Preparations for that evening’s march to the Guildhall were well under way. The banners were stitched and the petition forms ruled and as soon as work was over for the day and the weavers had snatched a bite to eat, they would begin to gather in the Market Square. Caleb had worked all day with his head full of plans and counter-plans, so he was very surprised when left his loom and came down the stairs from the attic to find Harriet waiting for him on the landing. She was the last person he expected to see in Norwich that day.
But surprise immediately gave way to pleasure. ‘Harriet!’ he said, beaming at her. ‘My dear Harriet, what brings thee up to Norwich? Hast tha come for t’ meeting?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes, I suppose I have,’ she said, and then he noticed that she was looking anxious and biting her bottom lip.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, opening the door to his room and standing aside to let her enter first. ‘I’m about to send out for a bit o’ supper. Happen tha’ll join me?’
She stood hesitantly just outside the door, looking round at the whitewashed walls covered with prints and posters, and the fire red in a polished grate, and the bright curtains, and the heavy woven bedspread on his single bed, noticing how houseproud he was and how well he kept the room. I am alone in a gentleman’s bedroom, she thought, alone and unchaperoned, and she knew it wasn’t at all proper, and that she really shouldn’t be there, and she couldn’t think what to say.
But Caleb was perfectly at ease. ‘Come now,’ he said, ‘I’ll mek thee a dish of tea, and tha shall tell me why tha’s come to see me. Sit down, sit down.’ Normally he would have supped ale with his chop but in her honour it should be tea. And he pulled his two cane chairs closer to the table by the window and held one out for her.
She hung her bonnet and shawl on the hook behind the door, put her reticule on the table and sat down nervously, watching while he filled an old black kettle from the covered jug on the dresser, and set it to boil on the hob. It was very warm in the room, for the fire had been burning since five o’clock, ready for cooking. ‘You mustn’t go to the meeting tonight,’ she said abruptly.
‘Must I not?’ he said, putting two cups on the table.
‘No indeed,’ she said earnestly. ‘You are betrayed, Caleb. Mr Richards is a spy.’
He understood everything so quickly, standing beside her chair, so close to her and so powerful, those blunt hands inches away from her eyes, the dark hairs on his fingers bristling. ‘Who told thee?’
‘Nan Easter told Matilda and Matilda told me. There’s no doubt of it, Caleb. Nan had it from Mr Brougham. Matilda said it was no secret. The government would like a riot to prove the need for another Combination Act.’
He considered what she was saying, looking down at her, but far too calmly, and smiling at her as though the matter were amusing. ‘Aye, ’tis likely. That’s the way they work. Allus have done.’
His calm agitated her. ‘Oh you mustn’t go to the meeting,’ she cried. ‘You would be walking into a trap, don’t you see?’
He had his arms about her and was lifting her from the chair before she realized what was happening. ‘Caleb!’ she said, but he was kissing her, smothering the word back into her throat. And kissing with such passion, so hard and strong and demanding, his eyes blazing and his hands holding her waist and shoulders so that she was locked against him.
‘We mustn’t,’ she said breathlessly when the kiss stopped at last. ‘Caleb, it’s not right.’
‘Tha loves me,’ he said. ‘Why else wouldst tha’ve come all this way with tha warning? Tha loves me, as I love thee.’ And before she could answer, or even think of an answer, he kissed her again so pleasurably that despite herself she began to kiss him back.
This can’t be happening, she thought, as the kiss went on, and she could feel his member huge and hard against her belly even through the cloth of their clothes. We must stop. I must make him stop. It’s not right. I must … But sensation was making thought difficult, fractured, impossible, non existent. Oh, to be kissed again, after all this time!
‘I’ve loved thee for years an’ years,’ he said, stroking her back. ‘Years an’ years an’ years.’ How red his mouth was and how oddly he smelt. Like a glue-pot. ‘I allus knew ’twould be so.’ Kissing her so long and so hard. ‘Harriet, my own dear love.’
He was making her feel dizzy. ‘We mustn’t …’ she cried, struggling to put her hands against his chest to push him away. But he was so strong and so urgent, lifting her off her feet, kissing her as he carried her backwards towards the bed. It is wrong, she thought. I must stop him. But how could she? What words would she use? There were no words left in her head. Only sensation and confusion and everything happening too quickly for her to cope with it. She knew in a vague way that it would humiliate him to be denied, and that she admired him too much to want to humiliate him, a good man, enduring prison, working so hard for the cause, so brave and dependable. And yet. And yet. Should such a man be acting as he was? No, surely not. It is wrong. I must stop him, she thought again, as she landed on the rough weave of the coverlet. But part of her didn’t want to stop him and she knew that too, although she was too confused to feel ashamed, and aroused too little to feel justified. Oh what did she want? She didn’t even know that. If only he would stop and give her the chance to think. But they had already gone too far, too quickly. He was pushing up her gown, bunching it about her waist, he was on top of her, so hard and close she could barely breathe, the cloth of his waistcoat scratching her cheek, he was inside her, thrusting hard. It was too late to stop him. Too late to say anything. Too late.
It was all over so quickly. Even in her present state of confusion she was amazed at how quick he was and how easily he recovered, sitting up almost at once, straightening her skirt, adjusting his trousers, ambling off across the room to attend to the kettle. He made her feel more guilty than ever. She couldn’t look at him, she simply couldn’t. She turned her burning face to the wall and covered her eyes with her hands.
He was busying himself at the fire, riddling ash and splitting a coal with the poker, crick-crack, clacking the lid of the kettle, whistling to himself. Then his boots clomped cross the floor and she heard the door open and close. Then silence. He hasn’t left me, surely, she thought. But the silence went on, except for the crackle of the fire, and presently she turned her head cautiously to see where he was. The room was empty.
She was almost as surprised by his abrupt departure as she’d been by his precipitate lovemaking. But at least it gave her the chance to recover herself. She got up and straightened her gown and found her cap which had fallen off her head onto the floor. Then she smoothed the creases out of the coverlet and tiptoed across the room to the little looking glass hanging from its nail beside the dresser and did her best to tidy her hair. I must make myself look respectable, she thought. But the thought was ridiculous. I am not respectable, she told herself. Not any longer. I am the most grievous sinner. I have committed adultery. But none of these things had any meaning. It was as if she’d moved beyond meaning, beyond sensation, beyond thought, into the most extraordinary calm, so that ‘I am the most grievous sinner’ and ‘now I will make the tea’ had exactly the same validity.
And while she was standing before the mirror wondering at her lack of emotion, he came back into the room. ‘I’ve bought us a fine pair of chump chops,’ he told her, ‘and for thee, lass …’ He pulled a peach from the pocket of his jacket and laid it tenderly before her.
She was touched, despite her guilt and her confusion and that odd overriding calm, for he certainly couldn’t afford such an extravagant fruit, and the affection on his face was unmistakable. ‘Thank ’ee,’ she said. ‘You are very kind. Shall I make the tea?’
So she made the tea while he cooked the chops in a battered frying pan set on top of the coals, and they sat down to their rough meal together at the table beside the window. And Harriet discovered that she was hungry and was glad of the food he’d provided and enjoyed every mouthful, but distantly, as though it were being eaten by somebody else. And they talked of the price of cloth and the children’s health and the progress of her little school. It was all a little unreal.
‘Now,’ he said, when the meal was done, ‘we must make haste. ’Tis nobbut twenty minutes till t’ start of t’ meeting.’
‘The meeting?’ she said, bemused. ‘Surely you don’t intend to go to the meeting now. Not after – all this.’ And she looked at the bed and then blushed at her indelicacy, for she hadn’t meant to imply that she’d allowed him to make love to her simply to stop him from going to the meeting. Had she?
‘My word’s been given,’ he said. ‘There’s nought for it. I must go.’
‘But you will be arrested again.’
‘I think not,’ he said easily. ‘And if I am, what o’ that? ’Tis all within t’ law.’
‘Please,’ she said, feeling that she must make an effort to stop him. ‘I came all this way to stop you. You mustn’t go. Mr Richards has laid a trap for you.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Happen he has, but I must go, all t’ same. ’Twere on my persuasion t’ meeting were called. I’m duty bound to attend, d’ye see? Tis a matter of principle. I’ll not let t’others down. They depend upon me to be there.’ And from the noise of trudging feet outside on the landing and the growl of voices in the street below them the others were already gathering, pulling him by their presence.
A matter of principle, she thought, weary resignation and her odd passivity pulling her down. He will go. I cannot prevent him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I see that Then I will come with you.’
He was disappointed. ‘I thought tha’d stay here,’ he said. ‘Be here when I get back, like.’
‘No,’ she said, taking her shawl from the hook and wrapping it about her shoulders. ‘I shall come with you. I mean to see justice done.’ And she put on her bonnet, as though no more need be said.
‘Eh!’ he said, following her out of the door. ‘What a grand lass tha’art, my Harriet.’
The street was full of people, men in their working clothes, women in linen bonnets and heavy shawls, all milling about in the dusk, too excited to stand still. Two men had a homemade banner coiled between them and a third was standing beside the door firing a bundle of about twenty rush-lights that were to be carried as torches. The blaze of them took away all other light from the doorway, so that Caleb stepped through darkness to join his friends. And what a cheer they gave him. ‘Good old Caleb! Tha’s our Caleb!’
‘All set?’ he asked.
And the crowd bubbled about him, eyes glinting. ‘En’t we jest!’ ‘We’ll show them ol’ mawthers a thing or two.’ ‘Jest you lead on, bor!’ And somehow or other, for no orders were given, they formed themselves into a column, a long column of dark heads and smoking lights, and went marching up King Street, singing as they went, with Caleb at their head, and Harriet tagging along beside him, running a little from time to time to keep with them all, so brisk was the pace they set.
The erupted out of Davey Place into the Market Square just as the clocks were striking eight. Darkness was setting in, but there were so many torches already in the square that it was possible to see quite clearly from one side to the other. Over by the Guildhall a hustings had been erected, with an awning above it, all green and white stripes like a sugar stick. ‘That’s where I’ve to be,’ Caleb said, looking over his shoulder at Harriet. ‘Stay here by the alley. Happen they’ll provoke us, and I’d not like to see thee hurt.’
She hesitated for just a second, uncertain whether to obey him or not, and the march surged forward, carrying him on towards the hustings and leaving her behind. Perhaps it was for the best, she thought. There seemed to be an inevitability about everything that was happening on this peculiar day, and this calm of hers made acceptance easy. Perhaps it was meant to be.
It was very noisy in the square and very crowded as more marchers arrived to flock between the deserted stalls, and mass in the space before the old Guildhall, their banners floating illegibly in and out of the light and their torches bobbing like buoys on rough water. Caleb had reached the hustings and was climbing up the steps, urged on by a flurry of hands, and five other men were climbing behind him. One carried a bundle of petition forms which he waved at the crowd. It all looked cheerful enough, and there was no sign of troops or constables.
Then the crowd hushed itself, and gradually grew still to hear what the first speaker had to say. He was a sturdy-looking man and he had a strong voice. Harriet could hear him from where she stood.
‘Friends,’ he said, ‘we’ve come here this night, for to send a message to the two noble gentlemen, the Earl of Harrowby and Lord Suffield, who are here to dine in the Guildhall behind us. Let’s give ’em a cheer since there en’t more than six inches o’ stone wall here atween us.’
And a cheer was given. Hurrah! Hurray!
Why it’s just like Peterloo, Harriet thought. Mr Hunt asked that crowd to cheer when the constables arrived. And the memory struck chill. But the man went on speaking, less clearly now and at greater length, and there was still no sign of the constables. And then another man spoke, and another, and nothing untoward happened. Perhaps it was simply going to be a quiet meeting after all. She couldn’t hear what any of them was saying, partly because they spoke too quickly and partly because the people all around her were talking to one another, but when the third speaker stopped he waved his hand towards Caleb and was plainly introducing him, and then the crowd shushed silent again. ‘Mr Caleb Rawson.’
He stood at the edge of the hustings, holding up his right hand, waiting as the torches steadied and the banners were set down and ranks of white faces turned towards him out of the darkness. He could see his Harriet pale as a statue on the corner of Davey Place, her shawl a dark cross against the pale cotton of her gown, and he was glad she had obeyed him and stayed in a safe place. ‘Friends,’ he said.
There was a rush of bodies behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see what it was. Four constables were clambering up the back of the hustings. The awning was being torn down. More dark figures were climbing. He could see a pistol, two, three. Constables were swarming towards him from every direction.
‘What’s this?’ he said, turning to face them. There was a burly constable standing right in front of him.
‘Riotous assembly,’ the man said, leering. The light from the torches below them made his face look like a mask, with huge black nostrils flaring, and black pits for eyes and a down-turned menacing mouth. ‘Riotous assembly.’
‘Nay,’ Caleb said, with some pride. ‘’Tis a peaceful meeting. We’ve no riot here.’
‘Try this for riot then, bor,’ the man said, and punched Caleb in the stomach.
The blow was so sudden and unexpected it winded him. For a few seconds he staggered backwards, gasping for breath, as bodies rushed and hurled all round him, shouting and swearing. Then he recovered a little and saw that his friends were punching back, attacking the constables, and he knew he had to do something to stop them. ‘Nay!’ he said again, putting out an arm to restrain his nearest ally. ‘Think on’t, Amos. Think how ’twill look in court.’
‘You think on it, bor,’ his tormentor said, seizing his arm and twisting it behind his back. ‘Since you’m all a-being’ arrested. Here’s a end to your fine ol’ tricks, bor.’
Thoughts plummeted into Caleb’s brain too quickly to become words. He simply knew them. She was right. They were all in danger. He must warn the others. He struggled with all his might against the strength of his captor, pulling the man with him to the edge of the platform. ‘Disperse!’ he yelled at the crowd. ‘We are betrayed. Mr Richards is a spy. Disperse. They will call out t’ troops.’
Then two more constables joined the struggle and he was pulled from the hustings and thrown to the ground and kicked. And then they were marching him away. But he’d heard his voice echoing across the square, he’d seen understanding in the faces below him, the warnings had been given.
Harriet was still entirely calm. She watched the whole thing as though she were at a play. There you see, he’s being arrested. I knew he would be. I did try to warn him. She wasn’t even shocked by her lack of emotion. When the crowd obeyed him and began to run out of the square, she turned and went with them, walking sedately among their flying feet and outstretched hands.
The night coach was standing outside the Bell Inn, its inside passengers peering from the windows at the rush. She produced her ticket from her reticule, showed it to the coachman without word or expression and climbed to an outside seat. Now she would go home. She would drive away from this nightmare and go home to her nice quiet house in sensible Rattlesden. To dear Will and dear Annie and dear James. Home.
She was the only passenger on the cold outside seats and that pleased her, for conversation would have been impossible. She felt as though all words had been frozen inside her head. She watched the ostlers and post-boys at work as though they were in another world and when the coachmen told his team to ‘walk on’ she sat back in her seat and began to count the lighted windows as they flickered past. And in this odd detached state she travelled through the countryside.
There was a full moon that night, clear and ice-white, whenever she could see it, but it gave the most fitful light, because it was obscured by a fast-moving torrent of blue-black clouds, some no more than a trail of blue gauze, others dense and black as ink. Sometimes she saw the road below her quite clearly and sometimes she was rocked forward in total darkness. It is like my life, she thought, as the hooves drummed on, sometimes so clear and easy, sometimes obscured by sin. But the thought was distant, too, as though she were thinking of someone else, and after a few more miles her mind emptied altogether and she wasn’t thinking at all. Nothing was real now. Nothing was happening. The hours and miles rolled past together.
They passed the White Hart at Scole and made a brief stop at Stowmarket while she sat where she was and waited quietly, thinking of nothing. Then they were off again. ‘If you would be so kind as to put me off at Woolpit, sir,’ she said to the coachman as he gathered the reins.
Which he did, and she climbed down, moving slowly and carefully, thinking of nothing, but remembering to thank him.
She watched until the lights of the coach swayed towards the bend of the road, flickered and were gone, all at once as if they’d both been doused together. Then she set off to walk the rest of the way home, following the farm path south through the fields, walking automatically, thinking of nothing.
And there was her house, its pale pink walls pure white in the light of the moon. The door was on the latch, and there were candle and tinder box set on the window ledge ready to light her way. But she climbed the stairs in darkness, following the curve of the walls with her hands, and at long, long last, she was home, in her own room, falling face downwards onto her own bed, the bed she shared with her own dear John, home and safe. And her grief broke into anguished weeping and she put her face into the pillows to stifle the sound, for it would never have done to wake Will. Thought returned hot and cruel like pincers in her brain, and she cried and cried and cried, weeping for her dear, dear John, because she’d been unfaithful to him, and he was so good and kind and he didn’t deserve it, and for Caleb because he’d been arrested and she’d tried to warn him and she didn’t know what they would do to him, and for her own terrible, unpardonable sin. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Adultery. Adultery. She had broken her marriage vows and there was no health in her. ‘Oh!’ she moaned into the pillow. ‘What shall I do? Whatever shall I do?’
It was dawn before the crying stopped and by then she was totally exhausted and fell asleep where she was, face down on the pillows and still fully dressed in all her clothes. Which was how Peg Mullins found her, when she came in at seven o’clock with her mistress’s early morning tea.
‘Lawks a’ mussy, Mrs Easter,’ she said. ‘Why didn’tcher call me, when you come in instead a’ goin’ off like that? Your feet’ll be all swole up. Let’s have them boots off quick.’
And they were swollen, so that the tops of her boots were cutting into her flesh. A bowl of cold water had to be fetched and cold compresses applied at once, and Will came into the bedroom wakened by all the fuss and was most concerned when he saw his mother’s ankles and insisted on rubbing them to make them better. And then Rosie arrived and held the tea for her to drink as if she were a baby, even though she protested weakly, ‘I can manage, Rosie.’
‘Manage, yes,’ Rosie said holding the cup firmly beneath her chin. ‘Manage.’ And the word was not an agreement but an instruction for the tea to be drunk at once without argument.
They are all so kind to me, Harriet reflected as she sipped the tea. So kind and so dear. How can I possibly tell them how evil I have been? And as the taste of the tea soothed her mouth, and Will’s small busy hands soothed her feet, the words of old Cosmo Teshmaker came back into her mind: ‘Lie low, keep mum and wait for the matter to blow over.’ Would that be possible? Oh please, Lord, let it be possible! I did not mean to sin. Truly I didn’t. Let it be possible. And then she felt ashamed of herself for pleading with God. I must take the consequences of this sin, she thought, whatever they are. But not yet. Not just yet.
‘We’ve got ducks’ eggs for breakfast,’ Will said happily. ‘Aunt Annie brought them over yesterday. Are you better, now Mama?’
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling at him because he was being so loving. ‘How silly of me to fall asleep in my clothes.’
‘That’s what comes a’ midnight coaches, mum,’ Peg said, removing the compresses.
‘Did you travel on the midnight coach, Mama?’ Will said. ‘Was it dark?’
‘Very dark.’
‘Were you stopped by highwaymen?’
‘Why, bless the boy,’ Peg laughed. ‘Would she be here if she had?’
‘If she had,’ Rosie echoed, laughing too.
I will take each moment as it comes, Harriet decided. That’s what I’ll do. There’s no sense in provoking trouble. I will wait. There is no need to say anything yet. ‘I think I’d better dress and start the day,’ she said.
‘You got a letter from Mr Easter, mum,’ Peg told her as they all left the room. ‘Come yesterday.’
He was in Cambridge and would travel on to Rattlesden in four days time.
‘Mama has some wild scheme to take us all off to Stockton, to ride in a carriage drawn by puffing billy, if you ever heard of such a thing. It will please the children, I suppose, but I could do without such jaunts. These locomotives are mere toys, and like to remain so. I cannot see how they will ever carry passengers as coaches do. In my opinion we should not bother with them. Howsomever, she comes to Bury in a week’s time and proposes to tell us all about it then. You are much missed, my dear love,
‘Your own, John.’
There is always something happening in this family, Harriet thought. And for once in her life she was very glad of it.