The Reckoning (66 page)

And there was Stainton Manor, its chimneys first amongst
the tree tops, and then a glimpse of black and white, and a
spark of gold from a window-pane throwing back a last ray of
sun. Polly felt an increase of dread, or gloom; a sense of re
entering a prison. When she was at the inn, she had wanted to
go home, but this was not home, was it? This was her cage.
Then they were upon it, suddenly, as they rounded a bend.

Harvey stopped the horse at the front gate. 'Jump down,
darling. You can go in this way, while I take the horse round
the back.’

She obeyed him, lifting her skirt clear of the slimy moss on
the front path and walking carefully towards the oaken door
as the horse's steps diminished round the corner. The door
was not locked. She pushed it open and went in, smelling the
dusty, disused scent of her prison, the churchlike odour of dry
rot and beeswax and old tapestries. The air was still, and
neither warm nor cold, as though it existed in a place outside
the real world where such concepts had no meaning. It was
quiet, with the quiet of emptiness. The servants were not back
yet.

Ahead of her the corridor disappeared into shadows.
Suddenly she couldn't bear it. She had to get outside again,
she had to get to Harvey, not to be alone here. She hurried
forward, almost running, turning aside from the way that led into the heart of the house, and down the passage to the side
door. Oh, but it was shut, she couldn't get it open! She
fumbled, panicking, with the unfamiliar latch – an affair of
black metal levers and counterpoises, big enough for a
church. Her hands were cold and damp and slipped on the
metal ring as she twisted and jerked at it uselessly. The house
would not let her go, she thought despairingly. She would never get out! And then there was a click, and lightly and
easily as a fingertip touch the levers engaged and the great
bolt slid up and the door swung inward towards her.

Out into the open air she staggered: cooler, moss-scented,
bat-flickering twilight air. Somewhere a wood-pigeon cooed
liquidly. All was well. Why had she been so afraid? Dragging in her breath, trying to calm her foolish, panicking heart, she
turned towards the back of the house, following the path
round its perimeter, intending to go to the stableyard behind
to find Harvey.

But she found him before that. As she turned the corner
she saw him a little way ahead of her, hunkered down on the
path, crouching over something that looked like a bundle of
clothing.

‘
Harvey!' she called gladly, and then, on a questioning
note, 'Harvey?’

He looked up, and his face seemed strangely out of shape,
as though he had been made of soft wax, and his features had
sagged and spread.

‘Don't come any closer,' he said.

‘
What is it?' She heard her own voice sounding much
higher than usual, very small and very frightened. But what was she frightened of? What was there to fear in a bundle of
clothes, a woman's dress and shawl ...? 'Harvey, what's
happened?'

‘
Would to God the servants were here! All there is is old Makepeace in the stables, God damn it, and he's over sixty.
Well, he'll have to do. Polly, go to the stables and find Make-
peace and make him understand. He's to take my horse and
go as fast as he can for Dr Tibbs. Tell him not to stop for
anything.’

Polly stood frozen where he had stopped her, trying to
understand what had happened with a mind which was
refusing to understand, while the rest of her trembled with
foreknowledge. She couldn't move or speak, but she could
hear, and she heard noises from the stableyard which must be
the servants' brake come back from the fair; and she could
see, too, that long before the generality of passengers could
have had time to alight, one person had come running
through the wicket between the big brown backs of the coach-
houses. The person came running before she could have
known that there was anything to come running for, and saw
and understood everything while she was still many paces off.

‘
My lady! My lady! Oh God, what's happened? What have
you done to her?’

Harvey turned his head towards Hill as she came running,
stumbling in her haste, her shawl slipping off backwards, and
he lifted one hand slightly, as though he thought she might
strike him.

‘
Oh my God, you've killed her! You murderer, you've
killed her!' Hill shrieked.

And then Polly understood with all her mind, and all its
capacity for horror, why amongst the bundle of clothes on the
path there was a wig the same colour as Minnie's hair, and why there seemed also to be a face, just like Minnie's face,
except that one side of it was very white, as white as china,
and the other side was smeared and wet with red sauce.

BOOK THREE

Acts of Love

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour

Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put

Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head,

Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.

William Blake:
To Spring

 
Mathilde and John Skelwith were dining at Morland Place.

‘
It's wonderful how Monsieur Barnard manages to produce
such delicious dishes under the circumstances,' Mathilde said
appreciatively as Father Moineau helped her to the mackerel
pie. 'This smells wonderful — what is the sauce?'

‘
Fennel and gooseberry,' Héloïse said. 'It's one of the old
receipts out of the Household Book, but of course Barnard
has put his own gloss on it.'

‘
And are those baked apples? Such heaven! Ours aren't
ready yet; and when they are, our cook won't bake them a tenth as well as Barnard does. And when you consider the
difficulties he faces —'

‘
Only he would consider them difficulties,' Moineau said
with a smile.

‘
But Barnard simply pines for his open fire with all its
inconvenience,' Héloïse added.

‘
Yes, that's true. Imagine, John, what our cook would say if
we expected him to cook on an open fire!'

‘
I beg your pardon, my love — I wasn't attending.' John Skelwith turned to her from his conversation with James at
the other end of the table.

‘
We were talking of cooking-stoves, and how Monsieur
Barnard manages. How long will it be, do you think, before
he has his kitchen back?’

Not a tactful question, in front of her ladyship!' Skelwith
said. 'I know it must seem that it's taking far too long.'

‘
We should not have given the job to you if we did not trust
you,' Héloïse said reassuringly; but gave herself away by
adding, 'I suppose it won't be finished soon?'

‘
It's so hard to get decent timber these days,' Skelwith said,
‘and bricks are not what they were, either. But the main diffi
culty is with the foundations, as I expect you know by now.
Either those mediaeval builders knew a thing or two that
we've forgotten, or else Morland Place has stood up all these
years by chance.'

‘
Oh, don't say that,' Héloïse said with a shudder. 'I still
dream sometimes –' She stopped abruptly, and since nobody
immediately spoke to rescue her, she said determinedly,
‘What was it you were talking about when we interrupted
with our domestic chatter?'

‘
Oliver the Spy, of course,' James said, smiling down the
table at his wife. 'What else does anyone talk of these days?’

The Pentrich Rebellion had achieved more notoriety in the
aftermath than in the act. Shortly after the arrests had been
made, it became known that an agent who went under the
name of ‘Mr Oliver' had twice gone out incognito on a tour of
the north, visiting Hampden Clubs and other centres of disaf
fection, and reporting back secretly to Lord Sidmouth at the
Home Office.

It was claimed by the Government that it was largely
because of the activities of Mr Oliver that the planned rebel
lion in the north had been confined to Pentrich. It was by his
urging that the projected date of the rising had been put off
twice, giving the participants time to grow nervous and have
second thoughts; and giving him time to sew such doubts of
the likely success of the venture that in the end all but Bran
dreth had given it up entirely.

The Opposition, however, had seized on the idea, and given
it a twist to their own advantage. Mr Oliver was not an agent,
they said, but an
agent provocateur.
He had not offered his
services to gather information, but had been recruited and
employed by Sidmouth as a spy; and far from having broken
up the proposed rebellion, he had actually caused the sedition
by stirring up men who would not otherwise have been
stirred.

The Whig and Radical newspapers plunged in with delight,
and soon 'Oliver the Spy' had been blown up from one rather
shabby and inefficient informer, into a whole system and
network of government agents, infiltrating every stratum of
society and spying on honest, peaceful citizens with a view to
perverting them to treason. It was outrageous, it was
disgraceful, and above all it was un-English! Spying and
informing and secrecy and knocks on the door in the middle
of the night – that was the way Continental governments
went about things; that was how foreign powers oppressed
their people. It was all of a piece with standing armies, paid
police forces, and interference into mens' private lives, things
a free nation like the English would not tolerate; and provo
cation to sedition was the last straw.

‘
I imagine that's the line the defence counsel means to take
at the trials, isn't it?' Skelwith said. 'When are they to be, by
the way?'

‘
In October, in Derby,' James replied. 'Well, if they do, it
won't avail them. Provocation is no defence to treason.'

‘
Certainly not,' Héloïse agreed. 'It wouldn't matter whether
Mr Oliver or Brandreth or anyone else tried to persuade them
to rebel – they still should not have been persuaded.'

‘
But I thought – at least, didn't it say in the paper – that it
wasn't a political rebellion at all?' Mathilde said. 'Didn't it say
that they wanted bread, not the vote?'

‘
Yes, love,' Skelwith explained, 'but they still meant to
overthrow the Government, pull down the Houses of Parlia
ment, and seize the Tower, and that's a political action.'