Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [579]
“No.” Her heart sank. He would not, of course. “Please sit down Mr Porters.”
He flushed. She knew how much courage it had taken him to call upon a woman who still lived alone.
“Lizzie will bring in tea directly,” she told him.
Then, as usual, they talked. As long as he spoke of things he understood, he was very agreeable company. They discussed the new railway lines that must soon come to Sarum. It was a particular enthusiasm of his.
“The council has already petitioned Parliament – it is absurd that we still only have the line to Southampton. Why, they are the new turnpike roads of the age. We need a London line. And the Great Western too. This town could still be the Manchester of the south, Miss Shockley.”
She smiled at his enthusiasm.
“I’m not sure the people in the close would like that, Mr Porters.”
“And would you say they were right, in this age of progress?”
“No. I think you are,” she told him frankly.
He beamed.
“It will come, I promise you.”
They discussed the Great Exhibition in London and the marvellous Crystal Palace of glass that had contained it, to which no less than six million had come.
“You know that Mr Beach’s cutlery was exhibited there?” She did not. He smiled. “He is very proud of the fact.”
“You manage to know everything Mr Porters.” She would make a point of complimenting Mr Beach, all the same.
“The Great Exhibition had an effect on this household,” she told him laughingly. “I bought a gas cooker for the kitchen.”
“A noble invention,” he agreed. “And does your cook like it?” he asked quizzically.
He was not stupid.
“You unmask me at once. She tried to light it with a tinder box and took so long she nearly blew the house up. Now it sits there to mock me, Mr Porters, quite unused.”
“Reforms take time.”
She saw her opening.
“I am become quite a reformer myself of late. I am quite persuaded of Chartism, Mr Porters.”
She saw his mouth open. He closed it directly.
“Chartism?”
“Indeed.”
“The Chartists were quite finished, Miss Shockley, when their great demonstration failed six years ago.”
“But their cause is just.”
“One man, one vote?”
“Yes.”
The Chartist movement with its call for secret ballots and universal suffrage for men had seemed like revolution to many and had certainly been successfully crushed. Yet when she thought about the matter, Jane had always found it hard to rebut the Chartists’ arguments. She feared them, of course; after all, if all men vote, and only a few have property, then might not the majority vote to destroy property of the few? It was exactly the fear her ancestors had faced in the Civil War two hundred years before.
Did she truly believe what she said?
She did not know. But it had shocked Mr Porters.
“These are dangerous ideas, Miss Shockley.” He looked worried.
“Why Mr Porters, surely you are not against reform? Look at the Mines and the Factory Acts of Lord Shaftesbury. Are you for repealing those reforms and putting children back in the mines as they used to be?”
“Not at all.”
“Or for taking away the Health Board and having cholera back in Salisbury?”
“Naturally not.”
“Then if you care for the welfare of the people you must agree with me.”
He looked perplexed. Please God she had broken his attachment to her.
“I cannot agree with you.”
“Well, Mr Porters, there it is then.”
They spoke of other things over tea. But as Porters gazed at her, his thoughts were not what she had intended.
“She is a little wild,” he thought, “and discontented. She needs a husband to settle her, not a doubt about it. But what strength, what honesty.”
It was after tea that she broke the news.
“I am leaving Sarum shortly, Mr Porters, so we may not meet again.”
His cup rattled as he held it. He cursed himself inwardly.
“Indeed?”
“I am to go and train as a nurse. In London probably. I hope to join Miss Nightingale.”
For a moment he did not speak.
“I am sorry to hear it. You will be a great loss to Sarum, I’m sure.”
“Sarum will do very well without me,” she laughed. “Glad to lose a Chartist, I expect.”
He was silent for a little time.
“How