More Tales of the West Riding

by Phyllis Bentley

  “I never took much notice of it all, like,” said Mrs Dean, grimly practical.

  Please, gentle reader, please, PLEASE, if you have in your possession any papers of historical interest, KEEP THEM. Give them to your local municipal library in a strong envelope or sizeable folder, or lay them in a chest or give them to your solicitor; but keep them.

  Thwarted in Pickles Street, I began to write letters. I wrote to our Hudley Member of Parliament, who advised me to write to the Hungarian Embassy in London. I wrote to this Hungarian Embassy, dropping names etc. suitably. They advised me to write to a Hungarian cultural society, who advised me to write to another. This in charming language asked for the first name of Professor Bakonyi, since the name of Bakonyi in Hungary was as frequent as Smith in England. Later they told me regretfully that there was no Professor Bakonyi on the staff in Buda Pesth, and later still, that the records of Kossuth’s army had all been burnt in the last war. I was told of, and tried, a Hungarian gentleman in England who was preparing records of all Kossuthians who had taken refuge in this country. I learned from him that indeed two likely Poles had come to northern England; one to Liverpool and thence to Hudley, and one to Kidderminster. At this I leaped into the air again, for Kidderminster is a town which weaves carpets; and the great manufacturer who alone was regarded as Q’s rival in Hudley was a Carpet man. Indeed, this last man, I discovered, had employed a Garibaldian refugee from Italy, whose skill in design lent much to the Hudley carpet’s beauty. It began to occur to me that Hudley, far from being a dull, reactionary, plodding sort of place, really had concealed several of these refugees of European liberty successfully from their enemies. I mentioned this to one of our local historians at an Annual Meeting.

  “But, of course,” said he. “Don’t you know about Admiral Stanton?”

  “I’ m afraid not.”

  “But my dear child,” said he kindly from the heights of his great age, “it was one of the great jokes of the period—while the police of Europe were scouring the continent for Mazzini—I hope you know about Mazzini?—”

  “Of course. The great Italian liberator, precursor of Garibaldi.”

  “Well, while the police of Europe scoured the continent for Mazzini, Sir James had him tucked safely away in that lonely ancestral old house of theirs, you know, on the top of Hollow Mount.”

  “Are there documents to corroborate this?”

  “Well, no. Not documents. But so-and-so the historian,” he went on, naming a rather well-known historical writer, “was once writing a history of the Stanton family—a Stanton ancestor was once Sam Hill’s executor—the case of Sam’s Will was the origin of the Bleak House story—”

  “I know, I know. I made a novel of Sam’s sad tale.”

  “Well, this historian asked me to go through the Stanton papers to see if I could find corroboration of the hiding of Mazzini in Hollow. But I could not.”

  I sighed.

  “Of course,” said he, “conspirators against the Establishment don’t write notes of all their revolutionary doings, to be used against them at their trials, you know.”

  “Then what gave rise to the story?”

  “Admiral Stanton lost his job on account of his friendship with Mazzini. He was in Parliament, you know, a junior Cabinet Minister of sorts. And there was a great row because the Post Office turned up letters addressed by Giuseppe Mazzini to Italian conspirators, one of them was a would-be assassin, in fact, in which Admiral Stanton’s name and address figured. Of course, the Admiral knew all the revolutionaries of the time: Cavour, Herzen, Mazzini, Kossuth, Garibaldi, the lot. He couldn’t and didn’t wish to deny it. He had a business in London, a brewery, I think it was, and often visited it and saw these friends. But it was as if he had corresponded with a Russian Communist during the Cold War period, you know. Imagine what Queen Victoria must have said! The Admiral resigned.”

  I leaned forward. “Have you,” I asked with great earnestness, “ever heard that Q went out to Hungary and fought at Kossuth’s side?”

  He lowered his voice and looked aside. “Often,” he murmured.

  “Hurrah!”

  “But of course I don’t believe it.”

  “Why not?”

  “No evidence for. Evidence against: Kossuth came to England in 1851—he even came to Hudley! He had a tremendous reception. But Q took no part in it. He never attended a single meeting where Kossuth was present.”

  “But if it was dangerous?”

  “Oh, pooh. Q would not have cared about that. He was not in politics; he was a man of wealth and sure position.”

  “His wife might have cared. And his brother.”

  “But why do you think the mild well-behaved Q—”

  I poured out all my details of Esperanto, Poles, Joe Dean.

  “Not a scrap of real evidence, just a lot of talk. The tale is often repeated, of course, but it is regarded as not authentic, and so is not mentioned in official accounts.”

  “No smoke without fire?”

  “Why should Q go and fight in Hungary?”

  “Why indeed?” said I. “He may have felt rather cramped, in Hudley.”

  “I’ve always thought him noble, of course, but a bit of a bore.”

  “He inherited a million and died worth a thousand.”

  “You admire that?”

  “It’s rather exceptional in Hudley. He travelled in southern Europe twenty years later.”

  “Did he indeed? I wonder if he took Booth with him?”

  “Booth?”

  “His groom. He was with him when he died. Very devoted.”

  I remembered the silver harness. “I wonder if Booth had any knowledgeable descendants?”

  “No; I can tell you he hadn’t. Poor-law chap; no relatives; unmarried.”

  “You’ve researched this Q story yourself,” I accused him.

  “Possibly, possibly.”

  “The descendants of those two Poles might know something.”

  “The descendants of one of them are all dead.”

  “I shall try the other set.”

  “Well, have fun!” said the historian, laughing in kindly derision as he waved farewell.

  To assume that I, a mere novelist, should succeed in a piece of research where the local historian, so sound, so meticulous, had failed, was graceless, I knew; but all the same….

  A name as strange as Czernowski is easy to trace in Hudley, and accordingly I presently found myself spending a very pleasant evening with the present descendant of one of Kossuth’s sergeants. There he was, John Czernowski, indubitably the grandson, for he showed me certificates, a lean, handsome man, dark and suitably Polish in looks, lively in mind and tongue. He had a pleasant, good-looking fair-haired wife in her thirties, a fair teenage daughter, pretty and agreeably shy, and a large black and white cat, clearly an indulged favourite, very sleek and glossy. The house, one of a short terrace very high on a Pennine hillside, was spotless, comfortably furnished, well equipped, everything quiet, respectable, prosperous. Best of all—and I could hardly restrain my jubilation when I realised her presence—there was his mother, old, of course, but brisk and upright. Actually the widow of Joe Dean’s friend the Esperantist. She spoke of her late husband quite frequently, calling him “Kage”.

  “That was what they called him,” she said firmly. “His name was Kazimir, you know, but they called him Kage. Pronounced it that way, I expect.”

  She told a nice tale about Kage’s father—actually Kossuth’s sergeant!—defending another foreign workman (another?) who was receiving less pay from his boss because he could not speak English. “He paints with his hand, sir,” said the sergeant, “not his mouth.”

  (Just the man for a sergeant in a revolutionary army.)

  My voice quite trembled, my throat was dry, as I stammered out the question: “Did Kage or his father ever speak of Q?”

  “No.”

  “No? Oh, surely...” I cried in an anguish of disappointment.

  “No.”


  “Had you heard of Q?”

  “Vaguely.”

  Seeing my look of horrified discomfiture, she explained:

  “Kage and I married late, you know. I was thirty, Kage was well on in his forties. Neither of us had seen anyone we liked, before,” said Mrs Czernowski with the candid dignity of truth. “It was 1924. Q was dead long before that.”

  “Oh, but surely. Your father-in-law must have spoken of Q.”

  “Never.”

  “I believe you, of course, but it is hard for me to believe you,” said I, briefly recounting the tale of Q and his Polish protégés.

  “It’ was an old story by then,” said the senior Mrs Czernowski firmly.

  “People often don’t know the early history of their parents,” said the junior Mrs Czernowski with intent to soothe. “Well, aristocratic people may, because they’re taught it, I expect. But not ordinary people like us.”

  “Still, it comes out in bits and pieces sometimes,” suggested the daughter.

  “I never heard anything about Q,” said John, thoughtful. “My mother’s got a few cuttings, like.”

  These were shown. The merest formal insertions of deaths and marriages. Not even the fatal Joe Dean-Bakonyi paragraph which had set me on my quest.

  “Did you ever hear the name Bakonyi?”

  “Never.”

  “Joe Dean?”

  “Yes, I think so. Yes, I know the name. He was one of the Esperanto group. I don’t think I ever met him. The group met once a week on Wednesday evenings, at the secretary’s house.”

  “Did your husband ever play chess with men from other countries, by means of Esperanto?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed; he was a great chess player. There was always posting of letters to do, with stamps for abroad. Sometimes I copied the letters for him.”

  “Did he ever play chess with someone in Hungary?”

  “I don’t remember,” said the senior Mrs Czernowski with regret. “I didn’t address the envelopes, you see. Foreign addresses are so different from ours, aren’t they. Kage understood better how to write them, than I did. But I doubt that he ever wrote to Hungary. You see,” she suddenly volunteered, all her life and love in her tone: “Kage wanted to forget all that past sad history. He wanted to be English. Or perhaps he just wanted me to think so,” she added with a wistful smile. “He was especially anxious for our son to be an Englishman, so as to have a better chance than he had himself. And yet to remain a Pole, if you see what I mean. He didn’t change his name, like some, anyway,” she concluded proudly.

  “Well—I thank you warmly for your confidence, and I apologise for taking up your time in vain,” said I rising.

  “It has been a pleasure to receive you,” said John with ceremony. “We deeply regret that we have no information for your service. But we can do no other.”

  I almost sobbed with grief and disappointment as I drove down that very steep hill, with the lights of Hudley twinkling far below. It was almost worse, perhaps, because the outward unimportant details were all corroborated. Though slightly different from the Star’s account: Esperanto, chess, Joe Dean—but alas, no Q.

  But suppose there had been corroboration? Suppose Kage had known Q, known him well? I am a novelist, a storyteller, and I could not prevent myself from telling the tale as it might, so easily, have occurred.

  Suppose, one night in London, Q had been introduced to Mazzini. A noble figure, worn and thin, with a white beard, high forehead, strong straight nose, piercing black eyes; a man living in a small house above a post office, surrounded by the dogs and cats and birds he loved: a brilliant talker, his slight Italicisms so endearing; teaching (for nothing, of course) small Italian boys the noble history, the noble aspirations, of their race. Idealism poured from his lips, he spoke it freely to the Italian organ-grinders and hawkers of terracotta casts who thronged the streets of London; his accounts of Austrian tyranny were appalling. His friends were the finest people of the day: poets such as Browning, social workers such as Toynbee; English and American travellers of all ranks were proud to convey his secret letters to revolutionary Italians.

  One night perhaps he was about to set out for Italy on one of his many secret visits. The Stantons were alarmed at the thought of his doing the dangerous journey alone. Q suddenly offered to take him. What could look more innocent to police than a rich English textile manufacturer with an English attendant valet escorting an elderly grandparent to Rome? Q almost choked with eagerness; all his warmth of heart, his love for his fellow-men, his longing to do something noble for them, perhaps (we do not know this) his fatigue with textiles and Hudley, the huge prosaic mill at home and his ten-year-old and quietly happy but unimpassioned childless marriage, swelled to his throat. His eyes gleamed. Obviously he was as honest and trustworthy as the day. The Stantons took Mazzini, Q and Booth to a London dock, and by night, the tide being suitable, embarked them. The scene itself was thrilling: the dark river flowing and lapping, lights on the banks gleaming, great hulks of ships silently passing; what an adventure! Q hastily wrote a tender note to his wife, protesting business in Paris; the Stantons put it in the post and promised to allay her fears. Q would not be long away, they thought. The ship was bound for Genoa, not for France; dangerous, no doubt; but still …

  But unfortunately the expedition to Rome was not a success—Mazzini’s expeditions were never a success. He had the feeling, the tongue, the words, to rouse; but his temperament was as unsuited to commanding troops as his black velvet waistcoat and frock coat to military action. Q extracted him from one or two awkward situations, then decanted him on a small freight ship sailing for London. The Captain declined to take Q, but would embark Booth if he signed on as a seaman. Booth however declined to leave his master. Q paid the captain substantially, and gave him a note to present to Stanton’s brewery in London. What to do now? A handsome passenger ship was leaving for Marseilles in a day or two, but Q could not bring himself to take it. He was enjoying this new, colourful, noisy, exciting world too much. Without quite knowing why or how, he found himself understanding and not blaming Mazzini’s failure, but longing for a fiercer champion. This chap Kossuth, now, fighting the Austrians in Hungary? All of a sudden he was marching and riding across northern Italy, then embarking from the eastern coast at Ancona, crossing the Adriatic (where the Austrians, not a seagoing nation, had no ships) landing at Trieste, marching north-east towards Pesth.

  If Genoa had been exciting, this new country was in a frenzy. Portraits of Kossuth, talk of Kossuth, everywhere. In some villages young men leaving home to join him for Hungary, while wives and mothers left at home arranged to send despatches to him without a moment’s delay. In other villages old fellows, still wearing the Austrian uniform they had worn proudly in the Austrian army, refused food and shelter to men they thought of as abominable rebels. We do not know, of course, how Q and Booth reached Kossuth, and it is beyond my powers to invent their route and its adventures. But we must remember that Q had money and was a good horseman, while Booth was an experienced groom. They knew no Hungarian, which was awkward, but then also they knew no German, which in the unsettled state of the country was perhaps a good thing. Kossuth relying hopefully on Palmerston continued to expect that England would support Hungary, although no official envoys were sent; Austria, with official English envoys at her court, could not believe the old alliance was broken. Thus to be English was fairly safe from both sides. Many nationalities were already represented in Kossuth’s forces, so two Englishmen were not noticeable.

  I imagine Q and Booth, after hair-raising adventures, arriving at the massive doors of some baronial Hungarian establishment, dismounting from admirable if mud-splashed horses, and asking with English calm for Kossuth. They are ushered by guards into the great man’s presence. He looks at them enquiringly.

  “We are English,” says Q with native calm, “come here to fight at your side.”

  “Why not?” says Kossuth who had studied English in an Austrian prison,
courteously: “You are very welcome.”

  The truth is, I think, that the two men took a fancy to each other. Physically they were rather alike; both being tall, solid and blue-eyed, with broad high foreheads, strong features, thick wavy hair and pleasant smiles. Both were men of absolute integrity; Kossuth, surrounded as he was by generals, who disagreed with him, crossed his plans, failed their rendez-vous and eventually by surrendering betrayed him, may have recognised this trait and welcomed it in Q.

  There was no difficulty in providing the two Englishmen with the rough clothes now worn by the rest of the army; big clumsy boots, long rusty spurs, wide white trousers and coarse linen shirt hanging out over them, long white cloak of coarse wool and round felt hat banded by the Hungarian colours, red blue and green. There were plenty about, and swords and pistols, lying with dead Hungarian bodies on the innumerable battlefields. Not that the frequent conflicts were exactly battles; merely skirmishes across the wide Hungarian plains, each force trying to manoeuvre the other into a disadvantage. I do not believe, of course, that Q was ever a “general”, rendering great service to the cause of independent Hungary as Bakonyi believes; I think he was probably some sort of aide to Kossuth, or allotted as a member of a group of “honvëds” as the word went, the equivalent of the German Landstürm, or as we might say, territorials, galloping hither and thither on his fine horse.