More Tales of the West Riding (17 page)

But here I came upon a bitter disappointment. Absolutely nothing remained except an English-Esperanto dictionary. I pressed Mrs Dean about the boy Bakonyi, later a professor.
Yes, she thought she had heard of him. Yes, come to think of it, she had heard of him. Joe had attended a conference when Bakonyi was there—she thought. Had she heard of Q? Well, yes; everyone had heard of Q. About his fighting with Kossuth in Hungary? Well, no. About his bringing back two Hungarians with him to Hudley? Well, Mrs Dean thought they were Poles. There were two, she believed; but did Q
bring
them? They appeared in Hudley about that time, she thought. The son of one of them, Czernowski, was Joe's great friend; an Esperantist, you see. Son or grandson, she was not quite sure. That two Poles or Hungarians suddenly appeared in Hudley about the time of Kossuth's defeat was certain. Their names, so different from our own Yorkshire, and therefore the constant play of friendly jokes, actually figured above shop windows. I had myself, as a child, seen these names in Hudley there. This in itself meant capital; to start a shop needed money. Why should these two strangers come to a smallish West Riding textile town unless somebody brought them, encouraged them, lent them money? Well, if it was anybody it wasn't Joe, of course, said Mrs Dean firmly. Joe was foreman mechanic down at—she pointed to a large textile mill in the valley; it was convenient-like for him, you see, he just popped down a path through the fields and came out at their door. But as to having money to set somebody up in a shop, of course that was out of the question. Her son knew no more, she was sure, and anyway he was in Canada; her daughter Harriet, though it was true she was always her father's favourite and might have heard more about Bakonyi, had unfortunately died in childbirth in London, some years ago. Her husband had remarried, said Mrs Dean grimly, sensible, of course, with a girl child to bring up, but all the same one never liked it. Would I have a cup of tea? I accepted, and as we drank together pressed again about Bakonyi.

“I never took much notice of it all, like,” said Mrs Dean, grimly practical.

Please, gentle reader, please, PLEASE, if you have in your possession any papers of historical interest, KEEP THEM. Give them to your local municipal library in a strong envelope or sizeable folder, or lay them in a chest or give them to your solicitor; but keep them.

Thwarted in Pickles Street, I began to write letters. I wrote to our Hudley Member of Parliament, who advised me to write to the Hungarian Embassy in London. I wrote to this Hungarian Embassy, dropping names etc. suitably. They advised me to write to a Hungarian cultural society, who advised me to write to another. This in charming language asked for the first name of Professor Bakonyi, since the name of Bakonyi in Hungary was as frequent as Smith in England. Later they told me regretfully that there was no Professor Bakonyi on the staff in Buda Pesth, and later still, that the records of Kossuth's army had all been burnt in the last war. I was told of, and tried, a Hungarian gentleman in England who was preparing records of all Kossuthians who had taken refuge in this country. I learned from him that indeed two likely Poles had come to northern England; one to Liverpool and thence to Hudley, and one to Kidderminster. At this I leaped into the air again, for Kidderminster is a town which weaves carpets; and the great manufacturer who alone was regarded as Q's rival in Hudley was a Carpet man. Indeed, this last man, I discovered, had employed a Garibaldian refugee from Italy, whose skill in design lent much to the Hudley carpet's beauty. It began to occur to me that Hudley, far from being a dull, reactionary, plodding sort of place, really had concealed several of these refugees of European liberty successfully from their enemies. I mentioned this to one of our local historians at an Annual Meeting.

“But, of course,” said he. “Don't you know about Admiral Stanton?”

“I' m afraid not.”

“But my dear child,” said he kindly from the heights of his great age, “it was one of the great jokes of the period—while the police of Europe were scouring the continent for Mazzini—I hope you know about Mazzini?—”

“Of course. The great Italian liberator, precursor of Garibaldi.”

“Well, while the police of Europe scoured the continent for Mazzini, Sir James had him tucked safely away in that lonely ancestral old house of theirs, you know, on the top of Hollow Mount.”

“Are there documents to corroborate this?”

“Well, no. Not documents. But so-and-so the historian,” he went on, naming a rather well-known historical writer, “was once writing a history of the Stanton family—a Stanton ancestor was once Sam Hill's executor—the case of Sam's Will was the origin of the
Bleak House
story—”

“I know, I know. I made a novel of Sam's sad tale.”

“Well, this historian asked me to go through the Stanton papers to see if I could find corroboration of the hiding of Mazzini in Hollow. But I could not.”

I sighed.

“Of course,” said he, “conspirators against the Establishment don't write notes of all their revolutionary doings, to be used against them at their trials, you know.”

“Then what gave rise to the story?”

“Admiral Stanton lost his job on account of his friendship with Mazzini. He was in Parliament, you know, a junior Cabinet Minister of sorts. And there was a great row because the Post Office turned up letters addressed by Giuseppe Mazzini to Italian conspirators, one of them was a would-be assassin, in fact, in which Admiral Stanton's name and address figured. Of course, the Admiral knew all the revolutionaries
of the time: Cavour, Herzen, Mazzini, Kossuth, Garibaldi, the lot. He couldn't and didn't wish to deny it. He had a business in London, a brewery, I think it was, and often visited it and saw these friends. But it was as if he had corresponded with a Russian Communist during the Cold War period, you know. Imagine what Queen Victoria must have said! The Admiral resigned.”

I leaned forward. “Have you,” I asked with great earnestness, “ever heard that Q went out to Hungary and fought at Kossuth's side?”

He lowered his voice and looked aside. “Often,” he murmured.

“Hurrah!”

“But of course I don't believe it.”

“Why not?”

“No evidence for. Evidence against: Kossuth came to England in 1851—he even came to Hudley! He had a tremendous reception. But Q took no part in it. He never attended a single meeting where Kossuth was present.”

“But if it was dangerous?”

“Oh, pooh. Q would not have cared about that. He was not in politics; he was a man of wealth and sure position.”

“His wife might have cared. And his brother.”

“But why do you think the mild well-behaved Q—”

I poured out all my details of Esperanto, Poles, Joe Dean.

“Not a scrap of real evidence, just a lot of talk. The tale is often repeated, of course, but it is regarded as not authentic, and so is not mentioned in official accounts.”

“No smoke without fire?”

“Why should Q go and fight in Hungary?”

“Why indeed?” said I. “He may have felt rather cramped, in Hudley.”

“I've always thought him noble, of course, but a bit of a bore.”

“He inherited a million and died worth a thousand.”

“You admire that?”

“It's rather exceptional in Hudley. He travelled in southern Europe twenty years later.”

“Did he indeed? I wonder if he took Booth with him?”

“Booth?”

“His groom. He was with him when he died. Very devoted.”

I remembered the silver harness. “I wonder if Booth had any knowledgeable descendants?”

“No; I can tell you he hadn't. Poor-law chap; no relatives; unmarried.”

“You've researched this Q story yourself,” I accused him.

“Possibly, possibly.”

“The descendants of those two Poles might know something.”

“The descendants of one of them are all dead.”

“I shall try the other set.”

“Well, have fun!” said the historian, laughing in kindly derision as he waved farewell.

To assume that I, a mere novelist, should succeed in a piece of research where the local historian, so sound, so meticulous, had failed, was graceless, I knew; but all the same….

A name as strange as Czernowski is easy to trace in Hudley, and accordingly I presently found myself spending a very pleasant evening with the present descendant of one of Kossuth's sergeants. There he was, John Czernowski, indubitably the grandson, for he showed me certificates, a lean, handsome man, dark and suitably Polish in looks, lively in mind and tongue. He had a pleasant, good-looking fair-haired wife in her thirties, a fair teenage daughter, pretty and agreeably shy, and a large black and white cat, clearly an indulged favourite, very sleek and glossy. The house, one of a short terrace very high on a Pennine hillside, was spot
less, comfortably furnished, well equipped, everything quiet, respectable, prosperous. Best of all—and I could hardly restrain my jubilation when I realised her presence—there was his mother, old, of course, but brisk and upright. Actually the widow of Joe Dean's friend the Esperantist. She spoke of her late husband quite frequently, calling him “Kage”.

“That was what they called him,” she said firmly. “His name was Kazimir, you know, but they called him Kage. Pronounced it that way, I expect.”

She told a nice tale about Kage's father—actually Kossuth's sergeant!—defending another foreign workman (another?) who was receiving less pay from his boss because he could not speak English. “He paints with his hand, sir,” said the sergeant, “not his mouth.”

(Just the man for a sergeant in a revolutionary army.)

My voice quite trembled, my throat was dry, as I stammered out the question: “Did Kage or his father ever speak of Q?”

“No.”

“No? Oh, surely...” I cried in an anguish of disappointment.

“No.”

“Had you heard of Q?”

“Vaguely.”

Seeing my look of horrified discomfiture, she explained:

“Kage and I married late, you know. I was thirty, Kage was well on in his forties. Neither of us had seen anyone we liked, before,” said Mrs Czernowski with the candid dignity of truth. “It was 1924. Q was dead long before that.”

“Oh, but surely. Your father-in-law must have spoken of Q.”

“Never.”

“I believe you, of course, but it is hard for me to believe
you,” said I, briefly recounting the tale of Q and his Polish protégés.

“It' was an old story by then,” said the senior Mrs Czernowski firmly.

“People often don't know the early history of their parents,” said the junior Mrs Czernowski with intent to soothe. “Well, aristocratic people may, because they're taught it, I expect. But not ordinary people like us.”

“Still, it comes out in bits and pieces sometimes,” suggested the daughter.

“I never heard anything about Q,” said John, thoughtful. “My mother's got a few cuttings, like.”

These were shown. The merest formal insertions of deaths and marriages. Not even the fatal Joe Dean-Bakonyi paragraph which had set me on my quest.

“Did you ever hear the name Bakonyi?”

“Never.”

“Joe Dean?”

“Yes, I think so. Yes, I know the name. He was one of the Esperanto group. I don't think I ever met him. The group met once a week on Wednesday evenings, at the secretary's house.”

“Did your husband ever play chess with men from other countries, by means of Esperanto?”

“Oh, yes, indeed; he was a great chess player. There was always posting of letters to do, with stamps for abroad. Sometimes I copied the letters for him.”

“Did he ever play chess with someone in Hungary?”

“I don't remember,” said the senior Mrs Czernowski with regret. “I didn't address the envelopes, you see. Foreign addresses are so different from ours, aren't they. Kage understood better how to write them, than I did. But I doubt that he ever wrote to Hungary. You see,” she suddenly volunteered, all her life and love in her tone: “Kage wanted to forget all that past sad history. He wanted to be English.
Or perhaps he just wanted me to think so,” she added with a wistful smile. “He was especially anxious for our son to be an Englishman, so as to have a better chance than he had himself. And yet to remain a Pole, if you see what I mean. He didn't change his name, like some, anyway,” she concluded proudly.

“Well—I thank you warmly for your confidence, and I apologise for taking up your time in vain,” said I rising.

“It has been a pleasure to receive you,” said John with ceremony. “We deeply regret that we have no information for your service. But we can do no other.”

I almost sobbed with grief and disappointment as I drove down that very steep hill, with the lights of Hudley twinkling far below. It was almost worse, perhaps, because the outward unimportant details were all corroborated. Though slightly different from the
Star's
account: Esperanto, chess, Joe Dean—but alas, no Q.

But suppose there had been corroboration? Suppose Kage had known Q, known him well? I am a novelist, a storyteller, and I could not prevent myself from telling the tale as it might, so easily, have occurred.

Suppose, one night in London, Q had been introduced to Mazzini. A noble figure, worn and thin, with a white beard, high forehead, strong straight nose, piercing black eyes; a man living in a small house above a post office, surrounded by the dogs and cats and birds he loved: a brilliant talker, his slight Italicisms so endearing; teaching (for nothing, of course) small Italian boys the noble history, the noble aspirations, of their race. Idealism poured from his lips, he spoke it freely to the Italian organ-grinders and hawkers of terracotta casts who thronged the streets of London; his accounts of Austrian tyranny were appalling. His friends were the finest people of the day: poets such as Browning, social workers such as Toynbee; English and American travellers
of all ranks were proud to convey his secret letters to revolutionary Italians.