The Reckoning (95 page)

She said nothing, still unsure of how seriously he meant her
to take him. Then his expression changed, to one of mingled amusement, reproach and kindliness.

‘
And as for you, Lady Chelmsford – Rosamund, what the
deuce are you doing?’

She was startled out of her self-possession. 'I – doing?
Nothing. Why, what do you mean? I'm not doing anything.'

‘
Coming it too thick and rare, my child. I saw you
yesterday fling yourself upon Farraline's lifeless body like Lady Anne in
Richard III.
And you forget that he and I are
friends. He tells me everything.'

‘
When you bully him into it,' Rosamund said indignantly.

‘
Well, yes, that's what I meant, to be sure. But, seriously,'
he reached out and took her hand, 'how can you have got
yourself into this muddle? It's not what I hoped for you, not
at all.'

‘
All very well shaking your head at me, but you yourself
promised to try and seduce me once I was a married woman.’

Did I? Oh villainous! But not so soon: you've only been
married two years. And besides, I am not Farraline, or rather,
he is not me. An affair with him is not to be taken lightly –
and I see that you do not.’

She looked at him for a moment, remembering the dinner
they had taken in the inn so long ago, and wishing they might be alone again like that, so that she could confide in him. And
yet what would she tell him? Nothing, probably, that he
didn't know for himself already. That bliss which Sophie had found in Jasper's arms, she had found in Farraline's: that was
all. The touch of his hands translated her; with him she
seemed to live with a greater intensity, as though every sense
were sharpened, every experience magnified. She remem
bered Hawker's telling her about his feelings for Fanny, how
he said that he had
devoured her.
Well, she devoured Farra
line, and there were only two paths she might follow from
here – to go on doing it, or to give him up. Which would Hawker recommend? She couldn't guess – and she didn't
much want to know.

‘
No. I suppose I don't,' she said at last. 'But if I am in a
muddle, it's one of my own making, and no-one else's respon
sibility.’

Hurried footsteps were coming along the hall: they were
about to be interrupted. Hawker pressed her hand briefly and withdrew his. 'Very well; but if you ever need a friend – and
I'm persuaded you will, sooner or later – remember you can
call on me at any time.’

The door opened, and Sophie appeared, her face wreathed
in smiles and flushed with excitement.

‘Oh Ros,' she cried, 'guess who's here?’

There was no need to guess, for as she spoke another figure
appeared in the doorway behind her, dusty and rumpled as
though from a long journey, his pale hair tousled, his rather
protruberant eyes jumping straight to Rosamund and
scanning her face with as much uncertainty as delight.
Hawker was saddened, seeing how unsure Chelmsford was
that his wife would welcome his arrival.

‘
Marcus!' she said. 'What are you doing here?' It was not
precisely unwelcoming, but it was not rapturous either.
‘I missed you,' he said, ‘so I thought I'd come and see how you are. But what about this riot you've had in Manchester? I
heard about it at the inn last night. Are you all right?'

‘
Of course. Don't I look all right?' Rosamund said. ‘Mr
Hawker will tell you about it. He knows everything that went
on, and he'll explain what it all means, too. He sees it as a
sign of the ending of civilisation.'

‘
How you do exaggerate, ma'am! Pay no attention,
Chelmsford – your wife is in a mischievous mood. How are
you?'

‘
How d'e do, Hawker,' Marcus said, still a little bewildered.
‘I wasn't expecting to see you here.'

‘
Well I wasn't expecting to see you here,' Rosamund said.
‘Have you abandoned your quest for a country seat?'

‘
Oh — no — not at all. In fact, we think we've found one.
That was partly why I came to see you — to tell you all about
it. Mama thinks it will do very well, and I'm sure you'll like it.
When do you think you'll be able to come and see it?’

Hawker sighed and shook his head mentally at Chelmsford
for being so dim-witted as to sound wistful at that point. Such
pawkiness was not the way to handle a bold, high-spirited
mare: naturally enough, sensing his timidity, she kicked out.

‘
If you and your mother have already decided on it, it
won't signify whether I go and see it or not.' It was spoken
quite pleasantly, with a smile, but none of the four people in
the room had any doubt as to its real meaning.

Marcus flushed. 'Of course nothing has been decided,' he
said quietly. 'How could it, without you?’

Sophie couldn't bear it any longer, and intervened. 'I hope
you won't take Rosamund away immediately, cousin. I
expected to have her for at least four weeks. Now you're here,
I hope you will stay and let us shew you the pleasures of
Manchester. It can't compare with London, of course, but
we'll do everything we can to amuse you and make you
comfortable.’

The real warmth of her invitation was balm to him. He
turned to her and smiled uncertainly. 'I should like to stay
very much, if it doesn't upset your arrangements. My mother
and Bab have gone down to Brighton for a few weeks, so I'm
quite at liberty.’

It was unfortunate in its phrasing, and Hawker flicked a
glance at Rosamund, hoping she would resist the temptation
to use it against him. But she, too, had noted the difference
between Sophie's tone and her own, and did not desire to
shew herself up any further.

‘
Yes, do stay, Marcus,' she said smoothly. 'You can have no
idea how amusing Manchester can be. When all other enter
tainment fails, they put on a riot for our diversion! What a pity you didn't get here yesterday. It's all in this morning's
Observer,
however — let me get it for you.’

The paper was lying on the table under the window, and
she crossed the room to fetch it. Her back was thus turned on
Sophie and Marcus for a moment, but Hawker saw her face
as she went past him. It was stony, and she was chewing her
lip in vexation.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

 
The incident on St Peter's Fields acquired more notoriety than any of them, except perhaps Mr Hawker, would have
expected. The cynical title bestowed on it — The Massacre of
Peterloo — excited popular imagination, and the Radicals soon
enjoyed the support of the Opposition, who seized on it as a
lively stick with which to beat the Government. Crude poli
tical cartoons appeared in the newspapers, and there was a
great circulation of cheap and lurid engravings shewing caval
rymen with huge bristling whiskers and flashing swords
trampling their horses over heaps of hapless men and women.

It proved, cried the Whigs, that the Government was with
within ame-sace of imposing military rule on the once-free
peoples of England. This claim, fortuitously, coincided with
the arrival in England that autumn of the Duke of Wellington
and the Army of Occupation, coming home from Europe at
the end of their period of peace-keeping, which looked like a confirmation of the fell purpose.

The Government, however, held firm, regretted the suffer
ings incurred at Manchester, but praised the prompt, decisive
and efficient measures taken by the magistrates for the
restoration of public tranquillity. The alarm in Manchester
gave rise to six bills for the preservation of order which were
placed before Parliament in November. They were passed
with general acclaim in December, being so obviously sensible
that only determined opponents of the Government criticised
them. They were to prohibit drilling; to restrict the right to
bear arms; to regulate the right of public meeting; to simplify
the procedure for bringing cases to trial; to allow magistrates
to seize blasphemous or seditious literature; and to impose a
stamp duty on all newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets —
which would effectively eliminate the 'tuppenny trash' of the
radical press.

Whether it was the effect of the Six Acts, or of the bitterly
cold winter that followed, or of the revival of trade which
gradually brought the manufactories back into full operation, there were no more general disturbances. There was one inci
dent in February 1820, but it had the air of a left-over from
other days, a curious relic, like the Pentrich rebellion, of a
more violent past age.

It was the brain-child of one Arthur Thistlewood, who had
been imprisoned after the Spa Fields troubles in the year
sixteen, and was released from gaol just in time to hear about
the Peterloo Massacre. Bent on avenging its victims, he met
with a few of his friends in a loft above a stable in Cato
Street, off the Edgware road, and plotted to overthrow the
Government and seize London in the old manner, by blood
and violence. They were to begin with the murder of the
entire Cabinet, planning to burst in on a Cabinet meeting and
cut up the members with butchers' knives. Then they would
parade the heads through the streets on pikes to the Mansion
House, and there install Arthur himself as First President of
the Britannic Republic.

The plot was discovered, however, and Thistlewood and his
conspirators were arrested before they had ever left Cato
Street; and the incident caused almost as much amusement as
outrage. Thistlewood was plainly quite mad; and Sidmouth's
‘system' had averted the trouble most efficiently, with the aid
of informers. It gave the Government, moreover, the oppor
tunity to strike back at the Whigs through the radicals, whom
they had so often supported.

Meanwhile, public attention was able, gratefully, to turn to
the far more diverting subject of the Succession. In January
1820 there had been a double blow to the Royal Family. The
Duke of Kent, the healthiest, most sober-living of the princes,
had died suddenly on the 23rd, leaving his infant daughter
Alexandrina fourth in line to the throne, after her uncles, the
Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence
– who was still without a legitimate heir.

Six days later the baby's proximity to the throne took an upward leap as death came at last to release the prisoner of
Windsor: on the 29th, the mad old King, George III, went to
meet his final reward. The Prince Regent became King
George IV, and immediately fell desperately ill with pleurisy.
The strain of his corpulence and his way of life had under
mined his general health and stamina, and under this new
attack his life was despaired of. If he died, York would
become King, and then only the childless Clarence would
stand between Princess 'Drina and the crown.