The Reckoning (58 page)

‘
Oh dear, but a family quarrel is so distressing,' Héloïse
said.

‘
No-one will know about it,' Agnes said cheerfully. 'We'll
put about that I invited Pm because I wanted company, and
that's how it will be seen by the world.’

Héloïse doubted it, having regard to Agnes's volatile
tongue and the general contagiousness of gossip, but made no
comment on that.

‘
But won't your mother want her back as soon as she has –
got over the shock?' she asked tactfully.

‘
Oh no! Mama's wanted Pru out of the house for years, and
she'll only wonder why she never thought of it before. So
everyone's happy you see.'

‘Well, I'm glad of that,' Héloïse said, still doubtful.

‘
But now, ma'am, I came to beg a favour of you,' Agnes
went on. 'I know that Sophie doesn't want to go home just
yet, and I would dearly love to have her to stay with me. And
so would Prudence – you know how she dotes on Sophie. So
would you permit her to come to us when you go back to
Yorkshire? I'd take good care of her, you can be sure, and
take her everywhere, so you needn't be afraid; and when it
was time for her to come home, I'd send her in my own
carriage, with my own maid and man, so that you needn't be
at the trouble of fetching her.’

Héloïse hesitated, taken aback by the invitation. It was one
thing to have considered leaving Sophie with Mrs Pendlebury,
but Agnes was hardly a mature and responsible matron. Yet, on the other hand, though she was as dizzy a creature as ever
drew breath, she was very kind-hearted and perfectly respect
able. She looked at her daughter, and saw that Sophie was
wearing her heart on her face. Why does she want so much to
stay? Héloïse wondered uneasily. It could not be love, surely,
for all her suitors had deserted her; and she had never shewn
preference for any of them anyway. Could she still be
counting on Farraline's preference? He must come back to
Manchester to see to his mills sooner or later. Héloïse did not
believe he would renew his attentions to her daughter; but if
he did, he was a gentleman after all, and would never do
anything exceptionable, even if Sophie were only chaperoned
by Mrs Percy Droylsden.

‘
Do you really want to stay, my Sophie?' she asked at last.

‘
Oh yes, Maman, if you please!' Sophie said eagerly.

At least Prudence Pendlebury would be there too, Héloïse thought, and though she was unmarried, she had a great deal
of common-sense, and a strong understanding of propriety.
With Miss Pendlebury's guidance and good sense, Mrs
Droylsden's chaperonage might do very well.

‘
Then I think you may,' she said; and while Agnes and
Sophie were expressing their delight and satisfaction, she
suddenly wondered about the 'quarrel' which had resulted in
Prudence's taking up residence with her sister. Was it possible
that Agnes had engineered it for this very reason? If so, it
meant that Mrs Droylsden was much less dizzy than she
seemed — which, of course, was all to the good.

 
England had its revolution in that summer of 1817, though
few people knew about it at the time. And a very old-fash
ioned sort of revolution it was: an affair in the grand old style,
of marching men, pikes and pitchforks, shouts and running
footsteps and flaring torches in the dead of night.

Rosamund heard about it from Fitzherbert Hawker, who
had called to pay his respects to Lucy and Danby, but found
her alone at Upper Grosvenor Street. She was writing letters
of acknowledgement for wedding-presents, which were
arriving daily in a growing flood.

‘
Mama and Papa Danby are gone to Carlton House,' she
said. ‘Do sit down and talk to me. You can't think how dull
this task is! I shall be glad to be prevented from going on with
it for half an hour.’

So he told her about the Pentrich Revolution, which was all
that remained of the rising in the north the Home Office had
so long expected. The leader was Jeremiah Brandreth, who
had been suspected of fomenting other troubles in
Nottingham; but he was no reformist. As he sat in the White
Horse in Pentrich with a map spread before him, he did not
talk of franchise, manhood suffrage or annual parliaments.
He was only an unemployed stockinger, and his purpose in
wanting to overthrow the Government was simple, romantic
and impractical. His dreams and promises were all of beef
and bread and free rum, of a hundred golden guineas for each man who followed him to the storming of Nottingham Castle,
of the band of music which would welcome them there, and
the pleasure-trip up the River Trent that would follow.

‘
It's almost pitiful,' Hawker said. 'He believed all he had to
do was to overthrow the Government by force, and food and
drink and pleasure would automatically follow. As though the
Ministers of the Crown were holding down the lid on some
bottomless cornucopia which would otherwise spill over into
the hands of the poor! He kept talking about setting up a
provisional government, and it turns out he thought it meant
a government that would distribute provisions.’

This man Brandreth, who called himself the Nottingham
Captain, led his rebellion from a remote village in the
foothills of the Peak District. It was to open with an attack on
a local ironworks, for it was rumoured that a disaffected
worker had been secretly manufacturing ammunition, and
they hoped to seize it for their own use. During the night
Brandreth's council of war scoured the area, stirring farmers
and labourers out of their beds and herding them along the
tracks and over the commons to form a motley army, which
marched off through the dark, and drew up at last in the first
light of June the 10th before the gates of the Butterley
Foundry.

What was to have been the Battle of Butterley proved a
severe anticlimax. The manager of the ironworks, appearing at the gates, refused to shew the slightest fear of the ragged
assembly. Calmly he advised them to go home before they did
something that would condemn them to the rope; and so reso
lute was his manner that many of the rebels, who hadn't
much wanted to revolt in the first place, obeyed him. The rest
turned away, muttering sulkily, and began the long tramp
towards the Nottingham border.

‘
That was when the rain started,' Hawker said. 'I told you,
didn't I, that our weather would always prove the death of
revolution?’

Along the sunken Derbyshire lanes and past the deep corn
fields, in the drenching rain, the army tramped in sullen
silence. Soaked through, it grew more ragged by the minute, fraying at the edges as men slipped away through the hedges and across the fields to go home. Desperate to keep his band
together, Brandreth told them that Nottingham Castle had
already fallen, and even threatened to shoot deserters with his
own hand; but when they reached Giltbrook Hill and found
themselves facing the local magistrate, backed by a troop of
Hussars, the reluctant rebels threw down their pikes and bill
hooks and fled for their lives.

Brandreth and forty-six others were taken up, and were
imprisoned to await trial; and that was the end of the revolu
tion.

‘
But did they really believe they could overthrow the
Government?' Rosamund asked. 'Such a very small band?'

‘
They believed they were just part of a general rising – that
the whole of the north was to rise up at once and converge on
London, storm the Houses of Parliament, and seize the keys
of the Tower. It's quite certain that there was some plan of
the kind – it's been brewing up for the past year and more –
but fortunately, owing to the action of certain agents of Lord
Sidmouth, the rest of the would-be rebels were dissuaded
from putting the plan into action. It's Brandreth's misfortune
that he was stupid enough or passionate enough to go ahead
with it.'

‘
What will happen to him?'

‘
There'll be a state trial, and he'll hang, along with a few of the other ringleaders – enough to make an example. Probably some of the others will be transported or imprisoned, and the
rest will be let off with a caution. The heartening thing is how few of the rebels stuck it out to the end, and how quickly they
ran when faced with even a small band of soldiers. But it's
shocking that it happened at all, of course, and we're not out
of the woods yet – there's still a great deal of disaffection all over the country. However, the good thing is that it's brought
me to London to report, and given me the pleasure of seeing
you again – and of being able to assure you that your wedding
won't have to be postponed after all.'

‘
I never thought it would be,' Rosamund said.

Hawker cocked his head. 'Do I hear a note of regret, Lady Rosamund?'

‘
Certainly not,' she said firmly, though she coloured a
little. 'I am not being married against my will, you know. I'm
looking forward to it very much.'

‘
To the wedding, I don't doubt – everyone loves a
wedding,' he said provokingly. 'But what about afterwards?
And does Lady Barbara still mean to live with you?’

Rosamund gave him a clear look. 'You needn't worry
about that. At the moment I am hamstrung by my single
condition, but once I am married – well, I mean to be
mistress in my own house, I promise you.'

‘
Brava! I wish you a happy adjustment – and I look
forward with relish to hearing all about it. It should be a
bonny fight! Cribb and Molyneaux all over again.'

‘
Oh you're impossible!' Rosamund said, trying not to laugh.
‘I really should not listen – you say such improper things!’

He grinned. ‘So I'm told. But I do sincerely wish you well,
and I hope now we have the revolution out of the way that
nothing more happens to put your wedding at hazard.'

‘
We have had bad news lately,' Rosamund said. 'It won't postpone the wedding, but it means my sister, Lady Harvey
Sale, won't be there. Mama had a letter: the babies – her twin
daughters – have died.’

Hawker was instantly serious. 'I'm sorry to hear that. Is she
very much upset?'

‘
Yes, it seems so. It was some kind of colic, you know – one
of the usual infant ailments – but though they were so young,
she was very fond of them, and it must have been distressing
for her to see them suffer. Mama was of the opinion that as
they were only girls, it didn't much matter, and I dare say
Lord Harvey shares that view. But Minnie was adamant that
she wouldn't come to the wedding, and that means that Polly
won't either, of course.'