More Tales of the West Riding

by Phyllis Bentley

  That he galloped enough we may judge from the written memoirs of another similar honvëd, who speaks of being often in the saddle for twelve hours a day. At night they bivouacked on the open plain, sleeping close together round a huge fire if they could find trees for the blaze. Half their horses were unsaddled, so that some lay down, others slept on their feet; but the other half always remained in saddle and bridle, with guards attending them, so that on the slightest hint of surprise the troop could be on horseback, ready to attack within three minutes. The honvëds could not shave, or even often wash; their clothes, like themselves, grew tattered and dirty. There were nights when they fell in with gipsies and musicians; then they sang and danced with all their ferociously gay national abandon, and would have continued this lively enjoyment till morning if their officers had not commanded them in the strictest terms to sleep awhile so as to be fresh for battle next day.

  Could we suppose that the lieutenant and sergeant in command of this group were Pulaski and Czernowski, whom we met later in Hudley? I think we could. We see mild, conventional Q and the devoted Booth sitting on the icy ground, watching with an immense glee, a joyous feeling of escape and release, the tumultuous dance of these handsome people, their white teeth sparkling, their long black hair blowing, their fine lean limbs tossing rhythmically in tune with the wild music.

  The high point of Kossuth’s campaign was his capture of Vienna. Hardly a capture, perhaps; he just walked in and occupied it, nobody making much objection. With other officers Q was billeted upon a friendly Count; and this Count had not only a handsome and dignified wife from one of those provinces in Italy held by Austria, according to Mazzini against the people’s will, but also a beautiful sister, the Countess Hélène. This young Hélène was really very beautiful; very young, with glorious dark eyes and masses of curling dark hair, a delicious sweetness, a tendency to regard a fair Englishman as a romantic hero, very delightful to a married manufacturer of thirty-eight. She really seemed to love him. Q was sorely tempted, and perhaps Booth urged him on. But Q was an honourable man and a faithful husband, and he and Hélène parted in anguished tears, with no harm done.

  Why Kossuth retreated from Vienna with scarcely a shot fired when part of the Austrian regular army walked in on him we cannot really tell. Enough that he withdrew from the Austrian capital, Q of course with him, and Q resumed the wild and scampering life he had been living before Vienna. By this time, we judge, he had become a reasonably good shot, and quite got over his nervousness with a sword. Q and Booth would be a tough pair to meet on a dark night, and were not too gentle about scragging an enemy sentry if it seemed necessary. By this time Q was an officer, I expect, and no doubt with his English thoroughness a conscientious one, and thus one moonlight night when the distant mountains were covered in snow, after a hard fight during the afternoon he was inspecting the chain of sentry posts set around the group, in company with the devoted Booth. (I wish I knew the appearance of this man: I see him as short, sturdy, pug-faced, dark in complexion with a bit of a scowl, a dimple and thick eyebrows, but of course I do not know; he may have had a florid face and winning smile for all I know. But I don’t think so.) All the men at the sentry posts were awake and watchful and Q was returning cheerfully to the bivouac fire when at the foot of a tree in the moonlight he perceived a human body. They advanced and turned the body roughly on to its back. It was a woman dressed in a man’s uniform; the long hair which fell over her shoulders betrayed (in those days) her sex. Q stooped and turned up her face. It was Hélène.

  The sharp agony of this blow struck Q to the heart. Lifting the girl in his arms, he conveyed her to the fire and strove to revive her. But she was dead, with a bullet through her heart. Some of his men recognised her; they all grieved for her. They thawed by a fire the ground near a tree, and spent much of the night digging a deep grave—a precaution against wolves—with their swords and hand-bills. They then wrapped the poor young beauty in the cleanest blanket they could find, buried her, fired a salute of pistols above her grave—rather dangerous, this, with the enemy so close—and placed upon it a cross made out of twigs from which they peeled the bark. Did Q cut off a lock of her gloriously curling hair and put it in his pocket-book? I think so.

  I cannot but feel that from this moment Q’s view of the adventure upon which he was engaged, changed radically. Hitherto it had been a glorious joke; now it was a heartbreaking tragedy. He might even have been sickened by the slaughter which battles invariably produce. It might also be, on the contrary, that a hatred welled up in his heart for the men who had killed his love. He was a man of honour, in any case; he had come here to fight for the freedom of Hungary and he intended to fight for the freedom of Hungary. He was devoted to the noble Kossuth.

  How Kossuth then lost his war, is a matter so complex it is hardly to be deciphered. The Hungarians of the plains quarrelled with the Magyars of the hills and both quarrelled with the Poles; the generals quarrelled with each other and with Kossuth and showed an invincible tendency to march in the wrong direction. The aristocrats did not support Kossuth; the older villagers remained nostalgically Austrian; the Russian Imperial Army came in. In a word, there were some three battles; one general surrendered; the affair was over, and all that remained for Kossuth and his men was to get out of Austria, to reach safety over the border in Turkey.

  It was a long gloomy march. We can easily imagine the sad poetry, the melancholy reflections, that filled the men’s souls as they prepared to leave their native land. Home was behind, exile in front; the superb views of forest-clad hills, backed by distant blue Carpathian mountains, the winding silver rivers did not soothe their hearts; the difficulties of the route—sometimes marshy, sometimes pebbly, sometimes smooth steep slippery rock—the harshness of the wind and rain, the scarcity of provisions, by their irritation almost relieved the deeper feelings. For Q, the prospect of finding himself in Turkey, a place regarded in the West Riding as so distant as to be almost fictional, almost non-existent, certainly totally barbaric, must have made him blench; however he kept his English calm, we may be sure, gulped down the native porridge without complaint, shared his scraps of bacon with his comrades, at one time even had the honour of proffering a piece of cheese to Kossuth himself; and marched.

  A deep relief when at last the column came to the border and could see safety ahead was followed by the sorrow of departure. To step out of one’s homeland into foreign parts, into a place where one is an alien, does not belong, leaving behind all those near and dear, is extremely and deeply painful. Kossuth very wisely gave the men a serious and noble address, not minimising the anguish of parting but holding out the hope, even if distant, of return and stressing the need for good behaviour. They crossed a river, traversed a mile or two of plain, and came to a large army of Turkish troops, who were encamped in rows of neatly lined green tents outside a town. Here a ceremony was performed, always very painful to soldiers; they had to give up their arms. Men and horses were then counted and listed, which gave a painful impression of servitude; they were allotted space for bivouacs, and after a night of rain next morning marched off surrounded by Turkish regulars.

  In this, however, reality proved better than their fears; the Turks in their red fez, blue jacket and white trousers proved to be jovial, cheerful masters. Though the arrangements for food were somewhat irregular and slapdash, food was definitely provided. A grief which befell many soldiers was the confiscating of their horses. Many of the men had previously served in Austrian Imperial regiments, and their horses bore the imperial stamp; all these were sent back by the Turks to the Austrian government, which claimed them as their property. Only those horses privately bought could be retained by their owners. Q and Booth no doubt retained theirs, as did Kossuth and some of his generals. Soon Kossuth’s army was camped in tents and sheds, with the higher officers accommodated in stone houses. There they remained for some months.

  The tedium of such an imprisonment is almost unbearable to active men. There is
nothing whatever to do, except take two roll-calls a day, groom one’s horse and try to rid oneself of vermin. Kossuth held small meetings every day, at which camp matters were discussed, but there was little to be said about the affairs of their country, in which the Imperial government had now completely resumed power.

  One morning Q entering this meeting was struck by the downcast appearance of the officers present. Kossuth’s noble brow was lined.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, glancing at each in turn.

  A very blank look was his first reply, then he heard mutterings in which the name of England seemed to be grumbled. He turned to Kossuth.

  “The Austrian government intends to require the Turks to expel us,” said Kossuth. “There is a treaty.”

  “The treaty contains no such clause,” snapped a general.

  “True. But if Austria and Russia combine in the demand,” began Kossuth.

  “The men would be glad to return to their homes?” suggested Q uncertainly.

  “They would return to imprisonment and execution,” Kossuth corrected him.

  “The demand has not yet been made,” said a general.

  “I cannot believe that England will allow this to happen to us,” said Kossuth, frowning.

  “Once the demand is officially made, the Turks will yield.”

  “Why?” said Q.

  “They are weak, and Russia is strong, and stands on their northern border.”

  “The demand has not been made officially yet. We learned of it by chance, from a Turkish Bey here who heard it from some court spy.”

  “Then we must implore Lord Palmerston’s aid at once.”

  Kossuth turned to Q.

  “Will you take a letter to him?” (The telegraph was not invented for another fifteen years.)

  “Yes,” said Q.

  This laconic answer revealed the character of the man but not the tumult of emotions which at that moment filled his heart. There was nothing he wanted more, at that moment, after the experiences of the past few months, than to be in England, but he was incapable of deserting Kossuth to please himself by achieving such safety. He therefore added:

  “If you think I am the most suitable messenger.”

  A series of growls from the assembled generals sounded affirmative.

  “It will be dangerous,” offered Kossuth.

  Q shrugged his shoulders.

  It is on record that this letter—certainly written and delivered, though whether carried by Q or not we do not know; the name given is not his, but it does not figure anywhere else; after all was Q using his own name?—reached Palmerston within ten days of its leaving the Hungarian camp at Widdin.

  One slight glimpse we might have of Q on this journey. When crossing the Channel, the white cliffs of Dover now appearing to him out of the mist, he might—yes, I think he did—at this first sight of England he might have drawn out from his pocket-book the dark curly tress of Hélène, and confided it, with what anguish of heart, what enduring love, to the waves. Yes, I think he did. And so at last he reached London.

  We see him climbing the stately Foreign Office steps, telling the doorkeeper firmly that he bore an urgent despatch for the Foreign Secretary, being ushered at length into the elegant room where Palmerston transacted his business. He perceived at once that the great man was a great man; the massive body, the heavy lined face, the steady frown, the large penetrating brown eyes, declared his power plainly enough.

  “From Louis Kossuth,” said Q, proffering the letter. He stood stiff and straight, though he was tired.

  “How did you travel?” enquired Palmerston, opening the letter.

  “I slipped through,” began Q, hesitating as he remembered all the shifts by land and sea, the horses abandoned, the captains bribed, the couriers deceived, the lack of food, the cold, the seasickness, the escapes from soldiers, magistrates, police, which he and Booth had endured and triumphed over.

  “Well, never mind,” said Palmerston impatiently, reading the letter.

  Q, a man of sense, was at once silent.

  “H’m,” said Palmerston thoughtfully. “What is it like at Widdin, eh?”

  “Vermin and idleness.”

  “And is this,” tapping the paper, “believed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “To be imminent?”

  “Immediate.”

  “Well.”

  “Do you require me to return with a letter to Kossuth, sir?”

  “No. I shall send a despatch of the most sternly official kind.” He thought of Queen Victoria and gave a grim smile. “You are English. Where do you live?”

  “Hudley in the West Riding of Yorkshire.”

  “Go home and forget this adventure,” said Palmerston. “It would never do for Kossuth to be known to be writing direct to me. Unconstitutional.”

  Which explains, as one may say, everything.

  So Q returned to Hudley, to his sweet and gentle wife, to the mill, to fine worsted cloth, to his charitable efforts. To canteen and saving bank, to churches and rows of houses, to educating his workers’ children, to railways and mill chimneys. Peaceful, if dull—and peace is so much to be preferred to the dead body of Hélène. Sometimes, I think, Q rode up to the old house in the hills—with Booth, of course. And no doubt they silently compared the bare Pennines and narrow rocky streams to the forested slopes and broad riyers of Hungary, compared the Yorkshire folk who greeted them with slow but friendly words to the frantic music and whirling gipsy dancers of Hungary. But I do not think that Q ever mentioned Kossuth or Hungary again to anybody. He did not forget his adventure, but was too mindful of Palmerston and the exiles to speak of it. Did he find Hélène’s grave when he travelled in South Europe in 1876? Difficult, I fear.

  About the exiles: Palmerston put his foot down and the Queen, shocked by Russian inhumanity, supported him; the Turks, heartened, politely evaded the Austrian and Russian demands. Some of the exiles turned Mahometan and some others joined them in Turkish employ; some drifted away to other countries—some even as far as England. Not one was ever handed over to their conquerors.

  Kossuth toured England and the United States in 1851, where his fine oratory brought him a fine reception. He actually came to Hudley and held meetings there. Did Q contrive to be by chance away during this period? Kossuth most likely had never heard of Hudley. How should he? Q would not trouble him with the name of an obscure small town in a northern county far from London, which in any case was probably as difficult for Hungarians to pronounce as Szegedin is by ourselves. So he made no enquiry for Q? He knew naught of his English honvëds.

  Q was presently elected member of Parliament for the neighbouring borough of Annotsfield, and as I have said, was chosen by Palmerston to second the Address of thanks on the Queen’s speech. We may now guess why.

  After many quiet happy years together Q’s wife died, and presently in due course Q, having lost most of his money, mainly by expense on social welfare work but partly by mistaken investments outside England, eventually in a seaside resort far from Hudley died too. Booth was with him when he died.

  But whether Q went to Hungary or not to help Kossuth, I do not know. He was certainly one of our great benefactors. Was he one of our heroes too? I do not know. What do you think?

  PART II

  PRESENT OCCASIONS

  At the Crossing

  1971

  Miss Ellis, Strolling slowly uphill in a steepish street in the West Riding town of Hudley, was halted by a small poodle trotting in front of her. The poodle, white, very curly, decidedly pretty but with rather a dispirited air, was attached by a pale blue leather lead to the hand of a plump woman walking in the centre of the pavement. Miss Ellis tried to pass the poodle on the right, but the little dog swerved at once in that direction. She changed her tactics and tried to pass the fat woman (as she crossly called her) on the left, but there was not space on the pavement for this manoeuvre, and Miss Ellis thought it unwise to plunge into the roadway, down which—i
t was a one-way street—vehicles were rapidly swishing. She tried the right-hand side again. Somehow the pale blue lead wound itself round her ankle. The poodle looked up at her with sad reproachful eyes; the lead jerked its owner’s hand, and Mrs Jowett turned sharply on Miss Ellis.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Miss Ellis stiffly.

  “Not your fault,” said Mrs Jowett. This was clearly not her real thought, for her expression was glum and her tone angry.

  Miss Ellis found this artificial forgiveness insulting.

  “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, rather more stiffly than before.

  “Lulu!” barked Mrs Jowett. The poodle cowered.

  “Poor Lulu,” said Miss Ellis. It was now her turn to be insulting and she meant her tone to sound so.

  Mrs Jowett jerked the lead, and after a moment of acute discomfort, when Lulu seemed bent in half and her claws scrabbled on Miss Ellis’s ankles, the poodle was disentangled.

  “A pretty little dog,” remarked Miss Ellis coldly while this was in progress.

  “She’s been a good friend to me, has Lulu.”

  “Indeed.”

  The two women glanced sideways at each other. They observed that both were pleasantly and even handsomely dressed. Miss Ellis, who was justifiably proud of her tall and slender figure, inclined to the well-cut and quiet; Mrs Jowett, plumper, went in for fur and colour. Each disliked the other’s style, but recognised its propriety. They walked on side by side, not quite knowing how to part without discourtesy, and too angry to allow themselves the pleasure of rudeness.

  “You think I was taking up the whole pavement, I expect, wandering from side to side,” accused Mrs Jowett.

  “Not at all,” replied Miss Ellis, making the lie obvious.

  “There’s too many hills in this town,” complained Mrs Jowett, panting—implying that Miss Ellis walked too fast for her.