Ravenscliffe (10 page)

‘You’re talking pigswill, if you don’t mind me saying. It’s taken nigh on an ’undred and fifty years to unionise New Mill Colliery. Slow down? I don’t think so.’

‘Pigswill,’ she repeated slowly. ‘So that means nonsense?’

He grinned at her and nodded, then turned serious again: ‘There’s change in t’air, Anna. Real change, not just small pockets o’ triumph. Balfour’s looking weak over tariff reform, t’Liberals are listenin’ to Labour, and Lord Netherwood is a fool if ’e doesn’t know it. We ’ave working men in Parliament these days and there’s plenty more where they came from.’

‘You, for example,’ she said.

‘Come again?’

‘You. Amos Sykes, MP. Doesn’t that sound fine?’

He threw back his head and roared with laughter at the absurdity of the idea that he should take himself off to
Westminster at the behest of the voting public. Anna, however, was entirely serious and she looked at him with an unsmiling face.

‘What?’ she said.

He didn’t answer, but his laughter tailed off in the face of Anna’s stony disapproval. Then he said: ‘Enough of this. There’s work to be done and I’m sat on my backside in t’sunshine.’ He picked up a sheaf of papers from the ground by his side then, standing, offered Anna a helping hand, which she took, though she was still displeased with him. Vision and ambition were dearly held tenets to Anna Rabinovich: to waste one’s talent, to limit one’s horizons – these, to her, were cardinal sins. She had much more to say to Amos on the subject, but he seemed in a hurry, so she put away her mental ammunition for another day and restricted herself to pleasantries.

‘Busy, then?’ she said, standing and brushing the dry grass from her skirt.

‘Aye. Meeting at New Mill. What about you?’

She delved into a pocket of her skirt and produced a rolled-up tape measure.

‘Curtains,’ she said.

They set off down the hill, walking slowly. Anna wore a straw hat against the sun but she pulled it off suddenly and shook her head, letting her hair fly about her. She’d had it cut shorter in this hot weather and it fell only to her shoulders now: it made her look younger than ever. He had a good fifteen years on her, although her wisdom and experience often closed the gap. Today though, by her side, Amos felt positively ancient.

It still felt like going home, walking the cinder track to New Mill Colliery. Since boyhood he had trodden this route: he
remembered his fear as a lad among grown men on the day he started. He remembered, even, the feel of the new snap tin that banged against his chest in the inside pocket of his old wool jacket. Two slices of bread and dripping and when the time came to eat it he felt sick to his stomach. There had been a big, simple-minded boy, a few years older than Amos, working next to him on the screens. At his age he should have been down the pit, but he wasn’t all there: picking rock and shale out of the coal as it passed on conveyor belts was all he was deemed fit for. Anyway, this boy had watched to see if Amos, the new lad, was going to be able to manage to eat and, when it became clear that he’d gone into first-day shock, he helped himself, delving uninvited and bold as a magpie into Amos’s jacket where it hung on the peg. Through his fog of misery Amos thought, he can’t be all that daft, then.

This memory, for some reason, came back to him as he approached the pit yard. The big lad’s name was Bert Wilson and he’d died of typhoid fever, along with about twenty-five others from the same row of houses. They said the water from the spigot in their street was coming through the midden first, and folk were dying like flies. Bert Wilson. He had loomed large – literally – in Amos’s first dreadful days at the pit, then had, just as suddenly, disappeared. It was probably twenty-five years since the lad had even crossed Amos’s consciousness, but he reckoned he could still pick Bert out in a crowd.

‘Now then, comrade.’

A familiar voice broke his reverie and Sam Bamford fell into step beside him.

‘Sam,’ said Amos. ‘’ow do.’

‘If you’ve come to incite us to revolution, you’ve wasted your time,’ said Sam. ‘We’ve all got t’day off tomorrow to wave flags at t’king, so you’ll find no malcontents ’ere.’

Amos laughed. ‘Very glad to ’ear it,’ he said. ‘’ow’s things?’

‘Middlin’. Another rockfall by Wharncliffe seam, no casualties, but it’s still not cleared. ’ow’s things wi’ thee?’

‘Busy. More members every week. Strength in numbers, as they say.’

‘Did you know Sparky were killed?’ Sam said.

‘Ah no, don’t tell me that.’ Amos stopped in his tracks, wholly distracted from the working-class struggle by this bleak news. It was always a black day at a colliery when a pony had to be destroyed; grown men had been known to cry like babies. Sparky must’ve been near retirement age, he thought now: poor old soul, denied his last few years out to grass in the daylight.

‘Aye, bad do,’ said Sam. It wasn’t news to him and he spoke in a brisk, matter-of-fact voice. ‘Isaac Chandler ’ad ’im settin’ new props, shiftin’ old uns. Summat went awry, not sure what. Sparky got trapped under a piece o’ timber, broke ’is back.’

They were in the yard now, inhaling the sharp, sulphurous smell of the pit, standing by the time office, which was full of men clocking on for the afternoon shift and Amos felt a pang of something like regret, though it wasn’t that exactly. That he hadn’t known, until now, about Sparky’s death suddenly seemed inexpressibly sad because time was when nothing happened at New Mill without Amos Sykes knowing about it. He watched Sam walk into the office, exchanging a word here and there with his colleagues; he heard the rise and fall of miners’ voices and the occasional bark of laughter and he felt on the very periphery of what had once been his world.

But the melancholy didn’t last. Don Manvers, the colliery manager, hailed him from his office and Amos crossed the
yard, papers tucked under his arm, for their meeting. And the miracle of this – that he was here at the Earl of Netherwood’s colliery in the interests of democracy and socialism – was more than enough to put a spring back in his step.

T
he luggage arrived at Netherwood Hall ahead of the guests so that by the time they, too, made their stately progress up Oak Avenue, their belongings would be waiting upstairs for them, ready to be unpacked by the visiting valets and ladies’ maids. Mrs Powell-Hughes had rallied superbly after her brief collapse and the house was in a state of perfect readiness. Twenty-two guest rooms would be in use in addition to the king’s apartments, and each one was supplied with fresh flowers, new writing paper and ink, a basket of exotic fruit from the hothouses, and colognes and toiletries from the still-room. The names of the guests had been handwritten on cards, which were placed in brass frames on each door. As usual, Mrs Powell-Hughes, in consultation with the countess, had made a skilful job of allocation, her decisions on this occasion based on diplomacy and tact as much as on hierarchy. The Duke of Knightwick, for example, was billeted in comfortable quarters in the East Wing, while his wife the duchess was some distance from him but conveniently – and significantly – close to the dashing financier Sir Wally Goldman. Similarly, Lady Hartwick, widowed last year at the heartbreakingly tender age of twenty-nine, was merely a hop, skip and
a jump from the very eligible Frank Ponsonby: there were high hopes that one more weekend in close quarters might produce the longed-for proposal of marriage. It had all been beautifully managed by the peerless Mrs Powell-Hughes: a question, quite simply, of the judicious and discreet application of inside information.

The guest list was just as the king liked it: a lively mix of courtiers, politicians, businessmen, society beauties and wags. An exotic diplomat or two was usually desirable, especially at winter house parties, when shooting was the main event and Johnny Foreigner – who, anyway, couldn’t be trusted with a gun – would often agree to sit at home and entertain the ladies. The closest this latest Netherwood ensemble had to exotic was the American ambassador, though from what Teddy Hoyland had gleaned when they met, the chap was probably rather more down to earth than most of the other guests. Still, being so little known, Joseph Choate was considered the wild card: could he, for example, play cricket? This question was the cause of some consternation to the earl and he put it now to Henrietta, as they sat together on a bench overlooking the main lawn. This was hardly the thing to be doing with the arrival of the first guests imminent, but they had found each other in the garden, both with the same idea of stealing a few moments of quiet before the frenzy. Neither of them relished the prospect of the next four days: being wildly amusing could be such a bore.

‘Thea says he plays baseball,’ said Henrietta. ‘I think they all do at the embassy.’

She gazed across the lawn to where Daniel MacLeod and a small posse of under-gardeners were fine-tuning the white border so that only the freshest blooms remained on their stems. It still seemed most odd to see him here in Netherwood, thought Henrietta: he was so very much part of their London staff.

‘Baseball?’ said Lord Hoyland. ‘What on earth?’

‘Not sure, but it involves a bat and a ball, like cricket.’

‘Well then, I expect he’ll pick up the gist. What about tennis? Do they have that in America?’

Henrietta snorted with laughter. ‘Daddy, you’re quite ridiculous. Of course they do. Thea’s a dab hand, actually. She ran me all round the court last time we played.’

‘You two sound awfully chummy.’

‘Mmm, I’ve seen her in London a couple of times since we first met. I like her a lot. Too bright by half for Toby.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ said the earl, looking over his shoulder, genuinely anxious. ‘Your mother’s at breaking point as it is.’

Dorothea Stirling, bright, witty, vivacious and one hundred per cent American, had caught the eye of Tobias to the extent that he fancied himself in love. His announcement that he intended to marry the girl – an honour of which Thea was still entirely ignorant – had been treated with contemptuous disbelief by the countess. It wasn’t that she disliked Americans per se: they were an amiable breed and enlivened many a London soirée. But Thea Stirling was not and could never be marriage material for her son. She didn’t care how many charming American women had married English aristocrats; on this the countess was unequivocal. The earl, on the other hand, admired the girl enormously. Simply the fact that she had struck out from home on an ocean liner to spread her wings in England was impressive in his view. Thea was Connecticut-born though she lived in New York, and she had come to London to stay for a few months with Joseph and Caroline Choate, who were friends of her parents. She had told Teddy when they met that she had the offer of a place at Cornell University, but she hadn’t decided yet whether or not to accept. Lord Netherwood had been rather bowled over by her sparky independence.

‘Has Toby seen her again? In London, I mean,’ the earl said now to Henrietta. He was speaking low, as if Clarissa might be listening from inside one of the vast stone urns that flanked the bench they sat on. The Choates and Miss Stirling were due to arrive with the rest of the house party later this afternoon; Clarissa’s early objections to their inclusion had been vociferous, but then the king had expressed an interest in seeing them again, and that was that.

‘Once, that’s all. We went down together, remember? End of July? Mama was too busy here to notice much what Toby was up to. We went dancing, which is mostly what Thea likes to do when her head isn’t stuck in a book. She’s a darling. Tobes was most unlike himself. He could hardly think of a thing to say. He just gazed at her, looking a perfect fool.’

‘I wish your mother wasn’t so set against her. A girl like that could be just what Tobias needs.’

‘Yes, well, I shouldn’t have to remind you that Toby has a knack of getting his own way. Anyway, don’t worry – Mama has to be on her best behaviour like the rest of us. And she might relent when she sees that everyone else loves Thea. Which they will. Oops, there we go – I believe I can hear a motor.’

Henrietta was right. A covetable little red two-seat run-about was bowling down the avenue towards the great house, throwing up gusts of gravel dust as it came.

‘Wally Goldman,’ said the earl. ‘Look at that little beauty.’

They stood and walked together up the wide steps to the carriageway at the front of the house, arriving there at the same time as Sir Wally, but in less of an uproar. He waved at them flamboyantly with a gloved hand, then shed his goggles and a voluminous linen duster before vaulting athletically out of the car.

‘What ho!’ he said. ‘First to arrive again? How shaming. Henry, darling, you look utterly ravishing. Teddy, my dear man, so do you.’

The earl laughed. ‘And you are as full of bunkum as ever, but enough of this – introduce me to your motor: what is she?’

‘Ford. Model A. Newly minted, shipped her over last month.’ He nodded at the nearest footman, who stepped forwards eagerly to take the wheel. ‘Cracker, isn’t she? Ten horsepower, imagine that? Seven hundred and fifty dollars-worth of pure motoring poetry.’