An Untitled Lady (29 page)

“You can read?”

“Slow but sure. With figures, I’m flash as any cove, just like me Da. Wish we had more of them adding up and not as many to subtract.” She unlatched the door and waved Maddie in.

The room was as big as Maddie’s closet, and held three wooden chairs and the cooking fireplace. Straight stairs stood against a wall; a closet in back acted as the pantry. Unlike the cottage Jem Smith and his family inhabited, this one had a small window in the back wall, offering a shaft of morning light.

“You keep a neat home.”

“It ain’t no castle, but it’ll do.”

She moved deeper into the room as Kitty came in, shutting them in. A quarter-moon window cut into the door offered a sliver of light, but even at noon the room was dim.

“Why the shades?”

Kitty glanced at the window, blinded by cloth. “Can’t have too much privacy. Come up and see the looms.”

They sped by the first floor, which looked to hold two sleeping rooms. As they turned toward the top floor, sunlight edged the treads on the stairs.

This floor stretched the breadth of their cottage plus the one behind it. A higher ceiling and four large windows gave good light. Two looms, standard cotton-weaving jennies, took up the bulk of the space, and chairs and stools stood in the front and back of the room by each pair of windows. A narrow cot sat in the back corner.

“I spend most of my time in here, in good weather. Do my spinning at the window while Da works this loom and George works his, there. It’s right nice here.”

“You sleep up here?”

“He does. I sleep below, and our tenant takes t’other.”

“But there’s no heat on this floor.”

“I don’t see you doing much better, for all your husband has money.” Kitty’s look cut as sharp as her voice.

Maddie flushed and paled and flushed again. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice faltering as if she might collapse.

“No, you have the right of it. Sometimes Da’s joints bother him, so he sleeps on the kitchen bench pulled out beside the fire.”

“How can he work the shuttle if his joints ache?”

She shrugged. “You don’t work, you don’t eat.”

Maddie didn’t want to see her family like this. She had so much; they should have at least enough. “Would he ever take money? A stipend, perhaps, quarterly?”

“He’s a proud man.” Kitty fingered the strings on the loom.

“But you hold the purse strings?”

She grinned, and Maddie felt a surge of pleasure, as if she’d given the winning answer in a spelling contest. “And if a little extra came my way, say, because I was working longer at the rectory, well, who’s to say it didn’t?”

“The rectory?”

Kitty drew her finger down a string. “Where I went for schooling, myself. Sometimes I act the tutor for the smaller ones at the school. It’s pennies, only, but having some bit coming in is better than none.”

Maddie sat at his loom. “Show me a little.”

“These are the straight threads, the warp.” Kitty picked up an oversized bobbin. “I wind my spinning around bobbins like these. Goes in the shuttle, see, and Da passes it back and forth through the shed, picking over. The beater, here, packs the threads tight between.”

“How long does it take?”

“To do a napkin, one round of “O God Our Help.” Enough for a shirt, four or five evensongs. A tablecloth’s measure takes the whole day.”

Maddie took mental stock of all the linens, calicoes, and cottons in her home. It would have taken hand-weavers months if not years to make the things in her house alone. The amount it would take to fill the cabinets at Shaftsbury castle made her head spin.

“And the machines?”

“Oh, one of those can do a tablecloth in less than an hour.” Maddie gasped, and Kitty set the shuttle down hard. “We do twice the work now for the same coin. Lucky for us, the machines keep breaking; they’re broken more than not. But they’ll find new ways to build them, and we’ll be cut out for good.”

“You could switch to weaving silk.”

“Same method. Guaranteed a ’factory man is tinkering up a silk loom as we speak.”

“That’s not fair.”

Kitty shrugged. “God be mysterious, all right.”

The door opened downstairs. Kitty’s gaze locked with Maddie’s, her eyes wide. “He’s early. Stay here. Maybe he’ll go straight out again.”

But before she could get to the stairs, they heard footfalls coming up.

Maddie scooted off the seat and to a stand just as her father came into view.

He was scowling to himself, and when he saw them, he froze, mouth wide open. He looked from one to the other, finally landing on Maddie, and took a deep breath.

“Wot are yo’, an’ weer dun yo’ come fro?”

Maddie weaved, in the wake of his roar, and even Kitty flinched. But her face grew just as hard as his.

“She’s me sister, and she can visit wit’ me if she wishes.”

“Had yo’ yesterday, dino she? Nae enough?”

His eyes were blue darker than Kitty’s, but they looked smaller in his face, with its wide rounds of cheekbones and large nose. His face seemed to stretch over his head, unimpeded but by a wreath of graying hair. The beard made a bear of him. Maddie felt the hard edge of the seat behind her. She must have backed up without thinking of it.

“Dunna sech a fine picnic yesterday?”

Was he talking to her? She barely understood him. She didn’t remember having such trouble before. Did he want an answer? Maddie struggled to answer. She couldn’t think. Kitty took her hand, but even that calmed her only a little.

“Maddie’s brother-in-law be a fine cove.”

“The peer spake at ye?”

“Danced a jig wit’ me. Handsome enough, for a scarecrow.”

Her father reared back and laughed. “You didna say that to his face.” He looked at Maddie again, sobering instantly. She thought she might faint.

“What’s it they grow at Shaftsbury? Maize?”

“Yes.” Maddie nearly slapped herself on the forehead. “No. Barley. It’s barley.”

He looked at Kitty. “Simple. It’s the fall as done that.”

Maddie wanted nothing more than to drop through the floorboards. She had dreamed of making a strong impression on her father, and now she had. He thought her a simpleton.

“She’s just had a bear of a time of it. So’s I said she could stay for tea.”

“I’ll not, then.” He looked at her and then at his loom, as if he thought she might harm it in her idiocy. She took a step away from it.

At the head of the stair, he turned back. “Tell your husband Black Tulip, after seven, do he mean to parlay.” He looked at Kitty. “Write it down, so he can read it.”

As he stomped down the stair and out the door, Maddie sank onto the bench. “Oh dear lord.”

Kitty pulled her up again and together they descended the stair. “Don’t fash yourself. His accents go broad when he’s het up. It’s probably better that he thinks you’re soft.”

“Why?”

“Then he won’t be so afeered of you, with your carriages and fine silks. Everybody loves the simple bodies.”

Maddie couldn’t imagine herself frightening that man. She would never impress him, at this rate, but at least he did not reject her or threaten her.

She could build on that.

{ 32 }

The moment he heard the door click shut, Nash was on his feet, the newspaper falling to the floor. He barreled so hard into the hall that Maddie drew back, startled out of her tentative smile.

“Where the devil have you been? Mrs. Willis was worried sick.” The words must have come out too sharp. Her mouth set in that familiar tight-lipped way, but her eyes took on a new, shrewd look. Like her sister’s. “You’ve been with Kitty all this time?” At least she didn’t flinch when he reached for the ribbons on her bonnet. He untied them and together they swept it off her head. Now she was home. As he hung it on its hook, she spoke.

“You weren’t home, and Kitty said tea might help.” She could slay him not only with her tears but also with her voice, raw and lost. He stared at the mirror over the sideboard, cursing the safety committee and its endless meetings, the warehouse with its relentless demands, that bastard Wetherby, and the entire house of blasted Lords. Not to mention the man in the reflection.

“I’m sorry for not coming home with you.”

Her shrug looked the same, even reversed. “You had important business elsewhere.”

“Nothing is more important than you.” He took her hands. “We’re not perfect, but we’re all that we have.”

Face carefully composed, she slipped away, into the sitting room. She picked up the
Observer
from the floor, shaking it out. “Manchester Public Meeting” stood out in large type at the top. “If the working men want the vote, and you and the other men of business want the vote, then why don’t all of you attend the meeting?”

Why was she on about this? Why wouldn’t she be, with the streets plastered with political placards? “Because each don’t care for the other to have it. Can’t say I disagree entirely. Suffrage should be a privilege, with requirements.”

“Such as one’s father was an earl?”

“Such as one knows how to write and to cipher, and has found such success in the world that he owns property.”

“My father has all those attributes.”

Perfect. “You went to see your father.”

“He used the Wetherbys’ money to buy his cottage, and Kitty’s schooling. And the gravestone.”

“He welcomed you with open arms, then?”

“We made a start.” He couldn’t hide the doubt on his face. “We did,” she said, softer.

He sank onto the sofa, rubbing his face with his hand. “Don’t we have enough trouble without inviting more? This week, especially?”

He imagined the hash Malbanks would make of this—
consorting with the enemy, keep your wife on a leash
—he could see it already.

The paper hit the floor again, the pages slipping apart. Her rump hit the chair, across the room from him. He tried to call up some compassion, but after yesterday, and today, and this entire blasted summer, he was drained dry.

He dropped his hands to the cushions. She really was a handsome woman. Beautiful coloring, nice proportions, smooth in swift currents. Even her dress, a medium-weight green-striped gingham, brightened the room, a splash of color and line against the simplicity of the furniture. If only she didn’t look so mutinous. “Could not you have waited until this is over?”

“I’ve waited my whole life.”

She’d waited two months. “It’s not worth arguing about.”

“You mean your argument is so weak you can’t win?”

“I mean, it’s no use arguing with a woman. She’ll never change her mind.”

She crossed her arms, a mutinous set to her mouth. “That is patently untrue. I’ve changed my thinking on any number of things, if you can recall.”

He turned his palms up, complete surrender. Maddie had been forced to reconsider herself again and again these past months. It was a miracle she wasn’t abed with migraines every day.

“All it is, I worry about you.”

“About your fellow committee men, rather.”

“About all of it. You should have heard the talk this afternoon. They are the ones with minds like clay bricks. Once fired, set as stone.”

“You could try the reformers. They meet at seven.”

“At the Tulip?” He’d tried the tavern twice already, and come up empty. He was starting to think Bamford had played him for a fool.

“My father extended you a personal invitation.”

“Don’t be that way. I’m just afraid he’ll hurt you.”

“Yet you don’t think we suit.” Her voice betrayed her insecurities.

“What are you talking about? We suit in many ways.”

“That’s not what you said last week.”

“When? Just before I fell asleep? I was already gone.”

“No. It’s what you truly believe. The sleeping don’t lie.”

“Better pun than proverb.” He pushed himself to his feet and went to her. Untangling her arms, he pulled her up and back to the sofa.

“Listen, we are husband and wife. Nothing changes that. No two people suit exactly. We will just keep rubbing and scratching along our bumps and ridges until all is smooth between us.”

“You promise?” He cursed Wetherby again for that small tremor in her voice, for the moisture in her eye.

“Again and again.” Until he damned well got it right.

* * * *

Miller Street was oddly quiet when Nash appeared just past seven at the Black Tulip. His entry killed conversation inside the tavern room entirely. The keep must have been told to watch for him, for he waved his hand up toward the stairs leading to a sort of balcony, open but for a railing. Nash took the stairs two at a time. Let them stick that in their craws, those men who grumble their betters grow fat and lazy off their work.

He scolded himself. No one was the better of anyone else. Though one couldn’t always prove that by shouting.

Bamford sat at a round table with the young lad and a tall gentleman who must be Hunt. Maddie’s father, a bit more red in his cheeks than Nash remembered from the standoff at the Exchange, sat to his left.

Hunt, farthest from the stair, rose and came to greet him, hand outstretched. Nash shook it. The others started to rise, but Nash nodded at each, and they settled back into their seats. The empty chair had its back to the stair, the weakest position.

“Thank you for having me. I know our last meeting pleased no one.”

Hunt had returned to his chair, but didn’t sit. Instead, he grabbed hold of its back and drew in a great breath. He spread his free arm wide, encompassing the whole of their floor and the taproom below.

“I have always been an enemy to private meetings—of reformers or magistrates alike. True reform does not require privacy.” He pulled the chair out and plumped down, peacock proud in his doubled waistcoat and snow-white cravat.

Young George Swift, in the seat to Hunt’s left, gulped audibly. Nash doubted the boy could even speak at the moment, as awestruck as he looked. Swift’s back was to the railing; for Hunt he must represent the whole of the establishment’s audience.

Bamford must have read Nash’s thoughts in his expression. “Easy to see how he can draw a crowd,” he said cheerily.

“Mr. Bamford, I admired your riposte to the magistrates’ advert in the
Observer
. You make your points well.”

“Liked this line, did you?
We don’t want your property; we have nobler aims in view
.”

Moore snorted. “Pigtail gentry, nae hear truth in it.”

Nash didn’t see the need to respond to the man’s complaint. He nodded again to young Swift, who probably had no idea anyone was in the room besides Hunt.

Hunt, though, focused on Nash. “So, what must we do to ensure our meeting goes as planned?”

“You must swear it is not a meeting to overthrow the government.”

At that, all four threw up their hands, even Swift, as if they were under arrest. Nash knew Bamford and Moore had already been arrested a time or two.

Hunt looked to be gearing up for more operatics, but Bamford found his voice first. “I swear by all’s holy, we never wish to overthrow his majesty, or Parliament, or the Government, harsh as Sidmouth and his minions may be. What we want is to join in the government, not break it. We want our seat.”

“So you say in the petition. The magistrates find it hard to believe.”

Bamford shrugged. “They should read more Cobbett, and his Register. He has taught us that our ills be from misgovernment, and to save ourselves we need to reform such. There’s been no rioting these past three years.”

“Out with it, then. What do we do?” Moore had a temper to match those appled cheeks. Maddie must have inherited her mother’s calm temperament, not this burly fire-head’s.

“First, show yourselves these next few days as planning a simple meeting. No collecting pikes and cudgels. No marching.” Reports of bands of men drilling in parade formations had even Heywood concerned. Their drillmasters were said to be former military.

“Idjits. What care how we step?” Moore spread his hands on the table.

“Think how it looks to a nervous merchant. You look to be drilling yourselves into a bloody army.”

Moore held his hands out, palms up. “We carry naught.”

“One doesn’t need to carry arms to learn to march. The magistrates know contraband weapons are buried all about Lancashire.”

“Nae true anymore.”

“Isn’t it.” Nash shrugged, pasting unconcern on his face.

“Mr. Moore, if I might have the floor.” Hunt stood and tugged his vest down, perhaps to draw attention to his fine figure.

Moore crossed his arms, leaning back.

“At past events, Mr. Quinn, the good men and women attending have seen themselves referred to in the papers as trash, sloppy, unable to dress or comport themselves properly. This has been used as an argument that their cause is unjust—if a man is slovenly, why ought we to give him the vote, you see.”

Hunt’s voice rose, surely loud enough for the drunkest man down below to comprehend. “But this time will be nothing of the sort. This time we will step together, singing the most patriotic of songs. This time, we will wear our Sunday best. This time, we will give no one the ammunition to shoot our cause down. We will have reform. Reform!”

“Reform!” George Swift echoed, and then cut himself off as he saw no one else had followed.

Hunt sat again, his eyes popping a bit. “We’ve done nothing wrong. We plan on doing nothing wrong.”

Bamford pushed his tankard toward the taller man, who took it. “Good beer,” Hunt said.

“Aye, for an ale.” Bamford didn’t seem at all cowed by the Southerner.

Nash tried again. “That may be, Mr. Hunt, but it’s not the reality, it’s the fancies in the committee-men’s heads you need to battle.”

Bamford turned back to Nash. “Will you help us? We know you hold sway among your people.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because they did not reject the petition outright.” He held up a hand, stopping Nash’s retort. “It may well be legal in the eyes of the Parliament, but in Manchester town the law lies in the magistrate’s hands. They’re the sort to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“That can’t be true.”

Moore laughed unpleasantly. “Missed the last time, you did. Ran away afore that.”

Nash let that pass, but not without a struggle. What bug was up Moore’s arse? “I’ll argue your case to the committee, especially if it seems to be veering from proper legal form.”

Hunt set down the tankard, now half-empty. “Tell them this: We will be completely unarmed.”

Moore roared his disapproval. “Ye lost yer mind?” Even young Swift looked shocked.

Bamford stayed cool, but his eyebrows crept up toward his hairline. “I cannot like that idea. I walk with my neighbors into a town both personally and politically against us, without any means to defend ourselves?” He looked to Nash. “And ain’t it true that scores of men have been sworn special constables, and the yeomanry increased, and weapons liberally distributed to all of them?”

Nash had to nod yes. He wasn’t sure he disagreed with the man from Middleton. Deacon was fortunate to have him in his district. Nash wished he had a few men the likes of this Bamford on his own committee.

Hunt held up a hand, Roman style, but at least he did not rise from his chair. “If we are in the right, as we are, are not these constables our sworn guardians?”

“More fool talk,” Moore muttered, wiping the top of his bald head with a handkerchief.

Hunt ignored him. “If we were wrong, or they considered us wrong, would they not send us home by simply reading the Riot Act? Assuredly, while we respect the law, they will respect us. All will be well on our side.”

Hunt’s three comrades took a minute to digest this speech. Nash did not believe they would accept it. Hunt, a Londoner, didn’t understand the hard-edged men and masters of Lancashire, who would not stand down from a fight until the other man saw stars.

At last, Bamford sighed. “We’ve forgotten the old times. Back before we became infested with spies and their dupes—distracting, misleading, betraying—no one spoke of physical force. They and their warlike ways have lost us many who might have been friendly to our cause.”