Jem (and Sam)

by Ferdinand Mount

  I lay in my bed as the great clock in the court chimed two and rehearsed these instructions in my mind as though they had been some witches’ incantation. I could not wait for the morrow to prepare my experiment. But first I must procure the goldstones.

  The next morning while the dew was still on the grass, I rode out to Maldon and along the shore to Tollesbury, inquiring of all I met where goldstones were to be had. At length I found an old woman who had been paid a penny a bushel by Mr Stephenson that had first found out how to turn copperas into brimstone for the making of gunpowder (which was a use I had not thought of, but which might prove profitable, for wars we have always with us). Mr Stephenson having removed into Kent where the stones were more plentiful, the trade had dried up.

  I told the old hag that I would pay her threepence a bushel if she and her husband could carry some stones to New Hall, which she said she would, and within the week. I left her and cast a last look upon that melancholy shore, across the sea to my native land of Kent, reflecting upon the providence of Nature that the very stones on the seashore may be transformed into powder and flint for us to murder one another with, or, conversely, into ink that the word of the Lord may be broadcast among the nations.

  While I waited for the goldstones, I metamorphosed my laboratory (for it was now mine in all but name) into a copperas house, that is, I had the gardener raise the ground outside into three beds, so that each bed was lower than the next, and along the lowest he put a gutter that ran into a pipe through a hole I had made in the wall into my laboratory.

  What’s this, hey, what’s all this disturbance? The General harumphed as he saw the new beds and the gutter.

  Jem is inventing a new process for the manufacture of ink, Nan said, for she was becoming proud of my endeavours. It is to cost half what the government now pays.

  Well, well, humph, the General said, but he was pleased at the scheme as I described it to him, for though he gloried in his palace, he liked that it should be put to use and was himself full of schemes for the cow-byres and the sheepfolds, and had plotted to plant grapes, for he had heard there had been a vineyard there once.

  Inside the laboratory, I had put the Duke’s boiler in the furnace with a pipe coming in from the garden and another pipe going out to the trough where the birch twigs were to be laid. All was ready and with scarce any fresh expense, for Bucks’s laboratory was furnished royally.

  On Saturday, the old woman and her husband came puffing up the lime avenue with a cart laden with stones that winked at the sun and I saw why foolish folk had thought they were made of gold. The ancient nag that pulled the cart could scarce reach my beds without falling down, but the old people laid the stones out on the ground and raked them level and promised me more if ever I should need them.

  The next requisite which nature obstinately denied me for the next fortnight was rain, for the dew was not enough to rust them.

  Your stones stink damnably, Jem, the General said. Have you put some rotten eggs in among ’em?

  But the next Sunday the rain came and began to dissolve the stones. It rained every day that week as it does in March, so hard that you could not see your hand in front of your face, and the liquid began to run off the stones and then to flow through into the boiler. Then I kindled the furnace, which filled the laboratory with black smoke, for the chimney wanted sweeping. But after it was swept, the fire began to heat the boiler and I heard my cauldron bubble and felt like a true chemist.

  While I was sitting by the furnace and wondering how many days I should let the potion boil, for Mr Grimwade gave me no exact counsel on that point, I heard a great commotion from the garden.

  What is this, sir? What in the name of Beelzebub? etc.

  I ran out through the side-door and there was the General in an apoplexy pointing to my copperas beds.

  A trail of noxious bubbling green slime was running over the edge of the gutter (for it would not go higher, back into the beds) and along the grass into his new French roses that he had had sent from Provence in Champagne (which is now the red rose of England).

  Damn you, sir, damn you.

  I swiftly perceived what had happened. The pressure within the boiler had sent the precious liquid back down the pipe into the garden where it was running to waste for I had not shut off the pipe. I hastened to pour water on the fire, to douse it, which made another great smoke, so that I came out again smoked from head to toe, like a blackamoor, which made the General and his lady laugh.

  Copperas, is that what you call it? roared the General. I’ll give you copperas – and then, for he was never quick on to a jest though he was fond of them – You are a copper-arse in truth.

  Copper-arse, went the General again – for when he had caught hold of a joke he was not one to let it go.

  Copper-arse, said Nan, by now helpless in her mirth and scarce able to get the word out.

  Thus they stood there, this noble pair, incapacitated by the crude jest, each buttressing the other, while I began to shovel the odious liquid back into my beds.

  It was the last time that my General laughed.

  Yet I was undaunted, and when the stones had quite dissolved and the gutter was full, I made a fresh trial of the experiment. At the end of the pipe I fixed a valve or shutter that would open but one way, viz. towards the boiler. Thus the copperas-water could go into the boiler but not go back out again until I opened the tap that let the liquid out into the trough. Soon I had a full trough (it was not above two yards long, my experiment being in miniature and not in gross, for I was an Inventor not a Manufactor).

  Then I must spend two days attending upon Kit now grown boisterous and overweening. The country air suited him and every day he would clamour to be taken hawking or coursing the pair of greyhounds that his mother had given him or to see the bear-baiting in Chelmsford or the cocks, etc. I would come home tired as a dog after the chase and would take refuge in my laboratory where only I had the key.

  The sun was still shining through the windows, for the laboratory faced to the west, when I looked idly into the trough, expecting to see the same dull green liquid like that of a river that has been fouled. But the trough was dried up and there, clinging to the birch branches as though they had been some rare fruit of the birch, there were the green crystals. I took up a branch and held the crystals to the light so that the light shone through them and made them look like emeralds, but finer by far because they were so bright and huge. In my joy I held a branch in each hand and shook them so that they made a faint tinkling.

  Copper-arse, I said to myself, I’ll give them copper-arse.

  I perceived then that the true joys of our existence are those that we manufacture for ourselves and not the trumpery shows of greatness which men prize so highly. I resolved that I would pursue these material arts with the sober diligence that becomes an Illuminato and not chase after the deceiving pleasures of the Court. If only I had adhered to that resolution, I might be now a respected Fellow of the Royal Society with a chronometer or some invention for computation that would bear my name. But we are as we are, or as Nature has fashioned us, and though we may see the true path, brambles and thistles often keep us from following it.

  So it was with me, for the success of my first experiments was not followed up. The copperas crystals gathered dust in the trough. My distillations turned brackish through neglect, and Nan had forbidden me to try my medicines upon her household. Besides, we grew dull, for the neighbours were mostly country boors and sycophants. I began to count the days before we should return to London which was to be after Easter (it fell early that year, at the end of March). His Grace was already gone and April was half done, but still we tarried at New Hall.

  Nan, when are we to go to London?

  Soon, soon, she said.

  Then there was another change of plan, for she was to go to Whitehall to be with her husband, but I was to stay at New Hall with Kit.

  But, madam, I have heard you say you can’t live without your darlin
g son.

  Well, you say he does better in the country.

  So he does, but I don’t.

  He must have a guardian, Jem, for there are envious persons that want to do the Duke ill. And how better than through his son?

  Grumbling, I obeyed, though I did not believe she had told me all she knew. Yet, as a consolation, she said I might come to London once a month to bring them fresh fruit, salads and other eatables and render them a report of the estate, for I would keep an eye on the housekeeper and the wardrobe-keeper and read over the bailiff’s accounts.

  Thus it was towards the end of April that I set off in the Duchess’s old Scotch coach (the new one already being at Whitehall) which was loaded to the roof with spinach, cabbages and plucked chickens, so that I felt like a travelling shopkeeper.

  I was four hours tossing about among the cabbages and onions and must have smelled as bad as a bumboat woman by the time we rumbled down King Street and under the gate that was named for Mr Holbein, painter to Henry VIII.

  My first thought was to go to the tap by the upper privy (near my old chamber) where I could wash myself privately without being seen, and thence to the butler’s cupboard where I kept balls of Castile soap, for I was most careful that our footmen and servingmen should be clean. But to reach that pantry, I must pass through the Duke’s garden and there to my horror I saw His Grace walking up and down with a low bustling fellow much the same height as he, who was none other than my old acquaintance Mr Pepys.

  This was a great disaster. To be seen in my foul dishevelled condition by the Duke was bad enough, but for that humiliation to be witnessed and reported by Mr S. Pepys was to double it.

  Then I espied a hedge of box along one side of the garden. It was low, not above four feet high, yet it might serve to hide me. And so I bent myself as low as a spaniel and at the same time went lightly upon my feet, for it was a gravel walk and there must be no noise. Thus I padded along until I came up with them (I could see their feet through the roots of the box trees) and caught but intermittently some phrases of the Duke’s – his voice was low and difficult to catch at the best of times.

  . . . first-rate work . . . excellent care you take of the masts . . . that fellow Batten, do you trust him . . . none like you, sir . . .

  Then I heard Pepys babbling his thanks: deeply grateful . . . Your Highness’s gracious patronage . . . etc., etc.

  Nothing but the truth, went the Duke, Navy couldn’t get along without you . . .

  To hear these odious compliments rained upon so unworthy an object and to hear that object fawning and bridling at this ill-deserved praise and myself to be unable to say a word or even shift my legs to ease the ache that came from stooping – was such indignity ever visited upon an innocent man who was but delivering the fruits of the soil? I crawled to the end of the hedge and made my way to the cupboard, but some officious person had locked it, so I must deliver my goods to the cook, smelling as bad as he did, then make my way to the Duke’s apartment resolved to bare my teeth at Mr Pepys. But he had gone and the Duke with him.

  I wished I were dead. At least, I could be drunk and therefore went straight to the Leg. There I met Peter Llewellyn who already was three-quarters cut.

  I had not seen him or any of the old crew for an age and I fell upon his neck and we made up for lost time. To my astonishment however he insisted that he would pay.

  How’s this? I said. You never were a treater in the old days. Per contra, you would feign sleep when old Stone came with the tally.

  Ah but then I was poor. Now I am a man of business. These are great days for Mr Dering and I live well enough upon the crumbs that fall from his table. You would not guess how much I am worth now.

  There was ale spilled upon the table and with his long finger (which was white and delicate, like a woman’s) he traced out: £750.

  That is a tidy fortune.

  And there’s more where that came from, namely my master’s leavings. Climb aboard, Jem, and we shall capture the golden fleece – at which he began furiously to scratch his own golden fleece (which was scanter yet than when I had last seen him) as he always did when he was in liquor.

  It’s true I have a few pennies saved.

  Invest them, Jem, invest them. Money will do nothing if it lie idle. Remember the parable of the talents.

  It was so strange to hear little Peter quote Holy Scripture at me, and in a tavern too, that I laughed out loud, but I was thinking the while. For my eggs still lay in their nest, videlicet, that ship’s chest which I had brought with me from Dover and though I had considered of putting some of it into Mr Backwell’s hand at 6 per cent interest (which was then the law’s maximum), I feared that Backwell though honest was but mortal and his heirs might be thieves. Will Symons had counselled me to venture my money with Morris and Clayton instead, but since they speculated in land which pays but 3 per cent the rate of interest would be inferior though the money were safer. And so I had done nothing with it (these memorials being private, I may say that the sum was now advanced to £620). Yet I felt a dull fellow, for these were great days for speculation, and every blockhead was boasting that his investment was surefooted and could not lose, though it might be with a company to promote some crazy project such as Mrs Pepys’s father might have invented. And if Llewelyn had made an accumulation, having started from naught and being a careless tippler, what might a more sober calculator not come to?

  The difficulty of the timber trade, Jem, said my old friend leaning forward gravely as though he were a pedagogue, is its fluctuations. Fluctuations, he repeated solemnly in case I had not heard him, they’re the curse of the business, but also the main chance of it.

  How so? I said.

  Listen and it shall be revealed unto thee, Jeremiah. When a good parcel of timber comes in, let us say of Norway deals, worth three thousand pounds of anyone’s money, it may come in at a moment when my master has just laid out all his ready cash. He could borrow from Backwell or one of the others, but that would wipe his profit. So the captain goes to Winter or Sir William Warren, but he finds them in the same plight. All the great men are cleaned out for the time being, so he must go to the small fry.

  Like you?

  Even so. But what the good captain doesn’t know is that we small fry agree among ourselves to tell him that we are broken too, for we’re a species of club, and so the price must come down further. Then, and not until then, we buy, when the price is as low as a caterpillar’s paws.

  And then?

  We wait, Jem, until the market is cleared and the Navy comes along, as it might be in the person of my old friend S. Pepys, and says we must have a parcel of straight oak with sufficient knees and other compass-timber, for the Dutch are coming. But Sir William and Mr Winter cannot supply the whole deficiency – at which moment your humble servant steps forward and coughs: You remember that timber you so kindly let me store at your yard? I could perhaps . . . And your master is so keen to keep the business that he will pay you twice as much as you paid and everyone is content, for everyone has a profit and the King has his timber. Thus one serves one’s master and one’s country and oneself too, Jem, there’s the greatness of it. One cannot fail, for one is dealing with the Royal Navy.

  Exhausted by this discourse, he called for more drink and then his head fell upon his arms, before the pot-boy had come with the ale. While he snored lightly and even in his half-sleep scratched his sparse hairs, I began to think that there might be something in this way of doing business. So I resolved to wait until he was sober and to go shares with him in his next venture.

  This I did, and left £200 with him when I next came up to town, which I repented of all the way back to New Hall, for though I knew he was honest he was not careful. However, he sent by the post a week later news that we had between us bought £400 worth of Eastland Fir which would surely be worth £700 by the autumn, for there was a great call for plank coming and Mr Dering’s yard and others were but half-full. And he sent with it a note setti
ng out the number of timbers and their situation in the yard, so that there should be no confusion. And I began to read the Intelligencer which Nan had sent from London that gave me news of the timber that had been landed and the price that had been paid for it, so that I could estimate whether my investment was waxing or waning. Thus I began to know the pangs of the Investor, how he starts with anguish at news of a fall in his stock yet cherishes the hope that it will be but a temporary setback, and throbs with joy at the news of a rise yet fears it may not last, though doubting whether to seize that chance to sell in case the stock might go higher still. So he is in a constant state of suspended anguish, never utterly downcast, yet never enjoying a secure contentment.

  For the first month, I was in despair, for a veritable fleet of ships from the Eastland trade came into London and the price for deals fell like a plummet. So I cursed Llewelyn and wrote to him inquiring what we should do. And he answered that we should bide our time, the Investor must have the patience of Job, for Jeremiah did nothing but lament whereas the Lord blessed Job’s latter end. I purposed to respond that I would not wait 140 years to have my latter end blessed, but then I read in the Intelligencer that all of a sudden there was, as Llewelyn had foretold, a great call for timber, matters having gone badly with the Dutch, who had captured the Hamburg convoy that was laden with naval supplies.

  I wrote quickly to Peter: Was this now the time to sell, or should we wait till the price should rise again, and if so how long?

  When the tide is rising, Jem, the wise sailor crowds all the sail he can. You must send me another £100 and we shall double our money by Michaelmas, for the Navy is short of timber and the merchants can get no more credit. Thus cash is king.

  But I was resolved to make no further investment by faith alone and on my next journey to London I met Llewelyn by appointment at the Old Swan in Fish Street Hill.

  First, you must show me the timber before I take a step further into the business.