God Is an Englishman (26 page)

“Indeed not,” said Keate, “quite the contrary. Every reputable enterprise should have a readily recognisable trademark. Our own is a case in point, recognisable the world over,” but Adam had not yet quite adjusted to Keate and wrinkled his brow so that Keate, with one of his childlike smiles, said, “You asked me a moment ago if I was out of regular employment, sir. I’m not. I never am, but now I have two trademarks. A swan on wheels and a cross.” Mrs. Keate returned to announce that a cab was waiting under the tunnel embankment at the end of the road. She dropped Adam another elephantine curtsey and they went out into the street. Dark ness had fallen now but the carnival still had an hour to run, and its subdued roar could still be heard from the direction of the river. Keate walked him as far as the four-wheeler, its side lamps winking from the shadow of the tunnel approach. Adam said good-bye, shook hands, and scrambled into the musty interior, but he did not tell Keate he had left five guineas on the tea-tray, having placed it there less as an advance in wages than as conscience money.

2

Pride sustained her up to the last moment, the moment when he reached down among the well-wishers and rose-petal throwers, grasped her hand bearing the wedding ring his mother had worn, and hoisted her into the waggonette as if GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 134

3/27/09 5:13:36 PM

Novitiate
1 3 5

she had been a prize, won on a storming day. Then pride slipped away, leaving a vacuum that was more frightening and bewildering than anything in her experience, so that she sought most desperately to fill it with memor ies in which he played little part, for they belonged to the pleasant days spent in the old house in the company of Aunt Charlotte and the gentle old man whom she had come to love.

Memories were less fickle than pride. They sustained her as far as Thirlmere, where, she sensed, he made shift to strike a bargain with his shyness that had taken refuge, now that they were man and wife, in a stolid withdrawal without parallel in their association. In deed, it seemed to her that he was back in the world whence had come all those incomprehensible letters about a man called Avery, and another called Keate, and a third called Blunderstone, and a fourth who sold cart-horses, people who clearly took precedence over herself and everyone else in the sanctuary he had found for her and was now compelling her to leave.

She had not missed him so much as she anticipated or, for that matter, so much as she felt she should have missed him. In a sense the Colonel had taken his place, petting and flattering her, as his son had never done, and probably never would even though it seemed to her she had forgone a courtship. Meantime, Aunt Charlotte had embarked upon a rampage that roared through the house like a gale, engulfing them all in flurries of dress lengths and linen, in cartons, packages, appointments, and expeditions. Notwithstanding the excite ment it generated, she was glad to leave the old lady to continue her planning alone, and creep into the comforting presence of the Colonel. At his request, she would seat herself under the portrait of the little French lady who had thrown flowers under his mare’s hooves and later (it seemed hardly possible) presented him with that long, lunging, impulsive young man who had ridden over the crest of Seddon Moor, seen her standing in her pantalettes, and whisked her out of one life and into another.

She found that she had no fear whatsoever of the Colonel, and it was hard to believe that anyone could have feared him, even when he was young and fierce and flourishing that great sabre of his that hung over the hearth. All the fire had gone from him, quenched per haps by the caresses of that pretty little thing in the oval picture, or perhaps by her early death. Sometimes he would tell her stories, and sometimes he would read to her from a book written by a French soldier, who had been young when he was young but had fought on the other side, and had any number of adventures in distant corners of Europe. It was this Frenchman, indeed, who helped to build the bridge between them, for when GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 135

3/27/09 5:13:36 PM

1 3 6 G O D I S A N E N G L I S H M A N

she repeated that she wished Adam had remained a soldier, and hoped for soldier sons, he had looked at her speculatively and said, in that slippered voice of his,

“You really wish that, my dear? Then stick to your guns and I’ll load for you!” Then, as though catching himself in a role he had long since re nounced, he added, seriously for him, “You’ll have a say concerning the children, no doubt, but don’t quarrel with this business of his. It means more to him than family tradition, and he’s done his duty by that. Come to that, he’s showing more nerve than any one of us did in the past.”

“Now how can you say that?” she demanded, darting a glance of approval at a brace of cockhatted Swanns whose portraits occupied panels on either side of the window seat, “Adam is only starting a carrier’s business, and while I daresay that’s clever of him, consider ing he’s had no business experience, it isn’t the kind of thing one associates with bravery, is it?”

“There are many kinds of courage, my dear,” he said, gently, “make up your mind to that,” but she replied, “Tell me then, for I want very much to be a good wife to him, and could be if only I…” but there she stopped, for even in his tolerant presence it was difficult to admit that she considered all tradesmen and all businessmen louts or misers, like her father and the Goldthorpes, and everything they did dull, mucky, and degrading. She would have liked very much to have said this, for she sensed that he shared her point of view, but it seemed disloyal to his son so she concluded, lamely, “…if only he had stayed here and given me time to get used to him.”

This had the same effect upon the Colonel as some of her remarks had upon Adam, for he laughed and then converted the laugh into a cough that became a real cough and gave him a moment to compose himself.

He said, breathlessly, “Oh, come now, my dear, you can’t expect him to waste time courting a girl as pretty as you,” and then, more seriously, “You admitted you were in love with him, and frankly I was delighted to hear it, and so was Charlotte. However, I daresay we could persuade him to wait a little. Suppose I asked Aunt Char lotte to help you compose a letter…” but he got no further, for she realised that he was teasing her and told him that he should be ashamed of himself, and that if she was in mind to delay the marriage she had no need to consult Aunt Charlotte or anyone else, and in any case had no intention of giving Adam an opportunity to back down on his proposal. In support of this she quoted a girl she knew in Seddon Moss, who had tried those tactics and had ended up attend ing her beau’s wedding as a bridesmaid.

It was this kind of relationship, easy, warm, and gay, and soon she began to GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 136

3/27/09 5:13:36 PM

Novitiate
1 3 7

use the old man as a mooring post for her emotions, bringing him not only her hopes, fears, and doubts, but also Adam’s letters, that she declared were not love-letters at all but business re ports that might have been composed for a mill-overseer. He was able to reassure her, saying, “That’s an aspect of Adam you’ll have to adjust to, my dear. The boy was away from home for seven years this last time, and we only had seven letters from him and those read like a page out of this book, only less comprehensively set down. For all that he’s affectionate and I’ll vouch for it. His mother was, and he’s got French blood in his veins, that offsets the Swann stodginess.”

“You’re the least stodgy man I ever met,” she said, but he replied, shaking his head, “Don’t deceive yourself, my dear. The Swanns have been suet puddings for generations. Ten out of every dozen went straight into the army from school, and those who survived be came potterers, like me. But Adam, he’s either a throwback to some thieving archer, or the end product of his mother’s line, tradesmen to a man. Thank your stars that it is so. It means you won’t have to sit at home waiting for notes like these from Walcheren, or Alex andria, or Bombay. Neither are you likely to find yourself a widow at twenty-five, or nursing a legless hulk through the prime of life. Think on that, Henrietta, and take comfort from it. Keep glory where it belongs, between the covers of a book, like Baron de Marbot’s.” His advice was at one with the house, and in the weeks of wait ing for Adam to return, something of this peace entered into her as the dry spell ended in a succession of rainy, gusty days that sent the cloud masses scudding over the fells, dappling the surface of the lake and stripping the first of the leaves from the oaks and chestnuts. She loved the house and she loved the setting, and the interval became a period of quiet fragrance that came to her on the scent of stocks in the borders, and linseed in the dark corners of the stairs, and laven der in her trousseau in the chest of drawers Aunt Charlotte had given her. This place was home to her, the only real home she had ever known, and she wondered, sometimes fearfully, if she would ever be clever enough to make one like it elsewhere.

3

He came home in late September bringing gifts for the Colonel, for Aunt Charlotte, and even for the cook-housekeeper, but none for her, so that she was secretly very piqued, and only partially consoled by the reflection that her wedding-dress and trousseau, purchased by Aunt Charlotte, had been paid for with his money.

GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 137

3/27/09 5:13:36 PM

1 3 8 G O D I S A N E N G L I S H M A N

His manner towards her was something different again. She would have expected him to be either patronising, in the way that all males were patronising, clumsily devoted, or just plain shy, but he was neither one of these things. He behaved towards her rather as he did towards the spaniel Twitch, administering an absent-minded pat when she got under his feet but otherwise taking her for granted. He seemed fit enough, for all his stay in the smoky city, but would talk of little but his projects and the encounters he had had down there among the hard-cash men. The Colonel, she noticed, was now taking both him and his enterprise more seriously, and they would discuss all manner of technical details concerning horses and haulage rates and manufactories, as though she wasn’t there, but she had no time to sulk, for soon Aunt Charlotte introduced another gale into the house with the arrival of the carrier’s cart bringing her wedding gown from Carlisle, and there were fittings and fìdgetings without number in her room, in Aunt Charlotte’s, and in the sewing room where a seamstress from Keswick had been installed.

It was not until she had paraded in front of the full-length mirror that she was able to share in the general turmoil, for what she saw reflected there did a little to restore her confidence, and she thought she could hold her own with any bride in the country under that cas cade of lace and satin, with its chic little Plantagenet circlet sup porting a Honiton lace veil embroidered with true-lover’s knots, and elbow-length lace mittens, and satin shoes to complete an ensemble that promised to stun the senses of any young groom, even one whose head was buzzing with subjects like the thickness of waggon-wheels and the distance between East Coast herring sheds and the nearest railhead.

After a dress rehearsal, with the seamstress standing in for the rector, and the gardener for the groom, she had her photograph taken, a novel and interesting experience involving two visits to the studio, and a great deal of posing and arranging on the part of a little man who kept reappearing from under a curtain of black felt. She had her own picture taken first and then Adam joined her, dis appointingly dressed in broadcloth, and was posed with one hand on her shoulder and the other on a bamboo table supporting a potted fern, whilst she sat on a red plush chair with the folds of her finery arranged about her and her hands anchored to an ivory-bound prayer book and a fan.

The result, finished in sepia, was daunting. Adam looked like a wicked, eighteenth-century squire, his mouth puckered in a tight, sly grin, as though contemptuous of the proceedings, whereas she came out looking expressionless, as though she had been asleep with her eyes open. She remembered then that GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 138

3/27/09 5:13:36 PM

Novitiate
1 3 9

it was said to be very unlucky for the bride to wear her wedding gown in the groom’s presence be fore the actual ceremony, but when she mentioned this in the presence of the seamstress the Keswick woman said that superstition only applied to the actual wedding day, not to preceding days, that wedding photographs were now de rigueur, and as they consumed so much time it was necessary they should be disposed of in advance.

Then the house began to fill with strangers, and she wished with all her heart that she had been able to have at least one person there from her side of the family, not Sam, for she was done with him, but Mrs. Worrell or, better still, her bosom friend Sarah Hebditch, to whom she had written, recounting her astounding adventures. A second cousin of Adam’s (a born sniveller, needing a smart box on the ear) was found for bridesmaid and tricked out in sky-blue silk, with a matching poke bonnet and criss-cross white boots, and one of the Colonel’s cronies, an overblown old major, late of the Royal Horse Artillery, was found for best man.

And so, Aunt Charlotte assured her breathlessly, everything was settled, and so it seemed to be, except for any active participation on the part of the groom, who somehow managed to avoid involvement in the whirlwind that en gulfed them all during those last few days in the old house by the lake.

She went through the actual ceremony in a kind of daze, as though she was watching somebody else married and watching, withal, from a great distance or perhaps through a spyglass like the one hanging beside the Colonel’s sabre.

She made her responses and heard the intermittent drone of the rector’s voice, and then Adam’s booming (but still casual) “I
will
,” preparatory to slipping his mother’s ring on her finger and kissing her chastely on the brow. Only a few odd impressions were trapped, the size of his hand and the firmness of his touch, the sudden and disconcerting hiccough con tributed by the artillery major standing just beyond Adam, and the seemingly vast crowd of strangers who scrambled over the graves to get a closer look at her when she emerged on the porch. The experi ence, tremendous as it was, remained secondhand and somehow re moved, even when jolly speeches were made and healths proposed at the wedding breakfast back at the house. It was not until she went upstairs to change into her smart little travelling costume that she felt, not married exactly but at least sold, consigned, and await ing her stick-on labels, and this frightened her so much that she would have wept had it not been for the presence of the seamstress, who had stayed on to help her change for the road journey to Windermere, where they were stopping overnight, and the subsequent rail and road journey to London.