“We have an example to set, my love – a way of life that others can aspire to – books and music rather than wine and prize-fighting, cards and horses. We are the leaders of the valley in which we live and it is up to us to set the tone, to prize life’s elegancies.”
That she could accept – their life to reflect their duty, eminently satisfactory.
“As well, Elizabeth, remember that we are well-off as regards income. I will draw nothing from Abbey for at least four more years, every penny going back in wages and improvements, but half-pay and the emoluments pertaining to Colonel of Marines, added to the income from the Funds and other investments, will amount to at least four thousands, even after the wicked Income Tax!”
“That is a large sum, I believe, Frederick – I am not too certain about such things as yet.”
“You lived quite comfortably in your previous home, in, what was the town?”
“Leeds, sir, in Yorkshire! Yes, we did, not richly but well fed and dressed.”
“As best as I can tell, without being too intrusive, your father had an income then of about a thousand a year. When he brings the new estate about, which he will, eventually, it will be worth some four thousands, I think - Abbey, because of the extra improvements we will be able to make, will come in at twice that in ten years time.”
“You do not propose to simply spend all of your prize-money, husband?”
“No, my dear – an amount in these couple of weeks in London, because I want to spend money on you, because I enjoy doing so – but the bulk is earmarked for the estates. Long Common needs another two or so thousand – some labourer’s cottages to be rebuilt, the old glasshouse to refurbish, a pair of plough horses, two of the barns to be roofed anew, and there is a tract of some forty acres of rough ground that actually marches with us and is for sale. Stainer has the purchase in hand now, and we will wish to hedge and ditch the land and clear the scrub from it, sow better grasses, turn it into respectable pasture, for I do not think it will take the plough. In Bridport there is a block of half a dozen houses that will rent at forty pounds apiece and may be secured for twelve hundreds in cash, and Bosomtwi wishes to purchase a pair more of good mares for the stud he is building. Mr Hartley is in contact with a speculator in a town near Manchester – Bolton, its name – where there are cotton mills, factories where cloth is woven by the acre it seems, using steam engines! The man is a builder, has a contract for four hundreds of terrace houses for a mill owner to rent to his hands, and is short of three thousands in cash, will pay four on completion in spring.”
She frowned in perplexity, admitted that she did not quite understand this last.
“He will be paid in full, a single cash payment, on completion, that is, when he hands over houses and roads all finished to the specified standard on the agreed date. Probably eighteen thousands, thereabouts. He has had to pay his workers each week and some of his bills for bricks, timber, slates, sand, lime, gravel, lead pipes, glass, paint – all the materials he needs. The story we were told was that he had agreed to postpone payment for most of the materials, all bought from one supplier, till March, but he had only a verbal agreement, and the man died young and unexpectedly and the lawyers have presented the bills, demanded instant payment and told him they will happily accept all of the houses in lieu of cash.”
“So, if he borrows three thousand from you – money which he would have paid out anyway – he loses one thousand. If he does not borrow he loses everything.”
“That’s it – his profit would have been six thou’, I expect, and that is now cut to five, which is still good, and he keeps his capital which otherwise would be lost. Cash money is in short supply at the moment, borrowing is not easy, so he must pay through the nose.”
“’And unto him that hath, shall be given’ – eminently fair, my love!”
They stopped in their stroll down Bond Street, glanced at a single gown in a decorous window.
“Very pretty, sir, but – rather fussy, I think, and just a little too… too exposed shall we say.”
“Unto her that hath, my dear?”
She was not amused: his comment bordered upon impiety, and she was, in any case, quite certain that if she were ever to lower herself so far as to wear such a confection then she would be more than able to fill it satisfactorily.
“Sir Frederick?”
A very smartly – almost, dare one say it, prettily – dressed gentleman, bowed and smiled hopefully. He wore lilac pantaloons, Frederick noticed, the very height of fashion, primrose far more normal. His face was familiar – of course!
“Mr Russell! How do you do, sir? My wife, Lady Harris. Mr Russell.”
Greetings were exchanged, handshakes and bows.
“Mr Russell stood up with the late Lord Partington, my dear, and helped us out of the embarrassment he then caused, much to my relief!”
She smiled, but had never heard any of the details of the late lord’s demise, or, indeed, of his life, was unable to make sensible comment.
“This is by way of being a wedding trip, Mr Russell – shopping, you know.”
“Lady Harris will, of course, be replenishing her wardrobe, a la matron rather than the young girl, Sir Frederick. We are fortunately met, Sir Frederick – do come with me! I know much the best modiste – not yet the most fashionable, but she will be. A tailor for you, Sir Frederick?”
“Not yet, Mr Russell – I have still to recover my strength and fitness, expect to add nearly a stone of muscle, sir.”
“I had forgotten your wound, Sir Frederick – indeed, you look very fit, sir, matrimony must be good for you! When you do replenish your wardrobe, Sir Frederick, do send me a note, and I shall oversee, dare I say it, your transformation from the provincial.”
Simple politeness demanded glad acceptance of the offer, but Frederick was beset by horrible doubts, ‘tact!’ he thought, and wondered how he could possibly not cause offence.
“As a serving officer, Mr Russell, I must achieve a military look even in civilian dress. I have been told I should go to Scott.”
“My dear Sir Frederick! I was not proposing to rig you out as a man of my own persuasion,” Russell laughed at the idea. “Tempting though you fierce sailors may be, I cannot think it would be right! Now, I have stepped beyond the bounds of civility, I fear Lady Harris does not understand us!”
The grin flashed on Elizabeth’s face. “I fear I do, sir!”
“Oh, wicked!”
Frederick joined their laughter, wondering just how it was that his Puritan wife could have taken an immediate liking to a man such as Russell, she should have been calling anathema on him.
“We shall be spending some part at least of the Season in Town, Mr Russell, and I would need to clothe myself then.”
“You would present a somewhat alarming appearance otherwise, Sir Frederick, though no doubt very popular in the Prince’s set! Do you buy a Town House, sir?”
“I had not considered the matter…”
“Do! It makes by far the best impression. If I may, I shall pass the word amongst my friends – between us we can always discover the best and before it comes on the open market. And, Sir Frederick, after the behaviour of our late and unlamented acquaintance – for friend he cannot have been! Well, sir, enough said, but a number commented on your forbearance, your unwillingness to gloat and mock, and there is a wish to do you a kindness in return. Now then, let us to the portals of the good Therese, the best of our young modistes.”
Elizabeth assured him a few days later that the gowns were of the best, the highest fashion and quality, their prices remarkably low. Frederick looked at the bill and smiled, covering the wince quite well.
“Frederick, is there a… community… of such men as Mr Russell, so charming a gentleman! Are they, as it were, like the Jesuits of the Romish Church – a small, secretive, all-powerful cabal?”
“In part, I think – ‘birds of a feather’, you know.” He sat at her dressing table as she stood by the long mirr
or in the hotel room, critically admiring herself in a gown of so deep a blue as to be almost black.
“It is such a joy not to have to wear those insipid pastels, pinks and whites and primroses, any more – my colouring is far better served by the stronger shades,” she commented. “How does she do it? Puff sleeves, square cut, falling straight – an ordinary, fashionable dress, yet she has made my hips and… rear… seem less, whilst the… upper part, if you catch my meaning, seems greater.”
“Upper part, my love?”
“You know exactly what I mean, Frederick!”
“I had not noticed them to be in any way small, my love, although, of course, my hands are not especially large.”
She ignored this, sternly unamused; he grinned, considered he had won a point.
“Returning to your ‘cabal’, my dear – it does exist, but to a great extent these people are forced into each others’ pockets because they are not made welcome in ordinary company – and I will claim no sainthood here. I met Mr Russell in unusual circumstances and, having been thrust, as it were, into his company, found him a most agreeable person. He is an acquaintance, may well become a friend.”
“Good – he is not the most ordinary of persons, but I think he has a kind heart, Frederick.”
She twisted her hands behind her back, her maid having judged herself unwanted.
“Can I help you with those buttons?” Frederick enquired, smiling hopefully.
“You may, sir – but no nonsense! It is broad daylight.”
She was, nonetheless, quite naked in two minutes, as she had fully expected; she protested very firmly that they must not rumple the bed covers – what would the staff think! She was absolutely amazed to find herself bent forward, spread-legged, whilst he entered her from behind, his hands free to rove and taking quite remarkable liberties that rapidly reduced her to a quivering, moaning wreck.
“Frederick! Was that not an act of some perversity, sir? Is such a thing allowed?”
“Not more frequently than once an hour, no, ma’am.”
“Please be serious, sir! What would the vicar say?”
“’Yes, please’, I expect, my dear.”
Despite herself, she laughed: the thought of the vicar - a very good, earnest, somewhat pompous young man - when applied to for an opinion on such a matter was too much for her.
“If you find it unacceptable, my love, then so be it.”
“Well, perhaps not wholly unacceptable, sir. Frederick! It occurs to me, that, from what you have told me, men like the late Lord Partington, would take a somewhat similar attitude, would they not?”
“They would, I believe, though I really do not know for sure.”
“Can they truly enjoy what they do?”
“So I am told, and I believe they ask the same question of us, my love.”
She was silent a moment, resting on the bed, seemingly unconcerned whether the covers were rumpled or no, stretched, yawned in a most unladylike fashion, grabbed Frederick’s questing hand.
“We must get dressed, sir – we are to dine early tonight, you will remember.”
They took a hack from the hotel in the early darkness, proceeding to a ‘Concert of Ancient Music’, recommended by their sheet-music shop. It was Purcell and Dowland and a set of German chaconnes of a century and a half before, ‘gamba’, a music form they had never heard before and whose insistent ground bass enthralled them.
“I could play that, but Charlotte could never turn her viola to such a part – it is not the music that a young maiden could play, Frederick!”
He agreed – there was a sensuality, a deep rhythm, in the music that he had never observed in her reserved young sister. “It is certainly not something that one would expect the – unexperienced, shall we say – to appreciate, to be able to perform. Shall you buy some of that music?”
“If I can – the leader of the quintetto tells me it is collected, in a German edition of its time, let me see, I pencilled the name into my tablets, ‘Das Partiturbuch’ – and how one pronounces that, I have not the slightest idea, sir!”
“Nor I – I have no languages at all, other than French enough to puzzle out a Bill of Lading, slowly.”
He stretched, stiff from sitting on the tiny chairs of the concert hall, elegant but making no concessions to comfort. His shoulder ached.
“Would you prefer to walk, Frederick? It is barely half a mile to the hotel and there are link-boys here.”
Link-boys had originally borne flaming brands to light the way through the noisome streets of London, now carried lanthorns on poles to perform the same purpose. Any city that depends on the horse for all of its motive power tends to be smelly, and London was particularly poorly served for sanitation – there was barely a single closed sewer in the metropolis, perhaps the nearest being those rivers and creeks – such as the Fleet Ditch - which had been vaulted over for roads and housing. Wise pedestrians, inasmuch as there could be such a thing, watched their footing very carefully. After dark the dripping wagons of the night-soil collectors provided an additional hazard on most streets – the boys provided a very necessary service. The theatres and halls of the West End, however, were set in the best of London’s thoroughfares, the flagstones relatively even and quite frequently swept, lit at intervals and illuminated by the fronts of the places of entertainment – not all entirely respectable; walking was not an obvious impossibility here.
It was a dry evening, not especially cold, and they were country dwellers by habit, used to taking exercise. Frederick checked his greatcoat pockets and took Elizabeth’s arm in his.
Barely two hundred yards from the Hall a pair of men ran out of a dark alley, kicked the link-boy to the side, waved knives.
“Give us what yer got or she gets cut!”
Even at arm’s-length Frederick could smell the blagger’s breath. He stopped still, put his hands slowly into his pockets.
“Don’t hurt my wife! I’ve got what you want.”
They turned to him, blades thrusting forward. He cocked the pocket pistols as he drew them and pointed at waist height. Both fired and he made a mental note to thank Wheatley, the Winchester gunsmith. They were twelve gauge and loaded with four slugs of one-third of an ounce each, cut as pyramids and cased in wax to load as a ball; at range of a yard they made a nasty, noisy, thorough job of their bellies.
“Step back, my dear, you don’t want to get the mess on your boots.”
Quickly taking the spare cartridge out of its container in the pocket holster, ramming the powder with the short rod on the flexible, jointed arm under the barrel, patch then ball of shot, priming powder from the little flask, repeat with the second, left-hand tucked away, right held half-concealed against need.
The link-boy picked himself up, judging it safe to move, rubbed a sore hip and kicked the nearest of the prone bodies.
“Bastards!”
One of the blaggers was screaming now, the other silently jerking, flopping like a landed fish.
“They’re fucked, mister, both of ‘em. No sense stayin’ ‘ere, there’s cabs up round the corner.”
Another hundred yards and they were settled in a smelly old box of a carriage behind a single, tired horse.
“Lad!” Frederick sorted out a guinea and half a dozen silver pieces instead of the boy’s fee of tuppence.
“My name’s Harris – if I’m not at Long Common near Botley in Southamptonshire, then I’m to be found at Abbey, near Dorchester. If I am at sea then my lady will be there. You did well just now – kept your head. If ever you want to get out of the streets, then come to me – there will be work on the estates or at sea. The guinea will take you there on a carter’s wagon.”
“It’s free, tucked up in back where ‘e can’t see yer, mister! ‘Arris, Long Common or Abbey. Or at sea. Is you the one they was callin’ ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy ‘Arris’ in the song, sir?”
“What song?”
“You must ‘ave ‘eard it, sir - after you fucked all they Frog bastards
, last year, it was.” The boy broke into a monotonous chant:
“‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy ‘Arris,
Killed a Frog from Paris
Gave ‘im to the king for tea.’
All the little girls was skippin’ to that one.”
“The price of fame, husband. Yes, young man, that was Sir Frederick, here.”
“Good! I can tell all they you give us a guinea!”
“What’s your name?”
“Harold, missus, wiv an Haitch!”
Once in the safety of the hotel Elizabeth’s barriers fell. She began to shake and silently weep.
“Coffee and brandy to our room, please.”
Changed and eased, sat by a hot fire, Frederick apologised – he had been severely taken to task by Ablett, specks of blood on his cuffs giving him away, had had to accept that he had been thoughtless, careless, arrogant almost. A pair of pistols was all very well, but what if there had been three or four, a gang? Ablett had gone out to find the inevitable crowd and see what, if any, reaction the authorities were making.
“I should have protected you better than that, my love – please forgive me!”
“Such a disgraceful exhibition, Frederick, crying in a public place! I am so sorry!”
They clung briefly to each other, each embarrassed that the other found the need to apologise.
“I have never seen men fight before, Frederick. Will they die? They looked so pathetic in their agony, I wanted to be sorry for them, but could not be, for they were so evil! Are they always so noisy, so uncontrolled? And what, exactly, did those words the young link-boy used mean? Was it language that should have passed a child’s lips?”
“That poor little lad is no child, my love, nor ever has been. It was definitely not language that should have passed a child’s lips, or an adult’s for that matter – as for meaning, such words do not really have a meaning, not used in that way. Suffice it to say, ma’am, I shall not expect to hear them on your lips!”
She smiled in return, willing to accept even the most ponderous humour.
Britannia’s Son (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 4) Page 8