Sovay

by Celia Rees

  ‘Oh, miss!’ Lydia exclaimed. ‘That’s lovely! It would suit you so.’

  ‘C’est jolie, n’est-ce pas?’ Madame’s eyes gleamed as she saw the girl seduced by the beauty of the fabric. ‘And with your colouring!’ She gestured perfection. ‘We will start there, shall we?’

  The fitting began in earnest and Madame’s chatter was stopped by a mouthful of pins. This took longer than expected even with the help of a willing Lydia. Despite Lady Bingham’s assertions, her Charlotte was somewhat shorter in the leg than Sovay and considerably broader. When Madame had finished, she stood back to survey her handiwork with a certain amount of cheek-blowing and huffing and puffing. The gowns would need much alteration. Madame sighed and threw up her busy little hands. Then she paced round Sovay, surveying her from every angle, as if she were a statue.

  ‘Chère mademoiselle,’ she said at last, ‘with your colouring, you can wear anything, but I think plain colours suit you best. Madame Bingham’s daughter, she loves the more elaborate styles which I think are not to your taste.’ Sovay surveyed the ornate, embroidered brocades and nodded her agreement. ‘So!’ Madame clapped her little hands and her eyes sparkled like black sequins. ‘Here is what I propose. I have some very fine silks of pure colour, scarlatine, turquoise, rose, jaune de primevère, vert d’émeraude, so beautiful, like les ailes d’ange woven from jewels. I have them from la couturière de Marie Antoinette herself. I would like to make a dress for you. Simple, mais élégante. Have I your permission?’

  Sovay hesitated. Charlotte’s wardrobe was not to her taste, Madame was right, apart from the possible exceptions of one or two items, and she found the thought of wearing another’s cast-offs somewhat distasteful. She would like a dress made for her in the fabrics Madame described . . .

  ‘If money is a concern . . .’ Madame murmured tactfully.

  ‘Oh no,’ Sovay shook her head. ‘It is not that. I just wonder if there is time.’ She explained about the visit to Thursley. ‘I would need it quickly.’

  Madame’s face cleared; a big smile threatened to crack her carefully applied powder.

  ‘Do not worry, chère mademoiselle. You will be la plus belle, vraiment. Trust in Madame Chantal.’

  All the measuring and pinning put Sovay in mind of another project that she’d had in mind ever since she reached the London house. She sent Lydia off with Perkins, the butler’s boy, to guide her. They were to go to her brother’s tailors with instructions for him to prepare two suits of clothes, as well as shirts and boots and what have you; they were for a Mr James Middleton, cousin to Hugh. She sent measurements with her, for the young man was shorter than Hugh, with a slender build. The young man had been set upon on the road, all his luggage taken from him, and was badly in need of a new set of clothes. As an afterthought, just in case the house was being watched, she sent Lydia off dressed in her clothes.

  It was quite a different Sovay who left the house at six o’clock that evening. She had raided her brother’s wardrobe once again, picking out the plainest attire that she could find there, selecting brown jockey boots, fawn twill breeches, a brown broadcloth coat, and a plain waistcoat over a white linen shirt with a high collar and matching neck stock. She had plaited her hair back in a neat club secured by a black ribbon and had chosen a narrow-brimmed hat which she wore cocked over one eye. She liked the feeling of freedom Hugh’s clothes gave her. She could go where she liked, do what she would and no one would know her. She smiled to herself as she left the house. Soon she would have clothes of her own.

  Gabriel was waiting for her under a plane tree in the square. She tipped her hat to him and wished him ‘Good evening’. It took him a second glance to recognise her.

  He whistled to a waiting driver who trotted his horses forward. Sovay had to remember not to wait to be handed up into the carriage. She took hold of the sides and pulled herself in with Gabriel following.

  ‘Golden Globe, Cheapside,’ he shouted up to the driver, and they were away.

  Neither of them noticed a small, dark man loitering nearby. If Sovay had thought to fool Digby Clayton, she was sadly mistaken. He’d seen the servant girl dressed in her mistress’s finery and dismissed her; it took more than silks and fancy bonnets to fool old Digby. A young man comes out, when none had gone in, and a young man with something familiar about him. Never forgot a face, didn’t Digby, but it wasn’t just that. It was in the stance, the walk, lots of little details gave the cull away. Young lady of the house disguised as a man. That was a turn up, to be sure. He had heard the instruction to the driver and set off to follow. No need to go to the expense of a carriage, with the city streets so congested with people and traffic, he would probably arrive at the Golden Globe before they did.

  CHAPTER 15

  They arrived to scenes of confusion. A crowd of men and a few women were milling about on the narrow pavement outside the inn and spilling onto the road.

  ‘What is the trouble?’ Gabriel asked someone standing near.

  ‘It’s the innkeeper,’ the bystander said. ‘Stopped us from using the upstairs rooms for the meeting. Says it’s illegal and he don’t want his boozing ken shut down.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ Sovay asked. There was no sign of Virgil.

  ‘Wait and see, like everyone else,’ the man answered, thinking the question directed at him. ‘Tom Hardy and Mr Adams have been arrested. No one seems to know what to do.’

  ‘Mr Stanhope, ain’t it?’ A young man came up behind Gabriel, tapping him on the shoulder.

  ‘And you are?’ Gabriel turned.

  ‘Algernon Skidmore at your service. My friends call me Algie. French it is. From me gran on me ma’s side.’ The young man was wearing a cutaway tailored coat in moss green over a matching waistcoat and dark breeches. He grinned at Gabriel’s continued inability to place him. ‘You was in with my governor, yesterday, along with Miss Middleton. Bit of all right, she is, if you get my meaning,’ he added with a wink and a tap on the side of his nose.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. You’re Mr Oldfield’s clerk.’ Gabriel hardly recognised the fashionable young fellow standing before him. He turned quickly to Sovay. ‘May I introduce Mr James Middleton, the young lady’s cousin.’

  ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. What I said,’ he added, slightly subdued, ‘I meant nothing by it. No offence meant.’

  ‘And none taken.’ Sovay spoke as gruffly as she could.

  ‘She’s a handsome gal, that’s all.’

  ‘Indeed. Much admired.’ Sovay looked away, willing herself not to blush.

  ‘I’m sure she is. I was telling my friend Morris who works in an adjacent office . . .’

  ‘What brings you here, Mr Skidmore?’ Gabriel interjected, hoping to divert the direction of the conversation.

  ‘I attend regular.’ Skidmore nodded towards the milling crowd. ‘Just to listen. I didn’t have much by way of education and there’s learned men here, reading and talking and entering into disputation. I like to hear them and what they say makes sense to me. Mr Oldfield don’t know that I come to meetings,’ he went on. ‘And I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell him. We don’t see eye to eye on matters of a political nature.’ He laughed. ‘That we don’t. I’m strongly of Mr Paine’s persuasion, and he leans to Mr Burke. Not that he’d stop anyone from having his opinion and speaking about it. He wouldn’t hold with this here commotion.’

  ‘Why?’ Sovay asked. ‘Do you think the meeting has been deliberately disrupted?’

  ‘No doubt about that! They’ve been trying to stop us for months. No, Mr Oldfield wouldn’t hold with that. What we’re doing ain’t illegal, not yet anyways, and the law’s all he cares about. He’s a straight up and down sort of cove in that way and as good a lawyer as they come. The law’s his religion, you might say. He don’t hold with no one breaking it, whatever their stripe, or their position. No one’s above it and no one’s below it, that’s what he says. The law’s there to protect us from ourselves and it’s there for everyone. S
ome things don’t sit right with him. Like yesterday. You know them documents you and Miss Middleton brought round for his safekeeping?’

  Gabriel nodded.

  ‘Well, something about them got him all riled up. Not angry, you understand. That’s not his way. But he weren’t happy, he weren’t happy at all. I know him, see? Working with him every day. He put all his other matters aside and we got plenty on at the moment. He shut himself in his room. Not to be disturbed. I could hear him pacing, a sure sign that things ain’t right with him. Sent me off to the post and when I come in the next morning, he’s there before me, the grate full of candles burnt down to stubs. I reckon he’d been there best part of the night. That’s if he’d been home at all.’

  Before Sovay had time to ask, or even wonder, what had disturbed Mr Oldfield so greatly, the crowd was on the move.

  ‘Good evening.’

  Gabriel bowed to the newcomer.

  ‘Ah, Mr Barrett. May I introduce Mr Skidmore,’ he said. ‘Clerk to Mr Oldfield of Oldfield and Oldfield in the City of London. And this,’ he turned to Sovay, ‘is Mr James Middleton.’

  ‘Mr Middleton.’ Virgil smiled and put out his hand. He gave no outward sign of knowing her true identity, although there was a hint of a smile in his blue-grey eyes. ‘I don’t believe I have had the pleasure. Virgil Barrett, at your service. We are about to move off.’ He looked around at the crowd. ‘They’re going to hold the meeting in the open air at Fender’s Field.’

  ‘I have a message for Miss Middleton,’ he said as they walked along. ‘I have had word from France concerning her father and brother.’

  ‘Are they safe?’ Sovay asked in her normal voice, anxiety making her quite forget her male identity.

  ‘I wish I could answer that.’ He looked around. ‘All I can say is that they are alive. Tell her to be patient. I will know more in a few days.’

  His words thoroughly alarmed her, but the noise and press of the crowd about them in the narrow streets made further talk impossible as they followed the crowd towards Fender’s Field. There were men and women of all classes and persuasion but most were of a middling sort: tradesmen, shopkeepers, printers, apothecaries, porters and warehousemen. The penniless, the starving, the beggars, scavengers and crossing sweepers had more to concern them than the reform of Parliament and universal suffrage. As the crowd surged through the streets, more joined them, some sporting the tricolour cockade of liberty. There was an air of excitement and expectation, a feeling of celebration, of jubilee. Well-wishers, sympathisers and the merely curious left their houses, some to stare, some to cheer, others to swell their number. They poured into Fender’s Field from all directions to hear the opening address.

  ‘Brothers and sisters,’ the speaker began. ‘Comrades and citizens . . .’

  ‘That’s John Baxter, the silversmith,’ Skidmore whispered. ‘He’s chairman of the Corresponding Society. They ain’t served a warrant on him yet.’

  Sovay craned to get a better look. The man was hardly visible above the mass of people but immediately he spoke, the crowd around him grew quiet. The words he spoke were familiar: liberty, equality, brotherhood, the right of all, men and women alike, to a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, bread on the table. The crowd listened with rapt attention. He had a way of making each word, each idea, seem fresh minted, as though he were showering the crowd with immense wealth and riches to be spent in the new dawn of the coming day.

  He reminded Sovay of her father. She wished he were present to hear this with her, with so many others, all of like mind. Tears sprang to her eyes as she imagined him nodding and smiling at each point the speaker was making. She could hear his voice whispering, ‘Have I not said that very thing, my dear?’ ‘Ain’t no shame in it, young sir.’ Skidmore handed Sovay a handkerchief. ‘First time I heard it, I bawled like a little child. Takes a lot of people that way.’

  Sovay had been so transported by the orator’s words that she had forgotten who was with her. Gabriel was still there, tall and solid by her side, although she had no idea of Virgil’s whereabouts. The American had disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. She turned her attention back to the speaker.

  The centre of the crowd and those at the front were still listening with undivided attention, but unrest had begun to nibble at the margins. It ran through the crowd like fire through a dry cornfield, causing the speaker’s voice to falter then stop. In the momentary silence, everyone heard it: the scrape and crash of boots on cobbles, the chink, chink of equipment, as armed men came at a run up the side streets that gave onto the open space.

  The cry went up: ‘Soldiers, soldiers!’ and the conflagration broke out in earnest. Fury rippled through the crowd and men turned to fight the hated enemies of liberty who had dared to show their faces. The speaker bid the crowd be calm, stating that soldiers were brothers, but these were irregulars with no fraternal feeling.

  A phalanx of runners and Government officers led the way, truncheons raised, beating a path through the crowd to arrest the leaders. Virgil saw them coming and slipped away. He looked for Sovay and Gabriel, but it was impossible to find anyone in the melee. Shots added further to the panic and obscured the scene in clouds of smoke.

  Screams rang out above the echoing shouts and cries of the panicked crowd and all was chaos, all was confusion. The vast throng sought escape by any means, thrashing towards the streets that fed into the square, only to be forced back again. The front rank retreated, knocking into those pressing behind them. One person fell, then another, and soon people were tumbling over each other. Screams of panic turned to shrieks of agony until the weight of bodies silenced those crushed underneath.

  Sovay was snatched from Gabriel’s firm grip and fought hard to keep her feet as she was borne along by the seething torrent of people swirling this way and that. Eventually, bruised and winded, she fetched up like flotsam in a doorway on the far side of the square. She clung onto the frame and shrank back against the wooden panels for fear of being swept off again. A man reeled past, hand clamped to his head, blood pouring from between his fingers. Faces blurred by, heedless and indifferent, each one intent on his or her own survival. She knew none of them. Gabriel, Skidmore and Virgil had all disappeared. Sovay was alone. She dare not venture out in search of them. Volunteers roamed about, using their rifle butts on the fleeing crowd. They cornered someone, brave or foolish enough to be wearing the bonnet rouge, the red cap of liberty, worn in France by supporters of the Revolution. Sovay turned her face away as he was thrown to the ground, surrounded by militia and beaten where he lay.

  Hobb’s Alley ran down the side of Leggatt’s Court and was decidedly busy with messengers coming and going. Some of them handed written notes to Mr Gribbon, others passed on verbal messages. He assessed each for its worth and paid, or not, according to his judgement. Rarely did he have to refer to Dysart to make this decision, although each report was conveyed to him almost as soon as it arrived.

  Dysart sat in his offices, making notes in a ledger, as the slips of paper mounted. He allowed himself an icy smile. He was well pleased with the reports coming in from Fender’s Field. The Committee of Secrecy would be perfectly satisfied with the action that he had taken to break up a dangerous assembly. He would have used grapeshot, like the Revolutionaries in Lyon, but unfortunately the nation was not quite ready for that. The Volunteers would have cowed them for the moment. Those who had seen fit to assemble were ordinary men for the most part, in meagre employment or a small way of business, with little between their present condition and want. The plague from France had spread among them. They had developed ideas above their station. That politics should be open to all. That every man should have a voice, a part to play in the destiny of the nation, the right to decide who ruled and who didn’t, that all should be allowed to vote on this. He would teach them. He would disrupt their meetings, smash their premises, terminate their employment, destroy their few belongings, and hound them from one rented hovel to another, right down
to the gutter and that would just be the beginning. He would have the leaders arrested. Habeas corpus had been suspended, so their stay in Newgate would be indefinite. While the husbands languished, what would happen to the wives, the children? Poverty and starvation. They deserved nothing less. It would teach them a necessary lesson. Only men of property could afford politics. So it had always been. So it would always be.

  There was a knock on the door and Gribbon entered.

  ‘Note, sir.’

  Dysart barely looked up.

  ‘Put it with the others.’

  ‘From Digby Clayton. Sent a boy with it.’

  Dysart’s long arm shot out. He held his hand, palm up. ‘Let me see.’

  Gribbon handed him the small folded slip of paper.

  Subject of interest. Will follow unless

  otherwise instructed.

  Terse. As most of his notes were.

  ‘Where did he post this from?’

  Gribbon retired. There was a squeal as he twisted a child’s ear.

  ‘Fender’s Field.’

  Dysart folded the paper and put it with the others. Clayton had been set to watch the Middleton house. Specifically Miss Middleton. Dysart allowed himself a rare moment of excitement. What was she doing at Fender’s Field?

  When Sovay looked out again, there was no sign of the man whom she’d seen being beaten so viciously. The crowd had taken their injured and wounded with them. Within minutes, the field was an empty expanse of trampled mud, flattened grass and dark-stained cobbles. Scattered about here and there lay remnants of the battle: a child’s shoe, a man’s scarf, a woman’s kerchief, a rag of red which might have been what was left of the bonnet rouge.

  Sovay set off with no sense of panic. The Volunteers had dispersed with the crowd. She was dressed as a young man, so would not attract that kind of unwanted attention and, although poor, the streets around appeared respectable enough. She did not know London well, nor was she sure exactly where she was in the city, but her sense of direction had not deserted her. She knew that she was north of the river, for the simple reason that at no point had they crossed that expanse of water. She also knew they had travelled east, which meant that she must go west into the setting sun.