Against the Wind (Agents of the Crown #2)

Chapter 16

Martin awoke more content even than that morning at Willow House. A great sense of peace flooded him. He had his kitten. All was right with the world.

Donning his clothes, he watched his wife sleep, beautiful and tousled, her auburn hair scattered on the pillow. Best to let her rest after that night. That magnificent night. It was past time he caught up with Sidmouth’s spy, Oliver. Time to turn to the business that had brought him to the Midlands.

After a brief breakfast with John, the pair set off for the Talbot Inn in the town of Belper, just south of Pentridge. Drawing up in front of the building, he noticed it was not unlike the White Horse Inn: tan sandstone with small-paned windows and a slanted gray roof, the common construction for inns in Derbyshire. There must be a quarry nearby.

The innkeeper was a swarthy man with dark hair and eyes, and, Martin was certain, a wariness of the two strangers approaching him where he stood wiping down a counter.

Martin spoke, allowing his French accent to rise and resuming the disguise to which Sidmouth’s spy had responded so favorably. “Can you direct us to a person who is, I believe, lodging with you? One William Oliver.”

The innkeeper eyed them silently for a moment. “And, if’n I know such a man, why would ye be wantin’ to see him?” The Talbot Inn was where many of Oliver’s meetings with unhappy workers had taken place. It was likely the innkeeper welcomed the business that Oliver brought him and, consequently, wary of strangers, particularly those with odd accents .

“Mr. Oliver is expecting us,” Martin explained, maintaining his accent. “We met with him in London when he was speaking with his representatives. I am Mr. Donet, and this is my friend Mr. Fournier. We have business with Mr. Oliver, good sir. He will want to see us.”

The innkeeper’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Pausing in his work, he gave the two of them another slow perusal. “Oliver is staying here, yer right, but just now ye can probably find him in Pentridge at the Dog Inn.”

Martin was not pleased to learn Oliver was holding meetings in Pentridge, so close to his own lodgings, where his new bride was even now. He hoped it was not to be repeated, but short of moving to another town, which he dismissed as too disruptive at this early point, there was little he could do.

Thanking the innkeeper, he jerked his head to John in a signal to leave and they departed.

Kit descended the stairs of the White Horse Inn to the common room where a few lodgers were still eating breakfast. As she sat down at an empty table, a handsome young man perhaps a few years older than she, with the shoulders and muscled arms of a sawyer, brought her a bowl of porridge, warm bread and butter and a pot of tea.

“Good day, ma’am,” he said with an eager grin. “If’n ye need anything else, just let me know. My name’s George, George Weightman.”

Ah, the son of the proprietress, no doubt. Kit had met Nanny Weightman the day before. “No, this will be fine, thank you.” But she couldn’t resist staring at the young man’s face.

She ate her porridge and then took up her sketchbook. George Weightman went about checking on the other guests, and Kit proceeded to draw the comely youth as he cleaned off several tables. From time to time he would glance at her, obviously fascinated by the quick movements of her pencil across the paper.

“What are you drawing, if’n you don’t mind my asking?”

Kit smiled. “I’m drawing you. Your face. Is that all right? I like to draw the faces of people, and you’ve the face of an angel.”

The description did not please him, for he frowned. “Ye don’t mean I have the face of a woman!”

“Oh, no,” she said with a small laugh. “The angels are males, you know. Gabriel, Michael…even Lucifer.” She trailed off as she concentrated on getting his jaw right.

“Well, I suppose when you put it like that it’d be all right.” She recognized a male’s approving assessment in the smile he gave her. “Are you in Pentridge for long? Yer wondrous fair, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Why, that’s very kind of you,” she acknowledged. “As to how long my husband and I will be guests of the inn, I cannot say. But for a while, I think.” She noticed his look of disappointment when she mentioned being married, then returned to her sketching and carefully refined his features in her drawing.

Her subject left Kit as Nanny Weightman’s commanding voice echoed into the room, ordering her son to finish his chores and get along to a meeting. Kit ate the last of her porridge and drank the last of her tea, anxious to have a walk in the morning sun. But just as she was about to leave, the young man returned to hurriedly dust a cabinet near her table.

“Did your mother make the porridge?” she asked, setting down her sketchbook. “It was very tasty with the dried fruits and nuts.”

“Aye. The morning fare is one of her specialties. She bakes the bread, too,” he said with a smile. He was staring at Kit’s hair, something she’d grown used to from men over the years. “Yer hair is the color of a sunset. ’Tis wonderful. ”

Having already thanked him for his first compliment, Kit just smiled in return. She didn’t see what harm there could be in allowing this county lad his small crush on a visitor, but she would not encourage him. And she doubted the ton would agree with his assessment of her hair. “Would you like to see my sketch of you? At least the beginning of it.”

The young man came around to stand behind her and studied the partially completed portrait. “Do I really look like that?”

“You do to me, but then I see you through an artist’s eyes.” Not that anyone could fail to see how good-looking he was.

“I like it.”

“I can do one for your mother if you think she would want it.”

“I think she’d like that. Mothers, ye know. When she sees it, she may ask ye to do one of my brothers as well.”

“I’d be willing to do that if it would please her,” offered Kit.

George said, “I’ll ask.”

Taking away her empty dishes, he retreated to the kitchen. She heard him talking to his mother in muted conversation, and then his voice rose. “I’ve only a few more things to see to, and then I’ll be off.”

“See that ye hurry or they will be having the revolution without you,” Mrs. Weightman replied.

His shoulders were slumped resignedly as he returned to finish his work, and he didn’t say another word to Kit but hurriedly attended his mother’s bidding. Kit picked up her sketchbook and turned toward the door, but the woman’s words came back as she did. Revolution? What revolution was it that George’s mother wanted him to be part of?

She pondered this as she set off on her morning walk. Kit decided she would see the old church the coachman told her about. As she strolled across the road the beauty of the surrounding country overwhelmed her senses. Raised in London, she found the roads here a pleasant change, bordered by flowers in many places and flanked by trees. All was surrounded by expanses of green rolling hills and small white cottages. She reveled in the peace not found in the city, and the sweet chirping of birds, an occasional chicken pecking at the ground in a yard facing a cottage, and the sounds of horse-drawn carts. The smiles of the folks passing her were welcome additions.

The Church of St. Matthew was the most imposing structure in Pentridge. It stood on a hill above the village, a monument to a time long past. It wasn’t hard to imagine knights and their ladies worshipping there. The ancient sanctuary drew her, so incongruous was it to the otherwise simple village. Rising above the gray stone of the main structure was a tall square tower with a crenellated top that, when she’d first seen it, reminded her of the sawtooth battlement of a castle. The main building had the same crenellated roof. It was a most impressive sight, and so different from the village’s otherwise simple inns, taverns, shops and cottages.

Kit walked to the top of the hill, determined to see inside the formidable structure. On her way she passed stone grave markers, some obviously very old as the writing was weathered by time and the elements.

Entering through the church’s arched wooden door, she noticed the stone beneath her feet. Like the rest of the building it appeared worn and ancient. Two aisles separated the simple wooden benches facing the nave. Between the main part of the church and the nave were five tall arches. Colored glass windows depicted scenes from the Bible. The morning sun shone through these, scattering beautiful hues around the church like the kaleidoscope she and Martin had received as a wedding present.

As she was absorbing this stately place of worship, thinking how she might draw it, a man dressed as a gentleman approached from the other side of the arches.

“Good day, miss. Are you visiting Pentridge? ”

Kit supposed the vicar would know everyone in such a small village, so she was not surprised he took her to be the stranger she was. “Yes, I am. My husband and I are here just for a short time. I was admiring the church.”

Rather thin but with strong features and a welcoming presence, the older man came to stand in front of her. “I am Hugh Wolstenholme, the new curate of Pentridge. The vicar is away for some weeks. Welcome to our parish.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wolstenholme,” Kit said. “I am…Mrs. Donet.” Hating to lie to a man of the church and not wishing to dwell on her name or her reason for being in the village, she gestured to the nave and the windows. “Your church is very grand and so…ancient.”

He looked around as if trying to see it through her eyes. “I have always thought St. Matthew’s quite special, and it is indeed ancient. I have a few minutes. Would you like me to show you around?”

“Yes, if you have the time. I was just noticing the tiles we are standing on. Are they original?”

“No, not original, but still very old. They date to the fourteenth century. Normans built the church eleven hundred years after our Lord walked the earth. Of course, it has been added to down through the centuries, but there is much that harkens back to the original construction.”

“In the churchyard…the gravestones. Some seem very old.”

“They are. Did you see the Saxon cross?” At her nod the curate added, “Perhaps that would be a good place to begin.”

They walked out the door and onto the green grass from which rose the large flat standing gravestones. “Some are Saxon,” the curate said, pointing to a tall, tilting, sand-colored marker. “Though the stones still mark the graves, the writing has long since worn away.” Gesturing to the tallest he added, “These are as old as the church, perhaps older, but some of our headstones are quite new. And I fear there soon will be more.”

Kit looked up at the frowning cleric. “Oh?”

“I suppose you’d not know, being as you’re not from this part of the country. Times have been hard in the Midlands. Some of the parishioners were lost to hunger in recent years and four young men are currently awaiting hanging for setting fire to Colonel Hatton’s haystacks in South Wingfield.”

“Why would they set fire to a colonel’s haystacks?” Apparently the countryside was not as peaceful as she thought.

“Colonel Hatton is the local magistrate and squire. People in the countryside are frustrated because they cannot gain the attention of the authorities to help them in their hour of need. Likely it was a way of getting his attention. Not a very good one to be sure. On the other side of it, the prosecutors are overzealous and looking for anyone to hang as a warning to others. The young men have protested their innocence, and I for one agree they may very well be falsely accused. But it does not seem to matter what the church believes.”

Kit was surprised by what some would consider a radical view for a member of the clergy more typically aligned with the gentry. Perhaps the curate was closely tied to these men and their families, considering them his flock. But he had said he was a new curate. How strange.

“It sounds like a rather dire situation,” she offered, sad for any people who struggled so.

“It is. Even the Prince Regent has recognized the severe trials the people have undergone, I daresay made worse by the heavy tax burden caused by the war with France. But the war is over and the justification for such taxes no longer exists.”

“Have you heard the Prince Regent speak of such matters, Mr. Wolstenholme?” Kit asked .

“Nay, but I read Cobbett’s Political Register , and many a time it has printed His Majesty’s speeches. Cobbett recognizes how easy it is to suspend the Act of Habeas Corpus, easy to enact the Sedition bills and easy to muzzle the press, but it is not so easy to quiet the cries of the paupers among us. As Mr. Cobbett says, ‘A country filled with paupers is not easily restored to happiness.’”

“I see. I did not realize how badly the people in the countryside were faring.” She’d been so occupied with tending her sister that she’d seen little of the news. Still, she was aware of the publication all England seemed to be reading now that newspapers were so expensive, though she hadn’t realized there were men in the countryside who followed Cobbett’s persuasive rhetoric.

The lines in the curate’s face told her he bore the worries of his flock. How unusual he was, so vehemently taking up their cause. She admired the man all the more for it. He could easily confine his concerns to their souls, but he cared about their lives on earth as well.

“Whole parishes have been rendered destitute from feeding so many poor. You can read about it yourself. They keep a copy of the Register at the inns,” Wolstenholme said as he gestured back down the road.

“I will, and thank you for telling me.”

Kit followed the curate into the church where he told her of its history, now describing the stained-glass windows. Though created by man, the windows cast a waterfall of color over the hard stone sanctuary, softening its appearance and reflecting the beauty of nature as well as speaking to man’s love of his Creator.

Kit spent several minutes talking with the Reverend and learning more about the church. She even began some sketches of the place and the politically minded curate, but just before noon she took her leave. She intended to return later to finish the drawings, after she’d had a bite to eat.

In response to her inquiry as to where she might dine, the curate recommended the Dog Inn.

The Dog Inn was just down the road from the White Horse, and Martin and John shook the dust off their boots before entering. A servant approached and, after questioning, advised them that Oliver was keeping company with several men in a private room upstairs. Thanking him, Martin and John climbed the stairs.

Trying the handle of the door at the top, Martin found it wasn’t locked. He opened it to see Oliver again holding court, this time around a rectangular table surrounded by a half dozen men.

Sidmouth’s spy immediately recognized them. “It’s Monsieur Donet, is it not?”

Martin was relieved, since the other men were giving him and John hostile looks, born, Martin suspected, of a fear of discovery.

“Come in, come in!” Oliver beckoned them forward.

“ C’est bien . You remembered,” Martin said. Beside him, John tipped his head in greeting but said nothing.

With a sweeping gesture of his arm, Oliver urged them join his group of followers. “Why o’course I recall ye. I recall all those in the London group of gentlemen anxious to join the uprising.”

They were no part of Oliver’s imaginary London cohort, but he would let that pass. He and John found two chairs at the side of the room and pulled them up to join the others. The men around the table studied the newcomers with curious stares.

“Meet some of my country friends,” Oliver said, employing the term he had used in London for his contacts in the north.

Going around the table, Martin was first introduced to a man in his fifties, Isaac Ludlam, a brown-haired stonecutter who looked as if he had once been a man of means. His clothes were of good cloth, though noticeably worn. Next to him was William Turner, a stonemason, an average-looking man, thin but of wiry strength, whom Martin judged to be in his forties. Both said they were from the Derbyshire town of South Wingfield to the north. There were three from Pentridge: John Onion, a husky ironworker with powerful hands, and George Brassington, a dark-haired miner, both of whom appeared to be in their early forties; and the shoemaker, Edward Moore, who was perhaps a bit younger and obviously shy, dressed more for the town than the field.

Before they could introduce the last man Moore exclaimed, “Oliver, these are the men who saved my young Johnnie!”

“Well, now,” said Sidmouth’s spy. “’Tis two celebrated heroes who have joined our ranks, men. I heard of the rescue, how the man who saved little Johnnie faced the bull.” He eyed Martin. “Not many men would have done that.” The rest of the men smiled and mumbled their appreciation.

Oliver finally returned to his introductions. Draping his arm around the shoulders of the young man sitting next to him he said, “Meet my good friend Jeremiah Brandreth,” a man whom he thereafter referred to as their “Nottingham Captain.” Brandreth was young, maybe in his late twenties, with curly brown hair not unlike John’s, but his piercing black eyes now glaring at Martin over that tankard of ale reminded Martin of a cornered animal. Though his complexion was sallow and his shoulders slight, there was something of the air of command about him. From his bearing and manner, Martin thought perhaps he had been in the militia. The designation of captain, though clearly unofficial, suggested as much.

Martin and John shook each man’s hand, Martin telling them how glad they were to have the opportunity to meet those seeking reform, especially since he was the product of a family that advocated liberté, égalité, et fraternité in France. That he was glad of the opportunity was no lie. What better way to spy on Sidmouth’s conspirator than appear to be joining him?

When the introductions were complete, the door opened and a young man in his twenties entered with a tray carrying more tankards of ale.

“Ah,” said Oliver, “’tis our young friend George Weightman, son of the proprietress of the White Horse and a supporter of our revolution. Come in, lad! Are ye serving here, now?”

“Nay, I just offered to bring up these drinks for Mrs. Onion who is busy waiting on patrons below. I cannot stay for long. Me mother requires me services today but she wanted to be sure I was here to at least meet with ye.”

Martin recognized the strapping blond man as the one who’d fetched him wine at the White Horse. He could see by his face that George was not eager to follow the older men into a losing cause, and a sudden pang of regret seized Martin. How many would Oliver lead to destruction if this absurd venture were not stopped before it began?

The other men welcomed George warmly, and the young man, nodding a greeting to Martin, said to Oliver, “Have I missed much, sir?”

“Not at all. I’ve just been saying that everyone in the south is ready to rise, but the folks in London I represent will not be satisfied unless Nottingham is secure, for there can be no denying that it is the rallying point for Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, essential to our cause.”

Jeremiah Brandreth was quick to give assurance. “Aye, and the men of Nottingham are with us, Oliver.”

“’Tis good they are,” replied Sidmouth’s spy. “In my travels around the Midlands, I see thousands of men ready to join us in demanding Parliamentary reform. Why, the lads of Yorkshire and Lancashire can hardly be kept down they’re so anxious to begin. From Nottingham we must press on to London, joining with those in the south who are ready to fight. Ye’ll find London ripe for revolution. I am only here to see that all is ready before I meself return.”

Martin and John exchanged a look. Neither was surprised to learn Oliver would soon leave for London. Having stirred the embers of rebellion in the Midlands, he would want to be gone when they finally caught and flamed into a full-scale insurrection.

Before Martin could think of how to inject some sanity, Isaac Ludlam raised a reasonable question. “Are ye certain the Midlands are ready for this, Oliver?”

Sidmouth’s man looked at him, surprised and a perhaps a little annoyed. “O’course I am, Isaac. Half the country is organized, ’specially the manufacturing districts. I tell ye, the men are ready to rebel against the government. It is time for all good men to have a vote!”

“That may be, Oliver, but I still have a few concerns,” said Isaac’s friend William Turner. “People are unhappy, and some in dire straits to be sure, but not many would fight the government. ’Tis like fighting against the wind.”

Oliver was undaunted. “Yer wrong, Will. It was only with a great deal of explaining that I was able to prevent some towns from taking up arms too soon.”

“I grant ye there’s been trouble,” Turner continued, “but while many families have faced grave difficulty, Derbyshire seems set in the ways of the past.”

Oliver looked around, and his eyes came to rest on Jeremiah Brandreth. “That will soon change. I would ask ye good men of Derbyshire to do something, even if ’tis only a token gesture. My London Committee will expect it. The main business will be done there, o’course, where seventy thousand armed men can be raised at an hour or two’s notice. ”

Martin was appalled to see how far matters had gone and the direct way Oliver, fluent know-nothing that he was, actively encouraged impoverished and reticent men to revolt. He was calling for nothing short of a march on London, telling these poor country fools there were thousands of men willing to join them. Like lambs led to slaughter, they were unaware of the perfidy of the goat that was drawing them ever nearer to disaster.

He and John exchanged a look of concern, his young assistant appearing equally disgusted at the sheer folly of the course of action being advocated. Oliver wanted a demonstration of force that would satisfy his superiors in London, but Martin hoped to forestall such an event. A rebellion might never occur without such an agent provocateur . Perhaps Ormond would, in response to Martin’s note, persuade the Prince Regent there was still time to stop what was developing in this peaceful Derbyshire. Martin prayed it was so.

A slightly crazed look about him, Jeremiah Brandreth suddenly exclaimed, “Well, I for one am ready to join those in London. I’ve had enough of the government’s bare rations of liberty. Oliver’s right. We must have change!”

That frenzied gleam in his eyes was worrisome. Of all the men Martin had met on this mission, the Nottingham Captain appeared the most dangerous. If Oliver was a schemer, Brandreth was a zealot. It was impossible to predict what he might do. Worst of all, he seemed able to stir the men of Derbyshire into an action they would not otherwise take. Active rebellion suddenly loomed large.

The man set eyes on his partner in lunacy. “Will you fix a date for the general rising, Oliver?”

“Aye, now that you have assured me the Nottingham folks are with us. We can talk of that when we meet again in a few days. And once the date for the uprising is set, I will be returning to London to make sure all is ready there.”