Road to Berry Edge, The (11 page)

‘Back' meant the Shaw house which he had been so lately dismissed from. There the family were just starting dinner, the smell of food was wonderful. Vincent propelled him in and said, ‘This is young Berkeley. He missed his meal last time he was here. Robert, this is my wife, Ida, and my son, Harry and that exquisite creature at the far side of the table is my daughter, Sarah. Sit down and don't talk with your mouth full.'

Sarah Shaw was everything that any man could ever have wanted in any woman and Rob fell in love with her at that very moment. She was nineteen. Rob had never been in love before, but he recognised it for what it was when it happened. He even felt rather sorry for himself for a few moments. Sarah Shaw was as beyond his touch as though she had been royalty. Worst of all she seemed to like him, in the friendly way which Rob discovered the Shaws had. They were open, sociable people who had many visitors at their house, and that evening, when Vincent and Ida left the room, Sarah and Harry stayed and talked until it was late. Rob had never been in such company before. He liked it. They were educated and enquiring, interested and interesting, well read and well travelled and Harry Shaw was an engineer, not like any rich man's son that Rob had ever seen before.

After that evening Harry called in at Rob's lodging and
asked him out and, having discovered that Harry had a liking for his company, Rob went out and had his hair cut and bought a new suit. Harry was careful with Rob too, Rob noted with some amusement. He never took Rob anywhere that he couldn't afford or talked about things in which Rob had no part. Harry smoked and drank and went to Doncaster races and slept with high class prostitutes, so Rob was told, but two or three evenings a week they just sat in the nearest pub over a drink and talked about work. Rob knew that Harry wouldn't have kept on seeing him if he had been bored.

Harry was kind too; he introduced Rob to those of his friends he thought might be informative, helpful or entertaining, and quite often he took Rob home to dinner or later just for a drink and to sit by the fire.

Sarah was to be married the following spring. That autumn the young man came to Nottingham to see her, and there was a party at the house. Rob had not expected to be invited, but Harry said he wasn't going if there was nobody to talk to, and Lawrence Carlington was said to be bringing friends with him for the weekend.

The evening of the party Rob was quite happy with Harry and his friends until Sarah brought Lawrence over and introduced them. Lawrence turned merry eyes on Rob.

‘You're from the north, I understand. My family has pits there. You aren't a pitman of course?'

‘No,' Rob said. ‘My family has pits and a steel foundry.'

‘Pitmen are small like goblins. They never wash, I understand and they keep coal inside their houses. Very strange. You must find Nottingham extraordinarily civilised, though of course there are pits here too. Even this is a little far north for my taste. I have told Sarah that after we are married she will have to invite her family to stay with us. The fascination for industrial towns escapes me.'

Rob was watching Sarah Shaw just behind her fiancé. She had blushed quite pink by now.

‘Your accent is very interesting. Say something,' Lawrence said.

‘Lawrence, you're an offensive bastard. Bugger off,' Harry said.

Lawrence stared at him and then frowned.

‘If you weren't about to become my brother-in-law, Harry, I should knock you down for that.'

‘Do try,' Harry said.

‘Dance with me, Rob,' said a beetroot-faced Sarah.

‘I don't know how.'

‘Don't be trivial,' she said and grabbed his sleeve.

‘You promised me this dance,' Lawrence said.

‘You've insulted my guest,' she said and dragged Rob away even as Lawrence protested that he hadn't meant to.

‘Don't you really know how to dance? I would have taught you if you'd said. Put your arm around my waist.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Certain. You can't dance with me if you don't hold me.'

It was the most delightful way Rob had ever spent a few minutes and probably he reasoned, the closest that he would ever get to Sarah Shaw. She didn't seem to notice him looking at her or holding her because she was concentrating on giving him instructions.

‘I don't think you're ever going to be much good at dancing,' she said when the music ended. ‘You didn't listen to what I told you. I'm sorry about Lawrence, he really doesn't mean it. My father thinks you're very clever.'

Rob looked at her.

‘Your father does?'

‘Yes. He's not going to leave you in the foundry. He thinks you'll make a designer. We get big doses of you at mealtimes.'

‘How awful,' Rob said.

‘I wish he would talk about Lawrence.'

‘Lawrence doesn't have anything to prove.'

‘He does to my father. My father thinks everyone in the world ought to be an engineer. Lawrence doesn't have to work and Father hates him. It's so silly. His family is horrified that I come from a family that works. I'm socially beneath him. Harry doesn't like him.'

Rob was aware of this. Harry had called Lawrence ‘that stupid bastard' just the day before, though not within his sister's hearing.

‘It's probably just because they're different. They'll be better later when they get to know each other.'

‘There you are,' Lawrence said. ‘Don't you know I'm waiting for you?' And he dragged Sarah off into the middle of the room to dance.

‘Wondering what she sees in him?' Harry asked as he sauntered over.

‘High position, a country mansion, breeding, good looks, education.'

‘You left out charm,' Harry said dryly. ‘I wonder how long it will be before she comes to her senses. Her wedding night, I shouldn't doubt. Lawrence will have all the finesse of a bull.'

‘Don't talk about it.'

‘I see. What would you like to talk about?'

‘Have you finished with those sketches I gave you?'

‘I want my father to see them.'

‘He won't be interested.'

‘He might. They're just in the library. You can get them. I promised to dance with the lovely Miss Byatt. I'll see you later.'

Vincent was in the library. Rob was surprised. Vincent didn't usually spend much time there.

‘Robert,' he said, looking up and beaming approval. ‘Enlighten me. What are these?'

‘They're mine.'

‘I gathered that, yes, that tiny meticulous handwriting is unique.'

‘I brought them to show Harry. He said you never use the library. I didn't think you'd mind.'

‘I knew it was a mistake to let you spend so much time with my careless son. Do try to keep up. Shall I repeat the question?'

‘They're … alterations for the bicycle works.'

‘And when were you at the bicycle works?'

‘I went with Harry.'

‘I said, “When”,' Vincent repeated sharply.

‘Three times lately.'

‘Why?'

‘Just out of interest. I hadn't seen a factory like that before.'

‘And knowing nothing about it you decided that it needed altering?'

‘Well, I—'

‘Yes or no? I had experts to design that building and set it up. It is considered a model of its kind.'

‘I don't think it is. It could be much better.'

‘To the point at last. Show me.'

Rob picked up his drawings one by one.

‘It's nothing like a good factory should be. Other people have designed much better things. We went and looked. It's cramped, it's dark, it's in the wrong place. Harry said you have a big piece of ground on the edge of the city and it would be ideal for this. You could have big windows like this and glass in the ceiling so that people could see better, making the most of natural light. You could have gardens around it like this so that people could go outside during breaks and have fresh air. There would be a dining room for them, a big room so that they wouldn't be crammed in and perhaps a drying room here where hats, coats and shoes could be left in wet weather. These are baths and wash houses.'

‘And what's this?'

‘Electric lighting.'

‘That would cost a fortune.'

‘You make a great deal of money and the demand for bicycles is growing. It would be a drop in the ocean. Other people have done these things and they run at a profit, partly because the people who work for them are properly looked after. Some factory owners build good houses, schools, places of leisure. You could do all that, Vincent, if you wanted to. It would pay you to. I've done some figures—'

‘Something told me you had,' Vincent said. ‘Let me have a look. Come and sit down. Would you like some whisky?'

‘No, thank you.'

They sat in big chairs behind the desk and Vincent studied the figures and the drawings. Suddenly he looked up.

‘You called me by my first name.'

‘I'm sorry—'

‘No, I think I like it,' Vincent said.

*

Vincent took Rob out of the foundry and kept him close. Rob admired Vincent Shaw as he had never admired another man in his life, but it was more than that. Vincent taught him, showed him, educated Rob in all kinds of different ways, but best of all Vincent took his ideas seriously and began gradually implementing them and encouraging other industrialists to do the same.

He took him around the various foundries and factories, and Rob found in Vincent the kind of person he had wanted to find in his father. Vincent encouraged him, praised him, treated him as one of the family. More and more in the evenings because he wanted to talk about work, Vincent took Rob home with him and the Shaws were open about how much they liked him. Ida began to kiss him as he walked in the door, to treat him like she treated Harry. He nearly always stayed for dinner and their house was so comfortable. The meals were good and the conversation was interesting. At weekends when they had dinner parties
they invited him, and Rob got to know other people in Nottingham.

Vincent began to pay him much more so that he moved into better lodgings. Rob could not believe his good luck, that people like these accepted him as an equal.

Lawrence was often there, and sometimes Sarah was not because she had gone to stay with him. Rob tried not to think about her. He did not want to hurt anyone, he had learned that lesson well. He pretended to himself and to her that he cared no more for Sarah Shaw than he cared for any other young woman he met.

Her mother took her to London to buy her wedding dress. When Sarah was there Rob was happy. He didn't even have to touch her, just to see her, to talk to her, to be there at the dinner table, to watch her laughter and join in the talk was enough. Rob was happier than he had ever been in his life. The best part of all was when he, Sarah and Harry sat over a big fire late at night, or when the weather grew warmer in the conservatory and finally in the garden until Sarah's wedding was only weeks away. Lawrence even bothered to be polite to Rob and Harry, though Harry said privately that he couldn't bear him, and Rob cared too much for Sarah to like Lawrence.

She seemed to Rob that early summer to become less and less happy. Ida was so concerned that she went to Harry and Rob.

‘I can't talk to your father about it because he can't be rational when it comes to Lawrence. I don't know what's the matter with the girl. She says she wants to marry him, he's her own choice, goodness knows he wouldn't have been mine, but she's got less to say than a china doll and she's starting to look like one.'

Harry tried to talk to her.

‘I got nowhere,' he said flatly. ‘You try.'

‘Me? No. You know I can't do that.'

‘If you cared about her you would.'

‘Harry—'

‘Well?'

In the end Rob went looking for her. She was sitting on a swing in the rose garden, wearing a bonnet that would have made any girl look pretty, and a soft white summer dress. It was a glorious June evening. She looked waspishly at him.

‘My mother sent you. Really Rob, first Harry and now you. What is this?'

‘She's worried about you.'

‘I know. Push me.'

‘What?'

‘Push me.'

‘How can I talk to you if I'm behind you?'

‘Just do as you're told, Robert.'

So Rob pushed the swing. She complained.

‘Higher than that.'

‘You'll fall off and break your neck and then you won't be able to get married.'

‘Is it anything to do with you?' she said rudely. ‘Push me!'

Rob got hold of the swing and stopped it and hauled her off it. She hit him on the arm with one neatly gloved hand.

‘What is the matter with you?' Rob said.

Sarah pulled off her gloves and her hat. Half the pins came out of her hair.

‘I'm not going to marry him,' she said.

‘Have you told your parents?'

‘I haven't told anybody. I haven't even told him yet.'

‘But why?'

‘I don't think that's any of your business, Rob.'

‘You have to tell him.'

‘I tried to. He just laughed, and who could blame him? He's such an incredible catch.'

‘Do you need an incredible catch?'

‘Of course I do, I'm an industrialist's daughter, even
though my mother is quality. To sit at the top of the heap I need to marry well. Lawrence's family will be relieved. Marrying trade. Dear, dear.'

‘And is that what you want?'

‘What?'

‘The - the top of the heap.'

‘There is an extremely ignoble part of me that very much wants that. Unfortunately I couldn't stand the idea of Lawrence in the end. Lawrence thinks the art of conversation is to recount the day's hunting. Having been brought up with my father all I can think of at these times are shockingly sarcastic remarks or the kind of language which would appal a stableboy. And it's very bad form. I ought to have been content to marry well and breed like a dairy cow. I find I don't have the class. I shall be obliged to marry an engineer.'