by Lynch, R J
‘Has he spoken?’
‘Spoken? He has not so much as fluttered an eyelid. He may die without ever speaking again. There will be fever. He must be kept cool. Someone must mop his brow and his body with cool water.’
Lizzie said, ‘I will. Of course.’
‘There. I have done what I can. I shall return tomorrow to change this dressing and to see how he does. He needs somewhere more comfortable to lie than this table.’
The two smiths stepped forward. ‘Will we carry him to bed?’ asked Andrew.
‘He will be fevered and very restless,’ said the doctor. ‘Unless he dies. It may be best for your own comfort if you put him to bed on his own.’
‘No,’ said Lizzie. ‘No. Put him into my bed. I will take care of him.’
Tom’s fever raged for days. Florrie got the washerwomen to come in for each of them, for the sweat pouring from the stricken man meant the bed linen must be changed twice each day. Doherty came each morning to change the dressing and wash the wound. Wrekin rode with him and Lizzie noticed how he sat his horse at the end of the lane, unwilling to face her again but eager to know at the earliest moment how Tom did. Despite herself, her heart began to soften.
Florrie went to the Rectory and asked Lady Isabella to write to Mistress Wortley and ask her to tell Kate of her brother-in-law’s desperate situation. There may be nothing she could do; there may even be nothing she wanted to do; but she should at the least be told what had happened. Louise moped. She sat for hours on the floor by Tom’s bed, holding his unresponding hand in both of her tiny ones. Watching this unconditional love so freely given, and knowing it was earned, Lizzie’s heart softened a little more. The fierce rage that had filled her for so long began to die.
Ned worked in the fields. When he came into the house, for meals or to sleep, he said as little as possible.
Blakiston was there every day, making sure that Ned knew what to do and that whatever men needed to be hired for the day had been hired.
Lizzie struggled to eat or sleep. She lost weight. She was never far from Tom, mopping his brow and patting away the patches of water that formed on and around him.
Day after day, there was no change. On the fifth day, an unknown carriage rolled up the lane to the farm and stopped. Out stepped Kate. Florrie and Lizzie rushed from the house and threw their arms around her.
‘Mistress Wortley insisted I come,’ said Kate. ‘She asks us to look after the horses and the driver until I am ready to return. And I am to stay until Tom is entirely better. Or until...well. You know.’
She looked over her sister’s shoulder and saw Blakiston, his face an astonishing mix of shocked surprise and yearning. For a moment it was as though time had stood still. Then Blakiston smiled. Kate smiled back at him. And Lizzie, with a determined grunt, put both arms around her and dragged her away to see Tom.
On the sixth day, Doherty smiled.
‘What is it, doctor?’ asked Lizzie.
‘You will have noticed that he is calmer? And cooler?’
‘Yes. I hardly dared hope…’
‘I think the worst may be over. Some time today he may return to us. He may even feel hungry. I say “may,” Mistress Laws. We are not out of the wood yet. But you should have some broth ready.’
After he had gone Lizzie sat by the bed for hours, willing Tom to open his eyes and look at her. Hardly knowing what she did, she kissed him on the now cool brow, on the cheeks—and, finally, on the lips. There was no response at all. At last, Florrie persuaded her to come downstairs and eat. ‘Louise will stay with him. And Kate. Won’t you, Kate?’
The girl nodded.
Lizzie sat at the kitchen table, abstractedly dunking a piece of bread into her tea, when from above there came a shout of childish joy and the sound of her name being called. She took the stairs two at a time, closely followed by Florrie. When she burst into the bedroom, Kate was standing by the bed, Louise in her arms, both faces enveloped in huge smiles. From his wan face, Tom’s eyes gazed calmly into Lizzie’s.
Florrie stepped past her and took Kate by the arm. ‘He’ll be hungry,’ she said. ‘Let you and me go and heat his broth.’
When the door had closed behind them, Tom smiled. ‘What happened to me?’
She told him.
‘I had to get shot to get into your bed,’ he said.
‘You will never leave it again, my love.’
‘I am a farmer. I must go to the fields.’
‘You know what I mean, Tom Laws.’
She covered the space between them. Taking his hands in hers, she kissed him full on the lips. They were still embracing when Kate brought in little Lulu proudly carrying her father’s bread ahead of Florrie bearing a bowl of broth.
It was still some days before Tom was well enough to come downstairs, and longer before he could return to the fields. Blakiston lengthened his visits to spend a little time each day sitting by the invalid’s bed.
‘So, Mister Blakiston,’ said Tom. ‘Still studying human folly?’
‘There will never be any shortage of that commodity,’ said Blakiston. ‘Last week the Right Honourable Michael Dilstey, esquire, gave dinner to his workmen and their wives to celebrate the winning of coal from his new pit. Three hundred and seventy-seven men sat down to dine in a field by Dilstey Hall. Each table, so his overseer tells me, was furnished with a large piece of mutton and two great fruit puddings. Beyond that there were several hundredweight of beef and two sheep of a hundred and forty-four pounds each. Or so the man says, though how they got two sheep of exactly the same weight is beyond me. One of the sheep they roasted whole. The other was boiled with the beef in a vessel more usually employed in the brewing of beer. I trust they sheared it first. There was, as you may imagine, an abundance of ale, strong beer and punch.
‘When dinner was done, the men and their wives marched to the great court to the rear of the Hall where they formed a circle around Dilstey and his lady and drank toasts to the royal family, the Dilsteys and the coal trade. The coal trade, mark you. All this with great huzzas and satisfaction. They finished the night with dancing and jollity of every description. Doubt not there will be a sudden rise in baptisms nine months hence.’
‘It sounds an excellent entertainment, Mister Blakiston.’
‘Excellent indeed. Two days before this wondrous event, there was an explosion at Lambton Colliery that must have been heard in Knaresborough. Every man and every horse in that pit was blown up the shaft like balls from a cannon. When the villagers went looking for their relations they found only disconnected heads, arms and legs scattered in every direction across a huge distance.
‘That is what these nincompoops were shouting their huzzas for, Tom Laws. The right to have their left feet delivered to Darlington and their backsides to Berwick on Tweed while not being paid enough to stop their bairns getting rickets.’
‘This event seems to have moved you, Mister Blakiston.’
‘Aye, has it. Two of those men blown to kingdom come had left this estate to seek work when their cottages were razed. But you will read none of this in the newssheets. The coal owners, as ever, have obtained injunctions preventing publication of the story. The British people’s tender ears must not be allowed to hear of what is done to get the coal that heats their homes. I have probably broken the law by speaking of it to you.’
Chapter 52
On Wednesday, the eighth of August, 1764 Martin Wale and Mary Stone were sentenced to hang. Two days later, the sentence was carried out.
The Ordinary to Durham Gaol was a fat man who hated any form of exercise. Walking from the Cathedral to the gaol in Saddler Street had done nothing to calm a temper already inflamed by brandy. Having to be seen trying to bring Mary Stone to a penitent state made matters worse. After months of attempting to wrestle the devil for her s
oul while she waited in prison for this day, he knew he was wasting his breath. Still, it must be attempted, for the public expected a condemned person to leave this world contrite and exhorting others not to follow where she had led.
‘Mary Stone,’ he said. ‘You have shown yourself to be an impious, lewd and licentious reprobate. Now you stand at the very gates of eternity. Will you speak the words of penance and atonement that, even now, may save you from everlasting hellfire through the miraculous grace of God and the love of our saviour, Jesus Christ?’
‘Priest,’ said Mary, ‘I will tell you now what I have told you every time you came to see me in that rat-infested pox-ridden cesspit of a gaol. You may kiss my arse.’
The Ordinary stepped back, shaking his head. ‘May Almighty God have mercy on your black soul.’ He turned away, gesturing towards the executioner. George Heath placed his pot of ale carefully on the ground. Then he tested the ropes binding Mary’s wrists behind her back. He gestured towards the ladder. ‘Climb up, Mary, and let us bring this to an end. Wear a brave face, my girl. Let no-one see your fear.’
‘Fear?’ she spat back. ‘You think I am afraid of what is to come? Could the place I go to be worse than the one I leave?’
He patted her on the rump as she began to ascend the ladder. ‘That’s the spirit, girl.’
Bound as she was, he had to help her keep her balance as she climbed. When her head was level with the noose, he murmured to her to stop. ‘Will you address your last words to the crowd, Mary?’
‘Aye, will I.’ She raised her voice to a pitch that could be heard several rows back into the mob, noisy as it was. ‘I give thanks for the end of this miserable life. I regret nothing. If there is a burning pit waiting for me, which I doubt, I shall see many of you again there. And as for the bastard who brought me to this pass, his Lordship’s man Mister Blakiston, him above all others I look forward to welcoming into Hades when his time comes. And now I cordially invite the whole screaming lot of you to go to hell!’
The crowd roared its delight at this defiant departure.
‘Mary, man,’ said Heath. ‘Your children! Ask for mercy for your bairns, at the very least, and someone to care for them.’
‘I’ll ask pity from no man. Do your job. Turn me off.’
‘Do it,’ said the Ordinary.
With a shrug, Heath put the noose in place and checked that it was too tight to allow her head to slip through. Then he stepped back onto solid ground. Taking the ladder in both hands, he turned it firmly away from her towards one of the gibbet’s two side posts. Mary swung in the air, the rope taking the whole of her weight. Amid the ghastly liquid gurgles with which life is throttled out of a person, the executioner could hear a stream of curses against God and Man.
And then, as it always did, came another word. “Mammy.” Even those who cursed God or denied His very existence would sometimes call on Him for mercy when their final moments came. But everyone, without exception, cried out at the end to their mothers. Heath had never known it fail.
He picked up his beer and drank deeply. Then he gestured towards the other gibbet. ‘After you, Reverend.’
The Ordinary approached Martin Wale, whose clothes were reduced to rags after his time in the Saddler Street gaol. Prisoners gave no special consideration to another merely because he was a man of God, and in gaol the strong preyed on the weak. Martin had had a bad time of it.
‘Will you hear absolution?’.
‘Aye, say it.’
The Ordinary held up his hand, palm forward. ‘Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’
‘Amen,’ echoed the condemned man.
‘Will you address your last words to the assembly?’
‘Get me up there, where I may be heard.’
As with Mary Stone, Martin needed help from the hangman to climb the ladder. When he had reached the top, he threw back his head. In a clear voice, he pronounced the words he had by heart: ‘For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.’
From the foot of the ladder, the Ordinary stared up at him aghast. ‘Are you mad? Are your senses completely gone? You, a man of the Church, to revel in this death? And with the words of Solomon, a heathen harlot-monger? Have you no fear of what is to come?’
Wale continued to stare out at the crowd. ‘And you may tell yon Blakiston,’ he shouted, ‘that I, Martin Wale, curse him in this moment of my dying. Him I curse, and his children, and his children’s children.’ He spat on the ground, then turned to look down at the Ordinary. His voice when he spoke was still loud, still ranting. ‘Did not our own Saviour die in agony on the Cross? I fear nothing. I have been true to God and my conscience, and I am alone in all Ryton parish in that. I know I go to paradise, and I know I shall see precious few of my Ryton acquaintance there.’ He lowered his voice to a normal level and addressed the Ordinary. ‘But you have your book of common prayer with you. If your conscience troubles you at the manner of my going, you may read this rabble the Epistle appointed to be read on the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. The lesson may do them good, though I doubt it. But first let me swing, for I swear I cannot bear to hear you read.’
Heath, tired of a performance he barely understood, looped the noose over Wale’s head, pulled it tight, skipped down the ladder and briskly turned the curate off. As the death agonies began, the Ordinary started to read: ‘My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.’ Closing his ears, the hangman drained his pint pot and held it out for more.
When he had finished reading, the Ordinary turned from his work with a sigh. ‘You do not need me to stay?’
‘Nay, Priest,’ said the hangman. ‘The lass has not yet stopped twitching and he has barely begun. I’ll stay till the end. You be about your business.’
With a sigh of relief, the Ordinary began to move his great bulk back up the hill towards the cathedral. He had earned his brandy and, by God, he meant to have it.
News of the curses rained down on Blakiston’s head soon spread about the parish. Blakiston himself laughed. Many parishioners waited to see the devil’s work carried out. Thomas offered a service of exorcism, which a smiling Blakiston declined.
For Kate Greener, it was a much more serious matter. The man she loved, however hopelessly, had been cursed. Without thinking what she did, she ran to his home, arriving just as he reached there himself.
‘Why, Kate Greener,’ said Blakiston. ‘Do you know how to make a dish of tea?’
‘Do I...Of course I know how to make a dish of tea.’
‘Come into my kitchen and show me. I have never mastered these feminine arts.’
Kate followed him into the house, closing the front door behind her since he showed no sign of doing so. ‘But Mister Blakiston. I am here because of what that man said yesterday.’
‘That man? You mean Martin Wale?’ He smiled at her, and then the smile began to fade. Kate was almost sixteen now, and the promised beauty was there for all to see. It was not just a physical beauty, though. Kate Greener was the most captivating human being he had ever met. And she cared for him. Cared enough to have run from Chopwell Garth to see that he was well, in spite of the curses heaped upon him. Of course it was still impossible for him to think of marriage to Kate Greener. Yes, he had considered that, had in fact made up his mind to do it, but fate had intervened and the moment had gone. Society would shun him. His sister would never speak to him again. All hope of returning to the stratum he had once lived among would be gone.
The stratum he had once lived among. And what was that? It was a world where the woman he had loved, and who he had thought loved him, threw him over when he no longer had enough money to maintain her in the style she expected. For that—for people, and a woman, like that—he turned away from a woman who...well. A woman who what? He believed Kate Greener loved him. But had she ever said so? Actually spoken the words? He might be fooling himself all over again, just as he had with the woman he had once expected to marry.
‘So, Katherine Greener,’ he said. ‘I am a man accursed. What does that mean to you?’
‘Me, sir?’
‘You, Kate. Does the idea so terrify you that you would reject the idea of matrimony with me?’
‘What?’
‘I said...’
‘Sir, I heard what you said. But you have never...the idea has not...’
‘Please don’t call me Sir, Kate. My name is James. And if I have never, and the idea has not, then that only shows what a fool I can sometimes be. But now I shall, and the idea will, and then you must decide.’ He went down on one knee and took her small and work-roughened hand in his. ‘Kate Greener, I love you beyond enduring. Will you marry me?’
But Kate was not yet ready to grant his wish to this man who had been so difficult and so resistant. She had waited for this moment. And waited. And waited. She had even removed herself from the parish in despair that it would ever arrive. And now it was here. Well, now he could do a little waiting himself.
