“He has, George. He expects to go onto nights this summer. Prices are starting to rise again, sufficient to make them profitable. What of the great guns, Frederick?”
“I have the New Works, as you know, Sir Thomas, Lady Verity, and we are working seven days and nights, my people on eighty-four hour weeks, the money rolling in after the tight winter. When the furnaces have to be relined I shall hire on some temporary hands, Paddies I expect, and make my own people take a break for four days – they cannot work seven days a week forever. I have contracts for great guns for a twelvemonth ahead – including a new piece, Sir Thomas, a ‘cannonade’, designed by John Company originally. A short-barrelled, thick-walled cannon of eighteen pounds, accurate over no more than two furlongs, I understand, but quick to load and demanding only a small gun-crew; I am told that it is possible to fire two rounds in the time it would take a typical attacking privateer to come alongside and board, the first to be roundshot, the second grape. My customer, who trades with the Levant, assures me that in a convoy a broadside of four will be quite sufficient, giving the escort time to come to the rescue.”
“Six hundred musket-balls at close range should give most boarders occasion to think and pause, Frederick – I rather suspect I would not have been best pleased to be greeted in that fashion! The navy can use its carronades, having the discipline and training to avoid accidents with them – they are thin-walled pieces with a potential for bursting; for merchantmen these sound much more the thing. Can you organise the New Works to expand production, could you sell more if you could produce them?”
“Yes and yes, Sir Thomas, but I will need either a drummer to go out on the road to work-up new business and orders, or a manager to stand in my place while I go out.”
“Employ a salesman, Frederick – you are better employed here, using your brain rather than wearing out your feet going from firm to firm. Have you any possible men in mind?”
“Three who could do the job have knocked at the door in the last week, Sir Thomas – there are still too many out of work, sir.”
“A pity, for them; useful for us. Hire whoever seems best to you, more than one if needs be. How is your wife, by the way, Frederick? Still just the one son?”
“There will be a second in three months or so, Sir Thomas, but she is not very well just at the moment.”
George Mason raised an eyebrow, shook his head infinitesimally; Tom dropped the topic.
“Problems, George? In your brother’s household.”
“She is not at all well, Sir Thomas – I doubt she will give birth to a live baby, am not at all sure she will survive the experience – legs swollen up to twice their thickness, hardly able to keep a mouthful down – the doctor is not sanguine, has warned me on the quiet to be ready to go to my brother’s side.”
“I am very sorry, George. Keep me informed, please.”
There was nothing to be done – in the best of circumstances pregnancy had its risks and everyone knew of women who had died – there were no medicines that could help in such cases. It was just a part of life – as so often, Tom was glad he had been born a man; he was also glad that she promised not to be a nuisance in the future, though that he could not say.
They drove off to the Lakes, in duty bound, one had to view the home of Romance if at all possible; they concluded that the lakes were wet and the hills steep and rocky and that those blessed with an excess of imagination and sensibility might well find them both grand and rugged. On the third of their allotted seven days they turned the horses’ heads south by mutual consent, made their way through the lowlands to the Midlands, by-passing the grubbier industrial towns where they could, following the slow old roads to reach the Hall late of an afternoon, almost a week before they were expected.
Their butler Morton was unperturbed – all was ready at any time, he implied; they were a little late for dinner but supper would be served at nine o’clock, if that suited her Ladyship’s convenience. For the while, the dogs would be very glad to see them, they had not perhaps been pining, exactly, but were certainly somewhat off their food, despite the best efforts of all to tempt them to eat. Quillerson, in the background, grinned appreciatively – there had been repeated anxious consultations with the staff at Grafham House to discover what dainties might persuade the brutes to bestir themselves and eat and take exercise.
They leapt from the bed where they had lain, torpid and miserable, capered and wriggled and thrust their heads into Verity’s hand and behaved like beasts who had been grossly maltreated for months, thankful only to be rescued.
“One would think they had been stuffed into the black hole, there to be forgotten – yet I know very well they have been cosseted and pandered to as if they were royal prince and princess.” She knelt, an arm round each. “It has been my habit to bring them into my sitting-room of an evening, Thomas. Can we continue to do that in your house, sir?”
“In your house, ma’am, you make the rules! They are welcome indeed wherever you wish them to be.”
The housekeeper appeared, embarrassed that she had been laid down for an after-dinner nap when they had arrived. Much of her work was done in the late evening and early morning, overseeing the cleaning of the downstairs rooms while the master and mistress were asleep and out of the way – they did not want maids working around them in the daytime.
“Mrs Beckwith, I believe? The Marchioness wrote me that you had taken up your duties, and, indeed, I see the old house is polished and shining a little more!”
Tom had no idea whether there was any difference at all in the house’s appearance, but he did firmly believe in encouraging his managers to do their best and had found praise to be at least as valuable as money for that purpose. Mrs Beckwith, a well-fed forty, ‘Mrs’ by courtesy alone, simpered mightily, the master all that had been promised her; she looked sideways at Lady Verity, expecting her to be less easily satisfied.
“I am pleased to meet you, Mrs Beckwith. Tomorrow you must take me round the house – I believe we may wish to discuss some of the curtains?”
“In the Library, your Ladyship, they must come down to be washed and I do not know if that’ll be enough to save them. I do fear they have been left untouched, undrawn, hanging in their folds these twenty years, the sun bleaching the creases.”
Verity, who had never been near the Library and had drawn a bow at a venture, was pleased with her success – Mrs Beckwith now believed her to have the housewife’s eye, would work the more anxiously for it.
She said as much to Tom later, wondering that he should have been so free with his praise on first meeting Mrs Beckwith, for it was very easy to give the false impression that one was slapdash in one’s approach to everyday matters.
“She will work better for being valued, Verry, all of my underlings respond well to praise, I find. Take the case of young Quillerson – a quite ordinary young man and I could replace him easily if the need arose, but he works for me as if he was part-owner, because I offer him praise and listen to his advice. If there ever came a time when he had to choose between me and the villagers or tenants, he would have no hesitation in serving my interests. He has a young wife – who I have yet to meet, remind me that I must find some sort of bride gift, I should have purchased in London, but I forgot, having other things on my mind – but I have no doubt she would come second to the needs of the estate if the occasion arose.”
“There is a silversmith in Kettering – his works running to the ornate and over-fussy, to meet the taste of the local nouveau-riche – who could provide a tea-service that would certainly be greatly prized.”
“I wonder if I would like it?”
“Oh! Thomas, I did not mean to say, to imply…”
He laughed, though whether at her or himself even he did not know, but it was clear that there would be many such casual comments over the years, made unthinkingly, without malice and which he must not allow to cause himself offence.
“Obviously, I was not here for their wedding last we
ek, but what should I do about meeting her, Verry? She is granddaughter to Parson Nobbs, so is not impossibly vulgar, I would expect. Quillerson, of course, is not as well-born as her, his parents having, it would seem, neglected the minor formality of a marriage; do you know the story, by the way? It should have been a local scandal well worth remembering and recounting over the years.”
“She cannot visit here, but you may take tea in her parlour, and I may visit her, but not in your company, because that would imply a formal recognition; taking tea separately at the bailiff’s house is to be expected – we will both have to work with them, if, for example, there is a need to relieve distress in our people. Say, for example, that a labourer’s cottage burns down, then I must come to their aid and will need the assistance of the bailiff and his wife – so we must be on terms, but as a working relationship, not as visiting social acquaintances.”
“I am glad that you understand such things, Verry, for I’m damned if I do! What of Quillerson?”
Lady Verity smiled in superior fashion, eyebrows raised.
“I have, of course, never been informed of anything relating to the young man – as an unmarried maiden I could not be expected to comprehend such a thing! In common with the rest of the estate and all of the village, I know the story. The last Quiller had a younger brother who fell in love with a farmer’s daughter, one of Papa’s tenants; he was only eighteen and his brother was his guardian - their parents having died young - and ordered him to give her up, sent him away to study in the Low Countries at a college for Romanists there. The young man left obediently and news came back of his death within six months – a fever of some sort; however, his parting with his sweetheart would seem to have been, indiscreet, shall one say, and she was seen to be carrying her belly before her, in the elegant local term! All was hushed up, she was sent away to stay with relatives, came back with the boy a few years later; by that time it seemed clear that there would be no child to the Quillers other than a sickly daughter – rumour insists that the family offered to adopt young Quillerson, to legitimise him as heir to Thingdon, but his mother refused, they having rejected her the once should not change their minds when it suited their convenience. Be that as it may, the Quillers paid for the boy’s education and recognised him as well as they could. Papa refused, I know, to pressure the boy’s uncle to allow the adoption, but he did not especially like the Quillers, for they were close-fisted and grudging in their dealings locally.”
“So, had his mother been willing, he might have been standing here, Quiller of Thingdon – I am surprised he is not bitter.”
“Again, according to rumour, he had been secretly affianced to Miss Potts since she was little more than a child – as a practising Catholic, rather than lapsed, which he would inevitably have become, there could be no future there! He could perhaps have sought a reconciliation with the Quillers when his mother died, but he made no attempt to do so.”
“’All for love and the world well lost’ – I can understand him, Verry, know exactly why he might take such a course. As little as a month ago I would have thought him a fool – one learns, it would seem.”
She smiled, wondering just how much of a sacrifice he would have made had the occasion arisen – rather a lot, she suspected, increasingly convinced that he loved her dearly and wishing that he would say so again, just for the pleasure of hearing it.
Book Two: A Poor Man
at the Gate Series
Chapter 4
“Is Hammet still with us, Quillerson?”
“In the land of the living, certainly, sir; speaking more specifically than that, for example whether he is in the land of the rational, one could raise a number of queries. Doctor Porter collected him last week – he has four very big men of his own and a large, closed cart designed for the purpose according to the latest scientific principles – and informs me that he is a very interesting case, he will be pleased to study him and believes he may be able to write a paper on him that will be worthy of publication. He states as well that there is not the slightest hope of curing him because his fantasy is rooted in a logical framework, one that may be argued rationally by reference to evidence; he has seen the fairies and he has observed them to be malicious, and the fact that no one besides him has seen them merely serves to emphasize how cunning they are, how fortunate he was to catch them out. Doctor Porter tells me, as well, that Hammet has concluded that you are a tool of the fairies – your wealth fairy gold - brought here to encompass his destruction, which you have been partially successful in achieving, thus demonstrating again how perceptive he has been to discover them and how great a foe to them he must be. Should Hammet escape his confinement then you will be in some peril, I believe, sir.”
“I suspect we all might have been in peril had he remained free, Quillerson – he could have taken against any one of us, the first we knew of it being a load of buckshot about our ears. Is he safe at Doctor Porter’s?”
Quillerson shook his head, he did not know for certain, had not inspected the premises for himself, but the mad-doctor had stated unequivocally that he would never escape him.
“There are three principles, he tells me, for the scientific treatment of the mad, Sir Thomas – ‘isolation’, ‘intimidation’ and ‘restraint’. By isolation the doctor means that he must have no contact with his previous way of life, must never speak to another farmer or any who knew him in the past, thus avoiding reinforcement of his delusions; intimidation means he must have a ‘healthy fear’ of those who are his keepers, so that he will obey them and come to accept their beliefs and habits, to an extent supplanting his own; restraint means exactly what it says, I fear – the strait waistcoat, the confining chair, chains if needed, a locked cell always. Escape seems unlikely, Sir Thomas.”
Tom shook his head, it sounded a harsh regime, but no doubt it was the best that could be done for the poor fellow – he could not be happy, but he could at least be fed and given a bed to lie on until he came to a natural end. Better than trying to find tigers and living in terror of the fairies, and it was a scientific treatment, not like the old way of dumping the loonies into a stone cell, naked and with a truss of dirty straw the sole furnishing, bread and water provided when the keeper could be bothered.
“A pity, Quillerson, but we have done all we can. Tell the mad-doctor that we will pay for a proper burial when the occasion arises – we shall not dump him on the parish for a pauper’s committal.”
“I will inform him, sir; he does not hold with the practice of whipping the insane, by the way, sir – he says the cat should be reserved exclusively for the wicked. I do not know whether he is right in that – it is a practice hallowed by long usage, Sir Thomas, a cure that has been in existence for many centuries and it seems to me unwise to refuse to use it merely because one has a weak stomach and regards it as cruel.”
Tom was uncertain, and not particularly interested – Hammet was gone, finished, to be forgotten; there were more important matters to consider.
“Yes, you may have a point to argue there, Quillerson – but on some other occasion, perhaps. The question arises of what we should do with the farm. I have thought some more on my first conclusions, have decided that I may have been wrong, both with the Hammet farm and with Marchant.”
Quillerson remained silent: if the lord and master had decided he was in error then he was, of course, perfectly right, yet, even so, he was rather unwilling to publicly agree that he was wrong or, equally a risk, to disagree with him and say that he had been correct in the first instance.
‘Heads you win, tails I lose’, he mused, smiling and cocking his head in a pose of intelligent surprise.
“I do not believe that Marchant will be successful in beef and wheat, not being half-hearted at best in his commitment to the new ways. The shift into beef is not so great, but I do not see him as an arable farmer.”
Quillerson murmured his agreement – it was not an unreasonable surmise.
“What then, Quillerson, if w
e were to offer Marchant four hundred acres of the higher land that was used to be Hammet’s, with his sheep on them, in exchange taking the four hundred acres that could go to wheat from his bottom lands? He would then remain essentially in sheep, on unchanged rent, with a slow movement into beef a possibility that you could encourage – a conciliatory gesture, you could imply, an act of some generosity on his part.”
Quillerson thought a few moments, going across to the estate map on the wall, pencilling in the areas under consideration and quickly calculating the distances involved.
“It is practical, sir… There would be too many sheep, of course, but both flocks would have had to be reduced in any case, and Marchant could make a careful cull – which he would, without any instruction from me – so as to keep the best, the rest going to market. It means a change, but a lesser one than he is already facing, and should satisfy him in many ways – not that he will readily admit to the fact. We will need to identify a tenant for a mixed wheat and beef farm, sir, which will not be too difficult but will take time.”
“Two tenants, one arable, one for the cattle. We should build a pair of farmhouses, for that old place of Hammet’s must go – I want no tenant of mine in a ramshackle, damp and gloomy hovel of that sort. As well, if we get rid of the house we remove traces of the man, consign him to history, which is not a bad thing in itself. Also, I had rather have two families than one – fewer paid labourers with no ties to the land; the same number of people in the end, but more stable, more a part of the estate and less likely to rebel and riot.”
Quillerson agreed, the wicked were to be found everywhere, even amongst their own people.
“There have been outbreaks of rick-burning in other counties, sir, dispossessed Commoners showing their displeasure at losing their livelihood, at being forced into wage labour or being pushed out to the new towns. It might be as well to reduce their numbers here – though that means to move them out of the estate entirely.”
Nouveau Riche (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 2) Page 10