At the beginning of March a stone was thrown at Aunt Hannah’s carriage, not causing her horses to bolt, since they were too elderly for that in any case; but the intention had been plain, the missiles aimed not by unruly urchins but by hard and bitter men. And Aunt Hannah may have been displeased at her husband’s simple comment. ‘They’re hungry,’ for it had been a severe winter, following a poor harvest, the price of bread still high despite the removal of the Corn Laws, the advantage of Repeal having gone as always, it seemed, to the masters rather than the servants, since wages—paid out to men who had no vote, no power but that of terror and disobedience—were still very low.
‘They’re hungry.’ And now, with the railways and the new penny post to facilitate communications, there were rumours once again of armed risings in the manner of the revolutionary French, the Chartists come to plague us afresh with their demands which only Giles Ashburn, among all our acquaintance, did not consider to be excessive.
It was the result, he explained—talking to Prudence, making an uncomfortable effort not to look too often at me—of the reforms of 1832, which had not gone far enough. Much had been promised in the great Reform Year, and much, indeed, received by the middle classes, who for the first time had won representation in a Parliament previously no more than a mouthpiece for the landed gentry. After the Bill of 1832 any man in Cullingford who paid an annual property rent of ten pounds or more could have his vote, to use or to sell as he thought fit, although the absence of a secret ballot somewhat restricted his choices, should he be in the employ of Mr. Joel Barforth, or a tenant of Sir Giles Flood. Yet these new voters, Dr. Ashburn calculated, had numbered no more than a mere thousand or so in a population of sixty thousand, a solid pressure-group from the middle classes which had sent middle-class men like my father to Parliament to speak for them, in opposition to the gentry and totally neglectful of the troublesome, if labouring, poor.
And having fought so hard for their own right to vote, their own freedom from the ground landlord, the titled farmer, they could hardly be astonished, Dr. Ashburn felt, at the Chartists, whose revolutionary demands for one man one vote would make the poor, not necessarily rich, but—since there were so many of them—very powerful.
‘Their demands are very logical,’ he said, so quietly, that it was not easy to realize his opinions were treasonable and, if acted upon, could lead him to the gallows. ‘When your uncle, Mr. Barforth, fought hard to be represented in Parliament in thirty-two, I am sure Sir Giles Flood thought him quite as much a revolutionary as he now thinks his operatives for making the same demands. There is no cause for astonishment, surely? In fact the Duke of Wellington himself has warned repeatedly that, by extending the franchise even so far, his peers have done no more than open the flood-gates, through which sooner or later the riff-raff are bound to get through. And now, at least, he may have the satisfaction of seeing himself proved correct. The people have finally understood that they can rely on no one but themselves. The gentry will look after the gentry. The manufacturers will look after the manufacturers. Both these groups have made promises to the labouring classes which they have kept only in part, or not at all, or in such a way that no real benefit has been derived. The people, now, have chosen to look after their own interests, and they require the vote to do it. And to spare themselves yet another hollow triumph—the choice between voting for a millmaster or a squire—they require that Members of Parliament should no longer, by law, be men of property. They wish to elect one of themselves, which also seems to be in no way astonishing. Sir Giles Flood may well have considered your uncle too ill-educated and too lacking in political experience to use the franchise correctly once he had obtained it—since he clearly meant to use it against Sir Giles. And, unfortunately, he may have been right, as your uncle is right now, when he says the same thing. But that, surely, is not a reason to deny the franchise. Would it not be better to educate those who are in need of it—which, I imagine, must be four-fifths of our nation—so that everyone may use his vote with responsibility, as seems best to him?’
‘Precisely,’ my sister said, perfectly in tune with him, ‘for our system of education is deplorable. Our boys are taught Latin and Greek and little else, our girls are taught nothing at all, the labouring classes are taught—one supposes—to labour, which sometimes seems better to me than fine embroidery. How I would love to set up a school—do you know that? Yes, if they would let me have my money, I would open a school for girls which would be like no other school in the world—no water-colours, no samplers—real work, Giles. Only think how shocking! I imagine they would attempt to burn me at the stake.’
‘Do it, Prudence,’ I said. ‘Why not? Let’s talk to mamma. We could do it together—not even in Cullingford. We could travel together, until we found a place—get away—’
‘Not you, Faith,’ she said, her voice almost hard, ‘You’ll get married, you know you will—one day. You can send me your daughters.’
And neither of us could miss the nervous tremor in Giles Ashburn’s quiet face, nor how quickly he looked away.
I went out for the first time at the end of that week, braving the sooty March winds to call on Celia who, cutting short my uneasy references to her child, talked solely of a new rosewood card table she had ordered two months ago and which now, being finally delivered, was not at all as desired. And returning home, ridiculously weakened by so brief an excursion, to be told that Mr. Barforth—Blaize, I assumed—was waiting to see me. I went alone into the drawing-room, shocked beyond immediate recovery to find Nicholas there.
He was standing at the window, obscured by the half-dark which always prevailed in that room, a silhouette merely against the deep claret of the curtains, although I had no need of light to see his face. And knowing that this, surely, was the moment for which I had schooled myself, my first real encounter with pain, I took off my gloves and my bonnet, slowly, neatly, folded my hands, folded as much of myself as I could grasp and shut it away, before I asked, ‘Nicholas?’ although the question was neither of his identity nor his intentions.
‘Yes,’ he said, not moving forward. ‘There is something I have to say to you—and quickly, I think.’
‘Then say it.’
‘I am come straight from Galton Abbey, where I have just asked Georgiana Clevedon to be my wife.’
‘Yes, of course.’
And, as the words slipped from my tongue, my mind, too, slipped a shade away from reality, leaving me with an odd sensation that this was not the first time he had said this, for me, nor the first time I had so calmly answered. Like a recurring dream it had happened before, over and over again, in the part of my brain which controlled the source of, anguish and fear, over and over, a wheel turning me slowly towards him and as slowly away again, so that I had grown accustomed to it, and would not break.
‘Faith—’
‘Yes.’
‘I had to tell you myself. You do see that I had to do that?’
‘Yes, I do. I hope you will be very happy, Nicholas.’
‘Oh,’ he said, striding forward, his face hard and strained, quite pale. ‘As to that—I hope so too Many will think otherwise, but she is a rare person, Faith, truly—I know of no one like her. And I can only pray, she may be happy with me.’
‘Yes, Nicholas.’
And then, abruptly, his voice harsh, as if the words were forced from him through clenched teeth, he said. ‘They will say it is for my money on her part and on mine because I am stubborn. It is more than that. I had to say that too.’
‘There was no need, I knew it.’
‘Aye,’ he said, a sigh of pure weariness escaping him. ‘You always know. You’ve known, these past weeks, haven’t you—known what was happening to me—why I couldn’t even come and see you when you were ill? Well, I came a dozen times, to the end of the street and then went away again—that’s the truth—beacuse I couldn’t face you. I wasn’t sure, until now, that I was even going to do it—it could all have been over, an
d there’d have been no need to say a word to you about it. You wouldn’t have asked me any questions either would you? No—I know damned well you wouldn’t. You’d have made it easy for me—like you’re doing now. Christ—I’d better go home.’
But he didn’t move, and unable to say more I walked past him to stand with my fate to the window, until the sound of the door slamming shut behind him, and the street door after it, released me from that terrible fierce-clenched control and bent me double for a moment, winded and gasping, as Celia had been at the start other travail
‘Faith,’ Prudence said sharply from the doorway my mother behind her, and straightening up, sittirig down, my voice pronounced what was in my mind, so calmly that in some crazy recess of myself I could have laughed at it.
‘He is to marry Georgiana Clevedon. I do not think they can be happy, and I—really—do you know, I wish I could die of it. It would seem easier, except that of course I cannot—no one really dies of these things.’
‘How dare he come here!’ Prudence said, glaring at the window as if she would have liked to break through it and go after him, a sliver of glass in her hand. ‘It is an open acknowledment that he recognizes there has been something between you—that he has treated you badly. How dare he? He should have had the decency to keep away, and when I meet him again I shall tell him so.’
‘Oh no, dear,’ my mother murmured, her whole face, it seemed, brimming with tears. ‘I must ask you not to do so, for he will have trouble enough. He has Joel yet to face and—oh, Faith, my poor lamb, I should not tell you, this, but it may help you to know how she has snared him. Verity was expecting it—oh yes, she was so despondent last night, for it seems he rode over to Galton on Monday and did not return until Tuesday, which did not alarm Verity until she learned that the grandfather had gone away to London, and the brother with him. My dear, they were alone all night together, in that isolated place—no, no, the maids cannot signify on such occasions. And what could he do but make her an offer after that?
‘Ah,’ Prudence said. ‘It does not surprise me.’
But getting up and returning to the window, concentrating, so hard on the last harsh tones of his voice that these other voices, seeking to comfort me, became a nuisance, a mere pestering of flies coming between me and the things I believed, had to believe, I said, ‘No. He loves her.’
‘Darling, surely not—?’
And turning to my mother so fiercely that she retreated a hasty step backwards, I repeated his own words, ‘Yes, mother. They will say it is for his money on her part, and on his because he is stubborn. It is more than that. He loves her, mother. He believes it, and I believe it—and so must you.’
And at least I had salvaged something. I had kept my faith with him.
Chapter Eleven
There was a most terrible, yet in some ways merciful, numbness inside me for a while after that, an absence of sensation which, although I knew it to be unnatural, did not manage to alarm me. I was suspended, it seemed, a little above and around myself, observing my own calm with a certain irony, knowing it could not last, praying only that it would last long enough for me to meet Nicholas again, as I would have to do, until I had seen him married, wished him well, waved his honeymoon train away, at which point, since I could not die and could not run away, I would at least be able to face myself—and Cullingford—again.
His news, of course, had created a predictable explosion at Tarn Edge, Aunt Verity, even, forsaking her tranquillity, pleading with him most tearfully to reconsider, while Uncle Joel had been so moved by his wife’s distress that even Caroline had been alarmed at the violence of his anger. Yet, in the end, when his threats of dismissal from the family business and from the family itself had been two or three times repeated, and Nicholas had declared himself perfectly ready to be cast adrift, it had become clear to them all that they did not really wish to part from one another, and so they sat down, more quietly, to discuss what must be done.
Aunt Verity, it seemed, while by no means unaware of Miss Clevedon’s charm, simply did not consider her a suitable wife for Nicholas. Uncle Joel, when it came down to it, was still man enough to recognize a ‘rare bird’when he saw one, and could have been amused, even captivated by her, had he encountered her as the fiancee of a Flood or a Winterton, or of any man’s son but his own. His main objection, after long deliberation, was that he failed to see the profit in such a marriage. In Caroline’s case there was a title in the offing, his daughter—whose great-grandmother had spent her days in a weaving shed—elevated to Lady Chard of Listonby, her children in possession of hereditary lands and privileges which money alone could not buy. But, since it would be Peregrine Clevedon, not Georgiana, who would inherit the ancient domain of Gallon Abbey, my uncle could not understand in this instance just what he was being asked to pay for.
‘Wait a while, lad,’ he’d asked, almost patiently for him. ‘I know how these things can get in the blood, when you’re young. And you’re young, Nicky—by God, you’re young. Give yourself a chance, lad.’
But Nicholas was of full age, a man with the courage to face life on his own and the skill to succeed, and although, left to himself, my uncle might just have made good his threat of dismissal, seeing no real harm to it providing a door was left open should Nicholas wish to return, he knew the depth of Aunt Verity’s feeling for her younger son, and would not run the risk of breaking her heart.
And I suppose it was a shock to him, and to the rest of the Barforths too, when they learned that Miss Clevedon’s grandfather was as bitterly opposed to the match as they.
Mr. Gervase Clevedon, squire of Galton, was descended by junior line from some of the greatest names in England, having himself married first a viscount’s daughter and then the sister of a belted earl, both these ladies bringing little money but immense prestige to the Abbey. Untitled and apparently penniless, he was nevertheless nobler than Matthew Chard: a man whose family creed was a simple one of service to Crown and country, whose own days were spent in the tireless, unpaid administration of local justice, a gentleman whose word had never been questioned because no promise of his had ever been broken, whose decisions, both as a magistrate and a landlord, were invariably in keeping with his own impeccable personal code.
Clevedons, from the beginning of the line, had served. They had never sold themselves, never worked for wages. They had been rewarded by honours, never insulted by the payment of cash, which, even when there had been cash to spare, no Clevedon had ever carried about his person like a grocer. They had served, freely and loyally, and, expecting an equal loyalty from their own servants, had undertaken the care of them in sickness and old age, regarding all those in their employ, the tenants of their farms and their cottages, as members of their extended family.
The butler who served my Uncle Joel at Tarn Edge, who had been imported from London, would be dismissed the very instant he gave less than perfect satisfaction, or would leave without a backward glance to take up a better offer. The manservant at Galton Abbey, who had inherited his father’s position, and his grandfather’s, would be supported, albeit meagrely, for the rest of his life, and would devote his last energies to anyone who bore the name of Clevedon.
‘I work for money,’ Uncle Joel said. ‘And because I expect others to do the same, I pay good wages.’
‘I do my duty,’ Mr. Clevedon might have answered. ‘I am responsible for those born on my land in situations inferior to my own. I hold the land itself in trust for future generations, having received it from those of my name who held it in trust for me. I am true to myself and to all those with whom I have dealings. I offer loyalty and expect to receive it—a commodity which is far beyond price.’
And so, although they were both decent, clever men, they baffled and offended each other, my uncle entirely convinced that all three Clevedons were conspiring to get their hands on his money, Mr. Clevedon every bit as certain that the Barforths would crawl on their knees—or ought to—for this alliance with his grea
t name.
Like turns to like, they both said in their different ways. My son needs a sensible woman. My granddaughter needs a gentleman. My son is hard-working, shrewd, where any other man could make a penny he can usually find the way to make two. My granddaughter has been trained to accept the responsibilities of privilege, the duties of a manorial lady towards her estate and its people. She would give those two pennies away to anyone with a hereditary claim on the house of Clevedon, and leave herself starving.
‘There may yet be hope,’ Blaize told my sister. ‘They may argue the terms of the marriage contract too long, until the spark fades, and we shall have no marriage at all.’
But Nicholas, having made up his mind, could not tolerate the delay, and at his threat—made with the calm of complete determination—to simplify matters by taking Miss Clevedon to Gretna Green to be married over the blacksmith’s anvil, all opposition ceased.
‘Well, at least now I can give some thought to my own wedding,’ Caroline told me. ‘Honiton lace, I wondered, Faith, for the veil—I believe the Queen had Honiton lace, did she not?’
And, still in that odd state of half feeling, where a pin, sometimes, in my side would not have aroused even a cry, I replied, ‘Yes, and orange blossoms on her gown, which in your case would look splendid, Caroline, since you are taller and could have more of them.’
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