The Iron Master (17 page)

We
grow
Wiser
,
I
believe
,
as
we
grow
Older
,
but
oft
our
Wisdom
is
Ingrained
in
us
.
Tho’
Ignorant
of
my
Mission
at
the
time
,
I
did
Endeavour
to
Amend
the
puerile
Education
of
young
girls
at
the
Misses
Whitehead’s
Academy
!
Yr
,
Charlotte
Longe
.

Bitter Winter

Eleven

London
,
January
—
March
1793

That morning Charlotte had to break the ice in her water jug before she could wash, and sat over her work breathing on her fingers to uncramp them. A little fire struggled to make an impression on the chilly room. Last night, with Toby still away in France, she had brought both children into the high bed, and the cat joined them all. Now Ambrose and Cicely were downstairs with Polly Slack, sitting upon tall stools like islands in a sea of soap-suds, while Polly scrubbed the flagstoned floor. In the printing shop Davy carried on their shrinking trade, and waited for Charlotte’s editorial.
The
Northern
Correspondent
was in troubled waters, politically speaking, and the Longes had once again fallen on hard times.

What a year 1792 had been, with only the alleviation of Miss Wilde’s legacy to Charlotte: tied up so that the capital could not be realised. This was a double blessing, for had the gift been a lump sum it would have become another of Toby’s lost causes; whereas Mr Hurst invested it wisely and sent the interest direct to Charlotte on the first day of every month. This, and her salary as editor, kept their domestic side running, while Toby’s business was supposed to pay for extras and overhead costs. He became evasive whenever she enquired about his financial affairs, so until recently she had been forced to comfort herself by remembering that she could earn a living. But the ominous tidings from France, and the increasing fear of an English revolution, had driven King George III to condemn all radical meetings and writings as treason, and
The
Northern
Correspondent
was in danger of extinction.

Since May of last year they had printed and distributed it under cover, and for the main part it was read under cover too. Many a Lancashire free-thinking gentleman concealed his copy beneath the papers on his desk, as the artisans hid theirs inside their jackets. But what precautions the Longes could take were flimsy in the extreme, considering how many government agents were infiltrating societies and watching suspected Radicals. Possibly the journal was less important than they themselves believed, but it could only be a matter of time before it was harvested. So Charlotte lived from day to day, from hand to mouth, and Toby had been absent for three weeks now, without so much as a letter to plead for him.

She was half expecting Ralph Fairbarrow that afternoon, for in these days of severe political crisis he had become almost a regular visitor, though she would not have called him a close friend. He did not appear to have wife, child or home. When he was in London he stayed at an inn. His northern addresses changed constantly. He was care of anybody with whom he was engaged at the time. And though he often supped with them at Lockyard, and Toby’s hospitality was open-handed, he was never drunk or talkative over his wine. He remained curiously anonymous, so that if Charlotte had been asked to describe him she would have chosen subdued adjectives. His image retreated even as she strove to imprison it in words. Only his aims and beliefs brought him to life, and then he was possessed of a cool violence far more frightening, and more credible, than Toby’s wildest flights of rhetoric. In this she was afraid of him, but on the whole they understood each other pretty well. She was adept at dealing with difficult and clever men. She had learned patience and perseverance in a hard school. And they both took great pride in
The
Northern
Correspondent
and thought it the finest radical newspaper in existence.

This bitter winter’s day she struggled with her editorial in vain, her spirit chilled by the weather and the latest news from France. Just now, as the dull light waned, she had written to her mother to ask if Mr Hurst could forward her allowance a little earlier than usual. As she read the letter through again Polly Slack came in with the candles.

‘And Mr Furbelow’s downstairs, ma’am,’ she said, with a lowly servant’s usual disregard for names, ‘a-talking to the children, and would like a word with you. If convenient.’

He knew that her convenience was of no account, but preserved a punctilious regard for the proprieties he was endeavouring to overthrow. His brief conversation with the children, too, was another mark of convention. They had nothing to say to each other, but he persevered in a wooden manner, convinced that this was the correct thing to do: aware also that he was addressing the future citizens of a radical age, whose minds needed improving.

‘Pray tell Mr Fairbarrow that I shall be glad to see him,’ Charlotte replied, ‘and fetch us some tea presently, will you, Polly?’

‘There’s only potatoes for supper, ma’am,’ Polly observed, more in interest than dismay, for though she toiled willingly she relied upon Charlotte to give orders and take responsibility.

Obedient to the hidden request, her mistress searched pockets and drawers and finally looked into the empty cash-box in hope that something had filled it.

‘Then potatoes we have, Polly,’ she said finally.

‘Yes, ma’am. I can bake them, and put a bit of salt in them.’

‘You are very good, Polly. I should be lost without you.’

The girl was now twenty but seemed far younger, though her backwardness had become forwardness in this benignly careless household. She had been Charlotte’s mainstay for seven long years; and the children loved her, for she was a child with them, and yet an adult who could tell stories and cook simple meals.

‘I’ll fetch the tea, ma’am,’ said Polly, ‘and put the potatoes in the ashes. We ain’t got no more coals, neither,’ looking at the sad grate.

‘I shall attend to that tomorrow,’ said Charlotte, with more confidence than she felt. ‘Please to show Mr Fairbarrow up, Polly.’

He was dressed in the same snuff-coloured suit, wore the same dingy linen, as always. His long sallow face was pierced by a pair of slate-blue eyes. He bowed, and his hair slunk forward with the movement, and retreated as he straightened. He carried a black felt tricorne hat which he brushed with the cuff of his coat as he waited for her to speak.

‘Why, Mr Fairbarrow,’ cried Charlotte, hoping he might advance her something, ‘you are the very person I need, for I have laboured all day over my newsletter, and a sorry spectacle it is, both in mood and content, since I heard that King Louis was guillotined Monday last.’

‘Aye,’ said Ralph Fairbarrow, parting his shabby coat-tails as though contact with a chair would damage them, ‘our Citizen Capet has lost his head for the last time!’

‘You cannot be glad of this?’ cried Charlotte, though even the September massacres had left him unmoved, and they quarrelled over the policy of the journal in consequence.

‘No, not glad,’ said Fairbarrow deliberately. ‘Sorry that the French have done their cause and the radical movement such a disservice.’

‘We should denounce these actions in the name of humanity. We should have done so in the autumn, when priests and prisoners were murdered in Paris.’

‘Oh, Burke will do that for us. And the puling King and government. Your friend, Miss Wollstonecraft, left us quite cheerfully for France, last month. And Toby preferred to find out for himself, rather than listen to hearsay.’

‘Mary was too wretched to stay in London,’ said Charlotte, on a lower note.

‘Aye, you women must always muddle love and politics, and nourish high-flown notions about both. I care not tuppence for Citizen Capet or his wife. They are on the losing side, that is all, and too dangerous to keep alive … ’

‘But their degradation, their humiliation … ?’

‘Mrs Longe,’ said Fairbarrow, hard and cold, ‘you must learn the rules of this game if you would play well. We are speaking of power, not good manners. We may see similar acts of violence over here before many months have passed. The north of England is like a tinder-keg that needs but a spark set to it. The Secretary for War did not send a Deputy Adjutant-General to Sheffield for nothing, last summer. The King did not issue a royal proclamation against seditious meetings and writings for nothing. The government has not banished Tom Paine and taken proceedings against his publisher for nothing. Mobs are not being incited to burn his effigy in the streets for nothing. And you, Mrs Longe’ — fixing his eyes upon her — ‘are not encouraging a workers’ revolution for nothing!’

‘I am not a child,’ cried Charlotte, ‘that thinks its rights are toys. I know as well as you that there must be turmoil and adversity for us all before we establish a better system in our country. And I know, too, that in our own case we risk imprisonment by continuing to publish
The
Northern
Correspondent
secretly, and to distribute it secretly. And if Toby and I are gone, and the press seized,’ she added, faltering at the notion, ‘what shall become of our poor children?’ Then she straightened and spoke resolutely. ‘But if I thought that our movement would, in its turn, refuse justice and mercy in the name of liberty and equality, and set up a scaffold in Leicester Fields to butcher their brothers in the name of fraternity, then, Mr Fairbarrow, I should know that we had worked in vain.’

‘Why, Mrs Longe,’ he said, holding up one hand to ward off her anger, ‘you are far warmer than this room! I do not commend the guillotine as a salve for all our ills. But we must not switch sides in a moment because a section of the revolutionaries are — perhaps — misusing their authority.’

She said, not knowing what to think, ‘I shall not change sides, sir. I am no weathercock.’

‘In any case,’ he said peaceably, ‘I did not come to cross swords with my friends, Mrs Longe. Tell me, have you no news of Toby?’

She was confounded, realising that subconsciously she had hoped Fairbarrow brought tidings of him.

‘Then where the devil is he?’ said Fairbarrow, half to himself, uneasy.

‘I know not. I have heard nothing since he went. Sir,’ said Charlotte, desperate, ‘is it not possible to have an advance upon my salary? The newsletter shall be ready tomorrow, and the rest of the material is here for you to read before it goes to press.’

‘Have you no money at all, Mrs Longe?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Not one penny in the house, sir. No food but potatoes, and no more coals. I have borrowed all I can, and pawned what I can. I have wrote to my mother only this afternoon, to ask for an advance upon my allowance. And Toby is not here to think of some other way. And I am at my wits’ end with worry and hunger and cold!’

And here she put her head into her two stained hands and sobbed aloud.

Awkward in such a situation as this, Ralph Fairbarrow first rang the bell, and then, finding it did not work, shouted down the stairs for Polly.

‘Here, Mrs Longe,’ he said, placating her, laying down a guinea upon the little table by her elbow, ‘cheer up, devil take it. You are not alone in the world. You have good friends yet, ma’am.’

His dry embarrassment brought her round, where sympathy would have prostrated her. She dried her eyes and cheeks, dried her fingers, begged his pardon, sitting very upright in her chair to show she was in full command of herself again.

‘Set that tea down, Polly!’ said Ralph Fairbarrow, as the maid came in with the tray. ‘Now, Mrs Longe, should Polly not run out and buy something from the pastrycook’s and some coals? I’ll sup a dish of tea and leave presently, when you are better.’

Charlotte nodded, red-eyed, and Polly whisked the guinea into her pocket, unconcerned.

‘That’s a good girl,’ said Fairbarrow to the servant. ‘Be off with you, and take care of your mistress!’

Charlotte said, turning the conversation to less personal matters, ‘They say that two hundred thousand copies of Tom Paine’s sixpenny pamphlet have been sold so far, and there is not a cutler in Sheffield without his
Rights
of
Man
.’

‘Should I pour tea?’ asked Fairbarrow, very kindly for him. ‘Rest yourself a while, Mrs Longe. By God, this room is cold! Here, ma’am, drink this and warm yourself.’

‘I believe,’ said Charlotte, keeping her mind upon safer topics than Toby and his absence, ‘that our country will have a different revolution from the one in France. The French are a choleric nation.’

‘They think us a brutal one!’

‘Perhaps,’ Charlotte continued hopefully, ‘what the Fall of the Bastille was to the French, Tom Paine’s pamphlet will be to us. I know I seek to change the cast of thought rather than to cut off the head of the thinker.’

He was careful not to arouse her sensibilities again, and perceptive enough to see that she needed to keep her mind occupied. So they roamed peacefully over the growth of corresponding societies and their vastly increasing membership, the demonstrations in the North and the variety of craftsmen, tradesmen and labourers involved, and the sterling qualities of
The
Northern
Correspondent
. When Polly returned, Ralph Fairbarrow stood up and took his leave.

‘I shall be in London a while,’ he said, ‘and, with your permission, will look in from time to time. As soon as one of us has news of Toby let him or her contact the other. I shall be staying at The Bell Savage in Ludgate Hill.’