The Reckoning (38 page)

‘Changed my mind?'

‘The last time we spoke, you were doubtful about accepting Chelmsford.'

‘Oh.' She glanced at him. 'It was you, partly. And a sort of
resignation to fate. And hearing myself giving advice to my
brother Aylesbury about doing his duty.'

‘Duty?'

‘
Something I imagine you know little about,' she said
teasingly. 'But it has given a great deal of pleasure to a great
many people, so I am satisfied.'

‘Even to Lady Barbara?'

‘
She wasn't best pleased at first — but then she discovered
that my "twenty thousand pounds" is actually a good sixty, so
she determined to overcome her dislike of me for her dear
son's sake. At least,' she added with a grimace, 'Chelmsford
House is big enough to hold us all without a squeeze. With a
little management, I may avoid meeting her more than once
or twice a week.'

‘
You mean to live in London, then?'

‘For the moment. Lady Barbara's anxious for Marcus to be
purchasing a country property – the family seat, you know –
but Mama agrees with me that there's no point until an heir is
on the way, and that,' she lowered her voice, though Moss
was a good distance behind them, 'I can assure you will not be
for a long time, if I can help it.’

Hawker restrained himself nobly from any of the rejoinders
he might have made. He said evenly, 'London is more agree
able for a young couple. And I suppose you can continue to go
down to Wolvercote when you feel in need of country air.'

‘
Yes. In fact, there is another plan afoot, which makes it
foolish to be buying an estate. Mama and Papa Danby plan to
take my brothers on a Grand Tour. They feel it would be
better for Aylesbury than the university, and since Mama has
never travelled abroad except to Vienna and Brussels, Papa
Danby wants to shew her all the splendours of Europe.'

‘
What an excellent idea,' Hawker said. 'How long do they
plan to be travelling?'

‘
Two or three years; and while they're gone, they want
Marcus and me to take care of things, so we shall have the
run of Wolvercote whenever we want it. And,' she added with
a grin, 'of Mama's horses. It breaks her heart to leave them
behind, even with me and Parslow to take care of them.'

‘Parslow?'

‘
Yes, I thought it would surprise you. It certainly surprised
Papa Danby! I don't think she's ever been parted from him
since he first came to her, and that must be twenty years ago.
But she decided the horses needed him more than she did. It
was an agonising decision!'

‘
Yes, I can imagine. Your mother riding or driving in the
Park, with Parslow in attendance, was one of the great sights
of the Season – like Mr Brummell strolling down Bond
Street. Ah, those golden times seem to be over, don't they?'

‘
One of the things Mama's looking forward to is to visiting
Mr Brummell when they get to Calais. She doesn't forget old
friends. She wrote to tell him what she planned, and asked if
she should bring him anything from home. He asked her for a
jar of snuff from Fribourg and Treyer, and a box of good
English writing-paper – so that he could "nourish friendship
and his nose at the same time". Doesn't that sound like him?'

‘
I dare say she will take many other things as well. She is
the most generous of creatures.’

Rosamund looked at him askance. 'You seem determined
to praise everyone this morning. But tell me, sir, what are you
doing here anyway? In England, I mean. I thought you had
some diplomatic post or other in Vienna.'

‘
I have been loaned by Castlereagh to Sidmouth, on
account of my special experience in Manchester, so I expect to
be in England for some time – probably until the situation is
resolved.'

‘Situation? What situation?'

‘
My dear Lady Rosamund, the State of Alarm! You surely can't be unaware of it, even if you are on the brink of getting
married.'

‘Oh – that!'

‘
Yes, that, as you so eloquently put it! Spa Fields in
December – the Hampden Clubs' delegates' meeting in
January – the Regent's coach attacked in February – Habeas
Corpus suspended on March the 3rd – the Seditious Meetings
Act passed on the 29th! You must have noticed that England
is seething with discontent, riot and conspiracy – that it is on
the brink of a revolution as bloody and convulsive as that of
1789?'

‘
Not precisely. It's only reformist nonsense, isn't it?' Rosamund said with a natural female contempt for anything to do
with politics.

Hawker threw back his head and laughed. 'Would that
women had the ruling of the world!'

‘
It would go on a lot better, I assure you,' she said firmly.
‘It would,' he agreed. 'But what on earth would men do
with themselves all the time?'

‘
Well, not march about the country with petitions, like
those wretched Blanketeers, at all events.'

‘
Oh, you did hear about that, then? And wretched they
were, too, the poor hungry dupes. But it was a clever notion,'
he said thoughtfully. 'If it had come off, there's no knowing
how far it might have gone. We got the ringleaders –
Bagguley and Drummond – but I wouldn't be surprised if
there hadn't been a better brain than either of theirs behind it.'

‘
Why? What was so clever about it?'

‘
Well, to begin with, the marchers were to set off in groups
of ten: there's no law to prevent small parties of unarmed
men walking to London, whereas a larger number would have
caused instant alarm. Then they were to keep on the move, so
that they could not be charged with obstruction, and to carry
their own blanket and provisions, so that they could not be
charged with vagrancy. It was well planned. They started
with a public meeting in St Peter's Fields – in Manchester,
you know. A peaceful meeting – and when they were ordered to disperse by the magistrates, they did so at once, because it
was exactly what they wanted to do. Clever, don't you think?'

‘
I suppose so,' she said blankly.

‘
And their petitions made no political demands, which
might have laid them open to charges of sedition – only a
request to the Prince Regent to remedy the wretched plight of
the cotton trade. There was nothing they could be charged
with, nothing at all. In fact when the Yeomanry took up a
couple of hundred of them outside Stockport, the magistrates
couldn't think what to do with them, and simply had to send
them home. But if it had come off,' he went on gravely, 'what then, eh? Six, seven hundred men, converging on the Capital,
gathering support as they went ... the six hundred peaceful
marchers growing into an army ... the impetus building ...
They might have taken London. Oh, it was a famous clever
scheme. We had a near miss of it, I can tell you.’

Rosamund looked sobered. 'I thought it was all nonsense,'
she said apologetically. 'I mean, what can people like that
want with the franchise? That's what this man Hunt and his
friends are demanding, isn't it? That every man should have
the vote? Weavers and dyers and chimney-sweeps and
coachmen and all.'

‘
Yes, that's right. Every man.'

‘
Even if they don't own any land. It's the sheerest folly.
And what do they want it for? What good do they suppose it
will do them?'

‘
Oh, the weavers and dyers and the rest of them don't
really want it. What they want is quite simple – more money
in their pockets, more bread in their mouths. It all stems from
hunger with them, you know. But there are those who have
persuaded them that if they have the vote, all else will natu
rally follow. Don't ask me how.' He shrugged. 'Only an idiot
or a madman would suppose that the Government can do
anything about such natural phenomena as famine and
plenty.'

‘
But what do these others want? The ones who are per
suading them?'

‘
Interest,' said Hawker simply. ‘To have your own Member of Parliament, to see that your Interest succeeds over the next
man's – that's what's at the bottom of it all.'

‘
Yes,' Rosamund said thoughtfully, 'your friend Mr Farraline said something of the sort. He wants a special assembly
for mill-owners.'

‘
I can only apologise for him. He's unsound on the subject of mills, but otherwise, you know, he's quite a decent fellow.
Except that he does seem to spend a distressing amount of
time talking to handsome young women about politics! His
time might be so much better employed.’

He grinned his vulpine grin at her, and she smiled dutifully
at his self-mockery. Then the grin disappeared. ‘So you are to
be wed in June,' he said speculatively. 'I wish it might be
sooner.’

She eyed him cautiously, not understanding his new drift;
and then remembered his words about her being interesting
to him as a married woman, and blushed.

‘Why do you say that?'

‘
Because, my dear Lady Rosamund, I should not like you
to be disappointed. These disturbances are not over, you know. Sidmouth has been gathering reports from various
sources for some time, and they all point towards a general
uprising, beginning in the north, this summer – we believe at
the end of May. I should not like to think your wedding might
have to be postponed a second time.’

She stopped and looked at him for a long moment, hardly knowing what to think. Was he serious? Was he teasing? An
uprising?
What had he said earlier – a revolution as bloody as
that of 1789? Her common sense protested. This was
England. Such things did not, could not happen here. Of
course, there had been that Spa Fields business, and food
riots and machine-smashing last autumn and winter in
various remote places. But a regular, organised revolution? It
was not likely. The English lower orders were not oppressed
like French peasants or Russian serfs; they weren't tortured or imprisoned or subjected to the arbitrary whims of feudal
overlords. How could revolution benefit them? It wouldn't
make a bad harvest good, or open closed factories and mines
to give them jobs.

‘No,' she said at last. 'I don't believe it.’

He had watched all the workings of her mind with a
sympathetic smile, and now he laughed. 'Good! That's the
stuff that has made England great! And in response, I promise
you that we shall do our best to avert it, or at least contain it.
I think we might do that. After all, only one of the Blanket
eers actually reached London; and we can always hope that it
will rain on the day. There's nothing so damping to revolu
tionary ardour as a good cold downpour.’