The Beaufort Sisters. Jon Cleary
banter could go before she lost her authority. There were always certain hints, which she recognized, that he loved and respected her: he had said ‘ain’t never gone a coupla rounds with a lady’ instead of ‘with a woman.’ Such small gestures were always there behind his easy cheek.
She took Michael from him, kissed the flushed chubby face. He was blond like her, but there were traces of his father in him, glimpses of the future. ‘I’ll let my son defend me when he grows up. You just watch out.’
Tim went to work next day and came home that night worried and upset. He showered and changed and went out with Nina and the baby for their walk round the park. She could see that something was troubling him, but she contained her impatience. It was after dinner, when they were having coffee in the living-room, before her patience finally ran out.
‘Well, what happened today?’
Inger, the Swedish maid, brought in fresh coffee. Nina had a staff of three helping her run the house and Inger was the brightest of them, a plump plain girl whose eyes and ears were like magnets for every splinter of gossip dropped about the house. Nina waited till she had gone out of the room again, then she repeated her question.
‘Nothing happened.’ He sipped his coffee, then leaned back in his chair, the big red leather wing-back that she had bought specially for him, and sighed. ‘It’s tomorrow something’s going to happen. Your father is bringing in scab labour.’
‘Daddy or the company managers?’
‘Same thing. He’d have to okay it. They’ve recruited them from down in Arkansas and they’re bringing them in by truck tomorrow morning. They announced it to us this afternoon, just as if they were asking for a flat-out confrontation. We’ve been locked out.’
‘We?’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I’m with the men. I can’t be otherwise – I think they’re entitled to what they’re asking for. I don’t want to be an agitator or anything like that, but I have to support Bumper and the other chaps. I find I have a social conscience, something that’s never troubled me before.’
‘Do you think you should go over and tell Daddy what you’re going to do?’
‘It wouldn’t do any good. If he doesn’t understand the men’s reasons for the strike by now, no amount of explanation will convince him I’m doing the right thing. He’s living in the past. He still believes in the sanctity of capital, right or wrong.’
‘I don’t understand him.’ She could feel anguish boiling up inside her, less bearable because she was unprepared for it. She had wanted her father and Tim to be friends, though she had known there would always be powder there to explode a division between them. She had not expected the powder train to come from the direction of the stockyards. ‘He’s basically a kind man. He’s charitable – look at the money he’s given to charity. The Foundation isn’t just something he inherited from Grandfather – he believes in it.’
‘It could be from a sense of guilt. I don’t know, I’m not judging his charity. But he’s like a lot of rich men – we have them in England, too – as soon as the workers start demanding a little more, they think they’re endangered, they’re going to have another revolution on their hands. From what I’ve read, John D. Rockefeller was like your father. He gave away millions with one hand and with the other hit a worker over the head with an iron bar. I don’t mean he wielded the iron bar himself, but he condoned it when it was done by others.’
‘Daddy would never allow any violence.’
‘There’s going to be violence tomorrow when those scabs turn up.’
‘You better not go to work tomorrow, then. I don’t want you getting hurt.’
But when she woke in the morning he was already gone. Distressed, she couldn’t eat breakfast. She tried to bathe the baby, but he was in one of his playful moods and she got short-tempered with him and finally called in Inger to take over. She dressed without showering, careless of what she put on, then hurried across to the main house. Her mother was having breakfast in her bedroom, planning her day with Miss Stafford.
‘Where’s Daddy?’
Edith looked at her, then nodded at Miss Stafford. ‘That will be all, Portia. Tell one of the gardeners to look at the tennis court. Mr Beaufort was complaining about it night before last. He said he got some bad bounces.’
‘Another beautiful day,’ Miss Stafford said to Nina and went out of the bedroom.
‘Now what’s all this? You know your father is always downtown by this time. He’s in his office at eight every morning.’
‘Did he say if he was going down to the stockyards?’
‘He and I never discuss his business.’ But she patted the newspaper that lay on the bed beside her breakfast tray. It was yesterday’s Star; it was one of her idiosyncrasies that she always waited till the news was at least a day old before she read it. That way, she said, she got a better perspective on whether the doom-sayers of yesterday had been proved correct today. It also buttressed her optimism because the doom-sayers were usually wrong. ‘You’re worried about the strike? I think you can leave it safely with your father to deal with. He’s a reasonable man in business, they tell me.’
‘Mother, how would you know? You said you never discuss business with him. This strike is serious. And Daddy is being pigheaded about it. I’m worried, Mother. Tim has gone to work this morning – there’s going to be trouble – ’
‘Darling – ’ Edith put her tray aside, patted the bed. ‘Sit down here. I can’t remember when I last saw you so upset. You’ll have to trust Tim. That’s what wives must do – ’
‘Oh Jesus!’ Edith said nothing, but her face stiffened and a deep frown appeared between her eyes. Nina flopped on the bed, hugged her mother. ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to swear. But you don’t know what could happen down there this morning. It’s not just a question of trusting Tim – ’
‘Darling, I know we both live a sheltered life. Me more than you. But I don’t think that even out there – ’ She waved a hand vaguely towards the windows, towards the green thrones of trees, the pikestaffs of the iron fence, the outer world beyond the moat of wealth. ‘Even out there I don’t think women interfere in their husbands’ affairs. We just have to trust that they know what they are doing, that they are doing the right thing – ’
‘One of them will have to be wrong this morning, Tim or Daddy. They can’t both be right, not about this strike. And I think Daddy is the one who’s wrong this time.’
Edith looked at the newspaper headline covering the strike story: perhaps the doom-sayers were going to be right after all. She was not foolish, she did not believe she lived in the best of all possible worlds, only in a tiny corner of it; but she had not been bred to go looking for what was wrong with the world, her plea for perspective was only play-acting and she knew it. Her equanimity was only cowardice genteelly disguised.
‘I’ll talk to him tonight – ’
‘It may be too late then.’ Nina kissed her mother, slid off the bed. ‘Whatever happens down at the stockyards today, there’s going to be a hell of a scene here tonight. I’m going to tell Daddy a few truths.’
She left her mother, ran downstairs, out of the house and back towards the stables where all the cars were garaged. She drove her MG out into the cobbled yard and almost ran down George Biff as he stepped in front of her.
‘Where you going, Miz Nina?’
‘None of your business! Out of the way – please, George!’
He came round, slipped into the passenger’s seat beside her. ‘You rushing off down to the yards, right? You damn foolish. You ain’t gonna solve nothing like that.’
‘I’m