Flint and Roses (28 page)

‘He has been sneaking off before the engines were shut down,' she told me, flushed with indignation. ‘Riding halfway to Galton, and she half-way from there to meet him. Really, the kind of assignation one may make with a housemaid. Well, my father has told him to put an end to it, and he, of course, has said he will not. And even my mother, who will never say a word against him, was unable to stay calm. Yes, we have all told him what we think to it—except Blaize, who was altogether impertinent, saying he should be allowed to get on with it and get rid of it in his own way. A point of view, I suppose, which may serve for a housemaid, but which in this case, is pure folly. Surely you must see that, Faith, for however much we may dislike her, she is a Miss Clevedon of Gakon Abbey, cousin to the Chards and the Floods, and with the very highest connections in London, although you would not think it to look at her; and if Nicholas should compromise her and refuse to marry her, then all our reputations must suffer. Blaize may think such behaviour admissible, but the gentry would all band together—including Matthew—to say that one can expect nothing better of a manufacturer. And, quite frankly, although I stress that I detest the girl, I could not blame them. If she were a Hobhouse we should have had her father already on our doorstep demanding that Nicholas name the wedding-day—except that no Hobhouse, and no one else I have ever heard of, would dream of carrying on in this loose fashion. I said so, too, and I believe Nicholas would have slapped me for it, had not my father intervened. “You cannot judge her,” Nicholas said, “by your own narrow standards.” Yes, he said that, and I thought my father would have had a fit, and it was my mother who had to intervene then, or he would have given Nicholas a thrashing. My word. I have never heard such language as they threw at each other. Well, it is all misery with us just now, as you may imagine, for my father and Nicholas have not exchanged a word since yesterday and my mother is so afraid that Nicholas may walk out one morning and not return that she is wearing herself out, going from one to the other, endeavouring to make the peace. But, Faith—you really do look quite ill. I hope you may be fully recovered for my wedding. You look as if you need a trip to a warmer climate again—like your mother.'

Yet even this escape, which I would have seized gladly, was denied me, for in that same month the French king, Louis Philippe, was driven from his throne by the Paris mob, escaping across the Tuileries Gardens with no time to put on his wig, haunted, no doubt, by the memory of another King Louis, not too long ago, who had lost not only his wig but his head. And as one by one the capital cities of Europe burst into flame and London itself began to simmer, when even in Cullingford Mr. Hobhouse was jostled on his way to the Piece Hall, Mr. Oldroyd jeered by a ragged, street-corner mob, I understood escape to be impossible and composed myself as best I could, strengthening myself daily, like an athlete, a soldier, to support this constant wounding, the certainty of greater injury to come.

At the beginning of March a stone was thrown at Aunt Hannah's carriage, not causing her horses to bolt, since they were too elderly for that in any case; but the intention had been plain, the missiles aimed not by unruly urchins but by hard and bitter men. And Aunt Hannah may have been displeased at her husband's simple comment. ‘They're hungry,' for it had been a severe winter, following a poor harvest, the price of bread still high despite the removal of the Corn Laws, the advantage of Repeal having gone as always, it seemed, to the masters rather than the servants, since wages—paid out to men who had no vote, no power but that of terror and disobedience—were still very low.

‘They're hungry.' And now, with the railways and the new penny post to facilitate communications, there were rumours once again of armed risings in the manner of the revolutionary French, the Chartists come to plague us afresh with their demands which only Giles Ashburn, among all our acquaintance, did not consider to be excessive.

It was the result, he explained—talking to Prudence, making an uncomfortable effort not to look too often at me—of the reforms of 1832, which had not gone far enough. Much had been promised in the great Reform Year, and much, indeed, received by the middle classes, who for the first time had won representation in a Parliament previously no more than a mouthpiece for the landed gentry. After the Bill of 1832 any man in Cullingford who paid an annual property rent of ten pounds or more could have his vote, to use or to sell as he thought fit, although the absence of a secret ballot somewhat restricted his choices, should he be in the employ of Mr. Joel Barforth, or a tenant of Sir Giles Flood. Yet these new voters, Dr. Ashburn calculated, had numbered no more than a mere thousand or so in a population of sixty thousand, a solid pressure-group from the middle classes which had sent middle-class men like my father to Parliament to speak for them, in opposition to the gentry and totally neglectful of the troublesome, if labouring, poor.

And having fought so hard for their own right to vote, their own freedom from the ground landlord, the titled farmer, they could hardly be astonished, Dr. Ashburn felt, at the Chartists, whose revolutionary demands for one man one vote would make the poor, not necessarily rich, but—since there were so many of them—very powerful.

‘Their demands are very logical,' he said, so quietly, that it was not easy to realize his opinions were treasonable and, if acted upon, could lead him to the gallows. ‘When your uncle, Mr. Barforth, fought hard to be represented in Parliament in thirty-two, I am sure Sir Giles Flood thought him quite as much a revolutionary as he now thinks his operatives for making the same demands. There is no cause for astonishment, surely? In fact the Duke of Wellington himself has warned repeatedly that, by extending the franchise even so far, his peers have done no more than open the flood-gates, through which sooner or later the riff-raff are bound to get through. And now, at least, he may have the satisfaction of seeing himself proved correct. The people have finally understood that they can rely on no one but themselves. The gentry will look after the gentry. The manufacturers will look after the manufacturers. Both these groups have made promises to the labouring classes which they have kept only in part, or not at all, or in such a way that no real benefit has been derived. The people, now, have chosen to look after their own interests, and they require the vote to do it. And to spare themselves yet another hollow triumph—the choice between voting for a millmaster or a squire—they require that Members of Parliament should no longer, by law, be men of property. They wish to elect one of themselves, which also seems to be in no way astonishing. Sir Giles Flood may well have considered your uncle too ill-educated and too lacking in political experience to use the franchise correctly once he had obtained it—since he clearly meant to use it against Sir Giles. And, unfortunately, he may have been right, as your uncle is right now, when he says the same thing. But that, surely, is not a reason to deny the franchise. Would it not be better to educate those who are in need of it—which, I imagine, must be four-fifths of our nation—so that everyone may use his vote with responsibility, as seems best to him?'

‘Precisely,' my sister said, perfectly in tune with him, ‘for our system of education is deplorable. Our boys are taught Latin and Greek and little else, our girls are taught nothing at all, the labouring classes are taught—one supposes—to labour, which sometimes seems better to me than fine embroidery. How I would love to set up a school—do you know that? Yes, if they would let me have my money, I would open a school for girls which would be like no other school in the world—no water-colours, no samplers—real work, Giles. Only think how shocking! I imagine they would attempt to burn me at the stake.'

‘Do it, Prudence,' I said. ‘Why not? Let's talk to mamma. We could do it together—not even in Cullingford. We could travel together, until we found a place—get away—'

‘Not you, Faith,' she said, her voice almost hard, ‘You'll get married, you know you will—one day. You can send me your daughters.'

And neither of us could miss the nervous tremor in Giles Ashburn's quiet face, nor how quickly he looked away.

I went out for the first time at the end of that week, braving the sooty March winds to call on Celia who, cutting short my uneasy references to her child, talked solely of a new rosewood card table she had ordered two months ago and which now, being finally delivered, was not at all as desired. And returning home, ridiculously weakened by so brief an excursion, to be told that Mr. Barforth—Blaize, I assumed—was waiting to see me. I went alone into the drawing-room, shocked beyond immediate recovery to find Nicholas there.

He was standing at the window, obscured by the half-dark which always prevailed in that room, a silhouette merely against the deep claret of the curtains, although I had no need of light to see his face. And knowing that this, surely, was the moment for which I had schooled myself, my first real encounter with pain, I took off my gloves and my bonnet, slowly, neatly, folded my hands, folded as much of myself as I could grasp and shut it away, before I asked, ‘Nicholas?' although the question was neither of his identity nor his intentions.

‘Yes,' he said, not moving forward. ‘There is something I have to say to you—and quickly, I think.'

‘Then say it.'

‘I am come straight from Galton Abbey, where I have just asked Georgiana Clevedon to be my wife.'

‘Yes, of course.'

And, as the words slipped from my tongue, my mind, too, slipped a shade away from reality, leaving me with an odd sensation that this was not the first time he had said this, for me, nor the first time I had so calmly answered. Like a recurring dream it had happened before, over and over again, in the part of my brain which controlled the source of, anguish and fear, over and over, a wheel turning me slowly towards him and as slowly away again, so that I had grown accustomed to it, and would not break.

‘Faith—'

‘Yes.'

‘I had to tell you myself. You do see that I had to do that?'

‘Yes, I do. I hope you will be very happy, Nicholas.'

‘Oh,' he said, striding forward, his face hard and strained, quite pale. ‘As to that—I hope so too Many will think otherwise, but she is a rare person, Faith, truly—I know of no one like her. And I can only pray, she may be happy with me.'

‘Yes, Nicholas.'

And then, abruptly, his voice harsh, as if the words were forced from him through clenched teeth, he said. ‘They will say it is for my money on her part and on mine because I am stubborn. It is more than that. I had to say that too.'

‘There was no need, I knew it.'

‘Aye,' he said, a sigh of pure weariness escaping him. ‘You always know. You've known, these past weeks, haven't you—known what was happening to me—why I couldn't even come and see you when you were ill? Well, I came a dozen times, to the end of the street and then went away again—that's the truth—beacuse I couldn't face you. I wasn't sure, until now, that I was even going to do it—it could all have been over, and there'd have been no need to say a word to you about it. You wouldn't have asked me any questions either would you? No—I know damned well you wouldn't. You'd have made it easy for me—like you're doing now. Christ—I'd better go home.'

But he didn't move, and unable to say more I walked past him to stand with my fate to the window, until the sound of the door slamming shut behind him, and the street door after it, released me from that terrible fierce-clenched control and bent me double for a moment, winded and gasping, as Celia had been at the start other travail

‘Faith,' Prudence said sharply from the doorway my mother behind her, and straightening up, sittirig down, my voice pronounced what was in my mind, so calmly that in some crazy recess of myself I could have laughed at it.

‘He is to marry Georgiana Clevedon. I do not think they can be happy, and I—really—do you know, I wish I could die of it. It would seem easier, except that of course I cannot—no one really dies of these things.'

‘How dare he come here!' Prudence said, glaring at the window as if she would have liked to break through it and go after him, a sliver of glass in her hand. ‘It is an open acknowledment that he recognizes there has been something between you—that he has treated you badly. How dare he? He should have had the decency to keep away, and when I meet him again I shall tell him so.'

‘Oh no, dear,' my mother murmured, her whole face, it seemed, brimming with tears. ‘I must ask you not to do so, for he will have trouble enough. He has Joel yet to face and—oh, Faith, my poor lamb, I should not tell you, this, but it may help you to know how she has snared him. Verity was expecting it—oh yes, she was so despondent last night, for it seems he rode over to Galton on Monday and did not return until Tuesday, which did not alarm Verity until she learned that the grandfather had gone away to London, and the brother with him. My dear, they were alone all night together, in that isolated place—no, no, the maids cannot signify on such occasions. And what could he do but make her an offer after that?

‘Ah,' Prudence said. ‘It does not surprise me.'

But getting up and returning to the window, concentrating, so hard on the last harsh tones of his voice that these other voices, seeking to comfort me, became a nuisance, a mere pestering of flies coming between me and the things I believed, had to believe, I said, ‘No. He loves her.'

‘Darling, surely not—?'

And turning to my mother so fiercely that she retreated a hasty step backwards, I repeated his own words, ‘Yes, mother. They will say it is for his money on her part, and on his because he is stubborn. It is more than that. He loves her, mother. He believes it, and I believe it—and so must you.'

And at least I had salvaged something. I had kept my faith with him.