The Wages Of Virtue (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 8)

by Andrew Wareham

  They briefly discussed the other issues of the day, concluded that Liverpool had chosen to duck them all - he was aging rapidly, becoming tired, but would not go until the Party had anointed a successor, which was seeming less rather than more likely an event. Eventually he would become too ill to continue and a successor would appear overnight, appointed by the power-brokers and reflecting their interests rather than the Party's needs.

  "The fact of the matter is that too many are like us, Thomas - we do not really care too much who shall become Prime Minister in his place, but we do not want the opprobrium consequent upon backing the wrong horse. So the bulk of the Party expresses no preference at all and leaves Liverpool and his advisers to guess who to make his favourite."

  "Do you have any candidate to succeed, Robert? I am quite unable to make up my mind, though I suppose I favour Peel in the longer run."

  "Canning is too old, and unreliable besides, his dealings with Queen Caroline still stick in my craw; Blubberer Goderich is limp, and I don't like his damned Corn Laws; Wellington has strength but his judgement cannot always be trusted; Peel is most able but least likeable, so determined as he is to leave the dirty-handed source of the family wealth behind him. A poor set to choose from, I fear - every one of them is a lesser man than Pitt, judged politically that is - Wellington is a great personage in every other way. So, in reality, I shall smile sweetly upon whoever is eventually given the palm, and keep my own counsel until then, and refuse to give any opinion at all. I shall seem to be very wise for never having been wrong."

  A day later and it seemed that all of his wisdom might be called upon. An express from Alec Fraser demanded his immediate presence on 'the most urgent of Family matters'.

  "What the Hell has Joseph done now?"

  His large and lumbering wife, on a final visit to Oxford Street before she sought the quiet of the countryside, could not imagine, and was in no case to accompany him north, merely advised him to defer judgement until he had actually discovered what was happening, and to keep his temper in any case.

  Three days on wet roads did his equanimity little good. He spent the night with Sir Matthew and Charlotte, apologising for descending upon them without warning.

  "Have you heard anything?"

  Neither had - Joseph had produced a stream of ideas in recent months, back to his best, it seemed, though from the look of him not eating well - pale and increasingly skinny. The visit by Lord Rothwell had very certainly done him good - the upturn in his output dated to that time.

  "How is that young gentleman, Robert? We met him whilst he was up here and he seemed an intelligent and right thinking adult, one it was easy to like, although on the quiet side."

  "He will never be a sporting hare and hounds man, that is for sure, but neither am I and I do not hold it against him. He is settling into life on the estate, but has been willing to go away on excursions of pleasure as well, growing to be his own man. A pity he has little acquaintance amongst people of a like age, but he will be in Town for the Season, must meet a few kindred spirits in the two months. I think he may do well, especially if he meets a good wife."

  Charlotte felt he would be wiser to delay marrying for another two or three years, might take the opportunity of going overseas for a while.

  "Not as far as Greece, I trust," Matthew responded.

  Robert raised an eyebrow - this was a very tender matter, one on which he had no intention at all of saying anything.

  "Thomas has had word from your Mr Michael that my foolish, idealistic, head-in-the-clouds brother has arrived in Attica and has been seen in the company of rebel forces at the fighting line. Just what he thinks he is to do there, I know not - from Methodist manse to guerrillero bivouac is rather a long step!"

  "He has handled sporting guns, has he not?" Charlotte tried to sound hopeful.

  "There is a world of difference between a fleeing pheasant and a charging bashi-bazouk, my dear! Not least being the musket, bandoleer of pistols and scimitar the latter carries!"

  Robert felt obliged to intervene.

  "I remember a few years back when Luke was at the Hall and came with us to the range - Papa said that he was nearly his match with a pistol, a rarely natural shot."

  "The target on a range is a rather different matter to the man in the field, Robert. I hope and pray that he will not be beset by doubt when he must shoot or die. I was far younger than him when first I went into a fight, a boarding as a midshipman - it was simple for a boy to follow the example of the rest of the people. A man will be more inclined to think for himself, to question rather than accept, and to waver for a second, undecided whether it is right to kill, and to die in that instant."

  Sir Matthew would have been much heartened if he had seen the actuality of Captain Mears bringing Luke, his valued second, into the broken down farm shed that served their band of irregulars as a temporary headquarters.

  A major of the Guards, outlandish in a heavy sheepskin serving as greatcoat, greeted them, neither party quite coming to attention or saluting. It was presumed that the Major was on half-pay, or possibly had left the List entirely, or just perhaps was employed by one of the other government departments - he had never ventured an explanation and it would have been intrusive and impolite, and quite tactless, to question him.

  "All well, Mr Mears?"

  "A satisfactory outcome, sir."

  "All dead?"

  "Nothing living in the hamlet, sir. Even a loft of pigeons with their necks wrung. Badly dead, too - they must have been there for half a day at least, amusing themselves with the villagers."

  "How many?"

  There was no need for any further elucidation - they had all seen the like for themselves, too many times before.

  "Fifty Greeks and thirty of Turks, sir."

  "What were your losses?"

  "One, sir, the boy Costas thought they were all dead and went forward carelessly."

  "Pity! How did you do it?"

  "There was a stone wall - remains of a sheep-fold, I think - fairly much broken down but about twenty yards upslope of the footpath. Eight men there, muskets and pistols. Mr Star and his three men showed themselves fifty yards up the track, where it turned a sharp bend by an olive grove, made as if to flee, stopped just out of sight. I had six men in the trees. The Turks gave chase, passed the wall and took a volley in the back, muskets then pistols; my people shot from their front and Mr Star charged - again!"

  The major shook his head - it was very unprofessional.

  "A shocking bad habit, Mr Star! It does seem to work though."

  Luke Star smiled deprecatingly - it was his opinion that these matters were best dealt with quickly. A sudden charge while they were shaken by unexpected losses, attacked from behind and the side, was not so desperate an affair as it sounded. The Turk almost always broke and ran, their men poorly disciplined - tribal levies, he imagined, rather than true soldiers - and unable either to defend or attack singly, easy to run down and pick off.

  "How were they armed?"

  "Tower muskets, sir, identical to us except for being older issue. Dating back to the campaigns after Boney's Egyptian adventure, I would imagine."

  "The word is that the French-trained and equipped Egyptian army is to be expected very soon. They will not break and run, I suspect, Mr Star - so please be more careful in future. We would not wish to lose you, sir - the local men regard you with great awe!"

  Luke blushed and made his thanks, self-deprecating: he had done no more than any other man would. He left for his own little hut and the meal that was waiting for him.

  "So - not dead this time, Lukas!"

  "Only a little bit of a fight, Chrisoula."

  "You should take some care, you will be unlucky one day."

  "Not yet."

  "Eat!"

  The girl had survived two days in the hands of the Turks; she had no home to return to, no relative who would accept her, she having been dishonoured, and had latched onto Luke within days of his arr
ival in their camp. He had been surprised, but had rapidly become enthusiastic, discovering all that he had missed during his early manhood.

  Occasionally Luke wondered what would happen after this interlude; he retained just sufficient of a grip on reality to realise that he was living out an adolescent fantasy - that he was playing at being a man, a fighting hero, in the much the way that a thirteen year old might imagine. If he survived, and that was a long way from a certainty, then he would have to return to the real world - but not yet! He took Chrisoula's hand, led her to the bed, the demands of tedious actuality put off for another night.

  "What of the shipyard, Matthew?"

  "Orders in plenty, Robert, and one that I am unsure of. A carrier for stone to work the coast from North Wales to Liverpool. The demand for roofing slates is ever-growing, and it is often the case that the small coasters under sail are forced into shelter for several days at a time, the weather unsympathetic, the winds foul or too strong. The roads are hopeless quagmires when it rains, which it does three hundred days a year in those parts. We have been asked to design a small steamer, about two hundred and fifty tons, but with a powerful engine and capable of breasting the storms so that the deliveries come to time whatever the conditions. The local house-builders are forever complaining that work is brought to a standstill for lack of slates, it seems."

  "I am inclined to doubt the wisdom of such a commission, Matthew. Launch one and there will be a call for a dozen within the twelvemonth and inevitably, keeping the sea in all weathers, there will be losses."

  "I am yet to communicate a decision to the buyer, but that is the general trend of my thinking."

  "It is not mine," Charlotte said. "If we do not take the work on then some other yard will and we shall be seen as timid and backward, unwilling to move with the times. If a ship-owner chooses to drown his sailors, then that is his concern, not ours. Besides, there will not be many losses and there seems to be a plethora of willing men anxious to sign on as seamen. The risk to us is not great and I am sure we should take it."

  Robert had no wish to be the unwitting cause of a domestic upset - if he took the decision then neither could be winner or loser. He intervened rapidly, before Matthew could reply.

  "Could we design and build the ship they require, Matthew?"

  "Very quickly, Robert. The behemoth Sir William designed included a number of interesting innovations, including a double-plated hull. This must add very much to the strength of the vessel and would certainly be desirable for these particular ships. The steam engine we would use in a large ferry-boat could be fitted inside with little difficulty, and only a small reduction in hold space. The sole cargo, slate, is so very heavy that they would be unlikely to fill the holds in any case."

  "Make your drawings and price the vessel high, Matthew. If they will pay for our name then they must be given all they ask for. As Charlotte so rightly says, the risk is theirs and they, as ship-owners with years of experience, are better fitted to assess it."

  The old lord would not have given that answer, Matthew thought, but the new lord was the man with the power...

  "Yes, Robert."

  The morning took Robert to Alec Fraser's office; as he entered Fraser sent his two clerks off on errands about the works and closed the door firmly behind them.

  "What is wrong, Mr Fraser? What has Mr Joseph done?"

  Fraser looked away and muttered, overcome by emotion, close to tears.

  "Speak up, sir. I cannot hear you!"

  "Opium, my lord. He has become an opium-eater!"

  Robert did not ask for confirmation; Fraser would not have made so damaging an accusation with less than absolute certainty.

  "Laudanum? Could not sleep, so took an evening dose which grew?"

  "No, sir. Smoke - the true pipe, my lord."

  "How did you come to know this, Mr Fraser?"

  "His secretary, Mr McGregor began to have suspicions about his master. He observed his euphoria of an evening when they were travelling, watched him eating less and less, growing too thin and becoming irritable when questioned even in passing. In the end Mr Joseph became careless, went to sleep in his study, pipe and ball of opium in front of him on the desk when McGregor entered the room of the morning."

  "And he told you and, rightly, you passed the problem to me. There was nothing else for you to do, lacking the legal power that I possess. Where is Mr Joseph at the moment?"

  "Gone into Wales, my lord, to the Rhondda works. He will be back in three or four days, I would expect. He is still working as well as ever he has, my lord."

  "I know nothing of the disease, Mr Fraser. Who is the best of local medical men?"

  A day later and Robert was in the consulting room of Herr Kornbluth, long resident in England having fled Bonaparte's invaders in the early stages of the second war.

  "I am given to understand that you have some experience with opium-eaters, doctor. In this case to be more specific, a smoker."

  "Who, my lord? Young or old?"

  "My brother, sir, barely twenty years of age."

  "Then it cannot be a habit of long duration?"

  "Six months, thereabouts."

  "I can clean him of the active principle within one month, my lord. But unless the reason for him taking up the pipe is removed then he will simply return to the habit. Do you know why he smokes, my lord?"

  Robert explained the bereavements and Joseph's apparent fear of the loss of his powers as an engineer.

  "A pity, my lord, because you must understand that the smoke will clear away all of those regrets which interfered with the application of his genius. He feels that the drug releases his mind, and it does. I will remove the toxins from his blood, my lord, and encourage him to eat healthily, and put him out of my hospital - and within a very few weeks he will find that he is working less well, and then he will take a pipe again and will regain all of his skills and arts."

  "And then he will inevitably be enslaved again, sir?"

  "In all probabilities, yes, my lord. A very few of the strongest-willed of men will be able to control themselves - knowing the harm the substance can do they may limit themselves to a single pipe a night. I am aware of one man, a patient of a colleague in London, who has existed in this state of equilibrium for twenty years; I know of many more who have come back to my care every two or three years, who stay a month and are cleaned, then revert slowly to their old ways. Some will make old bones, some will die young having destroyed their digestions by neglect. I can offer no more, my lord."

  "I will speak with him, both before I entrust him to your care, doctor, and at length afterwards. How will you treat him?"

  "Harshly, my lord. I will place him in a cell - warm and well-padded, as comfortable as is possible in the circumstances - and refuse him his comfort. He will be very ill for some days, losing control of all of his bodily functions. Eventually he will grow calm again and will be able to eat. In twenty days, or thereabouts, he will be able to talk rationally and you will be permitted to make visits. A week more and I shall discharge him to your care. You must then persuade him of the unwisdom of returning to his dependence on the noxious substance - 'a good servant, a bad master' must become his watchword."

  "He is of very great intelligence, doctor - he will understand what must be done."

  "Then we must trust that he will do it, my lord. You may at least take heart that he has not become addicted to alcohol; an opium eater can sometimes control his craving while the abuser of wine or spirits may never take another drink without falling immediately back into the pit. As well, alcohol very rapidly destroys the intelligence in a way that opium does not, or not in the earlier years, certainly."

  Joseph did not like to be informed that he was still a minor, had not left his nonage, and that his brother still possessed the legal powers of guardianship. He liked even less to be locked away in the inexorable care of Doctor Kornbluth.

  "You are aware, Mr Star, that the Governor of Louisiana is finding the burde
ns of office too great for him?"

  Henry had long been aware that Thomas Bolling Robertson was a blithering idiot who tended, with little success, to attempt to substitute whiskey for intelligence. He shook his head, smiling in polite amaze.

  "Tell me more, sir."

  He had been summoned to the office of the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, an increasingly shaky institution in itself, lacking philosophy and policy both.

  "The Governor will stand down very soon; there cannot be an election until the four years is ended so his generally agreed deputy will step up. In order to maintain effective government in our noble state it has been agreed that certain of Mr Robertson's appointees must be removed with him."

  The honourable gentleman had placed a number of cronies into positions they had been entirely unfitted for - some of them so incompetent that the people had noticed things to be out of the ordinarily astray.

  "Discussions have been held with all of the interested parties, and the conclusion has been reached that stability can best be attained by appointing gentlemen of known ability, of interest in Public Life and yet of less political commitment. These few are to be assured that they will retain their posts irrespective of the results of the next election."

  The leadership of the Creole grouping must have consented to this, Henry realised, agreeing to cooperate to return the administration to a degree of stability. Things must have come to a sorry pass indeed if the probable next incumbent had agreed to surrender some of his patronage.

  "This seems a very sensible stroke of policy, sir, and you may be sure that I will raise my voice in your support in the Chamber."

  Henry presumed he was being canvassed as a member of the State Legislature.

  "Thank you, Mr Star. There was never a doubt in our minds that you would. We wish to beg more of you though, sir. You have military experience, as well as being a builder of steamships and a plantation owner to boot. You may, in fact, be said to represent all that is best in Louisiana."

  Henry thought that might be to overstate the case, but it was not his place to argue.