Francesca and Richard: No Other Gods

By Clive Mason-Hall

The Napoleonic wars are over and 'the era of good feelings' has begun in America. But will the lives of ordinary people be any better?

"Francesca and Richard" is a piece of historical fiction set in the early 19th century. It is a book about love, friendship, family and ideas on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the passionate characters travel many hundreds of miles in pursuit of their dreams. The story builds across a period of ten months, with the most dramatic events falling in the holiday season of the year 1817.

This debut novel traces the experiences of a rich cast of characters, such as the angry, artistic Richard, the feisty, intellectual Francesca, the villainous, but plausible Pierre, the calm, forgiving Jane and the gentle, much-put-upon Laura, through a vital period in their lives. Real historical personalities such as the American Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere, and sometime British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, make cameo appearances. After several setbacks and misunderstandings, Francesca and Richard set aside their many differences about religion and politics, only to find that the plans and loyalties of others cannot always be wished away so easily.

Using elements drawn from the thriller, the romance and the 'novel of ideas' traditions, and particularly inspired by the writings of Winston Graham, George Eliot and Graham Greene, Clive Mason-Hall's first book has been written in a deliberately 'retro' and 'middlebrow' style. A sequel is a definite possibility …

"Francesca was beautiful, and she knew that she was beautiful. But good fortune is rarely distributed without at least some compensatory difficulties, and she gazed out over the great expanse of the Mississippi River, through dark brown eyes that had seen many hardships over the last few years. As she played with one of her long ringlets in an absent-minded fashion, she recalled a quotation from the lecture that seemed surprisingly apposite;

The earth will become flat, with neither hills nor dales,

There will be neither mountains nor ridges, nor pits, neither high ground nor low." (From Chapter Four)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clive Mason-Hall
• Release date: Jul 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005387020

Clive Mason-Hall

I am a first-time novelist with a background in education and charity fundraising. I live in Middlesex, England.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

We Live in Days of Wrath

A thimbleful of light crept through the tiniest of gaps in the tenement roof timbers and fell upon Jesse Holder’s face. He stirred in his sleep and muttered,

‘Is that you, Catherine?’

There was no reply.

‘Catherine’?

The stevedore’s left hand stretched out for his wife, but she was thirty miles north, and even his regular sleeping companion in the tiny garret, a stable lad whose family also came from Bury, was absent for reasons that Jesse would never actually discover. For the next few minutes all that he was aware of was a loud and incoherent noise from the direction of the Mersey River, which indicated that something important was afoot. Soon he was fully awake, yet he still had no idea what the disturbance might be. Nevertheless, the middle-aged dockhand was far more concerned to dress quickly and make his way to Pool Lane, and onwards to the waterfront, for yet another early morning shift. His dreary lodgings were profoundly uncomfortable, but his overall strategy in life was to minimise his outgoings and maximise his earnings, so that he could take as much money as possible from Liverpool to Bury every few weeks, and his darling wife had no reason to worry about paying her rent every Quarter Day.

Soon he was at street level, weaving his way through the crowds of early risers, who were either looking for casual work, or making their way to their regular pitches and places of employment. His mood lightened a little as he approached Widow Clarke’s stall, selling hot bread rolls and watery soup every single day of the week to those who had no opportunity to breakfast at home. The Church beadles disapproved of her trading on Sundays, but usually turned a blind eye, as she provided a useful service to the neighbourhood. Today was a Wednesday, and the queue at the stall was particularly long, and Jesse was uncertain if he would be served in time. He turned quickly to avoid yet another onrushing passer-by, and had just caught sight of the Widow, when he heard sudden, rapid footsteps behind him and felt a glancing blow on his back, as well as strong hands reaching right down into his pockets.

‘Damn! Missed! Oof …’

‘Damn you, you weasel! You don’t rob a Holder!’

The cosh fell to the ground and further punches were exchanged. The crowd scattered as the footpad’s accomplice tried to grab the necklace that hung around Jesse’s neck, but was forced backwards by a well-directed elbow. The main assailant landed one final telling blow, but had already decided to cut his losses and was well gone by the time the stevedore regained his footing, and stood panting, alone but undefeated, with one hand resting on a nearby wall. His lip was bleeding slightly, but the main casualty of the unexpected affray had been his pride.

‘Are you alright my love? Did they take anything?’ called out the Widow.

‘No, I don’t think so. A roll and some hot soup, please … Just give me a minute.’

‘It’s on the house, chuck. It’s on the house.’

*

‘Can I sit with you, sir?’

‘Of course … Ian is just fetching a glass from the tap room.’

‘I thought so … and you both look vaguely familiar. Do you lads come from Bury, by any chance?’

‘Yes, we do.’

‘And is your name Yates?’

‘Indeed it is …’

‘That’s great because I reckon I saw one of you win first prize for boxing at Holcombe Fair. Was that about six years ago?’

‘Ha … yes … that was Ian … and I’m Nicholas, by the way … and should we remember you?’

‘I think not; my time in the army has made me seem older than I really am. Martin Lee was only an urchin cheering on you two Yates brothers way back in 1810. But do you still box?’

‘Oh, no … we leave that to the younger men now. And we’re not brothers; we’re cousins. We both work as overseers at the Chorlton Mills here in Manchester. It’s a good wage and some of the girls are nice to us after hours too – but don’t tell our families — they still want to see us marry two sweet young farmers’ daughters!’

The absentee returned, and chuckled at the drift of his younger cousin’s conversation, although he paused a moment or two to adjust to the different pattern of light that was thrown from the large roaring fireplace into a small alcove between two enormous beer barrels.

‘Ian … meet Martin … he’s a fellow Bury-man, and he remembers you boxing on Holcombe Moor.’

Hands were shaken all round and Martin offered his new friends a brief account of his life as a boy soldier in Wellington’s European army in the years before the Battle of Waterloo. Subsequently, their conversation ran through a decade of Lancashire boxing champions, until they were unexpectedly interrupted by a bewigged man, dressed in the highest fashion, who crashed into their table and upset all their drinks, as he tried to pass by.

‘Oh, Prinny … what have you done?’ cried one of the brothers.

‘Terribly sorry, old chap. Let me buy you all another. Least I can do, don’t you know … ‘

And ‘Prinny’ was not only as good as his word, but was also rather more successful in his second attempt to leave the premises, even if it took him four attempts to find the door handle.

Nicholas noted the quizzical look on Martin’s face and began to explain as they sipped on their beers.

‘It all started as a joke, but folks who have been to London say he really does look like George, the Prince Regent. But why he drinks in a pub like this, and where he gets his clothes, or his money from, is anybody’s guess!’

The ex-soldier nodded and sought to turn the conversation to his advantage, thinking that this was a good opportunity to remedy some alarming gaps in his knowledge of current affairs.

‘I see. So George still isn’t the king? His father clings on to his life and his throne down in Windsor?’

‘As far as I know …’

‘And the Earl of Liverpool is still the Prime Minister?’

‘I believe so.’

‘And the MPs for Lancashire are …’

‘I think I’ll have to hand you over at this point. Ian, you know the names of all the MPs, don’t you?’

The firelight flickered as Ian raised his eyes from his newspaper and replied,

‘Usually only if they own a racehorse. The MPs for this county are Edward Smith-Stanley and John Blackburne; one is a Whig and one is an Independent.’

‘And will they get re-elected?’

‘Probably. The Tories still have some support in the towns, because you boys beat old Boney at Waterloo in ‘Fifteen, but changes might be afoot. Out in the countryside things are getting quite bad, and while the workers often listen to the Radicals, men like Cobbett, Hunt and their ilk, some of the small farmers might even lend their votes to the reformers at the next election if things don’t improve.’

‘I see. That’s very interesting, friend …’

But political affairs soon fell out of their conversation, although the evening continued to roll along and Martin Lee even acquired some useful equestrian tips from Ian Yates, before the landlord of the Crown and Sceptre finally called time on their drinking.

*

‘There’s been a crash on Pool Lane. Can you come quickly, Father?’

‘It’s actually Reverend. But yes, of course …’

‘A load has shifted and toppled a cart. The poor driver is trapped underneath, and he is in a dreadful state.’

‘How bad?’

‘I think he has broken his neck and his chest is crushed as well. His soul may have departed by the time we reach him. Follow me; I know a short cut.’

Even so, when they reached the end of the alleyway, the two men struggled to make headway through the packed streets of Liverpool; a town that was almost unimaginably different from the fashionable cities of Bath and Westminster in the autumn of 1816. The port was still vibrating with hearsay that The Harmony had arrived on the morning tide, and that the rumour that it had been lost with all hands, which had been circulating for at least a week, was completely wrong. Consequently, the clergyman and his companion had to dodge through the growing multitude who were also heading towards the docks, and it was a good ten minutes before the crowding eased a little. Then they were able to sprint past dozens of victims of squalor, poverty and disease, as well as those whom life had dealt slightly better chances, but another five minutes had elapsed when they eventually reached the site of the accident. A well-dressed man in a wig, who was clearly a physician, was bending over a prone and broken body, while an agitated male in workman’s garb was trying his best to keep back the crowd that had gathered. On recognising the dog-collar, this second man beckoned the new arrivals forward.

‘He was loading my cart, and then I heard a terrible crash …’

‘So he is not the driver?’

‘No, that’s me. He’s a stevedore called Holder … I think it’s Jesse Holder.’

The clergyman edged forward and the physician turned towards him and shook his head.

While the two men switched places, the medic whispered, ‘terrible injuries, terrible injuries.’

As the Reverend David Boseley bent down, he saw that the victim of the mishap, lying just to one side of a smelly, muddy puddle, was grey-haired and hollow-cheeked; a prematurely aged man in his late forties, who had retained his muscular physique because of the demanding work that he undertook in the dockyard and the neighbouring streets. David had seen enough of the world to know that this man was not a true septuagenarian, and it was frightening to consider that a figure only ten years his senior could look more like his grandfather. He also realised that although Jesse was bleeding profusely, he was stretching out his left hand and trying to speak.

‘Give this to my boy, kind sir, give this to my boy.’

Boseley pushed Jesse’s rapidly tiring fingers apart and took the necklace chain and a small glass amulet that was attached to it. Their eyes met and the stevedore gave out one last anguished cry as he passed away. The clergyman cradled the dying dockworker in his arms, just seconds before he could say a prayer of blessing and farewell, which he nevertheless did, according to custom. David then stood up and composed himself and the physician took the lead in what followed.

‘Move away people, move away people. There is nothing to see now. Gough, is that your brother I see coming down the street with another cart?’

The driver nodded in affirmation, while another man joined him from amongst the throng.

‘And you are Johnson from the docks?’

‘Yes, I hired Jesse regularly when he came down from Bury. He’s not been himself recently; somebody said he’d been in a fight. But he was a good man, and I’ll help you take him to the lodging house, Doctor Swaine, because the landlady should know his wife’s address.’

‘I will come too.’ interjected Boseley.

‘As you wish’, replied Swaine.

It took about fifteen minutes for the Gough brothers to rebalance the load and place Jesse’s body on the second cart. One kindly local had provided a simple white sheet to disguise his distorted face and brutal injuries, and another had dispensed some much needed tea and sympathy. During the interval, David examined more closely the necklace that he had been given. He pulled the chain tight and brought the object closer to his face. It was soon clear that the amulet itself was a falcon, made of glass, but on its chest was etched, in exquisite detail, a symbol, perhaps resembling a hybrid of man and bird.

Boseley had been in India as a youth, and he thought that he recognised the iconography, but he could not recall what it meant. His cogitations were terminated by Johnson, who indicated that they were ready to proceed across the town. The clergyman, who was latitudinarian to the very tips of his being, reflected that while the Bible was neatly divided into books, chapters and verses, everyday life was rarely that simple; the glass bird would just have to wait its turn.

*

Laura Holder had known the Dobson Cottages since she was a child, although she had only come to live there recently. She judged that she had a few minutes to spare before her next errand, and as little Alfred was settled with his grandmother, she could spare herself the discomfort of another parting. She leant against one of the walls and ruminated on what she saw. The Cottages was a block of seven simple dwellings built in two right-angled sections to form a single L-shaped terrace; a survival from a far more agricultural past that had shaped the neighbouring Lancashire town of Bury not so many years before.

The overall appearance was somewhat higgledy-piggledy, because neglect and bad weather meant that four of the cottages were still thoroughly whitewashed, but three of them were rather battered and had come to display much of their original red brick. Behind each front door was a large single room, with no internal walls to create privacy. Outside, there was a big patch of rough common grassland, enclosed by several broken-down walls, and two wells, one of which was clearly functioning, while the other was blocked up with broken bricks and timbers. Nearby, an apple tree was beginning to blossom close to one of the far corners of the structure. There were also a few low bushes, about half a dozen hens and three goats, whose ownership was occasionally contested by the inhabitants — at least partly in jest — and several criss-crossing footpaths that had been worn into the ground by over a century of regular use.

Yet it was the closed-off well that always drew Laura’s eyes back to look at something they would prefer not to see, and which made her shiver at the dreadful memory of what had happened in August 1815. There had been a small, but deadly, outbreak of disease at the Cottages, which had, somewhat unaccountably, taken only one adult, Mrs. Hall, but killed nine children. Laura had been pregnant at the time, and had lost her first child to a miscarriage when she was ill, but somehow she had survived the cholera. The physicians of Bury continued to believe that infectious diseases were caused by invisible vapours – but the inhabitants of the Cottages would have no truck with miasmatic theory, and because they were adamant that ‘bad water’ was behind the epidemic, their landlord, Farmer Dobson, was eventually persuaded to dig a new well and block up the old one. Although the loss of so many youngsters had brought the people of Dobson Cottages closer together, there were now other forces at work that tended to drive them apart, which was extremely sad. As she wiped away a tear, Laura sighed and shrugged, and moved off to undertake her next errand.

*

In ancient Greece, Plato once decreed that the State would find it most useful if the multitude believed that humanity was divided into gold, silver and bronze classes. And in Lancashire, in the year 1817, many people still believed that the aristocracy, the gentry and the workers were almost three different races. In Manchester, there were certainly seeds of some kind of rebellion in common table-talk, yet an ancient cycle still organised much of the life of the Red Rose countryside, and the agricultural system provided pitiable chances for most of the labouring men and women who lived at Dobson Cottages. While the Springtime prevailed, but planting was over, the Benholts and the Philps might be called upon by Farmer Dobson for weeding and similar kinds of work, but the Skinners had to travel further afield to assist in the lambing season, while the Waites and the Saiths went into Bury itself to see if they could find some type of factory employment. The journey that none of them wanted to make involved heading to the south of the town and onto the Manchester Road; the local magnates, the Earls of Derby, may have been of the Whig persuasion, but this had not prevented the town Vestry from erecting the infamous Redvales Workhouse forty years earlier.

One mid-afternoon, when the weather was particularly gentle, there was at least some cheerful birdsong in the air outside the Cottages to mitigate the general gloom. Two of the womenfolk, Elizabeth and Joanna Yates, had fastened a piece of rope between two of the bushes outside their doors, and begun to peg out some washing so that it could be dry before dusk. Their husbands were brothers, and were both skilled sheep-shearers, which meant that, on the one hand, the two women tended to look down upon their neighbours and towards the gentry for at least some of their manners, while, on the other hand, their tenure had merely been inherited from their husbands’ father, the last member of the Yates family to actually work for the Dobsons.

‘So, Laura Eldridge … sorry, Laura Holder is at Reverend Dobson’s house again today,’ said Joanna.

‘Yes, that’s what her mother said earlier. I wasn’t particularly happy when the Farmer gave that family the far cottage’, replied Elizabeth, nodding towards the apple tree ‘but since Ian and Nicholas went to Manchester, it was difficult to argue for another Yates to have it.’

‘I’m quite sure that we can sew and weave and knit as well as she can. And our sons can be back here in a day if we send for them; with her husband gallivanting off to America, Laura would have to wait six months! And before that he spent a lot of time in London …’

‘What you are saying is right, but perhaps we shouldn’t be too harsh. There was that dreadful accident in Liverpool, and Mrs. Eldridge has been slightly lame since a horse ran over her foot a little while back … She’s so very good with Alfred …’

‘Yes, Richard Holder only lived here for a few weeks, didn’t he? His father’s death hit him hard and must have prompted this strange American escapade. Now all he wants to do is make his fortune!’ laughed Joanna.

‘That’s the truth. So, let’s just be thankful for our own good health, and try not to too mean about our neighbours’ said Elizabeth, and Joanna nodded vigorously in agreement.

‘Shall we go and see if we have any bon-bons in the pantry?’

CHAPTER TWO

Let No Man Put Asunder

The Docks at Liverpool.

Saturday, 8th March 1817

Dear Mrs. Dobson,

I am about to take ‘The Malfi’ to Boston, New England.

Thank you for all the support you have given to me and my family over the years.

Please do not be angry if you hear strange reports of me in the future; life is not always how we might wish it.

Yours ever,

Richard Holder

*

Laura Holder was hurrying to reach home before sunset and her limbs were remarkably tired. She had been at the Vicarage since noon, assisting her mother-in-law, Catherine, and the vicar’s wife, Eleanor Dobson, with the production of a new ball gown, because the Lord-Lieutenant of Lancashire would be visiting Bury in the not too distant future. There was no chance that she would be invited, yet at least she could imagine what the function might be like.

But daydreams did not pay bills. The life of a country seamstress was extremely precarious without loyal customers and patrons, but so far she had never had to consider seeking work in the dark industrial mills that now commanded so much of Lancashire. Two years previously, a controversial new Corn Law had been made by the Westminster Parliament which protected the price that Farmer Dobson could charge for his wheat, by prohibiting the import of cheap grain in most circumstances, but it had indirectly raised the price of bread and other necessities for his tenants and workers. Laura’s story was neither as unsettled nor as hazardous as that of her late father-in-law, who had been forever moving between Bury and Liverpool, and then back again, but he was no more, and life moved on.

She was almost home, and she dodged the helter-skelter antics of some of the local urchins, who had been sent outside by their mothers while they made supper, and finally reached the front door of ‘the far cottage’ with a sigh of relief. Mother and Alfred would be waiting inside; and soon husband Richard would return, she was certain, and then their household of four would be complete.

The door to the cottage swung open readily enough after Laura pushed it, and she was further relieved to see that her mother was well on with the preparations for their evening meal, which tonight only consisted of some broth, some bread and a small piece of cheese. Kisses of greeting were exchanged and then she reached into the long pocket of her skirt and produced a handful of coins which she rolled playfully onto the main table, so that they gently clattered against the cheese dish. Gleefully, she scooped up one of the coins and walked round to the cot which still fitted her baby son Alfred quite snugly — for he was just six months old.

‘Look what Mummy has got for us’ she cooed. ‘We can have some more meat before the Sabbath, and maybe some bon-bons too!’

She picked up her only child and swung him round, before smothering him with kisses.

‘The payment could be better’ said her mother ‘or is that a half-crown that you have in your hand?’

‘It certainly is. Maybe even enough for a bottle of rum; it might help us to think kindly about my husband the sailor … Don’t look so stern, Mother … It’s a joke!’

Laura stepped away. Alfred was a placid child and sat quietly on his chair, raised to table level by a large, soft pillow that had once belonged to his father. When the repast was served, he gladly accepted a second transfer, this time to his mother’s lap so that she could feed him warm broth. And as he took his first few mouthfuls, his grandmother reopened the conversation and ventured a series of questions.

‘How was Catherine? Does she still like being Mrs. Dobson’s companion? And had she had a letter from Richard?’

‘She was very well. I think the fact that she is roughly the same age as Mrs. Dobson and that they both care about Richard gives them a special bond. Reverend Dobson is often out and about around the town because he has to assist the Rector as well as performing his own duties, so Mrs. Dobson enjoys the female company.’

‘Yes, I’ve never understood why Richard turned against the Dobsons. Without their support he’d have found it a lot harder to become a glassblower. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have found work, because he is so talented, but they made things much easier.’

‘What about the letter?’

‘I think you have forgotten, Mother, that Richard’s passage was delayed, and so even if he writes on the very first day that he reaches America, which I rather doubt, it’ll be many weeks before any of us hear from him. It would be nice if we were to have word before Oak Apple Day, as that’s his birthday, but even then I wouldn’t be too worried if we didn’t hear anything. A letter that has to travel three thousand miles by sea could easily be lost.’

‘He wouldn’t let you call it Oak Apple Day, my dear. Far too royalist; Garland Day, remember that, Garland Day. What’s that Alfred? … Yes, I don’t know how your Mummy persuaded your Papa to name you after a king either!’

‘Perhaps because of Richard Coeur de lion? He didn’t have an answer to that!’

As the two women eventually returned their young charge to his cot, the conversation veered once again towards politics.

‘I’m certain you’re right, daughter. It’s good to know that when the Reverend Dobson is wearing the hat of a Vestryman, he tops up the wages of his brother’s workers – our neighbours – using the bread scale, while he helps us out more directly by paying your wages.’

‘Of course some people would say that what the Poor Law gives out is still a pittance, Mother, and they also argue that there should be a way to change things.’

‘Richard used to talk like that. But he went very quiet on the subject of politics before he left. I even thought he might have become a Luddite!’

‘That’s foolish talk, Mother. We both need to go to bed.’

And so they did, but it was not long before young Alfred had awoken and begun to cry. Lighting a candle from the embers of the small fireplace near her own bed, Laura decided to play a little game with her son, despite the lateness of the hour.

Seating him once again at the main table, she retrieved a small, battered wooden box, which upon opening, revealed a huge menagerie of miniature glass creatures.

‘Look at all the animals Papa made for you. There is a horse, and a cow … mooo… and a goat, just like Josie who lives outside. Shall we see if they can race each other … whee …?’

Alfred gurgled with delight, but then Laura thought she heard a cough from the direction of her mother’s bed, so she spoke in an even lower whisper.

‘Look at these, Alfred. These are the three kings from the Bible, with their camels. See how clever your Papa is to make these with such detail. Here is Caspar; here is Melchior, and this is Balthazar.

Such a shame that he said the Baby Jesus got broken. And I don’t think there ever was a Virgin Mary. Time for bed, my darling boy.’

*

‘Mother, are you awake’?

‘Yes dear.’

‘You remember all the time Richard spent in London last year?’

‘Of course. How could I forget?’

‘He didn’t spend all of that time hawking his glass in fashionable circles, you know. There is always another side to my splendid husband that I just can’t figure out. He wasn’t mixing with Luddites – as far as I know – but he did meet with some strange people. He called them Radicals and Freethinkers in one of his letters.’

‘He certainly loves you in his own way, sweetheart. Your father was a restless soul too. Remember, some men will always be like that.’

‘But Richard’s constant, loyal and determined to make things better for us.’

‘And so he should. He is your husband.’

‘It’s simply that he has no patience to go around an obstacle or even take advice on how to dress. If someone does not like one of his designs, he won’t change it in order to make the sale.

And he would never let me make clothes for him.

He was so frustrating sometimes …’

‘It doesn’t surprise me, my dear. It doesn’t surprise me.’

*

‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ...’

(Psalm 133)

*

Far away from Lancashire, somewhere out on the Atlantic Ocean, a ship’s bell clanged amongst the mists of a dank and eerie morning. The grim spectre of a grey mountain of ice was still looming uncomfortably nearby, but as the wind howled through the rigging of The Malfi, it receded rapidly into the distance. With the danger of an ice collision more or less over for this trip, the mood of the ship as a whole began to rise, but for one passenger at least, there were other kinds of shadow, all taken from his past life, that weighed heavily on his mind.

As he stood apart from the crowd that had been watching the iceberg, Richard Holder was reflecting on the contents of two letters that he always kept inside his coat. The words were so familiar that he did not need to risk giving the frail papers a soaking. One was a short letter from Laura reproaching him for his absence in London on the first anniversary of her miscarriage. And the other was a note for his last birthday, written mainly by his wife in the copper-plate handwriting that he had taught her in his role as a Sunday School monitor several years before, but with a few scribbled letters of greeting from his late father added at the