Pam Rosenthal - The Slightest Provocation

“Then you’ve heard,” Mary told her, “what fools we can be as well, with all our years and experience behind us. But at least your aunt Jessica doesn’t know-of your folly, and not even all of mine. Fred and Elizabeth have told her you’re still at the Halseys’…”

There were sudden loud shouts from the crowded space between the bar and the fireplace.

“Liar!”

“Ye know nothin’ about it! They’re waiting for us in London, fifty, seventy thousand, of ’em tomorrow.”

“But, man”-it was Kit’s voice now-“haven’t you heard about him being exposed at Wakefield? I thought all the groups had decided not to go.”

Confused murmuring. She heard the words arrest, meeting, and plot.

Of course, Mary thought, there was bound to be one contingent-or probably more than one, who hasn’t heard about the change in Oliver’s fortunes.

Or perhaps just didn’t want to believe it.

“Rumors, planted to keep us home. Lies. Think of it, boys… A mighty force all together to face the mightiest government on God’s earth. Nothing like it ever before, even at the Bastille. Don’t lose heart, just at the word of…”

“And who’re you anyway, to tell us to go or stay? Speak your name, will ye?”

“Christopher Stansell.”

“He’s the magistrate’s ruddy brother, from Rowen, at Grefford…”

“And he would be telling us to stay home, like women and children safe around the fire, ’cept we don’t have the coal for fire…”

“Don’t have nothing after we finish paying for bread and our rent to your brother, damn ’is eyes, but it’ll be different this time, the London delegate told us…”

“The London delegate was a provocateur, by the name of Oliver or perhaps Hollis, in the employ of the Home Office. It’s a trap. They want you to march. They want you to… hang. Please. The London Committees don’t know about any marchers coming down from the Midlands; the Home Office has been writing to its magistrates…”

“And how the bloody ’ell do you know that?”

She stood up to better hear what they were saying. But there was such a crush of men around him, she could only see the top of his head, his eloquent hands sweeping through the air as he tried to make them understand.

“Morrice… Everyman’s Review … Sidmouth…”

It seemed to her that he’d influenced a few men anyway. She could see some heads shake-disappointed, disgusted, or even relieved.

He was keeping his voice low, calm-as he must have learned to do in Spain and France, when he had men under his command. “I saw the provocateur myself. Twice. In Wakefield, with General Byng’s valet tipping his hat to him… ah, you’ve heard those rumors, have you?”

A few nods.

But more than a few angry demurrals as well.

“We got ter go tonight, while there’s still lads out wantin’ to do it. If we’re lost, we’ll go down in glory, with Brandreth and the boys from Pentrich.”

“We ain’t lost. Don’t believe the Byng story, put out to scare us. But will we be scared, boys?”

Angry demurrals.

Kit’s voice again. “I also saw him in London-I think he was meeting with a functionary of the Home Office.”

And then more urgently, “You must believe me. It’s a plot against you.”

But perhaps he’d already dissuaded all of them that he could. Leaving those who were young, those who were desperate. They’d prepared themselves to act tonight. For an instant, she could see it through their eyes, the ragged grandeur of it, each small group of men marching south and eastward through the rain, meeting up with their fellows in an ever-swelling multitude…

And they wouldn’t even have to walk the whole way, someone was saying, there’d be boats along the Trent to take them to London, for certainly the boatmen would join them in their noble cause, boatmen and bakers too, there’d be cakes and ale, they’d sing the song Brandreth had written for the occasion…

She didn’t think that Mr. Oliver had promised them cakes and ale. His promises had been of unity, of individual voices raised in chorus.

It was an extraordinary fantasy. Heartbreaking, in its way, when you knew it had been created by a paid agent of a government who continued to reject their petitions.

There were still men trying to buy drinks, on credit redeemable after they’d taken the Tower, but it seemed that the landlord was shaking his head.

Even as it seemed that a number of other men had begun to repeat what Kit was saying, repeating news of the mysterious arrests that had recently occurred in the area, and usually in the wake of a visit from the London delegate.

At least they weren’t all going to march tonight.

But what of that small group jostling their way up to Kit’s right? Boys not quite grown to men, but the tallest of them topping Kit by several inches.

Topping him, but reflecting his looks-seeing the two of them together, she realized that she’d been correct. Nick Merton looked not so much like Kit looked now, but very much indeed like he’d once looked. Not just the expression either, but the cast of his features.

The boy drew back his arm. It was hard to see. For a moment she imagined she saw a pistol drawn…

No, not a pistol-he was standing too close to be firing a pistol. He was simply brandishing a furious, raw-boned fist.

A few blows were exchanged. She thought she could see blood. And then Kit falling, ah, in a way she recognized.

She screamed then, perhaps a bit too dramatically, she thought; good thing Fannie was taking her lead. Right, she’d read Mendoza; she also knew that Kit wasn’t really being knocked senseless. But surely one or more of the men standing around Kit would be suspicious, though all the blood pouring from his nose had an impressive effect.

Unless he received a bit of help.

Kit! Christopher! Darling! She pushed her way into the ring of men, dropping to her knees beside him, raising his head into her lap. Oh, what brutes, what strong, horrid brutes, my husband, my darling, my only love -the tears (she hadn’t known she could produce tears at will) streaming down her cheeks, mingling with the blood dripping over his.

She couldn’t find her handkerchief. Fannie gave her a particularly dainty one, trimmed with lace; a barmaid brought a towel that had been used to wipe the counter. The fumes of alcohol rising from it were all for the better, she supposed, though the dirt wasn’t pleasant.

Kit fluttered his eyelids a bit.

Just don’t grin, she tried to communicate to him. Yes, I know what I called you, and in public too. Well, it’s true. You can gloat about it after we get out of here. Before someone does try to draw a pistol on you.

Where’s the man who did it? she shouted now. Who’s the man who killed a defenseless man who tried to give him good advice, and… and wouldn’t… wouldn’t even…

Nick Merton looked frightened, defiant, a bit proud. You horrible … man, she shouted at him, man seeming to be the word he was most anxious to hear.

A pulse, she shouted now, oh, dear Lord, I feel a pulse .

And yes, the boy did look relieved.

“You’d better go home, Nick Merton,” she told him. “You’ve caused enough damage for one night.”

She couldn’t hear what he and his friends were murmuring. But it didn’t sound quite so defiant as it had. The crowd in the tavern seemed to have divided into two. Some, she could see, would set out undeterred to meet up with the men from Pentrich. But some, already swayed by what Kit had told them, their pride salved by his fall and momentum broken by her performance, had regained their seats or even wandered out the doors and down the dark country road in what seemed to her was the direction of their homes.