Читать книгу Follow My Dust - Jessica Hawke - Страница 9
CHAPTER ONE
ОглавлениеTHE MAN TO BE
I
Toward the close of the nineteenth century, Gosport, England, was a fortified town, and a main supply base of the British Navy. Situated on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, it might be thought that Gosport was merely a suburb of the greater town, when actually the growth and maintenance of British sea power and the threat to England by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte contributed to the preservation of Gosport’s independence.
To Gosportonians the Navy came first. The very mention of the Senior Service almost caused the hearer to pull his forelock or raise his hat, while the Army, although greatly respected, remained in the background until the Boer War again brought it into prominence. They had a sublime faith in the Navy, their living came from the Navy, they were ever one with the Navy, and God help old Boney if he landed the Grand Army either side of the harbour and tried to storm the chain of forts, and the earthworks connecting them, which protected Gosport.
From the land side, you could enter Gosport only by one of the few bridges spanning the moat, and then through a tunnel in the rampart, or you could cross the harbour from Portsmouth by ferry. Shortly after the Napoleonic threat had faded to St. Helena, there landed from a ferry an Oliver Upfield, to become an assistant in the shop of a draper on the High Street, and eventually to set up in business for himself, choosing rambling premises in a street which had become the main outlet to the new suburb of Forton springing up outside the rampart. The premises were renovated and became a compact structure, having some thirty- odd rooms above the shop.
Oliver Upfield married into the Way family, a member of which subsequently became the Chief Justice for South Australia, and, for a term, Deputy Governor. On the other side of the picture was an Upfield who was in America when the Civil War broke out. He also was a business man, and something of an inventor, for it is recorded that he manufactured a clothes prop which he hawked up and down the country, incidentally collecting military information and making extra profit. He ended his career at the extremity of a rope, and therefore was regarded with some disfavour by those at home.
To Oliver Upfield were born seven children, of whom James was the eldest. He grew to become much like Oliver: shrewd in business and generous to the limits of wisdom. James entered his father’s business, eventually became a partner, and ultimately the sole proprietor.
As James’s two brothers passed from this business to distant places, so the shop staff increased until there were a dozen or more assistants living in. Old Oliver stood for no nonsense by his sons with his female assistants, and he pressed on James advice which James came to pass on to his sons. Excellent advice, too, for a young man whose father has made himself financially sound, but advice at which Cupid thumbs his nose. There came to join the staff a young girl from Birmingham. Eighteen she was, and, according to pictures of her, truly lovely. James was twenty-six when he married Annie Barmore, and to them were born five sons, the first being the subject of this record.
2
The child was registered and christened William Arthur, but when the shop boys began to ask after little Bill, the aunts and the grandmother had the names reversed, as Arthur was less likely to be degraded. However, temporarily they had forgotten the influence of Charles Dickens and the child came to be called Arker-Willum.
Arker-Willum entered a world composed of Queen Victorias, circuses, jubilees, naval reviews, military bands, and naval and military pickets who appeared to have fluttering eyelids at sight of the nurse-girl in charge of him.
There were several Queen Victorias–three, in fact. There was Grandmother Way and her two unmarried sisters who always dressed like the Queen, even inside the house. Grandfather and grandmother had left the business premises to live in the later-established suburb which was swiftly to extend to the outer residential area named Alverstoke. The sisters owned, above all things, a butchery business, and their treasured and only male assistant was a person named Pafford. Pafford took in the sides of beef and carcasses of mutton, and cut them up. Pafford delivered meat to customers per handcart. Pafford it was who kept his eyes on dogs that entered with their owners.
When visiting Grandmother Way on Sunday afternoons anecdotes about Pafford caused these ladies to laugh softly, and the one about Pafford and the customer’s dog served for many weeks. Pafford was exceptionally ugly; the customer was a grand dame who alighted from a brougham and swept into the shop followed by the poodle. She was paying her account when the poodle cocked a leg against the chopping block. Then the dog yelped and fled to the carriage without. Miss Way said sternly, “Pafford! What did you do to that dog?” Pafford replied, innocently, “Nothing, mum. I only looked at him.”
These Queen Victorias were to have great influence on Arker-Willum, marriage placing many burdens on his young mother. As a bride she found herself mistress of a multi-roomed house, three domestics and a house boy. She had to order and check supplies to feed the assistants living in, and even in those days, when a cook left on impulse, she had to do most of the cooking, teaching herself to cook with the aid of Mrs. Beeton. The monthly household accounts had to be audited and passed to the office, where the chief cashier would write the cheques. And on every occasion there was a storm of protest by her husband before signing the cheques.
What with all this added to the succession of babies, it is remarkable that at the age of sixty Annie Barmore had not one grey hair. She never had the depth of wisdom possessed by her mother-in-law, but she learned much from the older woman whose advice was: “When your husband raves about bad trade and the terrible cost of living, remember that trade was always bad and living costs always terrible. The good wife bides her time. All the Upfields are rampant lions one minute and docile little lambs the next. And remember, too, that all the Upfields are genuine lambs, and only imitation lions.”
The year following William Arthur’s appearance, there came Edward, and the year’s difference in age was almost unmarked when both could walk. They were taken out in the same pram, and were invited together to children’s parties. When a circus came to pitch its tents in the park outside the rampart, they were placed in one of the wide lead-covered window-boxes overlooking the street. Far down the street the first outriders would appear, and then came the gilded thrones and the gilded chariots, all drawn by magnificent horses–the circus of Lord George Sanger.
There was the Diamond Jubilee. All ironclads in the harbour fired salute guns. The Victory moored off the Gosport side of the harbour, and all ships, all windows of the houses either side of the harbour were gay with bunting. At night all ships were outlined with lights and into the sky sped rockets. And the children were carried upstairs to the top floor, up the ladder to the skylight, and so to the roof, from which this fairy scene could be viewed.
An open cab would be hired to take the family to the Haslar Wall, to see the old Victoria and Albert steaming out from harbour, and on board was the great Queen, who was never seen by the family who waved and cheered across the mile or so of water. Time passed, a long long time, and one evening the boys were taken to a children’s party. Like all parties, it was a joyful event, until abruptly a shadow fell and the voices stilled, and all the children were sent home. News had come of the Queen’s death, and the awful solemnity of it entered childish minds not yet able to encompass the fact of death.
The two boys attended a school but a short distance from the rail crossing where the branch line entered the naval victualling yard. They saw the soldiers standing at this crossing and watched the engine appear from the great gates to the yard, then the few carriages, and the draped coffin seen through the windows of one.
The passing of that funeral train marked the end of an era for Arker-Willum, for whom era was to follow era throughout life.
3
To relieve pressure on the home front, Arker-Willum went to live with his grandparents and an unmarried aunt.
Their house was spacious, and had a secluded front lawn, a carriage driveway bordered by beech trees, and a rear garden, where around a central lawn were espaliered apple trees. Near the back wall of brick grew a fine russet apple tree, and beyond the wall lay a new world–the green playing fields of the new barracks occupied by the Royal Marines.
Grandfather Upfield, as many of his generation and class, was stern yet generous, and like his peers the motto by which he lived was ‘My word is my bond’. He was tall and lean and upright. He wore a white square-cut beard and his grey eyes could be penetrating. When setting out to attend business, or a meeting of the town council, invariably he wore a frock-coat and a tall grey hat.
Grandmother was vivacious, intensely practical, and she possessed the gift of diplomacy which maintained her position as ruler of the family without her husband ever suspecting it.
At this time their youngest daughter was unmarried, and her tasks were to assist the old people, watch over the small nephew and supervise two domestics. She was gay, yet could be tight-mouthed, for in her were all the attributes of her parents. She was a great ally to her mother in managing father.
Without fail the family walked the full mile to the Alverstoke church, passing along the elm-lined road, then taking the high-hedged lane crossing farm land to the outer township of Alverstoke. Crocuses heralded the spring, may trees blossomed and the new leaves were delightful to chew. Finally the blackberries bloomed and the fruit was ever enticing. To the child, Lovers’ Lane was always fairyland inhabited by gnomes and elves.
On one occasion as they returned from church, this sylvan world was utterly shattered. Grandfather abruptly began a tirade about the household expenses.
“That milk account!” exploded the old gentleman. “Surely we do not use all that milk?”
“Ratty checked it,” replied grandmother. “Beside, we have Arker-Willum with us. He has to have as much milk as possible. You know very well he is chesty, and the doctor . . .”
“All right! All right! We’ll pass that. But tell me, how did we come to burn three tons of coal, when Mathews sawed up that storm-blown elm? I don’t understand it. It must stop. We have to reduce our spending in conformity with our income.”
“I quite agree,” gently spoke grandmother. “What did you think of Mr. Watson’s reading of the Second Lesson?”
“We will confine ourselves to finance and discuss our spiritual reaction to the new curate at a more appropriate time. We shall certainly have to dispense with Millie.” Millie! Why, Millie was the child’s favourite of the two domestics. “George will have to be told to work only three days a week. The expenses must be brought down.”
“Very well. We’ll do all we can,” came the soft sweet voice of the woman who obeyed.
So it went on all the way home. A tacit silence engulfed the family throughout dinner. Arker-Willum was warned to be seen but not heard, and to leave not one tiny scrap on his plate.
Following the enormous dinner, grandmother retired to her room, and grandfather stalked to the back garden, where he reclined in a chair in the shade of the great apple tree, draped a silk handkerchief over his face, and relaxed. After the chores were done, the domestics retired to their room, and the aunt chose the scripture stories to be read by the nephew.
About half-past three the house came back to normal. Cook prepared afternoon tea in the semi-basement kitchen, and grandmother appeared and went into conference with the aunt. A folded table was taken out and silently put up beside grandfather. Chairs were brought, the aunt set down the tray of tea-things, and grandmother began to pour. “Wake up, Father. Tea is waiting,” she said, and off came the silk handkerchief, and upright sat the martinet. “H’m! Tea! Time has flown, to be sure. What have you been up to, Arker-WilIum?”
“Reading about David, Grandpa.” “Indeed. Quite a hero, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, Grandpa,” replied the boy, just a shade doubtful that grandfather’s approbation of David was quite one hundred per cent.
Grandfather sighed, sipped his tea, ate a cake. He said: “Astonishing how time flies. It will soon be your birthday again, Arker-Willum. Soon the stormy winds will blow, and what will the robin do then, poor thing? Yes, before we realise it, the summer will have flown. We must take advantage of what remains of fit. We shall go to Scotland this year.”
So to Scotland they went for five weeks–trains and carriages, mountains and valleys. Edinburgh and the Highlands. Trips on the lochs. And those terrible ogres, expenses and bad trade, were
left behind in the old oak chest.
Arker-Willum was taxed one tea-time with leaving sugar in his teacup. Out came the old cliché: ‘Waste not, want not’. Grandfather promised one penny a week if Arker-Willum dispensed with sugar in his tea. That suited the boy, but the aunt protested that sugar was essential. Grandfather agreed, and then pointed out that the tuppence a week pocket money was doubtless spent on sugar in the form of sweets. He had a good ally. Never since that offer did Arker-Willum take sugar in his tea or coffee, and in later years when he volunteered to wash dishes in a world minus domestic help, discovery of wasted sugar in a tea-cup always annoyed him.