An Untitled Lady (23 page)

Crossing Piccadilly, she wondered whether Jem’s family might enjoy a visit. She was empty-handed, though. Perhaps she should first go home to pick up some of Mrs. Willis’s fresh-baked bread. People in good times should share with those in need. She didn’t see the wiry man in her path until he spat on her.

She stopped, raising a hand to her chest. For a moment, she wasn’t sure she’d understood what he had done, and then she saw the trail of brown spittle leaching down her shoulder, toward her hand. She swallowed the bile back down to her stomach.

Not a large man in size, but his face was red and raw. In rough homespun, he stood feet splayed, hands on hips. “Wear Frenchie cloth in a good English town, do you?”

He was right. She’d somehow chosen her favorite dress from school days, simple spun silk in a sea-foam green near the color of her eyes. Her chest thickened, heavy with shame. How could she have forgotten, after all this time?

“It’s folk like you put us out of work. You’re as bad as the masters.” His breath reeked of homemade ale and cabbage. He turned, as if he would call the street’s attention to them. She had to say something.

“I am sorry you have no work.”

His head snapped to look at her, mouth softening. “A southern girl? Don’t know no better, I expect.”

“It’s not like a girl can swap out her wardrobe every time she moves to a new town.”

“Would be for the best, missy. Sell ’em or burn ’em, don’t matter much. Hard times, these is, and a body’s looking for a fight. Begging your pardon.” He touched his cap.

She knew better than to offer him money. Mancunians wanted to earn their keep. Best to simply watch him go and swallow the tears.

No one showed weakness in these streets.

{ 25 }

All the talk in and out of the Exchange and about the warehouse carried the same overtone of hysteria Nash remembered from the eve of a major sea operation. Once the crew saw the enemy ships, all set to, determined and unyielding. Beforehand, it was as if nearly every hand had turned into a fishwife.

He closed the account books and set them on the high shelf. When Maddie was here, he’d set them lower, so she could reach. His workers would not riot in the streets, and what befell Malbanks was of his own doing. So why couldn’t Maddie come back to work? Because her husband was a hypocrite.

Most women didn’t mind being left alone to play all day and visit their friends, he’d always heard. What utter nonsense: His own Mama managed a large household, and Heywood’s lady oversaw the busiest charity in town, the widows and childrens’ fund. Why wouldn’t Maddie wish to be of use?

Somehow, she’d grown too precious to endanger by exposing her to the rough ways of the warehouse. Idiocy. He’d seen women at Malbanks’s ’factory, helping their men, as well as the wives of the spinners and weavers; surely they were just as precious to their husbands. Maddie deserved the chance to be useful just as he did. More, probably. If she chose to serve in trade, what of it?

It couldn’t be worse than her behavior when he forced her to be a hothouse flower, all dainty and fragile. This obsession with water, when would it end? How he tried not to look at her when he left after luncheon, the longing in her face unmasked. The sound of a rushing skirt as he opened the door, only to see her sitting noodling at needlework on the seat farthest from the window. She waited for him, because that was all he’d allowed her to do.

Nash left early for home, but opened the door to silence. Maddie must still be with Mrs. Heywood, at those blasted baths. Nobody needed to bathe every day. If only she had more friends. No, as Mrs. Willis had pointed out, Maddie couldn’t very well entertain here. These were Spartan single man’s lodgings, not the gracious home of a fine lady.

A letter stood on the sideboard in the hall. Nash hung up his hat and took the starched vellum piece into the drawing room. Sitting down, he noticed with surprise how calm he was, how regular his heartbeat, despite the fact the letter carried the Shaftsbury seal. He didn’t dread what Deacon could write to him.

They had both lived in terror of their somber, stoic father, but now Nash wasn’t sure if that hadn’t been all their imaginations. The man had been gruff, sure, and a heavy sort, but he never struck them, except with a glance or a word. Nash had experienced far, far worse in the Navy, but never the lead-belly dread as at Shaftsbury. And if anyone should have felt their father’s wrath, it was Deacon, nearly drummed out of college for failing to attend to his studies.

Instead, the old sharp had found another answer—a woman who would undertake Deacon’s studies for him. He hadn’t sought to break his boy and re-form him into the earl’s own image, but left Deacon to grow into what manner of man he would.

The old earl’s best correspondent, by far, had been Maddie, and her view of the old man matched Mama’s. Perhaps he had been mistaken about the man. Perhaps Maddie had the right of this, as well.

He had just finished reading the short note when he heard the turn of her key in the lock, the swirl of her skirts in the hall. He was on his feet and in the hall before she had turned back from pulling the door shut. He nearly stroked her shoulder, but she was turning, pulling on the ribbons of her straw bonnet and stepping into him. They bumped hip to leg, and she stopped short. The bonnet slid down. Her face was full of tears.

Iron panic washed over him. Heart playing a tattoo, he touched her shoulders, gripped her waist, twisting her side to side. Nothing bloody, nothing obviously broken. Then the rushing in his ears stemmed and he could hear her breaths, regular and easy. Not wounded, sad.

He pulled her close, removing the lump of a package in her hands and setting it on the sideboard. She smelled of fresh sea, and the mild dyes of the south, and somehow of tobacco. She felt right, tucked into his chest just so. But her tears didn’t stop, and were joined by hiccupping sobs.

He heard a tread coming up the kitchen stair, and pulled out of their embrace, still holding Maddie in the circle of one arm. “Some tea, Mrs. Willis, if you please.” The tread descended, and he drew Maddie into the sitting room and onto the bench beside him.

“I knew you would despise the baths. That’s why I didn’t bring it up. Damn Mrs. Heywood for frightening you. You never need go back there again.”

She wrinkled her face. “The baths?”

He smoothed her brow with his finger, and then kissed her forehead, running his hand through her damp, selkie hair. “You don’t have to explain it to me. That water is too wide, too deep. It’s not natural. Man is meant for land.”

She closed her eyes, her brow softening, her lips slipping into a smile. Something eased in his chest, as if a boulder he’d forgotten about had suddenly dislodged. He would have her forever making that half a smile, just for him.

“You are afraid of the water.” She opened her eyes, teasingly triumphant.

He sat back, but she leaned into him, closing the gap. “Not afraid. Prudent. Respectful.”

“Respectful.” The way she said it made it sound like the excuse it was. “You didn’t tell me about the baths not because you thought I was a silly woman but because you thought I’d be afraid.”

He wished she would stop using that word. She didn’t need to sound so blasted pleased about it. Wasn’t she crying not a minute past? “Then what has upset you?”

Her gaze dropped to her lap, or perhaps it was his lap. He shifted a bit, and tipped her chin up with a finger. She wasn’t going to distract him that way.

“In the streets, there’s so much anger, so much shouting. It’s a giant steamkettle, and we’re all too close.”

She’d caught the stench of discontent in the air. How could she not? “We’re all of us out of gearing, not running smoothly. Soon enough, we’ll slide back into place. We always do.”

“I need some new dresses, and to sell these old ones. They aren’t right to give to charity.”

He frowned. She wore his favorite of her southern frocks, a green calico that sharpened the cat’s-eye flecks in her eyes. It did carry a stain on the shoulder, and he had to admit it was a debutante’s style. “Heywood’s wife looks the part. You might ask her to recommend a seamstress. ‘Here’s something that might cheer you up now. How about a picnic?”

The flat doubt on her face surprised him into a laugh. “You have time for such frivolity?”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word applied to me before. I might cultivate it.” She matched his smile with a sideways grin of her own. “Truth, it’s not my idea. Deacon plans a lawn party for his tenants and neighbors. The meetings have eaten into the rushcart parades and fairs, and he wants to restore some of their fun.”

“A day in the country does sound nice. It’s good of him to think of it.”

“And good to keep in his people’s good graces. My brother may yet step up to his role. I might have underestimated him.”

Her touch on his knee surprised him. Was she promising more later? “Might I invite a friend of mine?”

“Jem’s family?”

“Someone I met at church.”

“Why not? Deacon’s lawns are large.”

* * * *

In a pitiable attempt at neutral ground, the meeting between the magistrates and special committee of Lancashire and the town’s workingmen took place in a second-floor room at the Exchange. Nash expected that none of the workers had ever been there, and that first view, of the cacophonous floor devoted to commerce, was as likely to tie their tongues as the most hellfire sermon on Sunday. By the time they climbed the two sets of stairs, open and edging the trading hall, they would be as cowed as any royalist magistrate could wish. Watching the men called the leaders of their group—don’t dare call them a union—shuffle in wearing their odd clomping sabots, Nash caught a whiff of the same stubbornness. Not a penitent among them.

Coarse cotton arrayed itself in a row facing fine linen and ermine—Heywood wore some hoary piece from the days of the seigneurs, complete with gilded necklace—and no one took a seat. If it would not be a successful parlay, and Nash knew now how truly foolish a dream that had been, at least it would be short.

He had had to suggest that they introduce themselves. The working men were reluctant: “If you make a listing of us, suddenly we are without all work.” The magistrates were just as bull-headed, and so the speechifying began with no one having any idea whom they were dealing with. Nash knew from hard experience what an ill start that was.

Heywood’s opening gambit, ten minutes of
let’s all return to the earlier, happy days
, didn’t persuade even his own side.

A middle-aged man, a weaver, took it to pieces in a bare minute, but at least he carried a smile in his voice. History-wise, he rightly pointed out, nothing had changed. “It’s your part to beat us down like plate, to swell your fortunes. It’s ours to stand up for our families and demand justice and fair play. We make your profits, and we should help spend ’em.”

Could this be the Sam Bamford Nash’d heard of? It must be; his phrasing was direct from the pamphlet the workers’ reform committee published arguing in favor of the meeting. A formidable foe, but he could be just the sort of man who could listen as well as argue. Of the half-dozen workingmen, two looked bulls, no chance of changing their minds. Two looked wary, gazes circling from the dozen scowling magistrates to the closed doors. One was the eloquent speaker, and the last a mere boy, still wearing the red spots of youth. The magistrates shared the same proportions: one-third bull-necked and bull-headed, another third terrified trade would suffer, and a bare two or three willing to listen even a little.

The men wished to hold a public meeting in just a week, the ninth of August. The magistrates couldn’t say no exactly, as it was legal to meet, but they could stand in the way, by denying petitions to use the space or declaring the meeting illegal. Under law, a meeting couldn’t be called illegal until something criminal occurred at it. He could see Malbanks’s eyes shuttering and shifting, trying to find the loophole that would give him sway.

As both sides sidled along the path of reasonableness without stepping directly upon it, business was, indeed, transacted. The workers agreed to reapply “properly” for permission, delaying the meeting by a week, and the magistrates agreed to allow it to take place. Nash suspected Malbanks and his crowd wouldn’t be satisfied until all the workers were in jail, though it would sink their own profit.

The meeting lasted twenty minutes. Nash followed the workers out the door, managing to catch the sleeve, and the attention, of their main speaker.

“You’re Bamford?”

“And you’re Quinn.” The man turned, framing up into a fighting stance, but his gaze was more interested than belligerent.

“I thought your rebuttal in the papers a piece of work. Good work. Might you be someone I could talk with privately? Where might I find you? An alehouse? Somewhere public.”

“The Black Tulip. Let it be known you’re looking, and one or t’other of us might be found. Mayhaps even your father-in-law. He’s one of us, you know. The tall one.”

Nash reeled back on his heels. “You know my wife?”

“Only by reputation. A fine lass, if a bit dressy. Aren’t they all.” Bamford winked. “The Black Tulip. Miller Street.”

Maddie’s father was a radical? Should he tell her? He couldn’t. It would cause far more problems than even he could manage this summer. Later, when tempers cooled with the autumn, he might mention it. Suddenly, he burned with curiosity about the man, Moore. How could a father have given up such a treasure? He didn’t have time to do more than wonder. As he turned back toward the meeting room, he could hear the angry rumble of voices. Entering the room, he found he needn’t have hurried. No one had changed his mind.

“If they protest, it’s on their heads. Any violence, and their leaders are in the poke before they can finish their dinner.” Malbanks smacked his lips, salivating at the prospect.

Nash interrupted. “I should think that would push them to keep their men in line. No one wants to spend an evening in the New Bailey.”

Trefford’s shrill tenor broke in. “These men don’t share your sense of logic. Their only sense that is developed is of entitlement.”

Malbanks nodded, turning to Nash. “Did you hear that weaver? ‘All’s we want is what’s fair.’ How is it fair for us to work so hard, and they skim all the profit?”

“Those men work hard for their wages. Wages, I needn’t remind you, that are significantly reduced from last year, while the price of wheat has doubled.”

“Let the parish take care of the starving.”

“We are the parish.” Nash bit his cheek to prevent another outburst. A more pig-headed bunch he had never met, unless one counted one’s relations.

“So we do nothing?” Trefford’s voice and hands trembled at the idea.

“Nothing we can do, more’s the pity,” Heywood said.

“We could arrest Hunt, when he comes to town,” Malbanks said.

Nash unlocked his jaw. “On what grounds?”

“Incitement to violence.”

“No. They’ll have their meeting,” Heywood said. “That is the law.”