The Slightest Provocation

Chapter Twenty-nine

The Anvil Tavern was small, dim, smoky, and a bit hazy from the moisture drying off people’s clothes. The room occupied perhaps a quarter of the area of the bar at the Portleigh Arms-no matter; it was infinitely warmer and drier than outside, and surprisingly crowded. The walls, which had once been whitewashed, seemed almost black near the fireplace, where some men were talking in excited voices. Another group was singing-though Mary couldn’t make out the words. She, Kit, and Fannie crowded around a small table, Fannie with her eyes still turned away from Kit.

“I’ll get us something hot to drink,” he said, and pushed his way into the crush of people.

“I’m an idiot,” Fannie said very softly, when he was out of earshot. “I’ve acted a complete fool. Listening to the two of you sing and squabble and make up…”

“Then you’ve heard,” Mary told her, “what fools we can be as well, with all our years and experience behind us. But at least your aunt Jessica doesn’t know-of your folly, and not even all of mine. Fred and Elizabeth have told her you’re still at the Halseys’…”

There were sudden loud shouts from the crowded space between the bar and the fireplace.

“Liar!”

“Ye know nothin’ about it! They’re waiting for us in London, fifty, seventy thousand, of ’em tomorrow.”

“But, man”-it was Kit’s voice now-“haven’t you heard about him being exposed at Wakefield? I thought all the groups had decided not to go.”

Confused murmuring. She heard the words arrest, meeting, and plot.

Of course, Mary thought, there was bound to be one contingent-or probably more than one, who hasn’t heard about the change in Oliver’s fortunes.

Or perhaps just didn’t want to believe it.

“Rumors, planted to keep us home. Lies. Think of it, boys… A mighty force all together to face the mightiest government on God’s earth. Nothing like it ever before, even at the Bastille. Don’t lose heart, just at the word of…”

“And who’re you anyway, to tell us to go or stay? Speak your name, will ye?”

“Christopher Stansell.”

“He’s the magistrate’s ruddy brother, from Rowen, at Grefford…”

“And he would be telling us to stay home, like women and children safe around the fire, ’cept we don’t have the coal for fire…”

“Don’t have nothing after we finish paying for bread and our rent to your brother, damn ’is eyes, but it’ll be different this time, the London delegate told us…”

“The London delegate was a provocateur, by the name of Oliver or perhaps Hollis, in the employ of the Home Office. It’s a trap. They want you to march. They want you to… hang. Please. The London Committees don’t know about any marchers coming down from the Midlands; the Home Office has been writing to its magistrates…”

“And how the bloody ’ell do you know that?”

She stood up to better hear what they were saying. But there was such a crush of men around him, she could only see the top of his head, his eloquent hands sweeping through the air as he tried to make them understand.

“Morrice… Everyman’s Review… Sidmouth…”

It seemed to her that he’d influenced a few men anyway. She could see some heads shake-disappointed, disgusted, or even relieved.

He was keeping his voice low, calm-as he must have learned to do in Spain and France, when he had men under his command. “I saw the provocateur myself. Twice. In Wakefield, with General Byng’s valet tipping his hat to him… ah, you’ve heard those rumors, have you?”

A few nods.

But more than a few angry demurrals as well.

“We got ter go tonight, while there’s still lads out wantin’ to do it. If we’re lost, we’ll go down in glory, with Brandreth and the boys from Pentrich.”

“We ain’t lost. Don’t believe the Byng story, put out to scare us. But will we be scared, boys?”

Angry demurrals.

Kit’s voice again. “I also saw him in London-I think he was meeting with a functionary of the Home Office.”

And then more urgently, “You must believe me. It’s a plot against you.”

But perhaps he’d already dissuaded all of them that he could. Leaving those who were young, those who were desperate. They’d prepared themselves to act tonight. For an instant, she could see it through their eyes, the ragged grandeur of it, each small group of men marching south and eastward through the rain, meeting up with their fellows in an ever-swelling multitude…

And they wouldn’t even have to walk the whole way, someone was saying, there’d be boats along the Trent to take them to London, for certainly the boatmen would join them in their noble cause, boatmen and bakers too, there’d be cakes and ale, they’d sing the song Brandreth had written for the occasion…

She didn’t think that Mr. Oliver had promised them cakes and ale. His promises had been of unity, of individual voices raised in chorus.

It was an extraordinary fantasy. Heartbreaking, in its way, when you knew it had been created by a paid agent of a government who continued to reject their petitions.

There were still men trying to buy drinks, on credit redeemable after they’d taken the Tower, but it seemed that the landlord was shaking his head.

Even as it seemed that a number of other men had begun to repeat what Kit was saying, repeating news of the mysterious arrests that had recently occurred in the area, and usually in the wake of a visit from the London delegate.

At least they weren’t all going to march tonight.

But what of that small group jostling their way up to Kit’s right? Boys not quite grown to men, but the tallest of them topping Kit by several inches.

Topping him, but reflecting his looks-seeing the two of them together, she realized that she’d been correct. Nick Merton looked not so much like Kit looked now, but very much indeed like he’d once looked. Not just the expression either, but the cast of his features.

The boy drew back his arm. It was hard to see. For a moment she imagined she saw a pistol drawn…

No, not a pistol-he was standing too close to be firing a pistol. He was simply brandishing a furious, raw-boned fist.

A few blows were exchanged. She thought she could see blood. And then Kit falling, ah, in a way she recognized.

She screamed then, perhaps a bit too dramatically, she thought; good thing Fannie was taking her lead. Right, she’d read Mendoza; she also knew that Kit wasn’t really being knocked senseless. But surely one or more of the men standing around Kit would be suspicious, though all the blood pouring from his nose had an impressive effect.

Unless he received a bit of help.

Kit! Christopher! Darling! She pushed her way into the ring of men, dropping to her knees beside him, raising his head into her lap. Oh, what brutes, what strong, horrid brutes, my husband, my darling, my only love-the tears (she hadn’t known she could produce tears at will) streaming down her cheeks, mingling with the blood dripping over his.

She couldn’t find her handkerchief. Fannie gave her a particularly dainty one, trimmed with lace; a barmaid brought a towel that had been used to wipe the counter. The fumes of alcohol rising from it were all for the better, she supposed, though the dirt wasn’t pleasant.

Kit fluttered his eyelids a bit.

Just don’t grin, she tried to communicate to him. Yes, I know what I called you, and in public too. Well, it’s true. You can gloat about it after we get out of here. Before someone does try to draw a pistol on you.

Where’s the man who did it? she shouted now. Who’s the man who killed a defenseless man who tried to give him good advice, and… and wouldn’t… wouldn’t even…

Nick Merton looked frightened, defiant, a bit proud. You horrible… man, she shouted at him, man seeming to be the word he was most anxious to hear.

A pulse, she shouted now, oh, dear Lord, I feel a pulse.

And yes, the boy did look relieved.

“You’d better go home, Nick Merton,” she told him. “You’ve caused enough damage for one night.”

She couldn’t hear what he and his friends were murmuring. But it didn’t sound quite so defiant as it had. The crowd in the tavern seemed to have divided into two. Some, she could see, would set out undeterred to meet up with the men from Pentrich. But some, already swayed by what Kit had told them, their pride salved by his fall and momentum broken by her performance, had regained their seats or even wandered out the doors and down the dark country road in what seemed to her was the direction of their homes.

Kit had his eyes open now. In truth, he did look rather dazed-from her histrionics, and from something else as well, that she couldn’t quite construe at the moment.

All right, perhaps she’d never called him her only love quite like that before.

And all right, perhaps she’d meant it.

“Help me, Fannie,” she called, and together they did a fair simulation of dragging him to the carriage and hauling him onto the seat.

“I’ll explain later,” she whispered to the girl. “But thank you for helping me save him. And to save some of them as well.”

Unsatisfied curiosity warring with wounded pride, Fannie took her seat in the back and snapped the big umbrella open.

Mary took the reins. She could hear more singing from inside the tavern. The men who wouldn’t be dissuaded, she thought.

“Best to pretend you’re still dazed,” she whispered to Kit. And they were off.

“How do you feel?” she asked him.

“Like I’ve taken a heavy fall to the floor,” he answered, “and a bit of a knock on the jaw.”

She smiled, and he shook his head.

“And like hell that I couldn’t stop all of them.”

“You stopped quite a few. Perhaps they’ll disperse on the road; perhaps the Nottingham magistrate will be reasonable…”

They rode on in silence for a few minutes.

He rubbed his nose. “Not broken, at least.”

“That’s a mercy. I’ve always loved it…”

He moved closer to her. “We stopped them, together-those that we did stop. We kept a few men from being clapped in irons anyway. For that’s what will happen to some of them-I’ll wager that the magistrate toward Nottingham will be out, with his troops, to arrest those marching through there when the sun comes up.”

She nodded, shivering in the wet.

“He’s my cousin, you know,” he said a few minutes later.

“Who’s your cousin?”

“Well, probably more than one of them, but I mean that boy who tried to punch me, Nick Merton.”

“Ah, I always thought of you when I looked at him.

But how do you know?”

“I spent an hour reading the parish records. Third cousin, once removed. Of course, he’s not the only one-Mr. Greenlee comes from a large family. It gives one a different sort of feeling about the people here.”

“I see.”

“And what was almost as bad,” he said, “was shattering their hopes, when I’d manage to convince one or another of them that it was a sham, that there wouldn’t be chartered boats down the Trent or thousands of their cheering fellows awaiting them in London. It’s awful to take hope away from anyone.”

“You’d hoped for something too from the Home Office.”

“I’d hoped for quite a lot. A life’s work. A calling, I expect you’d say. I don’t like living to amuse myself. I want to know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow, besides writing to Sidmouth to withdraw my application for employment and to protest their use of provocateurs. I wish I could offer you a husband who knew what he’d be doing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she said, “you must meet Edward Elyot. He needs your help with an essay he’s going to write.”

“Elyot? What do you mean?”

“You really don’t know? You… honestly liked what I wrote? But why didn’t you tell me?”

She’d flung her arms around him.

“What the devil?” But he hadn’t passed spy messages for nothing. “Really, that was you? How extraordinary.”

“Yes, and I’m going to write about what happened tonight at the Anvil Tavern and how the men were wronged, and Richard will publish it. And you must use your eloquence, and your memory, and your talent for detail in particular, to make sure… that I… that he… that we get it right.”

“Edward Elyot, eh?”

“You used to call him Cousin Ned when he wore his bright red neckcloth.”

“Indeed. You’re a woman of parts, Lady Christopher.”

“Will you help me?”

“I will,” he said.

“And after tomorrow?” he asked. “Have you any suggestions for what I shall do after tomorrow?”

“Inquire how we go about building a cistern in the village-which will be as immediately important to the women as the vote will be to the men. And of course, they’ll continue petitioning for the vote until they get it. They could use your help, I think. And someday perhaps you could run to represent the district.”

“As my brother’s candidate?”

“As theirs, perhaps. Who knows? Perhaps as mine.”

“Yes, that would be a life work. One would have to understand everything-rents, prices, new industries, good roads, and pure water… in order to make fair decisions. Would you help me, to be sure I… got it right?”

“I would, Lord Christopher. I will.”

The cloudy sky had become a little lighter, although the rain still came down upon the gravel road to Beechwood Knolls.

She yawned, and he stroked her wet hair.

“Were these our vows?” he asked.

“I expect they were.”

No need to vow to love each other-it felt as though they always had. It was difficult for either of them to remember who they’d been and what they’d done before they’d loved.

And no use to vow to stop struggling and squabbling-for that would never change. But to vow to try to help each other, imperfect as they were in the far-from-perfect world in which they found themselves.

There wasn’t a great deal more to say, and Fannie must be getting awfully wet back there. So they stopped, and Mary managed to convince her to let Kit wedge himself into the little backseat.

“I’ll drive home,” Fannie said, and so she did, in silence, while Mary admired the grace with which she handled the ribbons.

Fannie stopped the horse, and Kit jumped out of his seat to come help her down. She allowed Mary to kiss her good night, but when she tried to say something to Kit it came out a sob and she turned away quickly.

They stood arm in arm to watch her run up the front stairs.

The door opened. Elizabeth had been waiting up. They could see a golden tress escape from her nightcap before the girls became one form, engulfed in a tight hug, in the dimly lit doorway.

Still, Mary thought, what she’d heard from Fannie had been a sob of mortification and not of heartbreak. A sob of not believing you’ll ever be able to face someone again, though of course you will and quite soon too. Mortification, at eighteen, might seem a lot like heartbreak, but it wasn’t, thank heaven. At thirty-one, one had learned the distance between mortification and heartbreak, as well as the distance between thirty-one and eighteen.

There’s nothing like young people about you to make you feel, to make you know how old you are, Mary thought, and how responsible you are to them.

“I don’t want to stay here tonight,” she said. “Fannie needs a day or two without either of us.”

“Good,” he said, “I want to bring you home to Rowen.”

She yawned quite unromantically. It would be nice to get some sleep.

How quiet it was in this still, wet hour before dawn.

He gave her his hand, to help her up to the box.

She raised her foot to climb up and then lowered it again.

For in the quiet, you could hear another of the house’s doors opening-the side door, up from the kitchen.

Was no one safe abed tonight?

A small figure, looking rather wide in a russet cloak, bonnet, and several shawls, coming through the gate of the kitchen garden and softly closing it behind her, and now picking up her packages and coming quickly down the gravel path. Stopping now, and gaping at the two of them.

Had Peggy been waiting up to see that Mary was home safely?

One doubted it, for she seemed to be dressed for traveling. The sky wasn’t quite so black anymore, and one could see-for she continued to walk toward them, though slowly and warily-that she was wearing a large portion of her best clothes piled atop each other, with what looked like the remainder of her possessions wrapped in yet another large shawl and jammed into two of Mary’s discarded bandboxes.

A hedge rustled, and an imposing man stepped out from behind it. He carried a shabby valise; his overcoat was brown, his boots Wellingtons, and for a moment Mary and Kit each and simultaneously imagined that Mr. Oliver was making an oddly chosen final appearance.

Only for a moment, of course. For it was a taller and much handsomer man. An honest mistake for people of their station; neither of them had ever seen Thomas out of livery.

“My people in Ripley won’t give permission,” Peggy explained. “They’ve got somebody they like better than Tom that they want me to marry, but I won’t.”

Kit winked, Mary began to laugh, Peggy raised her chin proudly, and Thomas put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him.

“Of course you won’t, Peggy. You’ll marry who you want, with my hearty congratulations.” Kit brought some coins out of his pockets and handed them to Thomas, who thanked him gravely.

“Even if it means I’ll be left all tied up in my corset?” Mary asked.

Peggy made a hurried and slightly abashed curtsy. “I wouldn’t have left you like that, Lady Christopher, if you’d been home earlier. I’d have put you to bed, quite tidy as always.”

“It’s all right,” Mary said, “I meant it as a joke, and anyway, we can depend upon Lord Christopher to put me to bed until you return. He’s not as tidy as you, Peggy, but he has other qualities to recommend him. I shall manage. Just don’t stay away too long, will you, on your honeymoon? Ah, but on second thought, you must have secured a position with the marchioness, for you’ll want to be working with Thomas, I should imagine.”

The two servants looked at each other, Peggy finally shrugging her shoulders while Thomas drew himself up to his full, impressive height. “I won’t be a footman any longer, Lady Christopher,” he said. “And we won’t be returning here.”

“Been studying about fixing engines, he has.” Peggy’s expression warred between pride and skepticism. “Talks about steam, says it’s good for more than kettles and tea. Says he can earn more than three weavers or two footmen by it.”

“Good man,” Kit said. “Good night-well, good morrow, I expect-and Godspeed.”

“But at least take the umbrella,” Mary called, “to make up for how drenched the two of you got in Calais. My husband and I shan’t be needing it tonight on our way to Rowen.”