The Old Order (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 7)

by Andrew Wareham

  "Certain employees of the government, Mr Murphy, make it their business to nose out the activities of the disaffected, and of foreign agencies at work in England."

  Spies, in other words, playing their games and occasionally serving their country.

  "In the nature of things they come into contact with criminals on occasion, and very frequently come to hear of their activities. In your processes of investigation into crime it is not impossible that you may stumble across gangs of Reds, busy in their subversion of the state. Was you to pass such information on, by way of this office, I would be able to direct it to the appropriate authorities."

  And there would be a flow of useful material back.

  Inevitably his staff would eventually pick up word of Fenians organising in England, and then he would become an informer on his own people. Were they still his own folk? He did not know - was the accident of his Irish birth to colour his whole life, was he not an Englishman now?

  He promised Michael that he would keep in close contact.

  "I am informed that you will wish to purchase a dwelling-house of your own, Mr Murphy, in a salubrious area, yet not too far from the City. I believe I may be able to assist, sir, if you would wish me to act for you."

  The message was clear - there would be a good house in the best of locations for him and ludicrously under-priced - a reward for his future cooperation. He made his thanks, and acceptance.

  Robert broke his journey home outside of London; he could afford another two days absent from the business and he was down, very low in spirits, needed the comfort of Judy for a few hours at least.

  She was in her garden when he drew up, Patrick tall at her side; she turned to see who was come, displayed a significant swelling at her waist as she did so. He was almost dismayed - he had perhaps seen enough of pregnancies in the past week - but this was Judy, truly strong, and sensible, a far cry from the headstrong, self-indulgent Mary.

  "I see we are to be blessed again, my love."

  "August or September, I calculate - bad timing! Carrying through the heat of summer is not a good idea! However, another will be very welcome, Bobby-me-dear. You do not look at ease with yourself. What is wrong?"

  She was taking pains with her speech, he noticed, as he had asked for Patrick's sake. He told her the news, briefly.

  "Poor little girl - nothing there when it needed strength to pull her through her problems. Sad for her, even more so for him. No more than a boy, what will he do?"

  "Bury himself in work for a start. Matthew and Mr Fraser will pile it upon him, finding tasks that must be completed quickly, that demand his unique skills. Charlotte's suggestion - I did not think of it, but can come up with nothing better. Lord and Lady Star are sad hit, as you might expect, but they will do all they can for him. It is a pity that he is located in Lancashire, far away from James and myself."

  There was nothing to be done - the demands of business could not be refused and James must stay in London while Parliament sat.

  "Six children now - I do not think Miriam is in the family way again, so she will not contribute her mite this year, but it is a respectable family even so! Papa's lady seems well, despite her age. I was worried that she might be overset by Joseph's tragedy, but she gave no sign of fear for herself."

  "From all you have said of her, she would not. Far too level-headed a lady for such self-indulgence, and too easy in her own mind. Not perhaps so very intellectual as poor Mary, but vastly more intelligent, I suspect. On which topic, sir, you must listen to Patrick while you are here, the lad has his alphabet off by heart now and can read a few words, and takes such pleasure and pride in it as you would not imagine."

  "Then perhaps he is to be a don rather than a farmer in the far lands of the Cape or Canada. It is early days, to be sure, but the opportunity will be there if he seeks it."

  The bank was little changed for Robert's days of absence - but he greeted the news of Murphy's return with delight.

  "Job done, you tell me, sir?"

  "And well done, from all I gather, Mr Robert," Mostyn replied. "The man caught, thoroughly identified and left deep down in the waters of the Mississippi, attached to a quarter of a ton of stone blocks so that he would never float up again."

  "Good! I hope he drowned slowly! I shall send a letter to the Hall against my father's return. He is to stay with the Stars for a few days before making a slow journey across country to the coast of Norfolk and then home to await his lady's convenience."

  Mostyn confirmed that Murphy had accepted the job they had identified for him, had already made a start, digging out a Chosen Man and a pair of privates from the Rifles, men he had known and trusted in war.

  "He intends, I understand from Jonathan, to have a box constructed at the door of each of our banks, a man permanently on duty with what he refers to as a 'short-barrel scatter gun' close to hand. I do not know if that means anything to you, Mr Robert?"

  Growing up a Jew in the German States, Mostyn had never touched a gun of any sort, effectively his death sentence to be seen under arms.

  "A fowling piece with the barrel cut down to a very few inches. The gun can be concealed and used single-handed, having little weight and no awkward length of barrel. The charge will spread very wide, it will scatter, and does not need to be carefully aimed as a result and at more than twenty or so feet will do little harm, thus protecting the bank's customers and staff. At six feet or less it will kill. A very effective weapon for a guard, much better than a pistol for an ordinary man."

  Mostyn made a mental note to keep at least twenty feet away from his guards at all times, just in case.

  "His soldiers are to be kept for apprehending villains, they will not be used as doorkeepers. He is in conversation with a gentleman who had been a Rifleman, a lieutenant, and has been working as a private investigator and who may be persuaded to join us for the benefits of a regular salary. He will have his office running within the month."

  "The best of good men. I shall make sure that he knows of my great indebtedness to him - he has served us well, twice over, now. Is all else as it should be, sir?"

  "Not entirely, Mr Robert. Jonathan has a difficult problem to solve, and I find I cannot fairly and honestly advise him."

  Jonathan was ill at ease, found it difficult to talk to Robert, the matter too personal, too delicate for open discussion. He sat down in his office, door firmly shut, tea and coffee on the tray and the office boy sent out of the building with a message to carry.

  "The thing is, Robert, that it has been put to me that Lord Liverpool would be happy to see me made a baron, a peer - Lord Mostyn of somewhere in Scotland, I imagine."

  "Good! I am very glad to hear it, had hoped it might be the case. It would be a compliment both to your father and to yourself, and it would make a more general announcement to the City at large. What is the difficulty?"

  "To be a peer I must be seen to sit in the House of Lords, and that means to take an oath - on your Bible."

  "So it does. No person can take his seat without so doing. The Romanists have been given an exemption of some sort - an indulgence, maybe? I do not know exactly what they call it. And that allows them to use a King James Bible for the occasion, while I know not what the odd Quaker might do. But that provides you with a problem, because there are Jew-baiting peers in plenty who would shout protest was an unbaptised, newly-made baron to follow the Catholic example. Can you go through a charade of baptism, your own priests - rabbis, I believe - to give a nod and a wink?"

  "It is done, and not infrequently, but I am considering marriage into a family that would not love such a pretext, being much given to Orthodoxy."

  "Scylla and Charybdis indeed, Jonathan. It would be churlish in the extreme to refuse the offer, and would cause some resentment, and one could be sure it would not be repeated. Add to that the word would spread - nothing is ever entirely secret in Whitehall - and it would be said that Mostyns was not quite the thing. It is really a necessity that you should a
ccept. May I dare to ask whether your marriage is to be of the heart or more a matter of convenience?"

  "It has been arranged between the families, much as was yours, Robert."

  "Then one must discover whether the arrangements can be extended to include your apparent conversion, because I believe it to be essential, for you and the whole community, that you should take your seat."

  Three days later Robert was informed that Jonathan had been released from his engagement - the family of his potential bride having taken offence at his very consideration of baptism, however much a matter of convenience it might be - and he was invited to attend at a minor Baptist chapel in Rotherhithe where the service of baptism would be held.

  "The Baptists perform this function frequently in Germany, arguing that they do so as a measure of charity to the persecuted. Suffice it to say that no payment has been demanded, rather to my surprise, and the certificate of baptism will be signed and witnessed and wholly lawful. I am to take the surname McDonald, being a Scottish gentleman, and will thus officially become Jonathan McDonald, Lord Mostyn."

  "Insulting and humiliating, Jonathan. It is more than time that we did away with these Oaths and Tests, suited to primitives as they are!"

  The chapel had never seen such a congregation - the Marquis of Grafham was present, together with his wife and his son, Lord Rothwell; Viscount Hawker stood at his side, saying, rather too loudly, that he had never been in this sort of place before but he would even support Methodies when they did the right bloody thing. Robert, stood beside the younger Hawker, dressed in all his glory, did his very best not to laugh.

  The service was brief but adequate, the minister polite but not obsequious, to their surprise - they were used to the divines of the Church of England. There was no collection.

  The minister ventured on a blessing, saying that he hoped he did not cause offence, but he believed that to men of goodwill all could be acceptable, and then provided the necessary certificate and signified that all was done.

  "Excuse me, parson," Hawker said. "Have you not got a plate?"

  "A plate, sir? Oh, a begging bowl, such as other denominations sometimes indulge in? I prefer not to make attendance at divine service dependent upon the depth of one's pocket."

  Hawker had not met up with that attitude before.

  "You amaze me, sir, and occasion a degree of respect, as well."

  He turned back to the chair he had just left, dropped a banknote on it with no further comment and then walked out. The dozen others present did the same, commenting outside that it was a pity the man's example was not followed more widely.

  "It is strange to meet a divine who is sufficiently unworldly to be worthy of the name. Perhaps there is hope for the churches yet."

  "I doubt it," Hawker responded, "more likely that others of the cloth will seek to drive him out as a danger to all right-thinking men."

  "What next, Jonathan?"

  "I do not know, Robert. I must seek a wife elsewhere, I believe - and not necessarily amongst the Jewish community, having become apostate."

  "There are many families who would be very pleased to make an alliance with the Mostyns, my lord - and they include the wealthy as well as the indigent peerage."

  The Marquis was displeased with the whole affair; it was an embarrassment, an insult to Christian and Jew alike. The law that made such subterfuge necessary was, he stated, a blot upon a nation that claimed to be civilised - though late experience cast much doubt upon that claim.

  "I see that Rothwell is with you, my lord. It is term time, is it not?"

  "I have withdrawn him from Oxford, following gross drunken abuse by the so-called educated elite of our society. He could barely stir from his room without a catcall from some lout or another! Bullies in gangs, of course, unwilling to stand toe-to-toe with him, brave only at odds of a dozen to one. He will go up to Edinburgh instead, the authorities there stating very precisely that they will not tolerate such behaviour, and would be most surprised to hear of it; they do, however, consider themselves to be an educational institution rather than a club for aristocratic drunkards, idlers and whoremongers!"

  "Well put, sir!"

  "I feared it might be so, of course, but even so have been shocked at the gross nature of the whole of the governing body of the college. ‘Only natural', they said, 'those who do not fit in must expect some minor discourtesies'. One so-called academic went so far as to state that the college existed for the benefit of 'full-blooded, English Christians'."

  "I had not realised they were so bad, my lord. A warning for the future of my own sons, I believe. I had expected them to follow the family tradition, but it seems that an education at home by selected tutors will be better. No doubt James and Charlotte will be able to send their offspring through the schools and up to University, but I shall not, I think."

  "Nor poor Joseph, I am told. I was so very sorry to hear of his misfortune and trust that the appropriate messages will be sent. I have written, of course, as has Rothwell, who has met him more often than I."

  "What does he intend after he has sat his terms in Scotland, sir?"

  "He has come to love the estate, I believe, and I would not be surprised to see him settle down to a rural existence. Town life does not appeal to him, and I worry that he may become reclusive, driven to seclude himself from the insults of some of his contemporaries."

  "A wife may well solve that problem for him. Insist on his appearance in the Season as soon as he is of a mature age - he will find himself amongst the matrimonial prizes and will soon either gain in confidence or retire wholly into his shell."

  "What's to be done about Bob, Tom?"

  "Done? Why? What has he done?"

  "He is engaged to be married, Tom."

  "Excellent - a farmer needs a wife and he is of a good age. I presume he has not done something foolish? He has not made a connection with a lady of the town, for example?"

  "No, not at all. A good girl with an excellent name in the locality and a background from the land - but her father owns only one hundred or so acres of his own and rents three hundred more. He clears no more than five hundred a year in his pocket, if that - a mediocre tenant farmer, not even a well-off yeoman!"

  "She has her letters, I trust?"

  "I have met her - a bright, well-presented, intelligent, hard-working girl. She has no great education, but she reads and will be a good mother, one to bring children up to value learning. She attends chapel but is not too greatly enthused by it. But they have no standing in the county, she is of no family at all."

  "Are we?"

  "We know what we are, Tom - it is what our children and grandchildren are to be that worries me. Thomas is well married - will his connections approve of his brother's wife? Matthew is wed into the best of families..."

  "Who do not care in the slightest about the family of Bob's wife, except to welcome her and them," Tom interrupted.

  "I know, and am grateful, Tom. What of Mark, a High Court judge? He will never marry, although he keeps his nature quiet, but frequents the best of society. George is to wed the daughter of Mr Brown of the New Steam enterprise - not my choice, and as a person I much prefer Bob's pick to her! Brown is a prickly sort of man, or so I am told. Luke has not wed yet, but should - a minister must have a wife. Jenny, I think, does not care, but her husband might. My Elizabeth is married into the Armstrongs, and they are climbing hard - I cannot imagine they will even attend the wedding."

  Tom wished that Frances had been present - this was so much more her sphere than his, but she was laid down for her afternoon rest.

  "That is all more for the future, and can perhaps work itself out over time, Tom. The real question is about the wedding itself. The bride's family will arrange all, as they must, inviting their kin and acquaintance, but what of our friends and neighbours? Two score of local gentry and their wives to descend on the wedding breakfast they have put together in the Sunday School rooms, they having no space in their house, and no cook
working for them. The ball to be a dance to a single local fiddler. Will it not cause embarrassment to all, so many out of their own proper place in Society?"

  "Do they live at a distance?"

  "Twenty miles from Freemans, Tom."

  So the obvious solution of having two venues, breakfast at the bride's place of choosing, ball at Freeman's, could not work.

  "When are they to wed, Joe?"

  "Six months hence is the plan, when he is out of black gloves for his sister. It would be inappropriate to wed in deep mourning."

  "Yet, that might well be the answer, Joe. Assume that they decide to go ahead with the wedding, at your insistence, believing that life must go on and that their plans must not be disrupted in such a fashion. It makes more sense for a farmer to wed after spring ploughing and before lambing, when he has a break from the land of a week or two. Otherwise we come to harvest, and then to winter when they cannot travel and make bride visits to the families. People will talk, but less than they would at a cobbled together wedding celebration with some of our acquaintance cutting the ceremony entirely and others attending only to gossip."

  "The affair would have to be quiet, immediate family only, and it would seem strange to some - and others would be counting the months to the appearance of the first-born!"

  "Just think how disappointed they will be, Joe!"

  They raised a chuckle, turned aside to ask the advice of the womenfolk.

  Bob and his bride-to-be received the plan with enthusiasm, neither having wanted to delay their wedding and both fearing that the six month delay would have been further extended.

  "My old grandmam, my lords, my father's mam, that is, be none so well in herself. She were wed when well into her thirties and dad warn't none too young when he got married in his turn, so she'm nearer eighty than seventy now. I don't reckon as how she'm going to see next winter, and, if so be we got to delay for death on one side, then it be only proper that we do for t'other as well. So it could be nearer the twelvemonth than six, taken all and all."