Page 269 of The Armor of Light

The war had done that. It had grown the boy up fast. Hornbeam likened it to his own experience of being orphaned at the age of twelve, having to steal food and find a warm place for the night with no help from adults. You did what you had to, and it changed your view of the world. One cold night, he remembered, he had knifed a drunk man for his purse, and had slept contented afterwards.

Then he noticed that Joe was not alone. He was with a girl of about his own age, and in fact had his arm around her waist, his hand resting lightly on her hip, suggesting a pleasant familiarity that fell slightly short of possession. She was a well-dressed working girl with a pretty face and a saucy smile. Anyone seeing the two of them like this would assume they were ‘walking out’.

Hornbeam was horrified. The girl was not good enough for his grandson, not by a long way. He wanted to ignore them and walk on by, but it was too late to pretend that he had not seen them. Hehad to say something. He could not think of any words appropriate to this excruciating encounter, so he just said: ‘Joe!’

Joe was not embarrassed. ‘Good afternoon, Grandfather,’ he said. ‘This is my friend Margery Reeve.’

She said: ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Hornbeam.’

Hornbeam did not offer his hand.

She seemed not to notice the snub. ‘Call me Miss Margie, everybody does.’

Hornbeam had no intention of calling her anything.

She was oblivious to his cold silence. ‘I used to work for you at the Piggery.’ She added proudly: ‘But I’m a shop girl now.’ She clearly thought she was going up in the world.

Joe had noticed Hornbeam’s disapproval – which surely could not have surprised him – and now he said: ‘My grandfather is very busy, Margie – we mustn’t keep him talking.’

Hornbeam said: ‘I’ll speak to you later, Joe.’ And he walked on.

A shop girl: that explained why her clothes were quite good – they had been supplied by her employer. But she had been a mill hand originally, with dirty fingernails and home-made clothes. Joe should not be courting such a girl! She was a pretty little thing, there was no doubt about that, but it was not enough, not nearly.

Hornbeam returned to the mill for the afternoon, but had difficulty concentrating, and kept thinking about Joe’s girlfriend. An unsuitable liaison in youth could ruin a man’s life. He had to protect Joe.

He asked the manager of Piggery Mill if he knew the Reeve family. ‘Oh, yes,’ the man said. ‘Young Margie was here until she got a better job, and both her parents work at our Old Mill. The mother operates a spinning engine and the father a fulling machine.’

Hornbeam’s mind was still full of the problem as he walked home in the evening. As soon as he entered the hall he said to Simpson, the melancholy footman: ‘Is Mr Joe in the house?’

‘He is, Alderman,’ Simpson said as if it was a tragedy.

‘Ask him to come to my study. I want to speak to him before supper.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Waiting for Joe to appear, Hornbeam had the chest pain again; not severe, but sharp for a moment or two. He wondered if it was caused by worry.

Joe came in talking. ‘Sorry to spring Margie on you like that, Grandfather – I meant to mention her name before you met her, but I didn’t get a chance.’

Hornbeam got straight to the point. ‘She won’t do, you know,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t want you to be seen walking out with a woman of that type.’

Joe paused thoughtfully, then frowned. ‘What type do you mean, exactly?’

Joe knew perfectly well what type his grandfather meant. However, if the boy wanted it said out loud, so be it. ‘I mean she’s a low-class girl, only a little above a mill hand, and you must set your sights higher.’

‘She’s very bright, she can read and write perfectly well, she’s got a kind heart, and she’s fun to be with.’

‘But she’s a worker. So are her parents, who both work at my Old Mill.’

Joe replied calmly and rationally, as if this was something he had thought about. ‘In the army I became close to a lot of working people, and I found them pretty much like the rest of us. Some are dishonest and unreliable, and some are the stoutest friends you could wish to have. I won’t hold it against a person that he’s a worker. Or she.’

‘That’s not the same thing, and you know it. Don’t pretend to be more foolish than you are, boy.’ Hornbeam immediately regretted saying ‘boy’.

But Joe did not seem to take offence. Perhaps he had learned that words were not worth fighting over. He was thoughtful for a fewmoments, then he said: ‘I don’t think I told you the full story of how I nearly died at Waterloo.’

‘Yes, you did. You said someone else got in the way of a sword meant for you.’

‘There was a bit more to it than that. I’ll tell you now, if you’ve got time.’