Fourpenny Flyer (22 page)

The first speaker that evening was Thomas Cleary, the secretary of the London Hampden Club, a slightly built, eager young man, who welcomed the delegates most warmly but spoke too quickly and too softly to command their attention for very long. The second was Joseph Mitchell, a delegate from Liverpool, who spoke so passionately of the need for reform that he lost the thread of what he was saying and had to step down, to vociferous applause, but in the middle of a sentence so muddled as to be completely incomprehensible. The third was a cotton
weaver from Salford.

At first sight he looked ordinary enough, a thickset, stocky man in his late twenties, with a shock of dark hair, and a broad squat face. But the way he leapt up onto the platform showed an uncommon energy and when he began to speak it was as if he'd sent an electrical current pulsing out into the audience. Heads were raised at once, spines straightened, eyes gleamed in the candlelight. Soon all conversation had petered out and even the tankards were being ignored.

‘Friends,' he said, ‘I've come here tonight, to ask three questions. Pertinent questions tha might say.' It was a strong voice and melodious, used with deliberate artistry, the changing expressions on his face endorsing his meaning. There was powerful irony in the next thing he said. ‘Pertinent questions. Aye, tha might well say that.' And a cheerful sense of conspiracy in the next. ‘Happen tha'll know the answers.'

By now the entire hall was listening to him, concentrating so intently that the click of the burning logs could be heard quite clearly in every pause. And a gentleman with fair hair and rather splendid ginger whiskers, who had been sitting quietly just below the rostrum, took a black notebook out of his pocket and wrote down every word.

‘I don't need to tell thee again of th' hardships we suffer,' Mr Rawson went on. ‘Mr Mitchell's done that for us, and done it right well, and we only need reminding the once. We know all about bad masters, so we do, wi' poor wages and being laid off and children wi'out boots to their feet, and children in fever houses, and children dying for lack of food. What we need to know, friends, what we need to know, is what's to do about it. That's what we need to know. Now some may say, let us sign a petition and send it to Parliament and see if our masters there'll tek pity on us and gi' us what we want. And I say, aye, let's do it. 'Tis a first step, 'tis common politeness, it should be done. But dunna forget 'tis t' masters we deal with, and t' masters hold on to their own. They're renowned for it. We know that. Who better? Of course, they
might
see t' sense in it
and gi' us what we ask. It's wi'in t' bounds o' possibility. Pigs might fly. Happen.' And he waited while his audience laughed and growled their agreement. But when he continued he'd changed his light, mocking tone and now spoke to them most seriously.

‘I tell thee, friends, they'll not open t' door until we threaten to batter it down. They'll not gi' us what we want until we stand in t' streets in our thousands and demand it. Very well, then, we send our petition, we ask 'em politely, but we
prepare
to show our strength. For mek no mistake about it, there'll be bloodshed afore we win t' vote, and heads broke and men jailed, I don't doubt. But we will win it in the end, mek no mistake about that either. We will win it in the end. And why will we win it in the end? I'll tell thee why. We'll win it in the end because there's no moral argument that any right-thinking man can use against it. We'll win it in the end because it's right.'

He was cheered until the low rafters rang with sound as though they were glass goblets. Hats were tossed into the air and kerchiefs waved like flags, and as he left the platform he was seized by the hand and thumped in the back, so that his journey through the crowd back to his table was like a triumphal procession.

‘My eye!' one of the platform party said to Mr Cleary. ‘Who did ye say yon feller was?'

‘Caleb Rawson,' Mr Cleary told him. ‘Cotton weaver from Salford.'

‘Caleb Rawson, eh?' the man said. ‘We shall hear more of him, you mark my words.'

And the gentleman with the ginger whiskers certainly did, for he wrote down everything they were saying too.

Harriet and Annie were playing blind man's buff with Jimmy and Beau and Pollyanna in the hall of the rectory. It was a riotous game which took them scampering all over the ground floor of the house, squealing and giggling and calling to one another, for they played according to new rules of their own. Any child who was ‘caught' had to be hugged and tossed in the air for several minutes before the blindfold could be used again. Harriet enjoyed it more than any other game they played, because it was really just a marvellous excuse to tumble about together and cuddle one another, and to have the baby's warm arms holding her so lovingly about the neck was pure joy. So when she first heard the knock at the side door she took no notice of it but went on calling Beau so that he could catch her and be kissed.

But the knocker was persistent and tried again while the tumbling was in progress and again and louder when she was tying the bandage round her eyes and the rest of the players were squealing off into the parlour. She took the bandage off and passed it to Jimmy, calling, ‘I'll go!' Then she went to attend to it.

There was a man standing subserviently on the doorstep, looking down at the strips of sacking that were tied around his feet. He was covered in mud-grey grime from his matted hair to the blackened toes exposed through the sacking, and he was dressed, if that really was the word, in several layers of mud-coloured rags, so old and torn and evil-smelling that at first she took him for a beggar. There was a slatternly woman standing behind him wearing a soldier's red coat that looked as though it
had come straight from the wars, for it was horribly stained and had a jagged bullet hole in one shoulder. She had a filthy baby tucked inside the coat and two equally filthy little boys clinging to her muddy skirts and she looked at Harriet sullenly, her eyes very blue and very young under the tousled bush of her hair.

‘Yes?' Harriet said, feeling a sudden and yearning sympathy at the sight of them. How terrible to be so poor and dirty? ‘Who did you wish to see?'

‘The Reverend 'Opkins,' the man said, ‘if 'ee'd be so good, miss.'

And the woman said, ‘Tha's right Jack, you tell un.'

‘He is not here just at present,' Harriet said. ‘He is out visiting the sick.'

But she was wrong. He was in the garden, striding towards them with hands outstretched in greeting. ‘Why Mr Abbott!' he called. ‘How good to see you home and safe.'

‘No work, Mr 'Opkins, tha's the size on it,' the man said mournfully. ‘Mr Morgan, 'e's a-layin' off so 'e say. Got a new machine fer threshin' an such, so 'e don' need the men so 'e say. I told un I was willin'. 'E's a-layin' off so 'e say.' And his face crumpled and he began to weep, strange tears that Harriet found most upsetting.

And the two little boys began to cry in sympathy and the woman repeated, ‘You tell un, Jack,' in the same belligerent tones.

‘Come into my study,' the Reverend Hopkins said, and the filthy family followed him into the hall.

The cloying, sour smell of them was so strong once they were inside the house that Annie was alerted by it and came out of the parlour to see what was going on. She took one look and whisked her children out of harm's way at once, signalling with her eyes to Pollyanna and Harriet that they were to follow her.

‘Who are they?' she asked Harriet when the parlour door was closed behind them. ‘Did you catch the name?'

‘Mr Hopkins called the – gentleman Mr Abbott.'

‘Jack Abbott, I'll be bound,' Annie said, sitting down beside the fire with baby Beau on her lap. ‘Went for a
soldier years ago, just after we were married. That'll be Jack Abbott. Well I only hope they don't stay too long, that's all, for they smell worse than old Hannah's pig.' Which was strong criticism, for old Hannah kept her livestock in such filthy conditions that they could be smelt all over the village.

‘I think they've come to Mr Hopkins for help,' Harriet said, quite surprised by Annie's sharpness.

‘I don't doubt it,' Annie said. ‘Let's have some more coal on the fire.'

They waited while the voices in the parlour mumbled and grumbled on, punctuated now and then by an occasional stab of aggression from the woman. Then they heard the study door open and shut and the Reverend Hopkins came stooping mildly into the room.

‘Mr Abbott has nowhere to stay, my love,' he said to Annie, ‘so I have invited him here. It will mean five more to dinner. Do you think Mrs Chiddum can manage?'

‘I daresay she can,' Annie said, and it was plain that she was none too pleased at the news, ‘but she won't like it.'

‘You will explain to her, will you not, my love?' he said. ‘They have been on the road for the last ten days, hoping for work once they got home, so poor Jack tells me, and now of course there is no work for them and no room in the cottage either, since his brothers came back from Gedding. And he fought at Waterloo. It is uncommon sad. We must help them all we can.'

‘Are they to stay here, James?' There was an edge to her voice, but he answered her as mildly as ever.

‘We can hardly turn them away, my love. They have nowhere to go.'

‘Those children are crawling with vermin, James,' she said, and there was no mistaking how she felt. ‘I could see the lice in their hair as plain as I see you. Do you truly wish to put our boys at risk of
that?
'

‘There is always turpentine,' he said gently. ‘I am sure you will do all you can to help them, will you not, my love?'

‘I shall use turpentine most certainly,' she said, and now she sounded quite brusque. ‘But I tell 'ee 'twould be better to send them all elsewhere.'

‘Come now, Annie,' he said, ‘there is nowhere else for them to go.' And now there was a harsher note to his voice too. ‘You would not have me cast them out into the wilderness.'

Watching them, Harriet realized to her surprise that they were arguing. They were quite calm, they didn't shout or turn red or stamp about the room, but they were arguing nevertheless. It was amazing.

‘Rattlesden is not a wilderness,' Annie said, shifting little Beau on her knee.

‘It is a wilderness to Mr Abbott, there being no work and no shelter in it. Come Annie my dear, consider the Good Samaritan.'

They gazed at one another for a long while without saying a word, while Jimmy looked from one to the other, and Beau fell asleep and Pollyanna looked at Harriet, warning her not to move or speak.

Finally Annie broke the silence. ‘I will do as you say,' she said, ‘on one condition.'

He answered her most lovingly. ‘Name it, my dear.'

‘They sleep in the east wing, well away from the rest of us.'

‘Agreed,' he said. ‘And now you will have a room prepared for them, will you not?'

‘Pray take the baby, Pollyanna dear,' Annie said, lifting him gently. ‘And Jimmy too, if you will. Go along with Pollyanna, there's a good boy Jimmy, and then you shall have a sugar stick the next time we're in town.' Now that the argument was over she was her busy, practical self again as she called her maids and led the way to the narrow east stairs.

Once inside the little east room, she had all the linen stripped from the bed and thrown on the floor. ‘You can take that off to the linen cupboard presently,' she said to the maids. ‘Don't 'ee bother to fold it just yet awhile. Come and help me with this mattress Molly. They ain't having my nice clean mattress,' she added to Harriet, ‘them and their bugs, and he needn't think it, dear though he is.'

She had the maids working at furious speed. The mattress was already rolled and ready to carry away.
‘Charity is all very well,' she said, as Molly helped her to lift it from the bed, ‘but I draw the line at lice and bugs. There is a mattress cover at the bottom of the cupboard, which will do well enough, once 'tis stuffed with straw. But we must make haste or he will bring them up here before we are ready.'

The maid was sent to collect old sheets and blankets while Harriet and Annie ran from the rectory to the barn like conspirators and returned bouncing the now bulky mattress between them. The Abbotts were still in the study as they could hear from the murmured voices behind the door.

‘And a fine old job we shall have getting
that
clean again,' Annie said crossly, as they dragged the mattress towards the east stairs. ‘First thing tomorrow I shall ride into Bury and buy turpentine and camphor and as many cakes of soap as my money will run to.'

Mention of Bury worried Harriet. ‘You will not want me to accompany you …' she hoped.

‘No, my dear, of course not,' Annie said. ‘You must stay here and help Pollyanna with Jimmy and Beau. And watch that Mrs Abbott gives those children of hers a good scrub down. Under the pump mind, not inside the house. I will buy them some clothes at the slop-shop otherwise James will order new ones to be made for them, which we certainly cannot afford, and then we will make a bonfire of all their old rags and with luck we may burn their livestock too.'

She was full of energy. The new bed was prepared in minutes and covered with an old sheet and two even older blankets, and the chest of drawers was locked and the new washset replaced by an old one. It was as if she were preparing for a seige. Which in many ways she was.

Her unwanted guests ate in the kitchen that evening quietly enough, and retired to their straw pallet afterwards, telling ‘the Reverend' how grateful they were. But the next morning, when Annie tried to wake them, since it was seven o'clock and the rest of the house had been up and about for more than an hour, Mr Abbott growled to her to, ‘Go 'way an' leave us be'. And that was the signal for action.