An Uncertain Peace (The Making of a Man Series, Book 3)

by Andrew Wareham

  That had not occurred to Dick; it seemed likely.

  "Thus, Sir Richard, I propose that you should place your shares into my hands in a formal trust. I would be tasked to sell off the shares in small parcels and at best price, taking quite possibly three or four years to move them all. Depending on your wishes, Sir Richard, the cash realised could be sent to England, or used in speculative ventures in the States. I have some amount of knowledge of the markets, sir, and could place your funds to very great advantage, particularly in the conditions that may be forecast at the end of the current conflict."

  And Dick's own hands would remain spotlessly clean while the lawyer dabbled in very murky waters indeed.

  "I think, Mr Halfpenny, that we may be able to proceed along those lines. I may well be occupied in places other than the Americas for a year or two. You will know that I hold a commission in the British Army, I presume? No? It is a matter of convenience to government, sir, and it does mean that I can on occasion be ordered to go overseas on the business of the Crown..."

  Being a lawyer, Mr Halfpenny believed the worst of every man; he wondered just what interest of the British government Dick was pursuing the while in America. He would have a quiet word, perhaps, with his own contacts in Washington.

  "Thus, Sir Richard, would you wish the funds to be released to your accounts in Liverpool or held here?"

  "I would desire you to put all of the monies accruing to you from my holdings in Parsons and Burke into investments in the States, sir. There is a matter of the accrued profits, of course, which might well be sent to Liverpool. There is also a possibility that I shall sell some or all of my land holdings in the Old North West. I might wish to discuss that with you separately, sir."

  Mr Halfpenny thought that to be very wise. He presented Dick with a document assigning him Power of Attorney and recommended him to put it in the hands of another attorney so as to ensure that he was entirely happy with it. They agreed to meet in Halfpenny's chambers in the morning to discuss the matter of land.

  Dick was left in the office with Liz, able for the first time to talk without the possible presence of eavesdroppers.

  "You have a very pretty little wife, Sir Richard, and most accomplished, too."

  "She will be a very good mother to my family, Liz. She provides respectability, which I am in need of, of course, and she knows how to go on in an English country house. She is a taking little thing as well - it is no hardship to keep company with her. What of Colonel Welland?"

  "A convenience, Dick! He is well aware that he has little of life left to him and prefers to spend it in comfort. He has connections and is, even in his present decayed state, possessed of a very sharp brain. As well, and importantly to him, he has a brother who is a politician, a Republican, of course, but of the hungrier sort; dear Jonathan has already pointed me in the right direction to make a useful little profit. The Colonel owns land outside of Boston and his brother expects to be heir to it. Should I produce a son, then the estate becomes his, of course, as heir of the Colonel's body. Unfortunately, the Colonel is hardly in the way of performing his necessary role in the business, but believes that may be no great hindrance to me..."

  There was a key in the door and a daybed in the inner office; both were brought into use.

  Dick managed to find reasons to delay their departure to Niagara for another couple of weeks; he sat back in the train out of Washington quite welcoming the rest. Satisfying the demands of the one young lady in the daytime and the other at night was really rather tiring.

  They rattled along the tracks at the decorous pace achieved on the American system during the war – the Express train seemed unknown in the States, certainly was not evident in cross-country travel. It was, however, possible to travel to New York in the day and then on the next reach the Great Lakes and their destination.

  The Falls were certainly one of the world’s great sights, outmatching by far anything to be discovered in Great Britain. Having seen them the question arose of what one did next; an hour watching water descend was wonderful, but even the world’s largest waterfall had a limited number of tricks in its repertoire and the noise rapidly became overpowering.

  “Are we booked long into the hotel, Sir Richard?”

  “Two nights, with the opportunity to extend, my dear. We could, perhaps, send a wire to Chicago.”

  “What a very good idea, sir! Having seen the sight, there is very little gain to seeing it again, I fear.”

  “I so much agree, my dear! The wonderful becomes tedious at a remarkable pace – perhaps we are spoiled in that we so rapidly become bored, but I find I can tolerate only so many gallons of falling water before suppressing a yawn.”

  The railroad became increasingly rickety as they moved westward. The rails themselves were laid single-track and almost on top of the soil rather than built into a solid permanent way and the wood-burning locomotives chugged along very slowly. Far faster and much more convenient than the stage, that had to be said, but the trains compared only poorly with the English railways. Dick sat aboard feeling smugly superior.

  Idle conversation with other passengers established that the American railroads had been built at less than one tenth of the cost of the English. Part of the difference was accounted for by the expense of purchasing land and rights-of-way in England, but much was attributable to the simpler construction of track and rolling stock. The result was that American railroads very often made a profit, something that most of the English found absolutely impossible.

  They arrived in Chicago, passing by the huge marshalling yards of the growing livestock quarter. A passenger sat across the aisle from them explained.

  “Hogs, sir, and increasingly beef. The meat packers are growing every month, sir. Bacon and hams by the thousands of tons and increasingly, canned beef to be sent overseas. Industries that were unheard of ten years ago employ thousands of men, and more and more women, and feed the poor of Europe in a fashion unbelievable before the war.”

  Dick had never heard of ‘canned’ beef, found the very concept hard to understand.

  “Going to England, you say, sir?”

  “By the shipload, sir. On the cars in trains sometimes a quarter of a mile long! To New York mostly and then across the Atlantic, and more every year. The cattle buyers are to be found at every railhead across the Plains and trail herds are coming up from the south, again in greater numbers every season. American wheat has been providing the bread for English stomachs for twenty years now; our beef will soon be doing the same, sir. I am employed by a shipper in New York, sir, Silas Mornington, my name, and I am to attempt to sign contracts to double the amount we shall send east this year. I say attempt, because the call is increasing every month and I may not be able to find the supplies we want.”

  “Major Sir Richard and Lady Burke, sir, visiting the States on this occasion and travelling as far as Missouri and Kansas to see the land my people have bought for me.”

  There was money in Chicago, that was obvious. Wherever there was any commodity in short supply and businessmen competing to purchase it, there was room for a profit. Dick was interested, somewhat to his own surprise – he had not realised just how much he enjoyed making money.

  He took his rooms in the hotel and escorted Louise about the town on the next day, eyes wide open. It was a taller town than any she had seen, buildings of three and four storeys a commonplace and some under construction that seemed likely to be higher. Despite the war it was thronged, busily prosperous.

  “I have been here before, my dear, and each time it has seemed that Chicago belongs to a greater extent to the East than to the West of America.”

  “It is a very fine city, Sir Richard. What are those great leather things in the window there?”

  “Buffalo hides, my dear. Warm and waterproof when made up into robes. They would be very impressive in Dorset, would they not?”

  They spent an hour in the store and spent money freely, which she rather enjoyed, her mother hav
ing had a tight hand on the purse-strings. Dick rather grandly arranged for the despatch of the robes to Dorset; he enjoyed giving the direction to the over-awed shop manager.

  “Addressed to Lady Burke at Burkes, near Blandford, in Dorsetshire in England, if you would be so good, sir. ‘Burkes’ is the name of the manor,” he explained with a most superior air. He paid in gold as well, the money giving him the right to be as condescending as he wished in the shopkeeper’s eyes.

  The election passed while they were in Chicago, almost as an anti-climax – the result was a certainty after the military successes. A year of worry and doubt had in the event simply become pointless fretting. As an outsider Dick was almost amused as he listened to people commenting that they did not know what all the fuss had been about, they could not imagine that there could ever have been any question of Mr Lincoln’s re-election. Who would possibly have supported such an inadequate general as McClellan or a traitor of Vallendigham’s stature? The very mention of ‘Copperheads’ brought a derisory laugh – they had only ever been a figment of the imagination, or so it seemed.

  “What were they, Sir Richard?”

  “In public, Louise, purely imaginary traitors to the Union. You must never speak of them as anything else, my dear. In our own room, out of hearing, they were a mixture of Confederate agents who supplied a little money and of Northern Democrats opposed to Emancipation and in favour of States’ Rights. There may have been several thousands of them at one time, willing to rise against the North when the moment was appropriate; but it seems that the exactly correct day could never be identified. There were a number of them based in Canada and at one point it seemed likely that the authorities there would be obliged to crush them, but, fortunately, that need is no longer exigent.”

  “How do you know, Sir Richard? Were you to be part of that crushing?”

  He was surprised again by her intelligence, and rueful at his own carelessness that had allowed her to guess his activities.

  “In absolute confidence, yes, my dear. It seemed at one time not improbable that some would flee Canada and would need to be apprehended in the States. That is now unlikely from all I have heard. I believe that the leaders have stolen the Confederate gold and have fled with it to take up a life as honest farmers and ranchers in the West. Better far that should happen, I believe.”

  “Would they have come to Chicago?”

  “I doubt it, my dear. Chicago has police and Federal officials in plenty. Too big a risk for a fugitive to take. They will have gone further west, I should imagine.”

  They spent another day in the city, impressed by its life and marvelling again at the buildings, though the mostly unpaved streets were less impressive.

  “It is strange, to the English eye, Sir Richard, that the great bulk of the buildings are constructed of wood. Are there no bricks to be had?”

  “The forests are vast and timber is readily available and very cheap, my dear. It seems to me to be rather peculiar. That store we are passing now, for example, is a bakery – it must have its ovens in the rear, and several of them, the place is so large. I might have expected that to be brick or stone built out of simple caution.”

  “No doubt they have their water pumps and fire hoses, Sir Richard, and the Lake is so very close, after all.”

  “Very true – American knowhow is such that they will have thought of the problem and have a solution to it.”

  They moved on to St Louis, again a large town to rural English eyes, but rather less impressive than Chicago, the streets narrower and the buildings smaller. Dick avoided the area of the boatyards on the river at Carondelet, thinking there was small need to remake old acquaintances. He did, however, bump into Jim Fisk, rather to his annoyance. It was at midday and Mr Fisk, possessed now of even more flesh than when Dick had last seen him, was in pursuit of his luncheon and had chosen the dining room of their hotel. It had always been a favourite of his, Dick recalled, and he was irritated to have forgotten so obvious a probability of their meeting.

  “Major and,” Fisk stared at Louise’s left hand, “Mrs Burke, I see!”

  “Mr Fisk, a pleasure to meet you again. I must present you to Lady Burke. I inherited my good father’s title not so long since, and am now Sir Richard Burke, baronet. This is Mr Jim Fisk, my dear, a well-known gentleman in the whole of America.”

  Louise made a formal curtsey, guessing, correctly, that Mr Fisk was not a gentleman but was certainly very rich.

  They sat to the same table, as was unavoidable, and talked business – in the company of Jim Fisk it was impossible to discuss anything else.

  “The war is close to an end, Dick – I am sure Lady Burke will forgive my familiarity with an old friend! Cotton is coming back up the river in lawful trade and ships laden with food and Northern goods are sailing daily. There is still unrest in much of the South and many of the plantations are idle, for lack of hands as much as anything. Business is looking up, I will say, Dick. The railroads are growing fast and more than anything, there is beef walking in from the Plains; there is money in the trail herds, and will be much more!”

  “I am told, Jim, that a lot of English money is moving into ranching, especially in the Texas. Not so much in the wheat areas, they are more like to be German than British, or so I am told.”

  “I have heard the same, Dick. The most of the herds coming north at the moment are wild longhorns, rounded up in land that belongs to no man as yet and brought up very often by ex-soldiers who have seen enough of the war. A man who runs two herds north may well end up with the money to file on his own acres on good water and build himself a ranch in new land, away from all the bitterness of the Old South. Was I of the agricultural sort, Dick, I would go down to the wild lands and chase up a herd myself – but that life is not for me, or for you, I would guess!”

  “No, Jim, not at all. Days in the saddle eating beans and dust and staring at the unhandsome end of a cow from morning till night – not for me, sir!”

  A giggle from Louise reminded them of her presence.

  “We are merely travelling through the country, taking a few weeks of relaxation, Jim, but I suspect we will go to Kansas City, to consider what may be best done with my land thereabouts. I had thought of perhaps talking to the banks to discover whether they might wish to offer mortgages on the acres so that existing tenants could make themselves into owners.”

  Not at all to Dick’s surprise, it transpired that Jim Fisk had contacts with several of the larger banks of the locality; he rather thought that he might be able to point Dick in the right direction, if that was his wish.

  It had not been the original plan, indeed Dick had intended his dealings to be strictly honest and above board, but there would be a substantial financial gain to be made from involvement in Fisk’s schemes.

  “I would certainly like to meet your people, Jim. I know you of old to have all of the right contacts that I could possibly need.”

  It would be done; there would be a gentleman, or almost so, a banker in fact, waiting on Dick’s convenience when he arrived in Kansas City

  “What a strange man, Sir Richard! I do not think I would expect to see him in my mother’s dining room!”

  “Highly unlikely, my dear, but he is wealthy beyond your mother’s belief. He is a millionaire, and I suspect that to be in pounds sterling rather than American dollars!”

  “Yet he is not an old man, Sir Richard.”

  “Little older than me, I believe, but he has been, shall we say, vigorous in his pursuit of money. Not to put too fine an edge on the matter, my dear, he has defrauded, robbed, connived, bribed and occasionally battered his way to his fortune. He is rich, but he is not respectable, and, I much fear, he has been far too open in his crimes. One of these fine days we shall open our newspaper to see that Mr Fisk has been found shot dead in the street, or poisoned at his dining table, or strangled in his bed, whichever suited the mood of his latest enemy. He is surprisingly careless for so ruthless a man.”

 
"Is that why you are wearing the shoulder gun now, Sir Richard? Because you are not careless?"

  "I am in the company of my wife, and have a duty to protect her, my lady. As well, we are coming onto those lands where I was first known and people will expect me to be armed. I must go back to Kansas City just once more, my dear, to put my signature on the documents that will enable my agents to sell my lands. I am, I think, right in the assumption that you will not wish to live here in the States?"

  "You are, sir. It is a wonderful country - but so in many ways is our England. Was I a man, I suspect that I might wish to stay here for many a year, and I shall in twenty or so years, I much hope, encourage our sons to 'go West', as they say. It is a place where a boy could learn to be a man, I suspect, and far better than in England. But I shall not say the same to a daughter, for it is not a land for ladies!"

  Dick laughed, but had to agree. He had been in many ways still a boy when he had entered this land, but he had left it a man. He was not entirely certain he respected the man he had become, but he had liked the boy far less.

  "Back to Jim Fisk, my dear. He is one of those who thinks that everything, and every man, has its price; he has no concept of honour and believes that it does not exist. He is wrong there, I suspect, and will die because of that error. Other men who behave equally badly but with more circumspection will thrive in like circumstance."

  "You say that a man who seems to be honourable will make greater profits than another who admits to his villainy, sir? The hypocrite shall inherit the Earth?"

  Dick applauded her daring; she had been brought up to venerate her Bible and never to venture to offer even oblique comment upon its teachings.

  "Precisely so, my dear! Thus we shall avoid the company of Mr Fisk. To meet him once and show courtesy is one thing; to cultivate his acquaintance is another, and we shall not do so. The cars to Kansas City in the morning. No need to wire for a hotel - not for me in that town!"