17
THE CHARTISTS’ DEMONSTRATION was planned for April 10.
Before the event, Luis took the trouble to find out something about the movement’s aims and ambitions – as anonymously as he could, and mostly from the Morning Chronicle, which was a liberal and campaigning newspaper, copies of which were kept as props in the Victoria theatre. It was a difficult time for Britain, if you took the picture as a whole: the Irish starving, the Scots struggling to recover from the Highland Clearances of the century past, and considerable unrest among the urban poor in the industrial cities. There were riots in the mines, stories of weavers smashing their looms – and reports of ‘Chartists’ being arrested.
The Chartists were agitators for political reform, following the lead of proponents in the House of Commons itself. Luis learned they had had some successes, with parliamentary Acts to limit the use of children in the factories, for instance. But over the years there had been trouble with assemblies, demonstrations and strikes. Here and there troops had been called out, the Riot Act had been read, a few Chartist heads had been broken. Up to now the troubles had mostly been ignored by the political classes. As seen from London, the whole thing was just another symptom of the general awfulness of the northern industrial cities, which the old landed establishment affected to despise.
Luis himself had mostly ignored this too. Luis Ramon Valienté, alone since boyhood, concerned for only the integrity of his own skin, didn’t see himself as part of a wider society at all. And besides, the disturbances had barely touched his own life. He could sympathize in the abstract with the plight of a child worked to a premature grave, but it was nothing to do with him.
Things were different now, however. This spring of 1848 was indeed a season of rebellion and uprising across Europe – even in such capitals as Berlin – and everywhere governments trembled and monarchies tottered. So far Britain had been free of such revolutions, but the continued flight of well-heeled refugees across the Channel was sending shudders down the spines of the wealthy and powerful. Riots even in London, in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere, had done nothing to calm nerves.
And now, in this ominous spring, the Chartists had called for a mass rally on Kennington Common, outside London. The ambition was to gather a throng a million strong and to march into the city. All this sounded an unlikely threat to Luis – surely it would blow over. This was poky, grimy old London, not some hotbed of ferment like Paris.
‘Not a bit of it,’ Hackett insisted. ‘I have sources. The government is bringing regiments into town, the homes of ministers are being guarded, special constables are being recruited, the Royal Family are being removed from the capital, and so on and so forth. All under cover, of course – but I’ve seen one of the secret stashes of weapons they’ve prepared myself, at the Admiralty. They’re determined this isn’t to be the tipping point into a wider revolt. And that’s where you and I come in, Valienté, my friend . . .’
His plan, it seemed, was for the two of them to infiltrate the mob, and to use their abilities to ‘damp down the fire’, as Hackett put it.
All this seemed alarmingly vague to Luis. What, were they to go slipping sidewise in the midst of a restless crowd of discontented unwashed being whipped up by political agitators? And besides, the whole scheme defied every instinct he’d developed over his lifetime to keep his ‘Waltzing’, as Hackett called it, a secret.
But his hesitation seemed to have been anticipated by Oswald Hackett, who began to speak with heavy emphasis about arrangements he’d made with certain special constables. These fellows had no idea what Hackett might be planning – Hackett had given only vague and mendacious hints that he and Luis were themselves agents of the government – but they’d agreed to work with Hackett, giving him the nod to identify certain ringleaders, foreign agitators and other troublemakers.
And Hackett gazed steadily at Luis as he spoke of those friends among the constables. His unspoken message could not have been clearer: Run away, my lad, and these constables of mine will be down on you like a Lambeth rat on a bit of mouldy cheese.
Luis saw, then, that he had no choice; he would have to go through with this farcical operation, striving to keep his own head intact in the process, and see what came of it next.
As it happened, on the morning of the great assembly it rained hard enough to drown more than a Lambeth rat, and spirits were thoroughly flattened.
A throng did turn up on the common at Kennington, but there was no million here as the Chartists had hoped for, there were mere thousands, ten thousand at most, Luis guessed. As well as the police they were faced by special constables guarding the bridges to the city, among them a goodly number of the rich and ministers of the government, Hackett said, volunteering in order to protect their own wealth and what they saw as the virtues of a constitution which needed no hasty reform, thank you. In the end the only outcome was the presentation of a comically inflated petition to the House of Commons – that, and a few scuffles and arrests. Luis thought the coffee-stall holders did a brisker business than the constables.
But still, in the midst of this relatively blood-free uprising, Hackett went to work with a will, and Luis had no choice but to follow him.
The plan was simple. A constable would point out a troublemaker. Luis would Waltz to dexter or sinister, approach the suspect’s position through the silence of the forest, spin back and grab him bodily – or occasionally her – lift him off his feet and Waltz one way or the other, and just dump the bewildered wretch amid the trees. No matter how hard they struggled when taken, the victims were always utterly baffled by their transition from one noisy world to the sylvan silence of another, and more often than not crippled by nausea too. Then it was a case of walk away a few yards and hop back into the melee; and, just in case anybody had seen the Great Elusivo pop mysteriously out of existence, Luis took care not to come back to the same spot and reinforce the impression.
At the end of the assembly, Hackett had told Luis, these temporary exiles would be rounded up from the forest, returned to Mother England and delivered into the arms of the constables.
‘And,’ Luis had said, ‘if they blab about their experiences, about us—’
‘Who to, the constables? Who’s to believe an agitator spouting a lot of nonsense about trees and bogs in the middle of London? Especially if it’s in French or German. Or even Gaelic – ha!’
‘And if they come to some kind of harm—’
‘What, if they get run down by a boar or swiped by a bear? Or, perhaps, the very act of being Waltzed over might kill ’em; some of my family legends hint at that possibility. Well, if so, nobody will grieve. Or even know. We’ll leave ’em to a godless grave widdershins, and au revoir.’
In the end the work proved easy enough. Luis could look after himself in a fight, and the exertions of his illusion act had built up his bodily strength. The only cost to him was a few digs in the ribs, a kick on the shin, and one beauty of a black eye. Many of those identified for transportation were indeed foreign agitators, mostly French, and Luis was surprised at the extent to which the English movement had been infiltrated. He wondered if Hackett might after all have a point in his windy and unlikely scheme, if it all worked out so easily as this.
At one point, as he stood over yet another dizzy, nauseated Frenchie spewing out words faster than he spilled his guts – and, comically, wondering why his shoes were falling apart, their sole nails having been left behind in London (Luis himself always wore sewn-leather slippers) – Luis, taking a breather, caught the eye of another young man standing over his own doubled-up agitator. The man, tall, sinewy, grinned and waved. ‘Mine’s a Scotsman, would you believe? Pining for the Bonnie Prince. But earlier I grabbed a big Irish lad and I hoped it was Feargus O’Connor himself, but that mastermind of the Chartists eludes us . . .’
Until that moment Luis hadn’t known that he and Hackett weren’t alone here, working this crowd. But of course Hackett would recruit others – and of course he woul
d keep it all a secret even from his allies, clutched close to his own chest.
Luis recovered his composure and called back, ‘Mine’s a French.’
‘So I hear. Coarser language than you’ll hear in the Marseilles docks, I’d warrant. Rather jolly fun, this, isn’t it? Well, back to the grindstone; those agitators won’t apprehend themselves – be seeing you!’ He winked neatly out of existence.
So it was back to work for Luis too. At the end of the day he made off without incident.
And, to his blank astonishment, Oswald showed up that evening at Luis’s theatre, and said that they had an appointment with royalty.
18
LUIS BORROWED A decent morning suit from his theatre manager. Hackett had stressed the need for confidentiality even now, so Luis pleaded attendance at a wedding. At that, he wondered if it might have been more convincing if he’d claimed he wanted the suit for an appearance before the magistrate.
Oswald Hackett, of course, looked peacock-magnificent as he gathered his small party at Charing Cross, where they would board landaus to take them to Windsor. Small: there were eight of them all told, eight Waltzers, all men, all about Hackett’s age or younger. Luis had had no idea there were so many in Hackett’s company. He recognized only one apart from Hackett himself: the tall, lithe-looking young man he’d bumped into in the forest.
There seemed no particular pattern to these fellows: some were short and others tall, some tough-looking and some not, some fair and some dark. Most looked as if they were of British stock, understandably enough. Only Luis himself, with the Mediterranean roots of his family behind him, looked markedly less Anglo-Saxon. And all were well kitted out, though some, like Hackett, looked more comfortable in their finery. Luis guessed that some were from rather more privileged backgrounds than others.
Hackett didn’t encourage conversation, and even suppressed introductions. He said sternly, ‘You’re not a bunch of new fags at some minor school. You’re here to put yourself in the hands of Her Majesty, for the purpose of all manner of sly and covert affairs – whatever my fertile imagination can dream up – and sly and covert it must be, given the nature of our shared talent. And in that case the less you know of each other the more effective you’ll be. For if I don’t know your name I can’t betray you, can I? Which has been a lesson learned by rebels before, from our own Chartists, back through the French when they took agin their king, to the Americans when they turned on the English hand that fed ’em . . .’
Even so, as they boarded their coaches, that tall, skinny fellow made for Luis and slyly shook his hand. He looked about twenty-five, Luis’s own age, and his grasp was stronger than Luis expected. ‘The name’s Fraser Burdon,’ he said. ‘Since we made our acquaintance already in the widdershins forest, there’s nothing much for us to lose by swapping names, is there?’
Luis introduced himself, and in a quick conversation Burdon ascertained how Luis had been found by Hackett, and recruited.
Burdon said, ‘As for me, I met the good Doctor up at Cambridge, where I’m pottering about in the natural sciences. Oswald was up there for a conference on the extinction of species, or some such – rocks are more my bag – and he spotted me “Waltzing”, as he puts it, when I fell off a punt – sooner that than end up in the Cam; I never was much of a hand with the pole. I didn’t want to get wet again, and I knew it was dry just there widdershins. Thought nobody was watching – careless, that. Still, here we are . . .’
Then they boarded the coach, with Hackett, and they didn’t get the chance to speak again.
Windsor Castle seemed to Luis from without an intimidating pile, an excrescence of centuries of wealth heaped up on a core of medieval brutality. And when they were led into the sprawling walled compound through an entrance called the Norman Gate, and faced a mound of earth topped by the ‘Round Tower’, the interior struck him as gloomy and claustrophobic.
That sensation only got more pronounced as the party, passed off from one flunkey to another, was led through a narrow doorway and deep into the interconnected buildings of the castle wards, at first through grand passageways, but at last finishing up in a remote, murky corner, where a trapdoor led to a staircase down which they descended.
Then they were led by servants with oil lamps through another warren of corridors and rooms, apparently entirely underground. The chambers here were lined by shelves heaped with papers, and with other items only dimly glimpsed as they walked on: hunting trophies and stuffed animals, spears and drums, a kind of feathered headdress. Luis, feeling increasingly enclosed and uncomfortable, was aware that the servants who escorted them, despite their smart appearance, were stationed front and back, and were all big, powerful men with plenty of room for weapons under their loose jackets.
‘You are privileged, gentlemen,’ Hackett said, his voice a respectful whisper. ‘This is a private royal vault. Here you’ve got the records of many reigns, including the present one, and gifts from the col-onies and other nations, and other assorted clutter. And it’s down here that Queen and Consort host their most private meetings.’
Fraser Burdon whispered to Luis, ‘And perhaps it’s appropriate that this should be the centre of the memory of the monarchy. You know where we are, don’t you? Under the original castle on its motte, built by William himself after the Conquest. One of a string of fortresses he established to keep a hold on London. Now Windsor’s the home to a young Queen and her growing brood, but you can never forget that original purpose.’
Luis murmured back, ‘I don’t know about the history, but God, I hate to be enclosed. I’m half tempted to Waltz out.’
Fraser looked at him strangely. ‘But you can’t. Not from down here – not unless this was originally some natural cavern. You can’t Waltz out of a cellar, because there’s earth or bedrock to either side, widdershins or deiseal. Didn’t you know that much? You really haven’t studied your own abilities very much, have you?’
This had never occurred to Luis, who rarely had cause to go far underground. He muttered defiantly, ‘Well, I didn’t know we were prepping for a test.’
At last they came to a better fitted chamber, with decent gaslights casting a clean glow over a smart but not ostentatious suite of furniture, a thick carpet, walls lined with bookshelves, and ceiling-to-floor mirrors that Luis guessed were intended to give an impression of space in this enclosed room. Open doors led to adjoining rooms. It was like the reception room of an unpretentious family of reasonable but not overwhelming means, Luis thought, based on his own limited experience of such places.
A small group of men were already in the room, mostly dark-suited, leaning on the mantel or sitting at their ease. The Waltzers stood in a rather self-conscious huddle on the carpet, but Oswald boldly struck a pose.
At length a major-domo type smoothly effected introductions, and as he did so Luis felt his own amazement grow. A man in his middle thirties, perhaps, stern, sharp-looking, in an anonymous suit, was named only as ‘Mr Radcliffe’. Two burly butlerish fellows at the back of the room were not introduced, and Luis concluded they were either special constables or military men out of uniform, no doubt backed up by others elsewhere. But a grumpy-looking gentleman in his fifties who remained seated, rather rudely, with a sparse carapace of hair and bone-white mutton-chop whiskers, turned out to be none other than Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister.
And a handsome, well-built chap leaning casually against the mantel, in a crisp morning suit but with an intimidating set of whiskers of his own, was Albert, the Royal Consort.
The Great Elusivo had played some tough houses, but he felt utterly bewildered before this audience, even though Albert quickly insisted that no formality of behaviour was necessary. And he wondered whether somebody in the royal circle or the government – perhaps this sternly watchful fellow Radcliffe – had thought through the consequences if any of the Waltzers had intended any harm to this royal personage. For, if they turned out to be dangerous, where better for such a meeting to take place
than underground, from where, as Burdon had pointed out, none of them could Waltz away?
‘Dr Hackett,’ said the Prince. ‘It is very good to see you again.’ His accent was a crisp, heavy German.
Hackett answered proudly, ‘Thank you, sir. Gentlemen, His Royal Highness has taken a keen interest in our – ah – novel proposal of service from the beginning. As I have described before, sir, the talent we share is just as I demonstrated to your assistant Mr Radcliffe that evening in Windsor Great Park some weeks ago. And now, during the Chartist Demonstration at Kennington, I hope we have shown its efficacy in practice. We – move aside. I could not tell you how we do it, any more, I dare say, than a newborn babe could explain to you how he took his first pace. We find ourselves in another place, a sort of forest. I’ve no idea what the significance of that is, which part of the world it might be – if it’s our world at all. Perhaps we should send a naturalist to explore. Call for Mr Darwin!’
The Prince was gracious enough to laugh at this.
But the dour Radcliffe seemed to lack a sense of humour. ‘Your flash doesn’t impress. It is your utility in this world which is of interest to us, Dr Hackett.’
Flash – a bit of London street slang. The word jarred in this context, taking Luis by surprise. Perhaps there was more to this Radcliffe than there seemed – and, yes, an element of threat.
But Hackett was unperturbed. He said smoothly, ‘Of course, of course. And you understand the principle of that utility, just as I demonstrated in the Great Park. I Waltz into the forest.’ He took a pace to the left to demonstrate. ‘Then I walk through that forest.’ He took one pace forward, two.
As he approached Prince Albert, Luis saw how the butler types at the back of the room, and indeed Radcliffe, all stiffened, fully alert.
The Long Utopia Page 12
