More Tales of the West Riding (19 page)

One morning Q entering this meeting was struck by the downcast appearance of the officers present. Kossuth's noble brow was lined.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, glancing at each in turn.

A very blank look was his first reply, then he heard mutterings in which the name of England seemed to be grumbled. He turned to Kossuth.

“The Austrian government intends to require the Turks to expel us,” said Kossuth. “There is a treaty.”

“The treaty contains no such clause,” snapped a general.

“True. But if Austria and Russia combine in the demand,” began Kossuth.

“The men would be glad to return to their homes?” suggested Q uncertainly.

“They would return to imprisonment and execution,” Kossuth corrected him.

“The demand has not yet been made,” said a general.

“I cannot believe that England will allow this to happen to us,” said Kossuth, frowning.

“Once the demand is officially made, the Turks will yield.”

“Why?” said Q.

“They are weak, and Russia is strong, and stands on their northern border.”

“The demand has not been made officially yet. We learned of it by chance, from a Turkish Bey here who heard it from some court spy.”

“Then we must implore Lord Palmerston's aid at once.”

Kossuth turned to Q.

“Will you take a letter to him?” (The telegraph was not invented for another fifteen years.)

“Yes,” said Q.

This laconic answer revealed the character of the man but not the tumult of emotions which at that moment filled his heart. There was nothing he wanted more, at that moment, after the experiences of the past few months, than to be in England, but he was incapable of deserting Kossuth to please himself by achieving such safety. He therefore added:

“If you think I am the most suitable messenger.”

A series of growls from the assembled generals sounded affirmative.

“It will be dangerous,” offered Kossuth.

Q shrugged his shoulders.

It is on record that this letter—certainly written and delivered, though whether carried by Q or not we do not know; the name given is not his, but it does not figure anywhere else; after all was Q using his own name?—reached Palmerston within ten days of its leaving the Hungarian camp at Widdin.

One slight glimpse we might have of Q on this journey. When crossing the Channel, the white cliffs of Dover now
appearing to him out of the mist, he might—yes, I think he did—at this first sight of England he might have drawn out from his pocket-book the dark curly tress of Hélène, and confided it, with what anguish of heart, what enduring love, to the waves. Yes, I think he did. And so at last he reached London.

We see him climbing the stately Foreign Office steps, telling the doorkeeper firmly that he bore an urgent despatch for the Foreign Secretary, being ushered at length into the elegant room where Palmerston transacted his business. He perceived at once that the great man was a great man; the massive body, the heavy lined face, the steady frown, the large penetrating brown eyes, declared his power plainly enough.

“From Louis Kossuth,” said Q, proffering the letter. He stood stiff and straight, though he was tired.

“How did you travel?” enquired Palmerston, opening the letter.

“I slipped through,” began Q, hesitating as he remembered all the shifts by land and sea, the horses abandoned, the captains bribed, the couriers deceived, the lack of food, the cold, the seasickness, the escapes from soldiers, magistrates, police, which he and Booth had endured and triumphed over.

“Well, never mind,” said Palmerston impatiently, reading the letter.

Q, a man of sense, was at once silent.

“H'm,” said Palmerston thoughtfully. “What is it like at Widdin, eh?”

“Vermin and idleness.”

“And is this,” tapping the paper, “believed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“To be imminent?”

“Immediate.”

“Well.”

“Do you require me to return with a letter to Kossuth, sir?”

“No. I shall send a despatch of the most sternly official kind.” He thought of Queen Victoria and gave a grim smile. “You are English. Where do you live?”

“Hudley in the West Riding of Yorkshire.”

“Go home and forget this adventure,” said Palmerston. “It would never do for Kossuth to be known to be writing direct to me. Unconstitutional.”

Which explains, as one may say, everything.

So Q returned to Hudley, to his sweet and gentle wife, to the mill, to fine worsted cloth, to his charitable efforts. To canteen and saving bank, to churches and rows of houses, to educating his workers' children, to railways and mill chimneys. Peaceful, if dull—and peace is so much to be preferred to the dead body of Hélène. Sometimes, I think, Q rode up to the old house in the hills—with Booth, of course. And no doubt they silently compared the bare Pennines and narrow rocky streams to the forested slopes and broad riyers of Hungary, compared the Yorkshire folk who greeted them with slow but friendly words to the frantic music and whirling gipsy dancers of Hungary. But I do not think that Q ever mentioned Kossuth or Hungary again to anybody. He did not forget his adventure, but was too mindful of Palmerston and the exiles to speak of it. Did he find Hélène's grave when he travelled in South Europe in 1876? Difficult, I fear.

About the exiles: Palmerston put his foot down and the Queen, shocked by Russian inhumanity, supported him; the Turks, heartened, politely evaded the Austrian and Russian demands. Some of the exiles turned Mahometan and some others joined them in Turkish employ; some drifted away to other countries—some even as far as England. Not one was ever handed over to their conquerors.

Kossuth toured England and the United States in 1851, where his fine oratory brought him a fine reception. He actually came to Hudley and held meetings there. Did Q contrive to be by chance away during this period? Kossuth most likely had never heard of Hudley. How should he? Q would not trouble him with the name of an obscure small town in a northern county far from London, which in any case was probably as difficult for Hungarians to pronounce as Szegedin is by ourselves. So he made no enquiry for Q? He knew naught of his English honvëds.

Q was presently elected member of Parliament for the neighbouring borough of Annotsfield, and as I have said, was chosen by Palmerston to second the Address of thanks on the Queen's speech. We may now guess why.

After many quiet happy years together Q's wife died, and presently in due course Q, having lost most of his money, mainly by expense on social welfare work but partly by mistaken investments outside England, eventually in a seaside resort far from Hudley died too. Booth was with him when he died.

But whether Q went to Hungary or not to help Kossuth, I do not know. He was certainly one of our great benefactors. Was he one of our heroes too? I do not know. What do you think?

1971

Miss Ellis, Strolling slowly uphill in a steepish street in the West Riding town of Hudley, was halted by a small poodle trotting in front of her. The poodle, white, very curly, decidedly pretty but with rather a dispirited air, was attached by a pale blue leather lead to the hand of a plump woman walking in the centre of the pavement. Miss Ellis tried to pass the poodle on the right, but the little dog swerved at once in that direction. She changed her tactics and tried to pass the fat woman (as she crossly called her) on the left, but there was not space on the pavement for this manoeuvre, and Miss Ellis thought it unwise to plunge into the roadway, down which—it was a one-way street—vehicles were rapidly swishing. She tried the right-hand side again. Somehow the pale blue lead wound itself round her ankle. The poodle looked up at her with sad reproachful eyes; the lead jerked its owner's hand, and Mrs Jowett turned sharply on Miss Ellis.

“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Ellis stiffly.

“Not your fault,” said Mrs Jowett. This was clearly not her real thought, for her expression was glum and her tone angry.

Miss Ellis found this artificial forgiveness insulting.

“I'm so sorry,” she repeated, rather more stiffly than before.

“Lulu!” barked Mrs Jowett. The poodle cowered.

“Poor Lulu,” said Miss Ellis. It was now her turn to be insulting and she meant her tone to sound so.

Mrs Jowett jerked the lead, and after a moment of acute discomfort, when Lulu seemed bent in half and her claws scrabbled on Miss Ellis's ankles, the poodle was disentangled.

“A pretty little dog,” remarked Miss Ellis coldly while this was in progress.

“She's been a good friend to me, has Lulu.”

“Indeed.”

The two women glanced sideways at each other. They observed that both were pleasantly and even handsomely dressed. Miss Ellis, who was justifiably proud of her tall and slender figure, inclined to the well-cut and quiet; Mrs Jowett, plumper, went in for fur and colour. Each disliked the other's style, but recognised its propriety. They walked on side by side, not quite knowing how to part without discourtesy, and too angry to allow themselves the pleasure of rudeness.

“You think I was taking up the whole pavement, I expect, wandering from side to side,” accused Mrs Jowett.

“Not at all,” replied Miss Ellis, making the lie obvious.

“There's too many hills in this town,” complained Mrs Jowett, panting—implying that Miss Ellis walked too fast for her.

Miss Ellis looked round at the well-loved Pennines on the lower slopes of which the town was built, and gave a modified agreement.

“Perhaps,” she said in her high light tones. “Still, I should not care to live in a flat town.”

“
I
should,” snapped Mrs Jowett.

“A friend of mine,” pursued Miss Ellis, eager to express opposition, “who married and went to live in Cambridge—a very level district, you know—used to say that the moment she got out of the train here, in Hudley, she felt better. Livelier. More alive. The air felt fresher here.”

“I'll bet she was young to say that,” countered Mrs Jowett crossly.

“She was at the time, yes,” agreed Miss Ellis.

Her voice held a note which Mrs Jowett, though she could not name it, recognised. But she was not to be wheedled.

“You've lost her then, have you?” she said, harsh.

“Yes,” said Miss Ellis briefly, looking aside. “When her baby was born.”

“Well—it happens,” said Mrs Jowett, matter-of-fact. “I lost my young sister, you know. Same way. Pity.”

“Indeed,” agreed Miss Ellis, her tone still flat and chilly.

They arrived at the threshold of the pedestrian crossing, and paused. Cars of every shape, size and hue, buses, vans, motor-bikes, flew by.

“Well, here we are. Not that they'll take much notice of
us
,” said Mrs Jowett, sour.

“Oh, I don't know,” countered Miss Ellis, vexed. “My brother drives and he's always most scrupulous at crossings.”

A very young teenager, with dark flowing hair and flowery short pants, came rushing up and put one toe on the crossing. Amid horrific shrieks of brakes, the cars, almost rearing in their effort to stop, managed to prevent their front wheels from trespass on the crossing. The drivers all scowled, and the scowl spread down the long line of traffic. The teenager skipped blithely and nimbly across to safety. She did not even condescend to smile at the halted cars.

“What do you think of that, eh?” demanded Mrs Jowett.

“It's not easy to stop a car suddenly in a yard and a half,” countered Miss Ellis.

The driver of the foremost car now made frantic signs to Mrs Jowett, urging her to cross.

“No, thanks. Not for me. I can't hurry,” said Mrs Jowett. “I have to wait till there's a real gap, you see.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Rheumatism. I limp a bit. Don't wait for
me,
” urged Mrs Jowett disagreeably.

“I can't hurry either,” admitted Miss Ellis.

“Oh? Boots too tight?” said Mrs Jowett sardonically.

Miss Ellis's boots were certainly rather dashing; tall and tight, with black and silvery patterns. She was vexed by this attack on them, but managed to laugh.

“No—as a matter of fact they're rather helpful,” she said. “They give support. I sprained one of my ankles twice, that's all.”

“A sprain is worse than a fracture, they say,” said Mrs Jowett, unctuously gleeful.

“It has proved so in my case.”

“You should have some of those what-do-you-call-them injections,” reproved Mrs Jowett.

“I've had several,” riposted Miss Ellis.

“Or physio-therapy or what is it.”

“I've tried that too. The truth is,” volunteered Miss Ellis coldly, spurred to defence, “I fell down our cellar steps when I was four years old, and my left hip and ankle have always been a little—”