Fourpenny Flyer

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Monday 10th November 1817. Dear Diary …’ Well of course, a diary. That would account for why she wanted it burnt. ‘There is so much I want to tell you I hardly know where to begin. Such a tragedy has occurred. The Princess Charlotte is dead and my husband John has put such a dreadful advertisement in The Times, but I must not criticize him. I will tell you about it.’

  En’t that just our Harriet all over, she thought, dropping the loose sheet into the embers. She was afraid of her own shadow in those days, so she was. You should have told him straight out, my dear. I know I would have done. It don’t help to hide things.

  And she wondered what else her pale, quiet daughter-in-law had been hiding, and read on as she pulled the pages from the spine one after the other and fed them into the flames. It wasn’t long before she came to the trip to Manchester and Caleb Rawson appeared on the pages. Then she realized why the diary had to be hidden from John, for it would never have done for him to know that his wife had been paying so much unnecessary attention to another man. What folly, she thought. And yet there’s more good than folly in our Harriet. Her heart’s in the right place, even if she do make mistakes. And she pulled three more pages from the book, and decided to read no further. If this was the matter the poor girl wanted hidden, then so be it.

  But the very next page she revealed, was so smudged and tear-stained and full of corrections she read it despite her vow. And it was the story of John’s sudden impotence and Harriet’s bewildered pity for him, which she found so upsetting that she read on, until she reached the account of Caleb’s seduction.

  ‘My heart alive!’ she said under her breath. ‘Then the child en’t John’s.’ And she wondered what he would do about it, and read on again, through Caleb’s arrest and the daily anguish of Harriet’s guilt to the sudden and rapturous account of her reunion with John and her decision to renounce her lover: ‘The moment he is free. However painful it might be to him, be must be told that I mean to stay faithful to my dear John from henceforth. But I cannot send such a letter to him now. That would be too cruel. Time enough when the trial is over and he is free again. It will be easier for him to accept such tidings then.’

  And how will it be for my John to accept your bastard child? Nan thought angrily. You en’t thought of that. But then she remembered where she was and what was happening in that darkened room above her, and she was ashamed of her anger and ashamed of her curiosity and wished she had the power to ‘put all right’, as poor Harriet had yearned to do so often.

  The book was dismantled now and most of it burnt and gone. Only the red marbled cover was left in her hands. She turned it over, looking at it sadly. And a small, much-folded sheet of paper fell out of it into her lap. It was a letter, written in a dark scrawling hand. Even before she read it she knew it was from Caleb Rawson.

  ‘My dearest Harriet,

  ‘I am sentenced to transportation for seven years. This in great haste for we’ve nobbut an hour afore they take us to t’ hulks, and we’ve paper for one letter apiece, no more.

  ‘Be of good cheer. Come what may, I’ll not heed it. I shall serve out term, and come back to England, depend on it. Then we’ll make light of all and our enemies shall be confounded.

  ‘Thine, who will return,

  ‘Caleb.’

  God help us all, what a tangled web! Nan thought, burning the letter and the cover together. And as she stirred the mound of grey ashes with the poker, a terrible wailing pierced the silence of the house, an unearthly endless shriek that made her heart pound and the hair stand on the nape of her neck.

  She threw the poker into the hearth, snatched up her candle and ran to see what it was.

  Feet were pattering along the landing above her head and as she climbed the stairs she could see the flicker of carried candles darting like will-o’-the wisps ahead of her. She arrived in Harriet’s room immediately after Will and Rosie, who stood in the darkness just inside the door with Tom and Peg Mullins behind them, gazing round-eyed and open-mouthed at the candlelit bed. It was John who was howling, kneeling at the side of the bed with his head in Harriet’s lap and his hands clutching her waist. ‘Oh, my darling, darling,’ he cried. ‘Come back to me. You mustn’t die. How can I live without you?’

  But Harriet could not answer him. Her struggle was over and now she lay still and peaceful, her face marble-pale, her blue eyes glazed and one dead hand still resting on his hair.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  They buried Harriet Easter in Rattlesden churchyard on an idyllic summer afternoon, while the young corn ruffled like green fur in the fields below the village and skylarks rose in rapturous spirals of song into the clear blue sky above their heads.

  To Nan’s surprise Matilda had taken full charge of the event, inviting their friends and relations, organizing a supper, arranging flowers and even dealing with Mrs Babcock and the undertakers. ‘’Tis little enough for me to do in all conscience,’ she said to Nan, ‘and it helps make amends, so it does. I was uncommon cruel to her once, to tell ’ee true, when we were all first wed, and I regret it sorely now.’

  So Nan handed over the entire affair and was thankful to do it. After that first terrible sorrow had kept them all awake and weeping until long after daybreak, and frightened poor little Will so much that he’d been sleeping in her bed ever since, she’d been torn with concern for her poor John.

  His grief was so extreme it made all the others she’d ever seen or experienced seem mild by contrast. He had sat by Harriet’s bedside for more than twenty-four hours, weeping and groaning and refusing to be comforted, with the curtains drawn and the candles lit and the smell of death growing steadily more and more oppressive all around him. Annie had tried to talk to him, and so had Nan and Bessie, but in the end it was Matilda who had persuaded him out of the room.

  ‘Come along, my dear,’ she said, speaking to him as though he were no older than Matty or Will. ‘Take my arm. There now. That’s the way. No one will blame ’ee for taking a rest. I’m sure she wouldn’t, when she loved ’ee so. Why you’re so fatigued you can barely stand.’ Which was true enough for he tottered as he walked, like an old man.

  But although he allowed himself to be led to the spare room and, for all they knew, slept there for an hour or two, his grief was still extreme. From then on he stayed locked in the room, neither eating nor speaking, but simply sitting beside the window, staring out at the village as though he were a stranger and lost. Which in many ways he was, for her death was a gaping void that had removed all feeling from his heart, all power from his limbs and all thoughts from his head, save one, and that was too unbearable to think, even though it filled his entire being. Oh, how could he live without his own dear love? What was the point of life now she was gone?

  On the day of the funeral he got up and washed himself and put on the black clothes that Matilda had laid out for him, and followed the bier, his face expressionless with control. And when everybody else was weeping at the graveside he was silent, although Annie and Matilda sobbed aloud in one another’s arms, Will burrowed his head into Nan’s black skirt, Bessie covered her face with her kerchief, and Cosmo and Evelina stood hand in hand with the tears running down their faces. Mr and Mrs Sowerby made much of their grief, of course, dabbing at their eyes with two most ostentatious black-rimmed handkerchiefs. But John had no tears left to shed. His life was over. She was dead and buried and there was nothing left.

  After the service, Matilda’s coaches carried them all off to Bury and her quiet supper in Chequer Square, which, as she explained to Nan, ‘will take us all out of it, don’t ’ee think?’ But John was still silent.

  ‘What shall ’ee do now?’ Annie asked him gently, when the supper had been picked at and the Sowerbys were holding forth to the Teshmakers, and Matilda had removed Miss Pettie to the garden, because she had embarked on a long upsetting tale about how she made the match between John and Harriet. ‘Billy goes back to London in the morning. Shall you travel with him?’

  Bu
t it was a question impossible to answer. He had no idea what he would do. There was no point in doing anything as far as he could see. ‘I cannot see,’ he said dully.

  ‘Perhaps you would rather stay with me for a day or two?’ Annie suggested.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, in the same dull tones. ‘It is of no consequence since I have nothing left to live for.’

  ‘Come now,’ Nan said, trying to cheer him up, ‘there’s always things to live for, John. It don’t always seem so at the time, but I give ’ee my word there is. I felt much the same when your father died, but see how we’ve all got along since. You have a son, don’t forget.’

  He roused himself to accept what she was saying and to answer correctly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have a son.’ And after a visible effort, he added, ‘And a daughter, too. I must care for them.’

  What strength of character he has, this son of mine, Nan thought. ‘I always knew I had three fine children,’ she said, putting up her arms to hold him about the neck, ‘but I tell ’ee, John, you are the best of the bunch, my dear.’

  He looked down into the open affection on her face and knew at last and in the unfeeling calm of his grief, that she loved him every bit as much as she loved the others. And he knew that he ought to rejoice at such a discovery. But rejoicing was beyond him. The most he could do was to smile back at her bleakly. But then she said something else which gave him the first glimpse of hope since Harriet died.

  ‘And besides,’ she said, ‘there is always work.’

  Yes, he thought, that is true. There is always work. There is comfort in work well done.

  ‘I shall stay here in Bury,’ Nan said pressing home her advantage, ‘and look after Will and keep an eye on baby. In all likelihood I shan’t be back in London ’til the autumn, so you will have to run the firm on your own. I see no reason why you should not take over full responsibility for our affairs. ’Tis time you were in charge.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and there was just a little life on his face.

  ‘Here’s Miss Pettie back from the garden,’ Annie warned. Really the old lady should have more sense than to be telling everybody about their meeting. It was wanting in tact, so it was, and yet she was still at it.

  ‘Time we were all off to our own homes,’ Nan decided briskly. ‘Shall you stay here with Billy then, John my dear?’ And seeing from his face that he would, she went off at once to organize departures.

  Cosmo was quick and discreet, gliding from the room with Evelina tucked beside him, and all Billy’s subdued friends trailing after. And Miss Pettie went quickly, too, finally aware that she had overstepped the mark with her romantic story. But the Sowerbys tried to delay.

  ‘What is to become of the children, ma’am?’ Mrs Sowerby asked, instead of saying goodbye. ‘Are they to live with their father?’

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ Nan said vaguely. ‘Time enough for all that later. Now John should be resting. He is grievously upset.’

  ‘We will visit you again,’ Mr Sowerby threatened, ‘when I trust suitable arrangements may be made.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Nan said, shepherding them to the door. Couldn’t they see they weren’t wanted, wretched critturs?

  And at last they went, walking off into the evening sunshine, stiff and black and disapproving, using their umbrellas as walking sticks.

  ‘And let’s ’ope we seen the last of ’em,’ Bessie said. ‘Nasty horrible pair.’

  But they hadn’t.

  John and Billy caught the early morning coach back to London, with the rest of their family standing about in the clear sunshine to wish them God speed.

  ‘Where am I to go, Nanna?’ Will asked, when the coach had turned out of the square.

  ‘Why, you’re to stay with me, so you are,’ Nan told him, holding his hand firmly. ‘You and Peg Mullins and old Rosie. And a rare old time we shall have together, I can tell ’ee.’

  ‘Papa won’t die in London will he?’

  ‘No. He most certainly will not. He’ll write us a letter this very evening. You’ll see. ’Twill be beside my plate by tomorrow morning. You shall read some if it if ’ee’ve a mind to.’

  But his anxieties persisted, making him pucker his forehead and bite his lip like a pale copy of his mother. ‘You won’t die, will you, Nanna?’

  ‘No, lambkin. I en’t the dying kind. I shall live to see you married, depend on’t. Now let us go back to the house and see what Bessie has cooked for our breakfast.’

  The letter was delivered the very next morning, just as she’d predicted. It was a very long letter and full of facts and figures which Will found rather boring, although he didn’t think he ought to say so, especially as Nanna was so pleased with it. And there was another the next day, and another the day after that, and they were full of facts and figures too and even longer than the first one, so he didn’t bother to do more than glance at them, which Nanna said was very sensible.

  And so his new life in Angel Hill began to establish a pattern, with visits to Matty and Edward and trips to market and a very grand church on Sundays. Aunt Annie came to visit twice a week too, sometimes with Jimmy and sometimes with the girls, but always with Pollyanna and little Hannah and the new baby, who never seemed to do anything except suck and sleep, but grew bigger every time he saw her.

  ‘Ain’t she jest a little duck?’ Bessie said.

  And he agreed that she was, although secretly he much preferred his cousins, who could talk and shout and run about with him and play all sorts of games once they were out in Nanna’s garden on their own.

  It was only the nights that were unhappy now, and they were still full of nightmares and the most terrible yearning to see Mama again. But he knew he could walk across the landing into Nanna’s room if he felt too unhappy, and climb into her bed, taking care not to wake Mr Brougham if he was there too, and be cuddled to sleep again.

  ‘Oh Nanna,’ he would say, as she gathered his head onto her shoulder. ‘I do love you. I shan’t have to leave you ever, will I?’

  ‘No, my lambkin,’ she would answer. ‘You won’t. Not ever. Now just ’ee close up those little eyes and go on back to sleep.’

  In Fitzroy Square John was wakeful, as he was night after night. By day work kept him occupied and removed the need to think or feel, so he stayed on in the office for as long as he possibly could, dining at his desk and sending out for various drinks whenever he realized he needed them. But even when he stayed in the Strand until the early hours of the morning, there was still the rest of the night to be got through, and got through alone.

  The house was excessively quiet, for even by day the servants spoke in whispers whenever he was near them and crept about as though they were afraid of their own footfall, and in the long bleak watches of the night the silence was total. He took to wandering about the empty rooms, remembering how she had sat in that particular chair, or stood beside that window, or written letters at that desk. And it didn’t seem possible that she would never do any of those things again.

  At night he could weep unseen, and rage against the God who had allowed her to die so young, and curse the world for continuing when she was gone. And when he had suffered to exhaustion he would slump to sleep in the nearest chair or fling himself down on the nearest bed, providing it wasn’t his own, and there Tom Thistlethwaite would find him at six o’clock in the morning. He would cover his master with a blanket and leave him to sleep for as long as he could.

  ‘Best thing, sleep,’ he would say when he was back below stairs, reporting on the night’s events to the rest of the household. ‘I’ll take up the cards presently and leave ’em for him when he wakes.’ For every day brought a batch of calling cards and sympathetic messages from Harriet’s friends and acquaintances, and Mr John was most particular about them, reading and answering every single one, for although it was painful to be made aware of how much she was missed and valued, there was comfort in the reminder.

  But it was Sophie Fuseli’s visit that was the most comforting. S
he arrived in the Strand late one afternoon when a soft rain was obscuring the view from John’s office window.

  ‘Oh my dear,’ she said, kissing his cheek in greeting, ‘what can I say to ’ee? How you must miss her.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, choking back his emotion.

  ‘Put her portrait where you will see it every day,’ Sophie advised. ‘There’s a deal of comfort in a portrait.’

  ‘I do not have a portrait, Mrs Fuseli,’ he said gruffly. ‘We never commissioned one.’

  ‘Then you must do so at once,’ Sophie said. ‘And I know just the man. Shall I send him to ’ee? You’ve but to say the word.’

  So the word was said and the painter sent. He turned out to be a quiet sympathetic man who lived just around the corner. He told John he had seen ‘your pretty wife’ at the opening of the Regent’s Canal, ‘besides a-coming and going hereabouts’ and added that he would be only too happy to paint her portrait if Mr Easter would be so kind as to correct him when it came to ‘the likeness’.

  So a tailor’s dummy was brought into the drawing room and adjusted for size and stance until it was as slender and straight as Harriet had been herself. Then it was dressed in her favourite blue and white gown and given a parasol to hold in one china hand and a glove to wear on the other and the artist set to work.

  For three weeks he toiled and observed and remembered, taking such pains over every detail and working with such tender concern that his canvas soon became the focal point of the house. Now John came home every afternoon to see how it was progressing and to give his advice over the shape and colour of the emerging face, ‘her nose a little longer, so,’ ‘her blush rather nearer to the colour of apricots I think.’ ‘Yes. Her hair was so fair, fairer than any I have ever seen.’ Until one miraculous afternoon when he arrived home to find that the painted eye had been given light and life and that his beautiful Harriet was looking straight at him out of the greeny-grey shadows behind her.