Death of a Radical (16 page)

“An honorable man stands behind his beliefs—you taught me that,” the youth protested.

“It's never that simple, Grub. Taking violent action in support of beliefs leads to their betrayal more often than not. Imperfect order is better than anarchy.” Jarrett paused; his voice deepened. “I have been in places where men operate without order and believe me, humanity does not flourish.”

A clock struck in the hall below.

“Have you enough for now, cousin? The fairs open at noon.”

Jarrett put aside his brush and wiped his hands. “Enough for now. Go. You are at liberty!”

Favian nodded. With an uncomfortable half-smile and lowered eyes he left.

Jarrett watched the empty doorway a moment.

“I've disappointed him.”

“Nonsense. You're his hero!” blustered Charles with just a touch of envy. “What better man to emulate than our Raif?”

“I'm no one's hero.” Jarrett repudiated the notion in disgust.

“You're my hero!” trilled Charles, clasping his hands before him and fluttering his eyelashes like some trollop in a play. Jarrett buffeted him with his spare hand.

“I know I was young once, but I was never
that
young,” said Charles.

“You have never felt such passion?”

“You
know
I am quite without enthusiasm,” Charles
responded. A glimpse of self-knowing amusement crossed his face. “A gentleman should never be too passionate—it is unsettling.”

“For you or for the order of things?”

“Precisely.”

Jarrett snorted.

“Don't it strike you as odd,” Charles continued, “that the family should have chosen the pair of us to set the little fellow back on the path to righteousness and sobriety? I don't know as I like being cast as a dull, preachy fellow.”

Jarrett turned his back, busying himself with his brushes at the table.

“Mrs. Adley does not ask for sobriety. She is content with all the manly vices. It is the exaltations of the poet that unsettle her.”

Charles's eyes were on the portrait. “What father would not take pleasure in looking upon the image of such a son?” He remarked ironically. “But I fear canvas is the nearest Grub's parent shall come to it.” He stilled. “The shape of his head,” he said, “don't he remind you of … ?”

Jarrett was caught out. It surprised him that after all these years the pain of one child's loss could still catch him in the heart.

“I sometimes think of what little brother Ferdy might have been,” Charles went on quietly, “had he not been taken from us.”

“I know.”

“Instead we are left with this brat!” he exclaimed.

They stood side by side surveying the image taking
shape on the canvas. Favian sat in a cloudy form of darks and lights and through the window behind him a sweep of land and big sky.

“Is it safe to let him roam like this—full as he is with his new wondrous notions?”

In his mind's eye Jarrett saw Favian surrounded by his new acquaintances at the Red Angel the night before. They seemed a decent group of men. He liked what he had seen of Miss Lippett's oddly independent servant. For all Favian's outrage at his glimpse of the conditions of the working man Jarrett knew of no acute distress among the weavers—certainly none of the kind likely to fuel real dissent. Let the boy explore this new world. Perhaps his singing companions would teach him sense.

“A cousin of the mighty Duke of Penrith?” he said lightly. “What harm can he come to in this neighborhood?”

The whole population of Woolbridge, it seemed, and that of quite some miles beyond, had braved the chill to gather along the route of the fair. Booths choked Cripplegate down to the bottom of the hill where the wool and leather goods were displayed in front of Bedford's mill. By law nothing could be sold before the opening rituals but here and there stallkeepers struck bargains behind counters and awnings while keeping a weather eye out for the constable. Favian spotted a free space by the railings in front of Bedford's house. As he was making for it his breath caught. It was the same neat figure, the glossy hair, the pink cheeks. There, sitting in an open window, was the young girl who had befriended him in the coach.

He crossed the space between them. There was a half-basement. His eyes were on a level with her waist. He tilted up his face.

“Remember me?” he asked.

She stood up in a fluster and took a step back into the safety of the room.

“Sir! We have not been introduced.”

“F-Favian Vere Adley at your service,” he stammered. He recalled his wits, thinking of their journey north together. “But we
have
been introduced,” he said.

“By a stranger!” she protested, as if he had cheated at a parlor game.

“Well, I certainly wouldn't want that frightful woman's acquaintance,” he responded, shuddering at the memory of the importunate milliner. His companion stifled a giggle.

“If we've been introduced, you must remember my name,” she said boldly.

“Miss B—” he stumbled as the significance of her family name struck him. “Bedford,” he pronounced, sounding startled. “You see, we are old acquaintances.”

She held out her hand. She wasn't wearing any gloves. Her hand was small and rounded with the neatest little nails imaginable. He took it carefully and bowed over it. She made a soft sound halfway between a cough and a sigh.

“I'm a poet,” he announced, straightening up. Now why had he said that? he thought to himself, appalled.

“I thought you might be something of the sort,” Miss Bedford responded matter-of-factly. “You are the first poet I ever met.” They gazed at one another in bashful silence. He cleared his throat.

“You must be very clever,” said Lally in a rush. “I wonder where you find your ideas!” She stopped abruptly and bit her bottom lip as if embarrassed by the sound of her own words.

“From all around,” he replied, recovering himself. “A man meets inspiration everywhere. In the street,” he waved a hand to encompass the scene before them. Then inspired at that very moment, he turned back to her. “Or in a window.”

Her lashes fluttered. She looked down and blushed. He teased the edge of the red handkerchief that protruded from his cuff.

“I have something I should return to you.” He drew her handkerchief from its hiding place and held it out. She looked at him as if he had just produced a toad. “It is laundered,” he said quickly, “just a little crushed.”

“Oh!” she leaned forward a fraction.

“I shall always remember your kindness to me,” he blurted out. “I hope I did not distress you.” In the coach he had thought—just for an instant—that he might die. It seemed to him that that moment had created an intimacy between them. His very skin glowed in the warmth of her dark brown eyes.

“Are you recovered?”

Her solicitous inquiry made him realize that his chest had not felt tight all day.

“Perfectly recovered,” he replied energetically. “This country air, you know, it does one a power of good.” There was a butcher's stall up wind. The drain flowing behind it was clogged with pungent blood and guts. Miss Bedford wrinkled her nose skeptically. He caught the joke a step behind her and for a moment there were just the two of them bound together in the shared humor of it.

She reached down tentatively to take the handkerchief. He pulled his hand back.

“May I keep it?”

“Why?”

“For inspiration.” She cocked her head like a curious kitten.

“Keep it then,” she said.

“I shall cherish it as a token …” He stopped himself. He didn't want her to think him an ass. “A reminder of your kindness,” he amended. “I shall write a sonnet in its honor.” His mind raced ahead to a delicate, witty composition playing on the sentiment of how a heart might be snared in a simple square of cloth.

“Hey Book Boy!”

Favian glanced over his shoulder. His companions from the night before had emerged from the crowd at the mouth of Powcher's Lane. Dickon Watson towered above the rest.

“Your friends are calling you,” said Miss Bedford briskly. He looked up at her.

“Why not come down and join me?” he asked.

She hesitated, doubt and inclination at odds in her expressive face.

“My aunt …”

“Come with me,” he coaxed. He swept his best London bow. “Miss Bedford, may I beg your company for a tour of the fairs? I dare say you would find it amusing.”

The lady darted a look behind her and made up her mind.

“I shall fetch my things,” she said and disappeared.

Dickon strolled up on his long legs. He dropped his chin.

“All right?” he greeted Favian. “Who's that?”

Favian wondered if he looked any different. He knew he was not the same man Dickon had seen the night before.

“Miss Bedford!”

“Bedford?” Dickon's eyes narrowed.

“I am to escort Miss Bedford around the fair.”

Dickon scowled. “I thought you were with us on this!” he said belligerently.

The old Favian might have been intimidated. The new one floated, buoyed up on a cloud of fresh emotion.

“I am!” he protested.

A sly grin dawned on Dickon's face.

“Bedford's niece! Quick thinking, Book Boy,” he said approvingly. “We'll walk ahead of yous.” He backed away to rejoin his friends. “Got plenty of coin?” he called. “You're going to have to buy her things, know that, don't you?”

“Ribbons at the very least,” Jo agreed.

“Or fairings. My Nancy likes fairings,” chimed in Harry Aitken. Dickon jerked his head at the tousle-headed weaver.

“And Hen's married, so he'd know,” he said, mock solemn, and they walked on up the hill laughing.

Jarrett shrugged his shoulders, drawing his heavy cloak about him. The wind was blowing from the east. He
detected a yellow tinge to the solid lid of cloud. There would be snow by nightfall. He had taken up a post at the top of a small flight of worn steps overlooking the tollbooth. The marketplace, filled with pens and beasts, stretched out to his right and Cripplegate Hill, crammed with its people and stalls, dropped down to his left. A clutch of excited young girls—no more than twelve or thirteen years old—stood below him exercising their lungs calling out as a group of adolescent boys passed by. His eye traveled on in their wake. Half-concealed behind an ample mother checking her rampant charges, just to the left of the burly father uncomfortable in his unaccustomed bindings, he spotted two soldiers. They were wearing greatcoats buttoned up over their red jackets, their eyes on watch. One glanced over as if to check a position. Jarrett followed the line of sight and picked out another soldier. Soon he had identified a good half-dozen men posted up and down the crowd.

Up by the market cross a fife and drum were heard and then the ringing of a hand-bell. The press heaved and shifted as a haphazard procession pushed its way past the pens. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of something bright standing out against the winter colors of the scene. A woman dressed in a striking costume chevroned in bands of lemon and black had just emerged from the Queen's Head. The sweeping black brim of the hat turned to reveal the unmistakable profile of Miss Lonsdale. A liveried footman stood beside her at the rail of a bath chair. The chair contained a
hunched, frail-looking being swaddled in an Indian shawl. So the fairs had drawn out Lady Catherine, Sir Thomas's close relative and companion at Oakdene Hall. The old lady rarely left the Hall in winter. There was a white and tan terrier at her feet. The creature carried a walking stick that protruded at least a foot either side of its mouth. It trotted before its mistress's chair mowing a path through the crowd with an absurd air of self-importance.

The procession approached. Thaddaeus Bone led the way with the white staff of his office as Borough Constable. By his side walked a young boy carrying a brass hand-bell. They were followed by a group of constables dressed in the ill-fitting jackets of their ancestors, bearing ancient halberds from the town armory. Then came an irregular gap that swelled and narrowed in relation to the perseverance of the fifteen jurymen of the Borough Court who trailed after them. They grouped by habit in their various degrees. The publican, Jasper Bedlington, walking alongside Mr. McKenzie, the shopkeeper, and Captain Adams keeping company with Mr. Bedford, the mill owner. The magistrates brought up the rear wearing the expressions of public men doing their duty. It felt strange to recognize so many faces. He could attach histories and connections to nearly every participant. It was almost as if he were a settled man. The thought made him uneasy. He filled his lungs with chill air.

The boy rang his bell with enthusiasm and Constable
Bone proclaimed the rules of the fair. The officials processed down the narrow channel between the stalls to repeat the proclamation at the farthest boundary and then marched back up to the marketplace and dispersed. The Easter Fairs had begun.

He should pay his respects to Lady Catherine. Jarrett abandoned his perch and plunged into the crowd. He spied Miss Lonsdale's yellow and black further down Cripplegate. The old lady was no longer with her. Miss Henrietta was bending over a stall in company with her odd acquaintance, Miss Lippett. He stopped, concealed amid the customers pressed round a hot sausage stand.

Miss Lippett was hesitating over a particularly offensive pottery cherub with bulbous cheeks. For all he found the woman uncongenial, he would not have suspected a gentlewoman of such appalling taste. He wondered what could have led Miss Lonsdale to make such a tiresome friend. As he considered the question, a farmer's daughter with the vacant, milksop look of a sentimental print of a milkmaid dropped her handkerchief in the path of some young men. Jarrett recognized faces from the Red Angel song club. He watched as Miss Lippett's singing servant sprang forward. His employer's expression as the man returned the scrap of cloth to the girl was a sight to behold. Could it be that the absurd spinster cherished a penchant for her sturdy serving man?