Tuppenny Times

by Beryl Kingston

  The next day he took a turn about the town with Hanley-Brown and Fortescue to hunt for another light o’ love. And found a little Welsh girl who was called Myfanwy. She was passably pretty, with a fine full bosom, but she took a deuced long time to persuade, the worst part of a fortnight, and on the night he finally enjoyed her, if enjoyment was the right word for a pleasure so fleeting, she ruined it all by telling him she would be returning to Wales the very next morning.

  ‘I tell ’ee, Fortie,’ he said gloomily to his friend when they were both back in barracks the following evening, ‘the game ain’t worth the candle.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Fortescue said cheerfully. ‘Mine is a wench of fire.’

  But the only wench of fire that Calverley knew was Nan Easter, and he was too proud to go courting in that direction again. What a miserable thing it was that she should have insulted him so!

  After another week, when he’d flirted with four more pretty creatures and decided against all of them, he began to wonder whether he might not write to his aggravating Mrs Easter after all. ’Twas a foolish quarrel in all conscience, and she would hardly be likely to repeat such a ridiculous mistake. And besides, he missed her cruelly.

  But pride still held him back. It was degrading for a man to be in thrall to a woman, even a woman as spirited and passionate as his Nan. He waited another ten days before he put quill to paper, and then it was a most carefully composed letter.

  ‘I have orders to visit London next Wednesday on a matter of some consequence to the regiment,’ he wrote. It wouldn’t hurt to give her some indication of his importance. ‘Should you wish it I could call upon you in the afternoon.

  Yr obedient servant, Calverley Leigh.’

  Once the letter was on its way to Chelsea he regretted it and wished he could call it back. I have made a pretty fool of myself, he thought, and now she will mock me.

  But it wasn’t in Nan’s nature to want to mock anybody and she was too busy to waste time in recriminations.

  She’d still been in a furious temper when she got back to Chelsea, but a good meal and a good night’s sleep put her back into a better humour. She woke the next morning aggrieved but energetic. If that blamed fool Calverley wouldn’t join her as a business partner, then she’d strike out on her own, so she would. There were opportunities a plenty in the City. ’Twas just a matter of choosing the best of them.

  The shameful peace had been very good for her particular trade, despite Calverley’s poor opinion of it. There was an unprecedented demand for daily papers, but unfortunately the printers couldn’t meet it.

  ‘I could sell twice the number,’ she told young Mr Walter when she and Thiss arrived in Printing House Square to collect the first edition of The Times that morning, ‘if only you could print ’em.’

  ‘Would that I could,’ John Walter said with feeling. Now that his father had stepped down and he’d taken over the ownership of The Times at long, long last, he was full of ideas for improving the paper, but he could still only print two hundred and fifty copies an hour. ‘We are limited by the speed of our handpress,’ he sighed. ‘I’ve a mind to go to Germany, now that this war is over or at least in abeyance, for there are many say the peace cannot last. They have invented a new steam press there, so Meredew tells me, capable of printing a thousand sheets an hour. Think of that. ’Twould even satisfy the present demand, I’ll wager. More than we could possibly sell.’

  ‘If you could print ’em, John Walter, then I could sell ’em,’ Nan promised, dusting the palms of her hands against each other, the way she always did when she was at her most determined. And she made up her mind there and then that if he bought this press she would ask for sole rights to sell all the papers he printed.

  In the meantime there was money to be made from advertising. At the end of April she began to sell wall space in her shop in the Strand and in most of her reading-rooms, and it wasn’t long before she realized that counter space could be made to earn its keep in this way too. But it wasn’t enough. The returns were too small and there was no adventure in it.

  Finally when six weeks had passed and she still hadn’t heard from Calverley, she was so full of restless energy and so determined to expand her empire one way or another than she decided to consult a broker and see what he advised.

  The man she chose was small and slight but he had big ideas.

  ‘There are two means by which to make money today, Mrs Easter,’ he said, looking at her shrewdly, ‘providing you have the capital. One is to invest in commodities – tea, sugar, metals and so forth, the other is to buy shares in the African trade. The former is the lesser risk, the latter yields the greater profit.’

  ‘African trade, eh?’ she said, attracted by his enthusiasm. ‘What sort of trade is that?’

  ‘Why, between Africa and America to be sure, calling in to London or Bristol with tobacco on the return trip. The profits are very high, and eminently respectable. Several bankers of my acquaintance have grown rich upon it.’

  It took her ten seconds to make up her mind. She would invest two hundred guineas in the cocoa trade and take half-shares in a new ship specially built for the African run.

  I need no man to help me, she thought, as the pony trap rattled back to Chelsea. That blame fool can stay away as long as he likes, I shall see my profits grow whatever he does, or doesn’t do.

  Four days later, when there was still no letter from her lover, she went down to London Bridge to see ‘her’ ship and meet the master. The ship was called the Esmeralda and was a splendid vessel, capable of carrying an immense cargo. The master was a disappointment. His name was Jones and he was short and stocky with a brutal face and a bullying manner.

  ‘’Tis a fine trade, Mrs Easter,’ he told her brusquely. ‘Don’t you go lettin’ anyone persuade you otherwise.’

  Her instincts rose against him at once. But with the broker’s aid they came to an agreement remarkably swiftly and once it was signed and she was home again in Chelsea, she comforted herself that business was business no matter how ugly one of the participants might have been.

  ‘I have branched out into a new line of business,’ she told Cosmo Teshmaker at their weekly meeting.

  He took the news with his usual calm. Until she told him what the business was. Then he was uncharacteristically critical. ‘I feel I should warn you ma’am,’ he said politely, ‘the cocoa trade is not as dependable as it could be, just at present.’

  ‘’Twill improve,’ she said. ‘And in any case if it don’t yield a big profit, the African trade will. Everybody says so.’ She hadn’t listened to the coffee-house talk for nothing.

  ‘Indeed yes,’ he agreed soothing her. ‘Howsomever …’

  ‘There en’t no howsomever, Mr Teshmaker,’ she said briskly. ‘I shall make a fortune so I shall and then I shall start buying shops in the provinces. ’Tis is high time the firm expanded.’

  But he still looked worried.

  ‘You are too cautious by half,’ she said, smiling at him.

  He agreed with that too. ‘Possibly so, ma’am. Possibly so.’

  ‘Trust me,’ she said.

  Watching her walk out into the Strand, straight-backed and determined, he wondered whether he ought to have tried to tell her a little more about the African trade. She’d been in such a dominating mood, but perhaps he ought to have tried. For he knew, as she apparently did not, that the Esmeralda would be transporting slaves.

  Calverley’s letter was waiting for Nan when she got home late that afternoon. She read it with mischievous pleasure, delighted to think that he couldn’t keep up the quarrel after all, and she wrote back by return of post. ‘My dear Calverley, yes do call. I have a lot to tell ’ee, howsomever ’twill keep until we meet. I will prepare a supper for you, Yr loving Nan.’

  Deuce take it if she ain’t the most splendid woman, he said to himself, when her letter arrived, and the most sensible. And he sat down at once to write to her again, relieved to think that no real damage
had been done by their quarrel.

  And four days later he arrived in Cheyne Row with an armful of jonquils and a sheepish expression.

  ‘Come you in,’ she said, grinning at him. ‘Mrs Jorris has made an almond hedgehog in your honour, and if we don’t eat un direct ’twill lose all its quills.’

  It was an excellent meal and he was gratified to see that Billy and Annie were pleased to see him again. After the meal he escorted the entire family to the play, and after the play they went on to the Rotunda to see the fireworks, and after the fireworks they made hot possets and drank them sitting around the embers of the drawing-room fire. It was past midnight before he and Nan were finally alone together and then she told him all about her new business ventures and how Mr Teshmaker didn’t approve of them and what a success they were going to be. And for once he listened with apparent patience because he didn’t want to annoy her again, even though he was creeping with desire for her.

  And so love cured their quarrel. And the Esmeralda set off for Africa. And the uneasy peace continued.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  That summer Nan opened a reading-room in Brighton. It was her thirty-third such property, and by October it was making a profit. It continued to pay its way all through the winter, despite the fact that the Regent and his followers were back in the capital, and that was very gratifying, because the profits from the cocoa trade were very small indeed, just as Cosmo Teshmaker had predicted, and there was no news at all from the master of the Esmeralda.

  The spring of 1804 arrived late and it brought several surprises, none of them welcome to Nan Easter. At the beginning of May when small silky leaves were making a tentative appearance on the cold branches of the limes in Cheyne Walk, Mr Addington, the innocuous Prime Minister who had had the effrontery to succeed the great Mr Pitt when he resigned from office, suddenly found sufficient gall or moral strength or party support to re-open hostilities and declare war on the French. And to raise money for his endeavours he introduced a tax on property.

  ‘’Twill be a blow to this company,’ Nan said to Cosmo on the morning The Times printed the news. ‘Thirty-three shops and properties are a deal to pay tax on all of a sudden. You’d best estimate the total cost of the tax and the running costs of all our properties as soon as you can. If I get no news from Captain Jones, I may have to sell one or two of the weaker shops to make ends meet.’

  It was rather worrying. And two days later, annoyance was added to anxiety, when Sir Osmond Easter re-opened hostilities between his branch of the family and Nan’s, with a letter that had her roaring round to Cosmo Teshmaker for the second time that week and in the foullest of tempers.

  ‘Look ’ee here,’ she said, casting the offensive paper onto the counter. ‘See what that pernicious varmint dares to write to me! Lord save us all, if he were here I should do un a mischief, so I should.’

  Mr Teshmaker picked up the letter delicately and read it without altering his expression, having learnt by now that extreme calm was beneficial in all dealings with the volatile Mrs Easter.

  ‘Madam,’ Sir Osmond had written.

  ‘It has been brought to my attention by a trustworthy member of my family that you have been seen in a public place in the company of a common soldier. May I remind you that as a member of my family you have a certain position to maintain, and that frequenting inns and consorting with common soldiers is hardly conducive to the maintenance of that position. I trust that I have made my opinion clear upon this matter and that you will amend your public behaviour forthwith.

  ‘I write this as the head of the family to which you have the honour to belong. I would be failing in my duty were I not to warn you, and I trust you will accept this warning in the spirit in which it is being sent.

  Yr obedient servt,

  Osmond Easter.’

  ‘Write you and tell him I shall consort with whomsoever I please,’ Nan instructed, ‘and tell him ’tis no affair of his. I never heard such sauce! ’Tis more than human flesh and blood can stand.’

  ‘Doubtless,’ Mr Teshmaker said delicately, ‘this has arisen because you have been seen at some social function or other in the – er – general company of – er – military gentlemen.’

  ‘I have a lover who is an officer in the Duke of Clarence’s regiment,’ she said bluntly. ‘He en’t a common soldier, but even if he were I should consort with him whenever and wherever we pleased. ’Tis no concern of Sir Osmond’s. Let him look to his own affairs. Write you and tell un that.’

  ‘Leave it to me, ma’am,’ Mr Teshmaker soothed. ‘I will compose an answer this very afternoon. Meantime perhaps you would care to see the estimates for the new tax.’

  They were even more alarming than she’d anticipated. ‘Deuce take it,’ she said, ‘How am I supposed to buy newspapers if I’ve to pay such as this? ’Tis exorbitant.’

  ‘I quite agree, ma’am,’ Cosmo said. ‘But exorbitant or not, it is the law, and the first demands for payment have already arrived.’

  ‘I begin to regret the cocoa trade,’ she said, ‘and that’s a fact. If it does no better within the month I shall sell. Meantime, the best thing to be done is to cut our losses on the two worst premises. ’Tis a poor thing that we have to sell shops to pay taxes. Do you have those figures too?’

  She made her decision quickly because it annoyed her to be selling instead of buying and she didn’t enjoy the uncomfortable feeling that her business affairs, far from improving and growing as she’d intended, were actually in decline. ‘Islington,’ she said. ‘’Twas a dark little shop, in all conscience. We’re well rid of it. And Mr Cummings is more than ready to stop work, poor old thing. Young Jack can come back to the Strand. The third had better be the Lambeth shop. Deuce take it, what possessed that blame fool Addington to go declaring war? He might ha’ known ’twould cost a fortune.’

  So the shops were advertised for sale that afternoon, and then one of Mr Teshmaker’s most careful letters was composed for the benefit of Sir Osmond Easter.

  It was a most courteous epistle, thanking Sir Osmond for his ‘concern for my client’ which was, he felt sure, ‘well meant if entirely unnecessary’ and pointing out that in the course of her extensive business affairs Mrs Easter was compelled to ‘meet and treat with all sorts and manner of persons’, but stressing in his final paragraph that the said Mrs Easter was ‘a lady singularly mindful of the obligations and responsibilities pertaining to her rank and quality.’

  ‘It is my earnest hope that this letter will calm the gentleman,’ he wrote to Nan, when he sent her a copy.

  But Sir Osmond was not an easy man to calm. News of Nan Easter’s financial troubles had reached Ippark, and the gentleman was delighted to think that his adversary had lost some of her strength. His next letter was even more aggressive. Business meetings he understood, he wrote. Had he not had experience a-plenty of such necessitous occasions? Howsomever, meeting with one soldier, or one officer, it was of little consequence which, in solitary inns apart from all other company was another matter and one which he had every right to be concerned about.

  ‘I fear,’ Mr Teshmaker said, when he went to dine with his old friend and mentor, Mr Duncan, ‘this matter may not prove to have quite the ease of resolution that I had hoped.’

  ‘An influential gentleman, Sir Osmond,’ Mr Duncan agreed, mounding food onto his fork with careful precision. ‘Able to bring pressure to bear. Pity she ain’t more discreet.’

  ‘Where would our business be if all women were discreet?’ Mr Teshmaker murmured. A woman with Mrs Easter’s admirable drive and passion could hardly be expected to live like a nun. I should value your advice on how this should be answered.’

  ‘Try defamation of character,’ Mr Duncan suggested. ‘A hint that he may have gone too far in that first epistle of his. I doubt if he thought to take a copy. Just a hint, mind. There is no need to get embroiled.’

  So the hint was insinuated into the middle of a suave paragraph full of placatory anodynes abo
ut the necessity for business meetings and the variety of persons and companies which might well be met on such occasions. ‘My client is sure you would not wish to be interpreted as implying any such activity as would render you liable to prosecution for defamation of character.’

  It was beginning to be quite an exciting battle of wits. ‘Now we shall see what will be the outcome of this,’ he said, with happy satisfaction as he dropped the firm’s blue sealing wax in a neat circle across the folded paper. And he wondered wistfully, embossing the seal with his usual extreme neatness, what his passionate employer was doing in Brighton, with her much criticized lover.

  She was telling him what a plaguey nuisance Sir Osmond was being.

  ‘Let him write what he will,’ Calverley said easily. ‘’Tis all one, my charmer. If he may take us to task for loving, he would have to do the same for most of his noble friends. ’Tis the fashion, so ’tis, and he should accept it.’

  ‘I just hope Mr Teshmaker has put paid to un, that’s all,’ Nan said. ‘Consorting indeed!’

  ‘Captain Mauleverer will be major within the year, and his commission on offer,’ he told her proudly. ‘’Twill not be long before you are consorting with a captain.’

  ‘Meantime,’ she said putting the wretched Sir Osmond out of her mind, ‘how if my lieutenant were to escort me to supper. I’m starving hungry.’

  When she got back to Chelsea three days later, she found a letter from Mr Teshmaker urging the immediate sale of her interest in the cocoa trade, ‘which is now running at a loss, I fear,’ and a note from Sophie Fuseli. ‘Such bad news, my dear. I must see you at once. I will call every day until you return.’

  It made Nan’s heart sink. Now what? she thought. Have I not trouble enough as it is? What more could it be?

  It was news of an old friend.

  ‘’Tis Mr Blake,’ Sophie said, the minute she arrived the next afternoon. ‘Mr Blake is arrested.’