God Is an Englishman (104 page)

2

She made a gesture of irritation when Phoebe came in and said Sir John and Sir Nevil were awaiting her in the drawing-room. Of late, ever since she had recovered from the panic produced by the arri val of the first of Edith Wadsworth’s packages, she had become so absorbed that she resented any interruption, even by those who could give her news of his progress.

The sewing room was no longer a sewing room. Everything asso ciated with sewing had been banished and replaced with trestle tables triumphantly unearthed by Stillman from the stable loft, scrubbed, and covered with clean brown paper held in place by thumb-tacks. Now the whole of England and Wales was an open book to her and she fancied she knew it as well as the final chapter of
East
Lynne,
so that it was difficult to recall a time when she had thought of Birmingham as a place where Adam could have ended his voyage from India. She knew other things besides the frontier towns of all the sections, and the districts those sections served. She could have told anybody who cared to listen that Ratcliffe hauled fish and flowers across Bodmin Moor, that young Rookwood trundled a hundred milk churns a night from Wiltshire villages to Great Western depots, that Phoebe’s father, up in the far north, was paid so much a mile for dragging a blast furnace from Point A to Point B, but less for assembling and setting in motion a convoy of oats and barley from scattered areas in the Cheviots. Words that had been commonplace to her since childhood had acquired a new and mystical meaning, translating themselves from mere words into products that could, in GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 559

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turn, be reduced to pounds, shillings, and pence and tell her things like the daily wage of a carter, or the carrying capacity of a three-horse flat that was known as a man-o’-war. The vast and complex pattern of his enterprise expanded hour by hour, until it all but filled her mind, leaving little room for anything else, except his progress, and the basic needs of the children about the house. She knew how to draft a con tract, how to measure distances, how to look up train departures in a Bradshaw, and how long it took to haul a pinnace between Worcester and Swansea, mostly over macadamised roads but, here and there, over tracks that added hours to a tight schedule in winter. She said, when Phoebe repeated the summons, “I know, I know! Tell him I won’t be a minute…” and kept her finger on a column of Brad shaw while, with her free hand, she jotted down the time of the milk train out of Chippenham and scrawled, in brackets, “Must check.

Should be earlier one,”
before smoothing her hair, following Phoebe across the hall and swishing past her as she held open the drawing room door.

She noticed that they were ill at ease. Not wretchedly so, as they had been on the previous visit, but wearing expressions her father would have called “downy” as they advanced to greet her. She had learned the art of direct speech in the last few weeks and said, at once, “It’s bad news?” and saw that her forthrightness disconcerted them, causing Sir Nevil to shuffle and fiddle with his hat. The surgeon did not fidget but he looked concerned, stroking the long, black hairs on his nose as he replied, “Not in the least bad. Good, I’d say. Taking a long-term view, that is.”

“Well?” He continued to hesitate, however, so she said impatiently, “See here, Sir John, wouldn’t you agree that I had borne up pretty well in this business? Compared with most wives, I mean, who might have made a great nuisance of themselves, drooping about his bedside asking silly questions, getting in the way?”

He smiled at that and said, gravely, “Yes, ma’am, I would indeed. As a matter of fact, that’s why I’m here to put a proposal to you. The fact is your husband has made astonishing progress, physical pro gress that is, and on top of this, having regard to the kind of man he is, he seems to me to have absorbed the shock of a permanent handicap far better than I would have predicted. That doesn’t mean, however, that he hasn’t a hard time ahead of him, so let me ask you a question in return. Would you call him a patient man?”

“No, I wouldn’t. He’s obstinate, but that’s not the same thing, is it?”

“Obstinacy can help. In his case it might help a lot.” He remained thinking for a moment and having taken his measure she allowed him this grace. Sir Nevil, she GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 560

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noticed, had withdrawn from the conversa tion. He was inspecting the moulded ceiling as if he might make an offer for it.

“What proposal have you in mind then?”

He came straight to the point. “That we leave him to fight it out entirely alone.

He’ll do it better that way, I’ve made up my mind to that.”

“You’re saying you would prefer me not to accompany him down to Dover on Thursday?”

“I would indeed, but there’s more to it than that. What I should regard as ideal is for you to give me an undertaking not to visit him at all, to stay here with your family until he’s able to come to you.”

The ultimatum, for she regarded it as that, startled her. They had already warned her that he was scheduled to stay at the Swiss clinic throughout the autumn and winter, and possibly well into the spring, depending upon how quickly he mastered the art of using an artifi cial limb, but the prospect of not seeing him and not exchanging a word with him in all that time seemed to her heartless and cruel. She said, reddening, “Why would my presence hold him back? We’re very close, as man and wife. Closer than most married couples I like to think,” and he replied, rather too quickly, “I’m sure. And that has a direct bearing on it, Mrs. Swann.”

“How?”

Sir Nevil suddenly erupted in a cough, saying, “Excuse me, Sir John…this is very much between you and Mrs. Swann,” and moved swiftly through the French windows and out on to the terrace. The surgeon seemed not to notice the scuttle but said, gruffly, “See here, Mrs. Swann, I’m an old man and I’m a doctor. We ought to be able to talk without embarrassing one another. How long have you been married?”

“Almost seven years.”

“You’ve had three children in that time?”

“That’s so.”

He looked at her coolly. “You could well have had more?”

“I miscarried twice but what has that to do with it?”

“Nothing to the layman, Mrs. Swann, but it is useful evidence to some one with my experience. I’ve also had several long conversa tions with him and only fools keep secrets from their lawyers and doctors.” She found herself blushing then and he must have noticed it, for the twinkle left his eye and he looked at her compassionately. “To be truthful I didn’t learn much talking to him but when a patient runs a high fever over a long period GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 561

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one usually comes away with a reliable sketch of the kind of person he is, what kind of life he has led, and more particularly what is important to him. I admit to taking all that into consideration when I came here asking favours. I am right in assuming it to have been a very rewarding marriage on both sides?”

“I like to think so. I was young, and entirely without experience when we married, but I’ve learned since.”

He smiled again and this time it did not embarrass her. “I’m quite sure you have, Mrs. Swann. More than he gives you credit for, I dare say. I said he had adjusted to the shock and so he has outwardly, by which I mean he isn’t likely to drown in self-pity. But a strong man, especially a man young for his years, faces innumerable hurdles in a case like this. Vanity is one, and another is his reduced capacity as a provider. He’ll need time to surmount those and your best way of helping is to give him that time. All the time he needs. A year if need be.”

“A year!”

“Take a minute, Mrs. Swann. Take a minute and think about it,” and he carried his sherry glass over to the window through which she could see the spare figure of Sir Nevil, studiously contemplating the ponies grazing in the paddock.

She accepted his invitation and thought about it. Vanity and his capacity as a provider. She had often thought of herself as inordin ately vain but until this moment had never included vanity among his weaknesses. Now she saw that she had been too charitable. Or, at any rate, unobservant, for he
was
vain, in many respects as vain as a pea cock, and Sir John had pinpointed at least two areas where he was certain to prove extremely sensitive. They were only two among several. He had often, now that she came to reflect, demonstrated vanity as regards his vigour and his power, at any time he chose, to dominate her physically, and she found that this was something she could think of now not merely with humour but with infinite compassion. Mutilated, with his splendid body chopped and lacerated, he would be likely, she imagined, to suffer untold agonies of humilia tion and the certainty that deprivation on that scale would only in crease her love and respect for him as man and mate was no help whatever while they were separated. She understood that clearly enough and there was no hope of demonstrating this—

as she had resolved to demonstrate it—until he could meet her on something ap proaching equal terms. He could not be expected to take that demon stration for granted and would be likely, stripped of his dignity, to regard himself as something repulsive and obscene, a mere part of a man; truncated, pitiful.

That was one hurdle he had to learn to negotiate but the other was even more formidable. Ever since she had known him he had taken pride in advancing, GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 562

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sword in hand as it were, to meet every challenge that his generation offered.

The purchase of Tryst and the constant financial risk he had courted to see his waggons roll on every high way in the land, were only isolated examples of his aggressiveness, his single-minded determination to stand firmly on his own two feet with out incurring obligations from anyone, even his closest friends. Moreover, and this seemed to her the nub of what Sir John, in his bumbling way, was trying to say, he had enjoyed fighting his battles alone, and here was one that promised to engage every ounce of self-sufficiency and stamina he possessed.

She saw him, fleetingly fighting it out in a strange land and finding a certain amount of satis faction in a battle that would end, she had no doubt, in the re-estab lishment of his pride.

She said, with a smile, “Very well, you don’t have to think up new ways of persuading me, Sir John. You’ve been kind and wise, and I’ll never forget that, any more than I will Sir Nevil’s kindness all these weeks. As to what you advise, it would be a poor return on my part to make fresh difficulties. I’ll do as you suggest, providing I can write to him regularly.”

“By all means,” he said, enthusiastically, “so long as you take care that your letters aren’t dull. But I don’t have to advise you there, do I?” No, she thought, you certainly don’t, and remembering that ab surd, adolescent tumble in the copse the day he returned, she felt a malicious impulse to patronise him and wondered how he would be likely to receive the facts of the relationship that they had all but built a few hours before this terrible strain had been added to it.

He said, picking up his hat and gloves, “I’m grateful to Sir Nevil for introduc-ing me to this case, Mrs. Swann, and I’m not speaking professionally. Perhaps, when things improve for you, I might have an opportunity of getting to know you and your husband as friends rather than patients. May I presume that far?”

“If you don’t mind telling me why,” she said, involuntarily, but then, thinking that this was rather rude, added, “You must have treated hundreds of people in more or less similar circumstances.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said, with another of his un predictable twinkles, “for most cases aren’t in the least like yours, or most partnerships either.

People like me are resigned to having to cut through half-a-yard of sentimental blubber to expose the bare bones of a human relationship, and I doubt very much if I could have conducted this conversation with one young married woman in a thousand, or not without hemming and hawing on my part and blushes on hers. I hope you’ll take that as a compliment, Mrs. Swann. It’s certainly meant as one.” GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 563

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“One that should go to him,” she said, as he gave her an old-fashioned, half-humorous bow and strode out across the terrace calling to Sir Nevil, now engaged in making the acquaintance of what, she supposed, he would be likely to call her “proofs of affection.”

3

Edith Wadsworth’s transfer of power to Henrietta was a shift that could not, with the best will in the world, be accomplished at a stroke. Anticipating the demands it was likely to make on her she did not see herself returning to the Crescents in time for the autumn rush, that usually began in the first days of October. Her estimate was pessi mistic. In the event she was back in Peterborough by the first week in September and by then she had had to recast her entire estimate of the woman she had once thought of as a flibberty-gibbet, with little to recommend her as a wife, much less an adjutant. Notwithstanding this hasty reassessment the speed with which Henrietta adapted to the task, her perspicacity, her intelligent curiosity and, above all, her easy grasp of essentials, caused Edith to think that perhaps Adam Swann was not such a fool as regards women as she had once supposed.

They had established a routine before he left for Oberhofen, on the shores of Lake Thun, where Sir John Levy’s colleague had his clinic. Within a week of his departure Henrietta had absorbed the mass of theory sent her through the post and was clamouring for more, as well as advancing the date when her practical tuition could begin.

Her insatiable appetite for data left Edith breathless. She had made the mistake of assuming that Henrietta’s acceptance of managerial status was prompted solely by her desire to serve. It had never occurred to her that she would be likely to find personal fulfilment in the role and neither had she reckoned on her keen commercial instinct or her prodigious memory for detail, superior to that of the man whose chair she was occupying. Long before she set foot in the belfry she had memorised not only the names and characteristics of every key man in the thirteen districts, but also the type and number of teams and vehicles he operated, and the variety of goods he hauled. This was surprising enough. What was more so was the lengths to which she was prepared to go to break new ground, using a counter feit helplessness to recruit chivalry where Edith would never have imagined a single chivalrous instinct existed.