Fourpenny Flyer

by Beryl Kingston

  The bride declared she was glad of a quiet wedding, and vowed she was the most fortunate woman alive, ‘to be rescued so and made so happy.’

  But the groom said that the fortune was all his. ‘I account myself most blessed. Most blessed.’

  ‘All’s well that ends well,’ Nan said, when she and Frederick were back in her drawing room at Bedford Square. ‘And the smallpox over too, praise be. Now perhaps we may take up our lives again and enjoy ourselves a little. Bessie tells me she is to be a grandmother in the summer. Pollyanna is breeding.’

  ‘I have a piece of good news too,’ Frederick said, and he spoke so casually she knew at once that it was important.

  ‘And what might that be?’ Grinning at him as he lay sprawled in her easy chair.

  ‘I have the offer of a seat in the Commons. I’m to be elected on the fourth of May.’

  ‘At last!’ she said, rushing to kiss him. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Lostwithiel in Cornwall,’ he said. ‘A rotten borough I fear, but I assure you I will work to change such practices once I am a Member.’

  ‘I’m sure on it,’ she said. ‘How fine ’Twill be to see your speeches in the papers. Mr Frederick Brougham, MP speaking in the House today … Which reminds me, I en’t set eyes upon a paper all day long, and that won’t do.’

  ‘Have you not?’ he said, knowing quite well that she hadn’t, because he had hidden them away himself. There was an item in The Times that he thought it better she didn’t see. It would have spoilt all her enjoyment in the wedding.

  ‘I shall read ’em all now, so I shall,’ she said, ‘while we have one last brandy. Where’ve they been put?’

  So he had to produce them for her, and drink brandy with apparent calm while she went through them, one after the other. The Times was the third in the pile, but the news didn’t disturb her in the least. ‘Why sithee here,’ she said, ‘Mr Fuseli is dead. Fancy that! Died in Putney, it says, suddenly while visiting friends. Aged eighty-three. Well, well, well! I shall go and see Sophie in the morning.’

  ‘Must you, my dear?’ he protested mildly.

  ‘Indeed I must. Can you give me one reason why I shouldn’t?’

  ‘You have comforted so many mourners in the last few months. One more might prove too much. Even for you.’

  ‘My heart alive!’ she laughed. ‘You don’t know Sophie, nor the life they’ve been leading, apart for all these years. She won’t mourn. I can tell ’ee.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  In all the years she’d known her old friend Sophie Fuseli, Nan Easter had only visited her at home on three occasions, and the last had been more than twenty years ago when they were both in love with that old rogue Calverley Leigh. It was really rather odd to be driving towards the house now, with Mr Fuseli dead.

  ‘The missus is in the garden,’ the maid said. ‘She said you might visit. You’ve to go through, if you please.’

  In the garden? Nan thought. On such a blustery day? What’s she doing in the garden?

  She was standing in the middle of the vegetable patch beside a bonfire nearly as tall as she was, feeding it with large pieces of paper. She was wrapped in her blue and red velvet cloak, which flapped and swirled about her in the wind, curving and uncoiling in the sort of sinuous swelling shapes that her husband had painted so often and so well. There were neat red boots on her feet and her grey hair was covered by a bright red Parisian bonnet trimmed with ostrich feathers. She looked delectable and perfectly happy.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Nan said, joining her in front of the blaze.

  ‘Cleansing the stables,’ Sophie said, tossing two more papers on to the fire. ‘I’m so glad to see you, my dear. They bring his body home tomorrow and all these must be burnt before they arrive.’ And she waved her red gloved hand at a sack that lay at her feet.

  Nan bent and pulled a handful of papers out of the sack. They were pencil drawings, the top one a sketch of two naked men playing leapfrog. Fuseli’s drawings. ‘Sophie!’ she said in astonishment. ‘You en’t burning his drawings, surely.’

  ‘Indeed I am,’ Sophie said, burning three more. ‘Throw them in. Nasty, mucky things.’

  ‘But they belong to the nation. His great art, The Times said.’

  ‘Take a closer look.’ Sophie said, pausing in her work. ‘You ain’t seen what you’re a-holding.’

  So Nan looked again and got a shock. ‘My heart alive!’ she said staring. ‘My dear heart alive!’

  ‘And that’s one of the milder variety,’ Sophie said, glancing at it. ‘Into the fire with ’em. ’Tis all they’re fit for.’

  The worked until the sky darkened and every single painting and drawing had been reduced to ashes. All that was left of the great artist’s pornographic horde were half a dozen scraps of well-burnt paper floating soft, fragile and crinkled, like pale grey silk amongst the scarlet sparks.

  ‘Well that’s that,’ Sophie said with great satisfaction. ‘Where shall we dine?’

  They went to Mr Babcock’s in the Strand and made an excellent meal together, and neither of them mentioned Heinrich Fuseli’s death nor his widow’s future until they reached the brandy.

  ‘How will you manage now he’s gone?’ Nan asked. ‘Are you provided for?’

  ‘Well now as to that,’ Sophie said roguishly. ‘I’ve made provision for myself. I’ve a pretty penny saved over the years and now I mean to buy an inn on one of the great roads out of London and become “mine host”. Mine host in petticoats. What do ’ee think?’

  ‘A capital idea,’ Nan said. ‘I’ll be your first customer.’

  And although she wasn’t the first, for there were rather a lot of other things to attend to before she could go visiting, she was certainly the most honoured.

  In May, Frederick was duly elected as Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel, and gave a prestigious party to celebrate. In June, Matilda and Harriet took their children back to Bury for the summer and were relieved to see how well the place had recovered, even though many people were in mourning and many of the faces they saw were terribly scarred. At the end of the month Pollyanna’s baby was born, a girl, christened Hannah by her doting father, and the apple of Bessie’s eye. The newspaper trade went into a slight decline, which John took very seriously, of course, setting off on a tour of the midlands to see what could be done, but it was such a happy time that Nan paid little attention to such a minor setback.

  Sophie took over her coaching inn at the beginning of July. ‘A fine season for it,’ she wrote on her ‘particular invitation’ to Nan and Frederick. ‘I shall serve roast fowl to ’ee and green peas, and every fruit in season. The strawberries are quite excellent hereabouts, so I expect to see you both very soon. Given at the sign of the “Queen’s Head”, Islington. Hooray!’

  So naturally they accepted her invitation, and it was a splendid meal, just as she’d promised, although the inn was very crowded and horribly noisy.

  ‘What trade you do!’ Nan said with admiration. ‘How many coaches do you serve?’

  ‘Twenty or more every single day, as ever is,’ Sophie said with great satisfaction. ‘I begin to know their names now,’ and she rattled some of them off; ‘the “York Highflyer”, the “Leeds Union”, the “Stamford Regent”, the “Rockingham”, the “Truth and Daylight”. Those three gentlemen in the corner came in on the “Truth and Daylight”.’

  ‘Highly apposite,’ Frederick said, ‘since, if I am not mistaken, the one in the middle is a government spy.’

  Both women turned at once to look at him.

  ‘Fancy!’ Sophie said. ‘Now that’s what my barman told me and I wouldn’t believe him.’

  But Nan said, ‘Why, I know who he is. ’Tis Mr Richards, poor Thomasina’s one-time lodger. Are you sure he’s a spy?’

  ‘If he is not, then there are two men hereabouts with fair hair and red moustaches, and wearing identical clothes what’s more. He works for Lord Sidmouth. They make no secret of it.’

  ‘If he’s a
spy he pays uncommon well,’ Sophie said.

  ‘He would,’ Frederick told her. ‘Spying is lucrative employment.’

  ‘Who does he spy upon?’ Nan wanted to know.

  ‘That I couldn’t say for certain,’ Frederick admitted. ‘But I could hazard a guess. There’s a move afoot to reintroduce the Combination Act, so a legal meeting that could be turned into a riot would be rather opportune, would it not?’

  ‘That old trick!’ Nan said. ‘Who are his companions?’

  ‘Never seen ’em before,’ Sophie said. ‘But I shall know ’em again if they mean to make a riot. I’ll not have an affray in my inn, and there’s an end on it.’

  ‘Matilda will be pleased to know all this,’ Nan said returning to her strawberries. ‘She never did like him.’

  Matilda had quite recovered from the horrors of the winter. It was such a happy summer and there were so many pleasures in it: balls at the Athenaeum, which Miss Pettie came out of her long hibernation to attend, picnics and parties and a splendid midsummer fair, which even cheered poor little Matty who’d been rather withdrawn since the smallpox, and no wonder when you considered how badly she was scarred. She and Jimmy were constant companions nowadays. They called themselves the gargoyles, which Matilda thought a joke in rather poor taste, but which Billy applauded.

  ‘Plucky little devils!’ he said admirably, when Matilda protested. ‘I’d ha’ done the same myself, so I would.’

  ‘’Tis Mr Thistlethwaite’s doing I’ll be bound,’ Matilda said, not placated.

  ‘Aye. Very likely,’ Billy said. ‘We’ve a deal to thank old Thiss for.’

  The two children would have said exactly the same thing had their opinions been asked. They spent as much time with old Thiss as they could that summer, asking him endless questions and taking comfort from him at every opportunity.

  ‘Sit in the sun all yer can,’ he advised. ‘That’ll smooth them ol’ scars out a treat, you see if it don’t.’

  ‘They’ll never go away though, will they, Thiss?’ Jimmy would say. He knew they wouldn’t, but he needed the reassurance of hearing it said as though it were of no consequence.

  ‘No,’ Thiss said, ruffling the boy’s fair hair. That don’t matter though, do it? Handsome is as ‘andsome does. My ol’ woman don’t think any worse a’ me on account a’ me physog. Fact, between you an’ me an’ the gatepost, I reckon I gets more love than most because of it.’

  ‘Am I very ugly, Thiss?’ Matty would ask, touching the worst of the pits on her cheeks with apprehensive fingers.

  And he would swing her into the air and kiss her soundly.

  ‘Prettiest gel I ever did see,’ he told her. ‘And quite the nicest. Give yer ol’ Thiss a great big kiss.’

  Oh, he was a great comfort.

  Annie spent a quiet summer that year. She needed time to sit and remember, time to think and dream, and in his wisdom and affection James made sure she got it. The birth of Pollyanna’s baby was a mixed pleasure, because it reminded her too painfully of the time her dear Beau had been born. But the child was a joy, there was no doubt of that, and Meg and Dotty were thrilled with her. And Harriet was the dearest of sisters, teaching all the little ones every morning, and staying with her in the garden nearly every afternoon when they weren’t off on a picnic or to a fair or somesuch, and letting her talk and talk, and never wearying.

  Actually Harriet found Annie’s company extremely comforting, although she couldn’t tell her so because that would have meant talking about John and seeming to criticize him, and that was unthinkable. Despite fine weather and healthy children and no further advertisements to upset him, he was still quite unable to make love, and now she was beginning to wonder fearfully whether it was her fault.

  He had tried on two most unhappy occasions, his face tense with the anxiety of possible failure even when his body was ardent, but although she held him and kissed him as closely and lovingly as she could, nothing had happened, and it had upset him so dreadfully that she was almost glad now he had given up trying. But the knowledge of it, and the lack of love it caused, were private torments to both of them. John solved his misery by working harder than ever, travelling as much as he’d done when he was trying to prevent those awful advertisements and sitting up until two and three in the morning poring over his timetables. The less he slept the less sleep he seemed to need. And Harriet confided all her misery to her diary and took refuge in helping Annie, having discovered that helping somebody else through their unhappiness was quite the best way of taking her mind off her own. However, Caleb’s letters were a difficulty of another kind.

  The last one to arrive in Fitzroy Square had provoked an outburst of extraordinary bad temper. John had been calmly eating his ham and eggs, and reading The Times in his usual quiet way, when Mrs Toxteth brought in the post on its familiar silver platter. He gathered the envelopes into their usual neat pile beside his plate, and began to slit them open, one after the other as he always did. And suddenly he gave a roar and threw one of them straight across the table.

  ‘Have we to endure this?’ he shouted.

  ‘What is it, John dear? Whatever is it?’

  ‘I forbid these letters,’ he said, his face dark with anger. ‘Do you understand me, Harriet? I positively forbid them!’

  She picked up the letter, her hand trembling, wondering what horror it might contain. ‘Why ’tis from Mr Rawson,’ she said, trying to stay calm and be reasonable. ‘There is no harm in a letter from Mr Rawson, surely. He writes so kindly to us all and is uncommon fond of the children.’

  ‘I forbid it,’ he shouted. ‘You ain’t to receive ’em.’

  ‘But I could hardly tell Mr Rawson not to write. That would be unmannerly.’

  ‘If you don’t, I will. Is that understood?’

  She gave in to him at once. It wasn’t important enough to argue about. It was only a letter. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Yes, I understand.’ But her voice was cold.

  ‘I forbid it! Forbid it! Forbid it!’ he cried, the words pecking the air. And he flung down his napkin, snatched up The Times and ran from the room, leaving his anger pulsing behind him.

  Harriet sat where she was with the letter still in her hand. She was stunned by his violence. It was so unlike him. And all over such a thing as a letter. Had she really to write to Caleb and end their correspondence? It seemed uncommon hard, especially when his letters were such a comfort to her. And in any case he would go on writing to Annie, for she wouldn’t forbid him, so the situation could easily become ridiculous. My poor dear John, she thought. He suffers so much and says so little. Perhaps that is why he is so angry over a letter. What other reason could there be? Meantime what should she do about it? She had almost given her word not to receive any more letters. Almost, but not quite. She would have to think about it carefully. There was no need to make a decision yet. Poor, poor John.

  It wasn’t until later the next afternoon that she decided what to do, and then she was surprised by the ease of the solution. It was the sight of the letter that had roused her poor John to such passion, not the contents. Very well then, the answer was simple. She must arrange for the letters to be left in the Post Office for her to collect, then Caleb need not be upset or insulted by being told not to write to her, and John need not be upset or angered by seeing things he didn’t want to see.

  She wrote to Caleb that afternoon before John came home:

  ‘Would it be possible for you to address your letters to me Post Restante at Bury? When I am in Rattlesden it would be more convenient for me to collect my letters myself instead of having them collected for me. I travel to Rattlesden tomorrow, and will answer your next letter from there. Your true friend, Harriet Easter.’

  Caleb was more pleased by that letter than by all the others she’d sent him since they first started to correspond. She means to keep my letters hidden, he thought, grinning to himself, an’ if she means to keep my letters hidden, ’tis ten to one they’re to be hidden from her husband
. It’s all a-falling out just as I foresaw. He’s beginning to lose her. Well serve him right, poor fool. He don’t value her sufficient.

  The only trouble was that there was so much extra work available that summer and he really felt beholden to accept it. There was a shortage of cheap gauze for shrouds, and there’d been a run on black bombazine too because of the epidemic. In one way this was all to the good, because it meant he could increase his earnings, in another it was an annoyance because he felt himself so close to success and could not travel to Rattlesden and take what he was sure was his. However, time was on his side, and there were plenty of other obliging women.

  So the summer dreamed past, warm and easy and kept sweet by strong breezes. And Harriet collected her letters from the Post Office in Bury on her once-weekly trips into town and John knew nothing of it, because she was so careful and because he was so rarely at home. And August was nearly over when Matilda came to take tea with them all, in a new gown and full of exitement.

  ‘You will never guess what I’ve just heard,’ she said, when she and Harriet and Annie were settled on their cushions under the holm oak in the rectory gardens.

  ‘No,’ Annie agreed, laughing at her excitement. ‘I don’t suppose we shall, so you must tell us, must you not?’

  ‘That lodger of Cousin Thomasina – you remember the one – is a government spy!’ Matilda said triumphantly. ‘What do ’ee think of that?’

  Annie was interested at once. ‘Mr Richards, do you mean?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘You don’t surprise me,’ Annie said. ‘How did you find out?’

  Harriet was so shattered by the news, she couldn’t say anything. While Matilda told the tale, with happy embellishments, she sat perfectly still as though she were listening, her face controlled and her emotions in turmoil. A government spy, she thought, shivering. How dreadful. But of course. I should have known it. He knew so much about so many people and he turned up wherever there was trouble, wherever there was a political meeting, at the field of Peterloo, here at the Hampden Club that night, sending Caleb to Norwich and the Abbotts to Cato Street. A government spy! I ought to have realized.