The Iron Master

by Jean Stubbs

  He had ended in a cry of horror, and horror ran round the room, echoed by the listening audience.

  ‘But this is not enough,’ said the Honourable Mr Runciman sorrowfully. ‘He must also corrupt a lady who was hitherto of impeccable reputation!’ Here all eyes were turned upon Charlotte, who looked proudly at the wall to avoid them. ‘And not only does he get her to do his dirty work’ — laughter from him and the crowd — ‘but he attempts to hide behind her skirts when the game is up!’ Jeers and cheers. ‘Oh, what a gentleman is this!’

  I wonder how he is going to castigate me, Charlotte thought, having presented me as impeccable! She need not have concerned herself. Mr Runciman was as agile as his metaphors. Having set the scene, as it were, he now painted in the details with a fine brush: thus showing the depth and breadth of his researches. For diligence, Charlotte had to admire him. When he was done, Jack Straw was a villain indeed.

  ‘And now let us consider his lady accomplice,’ said Mr Runciman mildly, and the room gave a satisfied little sigh, and made themselves more comfortable on the wooden benches. ‘Ah, what a different fortune was hers!’

  Another idyll ensued, which was nearer the truth but unctuously delivered. He described Ned as ‘an honest yeoman’, Dorcas as ‘gently born and highly principled’, he gave William an accolade to keep him sweet. He even played down the deeds of Toby Longe, who came out much as Henry Tucker had done: very mistaken but well-intentioned.

  ‘A lone widow,’ said Mr Runciman deeply, ‘with two small children to care for, what does she do, to whom does she turn? To her family!’ Almost, they could hear the choirs of angels. ‘She hides her head, she nurses her sorrow, in the fields of her childhood. The past is forgotten. That radical grafting has not taken. She is free to pursue the mild, pure path of her youth.’ Their faces were solemn, their mouths hung slightly open in contemplation. ‘But what have we here?’ cried the honourable gentleman, seeing the snake rear yet again in Eden. ‘We have our Godless Friend, Mr Ackroyd. He has all the wickedness it takes to rouse discontent among working folk, but he lacks one vital ingredient in his Recipe for Revolution! He lacks the Yeast that makes it rise. Mrs Longe, in her involvement with her husband’s business, has acquired all the skills of a secretary and pamphleteer. She knows that she has gone astray in the past. She wishes to right herself in the future. But — he — will — not — let — her!’

  Here, counsel for the prosecution described Jack as ‘a raveging wolf’, juggled the dates to suit his convenience, started Charlotte’s evening classes as a charity which became mere cover for adultery, and fetched Jack in with his underhand schemes for seduction and betrayal. He gave a description of purity defiled, of corruption absolute, likened Charlotte to the lamb for slaughter, whetted their appetite, satisfied their desire for lechery, and then set himself right in the eyes of the law.

  ‘ … I do not bring in any evidence as to the intimate relationship between Jack Straw and Mrs Longe, for this does not concern the issue, which is entirely one of treason. We do not bring their morals into question. Their code of conduct may not be our own. Fair-minded, he lifted his eyebrows to indicate that the law was great enough to live and let live. ‘So we shall dismiss these things from our minds!’ Which, of course, they could not and did not. ‘But what was the effect upon Mrs Longe? Oh, grievous, grievous!’

  Now it is indeed my turn, thought Charlotte, and felt naked before them all, for there was sufficient truth in the distortion to give her pause.

  The honourable counsel evidently did not care for females unless, like most men, he could either pay them or discount them. Mary Wollstonecraft and her Vindication of the Rights of Women was well known to him in the past. He fetched up the old phrase ‘hyenas in petticoats’ to describe such creatures. He became possessed. Now Charlotte was brought down to the dust, crumbled: a broken statue of womanly virtue. He described the full extent of her fall from grace, told of books hidden in her private room, spat out the titles of the political ones, stopped with a shudder before mentioning others.

  ‘I would not soil my lips, nor soil the minds of gentle females here,’ he said gravely, ‘with the vicious, bestial and filthy literature found in this woman’s keeping … ’

  He gathered himself for the final injunction.

  ‘In a long, and I hope I may say honourable, career,’ said Mr Runciman, giving the impression that he had wrestled with evil and was exhausted, ‘I have not come across such monstrous joint depravity before. I have not been so — ashamed? Yes, that is how I should describe my feeling. But I leave the question of justice to you. The evidence is very clear. I do not doubt your conclusions.’

  Whereupon he sat down and drank off a glass of wine which one of the court servants brought him, and seemed much refreshed by his exercise.

  They had dredged up every witness who could have held a grudge against either of the prisoners. Most of them were poor, for even such prejudiced ladies as Mrs Graham would have declined to make a public spectacle of themselves. Also, as Charlotte noted with irony, William’s money and power granted her a certain degree of protection. They did not care tuppence for her, but her brother was a different matter. But Jack Ackroyd took every sling and arrow that misfortune could aim at him, and even members of Millbridge Council bore witness to his temper — ‘fiendish bursts of rage’ — his efforts to help the poor — ‘seditious suggestions’ — his honesty — ‘slander’ — and his solitary nature — ‘secret plotting’.

  The evidence for the prosecution rolled on like some ponderous wagon of destruction, and the hands of the clock crept past noon, and someone brought Charlotte a chair. Jack shifted his position to afford himself relief. His rheumatism had come on apace in prison. Folk went outside to drink and eat, and came back again wiping their mouths, or unwrapped the food they had brought and passed bottles between them. At one stage William escorted Dorcas into fresher air and they did not return for some time. And, like any audience at the theatre, the crowd reflected the quality of entertainment. If it flagged they yawned and talked among themselves. When it tickled their fancy they roared applause, groaned sanctimonious assent, sniggered at sly digs, hissed foul-play, and listened with hushed attention.

  Now Mr Pacey was up to speak for the defence, and had evidently found the Honourable Mr Runciman a great jester. What a storm in a teacup he had raised! What mountains he had made from honest mole-hills! And piece by piece he stuck the statue of Charlotte Longe together again, laughing a little at ‘these gross exaggerations’ of her library and her character, but careful not to rouse his client’s argumentative nature; depicting her somewhat as Ambrose had all those years ago, and for the same good reason — a learned, spinsterish lady with a strong sense of duty towards the less fortunate. He did very well indeed: not too much, not too little. And sat down again.

  Jack’s lawyer, Mr Hazard, was of a different kidney, being much like his client but clever enough to stay upon the right side of society and its laws. He was gaining a tremendous reputation for defending Luddites locally, and he did Jack proud. He swept away all notions of ravening wolves and rearing snakes as irrelevant rubbish. He went to the heart of the matter. He described the Society of the Red Rose as Charlotte and Jack had known and intended it. Perhaps he erred this side of softness, but it was well done. And he thrust the first wedge in the prosecution’s argument, for they intended to mix and judge the whole boiling of prisoners together, whereas Mr Hazard wanted the activities of Charlotte and Jack and the Red Rose to be separate from the Wyndendale Rising. Again and again in the week of the trials, he brought the argument back to this point. Hal Middleton was saved by him, and so was Dr Wilkins: one to be transported for life, the other to a term of imprisonment: they would have been hanged else.

  The day dragged on. The court recessed for necessary reasons. Charlotte and Jack could eat nothing, but they drank a little wine and water. The arguments went back and forth. And every time a counsel for the prosecution rose, Charlotte felt as though
a hand had thrown mud into her face and on her clothes. She saw her mother wince and whiten, saw William’s lips compress into a line of distaste, and heard Ambrose cry, ‘Shame!’ from the side of the court. She knew that all Wynden-dale would read of this, and that any who had the least cause to envy the Howard’s could now lambast them. The mud spread and spattered. Mr Pacey was up again, protesting, and suddenly Charlotte thought to herself, ‘Why am I here?’ She saw the Honourable Mr Runciman drinking his wine, unconcerned, viewing his colleague’s performance with the appreciation one might bestow upon a particularly fine cock in a particularly vicious cock-fight. She saw the faces of the crowd, grinning, gaping. She saw the bitterness in Jack’s eyes.

  Charlotte cried, ‘Stop!’ and struck the top rail of the dock. ‘Stop!’ she cried, and struck the rail with her chained hands.

  The audience gave her their hushed attention, obedient to drama. The counsel for the prosecution sat aghast. The judges all peered and frowned. Mr Pacey covered his eyes. But Dorcas sat very upright and willed her daughter to look in her direction, and nodded twice, thrice when she did.

  ‘Order! Order in court!’

  ‘Sit down, Mrs Longe!’ said one of the judges.

  ‘No, I will not. I will not. Take our lives if you must, prove that we have unwittingly been used for wrongful purposes, say if it pleases you that you abhor our ideals, detest our convictions. That would be fair enough. But, in the name of that justice which you represent, do not obscenely revile us like fish-wives in the street … ’

  The courtroom now divided into two factions: players and spectators, the players bent on silencing Charlotte, and the spectators bent on hearing her.

  ‘Order! Order! Order!’

  ‘Let her have her say! You’ve been jawing long enough!’

  ‘I shall clear the courtroom!’

  ‘Oh, shurrup!’ cried one big woman who was eating an apple, and she threw the rest of the fruit at the Honourable Mr Runciman and hit him on the chin, whereupon the whole audience fell about with laughter.

  Still Charlotte spoke out, as loud and clear as she could, pushing away those who would try to silence her.

  ‘There are human lives at stake and you play games among yourselves. What do you care for any of us more than your fees are worth? You should be humbler, truer, more compassionate in your great station … ’

  ‘Lift her bodily, and remove her from the courtroom!’ one judge ordered.

  ‘You pray of morality!’ she cried, above the heads of the crowd. ‘Why, you have not the morality of swine at the trough … ’

  ‘That’s right, love, you give it to em!’ shouted the big woman, and a constable pushed his way through the throng to reach her.

  ‘You cannot try me or Jack Ackroyd! You are not fit to judge. You are not to fit to judge … ’

  The crowd took up the chant and roared it at the bench.

  ‘Not — fit — to — judge!’

  ‘Clear the court!’

  Mr Pacey removed his hand from his eyes. He turned round to William.

  He said, ‘She has done more harm that I should have supposed possible.’

  William replied, tight-lipped, ‘Yet she had a point there, Mr Pacey.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but we are not concerned with truth and justice. We are trying criminal cases. Mrs Longe never seemed able to see the difference!’

  An hour later the Honourable Mr Runciman rose in a subdued courtroom. Charlotte was back in the dock, and they had fastened leg-irons on her. Someone had brought Jack a chair, since he was in considerable pain with his rheumatic hip and knee. Now, late in the afternoon, he shuffled the chair a little nearer to Charlotte and endeavoured to comfort her with closeness.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Mr Runciman in dulcet tones. ‘I feel we have had an excellent example of what Mrs Longe can do by way of raising a riot! Perhaps we should ask Mr Ackroyd to oblige us as well, and then we could take a verdict and go home to our suppers with a good conscience!’

  The crowd laughed moderately. Not too much, because there was something about Mr Runciman that warned them to behave themselves, or perhaps they might find themselves in leg-irons with a bruised face, too. But Dorcas cried softly into her handkerchief, knowing that Charlotte could not be helped, and after a while William leaned forward and held a whispered conversation with Mr Pacey, who nodded. Then the ironmaster assisted his mother to rise, and they began as unobtrusively as possible to make their way out of the room. There was nothing more to stay for, except the verdicts, and those were almost certain. Someone was calling a witness back to the stand, there was a lull in the proceedings. As they passed the dock on Charlotte’s side she looked down pitifully and they walked as slowly as they could.

  ‘God bless you, love,’ Dorcas whispered as they passed.

  William nodded, and touched Charlotte’s arm. Then he moved in front of his mother so that she should not see the leg-irons, and saw them very clearly himself, as though they were ten times life-size. On the thickest part of the ring was stamped the two-headed mark of Belbrook.

  ‘Transportation for seven years,’ said Mr Pacey, and did not know whether he would be praised or blamed for it. ‘I feared a sentence of hanging, followed by a pardon, and commuted to transportation for life, myself!’

  Dorcas was lying in the Church Street drawing-room upon a day-couch, and she looked to her son for an answer.

  ‘Could we not plead against it, Mr Pacey?’

  ‘My dear sir, after such an exhibition as we had today? Rather thank God for it. Seven years is not too bad. People do return.’

  ‘But Charlotte was never robust,’ said Dorcas faintly. ‘We had to send her to Millbridge in the end. Because of her lungs.’

  Neither man knew what to say.

  ‘Shall we see her before she goes, sir?’ Dorcas asked.

  ‘Oh yes, madam. That can certainly be arranged.’

  ‘And what of Mr Ackroyd?’ William enquired, as he saw the lawyer to the door himself.

  ‘Oh, to be hanged, of course. I never expected any other outcome.’

  ‘When, sir?’

  ‘It will take a month or so for the death-sentence to be confirmed. Shall you be coming up for it?’ Conversationally.

  *

  Mother and daughter sat side by side, each grieving for the other.

  Then Dorcas said, almost in her normal voice, ‘Well, we have not all the time in the world, and there is much to be said. I have been thinking, Charlotte, about your voyage and so forth … ’

  As though her daughter were about to take the boat for Calais.

  ‘ … of course, I know where Australia is on the globe, and you may find the climate trying at first. So I have fetched you my own medicine-chest. You and William may mock at me, but I have been proved right over and over again … ’

  It was wonderful, William thought, how she donned this old self of hers to comfort Charlotte, when she had scarcely been able to rise from her couch the day before.

  Charlotte laughed somewhat shakily. The leg-irons shamed her, made her move awkwardly. Her bruised cheek gave her a defenceless air. William’s money could not assuage these things, but what he could do for her he would, right up to the moment of sailing.

  ‘And, though you do not go to church as often as you did,’ said Dorcas gently, ‘I had thought that you would like to have my Bible and my prayer-book by you. For comfort.’

  Then Charlotte began to cry silently and to hold out her chained hands as if to say, ‘I cannot help it!’ And Dorcas bent and cradled Charlotte’s head against her shoulder, and hushed her as she used to do when Charlotte was a little girl, and spoke words of hope. While William suffered for them both.

  ‘Now you will do very well. An end is always a new beginning. And you have great strength, Charlotte. Let us look upon the brighter side,’ said Dorcas, wondering what side that might be. ‘You will be needed there, my love. Do not tell me, after that exhibition’ — she used Mr Pacey’s word, but ascribed it
to the opposition — ‘of so-called justice, that there are not others like you. Yes, I see it all,’ she said very cheerfully. ‘There is a purpose to everything. Even to our trouble of the moment.’

  She stroked Charlotte’s hair abstractedly. William saw that her strength was failing.

  ‘Mamma,’ he said softly, ‘go and sit outside where it is quiet. For a few minutes. Just while I tell Charlotte our arrangements for her.’

  He offered her his arm, and she rose and went with him like a sleep-walker, while Charlotte dried her eyes on her sleeve.

  ‘She should not have come, Willie,’ she said.

  ‘No. But we could not dissuade her.’

  Charlotte said, looking at her chains, ‘I have enough upon my conscience, without her death.’

  He replied awkwardly, ‘It is not as bad as that.’

  But Dorcas, sitting in the jailer’s chair by the door, said to him, ‘Her hair is grown quite grey. I believe I have had enough of trouble. We shall not see each other again. At least, not in this cruel world.’

  Death of a Great Lady

  Thirty

  William had kept the carriage windows dosed as they came through Wyndendale, for Dorcas murmured that the smell of sulphur made her sick and faint. But as they drove through the gateway of Kingwood Hall the trees closed overhead, bringing a dark and spicy perfume to revive her, deadening the roar of Snape. The night was beautiful, warns from the garnered day, dense with dew. The ironmaster stepped out into a moonlit garden under a heaven of stars.

  ‘We are home, Mamma,’ said William gently, holding out his hand.

  Then he saw by her face, small and white and scared, that she had not the strength to rise from her seat. So he half-carried her, and she felt no heavier than a child in his arms.

  His household began to revolve around him. Servants fetched their baggage out, took the coach and horses to the stables, came unobtrusively to help their master. Zelah was by his side now: a noiseless step, a kiss upon his cheek. His daughters surrounded him, relieved to see the travellers returned, murmuring greetings, looking compassionately at his light burden.