The old earl’s best correspondent, by far, had been Maddie, and her view of the old man matched Mama’s. Perhaps he had been mistaken about the man. Perhaps Maddie had the right of this, as well.
He had just finished reading the short note when he heard the turn of her key in the lock, the swirl of her skirts in the hall. He was on his feet and in the hall before she had turned back from pulling the door shut. He nearly stroked her shoulder, but she was turning, pulling on the ribbons of her straw bonnet and stepping into him. They bumped hip to leg, and she stopped short. The bonnet slid down. Her face was full of tears.
Iron panic washed over him. Heart playing a tattoo, he touched her shoulders, gripped her waist, twisting her side to side. Nothing bloody, nothing obviously broken. Then the rushing in his ears stemmed and he could hear her breaths, regular and easy. Not wounded, sad.
He pulled her close, removing the lump of a package in her hands and setting it on the sideboard. She smelled of fresh sea, and the mild dyes of the south, and somehow of tobacco. She felt right, tucked into his chest just so. But her tears didn’t stop, and were joined by hiccupping sobs.
He heard a tread coming up the kitchen stair, and pulled out of their embrace, still holding Maddie in the circle of one arm. “Some tea, Mrs. Willis, if you please.” The tread descended, and he drew Maddie into the sitting room and onto the bench beside him.
“I knew you would despise the baths. That’s why I didn’t bring it up. Damn Mrs. Heywood for frightening you. You never need go back there again.”
She wrinkled her face. “The baths?”
He smoothed her brow with his finger, and then kissed her forehead, running his hand through her damp, selkie hair. “You don’t have to explain it to me. That water is too wide, too deep. It’s not natural. Man is meant for land.”
She closed her eyes, her brow softening, her lips slipping into a smile. Something eased in his chest, as if a boulder he’d forgotten about had suddenly dislodged. He would have her forever making that half a smile, just for him.
“You are afraid of the water.” She opened her eyes, teasingly triumphant.
He sat back, but she leaned into him, closing the gap. “Not afraid. Prudent. Respectful.”
“Respectful.” The way she said it made it sound like the excuse it was. “You didn’t tell me about the baths not because you thought I was a silly woman but because you thought I’d be afraid.”
He wished she would stop using that word. She didn’t need to sound so blasted pleased about it. Wasn’t she crying not a minute past? “Then what has upset you?”
Her gaze dropped to her lap, or perhaps it was his lap. He shifted a bit, and tipped her chin up with a finger. She wasn’t going to distract him that way.
“In the streets, there’s so much anger, so much shouting. It’s a giant steamkettle, and we’re all too close.”
She’d caught the stench of discontent in the air. How could she not? “We’re all of us out of gearing, not running smoothly. Soon enough, we’ll slide back into place. We always do.”
“I need some new dresses, and to sell these old ones. They aren’t right to give to charity.”
He frowned. She wore his favorite of her southern frocks, a green calico that sharpened the cat’s-eye flecks in her eyes. It did carry a stain on the shoulder, and he had to admit it was a debutante’s style. “Heywood’s wife looks the part. You might ask her to recommend a seamstress. ‘Here’s something that might cheer you up now. How about a picnic?”
The flat doubt on her face surprised him into a laugh. “You have time for such frivolity?”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word applied to me before. I might cultivate it.” She matched his smile with a sideways grin of her own. “Truth, it’s not my idea. Deacon plans a lawn party for his tenants and neighbors. The meetings have eaten into the rushcart parades and fairs, and he wants to restore some of their fun.”
“A day in the country does sound nice. It’s good of him to think of it.”
“And good to keep in his people’s good graces. My brother may yet step up to his role. I might have underestimated him.”
Her touch on his knee surprised him. Was she promising more later? “Might I invite a friend of mine?”
“Jem’s family?”
“Someone I met at church.”
“Why not? Deacon’s lawns are large.”
* * * *
In a pitiable attempt at neutral ground, the meeting between the magistrates and special committee of Lancashire and the town’s workingmen took place in a second-floor room at the Exchange. Nash expected that none of the workers had ever been there, and that first view, of the cacophonous floor devoted to commerce, was as likely to tie their tongues as the most hellfire sermon on Sunday. By the time they climbed the two sets of stairs, open and edging the trading hall, they would be as cowed as any royalist magistrate could wish. Watching the men called the leaders of their group—don’t dare call them a union—shuffle in wearing their odd clomping sabots, Nash caught a whiff of the same stubbornness. Not a penitent among them.
Coarse cotton arrayed itself in a row facing fine linen and ermine—Heywood wore some hoary piece from the days of the seigneurs, complete with gilded necklace—and no one took a seat. If it would not be a successful parlay, and Nash knew now how truly foolish a dream that had been, at least it would be short.
He had had to suggest that they introduce themselves. The working men were reluctant: “If you make a listing of us, suddenly we are without all work.” The magistrates were just as bull-headed, and so the speechifying began with no one having any idea whom they were dealing with. Nash knew from hard experience what an ill start that was.
Heywood’s opening gambit, ten minutes of let’s all return to the earlier, happy days, didn’t persuade even his own side.
A middle-aged man, a weaver, took it to pieces in a bare minute, but at least he carried a smile in his voice. History-wise, he rightly pointed out, nothing had changed. “It’s your part to beat us down like plate, to swell your fortunes. It’s ours to stand up for our families and demand justice and fair play. We make your profits, and we should help spend ’em.”
Could this be the Sam Bamford Nash’d heard of? It must be; his phrasing was direct from the pamphlet the workers’ reform committee published arguing in favor of the meeting. A formidable foe, but he could be just the sort of man who could listen as well as argue. Of the half-dozen workingmen, two looked bulls, no chance of changing their minds. Two looked wary, gazes circling from the dozen scowling magistrates to the closed doors. One was the eloquent speaker, and the last a mere boy, still wearing the red spots of youth. The magistrates shared the same proportions: one-third bull-necked and bull-headed, another third terrified trade would suffer, and a bare two or three willing to listen even a little.
The men wished to hold a public meeting in just a week, the ninth of August. The magistrates couldn’t say no exactly, as it was legal to meet, but they could stand in the way, by denying petitions to use the space or declaring the meeting illegal. Under law, a meeting couldn’t be called illegal until something criminal occurred at it. He could see Malbanks’s eyes shuttering and shifting, trying to find the loophole that would give him sway.
As both sides sidled along the path of reasonableness without stepping directly upon it, business was, indeed, transacted. The workers agreed to reapply “properly” for permission, delaying the meeting by a week, and the magistrates agreed to allow it to take place. Nash suspected Malbanks and his crowd wouldn’t be satisfied until all the workers were in jail, though it would sink their own profit.
The meeting lasted twenty minutes. Nash followed the workers out the door, managing to catch the sleeve, and the attention, of their main speaker.
“You’re Bamford?”
“And you’re Quinn.” The man turned, framing up into a fighting stance, but his gaze was more interested than belligerent.
“I thought your r
ebuttal in the papers a piece of work. Good work. Might you be someone I could talk with privately? Where might I find you? An alehouse? Somewhere public.”
“The Black Tulip. Let it be known you’re looking, and one or t’other of us might be found. Mayhaps even your father-in-law. He’s one of us, you know. The tall one.”
Nash reeled back on his heels. “You know my wife?”
“Only by reputation. A fine lass, if a bit dressy. Aren’t they all.” Bamford winked. “The Black Tulip. Miller Street.”
Maddie’s father was a radical? Should he tell her? He couldn’t. It would cause far more problems than even he could manage this summer. Later, when tempers cooled with the autumn, he might mention it. Suddenly, he burned with curiosity about the man, Moore. How could a father have given up such a treasure? He didn’t have time to do more than wonder. As he turned back toward the meeting room, he could hear the angry rumble of voices. Entering the room, he found he needn’t have hurried. No one had changed his mind.
“If they protest, it’s on their heads. Any violence, and their leaders are in the poke before they can finish their dinner.” Malbanks smacked his lips, salivating at the prospect.
Nash interrupted. “I should think that would push them to keep their men in line. No one wants to spend an evening in the New Bailey.”
Trefford’s shrill tenor broke in. “These men don’t share your sense of logic. Their only sense that is developed is of entitlement.”
Malbanks nodded, turning to Nash. “Did you hear that weaver? ‘All’s we want is what’s fair.’ How is it fair for us to work so hard, and they skim all the profit?”
“Those men work hard for their wages. Wages, I needn’t remind you, that are significantly reduced from last year, while the price of wheat has doubled.”
“Let the parish take care of the starving.”
“We are the parish.” Nash bit his cheek to prevent another outburst. A more pig-headed bunch he had never met, unless one counted one’s relations.
“So we do nothing?” Trefford’s voice and hands trembled at the idea.
“Nothing we can do, more’s the pity,” Heywood said.
“We could arrest Hunt, when he comes to town,” Malbanks said.
Nash unlocked his jaw. “On what grounds?”
“Incitement to violence.”
“No. They’ll have their meeting,” Heywood said. “That is the law.”
“So’s they say,” Malbanks said. “You heard what happened in Birmingham. They won’t get away with that rabble-rousing here.”
Heywood shook his head, his necklace clanking dolefully. “I don’t see that we can do anything. We must trust that they value their good word.” He held up a hand to forestall their protests. “Nay, Manchester men are strong and proud. They won’t fall in with these radicals from London. They are what makes us strong.”
Malbanks huffed, his peacock chest swelling. “Sooner we replace them with machinery, the better.”
“Listen to yourself.” Nash couldn’t hold back. “Without wages in their pockets, who will buy your broadloom cloth?”
“Parliament may, and hand it out to the parish poor.”
Heywood laughed, breaking some of the brittle tension in the room. “Now you want government in your business? Backing the smokestack tariff now, too?”
Malbanks would not be silenced. “This will come to a bad end, believe me. There can be only trouble when the lower orders collect in one pen.”
{ 26 }
The Black Tulip did not smell like a coffee shop. The well-made sign over the door was plain enough, though. Maddie stepped over the threshold on the fumes of her courage, and stopped.
A crusty bar stood to her left, an orchestra of mismatched tables and chairs to her right. A half-dozen drooping men in ’factory smocks sat scattered about, though the day’s dismal bells had not yet rung closing. Overpowered by generations of beers spilled and baths skipped, she held her breath to regain her balance.
One by one, heads perked up at the sight of her. She shouldn’t have worn her new dress, a robin’s egg blue from Clayton’s mills. She clutched the pocket holding her purse. The money was for the women’s society, for the out-of-work families; no one else must take it from her.
This was all fancy. Kitty wouldn’t have led her to a place where she might be robbed. Maddie pushed her feet to step to the bar. The keep, a woman of faded brass, blinked slowly at her, and then tilted her head toward the far wall. Stairs rain up the wall to a sort of balcony; beside the stair an open doorway led to another room.
Skirting the tables, she was rewarded by the sight of her sister seated in the small room. A well-dressed older gentleman, seated to her left at a round table, rose as Maddie entered.
Kitty rose, as well. “Told you she’d come.”
He bowed so gracefully Maddie curtseyed before she thought better of it. In blue lapelled coat, light waistcoat and wool trousers, he seemed overdressed for a Manchester summer. Perfectly proportioned to his six feet in height, he had only one flaw—a tightness about his thin lips. Even his gray-brown hair, brushed forward onto his forehead and cheeks in the London style, was his own.
Henry Hunt, “The Orator” to his detractors, a prince to the radicals. She’d seen his likeness in the papers, though he presented even better in person. His white top hat, a symbol of the reform, hung on the hook beside her at the door.
“You’ve found me out,” he said, looking in the direction of her gaze.
“The papers say you are in the south.” The royalist papers also said he was inciting sedition across the country, and warned that his coming to town would endanger all Christian folk. To look at him, though, was to see the truth of it. He was just another politician, only of the “broad cloth” people rather than the “narrow cloth” ones, as Jem’s wife would put it. And, no doubt, Kitty.
“I find it’s best to stay a step ahead of the press.”
This must be one of those committee meetings, those formerly clandestine affairs now merely shady and unsavory, according to the Observer.
With a shiver of anticipation, she sat down in the chair Hunt pulled out for her.
“I’m ringed by beauty,” he said in silver tones. She smiled, shy at the compliment, and then froze. Small wonder Kitty had made her promise to say nothing of this to Nash. He would never want her here.
She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Wasn’t he himself at some sort of committee meeting over at the Exchange? She was merely exercising her right to talk with whomever she pleased, and who could be more intriguing than Orator Hunt? Still, Kitty had been sly. She looked past Hunt to her sister. “A knitting circle?”
“We’ll get to that after. Mayhaps.”
“Tell her the truth, Miss Moore. We’re here to plan the largest collection of the disenfranchised this country has yet seen.”
Maddie’s heart thudded in her chest. “You mean to riot Manchester?”
“Exactly the opposite. We mean to show that the good denizens of this town can meet and petition a redress of their grievances without resorting to violence of any kind.”
“Is that possible?”
“Not only possible but probable. Surely you saw our request for a permit in the papers. The magistrates cannot deny us a meeting.” He looked to Kitty for confirmation, and she sat up a little straighter.
“Aye. That’s what we’re waiting on—our men to come back from the parlay.”
He nodded. “Like the promising citizens they are, they’re man to man with the leaders of this great town.”
Nash’s committee. Well, if he could stick his nose in the swirl of the most interesting event in Manchester this summer, she could stick her toe in. After all, she wasn’t a member of this committee, just an observer.
Hunt leaned toward her. “What does your husband have to say about the rally?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.” He frowned. Maddie searched for something to please him. “He is at the committee meeting.”
Hunt brightened. “Then when we see you next we can have his version of it, as well as that of our men. They’ll be here soon.”
Not a minute later, she heard a murmuring grow louder toward them, and a trio of men entered. Maddie was reminded of the three pigs: One was older and gruff, one barely past his childhood, and one just right.
Could he be Richard Moore, her father? Her throat swelled as if to burst, and she had trouble swallowing. But it was the older man, his black eyes blazing in a pale face fringed by a thin wreath of hair, who couldn’t stop staring at her. And when his gaze snapped to Kitty, who nodded yes, Maddie was sure of it.
“Linen, or cotton?” His words rasped, as if his throat were sandpapered.
“Cotton, of course,” she said. Linen in this style would mean it had been made overseas, a slap in the face to these men. After her encounter on the streets, Maddie had sent all her offending dresses to Shaftsbury, destined for dusters or charities in the south.
At the sound of her voice, the other two men looked at her dress, then her face. They snapped their heads around to her sister, and back to her. The young man whistled.
“Quite the likeness, Kitty.”
“Nothing like, George Swift, you’re barely off your mother’s teat and blind as a babe.”
The older man hadn’t stopped staring. But it was the other who came to sit beside her.
“Sam Bamford of Middleton, weaver and seeker of justice, ma’am.” He held out his hand and she remembered to shake it this time. “It’s been a long time.”
She dropped his hand in her shock. “You knew me?”
“A speck of angel’s hair, you were. And just as lovely now you’re grown.” He patted her hand where it had fallen to the table. His deep-set eyes and forgiving mouth appealed to her, even as his diminished hair and bulb-tipped nose offset his general good looks.
Kitty spoke up. “Sam, how go the rushes?” She motioned to George Swift to sit beside her, leaving the place opposite Hunt for her father. Maddie’s father. She concentrated on the set of his chin, as high as she could trust herself.
Finally, his gaze slipped away from her, chin wobbling. The arch of his eye matched Kitty’s. He hadn’t acknowledged Maddie.
An Untitled Lady: A Novel Page 21
