“By the way, how did you persuade Miss Robinson to smile on Sir Charles? I had not thought him to have been of a sort especially attractive to her.”
“Just in passing, Papa, I happened to mention that I should be married in April, as she knows, and that you would then be going to Town, to look for a wife, in part. I presumed that she would be returning to her own mother’s house. The prospect was such that Sir Charles was most opportune to her. I do not know quite what happened between her and her mother, but it would seem that they are very happy to keep a hundred miles between them.”
“Possibly they are too similar to each other, Charlie – each wishing to rule the roost.”
She grinned – it seemed very likely.
“Has Captain Star bought the house you decided upon?”
“Purchase made, sir, and the builders are in. The earth-closet should be a thing of the past by now and a proper new water-closet installed, together with a bathroom, no less!”
“I had wondered about having one here – do you think it a good idea?”
“A boiler for hot water, a tap for cold and a fixed cast iron bath, sir, not a tiny copper tub one can hardly sit in – one could bathe two and even three times a week, sir!”
“Persuasive, my dear – but the church might disapprove, perhaps?”
“Chapel certainly would, sir – decadence which must inevitably lead to moral decay! The church, however? I doubt it, sir – the Reverend is far too sensible a man, I believe, to regard dirt as in any way holy.”
“Then we shall proceed, I think. Whilst I am in Town, the house can be turned upside down for my benefit. I shall inform Quillerson in the morning.”
Quillerson was not sure that he approved, and could certainly see no need for there to be two of the new water closets – with the best will in the world he could not imagine how the master would use two of them. However, if that was what my lord wanted, then that was what he would get. He drew up a plan, presented it a week later, with the addition of a new laundry room so that the hot water boiler could be used more frequently – it would be wasteful to have it sat cold much of the week.
“Cook, my lord, wishes to know whether you might consider one of the new closed stoves – she thinks it might be a great improvement on her ranges. It would, of course, be coal-fired, and would require some modifications to the chimney.”
Once started, there was no end, it seemed. Tom gave his assent, and reflected that it made quite certain that he would be in London for the whole of the Season – he was not going to come back to the Hall while it was in turmoil.
Alec Fraser appeared, stayed for three days and was wed with all due ceremony, Tom actually standing with him in church, an act of condescension he was sure Verity would never have permitted. It made the whole Eakins family swell with pride, however, to send their second girl off so well, there were relatives from all over the county to see.
Fraser was on his own, none of his own family having journeyed south, not especially surprising to him after he had told them that he would be getting wed in the Church of England, the next worst thing to the Whore of Rome as far as they were concerned. They probably suspected there might be a bishop hovering in the transept.
He had kept up a desultory correspondence with his parents and had promised himself that he would certainly visit them at a convenient time, but, of course, he was remarkably busy, and work had to come before pleasure. He had informed his father, with glee, of each of his rises in income, culminating in his current four figures, at least ten times as great as his father or his religious brothers, and of his possession, in freehold, of his house of seven bedrooms, a wedding gift from my lord and a mark of his approbation.
He had told his parents, in passing, of the cook and two maids he had hired, though he had not mentioned the young lady whose services he had now dispensed with. He had also extended an invitation to any of his three unwed sisters to visit him whenever they might wish, rather hoping that neither of the elder two would take up the offer. Sister Hope, youngest of the family, had shown herself a pleasant girl, but the other pair were born spinsters and pillars of the chapel, sour and dried up before ever they had flowered. Now, wed and respectable, sipping at the Barneys’ home-distilled apple brandy - a remarkable and very palatable spirit which he estimated as little short of one hundred per cent proof, possibly a valuable source of fuel for an engine but to be drunk in the tiniest of quantities by any bridegroom who wished to be of service to his lady that evening – he debated how best he should show his status in the business community, possibly he should grow a pair of moustaches? His new wife, when applied to, laughed and said she feared they would tickle, then turned brightest red and said no more.
They left for a slow trip north in mid-afternoon, Tom withdrawing from the festivities immediately thereafter – his presence, whilst welcome enough, was sufficient to put a damper on the celebrations. Two voices had already been raised in song and hurriedly hushed, which was a pity, he had not heard ‘Down in Martha’s Dairy’ in nearly forty years, had not even been aware that it was known in this part of the country.
He sat in his library, coffee cup in hand, thinking back over the years, trying to remember just who he had heard singing so long before. Not his father, Dad had never been a cheerful man. On the privateering ship, The Star, perhaps, when they were off on a beano, that was likely enough. Could he ever go back, just to have a look around, he wondered, possibly to visit briefly with Thomas Burley, he had liked that young man, and to take a glance at the countryside once more.
“No! Silly old bugger! Too much to drink too early in the day!”
Talking to himself as well, not a good idea. He was lonely, it seemed.
Christmas was quiet, neither of his sons able to get away, Robert because his young wife was large with child, must have caught pregnant in the first week of their marriage - which was not so uncommon, after all, a healthy young woman of a proper age – and Joseph because he was committed to the Stars.
“Wise enough, Charlie – he must build his own life – what would you think, another three or four years before they can wed?”
“It would be more sensible, sir, but I rather doubt either would wish to delay so long, and they seem mature in appearance, will not create any great gossip. The advantage to a man of being tall, very fair, strongly built and rather handsome is that one can easily seem older than one’s years, especially with a little attention to one’s style of dress. A lady in similar condition, of course, tends to be ‘a strapping wench’ – which is not quite so desirable a state of affairs.”
Tom nodded gravely – it seemed wiser to hide any smile. He had often regarded his daughter with great approbation – he liked big, well-made blonde women, was very proud of the appearance of his girl – but could see that she might be a mite on the powerful side for any man who was not himself well-muscled and very confident. Still, Captain Star was a man by any reckoning, would do very well for her.
Robert did not enjoy Christmas in London. In the nature of things he went out to few parties, having to leave his wife at home as she found it difficult to remain on her feet for hours at a time. Miriam had come to him a virgin, wholly inexperienced, but was very large for five months, which was all she could be – doctor and midwife and nurse all wondered if there might not be twins on the way, though accepting that the Andrews were a big family, running to tall, well-made children, but the young gentleman might well have to be a giant if there was only the one. Miriam had the finest of medical care, courtesy of her father, who had commissioned Michael to find not necessarily the most fashionable but certainly the most expert doctor in the field, a middle-aged gentleman who had been tempted south from Edinburgh by large sums of gold in hand and the promise of a rich practise in years to come. The name Dr McFarlane was already being bandied about in the best, that was, the richest, of circles. She herself, a sensible as well as intelligent girl, was reasonably confident of a happy outcome – her mother, also a sli
ghtly built lady, had had four healthy children, all of whom had survived and were considering their own families – none of her three sons wed yet, but the eldest on the verge of declaring himself, she suspected, to a suitably well-endowed daughter of the Rothschilds, a niece to Nathan, she thought.
London was less smelly in winter, the greater flow of water in the Thames contributing no end to this. The river had become no more than an open cesspit over the previous decade, and was worsening every year – the irreligious held that it was no longer necessary to be the Son of God to walk on those waters; there were stepping-stones in plenty floating along. The obvious concomitant – disease – was also worsening.
Many poor souls had no other water supply than the Thames and the wells close to it and very few could claim to be wholly free from the river’s contamination. In addition, there were hardly any sewers and those that did exist were ancient and over-burdened. Each year saw its epidemics, spotted fever in its various forms preying on the children of the poor and wiping out the elderly; of recent years cholera had appeared as well, probably introduced by sailors, naval or merchant, during the long wars, and there were rumours, possibly unfounded, of a return of the Plague, the Black Death itself. The educated, and the credulous, foresaw a great epidemic that would wipe out the population of the Great Wen; numbers of the more deeply religious welcomed the prospect as being the only possible way of cleansing the city of its sin – others simply moved their families out.
Robert could not move Miriam out of London, away from her family and doctor at this time, but he had shifted Judy and her roaring boy out to a house on the outskirts of Hertford, larger far than she had anticipated or approved of, staffed and comfortable and a very bare mile from two bookshops.
“Twelve bedrooms, Bobby!”
“One for us and one each for the children, Judy-love!”
“If you think I am going through that another ten times, you have another think coming, my lord!”
“Well… it was here, in just the right place, the old owners dead and the heirs needing to split its price three ways between them, no son to inherit, daughters only, anxious to make a sale. It’s an awkward place to be rid of, there being only four acres with it, no Home Farm such as a house this big would generally have, and it’s too close to town to be country and too far from the shops to be thoroughly convenient for any housewife depending on her feet. It’s neither one thing nor the other, but seems to me to be ideal for a lady who likes her flowers and has a son who needs a garden to play in and is willing to stretch her legs in dry weather and sit in her carriage in wet. It gives the youngster a background, too, Master Patrick from the big house, not the boy from the cottage down the road. There is a Grammar School in town, too, if he proves to be a bright lad, that will give the best of educations and a way to the Universities, if he wants it.”
“What then, for him, Bobby?”
“The Law? John Company, if he fancies a mercantile career – I have a sufficiency of interest to see him well-placed there. He could have a land-holding in America or the Cape or Canada, if he wished, or a smallish farm in England. Not the Army, for I do not think we shall ever have the wars again that make for promotion – all I hear says that we shall never repeat our last set of mistakes.”
“Your brother, James, is a soldier, is he not?”
“He will be promoted for his father, even if he does not show well in the field – but from all I hear he has already made himself the beginning of a name. First letters home say he has been involved with a small punitive column going out to thump an unruly little princeling and has again done quite well. He will find himself with the chance to shine, more than any ordinary subaltern might, but, equally, of course, the boy has shown that he can do well in battle.”
“Sure and you are proud of him, are ye not?”
“Very!”
Assizes came round early in the New Year, sitting in Kettering, Tom attending with several others of the magistrates to observe, as was normal practice for those who manned the Bench at Quarter Sessions, itself a High Court. On this occasion he had a closer interest, however, a final hangover from Alfie Barney’s stupidity.
Young Mr Hunt had presided as Coroner at the inquest held, also in the Rooms in Kettering, on Alfie and had chosen to be very thorough in his pursuit of fact, showing a determination to discover exactly where the poacher’s gun had come from.
The landlord of the beerhouse had stood in the box and given evidence that Alfie had come in at some time in the late afternoon – he had no clock, could not say exactly when, but well before sunset. He had had money in his pocket and had spent freely, rapidly becoming half drunk and helping several others to the same state. He had made much of his grievances and had been free with his threats.
Had he believed those threats? Not at first, he had not known Alfie, he was not one of his regulars, had not been in more than two or three times in the previous year, and he had put him down as a blow-hard, all mouth and very little action. Then he had got hold of a shotgun and that made it all different, so he had sent his son to warn my lord and had gone himself to the constable.
He was congratulated on his performance of his duty. The coroner said he should not blame himself at all, which puzzled him somewhat because it had not occurred to him to do so.
Johnny Peachey was called to the stand, and presented himself to much head-shaking from the public gallery, a couple of dozen benches set out at the rear of the dance floor. He had been told every day to run, to get the hell out of it while he still could, but he had known of nowhere to go, he had never been outside Finedon in his life, and could not believe that he stood in any danger just for selling the old gun.
He was taken briefly through the fact that Alfie had been spending freely and ‘shouting his bloody great mouth off’ while buying him several pints, then came the matter of the gun.
“How did Barney know that you had a shotgun, Peachey?”
“Well, I tole ‘im so, Yer Honour.”
“He was drunk, demanding a weapon with which to kill Lord Andrews and you told him you had a shotgun?”
“Well, only after ‘e asked who’d got a gun, I didden tell ‘im first.”
“And what happened then, Peachey?”
“Well, ‘e wanted to borrer it, but I weren’t ‘aving that, ‘e’d ‘ave lost it for sure, so I tole ‘im ‘e could buy it, so long as ‘e paid a long price for it, in case I got in trouble for it.”
“Did you expect to get into trouble if you sold the gun?”
“Well, I am now, ain’t I!”
He seemed to think that was quite a witty response, grinned broadly and looked around the room for applause.
“What was the gun worth, Peachey?”
“Not much, Yer Honour, it were getting’ on, my ole granddad ‘ad it first. I didden really like firin’ it no more, I adn’t used it in a twelvemonth. Say ten bob, Yer Honour.”
“Ten shillings, and how much did Barney pay you?”
“Twenty Yellow Boys, Yer Honour!”
Again, he seemed to think he deserved applause, congratulations on his cleverness.
“So you sold him the gun, and powder and ball?”
“Not ball, Yer Honour, I ‘adn’t got none.”
“Otherwise you would have done, no doubt.”
Peachey stood down and went to leave the courtroom, was held by the constables and forced to sit in a corner under guard for the remainder of the proceedings, slowly beginning to appreciate that he might be looking at a prison term - even transportation.
Morton gave evidence that young Jimmy had come with the warning and that he himself had watched from the door as Barney had fired the gun, trying to take aim at his master and blowing his own head off as the piece misfired.
Jimmy spoke his piece, very briefly, was not questioned due to his age.
Tom stood and confirmed all that had been heard so far, inasmuch as he knew it. When asked he said that he had told the boy Jimmy to take the rema
inder of the money from Barney’s pockets in part as a reward for taking the risk of coming to him when he knew there was a man with a gun on the same road, but also because he had wanted him to see at close hand exactly what happened to criminals.
“It seemed, Your Honour, that he had been in bad company, yet he appeared to be a bright and sensible boy, one who could learn.”
“An object lesson, in fact, my lord. One that many others would no doubt benefit from.”
Hunt congratulated Tom on his escape from the violence of the lower classes, then gave his verdict that Barney had died of misadventure whilst in the attempted commission of a violent crime, of murder, in fact. He turned then to Johnny Peachey, ordered him to stand.
“I find you to have been an accessory to that crime, Peachey, and order that you be taken into custody pending your arraignment before the next High Court, which will be the Assizes. You will be charged with attempted murder.”
Peachey cried out, tried to shout that he had only let him have the gun, he had not tried to kill anybody, but he was rapidly silenced and dragged off to the town lock-up.
The case at Assizes was over very quickly – the evidence given at the inquest was presented and Peachey agreed that it was true enough. In extenuation he said that he was fairly drunk himself and was tempted by the offer of twenty sovereigns, would not have any part in any killing. The judge was not impressed and donned his black cap.
The Lord Lieutenant saw no reason to extend clemency to a man who sold weapons to a would-be murderer, however drunk he might have been, and overrode Tom’s request for mercy.
“It does you great credit, my lord, that you should wish to turn the other cheek, reminds us all of our duty as Christians, but this man is a menace to good order. A layabout and a drunk who was only too happy to sell a shotgun to a man vowing to commit murder, and, furthermore, actually said he would have sold him ball had he possessed any. I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to let him live, my lord.”
The Pain Of Privilege (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 4) Page 20