Book Five: A Poor Man
at the Gate Series
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Privilege Preserved
Copyright © 2014 by Andrew Wareham
All Rights Reserved
Contents:
Title Page
Copyright Page
Scene Setter
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Book Six in the Series
Scene Setter
The continuing story of erstwhile, small-time smuggler Tom Andrews, who in earlier adventures, escaped from England to avoid the hangman’s noose. He was shanghaied onto a Caribbean bound privateering ship, before Tom fled to New York, accompanied by Joseph Star, a part Carib freeman. They were betrayed and were forced to return to England at the beginning of the first great industrial boom; as unscrupulous businessmen they quickly became wealthy. Tom met the beautiful, Lady Verity Masters, the daughter of an impoverished local aristocrat. Later, Tom and Verity set out their plans to place their dynasty in a position of economic, social and political leadership in England. All seemed to be going smoothly until tragedy struck.
In Privilege Preserved, the families prosper but also face daunting challenges. Particularly Henry Star, whose inclination to indulge in ‘dirty dealing’ results in him being involved in murder.
Introduction
Tom and Joseph’s sons are increasingly successful in the world of commerce. Even James, who returns to London crippled, faces new challenges. Tom is rebuilding his personal life but is inevitably being side-lined by their successes.
Wealthy from dealings in New Orleans, Henry Star becomes involved in murder. He contemplates marrying the daughter of an American judge – not however, for her looks! Meanwhile, the settlers in upstate New York are facing dangers from disease.
Mark Star, whose relationship with would-be revolutionary Christopher is increasingly uneasy, seeks to distance himself to protect his career.
Riots are widespread. Tom’s information helps convict some rioters. However, revenge could be in the offing.
There are dubious activities in Bombay involving the slave trade and opium.
Author’s Note: I have written and punctuated Privilege Preserved in a style reflecting English usage in novels of the Georgian period, when typically, sentences were much longer than they are in modern English. Editor’s Note: Andrew’s book was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English.
Book Five: A Poor Man
at the Gate Series
Chapter One
The Thames was crowded, a sure sign that the Depression was passing and trade was expanding again. There were Thames barges and lighters, Newcastle colliers by the score, trows from the Severn, and yawls and brigs and luggers from every British port, literally hundreds of mostly tiny coasters far outnumbering the dozens of blue-water barquentines and ships. Amongst the largest ships there were East and West Indiamen, Levanters, Hudson’s Bay traders, Africa Company palm oil carriers and Baltic timber merchants. As well there were the various rigs bringing wheat for the flour mills from the Black Sea and the Germanies and the States, hides and tallow and cheeses from Ireland, wines by the thousands of barrels from France and Spain and Portugal and Italy and Madeira.
The coasters were all, without exception, British registered and the blue-water vessels showed at least ten times as many ‘red dusters' as all of the other national flags put together. One advantageous result of the recent war had been to encourage British merchant shipping to grow in number, taking advantage of the Navy’s command of the seas, and many of the English hulls had actually been built overseas and captured as prizes. Both France and America had lost the bulk of their merchant fleet to the British, setting them at a disadvantage in world trading that the British merchants were profiting from.
The tide was making but the wind was gusting from the west and every master wanted to tie up before the ebb forced him to anchor in sight of his berth but unable to cover the last few cables. The rules no longer mattered and ships tacked across each other’s bows in defiance of law and reason, the air fouled with obscenities in every accent of the British Isles and most of the world’s languages.
James leant against the stern rails of his wine ship from Madeira and winced as he saw another pair of bows collide, heard the crackle of splintered planking, waited for the screams of injured sailors. None this time, just a glancing blow, it seemed.
A boat hailed them, offered a tow, the bowman holding up five fingers and waiting for the master’s reluctant nod then throwing a rope to their bows, eight men at the oars heaving their hardest and bringing them, expensively, into the wharf.
“Worth it, Mr Andrews – I had rather pay out five guineas than wait twelve more hours in the stream with the chance of half the bloody fools in England fouling my cables the while. We can’t use our own boat, of course, four oars is too small and the Thames watermen would run her down anyway – they protect their monopoly.”
James nodded to the master, said that he would be happy to find the money himself for the opportunity of stepping on dry land again. His face crumpled as he said the words unthinkingly, he had forgotten for a few minutes that he would be stepping very slowly and carefully on his wooden leg.
“No need, thank’ee, Mr Andrews, the owners will pay up – time is money to them as well. If you wait just twenty minutes after we have the gangplank secured, sir, I shall arrange to have a carriage waiting for you. I was used to work the cotton from Savannah, sir, carried many a cargo for Roberts and Star and was always well treated by them in port, sir, so it is the least I can do.”
James made his thanks – he had dined at the captain’s table for the month of the passage, not separately with the four other passengers, and had wondered, vaguely, just why he had been looked after so well. Passengers, he had always heard, were no more than a nuisance on merchant ships but he had been regarded as a welcome guest. He made a written note, cabin door closed so that he would not be seen, to remind himself to mention Captain Fazackerly’s name to his father. He wondered whether he had the spelling right, but it would not matter; there would not be two of them sailing for the one wine merchant.
He picked up his walking stick, swearing to be rid of it within three months on land, limped slowly across the deck, placing his peg-leg carefully on the wet planking. The limb was a simple piece of timber, official Army pattern, not unlike a table leg with a leather pad at t
he bottom and webbing straps pinned to the top; it was not very comfortable. Murphy at his shoulder, he grabbed at the ropes of the gangplank, thirty feet long with a drop of six, steep enough to be hard work, made his way slowly down, almost all of his weight on his arms and shoulders. He had a barrel chest now, the muscles of a much larger man working for him, but he was sweating by the time he sat down in the coach.
“Easier than it was in Madeira, Murphy. Slow progress, but I will walk freely again, and before too many months are past!”
“You will, sir, but maybe you should not be running just yet.”
James nodded, gave the driver the address of the family lawyer, Michael’s offices.
“Mr James, sir! I did not expect to see you in England again these many years... Oh dear! I am so sorry, sir!” Michael fussed with a chair, covering his own embarrassment, trying to find the appropriate words and deciding there were none. If he could say nothing sensible then it was better to say nothing at all. “You have arrived before the mail, as is normally the case, of course, coming from the Indies. You are aware of...”
James nodded as Michael’s voice tailed off.
“I was told in Bombay of my mother’s death, Mr Michael, a year ago now, I believe. How is my father?”
“Hard hit at first, as you will imagine, Mr James, but behaving very well in public, as one would expect of such a man as he. He is a great man, you know, sir, to others, not just to his children! He is to remarry next week, the family having decided it were best for him, I believe, your sister being wed and the house having no mistress.”
It seemed rather hurried to James, but on reflection he was inclined to agree that his father could not live a single life, no man of affairs could. The Hall must have a hostess, he must have a woman to organise his life and meet his social commitments, he must not become reclusive and eccentric as so many widowers seemed to. Mother would have approved, he thought, she had always demanded the course of duty.
“Where is he to wed, Mr Michael? I am glad I can be present for that, at least. I so much regret having missed Mama’s obsequies.”
Thinking, slowly, he realised he was not too unhappy that his mother would never know of his lost leg, she would have been so upset. He wondered if she might be aware anyway, the chaplain at school had seemed to say something like that, when he had bothered to listen to him, that was.
They arranged for James to travel to Dorset later in the week, post-chaise and easy stages. It was essential to visit a tailor first to fit him out for civilian life.
“Scott, sir?”
“Where else for a soldier, Mr Michael?” He tried to smile, to make the rider lightly, “besides, he will have experience of my particular needs.”
Two hours and James was being fussed over in the Clarendon and an Express was on its way to Dorchester and Michael was in a cab for Mount Street.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Mr Robert, knowing that you are to travel to Dorset tomorrow and must have a hundred things to do today, but your brother Mr James disembarked this morning, off a fast wine ship from Madeira. He will need to spend a few days in Town, at his tailors first of all, so I have put him up at the Clarendon, sir, rather than be alone here in a closed house. He has lost a leg, sir, will soldier no more.”
Robert swore, his first thought that his father did not need this worry so close to his marriage.
“I must go to him, Mr Michael, he must not be left on his own, must know that we are so glad to see him alive – a leg in India could so easily have meant death... What will he do now, poor lad?”
Michael shook his head, he did not know, but he was able to say that he had not been required to find a set of rooms in London, the young gentleman did not at the moment plan to live in Town.
“What can he do? He could go up to Oxford, he is of an age, but I cannot imagine he would have any use for their offerings. There is no place for him in Roberts or the bank, for lack of the appropriate talents, between the ears, that is... the same must apply at the shipyards. He could take a farm, perhaps, but the life would be hard for a cripple. He must have occupation, but I cannot imagine what.”
“A leader of men, sir? Perhaps on a plantation, in America, even in Ireland?”
“No! The lash every day and the musket and noose in the background? Not for us, sir, not for our family. My father will have some ideas, I am sure.”
Robert ran up to Miriam’s rooms, threaded his way through every maidservant in the house as they packed and repacked nursery and dressing room with faint cries of distress and horror at each crisis as it arose.
“Shall I accompany you, Robert? I can make the time and I have yet to meet your brother.”
Courtesy demanded that she should be presented to James at the earliest possible moment, inconvenience be damned.
“You must, my dear. How soon can you be ready?”
Honesty demanded three hours at least, tact made her ask for twenty minutes, her dresser casting her eyes heavenwards behind her.
“What am I to say to him, Miriam? He was a fine soldier – athletic, handsome and unthinking, high-couraged, all that one could demand. Now what is there for him?”
“He is too old to read for a profession, I believe, Robert, and from all you have said I gather unsuited in other ways for the Law or the Church.”
“Wholly, and he will not come into the Roberts foundries or shipyards for the same reasons. He is a younger son and he has a right to an income, but probably no more than five or six hundreds a year, barely sufficient to live on as a single man. His mother’s portion would normally have come down to the younger children, but, of course, in the Masters’ circumstances...”
They fell silent as the carriage rolled slowly through the crowded streets, drays, delivery vans, cabs and private conveyances of all sizes intermingled with pedestrians, horsemen and stray dogs, all determined to take the straightest line to their destination and never a policeman in existence to demand obedience to any regulation.
“It would have been quicker to walk, Robert!”
“Not in skirts that brush the ground, ma’am!”
She grimaced – the pervading odour of overworked and often bean-fed horses lending strength to his argument.
“Not a farm, he would never be able to walk his fields in wet weather. Not an estate manager for much the same reason. He is too young to take the Family place on the Bench and, what is it, the Poor Law Board?”
“He lacks the experience for either, as well.”
“So, Robert, he needs an occupation, for idleness would do him no good at all. Lacking skills, without any great education or understanding of affairs and unable to work very hard in physical terms – what can he do?”
The solution struck both at once.
“The family has several seats, my dear...”
“He must become a politician!”
James was nerving himself to go out into the street, to be seen in public and be exposed to the curious and the sympathetic, when they arrived, was glad to have an excuse to delay his outing. He had already met up with great kindness and almost unfailing offers of help and assistance to cross the road, to open a door, to walk through the lobby – he told himself that he must smile and express his thanks, they meant well and it was better than abuse.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Robert, and you, ma’am.”
“I had to James, there could be no other choice. You will dine with us this evening? Privately, we have no company tonight.”
James would be pleased to do so, tried to think of something to say to Miriam, to do the correct thing – he was none too skilled in converse with young and attractive ladies. She, better trained socially perhaps, was able to break the ice, asking about the campaign in Burma which they had had some reports of and drawing him out to describe the jungle and its horrors, shuddering delicately at leeches and snakes so bravely endured.
James hastened to say that it was not all bad, there were compensations.
“You sh
ould see the present the rajah of the valley we took made me, sister!”
James hobbled across his sitting room, the leg tired from the morning’s journeying, and opened his valise, drew out the gems, still wrapped in their silk.
“Princely indeed, James! A star ruby that must be the finest I have ever seen, but perhaps too showy for a gentleman of English tastes? It would make a wonderful brooch, one any lady would be very glad to wear. The two sapphires are also fine stones, but more suitable for an elderly gentleman or a dowager, I would say, they are not correct for a young man. The other two rubies though, they would make impressive signet rings, heirloom pieces to pass on to a son!” Miriam was openly envious – she loved coloured stones.
Robert took the hint, said that he possessed no signet, would dearly wish to purchase one of the pair, after a short argument persuaded James to have them valued so that he could do so.
“What do you say, Robert? A sapphire as a gift to Father and the star ruby to his bride. The other sapphire to Lord Star, perhaps?”
Lavish gifts at first sight, many thousands of pounds if they had been purchased. But it was never easy to sell jewellery on, it was a lucky man who could secure a quarter of a stone’s price from any trader, and the cost to James had been nothing. Robert, the banker, assessed James’ actions, found them wise, far-seeing indeed, was surprised at the lad’s acumen, agreed that he should make the presents.
Miriam returned to Mount Street, her presence there essential, a dozen vital household decisions would be awaiting her already. Robert, very casually, said that he would accompany James to Scott, he had no other engagement for the afternoon and they had so much to talk about. James nodded and nerved himself to venture into the London crowds. Murphy provided hat and stick, bowed them to the door, caught Robert’s eye briefly, exchanged a look of understanding and thanks.
Privilege Preserved (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 5) Page 1