The Warlow Experiment

by Alix Nathan

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘Yes. And make him talk when you’ve got him all bothered. What does Mr Powyss do with Hannah Warlow? Samuel’s the only one allowed to dust the precious things in the library. What has he seen?’

  ‘The master only do like flowers and that. You did say so yourself.’

  ‘Annie! She’s with him every week! She has no husband at home! And she has such airs just because her mother was a lady’s maid got with child. How she do look at me! She’ll want the master, won’t she, much more than her husband.’ But that was the wrong direction to go in, setting off a great warble of sighs and ‘poor man’.

  ‘Jenkins do know, I’m certain. He won’t tell us, but he talks to Samuel. Tells him what to do all the time. You must make more progress with Sam.’

  ‘He said Abraham Price do like you,’ Annie said hastily.

  ‘You say that to keep me quiet.’

  ‘No. Abraham did tell him Catherine is a clever puss. A useful woman. He did say.’

  Catherine was doubtful. At least he hadn’t dismissed her as she thought he had but she didn’t much like ‘useful’. Probably he wanted her to write a letter for him.

  ‘He do go to meetins, Samuel says.’

  ‘Oh.’

  What could that mean but getting drunk? As to Hannah Warlow, the fact was that Samuel was too loyal to the master to give anything away unless in the arms of Annie. He was far too shy of Catherine for her to have any luck quizzing him herself. She thought she might drop him a hint that Annie was pining for him, though there was a danger that would put him off completely.

  They were roused from dreams of manipulating Samuel by shouting. The cobbler’s son, Caleb Hughes, was looking for Abraham Price.

  ‘Not here. Go to the greenhouses or hothouse. What is it?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘We stopped the post from London.’ He was gasping for breath. ‘Thomas Hardy.’

  ‘There’s nobody called Hardy lives in these parts.’

  ‘Do you not know? He’s tried for high treason.’

  Abraham Price ran in.

  ‘What news, citizen?’

  ‘Not guilty!’

  ‘Liberty forever! Tom Paine forever!’ They hugged each other, danced about, making the women gawp.

  Spying one of Cook’s gin bottles under her empty chair, Price raised it to Catherine and Annie with a triumphant smile and whisked it under his jacket.

  Then they ran out, leaving the women to chop suet.

  5

  A LONG ACCOUNT arrived from Fox about the radical leader Thomas Hardy. The man’s pregnant wife had died of shock after a mob attacked the Hardy house, the mob instigated by the government, or at least that’s what Fox claimed. Now Hardy was on trial and Fox had attended the whole thing.

  Twice as long as the usual letter, Powyss would have put it aside for those minutes of faltering attention before he fell asleep. But he needed the distraction.

  Accused of treason, Hardy had been acquitted, said Fox, defended by the brilliant, witty Thomas Erskine, who was capable of speaking for seven hours, an ability inconceivable to Powyss, who generally found it hard to speak for as much as seven minutes except, it seemed, to Mrs Warlow. Hardy had moved everyone in court with his dignity. Indeed the mob had pulled Erskine’s carriage through the streets themselves and carried Hardy on their shoulders.

  Powyss wondered briefly about the next paragraph. He recalled that Fox’s bookseller friend Henry Clarke had been sent to Newgate for four years.

  Mrs Clarke sat with me in the Sessions House on some of the days. She is acquainted with several witnesses and was there to see the jury’s foreman sob as he announced ‘not guilty’. She and I shed tears together on that last day. She is not a member of my church, indeed her husband professes atheism. But we have much to say to each other.

  The friendship with his good friend’s wife seemed to be growing. But Fox said nothing more and went on to conclude that the outcome of the trial proved no revolution like that in France would ever take place in England. Powyss knew he should agree and be glad, though he’d never been able to envisage actual revolution in these sparsely settled hills.

  He felt the revolt of his own body. A man of forty-seven askew with lust, no better than a youth. Somehow, he must reimpose order on his life.

  He saddled a horse and rode for several hours in the lower reaches of the hills.

  * * *

  —

  HE CAN SENSE DAYLIGHT. Knows he’s right when he hears the first meal begin its downward journey. Gets up, greedy for bread. Or doesn’t. Them’ll not wind up the dishes till he rings the bell. Can lie there as long as he likes. Imagine pressing Annie’s bubbies, her buttocks. His hands in her skirts. Fucking her at back of Kempton’s sty.

  Bladder compels him up. Kidneys, lamb chops, white bread, butter, jam, the beer he asked for. Sits on the pisspot (close-stool! he snorts), scratching back, groin, behind the knees, digging into the skin till it bleeds. Sucks fingers, half buttons himself, lifts the pot, rings for its shaky ascent to where he cannot go. Clean one descends.

  At the grating he breathes in dripping cold. The world’s still there. He grips the flaking iron, shakes it. If he loosened it, what then? More leaves’d blow through, more frogs’d get in. Shakes it harder, harder. Won’t budge. Far too small for him to get through. Not think about getting out.

  Checks traps. Several. Since he wrote:

  I need rat trapps plees  5 trapps

  Builds a new fire, burns the corpses.

  No frogs this end of the year. Air smells like end of year. He did try putting frogs back between the curls of rusting iron. Them couldn’t jump up. Too high. Couldn’t get up the shaft. Once fallen them’re stuck. Drawn to the cistern, lured to its lifeless water.

  The futility of their life troubles him. When he found the last one floating bloated on its back he was depressed for days.

  Then he thinks what if he puts a live one under a dish-cover. Send it upstairs. Laughs at how the women will shriek as it springs off the dish. Have to send a note to stop them killing it:

  pt frogg in pon pleas

  Have to be next year. When new ones come.

  Now the long gap of morning. Sometimes he opens a book and flicks its pages as if this time it will make sense. There’s the animals of course, especially the horses, sheep, dogs. Bulls. But the ones at the end of the book give him a turn. He forgets the journal for weeks. Writes notes when there’s something to ask for. Chews. Spits. Cracks flies creeping among crumbs. Picks at wallpaper, damp-bubbled. Peels off long strips, chucks them into the fire, but they almost put it out they’re so wet. Stands by the nailed door. Hears far-distant kitchen sounds. Annie hasn’t come back down. Sits again. Scratches the webs of his fingers. Kicks off his boots, pulls off stockings. Scratches the webs of his toes. Skin flakes. Sores bleed.

  Seasons pass. Behind the grating, dusty leaves in summer. Then scores more gust down. Ash keys rattle. Smoke-smell of fog. He hears hail’s clicks, soundlessness of snowfall. Hooves, wheels, boys shouting, bells. Cocks, pigeons, rooks. All noises shrunken as from a tiny country.

  He labours in his mind: mud, seed, weeds, grain. Plods up a furrow, down the next, hands calloused with grippin, shoutin to Dick to straighten the horses. Hitches on the bush harrow: easier nor ploughin. Herdin, thwackin flanks. Tugs warm udders. Scythes, sharpens, scythes, mows, head drippin, body drippin with heat in a roke. Chews bread while the horses rest. When he thinks of hot earth he longs to get out and shit among the leaves at the wood’s edge.

  But it only occupies minutes. His mind grinds down like a windless mill with no corn. Great stones, weighted, waiting.

  He scratches his lice-thick hairiness. Curses. Thinks how to burn off some hair. That’s not cuttin, is it? But how’ll he do it without settin his head alight?

 
Feet hurt. Toenails like horn. Digs at them with fingers; but he’s gnawed those nails down. Tries forcing a foot into his mouth but his body is stout, stiff. Can’t bend. He topples off the chair, lies on the patterned floor bemused. Why move? For what? Until he gets cold.

  And when the meal comes creaking down it disgusts him. Pieces of soft fish hidden in thick, winey sauce. Unknown vegetables. Freezing ice cream. Don’t them know he never eats that? Powyss somewhere above, eating the same meal, thin fingers. Sipping wine. He scrapes the food into the traps. Them’ll eat it.

  More blank hours. Fear runs across his mind like black beetles. He closes his eyes, dozes. Dreams prompt memory. Them thought he was a fool. Be them right? Fifty pound. Fifty pound for life. He wants someone to tell him he was right to agree.

  Mother were always old, working, never still till the end. Had no time for any of them. He’d never’ve asked her. Hannah’s already like her. Worse.

  What would Father have said? Nothing, most like. Beat him. Then him were gone. Arm and hand sticking out from under the cart. It were good when him were gone, couldn’t beat us no more. Not good us had no horse, legs broken, meat for dogs. Cart smashed to bits.

  Only Mary looked at him without loathing or annoyance. With sweetness. His older sister Mary. Named the little one after her. Only we do call her Polly. Hopes she grows up kind.

  Mary. Oh Mary. He refuses to think of her end. She, now. She’d tell him he’s right.

  * * *

  —

  CATHERINE COULDN’T get the image of Abraham Price and young Caleb dancing in triumph out of her head. She’d never seen anything like it. It was not drunken pleasure for they were not yet inebriated. It was something else.

  She went for the basket in the hope of finding Abraham, saw him in one of the greenhouses, hands in pockets, staring up through the roof.

  ‘I’ve come for the vegetables and fruit, Abraham.’

  ‘Him’s out there. Didn’t you see?’ She had seen the basket but pretended not and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Them says you write a fair hand, isn’t it.’

  She’d guessed correctly: he was going to ask her to write a letter for him. She was pleased and disappointed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come here.’

  She walked towards him along the brick pathway between rows of winter-empty pots on benches. Horticultural excitement was all in the hothouse this time of year.

  ‘Who’s it do govern us?’ Darting eyes scanned her. His bark-brown face was lit from within, she thought, certain he was right. But it was neither the question she expected nor wanted.

  ‘Why, Mr Powyss do govern us.’

  A Socratic self, slow to germinate, now quick to sprout, emerged from Abraham Price.

  ‘Hah! I’ll tell you. Them governs us in par-lia-ment.’

  ‘Oh, I know that.’

  ‘And who sits in par-lia-ment? Do you know that?’

  ‘Mr Pitt. And. And other men of parliament.’

  ‘Members of par-lia-ment. And who are members of par-lia-ment?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Them as has money to buy theirselves a seat. Them as knows one another, isn’t it. Them as kisses each other’s arse. Them’s friends. Them’s sons.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And do us vote them there?’

  ‘There be elections, that I do know.’

  ‘And do the likes of us vote in them elections?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. I never did.’

  ‘You! You’re a woman! Women can’t vote. Uni-versal suffrage, that’s what us wants in the Society. Them won’t allow it.’

  ‘Ah. No. What is it, universal suffrage?’

  ‘That do mean every man do vote.’

  ‘And every woman?’

  ‘Women can’t vote.’

  ‘But I can read and write.’

  He waved that away. ‘Oh, back to the kitchen with the basket now, isn’t it.’ He’d seen Powyss coming. ‘Come tomorrow,’ he said out of the side of his mouth. ‘I’ll tell you more.’

  She lowered her eyes and bobbed as she passed Powyss, aware that she had touched something hidden, alive and powerful. As if she’d caught a glimpse of great writhing snakes in a pit nearby that Powyss didn’t know about. She wished she might talk to Abraham somewhere less exposed than a greenhouse tomorrow, but it was better than nothing.

  And he must have had a similar thought, for when he handed over the basket the next day he told her to call on him in the evening in the tiny master gardener’s cottage that Powyss had built onto the stables.

  * * *

  —

  FOR POWYSS the glasshouses were a refuge. When he was a boy, before they’d been constructed, he would rush out of the house whenever he was in dispute with his father, or his mother’s demands became too great. His mother, scathed by stillbirths, removed herself from her marriage bed and resorted to piety. Her one surviving child, Herbert, was to accompany her journey towards ever greater spiritual purity, but his education, in that small establishment attended by Fox and run by a parson rapidly losing his faith, made it impossible for him to do as she wished. In any case what boy, however bookish, however sensitive, would willingly conform to a life of prayer and abstinence? But even before that, he’d failed to understand why the good God had allowed all of his siblings to die and his mother, steeped in sadness, to retreat from the world, to turn away so often from her son to her prayerbook.

  He came now to the hothouse, its hot-water pipes clinking pleasantly, the sea-coal boiler well stoked. Dismissed Price, despite the need to discuss the careful nurturing of his newly arrived blue-flowered Lupinus nootkatensis seeds.

  He was exhilarated and furious. Weeks after having kissed Hannah’s cheek – well, he’d done so twice – he’d embraced her. Put his arms round her, held her to him, kissed her hard, saw her eyes open in half-sceptical surprise, blue-grey, kissed her again.

  Those accounts of experiments with electricity he’d read, Galvani’s frog or the cadaver with its sudden violent movement, told him that his realisation was like a shock. He wanted her. Wanted this entirely unsuitable woman and couldn’t stop himself.

  Ach! It was infatuation! Had she been a woman of his own kind, with or without a husband, there’d have been no difficulty, he’d have found a way. In fact both married and unmarried women had approached him in years gone by, and he’d turned them down each one. Knowing, overblown, manipulative, they’d have wrecked his life of pleasurable solipsism. The neighbouring women had all wondered about him of course. No wife. No mistress. Was he like Pitt, they asked each other, interested in only port and parliament? But then they heard how he travelled to London and someone came across him walking down Jermyn Street, so they made the correct assumptions.

  An affair with a woman of his own class would have been acceptable if carried out with discretion, especially if the husband was notably complaisant. An ‘arrangement’ with Warlow’s wife would be despised. Not that he cared either what the villagers thought or for the neighbouring landowners’ views, though he never forgot how unpleasant it was to catch the satirical glances that passed among the guests at his father’s table. But in his own mind he could see that it was out of place, disorderly. Even the injustice to Warlow, who could never afford to take him to court, unlike rich cuckolds, irked him, however much he disliked the man.

  The worst thing was that it would muddy the experiment. The paper he intended to write and deliver to the Royal Society would be tainted because he’d have to exclude information.

  Yet all these reasons against it merely conspired to entice him further. How much more did he want her than any of the powdered, chattering, flattering women of the neighbourhood who’d dropped sly hints in past years! Champney Baugh’s niece, stately, ambitious, so sure of herself, whose name was soon linked to t
he Prince of Wales and the Prince’s friends; numerous urgent-eyed spinsters; even the unfortunate Mrs Tharpe, whose attempts to attract him took the form of insinuations about his London visits and incessant complaints about her husband.

  Oh, but wasn’t the whole thing absurd? That he should actually want this woman who was no longer young nor beautiful, and yet, and yet irresistibly attractive to him, her grey-blue eyes daring, drawing him. It was preposterous. He must get over it.

  He hovered near a hot pipe willing himself to think rationally. Here among seeds and seedlings, delicate graftings, where so often he’d exerted order and precision, used good sense and experience, where reason had ruled, surely he could determine what to do next. Yet nothing came to his clouded mind.

  * * *

  —

  SHE THINKS: HE DID REALLY KISS ME. At last. I did know he would one day.

  I am married so it is wrong. Not even a widow. The commandments, number seven I think. But many do it, for sure. I think John have not been true.

  How many babies Mother did have. Kempton it were.

  He did let us stay when Father died. We had hens, a few sheep, we did never starve.

  She did love all her babies even though Kempton’s. I do love all mine even them that died, even though all be John’s.

  I do take Mr Powyss’s money and his gifts. He is a gentleman, not like Kempton, but he is master. Surely he will want me to comply and I must do it. I shall take his money for my children as Mother did for hers.

  * * *

  —

  1795 BEGAN BITTERLY. Surrounding Moreham, white hills met white sky. In London ice thickened the Thames, though not enough to prevent men falling through and freezing to death. Filling their boots with brandy which froze. Mobs on the streets kept themselves warm with fires and demolition of crimping houses where press-gangs as good as imprisoned young men for the fleet.