Sixpenny Stalls

by Beryl Kingston

  His precious collection was being thrown across the bed out into the terrible light of unforgiving day. His precious, private, candle-light collection. The Jolly Companion, The Man of Pleasure, The Garden of Delights. Books written by men, published by men, read by men. Books that no woman should ever, ever see. What was she thinking of?

  ‘How dare you!’ he shouted. ‘How dare you do this? These things are secret.’

  ‘I have known about them for as long as you have been reading them,’ she said coolly. ‘And if I am not mistaken these are the sort of books that Easter’s are accused of selling, if we are to believe the Evening Record.’

  ‘Don’t speak of it!’ he yelled. ‘Do you hear? This is unbearable.’

  ‘It is the time to speak of it,’ Mirabelle said implacably. ‘More than the time to speak of it.’

  ‘But it’s a secret!’ he shouted, beside himself with rage and fear. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘It is impossible to keep secrets,’ she said. ‘You should have learned that by now. There is always someone who knows. Now come, my dear, would it not be better to tell me what it is that frightens you so?’

  He closed his face against her, and his ears. ‘I am going to the Continent,’ he said. ‘Now. This very minute. As you do not appear to possess sufficient loyalty to accompany me I shall go alone.’ He would go to Paris, that was what he’d do, and find cousin Will.

  ‘You may run as far as you please, Edward,’ she said, ‘but the truth will out notwithstanding.’

  But he was already packing, hauling a suitcase from the cupboard and throwing clothes into it with abandon. I cannot stop him or help him, she thought. He must endure this on his own. And there was a poetic justice about the thought because he’d read those hideous books on his own. So she went back to preparing her salon.

  Cousin Will and Caleb Rawson had been back in Paris for nearly ten days, and Caroline’s letter, having followed her brother from city to city all across Europe had finally caught up with him. The envelope had been readdressed so often it was really rather impressive, but the contents irritated him.

  ‘A book!’ Will said, passing the letter across the table to Caleb. ‘What a fuss to make over a book! Dearly though I love her, Caleb, I really think she’ll have to manage this on her own.’

  ‘Aye,’ Caleb agreed. ‘We’ve more to do here than think on books.’

  There had been continual trouble in Paris ever since the end of May, when the new government called out the troops to prevent a strike, and the Attorney General and the Advocate General both resigned over it. The first democratically elected government had been a horrible disappointment, for although the revolutionaries in Paris had elected equally revolutionary deputies, to everyone’s surprise the new voters in the countryside had returned all the old guard, the very men who’d been opposing universal suffrage all their lives and who had no intention of allowing any further changes. Consequently the new Chamber found it almost impossible to govern. Money was scarce, food was expensive, and unemployment was worse than ever. And now the National Guard was on stand-by; there were troops all over the city and the barricades were going up again in the Place de la Bastille and across the Rue St Denis and the Rue St Martin just as they had been in February. It was no time to be thinking of going home.

  ‘I will answer her tonight,’ Will said, putting the much scrawled envelope into his writing desk. Meantime there were other more important things to attend to. He gave Tom instructions to keep all the servants within doors once the marketing was done, and then he and Caleb set out for the barricades in St Antoine.

  It was a beautiful summer’s day. The sky over the boulevards was as blue as a thrush’s egg and the air was balmly. Quite the wrong sort of weather for a battle, but there was no doubt at all that a battle would begin sooner or later. The rich families had already fled and their fashionable streets were empty of everything except stray cats and sparrows; most shop windows were shuttered with iron; there were no omnibuses and very few cabs; and troops were on guard at every bridge and every public building. The smell of fear was everywhere, potent and alarming and rank as river water.

  When they reached St Antoine they saw that the new barricade at the Rue St Martin was over ten feet high and still growing. It was a solidly built wall, buttressed by torn-up cobble-stones and constructed around four carts set on their sides to provide protected firing positions, and it would have been impossible to scale without the ladder that their revolutionary friends swung over the side for them. The men of St Antoine had obviously been hard at work all night, and not surprisingly some of them were snatching a few hours’ uncomfortable sleep among the rubble, but there were still gangs digging a trench in the roadway in front of their fortification, and according to their leader, a solid-looking factory hand called Jean-Jacques, there were others inside the buildings on either side of the road breaking gaps through the walls between the cellars so as to provide an underground escape route from house to house.

  ‘We are miners, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘Engineers for the Revolution. Come and see.’

  And certainly the men they found wielding pickaxes down in the dark and dirt of the cellars looked very much like miners, stripped to the waist and streaked with sweat and coaldust.

  They were glad to stop work for a moment or two and answer Will’s questions, and they seemed very well informed, telling their two visitors exactly where all the newly arrived troops were to be found: ‘Two squadrons of cavalry in front of the National Assembly, messieurs; a squadron of dragoons bivouacked before the Hotel de Ville, with several companies of the line, we cannot be sure how many for they still arrive; a battalion stationed in the courtyard of the Prefecture of Police, as you would expect.’ They’d even heard a rumour that there were infantry men billeted in the hall of the National Assembly itself.

  As Jean-Jacques said, ‘The preparations are formidable, messieurs.’

  ‘Then you expect to see action today?’ Will asked.

  ‘No monsieur, not today. The troops still arrive and there is more cavalry to come. The ramps are still down in the Gare du Nord.’

  ‘When do you think it will be?’

  ‘Soon, monsieur. Very soon.’

  ‘In that case,’ Will said to Caleb as they walked away from the barricade, ‘I’ll write this up straight away.’ There was a café just around the corner. He could go there.

  Caleb had an article to deliver to the offices of the Citizen. ‘I shall be back in an hour,’ he said.

  Caleb arrived with a newspaper tucked under his arm and his face signalling news even before he’d walked into the café and sat down at Will’s table.

  ‘Read that,’ he said, pushing the paper across to his friend. It was Mr Jernegan’s story. ‘Easter’s to be sued for sale of lewd book.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Will said. ‘Poor Carrie. Then it is serious. No wonder she wrote to me. What am I to do, Caleb? I ought to go home. Could I travel to London and be back before they start fighting, do you think?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘I ought to go back, you know. She is my responsibility. Always has been.’

  ‘She has a husband, I think.’

  That was true, Will thought, but the postscript on her letter had made him wonder whether they were still living together. ‘Yes,’ he said, agreeing because this wasn’t a doubt to be discussed with a stranger. ‘But I still feel responsible. I’ve looked after her ever since she was a little girl you see, Mama having died.’

  ‘If you like,’ Caleb offered suddenly, ‘I could travel for you.’

  ‘Would you, Caleb? That’s extremely kind of you.’

  ‘I’ve been ten years on t’ road back to England,’ the weaver said wryly. ‘High time I crossed t’ Channel, I should say.’

  ‘But don’t you want to stay here and see the battle?’

  ‘I’ve seen too many battles in my time,’ Caleb said. ‘And most of them ended in defeat for t’ poor. I used to relish battles when I were
young. Nowadays …’ He shrugged. ‘Besides which,’ and he paused as though what he was about to say pained him, ‘I was unkind to your mother once, I’m sorry to say. I’ve regretted it since, when it was too late. Now here’s a chance to make amends.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you being unkind to anyone,’ Will said. ‘And I’m sure you can’t have been particularly unkind to Mama or I should have noticed it.’ What an odd creature this man was. He seemed to have forgotten that Mama was a lady. As if a weaver could be unkind to a lady.

  ‘Happen,’ Caleb said vaguely. There was a group of men walking up the road towards the barricade, all of them bristling with guns. No, he really didn’t want to see another bloodletting.

  ‘If you could just call in on her,’ Will said, ‘and explain what is happening here. Tell her I will come home as soon as ever I can. I will pay your fare, of course.’

  ‘Nay lad, you’ll do no such thing,’ the weaver said with great pride. ‘I pay my own way in the world. Always do, always have done.’

  So as Edward was crossing the Channel in one direction, Caleb Rawson was crossing it in the other, going home to England at last after an absence of twenty-three years and not at all in the way he’d planned. He’d hoped to return to friends and colleagues, to pick up his old life and work for the cause, to see his Harriet again, and now none of those things were possible, for his friends were scattered, the cause was cold, and Harriet was dead. If he hadn’t been a resolutely cheerful man it could have been a sad home-coming. As it was, he found himself lodgings, had a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, and set off to Bedford Square to help Will’s sister. ‘Call in at breakfast time,’ Will had advised, ‘then you’ll be sure to catch ‘em before they all go rushing off to work.’

  Caroline and Euphemia and Nan were still at table when the butler announced his arrival. ‘A person in the hall says he’s come to see you. From Paris, so he says, with a message from Mr Will.’ His expression showed his disbelief and disapproval.

  ‘Ask him if he wouldn’t mind waiting for a few minutes,’ Nan instructed. ‘Then show him to the parlour. We will join him there presently.’

  ‘I’m in no mood for visitors,’ Caroline said, which was plain from the goblin expression on her face. ‘Not this morning with all these dreadful things in the papers.’ The scandal was spreading alarmingly and the popular papers had all written scathing articles that morning.

  ‘It en’t his fault, poor man, whoever he is,’ Nan said, as she led them out of the breakfast room. ‘And if he’s come from Will he ought to be welcomed.’

  But that didn’t protect him from the sharp edge of her granddaughter’s tongue.

  He was standing beside the parlour window looking out at the square, but he turned as soon as he heard Nan’s hand on the door and walked towards them eagerly. ‘Mrs Easter ma’am, your servant. Caleb Rawson. We met many years ago in Rattlesden.’

  The sight of him gave Nan a palpable shock. My heart alive, she thought, the weaver. Harriet’s weaver. After all these years. It was like greeting a man come back from the dead. But worse, for this man brought a secret with him, and it was a secret that could hurt them all, even more terribly than this affair of the pornographic books. My dear heart alive! What a thing to happen. But she kept calm and introduced Euphemia and Caroline as though this were an ordinary social call.

  ‘You have a message from Will, I believe,’ she said when they were all seated in the customary circle in the middle of the room.

  ‘He said to tell you he’ll return as soon as he can,’ the weaver told them. ‘There’s a deal going on in Paris at present or he’d have come home sooner.’

  ‘Aye,’ Nan said, ‘we’ve read of it.’

  ‘Is he well?’ Euphemia asked, and was relieved to be told that he was.

  Caroline set her face and said nothing. She knew her brother had work to do in Paris and that she’d told him herself that she would understand if he couldn’t return, but she felt deserted, even so.

  ‘Are you still a weaver, Mr Rawson?’ Nan asked.

  ‘No, ma’am. I’m a reporter, like your grandson. Before that I’ve been a sail-maker, infantryman, seaman, meat-porter, jack of all trades.’

  ‘The last I heard you were on your way to Australia.’

  ‘Van Diemen’s Land, ma’am. For seven years.’

  Is he going to admit that he was transported? Nan wondered. Why, that would be foolhardly. Especially with Caroline in her present mood. And she decided to stop him before he could run such a risk. ‘Tell us about the situation in Paris,’ she said. ‘Is it as bad as the papers say?’

  So he told them as briefly as he could, and found that he was talking to Mr Easter and Euphemia, because Caroline was patently bored by what he had to say.

  Then there was an awkward pause, while they looked at one another for some indication as to how the conversation should proceed. And Nan, gazing at the stocky figure seated before her, suddenly remembered how he used to look, when his hair was thick and dark, just like Caroline’s, and his young face wore the same glowering goblin look she’d just seen at her own breakfast table, that short brow flushed and wrinkled, those fine grey eyes blazing fury. My heart alive, she thought, they are alike.

  ‘I knew your mother,’ Caleb was saying to Caroline, ‘many years ago.’

  It was a mistake. He should have addressed her as Miss Caroline, not with such directness. She was instantly and massively offended. ‘Then you have the advantage of me, sir,’ she said icily, ‘for I did not.’ Then she rose and made it quite clear that she intended to leave. ‘If you will excuse me, Grandmother, I have work to attend to.’

  ‘I hope we shall meet again,’ Caleb said, rising too and holding out his hand.

  ‘So I see,’ she said, ignoring the proffered handshake and turning her body away from him so abruptly that her skirts gave a snake-hiss of anger.

  ‘I must leave too, I fear,’ Euphemia said gently, trying to make amends. And she shook his hands warmly and then fled, afraid of the strength of emotion this odd visitor of theirs had managed to rouse.

  ‘You must forgive them, Mr Rawson,’ Nan said to cover any possible embarrassment. ‘We have rather pressing matters to attend to today.’

  ‘Aye, I know,’ he said. ‘I read of it in t’ Paris papers. Happen I can help you.’

  She gave his offer thought, watching him shrewdly. It seemed genuine, and as she remembered, he wasn’t a man to flatter or say things he didn’t mean. Besides, if he knew the truth about Caroline’s parentage it would be natural that he would want to help her. ‘The firm is to be taken to court for selling a lewd book,’ she said.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, imperturbably, ‘I thought t’ were summat of t’ sort.’

  ‘There is worse,’ she said, deciding to confide in him, for heaven only knew they needed allies. ‘News of it was given to the Evening Record and this morning the story is in all the popular papers, so somebody in the firm has been deliberately telling tales.’

  ‘Do you know who it might be, ma’am?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then look to see who would benefit from it. That’s my advice.’

  It was sound advice and they both understood it.

  ‘I will visit again if I may,’ he said. ‘Meantime I’ll see what gossip I can gather, being a reporter if you take my meaning. The Evening Record, you said.’

  ‘I always try to be at home at four o’clock,’ she said. ‘Old ladies like their tea, you see, Mr Rawson.’

  ‘So do returning exiles, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And this one will return to you as soon as I’ve any news. Be sure of it.’

  Chapter 29

  ‘Now then, my dear,’ Frederick Brougham said to Caroline, as she and Nan settled themselves in his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn the following afternoon. ‘Let us see if we may discover some of the facts concerning this business. Firstly I must tell you both that Mr Furmedge is bringing his action in conjunction with the Society for the Suppression of
Vice. Consequently we are facing a crown prosecution in the law courts. But that is what we expected, is it not? So we need not take any further distress from the knowledge.’

  Caroline was surprised to be feeling so little emotion of any kind. After the misery of seeing her mistake blazoned in the popular press she was now unexpectedly calm. What would happen, would happen. It was simply a matter of waiting and enduring.

  ‘However,’ Mr Brougham was saying, ‘if we could discover the name and whereabouts of the publisher of these hideous books, then the involvement of the Society could prove to our advantage. Their lawyer has given me to understand that they would prefer to take action against the publisher rather than the distributor. Mr Furmedge takes a different view, I believe, but as the Society is paying the costs, I imagine their view would prevail. That being so I propose to make it part of our objective to discover the publisher. Which is the point at which I shall begin this morning.’

  The hideous books lay in a pile on his desk, looking remarkably ordinary in their plain green covers. ‘You say that you cannot remember ordering these books,’ he said to Caroline.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor seeing them before the book in question was delivered to you with Mr Furmedge’s letter?’

  ‘If I had seen them before I should certainly have remembered, I can assure you.’

  ‘Quite. However, in a court of law these things have to be proven beyond a doubt, so could I ask you if you would examine them again.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Indeed yes. Perhaps you could start by considering the titles. Are any of the titles familiar to you?’

  She picked up the first book from the pile and read the title, but it meant nothing. ‘No,’ she said. But to her surprise the fourth title was familiar. ‘Goddesses of Greece,’ she said. ‘Why yes. I remember this. I looked at this one.’