The fire worm, p.8
The Fire Worm, page 8
“Mr. Cobden, the member of Parliament, wey aye, Aa knaa.”
During the course of Harriet’s illness visitors and correspondents had confided many deep matters to her discretion. Cobden hoped that she might apply her pen to his cause; which was also Harriet’s cause. Cobden and comrades spent so much of their time lecturing and lobbying that they had little chance to chart the actual future of free trade, following a repeal which must surely come.
Only lately, Bright and Cobden had held a great meeting in the Music Hall at Newcastle, one of an infinity of such meetings around the country. At leasttheir reception in Newcastle had been much more hospitable than that accorded to Robert Owen in January. When Mr. Owen expounded his utopian socialism in the Nelson Street Lecture Room, that meeting was broken up by a mob of Irish residents wielding sticks and bedposts and chair legs.
Taking a cue from this fracas, the rabidly ToryNewcastle Journal was doing its best to stir up violence against the free-trade campaigners. According to the deplorableJournal , Bright was a “disaffected vagabond” whom all “stalwart yeomen” should feel no compunction in thrashing. Hence the importance of John Bright being elected Member for Durham.
“I will explain this to you,” Harriet told Jane. “Then perhaps you could explain something to me?”
The Durham seat had been vacated by Captain Fitzroy when he accepted a Government appointment. But it was a difficult target for any Liberal. Bright had hesitated until the very last moment about accepting the Liberal nomination. Meanwhile the Tory campaign hoisted all its sails. Brass bands marched the streets for several evenings preceded by flags in Tory red. Newspapers, especially theJournal , were promising a walk-over for Lord Dungannon and predicting that no Liberal would even dare show his face. By nomination day itself, Monday April 4th, the day of the Spring Assizes, Durham was red with Tory flags and ribbons.
However, Bright did accept. On the day, he arrived — to find a miserably small wooden hustings tacked together outside the Town Hall, and a crowd speckled with red ribbons mostly worn by miners, who were freemen employed by the Marquis of Londonderry at his Rainton collieries. These miners raised a constant uproar at Bright, until Lord Dungannon condescendingly appealed for a hearing for “the stranger.”
When the Mayor called for a show of hands, however, this went in favour of Bright. His Lordship’s agent, William Lloyd Wharton, immediately demanded a formal poll. The poll was to result in a majority of one hundred for the Tory candidate.
Subsequent enquiries by Liberal agents revealed how voters had been invited to visit the Wheat Sheaf Inn at Claypath, where they could queue at a window to mark the poll book and receive a golden sovereign each.
The Liberal agent supreme, Mr. Coppock, traveled up from London to collate the evidence of bribery.
“So now a petition is being launched,” concluded Harriet.
“Wey, what dishonesty there is in politics! What acrimony!”
“Alas, I am no stranger to people’s dishonesty.” (Would that Lord Durham had been less innocent! she thought.) “Nor to acrimony, either.”
Sir Robert Peel, so stubborn about the Corn Law question, had insultingly accused Cobden in public of being responsible forassassination . Cobden, inflamed against Peel, was replying in kind …
“Long ago, Jane, I resolved never to let acrimony poison me; but always to proceed moderately and reasonably, though firmly.”
If only Cobden and Peel — those two great men! — could be reconciled. Meanwhile, ill as she was, Harriet had agreed to Cobden’s request to attempt some writing along the lines of her political economy series, as her own contribution toward repeal.
“Should Mr. Bright enter Parliament,” Harriet added, “he hopes to form a committee on the game and forest laws. Those are so much more detrimental to our farming class, and to our whole national food production, than any foolish fanciful grievances about the supposed demerits of free trade. Mr. Bright would supply evidence for my pen.”
“If he’s elected. Aa follows ye. An’ if yor illness allows.”
“Which seems unlikely … Now, dear Jane, speaking of acrimony, I must ask you: have you by chance confided my problems regarding Sir William Elwes and Mrs. Blagdon to young Harry Bell?”
Chapter Ten
The following Sunday was a day to remember. The morning was bright though breezy. Once church was over, gay crowds thronged the opposite shore. Slack bonnets were bowled away, to be chased with a laugh and retrieved. In Front Street, too, the good citizens of Tynemouth, and those not so good, strolled about. Some headed down to the Haven, others up to the Spanish Battery where mercenaries from Spain had once been billeted as garrison. Down at the Castle yard the Union Jack fluttered on its flagstaff, as it did every Sabbath. Raffish soldiers chatted to flighty girls.
Harry Bell, natty in Sunday best, was in conversation in the street below with an untidy, diffident Jane.
Jane had indeed let Harry know the nuisance which the town snoop was trying to foment. Elwes was hoping to glean some scandalous intelligence regarding Harriet’s fund. This, he could sell to theJournal. Mud might stick to Harriet’s political friends and might even soil the scutcheon of the Anti-Corn Law League — in which Dr. Greenhow had lately become prominent.
Oh mud could be sprayed all over! A few years before, Harriet had refused the offer of a pension from the public purse. How could she write objectively on political matters if she accepted? If favouritism seemed to have been shown her? Promptly the Tory newspapers had heaped abuse and mockery on the “ungracious” and “proud” Miss Martineau. Never mind that she was now an invalid disabled by pain, Tory editors would love to flay her — and her friends — again. And Elwes knew it.
So out of loyal affection for Harriet, Jane had confided in Harry. How flattering it must have been to poor Jane that Harry paid any heed to such a sickly-looking raggle-taggle. Yet the boy genuinely did, perceiving her sweet nature. For this reason, Harriet felt reluctant to rebuke or interfere.
Harriet was aware that the lad had had a good “eddicashin,” in local terms, at the Royal Jubilee School in Shields opposite Christ Church. Two years since, its headmaster Thomas Haswell had called on Harriet to discuss pedagogy, and to beg Miss Martineau to write something or other to sway opinion, particularly about the odious tax on paper.
“My boys have to search the shore,” he had told her, “to find any substitute for slate pencils. They have to forage the docks for chalk, which we bake in the school oven — as well as for wood-chips and logs to fuel the oven.”
Yes indeed, the difficulties and obstructions Mr. Haswell faced — as a new and radical broom! As soon as he took over the Jubilee in ’39, Mr. Haswell had paid a lad sixpence per night to hold a candle while a master painted two huge hemispherical charts on the walls from floor to ceiling. He was determined that future seafarers should have some notion of geography and astronomy.
A candle! He wasn’t allowed any gas lighting in the school. Though the streets and numbers of houses were now equipped with artificial light, this was still frowned on by the school managers. They were of the generation which fought vigorously to keep their town and Tynemouth in darkness. It was only two decades since the inhabitants presented a fine silver snuffbox to Mr. John Motley for his sterling work in resisting the newfangled notion of lighting the town.
“As you may know,” Mr. Haswell had related, “I erected a mast and ropes in the school yard for physical exercise; and I prevailed on a drill sergeant from the Castle to supervise. What poor health the majority of my pupils suffer! If they are not hampered by rickets or deformities, or impetigo, scabies or vermin, then their faces are tied up on account of nerve aches, carbuncles, boils, and abscesses. Every winter their warty hands and feet are cracked and bleeding with chilblains. It is abominable.”
“I agree,” Harriet had assured him.
“The Health and Towns Act is just not carried out — because we are not incorporated as a borough. The death rate is thirty in every thousand per annum. If only you could write something … ”
Harriet had sighed. “I am ill, myself, Mr. Haswell.”
Harry Bell was a much less snot-nosed, vermin-ridden specimen of scholar. He had walked the mile or so to the Royal Jubilee for several years, with his parents’ full blessing, and properly clad; and had been one of Mr. Haswell’s best monitors, passing on his lessons to the younger pupils.
Thus Jane had now made him her knight errant in shining armour, who might somehow “see that Shanky off.” Never mind that Harry was only seventeen, as she was, hardly a match for a rogue like Elwes.
“Shall I,” debated Harriet, “pen a note to my brother-in-law to ask him to visit, to discuss the dangers posed by Elwes? Only a twenty-minute train journey to Shields, for fourpence. Then a quick trot onward by horse omnibus … Shall I, shan’t I?”
She was loath to involve herself inany knowledge of arrangements regarding the fund. An even greater disincentive to embroiling Thomas Greenhow was that, if he came down to Tynemouth, her mind would inevitably be on the topic of Bulwer’s letter. She had no desire to annoy Dr. Greenhow again by broaching the matter of mesmerism.
Taking paper from her writing case, which had been the gift of Miss Nightingale, Harriet settled on the sofa and began to compose a reply to Thomas Carlyle, instead.
As ever, Carlyle was agonizing in that cauldron of Babel which was his house in rowdy, foetid Chelsea. Smiling, Harriet polished the signet ring which he had bought for her. So typical of the man! — to have instantly squandered the money which Harriet put into his hand, as though a little money made him feel awkward.
Harriet had brought back from America cheap pirated copies of hisSartor Resartus and sold these at the English price. When next she imported a parcel, she converted the assets into liquid form: namely best French brandy. Carlyle loved to make a hot brandy toddy. So this time he actually enjoyed the proceeds.
Harriet wrote: “I beg you to find an airy quiet country house set upon agravelly soil. It is the dankness of that Chelsea clay which afflicts your health and Mrs. Carlyle’s … ”
His recent letter recounted how he had gone a-house-hunting at long last, on a fine black horse lent him by a friend. Thus he could range the whole countryside around London. To show willing, he also equipped himself (Germanic thoroughness!) with no less than five maps. Three of the British Isles and two of the World. In spite of this, she doubted whether Carlyle would overcome his old stubborn Chelsea habits.
Bulwer, object of her next reply, was just as stubborn. This, in a department where Harriet had a wealth of personal expertise — namely, the department of deafness. Generous-hearted though he was, Bulwer was also preposterously vain. He refused to admit that he could no longer hear, and claimed that contemporary conversation simply wasn’t worth listening to.
Shewould not have dared offer Bulwer advice. Yet as it happened, he was advising her; urging her earnestly for the sake of her crippled health that she must travel to Paris to consult a somnambule.
This was as much out of the question as a simple journey across the Tyne. However, there were mesmerists in England who readily visited all the main cities. The reports she had read … there must be something in mesmerism! Alas, Thomas Greenhow was utterly set against such “quackery.” Likewise his wife, likewise the aunts.
“What action could I possibly take about this matter, when I would surely cause a family breach?”
Harriet was writing this to Bulwer when Jane banged on the door and entered.
“Eee, Miss Martineau!” Jane was clutching a copy of that handbill. “Wey, lions and tigers is comin’ to Shields! Isn’t it excitin’?”
Harriet smiled. Harry must have told Jane, since with eyesight like hers she could hardly have deciphered the advertisement.
“An’ the tamer, as sticks his head in their mouths, is a real Red Indian!”
No need to reach for her ear trumpet when Jane addressed her! Whenever a Tynesider was enthused, the accent grew shrilly pitched. All to the good was the local habit of adding as many extra vowels as possible to words; since vowels were all that Harriet ever heard with any ease.
Before she settled in Tynemouth it had only been with Sydney Smith and Malthus that she had been able totally to set aside her ear trumpet — or its predecessor, the speaking tube. Luckily so, in the case of Malthus! — for one could not decently press a speaking tube to a hare lip. However, Malthus’s other defect — a cleft palate — quite robbed him of consonants, leaving his speech as a slow and sonorous procession of gratifying vowels.
“Did ye see any wild Indians when ye was in America? Did they ever attack yor party?”
“No, Jane. The danger of attack when we were in the woods of Michigan came wholly from civilized mobs — who were inflamed against the abolitionists.They , not the savages, would ambush coaches and bludgeon the occupants.”
“Were ye attacked by mobs?”
Harriet had to laugh. “To date, I have only been assaulted by newspapers!”
“Harry might take me to the beast show, if his Mam goes too.”
“Ah Jane … I’m not sure that I approve of wild animals being caged and enslaved — any more than of the same circumstance happening to negroes.”
Jane looked so crestfallen that Harriet immediately regretted her reproof.
“Let me tell you aboutlions , Jane. I speak from experience. A lion is acelebrity . The saddest such specimen of lion is to be seen at a reception or at a country-house weekend. It is the author or artist who allows himself to preen before a crowd of simpering, shallow adorers. Or else the lion in question may be a polar explorer or a Hindoo rajah or a Polish refugee. It matters not. It is all one and the same to the lion-hunters. It isthey who should be tamed with a whip — and all literary lions should be promptly released from their cages, of drawing rooms!”
Jane goggled at Harriet. “Why’s that? A bit of attention’s nice.”
“If the artist’s vanity lets him believe that he is a superior creature, distinct from the mass of society, then he wounds himself. He wastes his time and saps his true vitality. Society suffers too, since superficiality is encouraged as admirable behaviour. And of course society will cast the lion down as readily as it takes him up; so he is always disappointed in the end.”
Jane looked unhappy. This was all somewhat outside of her experience — unlike the prospect of that beast show in Shields in a few weeks’ time, with herself perhaps on Harry’s arm? If only her aunt would allow.
Harriet’s bowels grew sluggish with inactivity. As she lay on her sofa, suffering, the weather underwent a fearful change. Squalls buffeted her window. The earlier breeze quickened to a shriek from across the German Ocean. The sky darkened fast.
In hope of relieving her knotty cramps, she rose and gazed out. Now myrtle-green, the sea swelled and tumbled, driving ashore. Balls of foam were whipped by the wind over the pebbles of the Haven and sped like balloons up the slope toward the houses. With each moment the waves grew wilder and darker. By three o’clock that afternoon the vista was almost as gloomy as night, and breakers were crashing deep into the Haven, exploding against the headland to drench the grass.
This unseasonably late storm was as awful as any winter tempest — and as unexpected to any vessels unfortunate enough to be caught between the Scylla of the deep and the Charybdis of the rocky coastline. While sheets of rain advanced and spray billowed far inland, a collier reached the safety of the river. Two steam-tugs were now standing by, to render any assistance.
Harriet hastily removed the window cushions and laid cloths to soak up the wet already oozing in through every cranny.
Here, through the fierce murk, came a vessel in distress. A wooden paddle-steamship. Surely she was the Norwegian mail-boat! After years at her telescope with a reference volume beside her, Harriet was as familiar with the language of flags as any ship’s captain. She had learned the signals by heart; and with all her heart.
“I require a pilot.” “My vessel is healthy; I require a free pratique.” “You are standing into danger.” “I am disabled.” But all flags had been ripped from that ship’s masts. Her barquerigged sails were streaming out, torn. Harriet pressed her telescope against the rain-spattered glass. One of the two paddle wheels was damaged, splintered by the rolling and the crashing against tons of angry water. Waves even broke over the funnel; were the boiler fires doused?
She must be the mail-boat. Harriet saw the characteristically long forward run of the clipper hull rising high — the headsail-bowsprit tilting a lance at the black sky — before the vessel crashed into a vast trough.
She was being driven wallowing in the worst of directions, toward the Black Middens. And now the tugs were steaming valiantly out to meet her.
Harriet could see men climbing into the rigging to cling tight — one person at least was swept away — and other brave or desperate sailors were hauling their way to the drenched bows to receive the lines fired over by rocket from the tugs. Somehow these were secured. In vain! Puff as those tugs might, they could not haul the vessel up into the throat of the Tyne away from the rocky teeth.
The masts angled. She had struck. She was heeling, savagely pounded. Breakers were tremendous.
Yet the two starboard lifeboats had been swung out on the davits. Now these were lowered with a freight of refugees. Slanting deck and rigging remained crowded with desperate souls.
Shedding their lines, the steam-tugs puffed as close as they dared. Oars dipping into mountainous waves, the lifeboats rowed to rendezvous and transfer passengers.
The terror of it; the frustration. Harriet’s own soul cried out, urging the mariners.
But now here came the Tynemouth lifeboat. And from across the river, the South Shields lifeboat came too. Along the clifftops spectators were gathering, careless of the wind and rain. Figures ran across the down to swell the crowd.
Praise be for lifeboats! — much improved in design since North Shields’ native son, Willy Wouldhave, first invented the mariners’ salvation. …
