I sat in my bedchamber rereading Papa’s letter. In it was an ultimatum that had been pressing on my mind all day. As usual he had chastised me for not writing oftener—though I found it so difficult to reply to his tedious letters with their ongoing complaints about my expenditures. As I skimmed through the letter again, I could not avoid reading the last sentence. “You must return to York at once.”
Papa had no reason to chastise me about spending money. Here in Tolpuddle, though Aunt Jane and Uncle Henry gave most of their income to the poor, they had cheerfully borne the cost of my daily food and lodging, and I had spent only a few shillings for the necessities of life.
Nevertheless, over the course of the day, I came to the conclusion that I must comply with Papa’s order to return home. I felt that there was something more than money behind his demand to see me once again ensconced in York. Perhaps he missed our daily squabbles! More likely, he wanted my unpaid labour at home.
Mama and Eliza now bore the duties of the household. My nieces were still in New York with Mama’s brother. My sister Mary now lived in Queenston, having married Samuel Jarvis, a man with a violent past who killed a young man in a duel in 1817 and spent a few months in the jail in York. Of course, he was eventually set free. No doubt it helped that Papa was the judge at the trial and that Sam was the son of one of Mama’s best friends. Moreover, the Jarvis family was at the top of York’s social ladder.
Without Mary, Mama and Eliza would need my help, and I would give it to them freely as long as I was able. I was now thirty-two years of age and I would never marry. But I hoped that over the next few years, I could persuade Papa to give me enough money to set up a school for midwives. With the death toll of mothers and babes in our small community of York, we needed so desperately to train a corps of women to assist in childbirth.
I went downstairs to tell my aunt and uncle of my decision. Aunt Jane, after a day of taking food to the parishioners, was lying on the sofa with her feet up. Uncle Henry was sitting at his desk with his wall of books behind him. Also in the room was Geoffrey Loveless, a young farmer who frequently visited my uncle when he had some hours free after his long day toiling in the fields outside Tolpuddle. My uncle had taught Geoffrey how to read and write, and he had hopes that the young man would someday move away from farming into a better life, perhaps as a preacher or a teacher. But I knew something of Geoffrey Loveless’s thoughts, and I knew he had other plans for the future.
He was a tall, emaciated young man in his late teens. Everything about his face showed fierce determination. He had piercing brown eyes under heavy straight eyebrows and a straight mouth from which issued a few terse words. Only a cleft chin served to soften his expression.
He rose from his chair and bowed when I came into the room. “Miss Powell,” he said, “you and Mrs. Sykes saved Ellen. Thank you.”
I smiled in acknowledgement. “I fear that I shall have very few more days to assist Mrs. Sykes. I must return to York.”
Aunt Jane and Uncle Henry leapt to their feet. “Surely not. Surely not,” my aunt said.
“Surely not, dear niece,” my uncle echoed. “Why? Why”
“I shall leave now,” Geoffrey said. “This is bad news, but undoubtedly you want to discuss it in private.”
“Stay,” Uncle Henry said, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let us all sit down. This is a shock, and I know you share in it. Please tell us, Anne, the reason for this sad news.”
As briefly as I could, I told them of Papa’s letter, saying nothing of his complaints about money, and dwelling only on Mama’s need to have me back home to help her. ”She has so much entertaining to do now that Papa is Chief Justice, and I feel that I must lend her my assistance, for what it’s worth. But, oh, I shall miss this place and you, dear Aunt Jane and Uncle Henry. You have given me so much love and support over these months.” I began to cry.
Uncle Henry got up, took a bottle of Scotch whisky and glasses from his desk drawer and poured a tot for us all, including Geoffrey. We downed it and sat in silence. Finally, Master Loveless spoke up. “You must come back when you can, Miss Powell. I know that your aunt and uncle need you. But the young men of this village need you even more.”
I had often, in my spare moments, talked with these men of whom he spoke. Often, when I was returning from shopping in the village grocery, I would find six or eight of them seated under the big sycamore tree on the village green. They would call to me to join them, and I would go and sit on the grass with them and listen to their dark tales of hard labour and pitiful wages, but most important, of the one light that shone for them in the coming years.
Though labour unions were at the time illegal, they had hopes of forming a society of agricultural labourers that would band together and oppose the injustices that faced them. “If we all refuse to work for six or seven shillings a week,” Geoffrey often said, “the bastards will be forced to pay us a living wage.”
They always turned to me in these moments. Of the group that showed up to talk under the sycamore, only Geoffrey and I could read and write. “When the time comes, Miss Powell,” they would say, “we will rely on you to write our speeches and on Geoffrey to deliver them. Here on this village green, we will turn our world upside down and put it right again.”
And now, it seemed, I must also say goodbye to these young farmers. I was overcome with sadness. I had been totally free in Tolpuddle. My aunt and uncle had given me unstinting encouragement in all my endeavours. I had helped the poor, delivered healthy infants, and done my best to encourage Geoffrey and his friends in their hopes for a new life.
In two months I would be back in York, bound by my parents’ notions of propriety. If I could establish a school for midwives, that would be something, but I had to face the reality that such a dream might not happen. What lay ahead for me then?