Nouveau Riche (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 2)

by Andrew Wareham

  It was all wholly arbitrary – the intention was to ‘keep the peace’ rather than to enforce any particular law and it was accepted by almost everyone amongst the local population that the unpopular and the careless and the not-very-bright should be made peaceful by any means convenient. When Tom commented that he knew almost nothing of English law his fellow magistrates laughed heartily, amused that he thought he should have to – the judge at Assizes could provide all the law they needed twice a year, their job was to keep the people content.

  Verity could not see why he might be concerned – this was how it had always been in the countryside, how it always should be, ordinary folk had no need for ‘law’, they had their betters instead.

  Letters came from Michael – somewhat to his disquiet Bob Chawleigh had dropped out of sight, had left a particular friend in charge of his club and had gone away, possibly to America – a man of his description, though not of his name, had bought passage on an American trader running to Charleston. Tom sent a return telling him not to worry, the matter of Mr Chawleigh had been taken in hand and it was better to know nothing of him; he was performing a service of a special sort in the States, he said.

  The matter of Mrs Burley was also raised – enquiries in Corfe had disclosed her to be a well-respected widow lady, living quietly in the village with her little boy, active in the church but otherwise quite reclusive. More than one single gentleman had tried to make her acquaintance but there had not been the faintest whiff of scandal and her servants – a cook and a single maid – had nothing but good to say of her. Her son, Thomas, was a big lad for his age, fair-haired and of a sunny disposition, very polite, much the young gentleman – it was generally agreed that he was going to be a soldier, it was already his stated ambition.

  Tom was mildly amused to hear this – he wondered where it had come from, there was no soldiering in the boy’s blood, he was sure. He sent a note to Michael that he should make discreet contact with Mrs Burley and assure her that a commission in a Line regiment could be bought for the youngster when he was fifteen or sixteen; it would be better to make it an obscure battalion of foot, not a fashionable cavalry regiment, because there would be no enquiries made into the boy’s parentage. Bastards were debarred from holding the King’s Commission but an unfashionable battalion would be more concerned that their ensigns had a sufficient private income than that they should be legitimate, would ask very few questions of a young man who could keep his end up in the Mess, and young Thomas would be able to do that.

  Rather to their surprise, Jane Masters became a very welcome guest in their house; freed, presumably, from the stifling influence of her mother she developed into a reasonably normal girl – the titter disappeared and she gushed less, could be persuaded into rational conversation, and fell into their way of life very happily. She was still undeniably plain – there was no compensating for nature – but the estate sempstress was able to dress her with a fraction more of elegance, make her seem a little more becoming, a service she much appreciated. She was desperately anxious to please, to perform little services that made her useful to them – she very evidently had no wish to return to the bosom of her family. She played the piano increasingly well, Tom thought; Verity suggested that having an appreciative audience who applauded her successes, rather than a carping mother who seized on every false note, made a great difference.

  Parson Nobbs paid a farewell visit at the Hall, commenting that it was in fact the first time he had entered its doors, neither of the previous owners having a welcome for the Established Church. He brought his new curate with him, a desperately poor, thin young man grateful to have a roof over his head and food on his plate, even if he had to cook it himself, long on potatoes and very short on meat. Mr Sanderson was an orphan, his father a naval lieutenant lost in the previous war, his mother declined and died soon after, an uncle educating him and paying for his terms at Oxford and demanding that he took Holy Orders as his best chance of making his own way in the world. No living had eventuated for the better part of two years and he had kept body and soul together as a private tutor, a hand-to-mouth existence that had left him threadbare and very lean and truly thankful for a sixty pounds a year curacy with the hope that it might within ten years turn into a two hundred pounds rectorship. He was concerned to discover whether Sir Thomas was High Church or Low, demanded long or short sermons, wanted good works or benign neglect – whatever Sir Thomas required, he would get in fullest measure from his new shepherd of his village’s souls.

  Tom felt sorry for the poor man, considered himself obliged at least to feed him up a little and invite him to dine at intervals. He suggested to Quillerson that he might mention to the tenants that the odd pie or piece of ham would not come amiss at the Rectory, the young gentleman not being used to looking after himself in the kitchen.

  “What’s to be done for the poor little fellow, Verry? Down at heels and hangdog that he is, he hardly looks the thing at all.”

  She grinned and rolled her eyes towards Jane, frowning over a piece of embroidery in the window seat.

  “You think so?”

  “Why not?”

  “But…” He glanced across, lowered his voice, “would it not be a comedown for her? Would her parents accept a curate of no money and respectable birth, no more?”

  “The living would probably have to become somewhat richer, I agree, Thomas, but, probably, yes – it would depend on just how much her mother did not want her to come home again.”

  Delilah appeared, three rotund puppies at her side managing the occasional hop and skip but basically already possessed of the habit of indolence; she shepherded them onto the rug in front of the window, in the sunshine, and lay down to sleep, the three collapsing very happily, exhausted by the effort of walking all the way from the stables.

  “Lazy objects! Major Hunt has asked for the male and Mr Parker will take a bitch but I am at a stand for the third, Thomas.”

  “Charlie Barney would be pleased to give her a home, my dear, and he is a good man with animals.”

  She was unsure – Barney was a tenant, after all, had little business to keep a gentleman’s dog.

  “He has a mate in mind for her already, says he ‘do fairly love the looks o’ they big buggers’, and will treat her kindly and well. I have made no promise one way or the other, my love, but I would see him as a very kind master for her. He has managed to buy three Suffolk Punch mares for us, by the way, and a stallion as well, although he is not much in love with him and will continue to look for a better, he says. Five years and we will have decent plough teams on the estate, ten and we will be selling.”

  “Sir George Jackson, Thomas!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tom was alert to the mischief in the Marchioness’ eye as she waved a letter at him.

  “He has answered my message about Mrs Star, and is very obviously none too pleased that his scapegrace brother’s kin should have surfaced in England. Poor man! He is obliged, he believes, to at least acknowledge the young lady, because she comes to his notice under my aegis, or so he understands the matter, but he more than half expects her to be the poorest of relations and to wish to dip into his purse, judging by the tone of his response.”

  Tom laughed, shook his head. “I do not know Joseph’s precise income, ma’am, but am prepared to bet that he will clear ten thousands next year and will soon double that again. Sir George is the poorer of those two, I am sure.”

  “You manufacturers talk of such enormous sums so casually, Thomas! From what Verry tells me, however, he will need every penny of it to dower his girls and set his sons up in the world. Ten, was it?”

  “A round dozen by now, quite possibly, ma’am – turn your back on the lady for five minutes and there is another one in the cradle, or so it seems! She should send him a letter, do you think?”

  “No, better Mr Star should do so, to introduce himself as the unknown husband of Sir George’s niece. It will be perfectly natural for him to mention his ownership
of cotton mills, will not sound like boasting, as it might if she referred to her rich husband. As well, she would not wish to lie to her uncle, but Mr Star might well imply that he was known to Major Jackson and had been approved by him before his unexpected death.” She smiled innocently, gave him a veiled glance. “By the way, how did he die?”

  “Carelessly, ma’am!” Tom grinned, knowing exactly what she was asking. “He chose to attempt to cheat his business partners, to sell them to the hangman’s noose, in fact, and managed his greedy betrayal with a terminal degree of incompetence.” He did not say that he had been one of those partners; he did not need to. “I will give Joseph your orders. He will be tactful, will show away very politely and will not patronise Sir George at all.”

  She smiled – such an understanding young man, Sir Thomas, and so resolute! She was so pleased she had snaffled him for Verry; she must look about for a bride for Frederick as well. The elder of the Quarrington girls would do very well from a mercenary standpoint, she would come with ten thousands and stood to inherit three times that from her mother’s portion, but she was very good and very meek and far too Christian for the Marchioness’ taste. Almost inevitably Frederick would take a wing of the house, bedchambers and sitting rooms and nursery their own, dining together every evening, which would mean the womenfolk entertaining each other, and she was not at all sure she could stand that – ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and water might become too much of a strain. Young Miss Plunkett was almost as well dowered and quite possibly better company, when she left the schoolgirl behind. Of course, there was always Miss Hawker, who was probably good for fifty thousands, but she would hardly be one for rural solitude, would find the title too dearly bought and it would be such hard work for the male staff; better not. It might be possible to drop a hint to one of the banking houses - the Coutts, the Drummonds, the Hoares – the heir to the Marquis of Grafham could take his pick and mend his family’s fortunes at a single stroke – and, as Sir Thomas showed, they could well be a very long way from vulgar. A letter, perhaps, to her husband could raise the possibility, test the water – he had several times commented that he was most pleased with Verity’s choice of a man, very pleasantly surprised. A venture into the ranks of the genteel bankers might well not come amiss with him; he would surely agree on the need to settle Frederick into domesticity.

  The Volunteers came to the call of duty, in some cases; the Thingdon tenants, estate and village, made their appearance en masse, in the case of the farmers all of their labourers at their shoulders; no doubt they felt it might have been tactless to do otherwise. All of the tenantry from the western side of the Marquis’ lands showed as well, together with Major Hunt’s pair and Parker’s lone man. Not a single soldier came from Burton; enquiry disclosed that they had chosen to form their own company under command of various of the Latimers, their internecine feuding placed in abeyance in face of the need to assert themselves against the aggrandisement of the Finedon people.

  Tom surveyed the eighty men drawn up, if the term was not an exaggeration, on the green in Finedon, all in their Sunday best and a number showing that they had spent much of Sunday morning in the beer house. They ranged in age from a dubious sixteen to a definite seventy, in size from near-dwarfed to the massive twenty stone of the landlord of the Mulso Arms, in intelligence from the village idiot to the quick wits of Wensum who was a tailor with a shop in Kettering, and, as was almost obligatory for the trade, was known as a Radical.

  “Four platoons, Major Hunt?”

  “I think so, Sir Thomas. Barney, Eakins, Wensum and my man Rodgers to be corporals in the first instance – probably the brightest of them, they are certainly well-respected.”

  “Get rid of Jacky, I presume – he cannot carry a flintlock, surely.”

  “Keep him, if you please, Sir Thomas – he can barely string two words together, certainly not to make a sensible sentence, but he plays the fiddle and the trumpet whenever there is a festival in the village, and at every wedding. I have a marching drum and an embroidered apron for him to wear, and he will carry his trumpet besides to the pleasure of all.”

  “If I was a moralist, Major Hunt, I might find something to say about the halt and the lame being led by the half-witted. Let us name the corporals to the men and get them to make a list of their people. As well they can take their sizes for the uniform and meet their officers, I do wish the two Scots gentlemen could be here sooner!”

  Two boys from Finedon, sons to the doctor and attorney respectively were brought forward as ensigns, one given Barney and Eakins, the other Wensum and Rodgers. Tom had met them a week before and had found them bland, anodyne, instantly forgettable, McLean and Bayliss; they were already outfitted, very smartly, in the Lincoln Green they had chosen for their uniforms and carried a pistol and a hanger apiece. It reminded Tom that he had kept the sword he had stolen from the Frenchman years before – he decided to dig it out from wherever Brown might have put it.

  “Corporal Wensum!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “How long will it take you to produce eighty uniforms in Lincoln Green? Major Hunt will give you exact specifications for them.”

  “Two weeks to procure the cloth, sir. Loose-fitting, it will be easy enough to cut and I have four outworkers who do occasional jobs for me, would be glad to work a fortnight full-time. Five weeks today, Sir Thomas.”

  “Good, better than I had hoped for – account to my man Quillerson, if you please; he will be instructed to make immediate settlement.”

  Mr Walker came on his visit and met the burgesses of Finedon over a bowl of punch in the Mulso Arms, showed himself to be a proper gentleman, open-handed and interested in the problems of the Land; they would have voted for him had he been the Devil Incarnate but it was always better to have a degree of respect for the man who would represent them. One or two of them were inclined to discuss politics with him, but the others soon put them in their place – it was no business of theirs whatever happened in London and other foreign parts! They were concerned about the price of good leather, they produced it and it was under-valued, they felt; they wanted the cost of bread to be reduced, but would have no objection to the price of wheat rising, to the benefit of the farmers; they needed one of ‘they new canals’, but wondered if the government might not care to pay for it; they would very much appreciate a good road, but Mr Walker would understand that they could not possibly afford to contribute to its cost.

  Walker nodded and smiled and accepted that their desire for something for nothing was perfectly reasonable – everyone wanted the same; he showed interested and willing but carefully avoided any promises. He strongly advised them to send their sons into the ranks of the Volunteers, pointing out that they would thus avoid the lottery for the Militia, and recommended them to encourage landless cottagers to go to the navy or to emigrate; he suggested as well that they should build more workshops to produce boots, the army needed more every year and he would do all he could to land them a contract or two.

  “Highly successful, Mr Walker! I particularly liked your suggestion about the boots, sir – we have been looking for some sort of activity for our dispossessed Commoners, leather workshops might be the answer.”

  “I have heard of a mill being set up in Leicester, Sir Thomas, for the production of army boots, one man to cut the leather, another to make soles and heels, a third to last and a fourth to tack the boots together, Adam Smith’s pins brought to cordwaining.”

  It had not occurred to Tom, yet he immediately saw it as the solution to the problem of the Commoners, not one man but a dozen to each bench. It would have to be done, not only as a service to the local people but as a very profitable enterprise in its own right – boots were expensive, too many of his colliers went barefoot in summer so as to make their footwear last another winter while they saved up to buy a replacement pair. Cheap boots would be a blessing, and would sell by the tens of thousands; he wondered if Joseph might be interested in investing, taking the lead and rel
ieving him of some of the financial strain – Star, Walker and Andrews made a good name for a new concern.

  Word came from the Lord Lieutenant that the Volunteers might well be used for keeping the peace in the locality, as well as for purposes of war, and, in the absence of a fire-brigade, Sir Thomas might give some thought to providing them with a supply of leather buckets, hooks for pulling burning thatch off cottages and a ladder or two. The North Yorkshire Militia were to be billeted in the Northampton area and would be available to put down riot and disorder, but, being foreigners, might be inclined to be heavy-handed, opening fire on the least provocation – local men, especially if they had been useful at a house-fire or two, would be better received, less likely to inflame passions.

  “Do you think that was a pun, Verry?”

  “Probably not, my dear, the Lord Lieutenant generally has little tolerance for humour.”

  “Good! However, that probably means he is not joking when he suggests that I might consider mounting one of the companies, to form ‘a troop of Yeomanry’. Does he have any idea just how much that would cost?”

  “Almost certainly, yes – and he expects you will be pleased to dip your hand into your bottomless wallet. Have you seen the cartoon? The Gillray?”

  She handed over the periodical she had been scanning, pointed out the depiction of the Volunteers marching out to exercise; he winced as he laughed at the grossly obese, the ancient and the lame, muskets shouldered right or left as seemed good to them, following a wooden-legged drummer, straggling out to prepare for battle – it was an exaggeration, but it was not unrecognisable. He wished his pair of Scotsmen would bestir themselves, but neither was due in Northamptonshire for another month yet; he hoped they would prove to be the thing, for their first few parades had been enthusiastic and terrifying, bayonets everywhere – they would have to issue powder and ball soon, to fire live, to keep the men’s and boys’ interest active, but he was doing his best to delay that awful moment, at least until he had hired a surgeon to attend.