The Iron Master (30 page)

But there was Charlotte sitting on the carpet in a perfect nest of papers, reflecting none of his terrors or concerns, intent upon some document. In the moments that she was so preoccupied he breathed more easily. Then she looked up and smiled, brandishing her spectacles at him as she did when excited about something.

‘Ah, Mr Ackroyd,’ she cried, ‘I had hoped you might spare me half an hour. I have been so busy, picking up old threads and weaving them together. Pray sit down, sir, while I bombard you with questions!’

He settled himself stealthily in Grandfather Wilde’s armchair, seeing her once more absorbed in her task. The fire crackled companionably, and he extended his hands to the warmth. He heard her reading to him, as he had looked at her handbill, without comprehension. Then gradually her words impinged upon his understanding. He relaxed and listened.

‘ … I have paid greater attention to political events than possibly you realised, sir. And from time to time our mutual friend, Mr Fairbarrow, has given me a jog, or fed me information to whet my appetite for more. So I know that the London Corresponding Society has adopted a new constitution, and gone underground. That there is also a secret committee, meeting in Furnival’s Inn cellar, and from this centre comes the organisation known as the United Englishmen. That there are several branches all over England, that they work with the United Irishmen, and are very strong in Liverpool and Manchester. There are also other societies with similar aims and principles, but in other guises, such as the Friends of Freedom in Rochdale and Royton, who are linked to a Manchester centre — which has such an essay of a name as I professionally deplore! Dear God in heaven, who shall remember the Institute for the Promulgation of Knowledge amongst the Working People of Manchester and its Vicinity? However, I digress! The Radical cause is healthy and growing stronger. No doubt the naval mutinies last year were due largely to poor pay and poorer food, but it is believed on all sides that the rebellion was instigated by our people, for there were members of the Corresponding Society among the sailors. We are sympathising with the Irish Rebellion, but are divided as to the action we should take if the French invade our shores. Am I well learned in my lessons, sir?’

‘Admirably, madam!’

‘What name had you thought of for your own organisation, sir?’

‘I?’ Startled. ‘I had not thought of any, madam. The idea is yet in its infancy, and I was too deep in its aims and possible achievements to think of names. It would be a good thing if we could become affiliated to the United Englishmen, or to the Manchester centre. But the name is not important, is it, Mrs Longe?’

‘The name is of the utmost importance,’ she replied gravely. ‘It evokes an immediate response in both friend and enemy, and we must take care what inference is drawn from it. You are seeking to establish a general trades union in the valley, so beware of such a title as Friends of Liberty which suggests we support the French Revolution — unless you plan to make England part of the French Continent!’

‘No, no,’ he said hastily. ‘I do not dabble in foreign politics. Our own are quite enough. But if we were United Englishmen, a title already in fairly wide use, this would help bring about a national organisation.’

‘Mr Ackroyd,’ said Charlotte earnestly, ‘that is the sort of dream which, pray God, another generation than ours shall realise. But to indulge in it at the present time is folly. I speak not as Mr Fairbarrow would have me — for he is another dreamer as my husband was — but from the information he has given me. We have a number of dedicated and clever men initiating these movements — and, I dare say, more than that number of dedicated and clever government agents spying on them! But what I find in the mass is a great many separate and loose-knit groups, working sporadically for our cause, meeting regularly in inns, and singing seditious songs! It is of no use advertising our allegiance to those who cannot help us. We are best to keep in touch with national events, but to work for and by ourselves in the valley. We are not Sons of Freedom, we are Wyndendale reformers!’

She was sitting back on her heels, hands linked in her lap, wholly animated. There was some endearing fault in Charlotte which denied her elegance. Though she had brushed and curled her hair assiduously, strands were escaping over neck and bosom. Though her muslin gown was delightful, the skirt had been crushed as she sat. Her slipper was about to leave her foot. Momentarily, she gave the impression of a graceful, vivid, but untidy girl. The charm lay in her unselfconsciousness.

The sound sense of her proposal registered with him, but so strongly did love move him that this good sense seemed but one more delicious attribute. He was as rapt as a youth with his first sweetheart. His fears had vanished. His feelings came uppermost.

‘Oh, Mrs Longe, I love you,’ said Jack.

And sat appalled at his temerity.

Though she had intended mostly to put him at his ease by speaking of their common interests, she had become involved in her own argument. His statement toppled her composure. She opened her mouth to speak, and no words came.

The light went from him in an instant. He sat woodenly, twisting his hands.

‘But I expect nothing of you,’ he said too loudly.

He stared at the ring of papers, picked one out at random, clumsily, to give himself time.

‘You have applied yourself with commendable zeal,’ he said, endeavouring to speak naturally. ‘We must discuss this matter at length.’

Then his heart failed him.

‘Another evening, perhaps,’ said Jack. ‘At the moment I have a late appointment to keep. And must leave you.’

‘Oh, why do you always make me laugh and cry at the same time?’ cried Charlotte, treading over the fruits of her labours to reassure him.

She took his head between her hands and kissed him long and tenderly, while he clutched her to him, loving, unbelieving. So that Polly, bouncing open the door, had hastily to close it again and call, ‘Supper’s ready, Mrs Longe’ very loudly, until they heard her.

They sat with plates upon their knees, eating and speaking very little, looking at each other in wonder from time to time, smiling from the joy of revelation. Then Jack’s face clouded again. He had indulged the dream for a while, and now reality was upon him.

‘Oh, Charlotte, it will not do,’ he said. ‘I blame myself for weakening. I should have let you be. Let us preserve our friendship and our common interests, not throw all away for the sake of a delight which could destroy the pair of us. We have no future together, Charlotte.’

She was thoughtful, feet on the fender, cheek propped on one hand.

‘It is not even a question of the two of us,’ he said awkwardly. ‘There are your children to consider. There is your family, who would not welcome me as your husband. And Millbridge, I fear, would doubly detest us — we offend them separately as it is. I can say, “Go hang yourselves!” as far as I am concerned, but I cannot say it for the three of you whom I must cherish. And if we had children of our own, Charlotte, what hostages we should be offering to fortune. No, marriage is out of the question.’

Her old spectres rose before her: the grief and disruption caused by her love-affair with Toby, the terror of imprisonment for debt or treasonable acts, the pinpricks of social snubs and cold shoulders, the ultimate fear that Ambrose and Cicely would suffer through her and their young lives be stunted.

‘Yes, I agree. The acceptable answer to our situation is unacceptable,’ she answered as lightly as she could. Then, like Jack, she turned to the papers lying on her parlour floor, and sought solace from them. ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I had such an idea for your society!’

‘Then tell me of it,’ he said kindly, and endeavoured to help her turn the conversation on to matters which would once have been of prime importance.

‘For some little while,’ Charlotte began, her voice growing stronger as she became engrossed in her project, ‘I have felt I should use what teaching ability I possess, since Ambrose’s education is now in your care and there is only Cicely. And that great mouthful of a title for the Manchester centre made me think to further the education of working people. I had thought, though folk will say it is very odd, of using the back parlour as a schoolroom one or two evenings a week. I can take a dozen people in a class, and teach them to read and write. I know,’ she added hastily, ‘that I am but scratching the surface, for there are hundreds in the valley who would like to learn and cannot be taught, but it is a beginning.’

The schoolmaster in him saw infinite possibilities.

‘Mrs Longe,’ he cried, forgetting their new intimacy, ‘I think it a splendid notion. You have given a lead which the grammar school can follow. I have two young masters there (of my own political persuasion) who would also take an evening class, every week, and our facilities are greater than your own. We must form a committee. We must have a name for this new social venture!’

And he walked the room in his excitement, and threw up his arms in a gesture-both clumsy and touching, as though his body would not contain him. Charlotte smiled, and then laughed, crying, ‘That is not all!’

‘My — dear — Mrs — Longe,’ he said, sinking slowly back into his armchair. ‘My dear Charlotte! What an astonishing woman you are!’

‘Mr Ackroyd, “The Society for the Furtherance of Literacy among the Working People” if I may so call it, though sufficient in itself, will serve another purpose besides. (Yes, my dear sir, we
need
that monumental title to convince folk that our morals are pure and our aims charitable.) Jack, there may be held meetings within these meetings, a committee within this committee, a society within this society. Do you not see? Outwardly, both of us are behaving much as they expect. We have radical sympathies, but they come out in this harmless fashion. We may thus rouse Millbridge’s amusement or annoyance but not their suspicion and hatred.’

He sat, faintly smiling, seeming to look right through her.

‘You have a devious mind, Mrs Longe,’ he observed, ironic, affectionate.

Charlotte gave a little shrug, and smiled directly back at him.

‘Well, sir,’ she said ruefully, ‘I want to do what I feel is right. And I should not like to be hanged for it!’

He was very bright, very quick, drawn in on himself, thinking. His eyes were clear and cool, his whole demeanour changed.

‘I fear,’ he said slowly, ‘that however careful, even cunning, we are, we both risk that in the end, Lottie.’

They enjoyed a silence of complete accord. Even the risk, shared, was nothing compared to the possible achievement.

‘Should you like me to act as secretary?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘To either?’

‘Would you, Mrs Longe? To both!’

‘Yes, sir, with the greatest pleasure in life.’

‘You see, we could enlarge this society, both in itself and in its radical heart,’ he cried, running on ahead of her. ‘I would — I think it best it should seem to come from me — begin with the evening classes at the grammar school, and you could take others here as a sort of branch meeting. Do you see, Charlotte? Then we enrol members of our persuasion throughout the valley. It does not matter how long it takes us, if we are growing steadily. Branch upon branch of the teaching society, and within each branch — as you said — a nucleus of committed Radicals, who can use the society as cover. Dear God, it is bigger and better than I dreamed off.’

She sat smiling, her hands in her lap, her papers all about her.

‘We must be careful, and we must evolve,’ Jack continued, pacing the parlour, throwing up his arms from time to time in that strange, moving gesture. ‘No impatience. No slogans. No violence. Simply an organisation that runs like clockwork. Quiet, efficient and effective. Mrs Longe, I salute you!’

‘Now, sir, I have chose — with your permission — the name of our teaching society. What shall you call your inner centre?’

‘Well, let us be both simple and colourful, Mrs Longe!’ he cried. Then, snapping his fingers, ‘As Yorkshire lights up “The Black Lamp”, should we not grow “The Red Rose”?’

They put their arms about one another, laughing, triumphant. The laughter gradually became a peaceful smiling silence, the triumph a delicious languor. He stroked her hair as though it were something very fine and precious, and she was emboldened to take up the subject they had let drop.

‘Jack! When I lived in London, the last three years at least, I learned how to avoid … well, Toby and I had no more children. It is nothing new,’ she hurried on, for she felt him withdrawing from her, ‘the practice has been known among middle-class families in France for thirty years. Jeremy Bentham mentioned it recently. At least,’ she persisted, ‘we could have something of a life together.’

‘What? Creeping furtively across the High Street?’ he cried, more wrathfully than he felt, but he had never been able to deal with emotions.

‘How else are you proposing to conduct your secret society?’ she answered, genuinely angry and deeply hurt. ‘Why should a political organisation be so moral, and a personal union be dubbed furtive? Oh, you are detestable!’

And she fairly pushed him away from her. She could have wept with mortification.

His colour rose. His face changed. He stood before her, bowed in remorse, helpless to mend this error of judgement.

He decided to be truthful, since he had failed to be diplomatic.

‘You have chosen the most maladroit fool in Millbridge, Charlotte,’ he said gravely. ‘Pray forgive me.’