Chapter Seventeen
Felpham village seemed oddly empty after the Blakes had gone, closed down and denuded of colour as though winter had arrived prematurely. To Betsy’s clear eyes, the cottage seemed to have shrunk and grown cold without them. She missed the sound of their voices, the wood-smoke rising from the chimneys, the yellow light shining from that familiar western window. Now the windows were empty and the thatch forlorn and a film of dust dulled the doorstep.
Three weeks after the Blakes left, the troopers were recalled to Chichester. The last high tide had passed without invasion, autumn was well and obviously on the way and there was no likelihood of another attempt until the spring. In the emptied streets and quiet farms, the villagers went about their now wintry business in their age-old way. Thatchers patched as many roofs as needed their attention, barns were checked and mended, fodder laid in, vegetable gardens dug over, the last apples and quinces picked and stored, pigs slaughtered and non-laying hens killed for the pot, firewood stacked high in the outhouses and sea-coal delivered by the ton to those who could afford its luxury. The village air prickled with the scent of many bonfires, wild geese honked their V-shaped formations towards the salt flats in Pagham, a grey sea rolled inexorably into shore and the beach was scattered with the debris of the autumn tides, lengths of frayed rope, torn nets and driftwood, the white bones of dead cuttlefish and the black shreds of dead seaweed. It was a time for tidying up and winding down. A melancholy time. And nobody felt the melancholy more acutely than Johnnie Boniface.
While he and Betsy had been busy collecting names for their list and visiting their neighbours to persuade them to give evidence, he had been so happily occupied that he’d given little thought to the fact that his love affair was still in abeyance and showed no signs of being resumed. Now with only digging and repairs to keep him busy, his mind returned to its summer-time frustration. He still contrived to be in The Fox when Betsy arrived with Miss Pearce’s jug and sometimes she allowed him to carry it back to the house for her, and on rare, rare occasions she even allowed a kiss or two, and he still made a point of strolling down to her mother’s house on her afternoon off to talk to her there, but nothing he said or did could persuade her that they should be lovers again.
There was a weary sadness about her that hurt him more than a quarrel would have done. ‘If we starts that up,’ she said, ‘’twill onny lead to trouble. We’ll want to be on our own together, you know we will, an’ where would we go? Tha’s nearly winter an’ there’s no stable for us now nor like to be.’
‘We could ha’ been on our own together all summer,’ he said, rather crossly. ‘There was plenty a’ places then onny you wouldn’t.’ Her refusal had made no sense to him at the time and it made even less now. It was silly and it felt like a rejection.
‘We couldn’t Johnnie,’ she said, wearily. ‘I told you. I got a reputation to think about. Someone would’ve seen us, an’ they’d ha’ called me names. ’Tis all very well for you, men don’t get called names. ’Tis all sowin’ wild oats for you an’ what a lad you are an’ ha-ha-ha.’
That was true but it wasn’t his fault. ‘Well then, we should get wed,’ he urged. The more he thought about it the more it seemed the only solution. ‘If we was married we could be on our own together whenever we wanted. What’s to stop us?’
‘I’ll tell ’ee what’s to stop us,’ she said, bitterly. ‘Bein’ called names. Tha’s what’s to stop us. They’d say you were makin’ an honest woman of me an’ that’ud start ’em up again. It’ud be how I was a slut an’ a trollop all over again an’ I couldn’t bear it.’
He tried to argue against such pessimism. ‘No they wouldn’t.’
But she knew better. ‘Yes they would. That’s how they goes on. Besides, what would we live on?’
It was a crushing question because there was no answer to it and it had been asked and unanswered for so long. It was a thorn embedded and growing into his flesh and the irritation of it was perpetual.
‘Let’s wait till the spring,’ she said. ‘It might be better then.’
He sighed. ‘Tha’s years off!’
That provoked a sad smile. ‘Well, till our Mr Blake’s had his trial then,’ she said. ‘Tha’s onny a week or two. We’ll all feel better when that’s over.’
‘If he gets off.’
Something of her old fire flickered in her. ‘He will,’ she said. ‘He must. I’ve set my heart on it.’
The trial was the main, and sometimes the only, topic of conversation at every gathering place in the village. It was the one thing Johnnie really enjoyed in those depressing days, for he and Mr Hosier were the bearers of the latest news from Turret House and there was excitement in being a messenger. They reported when Mr Blake’s first letter arrived to say that he and Catherine were back in London safe and sound and were living in Broad Street with his brother. They spread the news that Mrs Blake was sick with worry. ‘Is it any wonder, poor woman, with that sort a’ thing hangin’ over her head?’ And they delivered the date of the trial as soon as Mr Hayley knew it himself.
It was a surprise to his neighbours that Blake proposed to attend the court on his own. Some said it was a sign of confidence, ‘He knows they’ll let him off, tha’s the size of it,’ others that it was a mark of folly. ‘What if they was to ask for evidence an’ he couldn’t give it?’ and some were annoyed to have had their offer of help ignored. ‘What’s the point of us puttin’ our names to Betsy’s list if he aren’t a-goin’ to take no notice of it?’
But when the day arrived, most of them were anxious on his behalf and impatient to hear the outcome. There was an outcry of disbelief when it came.
‘’Tis a civil case seemingly,’ Mr Hosier explained. ‘They found a bill of indictment against him.’
His listeners were baffled by such terms. ‘What’s that when it’s at home? Was he found guilty or not?’
‘That I couldn’t say,’ Mr Hosier confessed. ‘All I knows is they found a bill of indictment against him an’ now ’tis a civil case, seemingly, an’ he’s to appear at the next quarter sessions here in Chichester an’ be tried by a jury.’
‘Which means he’ll have to engage a counsellor to defend him,’ Johnnie told them, ‘though how he’ll pay for that I can’t imagine, for they costs the earth. And he’ll have to call witnesses, so you’ll get to see the trial after all. Mr Hayley’s gone to Lavant this very morning to tell Miss Poole.’
‘Samuel Rose,’ Miss Poole said. ‘If anyone could prevail against the military establishment, he would be the man. You must write to him this very afternoon and acquaint him with the matter. We cannot have our Mr Blake sent to prison, that would be intolerable, for not only is he totally innocent of the crime imputed to him but he is also a man of exquisite sensibilities and has too tender a constitution for harsh treatment. ’Twould be the ruin of him.’
The two of them were sitting in the delicate sunshine in her delicate drawing room, drinking her delicate tea, and the mere thought of incarceration was making her shiver.
Mr Hayley had ridden to Lavant in a fury, enraged to think that his dear friend should be put to the misery of another three months’ anxiety before this ridiculous matter could be resolved. Now, under her gentle influence he was eased and reassured. ‘I entirely agree,’ he told her. ‘Entirely.’ It went without saying that he would cover the costs. ‘Your advice is admirable as always, my dear Paulina. Quite admirable. I do not forget how superbly he handled the case of the Reverend Boaz, and, of course, my dear friend Cowper thought most highly of him. Oh, most highly. I will write to him at once and the letter can be dispatched post haste.’
Ten days later, the regulars in The Fox were excited to hear that a famous barrister had been hired to defend their old neighbour, had gone to meet him up in London, and was coming down to Felpham in a week or two to stay with Mr Hayley so that he could talk to the witnesses.
Betsy and Johnnie and Mr Hosier were interviewed in Mr Hayley’s library. They
were very impressed by their new ally for he wasn’t at all the sort of figure they’d imagined a barrister would be. For a start he was a young man and very slender and they’d expected somebody old and stout, then he had a pale face and dark eyes which made him look more like a poet than a man of law, but he was obviously a gentleman, for he wore fine clothes and spoke gently in an accent that none of them recognised, but that Johnnie discovered afterwards was Scottish.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘exactly what you can remember. Omit nothing. I will be the judge of those things that should be stressed come the time.’
So they told him what they could remember and left out everything they didn’t want him or anybody else to know. ‘A lot of hollerin’ an’ shoutin’,’ Mr Hosier said, ‘same as there allus is when there’s a fight. Scolfield was threatenin’ to knock Mr Blake’s eyes out, I remember.’
‘Did he often offer such threats?’
‘When he was drunk, yes he did.’
‘Was he drunk on that occasion?’
‘He was drunk on most occasions,’ Mr Hosier said. ‘Famous for it, you might say. Accordin’ to the rumour that’s why he was demoted. Used to be a sergeant, seemingly, an’ they demoted him.’
‘Thank you, Mr Hosier,’ the counsellor said. ‘You’ve been extremely helpful.’
‘A good man,’ Betsy said when they’d all been interviewed. ‘If anyone can get him off he will. Now I’d best be gettin’ back to the house or Miss Pearce’ll have somethin’ to say.’
Miss Pearce did have something to say and called Betsy to her presence so that she could say it as soon as the girl was back in her kitchen.
‘What’s all this nonsense I hear about you giving evidence at Mr Blake’s trial?’ she said. She sat ramrod straight behind her heavy stays and her powdered nose was pinched with displeasure.
‘Tha’s quite true, ma’am,’ Betsy said. ‘I been asked to give evidence, bein’ I was there at the time, an’ I’ve said I will.’
‘Total folly!’ her employer said. ‘You’ll regret it, you mark my words. No possible good will come of it. There’s a deal more to this business than meets the eye. The man is an agitator. That much is plain or the military would not be pursuing him.’
Betsy couldn’t let such an insult pass, even if Miss Pearce was her employer and could hire or fire her as she pleased. ‘He’s a good honest man, Miss Pearce,’ she said. ‘An’ I’m proud to be givin’ evidence for him.’
Miss Pearce snorted. ‘Then you’ve got less sense than I gave you credit for. Why do you imagine the military are spending money and time to bring him to court, you foolish child? Because he’s been up to no good, spying or some such or sending messages to the enemy, and they know it. There’s no smoke without fire, as you will discover and you would be well advised to keep out of it. Did you get the herring?’
Her poor opinion of William Blake was shared by the formidable Lady Hesketh. At the end of November, when Counsellor Rose had gathered all the information he needed and returned to his chambers in London, she wrote fiercely to ‘her dear friend Mr Hayley’ to warn him that his championship of Mr Blake could be misplaced.
‘I have never taken up the subject you mention’d to me concerning Mr Blake,’ she wrote, ‘and this, because I had at the time great reason to fear that your kind unsuspecting Friendship was drawing you into a Scrape, for one who did not merit that you should incur blame on his account. If I may give credit to some reports which reached me at the time, Mr B was more Seriously to blame than you were at all aware of. But I will only add on this subject that if he was I sincerely hope that you are no stranger to it.’
For once, her heavy emphasis only increased Mr Hayley’s determination to do exactly the reverse of what she wanted. He would, he told Mrs Beke, do everything in his power to see his dear friend William Blake acquitted.
That was the general feeling in the village too, as the long empty winter crouched towards January. ‘We’ll see him right,’ they said in The Fox, as they huddled round the fires on those dark evenings. ‘We got the measure of that Scolfield feller.’ They even teased Reuben Jones about it. ‘You should come with us Reuben,’ they said, ‘an’ give your evidence alongside of us. You was there. You seen what happened.’
But Reuben wasn’t going to be budged from his neutrality by anyone. ‘Oi was in the tap room,’ he said, ‘on account of Oi’d got moi arm in a sling. Oi never heard hoide nor hair of any thin’.’
‘Makes you deaf, does it,’ they asked him, ‘havin’ yer arm in a sling? Blocks yer ears?’
‘There’s toimes to hear an’ toimes not to hear,’ he told them. ‘As you’ll foind out. ’Tis no good argyfyin’ with me. Oi knows what’s what.’
* * *
And then with the suddenness of a sea storm, everything changed. Towards the end of December, Mr Hayley and the other witnesses received notification of the date of the trial. It was to be on Tuesday January 10th 1804, in the Guildhall in Chichester, which was where they expected it to be. What they didn’t expect, and were alarmed to discover, was that it would be presided over by the Duke of Richmond. Mr Hayley was most upset.
‘He has a poor opinion of me and I of him,’ he said to Mrs Beke, ‘and always has done, as I’m sure you know. ’Tis a black day to see him in this particular seat of judgement, an unconscionable black day. I fear he will have a poor view of Mr Blake in consequence of our friendship.’
The reaction of the villagers was immediate and fearful too, for the duke was the biggest landlord in the area and owned the farmland they worked on, which was bad enough, and the tied cottages they lived in, which was worse. Even Mr Grinder, who besides being landlord of The Fox and the cottage, also owned a hotel in the fishing village of Bognor a few miles along the coast and was well on his way to being a man of consequence, could see what a quandary they were all in. You simply didn’t argue with men as powerful as the duke. Nobody ever had or ever would. It would be asking for trouble.
‘If we says somethin’ he don’t like, he’ll have us out the minute we so much as opens our mouths,’ Mrs Haynes said to her daughter, ‘an’ we can’t say what he wants us to say if we don’t know what it is. No, no, we can’t do it, Betsy. ’Tis too much of a risk.’
‘You can’t let Mr Blake stand up in that court without a soul to speak up for him,’ Betsy urged. ‘’Twould be downright wickedness.’
‘Better downright wickedness than downright folly,’ her mother said. ‘We needs a roof over our heads. I ’aven’t forgot that family in Bersted. They had them out that cottage so quick you wouldn’t believe. An’ she with a babe-in-arms. An’ I knows that wasn’t the Duke a’ Richmond but landlords are all the same. Let Mr Hayley do it. He can afford to. He’s a rich man.’
‘Mr Hayley wasn’t there,’ her daughter argued. ‘He never saw what went on. We’re the ones what did an’ we’re the ones what has to speak out.’
But she was wasting her breath. ‘What are we to do?’ she asked Johnnie as he was escorting her back from The Fox the next morning. ‘I never see such cowardice in all my life. Even Ma says she won’t do it, an’ I never thought to see her let anyone down. Ever. Not once she’d given her word. Poor Mr Blake. We can’t let him stand up in that awful court an’ no one there to say a word for him.’
‘Except us,’ he pointed out.
‘We wouldn’t be enough,’ she said seriously. ‘Not if ’tis trial by jury. If no one else is prepared to speak they’ll wonder why not and come to the wrong conclusion. ’Tis all or none. Can’t you persuade ’em?’
‘I have tried.’
‘Well you must try again,’ she said, taking the jug from him as they’d reached the George and Dragon. ‘We must both try. They can’t desert him now.’
During the next few days they went out of their way to talk to all the witnesses one after the other – and got nowhere. ‘They’re afraid,’ Johnnie said. ‘Tha’s what, an’ all the talk in the world won’t change ’em. They all say the same. Upset the d
uke an’ we shall be out on our ears. If I’ve heard about the family in Bersted once, I’ve heard it a dozen times.’
‘Maybe ’twould be better if we asked ’em to meet up together,’ Betsy decided. ‘There’s safety in numbers if we could get ’em to see it. We could use the hall next to The Fox. Mr Grinder would let us.’ Which was true enough for the single storey room alongside the inn was often used for village meetings.
Getting all their witnesses to gather there was a great deal more difficult than getting permission to use the room. ‘There’s no point,’ they were told. ‘Let it lie.’ ‘I ’aven’t got time.’ ‘It’s no good you keepin’ all on.’ But they kept all on and in the end they persuaded their neighbours ‘at least to come an’ listen’ and their neighbours came.
It was a miserably cold night and they were glad that Mr Grinder had provided them with a fire and plenty to drink. They sat in a semicircle round the blaze on stools and benches carried in from the inn and told one another at length how foolish it would be to make a stand – Mr and Mrs Grinder, Mrs Haynes, Mr Cosens, Mr Hosier, William Smith and old Mrs Taylor, holding her hand to her ear so as not to miss what was being said.
Johnnie and Betsy sat in the middle of the circle. They were the youngest people there but over the last few days they seemed to have become the leaders of the group for want of any others, and although their elders didn’t defer to them they listened when either of them had something to say. That evening it was Johnnie who did most of the talking, partly because Betsy said she was too cross to trust herself to speak but mostly because his mind was working so clearly, as if anxiety about this trial had sharpened his wits.
‘Mr Cosens is quite right,’ he said, when there was a pause in the long explanations of the need to avoid action. ‘’Tis neck or nothin’. Either we all gives evidence or none of us does.’
‘Then none of us does,’ Mr Cosens said. ‘Sit tight an’ say nothing, that’s my advice. There’s safety in silence.’
Gates of Paradise Page 22
