The Iron Master

by Jean Stubbs

  ‘We should denounce these actions in the name of humanity. We should have done so in the autumn, when priests and prisoners were murdered in Paris.’

  ‘Oh, Burke will do that for us. And the puling King and government. Your friend, Miss Wollstonecraft, left us quite cheerfully for France, last month. And Toby preferred to find out for himself, rather than listen to hearsay.’

  ‘Mary was too wretched to stay in London,’ said Charlotte, on a lower note.

  ‘Aye, you women must always muddle love and politics, and nourish high-flown notions about both. I care not tuppence for Citizen Capet or his wife. They are on the losing side, that is all, and too dangerous to keep alive … ’

  ‘But their degradation, their humiliation … ?’

  ‘Mrs Longe,’ said Fairbarrow, hard and cold, ‘you must learn the rules of this game if you would play well. We are speaking of power, not good manners. We may see similar acts of violence over here before many months have passed. The north of England is like a tinder-keg that needs but a spark set to it. The Secretary for War did not send a Deputy Adjutant-General to Sheffield for nothing, last summer. The King did not issue a royal proclamation against seditious meetings and writings for nothing. The government has not banished Tom Paine and taken proceedings against his publisher for nothing. Mobs are not being incited to burn his effigy in the streets for nothing. And you, Mrs Longe’ — fixing his eyes upon her — ‘are not encouraging a workers’ revolution for nothing!’

  ‘I am not a child,’ cried Charlotte, ‘that thinks its rights are toys. I know as well as you that there must be turmoil and adversity for us all before we establish a better system in our country. And I know, too, that in our own case we risk imprisonment by continuing to publish The Northern Correspondent secretly, and to distribute it secretly. And if Toby and I are gone, and the press seized,’ she added, faltering at the notion, ‘what shall become of our poor children?’ Then she straightened and spoke resolutely. ‘But if I thought that our movement would, in its turn, refuse justice and mercy in the name of liberty and equality, and set up a scaffold in Leicester Fields to butcher their brothers in the name of fraternity, then, Mr Fairbarrow, I should know that we had worked in vain.’

  ‘Why, Mrs Longe,’ he said, holding up one hand to ward off her anger, ‘you are far warmer than this room! I do not commend the guillotine as a salve for all our ills. But we must not switch sides in a moment because a section of the revolutionaries are — perhaps — misusing their authority.’

  She said, not knowing what to think, ‘I shall not change sides, sir. I am no weathercock.’

  ‘In any case,’ he said peaceably, ‘I did not come to cross swords with my friends, Mrs Longe. Tell me, have you no news of Toby?’

  She was confounded, realising that subconsciously she had hoped Fairbarrow brought tidings of him.

  ‘Then where the devil is he?’ said Fairbarrow, half to himself, uneasy.

  ‘I know not. I have heard nothing since he went. Sir,’ said Charlotte, desperate, ‘is it not possible to have an advance upon my salary? The newsletter shall be ready tomorrow, and the rest of the material is here for you to read before it goes to press.’

  ‘Have you no money at all, Mrs Longe?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Not one penny in the house, sir. No food but potatoes, and no more coals. I have borrowed all I can, and pawned what I can. I have wrote to my mother only this afternoon, to ask for an advance upon my allowance. And Toby is not here to think of some other way. And I am at my wits’ end with worry and hunger and cold!’

  And here she put her head into her two stained hands and sobbed aloud.

  Awkward in such a situation as this, Ralph Fairbarrow first rang the bell, and then, finding it did not work, shouted down the stairs for Polly.

  ‘Here, Mrs Longe,’ he said, placating her, laying down a guinea upon the little table by her elbow, ‘cheer up, devil take it. You are not alone in the world. You have good friends yet, ma’am.’

  His dry embarrassment brought her round, where sympathy would have prostrated her. She dried her eyes and cheeks, dried her fingers, begged his pardon, sitting very upright in her chair to show she was in full command of herself again.

  ‘Set that tea down, Polly!’ said Ralph Fairbarrow, as the maid came in with the tray. ‘Now, Mrs Longe, should Polly not run out and buy something from the pastrycook’s and some coals? I’ll sup a dish of tea and leave presently, when you are better.’

  Charlotte nodded, red-eyed, and Polly whisked the guinea into her pocket, unconcerned.

  ‘That’s a good girl,’ said Fairbarrow to the servant. ‘Be off with you, and take care of your mistress!’

  Charlotte said, turning the conversation to less personal matters, ‘They say that two hundred thousand copies of Tom Paine’s sixpenny pamphlet have been sold so far, and there is not a cutler in Sheffield without his Rights of Man.’

  ‘Should I pour tea?’ asked Fairbarrow, very kindly for him. ‘Rest yourself a while, Mrs Longe. By God, this room is cold! Here, ma’am, drink this and warm yourself.’

  ‘I believe,’ said Charlotte, keeping her mind upon safer topics than Toby and his absence, ‘that our country will have a different revolution from the one in France. The French are a choleric nation.’

  ‘They think us a brutal one!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Charlotte continued hopefully, ‘what the Fall of the Bastille was to the French, Tom Paine’s pamphlet will be to us. I know I seek to change the cast of thought rather than to cut off the head of the thinker.’

  He was careful not to arouse her sensibilities again, and perceptive enough to see that she needed to keep her mind occupied. So they roamed peacefully over the growth of corresponding societies and their vastly increasing membership, the demonstrations in the North and the variety of craftsmen, tradesmen and labourers involved, and the sterling qualities of The Northern Correspondent. When Polly returned, Ralph Fairbarrow stood up and took his leave.

  ‘I shall be in London a while,’ he said, ‘and, with your permission, will look in from time to time. As soon as one of us has news of Toby let him or her contact the other. I shall be staying at The Bell Savage in Ludgate Hill.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Charlotte said, holding out her hand. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He gave the hand an abrupt little shake, and followed the maid down the stairs. She was grateful to him, and glad he had gone. Soon Polly would stoke up the fire and bring her something hot to eat. Then, warmed and fed, she could return to her writing with confidence, and might, sometime in the early hours of the morning, find herself so caught up in the future of mankind that she could forget her own future, which seemed bleak.

  A week later, France declared war upon Great Britain, and Toby was still missing.

  They came late one night, Ralph Fairbarrow and the stranger, when Polly and the children were long abed. Charlotte knew, even as she held the flickering candle high to see their faces, that the news was bad, but lighted them up the stairs with a still composure reminiscent of her mother. Either they were in a hurry to be done, or found the room colder than they could wish, but they stood uncomfortably in their great-coats, holding their hats, and looking anywhere but at her. Then Fairbarrow fetched a bottle of brandy from his baggy pocket and asked where she kept the glasses.

  Very pale, Charlotte motioned them to sit, then she mended the small fire and rubbed her hands to warm them: a tall, fineboned woman, hair garnered carelessly into an ashen knot, wrapped in an old brown velvet pelisse trimmed with grey fur.

  ‘You’d better have this,’ said Ralph Fairbarrow, putting a glass beside her. He said abruptly, ‘It was an accident, Mrs Longe. Toby died by accident. In the streets of Paris.’

  The young man now lifted his head and glanced at her. There was a guilty air about him, as though he felt the message should have been given by him, and not so baldly. She sat, face averted, and sipped the brandy.

  ‘How did Toby … ?’ she began, and could not f
inish. ‘You tell her,’ said Ralph Fairbarrow. ‘You were there, damn it. I was not’

  The unknown was a man of some gentility, most probably a convert like herself, immersed in his own traditions and fighting nobly to overthrow them.

  ‘Forgive me for bringing such news as this, Mrs Longe,’ he said courteously, ‘I wish to God I could have fetched him back again.’

  ‘Get on with it, man. We are not concerned with your fine feelings!’ cried Fairbarrow.

  ‘It wasn’t safe, you know, the streets weren’t safe, those last days. Toby and I met, by arrangement’ — here he glanced at Ralph Fairbarrow — ‘and we liked each other, madam.’

  She looked at his bright young face and white linen, saw that his enthusiasm would break through, his ideas beckon him ever forward, despite the onslaught of life.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlotte quietly, ‘I imagine you did, sir. Pray go on.’

  ‘We saw Capet executed. He died with dignity. Aye, poor stupid fellow, with more dignity than he had lived. And, oh God, the people there! As if the streets were running with rats. Such faces and such voices. The sense of evil, the feeling of being watched. Nay, not a feeling but a fact. Everyone watches, and is watched. Fear your enemies, for they can denounce you, have you tried and guillotined, within the week, within the day, as fast as they can fill and empty the tumbrils. I took care not to seem conspicuous. The cleanly are not well regarded over there, just now, nor are the English. But Toby took not a ha-porth of notice. He stood out among that filth and they misliked it. Everywhere we went there would be eyes, peering from under a dirty mat of hair. Sometimes they threw things at him, sometimes called “Aristo!” for all that he wore the cockade, talked and believed in the revolution.

  ‘Then — oh, all shouting and running feet, I know not what, some fellow escaping capture or being captured. I pulled Toby into a doorway. Saw his face change. Before God, Mrs Longe, it was so quick he could not have felt the bullet. Sagged against me. And I held him. Stared at him. Cursed them, Mrs Longe. Cursed the damned lot of them. And then the questions, and the difficulty over papers, the lack of money. The English community over there paid up and saw him decently buried. I’ve written down the name of the cemetery. Brought his few things. Poor Toby. God damn them all, he was a fine gentleman. A brave gentleman. We are all the less because Toby’s gone. Forgive me for bringing news such as this, madam.’

  ‘Drink up,’ said Fairbarrow roughly, and took a gulp of spirit to encourage them both.

  With the stilted kindness of that other day, recently, he then asked if he could rouse Polly Slack to attend her. Charlotte shook her head, stunned.

  ‘When you’re feeling more yourself,’ said Fairbarrow, ‘we must think what is to be done about you. I shall help you as best I can, of course.’

  ‘If you would give me a day,’ said Charlotte stiffly, ‘just a day, Mr Fairbarrow. And then I should be grateful for any suggestion you could make that was practical. For what we shall do I cannot think.’

  He laid another guinea, as unobtrusively as he could, on the table by her glass, and coughed to indicate his departure. But the young man, whose name she never knew, lifted her cold hand and kissed it and bowed low.

  ‘Put that down there,’ said Fairbarrow softly, and a packet was set next to the guinea. ‘We are going now, Mrs Longe.’

  ‘But will she be … ?’ she heard the young man say anxiously.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Charlotte answered him, ‘I shall be well enough, I thank you. I should prefer to be alone. A day’s grace, if you please, Mr Fairbarrow.’

  The clock ticked quietly in the corner. She sat silently, gazing into the fire. After a time she stirred a little, and picked up what was left of Toby’s worldly goods. His watch, which she would keep for Ambrose. A purse, containing a few French coins of no great value, which she would give to Cicely. His papers in a leather folding-case: passport, notebook, and a letter of some age, much-read and fragile. She opened it, wondering, and recognised her own young hand and mind in the words.

  ‘ … I do not charge you with being Mean and Paltry, sir, but you were not Companionate enough to Shield me from Misfortune … ’

  Then Charlotte bowed her head and covered her face, and wept for her husband.

  Even grief, it seemed, was luxury. Within forty-eight hours Toby’s death brought his creditors about her ears. She wrung payments from a few debtors, and sat up at nights calculating how she could maintain the business. Ralph Fairbarrow did what he could, but his help finally amounted to finding a purchaser for Longe & Son. Two gentlemen drove a bargain which left Charlotte and her children with the clothes they possessed, and no home. So she took the only course left to her, and wrote to Kit’s Hill, asking if Dorcas and Ned would care for Ambrose and Cicely while she found work and lodgings, until such time as she could support all three of them.

  Post-haste came the finest and tenderest of letters from her mother, enclosing a banknote to pay the coach fares to Millbridge and provide immediate necessities, urging Charlotte to keep her small family together.

  … for they who have last a Father shd not lose their Mother also. I Comprehend and Admire yr determination to Support yr selves, but this you cd do in Millbridge. Thornton House is but a Hospital these days, with Sally caring for Agnes — who is Ailing — and yr Aunt Phoebe — who is Rapidly Ageing. They are Provided for; why shd not You be also? You have yr own Allowance, and can Earn a Little by means off Pen — perhaps yr Friends in London will put Work in yr Way! You was always Fond of Millbridge, and Thornton House will Come Alive again when the Children are there, and you have many Friends here. Think too, that you will not be Over-strained and the Little Ones will Benefit from this. A Tranquil Mother makes a Tranquil Family. But shd you Decide to stay in London then yr Father and I will Care for Ambrose and Cicely as we once cared for You and William. Take yr Time, my Dearest Child, to make up yr Mind. We Grieve with and for you in what can be the Greatest Loss of all — that of a Dear Husband and Friend. Indeed, I Weep as I unite. God Bless you All from our Hearts. yr Loving Mamma.

  The decision cost Charlotte another night’s sleep. Time was short. The next day she wrote back, assenting.

  *

  There had been many callers at Lock-yard, and Charlotte was moved and amazed that they came with love and admiration for her, as well as compassion. She had assumed that everyone adored or deplored Toby, but took her for granted. Now a personal regard was made manifest which both humbled and strengthened her. On this last evening, when Ambrose and Cicely were abed, came Ralph Fairbarrow at his own request to discuss the final arrangements for The Northern Correspondent.

  He arrived punctiliously upon the stroke of ten, bringing a bottle of claret with him and some sweetmeats for the children. As always, he was lost where human relationships were concerned, and his thoughtfulness embarrassed rather than touched Charlotte, though she thanked him kindly. He had, in his way, been good to her. Now he sat with his feet upon the fender, and watched her mull the claret with a sort of dreary gaiety, as if they were celebrating a friendship rather than mourning a friend. She was very quiet, keeping her despair to herself.

  ‘Now, Mrs Longe,’ he began, as they sipped the claret in a ghastly essay at companionship, ‘we grieve over Toby, certainly, but life must go on, and I believe you will find that matters have turned out very well in the end.’

  She deplored his choice of words, and his ineptness, but knew him too well by this time to feel offended.

  ‘I have not been entirely frank with you,’ said Ralph Fairbarrow, musing over the flames. For, as this was the last night, Charlotte was burning coals as she had never done in Lock-yard.

  ‘Indeed, sir?’ she asked, since some comment was expected.

  ‘Yes, ma’am, but I am about to confide in you, and I must ask you not to reveal this confidence whatever your choice might be.’

  Now he was his true self: that curiously cold yet passionate being, who could see what was best for mankind, and yet b
e unable to communicate with a single member of it.

  ‘You may be assured, sir, that I shall not speak to anyone, now or in the future, of this matter.’

  He inclined his head, in thanks, in acceptance. Then took a swig of claret, and looked so lonely and disagreeable in his dingy linen that she wished he was anywhere but with her. There was about him an untouchable quality. He was unlovable. She was sorry for him on that account.

  ‘Mrs Longe, I represent far more than myself. What that may be it is better you should not know, lest at any time you are questioned, but you may be assured that it is more than a vehement radical with some money to indulge his convictions. Your husband worked for me, and so have you worked for me, and I should like that work to go on. Am I understood, ma’am?’ In her turn, she inclined her head. ‘The revolution in this country may not take the extreme form of that in France, but it has begun, and it has begun in the North. Until its objects are realised, Mrs Longe, I shall foster that revolution by every means within my power. I should like you to be with me in this endeavour, but the personal cost will be high, so you must know what you are undertaking. Allow me to outline the situation as I see it.

  ‘We are now at war with France, and many a Radical will turn his coat in consequence, and many another for safety. The success of Tom Paine’s pamphlets, and the fear of insurrection, will make the government redouble its efforts to crush a radical movement over here. English Jacobins will have a lean and dangerous time of it, and as they grow more powerful they will be treated more roughly. Our societies must go underground, our literature must be written anonymously and distributed privately. Because the punishment for discovery will be imprisonment, transportation or death. Do you follow me, Mrs Longe?’

  ‘I understand you very well, sir,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Very good, ma’am. Now whether poor Toby had died or no, The Northern Correspondent must have finished. We dare not continue from this shop, even if we could. But his death — tragic though it was — has opened up a new prospect for you, and possibly for us. Toby took responsibility for the paper though you were its chief scribe and I its financier. Therefore, to all outward purposes, the Correspondent was Toby’s venture, and he was long known to be a fanatical radical. So, Toby dies, and the newspaper dies with him. His wife is left penniless and disappears up north to live with her relatives. Therefore the journal, and its publisher, and its editor, are rendered null and void. Harmless. Exploded fireworks. You follow me, Mrs Longe?’