I had grown accustomed to tales of agricultural workers, the very ones who harvested the protected grain, dying of starvation in their cottages; of hand-loom weavers, who in this machine age could not earn the coppers necessary to keep body and soul together, expiring at their looms of the same dread disease. I knew that, whenever the winter was harsh, the spring late and inclement, the summer cool and soon over, producing a poor harvest or no harvest at all, corpses would be discovered under the hedgerows or picked up in our own littered back alleys, the pathetic remains of men who had gone on the tramp to look for work, and had failed.
Free Trade, clearly, was the only answer. My father had fought for it all his political life, had promised it at the hustings in every electoral address. Free Trade, cheap bread, an end to the Corn Laws was the only answer, but our current political masters, Sir Robert Peel—who had not endeared himself to us by re-introducing income tax at the terrible rate of seven pence in the pound—and his closest associate, the ancient, aristocratic Duke of Wellington, who believed that industrialists like all other upstarts should learn to know their place and mend their manners, had proved impossible to convince.
Elected by a party of country squires to serve the interests of country squires—to ensure that Englishmen ate English corn or no corn at all—they had for years resisted all pressures from the industrial towns, and it had taken the, tragedy of Ireland, where more than a quarter of the population were entirely destitute and the rest not too much better off, to present a situation where the choice could only be cheap food or the most bloody revolution.
The Irish had long been with us in Cullingford, coming in boatloads and cartloads, barefoot and desperate and alarmingly prone to multiply, escaping from famine in Derry and Kildare to famine in Simon Street, since even our weaving sheds—where mainly women and children were required in any case—could not accommodate them all. But, in the year before my father died, the potato crop quite inexplicably began to rot in the fields, bringing hardship to poor men in England, who relied heavily on potatoes for food, bringing panic and chaos to poor men in Ireland, who had no other food on which to rely.
And, as Ireland began its death agony and unrest at home began to simmer—yet again—into a revolutionary brew, the radical leaders making full use of the railways, as the Duke of Wellington had always said they would to muster their forces together, it became clear—apparently even to Sir Robert Peel—that if the people were to be fed and pacified, then the foreign corn must be allowed to flow.
‘Peel cannot do it,’ his startled landowning friends said of him in London.
‘He will not do it,’ we had declared scornfully in Cullingford, for, having risen to power as a staunch protectionist, we knew that his own party would not support him, that his own career was at stake, the flamboyant, fast-rising Mr. Disraeli having already dubbed him a turncoat and a traitor, even the Duke of Wellington, who disliked reform of any kind and thought the Corn Laws rather a good thing, holding himself aloof.
Even then, had the next year’s potato crop shown a healthy face, perhaps Sir Robert would have hesitated, modified, compromised, saved his face and his prospects, as indeed we all expected him to do. But the new season’s potatoes were as black as their predecessors, and the remnants of the Irish people—those who had neither starved nor emigrated to Cullingford—were living on weeds and nettles and a murderous hatred of certain English landlords who, apparently unaware of the famine, went on insisting that their rent should be paid and issuing eviction notices when it wasn’t. And so Sir Robert Peel, well aware that his own career would probably be demanded as a sacrifice, forced his Bill for Repeal of the Corn Laws though a hostile House of Commons, persuaded the Duke of Wellington, who still did not believe in it, to put it before a well-nigh hysterical House of Lords.
‘God damn the traitor Robert Peel’, they said of him in the agricultural shires, the manor houses, the green and pleasant corners of our land.
‘So he’s seen sense at last’, they said in the Old Swan, the Piece Hall, the factory yard. ‘And not before time, either.’
And although Peel himself was forced, predictably, to resign his premiership soon after, the ports at last were open, bread would be cheap again, cheapening the cost of labour with it, and Cullingford cloth—Barforth cloth—could be acknowledged as the marvel it was in every corner of the world.
‘We should do something for Sir Robert Peel,’ Aunt Hannah announced at the Repeal Dinner—one of many—which she had organized in celebration. We asked the poor man for Free Trade, and now that he has given it to us, and ruined himself in the process, it would seem appropriate to put aside our grievances about the income tax and write him a letter of gratitude. In fact, it is no more than common politeness and may do him a world of good—for he can’t quite like being out of office. I know I shouldn’t like it.
And, since Aunt Hannah had a draft letter in Jonas’s elegant copperplate most conveniently to hand, it was considered, agreed, signed Barforth, Hobhouse, Oldroyd, Mandelbaum—not Winterton, of course, and certainly not Flood, since both these gentlemen would be fully occupied now in trying to sell their corn as best they could on a free market—and dispatched.
‘The dear man has sent a most cordial reply,’ Aunt Hannah told us a few weeks later, ‘although I hardly know what may be done with it, since we have no town hall, no official building of any kind in which to display it’; and it was no surprise to us that when Sir Robert’s correct, somewhat stilted letter had been passed from hand to hand, it made its final appearance, neatly framed and pressed, neither at Nethercoats nor Tarn Edge but in Aunt Hannah’s own drawing-room at Lawcroft Fold.
My mother returned home for Caroline’s birthday dance, descending upon us unlooked-for one afternoon, delighted with our surprise, although I did not miss the faint wrinkling of her nose as she entered the drawing-room, the gesture of one who, having grown accustomed to sunshine and sea-breezes, did not at all relish the taste of stale air again.
‘How dark it is’, she said. ‘Will the curtains really not open any wider? No, I suppose not, but then it is so light abroad—France all sparkle, and Italy so pink and gold, that I had forgotten how grey—Ah, well, that was yesterday and now I am quite recovered from my ills and come home to introduce myself to my daughters—for really, girls we have been sadly little acquainted. See, I have brought you all a present, lots of presents—’
And suddenly her magpie hands were full of froth and glitter pink silk and blue silk, bracelets and earrings of coral and enamel and tiny seed-pearls, feather fans and lace fans, and extravagant lengths of embroidered, foreign-looking brocade.
‘I thought you would want something to wear—I always did so at your age—and, unless you particularly desire to continue it, it strikes me you may leave off your weeds now. Six months, is it not? My word, six months! Well I must stay in black for another year and more, and then run through all the shades of grey and lavender, but you are not widows, after all, but young ladies who are allowed to be vain. Goodness, Faith, these blue bows and sashes and little rosebuds will do admirably for Celia, but you are so—so grown, I suppose. Dear girl, no one in Venice would ever believe you to be my daughter. A sister, perhaps, for you have my eye and hair colour—which is something very much out of the ordinary in Venice. I do assure you. And yes—in other ways too, dear—I believe you are turning but to resemble me.’
‘Hardly, mamma. I am inches taller, and my nose is much too big.’
‘Yes, but such details, you know, do not really signify. A clever woman learns how to create an illusion.’
‘Father said I was the one most like you’, Celia cut in tossing her head to set her ringlets dancing, determined for once in her life to win her fair share of attention.
‘Yes, dear,’ my mother said absently, not even glancing at her. ‘You are a positive enchantment. And Prudence—Good heavens!—you remind me of someone I have not seen for ages—a relative of your father’s.’
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�She means you remind her of our brother,’ Celia said later, imparting the information because, our brother having been sent away in disgrace, she could not believe it to be a compliment. But my mother, whose understanding was sharper than one at first supposed soon made amends to Celia by smothering her in all the lace and ribbons she could desire, and to Prudence by paying her the compliment of leaving her alone, while she and I soon formed a relationship which hung tenuously but pleasantly on our shared enthusiasm for fashion.
‘One must develop a style,’ she told me. ‘One chooses not to copy, but to be copied—a dear friend in Paris told me that, although I had always suspected it and behaved accordingly. You are tall and so, since you cannot shrink, you must make yourself look taller—simple, classical lines, bold colours or plain white, and no fuss, and a bonnet. I think, when you are a little older, with a positively towering feather. What fun! I was never allowed to dress you up when you were small. There was always a Miss Mayfield to do that. And as for your nose, dear, and the fact that your mouth is rather wide, you must cultivate an air of feeling so sorry for all these poor girls who are cursed with rosebud lips and button noses and dimples. If you appear to like what you have, dear, even if they don’t quite like it themselves, at the very least it will make them wonder.’
For Caroline’s birthday dance my sister Celia had a dress of palest pink gauze, its flounced skirt strewn with knots of silver ribbon and sprays of pink and white flowers; Prudence a more restrained outfit of pale blue, which, with its touches of cream-coloured lace and her tall, straight figure, gave her a quiet but most decided elegance. My dress was white, a swan, I’d thought dreamily, as our seamstress had pinned the vast skirt into place—‘Too plain,’ Celia had told me—a white flower at the waist another at the shoulder—‘White is for brunettes.’ Celia had said, ‘everybody knows that’—my hair dressed low on the nape of my neck in one massive coil with a single white rose at its centre, a chignon devised by my mother to look so heavy that anyone who noticed it would be aware that my neck was long and slender, and might miss the fact that my, nose and mouth were of a corresponding size. I had pearl droplets in my ears, a broad velvet ribbon embroidered with pearl clusters around my throat, a pair of wide-spaced, worried, short-sighted blue eyes above it, since I was by no means as confident of this unusual outfit as I pretended feeling in fact as the time of our departure grew imminent that, although these classical lines and colours might be all the rage in Venice. Cullingford was far too accustomed to seeing its young ladies in sugar-pink gauzes and ribbons—like Celia—to be anything other than puzzled.
My mother, who should not have attended a dance at all until her mourning period was over, or, if she managed to justify it on the grounds of family commitment and chaperonage, should have been excessively discreet about it, appeared in a black grown of the most stunning extravagance, cut as low as she dared, its flounced skirt encrusted with jet beads, her blonde head crowned by black plumes and swathes of spotted black net, designed, undoubtedly, to supply Cullingford with gossip for many a long day.
‘Aunt Hannah will not approve of that.’ Prudence told her as we were about to set off, her light eyes very-much amused, but my mother merely patted the black rose placed strategically and most enticingly at her bosom, and smiled.
‘Ah well, dear. Aunt Hannah finds so very much of which to disapprove that one may suspect she enjoys it. And if I cannot win her favour then there is always Aunt Verity, who is the most elegant of women and who will not have, forgotten the value of a wisp of perfumed chiffon. Yes girls, you may stare, but I remember your Aunt Verity, in the days before she fell into such a trance of love for Uncle Joel, wearing a gown—my goodness, such a gown!—this one of mine would look staid beside it. Yes, a wisp of perfumed chiffon, no more, I do assure you, with gold sandals on her feet and a gold ribbon through her hair. Lord—how everyone stared, and with good reason: for when a woman uncovers her shoulders and paints her toe-nails one may be, sure she intends it to be noticed. And I may have been the only person in the Assembly Rooms that night who understood her reasons; certainly her husband did not, for I well remember how he scowled at her, as black as thunder. Yes, you may find it hard to realize that your aunts—and your mother—have had their share of heart-searchings in their younger days. Ah well, it is long ago now. Everything has been settled on that old score. And I imagine Aunt Hannah may be too preoccupied with your appearance this evening. Prudence, to give much thought to mine. Oh dear, have I said something amiss? If I did not know you to be incapable of such bad manners. I would almost think you were glaring at me.’
‘Naturally not, mamma.’ Prudence said, her face sharpening. ‘May I take it that you have heard something concerning me and Jonas Agbrigg? If so, then I must tell you—’
‘Oh no, dear, please tell me nothing. I have every confidence in you, Prudence, and whether you mean to take him or not to take him—well—I am sure you are quite right either way.’
But Prudence, who had grown so brisk and businesslike of late, so very conscious of her rights and so very determined to preserve her new, hitherto undreamed-of liberty, slowly shook her head, detaining my mother with a gesture of authority unthinkable in my father’s lifetime.
‘No, mamma, that is hardly enough. You must offer me a little more guidance or show me a little more involvement than that. Am I to understand that Mr. Jonas Agbrigg meets with your approval?’
‘My dear, he is stepson to my own sister, and I can do no more than share her golden opinions. Of course, he has no money, but he has the air of a man determined to succeed, I can only tell you that your father believed he would succeed—I forget at what—politics, I believe, of which your father was very fond. Power, you know, is very attractive to some men—and, to some women also. And, should you care to be the wife of a powerful man, Jonas may be a reasonable choice. Freddy Hobhouse will never be powerful, my dear, and he would spend your money far more recklessly than Jonas. He has nine brothers to settle in life, after all, and four sisters to marry, and your dowry, divided among them, would not seem so splendid. But I am sure you know that, dear, and that whatever you decide will be for the best.’
And telling us not to delay, since the carriage was already at the door, she patted her tulle rose once again and tripped away.
‘You wanted your liberty, Prudence,’ I told her, and she smiled, half amused, half angry.
‘So I did. But I believe she could have helped me a little more than that. Clearly Aunt Hannah has let her know that Jonas intends to propose, and she has already given her consent. Well, so much the better, since I don’t think he cares for it any more than I do—except that he needs the money—and the sooner it’s over and done with the faster he can start angling for you, Faith. Who knows, he may even come after you, Celia.’
‘Well, and if he does. I shall not treat him as you have done.’ Celia told her in the high-spirited fashion only the subject of matrimony aroused in her. ‘I know I am the youngest and that you and Faith think me stupid, but you cannot deny you have blown hot and cold with Jonas—and with Freddy Hobhouse too, for that matter. And that is the surest way to lose them both, and end up on the shelf.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes—really. And I will tell you something else. You may not have noticed it, Prudence, but both Freddy Hobhouse and Jonas have been making themselves very pleasant to me—oh yes, I know you are “not at home” when they call, and that Faith is always gadding about somewhere with Caroline, so that I am the only one here to receive them. But that does not explain why they have lingered so long, paying me the most marked attentions. To tell you the truth, Prudence, if they were not both half-way committed to you, I believe I could be Mrs. Hobhouse or Mrs. Agbrigg any time I liked.
‘Indeed?’
‘Yes—indeed. You should make your intentions clear Prudence. I believe people are of the opinion that until you are settled it would not be right to look at us. Aunt Hannah has said as much. And, if Faith don’t see
m to mind, I can’t quite like it—seeing Heaven knows how many chances go by just because you are so hard to please.’
‘My word!’ Prudence said, once again half angry, half amused. ‘Never fear. Celia. I will take whichever one of them should ask me first and endeavour to be married at the month end, just to oblige you. But it is cousin Caroline they are putting upon offer tonight, you know, so you’ll just have to stand in line like the rest of us, Celia Aycliffe, and wait your turn.’
The whole of Tarn Edge was illuminated that night, a jewel-casket in the distance, spilling a diamond brightness over the acre of roses, the drive way fringed with wide-spreading chestnut trees, the sloping lawns; Aunt Verity waiting to receive her guests in a hall that had been transformed into a flower-garden a profusion of pink and white blossoms apparently growing from the marble at her feet, vast hob-house arrangements on every step of the stairs, exotic plants of an intense crimson, a barbaric orange, jungle-flowers and desert-flowers raising their expensive exceedingly rare heads among masses of polished foliage.
Everything was to be done that evening in accordance with Caroline’s wishes—the proceedings to be conducted, in fact, in the manner of high London society, whose fringes she had once or twice encountered, and whose inner circle she was determined one day to penetrate—and she had really desired to take her stand at the head of the stairs like some Mayfair duchess, an arrangement which, her mother’s ballroom being on the ground floor, would have forced us all to climb up the staircase and then down again, a manoeuvre deemed most unnecessary in Cullingford, where we were still suspicious of London ways.
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