Death of a Radical

by Rebecca Jenkins

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

It is early 1812 and King George's subjects are suffering from the war, bad harvests and bad trade. As they wait for the influx of strangers attracted by the Easter Fairs, the authorities in Woolbridge fear that the country is on the edge of civil war. Martial Law seems to be the only answer. Meanwhile, Raif Jarrett is restless in his role as Agent. His young cousin Favian, rusticated from Oxford, has been sent up North to learn some gentlemanly ways. But Jarrett is too busy for baby-sitting--the arrival of an old flame, an actress, is complicating his personal life, and rumours of government spies infiltrating Woolbridge are feeding his lust for mystery and adventure. But when a traveling salesman is murdered in suspicious circumstances and Favian disappears, Raiff's problems become a lot closer to home. As he and Duffin--a local poacher and Jarrett's trusty sidekick--delve into the crime, they encounter a web of political deceit that throws up many more problems than it solves.

Release date: November 5, 2013

Publisher: Quercus

Print pages: 401

Sample

Ancient walls rose up against an indigo sky. Ice frosted the pavement. In the deserted courtyard the merest sliver of a glow seeped out from between shuttered windows. At this time of the evening, in the depths of February, the college’s inhabitants were huddled up within its thick walls. A slight figure lurched out of the shadows. One arm encumbered with a bundle, he carried a lantern shielded against his body.

Favian Vere Adley paused a moment, propping an elbow against the cold stone.

Favian was proud of his name. The father who burdened his offspring with such weight was a gentleman of means whose hobby was classical erudition. “Favian signifying a man of understanding,” he would rehearse to his only child. “And Vere—faithful and true. Worthy qualities in any man. Mind you live by them.”

Favian aspired to live up to his name. He was a sickly child; his world was narrow and confined, but amid the sweet smell of oiled leather in his father’s library he discovered the enchantment of words. He marveled at the truths they encompassed in neatly bound lines of print. Young Favian believed in the power of the word to reform the world and make men’s souls sing.

So naturally he desired to give the world a poet.

As a boy he set out to instruct himself. He read The Times from the age of eight and later the Manchester Guardian when he could get it. He read Shakespeare and Hume, Wordsworth, Shelley and Godwin. He was eager to learn meaningful things. But to be honest (and Favian desired to be rigorously honest), he lacked direct experience of the world. Favian Adley had never felt the vital pulse of Life until one April day walking down Piccadilly. He was just a boy of sixteen, still in the care of his tutor. They rounded a corner to find themselves confronted by soldiers, big as life, riding down the pavement. The troopers were herding a crowd with drawn swords. It was not a mob of drunken rabble, as some reported. The boy saw ordinary folk, dressed cleanly—tradesmen and even women; citizens being ridden down by the soldiers of their own king.

They had lined the streets to protest the removal of the people’s champion, Sir Francis Burdett, to the tower. Sir Francis was Favian’s hero. He had followed the story avidly but newsprint had not prepared him for this: the shrill cries, the ominous percussion of hoof beats, the violence and fear sharpening the very air. A man pushed past him holding his bloodied head and moaning out loud. Favian was stunned and elated and terrified all at once. He could feel his own blood humming under his skin.

His tutor gripped his arm and they were home before he knew it. Taking off his coat in the familiar confines of his own room, Favian found a smear of blood on his sleeve. He knew then, at the age of sixteen, that there were things—real things—to be said. And Favian Vere Adley swore to himself that he would say them.

For months he tumbled fervent words on to the page only to throw them into the fire. Then the day came when his father entered him as a gentleman commoner at Oxford University. Now, at last, he was ready to publish.

Throwing back the wings of his scholastic gown, Favian lowered one knee unsteadily to the frozen pavement. His icy fingers fumbling a little, he unfolded a toy balloon.

“Fierce roars the …”

The words came out in an undignified croak. His thin back rounded over with a spasm of coughing. The cold was injurious to his chest but he was determined. He had copied his “Ode on Tyranny” out in his best hand on hot-pressed paper and signed it with a flourish “Fidel,” advocate of the people. He and Studdley had planned the little ritual together. But Studdley had succumbed to brandy punch and was snoring half off the sofa in the rooms they shared.

At the third attempt Favian succeeded in attaching the paper to the balloon.

“Fierce roars the tyrant’s ire, freedom’s spirit to consume …”

That time the words came out with a pleasing cadence. What better publication for one’s poetry than to send it up into the night trailing fire?

Favian was proud of his poem. At times, the scansion ran a little uneasily (Studdley assured him that the feeling carried it through) but it had true dramatic scope. His Muse of Freedom visited Sir Francis in the Tower and the journalist Peter Finnerty in the cell where he languished for telling the horrid truth about the Walcheren campaign. Favian was particularly fond of the stanza that began,

Wasted blood shed in Walcheren fieldsWith tyranny’s destiny congealsAnd an indignant people raised at lastRedeem their birth right …

His ink-smudged fingers held the wick to the lantern flame. It smoldered, then glowed. The paper sack bellied out delightfully. With a faltering lurch it rose into the dark, trailing its paper tail. Looking up, the notion of his poetical essay on the Existing State of Things floating past the Warden’s very windows struck Favian as wonderfully ridiculous. His snort of laughter exploded in the disapproving silence of the frozen courtyard.

It was at that moment that he observed the open casement. For the first time he heard the muffled chime of silver on china and then, more clearly, a disembodied laugh. The balloon seemed to hesitate. With languid malice it curved into the Warden’s window and disappeared. There was a soft implosion, a flare, and a woman squawked. With a considerable turn of speed, Favian Adley snatched up the folds of his gown and scuttled away into the shadows.

Snow had come early to the moors that year. It came on an aching east wind that welded the moderate falls into a thing of torment. As February prepared to give way to March, the winds dropped, leaving curdles of snow in the hollows. Amid the brittle ochre straw new life grew pale green, pliant and vital. Jonas Farr was in good spirits. Thanks to a couple of days’ work in the last town, he had a full stomach and his mind was at ease with itself. He was a young man—not yet twenty years old—with a strong, compact body and an open face. He strode over the rough ground, swinging out his staff.

Jonas caught movement against the dull colors of the damp moor. Some way off two boys appeared to be crouching on the edge of an overhang. One stretched up an arm, etching a vicious shape against the white sky. The arm snapped down. The boy’s companion scrabbled to gather up more missiles.

The assailants were too preoccupied with their game to notice Farr’s approach. “What’s this then?” he demanded, laying a hand on the collar of the nearest wretch. He looked down into a pinched, feral face and glanced over to see what the boys had caught.

Down below, a slight gentleman was cornered on a path running some ten feet beneath the overhang. Eyes peered up between the brim of a low-crowned hat and a mud-spattered scarf held close by a gloved hand.

With an explosion of energy that caught him unawares, the second boy was up and off. His companion twisted out of Jonas’s grasp, delivering a painful kick as he rolled away to race after his accomplice. Cursing, Jonas loped a few paces, then stopped. It would be foolish to leave his pack and staff, and encumbered as he was, there was little chance of catching them.

“You are not hurt, sir?” he called out to the man below.

But the man had not stayed. His receding figure was hurrying across the moor toward the horizon.

Perhaps the poor daisy had been too ashamed to tarry. Held at bay by a couple of young ones hurling muck! Jonas surveyed the landscape about him. He was a stranger to these moors and the gentleman might have reassured him that he was traveling on the right road. His best option seemed to be the narrow causeway below.

Climbing down to the road he heard the tinkle of a harness bell. A chapman came into sight, trudging toward the overhang with a string of pack-horses, his lumpy outline mimicking his lead pony’s swaying gait.

“Good-day!” Jonas called out.

The chapman cocked his head in acknowledgment of the greeting without slacking the rhythm of his pace. A man with property had reason to be cautious of strangers met on the moor. Jonas stepped back to give him room.

“Say, goodman, is there a place hereabout a journeyman might shelter the night?”

For a moment he thought the man would pass without answering him, but as he drew abreast their eyes met. With a jingling of harness and bells, and some shoving between beasts and man, the pack-train came to a halt. The chapman planted his weight comfortably.

“Not from round here, then?” he asked.

“No.”

Jonas fondled the nose of the nearest pony, inspecting the line. There were half a dozen little Galloways, shaggy-haired and stoic, each loaded with sacks. The pony pushed its rough head against his chest amicably as he scratched its forehead under the straggling mane.

“Yon pack’s shifted,” he commented. “This jagger’s back’ll be good for nowt.”

The pedlar came round to look.

“I’ve had naught but trouble with this poxy crook!”

Shaking his head the chapman lifted the heavy sack to reveal a pad stuffed with heather fastened to cross-pieces of wood. A binding on one of the cross-pieces had frayed, allowing the pad to slip.

“Make do for another trip yet, Enoch, she says. I’ll make do her!” the chapman pronounced. “Told her it was buggered, didn’t I? Women!” He jerked his head in Jonas’s direction. The young man stepped forward to take the weight of the sack. Muttering to himself, the chapman pulled a couple of strips of leather from inside his sleeve and proceeded to make a rough repair.

“Thanking you,” said the chapman, his good humor restored. “How do you know nags then?”

“Me auntie Annie’s of your trade—carries cloth out Saddleworth way. Spent a summer with her once as a lad.”

“You’re never kin to Jagger Annie!”

“You don’t know Annie!”

“I do! By heck she’s got a tongue on her has Jagger Annie.” The pedlar eyed the young man with fresh interest. “What brings you this way?”

Farr indicated the pack he had put aside on the ground and the shoe last that hung from it.

“Shoe making’s my trade. Had a fair place, but these times … The master couldn’t keep his family let alone a journeyman—work’s so pitiful scarce.”

“Bad times,” agreed the pedlar. He fixed the young man with a mournful look and shook his head. “Desperate times,” he repeated gloomily. Jonas met his eyes.

“As bad as they’ve ever been.”

The weather was closing in, charging the air with a fine, freezing drizzle. The chapman fiddled with a buckle, adjusting his leader’s harness.

“Militia’s out Yorkshire side,” he said.

“Oh aye?”

“Aye. Getting ready for the fairs, I reckon. Haven’t the heart to go far—it’s bitter this time of year.” The pedlar added a contemptuous snort.

“Easter Fairs? Hiring fairs, are they? Where about these parts?” Farr asked.

“Woolbridge, in a few weeks’ time,” the older man jerked his head, “mile or two that-a-ways, down on the river. Well now,” he gave his pony’s cheek a final pat. “Best be off. Yon track there, that’ll lead you to Grateley Manor. Cook there likes company and they’ve a couple of barns that aren’t overlooked.”

With a brief nod and a medley of “hie!”s and clicking noises, the chapman hauled his train back into motion.

The track climbed up steps of land to a windswept expanse where hardy trees stood within a high stone wall. Drawing near, Jonas saw that beyond the wall a sunken track led into a milking yard. Towering over the yard, with the air of an ancient strongplace, was an old farm house, its deep-pitched roof carried on walls studded with few windows.

A thin gentlewoman of middle age stood at the kitchen door. Straight-backed and arms crossed, she cut an odd figure in an old-fashioned jacket and plain cloth riding skirt. She had a long, narrow face, her pale skin accentuated by the springy black curls of her cropped hair. Her figure radiated indignation. A path curved round to the public side of the house where dirt and pebbles gave way to cobbles. The gentlewoman’s attention was fixed on a group that was passing through the whitewashed gateway and down the hill. A man pushed a handcart of belongings, trailing a woman with a baby in her arms. The woman spoke sharply and Jonas caught a glimpse of a sullen boy beyond the cart.

Farr’s staff struck stone with a sharp tap and the gentlewoman spun to face him.

“What do you do here?” she demanded.

“Beg pardon mistress. I’m a journeyman. Shoe-making’s my trade—but I’ve a fair hand for carpentry and the like if you’ve a broken chair, or some other job.”

Jonas braced himself for an abrupt dismissal.

The gentlewoman glanced back into the shadows behind her.

“He can feed in the back-kitchen, cook, but he’ll sleep in the barn.” The hot eyes snapped back to Jonas. “Your name?”

“Jonas Farr, mistress.”

“And have you come far?”

“Served my apprenticeship in Leeds, mistress.”

“You can have shelter tonight and in the morning there’s a pair of slippers and a chair need attention.” The passionate energy welled up again. “No fires or tricks, mind. I keep my pistols by me and I do not scruple to use them!” With that, she turned on her heel and stalked into the house.

Jonas Farr found himself facing the substantial figure of a woman who eyed him with the moist gaze of a friendly bovine. She ushered him into the kitchen with a wave of plump, floured fingers.

“Arethusa,” she said. “That’s me given name but Miss Lippett she calls me cook. I’m cook and I don’t know what else for I’ve scarce help about the place—all but none since Betty Tully’s been sent off along with her Ben.” She set out bread and cheese on the table and pulled out a chair. “Take a cup of ale? It’s warmed and spiced—just the thing against the cold.”

Arethusa settled herself in a wide country chair by the kitchen range. Resting her trotters comfortably on the grate, she snuggled a pot of warm ale to her pillowy chest and fixed Jonas with the full force of her curiosity.

“Such a day! Dismissed Ben Tully and his family, just like that! And not a chance of hiring until the Easter Fairs—not way out here.”

“Fairs come round soon enough,” Jonas responded, his eyes on his plate. He had never seen cheese like it. It was an anemic cream color, sweaty and crumbly. He laid a fragment on the corner of a piece of bread and took a cautious bite.

“And who’s to do the outside jobs?” Arethusa demanded, ignoring him. “Never mind what Betty did about the house—and even that no-good boy of theirs. Miss Lippett, she bowls in all in a fury, pays Tully his wages and turns him out. Wife and bairns along with him. There’s no telling what that’s all about.” The cook gazed at Jonas as if he might have an explanation of the mystery.

“She has a temper, then, your mistress?” asked Jonas, warming the tip of his nose in the fragrant steam that rose from his mug. Arethusa gave her head a good scratch.

“They all have their faults, don’t they? The quality. And she is quality—whatever they might say,” she stated. “I say she’s got no harm to her. As often as not she keeps herself to herself and her books.” Arethusa drew out the last word with a humorous emphasis to underline the strangeness of such a preoccupation.

“She’s put up with Ben Tully for more than a twelve-month. Why choose this day to turn him out? Eeah! That’s a mystery. Mayhap her boo-ooks carry the answer!”

“I have a taste for books myself,” said Jonas. The cheese had a soft tang about it that was not entirely unpleasant. He cut a thicker slice.

“You canna read!”

“I can.”

“Well now!” exclaimed Arethusa, rolling her shoulders to giggle coquettishly over her plumped-up breasts. “I’d never take you for a reading lad. So you’s looking to settle, then?” Jonas took note of the softening look in the cook’s eye. He pushed back his empty plate.

“Looking for work. So these fairs—it’s not just wool then?”

“Nay. Leather and sheep and horned cattle too. They come from all over. Second day, mistress gives us the day off. So will you be staying?”

Jonas stood up. “That was grand. Thanking you, cook. Now, if you’ll point me to this barn your mistress spoke of, I’ll turn in.”

Arethusa led him to the barn. She was inclined to linger until a girl came with a message that the mistress was waiting on her and Jonas was finally left in peace.

The lantern Arethusa had provided burned with a steady light. Outside the wind buffeted the stone walls of the barn. It had been near a year since he had completed his apprenticeship and left his grandfather’s house in Leeds. It was the only home he could remember with any clarity. He had been nothing but a youngster at the time of his father’s death, when his mother had returned to her kin. In his mind’s eye he could see his grandfather—neatly dressed and strong-looking for all he was over sixty—sitting in his ladder-backed chair reading in the firelight. His calm eyes were looking at him, magnified by the round glass of his wire-rimmed spectacles.

“All men are equal when they can read, Jonas lad. In books a man may find the wisdom of the best of his fellows—living and dead. A reading man’s never alone for he has the company of philosophers, poets and other great men.”

Smiling, Jonas rolled himself in his blanket, pulled a leather-bound book from his pack and, stretching out by the lantern, began to read.

The barn door dragged on the floor and a gust of icy air invaded his sanctuary. Miss Lippett entered, wind-tossed and holding up a lantern.

“Did I not tell you no fires, sirrah!” Jonas scrambled to his feet.

“Beg pardon mistress but the lantern’s safe. See. I’ve cleared a space—and there’s water should there be some accident.”

Miss Lippett strode up. In the pool of light that illuminated the floor Jonas noticed that she was wearing a man’s riding boots. Her fierce gaze swept his corner. Every wisp of hay had been cleared from a neat circle about the lantern and a bucket of water stood within arm’s reach. She saw the crumpled blanket and the book.

“Do you read, journeyman? Far be it from me to stop a man reading his Bible.”

Jonas bent down to pick up the precious book. “In honesty mistress, this is not the Holy Book.”

“It is not? What does a shoe-maker read, then?” Her thin hand snatched the book from him. “Mr. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall!” She stared at him round-eyed. “What matter can a journeyman take from the history of the Roman Empire?”

“The same matter that any man may, mistress.”

She half smiled, then suspicion flooded up.

“Did you steal this? Do you mean to sell it me? You have heard I am a scholar no doubt.”

“No ma’am!” He saw her draw herself up. “I mean, no, I did not steal the book, mistress—your cook’s told me you’re a learned lady. The book’s mine—it was given to me by my mother’s master. A reverend gentleman who’s shown me great kindness.”

“Well,” she tossed the book back to him. “It is but an odd volume of a broken set.”

“So it is, mistress. But to me it’s also a precious companion.”

A faint longing softened Miss Lippett’s expression. She reached out and tapped the book lightly.

“Indeed, some books are precious companions.” She stepped back abruptly, her back ramrod straight. “Some fool is forever telling me that a woman’s wit is too paltry to benefit from book learning. Who am I, then, to say a shoe-maker may not improve himself so?”

“It was my own mother who first taught me to read, mistress. She’s a great reader and a fine woman.”

It may have been the wind chapping her cheeks, but Miss Lippett looked quite pink in the lantern light.

“Well. You mind that lantern. If you suit me, I may have a day or two’s work for you here. I happen to be short a man and do not find it convenient to search me out a new hireling this week.”

It was just before ten o’clock on the night of the twenty-seventh of February when Mrs. Watson heard the dog barking in Powcher’s Lane. She unlatched her window and smelt smoke. She glimpsed a glow through the stripped winter branches of the Bedfords’ orchard and raised the alarm. By good fortune, Robert Mouncey, the saddler at the top of the lane, and a couple of his neighbors, weavers laying by stock for the upcoming fairs, were also up late. The response was swift. The Bedfords’ home was the one house of substance in the working quarter of Woolbridge. (Mr. Bedford—despite his wife’s objections—insisted that he reside within sight of his mill.) Had the fire jumped the stable wall it might have ripped through the crowded lanes and caught the better part of the neighborhood sleeping. As it was, the fire was put out before the stable block was properly alight.

Amid the remnants of a straw mattress the fire fighters found the scorched remains of Michael White, the Bedfords’ coachman. He lay stretched out, a brandy bottle by him and an overturned lamp. He had been a solitary drinker and a foreigner, not known in the Dale. Mr. Bedford had hired him in Leeds. It was said that White had taken the brandy from his employer’s cellar. It had not been the first such transgression. The sinner, it seemed, had suffered the consequences of his sins. Neighbors remarked on the charity of Mr. Bedford who, despite the damage and the inconvenience caused by the careless manner of his servant’s demise, nonetheless paid for the burial and a stone marker in the churchyard.

Michael White had no family. No one claimed him as a friend. His few belongings were fire damaged and disposed of. Saul, Mrs. Watson’s youngest, a sturdy, useful lad of eight, was the one person who retained a memento of his passing. While assisting the carpenter summoned to repair the loft, the boy discovered a sooty button with a curious raised cable border. He rubbed it on his sleeve, thinking it silver. He showed it to his master, who advised he throw it away, for what use was a scorched button? Saul, however, kept it. He called it the Burned Man’s button and on occasion he would display it to other boys, his particular friends, and thereby gained considerable credit among his circle.

Frederick Raif Jarrett strode across the marketplace toward the Queen’s Head. There was anticipation in the air beneath the steely skies. The first herd had arrived at Woolbridge. A group of drovers with their broad-brimmed hats, heavy coats and long staffs were gathered around a brazier. The Easter Fairs were approaching, marking the end of winter and bringing trade and diversion to the town.

Jarrett had always considered himself an even-tempered man but he had been cross for days. A few months previously he had assumed management of the Duke of Penrith’s northern estates more by accident than design. In his military days he had endured many wet and cold weeks in the saddle in a cheerful spirit. He had survived asinine superiors, incompetent allies and enemy ambush, but that day he could not recall feeling so put out of sorts by anything as one and three-quarter hours spent in the company of Mr. Hilton of High Top.

Mr. Hilton was a sociable man; a principal tenant of the duke’s and a leading light of the Woolbridge Agricultural Society. He had sought out the duke’s agent to inquire whether his Grace might be inclined to contribute to a subscription being raised among agriculturalists in the neighborhood to engage Mr. Colling of Alnwick to bring his fabled bull, Cupid, to stand at Woolbridge and improve the stock in the Dale. That subject had been speedily settled but a good hour and a half passed before Mr. Jarrett was able to shake himself free near two whole hours wasted breathing the stifling exhalations of his beasts while Mr. Hilton made conversation.

In the Dale everyone knew one another’s business. What they did not know, they speculated. Jarrett’s head was ringing with snatches about Mr. Hilton’s preference for fish, soggy bottoms (“that piece down there by the beck, it’s a trial”), pockmarked trees, Mrs. Anders’s arthritis and our Dot’s knees (“a canny milker our Dot”). Or was it Mrs. Anders’s knees and the cow suffering the arthritis? He longed to ride away, set sail, chop some wood—any simple exercise of action: clean, clear, wordless action with direction and a point to it.

And now he was late. The Queen’s Head rose before him. The inn had sat comfortably at the southern end of the market opposite the church for more than a hundred years. For the last twenty it had been in the capable hands of Jasper Bedlington and Polly, his wife. The magistrates met there; the Agricultural Society, the Box Society; the Odd Fellows held dinners there and every quarter dances were mounted in the convenient assembly rooms on the first floor. The oppression of respectability seemed to crowd in on him as he marched under the coach arch. He took off his hat to run an impatient hand through his corn-blond hair. Could this really be his life?

“Mr. Jarrett! There you are!” Mrs. Bedlington, the publican’s wife, called out from the kitchen door. “Colonel Ison’s upstairs in my best private, when you’re ready.”

“Damn the man,” Jarrett muttered to himself. “Good morning Mrs. B. You didn’t hear that, did you?”

She screwed up her face in a comical expression of sympathy. She was a good woman. He smiled back.

Colonel Ison was Member of Parliament and the leading local magistrate. A compact man with restless eyes under heavy black brows, he was ever busy in the public interest—especially in so far as it coincided with his high estimation of his own importance. This morning he was in his costume as Colonel of the Woolbridge and Gainford Volunteers. It was the habit of the commanders of such companies to design their own uniforms. Ison’s was not as extravagant as some.

“Am I not to have the pleasure of Lord Charles’s company today?” The colonel looked over the agent’s shoulder as he greeted him.

“The Marquess of Earewith is out of town,” Mr. Jarrett replied. For him this was something of a relief. Charles had been keeping him company for months. He could see, however, that the colonel was disappointed.

“Might I know when his lordshi. . .