Read The Rich Are with You Always Online
Authors: Malcolm Macdonald
The Rich Are with You Always (3 page)
"Mr. Stevenson, he told us.
Racontant—
oh, it's such a funnay name. For us it's quite strange. But for you not?
Racontant.
We cannot imagine it, you know."
Racontant—
oh, it's such a funnay name. For us it's quite strange. But for you not?
Racontant.
We cannot imagine it, you know."
"I wouldn't say it's very common."
"We have some neighbour, Tallien. He has much country. Oh, many farms. And when Mr. Stevenson was by us at Trouville, he heard this man, and the name Tallien, and it reminds him of you, Mrs. Stevenson. Tallien…Telling. You see."
"That's how you knew," Nora said. She grew dizzy trying to think back over the chain of nonsensicals that had led to this most trivial conclusion.
Madame Rodet was looking happily at the fire. "He has told you of La Gracieuse, M'sieu Jean?" she asked. Then, seeing Nora's bewilderment, she laughed, clutched at Nora's arm, and added: "Oh, I must tell you. We call him M'sieu Jean in Normandie. All his men, they call him Lord John. But he's not a lord. That's funnay. Did he tell you of La Gracieuse?"
"Your house in Normandy!" Nora said, understanding at last.
Madame Rodet looked at her uncertainly. "Our home," she corrected. "You say house? We have a house at St. Cloud, but La Gracieuse is our home."
"He said it was very beautiful."
They both looked at the fire for a while; Madame Rodet still clutched Nora's arm in her dry, cool fingers. "And very welcoming," Nora added. "I know he enjoyed his stay with you."
"You shall see," she said, as if to herself. Then she turned and added urgently, "Soon."
Nora did not know what to make of it. Madame Rodet's intonation was so un-English as to turn perfectly ordinary remarks into oracular pronouncements. "He's often spoken of France," she said. "Now we've got the Rouen–Havre contract, he'll be going back there quite often."
"You will come too this time. You will stay at La Gracieuse and you will see Normandie.
La Basse Normandie—the
Pays d'Auge, you know, it's very typical for us. And you can even speak a little French perhaps. Peut-être. You will see. Peut-être."
La Basse Normandie—the
Pays d'Auge, you know, it's very typical for us. And you can even speak a little French perhaps. Peut-être. You will see. Peut-être."
Five years of careful observation and tireless rehearsal had left Nora able to cope with every social occasion she was likely to meet. But this casual invitation, delivered in the manner of a fortune teller, was beyond that competence. In her bewilderment, all she could do was to ask a question that had occurred to her earlier when she had mentioned the Rouen–Havre contract: "Are you
supplying the rail? For this new work?"
But Madame Rodet seemed not to hear. Eagerly she searched Nora's eyes for an acceptance. "Oh, it will be such fun!" she said. "Spring in Normandie, you know, is very beautiful. I don't know about the rail; that's Rodet's affairs. Also, you can invite your brother, M'sieu Samuel."
At once Nora was alert and attentive. Sam was supposed to be a secret. "You know of Sam, Madame?"
For a moment only, Madame Rodet looked uncomfortable. "Oh, it's so funnay. For us. So English."
"You know that Sam is in service?"
"In France it does not matter. We have
égalité.
All are
égales.
I call my cook 'Madame.' In England it is so…you are all…" She craned her neck like a giraffe and waved her hands dismissively at the world beneath her chin: "'Oh, don't show me all that. Pfff! I don't wish to see.' That's English."
égalité.
All are
égales.
I call my cook 'Madame.' In England it is so…you are all…" She craned her neck like a giraffe and waved her hands dismissively at the world beneath her chin: "'Oh, don't show me all that. Pfff! I don't wish to see.' That's English."
Her enthusiasm to make her point had led her unwittingly to slight Nora, who now said, quietly, "I make no secret, Madame Rodet, of the fact that circumstance once left me destitute. I was barefoot when I first met Mr. Stevenson. And he was then a navvy ganger."
Madame Rodet quickly realized where she had trodden and, parodying horror and remorse to the point of comedy, interrupted before Nora could encourage herself to become pompous. "Oh, of course. Of course. That's so right. For you, you must be proud. And these English—it's so sillay. But"—she looked crafty— "for them to know that your brother is in service—it's bad for business. Yes?"
"Yes," Nora agreed, smiling despite herself.
"So then! You are right. It's right to keep it secret!" She spoke with a sort of wounded triumph, as if she had just proved that Nora had agreed with her all along—making Nora's quiet reprimand now seem petulant. "But in France it does not matter. M'sieu Sam will be an English milord."
The thought intrigued Nora. It had been very hard to meet Sam—increasingly hard as the years and the Stevensons' success widened the social gulf between them.
"You understand, Madame, that Sam is still in service at his own wish. Stevenson has offered him…"
Madame Rodet waved away the explanation and smiled.
Nora thought of Sam. How he would love to play the milord; he would do it well too. The idea began to take root.
Her amusement must have shown in her face for Madame Rodet pushed her arm lightly and said: "You see. It's good. We will have much fun."
Nora laughed then. "I think we shall," she said. "I've never had such an invitation."
Chapter 3
The train slowed almost to a halt before it coasted under the great Gothic arch that had recently been cut through the city wall. Night had already fallen but the arch intensified the dark still further. Nora pressed herself into John's arms and said, "Home!"
"Give or take an hour." He folded his arms around her. All the muscle his years of navvying had put upon him was still there.
"York," she said. "York is Yorkshire, and Yorkshire's home."
"Home is where the contract is," he said with mock severity.
She butted him sharply in the chest with the back of her head. He pretended lethargically to be hurt and then yawned. "We need exercise," he said, "being cooped in all day."
"I'm not walking to Thorpe!"
"We could walk the last mile or so. Send the coach on. In fact, I think I will."
"With all our baggage we'll probably have to walk up Garraby Hill anyway."
Folds, the stationmaster, was waiting for them on the platform, an old acquaintance by now. He never failed to greet their arrival when he knew they were travelling. As soon as they had moved to Thorpe, in 1842, George Hudson, "the Railway King," as they called him, had insisted on giving John all the privileges of a director, and in York, Hudson's word was railway law. It meant, among other things, that they travelled in a private rail carriage and, at their destination, could command the service of the company's coach and horses if any were free.
"I have the big coach with three ready for you, Mr. Stevenson, sir," Folds said. "I fancied you might have more bags than usual."
The coachman's imitation of sobriety was so laborious that they had to bundle quickly aboard for fear he would see their laughter and take offence.
"Er"—Folds stuck his head through the door—"he's a good lad is Ironside, drunk or sober. But I'll put another on, if ye wish."
"Nay," John said. "He's taken me that many times drunk, I've forgotten what he's like sober. He'll sleep in our stables tonight. We'll top him up for breakfast and see he sets off westward."
Nora laughed and Folds patted John's thigh. Then Ironside's gruff haaa! to the team almost dashed him to the ground. Nora was still laughing as they turned from Tanner Row into Hudson Street. At the corner north of the station and in the shade of the wall, a large vacant lot came into view.
"Know what that ground is?" John asked. "I only learned the other week."
"What?"
"The cholera burial ground from the 1832 outbreak."
Nora held her breath as she looked out.
"There's talk now of new sewers," John said. "Lots of towns. That's something we should look at. Sewerage contracts. Brassey thinks there could be a lot in it."
"Do sewers use iron pipe?" Nora asked, turning away from the window.
Now it was he who laughed. "Top o' the class for persistence," he said wearily.
She wished he would either say yes or no about the ironworks. Since meeting Beador he seemed to have gone back on his commitment.
Out in Micklegate she looked back at all the fine townhouses of the last century.
"First time we came here I envied them," she said. "Now—less and less, each time. I fancy we've something ten times better in our rambling, ramshackle old house at Thorpe."
He took her hand and squeezed it. "Not be too long now," he said.
Over the Foss and out of the city they passed the malt kiln. The air was laden with its sugary reek.
"That'll put fresh heart into Ironside," John said.
Nora grinned back, her face red in the glow from the glassworks next door to the malting; it was a wayward grin too. And sure enough, when the light had died, she began to worm her hand into his trousers. He gripped her wrist and said firmly, "No."
"You always say no, anywhere except in bed, and you always end up doing it."
"You will make noises when you get excited. And Ironside will hear."
"Any minute now Ironside will start to sing. The dark frightens him and he sings."
"Anyway, I don't always say no."
"Often enough." She helped him not to burst his buttons.
"I'm not going to take them off," he said. "Suppose the coach upset and we
were knocked senseless."
As well as her voluminous skirts would allow, she leaped across him, straddling him with open thighs. She put her nose to his as he began to caress her. "So practical," she whispered. "That's why I love you. Practical man. For being such a practical contractor and getting company coaches just for you and me."
She could feel his excitement growing. "These new hoops are more practical than the old walls of Jericho—or calico—or whatever it was," he said. He tried to be light and nonchalant but could not keep the shiver from his voice.
She inched her knees forward, close to contact. His hands strayed over her cheeks, around her waist, and forward to her navel. With his thumbs he pressed gently; there was an answering pressure from the baby inside. She breathed sharply inward. "No denying it now, is there," he said.
"You know how"—she shivered—"
superannuated
that makes me feel. When they squirm like that. Oourgh!" And she shuddered again at the memory.
superannuated
that makes me feel. When they squirm like that. Oourgh!" And she shuddered again at the memory.
His hands slipped away to encircle her waist.
"Shan't hunt anymore," she said. "Just ride."
He chuckled. "With Winifred you gave up riding soon as you knew. It gets later each time."
"Aye If we have ten, the last will be born in the saddle. A birth at a death." She giggled at the thought.
He patted her bare hips and pushed her lightly away. "I thought you weren't really inter—"
Her warm lips smothered his and, moments later, her fingers eased him into her. The motion of the carriage, over long, luxurious minutes, while they kissed and caressed and amplified its rhythm, carried them up. Ironside did not sing, but Nora did cry out in her ecstasy. The coach went relentlessly on. Only John went limp with the fear that they were overheard. Nora, when she was calm again, chuckled as she felt him shrivel within.
"Sorry!" she whispered into his neck; it was at least half true.
Thorpe Manor, or Thorpe Old Manor as it had now to be called, was begun in the fourteenth century. It had lost its manorial rights some fifty years back when the Creswold family moved to their new Hall, a large Palladian mansion on the higher ground to the northwest of the village of Fangthorpe. On a smiling day in spring or summer, when the warm Yorkshire stone was crisp and sunlit and when the shade of the young cedars dappled the sweeping lawns, it was easy enough to approve the change. But when the northeast winds came howling down out of Scandinavia and thick blankets of snow turned the whole Yorkshire wold into a continent of its own, to which there was no access and from which there was no escape, then the villagers would look up at the new manor and shiver. And they would remember all that their parents and grandparents had said of the folly of building on yon 'ights. Then even the proudest Creswold must have wished to be back at the old place, nestling on sheltered southern slopes overlooking the deep dale of Painslack Dikes. Didn't legends say the Romans had once built a great town there? Well, they had understood the sun and the south, all right.
Even when the night was merely drizzly and uncomfortable, as now, it felt somehow milder off the browtop. John and Nora, who had opened the carriage window for a better view, sensed the difference as soon as they lurched off the stony, rutted highway and on to the superbly levelled drive that John had given one of his best gangs a whole month and a hundred pounds to lay.
He relaxed at once, no longer needing to correct the random lurches of the carriage. "Home is where the road runs smooth," he said contentedly.
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