Fourpenny Flyer

by Beryl Kingston

  Meantime there was a ball at the Athenaeum to enjoy before his departure. And an uncommon lively ball it turned out, for the town was a-buzz with gossip and there wasn’t a woman in the place who didn’t have an opinion to express. Matilda thought it was romantic and was unequivocally on the side of the woman she called ‘our poor, wronged Queen’, even though the impending court case was keeping her Billy in the Strand for far too long each week waiting for news to break; Miss Pettie clutched her curls and declared that she didn’t know what the world was coming to and it certainly wasn’t like that in the days of Good King George; and Cousin Evelina said she wasn’t at all sure whether a woman of such flagrant immorality truly had the right to sit upon the throne of England, adding, in an admirable attempt to be fair, ‘if what is said about her is to be believed, which of course we cannot know as yet.’

  ‘They will all know soon enough, I fear,’ Frederick said as he waltzed with Nan.

  And he was proved right. Four days after his return to London news broke that the Queen was to be tried by the House of Peers. ‘Their Lordships are to bring in a bill of Pains and Penalties,’ The Times said, ‘which will deprive the Queen of all rights and titles and dissolve her marriage to the King at one and the same time. The trial is to be delayed until August 17th because the King needs more time to find his necessary witnesses.’

  John had travelled straight to the Strand on the day the Queen set out from Calais, and now that there was to be a trial he decided to stay where he was. Important news like this would be sure to sell in vast quantities and it had broken at just the right time for A. Easters and Sons. It pained him to be apart from his family, but this was business and had to be attended to. The North Wales route was open and ready for rapid delivery. Now it would be tested.

  By now, Harriet was well used to his sudden departures and, although they still upset her, she had learned how to cope with them. She and Will and Rosie stood at the gate and waved goodbye to him until his carriage disappeared round the curve in the road, then they went back indoors to eat their breakfast. It was necessary to find something immediate to do so as to fill the emptiness his sudden absence left behind him, and feeding young Will was one of the best things she knew. But this morning there was something else to distract her. As she sat down at the dining room table, she was told that the new curate, Mr John Jones, had come to call.

  ‘Show him in,’ She told the maid.

  Mr Jones was terribly embarrassed to be disturbing her at breakfast for, being new to the parish, he was anxious to do the right thing. But Mrs Easter smiled at him calmly as though she saw no wrong in it.

  ‘You could take a dish of tea, perhaps,’ she said to him. ‘Pray do sit down. Tell cook we are ready, and bring another cup,’ she said to the maid, and then turned back to Mr Jones. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’

  ‘I believe,’ he said, sitting himself gingerly on one of her delicate chairs, ‘that you were actually present on the field of Peterloo.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said calmly, not knowing whether to be pleased or distressed.

  ‘I came to Mr Hopkins from Norwich, Mrs Easter,’ he said earnestly, ‘as I daresay you know. While I was there I was secretary of one of the local corresponding societies.’ Pollyanna had told him it was safe to tell her that. Pollyanna was so helpful to him. ‘We do not call ourselves a corresponding society now, Mrs Easter, for it seems that such an organization is outside the law, but the members still meet – as a choir, if you take my meaning. It would be much appreciated if you would join us one evening and tell us what you saw on that fateful day.’

  ‘Would I need to join the choir, Mr Jones?’ she asked, perfectly straight-faced. ‘I should tell ’ee I have but a poor ear for music.’

  He gave her a smile of sudden and unexpected sweetness. ‘Pollyanna told me you would agree,’ he said.

  Have I agreed? she wondered. But she supposed she had. What harm could come of such a meeting now, when the world and his wife were fully occupied following the affairs of the poor Queen? It wasn’t as if she would be helping insurrectionaries.

  But just to be on the safe side, she decided to write to Mr Rawson for some advice. She couldn’t ask John, because she wasn’t at all sure whether the subject would be acceptable to him and in any case John probably wouldn’t know the answer, whereas Mr Rawson would and would tell her the truth, whatever it was.

  ‘It is hard to know what is for the best, these days,’ she wrote. ‘I would not wish to disappoint Mr Jones, who is a most well-meaning man and uncommon fond of Mr Hopkins, as who could not be? On the other hand I would not wish to do anything againt the law, but as the government keeps changing the law it is sometimes difficult to know how to act. I hope you do not mind me writing to ask your advice, but it occurred to me that you were just the very person to know what it would be best for me to do?’

  He didn’t mind her writing at all. Quite the reverse, in fact, for he took it as a sign that she was ripe for conquest. One of the unexpected and private results of his fame as an orator was the fact that whenever he spoke at a public meeting there would always be women who would seek him out afterwards, ready and eager to share his bed. At first their compliance had surprised him, but now he was used to it, and expected it, and took his pick of the prettiest, feeling that the pleasure they gave him was a right and fitting reward for all the work he did for the cause. But he had never enjoyed a society lady and until he met Harriet had never imagined he would. Now she had given him hope of it.

  ‘Attend the choir meeting,’ he wrote back. ‘There’s nought illegal in it, and good may come of it. Any road, government will have its work cut out for it in the months ahead, for now the people have found a cause and we shall see what will come of it. None may prevent them from demonstrating patriotic affection for their Queen, that’s plain, so they’ll appear upon streets in their thousands, I guarantee. If it weren’t for the fact that I have a deal of work these days and am like to get more, I should beg a lift to London and join crowds myself. Let me know how tha makes out at the meeting.’

  That would provoke another letter, and if he continued their correspondence, sooner or later she would be his. He knew it.

  ‘Should you decide to do such a thing,’ she wrote in her next letter, ‘and John and I are in London at the time, pray do come and visit us in Fitzroy Square.’ It was only right and proper to invite him after his kindness in helping the Abbotts. And in any case she would be in Rattlesden all summer so there was no real likelihood of such a visit actually being made.

  But although she didn’t know it as she wrote, she was to be in London sooner than she imagined.

  On 2nd August, a matter of days before Frederick Brougham had to return to the capital again to begin work on his cousin’s brief, and a week after Harriet had addressed the choir, the new Regent’s Canal was due to be opened with full ceremonial.

  ‘Let the Queen and the Lords do what they will,’ Nan said, when she read of it. ‘I shall return to London with ’ee, Frederick, and keep ’ee company, so I shall. And as I see there’s to be some merriment on account of this canal, I shall hire a barge and join in the procession and throw a great party afterwards. I’m a-weary of trials and suchlike. We’ve all been dull and work-a-day quite long enough.’

  Sophie Fuseli, who said she’d been languishing in London without her dear old friend, thought it an excellent idea. ‘Let us join forces, my dear,’ she said. ‘I would so love a party and Heinrich will be sure to agree if ’tis at your suggestion.’

  And so the two of them made preparations. They hired the biggest barge they could find and furnished it with gilt chairs and trestle tables, several hundred yards of bunting and a string band. They ordered enough food and drink to provision an army and an army of waiters resplendent in Nan’s green and gold livery to serve it. Sophie invited all her gossipy friends, and Heinrich all his ardent students from the Royal Academy, where he had just embarked upon another series of lectures. Frede
rick Brougham was prevailed upon to leave the Inns of Court, ‘just for the day,’ and Cosmo Teshmaker was teased away from Easter House, and Nan hired a coach to bring all her relations down from Bury.

  They arrived late in the afternoon of the previous day, baby Edward fast asleep on his mother’s bosom, all three toddlers sticky and fractious and glad to be released from their long ride, Beau and Jimmy pale and patient beside their father, Miss Pettie and the two Callbeck cousins giggly, having been plied with champagne ‘by your naughty Billy, and all the way here, my dear’, as they explained to Nan amidst drunken blushes. Bessie and Thiss had packed a picnic basket for the children and had spent their journey nursing one or another of them so that they were both as crumbed and crumpled as a pair of tablecloths. But they were delighted to be travelling with Tom and Pollyanna and their dear Miss Pettie. It was a very good-humoured company that came tumbling down from the bulging sides of the coach that afternoon, and the dinner that followed their arrival was a very jolly-affair.

  The next morning they woke to find that they had a marvellous day for their jaunt. The sky was a cloudless blue and it was already pleasantly warm at eight o’clock when the Easter carriages began to gather in Bedford Square, and as Matilda’s stylish briska came trotting round the corner, they could hear the murmur of the crowds gathering around the new Grand Basin somewhere to the east.

  ‘There’ll be some sport today,’ Nan said happily to Frederick. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’

  Her grandchildren were as excited as she was, although the three toddlers looked angelic in their white petticoats and neatly starched cotton sun-bonnets. ‘How long that’ll last I wouldn’t care to gamble,’ Pollyanna said as she settled Meg on her lap. Jimmy and Beau had new suits for the occasion, narrow trousers of blue nankeen with short-waisted jackets to match and ‘brass buttons like real sailors’ as Beau told everybody who was listening. Annie had sewn red tassles to their caps and provided them with streamers to throw, and now they couldn’t wait to get upon the water.

  ‘Are we really to go in a boat, Nanna?’ Beau asked. ‘A really truly boat?’

  ‘A really truly boat,’ she said, hugging him. ‘Look sharp all of you. There en’t a minute to loose.’

  And they all clambered into their carriages again in a flutter of fine cottons, sky blue and snow white, sugar pink and apple green, creamy yellow and toffee brown, the women as light as butterflies and the men as jolly as cockchafers in their tight light trousers and their fine frock coats. Matilda was wearing a blue and grey gauze gown with a poke-bonnet to match from Paris, of course, and very stylish, and Annie and Harriet had decorated their leghorn hats with so many ribbons that it was a wonder they could keep them on their heads.

  Only John was quiet and sober, wearing his old buff jacket and his gabardine trousers and his second best hat, and sitting beside his pretty Harriet in their sober carriage, stern-faced and stiff-necked. Soon he would be thrown into close proximity with crowds of yelling, sweating, overexcited people, and the thought was torture to him, especially as he knew there would be no escape until late in the afternoon.

  ‘Deuce take the boy. What ails him?’ Nan said to Frederick as his coachman drove them out of the square. ‘He looks like a dying duck in a thunder storm.’

  ‘’Tain’t to his taste, I fear,’ Frederick said. ‘It pains him.’

  ‘Squit!’ she said, laughing the idea away. ‘What could there possibly be in a day like this to cause pain to anybody?’

  ‘Well as to that, my dear,’ Frederick said wryly, ‘I’m sure I couldn’t say. But pain him it does. That much is very clear. So all the more honour to him for joining us.’

  The barges were drawn up and ready at the Horsfall Basin in Pentonville when they arrived, most of them full of people and all of them decorated with flags and streamers and loud with competing bands. Sophie and Heinrich Fuseli were aboard the Easter barge, sitting like royalty in two of the gilt chairs, with his students buzzing attendance about them and their band playing frantically behind them. Sophie was very elegant in red and white striped silk and the artists all wore red and yellow turbans like Bad Lord Byron so they made a dashing picture against the blue and white suits of the boatmen.

  ‘Coo-ee!’ Sophie called. ‘We’ve broke open the champagne!’

  ‘Are they cheering us, Nanna?’ Jimmy asked as they balanced along the gangplank.

  ‘Us and the day and the pretty flags and the new canal and I don’t know what else besides,’ Nan told him, holding his hand tightly. ‘Wait till the procession starts. You’ll hear some cheering then.’

  And what a great roar there was as the State barge of the City was swung away from its moorings to lead the cavalcade out of the basin. The bands played the National Anthem, more or less together, and the crowds sang and cheered with such abandon that it didn’t matter whether they were together or not, and Nan’s barge followed all the others and went gliding slowly into the great Islington tunnel, where the music echoed and re-echoed round and round and round until there was such a cacophony all about them they felt as though they were swimming in sound.

  And then out they came, pop! into the fresh air again, and the artists gave three cheers for daylight, and presently they came to the Grand basin in the City-road, where a salute of guns was fired, which made Sophie shriek and the children jump and even woke baby Edward. The crowds here were packed shoulder to shoulder and the cheers were deafening. By now Will was beginning to get hungry. He pulled at Harriet’s sleeve, reminding her: ‘Eatin, Mama. Eatin.’ And Nan said he was a fine boy and should eat a leg of chicken as soon as they got to Limehouse.

  It was a sumptuous meal and a very drunken one. There were flat pies and raised pies, mustards and pickles, cold diced potatoes and every kind of salad, melons and apricots, gooseberries and quinces, comfits and pastries, honey cakes and crystallized violets. And, according to Bessie, enough champagne ‘ter float one of these ’ere barges’. Evelina Callbeck declared she’d downed more champagne in one afternoon than she had ‘in the whole of the rest of my life put together’, and Mr Teshmaker, who had made it his business to keep her glass replenished throughout the proceedings, said he was sure ‘’twas the best thing that had ever happened to him’. And Nan confided to Frederick that she’d never thought she would live to see the day when old Cosmo got tipsy.

  And when they were too full to eat another mouthful, the races began. Several of the Paddington barges were lined up ready to compete for the honour of being the first to land a barrel of beer on the new wharf at the new Grand Basin. They set off side against wooden side, with the procession following, and lo and behold, the prize was won by a barge called ‘The William’, so Will was the hero of the hour and Rosie made him a little crown out of three streamers plaited together.

  It was a splendid day.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was eight o’clock in the evening and beginning to grow dark before the Easter carriages carried their dishevelled passengers back into Bedford Square. The children were sent off to bed at once with their various nursmaids to attend them, Jimmy and Beau and little Meg to the nursery in Bedford Square, the others to their own houses nearby, but the adults retired to the drawing room, which was cool and clean after the heat and clamour of the day, and tea was made and brandy served to those who needed it.

  The person who needed it most, and received it last, was John. Harriet carried his brandy glass to him and put it tenderly into his hands. I know how very well you have earned it, her expression said.

  ‘Thank ’ee,’ he said, smiling into her eyes, and his expression said, Yes, I have done well today.

  ‘Such colour everywhere,’ Aunt Thomasina was saying. ‘The bunting they must have used!’

  ‘Did you see the advertisements?’ Nan said, swirling her brandy.

  ‘Everywhere you looked,’ Thiss said. ‘Colman’s mustard. Pennyquick’s Patent Thingumajig. Never seen so many.’

  ‘I’ll tell ’ee what, Thiss,’
Nan said. ‘They’ve given me an idea.’

  Oh no, John thought. His mother’s ideas invariably meant work and difficulties.

  ‘I’ve a mind to sell space for advertisements in the Easter shops and reading-rooms,’ she said.

  ‘Capital idea,’ Cosmo said. ‘A money-spinner.’

  ‘What do ’ee think of that, Billy?’ Nan asked.

  ‘Makes no odds to me one way or t’other,’ Billy said lazily. ‘Just so long as it don’t make more work in the warehouse.’

  Just what he would say, John thought, bone-idle creature. And what of my opinion? I wonder. Is that to be sounded too? A day of rigid self-control had left him feeling very touchy.

  ‘What do you say to it, John?’

  I must choose my words with care, John thought, for the idea of offering space in the Easter shops for advertisements was making him shudder, but if he opposed her too violently she was quite capable of going her own way out of simple waywardness. ‘I feel we should consider what the feelings and opinions of our customers might be,’ he said, walking across the room to sit beside her and speaking slowly and carefully. ‘There are those who would consider advertisements rather a vulgarity.’

  ‘As you would, eh?’

  ‘No, no’ he said hurriedly, caught out by that quick shrewd wit of hers. ‘Not at all …’

  ‘Then you would approve?’

  What could he say? She outwitted him at every turn. ‘If we wish to improve the profits of our firm,’ he said, hoping she would notice that ‘our’, ‘one possible and creditable method would be to open up the Irish trade.’

  ‘Which is what you would suggest, eh?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Well, why not?’ she said expansively. ‘The time’s ripe for it. Any more brandy anyone?’

  He was delighted to think that he had won his victory so easily. ‘Then we need not consider advertisements?’ he asked.