The Iron Master by Jean Stubbs Read Free Book Online Page B

his stool, squirting her milk into a pail, ignoring the trouble he had made.
    ‘No, I think not,’ said Toby. ‘Her coat is something scabby. Oh, but look there, Will, at that fashionable she-ass!’
    The lady in the sedan chair was regretting her toilette, which must have cost her maid and hairdresser hours of fabrication. Face, neck and bosom were painted white, lips and cheeks vividly rouged, a black star was placed cunningly upon one cheekbone, a black heart by her mouth. The lawn fichu swathing her shoulders was immense, and above all towered a vast white powdered wig raggedly cut so that the lady looked as though she had been severely shocked. Immobilised by the ass, she was the object of scornful eyes and mocking remarks, and William marvelled again at the frank rudeness of the London populace. They called, they mimicked, they caterwauled. The lady lifted a little fan to screen herself, but it was the hedgehog wig which entertained them and this reared over the pretty ivory sticks, unabashed.
    ‘Will no one rebuke them?’ William said indignantly.
    ‘Why should they? Pox on the fool for looking so! Though I dare say she is poxed already,’ Toby added cheerfully, ‘for her paint is very thick. No, Will, be glad of our bad manners. The freeborn Englishman is free-spoken. It is a mark of his liberty. And at heart he is a republican who despises the rich … ’
    But William knew exactly where this conversation would lead, and so remarked upon the bad breath of a fellow who had just elbowed him aside — and earned a diatribe on folk who would not be vaccinated.
    At Charing Cross Toby stopped and bought eau de cologne for Charlotte, and left his change upon the counter, which William prudently picked up and restored to him. At the Haymarket he bought oranges from a barrow. While all the time he rattled on in the most diverting fashion.
    ‘We must show you round, Will. Have you seen a circus? Or attended a play at the theatre?’
    ‘As an apprentice to a Quaker master,’ said William smiling, ‘I was forbidden such wicked pleasures. Tho’ I remember when I was in Birmingham that someone proposed a licensed theatre, but the church would have none of it.’
    ‘We must see the wild beast show,’ Toby continued. ‘I shall find out what is on, Will, to divert you.’
    The milk purchased, they adjourned to a coffee-house where Toby assuaged his thirst for debate, and both argued interminably. Then they began a roundabout stroll back home. William wondered whether this sort of excursion was in his honour, or whether Toby in fact spent more time away from his business than attending to it. But whatever the man saw he could use as grist for his political or social mill, and he nourished a decided passion for France.
    ‘Our so-called pastimes are uncouth and vicious,’ Toby said. ‘The French, when they come over here, are aghast at our brutality. Cock-fighting! Bull-running! Bear-baiting! Football! (And what is that but an excuse for breaking coach-windows and knocking folk down?) Prize-fighting! Even our children will torment animals for their own pleasure. We take delight in cruelty … ’
    ‘These are the free-born Englishmen you praised not long since,’ William reminded him, ‘and before the slavish French speak of cruelty may I remind you that Damien was publicly tortured to death in Paris not thirty years ago? And the spectacle most lavishly advertised and attended, as though it were one of your entertainments at the pleasure gardens … ’
    ‘But here the hangings are a public spectacle … ’
    ‘An honest hanging does not compare with … ’
    ‘And what of our nobility, so-named? A set of feckless gamblers who will stake house and land, aye, and wives and mistresses, upon the throw of dice or a hand of cards? Oh, we are corrupt!’ Then suddenly changing the subject, as his attention was caught by a cookshop, he cried, ‘I must buy some mutton pies. We shall go hungry, else. Here, Will, hold