The Last Days (37 page)

‘The other night,’ Pyke said. ‘What did he want?’

Emily laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, the usual. Someone to rant at.’

Pyke studied her expression. ‘He did not suspect you with regard to the robbery?’

‘If he did, he did not say so.’ Emily looked at him. She seemed nervous and a little distant as well. At the far end of the alley, the two figures were slowly moving towards them.

‘Is something the matter?’ he asked, trying to keep one eye on the man and the woman.

Emily wetted her lips. ‘I’m soon to be married.’ She sounded both upset and resigned to this prospect. ‘As soon as my father can make arrangements.’

‘Married? That’s why he wanted to see you the other night?’

Emily nodded. ‘To tell me.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘This time, he is insistent.’

He looked at her calmly, waiting. ‘I take it you flatly refused him.’

‘He said if I didn’t marry, then he would disinherit me.’

‘He would do that?’ As soon as he had asked the question, Pyke realised how stupid it sounded. The question of what Edmonton wouldn’t do was more pertinent.

Emily confirmed the stupidity of his question with a look of exasperation.

‘But you can’t marry someone simply because your father tells you to.’

‘The money that was settled on me by trust is only a very modest sum.’ She refused to look at him. ‘If I agree to this marriage, my father has promised to quadruple the amount.’

Pyke thought about Emily’s mother and the bleak assessment of the physician.

‘And money is that important to you?’

‘To my work it is. There are many worthy causes it could be put towards.’

‘But you would actually consider marrying some stranger, only for material gain?’

‘You make me sound like some kind of courtesan.’

‘A stranger selected by Edmonton,’ Pyke continued, regardless of whether he hurt her or not. ‘What kind of man might that be?’

‘I don’t know.’ Emily looked down at the ground. Her hands were shaking. ‘I haven’t met him yet.’

‘But you plan to?’

‘I don’t seem to have a choice.’ Emily shrugged. ‘I’m told his name is James Sloan. He’s a solicitor by profession but has political ambitions. He has just been elected as Member of Parliament to represent a constituency near Hambledon. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?’

Pyke thought about the farm labourers and their talk about the suspicious death of their sitting parliamentarian.

‘I’ve heard your father bullies people into voting for whichever candidate he has put up.’

Emily looked towards the main street and then down at her pocket watch. ‘I can’t delay any longer. Perhaps I could visit you later?’

In the other direction, the two figures, a prostitute and her pimp perhaps, were now strolling towards them with purpose.

‘You can’t marry this man,’ Pyke said bluntly.

Emily adjusted her bonnet. ‘Tell me where you’re staying and we can talk about this later. I’ll find an excuse to get out of Hambledon.’

Pyke told her about the church. ‘What about everything you said to me the other night about not wanting to marry at all ?’

‘I know.’ Her expression was pained. ‘It’s just not that straightforward.’

The prostitute and the pimp were only ten or fifteen yards away when the two police constables stopped at the end of the alley and looked towards them. Instinctively, Pyke pulled Emily towards him and pressed his lips against hers. It was an awkward kiss. The two police constables called out, either to them or to the pimp and the prostitute, and proceeded to walk briskly down the alleyway towards them. Pyke pulled Emily into an even closer embrace. Beyond them, the couple ran back down the alley in the opposite direction. The police constables passed them without comment.

Long after Emily had gathered up her skirt and hurried to her waiting carriage, Pyke could taste both the lingering sweetness of her kiss and her fear and reticence.

 

Later that afternoon, Pyke met Townsend in a country inn on the outskirts of Enfield. It was a bare room with whitewashed walls and sanded floors. Farm labourers dressed in smock-frocks sat around a large wooden table exchanging stories. A lurcher lay in front of the open fire. When they first entered the inn, conversations paused and heads turned towards them, but they were soon ignored. A pot boy brought them porter in pewter tankards from the adjoining taproom. Pyke asked about Goddard’s wife and how she had reacted to news of his death.

Townsend muttered that it had been terrible, having to inform her, but did not elaborate on this. As they drank, Pyke found himself wondering how much he could trust Townsend and whether he might be tempted to claim the reward that was being offered for Pyke’s capture in order to avenge Goddard’s death.

Townsend told him that a private militia acting under Edmonton’s orders had ransacked and closed down three village inns used regularly by the protesters. This had, in turn, provoked a series of counteractions. In one instance, a mob had attacked the village priest and dragged him through a duck pond. In another, a group of workers had used sledgehammers to destroy a threshing machine on a farm near Waltham Abbey. In the meantime, Canning and Saville had produced a clutch of handbills advertising a protest meeting and distributed them in the affected villages. The meeting was due to take place that evening on the land of a farmer who had long resented Edmonton’s exorbitant rents.

‘What about any news of this man Jimmy Swift?’ Pyke asked.

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing at all. No one seems to have heard of him or know anything about him.’

‘In spite of the reward?’ Pyke was incredulous. It was almost impossible for someone to disappear without trace.

‘There are people who claim they know where he is, of course, because of the reward, but as yet no one’s actually managed to identify him.’

Townsend gave him one of the handbills. It announced the date, time and place of the meeting and listed a series of grievances and unspectacular demands. At the bottom of the handbill was a quote: ‘The laws passed within the last fifty years present an unbroken and unparalleled series of endeavours to enrich and increase the power of the aristocracy and to impoverish the labouring people.’

If nothing else, such a quote would get under Edmonton’s skin.

‘And Edmonton’s likely to hear about this?’

‘Almost certainly,’ Townsend said, warily. ‘Given the number of handbills we’ve distributed.’

‘Edmonton won’t let an opportunity like this pass.’

‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ Townsend said, staring down into his tankard.

Pyke waited for a moment. ‘If you have a problem with what I’m doing, then say so.’

‘A lot of ordinary men and women are going to be caught in the middle and some might get hurt.’ Townsend shrugged. ‘That’s all.’

‘But we’re not forcing anyone to come to the meeting who doesn’t want to.’

‘No, we’re not.’

‘And the fact that these people have been driven to near-breaking point isn’t our doing, is it?’

‘No, it’s not,’ Townsend said, still refusing to meet Pyke’s stare. ‘But there’ll be a lot of anger in that barn.’

‘I’m sure there will be.’

‘And when Edmonton’s militia turns up?’

‘There’ll probably be some fighting,’ Pyke said, trying not to think about what might happen.

This time Townsend looked up at him. ‘And what are we supposed to do, when this fighting breaks out?’

Pyke stared at him. He had nothing to say that would alleviate Townsend’s righteous sense of guilt.

 

They arrived in twos and threes. Some walked, others came on horse-drawn carts, others rode donkeys. They trudged into the barn in their coats, frocks, pantaloons, breeches, boots and shoes, young and old men alike, some with whiskers and others who were cleanly shaven. By seven o’clock, as dusk settled over the freshly harvested fields and gently rolling hills, there were fifty or sixty people crowded into the small barn. Inside, Saville and Canning were addressing the gathering. Meanwhile, Pyke had positioned himself behind an oak tree, some fifty yards from the barn’s entrance. It was a cold night, almost cold enough for a frost, but the skies were clear and, though it was not dark enough to see the stars, a half-moon was visible above the farmhouse.

Pyke heard them before he saw them: the sound of hoofs moving in unison, vibrating against the hard ground.

They turned on to the track that led up to the farm, at least ten of them, all riding horses and holding torches.

They rode slowly but with purpose along the flinty track and came to a halt about a hundred yards from where Pyke was standing. In the light of their torches, he scanned their faces and was disappointed not to see Swift among them.

As they gathered together in a circle, all on horseback, one of their rank, their leader perhaps, addressed them in hushed tones. Pyke tried to determine who this man was, but his view was blocked by another rider. In the barn, a raucous cheer erupted from the gathered crowd which seemed to get the raiding party’s attention. Pyke could not hear what they were saying to each other, but they were clearly preparing themselves to attack; they lined up in formation alongside one another, their torches held aloft. From somewhere behind them, their leader gave the signal and the men roused their horses into action. It did not take them long to pick up speed, and once they had done so, and were bearing in on their target, they started to shout: angry, blood-curdling cries whose sole purpose was to terrorise those inside the barn. As the horses thundered past him, Pyke scanned their faces again, but saw no one he recognised.

Just as the first figures stumbled out of the barn, the raiders were upon them, scything them down and using their torches to set the rickety wooden building alight. Moments later, the trickle of men emerging from the barn became a deluge. As they spilled out into the darkness, the raiders were waiting for them and attacked without mercy; some were trampled under hoofs, others were beaten with sticks and set alight.

It was a bloody sight and Pyke bore his own responsibility for initiating the conflict heavily. He tried to close his eyes to the horror of what was happening but the cruelty of the raiders and the helplessness of the protesters elicited a feeling of self-disgust.

As he scanned the faces of the mob, he saw the familiar gait of the old man who had lost his daughter and grandchild. He was trying to hobble to safety when one of the men on horseback flew past him and struck him on the head with what looked like a makeshift hammer. The old man went down. The rider pulled up the horse, turned around and without another thought rode the horse over the old man’s prostrate figure. The man quivered for a moment and then stopped moving.

But Pyke’s attention was distracted by one of the raiding party who had kept himself back from the fray and was watching the unfolding mayhem from a safe distance. Without pausing to determine whether this was Swift or not, he scurried across the track that led to the farm, concealing himself in the shadows of the grassy verge. Ten yards away, he paused to take aim with the pistol; his plan was to shoot the horse and take Swift alive.

He steadied himself and cocked the pistol.

But in the instant before Pyke fired, something alerted the horse to his presence and the animal reared upwards; the shot whistled harmlessly past its head.

In these circumstances, most riders would have fallen off. But Swift - if indeed that was who it was - was a skilled horseman and remained upright, even as the horse reared up. Before Pyke could further unsettle the animal, or reload the pistol, the rider had managed to calm the horse down and goad it into action. With the man clinging to its back, the animal bolted off along the track, leaving Pyke on the ground staring upwards into a cloud of dust. But just before the galloping horse turned the corner at the end of the hedge-lined track, the rider pulled up and, turning around to face him, waited for a few moments and waved.

*

‘I have come with a message from my mistress.’ Jo’s timid voice echoed around the draughty church. She removed her bonnet and approached the pew where Pyke was sitting, with obvious caution.

Sensing her unease, Pyke invited her to take a seat, but she ignored his offer and opted to remain where she was. ‘I was under the impression that Emily planned to visit herself.’ He watched as she brushed the rain from her short red hair.

Jo looked down at her feet. ‘She instructed me to tell you that Edmonton will not permit her to leave Hambledon.’

‘I see.’

For a while, neither of them seemed to know what to say.

‘Mr Pyke . . .’

‘Please,’ he said, gently, ‘Pyke will do.’ He tried to smile. ‘I’m not used to being addressed in such a formal manner.’

This drew a pained expression. ‘Miss Blackwood has been so good to me, and I don’t want to lose my job . . .’

‘Please don’t blame yourself,’ Pyke said, raising his hand. ‘It was not your fault. I shouldn’t have . . .’ He hesitated, not sure what else to say.

But this seemed enough to put her at ease. ‘She’s so unhappy. She didn’t tell me to say that to you, but I thought I should say something anyway.’

Pyke stood up and rubbed his hands together to keep them warm. ‘Is it your impression she intends to go ahead with this marriage?’

‘I know such a thought appals her.’

‘But she’s at least willing to contemplate it as a possibility?’

‘It is not a question of being willing, I think.’ This time Jo raised her eyes to meet his stare.

‘But she is on the verge of succumbing to her father’s bullying?’

‘I wouldn’t know about that, but . . .’ Jo hesitated, as though unsure about whether she should continue. She pulled her woollen shawl tighter around her shoulders.

‘Go on.’

‘I know she’s to meet this man the day after tomorrow. He’s sending a carriage for her.’