Death of a Radical Read online

  “They all have their faults, don’t they? The quality. And she is quality—whatever they might say,” she stated. “I say she’s got no harm to her. As often as not she keeps herself to herself and her books.” Arethusa drew out the last word with a humorous emphasis to underline the strangeness of such a preoccupation.

  “She’s put up with Ben Tully for more than a twelve-month. Why choose this day to turn him out? Eeah! That’s a mystery. Mayhap her boo-ooks carry the answer!”

  “I have a taste for books myself,” said Jonas. The cheese had a soft tang about it that was not entirely unpleasant. He cut a thicker slice.

  “You canna read!”

  “I can.”

  “Well now!” exclaimed Arethusa, rolling her shoulders to giggle coquettishly over her plumped-up breasts. “I’d never take you for a reading lad. So you’s looking to settle, then?” Jonas took note of the softening look in the cook’s eye. He pushed back his empty plate.

  “Looking for work. So these fairs—it’s not just wool then?”

  “Nay. Leather and sheep and horned cattle too. They come from all over. Second day, mistress gives us the day off. So will you be staying?”

  Jonas stood up. “That was grand. Thanking you, cook. Now, if you’ll point me to this barn your mistress spoke of, I’ll turn in.”

  Arethusa led him to the barn. She was inclined to linger until a girl came with a message that the mistress was waiting on her and Jonas was finally left in peace.

  The lantern Arethusa had provided burned with a steady light. Outside the wind buffeted the stone walls of the barn. It had been near a year since he had completed his apprenticeship and left his grandfather’s house in Leeds. It was the only home he could remember with any clarity. He had been nothing but a youngster at the time of his father’s death, when his mother had returned to her kin. In his mind’s eye he could see his grandfather—neatly dressed and strong-looking for all he was over sixty—sitting in his ladder-backed chair reading in the firelight. His calm eyes were looking at him, magnified by the round glass of his wire-rimmed spectacles.

  “All men are equal when they can read, Jonas lad. In books a man may find the wisdom of the best of his fellows—living and dead. A reading man’s never alone for he has the company of philosophers, poets and other great men.”

  Smiling, Jonas rolled himself in his blanket, pulled a leather-bound book from his pack and, stretching out by the lantern, began to read.

  The barn door dragged on the floor and a gust of icy air invaded his sanctuary. Miss Lippett entered, wind-tossed and holding up a lantern.

  “Did I not tell you no fires, sirrah!” Jonas scrambled to his feet.

  “Beg pardon mistress but the lantern’s safe. See. I’ve cleared a space—and there’s water should there be some accident.”

  Miss Lippett strode up. In the pool of light that illuminated the floor Jonas noticed that she was wearing a man’s riding boots. Her fierce gaze swept his corner. Every wisp of hay had been cleared from a neat circle about the lantern and a bucket of water stood within arm’s reach. She saw the crumpled blanket and the book.

  “Do you read, journeyman? Far be it from me to stop a man reading his Bible.”

  Jonas bent down to pick up the precious book. “In honesty mistress, this is not the Holy Book.”

  “It is not? What does a shoe-maker read, then?” Her thin hand snatched the book from him. “Mr. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall!” She stared at him round-eyed. “What matter can a journeyman take from the history of the Roman Empire?”

  “The same matter that any man may, mistress.”

  She half smiled, then suspicion flooded up.

  “Did you steal this? Do you mean to sell it me? You have heard I am a scholar no doubt.”

  “No ma’am!” He saw her draw herself up. “I mean, no, I did not steal the book, mistress—your cook’s told me you’re a learned lady. The book’s mine—it was given to me by my mother’s master. A reverend gentleman who’s shown me great kindness.”

  “Well,” she tossed the book back to him. “It is but an odd volume of a broken set.”

  “So it is, mistress. But to me it’s also a precious companion.”

  A faint longing softened Miss Lippett’s expression. She reached out and tapped the book lightly.

  “Indeed, some books are precious companions.” She stepped back abruptly, her back ramrod straight. “Some fool is forever telling me that a woman’s wit is too paltry to benefit from book learning. Who am I, then, to say a shoe-maker may not improve himself so?”

  “It was my own mother who first taught me to read, mistress. She’s a great reader and a fine woman.”

  It may have been the wind chapping her cheeks, but Miss Lippett looked quite pink in the lantern light.

  “Well. You mind that lantern. If you suit me, I may have a day or two’s work for you here. I happen to be short a man and do not find it convenient to search me out a new hireling this week.”

  It was just before ten o’clock on the night of the twenty-seventh of February when Mrs. Watson heard the dog barking in Powcher’s Lane. She unlatched her window and smelt smoke. She glimpsed a glow through the stripped winter branches of the Bedfords’ orchard and raised the alarm. By good fortune, Robert Mouncey, the saddler at the top of the lane, and a couple of his neighbors, weavers laying by stock for the upcoming fairs, were also up late. The response was swift. The Bedfords’ home was the one house of substance in the working quarter of Woolbridge. (Mr. Bedford—despite his wife’s objections—insisted that he reside within sight of his mill.) Had the fire jumped the stable wall it might have ripped through the crowded lanes and caught the better part of the neighborhood sleeping. As it was, the fire was put out before the stable block was properly alight.

  Amid the remnants of a straw mattress the fire fighters found the scorched remains of Michael White, the Bedfords’ coachman. He lay stretched out, a brandy bottle by him and an overturned lamp. He had been a solitary drinker and a foreigner, not known in the Dale. Mr. Bedford had hired him in Leeds. It was said that White had taken the brandy from his employer’s cellar. It had not been the first such transgression. The sinner, it seemed, had suffered the consequences of his sins. Neighbors remarked on the charity of Mr. Bedford who, despite the damage and the inconvenience caused by the careless manner of his servant’s demise, nonetheless paid for the burial and a stone marker in the churchyard.

  Michael White had no family. No one claimed him as a friend. His few belongings were fire damaged and disposed of. Saul, Mrs. Watson’s youngest, a sturdy, useful lad of eight, was the one person who retained a memento of his passing. While assisting the carpenter summoned to repair the loft, the boy discovered a sooty button with a curious raised cable border. He rubbed it on his sleeve, thinking it silver. He showed it to his master, who advised he throw it away, for what use was a scorched button? Saul, however, kept it. He called it the Burned Man’s button and on occasion he would display it to other boys, his particular friends, and thereby gained considerable credit among his circle.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Frederick Raif Jarrett strode across the marketplace toward the Queen’s Head. There was anticipation in the air beneath the steely skies. The first herd had arrived at Woolbridge. A group of drovers with their broad-brimmed hats, heavy coats and long staffs were gathered around a brazier. The Easter Fairs were approaching, marking the end of winter and bringing trade and diversion to the town.

  Jarrett had always considered himself an even-tempered man but he had been cross for days. A few months previously he had assumed management of the Duke of Penrith’s northern estates more by accident than design. In his military days he had endured many wet and cold weeks in the saddle in a cheerful spirit. He had survived asinine superiors, incompetent allies and enemy ambush, but that day he could not recall feeling so put out of sorts by anything as one and three-quarter hours spent in the company of Mr. Hilton of High Top.

  Mr. Hilton was a sociable m
an; a principal tenant of the duke’s and a leading light of the Woolbridge Agricultural Society. He had sought out the duke’s agent to inquire whether his Grace might be inclined to contribute to a subscription being raised among agriculturalists in the neighborhood to engage Mr. Colling of Alnwick to bring his fabled bull, Cupid, to stand at Woolbridge and improve the stock in the Dale. That subject had been speedily settled but a good hour and a half passed before Mr. Jarrett was able to shake himself free near two whole hours wasted breathing the stifling exhalations of his beasts while Mr. Hilton made conversation.

  In the Dale everyone knew one another’s business. What they did not know, they speculated. Jarrett’s head was ringing with snatches about Mr. Hilton’s preference for fish, soggy bottoms (“that piece down there by the beck, it’s a trial”), pockmarked trees, Mrs. Anders’s arthritis and our Dot’s knees (“a canny milker our Dot”). Or was it Mrs. Anders’s knees and the cow suffering the arthritis? He longed to ride away, set sail, chop some wood—any simple exercise of action: clean, clear, wordless action with direction and a point to it.

  And now he was late. The Queen’s Head rose before him. The inn had sat comfortably at the southern end of the market opposite the church for more than a hundred years. For the last twenty it had been in the capable hands of Jasper Bedlington and Polly, his wife. The magistrates met there; the Agricultural Society, the Box Society; the Odd Fellows held dinners there and every quarter dances were mounted in the convenient assembly rooms on the first floor. The oppression of respectability seemed to crowd in on him as he marched under the coach arch. He took off his hat to run an impatient hand through his corn-blond hair. Could this really be his life?

  “Mr. Jarrett! There you are!” Mrs. Bedlington, the publican’s wife, called out from the kitchen door. “Colonel Ison’s upstairs in my best private, when you’re ready.”

  “Damn the man,” Jarrett muttered to himself. “Good morning Mrs. B. You didn’t hear that, did you?”

  She screwed up her face in a comical expression of sympathy. She was a good woman. He smiled back.

  Colonel Ison was Member of Parliament and the leading local magistrate. A compact man with restless eyes under heavy black brows, he was ever busy in the public interest—especially in so far as it coincided with his high estimation of his own importance. This morning he was in his costume as Colonel of the Woolbridge and Gainford Volunteers. It was the habit of the commanders of such companies to design their own uniforms. Ison’s was not as extravagant as some.

  “Am I not to have the pleasure of Lord Charles’s company today?” The colonel looked over the agent’s shoulder as he greeted him.

  “The Marquess of Earewith is out of town,” Mr. Jarrett replied. For him this was something of a relief. Charles had been keeping him company for months. He could see, however, that the colonel was disappointed.

  “Might I know when his lordship is to return?”

  “I am not informed of his plans.” When Charles had left he had been more than usually mysterious. Jarrett suspected he was up to something; as perhaps the marquess’s closest friend, he was resigned. Having no duties or responsibilities to speak of, my lord often took pleasure in preparing surprises with which to ambush his intimates.

  Colonel Ison expelled a hard little sigh. He was a man who relied upon the security of rank and the rank of Mr. Jarrett eluded him. On the one hand, Mr. Jarrett was the duke’s man of business: a trusted agent but still a servant and as such the social inferior of a magistrate and Member of Parliament. And yet, Mr. Jarrett was intimate with the duke’s family, in particular with his Grace’s son and heir, the Marquess of Earewith. The colonel being a mere public acquaintance, the most aristocratic family in the district and their circle had not seen fit to elucidate the mystery. The ambiguity of the precise nature of Mr. Jarrett’s connection with the ducal family, therefore, rankled. Whenever he was with his Grace’s agent Colonel Ison had the obscure feeling that someone was making a fool of him.

  “Domestic peace is most precious in time of war,” the colonel pronounced. He thrust a pamphlet at Jarrett, planting his feet to stand four-square. “Civilization itself rests upon it. As I told the Home Secretary in the lobby last week, we need decisive action, a firm hand.”

  Jarrett took the proffered paper and looked down at it, wondering by what unlucky chance he should have been selected for this particular address. The British had been at war with the French for the best part of his adult life, and there was still no end in sight, but Ison was the worst kind of armchair warrior. A part-time soldier, he had never faced a real enemy in his life. He was, in consequence, at the same time loudly bellicose and fearful. Jarrett turned over the document in his hand. It was printed on thin parliamentary paper, GEORGIII REGIS, CAP.XVII in bold print on its cover: An Act for the more effectual Preservation of the Peace, by enforcing the Duties of Watching and Warding.

  “What manner of action, sir?”

  “Disturbances are in preparation for the Easter Fairs, I am sure of it.” The magistrate swayed a fraction toward him, deploying his formidable eyebrows to add weight to his words. “I am certain of it.”

  “I have heard nothing locally, colonel,” Jarrett responded mildly. In his past life Raif Jarrett had had considerable experience of undercover work. He prided himself on his intelligence. Mr. Hilton was the greatest gossip in the neighborhood and as far as Jarrett could recall, his best piece of news had been Mrs. Anders’s arthritis (that and an obscure anecdote about some newly discovered fungus that pockmarked trees).

  “Foreign agitators!” the words were expelled from the colonel’s lips. “It is a matter of outside agents.”

  “You can’t mean the French?”

  The colonel tweaked one gold-braided cuff impatiently. “You can be sure our enemy will benefit.”

  Britain being an island, French agents were not that common an occurrence. Jarrett could think of nothing that might tempt them to their isolated neighborhood. There were no munitions factories, no important barracks or prison camps and Woolbridge was miles from the coast. He wondered briefly if the colonel was drunk. He scanned the polished surfaces of Mrs. B’s best parlor. There was no liquor in evidence.

  “My dear sir …” he began.

  “Intelligence, Mr. Jarrett; I have intelligence!” snapped the colonel. His cheeks flushed red. “There are rumors … Radicals. Insurgents.” He straightened his shoulders a fraction as if bracing himself. The agent’s expression was unreadable. He seemed entirely unmoved.

  Jarrett was aware of the incidents of machine breaking in recent months. The worst of it had been down in Nottinghamshire. Stockings and serges formed a principal part of Woolbridge’s manufacture, but the methods of the local masters were traditional. “We have no steammills here,” he objected. “Our weavers have no new machines to break.”

  He heard the breath rush through the colonel’s nose.

  “If I could relate to you all that I have been privy to, Mr. Jarrett,” Ison exclaimed irritably. “Only last Friday I was speaking with Yorkshire members in Westminster—manufacturing districts to the south of us have suffered more than the odd broken frame. There is coordination sir and the canker is spreading—how else may a stocking knitter in Nottingham find common cause with a West Yorkshire cropper? They both sing songs of General Ludd! We face a great conspiracy, sir: one that threatens not only property but perhaps the very security of the state!”

  Jarrett stared into the wide-opened eyes in the empurpled face. The man seemed genuinely moved. He wondered if the colonel had some particular reason for his concern.

  “Is one of our manufacturers bringing in new machines?” he ventured.

  “Men of property must be allowed to carry on their business.” The colonel looked away and cleared his throat. His attention fixed on a painted box lying askew on a side table. He straightened it.

  “The matter under discussion, Mr. Jarrett, is the preservation of the public peace. I have called you here as a courtesy.
Please inform his Grace that I am calling on my fellow magistrates to enact the Act. I have already requested assistance. I am expecting a troop under the command of Lieutenant Roberts.”

  “You’ve called in the regulars?” exclaimed Jarrett, startled. The country had been through two bad winters; people were tired of the war and the price of bread was high. But as far as he could tell from his rides up and down, the local populace in this isolated dale were as they had always been—not entirely law-abiding as far as the strict letter but loyal subjects of their king. The only reason he could see to use the Act to call in a troop of regulars to this out-of-the-way district would be to strengthen the magistrate’s hand—but to what purpose?

  “The Easter Fairs draw thousands to Woolbridge, who knows what villains concealed among them,” the colonel was saying.

  “Surely our militia is sufficient to contain any—”

  “They are not sufficient to this!” the colonel cut him off.

  Jarrett had experience of what a bored troop of battle-hardened regulars could do to a town. He had a profound distaste of martial law.

  “But you know how the regulars are disliked,” he persisted.

  “We are at war,” the colonel stated fatuously.

  Jarrett felt a powerful urge to take a swing at the man. For a glorious moment he imagined the startled look on the MP’s face at finding himself on his ass in the hearth. Instead he turned away and leaned on the mantel. A log had rolled out. He kicked it back into place with rather more energy than the task required. In selling out he had thought to regain his independence. And yet, here he was again forced to watch the follies of his self-styled superiors unfold. He wanted to leave that room. Ride away and never come back. His eye was drawn to the mirror above the fireplace. The reflection of the self-important little man behind him dominated the scene. The neighborhood had two powerful magistrates, the one vain and ambitious, the other ambitious and corrupt. Fortunately the pair despised one another. Had it been the latter—Jarrett’s old opponent Raistrick—who was seeking to acquire an armed troop, the duke’s interest and every other interest in Woolbridge would be at risk. Ison was a blowhard but he cared what other men of standing thought of him. That should keep the colonel within bounds, Jarrett told himself; this was none of his business.