God Is an Englishman (56 page)

“Take her away now,” he said to Ellen, “but don’t either of you leave the house. You’ll have questions to answer, both of you, when the magistrate gets here.” They crept from the room, supporting one another like a pair of ageing drunkards and leaving him to his penance.

4

The enterprise was a vast, angled web with its threads running out across innumerable half-deserted turnpikes, dust roads, tracks, and streams, spanned by mediaeval packhorse bridges, and rail bridges hardly settled on their redbrick piles, leading to city, town, hamlet, and nearly a thousand miles of indented coastline. The coastline was the frame that extended up to the far north-west, along Hadrian’s wall, down to the South Foreland, then west to the knob of the Cornish peninsula, but half-a-hundred shorter, lateral threads linked the country in between.

His waggons, more than three hundred of them, followed the routes of derelict coaches now mouldering in outhouses and henruns, out across shire, spurline, river, marsh, across cities old and new, and down the narrow twisting streets of many an ancient market town and village. Yet, one way or another, each of those threads led back to where he sat in his truncated belfry above the Thames, and at every terminal were men answerable to him and him alone, for somehow, over the cygnet years, his zest and self-confidence had run out along the threads to sustain them, and now it was difficult to imagine an alternative dynamo that would keep the wheels turning, or enlist among them much more than a grudging servitude.

This was how they saw it, and this was how he had always seen it, a huge, ever-expanding web, with himself as the master spinner, and in the spring of 1863, when the last of his waggons had rolled to their allotted territories, it had seemed a time for self-congratulation, for he had no need of reassurance that his steadfastness and vitality had confounded the Jeremiahs, and that when they doubted now their voices were muted and their warnings qualified. It was GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 295

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even, per haps, time for retrenchment and consolidation, words that, until then, he had never used, for to him they signified a licensed idleness. In the years ahead there would, so he told himself, be ample time for further expansion, for encroachment into faraway areas like the Highlands where a boy could still grow to manhood without see ing a locomotive, or in Ireland where, despite political turmoil, haul age markets were wide open for the man with ideas and capital to invest. He thought of this as he trotted along the Kentish lanes with his wife’s twenty-fourth birthday present in his pocket, warming him self at the glow of his own achievements. And then a thirteen-year-old child called Luke Dobbs came plummeting down his chimney, crashing on to his hearthrug and through the nerve-centre of his ethos.

It would be unrewarding to look for logic in his reaction. Logic, although playing a role in his tactics, had no place in his strategy as man or merchant.

For four years now his strategy had been based upon certain concepts, and in the main they were concepts at odds with his time. He subscribed neither to Palmerston’s
laissez-faire,
nor the simple zealotry of evangelicals like Keate and Tybalt. Philanthropy, as such, made no direct appeal to him, and neither did the militancy of reformers like Catesby, although he made allowances for all these creeds. He saw his own and his nation’s destiny in terms of an adjustable balance, labour in one scale, capital in the other, and at centre nothing but an amalgam of commonsense, human dignity, and administrative efficiency. But Luke Dobbs, crashing feet first down the chimney, destroyed that equilibrium, and for the time being indeed, for a long time to come, he was with out a formula and at war with himself in search of one.

Perhaps the most salutary aspect of the incident was the sense of isolation it introduced. He had observed and counted the blood money of commercial imperialism at Cawnpore and Lucknow, and had witnessed, on the setts of Seddon Moss, the vicious recoil of the age, but on these occasions the impact had shocked without shaming, for he had been able to seek sanctuary in self-righteousness, merely shrugging and telling himself, “Not this way. Not for me and my concerns.” But this was no longer possible. Luke Dobbs had been crushed and suf-focated in his chimney, and at the instance, if indirectly, of his own wife, who thus demonstrated that she valued her soft furnish ings above the flesh and bones of children. This involved not only him but his whole concept of civilisation, as though the world he had chosen was not a place of commerce at all but a carnival of lunatics dancing a carmagnole on the bones of the underprivileged.

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made nonsense of every word that dripped from every pulpit in the land, and every pious platitude that issued from the mouths of lawgivers at Westminster. It reduced to obscenity the popular music-hall ditties extolling the land of the free, and a theology that sent missionaries to win heathen souls. For while the savage slew and sometimes ate his adversary, he did it in obedience to ritual or hunger.

Savages did not feed their fires with the children of the vanquished.

When the little coffin had been trundled away, when the coroner had tongue-lashed the mastersweep and revoked his licence, when all the messages had been sent to all Henrietta’s guests informing them that there would be no supper-party at Tryst he would have thought that the tide of self-disgust would recede, but it did not, and one reason why it did not led back to the smallness of the stir about him. For the unspeakable death of Luke Dobbs occasioned less local newspaper comment than Ratcliffe’s lion-catching exploit, or Blubb’s brush with the Fenians, and seemed to make no more than a dent in the armoured complacency of his staff and intimates. He could have understood this in the case of his father, or the coachman Blubb, who were men of the eighteenth and not the nineteenth century. He could even accept it in the Keates and Tybalts, having personal access to Jehovah who had assured them that, given time, he would reward the just and punish the wicked. But there were others, among them his wife and neighbours, and the doctor who had certi fied the death of the boy, who seemed to accept Luke Dobbs’ murder as nothing more than an embarrassing mischance, that could occur in the best regulated household and could be forgotten now that the corpse had been hustled out of sight, the room tidied, the sweep repri manded, and a report sent to swell the postbag of the good Lord Shaftesbury, currently canvassing an Act of Parliament aimed at extending the life span of chimney sweeps.

That Adam Swann was unable to follow their example was his misfortune and evidence, possibly, of his eccentricity. At first his morbid preoccupation with the fate of Luke Dobbs passed almost unnoticed. Then, in ones and twos, people began to remark on it, and it was seen that, in the breaking and recasting of his mould of thought, his character had undergone a dramatic change, and that his judgements, formerly so concise and original were becoming clouded. What was worse, his absorption with his enterprise changed to a self-absorption that led him to spend his time mooning about the woods and heaths, and writing letters to newspapers and cranks, who were campaigning for all kinds of obscure causes, of which the elimination of the trade of flueboy was but one.

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At first, individually and collectively, they tried to humour him, and when this failed, to argue the case with him but they had little success. Sometimes he would listen to them and then, without com ment, set out on one of his solitary walks, but more often, the moment they touched upon the subject, he would urge them to mind their own damned business and they would go away shaking their heads, wondering why such a commonplace occurrence should make such a deep impression on a man who had seen service in Bengal and the Crimea.

They hoped, fervently, that his withdrawn mood did not indicate the onrush of religious mania, and that soon, seeing his leaderless business in a trough, he would pull himself together and attend to more important matters.

He was well aware, of course, that they were talking about him, and that when he continued to drift about the house, silent and all but unapproachable, his father, his wife, and his sleeping partner Avery had taken counsel together, but he neither knew nor cared what conclusion they had reached or what course, if any, had been decided upon.

It was some time after that that Avery made his direct approach and got short shrift for his pains, being told, sharply, to let the matter rest and take charge at the yard for a spell.

Then Tybalt sought him out on the excuse of discussing some new contracts Catesby had sent down, and when these had been referred to Tybalt touched, somewhat hesitantly, upon the death of Luke Dobbs, saying that Adam had no reason to take it so much to heart for, from the facts Tybalt had gathered, the boy had been dead before he had arrived on the scene. Adam stared him down so menacingly that the little man began to shuffle. “And how in hell does that absolve me?” he demanded. “It happened in my house, and it was my wife who stood by and let that scoundrel Millward drive the other boy back into the chimney!” Tybalt almost said some thing to the effect that the ladies would have their places kept spick and span, but, fortunately for him, he bit on it and reminded his employer that a bill was likely to pass Parliament forbidding the practice, and that in the meantime any number of matters were wait ing his personal attention in the yard. “We miss your drive more than I can say,” he said, earnestly. “Mr. Keate sent his compliments, and hopes to have the pleasure of discussing an applicant for the Derbyshire base as soon as possible.”

“Tell him to do nothing,” Adam said, “for I doubt if I shall go ahead in The Pickings. I might even contract,” and Tybalt left feeling less secure than he had felt for a long time. It seemed to him incomprehensible that the future of a thriving concern like Swann-on-Wheels could rest upon the fate of a GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 298

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thirteen-year-old chimney sweep. He was a kindly man, who devoted most of his spare time to good works of one sort or another, but he did not think the death of one chimney sweep should be allowed to clog the wheels of commerce. It was Tybalt’s experience that foundlings had always been expendable.

One saved the souls of some, but the workers in the vineyard were few and he supposed a majority must find their own way home in the dark.

The next approach was made by the Colonel, but his decision to intervene was urged upon him by what he considered a protracted and largely pointless quarrel between a son he respected and a daughter-in-law he had come to cherish. It was Henrietta, in fact, who asked him to try, declaring indignantly that Adam seemed to blame her for the whole sorry business and this, she felt, was the ultimate in unreason.

The old man came upon his son one evening when he was stand ing in front of the fatal chimneypiece, having just caught a discon certing glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung there. What he saw dismayed him. The face was haggard and the eyes sombre, the eyes of a man who had not slept soundly in a long time, and even in his present, self-punitive mood this struck him as incongruous. He thought, wretchedly, “God damn it, I didn’t feel this badly at Cawnpore, and nothing like so helpless when her father rode over that boy at Seddon Moss. What the devil is it, then? Are they all of a piece? Is that poor devil of a chimney sweep no more than a reminder of the monstrous hypocrisy we practise about here? Because if so it’s high time I left hauling to somebody else and set about making my voice heard at Westminster alongside Shaftesbury, and the few like him,” and then the Colonel came in, saying, in his gentle, woman’s voice, “There’s no logic in blaming her, boy. She was no more responsible for what happened than I was, for I was about the house at the time, tho’ I’m not pretending I would have stopped it. Lads have been cleaning chimneys ever since they’ve had chimneys.”

“Not my chimneys,” growled Adam, and then, as he decided the Colonel was here as her envoy, “Let Henrietta speak for herself if she’s anything to say. She’s mistress here in my absence, and one glance at that man Millward should have been enough to induce her to send him packing.”

“Very well,” the Colonel said, mildly, “then tell her so, and put it all out of mind. It’s done now and can’t be undone, and there are your children to consider into the bargain.”

“My children! Good Christ, don’t you realise I find it difficult to look at them without being aware of the gulf between cossetted brats like that and a GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 299

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majority of children in this day and age? Sometimes I think Catesby is right.

If people like us don’t bestir ourselves we’ll soon have a Paris-style revolution on our hands, and a damned good thing too, for I know where you’d find me if it did happen!”

It occurred to the Colonel then, and for the first time in years, that this tall, scowling son of his was only half an Englishman, and that this must be the French half of him talking. As someone who had grown to manhood in the period when a mob reigned in Paris, who had seen at first hand the cruelty and social chaos that attended revo lutions, the remark had the power to shock him. He said, stiffly,

“We don’t incline to that in England, boy. When collision-course threatens, we legislate. Soon enough we’ll legislate about this, the way we already have about the children in the factories and coalmines,” but Adam said, bitterly, “Aye, we’ll do that! In twenty years, forty years! And meantime helpless little devils like Luke Dobbs will choke to death in flues, and when they don’t answer a hail will be dragged out feet first by a rope, or have a fire lit under them! God damn it, don’t you
feel
any blood on your hands? You fought your way from Lisbon to Paris alongside boys like that apprentice, but that was half-a-century ago. Even so, did you treat them as he was treated, to keep them up to their duty?”