They ate in the taproom on a plank over trestles, the four stools and the settle from Hertford market looking lonely in the enormous space around them, its only comfort provided by the fire – there was an abundance of rotten wood to burn.
Over dinner Archibald Cameron complimented Lemuel on his improved health. Dolly said: ‘He can talk a bit now. If you give him time.’ Which she never did.
‘I’ve passed the day with the Hatfield magistrate,’ Cameron said. ‘Did ye hear my coach was robbed on the way here?’
‘Never.’
He nodded. ‘Two villainous rogues as ever swung from a gibbet.’ He described the hold-up, dwelling with hyperbole on the ugliness and ferocity of the robbers and bewailing the loss of his timepiece and money. ‘One pound, four shilling and eightpence halfpenny.’
Dolly joined in with easy condemnation. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. You can’t sleep safe in your bed.’ In rejecting any involvement with Cecily’s profession, she had put it from her mind. She so ignored her sister-in-law’s night-time comings and goings that, Cecily realized, she was truly unaware that the lawyer’s timepiece and cash were stored with other filch in one of the many secret cupboards upstairs. ‘Shocking, ain’t it, Cessy?’
‘Indeed.’
After dinner, the lawyer offered her his arm. ‘Will ye take the air with me, Lady Cecily?’
Coolly, she took it, confident now, and they walked together through the yard and the stables to watch the sun set behind the trees of the forest.
There was no alteration in his tone as he said: ‘And now, if ye will, I’ll have back my timepiece and one pound four shilling and eightpence halfpenny.’
She was dismayed, then angry. ‘Damn you. How did you know it was me?’
‘I know ye.’
‘You didn’t tell the magistrate?’
‘I did not.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’d have your explanation first.’ All at once his anger outdid hers. He held her by the arms and shook her. ‘Woman, what possessed ye? Have ye no shame? Cavorting in sin and male clothing?’
She shouted back at him: ‘No, I haven’t any shame, they took it away in the Fleet. As for this shit-hole, it only looks bare now. When we got here it wasn’t fit for rats. Your fine purchase. Yours. What was I to do. Eh? Eh?’
He dropped his hands. ‘Ye could have come back to me.’
‘Lemuel was ill. He was ill.’ She heard her own voice shrieking into the evening. Exhausted, she sat down.
The Scotsman sat down beside her, resting his chin on his knees. Late-to-bed larks flittered upwards and then down into the grass of the meadow. ‘I won my case,’ he said.
What case, and did it matter? ‘Will you tell the magistrate about me?’
‘I’m a rising man in my profession. Sir Robert himself consults me.’
Punctilious little pricker, he was telling her he wouldn’t condone her crime, even by keeping silent.
‘I could support ye.’
If she’d been less anxious of betrayal, if she’d considered him more, she’d have recognized devotion when she heard it. It was a long time before she did. As it was, she was sick of being always disadvantaged in his presence. ‘Thank you, I do not wish to live on charity.’
He sighed and whipped away the metaphorical cloak, which he had laid at her feet, like Sir Walter Ralegh under his queen’s, before she could step on it. ‘Ye prefer robbery under arms, is that it?’
All that was left of the sun was an aureole over the trees where a nightingale had begun its arpeggios.
He said: ‘I must ask ye, madam, if that man… your accomplice last night, is he your lover? Why are you smiling?’
Because he’d overstepped the mark by showing prurient interest. She had the advantage now. She stood up. ‘I thank you for your concern, sir. I want neither your charity nor your questions. Do what you think best in this matter but, whatever it is, I bid you goodnight.’
He remained on the ground, looking up at her. ‘At least give me your word ye’ll not repeat last night’s performance.’
‘No.’
He scrambled to his feet, furious, surprising her again by being taller than she was. ‘Lord, how I loathe a Tory. Ye think birth is everything, ye’d steal rather than do an honest day’s work. Look about ye. This place is no’ much now but with investment it could be a fine hostelry.’ The Glaswegian Rs rolled in temper, the vowels shortened. ‘There’s such a matter as loans. Have ye heard of them? No. Lady Cecily’ll not soil her hands with common innkeeping. She’ll terrorize innocent folk and steal their living rather than earn her own.’
‘Goodnight.’ She was already walking away.
‘Before I go, madam, I’ll have back my timepiece and one pound four shilling and eightpence halfpenny.’
As she turned into the stableyard on her way to get them, his voice came after her: ‘And I’ll have the tuppence I gave ye for the letter ye never sent.’
Tinker Packer had set up rope and pulley to carry his tiles to the roof. It hung from a gargoyle over the balcony and so into the yard. When Cecily had collected the timepiece from the cupboard, counted out Cameron’s money and added tuppence, she put it into a saddlebag, which she attached to the rope and lowered.
Cameron was waiting in the yard with his horse. He retrieved his goods in the silence with which she’d sent them down. Humiliated and angry, Cecily didn’t regret breaking the laws of hospitality but, as his horse was about to go under the yard arch, her conscience gave a tweak. ‘If you turn north, there’s some sort of inn at Stevenage.’ She was tempted to add, ‘Beware of highwaymen,’ but decided against it. She listened to his horse’s hoofbeats diminish into the distance.
‘Where’s Archie?’ asked Dolly, when Cecily returned to the taproom.
‘Gone.’
‘Gone? I just made a bed for him upstairs.’
‘He won’t be needing it.’
‘Sent him away, din’cher? Din’cher? Gawd, what a noddle. Supposed to be a whashical, a scholar? I seen cleverer dead pigs.’
‘What are you on about, woman?’
‘He give us this place, that’s what. Reckon it was one o’ your fancy friends done it? I’m the Queen of Sheba. While they was all sitting scratching their ballocks, it was Archie Cameron got us out the dismals. An’ bought this scran. All right, it ain’t up to much but all he could afford, poor bastard, and a bloody sight more than any other bugger did.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Cecily, ‘he wouldn’t do that. He’s a purse-proud, penny-pinching little Scot. I’ve seen him quibble over tuppence. He wouldn’t do that.’ Then she said: ‘Would he?’ Then she said: ‘Why would he?’
Dolly turned away. ‘Lemuel was his client, wasn’t he? Didn’t want him homeless, did he? He’s a good man.’
Intermittently, Dolly experienced jealousy of her sister-in-law’s looks and accomplishments. Cecily, she felt, gave herself too many airs already. So what Dolly would not say at that moment, though she thought it, was: ‘The poor bleeder loves you. Don’t want to, can’t help it.’
But she was right. The Scotsman, at that moment riding towards Stevenage at a pace dangerous to himself, his horse and anyone on the road, felt a resentment against Cecily as fierce as Dolly’s own and shouted it to the night around him in language that would have shocked the elders of his kirk, not to mention the harsh, pious old grandmother who’d raised him in the even harsher poverty from which his excellent brain had released him.
Archibald Cameron had laid down his life’s plan as meticulously as a gardener planting seeds with a slide rule. Advancement in his profession, mebbe to the Lord Chancellorship or, at least, to a bench in the High Court. A town house, a country manor or two, servants. A mild, pretty, attentive wee wife and healthy bairns. Thanks to keen political acumen and a memory that retained every word he read, he was on his way to achieve the first; the rest would follow.
In this neatly hoed row, unexpected, unwanted, Lady Cecily Fitzhen
ry had taken root and sprouted like a weed, infiltrating his mind as quickly as he worked to pluck her out of it.
Aye, well, he’d be free of the slut now. That’s one slice of Adam’s spare rib he’d help no more. Ravaging the roads like a harpy, Lord save us. And in breeks. Granted, it was not much of an inn – and the agent would hear of it – but he’d gone without to purchase the place. Even had he been prepared to see her roofless, he’d have still done as much for the poor, ancient sumph they’d wed her to.
‘Ha til mi tulidh. Let the piper play.’ In extreme moments, joy or anger, Archie Cameron sang. ‘A bride to wash ma feet afore my age slips awa’.’
Obliterate memory of the hag, that’s to do. Pluck out her bloody image from his bloody eyes. With her ‘indeed-Mr-Camerons’ as if she addressed a packman, and holes in her kirtle. Her arms about poor Sir Lemuel in the bridewell, hollering like a banshee at the warden. She had courage, he’d give her that. And well favoured. But no longer would she be beef nor brase of his.
Usually a considerate rider, Archibald Cameron applied his spurs to his lathering horse. ‘Get on, will ye? A pudding could creep faster.’
‘Ha til mi tulidh. Let the piper play. I return no more.’
What made him crosser yet was the knowledge that he would.
Cecily, too, retired in resentment. What was Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba that he should buy her the Belle? If he had. Which she doubted. But if he had…
For Lemuel, Dolly said. Lemuel had put work his way, so perhaps it was his due. But that still left Lady Cecily squirming in the debt of a pedantic, puritanical, pen-pushing North Briton in a fox-coloured wig. Lecturing her on morality.
She was satisfied on one point: he wasn’t going to give her away. Nevertheless, she found it difficult to sleep.
The next coach she and Tyler stopped was on the Essex road, outside Stansted Abbots. Cecily was passing behind the row of passengers, collecting the filch. Tyler was holding the reins of her mare, his pistol trained on the line.
There was a shot. The mare screamed and bucked. Another shot. Cecily heard the whip of the bullet over her head before it hit the coach roof coping. Tyler was struggling to hold the mare, shouting, ‘Epasky, epasky.’ Escape.
As she pushed aside two passengers to get to her horse, one of them stuck his leg between the two of hers and brought her down. They rolled on the ground. Then a louder shot made his body jerk on top of her and go slack. She pushed him off and scrambled to her feet, clawing away a woman who clutched at her coat. She ran, bent double, to Tyler. Still holding a smoking pistol in his right hand, he hoisted her behind him with his left, and they were away. The mare, loose, cantered behind them.
Another shot spurted twigs up from the ground as they entered the trees.
When they stopped at last, they were panting into a forest silence that covered them like ointment. Cecily slid off, held on to a tree and vomited down its trunk. Tyler was swearing, patting her back and asking if she was hurt.
She wiped her mouth. ‘What happened?’
‘…prick-scouring, cunt-itching, crack-fishing, bun-buttering…’
‘What happened?’
‘Padders. They was down the road waiting for the jack, I reckon. The shots were angled. We must’ve been on their patch.’
‘Bastards. They could have killed us.’
‘Bloody near did. And I dropped one of me pistols.’
‘The bleeder fighting me, they shot him. He could be dead.’
“That was me. I shot him.’
‘For God’s sake, why?’
‘Some bugger had to do something and you weren’t shooting him.’
‘No.’ It hadn’t occurred to her. ‘We aren’t in the pad to kill people.’
‘Ain’t in it to be killed, neither.’
Tyler was soothing the mare. He walked into a patch of moonlight and regarded his hand, which was shining black. ‘She’s got a bullet in her shoulder. Well have to walk her home.’
It was twelve miles through the forest avoiding Hertford. Steady walking took the shake from Cecily’s legs. She felt an abject dreariness: it was possible that a man, who had been living, was dead. Because of her.
Tyler had done the only thing he could if she were not to have been killed by the bleeder himself, the rival padders, or the hangman.
But, she was forced to admit, the bleeder had been within his rights too. A fool, but within his rights. Not a big man, not one used to violence; he’d merely scrabbled at her. I’d have got away from him. My knee in his whats-its would have done it.
She’d felt his desperation when he’d clawed at her; could hear the sobbing scream in his breath as they’d struggled together on the ground.
For the first time she realized how awful it was to be robbed. Her victims weren’t Walpoles after all, but ordinary men and women suffering indignity and loss. Perhaps the bleeder who’d attacked her couldn’t afford to give up the filch she’d taken from him, perhaps it was his total savings, money to pay his rent and keep a roof over his children. And now he could be dead.
As Cecily walked through the forest, its trees assumed the bent shapes of widows evicted from their homes.
I was evicted from mine, she told them. Your man should have stood in line like he was told. But they answered in the voice of the Scotsman: ‘Ye’ll terrorize innocent folk and steal their living rather than earn your own.’ Now, perhaps, she had killed.
Her high adventure was over, she knew. It had fallen sick. No more to be one of Diana’s foresters, a gentleman of the shade, a minion of the moon. It turned out she never had been; it was just a killing game.
(When she learned two days later that the bleeder was recovering from a scalp wound, Cecily walked up to Datchworth church and knelt in it for a long time.)
The mare was anaesthetized by shock for the first few miles; after that it took all the two of them could do to persuade her. The dawn had come up by the time they reached Woolmer Green and they had to wait among the trees for an opportunity to cross the road to the inn without being seen by the traffic.
As they waited, Cecily regarded her inn. The windows of the taproom were glazed now and blinked at her in the first rays of sun. She saw in them the wink of the Scottish lawyer to whom she would now have to send a grovelling letter and a request.
‘Tyler,’ she said, heavily, ’it’s time we tried our hand at an honest trade.’
Chapter Seven
Where God, through His Son, said: Blessed are the Poor…
…and where the Middle Ages backed Him up: Blessed are the Poor and those who relieve their poverty…
…and where the Tudors said: True, the Poor are blessed but they shouldn’t run all over the place, threatening the peace with their begging and rioting; it is Christian duty to make sure they don’t starve and it is also politic that the parishes levy a Poor Rate to look after those who can’t work and find employment for those that can. Oh, and whip the vagrants…
…and where the Stuarts didn’t say anything…
…it was Sir Robert Walpole’s Whigs who were the first to make the discovery that there were no Poor, just lazy, immoral men and women breeding on the Poor Rate – using the tax to get drunk, finding it more advantageous to accept parish charity than work for manufacturers, the creators of the country’s wealth. Admittedly, manufacturers couldn’t pay much but, if they offered what the Poor regarded as a living wage, it would cut down England’s competitiveness with France in foreign markets.
The Whigs lived in the real world.
As Bernard Mandeville, a student of human nature, pointed out at this time in a tract on Charity Schools, there was no gain in educating the Poor. Every hour they spent at school was so much time lost to Society. If they were to endure a life of labour, the sooner they were put to it the more patiently they’d submit to it ever after.
Parish overseers did their best. Women about to give birth to a child likely to be a drain on the rate – and whose father wasn’t a parishione
r – were bundled across the parish boundary to be somebody else’s concern.
In London orphaned and deserted babies were put into the charge of nurses under whose care three-quarters of them obligingly saved their cost of two shillings a week by dying.
Despite all this, the parish rates, like crime, continued to rise and the Poor insisted on remaining poor.
In the countryside, expanding landowners grew tired of thatched cottages littering their estates. They wanted to look out on parks and gardens designed by Kent or Bridgeman and on Palladio’s temples. Intent on a literary and pictorial panorama, they moved hills, dammed streams, excavated lakes and grottoes and changed in a trice a landscape that had grown slowly over a thousand years under the care of woodsmen and farmers. Villages and hamlets were razed and their inhabitants dispossessed. The village of Edensor was moved to improve the view from Chatsworth, the village of Henderskelt levelled to make the south front of Castle Howard.
When Sir Robert Walpole began pulling down the Elizabethan home he’d inherited from his father and building instead a Palladian mansion such as had never before been seen in Norfolk, his Houghton villagers were commanded out of their homes and sent away, their furniture piled on wains and handcarts, their eyes looking back on the gimcrack cottages that had occupied the site as long as memory ran.
Where did they go? It didn’t matter. Sir Robert and the rest had an uninterrupted view, that was the main thing. Peasants never could appreciate classical beauty.
Perhaps they went to join the indigenous families of the forests who made a living by taking such deer as wandered into their cottage purlieus, trapping wild coneys, fish, using wood they could reach by hook and by crook, digging turves.
The forest people called these activities ancient rights and privileges granted to their ancestors by the barons of the Middle Ages.
The new Whiggish landowners called them poaching.
This wasn’t the first time the word ‘poor’ had been associated with the word ‘criminal’, though the two were now virtually synonymous. But it took the genius of the prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, to add a subtler, equally panic-bearing, connotation – ‘Jacobite’.
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