As curricle and horse drew up side by side on the wide carriage sweep, the big doors of Hawth Hall swung open and Parsons came majestically out to greet his master. “Welcome home, my lord. Mrs. Warrender begs that you and Mr. Warrender will join her in the morning room.”
“Morning room?” asked his lordship.
“Her late ladyship’s, my lord. In the west wing.”
“God damn it, Parsons. You think I do not know where my mother’s morning room was! But whether it’s habitable is something else again.”
“You will find a few changes, my lord. Mr. Warrender,” he came, surprisingly, down from the sloping steps to speak to Kate, with his back momentarily to his master. “Mrs. Warrender says not to worry. James!” raising his voice. “Make yourself useful for once. Take Mr. Warrender’s horse.” And was, somehow, between her and Lord Hawth as she dismounted.
That was a dangerous bridge crossed, but this time there could be no question of keeping on her greatcoat. She had to surrender it to a footman’s willing hands, breathe a silent prayer and follow Lord Hawth down the long corridor that led to the west wing. Striding forward in formidable silence, his lordship cast, from time to time, a quick glance this way or that Gleaming paint and shining wood challenged comment. He said nothing. Well, thought Kate, why should he? It was not Miss Kate but Mr. Kit Warrender who was following him.
The morning room was half lit by the afterglow of the sunset and smelled of lavender and beeswax. Rising to receive them, Mrs. Warrender looked pale, frightened, but not surprised. “Welcome home, your lordship.” Her curtsy was graceful as a girl’s. “I am so glad you have met Mr. Warrender. He has doubtless told you what he has been doing.”
“Interfering in my affairs, I collect. No, we did not choose to discuss the matter on the open road.”
“Very proper.” She smiled her approval and gestured them to chairs. “So you do not know that I had Mr. Bott here this morning. Looking for you, of course. We—I sent for you urgently. You have, perhaps, met the messenger?”
“No. Merely came home sooner than I intended. So—what brought Mr. Bott here so urgently?”
“Trouble.” She described Bott’s errand briefly. “In your absence, he seemed to think Mr. Warrender might have a chance of making the men see reason. Did they?” She turned to Kate, colouring suddenly at the problem of what to call her.
“They won’t burn the mill down tonight,” said Kate.
“Burn the mill!” exclaimed Hawth. “Destroy their own livelihood! Are they off their heads?”
“Pretty well, I think,” Kate told him. “And a stranger’s there from London who can make them dance to his tune in a way I don’t much like. He got me a hearing. Ludd, he’s called. Ned Ludd.”
“And you harangued them on my behalf? And expect me to be grateful?”
“Oh, no,” said Kate. “I most certainly don’t expect that.”
“Though, mind you.” Mrs. Warrender had picked up a piece of embroidery and was stitching away at it in the failing light. “I did think it good of Mr. Warrender to ride down and confront the mob for you. As I recollect, the mill is really quite profitable in a good year.”
“So why do the idiots want to burn it?”
“More profitable to you than to them,” said Mrs. Warrender. “I’ve had servants with family there … heard stories I’d not dream of repeating to you.”
“Afraid of shocking me?” His laugh was harsh. “If things are so bad there, ma’am, and you knew it, why didn’t you speak to your husband?”
“Oh, I did.” She left it at that.
He was silent, disconcerted for a moment, then turned to Kate. “So what did you say to those numbskulls?”
“Told them I was sure you had no intention of closing the mill.”
“Closing! What lunacy is this?”
“You went down and made a speech there the other day. Your first visit? Perhaps not the ideal moment to threaten sackings if times did not improve. Gave the man from London a golden opportunity to make trouble. And—he’s made it. You’re going to be so angry when I tell you their demands that I’m plumb scared how to set about it.”
“You sound it! So—to the worst of it. What promises have you made on my behalf?”
“Why, none. What right had I? Or, yes, I promised I’d bear their errand, which I suppose means I’d see to it you listened.”
“I’m listening.” With every exchange Hawth had come nearer to explosion point.
Mrs. Warrender jumped to her feet, letting embroidery silks fall where they would. “How could I be so stupid!” A vigorous pull at the bell. “You must both be parched with thirst. And hungry, too, I have no doubt. My dear father always said business went better over a glass of wine.” A warning glance reminded Kate that she, like Hawth, must rise to her feet when a lady did.
By the time Parsons had ushered in a smartly clad footman with refreshments, the atmosphere had cleared perceptibly. Lord Hawth actually admitted to being hungry, congratulated Mrs. Warrender on the speedy service she commanded, and, reminded of his position as host, took wine with his young guest.
Kate was glad of the nourishing draft of burgundy. “I said you weren’t going to like this.” She plunged in, without further ado, to detail the rioters’ demands.
“And if I refuse?” Hawth was looking black again.
“Various threats. The mill first. Then—some want to burn your barns, attack your carriage. And—I’m sorry—there were threats to the children.”
“The children? What have they to do with anything?”
“The suggestion was that they should be kidnapped, sent to work in a mill in the north country. I took the liberty of explaining you wouldn’t much care if they were.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” Lord Hawth overrode Mrs. Warrender’s horrified exclamation. “Taking a liberty, weren’t you, boy?”
Kate finished her wine and rose to her feet. Any minute now, the candles must be lit. Time to be going. “It seemed a useful moment to tell the truth,” she said. “And now, my lord, I have given you the message I was charged with, and will take my leave.” She bowed over her mother’s hand. “Many thanks for the loan of your daughter’s horse, Mrs. Warrender.”
It brought Hawth, still scowling, to his feet. “But how will you get home? You must take one of mine.” It was the nearest he could get to apology or thanks.
“No, thanks. I’ve not far to go.” She saw with relief that it was Parsons who had answered her mother’s summons.
“This way.” Once safe outside the morning room, he led her through a maze of stairs and passages that got her unobserved to her own room.
Thanking him. “How many of you know?” she asked.
“Only me and Betty, miss. Mrs. Warrender was so good as to tell me, to ask my help. Told not to light the candles. It won’t go no further, miss.”
“Thank you.” Alone in her room, she made the quickest possible change into her governess’s drab, then hesitated. To meet Lord Hawth again so soon was to court recognition and disaster, and yet to leave her poor mother alone with him? But she thought she had best do so.
Her poor mother was letting Lord Hawth pick up her embroidery silks. When he had quite finished, she asked him prettily for just a drop more cordial. Then, having urged him to replenish his own glass, she smiled warmly at him. “Awkward, isn’t it?” she said.
“Awkward! I don’t know which is worse: to be told my own business by a boy young enough to be my son, or to have to take orders from a pack of rascally millhands.”
“They’ve had a hard time,” she said. “My lord,” hesitantly. “Could you bear a word of advice from me?”
“From you!” For a moment she thought she had precipitated the explosion at last. Then, surprisingly, he dissolved into harsh laughter. “Well, for God’s sake, why not? I’ve had it from everyone else. What advice have you to offer, ma’am, that I haven’t had pressed down and running over already.”
She took a deep breath. Then: “Get rid of Tom Bowles,” she said.
“Tom Bowles? And who the hell is he?”
She smiled at him kindly. “You are a stranger, aren’t you? Tom Bowles runs the shop down at Tidemills.”
“Oh? Cooking the books, eh?”
“That’s your affair. I expect he is. I always thought so. That’s between you and him. Do you know how the hands are paid?”
“Paid? Weekly, I suppose.”
“No, no.” Patiently. “I can see you don’t know. They don’t get money, my lord. They get tickets on the shop.”
“Convenient. It’s the only shop for miles, isn’t it?”
“Yes. So they are tied two ways. And what do you think they get? Mouldy bacon for the price of best. Meat that’s nothing but bone. Cheese all rind. Do you know what happened last time a king’s ship had her salt beef condemned down at the harbour?”
“Tom Bowles bought it.”
At Warren House next afternoon the Tidemills riot was being discussed, too. George Warren had ordered out a horse with the intention of riding the bounds of the sadly diminished estate he had inherited under the entail. An arduous morning spent with Mr. Futherby and his documents had left him with a pretty good idea of his boundaries and a passionate desire for fresh air. But the groom who brought out the horse he had selected from the Warren House stables looked anxious.
“You won’t go down into the valley, sir?”
“I don’t mean to. But why not?”
“There’s trouble there, bad trouble One of the girls was down to visit her ma and came back in tears.”
“Oh?” Warren paused in the act of throwing his leg over the horse’s back. “What happened? And why was I not told?”
“I don’t rightly know what happened, sir. As to telling … well … I suppose Chilver … The old master didn’t reckon much to what happened to us.”
“Well, I do. Walk the horse for me, will you? I shan’t be long.” He was getting used to having the front door of his house swing open as he approached. “Send me Chilver,” he told the footman who held it. “To the study.” And, when Chilver appeared: “What’s this about one of the girls coming back from the Tidemills in tears?”
“It was Lucy, sir. Lucy Penfold. Her mother lives down in the village. Father’s dead, younger brother works in the mills. The old lady’s—quite old. Mrs. Warrender gave permission, sir, when Lucy came here to work, for her to go home once a week and make sure all was well with her ma. I’m sorry, sir, I should have asked.”
“Nonsense,” said George Warren. “Of course the girl should go. What I want to know is why she came back in tears.”
Chilver looked unhappy. “I don’t rightly know, sir.”
“If you don’t know, you should, and if you don’t want to tell, you’re a fool. Send the girl to me, Chilver, if she’s feeling up to it.”
“Oh, as to that. She’s only an under housemaid.”
“So has no feelings? She’s a woman, isn’t she?” He sighed. “I see I must look about me for a housekeeper. And in the meantime, Chilver, everything that goes on in the house is my affair.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll fetch Lucy, sir.”
Lucy was a surprise. Hardly more than a child, she was rapidly growing into a beautiful woman, would have been one already, Warren thought, if recent tears had not blotched the peaches-and-cream complexion. A golden curl escaped from under a hastily donned mob-cap, and she clutched her neckerchief round her shoulders with a desperate, dirty little hand.
“You’re Lucy Penfold.”
She had bobbed her curtsy and was casting a frightened glance round the study.
“Yes, sir.” Another curtsy.
“No need to be afraid. I merely wanted to know what happened to you down in the village.”
“Ooh, it was dreadful, sir.” The strong local accent was a disappointment coming from her delicately shaped mouth. “But I mustn’t tell, surely. He said if I told, things would be much worse for ma. And they’re that bad already, sir, with two mouths to feed on a boy’s wages. I … I wish now I’d let him, sir. Anything. He’s good to them as does. Everyone knows that. I meant to, honest I did, sir, but then, when he got me in the back room of the shop, all among the flour sacks, I couldn’t, sir. I scratched his face and ran for it. And he came after me, down the back lane, saying such things! I don’t know what he won’t do to ma, sir. And if my brother Johnny hears of it, he’ll try and fight him and get killed, most like. Or transported. Oh, sir,” she put her hands to her mouth, “now I’ve told you. Oh what will become of us!”
George Warren stared at her, hardly able to believe what her incoherent speech seemed to suggest. “You mean, the shop keeper, down at the Tidemills—he attacked you?”
“Yes, sir. Tom Bowles. But not to say attacked, sir, not really. See, it’s a known thing. He invites you into the back room, you go: vittles is better for the family. Only, I didn’t seem able, sir, not when it came to the point And now what’ll happen to ma and Johnny?”
“Did you tell your mother what had happened?”
“Oh, no, sir. I couldn’t. I was late already, see. I run all the way back here. If I lost this job we’d be in the basket and no mistake. Ooh …” She had suddenly remembered to whom she was talking.
“Never mind,” he said soothingly, suspecting that his American accent had made her forget his position as her employer. “You’d surely not have lost your job just for being late?”
“Ooh, wouldn’t I just! Chilver’s powerful strict, sir.”
“I shall most certainly have to get a housekeeper.” Warren picked up his beaver hat and whip. “Now, quit fretting, child. I’ll ride down to Tidemills and have a word with Mr. Bowles. And your mother, if you like.”
“Ooh, sir. Would you really?”
“Yes, I really would. Now, off you go, wash your face and stop worrying.”
Chilver was hovering in the hall. “I’m riding down to Tidemills.” Warren could not quite keep a hint of definance out of his voice.
“I wish you wouldn’t, sir. Or wait till Mr. Futherby can accompany you.”
“No. But I’ll take a groom if it makes you happier.”
“Yes, indeed, sir. Barnes would be best, sir. He was born at Tidemills.”
“And got away as soon as he could, eh?”
“That’s about the size of it Sir?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll … you’ll watch yourself? There was bad trouble down there yesterday. God knows what things are like today. And I hear Lord Hawth’s back.”
“What’s that to the purpose?”
“They’re his mills, sir.”
“As if I’d forget that!” But it was with some slight, strange feeling of crossing a Rubicon that he jumped his horse over the hedge at the bottom of the long meadow that marked the boundary between his land and the fields Charles Warrender had lost to Lord Hawth along with the village of Tidemills itself.
At the village, everything seemed normal enough, with the splash and swish of the huge mill wheels speaking of work in progress, and women and small children here and there in the sandy street But the shop, when they reached it, was closed, with a padlock on the door and a note in huge capitals: BACK WHEN I PLEASE.
“He’ll be out collecting bad debts,” explained Barnes.
“Then we had better hurry to Mrs. Penfold’s house.”
“It’s at the far end, sir. By the mill yard.”
That explained why Lucy had not even paused to warn her mother of trouble to come. Riding on down the narrow street, Warren began to fear that it had come already. There was too much noise at this end of the village. “What’s going on?” he turned to ask Barnes over his shoulder.
“It’ll be the day shift, sir, just out. Mill works twenty hours a day, see. They hold back the tide, so’s to turn the wheels long as they can. So: two ten hours’ shifts. Depending on the tide.”
“Long shifts.”
“Yessir. Oh, blimey, a mill!” They had turned the corner into the yard where a rough circle of men had formed round a central space.
“A mill? Oh!” he recognized the unfamiliar term. “A fight, you mean?”
“Looks more like murder to me,” said Barnes. “Young Johnny Penfold and Tom Bowles as can whip any two men in the village, and does, if they so much as breathe a complaint. He’ll slaughter him, sir. He enjoys it, does Tom Bowles.”
“Does he so? Keep close to me.” George Warren pushed his horse through the crowd, which opened readily enough, assuming that the gentry had come to watch the fun. From their comments as he urged his horse forward, Warren, gathered that several rounds of the uneven contest had already been fought, and the betting was now on how many more young Johnny Penfold would, survive. Reaching the edge of the circle, Warren drew a horrified breath. At one end of the improvised ring, a huge man was sluicing his bare, muscular back from a bucket held for him by willing hands. At the other, a fair-haired boy was crouched in the dust, blood pouring from above his right eye, trying vainly to wipe it from his face with his own floury shirt.
Tom Bowles wiped his face with a towel handed by another pair of eager hands. “Ready!” He moved forward into the ring, with the delicate, assured movements of a professional fighter.
“Ready it is,” said a man at the far side of the ring whose clothes, less floury than everyone else’s, suggested he did not work in the mill. “Come on out of there, young Johnny, if you’re coming.”
“I’m coming.” The boy flung down the bloodstained shirt and rose shakily to his feet.
“Foul!” George Warren rode forward into the ring. And then, as Bowles and the referee gazed at him in open-mouthed astonishment; “What kind of British fair play is this? Who seconds the boy?”
“No one would, sir,” explained the referee. “Not no how. Not against Tom Bowles.”
“Well, he’s got seconds now. Hold my horse, Barnes.” He dismounted and crossed the ring to where Johnny stood, weaving on his feet, helplessly brushing blood from his eyes. After one look, “He’s not fit to go on,” he said. “Is there a doctor in the village?”
“Lord, no,” said the referee. “You’ll be Mr. Warren from the house.” A glance somewhere between servility and scorn took in the ill-fitting buckskins that were the best Mr. Snipe, the Brighton tailor, had yet managed to produce. “You wouldn’t understand, sir. My wife does the doctoring here in the village—when she feels like it.”
“Then she had better feel like it now. Which house is yours?”
“Why, the inn, sir, The Ship.” He was amazed at such ignorance.
“Fetch her, Barnes,” he began, but was shouted down by the crowd.
“Fight’s not finished!” “Betting’s still open!” “Out of the way, Yankee!” “No spoiling sport!”
“Sport!” exclaimed Warren. “Do you call it sport to see a boy half-killed?” Once again his voice was drowned by the increasingly angry shouting of the crowd. He took off his tall beaver hat and threw it into the centre of the ring. “If it’s sport you want, I’ll take on your bruiser, and back myself to have him crying for mercy in five rounds.”
“But, sir,” protested Barnes, as the crowd began loudly discussing this new proposition. “There’s not a man in the village can stand up to him. He’ll kill you.”
“I doubt it. He’s been cock of the walk here so long, he’s forgotten what a real fight’s like.” He laughed, stripped off his drab coat and handed it to Barnes. “Don’t look so anxious, man, I’ll not disgrace you! I learnt to fight the hard way, before the mast.” His shirt was off now, revealing a thin, wiry body whose deep tan had faded to a dull saffron colour. “But I’ll need you for a second. And one other. I’m not fighting by your foul Tidemills rules.”
“Let me!” Johnny Penfold was steadier on his feet now “My wound can keep. And thank you, sir!”
“Thank him for nothing.” Bowles swaggered forward from his comer. “Maybe you’d better send your man for a surgeon before we start. Two of the men will second you, won’t you boys?”
“No, thanks.” Warren cut short a sycophantic murmur of agreement, stepped out of his buckled shoes and spat on his hands. “Just tell me your rules, if you have any, and let’s go!”
“For God’s sake, be careful, sir.” Barnes was in an agony of apprehension. “He reckons to kill you.”
“Doesn’t he just!” He moved forward as the publican gave the word, and spent a first round of delicate feinting, getting the feel of his opponent and his style of fighting. The crowd, excited by blood, booed its disapproval at this slow start, but Tom Bowles was beginning to look puzzled. None of his formidable blows seemed to connect with the opponent who danced around him like a gadfly. When time was called for the first round and Warren withdrew to his comer of the ring he recognized a change in the tone of the crowd. Bets were beginning to be taken both ways. He also saw that though he did his gallant best to conceal it, Johnny Penfold was half dead on his feet.
“We must get you to a doctor,” Warren said, and went in for the second round. So far, he had been boxing right handed, like his opponent, now, suddenly, he switched to lead with his left, caught Bowles unawares, once on the right cheek, and then, as he staggered and recovered himself, hard on the right temple. “So much for that” He retired composedly to his comer as Bowles went down without even a groan, and the crowd burst into a great roar of applause. “Someone had better fetch the woman who doctors the village. He may be in need of her services. As for you—” to the publican, who had just finished counting Tom Bowles out— “You doubtless have a waggon of some kind?”
“Yes, sir?” Jewkes, the publican, though an old friend and associate of Tom Bowles, had recognized the change in the mood of the crowd. He left his friend lying senseless and gave a quick order to one of the bystanders. “At your service, sir.”
“Good. I want young Johnny here and his mother taken up to Warren House without delay.”
“And her bits and pieces, sir?”
“Bits?”
“Bowles had seized them for debt, sir. That’s what this was all about.”
“I see. Johnny.”
“Yes, sir?” John Penfold pulled himself together with an effort.
“Does your mother care about her things?”
“Care?” The boy was beyond comprehension, and merely gazed at him dully.
“Oh, sir!” The crowd, openly delighted at the sudden fall of its tyrant, had helped the little old woman in black to push her way forward, and now she merged in front of Warren as if shot from a gun. Tiny and erect and bright eyed, she swept him a surprising curtsy. “I don’t know how to thank you, sir. You saved my Johnny’s life. Do you really mean to take him to the house?”
“And you, too, if you care to come. I was just asking about your things.”
“Let them lie in the dirt where he threw them.” A savage shrug dismissed Tom Bowles. “You’ll let me serve you, sir? And Johnny?”
He had been coming to one of his quick decisions. “There’s an empty cottage up on the home farm,” he said.