Free God Is an Englishman by R. F. Delderfield Page A

She said, with a flash of intuition, “Goldthorpe’s son? Is it him?”
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    There was no help for it now. If she was to get clear in the time left to her Mrs.
    Worrell would have to be taken into her confidence.
    “He’s going to marry me. He says it’s been arranged between his father and my father. He wasn’t pretending, he couldn’t have been. He’s got a house, The Clough, over at High Barton…”
    “You mean you knew nowt about it? Not until tonight?”
    “Father mentioned it this afternoon but he only said Makepeace might come asking, he didn’t say it was arranged…I won’t marry him, Martha. They can’t make me, can they?”
    Martha Worrell had not kept house for Sam Rawlinson for twenty years without learning how to face facts. “Happen they’ll try,” she said, grimly, and felt the perspiration strike cold under her armpits.
    “What else could I do to stop them? They’ll keep on, they won’t give up. I could see that tonight. It’s to do with money, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” The housekeeper cocked a shrewd eye at her, trying to gauge the difference between a tantrum and hysteria. Then she said, with a whistling sigh, “They’ll try an’ wear thee down, lass, if they’ve al ready got as far as that. Are you sure about The Clough?”
    “Makepeace was telling me when Joe Wilson galloped up shouting about the fire.”
    Mrs. Worrell glanced at the luggage on the desk.
    “Eeee, but where did you think of going? Where is there to run to?”
    “Ballynagall,” Henrietta said, and Martha Worrell’s escaping breath sounded like air forced from a split bellows.
    “Ballynagall? Good life, child, those folk of your mother’s haven’t been heard of in years! They might be anywhere. They might even be dead! You can’t go scampering off to Ballynagall just like that!”
    “I can try, I won’t stay here after tonight…”
    The housekeeper made a despairing gesture. “Stop mithering, child. Let me think.” She stood squarely against the door, hands clasped across her belly, broad, good-natured face crumpled in the effort of grappling with a string of imponderables.
    From across the room, standing within the circle of lamplight, Henrietta divined sympathy and waited. Almost a minute ticked by. There was no sound now except the subdued panting of Twitch who had settled himself on the hearthrug, his attention divided between them.
    “Ballynagall is nonsense,” Martha said, at last, “leastways, it’s nonsense the way GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 37
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    you’re going about it. I would have to write first, and then wait for an answer.
    But once your father got wind o’ it he’d put a stop to that one way or another.
    Happen he’s as set on that match as Matt Goldthorpe is. I had a notion he was, and maybe I should have warned you, but I weren’t sure, or not sure enough. It were brewing, that’s all I knew for certain.” The brooding expres sion faded and suddenly she looked obstinate and resolute. “But you’re reet about one thing, lass.
    It’s now or never, while there’s such a to-do in t’town and there’s nowt wrong wi’
    putting distance between yoursen and your father, if only to show your mettle.
    But where, that’s the rub!” And suddenly she unclasped her hands so that they were free to slap her belly with satisfaction.
    “Our Nelly, be God! Go to our Nelly, i’ Garston!”
    “The railwayman’s wife?”
    “Aye, Nelly’s the one. She’s more spunk nor the others.”
    “But won’t that mean trouble for you if…”
    “Nay, I’ll say I sent you there for safety, and he’ll not give it another thought.
    There’ll be plenty to occupy his mind for a spell!” Dramatically, instantaneously, the initiative passed to her, as though she was not the abettor but the fugitive. “Head for Lea Green and wait on t’first train that stops there. And