‘I can’t say I’m not disappointed,’ John Easter said. ‘No, no. You know I can’t say that. You know how much the company means to me.’
‘Yes,’ Will said. He was torn by the pain he was causing his father but he was still resolved, buoyed up by success and an odd boiling excitement that was putting fight into him whether he would or no. ‘I do know father.’
‘Yes,’ John echoed, giving Will his wry smile. ‘I can see that you do. So what is to be done?’
‘I would like to accept their offer.’
‘For six months?’
The true answer should have been ‘For ever’, but the warning flicker of Nan’s glance and his own compassion suppressed it. ‘For six months, yes.’
‘I had hoped you would start work with me this summer,’ John said. But then he felt alarmed to be showing his feelings so clearly. ‘However …’
The cloth had been removed but they were still at table. Outside in Bedford Square a blackbird was piping its sad, sweet, full-throated song into the opal colours of the sunset. Nan stood up and walked across to the window, looking out into the deepening green of the gardens.
‘You could spend a part of your time with the firm, I daresay, Will,’ she said quietly, ‘even if you did take up with this reporting. That en’t beyond the bounds of possibility. Two or three mornings a week, perhaps, some afternoons. To learn the trade.’
It seemed a pointless exercise to Will but seeing the hope on his father’s face he agreed that he could. ‘After finals, of course.’
That was understood. ‘It would be sensible to get to know the business,’ John said. ‘Just in case …’
‘Yes.’
‘I would prefer you not to undertake to work abroad.’
Work abroad was forsworn, ‘for the time being’. It was a sacrifice, but a possible one considering what was being gained.
‘Then I think we have found a workable solution,’ John said. And they shook hands upon it.
Like all compromises it didn’t satisfy either of them, but they were pleased with it nevertheless. All was not lost. There was still hope.
‘That’s settled then,’ Nan said, dusting the palms of her hands against each other. ‘That’s what we’ll do.’
‘Phoo-eep phoo-eep tirralirraloo!’ the blackbird sang. What a sad, sweet, compromised world we live in!
Nobody in the family was surprised by the decision. It was just what they expected.
‘Will’s a sensible lad,’ Billy said to his wife.
‘He always has been,’ she agreed. ‘He is very like his father.’ Actually his good sense and his good looks were a private aggravation to her. ‘Of course he hasn’t got the same brilliance as our Edward, but you can’t have everything.’
‘I would like it better if our Edward had a little of Will’s ability to compromise,’ Billy said gruffly.
‘That ain’t his nature,’ Matilda admitted.
And it never had been. For Edward was a child apart, a creature of extremes, confident to the point of arrogance when he was in command and things were going his way, but withdrawing into a silence that was disquietingly like a melancholy when things were going wrong. Life would have been a great deal easier for all of them if he could have been effortlessly agreeable like his sister Matty or his cousin Will. But that had never been the way of it. It would be a good thing when he’d finished his education and could take his rightful place in the firm and be in command all the time.
When the results of Will’s final examinations were announced, Matilda was rather put out to hear that he had taken a first, but she comforted herself that her son would do just as well when he settled down to serious study. At the moment of course he was still enjoying himself with all his new friends, as she knew very well because she and Billy bore the expense of it, but with his brilliant understanding of mathematics he could afford to waste a little time.
Nevertheless he was still gadding in October when his sister married the Reverend Jimmy Hopkins. That was another family event that caused no surprise. Everyone had always known they would marry. They’d been constant companions from childhood, ever since that awful season when they’d both caught the smallpox that had left them so horribly scarred. And now they were married and had gone to live and work in Clerkenwell because they wanted to help the poor. Edward didn’t think that was at all sensible.
‘If you ask me,’ he said to Will at the wedding breakfast, ‘the poor should learn to help themselves. There’s no need for poverty. Most of it is mere laziness.’
‘Or lack of political power,’ Will suggested. ‘There is a new charter being written to petition for universal suffrage. Did you know that?’
Edward neither knew nor cared.
‘Nan’s friend Mr Place is organizing it. I’m to interview him on Monday. If the poor had the vote, they would be able to help themselves, don’t you think?’
‘Nonsense!’ Edward said. ‘They don’t need the vote. That would be casting pearls before swine. They wouldn’t know what to do with it if we gave it to them. No, no, cousin Will, all they need is determination and a bit of hard work. That’s all. I shouldn’t bother with Mr Place if I were you.’
Will paid no attention to such advice. He’d been looking forward to this particular assignment ever since it was first suggested. Having described the trivialities of a May Ball, an opening night at the theatre, Henley Regatta and Derby Day, it was pleasant to be given something more important to write about. And besides he’d heard a great deal about the renowned Mr Place from Nan, who had known him since they were both young.
‘He’s a good man,’ she told her grandson. ‘He’s been a-worriting for the vote these thirty years, to my certain knowledge, but he don’t weary and he don’t give up. He knew your mother of course. She spoke at several of his meetings after Peterloo. A good man.’
But a very dusty one, standing in the gloom of his untidy bookshop among piles of pamphlets and tables heaped with papers and shelves collapsing under books, blinking in the sudden shaft of sunlight that had entered the door with his visitor; a pale, dusty man with a shock of grey hair bristling above his forehead and a face seamed with worry lines and sharp, bright, shrewd eyes.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, holding out his hand to Will. ‘You are your mother’s son, Mr Easter. I can see that, even in this poor light.’
It was a good start. And the interview that followed was friendly and informative. A copy of the charter was produced and explained. ‘Six points, as you see, all deemed to be of equal importance, so we may take them in any order you wish. Full adult suffrage, of course, salaries for members of parliament, otherwise a poor man could not stand, voting by secret ballot to avoid corruption, parliaments elected annually to encourage accountability, equal electoral districts for the sake of fairness, and no property qualification for members of parliament, for obvious reasons.’
Will thought it all manifestly just and honourable.
‘And so it is,’ Mr Place said, ‘as any just and honourable man may see. Now as to the means by which it is to be achieved, we intend to gather a million signatures upon a massive national petition, which will be presented to parliament some time next spring. I trust you will report upon that, too?’
‘So do I, Mr Place, sir. So do I.’ A petition of such a size sounded most impressive.
‘You may not come of a poor family as your mother did,’ Mr Place observed, ‘but I see that you share her sympathies notwithstanding. It is a great credit to you. I am glad to have made your acquaintance, Mr Easter.’
‘And I yours.’
‘Howsomever, if you truly wish to understand this movement and the despair that inspires it, might I suggest that you take your notebook for a stroll through one of the slums of this metropolis. There are plenty of them. Seven Dials for instance, or Spitalfields, or Saffron Hill.’
‘My cousin is rector of the New Church in Saffron Hill.’
‘Then visit with your cousin, sir, with all speed, and preferably before you write this article. Nothing speaks more clearly than first-hand experience. Depend upon it.’
This advice seemed eminently sensible, so Will took it, writing to Jimmy that very evening ‘in hopes of an invitation’, which was instantly given.
He was a most rewarding guest, praising Matty’s housewifery and admiring the furnishings of their home on Clerkenwell Green, and listening at length to Jimmy’s tales of life in Saffron Hill.
‘When I read Mr Dickens’ new novel, you know,’ Jimmy told him, as their meal came to an end, ‘his Oliver Twist, I thought he must surely be exaggerating, but now I know better. It is every bit as bad as he says. Every bit. He wrote the book about this very place, you see, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to work here. The ‘Three Cripples’ is a stone’s throw from my church, and I really do mean a stone’s throw. In fact we are lucky if it is only a stone. The children here will throw anything they can lay their hands upon. But no wonder. No wonder. I cannot blame them, for they know no better. Who is there to teach them better in this dreadful place? That terrible man Fagin lived in Saffron Hill and lives there still as far as I can see.’
Will looked round their dining room, at the bright fire in the hearth and the lamps glowing against the wall, at the neatly flowered wallpaper and the fine red damask of the curtains, at the table set with good china and well-polished silver and crystal glasses winking in the firelight, and he understood the concern of this tender-hearted cousin of his. ‘You are hero now,’ he said. ‘You will teach them better, I am sure of it.’
‘Indeed yes,’ Jimmy said. ‘I have started a Sunday school already, which is always crowded, I’m very glad to say.’
‘Well of course it’s crowded,’ Matty said, loving him with her eyes, ‘when we feed them soup before we send them home.’
‘What are good words without good works?’ Jimmy said. ‘The soup may tempt them in through the doors in the first place, but it is the word of God that will change their lives. And oh how much these lives need change, Will. I will take you to Field Lane presently, and you will see what it is we have to oppose. It is a mighty task.’
So when Will had been persuaded to remove the diamond pin from his cravat and the cash from his pocket, and to leave his handkerchief and scarf behind, because they could so easily be stolen, the two young men took a lantern and set off on a tour of the parish.
They walked south towards the City, up Little Saffron Hill, where children swarmed like flies outside every beer-shop, tousle-headed, bare-footed and rank-smelling in rags so thin and tatty they gave no warmth and precious little cover, then into Saffron Hill and past Jimmy’s candlelit church, and from there to Field Lane, where a solitary street lamp cast just enough light for a circle of street arabs to play dabs, their grey hands scrabbling in the dirt. It was a very dark alley and so narrow that in some places it would have been possible to stand in the middle of the street and touch the rotting houses on either side. Possible that is, but not likely, for the place was teeming with people and commerce.
There was a barber’s shop, full of tatty customers being shaved by candlelight, a very sour beer-shop doing a raucous trade, and a fish shop offering dollops of fried fish bloated with batter, but every other house was selling scarves. They hung from poles on either side of the alley, lit by lamps hung above the doors and windows, dangling just above the level of the tallest top hat, pegged out like washing. And very expensive washing, for these were silk scarves and paisleys, embroidered and fringed and inappropriately beautiful in such a setting.
Will raised his eyebrows in enquiry.
‘Stolen,’ Jimmy explained succinctly.
‘But who would buy such articles, here in this poverty?’
‘Merchants,’ Jimmy said, ‘small shopkeepers, all manner of people, but mostly those who have had their scarves stolen. They come from miles around to buy them back. Look about you. It’s a recognized trade.’ And sure enough there were plenty of well-dressed customers among the jostling poor.
‘It’s a scandal,’ Will said. ‘Why, that is tantamount to giving thieves a licence to steal.’
‘Now you see what it is I face,’ Jimmy said, watching as two gentlemen carefully examined a row of silk scarves, pulling them towards the nearest light. ‘Most of my parishioners live outside the law, outside society. They do not belong, either to the church or the city. They are pariahs. Matty and I have rescued four of them by training them up as housemaids and giving them somewhere decent to live. I realize it could be said that they are only four among so many, but at least we have made a start. And great oaks from little acorns, you know.’
That night Will wrote his article, describing the charter and advertising the petition. ‘Each signature will be an acorn dropping upon the ground of parliamentary indifference,’ he wrote. ‘What oaks will grow of them we cannot tell. But any man who walks in Field Lane after dusk must surely recognize the need for the changes they request.’
The article was edited, as he expected, but enough of it survived in Wednesday morning’s paper to make Nan pat him on the back on his way in to the stamping. ‘A fine piece,’ she said. ‘Your mother would be proud of you.’
‘I do my best to spread the word,’ he told her cheerfully.
‘You and Mr O’Connor both,’ she said.
All through that winter and the following spring, Mr Feargus O’Connor’s powerful newspaper, the Northern Star, kept his readers informed about the progress of the petition, which had a million signatures before Christmas, and was supported by torchlit processions and passionate meetings up and down the country, some of which Will reported. And the great firm of A. Easter and Sons sold the Northern Star in all their shops, to the considerable agitation of the regional managers. Or to be more accurate, to the considerable agitation of Mr Hugh Jernegan and his new ally Mr Joshua Maycock, who was manager of the region of Middlesex.
‘I do question,’ Mr Jernegan said towards the end of the March meeting, ‘I do question whether we are altogether wise to be seen as the purveyors of such debasing opinions as those expressed in the Northern Star, especially at a time like this, with the likelihood of violence in the streets when this wretched petition is presented.’
‘T’en’t for us to question the politics of what we sell,’ Nan said briskly. ‘We’d be here all night if we started that sort of caper. The Northern Star is a legal newspaper, stamped by the Post Office and selling better every week. Forty thousand copies en’t to be sniffed at, gentlemen. That’s all need concern us.’
‘I feel I should point out,’ Mr Maycock smoothed, ‘that the sale of such violently radical opinions might well have an adverse effect upon trade, given the government’s feelings upon the matter.’
‘If the government have feelings upon the matter,’ Nan said coolly, ‘then I daresay the government will take action, that being their business. Our business is to sell newspapers.’
‘But what if our sales were affected?’ Mr Maycock said. ‘I only ask out of concern for the firm. That is my one and only concern, Mrs Easter, as I’m sure you appreciate.’
‘This month’s figures are uncommon healthy,’ Nan said. ‘I don’t see many signs of adverse influence there. Meantime there’s the matter of the Bradford shop. Is that roof mended yet?’
‘She thinks revolutionaries may be dealt with in the same way as roof-tiles,’ Mr Maycock muttered to his friend.
‘She will learn better when they present that foolish petition of theirs,’ Mr Jernegan muttered back, smoothing his mutton-chop whiskers with the back of his hand,. ‘There’ll be bloodshed on that day, I can tell you, and then where shall we be?’
‘A black-hearted lot!’ Mr Maybury agreed. ‘And it will be a black-hearted day, you mark my words.,’
The black-hearted day began with a symphony of church bells and birdsong. The chorus in Bedford Square was so loud that it woke the household. Nan smiled at it, and turned on her side to sleep again. But Will got out of bed and walked to the window to see as well as hear, excited now that the great day had arrived, and particularly as Jeff Jefferson was being sent to London to report the event too and they planned to watch the procession together as soon as his morning’s work was done.
The stamping that morning took for ever. It wasn’t until eleven o’clock that his father said he could cut off if he wanted to, and by then Jeff had been waiting in the coffee house for ‘more than half an hour, old thing’. He was twitching with impatience and the minute he saw Will he rushed out into the Strand to call a cab and take them to Regent Street.
They found the new avenue packed with people waiting for the procession. Will paid their cabbie his exorbitant sixpence and he and Jeff eased themselves into the throng, standing right on the edge of the pavement despite the complaints of two rather seedy gentlemen who were now behind them. They were determined to get the best possible view. And their determination was rewarded.
After thirty minutes or so, they heard the bray of a brass band above the noise of the crowd and the outriders turned into Regent Street from Langham Place with the marchers close behind them.
‘That’s Mr Feargus O’Connor on the grey,’ Jeff said, squinting up the road at them, ‘and the fat fellow on the mare is Bronterre O’Brien.’
Not very imposing, Will thought, glancing at Mr O’Brien, whose face looked too babyish for the leader of such a demonstration, but Mr O’Connor was a man with an air, tall, grey haired and handsome on his bold white horse. I’ll interview him when they get to the House. No wonder Nan speaks well of him. And the marchers were equally impressive, all immaculately dressed in their Sunday best, their jackets in suitably sober colours, dark blue, brown, magenta, bottle green, their hats black, their trousers fawn or grey or dark brown tweed, their expressions serious. They marched like soldiers, keeping firm step across the column, but as each man followed the drumbeat a fraction of a second later than the man in front of him, the march had acquired a rhythmically rippling effect that made the approaching column look like some huge pale-legged centipede.
Even if the marchers’ clothes were sombre, they were spotlessly clean, and the banners that streamed above their heads were dazzling, huge sheets of scarlet, orange, purple and sky-blue with the words ‘Liberty’ and ‘Reform’ written on them in bold black letters.
And then suddenly the petition itself was upon them, its vast bulk neatly folded and cloud-white above the dark hats of the marchers. It was carried in a wooden cage like an enormous orange box mounted on two long stout poles that were supported shoulder high by twenty-four bearers, twelve before and twelve behind. And as it passed the crowd grew silent and some bowed their heads or removed their caps and even children who had been noisily bowling hoops and playing tag were stilled and overawed.
‘Over two million signatures,’ Will said, ‘and three miles long! It’s a wondrous thing, Jeff. The government must accept these reforms now, surely.’
The petition was passing, the crowd beginning to murmur again. And behind the bearers was a wide red banner bearing the inscription ‘Murder demands justice: 16 August 1819’.
‘16th of August 1819?’ Jeff wondered.
‘The battle of Peterloo,’ Will explained. ‘In Manchester. When the local militia attacked a peaceful demonstration and massacred eleven people. That was for universal suffrage too. You must have heard of it. My mother was there.’
‘At a massacre?’ Jeff asked.
‘Yes,’ Will said proudly. ‘She helped tend the wounded. She and a weaver called Caleb Rawson. I think that’s one of the reasons why everyone says she was a saint.’
‘Well, good for her,’ Jeff said, much impressed. ‘So that’s the reason you’re reporting all this now. Following in mother’s footsteps and all that sort of thing, eh?’
But Will was already looking for another cab to take them to Parliament Square. He wanted to see the petition arrive, and to find out when it would be presented to the House, and to interview Mr O’Connor.
Their second cab was speedy because the driver was eager for dinner and had no time to waste in detours or conversation, so the two young men arrived in Westminster long before the procession. Neither of them had realized what a long time such a march would take to walk from the West End, nor what a business it would be to accommodate so many people in a small square crowded with builders’ carts and gangs of navvies and all the paraphernalia that was required to clear the ground for the building of the new Houses of Parliament.
It was late afternoon before the petition finally arrived at the portals of Westminster Hall only to discover that its container was too big to be carried through the door. There was a passionate argument, which Will duly noted, while the crowds milled about inside the enclosed space, craning their necks to see what was going on, and at last reason prevailed and the petition was taken out of its box and divided into sections small enough to be carried into the House.
‘Now what?’ Jeff said, as the last pile of paper disappeared.
‘We wait,’ Will said. ‘I will interview Mr O’Connor as soon as he comes out again, and then we’ll wait.’
The interview was short and lively, the wait was very long and very boring. The marchers gradually drifted away, more and more reporters arrived, lounged about with diminishing patience, took themselves off for food and sustenance, and returned to lounge again. From time to time members of the House emerged to announce that various debates were being conducted, but that no date had been set for the presentation of the petition. Lights were lit inside the building; Will and Jeff took it in turns to cut off for a bit of dinner; the debates continued; it was nine o’clock, ten, half past eleven.
Finally just before midnight, there was an eruption of excited MPs striding out into the square bellowing for carriages, and all of them hot with the latest news. Instead of receiving the petition and promising to present it, the Prime Minister had resigned.
Will made rapid notes, scanning the crowd for Frederick Brougham, and darting off to collar him the moment he saw him strolling out of the door.
‘A poor business, Will,’ he said, easing on his gloves.
‘Has he truly resigned?’
‘I fear so.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘We shall have a new government.’
‘And the petition?’
‘The petition will be delayed, I fear. It is the reform crisis all over again.’
‘That won’t please the Chartists,’ Jeff observed.
‘Indeed,’ Mr Brougham said. ‘To dash their hopes at the very moment of their great success is ill-judged, to say the very least. No good will come of it. We shall see heads broken for this.’
But the Chartists maintained their patience for a very long time, waiting for Mr Peel to form his new government, which took until the middle of June, and debating what further steps should be taken if that government too refused to consider the petition. Their disappointment was acute when the date set for the debate of the petition was not until mid July, but there were no riots and no hint of any until the beginning of that month, when the Chartist Convention suddenly decided that London was no longer a fit place for their assemblies and decided to reconvene in Birmingham.
‘Follow them there,’ the editor of the Morning Advertiser instructed Will Easter. ‘This peace can’t last. Not when feelings are running so high.’
‘How long do you want me to stay?’ Will asked.
‘Until something happens.’
‘What if it doesn’t?’
‘It will.’
Papa won’t like this, Will thought, as he made his way homeward. An indefinite leave of absence always annoyed his father.
But this time he got an easy reception. For a start Caroline and Euphemia were in Fitzroy Square when he arrived, come up to London to buy materials for their new summer dresses and consequently full of excitement. And far from raising objections his father said he thought a visit to Birmingham was a capital idea.
‘It’s high time you saw the Birmingham end of the business,’ he said. ‘We dispatch papers from our warehouses there to every city on the north-west, you know. I daresay you could fit in a visit to the warehouse now and then, could you not? When do you want to go?’
‘Well, as soon as possible really.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Travel by railway train,’ John said. ‘They’re not exactly comfortable, but they’re a deal more dependable than the roads, especially in wet weather. Tom shall go with you. He knows the place. Stay at the Golden Lion in Deritend.’
‘Well, you’re a pretty beastly sort of brother!’ Caroline pretended to complain. ‘Rushing off to Birmingham the minute we get here. Pheemy thinks you’re beastly too, don’t you Pheemy?’
‘No,’ Euphemia said in some confusion, ‘you know I don’t, Caroline. Oh dear! You shouldn’t say such things.’
‘You can both come to Euston to see me off, if you like,’ Will promised, rescuing her, ‘and the minute I get home we’ll all go to the theatre. How will that be?’
‘A partial redemption,’ Caroline allowed. ‘What is Euston like?’