by Jean Stubbs
The first member of the Red Rose committee to be caught was Hal Middleton, the printer from Flawnes Green. His journeyman, in the years of apprenticeship, had been proud to run errands for Jack Straw. But, as an older man, he tended to hold his tongue and watch events. And after the siege of Millbridge he reckoned he had better save his own skin before he was arrested with his master. So Hal Middleton came up before Colonel Ryder, looking the worse for his arrest, but steadfast in his silence. He was shown an old Red Rose broadsheet which had been printed on his machine, several copies of Tom Paine’s Rights of Man, printed extracts from Cobbett’s Political Register, and a set of handbills ready to be distributed. He could not deny his offence, but he declined to implicate anyone else. So they threw him into the town jail, which had never been spacious and was now severely overcrowded. Then they fetched his journeyman in again, and combed his mind until he remembered events in which he had been involved long since. They offered him a King’s Pardon, on the grounds that he had been young and foolish, and he dredged up everything he knew. And the links began to form a chain.
Circumstances had been too difficult, the atmosphere too tense, to continue evening classes at Thornton House and the grammar school; and the presence of Charlotte’s lodgers kept Jack at a distance. But the demise of her Working People’s Society, the importance of her army officers, and her brother’s courage and initiative brought Charlotte back into favour with genteel Millbridgers.
The Misses Whitehead, now in their eighties, had always kept in touch. Mrs Matthew Standish had never cut Charlotte in the street. And Mrs Graham had been forced to acknowledge her because they were related via the Jarvis Poles’ marriage. But now, in the lull after the Luddite storm, Thornton House began to seem a proper place to visit again, and ladies thought of leaving their cards.
That July Tuesday, uncertain whether to be wet or hot, managed to be both. Millbridge first drowned, then steamed, and all its noxious vapours rose to offend the nostrils. Charlotte had been sitting in the parlour, in a despair of mind and body, when Polly announced that they had run out of milk.
A longing for fresh air overcame her lassitude.
‘I shall fetch the milk myself,’ said Charlotte decidedly. ‘But Boulton’s farm is above a mile off, Mrs Longe!’
‘I have walked more than a mile in my day, Polly. Give me the can. I have nothing else to do.’
So she set forth, feeling younger and more carefree than at any time in the past twelve years. She remembered London in the hot summer of ‘89, when she had walked through the crowded streets, knowing she had money in her pocket, a means of earning her living, and the desire to love Toby again. Today, Millbridge had just such an air of carelessness, born of excitement and uncertainty. Folk smiled when they learned her errand, though a month ago they would have looked askance. And Mrs Graham cried archly, across the High Street, ‘Do not forget what day it is, Charlotte!’
But Charlotte simply waved and smiled, not taking in the meaning of the words, being grateful for the friendly tone of voice. She had been a pariah for a long time. It was nectar and ambrosia to be received again. If she had not promised to fetch back the milk, she thought, she would have walked the length of Wyndendale: calling in to see poor Caleb at Belbrook, taking luncheon with Dorcas at Bracelet, drinking tea at Kingswood Hall with Zelah and the girls, and coming to rest at last in Kit’s Hill for supper. What an age it was since she last visited the house of her birth. On a day such as this, forty years since, she and William would have scrambled to the top of Scarth Nick and sat on the coarse grass and known the entire valley for their own. What a childhood theirs had been: loved and set free in the grey farmhouse, living within the circle of Ned and Dorcas, lying awake and unafraid as they listened to the wild wind scouring Garth Fells.
Strangers, seeing her coming towards them from a distance, swinging the milk-can in one hand, took her for a young girl on an errand. Her fair hair was pulled into a careless knot, her muslin gown was simple, her waist still narrow. Then as she came close they saw that time had claimed her. But still she walked and smiled as though she were sweet and twenty, and they thought how happy she must be to carry her years so lightly.
She popped her head round the door of the smithy at Flawnes Green, and asked for a mug of water. They made much of her. She dandled the latest infant and praised its health and beauty: passed on. The afternoon was magical. All would yet be well.
Mrs Boulton herself filled the copper can, and said as how they didn’t know what the world was coming to, but England had allus been a good country to live in, and would be again, despite all.
With a pang of regret, she turned towards Millbridge. The journey was still beautiful, but sad now, for her family were in the opposite direction. She walked less eagerly, and the milk was heavy in her hand. By the time she reached Thornton House her idyll was over. Polly opened the door with an alacrity which presaged news of some sort.
‘It’s Mr Awkright, ma’am. He’s been waiting and fretting for above an hour!’
He was grey with tiredness, and the lines on his face were deeply marked, but he endeavoured to smile and incline his head in greeting. As Polly closed the door he seized Charlotte’s hands.
‘I had to tell you myself, Lottie. They have arrested Dr Wilkins. He was attending a former member of the Red Rose, wounded in the Luddite rising at Babylon. The man is in agony with a shattered limb, but they dragged him out as well as the doctor. Charlotte, you have destroyed the papers, have you not?’
She shook her head, white to the lips.
‘For God’s sake, woman, why not?’ he cried, and then dropped his voice lest they be heard. ‘Why not?’
‘I had no time, Jack. They have not left the house for a minute, except at the town siege. And there is a great chest pulled over the hiding-place, which would take two people at least to move. No! Do not look like that! Can you imagine how it has been, here? I am nearly out of my mind … ’
‘But could you not say you must clean out the room, or some such excuse? Take Polly with you. Confide in her, since you must. She will be faithful.’
She pulled her hands away, crying, ‘I will not implicate poor Polly. There are enough in danger as it is.’
He sat down and put his face in his hands, thinking. The long clock in the hall chimed thrice, calm and gracious in the hurlyburly. The door-knocker sounded very loud, and both of them jumped and looked at each other in terror.
‘It is a woman’s voice,’ said Charlotte in relief. ‘But who could that be? I am expecting no one.’
Before Polly could announce the visitor the knocker sounded again. A duet of female voices was augmented by yet another summons, yet another voice. The parlour door was opened in a hurry.
Flustered, Polly cried, ‘Mrs Graman, Miss Frances Whitebred, and Mrs Sandwich, ma’am!’
The knocker was in brisk demand. Another lady’s voice was heard, and then the deeper tones of a man. Charlotte and Jack rose together in mute astonishment.
Mrs Graham had stopped short at the sight of the headmaster, and then decided to let bygones be bygones for the afternoon. She extended her fingers to Charlotte.
‘Why, we have caught you unawares,’ she cried archly. ‘But did you not hear me remind you, when we met in the High Street? It is Tuesday, my dear.’
‘Tuesday?’ Charlotte echoed, as in a nightmare.
‘Your old calling day!’ said Mrs Graham. ‘We are all coming to call upon you. As of old, my dear.’
‘But what a surprise!’ cried Charlotte, trying to sound pleased.
Jack saw by her expression, and the way she took Polly hastily to one side to question her about the state of cake and biscuits, that a tea-party would be the final straw. He made up his mind to be distinctly agreeable and help her over it. So he sat down again, instead of departing in his usual flurry of coattails and cravat-ends, and addressed himself to Miss Frances Whitehead who was looking at him timidly.
‘And how are you and your sister
keeping, ma’am?’ he enquired. ‘Are you enjoying a well-earned retirement from the rigours of teaching? I confess, I look forward to my own retirement eventually.’
‘ … then run round to the bakehouse,’ Charlotte whispered, ‘there is no means of baking anything here, and no time to light the kitchen fire and warm the oven. And fetch tea, and the biscuits you have, immediately … ’
‘And were your pupils very much afraid during the siege, Mr Ackroyd?’
‘Just a minute, ma’am. There’s the knocker again!’ cried poor Polly, as bemused as her mistress with all this hospitality.
And Colonel Ryder, clanking down the stairs, immaculate as ever, was besieged as he passed the parlour. A chorus of ladies caused him to enter and bow and accept compliments.
‘We shall miss you, Colonel, when you are gone,’ said Mrs Graham, coyly fanning herself. ‘We are greatly in your debt, sir.’
‘Well, we are not yet gone,’ he reminded her, smiling, ‘but shall not be very long, I think. The worst of the rebellion is over, here and elsewhere.’
Sally, taking thought for the honour of the house, now sent the scullery-maid in with a tray of cups and saucers, to show them that tea was on the way.
‘We are most grateful, sir,’ said Miss Frances, and her frail head trembled in emphasis. ‘We feel that you have protected more than our lives. It is because of these brave soldiers, I tell my sister, that we can be so pleasant together. Such a matter as taking tea with old friends may seem trivial to you, sir, but it means much to us.’
He bowed again, made some good-mannered comment, and turned to Charlotte.
‘My batman tells me, Mrs Longe, that you have once or twice endeavoured to see my room set to rights. It is well enough for me, madam, but am I interrupting some household ritual?’
He spoke in the manner of a man who has been long married, and understands that there are matters of great importance to women which would not occur to him.
‘Sir, you put me to shame before my friends!’ Charlotte cried, so relieved at this opportunity that she could have laughed aloud. ‘Now they will see me for the poor housekeeper that I am! There has been so much trouble of late that, with one and the other thing, you and your fellow-officers came upon me in the midst of our spring-cleaning, and your room was not yet done. That is all, sir. But if we had a day to ourselves we could easily set it right.’
‘If that is your problem, madam,’ he said courteously, ‘I shall leave my room for the whole of tomorrow, at your entire disposal. I crave the pardon of yourself and your friends for introducing such a domestic issue!’
They all laughed, and Mrs Graham said afterwards that the party went quite merrily, and even the headmaster was most entertaining and amicable.
Then Polly came back from the bakehouse with a batch of fresh cakes and biscuits, and the kitchen staff made haste to put up a good show. So it was one of the strangest and nicest days Charlotte could remember.
Jack took care to leave with the rest, but he left last of all and managed a private word with her as he bent over her hand.
‘It has not been so bad, Lottie! I believe we can face it out together. I shall see you shortly.’
They made a great palaver with mops and pails and hot soapy water the following morning, and asked the batmen to move the furniture out. Then, in the scrubbed expanse of bare boards covered with dean newspapers, Charlotte and Polly faced each other.
‘You should’ve told me afore,’ Polly whispered hoarsely, reproachfully. ‘We’ve known each other long enough, I should think!’
‘Oh, I could weep,’ said Charlotte softly, ‘but, Polly, swear to me that you will forget all this for your own sake. I beg you to know nothing. For your own sake, my dear.’
‘Don’t you fret, ma’am,’ said Polly briskly. ‘I can act as daft as a brush, if I want. They won’t get nothink out of me.’
Together they lifted the boards which hid the box, and Charlotte got it safely out. Then, with Polly watching for signs of lodgers or servants, they conveyed it downstairs to the parlour, and hid it in a cupboard.
‘We must light the fire,’ said Charlotte. ‘No, not now. That would seem suspicious, for the weather is hot. This evening. Late. Lay it for me, Polly, and then put the fire-screen back.’
In her new mood of confidence she helped her maids to finish off the colonel’s room later that day. And even picked flowers from the garden, to put in a little silver vase upon his chest of drawers. Then she busied herself in the way which most calmed and ordered her mind, writing letters to those about her one to Dorcas, promising that she should ride down to see her and would stay the night if she wished; one to Zelah, to say that she would be coming to Bracelet the following week and hoped to call on her, and asking after her sister-in-law’s health, for Zelah was once again with child; a simple letter to Dick and Alice, saying that she would like to visit them when the harvest was over. Though she did not know this, she was setting herself aright by returning to her beginnings.
The hour drew close when all but herself were abed. Alone, serene, she lit the parlour fire and sat upon the hearthrug watching it burn up bright She fetched the box from the cupboard. She was standing with it in her hands when the door burst open and Colonel Ryder stood there, officers behind him.
‘Do not touch those papers, madam,’ he said commandingly. ‘I believe them to be King’s Evidence.’
His order halted her only for a second. In the instant that she realised she had been trapped, that they must have crept down and waited at the keyhole, hoping to catch her in the act, she flung back the lid and seized the papers at the top. The soldiers leaped to intercept her, but she threw the box at them and thrust the list which named both committee and leaders deep into the heart of the fire. She was conscious of pain, of crying out, and still she held the burning papers in the flame until they pinioned her arms behind her. Then she faced the colonel, victorious in this attempt at least, and sought to shield Jack Ackroyd. For he would live and learn from these events, and go on as she was not destined to do.
‘I am guilty of forming, organising and directing the secret society of the Red Rose, known by its password, Jack Straw,’ she said as steadily as she could, but her fingers were piercing her in their trouble. ‘You have no need to look further, Colonel Ryder. You will find that I have knowledge of such societies in the past. My husband, Tobias Longe, was a well-known Radical and active member for parliamentary reform.’
‘We have a considerable dossier on you, Mrs Longe,’ said the colonel. You have been watched these past six months. But we could find no evidence against you, until you sought to burn those papers.’
As though she had sent him a message in her trouble, Jack rose from his desk where he was working late, and went to the window overlooking the High Street.
She was even now coming down the steps of Thornton House for the last time, wrapped in her old mantle, one hand bandaged, escorted by two officers. Behind them, Colonel Ryder carried the metal box of King’s Evidence which could hang her by the neck until she was dead.
Unhurriedly, he reached for his own greatcoat. Though it was summer, the prisons were notoriously damp, and God knew how long it would be before they came to trial. He put all the money he had into a leather bag, and pushed it into his pocket. He looked round his room, engraving it upon his memory. He looked across the High Street at Charlotte’s window. Then he ran down the stairs and caught up with the little group as it marched towards the jail.
Charlotte said instinctively, ‘No, Jack!’
But he addressed himself to Colonel Ryder, briefly, almost peremptorily.
‘Sir, I am Jack Straw!’
And put out his hand to touch her wounded one, so that she should know they were together even in this.
Speeches, Fear and Treason
Twenty-nine
In the royal duchy of Lancaster, late that summer, a man could not find a room for love or money. Every inn was bursting, every lodging-house crammed from
attic to basement, and all charging the most monstrous prices. Solicitor Quirk, who booked accommodation for the four judges and their retinues, said he had never known anything like it. The Wyndendale Rising had fetched upon itself the full panoply of the law. A Special Commission was descending from London to conduct exemplary trials and order exemplary hangings, for the good of the nation; bringing with it five distinguished barristers for the prosecution, a flock of witnesses, and such necessary fleas as courtroom artists and journalists. For the defence, on the other hand, stood only three lawyers of fair repute who had demanded their fees before they went into court; and a mere handful of people who could testify to the former good character of some of the prisoners. Over a hundred honest men and true had been sifted to find twelve jurymen. And the sheriff’s chaplain was busy polishing his sermon, which he had based upon the stricture ‘Put the Evil away from the Midst of Thee’ (Deuteronomy 13:5) and would preach in St Mary’s Church before the trials began.
Though Lancaster’s history was long and embattled it did not give the appearance of a medieval town, owing to the amount of building done in the reign of the three Georges. Penny’s Hospital and the Quaker meeting-house were coming up to their century, but the Town Hall with its vast Tuscan portico, the majority of fine houses and Glasson Docks were no more than thirty years old. Even the castle, rising from its rock above the broad river, had been re-modelled to contain a Shire Hall and a jail within the last decade. So the first impression on the visitor was that of a stately modern place.
This graciousness would have delighted Dorcas Howarth at any other time, but now seemed like the face of cold indifference. Her journey to Lancaster was the conclusion to a bitter battle between mother and son. For, as head of the family, William preferred to take the protection and defence of Charlotte entirely upon himself. Within an hour of hearing the news from Lord Kersall, he had resigned his public offices, sought advice as to a sound lawyer, bribed the Millbridge jailer to make Charlotte more comfortable, sent in Dr Hamish Standish to dress her hand, and talked to her for a long while in the attempt to understand why she had behaved in such a fashion. All this he wanted to spare Dorcas, but she would not let him.
