And Thomas found it impossible to persuade her.
The trouble had seemed to break out suddenly. At the heart of it was mad Lord George Gordon, an insignificant younger son of a noble house, good looking, a bon viveur, a Member of Parliament who could not get himself taken seriously.
That, Maria had said to Thomas, was at the root of the trouble. Lord George was determined to call attention to himself no matter if he laid waste half London to do so. He was a Protestant, and when he had been elected President of the Protestant Association of England he believed he had that chance. He announced his intention of bringing about the repeal of the Catholic Act, that Act which had given the rights to Catholic subjects of England which had so long been denied them. He had spoken in Parliament where his diatribes had not been given serious attention; he had had an audience with the King which had brought no success.
To a man such as Gordon, obsessed by the need to call attention to himself, these rebuffs only strengthened his resolution. The Parliament and King rejected him; very well there was the mob.
The nightmare days followed. Members of the Protestant Association collected in St. George's Fields; they marched round the fields singing hymns and holding banners aloft; but it was not the orderly members of the Association who would be of use to Lord George; it was the mob he collected on his march to the Houses of Parliament. Beggars, criminals, prostitutes, all looking for sport and chiefly gain, joined the throng which had grown to over twenty thousand.
"No Popery!" they shouted. They flung mud at the carriages of Members of Parliament; they waited outside the House while Gordon entered it; but they were not interested in talk; they wanted action. Many did not know what the point at issue was but they screamed the parrot cry of "No Popery'; and the pillage began.
Maria shivered; looking out she could see the red glow in the sky. They were burning Catholic chapels and the houses of well-known Catholics. The Fitzherberts were not unknown. When would their turn come?
A carriage drew up at the door and Frances stepped out and hurried into the house. Maria ran down to greet her.
Trances I To come through the streets!"
"But Maria, Carnaby is out ... I know not where ... and I could not stay in the house alone. I had to be with you. So I took a chance. Oh, Maria, it was terrible. I saw houses ablaze ... the houses of our friends ... What will happen next?"
"How can we know? Sit down and have a glass of wine."
The servant brought it. Was she watching them furtively? The girl was a good Catholic—she would not have been employed in the household if she were not—but what were the servants thinking? It was the rich Catholics who were the targets for the mob.
Frances drank the wine and looked at her sister, asking for comfort.
"It cannot go on," said Maria.
"Why not!" demanded Frances. "They could burn the whole of London. They have attacked the house of a magistrate who attempted to warn them that they were breaking the law. On my way here I saw seven big fires. Oh, Maria, Maria what next?"
"They will have to stop it. They will have to call out the Army."
"Then why do they not? What do they let this go on for? The mob has freed the prisoners from Newgate; they have set the prison on fire. Felons are walking the streets. What will become of us."
"That's something we never know from day to day—Gordon riots or not. It is no use agitating yourself, Frances. It does no good. At any moment we may be called upon to play our part and we have to be ready for that."
"Where is Thomas?"
"He is out ... helping our friends. He is trying to get some of the priests out of London. It is their only hope."
"They would have no compunction in murdering them," said Frances. "Listen."
The shouts seemed to be coming nearer, the red glow in the fire more fierce.
Maria prayed silently that no harm should befall her friends, her sister and herself. If the riots spread to the country ... she thought of the house in Brambridge and her father, that poor helpless invalid, and the boys. What of Uncle Henry who would, like Thomas, not stand idle? And men like Thomas who were taking an active part in all this were the ones who were in most danger.
Thomas must be safe. How she wished he would come in.
The shouting had become more muted.
"They are not coming this way" said Frances.
Maria sighed with relief. But where was Thomas?
It was midnight when he returned; his clothes were singed and blackened by smoke and he was exhausted.
Maria cried: "Thank God you are home." She did not ask questions; it was imperative to get him to bed. She would not allow the servants to wait on him, for how did one know whom one could trust?
"I must wash this grime from me, Maria" he said.
"I will prepare you a hot cordial while you do so"
Bathing exhausted Thomas and before he could drink the cordial he was asleep.
In the morning Maria was alarmed by his looks; he had lost his usually healthy colour and he coughed incessantly. She wanted to call a physician, but Thomas said it was only a chill and would pass. There was work to be done. More of the priests were in acute danger and it was the duty of men such as himself to bring them out of it.
But when he tried to rise from his bed he could not do so and Maria decided that whatever he said she was going to call a doctor.
She was scarcely aware of what was going on outside because Thomas was very ill, through an inflammation of the lungs; Maria was at his bedside day and night listening to his delirium.
Meanwhile the rioters were threatening St. James's Palace and the Bank of England, and the King, realizing drastic action was necessary, called in martial law. The troops fired on the mob and after several hundred rioters had been killed, order was at last restored.
The Gordon Riots were over.
But Thomas Fitzherbert was very ill indeed: and even though the fever subsided, he did not regain his former good health.
With the coming of that winter as his health did not improve, Maria decided to take him to the South of France where a warmer climate might be beneficial. They took a villa near the sea where Maria devoted herself assiduously to his comfort. But it was no use. Thomas's lungs seemed permanently affected.
Never before had Thomas realized what a blessing his marriage had been. In Maria he had the perfect nurse. Every hour of the day she devoted to him; she would sit with him at the open window looking out over the sea and talk about events in England, for which Thomas was homesick. Not so Maria. Those early years in France had given her a love of this country and she would not have objected to settling there altogether.
But as the winter wore on it became apparent that Thomas was no better in France than in England and that far from improving he was growing steadily more feeble.
He grew anxious about Maria's future, knowing what had happened in the case of her first marriage, how the will which would have left her very comfortably off had never been signed, he was determined that nothing like that should happen again.
He told Maria that he had made a will and that if he died she would be a comparatively rich woman.
Maria said that she did not wish to talk of such an unlikely eventuality, but he insisted that she did.
"The estates at Swynnerton and Norbury will have to go to my brother Basil. They were left to me with that provision. It is always a male heir who must inherit ... and if we should have no son ..."
Maria nodded. The hope of children was one which she had been obliged to subdue, for it was almost certain now that Thomas would never father a child.