The Reckoning (93 page)

‘
Something's happening,' Sophie said, her eyes wide. A
splurge of sound, hoarse male voices, the shrill neigh of a
horse, and then what was unmistakably a woman's scream.

‘
It's probably nothing,' Rosamund said. 'I expect someone
got out of hand and they had to send in the troops.’

Down below them, beyond the sweep and the handsome
iron gates, the dusty street was empty under the midday sun,
mocking their fears with its blandness. But all the while the
clamour in the distance was growing, still maddeningly indis
tinct, but now and then punctuated by a scream or a whinny.
And then suddenly into the end of the street the crowd
irrupted.

‘
God, what is it?' Sophie cried.

They came running down the street, men and women,
some of them dragging children by the hand, some of them
with torn clothes, some of them wounded; fleeing from God
knew-what terror, mouths open wide in one composite
scream, dusty faces streaked with tears, with sweat, with
trickling blood. They saw a man with one arm dangling, the
sleeve slashed almost in half, pause for a moment, clinging to
the gate with his good hand, turning his face this way and that in blank terror, before the crowd snatched him up and
bore him away like a piece of paper down a storm-drain.
They saw a woman clutching a child, its legs locked around
her waist, stumble and fall forward, to be scooped back onto
her feet by the men running either side of her.

They rushed past in a grey and brown and black flood, and in only a few minutes they were gone, leaving behind them a
thick dust which hung on the air, and settled slowly over a
scattered trail of debris – splintered poles, torn banners, and
lost and trampled property. Rosamund and Sophie found
themselves clutching each other's hands, with dry mouths
and prickling eyes, staring down the street in the direction of
St Peter's Fields, waiting for the next terrible thing to
happen.

They hadn't long to wait. Soon into the street came three
men, two of them supporting a third, who staggered between
them as though drunk.

‘
It's Jasper!' Sophie's cry came out involuntarily as though
she had been struck. Rosamund saw that it was so. The man
on the left – smaller and slighter than the other two – was
Jasper Hobsbawn. The man on the right – good God! – was Fitzherbert Hawker. The man in the middle, she saw with a
sickening sensation of falling, was Jesmond Farraline: he was
hanging on their shoulders, his hands dangling limply, his feet stumbling, and his face was a mask of blood.

*

They were in the hall as the men came in through the door.
Farraline seemed almost unconscious. Jasper was grey-faced
and gasping for breath under his weight, and as he stepped
into the hall, his foot caught on the door-mat and he stum
bled, going down onto his knees, and depositing Farraline unceremoniously on the floor.

Before Sophie could speak or even think, Rosamund had
gone past her, was down on her knees beside Farraline, and a
single cry had escaped her.

‘Jes! Oh Jes!’

Hawker glanced at her grimly, and then looked at Sophie.
‘I'm sorry, Mrs Hobsbawn. We thought we'd better bring him
home. We shall need hot water, and plenty of clean cloths.'

‘
I've already sent Wells for them,' Sophie said distractedly.
‘I gave the order when we saw you coming. But what
happened? We saw the crowd running past and – Jasper, are
you hurt?’

Jasper was rapidly recovering, and was already getting up.
‘No, love, just out of breath.'

‘
Explanations must wait,' Rosamund pronounced. After
her one moment of weakness, she thrust shock aside and had
been examining Farraline's face and head with fingers so sure
that Hawker had simply left her to it. 'We must see to Jes
first. We'd better get him upstairs – the morning-room sofa
will do. Can you carry him?'

‘
I can, but I don't know about Hobsbawn,' said Hawker. ‘He got rather crushed by the crowd. How are your ribs?’

‘
I'm all right – just bruised,' Jasper said tersely.

‘
Mr Hawker, you're the strongest,' Rosamund said,
standing up. ‘If you take his shoulders, Mr Hobsbawn and I
will take a leg each. Sophie, do you run ahead and make the
sofa ready. Lift him carefully – he's been hit on the head.'

‘
Yes, I know. I saw him go down – didn't see what it was,'
said Hawker, and then saved his breath for the task.

Farraline was now unconscious, which was perhaps as well,
for he was a heavy man for three of them to move. The
shuffling procession crossed the hall and started up the stairs,
and Rosamund was glad to relinquish her share of support to
Wells when he caught them up half-way up the flight. In a
few minutes, however, they had the injured man on the sofa,
and Rosamund, kneeling beside him, was gently cleaning the
blood from his face and scalp.

‘
He will need a stitch in this,' she pronounced when she'd
uncovered a gash down his cheek. 'Sophie, can you send
someone for a doctor? Whoever is the nearest. Poor fellow, his
beauty will be spoiled after this. I'm afraid it will leave a scar,
though it's a nice clean wound. What did it?'

‘Cavalry sabre,' Hawker said succinctly.

‘
Ah yes,' Rosamund said. ‘I should have recognised the
handiwork. His head seems to be intact, though, thank God.
No fracture. Probably he's just fainted from the heat and the
loss of blood.'

‘
It's always these great strong men who faint most easily,'
Hawker said with a mocking grin. ‘Hobsbawn, what about a
glass of wine?'

‘
Oh, yes, of course – that will bring him round,' Jasper
said, hastening tc the side-table.

‘
I dare say it will, old fellow, but I was thinking of myself,'
Hawker said pleasantly.

Rosamund glanced at him. ‘Don't tease,' she said. ‘They
don't know your ways. Ah, good, he's coming round. It's all
right, Jes, you're at Hobsbawn House. Don't try to move, my
dear.’

Farraline groaned.

‘
Yes, love, you've taken a blow on the head, and your face
is cut. Wait now, take a sip of this.' She supported his head
while he tasted the wine, and then set it down again. ‘Now
just lie quietly, and try not to move. I'm going to hold the
edges of this cut together until the surgeon gets here, and the
stiller you keep, the less of a scar you will have at last.’

Sophie came back in. 'I've sent Scott to fetch Dr Halsey.
Oh, thank you!' She received a glass of wine from Hawker.
‘While we wait, won't someone please tell us what happened?'

‘
It was all the stupidest mistake,' Jasper said wearily. 'It
should never have happened.'

‘
You're right,' said Hawker, 'and if that fool of a
magistrate, Hulton, had listened to me, it never would have. I
told him to arrest Hunt before he ever reached the field – I
even went to the trouble of getting an affidavit sworn out for
him. But first he leaves it too late, and then when it was
obvious things had got out of hand, he needs must send in the
Yeomanry, who don't know the first thing about handling
their horses in a crowd!’

Bit by bit, from Hawker and Hobsbawn alternately, the
story was told. The cheer the women had heard had indeed
been for Henry Hunt, who had arrived at the south end of the
field in a barouche drawn by his supporters and decked with
flags and ribbons. The crowd – which numbered by then
more than fifty thousand, a multitude almost beyond imagination – had parted to form a lane from the barouche to the
hustings, which were hung with flags and banners, and beside
which the bands were playing a stirring march.

Henry Hunt in his white top hat stepped along this lane,
which closed after him as the crowd surged forward, each
man hoping to get close enough to hear the Orator for
himself. There was, however, another lane, kept open by a
double row of special constables, leading from the other side
of the hustings to a house on the corner of Mount Street. In
an upstairs room of this house, watching the proceedings
from a window, was the principal magistrate Mr Hutton, and
the magistrates of all the surrounding districts, along with the
Deputy Constable, Mr Nadin, and two of the reeves. Down
this lane, if it were to be deemed necessary, the Deputy
Constable was to be despatched to arrest the Orator and bring
him back to the magistrates.

Hunt had hardly begun speaking when Mr Hulton evi
dently decided that it would be better to arrest him. Mr
Nadin, eyeing the size of crowd and the distance to the hust
ings and back, protested that he could not do so without mili
tary assistance. Mr Hulton then gave the order to send in the
Yeomanry.

‘
God knows why!' Hawker interrupted Hobsbawn at that
moment. 'Yeomen! Great stupid boobies of innkeepers and shopkeepers that they are! Ham-fisted to a man, puffed up
with their own importance, and out to teach everyone else a
lesson. The kind of cowards who turn bully as soon as you
give them the least little shred of power over their neighbours.'

‘
I dare say Hulton thought it would be less inflammatory
than sending in the Hussars,' Jasper said mildly.

‘
More fool him,' Hawker snapped. 'The Hussars were a
disciplined force, with nothing to prove about themselves.'

‘
But what
happened?'
Sophie cried in frustration.

The Yeomanry charged onto the field, knocking down a
woman and killing her child, and driving their way into the
crowd in an attempt to reach the hustings, Jasper told them.

‘
Hunt said something and pointed at them, and the people
nearest started cheering, and it was picked up all over the
field. Meanwhile most of the Yeomanry had come to a halt
because of the sheer density of the crowd. I dare say the
people would have liked to get out of the way, but they simply
couldn't move. One or two of the Yeomanry reached the hust
ings, and they hustled Hunt away, between the special
constables and into the magistrate's house. The specials got
themselves out of the way pretty quickly too, and that lane
closed up, and there were the rest of the Yeomanry, scattered
about singly or in small groups, completely hemmed in by the
crowd, like little islands in a vast sea.’