The Revenge of Captain Paine pm-2 Page 7

  There were many ways in which Pyke could have answered the question, not least pointing to the fine work his uncle did riling the authorities with his unstamped paper the Scourge, but none of them seemed appropriate. So when the man started to pour the rest of his beer over Godfrey’s head, Pyke snatched the bottle from his hand and, in the same movement, smashed it against his jaw, the bottle shattering into hundreds of tiny shards. The ruffian fell backwards into the crowd sitting behind him but someone else, obviously a friend of the injured man, came at Pyke with a knife. Pyke caught him by his lunging wrist and jerked it sharply down, the bone breaking with a clean, satisfying snap. The knife clattered harmlessly on to the floor and the assailant roared with agony, the veins in his neck swollen from the pain. Others might have waded into the dispute as well if someone hadn’t fired a pistol up at the ceiling. The loudness of the blast brought the room to order, and when Pyke looked up, he saw his wife standing next to Jackman on the platform with a pistol in her hand, the acrid smell of blast powder filling the room. Stepping off the platform, Emily made her way through the mob, the men hurriedly clearing a path for her. Maybe she had already seen what had happened or perhaps she suspected that Pyke may have been involved in the rumpus because when she came upon them, surrounded by a mob spoiling for a fight, Emily’s expression didn’t noticeably change.

  ‘You,’ Emily barked, pointing the pistol at Pyke, and added, without changing her tone, ‘You, too, old man.’

  Once Emily had marched them out of the room at gunpoint, and they were out of sight and earshot of the crowd, she turned to Jackman and said, ‘I’d like to introduce my husband, Pyke, and his uncle Godfrey.’ She handed the pistol back to Jackman and added, ‘Pyke, Godfrey, this is Julian Jackman.’

  Jackman was a tall, slender, good-looking man with a trimmed beard, pouting lips and bright rosy cheeks. He asked Pyke whether he had found the meeting interesting.

  ‘Illuminating might be a better description,’ Pyke said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘See, I’m always intrigued by those who believe they can change the world with the might of their own rhetoric.’

  ‘Do I detect a subtle rebuke in your words?’

  Emily interrupted. ‘Pyke thinks the current dispensation will carry on regardless of what we might or might not do.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Pyke looked first at Emily and then at Jackman. It had been a while since she had challenged him in front of others and it told him that things between them had slipped more than he had perhaps imagined.

  Interrupting them, Godfrey made his excuses and hurried out of the door, saying he needed to find somewhere to relieve himself.

  ‘It’s not all rhetoric,’ Jackman said. ‘We’re currently attempting to unionise the coal-whippers and we have our sights set on other labouring men, too. In this context, our aims are less ambitious. Higher wages, shorter working hours. Straightforward issues that can make a difference to men’s lives.’

  Pyke noticed that Emily was nodding her head in approval, and wondered whether the radical might be attracted to his wife. Men usually were, Pyke thought grimly, but the attraction was not usually mutual.

  ‘But if your wife is to be believed, you’re suggesting even to strive for change is a futile yearning. Would that be a fair assessment of your position?’

  ‘Man is a solitary animal.’ Pyke shrugged, not really wanting to discuss the matter. ‘It’s in his nature to look after his own and his family’s interests first.’

  ‘And woman?’ Jackman asked, almost mocking. He glanced across at Emily, who blushed, and Pyke had to rein in an urge to tear out his throat.

  ‘In spite of your rhetoric about working-class solidarity and the evils of money, I think we both know what role my wife is performing here.’

  Emily’s face reddened. ‘I don’t think…’

  But Jackman cut her off with a laugh. ‘You’re correct, of course. We can’t do all we need to do without some charitable assistance.’ He nodded approvingly at Emily. ‘But a few months ago, your wife stood up to a crew of mercenaries down at Cowgate wharf. They’d been sent there by the coal merchants to beat the coal-whippers into submission. A hundred and twenty-three men had just sworn their oaths and a strike had been called. Your wife was wearing a white dress, I recall. She pushed her way to the front of the mob and none of the hired ruffians knew what to do. No one dared attack. They left with their tails between their legs.’

  Pyke nodded while Jackman told him the story, to suggest he’d already heard it, but inwardly felt aggrieved that Emily hadn’t mentioned it. ‘I don’t need a lecture about my wife’s courage.’

  That seemed to chasten him slightly. ‘Of course.’ Crimson faced, Jackman stared down at his shoes.

  A silence hung between them. Emily glanced from Pyke to Jackman, a quizzical look on her face. ‘Why were they chanting Captain Paine’s name?’ Pyke asked, in the end.

  ‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.’

  Pyke clenched his teeth. ‘They’re not here. You are.’

  ‘You strike me as an educated man, Pyke. I’m sure you’ve read about the exploits of Odysseus and Jason. In troubled times, people look to heroes to do what they can’t.’

  ‘And that’s what Captain Paine is? A mythical creation intended to give working people false hope?’

  ‘Why would people’s hopes be false?’ Emily asked, stepping into the argument on Jackman’s side.

  ‘A lone individual bringing the capitalist order to its knees?’ Pyke shook his head. ‘That doesn’t sound like a fantasy to you?’

  ‘I think you’re missing the point,’ Emily said. Jackman was just looking at them, amused.

  ‘And what is the point?’

  Emily shrugged. ‘That an individualist system where man looks out only for his interests has produced a world of such inequalities it cannot be sustained in perpetuity.’

  Feeling uneasy about airing their differences in public, Pyke turned to the radical and said, ‘I’d like you better if I felt you thought politics was the clash of opposing forces rather than some war of ideals.’

  ‘But it’s exactly what I do believe, that capital and labour are implacable enemies, fighting to the death.’

  ‘Then the problem is that you infect others with your naive optimism so that they begin to see the world not as it really is but as you’d like it to be.’

  Jackman seemed angry. ‘Thank you, sir, but I can see the world well enough as it is. Men, women and children, sweating in hovels and factories to earn less in a year than we might spend on dinner while the wealthy grow fat on the proceeds of their labour.’ He shrugged. ‘But I hope it won’t always be this way.’

  ‘That’s exactly my point.’ Pyke paused. ‘Because if the world’s as threatening as you admit it is, self-assertion is the only thing that will keep you alive.’

  ‘But self-assertion and self-interest are different things entirely, Pyke,’ Emily said, glancing nervously at Jackman.

  Too late, Pyke realised that he’d become involved in an argument he couldn’t win. ‘Where I grew up, men and women had to fight tooth and nail for what they needed just to make it through the day.’

  ‘But does it always have to be so?’ Jackman’s expression softened a little.

  For a moment Pyke was lost for an answer. Emily stared at him, either willing him to say something or to remain silent.

  ‘And what happens when men and women can’t compete fairly in this struggle for survival because the authorities have stacked the deck so heavily in favour of the rich?’ Jackman looked at him for an answer.

  Pyke felt the skin tighten across his face. ‘But the fact remains that in the struggle to put food on your table and clothes on your children’s backs, it’s down to you, and you alone. No one’s going to offer you a helping hand.’

  Jackman looked at him, almost pityingly, and said, ‘In your world, perhaps, Pyke. In your world.’

  It wasn’t until later, a
s they prepared for bed on the top floor of the Islington town house Emily had also inherited from her father, that Emily and Pyke got around to talking about the events of the evening.

  ‘I have to go to Cambridge tomorrow for business. I’ll probably be away for a few nights.’ He looked around the bedroom, embarrassed by its untidiness, piles of old clothes strewn across the floor. It was cold as well, the fire smouldering in the grate doing little to warm up the room.

  ‘I’m planning to spend a couple of days at Hambledon,’ Emily replied. ‘It feels like weeks since I last spent any proper time with Felix.’

  It had been Pyke’s choice not to employ any domestic servants, and while the lack of warmth and tidiness didn’t bother him when he stayed there on his own, he felt a little uncomfortable in Emily’s presence. Not that she appeared to mind about the cold. She sat in her nightdress at the dressing table, brushing her hair in front of the looking glass. ‘You know, there was a time when I might have been impressed by the sentiments you expressed tonight.’

  ‘But now you’re perfectly happy to take someone like Jackman’s side over mine?’ It was a more intemperate remark than Pyke had intended, but he was still rankled by his exchange with the radical.

  ‘It’s not a question of taking anyone’s side.’

  ‘What is it a question of, then?’

  ‘You think I’m disloyal?’ She laughed angrily. ‘I told you before we married that I wouldn’t be the kind of wife who’d slavishly attend to your every whim.’ She shook her head, her anger ebbing away into disappointment.

  ‘But you think it’s all right that I’m compelled to watch as you hang off Captain Paine’s every word?’

  ‘Captain Paine?’ She threw her chin up into the air. ‘Whoever said that Julian was Captain Paine?’

  ‘Well, isn’t he?’

  ‘Whether he is or isn’t is not the point.’ She stood up and hurried across the room to the bed. ‘Anyway, why are you so interested in this Captain Paine all of a sudden?’

  Pyke knelt down in front of the fire he’d tried to start and prodded it with a poker.

  ‘Times have changed. Your ability to turn self-interest into a virtue is no longer as convincing as it was when you were poor.’

  ‘And now I have a little money in my pocket, am I supposed to become a different person? More like you, perhaps?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Emily sat up in the bed and stared at him, visibly angry now.

  ‘It’s easy for you to dismiss the importance of money because you’ve never been without it.’

  That silenced her for a few moments. ‘Once upon a time,’ she started, ‘you used to steal from men like my father.’

  ‘And now I’ve turned into him? Is that what you mean?’ This time it was his turn to show his irritation.

  ‘You needn’t worry about that,’ Emily said, laughing. ‘You’ll never be my father.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But you once had aspirations beyond merely wanting to be rich.’

  ‘For you, money has always been a means to an end.’ Pyke looked at her, shaking his head. ‘Why don’t you think the same applies to me?’

  ‘It does. I know.’ Emily sank back into her pillow, sighing. ‘But what if those who most need your help are no longer those closest to you?’

  Pyke left the fire alone and perched on the side of the bed, starting to take off his boots. ‘There are always going to be people who need your help. Where do you draw the line?’

  ‘For me, there isn’t any line.’

  He kicked off his boots and started to unbutton his shirt. ‘In which case people will always take advantage of you.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what if someone like Jackman is just using you for your money?’

  Emily pulled the blanket up around her body and watched him undress for a short while. ‘It isn’t about him or me, or even you. It’s about something bigger, Pyke. Haven’t you grasped that by now?’

  Pyke finished undressing in silence and joined Emily under the sheets. ‘I thought you handled that pistol quite well,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘Only quite well?’

  ‘For a moment I thought you were going to shoot me.’

  ‘I could have put one straight through your heart,’ she said, playfully tapping his chest.

  ‘You wouldn’t have found it there.’

  In the glow of the candle, he saw the faint trace of a smile on her face. ‘It’s bigger than you give it credit for.’

  ‘A heart of gold, eh?’

  She gave him a playful frown.

  ‘Copper, then.’

  ‘Brass.’ Emily kissed him gently on the mouth. ‘It’s harder to shoot a hole in brass than copper.’

  ‘So now I’m just a suit of armour to you?’

  ‘Not just that.’ She reached down and touched him.

  ‘It would seem I’ve got a reputation to live up to.’

  ‘Or down to.’

  He began to laugh. ‘Her ladyship would deign to have her way with a commoner then?’

  ‘Is that what you are? A commoner?’

  ‘A commoner, with very immediate needs.’ Pyke straddled her and started to pull up her nightshirt.

  ‘Then allow me to minister to the needy.’ She blew out the candle and kissed him on the mouth.

  SIX

  Four whiskered men, all wearing tall-crowned top hats and black Macintosh coats, held lanterns aloft and formed a barricade across the sodden track. Above them, the sky was black and filled with a patchwork of heavy, swirling clouds. Rain had begun to fall shortly after they had departed Cambridge, where Morris had left him to make the onward journey to Huntingdon using a short-stop stagecoach. Now, two hours later, the surface of the road had become an unrecognisable river of mud. The driver had climbed down from his seat and was engaged in a heated conversation with the leader of the group, who had a rifle slung over his shoulder and was demanding that all the male passengers present themselves outside the carriage for inspection. In fact, this meant just Pyke and a nervous undertaker travelling on to King’s Lynn. When the undertaker was allowed to retake his place in the carriage, Pyke stood alone in front of the man, wet gusts of wind buffeting the tail of his coat. Water dripped from the curled tip of the man’s vein-riddled nose and the smell of gin on his breath was overpowering. Pyke was asked about his business in Huntingdon and when he refused to give an answer, the man took a step towards him and asked him whether he was a radical. Pyke absorbed the heat of his stare and the stink of his breath and explained that he was travelling on to Newark and hoped to break his journey in Huntingdon.

  That seemed to confuse the man slightly. ‘You sure you ain’t a radical?’

  ‘I wasn’t the last time you asked, but if you leave me standing out here in the rain for too much longer I might turn into one.’

  ‘How about a journalist? Are you a journalist? We hate journalists almost as much as we hate radicals.’

  ‘Afraid of what they might write about your dreary little town?’

  The man’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘This is a good town, with fine, upstanding people. It’s others have brought their troubles to us.’

  ‘I’ve no interest in you or your town but if I catch a fever from standing out here in the rain I might take an interest.’

  He let Pyke return to the coach with a curt nod and soon they were crossing over the River Ouse using the old bridge, the town appearing before them and a torrent of water gushing beneath them.

  Before they had parted ways in Cambridge, Morris had told him again that he was less concerned about radicals than about Rockingham’s attempts to thwart the progress of the Grand Northern beyond Cambridge and across his land. Apparently Rockingham enjoyed a great deal of support in Huntingdon, where the next phase of the construction work was about to begin because livelihoods like blacksmithing and innkeeping would be hit hard by the railway.

  Pyke had told Morris to wait for him in his private carriage o
n the crossroads just to the south of Huntingdon at approximately eight the following evening. If he happened to make enemies in the town, Pyke didn’t want to draw the older man into any possible repercussions.

  Inside the stagecoach, a matronly woman said, with breathy excitement, ‘I fancy the business with those men must have been related to the discovery of a headless body a few days ago.’

  Directly across from her, the undertaker nodded. ‘I heard there was a madman on the loose from an asylum near Cambridge. Either that, or one of the four horsemen of the acropolis,’ he muttered, with a conspiratorial nod. ‘I’ve dealt with bodies my whole life and I’ll wager you don’t know how much sweat it would take to hack through someone’s neck with a knife.’

  ‘Please, sir, I’d remind you there are ladies present,’ the woman who’d started the conversation said, looking at Pyke for support.

  ‘If someone knew what they were doing,’ Pyke said, ‘a few swings of a sharp axe ought to do it.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose it would.’ The undertaker scratched his chin. ‘But so would a saw with a good blade.’

  The matronly woman huffed but took no further part in the conversation.

  When they finally pulled into the coaching yard, the carriage was surrounded by grooms and pot-boys wearing black aprons, offering to carry their bags to one of the inn’s rooms. Stretching his limbs, Pyke watched as the grooms led the tired horses across to the stables on the far side of the yard, where they would be fed and rested.

  Having changed out of his damp clothes, Pyke retraced his steps back to the taproom, where haggard women and dishevelled men huddled around a blazing fire. On the floor, a gnawed chop bone and some discarded oyster shells sat in a layer of wet butcher’s sawdust.

  When a pot-boy brought him a mug of frothy ale, Pyke asked about the two men playing cards next to the fireplace. The young lad explained that Septimus Yellowplush was the town’s magistrate and Mr Burden the rector from All Saint’s Church.