The Reckoning (15 page)

‘
Oh?' It was impossible to tell from such a small comment
how Héloïse felt about it.

Edward went on, 'He'd gone into hiding in Sherwood
Forest – very traditional of him, in a way. I must say I had
rather suspected he'd keep running north, away from the
scene of the crime, but when we flushed him out here it seems
he just went back home. I suppose in the end he didn't know
where else to go. It isn't likely a man of his order would have
friends in far-off places.'

‘How was he taken?'

‘
They were searching the woods anyway. The Nottingham Justices – Rolleston and Mundy and Sherbrooke and the like
– tend to be pretty vigorous about machine-breakers, and
they suspected a lot of them were hiding out in Sherwood.
They called on the militia and the yeomanry to flush the
woods, and Batty was one of those they rounded up.'

‘They knew him, then?'

‘
Oh yes. He was recognised at once. He's well-known in
those parts as a trouble-maker. He and a man called Bran
dreth were apparently among the ringleaders of the attack on
Heathcote and Boden's. They've caught the others, but this
Brandreth got away, which won't make them any more likely
to be lenient.'

‘What will happen to Batty – to all of them?' Héloïse asked.

‘
If they're convicted, they'll be hanged.' Edward met her
eyes steadily. 'It's important to make an example of these
people, just as we did in 1812.'

‘
Yes, of course,' said Héloïse. She remembered the execu
tions in York – not that she had attended them, but she
remembered the occasion, one of awful solemnity and large
public interest. The North Riding was not a troubled area,
and the magistrates, Edward amongst them, tended to be
more lenient with offenders than their colleagues in the
Midlands, or even in the West Riding. Even so, there were a
number of public executions every year for various crimes, ranging from murder to will-forging, and it was traditional
for parents to take along their children as an essential part of
their education: an object lesson, a salutary warning on the
consequences of wickedness.

She understood the necessity for such punishments intellectually, and particularly in the case of machine-breaking,
which could so easily turn into riot and revolution; but hang
ings always made her remember the mob from Marseilles who
in her youth had dragged men and women from their houses and hanged them from the lamp-posts. And she remembered
weaver Batty and his tear-filled eyes as he pleaded for his
brother, and imagined that brother hiding, trembling, in the
woods, listening to the beaters coming closer and closer. The
plain fact was that it always seemed different when you knew
the people involved.

Edward sat on the edge of the desk, evidently thinking she
needed further persuasion. 'There's a lot of concern at the
Home Office at the moment about public unrest. We've all –
all Justices – had a letter from Sidmouth telling us to be particularly vigilant, and to punish any trouble severely. It's all
this talk about reform. Such nonsense! What have the
common people to do with politics, I ask you? It makes me
fume when I think of them standing around in the tap-room of the Hare arguing about Government and franchise and so
on! And it can only lead to trouble. Oh, they're not revolu
tionary by nature, I grant you, but when they're got hold of
by unscrupulous people like this Henry Hunt – Orator Hunt
they call him – and Tom Batty and his kind, they can be
whipped up into misguided actions.’

Héloïse nodded understanding. 'Is there danger?' she asked
bluntly.

Edward frowned. 'There's no danger as long as they don't
band together. On their own, they're good people, most of
'em, and they just want to be left alone to get on with their
lives, like everyone else. But just now there are so many
people out of work, and hungry – that's a dangerous combi
nation. And if the harvest fails ...' He glanced out of the
window at the continuing steady rain. 'It's the organisers we
need to stop – the educated men who stir up the poor for their
own ends.'

‘
It was so in Paris,' Héloïse said quietly. 'The
bourgeoises
were the real revolutionaires. The poor were only their
weapon. Perhaps it is always so.'

‘
These Hampden Clubs, for instance,' Edward went on,
broodingly, 'I'd have banned 'em, if it were up to me.
Sidmouth's had reports that in some villages they're only
waiting for the signal from London to rise up. They really
believe there's going to be a march on the Tower, the palace
surrounded and the Government overthrown. And for what?
Do they really think a revolution will put more bread in their
mouths?'

‘
James says it can't happen here – in England, in York
shire.’

Edward was torn between the need to reassure her and the
desire to educate her. 'He may be right,' he said shortly.
‘There've been alarms before, of course, and they came to nothing. But since 1789 there's no real security anywhere.
England isn't France, but everyone knows it can happen. We've got to guard against that, and stamp out any little
flames before they become a forest fire.' He patted her arm
and stood up. 'Don't worry, though – we're quite safe here at
Morland Place. Our own people are true, thank God! You
won't come to any harm in this neighbourhood.’

Tiger yawned noisily, and thrashed his tail as an encou
ragement to the movement. 'I must be off,' Edward recol
lected. 'Compton's got a brace of poachers for me – caught
red-handed with their pockets full of my birds. Not local lads,
however – tramping men, so I understand. Probably Irish.'

‘Irish?'

‘
There's altogether too many of them around these days.
They come over to work in the manufactories in Lancashire,
and then when there's no work they wander all over the coun
tryside making a nuisance of themselves. I shall have this pair
flogged – maybe they'll spread the word to their friends to
keep away.' Tiger nudged him, and he touched the dog's head
thoughtfully, his mind wandering off on another track. 'You ought to have another dog,' he said. 'It was bad luck, losing
both of yours like that last winter, though of course Kithra
was an old dog, and Castor – well, distemper can strike any time. But you must miss having a dog at your heels. I know
I'd feel naked without one. Would you like a puppy? I've got some very promising whelps coming up now. I'd be happy to
start training one for you.’

Héloïse smiled. 'It's very kind of you, dear Ned, but I truly
don't think I have time at the moment for a dog. It would
have a very dull time of it, following me around the house.
Perhaps when things get easier –'

‘
Yes. Very well, just as you like. I just thought you might
feel lonely. You seem to be always on your own these days,
with Mathilde and Marie both gone.’

The wistfulness of his voice told her it was his own loneli
ness that had prompted these thoughts, though in his busy life
he probably had never time fully to be aware of it. The
distant sensation of emptiness had translated itself in his
mind to a concern for Héloïse's lack of companions.

‘
Of course I miss them,' she said, 'but I shall have Sophie
again soon, and Miss Rosedale.'

‘
Yes, of course. When is Sophie coming back? She seems to
have been gone for ever.'

‘
Soon. She'll be coming soon. Miss Rosedale writes very
comfortably of her, that her spirits are much raised by her
holiday.'

‘
Good. I miss her sweet face, and the music in the even
ings,' Edward said revealingly, and went away to interview
his poachers.

Left alone, Héloïse did not at once return to her books. Her mind was full of confused images, of poachers and peasants,
of weavers and orators, of the savage drunken
fédérés
from Marseilles and cold-eyed 'lawyer' Robespierre, of her
first dog Bluette and her last dog Castor, of her darling child
Sophie and poor dead Fanny. Troubled times indeed – and
yet when in her life had the times not been troubled? What an
age she had lived through! From the Revolution through
twenty years of war to a Peace filled with the threat of
upheaval and change ... She was not yet forty, but she had
been married for the first time at fourteen, and the cloistered
calm of her short childhood seemed many ages away.

And now there was one other image in her mind, as
disturbing in its way as any of the others – the image of a face, dark, handsome and male. Miss Rosedale, in her last
letter, had told her about Fitzherbert Hawker's sudden
appearance, and her conviction that he had been misjudged,
at least in relation to his sentiments for Fanny. But that was
not, of course, something that she would be able to speak of to Edward.

She sighed and picked up her pen again. Meanwhile, there
were still the accounts to be done, and she hadn't even
finished entering the heap of crumpled bills and receipts. Now
where would Father Aislaby have put the income from selling
surplus cheese made in the Morland Place dairy? Was that household income or estate income? The cows were estate property, but the dairy-maid was a household servant, and
the cheese was made originally for consumption in the house. On the whole, she thought it was probably household income.
And what about the piano-tuner? Did that come under
servants' wages? He wasn't, of course, a servant, but he was r
egular item in the budget. But then again ... After some
deliberation, and in her careful, curly, convent-taught hand,
she put the piano-tuner in under
sundries.

Miss Rosedale had succumbed to one of the tremendous colds
in the head which afflicted her from time to time, and since
she plainly couldn't keep the young ladies within doors for its
duration, she had been obliged to let them go out with only
Moss in attendance.

‘
Don't you worry, miss,' Judy Moss had said, torn between
offence and determination, 'I can keep an eye on 'em. They
won't get up to any larks with me on their heels, I can tell
you.’

Miss Rosedale emerged muzzily from a handkerchief for
long enough to say, 'The gentlemen –'

‘
Yes, miss,' Moss said stiffly. ‘If I can mind Lady Rosa
mund and Miss Sophie in a city full of officers like Brussels,
I'm sure I can take care of them in Scarborough.’

Miss Rosedale was feeling too awful to have the energy to
point out that two prowling wolves were far more dangerous
than a pack of noisy, frisking hounds. She must trust to her
charges' instincts of self-preservation.