined a few miles short of the South Molton farm where he had been born, surveying the rolling landscape on his left, “Lookit there, Gussie,” he said, with the irradicable pride of the west-countryman in the hills of home, “dorn it maake ’ee wonder why volks who once zeed it dora bide yer till the’m carried away veet virst?” and when Gussie reminded him that they themselves had exiled them selves after learning that gold pieces were to be gathered on the streets of London, he said, “Arr, and us come posting backalong the minnut us zeed what a bliddy ole lie it was, didden us?” It was at this point, possibly, that the twin trains of thought, set in motion by Augusta’s comment and the Bude Sunday School Superintendent’s dilemma, GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 457

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struck fire.
“Brakes!”
he exclaimed, “
that’s
what us’ll use!
Brakes!
Four ’orse if need be, wi’ knife-edge zeatin’! Damme, there’s no knowing how much we could take in between June and September, when all they bliddy townees descends on us!

Becky Valls, Haytor Rocks, Widdicombe-in-the-Moor, Kent’s Cavern.
Think
on it, midear. A hundred an’ one places to gawp at and no means o’ getting there be rail.
‘Zee Devon on Wheels
.” That yokel Dockett baint the on’y one who can think up slogans. I’ll put young Tapscott to work adapting one o’ they old flats we don’t get no call for this time o’ year.”

He saw it all in terms of a succession of hayrides, of the kind that he and his brothers had enjoyed in the days before the railway had come snorting down the river bottoms, and it was in these terms that he put it forward, a little diffidently, promising as a sideline but nothing more. It was Adam, two hundred miles to the east, who grasped the full significance of the idea on the instant, who saw the means of linking it to the modish cult of the seaside holiday, ushered in by the railways. For whereas Hamlet Ratcliffe thought of an ex cursionist as a purely local phenomenon Adam recognised his national implications at a glance. Having written Hamlet a congra tulatory letter, and doubled the bonus due in respect of the Courtenay-Hopgood house removal, he circulated a memo to every base manager whose territory embraced a spa, a ruin, or a seaside resort. Like most of his directives it was brief and factual, reading, “For General Circulation and Comment Within Seven Days.
It is expected that heavy vehicles will soon be in use in the Western Wedge during summer months as sightseeing conveyances, carrying day excur sionists to places of interest. Information required for possible exten sion of this use of idle waggons in suitable areas is summarised below, viz: 1. Do you consider it a practical proposition in your territory?

2. Could available vehicles be adapted on the spot to purpose defined, i.e. fitted with roll-back canopy and back-to-back seat-accommodation?

3. Please supply short list of popular landmarks (i.e., castles, abbeys, beauty spots, etc.)
within an easy day’s haul of base,
say 20-mile maximum there and back.

4. Have you on present staff a waggoner able to act as local guide in addition to driving?

5. General comments, if any…”

A copy of this directive ultimately found its way to Hamlet Ratcliffe, who read it aloud to Augusta over the breakfast table. By then however, he had three excursion brakes in full service between Exeter and Plymouth and thus had a headstart over Catesby, in the Polygon, and Goodbody, in Crescent North. Only Blubb, with an old coachie’s instinctive eye for perks, was mounting a regular GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 458

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run to Chislehurst Caves and Canterbury Cathedral. It was towards September, Augusta noted, when Swann-on-Wheels excursion brakes had been seen and commented upon as far apart as Snowdonia, Rydalwater, Fountains Abbey, and Stonehenge, that his pride in initiating such a profitable sideline became tinged with jealousy, prompting him to say, as he surveyed a photograph sent him of a brake setting off for Hampton Court: “Gordamme, Gussie, look at that! You’d ha’

thowt it was the Gaffer’s idea, woulden ’ee now?” and Augusta murmured her sympathy. She had conveniently for gotten whose idea it was.

2

Swann’s holiday excursions was one of those simple, trouble-free ideas that found instant favour among base-managers. Almost all of them had a spare vehicle or two that could be adapted, in a matter of days, as a passenger-carrying conveyance, and soon, with a minimum of capital outlay. Swann’s brakes were running almost daily through the summer months to various points of interest, notably ruins of one kind or another, that seemed to have a nostalgic attraction for a nation that turned its back on the past and was crowding into cities where the Gothic past was already dominating the imagination of the architects of so many municipal museums, most of which seemed to be dedicated to the memory of the late Prince Consort. Blubb and Dockett got away to a flying start with the holiday traffic, and Catesby, with Wordsworth’s daffodils on his doorstep, was not far behind. In close pursuit came the indefatigable Abbott, of the Southern Square, whose territory enclosed Stonehenge, Ched dar Gorge, and the Rufus Stone, as well as Nelson’s flagship, the
Victory,
riding at anchor within hailing distance of the shore. Bryn Lovell, in the Mountain Square, went so far as to open a sub-depot at Caernarvon, catering for summer excursionists, who were trundled along the coast to gaze at Edward the First’s castles, or in land to try their luck at scaling Snowdon. Even Edith Wadsworth, who had far more important things to do, gave Goodbody and Horncastle, her deputies in the Crescents, permission to convert a couple of men-o’-war apiece into brakes to convey weekend shrimpers and paddlers to Yarmouth, Whitby, and Scarborough, whereas Vicary, in the flat Bonus country below her southern boundary, based his single three-horse brake on Ipswich and specialised in Roman ruins. The traffic had the advantage of demanding no more than a small injection of capital and was, moreover, something that lent itself to long-term planning, so that Adam’s commercial instincts prompted him to take two steps towards an extension of the scheme pending GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 459