Although only eleven, Maria was mature and sensible far beyond her years, so was her elder sister's preferred companion and confidante. Introduced to nine year old Isabel Graham, who was still a child in manners, dress and appearance, it was perhaps inevitable that the Darrow girls should find her tiresome in the extreme.
So the visit was not a success, and they were not long in the carriage going home again before the squire's daughters began to pick over their new neighbour's many faults and failings, then to magnify these tenfold.
‘She's even younger than Owen and Rayner,’ complained Maria who, as the nearer in age to Isabel, had been asked by her mother to make a special effort to be pleasant to the child. ‘In fact, she's just a baby, in thought, word and deed. An excessively spoiled and backward baby, too. My dear Jane, do you not agree?’
‘Most certainly,’ agreed her sister, who was thinking of bonnets and trimming. ‘I never saw such a brat.’
‘But my dear Maria! My dear Jane!’ Rebecca was shocked. ‘How can you be so cruel? So very unkind?’
‘My dear ma'am, I'm sorry to offend you, but I speak only the truth.’ Maria shook her head. ‘The little fool can neither read, write, nor cipher. Indeed, she can hardly make herself understood in common speech, for she drawls and snuffles so.’
‘Her bedchamber is so full of dolls and other silly playthings,’ added Jane, ‘which I'm sure my sister learned to despise years ago, that one can't find a place to put one's feet. I trod on a doll — indeed, I broke it. I couldn't help it. But Isabel didn't care. She has so many toys that the loss of one makes no difference at all to her.’
All the way home, Jane and Maria muttered to one another about Isabel Graham's childishness and stupidity. In spite of their mother's reproachful stares, they resolved to have nothing more to do with her until she was a little more grown up. They treated their little brother and cousin with the casual indulgence accorded to their kittens, puppies and other pets. But Isabel was too boring even to be a pet.
Alighting from the carriage, Rebecca went into the house. But, noticing Owen and Rayner dawdling near the dovecote, talking to the man who looked after their mother's beloved peacocks, turtle doves and other ornamental birds, the sisters decided to accost them. Correctly supposing the boys to be temporarily released from the bondage of what was these days almost perpetual study, Jane and Maria enticed them into the rose garden. There, they told them all about their day.
‘She said she was already acquainted with you.’ Flicking fastidiously at a speck of dust on Owen's lapel, Jane raised her eyebrows and smiled, in arch enquiry. ‘So, my dear Owen, pray enlighten us. When were you introduced?’
‘I don't know what you're talking about.’ Threatened with a beating if he were not word perfect on a set chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, to be repeated to Mr Fenton later that evening — and well aware that he wouldn't be, for learning by rote was not his forte — Owen was inclined to be sulky. ‘What do you mean, introduced?’
‘To the young lady who met you trespassing — how shocking, dear Owen, could it really have been you, lurking in the undergrowth like a common poacher — on her father's estate?’ Maria also looked arch. ‘She had run away from her nurse. There had been some disagreement over a flannel bodice, I believe, so she was taking a ramble all by herself. But the gamekeeper found her, and warned her out of the woods.’
‘That was Miss Graham?’ Disgusted, Owen sniffed his disdain. ‘I'd supposed she was the keeper's daughter. Or some urchin from the village.’
‘Why did you think that?’
‘Well — she looked a sight. Her gown was torn and filthy. Her hair was all elf–locks. Her face was as dirty as a gipsy's. My aunt says Miss Graham is supposed to be beautiful. But that girl was a fright.’
‘As ugly as sin,’ agreed Rayner.
‘Red as a carrot, lank as a skinned rabbit, and freckled as a toad.’ Owen grinned. ‘If that girl's a beauty, I'm a Chinaman, and Rayner here's a Red Indian brave.’
‘Miss Graham is an heiress.’ Jane looked from one boy to the other. ‘My mother says she will bring her husband forty thousand pounds. Yet more when her father dies. If I were you, John Rhys Owen, I would court her good opinion directly, beauty or not.’
‘I don't mean to live off a wife!’ retorted Owen, indignantly. But then, he grinned. ‘I shall make my own fortune,’ he declared. I'll marry whom I please — I shall wed the Great Sultan's daughter herself, if I so choose. Rayner here can take the skinny, freckled thing.’
‘I'd sooner shoot myself dead.’
‘What a pair of fools.’ Maria clicked her tongue. Well aware that it was desirable to marry for love, and would be wicked indeed to court a rich woman merely for her money's sake, if she were Owen Morgan she would even now be resolving to fall for Isabel Graham. To seek her good opinion in return.
Fortunately, where looks were concerned, Jane Darrow and her sister Maria took after their mother. Fashionably fair–haired and pale–skinned, they presented a complete contrast to their dark–haired, dark–eyed brother and cousin.
Their sweet, heart–shaped faces were undeniably pretty. Their figures too were light and slender, and beautifully accentuated by the high–waisted gowns then in fashionable favour. Possessing rank, money and breeding — for these days it was conveniently forgotten that their mother had been a manufacturer's grand–daughter — they were the best matches in the district.
Or they had been. Over the next few months, however, it became depressingly clear that their stars were to be eclipsed by an even brighter sun. As Owen and Rayner had observed, strictly speaking Isabel Graham was no beauty – no beauty at all — but an heiress such as she needed only a regular number of arms and legs to be lauded far and wide.
Common report soon talked her up, and in due course her anaemic, ginger looks were universally agreed to be as lovely as those of an angel. As for her own voice, which was certainly peculiar — a strange, Southern drawl, it was almost incomprehensible to the natives of Warwickshire — this was quickly decided to be an additional charm. She was pronounced delightful by all.
* * * *
Soon, she and her parents were on regular visiting terms with all the families round about, especially the family at Easton Hall. For it was from Rebecca Darrow, who was as devout and God–fearing a woman as Mrs Graham herself, and as reluctant to stray into frivolous company as she was, that Isabel's mother hoped to learn all about her neighbours and their ways.
Isabel became better acquainted with the Easton children. Maria and Jane learned to tolerate her, while Rayner, the baby of the family, came to understand the benefits of having someone younger and less well–educated than himself about the place. Someone whom even he could patronise and impress.
But perversely, for he gave her no encouragement at all, it was Owen whom Isabel appeared to like best. She sought him out, hearing him speak nonsense with great deference, and watching fascinated as he showed off, as he turned cartwheels across the manicured lawns which surrounded the beautiful Elizabethan manor house, or climbed one of the great oaks in the grounds — and all too often fell out of it, as well. But on these painful occasions, he would always laugh Isabel's concern to scorn. Dusting himself down, he would sooner have died than admit he had wrenched his ankle or sprained his wrist.
Born in South Wales and brought up with Gower Welsh as his first language, Owen's English was at every bit as distinctive as Isabel's own. But now, catching the rhythms of his speech, she began to mimic him, his Celtic lilt being grafted most uneasily on to her Southern drawl.
She was infected by his bluntness, too. ‘God, there's messy,’ she observed one fine morning, as she examined Maria's not very successful sketch of the new marble fountain in front of the house, which was playing for the first time that summer. ‘It's entirely wrong by there, look — all crooked it is!’
‘My dear Isabel, what can you mean?’ Laughing good– naturedly, for she knew she was no Hogarth, Maria turned to look at the
child. ‘Do you presume to find fault with my perspective, perhaps?’
‘No. But this bit where the water's supposed to be coming from is awful.’ Critically, Isabel frowned. ‘Looks like a bottle with sticks poking out the top, so it does.’
The American brat was Owen Morgan incarnate! Maria nearly choked.
Just at that moment, Owen himself appeared on the terrace. ‘What you laughing at, then?’ he demanded, suspiciously.
‘Nothing, dear Owen. Nothing at all.’ Still grinning, Maria took his hand. ‘Look at my picture,’ she invited. ‘See this bit by here. Does it strike you as peculiar, now?’
‘God — I don't know!’ Narrowly, Owen observed her. He knew he was being teased, but for the life of him he could not see the joke.
Neither, apparently, could Isabel. For she too stood there quite perplexed, every bit as puzzled by Maria's sudden mirth as Owen was.
* * * *
Later that day, Owen was taking a short cut through the small physic garden which his aunt had established in a sunny corner. Here Rebecca grew sage, rosemary, borage and a host of other medicinal plants, to be used in infusions and ointments in the home.
Observing someone sitting on a bench, he realised it was Isabel. Permanently at a loose end, for she appeared to do no lessons of any kind, nor did she ride, draw or even read for pleasure, he presumed she was waiting for Maria to finish her piano practice. Or for Jane to accompany her on a walk.
In the bright sunshine, he noticed, her red hair glowed like fire. Picking a couple of marigolds, used in the making of poultices for wasp stings, he looked from the flowers to Isabel, then back again. Her hair was exactly the same golden orange as the flower petals. It shone just as brightly as they did. For the first time ever, he saw beauty in Isabel Graham.
Just then, she glanced up. She saw him. ‘Good morning,’ she began, smiling. Today, she was dressed all in white, which suited her. ‘Just waiting for your cousins, I am.’
‘Oh.’ Embarrassed, Owen looked down at the flowers in his hand. Whatever had possessed him to pick them? Only girls picked flowers! He blushed furiously.
But Isabel did not notice, for she was eyeing the marigolds. ‘Pretty, they are,’ she observed. ‘Lovely they look, shining in the sun.’
‘You think so?’ Owen shrugged. ‘Here you are, then,’ he muttered, thrusting the flowers straight at her, ‘you have them.’
She beamed at him. Accepting the marigolds, she clasped them to her heart, inhaling sharp, pungent scent. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Well, I didn't want them did I?’ Owen scowled at her, fixing her with his large, dark eyes. ‘They should have called you Marigold,’ he observed.
‘You think so?’ Isabel shifted along the bench. ‘Sit down,’ she invited.
Owen sat.
‘Talk to me,’ said Isabel.
‘What?’
‘Talk to me! I know — tell me all about yourself.’ Drawing up her knees and making herself comfortable in the left hand corner of the bench, Isabel continued to smile at him. ‘You're an orphan aren't you? You were born in Wales. Is that far from here?’
‘Miles away. Hundreds of miles!’
‘Oh.’ Isabel looked suitably impressed. ‘What happened to your parents, then? Why did you come to live in Warwickshire?’
‘I — I can't talk about any of that.’ For a moment, Owen closed his eyes. Then, jumping to his feet, he left her. He ran off to find Rayner, while Isabel stared after him in astonishment, wondering what on earth she'd said.
Chapter 2
That golden summer of 1797 was not without its winds and gales, its sudden tempests, nor its storm clouds edging inexorably over the far horizon. In the countryside, outbreaks of rick–burning, machine–smashing and cattle– maiming alarmed every man in England with property to protect. But in the towns, things were even worse, causing beleaguered manufacturers to mutter constantly about the Jacobins, radicals and free–thinkers who were undermining the very foundations of civilised society.
All the same, riots in nearby Birmingham, where the Darrow family owned factories turning out firearms and ammunition for the everlasting French wars, took Rebecca Darrow completely by surprise. Born Rebecca Searle and the grand–daughter of a manufacturer, she had grown up in that dirty town, and thought she understood the mood of her own workforce through and through. ‘If there's work to be had, and good wages to be earned,’ she protested, as she learned that the hands were on strike yet again, ‘surely the men should be content?’
She looked from her manager to her chief clerk, then back again. ‘Do these fellows not realise the damage they cause? Can they not understand that if they bankrupt me, they will also ruin themselves? That we shall all starve?’
‘They don't see it like that.’ The manager sighed. ‘These days, the working men feel their power. They see they can hold their employers to ransom, so they do.’
‘What do they ask for this time?’
‘Higher pay for those on piece work, an increase in wages for men tied to the flat rate, and a reduction of one half hour in labour each working day.’
‘So I am to fund their idleness,’ observed Rebecca, sourly. ‘Very well. Leave it with me. I shall speak to my husband this evening. Tomorrow, I shall let you know what we wish you to do.’
That particular dispute was settled amicably enough. But, as Rebecca had expected, only a few more weeks went by before there were more stoppages, more complaints, more demands for higher wages and a shorter working week. It was the same everywhere. The words revolution, insurrection and insubordination were on every manufacturer's lips.
Those dog days of summer, however, which seethed with sedition, radicalism and all kinds of discontent and unrest, were eventually succeeded by cooler autumn ones. Masters and managers hoped the tempers of the factory hands would cool, too. But for many manufacturers, the damage was done. One evening in the September of 1797, as Ellis and Rebecca sat together in Ellis's study, looking over the quarterly accounts from the largest of their manufactories — which Rebecca's grandfather Jeremy Searle had founded as a little button works, but which now occupied a site spreading over four acres of valuable real estate — Rebecca removed her spectacles, rubbed her aching eyes, and shook her head.
‘Terrible,’ she murmured. Heavily, she sighed. ‘This is all quite dreadful. Our profits are almost negligible. Thanks to strikes and stoppages, this quarter we've lost the equivalent of at least twenty working days. I'm tempted to sell up. Put every single hand out of work. How would they like that?’
‘I don't think selling up is an option. For one thing, who would buy?’ Ellis closed the ledger. ‘We must continue as before,’ he said.
‘Continue to lose money hand over fist, is that what you mean? Continue to be dictated to by a mob, by a rabble who understand nothing but their own greedy ambitions? Who, in their foolishness, would pull down the very fabric of the commonwealth upon all our heads?’
‘I mean, we must speak to the managers,’ replied Ellis. ‘They must spy out the troublemakers, see they're dismissed, then deal fairly with the grievances of the rest.’
‘Grievances!’ Rebecca snorted in derision. ‘They have no grievances. Or at any rate, they have no little complaints worth that hard name! My dear Ellis, if you could only listen to yourself. Just recently, you're beginning to sound like a radical, too.’
‘Change must come, Becky. The winds of revolution blow fiercely these days. All we can hope to do is weather the storm.’ Ellis opened a drawer in his desk. ‘Now, my dear, before you go on to accuse me of being a Jacobin or a Paineite as well as a radical friend of the mob, may we change the subject for a moment? You see, the letters have arrived.’
‘Indeed? When did they come?’
‘This morning. They were brought from the post office in Warwick, by special courier.’
‘These are the original documents?’
‘No. Merely copies. But, as you will see, that does not signify at all.’ Taking
out the batch of papers, Ellis spread them across his desk. ‘While you and the girls were out paying calls, I took the opportunity to glance through them.’
‘What did you discover?’
‘I think they tell us most of what we need to know.’
‘Then may I?’ Rebecca nodded towards the papers.
‘Yes, of course. Is the light satisfactory over there?’ Ellis moved a candle or two. ‘Prepare to be astonished,’ he murmured. Then he picked up a book, and turned away.
Rebecca began to scan the sheets. Transcribed in a fine legal hand, all was neat, clear and easily legible, and half an hour later she had read everything, from the plain, matter–of–fact description of the terrible events themselves, to the witnesses’ statements, the summary of the trial, and the newspaper report of the subsequent execution.
As she set this last sheet aside, she shuddered. Then she glanced up at her husband. ‘Should you be in possession of all this information?’ she enquired. ‘Here, for example, names are named. Here, witnesses are brought forward, cautioned, then quoted at length. My dear Ellis, I would have thought even you — ’
‘You're right, of course. Strictly speaking, I have no business to see this material at all.’ Ellis laid his book face down on his desk. ‘The witnesses’ statements in particular are highly confidential. But Mr Bellingham, who is currently chairman of the Swansea Bench, is aware of my personal interest in the case. He knows that, as a magistrate myself, I fully understand the need for discretion. He sent me these papers on the understanding I should show them to no other living soul. That after reading them, I should put everything in the fire.’
‘I see.’ Rebecca frowned. ‘In that case, perhaps you should not have shown them to me.’
The Ash Grove Page 2