by Jean Stubbs
‘Aye, well, I told you how it would be!’ said Sam, picking his teeth reflectively. ‘You can take an impartial view if you want to, but no one will thank you for it. You’ll end up, as you did in this case, like the meat in the sandwich. Now the likes and dislikes of the radical press never affected our sales. Our readers are dependable.’
‘Our sales weren’t affected, either,’ Ambrose replied shortly. ‘We cater for thinking people who see both sides of the question!’
They had made their points for the thousandth time.
‘Have a jam roly-poly on me,’ Sam said, as his own portion came to the table. ‘They’re very tasty.’
Ambrose nodded and poured them another glass of claret each.
‘So what are you going to do about our George?’ Sam asked.
‘I’m getting him transferred to Millbridge Jail if I can, while he awaits trial. Then I can deal with things on the spot.’
‘Oh, you should manage that,’ Sam remarked ironically. ‘Being such a law-abiding and influential citizen as you are these days!’
As with all radical movements, the fortunes of the Chartists had fluctuated according to the economic climate. In the bitter winter of 1840 hidden cases of firearms were discovered in the Spinning Yarn, that old rebels’ haunt on Swarth Moor. Whereupon the landlord was severely questioned and revealed the names of half a dozen local men who were promptly arrested.
The affair was over in a matter of days, without further trouble. And George, who had been unaccountably absent during this time, turned up looking as if he had been sleeping in straw. He did not venture any explanation, and Ambrose did not need to ask any questions. George had evidently reached some conclusion on his own, and was following it up.
For a couple of years afterwards, as if aware that they had sailed a little too close to the wind, Chartists became peaceable, respectable. In the valley’s parks, local members stood on wooden boxes of a Sunday and spoke like parsons of the brotherhood of man. Flawnes Green Teetotallers Association joined them. One Chartist was elected a member of Millbridge Council, and did an honest job until he was quietly voted out again.
In this milder climate, George begged a private interview with Ambrose in order to admit his allegiance to the cause and to say that he was proud of it. He also said that if Ambrose objected to his association with the Chartists — on account of Fergus O’Connor being rude to him — he was prepared to leave his niche at Middleton Street that very day. No offence meant, and none taken, but that was the principle on which he stood, and he wouldn’t change it for nobody.
‘Oh, shut up and get out, George!’ Ambrose had told him, with great good-nature. ‘You can swear allegiance to the devil as far as I’m concerned. It’s your life, man, not mine.’
George hovered indecisively for a moment, and then turned on his heel and went.
But in the summer of 1842, as the Plug Riots spread across Lancashire into the West Riding of Yorkshire, Wyndendale had suffered its own brief revolt. For two days, all the cotton-mills were stopped by workers pulling the plugs out of the boilers, so that steam-powered looms could not operate. Strikers picketed the iron mill gates. Bands of workers marched down the main streets bearing placards.
Ambrose was greatly relieved to see that George stuck to his post throughout the disturbances. He even dared mention the fact, wondering whether the flame of Chartism was burning low, but George dashed this hope immediately.
‘Nay, this is nowt to do wi’ t’Chartists, cousin. This is working folk driven to do summat by theirselves, because they’re clemmed. And I’d have marched wi’ them if I hadn’t got other responsibilities, but I dursen’t get involved as it is.’
Ambrose, relieved and surprised, under the impression that he was referring to his ties with Middleton Street, retired to his office with his mind at rest. This pleasant delusion was shortly to be shattered by the arrival of two police constables with orders to arrest George Howarth.
‘But I can produce twenty witnesses, who will tell you that he was here throughout the rioting!’ Ambrose cried indignantly.
‘Yes, sir. But he’s a regular known Chartist. He’s treasurer of the local group. And we’ve been given orders to fetch in everybody that might have an interest in public demonstrations.’
‘I didn’t know he was their treasurer!’ cried Ambrose, struck by the incongruity of the idea.
The constable interpreted this as a cry of outraged dignity, and replied soothingly.
‘Well, you’re not to blame for that, sir. You never know who to trust these days, do you? You’ll be asked to give evidence, of course, seeing as you employ him.’
‘I’ll give evidence all right!’ cried Ambrose, infuriated. ‘Both in court and in the columns of this newspaper. He has done no wrong. And I want to speak to him before you take him away.’
‘Whatever you say must be said in front of us, sir,’ said the constable respectfully.
And all Ambrose could think of, as George limped into the office and stared at the three men, was, ‘I couldn’t help you, George.’
His cousin’s steadfast gaze forgave him his inadequacy.
George said practically, ‘Under my mattress upstairs, you’ll find an old stocking, cousin. The money in it belongs to the Association.’
‘Everything will be all right, George. Don’t you worry.’
He watched him limp off between the two tall policemen: cap set squarely on his head, muffler tucked inside the breast of his jacket, though the day was warm.
‘I’ll speak up for you, George!’ he cried.
But George never turned round.
He was sentenced to six months’ hard labour in a House of Correction, from which he emerged silent and subdued. Later that spring, he made his choice between Ambrose and the Chartists and took his leave of Middleton Street. Though they heard news of him now and again, there had been silence for the space of five years, until this letter came asking for help.
Ambrose sat on a hard chair in the visiting room at Millbridge Jail, waiting for George to appear. Obviously, those who designed this meeting place had no intention of making prison life inviting. The walls were varnished with dark-brown paint. The flagged floors were uncarpeted, the small barred windows uncurtained. Even the air seemed to have been imprisoned and sentenced for life.
The building had been twice enlarged since Charlotte Longe was brought here back in 1812, on a charge of treason. And the number of cells had increased considerably since Ambrose was pitched into one of them on his first charge of printing and distributing a seditious newspaper, back in 1824.
Enlarged but not improved, Ambrose reflected. There was simply more scope for it to be inhospitable.
A burly warder brought his cousin in, handcuffed as though he were some particularly desperate criminal, and George limped gamely beside him. His hair had turned grey, but a sparse and dusty grey, not the distinguished steel of Ambrose’s uncovered head.
With some difficulty, the warder manoeuvred himself and his prisoner into a couple of chairs at the other side of the deal table, and addressed himself to Ambrose.
‘You can talk about the family and that, but no politics, no secret signs, and no speaking in a foreign language.’
Good God, Ambrose thought, what fools they must think we are. What fools they must be themselves. Imagine trying to give a secret sign in full view of a watchful third party. Think of talking sedition in French and hoping to get away with it.
Aloud, he said, ‘I quite understand. Hello there, George.’
George Howarth’s shoulders were bowed. His mouth was set in a thin, sad line. But his eyes blazed out for an instant. He repeated the phrase he had used when he came out of hospital fourteen years ago.
‘Well, cousin, I’m back.’
‘I’m glad to see you,’ said Ambrose. ‘I’ve been looking into your case. I’m afraid you’re an inveterate offender with a long record, George, but at least you weren’t carrying arms. I’ll do what I can.’
‘You’re not allowed to talk about his case!’ said the warder.
George ran his tongue over his lips and spoke quietly.
‘It’s family news as I want to talk about, sir.’
The warder nodded and looked hard at Ambrose, who made a great show of feeling for his handkerchief, clinked some loose change together inside his back pocket, and looked meaningfully back.
‘Just keep it personal, so’s I can follow what you’re talking about,’ said the warder, understanding, ‘and you’re all right for fifteen minutes.’
George dropped his eyes, ashamed.
‘Well then, get on with it!’ said the warder, nudging him.
‘I made some good friends in Wigan, cousin. A miner and his wife. They took me in when I come out o’ prison for the second time. They made a home for me, as I haven’t had a home in years. I were uncle to their children. I could allus go back there, no matter what, and know as I was welcome. I was one o’ them.’
Here he wiped his eyes with the cuff of his left sleeve.
‘Well, he were killed in a fall at the mine, last summer. I felt I were obliged — nay, that’s not the right word! — I were there and they needed me. I had a choice to make. I could go on wi’ the Chartists as I had been doing or look after Alf’s family. It were a hard choice, cousin, but I had to do what seemed right. I got a job at the coal face. I’ve been keeping them as best I could — but my best these days ain’t much! And I’ve been keeping out o’ trouble, too, as best I could — and I don’t seem to have done so well at that, neither! Cousin, I were only standing there, and they come up and arrested me.’
Ambrose was experiencing all the emotions that George managed to arouse in him at once: astonishment, reverence, amused disbelief and sinking dismay. However, he accepted this new development, as he accepted all else about his cousin, as being somehow necessary.
‘And that were why I asked you to come to Wigan,’ George added simply, ‘because that’s where they are. Up here, I don’t know what’s happening to them, and Norah don’t know what’s happening to me.’
Ambrose had the same sensation of failure he had felt when he had made the pun about Prospect Mine in his article, and unwittingly told the bully boys where to find his cousin.
‘Now I have to ask summat of you as I wouldn’t ask for myself,’ George continued, ‘but if I canna fend for them, someone else must. Cousin, will you see them right for money while I’m here? I’ll pay you back when I get out, somehow.’
Now Ambrose came to life again, for this he could do. ‘Good God, of course I will. I’d thought of that already. No need to pay me back, George. I shall consider it a privilege to help. How many children are there?’
‘Only two. A grand little lad, going on eight, and a bonny little lass nigh on five years old. Like your Jack and your Jessie. But if there’d been ten of them,’ said George stoutly, ‘it would ha’ made no difference to me.’
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t!’ said Ambrose, and wanted to laugh, and wanted to cry. ‘Would twenty-five shillings a week be all right?’
‘Eh, they’ll be better off without me than wi’ me on that!’ said George ruefully.
‘Right you are, George! Now I can’t do much about having you transferred back to Wigan, I’m afraid — it was a hell of a lot of trouble moving you here!’ He caught the warder’s eye and hurried on. ‘If you’ll give me the name and address, I’ll go and see…?’
‘Norah! Norah Howarth. I married her, you see.’
Ambrose’s mouth opened and shut.
He said, ‘I thought you hadn’t much time for marriage, George.’
‘Well, it seemed only right. Once folk had got over Alf being killed, they started to talk. She’s a grand woman is Norah. I weren’t going to have her name bandied about on account o’ me.’
Ambrose copied the address down carefully in his notebook.
‘Time’s up!’ said the warder, tired of the interview.
‘Oh, by the way, where is your prison charity box?’ Ambrose asked, turning to him and speaking casually, courteously. ‘I have something to contribute.’
He stared round the hostile little room.
‘I don’t see it for the moment!’ he remarked.
He took a sovereign from his pocket and placed it on the table.
‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to slip this in for me?’
The warder palmed the sovereign and said in a conciliatory tone, ‘I’ll see to it, sir. Now, I’ve got to take him back fairly soon. Was there anything else before he goes?’
‘Five minutes more?’ Ambrose asked, eyebrows raised.
The nod promised him just five minutes.
He unhooked his pocket-watch and set it on the table before them so he could mark time passing, then addressed himself to his cousin.
‘Now, George, why shouldn’t I bring Norah and the children up here? We could settle them in your old rooms at Middleton Street.’
‘What, leave all her folks and friends and come among strangers?’ cried George. Then his face changed, and he said, ‘Well, there’s not a lot o’ choice, is there? I know she’d be safe near you. And you canna go to and fro-ing to Wigan every five minutes. Put it to her, wilta?’
‘We’ll talk it over between us, and do what she feels best,’ said Ambrose gently. ‘And I had an idea about a job for you when you come out. A few of your old friends in the movement are opening one of those new Co-operative stores in Lower Town, in Newmarket Street, next year. I made enquiries, and they’d be glad to have you. Really glad. A lot of people like you, George. Remember that. And their aims are excellent. Good quality food at the lowest possible prices, and a dividend paid to each customer from the profits.’
‘Aye, I know that. It’d be honest work. But I canna hump sacks.’
‘No, but you could weigh up goods and serve behind the counter.’
George’s face reflected conflicting emotions. Relief and sadness, gratitude and disillusionment. He had risked all of himself and lived out his deepest beliefs, in order to come back to his beginnings and serve in a Co-operative shop.
‘I haven’t no choice, have I?’ said George frankly.
‘Well, it will do until something better turns up,’ said Ambrose quietly, understanding him too well to feel piqued by the reply.
Several seconds of that dearly bought time ticked away. Then George lifted his head and smiled at Ambrose.
‘Nay, I’d have to be a Turk to complain o’ your goodness to me, cousin,’ he said in his old warm way. ‘It’ll all be the same in a hundred years’ time! I did what I thought were right, and I did what I wanted, and I’d do the same again. I’ve got nowt to complain about.’
He had forgotten the warder, the prison, even Ambrose. His eyes were very blue, scanning some far horizon they could not see. Chartism had failed him. He was hobbled by a wife and two children, whom he might not see for a year or two. He was nearly forty, and prison would not improve the health of a man who was no longer robust.
And yet, observing him, Ambrose could imagine George working for the Co-operative movement in a store as he had worked for The Correspondent at Middleton Street: willing, friendly, living mainly inside himself. He would weigh out the butter and flour and cheese, remember all the customers’ names and have a word and a smile for everybody, but the deepest part of him would be resting and healing itself ready for the next move, whatever that might be.
And whatever it was, Ambrose thought, shaking George heartily by the hand, he would not complain.
He nodded benevolently upon the warder as upon one he would bribe many times, and the warder nodded curtly back. In one way, they understood each other better than either of them would ever understand the little man standing between them.
‘You’re the last of the knights errant, George! Did you know that?’ Ambrose cried, as his cousin was escorted away.
‘The last of the knights errant!’ Ambrose repeated to himself quietly.
Then he h
ooked his watch back on to its chain, picked up his silk top hat, clapped it on one side of his head, and left the room to glower by itself.
TWENTY-SEVEN: A CRUEL TASKMASTER
September, 1848
The atmosphere in the council chamber at Millbridge Town Hall was a-flutter with consternation, as Jamie Standish strode up and down the room haranguing them, with his hands clasped behind his coattails. He was always hard on them, but had they known he was going to behave as outrageously as this they would never have allowed him in.
‘You have learned nothing from experience!’ Jamie was shouting. ‘You always do too little, and too late!’
He paused and threw down a document before the Mayor, which skimmed perilously close to the end of that gentleman’s nose.
‘This communication, sir, which I received over a week ago — and which I have not so far been allowed to debate with you personally — is a death warrant to the poor people of Millbridge!’
He resumed his pacing, breath coming short and fast. He was so angry he could have hit the fellow.
The letter lay half-open on the long table. It was an official notice from the council that all the money in the Public Sanitation Fund had been spent. Until further meetings were held, and new financial arrangements agreed, they regretted that the new sewerage and drainage system could not be extended beyond the Cornmarket, and that the plans to build new reservoirs for a better supply of filtered water must be postponed.
Jamie Standish reached the window and automatically threw it open to allow fresh air into the room. Forty-six years ago, his great-uncle had flung up every window on a hot summer day, to see if the stink from the street would drive the council’s predecessors into laying down iron drainpipes instead of wooden ones. This afternoon the air smelled sweeter in the Old Town, and the weather was autumnal.
He spoke less forcefully now, and they listened because they were afraid of his temper and relieved by this more reasonable tone.
