Dark Waters (8 page)

He looked down at his notes, written on a piece of paper that trembled in his fingers. It was then that I noticed, at the edge of the crowd, the vivid red hair of Denis Destercore. The candidate looked up and began again.

‘No, it isn't. Is this honourable behaviour? Is this how a gentleman conducts his business? I say it presents us to the world as little better than p-p-pirates.'

‘Hoity-toity!' shouted someone from the crowd. ‘Are you such a traitor?'

I looked and saw the interruptor was standing next to Destercore, a large man with a craggy, belligerent but handsome sort of face. It was my first view of the servant, Hamilton Peters.

‘No indeed, sir, the opposite,' piped the youth, turning to address Peters directly. ‘Do you not see? When we fight like that – for nothing but money – we do look just like pirates on the high seas.'

Despite the candidate's squeaking voice, his words sounded like good sense to me. But, emboldened by the intervention, bored by the speech and made rancorous by the cold, the majority of the crowd did not agree. One or two derisive hoots were raised, and shouts of ‘Rubbish!' and ‘Who cares?'

‘But no, no, I assure you, we all must care,' squeaked the candidate, his face reddening. ‘I-I-I mean as the great writer Lord St Albans once said—'

‘Lord St Whose-arse?' came a reply, causing an outbreak of laughter. The voice was again that of Destercore's companion.

A cabbage stalk arced up into the air from the crowd and bounced off the fountain behind Richard Shuttleworth, striking his back. The old county MP then stepped forward and whispered urgently in his son's ear, before himself turning to the crowd and in stentorian tones bellowing for quiet.

‘Pay heed to Mr James Shuttleworth,' he roared, hoisting his index finger high above his head. ‘He is pointing out that not a penny of this Spanish lucre – supposing it is ever paid over – can possibly benefit you, the electors of this fine town. No indeed! Rather it will be poured straight into the already bulging pockets of the London shipowners and merchants. However, when you freemen of proud Preston do Mr James Shuttleworth the signal honour of electing him to represent this mighty borough in Parliament, let us assure you he will join with others to strain every muscle, every sinew, in opposing the government's connivance with these crooks, to stop this rotten war and, yes, yes, to reduce your taxes that are raised to pay for it! You cannot benefit from this war; only from ending it.'

This for the first time raised a cheer and a volley of clapping. The wily old roué had rescued the meeting for his virginal young son.

I walked on, reflecting on the excitement that this election promised, but also on the extraordinary disruption of town life it was going to bring. In the first few days the canvass would be frenetic. The list of freemen electors – about 700 of them – would be fought over and the credentials of each one scrutinized. One way or another votes would be acquired for this and that party. A market trader's debts would be paid off, and a dowry portion found for a shopkeeper's daughter. All the time the eating, drinking and jollity would be prodigious. And then as polling got started friendly persuasion would give way to bullying and broken heads, on the principle that if you can't laugh a man into voting for you, you must resort to hearing him squeal.

Chapter Six

‘A
RE YOU NOT EXCITED
, dear Mr Cragg, that we are to have
Alfred
this coming Sunday?' cried Miss Amelia Colley, pouring me a glass of Madeira wine. ‘Lord Strange is such a benefactor.'

Miss Colley was one of the numerous widows and maiden ladies who migrated to Preston in middle life, finding existence in a rented house (or, in less prosperous cases, a set of rooms) on Fisher or Friar Gate far preferable to a draughty dower house or ragged-roofed grace-and-favour cottage on some dull country estate. Sitting now in her downstairs parlour overlooking Fisher Gate, we were discussing an event that was exactly the sort of thing she had come to Preston to enjoy: a play that was to be staged entirely out of the pocket of young Lord Strange, Lord Derby's eldest son. It was in honour of his uncontested entry into Parliament as a county MP, as well as to mark the beginning of polling week in the town's contested election. While Elizabeth and I had invitations, I told Miss Colley we knew little of the work to be performed.

‘Nor I, nor I,' said my client, with shining eyes. ‘I expect it is one of Shakespeare's, and full of ghosts and women in male apparel, and there is sure to be a fool and at least one bloody sword fight.'

‘No, I think it is a new work,' I told her, ‘and with freshly composed music.'

‘Oh, how delightful! It will be a fitting start to the poll, which is hardly less of an excitement. The first to be held since I came here. And not only that – we are to be the only town in all Lancashire that will actually vote. Oh, it is all so very gratifying, almost as good as a play, but with real actors and a wholly unknown outcome.'

I qualified my client's enthusiasm with a mild warning.

‘It will be entertaining all right. But elections have their dangers, Miss Colley. I would counsel you not to go out into the street when the mob is abroad.'

She put her palm across her mouth.

‘The mob!' she exclaimed. ‘Abroad! Oh, how thrilling! And which side, if I may ask, will you be supporting in the vote?'

‘I cannot decide. I find both parties rather disagreeable.'

She gave a tinkling laugh.

‘You are playing me, Mr Cragg. I am sure you
have
decided. A man like yourself has a settled mind. Will you not take a piece of gingerbread?'

The gingerbread was cut into triangular mouthfuls. I selected one.

‘Truly, I haven't,' I said, when I had chewed and swallowed. ‘I wish we had something other than a choice between court-lackey Whigs and stick-in-the-mud Tories.'

‘Well, that is certainly a novel idea. But are not the two parties the sides of a coin? What else can there be but heads and tails?'

‘The law, Miss Colley. I am a man of the law. It seems to me the Whigs corrupt the law, and the Tories dream of no law at all.'

Suddenly Miss Colley patted herself above the heart and let out a slight coo.

‘Forgive me, I am out of my depth, and must seem impertinent. But for a woman in my position, you know, impertinence is the seasoning of life.'

She took a delicate sip of wine.

‘So, aside from your own preference, tell me, please, who is going to win the seats?'

‘It may be close. We cannot yet tell which side has the larger treasure chest.'

‘Treasure chest?'

‘To buy the votes needed.'

‘Really? And how much, may I ask, does it cost to buy a vote – yours, for instance, Mr Cragg, since you are still undecided?'

‘My vote is not on the market, Miss Colley. Even to you.'

She laughed gaily once more.

‘For shame, sir. As if I would ever want to buy it. And you a married man! But tell me what a reasonable person might sell his vote for, supposing one
did
want to buy it?'

‘In money, three guineas will probably be more than enough. A shopkeeper in need of some capital might change his political coat for as much. But most are looking only for a feast, you know. They'll simply vote for the candidate who gives them the best roast meat. That is the deplorable system under which we choose our representatives, I fear.'

‘Well, Mr Cragg, deplorable it may be, but it certainly simplifies politics, so that even a woman or child could understand it.'

Her eyes were sparkling and I saw that she had spoken archly. Women may stand in the shadows of the business but they are not blinded when they look into the light.

‘Ah – politics,' I said. ‘Yes, perhaps I am being too high minded. Politics is just an ordinary battle, isn't it? A battle of wills.'

‘Oh, if I were not but an ignorant woman, I would so agree, Mr Cragg. And I might easily think it rather a low battle, nothing more than a fight to control the baser side of human nature.'

She put her Madeira glass to her mouth with a show of finality, drained it and discreetly smacked her lips.

‘On which subject,' she added, leaning forward confidentially, ‘I wonder if you know that Mr Francis Reynolds, I mean the candidate Reynolds, lodges at the address of Mrs Lavinia Bryce, my next-door neighbour. He has made the house his headquarters ever since he first came to Preston last year to establish his candidacy.'

‘And how do you find Mr Reynolds, yourself?'

‘I don't know the man, but I know Mrs Bryce. Very close, she is, about his comings and goings. But I think she's already sold him
her
vote, if you take my meaning.'

I was not surprised at the insinuation. Mrs Bryce was a widow of about forty, who had lived in town for three or four years. Even before Reynolds, she had been known for a certain freedom in bestowing her favours, and I guessed he would not be the first lodger to sport himself in her bed. I tipped the last of my own Madeira into my mouth, and judiciously cleared my throat.

‘Perhaps we should move on to the business in hand, Miss Colley?' I said. ‘Your will?'

*   *   *

Miss Colley's testatory second thoughts required little more than a substitution of names, since she only wanted to transfer her favour from one sycophantic (but in her eyes now disappointing) nephew to another, whom she considered (for the time being) more promising. The accompanying gingerbread had given me a thirst, which the Madeira had done little to slake, so, after leaving her house, I slipped into the Mitre Inn, which stood not far from her door on the opposite side of Fisher Gate.

Like people, inns and coffee houses each have their own character, which they acquire from their position and circumstances. In Preston, Antony Egan's Ferry had long been a skimble-skamble old place, living somnolently in the past; the White Bull was a fat, bustling establishment ready to rise to any challenge in the field of hospitality; and the Turk's Head Coffee House, a favourite of myself and Fidelis, was a centre of commercial and philosophical debate. The Mitre – universally known as Porter's to distinguish it from the Golden Mitre, another large inn on Market Place – had two faces. It possessed a rowdy labourers' taproom on the street and a larger and more comfortable parlour room. Although the latter could on occasion become equally rowdy, its prime quality was to act as a wellhead for London news and political argument among the better informed townspeople. It was first and foremost a Whig establishment, though the garrulous innkeeper Porter never himself expressed a party-political preference. Instead he acted as umpire in debates over the activities of Jacobites in the cause of the Pretender, the meaning of the Great Revolution, the Hanoverian succession and the policies of Sir Robert Walpole. This was where Sir Harry Hoghton would denounce the papistry of the Jacobites; Francis Reynolds would buy round after round of drinks; and outspoken Whigs like Isaac Satterthwaite, the scrivener Alphonsus Parr, the haberdasher Michael Drake and even my clerk Furzey, would gather to argue over the news. It was, in short, a forum for the pompous rodomontade of politics that Miss Colley had so archly mocked.

It was not yet midday and, though a scattering of the parlour tables were occupied by groups of men, their talk was low. I had just sat down with my pot of ale, when an inner door opened and Denis Destercore emerged, followed by the muscled Peters. Talking rapidly as they went, the two hurried diagonally across the room, past where I sat and towards the hall. Destercore was clutching an untidy armful of papers, one of which detached itself from the pile and floated down to my feet without him noticing. By the time I had retrieved it, and before I could attract its owner's attention, the hall door had slammed behind Destercore and his servant.

It was a sheet of foolscap, folded twice, and closely written over. I opened it up and saw that on one side the writing consisted of columns of names written in a careful, though informal, hand. I recognized all of them as men of Preston, and even saw after a moment that my own name was amongst them:
Titus Cragg (attny).
I glanced again, up and down the names. Most had beside them only the man's occupation, but some were also attended by small queries, one of which was my own. A few names – but this time not my own – also had small points placed just before them, and among these I noticed that of
Nick Oldswick (wtchmkr).

I flipped the paper over and found further columns of handwritten names on the verso. Some but not all of these were known to me, and I realized these were not Preston residents but men living out of town, grouped under the place of their residence. They were treated similarly to the townsmen on the recto, some followed by queries, and others prefixed with a tiny dot. One name with neither addition was that of
Charles George (shmkr)
under the heading of
Broughton.
This was my father-in-law. I noticed that one name under the heading
Midd Green
had been scored out by a stroke of the pen. With an effort of scrutiny I saw it was that of
Antony Egan (innkpr).
This was curious indeed.

I glanced around. No one had noticed me lift the paper from the floor. Quietly I refolded it, thrust it into my coat pocket and went back to innocently sipping my ale until it was time to leave for Antony's burial service.

*   *   *

Mr Brighouse, the vicar of Preston, read the prayers in his most aloof manner, somehow giving the impression that he had no knowledge whatever of the deceased, though in reality he knew Antony's circumstances well. There may have been more than 4,000 Prestonians in all, but most of us knew each other's business pretty thoroughly.

Innkeepers have a large acquaintance, even when they are abandoned to inebriation, so the church held a fair number of mourners. After the book service, the box was carried out in procession to the churchyard for burial. As Elizabeth followed her cousins in throwing a trowel scoop of earth onto the lowered coffin, her eyes were damp with sympathy. Of the two daughters, however, only Grace actually wept, while Mary-Ann maintained a taut mouth and narrow eyes throughout. My mother-in-law, too, was dry eyed. Meanwhile my own thoughts kept returning to Destercore's list, and the black line that blotted out Antony's name.