Chapter 19
Brown’s in Chelsea was an undistinguished prep school on the fringe of a fashionable area. Arthur was escorted to school early each morning by O’Shea. The headmaster was a bilious ex-army officer, Major Blyth, whose educational philosophy was that a curriculum needed to be limited to the fewest possible skills delivered in the most repetitious manner. William had been sent to Eton and Richard had gone up to Oxford as soon as a place had been found for him at one of the colleges. Accordingly, the house felt strangely empty and, since it was rented, very impersonal. The thick, gritty air of the city became even more of a stew as spring gave way to summer and the almost permanent haze that hung over the centre of London shrouded its inhabitants in a sweltering gloom that depressed Arthur’s spirits.
By the time he returned from school it was suppertime, and more often than not he ate with his younger siblings while his parents dressed for yet another engagement. When it was not a ball, or a party, it was the theatre, occasionally opera or even a prizefight. His father was still composing and had scheduled a series of free public concerts at venues across the city. However, the busy social scene left Garrett too little time for recital sessions with his son and Arthur was left to practise alone in his room. At first he made a great effort to learn Dr Buckleby’s composition, but time passed and his father showed no sign of setting aside a few moments to hear the piece.
Occasionally there was a family outing. Usually it was to one of Garrett’s concerts, in order to boost the numbers in the audience and Anne prompted them to wild applause after each piece. At other times the children were taken to the races or cricket, and were frequently left in the care of one of the staff while their parents circulated amongst the other aristocrats and swapped invitations. Whenever Lord and Lady Mornington entertained at home the children were expected to keep discreetly out of the way in their rooms or the nursery.Thanks to the war in the American colonies the capital was filled with the colourful uniforms of officers either on their way out to fight the traitor General Washington and his ragtag army, or recently returned from campaigning. From what Arthur heard from such men the war was not going as well as the London papers implied.
In any case, the people of the capital were concerned with events much closer to home that summer of 1780. Lord George Gordon, a fervent opponent of the Church of Rome, had been stirring up the London mob. At a series of public meetings he claimed that there was a conspiracy behind the Catholic Relief Acts that had been passed two years earlier to restore some of their civil rights. Arthur and his father had been walking in Hyde Park one Sunday when they came across a crowd listening to one of Gordon’s fiery attacks on the Catholics plotting to seize power in England. Gordon, red-faced and spluttering, punched his fists into the air as he raged against his enemies, and played his audience like a cheap fiddle. Their grumbling assent to his rhetoric soon turned into a seething expression of hatred. It was the first time that Arthur had witnessed the raw emotions of the mob and the experience frightened him.
‘Father.’ He tugged Garrett’s hand. ‘Please can we go home? That man is scaring me.’
An old woman with black, crooked teeth overheard the remark and leered at Arthur. ‘Why bless you, young ’un, that’s ’is point. We’ve plenty to be scared of. Them Catholics’ll ’ave us for breakfast, less we ’ave ’em first!’
Garrett stepped between them. ‘Please leave my son alone.’
She glared at him. ‘I’m only tellin’ ’im the truth, sir. Best he knows it, ’fore it’s too late.’
Garrett, holding tightly to Arthur’s hand, eased them away from the old woman. He paused a moment longer, listening to Gordon’s impassioned ranting, and gauging the response of the crowd. Then he said to his son, ‘He’s scaring me too. Come, let’s go, before there’s trouble.’
At the start of June a crowd gathered outside the Houses of Parliament, and shouted their fury at the politicians as Gordon and his followers stoked up their rage with yet more speeches and pamphlets. Inevitably the mob turned to violence and in the days that followed,Arthur saw thick clouds of smoke spiral into the sky as the mob raged through the streets of the East End. On the morning of 7 June, on the way to school, Arthur had had to stand in a shop front while a drunken mob of men marched past, yelling anti-Catholic slogans, as they hurried to join the rioters. He stared at them in wide-eyed fright until they had passed by, and then ran the rest of the way to school.
‘And what is the meaning of this?’ Anne waved the note from Major Blyth at her son.
She sat in a velvet gown at her make-up table in her boudoir where she had been applying beauty spots for that evening’s party. She would be attending by herself since Garrett had been bed-bound for the last week with a cough.The doctor had prescribed rest and leeches. Garrett had consented to the first treatment but insisted that his bankers provided more than enough of the second.
Arthur had been summoned from his room the moment she had finished reading the note and now stood in the doorway, eyes downcast.
‘Well, speak up!’
‘There was a fight, Mother. These things happen in schools.’
She fixed him with a cold stare. ‘Don’t you dare address me in that tone.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Major Blyth informs me that you started the fight.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Why?’
‘I was insulted.’
‘So you thought you would call him out.’
‘No, I just punched him.’
‘You punched him?’ Anne looked over his frail frame. ‘I’m surprised the other boy didn’t snap you in two. Lucky for you Major Blyth was on hand to break it up.’
Arthur shrugged. ‘Seems my fortune is changing.’
‘And what does that mean exactly?’
For a moment Arthur felt his emotions rushing to the surface and he had to pause to control them. ‘I don’t like it here, Mother. I never have. I don’t like the school. I don’t like London. I don’t like feeling abandoned by you and Father—’
‘Oh, grow up, Arthur!’ his mother snapped, slapping down the headmaster’s note. ‘You can’t spend your life squirrelled away in some draughty Irish backwater. London is where things happen. Make the most of it.’
‘I’m tired of London.’
‘Arthur,’ she continued in a more kindly tone, ‘this is your home now and you had better get used to it. It is also my home and your father’s, and we like it here. Please try not to spoil it for us.’
‘What happens when the money runs out?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m not a fool, Mother. I know what an overdraft is. I heard you talking about it with Father the other night. What happens when his debts are called in?’
‘They won’t be. It is in no one’s interest to beggar a peer. And since you have decided to take such a keen interest in the financial affairs of other people you should know that our income has only been reduced temporarily. As soon as the war in the American colonies is over, confidence in the markets will recover and our income will return to its previous level. So please don’t worry on that account.’
Arthur stared at her for a moment. ‘Is that all, Mother?’
‘Damn you, that is not all!’ She brandished the note at him. ‘That fight of yours is not the only issue raised by Major Blyth. It seems that it is merely a symptom of wider failure. He says you are … “dreamy, idle, careless and lethargic”. He says that you are making no progress in any subject and that you have poor relations with your peers as well as teachers. Now what do you make of that?’
‘It’s true.’
‘I see … Then you must be punished.’
‘Will you tell Father?’
‘No. Not at the moment. He is not well. He does not seem to have shaken that chill he caught in the spring. I have no desire to make his health any worse by telling him about your woeful performance at school.’
Arthur tried to hide his disappointment. In truth, he wished that his father was made aware of his unhappy state, so that he might reconsider their move to London. Maybe his father would see sense where his mother would not.
‘Now go.’ Anne gestured impatiently towards the door. ‘I have much to do before I go out.’
Arthur nodded and quietly left her boudoir, shutting the door behind him. He made for the staircase to climb back up to his room, but as he reached the first step he heard a strange sound from the street in front of the house, a rhythmic harsh trampling. As it grew in intensity he left the stairs and made his way to the doors of the first-floor balcony overlooking the street, and stepped outside into the evening air. Down below a long column of soldiers was marching up the cobbled street, their nailed boots making the loud noise he had heard from inside. Three officers rode at the head of the column and in a moment of childish high spirits at so brave a sight, Arthur smiled and waved at them. Only a sergeant saw him, and did not return the greeting, but looked sober and strained before he faced front again. Arthur continued to watch as the column snaked past. He tried to count them but gave up when he passed two hundred and still they came. Hundreds more of them. At last the tail of the column went by and he continued to stare as they disappeared down the street. Only then was he aware of a presence behind him and turning quickly he saw his father, wrapped in a thick coat, holding on to the doorframe for support. Arthur had not seen him for days and was shocked by the pallor of his skin and the shrunken look in his eyes.
Garrett made a thin smile. ‘Soldiers, eh? It seems that the government has finally decided to put Gordon and his rabble in order.’
‘Will there be fighting, Father?’
‘Perhaps. I doubt it.’
‘Will the soldiers shoot at them?’
‘No.’ Garrett laughed and ruffled his son’s fair hair. ‘Of course not. There’s no need. The mob will take one look at them and then run for their lives.’
As the tramp of boots faded away they heard faint sounds in the far distance: the indistinguishable roar of a crowd that rose and fell like a fluky breeze. Interspersed with the shouting was an occasional crackle of gunfire. Garrett stepped on to the balcony and rested a hand on his son’s shoulder as he concentrated his attention on the distant sounds. Arthur felt the tremor in his father’s hand and put it down to the chill of the evening air. His father coughed. Coughed again, and then his body was racked by a fit of coughing. Arthur reached up and patted his back gently, then stroked it as the fit eased off.
‘You should get back to bed, Father.’
‘What are you now? A physician as well as a pugilist?’ He smiled. ‘I overheard some of your conversation.’
Arthur smiled back conspiratorially, and for a moment there was sense of that old relationship, before the move to London.
‘I haven’t seen you for days,’ his father continued, then frowned. ‘Feels longer. In fact I can’t remember the last occasion when we had a decent conversation.’
‘I can. Two years ago. Back in Dangan.’
His father laughed, and started coughing again for a moment. ‘That was a long time ago. Life was much quieter then.’
‘Life was better, Father.’
Garrett turned to look at his son, and the expression of unhappiness in the young boy’s face was palpable. He squeezed Arthur’s shoulder. ‘You really don’t like it here, do you?’
‘No.’
Garrett nodded. ‘I should have noticed. I haven’t been paying much attention to you.’
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry … I must admit, I’m getting a bit jaded by life here. Much too ornamental. Too little substance. And very expensive. The air’s not good for me either. Perhaps we should leave for a while. Take a holiday. Go back to Dangan for a few months. Would you like that?’
‘Yes.’Arthur spoke quietly, but his heart swelled with hope.‘We could learn Dr Buckleby’s piece together.’
‘What? Oh, yes. That old thing … Be interesting to see if he still has his touch. Soon as I’m better I’ll have a word with—’
He was interrupted by a volley of of musket fire and both of them turned in the direction of the distant shouting. A terrible, shrill noise rose up from the invisible crowd and Arthur felt his spine tingle with cold as he realised that he was hearing screaming. A vast mass of people screaming in terror.
‘What’s happening, Father?’
‘I’m not sure.’ He strained his ears. ‘It sounds like a battle. Or a massacre.’
They stood a while longer listening. More volleys were fired and the screaming went on and on, rising and falling in intensity.
‘What on earth is going on out there?’ Anne called from inside. A moment later she emerged on to the balcony. ‘Garrett! You should be in bed.You’re not—’
‘Quiet! Listen!’
The sounds of the violence carried clearly across the rooftops and her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Good Lord, sounds like a quite a fracas. Hope it doesn’t come this way.’ She kissed her husband on the cheek. ‘I’m going to the party now. I’ve sent O’Shea for the carriage.’
‘Do you think it’s wise to go out?’
‘Why on earth not? That trouble is in the opposite direction.’
‘For now.’
‘Oh, tish! It’s nothing to be worried about. Now get back to bed.’
Suddenly there was shouting from further up the street. Then the first dim shadows flitted between the streetlamps. As they watched more of them appeared, like rats running for their lives, some crying out in panic. Then they heard some harsh shouting and the grinding thud of army boots charging down the street towards the house.
‘Get them! Get those bastards!’ a voice bellowed.
Now Arthur could make out the forms of soldiers in amongst the people fleeing along the street. They had fixed their bayonets and the wicked spikes glinted in the lamplight as the soldiers ran down their prey. Arthur held his breath as he saw one of the soldiers slam the butt of his musket into the back of a man’s head, and as his victim slipped to the ground the soldier calmly reversed the weapon and drove the bayonet into the man’s chest, twisted it and wrenched it free before continuing the chase.