Tuppenny Times

by Beryl Kingston

  He spent the next few days in a frenzy of preparation. New clothes had to be ordered and made to his exact specification, for the cloth had to be the most expensive money could buy and the fit perfection. Nothing less would do for White’s, whose members were renowned for their criticism of the smallest fault in matters of dress and style. He bought a gold-topped cane like the Colonel’s to match his honey-coloured waistcoat, and a pair of exquisite riding boots to set off the fine fit of his new white breeches, and a brown beaver hat to tone with his elegant jacket, and with his neckcloth perfectly folded and his careless curls most artfully arranged, he and Jericho set off to join the Dandies.

  It was a triumph. Although an uncommon costly one. He lost more money at the gaming tables on that first night than he could earn in a month. But he lost it with such careless grace that he soon established himself as a true member of the club, a hedonist whose caustic wit endeared him to all but the most elderly inhabitants, whose views were of little account in any case.

  However the next morning the stack of unpaid bills he’d accumulated were worse than his hangover. Something would have to be done about them, and done quickly for he couldn’t begin his career at White’s with a reputation as a debtor. He stuffed the bills in his pocket and set off to the Strand to find Billy Easter.

  He was in the warehouse supervising the morning dispatch, with a stout book before him and a pen in his hand, checking each batch as it passed him. ‘Thirty-two Advertisers, that’s right. Where’s The Times?’ He looked up briefly as Calverley approached and grinned happily.

  ‘You do well, I see,’ Calverley said.

  ‘’Tis a fair old job,’ the boy said with some pride. ‘Mama will be pleased, I think, when she returns.’

  ‘Has she written to ’ee?’

  ‘Home tomorrow,’ Billy said happily. ‘Then we can all move into Cheyne Walk, she says. Think a’ that. Shan’t we be swell? You’re six Chronicles short, Mr Sampson.’

  ‘Let’s to Galloways,’ Calverley said. ‘I should like to buy you a pot of coffee, since you’re such a hard-working gentleman.’

  He could see that Billy was flattered, which was a good start. A good lad, young Billy, and like to prove amenable.

  Over their second cup of coffee and after several choice compliments, he broached the matter of money. ‘Little matter I’d like to sound your advice upon, damme, now you’re a working man.’

  ‘What is it, sir?’

  ‘’Tis a matter of money. Not a deal of money, I’ll allow. A mere twenty-eight pounds. The truth of it is, William Easter, I’m short. Now what’s to be done about it, think ’ee?’

  Billy was flattered to be asked, but he had no idea what to answer.

  Luckily Mr Leigh helped him out. ‘Your mother usually gives me an advance on such occasions,’ he said. ‘Howsomever, now that she is away … You take my drift, William, I’m sure.’

  So William was gradually drifted into the opinion that the best solution was for him to hand over the necessary twenty-eight sovereigns from that morning’s petty cash.

  ‘I will put it straight back,’ Calverley promised smoothly. ‘You may depend upon it. An uncommon civil arrangement, young Billy, for this way we don’t need to bother your mother with it at all.’

  Bemused by his apparent success, Billy agreed that he was right. It was rather pleasant to be doing business like this with Mr Leigh, standing in for his mother, an adult among adults.

  ‘Between the two of us, eh?’ Calverley said, winking at him. ‘Could you drink a third cup?’

  So when Nan and Annie returned the next afternoon, and they all sat down to dinner in their fine new dining-room overlooking the river, he kept his secret. Not that his mother gave him very much opportunity to tell her anything, for she was so excited about the house she’d bought in Bury.

  ‘We shall spend every summer there,’ she promised, ‘and winter here. Think of that. Bessie will keep house for us. ’Twill be our country seat. Oh, I can’t wait to get back there, boys. You will love it, I tell ’ee.’

  She stayed in London for four weeks, just long enough to hire a housekeeper for Cheyne Walk, to supervise the repairs, and to satisfy herself that the business was running smoothly. Mr Teshmaker gave a glowing report of her two working sons. Billy he said was most dependable, but it was Johnnie who had the flair. ‘Give him a year or two, ma’am,’ he said, ‘and he will order the papers for you as well as sorting them.’

  ‘I am pleased to hear it,’ Nan said. For if it was true, and Mr Teshmaker always spoke true, so there was no reason to doubt it, she could leave the business for a great deal longer next summer.

  The next day, Calverley went to York and she and Annie returned to Bury. She had no idea when she would see him again, but for the first time in their relationship, it didn’t concern her.

  At the end of August the Clarence’s returned to town and Calverley’s old friends Captain Fortescue and Captain Hanley-Brown turned up at White’s. They were delighted to see him.

  ‘Damme if he ain’t married his rich widow,’ Fortescue said, eyeing Calverley’s fine clothes.

  ‘Not quite,’ Calverley said. ‘Soon will. ’Tis a matter of time, that’s all.’

  ‘And who is the lady, pray?’ Hanley-Brown wanted to know.

  ‘Nan Easter.’

  ‘The prosperous Nan?’ Fortescue giggled. ‘Oh, you’re a dog, Leigh. Always was, always will be.’

  ‘When do you wed?’ Hanley-Brown asked.

  ‘Well, as to that, we ain’t fixed a date. She’s out of town for the summer. In her country seat.’

  ‘Well, upon my soul!’ Fortescue said. ‘I can’t imagine the dashing Nan stuck in the country. ’Tain’t her style.’

  ‘’Tis a fancy merely,’ Calverley said. ‘’Twill soon pass. I’d lay money on it.’

  Perhaps it was just as well that neither of his friends took him up on such a wager, for he’d have lost his money if they had.

  Nan spent most of her time in Bury that autumn. She was having a spendthrift holiday quite unlike any other she’d ever taken, and enjoying it immensely.

  The lawyers made very heavy weather of the sale of the house but they increased speed once she’d spent an hour in their chambers. ‘I en’t got all the time in the world,’ she said briskly, ‘so I will tell ’ee what I propose. If I move into that house before the end of the month you shall have a bonus of ten per cent on top of the fee we’ve agreed. If I don’t I shall deduct two per cent of the fee for every day’s delay. How say you?’

  They were so alarmed they agreed to her terms almost at once, telling each other afterwards that they’d never known such a client, never in all their born days, but excusing their frailty before her onslaught by declaring that a woman with such determination would be bound to bring them more custom if they kept on the right side of her.

  So she moved into her fine house on her third visit to the town and furnished it at great expense and in the latest style, buying a fine oak table and a set of chairs made locally according to Mr Chippendale’s book, and a chaise-longue and four matching armchairs, and new feather-beds for her entire household, and a red, green and gold carpet for the drawing-room to match the red curtains and the gold decorations on the plasterwork.

  She was full of energy, choosing fabrics and wallpapers and bed linens, hiring servants, arguing with tradesmen, terrifying Mr Orton, the manager of her shop, and always determined to get her own way. In October she began to entertain, befriending the more prestigious of the local tradesmen and their wives, seeking out the Mayor and several members of his corporation, and making her position in this small society richly evident. And among all the others, she took her next-door neighbour under her flamboyant wing.

  Miss Amelia Pettie was fifty-eight and looked seventy, a small, frail lady with powder-white, wrinkled skin, faded blue eyes and pale-yellow ringlets carefully arranged on either side of her shrunken cheeks. She had a considerable fortune and no self-confidence, so she live
d alone, except for her servants in a house very nearly as big as Nan’s but nowhere near so fine. She was always on the verge of apologizing for something and had the most annoying habit of fidgeting with her bonnet or her lace cap whenever she was worried or confused.

  ‘Drat the woman,’ Nan said to Bessie after the lady’s first appearance at a tea party, ‘Why don’t she leave that cap of hers alone, always clawing at it. ’Tis a wonder she don’t pull it off her head.’

  ‘’Tis her false hair, mum, that’s what ’tis,’ Bessie explained, watching to see that the parlour-maid was clearing the tea things properly. ‘She’s mortal afraid of it a-slippin’. Jane told me.’

  It appeared that Jane was Miss Pettie’s lady’s maid and knew all her secrets. ‘Her hair’s gone thin, poor soul,’ Bessie went on as the parlour maid left the room, giggling quietly. ‘All them yeller ringlets is false, hair pieces every last one of ’em, sewn to a band an’ the band pinned under her cap, d’yer see mum? So they give her the fidgets on account of she can’t never be certain they ain’t a-slippin’ out a’ place. Poor soul!’

  ‘Poor soul indeed,’ Nan laughed, but she was thinking how sad it was that Miss Pettie couldn’t keep such a sordid little secret to herself. But that was the way of the world. Servants always knew every last little detail about their masters’ lives. And she wondered what would be said about her when Calverley eventually swallowed his pride and came to live in Bury with her. There’s a price to pay for everything, she thought, and the price for wealth was gossip. But well worth paying when it had given her such a fine house to live in. Oh, well worth paying.

  At the end of October, Bessie’s baby was born. It was a fine, strong boy and they called him Tom, because, as his father explained, ‘He’s got enough ter contend with bein’ called Thistlethwaite, poor little beggar, without another mouthful fer a Christian name an’ all.’

  And after that, the winter set it with frosts and chill winds and it was plainly time for Nan and Annie to return to Chelsea.

  But even though Calverley continued to brag to his new friends at White’s about his rich fiancée, the famous Mrs Nan Easter, somehow or other he didn’t get around to proposing to her.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  In the spring of 1808, just before Nan’s third summer in Bury, Colonel Leigh’s predictions were fulfilled. Napoleon Bonaparte marched a French army through Spain to attack the Portuguese. And Sir Arthur Wellesley set sail for Lisbon with 20,000 British troops to oppose him.

  There was considerable jubilation in London, for now at last the British army was to take the field again, which was exactly what everybody had been wanting them to do for years. And as every Englishman knew in his bones that the British fighting man was a match for anyone, there were high hopes that the French war would soon be over and done with. It had dragged on long enough in all conscience, with inflation getting worse and worse and high food prices and shortages and a waste of young lives that was now becoming noticeable.

  ‘High time we showed old Boney what’s what,’ Thiss said as he and Nan set off to Printing House Square. ‘’E’ll meet ‘is match now, so ’e will.’

  It sounded very likely, Nan said. But what was certain was that such good news brought an increase in the demand for newspapers. Her London shops were again beseiged by eager customers. It was quite like the old days when Nelson won his victories at Cape St Vincent and the Nile and Trafalgar, and it kept her so busy she was rarely in the house. As she wrote to Thomasina and Evelina Callbeck, ‘There is so much work my present newsmen are exhausted. I take on new sellers by the day and still we cannot meet the demand. ’Tis a fine thing for trade, howsomever it do wear out shoe leather.’

  In the May the Clarence’s received their marching orders. Calverley went round to White’s at once to see what more he could discover about it, and there he met Hanley-Brown and Fortescue in the foyer. They were glowing with excitement.

  ‘Off to the wars, eh?’ Hanley-Brown beamed. ‘Just signin’ off here, don’tcher know? What sport!’

  ‘Bit of luck meeting you Leigh,’ Fortescue said. ‘Wouldn’t need a racehorse by any chance, would you?’

  ‘Fine filly,’ Hanley-Brown said. ‘Two-year-old, goes like the wind.’

  Until that moment Calverley had never thought of owning a race-horse, but immediately the suggestion was made he could see that it was just the sort of stylish possession for a man in his position, and what was more it would be a palpable source of income. His interest was immediate and practical.

  ‘How much do you ask?’

  ‘Hundred guineas,’ Fortescue said. ‘We have half-shares, d’you see. Could you stand such a price?’

  ‘Easily,’ Calverley said. He couldn’t, but he felt pretty sure he could persuade young Billy to cough up, and as luck would have it Nan was away in St Albans, renting a new shop. ‘Where do you stable her?’

  ‘Newmarket,’ Hanley-Brown said eagerly. ‘She’s a deuced strong filly.’

  ‘Who is your trainer?’

  ‘Richard Prince. A good man. Trains for the Prince of Wales now and then, don’tcher know?’

  Calverley didn’t know but he assumed a knowledgeable expression. ‘I will consult with my cousin,’ he said with splendid aplomb. ‘Colonel Leigh, you know, the Prince’s racing manager. What is the name of the filly?’

  ‘Pirouette,’ Hanley-Brown said, impressed by the mention of Prinny’s trainer. ‘Did well over the Rowley Mile in April. Tell him that.’

  ‘We are off in ten days,’ Fortescue said. ‘I should like the matter signed and settled before then. ’Twould be a sad thing to leave such a creature in unknown hands.’ He was growing quite sentimental about the filly, now that she was up for sale, which was odd considering he’d only set eyes on her three times and had cursed her roundly on the last occasion because she’d come in fourth and lost him a deal of money.

  ‘Give me two days to raise the money,’ Calverley said. And he went straight off to the stockroom to see Billy.

  ‘A hundred guineas,’ Billy said, sucking the end of his quill pen. ‘That’s a powerful amount of money. Does Ma agree?’

  ‘Never known her refuse yet,’ Calverley said easily.

  ‘Perhaps we should ask her,’ Billy worried. ‘She should be back the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘If I wait half a day I shall lose the chance. Never get another filly like it, not at this price, devil take it.’

  So Billy allowed himself to be persuaded, although very much against his better judgement, and the filly was bought. And Calverley went down to Newmarket, where, on the very afternoon that she passed into his ownership, and to her trainer’s secret surprise, she came in third in the half mile and won him nearly a quarter of the price he’d paid for her. He was very well pleased and pronounced her ‘a sterling creature’. But on her next outing, she reverted to form, and lost him thirty-five guineas, so that he came back to London considerably out of pocket. And as Nan was back, he couldn’t touch young Billy for any more cash. It was deuced annoying.

  I shall have to marry her, he thought. I never have enough money these days, and ’tis downright demeaning to have to go begging to young Billy, amenable though he always is.

  Actually, had he known it, young Billy was beginning to suspect he was being used. He’d spent two sleepless nights worrying about it, for a hundred guineas was far too much to have gone missing from the takings without being noticed and Mr Leigh showed no sign of putting it back. Finally he decided to tell his brother.

  ‘What do ’ee think?’ he asked, when supper was over and the two of them had retired to their bedroom and the full tale had been told.

  ‘I think he’s dishonest,’ Johnnie said. ‘He don’t ask me, you notice.’

  There was an unpalatable truth in that. ‘No,’ Billy said shamefacedly. ‘What should I do, Johnnie?’

  ‘We will tell Mr Teshmaker,’ Johnnie decided. ‘He’s a good man, and he knows about the law.’

  Mr Teshmaker took
the story with his customary calm, and had instant and practical advice to offer. ‘We must hope that this matter may be resolved without loss,’ he said. ‘Howsomever, that is something you may safely leave to me. Might I suggest that in the event of any further requirements for loans of any kind, from whichever quarter they may come, you refer the matter to me. Inform the person concerned that you are no longer empowered to handle the firm’s money. That would be quite in order.’

  ‘Do you think he will tell Mama?’ Billy asked when he and Johnnie were back at Cheyne Walk that evening.

  ‘In his own time, I daresay,’ Johnnie said. ‘He’s a wily old bird.’

  But the wily old bird had already decided that if he could he would keep all knowledge of this affair from his mistress. She had too high an opinion of the extravagant Mr Leigh, and might not take kindly to those who baulked him, no matter how proper their motives. No, he would watch and wait. Sooner or later the gentleman would grow careless or too greedy. Then perhaps something might be done.

  But Calverley was very cautious that summer and he stayed cautious for well over a twelvemonth. Although he ran up considerable debts during the year, he took care not to approach young Billy until Nan had gone down to Bury. Then the boy’s well-rehearsed rebuff came as quite a shock.

  ‘Uncommon sensible,’ he said, covering at once. ‘Quite agree. Got to keep these things regular, damme if you ain’t.’ But his heart was pounding quite painfully. Who’d ha’ thought the young pup would go blabbing to that legal feller? Deuce take it, he thought, now what am I to do? I wish I hadn’t bought that damn filly. She’s nothing but expense. But he couldn’t sell her because her form was too well known. Deuce take it, what am I to do?

  Luckily the fortunes of war gave him an opportunity. In August news came through that there had been a great British victory at the place in Spain called Talevera and that Sir Arthur Wellesley was to be Viscount Wellington by way of reward. And Nan wrote to him from Bury to say that a grand ball was planned as a celebration. He made up his mind at once. He would beg four days leave of Mr Chaplin and go down to Bury and escort her to the ball. ’Twould be a romantic setting in which to ask her to marry him. For the sooner they were man and wife the better. What if Mr Teshmaker were to speak to her before he got the chance to propose? No, no, he’d delayed too long already. They would have to marry and marry soon. Matters were becoming too complicated.