‘’Tis an uncommon good meeting,’ he write, ‘with plenty of entertainments and many friends hereabouts which I have not seen for years. Jericho cast a shoe on the way. Pirouette is in good shape. Johnnie and I had words before I left. We were both too far gone in drink to know what we were saying. Goosegogs serve a capital brandy. I trust he will not concern you with it, for ‘twas all nonsense. Your own Calverley.’
The last day of the meeting was chill and misty but his friends, old and new, were in high good humour and came rollicking to the inn to collect him. ‘Uncommon poor weather,’ they told him cheerfully, but they were full of ideas for improving it and most of them could be carried in the hamper they’d so thoughtfully provided, pork pies, veal pies, chicken and ham pies, pressed tongue and potted meats, to say nothing of an assortment of spirited beverages to keep out the cold, like cherry brandy and sloe gin and British Hollands flavoured with essence of cloves. All of which he seemed to have consented to pay for, it being, as they were happy to point out, ‘your day at the races today, me dear.’
It was a cheerful excursion and the cherry brandy proved to be an excellent antidote to damp even if it did make him feel rather fuddled by the middle of the afternoon. ‘Nothin’ like a nip,’ he said happily, as he stood by the rail waiting for the three o’clock start.
And a familiar voice at his elbow said ‘Could you spare a nip for an old soldier?’
He turned rather dizzily, ready to send the beggar packing, and found himself staring at his old friend Captain Hanley-Brown.
‘My dear chap! What a pleasure to see you!’ he said proffering the brandy bottle at once. ‘Feel free, me dear chap, feel free.’
But as Hanley-Brown took a swig from the bottle, Calverley saw how terribly changed he was, his clothes old and soiled, his hair grey at the temples and his round face so lined it looked at though somebody had squashed it between two weights. But worse than any of these things, oh far, far worse, was the wooden stump where his left leg had been.
‘Left it at Talevera,’ Hanley-Brown explained, noticing the direction of Calverley’s glance. ‘Took clean off by a cannon ball, so ’twas.’
‘My dear feller!’
‘Can’t be helped. Fortunes a’ war, don’t cher know. Have you married your rich widow yet?’
‘No, no. But ’tis only a matter of time.’
‘Still playing the field eh?’ Hanley-Brown said admiringly. ‘You always were a dog for the ladies. I wish I could say the same, damme. ’Tis all changed now, so ’tis. Women don’t take kindly to wooden underpinnings, and that’s a fact. I must pay for my pleasures now, or go without. You don’t know what a lucky dog you are.’
‘Pray take another nip of sustenance,’ Calverley said so as to deflect him from his gloom. ‘’Tain’t the weather to be standing about.’
‘At least you’ve two legs to stand upon,’ Hanley-Brown mourned. ‘Which is more than may be said for me. I say, this is dammed fine brandy. Don’t know when I’ve tasted better.’
So naturally one of Calverley’s new friends had to be dispatched to replenish the bottle, and, equally naturally, the two old comrades in arms spent the rest of the afternoon re-living old campaigns, between frequent ‘nips of sustenance’.
By the time the runners were being lined up for the Five Hundred Guineas, neither of them could stand without support. They clung to the rail trying to focus their eyes upon their hopes.
‘I backed our filly, don’tcher know,’ Hanley-Brown said. ‘A hundred to one on.’
‘D’you meanter shay, backed her to win?’
‘Backed her to win. Five shillings. Hundred to one one.’
‘I shall do the shame,’ Calverley decided. ‘Be sho good as to shupport me, sir.’
They staggered to the nearest bookie but he declared it was too late. ‘They’re off, sir. Look.’
‘Deuce take it,’ Calverley complained. ‘How’s a man to bet if the dammed horses run before he’s ready. Must have a bet, damme.’ And he pulled a handful of sovereigns from his pocket and shook them at the bookie. They were all that remained of his pay, but he held them with the air of a man to whom such riches were nothing. So the bet was placed even though the field had disappeared into the mist.
‘Go to – winnin’ posht,’ Hanley-Brown suggested. ‘Shee – finish.’
Then punters all around them were peering into the mist, and they could hear hooves drumming towards them. And presently the heads and shoulders of the runners appeared, disembodied between the blue vapour swathing their legs and the smoke clouding from their bodies. For a few seconds it wasn’t even possible to make out the colours, but then they drew closer and Calverley suddenly realized with a shock that almost sobered him that Pirouette was lying third. Then he and Hanley-Brown were yelling ‘Pirouette! Come on Pirouette! Come on!’ and the noise and excitement reached a crescendo fit to burst their ears, and she was making ground, she was second and still coming on, she was straining every muscle. And the sweat-blackened bodies flashed past his view, and his filly had won by a short head.
He couldn’t believe his luck. Five Hundred Guineas! ’Twas a fortune.
‘Congratulations, sir!’ Mr Prince said when his employer had collected his winnings. ‘I told ’ee she’d run well. ’Tis a tidy old sum sir!’
‘It is, Mr Prince.’
‘You’ll be thinking of settling your stable bills now sir, I daresay.’
He was in such a state of stunned euphoria he wasn’t thinking at all. But why not? He could settle all his bills now, every single one.
So he paid Mr Prince and collected his winnings from the bookie and gave Hanley-Brown a fiver, ‘for old times sake’ and staggered back to the hotel where there was another account to be met for an incomprehensible quantity of food and drink. Then he put his winnings under the mattress and fell across the bed, stupid with cherry brandy and good fortune. Luck was on his side after all. One more stroke like that and how could she refuse to marry him? Blessed by fortune, he thought, and slept as though he’d been pole-axed.
Chapter Thirty-seven
‘What is to be done about it?’ Johnnie said, scowling across the table at his brother and Mr Teshmaker. ‘If they marry he will fritter away our livelihood in less than a year. You may depend upon it.’
The three men had dined together in the City and now they were gathered in Mr Teshmaker’s quiet office with cigars lit and brandy before them as an aid to digestion and thought, and Johnnie had passed on Mr Leigh’s carelessly given information.
‘Howsomever, Mr John, as I need hardly point out, they are not married yet,’ Mr Teshmaker said, narrowing his eyes against the smoke from his cigar, ‘and that being so, and with the constrictions we have placed upon him, there is no way in which the gentleman can obtain monies from the company other than from the hands of Mrs Easter herself.’
‘Which he does often enough, in all conscience,’ Johnnie said, ‘and gambles it away or spends it on one of his whores.’
Billy was shocked, as his brother had intended. ‘Oh, Johnnie! He don’t, do he?’
‘I fear so, Mr William,’ Mr Teshmaker said smoothly. ‘Meg Purser had some pretty trinkets last summer and was not slow to flaunt them. Howsomever, ’tis of very little consequence. The matter which should properly concern us now is the matter of this proposed marriage.’
‘He shouldn’t spend Mama’s money on other women,’ Billy complained. ‘Why, that’s the sort of low trick you’d expect of some low crimping-fellow, with no morals, damme if it ain’t.’ Rain was pattering against the window panes like an irritable accompaniment to his anger.
‘What he spends upon his women is nothing to what he would spend if he got his hands on Mama’s entire fortune,’ Johnnie said. It was taking Billy a mortal long time to appreciate what a parlous position they were all in. ‘All our good work would go to waste, yours, mine, Mr Teshmaker’s, Mama’s.’
‘I’ll tell ’ee what’s to be done,’ Billy said, leaning forward towar
ds them until his face was within inches of the candle flame. ‘We will tell her how he presses us for money. That’s what we’ll do. See what she thinks of him then.’
If only I were twenty-five, Johnnie thought. I could run this firm so well, if I were old enough, and Mama would allow it. But he knew it could never happen. It wouldn’t occur to her that her ‘wretch’ would like to inherit. The firm would go to Billy, if it wasn’t fritted away by her feckless lover, and Billy, affable though he undoubtedly was, would make a poor leader. His affection was quick enough, but his wits were slow. Look what an unconscionable time he’d taken to understand what was going on now. And gullible too. If Mr Leigh made up to him, he’d forgive and forget, and watch him put his hands in the till again without misgivings. Oh, if only I were twenty-five. Eighteen was no age to be taken seriously.
Billy was still ranting his solution. ‘… tell her every last detail. That’s what.’
‘An admirable suggestion,’ Cosmo said diplomatically, removing the candles to a safer position. ‘And one we will most certainly act upon, should your mother accept the gentleman. Meantime, I feel it would be more politic to continue with caution. ’Twould be poor tactics to use our cannon before we have need of ’em. No no, ’tis my opinion we should save our fire.’
‘And say nothing!’ Billy said, throwing himself back in his amazement so that the candles on the sconces behind him guttered in the draught he was causing. ‘Nothing!’
‘Your mother is a woman of infinite good sense,’ Cosmo said, ‘which I need hardly tell ’ee. She may refuse the gentleman, in which case our warning would merely serve as an irritant, and an unnecessary one at that.’
‘Or she may accept him,’ Johnnie pointed out quietly.
‘That is the other eventuality,’ Cosmo agreed. ‘And if she does, then we shall have at least three weeks in which to enlighten her. I will tell you now, gentlemen, that I have not been idle upon this matter over the years. There is an account book in the corner cupboard there, which contains a list of all the monies Mr Leigh has either borrowed, from you, Mr William and others, or attempted to borrow, from you, Mr John and you, Mr William and others, and I can tell ’ee that both are formidable sums.’
The brothers were impressed, and a little surprised that their quiet servant should have been so devious. He smiled at them. ‘’Tis my living too,’ he said.
‘I have such plans for this company,’ Johnnie confided, his tongue loosened by the brandy. ‘We could extend so easily. Now that the roads are improved, Mr Chaplin will soon be running coaches to every town in the kingdom. We should follow him. There would be trade a-plenty, I’m sure on it.’
‘Such a venture would take a deal of organization,’ Cosmo said, but his expression was encouraging.
‘Organization is nothing to our Johnnie,’ Billy said proudly. ‘You should see his room at home, Mr Teshmaker. Full of coach timetables, damme if it ain’t. He can tell you what days all the stage-coaches run, to the very hour, what’s more. And should you want to know how long ’twould take to get to any town you care to name, why Johnnie’s the man. He’s an absolute marvel at it.’
‘All of which knowledge could be used to ensure the transportation of newspapers,’ Cosmo said, understanding at once.
‘Indeed,’ Johnnie said with pride.
‘Have you told your mother of this?’
‘No.’
‘Then, if you will allow me to advise you, I would suggest that you do. It would be necessary to wait until a suitable moment presents itself, of course, and it would need to be done tactfully. Howsomever, I feel certain you could engage her interest.’
‘If it ain’t all given over to Mr Leigh,’ Johnnie sighed. It was against his nature to be optimistic.
‘Rot him!’ Billy said, helping himself to more brandy. ‘Can’t see what she sees in the feller.’
At that moment, she was seeing a very pretty gold cross set with amethysts, which her newly affluent lover had bought in Cambridge on his way back from Newmarket.
‘Fie upon you, Calverley,’ she teased him, when she took it from its little padded box. ‘D’ye think to bribe me?’ But it was a delightful present and she was filled with pleasure at the sight of it.
‘Sweets to the sweet,’ he said. ‘Or ain’t you in the humour to be courted?’
‘You may court all you please, you foolish crittur,’ she said, ‘providing you don’t ask me to wed. Have you heard the news? The poor old king’s gone mad again. In a strait-jacket so they do say. What will become of un, poor soul? I shall wear this cross with my purple silk at the New Year’s Ball.’
By the New Year’s Ball every newspaper reader in London knew what had become of poor old King George. He was now so completely and irretrievably mad that he was to be ‘put away’ and the Prince of Wales was to be appointed Regent. There was much speculation as to the sort of government he would form now that those two great antagonists Mr Pitt and Mr Fox were dead, and the speculation increased the sales of all Nan’s newspapers.
But although she was pleased that her profits were improved, she was more interested in the entertainments that would be bound to follow. The Regency Bill was passed in February, and sure enough there were masques and pageants and military reviews and a sudden crop of patriotic plays. And three weeks later the Regent held his first levee in his new London residence. It was such a huge success he decided to hold another even bigger one in the summer.
‘Now that will be an uncommon grand affair, I can tell ’ee,’ Nan said to Calverley, ‘if the first was anything to go by. Would I could be there to see it.’
‘To mix with Prinny’s set?’ he mocked her.
‘I can see no reason why not,’ she told him. ‘I’m as rich as many he makes one with. A sight richer if the truth be told. And a sight better too, in all conscience. ’Tis only snobbery that keeps out “trade”.’
It was a passing conversation which she soon forgot, particularly as she received a letter from Annie in the very next post telling her that she was to be a grandmother in October. But because he knew he would see Colonel Leigh within the next week or so, Calverley acted upon it.
The invitation arrived at the end of March, and although it was addressed to them both he insisted that she open it. It was very impressive, being printed in gold leaf on vellum, no less, and it requested the presence of Calverley Leigh Esquire and Mrs Ann Easter at Carlton House for 9.00 pm on June 19th 1811 to attend the levee of H.R.H. the Prince Regent.
‘My heart alive!’ she said, eyes shining. ‘How did ’ee do it?’
‘Trade secret,’ he told her, warmed by her delight.
‘My heart alive!’ she said again. ‘What shall I wear?’
She took particular care over her dress and appearance for this grand occasion, knowing how many important people would see her there. Calverley said he would wear his plain blue frock-coat and his blue beaver, which were the most stylish garments he possessed, with a white stock and white breeches to set them off in the Brummel-approved manner. But for Nan the choice wasn’t quite so easy. She decided against the white muslin so beloved of all the young girls that season, choosing instead one of the heavy, dark figured satins that complimented her colouring and set off her diamonds and pearls and was more appropriate to her age. As Thiss drove them down the wide cobbled Mall towards the colonnaded facade of Carlton House, she was preening with excitement and satisfaction.
They were received in a hall entirely hung with blue embroidered silk, and drowsy with the scent of hundreds of pink and red roses. It seemed to Nan that half of London was already in the room, from elderly generals in full dress uniform to young nymphs in transparent gauze, and it surprised her that so few people were paying attention to the new arrivals even when their names were most pompously announced. She found them fascinating and watched them make their entrance, one after the other, like over-dressed actors posing for applause. And the seventh name to be announced after her own arrival was that of Sir Osmond Eas
ter and his wife.
He seemed to have discovered enough cash to dress well for this occasion, for he was sporting a bottle-green tail coat with discreet gold buttons, an embroidered waistcoat, new pink trousers and the customary pair of gold fobs dangling at his waist. But it was his wife who interested Nan. A new wife, obviously, for she looked excessively nervous and awkward, and extremely young, barely out of the schoolroom. The poor creature was heavily pregnant, her belly rising from under the constraints of a high blue waistband and lifting the front hem of her empire gown a good four inches above the ground. Two Easters due this autumn, Nan thought, for Annie was about as far gone. Well, well, who would ha’ thought it?
But then of course it was necessary to push her way through the crush and make sure that Sir Osmond knew she was there. It was a little triumph.
‘Why, nephew!’ she said, with artlessly feigned surprise. ‘What a pleasure to see ’ee to be sure.’
He was very annoyed and for a second his face showed it. Then he recovered and they introduced their partners, which was another moment of most enjoyable spite. ‘Mr Calverley Leigh, of whom you have heard, I daresay.’
‘Your servant, sir.’ Oh, if only he were! She’d make him jump so she would.
‘I trust Miss Thomasina and Miss Evelina are well.’
‘Oh yes indeed,’ the new Lady Osmond said, smiling shyly.
‘Pray give them my regards when you return. ’Tis pleasant to have such friends in one’s family, is it not?’
But the crush shifted around them as she spoke and Sir Osmond took advantage of it to make his escape. She watched him retreat well pleased with her successful sarcasm, but then the wretched man contrived to have the last word. ‘My dear,’ he drawled, as he steered his wife through the crowd, ‘the people one is forced to meet nowadays! Who would have imagined we would have to mix with tradesmen in such a place as this? Really the Regent has no ton at all.’
Tuppenny Times Page 50