The Northern Correspondent

by Jean Stubbs

  Today these self-imposed rules were being violated. For an elegant gentleman in a chocolate-brown coat and fawn trousers was sitting by the side of a working man, apparently by choice. Occasionally, one or the other of them glanced towards the boys at the edge of the pond to make sure all was well, but otherwise they were absorbed in a conversation which had reached some crucial point for both of them.

  ‘What I’ve got to tell you, cousin,’ said George Howarth slowly, ‘is summat as grieves me just as much as it’ll grieve you. I’ve pondered for a long while, and wished things might be different, but there’s no other way out. The only thing as fears me is that I shan’t make myself understood.’

  ‘Oh yes, you will,’ said Ambrose cheerfully. ‘I’ve always said you had a gift of expression that any journalist would envy.’

  His tone was light, but the way in which he stabbed a little hole in the rough turf with the ferrule of his cane showed his unease, and he looked sideways at his cousin as he spoke, trying to read his expression.

  George, on the other hand, gazed into the distance, his eyes very blue and steady. He had always appeared to be older than his years. Now in his thirties, his countenance had weathered to the texture and colour of an old red apple. His body had shrunk, his hands were gnarled. From a distance, one would have taken Ambrose to be the younger man. On closer inspection, however, the steel in his hair and a certain steely self-containment told another tale.

  ‘Crack away, George. Give it to me short and straight.’

  ‘I’m leaving,’ said George briefly. ‘Leaving The Correspondent. Leaving my rooms. And leaving you, and all, cousin.’

  The ensuing pause said more than words could have done. Neither man looked at the other.

  Then Ambrose said thoughtfully, ‘That’s a bit of a facer!’

  ‘Aye, it is, that. And you’ve got the right to know why, cousin, because nobody in this world has done as much for me as you have. It’s not ingratitude. I know the value of you, cousin — no man better. But it’s time I were piking off afore I lose sight o’ myself.’

  Ambrose dug away at his little hole in the turf, disturbed.

  ‘Where are you going, George?’

  ‘That’s summat as I don’t exactly know myself.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, if you’ve nowhere particular to go, you can stay where you are — hang the job!’

  ‘Nay, that wouldn’t be right,’ George replied decisively.

  Ambrose accepted this with a sorry little shrug.

  ‘How are you going to earn a living?’

  ‘I’m going preaching, cousin, round the countryside. I shan’t ask nowt more than a night’s lodging and a share o’ bread and cheese.’

  ‘Preaching the word of God?’ Ambrose asked, amazed, for he had never thought of George as being religious.

  ‘Nay, cousin. Preaching poor man’s justice. I’ve sat on my backside wi’ a full belly for long enough. I’m going back where I ought to be — along wi’ them.’

  Now both men looked at each other directly.

  ‘I know you’re a dedicated Chartist, George,’ said Ambrose carefully, ‘but I shouldn’t rely on them for financial support or political success. Their fortunes have fluctuated enormously. I’m sure they’d be glad of your help, but they can’t even pay their lecturers, let alone keep you. Besides, revolutions favour men who have a taste for power rather than men of honest conviction.’

  ‘Aye, I expected you to take that line,’ George replied. ‘It’s what I said right at the beginning, cousin. We’re chalk and cheese, thee and me. We may be aiming at the same goal, but I’m on t’other side o’ the street — like them lads, over there, sithee?’

  Ambrose saw his three sons and Matthew Standish on one side of the pond, and the unknown boys opposite. They could have been a different species.

  ‘I know and deplore social injustices as much as you do,’ he replied energetically, ‘but you can’t accuse The Correspondent of laziness or complacency. Look at our efforts over the last nine years. Every campaign we have launched has brought results. I’m not so stupid as to think that the country is governed according to my editorials, but I know they make a contribution, however small, to social reform.’

  He prodded a little hole in the turf to mark each achievement.

  ‘First. We’ve opened people’s eyes to the inhuman features of our workhouse system.’ He brightened momentarily with humour. ‘Mind you, I think we should acknowledge the help of Mr Charles Dickens with regard to that. I daresay more people read Oliver Twist than read The Northern Correspondent!’

  Then he was serious again.

  ‘Second. The Coal Mines Act has prohibited the employment of women and children underground, and the employment of any child under ten years old, and forbidden anyone under the age of fifteen to be put in charge of machinery.

  ‘Third. Factories. Owners are no longer allowed to employ any child under the age of nine, and no child is allowed to work at night. Young people’s work hours have been drastically reduced, and we’re campaigning to reduce them further. We want a limit set on the hours that women work as well.

  ‘Fourth. Education. We’ve worked hand-in-glove with Edwin Fletcher of Millbridge Grammar School on this one. In Lower Town, this moment, we have a public reading room, we’re building a Mechanics Institute, and we’re campaigning for a workmen’s library. Hand-in-glove with old Jarvis Pole of St Mark’s, we have helped to raise money and interest in local Sunday Schools, where children are taught to read and write free of charge — my mother would have been pleased about that!

  ‘Fifth. Public health. We’ve been playing bully for Jamie Standish all the way along, persuading them to resuscitate the old cholera unit and turn it into a fever hospital. I grant you, they’re taking their time over that as usual, but it is on paper at least. Oh, and we’re still after them to improve the drainpipes.

  ‘Finally, and however humbly, take this park as an example of our muscle-power. The Correspondent was responsible for voting in the local councillor who suggested it, and backing him all the way. We’re infiltrating quite a few men of action and good conscience into the Borough Council these days. We do progress.’

  Then he turned to his silent cousin and said, ‘All right, George. Add that lot up! And tell me whether this isn’t a better country to live in than it was nine years ago, and whether it isn’t a fair achievement on the part of a provincial newspaper!’

  ‘Aye,’ George replied gently, and actually put his hand over Ambrose’s hand to soothe him, and patted it. ‘But we’ve nobbut scratted the surface, cousin. It’s not enough, and it’s not fast enough. And you’re looking at it from the outside, instead of feeling it like a knife in your guts. Look at them lads of yours, and say this to yourself.

  ‘“The workhouse sold my Nat to a chimney-sweep when he were seven year old. He were feared to climb, so the sweep lit a fire behind him to make him go, though the sores on his knees and elbows were raw. He got stuck on an awkward bend, and choked to death.

  ‘“They sent my Toby down the mine when he were six, to work thirteen hours a day, opening and shutting ventilation doors. He used to sing to keep his spirits up. He were feared of rats in the dark. He ate candle-ends because he were famished. He tried to run away, and tumbled down a shaft.

  ‘“They set my Jack to wind cotton bobbins in the mill twelve hours a day. He were only four year old. His eyes smarted and his body ached. When he got drowsy they beat him, but one day he dozed off in spite of them and fell into the machinery.”’

  ‘For God’s sake, George…!’

  ‘Aye, now it comes close to home, don’t it? It’s not just some poor woman dragging a three-hundred-weight wagon along a tunnel until she tears out the unborn child she’s carrying, it’s your wife.’

  Ambrose put up his hand to indicate that he should stop, that the point was taken. But George had not yet done.

  ‘Even your notion o’ time is different. You can afford to wait, cousi
n. You’re well-housed and well-fed and well-content. What’s nine years to you? But to a clemmed and famished babby, nine hours is too long to wait for the milk that’d save it.’

  The tears were running down his face. He wiped them away fiercely, unashamedly.

  ‘You talk about progress and achievement. If this country is so good to live in why are poor folk emigrating, facing the misery of a voyage in steerage, and the unknown when they stumble on shore? Over one hundred thousand this year, and more and more every year that’s counted. You talk on Acts o’ Parliament as though owners said to theirselves, “Oh, dear me. I’ve been a bad lad up to now, but on Monday morning at six o’clock sharp, I’st be a good employer.” Rubbish! They’ll cheat and lie and cover up until they’re threatened wi’ summat more than moral pressure. Folk are dying, cousin, for lack o’ work. Them as can’t work can’t eat, sithee! And there should be more to life than working and dying, any road. More than a bowl o’ charity soup served on a street corner, as if you was a beggar by nature.’

  He looked back into his childhood, and spoke from it.

  ‘I’m not saying it weren’t hard, and it weren’t poverty-stricken, but when we had the land we had us self-respect. Now, we’ve lost the common where we grazed us animals and collected us firewood. We’ve lost the tied cottage and the patch of earth where we grew us vegetables. We’ve lost us neighbours and the village we was born in. The very air we breathed has turned to smoke. We’ve been sold into slavery as surely as if we was black men. We have to sign us lives away, and take low wages and long hours and ill-treatment, and if we run off they can put us in prison. I’m not talking about yesterday, cousin. I’m talking about now! It’s still happening.’

  Like his grandfather before him, his face had reddened, his eyes become a deeper shade of blue, as he warmed to his argument. Now he stood up abruptly, and thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, composing himself. Then he spoke quietly and emphatically.

  ‘I canna stand by and look on. I’m no middle-class radical, as can eat a good dinner while they’re clemmed. What happens to them, happens to me. I’ll fight for them as best I can. I’ll die for them if I must. I’ll put my arm round them and cry wi’ them, if I can do nowt else. But I’m one of them, cousin, and that’s where I belong.’

  There was nothing else to say. Ambrose got up slowly from the grass. He put his hand on George’s shabby shoulder, and patted it. He nodded encouragement and understanding, and George nodded abruptly back. Then Ambrose walked down the slope towards the group of shouting boys, who would never be robbed of their childhood.

  TWENTY-THREE: GIFTS AND LITTLE VOICES

  December, 1843

  The ironmaster’s Will had been a masterly affair, whose influence like his dominions was far-reaching. Only now, more than three years after his death, were the last odds and ends of his vast estate being wound up. He had forgotten no one. Even the act of passing them over — as with Ambrose, whose children benefited in his stead — had been the product of long and deep thought.

  For lack of an acknowledged heir the ironmaster’s empire must be sold piecemeal, and the proceeds divided among his descendants. Mind you, with six married daughters, over thirty grandchildren, and a fourth generation already under way, he had more than enough family to satisfy. And after them came close connections in all the ways of his life: old workers and faithful servants, who had to be remembered and rewarded according to a delicately adjusted scale of merit and importance.

  Besides personal legacies to Hal and to Mary, he left in trust a generous sum of money for the construction of the Pennine Railway. Sadly, he could not bequeath his experience, which would have been even more valuable. Hal Vivian was a passionate and dedicated, but not a businesslike or politic man. Still, the ironmaster had done what he could while he was alive. In dying, he had to loose his hold of events and let them take their own course.

  While doubting Sam Pickering’s ability to rise to lofty heights, he nevertheless held him in great respect. So he left the fellow sufficient shares in The Lancashire Herald to assure him of an income for life and a voice in the running of the newspaper, but not enough to give him the whip-hand, and Sam continued to act as editor. Here again the investment suffered from the ironmaster’s absence. The Herald’s committee was composed entirely of sound Tory businessmen, none of whom possessed his breadth of vision. Whereas it had once reflected the many facets of William Howarth’s character, it was now becoming a provincial mouthpiece for the Tory Party. That didn’t worry Sam, of course. He was always a loyal Party man.

  On this late winter afternoon, sharing a hackney-coach with Ambrose on their way to Kingswood Hall, he was content with life. For the Hall was sold at last, and Zelah Howarth had invited them for six o’clock, to fulfil the ironmaster’s final request. Each was to choose some small personal object, by which they would remember him.

  ‘So the old man still holds out an iron hand!’ Sam remarked, in rare good humour, and offered Ambrose a cigar.

  In the last twelve years, his work had fulfilled and mellowed him. His grey moustache no longer drooped, but curved upwards, short and crisp and neat. The barber had parted his hair on the left side and brought some of it forward in curls over the ears, while cleverly sweeping the rest across the thin part of his crown. His green gaze was just as sharp but more tolerant. He had not married, and continued to live comfortably in his bachelor apartment at 38 Cornmarket.

  ‘Aye, still holds out an iron hand!’ Sam repeated indistinctly, cigar in mouth, bending over for a light.

  Ambrose struck several matches, each of which sputtered and flared and stank of sulphur. A few lost their heads and soared across the hackney-coach like miniature rockets, and had to be beaten out before they burned the upholstery.

  ‘You take your life in your hands with these things!’ Sam joked.

  ‘I think we’re nicely on fire now!’ Ambrose replied, in the same vein. Then, more seriously, ‘And you must admit that they’re a damned sight more convenient than a tinderbox.’

  The two men settled back in their seats to smoke and talk.

  ‘Mrs Longe keeping well?’ Sam asked civilly.

  ‘Remarkably so. Considering.’

  ‘When’s the latest addition expected, then?’

  ‘Sometime in mid-January. Not yet, thank heaven!’

  Ambrose was notorious for his sufferings when Naomi gave birth.

  ‘A little bird told me that this would be the last of the family,’ Sam remarked, looking at his companion keenly.

  ‘I think that little bird’s name must have been twittering Mary Vivian!’ Ambrose replied good-humouredly. ‘Well, I think that four children are enough for anybody, don’t you?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’d be four too many!’ said Sam, grinning. ‘Aye. Mrs Vivian’s got a ready tongue for any occasion!’

  ‘I take it that you no longer wonder why I handed the production of her magazine over to you?’

  Sam shook his head from side to side, saying, ‘I knew it wasn’t for charitable reasons, at any rate!’

  ‘Oh, quite. How are you both working together?’

  ‘In fits and starts, as she gets better and better ideas! Still, it should be interesting. The Herald’s done a variety of jobbing work, but we’ve never printed a ladies’ magazine before. It’s taken a while to get it all together, what with Mrs Vivian’s notions and our technical difficulties — for instance, we shall have to hire girls specially to paint the colours on the front cover, at five shillings a week apiece! But I’ve talked to her like a Dutch uncle, and we both know where we stand. As long as she pays us on the nail, we’ll print The Lady’s Hour. As soon as the bills start mounting up, we stop!’

  ‘Precisely. I thought it would be easier for you to throw out the project than for me — related as I am twice over, with Mary being Naomi’s best friend as well as my blood cousin!’

  ‘Don’t you hold a lot of hope out for it, then?’ Sam asked, interested. ‘I’ve
got quite a bit of faith in Mrs Vivian, myself.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m inclined to back Mary’s flair and judgement. But there’s always a chance, isn’t there, that it won’t catch on?’

  ‘Aye, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Personally, I think she’ll make a go of it. But it’s still best that you print The Lady’s Hour!’

  Sam grinned round his cigar.

  ‘We’ll have you crying your eyes out because you didn’t take the job on yourself!’ he remarked, with tremendous satisfaction.

  ‘I shall be the first to congratulate you both.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that,’ said Sam drily. ‘You was always stylish. But that don’t mean you won’t curse yourself in private!’

  Zelah Howarth came forward gracefully to greet them. As always, Ambrose felt her serenity erase his cares. So must the ironmaster, he reflected, have bathed and renewed himself at this fount of inner peace. No wonder the old bastard had lasted so long and done so well!

  ‘Welcome to thee both,’ cried Zelah. She gestured at the assembled company. ‘As thee sees, we have quite a gathering.’

  They had both been present when that document which Ambrose dubbed The Iron Will was read, three years ago. Today they were part of a crowd of minor legatees, since William’s immediate family had chosen their private mementoes of him long since.

  ‘It is my last reception here,’ said Zelah, but there was no sadness in her statement. ‘Tomorrow, Anna and I set up house in the village near my old home of Somer Court. My nephew, John Scholes, is ironmaster there now. We shall have all my Warwickshire relatives around us, and many old friends of Quaker and other persuasions. I do not feel that I am going away, Ambrose, but that I am going home. And Tom Hadley, who hath given us such strength and support, is staying behind to close the house before he takes up a new appointment.’