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

by Andrew Wareham

  He spent some time at the Liverpool offices of Mrs Boswell and the shipyard, solely because his presence in town was known and it would seem very strange if he did not show his face. He could find almost no interest in the business, however, having discovered that he was not a true son of capitalism – he did not care about making more money for its own sake. He was comfortable, rich some would say, and could find no desire in himself to become absolutely wealthy – there was no point, he could only eat with one gold spoon at a time.

  Mr Robinson confided that he would rather like to be the richest man in Liverpool, the greatest figure of a fine city; Mr William Williams had been born poor and intended to die rich, and with children who would never experience the want and misery of his boyhood.

  Both were, Dick admitted, honest ambitions. For himself, however, he could discover no desires at all: he did not need more money; he did not want fame; his son had security. He needed nothing, he had no wishes to fulfil, he possessed comfort; he drank very little and found no need to keep a harem; he ate sparingly and had no gourmet ambitions; he had seen a little of the world and did not care if he saw more.

  He sat in his armchair of an evening, books to hand, staring at the small fire of the autumn, and deciding that he could find no point to anything at all.

  A week and he took the train to London, booking into his hotel for three nights. The next day saw him patronise the music shops in the morning, for Louise, and the book sellers of the afternoon and evening for them both. He made a great mound of purchases, aware as he did so that money was useful stuff on occasion and not displeased to be treated with grovelling distinction by the shopkeepers.

  The following morning took him to the premier jewellers of London, ‘By Appointment’, they said, to generations of Royalty. He had taken the precaution of obtaining a letter from the Liverpool Cotton Bank, presented that first to the civil young man who had begged to be of service to him and whose eyes opened at the assurance that a cheque of up to ten thousand pounds would be honoured.

  “Would you care to take a seat for a minute, Sir Richard? Tea, a cup of coffee, perhaps?”

  The somewhat ruffled young gentleman scurried into a back office and was replaced by a larger, older and urbanely long-established doyen of the trade. The senior partner had never heard of Sir Richard Burke, but he knew how to handle Cotton Kings come down to Town: he fawned. He was surprised to discover Dick to be a young man and a gentleman by accent, dress and deportment; the self-made men of the North Country normally met none of those criteria. He detected a faint Yankee twang to Dick’s accent, enquired whether he was a gentleman of New England.

  “I have been a few years in the States, sir, spending some time with the Union army; a major, in fact. I hold, unusually, the same rank in England, in the Royal Engineers.”

  The original young assistant had been hovering and now trotted off on his own initiative to discover an Army List. The house had perhaps the richest stock in the whole of England, and there had been any number of ingenious attempts to lay unlawful hands upon it, including forged letters from the larger banks. A porter had already left at a run to enquire at the London offices of the Cotton Bank.

  “What may we do for you today, Sir Richard?”

  The claim to be an Army officer was easily verified, was therefore likely to be true; better to offer every courtesy.

  “My wife has recently presented me with an heir, sir. She possesses an emerald pendant stone and I would rather like to gift her earrings and brooch and bracelet if that be possible.”

  “Earrings, certainly, Sir Richard, and we have a single brooch in emerald. A bracelet is less easy, though not impossible. Emeralds are found in South America and come rarely to London; they are more often to be discovered in Austria than in England. One of our young men might travel to Vienna for you, locate the best there and bring it back under escort to London, and then perhaps to your place in the country. In Lancashire, one presumes?”

  Dick produced his card.

  “A landed estate in Dorset, sir?”

  “Inherited from my father. I was estranged from him for some years during which time I dabbled in business. I must confess, sir, to being a substantial proportion of Mrs Bosworth.”

  “The tonic for ladies?”

  “Just so, sir.”

  The jeweller’s wife had become possessed of a far more even temper since commencing her evening dose; the jeweller was much inclined to see Dick as a benefactor of the human race.

  Earrings and brooch were approved and paid for by cheque, smilingly accepted.

  “You will have no objection, I trust, Sir Richard, if we just run the cheque round to the London branch. It is rather a large sum.”

  “It is indeed and I would recommend that you take the obvious precautions. Would the easier course be for you to make the delivery to my hotel this evening? I will expect to be a client for some few years, sir, and would much prefer to establish my bona fides beyond doubt from the very beginning.”

  “It is so difficult, Sir Richard to take sensible care without giving offence! Thank you for being so reasonable, sir!”

  Dick waved a disclaimer – they were businessmen together, he implied.

  “When do you expect your young man to return from Vienna, sir?”

  “Boat to Calais, trains to Paris and then to Cologne in Germany and a direct express thence; three days. At most five days in the city – we have correspondents there who will perform commissions for us – and then to repeat the journey. The least time is eight days, the most eleven, arriving in Dorset on the afternoon of the following day. The week after next, Sir Richard.”

  The young man whose life had thus been disposed of for the next fortnight smiled his best. He had had plans for his social life; he knew that a refusal would end his business employment instantly and said how happy he was to have the chance to visit the great city of Vienna.

  “By the way, Sir Richard, I saw some mention of the Congressional Medal of Honour. That is the American equivalent of our Victoria Cross, is it not, sir?”

  Dick nodded; he found such enquiries embarrassing, especially from young men who were inclined to hero worship. The current fashion in England was to regard the official hero with awe and admiration, to listen to his every utterance with bated breath; it was very tedious and often downright silly. Many men, decorated for doing what was necessary at the moment, withdrew to a great extent from society in distaste for the adulation; others unfortunately revelled in it.

  “Will you continue in your labours with Mrs Boswell, Sir Richard?”

  The partner was a fraction condescending – it was not wholly right that a gentleman possessed of broad acres should also be involved in ‘business’. A gentleman’s hands should be clean, as his would become just as soon as he had amassed the fortune he required.

  “Oh, I think so, sir. I also have a majority shareholding in a growing shipyard in Liverpool and will be an interested party in the production of ironclad ships of war for the Royal Navy, and quite possibly in the production of up to the minute breech-loading cannon for the Army. We have but a small army, in Continental terms, and so we must have the very best of the materials of war, of great guns especially.”

  One was obliged to be patriotic, as went without saying, but to take pride in the Forces to the extent of actually producing weaponry for them was possibly over-enthusiastic. The true gentleman might invest in the bonds and shares of the arms manufacturers, but to go further was not wholly the thing. Very difficult, especially bearing in mind that Sir Richard’s lady had a taste for emeralds that meant one must not, as a jeweller, venture to be seen to disapprove.

  “Of course, Sir Richard. The world is changing and we must keep pace with it.”

  “We must, sir. It would be a sad state of affairs was we to discover one day that the French army and navy outmatched ours, possessing guns and ships that were superior to ours in every way. At sea we are at the moment lagging behind the French, it would
seem.”

  Mention of the old enemy was sufficient to quell all doubts; Britain had allied itself with France in the recent war in the Crimea and many had seen this as a most undesirable break with tradition. The French existed to be destroyed by the British in the minds of the bulk of true sons of Albion and there were very many who believed that Britain had fought on the wrong side in that disastrous war.

  “Of course, Sir Richard. The English Channel is our bulwark and our ships must rule it. It is unthinkable that they should not, sir! I shall write a letter to the Times!”

  Dick was bowed out of the premises, all doubts of him quelled – a martial gentleman of business was a new phenomenon, but he was an ornament to the age of Queen Victoria, and a very rich customer. He kept a straight face until he was out of sight, certain he would be watched down the street; he reflected on Doctor Johnson’s comment that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel and decided that the learned gentleman had been wrong. It was now the first refuge.

  “I come bearing gifts before me, my dear!”

  “That, sir, smacks of blasphemy!”

  “So it does, my lady, more particularly of course because it is Plaistow who is doing the work of actually bearing the bulk of them. However, you may be interested in these, ma’am!”

  He held out the two little boxes from the jeweller, observed fondly as she cooed over them.

  “A celebration of our son, my dear! Also of a wedding anniversary which must soon be due.”

  “A few days ago, sir. I am the cynosure of my acquaintance, I doubt not – married at eighteen and a son in the first year and a husband who rubs shoulders with the great of more than one country! My dear Mama will turn even greener with envy, sir! Did your business go well, Sir Richard?”

  “In its way, my dear, yes. But I find I have little love for the life. It is a problem, of course, because I much enjoy the money and the existence it creates for us. How are the farms progressing? Has anything happened in the little while I have been away?”

  “I believe Mr Parkinson to have been very busy, sir. I know that he has brought in the builders to the farmhouses, they being run-down and unfit as anything but pigsties, and has created a local scandal by placing tenants into them, not on rental contract but as paid employees. The like has never been known, one gathers!”

  “Excellent! Such a first step serves to inform the whole neighbourhood that times are changing and that even the agricultural world cannot be immune to the new forces that are moulding our world.”

  “I am, it goes without saying, entirely in support of your initiative, Sir Richard. I must confess, however, that I am not sure why there must be change. It might help me in conversation with the ladies of the County if I knew a little of the reasons behind your much-to-be-applauded actions.”

  “It is simple, my dear. Grain is coming from the New World literally by the millions of tons, and the amount can only increase now that the war is over. Beef is already arriving in cans, and more will come over the years; the same will happen for pork and mutton, I doubt not. English farmers cannot grow the same crops and meats at a profit and so they must sow their fields with produce that cannot travel the Atlantic. Vegetables and salads and fresh fruits must be grown less than a day away from the shops – by train from our fields to London gives a chance of a living for our farmers.”

  “Simple and logical, sir! Why have others not seen it to be so?”

  “The landed gentry control our government and find it easier to demand that tax-payers’ money shall be placed in their pockets than that they should actually think of the best way of using the land.”

  “Rational, sir. They have power and therefore they will abuse it.”

  “Just so, my dear! A phrase that I shall remember and bring out in conversation!”

  Briggs appeared, unflustered but very slightly disapproving.

  “There is, sir, a pile of boxes in the bookroom, and another in the music room. Will you wish to open them yourself, or shall I set a maid to the task?”

  “A literate maid may certainly unpack the books and place them on the shelves by author. Have we any maids possessed of their letters?”

  “All three, sir, can read and write to some extent.”

  “Then I shall leave the books to your and their capable hands, Briggs. The sheet music may not be so simply classified, I fear. I see my lady has already gone to undertake the task. I shall join her.”

  “Schumann and his lady, I see, Sir Richard. I have read that she was the finer musician of the two; I know that she still gives recitals which are much applauded and is renowned as the Patroness of Herr Brahms.”

  Dick knew nothing of the lady, or her music. He showed politely interested.

  “It is very noticeable, sir, that the music written during her husband’s so-called second period of creativity bears a great similarity to her own compositions.”

  “It is no doubt easier to sell music composed by a man in the German states. Did he not go mad and suicide, leaving her with a vast number of children?”

  “The suicide failed, sir, but he died hopelessly insane soon after. Otherwise, you are quite correct.”

  “Unfortunate for the poor lady. I have bought one or two French pieces, my dear, they having been much recommended by the shopman. I forget the names, I fear!”

  She shook her head in mock reproach, enquired after the books, receiving a far more detailed list, perhaps in a little greater depth than she had desired.

  “What are you to do with your days, husband, if the pursuit of business has palled?”

  “I do not know, my dear. I suspect that I must confer with Major Hewitt.”

  “Working for government, I presume, sir. In one of those less publicised roles performed by individuals such as the Sharps Kid?”

  “No. I do not believe that I have any desire to return to that persona. A bullet without warning has cured me of the desire to swagger with a pair of sixguns. That young gentleman shall be seen no more.”

  She was satisfied with that commitment; she had seen the last moments of the gunfight and had been primarily horrified but also to an extent excited and awestruck. The open admiration of the bystanders had also had an effect upon her; she had as well heard one man to comment that she was as cool-headed as her husband and had not disliked that compliment. Her husband was a rare sort of man, she believed, but she preferred that he should not be so rare as to become extinct.

  “Then what, sir?”

  “I believe that I shall be asked to travel a little in Europe, possibly further abroad, to observe the armaments of our competitors. I have no doubt that I shall grow a portly and respectable corporation, my dear – for no man suspects the overweight of subverting the state! Should I grow sidewhiskers, do you think, or a full beard?”

  “A beard is respectable nowadays, Sir Richard. The majority of men now seem to sport a great bush of whiskers, though many of the younger are content to flourish moustaches. What does Plaistow say?”

  “I do not know, but I shall be guided by him, as ever. I shall see Major Hewitt next week.”

  “The life of action no longer appeals, Sir Richard? I applaud your wisdom, sir. Sooner or later one finds a gentleman who is more ruthless, or luckier, than you. I hear that you sustained a fortunate injury in America, one that might have been your end had the bullet been even one half of an inch to the side. I am told as well that your lady wife played a role of equal heroism,”

  “You are, as ever, correct in both statements, sir.”

  “I endeavour to keep myself informed, Sir Richard. Would you be interested in working in London for two or three days of the week, possibly travelling to other parts of England, Scotland and Wales, but never, you will be glad to hear, to Ireland? As a businessman you may be seen in many towns without an eyebrow raised. Let me explain more, sir.”

  “Please do. I am, as they say, at a loose end, having no desire to play Ralph Roister-Doister any longer and yet unable to settle down as a
sober money-maker. I have little wish at the moment to travel overseas, and even less desire to settle into rural and bucolic seclusion. I need occupation, in fact, and do not know what it should be.”

  “It comes to us all, Sir Richard; many would say the sooner the better. The problem is, of course, foreigners! We have free access through our ports, which is as it should be – none of this Froggified nonsense of passports and identity cards for us! But it does result in some most peculiar characters appearing on our streets, the great bulk of whom, while strange, are quite harmless. Some are to be found in reading-rooms, producing tedious tomes and manifestos – mostly nonsensical and all turgidly expressed at great and unnecessary length – and they are entirely harmless. It is fascinating in fact to observe idlers who have never earned a penny in their lives espousing the cause of the poor, downtrodden and overworked! But, I digress!”

  Dick murmured that he had noticed that fact.

  “Quite! There are others, however, who are less innocuous. You, yourself, met a French gentleman of that ilk in Liverpool only last year. They come to spy, to ferret out information on the Navy, primarily, on its new ships and guns and armour plate; the Army, of course, in Britain, is of far less interest to a foreigner, being too small to be relevant. Some are simply amateur; honest and legitimate men of affairs who talk to their own people, sometimes without knowing who they are, on their return home; they are an irritation to us, but only in a minor way. Of more concern are the attaches at the embassies, all of whom keep their eyes open, and some few go further. Some of these diplomatic fellows actually run agents in England, and one or two attempt to subvert British citizens to their nefarious ways. They bribe and they blackmail, the one opening the way for the other only too often, and seek to discover information that we had far rather they did not know. There is, for example, Herr Hartmann, of Berlin, who is an active sort of soul; he is in Washington at the moment.”

  “I met him aboard my ship returning to England, sir. He disembarked at Liverpool not four months ago.”