She and her friends were at a party at the Ottenshaws’ London house in Henrietta Street. They had retired from the ballroom temporarily and were drinking wine in a vain attempt to cool themselves after a particularly energetic mazurka.
‘Oh come now, Tilda,’ Billy said, ‘that’s a bit hard. She does uncommon good work for the poor.’
‘And where’s the fun in that?’ Matilda said, pouting at him prettily. She was pregnant again and blooming. ‘Lectures and meetings night after night. It wouldn’t do for me, I can tell you. ’Tis enough to turn the stomach. Oh no, Billy my love, she should have come here tonight, so she should. ’Twould have done her some good. It ain’t every day of the week we get a new king, now is it?’
‘He ain’t exactly a new king though, is he Tilda?’ Jerry Ottenshaw said reasonably. ’Tis only the Prince Regent with a new name.’ The poor old mad king, George III, had finally slipped away from his painful, puzzled existence and the Regent was proclaimed George IV. Nobody could pretend the news was surprising, but it was a good excuse for parties.
‘La, I’m dry,’ Maria said, flirting her eyes at Mr Ottenshaw. ‘Is there any fruit cup, Jerry?’
‘Time we were dancing, my charmer,’ Billy said, as the first notes of the waltz drifted out into the alcove. And he seized Matilda about the waist and walked off with her, moving in time to the music and with such a marked rhythm that her skirt swung like a bell.
‘She’ll be the only woman sitting at home tonight,’ Matilda said, as she skipped along beside him, ‘in the whole of London.’
‘Who will, my beauty?’ Billy said, grinning sideways at her.
‘Fie on you, Billy Easter,’ she said, pretending to scold. ‘You don’t listen to a word I say. I shall refuse my favours, so I shall, if you don’t pay me more attention.’ Her face was bright with affection, encouraging him.
So he kissed her.
Nan and Frederick were at a party too that night, and a very grand one. They were the guests of the Earl of Harrowby and among the many others there were more than half the members of the Cabinet. It was such prestigious company that she and Frederick found themselves sitting well below the salt at dinner, right at the far end of the table, in fact, and with the Barnesworthys for company. They were presided over by Lady Harrowby, it was true, but they were well out of the way of the excitement at the centre of the table.
Something was going on, Nan thought, that was plain, for the atmosphere in the room was extremely tense, and Lady Harrowby was brittle with nervousness which was most unlike her, and servants arrived every five minutes with messages for Lord Sidmouth or their host or both of them together. And the butler had obviously been detailed to keep a watch for somebody or something, because he went to the far window as soon as one messenger departed and watched there until the next arrived. It vexed Nan Easter not to know what it was all about. If she’d been a little nearer the centre she could have listened to what Lord Sidmouth and Lord Harrowby were saying, but at her present distance it was impossible.
And to make matters worse, Sir Joshua was more than half drunk and horribly irascible, holding forth about everything and anything. Now he was blundering on about Sidmouth’s spy system.
‘Spies,’ he declared, as the fish course was cleared, ‘are a damned fine thing. Where would we be without ’em? I’ll tell you, where we’d be, my friends? In the dark. That’s where we’d be.’
‘They have their value,’ his neighbour agreed. ‘Howsomever ’tis my opinion they are best when they are used with discretion. As agents provocateurs I sometimes wonder if they ain’t a good deal worse than the mob we pay ’em to control. They provoke riots a-plenty, I’ll grant you that, but it don’t lead to a hanging, and a hanging is what we need to deter the sort of mob we see in this country today.’
‘Quite right,’ Sir Joshua said. ‘Ain’t had a good hanging for years. Used to enjoy ’em, so I did.’
‘How of our own two special government spies?’ Lady Harrowby said urbanely, smiling at Frederick in the hope that he would help her to ease the conversation. ‘I believe you found our roving Princess when you were on your travels last autumn, did you not?’
‘We did, ma’am,’ Frederick said.
‘And did you discover her intentions too?’
‘I fear we may have done.’
‘She means to return,’ Lady Harrowby said, understanding him. ‘Dear me. That won’t please the new King. Can he do ought to prevent her, think ’ee?’
‘I doubt it, ma’am.’
‘They say he will divorce her rather than allow her to be Queen.’
‘’Twould seem likely.’
‘She is hardly a fit person to be Queen of England,’ Lady Barnesworth said. ‘Flaunting her lovers and dancing in the streets and wearing indecent clothing. ’Tain’t seemly.’
‘The King takes lovers,’ Nan pointed out, grinning at her, ‘and we forgive him for it. One law for the goose and another for the gander, I’m thinking.’
Another message had arrived and Lord Harrowby was looking uncommon serious.
‘And what of her lover, Count Bergami?’ another lady asked. ‘Did you meet with him? They say in the Gazette that he is a commoner and a fortune hunter.’
‘As to that, dear lady,’ Frederick said, ‘’tis an impossibility to believe all that one reads in the press since no two newsheets ever agree.’
‘The government should put paid to the damn press, once and for all,’ Sir Joshua said, filling his mouth with buttered parsnips. ‘That’s what they should do. All this pussy-footing around with stamp acts and agreements and such. ’Tain’t a bit of use. Oh I know what you’ll say to that, Mrs Easter, but upon me soul I never read such unmitigated balderdash as you see in The Times nowadays. I used to think it fair-minded, but upon me soul …’ And he slopped more wine in his glass to show his ill-humour.
The butler was standing at the window shaking his head at his master, which seemed to be the correct signal for the noble Earl was smiling in answer. Now what was going on?
‘Hang the lot of ’em,’ Sir Joshua said, drinking his wine noisily. ‘That’s what I say.’
Frederick gave him a disparaging look. ‘A very charitable sentiment,’ he said.
A few hundred yards away, on the north side of Oxford Street, a group of excited men were waiting for a signal. There were about twenty of them, crowded together in a darkened attic above a stable at one end of a narrow alley called Cato Street, guns primed, swords sharpened, last instructions given. And among them were Jack and Henry Abbott, both in a state of frantic excitement, Jack prowling, Henry cracking his fingers like a fusillade, crick, crick, crick, over and over again.
Voices in the stable below them. The signal at last. Standing, gathering their weapons together, breathing fast with excitement. The trap door flung aside with a thud, a head protruding through the opening. But not the head they expected. Dear God! This one wore the stovepipe hat of a constable.
‘Hellfire boys! We are done for!’ somebody shouted. Then the candles were kicked out and the room was full of struggling bodies. Somebody fired a pistol with a flash of red flame, acrid smoke, deafening reverberations. Somebody was duelling, blades hissing. Impossible to tell friend from foe in the noise and darkness. Then Henry saw one of the windows opening and a man squeezing through head first, kicking as he fell, and he seized his cousin by the hand and followed, landing jarred but feet first in a street full of excited people.
Two men fighting for a cutlass, rolling over and over in the midden beside the door, constables rushing madly into the stable, conspirators struggling even more madly to get out, and scores of spectators herding into the road through the archway, alerted by gunfire and all agog for blood, running and shouting.
‘Come you on,’ Henry said, and he picked himself up, turned and backed into the oncoming crowd. ‘Through the arch, bor!’ And then they were in John Street and running like madmen, with no idea where they were going, wild with fear to get away, and
with half a dozen men roaring after them, shrieking, ‘Stop thief!’ and ‘Treason!’ They ran and ran, until their lungs felt as though they were bursting, continuing long after their pursuers had tired and given up the chase, and when they finally stopped it was because they had no breath or strength left at all.
They were in a quiet garden in the middle of one of the new fashionable squares, having thrown themselves bodily over the railings and crawled on their hands and knees to the cover of a thick holly.
‘What – shall – do now?’ Henry panted.
Although he could barely speak, Jack knew the answer. ‘Go – Fitzroy Square,’ he gulped. ‘Mrs Easter.’
Harriet Easter was spending a quiet evening at home, exactly as Matilda had predicted. John was out dining with Mr Walters of The Times, as he did every two months with his customary regularity, and she had been writing letters in the study downstairs, sitting peaceably beside the fire with her feet on the little velvet stool and the ticking of the grandfather clock for company. Two letters were written and ready for the early morning post, one very long and voluble to her dear Annie and the other short and restrained to her mother and father, and now she was earnestly composing a third in answer to a request for a speaker. She had hardly begun it when there was an urgent rapping at the front door. Whoever can that be at this hour of the night? she wondered, putting down her pen, and she listened while Paulson brisk-footed into the hall.
Muffled voices. ‘– Mrs Easter – could ’ee? – d’ye see, sir?’
And Paulson’s solemn answer: ‘If you will wait I will make enquiries.’
She had recognized one voice before Paulson came in to announce its owner. ‘Two persons of the name of Abbott, so they say, ma’am.’
‘Show them in, Paulson. They come from Rattlesden. Mrs Hopkins told me they were working in London and might be calling.’
But not at this hour of the night, Paulson’s expression said. However, he did as he was told.
‘Welcome to my house,’ she said as the two men shuffled into the study. ‘Pray, do sit down.’ But then she saw that they were both bolt-eyed and red in the face with effort. ‘Why, what is the matter?’
‘We’ve a pack of constables at our heels,’ Jack Abbott said. ‘Tha’s the truth of it, mum. We’m on the run an’ we don’t know which way for to turn. Could you hide us an hour or two, mum? If it en’t too much to ask.’
‘What have you done?’ Harriet asked, thrilled to think that they had turned to her for help. It was almost as though she were the great Nan Easter. Or even Mr Rawson. ‘Was there a meeting?’
‘Not in the general sense of a meeting,’ Jack admitted sheepishly.
‘Well what, then?’
‘Well now, mum, ’tis like this here,’ Henry said, perching on the edge of the chair. His tone was decidedly artful, but she was too excited to notice. ‘We been a-keepin’ stables over the other side of town, since we come to London. Your friend Mr Richards sent us to it, for which we’m good an’ grateful, en’t we Jack?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Mrs Hopkins told me of it. ’Twas at Cato Street, was it not?’
They seemed loathe to admit it, and she did notice that, but thought it no more than odd.
‘Well yes, mum,’ Henry said after a long pause. ‘So ’twas.’
‘What we wasn’t to know, mum,’ Jack went on, ‘was that them he sent us to is a parlous bad lot, mum, wanted by the constabulary so they are. And now we’m a-wanted along of ’em. Bein’ they’m on the run, mum, we’ve had to run too, d’ye see. And bein’ they’m a-wanted, we’m a-wanted along of ’em.’
‘Do you mean that the constables are chasing you?’ she asked. ‘Actually on foot and chasing you? Now? Tonight?’ How dreadful and how exciting!
‘Yes, mum,’ Henry Abbott said. ‘Got away by the skin of our teeth, mum, so to speak.’
‘But you have done nothing wrong? You assure me of that?’
‘Oh no, mum. Nothing at all.’
But this was terrible. Something would have to be done to protect them, and done at once. ‘Wait there,’ she said, happily taking command of them. ‘I will return to ’ee presently.’ And she went off to order the pony-cart, planning as she went. She would send them out of London on the first available coach, well out of harm’s way, somewhere where the constables would never think of looking for them. The price of the tickets could be added to the Easter account, so that would present no problem. John would be sure to agree to it, as it would be an act of simple Christian charity, no more, no less. Now where could she send them? And the answer to that was in her mind almost as soon as she’d asked herself the question. Why to Caleb Rawson, of course! He would know exactly what ought to be done with men on the run from the constables. Had he not dealt with hundreds such after the massacre of Peterloo? She could write him a little note explaining the matter and throwing them all on his mercy. What a thrilling business, it was!
The pony-cart was ready in half an hour with Tom Thistlethwaite to drive it and Peg Mullins to accompany her for propriety’s sake, for it wouldn’t have done at all to be seen driving about London at night in the sole company of two rough-looking men and a boy. And it was just as well she had such foresight, for it took over an hour and a half to find a coach to Manchester with two vacant seats aboard. But at last it was done, and the two Abbotts were dispatched with their letter of introduction. It was striking the first quarter past midnight when she and Peg and Tom finally arrived back in Fitzroy Square.
John had been home for half an hour. ‘Wherever have you been, my love?’ he asked mildly. ‘Paulson tells me you took two persons to the midnight coach. Was that truly so? He does not approve of such goings-on at all.’
‘A most extraordinary thing,’ she said. ‘Do you remember Mr Abbott from Rattlesden? Well …’
‘You have a tender heart, my dear,’ he said when the tale was told.
‘It was right to help them, was it not?’
‘Let us hope so,’ he said, even though he wasn’t at all sure, for it sounded very suspicous. But he was too tired to worry about it now.
However, the next morning his suspicions were confirmed as soon as he arrived at Easter House and saw the morning papers. He went home early for breakfast, taking a copy of each one.
‘You had best read this,’ he said to Harriet, handing over a copy of the Chronicle, as she met him in the hall. ‘From what you told me last night, I am afraid you may have harboured two desperate criminals.’
No, she thought, as she walked through into the dining room paper in hand. The Abbots are not criminals, surely not. It is a mistake. He can’t mean criminals. But the words in the paper were unequivocal.
‘Thursday Feb 24th 1820,’ they said. ‘DREADFUL RIOT AND MURDER.’
‘Yesterday evening the West-end of the town was thrown into the utmost confusion, the streets lined with soldiers and spectators, and the greatest alarm prevailed in consequence of the following circumstances. Information having been received at Bow Street, that a meeting of persons armed was to be held at a house in Cato Street Marylebone, the magistrates, fearing something serious would be the result, forwarded a formidable body of their officers to the place.
‘A desperate affray took place. An officer by the name of Westcot received three shots through his hat, and Smythers, an active officer, received a stab in his right side, and he was carried away, quite dead. The officers endeavoured to enter the place, and secure nine of the offenders, who had received much injury; one of them, a butcher, had a desperate black eye, and his hands were much cut. Several others escaped and are being sought by the officers. Captain Fitzclarence arrived on the spot with a party of the Guards, and the prisoners were escorted to Bow Street by a strong body of soldiers, who surrounded the coaches.
‘The person, whose stab proved fatal to Smythers, has escaped. This person was stated at Bow Street to be Arthur Thistlewood.
‘Government is understood to have had previous information of this extraordina
ry meeting.’
Harriet was so shocked she felt quite sick. Carried away quite dead! But that was murder! What were they doing with guns? They must have been planning an insurrection. Were the Abbotts conspirators?
‘Oh, John!’ she said. ‘Cato Street was where they worked. They told me so last night. These must be the very people they worked for. How awful! How absolutely awful!’ The implications were terrifying. Had she helped two conspirators to escape from justice? Or two murderers? That was even worse. Oh surely not! Dear God, please don’t let this be true, she prayed. I meant no harm by it. You must know that, Lord, for you know the secrets of all hearts. I thought I was helping the afflicted, not two men who were privy to murder. Please don’t let it be true. ‘They swore they had done nothing wrong,’ she said.
‘Oh Harriet, my dear,’ he reproved, ‘and you believed them?’
‘I saw no reason not,’ she pleaded. He had been quite sanguine about them too, last night. ‘I thought they were telling the truth.’
‘You’d best read the Advertiser too,’ he said, handing it across to her. ‘There is more and worse.’
The Advertiser told the same story but at greater length, adding a final fearful paragraph:
‘It is believed that the object of this conspiracy was to attack the London home of the Earl of Harrowby, where last night were assembled nearly half the members of the Cabinet and their distinguished friends, and there to massacre each and every one, guns and firearms having been purchased especially for the purpose. Fortunately the government had been appraised of the situation throughout and neither the noble Earl nor his guests received any harm whatsoever. Howsomever, in different circumstances who knows what might have occurred.’
‘But your mother was at Lord Harrowby’s dinner,’ Harriet said, her eyes bolting. She could have been party to the murder of her own mother-in-law.
‘She was,’ he said grimly.
‘Oh John. I did not know they were conspirators. I swear it.’
He was squinting with distress. ‘Why did you have anything to do with them?’ he said. ‘’Twas total folly and you should have known it.’
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