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Authors: R. F. Delderfield
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old father he was a quaking schoolboy, cringing under the rod. Released from that presence he acquired a kind of swagger that began to show in a strutting walk and the smug, proprietary glances he directed at her. He said, presently, “This is far enough, Henrietta,” and caught her by the arm.
His touch, even through the elbow-length glove she wore, felt clammy, and the prospect of being embraced by him threatened her like the onrush of a dragon with moist paws and foetid breath. She fell back on the only defence at her disposal, a counterfeit and con ventional modesty, instilled into her by a succession of amateur gover nesses, withdrawing her hand and saying, “Please, Makepeace! Behave!” It sounded very silly, a formal protest directed at a professional thief caught ransacking the family silver, and, in a way, she felt her self beset by thieves, a trio of them, including among their number her own father. Their quarry, she realised, was not merely her freedom and future but the most private areas of her body. She was like someone trying to scramble to the summit of an icebound slope without much hope of avoiding a fatal tumble, arms and legs flailing, clothes ripped, and flesh bruised in a descent into—what? A lifetime in the company of this parody of a man, superintending his house hold, being pinched and patronised by that old miser back in the house, undressing and lying down in bed with Makepeace, and the sheer blankness rather than the unsavouriness of that prospect made her stomach contract within the confines of her tightly laced corset.
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He said, with a hint of bluster, “Behave? But I don’t have to ‘behave’ any more, Henrietta. You know very well what they’re dis cussing back there. You know why father and I are here tonight. You aren’t saying your father hasn’t mentioned it, are you?” He paused a moment and when she said nothing he drew a long, whist ling breath. “I’m expected to propose marriage to you before we go in. Then there’s to be a settlement and I’m to get The Clough, as a wedding present. We went and looked at it yesterday and found it very suitable. The tenant is getting his notice tomorrow.”
What was there to say to that? He mentioned The Clough, a small, manor-type house they owned two miles north of the town, as though the prospect of sharing it with him would make any girl of her age swoon with ecstasy, and his very certitude had the power to divert her thoughts and check the panic advancing on her like a wall of sludge.
“When was all this decided? When and how?” she demanded and had the small satisfaction of seeing him look as disconcerted as had her father when she had challenged him that same afternoon.
“Why, soon after the Victory Ball,” he said, with a hint of a stutter, “I made up my mind then, Henrietta.”
“You made up your mind? Didn’t it even occur to you to mention it to me?” He seemed genuinely astonished. “Mention it? But how could I mention it?
I had first to discuss it with father. How could I run con trary to him? I have no money. I get a weekly wage, like everyone else in his employ, but he’ll make me a generous allowance as soon as we’re married, and you’ll have money too. That’s what they’re talking about now.”
It was astonishing how people like the Goldthorpes and her father were able to canalise everything that happened to them, or was likely to happen to them, into streams leading to that single reservoir. Birth, death, marriage, all manner of personal relationships, all human endeavours and aspirations, led back to that one word. Money. Nothing else counted. Nothing else was of the smallest importance. She said, desperately now, “But I don’t love you, Makepeace. How could I? I hardly know you. We’ve met a few times, we’ve danced together twice. How could I make up my mind about anything as important as that at a
His touch, even through the elbow-length glove she wore, felt clammy, and the prospect of being embraced by him threatened her like the onrush of a dragon with moist paws and foetid breath. She fell back on the only defence at her disposal, a counterfeit and con ventional modesty, instilled into her by a succession of amateur gover nesses, withdrawing her hand and saying, “Please, Makepeace! Behave!” It sounded very silly, a formal protest directed at a professional thief caught ransacking the family silver, and, in a way, she felt her self beset by thieves, a trio of them, including among their number her own father. Their quarry, she realised, was not merely her freedom and future but the most private areas of her body. She was like someone trying to scramble to the summit of an icebound slope without much hope of avoiding a fatal tumble, arms and legs flailing, clothes ripped, and flesh bruised in a descent into—what? A lifetime in the company of this parody of a man, superintending his house hold, being pinched and patronised by that old miser back in the house, undressing and lying down in bed with Makepeace, and the sheer blankness rather than the unsavouriness of that prospect made her stomach contract within the confines of her tightly laced corset.
GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 31
3/27/09 5:13:12 PM
3 2 G O D I S A N E N G L I S H M A N
He said, with a hint of bluster, “Behave? But I don’t have to ‘behave’ any more, Henrietta. You know very well what they’re dis cussing back there. You know why father and I are here tonight. You aren’t saying your father hasn’t mentioned it, are you?” He paused a moment and when she said nothing he drew a long, whist ling breath. “I’m expected to propose marriage to you before we go in. Then there’s to be a settlement and I’m to get The Clough, as a wedding present. We went and looked at it yesterday and found it very suitable. The tenant is getting his notice tomorrow.”
What was there to say to that? He mentioned The Clough, a small, manor-type house they owned two miles north of the town, as though the prospect of sharing it with him would make any girl of her age swoon with ecstasy, and his very certitude had the power to divert her thoughts and check the panic advancing on her like a wall of sludge.
“When was all this decided? When and how?” she demanded and had the small satisfaction of seeing him look as disconcerted as had her father when she had challenged him that same afternoon.
“Why, soon after the Victory Ball,” he said, with a hint of a stutter, “I made up my mind then, Henrietta.”
“You made up your mind? Didn’t it even occur to you to mention it to me?” He seemed genuinely astonished. “Mention it? But how could I mention it?
I had first to discuss it with father. How could I run con trary to him? I have no money. I get a weekly wage, like everyone else in his employ, but he’ll make me a generous allowance as soon as we’re married, and you’ll have money too. That’s what they’re talking about now.”
It was astonishing how people like the Goldthorpes and her father were able to canalise everything that happened to them, or was likely to happen to them, into streams leading to that single reservoir. Birth, death, marriage, all manner of personal relationships, all human endeavours and aspirations, led back to that one word. Money. Nothing else counted. Nothing else was of the smallest importance. She said, desperately now, “But I don’t love you, Makepeace. How could I? I hardly know you. We’ve met a few times, we’ve danced together twice. How could I make up my mind about anything as important as that at a
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