by Robin Blake
‘I do, of course. But it is more important to protect myself. I have Elizabeth and Hector to consider as well as myself.’
‘What does your admirable wife have to say about Barrowclough’s suit?’
‘She does not know of it. She is with her parents in Broughton. And now that you have mentioned her, Luke, there is a matter I should be glad of your counsel on.’
‘Oh, yes?’
I thought for a moment. Should I involve my friend in this marital difficulty? A man’s marriage is very much his own affair, and as Luke was himself a bachelor, it would be much to ask him to listen to my story and not be able to bring marital experiences of his own into the discussion. But I was sorely in need of telling somebody about Elizabeth, and of an answer to why she was behaving in this way.
‘I know you are not married man, but I would be glad to hear your thoughts.’
‘Spit it out, Titus. I am all ears.’
I took a deep breath, but the words I wanted to speak did not come out, for at that moment the door of the coffee house burst open and was hurled against the jamb. The bang stopped all conversation and each of us looked to see the cause of the disturbance. It was MacLintock.
‘News!’ he shouted. ‘I bring news of the rebels!’
Moments later most of the customers had besieged the Scotchman and were firing questions at him from every side.
‘We’d given you up for dead, Archie. How did you get away? Did you give them a bribe or what?’
‘Aye, a bribe. By luck I had some money about me that they never found.’
‘In your shoe, was it?’
It was known in Preston that Archibald MacLintock took extraordinary care of his money and always had a few banknotes in some unlikely place about his person. The rebels, naturally, would know nothing of this habit.
MacLintock laughed.
‘You used to all snigger at me for doing that. But now – you see? It saved my bloody life.’
‘Where did they take you?’
‘They took me all the way to Derby. We came there on Wednesday night. I’d been interrogated at Manchester but with no result. The officer dealing with me was distracted by some other business, so they put me back in the cart and we set off again to Macclesfield, Leek and on to Derby.’
‘So there’s been no battle?’
‘No. They swerved around the Duke of Cumberland. But the Pretender’s received a check. In fact, he’s been defied by all his generals and senior officers. By the war council, as they call it.’
The room fell quiet. Every man, whether committed to the Jacobite cause or faithful adherents of King George, wanted to know what had occurred.
‘It’s like this – or this is how I heard it from the man I paid to release me from my irons and let me go. The Pretender was determined to march on to London. He reckoned they would outstrip Cumberland’s army because they move so fast. He thought they could be in the capital by Monday or Tuesday and he’d be lording it in St James’s Palace while King George took to his heels.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said someone in the audience. ‘They say he has a ship waiting fully provisioned, ready to sail at a moment’s notice.’
‘He won’t need it, my friends,’ said MacLintock. ‘He won’t need it because the war council has flatly refused to march a single step nearer to London. They say there’s not enough Englishmen joining them – none at all since Manchester, apparently. They say all their promises of thousands of recruits have come to nothing. They’re marching back, my friends. They’re marching back by the same road they went down. They’re marching back here.’
EIGHTEEN
On Sunday I missed church and rode instead the few miles out of town to the Georges’ house in Broughton, to see Elizabeth and the boy. She had by no means returned to her own nature, but was a touch more cheerful (I thought) staying in her childhood home, where she could have again some of the benefits of being a child. Her mother fussed over her and fed her up. Her father took her for walks across and around the snowy common to find where his pig rooted, and to look for mistletoe in the woods. There was something strange and troubling about this capable twenty-nine-year-old woman now submitting herself to her aged parents. In the past she could not spend more than a few minutes in that house without clearing out a cupboard or starting work on a new dress with her mother. Yet now she was quiet and submissive. I looked at her and loved her still, but I was seeing her differently – as a different person, I mean. She seemed no longer to be the wife I had known for almost ten years.
In the house, under old Charles George’s tutelage, Hector was learning to take his first steps, and it was difficult to tell which of the two was more proud of himself. Meanwhile, being a devout Jacobite, Elizabeth’s mother wanted to know the latest news of the rebels (though she did not call them that) and whether they were likely to fight the German army (as she called it) in the near future.
‘It is possible, mother-in-law,’ I said. ‘However, we have heard that the Prince has abandoned his attempt on London and has turned around at Derby. As far as we can tell, the army is marching back up the same road by which it descended.’
‘They are coming back the same way? Oh mercy! Then I may see him again!’
She spoke with wonder in her voice. This woman, usually so sharp-tongued, became soft at the very thought of catching sight of her idol.
‘Did I tell you,’ she said, ‘how I saw the beautiful lad leading his army through this village, with his pipes and his drums?’
I laughed.
‘You did, mother-in-law, several times.’
‘Well, I did not expect to see that rare sight again. But now perhaps I shall.’
‘You may be sure of it, if there is no battle first. The Scotch will want to regain their own country as fast as possible, and will certainly come back this way, as it is the most direct. However, they are saying he is pursued by the Duke of Cumberland, and if he catches up, they will fight.’
‘Pray God it will not be in Preston again!’ she said.
‘With luck they will be two steps ahead of the Duke as they pass through and will even be able to stop the night again.’
Then I caught sight of Elizabeth’s face. She was sewing fiercely, digging her needle into the cloth and making out her attention was on nothing but that. But she was deathly pale, and her mouth was set tight.
After dinner I walked out with my father-in-law. I wanted to speak with him about this change in his daughter, and whether he had found any key to it. The old man was inclined to deafness, making conversation about delicate matters even more difficult. One had to repeat oneself, and even shout to be heard.
‘I am afraid Elizabeth is not herself,’ I said.
He cupped his ear.
‘What?’
I raised the pitch of my voice.
‘Elizabeth. She is changed. Something happened when the rebels were in our house. Has she told you?’
He heard that all right.
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘she told us what happened at Preston – a bit. That French devil took advantage of her. And you’re right, son. She is that badly affected we hardly know her. The boy’s bright-eyed, mind. He’s a great consolation to us all. But you are Lizzie’s husband, Titus. You must look to her yourself, you know.’
This was no help. I might look to her, but if she would not look back, what could I do? I did not say this, however, and we passed the rest of our walk more in silence than in conversation. Back at the house, I said goodbye, explaining that, with so many robbers and cut-throats about, I preferred to cross the Moor before dark. I kissed Hector and embraced Elizabeth. She endured my arms but did not yield to them.
On Monday, Furzey sent word that he was laid so low by his head cold that his mother had forbidden him from coming to work, but he promised to be with me for the trial in the Duchy court the next day. I spent an hour at the office quite alone, looking over all the papers from the Ribchester inquest and Rudgewick’s summons, in preparation for my
own defence.
Reading over the affidavits from Barrowclough’s pair of witnesses, I remembered that Furzey had been due to make the comparison between these copies and the originals. Now I would have to do the job myself. I picked up the document case containing the papers and walked, in no more than two minutes, to the courtroom of the Duchy on the other side of Market Place.
The case was to be heard by Edmund Starkey. It was at his house that the Prince – having found Patten House too cold and draughty – had stayed. Starkey had practised Duchy law at Preston for twenty-five years, and the fortune he’d made had built for him a fine house. Starkey was one of those who’d found reasons to make themselves scarce in face of the Prince’s forces, so the house had been requisitioned without his consent. Nevertheless, I wondered whether he was not a little proud, having returned to find that his place had been selected over Patten House.
Starkey’s chambers, considerably more magnificent than my own, were manned by three clerks, one of whom allowed me a seat at his desk so that I could examine the affidavits, which he then produced. They were not in the legal hand, but in the private hands of the witnesses themselves – the first, Anthony Prior, a tenant farmer on the Barrowclough estate, and the second, Abel Grant, James Barrowclough’s personal valet. The farmer’s scrawl was difficult to make out at first, but I mastered it and found no discrepancies between it and the copy. Prior recorded simply that he had been at the inquest into the Scotchmen, where he heard me say that James Barrowclough had killed and beheaded the two men and that he, Prior, ‘thowt the crowner spawk that way for to purswade the room that this was true thaw as far as I new it wuzznt proof’.
Turning to Abel Grant’s statement, I found the writing quite different: small, nicely formed and literately spelled. His thoughts on my supposed slander were also a good deal subtler, and therefore more possibly damaging, than Prior’s. ‘The coroner proceeded to speak in spiteful accents of my master,’ he wrote. ‘He did not ask his questions neutrally, but made a number of insinuating suggestions by which I understood that Mr Cragg considered Mr Barrowclough guilty of the murders and mutilations, and that he would like this supposed guilt to be generally acknowledged.’
I did not waste time in resentment. These charges could be refuted. Luke Fidelis would speak for me, and I must surely get a sympathetic hearing from Edmund Starkey who would not, I thought, like to open the way for judges such as himself to be accused of slander when speaking in open court.
There was something else about Abel Grant’s statement, however, that compelled my attention. I unlatched the case I’d brought with me and searched through the documents until I found the covenanters’ message that had been folded and placed inside the mouth of one of the beheaded victims. This paper had now been thoroughly dried out. I laid it down on top of the original of Abel Grant’s affidavit and saw immediately that the hands they were written in were not merely similar but identical. The two documents had been written by the same person: Abel Grant.
I was suddenly filled with excitement. My defence against this charge of slander would go further than merely citing my immunity as president of the inquest. It would argue that the supposals I had put to Barrowclough at the inquest could never have been slanderous at all, and this for the simple reason that they were, in fact, true. The handwriting evidence I had before me made it irrefutable that Abel Grant had been in on the murders, and Abel Grant, if my estimation was correct, was James Barrowclough’s right-hand man. In the light of this, it was surely inconceivable that the master was not as closely implicated in these killings as the servant.
I was aware I would need another witness, one who could establish the nature of the close relations between Barrowclough and Abel Grant. After a moment’s thought, I knew who this could be. I refilled and latched the document case, returned the affidavits to the clerk and left Starkey’s office. It all depended on the man’s mental capacity and I would have to go and see him without delay to assess whether he was capable of batting effectively on my side of the game.
With the rebels now on their way back to us, the return of Patrick and Goody to the livery stables could not be expected for a while. Old Jones was still at my disposal, however, and he conveyed me in his ambling way to Barrowclough Hall by the time it was midday. I made no attempt to pass the hall gates but knocked on the door of the right-hand of the two lodge cottages.
‘I believe your name is Joseph Wrightington,’ I said to the old man who opened to me. ‘I came to your door some days ago and you directed me to Mr Grant opposite. Do you remember?’
He stared at me, unblinking, with his grey eyes. His hair was thick and unkempt, and he had not shaved for many days.
‘Aye,’ he said.
‘I believe you can do me a favour, Mr Wrightington. And I would not be surprised if doing that favour might be rather agreeable to you.’
‘There’s money in it?’
‘No, I regret there cannot be any payment because that would be corruption. I am appealing therefore to your sense of what is right. Your sense of legal fair play when it comes to the doings of Mr James Barrowclough, and his man Grant.’
Wrightington regarded me for a few more moments. I could not tell what he was thinking. Then, it appeared deliberately, his eyelids closed and opened again.
‘You had better come in,’ he said.
The cottage had the same arrangement as I had found in Grant’s place but in mirror image – a parlour and scullery with a wooden stair to the bedroom above. But whereas Grant’s cottage had been in every way neat and clean, Wrightington’s was in every way filthy and – there’s no nice way of putting this – it stank. Dead rodents perhaps. Certainly putrefied food, dishclouts and long-unwashed clothing. I tried hard not to show any disgust.
There were two ladder-back armchairs on either side of the range. Wrightington shuffled up to one of them and contemplated for a moment the clutter of objects that lay on the seat – a candle-holder, a rolling pin, a small tin box, a leather cap, a broken clay pipe – and then leaned down and swept them all with a single gesture on to the floor. He straightened and indicated with his hand that I should sit. He then lowered himself into the corresponding chair. Thank God he offered no refreshment.
‘You may try me,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t say I shall do it.’
I gathered my thoughts. Even before I got Wrightington to agree to testify, I needed to be sure that he would be able to do so. It would be no good at all if he turned out to be simple or decrepit.
So I put the case to him in normal terms, with no attempt to simplify. It was a case of slander turning on the ways in which I framed my questions in the course of the inquest. Barrowclough denied being involved in the deaths of the two strangers, yet it was now beyond doubt that Abel Grant, at least, had participated in the murders.
This last part of my discourse, which Wrightington had listened to dully at first, made him sit up and start to look pleased. I saw then that he did not like Abel Grant – that he liked nothing at all that lay between Grant’s toenails and his eyebrows. I began to feel confident that this dislike was going to deliver Wrightington’s help on my side at the trial.
‘I am interested in your special knowledge of Abel Grant and his relationship with his master. When I visited here on the occasion I’ve already mentioned, I saw the two of them together, and I felt a peculiar closeness about them. I’ll put it plainly to you, Mr Wrightington. They behaved more like two established friends than a master and his servant.’
I now stopped talking and waited for Wrightington’s response. He was giving it thought (he gave everything thought), balancing relative advantage with possible loss. The views of his master, Sir John Barrowclough, would be an essential part of this calculation, for no servant could safely act independently of the interests of his master. But if what Lord Derby had told me about the Barrowcloughs, father and son, was true, I didn’t need to worry. They may be bound indissolubly together by their consanguinity, but they ha
ted each other. The son saw the father as a crabbed and misguided old fool; the father saw the son as a traitor.
Having sat motionless for more than half a minute, Wrightington sniffed at last.
‘You want me to say they’re in league, or something?’
‘Well, are they?’
‘They’re like a couple of girls sometimes. I have seen that. They touch each other the way men don’t do, not usually. Do you want me to say all that?’
‘You must tell the truth as you see it.’
Another half-minute elapsed while he brooded. Then he stood up and extended his hand.
‘Your terms are acceptable, Mr Cragg. Where and when do you want me?’
An extraordinary change had come over him. The lugubrious shuffler was invigorated. He stood more upright and spoke more rapidly, more incisively.
‘I want you in Preston at the Duchy court at ten o’clock in the morning,’ I said. ‘I want you to be shaved and wearing your cleanest clothes. Can you do that, Mr Wrightington? Can you find your way there?’
And then, most extraordinarily, Wrightington laughed.
‘Oh, yes, I can find my way there, Mr Cragg. I shall get a lift to town on a cart, first thing. I shall not let you down – no, sir. I shall not let you down.’
By the time Jones had delivered me back to Preston, there was still an hour of daylight. I sent a note over to Scrafton’s Roost, asking Fidelis to meet me later at the coffee house, then hastened to Furzey’s house to inform him of the latest developments. Old Mother Furzey made a show of being flustered by my unexpected arrival. Mr Cragg must have tea. But was there enough milk? Yes, there was, thank mercy. And she was sure there were some currant cakes left. One or two, she seemed to remember. Yes! Here they are. And Robbie must come down from his bed because Mr Cragg can’t be expected to climb them stairs, let alone see Robbie in his nightshirt.