Fourpenny Flyer (38 page)

‘Quite right,' Billy said, beaming at Harriet and Matilda. ‘Ain't we got wives to prove it?'

‘What fun we shall have at Christmas,' Harriet said, ‘with three babies at table.'

And fun it certainly was. The three new babies sat in three high chairs and were fed their very first slops and made a dreadful mess of their hands and faces in the process and were cheered and kissed and tossed in the air and passed from aunt to uncle until they were rosy with handling. And Jimmy and Beau distributed the presents and were told they were the best behaved children anyone had ever seen.

Nan and Mr Brougham took the entire party to the playhouse at the Market Cross to see an uncommon foolish play about a man who could grant wishes. James preached the sermon in the church of St Mary and did it exceedingly well. And Annie and Matilda and Harriet spent their afternoons together, playing with their babies and talking of everyone and everything.

‘You must bring Will to Rattlesden for a week or two in the summer,' Annie said to Harriet. ‘In June, perhaps, when Billy and Matilda are visiting Bury. They will be nearly a twelvemonth by then and old enough to play together. What sport we shall have with three babies crawling and beginning to walk. Just think of it!'

It was a lively summer and the three babies kept them all very fully occupied, for Meg and Matty were toddling about and into everything, and Will took his first few staggering steps on the rectory lawn on the last day of their holiday.

‘A terrible trio,' Nan said, watching with affection, as Jimmy and Beau gave the two little girls piggyback rides. ‘I shall buy them all hobby horses the next time I'm in town.'

How our lives revolve around these children, John thought, as Will climbed onto his lap and laid his little fair head against his father's shoulder to rest for a while. He was growing more like Harriet every day, with that soft hair as pale as flax and his cheeks the same apricot pink and his eyes a quite startling blue. So pretty and so loving, just like his mother. It is a good life, John reflected, holding his son tenderly and smiling across at Harriet where she sat among the cushions under the holm oak. A good life and long may it continue.

Nan Easter was chairing the quarterly meeting of her regional managers, and a very sticky meeting it had turned out to be. Sales of writing paper, pens, blotters, inks and sealing wax were all high and steadily rising, while newspaper sales had never been better. So she'd come to the meeting expecting it to be cheerful and congratulatory, and hoping that it would be quickly over, because she was planning to visit Harding and Howell's cloth emporium in Pall Mall with Sophie Fuseli later that afternoon to chose material for an evening gown to wear at the Earl of Harrowby's soirée in ten days' time. It was a great surprise to her, and a considerable disappointment, that the meeting was actually quite acrimonious.

It started with a general grumbling of the kind she'd met before and found easy to deal with. Mr Burns of Cambridgeshire was dissatisfied.

‘We had not envisaged such an enormous increase in the sale of stationery, Mrs Easter,' he said, ‘and that is the truth of it. Our shop assistants cannot keep pace with it.'

‘When there is an item of news like the marriage of the Royal Dukes last year,' Mr Elphick from Bath declared, ‘or more recently the birth of the new Princess Victoria in May, which it has to be admitted sold in prodigious numbers, nevertheless it gives our shopkeepers such a mort of work to do and all at once, if you take my meaning, ma'am, they are hard put to it to attend to all the custom that presents itself.'

‘Do others have the same experience?' Nan asked, looking round the table to assess the strength of feeling.

It appeared that they did. In fact Thiss said the East
Anglian shops often had so much trade ‘they could do with bein' four-'anded'.

‘Then hire more assistants,' Nan said, making up her mind to it at once. ‘The solution is plain. Appoint more shophands, two where you have one, three where there are two, five where there are three, and so on accordingly. We cannot lose trade on account of our success. That would be plain folly.'

‘But how would such a thing be done?' Mr Burns asked, his brow wrinkled with concern at the enormity of the task. ‘I have asked Mr John to attend to three new appointments already and he says we must wait.'

‘Is this so, John?' Nan asked.

‘There is considerable pressure for new appointments,' John said, taking his notebook from his pocket. ‘I have twenty-four in all to attend to. There is bound to be some delay, I fear.'

‘No there en't' his mother said cheerfully. ‘'Tis grown too big for one man, that's plain. Very well then, you managers must appoint for yourselves. You know enough about the business to make good choices by now I should hope. Offer two-thirds the going rate for newcomers, three-quarters for experience.' And she dusted her hands against each other, swish, swish. She would probably have to get a bank loan to cover the first two or three weeks' wages for such a sudden increase in staff, but after that, if there really was as much trade as her managers were claiming, the new assistants would pay their way.

The managers were all rather flattered by her decision, for it gave them considerably more power than they'd enjoyed until that afternoon and was a bold and public demonstration of the confidence she was placing in them.

But John was
not
pleased. To have one of his most cherished tasks casually taken away from him and then given to every single local manager, whether or not he was capable of doing it, seemed to him an undeniable folly, to say nothing as to whether the firm could afford so many new staff. But he remained deliberately calm and made no comment, for that would have been a second and even greater folly. He would talk to her about her decision
when the meeting was over and he and Billy and Cosmo remained behind. There might be some way he could mitigate against the worst results of her impetuosity then. But really her thoughtlessness was impossible. Oh, if only he could be the director of the firm, as he surely should be now that he had a son and heir to follow on after him! He would make a much better job of it.

Unfortunately Billy wanted to talk to his mother too, and as soon as the managers had left the boardroom and while Nan was opening the windows to let in some fresh air, for the afternoon was excessively hot, he started up his own conversation, speaking before John could open his mouth.

‘And how of me, Mama?' he said, giving Nan his affectionate grin.

‘How of you?' she said, busy at the windows.

‘You've made a deal of work for me and my department, too, with all that stationery.'

‘Then hire more men. The answer's simple.' Lifting the last window.

‘And what of the extra work I have to do? Don't I deserve some recompense?'

Oh I see how it is, Nan thought, looking at the hopeful expression on that open face of his. Matilda wants a new carriage or new furniture or some other expensive purchase. ‘Aye,' she said, ‘I daresay you've earned it. When the new appointments are all made I will consider it.'

‘Not before?'

‘No.' She grinned at him. ‘The firm en't made of money.'

‘I do have a family to support now, Mama.'

‘So does your brother, but you don't hear him asking for anything, you notice.'

‘He'd take it if 'twere offered though, wouldn't 'ee John?' Billy asked, turning to his brother.

‘I would depend upon Mama to be fair,' John said, ‘And I would not expect extra remuneration unless the firm could afford it.' How annoying Billy was to bring money into the discussion. Now, if he tried to talk about the way
the appointments should be handled, she might think he was simply making an argument for higher wages.

‘Is there any other business, Cosmo?' Nan asked. And on being told that there wasn't, ‘We can decide upon your wages some other time, Billy. If my sons are to be given a rise, then the local managers should have something too, I daresay, considering all the extra work I've just put upon 'em. Perhaps you could produce some estimates for me, Cosmo. I shall need to know how much all these extra assistants will cost. Assume that three-quarters of 'em will be paid at the two-thirds rate.'

She was on her feet. Cosmo was agreeing that this could be done. The moment was passing. With a lurch of irritation, John realized that if he wanted to make any sort of protest about her decision he would have to speak now.

‘Mama,' he said, ‘were we entirely wise to hand over the appointment of new staff to the local managers?'

‘Yes,' she said briskly. ‘Entirely wise.'

‘Mr Burns could certainly do it,' he persisted, ‘and Thiss, of course, and Cosmo, but how of Mr Tadcaster? He will hardly know how to begin.' Mr Tadcaster had only been the Yorkshire manager for a few short months, and in John's view had by no means proved his worth.

She had an answer immediately. ‘Then you shall travel back with him and show him how 'tis done,' she said, completely unabashed. ‘He and then any others who need help, which I leave to your discretion. I may depend upon you to be tactful and unobtrusive, I am sure. They'll expect you to oversee 'em, I daresay. Now I'm off to meet Mrs Fuseli, or she will think I've taken a fit I'm so late.' And that was the end of the discussion. It was extremely irritating.

Now I shall have to travel the country supervising appointments I don't actually make, he thought irritably, and just at the very moment when I most want to be at home with Harriet and my dear little Will. For Will was one year old now and at his most bewitching. She don't take my feelings into account at all. Billy may beg for more money and complain about the amount of work he has to do, and she smiles at him. While I say nothing, ask for
nothing, never complain, and she puts more burdens upon me. And all the old feelings of isolation and rejection returned to sting him. He decided to go home to Harriet and Will at once and be comforted.

Harriet and Will had spent the afternoon in Fitzroy Square.

It was very hot, even for August, and the afternoons were dusty and breathless although all the windows in the house were flung wide open to glean as much air as possible. Will was so uncomfortable indoors that Harriet took him out into the square every afternoon for a walk in the circular gardens among her promenading neighbours. With a straw hat to shade his pretty blue eyes from the sun, a silk coat to protect his little white arms and soft leather shoes on his stumbling feet, he was the prettiest thing in the square.

By now he had learned to say ‘Dadda' and ‘Mama' and ‘yook!' and there was a great deal to ‘yook' at in their enclosed garden: stray dogs sniffing trees and superior cats sleeping under bushes, sparrows as shrill as flutes and pigeons strutting like aldermen. To say nothing of their neighbours, who stopped to pass the time of day or to deplore the continuing heat or to compliment Harriet upon the beauty of her baby and his admirable behaviour.

That afternoon they'd been talking to Mrs Mannering, from next door but one, and Mrs Mannering had given her favourite baby a sugar stick.

‘Such a delightful child,' she said, watching him as he ate it with the solemn concentration he reserved for food. ‘Mrs Easter fairly dotes upon him, does she not? I saw her lifting him into her carriage only yesterday. Such a pretty sight! How he must please your parents, my dear.'

My parents, Harriet thought. Why, I've forgotten all about them! But she could hardly tell Mrs Mannering that. ‘He pleases everybody,' she said diplomatically. And she made up her mind then and there that she really would write to her parents and tell them about this child. It was high time for, after all, she'd vowed to write on the day he was born. How very remiss she'd been.

It took her quite a long time to compose a letter that was suitable, for there were so many things she couldn't say, and she felt obliged to apologize for not writing sooner, and she was trying hard not to brag too much about Will. But by now her conscience was stinging her, so before John's chaise came trotting home from the Strand, the letter was written and sealed and taken to the Post by Tom Thistlethwaite.

He was none too pleased to hear about it. ‘Whatever did you do that for?' he said crossly. ‘I thought you had decided against it.'

‘They are my parents, John,' she said. ‘And Will is their grandson. Surely they should be allowed to see him just once in a while?'

‘It's deuced inconvenient,' he said, squinting with annoyance. ‘I have to visit York in two days' time, and heaven only knows when I'll be back.' And he told her about the meeting and his mother's thoughtless decision.

‘If she has told you to go to York and assist Mr Tadcaster,' Harriet said reasonably, ‘then I daresay you must. You need not worry on my account. I'm sure I can deal with my parents well enough by now.'

But he worried just the same. Harriet seemed to have forgotten her beating, but he could not. Before he left he gave detailed instructions to Paulson that he was to watch out for the arrival of a strange man and woman who would, most probably, be dressed in black, and refuse them entrance if he possibly could. ‘Tell 'em your mistress is out of town,' he said. ‘Put 'em off.'

‘Quite so, sir. I understand,' Paulson said. ‘Leave it to me, sir.'

But he had underestimated the cunning of the Sowerbys who arrived five days later, dressed in their best black as John had predicted, and full of righteous indignation.

Paulson opened the door to them and looked down on them in every sense of the word as they stood on the bottom step, with their black hats silhouetted against the wilting plane trees in the square.

‘Is your mistress at home?' Mr Sowerby asked, as his wife walked confidently up the steps.

Paulson moved to bar her way into the house.