He marched, steadfastly sacrificing himself to stern duty, into the inn opposite to the Post Office where the Mail had deposited him, ate a good dinner of shin of beef and potatoes and turnips and greens and was escorted to a small, warm back room. The pot-boy waited for the penny he estimated would be his tip, received sixpence instead and realised he was dealing with something more than an impoverished dominie.
“Thank ye, sir. Can I get ye something else, sir?”
Fraser had no idea what the boy was suggesting, his puzzlement showing clear. The boy smirked – he had seen country innocents before – though that was not the term he used for him – and knew that he would either fall down on his knees in horrified prayer or over-pay the girl in the morning. He went downstairs, out through the backyard and three doors down the road, came back ten minutes later in the company of a sufficiently attractive young lady.
“Anything over two bob, half each, Meg. I’ll give you a bob if he throws you out.”
She trotted upstairs and knocked on Fraser’s door, stepping in and shutting it behind her as he opened his mouth to ask what she wanted. Thinking back on the night, something he did frequently for the next day or two, he estimated that she had stripped ready for action in less than thirty seconds, and had had his clothes off in another minute. He had offered her a guinea in the morning, had been amazed at the fervour with which she had made her thanks, leaping on him in the most generous fashion. He was glad he had already decided to delay returning home, for he was quite certain that his parents would have seen at a glance that something had happened to him, that he was no longer the pure young man he had been. He admitted to himself that he rather enjoyed the change.
“Aye, weel, if this is what they mean by ‘growing up’, then it was certainly overdue. I wonder what the inns are like in Glasgow?”
The Andrews had descended upon the Stars in a convoy of vehicles, travelling in state, so used to their comfort that they were quite unaware of the impression they created on the turnpike, of the gawping faces that followed their passage. My lord and lady, their two sons and daughter occupied a large travelling coach, well-sprung and capacious, able to seat all five with room and to spare. Behind them was an almost equally big chariot for valet, lady’s maid, Robert’s new man, Charlotte’s recently hired dresser and the footman who would eventually become Joseph’s man. Bringing up the rear were two smaller chaises containing their wardrobes. Each vehicle had two men up, a driver and an armed guard, and there was an outrider as well, equally able to over-awe a would-be highwayman or ride ahead to warn an inn-keeper of their approach. There had been an upsurge of robbery on the roads since the wars had ended, popularly, and quite possibly correctly, attributed to the flood of ex-soldiers returning to unemployment and starvation, and it was generally regarded as wise to travel armed. The Andrews did not expect to be molested and Tom had no memory of his amazement at Bridlington’s travelling circus of nearly two decades before.
Travel in winter was slow and they were three days on the road, arriving at the Star’s mansion, once the ancestral home of the Plenderleiths, late in the afternoon, glad to stand before a welcoming coal fire.
“I see you have had the builders in, Joe!”
The mansion, exposed on the flanks of the Pennines, now sported a Palladian façade, a long, pillared frontage looking out over a new lake and a plantation of young trees which, when grown, would hide the bulk of the lowlands and factory towns from their view.
“Thomas felt that he should inherit a noble mansion, Tom, that his children should grow up in aristocratic surroundings, if he ever makes his mind up about marrying, that is!”
Thomas, stood at his father’s side, grinned, not in the least abashed.
“My father is upset with me, my lord, for taking the first opportunity to back out of the very favourable contract he had been discussing for me, but to which I was, fortunately, not yet committed. A young lady of good manufacturing background, a pillar of the chapel and with thirty thousands in her purse, none of it in trust, her papa believing that females should have no truck with money. A virtuous maiden of some intelligence, possessed of child-bearing hips and a face like the back-end of the carrier’s cart! I understand that when she shaved her moustache she was really not too unhandsome, but, nonetheless, I was able, just, to persuade myself that the heir to the barony should marry into the ranks of the blue-blooded. Quite how that is to be achieved, I am unsure, however, but I am quite certain I can find out, bearing in mind the alternative!”
Verity, a silent and appreciative auditor, smiled gently and gave him to understand that she would be pleased to take the matter in hand for him. He should join them in Town towards the middle of the Season, by which time her preliminary prospecting would be complete.
“The portion, I am afraid, Mr Star, will be far less than thirty thousands, but the birth will be unexceptional.”
Lord Star murmured his thanks, assured her that the portion was unimportant but that the young lady in question had not, in his opinion, been that ugly.
The adults watched indulgently as Mary cut Joseph out and shepherded him gently away from the throng, sat him down in the corner, to discuss steam, no doubt.
“Well, Joe, that’s one match that will need very little organising by either of us!”
“So I gather, Tom – she has already informed her Mama of her intentions in that direction and I am more than happy with her choice.”
“And me, Joe.”
“Your lady wife?”
“Is pleased and proud to be allied with the Stars, Joe.”
Lord Star smiled appreciatively. He had wondered whether Tom, knowing his parentage, might not have had reservations about a union between their families – he should have known better, he told himself.
Thomas Star, his heir, escorted Charlotte to dinner, in duty bound, discovered she was very pretty, highly intelligent and not the sort of girl he fancied at all. He was a peace-loving man, one who looked to work hard and play very little, and that decorously, and he much suspected that she was far too energetic for his tastes – an enthusiast, in fact. Robert, opposite him at table, was more concerned to maintain a distance from the elder sister, an attractive young lady, but not for him – he wanted a wife with an intellect and education to match Charlie. Elizabeth Star wanted to marry a peer of the realm and Robert was the first to come her way and she intended to make a damned good try to haul him in. Verity, watching all, was not amused.
“Not the match we need for Robert, Thomas, if he is to fulfil his ambitions.”
“I agree. More importantly, from the looks of him, so does he. I’ll warn him to keep his bedroom door locked.”
“Put his valet outside with a fowling piece, I would suggest!”
“It could be an amusing month, my dear.”
The visit was a success, though neither elder son would ever regard his father in the same light again. The gentlemen had sat over their port each evening and, in the nature of things, had reminisced. Some of their memories should perhaps have been expurgated for their sons’ benefit, the young men a little surprised to hear of the sailors’ celebrations of their more successful voyages and business coups in America.
They had visited the mines and the iron works, had stood together on the docks at Liverpool as one of their ships had arrived laden with bales of cotton from New Orleans, had watched with satisfaction as the captain had waved away the factors anxious to buy, showing his bills of lading as evidence that his cargo was all spoken for. They knew that their competitors would have sent agents across the Atlantic already, would be doing their very best to catch up with them, but they had the edge, the first advantage which had translated into firm contracts for the next couple of years output, they were pre-eminent.
The iron works had provided a set of problems of their own – the wars had come to an end and the government, quite naturally, had cancelled its military contracts while the merchant houses had stopped ordering cannon to defend their own
vessels. The New Works, some twenty years old now, was reliant almost wholly on the casting and boring of great guns and had less than a month’s work on hand.
“Pistons for steam engines, my lord – they demand exactly the same skills as cannon. Ideally, my lord, we should build our own engines, the whole of the work in our hands.”
Frederick Mason, greying now but still fit and active, was quite certain of the course to follow; his brother, however, nearly twenty years his senior, was slowing, was wracked by doubts. There was a Depression looming, he feared, and this was no time to take risks, to change away from the old, tested ways of their business.
“Too many men without jobs, my lord, no money coming in, goods piling up in the warehouses with no purchasers. Time to draw in our horns, my lord!”
“Time for you to retire, George. I have kept your nose to the grindstone far too long – there is work for you in the chapel and the school, I believe, and your family is still young.”
George had to agree, he could not find enough hours in the day for his commitments and he knew that he was slowing down – he was well past sixty, was becoming old, he feared. There was enough money coming in from his shares in Roberts to keep them all in comfort, he did not have to work, as his wife, who, he assured himself, he loved dearly, told him at least once a week. She was a wonderful young woman, and he was very lucky, as he told himself every day, to have her, and his son and daughter, but he could wish, occasionally, that he still had the peace of his long bachelor days, and could make his own decisions. Still, she always had his best interests in the very forefront of her mind, it was merely that she seemed to know his own best interests better than he did – but always with the kindest, most loving of intent.
The chapel had expanded its Sunday School into a free day Dame School, with George’s money and some aid from Roberts, my lord understanding the great advantages conveyed by a literate workforce, and now taught some ninety children in two classes with the aid of one paid teacher and a varying number of differingly able volunteers. George intended to spend at least two days a week there when he had the free time. In addition there was the Soup Kitchen which fed two hundred of the poorest a meal a day, and had to turn away another hundred every day for lack of food for them. A man working two or three days a week would be able to canvass donations from the local shops and money from businessmen, enough to meet some of the extra need the Depression would bring. Above all, he was tired – twelve hours on all except the Sabbath was becoming too much for him, he needed to cut two or even three hours from his days, and that meant leaving Roberts.
“It is time, my lord. Maybe past time, I suspect a younger man would have done some things differently over this last year or two. My replacement, my lord, if I may make so bold as to advise you, should not be one of our own people – a new broom, as it were, would be able to see where I could not. I have become too ‘stick in the mud’, if you will pardon the expression, my lord, and we would benefit from a manager without our preconceptions.”
“Another Scot, George?”
“It will have to be, my lord – we have no educated men in England.”
“Two, I presume – one to act as engineer for our steam engines, working under Frederick. A second to act as manager in your place.”
“I understood we had one able man already, my lord. From what Mister Joseph has told me, he has a tutor who has as much knowledge, in theory at least, of steam as any other we are likely to come across. Mister Joseph could set up to live here for half of the year, say, and carry on with his learning and get to know the people in the locality as well, ironmasters and workmen alike, he will need to be able to talk with them all when he is master.”
“And Frederick could keep an eye to him, keep him away from too much bad company.”
“All bad company, I would hope, my lord!”
Tom grinned and shook his head, suggested that the boy would have to grow up and make the requisite number of mistakes, learning, hopefully, in process. The austere George rather reprovingly countered that, with proper guidance, he could learn from the mistakes of others, need not make his own.
“It will have to be discussed with his mother, George, but it could well be a sensible solution to our problems. Young Fraser is a highly intelligent gentleman and Joseph will come to no harm in his company.”
Tom might have revised that opinion had he been privileged to observe Fraser during his working holiday in Glasgow, though no doubt the one-time Puritan would have argued that he was merely compensating for lost opportunity, bringing himself up to the average as it were. His exercise in debauchery came to an end when he was informed of the existence of a Mr Blenkinsop who had set a steam engine to work around his pithead, using a rack-and-pinion system, at Middleton in Yorkshire; the gentleman had enjoyed a degree of success, sufficiently so that the King of Prussia was said to have bought an engine from him. Regretfully, probably, Fraser was forced to postpone his return home, set off for Yorkshire for his remaining week, deciding that he would be too close to his own working area, and known by name as well, to indulge himself further. In the back of his mind was the decision that he should seek a wife. ‘Better marry than burn’, the minister had said more than once, and Miss Charlotte was not for him, it would be silly to stay single yearning for her, and it would be perhaps two more years before he was granted another holiday. Eakins had a very pretty younger daughter, a girl of eighteen or so, who had smiled at him more than once and he was a very respectable tenant farmer…
A week at home and the family left for London and the Season, amongst the earliest arrivals in Town due to the need to patronise tailors and couturiers, both ladies requiring a complete new wardrobe and the gentlemen persuaded to seek substantial refurbishment. Joseph remained at Thingdon Hall, very happy to avoid the threat of dancing and formal parties, looking forward to getting his hands dirty again. He had been five weeks away from his workshop and had a dozen different ideas scribbled on scraps of paper, not all in his handwriting, and all needing testing to see if they would work in iron.
The family entered their new Town House for the first time, the London staff waiting nervously at the front door to make their greetings while the dozen from Northamptonshire found their way through the back from the pair of wagons they had travelled in, unloading the great mound of necessities, mostly foodstuffs, they had brought down from the country.
Michael had suggested that they should retain a butler and housekeeper and cook and two or three maids permanently in Mount Street so that Robert and Tom could base themselves there whenever business brought them to the City or Westminster. It made sense and Robert had accepted that he needed an official place of residence, even if he would expect to spend most of his spare hours with Judy in her much less grandiose dwelling. The new man was at the front, naturally, as they arrived, tall, rake-thin, staring down his nose in apparent disapproval. His previous post had been with the now-deceased, Dowager Duchess of Kensington, long on pedigree, short on coinage, and he seemed to be deploring the reversal of fortunes he was undergoing. He bowed, formally, austerely.
“Thank you, Knight. Has Miss Fielder arrived?”
“She has, my lady.”
The butler seemed less than enthusiastic about Miss Fielder, as well.
Verity had decided that she needed a secretary and companion for the Season, an amanuensis who could, for example, tackle the chore of writing some five hundred cards of invitation to the ball that would launch Charlotte and the lesser numbers for At-Homes and dress parties and lesser entertainments and who could winnow through the literally hundreds of cards they would receive for similar events. Inevitably, Miss Fielder would have to remain with them for the rest of each year, she could not be dug out just for the two months when she would be essential. She was a spinster lady, in her forties, a cousin of the Masters left with almost no income by a feckless father; on his death, a very recent event, the family had been obliged to seek a refuge for her. Verity had met her occ
asionally, knew her to be of a literary, pious turn, suspected that she might well have become a fellow of one of the universities, if only she had had the fortune to be male, had not wished to see her forced to lower herself as tutor in one of the girls’ academies to be found in increasing numbers in the larger towns. She was sure that Knight would have written Miss Fielder off as a ‘poor relation’, neither fully of the family nor yet of the staff, and would expect her to be a nuisance as a result; unfortunately, Verity suspected he would be right.
“We never did decide, Thomas, whether Miss Fielder would dine with us.”
“I have never met her, Verity – do we want her at table? Will she be companionable? Put simply, my dear, will she be sufficiently intelligent to tolerate?”
Verity smiled – her husband had a knack for putting into words concepts that the tactful would leave unstated.
“She is family, and I think it would be better to treat her as one of us, though she will not necessarily wish to accompany us at all times. I am sure that she will fall in with our ways.”
Born To Privilege (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 3) Page 18